001foreign president Dr Smith and members of the board this evening we are pleased to bring you David Bruce Nelson above and beyond award he is our robotics and design teacher at Indian Creek Elementary Mr Nelson began teaching Vex robotics in 2016 at Indian Creek Elementary in 2018 he approached his principal with a plan to expand Equitable access to the program to all 11 Elementary buildings the plan was approved and the district League was then born in 2019 with every school having at least three teams three robots and two Playing Fields now we see over 200 elementary students each year participate in the program with teams qualifying for our state and worlds this is Mr Nelson's last year as lead manager and we want to honor him for his vision and contributions I'm honored to present
002Mr David Bruce Nelson with the above and beyond award thank you [Applause] thank you and everybody is this weekend congratulations [Applause] and Mr Nelson has someone here with him Mrs Nelson [Applause] no thank you Madam president members aboard Dr Smith we continue a lot of construction going on the west side we're almost done with the concrete out there and hopefully next week a new asphalt again on the west side it's a new senior Cafe going in from the inside looking out New Media Center continues to form and all the drywall is almost up Ln as the weather breaks we are moving some dirt out there getting ready to put in some retainage walls and bring up the fill and eventually all those valleys will be filled in uh LC pool a lot of the metal
003work is up and getting ready to put up some more concrete walls phase two continues on at Lawrence North Sixth classroom and small LGI area demo and also reconstruction taking place already LM pool entrance almost fully enclosed and we are doing some hydronic testing right now it's full of water that's letting us set and they'll drain it again this week and start the tile work knowing that we don't have any leaks and also the concrete around the outside just more of the equipment that was tested outside site work around the pool continues on to allow us to this summer to really do a lot of site work for the parking lot areas we continue with our middle school projects uh again tonight uh with another bid coming in for Fall Creek Valley uh just a
004reminder those projects delzer and Fall Creek Valley in lecc this building will start construction come June so first of all Mr Smith just amazing work as always it is so exciting to see the progress that is being made I have a quick question about Elsie as I Traverse on 56th Street every morning to my job at Broad Ripple and I'm seeing a lot and I've talked to superintendent Smith about this a lot of children that are not adhering to the drop off and pickup what is being done I heard you say that you're doing a lot of site work with regards to the exterior can you explain a little bit how that parent pick up and drop off is going to look like actually on the Southeast side that parking lot will grow so we'll
005be able to get a lot more parent drop-off inside there once it pulls up and the walls are up we can open up that front drive and full parking so that'll eliminate some of the congestion there as well we continue to work with our parents and our students about the proper drop off and pick up and we'll continue to do that and Lawrence Police is also helping us out as well Madam president members board Dr Smith at the February 6 Workshop the board approved the use of CMC is a construction method for the new lecc project with that approval rfps were sent to companies wishing to bid and others and on March the 10th we introdu interviewed five excellent contractors who had the potential of working with us on this project we are excited to
006bring to the board tonight approval for core and Garcia to be the CMC for the Lawrence education and Community Center Cora and Garcia has demonstrated a high performance of services to this District if you remember on Forest Glen Elementary and oaklandon Elementary so we're excited to bring to you core and Garcia CMC and we do have a couple of core and Garcia present here tonight Charlie Garcia if you would please stand guys uh van baren and uh Bryce Johnson with the core group also Lisa Gumpert uh this completes our team with Schmidt uh core and Garcia working on the new lecc building thank you for being if there are no questions Mr Smith we'll move on to the request for approval um of construction bids for Fall Creek Valley that item anyway Madam president members
007board Dr Smith again we did another bid opening this time it was for all Creek Valley uh recalling we had 10 different bid areas with 23 separate bidders that were submitted their bids for the project again very competitive again we were approximately a million dollars under our estimations of what we thought we would come in and we are pleased to announce tonight that uh approving a GMP with powers and Sons on this project for just a little over 33 million dollars good work any questions board uh I'd also like to introduce of course Dennis Bain with uh Fanny and Halle who's part of that team and uh Dustin or yeah Dustin Thurman and mayman Powers uh putting this work together for us to renovate Fall Creek Valley yes sorry I had a question about the
008previous item fine is that okay that's fine so the I just I guess I'm I'm new so I apologize but I had to ask Marta because I was and then thank you for the confirmation this is for this current building for the lecc correct and do we know specifically what we are going to be utilizing this building for this is for the the new lecc right so the new lecc that's scheduled to be built at Fort Harrison correct that's what this is that's what this one is that's what this is okay not what is okay what happened at this building it's coming up okay perfect okay I just want to make sure that presentation okay that's okay it's kind of a timing issue you have to have this one built so you can move out
009so you can yes no I completely understand I thought it was what was happening to this building and that's why and we haven't talked about that so that would be weird yeah okay thank you no we're good thank you you're not what happens when you get elected mid-year of a school year so thank you very much good point that would be weird Okay um oh and I'm very excited about this too um Miss Stephanie Laplante could you give us an update on the high ability program yes I'd be happy to thank you madam president Dr Smith members of the board tonight I'm happy to bring to you the work of our highability Review Committee before I begin I would like to recognize some members in our audience of our committee that joined us if you
010don't mind if you were part of the high ability Review Committee would you please stand up thank you very much I wanted to thank them for all of the time that they put in for this process um I want to start tonight as we did with every High ability Review Committee with our board policy and with our definition of educational Equity as these two pieces really provided the vision for what we were doing with the work just to give you a review of the process we had over 100 participants that were invited to attend our attendance for each evening was around 40 to 50 people we did have five meetings that met throughout the school year we conducted a review of national and State research and we're fortunate to have 11 of our members be
011able to attend the National Association for gifted children conference which was held in Indianapolis based on the research from the National Association for gifted children we split our group into four subcommittees culturally sensitive identification protocols early and continuous access to Advanced curriculum essential supports for culturally and linguistically diverse gifted students an effective Home and Community School connections this process led us to four recommendations that I'm going to share with you this evening recommendation number one is to revise the identification process to add more data points and consider both High ability and high achieving characteristics for culturally and linguistically diverse students recommendation number two is to increase options for our families by allowing not only for the choice of a self-contained High ability program but also the ability to have enriched curriculum at a student's home
012school for families recommendation number three is to identify consistent curriculum to support Advanced learning for all high ability and high achieving students at every school and recommendation four is to build communication tools to allow for district-wide messaging about highability and high achieving supports for students and to ensure that this is available in the preferred language for All Families I'd be happy to take any questions um well I'm seeing the word revised so I'm going to presume that it's in process first let me just say thank you this is something near and dear to my heart so thank you for the work I sincerely appreciate it as do all of our students um I'm seeing the wording revised so this question may be a little bit presumptuous but is it possible to lean in a little
013more concerning recommendation one um what what is being added to what's currently there so our current process we do have a high ability measure with the cogap testing and we have a high achievement measure with our district fast bridge data but the the team really felt that we've got to look at some other additional characteristics so we did talk about different checklists that will be a part of the process next year where the team will really sit down a smaller team to look at what we could add to the identification process specifically with keeping in mind culturally and linguistically diverse students because those students don't always do as well on the cogat as some of our other students do and I want to ask also um because just from some of the things that I
014observe and I don't even tell you how many years I've been parenting and helping the classroom Lord Jesus um but in the classroom I'll just summarize it with this has it been leaned in concerning behaviors and and that being markers for high ability um and how sometimes the focus can be so much on the behavior that the student may lose out on being actually challenged with it which is linked to the actual Behavior we did discuss that and specifically with this recommendation making sure that we will be considering items that could not be biased in any way because sometimes if you're doing a checklist that can be biased and so how do we make sure that we have enough data points that gives that well-rounded picture and and okay um my other question would be
015um similar to our ESL Learners um I'll wait on that I'm sorry let me pause on that I'll come back to that one okay thank you I actually have a question about that very that very thing um so first of all Mr Plant this is so exciting I um lead High ability work in District where I work and I just would like to make a suggestion that one of the things that we looked at was access testing data especially for our English Learners who might be progressing along the language language acquisition Continuum faster and more rapidly than some of their native English-speaking peers so I'd be happy to share that absolutely found great success in actually being able to identify far more English Learners as high ability wonderful because to your point there's a lot
016of subjectivity with checklist as well as biases that exist yes and then the other question that I have in terms of I love the idea of having more Equitable programming across the district and folks being able to opt in at their home school are you thinking cluster grouping or have you gotten down that road of what might look like we haven't gotten that specific yet the the goal would be if all of this is approved that for next school year um when we get to the beginning of March that is when we send out our letters to all of our families that in those letters we would be able to not only offer the opportunity to attend one of our self-contained programs but also let families know that they have the option to stay at
017their schools and be able to outline what those Services would be for them and then one final question of the high ability teachers I know one of the things that we face is a lack of having the appropriate credentials so would it be required for those cluster groups or however you choose to do it at the school level to be actually have that certification and liability one thing we talked about as a committee was actually doing more overall High ability training for all teachers so that if we are going to expand and as we look at expanding the identification process ensuring that all teachers have an understanding of what high ability characteristics could look like so that to Ms Puckett's Point sometimes those behaviors you see actually are a sign that a child is high
018ability please ask Miss Laplante was there any consideration given to changing the name from high ability to something else because as a parent of two high ability kids it's very awkward to say that my child is high ability we didn't actually discuss the specific name we did talk about branching out to have it just not be only High ability but to also be high achieving and that's the name we give for the lower grade levels that changes yes yes she will know and and I also have a question we're talking about a common curriculum for our high ability students how many languages do we get that common curriculum in because as you know we have our one-way immersion classes absolutely we always with any new curriculum that we look at look at the accessibility to
019be able to have it in Spanish but with this what we would have to do as well is ensure that we have the EL support that would be going into all classrooms that's wonderful and then I would I would just like to add um as as a as a personal note that we did Advocate today with the leadership of our vice president Miss Amy Norman we advocated for full funding for high ability on this current budget and it received um a warm welcome good but we still face an uphill battle yeah we did advocate for 18 million versus the 12 million I believe was given to this program Statewide in so it's a long time sitting at the same place so we did advocate for that today for you thank you thank you other questions
020having a child that can be too as far as we did discuss that that was a part specifically for the cultural and linguistically diverse supports that those students need we had some wonderful high school students that were a part of the process who spoke very openly about ensuring that that would be a part of the consistent curriculum [Music] wonderful wonderful news thank you so much you're you're still up and you can you present to the board the curriculum advisory committee recommendation yes Dr Smith Madam president members of the board tonight Mr Andrew Harsha our director of secondary education we'll share some curriculum recommendations that we are bringing forth thank you good evening Madam president Dr Smith members of the board I bring to you this evening are curriculum advisory Council recommendations for spring of 2023.
021as you can see there this is a process that we utilize each semester where we give our schools an opportunity to bring forth any new proposals for our curricular offerings those are reviewed at the building level by Department chairs and principals and then brought to the council for consideration as you can see on the next few slides we have great representation from our high school buildings our middle schools and here at central office uh just as a reminder all of our offerings Must Fall within the list of courses that are approved annually by the state so anything we would bring to you would also be state approved in our continued efforts to develop and maintain our Pathways we also ensure that any elective offerings that we're bringing forward at this time align with our pathway
022offerings and uh just as a point anything that would be recommended here tonight could be offered as soon as the fall of 2023. so the first course uh there is an offering through our AP which is sponsored by college board AP pre-calculus as you can see the target population would be Juniors and seniors that would uh have taken honors geometry and be preparing to take calculus It prepares students for other high-level Math and Science courses and follows of course the AP framework that course being an AP offering would carry a 1.0 weight our second one is ACP intro to Public Health this is part of the advanced College project that we have a partnership through Indiana University this course would be for students that are interested in our health services pathway and this does meet
023the social and historical studies requirement for our Indiana college Corps it's a small description there and then our third one is our ivt 106. this course is a an Ivy Tech course that is called Student Success it is a one credit course that ultimately is a preparation for students taking dual credit courses it allows students to go through the process of taking our knowledge assessment that is a prerequisite for some of the um more advanced Ivy Tech courses that students might take in their following years and at the curriculum advisory Council there was some suggestions that that might be a great dual credit offering to pair with either some of our Avid courses or are preparing for College and Career courses that already are focused on some of that work anyhow and we would give
024those students an opportunity to earn some college credit while taking that course lastly we have a few late additions to our phase three of our nlps courses proposing the Capstone courses for our education professions and our construction trades and that's it be happy to entertain any questions I have a question thank you Mr Harsha this is great I did have a question regarding the Ivy Tech course for one college credit would that be more geared towards incoming freshmen not Juniors and seniors who are already into the programs where they're receiving dual credits yes it would make more sense for us to uh Target that class towards ninth and 10th graders it really is open to students of all grades so if there was someone who got maybe a later start on um their certification or
025their stackable credentials towards Ivy Tech this is a required course in all of those Pathways so it would not be exclusively for 9th and 10th graders but that is where we would Target our students to get them on that track right away okay thank you and also this um this credit hour would also transfer to a majority of other schools much like the other Ivy Tech credits is that correct yes typically you know the um some of the universities do have different um you know regulations about what can transfer but uh yes this is just a pretty standard entry level um to dual credit courses okay thank you I was just thinking from the lens of a parent one less college credits absolutely thank you first of all thank you for this presentation it's always
026exciting to see how the district is pivoting to meet the needs of our students so it's super exciting to see the addition of all these as new board member I have to plead ignorance on what nlps means okay next level programs of study okay so that is a part of the graduation requirements in the state of Indiana now require uh some work through our CTE coursework and our next level programs of study offerings continue to increase in this district and we're very proud of those um so the basically a pathway would start off with a principles course kind of a foundational course then we would move on to a concentrator a and concentrator B and those are required what we also have uh is offering these Capstone courses that students might be interested in typically
027this would be an experience that would involve the classroom and then also get the students out in the workplace a great example of one of our Capstone courses is the students that work at Bernie's restaurant at McKinsey that would be considered their Capstone experience PS now in lieu of CTE um I would not say it is in lieu of it no it is it is um these are our CT offerings um and it's just that they're structured now in specific Pathways okay gotcha and then the um cost for credits is there do parents have to incorrect costs in order to get those credits for their children great question and in most cases the answer is no um we have a lot of the universities are offering credits either for free or at a discounted rate
028um right now and we also in this District use um some Grant dollars as we continue to try to increase our offerings that can support our families that need help with the Dual credit we have julied about three can made me think about students who potentially do not have documentation how are they accessing some of these programs of study as I know that many of them if they do not have documentation that they have to pay for out of state tuition and so how is that um with our increase of dual language students how is that addressed well um I I can't speak for each of the individual universities that we are partnered with specifically um but I know that uh in our uh constant Communications with with Ivy Tech with Indiana University with all
029of our partners um we are all about giving students access and increasing access so we will do whatever we can to support students to to make sure that we open that access up for them but I honestly I'm not certain how to speak to to that for each of the individual universities is that something we can address though at our level in terms of counselors because I know sometimes students it's a very tricky conversation and in order to I just think about the work that we've done where I work and we've got a number of students who get really excited about the opportunity and then come to find out that they're not able to achieve it and so I'm just wondering what kind of conversations that we're having early on with students to make sure
030that we're being proactive about what their post-secondary success and access looks like and I appreciate you bringing that up and I will tell you that at our buildings right now those conversations are happening our counselors are very excited to promote courses like the ones that we're talking about here this evening to really increase that access get our students taking college level courses earning those dual credits and we do sometimes have to have further conversations with parents about why we're asking for certain information or what does this really mean what does this look like is this really for my student and so I'm I'm proud of the work that's happening at the buildings no I appreciate that and I'm not indicating that there should not be we should be very proud of what's happening but I
031guess I'm thinking about it through the lens of let me give you an example of some students in order to get a um for example to be able to be a beautician and you go through um CTE coursework you have to take at the end of that you have to take an assessment that requires you to have documentation that are you are you are U.S citizen and so I'm wondering what conversations are happening prior to a student going through that progression of all of these different Pathways only to find out that that is not an achievable reality for them due to their documentation status and with the increase of our Latino population as well as those from Haiti and other places that may not have that documentation I think it's a conversation that needs to
032be had I agree with you and I I think that is something that we need to dig in a little bit more into but I think you're absolutely right because we want to ensure again the success of our students so and along the same lines of dual language I know several and I don't know when this was but you guys created a locally created pathway that you took to the Department of Education specifically partnering with the Immigrant Welcome Center to support some of those students do you know if there's any intention to continue looking at Pathways that might meet the needs of those students so uh recently there were a few locally approved Pathways that that were just recently approved so we are constantly talking about that that's actually something that came up even at
033this curriculum advisory council meeting sometimes there are different ideas for locally created Pathways and also just increasing our nlps Pathways that we have as well so that would be the processes that would be brought to our curriculum advisory council meeting and we would have those conversations Mr you excellent point you bring Mr kuznick next to you is in charge of the counselors and I know for a fact we're having those difficult conversations Miss Dunn made a very powerful statement the youngsters have the access to the class but on the back end when it's time to earn the credit we don't have control and so our counselors are having difficult conversation and I hope people out there in this world and are politicians are listening closely what can we do to help these kids that's the
034statement is these kids not being able to have access because of their their Birthright and so that's the difficult question that we're having that we have been for years what our guidance counselors and with those universities allowing these youngsters to have credit okay and that's the part that we don't have control over so we we're making a political statement but we need some help for the youngsters so that they can have the same opportunities as students that are citizens in this country many of them have been here their entire lives so thank you Madam president Dr Smith members of the board we're very excited tonight to bring you information about jumpstart and summer opportunities for our students and our first slide has just some general overview information including the dates and as a reminder our
035students who participate participate in the incoming grade level so the next year's grade level as a jump start on the new year and we will be observing thank you we could be we will be observing Juneteenth day and so students will actually be with us for 15 days where there is academic and enrichment instruction on the slide you can see the elementary day as opposed to the secondary day but we do Target an 18 to 1 student teacher ratio each ELC each Elementary each middle school will be hosting students and our high school students who are in person will be at McKenzie and we use this opportunity to provide many services to families in addition to academic enrichment and we provide transportation Food Service Aftercare until 5 PM Friday care July care or in Gillingham
036training or I'm sorry small group tutoring that extends all the way into Aftercare and all of these services are provided at no cost to our families the instructional design will look similar to what we did last summer we're using Hands-On highly engaging stem activities with Project Lead the Way combined with our math and our core knowledge language arts and then as Dr Brown said we will continue with the Orton Gillingham that is a partnership that we have with Marion University we have club and enrichment activities for the Elementary in the afternoon just some examples are Artful artists crafty crafters they're gardening gurus and so the stem Humanities and electives align with graduation Pathways at the middle and high school so that we're continuing to support that we do use pre and post assessments so that
037we can measure growth and determine how successful the program is life skills program will be offered for both Elementary and secondary and then we will continue to offer our ltech virtual courses for high school students as we look at our preschool kindergarten offering students are in one of two programs they're either in a multi-age preschool or the year before kindergarten programming for this program we go from June 5th to July 8th because we know those families need care All Summer Long there is no school for on Juneteenth and then also July 3rd and 4th in the month of July we have care offered at no cost for families Monday through Friday from eight to five we do follow our licensing guidelines so we have a ten to one teacher student ratio for multi-age and 12
038to 1 for the year before kindergarten classroom all of our preschool sites will be used including the elc's along with Forest Glen and Skiles test good evening we're very excited to be able to offer specialized support to many of the students who attend the summer school programming of jumpstart we do offer resource and therapy support to all students at all grade levels we do offer life skills programming which will be offered to students who qualify based on our teacher recommendation and our life skills programming will be located at Amy beverlyn Farrow Elementary and Lawrence Central for our secondary and we also support with a line classroom instruction and transitions at the high school level in addition to in-person jumpstart we also have something known as ltch Lawrence Township e-learning campus primarily virtual and asynchronous however
039one lesson learned from cobit as we able we're able to now also have a synchronous component as well 33 different credit bearing courses are offered open enrollment occurs in June and part of July and there is a small fee for for these courses the total jumpstart budget for 2023 is just over 4 million additional funding is also available in a partnership with Marion University for OG tutoring in grades one through three this budget includes certified and classified Staffing for the instructional day as well as Aftercare and transportation curriculum development and supplies funded through payer's Grant our timeline staff application opened up back on February 13th student registration opened up on March 1st as of today we were already over 2 300 students signed up in less than a month so we're you know there's the
040need and we're happy to answer any questions you have at this time um sorry I had a question first of all this is a great program we're very appreciative of it I'm just walking back a couple years for the public I want to make sure I understood it correctly the funding for jump start came from federal dollars for three years is that correct and this will be the third year 's grant for 2021 2022 and 2023 and we've also budgeted for 2024. oh okay okay okay that's great and then my second question um is at the secondary level our students are recommended for Jumpstart is that correct or can anybody apply for the in-person jump start it's recommended okay Target certain individual students transitioning from eighth to ninth to get a jump start to their
041freshman year as well as freshmen to sophomore but if there's students that would like to enroll with they can definitely work with the schools to make that happen Okay and then to go along with that incoming k-6 anybody could apply to be in jumpstart correct yes as long as you're enrolled for the 23-24 school year you can come to jumpstart okay thank you I have a couple of questions the first is the targeted students are those students is it Credit Recovery or what is the who are the targeted students a little mixture of both credit recovery at the high school level for maybe freshmen moving into sophomore year uh eighth grade moving into ninth grade year list of reasons might be attendance concerns might be achievement concerns we will make sure they have a good
042foundation moving into star high school so what about those students who potentially are Juniors and seniors who need credit recovery well so jumpstart is primarily for incoming freshmen and software but we do have some Juniors and seniors efforts okay as well and again just asking that question about the cost and so if I am a family on free and reduced lunch am I still required to pay that fee or are there any workarounds there's always workarounds we always have ways to support our students ltech has been around since before jump start right so we've had that for several years uh and the 25 fee that we have was just a small way to create ownership in the in the enrollment in jumpstart or excuse me in ltch but also we always have other supports that
043we can support our kids to make sure it's not a barrier for kids right and how is that communicated to families it's communicate through we have two lead administrators one at each high school that run uh jumps or else excuse me in the Middle School day I saw that the elementary has enrichment does the middle school have in Richmond as well Middle School was set up in three blocks you can go back to that slide for me we have the stem Humanities and then the elective one before that excuse me slide before there stem Humanities and then the electives component is is what is a course designed to help students prepare for graduation Pathways so how if I am an incoming seventh grader how do I know what my graduation pathway is you don't so
044this is a exploratory learning course about the different options there are perfect thank you and we should all bring our clarinet with us and you know the music people never leave the building so I'll speak up the language in its best Roger Smith for the board there's a little bit of a clarification we mentioned that our summer school program for high school is at McKenzie will you remind the board why we need to do that this summer due to construction yes we have excuse me we have a lot of site work going on that is going to minimize the opportunity for buses and parents to be on site for the same time so we've recommended that we house those students at McKinsey and also transport them as we did to each of their high school
045so next summer returning back to Lawrence Central Lawrence North Campus lealton we'll be back to normal yep foreign if there are no more questions we will move on to Mr miles and just a little information about cancellation about standing checks please thank you madam president Dr Smith members of the board before you tonight you should have a report detailing 36 checks that were asking to be will ask later in the evening to be canceled per state code these were um over two years old and were not ever cached and so we need to cancel them at this time for our books okay so again Mr miles can you give us some information on our application for a common school loan yes Madam president Dr Smith once again members of the board at this time it
046is our time to prepare our spring application for the common school loan we do this twice a year once in the spring and once in the fall and due to the dates of the board meetings and when the window opened this this spring we'll present this as an information item now and then back to you for a vote here just a little bit this evening um but the the loan uh is is one that we apply for typically to support our technology needs in the classroom directly supporting teachers and students uh we we detail what those those uses will be when we apply for the loan through the state and once again this is a state loan at this time we intend to to finish out phase three of our interactive panel rollout which is
047the Smart panels that the are used in all the classrooms that's going to be a big chunk of these dollars the rest of the dollars will be used once again to support directly teachers and students teacher uses maybe items such as laptops and other peripheral devices needed for those as well as the interactive panels we could potentially purchase some Chromebooks with these and then other student specific teacher specific I.T needs could you just Enlighten us one more time about the benefits of using the common school loan and applying for that over other sources of funding absolutely so um a couple of benefits again this is uh funded through this state and it runs through the treasurer's office so um they give us specific parameters as to the amounts that we can apply for at this
048time we could apply for about 1.5 million dollars and it is a low interest loan that we can get through the state the payback terms are as far as how long the terms extend are dependent on the the amount of the loan so it's it's a safe loan it's a low interest loan for good purposes that we that we use um and that's why we we typically take advantage of it twice a year thank you so much you need our financials absolutely happy to do so Madam president once again Dr Smith members of the board before you you have two reports it's our general fund monitoring report and then we will go to our Transportation uh report both from uh month in February 28 of this year and again we always like to highlight our
049checks checks and X's um and we'll start with that under the general fund um happy to report the general fund is tracking as expected at this point um we do have some offsets and you may note those particularly um you know the variance in revenue is is very minimal so no concern there and then under the expenditures our contract services at this time throughout uh through again through February and the supplies and materials are a little up and certainly we will keep an eye on that that does happen sometimes especially early in the year when there's not as much uh not as much history to look at so when we're projecting budgets one of the reasons on the on the supplies and materials typically fourth quarter we do not purchase as many items we kind
050of phase that down and shut it down so that we can prepare our books for end of year so some items that maybe would have been purchased right at the end of the year get pushed off to the next year and then so the expense hits our books first quarter of the following year so you can see that as well on the on the report as well as our contract services are a little bit up we we think that's actually a good thing some of that is due to a big part of that is due to our relationship with rjb that we now have so we've moved some dollars from the payroll lines down into some of the other vendor lines and and that happens across the board and it also um um the the
051bottom line budget there as you see under the total isn't a good place so we're happy with where we're at right now uh year to date and as we move to Transportation uh similarly uh you'll see some of the same same things on the supplies and materials of course they're also uh paying high higher dollar than normal for our diesel fuel um so that's that's got that amount ticked up just a little bit as well as those purchasing cycles that we talked about earlier and then on the salary side it's a little a little higher than what we may have maybe originally had thought I think that's a good problem we've actually been able to hire more drivers and monitors than what we had done at this point last year so hats off to our
052transportation team I'm sure it's uh under new director's leadership that we've been able to do that um but happy to answer questions again the bottom line here not far off from from where we'd expect the difference is really uh driven by that supplies and material difference and so we can kind of attribute you know the shortfall at this point through the year to that happy to answer any other questions I would just say I so appreciate you're going through this with us and explaining why the red why the green I I do appreciate that happy to do so and keep up the good work thank you I do have a quick question about procurement and so in looking at board docs and I might not be looking in the right place so please forgive me
053but is there a threshold by which the board has to approve purchases over a certain amount that is an excellent question um and it's one I don't know that I have the answer for you right here at the at the desk but I'd happy to be happy to follow up with you on that typically our larger contracts as we we've done you've seen those come through but it's a specific line item purchase I'm not sure I have that answer for you right now I haven't seen anything yes sir the reason that I ask if you because we've been working diligently with a actually somebody who's working with procurement to make sure that we're getting the lowest cost possible and it's saving us a lot of money so I just am wondering about the procurement process
054here and if there are ways especially when we're thinking about supplies and materials sure if we can negotiate better rates and how that process looks like so I love to learn more be happy to do so certainly we follow All State Board of accounts guidelines on all of our procurement processes and and What needs to go out to bid versus RFP and those types of things so yes I always happy to to work through those and I think probably the answer from uh for our board member done it depends on what division and what section I'm looking at Roger and Matt with Transportation you guys have a certain time you procure diesel fuel and those type of things we'll get answers for the board that's a good question if there are no more questions we're
055going to move straight ahead to board committee chair reports I would like to I would love to know Miss bucket what's what's happening with our parks and our partnership um what a beautiful day for the pickleball courts to open today so yes um that begins we also have new playground equipment at Alexander park so we have little ones go check it out as well as I will go to the arch for Lawrence Facebook page concerning um not Arthur Lawrence I'm sorry the Lawrence Parks and Recreation Facebook page concerning um Arts the arts for Lawrence Fridays at the Fort and art camp as well so check out their Facebook page for dates and lots of spring awesomeness coming up that's all I got that's a lot grabbed the right folder today Miss Miss Norman you probably
056have a lot to report on for the foundation I do Mr President and anyone else feel free to chime in because I don't feel like I can give the gala Justice I mean Dr Smith was rocking the shoes [Laughter] yes oh yeah I I believe it was sold out and they reached the fundraising goal was at forty thousand yes so it was a great night a great entertainment and great event to raise money for our our community so that was one thing and then I also am pleased to report that the or well the first ever LT dad's care initiative has already reached their goal of 100 dads donating 100 dollars so yeah ten thousand dollars so well done yeah I know okay um policy Miss Dunn Mr harshberg we have some exciting times ahead
057of us yes we are so I understand we have about 25 to 30 that we're anticipating so more information should be forthcoming correct are you hitting the stairs like you know getting really excited yeah up and down up and down getting ready we better get ready that's a lot of reading thank you for sharing that board and Miss Lawrence what did we have for our Indiana school boards Association not no updates for me at this time okay thank you madam president all right then um we will move on to our action items this is always super exciting we've heard the information now it's yay or nay um Mr Smith approval for the CMC for the lecc project please Madam president Dr Smith members of the board we recommend the board approved core Garcia as the
058CMC for Lawrence education and Community Center as presented and it a second properly moved and seconded any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed the eyes have it thank you congratulations to Cora Garcia um we now move on to the approval of the construction bids for Fall Creek Valley Senator president members aboard Dr Smith we recommend the board approve the bids slash gym P Price contract for Fall Creek Valley School to powers and Sons as presented so moved properly moved and seconded again any questions from the board all those in favor aye any opposed guys have it now Mr miles the approval of cancellation of outstanding checks thank you madam president Dr Smith members of the board at this time I ask for approval that the board would approve the cancellation of the checks
059as presented earlier this evening so moved second properly moved and seconded any discussion all those in favor aye aye any opposed the eyes have it we will cancel those checks immediately all right um now Mr miles again the approval of our application for that common school loan please thank you madam president once again Dr Smith members of the board at this time I would recommend to the board approval to apply for the common school loan as presented earlier this evening properly moved and seconded if there's no discussion all those in favor of the approval of the application for the common School aye any opposed the eyes have it Madam president I move that we treat items 4.5 through 4 Points make sure I get it 11 as consent agenda do we have a second second
060okay properly moved and seconded it's been requested that we move these items to a consent agenda all those in favor of moving these items to a consent agenda aye aye any opposed they've been moved to a consent agenda now what will we do with the consent agenda we I move approval of consent agenda you have a second second properly moved and seconded um all those in favor of improving that consent agenda aye aye aye any opposed then our consent agenda is approved and that I would think concludes the business portion of our meeting and now for board and administrator comments who of this board would like to speak first this evening oh I'm always down well you're there miss Puckett please all right I would just leave the time just to I want to be
061cognizant of the narrative that's being said concerning um Panorama um as it's being used as a measurement tool for SEL um I just wanted to remind community that um this is found actually in our uh Equitable student outcomes action plan dashboard that's 72 percent gave us this is their wording the 72 percent gave a thumbs up for exploring and confronting the best the vestiges of institutional racism um and so the tools that we utilize and the things that we do are at the Forefront of what our of what our community wants and what we need for our students and we're in regards to student achievement so I just wanted to reiterate that that the things that we do are from that lens as well as the diverse student population that we serve so I just
062wanted that as a reminder also too just wanted to read that Panorama social emotional learning questionnaire is a measurement of student mindsets behaviors and attitudes that might be related to success in school and Beyond the classroom so again I just wanted to be ahead of the narrative that is being said that our student achievement is at the Forefront and that is why we use the tools that we use that is my comment thank you thank you for that for that insight it's done we'll go outside in today I appreciate you sharing that it's very important that the public understand the tools that we have and the reasons that we utilize them so thank you for bringing that to everyone's attention I just again want to thank cabinet for the work that you do obviously a
063lot of really exciting things are happening and again just want to reiterate that questions are me trying to understand the landscape and by no way shape or form are indicative of the feelings that I have about the work that you all are doing and so incredibly grateful and very hopeful that every member of this community will be able to have some rest and relaxation over spring break and come back rejuvenated and excited for the work of our last quarter as we know we want to finish strong and so I'm just excited to see that as we progress to this last quarter of the 22-23 school year so thank you madam president we're in class now okay okay back over here miss Norman yes great comments everybody um I wanted to add sorry um first I
064wanted to thank Miss Laplante in the entire uh Committee involved in the high ability review um there were so many stakeholders at all levels involved in just such valuable uh discussions were taking place for the benefit of our school community so this was a long process and it was very in-depth and again thank you all who who have been involved the second thing I wanted to say is March's disability awareness month um I wanted to thank Miss Niemeyer in all of her entire team with the exceptional learners for the work they do for our students um it's very valuable so thank you for that and then finally um I wanted to and this is actually a question Dr Smith one thing that was on my mind today about spring break is students or families in
065our district who might be food insecure what is our local what Avenues could places could they go to um because we have so many organizations Miss Bush or Mr Smith we don't feed during the spring break board but summer feeding we do so Sean and you can go ahead and come to the Magnus Bush and of course uh this wonderful place we have here Roger that will be always open to give food Monday through Friday right here at sharing places if any families needing help go ahead Sean yes we do have the sharing place here on site at LACC but if any families are having um any uh concerns about food insecurity for the spring break they should please contact their family liaison their CIS liaison at the school and we'll be able to help
066thank you no I have a central office like this in the state of Indiana Roger Smith we're really proud of that that we do have a food pantry in our central office so outstand S Lawrence well thank you madam president so I I've been reflecting a lot on the importance of community as part of the educational environment that we have here in Lawrence Township starting with the gala that we all attended and took a photo together which was really fun all of us dressed to the nines um and you know I that Gala was attended by hundreds of people all there to support the students of Lawrence Township it's pretty incredible and a really unique thing that our district has a foundation that is so active in uh in the community of our schools and
067so um wanted to point out the fact that schools don't function without a community that is there to support one another and the other thing that I was reflecting on as we were coming into this board meeting is you know last weekend I had the opportunity to um to volunteer at the isma competition at Fall Creek Valley many of our other schools participate in other isma competitions throughout the state of Indiana um but you know I was there until about 10 30 at night but the T the teachers the music teachers and the administrative staff were there far longer than I was and you know as I've been thinking about Community yes it takes parent volunteers to come in and sit with judges for six hours but it also takes dedicated and um an invested
068Educators and administrative staff to be there to help support and to allow kids the opportunity to participate in these sort of events at their home school and my gosh the kids were really cool too they were running around literally running through the halls of Fall Creek Valley to bring music to judges to get uh to get supplies where needed um and it was just a really impressive thing to see so that's my comment thank you um I would like to add a few things again thanks to operations curriculum High ability committee um and our jump start team um and I feel like the Oscars I've missed somebody here but thank you and thank you to everyone I see other people sitting out there have been working diligently as other cabinet members and thank you also
069for what you've done um thank you to um Cora Garcia for bringing your best to us thank you powers and son for always bringing your best to us as well we appreciate you very much and are so glad to have you with us tonight um I I think it's no there were over 700 people at the gala 757 we reached our goal um I RMC yeah Rafael Sanchez is gives of his time to do that for us every year and he's fabulous and in costume just does a fabulous job for us um I will also say this evening a little personal privilege we've got some free tickets to the Indianapolis Symphony this weekend and I really want us to get that message out to our students their free tickets you have to apply for them
070you have to go to the iso website to apply Indianapolis Symphony website it's a collaboration with Sphinx which is an organization devoted to collaboration with diverse musicians and Symphony musicians and they're really great concerts and you know when was the last time you'd go downtown go to a free concert you know go around the corner and get a hamburger and get out of there for 10 bucks so you know it's a good opportunity um and uh Dr Smith I'm gonna leave the rest to you and I'm going to be real short uh it's NCAA tournament it's March Madness Grant Elizabeth I'm an IU Hoosier everyone knows where I'm from but it's even more special but another team knocks off my Hoosiers and Nigel packs a part of it so if any of you watched last
071I stayed up late last night to watch the game was bittersweet I love IU but I love Nigel Lauren Central bear beat us last night so it puts things into perspective for the young people the talent that we have in this District but I won't let I you know much recruit those kids on your team so we can win the game so I I did go on the record and say that I hate I know Boilermakers you guys are struggling also losing okay we they lost but it was even harder watching my kid beat us but it's bittersweet so Lawrence Township Kudos Nigel pack is on to the Sweet 16 let's be a fan for him went to school here all the way through so we're gonna cheer him on so that's all I have
072today Madam president love public education all I have to say I just have one more thing okay got our meeting we've got another meeting scheduled for you I know you're going to want to be here Monday April 10th 2023 and guess what it begins at 5 30. so I apologize again for all of you that had to wait for me I'm glad I lived close thank you have a lovely evening um do you have a motion to adjourn so moved we are adjourned thank you oh my goodness it's the end of the month meeting I'm gonna come in at seven o'clock I know but I'm still gonna uh I know we only had one but March is one here you go yeah and I mean Nigel shot down IU last night he made several big
073shots he killed it he did he did you know what