001[Music] for [Music] for [Music] for [Music] like to open the meeting of the war County School Corporation Board of school trustees December 18th 2023 uh please rise and join me in a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repblic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all item three on the agenda is patrons concerns and we do not have anyone signed up at this point so we will go ahead to number four which is a presentation book challenge policy and procedures director of learning Mr Jason fer good evening I will be discussing the war County School Corporation policy on challenges to school library materials this evening and before I get uh
002started I would like to thank everyone's efforts on this and policy and curriculum and helping us craft this policy uh to comply with house enacted act 1447 which was passed by the Indiana general assembly and signed into law on May 4th of 2023 so at this time I'll begin I hope everybody can see our screen all right and anytime you have any questions please feel free to ask um section one of chapter 5.5 of house enacted act 1447 required all public schools and charter schools within the state of Indiana to do three things specifically number one it said that as a corporation we must establish a procedure or a policy to prepare a catalog of all materials that are in school libraries and tonight you will be hearing me use the word materials often because
003that is the way the law was worded uh it is true that over 95% of materials I believe would be books in our school libraries but this could refer to DVDs uh periodicals if there's any encyclopedia still living out there those would count as well U so in order to comply with the law we had to establish a catalog of material so at this time I would like to show everyone on the board and in our viewing public just an example of that from Castle High School if I very well may so Castle High School school here is what we have done later in this presentation I'm going to show the public and anyone uh viewing this by streaming tonight and all board members on how you can access this uh but right here is
004a collection of our materials in the Castle High School library you can see at the top there is 214 Pages uh there is roughly 60 titles per page which would equate to over 12,500 materials within our library as I said and made a reference to encyclopedias if you take and can look here you will see I don't know if anyone's eyes are that good but does everybody see 12 Angry Men the DVD anybody remember that I remember it yeah yes so you can see that we are including DVDs into our collections here as well um the law specifically stated that for each school we have had to have a catalog of materials in our library so this is accessible to anyone who would want to view this under our parent tab which I will show
005you later the second part of house enacted act 1447 in section one was we had to establish a procedure to allow any parent or Guardian that had a student in our schools or a Community member that resides within the boundaries of War County to submit a request for removal of material so that was the second portion of this policy and I do want to emphasize that it is not only for parents or Guardians it's for any member of the community provided that they are a wart County resident and the third portion of this is we had to create a procedure or policy that would allow for a response and an appeal to a request for removal of materials so once a parent or Guardian would submit a request for removal or a member of our
006community that resides within War County we are by law um we have to provide them a response to that request and if the individual that submitted the request for removal is not happy or in disagreement with that response then they may request an appeal from the governing body requests for removal of materials and I am so sorry that that is uh blinking in and out but a parent or guardian of a student enrolled in the school or commun Community member that resides within War County May submit a request for removal of materials in the school library if it is obscene or that is obscene as described in Indiana code 35-49 D21 or har ful to minors as described in Indiana code 35-49 D2 D2 so I am not going to read uh the entire policy
007but just provide a brief summary of it for us because we have um already had two readings of the policy at our October board meetings but for members of the audience our procedures are two posted on the website but if in the event that there is a parent or guardian or member of our community that wants to submit a request for removal the first step would be to have a conversation with the school media specialist the librarian and then the principal at that point in time if a agreement cannot be had then that parent Guardian Community member May submit a request for removal of materials to the school principal now a couple things happen at this point upon receipt the school principal um would inform members of the Review Committee at that school each school
008by law is required to have a Review Committee we just couldn't have a Review Committee a war County School Corporation Review Committee each school had to have their own Review Committee and as our policy dictates it will be five members on this Review Committee it can be teacher or or teachers the principal media specialist librarian but it shall be and it must be at least one member of the Review Committee should be shall be a parent from a student enrolled in that school and the other member of that Review Committee will be appointed by our superintendent of schools to serve within 15 days we have to do three things as a Review Committee when considering one of these requests number one we must review you the statute that I just cited on what is obscene
009or harmful to minors number two we have to read View and or listen to the material in its entirety deter to determine whether it meets the definitions of those statutes of being obscene or harmful to minors and we must issue a written decision to the individual that requested the removal of material we must issue a written decision to the school principal and to the superintendent of schools at that point in time if the individual that submitted the request for removal is not happy they have within 10 working days to request an appeal to our superintendent of schools Dr Redmond and then the board will take that for cons that appeal in consideration at the next board meeting and make a final ruling on whether the challenged material would stay in circulation or it would meet
010the uh statute requirements of being obscene are harmful to minors that is a wrap up of our policy and on section one but something I would like to do is section two of the law and chapter 5.5 uh requested or didn't request but it mandated that all schools schols share this information on each School website so uh we have to um share the catalog of materials we have to uh share the request for removal of materials and we also have to have an appeal form and as opposed to going through these individually here on the slideshow I'm going to take you to Castle High School and just show everyone where we can find these things we made it really uh accessible for our members of the community or our parents and Guardians to find this
011material and if they want to complete this process I know a lot of times when we're looking at our websites we have stuff on there it's very difficult to find so if I am going to use Castle High School because I use that for our example as it related to libraries and I do apologize that you cannot see this but if you would go to the parent Tab and for everyone in our audience um all of this information is housed under each School website under the parent Tab and under the parent tab we have Library catalog which I'm not going to go to that because I showed you that earlier but we have the warart County School Corporation book challenge process and it will take you to three different um links uh it has the
012policy of challenges to school library materials which we just briefly went over and then here is the request for removal form which it's right there um you can fill it out and you will send the request for removal initially to the school principal and then the final um one that we can find on the castle website is the appeal form and the appeal form if someone submits a request for removal and they do not agree with the written determination provided by the Review Committee they have 10 working days to request an appeal and they will submit this to Dr Redmond and the Govern body which is the board would take this up at the next board meeting thank you Mr Fischer I a question so Mr Fischer every building every building every school has a
013uh Review Committee correct yes every school within War County would have a Review Committee and when will those be established is there a deadline or something like that well part of this will be established as we start receiving requests for removal of materials at each individual school okay so you don't anticipate having the Review Committee established prior to any requests for removal or do you think you'll have them established and then you'll wait for any potential requests I would say that we would want to get these established yeah before we had request for removals um sent to our schools okay but sitting here this evening I cannot guarantee that all schools right now have that Review Committee established at this point in time do you think that's just anticipated maybe by the end of the
014school year the school year maybe that they'd all be established or oh I think we're going to have those established in January because this our policy is now in effect being you the governor body the board has taken it up and approved it but by January 1st 2024 uh it is into effect throughout every school corporation public or Charter in the state of Indiana so at that point it's prudent to have them in place correct yes sir the the review okay yes and then so we go through this process and the and so the Review Committee will review it and they're looking at the state code right to say is it offensive or harmful by this manner right by the code yeah we are looking at Indiana statute right uh for the people in our
015audience War County does not have their own policy on what they feel is harmful to minors or obscene and we are going to be using an Indiana code as it relates to obscene or harmful to minors to make that determination and that is the two criteria that we will be judging any request for removal okay so the playbooks been given to us we just have to look at it and then in the event of an appeal then it comes to this board correct it does come to this government body okay and at that time if we have any other questions we could get our attorney involved to look at those statutes right yes if if we need to you have questions yes as to how it relates to that standard yes yep y I have
016so one clarification if one school deems a book offensive or in violation does that apply to all schools or only that school it does not say that in policy but we would assume that that would be the case yes if we had have something that would go before the Review Committee and it would a Review Committee at a school and it is deemed obscene or harmful to minors and therefore taken out of circulation I would think that we would have a discussion on that material possibly being removed at all our schools even though technically C please clarify technically by law it would only have to be removed at the particular School based on that particular school's committee correct that's correct and I think it's a case- by case situation you're in have some material that
017may not be appropriate for an elementary school that may be appropriate for high school so no just because one school deems it to be obscene or harmful doesn't mean it applies Corporation wide and I'm just asking is there a procedure whereby one school would deem it inappropriate another school could try could decide that maybe for them it's not well uh there's not a procedure where one school's determination affects any other school okay so again it' be a caseby casee situation if this board determines um um that could be something that sport determines if they want to on applying Corporation wide or just limited to that school but I don't think we should have a policy that just because one school says it's harmful it applies Corporation wide I'm just trying to understand Mr fiser on
018the IND on the school's website and the um catalog of Library materials that's searchable right you could type in hard copy there when you when you go to that Library catalog what it pulls up is a hard copy of all of the materials listed within the school and so they couldn't they couldn't search for particular title or or an author no I believe you can because it's it's OCR so you can control F and search through the PDF okay so yeah okay and it's alphabetical order correct it is indeed an alphabetical order and Mr Fisher you were showing us this information it's under the parent tab but if you're a Community member you can still access all of that just because it says you have to be a parent or whatever or it's under the
019parent tab community members also can access all of that material I just wanted to make sure that was clear yes that is correct and it we just housed it all under the parent tab so it would be concise and easy to locate thank you I the only other comment I have I do think you know thank you guys the uh policy committee and everybody who's working on this uh we're kind of just doing what the state says right the only thing I would think from Cliff's comment about just consistency I could see where something for an elementary student is not necessarily appropriate or the other way for a a high school student however I would think that if it's not appropriate for one Elementary it's not appropriate for the other Elementary so you know that
020may be something that the the policy committee could talk about and think about even though it's not mentioned in what we have to consider here maybe think forward on do we need to amend the policy that says look if we go through it once at this level elementary middle and high then it's pretty much considered consistent because that could that could be pretty um choppy right if we start doing good for one not the other at certain levels we've had a lot of these discussions um at our district level and with our full administrative teams and so you know we can't predict or play the wh if game tonight because it's just difficult until we go through the process you know when and if that time comes but we have had this discussion about what
021that might look like in practice if at a particular grade level at one school would we be open to the idea of saying you know if it does in fact um deemed you know that we need to remove it then we would definitely have that conversation about for that particular grade level then we could revisit that at that time sounds good and one other thing that the policy committee disguised is that's one reason I have the superintendent have her own designate as well you can for the consistency that's good point Corporation good that might be something we add to our strategic planning when we get to that point that we can have that discussion if we've already had one or two of these so we have a little bit better idea of what's going on
022any other questions than you thank youon thank you Mr thank you all okay moving on to item five consideration of routine business Dr Redmond consideration approving of the following routine items the minutes of the Schoolboard meeting held on November 27th 2023 and the claims and docket for December 18th 2023 I recommend the board approve the routine items as presented motion to approve routine items we have a motion by Mr agner second by Mr Baker is there any discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose nay motion carries item six consideration of items for board action Dr Redmond agenda item a consider approving salary Corrections in your board packet you will find a request from myself Dr Abby Redmond two Corrections need to be made to the list approved by the board of
023school trustees on November 6 2023 I recommend the board approves these corrections as presented I make a motion second we have a motion by Mr Mosby a second by Mr Baker is there any discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I oppos nay motion carries item 6B consider approving settlement agreement Dr Redmond thank you Mrs mamus in your board packet you will find the settlement agreement agreement and release between the war County School Corporation and the war County Teachers Association this settlement agreement resolves the legal dispute between the parties as further described in the complaint pending before the Indiana education employment Relations Board the settlement agreement was prepared and approved by the board's attorney I recommend the board approves the settlement agreement as presented I move to approve the settlement agreement I have
024a motion by uh Mrs Glover oh second a second by Mrs Meer is there any discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose nay motion carries item six C consider contract for Legal Services with Mr Cliff Whitehead Dr Redmond thank you mrsas in your board packet you will find a contract for Legal Services between War County School Corporation and Zer stamman whitel and shoulders LLP through its partner Mr Cliff Whitehead the contract provides that Mr Whitehead and his firm will continue to provide legal services to the school corporation under the same terms as the 2023 contract I submit the contract for legal services for the board's consideration and approval we have a motion by Mr France a second by Mrs Clover is there any discussion all those in favor signify by saying
025I I oppose nay motion carries thank you item 6D consider approving resolution resolution 20233 rainy day fund transfer Dr Redmond thank you in your board tacket you will find a copy of resolution 2023-the fund I recommend the board approves resolution 20 23-13 as presented we have a motion by Mr Mosby a second by Mrs Glover is there any discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose nay motion carries item 6E consider granting approval for annual 2023 calendar year in transfers of Appropriations Dr Redmond thank you Mrs wus by Statute every fund must end the year in the black in order to meet this requirement it becomes essential to transfer Appropriations among funds I recommend the board grants the business department approval to make the necessary calendar year in transfers of Appropriations as
026presented so move we have a motion by Mr Baker second a second by Mrs Meer is there any discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose nay motion carries item 6f consider signing certificate of appointment Dr Redmond in your board packet you will find a certificate of appointment form appointing Kathy bartelt as a library board member at Newberg Chandler Public Library Kathy is currently serving on the board however her term expires December 31st 2023 should the board considerer Kathy bartel's appointment the C certificate of appointment will be signed and filed with the county I recommend the board approves this request as presented I'll make that motion we have a motion by Mrs Glover I'll second a second by Mr agner is there any discussion all those in favor signify by saying I
027I oppose nay motion carries item 6 G first reading of proposed policy update 12200 board member compensation Dr Redmond thank you Dr Walter Lambert has brought to the board an updated policy 1200 board member compensation this policy has been revised with updated language tonight we will conduct the first reading of the updated policy a second reading will occur at the board meeting on January 8 2024 at which time the board may choose to take action I will just read in summary and just as a reminder the community and the public can always see the full proposed policy on our website under the Schoolboard Tab and there's a there's a folder there that states proposed policy and you can see it in its entirety okay so in summary this policy establishes the method for a board
028member to obtain the payment to which the board member is entitled as set forth here in each board member shall be entitled to claim compensation for attending the following each regular school board meeting each executive session of the school board each meeting of any committee established by the school board and on which the board member serves and each work session again the full policy can be the full proposed policy I should say can be found on our website if anybody would like to read it in its entirety so no action is needed on that tonight tonight item 6 h consider approving tag piece and E distributions Dr R thank you a lot of lot of lot of alphabet soup there in your board packet are the outlines of the descriptions and the parameters of the
029tag piece and eam monies provided by Mr Todd Armstrong I recommend the board approves tag piece and eam distributions as presented I make that motion we have a motion by Mrs GL I'll second second by Mr Mosby is there any discussion I'd like for her to explain to the public what tag piece and sure I have my notes everyone got your notes yes yes yes so tag is the teacher appreciation grant that we receive and that amount this year will be in uh 600 excuse me excuse me $568 39 um we are required to we're only only allowed to give there there has to be a 25% difference between employees who received effective versus highly effective so we felt like as a district that we don't like that difference and we want our employees to
030be able to receive this the an equal amount so that is what the pieace money is so that is basically um creates a situation where employees if they receive highly effective or effective they end up receiving the same dollar amount okay and then eam that is our employee um appreciation money and that is in the amount of $431 61 cents and that goes to all of our employees so certified and non-er part-time and full-time who were hired before October 28th 2023 thank you you're very welcome so we have a motion and a second is there any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I oppos nay motion carried item 6 I consider accepting donations Dr Redmond in your board packet you will find the following donation requests to comea high school $1,000
031donation from Roberta and Dwayne D to the THS nurses fund to be used for supplies from Castle High School a $2,000 donation from Jim and Donna scales family charitable Foundation to be used in the athletic department and at Chandler Elementary School a $500 donation from hay Hurst Auto Center to be deposited into the Chandler caring and sharing fund These funds are used for the needs of students and their families I recommend the board approves these requests as presented we have a motion by Mr Baker second second by Mrs meker is there any discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I oppos nay motion carries consideration of personnel recommendations Dr gram thank you Mrs bamus the Human Resources office has the following business to bring before the board tonight agenda item a consideration of
032employment certified positions Jennifer Stoops special education teacher at Castle North Middle Jennifer Raper temporary special education teacher at Linville Elementary Lori dorm temporary special education teacher at Elberfeld Elementary Ruth Cooper pre- nursing teacher at wpcc starting with 2425 school year and Stephen Wilson civil construction teacher at wpcc starting with 2425 school year and the following support staff positions Taylor Freeman temporary job share program assistant Newberg Elementary Jamie Morrison temporary job share program assistant Newberg Elementary Kylie Campbell temporary program assistant Boonville High Christine Allen temporary program assistant at John H Castle Elementary cherish siffler temporary program assistant at Castle North excuse me Beth vson temporary program assistant at Castle High Eric Ane summer musical director Jeff thoron summer musical vocal director Justin MCCA hadex summer musical technical director Autumn Ru Gerber temporary program assistant Yanke toown
033Elementary Elizabeth Whitlow temporary program assistant at lindville elementary Allison dasta temporary program assistant at Oakdale Elementary Christopher lamin temporary program assistant at Oakdale Elementary and Lon Kelly temporary program assistant at log Elementary motion to approve certified and support staff positions motion by Mr arner and Mr Mosby was that you okay we have a second by Mr Mosby is there any discussion so how many students do we expect to have at Pathways in the 24 25 school year um I have not seen the list of um our newest uh students who have gone through the applic application process and I'm not sure Mr fiser do you know if those notifications have gone out yet I know Mr girth had planned to do that before the students leave for break which is tomorrow um I believe those
034are going to go out tomorrow to notify students I can assume from this it will be growing yes yes so you could see we had to add an additional health science teacher and then we will also have a civil construction pathway um for next year so we'll have all of our existing students who come back for year two and then we'll have a whole new crop of year one students next school year aw so once I have numbers for Mr girth then we can definitely share those with you thank you okay Dr gesan I think we're at trans aren't we did we call both oh I'm sorry sorry I didn't mean I'm sorry my bad we have a motion and a second no further discussion okay all those in favor signify by saying I I
035oppose nay motion carries now we'll move on Dr Gres thank you very much agenda Item B leave requests Leslie Meer fourth gr teacher Sharon Elementary Dorothy dos 3.5 hour cafeteria employee Castle High Elizabeth r counselor boomah High Cindy Tulie language arts teacher at tumy middle chrisan Manis social emotional Behavior assistant Kelsey Hubbert third grade teacher at John H Castle Elementary doretta Rutman program assistant lale Elementary and Carolyn Barnett 6.0 hour cafeteria position at Newberg Elementary do we have a motion I move to approve the leave request we have a motion by Mrs gber second second by Mrs meker is there any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose nay motion carries Dr gr thank you very much agenda item C transfers Trisha AR 6.5 hours at Oakdale Elementary to 6.0
036hours at Oakdale Elementary and did item D other reported incorrectly on the November 13th 2023 board minutes that Mindy kle had resigned she has taken a leave of absence for the second semester Sheila goodr physical therapy assistant ass technology coordinator will be going from 4 days a week to 5 days a week Calvin Stevens multi- responsibility physician has filed appropriate paperwork to return early from an approved leave of absence and Colin Schuler was reported as a resignation from Castle North Middle School it should have been Castle South Middle School agenda itm e report of reassignments William Wilder assistant principal of Lille high school has requested and has been approved for a reassignment to the classroom starting with the 2425 school year item F resignations join a peacock 4.5 hour cafeteria position in Castle North Middle
037School resignation effective November 28 2023 Jamie r program assistant Intown Elementary resignation effective December 19th 2023 Madison gal program assistant lindville Elementary resignation effective December 19 2023 Angie melinger program assistant Castle High resignation effective December 3rd 2023 Tory brown temporary program assistant Oakdale Elementary resignation effected December 88th 2023 Amanda Duckworth program assistant at Castle High resignation effected December 22nd 2023 Randy Rocka guess ABS program assistant Sharon Elementary resignation effective December 12th 2023 Natalie Ellis in 3.5 hour cafeteria at John H Castle Elementary resignation effective January 1st 2024 Mary sheller 6.5 hour cafeteria position at Castle High resignation effected December 12th 2023 Michelle Garrison 3.5h hour cafeteria position at Boonville Middle School resignation effected December 19 2023 and while this might appear like a really long list remember we did have four weeks since the last
038board meeting and finally retirements Mike Whitten principal at Boonville High School retirement effective J une 19th 2024 and if I may just take a moment um in regard to Dr wht's retirement I just wanted to take a moment to extend a big thank you to Dr Whitten for dedicating 27 years of his life to war County 21 of those years were at Boonville High School Mike has graduated over 4,200 Mighty pioneers and hired over a 100 caring caring employees at Boonville high school during his tenure actually had the great pleasure of working alongside Mike uh for several years when I was a guidance counselor and he was principal at the time uh we made a good team because he's very math-m minded and I'm very language arts minded and so when we were approaching uh
039problem solving and tasks it was great because we could see things from different perspectives and really helped us make good decisions but more than anything what I learned about Mike during those years is that he's a good man who cares about people his students and staff the community and certainly his family and I know he has Grand babies that he loves to talk about and share uh with us he has certainly made an impact on thousands of people during his tenure in wari I know like many others who have worked with him that I'm grateful that we've had time together with Mike here in war County I know also that we will rely on Mike his knowledge of Boonville high school and his expertise in assisting with a smooth leadership transition during second semester but
040I also want to make sure that we use second semester to celebrate Mike during his last semester at Boonville high school and I'm also very excited to learn uh and eager to hear what Mike has planned after June 2024 and his future uh plans both professionally and personally so Mike is not in the audience this evening but uh he may be watching so congratulations to Dr Whitten and thank you for your service to war County Schools absolutely moving on to agenda item number eight reports Dr Redmond and we do not have any reports tonight um I do believe you had a couple of announcements so I'm going to move on to item agenda item number nine other board business uh first of all January 8th will be our next Personnel meeting at 6:30 here in
041this building and then January 9th will be our construction combined with wpcc at 7:30 at the admin building and also tomorrow morning we will have the uh construction wpcc meeting at 7:30 tomorrow morning at the admin so it sounds like a backtack meeting time so uh reminder uh the next meeting is January 8th and on January 8th we will need to elect officers for the 2324 school year and we also need to make sure that we have a legislative liaison for isba uh the Committees we usually do that the second board meeting in January and if you're interested in changing or being on a different committee let me know and I'll see if I can get that worked out for you uh it is a short legislative session this year and Terry Spradlin from isba
042sends updates every Friday so he has asked me to make sure and remind you to please review that information uh sometimes they call for action and and we need to get on that pretty quickly especially with a short legislative session also the uh annual state house day will be February 6th which is on a Tuesday in Indianapolis and they really are asking us to really try hard to get two people to go to that so if you're interested um travel is paid for through isba so um we need to work on that so be thinking and see if your calendar allows you to go on that I think that's all I have yeah January 9th at 8:30 Administration building the transportation special ed committee will be meeting that's a Tuesday policy and curriculum committee will
043meet January 8th 5:30 here at Central Services unless there's a work session and then it would be 4:30 do not have a work session for that meeting planned at the moment um Dr Redman had a quick thought um I'm on the uh Kaiser community Advisory Board and Carrie plugo and she's been through Alcoa and aliser and they're really doing a lot of work with Drew they are at yes our Pathways facility so I think it'd be good maybe I would like for the the whole board to see how much they're integrating they're leading our U Community Partners so she said she'd be okay with coming and doing a report or something to the board oh so maybe or work session whatever so I'm just gonna tag you're it and you tell me what you think
044would be good what your preference is for you know your schedule the rest of the board but and she's willing and ready and they are just really running with they have kids over you know they have kids over time they have been a great partner to us so far and um have really just been so beneficial it's a true partnership in what we wanted for you know our students to be able to take that classroom experience and see how it applies outside of classroom experience they sending us a lot of guest speakers we're doing a lot of on-site visits so um and we have other partners doing those things as well but you're correct they have really quite frankly they have presented a scope and sequit of of what they're doing each quarter with our
045students and it's been um just a great partnership so far so we can definitely work on um having Carrie come and speak like he did with Junior Achievement a couple weeks yeah great yes we'd be happy to do that okay thank you you're welcome any further information all right see now meeting is the Jour thank [Music] you [Music]