001meeting to order would you all stand with me please and we'll repeat the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep it stands Nation indivisible and justice for all great uh we will now have our superintendent Awards and our above and beyond Awards crating [Applause] good evening Madame President Dr Smith and members of the board this evening we proudly present our Elementary District Vex robotics team and Dr Emily hos Brown will do the honors thank you Miss Johnson at tonight I'm so pleased to bring to you our three award-winning categories from our district vex robotics Championship held uh in January tonight we'll be celebrating two schools who earn the teamwork Championship those Awards can only be earned with a a partnering team will be
002recognizing the skills Champions and the Excellence award champions for each school I'll invite their principal to come up to introduce their coaches and the award-winning students and we'll begin first with Brook Park and the proud principal Mr posie Brook Park was the uh recipient of the Excellence award good evening um so I'm very proud of our Brook Park Bears um but we could not have done this without the leadership of our uh coaches Mrs Jennifer moer and Miss Lauren Olivia sh and then of course our students our bears that I am super proud of very proud of uh Miss Juliana Salazar and Miss Abby [Applause] Bailey families if you'd like to come up and also take a picture you [Applause] may congratulations Brook Park yes and now we're um I'm also proud to present to
003you the principal of Crestview Elementary Miss kir who will be introducing one of the two teamwork championship [Applause] teams good evening ladies and gentlemen we are a small but Mighty team from Crestview Elementary and we are proud to acknowledge our two students from our bot cats Mr Gavin Stinson and Mr Isaac heyen for their teamwork award at the Vex robotics Championship my coaches unfortunately could not be here this evening but I would like to send a shout out for their leadership to Mrs Abigail borer and Mr Josh paver m and finally I'm proud to present the principal of Skyles test Elementary Miss Franklin who has two award-winning teams the teamwork champion and the skills championship team good evening super proud and excited for our robotics team also would like to I first would like to
004introduce uh Mr Dave schaer who I'm excited and proud of his leader ship for leading our [Applause] team and now for our students I'd like to recognize the tea team for winning the teamwork Champions Award and that is for Tara pathen who's not here with us this evening Cassie Brown Piper [Applause] mccon Austin Morris and Lucy gramley yes all girls team okay we also have our s team that won the skills Champions Award and that is Christopher Moody oay Tate Fenner Arthur Thomas and hobo seik [Applause] quatle for this evening we are proud to present a above and beyond award to Mrs Nigeria Porter if she could come forward and her principal is with her Mr Jared Pennington Mrs Nigeria Porter exemplifies the Amy beverin elementary school mission in all that she does Miss Porter
005is always willing to step in and take on duties as a sign Beyond her before and after care sight leader role she provides AC additional academic support to students each school day and when a staff member was absent she filled in and nobody even realized they weren't there so we just really appreciate that Mrs Porter she covered lunch duty all day long she sees a need and she fills it thank you Mrs Porter and congratulations on this well-deserved recognition [Applause] ch [Applause] like while we gather I want to let you know that if you came for the awards and you'd like to go home to dinner you're welcome to do that if you don't want to stay for our riveting business meeting and nothing drives Excellence More Than Pride a lot of pride in this
006room CH robotics champ the robotics Champs give everybody a minute and a half what you yeah I just thought I'd let people escape that was super exciting good that was fun okay um we'll go on to the business portion of our meeting uh Mr Smith our Blue Ribbon upd date if you will thank you Madame President Dr Smith members of the board again we have experienced good weather as we have uh gone into this uh winter and early spring LC see you see some uh sight View how it's becoming uh the baseball and soccer matter of fact today they just uh punched the turf at the baseball diamond there at LC again the concession stand and the walkway still underway the LC pool continues on with concrete going down in the uh uh shallow end
007and also around the decking as well as uh inside continues on we're also working on uh next slide kind of shows the main hallway we're trying to open that up give it exess uh to the building after spring break again just other areas entryway Ln front steel uh again progressing on uh concrete and exterior walls are next the new Plaza we'll have it opened up here for sectional tomorrow night so it is underway way uh Ln concession sidewalk again continues on uh multi-purpose room is uh continuing on as well uh paint lights and flooring bells are Middle School auditorium uh again well underway and I just had to mention the two middle schools uh uh continue to be ahead of schedule uh so that's a good thing again inside for the auditorium six more classrooms
008uh should be turned over to the building in the next couple weeks and start six more LGI room is nearing completion as well uh Fall Creek Valley again the 700 space again will be uh there's three classrooms and several offices and we'll turn that over to the building in the next couple weeks as well main office about three4 of the way done uh LC Bridge we got some steel deliver uh today and hopefully start erection of that bridge starting on Wednesday uh transportation is moving forward we actually have all the walls Plumbing electrical in drywalls going up this this week and maybe even paint within the next two weeks so progressing on and uh again the weather outlook is uh to our favor great board any questions in the middle school since this is a
009new motion for them not like our seasoned high schools um the you know the moving in and out of classrooms um how how are they adjusting and what support are we giving our teachers and um faculty as they manage through this change what's nice is uh pow and Suns has worked with us on a couple different projects so it's all about a schedule so we uh schedule around the the kids and staff and of course we're following behind to make sure that uh they stay out of Harm's Way number one and have a clean environment uh to progress each and every day do we also provide Moving services on the day of moving or yes we do we uh we employ a company a moving company that does because we do it on in such
010a mass manner uh we need their assistance to get that done for the teachers thank you any other yes Mr Smith can you remind myself and the public when the estimated completion date is for the pool at LC uh the LC uh completion date will be uh June July of this summer okay thank you okay thank you very much um we will move on to um Mr Smith again the new LCC bid results Madame President Dr Smith members of the board uh we received bids on February 16th uh there are 15 bid categories and 31 contractors bidding bids came in about as expected per our estimations uh so good competitive bids uh the GMP contract for core and Garcia for this phase two would be 19,31 11,800 65 uh Corin Garcia will be rebidding two
011areas in of this Phase 2 bid uh plumbing and HVAC uh the bids submitted were either incomplete or did not meet the specifications so these two bid package are out and to be rebid and due March the 7th uh these two big categories will not delay the start of this expected project April 1st um before I told you we had some uh slight Savings in phase one uh but we're also seeing a slight increase as we move forward uh with this main phase two and the two bids coming up uh it's kind of an estimated 12 to a 15 uh% increase due to the market increase for product Mater material and labor so it will be the recommendation to approve the GMP for phase two and uh to core and Garcia questions for yes Mr
012Smith um as it relates to the increase in materials I certainly know that that's something that happens often right we saw that during covid um is this something that we budget for ahead of time these sort of increases knowing that the price of goods can fluctuate some yes we do do some anticipation and that's why Corin Garcia do a takeoff run and estimation so we're constantly looking at the numbers uh what's out there on the market and anticipating for the bids other questions board okay um thank you thank you for that very much we will move on then to um the results of bids for student devices Mr gine President must sorry Dr G okay president must and members of the board Dr Smith as you know the school corporation provides Chromebooks for all students
013from grades 2 through 12 Chromebooks come with an industry standard four-year warranty and so we anticipate those devices lasting four years and that's the replacement cycle that we work from so we issue devices at 9th grade hoping they will go 9 10 112 you approved last year that we Chang to um giving students at sixth grade a device so they go six seven and eight and then they come out with one year of warranty on them and we feed that into the 2 three4 five cycle however not every device makes it out of Middle School alive so we do have to ask on occasion that we buy enough Chromebooks to fill in the need in the 2 three four five cycle So based on that uh we had 17 vendors that uh responded to our
014RFP we took the most responsive six and based on that um we went and again I I need to point out with input from curriculum and instruction we did make a change we've always purchased touchscreen devices um we decided to talk to the teachers about that and they said it's not necessary 6 through 12 so that is a cost savings for us about2 200 $40,000 over last year um so for the sixth and and 9th grade device we recommend um virtue Comm at 1.025 so it's 1,2 25,9 40 on the grid I have that switched I apologize it's correct in the narrative below so we would go with that I did point out that even though that is not the lowest price that wasn't the only thing we considered this particular company is giving us
015a G10 model which is the latest model and we'll fit in some plans we have to move some software at uh McKenzie to the cloud and this will be more compatible than the G9 which is what we currently use for the 2 through five cycle we will continue to use a touchscreen we will recommend the 3110 uh coming from electronic strategies so those are the two for that one board do you have questions for Dr gag we ask another question oh my gosh I have so many questions tonight Dr gagin uh question for you as it relates to the device insurance policy that uh that we now offer to families um how how does that work when a kid I don't know drops it from say a bunk bed or like leaves it on the
016back of a car like do we get the replace then at that point or how does that work the cost will be covered depending if it can't be um if it can't be repaired um but instead of the parent being responsible for it it's just an insurance policy so we're going to do a better job um of marketing that to families and getting them to recognize that um I know just because we no longer can charge for it it's still a 300 to $400 device so we want to do a better job of getting parents to recognize it's a well it's worthwhile so if if a student avails themselves of the insurance policy and we replace their computer does that computer that that then comes back to us at some point yeah and so it's
017it's a net benefit to the district as a whole if parents are able to purchase it's a win-win for everybody yep thank you I have a question to picky back off of Mrs Lawrence's question because I was gonna ask about the protection also is that something that parents would have to acquire at the beginning of the year or is there what is the time frame for that typically yeah there is you can't do it after the fact so you can't have your you know my device is broken can I go get the ADP now so you have to do it ahead of time and our vendor that we work with they're out of Fortville and they do it they're pretty reasonable about giving us windows so we'll work with them on that so if a
018parent say now that the device is fine and they are hearing that oh wow there's actually device uh device plan are they able to sign up tomorrow if they need to reach out to us to see because it's a it's a it's a different vendor it's not us so we have to check with the company and see once if they would be willing to do that okay thank you for that can always ask there are deadlines with that there are are deadin there are deadlines deadin but we can talk to the company and see if they're willing to take somebody's money that's good to know thank you sir um great to continue on that line um and and I understand we'll Market it better to parents my question is that of course our Chromebooks are
019part of our curriculum fee what we used to charge for curriculum fees that we can't charge anymore um what if the family cannot afford insurance but want the insurance and can't afford it Matt we in on that piece that' be a Matt miles question on the finance side so it's it's a good question um if if they would want the insurance but they can't afford it um we can't fund that to the vendor as as M Dr gagin mentioned it is an outside vendor that that funds that so um we we hope the device is is safe and sound and and uh you know and we don't have to have any repairs it's not a required cost that it's the insurance is is optional do we ever if if a device is broken Beyond repair
020do we ever look at individual cases and make sure the child has a device anyway we we uh take care of the device first and foremost so that they're not uh without a device and then uh we go ahead and go through the billing process and then just have to play that out depending on you know uh payment Avail child would never be without advice correct so we do have good news Madam president and board parents don't pay for it anymore it's part of the textbook rental that's free for our families now so I got to remind you that Dr gag line pointed out we use an outside vendor we don't we don't pay it directly and we can't so we're we're we have found a way so when we return in school in Fall
021of 2425 our parents the devices will just be a part of our free textbook rental and so we have already figured out a way to pay for that board and our our community will be fine great so thank you thank you for that um yes absolutely Miss done so Dr gigline thank you so much for this information I um was wondering because it's super exciting that we are getting the latest and greatest for our high school students with that is the life longevity the lifespan of that device still at around a fouryear mark even though it's uh higher quality yeah it's still a four-year warranty okay but they will be upgraded for at least six and Google will continue sometimes will'll extend that I believe they've extended it maybe even out to eight years so
022awesome so basically the investment that we are putting forth and getting the more updated devices could pay off in the long run in terms of longev yeah that's our goal thank you so much great um we'll go ahead um Dr gag line and move on to internet service provider if you will so president must and members of the board Dr Smith I want to keep in mind that the next four items are all covered under eate and that is a federally funded program and that's that strange what are all these little extra costs at the bottom of my phone bill that's where it comes from the nice thing is we get reimbursed at a 90% rate so you're going to see some numbers that are big but remember we only have to pay for 10%
023of that which makes Mr miles very happy so internet service was the first one that we want to uh cover and that is simply what just like at home who's going to be your internet provider we had three responses for that and we will recommend that we go with cogent who is our current provider and they will provide it at a 40 gig uh level which is where we want to be uh across our Network I had a question Mr gagin um as a non-te person what is our current speed 40 that's where we want to keep it oh okay but we just for this point just okay part of eate requires you to bid out various levels okay thank you other questions about that one so we can move on to provider of network
024so we're going to build a new building on the fort and we'd like to have it connected to the internet so we went out and asked to uh again uh we had two levels it could be 10 or 40 gig and we'd like to keep it at 10 we had three responders and we will recommend that we go with zo at 393,000 to put that connection in the ground and so that would actually cost us um $9,300 which is very very low if you ask Mr Smith you okay questions board um are new network connections for Skyles test Sunnyside and Brook Park it looks like yes I believe as we've mentioned in the past Sky's test in particular is only connected to the overall Network by one fiber which got cut during the 71st Street
025overpass uh construction and so uh we don't want that to happen again and sometimes if the wind blows we lose Skyles test so we want to improve that uh connection and so we will improve the connection between Skyles test and Crest View and then we will also have a connection from Sky's test down to Brook Park so if that gets cut off again we can Route Around to Brook Park and up or if it gets cut the other way so they will have that what they call redundancy and we recommend that we go forward with that uh company um we go with on point oh excuse me I miss that we go with um well we I forgot we also have to not only do that part but we have to connect Sunnyside and sunnyside's
026issue is the 40 gig we have a big old 10 gig pipe for everybody else and theirs is one so everybody else is running their data on a nice big pipe theirs is a drinking straw and so their demand for data back and forth we aren't meeting the demand everything runs slower at Sunny Side it's very frustrating so um we would like to go with on point to install the fiber from Sunnyside to LCC and also go with onpo to do the fiber from Skyles test to Crest View and then um we' like to go with education networks for the least lit so we're just fibers already there we're just renting the fiber between Skyles test and Brook Park questions board good okay we're Tech Specialists we got we got this yes yeah I know
027this is all I got it and then finally we have to upgrade the switches and again kind of using the plumbing analogy what we have going on is if you imagine you have a big jug of water at one end and you got a whole bunch of thirsty people at the other end but you only have a drinking straw between the two yeah okay that's what we have in our elementaries in particular and a couple other spots and so what we want to do is replace that drinking straw with a bigger pipe that's essentially what the network switch is going to do is allow the data to travel faster and meet the demand and so we would like to go with uh Network Solutions to uh provide those switches and improve the capacity of our
028overall Network yes Miss L I was just making sure we were at the end of all of our Tech upgrade before I asked this question um so how how long ago did we install this um uh this networking capability in the district was it as the buildings were built or oh goodness it started years ago is we yeah with the renovations those were included in some of the bids as well and we've been working well the gentleman now works he used to work for us got hired Away by the vendor that's going to provide us with some of this because he's that good but he planned this out probably seven or eight years ago to make sure that we had that redundancy right that we're missing at Sky's test so every time we've had an
029opportunity and now um the eate funding has come around again to the point where we can finally do some of these projects we we used a lot of it the last time to fund Lawrence North and Lawrence Central in particular and now we're ready to do the rest of the district do we anticipate these upgrades um being like as as the internet continues to have demands on um and our our students continue to stream and um you know build robots and use Ai and do all that stuff yeah we are at 40 and we have the capacity to go up to 100 okay so Scott had that foresight who's now long from us but we he had that in mind when he built the network plan thank you Scott yes for the foresight thanks great
030um if there are no more questions for Dr gag line we will move on to um Mr miles the budget tax rate update thank you president must Dr Smith members of the board uh tonight in front of you you have our updated 2024 budget information uh as far as our actual total budget um our tax rate and our Levy so there'll be three different slides uh want to point out to you and focus on the 2023 budget versus our 24 budget which so kind of First Column on the left versus uh the right column as you can see you know the total budget went up this year from 221 million uh to 234 million and um the next slide will show how that what the local property tax rate and how that was affected last
031year we were just at a do7 and some change and we are happy to report we are still the third lowest local property tax rate in Maran County for all schools so very proud of that uh the TA tax rate actually dropped just a little less than a cent uh versus last year and that's due to our increase in assessed value so um your property tax values went up we were able to keep the rate uh basically level um at the bottom of the page there you can see what our total assessed valuation is and uh as well as our referendum value you may remember uh remember referend randoms uh are exempt from those property tax caps um as they are voted on by the local uh homeowners and property tax owners um so and
032then on the last slide you'll see what does that mean from a cash standpoint for our Levy um again 20203 total Levy a little over 71 million we are up this year to um almost 74 million little lender and um as you may recall when we put our budget together and we submit that to the state we always advertise that High um so you can see that in the advertised column knowing that the state is going to reduce that they're not going to give us those full that full budget um so then we kind of project our expected budget and then you can see how that matches up versus the actual budget once that comes in at the first of the year questions board um I just had a couple Mr miles so uh for
033the public um if the tax rate goes up it's because of their property assessment going up correct great question Mrs Norman yes in this case as as our rate is more or less level from last year if their tax bill went up it's not because of a rate increase is because of the actual property value has gone up Mr miles that you have some acronyms up there assess value that's where that's determined so so the public will know if our assessed value is up it's a good thing for the school district but could create some problems for homeowners because you have to pay more in your property taxes our assets value will land us well into the top 10 of the 292 school districts in the state of Indiana so we have a very high
034assess value in this community last time I checked Matt I know the new numbers are coming out we were number eight okay so which was very high at 6.9 billion 6.8 is that correct correct 6.8 correct thank you Dr Smith this is probably more a question for you than it for Mr miles um just for the public could you please explain the difference between um an operating and a capital referendum and explain the the fact that we've never had to go for an operating referendum and why that's significant Mr miles is my expert he's going to count all the pennies so the public will know he's our CFO and then we have to make a tough decision from my office to make a recommendation to the board to do an operating referendum we do not
035have an operating referend public that would mean that we would contact you and ask for your permission to raise your property taxes to fund our day-to-day operations and Mr miles is going to talk about day-to-day operations in the next pre presentation on our financial report we do have a capital referendum that was approved in 2019 to pay for our high schools that's how we're paying for the high school projects we hope to bring home Roger this summer with a completed project from 2019 okay and Dr Smith could you please explain the difference between the blue ribbon and the money that was being used for the from the referendum yeah the money for the referendum went specifically to those projects that we designated primarily the high school projects we asked your permission public because uh the
036high schools we do have two large high schools and they're quite expensive so we did not have the capacity to renovate them at the level we thought and so we asked for your permission to do that Mr miles that rate has actually gone down over the years so we're really proud of that that we worked hard to keep that rate down and I think the public would be very pleased with the quality of our Renovations when they're done we won't come back to you for another almost 20 years so thank you and Mr miles one other question that I love to ask every time this comes up um our bond rating could you please explain to the public our bond rating and what the importance is of it as it relates to Renovations and the
037fiscal responsibility of this District yes happy to do so so our bond rating um I would correlate that to for those of us at home our credit credit rating or your credit report the higher our bond rating or the better our bond rating is the better the rate that we can borrow money at so um it saves US money in the long run or we may be able to borrow more money as a result and our rating uh we get that updated each time we borrow money or we go out for a bond and we are at a doublea plus which is a great rating um it's it's been solid uh for years and we hope to plan to keep it that way that is put together by standard and pores S&P thank you so
038we're pre-approved for a car then if we needed to be okay that's good and I would I would also um add and make sure I'm correct that we keep a cash balance and that's part of why we have a great Bond rating and we have a rainy day fund so when people see maybe a $16 million $15 million cash balance and wonder why that's not going to the teachers it surely would go to the teachers in an emergency and so we save that for an emergency so those that rate our financial um Health look at that and realize that we're prepared also prepared for emergency absolutely correct I have a quick question um I understand circuit breaker on the third page but could you please explain to the general public what a circuit breaker is
039is when referencing our levies please thank you Mrs D I'm actually glad you pointed that out um not all news on here is equal as ex equally as exciting the circuit breaker actually hurts the school district um it helps the local property taxpayer um years ago the state of Indiana uh took steps at the State House to ensure that um to put a limit on our property taxes and so um as a result uh your property taxes are capped at 1% um there also caps for business property um as well as other investment properties and so the net result of that is fewer dollars to the school district we get that actual final number uh every year around April and so right now we're estimating that impact at about $8 million and that impact um
040directly reduces the amount we have for our operations fund um so it it hits um our trans portation budget our bus replacement fund and our cpf dollars thank you I think that's an important note for the public to understand that cap absolutely how do we make up for that short F that is a great question um and that's something we're constantly looking at um certainly we have to be very budget conscious with with how we spend our dollars um one one other step that we've taken here just in the last month through the or last six months through the help of the board is our Geo Bond so we've used that to offset some of our costs specifically for bus replacement and other things just to support where needed um and and just being very
041uh uh very frugal with how we spend our dollars um we've been fortunate to be able to maintain operations without any uh impact to what we do day-to-day uh despite the circuit breaker um but it's something we'll have to continue to to challenge uh going forward thank monitored at every board meeting board your financial so you're administrators behind the scene work very hard to make sure we stay within that budget and we've had to make some real tough decisions on ways to save money in that in particular area I do remind the public the tax caps are not set by the Board of Education those are set by state legislation so as we look at uh our general assembly when they make and those were set to impact all cities towns municipalities equally so and
042there's no Rhyme or Reason our our district may be totally our neighbors next door may be totally impacted different than we are so it is something that school corporations are very much aware of and as we speak with legislators board uh we talk a lot about the tax caps and their impact and uh our legislators certainly listen to us as they make those final decisions thank you great discussion board um I guess we'll move on at this point to the financial update which we've touched on a little bit thank you president must board members and Dr Smith uh we have have reviewed this a little um but this time of the year we're always slight delay with the yearend uh financials so in front of you you have our December 31st uh 23 general fund
043balance sheet and uh the the uh balance at the end of the year the cash balance was uh actually in a very good position we finished the year with almost $17 million in our uh in our cash balance there in the general fund um the next slide will show our transportation year end balance also in a good position with about $2.3 million in our cash balance at the end of 2023 moving forward to January um end of January for our general fund uh again in a good position uh just starting out the year we have um just over 18 million doll currently in that general fund noting that we do have some um additional payroll costs coming up over the next uh uh couple pay periods so um that helps have that extra cash balance
044in there at the moment and then the next slide will uh show our transportation fund um all green checks which is what we like to see expenses and and revenue both in line with original projections great job board any other questions questions about that okay that'll be it for the financial update Madam president can we just add we we we do the two months it's not because it's bored December we only meet one time so that does delay us reporting out our end of year it delayed a little bit so this is a normal occurrence for us as a school district this is not new for anyone that's in the audience that may be new this is normal what most School corporations have to do sorry so one of the things that I've noticed on
045our uh general fund monitoring reports is that our supplies and materials seem to consistently be over budget is there a way because it looks like we've maintained the same budget from last year to this year and I'm just wondering knowing that we are expending more in that area um what the what the rationale is behind that yeah fair question uh you're talking about the general fund yeah General so one of the um uh one of the changes that we've had there has been with some of our suppliers specifically with rjb um you may recall a few years ago um we moved to Outsourcing some of our um custodial and our janitorial um main or excuse me our um um building management thank you uh so that's that's one of the pieces um and so we've
046looked at that we're probably still just trying to adjust that and and kind of come to a sweet spot on that thank you you're welcome uh we will now move on to our board committee chair reports Foundation okay thank you thank you Madame President well the the big event coming up and feel free to add to this Miss Lawrence um is the annual Foundation gala which is March 8th at the Indiana Roof Ballroom from 6:30 to 11:30 um um there is still registration available although I think they're about sold out so you can go on msdlt f.org to order your tickets um this is a big this is our big fundraiser for the foundation and it's always a great Community event yes thank you you have anything further no just go to the gala it's
047always a good time I don't know that I've missed one over the last and can you remind us of the theme in case we want oh yes it's Magic School Bus although I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do to bring my best Miss Frizzle oh well we'll we'll let you figure that out oh I forgot to add one thing if you're unable to attend the gala um the there will be silent auction items available online and they will be going live on um on this Friday March 1st your board has a silent auction you just get on on there and see if you can figure out what the board is offering okay um Lawrence Parks and Recreation yes as we all know on April 8th um at 3:6 actually we are having
048a total solar eclipse so in preparation for that at Fort Ben community park at 1 pm. join us for a wonderful evening filled with food trip food trucks vendors family activities and all that fun Jazz so mark your calendars were total solar eclipse so the community park if I'm not mistaken that's where we have the fireworks Gathering it is right right behind building one there yes okay 1M we don't want you to show up in the town square and wonder where everybody went yes please don't although you still will see the eclipse be by yourself I don't know it's Indiana I don't know I don't know it'll get dark though um okay policy Miss dun thank you to Dr herburger for continuing to keep me on my toes I have an update from our Mighty
049Committee of two we are now past the Midway point of the 2024 short session this week we will see education bills in second reading with third reading scheduled for Monday and Tuesday of next week the short session is scheduled to aurn on March 8th bills that do not Advance out of committee before the committee report deadline are considered DOA Dead on Arrival or maybe after arrival after a few moments being in the session um once the session is complete we should anticipate um what we do here is our Neola policy revision package and that is what we will be working on over the course of the next few months to make sure that we are updating our board policy to make sure that it is aligned to our updated uh State statutes or laws that
050have been enacted so thank you again for for continuing to make sure that I am prepared for these meetings I want to thank everyone on the board thank all of our board members for the extra work you do in the community outside of the board work and keeping us informed on that thank you so much um so we'll move on to our action items the approval of the new lecc bids uh Mr Smith Madame President Dr Smith members of the board I recommend the board of approv the GMP contract to gore core Garcia for the new lecc as submitted so moved second properly moved and seconded any further discussion all those in favor I I any opposed we have approved the lecc bids Madame President I'd like to acknowledge Ryan Albright with core and Garcia
051also to add to that he is a resident in Lawrence Township so we got A plus there thank you very much for being here with us okay and the next action item would be Dr gag line the approval of student devices bid results resident must members of board Dr Smith I recommend the approval of the purchase of Chromebooks as submitted so move second properly moved and seconded if there's no further discussion official move on that I move I moved and Jessica seconded thank you we're we're always competing on the moving and the seconding it's justed um so properly moved and seconded all those in favor I I any opposed we have approved that action item the next one is the approval of the internet service provider president must and members of the board Dr Smith
052I recommend the approval of the purchase of internet service as submitted so moved second properly moved and seconded board any discussion if not all those in favor I I I we have approved that was was that the provider of network connection to the new lecc it's next all right it's next pretty fast president must and members of the board Dr Smith I re recommend the purchase of the fiber to connect the new lecc to the internet as submitted moved Marta got that one and second Crystal properly moved and seconded if there's no further discussion all in favor I I any opposed we have approved that the LCC connection um were to the provider network connection for Skyles test Sunnyside in Brook Park president must and members of the board Dr Smith I Rec recommend the
053purchase of the connections between Sunnyside and LCC and to provide the redundancy at Sky's test as submitted so moved second if there's no further discussion all those in favor I I I any opposed we have you we have you ready there Skyles test okay Madame President I move we treat action items sorry I jump I know there's just they just keep coming I know I'm sorry e won't let us off the hook I know we got to get these approved so we can get the money we got to get us some network switch up that's right president M and members of the board Dr Smith I recommend the purchase of network switches as submitted so moved second properly moved and seconded all those in favor I opposed all right so we have Network switches now
054thank you very much Dr gag line that kept me on my toes it's a lot of paper okay now Madame President I move we treat action items 4.7 through 4.12 as a consent agenda we have so moved or seconded um properly moved and seconded um all in favor of treating those items as a consent agenda I I I I oppose they are a consent agenda I move approval of the consent agenda second properly moved and seconded um if there's no further discussion um all those in favor of approving the consent agenda I I I any opposed we have approved the consent agenda and again just for public awareness our consent agenda includes minutes Personnel reports um approval of service agreements approval of pay apps approval of field trips um so I I they're they are
055all available to the board ahead of the meeting and their standard standard issue items if you want to know more about them you get um we are to our the end of our meeting at the end of our action items we are to board comments who wants to say it first who's most connected to Lawrence Central that may be you miss bucket that be me I mean what goes saying that the excitement for Saturday like what do you say to that it was amazing it was it kept us on our toes it's historic and so just congratulations to Our Lady bears and just the leadership it was amazing it was amazing I have a I I have a senior at Lawrence Central so it's just cool to see just all the sports I never thought
056that I would be into sports but I'm really into sports right now so um there's that and then also too I have to pay um respect to the fact that but it is Black History Month and so it is celebrated every day in our home but I do want to say I've been in Lawrence born and bred so I want to say just I'm excited and I'm grateful that we have such a diverse community of Educators and leaders and just how important that it is I remember Miss Hamer at Harrison Hill the third grade she taught I was I was a wild one and she pulled out the golden me and she just made me realize just how I could cultivate my skills I remember um Mr Ron Davy he had such a patriarchal presence
057and just excellence and just pull the gold out of you I remember um Miss Teresa Brown at beler she taught me the fact of just disip discipline being the highest level of self-love she did drill team and so it was a whole Squad of girls that just she loved on fully and so it's just so many memories I even bless his heart Mr Paul love he dealt with me and my witty humor and getting I'll be honest you guys I got put out of class A few times for that witty humor I did but he would let me try to advocate for myself and so but I say that to say seriously even with that it was I was able to see myself in them and so I'm grateful to Lawrence that we are inclusive
058we are inclusive and it it has it has raised me and it has made me the woman that I am and the leader that I am and so thank you Lawrence like history want well said Miss Norman yes I mean um yes to everything Miss Pucket said um Black History Month heart it's heart health month I believe um but yes I've enjoyed the projects the kids have been working on um it had brought some discussion in our home and with me being a science uh nerd I said you know my favorite uh person from black history as far as science goes is George Washington Carver um because of him they developed over 300 uses for the peanut um in many products that we use today so um just the discussions that we have the Educators
059that we have everybody across the board I'm thankful for um and then um again go Bears and I'm looking forward to um the boys have their turn this week but um it was a great Community event um it it really brought the community together and it was an exciting season so um thank you to everyone who's been involved got add that the um the boys play sectional so they will be at Len tomorrow oh I'm sorry I got a little excited my boy is playing tomorrow so I'm sorry let me leave it let me pause that I know Miss Pucket I was surprised to hear you say you didn't really care too much about sports because got you got a big one coming up um you know I've I've been reflecting quite a bit just
060uh over over the last few days I think many of you know I used to work at the NCAA and I was there for almost a decade and when we think about um Black History Month coinciding with these really incredible um opportunities for young women to do amazing things on the court and in the classroom I can't help but reflect on how important um Sports has been as uh an opportunity for raising social awareness and social justice and when I see our kids representing our school district with the kind of integrity and the kind of um the kind of dignity that they do when they're on the court in in that sort of way like they did on Saturday night I can't help but be impressed and then I also want to just genuinely acknowledge
061the staff and particularly those of you on the de who are part of the African-American Community my family chose Lawrence Township because of the diversity and because of the exposure my kids have and I am incredibly grateful every day for for that opportunity so thank you I would just continue to reiterate all the things that my fellow board members have said it certainly is a pleasure to live here in Lawrence um I want to share something with you all because I am not going to be as present for this wonderful community that I love um as much over the next several months um I found out recently that my father has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and has just several months to live and I share that with you because I wasn't present um and
062I told myself I wasn't going to cry and I'm so sorry um but I want you to know that it's not for a lack of love and care for this community um my dad dad taught me one thing he's a retired FBI agent and he talked to me about commitment and commitment is something that I truly believe in and it really bothers me that I'm not going to be as committed as I want to over the next few um months hopefully it'll be longer um but I don't think it will and so just to say that I love this community I appreciate you all and I will be here if I can't be at the deas I will be here with you and I will continue to do everything I can to ensure that the
063greatness that exists in this District continues to to continue to grow so thank you Miss done thank you for sharing that very personal information and I will say that I know you very well and though you may not be as present as you would like to be I know you will be still fully committed so thank you for for your commitment during this difficult time I don't have very much to add to the eloquent um statements from the board I agree with everything that's been said uh but I will say that the Bears win this Saturday was a win for Lawrence Central it was a win for students our faculty our stakeholders our entire Township and you could see it in the joy if those of you who attended the game you could see it
064in the joy of mam dancing in the aisles it was beautiful we were we were way better we we won the dance contest we won more than just a dance contest Dr Smith let's be honest and nothing drives excellence in our Township More Than Pride and I want to say um a huge all credit to the girls on the Bears team and to their coaches but I want to say a sincere thank you for Dr Smith when he joined our team in January anuary of 2014 he promised he would um Institute a vision of excellence in our district and Through The Hires that uh we have made over that time and the direction uh of our schools you can see the pride in um all the renovated facilities and the new high schools and the
065fields and I was talking to Miss Brown as we walked in the boys are so excited about their new baseball field and um you know we have solidified pride in this Township and um thank you Dr Smith thank you very much um I I will add before I hand the mic over to you that board we have a visit on Friday morning at Sunnyside and on March 8th we have our Retreat okay and our next meeting for those of you listening will be be Monday March 18th at 5:30 and that will be a combined work session and school board meeting due to spring break all right thank you madam president if you're from Indiana if you're not Indiana is still the mecca of basketball so the state championship still a big deal in the state
066if you were at that game um I just enjoy watching all the class obviously we got there early to watch the 3A Champions but I got to thank all four Champs today uh those communities are really proud it's a PRI thing in Indiana basketball so our girls at the top of the hill 30 in1 a great season enjoy watching them and they will all be back next year so get ready um and then I also got a little pride with we want to congratulate L Central but I know the superintendent personally so and um I'm not going to say anything about the indie star that made a prediction but Dr NES but go to the microphone and let's share with the community a big thing that we are hosting beginning tomorrow and for the entire
067week it is now time for the boys sectional 10 basketball what can we expect yeah sectional 10 starts tomorrow that all games are at Lawrence North uh so tomorrow night Tuesday Lawrence Central will take on the Warriors of Warren Central that's just a single game at six o'clock Wednesday night is a two night uh six o'clock game be Tech versus adex and then Lawrence North will Tred to beat North Central for the third time last time they played it as a two-point game uh Friday night we hope to see Lawrence Central playing Cathedral Cathedral got the buy and then uh Lawrence North we hope will be playing either adex or Tech and then Saturday night 7 o'clock will be the championship game again all games at Lawrence north thank you um do we have a
068motion to adour so moved we have a second second we are [Music] adjourned got sign everything I think so yeah thank you