001School Board of Trustees meeting. It's Monday, July 21st, 2025 at 6:00. Roll call. >> Connie Born is absent. >> Okay. Having a quorum, we'll call the meeting to order. Please rise for 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. Welcome. Um, we have no recognitions tonight. We do have a revision. Um, we're going to approve revision 4. F3 and K through L. I'll accept a motion. >> So moved. Second. >> All those in favor of approving the revision say I. >> I. I. >> Those opposed. Motion passes. Is there anyone in the audience that wishes to comment on an agenda item? Okay, consent agenda. We have minutes
002from July 7th, 2025. There's claims, donations. We have an anonymous donation of $335 towards the purchase of books for LH Carpenter classrooms. And we have a donation of $80 from TriCappa for the LH Carpenter nurse fund. Awesome. And we have for financials, we have the revenue and expense upate update and the appro appropriations report tonight. I'll accept a motion on the consent agenda. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Discussion. Uh first, we'd like to thank um the anonymous donor for the $335 to purchase books for the LH classrooms and also the donation of $80 from Triricappa for the LH Carpenters nurse fund. Um we will then move into our revenue and expense updates. See, we will start with our revenues and expenses for June. Um, our revenue was slightly higher than what we had projected.
003Um, this was due to our tax draws for both operations and debt being higher um than what we had projected, which are good things. um our accounts payable was just a little bit higher than what we had projected. Um and this was mainly due to having a higher debt payment. Um that is because the the new debt that we took on at the end of the year, we had not updated for that. So we're reviewing our debt payments um for the next 18 months to make sure that we have those a little closer. Um we uh our payroll expenses were a little bit lower than what were projected, which was good because we did um pay out our three DLI teachers that went back to Spain. We pay out their contracts um in the month
004of June instead of it being paid until August. So I was expecting that to be a little bit higher. So that's a good thing to see. Um, so we were expected to have a net income of just around $400,000 and because of those increased revenues, we did end up with a net income of almost double that, about 801,000. So that's a good thing. Um, moving on to our key fund balances, um, our ED fund sits at, um, just under $1.7 million. operations is minus1 $166,150 and rainy day is at $547,675. And just as usual, I will remind the board we're using some rainy day funds for transportation salaries as well as other building maintenance operations. So that will continue to drop each month. Um I do want to share with the board and our community
005where these numbers were just two years and nine months ago. Um, so on September 30th of 2022, our ED fund had $10,49 in it. Rainy Day had 102,858 and operations was negative1,920,921. Um, so when you add all of those up, in September of 2022, our key fund balance was negative1,88,014. Now our key fund balance is positive $2,707 $70,729. So that's a change of uh right around like $3.8 million. Um, so I just wanted to share that, you know, we're still negative in that operations fund, but we have come such a long way and I I just want to thank our teachers, our administrators, our board members. Um, we should feel really good about the changes that we've made in our financial situation over the last that was two years and nine months that we were
006able to accomplish that. So, all right, any questions on that? Okay, the next thing we will look at is our appropriation report for June. Um, and this does run January through June. So, we look at the last six months. Um, for our ED fund, and this is like getting really, really small. >> Um, for our revenue, we have collected um 50.1% of our budget. So, that's good. Um because it's June, we're halfway through. That's where we would want to be is 50%. So we're just a little bit over that. Um when you look at some of our expense lines, we have a few that are over. Um like I said, we did pay out those those DI teachers. So that would be at kindergarten, um elementary, and middle school. Um, so seeing that we're right
007at or below the 50% in those, I feel pretty good about that. I was looking September, no o August is a three pay month, so we will go back over, but we we've got it balanced out for the first six months. Um, our summer school lines, we did go over a little bit what we appropriated. Um that was mainly at the elementary level because when we saw the number of students that were going to have iid remediation, we went ahead and and increased the number of teachers. We will get reimbursements um for some of this. We won't get the whole thing reimbured by the state, but we will get some of it. Um so overall in our ed fund, we are sitting at um 46.4% of our appropriations. So we're below that 50%. So that's
008a real good real good target um that we've hit. When we move into operations, um we have collected 62% of our revenue. Um we get a larger tax draw in June than we do in December. So that's part of it. Um and then we also have part of our tax anticipation warrant in there that eventually will get paid back. Um, we do have a lot of lines in this in our operations that are over that 50%, some of these have been moved to rainy day. So, as we continue on, they will continue to get smaller. Um, we are in the the entire fund we're at 53.7% of our appropriation. Um, last month we were at 54 I think it was 54.4. So, we are dropping a little bit each month. So, I'll keep an eye
009on that and hopefully we see that that overall appropriation getting closer to the target that we have set for each month. Any questions on that? All those in favor of approving the consent agenda say I. >> I. Those opposed motion passes. The next regular scheduled board meeting will be Monday, August 4th, 2025 here at Wabash City Hall at 6:00 p.m. There's some items of communications. There is no old business, new business. A the board will be presented with the 2024 through 2025 WCSLearn results. All right. These results um were approved by the uh the state board of education. I believe it was last week. So, we're able to share these now. Um this is just a little summary about what they saw across the state. Um most grade levels um remained within one percentage point
010of last year's results for ELA. Now remember when they compare last year's third grade to this year's third grade. They're not comparing the same students. Um they're looking just at that grade level. Um grade three saw the largest increase and that was at 1.7 percentage points. And then grade seven saw the largest decrease and that was 3.9 percentage points. My guess is that the focus that we've put on the science of reading and the literacy cadre across the state, we're seeing more students getting um the instruction that they need K through three and that's why we're seeing these increases in third grade. Um in the area of math there was a very small increase um in all grade levels except third grade and that was a decline of 0.9. Um grade 8 saw the largest
011at 3.1. So the language arts results for Wabash city um and I have done these by grade level but then I also colorcode it so you can look at the cohort. So our third grade we were at 29.7. You can see that compared to last year's third grade that was quite a big jump. When you move up to fourth grade then you can see what our our score was. And then the cohort change shows the increase or decrease in the percentage of students that pass. So at the fourth grade we saw 15.7% more students pass the fourth grade language arts. Um, fifth grade, that was another one that we saw a slight increase, but when you look at the cohort, it was huge. It was 20.5% increase. Um, sixth grade, we did see a small
012decrease, 5.1%. Seventh grade, we saw another big cohort jump, 7 12%. And then eighth grade, we saw a decrease um, 10.5%. Moving on to math. Um our third grade we were at 31.1 and then moving on to fourth grade we saw um a cohort decrease of about 3.9%. Um our fifth grade did see a cohort increase and we kind of just from there were alternating. We saw a decrease in the cohort um at sixth grade but then seventh grade we were almost the same. Um and then eighth grade we saw another um slight decrease. We did get science and social studies results. Last year we did not get science. They did not test. Um this year we did. And there we can't really do cohort because our students only take it in fourth grade and
013sixth grade and it's not the same standards. It's not even the same content. So what I've put on here is what what we had and then what the state average was. So in fourth grade, our state average um we were almost uh in line with the state average. Sixth grade, we were um a little bit behind. So as a district, we were slightly behind the state average. In social studies, um we only test at fifth grade and we were um our fifth grade class last year was slightly behind in compared to the state average. So our next steps um we are getting a new reading curriculum for grades K through five which does focus on the science of reading. Um we did join the literacy cadre last year. Um we will continue with that this
014year. It's a two-year commitment. Um we plan to utilize the iLearn checkpoint assessment data for re remediation and retesting. Um, we last year our middle school opted into that pilot >> and they felt like they were getting good information to be able to pinpoint students that were below proficiency or approaching and so they knew what students needed that targeted remediation. So, we have a plan for grades three through eight, a timeline that this is when we will give checkpoint one. um they're allowed to take take checkpoint one twice. They get two opportunities. So once we give it then any student that is below proficiency or approaching will be provided remediation and we can do that through advisory within our classes um during win time at at OJ um to remediate just those students that didn't
015hit that at or above and then we'll give them the second um opportunity of that first checkpoint anywhere from four to five weeks later after they've been provided with remediation. And so we kind of have that planned out for the entire year. I think that'll be really good for one for our parents to know this is when these tests are given. Um but also for our our teachers to have a plan of if I have students that didn't learn it. I know I've got four to five weeks to remediate and then give them that second opportunity. Um we will continue staff training on RTI. How do we respond to students um with students that don't learn it? And then I've begun looking at what kind of staff training do we need to offer to our
016teachers that teach math. >> Um, you know, and that might be finding something that we need to send a few representatives from each grade level to to go to and come back and bring information. So, >> any questions? >> How old is our curriculum for math? >> Um, I think we are in is it is this year three? No, because we didn't have it my first year. >> I was thinking it wasn't that old. >> Yeah, it's not. So, >> so and if you look at math, you can see that um we have seen some some pretty >> Yeah. >> good increases over the last few years. Yeah. >> Um if you look at the district, you know, in 2022 we were at 18.7. We've gone up almost 10 percentage points. So, >> okay. Are
017they hitting hard on the math facts themselves? Because I noticed the last few years I've been in subbing, a lot of kids don't know their basic math facts. And to get on to the next level of their math, they got to know the basics before they can step on up. >> Yeah. And I would say that that is something that I think has when we were all in school, like I can remember staying in recess because I didn't know my math facts >> and I don't know that they do that like we did. um into drills like >> right and that is something that you know parents at home that's a great thing flashc cards with you know addition subtraction multiplication division great way for parents to assist at home >> any other questions okay
018item B to approve the revised attendance policy I'll accept a motion >> second >> discussion so these changes um are a result of recent legislative updates. Um the major changes with the attendance policy is um the categories for excused absences and these are require these are the required category titles that we have to report to the IDOE. Um so you know they have medical they have family planned family unplanned like I said those are the codes that we have to use when we report to the DOE. So, we just thought, let's put those into our policy. >> Um, and it will be consistent from K through 12. >> Um, we've also added that for the coming year, students cannot be expelled based on attendance alone. It used to be that if a student had been
019truent so many days, we could expel them. Um, the legislators have said that for this year only, we cannot expel for attendance. And I don't know if they're doing that because they want to see >> do we see a drop in expulsions because of that. Um and it could change after next year's legislative session, but we did add that in. And then the truency prevention procedures. When we updated our policy last year, it was only for grades K through six and now they have said these uh interventions need to be K through 12. Um so those were the ma major changes of the policy and because this is just revising a policy and there are things that we had to do because of legisl legislation. Um yeah my my recommendation is to approve this policy
020and once it's approved we will get information out to families so they understand you know what our limits are what the different categories are. >> Any other questions? All those in favor of approving the revised policy say I. >> I. >> Those opposed. Motion passes. Item C, board to approve the revised bullying policy. I'll accept a motion. >> So moved. >> Second >> discussion. So this is another one that because of recent legislative updates, we had to update. Um the ma major change here includes the requirement to inform both parents when a report of bullying is made and the timeline um for which that must happen. So we've included that. Um we've also added that this rule can be applied regardless of physical location of the bullying incident. So what that means is a student
021can be posting things at home on social media, but if it comes into our building and can cause an unsafe learning environment, disciplinary action can take place. That was not in our policy previously. >> So if someone points out that it's on Facebook, can we do anything about it? >> Can can a student be disciplined if they're putting stuff on FA? Yes, we can do something about it. And as a middle school principal, there were many times that I had to deal with that. >> Okay. >> Any other questions? >> All those in favor of approving the revised bullying policy say I. >> I. >> Those opposed, the motion passes. Item D, board to approve the following resignations from the following certified staff. one, Jake Stevens as WHS math teacher, including his coaching positions, and
022two, Michaela Stevens as WMS and WHS math teacher. >> Some move second >> discussion. Uh, Mr. and Mrs. Stevens have found teaching positions closer to home. Um, I know they have two young children, so I respect their desire to be closer to family. Completely understand that. Um, we wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors. And I know that Mr. Blossom and Mr. Madern have been working on a plan of how we're going to cover these positions. >> All those in favor of approving the resignation say I. >> I. >> Those opposed. Motion passes. Item E. Board to approve Beth Miller and Lorie Gunderman to share a paraprofessional position at $11 per hour with Mrs. Miller working four days a week and Mrs. Gunderman working one day a week for no more than
02329.75 hours combined. >> So moved >> uh discussion. Mrs. Miller currently serves as a paraprofessional at OJ. Um she had talked to Beth about can I get less hours. She didn't want to just retire completely, but she did want less hours and Mrs. Gunderman was willing to take on one day a week. Um so Mrs. Miller and Mrs. Gunderman will share that. Um, like you stated, Mrs. Miller is going to do four of the days and Mrs. Gunderman will do one of the days. Um, OJ will have the same amount of para hours between those two. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Those opposed? Motion passes. Item F, board to proof hiring the following classified staff. One, Lacy Jones as an OJ par pair professional effective August 8th, 2025 at $11 per
024hour for 29.7 hours per week. Two, Astred Burns as a preschool pair professional. Alle carpenter beginning August 8th, 2025, and Madison Inman were to approve hiring Madison Inman as a three-year-old teaching parrofessional at LH Carpenter beginning at the 2025 through 2026 school year. >> So moved. Second >> discussion. >> Uh Mrs. Jones is taking an open parah position. Um I believe we had someone leave towards the end of the school year and we never replaced that position. Um so she will be filling in there. Um Mrs. Burns is going to fill an open position at LH. I believe that will be in our next We probably should have flipped >> We probably should have flip-flopped these because item G is where the positions are becoming available and so we're approving them to fill those positions.
025>> Um and then Mrs. Inman, we brought back that four-year-old classroom and so we're moving a three-year-old up to fouryear-old and so Mrs. Inman is going to take that open three-year-old position. So, it's kind of I told Kathy today I felt like who's on first that whole So, um we just want to welcome all these ladies to W Bash City Schools. >> Lacy graduated last year, I believe, right? >> Astra, >> did Astra too? >> Yeah, that's what I thought. >> Both Maddie and Astra and all three went through our CBA program. >> That's awesome. >> That's wonderful. >> That's good. Raise them up. Okay. All those in favor say I. I. >> Those opposed. Motion passes. Welcome. Board to approve the following transfers from classified staff. One, Nvea Metler from preschool pair of professional
026at LH Carpenter to the gym project lead the way teaching paraprofessional at LH Carpenter at the beginning of the 2526 school year. and to Gabby Wagner from a three-year-old teaching paraprofessional to a four-year-old teaching paraprofessional at the beginning of the 2526 school year. >> Second >> discussion. >> Um Mrs. Metler's going into our preschool uh teaching parah that does PE and project lead the way. Um we had the teacher that had done that recently decided to stay home so that position was open. Um and like I said, Mrs. Wagner is going from that three-year-old to that four-year-old classroom that we brought back. So, um, the person before is going to fill that position. So, we just want to thank both of these ladies for their willingness and flexibility to do something different. Um, as Mrs.
027Wilson works to get all her positions filled. I think you have one left. One left. >> All those in favor of approving the transfer say I. >> I. Those opposed? Motion passes. Item H. Board to approve hiring Dana Wright as a consultant at a rate of $50 per hour for up to 10 hours. Dana will guide us through the rollover of our student fee management system to the new school year. We currently have no one in the district who has done this before. I'll accept a motion. >> Some moved. >> Second. >> Discussion. So last year, um, Jennifer Hopkins was with us and she did that student fee rollover. Um, while we currently do not charge for textbooks, recent legislation does allow for us to charge for consumables. Um, this year we're we plan to
028do an audit of consumable fees across the district and may consider charging for next year. Um, to ensure that our student fee management system is ready, if we elect to do that next year, we have to do this rollover. Um, Mrs. Wright did this prior um, uh, before Mrs. Hopkins. So, she is going to train not only Mrs. Huff, but she's also going to train Mrs. Cougler. And so, when we get Shel's replacement, we will at least have somebody else that has done it that when that person is trained, she'll have someone that she can go to. So, we appreciate Mrs. Wright being willing to come in after hours or on weekends to help Shelley through this process. >> Could you explain what consumer? >> I was going to say, so like art supplies. Yes,
029it could be art supplies. So, you know, if we have to buy new paint, new, you know, paper, um consumables even could be paper that we use in classrooms. Um it just depends on the class. Mo most classes that have consumables are art, um science classes, >> industrial maybe, >> yes, industrial tech. So, if we're having to buy wood, um different things like that. So I didn't feel like we were ready to say this is how much we need to charge students. I would rather take a year to to really look at these are the things that our students are using and how do we calculate how much we charge each parent as well. Right. >> Right. Yes. Fax class. So those classes where kids are, you know, really the more hands-on. Um but like
030I said, even in a regular classroom, paper might be considered a consumable. >> Okay. All those in All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Those opposed. Motion passes. Item I, board to approve moving the non-operational cooler to surplus to be able to scrap and recuperate some money back from having to get rid of it. The cooler is from LHC and is no longer operational. We had an extra cooler at WMS that we moved to LHC. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Discussion. >> Uh Mrs. Harold would like to um have this cooler marked as surplus so we're able to get rid of it. We're hoping that maybe we can get a little money from it. Um we're just thankful that we had an extra cooler at the middle school so we didn't have
031to purchase a new one. We were able to just move that over. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Those opposed motion passes. J board to approve the following fall coaches. Athletic supervision, Trenton Dodrey. Assistant volleyball, Stacy Parrot. C. Girls volleyball, Chelsea Montgomery. Volleyball volunteers, Jade Stumbo. Football volunteers Justin Denny, Tony Burton, and Tyler Nickham. Girls soccer assistant Scott Dinkens. Girls soccer volunteer, Lindseay Shankle, Bailey Yayen, and Riley Yokum. Middle school cheerleader/booster club, Angel Hostler. Middle school cross country Caitlyn Lloyd and Ryan Evans. Middle school cross country assistant Derek Bogle. Cross country volunteer Rachel Hover. Eighth grade football assistant Antonio Grant. Seventh grade football head coach Bryant Miller. Middle school football volunteer Sammy Hipskin. Eighth grade volleyball Ashlin Cruz. Seventh grade volleyball Sarah Dylan. Sixth grade volleyball JC Aiden and Taylor McFarland.
032So moved. Second >> discussion. Um I checked with Mr. Stone today and he said that most of the I believe all of these coaches have coached for us in the past or have volunteered. Um so we just want to say thank you to all of them. Um appreciate their willingness to come and work with our student athletes. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Those opposed. Motion passes. Okay. board to approve FMLA leave for employee 21 beginning June 25th, 2025. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All uh all those in favor say I. >> I. >> Those opposed. Motion passes. Elboard to accept the resignation of Terry Denny SWHS guidance counselor effective July 1st, 2025. >> So moved. >> Second >> discussion. Uh Mrs. Denny filled in last year for us and
033we great greatly appreciate her willingness to do so. We knew that she only wanted to do this for one year. Um so we have already filled the position with Mrs. Petrinu. Um so this is just we needed to make sure that we had a resignation um on file. So again we just want to thank Mrs. Denny for coming out of retirement and filling that need for us. >> Okay. All those in favor say I. I. >> Those opposed motion passes. items from superintendent. >> Um, last week was our online registration period. We had 848 students um that had the process completed. Um, so we still have quite a few out there. We are working through the completed completed registrations this week and then we will reopen the registration um portal window next Monday for any
034family that missed that window. So there's still there still be time. um our admin assistants will be back in the building next week. So, if there's any questions, they'll be able to reach out to those um buildings. We also want to remind families that need transportation, the transportation request form was emailed out to families and that is separate from registration. So, even if you haven't completed registration, but you know your child is going to need transportation, you can complete that transportation request form. um they have until this Friday to complete it to ensure that they get transportation the first week of school. Um I want to thank our custodial crew. They've done a great job this summer getting our buildings in tip-top shape um for the coming school year. Um our our summer student custodians
035have been a great help for our custodian custodians this year. Um we do have our big idea event this Wednesday at OJ. Um this is through our partnership with Second Harvest Food Bank. It will be held in the gym this month because our cafeteria floor um was recently waxed and is curing. So families will enter through door 22. Um and the event runs from 4:00 to 5:30. We just want to encourage all their families to come in, take advantage, see what you know, food is out there. It's open to anyone. Um, open houses will take place on August 11th in all our buildings and I believe all of these have been posted on Parent Square. Um, they are all on August 11th. OJ's will be from 4:00 to 5:30. LH's will be 5 to 6:30
036and then the middle school and high school will go 6:00 to 7:30 and they're going to do a special fifth grade orientation starting at 6:30 in the fifth grade teachers classrooms. Um, so again, that's out on Parent Square. As we get closer to that date, we'll also get it out on Facebook. Um, and our first staff day, uh, staff days this year are August 8th and 11th, and our first student day is August 12th. So that means we have 21 days before students come back to school. Okay. Um, items from administrators. Uh items from board members. We'll start with Jason. >> Uh the only thing I have is this Saturday is the July 26 is the back to school bash at the high school. Um it's the free event that CASA puts on that has
037free backpacks, uh haircuts, clothes, books, uh school supplies, all sorts of things. So, if you know anyone in the community that uh might need some things to get the students back into the classroom uh prepared, then this is a great opportunity to help them out, help families out that might need some >> Say when that is again. >> July 26th. It's I believe it's uh Saturday, correct? >> 9 to 1 o'clock. I was just going to say u I know they said it any haircuts uh as well. So, I think it's a really cool event. Uh, it's usually pretty busy, so get there early and and get your stuff. So, that's it. [Music] >> I have nothing to add. >> And river cleanup is also that day if you want to go help clean up
038the river. >> Okay. Um, I don't think I have anything. I won't be Jason will be in charge next time, next meeting. So, >> other than that, everybody enjoy the rest of their summer. Uh with that we'll adjourn. Thank you.