001good everybody's locked in we'll wait on Mr Freezy work session today you ready let me get everybody's attention thank you for being here thank you for making the adjustments towards to be here at five o'clock today so all board members could attend I do want to make a public announcement we do have a 10 28 public hearing schedule for 5 30. we will not start that public hearing until 5 30. so we'll start our work session and at 5 30 she just kind of keep me on Note depending on where we are on the agenda we'll pause and then we'll do the public hearing any questions from anybody on that so thank you so at this time we will have our our call to order our work session and I will first order a business
002be our Blue Ribbon update Mr President members board Dr Smith we do uh continue on uh LC you'll see the site work continues and this is uh seating and Grading going on on the south and southwest and west side of the building uh the West wall and new entry and the senior Cafe continues on and again hoping to get that thing buttoned up here for too much more cold weather comes uh LC Poole Footers going in place so uh we do have some active construction going on for the LC pool the plaza work continues on concrete we're hoping to get Asphalt in there uh Thanksgiving break uh Ln three story continues on with finish work again moving down to the second floor and first floor for a move in hopefully in December phase 1C continues
003on the main hallway and the art and family consumer science areas a new pool there Ln you'll see that the pool actually is being formed up right now so concrete not too much further down the road locker rooms going in finishing touches there you see the ceiling grids so moving right along with finishing touches in the main living area and the storefront we're open again in the next couple weeks to get that stored front end to close in the front of uh Ln pool questions or comments for Mr Smith I had a comment it's not up there on the pictures but I just wanted to say the new walkway to McKenzie from Lawrence North looks nice and seems well used by students every time I drive by kids are using it yeah it's great I
004have a question about the pool and I I apologize because I should know this but I have forgotten are the pools competition size will we be able to hold competitions here our lengthwise depth wise yes all above is yes thank you I just wanted to clarify that because I know the last time we built a pool that was the one thing we didn't do and these are true 50 meter pools perfect thank you so much any other questions or comments I will encourage the boy if you've never seen a pool put into a school it's pretty remarkable so if you get a chance peek in if you can it's pretty remarkable thank you Mr Smith yep preschool updates Mrs Laplante Dr Smith president McGregor members of the board tonight I'm pleased to bring to you
005some preschool updates as we look at our programs and the curriculum that we offer I also want to um introduce and say thank you to the Early Learning Center an immersion preschool principals that are in the audience tonight to support as we look at the changes that we're making for our families so the first thing that I would like to talk with you about is a proposal to look at year-round preschool we currently have multiple offerings for our families but they are all based on a school year schedule we offer school day which is from 7 30 to 3 we have am extended PM extended preschool we offer both AM and PM so families can have care from 6 30 in the morning till 6 at night we do have part-time options and we do
006always offer break care but it's only at two locations and so as we look at how we can continue to improve our program we know that consistency is truly what's best for young children and so we want to recommend offering a year-round option for families that would allow families to choose to have their students with the same teacher and the same students all year round rather than having to make other choices we also want to bring to you tonight a recommendation to look at some rate increases as we look here it is always our commitment to offer high quality preschool for our families and also to make sure that we are a leader in supporting Early Childhood Staffing with healthy wages so I just wanted to show the different increases that we've been able to
007give over the past four years we have not raised our program rates since 2020. as we look at a market analysis these are some of our competitors around the area and I just wanted to make sure that you saw their current rates and their hours as we when we move to look at our proposed rate our most expensive offering will be 245 dollars a week as you can see which is still well underneath any of our competitors and are one that's closest day early learning is only 7 30 to 5 30. so we will be less than that and still be offering more care as we look at our proposed rates this is where you also get to see our variety of options that we offer families and so we would be looking at adding
008a thirty dollar increase on the base pay of the school day 140. our am extended PM extended and extended are that school day rate with our before and after care rates on top of those and then as you can see for our staff we do offer a fifteen dollar increase decrease every week for any of our staff members our part-time options would also be increased and as you look at our twos program we would need to look at an increase for them as well but they are still well under our Market competitors and I think it's important that if we're going to ask more from our families for our product it's important that we are also continuing to offer a better product and so as you look at our guaranteed and viable curriculum We are
009continuing to improve what it is that we offer and let families know so that we can make sure that they feel confident that no matter where their child is they know what they will be receiving I'd be happy to take any questions that you have questions or comments for Miss uh La Plante please um we are still naeyc accredited correct our immersion preschools are not yet they're working on it this year with the pandemic our timeline for that got off okay but we will be by the we're still past the quality three at those sites yes and are any of our competitors in awic we have a few that are nacie accredited most are passed equality three and four yes okay I had a question Miss Laplante I know that students ages three and up
010that are on a qualified IEP with special needs the tuition is covered is that correct through the state when we go to a year-round offering for families who want to keep their student in the school would there be a special plan where they could pay for Continued Care through the summer just for the summer months yes and I've collaborated with Miss Niemeyer on this so that we would have a 36 week pay option for the school year and a 52-week option and so any of our families who would come in through our early childhood assessment team would be given the opportunity to choose the 52 week and know that 36 weeks of that would be covered okay thank you any other questions or comments well we all know it's a difficult time when we have
011to start talking about price increase especially during our economy right now but to be able to hold flat floor how many years uh three years because we start this until the next school year so we had a whole flat for three years I come in the district for being able to do that it's tough I commend our leaders it's been plant for a year-round program I think that meets the needs of a lot of families so again thank you district for that as well so we look at your recommendation and we'll talk about that all right thank you thank you so much could I add something um I would like to thank this District again I know this is in the past now but during the pandemic we kept our Preschool teachers whole I would
012like to thank the district for that for keeping such valuable staff on board during that time any other questions comments thank you as well done Mr plan a dual language program update Mr President members of the board Dr Smith I'm pleased to bring you an update on our dual immersion programming specifically this evening we're going to talk about Skiles test Sunnyside and Belzer middle school but to begin just a quick review of what our current programming looks like as we've done much expansion over the last few years we have two different types of programs one is a two-way program which is a 50 50 split of native English speakers and Native Spanish speakers learning in the same classroom and that program is whole school at Forest Glen a program within the school at Skiles test
013and we just began a program with kindergarten students that you board approved in the spring at Sunnyside Elementary and that is due to expand into first grade next year per the original plan Styles test will expand into sixth grade next year we also have one-way programming and this is students who are all Native Spanish speakers in the same classroom and four different elementaries that have or three different elementaries they have one section in each grade level Harrison Hill Indian Creek Mary castle and then Sunnyside has two sections in grades one through four one section and five and six as we look at our secondary programming we have a two-way only and our two-way at the middle school is currently at Fall Creek Valley in science social studies and language arts and this has been our
014district program since the program began in terms of those disciplines we also have two-way at Lawrence North High School and specific courses within their curriculum we're recommending for next school year that we expand our two-way to Belzer middle school so that would be for the 23-24 school year utilizing the same curricular program that we have at Fall Creek Valley and then those students would matriculate to Lawrence Central beginning in the 25-26 school year for our elementaries at Skiles test in Sunnyside we're recommending for next school year that we begin to transition both of those elementary schools into full 100 percent two-way Spanish Immersion schools so every class in those schools eventually and you can see the timeline there eventually would be 50 native English speakers 50 percent native Spanish speakers so by 2829 the school
015year 28 29 we would have full two-way immersion kindergarten through sixth grade at Skiles test and Sunnyside Elementary's so the the rationale as we have looked at our data as we've talked with our community uh there continues to be a very large community demand for two-way Spanish Immersion particularly in our native English speakers our community has long embraced uh two-way immersion has long embraced being bilingual biliterate bicultural and that demand just continues to grow and that's the reason we had to add Sunnyside pretty quickly at the end of last school year to meet that demand secondly our Spanish-speaking students continue to be the district's fastest growing subgroup and this has been the case for several years now we added an additional 223 Spanish speakers in the year 2022 so that number is just continuing to
016grow but the third bullet point is a really important one in that we have less and less students at Skyles test in Sunnyside who are in the monolingual program who are in the general education program so we only have 26 first graders at Skiles tests that are in general education that are in the monolingual program and only 42 first graders in general education at Sunnyside and of those 42 at Sunnyside 10 are actually classified as English language Learners who might benefit from a two-way program and what we've discovered over the years is that as families learn about the opportunity they want their students to be in and so those numbers continue to shrink families who are not in the two-way immersion program and then we also have to consider academic achievement that's at the heart
017of of all recommendations um and the first one really is about our own data uh within within our district and uh this is nationally uh researched and nationally recognized but we see it play out uh at Forest Glenn Skiles test and Fall Creek Valley where students who are in two-way immersion outperform those students who are not and this is on our our iLearn test data back to ISTEP test data this has been uh several years but I learned 2022 certainly played that out and we also see that within our English learner data specifically as well those students who are in two-way that have that opportunity to interact with native English speakers every day are growing at a faster rate than our El students who are in English only programs so academic achievement is also at
018the core of the recommendation so one of the questions might be what does this mean for elementary enrollment if we were to move forward with Skiles test in Sunnyside and so Dr Hoss Brown will walk us through that President McGregor Dr Smith school board members and as you know each year when we start our early enrollment for Pre-K and kindergarten immersion we have had a wait list and each year we've tried to do more and more to offer families and continue to find Opportunities For Families but the the real bottom line is there continues to be a wait list and so our goal is to eliminate that and have access for all families who want it and in the Skiles tests Community for this one year any Styles test boundaries student would have preference into
019the immersion program in the following year we would follow the normal immersion process and after that when we would be following that process students who were traditionally Foundry to Skiles test would be boundary to either Brook Park or Crestview depending upon where the the North and South border of that particular area is on the other side of the district the same would follow for Sunnyside students who are currently boundary to Sunnyside would have priority a preference for this round and then in the following years those students who were traditionally boundaries to Sunnyside their home school would be Oakland and if they would not choose immersion and the same question for our Middle School what does that mean in terms of enrollment process so Mr kuznick will walk us through that Mr President Dr Smith members
020of the board at the middle schools the current two-way and one-way immersion students will be boundary to their home middle schools either Fall Creek Valley or Belzer Middle School based on their home address whereas right now I'll go to Fall Creek Valley families may choose the opposite Middle School through our existing District Choice process that we have in place because of the current setup where students go to Fall Creek Valley we have a shuttle that shuttles between Belzer and Fall Creek Valley each day so that shuttle would still be in place from Belzer to Fall Creek Valley Fall Creek Valley next year in the 23-24 school year because some students have already started there and argued there in their seventh grade years we want them to have that option to stay there for their eighth
021grade year as well but in subsequent years we would phase that process out and then we certainly need to consider Staffing and so Mrs Johnson will just pause real quick so so people can understand what we're discussing here right so kind of slowly for our community what are we trying to tell them here because this is great news so what are we really trying to tell people in our community here at the elementary level what are we telling them sure thing and we are expanding access that's what we want folks to know and we will make sure that any student and family who does not choose immersion will still be boundary to a home school and for one year we'll have some transition where families who are traditionally boundary to Skiles test and Sunnyside will
022have preference but after that that early application window will include three options for families and and so we will have that process and those families traditionally boundary to Skiles tests and Sunnyside will have new home schools in one year expanding access expanding access thank you so much today and at the secondary level we're doubling the access so right now if you choose this program you have to go to falkery Valley and then talk to Lawrence north um but with this program option you would be able to go to Belzer and Lawrence Central I just want to make sure we absolutely all right now the staffing needs president McGregor Dr Smith and members of the board as we look at Staffing currently at Sunnyside we will need up to two first grade bilingual teachers to make
023a total of four at Skiles test Elementary one to two first grade bilingual teachers to make a total of three to four and our elementary positions will be filled through attrition so the bottom line there's no ftes that are needed at this time at Belzer one to two sections of Spanish science social studies and language arts and these sections can be filled through current teaching staff and or open positions that we'll be watching the enrollment carefully one of the pieces that's always important as you expand access is the communication plan I mean we discovered last year with Sunnyside that once the communication gets out then the numbers come quickly and so we'll continue to utilize the district levels of communication but really the most effective communication comes directly from our principals as they provide direct
024and personal communication to first grade families at Sunnyside and Skiles that may be impacted as well as our administration at Belzer to inform prospective families of that opportunity current sixth graders to become part of the two-way immersion program at Belzer for the 2324 school year be happy to entertain any other questions or discussion well the comments I'll start Wendy I am so proud to serve a district that keeps expanding these opportunities um it's really kind of a dream come true especially with the experience our family has had I do have a question I know that sometimes with the curriculum in Middle School including science some of our students have left the immersion program because they were ahead a year in science what have we done to make sure that our immersion students can stay in
025immersion do they have to take two science classes so we're in a science curriculum review process now and so that's one of the questions to be answered in that in that process of how can we make sure we offer biology in Spanish as well as eighth grade science good okay thank you so Amy um thank you Mr neuter I had a clarifying question I'm almost two years in I've got most of the acronyms down can you remind me again what FTE is it's a full-time equivalent so it's the full-time teaching position okay so if I'm understanding it correctly then the new bilingual staff would be in addition to the oh okay no they would not be so we would be able to fill the elementary positions through attrition which okay other resignations retirements that come
026in we would replace with bilingual staff and we would look to existing staff and potential open positions at Belser to fill the Middle School thank you yeah no questions I think this is you know definitely the right uh direction to go so applaud everybody continuing to expand these options Mr comment question uh no because if I have a question you normally answer my question as you're going through so I I have no questions thank you for the thoroughness you're welcome Mr Northern team job well done thank you thank you thank you and graduation rate update oh I'm sorry I'm writing notes on the wrong section Troy right Mr President members of the board and Dr Smith twice each year we bring to you recommendations for new courses to be added at our high schools and
027we have a curriculum advisory Council that does that work and our director of secondary academics Mr Andy harsher leads that work and so he's going to present the council's recommendations for this fall good evening Mr President Dr Smith and members of the board as you can see there as Troy just mentioned we do meet with our curricular advisory Council twice a year and we are um made up of building level Administration teachers counselors you can see on the next few slides all of the names of the folks that took part in this process the state of Indiana does give us guidelines that we need to stay within and when it comes to recommending new courses they give us titles and descriptions so of course anything brought to this curricular advisory Council does come through state
028approved courses we obviously have been in the process of developing our next level programs of study over the last few years so we also want to make sure that they are in line with where we're trying to go with our Pathways and then just a reminder that the courses that are being recommended here would be offered at the earliest the fall of 23-24. so the first course is in our core area and that is Advanced ACP English this is actually in Indiana University Bloomington course English l11 and that is part of our Indiana college core that we will be offering to students starting um next year and this is a requirement of the Arts and Humanities for that ICC it's a class for juniors and seniors and basically covers and explores literary devices and college
029essay writing and um so that is our recommendation that came from the core and then you'll see also we have a whole list of nlps Capstone courses so you can see all of the different Pathways that are represented there and on the next slide just a quick reminder about what that Capstone course represents the Capstone courses are created to give students those relevant experiences while they still are earning their high school credits we have had a lot of these experiences in place informally when our students work at Bernie's place or our studio when they go off site to do their work based learning opportunities but these Capstone courses really formalize those courses into state approved opportunities some of those capstones will be continued to be developed with our local Community Partners and just as a
030reminder those Capstone courses do have some flexibility some of them are classroom only some of them are completely work based and then some of them are a hybrid EXP uh just a quick reminder about our phasing of this process I'm sure you are familiar with this by now but 2122 was really our uh goal to get out and get the principal courses offered for our students phase two in 22-23 we added our concentrator A and B courses um and any remaining principles courses and then as you can see where we're at now in phase three we will be recommending um any remaining concentrator A and B courses and those capstones that were on the previous slide the principal's courses just as a reminder are really those intro courses they are the um content at the
031fundamental level for those Pathways concentrator A and B go a little bit more into uh specifics for that pathway um and I just want to make sure um that you see our the concentrator courses that are listed here that I'm going to show you here in just a moment I just want to make sure everybody understands that these are not new courses these are courses that are I'm going to be going through a renaming or a restructuring as Guided by the state and I've given you example of that on the next slide so right now for example at McKenzie we offer Collision one and we offer Collision two and you can see those are a two block and a three block course and through their next level programs of study the state has done some
032restructuring each of those courses are now separate so we have our principles of collision one block our concentrator a is automotive body repair our concentrator B is plastic body repair and painting and then of course the Capstone which was on that first slide so the next few slides as you go through really are not new content new courses they are a renaming and restructuring of courses that already exist and there are quite a few I commend Miss Swain and her team for all of the organization and work they've done on those courses uh lastly I am excited to also bring uh to recommend to you tonight um the creation of a new agriculture pathway we've had some conversations about this for a while and I'm very excited that our curricular advisory Council has brought this
033forth as you can see there agriculture is a multi-billion dollar industry with some high-wage high demand jobs we've got a lot of great opportunities right here in our community for some Partners through that work lots of opportunities both in two and four-year college programs and we have got some student interests so we are excited to propose that pathway and you'll see on the next screen right now we are really only here to propose to you that first course principles of Agriculture we will do some work throughout this school year as we meet with Miss Swain and her team and do some more research about which of these specific Pathways uh students will have opportunities to explore down that pathway and I'm happy to entertain any questions questions comments so there's more to come on our
034agriculture pathway yes sir yes sir we identify partners yes thank you yes um can you explain the difference between AP Lit and ACP literature it if why would us why would we need ACP literature if we have AP Lit what's what did the different courses offer this is a specific course that is required by Indiana University Bloomington so students can earn that dual credit through Indiana University and this is um as we've worked to develop with Indiana University the offering of the Indiana college Corps this was a requirement within their Arts and Humanities course so if a student were pursuing the Indiana college Corps we would want to make sure they were in English l11 and they would get full credit at Indiana University that is correct they would not have to test take an
035AP test to get that credit that is correct it's a big difference and that is the big difference yes great saves our kids a lot of money when they plan to go to IU absolutely and it's transferable to other universities it is thank you Mr Hollister thank you well we only have two more information items I'd like to just go and get through with those so graduation update Mr President Dr Smith members of the board even though it was back on June 8th and 9th that we all attended graduation for LC and Ln we had until October 1st to certify our graduation rate for the 2022 cohort so officially I'm here tonight to present to you our data and we are again at 93 graduation rate that accounts to 1 141 students that graduated from
036either or in central or Lawrence north of that 93 10 of those were General 60 percent were core 40 and 29 were honors I would also note on that first slide there five percent waiver rate which is a significant drop from previous years so we're proud of that the next several slides so you are race demographics for each race within our district first slide there black student graduation rate 94 overall graduation rate 13 General 67 percent core 40 20 honors our Hispanic student population 92 percent graduation rate that's 12 General 67 percent core 40 and 21 honors our white student population overall graduation rate of 94 percent five percent General 41 or 40 and 52 percent honors and then the last slide there are multiracial student group 91 overall graduation rate seven percent General 58
037core 40 and 34 honors I believe it was about a year ago Mr President when you said okay what does all this data mean it's a lot of numbers what does all this data mean so this slide shows you conclusions over the last decade our overall graduation rate is up in all subgroups plus six percent overall that's plus eight percent in our black subgroup plus eight percent in Hispanic now if you're a math person you'll notice it's plus eight percent for both Black and Hispanic but that accounts to 78 more black students and 178 more Hispanic students we've had a larger increase in Hispanic students in our subgroup overall percent of diplomas that are core 40 is up in all subgroups up 12 percent overall overall a number number of diplomas at our honors diploma
038and I want to note that for honors diploma that includes both academic and Technical Honors diploma so overall it's up five percent overall I will point out the only red on the screen there Hispanic is down one percent but that does again account to more students because that subgroup is larger now so it's 36 more students over the last decade but I will point out we do have a widening achievement Gap just a slightly widening achievement gap for our honors formula that we need to continue to look at and as I mentioned our waivers are down down eight percent overall so we know what the negative number is in green because that's a good thing so our black student population down 16 so 70 less students receive waivers so those 70 students still graduated but
039they didn't have to receive their waiver uh to graduate as you'll recall last year was the last year for the ISTEP test as the qualifying graduation exam so now students have graduation Pathways which was just mentioned by Mr harshow uh 13 less Hispanic students so that accounts to zero which is zero more or less students but again because of the increase in our Hispanic population even though we've had more students in that population we've had less students have to receive and or no more students have to receive a waiver and then minus two percent for white outstanding what are our next steps as we continue to be proud of our graduation rate solid solidly at 93 we still need to look at our achievement gap on the number of students that are receiving academic or
040Technical Honors diploma for other subgroup and that is one of your board goals that you continue to have for us as a district we need to look at increasing the number of graduation pathway opportunities to meet the needs of our students we can do that by increasing the capacity within our current graduation Pathways fully implementing the next little program to study as presented earlier this evening as well as creating additional graduation Pathways such as the agricultural pathway that was just presented I'd be happy to entertain any questions or comments questions comments well done excuse me yes well um not on the or does anybody else have a question or anything before I yeah before well I'll do my life because it's not really tied to this it's actually to point um .304 after I pondered
041on a second I want to ask something I'm going back one so in my crystal ways you know how I do so let me make sure so that's what I'm saying so let's just go ahead and yeah any questions comments on the graduation rate a comment um just on the math numbers part um the Black and Hispanic student population is much larger so is this correct in saying that the increases is a very large number of students relative relative correct to our overall okay thank you for the math clarification great data an example of that would be on the slide that were the conclusions for our our white student student population even though it's up seven percent it's actually less students because our white population is stronger you're correct and what is the state average
042uh graduation rate yeah that'll stop my hand but we're above it okay yeah we're way above comment Miss Crystal something you can start doing uh board comments was it I can sure yes okay can you hold the board coming okay I'll make note too thank you no other questions on our graduation rate John well done sir request to publish our RFP for our student Chromebooks good evening again Mr President Dr Smith members of the board each year annually we bring you this request for an RFP for student Chromebooks and our one-to-one devices with our students we do a refresh every year for students entering grade 5 and grade nine their freshman year of high school this RFB allows us to collect competitive quotes and I'll be coming back to you at the next board meeting
043asking for approval any questions on the request to publish RFP for our student Chromebooks or comments thank you Mr kuznick at this time just clarification we posted to start our work session at five o'clock a public 1020 public hearing starts at 5 30. because we start at five o'clock we went ahead and went through the first at least most of the agenda at this time I'm going to close the work session and open the public hearing of 10 28. we'll now open our Public Health 1028 public hearing Mr miles good evening Mr President Dr Smith members of the board tonight we begin a 10 28 public hearing and this is required by State Statute as such I would like to call Mr Jeffrey quakenbush to the podium Mr qualcombush is with our legal counsel Barnes
044and Thornburg and he's going to explain the process to us tonight thank you Mr miles Mr President members of the board Dr Smith Jeff Quackenbush it's absolute pleasure to be with you this evening as we have done with several of your last uh most recent projects like the high school projects and some of the others that you've had previous to that like your transportation center given the size of those projects as Mr miles stated you have to hold two preliminary determination 10 28 public hearings for those projects in which we have a presentation regarding the project then we have a presentation regarding the financing and the impact from a tax rate standpoint associated with that and then at the conclusion of each of those presentations you then have the opportunity for the public to provide
045any comments or questions after which you would then have any board comments or questions provided this notice was published in accordance with Indiana law on November 4th for both this public hearing and then you'll have a second public hearing on November 28th that one will actually be at 7 pm and that notice was also included in that November 4th publication so we don't need to republish at this point in time for that as well at the conclusion of the November 28th public hearing there will be a resolution presented to the board very similar to the ones that you've seen in the past that would be a 1028 preliminary determination reimbursement resolution at which time you would consider whether to make a preliminary determination to proceed with the Middle School renovation projects the renovation and transformation
046of this building and the construction of a new education community center after that notice after that resolution is adopted if it is then we would publish a notice of preliminary determination and that would then trigger the 30-day request period that you've had in the past regarding your projects once we get completed with that then we would proceed with the old process of the financing in the first part of next year it is anticipate that we would be in a position if there would be no Community request for any additional processes to have the financings done in the first end of the first quarter or beginning of the second quarter of next year and that you would start construction on those projects at that point in time so with that I'd be happy to answer any
047questions you may have regarding the process or the timeline if you don't have any then I'll turn it back to you to I believe then turn it over to Mr Smith to present the project information are there any questions regarding the process thank you Mr qualkin Bush thank you very much Mr Smith Mr President members of the board Dr Smith I am excited about this process because this does take us to the last three educational sites in our districts since 19 or 2014 and 15 when we started this process with blue ribbon so I'm excited about that I want to walk you through uh some plans that we've been working on with I want to mention our partners that we are working with especially the through Belzer Middle School Fall Creek Valley and lecc we
048have Andy Miller here with Fannie and Howie his lead architect on the project and he has some team members too as well uh Henry and nochi with hco Architects also with Fannie and Howie and then we also have mayman powers where powers and Sons and Dustin Tallman and I I want to especially mention them because these are the CMC for the projects that will oversee the renovation process and Dustin is the lead person for these three buildings that I'm working closely with and of course we have Victor Bush PR our principal Belzer middle school and Justin Lynch here they're extremely excited to see this as we move forward and what I like for us to do is walk through some plans site plans and also we do have some video inside these uh PowerPoints that
049gives you a walk through and a feel of some of the new areas in the building that they will experience through the process of this renovation so first of all we'll start with Belzer middle school and we are touching pretty much the entire building the major areas you'll see in the center there is a new Auditorium it's a multi-purpose Auditorium a lot of work going on in the cafeteria and new serving lines the media center has been redesigned and redeveloped to meet the needs of the building and a lot of work going on in the Performing Arts area if you recall if you've ever been in there Performing Arts has a kind of a tiered system we're going to make it all ADA Compliant so all of ours do have free and simple access to
050all of our classrooms also we're doing a lot to the outside of the building uh in all of our buildings we try to separate the bus and the parent traffic and traffic flow and Belzer Middle School we're looking at a new traffic light on the northeast side uh of the facility with the main entrance on the east side coming in with the new parking lot design and parent drop-off and pickup also you'll notice just down to the right of that right next to the softball stadium a new Turner a roundabout if you will for special education drop off and pick up and then we'll also have on the far west side over by the purple area is the bus uh load pick up where it currently is and we've expanded that a little bit to
051get all of the buses on the West Side the purple represents the new addition to the building uh which is the main Auditorium and also part of the cafeteria this is a simple phasing plan as we work with the building tried to least impact the teachers and students through the course of renovation and also their seasons of impact whether it be performing arts or Athletics trying to do the building when their least impacted uh that that's the outside phasing plan again we've got to keep traffic flowing so we'll do the course of the two and a half years we will uh do all site improvements uh for each facility this here is the front entry what do we want to do here is this will be a video that will walk you through one part
052uh of the building as you come into the building you'll turn right to uh down the main hallway and that'll lead us to a new hallway that will attach the new Auditorium to the main section of the building the color scheme is similar to what will be on the floor uh the the lockers the accent colors uh be the same theme throughout the building when you're cutting through a classroom we'll make some offices of the remainder of that classroom in a main hallway and this will supply also egress for the new facility as well as access to the new facility the front lobby to the auditorium we'll take a view of the outside and look and see what the face looks like and then we'll come back into the building just a reminder the grass
053you see there probably won't be there that is our parking lot for the buses so just an FYI is that the current front of the building this will be the new face of the auditorium from the outside looking in right yeah we'll take you back in the doorway and then give you a trip around the new uh Auditorium and what it looks like again safety features in all entryway doors around the building will may be maintained with new structure and existing what's neat about this Auditorium it does house roughly 850 seats similar to both middle schools what's different about this facility these seats retract back and also the loose shears so this becomes a multi-purpose room that allows them to use it in different functions throughout the day throughout the year as we leave the
054auditorium we're going to be going down and existing hallway and as a result of the renovation to the cafeteria we have created another hallway south of the current cafeteria again it's going to make much better student flow Safety and Security on the day-to-day basis and uh easier more access to the cafeteria throughout everyday lunch periods as a result of that new hallway the media center you also look at it as we go in there was modified to connect as well so there'll be multiple points into the media center as well again student flow Safety and Security will help benefit day-to-day activities of the building this is the main hallway going north you'll see the main entrance there and the current Media Center on the right we will be maintaining their video wall in the current
055library right there to the left as you come in and that's why that seating is flexible seating for them to utilize it in a lot of different ways this is a new access and a new hallway that's going to be put in place that will help again connect and make student flow a lot better into the new serving lines we'll have again three serving lines we've increased it and uh the cafeteria giving a little more room as well you can move to the next slide there's an overall View actually this is the front of the building with the new uh canopy next slide again some more views of the front so again a walking tour that was Belzer and Fall Creek Valley again the renovation we have a lot of renovation going on in the
056uh main office area again Safety and Security as a result of that shifting people around uh this the office area to the left of the entryway a new Clinic uh it's a new special needs area and then also to the left of that right in the middle of the uh cross if you will is the media center and the redesign of the media center and also support service additional assistant principals counselors student supports area in the student area is a main area that will be highly renovated site plan uh what's new up there is to the left of the blue is a new soccer field that will encroach a little bit into the wooded area but this will allow Fall Creek Valley to have all their sites on one side all their fields on one
057site redesign of the softball and baseball field new tennis courts and a little bit uh resurfacing of the front area traffic we squared that off into the main entrance of the building also to the the upper left-hand corner of the building in blue the gray areas another turnaround for special needs buses again separate from parent as well as the regular school bus traffic again a phase plan working with the building to make sure that least impact throughout the course of the renovation and those are the areas highly uh uh renovated on the exterior of the buildings that I just showed you the main entrance we'll have two videos of Fall Creek one is the main entrance going into the commons area and then the media center and the cafeteria area so again the main entrance
058going into the new office area Safety and Security separation is the key point there and going across the hall and back into the clinic area and the special needs area foreign area upgraded floor ceilings and walls this is taking you into the New Media Center again their volume counts of both buildings will be anywhere from 14 to 15 000 so they have not lost any bookshelf space that there currently needs are but totally redesigned now we're heading into the new student support area roughly taken a third of the old media center and turned it into the new student Support Services assistant principal counselor area the support to students near where the students live on a day-to-day basis foreign reception area for students and then office and conference rooms to allow those support levels to take
059place next slide you move into that video we'll run you through the cafeteria serving lines again a new design in the serving lines take place we are adding a bookstore access into the um cafeteria area that space right now is dead space we're just going to fill it in and utilize it thank you let me goes up here Sheila if you want to go ahead and go to the next slide the front new entrance way again we showed that before expansion cafeteria lecc phase one we're going to be moving in a lot of exterior work and some interior work is going to take place here at lecc you'll see the numbers on the roof and the blue the seven areas of roof replacement will take place you'll see the front parking area expanded we are
060maintaining the PD room in this boardroom so district-wide activities can still take place as well as a community additional parking up in the north side of the building uh the red renovation of the track and Tennis Courts although the asphalt a lot of the sidewalks replace the two main bridges that we have on door three and six will be totally re replaced and upgraded and then also inside safety security before uh PA systems and cameras and door access will be updated here as well so again the phasing plan uh for the exterior components of the building and then also lecc on the fort I wanted to give you a description of the site of where that would be located you'll see the large brown area that's 4.5 Acres of of grassland right now that's directly
061across from the new Plaza area and the apartments there on Wheeler Road so kind of gives you a proximity of where it is at what we're looking at and these are just conceptual there's nothing formatted specific details uh of this building because working with the city it could be a Part City part MSD LT this particular building shows you the option of both if you notice the red line anything from the right of the red line was going to be dedicated to msdlt and that part of the building would be roughly uh 40 000 square feet that would house our central office enough parking there then to supply I believe close to 350 with also street parking and the next slide gives you the second floor uh be a two-floor building also the exterior of
062the building would mimic the architectural style next slide of the four area in the brick exterior so as we move forward an architect and a CMC would be um brought to the board to further the design layout and process for that building thank you very much I will be concluding the meeting for us as we are all working volunteers and work calls for our dear president so um are there any questions about the design about the the schedule I'd like to turn that over to Mr miles in uh his last portion of the presentation yeah how we're going to pay for it thank you madam vice president I'd like to call belvia Gray to the podium to talk about financing we agree here what many years tonight I'm here to talk through some of the
063financial parameters that will be included in the legal resolutions that are not here for approval tonight for discussion tonight but that will be up for approval at your next meeting on November 28th uh based upon all the information that Mr Smith provided we um have worked on establishing maximum parameters and so through this process the establishment of these maximums are so that we can provide make sure that we can't exceed those parameters right so we can only come down from them and so the parameters that have been proposed are keeping that in mind just as an aside I think we're all aware that interest rates have been increasing and so we have taken that into account and preparing the uh maximum parameters for these numbers right now interest rates on a 20-year borrowing are at
064the four and a half 4.6 range and so we've included a maximum here of seven percent and so you we're doing that to make sure that we're providing the school corporation with all the flexibility um all while still maintaining your overall goal of keeping your tax rate the same so I just want to make sure everyone's clear like we're establishing the parameters based upon those maximums so we're looking at a maximum borrowing amount of 130 million dollars uh and also 20 years per issuance this may be issued in multiple series of bonds and so none of them will exceed 20 years of borrowing a maximum lease rental payment of 13.8 million and one of the other maximums that will be tied to this project is the maximum lease rental payment which is principal plus interest
065and some miscellaneous some miscellaneous fees for for every um annual maturity so we have the maximum total lease rental payments on here as well keeping that total increase in overall tax rate to uh zero and we also have some other parameters in here that are percentages that are required to be shared by law the next slide then shows how this fits in with all of Lawrence Township's overall indebtedness we're showing the kind of Blackish bars are the schools existing indebtedness and then the gold bars represent the proposed bonds and like I said it's if you count all of the bars it's more than 20 years but we're just representing all of the series of bonds that could be issued for this potential project questions on the financing what's up go ahead Mr freyji yeah so
066in years um 2024 through I don't know 20 23 it looks like the total you know existing and potential new bonds you know are higher than where we're at in 2022 and 2023 so why is that not creating you know a potential higher tax rate that's a good question part of that is because the the graph that we're showing here is based upon those seven percent interest rates so that is based on a higher interest rate if if we ultimately got to that point we would be looking at uh capitalizing some of the interest on the bonds and so what capitalized interest is for those who who may not be aware it is a project cost that is paid for out of the bomb proceeds so the total borrowing amount that we're sharing is based
067upon all of the project estimates the cost for those as as Mr Smith knows them today and we've also included uh We've also included a factor of four capitalized interest should should it be needed thank you but to your point maybe one thing we can do for the next meeting is add that kind of line that shows the tax rate in there just to because that's a very good question so we'll add that in there for clarity for the next meeting yeah I mean I think it's definitely helpful to show the you know the max thing it might also be helpful to have a slide that kind of shows if rates you know help sure they are today you know what that looks like also sure yep happy to do that any questions board well
068Layman's layman's term belvia the goal is for us not to raise the tax rates is that correct that is correct yes that is our overall goal and so all of the parameters that we're sharing with you today are to establish maximums because uh we're we don't know where interest rates will go I was sharing with Mr miles earlier today we're assuming seven percent the last time interest rates were in the seven percent range from uni bonds was in the 90s um so don't and I none of us have lived what we've all lived so we're not sure where they're going to go uh but just for some historical perspective so right now we have about two and a half percent cushion built into these rates whereas in the past if we would be coming to
069you we would probably be coming with uh maybe one one and a half percent given that we're looking at issuing bonds over several years so we're building in an extra percent over and above that well seeing as this is a public hearing is there anyone in the community that has any comments right now about this project seeing no public comments I will now close the 10 28 hearing now we will continue with the rest of our board meeting um Johnson um we have Personnel report Madam vice president Dr Smith and members of the board I recommend the board approve the Personnel report as submitted so moved second being properly moved and seconded are there any questions all those in favor aye those opposed our Personnel report is asked we're on to my favorite part of
070the meeting which would be word comments and I'm going to start today on my right side Miss Puckett yes well back to my question it's more of a clarifying question it was to point um 3.04 this just in the climate that we are in just to clarify um that was we were talking concerning curriculum recommendations and from my understanding critical race theory is the intersection of race and law so I just want to ask outright are any of the points or any of the changes that we've made um I know CRT has taught more on a Collegiate level not on this level but just to clarify is any of this tied to any CRT teachings no it is not thank you and now to my comments that clarification thank you sir um I wanted to
071add this and um last meeting for our um the last meeting for the classified and admin salaries I had some non-verbal and verbal concerns and I wanted to publicly apologize because I have a personal standard on how I serve and lead and one of those is I'm ten toes down concerning being accountable for your words ten toes down is urban vernacular for a steadfastness and so I want to apologize to Dr Smith for not expressing the fullness of my concerns you are you are one accessible man and you any question or concern that I've ever had you've never hesitated to address and I also want to apologize to our leaders I know it wasn't overly you know I I wasn't doing anything horrible but it was a standard that I felt like I failed you
072in on not clarifying um my concerns I just wanted to apologize to all of you too that I don't want to diminish your work the thoughtfulness and the passion of it I appreciate it and I thank you for that and um it's added a level of mindfulness to me as a leader and so I thank you for that and in the words of our prolific writer and thespian and rapper Tupac Shakur you you are appreciated thank you thank you Miss Puckett uh Mr Fiji it's because I'm trying to keep this as brief as possible because Dr harshbarger and I are going to meet right after this to talk policy and you know how eager I am to get to policy okay moving on Miss Norman thank you I just had a couple things first I
073wanted to Second what Crystal just said I feel the same and I just wanted to you you clarified it beautifully secondly I was at the State School Board conference last month and there were two themes going on that I picked up on one was School Safety and Security so Mr Smith thank you for clarifying that also in the Middle School upgrades that will be happening that's something that I hear a lot from community members and fellow parents the other thing was taking back the narrative about the teaching profession there has been some negative pieces out about teaching or teachers in the past and I want to commend Dana and her team there's been a lot of great pieces about Lawrence Township teachers here in the news recently with the golden apple Mr Todd I think
074that's something we can all continue to share personally with others a lot of us are in the positions we're in whether it's education or not because of a teacher in our life so I just want to commend all of our teachers and everyone involved in the education the educational world and then finally on the school level we were at the Fall Creek Valley Middle School robotics meet there were actually no complaints they said it ran super smooth kudos to all the teachers and volunteers and also Belzer Middle School was well represented as well so it was great seeing both of our middle schools competing and that's all fabulous well I would like to thank everybody this evening we haven't met for a while and there was a lot to think about today it wasn't a
075particularly long meeting I wouldn't say Mr Fiji but um but I it was uh you know the fullness of the work that you all are doing is evident um expanding our immersion programs deepening our Pathways for our kiddos um expanding access to our students is just terrific um the graduation rates congratulations and you know we have we have some to build on and we have some achievement gaps to take care of in in those diplomas but we're going in the right direction I've attended a few um of our meetings for gifted and talented and expanding access there and I know that that will make a difference I know we have other initiatives currently um in play that will will I'm sure it will lift us up to the next level so thank you very much
076Dr Smith thank you madam president vice president and board let me just bring to the table two um Events first of all I want to commend our high school team who hosted with our partners Community Health Network the black men and white cult program this past Saturday uh this is a nationwide program that was brought to Indianapolis with the help of these wonderful people the goal is to increase the number of African-American males in the medical field and Lawrence served as a conduit and a host for the entire state of Indiana it was a packed house and our partners from Community Health Network provided unbelievable resources to our Educators and our students this past Saturday so we do need to put that on the record and thank Community Health Network for them sponsoring I do
077want to remind the board it is that season we will have our legislative breakfast this Friday starting at 8 A.M at McKenzie we will host all of our legislators at all levels so Eddie well it's oh it's was uh breakfast starts at eight o'clock Sheila but the event starts at 8 30. so and we want you to be there early so please make sure you're there early and we'll be done by 9 30 as we'll meet with our local legislators at every level from state federal and even down to the local levels I just want to remind the board about that Madam president that's all I have this evening well I think that's enough um our next board meeting is Monday November 28th at 7 00 PM um morning clarification Madam uh we have student
078recognitions at 6 30. oh that's okay that's right student recognition's at 6 30. that's right um there may be a few yeah there may be a few um and at that we're ready to adjourn the meeting I'm I don't recall if we were if we need a motion for a we do need a motion do we have a motion to adjourn so moved properly moved and seconded we are adjourned