001uh hopefully to expand the Trailways within our community any questions board as Madame President would know that is a very large neighborhood that likely has many of our students do we have an estimate for Kensington Farms how um how many students may be impacted and may be able to Avail themselves of those trails in order to get to school no I mean we have wondered I wondered if it's a it's a good alternative for yeah actually they come through the east side I know they the back actually a sidewalk coming onto our property which is used quite a bit I watch them every morning they come through the it's a shortcut y secret passageway as we like to call it in our family yeah and I think uh our our middle schoolers can get permission
002now to ride their bicycles or if they special permission y okay I have a question um let's yeah well so then the city will also maintain maintenance of the eement property correct to make sure that becomes their property and ownership of that TR I wanted to make sure the public was aware of that thank you okay good um in our action items we'll have a request for approval of an RFP for mechanical electrical and plumbing for the new LCC can you give us information on that Mr SM president members board Dr Smith uh yes we've been working on the the new Lawrence educational or education Community uh Center uh we have decided to break two packages out uh since Co the mechanical means of a building has taken a little bit longer lead time so
003uh we're going to be uh looking at and I'm going to have anamarie brell principal Schmidt to give you a brief overview of uh of package number one uh we're going to be bringing back to you package number two which will be the oversight uh of the entire building both inside outside site layout and that'll be our second package that will go out in December to bring back to you in January so at this time I'd like to turn it over to enie for that presentation um micophone excuse me could you speak really directly into the microphone it's it's it needs it's pretty sensitive to being held close to the so we per sounds much better sorry about that uh so uh we are looking at early package for the equipment and that would be
004a mechanical package and an electrical package uh the mechanical package would include air handling equipment and chillers uh these are items that have a really long lead time such as it could be up to 45 weeks so it's important that we get those into the schedule uh the electrical equipment package we're looking at items such as the main switchboards distribution panels Transformers Transformer switches and and Generator again same type of lead item lead times up to even 64 uh weeks and so again very important that we get those out um on the street get some numbers on those and December 1st would be our bid opening and then as Roger said uh you see a plan here uh this is the plan of the administration building we will be coming back to you uh with
005a very detailed uh presentation of the overall plan and elevations and site plans at the December 13th meeting uh we wanted to give you though a little bit of a glimpse inside the building these because we draw everything in 3D as we're drawing the plan right we can start to take some snap snapshots of what it's looking like and here was a snapshot of the main reception as you would walk in from the visitor parking and here is as you would be walking in the other side of the building from a the plaza area at the Fort looking back towards in the Commons area and then lastly the last uh rendering is a snapshot if you had no furniture in the boardroom right and you were looking back from the desk that you're sitting at
006uh the what that scale is starting to be for the uh actual boardroom and um professional development room great or do you have questions I do okay um I just would like you to share with us um Mr Smith and Schmidt um share with us um what we are doing in order to keep this building as environmentally friendly as we can I'll start and let Anna Marie jump in there as well um we try to do best practices uh in all of our projects and part of that is uh um the electrical the lighting the environmental control uh CO2 sensors throughout so the inside is very efficient in the maintenance and operation of and even moving to the outside with the landscape uh the storm water drainage uh how we do that uh so we're
007trying to make sure that we put in best practices and part of that is some of you may know or have heard of lead certification our building would do that would stack up against the lead design without all the extra costs that go along with that so we are very confident that uh we're building a a strong Sustainable Building both uh environmentally and also efficiency within maintenance and operations of the building yes and actually also along with me here tonight is Craig flaner he is our lead Advocate at Schmid Associates and he is also on the design team for this this building and so we always start like Roger said with that first in mind um every decision we make we are looking at we have checklists um in order to make sure that that
008design is doing things like looking at the native plannings looking at the orientation of the building where uh the windows are uh where we have the most glazing where we are looking at shading those areas and making sure that every decision that is made on your behalf is looking in at making it the most efficient sustainable um building that we can for you and so though we might not have an actual lead certification we meet most of that criteria we always design so that we are looking at doing that as much as we can for you yes thank you thank you for that okay there are no more questions we will move on for um Mr miles um the information on the Geo bonds thank you Madame President Dr Smith members of the board uh
009tonight we uh bring the next step in our 20123 to 2026 facilities transformation long-term facilities Improvement and buses and Equipment AC acquisition project uh you may recall back in September board you uh approved authorization through the 1028 process uh for this Bond project and this is the next step in in that process tonight where uh later in the evening we will bring forward uh a recommendation to approve a resolution regarding this uh proposed First Amendment to the lease improving the issuance of the bonds uh this slide just again you've seen this before a couple of times now uh but it highlights what we've planed to spend the bond money on or a 90 M Million worth of projects over the next several years the next slide outlines our the next steps in the uh issuance
010of these Geo bonds that we're getting ready to uh to sell actually tomorrow so pending uh approval tonight that will be the next step and this kind of goes through the next 30 days uh the the legal and and U uh Bond needed steps including a closing of those Bonds in December and then the next slide uh just highlights uh in January we will have an opportunity for public comment which is again the next step in the process um again towards those those bond that bond issue thank you questions for Mr miles board question just for public knowledge could you give like a brief lay in terms of what a what a um Geo bond is absolutely so a Geo bond is a it's a general obligation bond which gives uh the board and the
011district Authority to to spend uh those those tax doll those borrowed dollars that we would sell through a bond issue for a variety of projects um we will be using our bond proceeds for uh things such as school bus purchases um equipment purchases things that we would Finance over a long term um you may recall uh the and for the public to note that our um textbook rental fees for parents went away this year so we also o using our Geo bonds uh to supplement those lost revenues that we we now have thank you sir all right good question um let's move on U Mr notor uh an update on our curriculum advisory um Team thank you madam president members of the board and Dr Smith twice each year we bring to you recommendations for
012high school course offerings that come from our curri advisory Council and Mr harer a director of secondary education leads that team and he will report on the council's recommendations for this semester good evening Madame President Dr Smith and members of the board uh as Mr Notre just mentioned this is a um process that we do both in the fall and the spring uh we bring representatives from our buildings together and they have an opportunity to recommend new courses and also to recommend um credit or weight of courses through this process um you can see that uh advisory team is made up of District administrators building administrators counselors teachers um from across the board and you can see on the next two slides all of those Folks by name and I appreciate greatly uh their engagement
013in this process on the next slide you will see um just a as a reminder all of the courses that we discussed through this process are approved by the state so we do have limitations in which courses we can um offer as determined by the state of Indiana um in our efforts to continue to develop our Pathways we also want to make sure that anything we're adding um is supporting the work in our Pathways and then just as a a reminder anything that would be recommended through this process um the idea would be that we could start offering that course as soon as next fall um just a short history slide here um the the implementation of our next level programs of study really started back in 2122 we um got approved all of our
014first round of principles courses phase two was 2223 where we added a few more principles courses and then the concentrator courses and now as you can see in 2324 we are still recommending a few more concentrators that we're ready for and also a few of our Capstone courses I'm just as a quick reminder principal courses are really those intro courses they used to be called very fundamental foundational level of the content area in our Pathways and then as students advance to the next levels we have concentrator A and B that get a little bit more advanced in those um specific uh Pathways so um two recommendations both concentrator a courses one is interior design and fundamentals and the second textiles apparel and Merchandising um we have students in those principles courses who will now be
015ready for the um concentrator a next year and then our Capstone courses really are um that last course in the pathway that's where we really want to give those unique intentional experiences for our students we house some of those Capstone courses here in our district such as Bernie's place in studio 75 um we also partner with some local communities where our students go out um and then of course we also have some hybrid setups where part of the work takes place in the classroom and part of it would take place um with a local community partner um so we do have a recommendation for three of our capstones that we're ready for again these Pathways have been in place but we now have students that have matriculated through and are ready for those Capstone experiences
016one is criminal justice education Prof professions Capstone and then that workbase learning Capstone is really something new from the state um we've got we've had work-based learning for a while but now they really want us to um specify which students are in those programs so that is actually a Capstone that can be applied really to any of our other capstones as well this is a uh recommendation for a new pathway this was brought uh to the curriculum advisory Council um and it is for Health Sciences and as you can see there on the slide this is a pathway that would lead to careers in physiology sports medicine physical therapy physical training and even um the beginnings of a pathway toward being a health or Wellness educator um according to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development
017this pathway is um in in high demand and that is also one of the things that we look at we want to make sure that we are um providing our students Pathways that lead to high wage and high demand jobs which you can see um is the case here our councils have already started to Garner some student interest in this pathway which they shared um and at least right now for the first course which would be our principal's course we do have Staffing that are um certified to teach those courses I don't have it on the slide but I also want to let you know we also have verified that this course does have different CER certifications that students can earn throughout this pathway and there also our dual credit opportunities so that makes it
018um even more appealing for us the last uh recommendation that came from the council was um a recommendation to add a high school credit to our immersion Spanish language arts um the rationale there from our middle schools were that we currently are offering Spanish one as a high school credit we are also offering our heritage class as a high School Credit um and and as of right now we are not offering the Spanish language arts class immersion class for a credit um the middle schools felt strongly that that course at least equals if not surpasses the level of rigor that we're offering in the other two and that it should be um offered for a credit we also don't want to see students not take um the immersion course because um they're not going to
019get a credit so they felt strongly that we needed to add a high school credit to that course as well and I'd be happy to entertain any questions yeah I have a couple questions thank you Mr Harsha uh just again for my understanding the Health Sciences pathway will offer dual college credit is that correct that is correct we would be exploring um partners with we have Partnerships with a few different universities um but in the um outlines many of the courses qualify for dual credit and we've already identified a few of our partnering universities that offer dual Credit in that pathway and it's not just the Capstone course there are even some of the concentrator courses where students could earn dual credit I think that's very um powerful and fantastic because as we all know
020the cost of college has gone up and anytime that you can um complete some courses during high school and earn towards your um and be ready to work even sooner is valuable so thank you for that and then my second question was regarding the concentrator courses I believe um so like interior design and those types of courses so if a student finds they have a talent or an interest in one of those areas then does it segue on well into a um college level program um I guess um say they do interior design and then they decide they want to go to um iupy um later on that won't offer dual credits but it will help segue or prepare them for the postsecondary is that correct that is correct in many cases it would just
021be um a very intentional um great experience for that student to determine yes this is what I want to do and in some cases our our students also find out that this is not what I want um to do which also sometimes can be equally as valuable when to your point it's so expensive to find that out when you're a year and a half into college that maybe that isn't what you're interested in but yes yes the the idea is that students get on that very um specific pathway they get those great experiences which sets them up for success and they're going to be um if there are dual credit opportunities they're already ahead of the game when they get to college in that major or that pathway if they decide to go in a
022career they can put those courses and those experiences on a resume and again that's our goal is that students have those options when they graduate here in Lawrence stship thank you for that I do have a question and it's just the the times that we're in are any of the uh courses classified as CRT courses can you expound also for State measures um I know that they aren't but just to just to put it out there that because I've had this asked um previously or can you just clarify that none of these are CRT courses yes none of the recommendations we're bringing forward here tonight are uh considered CRT thank you and just one more point to that Mrs Pucket that each of the courses that we're bringing are from an approved list from the
023state of Indiana thank you that's what I was wanting you to add thank you for that and these are again questions that I've had asked previously so just to clarify that and again thank you for adding the the piece from the state that these are coming from the state yes yes I truly appreciate the work of this committee and the work of our Educators and determining um with our students what what they need the most um as parents of um immersion graduates I'm so glad to see those immersion courses I remember um uh World lit was was a weighted grade but if you took World lit in a foreign language it wasn't and I I remember those times thinking this doesn't make sense so thank you for being you for applying common sense to these
024to these issues and um one Rabbit Hole question if you will um and I don't want to go far down the rabbit hole um a students in e8th grade they make a decision with their counselor their pathway they're on their pathway they decide after 10th grade after they've taken maybe their first concentrator this is not the pathway for them they want to switch courses on that pathway we know they need a pathway to graduate how does that work so that is a great question and we continue to build every year we're um expanding our offerings um we're increasing sections of a lot of our Pathways so there are opportunities for students to do that as needed of course our goal is that um in an Ideal World we would get everybody on the perfect pathway
025right away right but we know that doesn't happen many of those concentrator courses um some of them are offered let's just say you would take concentrator a your sophomore year concentrator B your junior year but many of them also can be offered concurrently so you actually could get a concentrator a and a concentrator B done in the the same school year and then we're also exploring um some other options out there for students that get in some of those jams where we've um have an opportunity to offer some of those courses that are allowed by the state um virtually we have a lot of students that come in in the summer and can make up lab hours and things that they might have missed so we are working to be um as flexible as possible
026so that we can help those students get the requirements that they need is there room in the schedule do we encourage some some kiddos it might be obvious right from the start that they really don't know what direction they want can they take their principal a couple of principal courses in different areas is there room in the schedule to do that uh I would say in some of our Pathways there would be room for that our goal right now really is to offer as many of the principal's courses as we can at our middle schools and we've increased our offerings there um this year because we really do want to give the students an opportunity to be exploratory and to figure out even before they get to n9th grade what they might might be interested
027in what they might not um but again we we will have some that will um will take one as a nth grader and realize as a 10th grader this isn't going to work for me and we do have the ability for them to to move as needed great thank you thank you for that yes thank you so much for this information I also want to just give you mad gratitude for having such a robust advisory committee and I love seeing that um you've even included the assistant director of Lang programs I think it's so important to think about all of our students that we're serving I um the one question I did have pertaining to the high school credit uh for the world Lang or the world language for the immersion will they get one
028high school credit for seventh and eighth grade combined and what credit are they receiving so this is a World Language credit that they would earn they could earn that credit in the seventh grade and then earn an additional credit in the eth grade so they would be able to earn two credits that is correct and for traditional Spanish and Heritage is it one credit or is it two credits that they earn over the course of those two years it would be the same so it would be um it would be the same as a student who took Spanish one as a sth grader and then Spanish two as an eighth grader okay so it's not Spanish one that's divided in seventh grade part of this semester in eighth grade the other part okay nope thank
029you very much for that clarification also one other question and I was been trying to figure out over the last several days after I saw this in board docs um earlier this weekend about our students who are coming to us um that are uh speakers of another language predominantly not English what type of thought has been given into how to support those students in these type of courses especially when I think of something like a Health Sciences pathway so one of the things um that we have uh kept in the Forefront is making sure that these courses and these Pathways that we have are um are open access to all of our students that want to be in there and we are committed in terms of Staffing in terms of professional development to supporting those
030teachers to support all students uh regardless of what their first language is thank you I know sometimes we have folks that are in CTE courses that aren't traditionally trained teachers so that's wonderful to know thank you very much thank you great questions for all right so following that so now we will move on um to um Mr gag line uh RFP and internet services good evening president must members of the board Dr Smith we actually have four projects that we want to present to you this evening um they all fall under EAP funding and if you're not familiar with EAP funding that is a federal program that allows School corporations to build out their Network and then maintain the equipment and um it's broken down into two categories category one which will allow us to
031do the project and get fully reimbursed at 100% those are projects that bring the internet into the building and then category two and based on where we are we located our demographics we can get 90% of those projects done and that's primarily once you get the equipment or get the internet in it's the equipment you need to get it to the students so um as I said we have four projects the first one that I'm going to present is internet service and that is uh simply connecting our main data center at McKenzie to the data center down at East the old Eastgate Mall um like we have as as consumers we have many choices there are many ways to get from McKenzie down to to Eastgate via uh fiber networks and we want to see
032which vendor can give us the best deal possible so that is that particular item are there any questions was there an outage at the Eastgate Mall location a couple years ago I'm not familiar but that's it contains some pretty um sensitive information is coming through there government level and such that I can't imagine that they would allow that to happen Okay because they've got huge generators sitting outside by the okay any other questions board thank you so we got to go to the next right I don't know you want to go through the dance or yeah no so let's let's let's let's keep talking yeah so the second one we're going to present is fiber to the new lecc on the fort and that's simply connecting that building to the internet in the smartest way
033possible and that will enhance our Network and that is um one that we could get fully funded for because that's coming into the building yep then the next one is Network switches and switches are it's part of the equipment that once you get the internet to the building it then distributes it throughout the building and so that is a category 2 and would qualifi for up to 90% And then finally we have the self-provision fiber versus lease services and I neglected to put on we which primarily we're working on Sky's test but I've neglected to add that sunnyside's in a similar situation uh Sunnyside if you think about it uh their intern interet traffic um well for all of our schools except for Sunnyside are running on a pipe about this big sunnyside's running on
034a garden hose uh it's the oldest fiber we have uh it's one gig compared to 10 gigs and it's running straight from this building over and it's causing some issues for uh teachers and staff so we want to get that addressed and that again would be a category one the other um that we're working on with is Sky's test Sky's test is kind of hanging out there uh you ideally want more than one pathway for the internet to come into a building in case one gets cut you can bring the internet in another way and Sky's test is hanging out there and we want to determine what's the smartest and most coste efficient way to connect it to one of our other buildings so we've given the vendors several options and because all of this
035this there is an e- rate funding year we want to get these rfps out we'll be coming back at the end of the month for permission to uh put these out for bid but we wanted to get this in front of you so you know what we were doing any questions can you expound on the eate funding year it is so we have to start now the whole process so that we can um get the bids in so that we can access the money in June so it kind of runs on a almost an 18mth cycle thank you sir okay any questions about that okay great let's could we uh did we discuss the um network switch switches already yeah that was the first one that was out of order wasn't it that's category one
036it's going into the building never mind okay um we got all these done all this done all this done um board that brings us to our action items um action item number one um Miss Johnson uh the approval of the collective bargaining agreement good evening Madame President Dr Smith and members of the board on Monday November 6th at our public meeting um we presented the collective bargaining agreement and tonight we are asking for approval of the collective bargaining agreement do so moved second properly moved and seconded is there any discussion all those in favor I I I any opposed this is a great moment we've passed the the colle collective bargaining agreement thank you to the entire team administrators teachers and I I see some of our Union Representatives here tonight thank you for your
037hard work and your long hours and um really proud of what we've done together thank you um and we will move on then to the administrative salaries Madam president Dr Smith and members of the board we are bringing to you the ad administrative raises classified salary raises that were brought to you at the public meeting on November the 6th some moved second so we've uh it's been properly moved and seconded that we pass the administrative salaries brought to us um earlier um board any discussion I do have a couple of points to make um while I am thrilled to vote Yes this evening on uh both our teachers salaries and our classified staff salaries I will be voting no um on the administrative salary increase um the reason why uh and I I felt it
038important for me to describe this has nothing to do with how grateful I am and how um how hard I know our administrative staff works on a regular basis to keep this District moving forward but as a new board member I did my due diligence and looked into salaries across the board in every one of our donnut districts as well as bordering districts and was surprised to learn that for our top 25 earners Lawrence Township uh pays approximately 24% more for our our administrative salaries than uh all the other districts around us which um all the rest of the districts have a fairly common salary um so we were a bit outsized there and I also looked at the top 50% of earners and realized um that Lawrence Township actually pays 25% more than most
039of the bordering districts that also have a fairly common and um and similar salaries and so it's for that reason that I will be voting no this evening on this item um I would like to say um that this has nothing to do with um my feelings or how I how much I appreciate apprciate this the work of this administrative staff it's hard to sit up here and say this in front of all of you um but I I want you to know that this was um a decision that I made in a very deliberative way and one that um that I felt uh if I were to approve would continue to widen the gap between our administrative staff our teachers and our classified staff Marta thank you very much as you know you and
040I have spoke at length and I've spoken with the rest of um the board as well and let them know that I too um am voting no for the reasons that Marta um has echoed I believe that we have some of the most talented administrators in this city in the state um however as Marta said we have to be very very cognizant of the message that we are sending to our stakeholders and most importantly I think in this time to our classified staff we still have classified staff despite the best efforts um we still have classified staff that aren't eligible for health insurance that are barely making a living wage and it sends a message to them um that when we continue to widen the gap between our classified folks and our highest paid class
041certified administrators it does send a message and for a district that is grounded in equity I believe it is our due diligence to really invest investigate our salaries that we are paying our certified administrators and do a deep dive in analysis so that we are competitive but they that we are not overinflating salaries at the price potentially of making sure that our classified folks are getting um compensated in a way that I believe as a leader in public education in Indiana that Lawrence Township can do and must do to make sure that those individuals get the best salary that they Poss Poss L can further comments from the board um I will say that um I feel so blessed to work in this district with administrators the caliber that we have in Lawrence Township which
042are 100% better than in any other District in my personal opinion and worth more than we could possibly pay you um so on that let's um all those in favor of approving the administrative salaries i i i those opposed nay we have the administrators have their salary incre increase we'll move on to classified salaries um um and I think that I think that you brought that up already but we'll have a separate motion for classified salary approval Madam president Dr Smith and members of the board we are bringing to you approval of the classified salary raises so moved second properly moved and seconded any discussion all those in favor i i i i opposed I have it um Mr Smith the approval of the RFP for mechanical electrical Etc Madame President members of board Dr
043Smith I recommend the board approve the request to bid the mechanical electrical Plumbing for the new lecc as submitted so moved second properly moved and seconded um all any discussion all those in favor I I any opposed the eyes have it and again uh Mr miles the approval of the goo bonds thank you Madame President Dr Smith members of the board at this time I recommend the board approve the 2023 General obligation bonds as submitted so moved second properly moved in second and any discussion on those bonds all in favor I I any oos osed the eyes have it now we move on to the approval of our Personnel report Miss Johnson Madame President Dr Smith and members of the board we bring approval requests for our Personnel reports so moved second properly moved and
044seconded um all those if there's no discussion all those in favor I I opposed the eyes have it um we are uh to our Personnel report we just approve that oh that was Personnel oh I'm sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry I'm a little discombobulated um so that brings us to our administrator board comments would you have a comment Miss bucket no sometimes silence is just a good thing so I'm going to stand in silence Norman um I just wanted to thank everybody involved from all the Committees um involved in putting all this together all the way up through the board I know it's been a a lot of hours um put in across the board and I just want to say thank you to everybody um and also um it was on my heart to
045about Veterans Day um if we have any veterans in the room can you please stand we we just really thank you I just want to thank you for your service yeah thank you all for your service and that's all I have Laurence none for me thank you it's done um the only thing I would add right now is huge kudos to that marching pride of Lawrence Township who are ranked in the top band of the United States um Well Done Band uh well done great season beautiful show well done um and one other thing that has to do with colors as well um I have recently been brought into an an an Indian family with my in-laws and I would like to say because I know we do have students in the district I would
046like to say happy dwali which was this weekend um and that will conclude my remarks Dr Smith no I I Echo with you madam president I did have an opportunity to see the marching Pride Saturday morning they were great on that National stage it's always beautiful to go down to that facility but it's even greater when I realize that our band was in the top 20 in the nation so that that does say a lot and we'll be back next year Grant neth is winter time we move indoors for sports so be ready board we'll have a lot of little birdie told me we've got some very good basketball teams this year so we'll go inside and watch them so that's all I have to report today board well thank you if if that being
047the end of our um board comments and superintendent comment if I have a motion to adjourn so moved is there second second moved and seconded we are adjourned next meeting