Lowdown. Lowdown. Okay. We'll call this meeting to order. Please rise for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Welcome, and thank you all for coming. First up will be Danielle Fedders Thompson and Reggie Early. Good evening, Doctor. Albright, Mr. Mapes, and Board of Trustees. I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to Reggie,
a seven year old Pouton. Reggie is certified therapy dog who visits Lantern Road Elementary School. He joins his handler, LRE resource teacher, Jill, early each Friday to support students through greeting them in the morning to sitting patiently and listening to them read aloud to him, which is very important since something else was released today. Trained and certified through First Friends Canine, Reggie has experience working in hospitals, nursing homes, and now classrooms. His presence helps students manage anxiety and regulate emotions when he is at school.
We're going to take a moment to watch a video. Can you say Reggie? Every Friday at Lantern Road Elementary, the hallways get a little warmer and a lot furrier. Oh, boy. Meet Reggie, a puton. That's part poodle and part puton de telure. And Hamilton Southeastern School's first ever therapy dog. I get asked every day, is it a Reggie date? Bringing joy, comfort, and a little extra motivation. She's just like a baby. Every Friday, Reggie's job starts before the first bell. Greeting students Say good morning to Ava.
Visiting classrooms, and joining small groups. Some of my kiddos that are very hesitant to read, beg to read to him. Can I please come read to him? It just brings happiness to the building and the teachers too. His handler, Jill Early. Good boy. A resource teacher and life long dog lover. Make sure every interaction is safe and respectful. An animal is still an animal, and that's what I tell the kids. He's he's still an animal, and we have to be able to read his body language. He He has a crate in my room. He'll go in his crate, and he'll rest.
Even students who can't pet him find joy in his presence. There's one little girl who's no. She can't touch him. We don't go in his classroom, but anytime she sees him in the hallway, she has this big smile, and she says, hi, Reggie. We have a visitor, friend. For many of these kids, Reggie isn't just a dog. He's the reason they walk in with a smile. You know, the benefits of therapy dogs and the changes you see in these kids, it's just amazing. Let's go. Back to class. One little dog makes a very big difference. You know,
Jill Early, mister Mapes, and Reggie. Thank you very much. Thanks for coming, Reggie. We'll move on now to 3.01, public comments. We have one person signed up, Connor Haines, speaking on 5.04, authorization for litigation. Good evening. Research data shows a strong correlation between the widespread acceptance of smartphones and social media and a decline in childhood and adolescent mental health. From expert testimony, we know social media is designed to get us hooked, keep our attention for as long as possible, and it's designed this way on purpose.
Children and teens developing brains are particularly susceptible to this addictive design. Social media companies should absolutely be held accountable for their product design harming our students in this way. As you consider become a becoming a plaintiff in this lawsuit against social media companies, I ask you to also consider, has HSE done all in its power to institute school policies that promote mental wellness in this area? There are three things HSE can and should do to promote mental health in our students. The first and most important is instituting a bell to bell, or a wait for the day,
cell phone ban. This would mean that students' cell phones would be off and un accessed through the entirety of the school day, including passing periods, lunch, and recess. This type of cell phone policy, though stronger than Indiana's current legal requirement, is the law in 17 states and the District Of Columbia. This type of policy has been shown to decrease mental health symptoms like depression and anxiety. It can increase instructional time focus, overall test scores and GPAs, and decrease bullying, behavioral, and disciplinary incidents. Instead of scrolling on TikTok or answering text during free times, students can spend this time engaging with peers,
something that is vital for social development and belonging. And instead of spending class wondering if that girl or guy texted them back, they can focus in on learning without the allure of the dopamine hit that waits for them the moment they step into the hallway. There's great precedent for a bell to bell cell phone policy, and I ask that HSE considers implementing this as soon as possible. Besides the cell phone policy, HSE should do a review to ensure all digital safety and citizenship lessons are not sponsored or funded by tech companies in any way. There's a very clear conflict of interest in a lot of these curriculums that we
found. The curriculum should not only demonstrate how to stay safe when online, but it can explain how social media negatively students have the option to not be on it at all. Parents should be provided with similar education that comes alongside what students are learning and empowers parents to make, conversations happen and reinforce the lessons in their home. If HSE is not doing these things, I would ask, is HSE just jumping on the bandwagon of a lawsuit, or do you wanna lead the way toward better mental health? Do you want to point the finger, or will you actually take action here? Simply suing social media companies to recruit money,
though may be necessary, may not make super real change in the state of our students' town right now. Your community would rather see you take meaningful actions that make an impact in this moment than litigate for the sake of the bottom line. Thank you. Thank you. We'll move on now to number four, consent agenda. There are five items presented on tonight's consent agenda: 4.01, board minutes, 4.02, personnel reports, 4.03, Claims payrolls four zero three and four fifty seven, Salary Reduction Agreements and 4.04,
Amendment to Health Care Services Agreement and 4.05, Indie Premier Soccer Agreement. Do I have a motion to approve the entire consent agenda as presented? Motion to approve consent agenda as presented. Second. I'll now call the question. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda I have to do voice, votes. Sorry about that. We'll start at the end. Suzanne? Yes. Sarah? Yes. Ben? Yes. Patricia? Yes. Dawn? Yes. Tiffany? Yes. And myself is a yes as well. Passes seven-zero.
We'll now move on to 5.015.02. They're for the same project. 5.01 is for the special procurement of the roofing materials and 5.02 is approval for the labor bid to install the roofing materials. Matt, Ralph? Good evening. Thank you for allowing me to present tonight. I do have the next two agenda items. The Facilities Department has identified 87,000 square feet of roof at Fishers High School that is in need of replacement. We would like to go through the TIPS program. It's a national coop using the amorized building envelope Duralast for the material.
This coop purchase offers a discount of at least 5% on the list price. The facilities department, at this time, recommends approving the special purchase resolution through the tips coop and MRIs building envelope as the management company. Do I have a motion to approve 5.01 as presented? I move to approve 5.01 as presented. I I second the motion. Any questions or comments? I'll now call the question. Suzanne? Yes. Sarah? Yes. Ben? Yes.
Patricia? Yes. Dawn? Yes. Tiffany? Yes. And myself is also a yes. We'll, now move on to 5.02. Do I have a motion to approve this item as presented? I can give you a little more information on that. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. I'm sorry, ma'am. No, you're fine. So we did identify this 87,000 square feet roof. The new roof will, have twenty year warranty. We received we went out for public bid and we received two bids back from that. The first one was from SPG for $1,893,000
and the second one from Building Associates, which was $3,880,000 and some change. To that, I'd like to ask the board to approve using SPG as the labor and materials for this project. Do I have a motion to approve this item as presented? I motion to I move five zero two as presented for the Fishers High School partial roof project. Second. Any questions or comments? Now close the question and call the question. Suzanne?
Yes. Sarah? Yes. Ben? Yes. Patricia? Yes. Dawn? Yes. Tiffany? Yes. And I'm a yes. Thank you very much. We'll move on to 5.03, Resolution in Support of Purple Heart Designation. Doctor. Kegley? Thank you, Board. In 2020, the Indiana Department of Education began recognizing providing designations to schools and and designating them as Purple Star Schools, when they have displayed a significant commitment to service members, veterans, and students and families connected to our nation's military.
There are there are several requirements that are involved in becoming a Purple Star designated school, and there is an application process. Some of the requirements involved include, a dedicated web page where we will provide resources for, veterans, active duty service members and their families, a public military display within the school, some type of recognition ceremony, which many of our schools, do either on, Veterans Day or on or September 11, things of that nature. Another piece is that we would,
give preference to, military service folks who have either served or are serving, if they were to be certified for jobs in which they apply for, which would, allow them to obtain interviews, things of that nature. We're asking tonight, another key piece of the application process is that the school board would approve a resolution supporting, this designation. And so, I'm happy to answer questions, but, Mrs. Lang has the resolution, which whenever we're ready, she's prepared to read and then would ask you for your approval.
Any questions or comments before we read the resolution? I just had a just a comment. I'm just thrilled that we're doing this. Honestly, wasn't aware of it until you brought it forward, took some time to read about it. And just a fantastic thing to both provide support for our veterans and their families, probably more importantly, but also show that we show support. So it's a great thing. We also have some veterans in the room tonight. I know some even of our own staff, and I'm not I won't do the thing where I ask you to stand up and all that stuff.
But just know that we appreciate you, and I think this is a great thing we're doing. So thank you. Thank you. Is there any, grant funding or anything that comes with this or is this just a recognition? It's just a designation, yes. Designation. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Mhmm. And, Matt, you've already discussed that this is specific to each building, not district wide. Correct. It's not a district wide designation. Your support tonight, all of our schools initially aren't making the application for a variety of reasons. Maybe they don't have all of the pieces in place yet to to do the application, but your your support tonight will allow them in future years to apply when they're
ready to do so. Correct. So each school would receive specific designation as a Purple Star school. So I'm kind of surprised you hadn't heard my push for it in years past. So every time the list comes out from the DOE because I work there, I say, hey, notice HSE still isn't on the list. And I knew that we had a lot of things in place of various schools with the programs and things. So I knew it wouldn't be too much of a lift to add some of the things. So I'm super excited that we're doing that too.
Thank you. Assuming we approve that today. And one other just added point to that. You have said that and that's great. Just to confirm, so this is just not at the high school? These are all different levels of school that Yes, correct. It's K-twelve. Excellent. Thank you. Whenever you're ready. Go ahead. All right. You're putting my reading skills to test. Hamilton Southeastern Board of School Trustees Resolution in support of military families 08/13/2025. Whereas today, over 1,000,000 Americans are bravely serving in the United States Armed Services, more than 19,000 Hoosiers have actively served their nation away from home.
And whereas over 20,000 children in the state of Indiana are members of military families, and whereas students who have parents in the military may experience six to nine different schools during their K-twelve education and whereas frequent moves, family separations through deployments and reintegration issues present unique challenges to military families. And whereas, the Hamilton Southeastern Schools is committed to meeting the unique needs of all students, especially those of military youth, therefore, be it resolved that Hamilton Southeastern Schools offers our gratitude and support for all military
personnel, their families and veterans. Resolved, the Hamilton Southeastern Schools will establish a trained point of contact at each building designated as a Purple Star School by the Indiana Department of Education in support of military families, resolved that the Hamilton Southeastern Schools will make every effort to connect military families with the resources they need. Very good. Do I have a motion to approve this item as presented? I make a motion to approve You want to go? Go ahead, miss. Okay. I make a motion to approve,
5.03 as presented. Second. Okay. We've got some military families up here, so that's probably why. I'll now call the question. Suzanne? Yes. Sarah? Yes. Ben? Yes. Latricia? Yes. Dawn? Yes. Tiffany? Yes. And I'm a yes. Thank you very much. Thank you. We'll now move on to 5.04, authorization of litigation, the social media lawsuit. And Mr. Mapes. Good evening, Board. Just like you did a couple of years ago with the Jewel lawsuit, we're asking tonight to join in on lawsuit with 80 other school corporations in the
State of Indiana and 1,800 school districts across The United States. There is no cost to the school district and there will not be any cost to the school district just like the Jewel case. But we're going to try to see if we can recoup some dollars into the district for just some actually negative impact that social media can have on our students and our school district. So, as presented, I listed some of the school districts that have already joined this case and we just think HSE should also be included in that list.
And so I ask for your approval to join the lawsuit case litigation against social media groups. Any comments or questions from the Board? I just had one related comment, and it was it goes right in line with our speaker tonight. I would like to explore I do think that these are really harmful to kids. Frankly, they're harmful to adults as well. I'd like to explore expanding our cell phone policy when that comes up for handbook review. And in that time, if we can have some kind of evaluation to look at a further expansion of
restricting cellphone use in the schools. I won't get into all the reasons. Hopefully, as we go down that road, I can talk more about it. But, it is difficult on our kids, difficult on the parents, difficult on everybody. I think there's a whole lot of benefits to at least exploring less cell phone use, if not no cell phone use at all during the school day. So I just wanted to put that out there. And hopefully, as it comes time for our handbook review and all those committees and everybody gets together, we can at least look at that and get some input from the community.
Anyone else? Do I have a motion to authorize litigation in accordance with Mr. Mape's presentation? I move to approve the authorization for litigation regarding the social media groups as presented, five zero four. Second. I'll now call the questions. Suzanne? Yes. Sarah? Yes. Ben? Yes. Patricia? Yes. Dawn? Yes. Tiffany? Yes. And I'm a yes. We'll now move on to 5.05, Policy Second Readings. Doctor. Kegley? Thank you. In July, at our July meeting, I presented these four policies, 6.01
extracurricular account funds, 6.02 revenues from school owned real estate, 6.03 use of school facilities and 6.04 free admissions to the Board as a first read and also sent those to policy committee last week. We were, after that step, all still in accepting the changes that were presented, which were very minor in nature. In addition, asking for the board's support that, the executive secretary can make changes to, superintendent and designee and board docs to HSE Schools board portal as a result of
our move over to the new system, for board docs when that's needed rather than bringing those in front of the board every time just for those changes. So seek your approval for those items this evening. Any questions or comments? Is this for all policies right now? Yes. I just want to make one comment, and I've had actually just shortly ago, Mr. Mapes clarified it for me. But there's one in here about facility use. This came up after Facilities Committee and Ms. Pasco and I looked at it as well. There's a part in here about the possible use of our facilities.
And one line in here says, use of facilities will be for educational, governmental, civic, cultural, political, recreational and a bunch of other things. Basically, when we're not using the school, other people could possibly use these if we gave them authorization. That word political gave us a little concern. It sounds like that's just directly from a state statute. So there's not really anything we can do about it. But our district still has the right to authorize various groups to come in and out and use our facilities. So I trust everybody to make the right decisions on that.
But again, it's a if anybody else had caught that and noticed those words, it just gave me a little pause. I thought I'd just point out at least that that's a state statute language. And in the past, I do want to call attention that the school districts the schools in the district have been used as voting centers during elections. So we've had several across the district that were used. And I think since COVID, they've stepped away from that. And I was just going to point out for clarity, we're not real this has already been our policy. We're just changing some things as far as like grammar or whatever.
It wasn't this has already been our policy. And, what we do with one, we do with another. So that's very positive to you. Thank you. Anyone else? I'll now close discussion. Oh, I'm sorry. Just for me personally, obviously, I'm Board Member one of seven. There's just it makes me uneasy just because there's room for interpretation. I understand in the past, we've used it for voting purposes in the classroom. But, you know, you kinda when you get we've been in a slippery slope before where we've had upset with the community and understanding where politics do or do not belong in the
classroom. And the the wording on here just for me, it, it's I think, obviously, we can't make the changes, and it is what it is. And I wanna make sure that we're calling attention to it and where we stand and where we agree and disagree with it. It's just, it can be left a room of interpretation if it's in the wrong hands of the wrong people, I believe. Okay. Thank you. I'll now call the question. Suzanne? Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. Did I not have a motion yet? I'm sorry. There's not a motion? Yes. Yes. Do I have a motion to approve 5.05 policy second readings?
I'll move to approve 5.05 policy second reading as presented. Second. I'll now close discussion and call the question. Suzanne? Yes. Sarah? Yes. Ben? Yes. Patricia? Yes. Dawn? Yes. Tiffany? Yes. And I am a yes as well. Thank you very much. We'll move on to information items, 6.01, policy first reading. Doctor. Kinkley? So a few policies for review or revision this evening to go over with you. First is 11.03 student fees and lunch program,
just a minor change here in the second paragraph, no refunds. The new language would be of fees or student lunch balances as opposed to on. And then for 11.03.01, collection and forgiveness of debt policy, there are actually no changes on this, but we're reviewing it with the other related policies. So that's why it's on here. And then some new language for I05.03, responsible use of technology and Internet use. The I won't read each of these to you.
They're rather lengthy, but we are having a first read this evening of 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, which would be additions to this current policy as it stands right now. Happy to answer any questions you might have. So at this point, we obviously, this is on there. We can read through it, bring up our questions and send that at the meeting. We'll have policy committee in September and then we'll be back for the first Board meeting for a second read. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. We'll move on to Information Item 6.02,
Redistricting. Brian Rausch. Good evening. Tonight, we begin the sensitive and complex process of redistricting. Operationally, this is as good a time as any to do this process. We have Fishers Elementary School that will open at Christmas. And then by the time, we're ready to have new students, the following school year we'll have this process completed. That school will have two fifty additional seats. We'll have plenty of room there. We also have a problem on the east side of our school district. Deer Creek, Southeastern Elementary and the Hidge are all at capacity overflowing.
So what will have to happen is we'll have to move people around to to utilize our facilities and and create efficiencies in our buildings. Tonight, we have Wolpert, a company that is As Brian said, my name is Andrew Bishop, and I'm with Wolpert. And I'm part of the team that's assisting Hamilton Southeastern Schools with its redistricting process. And tonight, we'll go over that process, but I wanted to first talk about some of the background data that's driving this. So this chart shows the K-twelve enrollment of Hamilton Southeastern Schools. And as you can see, it's really fluctuated over the last twelve years. Enrollment peaked in the twenty nineteen-twenty school year at 22,183
students. But like many districts in Indiana post pandemic, we have seen a decline in that enrollment. And the first three years out was relatively small drops in enrollment. But the most three current years, so 2526 preliminary enrollment, '24, '25 and '23, '24, we've seen more significant drops in enrollment of about 400 students a year. And twenty five-twenty six, this is our lowest enrollment in the last twelve years. So lower than where we were starting in '24 or in the twenty fourteen-fifteen school year.
So when we look at the next slide, when we look at the enrollment on a grade by grade basis over the last twelve years, you'll see the same trends. But in this chart, what you see is we've highlighted the largest cohorts in red and the smallest cohorts in blue. And there has been a trend of cohorts increasing as they matriculate through Hamilton Southeastern. So you can see that trend with those red cells as they move diagonally across. But what's happened is we are having smaller incoming classes replacing the outgoing larger classes.
And this is most evident in the cells that are highlighted yellow. So we started with the kindergarten class in the 'fourteen, 'fifteen school year and it was one of the lighter enrolled classes, 1,400 or so students. As it's matriculated this year based on the preliminary enrollment, that is the largest class we have in the last twelve years of any class. So over eighteen hundred and eighteen hundred students. But what you see is during that time the incoming kindergarten class this year and last year are two lowest enrolled classes.
And in fact, kindergarten enrollment has decreased 25% just since the 'nineteen-'twenty school year. You can see in the chart that nearly all of our largest grade cohorts have transitioned out of the district and are being replaced by those smaller incoming classes. So with that trend of lower enrolled classes coming in at the elementary school level, the district is going to see decline these declines impact the intermediate and junior high school levels in the coming years as those students progress. And so when you look at the table on the bottom, this shows the enrollment on a school level basis.
And you can see over the last twelve years, high school enrollment has increased by 1,100 students over twelve years, but elementary enrollment has decreased by 1,200. So we've really flip flopped what we're seeing. And then we'll go to the next slide. May I ask a question? Yes. Is the information when you say that per our school district, it's not per necessarily community, correct? It's So it doesn't include, numbers of people using private school, homeschooling No. It's just the Hamilton South District. So there are students out there in the community that we can be going after,
if you will, to be going Trying to recapture. Yes. And that could be coming to our schools at any given time when we are doing great things in our district very well could be coming here. Correct? Okay. Thank you. There are students out there. You know, there are declining birth rates though as well, you know. So that's gonna be just reflected naturally. Naturally. I understand. Thank you. So next, we'll look at the preliminary 20 five-twenty six elementary enrollment. So the map on the left shows the current elementary school attendance boundaries while the chart on the right shows the current capacity, enrollment, and utilization rate of each school.
And just as a note, utilization is just a measure of the students over the capacity to determine how full a school is. I also want to note that the capacities shown don't include any capacities associated with portable classrooms or pre kindergarten. So as shown in the chart, the average elementary utilization district wide is 78% and this equates to nineteen twenty one surplus seats district wide. And that's equivalent to about two empty elementary schools district wide. Most elementary schools are utilized above 75%, but four schools Fishers,
Hoosier Road, Lantern Road and Sand Creek are utilized below the district average each under 70%. And I do want to note that although utilization of Fishers is showing at 56%, this is including that additional capacity that's being added. So it may not be a fair assessment. And there will be opportunities through the redistricting process to opportunities through the redistricting process to ensure that we're utilizing that new capacity at Fishers. So of the other three schools, Hoosier Road, Lantern Road and Sand Creek, those are highlighted yellow on the map and you can see they're all centrally located in the district. And they those three schools account for 41% of the surplus elementary school capacity.
So that's one empty elementary school just between the three of them. Hoosier Road, yeah. The Hoosier Road, Fishers and Sand Creek are also the three lowest enrolled elementary schools based on the twenty five-twenty six preliminary data. The prospect of continued declines in the elementary school will require the district to examine efficiencies in the central part of the district during the redistricting process to meet the demands of the changing enrollment trends. So the map on the left of this line shows the elementary school student density, and this is based off the twenty four-twenty five student data.
I don't have the 20 five-twenty six to have mapped mapped it yet. So the darker red area darker red and purples are showing the areas of the highest densities while the lighter blues are showing lower densities. The highest densities are occurring on the East side of the district in boundaries like Brooks School, Deer Creek, Southeastern and Thorpe Creek. And conversely, Lantern Road, Hoosier Road and Fall Creek have some of the lightest densities in the district. So when you look at the chart on the right, this shows where students live versus how they attend in 2425. So the way to read this is going across,
the rows going across, those are the school of residence and the columns going down are the school of attendance. So if you just look at that first line with Brooks School, overall, there's four eighty six students that were residing in that boundary in twenty four-twenty five and four sixty six were attending Brooks School within that boundary. So that means that the other 20 students were attending different schools amounting to a transfer out rate of 4% from the boundary. And overall of all of our boundaries, each boundary has about 3% to seven percent transfer out rates with the exception of
Southeastern, which has a 25% transfer out rate. That's because students are being pushed to other boundaries due to capacity issues in that school. If I can really quickly just for anybody that's following along at home, this is a little hard to read. This is on board docs, so this whole presentation is available for anybody who wants it online on our website. Additionally, when you look at the total boundary enrollment, so that's that third column from the right, you will see that Hoosier Road and Fall Creek have the lowest resident enrollment in 2024, 'twenty five. So they have the fewest students just living in those boundaries already.
And this corresponds with the density map. Understanding these enrollment trends is going to be an essential part of proposing boundary changes. So next, we will look at the intermediate and junior high schools. So this map is laid out or this page is laid out similar. I don't show the densities for the intermediate or junior high school levels, but I do provide the live attend on this slide. So the map on the left again shows the intermediate attendance boundaries while our chart shows the 20 five-twenty six capacity enrollment utilization and the bottom table shows the 20 four-twenty five live attend data.
Overall, district intermediate school utilization is 85% in twenty five-twenty six. The outlier here is Hamilton Southeastern which is sitting right now at 113% utilized based on that preliminary twenty five-twenty six data. It should be noted that Hamilton Southeastern has the lowest capacity of all the intermediate schools as well as the lowest enrollment. So it's gonna be a little easier to overutilize that facility. Each intermediate boundary transfers out 2% to 3% of its students with the exception again being Hamilton Southeastern, which sees 22% of their students being pushed out to primarily Fall Creek.
And while there's no immediate pressing needs to rebalance enrollment at the intermediate school level, especially with the prospect of smaller classes coming in in the future, we do have the opportunity through redistricting to create feeder patterns, assigned elementary schools feed into each intermediate school and then possibly to the junior high schools as well. So the next slide, we will look at the junior high schools. Again, this is laid out similarly with the attendance boundaries on the left, the capacity enrollment and utilization, on the top right, and the transfer and live attendant data on the bottom right.
Overall, the district junior high school utilization is 88%. Fishers and Riverside are both utilized in the 80% range while Fall Creek and Hamilton Southeastern Junior Highs are both 95% or greater. So we're approaching full capacity at those schools right now. Although Hamilton Southeastern is sitting at just 97% utilized, again, it has the lowest capacity and the lowest overall enrollment of the junior highs. And again, similar trends that we saw at the intermediate schools. About 3% of the boundary enrollment transfers out to other schools. And again,
the exception is that Hamilton Southeastern Junior High, which sees 25% of its boundary enrollment going to other junior highs because of capacity issues. Can I ask a quick question? Yes. Does that does the HIJH reflect the expansion over there as well? Yes. Okay. Yes. So basically, essentially anything that's under construction is already Yeah. We've completed it right now to measure against it. And again, there's no pressing needs at the junior high school level but we have the opportunity to create feeder patterns through this process.
So understanding the potential for future residential development is another factor that we need to consider in the redistricting process. Wilpert reached out to the county and municipalities for information on known and approved residential projects early in June. And so the map on the left shows those known developments with colors aligning with the different housing types. The chart on the right shows a projected number of new units by type and boundary. Overall, there's 7,943 new residential units that are being planned within the district with 78% of those units
or 6,215 being planned within the Deer Creek, Southeastern and Thorpe Creek boundaries. So it's a good chunk on the very East End. Based on the 20 five-twenty six enrollment, Southeastern, Deer Creek and Thorpe Creek are already the most, second most and fourth most enrolled elementary schools. So any new additional residential development within these boundaries will further impact the schools as homes are constructed. Conversely, of the four least utilized schools that we mentioned earlier, Fishers, Hoosier Road, Lantern Road, and Sand Creek, only Hoosier Road doesn't have any new residential development on the horizon.
Although Sand Creek was underutilized when we looked at that previous slide, 12% of the known residential development is expected within that boundary as well. So that's another eight fifty or so units. As we begin to develop boundary redistricting options, it's important to try and alleviate the most utilized schools so that additional students from new residential development can be accommodated. May I ask a quick question? Yes. There's a and I didn't see it on here, so maybe Mr. Mabes or the team knows already that maybe it stopped. But at the corner of Hoosier Road and 100 And Sixteenth Street,
there's fresh thyme, there's a grocery there and there's going to be a development going in there that was going to have housing. Okay. But is it not going through anymore? I will have to check with my analyst who pulled the data out. It's not? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. City council. All right. So now that we've looked at some of the background data, the next is to discuss the boundary redistricting process. First, it's important to understand the District's goals in the process. As shown on the previous slides, there has been a shift in enrollment trends from West to East impacting those schools
on the East Side. That shift has created unbalanced utilizations across the district's elementary schools. Throughout the redistricting process, the district hopes to provide capacity at schools with the greatest growth potential, those being Deer Creek Southeastern and Thorpe Creek better utilize its existing elementary schools examine efficiencies in the central part of the district explore opportunities to repurpose existing facilities and attempt to create identified elementary to intermediate to junior high school feeder patterns. All right. This is a roadmap of the redistricting process.
So this one will be a little bit lengthier of a slide. Feel free to stop me as we're going through. This chart highlights the roadmap of the redistricting process. We kicked off the process in June 2025 meeting with Hamilton Southeastern Administration to talk about the needs, expectations and goals to target during the redistricting process. Currently, we are in the collect and review data phase and that's that cell that's outlined in red. And so we have collected data on the historic and current enrollment, capacities, trends and housing development, which were shared earlier in the presentation. All of this data has been compiled into a standalone background data report and that's
going to be available on a project website that we'll also mention. A project website has been created by Wolpert where it will share all presentations and links so that the public can stay informed during the redistricting process. So as trustee Orr had mentioned that the presentation is on the board docs. This will also be on the presentation will be on the project redistricting page as well. The the website is currently up and running and can be accessed after the meeting. So after this meeting, we're gonna begin the next phase of the project and that's to start developing boundary
criteria. So boundary criteria is used to help identify the most important things that should be considered while redistricting. We will be seeking input from district administration on their key criteria to consider, but we're also going to hear want to hear from members of the public. So to do that, we have set up a boundary criteria survey, which will be live following this meeting. The survey will include eight to 10 criteria points that Woolpert usually hears communities consider in redistricting processes. Some examples of criteria to be considered include attempting to assign students to their closest
school, balancing enrollments and utilizations, not splitting neighborhoods, creating feeder patterns, and creating boundaries that impact the fewest students. Wolpert will summarize and share the findings of with the district once the survey closes. The findings will be considered when drafting boundary options in the next phase of the process. And just so you're aware, we plan to have the survey open from tonight until August 31, so end of the month. It will close at midnight that Sunday night. So Wolpert the next phase, Wolpert will draft options with guidance from district administration and
the criteria survey results in early September. Initial options drafted during this period will not be shared publicly. Instead, they will be shared with members of focus groups. So at the same time we open the criteria survey tonight, we're also gonna open a focus group application process. And so the focus group application will be available to members of the public who want to participate in this portion of the redistricting process. The application process, again, will be open tonight through August 31 as well. We will work through the applications and select participants the September.
There will be a total of up to 10 focus groups selected with 10 to 20 members each. Focus group members will be placed together geographically based on the residents so we can hear perspectives of different parts of the community. We don't wanna have a mix of voices all over for each focus group because we're not gonna get the same message. We need to hear localized voices in each focus group to make sure we're hitting targets that need to be addressed. Focus groups will also include site principals and administrators. So we wanna hear their voices as well in this
process. So once initial options have been drafted by Wolpert, the focus group meetings will be scheduled for the September. Focus groups will review the initial options and background data and be asked to provide their feedback on the proposed options or other topics related to redistricting. Once the feedback is received from the focus groups, the next phase of the project will be to revise the options, so especially if common themes have been shared or expressed during those focus groups. We'll coordinate with district administration while revising any boundary options. After the boundary options have been revised,
the next phase will be community outreach as a whole. So this will be the general public's opportunity to provide to view the options and provide their own feedback. Community meetings right now will be held on consecutive nights and tentatively scheduled for October at about one night at each high school. And this is where the public can come out, see the options, meet the team doing the redistricting, ask questions, and be given any additional resources that they need in the process. So at the same time that we have those community meetings, we're gonna deploy another survey which will ask members of the public to rate the
options they view. What do you like most? What, you know, what do you like about it? What can be improved. And so from there, once we get that feedback, we can go ahead and revise the options once more to come up with a final modification or a final recommendation. So Can I ask a quick question? Yes. There's a lot of involvement with the community, which is great. We're going to need that. As far as communicating to everybody and pushing out these surveys and application things, do we have a plan with the district as far as pushing that out to
use ParentSquare or community e mails? How I'd love to think that everyone is listening in the city right now. But odds are, they aren't. How will we get that information out to everybody so they can participate? You already said it. ParentSquare is our communication tool that we'll utilize. And as he said, as soon as the meeting is over with, the website will be up, the link on our website. So everybody can get to it and that information will go out, as soon as we're done here this evening because the process begins. Perfect. But just for clarification,
even though we are the school district, there are taxpayers of over 100,000 in the community. So I'm assuming we'll have, like media things that will go out too and announcements and all that as well. That's why Larry is here. But yes, we have media releases to go out as well. And that way, everybody will be informed. And I have another quick question before since someone already asked them. Just for clarification, so the focus groups, that's a whole application process. You're going to involve the community or people to be involved in that. They're working to help with administration to come up with
the option. And we bring in the whole public after we've got options. There will be initial options that are created before the focus groups. So we're bringing the focus groups in just to get for them to critique them. Tell us what doesn't work, what's working for you so we can make some modifications before we bring it forward to the public as a whole. So that's why we want to have some of that local representation to make sure that there's I can do this sitting behind my computer 1,000 miles away, but I don't have the local knowledge, right? So I need to get that perspective to make sure that we're not singling out
communities or portions of the community. We're not making them feel targeted, we're not missing anything. So we don't want them to craft the options. We want to do that internally with administration, but we want them to critique it and then from there we'll make modifications. Correct. And I was just trying to clarify. So that's the first. But the second, when it goes to the general public, is that October? Yes. That's those are going to be community meetings. And so we want people to come out and meet us, ask questions, and do all that. That. Okay. Thank you.
So we'll do all this. We'll modify the options after those community meetings to arrive at a recommendation. And then, hopefully, the first meeting in December, we'll be back here to allow the Board to review that recommendation and maybe make its decision. My only other thought was, and this may not be for you, this is more, Mr. Mabes, with that we've opened up enrollment, keeping maintaining those class sizes. I assume that will always be part of our goals. But as these adjust, obviously, we have on our website now, which shows openings at various schools,
those will change. How will we kind of manage that as we're planning forward? Because we're taking in students now from outside our borders that may affect that. Yes. So once we know what the redistrict looks like, then we'll look to see, okay, what kind of capacity do we have with the students that we currently have enrolled in our district and do we have any ability to allow outside students to transfer in. No different than what we did this year. So we'll look at the utilization of all the facilities and say, okay, it looks like we still have a capacity at Harrison Parkway in the first grade
to take two students. I mean, because we do this, we're becoming much more efficient. But the students that we currently have, even those who are outside the district, are going to be figured in as we do the redistricting. I think that's a better way than I was saying. But our own current students and current residents will still be prioritized as part of this after we make all these plans. And then if we have openings, then people could still apply. Then we'll post and come to the Board with what those capacities are. Perfect. Thank you. All right. So this is just another look at that redistricting process but with a time line
now so you can see our goals and what we're trying to achieve. So again, we're here in August, we're going to deploy our criteria survey, our focus group applications, and then we will start dividing or coming up with those initial boundary options in early September, focus groups by mid September, modified options early October, community meetings in October and then any modifications in November, board recommendation in December. I have a quick question for Pat and Andrew, I guess. So in the over the whole process,
we have and we've been given this before where you have all the elementaries and all the schools and you tell us the capacity that schools have. Is there a whether it's state standard or our standard, do we meet a certain percent that we would like each school to have when we're redistricting that each school will at least have, like, 75% full? Because I don't know what that number is and I don't know how we get it. But I do know that there has been redistricting in the past and plans to build. And unfortunately,
with the Southeastern Elementary, for example, that got hit really fast and got overcrowded. So I mean, I don't want to see us do this great project and then we're, oh, my goodness, tools are way overpacked again. So do we aim to hit a certain number? There's not a state standard for that. So it's basically locally what we want to do. That's why the maps that he's shown so far about the potential for residents to be houses to be built, We'll look at that. Obviously, you'd like to be somewhere between 75% to 90% just for efficiency purposes.
So that will be part of the work that Wolpert will do and guide us through. But we're going to try to make certain that we become a lot more efficient in the number of students we have in our facilities because right now we are underutilized in a lot of places. And I point this out in the respective schools you just said, for example, that there might not be any growth around Hoosier Elementary. But yet, we have Deer Creek, so we're gonna plan accordingly to not overfill that school so we'll have room for the students that are moving in. Yeah. Okay. That's the plan. We wanna make sure we can accommodate that growth.
All right. Thank you. So if everything goes to plan, we'll be meeting here again in four months, and arrive at a community driven board decision. And then lastly, this slide just talks about the engagement. So redistricting is an important process in the life cycle of any school district. There's going to be ebbs and flow in enrollment that you're going to have to address. The goal of any redistricting plan is to develop an option that can stand the test of time. I don't want to be here again in two years doing this again because that means I did a bad job. We want to have something that is going to last last the district five, seven, ten years before we have to talk about accommodating
and changing enrollment again. In order to arrive at that community driven Board decision that meets the district's goals and addresses the sentiments of the community at large, we need to engage the community throughout the process. So how do we do that? We Engage early. We're doing that by providing the community a chance to provide initial input through the criteria survey and to participate in the focus groups. We provide data through meetings and presentations and on the redistricting project website. All materials pertinent to the redistricting process will be uploaded and housed there throughout the
process. The website will also house frequently asked questions for the community to reference and they will have the ability to send me questions. If what they are seeing on the website isn't giving them what they need, there's an option to submit questions. I do respond to those. And so if anything comes up, we will also add that to the FAQs as we go along. So we engage often. We will be working with Emily Abbotts to provide messaging to the community throughout the process. So we talked about Parent Square. We can, talk about other messaging that we can do at school sites.
Other districts I've done this with, they do flyers in their kids' backpacks when they go home from school. So if parents don't have Internet access or don't have regular access, they can still have a hard copy with some information on there. We will target engagement. So when we do our survey results, we do look at who is answering the survey. We ask for an address or a school that they go to and we'll see if there are schools that are being underrepresented in the survey so that we can then try to reach out to the principal to that school side to say,
Hey, make sure that our parents are getting involved here. We want to hear your voices as well. The project website, that's gonna that runs through the whole process here, and so that's updated weekly, with all the up to date information. I'll be updating it again after tonight's meeting when I get back to my hotel, adding things on that we need. This presentation will be there. All data presentations, like I said, will be there during the redistricting process, and it will be an outlet for the community to access the data as a whole. And so with that, that concludes the presentation. I'm here to answer any more questions.
So I have a few. I think, you started to hint at one of them. I always get nervous with surveys as people from outside our community sometimes may take them. I liked that you said you're going to at least ask what school they go to so that I know that's going to maybe be one factor. But can you tell us kind of what other safeguards may be in place to prevent people from outside? Well, we do ask for addresses. And so I will, I end up geocoding all those addresses through GIS. So we'll be able to see if someone has entered an address outside the school
district. We'll be able to see if a parent has applied for the focus group who lives outside the school district. While I understand their kids may go to the school if they are not a resident of the district, I don't necessarily want to include them on that focus group. I want their kid to be educated in Hamilton and Southeastern Schools, but their voice shouldn't have as big of an impact as the parents who are living here and paying taxes. And so we do do that to make sure that we're not taking in outside voices. Thank you. Mhmm. And then in the past, I think when we've done some redistricting and maybe other surveys too,
I think the community has felt like we've surveyed them and then maybe not done what they wanted with the survey data. So I think that's always a risk we take when we survey the community. I still think it's important to survey the community, but can you tell me how you balance that with district needs versus community voice? Sure. You know, I'm going to weigh the district needs above all else. That's, you know, the district understands what it needs in this process. We want to use the criteria survey just as a guideline of what we're trying
to achieve. If, you know, if assigning kids to the closest school seems to be the most important thing for the community, that's what I'm going to try and address with my options. I do when we get the survey results, I will put that in a PowerPoint slide on the website as well so the community can see exactly how the survey shook out. And so what they can see what we're trying to target with their, input. But, again, you know, I'm gonna weigh the district's needs above that first and foremost before we try to address all of their needs.
And a lot of times, you know, there may be two sets of criteria they really like, but they may be conflicting with each other. And so it's not gonna be possible to address every need of community, but we certainly wanna consider them as we're creating these options. Sure. Thank you. And then, my last question, I just want to clarify then. In December, are you going to give us one final recommendation or are you going to give us multiple possibilities to choose from? We'll be giving one final recommendation, but we can certainly show the three if there what the multiple options were with
the recommendation, we can say. We'll highlight the options that were shared with the community at the community meetings in October, and then we'll arrive at a single recommendation based on what we get from those community meetings and that criteria survey. Okay. Thank you. I just I was just gonna say I was impressed with all the data and the information that's on here. I really appreciate the thorough, information showing the timeline and extremely appreciative of the community engagement that will be involved in the whole process and the administration's hard work to be, involved in this and been doing this since June.
That is so critical. Very excited about Fishers Elementary opening. And, as a realtor in the community and watching all the development, I was also watching your slide and sliding through, hoping please talk about residential development. Please talk about residential development because it is another part of it. And, there's other realtors that might be listening. But I mean, most people, we know that not every house that's being built and being sold in new home construction is going to have students or children in it. But there could be a range from zero to five kids in that home. So to say maybe one student or one child per household and you do an
average, we're looking at like 1,400 students that are at Wayne Township coming up just alone. But you look at the bigger picture of things, we don't know necessarily are they coming to HSE for sure. Yeah. But I know because of the work that our administration does, we're out seeking students and we're doing such great things coming up with our new, pathways that we have. And I know students are going to be wanting to come to HSE schools. So I just want to make sure that we are preparing for the future as well. So thank you for this great information and presentation.
I'm going to ask for some clarification. I know we're going to put a survey out, but when we're looking into the focus groups, are they specifically going to be selected from the survey? They're going to be selected from the focus group applications. So we're like I said, we're hoping to build about 10 different focus groups between 10 to 20 members. So depending on how many applications we get, you know, if I only get 150, I'll I'll fill up all focus groups. If I get end up getting 300 to 400, I'm gonna select I'm gonna look through,
all my applications. I'm gonna you know, I do ask on that application, you know, when is the best time to meet. So I'm going to be considering that as well. People we have to have accommodating schedules. So And those are two separate things, right? We've got the survey that they can complete, but they'll have to also fill out the application if they want to participate in the focus group. And out of the focus group applications, you said you're going to have criteria. Can you kind of give us some clarification on what type of criteria? Say that you do get 300 applications, what specific criteria are you looking at?
Well, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna look at where they live. We I'm gonna review their answers on why they wanna participate because, you know, that's always a big question. Right? You you get a lot of times people are concerned with their own issue. Right? And we we really need people that are concerned with the community as a whole. And so, so they're looking out for their students but also others. And we can't have a process that's driven by parents only looking out for their own because then we can't arrive at a decision that benefits the community at large.
So we I review all the answers when we get those applications, and I do have a question that asks if they will remain objective through this process. And if they answer no, I eliminate them because, I that's just that's an automatic disqualifier for me. So we do ask some of those things. And again, if they live outside the district, I'm going to probably disqualify them also. Thank you for clarifying. You're welcome. I will be interested in seeing the feeder systems and the patterns that you look at doing just to minimize the disruptions, especially when we have
four of our schools, elementary specifically, that represent 40% of the surplus capacity that we have issues with, considering their location and where the growth is actually happening. So as we anticipate that growth and the development that's happening, I don't know if it's going to be like a multi phased approach. Can you kind of explain more like as you develop it, is it it's not just a static plan, right? It will be more dynamic to account for year over year and how we may have to shift a little bit? Yes. We'll have to have those conversations with the district and determine how we want to
roll this out. Every district chooses to roll it out different. Sometimes districts will have to go all at once. When we have districts with shifting enrollment trends, it may be especially when we have some higher fourth grade classes as opposed to kindergarten, we can talk about doing a phased approach where you phase in kindergarten and first grade first. So we have to have a little bit of those conversations, but that's a conversation I have to have with the district. Okay. Thank you very much for your presentation. Thank you. And we will move on to the superintendent report. Thank you.
Obviously, we came back to school a week ago, and it was a great start. I can't thank our families, our students, our teachers, transportation, our admin teams. We really had three great days last week to kick off the school year. And between road closures and cones and everything that happens in Hamilton County this summer, We got them there and we got started. So really great start. Another item we have and I think we have a short video, but we're excited. We're going to kick off our fourth cohort of the HSE Engaged program that's become
a hallmark of connecting our community to the heart of Hamilton Southeastern Schools. Since it started in 2021, HSE Engaged has given our participants a behind the scenes look at the people, priorities and programs that make our district exceptional. And tonight, we're proud to introduce the 39 individuals who will join the ranks of other alumni who have completed this program and discovered new ways to get involved beyond their time in HSE engaged. So, do we have that list? No. Technology is still working great in HSE,
as we've had some challenges with that as we started this school year. The last thing I'd like to mention is today, our I read scores were let, unembargoed by the state of Indiana. Hamilton Southeastern Schools, had a ninety six percent passing rate of third graders. That's fourteen ninety seven students passing a test. When you look at large school districts across the state that have at least a thousand students in a grade level, we rank number one across the state for third grade. 10 of our 13 elementary schools are at 95% or above passing rate.
Last year, we had five. Probably even more impressive is the fact our exceptional learners improved by 14 percentage points. This doesn't happen without just a lot of support from many people. First of all and foremost, our teachers and what they've done, utilizing the strategies from Literacy Cadre as well as NIET and focusing on the student results, in their classrooms and the student work and coming back and making certain that they have effective lesson plans for our kids each and every day. This is the greatest thing that we can do for our K-three students is make
certain that they have the ability to read. If they don't get it right at that time, we know they'll become struggling students. And probably by the time they get into high school, they'll probably drop out. So, we're going to have an update in two weeks over all of our academics, and we'll get in a little bit deeper at that point. But this is just too good not to mention tonight. And a lot of work by several people, hundreds of people, thousands of people across our community to make certain that our students at Hamilton Southeastern Schools, have the basic literacy skills. Thank you.
Thank you. That's very exciting news. We'll move on to Board member reports. Tiffany, did you have anything to add or share? None. Thank you. Suzanne? Yes. Just a quick announcement for Hamilton Southeastern Foundation. Sarah Parks, Rhys and myself will still be the liaison going into this school year working with the foundation. Our first meeting is Thursday, August 21. It is a closed meeting for the foundation that meets. There is going to be a new President, so the season stopped in June. We did not have a July meeting. And the first meeting again is August 21 and there's a new President,
Lloyd Lee, who will be the President of the Foundation. And I will just give a little snippet that the big next big event for HSE Foundation is the upcoming Mudsock VIP event where it's at the tickets are sold in the end zone and it's going to be at Fishers High School this year and the date is September 12. Details to follow regarding the actual tickets and event and all that's included, but what I can say is the MudSock game, and event is September 12. And then anybody whoever wants information and wants to know what does the foundation do,
who is the foundation, and why is this important, please go to hsefoundation.org for any information or questions that you may have. And I just want to just commend again the presentations tonight and, also just Mr. Mapes, the administration, the teachers, well done on such a fantastic start to our school year from, before the bell to just coming to school, the amount of accolades and people who are so excited with such a the school year taking off, I just want to commend you on a job well done. To the administration,
Mr. Mapes, and all of our teachers, thank you for all your hard work. Sarah? No update. Thank you. We had a Facilities Committee meeting last week. Those notes are on BoardDocs along with a longer list of all the ongoing projects in the district. It's nice to be able to see that. Mr. Rapp was and his team, I should say, were nice enough to put that together and really get into some detail on each individual school, parking lots, all the facility things. And I have to compliment him as well.
The schools were just in a fantastic spot to start the year. We've got a lot of buildings, a lot of ongoing projects. We're able to kind of coordinate all those so that our kids and our parents and our teachers could all get in and out. We were talking up to that day before, had some questions on bus routes and how we're going to get into some parking lots, but you guys did a great job. And I have to even say one very short anecdote as we were about to start our meeting, I believe it was an assistant principal showed up with a plate of brownies for Mr. Rapp, just thanking him for how nice their building looked as we started the year.
So we appreciate your whole team. Thank you. Patricia? Doctor. Kegley covered most of it. It was just basic grammar changes and some wording changes. Our next meeting is on September 3 at 08:30 a. M, and it's open to the public. Policy Committee. Ditto to the policy committee. Finance Committee also falls on the same day. You're welcome to attend. All of our committee meetings are public. And I echo Suzanne's statements about fantastic start to the school year. So, kudos to the administration and all of our teachers. And it was an odd start of school for me since I didn't send anybody off, and one of my sons commented as he was going to work.
This is really weird. You know? So I'll be taking them all to college this month, and that's really, really hard. Applications will open tomorrow for the HSE board, library board appointee. And that application can be accessed through our district website and will also be shared on some social media sites. Please feel free to encourage anyone who's interested to apply. I believe the application will be open for two weeks, and we will then come forth, with a recommendation at a future board meeting. One of our duties as a board is to review our superintendent's contract and make
recommendations. And in the coming weeks, we will be looking to extend his contract, and there will be more details forthcoming. And that is all we have for this evening, and we'll adjourn this meeting.