001We're going to go ahead and start the meeting and start with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance 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. We're going to pray if you'd like to join us. Dear heavenly father, we thank you for the chance to be here tonight. We ask that you would lead us and guide us as we make the decisions here. Please be with our whole school community. All of the the teachers, the students, the parents, and everyone else in the community. Continue to bless us. Be with us through this upcoming legislative season. We ask this all in Jesus name we pray. Amen. >> Amen. >> I'm going to ask for an approval
002of this agenda. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> All those in favor? move on to public comments. Do we have any public comments on the agenda? There's no public comments, then we're going to move on to our action items. I need an approval of the October meeting minutes and financials. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I need um an approval of the resignation of Sarah John's as seventh grade class sponsor. >> Motion. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> Need an approval for David Reese to be the elementary girls basketball coach. >> Motion. Do >> you have a second? >> A second. >> All those in favor? >> Um, need an approval of Ryan Chittistister's principal contract for
003the high school. >> Motion. >> Second. >> All those in favor? I >> need an approval of um Jim Whmer's elementary principal contract. >> Motion. >> Have a second. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> Need an approval of Renee Ston's curriculum director contract. >> Have a second. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> We need a motion to approve the salary for Jeff Murray for the 2526 school year. have motions. Do >> I have a second? >> I'll second. >> All those in favor? >> I need an approval to create a classified benefit guide for the non-certified staff. >> We'll bring that. We'll try to create that over the next 30 days and bring that for your consideration in December. >> Okay. Do I have a second? >> All those in favor?
004I um approving Jeff Burke and Brandon Arnett as boys basketball assistant coaches. >> Make a motion. >> Have a second. >> All second. >> All those in favor? >> I >> um before we um adjourn, Gaylen, did you want to give an update? >> Yeah. So, first of all, board, you'll have you'll have NEOLA we got Neola update our policies. For those people that are not sure where um the corporation policies are, if you go to the schoolboard web page on our on the union web page, go under schoolboard, you'll see our policies. It's listed there. There's a link. Uh we go through board docs and actually through board docs. Our intent is start of January is that all of our meeting minutes, agendas, uh every everything we do as a board is under that
005tab will be on board docs. created for us that we can keep all of our documentation there rather than on separate separate tabs. So that'll that'll be coming to you. Um we have elementary and middle school boys camp going on. We had very large number of group um group of kids doing that. But then also um Kenny Ellis on Saturdays want to make this public on Saturdays. Is it from 9 to 11? >> 11 to 1 on on Saturdays. Uh so all of our our kids are welcome. Elementary kids are welcome for that. Thank you, Kenny, for for working on that. Um, >> the basketball camp >> basketball. Yeah. So, practices have started. Ryan had the girls had their first game. They have another one Saturday, Saturday evening at 6. Um, legislatively, um, the the
006uh just give you a little brief update on on where we're at, what the plan is moving forward here. One of the things that's very important for us as we're getting into the into the legisl it's going to be a short session this year. It's also an election year, which means that there's probably not going to be too much controversy coming through this this uh short session, but there are plans that are not public that are behind. That's what we've got to watch out for. Um in in some ways uh the intent uh for us now as I could I'm going to start ramping up Fridays are our our updates. I did one from the state house on Friday because we were at the heck conference and so we walked across the street to the
007state conference state state house. Um but committee meetings are in it session right now. So they're planning but the house or the rep different committee meetings are meeting right now to determine what the agenda is going to be for the short session. We were told that it's going to be everything in May. Our entire discussion is going to be on virtual education. the funding, the um the efficiency of it and what it means for Indiana. And so this this short session is going to be all around. We were assured it's all going to be back virtual. But our intent now and this is what I'm talking to people. I want to make sure that people are going to their legislators um and talking about schools. Um I'll give give you an example of of a
008colleague of mine um up north. He was asked to cut $800,000 from their from their annual budget in a in a 2A school and and they've got anywhere from 12 to 12 to 1400 students. He was asked to cut $800,000 over last summer. So he cut $800,000 and that hurt and then the board just came back and asked him to cut another 750,000 because that's how that's how this fall is going to happen for the smaller schools and it's happening all across the state. And so the intent around that, the idea of that started in 2013 with Mitch Daniels. And Mitch Daniels said, "You know what? If we can't get the small schools to quit or just to stop existing, then we can squeeze them to the point where they need to or they have
009to." Um the issue is there's no research that says big is better. Um it seems like all the small schools want to be bigger just for course offerings and and so forth. And the big schools want to be small because they can't that kids slip through the cracks. And so there's that that continual debate between which is best. But we always believe that the small is better because some of the most brilliant minds that I know of collaborate and the superintendents and principles and teachers and boards, they collaborate to make sure that the needs of their met their kids are met. And so what think what you've done over the last decade, how you've how we've worked with other districts around us, leaders, and how we've made things how you've made things work for the
010kids. That's what you do on a daily daily basis. So the pressure right now needs to go back to the doorstep of the legislators that voted yes. If you have a legislator that lives in your area, they voted yes for Senate Bill One. They voted to close down a school and very easily could be you next because that's the pressure going around the state. even at the big schools at at at Northwest at Fort Carol, they uh their their referendum was not passed um by a decent margin. So, uh schools are under attack and it's important that we band together for this. So, that's going to be our focus is continuing to um I'm not going to say call out legislators, but we are um we're going to make it public list in terms of
011who's who voted what and make sure that people know who is on the public um school board train and who is not. We are a school school choice state, which means that we give options to kids. We don't take them away. And Union has done a fantastic job of meeting the needs of their students, whether it be online or in person. And to the legislators out there, I just ask you to come visit us. Come see that our school is just like yours. They're no different. Just come see us. Talk to the people in the community. Talk to the teachers. Talk to the board. Talk to myself and and just walk through the hallways. Um we've not had people do that, but yet they vote to shut down Union with with no knowledge of who
012we are. And this has been a huge huge thing for our community to overcome. And I'm proud of everybody how they hung together like this. Adversity can take you one of two ways. it can either join you together or it can really separate you and but it causes conflict. It causes tension and it has throughout our entire community and that's why I'm very proud of our kids, our staff, our board, um administrators, everyone who has stayed the course and we're going to continue to fight to good fight for unions. So that's update for you. >> If it no one has anything else, I'm going to ask for a motion to adjurnn. Motion. >> Have a second. >> Second. >> All those in favor?