001Mr President whenever you're ready let rise to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with libery and justice for all I like to welcome everyone to our March 13 P Township school board meeting we'll start off with our public hearing of the pr uh preliminary determination hearing for the 2025 Early Learning Center expansion renovation and districtwide facility Improvement and equiping project related financing Mr Foster good evening Mr President MERS of the board Dr Young I'd like to welcome everyone to the preliminary determination hearing for the early learning and expansion uh project uh the notice of set H hearing has been given in accordance with Indiana Law uh this is the first of two public hearings the second public hearing will occur
002on March 27th the purpose of a public hearing is to present information for allow for the opportunity for public input Dr Young Mr Gruber will provide a brief overview of the projects of the proposed financing I will introduce Mr Jeff Quackenbush Bond Council from with Barnes and thorberg Mr Quackenbush will walk through the legal process on the need for this the related resolutions I'll be presenting those resolutions as action items at the March 27th board meeting Mrs Belia gray on minicipal adviser with Baker Tilly will provide a brief Financial overview and timing I'd like to introduce Dr y good evening Mr President members of the board good evening good even um I'd like to start off and spend a little bit of time just talking about the why and more specifically thinking about and speaking
003about the Nathaniel Jones Early Learning Center expansion and there it is everything we do ties back to our babies at the Early Learning Center we have our youngest Learners our three and our four year olds and these pctures were actually taken from the classrooms at the Early Learning Center for years I've heard by decades I've heard people talk about eliminating the achievement Gap and it never made sense to me that we would spend so much time and energy and people have written books and you would go to conferences and talk about eliminating the achievement Gap because in my mind it just made sense that we would just not let the Gap even occur in the first place when children arrive in our kindergartens let's let's work on not having the Gap there in the first
004place as a matter of fact to that end several years ago Mrs Blandon Mrs Gustin balinski Miss hunt and I actually created this document it's titled kindergarten Readiness the idea behind this document was that if children could Master the content in this book coming into our kindergarten classrooms they had a very high chance of success so we did not only distributed these books to all of our families here at the Early Learning Center and and uh in our school families here in the school district but we actually also distributed these books to Day Care dayc carees Early Learning Centers any place in Pike Township that service three and four year olds with the idea that those children would eventually what end up in our kind Garten classrooms well this past year was the first year
005that the children that attended are threes and fours actually had it triculate all the way through third grade so for the first time they took I3 the state passing average um after summer school was 83% the students that attended our threes and fours program no matter what elementary school they went to passed iy 3 at an 88% significantly higher than the state average we cracked the code we figured it out if we're if we want to tackle early literacy we need to get our children into a quality preschool program and I tell folks down at the State House that all the time matter of fact I was just there and um you know anyway we'll see what happens in addition to that our Early Learning Center if you look at that middle slide it's a
006little difficult to see but in the back you see a blue wall and underneath that blue wall there are water fountains now I don't have the best of backs if I drank at that water fountain all day on any day I probably would have to take a day off because that water fountain is really really low to the ground because the entire Early Learning Center is designed with threes and four year olds of mine so when they walk into that building if nowhere else in the city of Indianapolis when they walk into that building they know that this place was designed with me in mind and that level of comfort is what I believe is a small piece a component to the success that our kids are having there now we do have preschool class
007classrooms at our elementary buildings and those Architects did a really good job but you know they're creating a space that is from preschool all the way to fifth grade so when you walk into our preschool classrooms at the elementary buildings you will see a space that's designed for our threes and fours but there's really something special about having an entire building if I'm a student and I walk into that space because of the success that we've had we've outgrown the space that we currently utilize and rather than turn students away what we've done is we've moved our three roads to the elementary buildings and those preschool classrooms which have allowed more four year olds to fill the space where we currently are so that's the reason for the why at this time I would like
008to invite up Mr grou thank you Dr Young you're welcome Mr President members of the board uh it's my pleasure now to talk a little bit about the building so um I tried my best to get a vantage point that is similar to the rendering that we have there but I want to just talk a little bit about the existing building as it is today so when the Early Learning Center was designed originally it was designed for 37,000 Square ft which would accommodate 300 students and approximately 40 staff members as Dr Young has already mentioned we have outgrown that space and we need to expand it and as we visited with the Architects and tried to figure out how we can make that work on this property we thought well let's take what is already
009there and let's just kind of twist it and flip it um and add it to the south side of the building so what you see on the future drawing everything that's in the the gray is the existing building so you see the main entrance where you have the circle the front offices and then you have the two PODS of classrooms so the pods are broken up into right now the pod on the north side of the building has um eight classrooms and the one further down on the south has six classrooms because two classrooms were kind of merged together originally to function as a cafeteria so from this picture you can see that we'd be adding a bunch of stuff to the south on the top part of the photo there you see kind of
010a rectangle shape with um we've kind of delineated four rectangles the idea of that space is that it would be a cafeteria slash gym slash um area for students to to just exercise and and get their wiggles out especially when we have bad weather and then we will add two pods with up to eight classrooms just right off of that and then we have some flexibility within there to add additional office space if we need to um or smaller work rooms if if that need if if that is the case and then in the middle of all of that uh we are going to kind of take out the playground that exists now and add separate playgrounds so three to four different playgrounds that are delineated with some sidewalks um probably some type of a
011rubber play surface and that will allow um the students to be out there if I understand um the rules with preschool our threes and fours would have to have recess separately so they they need to have separate places to play out there and this allows multiple classes to go out threes or fours to play um this gives you a little bit more of a schematic of what the property will look like from an aerial spot and uh this one I wanted to show because uh the orientation can be a little bit confusing currently we have the angled Bus Parking along New Augusta Road there so it's kind of tucked between New Augusta and the west side of the building but you'll see that we want we would like to move those buses to the east
012side of the building so that we're not interfering at all with car riders with where faculty and staff are parking and we believe that this is just going to clean up the traffic flow a lot better and be able to accommodate that those additional students and staff that'll be required to work in that facility once again the kind of uh crossed out area is the existing building and everything that's in white is the new facility and this this is just more just a basic floor plan the area highlighted in yellow would be the addition onto the south of the building and the idea here is at that the end of the hallway right there on the south side of the building is a big window that's kind of up a little bit higher and so
013it already has a constructional header inside of it so it's it's a support wall supports the roof and so it is perfectly designed for when that building is finished we can cut that wall down and we open it up into the new space so the construction is going to be completely separate uh from the learning of our students and there's not going to be constru workers coming in and out of the space that exist right now it would allow us to kind of work completely separate and at the end of the project we can then just take that wall down and just leave it open or add doors whatever we come up from an architecture uh perspective so that is the what we're looking at with the Early Learning Center but as you know we've
014talked about some other facility updates that have to happen so in any school corporation that has a lot of facilities um as those facilities age we have to take care of them and all of the projects that you see here these are projects that if the public wasn't aware of they may not know that we do them so this isn't going to change the face of a building this isn't going to scream aha when you walk in we're not changing colors in lobbies we're not changing hallways but these things are critical to the environment that our students are learning in so we have asphalt and concrete repairs that have to happen districtwide roof Restorations at a couple different locations looking at emergency power life and safety like life and safety like fire alarms Security Alarms
015uh HVAC upgrades uh as well as a some interior refreshes and then a kitchen renovation I've outlined some of the projects here in a little bit more detail let you know the locations that we're having them at um and and where those are taking place the one thing I do want to point out and I shared this in the work session is that uh a lot of people don't realize this but the administration building where we stand now is one of the older facilities in the district and it's a facility that has not had much by way of updates or Renovations and we find ourselves in a situation where our HVAC is starting to give us problems and uh the inside of the building is starting to age and it's at the end of its
016life cycle and so it's something that we need to look at and refresh because this is the place where people come to First learn about Pike and this is a place that represents Pike and that's one of the reasons that it's on the list as well but uh as I mentioned these project like I said they're not going to be super flashy a lot of it happens behind the scenes behind mechanical room doors uh up on roofs where you're not going to see it but it will change uh the learning environment for the better and ensure that our kids have a safe and comfortable place to learn and to grow for the next 15 to 20 years um before I turn it over to uh Mr qualin bu were there any questions about the projects
017or the Early Learning Center that I presented today I do have a question about the Early Learning Center and correct please forgive me if you did say it in the new in the addition how many classrooms would be in those PS so right now we don't have a set number we're looking between 14 which would match which we already have and 16 but we have to look at staffing office space what how do we utilize those Uh current spaces and make sure that we have enough for all of the the staff that have to be in there in the future do we have an idea of how many students we want the building to hold once it's done so I would estimate that we would be able to um hold about between four about four
018or 500 around or in in the addition yeah once we're complet with the once we're completed we'll we we we almost double our student capacity so right now we're 300 so we should be closer to 600 550 to 600 total 6 once yeah once it's completed yeah how many students are per classroom on average that you guesstimate um I need some help I believe the threes are is it 24 is the the max between 20 and 24 and then the fours same that's the same number in the conceptual drawing go ahead uh I guess it would be kind of U difficult to determine square footage now so we think that it's going to be somewhere in that 35 to 40,000 square ft adding on so almost doubling the square footage of of the current facility
019what are construction cost are you hearing I know you haven't had BS I'm familiar with obviously a lot of this is going to change based on scope meaning kind of what type of finishes we put in um and just the the the Finish look right but we're looking somewhere in the 22 to $24 million construction cost okay um Ju Just for my a knowledge especially because they are even though they won't be in the building the construction teams obviously will be right there with our kids when we do is it typical when we do a project like this do we do background checks on the workers that any contractor that comes in even if they're coming in the summer when kids aren't here they have to go through the same background checks that our staff
020go through and chief Casper monitors that for us awesome okay and then I just I assume when we get down to the details on the inside I I assume we're going to be having our teachers that are you know currently there giving suggestions advice whatever on to maybe Lessons Learned From the current building so that we continue to make improvements in the new building yeah we'll definitely seek feedback on uhuh now but but we also want the spaces to um coincide very well together so we don't want them the two to clash and appear that we've got two separate buildings but definitely from the construction side uh materials and those types of things we'll definitely want to to uh you know um apply what we've learned okay what what what what part of the 35
02136,000 ft will be multi-purpose like uh I believe the multi-purpose room um is in the right around 8 to 10,000 square fet okay that will be cafeteria it'll yeah kind of like um a lot of our cafeteras in the elementary school have that rubber flooring and it's kind of a mix so that's what it'll be like and the the idea right now is that we would hang curtains in there as well so that if we needed to divide them up into different lunch groups or different uh Gym classes we can do that but but it would be the the concept there is that multifunctional they can make it whatever they need it to be the gym and cafeteria will will be multifunctional correct that's that rectangular part that you were talking about yes uh couple
022questions uh what is the for the new pods what's the construction material is it brick and mortar or well so Interiors were most new construction interior is going to be some type of metal stud um the exterior the wall is it I I honestly don't know at this point in time uh typically it is some type of concrete and then you do like a brick and mortar facade as a decorative piece um but they're doing a lot of great things right now with like poured concrete slabs where they just stand them up and that tends to expedite the construction process so those are all things that we'll look at to try to be the most efficient we can with the construction process but also being fiscally responsible so not like the fabricated homes that you
023can order and throw up real quick yeah we'll bring it in on Tru okay right thank you and then also uh you know with our political climate directly affects our economy so are are you watching or someone watching because that's directly going to affect our cost and so if we get to a point to where you know things get a little get a little hairy uh how's that who's watching the cost of materials um so typically in a process in a in a project of this scale uh obviously we're going to part with an A&E firm an Architecture Firm and then as a project of this scale we'd also bring in a construction management company and they have cost estimators that are paying attention to the cost of goods labor Etc and they can advise
024us as we go say hey you guys might want to hold off six months there's been some things politically and and but and that's the benefit of partnering with a construction management firm they have their ears to the ground they're paying attention to all of that for us because although I've been involved in a number of construction projects I don't I don't live in that world every single day but they do another thing um when we go out to bids we will consider minority contractors as well I would hope so um and then I think it's it needs to be said not only are we building but we're doing some uh Renovations I think we need to talk about that more as well because most people get INF fixated on the new facility and forget
025about the other pieces that you have to this particular puzzle yeah and so that the community can know that there's more than just a building going on you know it's interesting I'm sorry let me to cut you off more but to that point um I have an upcoming superintendent talk the last one I did I believe was was with Mr Jacob when we talked about Wellness um so the next one will actually be I'll be having opportunity to interview Mr Gruber so that will be before our next board meeting I was going to share that um at the end in closing remarks so he'll have an opportunity to talk about some of the um remodeling projects that we actually have going throughout the district we'll be sure to share that on the um our different
026platforms I think that's kind of that's that's important to to put that piece in there because we're going to be that's going to be a part of the the budget so it needs to be stress to the to to all of us and to the community as well okay if nothing else Mr gush thank you Mr grber Mr President members of the board Dr Young it's a pleasure to be with you this evening so the legal process has been somewhat identified already and described by Mr Foster but let me just dive into that a little deeper and I'll repeat some of the things that we said during the work session that we had in the middle of February uh this is the first of two public hearings that you'll have on this project and this
027financing um at this pro at this fin uh public hearing you will not take any action but at the March 27th public hearing after the public hearing we will then present to you a resolution for your consideration that would make what is called a preliminary determination to proceed with the project and the financing based on the parameters that Mr Gruber has outlined with respect to those projects and then also the financing parameters as presented by Baker Tilly yet this evening if you adopt that resolution then we will publish the notice of that preliminary determination uh a week or so after that in the newspapers and then we will wait 30 days and if no one requests us to go through any additional Community approval process then we'll start the financing process with you where we'll
028go through having you approve certain resolutions and at the same time then you'll have the architect starting to really do the design work on both the renovations as well as the new construction and they'll come to you more often than we will with presentations and cost estimations and have you approve each of those it's schematic design design development and then construction documents um we are anticipating that you would be through the legal process by the end of the summer and could sell bonds as early as the end of the summer but we will wait until the construction process catches up with that so that you actually sell the bonds in the amounts that you need for the projects and that they're then spent within a timely fashion um I believe the Early Learning Center is
029estimated to take about 18 months or so to construct maybe 12 months on most of that so you'll be able you'll be running through that money rather quickly but you will be earning some interest on that as well but we don't want to issue that too far in advance under federal tax law um so we'll be back to you several times over the course of the next several months but if I'd be happy to answer any questions you have regarding the process now and then I will describe in more detail the resolution at the March 27th public hearing any questions all right all right hearing that I'll will turn it over to Belia gr from Baker till thank you Mr quac and Bush good to see you um Mr President members of the board and
030Dr Young uh tonight I'm here to present the information related to the uh the financing of the proposed project and every time we come to you and and share information we always go through your existing indebtedness uh tonight I'll share some information related to your um General obligation borrowing capacity and then we'll walk through the parameters for the proposed bonds this is this is the the detail of your existing outstanding debt service payments but as you can see it's very small uh so I always like to go to the next slide which shows all of your information in graphical form and a few things I always like to point out when I come to Pike are two things one is your existing debt structure has a uh several step downs and that is really good
031because it means that it preserves a School Corporation flexibility in terms of looking at projects such as the ones that you're considering right now and bringing those on without uh increasing your overall Debt Service and and total tax rate of the school corporation so that is that is what we've done tonight with the information that we're going to share the second thing that I always like to share is that the the school corporation has had a policy of really paying a step back pretty rapidly um for those in the room who aren't aware the maximum repayment term for debt issuances in the state of Indiana is 20 years Pike has routinely paid back its debt in much um fewer years than that and so that does save certainly the taxpayer dollars um but it also
032to me is a testament that you have uh all the projects you've been able to accomplish throughout the district and you have a a very rapid repayment here the next schedule here shows a calculation of the school's outstanding or current General obligation borrowing capacity and every taxing unit in the state has a maximum amount of bonds that it can borrow in its own name uh and so that calculation is based upon your most recent net assess valuation it's divided by three and multiplied by 2% and then we deduct from that outstanding principal payments of your outstanding General obligation bonds so we come to a total here of $19.4 million for most districts the 19.4 the general obligation baring capacity isn't always sufficient to take care of some of the needs that you have and so
033the school in the past has looked at a combination of General obligation bonds or go bonds and then First Mortgage bonds uh in order to accomplish all of its capital needs and the the way that the resolutions are written if the school board moves forward it allows you the flexibility to issue both types of bonds so we've included this as part of the calculations then looking at a summary of the proposed financing with all the projects that Mr grber mentioned we're looking at a um maximum borrowing amount of 44. 325 million and I want to emphasize that through this process we're always establishing maximums and we can come down from them but we can't exceed them and certainly um based upon Mr Anderson's comments we want to make sure that we're taking into account things
034that could happen with inflation and timing issues and things like that so we've taken that into account in terms of uh determining the maximum borrowing amount based upon the today's construction costs and also taking into account that the bonds could be issued in one or more series of bonds depending on when you need the money we're proposing a maximum repayment term of up to 12 years per series of bonds and the way that we've structured this is to uh not increase the debt the excuse me the non-exempt tax rate over current levels um the there is also additional information on the slide that's required to be included by Statute that includes Uh current and proposed annual Debt Service and your direct and overlapping debt as a percentage of net assess valuation and then finally pulling
035everything together the gray bars represent your existing debt and the blue bars represent the proposed repayment we did just show it as one borrowing for purposes of this illustration but like I said said we would we would sequ with this out in multiple series as needed and you can also see that we are showing where the debt service tax rate where we're kind of keeping keeping those managing that overall tax rate questions from the board you mentioned construction costs I don't know if you have a how is the construction cost since Co you know we had a had a tremendous problem with Co with the skyrocketing of material uh has that shifted uh where where where where is it now Mr gr is probably the best person to answer that question since it's more construction
036related so I'll let him answer that I thought you all would be a great tandem doing great question so uh I know that I've been before this board several different times and talked about how um supply chain has been was really impacted by covid and we felt that for probably two or three years after the pandemic ended I would say right now particularly here in Indianapolis the supply chain is really opened up and we can get things in a relatively short order the thing that we're challenged with right now is trades people and and general labor there are a lot of Public Works projects going on in this city of Indianapolis and the surrounding areas and it's gobbling up uh men and women who do the work that needs to be done so where we're
037seeing a lot of volatility in in the construction cost that we have right now is in labor cost particularly in the mechanical world when we do a mechanical project chillers boilers that type of thing uh labor costs are significant but as far as equipment goes and I'll give you a perfect example um about a year and a half two years after the pandemic to get a new Chiller a 250 ton Chiller which is a pretty average siiz Chiller for a school or even a small business you might be waiting 27 to 30 months to get that Chiller they are now turning out chillers in more like a 6 we to you know 10 we time period depending on the size of that Chiller so significant improvements in supply chain um but I I I think
038just with where we're at as a country we are seeing people still flee from the the labor market and it's making it challenging thank you interest rates yes uh with the market behaving the way it is today and um how could I know it's difficult to do this we'll never see another 2.3% as we did it once part A Time in uh few years ago we will never see that again but but that was not for construction but for construction interest rates what would that look like so that's a really good question uh for purposes of the maximum parameters we're including 6% interest rate today's rates like if we had issued these bonds today would be 3.9% okay so we build in 2% cushion and then as you can also see we have the 12
039years but the because of Pik Pike's debt structure and the way we structured the proposed bonds look at the stepd downs that we've continued to include in there so so even if interest rates went up to 6% you still would be able to stay within the parameters that are being um that are being suggested tonight so the short answer is those are the rates but the school still has flexibility um for repaying the debt okay you know I'll just have a comment and you answered my uh question so now I just have a comment because one thing about Pike is our our ability to pay back in our financial situation I don't know of any other District that there's not one in Indiana so since I've been on the board we've always kept that intact
040and so I just it gives me me um a sense of relief that you know from what you said I know that you're you're watching that because you know you talk about fears of recession and everybody worried about their tolerance tolerances and stuff so thank you very much for keeping an eye on that and and giving us the details that we need you're very welcome all right anyone else with any questions all right thank you all right thank you very much thank you again president members of the board Dr Young this as I mentioned this is a a public hearing the opportunity for make public comment I recommend we make that time available at this time are there any is there anyone in the audience that have any comments pertaining to the public hearing all
041right so we do not so this will conclude our public hearing now we will go on to our regular scheduled school board meeting starting off with for the good of the cause there are any patrons who would like to use this platform you have three minutes you can start by stating your name for the good of the cause good evening president Anderson member of the school board and Dr Young my name is Ben church I'm a concerned teacher in the district love is patient love is kind it does not envy it does not boast it is not proud it does not dishonor others it is not self-seeking it is not easily angered it keeps no record of wrongs love does not Delight in evil but rejoices with the truth it always protects always trust always
042hopes always perseveres as leaders of the community you are called to lead with love public education is being attacked at the federal level and at the state level the federal government is talking about cutting or eliminating title One funds special education funds School Meal programs and Medicaid which pays for speech OT and PT um at the state level they're proposing legislation that would reduce Pike's budget by up to $2 million and then Force us to share the money that we have with Charter Schools these attacks on public education are evil they will hurt the children in our schools and they will hurt our families in our communities As Leaders we are called to speak for those who don't have a voice such as children if these PE cust to education are passed you will have
043to make very difficult decisions about which Services you will reduce or eliminate and which families and children in this district will be harmed the most I call on you to join Educators and concerned families Across the Nation on March 19th and participate in a Walkin at every school in the country gather at the schools 20 minutes before the contract of start time of the day with signs when support of public education and against cuts to funding then post all over social media that day using the um # protect students and # protect families As Leaders you must inform your community of the dangers that lie ahead and you must lead them to a just cause the best leaders have a servant's heart and they will lead by example the forces that are bringing these evil
044bills forward these attacks on our students these assaults on our communities are hoping that you will get discouraged or scared and that you will give up you are a light for good in this world do not hide your light under a bushel the Pik Community needs leaders who will be a light in these dark times they need leaders who will work to protect them and persevere to citizens of the community it is time to stand up and make your voices heard Pike leaders and Pike Community join Educators to make sure your voice is heard at a rally 20 minutes before school starts at the local schools on March 19th make sure your legislators know that you do not support these cuts it is time to make your your voice heard when we all come together
045to make our voices heard we can be Pike strong we can be Pike proud just like John L says let's get out there and be some good troublemakers thank you Mr [Applause] church is there anyone else for the good of the cause um good evening uh members of the board Mr President um uh I'm Colin hop my name is Steven Summers uh we're eighth graders at New Augusta who have been friends since kindergarten um we're here to invite everyone on the board and everyone here to come see Cinderella at New Augusta public Academy North uh nearly 75 students are involved in this year's play and they are not just the performers but the people behind stage stage um doing lights painting many beautiful artworks make sure the show uh we've been working on this for
046several weeks six six weeks I think yeah um and we'd also like to thank everyone who's been working on the show with us so not only everyone Stephen just mentioned but also Miss Johnson um the principles um Mr dos Mr Bishop and Dr Payne and the shows are Thursday at 4:15 uh and 7 Friday at 7:00 and a Saturday show at 2 we'd like to invite um everyone here and everyone in Pike Township to come to cind Cinderella this year uh the link will be posted soon so you can buy your tickets actually I think the link has already been posted but this paper was made a while ago so um I believe it's already up on all the social media services and I'd just like to say thank you for your time thank you
047very much all right come on uh the dates are next Thursday the 20th Friday the 21st and Saturday the 22nd sorry about that no problem okay thank you gentlemen thank you all right is there anyone else for the good of the cause all right so that concludes for the good of the calls we'll move on to Spotlight on Pike Miss dorsy I'm sorry Dr Young I am not miss dorsy I apologize she was unable to be here please keep her in your thoughts and prayers she is uh I don't believe she would mind me sharing that she's caring for in Ellen uh family member so I am more than happy to step in what she had prepared to share is that on Friday March the 7th the Lincoln Middle School jazz band traveled to Avon
048Middle School South to compete in the isma state jazz festival after many hours of practice and determination the band returned with a superior gold rating in the Middle School Division and an outstanding soloist award for jazz tronis aera Bell also please join us and congratulating our Pike high schools Jazz 3 Jazz 2 Jazz combo Jazz one and Jazz Orchestra on a great weekend at the isma Jazz Fest our students at Pike are incredibly talented and musical young people and got the chance to show that off all weekend they brought home two Golds and three Golds with distinction our Pike high school jazz Orchestra performed at greed field Central for isma jazz and earned a gold with distin iction congratulations to Isaiah Hill Damon Howard Jr and jari Miller for being selected to the All County
049team for boys basketball and to Jaylen Ashley for receiving honorable mention we are also extremely proud of Kamari Booker who was selected to the 2025 Indiana junior All Stars red group she will play against Kentucky on June 1st last but never least we would like to thank the individuals and organizations listed on this evening's agenda for their generous donations the Walker Career Center donated $1,600 for Matts for our cosmetology and barbering program scrips Howard Foundation contributed $11,000 to our Pike High School robotics program Heather Henry donated a violin with an estimated value of $99 to Lincoln Middle School School Mr Huffer donated $100 to the share the book fund for the Nathaniel Jones Early Learning Center Lincoln Middle School received $983,000 at Pike high school and the Nathaniel Jones Early Learning Center thank you thank
050you Dr one uh Dr Young next we'll go move on to reports to the board exceptional Learners update Mr Jennifer Coen good good evening Mr President members of the board and Dr Young tonight I'm very excited to share some of the highlights related to our work in the exceptional learner Department this year we have increased in our special education population to just under 1,800 students which equates to about a 10% increase overall from last school year with the elementary level showing the majority of that increase all schools in the district serveice students with resource needs speech occupational and physical therapy as well as visual impairment and de and heart of hearing needs for students with more significant behavioral needs we have self-contained behavior supports classrooms at snacks Crossing New Augusta South all three middle schools
051and the high school some students in Pike are receiving alternative curriculum and there are self-contained classrooms supporting that curriculum at the elementary level at Central Fishback Eastbrook and newly this year at Eagle Creek at the middle level we have classrooms at Lincoln and New Augusta North and then also at the high school functional academics has been at the secondary level at Lincoln and Pike High School for the past several years and I'm excited to share on the next slide that new this year we have now functional academics at the elementary level as well at Central and at Eagle Creek we are also very excited about the behavior classroom shift to a diagnostic classroom at snacks Crossing Elementary that I'm going to explain on the next slide so our diagnostic classroom was born out of the
052realization that some of our students who were in a self mained Behavior classroom also had mental health needs that were significantly impacting their behavior so that being seen we put our heads together and decided to move forward with creating a diagnostic classroom that has a low number of students a classroom teacher and IA support additionally we have a partnership with Behavioral Health with a full-time therapist in that classroom all day every single day it's a beauty to go over and see it in action I love going over there I would High recommend it um one of the most telling data points at the school is that seclusion and restraint incidents have decreased by 77% at snacks Crossing which is excellent we are very excited about that um and we've also been able to successfully transition
053a couple of those students that are most significant students in the district back into general education for some time as well with the supports of the mental health piece it's been really great to see last year uh Dr Gatewood shared with you about the alternate diom diploma that that was the first full year that we had that um this is our second full year with the alternate diploma and we have seen some excellent outcomes from this diploma being available to our students in the past students who now receive this diploma would have only been able to receive a certificate certificate of completion however those who meet this criteria here are able to receive the alternate diploma so what does this mean to put it simply it means the world this year we have eight students
054out of the 13 students receiving the alternate diploma who have been accepted to college or post-secondary trade schools that wouldn't have happened previously these same students would have received a certificate completion that colleges currently do not recognize and and post trade schools our teacher in the functional academics program works tirelessly to prepare them for the application process filling out the FAFSA and other related activities it's an amazing opportunity for these students and we are absolutely thrilled that they have this in front of them additionally we are very excited to report that our special education graduation rate for last year was 90% which is 10% higher than the state average it's a great accomplishment by our exceptional learner students and the staff who work with them the next highlight is our CPI our Crisis Prevention and
055intervention we've we've been doing this for some time now um our each every year our dbst team is still offering several CPI trainings throughout the district for teachers and instructional age and AIDS and although this does have a component for safe holds our greatest area of training is in the deescalation strategies because we know that if we're able to successfully deescalate a student we don't have to do the holds which is a big part of that training our next program highlight is teacher Recruitment and Retention this is a big one in special education so as I know you are all aware one of the greatest areas of teacher shortage is in special education over the past three years two programs in Indiana have grown out of this need one is IAL and the other is
056asset I seal is for individuals who already have a bachelor's degree to be hired by a school district to teach while simultaneously enrolling in a Statewide state approved teacher certification program at no cost to them including books historically this has allowed many of our instructional assistants who have their Bachelors become certified special education teachers they're doing a great job asset is for individuals who already have a teaching license and are moving into special education this program is completed under the supervision of the director of special education it's also no cost set up a little bit differently We Gather these teachers one day per month to participate in Virtual professional development here at ASC we do it a little bit differently here in Pike than other districts do most most of the time you'd see people
057sitting in by themselves at a computer we like to bring everyone together that's something that we think is important so that they can have conversations and get to know each other and lean on each other as they collaborate they also have various assignments that related a special ed that they turn in to the director of asset so the assistant director of exceptional Learners Amy ker is the lead with the asset program and meets individually with the teachers as a mentor we both have been in that role and find it to be extremely beneficial not only for the teacher but actually for us as administrators to be able to build capacity and that way with our staff and get to know them the next slide is about 504s or Ada plans uh we now we we've
058increased every year um we now are 355 individuals with 504 plans 325 students and 35 Staff members that we work with who have needs related to Ada so ongoing efforts as we move into the next school year we will be looking closely our service delivery model to ensure that it is meeting the needs of the increasing specialized populations in the district we do this by reviewing data and working closely with administrators and staff at the building level we are watching closely our elementary life skills classrooms because in the past two years alone we have seen a 66% increase in that area we are predicting another increase for next school year we received the idoe PA professional grant for the second year in a row we're going to apply for it again if they make it
059available we've been able to shore up the skills of our pair professionals it's we we receive a lot of positive uh feedback from the pair professionals about doing that with them and then this summer we will also partner with IPA Center iepa Center as well as some outside Consultants to work with our exceptional learner teachers during Elevate Ed and other opportunities throughout the school year professional development has to be a focus especially when it comes to retaining teach and self-efficacy that our exceptional Learners teachers need to be successful last but not least in Pike we often hear that families move here because of the special education services we are proud of that and we are seeing an increase in special education Statewide and Pike is no exception to this therefore as the needs and numbers
060of special education students rise it is imperative that we work together to continue to to provide the level of excellent excellence that our Pike students know thank you any questions questions or comments from the board Mr President I think after hearing Mr church this this evening and then hearing this uh I I think we need to uh begin to Echo much louder um what what this district is doing uh for these uh students uh who have a desire to learn and um if Charter Schools come in here we could lose the momentum that we have with special education and we don't want to lose that momentum and so I urge everyone who is listening tonight to be Pro public education and special education as well because a lot of our students are able to go
061on after they come through this syst system uh and uh if it did not happen where would their lives be and so we don't want to create anything in our Township that is going uh to take away the idea of special education in the way that it is being produced here uh in Pike Township so we have to talk about what public education is doing for the underserved child and that education thank you so much for your work and your staff as well so I have a question you uh use the um IAS MH to promote them to if they have a bachelor's to become teachers right uh one of the obstacles just from experience is um Practice Test passing it the practice absolutely is there anything in the future that you can have like
062two three sessions um just for them to meet and and go over those tests to help them pass that test cuz I think that's a big obstacle and then we you know I think that would retain them to want to be teachers because they've got that extra support of being able to go to a class after school and maybe have someone there to go through I don't know if that's something that yeah I actually just was talking to superintendent about that a couple weeks ago because I had an IIA at one of our trainings and we were having this great conversation great IIA and just was struggling with you know missing it by one point or three points and so she and I are working together to try to come up with some times to
063to get together to look over the test and try to see if we can get her past that for that PA professional test for sure right I'm thinking if you have a a group of them that you're interested in and then offer that as part of the you know the I seal program and they do offer some tutoring with I seal as well yes they do and asset as well in fact um they were just talking about that the other day they they they spend an actual session talking about the practice access exam for asset so that that you're bringing up a great point that is it can be hard for some some staff to be able to get through that thank you good I just wanted oh oh go please go ahead I just
064wanted to comment that I really like uh the pivot that you made in elementary school with the behavior room the mental health yes that part is so important um just from what we went through as a community as a nation as the world and you think about how old the kids are and how they probably were perhaps affected by that and making space for them to he um because mental health is a journey I think is is incredibly uh intentional and I'm really glad that your staff saw that acted on it and it seems as though it's having a really positive impact on some really young children which I think will have a positive impact on their education overall that particular teacher in that program one thing I didn't say and you're bringing it to
065mind she actually went through one of the alternative ice seal so she's going through that as well and um it and she's incredible I mean incredible it the staff has just been really that's where where it all is right so yeah I didn't want to make a comment about the IAL and the asset um IAL does even when you gone through the transition teaching program with certain universities they still are available to tutor as well and they had some like I was able to do some sessions great and get some assistance with those tests as well when I was going through that process right so they are connected to folks that know that test and understand it and can help with that thank you um I one I just want to say thank you for
066you and the whole department everything you guys do um I had the chance of visit and go some of the reading that I did this um in the last two weeks uh where we went to some of the schools I got to go to Nathaniel Jones and be in the inclusion and then the developmental rooms and uh first of all those teachers are amazing um and so piggybacking kind of on what Dr Young was saying earlier about the need for the expansion I mean it is for all of our kids all in the community and and so seeing that that um those children get that early start also at and and just thinking we hearing the numbers that are going on to college um thinking where that can lead to uh with the impact that
067we can have and if there's any students out there that are listening um things like best buddies um programs like that where um other students partner in and and and work with um the life skills area for my daughter it was literally life-changing and uh so I just would encourage if somebody's looking for a for a home and in Pike and then something to get involved in that is certainly an excellent program so yeah absolutely thank you you're right it is a great program I'm an I'm a best Buddy's chapter advisor as well so it's amazing and I know you didn't mention best buddies but I agree with Mr for it's an amazing pram we've had it for quite some time so mhm yes y well uh just a comment uh very good work uh
068with you and your staff um the 77% decrease in seclusions and restraints says so much uh about but one thing that sticks out to me is that it reminds our students that this is a safe place you know because they they can go home to an unstructured environment but they come here and we see that your plan is working and so uh I commend you and your staff and keep up the good work thank you thank you very much you any more questions or comments just one I wanted to say that I too have experienced that Pike is the place to go with special need students we hear it I experienced it the the rumor is if you want your child to be in a safe place to get the education that they are the
069free and and and redu you know just get the Vape I don't want to go through the acronyms but um they get those they have those teachers in there that are actually have compassion for those students and they they spend more time out of contract time on their own time to make sure those students are getting what they need and it what makes it so great is that it is ringing out amongst the community so that's why that we have a great um department and that's where our numbers are climbing because of the people that you choose to work with those students so that and people come back to work with us too people come back and work yes thank I will any more questions or comments no all right thank you Mrs thank you
070thank you next we'll go on to our first reading of the Board of Education policies Dr Bishop good evening Mr President members of the board and Dr Young um this evening I present to you nine policies that the policy committee along with our representative um have met to discuss there are seven of the nine are revisions that we're cross- referencing with Indiana code whether it's with a house bill or a Senate Bill two of them are new for you to review one of which is um from a banking standpoint and the other one is dealing with artificial intelligence um in the next two weeks should you have any questions after you're able to review these documents please feel free to reach out to me and I will provide additional information for you or answer any
071question questions you may have um but this um particular batch involves um policy number 5111 5500 5610 75409 and 8420 any questions or comments um I just want to say I appreciated the thoughtful and purposeful um policies about AI I think we're approaching that really well y questions comments all right thank you Dr Bishop now we'll move on to our action item starting off with action item a uh if we can get a motion to accept the minutes of the Board of Education regular meeting February 27th so move brother president second we have a first and a second or any questions or comments we'll move on to vote all in favor say I I I any oppos eyes carry next we have the 2020 24- 25 administrators and classified staff pay increase Dr Young thank
072you Mr President members of the board glad to have an opportunity to present uh what is typically presented by Mr Elmore please keep him in your thoughts and prayers if you did not know uh he recently lost his over the last couple of days so he is uh spending some time obviously um um on on bereavement so um but I am glad to to present this evening um for your consideration the 2024 2025 administrators and classified staff pay increase I recommend approval as presented we have a motion on the floor so move president have first and the second do we have second have any uh comments or questions comments uh my comment would be tonight is that uh I think we have better Clarity some better Clarity of what we are bringing uh before uh
073tonight um I think this board if I might say Mr President uh has the love for our teachers and all of our staff uh I think uh the delay was based on being uh sure and having the clarity we need to make sure our teachers and our staff are are well taken care of I just thought that needed to be said because we don't want anybody to leave out of here thinking that this board did not want to do anything as a relates to to raises for our teachers and staff we just needed to be clear and if everybody was going to be taken care of the right way and I agree and I might I might comment on that one myself s because again as Dr Mo stated we don't ever want our teachers
074or staff or Administration to think that that we do not appreciate the hard work that they do we certainly do but as a um uh as a responsibility uh to the state as a board we are responsible for our fiary uh decisions that we make and so we want to make sure that we make them in a right way in a healthy way that affects all of us because at the end of the day when it when it's all said and done uh State not coming after this this Administration they come out of the board and so we want to make sure we are well well U informed on uh any decision that we make as it relates to any type of uh budgeting for our district so I just want to say that because
075we kind of heard a few things swirling I didn't I didn't do a lot of conversating because of my mom's situation we kind of heard a lot of things back and forth and and we and thank you Dr Moore for stating that we just want to make sure that we that we all on the same team head in the same direction and I just want to say one thing is that being the Newbie on the on the board I take so so much pride in these guys right here because when this particular um situation came to our attention and we didn't have all the information that we needed we wanted to make sure that we had all the information so that the teachers get everything that they deserve the department chairs get everything that they
076deserve and we decided as a team that we were going to make sure so today we stand as a united front that we want them to get what they deserve because they worked hard for it and like you said they're not going to come for they're coming for us so we don't want them coming for us so thank you teachers thank you dep Department chairs and and all the other ones that we had to vote on this for you the comment comments I will go ahead and add a comment myself um uh to piggy back on what Dr Mor said that we got a lot more clarity and what comes with Clarity is a clear view of improvement opportunities for improvement and so after many conversations that we had uh we've got some well I'll
077say that we are very uh uh we're left with high expectations to our our next time we negotiate so that we can talk about some of the things and look at those opportunities of improvement so but thank you to our teachers and all of our staff for your hard work and we I promise you as a board we are continue to look at those things as we move forward any more questions or comments no all right so we'll move on to vote all in favor say I I a good eye there any opposed all right the eyes carried thank you Dr Young next we have action item C human resource report due to the confidentiality of the human resource report we won't entertain any questions or comments Dr Young thank you Mr President members of
078the board I recommend approval of the human resource report as presented so move president okay second we have a first and a second we'll move on to vote all in favor say I I any opposed motion carries thank you Dr Young thank you next we have action item D addition of the new idoe course for CTE Mr Inman Mr President members of the board Dr Young I'm seeking approval for action item D addition of a new course for a CTE program at Pike high school has presented and move we accept the addition of the new idoe course at uh for CTE at Pike High School second okay first and a second are there any questions or comments I do have a comment I like this class looking it over um you can tell that idoe
079is really respons responding to the teacher shortage in a really creative way um nothing against early childhood but it is included in the course but seeing that uh students have the opportunity their freshman or sophomore year to take one or two semesters in the class that's that's going to be helpful for us I think as a district for sure yeah yes Mr Inman how do you feel about it no I think it's a it's we already have a course called educ ation professions that we have 80 to 90 students in this is going to be the introduction course to that so it'll be a leadin course um obviously you can see in your notes that it'll be funded through our CTE program so we get dollars for that so very excited about it thank you
080any other questions or comments all right we'll move on to vote all in favor say I I any oppos motion carries thank you Mr Mr imman I would like to combine actions items E and F Mr fer good evening again Mr President members of the board Dr Young I recommend uh contract item e andf contracts and donations I recommend your approval as presented I make a motion that we approve enf a second second we have a first and a second are there any questions or comments on action item e and f i I did have one question Dr y did a great job answering a lot of my questions about some of the contracts Elevate Ed I understand that we pay for that with title 2 money with as best we can answer with everything
081is going on with the Department of Ed is any of that title 2 money at risk is this money we have already received are we still waiting to receive we received it for this year currently go ahead um I have Dr Nellie overseas title too so resp good evening Mr President members of the board Dr Young thank you for your question we've received our funds for this year and we've already been awarded next year's allocation that was the only concern I had was is it is the check in the mail and the mail may not be delivered okay I ain't seen a check but we have next Mr Foster did you see the check all right we want make sure thank you [Laughter] you any more questions or comments on E and F I I
082do to Dr Young if I may Dr Young with all that is going on uh and I know the assessment of what you're doing to try to find out where the district will be uh I heard the amount of $2 million possibly uh that we could be from the comments I heard from some of the things that could take place um uh how do you feel about things as it relates to where we sit and if we are approached that way um how do you feel about it um we'll be okay okay we'll we'll be okay now we will continue to fight and speak out to make sure that we get every dollar that we can for our students okay but based on the uh last run that is now moved on to the house
083um we'll survive we'll be okay matter of fact we had some conversations I think the business office here today and we'll actually even um in an upcoming work session that the board uh gives us the opportunity we kind of like to talk about some things in detail um you know we have some things that are avable to to us that we um haven't even had to to to touch or or to to even think about in regards to Investments and a whole bunch of other stuff um so we're fine okay thank you so much yeah any other questions or comments if not we'll move on to vote all in favor for actions items E and F say I I any oppose motion carries thank you Mr Foster thank you Mr lastly we are down to
084board member items Dr Moore um doing a lot of talking tonight um I'm excited about uh being able to get the um the administrative classified uh staff paid increase uh I'm happy about that I just wish I had something to do with the increases if you know what I mean that simply means I wish we could do more uh and um uh I'm just excited about that and to hear about special AED tonight uh it's heart moving and heart-wrenching um and and to see um uh the and to hear what we're doing in that particular area is phenomenal I want to thank this board um and this the first time I've ever done this for um the ability to stick together to get this done tonight um and uh the love that has been shown
085for these teachers uh and staff um to make sure uh we understood what was going to happen for them and I want to thank you all uh publicly for um making this happen tonight as we work together to make Pike Township a great Township thank you I'm done all right thank you Dr Mo Miss Wilson okay I just want to say again thank you guys for coming out tonight and for those that are watching um exceptional Learners it's a it's a it's a it's a soft spot for me and to watch it grow and to see the presentation um I was excited and um to know that Pike is doing what they're doing for that is great um Pike has so many positive things and it doesn't matter whether it's band or the gym or
086PE or whether it's science CTE or whether it's Kamar bake um uh uh books doing her thing with the junior um Allstar so um we have so many things that we are able to make everybody know who we are and on March the 19th we need to make sure that they know who we are so we need to you I know 6:45 Pike but 20 minutes we need to be there and we need to make sure we are there to let them know that we we're not happy with the losing $2 million um and we're not happy with sharing it with um other other districts or whatever that think they think they want us to do and we're not going to win if we don't stand together and these guys right here we stood together
087and people are going to profit from that so I think we could do the same thing here thank you Mr Wilson Mr hoofer all right well I loved hearing all of the uh things the accomplishments from you know we we often hear accomplishments from sports right that gets a lot of publicity it's great to hear what our athletes are doing it was awesome to hear what our musicians of the people in the kids in the Arts are doing also with that in mind wife and I got a chance to go see the Aristocats last night it was awesome I loved especially that it was um completely student Le student uh the students put it on uh and so my hats off to that that teacher that was it was a it was a really good
088good job and and giving the kids the uh the freedom and clearly what she had taught them uh is is paying off they're learning their stuff um did want to offer condolences to Mr Elmore um go back quite a ways with him he was uh Elementary School principal whenever my son was in elementary school and so we've known him for many years and so uh definitely condolences there um want to compliment Mr Heck on the digital learning and AI fair I completely geeked out I forgot to I went to wear my bracelet that I earned that night the little red bracelet going to all the booths but it was so encouraging to hear the again really creative really thoughtful ways that our our teachers our students that everybody is implementing this techn technology um you
089know a lot of justifiable concerns we want to be wise but um love hearing the Ingenuity it was really really um great um also had a great time I mentioned already getting to you know read to the kids at Nathaniel Jones and then got to go down um and uh see the kid um at the um Gyan Elementary also the three-year olds and read with some of them and so miss Blandon and Miss Kendrick and just all their staff um just phenomenal job that they're doing doing uh just amazing and I I guess I'll preface this one with these are my opinions um alone but I want to offer I don't know if it's sympathy condolences a lot of anger uh and what happened but just to the teachers at um zionville that were doxed
090by our attorney general that's horrible it's cowardice it's mean it's dangerous um God forbid that happened to teachers here because they're showing love to our students and so um you know we're we're on the basketball court on the whatever we may be Rivals but we're all in public education we're all um in this together and so I just wanted to say something about that thank you Mr hoofer Dr Webster yeah I just want to Pivot to um a couple of meetings that um Mr Huffer sent us regarding uh the Mind trust with um regards to to to the Glick the fav card the favor card center and the global village I know we have in the past been partners with them we have even um taken some of our children on field trips to the
091global village but I think we have to um be mindful of uh of of of strategies that um that is being uh done in our community especially as it relates to uh uh our families and so whereas and this me certainly me personally where C maybe some of us may not have problems with that but when you are offering a dinner and uh and a whole 2 three hour schedule and then to talk about education uh based on what we heard tonight I I don't I don't know perhaps a charter school that would go to the length and exceptional learning that we've gone too so I just think that we have to as a district uh be very Vigilant uh as we see strategy continuously coming against us and and seeking to root into our
092district and uh that two million that uh you're talking about Dr M and others a lot of that is taken from us and the fors for sharing so I think uh that's my heart tonight and and and when I see these people I I certainly know the head of the global village have a personal relationship with her and these are people that I would I set and I'll talk to to find out what's your reason what's your rhyme especially if you're partnering with us so I think that um that that's my concern and I and I would hope that we as a district will draw back any type of partnership in advancement if these are uh people that are giving giving space to uh mind trust in charter schools so that's my concern thank you
093Dr Webster Mrs Barnes I had the pleasure to meet several members of Pike High School best buddies because I was with um my best buddies chapter at the Friendship ball so it was a lot of fun um merging our two chapters together dancing and having a really good time at uh newfields uh also I want to say happy early Pi Day which is tomorrow and tomorrow morning uh there is a lunar eclipse so uh hopefully uh those who are watching those who are here you can spare a little time in the morning eat a little piece of pie and watch a lunar eclipse all in one go thank you Mrs Barnes Miss uh Nicole Kelly good evening super excited about all the great things that are going on in Pike as always um glad that
094we were able to as has been shared come together as a board for our staff to receive what they're not fully worth but what we can do at this time to the best of our ability and to be to appreciate them the exceptional learning um presentation that went forth very excellent very proud of the work we're doing proud of the fact that in our pipe Community there is space for everyone we are attempting to find we're get involved find your niche as Mr hoer was saying we have sports Athletics all of the different things art music drama getting involved and the parents that are watching there's a place for your child in Pike and just getting getting there our our teachers are excellent they love your students and care about your students so we're wanting
095everyone to feel welcome in Pike Treasures is Saturday so if you have not purchased your ticket for the fundraising that will take place because the foundation has generously blessed our district as always as one of our top donors so that we need to replenish those coffers so that we can continue to have funds to continue to give so Saturday at 5 6 6 it starts I'm folling a friend too and she's not looking I don't know 5:30 I think 5:30 at Broadmore Country Club please go online purchase your ticket and join us for an fun evening of fundraising and fellowship thank you Miss Kelly Dr Young thank you Mr President everything I was going to share I've had an opportunity to say um so I'm just going to say this don't just come tomorrow but
096but but bring your pocketbook um there are so many Innovative things that happen in our school district that are funded through the Pike Township Educational Foundation there's no I wish can we put that picture back up with the children so I can someone play some music I'm just kidding I'm just kidding I'm to pull out your your heartstrings but but the Educational Foundation is a vital part of the experience that our children get in Pike Township we talk about Pike Township uh being the gift that you didn't know that you needed well if you look in you start peeling back the the different layers you going to find the Pike Township Educational Foundation right smack dab in there they are they are that important and they that support of the work that we do so
097you know cut back on the Starbucks drinks or whatever you need to do but but hey please please please uh support them financially because they turn around the money that they raise they turn around and they give it to our to our teachers who are supporting our our students so and and also scholarships and a whole bunch of other stuff thank you thank you Dr Young and I'll just leave with this um I'll Echo the sentiments of few my board members uh I'd like to commend us because we came really came together uh and dealing with uh the raise the pay increases and so I'm proud of all of you who we uh talked out we worked hard and we learned a lot of things and so I'm excited to see what comes of that
098also uh with so many things that are going on in our in our climate uh we see that we have entities that are still trying to assassinate the image of public education in our own backyard uh we haven't forgot and we know who they are and we'll continue to work to uh keep piking the fight against that so with that being said can I get a motion to adjourn the meeting so move brother president all right second first and second me to J thank you