WLCSC - Work Session & Regular Board Meeting April 14, 2025

001Welcome to work session people who don't have their microphone on welcome to the work session and we are all ready to hear your presentation I'm really excited so take it away everyone so on Friday we met with I believe 13 educator leaders ers from the district and went through the document I'm going to share with you this evening to get their feedback on language for the strategic plan. And we also met with a small group of community members. Mr. Wang was there. Um, and I'm really excited to go through it with you today. So, we only have an hour. We about two hours with the educators, so we're going to go as fast as we can. But, of course, you have my contact information. It's in this document as well. You are welcome to share

002thoughts and emails, text me, call me. Be happy to incorporate that. So, for the sake of time, I'm going to jump right in if that's okay. Yep. So, the first thing we want to do is look at the current mission statement. And I wanted to highlight a few questions that came up. And I'm going to be typing your responses into a live Google doc. This is a PDF. Um, is there any way you can scroll just a little? I'm having trouble getting it. Thank you. Right there is perfect. Thank you. So, this is the current mission statement. Our mission is to engage students in a world-class educational experience that prepares them to be well-rounded, ethical, innovative, creative, productive, and adaptive citizens who shape our global society. And there were two big questions that came up

003with this statement. The first one is around the phrase world class. Is that too vague? Is it the right phrase? Should we work it out of the statement or um replace it with something? So, I wanted to open that up to the group and I'll take some notes as you share your ideas. Galaxy class. I don't get the reference. What is that? I'm out. It's tired. Okay. I love that. Have to remind me that all night. Um I do believe that using I mean shorter shorter is better when it comes to a mission statement. And I do believe that um world class and global society are a little bit redundant in the sentence. So I would say that to me global society would suffice and world class is is perhaps the one of those two

004I would get rid of. But um I'm not that is not something I feel incredibly strongly about. Yeah. But also they do mean two different things. World class is a measure of, you know, rank and global citizens means that you understand more people than just the ones that live next to you. So they do deserve two different things even though they sound similar. I think this is fine and I don't want to spending much time on the mission statement because I think reads fine but there are far more important things that we actually need to talk about with the strategic plan of what we're actually going to do uh and what are some of the things that may have been missed during the process um and what are the actual actionable things that we can

005be building out. So I I don't want to spend too much time on mission statement. I like it. Get right to it. I did want to ask about this word. There was some confusion over exactly what it meant. What do you all How do you all feel about the word adaptive? Um here's an adjective for citizens. What does it mean to you, I guess, is my first question. And is that the right word? To me it means that the world is changing and they can change to uh meet the challenges of the future. Um there might be a more um concise way of saying that. That's what I take from that phrase. To me, it's divided into two parts really. the first half of the statement is what we're going to give them and the

006second half of the statement is what they're going to leave with. And so I don't I adaptive I think means the same thing that they're they're flexible like um they graduate with a skill set that can change. So flexible was a word that came up multiple times but there was at least one person who commented that flexible is different than adaptive. Um I don't want to spend too much time here either but do you have a preference on birds? I will I will say this. Sorry. It's far better to be uh adaptable than flexible because I've never heard somebody called morally adaptable. I have plenty of people I've heard called morally flexible. Yeah. I don't have a problem with the word adaptive at all. But so this this group would lean towards keeping adaptive. Is

007that fair? So should the mission statement be revised? Again, I want to respect your comment. Let's not dwell too long, but I think there was a sentiment that if we could shorten that, that would be better. Would you be open to seeing some shorter versions moving forward? Sure. I do have a question about this. Yes. Is there really so much concern over the mission statement that we need to spend time changing it? I think it would be fair to say most people aren't aware what it is. Yeah, that's usually what happens with mission statements. No one sees them. I think they're most effective when they're like a phrase. Um, literally like four or five words, not even a full sentence. So, we may try to draft some things for your consideration that are more of

008like a headline than a full paragraph. If I if I can, I know mission statements are often kind of, yeah, as you said, not really the focus. Um, I do believe in the benefit of having an aspirational mission statement. Um, and I think that that can be important because if you're not paying any attention to your mission statement, then are you really doing what you're supposed to be doing? And so I think there has to be a point at which you can focus your energy. I think if we look at what we as a board have said for years that we're focused on students period and and so I don't know how you want to write that or say that but if at any point in time we as a school corporation lose sight of

009the fact that we are educating students to be good people and good learners um then I'm not sure we're doing our job. The perfect segue to our next topic. So I'm going to take advantage of that. I did want to just say I would work on trying to craft some shorter versions for your review. So, currently West Lafayette has lots of these beliefs. Um, some districts call these values and they are statements. They're sentences. What I've seen to work really well is creating one word or two words that are sort of in bold and then you could have a definition after that. The the idea being we have a minimum commission statement a handful of beliefs values and then that drives our decision-m on our priorities in the plan and it should also be something

010Dr. grinder and the team can use if there's a question about where should we invest money where should we allocate personnel if there for example is something that's more of an adult- centered decision if you can point back and say our students are foremost priority this is better for students that's the goal of having these values and beliefs so what we did with the team we do not have time to do this in an hour but I had um the teams look at each belief statement kind of decide if we should oh you can't see my screen that drop down where it says unsure they could keep it, remove it, or revise it. And then in terms of order, should it be in the top third, the middle third, or the bottom third? I think

011we may have too many now. And so I would invite you just I want to open it up. Are there any that stick out to you like we got to keep that or keep that sentiment? Are there any that could be combined? Um are there any we need to remove al together? So um if you could Brandon, please scroll to like right there. Let's just take the first few. Oh, that PDF didn't capture the is educated citizens on the next page. The phrase it is. Yes. Okay. Can you do you all have that on your computers? Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. So, um if you would take a moment and just look at all of them then since you have that on your computer and then I'll I invite your thoughts. One of the thoughts I

012had when I read this section was if we were to restructure it so that we said our students are our foremost priority, we demonstrate that by and then list action items rather than beliefs. You know, this is how we live up to that priority. I thought that might be more understandable and concise. So when we get to the strategic plan, the priorities, the objectives, the strategies, maybe making a link like this is tied to believe one. Yeah, I like that. Um, I like where you're going with this. My opinion is less is better than more. I think both the mission statement and the beliefs, the more you have, the more likely you're not to have it in to influence your decisions. I think for me, what I'm looking for is what makes it stand out.

013Um, personally, I think of course students are our highest priority. What school district wouldn't say that? Of course, highly effective faculty and staff are critical to our success. What school district wouldn't say that? And so that should be driving our decisions. But in some ways, I'm like, and so and so that's what I'm looking for is what is making us stand out and what is really driving our decisions. And to me, I don't know anyone that's not thinking of our students first and wanting great faculty. And so that's why I'd like to see um a little bit more what makes you West Lafayette great. That exact comment was made by a couple people on Friday. So does the group agree maybe it would be wise to focus on West Lafayette specific things or should we

014keep one or two of these more general statements? Um, I can tell you historically that there have definitely been decisions made by the board and by administration that have been questioned by our community and challenged by our community. And our leadership have absolutely had to say we made this decision for these reasons that are student focused. And so I I do believe one of the things that's great about our community is that they do challenge us and they do um want us to do better. So, I agree less is more when it comes to these, but I do believe in stating the obvious. Yeah. Because it's not always obvious. Correct. Let me ask you please about one of the statements that got the most discussion. You may have heard about this through the grave line

015this weekend. It's the It's the one that says academic excellence is the hallmark of our school corporation. that generated a lot of discussion. Before I tell you what the discussion was, I would love your reactions to that belief statement. Yes, I don't love it. Um, the alternative that I would propose is that students uh achieve their maximum potential or something that sounds a little bit better worded in that way rather than saying you only are successful if you hit this mark. Thank you. Other thoughts on that statement? Yeah, I think uh I also think about that whole during the whole weekend. I think maybe we can do that say especially I joined the alumni the wall pride last we have some alumni come back school last week. So I joined them I heard their uh

016their um memories when they're in the in our schools. So when you think about they're not talk about only their success academic uh uh works in the classroom they also athletics they also have some art fine art music or visual art so I'm thinking maybe we can say achieve excellence together in academic in the field and in art something like that something more broad yeah more broader so we can dilute this kind of and also you know if you look at our alumni they have very I mean Nobel prize winners they have fuller enterprise have famous athletes, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs and businessmen and musicians, diplomat. So there's uh really when you think about when they talk about their life in our high schools they have so many things they have friends for more than decades. So

017they think about you know they think you will have friends in that time until now we are still good friend that kind of thing. So the high school is kind of part of their life, our life. So I think probably we need to get that a little bit broader. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you. Other reactions to that statement? Yes sir. I mean it should reflect the mission statement if we're going to be focusing on that should have something about world class or global society. Um well-rounded um ethical. I think it's about creating successful humans. I mean, that's what we try to do. It's not just academic excellence. That's a it is a driving piece of the the district, but it's integrated throughout everything else we do. I say we just change it to

018that creating successful humans. Yeah. Yeah, if I if I can piggyback on what Lawrence said, I think um he made an excellent point about what we can observe in our alumni and for me that is we have created or we offer students the opportunity to become lifelong learners so they understand how to learn and be successful. And um you know one of the gentlemen who spoke we had a conversation after um and he said you know I was a terrible student. I was going through really difficult things and really big health things and I wasn't a good student. I didn't get good grades. I'm not he said I'm not sure I passed chemistry really. You know, it was that kind of conversation. But he learned from that how to be a learner and how to

019be successful. And so I think it's important that we make whatever we do approachable to everyone. Well, I would like to share with you the rich discussion we had Friday and see if that generates any response. So the educator group stel felt pretty strongly I would say unanimously that this needed to be broadened and not just academic excellence. The community group felt that academic excellence needed to be highlighted. We shouldn't lose that because and I'm adding a little bit of narrative now. Um people move to this community for that reason, right? They invest in a home. They move their lives because the school districts do provide such academic uh foundation for future success whether you're a Nobel laureate, diplomat, and so on. So does that generate any sort of response knowing there was that tension

020on Friday? I don't know that I'm hearing that tension in this group. Nobody surprised. What's that? Nobody's surprised. Yes. Yeah. it it I've heard that sentiment from tons of people too and that is one of the reasons why they choose to move here instead of anywhere else they could be in the county but I've also heard the opposite from people who may not have come to that meeting as that they feel like their kids are under tre uh tremendous excuse me amounts of pressure so perhaps a happy meeting would be combining the two say academic and humanitarian excellence I think this is what's hard to me I'm grateful we've hired you to do is trying to to me combine those because what academic excellence means to me is for some kids that they graduate from

021high school for some kids that they make it to the end of high school attending our schools and so it's trying to identify what is academic excellence and I think for some people it's a trigger word it's stress it's anxiety it's I'm not meeting expectations well then we do not want to include that But for others when they hear academic excellence it means we value lifelong learners of course we you know and that is something that we thrive in this district doing we're very good at doing in this district um our educators our administrators you know they value that and so to me it's combining I think the the educators and the community both have very important things that need to be included how to word that good luck we'll bring you draft. I think

022it gets to what we want them to do whether it's some of it's succeed academically in college and beyond. Others it's whatever other career but I jud down um adding on to the creating successful humans or however we would want to word that prepared to change their world. I don't say the world, I say their world because um you could be making changes in this very na small sector of where you are and not just making changes broadly in the world. And all of that is what we're trying to we're trying to help students um make an impact either locally, nationally, globally. And I think that's what a lot of the strength of the school district is, is that in Indiana is one of the more diverse school districts. It's one of the ones where

023there is a strong global uh representation. It's connected to a university that um is making a larger global impact and I I think being able to change their world is one of the key outcomes that we want to see with our students. That really resonates. What do you think of the word this just came Oh, I'm sorry, Dr. Go, please. Sorry, you can. I just want to know if you all like the word agency. That seemed to be kind of You don't care for that building student agency. Okay. [Music] I I u personally I think uh the that particular statement probably can be changed into excellent education rather than academic excellence because that emphasize the performance too much and uh also it's too narrow and back to the earlier discussion about the mission statement I

024also agree our statement is too long even though I I like the content and it's long. It's hard for people to remember. I checked several other schools and this they call a motto. It's a model house motto. For example, camel says together we achieve. Then um Harrison has excellence through relationships and we may also come up with some three word phrase and to summarize what we care the most and one thing I can think of is excellent education for all and I I feel that's super important that that's inclusive and you know we we can that include the students with special needs, students with a different talents or spo students who come from lowincome families and all student who need more challenges. So you know whatever whatever kind of students we have we provide the

025tailored best education for them. So I feel that's what we should achieve we should aim for. Can we make it excellent education for everyone so that it's alliteration we have all those ease no I like all yeah just be I I feel you know I I I personally I feel very strong about that excellent comments thank you we also might be able to include something about valuing different um types of career in in a way that would be inclusive of, you know, the the state has broken it into the military and the trades and the enrollment. And we might include something that makes it clear that we don't think you have to go and get your PhD to be valued in our community. Okay. Just so I could you you talk about excellent education for

026everyone. Oh, that give us the e. Yeah, that's why I like the work that way. Easy to remember. Yeah, team. We could spend another hour on just these statements. I don't want to do that. But are there any final comments on the beliefs? And again, feel free to email me, call me, text me. I think the beliefs are going either strategic plan are going to drive what the community think of our beliefs. Okay. When we set up a strategic plan that shows what educating everyone looks like. I mean I just think the strategic plan is paramount to our community to change maybe some of these triggers. Why are educators saying I don't want this? Why are community communities saying they want this? They obviously have a clear view of what we're doing and some they're

027liking and not. And so to me, the big deal is going to be what does the strategic plan say because then they're going to believe our beliefs depending on what our actionable items are. Very well said. Throw one other thought out there. Um, one of the things that our mission statement has never needed to deal with our school, our vision, our values, whatever, is the changing environment in terms of school structure. And I I don't I don't know that I have strong opinions about it at this point, but I just want to throw out there that we may want to consider using language along the lines of to be the school of choice. And I I think that might be worth some conversation. Um because the reality is that um we don't see much of

028it here per se, but the way that the legislature is changing things um students do have other options. You have something I think sir. Yeah. The last um value there, the public education contributes to the development of productive, ethical, adaptive, and healthy citizens. Um, is that really ranked in the bottom third? No, this was uh the order they are currently on your documentation. I don't know why bottom third is selected in that PDF. That's not intentional. Okay. Do you feel strongly should be higher? No, I was just hoping that people were ethical and they weren't picking that to be in the bottom third. Okay team, let's shift to now the strategic plan, some content. So, there were five themes that emerged. And I shared those at a previous board meeting. And so what we did

029on Friday is I invited the team to share what are some potential projects or goals aligned to each theme and what are some potential strategies. The distinction there is not super important for this time. But it will be written in such a way that there's some measurable goal and then there are things happening at the building levels, classroom level to achieve that goal. But what I'd like to do in the last half hour we have is gather your thoughts on each one of these themes on what you would invite the district to consider doing to address these themes. So let's just start with the first one. Um you may recall the first one is we have academic excellence with room for growth. Oh I'm sorry one more piece of context. I'm only focusing on get

030betters. The survey data the focus groups your state level data the niche rankings. Uh amazing right? You're an amazing district. I've said that before. I'm focusing solely today on where can we level up. All right? So, we're not highlighting all the amazing things we're doing in at this time. Okay. So, academic excellence with room for growth. Couple of you have already referenced this. There's a concern that there's intense academic pressure that can overwhelm some students. Brandon, do you mind scrolling down just a little bit? Thank you. Right there. Um there's a need for better support for our diverse learners, students with IEPs, multilingual students, those students who are significantly below grade level, you know, that come to us two, three, four grade levels behind and then validating a more holistic definition of excellence beyond test

031scores, SAT, Ivy League admissions. So, I'd love to just listen. What are your thoughts on things the district might do related to those topics? I think we could spend um more time celebrating a variety of um achievements and successes. I think it was in your email, Yui, that you talked about an email um for people to share, you know, if someone gets a a great job out of high school, we should be celebrating those things. If someone um is recognized at their job at McDonald's as employee of the month, we could recognize those outside of school successes that may not necessarily be Princeton or Harvard, but they're equally important and valuable and and demonstrate good character or good work ethic or something along those lines. Thank you. Um, one thought I had through reading some

032of the comments from the survey, especially from the high school students, is the need for an opportunity to provide feedback, both positive and room for growth. That I think we're missing out. We have these kids that are starting businesses, moving mountains, yet they feel like their voices are not being heard at the table. And so something, you know, teachers voices, um, administrator voices, community voices, but to me most importantly, especially at the high school level because they are older and understand this more of an opportunity to provide feedback um, so that we can know how to address and improve. And I think they've honestly answered all these problems for us. And if we would turn more to them, I think that we would be a lot further than we are right now. Thank you. Yes.

033Building off of that, I think one of the challenges that I've had with um coming into this process sort of in the middle um is that we went we there were a lot of surveys, a lot of um focus groups and then the data was all sorted through and you and then we have this stage now. But I don't think that and we're looking at all of the the consistency across themes. But I wonder if there are a lot of things that maybe one person brought up that others might have brought up if they had thought about it. Um, had you guys thought about going back through and like identifying a lot of the um the little things that different people brought up to then provide an opportunity for other people to weigh in on

034that? Because sometimes it might just be one person whereas um it might actually be a lot more than one person. So, it wasn't built enough into across uh surveys because people didn't have time or didn't think about it or the way that the surveys were designed didn't um elicit feedback on those specific areas. So, I think that there needs to be more of an iterative process here and I think that builds off of what Deja was saying and getting that more of that feedback because there might be something in there that several people um if they if if it was brought up again would be like yeah, you know, that is something that we've had a challenge with and that might broaden out um specifics that we can focus on. I'm happy to respond to

035that or or go ahead. No, go ahead. I well I just I I think that your explanation here will also include what I'm about to ask you. To me this feels a little bit in the weeds uh in terms of what we want to do in terms of a strategic planning. And so if I were to say that a goal was um to create academic opportunities for academic excellence, one of the the methods to get to that might be to engage families. It might be to engage students. It might be to establish a feedback loop that's successful. Um to me, those are are a little bit like a step down in the strategic plan. And so I don't know if the structure here is really to give us kind of a bullet point and then

036talk about some possibilities to get that done. I don't I that part I'm not clear on. Yeah. So taking that in turns, you know, we did um a robust listening session. So we did multiple surveys. Uh I facilitated focus groups at each school. We had online community video meetings. We had inperson. We did the Friday sessions. There's no doubt that iteration and continuous improvement need to be a component of this. In theory, you could ask follow-up questions endlessly and um I think if this body or the district leaders feel that there are specific things we should follow up on, we could build that into a process, but I do feel like we've gathered literally thousands of comments. Um and so I feel quite confident that these are the key themes. To your point, it's really

037hard to see one comment out of 2,000 and say that's the one I should follow up on. That's that's really difficult to do. Not saying it's not worthwhile. I think that's a different a follow-up process. To your point, I think what I'm inviting this group to do is think of like high level. You want to celebrate, you can't see my screen, celebrate a variety of achievements and successes. Whether that's someone that starts their career right out of high school or does something in the community that demonstrates good character. That's a goal, right? And we can work on quantifying language. The strategy might be each school has um a monthly because you're doing monthly newsletters now where you invite parents to share something their kid achieved outside of school. And then there's quarterly um validation or

038celebrations or reward ceremonies for those students at each school. I'm making this up, but that would be more the strategy component to achieve the the project or goal of the district, which is to validate there are multiple ways to be successful. If we look at the second bullet like supporting more uh diverse learners, I think a perfect one is increase special education assess state assessment scores by X. What's the strategy? Well, a year ago or so, or maybe it's been less than a year, you hired a director of special education to serve your student. That's a concrete thing you're doing to allocate an investment and personnel to achieve an outcome. So, I said a lot and I answered two questions, but I welcome your thoughts and feedback on that. Dr. Y. Um, in fact, we

039have done something related. For example, for a long time, we have the monthly celebration of the good citizen award from different schools. Yeah, we we for several years we have been doing that, right? So before we move to this room and so I actually every time when I listen to those stories and that the principles shared I I was very impressed and so how those kids help others and help teachers and you know make other people's life brighter and so I just feel it's also a kind of communication issue because I I I felt okay those stories actually should be shared more widely because otherwise only those who are here at the meeting know about that others are still okay I need to get a straight A that's my main goal you know it's ignore

040many other very important things so you know one thing we can do is we can simply put those those kids in the newsletter and with the principal's comments And actually they I think they original come from teachers and in those news letter and highlight those kids who may not be a straight A student but their their achievement their character as are celebrated as well and um they are role models for many other kids and so yeah so I I feel that can also deemphasize a little bit you know you have to be a a straight A student you that's the only thing we value and that's not the case. I I feel actually many teachers already emphasize other things. I heard from my kids but just you know the the peer pressure the family pressure

041just push the kids to that way make everybody very stressed out. Absolutely. And to Miss Mumford's point earlier, maybe we ask the students who's doing something that your teachers don't know about that's amazing and that's committee or that's part of you probably already have an entity that could do that at the school level at some of the buildings. Speaking of which, um I'm curious in your work, did you come across any indications that particularly when it comes to academic pressure that the students are talking about it amongst themselves and kind of amplifying it themselves or is it coming from other sources? Yes, I think it's very peer- driven. Um, like a good example is I heard at the high school students are starting clubs or joining clubs just to build their resume and there's a

042pressure to like be in enough clubs and I don't want to just be part of a club. I want to be the founder of a club because that looks even better. There's it's very much a peer uh and selfdriven expectation that man if I want to get into this school I can't just be a member of a club. I have to have started it. it I'll say too that um while I agree it's it would be very good to get some student feedback and I'll also say that because of [Music] that tendency our students do have and they maybe have not yet achieved a level of maturity to understand the harm it can cause that they do um they do have the potential to and I've I've watched it happen um take something that one

043would feel was very positive and turn it into a negative because it doesn't hits it doesn't hit there. So I mean I I can just speak from my observation experience um with my own children you know uh one of them was really strongly questioned by her peer peers. Why would you go there? Why would you choose that college? Why that one's not good enough? You could do better. And I think that kind of language is not helpful to our students. And so I do want to use a little caution there. Again I I agree student feedback is good but student feedback would need to be part of a larger equation. Yeah, it sounds like something we need to add to one of the action items is training the staff and the guidance staff to at

044least subtly discourage that kind of talk. They try. So, some conversations. I figured they did, but yeah, I do want to ask before we go on to the next topic if this team has any thoughts on the diverse learner component. You may recall from some early data in this process that you know you guys are just hitting home runs in all your student groups except special education. So, does this group have any thoughts on what you'd like to see done? I would like to see us not use the word diverse because I think it's a trigger, but I'd like us to include that philosophy, philosophy and concept and priority. But I I think pretty much any any words that begin with D, E, and I, we probably want to avoid using. Well, I I just

045it's not this is not political. It's about doing the right thing for kids. And we don't need to add anything that could be distracting to that effort. Fair enough. So, um my own kids, one of my own kids is one of those kids. Um, and just from my personal experience in dealing with the staff at the school and also observing other people, uh, I think a lot of the problem when it comes to access to services is families are overwhelmed. They don't know what to do. They don't know what the different words mean. They don't know what the difference is between an IEP and a 504 plan. They don't know potentially what they're eligible to get. They don't know about outside services. So, I think some of those problems can be solved by training the

046parents. in what's available um what the kid might qualify for, what they might not qualify for. Thank you team. Let's go to the next one. Um we talked a little bit about differentiated academic supports for special education students, ML students. There was also some commentary about behavioral interventions for students that may need that and then improve family engagement across cultural and social economic backgrounds. Do want to say broadly speaking, not broadly, unanimously, everyone found it a real asset to be such a global community. The concern was are we reaching out successfully to all of those different communities. So are there things from a initiative standpoint that you think could be helpful in that regard? I would be very interested to know how this dubtales with the family-friendly designation because I think those things are probably

047very uh overlapping and maybe it's just that we want to pursue or continue to maintain that familyfriendly designation but um I think we would want to have common language there. Did you achieve that this year or you're in the process? We're in the process. process that that would be a clear objective, right? Become a family friendly school. Mrs. Roth is in charge, so I would imagine he'll make it. Yeah, they could make it. I feel like there was another comment I missed that. Yeah, I was going to say to me, um, under the serving everyone in the community is looking at who is choosing not to attend our schools and why. It's expensive to live in the West Lafayette school district. You're paying the referendum. So, what are we missing out? And I feel like

048in some ways we have more of a defensive approach than a problem-solving approach um in analyzing why we're not meeting um kids needs. Now yes, we want to allow um the their needs to be met and sometimes that is homeschool is what's best, but I think too often we're hearing some very valid feedback from them. Um and I don't think we're um honing in enough on those enrollment numbers. um the transfer policy, you know, when you when I read some of the statements from people moving in that are transfer students, I think this is important to be looking at is this whole enrollment process um to me very much contributes to serving everyone in our community. So there could potentially be objectives around streamlining enrollment or responding in some way to a reason people are

049leaving. And by the way, this body know this, but that data is publicly available who leaves, not the individuals, but where they go. Yeah. And the administrators do a great job of sharing that. Um, but I feel like we're still missing out on a lot of that. Um, and I don't know where I was trying to decide where I would put it. um through reading the comments and listening to the community I feel like and I know this is something that's important to me is our transfer policy that there's I mean and right now possibly it's on my mind because there's so many families moving in and they keep asking what is your transfer policy do you accept students what happens if we get in your school district will you kick us out there's a

050lot of people that live in the community aren't happy with the ones that are transferring in those that are and so I feel like at this stage with the strategic plan that We need to have that conversation and decide what is the transfer. Are we doing international students? Are we accepting transfer students just from TSC? You know, because that is our whole community and everyone should feel safe and welcomed and no fear if you're a transfer student. You shouldn't have fear to speak up with concerns because you might get kicked out. And I'm not saying our administrators have kicked them out, but I do know families who have expressed that worry. And so to me, a clear transfer policy would address and make everyone very aware of how we handle things and what's going on.

051Um is one thought. Just to follow up on that and then I'd love more comments. So I'm asking out of ignorance, is there a documented transfer policy now? Okay. Did you have something? Yeah. Just want to ask you to clarify something. So are you saying that people are coming to you saying that they fear that they're going to be kicked out of the school district? Are these people who live within the boundaries or are these transfer people who think they're going to uh Okay, I will say my kids are transfers. Um, and some little anxiety we have every year when we fill out that form is are they going to get picked again because it's not written in their policy that you're guaranteed to stay? Uh, in the district we go to that kind of

052thing makes you go like, oh, what do we do if they don't get accepted this year? Even though they've not had any issue. Uh, but like to your point about defining it. Well, if they get this suspension, do they get booted? You know what I mean? Um, well, and the student well-being. I mean, I've shared this with our superintendent and like I said is I'm not worried with our current administration, but I h do know juniors who have been in our school district since kindergarten and they're like, are they going to kick me out your senior year? And I just my viewpoint for student well-being is if we think there's room for that student to join our school district, they are are they're part of our family. unless you know we do have attendance and

053discipline things. But but there like you said is we don't need unnecessary stress if it's not something that we're even considering to kick them out. Let's make sure they feel safe a part of our family. Um to me is important. Can I just say I I do believe we have if my memory is correct on our policy we do have a grandfather clause that if they are they're a senior they can continue. So, it's not I'm I'm 99% sure that exists. I have not looked it up, but it's legal at law. It's legal. It is in law. Yeah. I thought that it existed. If they're a senior, they get to stay. Period. Nice. So, that's not Some schools do grade level bands like you're definitely in K2 or you're definitely in 35, but good luck

054at grade six, you know, like it. So, clarifying that can relieve some anxiety for students and families. Other thoughts on Yeah. Couple things. I I agree. I do think it needs to be just much more clear with details laid out. Um especially if it is a law than let's just have a page on that. Um but I want to get back to Deja what you had said about the students who are living in our district and aren't coming in. I we looked at the numbers a month or two ago and I do think that that like a very strategic planny thing to do would be figure out are there ways to bring those families back or are there specific things or maybe somebody just really wants different school great or they really want to homeschool

055and they really want to live like walking distance to Purdue but if there are structural reasons why multiple families have left then that's something that we need to think about it it's a twoprong issue of one those are families in our districts in our district who we need to make sure that we're serving and also numbers of our of students is important for us for our um total budget. And so if those students are living here but not going to our schools that that negatively affects um the funding that we get from the state. And so doing some type of analysis and plan for um how we could potentially bring them back if that's even necessary um I think would be a worthwhile targeted thing that we can put to the administration to do. Thank

056you very much. So my question on that so what Dr. Riner has been doing is giving us a reason essentially a category of reasons. It's personal preference. It's whatever it is. um to me um and I have been the parent of a child that's transferred out of the district um because of where their friends were, right? Which is a very legitimate reason to want to do that. Um I think that um that I would be hesitant. I feel it's getting a little bit down into the nitty-gritty of hey superintendent, you need to go and find those people and find out what it is where I think really a strategic plan would be more along the lines of action items. Identify children transferring out. Have a system in place where a reason would be identified. Report

057on that routinely, whatever. It's not much different than what happens already. But I would be I would be hesitant I'd be hesitant to determine that all students leave because something horrible has happened, right? And so I I think it's a matter of setting up expectations on strategic plan, not necessarily telling them how to get to that expectation. Right. I I don't disagree that it's it's not going assuming that they're all leaving for bad reasons, but the leaving for personal reasons or personal decision is very vague and can be but may maybe there's a need for us to have an external group do I I wouldn't want to it's not an audit but like just to um see if they can do some focus groups or or quick interviews with families to really understand if there

058is something systematic and if there isn't that's great and um but if there is it could identify something for us as a school district to change to help keep families more families in the school district. I think that's that's part of the strategic planning process is figuring out what we might not be doing quite right if there is something um and then or that things are working the way that they should and we can move on to the next thing. Couple things real quick. If there's anyone out in the hall waiting, you're welcome to come in. Um this is our work session, but the meeting will start soon, so please join us. your Oh, go ahead. Sorry. And I would like to wrap up in the next five minutes. We can have a little break

059between meetings. So, okay. I think uh you know, you mentioned the word audit with something we've helped schools do for like prek, but I think would be applicable here is do a landscape audit. Who are the people in our community that aren't coming here and why? Um we don't have time to go through the next three. I I do think I want to highlight the next one though. Student well-being came up regularly in all of our conversations. I know the phrase mental health can be a trigger for some and I respect that. Um so I've come to saying well-being um and of course parents are first and for foremost responsible for their child's well-being. But there was significant discussion around can the schools should the schools connect students and families with more supports either in

060the building or in the community. Do we need to expand teacher training on student well-being and wellness? Uh we got tactical even with the educators about evaluating homework testing and scheduling policies to balance academics with well-being. Things as simple as the math department gives tests on this day rather than anytime they want so that students don't have four tests in a day. That may not be in the per of interest to this group but and then repeating again the emphasis on the broader definition of student success. So if a student feels like, hey, my potential right now with what I have going on in life is to get to the graduation stage, celebrating that. Um responses, thoughts on the well-being row and kind of similar to uh the comment George made earlier about the special

061education. I feel this is a teamwork and parents also need some training as well and it would be helpful to have some workshops uh on those issues because sometimes especially teenagers don't necessarily communicate where with their parents regularly and I think it will be helpful for parents to better know the kids developmental needs. Another thing you mentioned is about you know space out the test for example maybe we can do a you know today is a language day test day math test day social study test day so they all spread out otherwise if kids have you know too many tests on the crunch together it's too much stress another thing is I I think some kind of a collaboration of the grades might be needed and uh as far as I know some of the

062the the class. Uh I all support academic rigor but some of them might be too challenging and for the some of the kids in order to avoid uh having a bad grade they have to take the same classes from Purdue that means our classes are harder more difficult more challenging and and then the Purdue classes and same one I I'm talking about same one so in in that case and I understand that you know our classes prepare our students very well for the college but so to what degree you know we need to kind of make it appropriate for their age level and uh and make it aligned with for example if it's a AP exam AP class and maybe we can compare the students grade in the class with their AP performance to see

063whether there's a big discrepancy and uh if so either ours too loose or too too hard, maybe we can make some adjustment to make it more reasonable. And so, thank you very much. Yes, sir. Um, I just wanted to make more of a general comment. Um, across all of this, it seems like everything across all three schools is lumped in together. And I think some of these comments are much more applicable to different schools. Um, and I think that there need it probably needs to be some consideration of what should happen in the earlier years versus the later years both at the student and at the teacher support level uh or building support level and um how what we do early on lays a foundation um I think more of a preventative approach than um

064an intervention approach to all of these things. we talk some of the mental health discussions we're talking we're focused really at a high school level but a lot of the seeds for that are planted earlier on and so um really trying to construct um ideas that um don't just focus at one level or focus on trying to ameliate the issue at that end stage but how can we address this at the system level um and the different pieces that go into that I think that needs to be visible in the strategic plan Well said. I think u in the draft you'll see if the topic is student well-being there will be initiatives that are K2 three you know whatever is applicable. So I think that's a wonderful insight. We're going to let George have the

065last word and then we're going to take your last word. Um one other thing occurred to me about the special education discussion. We talked about informing better informing parents about what the options are. But I I recall some anecdotes that were u told to me by some of the teachers and the staff. And of course, they didn't name names, but one big problem is trying to cure the stigma that some parents have that special education is a bad thing. And so, that will go a long way towards improving those numbers. If we could convince parents that it's okay to sign your kids up for the stuff. Thank you for sharing that. All right. I want to remind everybody that Adam has uh graciously included his cell phone number on here. So, if you have other

066thoughts that you'd like to share with him, you have all the information to be able to do so. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time and we'll see you in a couple months. Yes. Thank you all. We're going to take a brief recess and we'll come back at 6. That's 7 minutes for I'm going to go ahead and call us to order. It's 6 pm. Welcome to the West Lafayette Community School Corporation regular meeting of the board of school trustees. Um, thank you very much. Tonight we have uh two presentations from the high school. We have Mr. Strode first with athletical highlights, please. I won't adjust this. I'll leave my ears. Excuse me. Thank you for the opportunity to come and talk about the athletics department. Um share just a few things that are going

067on and I think Mr. Rogers will share some other athletic minded things as well. Uh first thing I'm Joel Stro. I'm the athletic director. This is my 17th year uh at West Lafayette. This is my seventh as as AD. Um, Coach Fry, Shane Fry has taken over the assistant athletic director role and um be a great time to talk about he's taken the spot from Coach SH, Jane Shot, who longtime teacher and coach at West Lafayette who's moved on to be an assistant commissioner at the IHSA. Uh, I'm not sure how much everybody realizes what a big deal that is, what a great honor that is for her. Um, and piggy back, she she's earned the the honor on her own, but it's it's also a cool thing for our school uh and our school

068corporation, our community that somebody has worked here so long and is so well thought of in the the state to go take that role. So, uh, congratulations to her. Uh, Coach Fry teaches, you know, four classes during the day and then he's in the athletic office a couple hours to assist with with various duties. Uh it's been a great addition and enjoying working with him in that role. Uh also welcome to Robin Beckham. It's her fourth year in the district. Um some of you might remember she actually taught my youngest uh preschool. She was at federated preschool u which has been a great service to our community. They're closing uh which is sad thing but she's been previously at the elementary school and then she's been a tremendous addition to the athletic department. Uh she's

069super professional, very smart and capable and and and just a great face when when people come in there. Um also, you know, she replaces longtime uh school corporation employee Kathy Slaughter. Uh, and Kathy means the the world to me because I was fairly new in this role and she changed from the secretary up in the main office and came down to the athletic office and just the institutional knowledge that she has in athletics and definitely in West Lafayette uh is missed but she stops by regularly and and helps Robin and updates me on all things. So uh miss her but happy for her retirement. Uh the next slide here, a couple other departments that are just instrumental to to athletics and our operation. First, uh Gustin and Stephie. Gustin's been here for 17 years. She

070was my athletic trainer uh for the baseball team, my first year at Westside. So, we kind of came in together. And then Stephie Anderson has uh been here seven years. She came in my first year as as AD. So, th those two are family to me and and the coaches and the kids and community. you up here as as parents have probably had nothing but wonderful interactions with them. Uh they they do so much for all of us and and couldn't do it without them. Transportation department, I know Mr. Caldwell has has given presentations here and and and been to other meetings so you know him well. Also, Anna Hurst that helps him. It's a incredible duo and they've developed and put together such a dedicated team of of obviously the trip drivers that get

071our kids to and from school, but also or excuse me, the route drivers that get our kids to and from school, but also uh the athletic trips. It's a lot. And this has been a problem area for athletics across the state with with not being able to get buses, not being able to get early leave times. And when we're struggling, um, you know, one of those two hops in a mini bus or hops in a yellow bus and finishes a route, so we can get a leave time and and we don't have to adjust times, which means our kids are getting home from events earlier and and, you know, getting sleep and and doing their schoolwork. So, you don't think about all those little things that they do. Uh, he certainly doesn't have to do

072that, but as a community and athletic department, we really benefit from that from that leadership. Uh just in general, we've got 22 varsity sports. Obviously, a lot of those sports teams have JV levels. Uh some have uh freshman levels or C team, not strictly freshman. Well, we've got a dozen junior high sports as well. Over a hundred coaches, including paid and volunteer. That that that number kind of seemed overwhelming when I started to to write them all out and look at the spreadsheet. Um got a mix of lay coaches. So, coaches who aren't teachers, um, I think we've got a pretty good staff of coaches who are also teachers. Uh, this administration has been supportive of we've got quality teaching candidates who also coach, making that a priority. I think that helps our program, helps

073our kids. I think we've got some really highly effective teachers who also coach sports teams, and I hope we can continue to do that um, when possible. Um, just something to think about coaching. It's a hard job. Uh, it's not getting any easier. Um, as I reflect, you know, being out of it for seven, eight years now. Um, you know, maybe even the role cell phones have played in that process. You know, I I didn't used to have parents texting me as a coach or kids texting and that that in seven years, right, that's that's blown up. That's just one example. But, uh, it's such a dedicated group and they they do so much for kids and, um, hopefully they're appreciated. I I was reminded before I spoke here to give a shout out to

074Coach Fry, Chanty Fry, that is, our softball coach last week. You probably saw online. She got her hundth hundth victory and it was quite dramatic. You know, bottom of the 10th inning, a walk-off home run. It was exciting for her and she had family and friends there to celebrate. So, it was a a great night for her. put together a few slides uh with some data about different things u with participation and you know you can take as much as you'd like from this or or not a ton it depends we could we could dissect it at a much deeper level but um kind of some interesting stuff right we we've kind of hovered around 1100 for the 7 through 12 building I I think consistently for the past several years on the high school

075just about 750 is kind of the number I use in my had so over 50% you know 55% this current year participating in athletics it's a significant amount of our student body uh that's a that's a large number um I don't know this isn't a large enough growth to say as far as I'm concerned that that we're growing necessarily without diving in deeper but those are numbers I think we're proud of I think it means we've got good people in place running different programs and um if we keep that many kids out. I I I think we can take that uh as a positive trend overall. The next thing uh if we kind of break it down the different uh genders, males, females, different sports teams, different offerings, um I can go back a few

076years ago. You know, if you look at the the 2021 or 2021, that year is a little bit tough. Uh right, we're coming off of COVID. There was a lot of things going on. And when we started the fall, it was still the mass contact tracing and and two week stuff. It was not a fun time uh to be a coach or student athlete or athletic director. But, you know, so if we kind of look more at the 2122 data, there was a difference of 90. Um and you know, I don't know that there's a target number, but that was too many um as far as the the girls sports. So, I'm really proud to see, you know, we've grown all the way up to, you know, 282 uh female student athletes this current year

077and only a difference of around 40 there between the uh boys teams and and girls teams. So, I put on on the side there, there's not necessarily the goal for it to be equal. Um, just because if we start diving into the the different teams, what does that look like? Well, in the fall, you know, you're comparing a volleyball program that they only typically keep about 24 student athletes and and football. We've got more kids out for football than we've ever had, right? It was probably 75 or 67, I think, was what it was today. They probably started in the 70s and it's it's trending up even for next year, right? We had had three football teams this year instead of two. So, more boys wrestling versus girls wrestling, right? Girls wrestling was an emerging

078sport and the IHSA just adopted it. We currently don't have as many female wrestlers as we do male, but you know, some something to look forward to. So, I I just wanted to point out it's not a target to have those identical, but proud of the growth overall, and I I think those are those are good things. The next one, go back there. Excuse me. This is one I'm most proud of as an athletic director. Uh you don't get data like this unless it's intentional and you can't get kids participating in this number of sports unless the coaches are working together and if the coaches are making it possible for kids doing this. So, at a school our size, it it's kind of critical that we have kids who are playing multiple sports uh to

079to be competitive in a lot of our our sport programs. So, it it's great as I you know, look, we've got 288 multiport athletes this this school year. Um just just really a positive thing and something I'm I'm really proud of as like I said as AD the three sport athlete. It it's pretty steady. You know, we peaked there at 84 and and 2122 and it went down and came back up. It's hard to be a three sport athlete. It's hard to be a single sport athlete. It it's even harder to be a two sport athlete and you almost have to be a little crazy to do three during during the year. But it's awesome that we have leaders in place that that create that opportunity for kids. And um that makes us attractive I

080think in the area for kids to want to come here and and and play sports. The IHSA transfer policy and and changes for 2526. I know you guys just mentioned this in the the the work session a bit as far as our school um with the state's push for school choice. This this has trickled into the athletic arena and basically the IHSA got out didn't really get out ahead of the state but you know they know what's going on at the state house and and for the IHSA to maintain some control in the process they got out and created a new bylaw. What that's mostly going to look like um I guess maybe I'll explain the current process versus what it's going to look like. the current process for a kid to transfer schools athletically

081once they get into high school. So, you can transfer junior high, you can transfer before your freshman year starts, but once you get in high school, you know, the easiest way to get full athletic eligibility is is to move residents into the district, right? That it's not guaranteed, but that's probably the easiest. If you don't move into the district, there's still a list of, you know, a dozen or so boxes that you could potentially check to get full eligibility, but it it's it's harder. Um, I'd say in the county, we've got a pretty good working relationship among ads, and we generally do what's best for kids, which is try to get them athletically eligible so they go out and do what they love. the new process what it's going to look like. Um, and it

082hasn't been completely finalized, but essentially students are going to get almost a free transfer. You know, their first six semesters of high school. So, if they transfer their senior year, it'd be a little bit messier, but the first six semesters of of of high school, they would get a free transfer. Um, that's a little bit crazy to think about what that will look like in some places. And people ask, you know, am I in favor of it? Am I against it? Well, that's that's a it's a loaded question first off, but I'd say maybe in the Indianapolis area where there's more schools close by, these transfers are probably more prevalent than they are place like us. Of course, we've got several, you know, great schools within the county and and people might change a bit.

083Um, but but it is it is tough. It's it's going to be I think I I I worry about how it's going to affect our coaches, right? If you have kids that, you know, might want to go somewhere else or kids that come in, it's just a different dynamic for people to deal with. Um but h how does it affect us? And I know our our transfer prop transfer policy, excuse me. Um it's probably about I don't want to say as strict as they come, but it's relatively strict across the landscape of of the state, right? We accept transfer students from from TSC. Uh it's ongoing the process right now. You know, people apply or fill out paperwork at TSC. It comes to our central office and they go through that that that process. Um

084so I don't know that it affects us as much as it affects some schools where, you know, there's certain schools that if I want to leave here, I can just go to that school and if I show up and enroll, they're going to accept me. you know, it's it's a little bit different here. And I guess if if our transfer policy is not changing, I don't see the new IHSA policy affecting us as much as it does others. Will it affect us? Of course, because it's different, but I don't think it affects us to the degree that that other schools. Um, and as far as our transfer policy and and student athletes coming, I think it's tough when when you kind of get into it. Um, I think it's a great thing because people want

085to come to our schools. It's not just for athletics, right? They want to come to our schools for the size of it. They want to come to our schools for the the the academics, for the wonderful fine arts programs we have. Um, so it gets tough because I I get questions about it as as athletic director. A board member mentioned, you get questions about it as as board members, but um I celebrate that people want to come play the athletics at West Lafayette, just like I'd celebrate that they want to come, you know, be in the musical or or uh you know, be with robotics or or whatever. So, I just see it as another avenue, another group to to help kids kind of get adjusted once they do come to our schools. Uh, the

086last slide I have here was just about facilities. Um, you know, thank current administration. I I feel like in 20, it was either 21 or 22. I put 22 here. You know, we walked every square foot I feel like of of the school corporation and um there's a plan in place to to improve facilities. doesn't mean that it happens overnight. We'd like it to, right? But it it takes time. We've got to have money. But it's awesome to have a plan. It it's great to have that to go look at and to feel like, you know, there there's there's things happening. Um just want to share, and I think you all know this, but it's constant, right? There's no end to improving facilities. There's no end to maintaining facilities. you know, as soon as you

087get a brand new aquatic center, there's things you got to start thinking about repairs with it or m it's just it's it's constant. Um, and this this next one, it doesn't mean to be a negative thing, but I I feel like we've always celebrated athletic success with with average facilities, and I don't mean average in a bad way, but um, you know, I hope we can keep striving to give kids top-notch facilities and and all things um, and really see what they could do with with that. just highlight a few upcoming upgrades. The new track of course at the athletic complex will is um much needed. We we've already had to move an event this spring to to make some additional repairs. Uh the the the lights at the athletic complex just highlight that, you

088know, we call them football lights, but you know, it's the football team out there. It's track and field. It's unified track and field. It's band, dance, cheer, and other community events. So that's that's a a big deal besides just football. Not to discredit football, of course, the tennis courts. You as the board know all about the tennis courts. Uh really excited that's moving forward. And then a couple two three scoreboards that maintenance has identified this uh not being able to be repaired any longer essentially is why that's happening. So that's all I have. Of course, if you've got questions or Yes, sir. Yeah, I do have a question. It wasn't in your presentation, but it's in something else we're going to be talking about this evening for um athletic trainers, uh a new contract with

089uh the the same trainers you mentioned, but the only sport that is specifically mentioned in the contract is varsity football and all the other sports are as needed. I'm just curious about how you make the determination about what sports need uh presence of trainers and when. Yeah. So the the training coverage with the potentially with with the new provider um it will cover the same sports teams that that are currently covered. We have two full-time trainers. Um basically it's all of the high school athletic programs, all the high school teams, and then they also do junior high football, the games, and they also do junior high home wrestling meets. And and the the reason is basically just for the need. uh often time wrestling matches, you know, things happen and it's really great to have

090a trainer there, but no no changes in in the coverage. Okay. So, even though the contract only specifically mentions RAW state football, you've got plans for athletic coverage for just about everything. Everything we currently have. Yep. Your math teacher is showing. Thank you for the graphs and the data and the information. It's really helpful to see it in that way. Thank you. Yes. So, you had mentioned social media earlier when you talked about the um John Chanty Fries 100 wins. I I've follow all the social media and you guys have been doing a great job with that. So, I wanted to say thank you for that. Um also um I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the work that y'all have done in terms of um redeveloping some of the structures

091uh for the youth programs that are essentially feeder programs for our junior senior high school. Um there have been some some changes with baseball and softball and if you have plans for other aspects of really developing the um the whole structure of our uh youth program. This is something you know I talked about it's not getting any easier for coaches. This is this is an area where it's it's not getting any easier for coaches, right? Because it it might have used to just be a varsity team and and now you know you're 7 through 12 or or maybe even K through 12 running a program. So, I mean, some highlights in the past few years, uh, I think maybe when Coach Van Arsdale got here, basketball, he and coach Shock kind of redeveloped some of

092the youth basketball. Um, we were able to move some of the high school programming out of the elementary gyms right here. The two elementary principles have been gracious. We've got our own kids using their gyms and we've got high school kids out of there. That's been a great service to families in the community. Uh we're here right next to the baseball softball complex. Um kind of with their administration outgoing uh our high school baseball coach and softball coach have put together a team to kind of help manage and run that and it's a great service. Um I'm trying to think of other ones that have things already in place. The the youth track program and we still see Coach Kuster and and the the the Purdue club doing wonderful things. Um, you know, tennis, parks,

093and wreck will be a struggle this summer because hopefully if all gets approved, uh, the tennis courts here will will be remodeled. Uh, football, it's an in-house program run by the coaching staff and with a group of parents. So, top to bottom, you know, that's kind of what we're doing. And there's not specific plans um for other sports who who maybe aren't doing all those things, but you know, certainly if there if there's a need, I'd welcome inquiries from parents or board members or anyone. Yeah. Um thank you for the presentation. It's very impressive and I really enjoyed it. Um so I have uh several kind of comments and so first I think those information probably can go to our school's profile and Dr. Grryer uh earlier talk before talk about a brag sheet I

094I think this kind of information like the bar chart and those probably can go to our bra sheets because the the participation rates and the number of sports kids participant is so impressive. Maybe if we can have some reference and from the state average or something it would be probably more silent that those our strengths. Another thing is I I think it it will be also beneficial for families and if um just just recently I participate in a kind of a new um sixth grader uh parents uh what's the meeting called and organized by open house. Yeah, open house. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, the principal and the senior principal and the counselors present and the introduce the high school junior high and to parents. I I think probably presentation like the sports opportunities and can be

095presented to the kids and the parents as well and it will be very helpful and I feel some of kids may feel oh I'm not good at sports but in fact I noticed that many of the sports you don't have to be a winner to be in those sports right and for example my my daughter participating the cross country and She when she first started I kind of pushed her a little bit. I tried and she tried she fall in love into it and she told me that make her happy and so she she make a good friends there and the I think the coaches encourage them to have de develop a good sportsmanship and the team spirit and uh be persistent and so many good things about the sports. I I feel especially in

096a situation when kids are quite stressed out. I feel the sports really bring a lot of benefits to them. Not only the health but physical health but also mental health and I'm really grateful for what you do and all the coaches what they do especially after their long day of teaching they they coach the kids afterwards. That's that's hard work. I really appreciate that. The f coaches I think do a great job Mr. Pulk with with cross country. It's it's it's the perfect introduction and opportunity for a kid maybe that's not done athletics right for the first seven years of of of participation to kind of get there and you got a great group of coaches and and teammates and friends and environment. It's just like magic. I was very very impressed. I originally I

097thought okay you know you have nothing to do just try that. Then she became so full in love into it. I'm I'm very amazed her time improved throughout the season, too. So, it'll be fun to watch her if she continues that. Yeah. Thank you very much. Appreciate Oh, I'm sorry. Did I miss you? I'm so sorry. Um, building on that, I I really thought the communication from the cross country coaches was fantastic. You had also mentioned that you have several coaches who aren't teachers. um do you have a um training or um u guidelines for them for communication because I know that the communication isn't as consistent across other groups. You're right. There's there's certain areas that are I'd say more challenging for leg coaches versus the coaches that that are teachers, right? Because the

098teachers are they're trained to do this to to work with kids and and parents. So yeah, it takes more guidance from the athletic department and uh final forms is kind of in place if everybody's using it, right? In a perfect world, we get everybody to use it and the the communication comes from there and that that's something we can do better uh certainly with with lay coaches and and staff coaches to to make that communication more consistent. Yeah. Great. All right. Well, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Next up is Mr. Rogers. Come on down. Good evening everybody. Is this a clicker? Okay, click away. Really nervous I didn't practice this. And can you hear me? Okay. All right. So, before I get started, I want my timer to start yet. I don't want it

099to start yet. Um, wall of pride. We just finished that. That was my first Wall of Pride day, which is amazing. Thanks for everybody that showed up either Thursday or Friday. Um, robotics leaves tomorrow for nationals. Uh, if you follow me on Twitter, I went to practice. I was invited to practice, which was pretty cool. I went to practice. I knew nothing what anybody was telling me. These kids are like superstars and everything. And I had I had one um one girl, she was showing somebody how to do a lathe and then she went over and talked with the kids about how to raise funds and then she went over here and did something else and I don't really know but they needed the bot to go faster this way. That's all I know. Um

100so that's amazing. So they take off tomorrow and then uh this last weekend we had uh Isma again for the the uh performing arts. Lots of golds there. So all of these things are kind of taking place before I even did this. So here we go. Yes. So demographics real fast. The stuff in red uh aside from the GPS site uh were just some of the small small small changes from the last time you saw that. So that's all that that um slide is. This one is a little bit newer. So if it's in kind of black italics, it would be the new the new data. Uh I thought you might be interested in the chart over to the right. So this is something that we look at uh pretty regularly and this is new

101um kind of a daily report of what our cohort looks like and that's a big deal for for all of us high school people. What's our cohort? That's our graduation rate. Uh we talk about numerators and denominators. And so right there we've got different colored things. Some of those might be kids that moved away so they're not in the cohort. You can see that one says disinterest in curriculum which means they they dropped out. Uh some of them might be um you know transferred to another sorry transferred to another school. So we have to pay attention to that that 182. So down at the bottom I said 190 is what we are anticipating some of our early graduates as well. So I we're anticipating 190 at a 194. Now the bad news is that's probably

102the best it can be. um you know the two that are truent that means they've dropped out and two that are disinterested the parents uh have removed them. So what you may have seen in the in the lower rates uh this is something that uh really Shelby Johnson's excellent at. We did it where I came from is we needed to go through and like audit that and clean that up. It is amazing how many times kids get stuck in our data that the state doesn't remove for us. So, I can't tell you how many times we've gone through a list and like, um, they graduated. I gave them the diploma. I remember shaking their hand and they're showing not. Or that child never walked into our high school and they're still on our cohort and

103they're counting against us. or the child moved out of state and there wasn't a a box checked just right. Uh and so that's counting against us. So there's a whole lot of cleanup. So that live data is helping us out. Um I think um not have to worry about that cleanup towards the end. So I just wanted to highlight that with you. Everything else I think you guys can read. Uh SAT scores still really really high. Um I think really one of the best in the state if not the best in the state. So, I was going to say next to you, Brandon. Um, some highlights. So, it is really difficult to highlight everything that we do uh in the junior senior high. So, this is a little bit of a kind of a junior

104high, if you will, and some unique ones. So, one, Shiranya Carr, she's going to nationals uh in Washington DC. Um, so she won the regional spelling bee and she's heading off. And then uh Andrein and Anna um they're here. Mrs. Forbes I think is representing. Yes. Right. The Scholastic Art and Writing Competition. And you can read that. So she these two were Give me the title again. They're going to nationals. Correct. Or they won nationals. Which one is it? They won medals at the national. Thank you. Won medals at the national level. If I read my own thing, I'll actually know that. And this one I love. Not that I'm favoring Alex. Uh I had to go read about it. So he's uh national high school championships, junior nationals in orientering and Mr. P gave

105this to me. So I'm thinking it's cross country. So do you know what it is? Okay, thank you. So yeah, they basically run around with navigation compass and whatever. They get dropped off. They're lost. They got to use this and run all over the place. There's the cross country piece. And then I locate this locate little different parts of the the map or whatever. I have never heard of it. You guys are nodding your heads. So now fine, fair enough. You guys know it. I didn't know it. I found it to be fascinating. Okay, so goal number one. So everything in red I'm trying to update with you all since I I talked about this the last time. So I thought I'd go back through. Um if you look at our our uh social worker

106um the amount of sessions that she's doing uh it's just absolutely fantastic really trying to provide that need that uh social emotional and mental health for our students. Uh the Zen I I meant to figure out when that was. I want to say they started it a few years ago. Um but that gets used so they sign in so we kind of know the data there. And then if you look at the counselors, oh my gosh, the counselors are meeting with that many that many different meetings, 2755, and their job is only going to get worse with the amount of data that they need to collect for students to graduate. Uh so we really have to do a good job in supporting our counselors u both with time and hopefully with some technology. Uh we've

107got to take care of our counselors. It's kind of ironic. They're the ones that take care of the kids. we got to look at some better ways to take care of our counselors um because they're just their job is going to um probably triple uh here in the next couple years. So, um I just mentioned in strategic planning, we're also trying to look at other options, but that's going to come more from that strategic planning. I talked about MTSS the last time and so we had a a year one where we we kind of made a plan a little bit more clear on on how to get to the process of MTSS and then uh we have reviewed that this this spring and we are refining it for then the next year which is the

108whole part of the process is to help us help us be a little bit more efficient be better and serve uh students in a better way. Uh I mentioned before that we had um teachers uh at really at the center. I' I keep saying it, the best professional development is in the building. So February 14th uh we had concurrent sessions all led by teachers. Uh one of those sessions was about MTSS. Um and then we are following up more um with PD this this month and um I can explain I have another slide that which will talk about that and then like I said we'll have a new plan um to be revised for the 25 26 year u so I think we're doing really good things with that and we're also doing it uh

109when I say kind of in the right way we have steps before we get to MTSS and then we have the steps when we are in MTSS the steps before I think were key to have. And then again, goal number two. So in red is me adding uh since the last time I presented uh we have a lot of fun and I think that's really important and uh I again I can't remember which administrator it is says like uh you know sometimes the students remember the fun stuff more than they remember the academic stuff. I think actually one of the wall of pride u members I was talking to him uh during lunch and they went on a trip to let's say to Washington DC or or somewhere maybe it was Chicago to go visit

110a museum he said I don't remember anything about the museum I remember the trip up and the trip back and it was so much fun and that's my memory and so I I think it is really important to have fun so I everywhere I've been for Halloween I dress up and thankfully I have a partner in crime and she jumped on board and so uh a lot of the staff uh we dressed up and there's already plans as to what the theme's going to be next year. Um I think we're going to need pictures. There are pictures. Absolutely. Thank you. Uh it's I just think it's a lot of fun. Um we had food u each week in that those dark days from January till spring break. So um we had food brought in or

111or food trucks. Uh those are the best inventions ever, right? Um the hidden spirit week, uh that was Libby Sheffield and and uh uh Shelby Johnson. That was that was a real big hoot that stopped at spring break. And to let you know how successful it is when the students are coming up, we did it on Thursdays. When the students are coming up on Thursdays after spring break and they're like, "Why aren't you all dressed up anymore?" Um I know. Hey, too much of a good thing. So we got to keep them hooked, right? Uh, and then we always on our PD days, the two that we've had, we always will have lunch with some games, just kind of reset the mind. I think the teachers have really enjoyed that. I think it's also because

112we give really good gifts. Um, so building that junior high identity. I I I've already talked a little bit about that. Um, we had a talent show. I don't want to say it's the first one. I'm new, right? But it's the first one they've done in a while, in a bit. And that was a huge success. If you have any junior high students, hopefully they came home and talked about it. Uh that was first semester at the end of finals and then there are already plans to do the field day on the last day of school. And I think we've got some really good ideas for that. Button bingo. I could talk at length about what that is, but basically it is buttons from the teachers as a kind of a reward and then we

113call them out and then if you have a combination of buttons, you know, as you're accumulating more and more buttons or you can use them, you know, to to barter. So, somebody had like three buttons and was trading for this button. So, um really pretty cool. And then, um we've had different games and different activities during the junior high lunches. And lastly, uh, that junior highness committee. That's where a lot of these these ideas come from, and we have several teachers that at least have a junior high class. So, there's a lot of buyin from our entire staff in reality. Um, peer coaching. This one's a big one to me. Uh, I I cannot wait to kind of get into 25 26. So, instructional frameworks, uh, that would just be we'll we'll use kind of

114a Marzano model. There's 43 best practices that are out there. Um, it's a really great way to provide focus and structure um and and glean things from our teachers that are already in the building. This is something that I'm for those of you who know that uh it's Indiana principles leader in leaders leadership institute. Uh I'm a mentor for other principles and I've been doing that now for six years as a mentor and eight total. uh it's the model that they use and it and it's excellent and it can help transform schools. We don't need to be transformed. Let's make sure we understand that. But boy, we could use shots in the arm sometimes as teachers and we could use validation from the expert across the hall uh who never gets to see me teach.

115So, I'm a big big believer in talk and shop. Um and we need those opportunities and we just this helps give it a focus. So, um, one of the things we're doing now just to kind of springboard into next year is we're doing a thing called lunch and learns, and we're doing a six-w weekek, um, schedule of that. So, um, letting some teachers have some, um, coverage time, if you will. So, let's say Dea's going to be a teacher that wants to give some input or, you know, share her uh, specialtities with Canvas. So, she's got fifth period lunch and come on in. Fourth period and sixth period and fifth period lunch. We'll get you some coverage and you lead uh the teachers that want to join. And of course, we're providing lunch. So, that's

116the way to get the teachers in there and just again eat lunch and learn. And so, actually, we have some uh pairs of teachers that will be doing that. So, we've we've already had two, right? And we got one more coming up and then we have a three of them on Canvas. So really excited about that. And then going into next year, we won't do that every th Thursday, but we'll look at maybe uh once or twice a month. Again, a great way to just uh use what's in the building. We can bring out bring in some outside people. That's great. Uh we did that for the um Oh, I just lost lost it. Help me out. What was the um handle with care? Correct. I keep looking at my teachers. We had uh the

117officer come in from handle with care to kind of get us up to speed there. So um that's what those bullets are and then those 43 things that I'm talking about will actually connect with the MTSS pillars. These are tier one uh best practices. And so the more we do that as as teachers and as a building, the less that we will have to continue in the MTSS process. We'll we'll start to take care of kids just in the classroom just with general practices. So, we've been really trying to focus on what are our pillars, what are our consistent things that we want out of tier one. Sorry to get into the weeds there with MTSS, but um that's something we've attempted to do this year and it'll connect into that framework next year. Um

118oh, there I am talking about it instructional rounds. So, let's skip down to the new diplomas and then let's go ahead and take a break. So, where to begin? We are we continue to have a lot of changes. Uh we are ready for it. We there was a a quick little note from Governor Braun about two weeks ago that no one was ready for. Uh where if you get a certain uh seal for the new diplomas that we could get into all the Indiana public Indiana colleges and that's accurate and not accurate. Uh you can look at Mrs. Sheffield's email there. I sent it to the to the juniors. So it if you read the fine print like Purdue will say, well, you still have to meet our requirements and they didn't really say that

119it may not be Purdue West yet. It could be another Purdue school. Um, so we are really trying to handle all the curve balls that are getting thrown at us. The new courses, you've probably heard me talk about PCC and so it's preparing for college and careers. We have that on the books. We have teachers that can teach that personal finance. We have it on the books. We have teachers that can teach that computers. Same thing. One of the newer things that has come out is if you have a teaching license, you can teach those. All of them. Yeah. You know what? When the state gives you things and they get to change the rules. So, anybody with a teaching degree can teach that. I'm not saying that that's awesome. Yes. So anybody with any

120teaching degree whatsoever can teach the now required computer science course? Yes, the basic one. Not all computer science courses, but yes, I I make up the rules. Um, so what we will do is we will still have the best people we can teaching this computers. I think we're okay to be honest. We have a lot of those already on the books. personal finance, not as many and not as many as the PCC. So, we have really uh we have excellent teachers that do them already. We have really good curriculum with them. We we already have that in Canvas. And so, again, we will rely on our experts in the building as those classes may need those sections may need to grow, but we have them. So, we're okay. Yes. Boy, I'm really hitting stuff if

121I'm getting questions in the middle. Keep going. Is there a standard curriculum? Is it canned curriculum and what they're supposed to teach or are these teachers who could be certified in any way also supposed to be writing the curriculum and course materials? No, no, no. We're not going to do that. So, you can get canned curriculum and there's more and more and more of that. But we've got um for example, Amanda Hart teaches PCC and she's got a wonderful curriculum that she's, you know, developed. It's tried and true and it's there on Canvas. So, if Chad Rogers all of a sudden had to do it as a chemistry major and I would be a fish out of water, I would rely on her expert in the building and then her curriculum to help me get

122through and then I would get myself up to speed because I'm a professional. So, does that make sense? Yep. Again, it's it's sometimes a whole new world. One of the things that we'll look at uh starting I'm going to talk with my staff about this soon although we've thrown it out there some are the hybrid courses. That's my my terminology. So let's say for example a communication focused course. What does that mean? Well speech debate but there are other ways to maybe embed communication focused standards into other courses. And so we are allowed to submit that to the state uh a as a way to kind of get a two for one for example. Okay. So there's a lot of ways that you can do that. Um and this is again how creative can you

123be? Is that something we want to do not want to do? So we will look at those possibilities. Um and again I've seen one where um Mr. Jo teaches the government class where they have the contest um for the constitution, we the people contest and you know the idea it is not Mr. Smith's speech class or debate class but is there a lot of of communication focused standards that are going into that process for those kids? I would argue yes. So it's not my argument. it's we present that to the state and the state says yeah this is a really good idea or no you cannot so I'm just using that as an example because it's fresh in my mind but there are many out there within the state and I think that just like

124the way we entered into the pathways seven years ago uh we were all pretty much we don't know what we're doing and here's how we're doing this and it has evolved so many of you may know like there's lots of locally created pathways that are out there and school A creates a pathway. We can all use it. I think this is going to be the same thing. School A is going to figure out an idea maybe to do a two for one and we might have the option to do that. And it may not be what we want to do. So the first step is go to the lab, come up with some ideas, and then it will be we'll keep it in the building. Do we like this? Do we not like this? What

125do we think? and then you guys have to sign off before we can send it to the state. There's actually and this actually this process has been around for a long time. We just haven't really used it a whole lot but now this is um becoming on the forefront. Yeah. Front and center. Does the possibility exist for you to couple courses? Meaning if you know half of the standards are in each place you can require both be taken require both be there's all Yes. Can they be partnered in that way? So they can. Right. So, I mean, I know that some schools are doing uh PE and health as a combo type thing, and they're doing they're embedding health standards in what they're doing in the PE lessons or um they're doing health on Mon

126on Mondays and then doing the PE the rest of the week and they're they're taking those two semester courses and then putting them in one semester. As long as you're covering the standards, not necessarily what we want to do at West Lafayette, but that's an example of something. So, I need to be really clear. Just because I'm talking about ideas that are out there does not mean we're doing that. Um, and I say that to my my staff as well. So, um, the last one, work-based learning, that's all over the seals. Um, as well, especially when you get into the SEAL pluses that are, uh, on the bottom. Um, right now we uh have a a grant with uh Career Plus and so they might be our our way to do that. Provide the instructor

127and then the content and then connect with those um businesses. That makes it a lot easier for us. If not, what's a plan B? Any teacher can do work-based learning. Thank you, state. This is not the ideal model, but it can be. And work-based learning got very very flexible uh with with students. It used to be um kind of a gold standard in how it's done. And now if you have a job, as long as we can create a partnership with that with that business, uh it's basically the business, principal, parent, kid, and then they can log those hours. But with the amount of hours they're they're requiring of kids, it needed to be flexible. And so it is. But it is not the old way of doing work-based learning that required a teacher with

128a CTE degree. Sorry, I know that's in the weeds there. Okay, some highlights real quickly. Uh um Joel had mentioned that I would get to this is now the uh winter sports. So in the first one I did the fall, so winter and I could barely cram all the pictures in there. So, another successful another successful season for our athletes. And I I just think that it's it's tremendous to know this that if you go into like the three to me kind of the three things that are huge for all all of our high school kids and the amount of kids he showed in the 800, was it 800 Joel? Is that right or is he gone? 750. So, it's a lot of or how many how many athletes did you have in the bar

129graph? I was trying to remember. Okay. So, um if you look at the amount of kids there, the amount of kids in our U fine arts, uh the amount of academics that we do and our SAT scores and AP score, AP scores, it's they're great all the way across the board. And um I like to say that we are um big school opportunities in a small school field. And I think it's so important. And so this highlights a lot of what our kids are doing in the academic arena. And then we go to the fine arts arena. Um and you can see what those kids are doing there. Um band and choir and orchestra performing arts. Um and then I just wanted to highlight there's some really good pictures of the musical Newsies. And I

130I know I should have seen that when I was a kid, but for whatever reason I missed that that uh Disney movie. Uh, so when we went to the um musical that week, Sunday morning, I had some coffee and I watched it on Disney Plus and yes it was. And I think that's it I believe. So questions although we had a lot already. Yes, thank you for the presentation. Uh, it's really nice and I also heard a lot of uh positive changes from community also from parents. uh for our uh high school. So I really I like it when you speak. Yeah, I really appreciate that. I just quick question regarding um you um goal number one. You saying uh we have better support of mental health and uh would you mind to just give

131us a little bit overview of our current situation? Why this kind of number one goals uh that kind of thing? Okay. So ask that last part of the question. So goal number one about mental health and then what was the part there what was your question? Oh, the current situation of our students mental health. Why we have put this number one? What's the rationale behind this kind of rank number one? Oh, okay. So, I kind of get an out on this one. These were goals that were put in place before I arrived. So, okay. This is this is our goal from prior to me and so I am uh giving you the information or the data that we are using to support that goal. Um that's the best. So I think that I think coming

132out of COVID I think it's been a a big priority for a lot of schools to be honest and I think that from what I can gather just kind of when I say hearsay it's more of like this has been this has been an issue um out out of co and then the stress of the academics I know that the strategic planning uh I know that that's been a that's been an issue both from students parents and staff the focus on and again it's this this double-edged sword. So we have we want to take AP classes and we want to go to these colleges and we want to take all these courses and not take a study hall but boy it's it's taxing on the kids, right? Um and and the kids feel it and

133the parents see it and the staff sees it. So I'm say I think between COVID and what I just said there is probably why that's that's a big goal. Okay. Does that help? Did that answer your question? Okay, that's helped. Another question regarding uh the first page I saw there's our uh overall special education we have 7.76 uh percent. Yeah, our school corporation I just check uh I mean around 10%. Okay. And if you look at state average level is kind of uh 15 from 15 to 19 depends on I mean whether or not what kind of for school you calculate something like that. Okay. So, I'm just wondering, uh, do you know have any possible reasons behind these lower numbers? I mean, no. I think we changed by like three numbers if I remember.

134Um, I think we're like 85 and we're at 88 now. I don't have the the previous one. So, so no, I I mean I I don't I think that we are a bubble u district. It's hard to get in here. Um, so I don't know that we really are going to fluctuate a whole heck of a lot. That would be just my statement about any of it really. But yeah, the last question I have was [Music] regarding the coaching things, the peer coaching. That's the first time I I try to learn that. So that's kind of for personalized uh professional development for our teachers and uh staffs. That's my understanding. Is that um correct? Okay. So I'm trying to find it. Where we at? Right. Right. Yeah. Autumn. Yeah. Okay. So, and I it's not

135that we're hiring a pure an instructional coach. So, this would be more of again we're going to learn from each other. So, then when I said it's just started. So, we we just started that in February. So, I talked about it in in the first in the fall presentation. And so, this is these are some of the things that we did as we're again just getting started. And then when I talked about the framework in the rounds, that's where I have the the vision of u teachers that would like to work through this marzano process and actually uh go and when I say observe each other this is not a part of an evaluative process. is just okay on this thing. Let's say say checking for understanding or when you want to do uh group

136group work or whatever it might be uh I want to go let's go watch you do your thing and then you'll have time to then talk about that. Um so there's a lot of power in um one seeing it done right and two when I'm like okay what were you doing there I'd love to know more about that. Okay. Um, all of a sudden I just validated you as an educator. And so when I'm an educator validating you, I'm like, "This is amazing. Tell me more." It's a lot of there's a lot of power in that. So that's that's what I'd like to be doing next year with with whoever wants to do it. So it might be a small group, which is totally fine. Okay. Start small. Yeah. I'm just I'm just thinking, you

137know, you say have lunch and learning. I mean for the teachers I don't I'm not I never be a teacher but when I was used to work in a company I mean the lunch breaks kind of you have the whole day and then you have a break in the middle of do you think our teacher will kind of handle I mean these kind of actual you know times of learning learning is kind of intensive uh engagement so I'm just wondering our teacher do they need a break? Yeah. Yeah. So far so it's voluntary. Okay. So they don't have to show up. Um no judgment at all. Um but if they would like to and it's actually been pretty well attended so we'll see. Okay. Um and again I if you want to stay in your

138room or stay with your your colleagues and and talk about the ball game or the play have at it. It's totally fine if you'd like to come on this topic. So we have six different topics and those are laid out. Show up to one, show up to six, show up to two, doesn't really matter. So I I think the fact that they have choice will always help out. And and I think you're right. like maybe you do need a break and that that's totally fine. Okay. Um you just can't have the food. No. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Yep. You may go ahead. Thank you very much for the presentation. It's super impressive and besides, you know, all the academic excellence or or other excellence and fine arts, sports, everything. I I'm very

139impressed by the the two goals that you are trying achieving. In fact, for the for the second one, okay, first for the first one that actually the mental health issue has been a concern for the high school and uh it's great that you make the go one and to to actively address that issue for as for the second one actually I I came from China originally I have been in the educational field and working in the educational field for many years and I have been wondering I I the about the difference between the ch Chinese system, American system. In American, you know, teachers have their own classroom, they close their doors, they do their own thing. But in China, actually the teachers teaching the same subjects, sitting in the same office, they constantly compare notes

140and share strategies. all that things. So I feel what you are doing right now is is a nice balance to encourage those collaboration, communication to peer learning and uh I think it it's great and if I'm a teacher I will enjoy learning from others and and share what I you know I feel may may be helpful for others and so thank you for doing that. Um something um so I I maybe I totally missed it but but I wonder uh why are the high school right now has a like a Facebook before I know we have a parent uh council Facebook but before Alice it was not quite active and uh like this has a one which they share a lot of what's going on in school like almost daily and for example We talk

141about the Halloween costume and there are so many fun activity. I wish I'm in that building and so I wonder like in what way is shared with the community so parents know what's going on in the school. So we're still in our fledgling stages. I honestly since I was we've transitioned so I have we have a school Twitter page that we needed to start over. So it doesn't have a huge following and I've we've got about three or four people that can access it. We so we've tried to follow the the the district and so on and so forth to hopefully grow that. Uh we have a I believe that uh the secretaries manage a Facebook page, but I'll check into that because I've gotten confused back and forth. Um we've done a really good

142job on our uh website and on our calendar. Um but social media really that I know of is is is Twitter. um that X, but that's what we have that's going out more than anything. So, I need to follow that. Okay. Yes, we do. And I I'm on there. I I have one as well. Um if you follow me, there'll be uh still probably way more Purdue stuff than there is anything else, but I I heard laughter. Um but I get on and I retweet, right? Or I like and I try to pass on as much as I can of our West Lafayette stuff. And um uh so we we're still growing that is a is a true answer. We're still trying to grow our social media footprint. Okay. Another related question is uh you

143know for those achievements and uh I have been wondering whether our district or maybe each school have some sort of system for people to contribute good news. Keep going. Yeah. because I I you know there's some of the for example clubs um uh sports may have their own Twitter account or something it would be easy for you to retweet right but some others for example uh debate team or chess club or some or mascons for example the the actually one of the students this time made it to the nation and you'll be compete for mascon I think it's a eighth grader or something okay yeah but they don't necessarily have their account so their good news might not be seen also earlier we talked about some other achievements you know different yeah for students I

144wouldn't have known about orienteering unless I had a teacher send it to me yeah exactly so I feel it might be I know everything is transitioning so I'm just brainstorming and not like a so so I feel it would be helpful to have some sort of system or maybe uh form for people to fill and if they want to share news or you know information or who is a sponsored teacher or if you have any picture to to attach or is a national level, state level or whatever you know good news and submit that form to a central person that person can valid verify the news with a sponsored teacher or something then release it. I I don't know. I'm just trying to think a way. Stay tuned. I love where you're headed to see

145because I heard some people sometimes complain, oh, how comes you know certain achievement is not celebrated? But I feel maybe they just don't know. You know, we don't know what we don't know. You're exactly right. So, if anybody is complaining, give them my email and and then I will I will I will get anything out that I can. Uh I can remember this. This is true. I know I'm taking way too long. I'm so sorry. Um, so I was a a middle school principal and we would only put in the announcements the stuff that was like school sanctioned school uh sports and school sanctioned um basically events and that was it. I'm like why? So um we went completely the other way around when I got there. Like give it give me anything. I don't

146care. Give me the horse show. Give me whatever. Give me the FFAS. give it to me. It takes 10 seconds to celebrate a kid. So, um you're exactly right. I I have some brainstorming on is there an easier way for them to access right and promote their kid or their club and but in the meantime if they are wanting something out there my give them my email and we can get it taken care of. I promise. Thank you. But yeah, we don't know what we don't know. And I don't know a lot. Yeah. And thank you. But may I may I make one more? Yes. So I went to the award of pride and events both last week and uh I remember your comments following their speech was wow. I totally echo that. I was

147so impressed. Every year basically I every year I went to their speeches. I I was so impressed by and what they have done and what they shared with the students and also every year I have a feeling I wish more students can be here to listen to this and because this is such a inspiring speeches right and students can learn from them and also the one we we several of colleagues have mentioned this you know some of students say when they were in school they were not the good students Okay. Um but later on you know they they they but they learn a lot from our high school and and you know lifelong learner and also a good spirit of pursuing excellence in different ways and so I think those stories are so inspiring. I

148really really wish more kids can be there but I heard only first junior and the seniors can be there and also only for like one hour or something because of their other course schedule. I wonder by any chance in students and teachers can have the freedom free time to go there that's one thing to to listen to those talks as many as possible fill up that room. Second is is it possible for the future to video recording those talks and share that on our channel like a district channel so more kids in the young the younger ones whoever or parents even the community members they can see how their tax money you know are used for right so I think those are very encouraging story oh another way can be all their their talk the

149scripts that they they prepared maybe can be shared as Well, for people to read and I just feel th those stories are so inspiring. I I really wish every single case can can listen to that or read that and learn from them. And so that's just Well, I'm glad that that you're fired up about it. That's good. Um Brandon behind you is not in his head, so we can do some technology stuff. Just real quickly on the on the day just so that you know. So they they have the honores have u third, fourth, fifth, sixth. So three different hours plus an activity period where they where they go. So uh kids can see really all of them potentially um if if they wanted to, but they go into different classrooms. If there's really a

150someone I want to see, I could get permission to get out. Um, and then there's that common one where we did like we packed in the library um for Brian for for for him. So, they can get to them a little bit more than you might think. Now, the juniors and seniors have more flexibility and I I think you're right. I think I think it's that delicate balance of is it too much of a good thing? So, if I see them as a freshman, am I now not as interested as a junior and senior? I I don't know the answer. It's just those options. So, good ideas. Um, I think we can make it where it's more accessible to to anybody. Um, I know that we recorded this one. Uh, we didn't live stream it,

151but we recorded it. I don't know how good it was to be honest, but we did do that. Um, and and there are some things that we can do where it might be more accessible for for those who are not in the actual auditorium live. Great. Great stuff. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to throw a little bit of a caveat. Um the the alumni are coming back and part of what works about that day historically is the personal connection that they can make with students. And so ultimately that's a collaboration between the WLSCF and the administrators and um if we overproduce the day we may lose some of the benefit of it. So I would just throw that caveat out there. Um some of these some people do do this for a living

152as well. they might not be open to the idea of some of what you know it is but it is a great day. I 100% agree. The other thing I just wanted to tell my fellow board members not a question for you Mr. Rogers. Okay. Um couple of times tonight has been brought up in our work session as well as in this conversation looking in data. Um we did receive a presentation by uh the director of special education Stephanie Qualio on 1111 in our board packet. you might want to refer to that um for some data that she shared with us about special ed districtwide. Um and also I was interested in Dr. Reiner and the difference between Mr. Rogers number um and the overall number per grade level and I wondered if you might

153ask uh Mrs. Qualio the next time she is back uh if she could also break that out by school. Her data doesn't break out by school but I'm sure she has it and that would be really nice uh upgrade to the information that we have in our packet. Yes, we can absolutely do that, Mrs. Whit. Thank you. Yes. Just real quickly, since it was brought up, um on social media, uh do you have any plans to engage in some other alternative forms of social media outside of X and Facebook cuz X and Facebook have grown increasingly toxic over the last couple years. Um did you have anything in mind? Uh well there is a new service called Blue Sky that has much better moderation tools. Okay. And so people can sign up for Blue Sky

154without getting bombarded by Nazi talk. Just for example. Okay. I No, I wasn't aware of that one. So I I think this I think that as social media platforms evolve as they've been doing, I've been one that would like to to catch up with. I know that I had three at one school where I had to have Facebook for the parents. uh Twitter for kind of like updating events because they happen live and then Instagram because that's where the kids were. Now that was a while ago. Kids aren't in Instagram anymore and I don't I'm not going to do Snapchat but I know but you you try to go where your audience is and so that's interesting. Look into that. So anybody else? No. Well, kind of relate to that. I wonder whether there's any

155it's a technical question. I I I don't know who has the answer to it whether there might be some hop where you submit one post it can go the sky blue sky or Facebook or Twitter or some other things so it won't be too much work for the school to share it everywhere um yes and no so uh Twitter back when it was still called Twitter had a lot of tools that were available for people to run multiple Twitter accounts at once to send messages out to different services. Blue Sky is effectively a Twitter clone. It's just run by a nonprofit that's dedicated to not turning it into what Twitter has become. So, they effectively function the same way. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Um, next up is item number

156two. Believe it or not, uh, communication for the audience and hairsted up. You didn't. Oh, I'm sorry. That was for the work session. I don't have the blue one. I'm so sorry. No, you're fine. You're fine. It's empty. Okay, great. I'm sorry that is blank. Thank you uh very much. Okay. Um the next item is the consent agenda. I make a motion. make a motion that we approve the consent agenda. Thank you, Rachel. Oh, thank you, George. Um, there is no commentary on this one. So, all those in favor of finding the button on the thing there, please indicate on your buttons. Great. Thank you very much. Moving on. There's no unfinished business. Stop the there. Okay. No unfinished business. So, we'll move on to new business. And the first item is the approval of

157the minutes of the February 10th work session. Um, there was some discussion about these, so we pulled them out of the consent agenda. So, since that's on the table, I need someone to make a motion. David motion to approve this uh fiber tense uh working session meeting minutes. Okay. Motion to approve from Lawrence. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, David. Um any discussion? Just a quick share. I think it's very good move for our have this working uh sessions meeting minutes with the highlight of information summary for what we are doing. So that's really good. And also uh there's some other meeting minutes. Uh I see there's lot of big uh uh improvement during the last uh couple uh months. So thank you for Roberta and also uh George for those improvement. Appreciate. Thank

158you. Thanks. I'm glad you like the new format. Anybody else have any comments? Dr. I totally agree. Thank you Roberta and George for yeah doing this awesome and I appreciate the summary. I think it gives everybody the information they need. Okay, everybody good? We'll go ahead and uh hit the button to vote to approve as um Lawrence moved. There we go. Super. That motion carries. We're going to hit the buttons. The next item is the approval of the minutes of the February 10th regular board meeting. Is there a motion? I'll make a motion. Thank you. To do what, Rachel? To approve the minutes. Thank you. Second. Second. Thank you, Lawrence. All right. Is there any comments, Dea? Yes. I don't know with this process how you'd like it handled, but the revision um I submitted

159the revision to include the topic that community members share. So, do I make a motion to amend or how is the best way to handle that? I think on those we had an alteration um document that is included as 06B in the um minutes. So, I think what you would move to do is include Is that a motion to include 6B in the regular board minutes for February 10th? Would that make sense? Okay. I make a motion to include 6B in the minutes for Okay. Is there a second to include 6B? I I second. Okay. So, first we're going to have discussion about including 6B. Rachel, we've had this conversation many times over the years. I do not support a summary of speakers uh in minutes. Um we open up a little bit of a

160ugly situation in which we are trying to [Music] um draw down the topic and the tone uh of a speaker when we do not have the ability to let them edit that same thing. And so I think there's a large exposure to misrepresent, miss summarize, maybe capture something that was not a priority for them, but we felt it was a priority and put it in there. Um, I think that uh it makes perfect sense to allow patrons who come and stand in front of us to speak to have a time stamp so that anybody in the community can go and hear what they have to say from their mouth. For example, on this edit, um there is subjective interpretation on here. The words concerns and the word support. They are classifying the nature of the

161conversation and that makes this inappropriate for a minute documentation. Thank you. Uh Yui. Um yeah, I can understand what Rachel says. Yeah, we may run into the risk of misunderstanding or misummarizing and I will propose a like a mid midway uh suggestion. We can for example just have a topic rather than a summary. And for example, this one can be state bill one and the DI initiative or something kind of neutral. It doesn't say this person supported or disagree with it and just as for what exactly this person said watch the video. So just give a you know all some other time it can be bully or very simple just a keyword sort of thing I I will suggest that that way we don't run we don't take the risk of mis summarizing what they

162said okay but give people well because people choose to make a public comments and I I will assume typically out of intention of drawing attention to the issue that they care about. I hope we can give them a little bit kind of highlight for what they care about and but don't summarize what they they said. Okay, Rachel, I I appreciate that. I would say if we were going to do that, the only word that I would put in there would be legislative matters. Uh, I think if you um you risk having a chilling effect, I understand wanting to promote their motion or their topic. Um, but if we misstate what was more important or less important to them, I think that is a risk. Um, I do think that it has a chilling effect when

163people, and I've I've definitely heard that from patrons over the years. Uh, they don't necessarily want us to interpret what they have to say. uh giving them a platform in which somebody could go to our meeting and hear for themselves what they have to say much more powerful than our summarizing it. But I could live with a a true topic of legislative matter or educational matter or extracurricular matter. I think that very broad category would I could live with that. Um I'd like to amend my motion. Okay. um that this says legislative matter. Okay. The message that I've tried to make is that the topic should be included. It um and so I think she gave a great suggestion and so it could be amended to say legislative matter. Okay. So are you willing to

164then resend your previous motion to include 6B and Okay, great. And then we'll make a motion to amend 6B to the topic legislative standard. So I resend my previous motion and after the suggestion um I make a motion to accept 6B and have the topic wording state legislative matter. Is there a second David? Second second for that amendment. Okay. I think I saw David's hand first. So, we'll go ahead and leave that as it was for uh the sake of those of us writing things down. I'm going to put a note in box itself so that um we don't lose track of it all and just put legislative matters in there and hit post. All right. So, right now we are voting on the amendment of 6B to um strike the words concerns regarding Senate

165Bill 1 and support for DEI initiatives and instead say the topic is legislative matters. So, here's the vote button. Okay, so that's 6 2 1 Okay. And then we will return now to the previous I can't talk and hit buttons at the same time. All right. Now we're returning to the previous motion in which um Rachel moved and Lawrence seconded to approve the minutes, but we have amended 6B into the minutes to include the topic legislative matters. Everybody good? Great. Any other discussion? Yui, just I noticed that George voted no. I Yeah, I wonder whether George want to share your concern on this issue. I mean, sure. And I also want to make sure that because it happened very fast. I I also want to make sure we're on the right track because uh what

166you just said was uh we voted to amend that uh addition. Did we actually vote to put the addition into the minutes? We was combined. The motion was to accept 6B with the modified language of legislative topic or whatever the language was. So that has been added into the minutes that we are now going to vote on. So we don't have another step before voting on the minutes. Right. Well, in in either case, um I would have and still would have voted no because I just don't think it's our place to say what a member of the public said, particularly when we're offering the exact time in the live stream where anyone can go and look and see what the person said because, you know, even though we are representatives of the public, we don't

167get to put words in the public's mouth. I hear you. Okay. Thank you for that. Any other comments, Lawrence? Just quick quick comments regarding this regular meeting minutes. You will have so many more informations add on this meeting minutes and also the this time include the link of the live stream and also link of the documents. Right. So, and the very clear uh format, the table format. I really like that. And also our team uh the school board uh we have very smooth protocols work together to update the meeting minutes before the meeting. So I really appreciate that uh we work together and make this meeting minutes and also during this last the discussion we approved the meeting minutes everything is so big uh uh positive moves uh we that means we board member can

168work together make some progress and deliver a reliable and uh a very good high quality meeting minutes thank you appreciate that okay thank you um all right I'm going to go ahead and start the vote to approve the February 10th regular board meeting minutes as amended with the term legislative matters under topic. There we go. Okay. Um let me just make a note. Okay. Thank you. We're going to go ahead and hit buttons now. Great. Okay. The next item is the approval of the March 10th work session meeting minutes. David, make a motion to approve the March 10th work session minutes. Thank you. Is there a second? Yeah, I will second for this motion. Any discussion? We may add the the video link to it. I'm sorry. Add the video link to the minutes. Let

169me pull them up. Um, March 10th work session. Is the video length not? Yes. Okay. Yeah. And actually also for the February one and it it's not big deal but it'll be helpful to kind of make it convenient for people to to click directly. Okay. So is that a motion to amend the work session March work session minutes to include the video link? Yeah, I move to add that link to the work session actually for the February 10th as well. Well, we're that's we passed it. So, yeah, we the notice it's in the regular one but not in the work session. I see. Okay. Uh, unfortunately, I don't know how to go backwards, so we're going to carry on. Um, and hope that people can figure out where the videos live. Um, is there a

170second to amend, Rachel? Thank you. Um, any discussion about adding the link? All those in Oh, I got to hit button. There we go. All those in favor of adding the link. Okay. 77. Um, next we'll return to the previous motion which was to approve the minutes of the March 10th work session as amended. Any discussion? Great. Yes, Rachel. Oh, okay. Great. I am I am hitting buttons. Let's button there. Okay. Moving approving. That's everybody. Great. All right. One more time. I need a motion regarding number eight, the approval of the minutes of the March 10th regular board me meeting. Is there a link on those? I would move to approve the minutes for March 10th uh regular board meeting minutes. Okay. Is there a second, Rachel? Um, does the link exist in that one?

171Okay, I'm gonna hit buttons while you do that. It does, but I So, that one has the revision that had been requested. Um, so I'm not sure I'm supposed to handle that as well as um my understanding is Mr. George had said that he would make changes to make the vote accurate. Those changes have still not been included. And so, I'm not sure. Um, I had sent a couple emails about that. How would you like me to proceed with those two? Um, I think you would therefore amend the first do one at a time. Yes. Can we clarify something first? Yes, sir. Um, what do you mean by they're not accurate? So, there on the section under the football lighting, it still says the original was approved. And it says the original was not approved

172and then underneath it, it says original. So, I had sent the text to how to clarify in the one I'm looking at, it says the original motion was not approved. Right. And then go right underneath it where it says 77 and then it lists the names. Do you see that? Mhm. And then it says original. Sorry, I'm trying to get to that section of the exact minutes. What page draft today? So, you see it list all the names and it says original. So, I had sent the email um and shared how that that original needs to be removed and it needs to say the amendment to the emotion was approved. Are you on page six in the vote that's at the bottom? The bottom of page six. Yes, I see at the time stamp 11236.

173Yes. What I'm looking at says the original motion was not approved and it needs to say no. Is that correct? So, what I had emailed says it should be saying what we're approving. The amendment to the motion was approved. And then on the line where it says yes, we shouldn't have original in there because it was not original. And so both of those things um my understanding is George said great, but then they haven't been changed. Okay. I I maybe I don't know. We're just having a a weird moment where we're going in the same direction but in different cars. Uh cuz it says the original motion was not approved and then underneath it says the amended motion was approved and passed. Is that not accurate enough? So there's two separate votes. There was a

174vote that we voted seven to make an amendment to the motion. So that was one vote. The second vote is accurate that says the amended motion was approved and passed. So they're two separate votes. So, since we're only supposed to record actions of the board, can we just delete the line that says the original motion was not approved and record that the amended motion was approved and passed? So, actually the comment about only final actions is not in Indiana code. That's just comments that have been said. Indiana code says that a record of all votes taken have to be included. Rachel, which is in the video, right, Mrs. Dawson, I we have spent an extraordinary amount of time on minutes at this meeting and we have still really important conversations to have as we get

175on down this agenda. I I would just ask my fellow board members to consider if this is the way that we should spend our time. As Mr. Lyall has indicated, the entire meeting is linked. Uh if anybody had a question about any of the exact wording of these votes, they they could easily see it for themselves. I I just like us to take a vote and move on off of minutes. Is that calling the question? Sure, I'll call the question. Okay, that requires a vote of five. Um, so we're going to start the vote to call the question. Um, can that means we stop talking about it and we just go ahead and vote on the minutes that are Oh, is it possible to postpone it to postpone the vote? Not yet. Not yet. This

176right now we're voting on whether or not we are going to call the question and vote on the minutes that are in the in the thing. If that doesn't pass then you can move to table. Okay. Another another thing is there's a um amendment to the the revision to the minutes for the I think this supersedes that community members comments. Right. We haven't even gotten to that yet. This supersedes it and says we're just going to vote on the minutes because we've spent enough time on minutes and we're going to move on with life. So, that's what we're voting on right now. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Did someone There we go. Okay. Great. That uh let me write that down. Okay. Thank you. So, we have called the question. We are going to go ahead and

177vote on the minutes that are before us. Now, this is to approve the minutes as presented in the packet. Sorry, there's a revision, right? So, for the supersedes that so we're we're just voting on them as they're presented in 08 regular board minutes 310 25 draft. uh we don't uh change the just just stops it. Yeah. So not even that revision for the public comments. So we will that means what we are voting is okay we don't include the the topic of the public comments but the timestamp is there to the video where someone could see for themsel what that person spoke about. Will that be a practice in the future? We don't because earlier when we um vote on the February one, we decided to do a topic summary, not the content summary. And

178this kind of similar thing for the March meeting and I I trying to figure out it's not only for the one minute and for the future. Will we correct do a brief summary or we that would be up to the secretary and he'll make a decision. We'll see in the next um uh month's board packet whether or not that is done. Go ahead, George. And just for future planning, since the board did vote to include topics on that u set of minutes, I'll go ahead and include them for the rest because you know there's no sense in going against what the board voted because that's what we do, right? Okay. I appreciate the the clarification. Then for this particular one we we cannot add the Robert's rule as a topic of correct because we called

179the question. So that means no change can be made to it. Yep. Okay then. Okay. Thank you for the clarification. That's helpful. Just know just know that going forward it will be in there. Okay. Yeah that's also very helpful. I appreciate the the clarity. David what? Okay. But what happens now? It doesn't It doesn't pass. It does not pass. Okay. Call the bush. It didn't pass. Okay. Wow. Jeez, guys. This is so much to keep track of. I've run out of paper. The second episode of Dragon Ball Z. Okay. Can we postpone? Well, we are back at the point where we have no motion regarding number eight, which is to uh the minutes of the March 10th regular board meeting. So, I will entertain any motion regarding those. George. All right. How about this? I

180move to approve the March 10 regular meeting minutes including the topic u by the speaker but leaving excuse me the um voting record as it was in the original document. Is that clear to everyone? Is there a second? Rachel Rachel seconds. Okay. Okay. So, in effect, what we're doing is we're including what you were talking about, UA, but not including any extra um edits or anything about the voting record. I have a question. Why when I submitted this earlier so that this didn't have to happen in this meeting, did you say you were good with it and going to make the change and now have changed your mind, which has now made this a long conversation that could have been solved before the meeting? It's not about changing any minds. Uh, well, we I thought

181I put on there what you asked, but right and then I emailed back and said this is the way it should be and you great. So, I just think if we do this ahead of time and have it very clear on the paper, this saves this whole discussion instead of having the confusion. Okay. Anybody else have any comments about the minutes and the motion that George has made to approve them, including the topic for the public speaking part? Oh, go ahead. Honestly, I I was kind of confused by the words. So, I I would like I don't want to waste everybody's time. Actually that's why I I feel I would like to postpone this vote to next month to to post Yeah. table. Exactly. So so to sort it out and uh I I wasn't

182very sure what George wants to do what Disha wants to do and that the difference everything. So I yeah for the public comments part I appreciate that you will add it and I am happy with that. But for the other W one, I I'm frankly I'm confused by the two words and I would like to have more time to to figure out again I don't want to spend more time discussing this issue. Okay. Is there a second? Yeah, I will second the table this meeting many things for next meeting. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Is there any discussion about tableabling? All right. We'll go ahead and start the vote to table. [Music] Uh, let's take a recess. We're going to recess for five minutes and we will be back. Can I see um Dea and George?

183at 7:15. I appreciate everyone's patience and for the sake of expedience and clarity, I'm going to read the current We are moving to approve the March 10th regular board meeting minutes with the amendment to specify that the warranty be included be approved as part of those minutes. That was what we voted on. We're going to add the language that the warranty is included is approved. That is the motion by me. Is there Rachel? Thank you. Is there any discussion? You also need to add in 7B. Is it right? Robert. Yeah. Just so we're just so we're consistent. Where are you? Oh, okay. Sure. We'll add that in there. Robert's rules and Super. May I ask a may I ask a quick question just for the future and today for before we reach to this point

184we have a bunch of this or that votes I wonder in the minutes for this months. Will we record all that or we will only record the final one? Well, there had been some previous discussion and I thought that there was some agreement that we were only going to record final votes. Uh it sounds like uh for some of us that uh may not be desired. Uh I will note that if you look at the live stream, the vote video of the votes is on um every single vote. Uh, but I am open to suggestions about how we record votes. Rachel, the minutes under conversation right now are 134 pages long. I don't see a need to make them any longer to record votes that don't have anything. But I also don't see the need

185for us to continue to talk about minutes tonight. We still have literally the whole bulk of our business to get through on this agenda. Yeah. Uh I yeah I I I agree with what George uh suggested just to record the final one. I ask this for clarification purpose because I feel yeah in yeah in the future I hope we can make the the process fast and uh we're going to be having a discussion after the meeting between George and I and interested parties. So if you would like to make a suggestion at that time we would be happy. Yeah I think it's a good solution. We have the final minutes and the final vote. And as for how we get there, I I don't think it's necessary. We It would take a lot of robot

186and George time to sort out all the winding ways. Let's move on to the West Lafayette and Dr. Grer, you're here. Hi. Hi. Would you like to [Music] talk? Uh the Wbash Valley Astronomical Society or WEAS requested several months ago that we enter into an agreement demonstrating our partnership. You've had that dialogue in Friday notes and we've been working with WeAS and our attorney to develop a more formal agreement which was included in Friday notes and is now in your packet. Um we'd like to request that the board approve this agreement. Okay. Is there a motion? David. Motion to approve the agreement. Any second? Thank you, Lawrence. Is there any discussion? Um, I think it's a great community collaboration and uh to share our greater resource and they take care of it and provide educational

187opportunities for students. Just one thing I since I haven't heard about this organization before, maybe I totally missed it, but I think it would be nice. I I checked their website looks like they have all sort of events, activities and I feel in the future if they can send us some flyers to share with our uh school district for more families to participate in the events that they are organizing it would be very helpful. I can tell you they'll be very excited to do that because they actually do work with our principles and uh they like to present uh when there are opportunities to do that. So, example, when we had the eclipse, that big event, they, uh, actually spoke to, uh, some of our schools and so, um, I think that's a great suggestion.

188Dr. Yen and I will absolutely pass that along as well. Okay. Thank you. My pleasure, George. Uh, I notic in the agreement there isn't any provision on notice for um that you've asked to notify the school when they're coming. Is that something that you just do informally or should that be put into the agreement? they would only come to the school if they are invited to come to the school. As far as the facility, the observatory, they already use that for their monthly meetings and they do that through a facility usage agreement. So, what's changing here is now we're entering into um an MOU, a memor memorandum of understanding. And just for everyone's information, they put a sandwich board out at the corner of Benton and Cumberland on the nights that they're going to have

189an event and lots of people drive by and see it. So, the trouble is that in this area a lot of astronomy happens after most elementary kids have gone to bed because or it's freezing cold. Okay, let's go ahead and vote on this item. Lovely. Seven out of seven. Okay. The next item up for discussion is Mrs. Roth with the science and Spanish curricular material adoption. The board packet includes a recommendation reflecting the work of teachers involved in this curricular adoption. They reviewed the materials. They reviewed the parent feedback that we saw both um pre-reing the materials and after lowering it down to two. and they also took this into account in looking at their standards for the science materials. These are materials on the IDOE STEM approved list. So I would like to thank

190all teachers involved in that. This is one motion to approve the actual recommendation. And then the second uh just because we can't assume that you would approve the recommendation would be to purchase the materials. So in the packet is all of the information about the recommendation itself and the quotes for the materials purchases. Okay. The first item is to approve the recommendation. Is that a motion? Can I make a motion to approve the recommendation for these materials and to purchase the curricula the adopted curricular materials? Sure. Second that. Rachel will second that. Is there any discussion? Yeah, just one question. Um, can we see them? Do you do you happen to have them here? Okay. There's also a vote to approve them because I know people looked at them, but I'd love to take a

191look at them. We did do um part of what we did as well was just an open opportunity where anyone who wanted to come look at them could come look at them. No one took us up on that, but we did the same process last year so that anyone who wasn't part of the review could come in and see the materials. Okay. Thanks. Anybody else? Lawrence quick question uh regarding this purchasing uh so we go through the co-op uh buy these books the material these it's not through a cooperative this is from the publisher based upon which publisher and which title the committee recommends okay do you think we need to go through the beating process uh for this uh kind of purchase there's just the publisher who offers this so there would be one

192group that would bid. Well, this is a pretty big amount of money. So, uh so we don't need to go through the uh the bidding process. Go ahead. This is a standard process for textbook adoption pretty much everywhere. The state gives us an approved list and we pick from that list. um the group of teachers, um community members, parents, whatever. Uh they they they review all those on the list and then they choose from that list which ones to purchase. We're very locked in from the state with what we can choose. Now, so basically there's only one supplier or something. We can only choose from that list. So the state basically narrows it down for us and then says you guys pick what works best for you. Okay. That would be for science. That would

193not be the case for Spanish. But again, the it's the publisher who has the rights to sell you the book. So, we would not find other places where we could purchase the book in this quantity unless we wanted to purchase used books and then we'd have to purchase them across different vendors in lower quantities to reach the full amount. Okay, gotcha. Thank you. Appreciate it. That was a good explanation. I was going to say you can't buy Coke from Pepsi. They they have the intellectual property rights to the books. They sell it. We They're the only person that we can buy it from. Thank you. All right. I will start the vote if there's no other discussion. We're moving to purchase to approve and purchase. Yeah. Great. Look at that. Moving right along to the

194athletic trainer contract. Mrs. Pron. Our current athletic trainer contract will be coming to an end. Mr. Strode has been working on a new contract over the past several months to get the best rate possible for the school district. Our current vendor was proposing substantial increases over the next three years. Mr. Strode reached out to Indiana University Healthcare Associates after speaking with other local athletic directors about their contracts. IU Health's proposal will bring a significant cost savings to the district of approximately $48,000 per year. The contract does include a planned 3% increase annually over the three-year contract period. Our attorney has reviewed the contract and the final is included in your board packets. I ask that you please approve the IU Health contract as presented. Thank you, Mr. and thank you to Joel for your hard

195work on this. I would like the motion to approve after trainer contract proposal. That's our school administration. Thank you, Lawrence. Is that a second from Rachel? Thank you, Rachel. Any discussion? No. Great. Let's go ahead and start the vote. Thank you very much. The next item is the tennis court contract. We're back to Michelle. We recently published a notice to biders for Indiana code for a public works project on March 17th and March 24th for the tennis court replacement. That proof of publication is included in your board packets. We received and opened a total of four bids on March 31st with only three bids being complete. PCC Sports submitted the lowest bid with a difference of $12,90 from the next lowest bidder. We've received a number of positive references for PCC Sports since that time.

196The base bid from PCC includes a 2-year standard warranty on the post-tension concrete tennis court slab, a one-year standard warranty on the court surfacing, as well as a 10-year warranty on the sport lighting. Our legal council provided the standard A104 construction contract with their preferred language to PCC. The contract was updated and reviewed a second time by legal counsel. Final contracts included in your board packets for approval. Work is slated to begin the last week of May and scheduled to be completed in August. Uh we ask that you please approve the contract with PCC Sports as submitted. Dr. Grer will share some other details right now before um you move forward. So, just quickly, we wanted to point out that we're also planning uh to work with P PCC Sports uh to relocate the double

197striped court to the southwest corner court which is against Cumberland Road uh and the church. Um after speaking with several members of the community as well as uh talking with Mr. Strode and Mrs. Delaney, we believe that this is a more suitable location. Um, we've also talked with PCC Sports initially already uh and they've indicated that uh this should not be a problem um and that we can work through those details as we get the specific drawings uh developed. What's the double striped court? The double stripe would be double stripe would be that uh you can play pickle ball at strike for pickle ball as well as tennis and that'll be with one of our courts which um will allow four pickle ball courts to be on that one court. And recall that we've added

198a tennis court so there's no loss to tennis as far as regular striping. Um but this relocation after talking with several community members that where it was right up against the backyard that that that seemed to be a more reasonable approach. Got it. Thank you. Any questions? Rachel, I move that we uh approve the tennis court contract as presented. Is there a second? I would like to second Lawrence. Great. Any discussion? You uh just to I I feel that there's a design change, right? So we instead of having the pick ball in the north, we move it to the south. And uh will we add the pick? You you double lined mean will we have 10 tennis courts or we have nine single lined one double line? So you will have 10 tennis courts that

199are just for tennis. But now we will have a tennis court that is striped for tennis and striped for pickle ball and that will be that an additional court. Uh it can it can be multi- okay purpose now. Okay that's great. So the tennis has one more yeah their courts 11 courts now one double strike. That is correct and thank you Dr. should be built between our school and the Israel temple. Correct. It'll be up against Cumberland Road and the temple. Okay. And the temple and has no issue with that. They are okay. How do we need to talk to them? I I think we will be good because we are moving it up to that corner, but we're also going to have in our boundary anyway. Yes. And we're still going to have the

200uh soundproofing. We still plan to um add that mitigation. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Rachel. Mr. Trod, thank you for getting the tennis court use covered over the summer. It will be difficult, but I appreciate that information being included in the packet. Yeah, we've got good partnerships with Purdue if needed and Harrison is has to take care of us as well. It's awesome. Thank you. Wow, that's very nice of them, Lawrence. Yeah, just a quick question. Make sure. So we house to 10 full uh um single so-called single strap tennis court. So that's cards you can use for the sectional games, right? In caseh you qualify for the kind of professional for the games, right? For the section. That that is correct that we are losing no courts that are just striped for tennis. In fact,

201we've gained one that's now double striped, but it will be striped for pickle ball and tennis. But there is no loss to the single striped or striped for tennis only since we've added that additional court. Yeah, that's my understanding just to double check and make sure and also I would uh like really appreciate uh I want to say some appreciation to our school administrations. uh there's uh several months effort listen to communities and also uh collaborative work with uh our u city mayors RDC's and we work togethers and you use you you guys go through all the due diligencies listen to the residents so I'm very proud of uh you administrations you work work uh diligently on this issue and I also are very proud of our communities so we work together and make this

202happens, everybody better off. So, I really appreciate that. I appreciate that input, uh, Mr. Wong, and I truly, like you, appreciate the uh, community members that were willing to come in and meet with me and sit down and talk through it so they knew that we were listening to their concerns and working together to address those concerns. So, thank you, Mr. Wong. Sure. Thank you. Appreciate it. Anybody else? Nope. Okay, let's start the vote to approve. Super. Thank you for that. The next item on the agenda is uh discussion about graduation and Mrs. Mumford, that was your item. So, please you have the floor. Um I wanted to bring up so the current practice on the school board for the last few years has been that schoolboard members have stood next to the stairs to

203assist the students as they come down after receiving their diploma. Um, I appreciate the intention to offer support in case someone trips, but um, I find that it's distracting to the students. They're their faces. They're often confused. Why is this random person they often don't know is there? It blocks the views from parents photos. Um, and it's just it makes it awkward. So my I would um recommendation would be to use a student or a staff member and let the parent council who plan it to determine um the not the orchestra members are sitting right there students and so it would be you wouldn't even have to have anyone in pictures or blocking it if they were the one doing it. Um or if the student council decided they wanted to choose a staff member.

204I just have felt like it has caused over the several years that I've attended more of a distraction and is unnecessary. So, just to give you some historical context, um when I joined the board, the um board members sat on the stage behind the podium and stood up in alternating turns to um shake hands on the stage. that changed about and also the schoolboard president at that time also spoke to the graduates. Uh that changed over time um by the board saying to the to the organizers of commencement, hey, you know, we don't need to be up there. How about if we se are seated on the floor? um the intent philosophically of having the elementary and intermediate school principles on the entrance side of the stage and a schoolboard member on the exit side

205of the stage uh was was symbolic at the time. Um I don't particularly have strong opinions. However, the one strong opinion I have is that it's not our graduation. The great change that happened um and it makes West Lafayette a very unique place is that our students plan commencement. In fact, the only thing that has to happen at commencement for those students who choose to walk is that the is that the superintendent stands up and declares them graduated. Everything else is extraneous to that and it is developed and done at the decision of the students. us telling them what we as board members will and will not do is somewhat akin to my telling one of my children what I am willing to do in their wedding. Right? It's just not appropriate of us. What

206would be appropriate in my opinion is to let the teacher or in this case the guidance counselor who supports the students decision making and planning know that we are completely flexible on what they would like us to do and we do not require a role and then allow the students to determine what is appropriate for the ceremony that they are planning for themselves. Okay. Thank you. Um anyone else? Yeah, I I just quick uh share I would echo u Dean and also u uh Rachel regarding this uh ceremony things. I'm flexible. Whoever the administrations or student council, whoever organizes this um ceremonies, if they need uh my help, I'm flexible. Whatever they want, they want me to stand there, I can stand there. They want me sitting. So, I'm just flexible is the student should

207be uh the center of the whole ceremony. Thank you. Thank you. U did you have something? And Amy, you may still remember last year I sent you a video u from the year before last one or something like that. we board members standing there blocking the camera, blocking the stage almost like a photo bomb. So that's why I feel it. I also agree with DEA student are confused when they look at it's hard to tell whether we should shake hands or not. It's really weird. And so I would vote to just sit in the in the off the stage and uh celebrate and congratulate them that way and rather than standing there and uh I don't know how dangerous it is and for them to shoes I mean some of the girls are wearing big

208old shoes but how how do other schools handle it and I I I haven't seen any I went to many graduations that you iversities, but I haven't seen anyone who standing off the stage to hold their hands or something. It's the only actual graduation I remember was my brother and my sisters and that's because my uncle was on the school board and he was actually handing them their diplomas. So, that's honestly the only one I remember. Um, but let's see what George thinks. Right. Um just for um traditional reasons, one of the reasons why folks do that is because ladies and giant shoes. It's just um good manners, chivalry to help them down large flights of stairs. It doesn't have to be us. But the what I wanted to ask is Rachel, do we need

209to have a separate motion to move to ask the students what they want or do we want to go ahead and vote on dishes? Well, it's not a voting item. It's just an information, a discussion among board members. But I just I can't reiterate to you enough. this is just not our party to plan. So it is up to the students and they have an extraordinary guide in Mrs. Sheffield in getting that done. So I mean by all means I'm sure you or Dr. Grinder could pass along a message that we as a board are open to what they want to do. That message has been the same message has been passed along every year to my knowledge that we will do what they want us to do. I mean, we can all have opinions

210about it, but the bottom line, if the senior class tells me that they would like me to wear pink, I will sit there and wear pink and clap like crazy. I really don't care. I'm going to do what they tell me to do. David, do you have a anything to say? You're the one person who hasn't yet. I was just going to add on to George, it's not just women in shoes. I was voted most likely to trip on gown at graduation. So, um, but it doesn't really matter to me what we do. Let's tell the students we were fine doing whatever. It's it's their graduation and we don't even have to be there from my perspective. I'm going to be there. Yeah. Yes. I will be there too. Yeah. But I'm just saying that

211like let them decide how we're involved. Okay. Dea. Um, I think Rachel made a very valid point is this is the students decision and but I think the message needs to be that the school board is not needing to hold their hand and that's definitely been the tradition and definitely the student council has just felt like that was what is expected and so if all the board members are in approval then I think it would be great to tell the student council you run it like you would like to and if we can be an assistance let us help you but we don't need to be doing this. Have you spoken to someone on the student council about this? If I was I've served on a student council and if the bo board of legis

212uh board of trustees always did this at the thing, I would not have spoken up as a senior and said I don't want you to do that. So that's where that's coming from. Okay. Well, I will um have a conversation with uh Dr. Grryer and Mrs. Sheffield and I will communicate our flexibility on this issue. Um anything else to talk about with that? Great. Okay. Um, oh lord. Uh, the next item is the policy committee discussion. [Music] Um, that's the noise I made. Can we have a work session on it since it's been I mean it or what would you I think I am very comfortable postponing this discussion to a later time um given the lateness of the hour and we will simply have that discussion some other way well the next month working

213session is um the retirement recognition so that would put us to June but I think we can have an offline discuss USS about this without violating any laws. Rachel, I I I believe I know that that Mr. that Lawrence and and David and I were charged with being a policy committee. That direction has already been given. We are capable of coming up with the date and time to get that done. I would just propose that we try and do that this month and then see what happens before we decide to change the course. Sure. Yeah. If I uh what I was going to say is it seems like it's been difficult for the three of you to find a time that was mutually um working and ask if we needed to restructure that committee. But

214if you guys are comfortable, then I'm comfortable leaving it alone. Super. Okay. The three of us just wait after the meeting and we can find the time on our calendar so we don't have to go back and forth. That'd be wonderful. The trick is the central office time, too. So, well, they're here, too. So, we could have Or you can just send us multiple dates. If you send us multiple dates, we'll find a time. If it's during the school day, we can find a time that that works. Let's just look at our calendars right after. Okay. Super. Let's move on to Dr. Grryer and his uh superintendent report. Right. A few things I'd like to quickly share. One, congratulations to Mrs. Krunk. We're thrilled to announce that Mrs. Krunk has been named the Indiana Association

215of School Business Officials or AASBO, School Business Official of the Year. This prestigious honor reflects the high regard of her peers um that they have for her outstanding leadership across the state. Um as you saw on Friday notes, board members are invited to celebrate with her if it fits into your schedule. Uh the event is on May 8th at 6:30 p.m. The distance is a will be a challenge if you choose to go. It's in Fort Wayne at the Grand Wayne Convention Center. If you're interested in attending, contact Mrs. Julian uh so that she can reserve your spot. Uh it is comp complimentary uh dinner tickets, of course. Congratulations also to our own Mr. Nathan Snyder. Uh, I would like to congratulate Nathan on successfully completing Indiana business official certification as human resource specialist. He's

216been working on this for some time. Both Mrs. Austin and I were notified by Dr. Scott Bowling, executive director of IASBO um that uh he has met these requirements. The certification required 73 hours of instruction focused on human resource topics and responsibilities, which is an achievement that reflects Nathan's dedication for professional growth, but also his commitment to serving our district well. I mean, we know that people prefer to get paid. Uh he does it seamlessly. Uh and um I'm very proud of him. Um, excellent service is certainly something that Mr. Snyder is committed to and anybody that knows him knows that that is the case. Uh, legislative update from our perspective. Like the board, we continue to watch the final weeks of the legislative session. Uh, funding for state tuition support uh is very minimal

217to non-existent. depending on enrollment, there may be um a shift backwards with regard to funding. So, we're watching that closely and are certainly concerned. And then with regard to the property tax relief and how it will impact governmental entities, we are watching that as well. Um it's something that we will need to address once we fully understand how these um these efforts will impact our district. As we all know, this has been a moving target and we continue to monitor it accordingly. The school calendar, as a quick reminder, we will not be in session this Friday, April 18th. It is a scheduled makeup day and we were not required to use it this summer or this winter given uh the pretty decent w weather overall. Um, at this time then, Mrs. Crock, I'd like to

218ask you to please report out on accounts payable. Yep. Uh, and fund reports. Okay. Claims for the period of March 5th to April 9th totaled $5,538,345 including regular corporation expenses and the Wbash Valley Education Center expenses. Of this amount, $3,571,748 were paid towards wages, salaries, and benefits of three payrolls. I provided the final fund report for February 2025. in your board packets. Total cash on hand in all funds was $31,454,320. And the education fund had a cash balance of $7,834,552. Preliminary fund report for March has also been included in your board packets, but we have not yet finished reconciling that month yet. Cash flow, including the month of February, showing the flow of revenue and expenses during that month for the education referendum and operations funds is also included in your board packets. Super. Thank

219you both. Um let's go backwards today and we'll start with a fueway for her board reports. Um the glass meeting will be tomorrow at uh 2:00 and in the Dton Dunton building and on the 9inth Street. Okay. Any public is welcome to make comments there. Thank you. Thank you, Rachel. Just a reminder to everybody, the ISBA regional meeting is on May the 5th um at the Beck Agricultural Center. If you have RSVPd, I will see you there. Um notes from the WLS. Uh so this is exciting news. The final tally from the March 1st Scarlet and Grey dinner and auction was $47,000 raised raised for um WLSCF programs that support our schools. and and Wendy would like to pass along her gratitude to all who participated in the event. Last week, the teacher grant committee

220sent out notifications to all of those who applied for a grant. Six grants were fully funded for a total of $5,724.99. The total awarded to West Lafayette teachers this school year is $12,484.50. uh two great days with the wall of pride class on Thursday and Friday, April 10th and 11th. Uh as we've heard, the honores met with classes in addition to um the other activities that they did. Um the WLS is very grateful to partner with Mr. Rogers and appreciates his efforts. Um the school looked great, the posters looked great, um and the student to the student host um really shown. So, thank you for that. Um, and finally, the WLSF will host the annual scholarship re reception that is on Thursday evening, May the 22nd that recognizes this year's scholarship recipients and the donors

221who provide scholarships for our seniors. If you have not attended that one in the past, it is a great opportunity separate from commencement to really um congratulate some of our seniors. I think that's all from me. Great. Thank you, David. Again, a reminder, Kase and Family Park grand opening on May 22nd. Um, should be a lot of fun, great park. Um, there it was a relatively light meeting at Parks and Wreck. Um, there are a couple research studies that we approved that are going on at Celery Evog. Um, for anybody that didn't know, you can do research studies with approval uh there. Um, and it's a wide range of topics. Um and then uh the wellness center has been really active and busy through uh throughout the week. Um transitioning from winter sports and all

222the kids playing basketball um to to spring. Um yesterday they had right yesterday, no Saturday they had the um the egg hunt where they had 25,000 eggs that the kids just scooped up in like 30 seconds because it's like a horde of locusts going after those eggs. But it's really cute and a lot of fun. Great. Thank you, Dea. Um the public schools foundation cupcake run is September 21st. Registration's open and early bird pricing is open until the end of April. Okay. Thank you, Lawrence. Yeah, I joined join uh I joined the uh community council the first time uh last week and uh we see uh local the libraries uh PU first ladies organization uh office uh superintendent principles uh so it was very good meetings. Great. Thank you. Thank you George. One second. Yep.

223I'm sorry. I'm sure you have a lot to say with the legislative. I do. Yeah. Brace yourselves everyone. Yeah. Turn on your microphone then we can race you know. All right. So um there is a lot uh uh for local matters. Um the Indiana state budget in that's uh being discussed in the Senate no longer contains provisions for universal private school vouchers due to cost concerns. However, the House version still does. So, that'll have to be reconciled before it gets to the governor's desk. Uh the uh West Lafayette City Council will have a vote on SKH Heinix's resoning request on May 5th. Uh PRF and SK Hinx will hold they're planning on holding listening sessions uh leading up to that vote. and I and I believe uh UA and Lawrence were also at the first

224listening session where they had representatives from the company and representatives from PRF there attempting to answer questions. Uh one thing that people should know if they're following this issue is that there are two plots of land in play. uh site B what they are constantly referring to in this latest round of discussions is what they want to reszone from its current designation to something called I3. So it's a specific kind of industrial zone. Uh there is already another site directly next to it that's zoned exactly the way it needs to be zoned for them to use it. So, even if the West Lafayette City Council denies this resoning motion, Esking Heinix and PRF, um, granted they will probably have to do it with a a lot of concern and a little bit of public protest

225could go ahead with site A as planned without any other intervention. So, if there's anybody that wants to have their voice heard, they should go ahead and attend those uh public sessions and they can check in with uh the folks at PRF to learn more information about when those are going to be. Uh, also on another note, uh, Indiana has had several measles cases now. Uh, so, uh, everybody be aware of that and make sure that you've done what you need to do to protect your family from measles. And then we can continue on to things going on in the state house. Indiana Senate Bill 289. The author of that bill is attempting to, I'll put this in quotes, codify the uh, Trump and Brun executive orders banning DEI. Now that bill has been watered

226down a little bit since it's the original version. For example, uh universities can still have their cultural centers. Current laws on uh preferences and minority contracting will still apply. But one specific change that they made was that uh for some scholarships for state institutions. They've changed the qualifications from being a minority to being a resident of what they call an underserved county. Now, the problem with this is they only list six or seven counties that are underserved and any individual person that is underserved in any other county is going to get excluded with this new language. So, that presents a problem for a community like ours where there may be some underserved students in a county that is not considered underserved. SB1 uh is still on the table. In its current form, homeowners save roughly

227$300 in property taxes. Uh the problem is that the way the bill is currently written and um I'll always um be willing to be corrected if I'm wrong on this, but uh another provision in the bill in its current form gives local municipalities the power to either increase or create their own income taxes. So, we have an odd scenario where people may be saving money on property tax, but they may face an increase in personal income tax at the local level to make up for the shortfall. Because otherwise, if the tax bill goes on as written and nothing is done, municipalities across the state will be facing a shortfall of roughly a billion dollars and educational institutions will bear the brunt of that. Now, interestingly, Lieutenant Governor Beckwith doesn't support this, and he's actually been

228openly lobbying Governor Brawn to veto it. There is also some reconciliations that still have to happen between the House version and the Senate version, but it's still up in the air. This likely will get passed, but there's no guarantee that's going to get passed in its current form. Uh, this one is of particular interest to us. um any Senate bill 244 could mandate adding a video of a pregnancy ultrasound to elementary level sex education courses. Of course, participation in sex ed is still subject to parental consent. So, what you have here is a bill that's designed to uh show the results of non-abstinence despite the fact that we are supposed to emphasize abstinence and sex education. So, we've got that. Indiana Senate Bill 255 would allow high school students to replace an elective course with

229a religious instruction course. Now, this is a uh modification to existing laws. Existing law applies at all age levels where students can miss up to 120 minutes of school instruction per week for religious instruction. This is an attempt to essentially carve out class time for high school students to make it fit more in line with their schedules. Uh the partisan schoolboard bill um Indiana SP287 has passed both houses. However, this is another bill that can't go to the governor's desk because there are some discrepancies between the House version and the Senate version. Uh if they can't reconcile it, the bill won't pass. Uh the current version right now that they're arguing about, uh the difference is whether or not schoolboard candidates will have to go through a primary. uh one version has it, the other

230version doesn't. And then finally, there are some federal things that are uh affecting us. So, uh there's been a letter sent out from the federal department of education to the states asking them to certify that they aren't engaging in illegal DEI. Never mind the difficulty in defining what illegal DEI is, but uh some school districts have signed the letter, some have not. Two major school districts that have not signed it are New York City public schools and the LA Unified School District. So that's, you know, school districts represent nearly two million students that have refused to do that. Um, ICE is continuing to do whatever it can to reach inside schools to reach uh migrant students. Uh, some school districts, particularly in Chicago, have had a success in telling them no. Uh so far they

231have not forced their way in but with the way things are going I it may only be a matter of time before they finally decide to do that. And then on a slightly lighter note Google is facing a lawsuit from uh parents and teachers out west in California, Arizona and Oregon and they claim that Google is using student data to do product marketing. uh under the terms of their standard education contract, they not supposed to do this, but the plaintiffs apparently think that Google's either ignoring their own contract language or exploiting some kind of loophole. So there may be some developments on that score because we use Google technologies here in this district district and that decision could potentially filter out to us. And that's all I got. Wow, that is a lot to keep

232track of. Thank you very much for all those updates. Um, mine are a little lighter. Um, at the RDC meeting, um, they showed some very cool renderings of the new public safety center, which will be located where the West Lafayette Police Department is now. They're going to expand that building and include the existing building in the expansion, and it will house both the fire department and the um, police department. And a notable improvement is that the um fire trucks will be able to pull straight through rather than having to do a 12-point turnaround in front of uh fresh time there. And also that they will have a decontamination area for their gear, which will um increase the safety and health of our firefighters. And um both the RDC and the board teacher discussion meetings are

233this week. Um finally I would like to congratulate all of us on achieving the rating of advanced as a group for the exemplary governance awards from ISBA. Um the individuals who leveled up are uh myself I achieved level three which is distinguished and UI um achieved level two which is advanced and Lawrence achieved level three which is distinguished. And for our newer members, you achieve those by um attending training and you receive points, different amounts of points for different meetings. So the the dinner um in the fall and spring is I think 10 and uh the um fall conference is not nearly enough at like 25 because that's a several day commitment. But um you work through the levels and I'm sure Rachel achieved level four years ago, but we uh That's what we're working

234on. So, um, with that, I will list the future meeting, the work session. Um, we do have the opportunity to work from 5 to 5:30, but I'm not sure that would be very um, uh, productive. And the retirement banquet or recognition starts at 5:30 in this location. So, we'll probably just be here then, unless I inform you otherwise. And the regular board meeting will begin at 6 on May 12th. Um, same day. And uh, as Dr. Grryer said, there's a Yeah, I'm sorry. The, uh, retirement is in June. Oh, shoot. Really? I've been wrong all month. Okay. Well, forget it. We may do a work session. I'll let you know. Um, good night. Uh, and the snow makeup day we already talked about. Anybody else have anything for the good of the order? Is there

235a motion? Rachel, is there a second? George. Uh, all those in favor, please hit buttons. There we go. We are adjourned at 8:38. Thank you.