001okay there's somewhere up here yes oh okay you [Music] call this october 18 2021 regular school board meeting for smith green schools to order at all right first thing absolutely 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 right everyone have some silence for a moment of meditation please thank you the mission of smith green community schools is provide a superior educational experience that ensures success for every student with excellence in teaching and learning all right at this part we're going to ask members of the audience to speak i'm just going to lay out some rules here so this very first part is this to talk about anything that's on this printed agenda this part of
002it and it will be another public part at the end all right so as we go if anybody wants to speak i know there are a few speakers here you'll have a few minutes to talk [Music] and also on this card and i'll remind you of the next meeting no comments will be made about to involve personnel or students those have to be discussed in private okay so i'll just ask now before we're gonna do introduction so everybody's got to stand up and give your name uh and then we'll do a brief summary and i'll i'll go over that so does anybody know if they're gonna if they're speaking only on what's on this agenda he said okay all right so then what he said why don't you just wait till the end then and
003stand up and then we'll talk if you're the only one for this for this part of this section okay so what we're going to do is all i want is your a name and just give a brief statement like a little sentence that says why you're here and then we'll just move on okay and then mrs bigley can go for her part so go ahead and start in that far the far corner all the way to the back yep go home yep and if you're a family and you want to speak for them as in you know this is my wife or this is my husband and while you're here that's fine you don't go about all i have to speak a randy grandpa go ahead next let's go right right down terry and nikki
004geiger okay peggy and roger lafever are you guys why are you guys here just a brief summer because i'm just observing because of the bowling going on okay kim hill madeline said bartle okay go ahead adam buker i'm just here to watch this guy okay go ahead just go home and the back will just come up do this loop and then we'll come right back to this wall go ahead that's good for parents come here because just give me a brief statement yep that's perfect my name is robert dreyer and i'm here just because i'm curious okay perfect good answer go ahead right next to kevin oh uh trevor kelly concerned citizen okay karen calais teacher okay ashley lynch i'm here for bullying okay calvin krieger here for the bullying uh rodney and lisa johnston
005we're concerned grandparents okay cut fields with daughter addison uh just doing civic duty okay thank you charlie brooke concerned parent yeah mary jo and bob skinner concerned grandparents okay let's just uh okay we got everybody over there right good luck yeah uh nicola fever here for the bullying okay i'm julie lowe and i'm a concerned grandparent go ahead casey taxi concerned parent nancy taggart i'm sorry concern bullying grandparent thank you casey foote concerned parent michelle i'm mark cheshire cta vice president and bargaining chair member amy egley teacher sgcca bargaining chair and president staff hours teacher jordan bowers coach amy pettigrew teacher thanks shelley deal librarian julie math teacher hey thomas fifth grade teacher linda willard teacher good evening amy j jagger i'm a fifth grade teacher david huckman technology director tim shelley from the law
006firm award boyne school board's attorney matt what's other principal of chairwester elementary lip cooper assistant principal and volunteer bulksville junior senior high school principal here jared miller uh chair boston junior your high school assistant principal sarah royer concerned the rose of concern all right everybody if i okay thank you for everyone uh sir you're the only one that wants to speak on this part so i am a smith green classroom teacher association president and bargaining chair and collectively um as you look through our contract we have i don't even we are very thankful very appreciative and we feel valued most importantly we feel valued and it's not a monetary thing but it's the fact that the district has fully invested and we have we feel seen and we feel heard and the process of bargaining
007was absolutely amazing um both sides back and forth it was great it was very respectful and i do think collectively if i'm speaking collectively that we do we truly appreciate everything we look forward to this two-year contract um and that's really all i have to say thank you we appreciate all of them and everything for us community and our kids so thanks again good evening everyone everyone here in person and everyone joining us via live stream thanks for watching at home um board before you tonight in your board packet you do have a consent agenda uh so a few items i'd like to highlight very quickly obviously our board minutes from the last three games that we've had um a brief sheet of some professional leaves right here for your consideration accounts payable payrolls and
008we want to highlight a large number of donations this month um big thank you to jamie and amy the bolt um for a 660 donation to the girls basketball program so thank you to them at the last session for 100 donations of the girls basketball program the chair of school watching george 100 to the girls basketball program brady's auto service 100 girls basketball program sugar grove church of god 250 to the girls basketball program team realty 250 to the girls basketball program super pound dinner turtle town dental excuse me uh 250 girls basketball program save you more 250 girls basketball magic won 250 girls basketball and then um generous donation of 980 from the very evening memorials to the football program and then also 540 from the territory memorials um to the wrestling program so
009a huge thank you to all these individuals and businesses for their extreme generosity those who them to our kids so thank you to them uh proposed field trips we do not have any additional food trips this month to add to the listings part of your cruise and then fundraisers award the only new fundraiser that is being proposed excuse me on here on this for the junior class um and preparation for prom in the spring otherwise all the other fundraisers so far so that is everything on the consensus any questions comments it's not my motion to approve the consent agenda second all those in favor agenda just a few items to highlight here on a few additional eca appointments and nominations for your approval tonight for several coaching positions for the winter and spring um our
010making we are making the recommendations missing bond who is currently serving as long-term suburbs to starkey have that exposition extended to the end of the semester to cover for mrs hill mrs graves is submitting a request for maternity leave starting attentively in january 28th of course that is dependent on someone else but that would extend hopefully through april 1st of 2022 this is merriman our cespe teacher has submitted her intent to retire it is dated now however she is actually giving us a lot of notice [Music] has submitted a letter of resignation i'm thinking background check at a new district that he's moving to thank him for his time here at lesko as well and then miss roxanne wagner is being recommended tonight as a new social studies teacher to replace mr schmeckins starting on
011november 1st and replacement everything is listed there inside inside your agenda so that is everything on the personality anything questions here i'll motion to approve your personality well those are bigger very few things this month um did have one background effect that has not been completed and then obviously the new employee just approved just now obviously their background checks have started so hopefully next time you see each other that will be um that'll be wrapped up and before we leave superintendent report if i can talk briefly about another item very quickly so earlier today on board i was made aware of some questions and some discussions happening on social media in regards to um critical race theory social emotional learning et cetera things of that nature so i wanted to talk about that for just
012a minute so i know this has been a hot topic around various communities including our own um this has been going on i don't know a year or so maybe now that i feel like i've started to hear that and just as a little bit of history for me i still remember the first time i heard the words christopher's theory and i had to look it up because i'd never heard of such a thing i didn't know what it was um and so i think i have an understanding although i'll be honest it's nothing that i've ever studied or that we've ever done here so i i'm still going based on what i've read on that um but i do think it's important that we say again and i think we've said this before but
013i want to make sure i say clearly that it's not something that's ever been taught um that's not something that in my mind would ever be funny let's go we everything that's taught here falls in line with the required indiana state standards that is not at this time nor will do i think it will ever be one of indiana state standards at all i think our state has made that very clear that they have no interest in bringing that into indiana at any time um i'd like to talk for men about social emotional learning because i feel like i'm very confused actually on the direction that this topic has taken though um so social emotional learning if you look at student definitions social emotional learning are things that we that all of us grew up
014being taught ourselves um that and i think most of us are trying to work on our children so social emotional learning talks about things like work ethic relationship skills sympathy for others managing your emotions things of that nature um and so for some reason right now seattle as it's being called a lot out there on on the internet has somehow kind of been lumped in with critical race here and i don't i don't really understand that um for what we can call it whatever we want to call it i we would prefer to call it job skills or life skills that's fine but at the end of the day i think most of us agree that those things i mentioned are things that we do want our children to learn through various things here so
015um but again i don't i would not say that we teach a social emotional learning curriculum as much as just the ideas that were behind the original social emotional learning movement are things that everyone i think believes in um also saw some concerns about um something called comprehensive sexuality education which i have to be honest i've never even heard that term before um again what i would say and again i think we talked about this before is that everything that we teach involving sexual education is tied directly to what's required by the state of indiana sex education is actually a required topic that has to be taught at certain grade levels it's spelled out as a state curriculum parents do have opt-outs that they go that you all have a chance to opt out of
016through your registration process each year but again just being very clear we don't do anything over and above that we stick exactly to what the state says that we have to do so um with that said i know there's also questions about library books i know in other communities that's been big a very big topic um just for what it's worth i think any parent who has reached out to us talk about a specific book or questions that they've had has had a pretty good experience with that our librarian is more than accommodating and happy to talk about any of those things um at any time with anyone so i guess i would say for those here tonight or again those just listening or who may watch this later if you ever have a question
017about a book or you've heard about a book online oh i wonder if we have that or is that something we use you know make sure you give us a deal a call should be happy to talk to you and look at it and if it's something that needs to come off the shelf it'll come off the shelf um i can't i can't say it any anymore clearly than that so the last thing i really want to stress and again this is another one that kind of baffles me um i've heard some chatter out there about that if schools accept um the esser funds that are coming from the federal government or lilly foundation funds here locally in indiana that by doing so that must guarantee that we're doing these things that i just mentioned
018and i don't i don't understand that because that is in no way tied to any of those things um if you look at the lilly foundation grant so we are currently accepting funds we're in our final year of a four-year grant with the lilly foundation that's the money that pays for our worthy works program which anyone here who has a high school your children participate in that which is life skill it's excuse me job skills it's the mentorship program they get to do internships with businesses and to me it's been a hugely successful program with the county of getting some of our best leaders from local businesses tied up with the kids so i think the kids have had a rewarding experience and that grant is what's made that possible but that is the only
019commitment to that is we just have to deliver on what we asked for in that grant and we wrote that collectively with whitco and columbia city as well um as far as the esser funds so if you've seen that on the news um all schools we've had three rounds of funds here here at busco our first round was around 80 000 i believe that one was spent entirely on nurse clinic staff pandemic supplies etc to help us get through the first wave of the pandemic the second round was roughly 300 000 a little bit less i believe we used a portion of that um to help pay for some additional um stipends for our staff and then again a lot of the pandemic kind of response things in the third round we really haven't started
020spending yet but our plan if you'd like to see it is on the website for that um same thing it's being used for pandemic supplies and then we're hoping to use a chunk of those funds to improve some hvac and airflow things in the building those are related to the pandemic but obviously a long-term solution for us are just improving air quality here for school so and that last one like i said the amount the last one was about 660 i believe was our final number once they adjusted it so um so anyway just wanted i guess to address that um apparently because i know those questions out there about that and just wanted to speak to that so boredom if you have any questions for me on that or anything so appreciate your input
021thank you okay clearing up some things [Music] legislative report is the next item and i have no new topics to discuss from the legislative side okay or next item on your agenda under other business is the consideration of approval of club status for a junior high quad golf club so mr wright brought this to us a few weeks ago he has been hearing a lot of interest from students and other individuals that there's been interest in starting a junior high club golf team and so the process that we've always followed in the past is if it's an activity that does does not currently exist we ask that it be brought forward as a club first before it becomes an approved actual sport and that basically gives some time to gauge interest is there enough interest
022in this activity before we take all the steps to really make it a true permanent addition to our to our program so as you'll see in some of the background information um there are no coaches chosen or anything yet but again there has been interest expressed um we would like to pay someone if this does happen um it would be paid 402 which would be in our teacher agreement which we always do for any new additional clubs that start again if down the road this this is a full-blown activity that we want to bring forward as a true sport then we would want to bring that back and consider if that face guy needs to be adjusted or any of the positions of that so board tonight we're just asking for your approval um to
023get permission to move ahead and start the junior high co-ad golf club all motion to approve [Music] that sounds like a good program to me all right let's go into the next thing okay for the next item on your agenda is consideration of approval of the agreement between the board of school trustees and the smithereen classroom teachers association so as mrs zachary just spoke a minute ago about um we just finished a week or so ago the bargaining process with our smith green classroom teachers association and for the first time since i've been superintendent we were able to negotiate a two-year agreement we have not been able to do that uh the last four years that i've been in the seat but this year um things felt felt just right and i think we all
024came to the table with very common goals on very common aims and um and all the pieces just aligned in that right way so very excited to be able to bring this to you tonight i won't go all through this again because i know we just had a meeting about this last week um that that went through all the details but i certainly would be happy to answer any questions you may have had since that meeting or anything i should have talked about all right okay contract negotiations mr roy and i spent some time looking at the available funding that we had based on the budgetary things that the state has put into place for this next biennium cycle and so with that as we averaged out the um the true package of the teacher
025agreement uh found that that was going to be about a 10 increase give or take a little bit and so again based on the available funding we have for our announcer positions um felt that that was an appropriate amount to also shift that chart as well so we're looking at we are proposing a 10 increase for both our nonserv positions as well as our transportation um salary schedule as well uh one particular position i do want to mention because it has changed um one position that i just want to point out because we did make an adjustment to the library um assistant in the elementary school this is a position that we spent some time taking a look at and talking about how those duties really aligned with i guess basically what the job has
026become and what it was going to be this year and so we did make an adjustment to that to increase the base pay which then increases the whole chart um to realign it with our mac position that's in the high school library just felt like those are very comparable so do you want to point that out that is one change individually on the chart that we did make again based on based on looking at some of the duties that build that position so that change has been made um but otherwise again once that adjustment was made the entire chart just received a ten percent four percent increase and looking forward um it is our intent that uh once we get to the second half of the school year we'd actually like to sit down and
027kind of go through this chart again and just make sure all the positions in comparison are aligned before we want them to be we'd like to take another deep dive and look at our competitiveness again with some individual positions so that'll be coming as we work through strategic planning stuff later this year as well so again we're happy to entertain any questions but if not i'd recommend that you approve the proposed increases for the non-served and transportation designer schedules i would like to add just one thing that our our non-cert staff went several years with um either no increases or very little increases um and so we had fallen behind and compared to comparatively speaking to other school districts around us we had fallen behind we started to catch up a little bit last year
028um but we we needed to make some big changes we had several part-time people who had not um increased their salary since they started here and some of those worked eight or nine years for us and never increased their salary so um it was time it was time to get to get us a little closer to the school systems around us like dr heil said we'll be looking into specific positions for the next next school year so i just wanted to point that out that our our staff really has seen very little increases over the last several years the to approve the non-certified salary schedule no second all those in favor okay uh so warren i know we have gone through the budget um at least three times in public meetings together the last time
029we were together and we had the hearing we went into a lot more detail than the prior couple times so my plan is not to go into detail tonight about this i've had no one in the community reach out to me with questions or concerns about the budget that we advertised just like to point out again that what we see as what you're adopting once the department of local government finance looks at it they will cut it so we will not be anywhere near the amounts that we're asking for i think we talked about that in the previous meeting as well so first up um there's several there's several resolutions to pass surrounding the budget first up is the bus replacement plan by state law i do need an official approval to um to approve
030the plan that we have presented at the hearing so that's the first one up something any questions whole motion to approve the 22 bus replacement plan which is the second following next one up is the capital projects plan again uh we went over this in detail uh the first year the plan is is the most critical because that is the one that we won't be able to [Music] add anything to once we get past tonight uh year two and year three we can change and add to next year as we get into those those future years but again no one in the community has reached out to me or um had any comments or anything so i'd like to recommend that we've approved the capital project plan for 2022. small motion to approve the 2022
031capital projects plan oh second second all those in favor and the 2022 budget this is going to include the budget for the education fund the referendum fund the debt service fund operations and rainy day and again no public comments or calls of concern and so my recommendation is that we approve it okay next resolution surrounding the budget is uh the resolution for 2021 urine transfers so basically what this is is um every each line each each fund has hundreds of lines of appropriations that we assign um so like this time of the year i was finding appropriations to last us through the year of 2022. so um there are a lot of unknowns at this point of the budget process and so there are are naturally going to be some lines that are overspent some
032lines that are under spent what this what this resolution will do will allow me to move money from one line to another i can't move it outside of a fund so i can't go from education fund to debt service fund i can't put money from one fund to another i can't put money from operations fund into education fund without a resolution to do that so um this is allowing me this is giving me permission to move money from one line within a fund to another line within that same fund as we close out the 2021 year any questions on that motion to approve the resolutions for 2021 here in transfers okay the next resolution i have is authority to reduce appropriations and where this comes into play an example of this would be in our
033rainy day fund i do ask for a budget in the rainy day fund even though i we don't ever plan to spend it but in order for me to ask for more money next year in 2022 we have to reduce appropriations so i've asked for 500 thousand dollars to spend in 2021 for the rainy day time not anticipate spending that and if we do not i plan to reduce the appropriations for that fund in 2021 down to zero basically if we have to spend it then we'll reduce the appropriations down to um a lesser amount but what this will do is it does protect the taxpayers that protects the tax fund so that by me asking for to spend another 500 000 in 2022 if we don't reduce the appropriations in 21 um it would
034actually require us to collect taxes to actually spend that 500 000 next year so this is just a resolution giving me authority to reduce appropriations if they're not spent and this can this the rainy day fund was just an example this will apply to all of our funds you're giving me approval to reduce appropriations that we are not going to spend a motion to approve the resolution to reduce appropriations um so at the last at the last meeting we had um jim elizondo here from stifle we are looking at refunding refinancing our 2012 bond uh we had taken out uh six million dollars in 2012 a bond and uh with interest rates as low as they are we have the opportunity to refinance that bond and save the corporation i think when mr elizondo was
035here last meeting um he had an estimate of saving 186 thousand dollars um as of speaking with him today um rates have changed just a little bit and we're looking at um more like 177 000 savings at this point um but if that can change i mean it can change up to the day we actually find the papers so um this first resolution is just giving approval to move forward with that bond refinancing um this will allow the attorneys and mr elizondo to move forward with the refinancing and jody if i read this right um this speaks to 90 000 in the savings is that so that's basically so that would be the lowest amount that he is anticipating that we would say um he said most likely i mean the rates would have to
036go crazy heights and only say 90 000. if i read this correctly if it is below that we would not then we would not correct you see forever yes just so everybody knows of your question we had a a bond from 2012 and uh rates right now are so crazy low we're basically going to refinance it through the way to say it and we're going to that money that mrs royer talked about the money that we were going to say that we would have spent if we don't reach this so you're looking at you know 100 177 000 potentially so that's what that's about this is what the next couple things we have on this agenda is about just so you know okay so the next resolution board is approving the building torque um and
037and this is something that happens it's just more paperwork for this bond refinancing to approve the resolution for reapproving the building corporation second second person and the very last one is a resolution of proving the second supplement to the master continuing disclosure undertaking and again just more more giving the attorneys and uh mr elebondo the approval to move forward and we need to change some of the wording in um some of the things that we have to submit for reimbursement it changes some of the wording in those so that's all this is and then yeah i'll almost have to approve the second supplement to master continuing disclosure so just so you know too we will have to go through another uh rating call so we'll have another rating call we'll have um with the uh
038with ice miller there the attorneys out of indianapolis will have to do the continued disclosure call with them so that continuing disclosure undertaking is because we have bonds we are required to publicly report all of our debt and all of um and so ice miller helps us keep track of all the things that we have to submit to to take care of all those recommendations our requirements i'm sorry i don't know anything about technology uh good evening board um do you have in front of you on your in your packet the 2021 technology report i just want to kind of highlight a few things uh things that we did over the past year um in our one-to-one program all of our students continue to use chromebooks in the classroom they all take them home when
039needed we purchased 300 new devices to replace the old devices in grades 2 6 and 9. we'll continue to do that year to year we purchased roughly 30 verizon hotspots using a grant that dr heil was able to work with whitley county to get us so we had those are being used currently by students that have no internet at home or very very poor internet at home with quarantines going on it was something we really needed to do infrastructure we kind of kept the status quo with the infrastructure this year with covet we intentionally did not add anything new so no major upgrades uh minus we purchased three external access points um one of which has been installed on the front of the high school building and near the entrance so that gets signal out
040to our parking lot as parent students need that the other two are going to go out on the athletic fields so that's going to expand our wireless coverage it's going to cover pretty much the entire campus at that point uh let's see we've got new laptops for all the certified staff because the ones they were using were outdated and out of warranty um state reporting i know you're laughing so we say like all as in all certified all certified staff so we purchased roughly 95 of them and we did that at the last common school loan which was in the spring sorry last fall that's december we purchased them so they got those in the spring and they've been a huge upgrade and not to question any of that no could it be less impactful
041if we did kind of more of a rotational a third this year or third you know a third or is there a reason that we do we try to do it all at once to keep the same models because models change from year to year um so it makes it a little less stressful on us as is if they're all the same model we can get parts a little cheaper if needed they're just easier for us to manage that way same with the chromebooks we try to keep everything the same model as we can just easier to manage okay state reporting the indiana department of ed has introduced a new state reporting system for us this year and it has been not fun it's taking information directly from our student information system power school and
042transporting it directly to the state as they request it so our new membership numbers came directly from that and we are still working to correct some data on that uh curriculum we're still using canvas as our main learning management system it's been instrumental this of course with covit and quarantine's been instrumental in getting curriculum out and learning materials out teachers have made incredibly huge strides in how they're using canvas over the last year so i i just commend them on what they have done they have really really done well with with canvas when kids are not in their classroom uh last couple things we continue to partner with trust tech systems they become a huge integral part of our daily world hill here and they do a wonderful job with our engineering and hardware uh
043common school loan we're still using that for major purchases again we intentionally did not purchase any new software unless things came up as needed just with cobit we tried to keep the status quo sustainability plan we'll talk about that next month but that continues to be a fluid document we're adding things as needed taking things off as we find they're not needed the last thing we added some wireless displays to our common areas in the building allows us to update information on those displays for kids to see parents to see it's just a great way that we're communicating with our with our people when they're in the building and we're looking at ways to add more of those throughout our building so thank you board for your continuing support of technology it's really been a
044wonderful wonderful year for it believe it or not it's no secret to anybody in this room this last year and a half has not been a year and a half than any of us would have imagined a year and a half ago um and a lot more technology dependent than we've ever been and um i can't say enough good things about what uh mr strzokman and also our trust tech team has done to keep things moving keep controlling smoothly in this of that you heard him in the middle of this report to share something about state reporting that was kind of a very big change that the state just decided that this month was the time to do it i questioned that logic but we did it anyway um we had to do it and
045um spent countless hours trying to get those reports corrected and cooperate because there were a lot of software issues on the back end that had nothing to do with us this that he's had to spend hours correcting and fixing to make sure the executive so i just want to make sure i publicly thank him for all the work that he always does to keep things running um as smooth as he can for our kids and just everything that we do here so big thank you mr thank you thank you thank you all right i can say it although miss government gave me the status of this related to what i just said um at the end of uh the stu the data student account cycle there um our student official account number final calendar for
046fall 2021 is 1179 students that does not include include preschool that's just kindergarten 212. and then our total number of student transfers has increased again this year we're now up to 219. so those are 219 students that live outside smith or green townships who have transferred into us so last year i don't remember exactly but it was in the 190s high 197 so we've got about another 20 so take that take that for what you will yeah tonight [Music] i'm afraid yeah [Music] nothing else [Music] all right so now we are moving to the final part of the public comments so until you have a couple reminders before we get started because there are a few names here that want to talk so remember this is going to be the maximum of a 30 minute
047session each person has three minutes to talk and i will give you the finger meaning one minute so you can wrap it up so remember all the comments involved involved personnel or students must be discussed in a private meeting okay so whoever's talking please show them some respect and don't interrupt them uh i think that's sums up everything uh let's go first um hi good good evening i'm board members admin colleagues and parents my name is shelley diehl lots of you probably know me as shelly simmons um and i was a fifth grade teacher for over 20 years and this is my sixth year as a school librarian for our district i personally have two children who have attended busco schools and they have graduated and the school and community is very dear to my
048heart i'm trying to cry um with various community um comments being made on social media i just wanted to come tonight to reassure our tarabusco community that it is our number one goal in the library to keep our students safe not only emotionally and physically but digitally digitally as well we are so blessed with a wonderful collection of books at our two schools however with that being said we have thousands of books and only one me therefore i would like to encourage parents and staff who have a concern about a book to please contact me either by email or phone i'm very approachable and i will listen to your concerns we do have a book challenge policy in place and i would be happy to get you that information as well we all want to
049want what is best for all of our kids so please reach out thank you very much thank you so much i'm not sure that we can say thank you i'm not enough can you i don't think one can and so um i'm ian jagger and i'm just here on behalf of the smith green community teachers but then particularly the chirobusco elementary school teachers we just want to say thank you dr heil for your support mrs royer we thank you school board member we're so grateful for you we're grateful for these two gentlemen right up here who support us daily we are so thankful for a community sometimes it's very easy to get discouraged and to maybe uh tune in to that negativity we just feel so blessed um so positive i'm gonna speak for my
050sidekick here tonight um fifth grade has been conducting parent-teacher conferences with all of our students so when parents come in they meet with their child's homeroom teacher with their math teacher with their literacy teacher um we can't do that in two nights so we're spending a lot of after school hours and boy is it worth it and to have parents um just acknowledge that we're taking just you know time to do that they're grateful they're appreciative so thank you from the bottom of our hearts it just makes such a difference so thank you very much we love your kids thank you thank you thank you everyone all right uh thank you the fever okay i'm here because i'm very concerned about all the bullying going on because it's happened to somebody very close to me
051and all of our family here also it's gotten worse the last several years and all that i've heard that's been done is just suspension two days when it happens and they can just stay home play on their phones their parents aren't there they're alert so i mean what's that teaching them i wanted to also say how thankful and proud i am of a student and parent who was brave enough to speak up and come forward and tell what was happening in the middle school boy football locker rooms kids were being peed on peed in their shoes putting their private parts on people rubbing them and touching them is just unacceptable the boys are intimidating and scaring these kids from coming forward to stop the abuse the coaches need to be in the locker rooms at
052all times and on the buses for the games they need to be held accountable for the actions that took place on their watch where were the coaches when all this is happening these bullies need more punishment than just a few days suspension anyone involved in these criminal bullying needs to be sent to you would you center they shouldn't be allowed to play sports or allowed back in the school there needs to be a zero tolerance policy against boeing this isn't the only incident that's happened either i've had numerous parents tell me that this is happening all the time and all they get is two days suspension the school is so worried about this everybody's suing over cobin what would happen if the bully really or the person who bullies the kim really gets hurt what
053would that lawsuit look like and i know you've got a sign posted that this is a safe place i think it should be removed also i don't feel like this is a safe place anymore it's not like it used to be and i just think the administration teachers anybody that has a knowledge of what's going on and then doing nothing should resign or get fired you're right i think it is general okay one more minute bishop please okay the community has been praised though for how respectful and courteous our board meetings have been over the issues you know people don't agree with i just wish our kids could get the same respect my heart just aches for all these innocent kids and what's happening to our small town school thank you [Music] we're standing up
054for anti-bullying it's ironic that this happens and comes out in month that's for anti-bullying my daughter's been bullied recently it's not the first occurrence a two-day suspension is nothing for these kids they're learning nothing from it police have to be brought in just so something gets done smith green community school's mission statement says the mission is to create a safe and respectful learning environment it's not safe and respectful when your kids picking themselves up off the ground to a bruise on their face the extracurricular constitution for students and parents reads smith green community schools is to provide extracurricular students the finest opportunities you're not doing that you're teaching teamwork to bully against other kids you're not teaching self-discipline you're not teaching moral character discipline is in the student handbook and it's very vague this needs
055to change there needs to be consequences for these actions if i have to go to the police station to get something done that says something right there a first or second offense is a two-day suspension we shouldn't get to a second offense when a kid has a third offense against the same kid their problem do you think that that kid doesn't have mental angst for the rest of their lives think back everybody in this room think of the time you were bullied it's happened whether it was in your adult life or your childhood life you've never forgotten it and i pray these kids find a way to get over it it's not easy smith green community schools policy states bullying is serious and will not be tolerated in 2015 2015-16 this school implemented an anti-bullying
056policy where did it go it hasn't been talked about since maybe it's time for a new school improvement plan does the board know these things are happening do you get any record of this stuff is there a scale for punishments these things are coming with indiana state code title 1335 is being committed acts of criminal acts misdemeanors a class being misdemeanor has been happening in this school for three three weeks that i know of it clearly states that if an extracurricular participant is in violation of one of these school rules such as tyranny suspension classroom disruption or other punishable acts and it's not in accordance with the extracurricular code they're supposed to be removed from that team fifty percent of their season the second offense is the entire season and a third offense is never
057again participating sports why are these kids allowed to continue doing it if somebody in this room knows someone that's been bullied a grandchild somebody else with their own kids stand up this is too many this is a problem in our small school and it's too many four that i know stand up against bowling at this school we can't let it keep happening that number that 200 and these 19 kids it's gonna go away they're all gonna leak [Music] thank you [Music] i don't know because i don't know if i can say this but anyway it was a last minute right but i've got to do it for my special person for a small community as busco we should not have to deal with this level of bullying personally know four kids that have been bullied
058one was in kindergarten and first grade they have moved to another school where they have to drive their child because nothing happened two years ago um anyway punishment is not punishment for these kids when they get a stay home sleep in goof off they get to watch videos this isn't punishment for it this isn't the punishment when the other kids have to come to school and face these kids that had bullying how would you feel put yourself in their place when they have to come back to school and face the kid that had did something we need to teach some morals here we need to bring god back in this school and teach the kids right from we pay taxes everybody here works for us and this is part of the problem and if you're
059not gonna do something about this problem you need to step down but how is it right that these kids oh i already said that because i'm just talking but anyway these kids are embarrassed or too afraid to speak up you know they're embarrassed to even come forward they're threatened but physical assault and being physically held down while abused or peed on in front of others this is criminal acts not just typical bullying where you call people names in school um so anyway i'm just saying right now nothing better happened to one of my grandkids while they're on your watch you're already standing up really go ahead yep you're up i don't have a script i'm just speaking from the heart um i i grew up in this town i love this community i came to
060school here my husband and my kids did i've got two grandkids here i've got grandkids that'll come here someday and i'm just hardened by all i'm hearing that's going on around here just absolutely disheartened this bully my my granddaughter came in third grade came here she's my step granddaughter she's my granddaughter and i love her she came here in third grade not to the extent that all this bullying but she has been teased since day one she has black in her family she's got really kinky curly hair kids make fun of her she's a little overweight kids make fun of her kids girls pick on her she it's just horrible it's horrible it just it just makes me so sad and i also am concerned because i just heard the other day that a teacher
061told them to choose their pronoun i said what you know what they want to be referred to as they identified as i'm like are you kidding me god made a boy he made a girl there's nothing in between and i also know i know there's a website you can go to to look up books and i have been there i don't have them in my hands but i intend to find them and i will get with missus i didn't do and i have researched lgbtq community black lives matter if these books are in the library they shouldn't be in the library but if they are in the library there should be bibles there should be god there should be christian to counteract we shouldn't have all liberal we should have some conservative too some of
062that stuff has no business in the school no business thank you and i also heard last year and i know this is year and i called mr fowlin a teacher told the class george floyd should be honored okay i asked my granddaughter that's wrong no sir please no more no no next time put your name on and you can talk all right i appreciate your comments and everything thank you enjoy go ahead i'm sorry are you done or is it i'm done okay thank you madam i'm good you're good yeah okay that will i will then go ahead and i want to thank everybody for your comments all your stuff i don't know if anybody wants to make a comment should we still do that is it going to change this is stuff there's somebody
063in the back okay go ahead i didn't come with the intention of speaking please state your name oh my name is terry johnson sorry terry johnson terry terry t-e-r-r-n thank you and i didn't know about the list to get on because i couldn't get in the door that's fine um my daughter graduated from this school in 2013 my husband graduated from the school in 1979 and we were so excited when our grandson who is now our son was going to attend school here the bullying started with him in elementary school and the solution was perhaps you shouldn't stand out so much oh my gosh i heard that more than one occasion more than two occasions he worked his way through elementary school and we were trying to delineate to discern between typical teasing and bullying
064and we didn't realize that he was really being bullied until my son worked really hard to get expelled and he left this school the second half of his sixth grade year expelled because he couldn't take it anymore and nobody was listening and now we live here right across the road and get our son to columbia city every day to go to school he doesn't want anything to do with this place anymore we thought he might come back for high school no not gonna do it it's an issue my heart breaks for everybody over here my heart breaks for my son who is now a social outcast and busco is he perfect no does he do his own share of not appropriate things yes but he is scarred by this community here this school community he
065can't go back to the park without everybody bringing it up things that happened over this time here at this school it's a serious issue it needs to be addressed and it needs to be addressed yesterday thank you we've got a little bit of time i guess the board wants to hear anybody want to talk you can go ahead same thing man speak to jeremy yeah go ahead my name is calvin krieger um my son was part of the bowling he got picked on and i want to know not really want to know i want to state paint a little picture if a student walks into the school and somebody goes he's got a knife the school is immediately locked down and they're going to look for because the safety of other children but when something
066is brought up about issues in a locker room we still proceed to have a football game we still proceed to let these children go to a locker room without an adult or supervision to help protect anybody that may be picked on or bullied it was just it's under investigation we're looking into it why do you need so long to look into something if there is issues where safety could be a concern i mean if there's any kind of a drug a weapon anything we'd immediately lock down the school and find it but for a bully we'll look into it give us a couple days that's how's that fair how is that right because some kids might not have a couple days left they might take matters into their own hands my nephew did that and
067your guys's locker room that's hard and again the next football season we have issues again let's give it a couple of days let's look into this it's not right and we all know it it's not right at all and i know it's been brought to people's attentions in our situation it's on video this isn't here today it's recorded it took pictures of bruises it's real what's going to happen wait wait wait wait wait hard i'm not big on time because you guys take every time that you need unless it's an emergency for your guys it's like if the school staff doesn't feel safe it's immediate but if it's a student we got to look into this it's not fair it's not right we have an officer in the school he could have went into the
068locker room and stood there in case there was that potential well we don't want an indulge in there in case somebody wants to touch why can't they stand outside the door thank you thank you thank you okay i think uh at this point we're gonna end the comments after that um do we have a any other thing or any statements of us want to say i know i just took in i just took in a lot of information so i don't have a plan this time give a plan there's a policy and we need to review it then we will review it so you still want me to send my kids here to be safe okay that's all i'm gonna say i don't know if any other board members have anything or make any kind
069of comment you've had how long how do we set up this private meeting with you guys to discuss all this send an email yep so you won't respond to it before calling or call are your numbers published for us to find it this guy i'll call you they'll call you so yeah that's the case can i make one like maybe 10 seconds um so i was told if my son feels unsafe he can come down to the office or have a teacher with me i don't feel that's right because that seems like that's singling him out as a target of he's got to have a chaperone the bully should be singled out with a chaperone yeah it should not be that's it over let's stop where you can we're almost done all right we're moving
070to uh right nobody's going to listen to the board comments really about what you said [Music] what it's not connie when your child is falling because they just watch their cousin pass away okay is that enough comment is anybody else out there can they come in and shut the door still seats but like i said this should be should be relatively brief and we're going to be done so i'm going to go anybody got any comments anything else you want to add [Music] one thing i guess i will say to that is i really do appreciate that everyone came here tonight i've been sharing all those things i know that's a tough decision to make i know it's tough to speak obviously we can't sit here and answer all of all the things that you
071brought up tonight right here on the spot but i guess i would say this the war i know i was glad that you were here and shared all that i love that you're here i'll show all that there's not one blanket answer to everything to talk about tonight because each one of these is different situations and different things some are recent some are not um that does not mean any of them are not important that's not meaning they shouldn't be taking a look at or addressed or if nothing else at least okay let's learn from that and move forward so i guess with that said i i really would encourage you if you have questions together things you feel like you wanted to share tonight or other details you think are important or do you
072want to even help us brainstorm what do you think a better solution would be i would like to hear that i'm sure our principals would like to hear that if you know doing this job is an odyssey i think you all know that and we we truly love your kids and we want to do what we can to help your kids and keep your kids safe um so i guess with that said i i know it seems like a cheap answer to disabled sentence and an email or just call or whatever but really um our continuous goal is making this better because everything's not always going to go right we know that um but that doesn't mean we don't keep trying so i really would encourage you to reach out one of us to multiple
073of us and talk to us so again thank you i really appreciate i appreciate seeing i'll be here tonight and i appreciate that you came up with the time with your great concerns it means a lot thank you i appreciate it's always a learning experience i don't know everything that you guys talk about i don't um will i learn yes probably ask questions yes so again a learning experience probably for us that uh you guys come especially we don't always know you know if no one comes to us we don't know everything uh so again thank you and go ahead and get ahold of us and we'll go on from there thank you yeah so i have had two gentlemen sons graduate from here over the last seven years i've got two more kids currently
074in the school system i personally have not one time heard of any bullying so i have not now am i in the crowd of people that talk i'm not i'm not so i haven't heard it so tonight for me is it is enlightening in a very negative way but the only way that we find out about this stuff is that it's actually brought to the school board your superintendent knows here we do not bring to date personal items to the board the board puts policies in place we expect that those policies are followed if the policies are not being followed that is an issue for the board but that has to be brought to our attention if they're not being followed there is not a single person that sits up here that doesn't want the
075best for every kid here and you guys need to really understand that as parents to a child most of us if not all of us are parents to a child in this school system as well we want it safe for all of them you know all this stuff that's being talked about tonight this is the first time that i have heard other than there's a message saying that there is something going on but we it can't be disclosed yet because of legal situations i've heard more tonight than i've known that is the way legally it needs to be handled until it is complete by the proper authorities and processes then it can come to us and we can understand if something hasn't been followed now i will make sure that we talk as a school
076board to see if we need to address how if this problem is to the extent that it sounds like it is if we need to put some additional policies in place so that we are becoming more aware of certain situations but the other reason i've been on the school board since january 1st of this year it is now october 18th if this is such a situation why is it october 18 did it all happen this week in the last three so all everything that's been talked about tonight that you're telling me has happened in the last three weeks or they're just scared to come forward okay well we've got to remove that situation though as parents and as parents that we know starts from the top as parents you guys because parents that should have
077been taken care of in the schools care oh i'm sorry you're gonna have to say that again but go ahead all i'm saying is waiting for something and then grouping together to bring something to the board creates an environment but as an individual on the school board if there's something that we don't feel is being properly handled i would like for that to be brought to us when it happens i have a question no no this is a public comment that comments that's why we're never going to get anything done because we need to talk i'm not saying no i'm just saying we can't communicate why because we're talking to you and then you guys are talking back to us there's no dialogue that that's all i'm saying can we set up a special like
078dialogue meeting where somebody could actually talk one on one yes this is the situation all you have to do is reach out to the board and request it that's a good that's awesome i think some of it's just ignorance is just how the steps just reach out how like on where are your numbers how do we or if anybody wants to write it down i'll give you my phone number right now [Music] 260-710-6043 it's on the website it's it's out there reach out can we get him going just okay no yes let's stop no more okay it hasn't happened yes it has ma'am reach out to the school board asking for that thank you i just want to say i am sorry for what's happened to your kids thank you i will thank you thank
079you i mean you guys aren't aware any of this has happened doesn't the superintendent inform you guys what's going on close this meeting at 8 7 now on that no it's just that like jeremiah summed up we're here for policy we're here