001I keep my voice um we welcome everybody here tonight to our school board meeting we're going to start out with a prayer or start with Pledge of Allegiance followed by a prayer I pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all Our Father in heaven we are grateful for uh this opportunity we have to come together here as school board members administrators here this in this school district we're grateful that we were able to travel here safely grateful that all the the kids and the buses and everyone was able to travel back to their homes safely here this evening in this weather we're grateful for for uh the opportunity we have to to be
002here to meet tonight to reorganize to have our board meeting and to make decisions that will benefit this school district in this and this community we're ask that we may be directed and guided in those decisions that we may do those things which will be pleasing unto the we ask to bless those and protect those especially our students as they travel here the next week or so that the weather's cold or or winry that they may be protected and we say and ask this in the name of Jesus Christ amen am all right well we're gonna open out we're going to start an organizational meeting uh got to call that to order okay I don't think there's any revisions to the agenda so we're going to go right to uh the oath of office for
003our new school school board members and reelected so we don't have any new school board but we got reelected so going turn that over to Josh thanks we can we can do all three of you at the same time oh go ahead and stand raise your right hand and repeat after me I state your name swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution support constition of the United States of America of the United States of America the constitution of the state of Indiana constitution of the state of Indiana and the laws of the United States States and the laws of the United States and the state of Indiana and the state of Indiana I will Faithfully execute the duties of my office will Faithfully theice as a member of this governing body as a
004m of this body so help me God so help me go and then I'll just need each of you to sign that I'll notarize it and get it on file with count [Music] all right under new business we need to reorganize the board of education for uh 2025 and guess we'll start out with the election of our president is there any motion second I nominate Scott president second we got a motion to elect Scott Hopper as the president all those in favor say I any oppos all right motion passes nomination for vice president I nominate Christian second that got a motion second to elect Christian Ros as our vice president all those in favor say I any oppos all right motion passes and we have a motion to elect our secretary nominations second got a
005motion a second to elect Kevin rman as our secretary all those in favor say I opposed passes legisla Delegate for isba annual convention nom second got a motion second to [Music] ECT Jeff Porter as our isba anual convention delegate all in favor say I I he opposed and representative to the har gon or Board of managers [Music] second motion second to nominate Matt bll board managers all those in favor say I oppos all right motion passes okay all right we'll move on to the recommendation to appoint the corporation attorney and so I recommend we approve the law office of downs tany and pentu PC as attorneys at the rate of $220 per hour I make the motion to approve that second okay got motion a second to uh retain our attorneys that we've had for
006$220 an hour all those in favor say iOS okay the appointment of Corporation Treasurer and Deputy Treasures so I recommend the appointment of Dr Chris as corporate treasur and also recommend Laura be as deputy treasur and at the current Bond of 200,000 be continued for each Elementary bookkeepers 10,000 and high school bookkeepers 20,000 as per indana a code D16 so second motion second to approve our corporate treasur and our Deputy treasur all those in favor say I I any oppos next for the salary of board members all right the current salary of board members is $2,000 per year with a per DM of $100 per attended regular school board meeting the Harker and career center representative will receive an additional per them of $25 per meeting attended not to exceed 12 meetings the maximum salary
007cannot exceed $2,000 and so I make that recommendations again for this year a motion a second to establish the salary of our board members as stated all those in favor say I oppose right mileage rate um as per in our actual teacher contract I recommend the mileage rate for all School Employees be the same as the amount of the current teacher Master contract at 49 cents per mile so moved second motion second to establish the mile mileage reimbursement rate for the school district all those in favor say I I any oppos right last and really appreciate uh the board scholarship so this tradition was started in 1994 each board member contributes $0000 annually towards two $500 scholarships one each norfield and Southwood the board selects recipients from the application submitted each spring so I would
008recommend that you guys would do that again if you so choose second motion is second to establish our board keep our board scholarship $500 for each school all those in favor say I iose next we have the appointment of local Education Agency officer and I recommend that the board appoint the superintendent of M wers County as the Lea um or local education officer for the insurance ensuing year with authority to file applications for federal funds on behalf of the school corporation so [Music] a motion to second to point Mike T fav as our Lea officer all those in favor say iOS and so we have to um by law required to place legal advertisements in our County newspaper so I by law we required to do this so I recommend that you officially approve the
009Indiana plane dealer which is the new name for the previous wach plane dealer serving wach honey in in Miami County is that new yes I mean it's new as of I don't know how long ago probably we are still proud subcribers at my home so a motion to accept the a motion second to select the Indiana plane dealer as our legal advertisement all those in favor say I I opposed all right and now for our other entities that we work with I recommend our continued participation with WAP and Harland C Center to facilitate better accountability with the State Board of accounts and the Department of Education and a lot of other things so got a motion second to approve that we continue to participate with WAP and Heartland cve center all those favor say I
010I and finally unless we have any others that you want to add to this I recommend to approve the school board appointment of a non voting member to the county Redevelopment commission current member is Kevin Bowman recommend that Mr Bowman be in that position second all right we got a moot second to approve Kevin Bowman as our school board appointment for the non voting memb of County Redevelopment commission all those in favor say I I all right passes anything else guys have this all right we'll journ all right next on our agenda we're going to have a board of Finance meeting going to call to order um the we're guess yes declare a board of education as a whole can constitute the board of Finance we need to elect the president of board of Finance
011nominations recommendations for that I move use the same officers for president secretary this all um got a motion second to elect scottt hoer as the president of the board of finance and Kevin Bowman as secretary Board of Finance all those in favor say I I the opposed motion passes um oh this is Chris yes so as uh part of our Board of Finance meeting we have to review any investment uh policy or strategies that we have we do not have a a formal investment policy uh because the only thing that we uh gain interest off are monies that are in our accounts our bank accounts we don't invest them into other um areas uh to gain interest at this time um and if we ever choose to do so we'd want to come up with
012a more formal investment policy or strategy um before doing that so this just outlines what I'll have you for a second we're since we were doing something a little newe this this [Music] meeting no I got set to open work [Music] all right sorry thank you all right help get so all this does is outline what interest we earned uh in 2024 uh through our our uh cash balances um with our first Farmers Bank account and so overall it was a very good year when it came to interest amounts um probably the highest in recorded history for MSD of w bash count at um just over $1.5 million on interest and that rate of interest varied throughout the year from 4.48% to 5.35% at its highest any questions on that Chris okay moving on to
013that as part of our Board of Finance meeting we also have to review um our uh fiscal indicators uh with the doab uh and so I'll kind of go through and highlight some things beyond that we usually kind of do that at the end uh but if we start at the beginning Mike oh that's what I was looking at that earlier that's what was scrolling you can scroll up or down or you scroll sideways and so I looked at this earlier and that's why I was down all the way on the goals I was finished with this whole presentation okay here we go well it should once you start it it should yeah no I could swap well there well now Mike Chris here those fingers [Music] up this is the first time we've done
014it this way and so um we're using Google Drive and it will work very very well we just have to work out the keys or your screens are easier to read plus I can zoom it too to see so you can really see it right that okay good okay so um this slide just outlines what our actual expenditures were for 2024 in uh those budgeted funds um that we approved um back in the fall so that was what we actually spent in the First Column the second column reflects what our budget was uh set at in in the fall for 2025 and that third column shows what our budget was approved for by the dgf for 2025 which would also include 2025 tax levy rates and amounts which is reflected in the operations fund and
015R and Debt Service along with that potential tax cap impact uh which was an estim estimated amount that we uh reflected in our budget for 2025 so that First Column just kind of gives you a comparison of what we actually spent to what our budget is going to look like in that third column um for 2025 so if you move continue to move down you see that in a graph of how that is broken down uh so that is our actual breakdown for our total budget for those funds that doesn't include all the miscellaneous funds that we also deal with but these are the ones that we have to get approved through the DTF so that's a breakdown of that um and then there's a breakdown of the actual or excuse me the estimate that
016that we used for the education fund compared to what that actual amount was at so there's not much change or difference in that so any questions about the education fund okay you go to this next slide not going to go over this but if you click on the link it'll take you to a u a Google sheet that has a breakdown of our his history from tax rates to levies and some other information that we've seen before as part of our budget process um and again this spreadsheet or this uh document will be on our website so anybody will have access to it to be able to go back and look at it um here's a uh then we move into our property tax assess valuation you can see that 2025 we had an increase
017in our our assess valuation as a district and you can see that as well in the next slide which is the graph of that increase um and so we have the actual amounts compared to what we had gotten as an estimated amount when we did some of our studies through policy analytics uh when we were going through the referendum so leads us to our certified tax rate um of where we're at leading up to 2024 um and so that shows our historical total tax rate moving to where we kind of fit into as a district compared to the state so just above the median um where that's concerned and then uh compared to our surrounding districts uh the next slide I usually leave on we don't really need to talk about it a whole lot
018again we've been borrowing uh and we look at uh we just did another borrowing uh for a 2024 Bond so that just can kind of shows how those Bond rates have fluctuated over the years which leads us into those those bonds and other tax rates uh have an impact on how we operate our operation fund and so there was the estimate that we did in the fall breakdown compared to what that new actual breakdown is for the 2025 U operation fund so again not much difference there's no change in the actual amounts but you might see some slight changes in the breakdown of where those are allocated for but not big differences uh in those which then leads us to the real portion of the presentation which is the fiscal indicators so we're required to
019review those fiscal indicators remember that these fiscal indicators are actually a year behind so they do not reflect the end of 2024 they actually reflect the end of 2023 so when they release them they for the in 2023 because they don't have the 2024 data yet collected so the first slide is just a basic information related to fall student counts net assess values and and District population that first chart is related to ADM so it shows you fall and spring AMS in a bar graph I like to look at it in a line graph uh and so here I've shown it in a line graph for the fall ADM count so you can see where we've been over the past 15 years or so which then leads us to our fund balances so on this
020website you can go to the doab website and you can play around with any school corporation but our school corporation as well you can look at specific funds you can look at it overall I just took a picture of the whole thing uh and so this represents all those funds there Capital funds debt funds education funds federal funds Etc so it shows what those fund balances are at the end of each of those years so you can see which ones have grown and then I just highlighted the ones that I pay special attention to uh through some of our cash flow projections and that would be things related to uh our education fund operations fund food service and so forth and so that's related there in the fund balances uh and then this next slide
021represents our our uh deficit Surplus so revenues and expenses and it takes in all of our revenues takes in all of our expenses uh and it shown in that chart and so when you have more revenues and when you do expenditures then you have a surplus and so that's what's represented there in the yellow I like to I use this graph because it Compares it to our ADM uh and our basic tuition support uh which is driven by our ADM so the basic Grant which is the blue that's driven by our ADM so I like to make sure that our basic Grant dollar dollars are in line with our expenditures and then anything above that Revenue would be hopefully a benefit to our our balance our our fund balance and so I always try to
022make sure that the blue line and the red line are somewhat relatively close together because that is the that is specifically the dollars related to what we receive in ADM and then the green would represent not only that any additional Revenue that we may get for other things um fund balance has a percentage of expenditure so this represents U that over time so our fund balances have increased over time um and so they've increased at a a rate maybe even higher than what our expenditures have been which is a good thing so fund balances are in a healthy spot this next slide represents revenues and how those have shaken out uh based off of different types of revenues whether it's state revenue whether it's local Revenue whether it's federal revenue Etc um and that chart
023lines out there over the years and then the last chart that it mentions is operating referendums which we do not have an operating referendum so that shows a zero at that so those are the do have fiscal indicators that they observe and monitor for all school districts uh and if they feel like there are things that aren't being met to represent maybe a healthy District then they usually reach out and step in or contact UM the school district to see how they can help so next is our SWAT analysis um we've not reviewed this in in a while because there have been some changes over the past um but this is kind of where we left it and I highlighted the things that we've really been piding special attention to here as of lately uh
024you know we had retiring debt but to help update our facilities and the ages of our buildings and do some things with bringing certain grade levels over to uh certain buildings we've had to borrow Monies to do those things and so uh that has been uh something that we've focused on as a strength with losing that debt we've been able to take the opportunity which is kind of down the next one to better develop a debt management plan uh and create more of a long range plan uh for uh those facilities filies last is our goals we've had three goals we continue to maintain those goals our first goal is to have U an education fund balance that is better than 3 months of Education fund expenses uh and so that shows over the last
025three years where that monthly average is that three-month average is and where that fund balance has been over that time so we had that goal for Education fund we had a similar goal for operations fund and then a third goal uh just having a safety net through our rainy day fund uh 10% of our education operation fund budget and so that shows that for 2025 our fund budget for those two funds was just over 28 million at 10% that's 2.8 million our current balance on a rainy day is 2.3 point so we're getting closer to meeting that goal uh but it's been a strategy of ours to always take any uh unencumbered fund balances in our operations fund uh and transfer those into rainy day at the end of the year to build that rainy
026day fund balance of to meet that goal any questions related to that and again we will put this presentation on our uh website questions for Chris else all right now we're going to open our regular school board meeting we've already done pledge of Le Us in the prayer so our future school board meetings uh January 28th February 11th February 25th all right here at 6 o' uh don't think there's any revisions to the agenda so we'll go uh to our public recognition got some donations here recommendation we'll just do all these at the same time approval recommendation to approve a $200 donation from D Bar and Grill for Northfield wrestling recommendation to approve a $350 donation from Blake houon for North cheerleading recommendation to approve a $5 donation from Deon Beller for Southwood Elementary classroom
027stat recommendation to approve a $250 donation from Southwood booster club for Southwood wrest wrestling and a recommendation to approve $400 ation from Brian and Michelle Ross rice sorry for nor wrestling got a motion second to approve those donations second got a motion to second to approve all these donations all those in favor say I I you oppos and as always we like to thank all those that do donate to help these organizations move forward and to get better um we skip recation Yes except the ones I have specifically so we turn over yep so because of the weather um our staff that was going to be here are not coming so that's going to be changed to another date but we do have some that some of the principles gave to us first of all
028this is from Mr Snider says to to whom it may concern in a world that far too often focus on negative actions I want to take a moment to recognize some positive actions of several of your students after the boys varsity basketball game Saturday 12:14 I noticed several at least three perhaps more students come back into the stand shortly after the crowds have dispersed each of them were picking up various pieces of trash that remained in and around the student section bleachers it was great to show a pride citizenship and I just wanted them to know their actions did not go unnoticed nor unappreciated well done to those students as well as the parents coaches teachers peers that taught or encouraged such actions and that was sincerely impressed Peru tiger parent Dan May that was
029very nice um and also from Northfield for Mr Snider official John Scott submitted an ihsaa Exemplar Behavior report for girls basketball on 12724 at Logan sport Mr Scott said loogan sport host of norfield and girls basketball the norfield coaches players and fans all displayed positive spirit and sportsmanship throughout the contest well done um I'm going to do one other one and then I'm going to come back and probably change out I'm going to show you just a short video but from Mrs Lewis at Southwood Junior Ryan Nelson has been selected to attend a molecular motion in medicine at indan University on February 23rd and 24th this is a two-day Symposium where he will learn about the latest techniques and molecular biology cenogenics hand cancer therapy including analysis of gene expression imagery technology and loation of
030cancer cell growth only 50 um recipients are selected to attend the application process was rigorous and included a nomination reference letter from Mrs Reena markster his Anatomy teacher Mrs Mark ster will also attend as a teaching volunteer so we've never heard of that before so that's pretty awesome recognition of what's going to happen there with Ryan Nelson I'm gonna I might get out of this for a second go here real quickly I want to show you something I'm putting this on myself this actually came from Creek and um I want to share that here in a second from that's sixth grade put this on I thought this was just neat goes along let's see if I can get this Supreme Court premieres kindness today we're to tell you about something that awesome kindness It's all
031about how we treat each other every day respect is a big part of kindness you show Respect by listening Fe follow and when they when you treat others with respect you make everybody [Music] feel hard kindness makes your dreams come true kindness brings us all together and it will make ouro a lot better remember kindness isn't just about being nice it's about making a difference than watching and work [Music] hard so Mr Watkins um actually shared this and I'm get back to what I so I do have something to share here real quickly so Mr Watkins said um I I told him I thought that was very very good I said Thank you obviously it was hard to hear some of them they were talking maybe a little too quickly but or too quick I
032have had to hand it to our four students who create the video they have done a great job our sixth grade students elected the students on our Supreme Court and those four taking the job very seriously the top of this video they've had meetings with both SRO at norfield to discuss safety concerns and ways to to inspire students to be kind to one another and of course we know in our social media world and all the things going on sometimes people are just not very kind and it's nice to know that um they're teaching themselves and helping each other to to be kinder yeah more Kinder so have one of the here as far as on our presentation next thing on agenda um this has been shown to the Sharp Creek staff also the admin
033saw it today but this is just a little walk through norfield Elementary you guys have not seen this yet uh but it's really neat um Chris can I put you on the spot you want to narrate a little bit more as I sing you're I'll sing and you narrate so there's no music or there's nothing else so hold it hold it he just put his fingers in his ear that's not being F that's not being I'm going to show that video again so before you get started this was uh done through Bart coex and so this leads us in from the front entrance into that first Corridor as you're coming into the new mainentrance yes the new so okay you ready yep I'll stop so that quarter leads you into the office which that would
034be where the receptionists would sit leading back to principal counselor teacher workroom areas so the only way to get back into the building would be go through the office throughout that door that first hallway is the hallway that connects to the high school and so you see the nurses office station to the left you got the art and band room down there as well as the rise room and techn room which would be serviced also by high school kids as well then this Corridor uh lead you into some other doors that will lead into the office uh as well as um the custodian custodial area and work room um first set of [Music] bathrooms on the right is where the kitchen line would be through those doors leading into our com area which would also
035be the area where they can hold School functions there they can eat there and do other things notice the skyline in the back this will also have set up so we can put televisions in there for collaboration stations as well as part of the common area then you can see now this is the area that leads you into the learning area which will have classroom set up on both floors question what's that door right there I don't know what door it's like an overhead door on the right yeah on the right uh the gray spot I think it's just it's not a door okay that's just it's just the ins that's where they'll put like their trash cans and things like that oh right there right there right beside the display case yeah to the
036right of that yeah that's not yeah that's the for the golf cards seg see the stairway not happen so that leads you to the elevator access into the stairway to get to the second floor so I believe the second floor will house the older students grades super the middle of the hallways have are uh wider so they're kind of inset in there so if they want to have activities or projects group work stuff on the outside they can and those little inss are those light fixtures the the lines up there is that yeah okay so is there tears on the other end just elevator one El this this only the walk through the schoool very safe that walk pretty quick long steps wasn't rails then this will have your third grade classrooms your special ed
037classroom um and then some just extra classrooms can be used for Library other stuff um throughout the day and then it'll go into one of the classrooms just to give you a look at that layout you see it has Cubbies it'll have a front area with whiteboards and a TV some cabinets similar to Shar Creek uh for storage that leads you into the corridor or not Corridor the courtyard uh area and then storage will they have access out to there just there's only like three spots that will have access out the I know if so anyway that's uh it was exciting to see that um because of course we've been seeing a lot of things happening but not something like that and so over Christmas break we had one of the uh one of our
038meetings with W I did ask since it was so exciting you know could they have this done for next school year okay is that all you have all I have for now yes all right we'll move on is there any public comment on agenda items uh agenda items we got we need to approve our last meeting December 10th motion second to approve that second a motion second to approve our meetings on December 10th all those in favor say I I opposed uh Financial reports uh claims and payroll 11 and 12 I have any questions on claims on claims or excuse me on payroll um that December 13th pay uh reflects that teacher appreciation Grant dollars that we spent um so that's why you see a little bit of an increase there in payroll for that
039particular pay and then that last pay is pretty standard questions that second to approve second motion second to approve our claims and payroll 11 and 12 all those in favor say I I any oppos Financial summary uh so I already spent a lot of time talking about finances so I'm not going to go into too much detail but I I did give you a lot of information here as well so look through it if you have questions but here we have our fund balances for the end of the year so this is where we would have ended at uh for 2024 my slider need to keep going um cash flow for Education fund so this just shows you the actual amounts I'll start working on the estimated amounts for 2025 so this just kind of
040shows you what actually happened for that um calendar year and I've given you several information included with that that I've gotten that talks about some differences in uh performance updates and and uh dashboards for expenses and revenue but I'm not going to go into that in detail that's just more for your home uh per so look at that if you have questions feel free to reach out so you keep sliding then that leads us to um our transfers from education fund operations fund so as you can see for 2024 we transferred roughly 9.28% of our education fund to operations uh which is a little less than we typically have done um typically we've been around the 12% Mark and part of that is for two reasons yes we did transfer a little bit of less
041dollars but we also had a large transfer uh when we closed our TBR fund and put it into our education fund so that means that Revenue increased in that breakdown and so that also would have an impact on lowering that transfer amount how many it was just over 1.2 million and so that is earmarked only for TBR we can't use it for bargaining we can't use it for that but it's even though it's in in our know my concern that it'll get lost not lost it's better misused lost it's my concern as well it'll be a challenge to uh keep track of and and my fear is is that those years that we have large TBR expenses it may look like overall our education fund is losing money but you know we got to I
042want to make sure we understand whether that was caused because of tpr or caused because of other expenses like computer refresher and we kind of I think streamline that a little bit by doing it through those lease payments so we we know what to expect from year to year versus having one large lump sum come every four years or whatever that ends up being so I just want to make sure that you know that you know if we're if the money is you because we're going to lose money on the TBR end because we're not getting enough money back from the state to cover all of those costs and we can't charge anymore and so um um that will be the tricky spot I went down this road a few meetings ago but I'm still
043trying to understand the rationale for doing without fun other than if it is they don't want tracking of dollars coming back in to recover those dollars in which is crazy at one time they put they had a bill that they were going to get rid of those dollars and just say they dumped them into basic Grand dollars so you couldn't even you wouldn't even know what you got would just charged doing all that we would just get they would just they said they would add it into what they give you per student and so you would have no idea what dollars then would be Associated for TBR yeah in addition too they're so far in the re with some of the stuff we're figuring out crants for like you know maybe say years from now
044this is what your TBR should have been 2024 when you how how you hold an accountable and how do you budget with that I just think transparency you want that know how much school district is putting expenses all well they they can we can get that by how we code it they can see how much we spend on textbooks but but I think the real reason is is they decided to fund textbooks but but not enough so so I mean have has there been any discussion about why they can't just if they want to fund it why well there's definitely been discussion about it but that's up to that's up to them legisl just to say how much they're going to put in the budget you know we'll talk that about that a little bit
045but you know that's be one budget Bill figure all that out anything else Chris nope that's it all right we're going to move on to Personnel we don't have any resignations this time but under employment we have will Wier sixth grade boys basketball Southland High School affected immediately um Denise Burke cook at South of Elementary uh effective six Kyle France head softball at Northfield High School effective immediately case Walker educational interpreter for WAP effective 121 Madison bar 2 substitute teacher MSD affected immediately and Kylie Hampton volunt volunteer theater assistant uh South High School effective immediately transfers uh Stephie Tel custodian transfer from South High School to Metro North Elementary effective January 2nd Monica transferring from W map office manager to msdwc student Information Specialist effective date to be announced and we have some retirements Linda
046Miller PTA WAP effective 522 of this year Lisa Beaver Tech assistant North and Sharp Creek uh effective us June 6th and Shirley haes sis msdwc effective 930 this year that's it we get a motion second to approve these un move to the SL motion second to approve our human resource report all those in favor say I I any oppos I just want to mention a few um the retirements Linda Miller first of all is a PT assistant um you know many many years here with WAP so we appreciate everything that she's done also Lea Lisa Bieber and and Shirley Haynes all group them a little bit together because you know when they've started um the technology has changed a lot over the years of course and so to keep up with that that's a lot
047and so we really appreciate all she's done Lisa and then surely she'll be with us all the way through September 30th um the student Information Specialist there um the reports that she has to do are just just incredible through the state of Indiana and all I mean the ADM very very very important position of making sure the ADM different things I I have correct she actually came in um I believe my first year when I mean she's been in different position she's a secretary she was up white she was fountain for a while I think um and when she got this position I remember the very first time she came to me um and I think I was the assistant at the time we were talking about ADM and the ADM was a lot lot
048smaller a lot lower than what we thought it was going to be and here um some coding was not correct and they were doing all the kids as half timee instead of full time and I just about had a heart attack because that's not what we were expecting as far as that goes that was all fixed she did it she has a fantastic memory I could probably talk more Linda and Lisa if I work with them directly but we work with h Shirley directly but she has a a great memory um doing all the things that she does with all the thousands of kids that we have and so we'll definitely miss her um we'll put a lot of pressure on Monica to uh be able to take over and do and that's why it
049says to be determined because they're actually going to share a little bit for a while she's going to be training her um as she uh progresses out of the as Monica transfers out of the office manager position of WAP into the new position so it's really nice that we have that time period where they can do that cross training or that training so she's prepared to those very important jobs that we have to have because of course ADM is the finances that we get Revenue so it's very important with all the other U forms that we have so all the other things go along with that so anyway thank you very much for all their services all right thank you uh reports Matt anything not at this time no anything from mikee you oh yeah
050I'm next yes um sometimes h no I'm ready so first of all um this is January School Board appreciation month so um put these things together I actually spell my name right on this but thank you for your dedication Metropol school district of w County and n school boards Association are pleased to recognize the extraordinary School Board service of Scott haper also Christian Rosine Kevin Bowman Matt Driscoll and Jeff Porter and so your commitment to Excellence has been truly inspiring thank you for making a difference for our students schools and community and I know that some of you have been together for many many years and some of you have been together just four years going on the fifth year and so we've gone through a lot of things together in the last few years
051a lot of good things um some challenging things also but I just really appreciate your work um I did not frame these so you had to buy your own frame um so I'm sorry about that so thank you very much I want to give this to you what was that I heard some SN REM marks there at the end get I get some other I can get some quacks later thank you that's one thing I want to share so the other thing I want to share is the legisl I should have bed um the legislative session started on January 8th which was Wednesday um there were approximately 1500 bills that were um introduced and I did count them this morning as of today uh for Education bills alone there are 51 um and Senate bills
052that are 65 and we know Senate bill one which is the budget bill has not even come out yet so there'll be more than that so one thing that I know that even Dr Coon's uh organization is talking about they were talking about meeting with u representative bany who wants to do some deregulation but we can start about deregulating by not having 51 and 65 new ones but there won't be that many new ones but there will be several new ones um but we just don't know what those are this is the long session very very important year for the Bal um very very interesting uh uh you know bills that are out there so we're just going to keep on track of those and we're just going to have to try to promote as
053much as we can with our schools and with the budget and different things because there have been a lot of changes in the budget forecast which obviously can change things for all of us so um the sky is not falling in but we have to just make sure that we are um continue to look at things and making sure that we promote and lobby with what we want time to happen as much as POS possible and I will say that not that we always agree with our representative Lissa swe or our Senator Senator Andy Z but they are very much engaged in we ever want to talk to them I know Chris and I have had meetings with both of them um and then and Higgins and I also had meetings with both of them
054again on another situation um I know Senator Z called me the other day for two different reasons but it's just good that um they are reaching out to ask us questions and opinions and things like that we just hope that our opinion can and that they follow through with with that but again they just have one vote to so just wanted to mention that um if you ever have any questions about anything and you want us to look at anything else um certainly let us know we'll do that um want to talk about the state the 2024 State graduation rate I haven't given that to you yet but that was finally finalized uh typically you could go all the way through October 1 as far as being in that cohort and then they do all
055the the statistics that they need to do but we have great news um this year uh along with last year um this year Northfield with all the school districts that we we touch um Northfield was the highest at 91.4 % last year was Southwood um and if we combine Northfield and Southwood together um we are the second highest but that's 97.67% and so that's that's very very good news really in essence what that really relates to as far as number numbers go um there were three students from Northfield and Southwood that did not in our cohort that did not graduate that could be a lot of different reasons they could they could have um moved and not enrolled in another school and that would count against us or they could have just dropped out I
056don't have those specifics I can look them up you want me to look him up and I know our counselors know and our principes know but um you know we want 100% we've had 100% before um but sometimes those situations happen that we can't control if they move out of our district and then they don't attend another school and don't graduate it's really hard to control that part of it um other things that we can control that's why we have a high rate um and all the schools around us do you know fairly well um it's just nice to know you know what we're doing there um I will I want to talk about whites for a little bit you know we do have a lot of students um uh that go into uh whites
057and also our bridge program so in essence we have um a lot of students that graduate and I'll tell you that number a little bit but just to give you a little historical data to see how whites graduated ation rate has gone up in 2021 it was 52.5 6% you know we would all say that that's a really low number but you also have to remember that they're only with us for a little bit of time and they come from us from all over the state of Indiana and all of them have certain challenges that make it difficult 2022 was 59.71 per 2023 was 61.5 45% but listen to this 2024 74.9 9% graduation rate which is excellent and so if you want to know those actual numbers um that was 143 students that graduated
058out of 193 here again we would love to have 100% but the people that really understand um in our community um the students that we have that come to us you know for that short amount of time that's a very excellent figure um and so we do want to highlight that even though some people would say well why is it Sol low well we can we can go and we can um maybe go to the Josiah whites and go to the cottages and homes and and talk to some kids and see what they've done because they have been successful and you have to remember the same thing happens there those students haven't graduated um and they are dismissed for what they call release at josi whites if they're released from there um and they don't
059go back to any school which we have no control of they would be a Dropout and so that would that would count against us so again that's a very good rate but anyway we do want to congratulate Northfield again and Southfield this year um it was last year in 23 South would had the first and that was um at 98.15% so it's just really really good to hear those kinds of Statistics so that's really all I have for my report can you Mr MCD we appreciate yes Mr MCD and Mrs Boon that work together on that and U so good all right Tim you have anything for us so um I feel like it be good to Pig itback where Chris took us with TBR funds and Kevin was talking about that um so our
060district really invested heavily in technology and we didn't do so much on the curriculum side and I think we're starting to balance that a little more and so you're going to start hearing more about books and and programs and things and so we used s dollars to do that the last couple of years years and so um bring with Chris laying out a budget to try to keep supporting that with giving teachers that curriculum to sort of create that balance and so uh and in that balance really to stretch the TBR as far as we can um so this year every year for six years there's a cycle and it's it's really traditional that's how Indiana's always done it we kind of fell off of that when we went heavier with technology um we may
061not go back back uh to all the way the other way but I think we're going to find a balance of okay there are certain classes certain topics where they need to have some kind of curriculum particularly like if you're doing a first grade math they need to have this whatever skills you want them to build on the second grade path right like teaching US history I don't lead into another US history class and so the skills that I teach aren't nearly as stackable and so so with that in mind um and the states push for reading curriculum uh there is a law that requires us to get that and um so that's what we're doing this is the year to do that so we're looking at reading curriculum for K to 5 uh and
062I gave you guys the layout there just a big picture of how that looks um I think really the main thing that as a board member I want you to be aware of is uh on February 11th that's our goal to come with uh options for parent and public review we don't want to rush through something and then have a parent complain about something of course uh we could kind of remind ourselves of our teachers and how where they are of our community values and what we're looking for in book but we do what we will make that available and so February 11th we plan on having that here but it'll probably digital at first but if a member of the public wants to see something I'll be sure to get them a paper copy
063and so we'll have at least four weeks it ends up being closer to six um for them to look at it make concerns raise any kind of question questions they have and then we'll come as a committee and make our recommendation after listening also to the public there and so you can kind of see there hopefully by March as we'll make that that recommendation to you guys for a final recommendation but we'll introduce the two finalists in February 11th um so that parents and community members that want to see it I know we have community members near here who enjoy seeing that stuff and so uh we appreciate having that input and so let me take a second any questions about that part of it the parents are made aware of this early on as
064far as this period of Time how are they made aware um well mostly through the school board I mean we'll teachers will be talking about it teachers we've already been talking about it I don't know they send anything home necessarily um and so I don't know any other way that's probably about it um they would have to come here though they to see the actual material or it'll be at the schools it'll be at the schools if they email email me or their pres their or their principal or the teacher absolutely and almost all of actually all of the vendors we're currently looking at right now all have a digital component so you can see the the stuff um and so so yeah yeah but again I would I would remind any parent that I
065feel very comfortable with all of our teachers that are the communities they are they well attuned to what we expect to see in books for whatever age group what our Community Values represent but for sure that'll be on the Forefront in addition to the academic side of that so then the second thing is this one's a little stickier and I knew Chris had a had a long presentation so I'm not looking to stay much longer just a if you'll switch to three minutes three all right buckle up here you go if you'll go to the next page real fast keep faor and if you guys will see I gave you and I don't know I think Mike shared this with you before um this is the comparison of the new diploma and so you can
066see on the left column is kind of what most of us are used to seeing with the core 40 and on the right is the new diploma I'm going to highlight just a couple of things this is still unfolding um there are still rules being voted on but more importantly for us there are still interpretations coming from the Department of Education so let me just pause for a second to give you an example like if you look on science technology you can see you used to this year seniors needed six year six credits next year's freshman when they graduate they'll need seven and you can see there's listed it says two stem focused credits that's a legal phrase that has no educational support just yet right like which classes count for that are we going
067to create a new course or does physics count there or does an a well class there and so the Department of Education is going to release all that stuff in due time and so you probably have a lot more questions just like we do that there just not answers for yet um but I did want to at least introduce that to you so the new diploma actually you have to get 42 credits if you see at the bottom right there um but there is a ton more flexibility there um so it it won't really pose a problem so there are there that's to get the diploma so if you're going to graduate you have to get the new diploma and if you scroll down just a little bit then uh what we'll encourage and what
068the department is encouraging is kids to choose a seal and so you can choose to pursue an enrollment seal an employment seal or an enlistment seal we will meet with eighth graders and ask them to set a goal for what they want to do when they're 18 um and uh we'll do our best though to pursue to encourage them to Pro the pursue the challenging one right try to do the enrollment try to do the employment or whichever one for them um so that they have options that's going to be a big conversation options so when you're a senior and you decide after all you do want to go to Purdue or you're a senior and you do want to do this thing that you have the option to choose to do it rather than
069being kind of locked in because as an ath you were saying yourself I don't want to do that I'm just just going to go work wherever um which could be a great job but maybe it's an 18 be like wow I really do want to try something so this system really can lend itself to a kid being stuck in that man I'm going have to take all these extra classes and stuff and so we'll try really hard to convince parents we'll be on parents to join us to push kids to do to again give themselves options none of those are really bad ches but you don't want to be stuck yet well yeah so so that's I guess so that's the concern I know a lot of people had so if you do PI a
070as a freshman you can get two years into it and you are never going to recoup that you'll have to do a lot of summer school a lot of extra classes I mean you'll you'll have to just put more time which is way harder than to convince an 18-year-old to do a whole extra year of classes right um no year exactly and that's certainly so as you guys as Administration you're going to try to push everyone through that arom as many as we'll try to encourage yeah every kid that has any kind of skill that that may fit in that right if you we will certainly encourage them do that because it will be easier to be on the enrollment track and say okay you know what I really have found my this is what
071I want to do for employment and do that versus the other other and so again it's just trying to get them there with as many doors as they can choose to get well and that makes sense from a like a parent standpoint just saying okay just just get on that path yeah and then and then that you have more options if you start on the other you're kind of kind of almost committed yeah so how is the college going to look at it just the way they do today they look at it this courses complete yes course completion yeah and so the colleges really pushed that enrollment part there and so um your major colleges that have the most requirements were satisfied with what they saw in the enrollment and so to us for us
072oldtimers not that you're old with me but I'm time the academic honors diploma fits with the honors seat it's that same kind of thing and so uh they'll talk about so many extra math so many Dule credits so many world languages um so yeah and Michael he showed you there's another one underneath it that says there's a plus seal to be to be honest several of these are really just far-reaching things um some of them you can't even do uh they're still negotiating some of these like for instance I if you can zoom in on the honor seal the first one you see where it says AP scholar with distinction um you won't get notified of that until July after your graduate you graduate in May you can't know like a college board doesn't even
073release that honor and so the Li and so there are some things here that don't that that are still going to have to be hammered out but but for most of us if you choose the honor seal that's that's that's going to get you into uh any of the colleges where you used to get um and so yeah we will encourage people as eighth graders um it'll have the same challenges but yeah that'll be it and so like I said there's a ton more to go into and I don't I don't intend to skip it and it really isn't because Chris had a lot to say earlier it's mostly because you don't know like until the Department of Education tells us what a stim class is what classes count for math now they're opening that
074up what class is Cel English um there is a lot more flexibility which we're hoping will be good um and so if you'll go back now to my report there is something though that we need to be aware of one more I think yeah okay so requires 42 credits we are going to expect kids at MSD to earn a seal they won't have to because they can still earn to without but we will push them to that's kind of our what we'll expect from our kids you'll see here um under new required courses so in the new diploma you have to take personal finance in preparing for college and careers well if you've been a student in MSD you're already doing both those classes and so that won't be any change for us at all
075we've already been kind of doing that fortunately we were kind of well prepared for that actually several other things that I'm not going to get into you're going to hear me say that often we kind of were prepared for some of these ahead of time like it just du tail before we one that was new to us though that we have tried to with our robotics is computer science and so all gruits now have to take a semester of computer science it is a required class and So currently Northfield and South would have teachers that are taking training so they are certified to teach that course in the infinite wisdom of the biocracy uh Camy Ross is teaching computer science and she's teaching it for kids that could actually get a pathway Matt probably when
076I say pathway like that means they can build credits and they but get a certification kind right her class does not count for the graduation requirement so and so she's qualified to teach kids how to get to that pathway but she's not qualified to get like you have to do it's a whole it's a whole separate course and so anyway uh we are we are planning to offer that computer science course and so next year's freshman will have that option so they will stay on track with the new so I put at the bottom there and I sincerely want to hear your thoughts and questions as we go probably at a Schoolboard meia may not always be the best time to do it because we could really dive down in some rabbit holds of things
077and I may not have answers and so please as you talk to your friends or you talk to patrons if things come up shoot me an email I'm had to talk to people are kind of do that stuff as new updates come out I'll try to share them with well past three minutes yep oh yeah Mike just lost his [Laughter] over any questions on that all right we'll move on to a new business um yep you me explain this a little bit so uh with the uh this is the second year for the early literacy achievement Grant and we have to have a u resolution uh to be able to pay our staff members um that's already been talked about with our principal Dr K worked on that uh with them we did receive a
078little like around $6,800 or something that will go to approximately 40 students or 40 students yes like that 40 teachers and U that will be paid out later in February but we just need approval of this um adoption this is very similar to last year just changed the dates uh for this year 2025 something we're required to do so I ask that you approve this motion second second got a motion and second for a recommendation to approve the early literacy Grant all those in favor say I any oppos passes you I think you do yeah I think that was records okay so the next one is uh for the recommendation for the uh flexibility I'm going to start over mcwc haa 103 flexibility waiver um I'm requesting that you approve this resolution that we have
079to go along with the documentation through a jot form to the doe to go along with what our proposed calendar is for next year our our calendar proposal is to have four PD days in the past we've had three what there's been years we've had four before uh but we changed that the last couple years we only had three maybe three years but now next year we're asking for four again um this is one of those laws that were um they they kind of deregulated it but they deregulated by allowing us to have waivers so there's kind of a bit of time that's spent uh to be able to go through the whole process of the the job form but every year that we've requested we received it the one of the stipulations is that
080we do have to have the school board approve this and it is uh to w in the code 20-302 D3 instead of having 100 school days 180 school days it would be 176 but the way we get around that is because we have way over the minutes and you can see that the minutes there in the first bullet point right there for elementary um we have to have a minimum of 54,000 uh with the waiver um we still would have I mean we right now would have 62100 with the waiver we would still have 6,720 and for grades 7 through 12 you you can see the minimum there on the right is 648 um without the waiver we have 72,000 with the waiver we have 7,400 so we're still wait I ask that you approve
081this um resolution for the 103 flexibility weight now a motion second to approve the recommendation for mwc 103 flexibility waiver all those in favor say I I any oppos thank you very much we will be getting that uh job form and all this sent out later this week see if we can approve all right we got recommendation to approve 2025 budget reduction resolution yes so when we had our budget hearing and then submitted to the dlgf and they told us what our budget allocations were um we had one reduction that was in our debt service and that was just so that we could continue to maintain that dollar 10 tax rate just asking for a final approval of the 2025 budget I move for the resolution to be passed motion second direct to approve the
0822025 budget reduction resolution all those in favor say I I any [Music] oppos got a recommendation to approve the local income tax distribution resolution so we receive local income tax dollars uh from the county and so we are required to determine where that money uh goes and we've always put it into our operations fund and so I recommend that we continue to do that any have motion second to approve that second got a motion second to approve the uh local income tax distribution resolution all those in favor say I [Music] opposed recommendations to approve 2025 transfers from education fund to operations F so the sbaa requires us well not SBO it's in law requires us to um have a resolution for the amount of dollars that we want to transfer from education to operations fund
083throughout the year so since we're starting a new year uh we need to do another resolution for that uh with re remaining to stay under that 15% uh requirement and so the amount hasn't changed of $215,000 the most that we've done so far is $185,000 and so that just allows us some flexibility to keep us under that 15 I to that recommendation I'll second that got a motion second to approve the 2025 transfer from education fund to operations fund all those in favor say I any of those got a recommendation to approve a resolution authorizing the treasure to pay the claims yeah so uh this is an annual resolution that we do um just in case for whatever reason we don't have our standard um two meetings a month uh so that we can continue
084to maintain be able to pay our bills Etc if they a to go down to one or something gets cancelled we can that with approval at the following board meeting for those we got a motion second to approve the resolution raing treasure to pay claims we'll start over with that we got a motion second to approve the resolution authorizing the treasur to pay claims all those favor say I I any [Music] opposed recommendation to approve a Cooperative special exemption pricing for NHS and shs student Locker replacement yeah so as part of uh some of the project work that we've been doing we we wanted to replace the student lockers in the hallways uh at both high schools and um because of the cost of the total amount of those lockers uh reaching over that $300,000
085threshold uh we had to either do it through a Cooperative or put it out for bid and so uh usually when we've done these types of projects we've gone through the Cooperative contract and so uh there were some quotes there off of that contract uh for that pricing and the recommendation was to do the special exception onetime project pricing which was a little bit lower um than the other the other quotes installations this Su correct yes I'm just curious the color so we're going to try to color as closely to the um the the way we painted the hallways as close as we can get right come yes does anybody know how old these ones that in there are uh well they were put in I don't know they I know Steve has mentioned that
086they were put in when he first started with the district so they're at over 20 close to 25 years if not more with that so some of them are pretty bad shape and we'll we're going to make we're going to shrink the Locker size just a little bit as far as the width is concerned we'll place all the lockers which I don't if you remember the old senior hallway had different lockers than everybody else so all the lockers will match plus it'll give us enough lockers that every student could have their own lock six through 12 it says they there's no locks yes so they'll have to provide their own they can provide their own or purchase one that's why they don't get used now that's what I me that saves us a little money
087as well not worry about locks that type of stuff all right we a motion second to approve that so motion second to approve the Cooperative special exemption pricing for NHS shs student Locker replacement all those in favor say I opposed and last of recommendation to approve overnight field trip to for Shar Creek 6th grade to Summer Lake Indiana May 14th through 16th second a motion second to approve the field trip all those in favor say I finish Business board policy public comment me put you to sleep it's what one question what is TBR in the budget rent textbook rental it's actually cular materials the truth the truth it for board members anything all right we're Jour that's the last one