001All right. Welcome everyone to the additional appropriation hearing and regular board meeting of Smith Green Community Schools on Monday, October 27th, 2025 at 6:30. If you would please rise. >> I aliance 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. Thank you. Smith Community School's mission statement. By focusing on excellence in education and providing opportunities for all students to succeed, we strive to be the best small school in Indiana. Please join me for a moment of meditation. Thank you. Yes. First we have Mr. Gaff with our student spotlight of the month. >> Morning everybody. Good evening everybody. Um I would like to welcome Miss Pley and Miss Willard who are our sponsors for student council and
002five of our student council members. We have Logan Bunting, Ava Hayes, Pisley Brock, Charlotte Hill, and Charlie Hyatt. So um I think they have prepared that they're going to talk about some of the leadership opportunities that they um are having within the school and then we have >> I know first you go first >> we could go alphabetical and then it would be Logan >> these are all two year members of our student council so they have uh decided they wanted to vote again and so um they just are they sent a few questions about what um they like doing last year and what they are looking forward to doing next year. So go ahead. >> Thank you Logan. >> My name is Logan Hunting. I'm in fifth grade in Mrs. Singleton's class. I want
003to be in the student council because I like being helpful, a leader, and I think it could help me in my future. My favorite thing that we've done would probably be the food drive. Some activities that we have planned are doing the food drive, the bake sale, and doing ring bells at >> Okay. Thank you. >> Hi, my name is Charlotte. Mr. Thomas's class. I want to be in student council this year because I want because student council year. My favorite activity student council has done is reading the little political. Other activities student council has planned for for the year are the big sale drive kids concessions and etc. Hello, my name is Charlotte and my teacher's name is Miss. I'm in fifth grade. I wanted to be in student council because I wanted to
004find different ways to make the school community a better place. My favorite activity that student council has done is probably the um books to kids. Um some of the activities that for this year are the food sessions and the dance. >> Thank you. Thank you. My name is Paisley Brock. I'm in fifth grade and my teacher is Mrs. J. I wanted to be in student council because staff me I got to help people and be a leader. My favorite activity student council has done was the food drive because it made me feel happy that I got to help other people. I'm so excited to be in student in the food drive, work the concession stand, and help at the bake sale. I'm so happy to be in student council this year. shy one mother speak.
005>> So at the elementary level there are not many opportunities for kids to take what I would call the formal leadership roles. Um student council is the biggest opportunity that they have and to be selected to student council two times um says a lot about their character because they have to submit an application. Um so they would have had to have done the right thing last year to be able to even be eligible this year. Um so we appreciate the leadership that they provide um to our students um and excited to see the things that they have planned for the school and thank you to Miss Pley and Miss Willard. This is something that they do after school. So, it's neat to see them mentor these kids outside the school day as well. >> I
006love the fact that you guys have taken on leadership roles in our building, but I'm impressed the fact that you were able to stand up and speak. Charlotte Good job. >> You guys a little bit right in front of the table. Feel free. just those that are right there. There we go. >> Congratulations, ladies. >> Thank you. Thank you for contributing to our school and our community. >> It is great. We appreciate it. >> [laughter] >> Now feel free you got other things going on this afternoon this evening to get up and leave although you will miss you know excitement but you're not going to hurt anybody's feelings. I don't think one of these extra chairs. Yeah, >> I don't hear it. >> I'm good. But if you get cold back there, next spotlight, I
007am pleased to uh let the board know that Karen Kelly was nominated by two of her students uh as staff spotlight of the This is what they have to say. She was such a good teacher and needs the spotlight. Who needs spotlight? She is one of my favorite teachers from my eighth grade year. Again, she is just one of many outstanding staff that we have working with our students on a daily basis and very fortunate that we have the caliber of individuals that are working with our kids on a dayto day. We're very thankful and appreciative of what she does. That is our staff. Yes. Next we have celebrations. Mr. G, anything you want to share? >> Sure. We finished our first round of checkpoint checkpoint and our data looks uh very good compared to
008the state average higher than the state average. Fifth grade even they had already done their retest on their language arts and they were able to add 15 additional students with the retest. So on the new checkpoints you've assess you've got a window that you can determine how long that is and you can do that. So the other grade levels haven't done their retest on it yet but excited about the progress we're seeing. Teachers are working very hard with the language arts curriculum and it seems to be paying off. Second thing is for Mr. Gunther. We currently have nine staff members in the midst of threat assessment training. So I'm one of them. I'm not done yet. He he actually said eight and a half are finished. I said I suppose you're saying I'm the only
009one. It's it's not the case, but I am one of the only ones. That's all I Thank [clears throat] you, sir. Uh we would also like to congratulate the girls golf team and boys tennis team on a a good season. They were a little disappointed uh the way the season ended, but they have an awful lot to be proud of. So, we're very thankful, appreciative to all their efforts. But we'd also like to uh congratulate our boys and girls cross country team, a good season. The girls volleyball team had a rebuilding year with a new coach, but the girls played hard and we're very proud of them as well. And then we'd like to congratulate Coach S. and the players are football team for a great season. second conference championship in a row and very
010tough [clears throat] last >> I was just going to share that I actually know my behavior >> [laughter] >> It's funny because at the end of the day I was in her office. >> And she was on like section four of the last unit and I said, "Well, I'm on section six. It's terrible." So, I think she made it a point to me. [laughter] >> I did. No, in all seriousness, I think our celebration is that we had a very successful PSAT day. So, thank you for approving the e-learning. Um, everybody showed up. We had about a handful that did not and we were aware of them like young man with a concussion for example. Um and no sixth, seventh, eighth or 12th grader arrived. >> So yeah, so we did really well. Everybody took
011their time and did a really good job. So we're excited to see that data. Um and again, thanks for giving them that time. >> Great. donations. Yeah, >> we had donations. Yes. Everham Lincoln Church donated $500 to the CVS classrooms for snacks. Noble donated $350 to the FFA and Whitley County Museum in 4 Learning Center donated $500 to the FFA. Yes, this is just an opportunity for anybody in the community to speak of the hearing that we'd like to have for the projects and that we're looking at projects listed as HVAC system of the gyms and bathrooms. possibility towards I assume that that's not what you're getting to the new bathroom. [clears throat] Um, and since we don't have anybody u public comment wise u to speak on items on the agenda, we will move
012on. Nothing out of the ordinary. I'd like to attach our fundraiser document that was added to the agenda. >> I think that will be very beneficial and useful moving I'm excited to see that on there. >> Any questions or concerns? >> I have a motion to approve the consent agenda. >> Second. >> All those in favorel. Nothing out of the ordinary here as well. Did anybody ask that before? I thought we already approved that. >> I I also thought the same. >> I'm not sure how on there or if I misremembered. >> I did not go back and d this summer. >> Yeah. almost was it was almost the same time that we approved >> or was that when we just approved the position for the football >> and we knew that he was going
013to fill it >> that might have been since it was a new position we had to approve the position >> what we're talking about here is Mr. girls fly football, >> but he had the right to make those decisions. >> Any questions or concerns with personal agenda? >> Motion to approve the personal agenda as presented. All those in >> we don't have anything. >> No. Is this still on session? >> Great. >> All right. New business. >> Yes. First we'd like ask Mr. Huckman to give enrollment and student transfer. Good evening board. Um, similar to last year, um, Paul, do you have that? >> Yes. >> Um, and you have a copy of the of the numbers presentation that I'm going to kind of just talk to you real quick. Um, our count day was
014October 1st for the first period of the school year. Um, and we ended at 1,14.2 students in grades K through 13. Um, if you're asking where the 02 came from, we have a couple dual enrollment kids that we can't get full credit for. So, um, they're only here one or two periods a day. Um, and they're in the junior senior high. So, that's where the point >> the point comes from. Um, we are down three students from February of 2025. I'm sorry, that's a typo. Um, down three. We are up 0.2 from October of 2024. Um so basically flat to last year. Um we saw some grade levels that really saw some significant increases and we saw a couple grade levels or at least one grade level that had significant decrease. Um and our kindergarten
015is I think we've talked about this before but uh 57 kids in our kindergarten class. Um so that's pretty low. Um our junior senior high numbers are up. Um our freshman class is our sixth grade class is at 102. Um our freshman class is at 97.13. So we saw some increases there to kind of offset the the decreases. So So we're those numbers I think we're above 100 now for freshman but on count day we were just below. >> What's a typical typically in years past what do we have for kindergarten class? Yeah. 80 the goal. >> Yeah. >> So we're down to about 25 >> which is across the board. That's nothing specific to our >> Yeah. I across the street. >> Yeah. Kindergarten numbers are down. So we're hoping it's not a trend
016and maybe just a oneoff this year, but if it is a trend, it's a little worrisome. So, um, so from our count day, um, where do our students live? 849 live in our SGCS school district, down from nine students from last year. 242 come from outside our school district. That's up five. And we have 13 students that are transferred out to other schools. Um, so special ed kids for the most part that um, get sent to other schools and that's up four from last year. Um, as I said, 849 from Smith Green, 98 from Northwest Allen, two from East Allen, 51 from Fort Wayne, two from Garrett Kaiser, two from MSD Stuben, 43 from Whitley County, five from Southwest Allen, 16 from Central Noble, three from West Noble, and 33 from East Noble. So, that's
017all of our kids that are coming in. The numbers from Central Noble and West Noble include students that are part of the specialist co-op program that we do not get direct funding from. So they are sent here as part of the co-op. Um we get a discount on our bill from the co-op for those kids, but we don't get direct funding from the state for those kids. Um so these are all kids that we get direct funding for as part of the tuition money that follows them as part of our open enrollment. >> So we're overall down Even though we have 30 less kindergarters than usual. >> Yes. >> Do we I know we've talked about this a few times. Have we got something in place to figure out where students are going when we
018do listen? >> We have surveys in place and 99% of the time it's mobility. There's no >> So they're like moving >> they're moving out of the district. Yeah. We haven't point at any specific reason, >> but we do see a lot of mobility. >> Unfortunately, >> is that part of our exit process? >> Any questions? Next, we ask for approval uh of the agreement between the board of school trustees and school teachers association. I can tell you I feel very honored and pleased to work with group of professionals that we do and the teachers union go through negotiations very very smoothly and think we're all on the same page. We want our teachers to be treated and paid as professionals as they deserve. So this is in a kind of Recap real quickly. Um,
019this is what we agreed upon. It's a two-year contract. The first year $1,500 increase raising the base pay from 425 to 44,000. A $250 literacy endorsement, a $500 stipen for AP credit courses. Um, we will buy back up to five PTO days per year. and language was been added uh on leave dates taken before or after a holiday or school break must be preapproved by administrators. Uh another item that was added was homebound teachers will get paid their daily rate and the librarian will receive three extra days on her contract that she won. Year two then is a 3% raise across the board bringing the starting teacher salary from 44,000 up to 45,000 uh to meet the state minimum requirements. The other thing I'd like to say is I it sounds like it went very
020smooth this year. So I'm certainly appreciative of that. and appreciate uh the the teachers association to you know work with us on making some adjustments to some of the u the information that you as well thank you for that process any questions or concerns motion to approve the 257. >> Next, we ask for your approval for the 2026 27 school calendar. Please note that there is a slight change from what was in your original board packet that was brought to our attention that our commencement was on Memorial Day weekend. Um, and we can't have it on race day. So, we met real quickly and moved that date to June 6th at 2 o'clock the following Sunday. But other than that, everything is >> [clears throat] >> catch. >> Yes. Thanks. [laughter] >> Any questions or
021concerns? >> I'll make a motion that we accept the calendar for next year. >> Next, we ask for approval of additional staff conflict. These are just forms that didn't make it in the last month. motion to approve the staff confront us. Thank you, sir. Next thing we ask for your approval for the career and technology education agreement. This is with community schools and Whitley County Consolidated Schools. This is CT program that we started earlier this year. Started working to my knowledge. >> Now that we're whatever three months in, how is it? >> It's great. >> Um I told Dr. White not that long ago that it's the communication is exceptional. We're in the conversations. We're at the table making decisions. They've gotten creative for some of our kids. We've had some kids transferred from other
022districts and they've taken them on to continue um working together on calendars. Communication's been very clear to parents and families and where our kids are supposed to be. We get pretty good feedback. We've got kids are getting credentials already in these programs. We have an opportunity that they would not have had otherwise. So, it's been really great. >> How many students do we have? Half of our junior and senior class leave every day at some point for this or interns and that number is growing. We have sophomores that we will probably slide let's slide in for next year. >> So juniors and seniors now >> but we've talked and if there's open seats then it'll continue to grow. Very well to approve the career technical education agreement. >> You're so eager. >> All right. Second.
023>> Next, we ask for approval of the additional appropriation resolution. This just states that if you guys approve, this is what we I have a motion to approve the presentation for approval of additional appropriation resolution exhibit. >> Next we ask for the final bond resolution. This is where app This would uh you are approving a 9,950,000 bond. So this is the actual motion to the final resolution that it >> Thank you for taking care of the >> much needed improvements in the school. The bathroom is one of the things that I've done to that just every year. >> Next, we ask for adoption of the 2026 budget. This is a CPF plan and the tax rate. No changes have been made since you first saw us. questions or concerns [clears throat] to adopt the 2026
024budget as presented. >> All those in. >> Next, we ask for approval of the resolution for the 2025 end of year transfers. We do this every year. A motion to approve the resolution for the 2025 Second favor. >> And the next thing we ask for your approval for reduction of the 202 appropriation is every year. It's just money that has been forever. >> Motion to approve the reduction of the 2025ations. Any other business? >> All right. Now we are to our public comment section. Persons wishing to address the board to register their intentions to speak upon arrival prior to the start of the meeting. A sign up sheet is provided. Those audience members who have signed up may address the board at this time. Comments which involve personnel or students must be discussed in private.
025Speaker note, please state your name and group affiliation. Uh speaking time is limited to three minutes per speaker with a total time for public participation limited to 30 minutes. >> My name is Amy J. Jagger and I'm a fifth grade teacher. And since I was coming tonight to support my students, I thought I would repeat what I used to do when I came to the board meetings all the time a couple years ago. And I thought I would just talk about a couple good that are really going on here at CES. Uh first of all, I wanted to publicly thank Dr. Boy and Mr. Gunther for coming to our D1 math workshop last week. This is an evening uh where parents, students, and I work together to provide some extra instruction and support for the
026numerous math state standards that we are tasked for meeting for each ilearn checkpoint in fifth grade. And um the first month I did it, I had four students and four parents. This past month, I had six six students and six parents. And Dr. and Mr. Gunther stopped by and that just really meant a lot to um you know to have them stay after school too and and support our students and support our parents. So I wanted to thank you for that. Um secondly, I wanted to express my sincerest appreciation and my vote of confidence for our curriculum director, Mrs. Erica Almas. I liken her hiring to some of the best hires at Smith Green Community Schools over the year. And in my humble opinion, that would be Mr. Harold Norman, Mrs. This is Rosalie Geller,
027Sulow, and Cindy Solinger. Erica is in that room. Um, she knows her stuff. She is helping us move in the right direction. She tackles problems head on. She's an incredibly hard worker. She listens. She researches. She reads, she's knows what's going on in our rooms. Um, she holds us accountable. She encourages us. Uh, she not only listens, but she hears us. And yes, she has chocolate in her room for the taking any time. uh the role that she plays in our school is vital and we are so blessed that someone with someone someone with her experience, her wisdom and her grit has decided to land here at Smith Green Community Schools and I just wanted you to know that. Thank you so much. >> Thank you very much. >> I can tell you what [clears
028throat] Miss Jagger was doing in our classroom with those students and with their parents was amazing. Was really cool. So, >> thanks for stopping by. I believe it. I was lucky enough or I should say Drake and were lucky enough to get to work a couple years ago. All right, with that we'll move on to board and administrative comments principal report. Couple things that are coming up. Next Wednesday is our title one family reading night. families coming in, they get to play games, interact, but we also have a title meeting talking about our reading remediation program. Um, on November 7th, which is next Friday, we have our normal family meeting, but in addition to our family meeting, uh, Mr. Pulley has created a slideshow and we'll have a vets recognition um, for Veterans Day. uh
029we decided to combine that instead of doing it on the 11th, we decided to combine it with a family meeting. And then the last thing that actually last upcoming on Wednesday night this week, we have trunk or treat in our parking lot assuming that it's not raining. If it is, it will be in the building, but it will be up to go. Um and then our parent teaches, we had 94.7% of our parents show. So I That shows the dedication of not only our teaching staff and our students but also of their parents in supporting the whole process. >> Thank you sir. >> Mrs. Harsh certainly don't want to >> that's okay. I do not have too much to share because we're kind of in the right now. This is the few weeks that we
030have to kind of catch our breath before winter sports will pick up and then all the to wrap up the first semester. Like I said, PSAT day was really great. Um, and so everybody can kind of breathe after that. Um, in November, we have a couple of field trips for um, JA and some college and career visits and we'll schedule those then again in the spring to get some of our students to the career academy and city um to kind of see those programs. Um we have some um power school training coming up that we're looking forward to and um just to kind of follow up on our strategic planning um Mr. G and I did meet uh last week and had a really great conversation um and we are in the process of creating
031a draft that we'll be able to present to you in regards to our communication plan. If you've noticed, we've kind of started already implementing those things. K12 um just to kind of continue to work on um how we're communicating with parents. Um and so yeah, we hope to have a draft for you. We put some stuff together and just working on >> I like the new school message. There was one about like um highlights and stuff or whatever. I thought I included the Thank you, Mr. >> Um, Mr. Johnson, I believe at the last board meeting you asked of what our bond capacity would be for 2027 if we want to maintain a tax rate neutral debt service fund. And according to Baker Tilly, that would be just over capacity. Then the next thing for
032Uh, I want to congratulate our two-year student council members. always I love seeing the kids come in uh and and knowing what uh student council involves um and and doing it a second year after doing it the first year as well as you know going through the process uh is fantastic. Uh so I I really appreciate uh and love when our our kids really want to be involved um much more than I come to school I go home from school. So when they want to be involved with those levels, it's it's really fantastic. So I appreciate that. Congratulations to them. Congratulations to Mrs. Kelly and our staff spotlight. Uh like we always talk about, we have uh what I believe is, you know, the best uh grouping of teachers and administrators uh in the state.
033And I I appreciate everyone and it's great to be able to recognize them. Um, congratulations to all of our fall uh extracurricular uh activities uh as well as the the students as well as the coaches involved in all of those. We're obviously very proud of each and every one of them. Uh thank you to everybody with our donations um donating to our FFA group as well as the school in general for those snacks. Greatly appreciated so that we can support those organizations. I want to also thank Susan. I know that she has spent a couple of hours on our budget. So, I know that that's very uh taxing task uh and I appreciate all of your your work there. So, and I also want to uh personally uh thank everybody that was involved with our
034uh updated teacher agreement. Um, so we we appreciate that um working together the way it goes uh and smoothly and I I definitely appreciate the way that process happens. So that's all those things. So ditto um and I just want to thank uh the teachers up here in teacher conference in the elementary levels. I feel like it's it's a little bit easier to find a positive, you know, do like the positive hamburger. Um but I have a middle kid in middle school and her teacher still found a way to be give me that hamburger. Um, we learned that all hope was not lost. So, but having those conversations with them was really uh insightful and I feel like good teachers do that. Um, so I was really pleased with the conversations and thankful that they
035gave us their time to do that. Very like to thank everyone and thank Susan for your efforts and everyone involved with the negotiations that went very well. That's a a real blessing we have seems in our community. So the only other thing is the musical will be coming up in three weeks right before. >> So that's coming up. Get your tickets. Um, I mean, kind of going off what Jeremiah said, thanks to Dr. Boy, for all the new things you brought to us in the last couple years, the student spotlight, the staff spotlight. It's great to be able to recognize the good things that we have going on here. And thanks for making our staff also recognize what's going on here. I think it's important updates from our principles and curriculum directors and just kind
036of everybody. So, kudos to all that. Um, the donations, we've talked about a million times, we couldn't do many things without it. So, I know FFA is probably very, very typical to get the donations that they've received, as well as the church for, you know, taking care of some snacks for our kids during the day. Um, I also want to congratulate our fall sports extracurriculars and wish our winter sports good luck as they're in full swing for practice and getting ready for their season. Um, it was instruct this presentation because it is nice to just kind of see the details and to hear we are down three students but when your kindergarten class is down nearly 30 I would say that's probably a success for us. So you know we're going to going to ride
037that wave and hope our February numbers even higher. Um 80 students in the cooperative great job. I know Miss Hershey have worked super super hard on that. Um you were drinking on both ends fire hose so thank you for all of our hard work on that and the staff that's helped out in that as well. Um I enjoyed being part of union negotiations. I think it is so important that we take care of our our teachers and our staff here in the school because we do do not want to lose any of them. Um they are our biggest asset with our students. So um I'm very appreciative for how well that worked and everybody that was involved in that. Um Miss Egley, she was a big part of being the voice for the teachers. So
038that was really nice to hear from her. Um Amy, thank you for coming and just kind of giving us that update. You did used to come a lot more and haven't seen you for a while. Thank you. But then it's nice to hear from our teachers. You know, we don't get to be in the classrooms and so it's nice to hear. >> Can I say please please come anytime or if you would like to come to math night and see what's going on. Um you know I would uh trick him down after we took the math test and said what are you doing? Uh because he was pretty he was very pleased with that sport and I and I you know that's that's one thing that I'm trying to do that's out of the box.
039So, thank you for acknowledging that it's >> that's coming out of my own time, but it is please please come during the day. I mean, >> you're always always welcome. Super. I appreciate that. Yeah, it's it's nice to hear from our teachers. It's nice to hear from our staff because we feel the good things happening, but if we don't have a kid in your class, you know, I mean, I don't know what's happened last night or high school because I'm at mad. Sometimes I just have to send this first message and say, "Hey, I'm Earth. Hope you're doing well." So, you know, but it's that's what we love about this school because it is a community and it's a family and you know, there's just so many great things happening. Um, I appreciate you two
040continuing to work on strategic plans. So many times the strategic plan gets done and they get shoved in the drawer and closed and there is a lot of work behind one of those. So, thank you for continuing to make that top of mind. And yes, thank you so much, Susan, for all the work you've put in in our numbers because numbers is not a fun world to live in and you have put in so much work. So, thank you for that. That's all I have. I was >> Thank you. Thank you. In closing, our next uh meeting will be November 17th. With that, we will close the additional appropriations hearing and regular board meeting of Smith Green Community Schools on Monday, October 27th, 2025 at 7:16. expected to be