001All right. And there we are. Call the meeting to order. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Roll call, Mr. Lovett. Mr. Nelson. Here. Mr. Swanson. Here. Mr. Buchanan. Here. Mr. Cunningham. Here. Mr. Lovett. Here. And I've been informed that there are no public comments pertaining to agenda items. Are there any additions or deletions to the agenda? Nope. With that, looking for a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented. I'll make a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented. I second the motion. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. >> Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. New business, Dr. Brooks. We're opening
002with one new public hearing tonight. First, we Indiana Employees Relations Board is a neutral agency that oversees relations between public school teachers and the schools they serve. As required by Senate Rule Act 390, representatives from both Pepsi AFT Local 4852 and the school administration are hosting tonight's public hearing. The purpose of this hearing is to afford the public an opportunity to testify to the school employer's governing body regarding matters relating to teacher compensation and collective bargaining in the school district. During public testimony of this hearing, those signed in and speaking before the board shall be limited to a maximum of 3 minutes. At this time, I'd like to introduce Tracy Orange, who is the exclusive representative for Pepsi AFT Local 4852. Um good evening. I'm here tonight to formally discuss the opening of negotiations for
003the 2025-2026 school year. On behalf of the Teachers Association, I want to express Pepsi's goal to reach a fair agreement that values the hard work and dedication of our teachers. Every day the teachers at Hebron go above and beyond to ensure our students succeed. We bring that only our expertise, but our time, energy, and resources into the classroom. We hope that negotiations are an opportunity to create an agreement that reflects of our educators and the impact they make on the students they teach. And we look forward to a productive discussion with Dr. Brooks and the administration team. Thank you. Is there anybody here for public comment? Do you have anybody make any comment? Okay. At this time, I'll close the public hearing. Thank you, Tracy. Good to see you here. Looking forward to our first
004meeting in late September. So, all right. Next, we have a public hearing for the budget. And uh each year the school corporation must approve financial requirements and plans. Tonight, we'll be opening the form three budget, the bus replacement plan, and capital projects plan for public hearing. During of these hearings, the public is able to make comments. Bus replacement plan, capital projects in form three have been published on the MSD of Boone Township website, in the Northwest Indiana Times newspaper, and on Gateway, which is Indiana's public access system for financial transparency for governmental units. At this time, I request Trustee Neilson to open the public hearing for form three, the budget. All right. Opening up the public hearing for anybody that has any comments. Okay. Looking to close the public hearing for the 2026 budget. Okay.
005This time, please open the public hearing for the bus replacement plan. Now opening the public hearing for the 26 to 30 bus replacement plan. Any public comments pertaining to that? And then, I will close the public meeting. The last public hearing is about the capital projects plan. Opening the public hearing to the 2026-2028 capital projects fund plan. Is there any public comments pertaining to that topic? And as none, I'll close the public meeting. And we will move into the resolutions. Resolution 20 25-04 resolution to adopt the 2026-2030 bus replacement plan. This resolution is adopted by the Board of School Trustees of MSD of Boone Township of the Porter County, Indiana. Whereas the school bus replacement plan has been established and whereas the board of school trustees is required under IC 20-40-18-9 to adopt a plan
006with respect to the school bus replacement plan. And whereas the board of school trustees held a public hearing on the plan on the 9th day of September 2025 in the board room located at Hebron Elementary School, 307 South Main Street, Hebron, Indiana. Therefore, be it resolved by the board of school trustees that the plan entitled school bus replacement plan for the years 2026 to 2030 is hereby incorporated by reference into the resolution and is adopted as the board of school trustees plans with respect to the school bus replacement plan. Be it further resolved that the board of school trustees shall submit a certified copy of the resolution, including the adopted plan and the calculation worksheet, to the Department of Local Government Finance as required by IC 20-40-18 -9 for approval. Adopted this 9th day of
007September 2025. Looking for a motion to accept the 2026 to 202030 bus replacement plan. I'll make Go ahead. Make a motion to accept the 2026-2030 bus replacement plan. I will second that motion. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed? Motion passes. Now, resolution 20-05, resolution to adopt the 2026 to 2028 capital projects plan. This resolution is adopted by the school of board of school trustees of MSD Boone Township, Porter County, Indiana. Whereas as capital projects fund has been established and whereas the board of school trustees is required under IC 20-40-18 -6 to adopt a plan with respect to the capital projects fund. And whereas the board of school trustees held a public hearing on the plan on the 9th day of September 2025 in the board room located at
008Hebron Elementary School 307 South Main Street, Hebron, Indiana. Therefore, be it resolved by the board of school trustees that the plan entitled MSD of Boone Township capital projects plans for the years 2026 to is hereby incorporated by the reference into the resolution and is adopted as the board of school trustees plan with respect to the school capital projects fund. Be it further resolved that the board of school trustees shall submit a certified copy of this resolution including the adopted plan to the Department of Local Government Finance as required by IC 20-40-18-6 for approval. Adopted this 9th day of September 2025. Looking for a motion to accept the capital projects fund plan for the period of 2026 to 2028. I'll I'll make a motion to accept the resolution 2505 to adopt the '26 and through '28
009capital project plan fund. I second his motion. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed? Motion passes. Now moving on to the last one, resolution 25-06 for the 2026 transfer from the educational fund to the operations operations fund. Resolution 25-06 resolution to transfer amounts from education fund to the operations fund on a reoccurring basis monthly calendar year 2026. Whereas the board of school trustees and the governing body of MSD of Boone Township School Corporation, Porter County, Indiana and whereas House Bill 1009 requires the governing body of each school corporation to establish an education fund for the payment of expenses allocated to student instruction and learning under IC 20-42.5 and whereas House Bill 1009 required the governing body of each school corporation to establish an operations fund for the the payment
010of expenses that are not allocated to student instruction and learning under IC 20-42.5 and whereas House Bill 1009 requires that distributions of tuition support to receive in the education fund therefore be it resolved that the board of school trustees authorizes the treasurer of MSD of Boone Township School Corporation to transfer the amount of up to a total of $1,217,000 in monthly installments or 15% limit, whichever is greater according to cash flow needs from the education fund to the operations fund. To reimburse the operations fund for expenses that are not allocated to student instruction and learning under IC 20-42.5 for the period of 1 year. This resolution was duly made, seconded, and adopted this 9th day of September 2025. I'll confirm a motion for resolution 25-6 to transfer amounts from the education fund to the operations
011fund. I motion to accept resolution 25-06, the resolution for the transfers from the Ed Fund to the Ops Fund. I'll second that. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed? Motion passes. Dr. Brooks. >> Thank you. Just so you're aware, last year it was 10% was in the ops. So, you know, for many years it was right up to that 15% gap. The last couple years we've been at about 10% or so. So, gives us the flexibility there. Thank you for that. Um next item is our textbook rental. As you may recall, textbook rental is no longer being paid by parents or families and that is now a part of the funding formula that the state provides. But we do however have to acknowledge the textbooks that we do rent
012and continue to use. So, this is our textbook rental for this school year. All right. Looking for a motion to accept the textbook rentals for the 25-26 school year. I'll make a motion to accept the textbook rentals for the 25-26 school year. I'll second. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed, same sign. Motion passes. Thank you. Last item, pretty exciting here to get to this point. We've had quite a few meetings and discussions about this field house project that we are planning and we're able to now ask I'm able to ask you to put this out to bid. I I that we've got the bid specs in here and we are um ready to start seeing how much this is going to cost us. So, kind of excited to
013get this process going and there's a lot to do between now and um when they first start to dig, but uh this is just permission to advertise for bids for the Hebron High School Field House. All right, looking for a motion to advertise for bids for the Hebron High School Field House. I'll motion to advertise for bids for the high school field house. I'll second that. Well, is there any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion passes. Just so you're aware, these will be posted um on our website. They'll be advertised in the and they'll be advertised in the Northwest Indiana Times. So, All right, if They'll be open starting tomorrow. Thank you. All right, administrator comments. Oh. All right, uh hard to believe it's still August
014as we met, but um we had a great turnout at our back-to-school night. Uh fire department was a big hit, hose and kids down. Um they really enjoyed that. We raised just over $300 throwing sponges at my face for the PTO. Um so, good night was had by all. Beautiful weather for it, too. We've really been fortunate the last few years. Um we're really honing in on literacy where we left off last year, trying to uh retain the progress that we've made. We finished the dyslexia screener um and our fall MAP testing, we're actually seeing the number of students flagged for dyslexia at the older grades lessen. We only had four second grade this year and last year we had about 10. So, really hoping that the literacy stuff we're doing the younger grades is
015helping to assuage some of that um flagging that happens through that test. Uh we're getting ready for I-Learn checkpoint one, which opens next week, but we're going to wait until October to take it. Make sure we can get through some more of the standards. Um the arts and crafts fair is October 11th. And our first concert will be on October October 16th with our fourth and fifth graders. Our eighth graders attended the Your Future, Your Choices career fair at the Great Lakes uh Sports Club in Crown Point last Thursday. Um it was a a good day for them to learn about future careers that they might want to be involved in um and what it takes in terms of education and and or work experience in this area. Um we're also waiting until October uh
016for our checkpoint one uh I-Learn. And we completed NWEA testing a couple weeks EO and math and ELA. And our teachers using that data to um further build in remediation periods uh in the day and uh further daily uh classroom instruction as well. Uh students and staff have settled into routines since we've been in the school almost a month now, and I believe that the overall atmosphere of the building has been very positive. My focus has been on building connections, reinforcing expectations, and supporting both the students and the staff. Some things I would like to highlight are um student engagement. Attendance has been strong, and students are showing enthusiasm in both academics and extracurricular activities. Our fall sports and clubs are underway, and participation has been encouraging. Uh student celebrations. So, I have been announcing
017student birthdays on the announcements. And at the beginning, I sent out a Google Form for the students if they did not want me to announce their birthday. And I was getting Google Form responses left and right, and I was like, "Oh my god, like this is really going to fall on its face. I'm not going to be able to be able to recognize these kids." And then that kind of tapered off, and so now I say the kids' birthdays, and they come down to my office and get a little treat, and it started off very slow, but now I have students that actually come down and see me for birthday treats. And I even even had a student email me to remind me that his birthday was coming up this week, and would I please
018say his name on the announcements. So, that made my day. Um we also have been working on recognizing students for the positive things they're doing in our building. And um last week I had two, and it's already Tuesday, it's only Tuesday, and I already have two this So, I'm super excited to do that and post them on our announcements and Facebook, and just tell the world about how great our students are at Hoover High School. And then last but not least, um we have had a few unique scheduling and staffing challenges at school, uh but we've been able to put solutions into place and keep learning and moving forward with minimal disruption to our students' learning. The students are adjusting to Mrs. Somerville's absence and working diligently on Edmentum and Odysseyware education. And we are
019thrilled to add uh Michelle Moore to our staff as the new high school clerk. So, it's exciting to have her back. We've had not one, but two exemplary reports from officials in the IHSA on our boys' basketball program for going that they conduct themselves on the floor. We play the tournament for the program. Our sportsmanship score right is 109, which is 20-some points better than when we finished last year. So, we're we're on the right path there. Our volleyball senior night was last Wednesday, and all went well with that except we were really out here again because of one of the ladies. Um other senior night on 9/16 is boys and girls cross country. 9/18 will be boys soccer. And 9/24 will be girls soccer. And last and certainly not least, our middle school baseball
020team are PCC champions. All right. Dr. Burks. Real simple tonight. I want to thank Mrs. Welch and Mrs. Gladstone for bringing in the artwork here at the beginning. We're going to uh we were going to start putting this artwork on the back wall keeping it up a little longer, but it's always great to see um you know, our talented kids in our high school as you know, always amazes with their their artworks. So, um but thanks to both of them for uh bringing this in and makes it a little brighter in here. So, they always do a wonderful job. So, All right. Any board comments? No. All right. Thank you very much for attending. I'll turn the meeting. Thank you.