001julie's here [Music] yes so yes is would you text me okay yes it is all right just one day a week you can't come in he was going to anyways hey i'm good how are you hey dawn i really need you to text me i did not have a clue about all those emails in the personal email because i've had pbs all week and i just saw i had 15 and so i was reading them real quick so i i didn't i mean so when we were talking on the phone i didn't even know i had them so all right but yeah if you just well i mean i don't think we'll be i mean we should really go back over to this school board so i mean i didn't think we'd be right yes
002thank you okay and those are a good questions testing it is seven o'clock and i would like to call this meeting to order if everyone would please rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you my name is don lips i'm president of the school board and on behalf of the board i would like to welcome everyone here tonight we appreciate you taking time out and showing an interest here in our district this meeting excuse me is a meeting of the school board and public for the purpose of conducting the school district's business and is not to be considered a public community meeting opportunities for
003public participation will be permitted in accordance with policy b 250. before we begin with tonight's agenda items i have a statement to read regarding transition in the leadership of our district the statement reads the msd of martinsville announces the departure of superintendent dr jay arthur and assistant superintendent craig buckler effective june 30th 2021 so that dr arthur and mr buckler may pursue other interests and that the district may pursue new leadership dr arthur and mr buckler will however continue to aid the district in the transitioning of their responsibilities to new leadership the board extends its best wishes to dr arthur and to mr buckler on their future endeavors for our part we will soon begin search for new district leadership and we are dedicated to ensuring that this process will not disrupt the district's operations
004a statement from dr arthur i appreciate the district offering me the opportunity to lead this school corporation and i wish the district well mr buckler also expressed his appreciation for the opportunity to serve in the district's central office for any media outlets that may be with us here this evening a media statement which is a cooperative statement from all parties involved will be available following the meeting this evening at this time we will proceed with our agenda items first on the agenda is public comments no one okay uh next is the consent agenda and for everybody's information uh the board receives packets concerning all items on the agenda but in particular the consent agenda well in advance of this meeting so we have plenty of time to study this the consent agenda includes payroll claims
005the payroll report budgetary claims certified and non-certified personnel report so we've all had an opportunity to look at this can i have a motion uh to um or can i ask for a motion to approve the consent agenda i'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda can i have a second i'll second that okay we have a motion and we have a second all in favor of passing of the consent agenda as it's presented please say or signify by saying aye aye all opposed same sign consent agenda passes next on the agenda student field trips there are no student field trips for this month next on the agenda items e under reports the curriculum instruction assessment report has been withdrawn the second item on the report is the enrollment update ms audrey jackson i
006thought it didn't sound loud enough i'll drop my register i can go really low right now because my cold thank you a few weeks ago martinsville classroom teachers association received information from the american federation of teachers our affiliate our broad affiliate that they were setting aside five million dollars to aid uh their locals with helping return our school our students to our school classrooms mcta jumped on that and we wrote a grant and it's a six-pronged grant to help our district with inviting the kids that we currently have to come back to us in person and perhaps students that maybe weren't with us this year to help them come back so i'd like to just tell you briefly what that that money is it's uh over eighteen thousand dollars has been gifted to martinsville classroom
007teachers association from aft national uh the first prong is what we call the artesian welcome return of joy to our campus and this is to sponsor a community night august 5th during our red and blue game we've already started working on this um basically this will allow us to we're going to bring in some bounce houses we're going to rent a movie screen those big blow up ones we're going to get a copyright use for a child or student appropriate movie we're going to have like coupons or token money for the concession stand we want it to be an all-out red and blue we want to invite all of our schools to have booths set up and ptos and we've already got the student council on board um and we want to directly invite every
008single msd of martinsville student to come and we received approximately five thousand dollars for that and we're really excited about that piece uh approximately thirteen thousand dollars has been allocated for what we called the great artesian rebound returning students to artesian classrooms and this is a five-pronged approach that focuses on meaningful community engagement between teachers and our families and kids this involves visiting neighborhoods and includes a small backpack program um county fair attendance a specific booth set up by the mcta so we can talk to our families and we all know i'm pretty sure the county fair is going to be highly highly attended this year we were all sad to not have that last year and then it also gives us the opportunity to create a teacher-student liaison positions multiple positions and these individuals
009will facilitate with caregivers and students and the school communication and problem-solving strategies so the idea behind this particular piece is if someone hasn't been in the school maybe i've had students that they just feel more comfortable talking to me instead of other people it has nothing to do with other people not being friendly you're just you like you know you feel comfortable with who you feel comfortable with but if we have students who have not been with the msd before or they left and they weren't sure they wanted to come back we can actually create a stipended position so that that student we can do up to 50 of these that that student has one contact person that they know for sure that they can get a hold of right away to get them any
010kind of assistance they might need and that's kind of the grant a nutshell took a lot longer than that to write it and i wasn't quite sure we were going to get everything we asked for but we did there is an additional piece that's still in the works um that i'll hold off just in case and bring that to a later board meeting thank you thank you shannon uh and again i'd like to thank mrs adams um mrs lips and mrs crabb they were all part of writing that grant and kind of come up with those ideas um so on to my piece about the enrollment so as of today we have 151 new kindergarten applications which brings our toll to 241 overall that's including our enrolled pre-k that is rolling over we have 109
011new returning student applications that's up from 62 from last month i have broken that down from where those students were coming from we have seven that are returning from clarksville which was an online school from this year six excuse me from connections one from eminence one from franklin 14 from home school four from monrovia four from mooresville three from saint francis two from tabernacle and fifteen from union which is also an online school that's a total of 57 who were living in our district or not attending our schools so those are kind of where some of those kids are coming from um so we i'd the last few months i've talked about the survey that we had sent out and that we had only had three students that indicated they were withdrawing um that wasn't
012quite accurate from what we've seen the last few weeks so so far since school has ended we've had 33 withdrawals 19 of those have gone to surrounding schools so just schools in the general the general area we have started doing exit surveys for those students so we're not doing those if they're moving to say texas or florida but if they're going to say center grove or their own tabernacle we are reaching out to those students and mrs darby lambert is doing that so it's kind of a neutral party and hopefully get some honest feedback with that any questions regarding enrollment yeah audrey on the exit interviews are the students being interviewed are the parents being interviewed both okay so we can reach out to students if you'd like us to do that no that's fine
013i think parents are good and you mentioned that 19 we're going of the 33 withdrawals to surrounding schools where did the remaining number of students go do we know uh they were going to other schools like florida out of state one was going off top my head was going to fort wayne okay so just not they were close they were moving um and some of those kids that were reaching out to they're moving as well we've had several that have been um you know split custody situations so they're living with mom and now they're moving back with dad that kind of situation okay thank you any other questions for uh audrey on enrollment you're up next audrey you might as well just stay all right summer covent 19 headlines yes favorite topic um so the
014governor released information actually right before graduation so we were kind of scrambling to kind of get everything together that as of july 1st school corporations actually get to a say of how we want to do some of our mitigation strategies which is just great news um and it's up to the school board to put those strategies into place so i have presented to you two pieces of information i will start with the public event guidance just to kind of get us through july the first is for mass for public event guidance and basically it's optional for all people for public events obviously if they feel comfortable wearing masks that is totally up to them it does also ask if you're symptomatic to stay home and if you've been a close contact to follow those those
015procedures of quarantining and not coming to events so that's kind of the easier one of the two the second recommended guidance again this just goes through july 31st recommending that all outdoors masks are optional at all times for grades 7 through 12 masks are recommended but not or they're sorry optional but recommended for not vaccinated people any vulnerable of an individual who has increased risk of illness anybody who is comfortable wearing a mask and at this time still has pre-k through sixth grade requiring a mask that is just through july 31st um also continuing with contact tracing now i will also add that as of today the indiana department of health has not mandated mass for schools as of 2020 sorry as of next school year if that does not change i do recommend that
016msd martinsville does not mandate mass for our students or staff and i also recommend that we send a joint communication with that because we are as i mentioned last meeting we did open up that sr3 survey and it's pretty evident where our community is standing with that issue so that's kind of what i have at the moment okay so just oh are you going on you got more well there was one last piece i wanted to mention um i'm getting a lot of questions we're getting all questions about um the vaccine or if we're going to require it so i just wanted to address that in a public forum the msc of martinsville cannot require the coba vaccine that comes from indonesia department of health right now that is not a requirement and that's not
017a requirement for next school year if a year down the road two years down the road three years down the road that becomes a requirement um then the normal exemptions for any vaccination would would come into effect so just make it clear that we are not requiring the vaccine okay anyone have any questions for audrey i just want to make sure we're clear here so that everybody is clear we talked about the summer with the mask but at the beginning of the next school year the mask will not be required that is my recommendation unless we get a mandate from the nasa department of health or we get an executive order from the governor saying no schools have to do that but i am recommending at this point seven through 12 we say they are
018free to not wear masks and that rationale for that is because that age group has been able to be vaccinated if they choose to sure however if a student wants to wear a mask absolutely and we will have glass available in all buildings if they would like to wear a mask okay that is the recommendation at the moment from any department of health and they've also mentioned that they may change their guidance so just con the concern is that we pull it off and then they put it back on we only have that second summer session which is which is nine days um and it is the boar's decision so they can they can elect to pull it off now for pre-k through sixth grade i'm recommending they continue wearing their masks no just through
019july just through july yes yes this is just through july yeah again we only have that one second summer session going on right any other questions from the board thank you audrey next item on the agenda is artesian online number two but again we are withdrawing that from tonight's agenda uh the non-certified handbook was to presented by mr ogden that also is being withdrawn from the agenda here this evening next on the item is number four the 2021-22 elementary school student fees can we have a motion to pass these elementary fees i move that we approve the elementary school fees please or sorry okay there's been a motion made can we have a second second okay there's been a motion in a second is there any discussion on these elementary fees okay all in favor
020of passing the student fees for elementary schools that was presented signified by saying aye aye all opposed same sign motion carries next item on the agenda is the student fees for bell intermediate academy would someone like to make a motion to approve the student fees for a bell i'll make a motion to prove the student fees for bail intermediate i'll second it okay there's been a motion it's been seconded anyone have any discussion anything like they'd like to talk about with bell intermediate okay motion's been made and seconded all in favor signify by saying aye aye all opposed same sign motion carries item six the student fees for john r wooden uh can i ask for a motion to approve the student fees from john wooden i make a motion to approve the wooden student
021fees okay there's been a motion can i have a second second any discussion okay i asked for a vote all in favor of approving the john wooden middle school student phase signify by saying aye aye all opposed same sign motion carries number seven are the student fees at martinsville high school i know we have a we've had several questions on the student fees here at the high school so would someone like to comment on that um i would like to make a motion that we table that until we get some of those questions answered um i think there's too much variance in some of the fees and i'd like to get some clarification first anyone else have a comment okay for the public information here on the pamphlet we got some student fees for certain
022classes increased considerably and we were not able to find out why they were increased so we'd like to table this until we can get that information okay there's been a motion made the table the student fees for martinsville high school can we have a second i'll second okay it's been seconded any other discussion all in favor of tabling the student fees for martinsville high school signify by saying aye aye and all opposed same sign okay motion carries to table next on the agenda is the educational foundation grant recipients i believe that there were seven grants through different schools that were presented in this again i think we have some questions that we had on some of these grants anybody like to comment on this motion here i mean i would agree there's been some discussion
023and again i would make a motion that we table that so that we can have some discussion on just get more in-depth information i'll second that okay okay there's been a motion made and seconded to table the educational foundation grants any other discussion on this okay all in favor of tabling number eight the educational foundation grant recipients signify by saying aye aye all opposed same sign motion to table carries next on the agenda item is the donation of i believe it's 1500 mask from circle k gas station on main street and these are to the school district to be used uh as according to how we want to use them uh can i have a motion to accept these 1500 masks i'll make a motion to accept it 1500 mask okay there's been a motion
024made and seconded any discussion okay all in favor of accepting the circle k gas station donation of 1500 mass signified by saying aye aye all opposed same sign motion carries and again i think we need to vote on your summer guidance okay yeah my fault okay i'd like to go back up to item one on the action list uh to approve uh the recommendations that audrey made for summer code with 19 guidance would someone like to make up to make a motion to approve that i vote to approve okay motion's made to approve we have a second i'll second that been seconded any discussion okay all in favor of uh the approval of the summer code with 19 guidance signified by saying aye aye all opposed same sign okay motion carries thank you heather and
025going back to item nine the circle k gas donation of 1500 mask please public don't get that confused with the fact that we might be mandating mask because we are not this is simply a donation and we will accept those donations next item on the agenda is public comments excuse me public comments and announcements before we begin i would like to read the guidelines that we have for public comments this is according to school board policy at the completion of the school board's regular business a visitor who wishes to speak may do so at the discretion of the president the visitor will be required to state his or her full name and will be given the opportunity to speak using the same guidelines that is used for agenda items not to exceed two minutes for
026each person it shall not be permissible to orally present or discuss complaints against individual employees of the msd of martinsville at any school board meeting such charges our complaints shall be presented to the board of school trustees in writing and shall be signed by the person making the charge or the complaint boisterous conduct shall not be permitted at any meeting of the board of school trustees nor will any abusive remarks be tolerated so at this time is there anyone that would like to come up and make a comment ask a question to the school board on any topic dealing with school good evening my name is corley blackburn and i moved to the state of indiana with my 14 year old granddaughter now 14 in march of 2020 during the midst of the raging covid
027and i just wanted to take a minute to let the school board know that coincidentally i met somebody that was able to say i'll give you some phone numbers so you know how to register in school because nothing was open and from that point forward i just i think you should know as a school board there's not one staff person that i met whether it was on the phone or however that wasn't fully cooperative helpful trying to help my granddaughter find a way to fit in i will i will say here publicly that she had a real problem during coven and was having uh serious panic and anxiety and everything and in the end it was decided that we were going to put her once they were back in on four days we were going
028to put her in the apex homeschool program i didn't even know that was there but we had the academic testing everything what do you need what do you want how can we help you and people could not have been kinder they could not have been more helpful and cooperative and it made all the difference in the world for me trying to face and deal with things with my granddaughter but it's made a difference for her too and we see her starting to turn a corner we're planning on her going out to the high school ninth grade in person when school starts so i wanted to know that i don't want that to go by we're happy to complain about things you need to know the good things that happen to you i will say the
029only hard problem that i had is that when she went on the apex program and i said okay they said well you're sort of the coach for her you know they're for help so where's the books we don't use books um where's the syllabus well we don't use syllabus and okay i'm going to coach her and i sort of felt like i was in the middle of the sahara desert without water or a compass i didn't know how to do that and unfortunately couldn't help her and i think that's so important i think parents have to be part with partner with the teachers and everybody to help their kids learn i had homeschooled my son when he was younger from eighth grade through high school he didn't grow well not because i'm so smart maybe
030he is but um i i knew ahead of time oh well they're going to study the civil war we didn't live but an hour away from gettysburg that's where we went did everything learned everything let's make this real uh what's the serious cloud he didn't know okay well he knew a lot of other ones and how to explain a cloud i didn't know quite how but we were driving down the road and because i knew that he was studying that because i knew i said oh oh that's a serious clown to this day he can tell you what a serious clown is but that's the kind of participation when you know what they're learning and for myself i i don't know how the teachers put their things together i don't know but people need a
031compass i i believe that passionately so i'm hoping that maybe something at least some sort of table content sold us something tell us the books i'll go buy it okay that's all okay thank you good evening ladies and gentlemen i am shannon duncan i am a resident of martinsville and a mother of two toddlers two taller boys i have to make a decision in the next year as to where to enroll my children for their education my husband's k-12 education was in martinsville school system and he graduated in 1999 he has nothing but fond memories of his time here however that was a generation ago and world has changed so much since then a generation ago our education or educating culture didn't include such things as critical race theory e-learning sexual identity or orientation being
032taught to our ver our children at a very young age the students using the bathroom opposite their biological gender the concerns grow every day critical race teaches certain things that people should feel guilty about their skin color which which is exactly what racism is and the american is inherently evil and that we as a nation have not learned from or moved beyond the sins of generations past my children are precious as well as everybody else's children they had nothing to do with the sins of the nation's past and should not be held accountable for that the recent global pandemic has forced society to find ways to conduct business as far away from and as personable as impersonal as possible excuse me it was very stressful and stressful enough for adults with their careers to learn
033how how to to function during covet i believe e-learning provided a good alternative however i don't think it is it should be a replacement for in-person learning children need that in-person learning as well as teachers the content and level of detail being taught to young children about their sexual identity and orientation is alarming highly controversial ideas such as biological meals using girls restrooms local rooms and competing in women's sports is not a place for debate it is insane to even consider such things there is no gray area in this regard young children young children shouldn't be taught something they can't even relate to at such a very young age how does teaching sexual orientation material to young children brighten their future how does it pertain or prepare them for the world for the things to
034come to tomorrow excuse me what skills are they going to get from from that i'm not saying these things are being taught here but i am saying that there are issues that are at our doorstep i am hoping that others will join me in speaking up against these four topics that i just discussed i implore this elected body and school administration to please resist these immoral things and use every tool at your disposal to keep them out my children will always come first and that is why i'm here today again to make it please help me make my decision as easy as possible thank you thank you shannon good evening peggy mayfield many of you know me as a state representative for this area and i want to thank you all for your service elected
035office is not always a fun thing to do but it's a necessary thing to do so thank you for tackling the challenges we've had over the last year in the way that you have actually i am here um on behalf of a lot of other people uh as you may be aware i'm sure you even touched on here tonight that there are a lot of questions about curriculum throughout the state different school system not so much here in msd but i have been approached by several parents since about march in multiple meetings and tried to guide them through what some of their options are for the questions that they were asking i haven't heard it here tonight so i'm going to ask on behalf of several parents they're not sure about the process and in
036honestly some of them fear a little bit of backlash on their children so um i got a pretty thick skin the question that i have and it does not require an answer tonight you can respond with information later as you gather it is they are asking about how they can as a parent actually get their hands on any curriculum topic that is being taught so they can review the books and see the text etc and if there is an opt-out option what that process is so if you would have the time to sort of research that and if you could give me that information i can relay it back to the chain of parents that have approached me i would appreciate it thanks thank you peggy and i would like to say over the course
037the last five or six weeks we've received a lot of phone calls a lot of messages as board members here with concerns about what's being taught in our curriculum so we were are addressing this we you know we've on our own taking a look at a lot of these different issues and with new leadership and with our building principles we will continue to take a look at this and do what's best you know for our community and for our kids i will say if you have if you are a parent or in your case where you're trying to make a decision and you have a specific question about something that might or might not be taught in the schools or as part of their curriculum the first chain of command to go to would be
038the building principle set up an appointment with the building principal of the school and they would be able to tell you exactly what is in their curriculum and answer any questions as to what you might have books in the library or exactly the curriculum so that would be the first place to start okay hi my name is tim serber and uh i'm just curious if you could explain the process of picking a new supervisor and assistant superintendents just curious how that works if we're going to look in our community for that local position which makes more sense to me but uh i just was curious if you could do that for me well this is uh very early in the process uh so obviously we have as a board have not had a chance to
039discuss this so i'm speaking for myself here but obviously we want to act on this as quickly as we possibly can we think obviously the leadership in the district is of the utmost importance so we will not take this lightly we will not be in a hurry the most important thing is to get the decision right it's not to get it done quickly but there are agencies that help you go through the vetting process and help you form surveys from the community as to what the community is looking for in the next leader here of our district so we'll go through that process we will create a profile for what we are looking for as far as our next leader of this district and then obviously we want community input we'll want uh leadership you
040know building principle input we'll want teachers input we'll want and mars for classroom teachers input and we'll go through this process and hopefully we'll have something done here in a quickly fashion but as i said the most important thing is to get this decision correct it's not to get it done in a very short period of time and just out of curiosity the the survey how do they how do they do that do they send it out to the parents or they send it out to the public does it go through you how would we be able to participate in that well obviously it would go out to um any parent we would send it out to all the parents that we have in our district and then we have access to that survey on
041our website too so if you weren't a parent of a child you can go on to our website and you can have access to that survey complete it and send it back in thank you any other board member want to respond you know me my multiple hats have been getting on all uh meeting but i'm gonna try to keep it succinct um first i want to apologize to the team that worked on the grant um audrey addressed some of the individuals i should have done that and i did not so i'm going to go around the table in my head i would like to thank miss suzy lips miss carrie randall miss rachel crabb michael pratt rita richards julie presley and audrey was also at that finalization meeting with us um and then thank you
042to susie and kyrie and rachel for helping make the wording just perfect because i know that that helped us get that money that's my first one i apologize to my group um secondly i just kind of i guess when i give like a props to all of our summer programming that's going on a lot of districts offered kind of like makeup credit but not everybody did summer enrichment and martinsville dead and i feel like i've seen a lot of great things posted on our website and um that makes me really excited because that means we're continuing to work on the joy of being in the classroom and the joy of learning for both our teachers and our kids and i think that just i think the district for the opportunity to do that for our
043kids i'm going to do that in july i'm excited and then um also just another thing we are adding another course at the high school and i'm finishing up training for that and so we will now have three courses in a biomedical pathway for our kids it's incredibly exciting curriculum and i would like to thank the district also for supporting that biomedical pathway and getting us all of the equipment that we needed to give our kids the rich and diverse programming that they deserve thank you so much thank you shannon is that it okay anyone else like to come up to the microphone okay um next thing on the agenda are board comments any board member like to make a comment um i would thank you um i wanted to do a shout out to
044a couple people it is kenny summerlot and gary fogelman they both retired this year and maybe their names aren't as familiar but for the last 10 years they have been mowing all of the grass and all of uh at all the schools in the entire district so i know they start on monday probably end on friday and then have to start all over again and they've been doing it for over 10 years so i just want to thank again kenny summerlot and gary fogelman they retired this year so now they get to mow their own yards every week so hopefully they're not as big but thank you to both of those gentlemen i also wanted to say a congratulations to a former assistant superintendent here dr terry terhune was accepted the position as greenwood's superintendent
045so i'm very excited for him greenwood you are very lucky and i do hope the school board is very good to him he is a wonderful man and you have gotten a gym so congratulations to dr terry terhune and then finally i just want to say um i hope all families now that moratorium is coming up which means family vacation uh no one's in the gym or on the field and i hope everyone gets to take a vacation and have some family fun so thank you okay anyone else okay i'd like to ask for a motion for the meeting to adjourn i'll make a motion for me to adjourn we have a second a second okay motion has been made and seconded all in favor signify by saying aye aye all opposed same sign motion
046carries meeting is adjourned next meeting is in july