001through here melissa higginson is um was unable to attend last minute please stand for the pledge of allegiance to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all public comments if you wish to address the board during the public comic section of the meeting please put your name address and subject on an index card such as this give to deb hayes before the start of the meeting individual public comments are limited to three minutes action items action item 2.1 memorandum of understanding with the munster teachers association can i get a motion to approve the memorandum of understanding with the monsters teachers association i move that we approve the memorandum of understanding with the munster teachers association as presented can i get a second john doherty second and
002any discussion i did want to share with the board you've seen this obviously the membrane understanding and kind of hence the reason why we're doing the timing of this meeting any mou which this is called with the teachers association has to fall within state law guidelines within the bargaining term and that expires november 15th so we are doing this as a special board meeting because our next regularly scheduled board meeting would be november 16. so uh the memorandum of understanding states that we want to provide teachers with a 500 stipend for the school year and we have provisions in there if you run leave or your temporary teacher for a semester that you will receive half of that 250 dollars so you've seen this the munster teacher association president has signed that uh deputy hayes
003has a copy of that so if it's approved um the president and then the secretary which i imagine would be the vice president instead of the secretary not being here we'll sign that tonight so as you see it's basically 500 as a stipend for the school year or 250 for a semester for again just a lot of those extra duties that are being done because of the kova 19 pending any other discussion just a quick question mr tripp and fellas at what point would we have discussions about which are temporary were their leave would we be informed of where those all fall well all the leaves are presented to you as a school board so you'll see that and if you see in the member end of understanding they have to be employed as of
004december 1st and providing uh instruction during that school that semester for each one of those so you'll see all those and you approve all the temporary teachers as well who fill in for them so you guys would get that at regular board meetings and we're using that basically as a list of individuals at this time we have two teachers who are temporary who are working only at the first semester if that leave continues through the second semester then they would be eligible for the second half at that time does that answer the question yes sir thank you very much i would like to thank our administration and the mta administration as well as our attorney angie jones for making this happen in a short period of time so thank you i know that was a
005lot of extra work and extra meetings but i do think we think this is important any other discussion all those in favor say aye aye aye any opposed motion carries action name 2.2 certified staff stipend amounts can i get a motion to approve the certified staff stipend amounts as presented some move you get a second john castro second and any discussion as with this uh this will allow us to provide the stipend to all those certified staff members who are not covered under the collective bargaining agreement we have several different positions that are there and so we want to provide those people who have a teaching license with that who are not part of the collective bargaining agreement and we kind of do this normally anyways as you see we have people like school psychologists
006and educational interpreters and people like that that we try to do the same thing with the teachers although they're not part of that association any discussion all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries action item 2.3 can i get a motion to approve the classified staff stipend amounts as presented john daugherty so moved honest second any discussion this one will be a little bit more of discussion but what we also want to do again in the idea of the pandemic that everyone is stepping up and doing a lot is we want to provide stipends to our classified staff and those are all individuals who don't have a teaching license and unlike teachers who sign a year-long contract so it's easy to give something for the year we're doing these by semester because
007they're more at will employees and there's more movement in those positions so we are recommending that a stipend be given if you're employed on december 1st and then the second statement given if you're employed on may 1st of and you have to have a minimum of 250 hours each semester be able to obtain a stipend and you can see the breakdowns there that we did of the different hours that they serve so people who are more full-time fall into this bottom one which would be 250 a semester or 500 just like the teachers and then we have some of our part-timers here who don't teach or not teach but don't work maybe a full seven or eight hours a day or only partial schedules so those would fall into these lowered amounts for each semester
008and then we wanted to make sure because our bus drivers probably are on the front lines more than anybody else as they're driving those buses that regardless of their hours we want to make sure that they receive the minimum of 200 a stipend each semester almost all of them fall within the 250 in the 200 but we have one or two of them that may fall in that 150 and we felt that with them always being the first one to see the kids and the first ones to drop the kids off and they're the ones if a kid comes to the bus stop has to have the mask ready and all those other things and all those additional duties and then we also want to reward some of them who were doing some extra duties
009for us and and traveling with a lot of our clubs and activities after school things we wanted to give them an additional fifty dollars each semester for a stipend for them but they're listed there for the hours that they work per semester any questions or discussion all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries action item 2.4 can i get a motion to approve classified staff raises effective 12 27 20 as presented john castro i move we approve classified staff raises effective 12 27 20 as presented john doherty second mr tripp and feldis and this one requires a little bit more discussion you usually do this at the december meeting and we've done that for the last few years but we also realized that if we started giving our classified staff individual stipends
010they would they think that's the only thing they would be getting this year even though we've had the coveted pandemic we do have the funds available we had planned for this and we talked to you guys back in august about this already as a school board about doing these raises so we wanted to announce this in november a month earlier than we normally do but also because uh our classified staff will realize that they will receive the statement will also receive the regular raise that they normally get and what we've done is mr melby and i actually did a pretty extensive study of the region schools and found that some of our positions that you'll see here that have some higher raises listed are much lower than our our competitors if you want to call
011that other school districts so what we're recommending to the board is that bus drivers receive a dollar forty per hour raise if they've received evaluation ratings last year about standing or very good and if they've received just a rating of good that they receive a dollar twenty uh and again that is because uh we are much lower than some of our competitors so we want to get those uh wage rates up to be more competitive our mechanics positions we want to requesting a raise of a dollar for them again outstanding and very good and then 80 cents obviously if it's just a rating of good uh clerical and secretary positions uh basically the same rate uh raises that we'd like to give to our mechanics dollar or 80 cents head custodians 50 cents for those
012highest two evaluation rates and 40 cents for the third rating our treasurer and systems administrator would like to provide a raise to of two thousand dollars which is what's equal to the teachers that they received this year and again uh the ratings of the highest two categories and then all of our other non-certified staff we recommend to raise 40 cents per hour for those who received an evaluation rating of outstanding or very good and those who received a rating of good would receive a 30 cent raise we'd like to make this recommendation that they all take effect december 27 2020 because that would mean that the first paycheck then in january would have that raise in it so that'd be payable january 15th uh we also want to make sure you guys understand that all
013of our raises we treat very similar to teachers so if that wage rate increase causes an employee to exceed their maximum wage rate for that position we calculate what that would be and the difference and give the term as a stipend and don't give it to them as a base raise so that's also in this recommendation which is very similar to what you guys have done the last two years for our classified staff and if you remember last year we did some different ratings for even some of our instructional assistants and non-instructional assistants because we saw differences there so they got a little bit more this year those four or five positions uh we believe to be competitive need a little bit more to match our other local school districts good any other questions for
014mr tripp and feldus all those in favor say aye aye aye aye any opposed motion carries action item 2.5 can i get a motion to approve the classified staff wage rates effective 12 27 2020 as presented so move rhona sojic john castro second mr tripp and feldis and uh as you'll see every time we look at raises we also look at the minimum and maximum wage rates for each of those classified positions and this is available online so people want to look at it afterwards they can anything highlighted in green you'll see that we we're recommending that there be an increase to the minimum and maximum again based upon what our research was with the local school districts to see where we were with min and max's so those listed in green we are recommending
015an increase to which again affects how much someone's rate can go up to and what they actually come to us with as a rate and again this is something you guys do normally in december when we do the raises um but we're doing it hopefully well we're doing it a month in advance so that uh everyone knows what their raise will be come january any questions all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries action item 2.6 administrative contracts can i get a motion john castro i move that we table uh action item 2.6 until a further meeting can i get a second john doherty second all those in favor say aye aye aye motion carries motions tabled sorry actually i'm 2.7 administrative fringe benefits can i get in motion john castro i
016move that we table action item 2.7 until a future date john doherty second any discussion all those in favor say all those in favor say aye aye motion is tabled um i think we had some questions for our attorney who is out of town right now and melissa higginson is not here so she also had some questions so we will get that back on the agenda as soon as we can any items that may properly be come before the board all right and then individual public comments mr martin hello thank you um i think it's great that you guys are raising a classified staff wages so that's commendable thank you uh congratulations to john castro john doherty and ingrid schwartzwolf on your reelection this is for the whole board i sincerely hope that we can
017have some candid and productive conversations and outline some next steps of action to address many of the areas of improvement within our great schools including but not limited to race bullying communication students with special needs today i'd like to ask the questions i asked in writing when i requested these items to be added to the boards meeting agenda back in july i would like to hear your responses at the next meeting if possible the conversations that i've had throughout the campaign process through listening sessions with parents from different schools add supports for these questions a common theme in conversations with people is that when they complain to school administration that their complaints were swept under the rug or ignored is there a transparent system process system or process for the school board to investigate these
018and other grievances and provide rationale for the decisions in a fair and accountable manner if so what is it if not what can we do to help you make such a process now with regards to residency checks what data and information can be provided about how residency checks are implemented in an equitable and consistent fashion many parents and former students of color shared how they received multiple residency checks within a couple of years while others received few or none we should want to be very clear about how a child family or child or family is selected for residency check if we can make sure this process is as objective or randomized as possible it will be more effective in preventing unlawful enrollment and keeping trust with all of our families with regard to training for
019staff what training has been provided but more importantly what training will be provided now and in the future to educate the staff and administration about implicit bias systemic racism white privilege white fragility and how to be an anti-racist i suggest inviting someone like dr d'angelo or milton reed who's doing some of the same work in the hammond school system recently to help guide the staff in a consistent and authentic training or at the very least getting the conversation started with dr deangelo's very brief but very articulate video available on youtube and i also think we need some similar training for students around those same topics and and also what can the school board or administrators do to foster an environment where it's normal to speak up against any jokes that secretly tear people down on
020the inside where it's normal and expected to appreciate differences to ask questions respectfully instead of assuming you know i'm judging to be aware and care about another person's feelings and how important they are i believe the answer is in direct social emotional teaching but also ensuring we are representing a variety of cultures and ethnicities throughout the curriculum and integrated into many different subject areas and then there are also some claims of administration ignoring reports of bullying and bigotry and these are very serious accusations so how do we know that they are being investigated and taken seriously by the school board so i know that was a lot i'll receive a copy of these comments to you all so you guys can uh properly note them on the meeting minutes and have time to go over
021them you know and uh and thanks for listening and as always thank you for your service you know i know it's a lot that you guys are doing so thank you thank you thank you mr martin uh announcements um oh i actually forgot about this november 5th we have the fall meeting webinar at 6 30. i think it's 5 30 yes 30 eastern time i think so too okay um thank you deb hayes for putting that in the announcements um november 13th and 16th isba student due process and discipline issues webinar we do have some members signed up for that and november 16th we do have a regular board meeting scheduled at 7 00 p.m can i get a motion to adjourn questions oh go ahead john john dorado some move that we adjourn around
022a stojic second all those in favor say aye aye motion carries we are adjourned