001yep [Music] thank you mr president members board dr smith yeah demo we keep tearing down and rebuilding at lc and uh the two-story is almost down lc new edition we're in it and uh fully occupied uh all three floors you see their front entrance office space hallways that was at about 10 30 when i took that uh picture in the hallway not a student in the hallway that's pretty awesome uh the gym nearing completion we're getting ready to turn that back over to them for their use ln new pool is really coming along still have again we almost have a little over a year left in finishing up that new pool a lot to be done roof continues on as you can see there as well inside locker rooms and also just a quick update
002on rjb if you recall we had eight nine open positions those uh are off field now with our de rjb employees and in those schools working so we continue to work together we again met today and uh we continue to fine-tune that and move that forward one question for roger roger can you share for the board what are you doing with furniture for the two high schools because that's a question that will come up how are we handling that the uh most of the furniture for both the high schools have been i've lost the sound by the way scene one two can you hear me you can't hear roger speaking to your mic roger yeah can you hear me now uh the two high schools we have both most of the furniture has been purchased
003however they're on a schedule uh we have uh equipped the three three-story with new furniture and as we move on over the next couple of months we'll put in new furniture in the new areas that have been renovated and we'll conti continue to do so as the building finishes furniture at ln will start coming in november for their three story that will be moving them into by the first of the year and we'll follow that same schedule with them so when their new furniture for example performing arts and arts we'll also replace their furniture at that time as well mr president members board dr smith again we're finalizing phase three at the high schools the site improvement plan and this scope of work is for both high schools so a lot of the athletic improvements
004the hard surface the plaza area signage basically everything that we're going to see and touch on the outside of that building is pretty much in this bid we did have 17 different bids and we have six bids that have totaled 24 million 536 dollars for these two sites and we are nearing permitting especially with the new land north of lc so we will again moving along the schedule there hopefully have all the permits and actually get some site work done yet this fall so upon the approval from the board we would recommend these six bids and we'll discuss those in action items yep i can mr president dr smith members of the board earlier this summer we were looking at needing let me back up on the referendum bonds we did it in phases so
005we weren't paying more interest than we needed to we had planned on two more bond issuances but with the rates going up like they were talking to our financial advisors they felt it best if we do both the next two phases in one bond issue so we went out and saw what the estimated market rate was and then they also said if you can do a private sale you might get a better rate the estimated market rate at the time was just under 4.2 percent and we were able to secure a 3.82 percent on the remaining bonds that we sold for the referendum and 3.82 sounds like a lot compared to what we paid the last time about 1.9 but if you compare that to what it was 10 15 years ago those are great
006rates so we just got spoiled by low rates so we decided to go ahead and pull the trigger on that for the 58 million that was remaining on the referendum bonds and as you can recall from a couple meetings ago we'll be coming back next month for a hearing on the issuance of the bonds to cover the athletic site locations and that that amount would be 25 million when we issued that after the september board meeting just for the community mr street when you say private offering what does that mean to us what it amounts to is there's financial institutions that'll come and say we'll take the full amount of your bond issue because normally when you sell it the underwriter buys it and they already have multiple sellers or mult multiple people to invest
007in it sometimes you have a institution in this case it was webster bank that said we'll take the whole thing and we'll give you this at this rate so it takes any risk we have of not being able to sell some of the bonds and they take that and we end up getting a better rate and move on down the road thank you any other questions for mr shrees regarding our bond sale thank you transfer updates mr trees yes this you gave me permission to do at the end of june and i said i'd report back so you know what the dollar amounts were the net amount of transfer that we did at the end of june was seven million four hundred fifty thousand five forty 548 dollars there's a little asterisk on that that
008a little over 700 000 of that we received money in the education fund but from a grant by being able to move some salaries over to our grant and we had performing arts instruments we needed to purchase so we transferred those to the operation fund to purchase those so that's what that little asterisk means so we're still under the 15 percent that the state says we should shoot to be under factoring that in we're at 13.78 if you take those out we're at 12 and a half so we're still doing well there and then at the end of the year we'll have another transfer for the last six months of the year questions pertaining to our transfer good job tonight we did get a lot of notes requests for permission to advertise the 2023 budget
009yes and i apologize you didn't get the packet prior to tonight but with the three board meet three months having one board meeting each trying to compact everything in there we need to present and get permission this evening what i'm asking for is permission to advertise a budget with a tax rate of a dollar 44. is it going to end up at a dollar 44 no we project it to end up just over a dollar one thing that's to our advantage is our assessed valuation went up 15 from last year so that allows for the rate to come down a little bit it doesn't necessarily mean individual taxpayers are going to pay less it's just the rate is less because it all depends on their assessed value in the total of our budget that we're
010advertising is 249 million as you know the state when they do their work in december they will lower those numbers but we have to advertise high to protect ourselves so i'd be happy to answer any questions anybody has on that and if not i'll ask permission later to advertise the budget and we'll have the hearing on our september meeting and the adoption in october correct questions on the 2023 advertisement of the budget any questions or concerns or comments i just had a question oh sorry go ahead we've been quiet and now we got both talking oh yes um thank you and just for clarification for the public where can they go to access that information after tomorrow on our website there will be a link that they can look at it plus the state has
011a website we have to supply it to that have the same link and that's the indiana gateway website okay thank you sir that was a little bit more difficult to get to though so yeah yeah it can get buried so yeah so we'll have it available on our website yes it'll be in the budget section of the business department or financial section correct any other questions or comments our teacher appreciation grant policy ms johnson mr president dr smith and members of the board this evening we bring to you the teacher appreciation grant policy the the policy is not being revised it's just being presented for information and that neola requires a date update so that it'll be revised to say niola 2022 but there's not a revision on the policy but the teacher appreciation grant
012is what awards a fee towards teachers that are highly effective and effective that takes place annually any questions for ms johnson on our tag right thank you thank you neola policy updates second reading dr harshbarger mr mr president members of board dr smith in july at the board meeting i brought forward to you volume 34 number two revision package for first reading tonight i bring that per policy back for second reading happy to answer any questions this time any questions for dr harshbarger second reading of the neoliberal policies thank you dr harshbarter data analytics software bid updates excuse net good evening mr president dr smith members of the board as a reminder recently the district retired the use of decision ed our data warehouse solution and that meant it was time for us to select
013and implement a new reporting and analytics software solution back in march you gave us permission to send out a rfp for a new data reporting and analytics solution with a comprehensive team comprised of people from curriculum student services human resources exceptional learners technology as well as building level administration we interview the top four vendors later this evening i'll be bringing to you the recommendation to move forward with in zeta as our recommended uh vendor and zeta provides a number of significant benefits including but not limited to an unlimited source data integration and dashboard no custom development requirements a strong public facing dashboard which was an important piece to this and and these benefits will allow our district to develop and implement reporting and dashboard tools efficiently and modify them quickly as needed questions regarding the
014data and analytics software bid updates i have a question so it's not going to change like the usage of these because i love skyward it is useful um so it's not going to change any of that it's just more of my monitoring and making sure that things are moving slow abs absolutely doesn't change skyward or anything like that it changes decision ed which you may not have used it was something that we use mainly in-house to use our data-driven decisions okay thank you yep any other questions or comments thank you miss puckett our proposed war goals i would like to table this topic when we have our board members in person at our work session with dick being in virtual wendy's not here when he had a couple questions i think it'd do better if
015we just kind of discussed that and and while we're discussing our board goals we'll also make sure the community understand or hear our conversation around why this is important to us how we hope to achieve those goals and really just make sure they fully understand that they're not they're not just a check in the box but it's something that really set the strategy for us as a district so i like to have that live conversation at the work session okay thank you i'm pleased i'm pleased please to hear that because that gives me time to do a short dissertation about each of the pending policies that are up i'm glad you've saved this time thank you for your comments mr freezey you're welcome thank you thank you board for and dr smith and administration for
016allowing us to move that to our work september work session uh financial update mr street yes in your in your packet and presented or both june and july i'm just going to focus on july at this point if you have questions on june we can go back and look at those as well but as you can see there's a lot of green check marks not very many red on both sides there again a lot of us do to the fact that we couldn't get subs and weren't fully staffed last year as far as the general fund goes and then when when you look at transportation salaries are still a little high but some of it has to do with jumpstart that we've coded to transportation but we're going to move over to cares for the
017summer so that'll clear up itself next month other than that there's they're still above where we projected and everything's moving along fine questions on our finances thank you mr shreeves on to our board committee chair reports parks and recreation thank you mr president it's an exciting time in florence parks and recreation we just entered into a five-year agreement with the heartland film festival for a five-year lease this brings them to the stairs center for the next five years it's an excellent partnership for lawrence the community and even our district secondly pickleball has been active now the much anticipated pickleball at lee road park we have eight courts that are very busy every night the ribbon cutting was on july 27th and finally sign ups are underway for all the fall sports any question for mrs
018norman thank you um how is the pickle ball coming along you said it's going really well there are eight courts at lee road park um four are open to the public on a first come first serve basis and then the other four are reserved for wednesday league play through ccasports.com that was thorough thank you amy you're welcome i read it sounds funny but in a recent report i was reading about best community lives in based on bike path walking path dog parts and pickleball courts so that's off the lawrence township foundation anyone speak on behalf of the foundation you know wendy's out okay thank you for that and no additional policy updates mr freezey uh nothing from me unless dr harshbarger has any thing to add on that thank thank you board members for your
019committed reports or onto our action items approval of site improvement bids at lawrence central and lawrence north high schools yeah i recommend the board approve the bids for the lcln site improvements as presented so moved second oh dick freeze second amy norman because we have dick in the fridge in the virtual space i will call on us individually questions or comments amy yes crystal yes dick yes i'm a yes we have a quorum motion approved thank you approval of permission to advertise the 2023 budget mr president dr smith members of the board i would recommend the board approve the permission to advertise the 2023 budget as submitted so moved second move miss crystal puckett second miss amy norman questions or comments his name is amy yes ms crystal yes mr fridgey yes i am a
020yes motion approved thank you approval of our teacher appreciation grant policy mr president dr smith and members of the board i recommend that the board approve the teacher appreciation grant as submitted so moved second move by miss amy norman's second by crystal puckett questions or comments it's amy yes miss crystal yes mr freezey yes i am a yes motion carries thank you approval of neola policy updates dr harshmarker mr president members of board dr smith early this evening i brought to you in the ola policies for update this was the second reading i now asked the board approved in the yellow policy updates as submitted so moved second move miss crystal puckett second uh mr freezey questions or comments it's amy yes ms crystal yes mr fridgey yes i am a yes motion carries thank
021you approval of our data and analytics software bid mr president dr smith members of the board i recommend the board approve a five-year agreement within zeta analytics for a data and analytical software program as submitted so moved second list amy norman sacramus crystal puckett questions or comments miss amy yes ms crystal yes mr friji yes i am a yes motion carries thank you mr president i move we treat agenda items 3.07 through 3.11 as a consent agenda for the board's consideration second move mr freezey second miss amy norman to consider items 3.07 to 3.11 as consent agenda items questions or comments is amy yes it's crystal yes mr freezey yes i'm a yes motion carries i move approval of the consent agenda second mood to approve the consent agenda mr freezey second miss amy norman
022questions or comments ms amy yes ms crystal yes mr friji yes i am a yes motion carries thank you this time we have comments from miss johnson good evening mr president dr smith and members of the board upon the approval of our personnel report this evening the school board approves a new chief financial officer this evening we would like mr matt miles to come forward he has been approved to the appointment of mr matt miles to the position of chief financial officer mr miles will transition to this new role from that of director of transportation mr miles has over 20 years of experience in business ownership development operations and management dating back to 1996. mr miles shares that he's humbled and honored to be named the chief financial officer of lawrence township the district that
023he's called home for 10 years he's excited to take the next step in his career serving administration in the board of education moving forward while remaining fiscally responsible to the taxpayers and patrons of the district according to dr smith i'm pleased to add mr miles as a member of the executive team his background and experiences demonstrate his ability to support strong fiscal management at the school district level as a native of indiana miles earned his bachelor's degree in kineology with the business foundation certification at indiana university in bloomington in 1996 he will compete the indiana indiana association of school business officials certification program and chief business officer and facilities director in the spring of matt is here congratulations [Applause] thank you carla i just want to say thank you mr president dr smith members of
024the board my lovely wife jody is here come on up jody she's she's my better half you should probably clap for her more than me because she puts up with me every day but i just look forward to this opportunity um it's been a true pleasure to serve the district over the last 10 plus years as transportation director and so i'm going to miss a little bit of that role i'm proud of the direction we've taken that department and look forward to the future that it that it's got in front of it but also want to thank mr shreves for your leadership and everything you've done for the district and uh we'll do my best to fill your shoes and look forward to to moving this district forward thank you everyone thank you [Laughter] congratulations
025man how you doing man congratulations man just gonna wave at him dick [Laughter] and next with us this evening we have reggie white this evening the school board of the metropolitan school district of lawrence township approved the appointment of mr reginald white the position of director of transportation mr white will transition immediately to this new role from that of assistant director a role he has held since 2015. before that time he served neighboring districts as an assistant principal english teacher and coach according to dr smith i'm proud of mr white's leadership and commitment to the lawrence township these past seven years i'm confident in his ability to transition into this new leadership role while maintaining the excellence that our students and families deserve and expect mr white shares that lawrence township is a wonderful community
026and he's proud to lead such an integral division and look forward to serving students and families in this new role a fort wayne native white earned his bachelor's degree in secondary education at indiana university bloomington in 1997 he holds a master's degree in education and principal licensure through indiana westland 2007 and is a doctoral student at ball state university congratulations mr white [Applause] i will okay thank you very much mr president i'm getting this down mr president dr smith members of the board thank you for this opportunity i would like to introduce a few folks that i brought with me first of all my lovely wife elizabeth she puts up with me and my parents uh i'm gonna introduce mom first jettison please give her a hand please and my dad who you may know
027dr eugene white i'm a man of few words so i'm not going to speak very long but i just appreciate this opportunity and uh you know we're going to take transportation to where it needs to go thank you congratulations congratulations okay mr president if i can add in uh before we tradition is is that when we make these announcements internally i visit the school or the division to let the staff know what we're doing and on friday roger smith joined me to a rock concert at transportation we had a packed house matt and reggie and it was a beautiful atmosphere rooting both of you on over 200 plus people that were at that meeting and uh obviously celebrating the boss there mr miles but also this chance started to roar reggie reggie reggie so mr
028white you're well on your way okay it's a beautiful thing and i i share that with the board on friday i've done a lot of these but this one was really special so congratulations both of you thank you [Applause] on behalf of the board we are actually fortunate and blessed to have the talent in this district we thank you for accepting these appointments we look forward to hearing good things from you and thank you families for lending them to us they are enrolled they do serve some long hours but we embrace them and we also remind them the importance of families so thank you and i cannot say thank you dr eugene white a legendary in his own right thank you for being here with us as well tonight sir thank you or comment miss
029amy well congratulations again to mr miles and mr white um on that note i have a kudos to mr white on his excellent customer service the first day of school we had a busing question and my husband called and he said a nice man named reggie white helped him greatly and walked him through the process for our daughter's busing so excellent customer service we're in great hands with both of you to go along with that too i was flipping through radio stations the other day and i think it was 106.7 had an advertisement for the msd of lawrence township to join the staff here and so it was it was really nice to hear that on the radio and also see it in other outlets but one of the things that i've done with my
030sales and marketing background is i feel like i should recruit too so i feel that whenever we know somebody who's talented in our families or our communities spread the word absolutely and finally thank you for a good start to school everyone thank you miss norman mr freezey so um just uh sorry i didn't be uh remote today for the meetings particularly not getting a chance to congratulate mr miles and mr white in person but here's my virtual uh congratulations to you and look forward to seeing you at future meetings and in and around the township thank you sir my turn um yes did i what everybody said congratulations gentlemen thank you so much and i want to add too that there is an app called my stop that parents can download and it's been an
031amazing tool that literally tell you tells you step by step where your bus is to help so it has been an amazing tool for us so yes my stop it's been helpful and i do want to ask this this was a concern not a concern but are the applications for free and reduced lunch still open and i ask that because with the prices of gas raising and a food the typical cost for breakfast and lunch weekly would be about what nine dollars a week for a student i know we have a family of three so it can a couple hundred dollars a month can add up easily so i just wanted to ask if the applications for that were open and those for the families that may not qualify for that are there any other
032resources that families can look into and i will say this too i was happy to hear um i have a child that is a complete care bear and she let me know that there were some concerns for kids that may not have she was observing some things within the lunch line and she said that the lunch people she said treated everybody kindly um and so i want to say thank you for that but her concern was just making sure that everybody has a baby alas mr roger smith is our chief of operations you oversee those areas would you speak to that on behalf of the board and i [Music] it is still open i believe october 1. so either from the website you can contact your school or uh food service will help assist you
033in any of those areas and uh yes we're feeding all kids so yes any student goes through the line we do feed yes she said that she said yeah they yes thank you i would like to point out another benefit if they apply by october 1 it helps us because that is the date to determine it if they qualify for free or reduced lunch they get free text curricular resource as well so it's important to try to call um apply by that date so that they can get that benefit as well thank you for that that was it so i have no other comments and i'm excited for the school year i thank you the first week fared well i had three children that literally came home and slept four hours on end so yeah
034thank you i'm excited yeah thank you mrs bucket just real quick i'd just like to highlight the wonderful stories mr todd and also miss augustus good good good positive storyline for not just lawrence township but for families in our community so let's often thank for those stories dr smith thank you mr president and i'm going to keep my comments sharp but uh in order for us to have a successful start to the school year you must have great leadership and so i want to just thank everyone in this corporation from our principals our teachers our entire support staff for all that you did to make this absolute smooth start when i say a smooth start i think all of us will shake our heads and say this was a smooth start to the 22-23 school
035year last year was much more challenging but this year was extremely smooth with the leadership of all the folks that we have in the district and we have to celebrate and this year i am going to be big on celebrating our teachers and the people who have come before us to make us great so when i look out in the audience and i see someone that i worked for many years ago and i'm gonna call him out that's why i worked for you you hired me and it's really emotional because that's who i looked up to and to sit up here as superintendent many many years later is really a and i have to remind people that's what we do in education we grow people we don't just get test scores we don't just put
036kids on the bus grow people and one day these people become the school superintendent they become leaders in our country they become ceos because of the relationships that they have with the adults inside of our schools mr president board we're going to count the heads we're counting the whites of the eyes and by september the 16th we will get our enrollment and michael we're pretty close to 16 000 is where we were last year it takes us a few weeks to do that and we'll have 16 000 kids that we're going to educate well in this school corporation so kudos to a great start for the school year and many great things to bring back to the board thank you mr president thank you one quick question for you ms johnson l-o-b on the report
037okay okay we've been trying to figure that out [Laughter] okay thank you so much for that i'm sorry can i just just one more i think it's important it's real i have a kid who is in the junior um in our new addition at lawrence central i wanted to add thank you to everybody for that as well puckett has said he doesn't say much he said that it was cool and it was really nice i grilled him i asked lots of questions i thank you for keeping everything safe he said there was no access to areas where they shouldn't go um so as a parent i feel comfortable with him there i thank you for that but in the words of robert thank you for being cool that's important it's very important that's very important
038board our next meeting we'll have a work session on monday september 12th that will start at 5 30 and it will be a combined meeting again so we so it'll be a work session and monthly board session monthly board meeting again will begin at 5 30 on september 12th and we will discuss our goals a little bit and details for our public i think all items have been brought to the board is there any new business that need to come forth to the board if not then we are adjourned thank you thank you mr fridgey thank you all we'll see