Okay. I got a message from her about twenty after, so she's gonna be able to leave that. Okay. Alright. Everybody ready? Alright. Thank you everyone for coming out tonight, for our 10/14/2025, public work session. At this time, I will call our public work session to order. And, Lindsay, miss Brander, you have the, podium. Good evening, board president Scott, members of the board, doctor Hough community. Thank you so much for allowing me to present this evening on our bullying prevention
and investigation practices and Project AWARE, which was our mental health grant. So October is bullying prevention month. Bullying prevention month was first established in 2006 by the Pacers National Bullying Prevention Center. Historically, bullying has been viewed as a childhood rite of passage that made kids tougher, but in reality has always been that bullying can leave devastating often long term effects such as loss of self esteem, increased anxiety and depression, for those involved. And that includes students experiencing bullying, those who exhibit bullying behaviors, and bystanders who wish
witness it. As a special treat for our bullying prevention month, doctor Hough hosted a very special guest to, share a book with us on Reid and the Magnificent Snort. So please stay tuned to our social media for that. Yes. It was it was a good time. So so within Elkhart Community Schools, we, use the Olvias Bullying Prevention Program. We're one of the few school districts in the state of Indiana that use this program. It is, the purpose of the program is to create positive culture, reduce bullying, and increase staff awareness around, bullying behaviors, supervision, and, creating a culture of positive engagement with
students. It was in, developed in partnership with Clemson University, and over the last four years, we've used it, for a decade or more. Over the last four years, we've really, worked hard in the reimplementation process. They've updated some of their, practices and the lessons and things like that that they have within their program. So we partnered with, Olveyus trainers. They came out. We trained our bullying prevention coordinators to help us in the reimplementation pro process with this program. And then two years ago, Clemson University came out and did a big, I can't
remember what they called it, but it was basically to ensure that we are, implementing the program with fidelity as it was tendent because it's an evidence based, research based program. So, we were able to go through that training, reimplement the program, and it's been in full swing, for several years now within Elkhart Community Schools. So what does Olveus look like in practice? It really is a culture shift within the building. It's teaching every staff member from cafeteria staff to custodians to your secretarial staff, any staff member that engages with students, how to recognize bullying, how to intervene on the
spot, and then how to report. There's usually a kickoff event. As you can see from our slide deck, a lot of our, schools participated with Box Out Bullying. They come in and do a big, presentation, and they review the four anti bullying rules, which I'll share with you shortly. And then at the elementary level, there are class lessons once a week. And at the secondary level, they have class lessons every other week. And initially, those are about bullying. We've aligned them to our pride framework, persistence, respectfulness, initiative, dependability, and efficiency. And so how are we teaching students to respect each other and show each other
respect, and what does that look like, within our schools? And then class lessons can also address things like, work ethic and building resilience and things like that. So we have a little video of one of our class lessons from Munger Elementary. That's very nice. I don't know if we're gonna owe mister Swanson any royalties for playing his song during the board meeting, but just in case, I'll make sure that, he gets his 10¢ check or whatever royalties payout. So the four anti bullying rules, these are posted in every one of our schools and our classrooms. Often our schools will also announce them in the meeting in the morning when they're
going over, you know, expectations for the school for the week. The rules are we will not bully others. We will try to help students who are bullied. We will try to include students who are left out. If we know somebody is being bullied, we will report this to an adult. These anti bullying rules are aligned with our pride framework, so we make sure that you're showing each other respect when you are not bullying others. So they understand that. So how do teachers and staff help? All of our teachers and staff are trained on Olveyus. They get additional bullying prevention training, which I'll talk about in a moment, but, they're
taught to intervene on the spot. So you have a handout, board members, called the teachable moment, and we have shrunk this down and made it ID size. So for, staff members that have the ID slots, they slide the teachable moment in there and they can refer to it. And it really is when you're seeing bullying happen, how how do you as an adult intervene on the spot? Just because we're adults doesn't mean we always feel comfortable or know how to intervene in those situations and do it appropriately, so we're not, we're maintaining the dignity of everyone, but also making sure that students know that it's an unacceptable behavior.
So this school year, almost 1,500 Elkhart staff members participated in our bullying prevention course through Vector, and that isn't specifically related to Olveus, but that is very specific to recognizing bullying, ensuring that adults are not bullying each other, how to report bullying, and then the information related to, the impacts of bullying on students and staff. So Elkhart has a very robust bullying investigation protocol that follows state laws and Elkhart Community Schools board policy.
This investigation protocol was developed several years ago with national experts, and it really does, help our administrators understand what bullying is and what it isn't, and what are the interventions that happen once we've identified that bullying has happened. So there have been some recent changes to the law, so we always ensure that we are updating after that July 1, time that we are updating our policies and our invest investigation plan and protocol. So the the big changes to the law this year were, parents of the alleged
target and the alleged perpetrator shall be notified before the end of the next instructional day of the alleged bullying incident. This was actually already written into our procedures, but we wanted to make sure that the language aligned. The second change was that the investigation shall be completed and the written findings to the principal as soon as possible, but no later than five school days from the initial report of the alleged bullying incident. Again, we had a very short turnaround time for when the findings of the investigation are presented to the individual the principal.
And the reason that language is in there and the way that it's like that is we can train whoever whomever the principal designates to be an investigator, but only the principal can make the determination of whether an event is a bullying event or not. And that's really tied to their administrative powers. Right? And then, assigning a consequence related to, bullying. And then yes? Good question. Yeah. Do we, do anything, if an incident happens on a Friday and, you know, according to the changes in the law, we don't have to notify, the parents until the
end of Monday. Right. And so we have a weekend that would come into play. Do we do we because of that and, knowing that, you know, this could maybe, incident could be be taken from the school setting to, outside of the school setting over the weekend? Do we do anything special? So I think that depends on how it's been reported. There are times we do receive sprigia reports over the weekend, and I always receive those. Staff member, administrators receive those as well. So if we receive a sprig year report on the weekend, I know some of our administrators have reached out to parents.
It's not part of our our policies or expectation that administrators are reaching out to parents on the weekends, but I know many of them do make that decision to just say, hey. We've received this, and we'll look into it first thing Monday morning. If we're made aware of an incident during the you know, during the school day or during any time when we're working on a Friday, yes, we do reach out to the parents. It's not the twenty four hours or the end of the next school day is a you have to, but it's not necessarily what our practice is, if that makes sense. Thank you. And then the third change, the findings of the investigation and any remedial action shall
be reported to the parents no later than one instructional day following the conclusion of the investigation. So it's kind I guess that would be on the sixth day from the initial report. And just to be clear, remedial action is not consequences, so we cannot share the private information of students who have received consequences with other parents that are not their parents. But it could be what are the interventions that we're doing, what are the safety protocols that we're putting in place, how are we going to ensure the safety of the child to experience bullying. And on the other side of that for the child that was found to have
exhibited those bullying behaviors, for that parent, what are the consequences, but also how are we going to support your child and teach them to not engage in those behaviors? So Spriggyo is our anonymous safety reporting app, its site. It's downloaded to all student and staff iPads and it's available on our website. Students, staff, parents, and community members are encouraged to report safety concerns including bullying through Sprigio. As you can see, we get hundreds, almost a thousand Sprigio reports a year. Not all of them are related to bullying.
Oftentimes, students will report safety concerns that they have or, misbehavior that they've witnessed, students engaging in in their own building, or even safety concerns for themselves. You know, some some concerns about, even their own mental health challenges that they don't necessarily feel comfortable verbalizing to an adult. They feel safe sending that information to Sprigio. We have a duplication of, contact, which means not one person receives a Sprigio report. It's multiple people. And frequently, you can tell when a when a Spragueo report comes in, that puts
us on high alert because then there's emails and calls flying back and forth. And Natalie Bickel receives them and she's calling the school, but then I'm also calling the school and then the administrator's reaching out. So, our administrators and staff who receive these reports are very well trained and very aware of the importance of when something like this comes in. And just to be to clarify, that was not seven hundred and eighty eight incidents of bullying that were reported. Those are just reports that came in. And then we determine based on the language in the report or what the report says, whether it warrants an investigation.
So I think it's really important to mention this, that bullying prevention is a mental health intervention. These are national statistics. These are not for Elkhart Community Schools, but they they probably do mirror it closely just, for our students. One out of every five students is reported being bullied. Students with disabilities experience bullying at higher rates. Thirty percent of students who have experienced bullying report serious mental health impacts, and relational bullying exclusionary. This might look like we're not gonna talk to that person or they can't sit with us at the cafeteria, can have significant negative impact on students' academic achievement.
And the reason I put this one in here, I think it's really important to highlight because we think oftentimes of as of bullying as an action. Right? An aggression towards a student or we're doing something to them. But oftentimes, the most negative impacts can be felt when we're being excluded. And so that can the reason that it has such a huge impact on academic achievement because who wants to go to school if they don't feel like they belong. So to tie into that is mental health prevention. A lot of the work that we've done with our bullying prevention and with, Olveus has come through the funding we received with Project AWARE.
In 2022, we applied and received, the Project AWARE grant. It's a large mental health grant from the Department of Education and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration. And with support from the Department of Education in Indiana and the Indiana Department of Mental Health, we've been able to provide mental health supports and services for four out of five awarded years. So initially, the grant was awarded for five years. This would be our fifth year. We're still not sure if we're going to fully receive the grant, so that is to be determined, just to to keep that out there and and make you aware. So the goals of the grant were established by the, Department of Mental Health.
The first goal is to increase the sustainability of school based mental health programs. The second goal, increase the capacity of school staff to employ evidence based tools. Goal three, increase early identification of mental health needs, interventions to address them, and the number of students identified referred and receiving mental health services. And goal four, increase student and family awareness of mental health issues services and engagement. So what has our Project AWARE funded? What has it helped support? I have a big list here because I couldn't fit all of the pictures up there. It has fully funded our Olveus bullying prevention program, and it helps support the, bullying
prevention coordinators that, helped initiate and implement the program. We've been able to hire additional social workers. We've been able to offer direct access to school based therapy. It has also helped provide funding for our, bullying prevention and mental health support clubs, which we will hear from some students that participate in those clubs shortly. We've been able to partner with Oak Lawn, and they provided building hope groups at our middle schools. All of our social workers have been trained to be trainers in QPR suicide prevention, so we hope to train staff on that, in the coming years.
All of our Elkhart staff, I'm sorry. Elkhart staff has presented at national mental health conferences. There have been mental health layer libraries at the schools. The youth mental health first aid training, we were able to provide that training for all nurses, security staff, and bus drivers to help them recognize signs of crisis in students and then the steps that they can take to support their students. We were able to offer zones of regulation training for all elementary and middle schools. Zones of regulation is an emotional regulation curriculum. It helps students recognize when they're feeling a challenging emotion, and then what they can
do to calm themselves and move on. In addition to that, we have established regulation rooms at our elementary schools and middle schools, and I believe we have them at our high schools as well. And that really is it is not a a time out space. It's not a space where students go to avoid academic work. It really is part of that recognizing. I am not in a good space to learn right now. I'm gonna go spend five minutes in the regulation room to reset myself, and then I'm gonna come back and continue the learning. We have increased referral and access to mental health service providers, and then we've also
been able to provide training support for mental health related behavioral challenges. Some other things that it has helped fund. So every May, we have it's, May is mental health awareness month, and we have the, Mental Health Walk. So, please look for that in May. We're gonna hold that again. That's to bring awareness to, mental health struggles and how you can support yourself and your family members. And then we've also been able to bring in speakers to provide to provide information on supporting student mental health. But the most important thing is the impact on students, and so it is my
absolute pleasure to introduce, missus Jamie Presswood. She's our bring change to mind sponsor for the high school, and then Remy and Kalyn I'm sorry. Noemi and Kalyn. Sorry, Noemi. Are gonna come up and speak to you about the the things that they do with our bring change to mind club. Good evening. Thank you for having us today. Thank you for asking, miss Brander. So the bring change to mind club is a national club that was started in 2015 to help kinda change the stigma around surrounding mental health.
It is a student led initiative group. So, the adult advisers are really supposed to be able to step back and allow them to do the planning, the organizing, and we are really just there to kinda help facilitate and provide them and get them the resources that they need. So just helping in their language and meeting where our youth are at today and what their struggles are, to be able to really sit down and change that conversation about normalizing it's okay to not be okay and to what are the resources we
have, whether that's within our building with the social workers or school counselors or amongst each other and how to help have that peer support amongst each other. And so we've planned a lot of really fun activities to kinda both just as more of an intimate setting just as a club to school wide stuff. So I think Noemi is gonna kinda share with you some of the different things that we've done. Are you gonna talk about the affirmation mirror and mister Kurth? Last year, we did really cool project with affirmation mirrors and kind of all the
kids wrote affirmations, and then we had them kinda share. And they decided to give one to mister Kurth. So then every morning when they'd see him, if he looked grouchy, they'd tell him that he needed to go look in his affirmation mirror. So and one student still continues to ask him if he's used his affirmation mirror that and he still has it in his office. So that was a fun but I'll let you finish telling some of the other ones. Hello. My name is Naomi. And one of the activities that we had planned was on Friday last week, which was the communication cafe. And we basically showed up to school early, and we set up a table.
And we had these cards. And when students came up and when students came up, we asked them the questions about their mental health and how they, basically, coped with it and how they learned to, like, overcome it. And I remember asking this one student, like, I don't exactly remember what the question was, but it was about his mental health, and he stated that he had experienced bullying. And he told me how some people came to him and basically, like, told him
that it was gonna be okay and things would change. And that made me feel, like, really nice. And, yeah, basically, we had a lot of students come in, and we asked them questions about their mental health. And we, like, talked to them and just, like, learn different things about the other students. So that's kind of one of our school wide activities that we have, but also every other Thursday, we have meetings either in the office, the cafeteria, the library, places like that that are just kind of closer knit. And we give other students, other teens, just an opportunity to talk about what they've
been going through and what's been going on in their classes or with their friends or any struggles that they've really had mental health wise. And then us leaders, we're part of the leadership team, both of us, we kind of give them advice from a student point of view rather than an adult point of view because we can kind of connect with them differently than an adult might. So we give them the opportunity just to talk to us or give them advice or even ask one of their friends that are also in the club what they would do in that situation. And I know that there's a student who came up and talked to me about it, and they're just very grateful that they have that outlet because they may not
have the outlet at home or with another teacher. So we kind of give them that space to just open up where they may not be able to somewhere else. Other questions. They another school wide event that we love to do, we've done it the last few years that they look forward to doing is the week of before we go on to winter break. We've used some of our grant. Part of the bring change to mind national club allows us the opportunity to file, a claim. Got things under mine. They do a $500 grant to help fund the clubs every year, and so they
do it in three or three or four hundred and fifty dollar increments that we then as long as we, like, are showing that our club is active and that we're using the different events so we can use this money. So one of the things we use that money for, obviously, we put a lot of our money together to create the mental health walk, in May. But another fun thing that we do the week of finals in December is being able to hand out, stress bags. Like, last year, I think they put in little coloring books, some little stress balls
in there, and try to have, like, some healthy snacks that they can take with them, like, just wishing them luck. We also have the table is usually set up with mental health resources, who they can call over break if they're struggling, lots of 988 information for the students so that they know that there are people available even if they're not able to come to our office because we're offered two weeks, here are some resources that are available as well. With because the project Aware Grant was able to help with so much of the mental health walk this past year we had extra money and so we also just
bought and we displayed it at our the World Mental Health Day on Friday in the cafeteria it's probably this six or eight foot coloring washable tapestry that is has the bring change to mind logo on it and all these different positive affirmations on it. So the kids can color on it with washable markers and write their name what they want on it, and then I can take it home and wash it, and then it all comes, you know, clean, and then we can use it again. So that was a really fun purchase. I think the kids had a good time with that in the cafeteria Friday morning,
being able to just kinda color on it. It was kind of a non threatening ways. The kids were asking different questions, about mental health or just tell me something about yourself, you know, an opportunity to create some new relationships and friendships that maybe you wouldn't normally get to create. And then also at the mental health walk, that's kind of one of our biggest things that we do. And it's I don't know if you guys know what it is, so I'll just kinda explain it really quickly. It's around the track at the freshman division. There's different booths set up from different community partners, and then we also have our
own table. And we give out mental health resources, and that's not just, oh, you can call this person, you can call this person. We also had hygiene products because feeling good, that's also part of your mental health That can make you feel good about yourself and make you feel good about going out and talking to other people. So we also have those resources there. And then we just have kids there too who are there for questions or for help or just to give advice. And then we do have those resources for the 988 and who to call. And if you're just struggling and need help, we have those available too. And that's just one of my favorite events because you get to connect with such
a wide range of people because we had all the way from elementary to 60, 70 year old people there who were just connecting with us and talking to us about their mental health and just giving us advice on what to give the next generation. Any questions? I just have a comment. It is one, thank you for leading, these outstanding young people. It it blows my mind, just just how I I shared with a a building principal that we have some of the greatest kids in in any school district here
to prime example. If I'm a kid who is struggling with mental health or bullying, I sometimes don't know how to talk about those things. Watching, hearing how you interact with others would encourage me to come you you created a safe place for kids to talk at the high school. And sometimes it's not done with adults, it's done with kids. And so I just wanna say done through kids, not with not because of the kids. So I just wanna tell you thank you. And, again, another opportunity for our kids to lead in the district. So, these are just two good two great examples of that that leadership. So I just wanna say tell you thank you for what you're doing for our
school. Great representing us here too. Well, we have no choice, but we we we but but no. Really. Seriously. When we start thinking about the mental health issues that are happening, not just in Elkhart County and Elkhart Community Schools, but around the country, you need to know you're making a huge impact. Teaching people safe places to go to when they're not doing well, whether kids or adults, it is gonna be a need that's gonna be around for a very long time, and it's not just something that you're gonna do in school. This is gonna help others as you go, through life.
So I just wanna tell you thank you. You really are changing people's life with the work that you're doing. So just wanna publicly acknowledge that. Thank you. Thank you. Yep. Great job. Any other questions related to the presentation? Good outstanding job, miss Brenner. I, you always are in teaching mode, and we appreciate you leading, this over the last few years. And so just wanna tell you thank you for all the hard work that you're doing on managing multiple departments, but most importantly, making sure our kids and staff have the supports and resources they need in order to do this work and do it well. So just wanna say thank you.
Thank you very much. Thank you. Great. Next, we have, transportation. Thank you. Good evening, president Scott, members of the board, doctor Huff, members of the community. I am honored to be here today to give a transportation update and report of what's going on at the transportation department. Excellence in school, transportation means more than getting students from point a to point b. It's about ensuring safety, building trust, and creating a welcome environment every day, every ride. In our transportation department, it takes a lot to work and have it function the
way it needs to function. We have an assistant manager, two supervisors, three routers. We have a secretary, two dispatchers, and six mechanics, 15 people. Without yes. You've seen a lot of people. We wanna know who you are. Oh, I'm sorry. We we would like to know who you are. I am Tyra Smith, the transportation director. So Thank you for that. Appreciate it. But without these people, our transportation department could not work. It could not function the way it does, and I do have some of them that are here now. These people to me, even the drivers and also the helpers, they're like a clog
in a clock. It takes every little piece to make that clock work. And without them, without the drivers, it will not work, and it will not be successful as it is. I appreciate them, and they know that. And I just wanna tell them thank you, you guys, from the bottom of my heart for welcoming me here and just everything that you guys do. Our transportation department, we have a 124 yellow buses, and we have 17 white activity buses. Oh, a total of 100 a 141 buses. We service over 80 square miles of area that we cover every single day.
And we transport about, over 60% of the total enrolled students. That's a lot of kids that we transport every single day to and from school. Not to mention of the various activities that we do from sporting to whatever it is that they need transportation, that's what we do. Within that, we have a total of, 97 drivers. We have 31 helpers, 31 claim drivers. We have three drivers that are in training right now, and we have 96 total
routes. May I ask a question? Yes. What is your optimum number that you believe you need in order to feel comfortable with all the to manage all the transportation? I see the routes and the drivers are very close. I would say I'm looking forward to getting us to a 115 drivers. That would get us everything that we needed from if we have call offs, if drivers are sick, anything. So a 115 would be, our our ideal goal. Within our 96 routes, we have our SPED routes.
We have 12 that are full SPED routes that is elementary and secondary. We have one SPED route that is a stand alone, so it's only a secondary route. So that's either a middle school or a high school. We have another SPED route that's, it has an elementary SPED with a gen ed secondary. We have another SPED route that's secondary with a gen ed elementary. We also have our title one and PACE routes. We have four that have, gen ed secondary and three with, SPED secondary.
So it's not just the big buses that you see. We also have a lot of different things. Our special need routes that we service, that we provide really good service to each and every day picking up our students. Transportation is not cheap when it comes to operating buses and how many buses that we have on a day to day basis. A cost per bus route per year is about $52,000. That's with insurance. That's with driver cost. That's with helper cost. That's with if that bus breaks down, the constant maintenance and making sure that, number
one, it's safe to transport our students and that it's meeting the state regulations that we need to put that bus on the road each and every day. Bus replacement also. Bus replacement as we have talked about before, they're not cheap to buy a bus. Depending on what size of the bus and the specialty of the bus, it can range between 250,000 to $500,000 per bus. Our transportation goals. Number one is safety. Safety is our number one goal that we wanna do and we wanna have every
single day from just doing our pre trips on the bus, getting to the bus, making sure that our drivers are safe each and every single day. Our biggest goal is ensuring student safety. This involves creating a secure environment for students for the moment they leave their home until they arrive at school and vice versa. We wanna make sure that this is the most and the and the best experience that they have because our drivers are the first thing that they see. From telling them good morning to getting them to school to telling them to have
a good day and then picking them up and taking them home. To me, that starts off the day of how, you know, we want our children going into school. Next is operational efficiency and reliability. Our parents depend on us to get their kids to school each and every day on time and safe, and we wanna make sure that what we're putting out there is the very best that Elkhart has. And that is making sure that our routes are where they need to be. We're not going all over the place that we are efficient in everything that we're
doing. We are reliable to our students and our parents, students and community well-being. Like I said, we wanna create that positive every single time we are encountering with a student. We have that positive outlook because you don't know by just saying good morning what that does to a child each and every day. And a lot of our drivers and helpers, you know, they have that intimate and that personal relationship to where, hey. You know, they're looking forward to seeing their bus driver. They're looking forward to getting on the bus.
They're looking forward to having that that ride with their driver each and every day. Then the next thing we have is community and accountability. We always wanna be accountable for everything that we do, and that's in providing, timely information to parents. So when the winter time comes and a bus is running behind, we don't want that kid standing outside twenty, thirty minutes. We wanna make sure that we're getting that information and that communication to the parents to let them know, hey. Buses are gonna run be running about ten, fifteen minutes slower than normal.
You know, just be prepared and be, you know, looking out for it and just letting the parents know what's going on. May I ask a question? Yes. Well, not really a question. Observation. How do we utilize our stop finder app to make sure that parents have this information in his or her hands to, so you're not placing all these phone calls? Where would you like to direct parents to, in order to get this information? On our website, the Elkhart website, if you go to transportation, there as soon as it pops up, it says how to download Stop Finder. Stop Finder explain to people what that is because some people may not know what
that is. Stop Finder is an app so parents can track their bus. They can, get information that we send out that may say, hey. There is a bus change. So normally, you ride bus seven. It is now bus nine. Or if there gonna be any delays or anything like that. So it's an app that we communicate through, through it with our parents to let them know what is going on. Yep. No problem. So the big question is we know in transportation, especially in school bus, there is a lack of drivers.
There is a not just an Elkhart shortage, but there is a national shortage of drivers. So no matter where you go I come from Illinois. We had shortages there too, so it's not just Elkhart. So the big thing is why become a school bus driver? You make a difference in the community. Do you know like I said, we we are transporting 60% of our enrolled children. So we make a difference with parents of getting their children to school, to home every single day. Not only that, but with sporting events, with f, you know, anything that they need
a ride to or anything like that. We are there to provide that for them. Being a role model. You know? Being that role model of showing them that, hey. This is somebody you can look up to, that the driver's there. We have friendly faces that are welcoming our children onto the buses. Another thing is school friendly hours. You know, you can become a bus driver, and when the kids are in school, you know, that's when you're working and everything else. Summer's off. We have summers off here. A lot of jobs you can't go nowhere and have summers off like that. Job security.
This is the one of the only jobs that you can go to that you know you're gonna have your job each and every year because of the shortage that we have, and we have the competitive pay. Elkhart, we are one of the highest paying bus companies around here. I know because I've looked out there. I've seen it. We are one of the best paying with also our benefits that we have, our sign on bonuses, our retention bonuses, everything that we have. So we have a lot of good benefits here of why to become a bus driver.
What does it take to become a bus driver? Most people think that you just walk in. Hey. I wanna be a bus driver. We put you on the bus. No. It ain't that easy. It ain't that simple. We actually train you here. So we will train you to help you get your class b, which is what you need to operate a bus. So we bring you here. We put you through our class that we have, and then we get you ready for state. So you can go take your your four tests you have to take, and then we take you down so you can go to state. So, the state instructor can put you through their test.
After you go through all that, you pass everything, then you, you know, you require your CDL. Also, I did not know since I moved here that Indiana is the only state that requires a yellow card. Basically, a yellow card is is a certificate that a bus driver must have to transport children. Like I said, I was stunned by Indiana's the only state. So once we, get you to get your CDL, then there's a two and a half day class that you have to go take to, acquire to get your yellow
card. Some of the highlights that we've done this year. Earlier before school started, we loaned out buses to Michigan City. They had a situation go on where they couldn't have school for five days because their buses were were down, but we were able to loan them five buses. We were at the, we have interviews every single day. We have our resource fair, stop finder for parents, everything that we have. So in summary, our transportation department is complex with many challenges yet commitment remains to
build top tier teams that attract and retain outstanding staff. Elkhart transportation drivers and helpers are held to the higher standard when it comes to student transportation. We're proud to have some of the best and brightest individuals in these roles. Their dedication and hard work are evident in every day as they safely pick up and drop off our students, ensuring reliable service and care for the children of our community. We have some of the best drivers here at Elkhart. Our drivers and our helpers that come to work every single day that, you know,
they're here more often than they're at home because they're transporting our children. And every day, every Friday, I do what's called a thank you Friday. So every Friday, I get on the radio, and I thank them for their hard work and everything that they do. You're transporting forty, fifty kids at a time. You have to make sure that they're seated properly, that everything they're doing on the bus safely, and they have to still pay attention to what's on the road and everything that's going on around them. So it takes, a different type of person to be a bus driver.
But we can give you those skills. We can give you those tools that you need to become a really good bus driver. And I just thank our Elkhart drivers and our helpers for every day and everything that they do. Any questions? I just wanna give a comment, mister Smith. Great job for your first presentation to the to the community. Awesome job, bow tie. Alright. Good job. But to I can if I can just piggyback on the our transportation workers, I all of us in the back. I we really thank you for all the work that you do. We have people who've been there not just for five years, ten years, fifteen years,
twenty. Last year or or maybe my first year here recognized someone who had fifty plus years working for Elkhart Community Schools. I know there's several that have forty years of experience over there. They had plenty of options to go anywhere. They choose this place because you love this place. So I just wanna tell you thank you. Those ladies in the back who I see, everybody rock star. I see you trying to hide over there, James. You know you're wonderful. Their customer service outstanding. But they are also real people. Yes. When you get to talk to and they get straight to the point.
There's none of that other stuff there. It gets straight to the point. And I and sometimes we need that too as a reality check. They don't get an opportunity to mask their mistakes on the road. No. If something goes wrong, it's seen by everybody. Yes. And I like to say, hey. No news is good news definitely in that department, but we should never go no news without saying thank you. So I just wanna tell you take this opportunity. Thank you, mister Smith. We know you couldn't be out there without them, but I also think it takes good leadership too to make sure that they are set up to win. So I just wanna say I really appreciate this presentation.
Thank you from us too because you guys are the first ones to see our little ones, our young adults, and you are a direct, impact on how their day starts and how their day ends. So thank you guys for being there every day. No matter what the weather is or how hard it is or how loud the bus is or anything, you guys really are the first ones to have the eyes and ears on our babies. So thank you very much. Thank you. Very good job. Okay. That was, the last, presentation for the public work session.
So at this time, I will adjourn the public work session, and we'll reconvene at 07:00 for our regularly scheduled board meeting. Thank you. So and you you got the same feeling as well? Yeah. She was all Doug goes first. I know that. Are we good? Testing? Testing? Alright. Alright. Thank you, for waiting patiently. Thanks for everybody coming out for our 10/14/2025 regularly scheduled, Elkhart Community School District board meeting. At this time, I'd like to call our board meeting to order.
And would you please rise for the, pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands. Thank you. You may be seated. Miss Mullins, the Elkhart Promise. Absolutely. The Elkhart Promise, every student is known by name, challenged and supported by highly effective staff, and in partnership with community, will graduate career college ready and life ready. Thank you, Kelly. Public comment. I think everybody, if it's not your first time, you've you've heard me say this
before, but it is your first time. You were given, one of these pamphlets. Inside the pamphlet, we'll put your name, the organization you represent, and your affiliation with the school district. If you could fill that out and give it to Dora, she will hand those to me during the public comment. During public comment, you can speak on any agenda or non agenda items. So if you come up the podium. Please speak into the microphone. State your name and, your affiliation, with the district.
You'll have three minutes, at which time to, give your comments, and we ask that, you know, please stick, two two to three minutes, as the time is allowed. And, any personnel or issues with students or any issues, that, would involve identifying student pleas. This is not the place, for that, and we have to respect the Family Rights and Privacy Act as we do at every board meeting. There are protocols in place, to handle those situations, and actually we'll, you know, get
those those issues and situations handled in a more efficient and proper manner. So at this time, Dora, public comment. Thank you. First person, Frank, Ramirez. Please step forward. Hi there. I'm Frank Ramirez. I'm a volunteer with the United Way reading program who which will have a meeting later this week, and I took part in this last year. I wanna digress very briefly to say how much I support public education because of my own experience as a child. When I began to attend school in the state of Virginia, the state had closed
all public schools rather than comply with Brown versus Board of Education. So I had to go to a private school. But, after we moved out of state, was able to go to public schools, and it's always been very important to me that we support our public schools. I really enjoy this reading program. The the program the books are chosen by educators who, with their qualifications and their experience, pick books usually that have a Caldecott or a Newberry or a Coretta Scott King award. It's fun to explain what those are to the children.
And what I really wanna share is last year, I discovered that the children in this school district are extraordinary. They ask extremely good and engaging questions after a book is read. They have been listening very deeply, and they listen very politely. And I'm just was impressed by, the the opportunity to share that reading program last year, and I look forward to doing it this year. And I hope that it continues. An important thing is that we trust our educators who have not only the credentials,
but long experience in selecting the books that we read. And that's an important part of it. So, once again, just wanna thank you folks and thank the district for being able, as a community member, to take part in the United Way second grade reading program. Thank you. Thank you, miss Ramirez. Next, we have Stephanie Sokolix. Good evening. My name is Stephanie. I'm here for, some of the parents, 31 to be exact, for Mary Feazer. I'm a parent of attending children at Mary Feazer.
I'm here today to bring attention to the struggles happening in classrooms, not only with our children, but along the Elkhart Community Schools. Our children and many others have been struggling this year and mostly due to the large, classroom sizes. Currently, the classroom sizes have reached nearly 40 kids per class. This overwhelming teachers and hindering students' success in the community. Teachers are blunt or burnt out and exhausted, struggling to give students an individual attention that is needed and manage disruptive behaviors due to lack of time.
It is difficult and effective to address students' behavioral issues and support students' growth. Class sizes this large create environments that are incredibly disruptive. These factors have a negative impact on success both in the classroom and community, leaving the teachers and students feeling overwhelmed early in the school year. We're only in October. While while some reports indicate the average student ratio is 16 to one, we are pushing 37 to one to 40 to one. Students, or studies confirm that teacher burnout and stresses are serious and widespread problems, over
fifty five percent from the National Education Society. In oversized classrooms, it is nearly impossible for teachers to address the individual academics and emotional needs of every student. Large classroom sizes can force teachers into whole group teaching approaches and limit their ability to use the more hands on and projected based learning methods. A teacher stress from the from an unimaginable class size is having a negative effect on the classroom's atmosphere creating a less supportive and more chaotic environment for our students. This, in larger classrooms, students are more likely to be passive observers.
Discussions are less thorough and some students may not have the chance to contribute. While this hinders the development of critical thinking and communication skills. Large groups in this size can lead more to discipline problems with fewer eyes and less individual attention from teachers. From some students may become disengaged and act out. The Indiana State guidelines for our classrooms is 24 to one for the funding purposes. That is kindergarten through sixth grade, six through twelfth is 25 to one.
Schools are required to notify our parents within ten days if the class exceeds the limit size. We have not been notified. Our kids are struggling. In conclusion, I have seen teachers in tears, overwhelmed and lost. As a community, we love and support our teachers. I hope you all remember that one elementary teacher that you had that made a huge impact on your life. We want that for our children. We also want the best for our children. Elkhart Community Schools is falling short of this. Elkhart Schools are facing a significant challenge with oversized classrooms. This negatively impacts test scores, individualized attention, behavioral management, and mental well-being for the staff
and the students. Solutions I am bringing. I am formally asking that you hire additional teachers and aids for Mary Feazer, especially for the fifth grade. Breaking up the enormous fifth grade classrooms into the smaller units would significantly ease the pressure on teachers and create a more, conductive learning environment for our students. And I ask you to perform a district wide evaluation of class sizes. We believe that this is not an isolated issue. There are other schools that may need additional teachers and aids to properly properly support
student learning. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Okay. That was it for public comment. At this time, I am going to pause, our scheduled board meeting so we can have our, scheduled, public hearing on the 2026 budget, the 2026 capital projects plan, and the 2026 school bus replacement plan. So at this time, I will call our public, hearing to order. And, miss Ross, it is the podium is yours.
Thank you. Good evening, mister president, board members, and community. The budget hearing is an opportunity for the community to make comments on the 2026 advertised budget now posted on the Department of Local Government Finance website. Also, this is an opportunity to comment on our bus replacement capital projects plan, which are posted on our ECS business finance website web page. If there are any community members here who would like to speak concerning the 2026 budget, this is the opportunity to come on up to the podium.
Anybody in the audience or community members, that would like to, speak at this time, now is your opportunity. Seeing or hearing none, miss Rogers. Mister president, hearing no comments or questions from the public, I ask that we close the budget hearing and resume the regular meeting. At this time, I will, close our public hearing on the 2026 budget, the 2026 capital projects plan, and the 2026 bus replacement plan, and reconvene our school board meeting, 10/14/2025 school board meeting. Thank you. Next, we have, the Mary Beck report.
Miss Washington, come on up. Good evening, president Scott board members, Doctor. Huff and our community. Thank you so much for allowing me to share with you the heartbeat of Mary Beck, because it beats loud and it beats strong. But before I begin, I do wanna take a moment and just thank my staff for coming out tonight because you could have been anywhere and you chose to be here. And so that's a delight. Thank you very much for being here. I am very honored to be named the the principal of Mary Beck.
It is a school that is founded upon love, community, support, and grit. And I'm very honored to carry that torch, and I thank you for that. Our mission is to provide a safe, orderly, and supportive environment so everyone can achieve and rise to the top. I want you to take a really close look at the word everyone because when we talk about everyone, that's what we mean. We mean staff, we mean students, we mean our custodian because it's going to take
all of us to be to work together as a community to help our students grow, perform, and find success. But without that, we need a vision. You could have a mission, but without a vision, without a place to go, you don't know exactly what you're aiming for. So our vision is 100% of Mary Beck students will achieve academic growth through rigorous tiered instruction. Well, how do you accomplish that? How do you accomplish that vision without setting goals?
Now when you think about, Lisa and I coming into Mary Beck, one of the things that we have to we have to do is we have to create culture. We have to create a culture of support. We have to continue the culture of community. We cannot we cannot lose the feel of the heartbeat of Mary Beck while we also instill in our staff and our students that high academic achievement is a priority and it's doable, that high behavior expectations is a priority and it's doable.
So our goals is to increase our iLearn from 20 from 10% to 20% school wide, third through fifth grade. Our second goal is to increase our math 6% to 20% school wide. Now when you think about that increase over two years, it's a five it's about a 5% increase. Now, of course, our goal will be, of course, you know, we want to make steady increments of growth, and we are achieving to do much loftier goals.
We want to keep them realistic so that we can achieve and feel some success. Now I say that, but our goal three in iLearn is to increase from 57 to 80%. Our state, recognizes that we should have about an 8% increase each year, but we were we were given a challenge. And when you create successful iRead iRead, assessment takers, that means you're creating readers, and that is what we want to do. We want to create readers. So if you think about our 10% where we are in ELA, our 6% where
we are in math, one of our very proud moments thus far is that our math checkpoint one shows that our current and our current fourth and fifth grade students, they're showing growth. They're showing progress, and it comes back to that culture of high expectations of support, of push, and really believing that we can do it. We grew 2.7%. It's growth. We are very proud of our growth, but we want to push a little further and continue to talk about that 80%.
One of the things that, we do is a video announcement in our school. Again, it's about building culture. It's about building community, but it's a way for us to talk about our goals. Because, again, if kids don't have a vision, if they don't know where we're going, they don't even know what we're what we're aiming for. So we talk about our growth and we talk about our goals. We keep goals set high because I really believe that in our staff and our students, we cannot accomplish any of this if our kids aren't here.
So we have to give them a reason to show up to Mary Beck every single day. And we do that by celebrating that they are there every day. We are greeting kids at the door. We are hugging kids. We are telling them thank you for being here, and we also share our attendance. We create attendance battles. We celebrate those things. We had, Popsicles on a Playground because we are really getting our kids involved and being at school. And so as you can see, last year first quarter, we were at 93.91%,
and thus far, we we are at 95.7%. And we can we really believe we're going to maintain that because it is the drive that we have as our staff, and it's the it's the fact that we talk about it so our kids know what our goals are. So they become part of the passion. Passion. It's no longer just my passion, but it is the student's passion. And if you don't instill that in them, they don't know why they come to school because their mom and dad told them to do so. And we want them to know that it's so much bigger than that.
We are really putting a a big focus on our tier one instruction because you cannot tier two your way out of a tier one problem. So we are putting a really big focus on our tier one instruction. What is happening every single day? How are we checking for understanding? How are we making sure that our students have learned the standards? And with the help of UFLY, which is a an intervention that we are doing, and we do this intervention for grades two, three, four, and five.
We use our amazing literacy cadre coach. She has been a staple for us. She helps us keep UFLI organized, make sure we are meeting our progress monitoring data points, and she goes into classroom and she coach she coaches teachers. Because if teachers are not confident in what they're doing, it decreases teacher efficacy, And we want to keep our teaching efficacy high. We want teachers to know and believe that they can do it, and our literacy cadre coach is doing that. We have the pleasure that Alex Holt is coming into our building as well and
working with our our teachers and coaching us in math, helping us understand those connections between I learn, our math curriculum, and how do we realistically bring that to life in our classrooms. We're using SOR strategies. I had the pleasure of sitting on a board, for this for the state of Indiana, and we talked about some strategies that we are using in our building. And I said to myself, well, what exactly are we using? So I went back and I talked to my teams and we make sure that
school wide, we are using SOR strategies. So it becomes a universal language and no matter what classroom you go to, students students know what we're doing. And our community partners are amazing. We are partnering with Five Star. We also have a partnership with Belmont Community Church, and that partnership has yielded us with so many people that are passionate and excited about us. And one of the great things that we do, is we have, it's called a UFLY binder, and our community partners helps us come in and check.
They read with kids. They mentor with kids. And so we are really excited about that partnership. We have a mantra that we use at Merry Bag, and it's take flight, level up, land proud, bear and strong. We say that every day, and you can do hard things. We tell kids to take flight, lean into your learning, ask questions, be curious. We ask we tell them to level up. When you don't know something, keep asking. And when you do learn, you land proud, and we celebrate that success.
But in order for our kids to do it, the adults in the building have to do it as well. So here are some quotes from our staff. They They just talk about ways that they have leveled up this school year. One of the ones we laugh at is, missus Coje who says, I keep coming back. And missus Coje has been in our district for fifty plus years, but she keeps leveling up too because her heart beats for Mary Beck. Our secretary has been in our building starting as a para, and she keeps coming back because her heart beats for Mary Beck.
Because without the circle of community, support, high expectation, and celebrating success, we'll stay stagnant, and that is not what we will be. We have lofty goals, and we will reach them because we will continue to thrive. So the heartbeat of Mary Beck is beating hard, and it is beating strong, and it will continue to do so. When we walk through the doors at Mary Beth, we feel safe. We feel loved. We know this is a place where we belong.
Every smile, every high five, every good morning reminds me that this is my school family. In our classrooms, we take five. Our teachers are ready, ready to help us learn, ready to help us grow, ready to help us soar. We ask questions, we think hard, we try again, we level up. Because learning here isn't just about getting answers, it's about being curious and discovering what we can do. Every day, we stress our wings a little while. We take off with confidence, courage, and joy.
And when we land, we land proud. Proud of what we've learned. Proud of how we've grown. Proud of how to be a bear. I am a Mary Beck bear. At Mary Beck, we don't just learn, but we take flight. We level up and we land from this. That is what makes us very strong. I am barren. We are barrens. I am a married bank baron. I am a baron. I am a married bank baron. I am a Marybeth bearish.
Do you have any questions for us? No. No. No. First one was just got Oh, you we we were talking go ahead. We were just talking about how great this presentation was with missus Washington, missus miss Ernieberger. Wonderful job. I know that both of you are new there to Mary Rebec, but look at your teachers here supporting you. Proud of you. Teachers, can you stand up and just get so we can applaud you too? Nothing happens without the work of I do like that take flight.
I got one of the T shirts. It was, it was a little bit too small for me, but but but it is it is wonderful. I I appreciate the enthusiasm, and I know that kids are gonna make it because of great leadership and your teachers that are there because they're leading in the classroom every single day too. So great place. Happy. And I'm so glad that you're able to present this tonight. And these stories need to get out into our communities. You're doing great work, and you have high expectations. I do. Yes. You text a lot too. But I wanna say thank you, and and thank you for rising up to the
challenge you and miss Irma. I had a opportunity to work with over on this side last year. I feel like a great team down there. Gonna do great things. Thank you. Thank you. Have Allen. Yeah. I mean, you have Allen forever. I don't and I don't really think she has any thoughts on, like, slowing down at all. I don't think. She says zero. No. No. Yeah. I even asked Micah and Molly. I was like, what do you think? Do you think mom should retire? And Molly said, no. No. I don't wanna do any more chores. So I was like, oh, yeah. But to Jen too in the office, that this is a great presentation. Your energy was amazing, and I'm excited for you.
I think these are great goals, and I love that the kids are completely bought into it. It is the right fit for you guys. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. You're welcome. Great great job and, you know, both of you guys being new coming into, a culture that, you wanted to put your own, you know, personal stamp on and and and and to get the buy in is is not always easy, and and and you've done a great job. And so, keep doing what you do. And, doctor Hough, if you come to realization that, that size medium shirt took flight
when you're in the twenties, maybe maybe early thirties, like a like a train so hard. Like like a hammer. This is national not bull anti bullying. I'm just saying you never see a one of you are a witness. I'm just saying walk walk into that large or extra large like I do every day. Thank you. Walking into it in totally different ways. So I I I embrace my Your attendance too is amazing. Yes. Yes. You're welcome. That's that's it's the kind of the obvious, but if they're not there, they're not learning. Absolutely. Right? And so you guys recognize that and put a emphasis on it, and, you know,
and that's that shows in in in the culture. I I will say that that was a great presentation. I appreciate you sharing that with us this evening. I said it before. I'll keep saying it. I think that in the video you shared, the student said, hey. We feel loved. We feel safe. And I think that when those cultures are present, I think, you know, you do have some lofty goals. Not I don't think that those goals could be reached without the students, one, showing up and then also feeling safe and feeling loved. And so good luck with those those goals. We're here to support and cheer you on. So thanks for being here tonight.
She needs no luck. She knows how to do it. Yep. Thank you. We'll get after it. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thank you, guys. Thank you. And, you know, on a side note, but it it no. This has had congratulations. Attendance is up across the district. What, at least 2%, and and every every school attendance is up. Very proud elementary is, like, averaging almost 94% attendance up. And I think the high school is up 2% from last year, and middle school, man, those kids come to school every day. They are up 3% at the middle school. So over the message is getting out through all of our schools.
So I just wanna say just add that little bit of information as well. Is that act that's accurate? Okay. And if you were here for a public work session, we can certainly tie that back into transportation. So so thank you again for getting them there. Alright, next we have Mr. Pedley in the Bristol reports. Good evening, president Scott, members of the board, doctor Hough. Thank you so much for having me tonight. I'm the proud principal of Bristol Elementary, Tim Pedley. We've got a crew of Bristol teachers up the back, and they're behaving themselves really well. Bristol is twenty five minute drive on a good day and a little bit longer
when you hit that road book that we're, always dealing with in Bristol or Elkhart. So, we're a little bit out there, but I share with people that, Bristol has the benefit of being part of a large district that is Elkhart, the support that comes with that, the perks that come with that. But we're in our own small little town, and our town wraps around us and loves us well. So it's a great school to be at, and I'm excited to share a little bit about Bristol and the work that's been going on over there, for the past year. So, very similar goals, that missus Washington shared for you this year, we had last
year. We really wanted to focus around reading, around math, and around attendance. So we set goals for growing by 5% for iRead, and growing by five percent in iLearn last year. And so I'm proud to share that when it comes to iRead, we had already started doing some good work. Last year, we were the first school to get our iRead pass scores up above 80, and the year before that, we were down at 61%. So we jumped from being below the district average and below the state average, to being above the district average and above the state average last year, at 83.7.
And we were able to maintain that last year. We grew by another, 6%, to get ourselves up to 89% passing. So, really phenomenal work from our staff at Bristol, to keep that good work going, getting more and more kids across the line. When you've got a small number of students, every every student counts for a big, percentage. And so that that was a really big, yeah, a big a big work from our teachers to get ourselves up to 89%. We're not satisfied. We wanna keep getting, further along there, but 89 was some great work. How were we doing that?
We were, reaping the rewards of our letters training, so really being aligned with the science of reading. Really glad that Elkhart's wrapping around us with that training, getting us, quality training with what it takes to teach students to read. We've got a great literacy coach in place. He'd been in the building the year before as a, math coach, and I think that's part of why we got that jump on some of the other schools. When it comes to, iRead, he was helping with both reading and math the year before as an instructional coach. So our teachers are getting support implementing the things that we're asking them to do.
We've focused on building fluency in our kids. So once they learn how to decode, doing that with automaticity, so getting lots and lots of practice with reading, becoming fluent readers, and we've got some good structures in place throughout tier two and tier three support for students that aren't quite getting it. So that, worked when it comes to our I read scores, and we also, we set our goal of 5%. We grew by 9% when it comes to iLearn, in ELA. So, surpassed that goal of growing by 5%, in ELA as well. Math, math's important to me.
I was a middle school math teacher before I was an administrator. So we really were able to rip into math a little bit last year. We want our students to grow there as well. Set that goal of 5% growth in iLearn. We were, really focusing on explicit instruction, giving really, structured examples for students, gradual release, helping them to kind of, have the the support they need as they're learning something, showing teachers how to do that well, supporting them in doing that well, building their fact fluency up. I think we'd moved away a little bit of kinda really ensuring kids have their
facts, the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts fluent. So not just knowing them, but knowing how to do them, with automaticity as well, and doing a lot of daily review. And so through that, we were able to not just grow by 5% for math, we were able to grow our scores by 10% as well. And so in around all of that, some really, great growth with academics, but it it's not gonna happen if we're not getting kids to school. So, we wanted to get that 95%, and I think if we we round it up, we actually did hit that 95%.
So, we caught just under there, but we were really proud. We were, really lagging behind with the tenants. 92.6% is where we were the year before, and we, really chasing that 95% hard. We set ourselves a little challenge, with missus Washington at Pinewood, and I think we'll do something similar this year, now that missus Martin's over at Pinewood, have a little challenge, attendance challenge. That was fun sparing our kids on with that. But also really focusing on the kids that, don't get to school regularly that they're chronically absent.
So kids that miss 10% or more of the school year. Historically, we'd not done well with those students. So we were at 30% or above 30% a couple of years ago, of students missing more than 10% of the school year. We got that down to twenty one percent, and then last year, we were able to get that down below 9%. Really, working hard to get our students, to school every day, and you can see the trajectory that we've got there with our daily attendance too. So, again, this is not my work. This is the work of the team at Bristol. They've worked really hard. We we have a great leadership team.
We talk about these goals. We we set them in front of the staff, we put them in front of them daily, and not just in front of the the teachers, but in front of the students. And so, one way I get to do that weekly is by having a weekly gathering, in the gym pulling all the students together for a short hit. I know some, people here have been out to our weekly gathering and shared there. It's a great way, just to make sure that we're, uniting as a school, and that we're all running in the same direction. And so I just wanted to share a little bit piece of, a Friday gathering with you, here tonight. Thank you so much.
I just wanna compliment you on the culture that you're that you've clearly created at Bristol. You have outstanding educators. You and I walked around at the beginning of the year. You had a little one who was doing some extra things out there, and the rest of the school did not miss a beat. The kids are are so kind, and your staff follows the leader. I think you are a great example of what great leadership looks like in Elkhart,
but I think your staff would reiterate those same things. Can we give them a round of applause? Absolutely. Place there. Stand up, pirate. Yeah. Please start. Stand up, ditto, pirates. Stand up, pirates. And I and I think another testament of someone who's a good leader who also helps to create other good leaders, you mentioned Pinewood. I think the principal at Pinewood also has something to do with the Bristol culture as well. She is leading Pinewood be for some of the things she learned at Bristol. And I just wanna say hats off to you. I'm sure your mentorship has not stopped because she's in a different building.
Probably has increased dramatically, to be honest with you. We we do chat from time to time. Yeah. But I just wanna say that is a that is the ultimate sign of good leadership. Can you duplicate yourself to help impact kids in other places? So I hope that you also take a little pride in those Pinewood scores too as well. Not responsibility, but pride. You know? And it's a big difference. So I just wanna say thank you, and hats off to every single please sit down because that's a long time to be standing. And, I just wanna say thank you again. And your academic achievements can't go unnoticed as well. To double every one of your goals, that does not just happen on its own.
That's clear focus. That's clear, expectation, and everyone has to buy in and believe. The kids to the to the teachers, to the administration, to the parents. So you're doing a great job out in your community. We we kinda spoke about, attendance, and it's a it's a point of focus, for the state and, obviously, a point of focus, for the district. And, you, you know, you, took it to 95% rounding up. And we'll we'll we'll we'll give you that with the distance and the road, you know, road construction and the challenges you face.
But, you know, I think sometimes it's so easy to say we're at 95%, you know, high five all around. What you did, you know, in your presentation, you mentioned that you looked at, you know, the chronically absent and said, you know, two years ago, we were at thirty one percent. And you you you know, I I think those are the kids that it's it's you you gotta find out why aren't you coming to school. What's the issue? Right? And I think getting the kids that are chronically absent to school is is is challenge. And, you've demonstrated over the last two years going from thirty one percent, to, what is it, eight point nine percent is amazing.
I I think that is just, you know, that that should be applauded as much as as your 95%. So great job at looking at, you know, the reasons why and getting those students engaged, and and with with the learning and the iRead scores. It all, you know, it all comes full circle. So congratulations to you. Congratulations to everyone in the back because you're you're also part of the reason. You know? You know? They they didn't wanna come to school. They had their reasons, and you guys worked hard to give them a reason to come to school. So congratulations to everybody. My favorite part about your presentation is this is exactly how Bristol is.
It's, like, to the point. Like, we here it is. This is what we do. We're gonna do these goals. We're off, and it's a gem. Like, if some of you have not visited Bristol, it is an absolute gem in our community and a gem in the city of Bristol. And, like, having partnerships with Saint Mary's and the United, you know, faith Methodist church there, and just even your trustees that talk about how well behaved your students are, how how that is such a valued item in Bristol. But, Tim, you're a great leader, and that is a great school. And it is exciting to know that you'll be there for a long time, growing
education, growing attendance, growing our school. So congratulations to you and your staff, and you're extremely clean school too. You've got a great custodian. So Absolutely. Yeah. Appreciate your day. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Alright. Thank you. Thank you. Great job. Yeah. Great job, Sam. Alright. I wish I wish all board meetings were continuing like this because we get a move right into the excellence of Elkhart. Miss Wood. Thank you. Thank you, president Scott, members of the board, doctor Huff, and community members. I'm grateful for the opportunity to share highlights in the areas of academics, arts, and
athletics. In the area of academics, Pinewood Elementary is finding creative ways to provide opportunities for student leadership. Aiden, a fifth grade student in missus Bowers' class, took on a different role by teaching missus Jones' second graders how to code. Elkhart High School's cadet teachers in teaching and learning had hands on experience exploring inclusive education. They learned about the tools used by students who are blind and have low vision and had the opportunity to type their names using the Perkins Brailler. This experience gave them a deeper understanding of how to support all learners in the
classroom. In the area of arts, the Pride of Elkhart delivered an outstanding performance at the Con Selmer Invitational over the October 4 weekend. Their talent, dedication, and hard work were on full display showcasing the strength of the district's music and arts program. Proceeds from the event hosted at Rice Field will directly support the music education at Elkhart High School. In the arts and communication school of study, missus Hackman's students combined creativity and math in a unique way. Using their understanding of angle relationships, students demonstrated their dance skills in geometry class and
even admitted to having fun in math because of the activity. In the area of athletics, Elkhart High School's boys soccer defeated Penn on Wednesday, October 1 in PKs three to one to win the program's first NIC championship. The boys finished the season 14 to three. Elementary athletics is off to an incredible start this fall. Nearly a 100 students competed in cross country meets, while more than 300 participated in flag football and cheerleading supported by the Elkhart High School coaches and athletes through skills
clinics and game nights. The volleyball program's participation has nearly 300 players who competed in the city championship tournaments. We're proud of the effort, sportsmanship, and pride of our future lions have shown during shown across every program. For our feature happenings, October are the state of the district events. October 22 is an e learning day. October 23 through the twenty seventh will be our fall break, and October 30 is track or treat at Rice Field. 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. Alright. Next, on the agenda, we have the consent items. Do I have a motion? I have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. I have a motion, and I have a second. Do I have any, comments from the board? Yes. Here we go. Okay. Are you guys ready? The drum roll is our community donated to us $79,562.20. And that came in a couple of different sponsorships.
Now one I wanna talk about is at the career center, they have different levels of sponsorships. There's bronze, silver, gold, And there happened to be a couple of silver sponsorships. And what those sponsorships do is they ensure enrolled students that are not required to pay for college credits. It gives money towards that and their certification. So companies out there still have the opportunity to contact the center to continue to donate in our sponsorship levels. But tonight, we have Gen Y Hitch and also Hoosier Crane. They were both silver sponsorships.
And then our gold level sponsorships were Beacon Health System and also Growing Kids Management Corporation. But the biggest donation that we had actually is with the career center again, and that was $70,000 donated from Elkhart General Health Card Systems for our equipment, medical supplies for our surgical services program, which they continue to keep getting money from there. Our boys' tennis team received $716 from vertical raise trust account. A thousand dollars was given to the girls basketball program from Welch Packaging.
And then we also received $1,746.20 from Bob Martin to pay for our football senior dinner. In addition, Horace Mann donated $600 towards our national principals month. So when you think about the amount of sponsorship that goes towards our children and the different events that are happening, We I continue to say at every board meeting how blessed we are, but at $79,562.20, we are doing something amazing and right in this school district. So thank you community partners for helping us grow yet again.
Thank you, Kelly. Mhmm. We we Dora, we're gonna need, since, trustee Weaver is, in attendance remotely, we're gonna need a roll call vote. Eric Ivory? Yes. Ham Vander Vellan? Yes. Troy Scott? Yes. Doug Weaver? Yes. Kelly Mullins? Yes. Mike Burnett? Yes. Daisy Davis? Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Next on the agenda, we have old business. Mister Thorne. Good evening, president Scott, members of the board, doctor Hupp, and community members. This evening, the administration presents the following contracts for your approval on behalf of Elkhart
High School, a contract with AMS Global, and on behalf of the Elkhart Area Career Center, a contract with Connectable Inc. The administration presents the following contract for final consideration, CEL Public Relations Incorporated. Russ. The administration presents, Milliman Inc contract for your review and consideration on second reading. Mister Giannesi. The administration presents the contract with Energy Cap LLC for final consideration. I have a motion from the board to accept these contracts as presented.
I have a motion. Do I have a second? I have a motion, and I have a second. Do I have any questions or discussion from the board regarding these contracts? Seeing or hearing none, door, please roll call. Eric Ivory. Aye. Anne Vandervillen. Aye. Troy Scott. Aye. Doug Weaver? Aye. Kelly Mullins? Aye. Mike Burnett? Aye. Dacey Davis? Aye. And passes unanimously. Thank you. Mister Thorne, under old business, we have board policy three one four two c, cancellation of a teacher's contract. Thank you. Tonight, the administration presents this policy for final consideration and recommends approval by this board.
Thank you. Do I have a motion on board policy 3142 c? Second. 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 regarding this policy? Hearing none or seeing none, roll call, please. Eric Ivory. Aye. Anne Vandermillen. Aye. Troy Scott. Aye. Doug Weaver. Aye. Kelly Mullins. Yes. Mike Burnett. Aye. Daisy Davis. Aye. Motion passes. Thank you. Next, we have, new business. Mister Rhodes, contracts. Good evening, president Scott, members of the board, doctor Hough.
Tonight, the administration presents the following contracts for initial consideration, network solutions maintenance agreement. This agreement covers our core networking, equipment to make sure that everything stays up and running as far as communication is concerned for the district. Thank you. On behalf of Safety, Security, and Risk Management, the administration presents for preliminary consideration a proposed agreement with Geocom Inc. Do you have any, initial questions, regarding these contracts after we've had an opportunity to review? Okay.
Since these are under initial considerations, if any questions, come up, before our next board meeting, please reach out to mister Rhodes and mister Thorn, regarding such. Next, mister Giannesi, we have recommendation for award of kitchen survey line upgrade projects. Good evening, president Scott, members of the board, doctor Health, and members of the community. Tonight, the administration recommends award of a contract for the kitchen serving line upgrade projects at Northside Pier Moran and Westside Middle Schools. You. Do I have a motion for the award?
Motion. I have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. I have a motion and I have a second. Roll call, please. Well, any discussion or questions? Seeing or hearing none, now roll call, please. Eric Ivory. Aye. Anne Bonderbellen. Aye. Troy Scott. Aye. Doug Weaver. Aye. Kelly Mullins. Mike Burnett. Aye. Dacey Davis. Aye. Thank you. Motion passes. Mister Thorn, under new business, we have board policy 3,410.04 c s substitute compensation. Thank you. The administration presents proposed revisions to this policy and requests a waiver of second reading.
Thank you. Do I have a, motion, for this, presented policy with waiver of second reading? Motion. Do I have a second? Second. I have a motion. I have a second. Do I have any discussion or questions regarding this policy? Dora, roll call, please. Eric Ivory. Hi. Anne Vandervillen. Hi. Troy Scott. Hi. Doug Weaver. Hi. Kelly Mullins. Mike Burnett. Hi. Dacey Davis. Hi. Next, we have, board policy 3422.04S, bus bus helpers wait schedule.
Thank you. The administration presents proposed revisions to this policy and requests a waiver of second reading. Thank you. Do I have a motion, for this, wait schedule and waiver of second reading? No. Do I have a second? I have a second. You have a second? Yes, sir. Alright. Thank you. You're welcome. I have a motion. I have the second. Any discussion? No discussion? Dora, roll call, please. Eric Ivory? Aye. Anne Vander Vellan? Aye. Troy Scott? Aye. Doug Weaver? Aye. Kelly Mullins? Aye. Mike Burnett? Aye. Daisy Davis?
Aye. Thank you. Doctor Hoff, under new business, we have a resolution. Good evening, president Scott, members of board community. Tonight's resolution represents an important step in preparing Elkhart in community schools and ensures we continue to provide every student with high quality education while managing our resources effectively. Just as we think about things for several years, this district has faced declining enrollment. We have had, some financial troubles and issues, just just speaking very plainly. Aging facilities and financial pressures that make it really hard for us to do the
work that we need to make sure this level of excellence that we saw tonight from Tempelli and what we saw, hearing, Toronto Washington speak about, that they're doing for their schools. I believe we can do better if we make sure that we take the necessary steps to ensure the long term health of Elkhart Community Schools. In 2223, this district, before I became superintendent, you embarked on a pretty extensive study on what you needed to do in order to address some of these issues that I'm going to recommend to the board this evening, and you have an opportunity to
vote on. In that feasibility study, they had multiple recommendations on what the board should do once you hire a new superintendent to carry out that plan. I think it's very important that people know that this work is just not something that has started this year. This has been something that, from what I understand, has been a conversation in this community for quite a long time. The the data tells us not just the data. Sorry. Our finances tell us. Our enrollment tells us. And our footprint tells us it's time to really make some tough decisions and that there are some people here who now need to be responsible stewards to make sure
that these, decisions are carried out. Since I've come here and I knew this noticed very quickly that we were gonna be here last year. I was gonna be asking the board for some, for the authorization. Since then, my team and I have worked together to try to strengthen internal pro protocols. I would like to share with the community that we are starting to see the ramifications of those decisions that we made a year ago show up in our payroll, show up in our, monthly, reports to the board. I've hopefully, you believe that there's been more transparent information about our finances and our
situations, and actually look forward to following up on one of the questions I was asked this evening about class sizes and some of those things to make sure that everyone has accurate information when we talk about the work that we need to do. Based on that earlier study that I think was important to to to start this work in our current reality, it is my recommendation that you authorize superintendent to begin looking at a consolidation study and and bringing back recommendations to the board. Knowing how consolidation work, they are not easier and it is not linear.
This work will require a tremendous amount of time that we don't have. It will also require members of our community to Be informed. So I look forward to doing state of the districts tomorrow and the next day and Monday to share the presentation that I've shared last week with some additional information as well to talk about what our financial and what our footprint looks like and what it could potentially look like afterwards. But we also know that consolidations come with emotional things to them as well.
People attach themselves and rightfully sell to their history of, hey. I walked that hall. I know that kid that went there. I know that family went there. Shoot. I went there. And that is hard for any community. This is not something that I take that responsibility lightly. So continuing to operate right in the way that I think I have hopefully led in the last two years, being very transparent and being upfront and timely, I think it's important that we begin this work and begin this work now so peep so we can bring recommendations back, by no later than March 2026 regarding what that should
look like for I'm sorry. Yeah. March 2026 is hard to think about for for the upcoming school year. The board will then make a vote on it if you choose to accept the superintendent's recommendations or not. This work will require voices from our community, again, from our teachers, from our bus drivers, from our from anyone who touches the lives of of a kid. I think it's important that you come out and be well informed, about the current state of the district. But I need to remind everyone, this is not new work. There are people who already are speculating about this is going to happen or this
school. I don't want to lead in that way. I wanna lead in facts and evidence, and so I think you'll see me share that when we talk with the school community over the next months or so. So at this time, I'm gonna respectfully ask the board to approve a resolution for me to begin that work to explore what that will look like for Elkhart Community Schools. So at this time, I will answer any questions that you may have of me. But at some point, I would like for you to take action this evening on that, which I say some point, probably right now. I understand. First, we need to have a motion, on this, resolution to initiate a study of
school consolidation and facility, realignment. Do I have a motion? So moved. I have many. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. Any questions for doctor Hoff? If no questions, I normally do not bore everybody with, reading a resolution, but I think it's important, to kinda read through, this resolution and, so everybody can understand, you know, what the board is is committed to. And this board is committed to ensuring that all schools operate efficiently, equitably, and effectively
in support of the district's mission to provide exceptional educational experience for every student. This Board also recognizes the changes in enrollment, aging facilities, and fiscal realities that have created challenges and maintained high quality academics and student support programs across all schools. This board remains dedicated to the long term financial stability, equitable access to educational opportunities, and responsible stewardships of taxpayer resources. This board believes that a comprehensive data driven study is necessary to determine the most
effective and sustainable configuration of district facilities to meet the present and future needs of the students. And with this resolution, we are directing, doctor Hoff and his team to initiate a comprehensive study evaluating enrollment trends, facility capacity and conditions, financial sustainability, transportation considerations, and access to academic and co curricular programming. We're asking him to engage stakeholders, including parents, staff, students, and community partners through, through
public meetings, forums, and digital communication to gather input from all stakeholders and share information throughout this process. At which time his team will develop recommendations that identify potential opportunities for school consolidations, closures, or repurposing with a focus on student learning, safety, and equitable access to programs. We are we are charging, doctor Hough and his team to provide us with regular progress updates, throughout this study. And, as he stated, we will expect final recommendations no later than April 2026, March.
I think, That's I'm just gonna be honest. We're doing probably two years of work in a very short period of time. That's why I wanna Yes, sir. Clear. April 2026. Yes. This should allow us sufficient time to review, allow us to hear public comment, and Internet necessary action before, the implementation of any decisions that are brought forth. So I, I thought that was important to to let you know that this, that these findings and the study shall shall guide the district's long range facility and financial
planning, ensuring that every decision supports the continued advancements of Elkhart Community Schools and the success of all students. So as a board, you know, we we we take this very seriously, and we, entrust that doctor Hough and his team will be able to meet the guidelines of this resolution, and, present to the board. So I have a motion, and I have a second. I will I'll do state of the district at, yeah, at the end.
So I have a motion and I have a second. Do I have any of any other comment from, the board? I'd like to say something. I think, you know, this district, it's been through a lot. We've put a lot of, time and effort. We put a lot of investment, into our school district, into our people, And this is for our kids, and we've got to be able to have a district that's strong, and that can provide the opportunities that we want all of our kids to have. And so while it's difficult for some, for for many people who have been paying
attention for a long time, they've seen the progression of what's happened, in education, and in our enrollment specifically over the last fifteen, twenty years. So while for some, this is gonna be really difficult, for others, it's it's gonna be we're moving in the right direction. It's time to move. It's been probably too long. I'm glad we're moving in this direction, and I hope that our community, while it is emotional, I hope our community can, see through that emotion, take that emotion, use
it for the betterment of the district, use it to help support our superintendent and his team, so that we make the best decisions, and they're given the best recommendations to us, that will move our district forward and help our district be stable, and have the ability to provide many opportunities for our children long after we are all gone. So I would just encourage the community to come to the meetings that are happening in the next week or so to please stay engaged.
This is really important. This affects our entire community, and it's important that we as a community come together and support our school district. So I would appreciate everybody, getting behind this, and and let's show the rest of the community what it means to be an Elkhart community school, champion. Thank you. Thank you, miss Vonnville. Can can I follow-up with one and I think all of everything we everything I'm sharing, hopefully, is important.
Either we do it or somebody else tells us how to do it. Absolutely. I sat in a phone call, a Zoom meeting last week with with the state. They're if I'm resident Scott, you were there. Our CFO was there. We had some of our external partners there as well. When I say external partners, people who kinda help us with our, financial trajectory. And we met with, an official from the state of Indiana who, point blank, if we don't do it, it will be done for us. And I would much rather have our community make these decisions opposed to someone coming
who just does not know all the stories of our children, does not know what it's like to from this side of town, from this side of town. They those will not be factors. They will just be numbers on the page. And I think when you're doing something like this, you need to do it with precision, and you need to understand there's a human factor to what's is it the work that's about to do. If you had told me, like, hey. This is the I was gonna be doing this at this time, I would have spent hold on. Let's stop for a second. But then I think about it. It is time to do that.
And I'm I believe that my team and myself, we should be the ones to do this because I don't want anybody telling us how to run our district here besides us. And so sitting on that call, mister Scott, and you were there, that was a life altering, part of my thought process about this. I would I'd much rather have our hands on a wheel when it comes to this. What what are your thoughts, sir? I I completely agree. This is this is a u unique district. It's a unique, community. We should have say, and, and we will have say.
And, I've I've discussed this, at other board meetings. You know, there's a there's a resolution on the table, tonight. There's a strategic plan in place, with our finances. We we have made decisions, leading up to this point. We'll continue to make decisions, for the fiscal viability and success of this district. We have the right team. We have the right leadership, to do this. I'm not concerned about it. We're a resilient community. We're a resilient district, and, we will come out of this, for all the right
reasons. But, you know, the biggest reason in in our focus, our our North Star is the kids, and they will they will continue to benefit. And that will be the the the guiding light to every decision that is made by this board, by doctor Hupp and his team. So, there's there's, I've got all the confidence in the world, in this leadership and and this task that we're about to, embark upon. And, you know, I want the community, please engage. Please be part of this. Please be heard. We are here to listen to everyone.
Please come out. We're gonna talk about the state of the district, meetings at the end. We'll give dates. We'll give locations. We'll give times. There will be other opportunities throughout this process to have your voice heard. I encourage I implore everybody to step up, take the time, don't be too busy. This is an important decision and decisions we're gonna be making. Please engage with this process. Please engage with the team. Everybody's a stakeholder, and your and your opinion matters. I have a motion, and I have a second. Dora, roll call, please.
Eric Ivory. Aye. Anne VanderWeele. Aye. Troy Scott. Aye. Doug Weber. Aye. Kelly Mullins. Aye. Mike Burnett. Aye. Dacey Davis. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you, doctor Hough. Mister Thorn, resolution on the administration's recommendation of Elkhart Community Schools commitment to supporting the educational social success of students from the military families and reaffirming our compliance with board policy 5,111.02, educational opportunities for military children.
Thank you, President Scott, board members, Doctor. Huff. We are seeking your approval of this resolution this evening. Thank you, mister Thorn. Do I have a motion for approval of the resolution? I have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. I have a motion and and I have a second. Do I have any comments from the board? Mister Weaver? Hearing none, I thought Doug would speak up. Hearing none, Dora, roll call, please. Eric Ivory. Aye. Anne Vander Velde. Aye. Troy Scott. Aye. Doug Weaver. Aye. Kelly Mullins. Aye. Mike Burnett.
Aye. JC Davis. Aye. Motion passes. Thank you, mister Thorne. Doctor Huff, floor is yours. Thank you, Fred and Scott. Appreciate it. I wish it didn't come back to me so quickly. One of the things that I had the extreme pleasure two Saturdays ago is going to the Con Summer event at that we were able to host very well over at Rice Field, two Saturdays ago. I just wanna say it is a huge privilege to be able to host 12 different districts in our in our area, and it was a great time. I learned so much about precision, and I'm watching I'm thinking everyone's doing a great
job, and I'm watching people up there looking at it with a different critical lens. Our kids did spectacularly. I just wanted to give a huge shout to Kyle Weirich and to April Oppheimer, the, the band director, the kids. You did wonderful. They Coco Chanel theme, I think. I the what it was. I I hope that's what it was. They did a wonder they did a wonderful job. But what I also like hearing back from my peers, thanks for hosting this and allowing these opportunities. If we didn't host it, there was one school said that they would have to travel, it was a school from Michigan. Said they would have to travel four hours in another way.
And so I just wanna say this is huge. Alright. Thanks for our security for also coming out there. Anyone who donated their time on that night, those are huge things. And a hundred and fiftieth anniversary, he was, I I met the gentleman who is the, the I don't wanna say director. I would say CEO, Con Con, Selmer. And he said he always working with our district on helping create a pathway for, band instrument, repair. It's a it's a major need, in The United States. So I just wanted to say we can keep those kids at home in a very high paying job.
So I I know doctor Rausch, you were there too. So it it was a great event. I also wanna say, a huge shout out to our principals and, principal appreciation month. We had a little we had an opportunity to speak with them today, and every day. How they lead, it is amazing the stuff that a principal does on a day to day basis to keep everything going in their building. They they manage staff. They manage parents. They manage they manage textbooks. They manage crisis all the time. It shouldn't be just I shared this morning. We shouldn't just be celebrating this month.
This is a reminder to celebrate them every single day. Our principals are rock stars, and we appreciate you. And if you're watching this tonight, I just wanna tell you thank you for all that you do. Also, I want to give a shout out to one of our own, employees, Brian Hamentry. Does anybody know him? You might not recognize him. His hair is cut. At Elkhart Academy, he was, selected as Indiana youth, worker of the year by the state of Indiana. That is a huge honor for our district, our Hey. No problem. We we have the Indiana counselor of the year. We have the Indiana RISE work group.
We had Indiana youth worker of the year, and I think that's just the beginning of of those type of accolades. I look forward to actually our district, hopefully, on November 21 being recognized as, by the IDOE on another measure. Katie Jenner, if you're watching, lots of pressure on you. But I just wanna say he is really changing lives at Elkhart Academy. That is a good dude. Just flat out a great guy. And he has the passion for the kids, and it but he also he helps to contribute to graduation rate. He takes pride that those kids are doing the exact same thing that we're doing
at, the freshman division at the 1012, building. I just wanna say thank you, mister Hamentry. I know that you are not watching. So he's with his kid. I think his kid is going through some type of recovery with his life. But last, but certainly not least, this is actually a direct plea to everyone in this room regarding pay attention to what's happening at the federal level. The shutdown stuff is real. Today, they there's a possibility that not possibility. Most likely, it is gonna occur. Things that impact special education, office of special education is closed now.
And so without that, there's not oversight, protection for many of our families. Elkhart has twenty one percent, at least, of our student population that, has, identified as a special needs population, whether it's an IEP or so or so forth. Without having this oversight or eventually funds to that, that that really limits the work that we're able to do. If you know a legislator, this is the time to talk to this this this impacts Elkhart tremendously. I have an opportunity tomorrow. I'm gonna shift from a meeting that I go to.
I will be with some legislators to talk about this issue. Our rehabilitation services program is also being shut down by the federal government as well. School is hard enough. Not having the resources that you need make it really really critical, but also the safeguards for our staff and for our students. So I implore you, if you know of an educator in a professionally and respectful way, hey. This is this is happening. I think sometimes they did not know the ramifications of what was gonna happen down
the line. There's a lot of things this year that I just did not think was gonna come into play. If I'm gonna stay back on script, it's it's important that to definitely talk about this issue. Because if those offices go away, I really am worried that those people will not be put back in place, and that will impact Elkhart for years to come. So let a, legislator know. If you do not, know exactly what to say or need some, jump off points, we have two outstanding leaders in the, exceptional learning space, Lindsey Brander and Tracy Hen.
They can help you to, not do it for you, but they can give you some talking points on why this is a critical uptime in, education, particularly in the special education world. So I didn't know if you saw that today, but that is a huge deal that impacts Elkhart Community Schools. So I just wanna share with you, this is a good time to start to reach out to our legislation, to talk about those things, and I will definitely be talking about those things tomorrow. So, other than that, president Scott, I think I've said more than I ever wanted to say, this evening. So I'm gonna turn it back over to you.
Thank you, doctor Huff. As promised, we're right back at it, tomorrow with state of the district. Wednesday, October 15 from six to 07:00, we'll be at Adamsville Road, Church Of God. The address is 51287 County Road 7 in Elkhart. So that's tomorrow from six to seven. And then we back that up with Thursday, October 16, same time from six to seven will be Trinity on Jackson Church, 2715 East Jackson Boulevard in Elkhart, State of
the District. So, please, if you can't make the first night, please make the second night. Those will be the two this week, and then we go into next week, Monday, October 20, same time, six to seven, state of the district. We'll be at St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church. That's at 122 Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Drive here in Elkhart. So I encourage everybody, you know, you don't have to come to all three, but, you know, please please try to come to one.
There'll be a a a I'll add you. That's you as well. There'll be live stream. Yep. They will be also sent out immediately the day after. If Jake can be so kind to compress those things, we'll send those things out as well. It will be the same information presented just in three different, locales. But I I think there's multiple ways for you participate, and then we will also start to we're already drafting on our working with missus Wood, digital dashboards to kinda so people can see our decisions and not decision. I think that's the wrong word.
Can see the information, and you can manipulate it any way that you would like to. I just think it's important to be super transparent through this process, and then also there'll be FAQs as well. So there will be plenty of time to, participate. And this is not the only time where we're gonna have community discussions. I would expect these to probably be occurring on a monthly basis. So, they just will be at different locations. Miss Wood, am I accurate? I I gotta quit saying I'm accurate because it feels like I'm just I'm a having you confirm the things I I already should know. So, anyway but I just wanted to make sure that people knew that there were
multiple ways that they could, provide ways to get this information. We feel it's important. As you can see, we wanna be transparent. And, again, we we we wanna hear you. We we want you to be heard. We want you to feel you've been heard. So there's gonna be plenty of opportunities up until the decisions are, brought to us in, April 2026. So please take the opportunity, engage, attend, and understand, what's going on in your district. Anything else? I'm sure that Wendy's gonna bring this up at our next meeting, but it just happened over this weekend.
So I wanna just do a special shout out to our head cheerleading coach, Haley Worsler, and their wonderful success that they had this weekend. So this weekend, the varsity placed first in division, and they received the sportsmanship award, plus they were the jump off champs. Our JV took first place in the division and they were a jump off finalist and our middle school took first place in their division. So Elkhart schools wiped it out at the cheerleading event. And something to know is that our varsity cheerleaders have done a trickle down effect
to all the way to our elementary, which, Wendy talked about today. They have just become an outstanding family, and Haley has created some of the best coaching staff. Plus, she has two wonderful little mascots that were on. So I just wanna say congratulations to them. It would be remiss to not recognize from Mary Beck, Michelle Troutman, who's going to be retiring. She has spent thirty three years in our district, special education, so a celebration to her. Thirty three years. And then we also wanna say a special thank you to an employee that has
chose a different direction. And, you know, the hope is that as life goes on, people always navigate to finding their way back home to Elkhart. But there is a person that has worked in our district for twenty two years, and she worked with Frank Kurth very closely, and she also worked with Will Cody. She is an example of why our attendance rate, our graduation rate was so very, very successful. So as we say goodbye, hopefully temporarily, to Tracy Miller and somebody who has chose to just move through the district, we wanna make sure that she has a very clear understanding of our appreciation and our thankfulness to her, and we value the role
that she played in our school system. And we hope that as she sees life, she looks back at the district and says, hey. Welcome back home. So thank you, Tracy, and all the hard work that you have done with Frank Kurth, Will Cody, and on behalf of all of our students, especially our seniors. And moving on to Kelly's corner, which yes, is still a thing. This week, I'm going to celebrate our security. I think that many of us have forgot how important their role is. There are so many behind the scenes things happening, things that we don't even clearly understand, and our security is there all the time.
We heard about them being at extracurricular events. We had a huge band competition that they had to oversee, all of our sporting events, everything that happens in our school. So, Jamie, I thank you, and I thank all of your security staff that go above and beyond making sure that our staff, our students, and our parents are safe. And we just appreciate everything that you guys do. Bring it in, buddy. So yeah. So this week this week, the celebration is everything that you're doing behind the scenes that we're not even aware of and everything that all of you do to give
your time to us from the mornings to making sure our children get to school and cross the street safely to the way that our our buildings close at the end of the day. So thank you, and our school appreciates you and your staff very, very much. Yeah. That's it. That's it. Yeah. Anything else? Mister Weaver? No. Hearing nothing? Meeting adjourn.