001she perfect good evening we've got six o'clock on the uh on the clock so uh roll call i will call the meeting to order will everybody please stand and remain 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 begin each wabash city school board meeting by reading the wabash c school's mission wabash city schools provides a relevant and rigorous education founded upon relationships to ensure each student is college and career ready for success in the global community like to welcome everybody here tonight uh recognitions from paul sports athletes this one at work you gotta use this um so tonight here we're here to recognize our fall athletes we
002have a few of them in the front with us um for for all conference uh first team and honorable mention we had a total of 16 ball athletes that made the team um here with us tonight uh andrew dinkins please stand up and jake stumbo congratulations [Applause] uh next we have i i believe the more important part is we're education-based athletics and that's academic all conference and honorable mentions we have several students who made this we have a total of 22 on this list through our fall athletics and here tonight with us is annie cole andrew jenkins nicholas ewing david ford and casey long [Applause] to be named as an academic all-conference they had to be top 15 with a three-point gpa to make honorable mention they'd be top 30 with a 3.4 gpa next
003up is we have our scholar athletes we recognize 71 student athletes in the fall for scholar athlete and a scholar athlete had to have a 9.0 gpa for the first nine weeks all these ladies and gentlemen here today go ahead and stand up for scholar athletes okay yeah brendan jaden brendan rowan ankle casey long j stumbo andrew jenkins dave ford and nicholas newey [Applause] and i think one of the most honorable parts being about academic is the next level of that and that's academic allstate these vary between all the different sports on how you fit into one of those positions or how you meet the criteria and we had three that are here tonight but we had a total of nine fall athletes make academic all states and i want to read all of those
004athletes not just the ones here and so we have devin kaufman andy cole linda cordes brody craft andrew dinkins david ford marcus haynes ethan haynes and casey long congratulations one other thing i'd like to recognize um our trc uh we have one team this year make uh our that earned trc championship that was our boys soccer team congratulations to them and they went ahead and went on and became sectional champions as well so congratulations [Applause] would you guys like to stand up and see what you participated in this fall please we'll start down here bryn i'm on the dance team and that's your team as well [Applause] all right we do have one revision to the agenda item oh that is the uh accept the resignation of randy kirby as wabash high school head wrestling
005coach accept a motion two of them promotion a second all those in favor of amending the agenda indicated by saying aye aye opposed motion passes item age the consent agenda we have the minutes of our november 15 2021 meeting claims we have a donation of sixty dollars from south side free will baptist youth warriors for christ to the hungry kids fund um and financials uh we're not having financials no financials at this meeting um would accept emotion on the consent agenda motion do we have a second second second discussion we would like to thank the south side free will you four years for their donations fund even though we don't have financials can we talk about it now yeah if you would so we're right near the end of the year um and so um
006[Music] i can tell you that the education fund probably has about 200 000 in it the debt fund has about 350 to 400 000 but the operations is minus 1.5 million now our tax draw comes wednesday and so we're fingers crossed that we get what we're supposed to get and then that'll take up a big chunk of that that's also why one of the resolutions is later tonight is to transfer some money at the end of the year on december 31st the operations fund those are things we have to do to clean up for our budget that was approved by the lgf um but that's where we sit with our funds and operations is not in good place but our we have not got our money from the state for our kids for december yet
007and we haven't got our tax draw which we should get wasted so it'll look a lot different at the end of december than it looks today but um that tax draw there's and we don't know so the tax draws today is the education that usually comes somewhere between the 15th and the 20th so it could go wednesday too but um but that's a monthly thing that we get always right in there the tax draw only comes twice a year and june and december and so uh it's a big deal so yeah it looked a little different december 31st looks today any uh other discussion on the consent agenda if not all those in favor of approving the consent agenda indicate by saying aye all right the post motion passes the next regular schedule board meet
008will be monday january 3rd 2022 at wabash city hall 202 south wabash street wabash indiana at 6 pm there will be a board of finance meeting at 5 45 pm prior to the regular board meeting we have a few items of communication there's no old business new business school spotlight athletic update history work oh i gotta be the one jesus um okay for our fall athletes uh excuse me for fall sports um in the high school we had 194 uh student athletes um participate um in the middle school we had 188 and of those high school athletes that played in the fall 124 of them are signed up to play two or more sports um at a small school like our setting we have to have multiple sport athletes so we appreciate all those kids
009that play those little sports because a lot of time and they also work on their academic side which is a lot of time as well so we want to say thank you to them the big thing for uh wild west high school coming up this winter break is the wallace county tournament we host the west night attorney on december 29th and 30th our girls jb girls played nine o'clock on the first day against manchester and just following that the jb boys will play manchester 10 30 all in cool uh the same day on the 29th our varsity girls play 6 30 versus manchester and then to follow that our boys play day 15 and we'll host and the next day same thing goes on jd girls will play at 10 the jd boys will play
010at 11 30 just depending on how they do that first day and then the varsity starts at 3 um so we'll continue through that throughout the day and so it's it's a big event for us we're excited to host especially with our addition we're going to finally use this season uh which we pre-named we could hold up to 2400 people and and i expect that the gender pack for well-wish county tournament this year it's been pretty exciting for us and for our community so thank you 194 students is that half of our high school student body i think our student population is around 475 right roughly and so almost almost 40 percent and the county attorney that's that takes a lot of uh manpower to host us do you have all the volunteers and we
011have quite a few volunteers signed up i will say that my assistant mrs fox is a wonderful person and does a lot for our athletic departments if you ever really need anything done i think farm is probably her you'll go to because she means a lot to us she does a lot with concessions getting workers um she's basically done all that i've got all the workers at her score table inside and so she's got a lot of field we do have some spots that are consistent we need help with random times throughout each of those days but for the most part we've got a lot of people who come in to help us and we're good to go thank you thank you wabash high school student council update we don't get it i shared the
012presentation with you i just did it okay thank you hello everyone i'm brennan rowan i'm annie cole and nicole uh we are the uh student body president and vice president of obama high school and we represent students so the first thing uh the most recent thing i guess that's coming up is finals week so i think this is accurate i'm i'm actually announcing it it is okay cool so tuesday and thursday uh for high school the english and math finals are actually that's why it's tuesday wednesday okay sorry so this is incorrect but it's tuesday and wednesday it's english and math and then thursday friday social studies and sciences so um this is different just because we wanted or the adults i guess um wanted um students to be less stressed so instead of having
013a block scheduling we could have normal schedules um so it's less confusing for students but then also it's less stress that way i don't have you know a math history a science you know all of my finals one day so they split it up yes it also allows teachers to split up their finals into more than one day because all of my finals are like two days long so i have like maths two days my science is two days history's two days then he split it up multiple choice and short answer so it's just it's easier for students and staff this is also the end of the semester so we're almost halfway through the year which is crazy for us for seniors but um so last week last week a couple weeks ago um the
014couple student council members um went to kiwanis and spoke as well we did pretty much the same field as we always do but we also talked about clubs and other student council events we talked about sports and other stuff and we got to have lunch and thanks to dr siblings we had our fish food drive a couple weeks ago we talked about this um i don't know if we talked about it one of these days we talked about it at the other meeting we went to um we had each day was a different like themed and so one day we had canned fruits and vegetables and each cannon was about six points and then like tuesday was toiletry items that was four and as you can see up there each day had a different uh
015like item that they were trying to emphasize with four points and then we also had prizes for each of the top three student leaders who needed the most amount of points and so there were a lot of different prizes they got to choose which one they wanted and then there was a top feature prize which i believe this guy won for like the 30th year in a row and then we also had oj neighbors participate and there was a group of the student council members and all the grades go over there and help pick up all of their stuff and take it over to fish and then we helped organize all the stuff over there and put it into the correct places so um you might have seen some students or even some of your
016students walk out this morning with pajamas on um we're doing a christmas dress up week so today was pajama day um tomorrow is christmas movie characters so you know yeah the grinch or whatever um wednesday is flannel uh thursday's samus workshop we just wanted to kind of have a day where you could just do christmas so um santa's workshop is very broad so we kind of you know santa elves reindeer snowmen whatever you know so and then fridays of course ugly sweater which can't be done or cannot be done um before i move on i do want to add something that i i'll play at as well next week there was a couple of choir students who were chosen to be in the all-state choir myself included me and marcus teens um so of the
017all of the indiana singers only 250 students were chosen which is a pretty big deal and it's i think the second weekend of january so it's coming up yeah all right okay so as mr mccoy already mentioned basketball season started and we just are very excited to host county attorney this year at wabash and it's going to be a lot of fun it's going to be a lot of people and hopefully the student section will do something and if i don't know if you guys have seen the apache barstool twitter account which we don't know who that's wrong right but that's always fun most people don't know who it's run by um so it's the 29th and 30th and hopefully a lot of people will come and it'll be a twitter now and also i
018know that there was a couple of them winter sports i know that swimming is going on right now i heard they're doing pretty well and the rest of the team is also doing pretty well and then this is pennies for patients and sports spectacular this is still um by the way's away takes place in the middle of march but basically it's a fundraiser to raise money for kids with leukemia and we'll talk more about it as it gets closer actually i think this year it might go to a different cause i think the pennies for patients foundation is switching from leukemia to another disease but i actually belong to that we we've heard little rumblings about that it's too big so i did the math today um and we have 96 days after school so
019yeah almost there [Applause] item c approved recommendation to pass the following resolutions we have a resolution to transfer 163 000 monthly from the education to operations fund and a resolution to transfer 300 000 from the education fund to operations fund on december 31st 2021 have a motion do we have a second second second discussion so these are things that were in our budget uh that we have to do by law the resolution to transfer money from the education-funded operation fund we previously had a resolution uh that was set two years ago at that time to be the 15 threshold this new money that new amount is the new 15 threshold we have to do that yearly the dlgf uh reminded us that we need to have that done for our budget and then we need
020to try to balance the operation fund the best we can and so as part of the budget it was also there that we would transfer that 300 000 the last day of the year to try to offset that so these are just things that already were in the budget that was approved by the dlgf um that we have to do before the and it's things we were already doing yeah it's things we're already doing yes absolutely any other discussion all those in favor we've proven the recommendation indicate by saying aye opposed promotion passes item d approved the following eca positions for the 2021-2022 school year head teacher at lh carpenter laurie gunderman wabash county promise at lh carpenter christy clark building information liaison at lh carpenter kristin office grade level lead kindergarten teacher lhc lindsey
021wilson grade level lead pre-k teacher lh carpenter chloe select dli team leader oj neighbors melvin mclean 8th grade team leader at wabash middle school zach winrich starting january 3rd accept a motion so i believe many of these positions were added when we approved our contract that's why they're being filled now um mr winrich is replacing jasmine pineda um all those in favor of approving the recommendation indicate by saying aye aye opposed motion passes item e approve the following certified classified staff leave requests kristin hoppers from january 3rd to may 6th 2022 judy driscoll from november 19.11 to january 31st 2022. yes we just gave kristen office a position now we're giving her leave so yes she will be student teaching during that time and this isn't that all those in favor of approving the uh
022recommendation indicate by saying aye aye opposed motion passes item f except resignation of margie howard as paraprofessional oj neighbors effective december 3rd 2021. motion second discussion uh mrs howard resigned to stay home we just want to thank her first for mr wabash city schools all those in favor of accepting the resignation indicate by saying aye opposed motion passes item g approved recommendations to hire the following classified staff stacey gibson that's part-time custodian at lh carpenter for 25 hours per week effective december 14 2021. linda masters as oj neighbors cafeteria staff effective january 3rd 2022. tisha lynn to cover hoffa's lead at lh carpenter january 3rd through may 6 22 she will be paid subpay for the first 10 days until she submits her teaching credentials after 10 days and we have received her teaching permission
023credentials her daily rate will be starting teacher salary cheryl wilson to cover tisha lynn's paraprofession para position at lh carpenter january 3rd through february 25th 2022 at a rate of eleven dollars luanne white to cover tisha lynn's position at lh carpenter february 28 through may 6 2022 at a rate of 11 per hour kristen mccoy as prayer professional oj neighbors effective january 3rd 2022. i think that's it and the second discussion uh ms gibson will be our evening custodian and lh carpenter this position has been unfilled for quite some time so we're pleased that we found somebody um that was interested in this um mrs masters is filling an open cafeteria position and we're gonna go through mrs flynn is currently a para for us and she will be subbing for mrs tapas while she
024does her student teaching and so we need to fill the para position so we have two people that are splitting that assignment cheryl wilson will cover the first part of it and lillian white will cover the second part of it and finally miss coy is filling an open parent position at go today discussion if not all those in favor approving the recommendations in the game by saying aye aye opposed motion passes item h prove recommendation to hire shane king for the open eighth grade pcc and middle school rotation teacher at a pro rated first year teacher salary nineteen thousand dollars one hundred nineteen thousand one hundred ten dollars beginning january 2022 pending receipt of his teaching license motion do we have a second second second discussion uh mr king is going to replace jasmine pineda
025and instead of teaching world a world language rotation he will be teaching preparing for college and careers this course does count as high school credit for our eighth graders he's also taking the middle school rotation classes that brooke elliott had been teaching prior to moving into the pe um teaching care position and i want to thank josh wilson and mike manner who worked on figuring out how to cover all these positions get creative and actually cover it with a half a half a pair less than what we were doing beforehand further discussion if not all those in favor of approving the recommendation indicated by saying aye aye opposed motion passes item i put jen smith to provide homebound instruction for a welsh middle school student for two hours per week at her hourly rate of
02632.32 beginning tuesday december 14th 2021. motion discussion um this homebound assignment is part of the student's iep jen is currently the student's teacher of records so she's already started to build a relationship with that student all those in favor of approving the recommendation indicate by saying aye hi i suppose motion passes item j approved the following changes to building levels substitute teacher coordinator position at wabash middle school resignation of mike mattern effective december 17 2021 hiring jessica fish back for the position with a stipend of 750 effective january 3rd 2022. the promotion do we have a second second discussion so this a lot of people saw this and thought that it meant that mr manor was um he is resigning from being the person that is responsible for assigning all the subs um so we
027want to thank mike for taking this on and we are glad that as a building principal he no longer has to take on that responsibility but he will he will still be the building principal yeah perfect all right that's what i thought keep reading i was kind of all those in favor of improving the recommendation indicate by saying hi hi opposed motion passes item k approved the following coaches for 2021-2022 baseball varsity assistant kyle kellsheimer baseball jv coach nick henkin baseball volunteers bill barros bill plummer shane smith bendelen andy castro lucas helton and jordan holly softball varsity assistant ellie milam softball volunteers brian cunningham ken short wabash middle school baseball head coach justin holly baseball assistant coaches josh long and tim lane softball head coach chelsea worries have a motion do we have a 70
028second motion second discussion uh these coaching and volunteer positions are for many of our spring sports we want to thank these coaches and the volunteers for giving their time to our spring athletes all those in favor of approving the recommendation indicate by saying aye aye opposed one extension motion passes item l approved recommendation to accept the build learn gross stabilization grant and the amount of 281 833 for lh carpenter early learning center sunday emotion believes motion second discussion uh the build learn growth stabilization grant is a non-competitive and it's designed to provide short-term funding to early care and education and out of school time programs that have faced increased costs and challenges brought on by cobia 19 pandemic it allows them to stabilize their operations and build capacity for the future and we really want
029to thank or congratulate carpenter on being selected for this grant and kathy would you like to say anything about it maybe explain what what some of the funds are going to go for um one of the main things i want to do is to the playground house rubber finish right now for the kids we have um we also special needs classes and so they can't go off of the blacktop so i want to do the solid surface for both playgrounds and i want to purchase a shed for outside toys so that they can be housed there [Applause] playgrounds um because we have several um teaching terrorists they don't get certified pay i would like to give them some stipends for the next three years to at least show our appreciation on what we can do
030so i will get with matt and maybe and figure out where we need to go with that and how much we can do for each for this year next year and then i have until um as well we do have cots that we have to purchase as well um we put in an hour lunch for our carers in order to give us to keep the coverage at past equality rate so if they're laying down i think i'm one teacher in there and give my para a break um for lunch and then just make it a longer lunch because i need a furnished missile so um as i'm looking through faster quality i realize that we need pots because they're not supposed to be on the ground even with a mat so we will be purchasing
031more pots for them as well so um there's other things that as we get to the end of the grant that teachers have requested we'll see where all those questions go ahead what's the source of the funds and what kind of strings are attached to it i just have to show receipts any requirements that we teach anything differently or add any components to what we're teaching for any aspect of critical race theory involved in this i it's not real funny because it's showing up everywhere anybody who is a who is past equality they have enough money when i read the grant that anybody who is past equality if you go and you apply for it you should give your money and it goes based on three months of your building operations that's how they come
032up with your health importance thank you any other questions on the board if not all those in the paper have proven the recommendation indicate by saying aye opposed motion passes item m approved recommendation to waive building rental fees for st burns christmas program on december 13 2021 in the auditorium of wabash middle school so a motion do we have a second okay function second discussion uh normally we charge fees for groups to use our facilities as this is a christmas program for their students and families we do believe that we should not charge them for the use those in favor of approving the recommendation indicate by saying i i opposed motion passes item n approved updated wabash c schools reentry plan following board review and time for public comments we have a motion motion do
033we have a second second discussion so we are required to review our re-entry plan every six months um so this would be we our first review would have been in july we technically did kind of review it when we went to our flexible mass requirement but we're doing it at this point and just getting on the rotation of every six months we will be reviewing um we are not changing anything we did add a portion about virtual learning options for grades 7 through 12 which we have been offering them but they were not put on the original reopening plan and then we've also added how quarantined students access their education while they're in quarantine so those are the only two changes or updates other than that everything else is remaining the same since we added
034our flexible mask requirement and how are quarantined students exist they it depends on their grade level um it can either be through c class dojo seesaw or canvas depending on carpenter elementary and secondary any discussion from the board any public comments from members of the audience [Music] um no we need you to we need to know that you're within our district i am okay um my name is kristen pegg and i really don't want my address on youtube our policy is you give your name an address before you speak i can't hear you did you hear something i'll write it down do you have a child in our yes you do have a child in our district okay thank you great yes of course i don't know how this works um i guess my question
035is i have multiple but regarding the mask mandate for the kids i heard that you know in the last board meeting the extracurricular activities is now optional is that correct that is correct okay um i'm just struggling to understand the the reasoning behind you know my kindergartner and fifth grader having to wear them in a classroom setting but when they go to sports it's optional it doesn't really make sense to me from a medical standpoint when it comes to the transmission of the virus and the risk factors um if the athletes have a choice in you know wearing masks if they're you know at sporting events then you know i i guess i don't understand why my child doesn't have a choice to sit at their desk and learn from a teacher so and then
036i have a couple questions about you know the surrounding schools in the area with different masking policies have you guys worked with other school corporations to look at like the positivity rate and the numbers on whether masking is actually effective and you know the amount of positivity within the students so working with other school district school systems we've we've not been checking the uh to my knowledge we've not been checking the positivity rate at other school districts um i do know that the positivity rate within our school system since we have implemented mass has gone down during that time i also know that part of the reasoning for us implementing the policy while in class is that was the directive from the governor's office you could do one of two things while you were in
037school in class you can either make masks optional and then you have to quarantine anybody that comes into contact with a positive case uh when that that's the policy that we followed at the beginning of the school year right and we had upwards of 20 of our enrollment that was being quarantined and many of the students weren't showing any symptoms at all however we had to quarantine because that's what the governance said right the governor's um mandate then came out and said you have school systems have the option you can continue with that and still quarantine or you can go to a mask mandatory while in the classroom and then you only have to quarantine kids who test positive right or if they are sitting next to somebody the test positive while they're during launch
038and not wearing a mask now with the sports with the extracurriculars that was optional that was not part of it and we can we can discuss whether it makes sense to have that but that that's the direction from the state and as a result if one student athlete tests positive they're around that team the entire team would have to quarantine at that point it would revert back to the same rules that we were following with the mass optional policy so that's that's kind of where we're at and how how we've we're not requiring it for extracurriculars um anybody that would test positive during that time would and and were around them would have to quarantine and that would most likely be an entire team if that happened okay middle school girls basketball evidently that took
039place last week so i guess another question is you know i know i from what i understand um the reason that we're following the you know the cdc recommendation is partially you know for the esser funding is that correct that's not true okay there's been you know rumors i don't know you know what the bottom line is there on you know why certain school systems in the same area are using different mandates comparatively to ours each school district has their each school board is charged with determining what policy their school system will follow we were given two options from the state as to what we can do in the classroom we can make mass mandatory while in the classroom and then we don't have to quarantine students that come into contact with a positive case
040or we can make masks optional and we would have to quarantine students that came into contact whether they showed any symptoms or not so our board elected to to tag our policy toward what the county guidelines are so if we are in orange or red then we are masked mass mandated in the classroom if we are yellow or blue um for two consecutive weeks then we would go back to mass optional unfortunately that positivity rate within our county has not gone below orange and we've currently been at red for three weeks in a row right but are we looking at the overall positivity rate or are we looking at like the number of children you know zero to 18 because i don't feel like our policy was made to reflect the county that's what we
041did right but it's not broken down into more demographics it's what the county is doing and that's what we tied into and i would point out to you because you mentioned rumors here yeah that last year my organization sponsored what became senate enrolled act number one which limited and eliminated liability for schools and employers to take people back to work providing that they weren't girls staying negligent not following the mandate to either mask or have that be the last optional and quarantine not follow to pick a third one was considered grossly negligent we checked that through our legal counsel and the school systems and administration and the board would have been personally liable for any damages as a result of that right now other school corporations may have chosen to do something else they're not
042following the law we've chosen to follow the law all right and it's there's nothing perfect today that's as close as we could come to honoring what the parents told us they won and that was their kids back in school right um have you guys thought about doing another vote for the parents and where we're at now since it's been six months we we have not discussed that as as we have the resolution here that we have to we have to approve every six months so we were reviewing that tonight you know i think the policy that we approved stated that we would stay with mass until we drop below yellow or drop yellow we drop a little orange and then and then and then it would come off that's awesome it's a good optional yeah
043so i guess the there's no tie between the funding and whether we decide to follow certain guidelines the guidelines that we have to follow are the directive from the governor's office and that is that is that is a directive that all school systems in the state of indiana were given now whether other school districts follow those or not that's not for us to to discuss here we can we can speak to our board but there are two options that the governor's office has come out and and given to school districts throughout indiana to follow and it's either mass optional or mass mandate there's no middle ground and there's no funding there's no funding and there's no those resolutions directly there's no funding tied to that um have you guys consulted i guess my last question
044is um have you guys looked into the psychological and the sociological effects of masks on the children i'm not a professional mental health person no we have the best of my knowledge we relied upon the indiana department of health to give us those guidelines that's just something that i feel very strongly about as a parent i'm um we feel your pain i don't like it either i hate it i don't have any children here but i've got grandchildren here in kindergarten i don't like it either i feel like our hands are i feel like our hands are tight i mean i can't stand sitting like into school mass i just feel like you know down the road we're gonna be reaping the repercussions of this you know especially with our liberals we have preschoolers you
045know what they're trying to learn emotions and facial features that can be dropped in fact one thing i can suggest is write to the governor i think people need to write to the governor like we feel like our hands are tied i can tell you that on the 16th the house has been called into special senate to vote and end to the mandate at the end of the day there's still a federal government to deal with right now a bigger concern to me as a board member is mandate to require vaccinations and i'm fully vaccinated with a booster shot it's a choice that i made i don't feel that i have the right to tell anybody else to stick a needle into there but to me that's a bigger issue i feel like i've talked
046to a lot of parents that you know over the past six months you know they've switched their tune and they may have a different you know feel for the mass mandate and i just feel like it's important having two kids you know to protect them you know and to not tell them to do certain things that don't make sense for them mentally and physically that's why i'm struggling you know i don't feel like it makes sense at this point for kids yes sir my name is kevin hammond addresses 437 north miami street um i wanted to ask ford as you breathe evaluate the policy at this point if you would consider adopting the policy of north manchester that once the numbers come down out of the red so they've been down for two weeks that
047then mask would come off it's it seems like there's no end in sight with to to be down for three to four weeks by two weeks laura they hit the yellow color and then another two weeks beyond that so one to two weeks would that be i guess the questions would that be within the governor's workers because we would still have converted do that still be masking um and then but only when the numbers come down to orange um so like i said been down for two weeks um masks would come off well it wouldn't be but then we'd have to go to the quarantine warranty even upon the case in yellow or some organic kids okay so i think he knows as it becomes less if it comes yellow there's less obviously yeah so
048it's massive and no close contact quarantine which keeps the kids at school or mass optional and then back to close contact quarantine which set a lot of kids home so when we implemented this we were in yellow to begin with and cases started to spike and at that point we were seeing 20 of our enrollment in court so that's why we tied it at the blue and yellow on the low end um being masked optional and then orange and red on the high end being mass mandated we figured if we were orange and red the positivity rate was higher therefore you have more cases therefore you would have more kids quarantined if we were at a mass optional in orange and red considering we were at 20 when we were still in yellow earlier this
049year so our back when this this happened we had we had a we had a strong group that was vocal about not masking and then we had another strong group of parents indicating that they wanted masks because they didn't want their kids to have the quarantine so we tried to broker a middle ground that we thought could work as our positivity rates go up and down within our community we would tie how we mask or mcmaster optional or mass mandating to what the county positivity rate is unfortunately since that time has happened the positivity rate in wabash county has not gone below orange so what you were suggesting was to tie it to red bean mask mandate and orange and less being um being optional and with that i guess from where i sit i
050would be concerned that we would have a large increase in the number of kids that we would have to quarantine and send home if we were at 20 at yellow i would anticipate i would just assume that that number would be greater than that if we were in orange now i'm just speaking for myself here i don't want to speak for anybody else do you think then if if that were too much at this point would it would it be possible that in the middle ground to then go to when we hit yellow then we all then the numbers have already been down from orange for two weeks then when we then when we hit yellow then the mass could come off rather than maybe another two weeks or is it still necessary to wait
051no that's two consecutive weeks in yellow that's what it would be we would have to be two consecutive weeks that's what our that's what the policy that we that we passed is because we've already been the numbers we've already been down for uh for two weeks in order to hit yellow could we change it to that once we hit yellow that mass could come off suppose anything's an option um but i i would say we would want to see that we were i mean for me i would want to know that we're going to stay there right um and make sure that it's it's that we're going to stay in in that area for a uh extended period of time in two weeks i think i think gives us that again it's not perfect and
052we recognize that this isn't perfect and that there are parents who are very concerned about their kids wearing masks we also know that there are parents that are very concerned about their kids being quarantined and having to stay home without any symptoms at all and being out of the classroom and so it we recognize that the policy isn't perfect and we were trying to broker a middle ground that we think respects what we're hearing from all sides and trying to tie it to some metrics that we can um that we can use to direct which way we're going to go based on what our community is seeing and i understand that and appreciate the tension there and i guess what i was um looking for was the same thing with that middle ground that maybe
053would be more attainable but i understand thank you i did check the um the attendance notes that our nurses track and in the last two weeks we have seen an increase in the number of student positive cases thankfully because of math we had quite a few students on the list that did not have to be quarantined because of our mass requirement so as we've gone to red we have seen an increase in the student positive cases any other comments from the audience could a parent have the option if they're willing to risk their child being quarantined unfortunately the mandate from the governor's office says all or not so we can't leave the option of some parents saying i want to take the risk for my child because then you doing that affects all the other
054students within the within the school system so unfortunately what has come from the governor's office says it's one or the other videos from the audience thank you for coming in and speaking tonight both of you um any further discussion from the board if not all those in favor of approving the uh policy indicate by saying aye aye opposed motion passes i don't owe except resignation of randy kirby as wabash high school head wrestling coach motion is second discussion uh mr kirby has decided not to finish the season we want to thank the lord thank him for what he's done getting our program up and running at the beginning of the season wishing the best of luck so mr mcword is going to oversee um the assistant coaches and they will finish the season with the
055team um i think we have about a month a month and a half left all those in favor of accepting the resignation indicate by saying aye aye opposed motion passes items from superintendent okay the first thing we are going to do um i have met with the board to develop my goals this is one thing that i think is important we know how all of our teachers are evaluated but i think it's important for the community to understand how i am evaluated as a superintendent all right so um the superintendent in my contract says that i'm evaluated by the isba the indiana school board association's superintendent rubric and we will put this on the superintendent page on the website so if people want to look at it they can they can go out and see
056what that rubric is like i said we can look and see how our teachers are evaluated i think that they need to be able to see how i'm evaluated and then we created some district specific goals that align with this rubric i created these in collaboration with the school board and really utilized data from the listening sessions when i went to each building and got information from the teachers so the first one is around school curriculum there are two things that we will be working on i will be working on this year collaborating with administrators and math teachers to begin developing a k-12 district curriculum map for math some of the work has already been started on this middle school teachers mr madden and myself attended a training by region eight on thursday i am
057working with third and fourth grade teachers at oj to begin looking at the i learned blueprint and the item specifications to drill down to our power standards for math for third and fourth grade the next one is in collaboration with our broad-based planning committee developed the wcs high ability program guide this is something that is required by all school districts we had our first meeting last thursday the broad-based planning committee and from that we have started the development of what our program goals and objectives will be our next meeting then we will begin looking at or what our objectives will be and then moving on and completing that program guide our plan is to have that submitted to the board in june or july for them to approve so that way we can get that
058on our web page and families can see this is these are the programming that we offer for our high ability students the next one falls under school culture and working with our administrators to begin the work to transform our district into a professional learning community is a group of people that come together and really are looking at student learning it's not so much about teaching but about what is it that students are learning and the four questions of a plc is what do we want our students to learn that goes back to our curriculum maps how will we know if they've learned it so once we have taught it how are we going to assess whether or not students have truly learned this what are we going to do if they didn't learn it so
059that's where we go back and we have to provide additional supports for our students and then also what are we going to do if they already know it so that kind of falls back to our high ability students some of our probability students they may already know some of these things that we are teaching our students so what are we going to do to help stretch and grow down and the last one is student achievement and in collaboration with our administrators and teachers we are addressing learning laws in students specifically in math grades three through 10. i know i've been working with justin on this administrators we've gotten input from them we have um is it friday that we're meeting with a company um that is something that we can use to provide interventions to
060our students and i believe it actually is k through 12. it's not just three through ten so i'll probably need to update that also under student achievement develop an sel plan for the district that begins with partnering with dr adam signs um dr science is a guru on social emotional learning he will be here in january to do a training with our staff and we have partnered with him for the next year and a half he will be coming he will offer some virtual opportunities to our teachers in february and then april or may he will come back at the start of the school year to do a staff training and then we will have him um maybe one or two more times next year so that is something in lieu of having an seo
061director we were able to work with his company to have him come in and really train us on how to meet the needs of our students and then the last one is implementing nwea and begin training administrators and teachers on how to use that data effectively um so those were the goals that was for presented to the board um like i said i just felt like it was important for the community and the teachers to see this is how i will be evaluated okay so moving on from that one i want to say that i have gone to quite a few of the holiday activities i went to cookies with santa at carpenter i went to oj's santa fest not beast yes i went to band concert choir concerts it's just been so nice to
062be able to go and see families in our buildings and get to see the hard work of our students mention that we had our high ability broad-based planning committee i want to thank the members of the committee that are working to develop a robust plan to serve our high ability students i want to wish merry christmas to our students and our families i also want to tell the staff teachers administrators merry christmas i hope that all of you will be able to take some time away from school to rest relax recharge spend time with your family and take care of yourself and finally i would like to say thank you to bill conya tonight is bill's last meeting with us um as a member of the wabash city schools board of education and i would
063like to say that from my very first interaction with you i knew that you had nothing but the best interest for our schools i have joined enjoyed getting to know you in this short time and i want to thank you for all that you have done for wabash city schools you will be greatly best thank you appreciate [Applause] items from chief business officer i just want to say thanks to bill that's all i have items from administrators items from visitors items from board members couple things first off thank you bill i can't say thank you enough i appreciate your knowledge and just helping a young young board member get through figure things out and also since you always like to remind me it's been 744 days i was waiting for that and i think we
064have another game but um on the other on the current stuff i would like to uh really congratulate all the student athletes that participated it's seen that much participation in that many all conference all-state it's just worthwhile and 124 multi support athletes that's that's exciting um as a pair of younger kids it's nice to see that the programs aren't thriving so secondly just a couple thoughts um on our website for days off i don't know if we can do something i have a couple people who were mentioning about getting things like a green light red light sort of thing going to class type of thing i don't know if that would be something that's a possibility just as far as quick communication um even the facebook pages are right red and green type of thing
065on those 50 days i know last friday was an odd situation with the fog and getting worse as it got lighter so i appreciate you going out and checking roads i know shanna does the same thing and i know different administrators are helping make those decisions thank you for putting in that work um that's all i got tonight uh i too wanted to thank bill i'll miss you on the board and i wanted to thank amy for her here on her moving day most people would be home unpacking but what is amy doing she's at a basketball game taking pictures of posting on facebook so i appreciate that that she's dedicated and she's there so but yeah i've appreciated bill a lot so you'll be missed you want to skip you you can go last
066time jason uh yeah it's been great just getting to know bill and just i love your perspective on things it's been nice just to have that um to sit beside you and just hear your thoughts in different ways and maybe than others um so i really appreciate that i appreciate your come out um speaking up appreciate that that's huge we need that um i don't have anything else really um i guess one more thing is that the parks is really they're kind of working a little bit with the city and the um what's it called uh paradise springs they're gonna do this light up thing this weekend uh they're just gonna they're starting small and hopefully they'll grow just a nice little place to walk through and just enjoy some alternatives to christmas lights other
067than charlie creek and drive-through places so yeah all right um from my comments nine students making um academic hall yes at a small 2a school that's pretty amazing that's what we send our kids here for us to get an education for nine of them uh to be making academic all-state that's a true accomplishment so congratulations to all of them um that's wonderful um bill thank you um you you stepped in and uh finished a term for somebody but you came on at a time when we were going through the beginning stages of our superintendent search and your leadership and your passion for wabash city schools will be greatly missed on a personal note i appreciate all that you've done for me i've been doing a sounding board and i appreciate your friendship so thank you
068very much thank you all right and that's my turn now it's your turn this is the third time i'm having my last night and in some ways it's kind of my favorite and and one of the reasons is i came in to finish the turn and i walked into a board full of work all practical nurses you were the exception you had a little bit more time but i walked into a board full of rookies you somehow thought you were supposed to run schools didn't realize that your job was to establish policy or to provide oversight these are well-intentioned deeply caring passionate people and i have really developed an appreciation for everybody up here i especially appreciate the way that back here this board remakes we hired a new highly qualified absolutely astounding superintendent high
069school principal we have a new principal everywhere except i think the middle school we've added new program social emotional programs we have a three-year-old pre-kindergarten i mean we have done a lot this has been good practice because now from here on you guys get some heavy lifting as federal funding rolls off we're gonna have to make some choices so one of the things i've learned is these people you can talk with them we can talk with one another and figure things out it has been an honor and a privilege working with you most have been a privilege because i i love this community i mean i moved here in 2006 i drove 93 miles to work when i was in the governor's cabinet i drive 46 miles now in fort lane and i don't think
070about living here it's a wonderful place we have wonderfully committed businesses and business leaders we have astounding human beings people who support this community with wallets at the top of that caring compassionate people we've got a great staff we've got great educators i've been proud to be associated with it and i promise you i will never get kicked off again because they asked me to fill another term all right well with that i will accept the motion twitter journal there you go i'm handing you don't let the door hit you bill something i was thinking about aaron oh it's very chilly here