001All right, we uh welcome everybody here to our schoolboard meeting. Uh we're going to first start out with the re reorganization meetings. Um any uh I guess we got any visitors? We're not doing or anything because we have nobody new, right? >> So I guess we're just going to go right down to new business. >> Um we uh need to reorganize our board of education. Um, do we have any motions for for these uh positions? >> If we're starting with president, I nominate Scott Hoffford. >> I'll second. Okay, we got a motion second to for Scott Hoffford to be the president. All in favor say I. >> Any oppose? Vice President motions. >> I nominate Mr. Ros. >> I second. >> We got a motion and a second to nominate Christian Rosine to be a
002vice president. All in favor say I. >> Any opposed? All right. Passes. A motion for secretary. >> Kevin Bowman. >> Got a motion in a second to uh for Kevin Bowman to be our secretary. All in favor say I. >> Opposed. [clears throat] Our isba legislate legislative. That's the one that everybody wants. >> I'll make sure motion second for Jeff Porter to be our is BA legislative representative. All in favor say I. I. >> Any opposed? And last but not least, our MSD WC representative for the H Heartland Career Center board of managers nominate Matt Driscoll. >> Motion second for Matt Driscoll serve as our MSDWC representative to the Heartland Career Center Board of Managers. All in favor say I. >> I. Any oppose? All right. Uh moving on. Um your recommendation to approve law
003office of downs tia train you sorry >> as attorneys at a rate of 220 an hour. We need a motion a second to get this approved. >> So move second. You have a motion and second to approve of the law office of Dallas Tandy Patrinu PC as attorneys at a rate of 220 an hour. All in favor say I. >> Any opposed? got a recommendation to to appoint Travis Houston as corporate treasurer and also recommend Laura Bear as deputy treasur and that the current bond of 200,000 be continued for each elementary bookkeepers 10,000 and high school bookkeepers 20,000 second motion second to approve this recommendation favor Say I. >> I. >> Any oppose. >> Got um established uh board members. I guess we need a motion. Second to established board member salary. I make a
004motion to uh set the salary uh for the school board members at 8 and a half% of the lowest starting salary of a teacher. >> Second. [clears throat] Got a motion and second to approve uh the salary of board members to 8 and a half% of the lowest starting salary of a teacher. All in favor say I. I. Any >> oppose? Are you doing that for DMs too for Yes. >> Yeah, I was going to do that. I was gonna That's why I didn't know if you want to do it as two separate. >> Also have a motion to set the per meeting per BM to $150 per board meeting. >> I'll second a second. Got a motion and second to have our pium for each regular meeting for $150. All in favor say I.
005I. >> Any opposed? The recommendation to approve the mileage rate for all school employees to be the same amount and the current teacher master contract which is 50 cents. We get a motion move. >> Second motion and second to approve that amount is 50 cents. All in favor say I. >> Any opposed? uh board scholarship. Uh you know, we know that we usually do um each board member contributes $200 annually for $500 scholarship for each Northfield and Southwood High School. The board selects the recipient from the application submitted each spring. >> I motion that we double that SC,000 for school. Second. >> Got a motion and second to approve. Each board member contributes $400 to establish a $1,000 scholarship for Northfield and Southwood and board will select recipients from this application. All in favor say
006I. Any opposed? Um recommend the board appoint the superintendent of MSD while county as the local educa education officer for ensuing year with authority to file applications for federal funds on behalf of the school corporation. a motion to second. >> Second. >> Got a motion and a second to approve our superintendent to uh as our local education officer. All in favor say I. >> Any opposed? By law, we are required to place legal advertisements in our county newspaper. I recommend that we officially approve the Indiana plane dealer. So moved. Got >> a motion second to approve the Indiana plane dealer. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. Recommendations [snorts] of our continued participations at WAP and HCC to facilitate better accountable accountability with the state board of accounts and department of education. So
007move a motion and second to continue participation with WMP and HCC. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any oppose? Recommendation to approve the school board appointment of non voting member. Sorry. [snorts] >> [clears throat] >> Yeah, I'm good. >> Okay. Voting member to the county redevelopment commission as Kevin Bowman. >> So moved. >> A motion second to approve Kevin Bowman to be a school board appointment. All in favor say I. Any >> opposed? All right. Motion passes. Now we need to review our board meeting dates. You have them all. >> Yes. >> I don't know if there's anything that you guys >> any questions or anything come across with any of those. >> I don't think it changed much. We got our fall meetings basically one each month. >> That looks like May
008we have one. June we would have one. in October and November and December have works perfect for anybody having problem dates. Motion a second to approve that. So move second. >> Got a motion and second to approve our schoolboard meeting dates. All in favor say I. I the oppos. >> All right. Uh there's nothing else. We will close that meeting and all right. Are we still live? Okay. All right. We uh we'll start our regular school board meeting. We'll start out by the pledge of allegiance followed by a prayer. >> I alian 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. Our father in heaven, we're grateful for the opportunity we have to be here. We're
009grateful for the uh opportunity which we have to be in this great community and amongst these great people and friends. We uh grateful for the administrators that we have in this school district and for the teachers. a great portal to teach the students and the parents that entrust our staff to help them these kids to gain a great greater education. We are asking this meeting, the things that we discuss, the things that we decide that it may be valuable, we ask you to please always help us to have an open mind and have the ability to to make decisions which will be for the betterment of this community and for these students here in this school district. We uh ask thee for these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. >> Future [clears throat]
010board meetings, January 27th, uh is board of finance meeting followed by the regular meeting. Then February 10th, the regular meeting. February 24th will be a regular meeting. all here starting at 6 o' we'll move on to uh [clears throat] recognition public recommen recognitions we got some donations here we'll get those all approved at the end recommendation to approve $700 uh from Southwood Elementary PTO for Southwood Elementary class field trip bus driver fees recommendation to approve $2,613 donation from Southwood Elementary PTO for Southwood Elementary fourth grade camp to Tcumpsa field trip recommendation to approve,00 $1,77022 from Southwood Elementary families for Southwood Elementary for the Southwest Elementary Food drive and a recommendation to approve $200 donation from uh ISO Tech International for Southwood High School robotics department. Recommendation to approve $79.60 from Box Talks for education for
011[snorts] Metro North Elementary for the Southwood or for student support program and activities. and the recommendation to approve $1,000 from David and Kathy Cook, grandparents of Carol Lee Young and Maline Young and Jonathan Young and Lucas Law for the MSDWC minds and action $500 for general expenses and $500 for student scholarships. We get a motion in a second to approve all these generous donations. Second. >> Got a motion and a second to approve these donations. All in favor say I. I. >> Any oppose. >> All right. Uh, school recognition. >> Yeah. Uh, like to recognize a few things. Uh, obviously between our last meeting and now, we had Christmas break and during Christmas break, uh, we have the, uh, Wash County basketball tournament. and just wanted to recognize um those individuals and teams. MSD actually
012had a very successful uh turning uh with us winning all four county championships. Uh the JB girls won uh for Southwood one. Uh Southwood JB boys won, the Northfield girls varsity won, and the Southwood boys varsity won. We were also uh fortunate enough to have two MVPs out of that tournament. Laney Hopper uh representing Northview and Bryce Wilcox representing Southwood High School as well as four of the Bill Roie Mental Attitude Awards. And those go out to Tim Lun of Northfield, Asa Dolls of Northfield, Laney Hopper of Northfield, and Bryce Wilcox of Southfield. So, uh, it was a very, uh, fun, positive, successful weekend. We've been on the other end of that before. Uh, so it's nice to, uh, have a good, a good, uh, tournament event. A few other, uh, recognitions. Mr. Snyder from
013Northfield like to recognize junior Eli Gale and senior Payton Barlo. They both received exemplary behavior reports from official Eric Lokshshire on December 18th in their wrestling dual meet with Huntington North. Mr. Lokshshire stated, "All competitors and coaches exhibit excellent sportsmanship. A couple wrestlers set themselves apart with their leadership or how they worked with the officials. It was a pleasure to work at this event. Also, a special congratulations to Eli, who recently joined the wrestling 100 win club. And uh Amara Frerieden just recently qualified for uh state and girls wrestling this past weekend. So, good luck to her. I believe she competes on Friday of this week. Uh Mr. Martin from Sharp Creek uh would like to congratulate all Sharp Creek students and staff for being recognized as the Prodigy State Challenge Champions of our tier
014for December 2025. Prodigy has informed us that our students answered more math questions correctly than any other school in the state that is on Prodigy Math. As a result of this accomplishment, our school will be receiving a celebration kit filled with Prodigy swag, in-game rewards for every participant student claimable within their account until months in, a place in the Prodigy National Cup where you'll compete for a share of over $200,000 in tech grants, which will occur in May of 2026, and a $500 gift card to cover the cost of the school celebration. So, that was pretty good. >> [clears throat] >> Uh, Mrs. Lewis from Southwood uh would like to recognize and mention that Southwood has earned a place on the college board's AP school honor role for the 2425 school year with an overall
015silver distinction placement for developing an AP program that creates a collegegoing culture and gives students opportunities to earn college credit and maximize their college outcomes. Schools are evaluated in three areas. College culture, college credit, and college optimization. SHs plays silver in college culture, gold in college credit, and platinum in college optimization, leading to an overall silver distinction. She'd also like to congratulate Bailey Petro, Olivia Rank, and McKenna Hunter on being selected for the All State Honor Choir. They will perform Saturday night at 6 pm at the Embassy Theater in Fort W. So few recognitions of staff and students there um since we last met and that's all I have right now to recognize. >> All right, public comment agenda items over. [clears throat] If not, we'll move on to agenda items. Uh we need to
016get a motion and a second to approve our regular M meeting minutes for December 9th. >> So move second. >> Got a motion and a second to approve those minutes. All in favor say I. Any opposed? Uh approval of financial report. We got claims and payroll 11 and 12. Yeah. No big surprises on the claims if there's any questions. So my best answer. There was a under the CT Travis there wasund and some thousand item was that follow. [snorts] >> Yeah, we have some operational costs usually that are associated at the beginning of the year. uh that is kind of separate from withdrawal, the total withdrawal, but it's part of it for that first month. >> Some of that includes like bus replacement, capital project, uh whatever our formula works out that we protect as
017far as the cost. >> I assume that's what a one time, >> right? It's a lot higher than it usually is when it was listed online. >> Yeah. The operational costs um as far as capital projects are concerned. Um we had talked as a heart group to kind of increase that so that with some of this work that needs to be done that we can help support that as things come up. And so it it probably pretty close to double separate account. They put it in. Yeah. >> Okay. The only other one that popped down at me was the insurance and insurance is getting become a rough rough thing. So, uh, are we in a cooperative? >> Yeah, we kind of c I think this is our third year in the cooperative. Uh, and so
018rates have increased over the last couple years. I believe our rate increase for this year was only like 3% or something >> but they were a lot higher than that over the last couple years. >> Yeah. With workman there is like over 300,000. So I just wondered if we were tracking competitive bids if they weren't in >> and some of some of that cost is also related to our uh working with area programs. So we >> those cost costs cover are covered by us as far as >> the in our packet package. someone comes back to us. >> Anybody else have any questions on claims or payroll letter? >> Move to approve. Second. >> Got a motion and second to approve claims and payroll 11 to 12. All in favor say I. I. First >>
019financial summary in the month. >> Yeah. So cash report. >> Yeah. Um balances are robust and stable at the end of December, end of the year. Um glad to answer any questions kind of rolls into the cash flow discussion too. No big surprises. ES are good. The appropriations the the total spent was well below our appropriated balances. So that's always good news. Glad to answer questions if there are any objection about a little bit less for next year. your your expenses. It looks like you guys question. [snorts] [clears throat] >> All right, hold on one second. back to where you're [snorts] >> just next item real quick is 2025. five transfers. Uh so total uh the total amount transferred from education to the operations fund uh as a percentage of just the basic grant amount
020we get from the state was 10.34%. And that's uh also 9.73% of total receipts into the education fund that was transferred to the operations fund to cover those expenses that have to come from the operations fund analysis fund structure of school finance was changed. And I just threw in there the the comparison to 2024 and 2023 fairly stable. 2024 the difference in in those some of those numbers are result of moving the curriculum material amount to the education fund as required by the state. That's why the total amount for 2024 is more than 2025 amount otherwise a steady increase from year to year. What's the maximum you can do according to 15%? Okay. Any other questions on that? Not we'll move on to HR. Under resignations, we have Haley Lion, a bookkeeper, Southwood Elementary. That's
021effective 15. And Keith Allen as a bus driver on the south. Uh that's effective. Employment. Jaden Bear, assistant boys basketball high school. That was effective immediately. Alyssa Richards, classroom supervisor, Weiss High School, effective 15. Ray Hackag, substitute teacher for Sharp Creek Elementary. And that's approximately three to four weeks. That effective now just for three to four weeks. >> It's effective now. Yes. She's uh subbing in for that leave. Okay, that's Adriana Gomez, bookkeeper for Southwood Elementary6. Becky Bradley, food service director. Oh, sorry. This is retirement. >> so we got >> transfer. Did we do the transfer? >> Yeah, we did a transfer. I did not announce that was a transfer. So, there's a transfer of Adriana Gomez as a bookkeeper. I'm not sure where she's coming from. parent, >> okay, as a bookkeeper for South
022Elementary. And then we'll go to retirement. Uh Becky Bradley as a food service director for all the schools. She'll be retired at the end of the school year. And Jackie Sylvesta, is that right? >> As a teacher at White High School, effective at the end of this school year. And we have one lead 197. That leave will begin or has began January 7th and that's for three to four weeks. We have a motion and second to approve HR. So >> second motion and second to approve uh HR. All in favor say I. >> Any opposed? >> I'd like to say a couple of things about the retirements. Um, so Jackie has worked for uh MSD and Whites for the past seven years as a special ed teacher. We appreciate her service and we wish her
023uh well in her retirement, upcoming retirement after she finishes the year of course. [laughter] [clears throat] And then uh Becky uh has uh been with MSD for 32 years. uh she started in 1993 as the food service manager at Watney and uh was hired as our first ever food service director in 2016. So she's been uh on the food service manager side for 22 years and food service director side for 10 years. And so we just appreciate uh what she has done um in that role. And so uh we wish them wish her as well best of luck in her retirement. So, >> all right, we'll move on to our reports. Matt, anything from Heartland? >> Nothing specific tonight. We'll have a meeting next week. >> Superintendent report. >> Yeah, just a few things to
024to mention and keep you guys in the loop on. Um, so we had our December one special aid count. Uh, there are two special aid counts. There's one in December and there's one in February. Well, the one in December is is tied to dollars. The one in February is just more of an informative count. And so our count uh finalized at 353 uh special ed students in the district. That was down from 360 from last year as of December. and it was uh down from 355 from last spring count. So um fairly stable uh with our special ed uh numbers uh with that. And then uh I don't know if Mr. Drake was going to mention anything about this, but I will just highlight that the 2025 uh four-year graduation rates were released by the
025Department of Education, and we are uh proud of another incredible year. Northfield had 100% graduation rate. Southwood High School had a 98.28% graduation rate, which equated to one student. And then whites had a 77.04% 04% graduation rate. The state average was 91.83%. Just from perspective purposes, in 2013, Whites's graduation rate was 19%. >> And so our graduation has uh consistently uh been on the rise uh most years in the 40 50% uh but this marks our second consecutive year that we've been in in the 70%. So, >> which is pretty uh amazing with the understanding that most of those students are not on track to graduate uh when they come to Knights and giving them that ability to get to that point is means a lot to what what's going on in in that building.
026So, uh legislative update. So, the legislative season has began. Uh we talked a little bit about um [snorts] about the upcoming uh ideas and and and now the bills are actually being filed and I and I think there are I think this might be the last week that a bill can be filed. Currently there are 700 bills that have been filed 73 that are pertaining to K through 12 education and obviously that could increase uh through this week. Their goal is to finish by February 27th. So, it's a short session. Uh, and a couple that have I just want to bring attention to. Uh, one has been kind of pretty um re reached a lot of news for the most part is House Bill 1034 and Senate Bill 78, which is basically a bell to
027bell cell phone bill. And so, uh, legislation last year had made changes to cell phone policies. Uh, this is a little more of a stricter, um, legislation. And so, we'll kind of see how that that plays out. And then the other one that I wanted to bring in to the attention is last year as part of Senate rule one act. Uh our lip dollar income uh revenue uh was to be removed uh following the the 2027 uh calendar year. So in 2028 we would not dollars. There is legislation out there in Council Bill 1258 that would allow county councils to adopt a local income tax on behalf of school corporations. However, it's a sunset provision. So, in 2028, uh the rate would be 12% and it would sunset 3% down uh to 2031. So it
028wouldn't be like an all or nothing loss like we would see now, but obviously that would involve approval and adoption through the county council. And that's that's it for right now as far as legislation that that we'll mention. Obviously, there's still a lot of work to do, a lot more discussions, and we'll see how a lot of this plays out. that county law will live. That isn't over and above what's in place now come to the schools, right? >> Correct. >> It is new or new money. >> In contact dollars that we're receiving right now is revenue, >> right? But what they're saying, what they're proposing, we've got to be on top of what's >> I believe that I believe in 2028 they have to reset those rates anyway. >> Okay. >> And I think
029the max that can be related to a school is that 12% and then it would go down to nine, six, and three be phased out that way. >> But they would be the ones deciding what percent. >> Yep. And it looks like here that how it would be distributed among school districts is based on their share of the countywide ADM to right now I think the lit is broken and shared pretty much by I believe it's assessed valuation. So it would still be a revenue loss but it's it wouldn't be an all or nothing loss at one time. anybody? >> Uh, no. I would just say for the graduation race that's always cool. We all know all the different people that have a hand in making that happen. So, especially the whitesman, that's really cool.
030But to you, it's almost becoming expected that Southwood Northfield above 95%, right? 98 100. Like, it's almost like, oh, we just do that. It's so impressive and it just takes a lot of time >> and there's a lot to it that people still don't maybe know and understand. Uh for example, at Northfield we house the rise classroom which are the students that are u severe and profound and uh a lot of them aren't going to earn a meet the diploma requirements and so in those cases they they aren't graduates and sometimes those are reflected in some of those numbers and that type of stuff. So positive team effort. All right, we'll move into new business. [clears throat] Uh recommendation to approve a W MD WCHA 103 flexibility waiver. uh request resolution for 26 and 27
031uh for 180 day school requirement. >> Sure. We try to make that as long. >> Yeah, as many initials in there as you can. >> So, uh there are certain uh state laws that we can file waiver requests for through the Indiana Department of Education. uh we have done this in the past related to the 180day school requirement and uh that is for allowing us to do professional development days throughout the school year. Uh and so we have requested four professional development days just like we did last school year. And to do that we would need a a waiver to requ Yeah. waiver to reduce the 180day school requirement to 176 school days. And we have to have board approval for that. And then once we get board approval, then uh Mr. Drake and I
032work through some uh application processes that we have to go through to apply through the Department of Education and supply this resolution with that and then the Department of Education will approve or not approve our order. if I could add. And so what this does is right, it gives us our professional development days that count. And so we used to do e-learning days. And so we're trying to talk to teachers about instructional things and ways to improve it. In the meantime, they would have to set aside time to plan for their students and grade it. Like all of that was happening at once. And so what this does is just let us a couple of days where we can give teachers a chance to breathe. And then we develop like professionals like we talk about
033literacy and math and it has been excellent. Um, we've gotten great feedback from that and um, it's just teaching is a is a really unique job in that you are on display. You're on the job for eight hours. Um, whereas like we just heard we just need the lawyers, right? Like that is like that includes their work behind the scenes, not just him being here and hanging out with us, right? And whereas with teaching, they're on they're on show all eight hours and then they have to do those other things. So it's just nice. It's nice to give them a little bit of chance to do some of that fresh development without having to also plan for students. And so I appreciate that we flex. I think it's it's I think it's good for morale.
034I think it's good for professional development. Um I think that we've also shown that the things that we are training and doing are having positive results. We can see that through test scores etc. Anything we can do to continue to improve is helpful. >> Yeah, we like to say it's all about the people. Program is good, but it's people. I think those guys that like sports listeners have a great co. So, we got to find more people. Motion second to approve that. Second motion sec second to approve that. Uh That wavered. All in favor say I. I. >> Any opposed? Recommendation to approve the early literacy grant resolution. >> Yeah, I believe this is the third year for this uh early literacy achievement grant and we just have to have board approval that lays out
035how we use those dollars to support uh early literacy achievement um with our staff. And so that's what this does and we will handle it as we have done traditionally with those early grant statements. So So we got a motion and second to approve the early literacy grant resolution. All in favor say I. >> I oppose. uh recommendation to approve the local income tax distribution resolution. Yeah, this one is another annual uh resolution uh just asking to approve uh depositing that local income tax distribution into the operations fund uh for 2026 as it's been at least in 2025. [laughter] Yeah, we we've split it up in other areas before, but the past few years that's until 2028 when we don't have [laughter] >> move got a motion and second to approve the local income tax
036distribution. All in favor say I. >> I oppose. recommendation to approve the 2026 transfers from education fund to operations bond. Again, another annual uh resolution. Uh just asking the board to approve uh the transfer from the education fund to the operations fund uh not to exceed $215,000 a month for each month of 2026. And that amount is also the same what was approved for 202 for perspective. I know he was showing the transfers earlier. So like it's typically what we've been doing is $185,000 a month. That's kept us around that 10%. So um this allows us that flexibility and choice of whatever but still keep us under 50% and we ever had to go through that we [clears throat] would have to have to ask that the plan is not to transfer 215,000 a month
037approving up to second. We got a motion and second to approve the 2026 transfer from education fund to operations. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Recommendation to approve the resolution authorizing the treasur to pay claims. Again, another annual resolution just asking the board to I guess in a nutshell approve banner bills in case we were to this a board meeting where the claims are. approved officially authorizing that to pay those and then approve at the next available. >> So second a motion second to approve the authorization of the treasur to pay claims. All in favor say I. I. >> Any oppos? [clears throat] Last one. recommendation to approve an overnight field trip for Hartwing Career Center students to participate in Business Professionals of America State Competition in Indianapolis from March 8th
038to the 10th, 2026. >> Some second motion second to approve the field trip for Heartland Care Center. All in favor say I. >> Any opposed? Unfinished business. If I may real quick, 1782, we we got that all uh approved and uh so for the budget for 2026, >> uh it was all as expected and the total tax rate for 2026 will be a$110 just like 2025 as as we expected to be. So I forgot to mention that earlier. That's it. Thanks. board policy public comment. You're still awake [laughter] for board members. All right, we're