##VIDEO ID:https://indianapolis.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=91&clip_id=24515## It's a Hey, good evening, everyone. Welcome tonight's Education Committee. Meeting of the Indianapolis City County Council. Before we get started, I want to allow my colleagues on this committee the opportunity to and introduce themselves starting with item left. Thank you, MISTER Chair Derek, a whole district. 23, thank you. MISTER Chair John District 7. We're are Robinson District. Thank you, MR. CHAIRMAN Dan Boost District 3 Washington Morris Township. Thank you all. And good evening, everyone. My name is Keith Graves. I am the chair of this education committee. I do have a few words that I want few comments here, prepared what we ought to tonight's meeting. As always. It's an honor to gather here and discussing important issues that shape the educational future of our city. We take that on this committee very seriously. I am especially aside excited about tonight's agenda because we are joined by an exceptional leader in education. Doctor Nikki, what's in the superintendent of Washington Township schools. Doctor Woodson has been transformative force and public education for more than a decade. And we are super happy that she's here. We're also fortunate to have a presentation. City connects a partnership with university. Excited about that as well as the Education committee here. We have a responsibility to champion initiatives that ensure Indianapolis develops well educated city and a strong workforce for the future. The work we do here pay plays an active role in shaping the environment for academic success and workforce readiness, collaboration with our school systems is essential to our mission. It's important that superintendents like Dr Woods and share their story and the story of their schools with our committee. Hearing directly about the challenges, successes and innovative practices in our districts helps us better understand the needs of our communities and allows us to provide intentional and meaningful support. Together, we can create a foundation that ensures every child Indianapolis has the opportunity to achieve their full potential. Dr Woods. And we're eager to hear your insights and update regarding the outstanding work happening in Washington Township, real leadership and perspective are invaluable as we work to improve literacy, numeracy and overall academic outcomes. Citywide. So thank you for being with us this evening. We look forward to a productive and inspiring discussion. But first we have a couple of items on the on the agenda. Number one. Proposal, number 7, which amends chapter 2.71 Of the revised code of the Consolidated City and county at Public Education Fund program. I understand that there is a motion. Proposal Yes, MISTER CHAIRMAN. I move that the proposal 7 moved on pass from this agenda passed to the full council with recommendation of do not Having been properly moved. And second, we want to make sure that we jump all of our hurdles for for market by hearing from our council, council. We need a full we need roll call. Vote card with our emotions. Survive. Voice vote. No public comment tonight. Councilor Grace Graves, no. Or yes to the proposal. So motion. Council abarth. Yes, 2, the motion they recommended in the past couple council. Councilor boots. Coots. Council. Okay. Keiko? Council Robinson's Robinson. Recommended that the council. The full council with a do not pass recommended. Thank you council peers and it looks like we have moved proposal. Number 7, 2025 on to full council with vote too. Do not support past. Now, we do have words from my colleague here, thank MISTER CHAIRMAN. Just to explain for those that are maybe watching in the crowd that expected opportunity for public testimony tonight. The current proposal was introduced and part of the formal record in a withdrawn being recommended to go back to the committee and be killed or back to the council. I'm sorry and be killed will be a new proposal in its place. That will be introduced. MARCH 3rd count and then we'll go to Education Committee in MARCH. So that's the procedural history, Everett. So for those who MAY have been here tonight expecting to testify. We apologize, but to the procedural hurdles, that's where we Thank you for your clarification. Chair I do want to say that we encourage all participation from our community from our educational community. I think it's important that we as a council seek opportunities to be impact players where education concerned. What this proposal proposal, number 7 in its better position. We'll do will be just that. It will be an impact move that will the truly transformative we're super excited about and look forward to delivering that fine-tune product to our community. As soon as we possibly can with that, I want to invite Dr Woodson and her team from Washington Township up to present. We are looking forward to hearing more. Thank you, Doctor. Woodson. Good evening, everyone. And thank you so much for this invitation to learn more about Washington Township schools. We certainly are very proud of our schools. Our staffs are family in our community and we're thrilled to have an opportunity to share with you more about our district this evening. We do have a team here. I'm gonna kick everything off him. I just to say when the slide advances. All right. We can go to the next slide. I am the proud superintendent of Washington Township in my 15th year in Washington Township, I have had incredible journey, but it is time for that journey to come to an end and I will write off into retirement this summer and looking forward to that. But you are in for a treat tonight because the incoming superintendent will close out our presentation this evening. So you will have an opportunity to engage with him as well. Tonight, Washington Township is very special to me. Not just because I serve a superintendent to be I've worn several also been a resident for 15 years in Washington Township in Washington. He's raised my own children since preschool. So it is a very special place to me. And I'm thrilled to share a little bit about it this evening. On the next page is access to everything we're going to share tonight so that if you want refer back to something or look at a day to peace or something that we share, that is your direct access to everything we are sharing. On the next slide are some details for you. You have been provided an information folder with a lot of details and information regarding Washington Township schools. These 2 point pieces are a couple of them. But I do encourage you to take a look inside that folder. Additionally in the folder per request to my office earlier today is a hard copy of this slide presentation for your files. On the next slide. We start celebrating Washington Township over the past decade. And if you look at over the past decade, there have been some tremendous strides in Washington Township schools. i'm gonna give you a high-level overview, but throughout our presentation this evening, you are going to hear more in depth details. First we did in Washington Township with the support of our community, secure an additional 500 million dollars in funds to support our staff. Retention and recruitment as well as our learning environments. And that was done through 2 different referenda. And we could not have done that without the support of our community. We are also thrilled that we have significant enrollment increases. The last 2 years fall of 2023 and fall of 2024 Washington Township had the highest enrollment increases in all of Marion County. This year's enrollment increase puts us at the largest enrollment total that we've had since 2016, 17 school year. So we are thrilled that families are choosing Washington Township for their children's education. During that time, how we've also increased our teaching staff. We know we have to have high qualified teachers in front of our students to make an impact. And so we've increased our teachers during the last 10 years by almost 170 new, highly qualified, diverse teachers. We know we couldn't do that without being very competitive. So during that time, we've also increased our teacher pay and increased our retention of or teacher rate during that time. We're thrilled that we have a reduction in out of school suspensions over the last decade. Significant strides in graduation rate. Equaling double-digit increases. We have increased access for students of color to high level courses and honors and we are ranked first for second in almost all academic areas. When you compare us to other urban. School districts that look like Washington Township. We're also thrilled that we're able to improve all of our learning environments and school facilities for 21st century learning environments for both staff and students and certainly a celebration is that we navigated through a global pandemic. While we recognize all of the celebrations on this next slide. At the same time, we recognize that we have areas of continuous improvement that we need to focus on. And there's a 2, 2 different areas. I would point you to for our detailed work in this space. First is our district's strategic plan that outlines all of our district level goals responsibilities that we have to ensure continuous improvement. Our areas of focus are equitable achievement. Number one, that's top priority. We also have goal increasing highly qualified and diverse staff and retention of those staff members. We also have a fiscal responsibility goal in a partnership goal. Aside from the district goals, every single school in Washington Township has a school improvement plan as well. And those are available to the public, along with the district's strategic plan on our website and we courage anyone who's interested to know the details of what our schools are working on. That's personalized and individualized based on their data to access that the district's strategic plan is available in your information folder. If that is of interest to you. We also have members of our school board on the next slide that is there. A are school board in total bit of school board members who are here tonight to stand to the we could recognize you. Thank you for being here. Misfired misses 4th Krueger, but the other 3 colleagues that they serve with are recognized on this slide as well. We have an outstanding school board who pushes us as administrator years to strive for continuous improvement for our district and our students and are extremely supportive to the efforts that we do the entire meeting calendar in all of their information is on the bottom of that slide. If you ever want to access them. On the next slide, you can see the dream team. I am only one person and I can't do the wonderful celebrations in point of pride that you already heard about without an extraordinary team and the team that you see on this slide is here tonight. And that is our executive leadership team. They represent oversight of every single part of Washington Township, whether its facilities. Budget management teaching and learning student services, human resources operations. And so with the team approach, we're going to share more details through each department about Washington Township schools. Up first is our primary reason for existing which is our teaching and learning and student services Department on the next slide. And they're going to share some really important information with you. A better programs that we offer within our schools. And I would ask just to make it as quick as possible. We come as close as possible once you get close. Thank So good evening. I am that hockey Pettigrew and I am the chief academic in dei officer for Washington Township. And I'm here with my colleagues. So we have doctor's Kaminsky who is our director of student services. We have 10 Blom who is our director of elementary, which is k 5. We have Dr Thorpe who is director of middle school that 6, 8, and then doctor Seaver who is responsible for our high school under Central Jl to north. And of course, that's 9.12 And so we are excited to be able to share some information this evening. But I would say this is the dream team. They have all of the expertise related to the learning environment in Washington Township. So on the next slide, you want Our achievement in Washington Township. So to the left here, you will see that our data really tells a compelling story of our achievement in Marion County specifically. But even beyond Marion County. So in many areas, we are first, if you look at students of color, we are first as related or as compared to districts that are very similar to ours. And that would be districts with 10,000 students or more. 50% free reduced 50% students of color. You also note that we are either first or second in terms of all students that includes all subgroups within comparison group. And then when you look at our data, it really tells the story of how we are using a comprehensive approach to educate students and so on the right, you will see some of our achievements strategies such as cultural awareness, cultural, humility, cultural responsiveness, training. We are driven by Part of monthly meetings with our principles. Our administrators with our instructional coaches, everything is driven by data. And 1, one piece of data that we think is is very important is that when students are with us for year after year without disruptions, we see as much as triple the growth in proficiency. So students, for example, that are in the 3rd grade when they have been with us since Pre-k or kindergarten. We see anywhere from 50 to 55% proficiency compared to students who packed disruptions in their learning into. That's really important fact to share with you all if you also look on the right, we are focused on improvement on our school improvement plans, as well as approach of our in tsa's process and are plc's, which really promote professional learning, not just among teachers, but also administrators. So really, these are not just, you know, strategies in the presentation. They are real life practices that are impacting our students day today. The next slide shows opportunities that we engage in equity work. Our elevate instructional framework allows us to have common months. Teachers and administrators to move the needle instruction. Ali, we are. It's especially proud of our district equity leadership team, which includes our administrators at the building level as well as the district level. We are excited about our community coalition, which is a partnership with not just parents but community partners in which We Co plan, for example, our student leadership Conference are vaccination clinic that has been borne out of the community coalition. We are focused on social and emotional learning which hear more about some doctors convince Ki we have expanded our course offerings. I don't think there's a school in Marion County that has as many course offerings as we have at North Central. And we're very proud of that. We are excited by our Abbott work at the high school and our pre Abbott work at the middle school. We also have a robust high ability honors program in which we're doing everything we can to mitigate barriers for students who otherwise would not have access to high ability or honest coursework. And then we also focus on a student and staff will MISS. We have our Panorama survey that provides valuable data for how we can move the needle for students who MAY be struggling or areas that we can address in our advisory period. So we have multiple pathways to ensure that we are providing equitable, learning environment for our students. And these again are not just programs that we implement, but these are opportunities for students to be successful in our space. On the next slide, you will see that we are extremely diverse student population. And we believe that is really the strength of Washington Township. So when you look at our current numbers, we have great number of students who are English language learners. We have high ability students in excess of 1200 students. We have over 2000 students that we see special education support. We have nearly 50% of our student body experiences, poverty. And so you will see that here. That's nearly 50% of west of our population of students. We have about 345 refugee students. We are excited that we have over 70 native languages, which should that really is a testament to our diverse student population and then, of course, if you look at the bottom, we have about 350 students who are experiencing homelessness. The next slide will share a little bit about our demographics. And again, we believe that our true strength is in our diverse student population. I mean, as you can see, we are overwhelmingly district that this of students of color we have 39.5% black students, 22 0.3% Hispanic. 29% Caucasian 3%, Asian and 6% multiracial. And so each student. They bring with them their unique experiences, their funds of knowledge. And so we're we're just grateful to be able to partner with families and students to help enrich the learning experience for their student and really our job. And you will hear more from the directors is to support and to provide opportunities for the students that are in our care. And so you will hear now from MR. Blah, who's going to talk a little more about Elementary's? I'm sorry. Doctor Pinsky is going to talk more about student services. Good evening. I'm fortunate as Doctor Pettigrew was talking about all the academic gains that we've experienced in the amnesty of Washington Township. That doesn't just happen by happenstance in Washington Township, we believe in the whole child approach. So we understand that there are things in systems that we have to put in place so that our children can enter into the classrooms and perform at their best ability level in Washington Township. We service students age 3 through. 22. So we have very first learners the day they turn 3 and we will also service some of our most at-risk, a special education students until they are. 22. So what makes Washington Township unique, believe in student services that we are a continuum of support. We work as a team with a district behavioral team to come alongside my colleagues, building principals to support the work happening in the classrooms. We have a district autism coach. We then support related services. So we have school are we so peas, physical tease. They are all pushing into our classrooms to provide the services that our students need in the time in which they need that. So we are meeting students exactly where they are. We have nurses and all of our campuses. Unlike most districts in Marion County, we have a social worker at every single one of our schools. And we have school counselors at every one of our schools except for and we're working on it in our elementary schools. So we talk about the supports that we need for students to actually access and success. Academics. We have to think through the whole child. And so how do we do that? We do that through college and career counseling. We do that through work based learning. We do that through our college access specialist. We tell students when you leave Washington Township, you are going to do one of 3 things. You are going to enroll. You are going enlist. You are going to employ or you are going to become an entrepreneur. And regardless of one of those 4 ease their life skills that we need to ensure that you are ready. You will see that my team and when you hear from my colleagues, there is lots of cross collaboration that works with student services to again support and come alongside that student. Our goal is to some more support and promote the academics. Next slide. Please. Our most prized possession in Washington Township If you have not visited, you need to stop is our early learning center. Our early Learning Center consists of right now there's about 265 and by the end of the year, we will have 300 of the earliest learners that we are welcoming into Washington Township h 3, 4, 5, over 50% of those students receive some type of special education service. So whether they are identified as developmentally delayed, perhaps they need some speech. These students is come to our school either half day, full day or perhaps even do some drop-in services to ensure that they progressing at that of their same age peers. We are excited and that we were I haven't been identified as a path to quality schools. 3 and we will be pursuing pasta quality for. But one of the greatest testaments to pass a quality 3 this year is that we can now except c, c, d f and on my way. Pre-k. So when you think about access and making sure that all children are entitled to a fantastic early learning environment. We can now access those families that perhaps were unable to do so. So when you think about what are the academic achievements of what this an early learning center look like right? We are definitely a line to I sprout. So we're built on standards. We recognize a developmentally and chronologically where our children are. But it is a learning based environment based upon play. So it is going to be structured that a pseudo school and our students are going to be progressing. Parents are going to be getting feedback on how their students are progressing on these cognitive types of assessment. The team is working on 7 essential skills which we believe are imperative to the growth of our youngest minds. We currently are implementing the pyramid model which goes in line with sdl, which is our social emotional learning which exists across our continuum. So starting with our early learners in grade 3 all the way to our students that are 22. They all are receiving very robust social, emotional learning. We then are focusing on continuing to added if additional pathways for students, because we're doing everyday speech. Providing those opportunities for students to connect. We're providing examples to their non disabled peers and we're providing them the space to engage with the learning and the highly qualified educational professionals that have that mastery at the Pre-k level. So at this point, I'm going to turn it over to my colleague, MR. Blom who's going to specifically talk about k 5. Thank you. Good evening. We are very excited and proud of all the wonderful things happening in our 8 them are 8 elementary schools as you are probably aware, legislation was passed last spring requiring all school districts to adopt reading program based on the science of reading in Washington Township, we started that shift the science of reading several years ago. And so we have provided multiple professional learning opportunities for all of our elementary educators on the science of reading and they were very excited and ready to go when we adopted our new curriculum this year, we were proud to be able to provide question development for every one of our teachers on the new curriculum prior to the start of the school year and then follow up question development, take advantage of one of our be learning days this fall. Almost 84% of our 3rd graders passed. I read 3 test last school year and Clearwater Elementary Reach the 96%. So achieve that state benchmark. That is still a couple of years away. Watching township 3rd and 4th graders scored highest among other large urban districts. On both. I learn math and I learned ela tests. Along with our focus on early literacy. Want to make sure that we have well-rounded students. We're excited to receive over $40,000 in grant funding for elementary schools in order to expand our robotics programs across the district. And I want to specifically lift up Springdale Elementary School was selected 2 years ago as a get your teach on collaboration site. That program went so well that not only are they one of only 2 elementary schools in the state to be a collaboration say this year. But our principal claim Martin has a regular speaker at the national conferences this year sharing the many wonderful things that are happening in our schools with other educators across the district. With that, I will pass it on to Dr Thorpe to speak about middle schools. Thank you, MR. Good evening. I am here to represent the middle levels. The most exciting level, sure a lot because remember what middle school was like? I know I do. But we are doing amazing things in Washington Township. So with the next, okay, that a sled. All right. So just a few things that I want to highlight is one of the things that MR. Blanche aired is that we receive the robotics grant grades k through 12. And so we're excited because it allows us to expand our robotics team and programming, which also offer students opportunities to participate clubs after school as well as go out and compete. We offer engaging courses. We do offer project lead the way a couple of our courses that we offer automation robotics, medical detectives and app creators. And we are currently in the process of reviewing our courses just to see if we can get even more engaging coursework. We also are an avid districts with avid one of the things that we stress is the instructional practices about it, which are the wicker strategy such as writing inquiry, collaboration, organization and reading and then all of our students also use a success bound curriculum because we believe in teaching our students employee ability skills. And if you look at academic achievements, one area that we are super excited about is that the dual language immersion program that is in Willow Lake Elementary will scale up to West Lane Middle School next year. Then we also have 28% of our middle schoolers take high school classes for credit. We also have a 43% of our students are enrolled in the 21st Century Scholarship program. And just overall, I'm excited about the work we're doing at the middle level. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Doctor Seaver. Good evening. I'm Rachel Seaver. I have the pleasure of overseeing our high school programs including our flagship high school near Central that serves nearly 4,000 students as well as rj ever like Career Center and our True North Academy, which serves students that need a non-traditional high school experience for a variety of reasons. So appear on the screen. You can see a few of the academic program highlights an academic achievements of our high school level. One of the things that you would notice right away at North Central us that if you have an interest, we have a way to meet the need of that interest, whether it be through our courses are our extracurricular activities. Are clubs. We also have very robust rigorous course offerings. So you can see here. We've had a long tradition of academic excellence in terms of programming with Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and dual credit offerings. We have great partnerships with Indiana University and Ball state for dual credit all of our 10th grade students engage in a Panther exploration project. And with a new high school diploma world. Looking forward to utilizing that opportunity to encourage our students to do some career connected inquiry based learning through that projects. Our sat results were very proud of our consistently above the state average. Our overall graduation rate for the class of 2024. Was 90.4%, which was also above the state average. We're also proud that that's above the charter school average, which was I think 58% for the class of 2024. Really excited about our outcomes for our seniors. We have some great world language programming. Some of the highest world language, a peace corps in the state as well as a multitude of our seniors graduating each year with the certificate of multilingual proficiency. And so I'd like to also talk a little bit about our career center. Jay Everett, like Career Center has been a longstanding institution in central Indiana. And we continue to have really cutting edge programs. Some of you might remember, you know, and when I was a kid, it was shop class. That's not the career and technical education of today. We have all sorts of programs that are really not just for students that want to go straight into the workforce after high school, but also students that are going into college. So many of our students graduate with career certifications and then into a four-year college. Get a four-year degree and then utilize both third-degree and their certification from high school to then pursue and their career. So we have veteran dairy science, health careers, dental careers. Those are some of our most popular offerings and we are constantly expanding a few years ago, we started a bio-medical pathway at North Central. And that's continuing to go up grow in popularity each year we are expanding those offerings. And so I hope that you can see from the Pre-k level that doctors Kaminsky talked about with those little 3 year olds all the way up to our high school students week, really aim to offer forward thinking in comprehensive learning experiences for all of our students. And with that, I will pass it off to MR. Neave on our director of technology. Good evening. Like to start highlighting recognizing the student achievements of our teams on the screen here. Robotics team was able to triple the participation and membership this year and placed 3rd in the state qualifiers. ESports team was able to increase its participation by 30% and they placed highly and many of their tournaments. And also received recently recognition and spirit where from the Indianapolis Colts in their partnership with ea Sports as our team made it to semifinals in the competition now to the left there. All through the year last year. And this year we hosted family tech tables in effort to boost engagement with families. So we've worked with families and students to download install and set up apps so that the able to receive communications increase engagement and follow student performance measurements in the apps. So we also sent them home then with a flyer with qr codes with a variety of continued learning opportunities they can scan and was taken to our technology site so they could continue learning at their time and pace when they had the opportunity. One of things everybody always wants to learn more about right now is artificial intelligence and ai and instruction. So you could see that journey started last year. We beefed up our responsible use policy put in the guard, guardrails and protections for misuse of ai in the township. We continue that with creating course content for teachers and students available in our canvas environment so they can learn about ai types of ai how to leverage that and the focus for students was really on ethical use. And where is that to academic dishonesty? We worked over the summer and trained administrators and a half-day training on use of ai types of ai and ways to use that for efficiency and their jobs. We rolled out guidelines based on the tj I framework. Teachers and departments could leverage. And we offered our integration specialist to go out Co teach and work alongside students and teachers as they integrate artificial intelligence into the classroom. And we also launched a website on our township website. Its ai in Washington Township that describes our philosophy on artificial intelligence. How we got to our framework gives resources to families, teachers and students for their own continue developing an understanding of artificial intelligence. And with that, we'll go to the next slide. Turn it over to DR. Kaiser. Good evening. I'm at Kaiser Assistant superintendent for Human resources. And as you'll see from the next slide, this is the makeup of our current Washington Township, Seth and as you'll see from the positions on that list. We remain staunchly committed to making sure that Washington Township students are served by Washington Township employees. Our teacher group has been and always will be our largest staff group. And we understand the vital work that they do. But we also know the kids can't achieve to the full without a bus driver who cares on the way into the building. Our child nutrition staff, making sure that they are fed and ready to learn and that many kids won't achieve to the full without the individual support. School psychologist or a counselor or an assistant principal who just takes a little bit of extra time for them. I'm also pleased to share. I know there has been a great deal of discussion about the staffing of schools statewide and having qualified people in positions. We have been very, very fortunate that we continue to get strong candidates for positions here in Washington Township schools. And I'm especially proud of the number of educators and staff who choose not only to make Washington Township. There were come, but like myself make it the home where their children are being raised. And in school. There's also as you'll see on the next slide, been a lot of discussion about compensation for staff members in schools around the state of Indiana and the need to make sure that those educators see increases in their base salary and in compensation. We are extremely proud in Washington Township that we have been able to make that a reality. Teachers have been employed and administrators have been employed in Washington Township since 2018, 19 have seen base salary increases of over 20 1000 dollars. Our staff in Washington Township or classified staff. Those are those bus drivers and child nutrition staff and all the other positions that support our kids have seen base salary or hourly rate increases of over 20% since 2018 2019 when we receive funds, we pour it back into our most vital resource, which is our people at also like to point out, perhaps my favorite stat, which is that last line that we have done all of that with 0 increase to the cost of health dental and vision insurance. Far staff since 2018. We know that compensation is not the only thing that we do to retain and support our staff, but it is an important piece of what we do. And then as you'll see from the next slide. We know that it critical component of that is doctor Woodson pointed out was our passage of referendums in both 2016 2018 where our community reaffirmed their commitment to our schools. And we need to hold to those commitments. So we have 1.5 million dollars that was designed to increase teacher pay that was delivered to teachers in NOVEMBER of 2020. There was also 1.5 million to increase classified staff compensation that was delivered in FEBRUARY of 2021. And there were $900,000 in those operating referendums to address positions where we had looked at both surrounding schools and other surrounding employers and needed to make adjustments to stay competitive. And those funds were delivered in FEBRUARY of 2021. This I do believe underscores the importance that in current funding for Indiana schools operating referenda are critical to our success and critical to our ability to continue to provide our students, the services that they need and now moving to the other side of referenda. All past things often is Angela Britain. Smith. He's going to talk to you about many of our more physical updates. Hi, good evening. And the director of operations and obviously you've heard a lot of the great important, robust work that's been happening and the township with optimal teaching and learning spaces that work is enhanced obviously. And so we were blessed by having an amazing community support back 2016 2020 with the passage of those construction referendums. And we had 4 priorities that we focused on in both of those referendums and you can see there, the first was with capacity, educational effectiveness and then safety and security and code compliance. Healthy learning environment and then technology. In the next slide. Please. With those 4 priorities, we were able to touch are facilities inside and outside all throughout. And so we were able to transform the teaching and learning spaces and we expanded space for student support programs by adding small group spaces large group instructional spaces that are middle Schools, activity, Commons at our elementary schools. And so on our safety improvements included, adding safe and secure entrances enhancing our pa and intercom systems as well as adding upgraded cameras throughout our facilities. We replaced a mechanical and plumbing systems throughout. We were able to also improve areas for access for individuals with disabilities and we improve sight circulation on all of our sites by being able to separate vehicular pedestrian and bus traffic and you can continue to see items that we were able to do by renovating kitchen and dining spaces. We replaced furniture and casework throughout. We also upgraded to led lighting, which is it makes a huge difference when you walk into a building and also is an enhancement for students while learning. And then we renovated the performing arts spaces all levels as well as athletic facilities at both the middle and high school also the playgrounds. Next slide. Please. And so you cannot go through Washington Township without noticing this work and the upgrades that we've been able to do on all sites. We were able to build new construction up with 2 new elementary schools. A new early learning center, a new middle school, a new field house. We upgraded our stadium with bleachers and a new press box. And we built a new transportation bus hub and we've done renovations at all of the elementary's and of completed those projects as well as the middle schools. But we still have a little bit of work left to do. So we probably have close to about 25% left and currently we are on Central campus, which is where high school is. And still a lot of work happening there. It's a very active site and the old north, you middle school that was on Westfield is being transformed into our services center. And then we have the career center and that construction project will mobilize here this summer. So lots and lots of work to be proud of and week again, it could not be possible without that support from the community with the passage of those referendums. Next slide, please. And one hands meant that we're super proud of that. We were able to do through that work was to partner with our utilities s and submitted application for their rebate program. And you can see there that time we finish with all of our projects, we're going to be a little over a million dollars that we received back in rebates. And that will that will also continue to be of savings throughout because obviously by upgrading to led us efficient. And so we will save on our utility bills, which is always a good thing. And then lastly on the next slide. This is an accomplishment that we were able to implement this school year and it's with the community eligibility program and it allows for our students to receive free breakfast and also a free lunch. And we were able to do that at all of our elementary schools as well as our middle schools. It's this is data that we have been monitoring and reviewing every year for some time. Now for several years since I've been the director of operations in hopes that we would be able to do this. And so this program is based on direct certification numbers. And so we were finally point that it was also going to be cost-effective that we were able to do this. So super excited to be able to offer families this benefit and we are holed hope. We're hopeful that we can also add it to our high school in the future. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to our chief financial officer misses Becky Smith. Thank you. Good evening. Chief financial officer for Washington Township. I have the pleasure to work with a highly qualified financial team and that we manage and develop over 800 million dollars in funds that's broken up between 200 million for our regular main budgeted funds. 500 million that you've heard through the capital referendum for all of our projects that we're doing. And then 100 million dollars in grants and donations of that 100 Million. 33 million was from the Esser grants. So that is elementary and secondary school emergency relief funds due to covid. So we had those over the last 3 years. Those have completed in 2024. And now we are seeking other measures with additional grants through Marion County such as Lilly Endowment Fund and such that equals almost that exact amount of money. So we're continuing our efforts that we have done over the last couple years and will continue to do so additional grant dollars. Moving on. We've utilized strategic measures for investing. So over the last 2 years, we have been able to add 1 million dollars each year to our banking and investment revenue that we have brought in. So we're very proud of that. Utilizing our debt service fund. We also sell bonds for general obligation, bonds leases for regular maintenance, large maintenance is of these beautiful buildings that you just heard about and seen some pictures with that, we do things like paving graphene lighting all those types regular large items, far buildings to maintain them all while keeping our tax rates table for our community. We are also required to regular state audits every 2 years where are positive audit results by putting together on different measures and good practices and internal crow controls very robustly throughout our district. Last but not least we like to showcase Washington Township be in a fiscally solvent district by providing regular, transparent financial updates throughout the year at our board meetings and on board Web site. So you will see throughout all of Washington Township, everything that you've heard about this evening is it takes dollars, you know, and it makes sense strategic measures to make sure that we are utilizing those dollars for the betterment of our children and making sure that they can achieve everything that we are offering them. And next, I will turn that the time over to Dr Taylor to finish out. Good evening and thank you again. I'm Sean Taylor on associate superintendent for Washington Township schools and my job here this evening as I get to give you test of all the previous slides that we just went through. So whenever you're ready me now. That's a joke. You can relax. That's there's no test this evening. But we do appreciate the opportunity to share with you a little bit about Washington Township story. I also the privilege of meeting with several counselors about this time last year. And so any chance we get to share our story and partner with you. We certainly appreciate so. I do hope that be on this evening if they're program or a school or a classroom that you want to come, does it? We certainly love to show off what's happening in our schools and would certainly take you up on that opportunity as we continue our partnership moving forward. One of the areas that I oversee is school safety. School safety encompassing a couple says a lot of different areas. I'll just highlight a few on this slide that we've been working on. First of all, we have a anonymous tip reporting app called Help me. That is new this year. We emphasize to our community the importance of community safety starts with communication. And so if you see it or you hear about it, you need to report it. And so our community members, that staff students. And families have access to this reporting feature and this helps us get out in front. It helps our Washington Township Police Department school police department as well school administrators get out in front of any potential threatening situations that that could occur. And so it's already doing a good job of that notification peas and our community. Additionally, if we have students, staff are families who are also might be struggling with some mental health challenges. They too get outreach. It's a 24 7 monitoring tool. We also revised recently are staying a response protocols. So in any type of emergency situation, we know how critical the first 30 seconds, our and so we revised our standard response protocols so that we have a quick common language that is accessible in all of our classrooms and all of our buildings. And as part of our hr onboarding process, our new staff members all have this srp card on the back of each of their id cards that hope then reinforce that common language for our students. And then there's a link there. If you want to learn more about our school police department who work hard to keep our schools safe as well. They're at the bottom of that slide. And to conclude this evening for my piece on the next slide, we do have a strategic planning efforts happening right now. In the district. And currently we are operating on our strategic plan from 2020 to currently and we are sunsetting not planned at the conclusion of this school year and we are working to cast vision of the next 5 year strategic plan. And so we're really excited to be engaging in a robust effort with our community stakeholders. We've heard from over 5,000 students, staff and family members. To this point, we've had 10 focus groups just gathering feedback on what should the future of Washington Township schools look like? Doctor Woodson has her leadership and the team has set the bar really high. But we know we're not settled. We need to continue to improve. And so there are also additional opportunities for stakeholders to meet with me. We have talked with Taylor nights 3 nights listed there at each of our middle schools. And so if you're in those areas, don't hesitate to come on out and be part of that opportunity to cast the future vision and develop that. And we're looking forward to launching not in JULY. So again, thank you for this opportunity. I will say that we're very another celebration in Washington Township is the fact that we have arguably more school choice options in our district than any other school district and the state of Indiana and 82% of our students with legal settlement in our district, who's our schools. And we're proud of that. But again, we're not settled and we need to continue to grow in improving. So again, appreciate the time and turn it back over to doctor next. Thank Among the last slide is wonderful ways you can stay connected. Don't take our word for tonight through these resources you see on this page, you will have access in glimpses into classrooms and schools in action. So we really encourage you to stay engaged and share with your fellow colleagues. All of what we've shared tonight. I know I work with my superintendent colleagues in Marin County almost every single day. Today was especially busy for many reasons. But I can tell you that we are all thrilled about this opportunity to share more about our school districts with you. I know you've had a few of those presentations thus far and more coming up. But each one of us has spit particular point of pride in celebration, success because we're doing amazing things and public education in Marion County. Thank you so much. And thank you, Doctor Woodson no no one's doing is great. As you guys are watching. Doesn't give enough for yourselves. You guys are doing extremely well and I'm sure the students are in great hands with Dr Taylor as transitions and comes on board. So thank you tonight to you and your entire team for the presentation. I want to get my colleagues on the council and Dr Taylor. You mentioned that that test you don't know. We've got comment on colleague a councilor boots here who is ready for pretty much any test. He's be virtually taking notes here and he's he's going to test me But I want to give them the opportunity ask questions of since it, particularly since Washington Township is largely his district. Play with our equipment about collapse Appreciate everyone being here. As you know there Florida married to a Panther. Our council is representative by a Panther who just left our chief of staff. It is a proud Panther, as you see over there. So we believe Washington Township of my house. So I'm proud of it. Just a couple quick questions. The transportation cool. You guys earlies your vehicles. We We don't know No. The fleet is what the size of the fleet right now. 15, one, 15, number of vehicles. Buses, buses, one vehicle differently. It. Do you find doing the math? Phoning versus leasing is more economical in the long run. Replacement plan. Get Thank you. Yes, it has been. It has very strategic efficient for us on the onein side versus the leasing. How often do the buses turn over every 12 years or so? So best replacement plan is a 12 year plan that we during our budget process. And during our budget process, Wheless 5 of those years in bus replacement plan as required by law. But if you would replace a earlier than that, then you can have documentation to such says, you know, it could be a lemon or engine going something like that but normally it's a minimum of 12 years. Annual basis or biennial basis. How often what city turns over of your fleet. We replace between 10 and 12 buses a year. 12% wonderful. Thank You're welcome. I'm MR. CHAIRMAN couple look, just follow-ups. Please. Looking back at the ensuring equitable achievement walk in township schools that slide. If I MAY. Thank you so Affected Pettigrew. Just quick question. I thought I was good math, but I'm not looking at these numbers. I just want make right? I'm looking in the left column about the academic achievement data and it talks of the first. Thing on the left there. It's hard to read up there, but it says all students. Second second and first English, math and social studies and looking down below. We talk about students of color and then white students. All of those second and 3rd category is our first. How does 2 firsts equal a second in the top column? For the top row, if you will. You're asked to that one more time. I apologize. How does the you have with students of color finished first in those categories. What students finish first and how when you put them together and have all students I see is a talking about other ethnicity. What we're talking about, Allstate, all subgroups. The nl students are talking a citizen have an iep. So all student groups group's other racial groups. Yes, sure. Okay. And then finally just talk briefly because it's always an issue. It was an issue and my kids were in north-central the achievement We've we say 11th here. One, what is the pool is 11 out of 12 11 out of 100. So we're talking compared to large urban public schools. And so we gosh, anywhere from his 11 years, 11 cart this tricks that look like ours with the demographic she gave before over 10,000 kids over half free and reduced over half students of color. So there's 11 school district that meet those criteria out of the 11 that entire data sheet he's measuring against the 11. So we are first or second in all those categories up above. But because we have the top performing White Plains, too busy. Our students of color have the largest racial achievement gap. That's one of the areas that we're working is strategic plan school. Sure. So you're 11th out of 11 because you're a victim of your own success. Yes, to a certain degree. Yes, I would say yes, yes, yes. Okay. Guess another question. I would have it as an adult is impossible to audit your high school, artificial intelligence to I be in the chair of Commission for Indianapolis. We could probably learn a Washington townships to show. So I just a proud I am Washington Township in on this work the people I know for purposes of full disclosure, the person, one of the gentleman in the letter pages, he's got a video is my brother that does not as well determined this work best thank you, MISTER CHAIRMAN. So your question actually dovetails into my which is regarding j ever like. Can you talk bit about who's eligible to be student there? Are we talking about high school students at North Central? Are we talking about individuals that MAY be from out of the district or tell me a little about that's a great question. And maybe quantity of we've got 4,000 I think was mentioned presentation at North Central adjacent is or career center drc will give you some statistics because it is amazing who we So we actually it's Shaver Lake crew center courses are open to sending schools so if other schools school districts in the area want to partner whichever it like they reach out the memorandum of understanding to be able to send their students 2 courses that chamber light North Central is one of the sending sending schools. And so because we're right there on campus, it's very convenient for our students to just walk across the sidewalk. And so the majority of students at career center at this time, our north-central students we have, I think, around 800 students that are currently are enrolled in career and technical education classes. And we're also expanding our career and technical education programs at North Central. In addition to the offerings at Chance Light. But it is open to area last count. Knew they were 9 other school corporations who sent their kids to our career center because the offerings we offer adolescence and just clarification, that is for current high school students. So if you've left high school for some reason, part of graduation. And you you thought want to get veterinarian program or, you know, the pathway to medical training, cna of which I saw. Could you re-enter Jay? Are you need to enrolled in a high school in order to enroll him terribly. Thank you. We do, however, not mentioned in her presentation for adult education course work. So if a student left high school early before training that diploma. We offer opportunities for for them to finish at a different pace. We offer adult education opportunities. We offer English classes for those who need that computer skills. So we have whole and entire adult education area of our school district as well. That serves adults in our community. Thank you. Thank you, MR. Just a question. I don't if anybody can speak to Pulled up the everyday speech program and was mention and it it looks pretty cool. Is there anybody can talk about the pilot and how it's going? She's on her way are. This is why bring the team so when we work with early learning earliest learners, it's all about that immersion When students are 3, 4, 5, were attempting to bring into them all of that native language that comes it is a pilot program. It is going very, very well. Obviously we can't do all kinds of things. But the program is working. Well, families really are enjoying it. They're reaping the benefits of that. So as we're looking at some of our students who drop in services for speech or take groups, we're actually working with those students as well. So not only do we have students that are enrolled, but we have students that attend one of the day care centers might be one of our non pub schools that will actually come to us to have that very experience. So working on that speech, articulation with youngest learners. Awesome. Thank Very welcome for for that don't know. My wife is a a speech therapist and a Perry Township schools. So and that is why we always make good Para thank you. Well, doctor was in any points to share with our committee. No, just thank you for the opportunity. I will reiterate what Dr Taylor said. You are always welcome in any of our facilities to see our schools in action. That's that's the best. Thank you for sharing not only our committee but our entire city. Some of the great things that are happening Washington Township. So we're certainly please with today's presentation. Thank you all. Thank you. Next up, we have. Jillian Lane from. City connects. Good evening, CHAIRMAN Committee members. Shannon Cavasos and the director of the Office Education. Innovation Chairman. I'd ask. I understand that it's a busy month. Perhaps we could postpone the presentation until more of the committee can be present to hear. Take advice from counsel on our procedure to successfully. Move this particular presentation to and another day. If you don't have a quorum, you can't vote on it that you can just added to next month's agenda for your next agenda. Thank council peers. So we will ask we will add. That It made for FEBRUARY. South will FEBRUARY 4th work for see connects. We might need to circle back on a date that makes the most sense just given how this kind of Schedule ii worked with the week after week. But connect with Jillian and the Mayor University folks and follow up with you CHAIRMAN And we can maybe come to a appropriate for everyone schedule. That will be great. So yeah, we Postpone that portion of tonight's agenda to a future date that will be determined. Thank you. Appreciate it, sir. If there are no other orders of business, Tonight's meeting is adjourned.