001We can all rise and say the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one indivisible with liberty, justice. Okay. I would like to welcome everyone to the Monday, August 18th, 2025 meeting. for the MSD of Mount Vernon School Board. Um we will start with the recognition of delegations. Anyone wishing to be recognized to speak on any agenda item or to be heard as part of the section on the agenda dealing with delegations or citizen comments are to identify themselves by name and the point on the agenda where they wish to be recognized. Anyone else? Moving on to recommended actions. We take these together. Yep. We have enclosed the minutes from the August 4th, 2025 meeting as well as voucher checks and
002electronic transfers. And we have included are you can see also we have included the financial statement for July as well. >> Okay. We have a motion to approve the minutes of the August 4th, 2025 meeting as prepared or as corrected. A motion to authorize payment of payroll checks 402 292 through 402606. Voucher checks 146396 through 146469 and electronic transfers ET 3271 through ET 3277 as recommended. Voided payroll and voucher checks not listed on the voucher listing in the above sequences are not approved for payment by this action. Also a motion to accept the financial statement for July 31st, 2025 and to file it for audit. >> I'll move second. >> Motion was made by Mr. Oath, seconded by Mr. Williams. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I oppose. Nay. >> Motion is
003passed. Moving on to unfinished business. >> Attached, you'll have the notice to taxpayers, uh, which we're recommending, uh, to you guys for approval. Uh, we went over the last couple of board meetings, we went over our four major funds, our education fund, and our rainy day fund, which are not tax based, and then our operations fund and our debt service fund, which do have an impact uh, on tax rates. So, also enclosed is the capital projects plan and the school bus replacement plan uh that we're asking permission to advertise for as well. We have a motion to approve the notice to taxpayers for the 2026 budgets and to grant permission to advertise online the school bus replacement plan, the capital projects plan, and for the following funds: educational fund, depth service fund, operations fund, and
004the rainy day fund as recommended. Moved Second. >> Motion was made by Mr. Williams, seconded by Mr. Isaac. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Oppose. Nay. Motion is passed. Moving on to new business. Personnel. >> We have a couple of resignations to report. Alexexas Nation, sixth grade girls basketball, and Adrien Tucker, custodian at the junior high. We have a motion to accept the resignation effective immediately unless otherwise indicated from the list above. >> Second. >> Motion was made by Miss Butler, seconded by Mr. Oath. Any discussion? >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Oppose. Nay. Motion is passed. Moving on to employment recommendations. >> We would like to recommend Hannah Gardner for assistance coach. assistant coach for boys and girls swimming, a quarter stipen each. Brent Renshaw for head
005coach for girls cross country at the high school. And Matthew Bot, assistant coach for volleyball, half a stipen at the junior high. We >> have a motion to confirm the employment from the list above. >> So move. >> Second. >> Motion was made by Mr. Isaac, seconded by Miss Butler. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I. those nay. Moving on to non-paid leave of absence. We have two requests for non-paid leave. Shad Sch Snider from information systems is requesting extension of non-paid leave of absence from August 20th through the 29th. And Megan Fritz, teacher at West is requesting I think that's freeze. Did I say that wrong? Freeze. Sorry. Uh is a teacher at West is requesting non-paid leave of absence from September 4th through October 1st. Okay. We have a motion
006to approve the non-paid leave of absent request as listed above. >> So move second. >> Motion was made by Mr. Oat, seconded by Mr. Williams. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I. Oppose. Nay. >> Motion passed. Moving on to adjunct teacher permits. >> Uh we're requesting that the board issue two adjunct teacher permits uh for our welding class. The wages will be paid by BWXT. We have a motion to issue two adjunct teacher permits per Indiana code 20-28-5-27 to the following welding professionals in order to teach the welding classes at the high school. Chad Dill and Brian Goff >> moved. >> Second. >> Motion was made by Miss Butler, seconded by Mr. Isaac. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Oppos? Nay. Motion's passed. Moving on to educational
007meetings. >> We have a slew of upcoming opportunities for our staff to learn uh various um participate in various training. We have a team that will be going to Richmond to learn more about AI and how they're implementing that in their school district. Olivia Tharp will be attending a counselor's meeting at the University of Evansville. Alicia Schmidt will be going um with her group to different places throughout the fall. Um, FFA will pay the expenses. Susie McHune will attend the 2025 Indiana users group conference in Muny. Jillian Brothers will be going to MPSS certification in Louisville. And Alicia Alicia Schmidt, sorry, um, has a couple other activities that she'll be taking her students to for the National FFA Convention. We have a motion to adopt a resolution permitting personnel listed to attend educational meetings. So
008moved. >> Second. >> Then can we have the group that's going about incorporating AI uh come speak to the board? >> Okay, that'd be good. >> Brian and I attended a conference on Friday um in Indianapolis with ISBA to just learn what some other district superintendents and assistant superintendents are doing to implement. >> It's ever evolving. So it's >> ever changing. Yes. And I tried to summarize that but I don't know kind of chopped it up more. So apologies. We have a lot going on. Okay, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. Oppose. Nay. Motion is passed. Okay. Information and proposals. Lois, do you have anything? >> Uh, I believe that I could be wrong, but it could be Skyward. I think it's a Skyward conference, which is
009our student management system. Uh she she works with Susan McHune works with our uh our data for our school district and information systems. >> Okay, that it for today. >> Okay, moving on to non-staff communications reports and then from the superintendent and staff. The >> self insurance fund is is in your packet and it was a that a positive month. We are going to report I'm going to skip down to number three. Roger Robinson's resignation date was updated from the August 15th minutes or to updated to August 15th. That was his resignation date. Okay. >> And then I will take a moment to just do an overview of our uh performance from the last school year and kind of it's a highlevel um presentation and just it's good to know like this is where we
010stand. This is kind of our baseline based on data from last year. So if you have any questions as I go through, feel free to stop me. So first I want to let's see there we go. Um this is just our mission and our vision. We worked on this last year with our administrative council just to refine. We kind of took what we already had which was an acronym and put it into working terms that is actionable. Um, and we want to make sure I think the big takeaway from this is we're eliminating barriers because we know our kids can be successful and we want to take them to their highest achievement level. So, I'm going to start with I read results. We tested 149 students. Some of those students were tested in second grade
011and others were tested in third. If you test in second, you do not have to take it again in third grade. Out of those students, 89.9% passed. So, we're just like a hair away from 90% passing. We had 134 out of 149 students pass and the Indiana pass rate for the state was 87.3. So, we're excited that we're above that uh pass rate. I do want to report that all of our students will be moving on to fourth grade. We do not have any students that will have to be retained because they didn't pass. We also have good news. 57% of our second graders have already passed. So going forward, we know that 22% of our students are predicted to pass of the ones that didn't pass last year. So they're on track and we
012expect for them to pass without any issue. We also know that we have 21% of students that we need to provide intensive interventions with this year so that they can pass in the third grade. >> How many did we have participated in remediation this summer? Do you know? >> We only had >> nine. About nine. That's something that we will do a better job of really recruiting and advertising and trying to entice more students to come next year. We did nine days instead of three days. Um, but I think it was just really new for the community to know that we were offering it to second and third grade. We hope that in the future we can have the Boys and Girls Club here so that we can partner with them and we can provide
013a full day experience for our students because I think that really helps parents out when you talk about summer school. So we do provide transportation but I think when you go to work it's hard to get to school or get home to pick up a student. So I think we have room to grow with summer to summer reading experiences. >> So this is just a breakdown of all of our elementary schools. As you can see, Mars had a pass rate of 98.2. Farmersville had a pass rate of 78.9. And West had a pass rate of 89.3. And just to kind of highlight, West is our only title one elementary school. So when I talk about breaking down barriers, they did it. And so we know it can be done. You know, we we know that
014any student with the right support and the right teacher can can pass and can achieve. So we have some work to do for this school year. But I am excited of how well our students performed on I read. This is a a chart that just kind of shows the disegregated um disagregated I'm sorry information for you. If I'll just kind of hover right here. This shows the number of students who have an IEP. You can see that nearly 100% of our students with IEPs passed I rate at West. Um, and this goes on like our English language learners free and reduced. You can see how high they performed. And this is for every school. So you have um Farmersville and then Mars in the green. You guys want to just take a minute to look
015at that. We This chart gives us a little bit of an idea of our strengths and weaknesses and what we can work with. Um, we know at every school they may have just a little bit something different they can work towards. um whether that be a certain um subgroup of students that need a little bit more support. Um and it's also informative just for teachers to kind of think of their students and what backgrounds they come from and how to differentiate for their learning. But again, this shows that despite disadvantages students might have, whether that be learning or socioeconomic, that they can achieve success. This is an attendance and I'll share this with everyone and this is a link to the state GPS website. Not all of the information on the website is updated but
016the attendance is updated. I did this will be a goal for us this year to increase attendance at all of our schools and this graph shows how many had at least how many students had at least 94% in attendance or were in attendance. This year just really killed everybody. COVID, it opened up that world of options to not be in brick-andmortar schools and was just really hard for people to come back from being at home and learning. And so, you notice a decline here, but then we had an uptick. So, we were we improved 6.6% last year on attendance. So, I know every school has this on their radar. Um, the state is now really trying to collect some data and you probably see some of this language in the leg legislation. um why students
017are out and then so that hopefully in the future we can respond to that. So doesn't really change a lot for parents but it does change a lot on the school side really knowing why students are out. After 5 days we notify parents. Um most schools start working on an intervention plan at that time to get the students in school and then after 10 days we try to seek outside support after that. Um we really want to work on our uh chronic attendance issues this year. This is an overall view at iLearn performance by grade level. Um, as you can see, math here in the elementary schools was pretty high. Um, I also want to note, and I want to point this out, social studies, because we were pretty high performing in comparison to surrounding
018districts in our fifth grade social studies in the future. It is, um, being presented and being discussed that social studies will be a part of that accountability model. We also know that you have to have all skills to do well on social studies. You have to be able to read. You have to be able to comprehend. So, we do really well here. So, it's kind of interesting to me that I feel like we have it. We just have to work a little bit harder on some practice um I learn practice questions for students and just giving them multiple experiences so that they can perform higher on iLearn. We notice a dip during the transitional years. So, as students leave fifth and go into sixth, there is a bit of a dip. Um, we also have
019noticed when we look at some of our data, historically they have that dip and then our junior high teachers are working to bring them back up by the time they get to 9th grade. We want to be sensitive to that transition between 8th and 9th though. They take the PSAT before going into high school and then again in high school and then SAT. And I think that just with that transition, we can also potentially lose some kids and we want to keep that motivation going. Does anybody have any questions about this data? >> So the junior high then we've been uh plans put in place. >> So uh yes, Mark and Stacy I know for I talked with the teacher today and they have met with teachers. They've looked at this data. They even presented
020growth data to every single teacher in the school to see where kids were last previously to last year so that they can start to they have a set time in the junior high for remediation for students. So really starting to look at that and making sure we're using that time effectively. Um I'm really proud of the junior high and digging into their data. I know that Mark and Stacy have put it in front of teachers multiple times since school has started already and it's kind of early to do that. um we meet with principles tomorrow and we'll kind of look at this again and then they go back to their staff and they'll get their staff input on you know what are their suggestions for setting goals and strategies. So but they really have a
021jump on what they can do to improve their scores. So, >> um, my hunch is when you look at sixth grade particularly, I think teachers, um, sometimes get, and this is just me kind of hypothesizing, um, worried that kids are lacking some foundational skills. I think every we always think that as you go up, you're concerned about some skills they're missing. And so, we spend a lot of time trying time time trying to close those gaps. and then we get to I learn and we haven't really spent a ton of time giving them those more rigorous questions and activities. That may not be what it is, but I I really think our kids have the potential to continue at that trajectory. Um, but I just think that elementary jump to junior high is a struggle
022for kids. They have a go into a different world. So once we have the data, we're aware of that and we can work off of that. So will the uh principal and teachers all come to conclusion on what their goals are and then they will be held accountable during their process. >> Mr. Hagen's here too. He's going to work more. I think I mentioned this, you know, he he does a lot of work for us in grants and getting us new programs. But I've asked him this year to really help partner with principles and teachers and being buildings and offer support when teachers say, you know, this curriculum really isn't helping us much. he can hear that and he can respond to that, you know, and really get a feel for what teach how teachers
023are feeling in the classroom about the resources we've given them or any structure of the school so we can help with that because they really do know best, but we have to make sure we are keeping that consistent communication. So, I think that um Brian will be able to help make that connection for us this year >> and then you guys will meet throughout the year just to see where they're at the gates. So >> yeah. Okay. Is that so at the end of the year they meet them. So yes, >> it really is exciting. I mean this is the this is the stuff we like and I it's I love hearing when teachers will say hey I mean if we just could do this or if we had this they really do know they
024we just have to make sure we get behind them and give them the support that they need. And I think our principles are really eager. They they know we have the potential to do this. So just kind of setting our baseline. this isn't where we we were last year and um we will we will set uh goals that are attainable and then talk about you know if we had a perfect world where would we want to be but that would be a stretch goal but what what do we know we can accomplish this year that's reasonable so this is a a chart that kind of shows our SAT results from last year um one thing that Scott and Cody have discovered that it's about 15 and 16 students that would really change the way this
025data looks. Um they are putting a new emphasis on SAT and one of the reasons for that is because this helps our students to go on there are a lot many more opportunities when you raise your SAT scores for college. So we do we talk a lot about um those students that don't want to go to college and we we're we're preparing them to go in the workforce or preparing them to go in the trade and we can't forget about those kids who also want to go to college. um teachers are participating in professional development just to learn more about the ins and outs of SAT. There have been some changes and we just want to make sure everybody's kept up to speed. We are also utilizing um study halls differently um to help those
026students and support those students to improve on SAT and content area teachers will also be dedicating a certain amount of time just to give students exposure to testlike activities. For example, if you remember taking SAT, if you took it, it's a lot of reading. You have to stay engaged. And if we don't work on stamina and reading for the duration of the time they're in school, it makes it really challenging to do this as a junior. So, um, this data is really informative to all grade levels. There are obviously we don't want students practicing to take the SAT when they're in third grade, but there are some skills we can help them with like reading stamina, comprehension, um problem solving, and math that will help us help other teachers as the students get older to
027prep better prepare kids for SAT. So, currently, and I know Brian has already met with the high school principles, they met last week to really dig into the SAT data. And I don't know if there's anything you want to share about that if I didn't cover it all. and we'll we'll use PSAT data for the current kids that haven't taken it. Um because those right results are pretty indicative of how they'll do on SAT. And we we also want to do a better job. Um I know we've talked a little bit about counselors and how we can bring counselors in more. Um, I meet with counselors next Thursday and I want to talk more with counselors about talking to kids about what classes should you take given we have a new, you know, new options
028for diplomas, what does it mean to take SAT, what scholarships are out there, um, which colleges and universities are direct admit if you take the SAT or if you take certain um, if you go during down a certain path for the diploma. So there are a lot of opportunities for our students that we want to make sure they don't miss out on that will. >> So the study halls are going to be geared more towards help prepare them for at least >> they're doing a selection process for it now. So students that really can benefit from it will be assigned to study hall and teachers who they know can really help students will be assigned to it. So, um, there's they're in that phase of doing that right now. >> You know, there's students that
029just have a normal study hall where they can >> well, probably a class. >> Mhm. >> And they opt into that. >> Um, probably they could, but I think that what they the administrators and counselors have done is really taken a look at their data. There are some classes like I think your son's one of them. He has a full load right now. He has to take certain classes right now to do what he wants to do next. So there we have kids like that. Or if you're a kid who maybe didn't do great in your freshman English class, you want an opportunity to retake. They may not they should want to retake that as a traditional class instead of having to do it during the summer. But if you have a study hall, that
030might take the place of that. So I think they're kind of looking at kid by kid and what's best for each kid. And and we have a lot of room to grow there. I mean, we need we need to do better. And I think they've recognized that. And um the the new new diplomas and new options for kids really is a game changer. >> I think it'd be crucial with the uh everybody involved there especially >> from various aspects. >> This is just over uh going over touching base over the SA and my goal would be to come back in about October and give you an update on I've checked in with principles, we've looked at some data, here's where we stand after a quarter has passed. Great. >> So, this is just kind of
031to summarize. Um, this year we are required to use iLearn checkpoints. So, third through 8th grade will be participating in these checkpoints three times a school year. Um, at the they'll take three and then in March when we had that traditional I learn assessment that's so lengthy it's supposed to be compacted and not as long. But these checkpoints should give us in time data to show us how students are responding to grade level standards. So there are four standards on the assessments. Teachers administrate uh administer the test. They get the data back and they'll be able they should what the state is saying is you should be able to see who's who has the strength in the standard who's a little bit more weak and provide those in time interventions or remediation for the students.
032Um, so this is new, but hopefully it it gives us the information we need to um design our instruction around what the students need. We're also doing a few different things with um PE. We are um in the very beginning stages of setting a uh curriculum for PE. We talked and we started these conversations in the spring. Um, we have students in our buildings that are participating in gym class multiple times a week. We really want to take advantage of those classes and really do the strengthening, mobility, hand eye coordination, team sports. Um, we don't expect every kid to come out wanting to be a basketball player, but we want them to be stronger just with technology and what kids have in their hands every day. They do they they struggle with hand eye coordination
033and fine and large motor skills and we want to strengthen them so by the time they get to junior high if they wish to participate in a sport they're going to be strong enough to do that with endurance. So we're going to try to take the opportunities we have when they're in gym at elementary school and strengthen them. Um that's a goal that we've set. We are implementing volleyball at the elementary schools. We've had our meetings with teachers and we have volunteers for coaches and we had call out meetings, a call out meeting at Mars today for interested athletes. So, we're excited. We want to really instill some pride in the elementary schools. Um, they'll each get to play each other, I think twice, and we may bring in a couple other teams for some
034tournaments. We're also going to work with Parks and Recre. We're going to bring basketball back to the elementary schools for girls and boys. So, we want them to really feel proud about their school and get a sense of being on a team and what competing looks like with their classmates and their school. And we hope that that's something that maintains with them as they get older in our school system. Um, just for the mental health um piece on there, we are looking to add a social worker from Youth First at the high school. So, we know we can always get better with mental health and really meeting the needs of our kids. Um, so we're looking at that and then providing support for those transitional years. Our data shows that our kids need more during
035those times. Um, we're going to we want to improve student attendance. We want to continue to grow as educators and we want to do a better job of communicating. So, we have Alyssa Wood has been our uh is has started as our marketing coordinator and um we we have established weekly meetings. we meet and we talk about upcoming things. We plan the calendar. Um, and we really want to get our our word out more publicly. And so, this is a brand new position. So, we're all still working on how that looks and how we can leverage it to have the most positive impact on our district. >> How is the uh last bullet point going? >> Well, we had they're meeting right now actually. So, our you guys may not be able to see that.
036That's our parent advisory meeting or advisory committee. We met last Monday and really that was kind of an opportunity for everyone to just kind of talk and talk about, you know, what their vision was for the team and what sort of accomplishments we'd like to make. But tonight they were meeting to break out and do some um subcommittees to do additional work. So, um I think it went over fairly positive. You know, we had several applicants. We had awesome applicants. We had a pretty um sophisticated rubric that we went through to pick. We really wanted a balance of parents that represented multiple like we could have multiple sports on the committee. I I really wanted to make sure that we had equal males and females on the committee. Um so I do think that will
037be if anything it's going to be a channel for communication. I think that will improve our communication between the community and our athletic department. >> Will we get updates occasionally? >> Yeah. I can bring an update next time we meet. >> Okay. >> And I think that is all I have here. I'm looking on here. Where my keyboard went? That's the last slide though. Wait, maybe. >> Yep, that's it. Does anybody have any questions? >> Good information. >> Yeah, thank you. >> Appreciate it. >> And like I said, I'll come back and after quarter one and we'll look at >> I appreciate you guys digging into your data. Obviously, that's we got to do so we know how to correct. So, yeah, >> this is the fun stuff. >> And we really our our teachers
038and our staff, they work so hard. They really do. And that that love for our kids, we have that. And we we just need to continue to keep our eye on how our performance looks and try to make improvements where we can. So, I'm excited about that. >> Thank you very much. >> Moving on to future business. Do you want to take us the rest of the way out? >> Sure. So, we have a meeting uh meeting on September 2nd and then we have changed the second meeting to be on September 22nd because we're out of town for ISBA. Um and then October 6th we have Labor Day coming up on September 1st. Um and we listed the ISBA fall conference and then our early dismissal, our first uh staff professional development day is on
039September 17th. And then going forward we'll have our budget hearing. >> No discussion topics. So we are ajourned.