WLCSC - Regular Board Meeting October 9, 2023

001I going to call to order the I should check are you okay Mr Hamilton okay I'm going to call to order the um Monday October 9th 2023 regular meeting of the West Lafayette Community School Corporation Board of Trustees um we have got um quite a bit here early on in the agenda um I am going to ask the board uh for a little bit of a rearrangement of things if possible um we have uh first a student recognition which we will do first and then I would like to if possible we are having an informationon presentation um from Dr lifto which is our community survey presentation Dr lifto has to leave to drive uh back home this evening and would like to leave uh after his presentation so um I would appreciate the board's consideration

002of moving him ahead of everything um after special recognition so just his one presentation item number five uh would move up under special recognition and then we'll move forward with um communication from the audience and routine business um from that point um could I entertain a motion for that please so move by Mr Wong second uh by Mrs Austin anybody any concerns with that rearrangement of our agenda this evening all of those in favor please indicate with a show of hands that motion carries um and then we will uh revisit the the rest of the agenda when we come back so with that said I would like to interrup introduce excuse me not interrupt because that'd be very rude Mrs Saros I would like to introduce Margaret Saros who has got a recognition here from

003our West lafette Intermediate School that would be wonderful please so that those on live stream can hear and you can pull that out of there if if you want to that might be easier mhm so we have the privilege of having three months that we get to celebrate our students from our building here we celebrate them every day but here in this setting we have uh the privilege of bringing students to our board meetings to recognize them and so one of the important things that we thought is it's nice to be able to share a little bit of all the aspects of things that we do in school and so tonight we're celebrating our Athletics and we have our PE teachers here to help with that um we will be celebrating our academics and our

004Arts later in the um future board meetings as well I uh want to take us back to September 20th where some of the uh great events happened and our fourth fifth and sixth graders participated in the cross country Championship under the leadership of Mr leguire and Mrs fry I'm going to turn things over to them so they could tell you a little bit more and introduce our students thank you very much uh would just like to kind of explain our mile run unit culminates with our mile run Championship where we take our top 20 uh top 20 times from our boys and our girls of each grade grade level and we are honored to be able to have a race uh to let these students compete to to really kind of explore what some of

005their limits are and develop kind of um you know an ultimate Challenge to end our unit with uh we have three of our students with us here tonight I just kind of like to tell you a little bit about how they you know our three or our six Champions I'll go ahead and mention them all our fourth grade Champion is here uh she had a time of six six minutes and 53 seconds winning the the fourth grade girls ra uh race that would be Violet Bosch which you like to come on up come on up so now she is a one-time champion and uh this may be something that she can add on to in the future but that is a really good job you just kind of stand with us up here uh we

006also have our fourth grade boys Champion here he set a new record which is now in our gymnasium on the wall uh he had a time of 6 minutes and 22 seconds all of these children would beat me in a mile I know that much uh James Johnson come on up our new record holder fourth grade Champion now I would say that she was running late but she's never relate to anything if she's running this fast uh we have our fifth grade Champion also set a record and is a two-time two-time champion and two-time record holder as a fourth grader and a fifth grader her record time this year as a fifth grade girl was six minutes and 33 seconds our fifth grade Champion mny clampus Morales please come on [Applause] up all right he

007is not with us today but our fifth grade Champion with a time of 6 minutes and 12 seconds unless I'm not seeing him correctly bow Salem he was our fifth grade boys Champion moving to the sixth grade Champion uh with a time of 633 sixth grade Champion also not here Meredith Andrew and we also have our sixth grade boys Champion uh at a time of 601 uh also a fifth grade record holder and fifth grade Champion so two-time Champion Pierce The Rock let's come on up and hear for him I think this is a great opportunity for uh you know children to be you know celebrated and also just give them an opportunity uh to be able to give their best in a competitive way uh I just think it's a great opportunity for these

008kids I really enjoy this event each year when we have it um I just think it's a great end to our cross country unit I have to tell you the funniest thing happened so one of our students that one who's not here tonight ran in Crocs and I I went to Mrs fry and I was like Mrs fry does he need shoes did he forget his shoes or what's going on and she said no he tested it and he ran faster in his Crocs so he decided he was going to run in his Crocs that day and he did an outstanding job clearly he got first so I think Crocs needs to uh advertise using our student cuz they probably do some great things with that thank you all so much I think um if

009we can get a group picture is that [Applause] okay so students and families you are welcome to stay and watch the rest of the meeting but if you would like to leave we will not in any way be offended I'm sure there's homework on your schedule and other things like that so so again I thank the board for their flexibility and I invite Dr lifto to come forward with the Morris Leatherman Community survey presentation thank you very much members of the Board of Trustees administrative staff and other people here tonight I'm happy to be here um just an a quick uh overview of who I am and where I come from and what I do um I was telling some of your staff over lunch today that I started my career as a superintendent I

010did that for 25 years and during that time um I ran 12 referendum ballot questions and um so I was very busy at work either planning one um running one or recovering from one fortunately 10 out of the 12 did pass and then while I was doing that I was also at the University of Minnesota doing a PhD studying uh why referenda fail and why they pass and what's the difference so uh that's what I come to this uh with in terms of my uh my background um I'm going to be looking over my right shoulder at the screen and over this way to look at all of you so I'll do the best I can with that in terms of the um General overview of what we did in the parameters of what we

011did uh we ended up uh completing 400 uh random sample uh interviews of registered voters living within the boundaries of the school corporation uh to put that into some context uh if you on the way home tonight have your radio on and you hear news about a national survey that was done uh the number of interviews typically conducted for a national survey range from 12200 to to 1500 so think about 1,200 to 300 million uh compared to 400 for your school corporation uh this is a a a good size sample to provide uh information for planning purposes the length of the questionnaire was uh 35 probes and I was mentioning that most of the research for phone survey suggest uh kind of a sweet spot of 8 to 12 minutes on the phone and so

012you were right in the middle of that that range uh the margin of error based on those 400 completed calls is plus or minus 4.8 uh it's easier to round that off to five so if you see a slide up here that says that 50% of the people thought the sky was blue uh if you add 5% to that and subtract 5% there's a 95% chance that that would represent the opinions of everybody uh W within the school corporation the random sample interviews that were done uh did include demographic targets and I'll go there's a slide that I'll talk a little bit more about what those targets were uh the idea of having demographic targets is even though you're doing random samp Le calling you don't want to inadvertently end up with talking to uh

013you know 65% men and 35% women or way too many parents uh as compared to what uh would be their representative size that you'd want to talk to and so I'll talk a little bit more about those uh targets all of the targets that you'll see that I'll go through tonight uh were within 3.6% of what they should should have been so the targeting worked very very well here are the four uh areas that we looked at specifically uh age gender parent status and and voting history um the only one that needs more explanation would be the last one which is voting history what we do with with that particular Target is we look at each registered voter and see how many times out of the last nine uh did they cast a ballot when

014they had an opportunity to cast cast a ballot and you'll see slides later on that will be talking about very active voters active voters and less active voters and I'll go into a little bit more detail on that uh when I get to it but the idea again of these four targets is if 54% of registered voters are women we want to have about 54% of our random calls be with women uh if 20% of registered voters are over 65 we want to have about 20% of our random calls done with people over 65 so the idea with the targets is the uh targeting produces a sample of 400 that closely mirrors the actual demographics of all registered voters there were two uh sections uh in the survey um the uh part of the survey

015measured people's opinions generally about the school corporation um there its performance its standing uh how how it's viewed uh and then part of the survey focused more on your renewal of uh your uh referendum Levy that's coming up uh next month the last part of the section did uh probe a little bit in terms of how people uh receive their information did they did they get it primarily from print sources primarily from uh Word of Mouth from elect electronic sources and I'll go into those in a little bit more detail in a minute early in the survey uh we have kind of a warm-up question and uh this particular question has been asked by F Fidel deapa Gallop for I think close to 60 years uh you're the teacher for the day give your uh

016local public schools a grade AB b c DF and the nice thing about uh uh using that particular probe is we have permission from F deltaa to use it uh when we do school surveys like we did here and that gives you an opportunity to see how people responded uh in West Lafayette but also you can then compare to the the national sample and so here's the response uh from the 400 uh interviews that we completed uh as you can see uh 84% responding uh that the school corporation deserves either an A or a B uh that is an an excellent response uh and certainly puts uh your school corporation in the top 10% of of surveys that I've been involved with um in in multiple States over the years uh in the ratio of

017positive responses to negative is very very high and and very strong now we're going to move then from that finding to comparing it to uh how people responded in that National fi Delta Capa pole and so in this particular slide uh you're seeing the results uh from Wes lafette in the blue and then the results of the national sample uh in in kind of the burnt orange hold on for a second okay and yes it is do I need to be pointing back there as I when we advance okay all right I think this is what where we were um naturally when you did so well on that particular probe you're going to compare very very well to the National sample so um very positive result there as a followup to the question uh where

018they gave the uh School Corporation a grade ABC D or F people were asked to followup to say what was the the basis for that what was the main reason for for your particular grade and in this particular case the personal experience those were mostly parents children's experience which is the uh orange and then going clockwise around friends and neighbors uh what they had to say about things was the third uh reason for giving the grade that they gave the second quality qualitative question uh asked people to grade the financial management of the school corporation and that was set up the same way ABCD or F it's okay and here you can see that 64% uh almost 2third uh gave the school corporation an A or a b and and once again the the ratio

019of the highest marks to the lowest marks uh was very very positive I I've probably done a presentation like this a couple hundred times uh and just so you're aware that the grade for the financial management never is as high as the more General grade for the school corporation um most of the media uh things that we hear uh are not um positive in nature about school finances so don't be surprised that it isn't quite up as high as the that first probe that we talked about so now we're moving into a section where people were asked to respond and react uh to a number of statements and um essentially measuring their level of agreement with each statement and so starting with q15 at the top um these are all condensed from the actual language

020in in the survey itself uh but q15 relates to uh that the public schools here are doing a good job uh keeping students safe and so on the chart what you're seeing is that 93% that's uh on the in the orange part of that bar that's adding up uh the people who strongly agreed with that statement and those who agreed so the combination of strongly agree and agreed was 93% then to the right of that uh in the kind of the light green uh is the percentage of people who disagreed with that statement and then the number in the far right is no opinion uh so all of these uh are similar uh people receive a good value for the investment uh in in the public schools uh Public Schools help students achieve High academic

021performance uh the community has trust and confidence in the professional teaching staff Public Schools help students prepare for college uh in each case when you look at that number in the orange it's adding up the percentage of people who strongly agreed with that statement as compared to those who agreed um all of these of course as you can tell are uh very strong positive responses these are continuing with the same types of questions again we're measuring to what extent people agree or disagree Public Schools help students prepare for future careers the school corporation involves the community and decisions public schools are among the best according to US News and World Report Board of Tres Acts in the best interest of students and families uh so this slide uh finishes up uh that section of um

022measuring to what extent people agreed or disagreed with with each of these statements now you of course are only seeing the the rolled up number for the 400 uh the additional detailed data that we've provided will give uh the School Corp Corporation an opportunity to dig in and say what did people over 65 say what did women say versus men uh what did young people say versus older people uh and so that would be uh you know peeling the onion back and going more deeply uh into the data analysis now the previous slide that I went through in this one uh for the these statements the uh agreement averaged about 88% if you looked at all of these overall and this in that includes the uh grading the district a through F and and grading

023the financial management a through F uh so overall um very very positive so now we're making a transition from qualitative uh kinds of responses where people are telling you what they think about the school corporation generally and now we're talking more specifically about the referendum coming up uh in November so when we went into this section we started with a brief general statement about the proposed 8-year renewal of that referendum originally approved in 2010 a little bit about uh how much money we're talking about in terms of uh Revenue that goes to teaching and learning as a result of that uh uh how big a percentage of the budget is and then based on that brief introduction asking people to uh tell us based on what you know now would you favor or oppose renewal

024sometimes this is called the uninformed Benchmark uh not that people are uninformed but all they've heard is what you've just looked at on the screen uh which is not a lot of detail and you uh the school corporation started off very very positive um it it's would be it's quite unusual that I would see 76% initial support uh in a survey uh more typically it would be between 50 and 60 so a good strong start following that that initial reaction uh to Renewal uh of the levy uh there were nine more specific pieces of information uh that were provided to people and essentially in this part of the survey uh we're providing the respondents with with the detail context examples uh and seeing how they react uh to each of them um when the when

025we were actually on the phone with people uh the order that people heard these uh were randomized so even though there were nine of them it wasn't the same list of nine where one thing was always the ninth one they heard and something else was always the first so they were randomized to minimize the extent to which the order that they heard them had any effect on uh the responses so for each statement please tell me if knowing that would make you more likely or less likely uh to to support the renewal and so these next couple slides look a lot like the ones you saw before except now we're focused on the uh the levy renewal so up at the top q22 uh with renewal of the levy we're going to be able to

026maintain competitive compensation to attract and retain quality staff now similar to the the readout that we went through on the slides previously if you look at that 76% in the orange uh that's adding up uh the people who uh said that that would make them much more likely to be supportive of the levy with those who said it would make them somewhat more likely to support the levy so it's adding up the two most positive responses from the school corporation's point of view now you can just take a quick eyeball of this page uh they're all in that 76 to 78% range uh so partly that tells me that the in designing the questions and working with your administrative staff uh they selected some relevant uh good things to test uh and um all of

027them uh did did very well remember the second number you're seeing in the light uh green is the percentage of people who said that would make me less likely or much less likely to support it and then the number on the far right are the undecided no opinion U respondents so in this particular case we talked about attracting and retaining quality staff uh some idea of what kind of budget cuts would be required if it wasn't renewed maintaining core programs that help students uh who might be struggling academically maintaining extracurriculars maintaining current class sizes all with very similar uh responses this is continu contining with the last five uh in this section remembering that they were randomized so that these this is not the order that everyone heard them in um there's one uh little

028deviation I'll point out to you on this slide uh you see there at the bottom there's a 28b and a 28a uh that's called a split sample probe and what that means is for 28b uh half of the people or 200 respondents randomly heard the B question but not the A and the other heard the a question but not the B um sometimes these are used to test uh language differences uh in this particular case uh they were just two different uh topics Athletics and and the Fine Arts so we've gone through n uh examples uh detail context to help people understand a little bit more deeply what this is all about then we come back uh with uh what's called the informed Benchmark I've told you a little bit more about this uh tell

029me again uh what do you think and here you're seeing that support moved from 76.3 to 78 uh now the good news is it moved North and you want it to move north um there really is no bad news uh other than it's within the margin of eror so while those two bars look different uh they may may not be different once you do that plus and minus 4.8 that we talked about before uh one thing to keep in mind uh here uh sometimes uh you know clients might be disappointed didn't move a little more but when you start at 76.3 there isn't much room to move north uh realistically so uh this is a positive response uh and uh what you'd like to see now the next section of the PowerPoint uh takes a

030look at how different demographic groups respond resped uh so far we haven't talked anything about Taxation and and what that has to do with this at all uh so what we're doing now is we're going into these seven demographic groups and what you're going to be seeing is charts that will show how they responded after they had information after they heard those nine examples so the first one is the parent status uh over on the on the left in the blue parents are people who said I've got one or more uh young people in the West Lafayette at schools right now uh in the middle are people who said I've never had kids uh in the school corporation and over on the right are people who said I used to have kids in the school

031corporation but not anymore so they're categorized as alumni parents one of the most striking things about this to me and you can see it visually it's almost flat which is really remarkable uh more commonly uh we'd see parents and non-parents dropping off U you know 5 to 10% or so uh in most most of the surveys so uh that would be you know a takeaway that would be positive from from my experience so on the left we're seeing uh male female um 90% of the time when I do projects like this for school districts the support from females is higher uh than for males uh here it's pretty close and again with that margin of error uh it could even be overlapping the other way uh on the right hand side you're seeing the support

032based on age and uh that profile is pretty much what we almost always see uh with the strongest support coming from the the age groups that would be most likely to have uh you know children uh either who have attended or are attending currently again uh a positive from from my experience uh it isn't too often that we' see 64 Point 3% support from people over 65 years old so that's also a a positive Takeaway on the left you're seeing support based on past voting activity uh this relates to the comment I made earlier that when we get when we have our databases of uh registered voter information uh we look at each person and see how many times out of the last nine times where you could have voted did you vote and then

033we basically separate them into uh three buckets so uh the blue bucket the the less and new are people who uh vote have voted in uh Zer to two two out of the last nine times uh or the last nine elections where they could have voted 0 to two now the reason it says less and new uh for an 18-year-old uh she or he might have had only one chance to vote which would automatically put them in a you know e either a zero out of nine or a one out of nine so it's a combination of new voters and other voters who for what ever reason don't exercise their right to vote very often so again the blue is 0 to two out of nine uh the middle one active are people who voted

034in three to five times out of the last nine elections and the ones on the right uh have voted in six or more out of the last nine uh where this be can can become helpful information for planning purposes uh is that in AUD year elections like a November 2023 uh when all the ballots are in the ballot boxes uh people who are very active voters and active will will um will be in The Ballot Box uh uh larger than their proportion of the of of of all voters if that makes sense to you uh very active voters um I think in your District 20% are very active voters but I guarantee you that when when you look at the ballots uh more than 20% of the ballots cast will be from very active voters

035does that make sense on the right you're seeing homeowner uh renter uh 90% of the time we see a stronger support from uh renters than homeowners uh after 33 years of owning a home I'm now a renter and many renters don't connect the dot or dots between uh property taxes and my rent and so that's very very common where renters are more supportive continuing with the demographic results on the left you're seeing uh support based on household income and uh this is a graph that I would say um does not have a standard uh result where I can tell you that you know yours is just like what we normally see uh they typically you know bounce around a little bit uh I would tell you that generally speaking uh somewhat higher levels of household

036income usually translate into higher levels of support generally speaking and then on the on the right you're seeing uh support based on educational attainment uh and again similar to what I said about U income usually uh somewhat higher levels of educational attainment translate into somewhat higher levels of support not always but usually now uh we're at what is called the third Benchmark now remember we started with that uninformed Benchmark just a couple short little paragraphs and then they got nine pieces of information and we we asked them again what they thought the third Benchmark uh provides the respondents with some understanding of what does this renewal of the levy mean in terms of my property taxes uh and in your situation uh as you know the property tax rate would be the same as it's

037been for the last 13 years uh and so we told people that and then asked them uh based on knowing that uh what what is your level of support and that is the little green box over on the right similar to what I said before uh it's moving the right direction U but uh it's very tight from each of those three benchmarks and not statistically significant which means the differences are less than that 4.8 margin of error at the last section of the survey as as I mentioned tested uh how people got their information um and in this particular case the initial question asked if they got it primarily from print materials Word of Mouth or from electronic sources and so this is how uh it started uh with about 29% saying I get my

038stuff from from print 39 saying Word of Mouth 29 saying online now after collecting the initial response from people that you're seeing on on this particular slide uh when I when I go to the next slide we're looking at just the people who said printed materials so for the people who said I get my stuff from printed materials the followup was what printed materials and that's what you're seeing on on this particular slide so the journal and The Courier um are dominate dominating uh the print um for for the people who get their stuff by print now uh for people who uh back here said no I get my stuff from Word of Mouth their follow-up question was who word of mouth and as you can see uh friends and neighbors uh dominate this particular

039slide uh and for those who didn't say that pretty much everyone else said said teachers and staff and for those on the first question who said no I get my stuff from electronic uh the followup was what electronic uh and here uh it's it's certainly positive that the school website is uh coming in uh at that 50% as the primary way that people get stuff electronically and then if going clockwise the social media uh is the 36% and those are really the the two that dominated the responses now there was a followup question for those who said social media they were asked what social media and that's that little notation uh at the bottom with 53% said Facebook and 35% Twitter SLX so in terms of just some quick summary slides of what I went

040through uh as it relates specifically to the uh referendum renewal uh the uninformed Benchmark the response that people gave just based on a little bit of information in a couple short paragraphs started at 76% after people got more information it moved to 78% and when they found out their not be a tax increase it mov to 78 and a half per. in terms of the the nine things that were tested in the middle um related to class sizes related to programs for kids who were behind academically those nine uh the positive responses uh range from 78% to 61% and when I say positive what that means is people were saying if knowing that would make me very likely to support it or somewhat likely so it's those two positive categories uh at the 78% negatives

041range from 7 to 27% the greatest positive uh impact uh came from maintaining competitive compensation so the school corporation can attract and keep quality people uh and the uh not being interested in 7 million in budget cuts relatively smaller positive impacts uh from maintaining arts and athletic programs um and comparison of per pupil funding compared to the rest of the state in terms of demographic support strongest support 35 to 44 year olds not surprising that's a big parent range in terms of age and renters low or support comparatively from people over 55 households with annual income between 75 and 100,000 84% gave the school corporation an a orb uh which is outstanding grades were well well better than the F Delta cap National survey and I should have mentioned on that F Delta Kappa National

042survey that is Apples to Apples so in that survey people are not great gring the nation Schools they're grading their individual school with the same language uh as we used here in West Lafayette 64% almost 23ds A or B in financial management the community perceptions uh those were the things we talked about early in the survey uh West Lafayette uh the investment in schools is a good value for the community uh people can the people teaching our kids can be trusted all those value statements at the beginning of the survey uh range the positive responses range from 93% to 75% and I mentioned the average was somewhere around 87 88% people who disagreed with those statements range from 4 to 20% highest level of agreement related to school safety and a good value for the

043the money we invest we're getting a good value in return uh belief that the Board of Trustees makes decisions in the best interest of students and their families was slightly lower uh but uh still at 75% agreement uh so comparatively lower uh but still most of the clients that I would be working with would be very happy with 75% um and on the uh information 39% rely on Word of Mouth printed electronic materials were right around 29% each and that is it specifically Dr Yen thanks yeah I have some questions and so I'm wondering about the the main question is the implication for us so in terms of campaign and so there are some kind of related questions and first for the the sampling and it sounds like you did the stratified sampling right so

044for different to cover different Democrats Dem demographic information and so I wonder and so there's one information is about the districts you know there we have different uh voting districts in the in our district I wonder is there any way to check and that information and uh sort of for to get idea about you know which area we in which area we have more vots and in which area we need more votes and so that way if we do any campaign we can focus on those are that we probably can get more votes and uh that's one and also I'm also wondering about any followup questions about why do people not support USS is there any way for us to persuade them to to support ours and because that's another kind of implication for this

045survey study and another question I have is about like the response rate and because you know when you call people to do this survey I guess some people will say no I'm not doing this I don't have time or whatever I wonder and like uh what do did you track let let me start with the last one and then I'll see if I can remember the first two okay sure um the in the in the hundreds of surveys I've been involved with over the years the uh refusal rate uh typically runs a about 10% and what I say what I mean by refusal rate is when I call you you answer the phone I tell you who I am and why I'm calling and you say no that's refusal uh if someone has chosen randomly

046to participate but it goes to uh you know a voicemail uh we'll try as many as 10 times to connect with that person including leaving information on on the on the voicemail and giving him a chance to call back and do it before we kind of give up and move on so uh the response rate is really quite good and and better than what you might think it would be kind of intuitively uh the reason it's pretty good is nothing unique to what we do but you're calling to solicit opinions about their local public schools uh and you know you compare that purpose to a political poll or you know any other kind of poll you're going to have lots of people saying no including me so because you're talking about something that's so Central

047and important to people the response rate is really quite good uh on your first question about um demographic breakdown um the place to start with that is we've provided uh about a 30 page detailed report uh where you can look at every single question in the survey and then see uh how people responded who were 18 to 24 how people responded who were 25 to 36 how did women respond how did men respond um uh uh how did parents respond how did non-parents respond and so in terms of um peeling the onion back and looking for opportunities to um gain gain support or persuade that would be the the first place you know to start in terms of what we provided to the school corporation with this particular project um your middle question remind me

048again so it so yeah just a kind of follow follow up and so then when you answer the first question about the refusal rate and sounds like the current uh sample probably can well represent the the voters because the refusal rate is fairly low right yeah Y and and as I mentioned the the we were we were within 3.6% of every Target and and then there was also statistical reweighing to the extent that we were off a little bit so the sample of 400 uh closely mirrors those key demographics okay and so as for the PE the onion and so my question about the another variable and to like a different way to peel the onion is the districts like is there any way to track like from which area we don't have enough support

049so we can let's say campaign distribute a flyers or knock on doers and to get more support from those areas because you know for the other demographic information like a gender I'm not sure how I'll like talk to more men male to get their support it's a little bit kind of more difficult to operate there there is isn't anything uh in the in the data that would uh give you a breakdown geographically whether that be by ZIP code or Ward or or Precinct and um sometimes uh that's done and sometimes it isn't done oftentimes when the geography of the uh School Corporation is really small uh and there aren't as distinct areas um it's not done and so on this particular survey there is nothing geographical okay and there's no way to treat back to

050let's say you you have the current data you know you have certain response um participants who voted who said no And so there's no like a voter registration information about where those people typically live or something like that not not in the data analysis and and the support levels uh were so strong and and mostly uniform I don't know there's a great opportunity to to get a lot of added value out of out of that approach in this particular case okay and my uh s Dr um if you'll excuse me could I allow other members to also ask questions and then I'll come back to you for the second round of questions if there anymore he asked me the third question I asked I'm sorry I thought he answered them already okay yeah the third

051question was uh whether you ask the reason why people decide not to support we do not okay okay thanks um any other members with any questions for Dr lifto yes so in all years you've been doing this how what's your accuracy in terms of we've got a good result here right so it lead you to believe that we might win this GFR how often are you correct uh if we if uh if we look at the last uh four years of all the surveys that I've been involved with similar to this one um the um roughly two two thirds of the time the vote on Election Day fell within the margin of error what what the survey predicted so if the survey predicted 77% yes vote on on Election Day two-thirds of the time it

052was between 702 and 82 at plus or minus 5% okay um not perfect um but from my experience pretty good good thank you Mr sh I don't want to be flipping with this question but any advice on what we should not do to screw it up well um the you know my my big pitch to you and to clients with similar results uh focuses on avoiding the the CW any idea what the c-word might be second second letter is O complacency um when when you have ode elections like like a November 2023 uh it's not the least bit unusual that parent turnout is under 40% um and sometimes uh when people are hearing positive news about the levy and about the survey that was done you don't want them to come to the conclusion I

053don't have to vote it's going to pass uh so I would I'd be working hard to avoid complacency um and particularity with parents because parents are famous for not showing up in odear elections let asked any other questions Mr Wong Mrs mford Mrs Austin okay thank you Dr lifto we appreciate your time here this evening it was a pleasure working with you and if there are follow-up questions that you didn't get answered that you want a little more information about uh let Dr grer know and he can get a hold of me and I'll try to get back to you so good luck thank you thank you very much thank you Dr okay we are going to uh move back to communication from the audience uh we do have a list of nine individuals who

054have signed up this evening um just as a reminder to all of those who have signed up I will call you up you will have three minutes to speak um and I do also want to remind everyone here present um of board policy 16 7.3 this is a bylaw policy that says that comments must be about programs policies or procedures comments about building staff Andor children other than the speaker's child or children shall not be heard in public session so with that said I will call you up in the order that you have signed up um I'm going to apologize on pronunciations I believe a Jerry goo you switch the order I know but you just want to move him down is that what what we're doing all right um Becky cree and Mrs Austin

055will have your timer and she'll wave you down all right so I'm Becky Cree I'm a West Lafayette parent and high school science teacher and I want to thank you for the opportunity to share some thoughts from a teacher's perspective while I do not claim to speak for all teachers I would like to share some concerns that my colleagues have discussed with me in my 26 year teaching career I been a proud teacher of the West Lafayette schools for 11 years one of the main reasons I wanted to teach here was to join the positive and collaborative effort among the board administrators and teachers an integral part of that collaboration was the trust and support the board provided the professionals hired to lead and teach our students however that collaborative effort is being dismantled by

056the enormous number of questions that are posed by the board about the day-to-day operations of our schools instead of working together to ensure our students have the resources they need by focusing on passing the referendum and combating ridiculous State legislation our board has opted to focus on the minutia honestly as teachers we feel attacked by the lack of trust our board has for us and our administrators while these questions are not posed directly to us we feel the added stress our administrators have in dealing with the micromanaging by the school board instead of our administrators being able to interact with us and our students they are in their offices responding to board questions the school board has done a great job hiring a wonderful superintendent doct Griner has ensured that we have excellent School administrators

057our principes have hired the best teachers they could it is now time for the school board to trust these people to do their jobs when our work is constantly micromanaged it erodes our school culture that had previously been built on trust and cooperation as teachers feeling supported by the administration the board and the community is a critical piece of our formula for success and our ability to do our jobs is one of the key pieces of the world-class educational experience we wish to provide for our students please help us do our jobs by letting us do our jobs thank you thank you Mrs gree um up next uh Graham wicom I like my own clock thank you but you go ahead and time that's what I'm gonna do if I can I got you I've

058gotta see it or I'm gonna there we go okay good evening my name is grah wicom I'm the AP Physics teacher at the high school uh the new wlea co-president and the parent of three Westside students I've taught physics and math for the past eight years at Westside and I find myself continually impressed by the amazing things that we can do when we work together I'm here tonight to thank the school board thank you and Dr Griner and the whole team for the excellent bargaining effort we just completed the whole wlea would like to express our gratitude both for the fairness of the new contract and for how efficient the process of reaching a tentative agreement was Dr Griner artfully demonstrated how efficient what sorry his professionalism and attention to detail as he and his

059team negotiated very reasonably with the full authorization of the school board now I would bet anything that there were plenty of disagreements beforehand about what Dr Grinder was allowed to offer and how he was to negotiate but it's only through all of us working together and relying on each other that we can get the business of the corporation done the wlea negotiated with Dr Griner in full faith that what we agreed upon would be honored and I'm personally very grateful that we are able to make efforts like this together as a corporation and a community excuse me I also want to encourage everyone to remain focused on the most immediate issues affecting our community if for some reason the referendum does not pass than minor changes to enrollment rules or the corporation budget or things

060like that will not matter at all this time of year time and effort are precious resources for for us teachers we've got the bargaining window set by the state and college recommendation letters uh deadlines right around the corner despite the demanding schedule some of us wlea members and most notably Mr Wong thanks Lawrence have been greeting voters of the Friday tailgate walking neighborhoods Distributing information and talking to the public about the referendum I encourage everyone here tonight to join in Us in volunteering with the yes Committee in the coming weeks the effort leading up to November 7th is essential and I'm very grateful that we as a Community can work together and solve our most immediate problems in a timely and efficient way just a minute okay unfortunately there's an even more time-sensitive concern for

061many of our students recently the state of Indiana changed the rules last month concerning how the AP exams are paid for leaving some of our highest achieving students wondering if they should take the exams at all the students in their families have only until November 1st to make the decision of which exams to attempt some financial assistance for the affected families would be a tremendous do help but only if it can be arranged and take effect quickly I have some friends here who would like to speak in more detail about this particular topic I know we can solve this problem if we can come to an agreement once again and address this together thank you very much thank you Mr okay you made it nice to meet you you think the Bell was gonna ring

062all right uh up next Andy hipsher good evening my name is Andy hipshire I am a teacher of Earth and space science and AP environmental science at the Junior Senior High I have two children of my own that are westsiders and I am the current wlea Secretary former co-president for wlea I'm here to talk a little bit more about what Mr Wickham just told the board on September 15th of this year the idoe sent a memo to Indiana school administrators regarding AP exam funding it stat quote the budget provides funding to cover the exam fees for AP exams taken by Indiana students in grades 9 through 12 who are enrolled in an accredited public or non-public school end quote this is similar to years past however it goes on to State quote a maximum of

063three exams per student per year may be funded end quote this is a change that will affect many students in their families across the state AP exam fees fa vary but generally speaking a student will pay a $98 exam fee for each test test that they take in the past the state would cover most of that fee reducing it to just $9 per exam this year however students will be required to pay the full $98 for each AP exam they would like to take beyond the three that are allowed students on free or reduced lunch will pay $53 for each test beyond the three that are allowed this places an unfair financial burden on students for wanting to challenge themselves academically with advanced placement courses additionally the state did not inform schools about the new

064Fe policy until well after the beginning of the school year when it was too late to make scheduled changes West Lafayette Junior Senior High School and several other high schools across the state have received higher rankings in part because of the number and types of AP courses that are offered here at Westside many students are taking advantage of our wide variety of AP course offerings we currently have 3177 students in AP classes 697 exams have been ordered so far therefore many of our students are enrolled in more than one AP course and at least 27 students are enrolled in more than three AP courses some students choose to self-study for AP exam so the number of students taking more than three exams could exceed 40 by the time that November 1 deadline is reached we

065the teachers and students of AP courses just wanted to make sure that our board and community members were aware of these new changes we realized that our state and local legislators cannot make any changes to the policy for the current school year but we hope they will reconsider funding for subsequent school years and for our own Corporation we hope that the board might consider some ways to help offset the financial burden that this year's AP exams will place on our families thank you for your time thank you for the hard work you continue to be to do on behalf of our great students thank you miss hiire all right Jerry is now the time okay hello every everyone my name is Jerry goo and I'm currently a senior at West Sophia Junior Senior High School

066I've been a student here for all four years of high school and have been a student of our school corporation since kindergarten with my sister attending I'm currently a coach for the West sopia intermediate schools math counts program and direct both of our physics and Trust clubs today as someone who is deeply invested in this school corporation I must bring your attention to a serious issue due to the new memo released by the Indiana Department of Education a on September 15th students who are taking three or more eligible AP exams will now have to pay a much larger fee many students will be able many students are now forced to pay out of pockets for their other exams which could cost hundreds of dollars this memo of course puts a heavy financial burden on students

067and their families under this new policy I would have had to pay over $420 for my AP exams last year under this policy a student who qualified for a fee waiver and reduced lunch last year would now also have to pay over $210 when they would have paid zero last year these costs are an absolutely ridiculous increase and unfortunately due to how late the notification was students cannot switch schedules so many families will have to adjust their budgets students and families work hard enough for their money and the AP Memo from the Indiana State Board of Education just makes it harder for those striving to get ahead in life I urge you to consider potential solutions to help relieve this financial strain placed on both students and families education is a right that should remain

068accessible no matter someone's socioeconomic status people who take AP classes are expected to take AP exams and these AP exams provide the opportunity for students to save thousands of dollars in future College tuition although we know it is not possible to change this Statewide decision it is possible for us to help our students on local level please consider the issue in the facts presented and consider potential Solutions so that the West Lafayette school corporation can continue to support a rigorous education for all of its students thank you for your time thank you very much up next I'm sorry I cannot read a last name Ashley good evening my name is Ashley Young and I'm a junior here at the high school I have a fierce passion for advocacy and my participation spans from running local

069petitions all the way to having meetings with the Indiana Secretary of Education at the state house so when I was offered a voice at the Schoolboard meeting today I couldn't pass up the opportunity life is stressful as a junior but before this August my upper classman friends warned me about how difficult this school year would be but I didn't believe them until a few days into my junior year I'm far from being alone in balancing a rigorous academic schedule on top of a busy extracurricular life being the overachieving Westside students that we are the recent AP exam fee policy hits heavily on our students on the Statewide level my peers and I have been petitioning for a change in in the Indiana General assembly's decision to limit funding for AP exams in this manner which

070discourages students especially from lowincome areas to pursue classes that earn valuable college credits the recent State funding change also prioritizes funding stem classes over Humanities arts and social sciences combined with the mid-semester notice when scheduled changes are largely impossible the new AP exam fee policy not only does not make steps in the right direction for high school students but turns around and goes backwards the state legislature is frankly too slow for us to expect our appeal to take effect this year however on behalf of Westside students we ask that you help us to find a way to correct this Injustice by the state at the schoolwide level I would love to see more support for the plentiful students taking AP classes and exams if this referendum passes which hopefully it will this could provide an

071opportunity for our school system to compensate for the gaps instilled by our state's AP exam financial aid I hope that the student concerns regarding the unjust AP exam fee policy will be noted and addressed by our community and Beyond thank you thank you very much I may struggle liia Leisa okay it's definitely a tough one all right um good evening uh distinguished school board members and School District executive officers my name is Leisa Chun um both of my children have been involved with Westside robotics especially my son he started with Lego robotics moving on to FTC in junior high now he is an active member in F FRC the high school team um he also Walks from the high school to this building every Wednesday afternoon to Mentor a Lego robotics group so as you

072can tell it has been very important for him and his parents myself included that he's able to come to this convenient location to learn and do the cool engineering stuff and uh with his mentors and give back to Westside Robotics and our community so coming up here I wanted to say that Brad Thompson and his fellow coaches have been there throughout my son's robotics journey in the past few years um their professional skills their passion for Robotics and their dedication to supporting our students and schools has been witnessed and felt by all the robotics students and families I say this for myself but I believe I can also speak for many many robotics families Dr Grinder and Mrs Ross thank you so much for making the decision last month as promptly as possible to to

073reverse the decision about the F FRC leadership structure I also want to share two recent moments I witnessed at the robotics shop next door um it was relieving and touching for me to see most of the high school students already back at a shop ready to work shortly after 7 p.m. on Thursday September the 28th when the parent board president had sent the notification only about half an hour earlier at 6:4 5 p.m. it was also touching and exciting to see that over 30 students mentors and parents celebrating the resumption of an FRC preseason welcoming their mentors back last Thursday on October the 5th so finally let me just reiterate this as a robotics parent I am deeply appreciative to the superintendent and assistant superintendent uh for listening to our parents alumni mentors and students

074and also putting all of our students interest first thank you thank you Tanya finkbine gonna read really fast you can do it I believe in you okay uh good evening my name is Tanya finkbiner a parent and Community member here at Westside and together with David I was asked to co-chair the very positive transparent and necessary political action committee or PAC that we thoughtfully named vote Yes for our West Lafayette schools to encourage our community to vote Yes for this year's tax referendum it's a responsibility that David and I have taken very seriously and are for are fortunate to have equally dedicated committee members of alen kpic Kathy Kavanaugh Natalie Lucas George Lyall and many volunteers and general advocates in order to adhere with our policy of transparency we thought it appropriate tonight to provide

075the public with an update of our efforts to encourage this community to vote Yes on November 7th and also to provide some Assurance to those who've been through this before that it might look a little different than previous years but I can assure you that the effort is strong and consistent to begin we've sought and adhered to strategic Council of a public relations team specializing in referendums given this is the third Vote for This referendum our efforts are strategically and purposefully more defined and targeted than in the past years we are grateful for some donors Who provided funding for the pack so we could move forward with some marketing needs which are all in addition to the general information going out about the referendum should this referendum pass any remaining funds will be donated to

076the West Lafayette schools Education Foundation and the pacta will be dissolved first and foremost we are all talking about this nonstop we built the website vote w.com to serve as the foundation of all of our marketing pieces here there are very specific details of the referendum including a breakdown of the actual question of which to vote Yes we then developed referendum quick fat cards pointing back to the main website these cards have been instrumental in all of our discussions at over nine tabling events where we have shared the importance of voting yes with the community we purchased over 400 of the convers starter pieces that I'm wearing tonight proudly proclaiming that I'm here for the schools in the coming weeks a targeted mailer will hit specific audience encouraging them to vote Yes with the simultaneous

077broad blanketing of door hangers of all the homes in our community our thanks again to the numerous volunteers many here tonight to help post this critical reminder you will see us in the community throughout this month and again at the polls on November 7th I'd like to share that our tabling event last Friday drew a steady stream of folks for nearly 3 hours I was highly encouraged to hear how many people already knew about the referendum and shared their intention of voting yes most notable was the amount of newly 18-year-olds excited to engage in this conversation and exercise their right to vote I was just so impressed with the school district that all these young minds are very involved in this referendum and their power of voting um I'm happy to still be receiving requests

078on how to Hope vote Yes for our ref for our West Lafayette schools committee the answer is two simple things one go vote Yes on November 7th do not assume that someone else voting yes replaces your vote go vote Yes two we just saw it on the slides talk about it wherever you are now in all the days leading up to November 7th actively encourage your West Lafayette neighbors friends parents colleagues acquaintances to go do the same I'm so sorry you're out of time I would love for you I'd love for for you to continue but I have to apply the rule evenly so that's it those are the two best ways to thank you so much for being here tonight uh and up last uh Aon Moonwalker at the August board meeting during a

079special education presentation it was announced that our district was placed at the highest rating by the IU Center on education and lifelong learning and that this was an honor I spoke to the person at the center who headed up this review and I learned that Westside was one of a percentage of districts selected for the state funded review because our district had been identified in 201 as non-compliant for demonstrating disproportionality in identifying African-American children as learning disabled the review essentially concluded that our policies and documentation now align with state law being selected for a review for potentially committing systemic racism is not an honor and it doesn't indicate our district delivers Superior Services or outcomes while researching this I found our 2022 2023 bullying data it seems Willis data either was not included or was

080not reported but the Junior Senior High somehow reported zero incidents of bullying last year uh I came before you at a public meeting last fall to tell you about video evidence of my child getting assaulted at the junior high so we should all know that data point is false as I considered these discrepancies in public records I reviewed previous board meetings and heard longtime board members refus to heed the warnings of new board members that their actions were running a foul of the open door law a law that was designed to protect the public ordinary people have to endure a lot before laws and requirements get passed for instance disabled children had to crawl up the capital steps in DC to get the Americans with Disabilities Act passed imagine what children and families had to

081go through to finally get bullying reporting requirements and racial discrimination compliance indicators put into place how much did people suffer from government corruption taking place in secrecy before our Open Door law came to be these policies are not to be taken lightly an openly flouting one does not assure us you will respect others behind closed doors finally watching elected officials failed to correct meeting minutes despite reasonable requests to do so made me doubt you'd correct the above mentioned discrepancies if I came to you in private so I hope the public can see repairs be made thank you uh um Miss Moonwalker and with that we are going to close the communication from the audience portion of the meeting we are going to move on to routine business of which of which the first agenda item

082is approval of the agenda for the October 9th regular meeting of the board of school trustees that is this evening's agenda that we're talking about um I would entertain a motion uh well let me get a motion first moved by Mrs Austin second by Mr shot questions I know Dr grer has one change he'd like to make I do have one change and that is that we are revising the Personnel report to include Mr Shriner's retirement letter the letter is in the board agenda folder and a box for you I do want to extend my appreciation for Mr Shriner uh this amazing man started in August of 1985 actually the year I graduated from high school and he has touched many lives in mfia uh school system uh as a teacher as uh an assistant

083principal and as a principal and I've watched him do that with my own children through his involvement his questions genuine questions about how their day is going how their sport is going how their academics is going how they have uh transitioned into this District that we know uh can be um different from from from others just because of our rigor yet amazing support of of our great staff and so I just want to give my appreciation personally today as we accept this letter uh for uh this amazing man and this amazing leader thank you uh so that would be in addition to our agenda item it'll be with that'll be within the Personnel report uh do we have any other comments or questions about the agenda Dr Yin I would like to make a motion

084to add a um and add a discussion about uh all clarification about the hair the heiring and the evaluation and the termination of external coach and given the incidence about robotics program coaching okay Dr Yun has made a motion to add an agenda item for detailing the ECA um staff uh hiring and evaluation termination and termination can I get a second for that a second from Mrs Mumford um anybody have any questions for Dr Yan about the nature of her agenda item okay all those in favor of adding this item to our agenda this evening please indicate with a show of hands uh please note that Dr Yin Mr Wong and uh Mrs Mumford have indicated yes all of those opposed please indicate with a show of hands Mr shot Mrs Austin Mr Marley uh

085indicate no that motion does not carry that item is not added to the agenda any other agenda items proposed for this evening's meeting okay hearing none all of those in favor of approving this evening's agenda as listed please indicate with the show of hands please note that Mr shot Mrs Mumford Mrs Austin and Mr Marley indicate yes all of those opposed Mr Wong and Dr Yin vote opposed that motion carries we're moving forward with this agenda moving on to item two approval of the minutes from the September 11th regular board meeting of the board of school trustees can I get a motion please moved by Mrs Austin second by Mr shot questions or changes to the minutes from the September 11th meeting Mr Wong yes I as I send the email uh to all board

086members before the meeting I would like a motion uh to replace the wrong motion list in the section three Item B on September 11th uh meeting minutes uh with the correct uh motion which is uh document the general sub subance of possible Amendments of policy 0166 proposed by member moner uh in the August 14th for meeting minutes per uh Indiana code IC 5-14 d1.5mm [Music] uh Mrs Mard seconds that questions or comments about that um change to the minutes Mrs Austin Mr Wong you raised this an email no less than five times and we when uh Mrs Julian and I corrected it we used every word of your language except we changed it to Mrs mord's interpretation of Indiana code because she is not a lawyer or a legislator herself I feel that it's important

087to delineate between her interpretation and the law so that is why it is as it stands in the minutes and I think we should be okay Mrs mford um I think there's some confusion the part that was added for Mrs mumford's interpretation has actually nothing to do with me that code that Mr Wong um shared was something that he sharing which was why he wanted this um policy information added so this actually has nothing to do with my interpretation or anything that I share would you like to make it Mr Wong's interpretation instead I'm just saying this was nothing to do with me and it's not what he said in the meeting so I putting my name on this has nothing to do with what was said meant or implied thank you okay uh Mr

088Wong we've already heard from you Mr shot do you have anything Dr Yin do you have anything no uh Mr Marley do you have anything okay Mr Wong did you want to follow up yes uh I would uh say the motion I sent that motion before our meetings September 11th meetings and also read that motion during the meeting uh so basically I just want that uh exactly the motion I submit during that meeting document correctly on the meeting minutes so um I think uh at this point of time the motion document on September 11th meeting minut is not me not the motion I submit and that's not motion we six uh board members cast our vote so I think uh that need to be correct with the red motion and uh my motion is also

089document our uh live stream uh so anybody if you want to check you can check that live stream thank you okay it would SE that we have some disagreement among members on what the actual content spoken was did any member check the transcription of the meeting from this period in our meeting I listened to the time stamp from when it started to when it ended do you have an exact transcription of that I I mean so he word for word said everything in there except for the part that said per Mrs mumford's interpretation uh sorry he said the per Mrs M's interpretation of was what was added that was not the direct quote from what he said um when you watch it okay Mrs Austin when I added that I was replying to the email

090in which he stated that he wanted it to read document the general substance of possible Amendments of policy 0166 proposed by member mumber at the August 14th board meeting and uh it goes on to say on on the meeting minutes per Indiana code so my um reasoning for putting in per her interpretation was because it was her proposal okay um so we have covered this before in meetings but meetings are uh meeting minutes are uh specifically documentation of transactions that happened during the course of a meeting so I want to point out to all members that we are debating verbiage on something that was not approved by this board at a meeting uh we are um as they might say getting in the weeds a bit uh it would be my recommendation as board chair

091since we do not have agreement on what specifically was said in the meeting that we would um potentially agree that we would include a specific word forword transa trans um encryption of what uh words were spoken in the meeting is that something that we could agree upon in terms of an amendment to the minutes I think we should strike the whole thing personally and I would move to do that if that's the right time okay move to strike the entire section where we're documenting a thing that didn't happen Okay yall are making this I'm sorry tricky this evening um all righty out of the gate so um rather have a motion that you're printing the transcription okay that would be my Mo okay print the transcription so we will print the transcription and add it

092to the official minutes for the meeting okay can we all can we agree upon that this evening okay two motions and Ne them have been second and so I'm not clear where we're at okay so the first motion that we have on the agenda was or that we have on this agenda item was to add a change in language uh that Mr Wong has requested that was seconded I believe uh we since have had a followup motion so we can take a vote first on whether or not uh we would like to um approve Mr Wong's U proposal to amend the minutes why don't we do that first and get that out of the way all of those in favor of approving Mr Wong's change to the minutes as he has described it please indicate

093with a show of hands okay uh please note that Dr Yin Mr Wong and Mrs Mumford have approved that all of those against opposed hold on a second D you know your your name is in his REM marks and what he asked us to put in the minutes he referred to you in it I'm reading it right now so what he has asked is for it to be a quote and I also read it and when you listen to the timestamp of what his motion is he does not say per Mrs mord's interpretation he says at the very end per this code because he was referencing why he wanted this in the minutes nothing to do with my all right so that's that's where you're at that's your motion then your motion okay okay I

094just minut that's the purpose minut so we can that's the motion I submit and that's the motion six members we vot for pretty much thee man Faithfully correctly document what happened last Mee com okay um so we're going to ring this in a little bit we're going to take a vote right now on specifically we've just taken half of a vote anyway on specifically using the language that Mr Wong has approved or has requested we have three yes votes four pardon me I'll vote four and we have a fourth yes vote so that motion carries to change a language as Mr Wong has recommended I'm say because I am so confused it's such a waste of time I'm not voting okay for any of us okay I agree with you it is confusing this is

095a lot of layers um pass so let's now vote for the minutes the minut yeah so now we are going to vote well now I have to take any more feedbacks anybody else have anything they'd like to change in the minutes this evening I can't imagine okay all those in favor of approving the minutes for a September 11th regular board meeting School trustees please indicate with the show of hands correction that's already been passed yes okay so we got it all right that motion carries 7 to Z Mrs Juliet I'm sorry 6 to zero Mr shot is abstained um moving on to item three approval of the minutes from the September 20th work session of the board of school trustees um can I get a motion please so move move by Mrs Mumford second second

096by Mrs Austin any questions or comments about the work session from September 20th of minutes Mr one yes I would like to uh submit another motion as I send email to every our members basically I would like to see document that meeting minut is document General substance of school 2024 annual budget and uh physical plans uh on September 20's board meeting board work session meeting minutes per Indiana open door law IC five -4- 1.5 -4 B and uh three uh in terms anybody don't know that uh code I would uh read that basically as the meeting progress the following memoranda should be uh shall be kept the general substance all matters proposed uh discussed or decided thank you okay Mr Wong has made a proposal to to amend the minutes of the September 20th work

097session um again that entire I will just say that entire proposal was available and is available on the corporation website in detail for review but uh do we have a second for Mr Wong's proposal proposed changes he Mrs Mumford um any questions or comments about Mr Wong's proposed changes Mrs Austin is there a reason why in cour corporating the entire presentation by reference is not satisfactory to you the fact that it's completely available as well as the video and the audio transcript is other than making things difficult for Mrs Julian is there a specific reason why you want to in the minutes themselves yeah thank you for your question I think uh many people may have that same question I really appreciate that we scho to make a lot of progress we have live streams

098we have uh do doent whole document of uh budget and the physical plans publish online I appreciate that and I think that's uh very beneficial uh to everybody but uh the Indian uh Open Door law required uh we put those things the general substance of uh anything discussed proposed on the meeting uh minutes and uh I think uh uh the physical anual budget uh that's pretty uh serious things uh wor to document on the uh meeting minutes as so that's uh help people's everybody's busy I mean if they look at the whole document let me take half hour an hour listen to the live stream but if we have highly level summary on the meeting minutes there will be about five minutes so people can understand what's going on so we we have a convenient

099uh access uh the public access the information they need and we also can increase the accountabilities for our school board thank you okay any other questions or comments about this Jill is available for public consumption our fiscal plan that's what I thought isn't it published public publicly it's on box yeah it's been on the yeah so Lawrence that's what I'm saying we've got this information readily available what we had is a work session and Amy documented the attendance time the meeting started the general subject matter but all the sporting documentation is readily available and how would you distill the contents of this binder in the context of the minutes that's not very efficient it's not a good use of time especially when all the information with but uh the open door Law requires say the

100data time and place of meeting we have that and also the member who attend uh the governing body who attend the meeting we have that and item three the general substance for M matter proposed discussed or decided so we don't have more information for that I mean I think the budget annual budget 30 plus meeting that's something serious uh should be document uh with some information Mr W I'm going to interrupt you to hear from any other members who have not yet spoken um we are and then we'll come back if there are any additional questions you are um have stated your position here already okay U Mr shot do you have anything to add um Mrs moner do you have anything to add Dr do you have anything to add I guess for this

101it may be helpful to just have a brief like orientation for for the document or something like that and I understand if it's very ly detailed it will take a lot of time but this like our other work uh session I think we we did like a retreat later we will have some be brave of the information for the public and yeah just a like maybe some police points or something um Mrs Austin you've spoken you have a second opportunity to do so please um there were no items taken action on during the meeting on September 20th it was an informational meeting only so there were no votes taken the general substance of which needs to be documented it was purely informational and the second point is if we can't even get through approving the

102agenda and the minutes in less than half an hour I don't think adding more words is going to speed that process up okay uh Mr Marley you have a second opportunity if you'd like one no I'm fine okay thank I'm going to go ahead and call Dr Ian you have a second opportunity if you'd like to yeah just wonder what's a common practice from other districts you it's very Michelle and Dr grer have experience in other districts was a common practice for the work sessions common practice was stating pretty much what um is stated here currently attendance information like yes and then that uh those who presented also has our attorney stated that they're compliant are minutes as they stand I cut Mr Wong off at two points so I'm going to also cut you

103off at two points okay everybody's had two opportunities to speak on this matter we've had our questions answer I'm going to suggest that we vote on this and move off of the minutes of a work session so all those in flavor in favor excuse me of adding uh Mr Wong's proposed adjustments to the minutes of the work session please indicate with a show of hands Mr Wong is a yes vote all of those opposed please indicate with a show of hands um member shot uh Austin and Marley all are opposed all of those who abstain Dr Yen and Mrs mumper that motion does not carry we're going to move back to approval of these minutes without any changes all of those in favor please indicate with a show of hands uh those minutes are approved

104please note that did you want to vote all of the question we're voting in approval of the minutes as they are written we'll revote for the work work session for the work session yeah all of those in favor again of approving the minutes as they are written please indicate with a show of hands that motion carries 7 to zero Mrs Julian moving on now to item four approv approval of the minutes from the October 3rdd tenative agreement meeting that is collective bargaining of the board of school trustees um can I get a motion please moved by Mrs Austin second second by Mrs Mumford any questions or comments about the minutes from our TBA meeting okay hearing none all of those approving uh all of those who vote to approve the minutes of the October 3rd

105tenative agreement meeting please indicate with a show of hands Mrs Julian that carries 7 to zero we have no unfinished business we are going to move on to new business uh the Morris Leatherman Community survey as you are aware was moved to the top of the meeting we are going to move to item six collective bargaining agreement and Dr grer I'd just like to Echo what some of our speakers said today and that is uh that uh I am very appreciative of the collaborative efforts between the teachers and the board Administration teams working together coming together with data looking at data looking at uh desires and needs uh to keep us competitive and attractive uh we settled within less than three hours and one setting I think it speaks volumes to the dedication of our

106staff and the collaborative efforts of all of us working together for what's best for our students so I'm most appreciative I'm appreciative of Mr Marley and Mr Wong for their support uh on the committee throughout the process it's my recommendation that the board vote tonight to approve the contract 2023 period okay i' entertain a motion moved by Mr Wong second by Mrs Mumford questions or comments about the collective baring agreement Mr Wong just short short uh comment I think I totally agree with uh Dr grer and we have a very Collective uh effer so I believe with this two years agreement I mean together uh we can deliver outstanding education uh experience uh to our students thank you for everybody involved I appreciate thank you thank you any other questions or comments Dr Yin I'm

107very happy that our teachers in can get some RIS this year and and I hope we can continue to keep eyes on the other districts and to make sure that our compensation is competitive in the state and I do have like two motions related to this agreement and the I kind of mentioned that in my earlier communication and one is not for this year though and one is but for the future one motion is I would like to make a motion to collect information about ECA for next year such as enrollment frequency of meet and length of meet and duration of the program and for two reasons first the information will be help help students and the families better understand all the ECA options second it will help the board at least those who don't

108have information about all the ecas to evaluate the compensation plan in agreement and because personally I don't want any ECA sponsor ERS to be undercompensated um it's very um for example I happen to to be familiar with the robotics program I know and for example the executive coach Mr Brad Thompson and one of the speaker um talked about him and the program and several other mentors are running the robotics programs with uh about 150 students ranging from first grade grade to 12th grade and they work with students on average about 2 to three hours almost every day including weekend or year long and I heard and that the coach and the mentors actually only received about 1,000 to 1200 per year and seems to me is a fairly low and this is just one program

109that I happened to be familiar with due to my own case participation um there are many other ones I don't have knowledge about I think it will be helpful to have more information about and each of the ecas and so and so we can make sure that those ECA sponsors um appropriately sufficiently compensated for their time and the effort yeah okay so as I understand it you would like to add a motion to this uh that does not change as we know the not for this year the Collective Agreement correct it is okay but you would like to make a request now that for the for future if you yeah to get that information I'll give you your question back here to make sure that I have it right if that's okay okay so the

110first thing that You' like to ask is that the board direct the superintendent and his staff to collect data regarding participation in ecas um uh so that uh that could be evaluated and then you would also like to have a consideration for increasing compensation for ECA um professionals is that those are the two motions that you would like to make one and it's to collect the information about the ECA so so for two reasons one is to better inform students and families about the options different options and so they can see the commitment if they Join one EC or the other whether they can can do multiple or you know on different days those things another reason is you know we are given those agreement to to W on but for me you know for

111the the teacher schedule part is pretty clear you have the years of teaching and you have the degree and you know with that Matrix and but for the ECA part you know there are different categories but it's hard to tell why you know the one ECA is compensated more than the other and um so we have a a difficulty here with the request that you're making right now and this is in board training which I have written to present to the board uh later in the meeting but I will hop ahead to it now so you understand the request that you're making is actually um not in line with board member ethics so we have a difficulty bringing something forward to vote on uh so in board bylaw 14 4.2 board member ethics uh and

112I've abbreviated this uh school board members should maintain desirable relations with the superintendent of schools and his or her staff by I'll hop to Item B giving the superintendent full administrative Authority for properly discharging his professional duties and also by holding him responsible for acceptable results item C acting only upon the recommendation of the superintendent in matters of employment or dismissal of school Personnel item e referring all complaints to the proper Administrative Office And discussing them only at regular meeting after failure of administrative solution and a Schoolboard member should meet his or her responsibilities to his or her community by item F refusing to discuss personal matters or any other confidential business of the board in his or her home on the street or in his or her office so the difficulty that we run

113into right now is that you are uh you really have two items here one of of them is to collect data for the purpose of uh the superintendent directing how he manages Personnel so ECA are personnel management and the second is uh so it makes sense and would be appropriate for the board to request that for the purpose of of perhaps encouraging participation and understanding how that works but it would not be appropriate when it is directed at having the superintendent um direct his his hiring or or negotiations with the wlea regarding their compensation so we're getting into a little bit of a gray area here because we are the what you've what you've given us is a proposal that would in part put us opposed to our ethics bylaw I'm really confused by your

114questions and over the bunch of laws you just asset it because the the intention for my question is you know you are giving me the agreement with all those numbers but I need to understand and to to vote on then how I I just I wonder how do you make a judgment whether those compensations appropriate at least because when I I happen to know the robotics program that's why I feel oh that coach was underpaid I would I would warrant I guess that all of our coaches are underpaid by what that's a see that's a problem they are underpaid then we should pay them better right so here is the here is the issue is that the process by which the school corporation negotiates compensation for teachers for ecas for everything is through this collective

115bargaining process so what you're asking is to modify or to direct Force the superintendent to lead that process and that's where we get into a gray area of what's against board me member ethics and the bylaws so that's where I'm kind of offering you some caution um I think that if you would like to make it makes sense and would not be a bylaw issue for us if you would like to have the board vote on asking the superintendent to collect data regarding ECA so that we could support that process but we we cannot require him to do that based on compensation because the compensation model exists within collective bargaining and the administration so if you would narrow your request a little bit we could take that to vote without violation of our board bylaws

116does that clarify the question a little bit I can't really bring forward something to vote upon that's specifically in violation of our bylaws that that isn't appropriate action but if you would like to amend it to to ask for the data to be collected by our superintendent for purpose of encouraging participation we could do that would you like to to take that to vote I thought my motion was fairly narrow it's just colleting information about ECA so it's helpful for the community also helpful for the board that's I I don't know how to make it even narrower then if we I make it even narrower become a micromanagement so okay any other board members have any questions or comments they'd like to put on this otherwise we'll just take it to vote anybody I'm not

117understanding so if I understood correctly Dr yen is asking for a motion to collect data on the enrollment numbers and workload of ECA coaches and leaders correct so I'm not understanding then the push back that that's not ethical um so there are two reasons that she stated for wanting that data to be collected one of the reasons she stated for that data to be collected was for um the purpose of encouraging participation in the community okay so that is and making sure that students have access to it and that is appropriate the other reason that she stated was about compensation for ecas and to offer some variation in compensation that falls inside of collective bargaining that is Dr griner's area in which to be responsible for we cannot force him Force the collective bargaining process

118based on that data so that's the division that we need that's where we get into the ethics issue so if she just makes her motion and takes off all purposes and just says I make a motion for the data everybody's happy she could definitely make that sense Dr Yin yeah sure okay so Dr Yin would like to amend her motion that we would ask the school corporation uh leadership Dr gr grer and his staff to collect data regarding ecas um for the board that's the motion that we want to make okay uh doc Mr Wong that's for next year it's not for that is correct we're not nothing is we're not doing anything this year that' be for it's two years right okay it is two years before it would be renegotiated so the next

119time this will come up will be um for the 25 26 school year is that correct okay I thought we this has nothing to do with collective bargaining we said it was just she's requesting data to be collected and we're voting on that end of story she's done it inside of the item of the collective bargaining agreement that is where she has chosen that is the only thing that we can vote upon and are inside of collective bargaining well my understanding is at the work I mean what I remember is at the work session she asked this direct question and you told her to make a motion at the Schoolboard meeting so I think it's just you know maybe helping us understand helping Dr Yin to understand you want this somewhere else and then I

120just right lot of new information tonight that is being shared right uh Dr Yin if you wanted to add this specifically just for data collection not tied to the CBA the time to do it would have been in the changes to the agenda overall to add a data collection point to the agenda but here we are inside a different agenda item yeah just followed your suggestion from the meeting last week so that's why I added this as a motion but I maybe I add it at the wrong place well I'm I'm trying to I'm trying to get to the point where your question can be voted upon so that's that's what I'm trying to get to without us being in violation of our our own bylaws so that's that's the piece the data collection doesn't

121just happen for the point of data collection it has to happen for a reason and the reasons that you have stated are where we get into difficulty with our bylaws so um if you drop those off your request as you would like for our superintendent to gather data about our ECA participation and than that that is the request that you're making is that did I say that correctly yeah that's fine okay um okay uh any questions or comments about the collection of data for the ecas by any member okay all those in favor of approving data approving a direction to our superintendent to start Gathering and accumulating data regarding did you get motion yes there was there is there a second okay is there a second for Dr Yen's motion to collect data uh second

122by uh Mrs Mumford okay all of those in favor of uh directing our superintendent to gather data regarding ecas yes it this doesn't affect the CBA this is this is a totally different thing okay all of those in favor of directing our superintendant to gather data regarding ECA please indicate with a show of hands okay please note Dr Mr Wong and Mrs mford vote Yes all of those opposed please indicate with a show of hands Mr Marley Mr shot and Mrs Austin I'll vote no that motion does not carry we're going to move on to and thank you Mr J and those on the bargaining committee I appreciate that okay um moving on to item seven field trip social Oh Good Golly yeah I'm sorry you're right every every body in the audience is freaking

123out you've been waiting for two hours for this all of those in favor of approving the collective bargaining agreement a motion we had a motion and we had a second and then we had discussion and we could just vote sorry I have another motion though for sort of related yeah we did we had a motion in a second let's vote on the CBA let's vote on the like okay we have a first and second we have a first and second on the CBA we just need to vote can we all pong and mford that's right thank you okay all of those in favor of approving the CBA please indicate with a show of hands that motion carries 7 to zero Mrs Julian we're GNA move on to a field trip uh sorry to interrupt you

124I I have another motion sort of drawn from the e the agreement the ECA and issue but I'm not sure where to put it so um I the time to do this would have been in the agenda um adding of the agenda it does not fit um in any of the other items that you have um yeah I can I can do it the next months it's okay is it okay to move it to next month okay uh let's move on to the field trip social Department to Washington DC Dr Griner yes this trip is an out of state and overnight trip and uh an addition to the principal approval the board is required to vote to approve uh given the building leadership has approved this trip it's my recommendation that the board vote to

125approve this fi trip to Washington DC which is an overnight trip move by Mr Marley second by Mrs Austin just as a point of clarification Mrs Austin is a um chaperon on this field trip but does not disqualify her from voting on that any other questions or comments about the field trip okay hearing none all those in favor of approving the field trip please indicate with a show of hands Mrs Julian that motion carries 7 to zero uh members we have been at this for two hours we are going to take a 10-minute bathroom break and rejoin at item 8 on Personnel we will resume at 8:12 p.m. resume our meeting uh if I could call everybody's attention um we're about well we're right on time it's 8:12 okay moving on to Personnel report Dr

126grer so reminder of the addition uh to the Personnel report it's my recommendation that the board vote to approve the Personnel report as presented in your packet and we will be updating uh in the packet uh in the Personnel report of additional retirement notice okay uh thank you I could entertain a motion please so moved by Mr shot second by Mr Marley uh questions or comments about the Personnel report hearing that oh Mrs mper um what will the search and hiring committee look like for the high school principal it'll look similar to what it looked like for the elementary principal position we're developing that timeline and as it develops we're going to keep you a through Friday night so awesome can I asked to serve on that committee and you can I mean I'm sure

127you haven't made any of those decisions at this time but that be I'll make those decisions oh you make the decision for the hiring in terms of the board participation and such well then I would like to um just that I'd like to serve on that okay thank you for your offer um and I have another question if you could give us an update on the Dei position um and the title change and kind of where that stands yes so did we include that in the Friday notes okay would you respond to the update regarding okay so you're not sharing it with the public yet no no that be part of the next step is actually to share it with school staff with school staff and when will public and then the public y okay

128I didn't realize it had been shared not yet misunderstood the timeline so okay thank you you're welcome and we'll keep you a bre in Friday notes and then we will be involving public and staff so thank you anyone else any questions Dr yen to repeat I would like to serve on that one if possible the E position thank you for your offer to do so again uh Dr Yin anybody else any comments or questions regarding the Personnel report okay all those in favor of approving the Personnel report as presented please indicate with a show of hands that motion carries 7 to zero Mrs Julian moving on to item nine Junior Senior High School elevator purchase Mrs crun I know this is what we've been waiting for all night so um indeed it was determined over

129the summer the elevators at West Lafayette Junior Senior High School are nearing their end of life in need updating we wish to replace one this calendar year and have one plann for replacement 2024 in the capital projects plan Mr Dy secured three quotes as required for a purchase of this price TK elevator provided the lowest quote at the cost of $67,100 please approve the purchase of a new elevator through TK so that we can schedule the replacement okay I'd entertain a motion please move by Mr Wong second by Mrs Austin questions about the elevator purchase Mr Wong just a quick question so this elevator replacement things is not in originally our Capital uh planning cap capital spending schedules right we have three years of schedules um this is this one kind of snuck up on

130us we had some issues over the summer and when the company came in to assess what was wrong they said oh you guys need to replace these and we're like that would have been nice to know last year um so it's kind of a last minute thing that came up and we'll do one now and we'll try to do one next next year as well thank you for clarification appreciate any other questions about this okay hearing none all of those in favor of approving the uh junior senior high school elevator purchase please indicate with a show of hands that motion carries seven to zero Mrs Julian Mrs Julian moving on to item 10 the health insurance renewal and premiums Mrs PR okay the insurance committee met on October 4th to discuss the anthem medical insurance

131renewal for 24 along with our Insurance Consultant from Brown and Brown which is formerly R settin rates for dental vision life and LTD are locked in for another year at this time our consultant discussed the insurance Market as well as provided information from anthem for the renewal they were able to negotiate on our behalf a fee increase through Anthem down to 5.6% for the upcoming plan year it initially started about 9% um after discussing changes to IRS minimum deductible thresholds and high deductible plans as well as the renewal data the committee determined that single deductibles for the high deductible plan would increase to $3,500 to meet changes in IRS thresholds and premiums would increase by 7% this is slightly different than the memo you were provided as the wlea executive board confirmed this afternoon that

132they did agree to a 7% increase so that is confirmed now 7% please note that while the total Premium cost would be increasing the corporation does pay a percentage of the premium and therefore shares a large part of that increase please approve the deductible change to our high deductible plan as well as a premium increase 7% for the 2024 plan here like a motion please move by Mrs Austin secondry second by Mr Marley questions uh or comments about the health insurance renewal uh Dr y I'm not sure whether the question should will be ask here or for the account payable and I have been wondering about the medical clinic usage and and the satisfaction so I we will have a Year's worth of data here very shortly um and then um Miss tinel will actually

133share that information and I'll be bringing all that back to you um basically she's going to take a look at it to see what are the usage of the clinic and how it compares to the cost of that clinic but she really can't do that until we have at least a full year so do do I recall to you that she even said even Beyond will be feels like she was saying the even more data will be important because the more it's in use the yes yeah yes okay yes because it's usually very slow in the first year so but but she did want to wait on that first year complete year and then addition additional information will come to you okay and besides that data I wonder whether we can also survey our teachers

134to see their satisfaction of the clinic like whether they are happy about the surveys so we do get um survey data from the clinic they actually survey people that attend the clinic so that that is already done for us okay okay thanks would you like to see that information in Friday notes I I believe I shared one of those in Friday notes already and the next time we have a meeting I can share that again and so I mean the so our teach not only those user so yeah it will be helpful to see like how many of our teachers use the clinic and how many yeah and it's not just teachers it's it's class staff as well and they they provide that about uh once a month we have a meeting and they provide

135a report so I can attach that to a Friday notes again like I did last time okay great thanks any other comments or questions all those at favor of approving the health insurance renewal and premium please indicate with a show of hands that motion carries 7 to zero Mrs Julian moving on to item 11 budget adoption Mrs K okay so this one is a long one so please bear with me um we reviewed the 24 budget at the work session on September 20th and you were provided binders with related documents the public hearing for the 24 budget took place to hear any public comment that evening as well tonight is the official adoption of the 24 budget you have several resolutions that will need to be approved this evening so I can move forward and

136submit to the Indiana Department of local government Finance for State approval um to meet required deadlines um you'll first consider budget form four which covers the adoption the school budget and the education operations referendum rainy day and Debt Service funds this is the final approval of the total amounts for each fund as well as maximum property tax rate levies tax levies will change as explained the uh budget work session as the state will apply official assessed values and other information to those requested budgets next will be the adoption of the capital expenditures plan this plan outlines possible Capital Equipment project expenditures over the next three years this plan is not final and can be ammended over time approval of this plan will be accomplished through the resolution to adopt the 24 Capital expenditures plan next

137is the resolution to adopt the 24 bus replacement plan which outlines the plan for bus replacement over the next five years that was pretty simple um and then the resolution of budget Authority which allows us to make necessary reductions of current Appropriations or 24 Appropriations in order to actually fund the budget because budget sometimes does not equal cash um lastly is the transfer and Loan resolution which allows us to transfer make loans between funds as needed for cash flow purposes so please approve the 24 budget and all the resolutions as submitted once approved I will move forward with submitting all items to the Department of local government Finance okay can I get a motion please so move moved by Mr Marley second by Mr Wong questions or comments regarding the uh budget adoption Mrs Mumford

138um could we vote on the resolution of the budget Authority and the transfer and Loan resolution separately um where the others are more of the are the required budget items vote on that one as one motion and then do the other two separate that's I can make that change uh we can divide that is there a motion uh Mrs mord has made a motion to separate uh the first three components from the second two on this is there a second for that Mr Wong has seconded that all those in favor of separating the items please indicate with a show of hands please note that Dr Yin Mr Wong and Mrs Mumford have voted that for separation of those items all those opposed for separation please indicate with a show of hands Mr shot and Mrs

139Austin and Mr Marley vote no that motion does not carry we will vote on all of the items in the agenda as one item are there any other follow-ups Mrs M yes I would like to um say that I won't be voting for the budget I do approve the budget for 2024 but I don't agree with the resolution of budget Authority nor the transfer and Loan resolution both these resolutions are resolutions that are not requ ired um also our resolutions that just kind of give blanket Authority and I would prefer that when these things are needed that they come before the board instead of just giving that Authority okay thank you any other comments on this item okay hearing none uh Mr Wong go ahead U regarding use of form uh form number four I

140saw there's a referendum fund over here the fund code is 0022 I remember is 0160 right for the referend okay so very good question so the dgf numbers are different than art numbers oh okay State Board of accounts has the fund numbers that you're accustomed to and the dgf gives different numbers for those so we have to basically reconcile them in our accounting system when we're uploading everything so yes makes everything very confusing okay but there ref is 160 what you know of and then the dgf assigns a different fug number yeah but they are same SC and and then to throw any everything else into the mix program codes are different as well and so are object codes so yeah it's great fun okay okay I just look at this num H okay another

141question regarding this uh resolution for transfer and the loans and I see there's um uh the whereas West LA Community Community School Corporation may need a transfer from F to fund for ratory purpose and so for this item can you give us a some good sample example say example yes it it may or may not happen this is just purely maybe an example um so possibly to um to fund a project that we don't necessarily have appropriated and rainy day funds yet but we want to pay it from the operations fund we could do a transfer from Ry day to operations to pay for something like a phone replacement or something like that um a loan could be at the end of June 30 if for instance maybe we don't get a property tax settlement

142in time the operations fund may go into the negative we would make a loan from another fund to offset that negative fund because we can't have those a negative on June 30 um and then we would put that money back after June 30 so those are examples of why that would happen so for the first example we just follow up so you move some money from the ren fund to to whatever operation then later you will bring them back MH okay but I'm you you were bring kind of short-term loans from oh the loan section yes yes some you can move cash from One Fund to another fund like I said if if the operations fund were to run short you could move cash from rainy day fund to operations fund and that's you just

143leave it so that's a transfer and then there's also a loan there's two different things okay so in case operation fund sometimes we fall short of the fund and then we just use okay got you and also over here um basically uh saying the next item uh they say we can authorize the superintendent and all CFO to transfer alone money between permissible fund so when we say permissible fund uh what is included so those are like the those are the budgeted funds basically so like I can't take money from a federal fund and transfer it into say the education fund that's not a permissible fund but hours operation education operations um you can't transfer out of debt service into another fund so education operations rainy day and referendum fund typically okay but I have the

144same uh question as uh M mford so when we do these things are you going to at least I will notify you but we don't need to go approve first and then correct okay so this just kind of authori you it's basically for cash flow purposes okay and another question regarding a moment regarding this so-called uh resolution for Budget Authority yes so I see there's first line they say whereas the uing year budget of the school corporation is adopted with certain items for information and know to the administration so do you have an example of certain item for information I know so this would be for reduction of Appropriations so like right now we have a certain budget appropriation 2023 budget okay in order to fund my operations fund for 24 I actually put in

145the budget that I need to reduce my Appropriations basically reduce what I had planned to spend from operations to get the budget that I want for 24 so I do need to have that in order to make that happen um and in 24 remember that budget doesn't necessarily equal cash so we are planning you know 6 to 18 months in advance for this budget we don't necessarily know for sure what our cash is going to be in 24 I may have to reduce our our budget appropriation meaning reducing the ability to spend because maybe my cash may not equal that okay gotcha okay now if we do an additional appropriation that does have to come back to you and that actually is a two-month process you have to put it in the newspaper and then

146the board has to vote for it so a reduction is just minim is minimizing what we can spend okay another question at the end there's uh uh saying um budget year Appropriations as necessary in order to fund the next year's and that was the first example that's your yeah good good so basically when we do these kind of things you will at least notice our bards but you don't need approve basically this is kind of plan the reduction is really just to get the budget that we want or okay okay thank you that's all thank you okay any other questions for Mrs great all those in favor of approving the budget um adoption please indicate with a show of hands please note that Dr Yin Mr Wong Mr shot Mrs Austin Mr Marley voted yes

147all of those opposed Mrs Mumford that motion carries Mrs Julian um moving forward to item 12 accounts payable Finance update Mrs Kon yeah um claims for the period of September 13th to October 4th total 25777 21 including regular Corporation expenses and the W bash Valley education center expenses of this amount one, 53189 were paid towards wages salaries and benefits moving on to our preliminary fund report for the month ending September 30 the education fund is a balance of $2,364 74 and total funds on hand for the corporation are 1,878 73 over all funds the fund report is preliminary as we're still working on closing the month of September at this time and some revenue is not necessarily um posted on that yet a reminder that federal grants are reimbursable grants and run in the negative

148until we receive reimbursement after approval of the teacher agreement this evening we'll be working over the next couple of weeks to finalize teacher contracts for 2324 to prepare for the retroactive teacher pay in November budget documents will be submitted over the next week so that our dgf representative can begin the process of review I basically have like 48 hours to get everything uploaded um the dgf must approve our budget no later than December 31st of this year um for 2024 please approve the accounts payable Finance update as submitted entertain a motion please um moving by Mrs Austin second by Mr Marley U any questions for Mrs K about the finance payable and finance ting this is mford um there were several purchases that were like purchases and then reimbursements on that second and third page

149between like the fence at the elementary school striping the parking lot was probably it was moving to different funds so I may we may have paid it from One Fund and may I maybe moved it to a different account number or paid from it for this account number moved it to a different account number okay that's helpful yeah um and then the stem Grant when did it is it closed no gu we actually have another year we have another year the state informed us pretty late last year okay extended so are items like um I was recently at a parent council meeting and teachers were asking for calculators which I thought we had covered that would be something we actually paid for a lot of those things through already y great news okay I'll test

150that out that's it for me okay any other questions he all those in favor of approving the accounts payable Finance update please indicate with a show of hands that motion carries 7 to zero Mrs Julian moving on to the superintendent evaluation process this is something that we do annually um as a reminder to everyone the status of Dr griner's contract it renewed uh effective july1 2023 for a further term of 3 years so that is july23 through June 30 26 so Dr grer is in the first year of the three-year term this contract is structured to automatically renew every July 1 for an additional three years one of the most important jobs that we do as a board is to conduct an annual performance review of our superintendent so I going to outline for you

151what that process will look like for us this year um first board members will receive from the board chair that is me resources for review and training related to the superintendent of evaluation process a link to the proposed evaluation model for 2324 as well as a copy of the previous year's evaluation and goals no later than October 12th so this week please take time to carefully review the information the majority of our board have little to no experience with superintendent evaluations and minimal training please contact me or other veteran members Mr shot or Mr Marley with any questions it is the board's responsibility to work together for the superintendent evaluation process this is a human resource evaluation processes process and is confidential two please note the proposed evaluation model is identical to the previous year

152and the model recommended by the isba iapss there were some comments last year from some members who were not comfortable applying a number to the rubric and wish for more open-ended comment spaces that is the reason I am giving you the the proposed evaluating tool in advance any changes to the evaluation model are due to the board Chair by October the 20th superintendent grinder will complete a self- evaluation and send it to all board members for review that is also due October 20th 2023 number four the board chair will send out the superintendent evaluation form via Google form to each board member to complete within two days of distribution of the superintendent self- evaluation each number five each member is expected to return the completed evaluation to the board officers by October the 30th no

153later than October the 30th Board number six board officers will compile the responses into one document and compute an average of the numerical SC scores this is in a Google form so this will happen automatically please make sure all comments and feedbacks you have listed are in the form nothing sent outside of the form will be included though you will have the ability to voice additional input when we meet to discuss in executive session number seven board members will meet an executive session a date TBD to review and discuss the comments numerical scores and goals to develop a review document eight a final compiled evaluation will be sent to the members of the board for a final review nine board officers will meet with the superintendent to go through the review discuss feedback scores goals

154and will receive follow-up response if any from the superintendent 10 any follow-up response will be shared directly by the superintendent with all members number 11 this process should be entirely complete no later than November 30th of 2023 I will include this 11 Step uh schedule or timeline to the board when I send out the other information um it is important as I said this is one of the most important things that we do and I appreciate everyone's attention to both the training and their thoughtful comments uh in review of our superintendent just so all are aware beyond the submission of Dr griner's um self-evaluation and when the board officers present it to him at the end he is out of the process he is not going to discuss his evaluation with any member in between

155when he submits his self- evaluation and when he is presented with the finalized um performance evaluation any questions on that from anybody Mrs Mumford um I re I a week or two ago attended the isba conference and attended the session on effective superintendent and principal evaluations they had three um three superintendents from three different school districts in Indiana and each shared about this process and all three shared that this final meeting with the superintendent was all school board members were invited so why has the school district decided to only have the officers attend that meeting um that has been the um the tradition and all school board members are uh all of their comments so when we compile the numbers and that's the reason for that rubric so that is a numerical score that determines

156effective highly effective Etc but then uh what we do is include all comments uh so if you write in the open end of questions a specific comment Dr grer would have access to all comments given from Members um that leads for a more concise conversation it is very fluid and open and this is the process followed with Dr Griner last year um and as I understand it is acceptable to you is this an acceptable process that is outlined Dr gr it's an acceptable process anybody else any questions okay um I'd like to move on to information of the board we're going to go on to a boor training matter this was requested by uh some board members uh via an email on a recent Personnel related issues issue uh and so this deals specifically with

157um an inquiry about individual and Corporation liability related to public expressions of board members and their opinions specific quickly as they relate to Personnel matters so in response to those inquiries I have reviewed appropriate bylaws and made inquiry to our legal council as well so as I stated earlier in the meeting I uh gave some examples from board bylaw 144.5 board member ethics deals specifically with and and probably the most notable of those is to act only upon the recommendation superintendent in matters of employment or dismissal of school personnel and to refer all complaints to the prop proper administrative office by discussing them only at a regular meeting after failure of administrative solution which means in simple terms our superintendent gets the opportunity to uh come to a reasonable conclusion to a problem before we

158as a board direct him on any action that should be taken so um I also got this response I specifically asked our legal counsel uh Jessica Billingsley uh to give us a statement so I did not provide her with any opinion I just forwarded to her this communication and asked her to give us a statement that could be read in our meeting to clarify for the members of the board what potential legal ramifications exist for failure to comply with these board bylaws as they are written this is her response from a legal standpoint board members should generally refrain from participating in Personnel matters until brought to their attention by Administration the board is the ultimate hiring and firing authority of the school corporation and as such any actions taken by the board collectively or by

159individual members will likely be attributed to the school corporation for liability purposes the board's involvement in a Personnel matter at any time prior to the ultimate determination diverges from the standard process to address Personnel matters treating any employee differently in this way could provide grounds for a discrimination claim and while rare board members can face personal liability if the cond conduct violates clearly EST estblished law moreover regarding certified staff the board will have to serve as an ultimate AR as the ultimate Arbiter if a certified staff member challenges the cancellation of their contract if a board member has been involved with a matter previously that board member will likely need to recuse themselves to maintain the Integrity of the process that of course refers to the due process um this is again from Jessica Billingsley

160a partner at church church sh and Anum and our legal council um so that is the general information as it relates to the board uh involvement and Personnel matters know the bottom line is that we only do so um if there is a breakdown in the ability to resolve by our superintendent or if the superintendent asks us to become involved in those matters are there any questions regarding that information to the board okay we're going to move on to board and superintendent reports uh I will start from board leadership I um attended board teacher discussion on Thursday September 21st this continues to be a collegial discussion of matters related to our schools principls administrators and teacher representation from all buildings were present the teachers prepare and provide the agenda for this monthly meeting conversations this

161month included classroom sizes and some tweaks to classroom furniture for efficiency in space uh support Staffing update sub fill rates and some related technology issues changes expected from new legislation as well as an update on student mental health needs observed in the classrooms as always our teachers provided insight and worked with our administrations to answer questions and find Solutions uh in other news we do not at this time have any outstanding public record requests that fall outside of our retainer P structure uh also we did have as Mrs Mumford mentioned the isba fall uh or is ba uh fall training um and uh Mrs mford I believe attended in part I attended in part and Mrs Austin attended along with Dr Griner uh so those reports should be written and submitted to Mrs Julian uh

162and we will attach those to the October uh meeting um and they don't need to be lengthy but uh taxpayer dollars pay for us to attend so the taxpayers have a right certainly to see what we uh learned from those experiences um moving on uh um you brought up several time the public records request what is this process when someone submits a public records request to um Mrs Julian what are the steps of this so Mrs Julian when she receives a public records request notifies the superintendent and also myself as the board chair uh and then she proceeds in processing that processing that request that process goes uh I'm not engaged other than being aware that it is happening if it is substantial and requires legal review for redaction in other words if it's complex

163then it would be forwarded to legal council um and so when I announce those in these board meetings uh they are solely for the purpose of understanding that we have something pending that is going to likely Fall outside of the retainer process in other words we'll incur an additional fee public records requests are not surprisingly public information so um that is just my announce an ment of the to the board so that you're aware that there's something pending that could be expensive any other questions Mrs mford no thank you okay uh so we're going to move on to uh super board and superintendent reports Dr rer I'm gonna end with you tonight if that's okay we'll end with you at the end that's fine is that all right okay uh Community Mr shot uh from

164the foundation the homecoming tailgate and related activities Drew over 125 alumni highlight of the evening came between the first and second quarters of the football game when dozens of alumni were recognized including many who returned to celebrate 100 Years of Westside football among them was Dick Boston class of 1954 and a retired teacher and Coach Foundation is grateful to all who helped contribute to the successful evening of events looking forward to hosting the classes of 1964 and 1965 on October 21st for a tour of the Junior Senior High School in dedication of the room they named in honor of Mr guy as part of the RDP campaign a reminder of the teacher Grant applications or du to building principles by October 20 and to wlf by October 27 and of course contining to celebrate the

165news of Dr mji buend Class of 1978 receiving a share of the Nobel Prize in chemistry last week Dr bendy was inducted into the West offia Wall of pride in 2022 Foundation is looking at opportunity to celebrate and recognize Dr bendy throughout our schools featur is expected on WLFI tonight stay tuned that is all I have thank you Mr shot moving on to curriculum Dr Yen oh we haven't to met yet but we will and okay and so for the park in so this this Friday and there will be a a event called a hostel 5K and so people are welcome to join it and the Lincoln Park is under construction re renovation another thing is actually I asked the park regarding and the possibility of collaboration with um like whether it's possible for those

166tennis course because many people in the city use tennis course as well before we see our Capital plan and so they said uh you know we can take a initiative and work with them about any possible collaboration on that because not only our families you know District um people in the district using those tennis court but also many other people in the city are using them so maybe there's a possibility for us to collaborate with them and to to renovate those places together I don't know just and sorry just one one more thing to follow up with um superintendent us valuation I just searched the the bylaw related to that issue and uh looks to me and unless there other places the bylaw 1240 and address the evaluation of the superintendent I I read it

167and again and again I didn't see any part mentioning that only the board president will work with the superintendent regarding the UI division maybe I missed something but that's what I got so far right so um to answer that question it is not um a matter of just the board chair doing that the board officers do that and when we do meet with superintendent that means that we don't need to hold a meeting we just have a more casual meeting and allow him the benefit of all board members comments so um as I stated to everyone in the beginning I am sing out the process and all the attached information as well as some learning documents so that you have the opportunity to review and understand the process overall uh from a philosophical standpoint so

168you are welcome to provide feedback on that that is the reason why I structured it with a window at the beginning for you to do that all members to do that actually I recognize that we have four members who have done one or none of these so uh some additional time uh to have some conversation could be beneficial but this PW doesn't to mention the board officer either the the bylaws um are not not prescribing everything they also don't say that I would need to wear shoes at that meeting either but yet one could presume that I do wear shoes so it's just they're they're not going to give it's not a recipe you're welcome to Bri feedback uh when you get the the summary but just last week um Dr Griner said you know

169he he's working with all of us so I I really appreciate that and I yeah I hope we Dr Yan every as you did participate in this last year you know that every word that is presented to Dr Griner is reviewed in full in person by the board and then the final document is also reviewed by every member of the board so there's not any attempt in fact it's extraordinary laborious extraordinarily laborious to include as much feedback to our superintendent as we do um and in fact can be difficult for him to uh sort through all of it so uh this is an area in which the board officers can make a decision on the delivery of it and we have done so okay but you welcome to provide feedback um as part of the

170process so moving on to uh Finance external Mr Marley I'm going to defer to our superintendent I missed the last RDC meeting I notified them well a week ahead of the meeting they had a quum I was called in something with my business I couldn't get out of it so I'm going to speak to the purpose that Mrs Ro U Mrs crank and I were there and we were in attendance of that meeting we worked through the agenda what we took notes on uh but we can certainly go through the agenda if necessary the big thing here that we were attending uh to support along with Dr handback the approval agreement related to the early childhood education study and APA Consulting The Firm that will be doing that study that was approved at that meeting

171uh the company is in the process of doing the study uh and they're going to survey families they're going to conduct those during the month of February and based upon their timeline so uh we'll get additional information uh in the future but to give you face-to-face information Erin Easter has agreed to come and speak to our board in November uh to explain the process and and uh what will take place over the next several months so that'll be on the November agenda you're welcome okay uh Finance internal Mr Wong to much just one thing I joined the collective bargaining meetings and it was very smooth and productive meetings and I I can see the collaborative and the constructive effort from everybody involved I think we everybody we share the same commitment uh to the well-beings

172of our students so I truly appreciate everybody's dedication and effort thank you thank you thank you for your efforts to come up to speed on that one as quickly as you did as well I appreciate that uh internal systems Mrs mumper um the public schools Foundation had a successful cupcake um run walk and they're currently reviewing their fall grants so I think they're plan us to announce it in the next few weeks um and then I did want to bring up now because we don't have much time time the concern that was shared with the AP exams I didn't know is this an option that we could turn to the foundation and have them help I mean the students have the fees du by November 1st so it's not like we can wait till our

173next Schoolboard meeting to have any sort of board discussion of how we could help our students with this request say that again fantastic not that something that I can cover as well so it's fine perfect so all the students but I mean in the past they've been able to have most their fees covered except from so from their point of view we should be able to we will be able to cover everything I I'm asking I asked Mr Shriner to get me some information on what that estimated cost is going to be before I have those discussions with the foundation and the foundation is already interest Tanya Pinker took note and is going to be uh speaking uh to the foundation too so there'll be multiple Avenues how soon can we let students know that

174this is on the table because I know fees are being turned in and students are in turmoil right now trying to pick I will I I I'll work with them here over the next couple days perfect thank you so much for doing that about 68,000 given St yeah given what I heard from one of our students the um so every board member understands the typical process for something like this would come up through a board teacher discussion that would be the normal pathway for there to be a concern from students that and from teachers that would come into board teacher discussion and that would come into our school leadership from that Avenue for whatever reason this one did not get placed on the agenda for the last board teacher discussion and because of the short

175time window certainly grateful that students and teachers came to speak on it tonight so this would be an exception to use of the normal process that is there already in existence if that makes any sense the state does not the state did not consult with us on our timeline so I wanted to just clarify for you because I could see how it could be confusing why is that one come to a meeting and so the normal system because of the time period it could not work through the normal process okay short question regarding that APS so can you give me a short uh timelines what happened in state and then is used a that used to be paid by state fund but now they they change so we try to work on something standing it

176was much um much more affordable um for students to take exams and now they've limited it to basically that that memo that came out September 15th limited to covering only three uh the first three for each three each year oh okay so we may have students that might want to take four five or six but they then they would have to cover the fourth fifth and six and the difficult part of that is by November 1st they don't necessarily know which class which AP class they're most like to perform well in so because they haven't covered a substantial amount of the course content at that point in time okay prior to this change the fee was $9 for a student uh and was free for a free and reduced uh student so it is substantial

177change to the Apparently I think $53 for free reduced student is Affordable no it's not so we all understand but I just from a you know we're all we as a board operate on procedure and process and so it was important to me to explain to you why this one came forward in the way that it did as opposed to the normal process so um but we are going to do something on that yes that is the intent and based on the number of text messages that I've received in the past two and a half hours I think that there's more than one worse willing to pull that plow so we'll figure it out one way or another um Mrs Austin legislative and policy please I had a very busy nove or uh September I'm

178already fast forting on the 13th I attended the isba's Zoom meeting about Library policies and the new laws regarding book challenges and that was one of the best isba events I've ever attended it was extremely useful I sent you my notes and I'm willing to share them with the rest of the board if anyone's interested on the 19th I attended the glass uh governing board meeting they have 15 open positions they're seeking to fill most of those are pair of professionals and I got to meet their new director um Lisa Stranahan who is very impressive and I'm looking forward to seeing what she does um on the 21st I attended the isba delegate prep Zoom because I had a speaking role at the conference so I attended a brief meeting to go over um what

179I needed to talk about and I appreciate you covering board teacher discussion because they conflicted and the lastly I attended the conference on the 24th to the 26th and my detailed notes will appear in the documents along with this meeting meeting but it was a really good time I made some strides in our relationship with the isba and other school districts across the state and I learned a lot thank you wonderful thank you okay um coming up future meeting I'm sorry Dr grer I almost left you off I'm so terribly sorry I no problem I made you go last and yeah you did this you're getting me even with me because usually I get to go first and then you guys are all rushed because you know people are going to go home so now

180I'm feeling like right quit quick I do want to say wlfy t-shirts uh that that some of our teachers are wearing uh if you can put your size large extra large uh two 2x or 3x those are what are left um if you put your size Tanya wants Tanya F biner wants to give you get you each a shirt so uh she wanted to do that and she didn't get a chance to say that so uh she went over didn't she so she didn't get to say that part so she's asked me to get that for three minutes is three minutes that's right we've already got yes Dr uh do Dr bendy I did want to say congratulations to him too even though Tom has already said that Mr sh has already said that um

181but uh he spoke highly of of Mr guy and our own people that have encouraged him and so and he did that I believe during the uh wall of Pride um experience and so it just speaks volumes of this amazing community and amazing school district and I I think that it's pretty exciting to one more thing to celebrate so uh the referendum update we continue to present to parent groups uh staff regarding the facts related to the referendum and then relieving a fact sheet uh with those we speak with that's going to actually be mailed out here in the near future to families uh We've also uh sent out our first uh e newsletter another one will be coming out shortly with facts related to referendum you've if you're on social media you've noticed that

182we're doing a lot of presentation of information through social media uh we have scheduled a public meeting for October 18th it will be at Willis uh the Intermediate School uh beginning at 5:30 we'll have a little bit of entertainment uh with with a music group and then there'll be some light Refreshments there'll be our presentation that we've been doing out throughout the community but then Dr dbor is going to come and speak he spoke to you you guys early on he'll he'll give that presentation as we know he's he's very interesting in the way that he shares information so he'll give an his overall presentation of school funding and we'll give the facts that we've been giving uh and again have that fact sheet available uh and then we want to do the same thing

183Mr D'Or Dr D'Or will not be a part of this one but we want to schedule a a zoom or Google meet meeting the following week after our October 18th presentation we'll do it via Zoom from our homes she'll have her cat and that's right and then so we'll we'll present and answer questions electronically as well so did I do it in three minutes I okay absolutely those are my reports okay uh upcoming uh meetings we have a work session if needed Friday November the 10th uh I will back that up and say as a reminder to everyone that um November 7th is election day uh Friday November 10th is a work session if needed Monday November the 13th is a regular board meeting at 6 o'clock here in the LGI room 111 um I'm

184really out of order the isba regional meeting is at 5:30 for those who have registered upcoming dates of Interest Wednesday October the 11th believe it or not is the end of the first nine weeks grading period Thursday October the 12th through Tuesday October the 17th fall break and Wednesday October 18th the 2 9 weeks grading period begins with that I would take a motion to adjourn mve by Mrs Austin second by Mr Wong all of those in favor please indicate with show of hands that motion k