001[Music] do [Music] so call this meeting to order welcome and thank you for attending the school city of hammond regular meeting of the board of trustees for tuesday september 21st 2021 if we could all stand and recite the pledge of the republic allegiance which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice thank you call trustee miller president trustee candelaria president trustee king we're here trustee murphy present and trustee zolo also present that's all five of the trustees number two on the agenda is our financial presentation trustees um well first good evening anyone watching online good evening to our audience you may have seen on the agenda that we were to have the habits central high school color guard to present our colors tonight we'll have to reschedule that hopefully for the next
002meeting at this point we're on item 2a our financial presentation from maverice thank you mr miller members of the board tonight i have for your financial presentation the month end of august was a good month for the education fund we were positive by about a million dollars that brings us to the end of the year almost back to even in the education fund one positive in the education fund is we are under budget by about 1.1 million dollars in operation in the monthly expenditures so performing well and right on target target with revenue you go to the next page if you go to the next page that's a referendum operating fund as it has been throughout most of the year has about 3.3 million dollars under budget we'll be moving some expenditures from both the
003education fund and the operations fund uh to zero that fund out by the end of the year worked on that this afternoon with ms pritchett but overall the fund is also in good shape the next fund had no activity which is the referendum project that service fund the only activity in the debt service fund is a common school nominee payment which gets made every month other than that there's no activity in that fund and on the fifth page no activity in the pension debt service fund the last page you have is the operations fund it does have activity in it the operations fund is performing well as well about a million dollars under budget so when you bring up all three of the funds that we talk about on a monthly basis education referendum operating
004and the operations fund we're about 5.4 million dollars under budget which is about where we were last year at this point so performing very similar to last year which ended up being a pretty good year it is coming to that time of year when we talk about end of the year items and and we do have the one million dollar transfer from the education fund to textbook rental as part of that plan the state board of accounts to start to look completely eliminate that that negative balance by the end of 2024 so i just want to bring that to your attention is that potentially coming up again here in december when we do that last i want to go to your board report again all three funds are under budget they're in the middle section
005um i hate to do this sorry doctor ship but i'll bring it up again the self-insurance fund even though last month we made a half a million dollar transfer that fund still ended up negative with the last day of the month expenditures that hit that account um so just in total that's a 1.5 million dollar negative balance here not just the 33 000 that you see just something to keep in mind as we work our way through the end of the year be happy to answer any questions you might have at this time on the financial report mr president trustee murphy i want to go back to the self insurance fund before you were talking about that money needs to get transferred back to where it came from where can we take it permanently from
006like you said we're over 1.5 million in the hole in that fund so can we take it out of one of the referendum funds not obviously dead service but so we would have some choices on where to take that fund whether it be education referendum operating or operations question comes down to if you do it on a on a true black and white basis this should be premiums that we're charging i understand that so the question becomes where do those premiums get paid from and so currently wherever the employee is paid from is where those premiums get paid from so it would take a change in premium to make those permanent transfers happen now the shortcut way around that is you just determine as a board that you're going to move a flat dollar amount
007from one of the funds into the self-insurance fund to make it positive that would be another option you'd have by the end of the year and then for next year we could do what the premium should be and start the er correctly well let's make something clear the premiums are what they're supposed to be for our expected claims this year if you remember going into this year our premiums were set at a level that were lower than even what our expected claims were this year we bumped up the premiums and you paid about two million dollars more in premium this year as a board and that still isn't enough to get you back to where we are because our expenditures our claims are running higher than expected at this point so obviously this is going
008to be a large piece of negotiations with all your units here in the next three months health insurance fund is a major topic so when do um school city of hammond go to renegotiate with whoever we are at this point we switch it a couple of times to figure out what the premium should be for next year's is that going to be for contract negotiations are done or is it going to be after we actually have a renewal meeting tomorrow afternoon where that will be discussed thank you mr president trustee miller um matt i wondered at what point um or are we already seeing um the upswing from the consolidations like the the cost savings like at what point will we start to to see those and be able to identify or will we ever
009be able to identify those i don't want to say it's going to be an exact science of looking at see what consolidation did or didn't do to the finances you really should start to see that in september that's when the new payrolls really started even though we closed those buildings back in june you're going to see that happening in this month in september so i would really hope by the end of the year we see some definite trends and what we were saying in consolidation okay thank you matt i wonder if we'll also see a decrease having a new high school without having all the maintenance costs that we had on the old one if that will also kick in additional dollars it should uh one of the things we've been doing though to pay
010for that uh maintenance we've had has been using bond proceeds so it's not like you're going to see it in fact as those bond monies run out we're going to have to do something within the operations fund to start being able to fund our own maintenance programs which we haven't been doing for the last uh well since 2017 you haven't been doing that so the question is do we continue to operate in a manner which we issue debt to do those maintenance projects or do we figure out a way to put it inside the operations fund and pay for it on an ongoing basis so even if we do see a decrease it's not going to be what you would see out of the three operating funds that we have that we're working with on
011a regular basis thank you man any other questions mr president trustee king thank you um moving forward i see self-insurance as being a hot button in terms of negotiations to contract negotiations and i don't know where we are in terms of preparation but i did attend the public hearing that for the union and there was one particular person that seems to know i when she spoke understood so i'm just hoping all minds to come together when it comes to self-insurance because i see it as an extreme hot button in negotiations and then one other point in terms of our balance in this budget moving forward realizing we're in contract negotiations um again what is our our balance today if any because the only reason i raised the issue last negotiations uh it was indicated that
012there was no money and then all of a sudden there was some money so i just want to be clear in terms of how many dollars are on the table moving forward during this negotiation thank you sir mr reese i will tell you that amount's still yet to be determined adm countless friday and we don't have a final number at this point okay but what i will also tell you is is that the balances are not what we negotiate with you negotiate with ongoing revenues with that are already coming in out of the education fund i i understand that but again during the last con contract negotiations uh the numbers were just fluctuating um and i just hope that doesn't i hope we just get a clearer picture uh this time moving forward thank you
013and and i want to reiterate that if you haven't noticed the last what six seven months i've mentioned the self-insurance fund i believe every time at this podium there is no question that the health insurance fund is a major issue for you as a board in a district but it is a matter of understanding about you know bottom line clearly getting a clear picture and i'm just moving forward i just want to get a clear picture and uh oh i guess i'll answer this question this this report does not reflect our atm friday no okay thank you thank you very much mr reese mr president any other questions not thank you very much thank you bring us to item number three public expression first period public expression first period limited to items on the agenda
014only first community member is going to be and again don't forget you'll be limited to three minutes uh can you please state your name and address when you reach the podium yes my name is carla knopasic i'm a teacher at jefferson i live in at 9827 kennedy avenue uh last time i was here thank you very much i gave you a short history on our insurance funds and where we've been and how we got there and i believe where i left off i started with 200 2013 and where i left off was in 2019. now i'm going to go back just a little bit to 2017 when we ended the um year of 2017 and we were 3.3 million dollars in the black okay our renewal periods in 18 and 19 were below expected so
015there was a time there where we should have been capturing yeah one minute 1 million 1.5 million or so both those years 18 and 19. but still at the end of 19 we were 1.5 okay um on our end we don't take care of those monies that happens here okay so back to 2017 if if the funding had been at expected or even close we would have been making money yet we weren't okay so here we are we're now in 2020 okay negotiated in 2019 2019 excuse me we changed from anthem to aetna anthem was having difficulty servicing us uh we had internal problems and we could not compete with what aetna had had to offer us we were looking for better programs and savings okay it was seen as a huge change okay since
016we had been with anthem for i don't know 30 years or plus i mean we've been with them forever change is a difficult thing so with that now we were able to capture about 1.8 million dollars in savings immediately we continued with ongoing savings going forward with rx rebates um and quarterly um we're going to capture some money and increase services also big plan changes were um agreed to by the teachers that year deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses went way up okay and the teachers in the room here could tell you it it hurt because it was so different it was one of the biggest things we've done so the teachers have been moving and done a lot of things to move in the right direction but then again we don't budget we don't budget that
017money and if the but if the money's not being budgeted correctly down here the premiums and the other cost savings things we've been trying to do with the program is not going to it's not going to fix it okay the changes that matt's referring to and that money has just started in january we had to negotiate that with them and have them put it in our teacher contract what the school seat a hammond will do it's in our teacher contract in regards to insurance that's a first for me um so we changed that around we made actually we tweaked some things in the plan and and made basically made the ppo people who technically or typically use more of the insurance pay for more of it and and things got a little lighter on the
018hsa side again i'm sorry but you're three minutes arrow thank you next community member is going to be veronica preto please state your name and address when you reach the podium and it's limited to items on the agenda only hi my name is mark webster i'm speaking on behalf of veronica prato my name is veronica prato and i'm a science teacher at morton high school as well as a graduate from morton high school this year has been a heaping load of anxiety and stress each day i enter my room and i'm fighting over booms and bangs from the roof construction that is ongoing throughout the school day the ceiling and doors in my room shake and then you hear crumbles falling down this week the board will be voting on asbestos remediation for morton high
019school and my concern is that how are we in the building during construction when we know there are asbestos products in the building will staff and students be offered asbestos testing to check for exposure or will it end up being like lead infestation with our water where testing will not be offered despite exposure to students and staff please value your staff and remember actions speak louder than words thank you thank you [Applause] next community member is going to be mark webster please state your name and address when you reach the podium and light discussions limited to items on the agenda only hi my name is mark webster i am also a teacher at morton high school um when i spoke last week at the other meeting i talked about the brand called you this week
020i want to talk about internal locus of control the idea that we make decisions that affect change we have so many teachers fleeing our district with seven resigned and for failure to report on this personnel report alone why how do we fix this be proactive pay us more thank you thank you that concludes everyone written in for public expression in public i'll pass it on to superintendent miller president juno trustee king thank you before we move on i would like to make a comment regarding public expression i know we have our hammond police here to protect us but it seems a little um and i'm only sharing this because this is what people is bringing to me under public expression we know we have three minutes if we tend to go over it i don't
021see why our officers need to come and approach our taxpayers i'm sorry trustee king i'm talking i am speaking allow me please to finish my uh point my point is mr uh mr president you could very well tell them or it is time but to have a fully police officer especially at the last three meetings dealing with the teachers it was just somewhat disheartening i don't think it's needed i mean we're under a lot of pressure and i i know they're just doing what they've been asked to do but we are civil people i don't see anybody's going to break out you know with a machete or anything so let's just act civil toward each other and i just don't think that's that's needed mr president i think you should be could be the one
022with our president that could just tell them their time is up and you know let's move forward rather than having a police officer come up here and do it thank you mr president [Applause] not to be labor the point trustee king but that's exactly what i did yes you did thank you my point is we don't need both we don't need both if you you don't understand that mr i mean mr president i mean it's all about civility it's as simple as that we don't need two [Music] two doses mr president can i finish i i request that we return to the order of the day but we have any online did did we have any comments from the community online oh is that how we're going to do this today okay thank you trustee
023miller moving on to minutes when one's like we might have some online comments did we have any related to the agenda no none for the agenda thank you sorry uh we have the approval of the minutes for august 3rd 2021 executive session do i have a motion to accept those minutes mr president trustee miller i make a motion for the approval of the executive session minutes from august 3rd 2021. second any discussion trustee murphy yes trustee king no trustee candelaria yes trustee miller yes and i abstain so that's three one no and one abstention next up is the approval of the minutes for the august 3rd 2021 school board meeting do i have a motion mr president trustee miller um i actually move for the approval of item b and item d those are the
024minutes from the regular school board meeting on august 3rd and august 17th second any discussion trustee murphy yes trustee king yes trustee candelaria yes trustee miller yes trustee zono yes passes 5-0 approval of the minutes for the august 10th special board meeting do i have a motion mr president trustee miller i'm moved for the approval of the minutes of the special board meeting from august 10th do i have a second second have a motion and a second any discussion trustee miller yes trustee candelaria yes trustee king yes trustee murphy yes and trustee zolno willip's name it's four four and one abstention that brings us to item number six the consent agenda mr president trustee miller i move for the approval of the consent agenda as presented items a through e second we have a motion
025and a second any discussion discussion trustee king thank you mr president i would like to read into record the accounts payable docket register for 17 september 21st 2021 the claims totaled 2 million 280 000 11.70 our payroll totaled for september 21st 21 321 190.63 i'd also like to comment excuse me on our payroll schedule and looking over the supplemental pay overtime in stipend there was no balance provided for i believe it was supplemental pay and i've failed to note that last at the last meeting we're not providing the balances for all of these uh amounts so just be mindful we're approving something without a balance so uh and that and then one other point of discussion is again our personnel report i have requested at previous meetings that these new positions that we are creating
026with esser to funds then we get a little more explanation as to how we're using them i mean it's just like people we're just finding people for these particular jobs but we can't find people for the jobs that are extremely extremely unnecessary for the function of our district so until i can get those kinds of reports i cannot support the consent agenda thank you mr president thank you trustee king any other discussion mr president trustee murphy i made this comment before those supplemental reports are not being approved tonight they are backup documentation and they can just go in there those are easily summed up with the excel database so again those are not up for approval that's why their executive content their backup documentation for the board for them to know where all this information
027comes from they are not up for approval tonight mr president trustee king i simply say i total disagree with trustee murphy and i have um explained in previous minutes as to why we're voting if we're not voting on stipends or or anything yeah it's just a bad it's a bad president to state in a public meeting that uh it's not up for for vote because it most definitely is it is part of our uh our uh our report our payables report thank you mr president thank you trustee king and thank you trustee murphy we have a motion to second any other discussion trustee murphy yes trustee king no trustee candelaria yes trustee miller yes trustees only yes motion passes four four and one against uh president zolo yes um we just approved the uh the
028new principal for irving and she is in the room and i'd like to call her to come and address the board ms sarah kylander welcome sarah [Applause] president zulno superintendent miller and board of trustees if you haven't been to irving elementary school recently i would like to invite you to come and visit when you enter our school doors you will immediately feel the positive energy from our students this doesn't happen by chance irving teachers and staff go above and beyond every day all members of our team are dedicated to supporting student needs it's been my privilege to lead the irving team since 2016. in that time i've served the school community by developing relationships with parents promoting replacement behavior discipline practices designing a social emotional learning plan educating our parents on our dual language immersion
029program and fostering the merging of school communities i am invested in every part of our school and will work to ensure that our teachers have everything they need to be successful including a growth mindset my vision for irving includes clarity and communication to staff and parents a trusting collaborative relationship with teacher leaders and a dedication to consistency this year at irving we're prioritizing building number sense skills and fostering a love for reading our students and staff have experienced a tremendous amount of stress over the past couple years and i am encouraging irving teachers to slow down do less with more depth and meet students where they are to help them grow [Music] thank you for the opportunity to lead the amazing students and staff at irving elementary school please consider coming by and leading a
030classroom read-aloud or maybe you can be a judge for our book character pumpkin design contest there are really great things happening at irving [Music] irving thank you very much i'll see you next week okay that brings us to item number seven new business we have the approval of the underwriting agreement with raymond james and associates trustees i'm recommending um the approval underwriting agreement to refinance some bonds from 2012 to 2014. nat do you mind coming up and saying for a minute explain um in layman's terms what we're doing here and the estimated cost savings i do want while he's coming up here i do want to mention too we know the video went out for a few minutes but it does look like it's back up online so apologize for any technical difficulties but i
031do think we're back up and running you thank you mr miller members of the board you have two bond issues the 2012 a issue and the 2014 issue that are at the point where they're beneficial to refinance those bonds those bonds the 2012 a's are callable in uh january of 2023 and the 2014s are callable in january of 2024. we'll be using a method called an advanced refunding just a brief catch-up the congress currently has the infrastructure bill and plate in front of it with the budget that has a provision in it that allows advanced refundings to go back to being tax-exempt currently the ones we've done since 2017 have all been taxable refundings but still save you money in the long run the difference between those two in this specific situation is about a
032half a million dollars so if the bill does not go through and we were to go ahead go ahead and refund those bonds as a taxable you'd save about 1.9 million dollars if the bill passes and becomes law then we would you would save about 2.4 million dollars in the refunding so it's about a half a million dollar difference we'll be obviously monitoring that bill very closely along with your financial advisor to determine the best time we're tentatively scheduled at this point to go to market in january to get that accomplished but obviously that bill and how it runs this is the bill that uh speaker pelosi has mentioned she'd like to get done by the end of this month i think everybody believes that's probably not going to happen it's probably delayed a little
033bit so i don't think we're in a time crunch we'll get the process moving so we're ready to go in january and obviously make the appropriate call at that point based on what's going on with that bill your annual savings you're seeing are somewhere in the range between 200 and 300 000 every year out of your debt service fund by refinancing these bonds happy answering the questions you might have any questions any questions thank you matt thank you okay do i have a motion for the approval of the agreement with raymond james and associates mr president trustee miller i make a motion for the approval of the underwriting agreement with raymond james and james and associates inc as presented second we have a motion in a second any discussion any discussion trustee miller yes trustee
034candelaria yes trustee king yes trustee murphy yes trustee zolo yes 5r4 next up is the approval of the contract with dr help me out with that one hirajuana thank you trustees i am recommending the approval of the contract with dr carowanna to provide clinical psychology services as needed through the special education department paid for through special education because it says just the trustee king asked there's no dollar amount on it and it's because it is as needed so this is um approving that as needed that was on there it was in the contract depends on the service i didn't see it here it's contracts for instance for four thousand dollars um the following scale is 130 dollars for counseling 500 for evaluation 100 for a case conference meeting 200 for a practitioner review for a
035two-hour session and 250 for an annual case conference for ed therapeutic classes is that important and it says practitioner review charges not to exceed 4 000 for the 2021-22 school year so max of 4 000. don't surprise me okay it's in the public content um and that's in board docs also i'm looking right at it right now i i clicked on it i'm looking at two pages his resume only so okay no problem as long as it's read into the record this is what i have sir the resume was in executive content not in public content i believe we don't have to take up any more time he's right into the record that's what's important any other discussion do i have a motion mr president trustee murphy i move that we approve the contract with
036dr carowano second we have a motion and a second any further discussion any further discussion trustee miller yes trustee candelaria yes trustee king yes trustee murphy yes trustee zomo yes motion passes five zero next we have the approval of the memoral of understanding with ivy tech community college for high school based dual credit the trustees this is an annual approval of the dual credit course offerings for anyone who's not familiar dual credit means that high school students are not only earning a high school grade on their transcript they are also earning a college grade on their transcript for a course and the mou lists which courses we're offering as dual credit in this case with ivy tech it just says hammond central if it's in there i mean this is the one for him and
037central yes so will there be a one from morton height i will double check for you trust me okay do i have a motion mr president trustee miller i move for the approval of the mou with ivy tech community college for high school based dual credit as presented second we have a motion and a second any discussion discussion trustee king thank you mr miller just let us know asap about this so that we can enter into the record as well of regarding morton high school being part of this program thank you sir thank you welcome any other discussion trustee murphy yes trustee king yes trustee candelaria yes trustee miller yes trustee zolno yes motion ps is 5-0 next is the approval of the agreement with skillman corporation for columbia renovations phase two uh trustees at
038the last meeting we approved the architectural amount for schmidt to move forward with phase two of colombia this would be for the construction management portion in the amount of seventy three thousand six hundred twenty five dollars for columbia for skillman thank you superintendent do i have a motion mr president murphy thank you trustee murphy i'm getting a little bit better with the walls down but still struggling a little i move that we approve the agreement with skillman corporation for the columbia renovations phase two second we have a motion and a second any discussion discussion mr president trustee king once again um this columbia uh project and my estimation could have been put on hold where we're continually spending yes sr2 funding on on a on a building as opposed to uh programs and and aids
039and teachers that would help the loss of learning because that's how i understand the money is for of the allowable use and uh i'm just adding up in my head the first time you all presented uh this project for columbia school we spent over 325 thousand dollars the first time and then it was um the second time i saw it it was the 78 thousand dollars for smith and 1.2 million dollars and we have so many of our current schools that definitely need so much maintenance and we're putting all of this money in this in this welcoming center but again as i stated before according to the allowable uses it should be a learning center and you have presented it as a welcoming center and that is why i can't support this service thank you
040very much thank you trustee king and then one other question does this money address the mold in this building so we are replacing the the carpet in in the building if there's some additional mold that you're aware of um let me know but um yes we are pulling out the i mean addressing all of the mo mold is you know it could be toxic it's unhealthy it's hazardous and we're putting people in this building and that building has been closed up mold is dangerous so not just here and there are we remediating the entire building when it comes to mold okay um i will follow up on that again that could have been submitted in advance but i will follow up thank you very much thank you mr president trustee murphy as a reminder this
041is also packed i believe is in there the preschool pact and head start both so this is a needed renovation because of the moving of the sixth graders into the elementary school we needed a place to put the little guys so unfortunately we're using essa funds just like we're using essa funds on scott on morton this is to make it better for our staff that's going to be in there hvac's going to be done and the whole bit to make it a better environment for our staff to work in as well as our students thank you thank you trustee murphy mr president one more comment we closed a school closed it in elementary school and now we reopen it it needs so much work and we're spending it's millions now and we have buildings currently
042that certainly can use this money overwhelmingly and and thank you very much thank you trustee king any other discussion trustee murphy yes trustee king no trustee candelaria yes trustee miller yes trustee zolno yes motion passes 4-1 next is the approval of the bid award for asbestos remediation at morton high school trustees the next two items we any time that asbestos has to be remediated or touched or moved we hire in outside companies where that's what they do and they they do it completely safe they they cut off the areas that they're going to remediate they even adjust the pressure in the room so things don't particles don't float in the air and everything is secured before it leaves the secured area so because of some of the projects we're doing aunt morton and scott we
043do have to remove some hazardous materials and the next two contracts are for that purpose to do that safely thank you superintendent do i have a motion president zono trustee candelaria i move for the approval of the bid award for a bestest remediation at morton high school as presented second we have a motion and a second any discussion discussion one comment trustee king when we were bidding out the asbestos remediation for the new high school having central this is what was missing i remember asking um when we got the bid where is the remote the the dollar amount for remediation and i please chris said it's theirs there but i never saw it so i'm glad to actually see a document for morton high school thank you mr president thank you trustee king any other
044discussion trustee miller yes trustee candelaria yes trustee king yes trustee murphy yes trustees yes motion passes 5-0 as the superintendent was saying next we have the approval of the bid for asbestos remediation at scott middle school president zono trustee candelaria i move for the approval of the bid award for a bestest remediation at scott middle school has presented second we have a motion and a second do we have any discussion discussion let's add the dollar amount and we didn't add the dollar amount for morton for morton it was 291 740 and for scott the dollar amount is 102 275 dollars thank you mr president thank you christy king any other discussion trustee murphy yes trustee king yes trustee candelaria yes trustee miller yes trustee zone yes motion passes five zero that takes us to item
045number eight upcoming board meetings which somewhere in here i've completely lost thank you very much sir our next meeting is tomorrow which will be a public work session regarding the budget at 6 pm at the administration center tuesday august 5th we'll have an executive session at 5 30 and a school board meeting at 6 p.m school board meeting after that would be october 19th which again is tuesday all it's six o'clock thank you mr president trustee murphy on the executive session oh there's a new one you wanted to add on october 30th correct yes on collective bargaining and personnel october 30th it was september 30th yes september 30th so not october 30th yes correct i'm about to get confused here yeah i just want to make sure that one we don't have to worry about
046a second meeting so we have plenty of time with that one on the 30th correct all right thank you all right that brings us up to public expression second period public expression second period regarding general matters please state your name and address when you reach the podium first community member is going to be wanda puckett and you're limited to three minutes under board school board policy po0167.3 if you want to make yourself familiar with it my name is wanda but i got a question for this board member and the teachers y'all sitting up here here pointing fingers talking to the mic please look how many fingers you got pointing back at you every last one of y'all teachers standing outside your classroom kids turn to classes they hear every word you're saying you think they
047don't be paying attention they do instead of talking about those students pray about them stand outside your door and stay up little prayer because when you pour in one finger you got three pointing back at all y'all created this mess when y'all standing outside your door and gossiping about our kids in our neighborhood what you expect instead of talking about it pray about it and for the school board the devil comes to tear this school board up and you got a couple of devils sitting up on this school board right now name in the classroom with the kids superintendent miller go home get in the quiet room to yourself open up the book a song go to dave 107 and what don't he make your enemy your footstool and to these teeth sitting back here
048i applaud some of y'all but some of y'all here just for the money the kids are listening to what you're saying about them please stop talking about our neighborhood and our kids and to the students what they ain't telling y'all transcripts go to your high school your trade school your college they come back to your high school and ask for a copy of your transcript everything you did from middle school to high school is in your transcript if you planning on attending college let's get this together we got to better our students instead of paying them down the school board i see one two three four devils sitting up down that school board to see what i had to say next community member miss carla please state your name and address when you reach podium
049you're limited to three minutes thank you certainly carla kunapacic 9827 kennedy avenue i just wanted to finish what i was saying earlier so that's why i'm back so what do we do with this insurance um conundrum that we find ourselves in well i've got some ideas and it is going to be a hot button in negotiations you got that right i think we should take six million dollars i know it's a one-time money it's a one-time deal but we're just starting now in january to fund correctly hopefully um the some of the changes that we made we'll start to see some of the uh productivity out of that so if we take six million out of the essers funds or whatever you want to call it we would give ourselves at least a fighting chance
050at getting on the right foot and that money absolutely can and should be used to retain qualified and and teachers with um money salary and definitely benefits that's what that money is for as well and then number two give the commitment that the school city made and that we had them put in our teachers contract again a chance to work it's only been this has only been going on since january of this year so it's really only been eight months number three as our members are still getting used to the big changes that we made going from uh anthem to aetna and then the changes in the the deductibles and the out-of-pocket maxes um focus on making if we make any changes that's a big if it's a little word but a big word um
051if we make any changes make them in a positive way that promote wellness like there are some things that we can do that wouldn't really hurt the pocket but would promote uh people to to be a little more conscious about their health and do things for their health and fourth as the chairman for the citywide insurance i would you know i get bills i get bills and they're really good about passing on the bills to me what i don't always get and which would balance it out and again help me make sense of this mess call insurance is i don't get any of the deposits i have to beg constantly monthly or whatever for what's left in the cash reserves what does it look like okay i see our weekly bill so you know when
052i see a 200 000 bill oh there we go um one week and a 500 bill for a week five is high two is low okay i i need to see what's going in though as well and so i'm only really getting half of the picture but i want to be part of the solution and part of the problem but we have some things we we need to fix and it's at this point not gonna you can't the teachers can't even fix it so it's not about just hiring um premiums so again i'm willing to answer any questions you have any time thank you very much next community member is going to be garrick alexander please state your name and address when you reach the podium garrick alexander one last call for garrick alexander all
053right next community member is going to be deacon otis moore please state your name and address when you reach the podium we're limited to three minutes thank you my name is oles moore live at 1429. shell street in hammond uh i'm here to state the fact that i was under the impression that the new high school is a state of our school with all the benefits and all the security already in place now i hear that they don't have no uh they don't have no uh security at the doors for weapons and i understand that now you want to add security for the weapons at the door so i'm wondering why all of this wasn't added in in the beginning there's been a lot of mistake making in the building of the new high school
054first of all they didn't want no minority to work on the building second of all we should have a contract stating that everything in this building should be under warranty for at least five years because it's a brand new building and it's state-of-the-art second of all the governor has set aside 19 million dollars for school security and in one of those provisions he want to spend a certain amount of money on training our teachers how to use firearms which does not make any sense when you don't want to give them a raise our teachers need to be paid for what they do the superintendent himself asked for a raise and then he wants you to pay for his further his education i understand all of this then you then when the football field you left
055out the provision to build a football field there's just been too many mistakes we have to have good leadership if you don't have good leadership then everything else under that falls apart and i understand that there's going to be some snap foods along the way but sometimes there's just too many snack food there has to be some checks and balances you cannot have a certain amount of money and just go in and start the spending it don't take long to spend money it don't take long before you know it you won't have nothing so we need to take a good look at ourselves reevaluate and go back and do the thing right because as long as you run a second rate shift you'll never have a first rate shift and you need to pay your
056teachers what you own stop giving them lip service that's why so many of them resigning and leaving you have to do right by the people whose shoulders you stand on wow thank you sir that concludes everyone written in for a public expression that's in public they will pass it on to superintendent miller um miss reece or dr ship i know you have some of the online comments yes i have three the first one is from darcy esther she lives at 6316 garfield avenue in hammond why were the parents and students left to figure out on their own that the accu had been dismantled i never received any type of communication and neither did my daughter whom is now a sophomore at central they didn't have her down as an accu dual credit student and her
057schedule was only fixed after i called the counselor twice and she visited the counselor's office once again sch dropped the ball on communication while consolidating these high achieving students into the high schools and overlooking them the prior accu students applied to attend the high school and had to be accepted with references reference letters how was communication regarding their education overlooked the next one is from jennifer young she is a teacher in the school district mr miller and board members my name is jennifer young and i teach at edgar's middle school every day more and more students are contracting coveted in our schools the numbers are rising at edgar's middle school and hammond central as two examples i am sure this is the case in all of the schools however what about the cases that are
058not being reported i have heard at several meetings that you are following numbers of some sort but exactly which guidelines cdc state or hammond it seems that this changes often i am following the protocol set by sch multiple mass wearings to students in the halls and my classroom phone calls home and documentation and then sent the office and then they are sent back to me to apologize but it still continues where is the step that the meeting will take place with the teacher administration student and parent i know our school administration is extremely busy because we are so short-handed in other areas but this is serious i am not blaming our principals and deans i am merely asking for help and clarity when is enough and when are students and parents going to be held
059accountable thank you for listening the last one is from april brown o'brien she is part of the team hammond robotics i am the head coach of team hammond robotics our robotics team has recruited about 40 students on our team and this is more than we had in a long time but we need some help we are in need of a mechanical and electrical engineer so if you know of a mechanical or electrical engineer looking to give back to the community then frc team hammond 71 robotics is for you we need someone who is willing to volunteer the time to explain the tools of the trade help build wire robotics and be a positive force in the lives of others team hammond robotics meet every wednesday from august to december at 5 30 until 8 pm
060at the area career center build seasons starts in january 9th 2022 and we meet every day until our competition that is what we do until late march into may if you are interested please contact miss april brown o'brien thank you dr ship mr president trustee king we received a public expression one uh at 3 11 pm we all received it did you see that mr miller i don't think we're finished yeah dr reese has something oh okay oh okay i got you sorry i have one more is it from rebecca l champagne yes okay fine thank you yes this one's from rebecca l champagne hello my name is rebecca champagne and my address is 5926 calumet avenue in hammond and i am a teacher at hammond central i have been with the district since 2012.
061i am writing today to express my frustrations with the district and their failure to adequately address the staffing shortages we are experiencing at hammond central and all around the district what is the district doing to stop the bleeding of teachers that are literally fleeing the district every single week we are hit with more and more resignations these are good qualified teachers that have been with our district for years we continue to see postings for positions to be filled at the district office yet the positions that most directly impact our students the ones in our school buildings sit unfilled every time we have a resignation the people who are most impacted are the teachers and administrators that have chosen to stay many of us are at our absolute limit each day we wonder who will be
062next to throw in the towel and leave the rest of us to deal with the aftermath of yet another vacancy the lack of teachers and coverage is a huge issue for those of us that are still here when i've when i have had to spend my prep period covering a class that means that i'm not able to adequately prepare for my classes or get my work done this is not fair to my students or me they are missing out on their education because we are so so short staffed our students are shuffled from class to class going to teachers rooms that are willing to babysit them for that class period that is what we have turned into a babysitting service there are so many vacancies that we don't even have lesson plans to teach the
063kids so they are moved to a room to be monitored instead of being taught this situation is doing nothing to help our students who are already behind their peers lack of staffing is contributing to a lack of safety for our students teachers and staff we are experiencing unprecedented amounts of behavior behavioral issues and fights teachers are not trained to deal with the violence these fights have brought to our school and it is not fair or safe for the district to put us into these unsafe conditions we already had one shooting what is it going to take for the district to wake up and take more radical action to ensure our safety i want to be to make this clear this is not a building administration issue mr verde and his team are phenomenal and quite
064frankly the only reason why many of us have stayed miss harrison miss rizzick and mr borzitz along with mr verda are running themselves into the ground trying to keep us afloat and create as positive and environment as possible they are short staffed too how long will it take for the district to hire the other administrator that we so desperately need mr vertis esteem is constantly being pulled in a million direction and cannot do the work that is needed to create our culture because they are dealing with safety issues day in and day out we need to staff them fully too this is not a cobot issue this is not something we can blame on someone else this is a district issue this issue is created because i'm sorry your three minutes are up oh my
065goodness okay next up we have report from soup from the superintendent thank you we recently held our first school city speaks a superintendent superintendent q a event at irving elementary school in partnership with the hammond council pta um i answered uh about 20 questions from different topics our next event is going to be on wednesday november 17th at lincoln i want to thank the pta for starting that any parents who are watching mr valdez is going to be on the radio with me tomorrow morning but if you're thinking about how to best plug in with your school the pta is a great way to plug in with your school this is college go week in attention seniors indiana's college application week is this week and many colleges and university universities are waiving their application fees
066this week it was a great week to apply for college our we sent that information out to all our counselors they should have communicated it to our students but it is college go week kappa presents romeo and juliet um i'm not reading this um come see the hammond arts and performance academy presentation of romeo and juliet um they are at the donald gavitt auditorium at morton high school from october 7th through 9th at 7 pm in october 10th at 2pm i want to promote the latino resource fair that's coming up it is at irving it's our 18th annual latino resource fair on saturday october 9th a free family event featuring music food games and community resources i also would like to mention our bridge to better conference sch is committed to educating our students staff
067and community about the importance of diversity equity and inclusion in our schools we invite you to learn from local and national thought leaders in the dei space on october 30th at our bridge to better conference the event is free and open to the public but registration is required all right and you can register on the school city website um just just one one point about um the fighting thing in in the fights that have shown up on social media i mentioned this at the irving parent q a when students have been out of school for 18 min 18 months and they show up and they want to use their fists that's that's a challenge it's a challenge and i can say that the principles have communicated to me that when they talk to some parents
068some parents though not all encourage their child to fight and some of you who are old school you may be maybe you had parents like that but that is not a way to conflict resolution that helps people to have college and career readiness skills you're not going to be able to keep a job if you get in a fight with a co-worker or a customer god forbid and so we need parents to talk to their kids that hey if if you are experiencing like like you're feeling that anger please talk to somebody we lowered our counselor ratios by 50 percent so we have two counselors per grade level at each yeah we do um at each grade level now we have some vacancies if that's why you're shaking your head but not they're not all
069vacant and we do have people in the building who will listen and we'll talk to kids and we'll try to help them mediate their conflicts in a way that doesn't involve them getting in a fight nobody wants that what are we doing about it what are we doing about it so we are legally required to follow the sch code of conduct we do and what does fighting say well fighting is a class iii offense where expulsion is optional it is not required now if it rises to the level of battery where there's significant bodily harm then yes that is a state mandated expulsion for fighting though it is expulsion optional well one of the things that we have to used esther money for and many people who've been in hammond for quite some time would
070acknowledge the need to have an alternative program that rather than putting kids on the street we need to have an alternative for them and we have to use esther money to staff an alternative program this year not in the future like right now at the area career center so students who are fighting they will go through the expulsion hearing process and if they're amenable to it and likely they will be as opposed to being out of school entirely they will go to the alternative program and there they will demonstrate and get additional supports but they will demonstrate and earn back their spot into their regular school but that's how we're going to address it we're not going to allow students who fight to come back and we had a student mock mr verda and say
071i will be back in three days i'm not going to tolerate that i don't want any kids on the street i really don't but with an alternative program we can keep them in school and they can get targeted supports so they're not disrupting all the other kids who are doing exactly what we ask them to do because there still is like that's the part that i feel bad about when adults host student minors fighting on their personal social media when adults are behaving like that like that's a problem for me and it's definitely not a not a solution focused mindset because what does it do to the mindset of all the other kids are doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing oh this is because if they read those comments they see what people
072are saying and they're not being real targeted they're lumping hamming kids in when they don't deserve it so we are addressing the fighting thing and we are addressing it seriously and and i did pull the data from powerschool i mentioned this at the parent q a because any fighting is bad i so please understand that but i actually have the exact data in front of me thanks i got it so before consolidation by september 15th across our four high schools we had 77 fights in 1920. obviously last year we were on e-learning we had 77 fights across four high schools in 1920 well we were on e-learning last year so this year 21-22 we've had 40. is 40 too much yes it is but don't buy into the argument that things were somehow peaceful before
073consolidation because they weren't this is an issue that's been long-standing and again my initial point was we need the community to come alongside us mr chase had a call out to parent to the community to come out to the career center to have a meeting about patrolling our schools after school only councilman tyler attended that was it one person came so we are trying we are trying to make an effort on some of these things it is challenging but please please uh parents if you are watching this talk to your children like if they're feeling a certain sort of way talk to somebody we want to help you with these things it's a life skill to be able to de-escalate yourself know when to walk away and not to respond with conflict with a higher
074degree of conflict all right um i think that concludes my comments about about some of what have said i will just say this too that [Music] school city is committed to making things better i mentioned this at the end of of the last meeting i know it's not fast enough i know for some of you is not fast enough but we are not ignoring it uh i have my plan mr geek this doesn't like my plan fully um but i do we are not ignoring it the administrators are working together there is an open invitation to teachers if he wants to reconsider accepting it to be a part of the solution because i want to involve teachers in the solution and i want to be part of the plan and that's that's where i'm at
075thank you thank you superintendent miller and finally we have reports from the board please if you have any reports the floor will be yours get here we can't hear i will just summarize that he thinks it's not enough that that it's not urgent enough and it's not enough no sir wouldn't that be appropriate i make a motion that he speaks reports from the board mr president i made a motion emotion is on the floor what motion as mr president i said i make a motion that we allow mr geekes to speak could you identify the policy by number please don't don't point that is so disrespectful attorney conrad you don't point when i ask you a question you work for me and you work for these people out here again it's about civility what would
076hurt if the president of the teacher's union come before his with some words point of order we have broken dusty murphy point of order we are in reports from board members at this time and we should return back to the agenda thank you reports from the board do we have anything mr president trustee murphy i'd like to report i also attended the q a with the superintendent i was actually impressed he had a couple really tough questions from um parents and teachers about the opening of schools he took responsibility so anybody that wants to send questions out there excuse me she'd send them to hammond council pta they read them all off he took the time to get them all and we had time at the end he actually had from the floor one of
077the students wanted to know how his day was and how he spent his day so he went out of his way to make sure that everybody present there gotta have a chance to ask questions of the superintendent thank you any other reports mr president trustee king as a perhaps a small solution to bring our students together perhaps the hammond central music department could work with our students and develop a school song have we developed a school song for the new school not that i'm aware of well maybe that would be uh a good starter to bring gavit hammond well the former gavin habenhai now central together to develop a uh a school song that might help bring us together additionally uh i had my i attended my hamlet public library uh board meeting this past
078friday and uh she was talking about basically the same problem staffing but she was able to uh hire people extremely fast so i asked her what was her mechanism and she shared that with me but she also said when people apply for the hemi public library and they don't fit them that we oftentimes refer them to other organizations and she could certainly refer them to school city of hammond so mrs reese you can call mrs renee greenlee for the mfl library she can further explain to you how that works perhaps it would would help us additionally after i sent an email to mr miller on the board after the last school board meeting basically saying now that the dust has settled could he put together a a bullet point or some ideas of what the
079teachers are looking for just just give us the highlights i mean we had three days of just awesome incredible information uh of what's going on with them and so mr miller thank you for bringing your people together and i see your three bullet points whereas communication staffing and school day i would like to add to staffing slash retention i mean i think that's bigger than staffing right now because as we look at our personnel report once again we're bleeding people are leaving faster than they are coming so perhaps it could be staffing slash retention and maybe you could add to that uh health wellness and security uh that certainly should be on that list of items to discuss uh so that the teachers and your committees that you put together could uh discuss that so
080i would hope that um that you can sort of work that out additionally um i i would like to see the covet 19 case report put somewhere visibly on the website where folks could don't have to hunt and look for it it's just you know like right under your your picture uh mr miller it could be right there and we we certainly couldn't miss it because parents are having um you know i tell them where to go and to navigate it but when when i requested this information last semester we was dealing with cover it was directly on the website you didn't have to click menu and go so so consider that we can do that that uh report and as one of the comments were um i'm hoping that the report is accurate because
081based on her comments and other comments they're constantly saying they're not accurate so i'm just hoping and praying we are putting up accurate information uh one other thing i learned during the public hearing for the teachers was the lack of teachers for the english language learners [Music] and and special ed which is the most vulnerable population of all of our students and to hear that these classes are 40 and 50. how can any special ed teacher maneuver that so i'm hoping as we move forward with contract negotiations that uh we look at the english language learners and special ed again our most vulnerable student population and if you just look at the test scores you certainly would know that uh we need we got a whole lot of work to do and we can't do
082it currently in the state that we're in uh i think there's one other item here clovic 19 report and i understand you there are some expulsions and suspensions um and one of our work sessions could could could be the president christy miller it's reports from the board right it's a report report uh i am hearing from these folks and i'm basing my report on what i'm hearing to you to you all as a remedy that's a report now you're not going to sit here and define how your point so it's okay to share what you've heard but not necessarily to pepper the superintendent with questions at this time once again when i first came on this board that this item was not on the agenda this is not a question no i am explaining how
083this got and you