001Okay, I'm going to call this uh meeting to order for the MSD Wash County School Board tonight, August 26th. Uh the first thing we will do is the pledge of allegiance called by prayer. Second 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. >> Heavenly Father, we thank you today for your many wonderful blessings. Beautiful day. Father, for our staff, our children, Lord, in the community that we live in. We just thank you, Father, for the many opportunities that you've given us and the opportunity to serve. We just ask this evening, Father, that you would be here, that you would give us wisdom. We make decisions that would impact the generation and our staff and our
002children. Father, we just ask that you would just give us the knowledge to make sound decisions and that all that we do in this time would glorify you. And we pray in Jesus name. Amen. >> Amen. All right, the next item is future board meetings. Um, we have one on September the 9th at 6 PM, a regular meeting. Work session. >> We will be doing a work session. >> Work session before then? >> Yeah. Okay. September 9th. Okay. Uh, September 23rd, uh, 6 PM regular meeting. October the 14th, uh, 6 pm regular meeting. Uh there will be or there is uh two revisions to HR um for the revisions of the agenda. This next item is recognition u public recognition of donations. Um first one is I guess we'll go through and have an approval
003at the end of all these. I'd like to um recommendation to approve $100 donation from Draper Auto Sales for Northfield Girls Golf. Recommendation to approve $100 donation from Thorn Insurance for Northfield Girls Golf. Recommendation to approve $100 donation from Anderson Truck Lines for Southwood Athletics. Uh, we have a $500 donation from Went LLP for Southwest Athletics. Also a $1,000 donation from Urbana Fire Department for Northfield Girls Golf. $100 donation from Wash County Truck Wash for Northfield Girls Golf. $100 donation from Tart Craw Investments LLC for Northfield Girls Golf. $100 donation from Hopper Brothers, Inc. for Northfield Girls Golf. And last, $25 donation from Adam Cartrite for Northfield Girls Golf. Have a recommendation to approve all these donations. Move. >> Second. A motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. >> So move.
004Uh, next item, school recognition. >> Yes. So, um, we don't have any specific, uh, student recognition, uh, right now at this time, but we do have a couple staff members that we'd like to recognize. Uh, we we've done this for a while now. Uh, at the end of the school year, we always have each building recognize a teacher and staff of the year. And then at the end uh we we pick out a couple of those individuals to be the uh staff or teacher of the year for the district. And we recognize them at the end of the year. Uh we recognize them at our first uh teacher day meeting and then we also like to recognize them at a board meeting. And so I'm going to come up front there. Mr. for Drake. I
005don't know how you want to use the camera for that, but a lot of times we come over to this corner. It's a little tight, but we'll start with Jordan. Jordan Boyer. Hi, Jordan. Jordan was recognized as teacher of the year for Southwood Junior Senior High School. Amber Lewis is the principal there. I'll give her a second to say a few things about Jordan, but I just wanted to highlight a few things uh that his peers mentioned in their nomination of Jordan. Uh they said that Jordan uh really thrives uh during the school year. One of the biggest things that uh they are most proud of is in his eighth grade class for making the training model houses uh for the fire department. They thought that was a really uh cool project that they had
006do. Uh and then another one mentioned that that he knows his students well. Uh he loves them and they love him as well and so do their peers. And so I'd like Amber to to piggy back on anything she'd like to share with Jordan. >> Yeah, I'd like to brag on Jordan a little bit. So he started off in the business department and then we had our opening in the industrial arts and he jumped on it and his background, his family background is construction and so it was a great fit. We moved him in there last year uh and he ran with it and he has built that program in such a small time. And just to share an example of that, so last spring when our counselors were meeting with our incoming eighth graders,
007our current eighth graders this year, all but two of them signed up for his elective. They chose his elective. So we have 69 eighth graders this year and all but two chose that his class. Um, and that's that just speaks volumes to to what he's doing. And and we're structuring our junior high CT programming. So, we expose the the kids to their options and then they get to pick their eighth grade year, two different CT um special classes. So, speaks volumes. I think it also um speaks to just going with your team strengths and building on it to give students additional opportunities. So, this summer he participated in engineering training. So that allows us to start our engineering pathway this school year. So our high schoolers can take that principal's course and then our junior
008high also have a choice to take an engineering course that would lead them into high school opportunities in engineering. So greatly appreciate it. If you ever stop by, he's usually in the work or the shop with them, not at the desk. So that's awesome. >> Check it out. >> Yes, please come by. >> I know Jordan also coaches golf. >> Yes. Jordan when so Jordan was a student when I was a principal. >> So uh no just shows how old I'm getting at this point in time. But Jordan, we want to thank you. Um we have a gift card for our uh shop. We have a clothes shop um website that you can order some stuff off of. Um, and this is donated to us through our sponsors who is First Farmers Bank and Trust.
009And so we'd like to give you that as recognition for your efforts. >> Thank you. >> If I don't zoom in with my feet, so I got to do that with my >> Thank you. Next we have Amanda Watson. Amanda was recognized by her peers as our staff member of the year. Uh she is currently the athletic director secretary but she has uh decided to take on another challenge uh at Southwood and we know that she works very hard to highlight a few things. Uh Amanda is a valuable asset to not only the athletic department but to our school. She possesses a cheery personality and is very positive with our student body, especially our younger students. And so I'll let Amber fill in anything else. >> Uh so Amanda technically on paper up until this
010week was the secretary for our AT. However, we quickly realized that she's capable of taking on a lot of different things. So, we moved her to the front office. She's now right next to me. She answers calls when we're short staffed in the front office. She is helping guidance with transcripts or transfer requests. Um, she is a substitute teaching sometimes when we're short on subs. She will hop in the classroom and she she's great at just saying, "Where do you need me? What can I do?" Um, I don't have to ever beg anything out of her. She's always so proactive. She doesn't work just school hours. You'll see her at the games. She's doing the behind the scenes things before and after, during uh so she works long hours with us in the evenings and
011on the weekends. And so the best part is she does it with a smile. So you will always see Amanda with a smile even in the most stressful situation. So I just greatly appreciate. >> Yes. Well, I I would piggy back on the friendliness for sure. I always give her a hard time. She always reaches out for me to help out with the football chains and I tell her I will do it as long as the weather is good and so she has to >> has to make sure the weather's nice uh to do that. But uh she's she does work very hard. We're proud of what she does. So uh in lie of that, we'd like to also give you a $50 gift card uh to to buy some gear or whatever they offer
012on the shop there. Uh so we appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Now, with that being said, you guys are welcome to stay or you're welcome to go. It's up to you. >> And that's all I have for student and staff recognition. All right. Is there any public comment on agenda items for only? >> If none, we will move on to next item on agenda items is approval of minutes regular meeting on August the 12th of 2025. So, >> I have a motion and a second. Uh, all those in favor. >> So, moved. Next, we have the approval of financial reports. First one is claims and a payroll. >> All right. So, only claims tonight. Nothing really out of the ordinary on those. If there's any questions, I'll be glad to try to answer. Uh,
013there's no payroll report tonight because Uh the 8:15 payroll was uh reported at the 812. So had another one since. So >> that's a better explanation than we didn't pay anybody. >> I should say yes. All right. So we got next financial >> we approve >> the claims. >> No make a motion to approve claims. Christian motion and a second. All those in favor. So moved. Next would be the financial summary. >> All right. Cash flows for the education fund. do that one first. U nothing really out of the ordinary. No uh unexpected uh variances uh from last month or year to date. So happy to answer any questions you may have on those and I'll do what I can to answer. Obviously July is expenses a little lower than previous months as not as
014many people working to get paid. Um the revenue from the basic grants a little lower because July is when the the new testing kicks in for that calculation. >> Next the budget review. >> Uh let's run through the operations. first real quick. Uh again, nothing out of the ordinary. Um the one highlighted uh number there is uh the 156,000 137,000 of that is the uh parking co uh architecture fees for the southwood project. So that's outlier this one. Everything else is pretty much in line. I don't [Music] the budget review. >> Yeah. So, this is the the education fund uh for the 2026 budget. uh no real big swings on on any of the individual items. Overall the the budget number that uh that you'll see is about 3% higher than the 2025 budget uh
015again based on uh ADM estimates and you know salary and benefit increases so on so forth normal things no big no big changes from the 25 budget of the line items per happy to answer any questions may have. >> Just as a recall that he mentioned salary benefits, we gave raises to class or classified and had staff proved those last spring. Those went into effect for this school year and then now we're getting into um collective bargaining with the teachers association. I think a couple board meetings ago we did the informal um hearing and so yeah so that's the increase >> this is between two contracts so >> no that our so for bargaining purposes we ended our last two-year contract so this new contract if we decide to go two years again it'll be
016a new two-year contract Is it what you're trying to do is >> that's typically what we doing and I think that's the plan to continue to do but that's my institute >> service next time that service. Yep. Again, this is just a review of the 26 uh budget for the debt service fund. Uh basically, it's just making sure that uh we budget enough money to make the the contracted payments in 2026. I do want to point out that added the geo proposed geo bond that may happen yet this year. uh there in the kind of in the middle of the of the lower chunk there of five but million dollar payment in 2026 if we go through with that J otherwise it's just contracts Next item would be form three. >> Yep. Form three is
017just basically a summary of of all the the budgeted funds. Uh so as it stands now, the 2026 budget for for these four funds would be uh just over $ 38.5 million. Uh that's up almost just under $2 million from 2025, which also equates to 5.3% increase from basically just summarizing the totals in each of those funds. Okay. >> Do you need >> permission to advertise? >> Yeah, the next item. >> Yeah. Just asking the board uh for permission to advertise the 2026 budget. >> Motion to approve advertising. >> A motion and a second. All those in favor? So move. All right. Next item would be personnel uh HR. Okay. All right. Uh first is employment. Marin Norman for volunteer theater director of Southwood High School. Um Mele Janet Milu Bayou. uh substitute teacher all
018schools effectively immediately. Audrey Ball substitute teacher elementary only immediately. Uh August Elliot classroom instructor Southwood Elementary uh effective 92 of 2025. DJ Marshall, junior high coach, Southwood High School coaching immediately. Uh, Angela Cisco, substitute teacher, all schools, uh, effective immediately. Next is transfers. Amanda Watson transferring from athletic secretary to treasure secretary at Southwood High School effective 82525. Corey McKay transferring from full-time parah to part-time parah and part-time classroom instructor effective 92 of 25. Then we have one retirement Bab corn athletic secretary Northfield High School and that's going to be effective 12 of 19 of 25. Uh Northfield fall coaches all effective for the season. Nathan Culver, assistant volleyball. Uh Southwood fall coaches all effective for the whole season. Jacob Gersonner, Junior High Football. That is all those. Do I have a motion and a second
019to approve HR? >> Second. I have a motion, a second. All those in favor? So move. >> I'd like to highlight Dev Corn for a second. Dev Corn has worked at MSD for 40 years and so Amanda you got a long >> I don't have 40 years in >> okay >> but we are very appreciative of Deb um 12 years of that was she was a title one aid at Shark Creek Elementary and then she was actually the first athletic director secretary hired at Northfield by Mr. Mark and so we just appreciate uh her service to us and we wish her well in her retirement. >> Next uh we have reports. Uh do we have anything on hardware tonight? >> Yes. Uh Matt uh gave me some stuff here since he wasn't able to make
020it. Uh he wanted me to to mention these things. So, uh, the ABC construction class that we talked about, um, at our last meeting currently has 27 students enrolled. These are students that would not have been offered building construction otherwise. Uh, this is a great opportunity for more students to be involved in building construction. Uh, between the ABC and the building trade classes, there were almost 60 students enrolled. Enrollment at Hartland is near 590 students, which is about 10 below last year. Not too many years back, the enrollment was only around 500. Hartland had meet the teacher night last Wednesday and the turnout was pretty good. They had some donations. Uh Stoop's training academy donated four engines. ROC Fabrication donated material for the welding class to start the year. And Larry Watson donated two welding
021helmets for students that couldn't get their and so that's what he wanted me to share about. >> Thank you. Uh next is a superintendent report. >> Superintendent report. Yes. Um I'd like to go over just a schedule here a little bit with with you guys. Um on June 10th we had a work session with uh bond council which would be Ice Miller and Skele to talk about the the potential bonding process related to the Southwood projects. And so uh we finally got together and was able to build out a kind of calendar of what that looks like uh for bonding purpose. And so uh there will be an advertisement uh in the newspaper I believe uh tomorrow uh related to um part of that process. And so like for example just kind of going through
022this calendar of stuff. So like today we're just kind of talking I'm just kind of presenting the process um of of how that looks. And so at our next board meeting on September 9th, we are actually going to have a work session before the board meeting and Barton Co and Wan will be present uh to share uh with everybody uh where we're at with with the project as far as design details, cost estimates, uh some of those types of areas um related to the work that will be done on on the south side. Um during the board meeting though we will have our what we call our first preliminary determination hearing and uh Steel and Ice Miller will be present to share uh information related to uh the process uh to the monies being borrowed,
023the tax implications, those types of things. Then on September 23rd, we will hold a second project hearing um related to the pre preliminary determination, which just gives the public another opportunity to hear what's being said again and uh to voice any opinions related to that. Um and then after that they have what is called kind of like a 30-day cooling period uh which basically is a period because it's a controlled project there's a wait period of 30 days uh to see that if there's any type of petition remmonstrance related to the bonding process uh for these projects. And then after that 30-day cooling period, uh, which would take us to our November 11th board meeting, then that's when we would approve, um, uh, any bonding that would take out uh, from that that point. So,
024we would approve the uh reasons for the bar borrowing. uh we would uh allocate ourselves uh an amount uh that we could borrow up to uh depending on whenever those bonds and so forth or bids and so forth come back. U but uh we had talked about initially uh borrowing a little bit earlier on uh just so that we could start uh covering our payments like u Mr. Houston talked about with uh some of those project components instead of having to wait to reimburse ourselves back uh to cover some of those costs. And so that's what that would be related to. And then uh once we got the bids then we could borrow the remaining amount that we needed to fund that project in probably January February time. Uh which is about the time when
025bids uh like I said would be coming back and we didn't know how much to borrow. So So I just wanted to go over that with you guys. We like I said we talked a little bit about it briefly on the June 10th session. uh we didn't have really dates and things mapped out yet at this point in time uh but we do now and so those are kind of the steps that we will be looking at taking moving forward. Any questions related to that? The other thing I'd like to highlight is uh for the third year in a row, we were awarded the um robotics grant from the uh from the IDOE. And so there were 193 applicants. I believe there was around 50 so that were awarded. And so again, this is third
026year in the row for that. uh in the tune of $66,000 um and some change for that grant to continue to build a robotics programs and it's worth patent and Mrs. Brett's going on back. She's the one that kind of leads that charge for the district anyways in coaching, but she leads writing a grant and that involves matching funds from local businesses and so she coachs the businesses and so she is very very active and it's she >> those funds will be used to buy the fields. >> Oh yeah, fields and tools and replacement parts. Uh it also can cover registration and lots of other things too. >> Does that come over throughout the year or does that come one month? >> No. So since it's a grant >> it is it a federal it's
027a federal grant. >> Uh it's from the state. >> It's from the state >> but they might get it from federal funds. >> Right. It's a reimburseable grant. So they have to pay them. Yep. And then >> they reimburse us. >> Then we reimburse them and then we turn it into the state and reimburse us. >> It has allowed us to use district funds that we can set aside for robotics now support other things like Mr. Warrior's engineering class and so just helps stretch dollars. Robotics is a very expensive program every year because you're constantly cutting parts, ripping parts, like you know, all that and batteries die and things break. Again, this is deserves a big >> We appreciate that. >> And then I didn't want to steal any of Tim's thunder, so I'll let
028him go on with his report. >> Wow, that's kind of nice. I like this new Um, well, if you'll go to that, I actually Chris will start on the second page. >> Second page >> because that's what everybody will be most interested in. So, finally, I can speak to the scores. I kept I kept um, you know, teasing you and dating you into doing that, but I think the numbers speak for themselves. So, can I just read this out loud so people can hear it that maybe can't see it? >> Actually, let me zoom in so they can see it better. I'm trying to do that more. >> I will say top four of all public school districts in Indiana. 100% of our third graders who started with us in preschool passed. Sharp Creek had
029a 100% pass rate. Southwood Elementary had a 98.2% pass rate. And again, that put us in the top four of all public school districts in the state of New York. Yeah. Yeah. I >> is are those statistics apart from any kind of labor or what's >> Yeah, that's a that is a great way. So, uh these are I scores. So, all this is all third graders. Um there are uh we have a rise room for students that are like moderately uh >> severe profound >> severe and profound right and so those students will not take the IE they will take the IM uh and this year I think usually we have one or two in our area that's that's a grade level that will do that and so those kids are not included in this
030but then uh all of the other kids take the IE and so this is to say how they specifically scored on the test. So, uh the I'll just there is a student who didn't pass in our district and that student is is still moving on to fourth grade because they have a good cause exemption. So, that's that waiver, but that student is factored into our to our school and uh >> it's just crazy. One kid um and uh uh so that's been put out. We try to celebrate that. Now, if you'll go back to the boring part to the first part, um it I there's a couple things I want to highlight in the notes I shared with you. Um we have as a district tried very diligently not to get distracted by lots of
031pretty shiny new things and somebody wants to try this. And so we've actually focused on literacy for the past three years. We don't just mean reading in third grade. we need reading and social studies and being able to decipher the constitution and reading in math and doing story problems like all of that stuff. And so we've done lots of um professional development and you guys probably see the title two stuff that Cheryl collects or you might see the money we spend. Uh it's not often we can like directly correlate to this but we have every K to3 teacher has had a significant amount of training and we've invested money paying for the training. We've invested money in giving them money for their time in the training. We've invested pretty heavily in that. And we just
032bought books last year for uh K to five. And so that's that stretching this iPad cost versus buying books and and how you balance that. Um for sure we hear from the teachers at this reading thing that when we can give them the curriculum, they spend less time making the curriculum which gives them more time to teach and work with kids. And so again, it's about finding that right balance of we want to give them, you know, the devices and give them all that stuff, but we also want to help help them do that. And so, uh, but it is definitely a community. I think our teachers would be the first one to say it. Like I would say as a curriculum director that our teachers have been highly trained. They were very focused and
033we've been working very hard on that. But this doesn't happen without the pair of professionals, the principles, and honestly the families. Um, families have to read to their kids at home. and they have to help do that stuff. And so when I say a community effort, I I sincerely mean the entire community from the school board having to allocate funds to buy the books and send the training to I mean to everything. So just very proud like you know to see these kind of numbers. So cool. Huge pat on the back. And of course our teachers are already worried about next year, right? And so they set this bar and so they get kind of nervous about that. But uh just know that they work hard at it. It's always going to be it's always
034we just do such a great job with that. Uh I will say looking forward you're you might hear us bring up something for Kada 2. The stuff we bought for them is the stuff we bought for them for the last couple of years and so they didn't choose to buy something new and so we're going to look again. We may not buy something new. We may just stay with the tried and true. Uh but now we'll look six to 12 to try to get some more materials in their hands especially 6 through eight. Um and so uh it's never ending right. It's not something that we can say, "Okay, we're done. We'll keep trying to grow with that." But I think it's important to say uh just all of the factors that went into it
035and our investment in the teachers and the materials I think played a part. For what it's worth, the state of Indiana saw a huge increase across the state. I think it was like 5% bump. Um and so our bump was much higher than that, but was 5% bump. That is like the highest score on Irene MSD's had for like seven or eight years for a long time. So very proud. And of course Sharp Creek to be at 100% every third grader there that took the IE passed it. That's so cool. South one. Those are that's unheard of. That's so cool. So serious. I just hope I didn't underdel because I set you up. I told you. I told you they were going to be good numbers. Uh, and I it was hard to bite my
036lip, but >> thank you. >> Very good. Now, on to new business. I have a recommendation to approve the We need to go through the corporate authorization resolution. >> Yeah, we've done this before in the past. Essentially, anytime that we um change signes in our bank accounts, we usually have to get a resolution approve who the signers are. And so with Amanda changing her position into doing some treasurer work, we need to get her added on to the bookkeeper account for Southwood. And I figured while we're doing that, we might as well get Travis added on there as well because typically we we like to have three uh signes uh or three people to have the ability to sign. uh we require two signatures and so the three people gives us a backup if somebody's
037out or around to help. So have a motion to approve this corporate authorization resolution. I'll make the motion to approve the corporate authorization resolution. second. >> Motion. Uh, all those in favor. >> Is there any unfinish finished business? Uh, yeah. Next, we have board policy. Uh, second reading and vote of the revised board policy 485 student attendance. Yeah, we went over this the last board meeting just kind of explaining some of the definitions and you know what what is defined as an exempt or an excused or unexcused absence. This went out to parents uh that Wednesday after that last board meeting just to kind of give them a heads up because we had to start reporting things that way. the final second reading approval uh to make it a board official policy. >> Did you
038find all the language clear? >> No, I been through this with our principles and some other staff just to kind of make sure everybody understands if they see any questions. Try to make it as simple as possible. >> Motion. >> I'll make the motion to approve policy 485 scaling with attendance. >> Second. >> I have a motion and a second. All those in favor? >> All right. Uh, is there any public comment on all items? Any items from any board members? All right.