001thank you for being with us here tonight for our february last day of the month of february board meeting spring is on the way thank you for being here with us today we do have a full agenda so we'll get started please join me in the pledge of allegiance thank you i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation before our first item tonight i will just remind all the community that mr dick freezes in our virtual space and he'll be a full participant and participate in our board actions tonight thank you for being here with us dick our first order of business is our blue ribbon update mr smith good evening mr president members of the board dr smith uh with
002the weather breaking construction continues especially outside lc a new addition again a lot of new finishes are going in as you can see classrooms flooring and bulletin boards marker boards the new dance floors going in that's part of a phase 1b and alien continues on with their three-story starting again at the third floor working its way down uh that's a connection of the old building in the new and the pool continues on uh next two weeks you're going to see a lot of architectural panels start to go up uh at ln and that will enclose that pool steel and roofing on the new pool continues and this last weekend we moved the transportation into their new facility and they've been working out of that space for a week they love it they love it they
003love it and just some more of uh the new inside of that we continue on with the middle school renovation and design work working with the architectural in powers and sons fannie and howie and hco and also the hvac continues on and that will continue this spring and through the course of the summer board any questions for mr smith regarding our blue ribbon update thank you sir our next item is our district equity committee report mr notor thank you mr president members of the board and dr smith it is my privilege this evening to bring you the final report from our district equity committee and we do have several committee members that are in the audience this evening and i just ask you to stand at this time if you're here this evening and served
004on the district equity committee thank you and thank you for being here this evening [Applause] so as we begin as we always do we begin with your board policy and i do want to add a note to this that although this board policy has been in place for several years now the work that i'm going to share with you this evening is operationalizing and bringing into action the requirements of the board policy it is important that we stay focused on our definition of educational equity so i am going to read that so that we we stay clear on how we're defining educational equity it's a state in which dimensions of privilege skin color and economic status are not predictive of or correlated with educational outcomes in any significant way and where all learners are able
005to participate fully in quality learning experience so this definition is guiding our work as you may recall the district equity committee the the call to action was in response to an equity audit that we commissioned on behalf of the board of education with dr vernita mayfield conducted during the 2021 school year so that was in the height of the the pandemic that we moved forward with an equity audit that had four phases to it um a data review of all the data relevant to this topic within lawrence township phase two i do want to call your attention to and call the public's attention to the significant stakeholder input that went into the equity audit process 847 parents 2429 students and 503 staff members gave input into the audit findings and audit recommendations that i'll be
006sharing this evening phase three was on-site campus visits and this was um in between the virtual and in-person and and working through the logistics of all that but there was an on-site component that then resulted in the final report with 25 recommendations based on the audit findings so the charge then became to put this into action and so we called a committee together and that committee again met during the height of the pandemic this was during the fall the surgeons of the delta variant so we were organized by tables socially distance and the next three slides show you over 100 community members stakeholders that participated in this process including students and the student voice became really really important to the entire process the committee met five different times to do the work and the work
007was driven by the equity audit recommendations the the finding categories and it was really important for this topic that there be norms for each of our meetings and i do want to highlight at this time our parent co-facilitator dr kisha warren gordon if you would stand please as dr warren gordon developed the norms for us developed the norms for us and taught them to the committee so that this was a very very productive conversation and that we were able to accomplish a great deal in a short amount of time the next slide shows the different categories of the audit recommendations the the findings if you will um and and it's really important that we are familiar with each of these recommendation categories because they drive the the rest of the report and so as a
008reminder this was data driven i just reviewed all the data input that stakeholders gave to develop these different finding categories and so each of the recommendations then matches one of these categories and so just for the the board's information this is such a thick report with so much detail in it that we are going to need to divide this into three different meetings to really give it the time and attention that it requires and so this evening is just a general overview of the process a general overview of the report and i'll go through how it's structured how it's set up and and give you some insight into each of the audit recommendations then we'll come back on march the 14th and we'll get really specific into the specific action plans for each section a
009through e and so we'll spend some time on in in march doing that then we'll come back in april and we'll do the the second chunk and review the action plans for sections f through j so this evening won't be about the specific actions even though they will all be shared because we'll have an opportunity in march and april to come back to those and then if it's the board's prerogative to consider april 25th for potential board approval so that we can begin the work so this is the the first recommendation and action and so let me just walk through how this slide is set up so the a1 and the category a was strong principal leadership and so this was the audit recommendation attached to strong principal leadership and so the recommendation is really
010to frame all equity work within the context of what we're already doing we have strong systems in place instructionally we have strong systems in place curricularly we have strong leaders i'm in the the audit data prove that out and so the audit author dr mayfield is suggesting that we use that same level of creativity flexibility strategic planning innovation that we've led other initiatives with to the equity work and not make it one more thing that we're doing but integrate it into all of our work and so the group that worked on this developed action steps that we'll review in detail in march but you can see the action steps then the next column gives you the targeted date for implementation so that you have an idea of when this action would begin divisions that are
011responsible for the initial implementation i mean ultimately we're all responsible but divisions particular divisions take the responsibility of leading specific actions and then you can see bulleted to the right the specific next steps that would be taken should this action step be approved so this is the first one strong principle leadership then we move into the second category and the second category is human resources and there were several recommendations within human resources this one is specific to our alternative licensing program we have an alternative licensing program the acronym is dbac it's our district-based alternative certification program for classified staff members to become licensed teachers however through the equity audit it was discovered that not all of our stakeholders are familiar with this program familiar with this opportunity and so in particular our spanish-speaking parents were
012unaware that the program existed so the recommendation is around expanding the promotion and access of the program to all of our parents and all of our community members and there's a series of actions that will will lead us to meeting this particular recommendation b2 is also in human resources and this really is about our data system for human resources and so you can see um while it's noted that we do a great job of setting the goal of hiring diverse staff to match our students we need to keep track of what happens with that diverse staff once they're with us what's our retention rate what's our promotion rate and so as it says it's one matter to recruit diverse candidates it's another matter entirely to ensure the environment is conducive to retaining them and so
013these three action steps and all the sub-action steps with it within them are designed to reach that goal with the with the focus on the data collection system did we miss one sheila no okay c1 um we'll get a couple other hr ones as we go on as we move into the c category the c category is around uh and the title of this section is shifting demographics and in particular language looking at a growing need for supporting spanish-speaking families spanish-speaking students and so this particular recommendation is very targeted and focused to the transportation department and this is based on very specific very specific feedback from our spanish-speaking families that we need to determine the root concerns uh within transportation from our spanish-speaking families and make sure that we're improving that communication loop with them
014and then of course monitoring and evaluating that progress moving forward and you can see a whole series of actions that we'll review specifically in march to get to that goal so this one is also related to our shifting demographics and our spanish-speaking families and this is really at the school level as well as district communications what's the best way to communicate with our spanish-speaking parents so that it's more frequent it's more consistent and engaging them in finding the answers and not just assuming that the the way that we communicate with our english-speaking families works for our spanish-speaking families and so again a whole series of recommendations for actions to help us become better communicators with our spanish-speaking parents and then this is the one i was thinking of that's another hr one but has come
015up in the shifting demographics category and it's pretty clear that we need to continue to recruit and hire additional spanish-speaking personnel and of course that's easier said than done and so there's a whole list of action steps that would support our district in making this a goal in a reality as we move into category d category d is all about discipline and there were several audit findings for us related to discipline this first one again is about a data system and developing a consistent data system that is easily accessible that's automated so that our principals our assistant principals our teachers have access to disciplined data at all times and then we have systems to review that data to intervene makes decisions that support teachers and support students and so for this one there are three
016specific action steps one of them has been completed already and we'll review those in detail at the the march meeting the second one for the discipline category is really asking us to consider rethinking how we approach discipline and thinking of it more in a restorative approach a restorative justice program restorative practices where we're really engaging our students our parents our community members in resolving conflicts and supporting students to understand how actions can impact the larger community and this is a big shift a significant shift and so you'll see several action steps designed to get to that shift over a period of time d3 is also in discipline and and this is about getting clear on our terms and we talk about behavior in a lot of different ways in our district and sometimes the the
017behavior concerns that we're talking about really shouldn't be about discipline they're about other types of behaviors that might indicate other needs that students have and so we need to work as a district or this recommendation suggests that we need to work as a district to be able to separate those two and have some clear definition around behavior concerns that impact students but may not be disciplined disciplinary infractions and so the the last part of this recommendation is also really looking at intervention steps that teachers should take prior to submitting a discipline referral and so there's as with most of these recommendations there's several recommendations built into one and so there's several action plans that address this particular recommendation and then the last one for the disciplinary category really is about our elementary alternative program the
018the acronym leap and this is where our elementary students receive an alternative to suspension opportunity but in the the review and the equity audit it was found that we need to have some clear guidelines about that about which behaviors are appropriate for a leap referral and which one should not require classroom exclusion when we're taking students out of their learning environment it's got to be really really significant and so the suggestion is that we really define insubordination that we really define lack of respect as different cultures perceive different behaviors in different ways and so we've got to grow in that area based on this recommendation so several action steps again designed to meet this need the e-category is about access to resources and so this is really focused around making sure that our students as
019young as elementary school are gaining access to all the resources that they need to earn our really our ultimate student achievement goal which is our honors diploma our technical honors diploma that that can't begin when students are in high school this recommendation really forces us to take that to the elementary level and so several action steps to support that work the next category f is accountability and so think about that title of that category as we go through each one um this first one is professional development in illuminate and illuminate is our formative assessment data data data tool and we adopted it right in the middle of the pandemic in 2020 and so there was quite a bit of audit feedback based on stakeholder input that we need to continue to provide additional professional development
020additional support not just in illuminate but other formative assessment tools as well f2 again accountability is around integrating our pedagogical connections so our instruction between our course content and what's relevant for our students based on their cultures their languages their life experience so really we're talking about culturally responsive teaching helping students learn and practice how to disagree and have a conversation respect respectfully but then building in that accountability to make sure that it happens that that becomes the way that we instruct in lawrence township as we move on to g g is the sel social emotional learning category and i just want to remind the board that the audit was completed based on high school data so we chose to have our high schools be the one that were really driving the equity audit and
021so the finding was that we need to formalize a specific curriculum topics or strategies for sel social emotional well-being and it's specific to our high school we do have a curriculum in place for kindergarten through eighth grade we do not have a formal adop board adopted curriculum in place for high school and so this recommendation is calling for that curriculum adoption at the high school level h is a very meaty recommendation and to kind of give you a bottom line on what what this is this is about racialized language racialized language in our schools racialized language that has in some cases become part of the vernacular with students where some groups of students aren't sure what to say or when to say or who to say it to and the adults are confused about what
022to hold students to in terms of an expectation around racialized language and so this recommendation really is a summary of the findings within the the audit and charging us to determine what do we want our school cultures to be like related to racialized language what is it that we want to be acceptable to not be acceptable and by whom and so this one there are specific action steps that go with it um and we'll take quite a bit of of research and um conversation to determine the specific culture that that we're talking about but if you go on to the next slide you can see some of the beginning action steps to get this conversation going then as we move to the i category i do want to point out that the equity audit it
023was not solely focused on race that this category is gender bias and so we asked for our equity audit to examine all categories and to give us recommendations around any issue regarding equity that was discovered and so this one is around gender bias and the recommendation is to ensure that we have a distributive leadership model that distributes decision-making distributes input distributes power around diverse voices and that it's not just one demographic that's making decisions or one demographic that whose voice is heard and so you can see the the specifics within the um recommendation that it's about age so emerging staff our young staff our veteran staff lgbtq staff male female students so really looking at how we take in input and then who gets to be at the table to to make decisions and the
024last category of the equity audit report really is measuring are we ready for this as a community did the data show that our parents that our students that our community is ready for this conversation and the data was an overwhelming yes that our parents community staff and students are ready for this conversation and our students are demanding this conversation their their data was very very clear and so each of the recommendations within this last category is how to have the conversation how to begin to bring that discussion together in a way that is going to be healthy for us as a community is a way that's going to be framed as a win-win in our community and move our community forward and so this first one really is about making sure you provide time this
025can't be just a discussion at a board meeting this has to be integrated into the daily life of our schools this has to be integrated into the opportunities that we have to bring parents together to bring students together and we've got to allocate time to it lots of action steps around that one the next one is about designing ways for our parents to be able to come together around racial and ethnic identities to be able to interact to network to experience based on their common interests and be able to share that time together and be intentional about how we plan that as a school corporation and again all of this has to occur through professional development but we've got to learn how to have the conversation so i pointed out dr warren gordon this evening
026who really taught the district equity committee how to have the conversation and how to utilize the norms to have the conversation this particular recommendation is professional development on critical conversations empathetic speaking listening facilitation of the conversation so it can be healthy that it can be framed up as a win-win conversation and the the last audit recommendation and the last action plan is around how we partner with each other and sister schools in this particular recommendation can mean sister schools within our district so our two middle schools working together our east west elementary schools our two high schools but it also is bigger this is a recommendation that's larger than just lawrence township and how we engage with other communities who are having a similar conversation how we engage with other parts of the country who
027are having similar conversations and so you'll see a series of action steps that speak to that and then we close with uh a quote from dr mayfield's book that this is this is bigger um than just this moment in time that there's nothing uh passive uh about this work as you become a culturally competent educator that it's about action and so this evening really is the introduction of the action um and also recognizing that really this doesn't have anything to do with one's own race ethnicity one's own culture it's really about making a difference for the students that we serve and opening ourselves up to the learning to the discomfort in some cases and the courage that it's going to take in order to create more equitable outcomes for our students so at this time
028i'd be happy to entertain any questions or discussions well before any questions or comments uh first uh on behalf of the board troy team all those that sit at those 27 tables thank you for your commitment dedication to get us to this point we know that the recommendations are the easy part it's the implementation that we now will join hands join forces and see that we achieve what has been set before us board any questions or comments well um the first that i would like to ask is first off thank you i mean things seem so simple at this point and there's so much that i could say but i'll just simply start by saying thank you to everyone um it's funny when i hear equity work it just takes me to the core of
029what i'm hearing in all of this is the humanization for student achievement all of these are literally to get to the core of our students to bet to to better help them so you take all that out it's the humanization and so i appreciate our efforts to see all of our students to help them achieve so i thank you for that um for our community um will they or how soon will they have access to the audit and where will there be access for the audit for them to also go through because this is meaty details awesome it is and the way that we've structured this includes every audit report verbatim so it's all within this one report to make it easier for the community to see the recommendation as well as the proposed action
030plan and where would they find it at so it is on our website and we can make it a more prominent it's right now it's within the board so once we get through the presentations and through april we could if once it's approved make it more prominent okay and the last thing two of the things that stuck out to me the restorative program i just have to add this this is my comment it's a tool that we've used within our family for years and um i was able to branch that out and use it with my children with teachers and staff when there was conflict and it has always been successful for us one of the key tools that i have seen in it is that it holds those involved accountable but also to a
031level to a level of empathy and i know in cases where i've had it with certain children of mine that teacher or that peer was able to see um my son was able to see that teacher as beyond the teacher like these are things that and then that teacher was able to see my son as more than just a student and so it's a very powerful tool that i'm excited for us to really truly implement i'll have to tell my kids um just give them a heads up that they won't have to hug it out at the end so i'm excited for that thank you i do want to uh again recommend to our community as we are getting ready to learn on this journey the reason we are taking the time to go through
032this over our next over the next couple of meetings because we highly invite all members of the community all ages of the community to be part of the discussions as well as read the audit report there's something to be said there's something to be said about what you hear in a meeting versus what you read on your own and there's a place for all of us to learn so we're going to take our time to make sure that we fully learn as a community i do want to go back to slide 4 troy because a lot of times we get into this kind of work misinformation miscommunication gets people sideways so the first thing i want us to reiterate is dr mayfield's definition of educational equity and i want you to highlight not just the
033demographics attributes but the people in here the learners absolutely here right and what we want our learners to experience so let's just let's cover the definition one more time for our community absolutely a state in which dimensions of privilege skin color and economic status are not predictive of or correlated with educational outcomes in any significant way and where all learners are able to participate fully in quality learning experience this truly is about the students this is about our students our learners and our community that is our foundation right so let's not forget that and i know in some of your sessions you kept that at the forefront and again we appreciate that because again we are on a journey to learn about myself about you knowing that the more we know about ourselves the better
034we get to educate our students absolutely in addition to that we also know it's going to be a little uncomfortable for some of us it's part of learning though that's part of it uh and the best thing i like about it was the last audit recommendation based on the audit findings community we are ready to do the work hard work ahead of us rewarding work ahead of us but we are ready to do the work ahead of us and let's have a a good time learning about who we are what we do and the children and the families we serve in this community this is good news for us again on behalf of the board thank you for the work is amy thank you i just wanted to second miss puckett and thank everyone involved
035i know this has been a long process and a lot of hours have been put into this so thank you to everybody involved um i also wanted to highlight column two on all the slides um the targeted date for implementation and just verify that a lot of this has already been ongoing some of it has based on other data points that we knew this was work that we needed to do that's right yes and um i've seen that from the lens of being a parent and a board member and we i just wanted to reaffirm that for the public and everyone so thank you absolutely thank you miss wendy i can't say more eloquently what you all have said and you know i'm sure we'll have more deeper questions as we get um into the
036depth of the policy um questions like how will we educate our adjunct faculty music coaches you know that that are not full-time employees etc and to mr mcgregor's point uh you know as a musician i teach students about cognitive dissonance and cognitive dissonance is that place where you're uncomfortable but if you reach if you reach a little higher you come up to a new plateau of understanding and you're in a new place so i i can i'm very glad that we have a staff and students parents who are willing to do this work as evidenced by our committees and um very excited for the for the for better student outcomes mr freezey any comments sir [Music] some of the work that went on and so i thought you know it was a great effort and
037a lot of people you know really um devoted to that effort so also echo everything you said uh mr mcgregor i thought those were all points well taken and i completely agree with all those points you made thank you any other questions or comments we look forward to our next presentation our next discussion uh thank you the old policy updates dr harshmark mr president dr smith members of the board at the february 14th work session i presented to you the neola volume 34 number one revised policy package for first reading not receiving any corrections and i'll present those policies to the board for second reading questions any comments for us mr fridgey on our second reading of the neola policy um comments or feedback from anyone since our first reading of it so i believe
038uh they're ready to go here later when we get to action items thank you dr harshborger safety and health update dr harshwater mr president dr samantha members of the board i bring to you tonight the safety and health report as we do each time starting with the large numbers you can see that we've dropped again state being at just over seven percent there and the marion county dropping down to 5.5 on that positivity scale and that's significant we've seen 25 percent drop in the last four weeks so um as we come down the other side of vomit crime you'll see that our student attendance is holding to 91 we'd like to see that come up especially with the quarantining coming down but we did tick up with our staff at 95 percent the other big
039news really to to elaborate on is the cdc coming out with more holistic gauge for community spread in which are looking at hospitals they're looking at emergency rooms and beds and how the hospitals are able to handle what is moving to an epidemic instead of a pandemic so when a hospital can do so and have room for selective surgeries and for strokes and heart attacks and those things that happen and that point then the community spread is starting to fall lower and so looking again at multiple multiple ways of looking at the overall picture then the last thing just the cdc coming out with the transportation mass mandate taking that and making that mask optional we had told you at the board meeting just past week that they would still be wearing them as a
040federal requirement that is now gone so we uh notified our public on saturday three o'clock with the parent square that we will be moving to mask optional on on our transportation just real quickly lawrence township looking very good students to the upper left teachers see the upper right you can see that they're starting to now hit that one two and three numbers even zero in some cases it's our support staff down at the bottom left and then overall the bottom right so all of our graphs moving in the right direction the last three weeks have been extremely significant marked in green you can see that just last week we probably had some of our best numbers seeing zero quarantines zero cases only six student cases so i think we had two today so definitely right
041right numbers and then this report just to show you the percentage from the last 130 days so we've been in school 130 days and you can see that we've go anywhere from 15 percent down to 8 percent for those 130 days of student being in class so that percent representing how many that were positive and then lastly as always looking forward we have our next we have our next community health vaccination clinic and that will be on march 19th that is over on the community's campus and then we continue with our testing program and then lastly just continuing to watch and monitor protocols from marion county public health indiana park and cdc questions or comments or dr harsh parker i have a question for parents who are um concerned about the mandate being lifted what
042are the parental options if they're wanting to pivot their child to another means as far as online or hot or hybrid is that still an option for them or could you they they really should take that up with the the building principle that would be where you'd start that conversation okay but they are able to have that conversation with their building principal yes they should thank you any other questions or comments from the board thank you dr harshbarger at this time as a board we always welcome input communication from our community at this time we do have a community leader community person i'll ask you to come to the mic introduce yourself just a reminder all those who speak at our board meetings must address a topic on the agenda dr crowell has stated that
043so she'll be talking to our safety and health and also state your home your name full name and your home address i'm short so can you hear me okay so um i'm dr april crowl my address is 8805 bay point circle and is that what you asked sorry it's fine thank you yeah we put that on record perfect nope no problem you have three minutes to address this thank you thank you all right um hello elected school board members and dr smith and mr president um i'm dr april crowl local business owner uh frontline essential healthcare worker and parent and constituent i appreciate the parent i appreciate the opportunity to address you this evening i emailed some very serious health and safety concerns approximately a month ago and didn't hear back so here i am
044um trying to address you all we were informed at agenda item 2.2 that our every voice is important and i'm hopeful you'll let me finish my thoughts this evening my concerns were related to your covenant 19 policies and how they negatively impacted not only my child who has a disability but children from other marginalized groups specifically with regard to quarantining asymptomatic children while you may have while you have since changed those specific policies i am still attending this meeting tonight because my concerns were not taken seriously and they were deemed seemingly invalid the policies in place for the last two years did not apply to those in power and those who thought they were unseen i saw school staff individuals here tonight not wearing mask appropriately if at all during school hours at restaurants without
045masks while district policies dictated that our children had to wear them and bear the brunt of burden the burden of keeping the adults safe in school these health and safety policies disproportionately impacted the least powerful and most important and valuable portion of our society those without a voice our children my concerns were placated i was gaslighted and at the end of the day i've reached out multiple times and there was so and was told nothing further to discuss there was nothing further to discuss which brings me to my point for being here tonight whether you like it or not you were all elected to serve and represent your constituents there is zero excuse for not responding to concerns related to the health and safety of our children whether you agree with us or not as
046parents your elected positions obligate you to at least pretend that you care about what we have to say i understand this is a stressful time for you just as it's been for us parents and even most importantly our students i'm a psychologist so um bear with me here but could you imagine if you were really open to listening to parents concerns and sharing in the human experience of the suck that covet has put us all through sure your hands might be tied regarding specific policies and i can understand that however i can tell you um i probably wouldn't be here tonight if anyone would have responded with a genuine authentic response that my concerns were valid instead my concerns were not addressed and they were deferred without any additional thought and before you think this
047is only strictly about covid the only other time i've contacted the school district which was also about health and safety was to ask if our buses were equipped with cameras because i saw a bus almost get hit and somebody else go around a bus that had the stop sign up and i asked if the school district needed support from parents to help make cameras happen and i never received a response bottom line is i'm really concerned that parents in lawrence township are placated and worse ignored when you should be listening and we elected you all to represent us thank you for listening dr april thank you for your comments we will take those in consideration and also thank you for your service as a frontline worker for our community thank it thank you financial update
048mr street mr president dr smith members of the board as you can see in the general fund it's just for one month which is you know when you start the year you try to target what everything is it came out better than we expected at the end of january but february could i haven't looked at the numbers yet being today's the last day of february but we do know we had our stipends paid out in february so it will change those numbers moving forward but all in all everything is better than expected in in the general fund and the transportation everything but one line item there you can see is green the red line item is because we were getting ready for bus inspection so we had a little more expenses there then probably was
049playing but what i do is not knowing when those are going to take place we take the year's expense divided by 12. so you'll see that number come back the other way here in the next few months i'd be welcome to answer any questions at this time more questions regarding our financial update or comments thank you mr streets war committee chair reports lawrence parks and recreation thank you mr president um right now the lee road pickleball courts are on schedule to open late march and then they're already organizing league play and lessons through ccasports.com and then also a reminder to parents and the public that the sign ups are currently going on for youth sports oio fall creek baseball softball and fc pride soccer thank you thank you ms norman any additional policy updates thank
050you sir foundation big month for the foundation here we welcomed jen gibbs as our executive director um beginning of the month um very excited to have her on board and our foundation gala is march friday march 11th and you can go to msdltf.org get that right msdltf.org for your reservations i'm sure there may be a few left and i'm looking forward to seeing everyone there we'll be there okay thank you live in person absolutely thank you or thank you for your committee updates on to our action items approval of technology surplus bid results mr michael good evening uh mr president dr smith members of the board i present to you this evening the results of our technology surplus bid results as shared with you at the last meeting and i ask you approve the recommended
051winning vendors as presented i'll take a so moved second move wendy mustang second by miss crystal puckett questions or comments because we have one board member in our virtual space i will call us one by one is amy yes mr freezey yeah it's wendy yes mr puckett yes i am a yes motion carries thank you approval request for rfp for extending one fiber connectivity wide area network mr president dr smith members of the board as presented for information at the last meeting i ask that the board approve advertising a request for proposals to extend the district's wide area network to our transportation facility and the water tower for our radio system so moved second boom is amy norman ii by wendy mustin questions or comments miss norman yes mr freezey yeah ms mustin yes miss
052bucket yes i am a yes motion carriers thank you approval of our neoli policy updates dr harshmark mr president dr smith members of the board i recommend the board approve the neola policy updates as submitted second boom mr friji second bomb is amy norman questions or comments i i just mike my only comment is that these policy updates and just for the public are generated by changes in state law et cetera just to keep us up to date court cases absolutely thank you for the clarification any other questions or comments before we take action ms norman yes mr freiji this mustang yes this bucket yes i'm a yes motion carries thank you second by ms mustin that we consider items 3.4 through 3.10 as consent agenda items questions or comments miss norman yes mr fridgey
053yeah mrs mustin yes mrs bucket yes sir yes motion carries thank you second moved by mr freezey second by miss muslin to approve our consent agenda items questions or comments miss norman yes mr freezey yeah ms mustang yes ms puckett yes i am a yes motion carries board thank you for getting us through our action items tonight more comments miss norman do you have anything you want to add i was able to attend the sixth grade basketball games last weekend it was well attended and there was some march madness going on there oh yes yes it was exciting to see the kids play and i wanted to wish the bears and the wildcats good luck this week as they play in the sectionals mr freezey any comment we've been having some great meetings with our
054legislators and i'm very proud of the work we've done as a district and as a leader in our indianapolis community to make sure that our policy makers understand where we're coming from and took a little drive by by the transportation facility today can't wait to see it yeah it is it my turn um i don't have much just want to say um first uh thank you for dr crowell for did she leave oh well thank you anyways okay i hope she can hear me um but i want to say too um one of the things that has kept me in lawrence and i've said it before was how well that we do conflict and so i've had some issues and i appreciate the leadership that has um come alongside during those times and i want
055to add to that also one of my favorite renee brown quotes i don't know if i can say your name but i'll say it vulnerability is the center of difficult emotions but it's also the birthplace of every positive emotion that we need to live out life and so as we're going through the audit as we're going through all these changes that there will be difficult emotions that we will have to sit in and wrestle in and that is okay and i am appreciative of that because i've had to sit in some stuff with lawrence and we have conflicted well and um it's great to talk about the positive and you know all the awesomeness but conflict can be hard and so i appreciate the work that's going forward but i know that there's going to
056be some stuff that we're going to have to set in and so i couldn't think of a better um team to do that with so i think that's my um that's it for me thank you community board as we come down to the end of a black history month being this is february 28th let me just commend the principles and the building leaders of the amazing artifacts facts karen past and facts i didn't even know about in celebrating black history month i mean just absolutely powerful statement from students powerful artistic expression of what this might mean to them and i think that speaks volume of our building leaders as well as our students in this district so as a board we thank you for the celebration and then even though it's the closing month 365
057days is actually the celebration of all diversity in our community and we continue to do that for 365 days but we do highlight black history month thank you dr smith thank you mr president um let me echo with mrs vice president mustin pointed out our work with legislators the board has uh a tremendous responsibility to have advocacy and partnership with our local legislators and so behind the scenes so folks on the record will know the board of education is truly active with our state legislature although this is not a budget year it's still very important the topics that are being debated at the state legislature and so these people sitting here at the dais and mr friji have all taken a great amount of time to advocate on our behalf for our students i just
058want to remind the board that we will be in the audience and attendance at the state of the city address hosted by the lawrence chamber it will be held here at the lacc on thursday so i look forward to seeing all of you there as we support our city and then we talked about transportation roger we can put it out there we will be hosting our dedication of our new transportation facility on march 24th at 10 a.m in the morning we will have the formal dedication of that new building so that will be exciting and also mr notre a little birdie told me that our work of equity has gone beyond the walls of lawrence township and someone told me that we need to arrive in chicago in a few weeks to present on the
059national stage with our good friend dr mayfield on the work that we're doing with equity so that is huge for the school district we'll be on the national uh ascd's the curriculum conference held in chicago national curriculum conference and our team will be there presenting on our work so that i'm excited to be a part of that and having our district at that level that's all i have tonight mr president thank you dr smith boy just a reminder our next board meeting work session will be on march 14th that will be a 5 30 work session again march 14th and that will be a work session and monthly board meeting in the month of march beginning at 5 30 p.m are there any other questions or comments i'll take a motion to adjourn so moved
060second who's second by consent we are concerned adjourn thank you for your time