001about five seconds. >> All right. All right. We welcome everybody here to our schoolboard meeting here. We'll start out with the pledge of allegiance followed by a prayer. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Our father in heaven, we're grateful for the opportunities we have to be here tonight. We're grateful for the safe travels that we've had coming here. We're grateful for this meeting that brings us together as we discuss the needs and the things which we strive to keep improving the school district. We are grateful to to be part of this community and great friends and neighbors that we enjoy. We uh ask as we discuss and talk about
002the things that are on the agenda that we may discuss and decide the things which would be pleasing unto thee. As always, we ask to please bless our teachers and our students and all those at work in this school corporation that they all their desires and best efforts will go to to help the the children in this community to receive the best education they can to help them be set up for success throughout their life. We are grateful for all these these things and we say this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. >> Our future board meetings uh next one the 23rd of September followed by the October 14th. That's the only one in October. Then we got one November 11th. All here at 6 o' uh public recognition. We have several uh contributions
003donations. So, we'll get those all approved at one time. Recommendation to approve $870 donation from Robert and Claudia Bay, $250 from Greg and Jane Renan, $100 from Judith Zer Zervall, $100 from Nina and Harry Miller, $25 from Billy and Linda Cy, 50 from Mark and Katherine Miller, 50 from William and Connie Moore, 50 from David and Marcy Klein, 25 from Sam Knight, 50 from John and Diane Cauldron, 100 from Brad and Maria Dale, 50 from anonymous donor, and 20 that goes all to Northfield Athletics. Recommendation to approve $1,500 donation from Thorn Insurance for Northfield cheerleading. And the recommendation to approve $100 donation from Philip Seeds from for Northwood Girls Golf. Recommendation to approve $2,850 estimated value from Thorn Insurance Agency for Northville Athletic Student Passes. Recommendation to approve $15,000 from Ford Meterbox for 2526 school
004year for all schools. Recommendation to approve $950 from V Randy Scrogggins, 50 from Troy Stacy Bear, 100 from Howard Holderman, 50 from Carrie Crumb, 250 from Steven J. Cauldron, and 500. That all goes to Northfield Athletics. I think that's it. I get a motion second to approve all those donations. >> So move on the generous donations. >> I'll second that. >> Got a motion and a second to approve these donations. All in favor say I. >> Any oppose. >> All right. We And as always, we appreciate all these donations that go to our schools and help these programs uh move forward. Uh school recognition. >> Yes. So, we'll start out with uh our staff of the year recognition for Southwood Elementary. Make my way up here to the front all the way over here to
005the camera view. >> But, uh today we'd like to spotlight our staff of the year, teacher of the year for Southwood Elementary. And we'll start with Mrs. Lisa Fatal, you don't mind coming up here, Lisa? Congratulations. Lisa was recognized by her peers as teacher of the year for South Elementary. And so, I just wanted to highlight a couple things and I can confirm these things because I got to work with Lisa at South Elementary for a few years uh when I was there. Uh but Lisa is an amazing problem solver. She is very driven. She takes on several of our programs each year and not only makes sure our students know the lyrics to the songs, but she also teaches the choreography for the song. She is full of grace and passion for her job.
006Our students are so lucky to have her um in in the educational field. And so those were just some recognized comments by your peers. Uh I don't know if Mr. Staer would like to chime in and add anything. >> Yeah, sure. Uh Lisa does a excellent job in our in the classroom. She's always trying new things. Uh she integrates music uh to help make it fun and engage the students. She's even learned how to play the guitar right now to even uh teach some more phonic awareness as well. So uh she does a great job at that. Her classroom management um superb. Um she creates a very good learning environment for kindergarters. Some of you guys know this, but we had 75 in our kindergarters. She had 25 students. Just her with 25 kindergarters can
007be tough. She did an excellent job last year. I think this year you're still at 20. >> I only have 21. >> 21 of them. >> So she she does a phenomenal job. She's got a really special connection with those tough difficult students. She can really she has a special niche for them and getting them introduced to the top potential. So kind of reminds me of someone I grew up with at Southwood High School as a teacher that I had in my house. that she she has that special niche that my mom had and uh it's it's kind of cool to see that she can really turn those kids around and get them to reach their top potential. So, very appreciate. >> Yeah, we very appreciate you, Lisa. And so, we'd like to recognize you
008with a $50 gift card. Uh First Farmers Bank and Trust is a sponsor of ours that recognizes our staff and teacher of the years. And so, we have an online store where you can get yourself some Southwood swag. And there's $50 for that. Thank you. So appreciate that. And I don't know, Mr. Dre, you want to take a picture? >> I got nailed at by Mrs. Lenny Bartles. I have to get close. >> You want to come up here? >> Don't mind join us. >> She tells me to zoom in with my feet and so I have to like recognize Megan Petro. Megan is a pair professional for Southwood Elementary. I have not had the privilege of working with Megan. >> No, not yet. >> But uh uh she works primarily with our special education
009students in in her par position. And so just some comments from her peers. Uh she's brave, she's and is wonderful with our students. And so I piggy back off Mr. software here. >> Yeah, this is your third year, right? >> So, I hired Megan and um it was a kind of a difficult role because she's special education, but she's also in the cafeteria as well. Um she goes above and beyond whatever asked for her. She works with Megan Wright in the special room there. Megan's a phenomenal teacher that you guys know and she really likes what Mrs. Petro has done for our students. Um a funny story though, when I She I told you she's in charge of the cafeteria. And the very first day of school when she had me do it, I bought
010the bullhorn out because her voice she is I had a soft voice and I'm like, "Well, here's a bullhorn. You can use this bullhorn. It's me quiet." Um, but now she's got the cafeteria voice so much. I heard her children and her husband don't appreciate it like I do. And we're very grateful to have make sure she doesn't jump to. So, thank you very much. >> We appreciate it. And we'd like to also recognize you with a $50 gift card to shop on our online store. Thank you very much. Let's give her a round of applause. Oh yeah. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> With that being said, as another reward, you're more than welcome to leave, but you're also welcome to stay. That's up to you. >> Thank you. Thanks again. We appreciate everything.
011>> Appreciate you guys. Uh, I'd like to also add a couple things here. Uh, just some recognitions that some of our principles have put in here. Uh, so Mrs. Moore from Metro North would like to thank individuals that provided support to teachers by making purchases on teachers Amazon wish list. Uh, she'd like to specifically thank Andrew Dixon, Brienne Click, Leela Gilman, Sher West, Baron Sluss, BL Bachelor Creek Church of Christ, Teresa Burns, Nancy Haldderman, Betsy Ericson, the Staer family, and Lorie Fitch. Mrs. Moore from Metro North would also like to congratulate uh Angie Herring, kindergartener at Metro North, uh kindergarten teacher at Metro North for having her donor's choose project funded. Her project's titled A Lens for Learning provides an Insta Print camera and photo printer for her classroom. With these tools, students will capture
012their learning digitally and have the opportunity to print their work to display. Special thanks to Doug Wells, brother of Angie Herring, for funding this project. And lastly, Mrs. Moore would like to say today was a very exciting day at Metro North. They started their morning with a huge crane arriving to lift the trusses into place on our gym cafeteria expansion. Then during lunch, Mr. Mo Marbaugh, our on-site construction superintendent from YBN Construction, gave each Metro North student a special construction sticker. Thank you, Mr. Le. I saw she took some pictures and posted that as well of their interactions. So, they seem to be having a good time. Uh there's a couple things that I'd like to just recognize. Uh last week I was able to attend Southwood Elementary uh PTO meeting and so I just
013want to take this second to recognize and thank them for their efforts and helping make positive experiences for the Southwood Elementary students and staff. So I just wanted to highlight that we have lots of afterschool events happening in our buildings especially at the junior senior high level. A lot of time is put in by our admin coaches and officials to provide this opportunity. Without them, it would be hard to provide these experiences for our students. A lot of good life lessons happen from these experience and we just want to make sure that u everybody is kind to everybody when we get into these. We've not had any issues, but we've ran into some other issues elsewhere. And so just really appreciate the time and effort that uh people do put in uh to create experiences
014for our students. So that's all I have been a recognition. >> All right. Appreciate that. Uh we'll move on to public comment agenda items only. If not, we will move on to our we need to get into our agenda items. I need to get a recognition approval of the minutes for our last meeting, August 26. Get a motion and second. So, got a motion and second to approve those minutes. All those in favor say I. >> Any opposed? Uh, financial report, claims and payroll number four. Anything with Travis there? Uh, nothing to speak of unless Any questions? Payroll was pretty much in line. Claims lifewise. Motion second to approve claims and payroll number four. >> Second. Motion second. All those in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? All right. >> Financial summary. >> Yeah.
015the cash balance report from the end of August in line with recent months questions on that. Glad to do my best to answer. >> We have probably. Any questions on the cash flow for August? Cash flows are clipping right along education fund and operations fund. Answer any questions anybody may have. I will mention real quick that uh I found out today that we are within days of receiving at least one of our school buses. >> That was from the 2022 order. >> I'm not sure which one it is. All right. If there's no questions on that, we'll move on to HRations. Our employment, we have Macy Overland, our fifth and sixth grade volleyball coach. Uh that's effective immediately for Sharp Creek Elementary. Amy Guso, a substitute teacher for all schools, effective immediately. Lisa Miller, substitute
016teacher for Veteran North. That's effective. 98. Stephanie Hacker, volunteer junior high volleyball for Southwood High School. That's effective immediately. Gracie Snder, volunteer sixth grade volleyball for South High School. Effective immediately. Abigail Monk as substitute teacher for all schools that's effective immediately. And Lorie Cisco, substitute teacher for all schools immediately. Under transfer, Allison Rosemire transferring from Shark Creek Elementary as secretary bookkeeper to Northfield High School as athletic secretary and treasurer. That's effective September 15th. Jessica Fishbach transferring from Metro North secretary bookkeeper to Sharp Creek Elementary secretary bookkeeper to be announced. And under leave 193 leave will begin September 8th, 2025 returning October 27th and 194 leave will begin October 6th and returning December 1st. HR motion and second to approve these move. >> Second. Got a motion and second to approve our human resource report. All
017those in favor say I. >> I posted. >> All right. >> Reports. >> Anything on that? Yeah, I'll update what I gave just last time about the ABC apprentichip. Um, while they're doing that, they can earn up to two years of their apprentichip while being involved at heartland. Students will also be able to complete 24 credits to university in that and MSD students last year have earned the following. IvyTech credits in sins credits 703 Manchester University 16 internships 95 students and certifications and lenses 29 that's all we have >> good news thank you superintendent >> superintendent report uh First thing I just share uh we have a construction update for the month of August and so just kind of share this video here. I put on so you're okay with that. Am I supposed to
018be narrating? might need to stick with your date. We hear the music. If you drive by Metro North, you can see a lot has changed. Not much has changed. I mean, there has a lot changed, but from this video, not much had changed from when we took that home. So, you'll see a lot of differences when we get the next update related to that. And then next, um, other thing I just wanted to highlight, uh, was, um, I compared our what we call entity counts from where we finished the year at to where we kind of started, not like on first day start, but I waited till the end of August uh, to kind of compare where we are at number-wise. Obviously, we still have another month to go before we have what we call
019our official count day. Uh but at the end of August, uh happy to say that we have had an increase of 56 students in our uh traditional buildings. Uh which is very positive. The largest increases happening in Shark Creek Elementary and Southwood Elementary. Um that does not include the nine prek sections that we offer as far as some of these number comparisons are concerned uh because those don't count for ADM. Um, and then, uh, also, you know, in in a couple sections, I'd like to mention that, uh, we in our kindergarten and third grade section, we actually had to, uh, add a section uh, just because of the numbers of students in those those classes for this year. So, just a lot of positive growth. Uh, and so, um, good things. That's all I want.
020How many how many kids do we have prek? >> I'd have to look for specific numbers, but we have nine sections. And so your your fouryear-old sections usually hold up to about 18. >> Yeah, we have about 18. >> Yep. And then our our threeyear-old sections we try to cap around 12. >> 18 as well. Okay. So we're good there. Okay. >> So we have weight list too. The the issue with going further than that is we just don't have enough space. So, >> all right. Um, just real quick, we have PD days built into the calendar and so this Friday is one of those. And so, um, just to let you guys get a taste of it, um, we're sending all of our K to2 teachers down to Southwood Elementary. uh they're heading down
021to meet with an NWA trainer to help them understand the data and look at their specific student results in that. Um we have uh three through six. We just bought that wonders curriculum and so we're bringing one of their specialists into central office. So they'll be meeting with teachers here to help them understand the curriculum. And now that teachers have been in it about a month, they have lots of questions about how to find things or do whatever. Uh we have um training. We have grades three through grade three that use is being chosen as a vendor to work with our ilearn and so the data these kids take on their checkpoints will fit into that and so we have some teachers attending that and we are also partnering with Manchester Manchester has uh IE
022specialists coming up to talk to them about I learn and math and English and so we're sending about 10 teachers up there to go listen to that and then that's on top of what every other building's doing. We have test training going on, um, test security training going on, mandatory IDE trainings, and so it's a really busy day for everybody, but uh, it's just fun to have. We work really hard not to make it a one-sizefits-all kind of like we do with everything. So it makes it kind of complicated, but it's lots of energy. And so if you come visit us on September 12th, you might be able to see I don't even who knows what there'll be teachers learning and working on stuff. Yeah. Yeah. We like to invest in our teachers. They're the
023best thing we got. And so professional development is really important. So, >> thank you, Tim. We appreciate all the effort that goes into helping our teachers have the resources they need. New business. We have a first uh preliminary determination hearing that we need to have and got my notes here. management. >> Uh the next item on agenda is for the board to hold a preliminary hearing on the proposed bond project. After a presentation by administration and its advisers, there will be an opportunity for the public to make comments about the project. For this specific hearing, we will ask that each person limit their comments to three minutes and that the topic be limited to the proposed project under consideration. The notice of this preliminary determination hearing was published as legally required. At this time, I'll
024ask Dr. uh to explain the purpose of this hearing. So, uh, pursuant to Indiana Code 6-1.1-20-3.5, a school corporation must hold two public hearings and adopt a resolution to preliminary determine to issue bonds or enter a lease for a project which has a total project cost in excess of certain thresholds. These public hearings and the future consideration of resolutions represents the beginning of the legal process. We note that no board action is legally required at this hearing. Rather, this is this hearing is solely to hear public comment regarding the project. >> We will now hear from Dr. about the process of determining and communicating the project to the community and the need for the project. So I'm going to go back here a little bit into history. So a lot of these discussions really started
025back around the 2017 2019 time frame. Uh during that time there were a lot of uh community surveys, district studies that were happening. Uh and one of those that we focused on at that point in time was uh studying our facilities. So, we had a couple people come in uh and go through all of our buildings and just kind of see where we're at and and what we need to continue to keep an eye on uh as we prepare and plan for the future. And so, we took all that information and we developed a strategic plan and that strategic plan had four priorities. We shared that strategic plan with our community, with our staff uh at the board at a board meeting uh and um we focused like I said on four priorities. One of
026those priority priorities being facilities and so COVID hit in 2020. So we took a pause uh away from implementing that strategic plan just because we had other things to do. And so um shortly after that, I'd say around the 2122 time frame, we began implementation of our four priorities. And eventually we landed with our strategic plan for our facilities was we had determined to hold a referendum. Uh we felt like we were going to reduce facilities, uh combine our two high schools together for efficiencies, etc. Um but then we also shared what areas we need to fix up if this doesn't happen. And so the referendum failed. So we pivoted to our other options. And so then we put a plan in place uh to u fix up and prepare uh our facilities uh to
027where they need to be. And so we implemented that plan. and and the first implementation uh started with the Northfield project. So that project actually began in June of 2024. We have a completion date uh if everything stays on schedule to begin at the start of the 2627 school year. Uh so we should be able to be in that building at that time which now allows us time to start focusing on uh a second portion of that plan which was focusing on our south sites. And so um in the work session before the board meeting we shared a lot of the information related to uh the plan for that project uh and uh what that will look like. And so we began that process probably in early 2025. Um we approved Barton Co. and Wan
028in May of 2025 uh for those projects and then we had a work session on June 10th with uh Steve Full and Ice Miller in relation to the bonding process to kind of get that that that started. And so with that being said, that kind of lands us here into um the bonding process to fulfill the needs um to establish on the south project. All right. Um any questions on that? We will now hear from Dr. get >> about the proposed project meets the needs as he just described. >> Yeah. So, we're looking at uh renovations, additions, and improvements at both Southwest Junior Senior High School and Southwest Elementary School. Uh the work session talked about uh you know the need for upgrades in HVAC systems uh upgrades in additional spaces uh that we no
029longer utilize or we don't utilize to their full efficiency uh that can be reorganized into something that we would get more use out of. Um and so um yeah, those those project needs would would be funded by us having the ability to borrow the money to make that happen. >> All right. Now we'll uh now hear from sele about how the proposed project will be financed as well as information about how affect the typical property tax. All right. Good evening. Luke Steel. We serve as bond underwriter for the school corporation. Put a couple slides together just to show the impact and how this will really layer in within your debt service levy. So the first thing that we always start with is the school corporation's debt service payments. You'll see from 25 to 26 there's
030a little bit of a step up, but then those 23 bonds pay off and your payments on annual basis reduce significantly. If you flip to the next slide, that corresponds to the current debt service levy. And you'll see that really mirrors the payments. The only difference between the two is that the levy factors in some miscellaneous revenue that you receive in that fund and in the cash balance that you have available. So, this is kind of our starting point when we're looking at uh layering in a new bond issue. And when you flip to the next slide, the total project authorization would be for 55 million. However, typically, whenever you're doing a project of this size, you don't need all 55 million on day one. You typically need a few million dollars to kind of
031kickstart the project, do some of the uh drawing, some of the initial work. So that would be uh highlighted here in green here and that would be a $2 million bond issue yet this year. Uh the goal would be to structure this in a manner to maintain the $110 total tax rate that in 2026 that MSD Wash has been accustomed to over the last few years and then also leaving capacity beginning with the 2027 payments uh to allow for that remaining $53 million which is on the next slide there. and that's highlighted in gray here. So you'll see how we kind of stack that on the $2 million bond issue and the current debt service levy. Uh so with the remaining $53 million, the strategy would be to maintain the the proposed 2026 debt service
032levy. Also leave a little bit of capacity beginning in 2030 if costs do come in less. If you decide to reduce the scope or change the scope and it's not the full 55 million that cliff from 29 to 2030 is going to be reduced significantly. Uh so we do look at this as a maximum. All of the numbers here tonight are maximum numbers. We can always come down from these numbers but once they're set we cannot go above them. So if you flip to the next slide, these are the maximum parameters. And of course, there's no resolutions uh being set forth in front of you tonight, but when we come back at the the uh second hearing in September, there will be resolutions that are set forth in front of you. These numbers will appear
033in those resolutions. So the total borrowing amount of the bonds uh total would be 55 million estimated cost of issuance and underwriters discount of 820,000 estimate which leaves estimated proceeds available for hard and soft project costs of 54,180,000 estimated interest rates of 2 to 6% this is just the first step in the legal process. If we sold the bonds today though you'd be around a four maybe four and a quarter. Uh so we feel like we are conservative with with all of this. The maximum term of bonds per issuance is 20 years. Uh the estimated total interest cost based on a conser conservative interest rate is 33,399,847. Uh the maximum annual payment is 8 million. That's simply the maximum that you can pay in any given year. Not that you're going to make $8 million
034payments for 20 years consecutively, just the max that you can make in any given year. Uh if you simply divide that number by the school corporation's net assessed value, you get a maximum tax rate impact of 6997. However, as we showed in the previous slides, once that 26 debt service levy is set, uh there will not not be an increase over the proposed 26 debt service levy. There's a couple other ratios down there at the bottom that you'll see again in the resolution at the second hearing. Uh the first one is simply the school corporation's max payments as a percentage of your net assessed value which is 7130. Then the direct and overlapping debt as a percentage of net assessed value is 10.58. And really all that is is looking at all of the municipalities
035property tax back debt. So, city, town, county, township, library, school, all of the property tax debt divided by your net assessed value. So, that's all that I have. These will be the we'll walk through these slides again on the 23rd. Uh, but happy to answer any questions from the border administration. >> Thank you. So, if I go back to this slide, I guess I just would reiterate, we we we had conversations about um borrowing some money at the end of the year because we do have the projects getting started, so there are some upfront costs related to that. Uh in our work session, they also mentioned about the possibility of maybe having to bid some things a little earlier for those long lead items, which is going to come at a cost with that. So
036borrowing a small portion of of some of that to kind of uh make those payments and then once we get our bids then we would have we'd have actual numbers of what we know that we would need to borrow for that project. So uh we wouldn't authorize all of that money. Uh we would authorize what we need uh to cover that project. Now, there are items that are going to be um needed in the future. And so, we kind of explain that in in what the whole project scope looks like because there'll be things outside of the just the Southwood projects that we touched base on when we talk through the referendum. I mean, there's things that are going to that we need to address in some of our outdoor uh areas uh at both
037our junior senior high schools. There's things that we're going to need to address possibly at H Heartland Career Center. Uh and then there are just some deferred maintenance things that are going to come up in the next few years that we're aware of. Uh that you know some of these things we may be able to pay out of operations. Uh but if not then we have the flexibility to um borrow that without having to create an increased burden on any any taxes that are already established. So, um I guess I just wanted to be clear on that as we move forward questions. All right. Um but now open up uh the public hearing. As I mentioned earlier, we ask the state name and address and limit your comments to proposed project in. >> Yeah. So,
038if anybody would like to make a comment, any questions? Easy. Yes. Um, if anyone doesn't want to talk, we'd like to thank all those who participated in the hearing. We appreciate your time and interest in the project and the future of our community. Please note that this is just the first step in the legal process. Again, no board action is legally required at this hearing. Rather, this hearing is solely that here to hear public comment. The board will continue to work with the administration and its professionals to look for efficiencies to conserve tax dollars while meeting our educational needs. The board will hold the second public hearing September 23rd here at 6:00 here in the boardroom. So with that, we'll conclude the uh preliminary hearing. move on to a recommendation to approve corporate authorization resolution.
039>> Yeah. So, uh, we've had the domino effect of people moving into other positions related to the treasurer. And so, with, um, Allison taking over the treasurer responsibilities at Northfield, we just need to get her and Travis added to those bank accounts. And we'll have, uh, the former treasurer and myself review. And so we'll have another one of these for Shark Creek since Jessica's moving over to Sharp Creek and eventually we'll have one for Metro, too. So, um, but this this this relates to where we're at now with it. So, >> all right. I get a motion, a second to approve this authorization. Thank you guys. A motion and second to approve the corporate authorization resolution. All those in favor say I. >> I. The oppos recommendation to salvage bus 23 and bus 29. >>
040Yeah. So, um after our inspections, those were the buses that um are no longer um really needed or usable in our fleet. And so, uh we like at this point to uh salvage those so that we can basically so typically we take them to the auction to be auctioned off. So, I'm going to 12 years old. >> I was in discussion. >> We can get it. I don't know my head what the model is. Most of most times these are that >> while Travis is looking that up. Can we get a motion second to approve? >> So the 2014 >> second a motion second to salvage bus 23 and 29. All those in favor say I. I. >> Any opposed? >> All right. Our last one is the recommendation to approve an overnight extended field
041trip for chart Sharp Creek course grade to campumsa October 3rd or 2nd through the 3rd here 2025. Get a motion second to approve this field trip. Move. Second. >> A motion second to approve the Shark Creek field trip. All those in favor say I. Any opposed? Passes. There's any unfinished business, board policy, public comment. >> Any items for board members as well? We better wait for you to get your answer. >> Oh, you got it. >> 2014. You >> still got a lot of years left in it, >> Kevin. >> That was the point. If there is anything we will adjourn.