001[Music] [Applause] [Music] bye so [Music] [Applause] so do [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Applause] [Music] welcome to the school city of hammond tuesday february 1st 2022 regular meeting of the board of trustees good evening everyone and uh good evening everyone watching online we do have our special guest pledge leaders today from kenwood elementary so guys if you would like to go ahead and step up and lead us to the pledge everybody please rise face the flag 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 well done delilah batista jada gamble janae gaines kayla despot and audrey audrina dasmit thank you all very nice job
002okay roll call trusty candelaria here trustee king blake king we're here thank you trustee murphy president trustee zolnos present trustee miller is absent this evening superintendent miller trustees anyone watching we did have some additional presentations uh that we've rescheduled for the second meeting on the 15th due to the incoming weather tonight we do still have our monthly skillman project update so hopefully they're there [Music] mr yancey okay we can see your screen but we don't we can't hear you what about now yep we can hear you there you go david can you hear me yeah yes good afternoon um here to report on the february ball report the high school and the capital improvement projects as usual we have a table of contents we can go over the multiple key plans that we have for
003you today uh some photos some progress updates and schedule updates and um giving you the current website diversity and budget update as well this is the progress key plan for the athletic fields and amenities for hammond central high school this is the overview of the track and the football field progress in the bleacher installation on the north side of the school the restrooms and locker rooms and showers for the outbuildings for those athletic fields next four weeks we continue erecting home side bleachers and installing uh scoring concrete curves for the athletic fields installing football flat drain and stone subgrade and poor curves for athletic features including discus and shot foot all the field events installing finish flooring in the locker room with the session area installing toilet partition in those locker rooms that we just
004saw i'm also engaged for the athletics build and amenities complete site lighting this month of 2022 complete athletic field underground piping march complete athletic field turf next month complete track asphalt and track surface in april complete landscaping and feeding in april as well here you'll see the key plan for the work that we're doing at horton high school the north side is the academic area a few photos of the classrooms in a small auditorium this is a picture of the new vestibule that's been installed on the northwest side of the of the school there's a nurses station in the administration area here you're viewing the key plan of scott middle school with that we have uh some progress photos of unit d and unit c um this is uh the unity restroom renovations next four
005weeks for wharton high school continue unit a second floor science classroom renovations begin installing uh gem lighting continue unit a and b first and second floor window replacement continue unit a secure vestibule construction for scott middle school continuing unit the bathroom renovations as well as unit c bathroom renovations and nurses station i'm going to begin classroom 1231 conversions to bathrooms and continuing aid north classrooms and unit b window replacement milestone dates complete the morgan high school vestibule next month complete the north science rooms um as of today complete window replacement in july and complete unit a west classrooms this month this is the progress key plan for columbia elementary school um it's facing south right now their interior renovations in conference room 107. uh the renovation to the break room and clinic next four weeks
006install new light fixtures and controls install floor boxes for data and power milestone dates the columbia elementary school uh complete uh lining assembly installation in march a complete mechanical split system installation in february this month the month of june january the diversity participation right now we're at 31 minorities on the jobs collectively in its entirety and 15 of those workers are from canon going through the backing and all we have um approximately 17 people per day on site of which are black and 18 are from hispanic descent this is the current budget for hammond high school we're trending uh fairly well uh for the actual high school we have two contracts to close out um tendencies still well but athletic complex same thing still have some pending changes but contingency is going well as well
007the massive program budget for morton and scott still progressing very well uh no pending changes so far with the healthy contingency there's currently a lot going on in the district right now if you would like to take a site walk through please let us know larry gutierrez is online right now um we'll definitely uh feel free to give you a tour to give you an update another update on site and if there are any questions we're here to fill those and answer them any questions mr president trustee blake king thank you uh i just had a question regarding the pool the pool mr miller and skillman is it ready for use for the students because i'm thinking march is usually around around the time we get that program going so it's a pool i can
008i can answer that it actually is currently there was an issue with having to get some of the instructors properly licensed to teach the swimming component because there's an additional certification required happy to report our teachers have achieved that certification it is embedded in the physical education credit for students at hammond central so my understanding it is in use i've actually attended a meet that was there already too so i know we've had it open for meat as well so um yes so it is open it's ready yes it is okay thank you and uh the fence along seoul avenue uh is there going to be an upgrade on that or at some point how long that's a good question guys um what's this is that fence along soul avenue is that a construction fence
009or is that is that the final fence that's supposed to be there no superintendent miller this is chris and to answer trustee king's um question it's it's the existing fence that was there it's coming down and a new perimeter fence will be installed in spring what kind of fence sir it's a uh nine gauge uh metal fabric fence as you typically see the uh the galvanized aluminum fencing is it similar to the one at morton high school or not at the north elevation of morton no it's your typical chain link fence oh it's okay oh chain link will there be any kind of uh landscaping along it or it's just just be a fence yeah just to fencing some green space for practice okay any other questions uh president xeno trustee candelaria so the cyclone
010fence is it like plastic coated or is it just regular chain link or yep it's just it's just your regular chain link fence okay thank you so we will be right up to the sidewalk because we want to maximize the amount of space available to hammond central i i don't mind saying this either i had mentioned possibly that there was some discussion about whether seoul avenue would be relocated or closed or anything like that to give us extra space i've confirmed with the city that's not part of their long-term plan so we will we we've already had some conversations this week about moving forward with the baseball and softball fields as presented previously with no movement to seoul avenue mr president trustee murphy um i'm going back to the landscaping and seating that's going to
011be completed in april why are we seating versus putting in sod and what's the water in that area like seeding needs to be watered often is that going to have some type of underground sprinkler system if we're going to be seeding no currently there's no irrigation system over there it's one of the benefits of seeding in spring is that you get the natural rains on it and there's also provision in the contractor's contract to you know make sure it establishes and and uh mow it and maintain it until it's turned over to the owner but this cindy or trusty murphy as far as the um side you you do get a better root system with the seeding with the hydro seeding so it does take some time to get established but you ultimately you get
012a better product with the seed yeah typically may is a better month to be seeding may and september are your two best months for seeding that's why i was curious because april still has a lot of storms and you're going to get seed runoff that's why i was wondering why you were doing the seeding in april versus may all right thank you you're welcome and and we do have erosion control uh built into the contract so that'll help with stabilizing it so president zuno trustee blake king thank you i just have one other question regarding the pool i want to start the discussion on this now it was always my understanding that this pool would be open to the public during the summer so i just want to make sure that it has been established
013and we're going to move forward with that so our goal is to have many of the resources at hammond central available to the community the pool just being one of them but we have an amazing fitness center there we have some amazing pe spaces there um i would like to see since uh the city no longer has to have their own force for um lifeguards and things like that since they've converted to this the splash pads you know at the city pools if we could write a grant perhaps to have that kind of um apply to grant to the hammond uh what are the city grants i'm forgetting their exact name for giving me but um to see if we can't have swim lessons and that kind of thing funded through the city because that
014would be that's a need now that we've eliminated all that in our city um but i absolutely would like to have those resources open to the community mr president diligent on that thank you trustee murphy i want to follow up with the superintendent when we discussed this many years ago um the discussion was it would be with memberships to help pay for some of the costs because you're going to need the extra security in there you're going to need entrances where people are going to be um you know make sure your membership before you're coming in so sort of like what crown point did that's what we were trying to mimic at the time you know crown point allows the use of the school after hours and then during the summer times so i hope
015we're going to have a lot more discussion before we get to that point thanks for giving me the tip about crown point i can kind of see their fee structure and and where we're at with that obviously we'd have to be competitive we have the sports plex in hammond that has a pretty aggressive fee structure already for hammond residents so if i don't think we could charge more than the sports flex for certain well i just wanted a lot more of that right than what we do i just wanted the conversation to start that was the purpose of bringing it up thank you thank you any additional questions if not thank you very much gentlemen have a good evening you too as well thank you okay that brings us to public expression first period limited
016to items on the agenda only first community member please state your name address and you will have three minutes it is rachel lundstrom hi i've been a 27-year resident here and i thank you for allowing me to speak um i have my children here i believe that planting seeds is important in allowing a child to grow up in a community my thing is my son i'm very concerned about edgar's school and what is being done over there i mean the counselor basically stated to me they're overworked they got like 900 students in this school and only like one or two counselors to be able to place all these students my son is at a fifth grade math level in eighth grade you know he was one of the kids that got left behind in kenwood
017elementary when they had half day kindergarten you know he failed i don't want to see my son fail because i don't know what else to do this is why i'm here tonight he needs help and obviously the school district needs it too i mean there's only so many things that the teachers can do and the funding available they are low uh paid to begin with as well i understand they go above and about you know they go out of their way and i just think that they need more resources available to help students like my son you know the counselor tells me i don't know what to do so this puts me in a position you know i don't make 50 grand a year 100 grand a year i'm considered one of the poverty uh
018residents of this community that i'm somebody too and so is my son and he could grow up to be somebody really amazing but we need your help we really need your help i mean how is this cycle supposed to change if everybody just overlooks this how did this happen to my son there was a pandemic last year that didn't help the students none of them you know so i'm at a point where it's like what other resources are you offering students like my son so that he can go to high school and be somebody productive in life there's only so much i can do you know i i don't have the income available to put my son in an extravagant school because if i did obviously he wouldn't be in a public school not saying
019i i do trust the public school because i wouldn't have my children enroll kenwood elementary is an amazing school i have two of my other children there so and i was also a graduate from hammond high school myself so you tell me i've heard everything about morton i've heard about hammond high tonight i've heard about scott middle school but i have not heard one thing about edgar's elementary or not edgar's elementary but edgar's middle school i'm sorry maybe your three minutes are up yeah thank you very much that concludes everyone written in for public expression first period thank you before we continue dr ship i don't mean to to make you get up do you mind getting her contact information um real quick so we can follow up thank you thank you next up we
020have unfinished business which we have none mr president trustee king i have a a concern under unfinished business our audit for the state board of account when is that going to take place mr miller seems like we way overdue it it it is um it is not by any of our doing it the last they told us it was going to happen in february but i can have miss pritchett give you um or forward me a formal statement that i can share on that but i've i've frequently checked into this and they are behind and short staffed just like everyone else and so more than traditionally they do a lot of for anyone watching when we undergo an audit traditionally they would send a team of people out here they'd actually be in that back
021room right there and they would spend multiple weeks going through the books and such because they're short staffed and behind they've asked us to submit a lot of these items to them digitally and so then they can do their work centrally located then come out and just verify rather rather than go through the whole process on site so that's that's where we're at but i understand february is the latest target for it uh mrs reese do you have anything else or are you just verifying yep okay thank you my second concern is um i i sent you an email regarding the uh stipend suspension and expulsion interventions uh receiving their stipend where are we with them seems like we had an issue with them last year so where are we with that with a group
022of employees um so the suspension expulsion interventionist i did receive your email and we are following up i will give a report to the board once i have it but essentially when they were hired they were hired as temporary employees and it is something i think we need to address thank you so and then thank you so we'll get an email yes i am i'm gathering all the information so i can reply appropriately okay and then you reply to them as well so so they don't all right that takes us to the consent i do have one other uh concern concerned trustee blaking or is it unfinished business unfinished business that was unfinished business sir point of order mr president trustee murphy unfinished business is items that have been brought before the board and that
023i'll be brought up again items that are sent in emails to the superintendent are not unfinished business before this board it was brought before us this this issue has been brought before us and that's why let's try this one then uh this issue was brought before us at our last school board meeting um board policy 3120 i'm requesting that we revisit to support policy uh considering the fact that now a uh a conflict of interest form had to be signed uh regarding last week's personnel report so that definitely changes the structure of that board policy um essentially just because our attorney recommends that we do that board makes policy attorney recommends but it's up to us to vote and it isn't currently not part of that of that uh board policy and uh i really
024think if we're gonna do that it shouldn't be case by case we need to go back to this policy and address it how it would be dressed overall and secondly i'm asking that we get an equity audit on this board policy not only this board policy but all of our board policies so that we meet the standards and conform to the um issues at hand because most districts are now doing equity equity um audits on all on their policies point of view mr president murphy new items should be brought up under new business so that the board can um make a motion in second and approve it for the superintendent to do they should not be up on unfinished business as already stated because this has not come before the board previously we we had
025a a healthy discussion on this at the last board meeting so yes we have a point of order to be um determined um president obama whether or not you're going to uphold my point of order or deny it uphold my presidency just so that i can kind of clarify things i understand how it's very easy for lay people to not quite understand indiana code with regard to how the code defines conflict of interest which is completely different than your board policy and those two things i know it's confusing i know how people can get confused but they're not the same thing so the concern that miss that trustee blake king has raised has nothing to do with the board policy and what was done after the board meeting is what i would call belt and
026suspenders with regard to ensuring that we have looked at any kind of culinary interest it wasn't necessary that there was any kind of filing that had to be done but you just do it as an abundance of caution under the statute completely unrelated to board policy let's not get those things confused i know it can be really confusing but it there is no confusion that needs to be made where there is no issue here well again the point was we weren't transparent had i not brought it up we did not voluntarily terribly uh offer that information in terms of how we corrected that measure so it's about being transparent as well uh attorney conrad but i'll we can go under new business under it i appreciate it thank you very much thank you moving into
027the consent agenda do i have a motion to accept the consent agenda president zono trustee candelaria i move for the motion to approve all consent agendas items a through e is presented second we have a motion in a second any discussion discussion mr president trustee blake king thank you i would like to read into record our accounts payable uh docket register february 1st 2022 our claims are three million three hundred and sixty thousand dollars three hundred and sixty one dollars and sixty cents our payroll is eight million six hundred and seventy seven thousand 352.67 thank you and mr miller i did have a question regarding executive summary did we correct that i didn't have a chance to look sir it has been corrected yes thank you very much all right we've got a motion a
028second discussion any other discussion that will vote trustee murphy yes trustee blake king yes trustee candelaria yes trustees all knows yes and trustee miller is absent motion passes four and one absent it brings us into new business first item is the approval of the pltw grant for scott middle school trustees this is a grant amount in the amount of fifteen thousand dollars to continue our project lead the way gateway program which is a pre-engineering program at scott middle school do i have a motion president zeno trustee candelaria i move for the approval of the pltw grant for scott middle school has presented second we have a motion and a second any discussion mr mr president just rusty king thank you just these types of um programs i know it seemingly is individual schools but if
029other schools would like these programs do they have to apply because it seems like it's concentrated you know and it seems i mean it seems like an excellent program but i don't see them in all of our schools um dr ship you want to take that one um the plan for project leads away is to be in all our schools we have a re acceleration grant that i'll be working on with dr roush that we're already district wide with this program so in all our schools even with elementary i'm we'll be meeting with the elementary director mr salinas to go over our continued professional development implementation so this is something that is uh district-wide with all our schools some schools have some grants additional grants but all our schools this is an expectation what's the
030timetable for that please the grant window for us to apply it is we have to submit it by february 16th and then we'll hear from the grant if we've been approved and then moving forward with our summer professional development to continue that with our teachers again i'm meeting with mr salinas of how that would look and the plan of that continuous professional development which will be yearly because the goal is to maintain this in our district and then finally mr zuma my question is again mr miller when we have these types of programs we very seldom get an assessment of them the outcomes you know how you know what is it good what's it bad what could we do better and i think in the in the future if we can have those types of
031um reports so that these parents know when programs are in the schools they know how well they're functioning and how they're affecting our children thank you any additional questions call for the vote trustee candelaria yes trustee blake king yes trustee murphy yes trustee zolno yes motion passes four one absent next we have the approval of the pltw grant for hammond central high school trustees this one also is in the amount of fifteen thousand dollars uh to provide uh additional assistance to to send just so the board is aware to send one teacher to project lead the way training does cost about five thousand dollars so it is it is something that um is expensive i will say one nice thing they've done because this was an issue for pltw in our district in the past
032is if a teacher left us within one year of the training we were out that that money but now they will credit us for that uh up to one year they will credit us that amount of training so for the next person up we don't have to repay it again that's good it is thank you for that okay do i have a motion president zeno trustee candelaria i move for the approval of the pltw grant for hammond central high school as presented second i have a motion and a second any discussion any discussion trustee candelaria yes trustee blake king yes trustee murphy yes trustee zollo yes motion passes for yes one absent i don't see the approval of the mou between the school city of hammond and the pipefitters local 597. trustees this board did
033approve an mou with the pipefitters to bring on a hvac technician in the district at a higher rate because of market demands this is an updated mou that reflects the raise that we provided to other employees thank you what is the reason i see here it's consistent with what we offer to the other employees okay do i have a motion president zeno trustee candelaria i moved for the approval of the mou between the school city of hammond and pipefitters local 597 as presented second they have a motion and a second any discussion any discussion trustee murphy yes trustee blake king yes trustee candelaria yes trustee zollo yes motion pieces four yes one absent item d the approval of the agreement with ditch that textbook uh trustees uh this is a contracting amount of 8 500
034to bring in matt miller who will be our keynote speakers at our summer of e-learning conference on july 27th and 29th this is paid for out of 100 out of a grant the state of indiana provides to corporations that are willing to put on a conference like this um you we didn't do it last year because of covid but you may know the past several years we've had these summer review learning conferences that have been very well attended by not just our school system but other districts as well and so excited to to bring mr miller on board no relation and i will say that we need to do it now though because for speakers to book them for the summer they're already already booking up for for summer speaking events thank you okay do
035i have a motion presidential trustee candelaria a move for the approval of the agreement with ditch that textbook has presented second have a motion and a second any discussion mr miller where will it be held mr blake king we we're wanting to hold it at i believe at hammond central this this this summer for since we showcase our brand new facility in the previous years we held it at morton but i believe i believe the plan is at hammond central this apartment year welcome to attend i'm sorry our board members welcome to yes board members are welcome to attend thank you any other discussion trustee murphy yes trustee blake king yes trustee candelaria yes trustee zolno yes motion passes four yes one absent okay next we have the approval of the contract with monica evans
036restorative practices pd trustees this will be four separate trainings to work with building-based teams at all of our schools on implementing restorative justice practices ms evans will be working with miss andes to implement this training to make sure that part of our our tiers of support are our mtss tears addresses restorative justice when kids do have a behavior infraction so that's what miss evans specialty is in again four full day trainings where they'll be working with a group of four from each of our schools to implement the restorative justice practices thank you do i have a motion mr president okay go ahead trustee king thank you blake mr president i make a motion that we approve the contract with monica evans for restorative practices pd in the amount of six thousand one hundred and forty
037dollars second i have a motion and a second any discussion any discussion trustee candelaria yes trustee blake king yes trustee murphy yes trustee zollo yes motion passes for yes on one absent item f approval of the indiana online summer school contract a trustee school city hammond has utilized indian online academy for the past several years and this is primarily for students who need to take a class either that we don't offer in school city hammond or class they want to get ahead in and it is 250 per course we can reimburse um the majority of it through the summer school grant um just a reminder the summer school grant is every school system submits their costs and it's not 100 covered there's a line item in the state budget it's around 20 million and then
038so then they let each school know what percentage of their cost is covered so we will supplement any uncovered cost with our federal support money to do the to provide this opportunity but this does support a lot of our students uh through this where they can take additional coursework thank you do i have a motion president zono trustee candelaria i move for the approval of the indiana online summer school contract as presented second we have a motion and a second trustee murphy oh i'm sorry discussion please thank you mr president just one question um again could we get a report the number of students attended the outcome you know so we so we can keep a track of uh the success of the program because we we never get a report i haven't seen a
039report dr ship can you make a note for that please thank you thank you president zulnow trustee murphy superintendent miller could we advertise this to students in the past we charged our students fifty dollars and with us picking up that fifty dollars i'd like to get it out there that there's no cost to this so any students that wouldn't be able to do it because of finances know that that's not going to be a problem this summer yeah we didn't we didn't we i don't think we've charged the past two years actually for this program but um yes we can make sure in the in the promotional material that it's well indicated there's no cost to families thank you any other discussion i think the initial thinking with that was that the families need to
040have some skin in the game to make sure kids signed up and actually completed the program but we've removed that cost good any other discussion trustee murphy yes trustee blake king yes trustee candelaria yes trusty zomo yes motion ps is four yes one absent and our last item is the approval of the agreement between edison elementary school and interstate studio trustees this is just another photography contract for edison do i have a motion president zeno trustee candelaria i move for the approval of the agreement between edison elementary school and interstate studio as presented second motion and a second any discussion trustee candelaria yes trustee blake king yes trustee murphy yes trustees only yes motion passes four yes one absent next on the agenda is upcoming board meetings mr mr president trustee blake king oh uh
041under new business i was again i would like to uh make a request that um ford policy 3120 has a equity audit on it that we asked dr goodlaw our dei coordinator and global social global solution solutions our d-e-i point of order mr president rusty murphy in order to bring up items under new business it needs to be done in the form of a motion it needs to be second and then it can be discussed by the board if the board wants to move forward with it well trustee mister may i mean trustee um sorry murphy i need to put a correction on that actually it ha you have to amend the agenda to bring another item for board consideration or board action at this point in time there's nothing on the agenda for board
042action so it actually what is the proper format here is if there's a request for board action and board consideration there needs to be a motion to amend the agenda so can trustee king blake king simply just make an emotion to amend the agenda would that satisfy she can make a motion to add something to the agenda and whatever board action she's asking the board to take needs to say i want to amend the agendas that the board can take up action for whatever it is that she's asking action for the board action to be mr president trustee blake king thank you um i make a motion that we make a motion that i can get put on the agenda uh the issue of uh diversity equity and inclusion regarding our board policies and the
043audit as as in terms of getting it getting them audited is that the correct format didn't you want a motion to amend or be okay i make a motion to amend the agenda that we add is that add okay and uh add the requests to review board policies in terms of having an equity audit on them by our dei coordinator and idea uh are you asking trustee keen are you asking that i'm hearing two different things and i think that's why i'm getting a lot of looks from your fellow board members are you asking for an audit or are you asking for something different what is the i'm asking for an equity audit on all of our board policies that's basically what i'm asking for and it's a standard request of other districts are doing
044i mean we we have established an uh diversity equity inclusion coordinator and we're we're paying for a diversity equity inclusion uh consultant so i i mean in their my understanding is their jobs are to do some auditing of some of our uh material here and i'm just asking for audi i mean maryvale and some of the other districts already doing it i'm not asking for anything that is not being done period i mean we need to know whether or not we're in compliance you know since we have these two uh entities on board we're paying for them either we're window dressing or we mean what we're doing when it comes to diversity equity and inclusion and the only way we know we are complying we must do an audit and it's nothing new period mr
045president trustee murphy it was my understanding then when the superintendent had us fill that position that was part of the duties it is on the job description here well when are they going to do it then what is the timetable i could i can follow up with dr goodloe so and and i specifically want them to review 3120. so i will say that the there's actually three versions of that policy there's one for like the superintendent and the board there's a version for professional staff and a version for support staff all three are up for revision in the next group of neola policy updates which we've completed internally i just need we just need to get together in a public work session to discuss but all three of those are up for revision in the
046next round of updates excellent well that's good to know yeah so in the event that is the case perhaps we can address my concerns at that point i can i can have dr goodlow attend the meeting as well and and offer feedback to the board if he sees anything in the policies that above and beyond what neola has made a legal requirement the board should consider and mr uh reed global consultant i mean they're a little more in depth when it comes to this so i can request that please know their contract is just to work with the employees at this point that's that's the basis of their contract that we don't we have not contracted them to review uh board policies but you think dr goodluck can handle it all i think you can
047handle the group we're doing uh next is for a comprehensive review of hundreds of policies that is a bigger thing well we can take them by subject matter i mean yeah that would make sense not all i'm at one time you know sure group them you know by departments or what have you i just think we need to do that since most districts are doing it so that we are in compliance that's all i'm asking i i just for the record like i don't think we're out of compliance on anything yola provides us with these templates that are that are legally tested to to stand up and they warranty them so um but i do acknowledge the need to to look at our policies through an equity lens but i don't feel we're out of
048compliance in in any way well if you're looking for equity so you're saying we're not going to fight okay i'll let you go with that so at some point you'll get back to us and give us a timetable when all of this was going to take place yeah i i'm looking for two public work sessions hopefully in february um one just to do board policy updates and the second we have several items i just think i want to present to the board outside of the general business meeting where we can let you guys know some of the things we're considering before we bring them to the board thank you mr president and mr miller you're welcome now technically we have a revised motion on the floor overthrowing withdrawal yes sir very good thank you motion
049has been withdrawn um upcoming board meetings our next board meeting is the 15th that will be held here at 6 00 pm that takes us in the public expression second period public expression second period regarding general matters we did not have anyone sign up for second session thank you reports from the superintendent good evening everyone probably the biggest one is that school is on e-learning for tomorrow due to the weather forecast we will evaluate tomorrow in the early evening whether that needs to continue on to thursday or the roads are in decent enough shape to permit safe travel to our schools but we we do have e-learning it is not a snow day it is uh we do have school tomorrow so please log on to your google classroom um or echo and get your
050assignments by 9 a.m teachers will be available throughout the day to answer questions and provide support both our hapa and our career center are accepting applications for the upcoming school year please talk to your school counselor for more information those are two of our highlight programs in the district and we'd love to see hammond students fill those up i would like to congratulate hammond central wrestler demetrius dean for going 31-0 this season and i believe they got regionals coming up so hopeful for a state championship out of demetrius but congratulations for an undefeated season i believe he wrestles in the 195 pound class this past week trustee blake king was there and we did a ribbon cutting for our wolves wellness center at hammond central this is a project that had been planned on prior
05110 years prior to try to do at ham and high and we ended up having some ada accessibility issues at hammond high that prevented it i'm very pleased to announce that we have a full-time nurse practitioner at no cost to the school district at hammond central it's provided by our partners with community health net and dr seabrook and she is able to see our our students and our staff and the way it works is if a student comes down and sees one of our nurses first and needs additional care they're referred right over to the nurse practitioner and we have a federally subsidized prescription program as well that nearly every prescription is less than five dollars and we're just taking a step out and helping our parents with these wrap around services so they don't
052have to schedule an appointment or they don't have to go wait in a big er or go away in an immediate care center they can just come to the school and get these additional services right there for those who are at morton i mentioned this a couple weeks ago we are actually you saw it in the report that we are building the build out right now to be able to add this same capability and more next year so students at both of our schools will be able to do that more information to come as we figure out the best way to do some of these processes and procedures but ultimately even if your child goes to an elementary school and they get sick the idea is that you could bring them right to the clinic
053to get care again instead of having to go to immediate care or schedule an appointment with your child's physician those those type of things so very very excited for that it was an oversight on my part at the last meeting but i do want to give a congratulations to trustee blake king for receiving a leadership award at the mlk celebration from the city in recognition of her life's work to advocate for the schools and the children of hammond wow thank you mr you're welcome um there are three weeks left to submit applications for the fultz parish scholarship available to school city ham and seniors and high schools they're resigning in hammond so that includes null and hast again if you're watching this please encourage your senior to do that we have our counselors reaching out
054as well to try to get more students to apply for this congratulations to hammond central for hosting the 2022 scholastic chess of indiana tournament this last saturday thank you to trustee murphy for all your efforts in organizing the event hopefully you saw some of the pictures on facebook but it really was a grand event and we had the finals in the black box theater very dramatic um but it exciting for our our kids and our community to be able to host events like this and we look forward to doing many more uh just a note that we are very close to finalizing everything we're doing to honor dr watkins at his black box theater at hammond central we have some very nice plaques that we're going to be installing that have a two-month lead time
055so we want to do it right we want to make sure that when we do the dedication everyone can see what we've actually done i don't really want placeholders there things like that our initial thought was to do it during black history month but to me it's more important to do it right yeah to honor his legacy as the first african-american superintendent in school city's history and and really a person who dedicated his whole life to the ham and children that also i i mentioned that we had to reschedule some things we had hapa scheduled to do some black history month performances at this first meeting so it'll be a little bit we'll get to do double on the 15th but school city hammond is proud to celebrate black history month and recognize the contribution
056of many in our community to the success of our children in our schools the last thing i'll say is for those of you who have an advocacy bent house bill 1134 did pass the house and is now on to the senate uh this is the bill i testified on which basically would limit crucial conversations about race and equity in our schools and the bulls author likes to say oh but it says right in the bill we can talk about slavery but also also in the bill it says that if even one child in the room feels uncomfortable that teacher could risk losing their license yeah so that that is that is not comfort should not be the standard most of us would agree that some of the greatest times we've grown as a person is
057when we've had to feel a degree of discomfort like that's just part of growth is physical growth you have growing pains like i mean that that is part of it to to grow so i would continue to advocate send tweets to the bill's author i will say that all the local representatives up here in especially north lake county are battling against this um they are not the problem they are part of the solution um but in in indianapolis they feel this is an answer to the crt boogeyman that schools are out there subversing kids with critical race theory and it's just not true we want to help kids to love and respect and understand other people that's where our hope is as a school system and sometimes you have to have these conversations but in
058no way are we intentionally trying to categorize people into different different areas that is not our intention this bill also does away with a lot of the social emotional learning components that are offered let me say this the reason schools have to do social emotional learning is because maybe 30 40 years ago the church the community and the family taught all those things but the reality is we have kids who come to school who don't always have those skill sets they they don't always have the ability to de-escalate themselves when another student challenges them or if adults says something they don't know how to respond in a respectful way so we take time to teach those things because we have to because we understand that to facilitate learning like algebra we have to make sure
059we're taking care of the kids emotional state and covit has done us no favors in that coveted has done as no favors in that kids have had to deal with more trauma than ever before because of this pandemic the last thing that this bill does amongst many others that i'll mention though is that it puts any mental health care entirely in the realm of the parent and i'm a parent but here's the thing sometimes we think we got it and other people can see it a little more clearly they can see it a little more clear that hey your child needs some additional help and no more clearly than up north of detroit where they had the school shooting where four kids got killed and that school had told that parent that that child needed
060an evaluation and the parent didn't do it like we need those protections for everybody that if we're seeing these warning signs in a child we're not we're not doing that out of anything but care for that child to make sure they're getting what they need and this bill would remove that schools would not have the authority to say this child needs an evaluation and that's very problematic all right so again if you if i'm connecting with you at all please contact somebody about house bill 1134 you can look up all the legislators on indiana.gov yeah and let them know you could you can even hit the governor up and let them know that your concerns about this so all right that concludes my reports thank you superintendent miller mister do i have no notion so
061moved mr second mr zuno i think i said mr zuno before you did that the agenda is finished blake king i i'm obviously i have a question you're going to ignore it it actually is okay mr miller you