001I alian 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. >> Good evening. We will call this meeting to order at 5:32 p.m. Let the record reflect that we do have a quorum. Um, are there any late additions? No. >> No late additions. Would someone like to make a motion to approve the agenda? >> I'll make a motion to approve the agenda. >> Motion made by Longi. >> I'll second. >> Second by Schwarz. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Oppos. Same sign. Motion carries. >> Letter A, public comments on agenda items. I see we have a couple people signed up, but they are not related to agenda items, so you will
002have your chance at the end. Okay. Um, letter B, routine matters, minutes of regular sessions of November 18th of 2025, claims 53291 through 53562, and payrolls for November 28th of 25 and December 15th of 25. >> I'll make a motion to approve the minutes, claims, and payrolls as presented. >> Motion made by Bunch. >> Second by Longi. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> Oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. Letter C, Mr. Mappy. >> Uh, real quick, as far as our highlight of the month, um, in the state of Indiana, there's over 1,500 uh, dual credit uh, teachers and high schools across the state. And of those, they select one every year that is uh, given the title of the dual credit excellence in instruction award for the year. And uh, we're really proud
003that uh, that teacher resides here at Southridge. Um Aaron Rousher was selected this year. Um that was not nominated by us. That's actually a position that's nominated by a department chair at IvyTech and then it's it's voted on by a group at IvyTech as well. So she's having a great impact on students who are enrolled here and also on classes at IvyTech. U we're very grateful that she's one of our many outstanding uh instructors. Um so uh congratulations to her. Uh, next we're going to turn it over to our transportation director, uh, Larry Fusler, and let him give us a presentation and an update on how things are going in that area. I'm going to move over so I can see your presentation. >> Hey, Chip. Again, my name is Larry Fusler, transportation director here
004at Southwest Dub Boy Schools. I want to share with you a couple of the activities that we've been accomp accomplished over the past six months. First before that, just kind of stating our priorities in transportation. One is to transport students to school and home safely. Uh secondly, transport students to school on time. And thirdly, continuously improve the transportation system for efficiency and cost reduction. The activities I'm going to share with you are related to priority number three. First, uh some fleet reduction activity. So, uh the chart you see on the right is uh basically a graph of all of our routes, number of students on those routes, and the capacity of those routes. The green explosion marks are where we have opportunity on those routes. And we identified route 14 that had 55 students and
005ran in the afternoon only as an opportunity to reduce that route. Basically those students were redistributed over the other routes and the result is we eliminated that route. So bus 14 became an extra bus. Next uh bus 17 was designated as a backup bus. [clears throat] But we also had route our bus 13 uh that only ran a midday prek route is all it did and it was not being used or could not be used as a morning or afternoon backup bus and that was due to the child safety seats you see strapped to the bench seats. They take over about an hour to remove and an hour and a half to install. So if you need the bus it's very timeconuming. For $7,000 we bought the seats uh you see on the right. They
006were built-in child safety seats. they sold pulled up and older students can sit in them very easily versus it's difficult for older students to set in the others. Uh retrofitted those and route or bus 13, I'm sorry, became a backup bus and now we [snorts] can utilize bus 7 as a future route bus. So currently it was eliminated as a need. There's my X. Okay. [laughter] And this was incorporated into our bus replacement plan for the future. So we'll forgo the cost of two new buses. >> Sounds great. >> $400,000. Secondly, uh just sharing with you some route improvement. We've done a lot of it. This is just one small example. This is route 18 in the AM. Uh on the left is the before. So the blue line represents the first trip into Huntingburg.
007The yellow line's the second trip into Huntingburg. Uh it had 33 turns and was running 10 and a half miles every morning. Uh the on the right is the after. You can clearly see the difference in the blue and the yellow line, how much smoother they are. Uh it was reduced to 17 turns at 9 and a half miles a day. >> Not every route looks that good. Okay. So [laughter] I cherrypicked it, but uh summarizing those cost savings. So again, we offset two bus purchases at a value of 360,000. Uh the maintenance on those buses would be 13,000 total a year. We eliminated a route driver that afternoon route on 14. That's 7650 a year. And through all of our activities, we we've reduced 16 miles a day in travel at $1,440 of fuel.
008We spent $7,000 on child safety seats for a net savings of $375,90. >> Lastly, I just wanted to highlight some future improvement uh that we're targeting involving our fleet maintenance and uh that has to do with the cars facility that we've purchased across the highway here. So, we're looking forward to that. So, we really keep our buses in tip-top shape and uh not rely on inspection, but actually stay ahead of it using preventative maintenance. And uh I do want to mention too just that all this activity I'm sharing with you, the drivers very very involved without their suggestions like 75% that doesn't happen. So, >> any questions? >> Thank you. You want to talk about the the new way to map routes in the future briefly? >> Sure. Yeah. >> Yeah. We're uh we're targeting
009a a system with Tyler Technologies uh where we can I'm going to call it a route management system because sometimes people have a drawback and say, "Oh my god, that's we're going to start having computers route everything." No, it's not going to happen. Uh but right now, managing our routes and the movement of uh students from one address to another is very time consuming. a lot of spreadsheets, all this stuff. This will help us with that and help us assign those routes much easier and we can look at the efficiency of our routes and manage it a whole lot better. >> Thanks. >> Yeah, I'm excited to see the finished product on this building when we, you know, put some upgrades to it. It's going to look nice and >> it's amazing. It's already cleaned
010up. >> Yeah, >> they've already done some clean up up to it. >> We'll get them there. >> All right. Couple other things just wanted to briefly uh mention. um and will be on the uh itinerary the board agenda for others to see as well online and those of us who are here tonight. But um congratulations to our BPA Business Professionals of America who have always represented us really well not only at the state level but at the national level and we had a lot of students uh recently uh when um they're regional to be able to get to the state. So that'll be happening later on this spring and those those students are listed. Um, we also want to uh draw attention to the Spellbull team at Honeyburg Elementary that recently competed in a
011big competition and finished in the top three. Uh, those names are listed. They're on the agenda. Quite a few students. Congratulations to them. And a lot of students at Holland uh competing in the Noetic Learning Math contest and and uh their placements as well listed. So, congratulations to our students. Thanks for representing us in such a positive way at the elementary and secondary level. And at this point, we'll turn it over and let the the uh business continue. >> Okay. Letter D, new business field trip request as listed. >> I'll make a motion to approve the field trip request is listed. >> Made by Schwarz. >> I'll second. >> Second by Bunch. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. Um, number two under D, personnel as
012listed on this page and continuing for the majority of the following. Um, again, all this information has been in our packets. You've all had time to look at it. Um, if there's not any questions, we will enter a motion. >> Make a motion to accept the, uh, personnel items as presented. >> Motion made by Longi. I'll second. >> Second by Schwarz. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Oppos. Same sign. Motion carries. >> Number three. >> Before we uh get to number [snorts] three there, John, just also wanted to draw attention to uh one of our retirements there that will take place at the end of the year. Uh one of our teachers who's been with us for over 30 years. Um if you work for us for 30 years, we
013probably ought to give you a brief moment of recognition for sure. And uh we appreciate uh what Lanny Butler has done for us. Um and [snorts] the number of students he's impacted over the years and teaching music uh music theory and band and and uh just uh quite a career and quite a legacy that the guy's left here. So uh know he's going to finish strong this year uh with the students and um certainly wish him nothing but the best into his uh into his future. >> Great. Number three, approve volume 38, number one, all policies and all files including non-discrimination on the second reading. >> I'll make a motion to [snorts] approve volume 38 number one on the policies and files including non-discrimination for the second reading. >> Motion made by Schwarz. >> A
014second. >> Second by Bunch. All those in favor signify by saying I. I >> oppose. [clears throat] Same sign. Motion carries. Number four, approved the League Stadium facility use agreement for the 26 through 28 school year. >> I'll make a motion to approve the facility use agreement by second by Longing. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. Number five, approve the SHS offering out of the country county country field trips during non-school calendar dates. >> Is this um I wanted to ask this earlier. Is this like Spanish club going? Okay. >> Yeah. For years I guess this was offered and I guess maybe 10 years ago we had a teacher that had been doing this for years that left and no one picked it up and now
015we have some teachers interested in offering these. you you will approve those any official trips that are done in the future, but this is just kind of like they want to know that if you're okay with them um starting to pursue these kinds of trips and publicizing them and those kinds of things, giving our kids those opportunities. >> Absolutely. I went on one of those trips back in the day. So, I'll make a motion to approve. >> Motion made by Bunch. >> Second by Longi. All those in favor signify saying I. >> I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. Approve the grant application annual request. I'll make a motion to approve the grant application annual request. Motion >> made by Schwarz. I'll >> Second by Longi. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. >>
016Oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. Okay. Um, moving on. And now that I know we do have some people uh signed up to speak, I just want to remind all potential speakers that all comments are be directed at me, the board president. Comments are limited to three minutes. The board also expects all comments to be civil and respectful. So I will start with Scott Brown. Uh thank you for uh letting me speak and uh John and you board members. Uh the school bus um let me start out by saying I am in no way against drug and alcohol testing. I think anybody that's got a CDL should be drug and alcohol tested. The problem is this new law that's popped up on us that we didn't know about until this past year. Now, if they would
017drug and alcohol test lawmakers, we probably wouldn't have this law. But anyway, um what it is is in this past year, we've had to pay for our own pool, which cost each one of us $500. And not only that, we also have to pay for each drug test after that. So, uh it's this is something that came up that none of us knew about when the contract was signed. Otherwise, it would have been figured in. And uh so you know like OFS, if you have an increase in taxes or widget goes up in price, what does OFS do? They add that onto the finished product. Isn't that correct? So the customer the customer ends up paying for the increase in cost. If we don't do that, we end up being out of business. So, and
018not only that, it in order, you know, school bus drivers get sick once in a while. So, we need a sub. And that sub also has to be in our drug and alcohol pool, which cost us another $500 to put that. and we are already in a drug and alcohol pool with the school. [snorts] So, this law is ridiculous. I hope I'm getting your attention on this cuz this law needs to go away. And I have talked to um Mark Mesmer about it. Actually, staff, not Mark Mesmer personally. Uh but and I don't know where that's going at, but so how many of these substitute drivers do we need to put in our pool to make sure we're covered for subs at $500 a pop. Now, I'll put all 10 in my drug and alcohol
019pool if you guys are paying for it. And I think that this should be added into the contract at and if we just do it on a daily basis, it'd add about $5 a day to the contract per bus. >> Okay, three minutes is up. >> Thank you for your comments. >> Thank you. >> Consider ask if there's any questions. >> No, three minutes. This is not a dialogue session. >> Okay. >> Um Greg Engler, I don't have a whole lot to add. It's just with when we bid these contracts around now, we wound up going to a six-year contract, which I don't understand why all of us agreed to as much fault as anybody. um last two years here. Um anybody sitting in this room knows everything's gone through the um I'm kind of
020torn between what he was saying on the drug and alcohol test. It is it been a pain in our butt for since [snorts] it started. But if we could maybe look at the last two years of this contract gaining a little bit on our on our pay. um mainly because of just input cost. Um and that's part of our input cost now is that drug and alcohol test. I don't know if it's adding as much as what he what he said. I haven't put a pencil to it, but I do I do know it's been expensive. So, um and I got I got five routes. So, adds a little bit to to everything because I I got so many drivers I'm trying to cover these routes with. Um, so that's basically the only thing I
021I would add is you guys scared to entertain adding a little bit for our last two years. Um, and then I'll I'll give Larry on ideas for next round of bidding. So basically all I got. >> Appreciate both your comments. >> Thanks. Great. With u no other comments I have. >> Okay. Nobody else signed up to speak. We'll make a motion to adjurnn. >> I'll make a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion made by bunch. >> Second by long. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. I. >> O. Same sign. Good evening.