001[Music] good evening I'd like to call the uh October 9th 2023 meeting of the war County School Corporation Board of school trustees to order would you please stand and join us for a moment of silence followed by 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 liy and justice for all moving on to item three Patron concerns we have no one signed up for this evening so we will move on to item four consideration of routine business Dr Abby Redmond agenda item four consideration of approving the following routine items the routine items include minutes of the school board meeting held on September 25th 202 3 and the claims and docket for October 9th 2023
002I recommend the board approve the routine items as presented motion second that motion whatever okay we have a motion by Mrs Meer to approve the routine items as presented in a second by Mr Mosby all uh is there any discussion all those in favor signifi by saying I I oppose nay motion carries uh we're going to adjourn for the bond hearing agenda item five adjourn the meeting for a bond hearing there are three items for consideration by the board relative to the issuance of 2023 General obligation bonds those items are an additional appropriation resolution a final Bond resolution and Adoption of a declaration of official intent to reimburse expenditures at this time we will recess our regular meeting and open a public hearing as an initial matter we have to hold a public hearing relative
003to the appropriation of of the bond proceeds notice of this hearing was advertised in the Booneville standard and posted at three locations throughout the school corporation so at this time I would like to open the public hearing on the appropriation of the proceeds of the 2023 General obligation bonds if anyone wishes to be heard on this matter please come to the podium this additional appropriation is this in addition to your 2023 budget yes this is an additional appropriation for uh 2.5 billion in your 20 million million so sorry yeah in your 23 budget you is this does this show up as an increase Debt Service it will it will when it's approv it will show up as an additional debt for us to service okay yes last last year you had an increase and your
004service debt of 1.7 million yes so you're proposing another 2.5 million that 1.7 was paid off this year okay so it's going to be replaced by 2.5 which the in it will be paid off next this is it's some of this is about the mechanics of how the state allows us to do our finance how will this affect the property tax will not raise taxes it will not cause an increase in the tax rate but last year it did no not from the bo not from the school corporation our rate did not go up last year well the cess value on my home went up tremendously and you had the biggest increase of that of 10.7% okay now understand the assess valuation that we all get on our homes is based on the valuation of
005the home right that's what we're do the school corporation and the county and all of those all of the money that they raise is called The Levy right it is divided by the assess valuation of all the homes right and so the the tax rate is based on the rate that that comes up I mean I'm not worried about the tax rate because I understand it's function of the cess value and your budget but I had to pay an additional $600 in property tax last year as a result of increases in the school corporation's budget and the township budget and I know the township budget was based on replacing all the farming there's we have a published document that yeah it might it might be best unfortunately our financial director is not here today it
006might be best to get him directly in contact with you I would be happy to do that I was just going to recommend that we can speak in generalities for you and explain the big picture but if you have more specific questions of this nature we would be more than happy to set up a time for you to speak with our assistant superintendent but Levy per $100 of assessed valuation did not go up last year yeah but especially because the assess value went up 20% but see that's not but you spend the dollars I'm not worried about the percent I understand the percent of percent of but we but our costs are the same right so no matter what the assess value is we still have the same the same cost that we have right
007and so your budget for went from 25.2 Million last year to 27.9 million so you spent 2.7 million more than the previous year right first of all well I don't know what category it is our overall budget is much more than that I don't know what category you're talking there if it's just capital improvs de service service it's a as what functions the the property tax I don't I don't believe that our actual tax rates gone up more than years let's let I think wanted to say something that we'll be happy to get your name she would like to address your question go ahead Mrs clever just wanted to point out that if the corporation needed to increase tax rates it would have to present a referendum for the school for the public to on
008which to vote that would increase property taxes at that time but Mr Armstrong has has been able to work through the budget with the additional Bond so as not to raise tax rates in the county just do whatever the state assesses increases the value of your property that's correct right if you would like to leave your information we would like to get you in touch with our financial officer who can explain this and go through it step by step if that would if that would be helpful we'd be glad to do that is there anyone else who would like to speak name uh sir we did not get your name okay got it yeah okay great thank you is there anyone else who would wish to speak on this matter thank you we'll now close
009the public hearing on the additional appropriation item six consideration of items for board action Dr Redmond agenda item 6A consider approving additional Bond resolution a copy of the additional appropriation resolution was included in your board materials the board must approve the appropriation of the bond proceeds to be spent on Project costs before any bond money can be spent I recommend the board approve the additional appropriation resolution as presented second we have a motion to approve the additional appropriation resolution as presented made by Mr Baker we have a second by Mr anner is there any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I oppos nay motion carries item 6B Dr Redmond consider approving final Bond resolution the second matter for consideration in connection with the bonds is the final Bond resolution this final
010Bond resolution establishes the amount to be borrowed the maximum term of repayment and maximum interest rate a copy of the final fin Bond resolution was also included in your board materials I recommend the board approve the final Bond resolution as presented I move to approve we have a motion by Mrs glver to approve the final Bond resolution all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose nay motion carries item C consider approving the Declaration of official intent to reimburse expenditures resolution Dr Redmond finally the board must consider and approve a declaration of official intent to reimburse expenditures relating to the bond issue the IRS requires that the school corporation declare its official intent to reimburse any expenditures for the project in advance of receiving the bond proceeds a copy of the official intent to
011reimburse expenditures was also included in your board materials I recommend the board approve the Declaration of official intent to reimburse expenditures resolution as presented we have a motion by Mr Mosby to approve the Declaration of official intent to reimburse expenditures resolution as presented second we have a second by Mr agner Is there further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I oppos nay motion carries item D first reading of proposed policy CH challenges to school library materials Dr Redmond thank you Mrs wus in your board packet you will find a copy of the proposed policy challenges to school library materials along with the requests for removal of Library materials supported by director of learning Mr Jason Fischer the challenges to school library materials has been modified reviewed and approved by the curriculum and
012policy committee the committee believes the submitted policy is aligned with house enacted act 1447 which was passed by the Indiana general assembly and signed into law on May 4th 2023 tonight is the first reading of this policy for the board of school trustees to review the second reading will be on October 23rd 2023 for approval and vote so at this time I am actually going to read this one in its entirety rather than a summary um just again for the Public's knowledge we already have a book challenge policy in place but for us to be in line in alignment with the requirements of the new law we did have to change up and modify our policies ever slightly to make sure we were meeting 1447 the parent or guardian of a student enrolled in the
013war County School Corporation wcsc or a Committee Member residing within the wcsc district May request the removal of material in a School's library on the basis that such M such material is obscene as described in Indiana code 35-49 D21 or or harmful to minors as described in Indiana code 35-49 d22 by abiding by the following procedure number one the individual shall first request in writing a meeting with the school's media specialist at which the material is located by providing his or her full name and contact information the name of his or her student enrolled in the school or his or her residential address in a description of the material that is is obscene and harmful to minors the school's media specialist shall then meet with the individual to discuss the matter number two if the
014individual is not satisfied after a discussion with the school's media specialist the individual May request in writing a meeting with the school principal to discuss the matter the school principal shall then meet with the IND individual to discuss the matter number three if the individual is not satisfied after a discussion with the school principal the individual May complete a request for removal of Library materials form provided by the school and submit it to the school principal the challenge material shall remain in use during the review and appeal process number four upon receipt of the completed request for removal of Library materials form the school principal shall provide a copy of the completed request for removal of Library materials form to each member of the Review Committee which may include the school's media specialist or librarian
015a school principal a classroom teacher or teachers and shall include a parent of a student enrolled at the school and a representative of the superintendent's office known as the Review Committee the Review Committee for each School shall have five members number five within 15 working days of the School principal's receipt of the completed request for removal of Library materials form the Review Committee shall a review the statute atory definitions of obscene and harmful to minors B read View and or listen to the material in its entirety to determine whether the material meets the definitions of obscene and or harmful to minors and C issue a written decision to the school principal superintendent and the individual challenging the material stating whether the challenge material will be removed from the school library number six if the individual
016is not satisfied with the review committee's decision the individual May appeal that decision to the board by providing the superintendent appeal within 10 working days of receiving the decision with a copy of the completed request for removal of Library materials form a copy of the review committee's decision and a written request for appeal of the decision and number seven at the next public meeting following the submission of the appeal the board shall vote on whether to remove the ch ched material thank you question on that is that the first reading yes yes so there's no action to be taken tonight the back the pack my packet had some different language yes I was noticing too um I believe that the most updated copy was put in was it Friday afternoon are you in the background
017yes yes okay it's actually a different document in there okay in the folder it sounded better from what you're reading but there was some different language in there so maybe by second reading we just make sure we know where it's at mner at the end of the meet at the end of this U during reports I'm actually going to show the public where they can find this in its entirety on the website so it is also the most update up toate okay that that's just want to make sure for second reading we got that thank you okay item uh 6 e consider accepting the proposed duel settlement Dr Redmond thank you Mrs wus War County School Corporation obtained a global settlement with Altria also known as Philip Morris that resolves the remaining claims brought by
018school districts regarding Jewel this amount is to be paid within 60 days of the final approval of the court of the settlement the attorneys representing wcsc in this litigation advis that we accept the settlement I recommend the board approve the settlement and authorize the board president presid to sign the attached letter of informed consent and government entity release I move to accept settlement second okay we have a motion by Mrs glver to approve the settlement and authorize the board president to sign the letter of informed consent and government entity release uh and we had a second by Mr Mosby Is there further discussion all those in favor signified by saying I I oppose nay motion carries item 6f Dr Redmond consider accepting donations thank you in your packet you will find the following donation requests
019Boonville High School BHS Band of Gold would like to donate a Gart flute model 2sp instrument serial number 16 3536 valued at $100 Boonville High School Terry tally would like to donate an Armstrong Piccolo model 250 instrument serial number 723 6298 valued at $500 and at tumsa high school we have a $500 donation on behalf of Kenny Goen from Toyota's benevity program to be used for positive rewards for students I recommend the board approve these requests as presented I'll make that motion we have a motion by Mrs ner to uh approve the donations as presented and a second by Mr Baker Is there further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose nay motion carries and we are ready for Dr gram consideration of personnel recommendations Dr gram thank you Mrs willus
020the Human Resources office has the following business to bring before the board tonight agenda item a consideration of employment support staff positions Carrie Merritt secretary to the business office Ronda Schmid MIT temporary program assistant at Boonville middle Christy dilman temporary program assistant at John H Castle Elementary Lisa Brock 3.25 hour cafeteria position at Oakdale Elementary Tory brown temporary program assistant at Oakdale Elementary Bianca Mammoth temporary halftime program assistant at John H Castle Elementary motion to approve Sports ass positions we have a motion by Mr agner second by Mr fr is there any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose nay motion carries agenda Item B leave requests and to goal 4.75 hour cafeteria position at Castle South Dana held science teacher at Castle South Megan mlay 4.75 hour cafeteria employee
021at Castle North do we have a motion we have a motion by Mr Mosby to approve the leave request I'll second second by Mrs Glover is there any discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose nay motion carries item C transfers Dorothy Doss 3.75 hours at Castle North to 3.5 hours at Castle High jmd resignations Chassy mckin 6.5 hour cafeteria Boonville High resignation effect of October 12 2023 Jessica Lyn health aid at log Elementary resignation effective September 29 2023 Kim Edson temporary program assistant John H Castle Elementary resignation effective September 27th 2023 Joey asins 3.75 hour cafeteria position Bonville High resignation effective September 18 2023 Jennifer Hambrick temporary ABS program assistant Sharon Elementary resignation effective October 24th 2023 and Tempest Rogers temporary program assistant at Chandler Elementary resignation effective October 4th 2023
022thank you Dr bran item eight reports Dr Redmond I'm actually going to give a brief report tonight and show uh the public and the board a couple of things that we posted on our website okay the first thing that I wanted to show you since we talked about the proposed policy we always post this for the public on our website if you go to our main W County School Corporation home web page and you just need to click on School Board and then scroll down to policy manual and then you'll see right over here it says proposed policies and if you just click into that folder then you can see any policy that we have sent to the board for first reading and have a chance to take a look at it and if you
023have any questions of course you can contact us the second thing I wanted to show you uh several weeks back we talked about the Strategic plan and we made sure we had time to let our teachers have some input and take a good look at that before we finalized everything and had it posted on our website and so we have done that as well again same thing on our homepage where at County District page we put a button right here okay and I really appreciate uh Jeff Tron who made this look so nice here where you can actually open it as if you're looking at a magazine oh neat so that we can see remember how before we had to flip between the two pages for the same pillar and so we were he was
024able to get that design for us so I appreciate Jeff's work on that so I just wanted you to know where to find that again that is right here on our main War County website page you can click right on strategic plan one other thing I wanted to share with you uh many of you know that previously in Indiana school schools were given a school letter grade that is not the process anymore they give a performance snapshot I also wanted to show everyone where to find those so those are listed by school so you can go to any individual school and then under about us the first thing you'll see says school performance report and you'll find that on every all 18 of our schools you'll find that report and then if you click on
025it you can see the entire snapshot for that individual School although I'm having trouble scrolling at the moment so you can see the entire snapshot I wanted everyone to be aware of that one thing I want to point out that was a bit disappointing we were expecting the data reflected in the school reports from our department of Ed which is the group that produced these for us to be current data meaning last year's data unfortunately the data they've sent and and they made us aware of this at the release is actually from 2122 so it is delayed data which is a bit disappointing because me as many of us in the room know uh we saw significant jumps in our 23 20 2223 data so they are saying that they will get that posted and
026corrected uh at some point during the year is the timeline we were given so we don't quite know what that means so just be mindful that what you're seeing is actually a reflection of 2122 data was that during the Cal this calendary year or this school year your guess is as good as mine Mr Mosby Dr redond yes will there be a report of how the corporation as a whole the district as a whole I do not think so Mr fiser correct just by School House act act 1591 is a school report it's not one the complete District so for the next two years year and next reports will simar still iness they call okay thank you very good the last thing I wanted to share with you tonight um I know the board knows
027this and of course any staff members that we have in the audience a few weeks back I had talked with you about reaching out to our staff members and asking them the question of what does support mean to you so we've been having a lot of conversation about the best ways to try to support staff in war County and a lot of times we hear you know we we need support and so we need to have a good understanding of what that actually means we need to Define it and operationalize it and the only way we really knew how to do that was just to ask so I wanted to share just a summary of what we found out from that survey and board members you actually have a copy of it in your blue
028folder so we made the survey completely voluntary and it went out to both our certified and non-certified staff so we did get 667 total responses and we were very pleased with that very very pleased with that response um you'll notice if you were really digging into the survey results uh the questions again some people answered all of the questions some people answered the majority of the questions so sometimes the number moved around a little bit based on total responses by question but at least we know for sure 667 total people interacted with the survey so here you just see a summary of the the age level PK through 5 6 through 8 9 through 12 itinerate would simply be our groups like SL L PS School SES Behavior Specialists who travel among several schools um
029we pulled those out separately and then over to the right you can see we had 68.1 of the responses were from search staff and 31.9 from noner so this is exactly how the question was phrased we often hear that our employees need more support what does support mean to you and we asked them to choose the most important that was the first question so you're going to see quite a list here in a minute but we were really trying to drill down what exactly that means for people so while all these things may be important we were really trying to dig in to see what was most important and then we asked the same question again but said choose the second most important so they only got to choose two total here were all of
030the choices they had and I know it's a maybe a bit hard to read in the audience but we were trying to really give an array of items things like fun things like jeans days and and things of that nature uh things like you know maybe of more value to them like reduce class size or mental health supports we really had a lot of discussion about whether or not we should even put salary and pay on there because of course anytime we can increase salary and pay for our teachers we don't really know anyone who would not want that but at the same time we didn't want to assume that it would be the most important for people so we decided to leave that on the list um so you can look through all of
031that I'm not going to read all of them but again just a variety of different things uh planning time recognition stronger Partnerships with our families so they had to choose one from this and we did actually include other um we did get some answers on other they were all over the place I could not find any Trend they were very specific you could tell to those individuals so here are the top five with the percentages for First Choice so 45.4 responded with increased salary or pay rate and then it drops all the way to 11% reduce class cider case loads we had a tie for the next two voice and decisions that affect me and more time for individual planning and then fifth on this list was assistance with student behaviors I don't think we
032had any big surprises here um again we're just trying not to assume things and we just wanted to get some affirmation from our teacher so we know how to proceed so when they got to choose the second most important to them here's how the results shook out so again salary was first at 21.6 the only one that was different on this list from the first list is this number two FX ability with days sick versus personal and then you can read through then voice reduce class size more time and if I went to a sixth one here it grabbed the student behaviors so the list for the most important and second most important were the exact same five or six answers so that really is helpful to us in knowing how to proceed and how
033to move forward and looking at some things that we need to address the final question was would you recommend Mor County School Corporation to those looking for a job in education we only had 636 responses on this one 96.4% said yes 3.6% said no out of the nose I believe we had 15 of the nose were non-er staff eight of them were search staff and I just have to tell a funny story because on the search staff side out of those eight um teachers this was an anonymous survey so I have absolutely no idea who said what so three teachers emailed me and said I just wanted Dr Redmond I just wanted to explain I put no on the last answer they were like telling on themselves like they were worried about putting no U
034but they wanted to give context that it really wasn't about W County School Corporation they simply would not recommend education period in general so they felt the need to explain that and that is so teacher like right to to have one to explain why and so of the eight SE staff three of those emailed and said it had to do more with just the education field in general not war County School Corporation I did not include there were two other questions on there one was um what what do you love about working in war County and it was an open-ended question and so lots of Trends I mean if I would have sorted that the things that we um kind of thought we knew already the students the col my colleagues my team my school
035my school family it was those kinds of things which I think really speaks to our culture in the district uh the second question open Ed question was uh something that we could do better or something we that we should pay attention to a lot of people just listed like a third thing from the list I gave you that I show shared a moment ago but then some all of those were everywhere some were incredibly specific you can tell some are very specific to individuals in the school where they work um we heard there there was no Trend there was no way for me to look to say like oh the majority of them said this or that so no so nothing emerged there which was good but it was just a variety of different things
036and I think it has to do more with the exper their experiences and which school they're in and how long they've worked with us um but we did see a few things that we'll take a look at if I can get like it lined out a little bit more into category I would be happy to share that with you as well that it was such a variety of answers it was really a trend did not emerge on that side I do have one question has this been shared with all of the staff not yet okay so we uh I wanted to do this tonight and then we actually we shared it with our district collaboration team meeting which was last week and then I wanted to share tonight we have an administrative team meeting with
037all of our principles on Wednesday and we'll share with them on Wednesday and then they are can share out with their staff yeah very good and so obviously now we just want to take the information and think about what it means moving forward and gave us some really great answers so we know uh what to focus on right great thank you thank you are there any other reports Dr Redmond from okay uh other board business tomorrow morning we have a constr construction and wtcc meeting at 7:30 at the admin building were you going to talk about sure go ahead okay uh Personnel will meet November 13th at 6:30 in this building and then November 14th moving ahead we'll have another construction meeting at the admin building at 7:30 and special ed Transportation has a meeting
038at 8:30 in the morning at the administration fill about policy and curriculum policy and curriculum will next meet November 13th 5:30 pm here central services and our open house yes I just had a few announcements and reminders je thank you for that um reminder we mentioned this last meeting but we are having a a public Community open house at wpcc on October 18th from 6:30 until 8 we would we really are excited to show off this space so we hope we have a great turnout I'm hearing lots of people saying they're excited to come see it so we'd love to see you there and then also this week uh on Thursday our fourth graders get to go out to freshman for Pioneer Days wanted to thank uh Mr David McConnell for heading up that project
039this year and he's excited about it and I know our fourth graders are so we uh that'll be fun on Thursday that's always a fun event and then of course Friday this Friday the 13th and Monday the 16th our students and teachers and staff are on fall break and some of these uh staff members in the audience said they have great plans uh lots of fun things planned for for fall break but just a reminder that we do not have school on Friday or Monday anything else I was just wondering about our fall the isba fall conference what that dat is 20th November the 20th November 20th okay that's why I was getting confused I didn't saw anything in October yes November it's usually in October okay and I believe Laura sent that out to
040respond to her if you plan to attend so just thought the open house I think uh Ralph BNL would probably advertise the heck out of that if we contact I'm sure he we need to get out to the public so we can get them to show up cuz that building is quite impressive I think and our schools have been sending it out as well and we've been uh posting it but that might get a entirely different group of people maybe who aren't associated with our schools so Boonville standard might give it front page coverage they might they might the exciting thing is in the morning watching the kids come in the door yeah because they they're not trudging to school they're coming with a purpose yeah and is pretty exciting pretty exciting so come out
041and see us anything else no it's okay meeting a journ thank you [Music] okay