001thinking on a plane. >> She said she said you're pulling out of the airport. >> All right, at 6:00 we'll call this meeting to order. >> Start with the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance 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'll do roll call. Uh Christina >> here. >> Kurt >> here. >> Trevor >> here. >> David >> here. Don >> here. >> John. >> Brian >> here. >> Jessica >> here. >> Gretchen. And I am here. Uh there's no special board recognition. U at this point in time. We will take public input from those in the public. Did anyone sign in? >> He did it. >> [laughter] >> All right.
002Um, then we'll move on to the special order of business, which is which is the elections, which is why I'm actually running the meeting right now. Once uh we get officer selected, then I'll hand the meeting off. So, um, first item of business is the election of the school board's president. We have a motion. >> I make a motion that uh I nominate Kirk Lickinger for school board president this year. >> Second. We have a motion by Christina and a second by Brian for Kurt. Are there any other motions for other folks to run for president? >> Make a motion we close the nominations. >> Okay. Close the nominations. >> Do we need to officially close the nominations? >> No. >> Okay. >> All right. Um, so motion is for Kirk to be the next
003board president. All those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> All those votes, same side. It's a 60 vote. Kurt, you want to take over? >> Not after that. >> I It's set that I take over later, but if you're the president, we can we can get you started right now. >> Okay. All right. Next on agenda, election of the school board vice president. >> I nominate uh make a motion to nominate Don Layman for vice president. >> Second. Got a motion in a second. Any nominations? All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. All those post same. Motion carries 6. Next item is the school board secretary. >> I make a motion to nominate Trevor. >> I'll second that. >> I'll tell you Trevor. >> Got a motion for Christina. Seconds
004and done. Any nominations? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. >> All those opposed. Same sign. Motion carry 6. [clears throat] Next item election of the board of finance president. >> That's normally the president. I make a motion that Kurt be serve as the board of finance president. >> Second. Motion from Christina, second from Trevor. Any other nominations? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. All oppose. Same side. Motion carry 6. Next item, election of the board of finance secretary. That's going to be the secretary. >> I make a motion that we have Trevor Hurer be the finance secretary this year. >> Second. Motion for Christina, a second from David. Any other nominations? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >>
005All those opposed. Same sign. Motion carries 6. Uh, next item is the board of finance report. Jess. >> Yep. I'm required to present three reports as part of the board of finance meeting. Um, the first report is the investment [clears throat] report. So, you can I know it's kind of small. But um as far as 2025 goes, um we earn 991,000 um dollars of interest that is down slightly from 2024 because interest rates have decreased. Moving on to the fiscal indicator report. Another report required by law for us to go over. Um the full report is there's a link in your packet to the full report and any other school corporations that you would want to look at as well. [snorts] Um the first chart we're going to look at is ADM. You can see
006we just had a slight slight change from um the 23 24 school year to the 2425 school year. Um unfortunately and as and you all know in 25 we did lose about 34 more kids. So we will see this um continue to to decline. Um the this um report is just annual deficit or surplus. And so you can see the green is our revenue and then blue is our expenses. And so for 2024 um we basically expended what we brought in um which is um definitely our goal. Again fund balance as a percentage of expenditures um that just decreased slightly which going to the next chart makes sense because our overall fund balance decreased. Um however educa this orange line is our education fund which we expected that to increase because we receded in textbook
007by law we were required to rece into education. Um we we've talked about this all year that operations fund has continue to decrease. What has increased the blue line is our health insurance trust fund. Um this chart is revenue by type. This big blue section is going to be our basic grant which is the majority of our revenue. This peachy salmon is our property tax. Little blue sliver is our referendum income and green is debt service. Um and the final slide for our um for this report is just our operating referendum revenue which um has remained flat since we um the final report um for the board finance meeting is just um a report of old outstanding checks um that we are required to present. And so this is from two years back. So, anything
008still on our books for 2023? Um, totals 28070 for this year. >> Any questions? >> All right. Next item on the agenda is the establishment of the date and time for regular meetings as school board of trustees from January 1st 26 to December 31st of 27. And those are in a packet. Correct. Yep. Currently second and fourth Monday except for the July and summer meetings and we have them listed at 6 p.m. but again obviously it's open discussion whenever you guys revert as far as time go. >> I make a motion that we keep the meetings as established. >> Second have a motion from Christina second from Don. Any discussion? >> What are we doing with that? Oh, it's moved to Tuesday the Memorial Day. >> We moved that Monday to Tuesday maybe. >> Yeah.
009Um, which I think it's been our past practice, Brad, but I don't it's been that way in a while. I can't recall. Um, >> I think it's always been a while. >> Yeah. >> And honestly, I think there has been a few cases in which we've just canceled just due to lack of uh of items. So, we'll keep an eye on that agenda item. That might be why we've not had to do that in a while since we just cancelled the meeting. Any other questions? All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion carry 6. Next item. The board's board of school trustees will consider the appointments of the legal firms of Oregon bullying and ballart to serve community schools from January 1st, 2026 to December 31st, 2026. Recommend approval
010as presented. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion from Don, second driver. Any questions? Hearing none. Call for the vote. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> All those opposed, same sign. [clears throat] Motion carries six to zero. Next item, board of school trustees will consider the appointment of the treasure and deputy treasure of the Lani Community Schools to serve from January 1st, 26 to December 31st, 26. >> And our recommendation would be Jessica as treasure and Christ as deputy treasure. >> So move second. >> Motion from Trevor, second from Don. Any questions? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries 6 to zero. Next item is amendments to the agenda we have in front of us. >> I make
011a motion that they accept the amendments. >> Second motion from Christina, second from Trevor. Any questions, discussion? >> Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. All those same sign motion carry 6. Next we have the consent items including personnel items, retirements, transfers, legal absence, professional needs, grants and donations. Um, and the consent items we just approved. >> Make a motion to approve the consent items and additional items. >> Second. Motion from Trevor, second from Christina. Any questions? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> All those pro same side. >> Motion carry 6. >> And it's okay with the board like to introduce Dan head track for [applause] AJ. Would you guys like to say a few comments to the board? >> Yeah. Um, you know, we
012welcome Dan back uh home to Northwood as a Northwood grad. Always exciting to to come back and and be in your home community. Uh, obviously his family has already made this transition over. Morgan is a PE teacher at Nap Elementary and I believe Lydia and uh, Moses already attend school in our community and John will be joining them shortly, right? Because you're four now. So, yeah, we're very excited to have him in. and he's already uh gotten the gotten going with Coach Michael and working with the girls program. Um Dan, if you want to say anything, feel free. >> Yeah, I mean, we're just extremely happy to be back home. Um and we're excited to work with the student athletes and put a product on the track that this community can be proud of. So,
013it's time to get to work. >> Welcome. Welcome. Glad to have you. Jimmy stuff. Yeah, I'm gonna There's a lot of maroon and gold in my closet. I got to get rid of this. >> You guys are welcome to stick around if you want. Um, there's plenty of stuff on the >> I know you are. >> We had a 4 meeting. So, >> good. >> All right. Thank you guys. >> Thanks for being in. >> Thanks, AJ. >> Yes. >> All right. Next on the agenda is consider the acceptance of gainful conflict of interest statements. No action required. >> There's actually no action required. There's just some u conflict of interest statements. If there's anything that we missed, please let us know if you guys see something. So we can definitely get that on the
014next board agenda. So otherwise, if you have one in front of you, please sign it. Just give it to Lisa for me. Moving on, consider the approval of myself, Kirk Flick, to serve as the WCS representative for the Walkers Redevelopment Commission. >> So, Trevor, second, any questions? Someone else really wants to do it. Uh, if there's no other questions, discussion, uh, call the phone. All those in favor say by saying I. I. >> All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries six to zero. Next item, consider the approval of the appointment of Philip Luckwiter to the Walker of the Harrison Township Public Library Board. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion from Christina, second from David. Any questions or discussion? >> That is that's the Philip. So >> yeah. Any other questions? Not all those in
015favor signify by saying I. I. >> All those opposed. Same sign. >> Motion carry 6. Next item. Consider the approval of the health screening and biometrics screen. >> In your board packet is the memo regarding our wellness screenings that we do um this time every year. Um, and the difference with this, um, as opposed to last year, um, upon your approval, I'm recommending we do a $50 reduction in each participant's insurance deduction. And if the spouse were to also participate, we do an additional 50. If you'll remember, we did that for the walking challenge over the summer. Um, and so hopefully in an attempt to get more particip participation, we will um offer that in a second. These will start February 18th at Morwood Middle School and then continue on the rest um of the
016following week in February. >> I'll make a motion that we approve the health screening and biometric screening. Second motion from a second from Brian. Any other questions? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> All those opposed same sign. Motion carry 6. Next item, consider approval of the out of state overnight travel request for Northwood baseball engines livestock team and the additional items the state convention and girls state uh wrestling team girls wrestling team. >> I'll make a motion to approve the out of state overnight travel requests for the items presented. >> Second motion from David, second from Trevor. Any questions? None. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. >> All those opposed, same sign. Motion carry 6. That's all the action items correct. Looks like discussion information.
017>> Couple of items. Uh first one, the 2627 Northwood Middle School course description guide. They're getting ready to start scheduling there. There were no changes to the course description guide on that one. Um second item is the high school one. Uh there was a memo included uh with that. Several of the items were listed there. Um nothing I would say of real substance. Um there were several courses that were moving just due to lack of student interest uh that we've seen the last couple of years. Um there were a couple of tweaks in like which courses are aligned to dual credit and the dual credit that would become aligned with it as well. And then I think a couple courses that um like the years in which they they were um offered had changed just
018due to uh instructor recommendation. So happy to answer any questions you guys have on either of those two items. And thank you because this is obviously Gretchen's item, her expertise. So u thank you for being being kind to me. She'll bring that back uh both those items back at the next board meeting for approval. Uh next item is policy 1220 employment of the superintendent. Uh last legislative session we missed this in updating our policy. Um there was a big vote bill called um the deregulation bill and one of the items in the deregulation bill was the timeline in which if you recall uh whenever you hired the superintendent you need to post the superintendent's contract and the paper 72 hours before a hearing. Um previously under law you then had to wait seven additional calendar
019days after that before then you could take action on that. Well, they stripped the need to to wait these seven additional days and so you post the superintendent contract um have the hearing and then you can vote on it during that very same meeting. So, it just kind of helps streamline that process a little bit. I hope you guys don't need to use this policy anytime soon, but in the event that you do, I want to make sure it's as uh streamlined for you guys as possible. So, uh that's the rational behind that change and it's a minor change on that one. >> So, will we need to do anything to abide by that new policy change? Like you said, we kind of skipped it or missed it or whatever. uh the update that I'll
020bring back to the next board meeting. Yeah, we'll approve it and then unless you need to hire a superintendent between then and now it's you should be okay. >> We like to post it again the policy. Correct. We hope not have to use this. >> I do too. My wife and my kids say thanks too. >> Um and then the last item and I apologize for the lateness on this one. This came through I think late Thursday evening and quite frankly I just didn't get caught up with it. I'm going have to send it to you over the weekend to review. Um, but you're not going to vote on tonight anyway. Um, really this is an outcome from changes in the state graduation requirements. Um, there is going to be a heavy lift uh for
021students to get additional workbased learning experiences. Um, and us as superintendents, we kind of recognize um we need to streamline that process for employers in our area. uh so that our requirements at Wani are similar to what Concord would want and what um Gosh would want, Fairfield, Middleberry want so that employers aren't just dealing with all these different school systems and their expectations don't always align um as far as like background checks. And so we're working with Tim Shel. Tim Shel actually reviewed this agreement um and he's recommending it so it's again consistent throughout. Um we also don't want to kind of trip over ourselves. We are kind of seeing this as you know like Northwood High School our work workbased learning teachers would kind of maybe have an expertise in a particular field. Maybe
022it's manufacturing in this region whereas you know Gan would have an expertise in a different uh field like maybe healthcare. And so, um, if we have a student who has a desire to get into healthcare, we would patch them up with that workbased hunting coordinator in Goan and they would be the one who would be help conduit to to streamline them and and vice versa. If there would be some folks who want to get involved in, you know, manufacturing trailers, obviously, we have some expertise in this area and we would help assist them. And so that's the whole idea behind this just so that we can be more efficient with our time and really not bombard our employers who are going to be asked to do um some additional work because of the additional requirements
023in and graduation. So >> happy to answer any questions. Yeah. >> Fes involved at all with that. >> Um I did not we're not seeing major fees. Um there may be some conversation about sharing of transportation services. again because we just don't know because almost every kid's going to need to graduate more based on the experience. um transportation may become problematic for that and so there may be some sharing of transportation and services between um but really again our hope is that things are just offset if we're picking up some students from go and concord and Fairfield and you know we're sending students throughout so we're not really seeing this as any kind of revenue that would be associated with that and certainly we bring that back to you if they're >> no fees to
024the students or anything >> no no hope the students are making Other questions? >> So, the state thinks that there's going to be enough employers out there to get every student work-based learning experience before they graduate. would you say? >> Um that's what the diploma requirements uh now require. Not every kid will need um uh workbased learning experience but kids who want to attain the seals which um kind of give them a little more standing which we anticipate we'll have a large majority of our kids that want that are going to need some workbased learning experience. And so, um, I think we all would agree work based learning experience is good for kids. Um, very applicable and so, uh, it's an ambitious goal and we're going to do the best we can to help meet
025that goal. >> So, will like summer employment help count towards this because you have kids who are athletes are playing multiple sports especially. I mean, one sport is one thing, but they're playing multiple sports. >> Yeah. >> They don't have time to >> It happens during the school day, doesn't it? >> We're basically does happen during the school day. does extend out beyond the school day as well. >> And to answer Kurt's question, yes. Yeah. Um they the hours can accumulate whether it happens during the school day, outside of the school day, during the summertime. Um through conversations with state leaders, um they understand the heavy lift is going to be. Um I've heard um some leaders have said even virtual based um work-based learning. um we want to do this right >> we we
026want to make it meaningful we don't want um we don't want to check a box and so um I really I commend um as much as this is being live stream Dan Funston at Concord he's really taken a majority of us to help coordinate us so that we can we can do workbased learning the right way and and try to get kids really meaningful experiences as best we can again we don't want it to become a hindrance for kids getting their graduation or reaching their diplomas but Um at the same time we want to make sure it's as meaningful as possible. So that's that's that's what's behind this effort. That's the why behind it. >> So we still have a little bit of something we're doing right now currently. >> Absolutely. >> Like work release
027or whatever whatever we call it now, right? >> But we still we've kind of continued to do that over the years, right? >> Oh, we have um and I I'm going to shoot from him here. Um I'm going to guess we are probably in the range of maybe 10 to 15% of our kids right now that are doing based learning. And I would estimate under the new graduation requirements, it's going to be it's gonna be around 50% of our kids that will need some form of work based learning. And again, we don't want to do we don't want want to do a virtual workbased learning. We want to do something meaningful. And so we're just trying to make it as streamlined as possible for employers and be as efficient as school systems as possible as
028well. >> And in the past, like when my kids did that, they kind of had to arrange it themselves. >> So this will be better in that they won't have that. I mean, if they can have that support, I think it will be beneficial for the kids that really want to just because it is kind of hard as a high school student to finagle away, especially if you're doing like healthcare or something. Y >> you need those, you know, avenues to make it make it feasible. So, >> given our like geography here in two counties, is there anything like this being worked on too in Kaziasco County? Obviously, Warsaw brings a whole different angle than what the RV manufactured Elkhart County. I don't know if that's >> possibility down the road too. >> It's a
029great point. I had not reached out to Lawy or Warsaw yet, but you know once we get this solidified I think it's something that could be replicable in other counties as well. And we certainly there'd be nothing that would prohibit kids from you know if that's a workbased learning experience that they desire. We're not just going to you know keep it toart county but um the collaborative work right now is going to be based on what's what's in county. >> But very good point. >> Yeah. assume we still have what we used to have with a teachers kind of oversees that program goes out to visit the kids at their workplace or whatever >> if we have more kids doing this. Is this going to add more to more staffing needs to be able to
030do that same thing? >> It likely will. I mean just two years ago it was one teacher that was doing this. Now we have some ACT teachers that are also helping with work based learning experience as well. And uh yeah, if as this grows and that's kind of I think the way the state wants us to go, that's why they've given us some flexibility and coursework. There may be other teachers that you know, again, this becomes a good chunk of what their um their teaching experience looks like. Now, other questions? So, we will bring that back as well uh for approval at the next board meeting. And that >> do we have anything that like Brian's question of cost as far as with this program? >> Yeah, right now we're not we're not anticipating it's
031just it's basically a commitment that we're going to share. You know, if if if kids want to come down and access the programs that we've got here and you know there's there's spaces that are available will help facilitate that and vice versa. Basically just sharing our our employees. Okay. And that's all we have this evening. There being no further business come from attention the board a motion to adjourn and order second >> motion by Brian second from Trevor saying that [laughter] all in favor motion carry zero. It's like a head curtain.