two of them. They're going to lean towards her. >> And they're not providing >> Southampton. >> And they're having the baby here. Memorial [Music]
up with you. Shame. >> Yeah, but then you don't get to talk with Dr. Jordan for an hour. >> Are you correcting me? >> Your coffee is still hot and it's too strong for you.
>> I know. And you were trying to put water in there. That's was not going to put water in here. I just wanted to take the lid off so it could cool off. >> Well, I hope it's still hot because you had to prove it. >> Always get stuck and I didn't even screw it on. >> I know. I was the one willing and
probably able to help you and you just >> help assist out on the struggle bus today. [Music] Well, Kelly, it ain't good. We'll just leave it at that. >> Well, we'll have to go to lunch sometime soon.
>> I I think I really want to text you because I think about your time. Oh, but are you hanging in okay? >> I think things are starting to turn around >> for the two of you. >> No, I'm sure I'm sure. >> You know what? It is going to turn around. You're a good human being.
>> You know, I was in a meeting over Notre Dame a little bit ago. >> Yeah, that's what I >> This guy, >> he works for Notre Dame. 47 years old. His wife is 47 years old. They have seven kids. >> They're good. >> And she's due in January with the seventh.
>> What's their name? >> Did you tell them what caused that? Tell them it's not water. What's his name? >> Chris Frederick. >> What church does he go to? >> I have not. He's employee of Notre Dame.
[Music] couple of zeros, please. I'll take a couple more zeros. I mean then then they can come and talk about us. >> Everybody ready? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> All right. I want to thank everybody for coming out to the December 9th, 2025 regularly scheduled uh school board
meeting for the Elcart Community Schools. At this time, I'd like to call the meeting to order. And if you please rise for the pledge of allegiance. >> Thank you, >> Miss Vandervellin. The Elkar Promise. Every student is known by name, challenged, and supported by highly
effective staff and in partnership with the community will graduate career college ready and life ready. >> Thank you very much, Ann. >> Next on the agenda, we have an invitation to speak protocol. Each of you should have received a pamphlet like this. If you'd like to speak uh at the
meeting on any agenda or non-aggenda item, uh when your name is called, please step up to the microphone, state your name and your affiliation uh with the district. Uh at which time you'll have three minutes uh to uh make your uh
public comment. Um as usual, um any personnel or person personal student issues, um this is not the appropriate uh venue uh to bring those forward. So please uh restrain uh uh from that
during this time Dora. Thank you. I'll mix them up. So Julie, you don't think I'm going to call you first? So you may get called first. No. Cynthia Dunlop. [Music]
Hello, I'm Cindy Dunlop and I'm here with Jerry Star who is a fellow uh member of the Elcart Public Library board and we were both appointed by the school board which is why we're here and we are here to introduce our new
executive director um Kristen Edson and she started with us on October 1st and Kristen learned to love the library because she saw it as a place where all were welcomed and a place of connection. connection, discovery, and empowerment. Kristen has her master of arts degree in
library and information science from Wayne State University in Detroit, her bachelor of arts degree in English from Grand Valley State University in Michigan, and her certificate of instructional design from George Washington University in DC. Her experience includes business history and
science department um in the Chicago public library, central library manager at Bojer Parish in Louisiana and deputy director at uh East Baton Rouge Parish in Louisiana and most recently director of the public library in Leavonia,
Michigan. Kristen enjoys and has had success in developing programs in partnership with the comm community. She would like to be visible and accessible, which is why she is here this evening. And most of you should get the Explorer magazine, the Explorer, and if you do, you can read more about her and the most
recent issue. So, Krista, so hello everyone. Thank you. I appreciate that. It's uh been a great couple of months getting to know people in uh the Alcar community. I appreciate you appointing two very um professional,
knowledgeable um board members for me to gain knowledge from. They have unique perspectives and they're both very valuable. So, I appreciate that. I look forward to continuing our partnerships with the schools and maybe figuring out some new ways that we can uh make some
innovative u partnerships and changes and support your students in their learning inside and outside of school. So, thank you so much. >> Very welcome. Welcome. and uh we look forward to working with you. >> Thank you. >> Jerry, are you going to speak also? Good evening, President Scott, members
of the board, Dr. Huff, and community. I'm Julie Tarkowski. I have um a student in the district, and I teach here. Uh two things I want to speak on tonight. The first thing I just want to give a shout out to transportation, Alta, Lori, uh Ty, and all their staff for the
amazing work they're doing in shuffling buses and getting kids home. Um, it's kind of I don't know. If you want to see something fun, stop by UTI after school. Um, the second thing, uh, I gota get my tissue up just in case. I've practiced like 10 times and I still can't make it
all the way through. Um, tonight I'm speaking on behalf of Carla Dar. So, I'll be speaking in the first person. Hi, I'm Carla Dar and two of my children go to Pinewood School. I so wanted to be here tonight to share with you the amazing things that are going on at the school. My family was gifted tickets to
the concert at the learner this evening, so I was unable to attend. Miss Tarowski graciously offered to read this letter to you. I need to make sure you know what the school means to my family, and I thought this was a perfect chance. As some of you may know, my family experienced a catastrophic housefire on November 28th. I taught for Elcart for
over 40 years and just retired in the spring. I adopted three beautiful humans on August 9th, 2023. I became a first-time mom at 61, and I didn't take this adoption lightly. I taught at Mary Beck and my boys went there with me. I struggled upon retirement knowing if I
should keep the boys at Beck or move them to our home school, which is Pinewood, or switch school districts altogether. The boys wanted to stay at Beck, but I heard great things about the new principal, Mrs. Martin. After I spoke with her, I knew that we had found a new school home. Her assistant, Miss Han, is a parent of a former student,
and she actually did some fieldwork in my classroom, so I already knew and valued her. This morning, I had a difficult time getting my boys out of bed and off to school because they don't want to leave me. And yet, once they see the school, they are ready to go. The staff knows that once my boys arrive in
the front door, I have no worries for the rest of the day. I know Mrs. Martin and Mrs. Han will reach out and communicate with me any needs that they may have. But the wonderful part about this is um that those two leaders are not in this alone. Those ladies surround themselves with the most compassionate,
helpful, loving, and knowledgeable people. I even had the pleasure of subbing in that building while they look for the perfect teacher to join the fifth grade team. That gave me the unique perspective of being a parent and teaching in the same building. I had the privilege of seeing firsthand how the school runs, and I knew the school would
be the perfect fit for us. Please indulge me for a minute while I share some examples. The front office staff make you feel welcome the minute you walk in, and their kindness is shown to all parents and kids when you enter the building. Mr. Shelley, the social worker, and Miss Mayfield, the nurse, both work with my
boys and are important part of my village. My middle son has Mr. Shoutso, sorry. And he is actually a former student for my very first class. He's the perfect teacher for my middle son. He is calm but firm, sets high expectations, yet he makes everyone feel
like the smartest student in school. I had so much fun teaching beside a former student and watching him shine as an educator. My youngest son has Miss Dingus and Miss Mars and they were the absolute right fit for my son. He had to repeat third grade due to iate and yet my son is made to feel just like the
other kids. They help battle meds and behaviors and academics and help my son adjust to a new school, the repeating of a grade and all of the emotional challenges didn't face those educators. There are so many others who have touched my family in this short time. From their coaches to the cafeteria
workers to the specials teachers to colleagues I know and adore, Pinewood is doing things right. Please take a moment to validate all of their hard work. It truly does take a village and we are blessed to be Pinewood Panthers. Sincerely, Carla King, KJ, and Kai.
>> Thank you, Julie. Next, Ralph uh is a spell spell. My name is Ralph Spelbring. Uh when uh Lafayette Jefferson came up to play Concord at Rice Field, I walked over to the game, saw real close to Rice Field.
I think the most difficult position in the school district is who decides whether to cancel or delay school. The South Bend superintendent supposedly
was dismissed because the school board thought he should have called off school. Uh, I wrote a letter then to the Southbend Tribune suggesting that the school board meet at 3:00 a.m. on bad
weather days and decide whether school should be held or cancelled. Obviously, the letter wasn't published. >> When I moved here in the early 70s, school districts had three funds. Debt service, which you still have, which is
for building construction. You had the cumulative building fund which allowed school districts to preund construction. Everything else went into the general fund. There have been changes uh since then. For example, transportation was
separated out around 1980. Then there was a school bus replacement fund with a 12-year depreciation schedule was added. Uh then capital projects replaced
uh the uh cumulative building fund in the late 80s. Uh I have a copy at home of what might have been the first Indiana Farm Bureau school report from the late
60s. The Indianapolis school district then had over a 100,000 students. Gary was second with almost 50,000. The last time I saw a figure for Gary, it was 5,000. Indianapolis had about 50,000 in 1990.
By 2000, it was down to 40,000. So, they lost about 20% of their students over a 10-year period. We've here lost about 30% over a 10-year period. And I want to
mention that to Superintendent Huff that the Pike Red Devils were the boys championship the last year for bo the single class. Then they won it for the first year in the class
system. They were 4A the big schools. Then the Northwood Panthers girls won the championship in 99. I did not attend that game, but I did go in 97 when they played. Those games were played the
weekend that Cincinnati and Louisville had 10 inches of rain. During the night game, it may have rained three inches in Indianapolis. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Ralph. >> A I like it.
All right, that is all I had for public comment. Uh, next on the agenda, uh, Rob Freeze will present the Mary Feeser Elementary report. Mr. Freeze, I want to thank Dr. Huff and President Scott and the board members for allowing
me to uh, talk today a little bit about how great Mary Feeser is. Um, I'll try to keep it brief, but if you know me, I'm kind of a talker, so I know I'll try to keep it down to a minimum of 30, 40 minutes. So,
>> we'll be cutting Rob will be cutting you off. Okay, >> I will try my best. So, here here we go. So, I'm going to dive right in and, you know, and we're just going to talk a little bit about statistics here and about the data that we have for our school. Um, attendance. Uh I start off
with attendance because obviously if the kids aren't here in our school um it doesn't matter what kind of programs we do, what kind of uh facilities we have. If our students aren't here, um it just doesn't matter. So we look at our attendance from last year, we are at 94%
of all uh students coming to school. At first quarter, we're at 97 and 95. And this seems like a uh like we're on track to keep it to where it was last year or maybe even a little bit above. But the state doesn't just look at it from this point of view. Okay? They look at it
from a different point of view. And so the different point of view, what they do is sorry, this is also how our attendance is by grade level as well. But really, this is what we're really looking at here is the percentage of students here that are here 94% of the
time. That means they're going to have to miss less than 11 days of school. So at the state average last year was 87.6. our school was at 55%. Okay, fortunately for us right now we
are currently at 73% which is even higher than what it was in the first uh quarter which was only at 70%. So I'm seeing growth we're seeing growth um and but we want more than that because we understand that when we start
getting into the months of January, February, this is where kids start getting sick. This is where parents are have a tendency to have maybe transportation issues, things of that nature. So, we set a goal for ourselves. We saw the 55%, we wanted to increase it
to 65%. So, how what does that look like? We say numbers all the time, but what does that look like? And so, what it means is this. If we want to hit 60, we need 20 more students to come to school less than or have less than 11 absences for
this year. If we want to hit 65, that's 40 students that we want to come to school more than they did last year. And so that's a that's a that's sounds like a lot, but if you start breaking it down into grade levels and then in class level, that's two to three kids that we
can reach that we can have the ability to reach within our own classrooms and able to get our attendance to where we need to be and heading in the right direction consistently over time. So what are we going to do? So, first of all, I strongly believe because of our
great staff that the 55 went to 73% because of the how they can create a warm, inviting, and safe environment for our children. Our children want to come to school because of our great staff that we have in place. They're caring.
They're loving. I see it every single day. They're striving to get the most out of their kids, but yet still understand that there are children and they have needs outside of just academics, but I feel like that's that's a great uh spot for us to start, but we
need to go ahead and create even more and create incentives. So, our excuse me, our guided coalition, we got together and we decided we needed to create some more incentives for our students. So we built it upon individually classroom, grade level and
then the school. So class individually we're going to create we have incentives for our students who come to school on a monthly basis where they will go ahead and have an opportunity to get into a drawing if they're there with a perfect attendance. We have classroom where
they're going to go ahead and every day they every day they are as a class they have perfect attendance they're going to get a little cookie not a real cookie but a fake cookie and then after they get 12 cookies they're going to get cook they're going to get a cookie party for
their class some type of incentive consistently trying to get them to not only as an individual but as a class join together and have that have that um ability as a class to be able to say look what we've done together. And then we're going to do it as a grade level.
We're going to have that as well as a grade level. So the grade level hits 95% each week. We're going to give them a little um little hurricane sticker and after they get five hurricane stickers, so they're also going to get an incentive for their person for their whole grade level. And then at the end,
if we do meet our our goal of 65%, our school's then going to have we're going to have a nice uh party for all for all of our students. Either one way or the other, even if they didn't weren't part of that uh 94%, we want that and we want
to go ahead and make sure it's displayed. We I think it's so important for our kids to be able to see that every single day. And so we're going to have displays at the beginning at the front of our school that shows our weekly attendance as grade level and where we're sitting at at the 94%.
Our I read scores, this is where, you know what, I I wish I could take credit for our I read scores being the first year principal here. Um, but I'm extremely proud of our whole staff because this is a staff effort. This is not just third grade. This is K 1, two,
and three. And even our special teachers are heavily involved in what we do. And I'll share that in a moment. But you can see we have consistently grown to the point to where our goal is 96% which is an extremely
large goal for us to achieve. But I feel very confident that we are going to get to the to that goal because of what our teachers are doing. And I'll talk to a little bit about that here in a moment. Okay. Our iLearn scores, as you can see, we're in the green. So, we're consistently right there. We're not
quite where the state average is for our iLearn e uh ELA for third grade, but you can see where as fourth grade, we're starting we're starting to develop. We're starting to get to that 41 42% in our third grade as or fourth
grade. Fifth grade is right there. We're consistently seeing that as grade level, we're consistently getting better. But what I really like to see here is when you start looking at colors, it's cohorts. So as this is where you look at
your third grade in 2023 24, they are at 29%. That same class then jumped up to 41% when they're in fourth grade. So those are now our current fifth grade students. And I'm really excited to see about what they are going to accomplish
in our fifth grade. So as you can see, our fourth grade went up to 22% in 23 and then 25. and as we will keep growing. So we're hopeful that we're going to continue to earn those percentages moving them forward.
And then so our goal for I like I said for I read scores is 91% to 96%. And then our EL is going from overall 29% to 34. Our math we're a little bit better in math than we are in language at this
point of time. We're consistently growing as you can see by the green and as you get again you can see that fourth grade is at 39% or highest and is getting close to where the state average is.
Fifth grade again consistently growing. Look at our math scores again. You look at the yellow which is our now our current fifth graders. They're slowly but surely moving up. You can see where in 23 through the rest we're con consistently moving forward in the
grades three through five. So overall we had 31% um we want that to be increased by 36%. Passing and then I always say that there's a lot of numbers and people go 36% 5%. We're kind of throwing numbers
at us and we just don't know what they mean necessarily because 5% just sounds like 5%. So really what we're looking at is this, and I really stress this to our staff. If we want to pass, we just need four more third graders, four more fourth graders, and four more fifth
graders to pass. That will put us in our 5%. That's it. That's it. That's almost one or two kids in our classrooms. That's all we need in order to achieve our goal. That's it. And I stress that
to our kid or to our staff that it's just four more. Okay? And again, this is where we need I read scores. We need 19 more. We need 19 more of our third graders. Okay? And we're we're striving to be able to get
those 19 more and actually obviously more than just those four or 19 to be able to go ahead and and pass. So what do we do? So, in tier one, we this is the things that we do for our K through three uh uh students. You can
read them up there. Our tier 2 is really what I'm going to primarily focus on here in a moment, but we do multiple things throughout our tier one instruction to be able to be successful with these kids. And we do them with intention. We do them with focus and fidelity. And that's what I think what
really makes our staff great. Every time I go into the classroom, they're heavily focused in our curriculum. They're really planning it out. You can understand that they are really doing their due diligence as a staff and it's very impressive to me. Same thing with four five just slightly
different, okay, with what they do. One of the things I do want to add is because of the fact that we got sixth grade going into the middle school now, it frees up a little bit of our special teachers. And I tell you what, they have been hands-on for us when they have an
opportunity, an extra moment. They are in classrooms doing one-on- ons. They're doing pull outs with small group. They're doing everything and anything that we ask of them to help our children. And they're just all for it. And it's so impressive when our special teachers are doing those types of
things. It just it just shows you how great of a staff we have. Really I want to just real quick talk about our success. Our success to is our tier 2 intervention. We have at through grades one and three. We have 15
teachers and adults working at this very specific time every single uh all four days of the school week. Okay. For 30 minutes a day. We use our resources to be able to go ahead and make sure that we have the kids in the right sections.
We have first graders with third graders. We have now we have even a kindergarten and our second grade in our small group instructions for this. We really are pinpointing what our students really need based on the data that was being provided through Ocadian and UFly
and things of that nature. So, I am so thoroughly impressed with the way our our school has come together and this is what really truly makes us great is how we have every moment we have students learning in small groups with our
teachers and it's just fantastic. I was going to say one more thing. I'm going to flip back. Maybe not. In theory, I'll flip back. Oh, maybe I'll flip forward. Okay. I just one last thing. thing I just want to
talk about talk about our fourth and fifth grade. We uh we have since our since we're really uh starting to do checkpoints. Um I just thought I just wanted to make sure they I I gave a shout out to them because we're really embracing the checkpoints and really
seeing how best we can utilize our success time in order to be able to improve our um our checkpoint scores each with each opportunity. and they have embraced it and it's really again it it it makes me proud about how well
our staff I is working together in order for us to be the best school that we possibly can be and I I can't be any prouder of my staff than than I am. So with that though, we also have a nice little video because you know what? I can say what's great about Mary Feeser,
but our news team decided they would go ahead and create a video for our uh for you guys tonight and what our school and our kids think is great about Mary Feeser. Thank you. >> What makes Fezer great is
all the teachers. They're really nice and they teach the students how to learn and also all the kids and all the students that are here. >> What makes Fiser great is all the nice teachers that work here. >> Hardworking students make Fiser great.
>> Teachers >> having fun. What makes Fizer great is the teachers and friends here. >> What makes Fiser great are the students. kind be helpful and uh the touch I thought I
thought I wiped my teeth there touching the bed. >> What makes pizza great? >> Punch >> and recess. >> To the soccer field playing outside >> my gym. My second grade is a cafeteria.
>> You say that again. >> My teacher. My teacher. >> Um, my teacher. >> What makes Caesar great? The community. >> What the makes great is teachers cuz they teach
students and they make them be smart and that's what I like. I love them and I like my classroom. >> Fees are great. There's all the specials and fun stuff you get to do. Fees are great is uh the principal. Make pizza great is your friends.
>> Something that makes Faser great is that everybody tries their hardest. >> What makes Fezer great is sports. Sports makes Fezer great. >> What makes Fezer great? Pride. >> What makes FE feaser great?
>> Success. Meeting. learning cuz all the kids are learning here. What makes me great [Music] is the playground. Great is the playground
to be here on Monday the 24th. >> What makes FER so great to me is the staff. They're like family. I was new in the building. I transferred this year and they've made me feel very welcome and I love my students. They're amazing.
[Music] Thank you. >> He just wants to get out of there. So, >> well, are there any feaser staff here? Will you please stand? >> Yeah, please stand. >> Can we GIVE
[Applause] >> MR. FREEZE? You won. Good job on your presentation. I would not be able to tell that was your first time presenting in front of the board. I just wouldn't be able to tell. You got out of there so quick. So quick.
No one's going to ask me questions if I'm not here. But we're going to But we're going to give you No, no, no, no, no, no. Um I just want to say as you did an excellent job in your presentation highlighting the great work that's been done at Fezer. Feeser has been a
exemplary school not just as far as test scores but the culture in which it has been built there from the front office staff I I see a fellow friend back there she knows who I'm talking to all the staff there also the custodial st you can eat off the floor at leisure too it is a beautiful beautiful space that is
very welcoming so I just want to say thank you and you to all the teachers there uh and to for your new leisure but when you come into a school that is doing I think a a great job. You have the expectations on you to keep it there and I think that they're not going to
let you let anything slide at that at that school. Very proud. So, I just want to tell you thank you for your for sharing this with the community. One thing that wasn't in your presentation, they they did amazing on the federal report card, too. One of the they exceed
the norm average on how kids should perform based on poverty levels inside their school. That's an important fact that people need to know about school communities. U feaser out exceeded that by 10%. Um if you look at I'll send it out to our community. 74.org is a great
resource and Fezer was actually uh one of the few schools that uh in our county that over um performed in ELA with their kids. So I just wanted to share that additional piece of information. But most importantly, it's all done by people. So um hats off to all of you and thank you. You look like you got a great
round of support. And it's okay to be bragged on every once in a while, Mr. Freeze. You got a gift there. Thank you. All right. Uh, next on the agenda, we've already heard some great things regarding uh, Pinewood Elementary and, uh, we're going to hear, uh, some
more from, uh, Tracy Martin. >> Hi, good evening, uh, President Scott, uh, members of the board, Dr. Huff, the community, and some of my staff that's here. Thank you so much. Um, thanks for coming out. I'm Tracy Martin and I'm the proud principal of Pinewood Elementary
and this is Beth Han, my assistant principal and we are a team. So, I've asked her to be up here with me uh this evening. Um, I didn't include a mission statement uh for Pinewood because um this is my first year at Pinewood and it's something I've really been
challenging my guiding coalition with. Um, I'd like to revamp it. I'd like it to more closely match the Elcart promise. Um I think it's really important when we're all in line and heading in the same direction. Um so that's something we're working with um with my guiding coalition.
So this summer I started at the beginning of the summer and uh tried to be super intentional was calling in teaching teams if they were willing to come in and meet. I think it kind of took the anxiety off of all of us. They got to know me a little bit and um I got to know them a little bit and a little bit about their families. Uh Mrs. Han
and I hosted uh Popsicles with the principal at the park. Um, so we got to know families. Just trying to be intentional about getting to know them as well and really intentional about my social media presence. I feel like there's amazing things happening in our schools and I think it's our job to show
that. Um, the summer didn't end just uh with the popsicles in the park. Uh, we Beth and I were working um over the summer on this schedule. Uh with sixth grade, I didn't want to make a ton of changes, but with sixth grade leaving, uh there were some things that, you know, we
needed to modify. Uh and so we made sure that we were including tier 2 time for both language arts and math. Uh additionally, with the new curriculum, I wanted to make sure that we had 120 minutes for our language arts block. Uh also the new uh cafeteria, which can't
say enough about our cafeteria staff. Uh we did need to make sure we had some more people in their cafeteria time. So Mrs. Han has been taking on that challenge. And um then our summer kind of ended when the school year started when the teachers came back and we were so fortunate to have the amplified training right at the beginning of the
school year. And uh the teachers really got a lot of out of that. I don't know if any of you know but we had um this the trainers come right to our building and I think the staff was a lot more engaged with that. So that was super uh positive. And one thing that I asked staff when I
met with them over the summer, what makes Pinewood Pinewood? Uh what do you love? What do you not want to see changed? Uh what do we need to keep doing? Well, uh the the peace walk came up. Mrs. Hack, our uh secretary, who was hoping to be here tonight, but she was unable. Um those were some of the kind
of themes that came up. Um our peace walk is kind of an event and the teachers and students dress up. It's kind of a hippie theme. Uh later this spring, we're going to be having the Pinewood Madness. It's a staff verse student basketball game. Um, I don't think they're going to be asking me to
play, but um, I'll be a cheerleader on the side. I've brought back the Pinewood Post, which is a weekly staff newsletter that is sent out. And then, um, we also did Waffle Wednesday after conferences. And it was fun to kind of get the staff together, just trying to do some more shared experiences with the staff, so
we're all together. And I, um, may or may not have stole this from Bristol. I did. I I came, um, to Bristol last year, um, under Mr. Tim Peddley and he said, "Hey, um I think if I'm being honest, I think he kind of I
think he I don't know." But it ended up in my lap to do the gathering and I was like, "Hey, wait a minute. I didn't know that I was going to have to do this, but um it was just a a really amazing experience the gathering and we saw discipline go down when we had it." So I asked teachers, even though I was trying
not to make a ton of changes, I said, "Um, would you mind if I tried this?" And the teachers, I think they probably were like, "Sure, she's new. What are what else are we going to say? So, I brought the gathering uh to Pinewood. And if you don't know about the gathering, it is a I tell new people it's a family meeting once a week uh all
school assembly. It's super efficient. Uh 15 minutes um and we kind of come in really quickly and we it's we're able to um it's not planned. I mean, it is planned, but Mr. Shelley, my social worker, and Mrs. Tan and I midweek we kind of say what's going on in the
building and what do we need to chat about as a kind of a family a family meeting and we present that at the gathering and then that um then we're also talk about our goals we celebrate our attendance um at the end of college go week we brought in um Dr. Young from
Manchester University. Have a little connection there. Uh she came uh with 400 swag bags for students which they loved. Um that topic then becomes um an automatic I send it to teachers like the slides that I've used and that becomes part of a morning meeting. Um so they
can we can be a little more intentional with u the messaging there in a smaller scale and they can have more discussion. And then recently I had some two people in the same week say this should be sent to parents. So, we've started including that each week to parents.
I want to brag a little bit. Um, Mrs. I should let Mrs. Han brag about this, but she was very intentional last year about attendance and we ended at the very top for elementary schools, uh, district high for attendance. And we're on track. Although I said to the students last week at the gathering, you're not going
to make me a liar in front of the board, right? Because the last few weeks with um the snow days and things, that's been difficult. But we're on track to hit 95% for the year. So I read over time we've set a goal at 92%. They were did an amazing job last
year. 87% of our students passed. Um I believe we had 57% of our second graders passed. So it's a little lighter lift this year, but we'd like to hit that 92% for this year. Um ELA I learned um our goal is 34%. I never feel like that's good enough. Um, we're going to talk a
little bit later about why, um, I think we're we're going to be able to hit these goals. And math, our goal is 41%. So, how are we going to get there? Well, I see it as a threeprong effort. Student support, staff support, and family engagement. That's how we're going to
get there. So, our student support, um, we're so fortunate in the district to have picked CKLA, high rigor curriculum, and I love it. Um, we've we're realigning our current math curriculum to those uh iLearn checkpoints. Um, we I
the pacing and the curriculum guides that the district uh Mrs. Cedarberg is working on, those have been huge and I've heard some really amazing things coming out of those meetings. We're going to be super intentional with our supports for students. Uh the Mr. um Freeze talked about the UFly that we're
all using. uh we have the time in our schedule uh to for the tier 2 in both math and language arts and then um our literacy coach has been um organizing these homework folders that are going home and I think other schools in the district we've kind of shared our ideas
on that and she's been organizing that. Another thing that I uh stole from Bristol was check-in checkout. We have a few students, you know, that need some extra things to help um them be successful at school. And so we're using check-in checkout with some visual goals for them to kind of break the day into
smaller chunks so that their day just looks a little bit smaller and they can find some success throughout the day. Additionally, as Mr. free said um with sixth grade moving out that's freed up um we've had some little times in the day for our specials teachers and some other staff to make some connections
with students that need that time as well. So um we're connecting some of our specialists teachers just like for 10 minutes at a time working with students that need that extra support. So staff support, this might be my favorite. Spoiling my staff is one of my favorite things. Um I love showing them
appreciation for their hard work. I have been there. Mrs. Han has been there. And so we just like to spoil them whenever we can. I'm really trying to honor those Pinewood traditions that Mike Pinewood Pinewood. I have a servant leadership style, so that works in my benefit as well. And then some um feedback that
I've gotten from my ETA rep. Um we I meet with her regularly, but she said one of the things that staff has appreciated is the time to just dive into that CKLA curriculum. We know it's very um they're just learning it and it's just a lot of information. So just giving them that time to do that. Uh
Mrs. Han and I work hard to support our staff with discipline issues. The gathering is part of that. We're all on the same page. Everybody is hearing the same message at the same time. Really working on building the climate for our students and staff. And then we've revamped our MTSS this year and it's
been so powerful. So, I've really enjoyed that process and already um heard some feedback um just looking already forward to next year with that professional development. We're lucky to be in a district that's been providing us ongoing um professional development. Uh the literacy cadre coach that's right
in our building does an amazing job with that and she's here this evening. >> Cindy um CKLA professional development that's been ongoing throughout the year. Uh synchronous learning that was a little bit scary for our folks but we we did it the first day and then I brought Billy Joe in for a second time. That was
super powerful for the staff. they had something to hook it to that second training and so we really appreciated her coming back out. The district curriculum mapping has been huge. I have heard some really good things. Um a teacher said, "I really feel like I actually understand CLA even better
having gone through that process." So I've appreciated that. And the district is paying for letters. Um we're in the second year for that. And I feel um that's the gold standard for science of reading training. So we've appreciated that. our newer staff is doing the keys to literacy.
The third approach that how I'm going to get there with my staff is engaging families. Just being super intentional about communication. Uh parent square, social media, parent teacher conferences. If you've been to Pinewood, um Beth and I's office and the social workers office were kind of tucked in
the corner. So, we were super intentional this year with parent teacher conferences. We had a table brought out, the literacy coach, uh the social worker, myself, Beth, we sat out front greeting parents when we weren't in parent teacher conferences um ourselves, so we were able to engage that way. Those homework folders um
we've already um I said that Mrs. Jay has been working on them, but we've already looked at ways to revamp for the second part of the year. I'm in a rebuilding year for my PTO, but I'm so glad that I have some members that I'm leaning on to kind of help me get through the year. And each time we've met, we're meeting regularly. we've had
more people coming to those events and I'm looking forward to some more family events to get families in the building. Um, being a new administrator in the building and I even felt this last year when I was at Bristol, I can't walk away without saying thank you. The district
really wraps around me. If you have been out in front of Pinewood this year, we've had a little bit of construction on the road. I believe I reached out to Tony Genez right before school started and I said, "Um, have you been out here lately? because it's kind of and he's like, "Yeah, I've got this. I've been talking to him all summer." Not only did
he come um Mr. Snyder, Mr. Pollson showed up and they all went and walked and talked to the construction workers and had it made it so our buses could get and out and our staff and our parents made it um and it was like literally the first day of school. So, we appreciate that. Shout out to human
resources who've helped me a ton. Leslie, I appreciate her all the time. I tell her she stops, walks me through things, helps me understand. Um, Mrs. Reese has a one-on-one with all all of her administrators, which is huge. Dr. Rous, Dr. Huff, it's a it's a text
message and I can communicate with them if needed and I appreciate that. The list is there. Student services, the cabinet members, they're a phone call away and they they answer. They get back to me right away and I appreciate that. Technology, transportation, um, I've also been provided an
administrative mentor, Mr. Peddley, who I worked with last year. So, that's been huge as well. And then I just can't say enough about the staff. I literally am asked once a week, um, how's your new job? And I start with the staff. Amazing. They
tackle, they come to, they're solution driven. They come to me with a problem, but they've already got, hey, this is how we can work on it. They work through things as a team. They help each other. We had a fourth grade teacher. Um, we were all feeling a little nervous about synchronous learning. And one of the things that we were nervous about was
the class kick. and he said, "Hey, I can." And he gave us uh professional development. So when Billy Joe came out, she was able to kind of focus on the breakout room rooms and the other questions we had. So they really come to solutions themselves and I appreciate that so much. Um they give students
fresh starts every day and we need that. We all need that and they do a great job of that. We even had some retired staff visit. U Mrs. Hack, our secretary, started inviting people in and pretty soon it was a thing. So that was exciting.
And now little video. [Music] [Music] [Music] I love pinewood. >> I love pinewood.
>> I love pinewood. >> I love pinewood. >> I love pinewood. >> I love pinewood. >> I love pinewood. >> I love >> I love pinewood. >> We love pinewood. [Applause] >> Are there any questions I could answer?
questions. >> Answer a ton. First, I want to say great job with your presentation. I'd love to hear from Miss Han. Mrs. Han, >> my right hand for sure. >> Yeah. Um, everything Tracy said, Mrs. Martin said, we've been a great team. Um, she's just been wonderful to work
with and, uh, yeah, Pinewood's a great place. >> Make it a great place, too. Beth, >> are there Can you Can we acknowledge your staff who was here with you? Please do. Please stand up. >> YEAH, PLEASE STAND. AND I SHOULD GIVE CREDIT. Miss Shank put
together my video for me in the heartbeat. I don't know how she does it. >> She did a wonderful job. One of the things I I picked up, one of the themes I picked up from your video is that everything has a purpose. Um everything uh a pe a place for everything. Everything has a place. you definitely
uh are intentional about creating or reestablishing in some places the the culture that is needed for kids and for staff. You can hear it in your voice just how um proud you are to lead that building. If I didn't know that you're a first year principal there, I would say
that you've been there for a while. You have really taken on the ownership of that and your team is going to make sure that you are successful. >> They don't let me fail. I appreciate they're not going to and they're not going to great school, great high expectations for for students. I just it's again wonderful representation a
small snippet and I think these um these moments when we can talk about the great things we do for kids, we need to be just as vigilant about putting this type of stuff on social media. I took down that you're telling your school story. We all have we all have a duty to tell our school stories and even tell the
stories of other schools. When one kid wins at any school, we all win. And I just want to tell you thank you for um really talking deeply about the things that are are that are that make Pinewood a special place for everyone involved. So hats off to you in this presentation.
>> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. We'll keep the positivity going. Uh heard a lot of great things so far and we'll move right into the excellence of Elkart. Uh Wendy Wood. Thank you, President Scott, members of
the board, Dr. Huff, community members. I'm grateful for the opportunity to share highlights in the areas of academics, arts, and athletics. At the freshman division, English learner students practice story construction by writing their own books and developing narrative skills. They
then visited Mary Beck Elementary and were able to share their stories with second and third grade students. Also in academics, AP biology students at the high school recently investigated chemical reactions between enzymes and hydrogen peroxide. Working in groups,
students designed their own experiments. Some explored how pH levels affected the reaction while others examined the impact of temperature. In the area of arts, Riverview highlighted its music program last week with a combined performance from the third and fourth grade choir. The event
also featured Riverview Bell's Ensemble, a club that builds musical literacy and performance skills and helps prepare students for the future participation in band and orchestra. Several Elcart High School band students were selected to participate in the
Indiana Band Masters Association All District Honor Band, one of the 10 regional ensembles across the state that recognizes students for musical, academic, and personal excellence. Their achievement follows the recent success of several of our middle school musicians who performed performed in the
IBA All Region Band, the equivalent honor for younger performers. In the area of athletics, we would like to join Elcart athletics in celebrating senior Teresa Campanello, who has chosen to continue her volleyball career at
IUSB. It's an exciting milestone and we look forward to seeing many of our senior athletes finalize their plans for the future in the coming months. Also, in athletics, we want to highlight our middle school, seventh, and eighth grade basketball team. They took their teamwork off the court to support the
district-wide toys for tots drive. Friday, they helped fill the bus of toys collected throughout the district, marking the end of the toy drive. In addition, all three middle schools were represented through boys basketball, student council, and NJHS on Saturday
morning to help unload the bus and volunteer at the Toys for Tots event. Future happenings. On December 10th, Pure Moran Orchestra winter concert. December 11th, Elcart High School's winter musical celebration. And December 13th will be our district chess
tournament. And as always, please be sure to follow our district and school social media pages and share each day the excellence of Alcard schools. Thank you. >> Thank you, Wendy. >> Next on the agenda, I have the consent items. Do I have a motion?
>> So move. >> Do I have a second? >> I have a motion and a second. Uh we'll be happy to have any comments. >> Sure do. We have a total of $2,000 in donation, both going to the career center. One is a silver sponsorship for
$500 from Mid City and the second one is again from Michigan Mustangs. $1,500 to our automotive cluster for miscellaneous materials that will be used in that class. And then we also want to celebrate Angela James who is retiring from our school district after 18 years
is serving in our transportation office and as secretary. So thank you for everything that you've done for us, Angela, and enjoy your retirement. >> Thank you, Kelly. Any other uh comments or discussion regarding the consent agenda? >> Hearing or seeing none, all in favor?
>> I opposed. Motion passes. Next, old business. Uh we have a number of contracts um that were brought before us at our last board meeting. Uh Dr. Roush, uh the floor is yours.
>> President Scott, uh school board trustees, Dr. Huff, the administration presents the following contracts for consideration. Cardonics. >> Thank you, sir. Um President Scott, members of the board, Dr. Huff. The administration recommends approval of a
contract with edg staff. >> Brander. >> Good evening. The administration presents um the final for final consideration the Basher Children's Home contract. >> Mr. Thorne. Good evening, President Scott, members of the board, Dr. Huff,
and community. This evening, the administration recommends on behalf of WVP a proposed agreement with Interlink Group. >> Thank you. Do I have a motion uh for uh the the final or for the contract for final consideration Cardex Edustaf
Basher Children's Home and Interlink Group? >> I have a motion. Do I have a second? >> I have a second. Do I have any questions or comments regarding uh these four contracts as presented?
Hearing or seeing none. All in favor? >> Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Next, uh, under old business, uh, Mr. Thorne, we have board policies,
uh, 2411, 3216 ACS, 8400, and 8451. >> Thank you, President Scott. The administration recommends approval of these policies this evening, having presented them uh, two weeks ago at the board meeting. >> Thank you. Uh, do I have a motion uh for
approval of these policies uh as presented? >> I have a motion. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> I have a motion. I have a second. Do I have any questions or comments regarding these policies for final consideration?
Seeing or hearing none. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion passes. All right. On to new business. Uh, Miss Ross, uh, contracts. >> Good evening. The administration presents the following contract for
initial consideration and request a waiver of second reading plan source as a part of our insurance plan. >> Um, this is Ross. Um, do I have a motion to um,
>> thank you. Do I have a second? >> Second. I was getting to and we are going to wave second reading. Uh Doug, >> yeah, you can wave second reading. >> All right. Thank you. Just want to make sure as part of your motion. >> All right. I have a motion. I have a
second. Uh any questions or comments? Hearing seeing none. All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion passes. Mr. Thorne. >> Thank you so much. The administration recommends board approval of a proposed
agreement related to student assignment and services. Do >> I have a motion for the uh approval of the agreement related to student assignment and services? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> I have a motion and I have a second. Any
question or comments regarding this agreement? >> Hearing none. All in favor? >> Opposed? Motion passes. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Thorne, Mrs. Lozano. Uh, resolution. >> Good evening once again. Um, the
administration recommends board approval of the resolution as presented. >> Thank you. Do I have a motion uh for the resol resolution as presented? >> Do I have a second?
>> Second. >> I have a motion and I have a second. Do I have any questions or comments from the board regarding this resolution? Seeing or hearing none, all in favor? >> I opposed. Motion passes. Thank you.
This is Brander. Uh agreement for non-residential services. >> Good evening, Board President Scott, members of the board, Dr. Huff. The administration recommends board approval of an agreement for non-residential services for an Elcart Community School student. Do I have a motion uh for the agreement
for non-residential services as presented? >> I have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. >> I have a motion and I have a second. Do I have any questions or comments regarding this uh agreement? Hearing or seeing none. All in favor?
>> Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you, Dr. Roush. The 2026 2027 school calendar. >> Thank you, President Scott. School Board of Trustees, Dr. Huff. The 2026 2027 school calendar. The administration
presents the proposed 2026 27 school calendar and requests a waiver of second reading. >> Dr. Roush. Uh, do I have a motion for the 2026 2027 school calendar with a waiver of second reading?
>> Thank you. I second. I have a motion. And I have a second. Do I have any questions or comments regarding the 2026 2027 school calendar from the board? >> I just have a clarification for March
26th, that built-in snow day. So, we're we're treating I guess we're treating that day as a as an old >> our old way school day. So, if we happen to have a day where we have to call off school, we're still going to be using
the synchronous or asynchronous learning days for those. This is just a specific snow day for this date. >> Correct. Yes. >> Any other questions regarding the calendar >> comments?
Seeing or hearing none, uh, all in favor? >> Opposed? >> Motion passes. Thank you, Dr. Rush. >> Thank you. And I would like to just say thank you to all of those that served on the calendar committee. A lot of you are in the room this evening. So, I just want to say thank you uh for giving your
time uh in the evening to to work on this. So, thank you all. >> Right. Next on the agenda, we have Mr. Anderson. Uh you have uh some new course proposals for us. >> Good evening, President Scott, members of the board. Dr. Huff administration presents the following proposed new
course offerings for board review. Fundamentals of human services, community health worker, and healthc care specialist. Um, do I have any questions or comments from the board regarding fundamentals of human services?
>> Comment. Um, first of all, I like I thank you for for these classes. I think these classes are really important. And um I was especially um glad to see the healthc care specialist CNA um program um put in and and I think some of my
comments and and kind of a question are as we're talking to kids about in effect this particular class um are do we have a a chart or a plan that shows them if you get this particular
credential in high school, then this enables you the path to go to IvyTech to go to the next step and then the next step to get, you know, I just want to make sure that we've got those conversations and things in place
to do and are we going to be able to if the need is great would we be able to increase the numbers >> I'm very lucky to have the director of the career center with us this evening Mr. Uh Aikens, could you would address
Mr. Madam? >> Good evening board, President Scott, Dr. Huff. Uh most certainly. Um the addition of this is is due to two factors. Um the first factor is our existing pre- N nursing program that focuses on the certified medical assistant position. Um
we max that out on a regular basis, have waiting list. um this patient care role because that's what this is, the CNA role, um is one that we think will help us have two parallel um opportunities to train students and help them understand the different opportunities whether they're in the hospital or long-term
setting or in the clinic or doctor office setting. Um it's also in direct response to a request from Beacon um as far as in how we get more people into a patient care role. Um, in all of our healthcare programs, we do have those pathways designed um, and the
information there to help them see where we stack those credentials and where they can lead the student. >> Any other questions? >> No, I I just like to comment, Brandon, that uh, thank you for listening for the questions. Normally, we have to call you up. you just stood up and started making
your way knowing that at some point uh your your information would be needed. So, thank you uh for that. All right. Um next on the agenda, uh consolidation update from Dr. Huff and
Wendy Wood. >> Good evening, President Scott, members of the board community. Tonight I have a opportunity to share with you some of our staff survey results um that we have from the survey that we sent out to staff approximately two weeks ago. I have the pleasure of presenting tonight
with Mrs. Wendy Wood who um helped to collect this information, helped to disagregate, but also is going to give some insight on to how this information has been captured and how we're going to share this not only with our staff and an email after this board meeting, but
also what are our next steps to make sure that we continue to get some dialogue with our staff members as we go through this um very critical process. So, uh again, our goal as always to make sure that we're giving information in a transparent manner, but also in a timely manner. This is what we said we would do at the last board meeting and I feel
very proud that we are sticking to that timeline and that we are um making sure that we are honoring and um our staff voice and we'll continue to have some different opportunities as well. So take uh next slide. Oh well I'm going to pull Mr. Freeze and
go back. There we go. >> Thank you sir. Appreciate it. Oh, no. I can do left versus right. I got it. >> Ready to go home? >> Yep. >> Okay. >> Our staffer survey we sent to all staff
on November 25th, 2025. It closed on December 3rd. The format for our survey was anonymous and multiple choice. It helped encourage feedback and we wanted to hear from everybody. >> Can I add to that? >> Yeah, absolutely. And there also was an
open-ended portion too. So individuals were able to if there wasn't a question that was asked of the SE survey, they can they could chime in and and and share their thoughts. I think it's very important um when we reach out to our stakeholders that they everything is
just not in one format that they're able to convey their thoughts in multiple ways. So and we you'll see that today that we were able to aggregate um information in both that multiple choice format and in that open-ended um part of the survey. Can I ask a quick question? How did the
survey uh go out? What form of media? >> Went out through Parent Square, so it went to everybody's emails. >> Great. Thank you. >> Staff participation, we had 516 staff members participate. Um, one of the first questions was what area they worked. So we had everything from
continuing education, district staff, early learning, elementary staff, high school staff, and middle school staff. Um, one of the next questions was, how well do you understand the district financial situation? Not used to sharing.
Um overall our staff um moderately well um we had 201 answer that uh slightly well we had 88 not well at all we had 32 very well 135 and extremely well 55. Um,
and the reason why we wanted to make sure we asked the staff the same question that we asked our community because our community also responded to that exact same question. How well do you understand our district um finances? Overall, our staff 80% or above said that they understood um our finances and
and with the community it was at 92%. So there's like a 12 percentage difference, but remember the scale is very we had 516 of our staff respond. community. I think we had roughly 87 people respond to that particular question. No, that's not 87 people respond to that question.
So, very different um when it came to that, but we wanted to show that for the most part there's a pretty strong understanding of of of the mission that we are tasked with and so that allows people to fully engage into this process. So, I I thought it was important to show um where those two
where that question aligned up in both the community and with our staff. Um, one of our multi-part questions was how important it is to have those schools that are well staffed and resourced. Um, 318 said extremely
important and 178 said very important >> and this is a ve and similar question but this has to do with our afterchool programming. Um, again how important is for these to be well staffed and resource? resource means that when we do the consolidation, will there be appropriate ratios? Will there be
funding that's tied to it? Will teachers receive support and all those things. So, we wanted to make sure we get a lot more descriptive when we talk about that. Again, as you can see the numbers, 111 of our staff members thought this was very important for our district. I'm sorry, not very important, extremely
important. 180 thought was very important. You can look at the rest of the numbers. overall they're telling us, hey, as we do this work, make sure when we get to the other side that I'm able to do the work and also do it well. And I think that's important that they we
listen to that as they have taken their time and to give us this information not only again in that multiple choice format. Um but as we dug through their comments um you could see the passion in our staff members voices about how important this process is to them and
also how um many are anxious uh about this and we need to recognize in this moment um when they're giving us their feedback that we're taking in and using it to help us to guide to make those decisions. So I just wanted to say for after school programming very important
to our staff. Our next question is about the balance distribution of resources. Um 262 found it very important 165 extremely important. >> And can I add on to that M right now currently I'm going to speak uh to our
elementary schools. We have schools that received title funding. We have schools that don't. We have teachers who are bringing in I think across all schools bringing in some resources to supplement materials. the way things are currently now. I believe that CKLA is a is a great way to
have us have guaranteed viable curriculum and with our ELA, but I think for a very long time our staff has had to go out of their way to supplement curriculum to make sure that the kids had a a great chance in the classroom. So this again consolidation is just not about buildings. It's about also looking
at the practices that we have as well. And so I think when I see the question balance distribution of resources, will this school have the same fighting chance as the other schools? And right now I it's very difficult to look our schools in the eye and say that they're
all have the same type of support. If you go to the consolidation website, you see there's a different amount of per pupil spend on the students. And um I think as we do this work, we will see um some realignment as far as not just in overall class sizes. Like we want to
keep everything the same as far as what we have now, but also we're able to um allocate funding just a little bit differently and not be spread so thin um should the board approve to continue on with this process. >> Well, I have the next one.
And then we talked about school boundaries. Our schools are dramatically different some in demographic makeup and socioeconomic makeup and in resource makeup. I think the teachers if they came up and follow me it's very
different from one place to another. Some is just based off of geographically where our families reside but also in we have a greater population of English language learners in some schools but also sometimes those support they're not supported at the levels in which we would like for them to be. Um we have
students who require some additional supports whether it's through um I IEPs whether it's through some 504s that's not equal across the school district. The goal is not always to have equal number everywhere but I do think there's a a part of having equity in our school
system. I think it's a very important for us as a district as we're going through this process to make sure that we get this right. Um, and what I'm talking about is is not a is making sure that we're distributing our resources fairly across the schools. Boundaries
are very important. It it we I can't one of the questions someone asked, well, not one. It was like what maybe 17 of the staff members. Hey, are you going to take time to look at some of the boundaries? And then one we'll share you a little bit later. We we have to it's it's almost impossible to do this work
without looking at um some of the boundary lines. And so our staff is very well attuned and I think this is a a a a huge kudos to them. They know that this work is just not moving one school into another. They know that you have to do some additional work as well. So I wanted you to to see tonight just how
well it attuned our staff members who responded understood the assignment when it came towards um the school boundaries. And so again we also that'll be an additional opportunity for the community and for our staff members to give some input on that as well should we continue to go down that path.
Staff were asked what their primary concerns about the school consolidation and how it may impact staff during transitioning. Um we had 306 that selected uh staff assignment job roles 361 potential reduction and
redistribution 329 uncertainty about future placement or responsibilities 289 increased workload or expanded responsibilities and 158 adjusting to new schedules procedures and expectations. We also had
66 that fell under other and those consisted of optional comments or concerns and additional questions. >> Yeah. >> When when I thank you Wendy when I see these it's people are really what they're ask what they're telling you
what is my world going to look like when this is done. what does this look like as we go through this process and what does it look like when we are when you've decided and now you're I'm in a maybe potentially a new space I look at that and I see a again an opportunity is
for us one to be transparent with people as we do this work but also to listen to their concerns the the feedback was poignant from our staff members in that that's why we made sure that there were multiple opportunities for the open um into questions some gave some really
great suggestions questions on, hey, this is how this process could be better, not just for me, just over on the whole. Um, some brought up some historical information like, hey, when we did this another time, we maybe have missed this opportunity. And some flat out just are asking questions like, hey,
this is this is new and I'm very nervous, but I'm going I'm very nervous. Can you help me to understand? So again, I I appreciate it everyone who took the opportunity to um respond to this, but when I see this on the board, um people just want to know what their work is
going to look like. And I think that is very fair and I think that's a from a very wise staff. So and again, when we say sta, this was sent to our entire staff in our school district, not just to a certain group. So I just want to make sure that that was also clarified as well.
Out of the 516 staff who participated, we received 199 who left additional questions for us to answer. The process in which we' answered these questions, we reviewed all the questions, combined
all the like questions into 10 categories, looked at each of those categories, and were able to consolidate those questions even more and ended up with 56 additional questions. Come on or do you got this too? >> Yeah, you want me to? >> Hey, I'm I'm just following you in. Um,
one of the things that Thank you, Mrs. Wood. One of one of the things that was important is that what we're this information is all going to be displayed on our consolidation page uh consolidation um
part of our website. um we had 516 responses. Many of the staff members asked the same question just in a different way. And so we found 10 different themes that uh that came across all the questions, but we will let you know we answered every single
one of them. Um and we'll show you tonight how what that looks like as we kind of combine them into the into those themes. Um and you can see these are the this is what our community wants our internal our staff community wants to know. They want to know what's the
reason behind the consolidation. What is the human what is the human resources look like? Our general concern. And then they were very specific. What is my role going to look like? Um what about the students experience in class sizes? I noticed in a lot of the questions many
people assumed the class sizes were just going to increase. I'm committed for class sizes to stay the same to stay exactly where we are now. They don't. What we have is across the district we have in some places we have class sizes that are above our threshold where think
only like in maybe five or six places but we have some class sizes that are just not there and so how can we make sure that we rebalance that as we look at this work and we will make sure that we are looking at this work starting this week we'll be meeting with our teachers association to kind of help us to pair this u down as we move down to
the next steps the student experience I'm sorry did that transportation logistics Our staff are very good at figuring out like, hey, how are we going to get kids from here to here and how am I going to get from here to here as well? Um, facilities, programming, communication,
morale, and community impact. Consolidating schools has a huge impact on morale. How you handle it and how honestly you're about it, I think also will have an impact as well. People feel like you're hiding things from them, it I think it's it will destroy the
process. I hopefully you have seen that we do what we say and we say what we're going to do. Information and then make it public. Information then make it public. I mean sorry surveys make it public. Um our presentations are public and also our timelines we we listen to. We want to make sure that people
understand there is going to be some changes but how that those changes occur. We want to make sure that people have a voice in that process, but also we learn from individuals and don't repeat mistakes that could have been possibly made in the past or have the same experiences that people had in the
past. So, um this is different. All of us are going through this level for for the first time. So, the best way to get it right is to listen to as many people as we can before any decisions or recommendations are given to the board. And then lastly, just other concerns that was specific to that individual.
So, can I can I answer this one? Okay. Um, we also went through those 56 questions and this will be posted on the consolidation website tonight. So, next to it, you're going to see the question and the first question that was asked, are we really doing a true
consolidation? And so, one of us answered, one of the members of my team, we actually answered that question. You can see what the response was. It's not just about buildings. is also looking about your processes and how you go about um making sure that the students experiences are
just are put are factored in the staff experiences and and and reallocating your resources. Consolidation is about alignment too. Um I appreciate all the the like I said the conversations when it come but that was the first question that was asked. What
does this look like? I heard people say they said rip the band-aid off was was said a couple different times. Some said, "Hey, I we're not ready to do we're just not ready to do this. You're in a you we're in a tough situation either way." Um, but I do think based off the understanding both shared by our
staff and our community, they understand why we're going down this path. And then the other one asks about the the the next one you can see about the funds save from consolidation. How will that be allocated? Obviously, you will have decisions on what that will look like. there is a a
figure amount that I think that we needed to in order to achieve in order to do this. Well, I know this year we're currently projected to be 5 million over in our expenses. We need to make sure that is recouped um as we go throughout this process. Um and so we don't have a
definitive number that I would put in a spreadsheet, but I do want to let people know that we are trying to make sure we end this year very next year balanced as well. And then are there other cost cutting measures? Yes. Some asked about central office, some asked about administrators, some asked about
different programs, all and the answer to all those was yes, we had and it was it was it was a it was a true exercise going through each one of these and make sure our cabinet, our team really understood what our um staff was asking. Um it was it was it was an exercise. We
wanted to make sure that they understood. There's live links where they can go look and see some of the things that we are saving, some of the things that we're talking about. I think this will be a useful tool for our staff as they see how we answer these questions. So, um again, we wanted to make sure that um people knew that we
that they're being heard and that their energy is not just, oh, this is another thing that's just not going to be listened to by someone. No, we we went through every single one. It took days to do so. Um but, um I feel like we gave honest responses, but also things that
were actionable as well. But this is just an example of the first three out of the 56 questions that we condensed um based off the themes that we saw in the surveys from the staff. >> I know it's the end, but they much rather hear from you.
>> Do they have any questions? >> Nice job, Wendy. >> Thank you. >> It was enjoyable watching the flow. I >> Yeah, that was great. I think I think it's important that people realize uh it's it's all hands- on deck when it comes to this consolidation. Wendy Wood
is not only doing her regular job. We also have to do I don't want this to be a part of our regular job, right? This is just something that we're doing to make sure that our jobs can get as regular as they could be. And so people are working
tirelessly. She she went and sorted all these questions. She is the one who then brought us through. Hey, I think this falls in this category. She wrangled all of us together around of a table and said, I think you're be well, she didn't do that, but you're best to answer this question. Who's best to answer this
question? It's a team effort. And so I just and to do those things and give a pretty quick turnaround. I just want to say thank you to our communication team. But then things just don't appear. Somebody has to design it. Somebody has to put it somewhere. Someone has to have some thought about it. that
consolidation page didn't just show up because we asked for it. We had to build it. We had to put in the information. We had to go find the data. There's a lot of time being spent to this process. So, I hope people really are seeing that we're really putting a lot of thought in these things. So much we're putting it
all out there once it's done. when tonight before people get home, you'll get a oh, hey, when we'll send this out to our community through Parent Square because we're so we are very open about the process. I was almost going to say proud of the work. I don't
want to do this work forever, but I do want to say I'm proud of the processes of the team and Wendy, thank you for all that you do um with this. So, she is it's like hurting cats sometimes and she really does a good job of making sure that we stay in line with our communication. So, I appreciate you very
much. This was awkward, but we'll do better next time. [Music] >> Yeah. I just want to say, you know, thank you to you and your team and the work that you've done uh to this point. I think the survey is very important. Uh I said all along that input from all
stakeholder is essential uh in this process in the consolidation process. I think it um it it gives your team direction. It gives your team the understanding from when it comes to consolidating schools to programming to
what's important and what's a concern that maybe you know you haven't thought about in during this process. So, uh I do understand the the task that uh you guys have been saddled with and the team um over and above everything else that you do. So, I wanted to thank you for
that. But I also wanted to thank the staff I agree. >> Um that that took the time and the opportunity to be very candid and to ask the questions and and to say I I I have concerns. I uh I I I see this aspect of
it or I see the necessity but you know I I have some concerns or quite honestly you know there's some things that uh scare me uh about this and it's change and and change is hard you know for most if not all people. So, thank you for taking the time to be honest, to be
transparent. I again, I feel like I'm saying this at every meeting, but I still encourage you as information comes out and this is my question. Is there an avenue for staff to say, "Hey, I went back to the dashboard. I read through the questions. I now have additional
questions or I have another question." Is there is an opportunity for them to submit those? >> I think we we have no problem reopening the survey. I wanted to also share with you we do intend in intend to go speak to every single one of the schools as well about the because your
understanding changes right as you absorb new information. My understanding of this process is changed as we as we've gone through it. So again we're working with we'll work with building leaders we'll work with um our teacher association. will work with the other uh groups as well, our custodians, our tech
department, our security to make sure that we are meeting and getting in the not in the face, we're getting in front of all our people to answer those questions. And so I I think that is a lot of our work that we will have start in January. Um we talked about that at our leadership team meeting today. Um
but also what is the best way to deliver that information as well. Um so again, I look forward to having those conversation. And I think an engaged community and I think a community that shares truthful information will make sure that this goes well. Um to be to be
I see sometime I don't I try not to go into those spaces in the world. I use our website and I use uh um usually our communication team, but sometimes we we we do sometimes fall victim to people sharing misinformation about this process and and sometimes it's from
internal and I think the more that our people are um have correct and accurate information, the better they can advocate and then the better they can be engaged in this process. So, I really hope that people take time to go back and look at the consolidation page to
take time to go look at to see how the district has shared that they're going to answer and then hold them accountable like this is what you said that you were going to do. So, I really think this is a an opportunity for us too to share with the community with our stakeholders. This is how we do business
and this is how um we do it in a professional way and in a way that um we take people's um input but then we put it to action. Sometimes people give input and they feel like it's just lost in the void and and and I don't want that to be um clearly my reputation. I
certainly don't want that to be our district's reputation as well. >> That's and that's when input stops coming in when it's ignored or you feel like it's being ignored and everything I've seen in this process is that is not >> uh what you guys are doing. You're you're addressing every question, every
issue and and and I applaud you for that. That's so very important. >> Thank you. Um so again to answer your question next step January would be a would be most likely when all those meetings will occur. We still have to define some dates work with um again I said those employee groups to make sure
that we can get time time and places established and so I'll make sure at our next board meeting oh that's the 16th that's in the morning I will make sure that the community is informed when those times are as well. Any what other questions can I answer for you
>> questions? No, great great job. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Wood. >> Give you a moment to gather this part today. >> I'll be very brief. Um, you turn it over to me. >> I am, Superintendent. The the the floor is yours.
>> Uh, thank you, President Scott, members of the board community. Um just want to echo I'm very proud of our um two new administrators coming up and just bragging on their schools. This is it's it's nice to just just to see that one you made good hires and they're
they're they're wonderful individuals but those they're being rallied around by their staff. Um uh those presentations tonight were were fantastic. So Mr. Freeze, Mrs. Martin and to your to your schools, hats off to you. Um we are also in the stretch run of the school season. There is almost a choir performance every night. So if you
want to hear some really good music, uh make sure that you look at our district website, look at our event pages. You'll see pretty much uh some location, our middle schools, our elementary schools and high school. I think high school next week has a performance almost every single day of our of our winter concerts. And so um I look forward to
going to quite a few. So um please join me. They would love to see you. Our arts programs are are great here. Um, also I want to um give a huge shout out to um our um high school team for putting on the diploma uh night last night at the
uh freshman division. Um there have been dramatic changes here in the state of Indiana in regarding of how kids are um will traverse through our high school system. So I think the team did a really wonderful job sharing the new expectation of the diploma requirements. Um so hats off to Mr. Anderson, Dr.
Rous. Um, and to Lacy and Adrian. I sorry I shouldn't call them by their first name. I know their last name. Don't try to whisper that to me. I just want to say thank I just want to tell you thank you to all of them for putting it on last night. Great job. Um, families. Um, this is not just a one time. We're going to be talking about
the diploma a lot and then pretty soon you're going to hear us talking about the new accountability model that's going to come out. Um, when that's um, it could be adopted in January should the state choose to do so. Um, and that hopefully we'll have another night um that goes along with that as well. Um, I also want to give a shout out to Mrs.
Himore Holllet. Hopefully I'm saying that correctly. Did I say it correctly, Mr. Anderson? He is my um correct person apparently back there in the audience realy for heroes teacher of the month. She teaches Japanese in the uh school of business and international relations and she is was recognized for building
communities basically across the world. Um, she has led trips to Japan. She's also hosted families as well. Elcart is known for these type of experiences. So, I just want to say thank you for continuing to doing that work. Um, that is a huge huge um indicator of how we're
just not only making a difference here, but also in sister schools. And we we have other school districts who want to come and be a part of those experience that we provide um kids. And so, hats off to her for leading that work. Um, and last but certainly not least, um, I
think somebody talked uh a lot tonight about uh the weather and how that is literally he mentioned South Bid and I didn't know where he was going. I was like, man, he's trying to get me fired. But, um, one of the thing what one of the things I just want to say, thank you to the road crews, the
mechanics in the bus. They are literally they are out at 3:00 a.m. I get up at 3:30 a.m. to to hear and sometimes to look at. It is almost like a 24-hour roundthe-clock job. You have a very small window to make those decisions. I get on the home, get on the phone with
Mr. Gessie at four o'clock in the morning and just to try to make the best decisions that we can and the best decisions that we can. I think most of the time we get it right. There are going to be times where we're not going to get it right because you know what it's snows or weather happens after we make those decisions. So, one of the
things I think that we can do is encourage families to sign up for Stopfinder. Um, that is something if your child is riding the bus, I would implore you to sign up for that app. It lets you know when the bus is going to be in your neighborhood, so your kid is just not waiting out in the cold. Last
week, we had over 300 people sign up for that app, and that's still not enough. We only have 20% of our families signed up for that free app. Please do so if you have an opportunity. It just takes a couple of minutes to to do so. but it will tell you literally in real time
where your baby is in when it's when the bus is coming to your house, but also where they are when they're on the bus. So, I think it's a great safety measure for us, too. Mr. Smith has been has been pointing just how important that is. He's a director of transportation, how important it is for families to have that application. I also think it's a
good piece of mind, too. Um, as well. And then last, certainly not least, when it comes to weather delays, we we don't want family opting out of your parent square messages. Please make sure that uh we want everyone to be signed up for those so you can get those messages um to let you know what's happening. So we
we we do it in three ways. We send parent square text messages and then it's also on the news as well. So I think in that short period of time all that communication is happening. Um and again I I think we try to do do it based off what we can this week. There is some
weather that could be coming in on Thursday. So all that synchronous learning that we kind of talked about, we we may be putting that in play this week. So we just got to see how the weather plays out. But um please pay attention to uh some alerts this week, but we are watching the weather towards the end of the week. Um but again, most
importantly, thank you for all those who filled out the survey. Thank you for the continued support of the leadership team. I know that you are working hard and overtime for to make everything happen as far as behind the scenes and consolidation. Um really appreciate you. And with that, President Scott, I'm going to turn it back over to you.
>> Uh thank you. Um, what was the name of the uh the app again? >> Stopfinder. >> What was it? >> Stop. >> I don't I don't know if he's being serious. It's Stop. It's Stopfinder, ladies and gentlemen. Stop. >> I've heard you say it three times. >> Oh, it mistake. >> Stop fighters. >> It It is It is very important.
>> And then last, but certainly not least, I would be remiss. I just want to say had a really good uh time this weekend with my my son. My son um I don't know, he is a freshman at UN at IU. He is a a great young man. Um he thinks all that IU does is they just win. They win. They
just win. They had they they um played a giant football game this weekend. They beat some university that's out there. Um and but anyway, but I just want to say hats off to you if you're a huge IU fan. This is a great time. I know experiencing winning um is is it's very important and it's a learned skill. Um
Ohio State has already learned that. So I just want to >> we adapted adjust very well to where >> I just but no but seriously I I just say the the the the reason why I say that is one of the things the message is is we should always the prosperity of others
is sometimes just saying hey you know what it's nice to see when other people do well just like when our kids do well the kids at Pinewood are doing well I hope the people at Mary Daily and at Riverview and at Mary Feeser are giving just as loud of clap. So, if we can do that for football teams, we certainly
could do it for kids. And so, I just want to make sure that we understand that we're on this. But it it that was a a great win for IU. Um um it was a I was in shambles the entire weekend. So, >> but at least you still have a really good band.
>> Back to you, President. >> Thank you, uh Dr. Huff. Uh >> do I have anything from the board uh this evening? >> Oh, no. Please you. No, no, absolutely not. >> Yes. Um I had the uh fortunate ability to uh spend today and tomorrow at the
Notre Dame and uh there's a heartland defense and maritime forum that I'm attending and um believe it or not uh we're going back into the ship building business and we're going back into the drone building business in a huge way. Okay. Now, how does that affect us?
Okay. because we are primarily situated with our departments and our career center, you know, from welding to building trades. I mean, they're talking about building submarines, they're talking about building ships, you know, naval defense systems and stuff like that across the board. It touches every
discipline that we have within the school corporation. Okay. One of the things that um I pointed out to them that they, you know, were talking because tomorrow they're going into workforce development and stuff like that, but they kind of start at the college level and stuff like that when
in fact they need to start at the ele middle school, right? And start in gearing kids into these disciplines uh you know to be successful. Um, I talked to the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, and um, they were all impressed
with the fact that we have 147 students in our junior ROC program here. And, um, so, uh, I mean, just across the board, the diesel mechanics, carpentry, the healthc care, uh, I mean, you name it, we do it here. We should be a key
player, uh, with Heartland Defense and what's coming at us and down down the road. Okay. now and it's not going to happen overnight either. This is a long-term strategic plan for our country put out, you know, by our government, the direction we're going in. Um, what I
would say is that, uh, if Dr. Huff has anybody to spare that would be interested in talking about workforce development or listening about it, I will be happy to take you with me tomorrow. Um, anyway, that is uh all I have about that. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Doug. >> Thanks. Anyone else? >> Me? Obviously, thank you for the opportunity for spare. I will I will put that ask out the cabinet and they are more than welcome to go Mr. Weaver to um to workforce development. Um just let me
know. We'll arrange that. >> I know you guys want to go home. So, it's a really quick I know unsung hero quickly. Elementary >> um coaches from basketball, volleyball, cheerleading. If you've never seen them, they showed up at the basketball game.
They showed up at the football game. The cheerleaders have been everywhere. If you've not seen or met any of your elementary coaches, please congratulate them. They heard all of the little athletes all over the fields and everywhere. And they're a miracle to watch and they give a lot of time up. All right, knock that off, Mrs. Serge. I
know you want to go home. I'm teasing. But yes, so just make sure that you say thank you to all of your elementary coaches because I just watched what they did with the basketball players and the cheerleaders this Saturday when a particular school won and they did an
amazing job with the way that they took care of all of their athletes. So our unsung heroes this week is our elementary sports coaches. >> Thank you, Mrs. Mullins. Anyone else from the board? All right. Thank you everyone for coming
out. Meeting is adjourned. >> All right.