Board Meeting November 16, 2021

001[Music] all right like to call this meeting to order welcome to the school city of hammond tuesday november 16 2021 regular meeting of the board of trustees superintendent miller uh good evening everyone um tonight we have our pledge led by some of our students from edison elementary school so students if you want to come on up and everybody else please rise i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Applause] thank you so [Applause] love the enthusiasm with the pledge that's great thank you you did a great job item c roll call trustee miller present trustee candelaria president trustee king trustee murphy present trustee zollner also present superintendent miller our first president excuse

002me our first presentation tonight is our monthly financial presentation from matt reese thank you mr miller members of the board tonight i have your financial presentation through the month of october for 2021. you'll notice on the first page a significant increase in expenditures in october and i'll simply remind you that this is october was a three pay month so payroll had three payrolls on the three fridays in october that's the cause for the significant increase in expenditures for those operating funds that pay a bunch of salaries and benefits with that we are still positive in the education fund and operating at a healthy variance there if you turn the page to the referendum operating fund uh you'll notice that expenses did pick up there we started that transfer some of those expenditures out of the

003education and the operations fund into that referendum operating fund they were still carrying a significant positive variance in that fund as well and doing doing very well on the third page is no activity in the referendum debt service fund the fourth page as your debt service fund which has the monthly common school loan transfer other than that no activity in october the fifth page is the pension debt service fund which also has no activity lastly back to the operations fund you'll notice again a significant deficit there about 700 000 for the month however still positive variance for the year with the so all three funds are doing performing well as we expected throughout the year maintaining our budgets the last page which is your board uh present your board financial report you will notice um

004the fund balances we're doing is fine we're a little negative i think we're going to talk about doing some tax anticipation warrants or more than we did this year to make sure those funds stay positive next year but the big impact because the three pays while negative on the expenditure side positive to the self-insurance fund because you have three months worth three pays worth of benefits going into that fund you'll notice that fund actually grew by about 400 000 in october however i just want to remind you that we are still negative in that fund because we've transferred over one and a half million dollars into it that fund is still negative but showing on paper positive again i expect that fund to go down if our claims continue to exceed our forecast that our

005expected claims as we move forward throughout the the next two months be happy to answer any questions you might have at this time president trustee king thank you the only question i have uh we were the big last month we were informed that we had a hundred thousand dollar rebate from nipsco due to um energy cost savings and where would it appear in this report if we have a rebate that's going to see a reduction in expenditures out of your operations fund where our utility bills are paid it wouldn't be in this i was because i was initially told it would be in miscellaneous so where in the report believe it'd be it depends how it comes in if it goes against a creditor against their account you'll see a reduction in utility expenses they

006actually cut us a check if they cut us a check then it's going to the revenue of the operations fund okay thank you very much any other questions thank you very much thank you have a good night trustees our next presentation is from michelle ondis on an update on our mtss implementation good evening president zuluno superintendent miller board of trustees my name is michelle andes and i'm incredibly honored to be serving as a coordinator of mtss multi-tiered system of support for the school city of hammond i've been in hammond for about 20 years serving families in the community as a former principal of gavit and morton i firmly believe that all of our students regardless of need and achievement level deserve to be supported academically and socially to develop a sense of belonging and confidence

007my job as the coordinator of mtss is to support through the use of data and best practices our staff and administration in the process of identifying and supporting every student including those that struggle with their learning those that are at grade level and those who need to be enriched what is mtss i think you actually have to point it over on point oh mtss has multi-tiered systems of support it is a framework to promote school improvement through research-based practices through academics and behaviors and employs the systems approach which looks at data to solve problems so once again it's a framework it works with academic and behavioral it's for all students and it uses data to drive instruction a lot of times people don't seem to understand mtss what it is and what it's not what

008it is is that it is a framework it's not a program it's not a process it's not specific to grade level and it's not specific to one population it's a continuous school improvement cycle and it differentiates in terms of all types of curriculum it's where all staff within the building participates and it's problem-solving and like i said earlier it's for all students so when i think of mtss i think of two tiers i think of the behavioral and i think of the academic and when we when we look at mtss we look at the behavioral and the academic and we look at it's broken up into three layers i kind of think of the framework as a sense of a bookshelf and on your bookshelf you have different books in each bookshelf it's kind of

009the same thing in mtss where your bottom layer is your tier one and your tier one is your universal um and and it's basically your core instruction and all of the instruction that every single all the kids get your yellow is your tier two and your tier two is more of your supplementary where those kids still get the tier one but they get in addition to supports behaviorally and academically and then that third tier is more of an intensive tier to where there's more support giving more one-on-one support for those students who struggle both behaviorally and academically the other component to mtss i'm going backwards here the other component to mtss is really talking about teaming we talk about team and we talked about groups of people coming together to look at data and make

010decisions the first important teaming structure within the mtss process is making sure that there's that leadership team and that leadership team's primary focus is to make sure that there's a school-wide implementation of mtss both on the academic and on behavioral side the next part of the teaming is that grade level teaming where there's professional learning communities put together at the different grade levels where the teachers meet and discuss what what our students need to know how many of them learned it what do we do if they haven't learned it what are different ways and strategies that we can um have our students succeed and then that third level of teaming is really teaming together problem solving for those specific student needs to help support those students who may be struggling as you know a couple

011weeks ago all of the schools presented on their school improvement plans and all of their goals um were the district goal goal 2 which is the mtss and the measurable goal for year one was to make sure that all administrators were trained and understood the process of mtss and the the goal to measurement is to make sure that all certified and classified staff understand the process of mtss and understand what that looks like within the building so that is kind of my chart so when i'm talking i started the position october 1st which is about 30 days i met with all elementary mtss teams that leadership team and i spoke with each of them and looked at their current supports as it relates to both tier 1 tier 2 and tier 3 both academically and

012behaviorally and what i noticed was that there was a common language amongst all of the schools um some of the schools tend to call things a little differently like mentoring buddy system or maybe had some different phrases but for the most part our schools had had similar the similar supports as it relates to the academic tier one the behavioral tier one the academic tier two the behavioral tier three and then all of the the different behaviorals one two and three both academic and behavioral um so one of the things that came across in speaking with all of the teams um was the concern for student behavior and i think it's really important to kind of just hit on that a little bit in regards to um the fact that coming off of covid we haven't

013even touched the surface of effects of what it is done to our generation of children so much so that you can't even find research um about what what our students have gone through and so if you look if you look online all you'll find is districts talking about nationwide the struggle of student behavior and so this falls into place perfectly with our sr2 funds when they wrote the grants to talk about putting in student supports in each of the buildings so in the plan they have put into put into the plan the amounts allocated for one student support specialist in each school where they will support the social emotional needs of the students um and they will help with the pbis initiatives support student behavior concerns um cooperate or help with teachers and weekly i

014will be meeting with them weekly to discuss uh what's going on within the buildings and how we can help support our students when you look at the different tiers you know the the tier one the tier two and the tier three the student support specialists at the tier one level will go into each of the classrooms um and promote social emotional lessons at the tier two level they'll meet with groups of students based upon you know during lunch group needs based upon the school's needs as they're seeing students struggle and that tier three level will be more wrap-around services throughout the community to help the students whether it's you know outside resources of therapy or family resources to help those students who are truly struggling to get the support that they need my goal is

015to meet with each of these student support specialists every week thursday 7 30 to 9. and what's great about this is that um the people that i've found to fulfill this position come from a variety of resources and experience and so together you know i have counselors i have teachers i have social workers i've i've people who've worked with dcs and together we will make the lessons we will work together to help promote what's going on within our buildings and make sure that all of the schools have the resources that they need to help support our students and some of the issues that we're seeing within our students and population within the schools and so you may be asking why social emotional and what is sel and social emotional learning and why is that important

016well social emotional learning is the process through which our children and adults acquire and effectively apply knowledge attitudes and skills to understand and manage emotions that's what we're seeing a lot of our kids are having a difficult time managing their emotions we need to help them set goals positive goals establish and maintain positive relationships and feel and show empathy for one another and in turn make responsible decisions so one of the things that i've been doing as the mtss coordinator is sending weekly educator motivational if you could see at the right hand corner there every week i send something to the educators just keeping them motivated about about the profession and and really realizing that you know we need to be positive for our students and be there for our students and then i also

017send out a bi monthly newsletter it's called the mtss chronicle that has articles and information for our teachers to use within the classroom as it relates to the mtss process and i've also come up with monthly themes as it pertains to character development traits along with the sel idoe social competencies to really focus in on so that each month when we tackle attack sel competency it's district-wide and we will be meeting with uh the s-s-s people will be meeting with parents and having parent meetings along with the parent liaison to really kind of front load our parents about what month what we're doing and so they can have some of those practices at home to reinforce the lessons and social competencies that we're dealing with or talking about that month so that's basically it's just

018a framework for all of our students to find success thank you very much any questions [Applause] mr president mr steve murphy just listening to this it seems does this work in like with mr white's work with the data and with the dei so yeah so this works with the so right now after we get because you have to think about maslov and you have to think about bloom's taxonomy and we really need to get our kids back into the swing of things and support them emotionally before we can start looking at the data but we are going to be working with mr white in regards to the iready data and looking at where students growth and achievement needs to be and supporting those academically but right now we're really focusing on the behavioral and we're

019going to move that over into the academic component thank you any other questions president zuno trustee king that picture i find it problematic i'll just say that and then secondly um in terms of what's going on with our students in terms of behavior and uh are we coordinating with this alternative school that we're working that we now have and uh it just seems like it's so many things going on so many you know pieces move so many pieces moving and uh but at the same time looking at the scorings that mr adam provided for us we are so below and it just seems i'm not going to say it's impossible and with the framework that we're working in with the teacher shortage and and you know classroom situations and we i mean we have so

020many so many things going on it just seems almost impossible that we're going to be able to do all of this and uh in terms of reaching goals would you say uh goal one has been reached because you indicated that um you talked you talked a little bit about goal 1 have we reached that goal in terms of all the administrators being professionally developed there was a pd last year for all administrators and i think the if there's new administrators to the district i will make sure that you know they weren't part of the last spring it said by last spring so i will make sure that all of the administrators are i mean right now i'm going through each of the elementary schools and then the middle schools and the high schools and so

021if there's new administrative staff they're going through the pd development that that i went they went through last spring and this goal we're trying to reach spring 2021. are we going to reach that goal yes so basically what dr rush has done up until this point we we have reached our goals um we continue to continue but we are reaching our goal yes okay and again uh with this social emotional learning situation with the fights that are going on in school i don't see any of that coming together i don't see any of all of this recommendations being yeah so many kids are being suspended you know and uh it's just chaotic so i don't see any of this coming together as one so i just want to at some point we're going to need

022an another i guess presentation in terms of how alternative schools and all of this is coming together as one mr adams school how he has scored and he indicated that we needed additional time in the classroom to do certain things you know 10 more minutes on math you know so many minutes on english but it's just an incredible task right with the environment the environment that the teachers are going through right now and we have to depend on them to implement this so they have to be in a good mind so i'm just concerned that i'm i just you're going to need more presentations so that we'd be above board and don't wait to the end of the school year then we got a bunch of failing kids and we literally you know launched them

023okay and i really do think the student supports person within the buildings they're really going to help uh the teachers and the students with some of the issues that they've been struggling with as it relates to emotions and feelings and you know channeling it right so i think we're going to see something good there thank you thank you thank you any other questions trustee king we do intend to have a presentation on the alternative school uh at the first december meeting so our very next board meeting we should have that well i appreciate that mr miller because i did go back into my paperwork when we had the work session on that and it indicated that that alternative school would be next year not this year so i'm just wondering why why did we jump

024the gun on it because they don't want to expel kids and put them on the street i mean okay but i'm just saying it was a lot and that work session was quite a bit and from my notes we were supposed to do that next year not this year thank you any other questions superintendent miller trustees our last presentation tonight is from our diversity equity inclusion champion dr goodlow who uh the reason i ask for both these presentations if you watch the school improvement plan presentations nearly every single school improvement plan addressed the the district goals of dei and mtss so i just thought it'd be appropriate that the trustees here how we're moving forward in both of those initiatives so dr goodloe welcome thank you very much good evening president zuno board of school

025trustees assistant superintendents members members of the community and fellow educators i wanted to provide an update on some of the initiatives that we've done in relationship to goal number one of the district plan uh and as a regards to cultural competency um when we last met and i last presented the first thing that we uh were embarking on was to have our first ever diversity equity and inclusion conference known as bridge to better we did have that conference it was a success although the participation i thought could have been could have been better but there were different factors behind that we did have 212 participants registered the goal was not to pack out the whole school because we're still under the restrictions of covet and those parameters by the cdc but nonetheless we had a

026variety of participants from not just the school city at hammond but crown point valparaiso and neighboring school districts that came and participated in this event and the feedback was just phenomenal 93 felt the conference sessions conveyed to the content the sessions were useful um 96 98 percent of the participants felt that it was well organized and those presenters were very knowledgeable of the content we had renowned educators such as principal caffele dr crystal lord to be our keynotes and even had a session before the day before uh with a keynote for our scholars for more juarez jr long story short now there are neighboring school districts that want to be a part of this move and that is phenomenal i've spoken to some of those persons from those other districts and we're going to plan

027a steering committee meeting in january and hopefully present something not just for the school city at hammond but in relationship to those neighboring districts that want to be a part of this so kudos to hammond for for even embarking on the journey and having those courageous conversations because some people needed that that outlet and that that reach to try to have those conversations and where to start at what points to use and we were able to provide that for some of our neighboring districts and ourselves the next steps that will be happening following this conference relates to the midwest equity and plain center in september late september early october we approved the mou with the map center in relationship to a systems equity assessment they don't like using the term equity audit because they want

028us to be ownerships of the information and and the whole process and they are the driving force behind us but we're the owners of the process of the quote unquote audit and so our first meeting of that process was last week um last wednesday and that whole thing will start to take shape starting after thanksgiving break um so much so that we'll have a district uh committee that will be in professional development with the map center december 9th december 10th and then we will be spearheading the whole assessment district-wide starting in january of 2022. um the the assessment is multifaceted we will be looking at our most marginalized schools and then also doing community surveys focus groups with teachers parents community members and things of that nature and the whole team will be responsible for

029tabulating all of the data with the support of the map center and presenting those results when i was at a conference one thing that one of the presenters said we needed someone to have a flashlight on things in your district pretty much being able to show those things where we uh really lacking things and put a light on that so that we can have those courageous conversations as far as where we are not meeting scholars or educators or whatever resources we need to do to be successful and put those things in the light so they can be the forefront of things another thing is we also have our near completion of our equity plan with the global education consultants milton and uh milton reed and um once we are finished that that will be sent

030up for board approval so you will see that whole plan and our goal is after we have that plan and approve it will be the vision for where we are as it relates to diversity equity and inclusion when we have the assessment we'll see where we are relationship to that vision that we set as a district from that plan that we've approved with global education consultants and where that flashlight needs to be shown as far as what it relates to our work so all of this will begin uh right after thanksgiving break december will be the first date for our initial meeting with that okay that's my fault um the next thing that will happen um within those meetings the specific things that will be talked about on december 9th and december 10th we'll be

031identifying the system inequities and analyzing the learning context for those so that they will understand why we're doing what we're doing as far as that knowledge base um we'll generate a theory of action and broad equity strategies to address so they'll understand once we get the data how we're supposed to move when we get the data and the initiatives we should be starting to address those inadequacies and there will be a follow-up to this two-day professional development in february for that team next up we will have a dei liaison identified in each school by the school building leadership team that person will be a point person to me kind of similar to how uh miss andes is working with her support team and they will be helping me spearhead things within the schools throughout the

032school city at hammond such as the team builders icebreakers and site baits courageous conversations with with me as a support so one thing that i have been doing morton was my first school that i started working on the cultural competency goal of working toward um 50 of the faculty being trained within culturally responsive teaching strategies and then 100 by the end of 2022 started that at morton it's starting to go well but i have to go back and do some more trainings throughout the school so it's going to be a task and it's going to take a while but nonetheless it's going to happen i say all that to say the point person will also be the person that i will follow with that will be going through making sure that those conversations the takeaways

033and initiatives that we discuss during those things are taking place i'll also be getting two book studies one with the administrators and one with teachers who volunteer to be a part of the book study the book study for teachers will deal specifically with culturally responsive teaching in the brain by loretta hammond the one with the administrators will be so you want to talk about race by yomojolu both bestsellers and best practices within the work more has to be done with title ix so my job is one of the jobs that are part of the curricular side and the human resources side and so part of my duties is also to serve as a compliance person as a regards to the office of civil rights and issues of title ix and with special led or what

034have you so we have some things that we um have to pick back up um due to some transients and things we had happening in the district and so i'll have to help spearhead our mediation with the office of civil rights we have to have a title ix working group that's composed of community members educators and fellow members of the community as far as title ix and that's supposed to meet monthly uh there's a team peer leadership group that has to meet monthly as well as in relation to titles in relation to title ix and sexual harassment and then there's also mou that has to be formed between the hammer police and the school city of hammond as it relates to title ix and specifically sexual harassment these were things that um had to be

035picked up within that mediation so that we can be in compliance with the office of civil rights so those are the things that are happening within the realm of diversity equity and inclusion thank you very much it's just great to hear other school districts near us here are looking for us looking at us for guidance i just think it's fantastic any questions mr president trustee murphy um as we move forward with those assessments could the board get some copies of those because i'd like to see what people are saying when those end up getting done actually i actually have to have some board members as part of it it's a requirement so i'll be looking to who would like to volunteer superintendent miller actually all these are for you so i i know we need

036to do the equity steps but to me they should be in concert with our strategic plan agreed and so i'd really like to see these two move forward together and we get more talk about book studies i love it that conference um that trustee king told us about earlier in the year the um administrator from ips talked about the book studies pretty pleased can i read with you guys it's a writer hammond book i've already read it love it um so i'll be hopefully i'll be part of i'd love to be part of those book studies if possible any of the other board members and um great work i mean i enjoyed the conference very much thank you thank you any other questions president zuma trustee king uh as part i'm reading as part of

037our ongoing mediation with the office of civil rights is that state of federal the mediation ongoing it's federal so what is what are we what is the problem exactly with what happened um this was a few years back probably around the 2017 school year there was something as far as and this was back when we had different administrators in charge of human resources or what have you exactly how it came about i think there was some data that they had and our processes wasn't necessarily up to par so dr goodlow i can probably help on this a bit sure um what happened is is that school city hammond had requested a title ix audit and they came in and did an audit and after the audit they made specific recommendations and at the time we

038entered into a memorandum of agreement about certain things we were going to do that would you know help to create some different structures in place and dr goodlow has been very responsive now to help get some of those things continue to be put in place the agreement with ocr also laid it out in such a way that it was going to take several years to get to where we wanted to go and i think so office of civil rights recognized that mr president trustee king i'm still not clear are we is this the situation where we are seemingly uh suspending african-american students more than any of this says nothing this is not that okay well that issue in itself will that be addressed because that is still an issue that issue has already been already

039addressed in the memorandum of agreement that is one of the things that we did as part of the memorandum agreement a couple years ago and it was one of the very first things we did is we redesigned the code of conduct and that code of conduct was put into place and has been followed since then but it had to be approved by office of civil rights and that was done prior to the pandemic can we get a copy i don't i don't remember receiving it i don't doubt you but i would like to uh have access to that to read it yeah i've seen what exactly what the issues are because i mean it seems like it's ongoing i did read the reports that went to the state and it's indicating that this we are

040continually having that problem expelling african-american students over their counterparts so um that's an issue and if we're talking about diversity equity and inclusion we certainly need to address that so i would like to see what was the report that was done in the previous years in terms of how are we going to address this like i said the um the code of conduct uh one of the things that it happened as part of the code of conduct i think it was prior to you um getting on the board trustee king um it was very prescriptive it's there's a lot to it and by following a very prescriptive manner in the way that that was done um it is to take out any kind of bias and take out any other kind of factor so that

041the same kind of offenses get the same kind of of consequences and so it's taken some while to kind of work through that code of conduct but it was a code of conduct that was modeled somewhat off of what has civil rights had done in chicago as well as i think it was denver colorado was the other model that we used in trying to develop that so it so what it's done is it's taken out any kind of bias in terms of how consequences are given and so it and so one of the things that that office of civil rights was looking at was the means that you do any kind of discipline and then it has met with approval from office of civil rights which is also looking at any kind of diversity issues

042in terms of how we do discipline well this is just going to be an ongoing situation because i don't see anything since i've been on this board that has addressed that thank you any other questions president zono trustee candelaria i had a couple questions and comments so me being a hispanic going i graduated from morton senior high school with hispanic parents parents didn't speak very much english they always felt a big disconnect in the school city of hammond since they couldn't participate it was very difficult i learned spanish as a first language i didn't learn english until i went to uh school just wondering what are we doing with the very large hispanic population in hammond uh trying to make the hispanic populations that don't feel apart because they cannot communicate correctly with the school

043city hammond or they don't feel some of the programs are geared toward them they feel like they're not a part of the community point well taken and that's part of what the assessment is for to highlight those things so that we can address that okay absolutely thank you very much any other questions president trustee king uh trustee candelaria i so appreciate you bringing that that point to light thank you very much thank you very much not a problem [Applause] all right that brings us to item number three public expression first period limited to items on the agenda public expression first period limited to items on the agenda please state your name address and you will have three minutes first community member is going to be leslie darling how you doing today so thank you candeleria

044for bringing up your background i appreciate it today's agenda is about oh it started already well diversity is about empowering people respecting them based off their ethnicity gender equality inclusive cultures make people feel respected and valued for who they are equity is fairness and justice and the way people are treated okay so our athletic program here at morton last year we had an athletic trainer mika sanchez she worked both at morin and gabe gavit basically all year while continuing her education which she completed receiving her teaching license and being part of our we don't address individual people in okay i'm sorry so i'll just call her an athletic trainer how about that she did all of this and she was perfectly capable last year she worked with both morin and gavit students and athletes connecting

045the bridge for consolidation she was one of the only employees who were working directly with our students and athletes at both schools when the administration asked teachers to do summer school programs to help our seniors our student athletes get their grades up she did not hesitate to give away her summer she did this in order to get her athletes the grades they needed in athletics and to graduate at the start of the school year miss the athletic trainer did not have a sen a contract that speaks to equity why not just give her the same contract as last year she has done so much for our athletic program she had volunteered to coach our girls golf team the first year ever for free now diversity before i continue i would like to add that only

046four percent of latinas receive their master's degree she's one of them this athletic trainer is also bilingual okay that's important because 38 percent of our population is hispanic i would like to also add you have to be a licensed and certified athletic trainer she went and studied sports related injuries and received her master's in this field as a coach i received an email stating that she's only to do athletic training after school she is not to be at any games unless she doesn't want to get paid that is for the emts equity what changed from this year to last year why is she no longer capable of being a full-time athletic trainer what did change is we got a new human resource director why would the human resource director decide that this contract is no

047or this athletic trainer is no longer capable of having a full-time athletic training job is this because she's hispanic is it because she's female or is it because she's both how could she be perfectly capable of doing so much for our school the previous years but she is not entitled to the same contract she had before let's talk about equity again how can the school city of hammond find money for new administration positions but not find money to pay our athletic trainer to be full-time why is the school city of hammond paying emts who are not qualified to diagnose i'm sorry sir your three minutes are up rehab thank you i just wanted to add that as a witness to the discriminatory behavior and harry bennetts are up if i could just just not saying

048someone's name and bringing up people's position is the same thing as addressing someone individually we don't do that in the in the public that's just not something that we that we're going to entertain that particular situation was absolutely discussed with the teacher representation and that's all we're going to say about that trustee candelaria that concludes everyone written in for public expression first period thank you item number five minutes we have a group to go through and approve i'm going mr president trustee king uh number four is unfinished business i'm sorry thank you i do want to get my last of my unfinished business issues mr miller i have repeatedly requested a financial report on our sr203 cares funding to date we don't have it i have um miss tank will be presenting at the first

049december meeting i have and what do you have the final adm number because we i mean every report we get is a different number i i don't have it memorized i'm sorry okay and send in an email i said that that's the easy thing if you want to send an email i would think so and in terms of unfinished business at our um [Music] november 9th board meeting there was discussion on board policy 166 um regarding how things are placed on the agenda the policy was read into record by our attorney conrad and at the time i did not have a copy of the uh policy to read along with her and at this time i i've had an opportunity since to read the board policy and uh in terms of my opinion the policy

050was misrepresented it reads it is the responsibility of the superintendent of schools to prepare the agenda of all regular meetings of the board of school trustees the agenda for each regular meeting shall be prepared during the week prior to the meeting and distributed to board members not later than the thursday before the regular meeting that was not read the second paragraph reads whenever the president or other members of the board wish to bring a matter to the attention of the board such requests should be committed to paper or transmitted electronically to the superintendent or the board president so that that item can be placed on the agenda period nowhere in this board policy does it give the superintendent or the president the right or the authority to uh decide what is on the agenda and

051if you go to that meeting of november 9th and go to 50.2 that's where the conversation begins and you will see where conversation was from president zuno implying that he had the authority to do such from mr miller implied that he had the authority to do such and and trustee murphy implied it and then um attorney conrad just summed it up that they have exclusive authority to decide what's on the agenda and according to this board policy it does not say that at all i have been i since then i submit submitted i went to by board policy submitted an email to the board the president the superintendent requesting to have uh board comments slash report on today's agenda i have been denied and i don't understand why that is an overreach an abuse of

052power to deny a board member the right to express him or herself under a board reporter comments i can't ask the question and that only affects this board member point of order mr president i am no does the murphy point of order what is your board of order if i could listen point of order unfinished business is actually that unfinished business so the parliamentarian can look up onto the last two um sets of minutes and they can see if something came up that the board actually tabled that is the strict definition of unfinished business so it was discussed you brought it up about removing reports from board members i shared the isba email that i got from michael adamson that said we should remove it we showed that again we showed you that in board

053policy that the draft agenda that's in there does not have reports from board member i also showed that it didn't have reports from the superintendent but that had been added in that's all part of the record as you show that's on the video it is true and it is in there that the board president and the superintendent set the agenda that's all true in there and it's also it's up to their purview so if one of us asks and the majority of the board doesn't want on in there then they don't have to put it on there reports from board members were gone for years i also put in the rationale while removed the last time it was removed in approximately 2008 reports from board members and didn't come back for quite a long time

054and the reasons behind it so my point of order is this is not proper under unfinished business and i refute that where is your information from the isba saying that you can bring this up because i've already provided that they said no that they can do that and i defer to the parliamentarian by deferring to the parliamentarian she is going to do what she has always done comply to whatever you you folks have to say and again as far as you didn't allow me to finish the customary organization of the agenda shall be the following order and manner it doesn't indicate that the agenda items have to be such you have literally taken this board policy out of contact to suppress my comments my input my point of murder with this point of order trustee

055mercy tell the truth you literally lie to be addressed about it and there are consequences if you disagree with the board president it goes to the parliamentarian so that board members don't what does that say yet show me the more power i want it in my hands because you you folks create foreign policy just as you created this foreign policy last week to say when i wasn't created said another president still know i don't have i mean i think you have two different things that are at play here you have number one this this concern about unfinished business which actually means that it was a board action that that there was specific um that the board at a previous meeting decided to table and to move over for further action into another meeting that's the

056purpose of unfinished business separate from that is that that trustee blake king has continued to have a disagreement with this board about board reports um in order to be to research this more and to look into this more i did contact indiana school board association with respect to this ongoing disagreement with trustee king and the rest of the board the indiana school board association informed me that on monday september 27th miss king had reached out to attorney the general counsel for the indiana school board association and mr michael adamson with the following question good afternoon when i became a school board of trustee one of my recommendations was placing board reports as an agenda item for the purpose of reporting school or community events attended and community concerns or questions of the superintendent lately president

057julino has repeatedly cut me off under this agenda item stating that reports cannot be a question form and no questions to the superintendent as a result of his ruling our meeting has become extremely contentious during this portion he is rudely and consistently cuts me off which is a form of bullying and my colleagues support him at the last board meeting as i was questioning president zulknow on this issue he adjourned the meeting and i had my microphone turned off and the me and the members walked out these actions has caused quite a stir in our community and i was totally humiliated and blindsided board reports and the parameters were established approved in 2019 under president white how can president zulano arbitrarily change the scope of board reports as elected official a segment of their community

058is not being heard or serviced is this democracy or not thanks sincerely trustee blake king in response to this the indiana school board association responded on tuesday september 28th with the following response trustee blank king i'm going to respond very direct on this issue an agenda item for board reports is fine if the report is in regards to a board sanctioned activity when a board member is representing the board but not for sharing how school activities they attended individually that kind of report is not value added and comes across too much like grandstanding while attending school activities is always recommended it has little to do with the actual job of being a board member using board reports to pose questions to the superintendent and other staff members is inappropriate as well as well since it

059constitutes a surprise as you know the isba position is that board members do not surprise fellow board members and the superintendent or other administrators in a public meeting likewise the superintendent does not surprise board members the reason board members received the meeting agenda days before the meeting is so that they can be prepared to make decisions consequently most questions perturbing pertaining to the agenda should be asked and answered before a board meeting is convened so if your interpretation of board reports has been to spontaneously ask questions of the superintendent in public that is essentially ambushes the superintendent or other board members pertaining to topics that are not on the agenda and if you have insisted on following that format then you should have cited with your president you are in a board meeting to take

060care of topics that are on your agenda not to address items that are not remotely aligned with the agenda if you have questions of the superintendent you need to address those questions to the superintendent not take up valuable board time asking questions that should have been asked outside of the board meeting and especially if those questions do not relate to an agenda item i certainly encourage you encourage the board to revise any policy revisit any policy or agenda process that encourages otherwise this is not a question of democracy authority bullying or being or being deaf to the community's voice or with holding services this is about the responsible boardmanship and being a valued member of a board superintendent team there is enough drama in our world right now with the serious issues that demand board

061members and superintendents attention without manufacturing more i do regret that your that that you feel humiliated and blindsided but it is exactly how your superintendent and other school personnel feel when a board member asks questions in a public meeting that they are not anticipating or are not spontaneously prepared to answer and i anticipate that is why your board president looked took the action he did i also assume that is why no other board members objected i sincerely hope this helps as always if you have further questions or if i can be of assistance please do not hesitate to call to contact me sincerely dr adamson and please read my response thank you i would like for you to read my response to him i i do not have your response but i got from the

062school board association today that the process of school city hammond that they've reviewed and they've looked at is appropriate in the way that it has been but but the key in that was nobody should be surprised i was surprised week after week after week when when i was making my reports they were diminished one after another that's a surprise no one gave me any prior notice he did not so that's why you're conveniently not responding reading my request and i can't find it but that is okay but it still deflects from what happened on september 19th the fact that you all read a board policy into record that was incorrect it doesn't change that at all attorney conrad that you took this policy and turned it around to fit the board's needs that's what you

063did nowhere in this policy does it say point of view one is president or trustee murphy has the right this is the king we have a point of order point of view [Applause] not unfinished business and we should move on to the agenda and as mr adamson stated we should not be yelling at other people in our board members i am not yelling you if we can move forward mr president that is my point of order thank you it is not resolved mr president mr who is involved in just simply get it it's outside of unfinished business mr president well there are steve miller i guess i'll take it to the scene i concur with trustee murphy let's please return to the agenda abuse of power period that brings us to item number five minutes

064i'm going to go through these individually because i will have to abstain from a couple of them to the fact that i was not here so for the approval of minutes on october 5th 2021 executive session do i have a motion president zono trustee candelaria i move for the approval of the minutes of october 5th 2021 executive session is presented second you have a motion in a second any discussion any discussion trust email or yes trustee candelaria yes trustee king no trustee murphy yes and trustee zollo abstaining that's three yes one no and what abstaining motion passes approval of minutes for the october 5th school board meeting president zono trustee candelaria a move for the approval of the minutes from october 5th 2021 school board meeting as presented second you have a motion and a

065second any discussion if not trustee murphy yes trustee king no trustee candeleria yes trustee miller yes and trustees all know abstinent abstaining uh three four one no and one abstaining next up we have the approval of the minutes of the october 19 21 board meeting president zeno trustee candelaria a move for the approval of minutes from october 19 2021 school board meeting as presented second we have a motion and a second any discussion any discussion trustee miller yes trustee candeleria yes trustee king trustee murphy yes and trustee zono's also yes four yes one no motion passes that brings us into item number six consent agenda mr president trustee miller i move for the approval of the consent agenda items a through e as presented second we have a motion in a second any discussion discussion

066trustee king i would like to read into record the accounts payable docket register our claims are two million nine hundred and twenty two thousand seven dollars and ninety six cents payroll is two million nine hundred and thirty six thousand eight hundred and ninety two dollars and ninety nine cents additionally under payables i cannot support it because i don't support campus lewis and campus invoice and then under personnel report again we're creating new new positions and um i'm just not clear we're using esser monies so there's no sustainability for these jobs we're just creating jobs and i i don't see the benefit of it some of the positions they were in the general fund sometimes there they come out of the general fund and and sometimes they don't i don't there should be some kind of

067consistency so i i can't support the personnel report and again uh with the all of the resignations and leaves the absence uh it just leaves this district in a stream when it comes to folks just leaving us our district um for whatever reason and it's just not a good look so i i cannot support the personnel report either thank you mr president you're welcome any other discussion roll call trustee miller yes trustee candelaria yes trustee king no trustee murphy yes and trustee zono also yes motion passes four to one uh trustees with that approval we have hired a new public relations and marketing specialist uh nathaniel or nate george who is in the audience uh nate did you want to come up and introduce yourself to the board please everybody uh congratulate nate on his

068new position [Applause] thank you mr president trustees members of the audience and administrators my name is nate george nathaniel george officially but everybody calls me nate so it's fine i am uh husband father four grandfather of two and uh i have two kids in the district uh who are doing really well i'm very proud of and look forward to working with everybody in the district welcome aboard thank you thank you thank you thank you very much all right that's next on the agenda is new business approval of secured school safety grant uh trustees uh the we are looking to continue to upgrade our cameras um in our middle schools this time with the school secured school safety grant our our original batch of cameras are very old and it is near impossible to identify people

069with them so this will get our middle schools up to up to spec and we will be looking at um it hasn't brought our attention both by teachers and administrators of some blind spots in our schools so we will be addressing some of the blind spots as well as we as we upgrade the cameras thank you do i have a motion mr president trustee miller i move for the approval of the secure school safety grant as presented second we have a motion and a second any discussion any discussion forgive me if you're not saying the amount it's uh eighty thousand three hundred and eighteen dollars any discussion trustee murphy yes trustee king yes trustee candelaria yes trustee miller yes trustee zono yes motion passes 5-0 item b approval of weapon detection system bid award uh

070trustees um we had a very public situation about 10 days into the school year where outside one of our schools after dismissal two students were shot frankly and we've had several way more than any other year i've been involved in hammond school shooting threats that have required a staff to come in and wand kids search their backpacks and and and i think everyone has been involved with that there's been a lot of teachers who volunteered their time to support that a lot a lot of people from the district have dropped what they're doing to support those initiatives but it also means kids arrived into class an hour hour and a half late to get through these processes one day we had it was really raining outside in morton when we had to do this and

071some kids got wet it is not a sustainable thing to to continue to manually wand and search backpacks and neither are metal detectors for that matter if you think about anyone in the audience if you think about your experiences with metal detectors maybe at a courthouse or a sporting event or a casino like you have to stop empty or the airport empty out your pockets empty out anything metal that's on your on your person and it's a slow process and the challenge we have and the educators in the room know this is that 75 percent of our kids arrive in a 15-minute window before school starts there's there's no conceivable way to use metal detect traditional metal detectors and wanting to get every kid into class on time like we'd have to basically get everybody

072done in 10 minutes get them breakfast and get them to class in 10 minutes for over a thousand kids and it's not practical fortunately there have been advances in rf technology which essentially can scan a person as they walk right through the the machine and there is no stopping there is no emptying out your pockets there nothing like that and then if there is a weapon that is found the security person who is operating it sees it on a tablet and it even shows them right on their person with a red box where that weapon is so it allows us the throughput that we need to get kids into into class and it's non-invasive they're not being stopped and asked to like do this that and the other they walk right through it so at

073this time i'm going to call we have some representatives here from both tri electronics and avigilon who make the technology but i'm going to ask our technology director ken benich to come up he has a couple of videos that are short that can demon show the the technology of the audience like this i think this is something i know the board this is primarily a board meeting but i do think the audience should see what we're proposing here to go into our schools uh mr benich good evening school board as mr uh superintendent miller tasked myself and mr suarez to find a solution we turned to a bidding process so this was a bid out and the responsible bid came from our local tri electronics here in hammond as well as avigilon and motorola which

074is our current video security system so i have a couple videos that i want to show but i wanted to thank our our representatives here and eric can probably answer any specific questions you have about the technology but i'll show you a couple quick videos of what it is the system here i am on the front side of the express with a bag on my shoulder again i'm not going to do anything different i'm not going to have to take this bag off my shoulder or run you know take any of these contents out but as i walk through express you'll notice a different behavior you may have noticed that the lights on the back of the system turn red that indicates to the operator that they should focus on the tablet you'll also notice

075that the tablet screen itself has changed and we're going to show you a detail of that [Music] um [Music] clearly [Music] so you can see by the video um our our challenge is getting all the students 2 000 students at one of our high schools through as quickly as possible which the technology allows any questions so we did put it out to public bid we ended up only having one uh qualified bidder correct which was tri-electronics yes sir okay so it is a large contract just for anyone listening or watching online it is in the amount of one million two hundred seventy one thousand six hundred thirty dollars we would be paying it we did get permission to pay it out of esther funding essentially students waiting in line for a scanning process there's no

076way to socially distance that we would be equipping our five secondary buildings with multiple entrances with this technology so it is also portable so we will and it can function outside so for when we have large sporting vents outside we'll be able to take these out to the football game very easily set it up out there and be able to scan occupants for thing events like a football game as well and that's for a four-year contract with the technology purchase and the subscriptions for the software one one key is the we work with avigilon and motorola and evolve to on the settings of the system so we can have the settings at different uh to detect different things so in a school we know that we have backpacks and full of things so that's one

077setting but if we take it out to our football game we can have it at a real strict setting to be able to detect very small items too can you tell me how many phil how many facilities you currently have this in in are any of them local school districts so eric can probably cover that i know during the process we went to a casino in south bend that has it and then also the wrigley field and kamisky park and six flags and some other large amusement parks if you want to cover anything good evening al um yes so this system has uh it's been new to the motorola portfolio but not new to the screening technology world it is deployed at wrigley field sox park i believe it's called guaranteed right now sox park

078guaranteed rate six flags uh many other they started off as venues and event centers and then there ended up becoming a much larger need for school districts and the potential of a person bringing an unwanted concealed item into it i believe the screening statistics are in the hundreds of millions screened to date uh they've been screening for about six years now uh but the the new part to the motorola integration is that it if there is a verified alert as a threat on there that it can actually send the alerts off to other security personnel over the radios automated through the system so additional support can come to the stations as needed as far as local footprint here like i said it's slightly newer to schools a couple in the area this is public knowledge

079as well is rich township schools over in south cook county area in illinois that is i believe down in noblesville indiana um so it's it's becoming a large unfortunately a lot more adopted in in education today thank you any other questions mr president trustee king i understand how many have you actually actually installed your company is the question locally or throughout the country yeah so it became i'm sorry i work for motorola solutions uh motorola invested in this technology uh in the summer uh of course a lot of institutions organizations have a bidding process which furthers out the cycle from it um personally we have this uh we have installed three that integrate as far as in our area three that integrate into motorola solutions but there's countless throughout it i'm a local territory rep

080in the greater chicagoland area but additional references can be uh provided as necessary and in terms of maintenance it has a maintenance package it has a four-year contract for it so and who from school city is going to monitor this or their company about a monitor so for the for the operations of it yes it can remotely diagnose but also our our own internal i.t team coupled with the security personnel in the building will be trained to operate it along with the building administration uh it does get better over time like actually those hundred million scans they continue to upload every scan to improve the detection technology and then they send updates out that that improve the product over time [Music] mr president trustee murphy um one of the questions i sent some time ago

081we have between 1700 and 1900 students in each of our high schools so i asked about getting them all in and correct me if i'm wrong this is a response i receive with a double lane system work at maximum efficiency with four to five faculty or security members per system you'll be able to push through seventeen to eighteen hundred students in less than an hour so we just talked about we have 10 to 15 minutes to get these students through that's not a lot of room it's actually four to five thousand in an hour that that can be done well is that in this country it's in all their promotional material if you want to go ahead and talk about it yeah the marketed account is on a dual lane system is 3 600 people

082per hour we do estimate slightly less than that with the school as you know there's going to be especially depending on the times periods of the day that they're coming in um i would say you're probably going to be more around just around the 3 000 mark per hour in a school setting okay so how many students can we get through in like 10 minutes you got a calculator so so we do have multiple dual lane entrances at each of the high schools and things like our bus traffic does not all ride the same unfortunately we have to do three separate routes for busing so it yeah i it's the best solution we have like i i the these threats to our schools have been so disruptive to just everybody and everybody involved as we

083talk about the basic needs of staff and students feeling safe this is something that in my opinion can go a long way to doing that mr president trustee miller it's murphy murphy um do you want further discussion after the motion in the second or do you want all the discussion now because i prefer to have all the discussion at this point okay so my that's part of my concern here is getting all the students in i give you a couple of points i agree with you this is much better than metal detectors um it's less invasive and it's a little bit more friendly in that i don't see that we're going to get the students in having had children in the schools when we had to do all the backpack searches having the kids being

084late to their first hour classes some of these kids are going to get into class on time and some aren't and my biggest problem after that is the cost and i have to thank you you put in here what the balance is after this so thank you very much for adding it into board docs but is this the best way to take care of the issues that we're having with their school this is 1.2 million dollars that could be used on something else so this is something as i've talked to the superintendent before and before i'm not really sure this is the best way to take care of this and again i see the delays for our students in the future coming still into school once these are put in thank you thank you any

085other questions presidential now trustee candelaria i had a question if the board does decide to approve this tonight how long would it take to uh start the installation process the time frame of like structure right i believe that two high schools would be early january is when they would be delivered uh and the others will be after that any other questions president trustee king mr miller mentioned that the students are not getting to class on time which is an issue with the union of indiana department of education do we report that is that reported when the students don't get get in our seats on time how do we address that um like if students are late so we do report our attendance but i mean when it's due to disruption this kind of disruption it

086is not something they require us to report like on an individual day that we still have school so when we've had issues of long lines and stuff when the kids didn't get in the classroom he was reported no i'm sorry if i'm being unclear it is not required to be reported there's not even a way like it's like when we do reports for things they give us the fields of data that they want us to report it's not like there's a spot where we can like put in a memo field or something they they ask specifically for certain fields of data well the only reason i raised the question because when we had issues with transportation we weren't getting the kids on time and then when we realized we weren't getting them in their seats

087at the proper time we stepped it up and then we managed to get the kids in the seats on time so i mean if this is it seems like it's going to be an ongoing issue whether we get this unit or not it is expensive but uh we could have what is it about a quarter of a million each um i i don't have the price okay i'm looking at the price you have it i'm i mean we're talking about it's a lot of money and uh again we have so many additional needs this this type of security was suggested years ago for the new high school and it fell through the cracks so now we're here today perhaps we wouldn't have been having to spend this much money so i mean decisions we just

088can't make a decision because this is the best we've got if there's something better out there perhaps we need to explore that as well we we've we've dotted our eyes crossed our tees in researching everything the available solution that was out there this this is the recommended solution we don't have a plan b like plan b is again like taking hours to get kids through with manual detection and it it doesn't work well it makes everybody upset um and i it's the number one feedback i've received both from parents and from staff members is is do we have some sort of way to make sure kids aren't coming into school with weapons and that's what this does and it does it an efficient way that's what it does mr president trustee miller um i really

089like that it's so non-invasive um i think that that's one of the things i worry about with with our students and i i think that that's i think it's wonderful um i i also understand superintendent miller it integrates with our cctv as well as our radios it does it does so the avigilon software in there if someone would somehow get passed it'll actually track them from camera to camera throughout the building until we we catch up with them so yes it works perfectly with our security feed as well that's wonderful and along with the automated alerts you know to security team and administrators and yeah with the with the right motorola radios it can do send basically a text-to-speech message to your radios that assistance is needed at this location something like that to everyone

090who's carrying a walkie there's also an app too so you can actually install the app on your phone as well to do it that way if you don't not care in milwaukee very good very good thank you very much mr president trustee murphy one last question so it's a four-year contract is this sort of like a computer after four years you need to update it or is this a contract that you can continue update the software type thing four years comes with a complete software package after four years you're free to go on without a maintenance agreement uh we recommend the maintenance agreement for current software updates and and learning your analytics and always getting better and smarter so we don't have a cost at this time for that four year period out after four

091years so is this because the technology is so new what i'm trying to think is after four years is it possible to extend the contract absolutely okay but you don't know it but excuse me mr president trustee king but at this point you don't know what the cost would be you don't have an idea you know assuming this moment no it's evolving technology that's subject to change in four years so uh they suggested at the third year we'd revisit that that that was the third day of revisit at the beginning of the fourth year to see what was going to be added then one mr president my final question you talked about the battery backup how does that work i mean who's going to be in charge of that in the event there's some kind

092of uh power outage failure so we'll kick in automatically no one has to go and adjust it it's just going to kick in no one has to wait around it's going to kick in so we did see that at our when i went and saw the technology that they can't have that automatic basically the battery back up to the system but we we have we have generator power in our buildings as well we can designate that as well for critical critical systems well we know a lot of times things just don't work period that is true thank you any other questions um just a point of clarification so they don't have the ups then it it can be upgraded at some point you can have a battery added it can have a battery added okay

093okay if there are no more questions do i have a motion mr president trustee miller i make a motion for the approval of the weapon detection system bid award as presented do i have a second second i have a motion in this second we've had discussion trustee miller yes trustee candelaria yes trustee king epstein trustee murphy no trustees all no yes motion carries three yes one no and one abstaining next item is the approval of the memorandum of understanding between hammond central high school and genomist corporation too good for drugs and trustees this is just another uh aspect of the relationship between school city and geminis school city actually receives five thousand dollars for this program that is a drug prevention program do i have a motion president donald trustee candelaria i move for the

094approval of the mou between hammond central high school and geminis corporation too good for drugs as presented second we have a motion in a second any discussion one question this is king thank you this is primarily for staff or staff and students because i'm reading it and it's a little confusing it's for staff and our students it's for administrators it's for everybody well the the primary too good for drugs is for students okay but then it's something here instead well they they have facilitator training for providers or staff yes but it at least 300 students will complete the too good for drugs program so we don't have anything like this for administrators or staff we don't have a program like this a program to i'm not sure i'm getting you are you saying like a

095program to educate staff on the risk of like drugs because we i mean there's problems um you're right we i don't believe we have a program to educate our our staff on on drug illicit drug use i think we need you might address thank you sir any other discussion we have a motion we have a second trustee miller yes trustee candelaria yes trustee king yes trustee murphy yes trustee zono yes motion passes five zero approval of the contract for yolanda earl adult esl boot camp classes trustees this contract is the amount of five thousand dollars where she works with our our parents um on tuesdays and wednesday wednesdays to help teach the english language to um to somewhat to trustee candelaria's point earlier to help make the language a little less intimidating thank you do

096i have a motion president trustee candelaria i move for the approval of the contract with yolanda earl adult esl boot camp classes as presented second second trustee king um trustee miller yes trustee candelaria yes trustee king yes trustee murphy yes interesting also yes motion passes 5-0 trustees item e is a photo contract between interstate and maywood do i have a motion mr president i make a motion for the approval of the agreement with interstate studio and maywood elementary school okay we have a motion do i have a second a motion and a second any discussion any discussion trustee miller yes trustee candelaria yes trustee king yes trustee murphy yes trustee zono yes motion passes five zero and now we have the approval of the agreement between franklin elementary and national park trust trustees there's no

097direct dollars coming to the schools but it allows for our third grade students to have a dedicated park trust education team fully funded trips or virtual experiences with local parks outdoor spaces and public lands and waters along with teacher toolkits for the classroom thank you do i have a motion presidential trustee candelaria i move for the approval of the agreement between frank franklin elementary and national park trust as presented second you have a motion in the second any discussion trustee murphy yes trustee king yes trustee candelaria yes trustee miller yes trustee zono yes motion passes five zero number eight on the calendar our school board meetings our next board meeting is set right now for tuesday december 7th 6 pm in the administration center that brings us to public expression second period general matters please

098state your name address and you'll you will have three minutes when you reach the podium first community member is going to be diana braun hi my name is diana veronica at 3536 173rd street i'm here to discuss the incident that occurred with my granddaughter on november the 8th there she through first class first period second period third period she was followed harassed intimidated humiliated by the child letting her know the young lady telling her what she's going to do to her she's going to whoever by her group by a group by the third period my granddaughter goes to the locker before she can open the locker good the girl is there again she pushes her several times then hit her in the face a fight ensued at that time now you got to understand that

099she was very fear of her being and how i was i tried to speak to a couple of people but to know no one has returned my call i have a video at a video that is circling showing that the other kid trying to put a leg up onto her and all of this i also have an email threatening her that when she returned they will be waiting for her to f her up okay she's been put on a 10-day suspension and also put in to be his spell i feel this is not this is not the way it should be her school work is suffering because when they give her school work is put on there but she can't be in the class to see actually notes taken hands on so she's went from

100a to a b she's an a student now i want to tell you about my granddaughter she's in here with me there's no teacher from hess scott or morton has ever spoke a bad word about it she's never been in trouble 100 and i'll tell you the things that she's accomplished she's been in the stem pro athletic charity program twice west point sting sword program national junior society honored two years in a row she's a student council and she's pro president of co-president of that she's on a debate team she's student of the month several times now i'm dealing with bullying in this school but she's been suspended and this child wants to just complete continue her education the way she has and through the years there has been no problem and i feel that

101she should be able to do that i've tried to talk to someone about this no one wants to sit down and have a conversation with me what's she suspended though and her work has went from an a to a b she's afraid it's going to come to a c and she's never been a c she's been at a student now i asked the boy to help especially you superintendent because no one would talk i spoke with a couple of principals who did not want to talk about it anymore the videos are circling around with the other kids showing that they snatched the leg from up under her and the things that they did to her and choking her during this time in class i mean i'm sorry at the locker on lunch period okay and

102the there's emails that i have proof of saying that we're gonna f you up when you come back we're waiting on you i have my granddaughter here with me now i feel that she should be able to continue her education she's done nothing wrong when she struck out with this lady girl is because she followed her through three periods and to her locker even the officer ed morton said to me i saw the young lady at her locker talking to her so now this injustice is being injustice all these things she has accomplished why take it away from her when she was provoked by this by a bully i'm sorry ma'am your time is up are you going to be able to stay to the meetings over yes it will dr ship can you touch

103base as soon as the meeting's over thank you thank you homework you know the law passed that homework has to follow that child and explanation of homework if she's getting it and not getting an explanation of i can see why her grade could be dropping that's the law last month you said that you had to bring mrs reese up to par on that because you hadn't so obviously you still haven't done that principles need to know that once they're suspended the law says that work has to follow that child period next up next community member please state your name address and you will have three minutes rina oregon [Music] rena oregon 7146 marshall avenue good evening president zulnos school board trustees and superintendent miller again i stand before you last night i was reviewing the

104teacher evaluation plan i'd like to read three sentences from that contract and briefly discuss them number one the school city of hammond recognizes that the single most important school-based factor in student achievement is the classroom teacher that statement doesn't say hire more administrators at 41 william street is is the single most important factor it says the classroom teacher is the single most important factor and if you believe this statement then you have then then why have you not shown teachers that you value them instead you continue to mandate more requirements to their already full plates as well as force them to work more hours with no additional pay which no other profession would stand for including your own if the single most important factor is student achievement is the classroom teacher then why aren't you

105trying to retain your highly effective teachers why are your teachers beefing up their resumes and sending them to other districts why are teachers going for interviews why are your teachers leaving in droves you can just look at the personnel report and get see that for over the last few months you have seen and read what other districts are doing to retain their highly qualified teachers yet you sit here doing nothing while other districts around you are stealing one of your greatest assets number two the school city of hammond recognizes that it is necessary to provide a system of support for teachers to be effective in the classroom what support have you given us more responsibility we're mask enforcers custodians supervisors seo instructors not to mention we absorb other classrooms students when substitutes are nowhere to

106be found you have to know that our children are struggling it's the teachers and the school staff that interact with these kids daily we are the ones who help them find normalcy in a time when there is no such thing we keep a consistency in place with compassion and structure yes we need support your support in honoring our efforts to bring hope to ensure that our students are met daily with teachers who feel valued and appreciated by their district we are your backbone of your system respect us value us as other systems are showing their teachers because we're your teachers number three the school city of hammond will positively affect student achievement by ensuring an effective or highly effective teacher in every classroom how are you going to do this surely making teachers work longer

107hours with pay will keep teachers here in hammond surely demanding more of them while they sacrifice their own families will keep changes in hammond that's what you've done how are you going to change it to keep your teachers here in hammond lastly on behalf of your teachers i'd like to say we are the ones holding your system together you're welcome thank you next community member please state your name address you will have three minutes wanda puckett good evening good evening good evening i've been sitting at home watching the school board meet after school boy me from the very first one up until the last one i'm here to tell you all every last one of y'all board members is very intelligent the way y'all nick picking and carrying on up there we are the laughing

108stock we have other cities sitting at home watching us and laughing about it and i know y'all are some intelligent man and women sit up there that superintendent he didn't ask for this like obama said that was a gift already wrapped with a nice little bow and that superintendent left this problem we all going through we can't fix it overnight you all up there need to stop nitpicking at him and try to come together and work together and show y'all intelligent that yelling streaming and nitpicking and pointing fingers at the superintendent we didn't laugh and start matter of fact the city of hammond is laughing at us we can go to another city all you're going to hear them talking about is how our adults conducting their self at school board members i'm in the

109store listen to this a gross restoring another city so please try to conduct yourself i know y'all have the intelligence to do it but the way they saying y'all attacking the superintendent he didn't ask for it and i know i'm stepping on some feats but i don't care it got to stop every district in heaven is being talked about how y'all sitting up there nick picking and arguing among yourself carry yourself as who you are you representing hammond school system in the city of heaven that's all i had to say thank you nice community member please state your name address and you will have three minutes iris day good evening my name is iris day my address is 7408 parish avenue here in hammond um i am a school city of him and teacher and

110you've heard from marina she can give you statistics all that kind of stuff but what i wanted to do is have my noah moment where i feel like i need to let the board know what's going on at different schools as i've talked to different teachers um and to let you know that people have questions and they just don't understand i don't understand we don't understand the animosity and the anger toward teachers we don't know why we hit the streets for the referendum and what happened to the referendum money what happened to the sr money why are we at this point right now and as every day increasingly other school districts and other teachers get support monetary and otherwise what's wrong with us haven't we answered the call when we had a longer day haven't

111we answered the call when we have to serve food in the classroom we change wet clothes we have to serve food that it doesn't come from the food service line if there's a problem don't worry about it give it to the teacher they will solve it and everything we've done we've answered that now i'm hearing plans not planning of what the next lesson is i'm hearing the plans of escape how can i get out without being damaged anymore how can i retire early can i retire now uh how can i get my um my resume ready for another school district maybe even just leave the field all together maybe i should be more angry but i'm not i'm very mournful i started this job 16 years ago i love my students so much and i

112have a wonderful class but it gets to the point where this is just too much how much more i can't plan my planning time is taken away crazy schedules everything is just crazy and then not to be appreciated at all it's hard thank you [Applause] thank you please state your name address and you have three minutes uh next community member is going to be anita cox i think she stepped out she's she's not here okay next community member please state your name address and you will have three minutes it's going to be mark webster my name is mark webster i'm a teacher at hammond community schools um i wanted to talk about another little little topic here that you don't quit a job you put a boss retention of staff is the only thing that

113helps continuity of culture we're talking about mtss and dei how are those things going to be enacted if you don't have teachers who are trained from year to year if you have to reinvent the wheel it's not going to work what about teaching itself how can you expect a school to provide consistent quality of care when staffed by novices themselves i'm a department head math department head at morton high school i'm terrified to think about how much of my staff i'm gonna i'm gonna lose for next year teachers are losing money every year by staying here raises don't regularly cover inflation and salaries aren't commensurate with experience your employees can cannot communicate to you any louder than they already do provide an adequate wage or will find better you aren't so they're finding better excellence

114in learning it doesn't appear from thin air you hire and retain professionals that cultivate it thank you [Applause] thank you [Applause] please state your name address and you have three minutes next community member is going to be leslie darling okay please state your name address and you have three minutes next community member is going to be linda cantonia hi my name is lenny cantonia i'm a teacher at morton live in ireland um i decided to wing it i didn't write anything down so i'm going to take some phrases from uh a good friend smart friend colleague of mine gratitude i've got to show gratitude for the things i do have and appreciation for the good things that are going on in my life so that i could spread it to others i am grateful for

115great colleagues i'm grateful for great students i'm grateful to have a job but that gratitude is sh and and the light that she tells me to always possess is starting to slowly diminish reasons being our students aren't safe you heard a parent guardian come up i actually thought that was the one i was going to speak about but it isn't i've had my students fearful to even walk in the halls i've had students curse me out when i've subbed students who are not properly disciplined because we're afraid to meet a certain quota that's not okay when our students are in jeopardy for their lives we've had students who have been attacked we have constant fights going on at moore every single day and i don't think that this is the time to start telling who's

116doing it and what we need to just get in there and help the kids we really do we don't have permanent enough permanent staff on board who are willing and invested into the school enough to actually care get to know the kids and and i don't blame them they're there just to fill a position basically to babysit we have more kids walking the hall than we do inside of the classroom you can take a look at it at any time but what happens is the data is not going to reflect that because if they show up for even one minute in the class they get counted present so you don't really realize moms and dads at home who are watching this meeting your child is walking the halls majority of the day and it's not

117like we used to say a handful of kids that's gone you're talking about two dozen kids same kids and they have other kids joining them and they're waiting and so what happens to the kids who are there waiting wanting to work wanting to do what they they're darting in the hallways to get to their next class avoiding any type of sel that we're trying to get them to do and maintain right now they don't want to socialize because they're afraid so are teachers i shouldn't have to be cursed out i no longer even want to sub another class because i'm afraid of what is going to happen and i want to be able to maintain my sanity for the day so grateful yes i am thank you but i need to continue to be grateful

118and i want to have something to hold on to i know you said not to mention students but i do want to give a shout out to the ones that make me grateful every day so i'll just give an initial uh mg m g a s b o that's not body odor um i'm trying to think jw cp if you're watching i'm grateful for you every single day that you're out there and last but not least i know my time is up please consider giving the teachers more thank you [Applause] that concludes everyone written in for uh public expression second period thank you very much that brings us to number 10 reports from the superintendent uh just a few announcements i'd like to make this past thursday we had a kickoff event at o'bannon with

119our new refrigerated van that was made possible by a grant that the food service department won through the nfl play 60 and the american dairy association hometown grant we're going to be using this van to help bring summer meals back out into the community in addition to the summer based summer meals site won't be exclusively with that and in parades and other ways where we can get food out into the community so really nice resource that we'll be able to provide for our families we also had our first major production at i mentioned this at the last board meeting but our first major production at hammond central was frozen junior the event was a resounding success we had over 3000 or excuse me almost 3 000 people come and see the production in our uh

120dr watkins black box theater um uh trustee king i know you were there a couple times did you want to say anything about the theater i i was just mesmerized by the talent that's in this school that's why i know these children can excel they can excel if they can stand on the stage and sing and dance by memory that production was just incredible and i cried because i know our babies could do it thank you sure my our daughter was was in the program it was it really was it was like what we want to see in hammond like where everyone working together demonstrating their talents and gifts supporting each other the older kids helping the younger kids and having the community come out and support in such a positive way so excited for

121that excited to see for the future we also have our dancing with the stars coming up on i believe it is this friday at hammond central as well at 7 p.m so november 19th this friday at 7 pm we have our dancing with the hapa stars junior high edition um this friday all right uh as far as some of the concerns i i will just say this i feel really conflicted because i am not legally allowed to come and negotiate from this mic so i can't but like there's so many things i wish i could say but if you're a teacher and you have concerns the the person you can ask questions is is mr geekes but i cannot publicly comment on on negotiations it's a i would be violating the the employ the herb

122laws on that i just can't as much as i want to but i will say that we love our teachers we hear what you're saying and um i we do value and hopefully when we we do finally get this deal settled that you will you will see it that's all i'm really going to say about it that is our intention just as much it is is the teacher representation intention to get get an awesome deal for all teachers all right that concludes my reports this time thank you oh oh yeah i absolutely don't mind announcing this this is the hammond central's inaugural community dinner that is thursday uh november 18th so that is this thursday from 6 to 8 p.m there's no cost you can come in the side door off of highland street that's

123door d again at hammond central 6 to 8 p.m this thursday and it's free and everyone's welcome and we are just looking for some servers and the food is going to be exceptional thank you trustee king thank you superintendent miller do i have a motion to adjourn so moved second motion second meeting adjourned thank you all