001and um uh this is this will be our election of officers uh for the board of Finance uh Mr miles thank you madam president Dr Smith members of the board uh the state of Indiana requires us as a public school district to hold an annual Board of Finance meeting and at which time um we are to elect officers the president and secretary and also appoint an invest officer at this time um I would recommend that we do that first and then we would move into uh two reports that we're also required to present annually do we have a slate of officers Mr miles typically speaking our officers for the board of Finance mirror those of the board of education so we would recommend uh that we would follow the same procedure and the same officers
002following that this year board do we have uh would you does does this require a motion at this time it does so board do we have a motion to elect the officers for the board of Finance miroring the officers on the school board so so moved second properly moved and seconded are there any questions for Mr miles no all those in favor I any opposed all right we have the election of our officers now for the report yes as in addition to that um just as a point of clarification uh we do those elected officers do need to an appoint an investment officer typically uh that is our CFO do we have a motion so moved second properly moved and seconded if there are no questions all those in favor I I any opposed so
003Mr miles you're our investment officer thank you thank you madam president and then at this time I would um ask if we can go ahead and pull up the slide we will show our investment register from um the past year currently in our investment accounts we hold in excess of $15 million and we earned an interest just over 1.7 million in interest uh this past year that is so much higher than our in uh investment income from previous years can you explain that us uh certainly our interest rates on our Securities uh has certainly in increased um along with interest rates on in the market and so um that has really fed um our ability to earn more interest secondly we have um our annual Financial indicators report which is produced by uh Indiana doab
004or Indiana distressed unit appeals board this report is always a one year in lag so this is the most current data available from the state of Indiana which is our 2020 22 data and the slides will show an overview uh of our daily uh ADM or average daily membership which is our enrollment the next slide which um we've we've covered those uh in past and we also know that we are growing as a school district the next slides uh the next two slides actually this one and the next show a synopsis a quick um screenshot of just the fund balances that are currently in all of our accounts um and as you can see again the 2022 figures those fund balances are growing versus 21 uh likewise the next slide our fund balances uh for
005our education fund and operations funds um encouraging growth in both in both cases the next slide um deals with our revenue and expenditures uh and you can see as also our revenue is growing our expenditures have grown over the years um and this also shows the transfers back and forth the next slide is our fund balances as a percentage of operations again encouraging and very positive growth over the last several years the next slide uh identifies our revenue and where it comes from the blue bar in there in the middle is our largest uh Revenue uh share source which is from the state of Indiana and then the last slide is our operating uh referendum and as you see uh quite proudly here at MSD of Lawrence Township we do not have an operating referendum
006so that balance is zero and that is our doab report and those reports are also available online Mr miles for members of the public could you please explain how some of the actions taken at the State House have impacted our funding up and down throughout the the year in particular this last fiscal cycle absolutely as last year as you know um was a budget cycle a biannual uh for for our state so um that is where actions at the state house uh truly impact um us on a local level here at school district roughly speaking our our state public uh schools are about 50% of the state budget um so impacts that we've seen over the last uh 12 months or so certainly one of those is uh this the school funding formula is critical
007to our dollars that come uh as a per pup basis um other changes such as our our textbook uh rental they've changed that those the textbook rental fees are now as a part of um built in our P per per student funding um so those went away that was a big change for us um other changes that that legislature is always looking at is how things impact property taxes and certainly property taxes feed our local tax revenue here um as we see by Revenue so those are all critical as well other districts obviously have had to come up with the same funding for for students how are other districts managing these unfunded mandates uh it's always um you know the devils in the details so to speak um each school is different different circumstances um
008that may work from depending on what they're dealing with certainly uh some encouraging news for us from school district from our budget standpoint uh was that our assess values went up as property tax our property values go up even if our rate is the same uh which is always our goal to keep our rates the same uh from a property St tax standpoint it does provide more Revenue um certainly we're also dealing with inflation just like everyone else is even at home um so those as those costs go up um our Revenue needs to go up as well we've been able to um just through good fiscal stewardship avoid that operating referendum in other cases some some schools have not been able to and they've had to go to their public to ask for those
009additional dollars can you remind members of the public the percentage of our um um of our budget is in the rainy day fund currently we have uh 11 just over1 million in our rainy day fund um our education uh State funding dollars are roughly 140 million our total budget is about 260 million for the year that includes our federal stimulus money um um from our Co dollars and and other sources thank you Mr miles can you go back to slide one can absolutely to slide one there we go ADM oh and and I want to look at the fund balances look at year 2022 yes and we see that that that super dip with Federal stimulus funds can you explain that to so yeah that it shows a little um it looks a little odd
010on the way the duab report shows but basically what's that what that's showing you is um even though it looks to be a negative it's it's a our funds from uh stimulus dollars have actually grown um 22 was more than 21 as the as the federal government put more dollars out there that's really what that's showing okay but we have doesn't it show that we have less funds year year after year it is just that green that green L that green bar that goes goes downward yeah yeah so I we're still getting positive funds from the federal government and those will it's just a change in funding correct and those this is the last year that we have to spend those dollars so thank you yes thank you for that we also go ahead over
011this last over this last year have also received funding for free and reduced school lunches available to all of our students now could you explain how that has impacted the potential for um for revenue from school lunches and how how how does that actually work because I think I was I was a very happy parent to to receive the free lunches I think others were as well yeah that that's a great question not on the doab report um but but basically um through direct certification um a certain percentage of our families within our district have to meet um the federal standards for that um meaning um uh TANF snap and other other indicators once we reach a minimum threshold that uh again as a district then all students qualify for free and reduced lunch um
012we're still analyzing exactly what the impacts of that are going to be but so far we've seen very good um impacts in our in our food service budget uh along with it's also given students the ability certainly everyone's eating we don't have students that that may be skipping a lunch for one reason or another uh financially and some students therefore then can use the money that they may have spent on school lunch to buy other things as well so um it's it's been it's been a win-win both for the district and and we feel for families and that's both breakfast and lunch correct great questions are there any other questions board for Mr miles if not then um that will conclude our meeting and that meeting will be adjourned now we will call into order
013our regular Schoolboard meeting will you please stand with me and repeat the Pledge of Allegiance Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and we board we will now um present our superintendent Awards good evening Madame President Dr Smith and members on the board and the community that is president present we are excited to present our superintendent award to the kanana Club of Castleton Mr Denny could come forward since October 1st of 1988 the Kanas Club of Castleton part of Kanas International has been an organization focused on helping children founded by top level officials from Fort Benjamin Harrison members have committed their time talent and resources to supporting the children of the community over the years that service to the
014community has taken different forms including tutoring elementary students raising money for area children services delivering meals on wheels and providing scholarships for Lawrence Township graduating seniors to name a few in addition each month kowas recognizes students from Lawrence Central and Lawrence North as a part of the character counts initiative I am honored to present the Kanas Club of Castleton with the superintendent award congratulations [Applause] ations thank you that we're all ladies [Applause] though next we have Dan kosnik assistant superintendent of secondary education to present some middle school and secondary Awards thank you Miss Johnson Madam president Dr Smith members of the board good to be with you again this evening tonight we recognize several musicians and vocalists it's that time of year for us to recognize our performing art students so up first from Belzer
015Middle School director of BS Eric Park thank you um in uh recognition of their participation and selection for the um Indiana band Masters Association All Region band like to recognize the following students from Belzer um bands uh Adam Buckner who is not here today but um Adam Buckner Samuel Walters Chloe Anderson Tyler Gardner and George [Applause] Ry congratulations you guys sounded great congratulations bears up next for fall C Valley director bands Miss Shannon Jones good evening the first select few are for the All Region honor band uh Bennett Lawrence on trumpet who is not here Morgan Thompson on flute Karen Salazar K un flute who is not here Heidi Dean on flute and Arthur CL and clarinet the next group our All Region honor Orchestra Liam Welty on violin is not here Hazel Reynolds on
016violin Ruth barbar bonitz on violin Andrea ketler on viola Timothy Wilson on viola Maggie Ashburn on cello Kira Shu on cello Annabelle Keith on base and thanks to the new sixth grade program that we're now in our third year of we also have some elementary students that are students that are honored through our program um with Miss Williams uh our singers are Jordy Chavez an Elina little [Applause] stand congratulations [Applause] Wildcats turning to our high schools up first for Laurence Central director of bands Mr Marshall good evening everyone um proud to uh recognize two of our students that were members of the Indiana All State Orchestra uh we have Mr Oliver Heyman on French horn finished fifth in the state we had Bailey Workman who finished first in the state on [Applause] bassoon congratulations [Applause]
017bears and last but not least from Lawrence North director of Orchestra Miss Meer my student's not here unfortunately but um my student Ava Genson was the only Lawrence Township student in the 2023 inaugural Indiana High School All Region Orchestra [Applause] ch congratulations to our Wildcats that's it for this evening thank [Applause] you this concludes the awards portion of our board meeting we will now be switching to the illuminating business part you're welcome to stay or leave thank you very much and congratulations uh we will now move to our um Blue Ribbon update Mr Smith Madame President Dr Smith members of the board just want to give give you a quick sight view uh little snow out there last couple weeks has been a little cold and snowy but uh we have done some outside work
018as we continue on uh trying to finish up our projects LC pool uh continue on the sidewalls are being poured and they'll continue uh to the shallow end and then start bu back filling and doing the deck new pool inside uh uh locker rooms and hallways continue to be built out again another picture of the front entrance Ln again another sight view uh you can see there on the lower left uh we do have steel going up you see in the next slide um for the new addition going on to Lawrence North so it continues to move forward uh LM bookstore this is just off the left side of the auditorium so it's starting to go in and the old pool has been filled in and also we have some uh uh new doorways cut
019in and they are continuing to work on uh the locker rooms in the office area of this space uh LGI is almost complete hopefully by the end of this week we'll turn that uh room back over to the building those are Middle School uh the auditorium continues on got some heat in there so they continue to work uh LG I and next SL six other classrooms uh we have moved forward to with their uh renovation and they're starting to go back together as we speak Fall Creek Valley uh again more classroom space and student service space in the 700 Wing uh I believe there's three more classrooms as well as this is the IT department uh that continues on new bookstore there on your left uh the outside and one on the right the inside
020and we continue to uh wait on the bids coming in for the Lawrence uh education center uh on the forth and those are due uh February 16th and we'll be hopefully bringing back some uh uh contracts for the board approval later in February board do you have questions for Mr Smith um I do have a question thank you for the updates Mr Smith I I know you've um spoken to this in previous meetings but just to address it again I've had some constituents um around the Lawrence North Area um just inquire what will be utilized in the new Auditorium space um that was the old Natatorium because it's a fantastic space uhuh right uh we're actually turning that space in a multi-purpose space so an indoor space for Performing Arts athletic PE uh so again
021it's is a additional space that we can enhance the overall building by giving that back to them thank you uh I do have a question um on the LGI um renovation what changes were made in the Little Theater uh we had a complete new ceiling put in uh all new uh uh seating uh the cushions and the backs were replaced uh flooring paint and the stage will be finished okay are there any other questions about the report this evening if not we'll move on to the resolution for property acquisition uh Mr Smith Madame President Dr Smith members of the board uh a resolution for property acquisition I'd like to start off with a little bit of history of why this is coming to the board uh this is something if you go to the next
022slide we've been pursuing this property for several years now uh as we have looked at the uh the the property around Lawrence Central we were really constrained and landlocked and in 2015 we started a conversation when we looked at renovating the stadium and the concession building that we wanted to put up on the south uh East Side would go on a piece of property that actually was was not ours uh that was part of the lodge so in that process the conversation continued on where we actually uh traded the lodge the parking space on the east side of that Lodge that was ours uh they actually owned the north portion of the property that was known as our football practice field that the school had been leasing for years off of the lodge so we
023made a an agreeable trade that uh we would swap our parking for their property and uh they would get additional parking and we would get the space that we needed uh to put our concession stand uh on there and uh continue to have a practice space uh for our football conversations expanded we uh started talking about the overall renovation of the high schools and what space was needed to uh give us at LC what Ln had and vice versa so uh we had several conversations starting in 15 with the Stuart uh family about an interest in that land and number one would they be willing just to sell uh the land portion there's two Parcels there one is a little over 10 acres uh of just land and the other one is uh the house
024and the property at four plus acres so we were interested in the acreage that would help us solidify some things there at LC uh we then found out through Mr Stewart there of how the land was set up it was set up in a trust and uh he was very much excited that we were interested in the property and vice versa uh but he also informed us the process that he had already put into place and therefore would have to remain in place and that would be after the passing of Mr and Mrs Stewart the property was put in the trust and then would be sold so as we move forward with LC uh renovation we continue to look at the steuart property so if you would flip to the next slide just to show
025you we started doing some thumbnail sketches if we had that property what would it become how could we develop that would it give it what we need needed uh to support LC and uh uh their further growth um if you go back to the previous slide um we continued on with the design but uh as that property did not become available to us we pursued some uh more property actually the Boy Scout also pursued it with us uh and knowing that at one time we had acquired about out flipping some land uh gaining some land more accessible to uh the Lawrence Central High School uh which is the property just north of us um that did not pan out and that was actually in ' 09 when we talked about some possible flipping of properties
026that did not pan out with the current administration of the Boy Scouts so we pursued we built our uh uh soccer stadium back there on KO drive and and continued on in 1920 and uh 2020 uh n 2019 and 2020 uh you know we continued on with the high school Renovations and that's when the boy scout property would become available for us uh 20 acres north uh and we went through that process to expand uh the soccer the soccer JV field and the baseball stadium so we are moving in that direction we will complete that project this spring in 2023 uh early fall is when the Stewart Property became available after the passing of Mrs Stewart uh we did pursue some options uh with that again we were not interested in the house we were
027just interested in the land and we did put an offer in on the land based off two uh appraisals the average of those two and they were however rejected from uh the owners at that point knowing that they could probably get more money if they sold both pieces of property at the same time so we continue to uh pursue our options uh of how we could acquire uh that piece of property during that time we also was made aware by the owners that another offer was given so uh looking at that uh and knowing that then we pursued some of the options that the board could take to acquire that property and that's why this resolution of property uh is coming to you so if you look at this picture here this is the picture
028picture of the Stewart Property if you don't know which one it is if you see where the football stadium is it's just to the upper right it looks like an upside down sea that is the 10 point uh plus acres that is really what we have always been interested in as you see it backs up right next to our inzone building our track and also the softball stadium actually there's a bare speed piece of land right there that we had over the years have really been squatting on the Stewart's property uh from her softball area as well as track also Sheila if you look up in the upper rightand corner where the old shotput disc is currently north of the go over to the right right there that was the parking lot that I talked
029about before that we switched uh and traded the property just North which would be to the left of the current Masonic Lodge where uh J or our football practice field it was and is uh but anyway right now our current shop put and discus are way over there on the far uh east side of our property giving this property would give us the ability if you look at the next slide to basically move that into the majority of the baren space on that piece of property over the years it has grown up some but that would be the only area that we would transform on this piece of property giving us access uh for shop putut and discus which also gives us ADA compliance for uh our athletes as well as any Patron that uh
030families that may want to watch that our intent for the remainder of the property would be to leave it as it is and allow it to further mature with the vegetation on there the East Side uh does have some mature uh uh trees there that we want to again leave as a buffer between our neighbors and us um so the more trees there the more protection from light and sound uh as we currently have on the football field uh we've kind of helped work with them as we move forward with that but again you'll see a minimal impact of that property but it gives us a huge advantage of uh our students being in proximity of as well as access uh not only to our shot putut and discus but also to further maintain our
031our softball Diamond as well as our retention Pond there uh if you look over to the what I wish I would have put up the new schedule of our property if you take the far left side of the yellow and drop straight down go on down that property is what is ours now so really we'd be squaring off our property and really land loocking us to the advantage for anything future going on uh and anyone else from encroaching on our property so with that I wanted to also have Mr quer Bush talk about the board's rights in acquiring this land what kind of options do we have to move forward at this point as we have exhausted uh other means that we have used in the past uh in order to acquire this property thank
032you Mr Smith Madame President Dr Smith members of the board it's a pleasure to be with you Jeff qualkinbush with Baron thorberg so the resolution that's before you this evening is very similar in in many ways to the resolutions that you've approved in the past with respect to acquisition of property whether it's the Boy Scout property or the new Transportation Center property and things of that sort it authorizes the an offer to be provided based on two appraisals that you have obtained one was for 3 million or 1, 310,000 the other was for $920,000 the average of those two comes in at $1,115 th000 so this resolution allows you to provide an offer to the current property owner for an amount not to exceed 1, 115,000 and other terms and conditions standard to the purchase
033of the property in addition uh this resolution takes it a step further because of the need for this property and the uh location that is currently in existence is authorizing the school corporation to proceed with imminent domain if the offer to the property is not accepted that would then involve uh the school corporation filing with this with the Maring County Courts for that request and then the average of the appraisals would be paid whatever that may be the appraisals that you obtained would be thrown out there would be appraisers that would be appointed by both the court uh and then those would be come up with new appraised values in the meantime the the two parties could at any point in time reach a settlement agreement and file that at that point in time which
034could be for an amount whatever is determined between the parties to be necessary to be able to properly uh compensate the owner of the property for the purchase price but also to avoid any additional litigation costs and other costs that might U be involved in that as well as any sort of time delay so those are the options that are available in the resolution that are before you this evening I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have regarding the resolution but if there's anything regarding the process of the property as far as it's use I'll turn those back over to Mr one thing I may add excuse me uh with this would be acquiring both parcels and uh we only want the land parcel so that would also give us the ability to
035resell the house uh and land around the house as the second parcel thus keeping on on the tax rolls and right now the estimated value of that piece of property is between 700 and $900,000 so that would also then help recoup our land or dollars and cents uh thus lowering the price of the overall piece of property that we really want I I do have a few questions um do we plan to install any light or sound equipment on that property no okay um um I see that around on the diagram that around the shop put area which is mostly in the grassland right now there's additional grassland surrounding that property what will we do with that AR inent would be to continue to allow this H piece of property to mature in growth of
036trees and vegetation uh we do also have U bser putting in an agricultural uh curriculum uh this could give an option for Bower as well as science and AAG at the high school uh to utilize this space uh for that curricular use thus not disturbing it or putting any other buildings on it so that the trees that act as a buffer in the neighborhood would only increase it would the number of trees continue to grow yes and continue to grow naturally okay um um I think that's that those are my questions right now thank you I have a question um will there be any increases on taxes how would this effects affects taxpayers actually it would help well it really wouldn't impact at all any taxpayer based off this transition uh what it does do
037is allow us to keep uh a piece of property on the taxpayer which helps the city uh with their Finance as well as us as schools would there be any changes in traffic patterns if we were to purchase this on wallingwood uh no as our current we do uh take buses in that area picking up students in there as we've had for many years that that would continue but that would be the only traffic um there would be no increase in traffic on wallingwood actually if we sold the house it eliminates any access to this piece of property from Walling board so it would all be accessible only to our property Mr Smith can you explain what the potential concerns are if another um if another property buyer were to come in and purchase this
038land what what what impact would that have on our students and our school Community well I think uh over the years what I've learned is uh the residents in that area have uh uh push back on any other expansion of property in that area especially with housing uh or even if any other developer would utilize that would incre increase traffic flow within that area and I believe uh uh that is residential uh roadway and also uh the utilities to that space to increase it and grow it would be at a cost of the city as well as the potential buyer of that property uh we would not do anything that would increase the utility cost uh sewage water for that piece of property plus nor would we impact uh that neighborhood with any type of
039traffic for the school and Mr Quackenbush could you please explain the resolution that we're voting on this evening and what what that means in terms of um of kind of the the process by which we would move about acquiring this if you could give a a brief timeline of what that would look like absolutely happy to do that so if you approve the resolution this evening then we would as soon as tomorrow morning submit the uniform offer letter to the property owner and its attorney they have up to 30 days with which to respond to that offer if they respond during that period of time and reject the offer then the resolution authorizes the school corporation to then file a a claim in Maran County Court System under the imminent domain law once that claim
040would be filed and the court would approve that then the parties could reach a settlement and could then decide to file a settlement at that point if a settlement is not reached then The Next Step would be for there to be a hearing on the public purpose uh that would be scheduled within a reasonable period of time 45 days at the end of that if the public purpose would be determined to be uh sufficient by the by the court which in this case it would be because the characteristics to determine if it's public purposes is it neighboring existing school property is it being intended to be used for a school purpose and those two things would be clearly met by the location of this and by the drawings that are identified and then after that
041public purpose decision would be made then the appointment of the appraisers would be appointed by the court after the two sides would provide their two lists of appraisers and they would then reach a determination on the value of the property after that determination is reached then the court would order the school corporation if it wants to take the property to pay the amount and then they would Grant the uh transfer the property to the name of the school corporation at any point in time during that if the two parties decide to come back to a reach a settlement they could stop that proc say file the settlement and if the court determines it to be a reasonable settlement they can approve that are there any other parties involved in these transactions that could claim emminent
042domain the only parties that could be interested in an imminent domain proceedings are those that have an interest a current uh recordable interest in the property so that would be any lean holder mortgage holder to the property so a bank of some kind could be a potential an interest owner there that would have to be identified and they would have the ability to speak with respect to the appraised Val value uh in addition the county if there are any back taxes would be an interested party here there are no back taxes based on our research of the records So based on our research of the records there are no other parties of interest that have a reportable interest in the property that could identify itself during the imminent domain proceeding okay and Mr miles this
043may be more a question for you or maybe a combo for all three of you so feel free to round robin how you answer this question tonight we're approving the motion to move forward with the the investigation of the process and defile emminent domain claims once that happens and assuming everything moves um smoothly through the courts um how would we then fund the purchase of this property uh so our next item on the agenda um tonight speaks to that piece um jumping ahead a little bit as was a sneak preview um we will be coming to the board tonight asking for permission to to hold an additional appropriation hearing which would take place in February uh we would go through the proper advertising process beforehand and have that public hearing we would use rainy day
044funds to purchase the property so that's why um our current rainy day fund appropriation is short of the average of the two appraisals so we would need to ask for that additional appropriation final question Mr Quackenbush in terms of I I know these litigations can go on for quite some time uh eminent domain cases um do we have every indication that we may be able to reach some sort of amicable agreement with the property seller in order to avoid potential extended legal fees Etc yes we do thank you that's all I have some questions about the financial aspect could you share how much if we did have to come to a settlement how much the district would be paying is that it would be whatever the two parties are are willing to reach at this
045point in time we understand that there is an offer out there for $1.5 million on the property by the by the other uh purchase potential purchaser so it' be reasonable to think that that would be the amount that the school corporation would have to match to be able to acquas the deser desires of the current property owners to reach the same results that they would otherwise have with the current property owner the biggest difference is is that in connection with that current property owner or property offer there are a bunch of conditions that have to be met that may take one month or several months whereas we would not have to reach those same conditions or have those same conditions apply to our purchase or our offer and so they may be more willing to
046work with us on that as a result of that okay and so one.5 plus the cost associated with The discus so how much total are we looking at potentially taking from our rainy day fund I don't know what the cost of The discus is and that sort of thing I would turn that back over over to Mr Smith but it would be uh the 1.5 potentially if that's the offer that would be agreeable to the two parties together with what whatever the improvements would cost then you would need to subtract back out of that whatever we would be able to recoup in the way of the sale and so if the sale of the property with the house on it is roughly 700 to 900,000 you would need to net that out of total cost
047sure I understand that so I in just a point of clarification rainy day funds are funds that taxpayers have already paid that we have put what can you explain what rainy day funds are usually meant for because I just for the Public's knowledge the source of rainy day funds really can come from three different sources there could be sale of property and oftentimes when you sell property as a school corporation you will deposit money into there so that that could have been a source of Prior rainy day fund monies in addition there can be transfer of monies from either your education fund or your operation fund uh used to be several funds it was your general fund your capital projects fund Transportation uh those could be transferred into your rainy day refund from time to
048time uh in an amount not to exceed 10% of your total budget for that year and then in addition there could be other sources of revenue whether it's donations or other federal funds that might not have been used for their purposes then the federal government would Grant you to retain those funds and you could transfer those into there the rainy day fund resolution as I understand it in policy authorizes the ability for it to be used not just for unanticipated expenses related to operations but also for land purchases uh because those are rainy day is probably the term rainy day is the terminology that was given to it by the state of Indiana but the purposes were broader than rainy day purposes in that they can be used for other one-time expenditures that may not
049be unanticipated or negative expenses or loss of revenues but rather you don't want to use other fund balances because those may be needed for more reoccurring expenses over the course of your budget year over over several years thank you very much Mr Smith would you clarify for Mr done the uh shop putut dis is how would we go about purchasing that that that would not come out a rainy day uh no that would be out of our uh cpf or other uh funds that we have for buildings Mr miles can you give a few additional examples of how we've used rainy day funds in the past um to my know and I've got a short frame of reference I will I don't mean to put you on the spote for that rir question um we
050have not used rainy day funds in my tenure which has been uh about 15 months now um so prior to that I'm I'm sorry I can't speak to that I'd be happy to to look into that Madam board member we have worked very hard to build a rainy day fund Mr Smith we can remember we didn't have a lot of rainy day fund uh Mr quac and Bush outlined very exactly what we could use those funds for uh we've been fortunate in the last 10 years we've not had to use our rainy day to purchase property uh so we've been very uh fortunate to do that in the purchase of the property that we had at transportation we actually sold our old Transportation facility to purchase a new one so we purchased the property that
051way so we've been very fortunate but in this situation uh we have to use our Randy day funds in order to purchase this property okay I think Mr quaca Bush outlined um the financial situation of how much we would have appreciate theal call Y thank you yeah Roger and I have the gray hair here we we do remember or do you have additional questions about the wallingwood property acquisition um we do have we do have a member of the public that is asked to speak on this topic um Miss Caitlyn wild are you here thank you microphone please come on to the microphone um again state your name and your address and you have three minutes to address the board um hi I'm Caitlyn wild I live at 11943 Discovery Circle um 46236 um I
052actually had a few questions regarding it um the first was um at a meeting a public meeting on January 11th um Wendy must speaking on behalf of the school board um indicated that your guys's plan was not to build anything in that agricultural area it was actually to plant um a bunch of trees to act as a buffer um for the Neighbors so I was just wondering like on record on behalf of the wallingwood neighborhood it did not sound like any planting of trees was going to happen just the maturing of the current trees um so that was the first question um the second question was um you spoke about leaving those mature trees to further mature but also having it be used for curricular purpose that would involve clearing a lot of the undergrowth
053and a lot of the things that would buffer the neighborhood from your property to be able to even walk through it so um it it sounds you know like there's actually buffer being removed and a sports area being put in um and then also my concern would be um how are you going to keep students from entering that neighborhood out the back way or you know things like that and you know what the might neighborhood might experience in terms of those unsupervised teenagers entering the neighborhood yeah Mr Smith H first of all um our intent was not to put any large struct any structure building on that site as we have in the past as we acquired uh very little uh structure going on with the shop putut and discus uh concrete pad and a
054and a little bit of fencing up next to the softball area uh so actually building of a structure uh no we our intent is not to um as far as maintaining the majority of that piece of property as its natural state is the intent um if we put uh uh there's areas there that we can also put Landscaping in to modify and add to and if we can do that we will do that uh but also uh I've spoken to several of our neighbors there who also use that property as nature and go back and walk and dogs and we want that opportunity to continue on uh having our uh ability to take our students out there uh yeah path through Pathways could be an option as we have in most of our wooded areas
055that we have there now so the neighbors would still be able to utilize Lawrence property and be coming onto like property where students could be holding agricultural class courses or something I mean like it wouldn't be closed off from the public would there be any safety concerns to the school and the students about people from the neighborhood entering your guys's areas um yeah safety is always a concern that's a priority we have and most of our property especially at the high schools we try to fence on the perimeter side uh but also if you go to Lawrence North or Lawrence Central right now uh we have people walking through our property every day uh from the community as I was there uh last week and a uh lady and her dog were making way through
056our property uh but a safety the concern yes indeed but we also try to fence off those areas and make it minimal if possible we can also secure it uh during the day or open it up uh in the weekend so we've done we're able to do both and have done both on many of our sites okay thank you thank you very much for your comments okay uh we will move on to the requests for additional Appropriations Mr miles thank you madam president Dr Smith members of the board as uh previously alluded to um at this time as an info information item um later tonight I will bring a request for an additional appropriation hearing so at this time basically what we're asking for is the the opportunity to advertise um that we would like
057to hold and plan to hold that additional appropriation hearing other questions board okay we'll move on to the request for permission for RFP for um phase two of LCC oh sorry I'm sorry Mr Smith Mr Smith Madame President Dr Smith members of the board as we uh continue looking at uh our Renovations of our Middle School in this building uh I do need to to request permission uh to send out an RFP for the CMC for Phase 2 of this building lecc uh it is a separate project from the first and uh by State Statute uh we do need to post and select another CMC uh for this project that actually would start uh in the design process uh uh this year year and run through the beginning of next year which would go out
058to bid and uh actually would start construction in June of 25 uh that renovation would take two years so it would be completed in the fall of 27 for it to be reopened for student use Mr Smith I have a question about that if a as we um run at this building for student use will we be renovating all available space that's not currently in use with the Lawrence Advance Academy and the um sharing Place yeah we we have a lot of Partners in this building it's been growing over the last uh several years laa has been here almost 10 years now and it is growing we do have some uh special classes here that uh grew again this year uh leap we house here these are all student-based programs uh that will continue to
059grow as well uh the sharing Place uh we are a partner uh hopefully for a long time uh with them uh we will continue to house them in this building as well the Chamber of Commerce is currently here as well and we will uh share space with them as well as the office space for communities uh in schools um also we we have have a uh um Clinic here uh with community that will also remain but uh the remainder of the building then would be utilized and occupied by student of different programs what was the number of students that we intended to occupy this building in the new academy uh I think it started out at 400 went to uh 6 to 800 uh based off the space and the programs I had a question
060to go along with that I know we spoke to this I believe at our May uh of 23 meeting but we've all slept a lot since then when we had presented about the future plans for the Craig Middle School Academy um so this construction process would com be completed and ready to first start welcoming students is it the fall of 27 correct okay I just wanted to clarify okay thank you any further questions I do have a question has it to my knowledge we have not determined exactly what the academy would look like correct there have been ideas that have been shared about potential 56 but that has not been something that we have voted on correct correct and so I guess my question is prior to getting an RFP would it be proper for
061us to to understand what students are going to be coming into this space so that we can create a space designed for them because if we as a board potentially thought that it could be a 78 space instead of a 56 space that could potentially look different so I'm just wondering if we're putting the cart before the horse as it pertains we're not we're not we're going to have to renovate the building no matter what um uh board members but uh we will be bringing a proposal very soon to the board to approve what type of program you want with this building Roger Smith needs to be renovated uh regardless of what program we put in the building just simply because it's an old building it needs to be renovated right I I understand that
062I just know in education spaces for fifth and sixth graders might differ from Seventh and eth based on size and so forth so that's why I was just curious as to the programming that would be here and how that impacts potentially an RFP and who is providing that information so that was the clarity was trying to look for process that we have done with all of our Renovations putting our architect and our CMC together with us to design that space um we do have the architect Fanny and Hoy uh the board approved them for phase one and two when we brought them on board and they will continue on they will be working closely with our team as we do this so um it's not the cart in front of the horse here we're running
063in tandem uh with each other the more we get involved with the CMC the better cost effects they know what we're doing and as they as we build and design they will able to help us uh look at options and also Mo uh more efficient ways of uh going about our renovation thank you so clearly any um new usage of the building would have to be approved by the board moving absolutely abolutely okay um any further questions there board um then we'll move on uh Mr kosnik and Dr Brown Can you um update us on our strategic plan midyear report please yes president must Dr Smith members of the board we're very pleased to bring to you our first midyear update of our three-year strategic plan and as we begin we'd like to just quickly
064review the development process of theate iic plan and during the 2223 school year we began with focus groups in the fall where over8 stakeholders attended these focus groups and we collected over 500 pieces of data um from these focus groups uh from our stakeholders their input on what was going well and what we could improve upon and the second semester of that year we had two Community meetings which were very well attended by our stakeholders holders where we worked in groups to then uh hone these pieces of uh these data points into pillars and action items and metrics by which to measure those an executive strategic planning committee met to then polish and then we presented to you the Strategic plan which is now a public a published document and approved and we've been working
065on you see there a picture of those with our six pillars this strategic plan can be found in prints it can also be found on our website as well as our dashboard good evening again Madam president Dr Smith and members of the board uh the next slide you saw there in the PowerPoint was just a picture of our dashboard but Mrs blanket ship is now switched over to our live website which is the dashboard that we published first published back in October after the first quarter and now that we finished the second quarter of the first year our second quarter update is now there we'll see all the activities with the action steps currently ly being worked on uh percents being complete and a narrative of each of those action steps flip back to the
066PowerPoint form this blanket ship that dashboard is updated quarterly each division leader submits an update that is sent to us and approved by Dr Smith and then post it on our web page so again if you go to our web page you'll see that on our strategic plan page each of our division leaders has prepared one highlight for you this evening so we'll begin with curriculum and instruction and representing that division is Miss Natalie Schneider good evening so I'm going to provide you some updates on um some of the improvements that we've made for K12 literacy achievement um I'm proud to announce that 100% of our K3 students and teachers have now have access to decodable text um we continue our professional development specific to decoding and reading development for merging bilinguals with um taju
067um we continue to um get support from the Indiana literacy C and that's in place for Brook Park Crestview Harrison Hill Indian Creek Oakland and Skyles test Early Learning Center at Amy beverland and the Early Learning Center at Brook Park um the district was also awarded an early literacy Grant of nearly $500,000 um to support professional development and literacy support for Amy beverin Forest Glenn Mary Castle winding rdge and ELC Winding Ridge this has provided um professional development for teachers coaching and materials for instruction for literacy um we've also identified an I ready score of 490 as a strong predictor for I um for I and we are using um that 490 to kind of help us make some predictions of what's going to happen um this March um and then finally um our agenda
068for the January Elementary Leadership Academy is going to be solely focused on I read and making sure that our students we have a strong plan at each of our elementary schools to prepare our students for Irene thank you shifting now to our culture pillar within our strategic plan Miss Shan Bush Madame President Dr Smith and members of the board tonight I would like to highlight initiative number three in our culture section of the Strategic plan as we have two strong partners that we've have started this work um to Institute more restorative practices uh in response to behavior infractions and the first partnership that we have developed is with peace Learning Center and building level teams have participated in restorative practice training with peace Learning Center starting last spring our secondary schools are working with peace
069Learning Center facilitators to have all of our staff trained in secondary schools um by the end of the of the school year year so that would be restorative practice level one which is a foundational training um that we are working on districtwide peace Learning Center facilitators are also available to our secondary schools to model restorative responses to discipline infraction infractions and we did have a parent engagement night in October to begin to educate the community about restorative practices and what that means next we've been working with Dr Dominique Smith um our our administrators engaged in a book study of the restorative practices Playbook by Dr Smith uh last school year and this year many of our of our schools followed suit and did that book study as well this summer Dr Smith Dr Dominique was
070present for our Lawrence learning Summit and each of our building level teams spent a full day of training with him in preparation for this school year um in which Dr Dominique has already been to all of our elementary and secondary schools for coaching and implementation with restorative practices our next pillar is Staffing and people and our director chief of HR Miss Carla Johnson good evening the Highlight that we'd like to share this evening from Staffing and people involves our classified staff from our strategic plan we heard loudly and clearly that our classified staff are wanting to feel valued and so we've been able to provide professional development this year and we began in July with a focus on Equity we invited our classified staff on September 21st on those parent teacher conference days and we
071continued with equity and then on January 8th we invited our staff to come and we made a connection with um our curricular resources that have been offered um this year new in math and so partnering with our curriculum team and thus far to date we've had 146 participate meeting the needs and now our fourth pillar facilities we'll look to Mr Roger Smith thank you uh in this first semester we have started the the building assessment of both elementary and middle school and secondary buildings uh for building capacity and we expect to submit a final recommendation in May of 24th and our fifth pillar technology Dr Steve G at our last meeting you may have heard me mention that in our uh three cycles that we deliver uh Chromebooks we have a it used to be
072a 234 then a five six S8 and then a nine continue 9 10 11 12 and I mentioned that that Middle School cycle is very hard on the devices so we've changed that based on input from uh our building administrators and working with our vendors so we've moved that to 23 four five then 678 and that allows us to take those uh devices out of circulation after three years gives us a year of warranty to get them fixed back into circulation so uh we're more cost effective and don't have to buy many Replacements and closing out our sixth pillar for finance Mr Matt mil yes thank you as uh the Department of Finance um and our and our strategic plan goes we get to work with everyone in the district because everyone has financial needs
073uh we worked closely with HR during our bargaining process uh and afterward to support our needs of our classified and certified staff um since then we've also meet regularly uh with the different departments to review budgets and make sure we're aligned with their initiatives and that they are um achieving their budget as as planned we meet and collaborate regularly with operations it contractors other stakeholders to support our vast construction uh that we've got going on throughout the district and then future planning um including bonding and and the other needs that come into into play to make sure that we're able to support operations facility needs equipment needs and the other tools to support student and staff success which slide it was um it was on slide number five I think um Miss Natalie was um
074on that one and I had a couple of questions um that Grant that's very exciting um what was the criteria for those schools uh what did they have to meet to receive that Grant um you know what that's that's a great question I was not one of the people that was involved in the writing of that Grant so but I can get that information for you we will go ahead Stephanie because it was a competitor Grant and not all School corporations receive the Grant in the state corre fact even in in Maran County it was competitive our curriculum coordinator coordinator Adrienne Sergeant wrote and and won that Grant to help support student- centered coaching specifically around academic achievements for students okay and I saw in that paragraph I believe was it development specifically for emerging
075bilinguals um or other um groups of students was it well there two different things we are working and the grant will help support some of that um but we were already working with taju to help support the emerging bilinguals and then the Student Center coaching is for any school okay yeah thank you for that explanation I mean it's fantastic anytime we can get grants or additional funding for these type of programs to help close any achievement gaps so um thank you to her as well may ask a question well M Snider's there um you referred to the I ready predictions for March and can you clarify that for me have we already determined our predictions for March or are we waiting for test scores to determine the predictions for Mar we do have a prediction
076right now um so we use the scale score what we've determined is that just through looking at our data from previous years is that a scale score of 490 um predicts with 80% accuracy that a student will pass I three so right now um we are looking at um around a 39% um pass rate for our second graders and that was based off of our December middle of the Year data so it could be more than that um because again that was based off of a test that was taken in December um that's the Baseline for that was 27% last year so that's already showing an increase right now for our second graders and getting us very close to the board goal of 40% and okay and for third grade um it's looking about 56%
077right now compared to to 57% was the pass rate in March of last year so we don't see much growth um remember that's again it's based off of that um December um middle of the Year data so that that was the Act 57% was the actual pass rate and 56% is what we're predicting right based off of where where it was in December so it could be higher than than that because that gives us from December all the way till March to continue that growth and so that's why our Focus for our Leadership Academy is very much focused on ir and making sure that we are providing every a really strong plan especially for these six weeks moving into I read and how many years have we been utilizing the the um the new reading
078techniques when you say new reading te techniques talking about the strategy she's your your strategies um the strategies that we've been using well we have well for one we have more Advanced Data than we've ever had because we're using our dyslexia screeners and even with I we can now break it down to specifics we also use I I read screeners that also help support um specifically what the identified pieces are that we need to work on and so we've we've done a lot of work trying to look at all of our different schools and looking at um the data and what interventions have been provided and which ones are the most effective and this is all related to the science of reading correct and the decoding and the taju um all of it's related to
079the science of reading yes thank you thank you very much followup question can you share what interventions you found to be the most um successful I hear you say that you um have looked at that data so what interventions are finding the most successful our students we've looked at a lot of different interventions we've at we've we use youly we use Orton Gillingham we use um Sr we use quite a few different um interventions we also look at um just basic things like reading passages and working through comprehension tasks and it depends on the student and it just depends on um making sure that we're matching the intervention specifically to what the student needs so we spend a lot of time and that's one of the things we're going to do at Leadership Academy is
080really take a deep dive through that data to make sure that we know specifically what each student needs and make sure that they are getting exactly what they need moving into in those six weeks leading up to Irene there are a number of goals that are listed I'm just looking at the dashboard to go through these um that have deadlines um in 2024 so this this year um some in September some in May um I'm looking in particular um with training for some of our um some of our elementary and middle uh Middle School programming um and then in addition to that um some of the um some of the uh High ability Andor advanced placement credits um that are still at 25% with a 2026 can you just give give us a general sense
081for how we feel we're trending against some of these benchmarks in order for the public to really understand if we can meet these by the Dead line that's outlined in the Strategic plan we are working towards all of those and the the Strategic plan is in the Forefront of everything that we do um every time we have our principal plc's every time we have our Leadership Academy we also do literacy meetings at each of the buildings where we have the Strategic plan in front of them and we are constantly relooking at those uh strategic plan data points and making sure that we are progressing towards them and anything that we're not not we look at what what is it that we're not doing and what do we need to do to rectify that to make
082sure that we are progressing so we are making really good progress there's a few things that we need to make sure we provide Clarity on so that when they're reported To Us by the schools too that they all have the same understanding I'm not I'm not banked um so I do have a couple of additional questions that may not have to do with your pillar I think this is in culture so miss miss Bush I think that's you there was a parade of brilliant people walking up to the microphone I can't remember who owned what but I'm glad I got that right okay so um one thing that is a big passion of mine and one thing that we included in our board goals for this year is returning attendance rates to pre-co Levels by
083uh beginning with the 2023 2024 school year we're at 50% there um I've seen a huge push and I I'm so excited when I see um uh all the Facebook posts that our um that our schools are posting about kids doing an awesome job with their attendance can you just help us understand what the pathway is to coming back from that Co from those covid years and returning our schools to full attendance I think the pathway to that is just reestablishing the fact that that school has to be a habit um we had developed some new habits during the pandemic that have just been hard to kind of you know push aside um it's very very difficult for many of our parents to get get to school to pick up a sick kid and for
084a while there every little sniffle they were having to come and having to come and pick their student up and that's just not the case anymore unless the student is is sick with you know multiple symptoms sometimes you're going to have a sniffle you might have a little cough that doesn't necessarily mean that they shouldn't come to school and so we are trying to push through that and to educate our parents to let them know that it does matter you know one one day of missed instruction is it you know can can make a difference and so I think educating our parents and letting them know um of the the legal responsibility uh through the state of Indiana that we have to ensure School attendance those those are all pieces to it thank you um
085Miss Johnson Johnson and I do have a couple of additional questions related to staff thank you Miss Bush um in particular uh SP 2.1 um through 2.4 um so the salary data um for our staff employee exit surveys as a measure of climate and reduction in the number of emergency permits um can you help me understand why all of these um the first two are listed at 50% complete the last is 25% and that may just be that we have a different deadline but I just am curious where we stand on those goals I'd say that over the three years um there are some that we feel like we're working towards faster and there are some that are taking longer to build to implement and so I think we're trying to create a culture um
086with our staff and participating in the exit surveys we used the beginning of the first quarter to actually build that survey and to get it launched but I don't know that it's institutional in a practice yet so we're constantly looking at each month how many responded how many resign how else can we reach them and so I just think over the three-year distance it's going to take longer to reach full completion to make it institutionalized shifting that culture can be really difficult so I appreciate the work that you're doing to to make that happen thank you great questions everybody are there I just had actually a really quick comment um I had a little one that came home to share uh some of the re restorative practices that she had learned in school this is
087the foundation of our home and we talk about it quite often but somehow when you guys went over it um it seemed to sink in but I want to thank you for that because like you could see go she was so excited and so I thank you she was actually telling me how she had used it and so forth so I thank you because it empowers personal agency and social awareness as it pertains to conflict resolution and it as a Young Folks say it hits differently when correction or redirection comes from a peer that's your age and so I thought it was powerful when she came home and she was so excited um and she is my natural leader so for her to she's really excited to move forward with this so I just wanted
088to share that piece so thank you that you yeah reinforc what we've been teaching for een years thank you Miss Pucket Miss Pucket I think it's the same thing when you have a babysitter maybe they they act a little bit better for the babysitter than they do for the parent sometimes Dr Smith could you please explain to the members of the public what the difference is between this strategic plan and our board goals and that may be a question for you as well simple that simple uh just so the public will know the Board of Education since I've been superintendent for a decade is always engaged with annual board goals and those tend to be very direct with issues or topics that we believe are of the utmost import importance during that year which are
089developed by my cabinet and the Board of Education our principles the Strategic plan is where we go out into the community and we really look at long-term we used to do fiveyear plans well you guys know what happened back in 2020 all right a 5year plan is not going to work we learn how to do things very quickly so we're now this is a threeyear strategic planning process and it will close very quickly and we'll be on to another plan so this is the second plan since I've been superintendent that we've had and I would highly recommend to the board for the future you continue to do strategic things like this please have a plan it's easy for me thank you do have a quick question I I was just going to say that in
090a strategic plan um is CommunityWide um the the Strategic the the goal the board goals are created by the board with an eye on our strategic plan and through the listening listening to our um public so this thank you uh this is for you Miss Johnson I um I just wanted to ask because I am a big proponent of professional development think that it's wonderful however uh many times that we see our colleagues going to professional development and then not seeing what they have learned in those um sessions being implemented with our students with Fidelity um how are we tracking to ensure that the professional development is being actually utilized and that we're seeing an impact on student instruction and behaviors for the Highlight that I had shared today with our classified staff I still
091think that is in the early stages as we look at that reflection I think that because they've never had that paid time to be a part to just come and learn what our Equity work is in the district and we had some key takeaways as to what you could go back and just the value of knowing every student's name and being a part of the information that the teachers heard just to be able to have that collaboration but figuring out how to measure that and how they're all doing that we're still trying to figure out for those that didn't attend how do we invite them so we had two sessions of it and so then in January I would say that as we made that connection to our curricular pieces that all the teachers that
092learned all of the new math resources over the summer we realized there was a gap for those support staff how can we make sure that they have it and how can they utilize it with our special education students and so I just think the feedback that we got from them that day was very valuable and Rich because they felt very left out and so they were very eager to share and then many buildings are doing it at the building level if there people couldn't come so we're finding ways to use the instructional coaches to reach those who didn't come on those days that's wonderful thank you I appreciate that immensely thank you very much are there more questions on the Strategic plan report I I just watch so no no no just no okay you
093sure the culture piece is so intriguing to me I was just no I'm share with us I do want to know you know what I'm just going to ask I know that we're in the ongoing phase uh as it pertains to behavior and so I'm wanting to know where are we in that process and the reason why I asked because it leaks over into this displine and other facets and so I guess I'll go ahead and ask now where are we and how is that looking where are we behavior I'm sorry naming Behavior where are we naming Behavior so the whole intent of our work in restorative practice is to begin to look at behavior and teach those skills that are lacking um you know to to discipline does mean to teach and so we
094want to look at behavior in a way that is respons responding to the behavior um in a more restorative way than a punitive way we want to let let our students know that even though they make a poor decision um they they're still a part of our community and that we want them back we want them to be back with our community and one of the one of the biggest things I think that we're learning with regard to restorative practice is that 80% of that is build the culture of the school of the classroom of that community so that every student feels like they're a part of it so building that sense of belonging is the foundational piece that is restorative practice right there 80% of it only 20% is those restorative chats restorative conferences
095in response to something that's happened and how to um let let let the community you know the the person that was that was I don't want to say victim but the the person that did the behavior and the person that the behavior was done to they are sharing how that impacted them how that impacted their parents how that impacted staff members so that they see the big picture of how their actions affect not just them but their whole community and how do we build a community that is worth keeping whole in the end thank you that is my heart 's passion I really just wanted to hear you put beautiful language to it because I do feel like that is a pivotal piece in building Community restoring community and so I thank you for pushing
096me to just lean in because I really just wanted to hear you say that so thank you thank you I'm Miss Bush I little followup Miss Bush I have just one quick followup we do want our students in class we do want them back we do want them to be able to have the emotional language to have these discussions and that's a beautiful thing when they can have these discussions and I have heard um from various teachers about instances where conflict really dissolved and it's it's a beautiful thing but I just want to be very clear when we say we want them back there are specific behaviors in which we can't have them come back correct absolutely we we want them back when it is appropriate to have them back than it's not always appropriate
097to have them just for our public I want to make that clear and and sometimes you know sometimes they sometimes they need to be removed from the classroom sometimes they need to be removed from the school or sometimes short sometimes longer periods of time um unfortunate that that that's just the the the world we live in but you know in for for safety sake um sometimes they they do have to go um but that doesn't mean that we want to to banish them from you know emotionally banish them I mean many times students are already dealing with so much um yeah but but sometimes they have to sometimes they do have to be removed just thank you for that that bit of clarification yes thank you are we on to I believe the transfer funds
098update Mr miles thank you once again Madam president Dr Smith members of the board at this time uh I report back to you from an approval that you the board voted on and gave back in December and that is our semiannual transfer of funds between the education and operation funds and so you do have a summary um itemized um listing actually of those transfers uh between education and those fund transfers go in both directions um again in June 30th and December 31st um the net result is listed as well and for a total of 13.88% and just as a point of clarification the state requires us to uh maintain that U transfer not to exceed 15% so we are within that uh by quite a bit Bo do you have any questions about the transfer
099funds no we did go over this in our previous work session so if anybody listening wants to go back to our previous work session we go to more depth with that um um we'll go on Mr miles to the resolution to approve the transfer of funds to the sick day buyout thank you again uh Madame President Dr Smith members of the board um last year uh we the board approved a uh sick day buyout fund increase for um for our staff uh when they retire to be paid out at a rate of uh $100 per day of any accumulated sick days so last year at this time we funded $50 of that the this resolution would allow the board um in the district to fund the additional $50 per day based on the number of
100days that uh we currently have as a potential liability so that's what this uh resolution is for it would be about $3.1 million uh to fully fund that liability and fund it into our sick day buyout fund I just have one one quick question for you Mr miles um as it relates to the sick day buyout fund can you please for members of the public explain how we got there it's my understanding this is part of the negotiation with the Lea and this is this is an agreement we have an obligation with our absolutely um well well said and and uh so again through negotiation with the Lea uh any accumulated sick days that um an employee would have um we do pay those days out at the end of their uh again at a
101retirement point so for a teacher they're that is $100 per day and so this funding of this um this transfer allows us to have money set aside there as those those employees do retire that we can pay them out we don't have to dip into other funds our education fund and and other sources and it was a net increase at the time for the teachers we doubled it doubled it and and this was a significant benefit for our teachers absolutely and from what fund does this come that this good question this is coming out of the education fund thank you that's where we pay our teachers so the public will know thank you um any further questions on the sick day bout fund uh we will move to the financial update Mr miles at this
102time I present to you our November 30 uh 2023 uh finances both for our general fund and our transportation fund um we will report back um following tonight's action by the board um in February with our year end uh but this was a due to the timing of the board meeting in December that following earlier um as we have holiday uh later in the in the month we did not present the November financials at that time so now we present those uh both the general fund and the transportation fund um are in as expected or uh anticipated uh positions both from a total revenue and a total expenditure standpoint and um I welcome any questions I do have a question sure can you explain um please on our expenditures uh why we have uh increased
103the amount of because it looks like we were budgeted uh 6.7 million but to date we are at almost 9 million um and so could you explain a little bit of what is causing that substantial I'm sorry I want to make sure I'm looking at which line at the expenditures the supplies Transportation I'm sorry the Contra the contracted services oh contracted Services Under the general fund f so contracted Services yes yeah budget it was 6.7 and we are currently or this was in November at 8.9 good question so this year um we've entered into new contracts with uh our our partner uh rjb and so that is one of the factors that's really driving this up um at the time the budget was originally prepared that contract hadn't been settled those budget numbers hadn't been
104set so um it shifted money away from salaries as you can see the salary line items and the benefits are actually under uh the projected so it's kind of a trade-off use a lot of as you know public we use a lot of acronyms in education Roger for the public and Matt rjb is what I'm sorry yes great question rjb is the actual that that is the name of the vendor that we use uh for both custodial and actually our maintenance contract as well great question great question I had a question on the transportation fund um it's on it's on column number three um for the revenue can you expound upon what the where the other income comes from um I know the state support is obviously the majority bulk of our funds um the
105207,000 I believe Yes actually so our transportation fund is primarily funded by local tax dollars our local tax levies and so um the other number the the other income in there other miscellaneous fees that that you may pay through licenses excise um CET um and I don't know if I can tell you what CET means but it's CET it's one of the fees that uh the state allows us as a school district to u to obtain revenue from and so they're um they're a little more unpredictable um year to year thank you okay we we will at this time move on to our board committee chair reports um Miss Norman Foundation um there's a lot going on in the foundation um good stuff uh Miss Lawrence can tag team with me because I will likely
106miss something but the main highlights um we have a lot of exciting things going on um February 2nd I believe that's a Friday is night with the Stars at here at the LCC it's where a lot of our high school students will be um you know it's open to the elementary kids to come and do activities and food and enjoy a good night out and the parents can get have a night out as well um that can be you can apply for that through through the msdlt f.org website in addition to the two other events that I'm going to mention which is currently right now for the class of 2024 the scholarship applications are available through February 4th so make sure you apply again on that website and finally the celebration Gala is coming up
107I believe it's the Magic School Bus um come away on the Magic School Bus and uh that will be March 8th um at the end in a Roof Ballroom all proceeds will benefit LT students and again that sign up is on the foundation website I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to dress as Miss Frizzle for the for the gala but one one other thing that um that actually just happened yesterday so miss Norman and I have been um linked arm in- arm for the last several days we we had an offsite yesterday um and I will say for members of the public it was incredibly um rejuvenating in terms of um you know we have new leadership on the foundation um and we did discuss kind of our mission statement um our
108vision and our values and how we you how we will layer those up to the overall vision and values of the um of the district itself um I'm I'm really excited about the future of the foundation and um as somebody who has served um for seven and a half years at one point with you madam president um I'm in my very last term and I will say it's been um an incredibly rewarding experience um serving on the scholarship Committee in particular because those scholarships mean a lot to members of our community um they come largely through donations from members of the public from um from you know events like you know that that allow us to have um programming for our students and um and and these things are critically important for members of the
109public to be involved in and um and I know that our students benefit um significantly throughout not just um not just their time here but uh even even in their post-secondary work thank you for that for the both of you thank you for that wonderful report um Miss Pucket what is new in parks and reicks parks and wreck awesome stuff um actually there's some engaging events that will be um that I will bring to you hopefully by the next session concerning the eclipse coming up on April 8th as well as I will present more information concerning the Next Level Trail on Lee Road exciting this there and so that's a brief synopsis for you more to come yeah that's it Miss Dunn do we have any news we do thank you Dr harshberger for um
110providing me with an update of our policy committee uh we'll read what he has shared with me with the rest of you so the policy committee anticipates anola policy revision packet encompassing new and updated policy from the Indiana General Assembly short session by April as you all know we have been working on administrative guideline updates and revisions uh this is currently we are working on revision packet volume 34 number two and we anticipate that this should be ready for publishing by the end of the week thank you again for your continued commitment on keeping us all a breast of our policy work wonderful and then Miss Lawrence if you ever have an update for us I'll give a very brief one actually because is um there has been a significant legislation that's coming through um
111the state legislature um that the Indiana school board has taken stances on many of them I would just encourage members of the public to to be very diligent in um in looking at the legislation that is before um before the State House it has significant impact on our students and significant impact on the ability for us to to provide um opportunities uh and and uh and and be able to help them um and I I would say that this is really um kind of a a dual thing because the foundation largely funds a lot of some gaps that are part of that and so um when we have funding taken away from our students it has to either come through Foundation funds and or the the school district itself so it it has a significant
112impact I would encourage members of the public to to take that seriously and um do their research thank you very much fellow Bo board members and I will say to any public um here or or watching or listening that your board members serve not only um many hours per week um working on school policy Finance Etc but volunteer in our community um on on these specific committees and I thank you for your additional service Madam president may also remind the public that the board also meets regular with their local legislators and to remind you board your calendars you will be meeting with our six local legislators over the next couple weeks so I will see you there as we begin to talk about some of the issues as it relates to Lawrence Township so absolutely
113our work is never done nope because our kids needs Never End um okay we're on to our action items uh 4.1 approval of the resolution for the property acquisition uh Mr Smith Madame President Dr Smith members of the board I recommend the board approve the resolution for property acquisition as submitted so moved second properly moved and seconded is there any further discussion so I just want to go on record to state that I will not be voting this evening um as I have a conflict of interest uh my daughter uh was a student here in Lawrence Township and we made the decision to move her to the nature school because of the small um the small setting um the nature school has been absolutely terrific as an option for my child um I had two
114older children who have attended Lawrence and believe very much in Lawrence Township Schools but um it was not the choice for my old for my youngest child um therefore I will be um abstaining from voting however I would like to go on record to state that I am very disappointed that we are not giving the public the Ade amount of time to be able to weigh in on if this is how they would like to have their tax dollars spent um I have heard from the board um or have heard that the neighbors um are interested in this but we have not given them the proper I believe the proper time frame in which to come and express their interest if they would want Lawrence to have the property or if they would like to
115have the Nature School um I also think that there's opportunities um for us as a district to think about how we are not competing with others but playing together for the sake of our children to provide as many options as possible for students within Lawrence Township and so I just wanted to go on record to state that thank you are there any other questions or comments I do have one additional question um just for clarification we are not voting on transferring of funds tonight so members of the public could if they should wish come and speak to oppose the transfer of of those funds yes that's correct and when would that hearing take place should we approve this resolution tonight so the next resolution that you will vote on separate from this one is an
116approval um to advertise that public hearing which would take place on February 12th thank you thank you um properly moved and seconded um all those in in favor of the approval of the resolution for property acquisition i i i any opposed and and Miss Dunn is Rec recusing herself from that point okay we'll move on to the approval of request for the additional Appropriations here thank you madam president Dr Smith members of the board I I recommend uh for our discussion earlier uh that the board approved the request for additional appropriation hearing as submitted so moved second any discussion properly moved and seconded all those in favor I I I any opposed um we will move on now to the approval of the request for permission to RFP for the for the construction for phase
117two of LCC thank you Madame President Dr Smith members of the board I recommend the board approve the request permission for n RFP for CMC for Phase 2 at lecc as presented so moved second properly moved and seconded any discussion all those in favor I opposed um approval for um after care rates and this was discussed previously this meeting Dr Smith president must members of the board in December I presented um a proposal to increase after care rates tonight I'd like to ask for your approval as those are submitted so moved second properly moved and seconded if there's no discussion I I do have one point of clarification just for those that maybe weren't at that original meeting I know we discussed at that time the reduction in rates for staff could you just quickly
118explain that yes we have have a staff discount of $115 a week for after care for any staff that uses our after care service thank you all those in favor I I any opposed guys have't approval of resolution to transfer funds to a sick day buyout fund uh Mr miles thank you once again Madam president Dr Smith members of the board at this time I recommend the board approve the resolution of transfer of funds to the sick day buyout fund as submitted so moved second are there any questions all those in favor I I I any opposed all right Madame President I move we treat action items 4.6 through 4.11 as consent agenda we have a second to that second uh properly moved and seconded um all in favor of creating consent agenda i i
119i any oppos um and for the public that consent agenda includes our board minutes approval of personnel reports and approval of claims approvals of service agreements approval of pay ups and building project payments uh and approval of field trips um Madam president I move approval of the consent agenda second uh all those in favor of passing the consent agenda I I any opposed um that will conclude the business portion of our meeting um I invite you to board to um make your board comments what board comments would you like to state today if any have n long night I'll just make mine really brief like the principles and their bullet points on Sunday night but um sorry I sto your idea but um my first one is just more of just um thankfulness um specifically
120in this season thank you to the operations team and transportation because I know the yucky weather is coming and you're going to do what you can to make sure our kids get to school and back safe so thank you for that um I'm thankful for our foundation um as Miss Lawrence mentioned one of the cool things about being on both boards uh is that you can see the intersectionality of the goals for our community uh especially around Equity uh we had a board member mentioned that she remembered a time where students had to stay back and Miss field trips because they didn't have money for field trips there were schools that did not have access to Vex Robotics and other options and to see that as a parent to see that as um a dual
121board member it's really powerful how we're coming alongside each other to support our students and staff so um I just wanted to say thank you and then my final uh point for the evening I know it's been long um is um it's board member appreciation month and so I didn't know there was a month for that but I wanted to say thank you to my fellow board members um you know we've all been through the fire together um it's a unique position and um we're all just grateful to serve I I'm thankful for the those who've come before us those who might come after us um and also thankful personally to um the examples I had my mother um who was a school administrator became a board member after she retired and now currently my
122biological mother um is serving on the Board of Trustees at her um chipa Community College so I I guess it runs in the blood but um I just um I see everyone and I appreciate all the board members in in the US so thank you um I would like to say thank you for members of the public for being here with us this evening to listen to our conversation um and to get a better feel for our discussions what are thoughts and and how we manage our meetings um and encourage you to stay in touch with us um Dr Smith oh I did want to say one thing Dr Dominique Smith who who trains our teachers as in Reading skill in teaching reading um does not just come to our district and train reading he
123he really dives into the culture of our district and I got a chance to speak with him at a recent basketball meeting uh basketball game last week so Madam president you forgot this into the de what we didn't get a chance to comment oh you did I saw you go forward listen uh I did look at my weather app it hasn't started sleeing yet so I just want everybody to know that I have your safety in mind as I as I was thinking about although I promise not to belabor it because it's hot up here in this mask one thing that I did want to call out Dr Smith you and I were um were discussing earlier well maybe it was late last week the installation of metal detectors in both our middle and high
124schools which will be going in um soon or very soon yeah I'm sure you can give me the timeline in a moment um I I just want to say that safety is the thing that I think probably everyone on this day is takes most seriously and um um not only do we have an obligation to create the facilities which we have um and the environment uh around safety but we also have an an ability as a district to help lead our students it was uh very uh you know I think we're dealing with the effects of covid in a lot of different ways you heard it tonight with the attendance rates you heard it in the disconnection we have as a community and I I would just say that this keeping our children safe keeping
125our students safe keeping members of the public safe that is a a a collaboration and a conversation that happens within our community and we can do everything we can to create the right environment but until we as a community feel the connection for one another and the ability to hold one another up um in in uh and and hold one another accountable um for the safety and the uh morality of our of our district um we we will continue to fall short of what our goals are and so I would I just want to thank members of the public who have been deeply invested in kind of understanding this and um I would just encourage everyone to continue to lean in to these conversations because I think we all share the same ultimate goal and
126how we get there is by working together and connecting with one another and I would like well taken important remarks and I would like to add to that that the district Works hand inand with the Maran County Health Department with the mayor's office from Indianapolis the mayor's office in the town of Lawrence and um with our state legislators working tirelessly to improve the environment for our children and to create to create um legislation that can can really really help us address these issues Miss done um Dr Smith very short 4:30 it'll be here before you know it Roger Smith so all know our secret 4:30 a.m. we will we'll have a great decision for you uh as our team will look at the roads very carefully and uh I'll let you know parents out there
127what what what we're going to do tomorrow morning but we're on top of it so uh it's going to be a short night tonight Roger Smith but we're going to check the roads aren't we y all right we'll make good decisions that's all I have Madam president and board thank you thank you it's been a long evening if I would entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second we are adjourned I have a few more signatures here Mar good gracious that was a long one I and I haven't finished