You eat it. Mince. Oh, that's what I should pick out. Dinner of champions. Alright. Are they? Yes. It should be done. Right. Yes. It's 07:01. Doug's not gonna be joining us tonight. Okay. No. No. Oh my gosh. And you made me forget. I stopped. Do you need a moment, though? I do need a moment. I I rushed him on. I apologize. Alright. I think we're ready. Thank you everybody for coming out to the 11/25/2025 Elkhart Community Schools board meeting.
At this time, I'd like to call the meeting to order, and please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Thank you. Mister Ivory, the Elkhart Promise. Sure thing. Every student is known by name, challenged and supported by highly effective staff, and in partnership with the community, graduate career college ready and for life and life ready. I'm sorry. Thank you, mister Ivory. You're welcome. Invitation to speak protocol. When I call your name, please step up to the microphone. State your name and your affiliation, with the district. You'll then have three minutes to talk about any agenda or non agenda, item.
Please, you know, keep it to the three minutes as, we we we try to adhere to that. Please do not publicly discuss personnel or personal student issues. This is not the format, to do those type of, bring those issues to light. So with that said, we do have one public comment tonight, it appears. Brett, is it Coverstone? Okay. Please step forward. Hello. My name is Brett Coverstone, and I'm a third grade teacher at Mary Feazer. This is my sixth year with the district.
At the beginning of this year, our enrollment was already over 64 students. Despite this, my grade level was dropped down to two sections. As the first day of school neared, our numbers grew to 37 students per classroom. We were told they would not all show up. On the first day of school, I had 34 students, and my colleague had 35. After being in school for three weeks, we were told they would let us hire a pair of but not an additional section. My teammate and I began to plan for this new reality. Then the next day, we were told that we would have to hire a third section, not a para. As we interviewed, the candidates were hired into other buildings as so many in the district have been treated the same way that ours had, while a select few had
locked out and still to this very moment have class size class sizes at less than 20 students. As time went on, my colleague and I expressed concern about the interviews. While many of these people seem like very kind people, we questioned their lack of qualifications, especially to be taking students out of a classroom with two educated, licensed, and highly qualified teachers into a classroom with someone who had either not completed an education degree student teaching or who had been removed from their previous place of employment. We expressed concern for many reasons. The stress that our students are already under due to the impact of iRead, the fact that a third of our students spent half of the last school year without
a certified teacher, in addition to the simple fact that we have already spent half of the year with these students. They have learned our routines and procedures. They have learned what to expect and how we teach. They have gotten comfortable with each other, and we have learned about how they learn and what their needs are. We have repeatedly asked two things. Can we please just try to hire a para? This way we could pull groups for interventions while also having an extra pair of eyes in the room to help the other 30 students and ensure they are successful. And will we be compensated for having a class size that exceeds the district threshold? It's almost December.
We have been told that we will not be getting a para despite asking for this instead of a third section several times in recent weeks. Our choice was to either hire someone as a teacher who, again, had never taken a single education course, and we could teach them how to be a teacher during our prep time while they took our students out of our classroom, or we could have nothing. My colleague and I chose our students. We chose to ensure that they continue to receive an education from someone who was trained and had put in the work to learn how to teach them, which is not something that anyone can just walk in and do. We couldn't imagine a single parent who would be comfortable with the idea of their
child being removed from a classroom with a highly effective licensed teacher with years of experience into a classroom with someone who does not hold a license, someone who does not have a degree, nor are they actively trying to get one, as kind and as motivated as they might be. We also cannot seem to get an answer about whether or not we will be compensated for any of this. Situations are being created that we know or not what is best for kids, while teachers and students are being forced to deal with the fallout without even being able to request reasonable aid or compensation. And I reject the idea that this is the best that we can do.
Thanks. Alright. No more public comment. We will now, move along the agenda to the moment of pride. Sam Germaine and Jonathan Weaver, welcome. Nice bow tie. I like that. Good evening, President Scott, members of the board, doctor Huff and our community. It's so great to be here. Yeah. My name is Samuel Germaine. I'm a senior here at Elkhart High School. My name is Jonathan Weaver, and I am a sophomore here at Elkhart High School. We are honored today to be, presenting the moment of pride for late October and the month of November.
Our first topic is the track or treat event that we hold annually, which was held at Rice Field on October 30. We had 450 volunteers from 50 different community and school programs. And the thousands of people who attended the event enjoyed their trip to Rice Field. So early this month, we gave all of our Elkhart High School freshmen the opportunity to visit our Elkhart Area Career Center. And this really gives them the opportunity to immerse themselves themselves in, the, in the
programs that we offer here at the Career Center. So this is really to encourage the kids, to start encouraging the kids super early in their high school career, to start thinking about what they might wanna do after high school and if they wanna get involved in any of these programs as soon as their junior year in high school. Alongside that, we also had the Elkhart High School freshmen meet their future counselors. And when they met, they discussed their potential future classes and opportunities for them in the future in their high school education. So our EHS, Spubble team actually placed second at regionals on November 3.
We held our annual ECS Bandfest on November 5 in Northside Gym. We had four of our Elk Creek Community School bands attend and perform, and the bands were the sixth grade beginning band, the seventh and eighth grade band, the advanced jazz band, and the pride of Elkhart marching band. More than 250 students, Elkhart High School students, attended the Latino Institute Summit that was held at the Century Center. And here, they were connected with colleges, industry professionals, and getting information on scholarships, what
their college application should include, ways to get financial aid, and overall, just make further education, an affordable experience for all. We also had students and families that attended the College Go Sunday, which had Notre Dame, and we and they the families and students received information about how to apply for federal student aid. This was a very informative meeting that, made future education affordable for all, and all
the participating students and families were able to submit FAFSA applications. So Unify Cornhole. This is a brand new act activity that we're bringing to Elkhart High School. This is really cool because we're one of only 16 schools in Indiana, doing this activity. This is really cool. Special Olympics has actually provided us with all the all the tools necessary, all the boards, all the beanbags to actually start this activity. So and this is supposed to be a a filler event, in between unified, black football and unified track, to provide an experience, for all athletes regardless of their mental
or physical disabilities to be, to be involved in a competitive activity like Unified Cornhole. On over on November 14, we had 10 sophomores and juniors who attended the Ulead leadership training at the Aquatic Center, and they were joined with the students from different high schools in our area. Our annual Stuff a Bus food drive, Elkhart High School's, student government members, helped gather
these donations, which included nonperishable foods, toys, gift cards, etcetera. And all these donations are gonna be distributed to families and students in need in our community. On November 11, which was Veterans Day, our Elkhart High School AFJROTC students honored our veterans and our community for their service. Alongside this, the Elkhart High School student government members also made thank you notes and distributed them to veterans in our community. Our fall sports awards this year, we had, countless number of athletes receiving receiving awards
in all dish in, all different types of awards. We had 26 academic all conference, 11 academic all states, two conference MVPs, five all district, five all state, including our boys soccer team who were the n NIC champions, and cheerleading who got first, third, and fifth place at their state level competition. On November, the Elkhart High School performing arts program put on their fall play named Twelfth Night or What You Will by William Shakespeare. A lot of people attended to support our wonderful performing arts programs.
Yeah. Alongside that, both our intermediate and advanced jazz bands performed, on November 12 in front a of an incredibly sized audience, which really represents, our stellar band programs here at Elkhart High School. For our perfect attendance for quarter one, we had over 300 Elkhart High School students who had perfect attendance for the first quarter. Specifically, over 100 of these students were freshmen. They for a reward, the students were able to have ice cream to show that
it is, very important to have perfect attendance. And this is a huge step towards excellence in education for Elkhart High School. Yeah. Looking forward, after Thanksgiving break, we'll have our ugly sweater run. NCAA eligibility night, our commencement speaker auditions, FAFSA night, magical dinner, parent night, a winter celebration concert, our student cocoa cookie and movie night, our district chess tournament, and finally, our choral winter winter song concert. So, again, thank you, President Scott, the members of the board, Doctor.
Huff, and our community for allowing us to present tonight. Thank you. Alright, Scott. Great great job, guys. Thank you. Very, very polished, presentation. Very impressive. Thank you for sharing all the great things that are happening in the high school. And, wow, we just couldn't be any more proud of you too that you you have a a gift, young man, and so do you. So very, very impressed. Thank you. I just wanna share that with you. Great great job, both of you. Great job. Yeah. They did wonderful job. Oh, we should have known when they when they walked up in the the bow tie and the tie.
Absolutely. We we we we were in for excellence. Job well done. Yes. Really. Alright. Mister Giannesi, the construction update. Good evening, president Scott, members of the board, doctor Hough, and members of our community. Tonight, I'd like to provide a brief construction update on the various projects that are underway around our district. So I'm gonna start with the same quote that I presented back in April. The physical environment of its of a school, its classrooms, hallways, and facilities can significantly impact students' ability to learn with well designed modern spaces, fostering engagement, creativity, and academic
success. I bring this back because you're gonna see a number of projects tonight that are nearing completion, and I believe that each one of them represent our commitment and dedication to our students and the facilities that they learn in. Excuse me. So the first project I'll focus on is the Elkhart Area Career Center. This is actually I'll point out a shot of the new addition. So as you're traveling along California Road, this is what you'll see out front. And this is a a project that is, actually, one of my favorites. I think this has turned out extremely well. So the project really consisted of two, two components.
The first was a renovation of an existing space to move WVP and WVP, the radio station, into. And this project really consisted of creating new studio spaces and working with the existing office spaces. It was completed on September 1, and the radio station has been operating out of that space since then. The second major piece is that new addition that we just looked at. Construction, believe it or not, is nearing completion after our a little over a year, of being under construction. We are set to be substantially complete next week, December 4, when we will do
our final punch list and walk through. The project is set to turn over to us on December 31, and we will occupy it for use on January 5 when we start the new semester or the new school the new year, excuse me, after our fall or after, excuse me, our winter recess. In addition, includes, the four additional classrooms, small group instructional space, and large training room all designed for the criminal justice program. However, as you'll see in the next slide, the large group space here is going
to be similar to what we have at ETI, and it's a space that'll be designed to be used for the students and their various activities as well as district events and perhaps community events such as college fairs that the career center would host. This is a slide that represents one of the four classrooms. They're all identical, so you get an idea of what all four will look like. They're very nice nice size. They look out onto the the California Road, which I actually think is a nice view. And so I think it's gonna give kids a a grade the students a great space to work from.
And finally, I include this slide because we had to figure out what to do with the 1971 building with a very unique facade and figure out how to marry that into a brand new building. So we decided that we would just keep it as is and actually, make it stand out a little bit. So when you're able to walk through the building, you'll see the new buildings on the right, and you'll see the existing building on the left in this photo. And we are essentially paying homage to that old construction, if you will. Second project I wanna focus on is actually two different projects at the annex.
The first is the diesel tech project, and the second is building trades or construction trades as it's also known as. These two projects have been underway for quite some time with diesel tech starting first and actually being completed at the June and turned over for use by the students and staff for the start of the school year, and they've used it every day since. The construction trades is tracking on the same, schedule as the addition on the main building, and we will be walking through that addition on December 4 for our punch list as well, for that to be substantially complete and to be occupied by our
students and staff on January 5 when we return from winter recess. That's interesting. I'm missing a photo. Well, this is supposed to be a photo of the there we go. This is a photo of the new classroom. So the the building trades project actually takes us from one to three classrooms, and this is the newest and largest classroom, which will actually be large enough for traditional instruction as well as hands on instruction and demonstrations, where the existing classrooms were quite a bit smaller. So being construction trades, we'll want to be able to do some different things with electrical, carpentry, HVAC.
This classroom will support those activities. And this photo actually shows the new main entrance, which faces east. You can see the door still left, a new office for staff members, and then the the lockers, and this will be the break room for the students. So we've replaced the the cramped outdated space with some some very modern space that we feel will be very appropriate for the activity here. The next project I'll focus on is Elkhart health and strength, Elkhart High School health and strength. This is actually a rendering from prior to construction. So, as we move along a little further, you'll see a photo of this same
area, and I hope you'll recognize how closely the actual project resembles a rendering, which isn't always the case. An aerial photo. So between these two photos, you can see that not only are we gonna have the interior workout space, but we also have two turf areas that will also be used for workout space there on the exterior. This project is also nearly complete. It's two weeks behind the other two, but we're still right on schedule. Substantial completion is scheduled for December 17. We'll do our walk through on that date. And on the eighteenth, we'll begin moving in the weight, cardio, and training equipment as
well as the classroom equipment. This project will be turned over for use on January 5 as well when we return from winter recess. And it includes the construction of over 10,000 square feet of fitness area for cardio, free weights, and weight machines, and then there's also a classroom, training room, offices, and storage. So this is the photo I was referring to. This is the area that you saw in the rendering, and you can see the similarity. We tried to be very true to what we presented at the very beginning of
this process. This is the new classroom that's inside of the building, so it'll be very nice for our PE classes as well as any other meetings at the athletic department, music department, any of the student activities might wish to have in here. This is a view from the Northeast Corner showing the enormity of the space. And I'm a move on because I took this one a little before they actually started installing the new turf and the new rubber flooring for the weights. So this is looking at a similar area to what you saw in the pre previous photo. This is the new training room, athletic training room, have a variety of pieces of
equipment that will be used for training for our athletes in particular, but also can be used for our students as well. And finally, I'm gonna focus a little bit on the middle school projects. They've slowed down considerably since August. Beginning last January, we began the process of renovating each of the middle schools with work that was completed through our own facilities department and our own staff. And then by the end of summer, we had also completed the renovations and working with Core Construction and Jay Lake Architecture, which include the renovations of the existing home
ec and industrial tech areas to create new classrooms. We created the sixth grade area. We renovated the first phase of restrooms in each of the buildings. And then once school started, we started phase two of the restroom renovations. Phase two was completed at Pierre Moran in Westside last week, and phase two at, Northside will be completed next week along with the HVAC equipment. Once we're done at Northside or I'm sorry, by December 8, so that is actually the following Monday. Once that work is completed, Northside will be a 100% complete from a contractor standpoint, from an outside contractor standpoint.
We do have some work that we will continue that's similar to what we did last year with some new flooring and finishes throughout. And then Westside actually has a third phase of restrooms that will begin next week, and they're scheduled to be done February 9, which was, also by the original contract that extended us beyond the original December 31 that we had hoped for everything else. And finally, the HVAC units that if you've been in their schools, you'll recognize some portable units in some classrooms and some of the new classrooms. They were delayed during manufacturing, so, unfortunately, will not arrive until almost February.
We'll continue to operate with the temporary units, and then the units will be installed. And once those are done, then all three of the buildings will be complete with the work we've been doing with core construction. So a few pictures. I presented this slide back in April that showed some of the existing or unexisting condition in one of the classrooms, and then new conditions, new run of after renovations with the work that we completed. Couple examples, this is Westside restrooms, new restrooms, and Pierre Moran. We took the opportunity to use school colors in the restrooms. It's one of the few areas in the buildings that we did that.
We didn't want to, do too much with them, but we thought the restrooms would be an ideal place. And, honestly, I think these turned out fantastic compared to what was there, which, you know, all the buildings were original. New classroom in West Side. This is actually missus Walt's high ability room. It's set up as a flex room, so she actually has sinks and additional countertops so they can do some of the experiments that go along with high ability in this room. This is missus Thompson's room at Northside, also a similar setup to missus Walt's. And then I had to throw in a a shot of Pierre Morin.
Unfortunately, Jeff will probably be upset with me, mister Hemmerlein, that he's in this, but I wanted to show one of the new rooms at Pierre Morin as well. New orchestra room at North Side, new general education classroom at North Side. And then finally, a shot of the corridors with the new lockers. This is actually Pier Moran looking from the Southwest corner to the north and to the east and the stairway, which we actually replaced the existing carpet, which was quite worn, with new vinyl treads. So the work has been ongoing, but, overall, I I hope that everyone is as
pleased as I am with the results. Any questions? I just have a comment. I just wanna say that, one, thank you for this update. I think we for sometimes forget how much activity is going on around the district. And then, two, a lot of this work was completed by our own staff. So, again, I just wanna say thank you to those individuals, who worked on this project, and who worked during the day during their regular job and then worked overnight doing this to get this to make sure we met all the time most of the time line. So just wanna say thank you for your leadership and to your team. Thank you. Next, we have, miss Wood, excellence of Elkhart.
Thank you, president Scott, members of the board, doctor Hough, community members. I'm grateful for the opportunity to share highlights in the areas of academics, arts, and athletics. For academics at the Elkhart Area Career Center, mechatronics, students recently completed an impressive hands on engineering product, building an automatic can crusher from ground up. Students disassembled existing technology, programmed the automation components, and designed and constructed the full frame of the device. Elkhart High School 10 through 12 counselors visited the freshman division school of study to
help next year sophomores prepare for success. Students spent staff, learned what to expect in their school of study, and explored academic and professional opportunities. In addition, freshmen have been visiting the El Cardier Career Center discovering programs that will be available to them as they progress through the high school and prepare to be college and career ready. In the area of arts, Riverview Elementary students recently explored key artistic concepts through a variety of grade level projects, all of which are displayed throughout the school. Students focused on line, color, texture, and patterns in works such as color wheel turkeys
and textured owls, created night sky cityscapes, and studies and studied Alexander Calder's stable sculptures. Through these projects, students strengthen their understanding of applied line, movement, color, and astrophysical perspective. In three d art at the freshman division, students explored how different materials interacted by decorating inflated balloons with newspaper. The project required careful precision and delicate handling, helping students understand how to work with fragile forms and considering the challenges artists face when creating an unconventional materials.
In the area of athletics, earlier this month was the elementary boys basketball skills night, bringing together fourth and fifth grade players from all of our 13 elementary schools. Hundreds of young athletes had the opportunity to learn directly from Elkhart High School boys basketball coaching staff and players, gaining new skills and building excitement for the season ahead. The fall sports program at Elkhart High School provided an opportunity to recognize our student athletes for their team and individual achievements. Students were honored with awards highlighting leadership, perseverance, and strong performance throughout the season.
For our future happenings, November is our Thanksgiving break. December 2 is our NCAA eligibility parent meeting. December 4 will be our FAFSA night. December 6, the ugly sweater run, and December 6, the Madrigal dinner. As always, please be sure to follow our district and school social media pages as we share each day the excellence of Elkhart schools. Thank you. Thank you, Wendy. Great job. Next on the agenda, we have the consent items as presented. Do I have a motion for the consent items?
Motion. I have a motion. Do I have a second? Okay. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Yes. And this is a moment that, you know, we take the opportunity to have a moment of silence on somebody that I shared at the last meeting had retired. And after that meeting, miss Stutzman went home to heaven to her lord and savior, and so we just take a moment of silence to celebrate, Amy and her and her trip back up to heaven. And so just a moment.
Thank you. To know miss Stutzman was to really be honored, and her and miss Patia and miss Tracy and the addition of miss Sekiba made a phenomenal team. And so it's it's a very sad loss for her family and friends, but I can tell you that Amy is truly at peace now. So and in saying that, we also celebrate some retirements of some wonderful employees, Wendy Freeland, who was ten years of our freshman nurse, Marlene Reid, who served twelve years as a bus helper on many buses, and mister Curtis Williams, he was nineteen years
at Hawthorne as the custodian, and he did a wonderful job transitioning from a student based learning center to the early learning center. So we celebrate the retirements of each one of those employees, and then we get the opportunity to celebrate, again, our community at $16,800 of donations. And, our career center received a silver sponsorship of $500 from Selkien International, care of Joseph Selkien. And then this one is amazing, and it goes hand in hand with Tony. You're just talking about our construction trades.
$10,000 was donated from the, Macomber Family Fund, from their community foundation, scholarship. So that is to continue to build our construction trades, and development our students. And we received $5,000 in in a 2016 Chevy Trax. And when those cars are donated, which this was donated by Jeff and Carol Gearing, those actually get to go into the automotive cluster, and they can rip those apart in any way that they need. So if you have a vehicle that you're no longer needing and you just wanna
donate it, it's awesome to give it to the kids, the young men and women of the auto trades because they can tear that apart and do some really great, learning experiences. Locksmith Weaver Foundation donated 500 or 300 to support, Elk Grove High School extracurricular activities, and NIPCO donated a thousand dollars to support field trips, which those are always wonderful donations from our community. These are not a dollar amount, but they are so wonderful that Trine University donated the opportunity for 50 students and five chaperones to come and visit Trine University for
the future of our students. And our diesel technology, received a donation of, a motor from International Motor USA LLC. They received a steer axle, a drive axle, and, a large transmission. And so, again, when you're in the diesel program to be able to get those donations and be hands on, that's a great gift from our community. So $16,800, three teachers of retirement or staff of retirement, and, a celebration of life,
we are saying thank you to our community again. Thank you, Kelly. Any other discussion from the board regarding the consent agenda? I have a motion and I have a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Moving on to old business. Lindsey Brander, contracts. Good evening, board president Scott, members of the board, doctor Hupp. The administration presents the following contracts for final consideration. Vassar Children's Home for therapeutic supports. Actually, go ahead and do both of those. And then also the Elkhart County Youth for Christ, which is Lifeline. Yep. Thank you. Alright.
Do I have a motion to accept the contracts as presented? Motion. I have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. I have a motion. I have a second. Do I have any questions or discussions from the board? Seeing or hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you, Lindsay. Mister Thorn, board policies. Thank you. President Scott, members of the Board of School Trustees, doctor Hough. This evening, the administration recommends approval of board policy twenty two ten, which is curriculum development. Wanna do you want me to present all of all the more at one time? Yeah. Please do.
Happy to do that. Secondly, we are recommending approval of board policy twenty three seventy, which is educational options. Board policy twenty three seventy point zero two, which governs flex programs, and board policy fifty four sixty two, which, outlines the protocol for retaking a class. Thank you, mister Thorn. We have, four board policies as, described, by mister Thorn for final consideration. Do I have a motion from the board to accept? Motion. Second.
I have a motion on the second. Do I have any questions or comments, regarding these policies? Mhmm. Seeing or hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you, mister Thorn. Next, we have, new business on the agenda. Doctor Hough, we have the 2026 board meeting schedule. Thank you, president Scott. Good evening, president Scott, members of the board community. Tonight, I would like to present the proposed board meeting scheduled for 2026 and also request, the wave of second reading at this time.
Thank you, doctor Hough. Do I have a motion to accept the 2026 board meeting scheduled and also waiving second reading? I have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. I have a motion to have a second. Any questions or comments from the board regarding the sched 2026 meeting schedule? I would just ask doctor Hoff, could you, highlight a couple few of the changes in what we're doing? Yeah. I certainly can. Thank you. And I'm sorry. Holly, this is Vonda Vellum. One of the things that I think, we try to take in consideration for our
staff and for our community is that, sometimes, night like tonight, are not the most ideal nights to be having board member meetings. We have things going on in our community that we think we want our staff to be a a part of and our community to be a part of. So in certain months, there'll be, only months where we have one board meeting. Also, the board times will change as well. We will move board meetings from 7PM to 6PM, and our work sessions or executive sessions will move from 6PM to 5PM. So those are some of the things that you're voting on this evening, and I think that's the option that you just chose.
So, great follow-up question for the community so they can understand exactly what was happening. So, hopefully, is there any other questions about that? Alright. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? I I just have a quick comment. Thank you for taking a look at, this and the way to be more efficient and way, to be, understanding not only of, of your staff and and the time that they spend during the day, moving it back to to allow them to to get, you know, back to their families at a more reasonable time. But also, looking at the the the calendar and the board meetings have followed a
holiday, through the number of times I've I've been on a plane rushing back, reading through the board packet, for that the meeting. And I think it makes little sense that in those particular scenarios, we've we've made an adjustment so that doesn't occur. So, thank you for doing that as well. No problem. No other questions or comments? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you, doctor Hoff. You're welcome. Next under new business, we have, contracts, for, initial consideration. Doctor Rausch, welcome. Yeah. President Scott, school board of trustees, doctor Hough, the administration presents the following contracts for
initial consideration, Cardonics Incorporated for scheduling at the high school and middle school. Thank you. We're going to, yeah, we'll just move through it, Maggie. Next one. Thank you. Good evening, president Scott, members of the board, doctor Hoff. The administration presents for initial consideration a proposed agreement with EduStaff. You. Lindsay? The administration presents the Basher Children's Home contract. This is for their Basher alternative school program that provides services for high school students that require a higher level of care and educational support.
Mister Thorn. Thank you. On behalf of WVPE, the administration is presenting a proposed agreement with Interleague Group for preliminary consideration. Thank you. All four of these were in our board packet. We've had an opportunity to review. Are there any questions or comments from the board regarding any one of these, contracts for initial consideration tonight? Seeing or hearing none, please, over the next couple weeks, as you continue to review, please reach out to the appropriate administration who presented, tonight, with any additional questions.
So we'll be prepared to take it to, second reading, at our next board meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, you can still stay there? We I am. We we have, board policies. You want me to just present all four at the same time? Yeah. Please do. Okay. Well, happy to do that. This evening, the administration is presenting for preliminary consideration the following board policies. Board policy twenty four eleven, which governs guidance and counseling. Board Policy 3,216 ACS, this is a staff dress and appearance policy.
Board Policy 8,400 which over addresses issues of school safety. And finally, Board Policy 8,451 which governs the process we deal with in terms of various parasitic parasitic infestations. Bring these again for preliminary consideration this evening. Good stuff. Riveting. Yeah. Much like the contracts that are presented for initial consideration, all of these board policies are also presented for initial consideration. We've had an opportunity to review in our board packet for this week. But, should they, any board members, have any questions, please reach out to mister Thorn
regarding the policies before they come back up for, second reading. Are there any questions or comments regarding the policies tonight that you would like to address to mister Thorn? Seeing none or hearing none. Thank you. And lastly, the resolution. Seems to be building trades night. This evening, the administration is recommending approval of a resolution authorizing a transfer of real property from Oak Creek Community Schools to vocational building trades. This will provide the opportunity for building trades to begin construction on a new home. Seeking your approval this evening.
Do I have a, motion regarding the resolution as presented? Second. I have a motion. Do I have a second? I have a motion. I have a second. Do I have any questions or comments for mister, Thorn regarding this resolution? Seeing or hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passed unanimously. Thank you so much. Thank you, mister Thorn. Miss Ross, financial report. Yes. Good evening. Board president, board members, doctor Hough, and the community, I'm here to present the monthly financial update for the October finances. Our first slide here is our adjusted budget, which I, spoke of last session.
You'll see in that second column, as our seventeen eighty two budget, which is the budget order provided by DLGF, and our numbers were aspirational, possibly inflated due to an expected, higher ADM. So you'll see in that first quadrant here that we expected about 99,000,000. You'll see the items in a pinkish reddish color where we're making adjustments downwards to our receipts, looking at $93,000,000 in, receipts.
So that's a whopping $6,000,000 revenue loss from our 1782 projections. With that said, we had to, find that money somewhere, so we're going to limit our transfers, to operations funds. So we originally projected, as you can see side by side, 9,000,000 that we could transfer. We would only be able to make about 3,000,000. And this will help us, going back here, will help us avoid this fund going negative by just transferring the 3,000,000. So this the goal of this slide is to show how we can end this,
education fund in balance at the end of the year. So with that, we would have fully expended our $93,000,000 budget, but we also have additional appropriation from carry forward purchase orders. So those would be expenses from the prior year that were encumbered, and we can carry them forward and pay them in 2025 without exceeding our spending authority. So we have spent that. Doesn't look like we're gonna spend all of it. So that's good news. We won't it looks like we won't have to seek the additional, spending authority due
to us kinda dialing back some of our expenses. So that is a bright spot there. Just kinda playing that out here. We could we're projecting our ending cash balance could be, 542,000. Again, just to end this fund, in the black and not being able to make that 6,000,000 in transfers, that's how we get here. Okay. So that is our education fund adjusting the budget, the revenue and expenditures. So just, would like to call your attention to the October column there, circled.
These were our expenditures for the month of October. You'll see our total receipts, over 8,000,000, from the primarily tuition support. You'll see wages and benefits, our primary expense out of this fund. We are trending downwards in wages and benefits. Our average wages expenditures in two pay months or months where we have two paychecks is about five point, 2,000,000. So this is trending down, which is good news. And just calling to your attention, that, in red is actually our appropriation in terms
of that 90,000,000 budget budgeted expenditures you saw in the previous slide, plus the 2,000,000 carry forward POs, you get about $93,000,000 of spending authority, just to tie that back into the previous slide. And so, bottom line is our cash balance for the end of this month in the education fund is about 3,500,000.0. Just keeping in mind, our goal is to still transfer 2,000,000 over to the operations fund. We've we've transferred one already this year. We still wanna transfer another 2 to stabilize that fund.
So, some bright spots there, but, you know, cautiously optimistic moving forward. Wrapping up with our education fund here, you'll see our cash flow for the year. You see it trending upwards, which is good, and this allows us to make those transfers that I mentioned to the operations fund. Just a caveat, you'll see next month for November and December, we will have an adjustment to our tuition support from the state due to, you know, our loss of
ADM. It's like, okay. We've supported you at this student amount. You didn't get those that many students, so we're gonna draw some back. So we're looking at revenue going down in the education fund in November and December, about $900,000 for November, and then again another 900,000 loss in December. Okay. Moving on to the operations fund. I'm just calling your attention to October. Started off with a negative cash balance there, and we, have total receipts of 7,600,000. That's due, primarily to the bond proceeds that, Geo Bond that we procured.
So our total expenses are trending downwards, as well, and we have our ending cash balance of 3,100,000.0 in this fund. You will see a slide forthcoming that kinda details more of the, savings and, where our expense savings are coming from shortly. Okay. And just looking at the trends of the operations fund, you see how it has its peaks and its troughs. That's, very typical for the operations fund because it's based on receipts primarily, from property
taxes, which we receive in June and in December. So it's gonna go up and it's gonna go down until we get our next influx. You do you do see October has that nice, that green bar. Well, that was the bond, we just spoke of, so we got that influx of cash in the operations fund to help stabilize that fund. Our rainy day fund, ending cash balance is 6,700,000.0. No changes from the prior month. And taking all these three, funds together, you see our cash balance is, 13,000,000 there
in October. So you got the rainy day added with the operations, added with the education fund. So, you've seen this slide. It's a summary of some of our savings initiatives that we've been working on, And the newest addition there at the bottom, which you may be hearing more about tonight, is our district footprint and our consolidation assessment. So, I've put together kind of an update on where our savings initiatives have led us, to this point. So the new items are circled the updated items, I should say, are circled there
in red. So I'm updating the staff level the staff cost. We've done some, as you can see, some updates into sub pay, look and reviewed extended contracts, reduced central office. So to date, we're looking at over half $1,000,000 in savings when we compare August payroll through October this time that time frame 2024 versus 2025. Jumping on down to professional services, we have spent less than budgeted, and that is
bringing in another savings to kinda offset, some of the expenditures that we have with our higher staffing levels. So to date, you can see about 3,300,000.0 in savings and or cost avoidance. And these efforts has helped us not to have to be able to not to have to seek the additional appropriations. So right now, we are trending in the right direction. And that concludes the monthly financial update. Thank you, any questions or comments from the board regarding the financial update? Please move on to insurance. Okay.
Will do. Will do. Okay. Our insurance update is looking good. Our loss ratio is holding at about 85%. Pleased to announce our expanded Anthem network, and our partnerships to enhance our claims processing and communications. More on that coming soon. And here's just a breakdown of where we were last year versus this year. Our loss ratio this time, last year was a 104%, so we were spending more than what we were bringing in. Now, we're spending less.
So the plan is performing better at this point in time versus last year. And that concludes the insurance update. Do, know of any large claims that are that are outstanding that could still hit in 2025? We have an upcoming meeting, and we will be reviewing that, and I will report out on that. Just just, during that meeting, just if you'd asked, to make sure that if any of the large claims have hit the spec amount, that we do everything in our power, that there's any outstanding claims to get those in by the end of the year. So, our stop loss carrier will absorb those, rather than the district.
Absolutely. Alright. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Thank you very much. Doctor. Huff? Good evening again. President Scott, members of the board, community. Tonight, I am here to give you an update on our consolidation efforts. If you remember just two weeks ago, I received authorization from the school board to begin this consolidation work, but this work began a long time ago. We over the last year, we've talked about, some really difficult things in our school district regarding some of our financial challenges, our footprint, and some of our, decline in
enrollment. And so tonight, I'm here to share with you some initial pairings, related to the consolidation based off data driven conversation, some of the feedback that we received from our, state of the the district meetings, and then looking forward to receiving some of our, feedback from our staff. Last week, we sent a survey out to staff. And as of today, we have over 500, responses that we will have to disaggregate and make sure that their voices are heard through this process as well. I will share with you, in my now two years here, this moment is very
important for Elkhart Community Schools. We not only need to get this right, we need to get this right and get it right now. And so, hearing all the work that's being done by all the team members and by the teachers, I feel like it's a great sense of duty, and it's actually an honor to be in front of you tonight to share with you, our next step on how to make continue to make Elkhart a great place for kids, but also to shore up our future so we are never in this position ever again. And so tonight, I get the pleasure of presenting to with you with one of
our your new tech directors, mister DJ Rhodes. If you don't know him, he is the outstanding gentleman there in the back. He's got the greatest beard in Elkhart. But, mister Rhodes, I just want oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Hey. Hey. He he's your boss. So, I hey, Amish, my friend. One of the things that I want to share with you tonight is before we go into this work, there's a lot of work done behind the scenes. When we get presentations done in front of them, those are individuals who are yes. It's their job, but they are working on this on the weekend and at nighttime.
We have strategy meetings every day from one to 01:15 to, you know, sometimes when they end a little after an hour where people are just back and forth sharing just some ideas of how can we make the district better, how we make sure this message is communicated, and, you know, we're anticipating some questions that people are gonna ask. I believe in transparency when it comes to this work, and I think overall in the processes that we have been sharing over the last year and a half or so, I would hope that we have stood up to that commitment.
So I just want to, just acknowledge the hard work of the team, and, this is our first school groupings dashboard. Again, these aren't anything that is definitive. These are just recommendations I would make it to the board. The board will have the the tough decisions down the down the road to vote on any type of these pair of pairings, but they are also learning just like the community is, as well. Nothing has been decided, and they're all been, data driven. So, I will have a conversation tonight, with mister Rose as he will be doing
the driving for me, as we go through this process. So, mister Rose, I would first like you to start off in our pairing to the in the West, and that will be, I'll just say, Cleveland. And this dashboard will be available tonight, and I wanted to walk with you on how that you can utilize this dashboard when this is, presentation is done. The community will be able to go ahead and do the same thing that we're doing this evening. We had members of our team create a video that will be sent out tonight. So to show you exactly how to go through this process with all your family
and friends when you're, looking at this. Some of you got it. You'll be able to to look at this yourself and actually talk about what the potential pairing. Some parents just don't make sense, and it won't allow you to do that. But, this is the best pairing based off the data that we have at this time, and we wanna make these recommendations to the school board. So the first parent that we have to the west of our school district is the Cleveland Woodland and Mary Daley, parent. And as you can see, mister Rhodes has selected Cleveland Elementary. I need to be very clear. That does not mean that Cleveland is the school that is being selected for consolidation
or selected to be a receiving school. It just means it's a school that you clicked on. Is that correct? Can you do me a favor and change that to any other pairing before I talk about what's on the screen? If you notice, he now no. No. Stay in the West not region. This is not NCAA. But please stay in the West area of our district. That will be Woodland. If you notice and can you scroll down a little bit, mister Rose? Woodland is now the selected school. I wanna share with the community what is contained inside the inside the information for
Woodland. We go over the grade span. We the enrollment, the capacity, and the amount of empty space that Woodland has based off, the way it was designed, the year it was open, the last renovation for the school district, the physical space, and do we have debt on the building, the parking spots and bus loops, the total number of classrooms. When I say classroom, I'm talking about that are built for instruction, And then lastly, the per pupil spend. And the reason why we call it per pupil spend is the choices of the district on how we are providing services at that school.
It is not necessarily the school creating their own per pupil spend. So I think it's very important that we, share that information. Also, below that, you can see if Woodland is paired with partner school two, which is Cleveland. There's a little, box there. DJ, mister Rhodes, can you circle move your magic wand around that? That will share that will say the selected school and the partner school, their combined enrollment, that is if every student rolls up, it will be a total of seven eighty six. And if you go back to the, selected school, you'll see with that pairing how
does that impact that pairing? And you can see do the same thing with partner school number one. We have provided this information for every single one of the pairings, though it was a substantial amount of work to, upload this. DJ and his mister Rose and his team have, want to be as transparent with the community as possible. I also before we move to a different parent, I wanna go and show people, what is also contained on this, in this on our parent on our grouping, sheet. Mister Rose, will you scroll down a little bit? One of the things that you will see, there are some additional information to the
to the left. This is, this all this information will be contained on our landing page. We have built a consolidation, landing page that, you can see all of our state of the district, our financials, previous reports that we've set out, our facility assessments as another, I think, a powerful tool. This year, Elkhart and on August 26, we share with the community the, actual financial I'm sorry, the physical condition and ratings of each one of our schools.
And then they can go back and look at the date, state of the district presentations. To the right in the note sections, I think it's important. These enrollment counts are based off our fall ADM counts, our October 1 counts. So that's what they had in the buildings on that day. The reason why we'll be changing every single day because we get kids to move in and out, ADM is actually the the dollar amounts that we can actually really financially, tie to each of the buildings. So it's important that people know that that is based off that day. Beardsley Elementary is not included in this pairing selection, and there are some reasons why
I would like to, explain to the school board and to the community. That is a multipurpose building where we are in an agreement with one of our community partners for a twenty five year lease. That community partner raised significant amount of funds to, complete some of the construction, additional construction on that, and so did Elkhart Community Schools. We are tied with them for the next twenty five years, and also to be a very good steward to our community. I think don't think at this time, it will be wise to, break that lease. That is just a recommendation to the board. At the board, at any time, you can say you wanna go in a different
direction, but I'm for initial consideration, I'm not bringing that up to you as an option. And then below, I just wanted to let you know there's some things that are unique about some of our other schools as well. Roosevelt Steaming Academy, there is a home to our district's high ability program. And then, also, Hawthorne is the home to our pre k programming in in the district and is not included on this list because it is not a stand alone elementary school. So I wanted to make sure that that was something that was also brought to your attention. Again, this information will be available to the public at the end of this board
meeting. It will be sent out, and it'll be attached to our website. So I wanted to just let you know that is how the pairing, the first pairing was, Woodland, Mary Daly, and Cleveland. And you probably maybe ask, well, how did you decide that? The main goal is to try to keep our kids together in cohorts. And I also use a criteria that was authorized by the board of just that last week. So based off of proximity, transportation, financial co I'm sorry, cohorts, the accessibility and the
programming that is in those, areas is how we came up with the parents. It just naturally seemed to work out that we did it by the areas of the district. So that is the criteria in which we utilize. We didn't just throw random schools together. We we really make sure that we are tried and true with what the board has authorized us to do in this, any situation in this situation. So that is the I don't want I did not name them, and I don't think it's appropriate to name them, but I would just say that is for the western part of our district.
If you wanna move move to the northern, west part of our district, mister Rhodes, this is a additional pairing that we have here. Again, he just selected Oslo. It's not something that it's it's not saying that that is a school that will, again, is is being considered for either closure or consolidation. Just that's where he selected. Mister Rhodes, will you, switch to another school? He now as you can see, Pinewood is now the selected school. Same in similar information, but very specific to their school. We're providing all the information for each of the schools.
As you can see here, miss Rose, we just scroll down a little bit. Same process. You can see if you pair Pinewood with Mary Feizer and all the students roll over, you can see what that pairing number will look like. And then if you do the same thing with Pinewood and Oslo, you can look at that as well. And so, again, same process. The board will have an opportunity to ask me any questions about, these pairings. And then in a few months from now, I'm looking in more of the February, March. I will come back to you with final recommendations should you choose to accept these
pairings. Mister Rose, will you go to another area? He has now moved on to the eastern part of our district, and he selected Eastwood. Would you switch to another school? And same process that we have. Again, the goal is to be a 100% transparent with our community about what is the makeup of each of the schools, how how old are they, How new are they? And then how much, does it actually cost to, educate a child there? I think in our this is the most, transparent we've ever really been with our
community in this area, and I'm super proud of the work. As you can see in this area here, same setup. Mister, will you switch to schools one more time just so you can see? Riverview, is a selected school, and the numbers change at the bottom, far as what it would look like to be paired with partner school one and partner school two. The additional information on the page does not change. Oh, one other thing, mister Rose, I would like for you to highlight. When you go to the top I would like to give a a a huge shout out to Sydney Lopez Bonner and her team for helping to translate this as
well. You're able to also manipulate this information and put it in Spanish also. So will you show that, mister Rose, what that will look like? So all we wanna make sure as many of our community members are able to go out and see this information and make sure that they are able to be very well informed throughout this process. And I think that is a huge step in accessibility, but, also, I think that's another step in trans, in transparency. So I want to thank those members of of of my team and those who I did not name who who spent lots of time translating this as well.
So, again, I just wanna say thank you for doing that also. And then finally, I think it's just our southern schools is, that we would like to show the pairing there. Monger, again, he selected Monger just to open up the pairing, but he quickly switched it over to Mary Beck. Same same pairing situation. Should the board choose to accept these pairings, what you're then charging me to do is make decisions based off that group, and that's where our consolidation work will work in that particular area. I then plan to come back next week.
Not next week. I won't be here next week. But in two weeks, I will give you staff survey results, and then we can start to talk about, well, what does that look like from some of the things that impact staff? What does that look like as far as some of our facilities? And then we, we let the data play out, and we then bring some final recommendations back to the board, in February. In the meantime, I do think it is an prime opportunity for our school districts to, work on some of the issues I think some of our staff has brought
forward this year. Some areas in our district, the the the it's growing, and in some areas in our district, not growing so much. We have schools that have very lot that have very different disparity in classroom sizes and classroom makeup, and I think this is an opportunity for us to look at that as well. And so, as we go about this work, you may see us come back and say, hey. We may need to redistrict part of this, and that's where we need community input, and we need to bring this information to the board so they're fully informed.
We may need to look at where certain our programming will go as we go through this process. But I think this is a great time for us to show the whole world and, really, our community that this will not only will be done and we've done well and we've done with the with our main thing in mind, which is our people and our our our people, which is our staff, and our most precious product, which is our our students. So, I just wanna let you know these were our initial appearance that we would bring to you, this evening. I will close with this, because, again, should you choose to accept these as your
initial round of parents, we will come back, and this will be the basis of of where we'll do this work. I wanna commend the board for your support, through this process, and this is not something that, like I said, has just started, in the last month too. This has been something that's been going on. We've tried to start telling the story pretty much at the beginning since beginning of this year, and I really have appreciated the opportunity to, with your authorization to resolutions to explore on how to make our school district a stronger, much more efficient place for our staff, our community, and for our students.
So at this time, I I I want to, open up to any questions that you may have with me for this process. Thank you, doctor Hough. Any questions? I don't have a question. I just have a comment. First of all, thank you very much for your leadership, as we go through this and, the team, DJ, and the rest of everybody who's involved in putting something like this together. I this school district has never done anything like this with anything that we've done with this level of transparency and accessibility for the community. I think this is extremely important, to get this information out so people know where
they can find it. And I appreciate everyone who is part of this project. It is a huge undertaking, but I think the more we can educate our community and with information like this, they're gonna look at things and and have a have, I think, a lot of eye opening, things that they see that they had no idea. And I think that's really important for this to come this community as we engage with them, and and making sure that we're making good decisions for our district and moving our district to be a very well run successful, both from a stability standpoint
financially and for outcomes, in the education that happens within our buildings. So thank you very much for you to you and your team, for doing this. Because this this is a big deal, and it's very user friendly and gives people an opportunity to get in there and start, you know, really digesting the information. Thank you, mister Vonrell. We appreciate it. I believe an informed community is is an invested community. I think we have a a we're on the ground floor of making sure that people are able to not only be informed, so say, but also when you're informed,
you have a voice, and you can actually make decisions and be a part of the decision making process. And so if you go in that consolidation page, we've answered every question that was offered by our community, and we will do the same for our staff members as well. You can see exactly what our community has said. Overwhelmingly, 97% of our community understands that we need to move forward. We can't continue to operate with the same footprint that we have today. That would that's evident in not only the anecdotal information that I received, but also
in the their responses. And they come up with lots of suggestions too on how to move forward. To me, that is very encouraging. I'm this is this work is not for the weak. This is something that needs to happen, and both how it happens is on us. We can we'll do this with care, we'll do this with precision, and we will deal with input from all stakeholders because it impacts everybody. This is just not something that impacts elementary schools. This impacts every single person in the school district. Everyone will have an opportunity to have a voice.
So, again, we're doing this for I don't wanna just say for finances. We're doing it to make our district really the best place it can be for kids. This was decided a long time ago. It's now being executed now. I'd I'd just like to add on to what what Anne said. You know, the the work your team and and and you have put into this so far is is outstanding. I I do wanna make a point of of clarification that, you know, some people may think that, you know, decisions already been made. The board knows, you know, what schools are gonna be closed.
I I I can tell you with 100% confidence that we do not know any of that information nor have we made any decisions because we have not been presented with the criteria and the recommendations from doctor Hough and his team. As an example, this was not in our board packet. The board actually saw this dashboard at approximately 06:50 tonight was our first time that we saw when it was presented to us. So in reality, we are seeing it in real time, with the community and everybody here online or will be able to use it.
I mean, I'm I'm gonna go home tonight and and and play around with it. It will be my first time to actually look at the data and the numbers. So I just wanna be very clear that, you know, this is this is something that, you know, as a board, it's our it's our job to to take the recommendation, understand the recommendation recommendation, and as Anne pointed out, to be educated, along with the the community and the stakeholders as to why, these decisions are being pushed forward in the best interest of the district and ultimately the students. So, yeah, this is this is great work.
I I I had a few questions. Didn't really have the time to to get answers to them. We we will get answers to them, but, you know, thank you and your team for putting this together. It's it's it's a it's a great first step, and, hopefully, it builds confidence in everybody that not only are we we we looking at all aspects, we're we're we're following the criteria has been laid out and this and and letting data really drive the decisions here. Yes. And that's purposely not given to the board Right. Not for any reason other than I want you to when you make this decision,
you're going to be making probably just one of the most important decisions as you can have as a board member. You'll be shaping the the district for forever. Your vote will it matters. The work that we're doing here, it matters too. But at any time, you could decide to go in a different direction. So I think for for me to have these conversations with you, a little bit ahead of where the community have now there will be a time, obviously, where you will have to wrestle with the decisions and the recommendation that will be coming with,
but I I do think it's very important for our community where there is out sometimes in the world that things have already been decided, so just tell us no. That's not the case not the case. The board has not been informed of of of the of this way, or we can go this way. They're seeing this just like you are for tonight, and that's very intentional. It's also very scary as a superintendent too to to to have the board see something in real time. Don't try that at home, ladies and gentlemen. But I I do wanna say thank you, president Scott, for, your your kind words
and your too, missus Bonduelo. And I don't excuse me. I don't wanna be repetitive, but I I do think it's important for me to also say that, I agree. Like, I echo those sentiments. I think, you know, this is the first time we've seen this. I think it's very, very user friendly from what I've able to been able to see so far. I think it's extremely informative. And you're exactly right, doctor Hough. At some point, we will have to make some decisions based on the data. And I think it's very helpful, for us to be able to also go home and play with some of these things as an informed community member, but also a board member.
And so I appreciate the work that's been done. I'm very appreciative of of this. It's gonna be very helpful as we sit together and talk about the information and let the data drive our decisions. So thank you for that. Oh, thank thank you. Appreciate it, mister Ivory. I think one of the things that at least I've heard from the community is that they want through this process, they they want information in a timely manner. They want you to stick to the time line that you said you're going to so they can make these choices for whatever they need for their families. They how we prepare presents this information, it matters.
Is it done in a professional manner? Is it done with clarity? Is it done with complete transparency? And then lastly, the quality of the decisions. Have you veered away from your criteria, or have you are you really sticking to them? We are gonna stick to everything that we presented to the school board. So that was overwhelmingly the feedback from the community, and I look forward to hearing the feedback from our staff. So I will wait. If there's any other question from the board, I will just talk about some next steps, that we need to do in order to continue on this process if you agree, to move forward with these pairings.
Is there any other questions? Any any dissent in them not agreeing with the pairings as presented today? Then, yeah, I think we can move move forward. So we're we're ready to to hear about the next steps. Okay. Well, probably in the in the next steps, I'll work from a communication department to have, another round of of community meetings where we talk about what this process looks like and also redistricting. We will also, make sure that this information is available on the on our website so you can go look at the dashboard. That information will go live. There will also be, like I said, a video that will be has been narrated
so you can actually if you didn't follow all my instructions today, remember mister Rose's instructions today, you're able to navigate this at home. And then continue to if you're watching some, continue to send us your questions or your or in your comments. Our our team constantly looks at the website for any new additional questions that are being asked. And so staying informed is very important to this process. So we send to the community every week a consolidation up update, that goes to families. But I think our dashboard and our website is is much more user friendly than
it used to be, and so this is gonna be where we house all this information. So I just wanted to say those are some of the next steps. So those dates, be on the lookout for some of those dates for more community engagement. Are there any other questions from the board? I I just again, I will reiterate. I said it a couple weeks ago. Please from the community stakeholders, parents, community members, please engage. Please use this dashboard. Please forward your questions, concerns. You know, there there there may be there may be something that, an angle, that that, we haven't thought of, although the criteria, you know, in in what you're looking
at is is very thorough. Mhmm. But I think that's important. And and and as a board, we will we will go through, you know, all those questions, statements, and concerns and and and and and look at those in in whether or not we accept, and approve the the final recommendation. Thank you. Alright. Going right back to you. I need a second. Yeah. Take a second. I can get my life together. Alright. So, anyway, thank thank you, president Scott, and members of the board, community.
Today, I had the extreme privilege of going to the freshman division to, look at some of our, health and, health projects that was that were conducted at at the media center. If you haven't had an opportunity to go over there and see what the great things that our kids are doing, you should. We had over the last two days, they've done an outstanding job. The thing that I was most impressed with about today, oh, the kids did a great job. One thing that AI will never replace is human connection. Having kids stand up, shake your hand, introduce themselves, you could see how nervous they
were. That was the hardest part of the presentation because they knew their material, But we're all looking for that human connection, and the kids wanna be seen. So I just wanna say, hats off to the teachers who led that today. That was a wonderful job. But the kids, I learned more about things that I should learn about and some things I did not wanna learn about, which is fine, but the kids' presentation skills were great. And so you can really tell that the kids took pride in what they were doing. So just wanna say thank you for that experience today. I also want to, on Monday and, last Monday, an opportunity to go to Spell
Bowl and was really proud of the work that, was done. Our teams competed very, well, and I think there's another round that's coming up. I wanna say, huge shout out to Kristen Zederberg who helped oversee that and Alex Holst, who was the great emcee for that event. Those kids do not play when it comes to to spelling. They just don't. And so it was a great event, and I think it's for Elkhart to be able to host those things and for other people to come in and see, our our great district. Hats off to you. So I wanted to say thank you, Kristen, for your work.
Another thing, last Friday, had an opportunity to go down in Indy to, have two of our educators recognized by the Indiana Department of Ed. We had, Kathy Enfield from Westside who was the RISE employee of the year, and we also had, Denise Demeter from Eastwood recognized as the literacy educator of the year in one of the two educators of the year in Indiana. Those are huge deals. We were the only district that was had multiple people recognized for their achievements, and
that's a that's a that's a huge honor. I want people to soak that in. And when when you go and you get recognized at the state level and if you know Denise, she is a kind of an outgoing individual. She had a blast, and it was very you get humbled really quickly when people us as educator, we sometimes don't like to talk about our work. We just like to do our work. And I just to to spend the night to spend the time with them at that event and to hear the state superintendent and have other tables come up and say, hey. You're doing great work in Elkhart and continue doing things for kids.
I think that meant more to her than the recognition. Wonderful job. And I just wanna say that's a huge honor for Elkhart just to be a part of that story, but those those two educators deserved it. And they were back at work today. I was at their, what do they call their Macy's Day Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue. Is that where you go? When I tell you those kids do this six seventy one more time. No. You and you do it right back. Because it it was great. They did a great job, but she is like a local celebrity at that school and and well deserved. And Kathy Enfield, she just she just keeps her head down.
I'm working down at Westside, so, hats off to those two. And lastly, certainly not least, Elkhart, again, has, the only school district in the state of Indiana had three, social workers nominated for our Indiana social worker of the year. Three out of the final 12. And so that shows again that we are taking care of our kids, our kids not only for their academic needs, but their effective needs as as well is just as critical to get kids where they need to be. They have to come into environments where people are prepared to deal with the the
things that they the kids bring to school. Kids bring excellence, but they also bring nervousness too. And I to have three of those individuals, I let's test my memory because my screen is off. I think the individual was at one was at Beardsley, one was at Monger, and one was at, Elkhart Academy. I know their names, but I will butcher them. Again, you can check to see my screen is off. But to have three when no other district in had more than one, and we're the only Northern Indiana district that was recognized is hats out to us.
We do social work very well here. We take care of our people. I just wanna say thank you to all the leaders in those areas. But, also, if you're watching and you're at this school, I just wanna say you are seeing your value. We appreciate you. And my last little gift that I wanna share with you tonight, I'll be running over to the basketball game, but they wanna make sure that I showed everyone here. They received their championship rings, a unified track. They received their ring tonight. You know, since I didn't ever get one of these back in high school, I will wear it with pride here, and I will quickly take it out because I'll
lose it. But these are wonderful. I can't wait to see those on our kid's finger running around, and these kids know about they put two on there because they went back to back. And so I think they're gonna look forward to having three this year. So, again, when people talk about all the things that are happening in Elkhart Community Schools, remember those things too. We're doing some great things for kids, doing great things for family, and you all are making a difference. So after that, I'm gonna turn it back over to you, president Scott. Thank you, doctor Huff. Any parting comments, from the board?
I just like to, echo, I had the opportunities today to spend some time over at the freshman division, doing the health presentations. And, you know, I always enjoy doing those. I think it's great to have conversations with the kids. And and, I echo a lot of that your same settlements But what I would like to say is if you ever have an opportunity, and for the the community members to to go into our schools and sit down with our students and and learn from them and listen and just have a conversation I think you will be very impressed with what you see, and I encourage anyone and everyone, to if that's
something you're interested in, to reach out to the high schools, I'm sure they will be thrilled to have you, and it because it is a very rewarding experience, to see the great things that our our kids are doing and just have that those really meaningful conversations and getting to know them a little better. So it was just a really it was a really great morning, and I'm glad that I was able to participate in it. And my moment of unsung heroes goes to the bus garage talking about quickly our mechanics. And did you know that their day starts at 5AM and ends at 10AM?
And there are seven people that are taking care of a 150 buses, 60 school vehicles, and I found this out. That is cars, plows, trucks, cat motors, backhoes. It it's amazing dump trucks. And so and I wanna say to you guys, if you've never been to our mechanic garage, it is so clean. It is unbelievable. Unbelievable how clean it is. So inside of that garage, you have Taylor as our head mechanic. Nate is our assistant. Steve, Ralph, and Andy. Steve, Ralph, and Andy are our mechanics. Mark is our mechanic on our evening shift, and Dan steps in as a shop
helper and a light mechanic. And you guys have to remember, not only are they taking care of like, I was talking about transmissions earlier, which I love anything to do with diesel mechanics or cars. They can rebuild a tranny right inside of our building if they need to do that. I mean, they don't have to shift it out. We are set up like that to take care of our vehicles. So inside of this, they they show up and they plow and make sure everything is ready to go. They have to step in not only as a mechanic, but they have to drive buses when it's necessary. So these seven men who run a phenomenal mechanic building are unsung heroes, making sure
that our buses are always moving. They drop everything they have to in the event that one of them is broken down, taking care of all of our vehicles, taking care of our staff. And inside of that building are just just amazing people. So once again, sharing with you the unsung heroes made by you know, run by Taylor as our head mechanic. They are some of the nicest human beings you will ever meet and humble, and they do a great job for our school system. So thank you to our bus mechanics and their amazing garage. Thank you, Kelly. I I I learned something about you every meeting.
I That's amazing. That's Your your love of transmissions. I just had no weird, bizarre thing. Don't even get me started. I have a massive addiction to car transmissions. I don't know why. I would have never known. I know. It's weird. It's weird. Make sure we wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving and then an opportunity to celebrate with their families and spend time with their loved ones. And, that that's what I would like the final thing to leave them with tonight is that, these times are not, always guaranteed to come back around. So, it's a good opportunity to reflect and spend time with your family.
So please enjoy that and disconnect from school for a little bit, and then we'll see you back on Monday, when it's time. You you stole my thunder. So I'm considered individual. Everybody enjoy enjoy Thanksgiving and enjoy the time away. Please spend time with family and reflect. Meeting is adjourned.