001thank you for being here with us for our january 2022 board meeting happy new year to everybody uh i have to do say i'm a little disappointed in the coach dr smith uh all right so i go on record that i am a little disappointed that we're not going to be in the playoffs thank you for being here we do have a fairly short but a very important meeting for us tonight as we start the new year again we on behalf of the board thank you for all the work that we've done we look forward for a strong second half we've come out at halftime hopefully everybody got plenty of rest and we are going to uh march into a championship here so uh in the theme of george and alabama play tonight we are
002going to march into a championship so football theme tonight so so right so so we'll call the meeting to order our first item of business of course is our reorg and for the public we will go through the positions that are available and we will confirm nominate and confirm all our officers for 2022 for yeah for the year of 2022 okay our first office and as the past president i'm just sharing the uh reorg tonight our first office we will open up the floor for our president keep in mind for the public any board member only board members can either nominate or self-nominate for positions after that is done we'll close that slate we'll close that position we'll go to the next so at this time any self-nomination or nomination for our president of the
003board i would like to nominate reginald mcgregor as president of our board for the next term i second that right you can second that okay any other nomination and i do accept we will close the floor for our president position being unopposed i do accept the position for the record all those in favor of me being the president registered mcgregor being president for upcoming year please signify by saying aye aye and impose the same motion carries thank you now we will open up the floor for chef nomination nominations for our vice president i'll nominate wendy mustin for vice president second i would accept the nomination seeing there are no other nominations of self nominations for the record all those in favor of miss wendy mustang serving as vice president please signify by saying aye aye
004and oppose the same motion carries thank you congratulations madam president now we open up the floor for our secretary position chef nominations or nominations i nominate crystal puckett for secretary second um yeah i'm going to go ahead and accept that thank you [Laughter] let's check him out sorry with yeah other nomination or second nominations or secretary all those in favor of miss crystal parker serving the secretary please signify by saying aye aye aye aye opposed the same motion carries thank you miss puckett as far as the appointment of our financial leadership positions do we go on the record demoto we just just a simple appointment okay perfect record for the record our officers for our financial leadership mr michael shrees our cpat financial officer purchasing agent and treasurer of the district is megan dickerson deputy
005treasurer and miss renee hall assistant deputy treasurer assuming you accept our appointment mr trees he has no choice [Laughter] we are in good hands thank you for your financial leadership board appointments committee members we will appoint for our lawrence township foundation ms wendy mustin thank you it's dick freechie yay name yes i'm actually an elected member of the foundation board so i serve on the board regardless okay i know it gets confusing so i just want to make sure for the record ms mustang you will be our liaison to the board for our foundation even though we do have mr mr frieza on that board as well thank you for your services lawrence parks and recreation is amy norman yes sir i accept thank you and then what we've done in the past for the
006liaison to the indiana school board association since we all get the information but miss crystal parker i'd like for you to go on a record and serve as our liaison to our indiana school board association yes it's you then our superintendent appointed committee members dr smith that's not an appointment for mr fridgey to continue to work with dr harshbarger who was assigned to that mr friji i would hope that you would continue in that role for the 20-20 year 2022 year and then let me just speak on legislative because legislative is such a large area that sometimes goes on notice but all of the board members are involved directly with our legislative committee that includes i'm not pertaining to but meeting with legislators on a regular basis especially when we're in session as we are
007right now thank you dr smith this concludes our reorg for our upcoming year congratulations to all those who are playing appointed and all those serving as our officers for the upcoming year thank you thank you okay on top information items blue ribbon facility update sisters you're on deck mr president dr smith members of the board i will try to substitute for roger on this and hopefully i'll do him proud by what i want to do first off as lc work continues within the boiler room as you can see in the pictures there the outside's being buttoned up and they're starting inside from the top floor down with their finishes and here's some pictures of some of that some additional interior work they've done there and they've started on phase 1b you can see there on
008the left they're putting the floor in and doing some block work on the right ln they're starting to finish up the outside getting ready to put on the finishing touches and putting the windows in there to button it up that's the new connection from the old to the new that they're working on and they've started the front new entrance and it'll be buttoned up soon and then here's some more additional interior work they're doing there the ln pool the precast concrete finally arrived as you can see the walls going up there to enclose that and then they can start inside to get the pool part dug out and then at transportation the final thing they really need to do inside is putting the loft in above the some of the back in the work area
009to store some equipment you can see their picture from the side and that's it just so you know on bells or fall creek valley and lacc their chiller work continues so we'll be ready for when the warm season gets here any questions or comments or mr streets regarding our blue ribbon update is there any i know we all got the email about the flooding that took place on our in the south and i know when you're doing renovation construction it's it's it can happen was it a lawrence township or something we didn't do something what's the facts on that dr nesbit give the board a one minute caption of and we've already shared but we'll go ahead and put it on the public put it on the record for everybody just so that the public
010will understand uh the gravity of a construction situation versus something normally that we deal with sure uh thank you dr smith and president members of the board we did have uh flooding um we had a fire alarm that alerted us to the issue and that happens when the sprinkler system if it starts flowing then we get a fire alarm wind notification so we dispatched one of our employees to investigate it he found the room flooding um the room is the very edge of the construction area it hadn't been insulated appropriately not a lt issue but a construction issue and that room was too cold and that caused those pipes to burst so the sprinkler system let loose and it filled that room about two feet of water and then we had to get into the
011room of course to address it and then that flooded that south end of the building about down to the auditorium did not get into the auditorium um we immediately contacted your remediation company we were there late saturday night early and most of the day sunday to to clean it up um students back in session today we have five classrooms they're displaced today and tomorrow they'll be back the only room that we are not going to get back into it all will be that room that initiated the flooding we had planned to demolish it during spring break so we're just moving that demo up because it's pretty well demoed as it is you know we just need to tear everything out so so all in all we feel pretty good about it um we're doing air
012quality test um we did those before we brought students back and we'll continue to do those and just keep moving around the students and we feel pretty good about consider the situation about what we're able to do any questions um you said that room was too cold so have temperature issues and some of the rooms have been resolved somewhat with uh with temporary equipment yeah it has and we brought in additional contractors um oh probably about six weeks ago to help with those specifically on both high school projects we have a we have a contractor each location the district is contracted just to deal with climate and to make sure our students and teachers are comfortable thank you any other questions we can help out with thank you sir thank your entire team for your
013attention to that and thank you for updating the community on the efforts that were made to make sure that we are fully operational and things are in place thank you safety and help update dr harshmark mr president members of the board dr smith bring to you tonight the safety and health report we've had a few things taking place in the last two weeks that are certainly significant to review tonight just looking at our numbers we've seen about a 50 increase in terms of positivity rate the good news if there is any is that today we're taking steps instead of leaps so we may be getting to see just a little bit of a plane off there we hope anyway that's really about 15 percent higher than when we pivoted before and went to um went
014to electronics our instruction and so i think it's important to note that we're growing through this pandemic and learning how we can keep schools open we did take a bit of a hit in our student attendance down 85 percent from 91 and our staff held for the last two weeks or last week at we're watching the federal vaccination mandate as it moves through the supreme court right now as of now we haven't been directed that way but we're continuing to put together contingency planning if that does come to pass house bill 1001 is one that we're also watching right now it's on a fast track and so we're paying attention to any type of vaccination mandate as far as the vaccination partnership our next one is coming up february 3rd we'll have one again on
015february 24th so that is our next round focused on our five to 17 year olds and then lastly as i'm sure you're aware the cdc did update its k-12 guidance some key takeaways which we we've already been aware of but the last one i'd like to focus on just a little bit in terms of um giving you information around the isolation and quarantine periods being changed so if we can go ahead so here's a broken out a little bit more here to be able to see what exactly the new guidance means the isolation goes down from 10 days to 5 wearing a mask those additional five days for symptomatic close contacts again going down to five days from 10 from the onset of symptoms it's recommended that an antigen test be taken at day five
016if it's positive obviously you have to quarantine the rest of those days if it's negative you return to work you're going to return regardless but that is a recommendation asymptomatic close contacts again can report to school and work extracurricular activities continue asymptomatic and unvaccinated quarantine five days down from ten so those are the the major pieces of that update from the cdc just a couple graphs to illustrate just what's happening with the omnicron effect as you can see here um we we were going along fairly well with what was last year compared to this year until just last week and within just about two and a half weeks we've spiked above 30 percent in our positivity to break it down by age group in the next slide you can see that our winners are still
017college students and adults 25 to around 50 55 years old are showing the most growth our school-aged children are still holding their own yes we have seen more quarantining last week than we've seen previous in december but that was to be expected with omnichrome looking at it more local you can see overall for the teachers staff and students same kind of thing that you saw in the county and the state the nation and the world we were mirroring last year with it being a little bit better until we hit this omnicron effect our numbers have gone up and they are they are larger we gained 285 last week in terms of quarantine with students so that was highly impactful obviously you saw that in the attendance data as well um quarantine started off low this
018this last week and planed right back up but we're hoping to see that plane off and start to drop in in the next several days and into next week fourth grade fifth grade mainly fourth sixth and and eighth grade um or seventh grade excuse me our major climbs there's still less than a percent of the student body but nevertheless it is interesting to see that those grade levels are the ones that are the highest and we're most affected recently and then just as recommendations just as it did before in december we want to continue with our targeted vaccination clinics have been highly successful over 800 participants have gone through that process with us and then the cover 19 testing will begin again this week starts tomorrow we'll run two days this week and next while
019we train new technicians and then we'll be running our regular three days coming up within two weeks continuing with our layered protocols and the mass mandate and then finally the implementation of cdc guidance which we've already really done and we're now off and running with that and then lastly tonight just an update on the sr3 grant and to do that i'm going to pass it over to mr notre so as recipients of federal funds the esther 3 grant specifically we're required once every six months to provide an update in a public meeting on our status for in-person learning and so we do that at the beginning of every semester and as you know we're committed to in-person learning and so we've listed for your review with all the mitigation strategies that we're using to ensure
020that we are able to offer in-person learning to our community but as a recipient of the federal funds we receive 29 million dollars in sr3 and so this is honoring that commitment in a public setting to provide this information questions or comments uh pertaining to our safety and health update i have a question for clarification um there was a message through parent square concerning elcs and just to clarify preschool these students will be required to to these students will be required to do a 10-day quarantine isolation if i if identified as a closed contact to someone who has tested positive and in our policy it says that um that they must quarantine for five days from the onset of symptoms and the anagen testing [Music] is needed on the day five so if positive then
021they have to isolate for the full 10 days via the parent square what's the are they having to isolate for the 10 days if positive or just in general if they're in close contact yeah let me clear that up a little bit i actually checked on that right before and i think i put in here that it could be a little bit longer in the elc's because in the preschool they have naps and naps are on the unmasked and so that that pushes forward the back to a 10-day and then we have a lot of kids that are mask they don't wear a mask they're because of a special need and so that puts us in that same place if you cannot have the mass mandate in place full force then you're going to still
022be in a longer uh quarantine up to 10 days okay thank you i was just wanting that to be put on record i had questions about it thank you great question yeah any other questions or comments on our safety and health updates i i just had a quick question about that um so the gravity clinic is open correct for testing uh here at the lecc it is okay we did have a staffing issue that caused us to close for the last week there before or during break we should be reopened tomorrow and we'll be running tuesday thursday this week and then we should get back to our regular schedule next week okay um dr harsh parker i do think we need to give a point of clarification it's not we we're serving as the location
023who is over gravity is the state health department right and we are a site and location force so we benefit from location but we don't run the clinic the clinic is run by the state of indiana it is yeah okay so we just want to make sure everybody understands that we're just fortunate lauren lawrence township to have a location yeah to whom is it open the entire community yeah good question it is this week only will be just lawrence community as as they bring a second person on then we'll be back to the full community so it's just really more of a training issue right now thank you and i did have a second question well i have a comment that's a great resource to have as a as a parent if a student starts
024to have symptoms would it be advised then that they come to the gravity location or do the school nurses have access to rapid tests individually at the school locations the nurses do not okay but they are referring to our site okay or for the testing we don't we don't want people that may be infected to come into the schools yes okay i just wanted to like i guess talk out the process absolutely that happens in an individual school okay dr smith said that's a real luxury for us to have so close and for our parents to be able to access yes that's great thank you any other questions or comments and for the record show our time parents just asking questions for clarification some of the emails in fact you answered one of the questions
025up there for me pertaining to a parent was asking will we open up the clinic and get the testing site again i thought well thank you yeah we will that's what we do yeah so publicly can you tell us where in the building that's located if people drive to our building where will they find that so they come around the back side and at the very back here on on this side of the building okay um they're able to stay in their car on the south side there because that and our technicians go out meet them in the parking lot do that testing there thank you it is a drive-through yeah it's good i have a i have a question concerning the sports aspect um a student that tests positive um they're to isolate for
026the 10 10 days so forth um are they able to return to sports or do they need to have a negative pcr no it's it's the five days it's the same rules it's the same rule as applies to school for athletics okay okay so there are no special or separate rules we need to make sure parents understand it that's what the same exact rules as it would be if they were in school for athletics so they're one in the same okay just wanted to clarify so thank you again i think that's all the ones that i've been getting from happy to do so it's been a lot of change you know the questions are comments from the board thank you dr harshbarger just to remind us the board we are definitely committed to keeping our
027schools open so any questions that parents might have to make sure we can keep our students in school we want to make sure we get those answered any as i always say when people don't have answers they feel in their own blanks and all of a sudden so so we want to continue to encourage our community to ask questions and always make contact to your building leaders uh but if you do have questions get those tools and we'll get those answers okay thank you john well done sir ward on to our action item tonight approval of our personnel report good evening president mcgregor dr smith and members of the board i would like to recommend that we approve the personnel report as presented second it has been moved in property second to approve our personnel
028report the first one of january of 2022 as submitted questions or comments all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye aye aye and oppose the same motion carries thank you we do have on tonight board come as administrators i know it's beginning of the year any i'll just open up any comment from any board i just wanted to wish everyone a happy new year we're two years into the pandemic and it was very encouraging yesterday to attend the opening for the elc's construction is still moving along and kids are in school so i feel like this is just a great positive sign and i'm thankful for everyone in the district again for their hard work thank you mr friji no comments you know i would like to thank our all of our students
029it's been almost two years now and they have been wearing a mask eight hours a day it's very difficult for me to want to wear a mask for two hours straight and i haven't been certainly been in the position where i had to have had to wear my mask for hours on end it's very difficult and it's uncomfortable and our kiddos are troopers so thanks to our students for that thank you it's crystal they said it all a second dr smith board thank you for attending the dedication of our two early learning centers yesterday you were on the post working so the public will know that and then also remind the community that on january 23rd we will dedicate four more buildings we'll bring our elementary team dr brown this lapland will do the other
030two elc's as we'll do those building dedications on that day it'll be sunday afternoon as we bring those to closure so that's all i have to say and happy new years to everyone welcome back thank you board thank you dr smith or just around our next meeting will be on monday january 24th there will be a seven o'clock board meeting we will have a full agenda for that meeting so thank you oh that's that's that is true that's already been published be able to play posted that yeah so we'll do executive session at six o'clock on on that day as well thank you for your time tonight we will get ready to go home so if there are any other items we'll take a motion to adjourn so moved second by consent we are adjourned
031thank you all be safe tonight thank you