001three times back. >> We're going to call the meeting to order. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. If you can please do welcome. >> Christina Ashelman >> here. >> Kurt Flickinger >> here. >> David Coffman >> here. >> I'm here. John Payne >> here. >> Don Layman >> here. >> Brian Tapping >> here. >> Jesse McFarland >> here. >> Gretchen Thomas >> here. >> And Scott Croner >> here. >> Thank you. Now we have a special order of business. The public hearing. Um, sorry. Just go with that. >> Okay. Considering uh special business, consider adopting the 2026 school budget. >> That's for So, I guess I'll take a motion to consider
002adopting the school budget. >> I make a motion that we adopt the 2026 budget. >> Second. from Don and a second from Kirk. Any discussion or questions? Hearing none. All in favor say I. >> I. >> All oppose, same sign. That motion carries 70. Now we'll move on to the public hearing for additional appropriation for the unified projects. The proposal renovations include improvements to the school facilities throughout the school corporation. These projects will involve roofing, paving, HBAC improvements, site and facility upgrades, and the purchase of buses, equipment, and technology, collectively referred to as the project. If you wish to speak during this hearing, please be sure you've signed in on the sheet located at the back of the room. The signin sheet should include your name and address. Each speaker will be asked to limit
003their comments to three minutes, and comment should be limited to the proposed projects under consideration. The notice of adoption, the notice of additional appropriation hearing was published as required by law on October 3rd, 2025 in the Warsaw Times Union and the Ocean News. At this time, we'll open the floor for public comment regarding the proposed renovations and improvements to our school facilities. >> You can sign it. >> All right. Hearing no further comments, I now declare this public hearing concerning the proposed projects closed. Please let the record reflect that the public hearing on the additional appropriations has been held. >> Now I'll take a motion to consider the adoption of the additional appropriation resolution and adoption of the final bond resolution. >> I'll make a motion that we consider the adoption of the additional appropriation
004resolution and adoption of the final bond resolution. >> Motion from David and a second from Brian. Questions or discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. >> I. >> All oppose. Same sign. And that motion carries 70. We'll move on to the public hearing for the tenative agreement between the Wani Community School Board of School Trustees and the Wan School Education Association. At this time, the board of schools trustees will hold a public hearing regarding the tenative contractual agreement between the Wani Community School Board of Trustees and the Wani Education Association. The purpose of this hearing is to provide public notice that the parties have reached a tenative agreement covering the period from July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2027. During this meeting, the board will receive comments from the public regarding the tenative agreement.
005This is an opportunity for members of the public to express either support or objections to the proposed agreement. This time I'll open the floor to public comment. Again, there is none. So, hearing no further comments, I now declare the public hearing closed. Please let the record reflect that the public hearing on the tenative contractual agreement has been held. And that was a riveting question. We will move on. Oh, thank you for being here. >> And now we will move on to something more benefiting which is the North High School FFA. >> Good. >> We don't need to >> do on that should have been on there. >> We shouldn't have that on there. >> We've had three mistakes tonight. I apologize for that. >> Carry on. Okay. Good evening. My name is Gretchen Ferva and
006I'm serving as the 2025 2026 Northakota FFA president. Along with me here tonight is um a majority of our officers. Um one is playing at her volleyball game currently, but these are our current officers as well as our adviserss um Mrs. Allen and Miss Henderson. Each of them have something to share and then I will conclude our um what we want to share with you. We want to share with you um some of our events and competitions and things we have participated in through the months of September, October, and into November. Hi there everyone. I'm Ella Hazley. I'm currently serving as the vice president. And on September 24th, our chapter is able to go to Breman High School for the District 2 kickoff. For those of you you who might not know what district 2
007FFA is, it's all there's about 26 schools in our district which includes schools in like Kiosco County, Elcart County, Marshall County, St. Joe County and Fulton County and some in Leort. So all these schools were able to come together and I'm proud to serve this year as the district 2 secretary. So in this role at the kickoff I was able to facilitate rotational like groups for our members. So at my group, I was able to help our members in our chapter as well as other chapters uh build connections with each other and just meet new people through these connections. So this was a really great way for our chapter to get involved in district 2. And at this um event, it was like a retro theme. So our chapter showed up and showed out and
008we were able to get our spirit award for being the best dress chapter. >> I'm Henry Piper. I'm the Sentinel. Um I will be speaking about the Festival. So on September 20th, the FFA rode in a float on the in the Apple Festival uh down through the center of town and um uh we passed out candy to kids along the centers of street and the centers of town. Um, this was a good event because it got members out into the community to support the FFA and the chapter. Uh, we also helped set up the Apple Festival. So, we did like community service. So, like we set up the tables and the chairs and put them where they needed to go. Um, this was a very memorable event for everyone in our chapter. And then um
009everyone had a great time in the field as well. >> Hi, I'm Carly and I'm serving as this year's 2025 2026 secretary. And this past Saturday we went down to Lafayette to compete at state livestock skillathon and we had 16 members out of like a thousand people compete. And our first team of FFA was Ella Hazley, Christian Ferva, Caitlyn Lamb, and Brenley Penrose. And they placed 10th overall. Our second team was Nola Penrose, Georgia Paisley, myself, and um Cora Eisley. And we placed 59th overall. And then we had a 4 team this year which is Eli Herzel, Avery Hes and Abby Kaufman and they placed 13th overall. And then we had our first ever middle school team which was Caroline Croner. Um Chase Turner, Wyatt Brown, and Jared Wy 32nd overall. And we're very proud
010of all our members who needed >> Good evening everyone. My name is Caitlyn Lamb. I'm currently serving as a student adviser. So, just last week we held our annual former snack, but this year we took a twist on it and we did a snacks and ass. So, last Monday um we had our October chapter meeting and members packed uh sack lunch packed snacks in a paper bag. Uh these snacks included a Gatorade, a bag of chips, some candy, and some homemade treats by our officers and our adviserss. And then on Wednesday after school, our officers and a group of members, we pass out um just shy of a hundred snacks to our farmers within the county and surrounding our county. And we are just extremely grateful for all that our farmers can supply for us
011and across the United States and everywhere else. >> Hi, I'm Olivia Lent. I am serving as this year's treasurer. And at the end of September, we had one of our fundraisers. So, we sold moms and uh each of our members had to sell 15, but like if there was a sibling pair at the high school, they had to sell a total of 20 because it is hard to sell when there's multiple. Um, but in total, we raised over we sold over,300 moms and raised over $3,000 for our chapters to use throughout the year to go to events and just different things that we might need to pay for. Um, this was such a it was such a big thing for us that was almost double as what we sold last year and it was very
012amazing for all of us and we had everything packed in our house. It was great. So, as you can see, we've been super busy um, right when school started in August, we hit the ground running um, planning these events and getting the fall um, scheduled and done. Um we're reaching towards the time in our chapter where things begin to mellow out a little bit um right before the new year and then when we come back from the new year we are jam-packed and busy again. But one of our last things in October is the national convention um in Indianapolis. And so 12 of our members are going to be going to this. They will miss three days of school to attend sessions um visit colleges uh learn leadership skills um as as well as participate
013in various activities. Um these members take a lot from this. We have had members come back from this learn um figuring out okay I'm going to go to college here. Okay, I want to be an egg teacher because of this or I want to do this because I learned it at national convention. So this those three days mean a lot. They leave a big impact on us and we're super grateful that 12 can go for the whole time. But we're even more grateful that we can take another 12 on a day trip. Um so 24 of our members will be attending this national convention and expo this year. Um and we are very excited and very thankful that we are able to take that many members. A lot of chapters are not. So um it
014is wonderful that we can do that. And with that that is all we have for you this evening. Thank you for your time. We really appreciate it. We love sharing with you guys. Um have a good rest of your meeting. Thank you. >> Thanks for coming in. >> Thank you. >> You guys look nice. I love your shirts. >> Yeah, me too. >> I still consider being a teacher. >> I do want to say I was go to a church in over in Millersburg and I can't think of there was a farmer that came up to me and said you guys have an awesome at the Bay chapter. So, thank you guys for that. >> I was curious. I heard that we have a middle school program. Is that pretty new? And how did how
015did Caroline Carter make it on? >> No, but seriously, the middle school program We didn't we don't have a program, but we just have them compete in this one competition. We were able to. >> That's great. That's cool to tie in some of the kids and they can be a pipeline for high school, too. So, >> but now they have asked for a live judging team. So, I'm not sure what kind of door I opened up for these kids. They're like, "Okay, when can we start these practices?" And I'm like, "Okay, we'll figure this out." And some of the high school kids said, "Yeah, let's do it. We'll help coach them." So, >> that's awesome. >> Would be Caroline did say it was an amazing trip and just was in awe of the upper classmen
016that I met with her as well. So, thank you guys for that being a good role model as a dad. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thanks for taking the time. I know Mondays are busy and it's been a long day for you and we also appreciate you taking the time to update us and keep us current on what's going on. >> Thank you for your time. >> Right. Now is the time for recognition of visitors of public input. I don't think we have any. So we will move on to um the amendments to the agenda. Those are listed in front of you. I'll take a motion for to add the amendments. >> So move second. >> From Kurt, second from Trevor. Any comments or discussion on those? Hearing none. All in favor say
017I. I. >> All oppose same sign. That motion carries 70. I'll take a motion for the consent items to include include the amendments we just in added. >> I make a motion that we uh approve the consent items along with the additional ones we just approved. I'll second >> motion from Ben and a second from David. Any discussions or discussion on those? >> Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. >> All oppose seems sign. That motion carries 70. On to action items. Action item A. Consider the approval of the relay service agreement for schoolboard uh Medicaid bill. And >> so uh we need a contract with the service so that we can recoup some funding for Medicaid for services that we provide to students with special needs. Um we've been exploring a new provider.
018Um, Jacob Ever has been kind of checking out what different options are and um was really impressed. This is probably the best of them so far and it's one of the lower cost ones right now as well. So the um more of the funding will come back to the school. Um it has been reviewed by Chris Proats um as our um and there were some tweaks that were made to it and so we recommend approval as presented. >> A motion. Make a motion to approve the relay service agreement for school-based Medicaid building. >> Second. >> Motion from a second from Trevor. Any questions or discussion? >> So what do we have >> claiming? >> So costwise better. >> Costwise initially a little bit better but they are better at um recouping more. They're a little
019more user friendly and so therefore what schools are finding is that they're able to build for more services than what claim. >> Any other questions or discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. >> All oppose say sign. That motion carries 70. Action item B. Consider the approval of the out ofstate or overnight field trip for the Northwood High School robotics team to Indianapolis. >> Recommend as presented. >> Second. >> Motion from Don and second from Kirk. Any questions or discussion? >> Yeah, but it's it's a pretty big one though. This is one of the more prestigious events they do. A lot of teams down there. Any other questions or discussion hearing? None. All in favor say I. >> All oppose. Same sign. That motion carries 70. Action item C. Consider the approval of the
020next fiddle as an additional mentor to Woodview Elementary. >> Second and a second from John. Any discussion or questions on that? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. >> All oppose say sign. That motion carries 70. That actually we'll go on to enrollment. >> Only item is just enrollment update. Uh sent this out in the admin update. So hope you guys had a chance to review it or not. But um again mixed bag down again um which is where we've kind of been average between 20 and 30 students per year. So down 34.4 students. Again the for is because we have some students that attend on a partial schedule and so we're able to think the portion of the schedule that they they do attend. Um that is up from where we had projected
021but down from where we were last fall and down from where we were last spring. Any questions on that? Next slide I'm going to go to is just where our kiddos who left us where they went. No real pattern. um out of state, out of count county were kind of the biggest ones or country. Um withdrawal of homeschool or withdrawal due to um going into Amish school or you know they age out in eighth grade was kind of the second one. Usually it's either from kindergarten to first grade or from 8th grade to freshman year was kind of the second largest one. As far as losing to other districts, again we gain more than we end up losing and so that's just not been an issue. Um, what we don't have yet is how many
022of these kids that went to other districts went didn't move out of area but chose that school that lived within our boundaries. We won't get that data back until we get the STN report from the state of Indiana which usually is in early November to mid November. So, I'll share that with you guys once once that is received. But again, kind of the challenge for us is that there's just no um um rhyme or reason to it. other instate. There's I mean some kids went to Fort Wayne, some kids went to New Palestine, some kids went to I mean they they moved a distance away and so I didn't want to list all the individual schools kids went to and so that's why you see that one that's there. So of course all the city
023um West I left the ones on there that were nearby and had a little bit larger pocket so we can compare ours but we still the school of choice in our area. So um this something we got to dive into. I mean um we cannot continue to lose by a clip of 20 to 30 students per year. Um, you know, you just can't make adjustments to your staffing. You know, losing 30 students a year is about $210,000 of revenue that we could have otherwise captured from the state of Indiana. Um, but you can't cut one teacher or two teachers when you lose 30 kids over 13 grade levels. Um, it just the math is just not there. And so, um, that's why again, as we have positions become available, we try to be as efficient
024as possible. create more greater than what we have to make sure that things are are still operational, but um yeah, we're going to need to figure out how we're going to get this enrollment um item taken care of. Um you know, I hate to go up the ladder to use our data wise, but um it just doesn't feel like there's enough affordable housing in our area for younger families who are looking for that, you know, first second time starter home to get up and get going. And so, um, short of that, we're just graduating more kids than what we're bringing in every single year right now. And so, um, not in a good place to be in right now from an enrollment standpoint. And we've got to figure this out. We got to partner with
025city town to look for ways of drawing in some younger families. I think we've got a really appealing school district to people from the outside. And part of that's to our own deficit because because of the appealing school district, property values can go up. and uh you know houses here can be similar to other areas but you know be 50 $100,000 more than than what they are. So we'll continue to work on this. Definitely open to any ideas that you and the board have um how we can turn around this enrollment trend. >> Do we have on there a number that withdrew to homeschool? >> Yes. Um where is that at go up please? Oh, transfer to private. That was the same packet. Yeah, transfer. Oh, well, >> I know you had that in the
026sheet that you sent me, Lisa. I may not have put that on there. >> It's not a past triump with the other instate because that seems kind of >> Yeah, let me I will send it to you. Um because that's on there, but uh I don't know why I didn't include that on the sheet. If you want to actually you want to go to my u the folders cuz I did I did hide the student names. Scroll down to enrollment. Oh yeah. Go to enrollment. Go to 202526. Then go to withdrawals. Next one down. All right, scroll up. >> I must say, so what is that? Uh 116 to 136. So 2019 21 should be 21. So that would have been the highest one. >> Oh, and then there's virtual learning. >> So what's the
027total number? You said 30, too. >> Yes. 28. >> 28 and 31. And I just struggle. I don't want to create a virtual school. Um, I just we could do it, but it feels like you're doing it just to capture an omen. Um, if there was a way for virtual school, I think to be a strong, powerful way of providing a means of education to students. Um, but I'm just not I think we've experienced that. And um, I hate to do it just to capture enrollment. I know there's some schools that think differently. Um but uh I do know there's a new option um called micro schools um that the school that the state of Indiana has um put some weight behind and that public schools could set up their own micro school which would
028be like um a homeschool type scenario where you could take a pot of kids and again provide a licensed instructor. Um again I just don't know if that's the best means of providing education as well. Um that seems that does seem to be of all of our areas that kids are are deenrolling. It's it's it's withdrawing due to home school and withdrawing due to um the virtual programming. >> Do we know how many homeschoolers came back into school this year? Because I know there were a number of those as well. >> There were a number, but I don't I didn't prepare for this one. We can certainly we can get that get that. Thank you. >> And I'm assuming this is just like I mean rural Indiana trend. I mean not that that's we we
029want to buff the trend. I know, but this has got to be consistent among almost all public schools in rural Indiana. >> It is. It is across the state of Indiana. Most enrollments are going down. Uh where you're seeing growth is kind of the donut area around Indianapolis. Um and there are a few, you know, outliers and you know, the region area there as well. Um where suburbs of Chicago where things are growing, but by and large most school districts are are losing students. So on the Irish side at one point in time it was kind of a little bit I thought we had feedback of the technology >> kind of push out that >> I don't know if that's still the case or we've kind of reached out and trying to find out anymore
030that's still kind of a button for them if there's something else we could do. I know following co I had a couple of meetings with some bishops and um that was part of it. I think uh um you know just kind of the uncertainty of where where things were going to go um outside of co I think there were a lot of rumors about what potentially be required of schools and so I think that um but I think once you start building schools though that's kind of a heavy investment and that's definitely what we saw. I know John Dockery alone said he had three honor schools that kind of popped up within you know five mile radius of his home. So um just became a lot more accessible and uh we're still kind of feeling
031that. So when you you got people that live within our community that are electing to do that that option and there's not enough affordable um housing for new folks to come in that's that's our challenge. >> So with the private one. There's a school in Milwaukee. >> That new that new one that's right off 19. >> We did it. >> Mhm. >> How many? >> Two. >> West. >> Yeah. >> Cuz I didn't know what it was. So I Googled it. >> Restaurant. other questions or suggestions. >> How many do we have the number? You say have numbers that came in the district like >> like in what we're sharing. >> Yeah, we get those numbers. Yeah. be interesting to see how that compares to what like who went to the school, how long we
032got from that school. >> I do know we broke another record as far as out of district transfers that came in again. I think our previous record was 350 and I think we had to eclipse that already by >> Yeah, mid July. >> Mid July. Yeah, I think was it over 400? >> I don't want to give a wrong number. >> I've already messed up on the the table, but I'll I will get you those figures. I do know we broke another record as far as our district enrollment. We just don't know exactly how many these kids had went to another school or within district. So >> we could uh take a look out of Richmond's playbook and send two buses to buyer 331 bypass. We got two buses there. >> Y district to >>
033it is just a slippery slope. >> It's a slippery slope. >> No, trust me. I mean that's those are some things where it's like you know what >> I know some people that do that just because they have that >> Yeah. gas station. What's the law on it? >> There is no There is no law on it. >> Transportation. >> Yep. There is no law on it. Um you know, the only thing that you do though is you start creating um you start taxing your transportation department um on that. Um which we can do. We've got a great transportation team. Actually, Amy and I have had some conversations about if we were stationed in a couple locations where we already have a large pocket of students that are there. Um downside to it is we
034have walk zones in our district right now and so you got folks who pay local property taxes who we're not providing busing services to. Um but we'll send a bus outside of our district to pick up kids whose families don't pay property taxes into the district. And so you know that's that's one thing you got to kind of have to weigh and you got to have that conversation with folks of well this is why we're doing it you know because it's bringing additional revenue for all kids and all families. Um but it's And then of course there's that um colleiality that you have amongst superintendents and school systems that you know for sharing resources, we're sharing you know services and things of that nature. And I will say that is that is kind of d
035driving a flag into the sand saying you know we're going to come after you. Um which case you can't really blame other school districts that would do the same thing then. And so then again are you just expanding your transportation services to bus in the same number of kids? And so it's it's a calculated risk that you know again I'm not saying it it's totally I'm totally opposed to it and there's some consideration to it but I think if we did it we'd want to be really thoughtful on how we go about it. >> What about advertising? >> Um we've not done much of that. Um and I just mean it was my business I'd be like well hey people don't know what they don't know. Yeah, >> we actually had some conversation. I think
036we we we looked at a position to create a director of marketing at one point in time, but really the director of marketing marketing to the Amish population. You know, there there's a great population that for some reason we're just not we're not connecting with and communicating with. And so we thought there were some folks within our community that um had very close relationships with um Amish families here already, had that trust established, but also had, you know, some training and marketing that would be very um appealing to us. And we um didn't quite find the individual we were looking for that had that perfect, you know, blend. Um there are certainly companies that are out there that can partner hire an employee and do a contracted service. Um, you know, again, you just got
037to look at what's that return on investment got if we're spending um operations funds right now for our contract service which are going to be taxed and what's going to be that return on investment as far as how many kids in addition to what we currently have right now that again uh and I'm not saying this is the right approach but my approach has always been I'm not in service of marketing I'm in service of educating our kids and you know we're going to really focus and dive in and create the very best school system that we possibly can and by word of mouth I mean that there is no better advertising than that and uh but again can't really say my track record looks real good when the last you know four years we'll
038continue to lose 20 30 students and so I do think definition in the sand are the same thing over and over again expecting something different so we got to something's got to change >> about every other month we get a flyer in our mailbox from community schools basically whatever just covers different topics. It's pretty it's really pretty fancy brochure. Maybe a four page one. >> Yeah. I think Scott to your point the hard part like the affordable housing is something that takes a long time to get there and I think that is something that's that is a need in the community and it's like that's where the results it's just going to I mean again I think home you know trying to figure out if we can get more homeschoolers if there could be Amish
039it does seem hard to kind of coach kids I mean it seemed it feels that way what's happening with other school systems um when all these schools are struggling with the same thing you know so anyway I don't know just there's not a quick fix to that. But again, if we can somehow do a better job of trying to be homeschoolers and Amish and it seems like that's the >> the quicker fix than than housing, >> you know, but it's not easy. >> Yeah. >> I mean, you want to do what? Sorry. >> I'm just going to say it'd be interesting um our list of homeschoolers to find out why they chose to go to home school. um if they're still living in our district and why they chose to go to home school and
040not be here be willing to bet that many of them were disciplined that didn't agree with the discipline consequences too and so they chose to go home school and I can't quantify how many but I know that's a reoccurring theme too. >> You know that's a good point. I bet we could have a we could put these names on the board and ask our principles they would have a pretty good sense of which ones were elected to go home school just because you know habitual truency and they were tired of, you know, kind of us engaging with other services to get them to school, behavior type issues. Um, and again, our hear me please, our folks never ever ever encourage that. Um, they do an outstanding job actually encouraging kids to stay and access some
041of these other services. Um, but again, you can't get into an argument with the parent when they say, "I am going to transfer them to home school." So, But figuring out how many of these students still live in our district and then why they aren't >> attending our school to figure out then what the trend might be. >> Yeah. >> And then back to that micro school. I mean, is that something where maybe some of those folks would be more inclined? It's hard. That's a hard thing to say, but like again, that's interesting. If there's enough in that group, it'd be it wouldn't probably take too many students to generate some decent revenue from that, but it's certainly not the same experience that they did in the schools, right? >> But I don't know. Are
042there schools I guess that was my one question is are there schools in the area that have have done like a micro school or >> The only public school system that I know that has done a micro school I think is in Greenfield, Indiana, Greenfield Central and it was brand new this year. Um it's something that's just kind of come out from the state as as an option. There have always been micro schools. Usually it's kind of that pod type um notion, but it's never been run through the public school system. And so they basically just created this opportunity for schools to explore this um and provide families another another choice. Again, it's something new to me and um I'm certainly not opposed to it, but I I want to if we're if we would
043explore something like that, I want to really do a deep dive on what does a good experience look like for kids. So that you know I wouldn't want to change our standards here. Um, I want to make sure that we're whether the kids enrolled in that type of educational setting or a kid was in a traditional, you know, lawn school, um, the same outcomes would be, um, attainable for our students. And again, with that kind of being a different, you know, being a five with a fifth grader, a kindergartener, and two third graders, you know, with one teacher there, um, there's just a lot of needs, and so we want to make sure that we we can figure out to support them. But definitely open to more um you know thoughts and feedback you guys
044have as we travel on that. But that's something we will we've got to get addressed ASAP. And I know we're being live streamed. Again, no fault to our town or our city on housing. Everyone is trying to to to work on this and I want to make sure that's clear. It's not that we're pointing blame at any organization. We just We got to continue to work together to try to resolve that. So that's all we have this evening unless there's additional questions. >> Anything additional. >> Okay. There being no further business to come to the attention of the board. A motion to adjourn is in order. >> So moved. Second. >> Motion from a second from all in favor say I. I.