001it's seven o'clock we're going to begin our meeting it is wonderful wonderful to see so many people here and I'm glad you all came for the business meeting or not but we're going to look forward to seeing all the kiddos and everybody soon let's stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance if you would join me please one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all before we sit down we have some superintendent you all can sit down we we didn't need to come down because we're going to give some awards out response ladies good evening and thank you for joining us I'd like to introduce our assistant superintendent of Elementary education Dr Hoss Brown thank you Miss Johnson and Dr Smith president Mustin board members I'm so proud to bring to you tonight
002our Vex robotics District Champions tonight we'll be meeting our student team who won the Excellence award as well as two teams who won the teamwork award so I'll begin by inviting to the podium our proud principal of Amy Beverly Elementary Mr Jared Pennington [Applause] thank you it's a great honor to be here recognizing team a and team C of the Abe Starbucks they are your teamwork champions for this year and I will start with our head coach Miss Jamie streaming Mrs Karen Kellerman Brooklyn Boynton Diego Lopez Jenna maxi [Applause] page months Alexander Ratchford Noah short [Applause] Luke Stratton and last but not least Gibson whalage I'd just like to point out that their large awards are at the table and those are made by our McKinsey students but those are here for display tonight [Music]
003there we go okay my transition is all right one it's right here one two three [Applause] congratulations Starbucks yes indeed Dr Smith we do have one more and to introduce our team who won the Excellence award I'll invite to the podium our proud principal of Indian Creek Elementary Mr Kevin Kemper foreign good evening and thank you for having us and honoring us tonight um I brought two teams with us this evening that were recognized at our district Vex championships I want to start by acknowledging our coaches who have put in countless hours to help make this possible I want to start with Mrs Monica catowitz and come on up and also this entire League's not possible without this gentleman to my left this is Mr Bruce Nelson Mr Nelson had the vision for this league
004about six seven years ago and this is the result here we are today we have two teams like I said we have our first team they won the Excellence award which is a combination of just about everything that they do they compete against other teams in the skills competition they compete with other teams in the teamwork competition they get interviewed and they have to be able to perform well at all levels and this team actually won the excellent award and this is Liam Beasley Liam going up we also have Caesar paramo with us unfortunately Cameron Nelson was not here with us tonight but he's also a member of that team and then our second team that's with us tonight winning the trusty cook judges award um they got this award for their interviewing skills and
005their ability to explain what they built why they built it and then more importantly for this award the judges wrote to make them laugh as well so they did a great job in the interview and this is uh Ariel to Tara going up [Applause] Quinn Kemper and mariana rivera Collazo and then six inches so much better and again thank you [Applause] thank you next we are honoring an above and beyond award from Indian Creek Elementary and Mr Kemper is here we are going to honor Miss Jody Graham if Jody can come forward Jody Graham has gone above and beyond in her role as a speech language pathologist she has not only served Indian Creek as a SLP but also the team leads and PLC leader for our exceptional Learners Department while being down multiple staff
006members in our exceptional Learners Department Ms Graham has remained positive and solution oriented looking for creative ways to provide support for our students Ms Graham has guided and maintained our school's mission and vision as we have welcomed new staff the administration at Indian Creek is grateful to have Miss Graham leadership on our staff thank you [Applause] one two [Applause] and next we have a superintendent's award Grand Master Chu kuyun and Grand Master Garth Cooley if they can come forward okay we are glad to have you here he's representing both Korea Taekwondo Academy was founded by Grand Master Chu KU young in 1974 and was located within Lawrence Township for 47 years until its recent move to Noblesville kta has been under the direction and ownership of Grandmaster Garth Cooley 8th degree black belt former USA
007team captain and second time National Taekwondo Champion since 1996. during the last five decades kta has trained over 1 000 Lawrence Township students in the Korean martial art of Taekwondo over 200 of these LT students obtained their black belt kta instills values of confidence humility Fitness Focus self-control and discipline according to Grand Master Cooley since the beginning kta has maintained the philosophy that academics are a child's number one priority and that Taekwondo complements their ability to improve and Excel we are honored to present Grand Master Yoon Kung and Grandmaster Cooley with the superintendent's award thank you for representing [Applause] thank you middle here tomorrow [Applause] you might have noticed thank you and that concludes our Awards portion of the evening thank you to everyone who was honored and families who came you're welcome to excuse
008yourself now unless you want to stay for the business portion of our meeting thank you okay well I see everybody staying or not okay um Mr Smith uh do you have a blue ribbon update for us please Madam president members board Dr Smith uh construction continues uh LC West Side uh just to let you know we're hoping to have this side of the building completed by the end of May so that is progressing very well along with the media center and the uh new art rooms and family and consumer science rooms Elsie continues if you're driven by there that north wall is up so we are progressing well with the upright walls for the new pool Len we are in the new three stories so we made that transition last weekend and they completed their
009first week in the new building and going quite well we continue on throughout the building with more renovation uh just some pictures of the new classroom right before the students came uh pool uh progresses on and we're hoping to get the finalized uh Concrete in there that's so we can button up that outside wall and continue the finishing touches on the pool uh just a reminder we are continuing with our Belzer and uh Fall Creek HVAC we're hoping to have those done those two uh Ann lecc done by the end of April just in time for us to start the new renovation uh of those three buildings in June wonderful board do you have any questions for Mr Smith no I just have a comment um the high school looks great and from what I've
010heard from my student the first week went well I just also wanted to applaud the Ln staff because in talking to Steph or just the leadership the staff and looking at uh and talking to individuals that I know they have done an Exemplar job of making sure that the students had a seamless transition so very well done with the Ln leadership yep okay thank you now Mr Smith could you update us on the Belzer Middle School renovation bids please Madam president members for Dr Smith we did receive bids on February 8th this is for Belzer Middle School bid recommendation uh there were 10 bid categories we had over 33 contractors bidding this job bids came in at about 2.3 below expectations so I did very well as far as soliciting bidders to come in and
011be active on our projects the GMP contract for powers and cents to renovate Belzer middle school will be 38 million 229 448 dollars and this will be coming back to you as a recommendation and I'd like to introduce part of our team Fannie and Halle Dennis Bain is here and also with powers and Son Dustin thulman they have been working extremely hard to make sure that we've had adequate bidders and that drives the competition so we thank them for a great partnership we have with them I would like just to ask besides low bid what other factors come into play when choosing our contractor low bid meeting specifications so we've had some low bids that came back after evaluation that said hmm I missed something so but we evaluate that that's where powers and Sons
012and Fanning Howie come in especially powers and Sons evaluating each and every bid that comes in making sure it meets specifications in all areas are covered and is there is there uh I've been talking to other uh project uh uh even school districts we're starting to see it Trend down a little bit so uh also with the powers and sons being active on some other projects they're also seeing that and the big thing is getting a lot of bidders to the table that was critical and power of sons did that for us so on page 4 of 11 it says owner cost not included in GMP can you explain what that what those costs are yeah so we have what we call a hard cost and a soft cost a hard cost is a hard
013construction cost that powers and Sons will be doing and that's the 38 million uh the soft cost engineering fees also FF and e that's equipment Furniture those type of things that we purchase and every project has that so there are some other items as you see there that are over and above the hard cost I'm assuming those are those are not actual value those will be most of them are accurate that's our budget for those items okay thank you for that clarification thank you okay with no other questions uh Mr miles um could you update us on the resolution to confirm the lease and approve the bonds and related matters yes thank you madam president Dr Smith members of the board tonight as an informational item uh first and foremost we have our next step
014of uh the projects that we'll be undertaking at both of our middle schools the lecc and the new lecc over at Fort Bend this step is a resolution for the board to approve later this evening for a confirming lease between the Board of Education the school district and the building Corporation so it is an informational item before you tonight and again later this evening I'll bring it back for approval and along with us is Hannah clendenning of legal counsel from Barnes and Thornburg if there are any questions she would help us answer be held on that at least tonight so I don't know when you want to do that but that is supposed to happen tonight as well in order for all the approvals so other than that everything before you is pretty much just
015confirming everything that was discussed and presented at the last meeting in the meeting in November regarding the lease and then the resolution also authorizes the issuance of the bonds by the building Corporation in the max amount of 130 million any questions no good okay thank you so much all right so we'll move on to the next um pardon oh so again Mr miles the additional Appropriations thank you madam president Dr Smith once again members of the board um the next step of this process would be for the board again to approve an additional appropriation that would allow us to spend those dollars to construct those projects that we've discussed Belzer Middle School Fall Creek Valley Middle School the current LACC and the new lecc so before you you have that informational item again for that
016additional appropriation which I will bring back later this evening for a vote happy to answer any questions otherwise it's pretty straightforward so I I just want to um make sure I understand so we're talking about 130 million dollars and that's more than us we can we can bid out on a single project on a normal basis what's the limit on it on on a does this come from our referendum go ahead no it is not part of our referendum this is a separate project uh so the we'll have a new bond issue coming out uh later this year that will fund these um and so that is the 130 million dollar Bond project that we're talking about the additional appropriation is for 170 million which would just uh we always estimate that high not that
017we anticipate spending that that much on the project but in case there are overruns or in case there was something else we do have legal approval at this time to cover those so we wouldn't have to come back to the board for approval but that that's how that project is set up I think Madam president has asked you will we be below the threshold once we take those individual bonds out and the answer is yes okay we're not going to do 130 million dollars at one time that would yeah that sorry it will be divided up into increments and that's a separate presentation that Baker and Tilly would be able to do so this just gives us the authorization to do it but then it comes behind with a separate presentation for Baker intelligence so
018we're back to um using debt that's falling off the books correct good question Madam president all right thank you this will not affect our tax rate correct this this will happen with not without an increase in our taxes okay all right thank you I had I had a question um just the clarifying question for the public um just so I understand it correctly the middle schools will be the final phase of the Blue Ribbon project correct okay okay I just wanted to make sure um that I clarified that thank you thank you very much we appreciate you thank you all right Mr kuznick could you talk to us a little bit about our student Chromebook bids good evening madam Madam Dr Smith members of the board back on November 28th the board approved a RFP
019process for the purchase of new student Chromebooks we bring this to you every year as a reminder the district provides a Chromebook for every student enrolled in grades 2 through 12 and our current replacement cycle requires purchasing new Chromebooks every year or fifth and 9th grade students the chart before you is the bid results that we received on January 27th and you'll see that the best price is from ESI electronic strategies incorporated which I would note represents a 9.2 decrease actually in the unit price from the previous year right looking out this is looking out today correct later this evening I'll bring it back to you for recommended approval but I'll be recommending that the district purchases 3170 Dell Chromebooks from ESI for a total cost of one million two hundred and sixty five thousand
020four hundred ninety five dollars and seventy cents I present this as information at this time thank you any questions Borden I do have just one quick question and so I noticed here that there is covered by the four-year warranty versus a couple different things in terms of accidental damage if a student were to drop it and break the screen versus just things from the initial production of the manufacturer of the Chromebook through a combination of it curriculum resource fund and the emergency contact connectivity fund and it's this curriculum resource fund out of the education department I'll defer to Mr miles on that president is it from the state the same with the emergency commitment I'm sorry the emergency connectivity fund is actually a federal fund those are federal dollars that we were able to get
021as one time this year so that's why we're using those make sure we can fully use those those dollars Norm good question normally we would do a 50 50 split between a common school loan and a curricular resource fund for Mr acoustic okay we're back to uh Mr miles and our budget tax rate update thank you madam president members of the board Dr Smith before you uh you have our finalized budget for 2023 and we bring this every year in comparison to our previous year's budget so that the public and the board can see our actual previous year's budget versus our advertised budget which was presented last fall um which is what we asked for from the state and then once we get that uh final dollars and the budget back from the state of
022Indiana we bring back our final budget or actual budget which is what you see in the far right column um under actual budget the expected budget is sort of a more reasonable potential anticipation um that is less than the advertised budget so there's a few numbers that we work with that we want to make sure we're looking at so we're taking all things into consideration um so you can see there was an increase from 22 to 23 in the budget funds from about 217 million dollars to 221 million dollars on page one and then page two uh share shows our actual tax rates um once again actual versus advertised versus expected versus our our final actual for 23 and you will note on this that our actual tax rate has gone down uh from 22
023to 23. that's important item to note and uh so when our taxpayers see that they'll know that uh you know we're we're actually doing things to cons to bring that rate down here at the district uh from the dollars that equate uh from those tax rates are on page three this is our actual Levy dollars and you can see an increase there and that is and so we've got an increase in money that we're going to bring in despite the reduced tax rate that is because the increased uh assessed valuation this year that we've seen across the state any questions I just have one um just thinking of it from the lens of personal finance as a taxpayer so when the taxpayers get their bill the percentage will go down but don't expect the dollar
024amount correct to because the assessed value is going up is that correct that would be correct okay thank you I just wanted to make sure the way the math works is that is absolutely correct so if someone's taxes go up that's not because of us okay so then we shall move on to our financial update thank you Mr miles you're welcome thank you madam president Dr Smith members of the board uh is the next item we present our January general fund uh report as of January 31 and obviously just one month into the year but we are show this trend month over month and we'll continue to do so uh throughout the year you will note um things are well within within expectations at this point obviously it's early on um but we will continue
025again to update this throughout the year there were two which we do show for ease of reference our kind of our green checks or hey things are where we want them to be or our red check to say this is something we're going to watch so you do see a couple of those on there really that's a function of just some just some Peaks and valleys in the in the cycle of when we pay bills and when things come in so not unexpected um but but you know again something we will certainly keep an eye on there in the general fund and you'll see a similar Trend in the transportation fund um things are well within our expectations and and trending where we would like to see them at this time foreign I have I
026remember the years we've came to the meetings that we didn't have any good news so I appreciate all the work everyone on staff has done too stay within our budget thank you okay this uh brings us to um our committee board chair reports uh Miss Norman can you report on the foundation for us um Mrs Lawrence feel free to jump in if I miss something as a newbie um so the latest updates I have thank you madam president are at the end of January Lawrence Township classrooms had been awarded twenty two thousand dollars for 34 mini grants so that was something to celebrate then more than 230 scholarship applications have been submitted by this year's LT seniors and they are in process right now and finally and most importantly ltsf will kick off the 40th
027anniversary at on March 10th at the gala gala celebration of our 40th year at Indy Roof Ballroom due to overwhelming response registration will close on Wednesday March 1st so if you haven't registered go ahead and register and that's what I have thank you thank you so much I do have one thing to add the silent auction is now open for the foundation um so if and I don't believe you have to actually purchase a ticket to the gala in order to bid where do we find that I believe it is available on the on the Lawrence Township School Foundation website msdltf.org I was gonna have to Google it well done well done excellent I think school board has a basket on there I think I'm not sure okay um okay and Parks and Recreation I
028can come back to you Miss Dunn um is there anything new on the policy front when it comes to attend the Indiana State School Board Association their legislative day and so is really excited to hear about the budget and the possible increases that we may see and so also very excited to see that School Board elections will remain nonpartisan and so I think that that's exceptional news but nothing else from the policy front correct thank you very much and thank you for attending that for us I appreciate that all right Parks and Recreation Miss Puckett um I'm sorry that's okay I apologize it's okay that's why we're a team um so the one I guess big update since the last meeting was the ribbon cutting for the Heartland film festival at the sterret center that
029is exciting for Lawrence that is great for Lawrence okay and then do you have any updates for the um Indiana School Board Association not at this time okay Madam president okay thank you thank you Miss Lawrence all right so we'll move on to our action items um let me just we're gonna have uh that'll be here okay all right so action item 4.1 Mr Smith approval of Belzer Middle School renovation bids and president members of the board Dr Smith it is a recommendation to the board to approve the bids GMP to powers and Sun uh contract for the Belzer Middle School renovation as presented second Ed um all those in favor aye aye aye those opposed so that is approved now before we get to I um item 4.2 which is the approval of the
030resolution of the school board confirming the lease and approving the bonds and the related matters before we get to that I would like to welcome anyone with us this evening for public comment about that if you have any public comment please please just stand up and let us know what you have to say about it thank you seeing no one and hearing no comment we'll move on and Mr miles thank you madam president Dr Smith members of the board at this time uh I would present for approval the resolution for the lease and and related Matters from the board at this time so moved second properly moved and seconded all those in favor I like those opposed with it passes all right um move on to the approval of the school board and additional appropriation
031matters Mr miles thank you madam president once again Dr Smith members of the board at this time I would present to you for approval the request uh the resolution for additional Appropriations presented earlier this evening so moved second and I'm sorry I haven't been asking if the board has any questions because we just went through these so I assume all questions have been asked but always interrupt me if that's not the case properly moved and seconded um all those in favor any opposed that resolution passes thank you now we move on Mr kuznick to the approval of student Chromebook bids Mr President Dr Smith members of the board I recommend the board approve electronic strategies incorporated for the purchase of the student Chromebooks as submitted so moved second properly moved and seconded and if there
032are no questions all those in favor I I opposed passes Madame press oh sorry madam president I recommend we treat agenda items 4.5 through 4.12 as consent agenda do we have a second second okay properly moved and seconded it has been recommended that we treat these final um 4.5 through 4 points then as a consent agenda 12 okay okay thank you um all those in favor hi any opposed Okay so it's do we have approval of the consent now so we've we're going to treat it as a consent agenda so now I need a motion to approve the consent agenda I move we approve the consent agenda Madam president I second properly moved and seconded all those in favor aye and any opposed we have passed the consent agenda which includes that includes Personnel personnel
033thank you madam president Dr Smith and members of school board for approving the Personnel report tonight we celebrate the approval of our new Chief technology officer this evening this school board has approved the appointment of Dr Steve gaglon to the position of Chief technology officer Dr gig line will transition immediately to this new role from that of the assistant director of systems integration a role that he has held since 2019 Dr geckline has served the msdlt of Lawrence Township in various leadership capacities since 1995. as Dean assistant athletic director assistant principal principal director and assistant superintendent according to superintendent Dr Sean Smith with 35 years of experience in education Dr giglin has a keen understanding of the importance of servant leadership he is an ideal person to lead this fast-growing and ever evolving division gag
034line shares I'm honored to be given this opportunity to lead the technology Division and will do my best to ensure the division is able to meet the needs of our students and staff both now and in the future an Indiana native gag line holds a bachelor's degree in secondary education from Butler University he continued his education at Butler earning his Ms in school administration he holds a doctorate in educational leadership from Ball State University welcome and congratulations welcome back president must and members of the board Dr Smith I'm very very grateful for this opportunity to lead the technology division I'm ready to get started you're ready for me to get started I know that so as I said I'll do everything I can to make sure that we meet the needs of our students and
035staff and uh let's get going thank you Stephen returned to the Deus you know the procedure you may have been away from here this way Dr gaglon you may have been away for a while but we we know you know the routine so our family has been very daughters big school with principal gag line and I continued to work with him when I was elected to the board and at 2012. um it was a Cabinet member then and so good to have him back in a hot seat there okay all right well now I guess some do you we have some celebrations do we have some do you have some board comments and celebrations who who raises their hand who wants to comment first um I will say um in celebration we're coming up on
036our last day of Black History Month which is tomorrow I want to celebrate family I have a young um engineer in our family who wrote a book and I want to donate books to our library it's from lovely briche Donaldson Blake and it's com and it's called stem can be me a through z and so I wanted to donate some books to our library but black history in the making so just wanted to share that fabulous thank you thank you next well yeah so black end of Black History Month beginning of women's History Month begins in March um so just wanted to acknowledge the fact that we are sitting up here with an all-female board full of intelligent capable and Incredibly kind and generous human beings who do what they can to serve this district
037with distinction so incredibly grateful to serve with all of you celebrations I will say um you know it was a it was a real honor to be able to um to congratulate the starbots tonight um and you know I think um you know Madam president you and I have served on the Lawrence Township School foundation for many years together and the ltsf has been one of the primary sponsors of Robotics and it's been really wonderful to see that come to fruition throughout the years and personally my own two children my daughter is a starbot who is currently ranked somewhere around 50th first state standings in skills so she's likely to go to State and earlier this weekend my son who is a gear cat won their competition in robotics as well so you know we
038have a very strong uh reputation for our are Robotics and it's it's really wonderful not just to see it um to see it through my own kids but to see all the opportunity that we have for all the rest of the kids in this District absolutely absolutely Miss Dunn again I feel like my colleague stole my funder I was going to talk about the end of Black History Month and just really appreciate Dana showcasing on our media all the Excellence um excellent black leadership that we have in this District we are certainly a district of Distinction because of the fact that we have so many school leaders that represent our Scholars and that does not go unnoticed in reading about each of those just gave me goosebumps I was reading about Kevin's daughter being born
039young and Tiny and it's just the motivation that everybody has to do the work was inspiring so thank you for doing that and hopefully you see some wonderful uh women female leaders in this uh women's history month so um kudos to the work that you do for always showcasing the great things that are happening great Norman all right um yeah everything you said I totally agree with but I wanted to add for Black History Month as we close up my favorite quote by Michelle Obama was those of us in public service our role is to take the spotlight that shined on us and shine it on those we serve and that's been a powerful quote a great example for leadership and we did that tonight when we celebrated our our students Our Community Partners we
040can't do it alone it takes a village to raise a child and the future is bright I would like to just thank our our athletic coaches for giving us so many Thrills over the last few weeks and thrills yet to come from from our our youngest kiddos in their basketball league in elementary school all the way through high school wrestling swimming diving basketball it's been really fun to watch the progress of our kiddos and I I'd also like to say at the end of Black History Month that the highest achievement I think that this board has had in the last several years is passing our equity and anti-racism policy and it took a long time and now we see our high ability and high achievement studies will come to us for and all and all
041of that work was done with for our high ability kiddos with equity in mind Equity was the focus there and Remains the focus we're now involved in strategic planning and the focus of our strategic planning is equity anti-racism and making sure all of our children in our Township have an equal opportunity to succeed that every child has high rigor and has Support Services to back them up and I'm just so proud to serve this District so proud so Administration Dr Smith staff um coaches teachers parents students thank you thank you thank you and if there are no do you have what you have a few things you want to say just very quickly um you talk about African-American history black history Roger Smith you have a company that right now is doing major construction work
042for us they're a minority-owned company African-American and I just saw one of the owners walk in mayman Powers will you stand up I want you to stand up because you have partnered with us on several projects and so when we talk about history we're not only make it with students but we're partnering with companies that are in this city in the state who are helping us through this through this process helping us educate kids and there's an example right there so many generations are you third generation he's third generation of powers and Sons out of Gary Indiana and of course here in Indianapolis and so we're really proud to have you as a partner and I see your good friend Dustin there Dustin is old enough to be Mr McGregor president asked that question he's
043a heck of a supervisor raise your hand Dustin glad to have Dustin will be the guy on site when we do these projects so glad to to see Dustin again and Madam president and board it is that time of the year our girls did well and made it all the way to semi-state but Dr nesma tomorrow kicks off sectionals tell us what we got going on . defense we've always done well Dr nespa so let's cross our fingers for the Bears and Wildcats okay we'll be ready thank you madam president well thank you to everyone for being here tonight thank you for the board question for thinking things through with us and that being do we have a motion to close so moved properly moved and seconded that's the close of this meeting um thank
044you oh boy I got a bunch of stuff today um guys we got more to we've got more at this time