--------- Alright. We are recording? Yes. Yeah. We're recording now. We're live, everyone. So so we're not. Alright. Yeah. How about you? I'm doing good. Quieter? He's definitely more. No. I, I ate before I, I got here. He's gonna tear it down at 06:30, so. Such a way under school. I'm gonna lay some boxes. Oh, as I said. I'm a get back to you today. Okay. Thank you. Well, it is 05:31, and we're going to go ahead and get started. Good evening to everyone. And, and to those who are live, listening online, welcome to our work session.
Policy review is our discussion for tonight as a board itself. Our our main goal in, reviewing our policies is is basically to, review them and and familiarize ourselves with them as a board so that we can, better in a more professional way operate professionally and confidentially as a board, for, to our community and
to our district. So that is, our reason for looking at our policies and reviewing them. And this is the first of several work sessions this year that we will that we will have on policy review. We may discover that there are some policies that, need to be amended or revised. We may discover that. And then we may discover that, continuously that some are just fine the way they are and the way they read and the way they were, presented. So that's our, reason for for doing our policy review.
The general power act, by the assembly, general assembly, has delegated the power and authority to the school board trustee and incorporation. So, simply put, we have been given the the authority by the general assembly that is to exercise the local education powers, that has been entrusted to us by the
legislation and legislators. So that's where the board gets its authority and its power from, and, we wanna certainly make sure we are doing that with excellence and, and doing that in a profound way. We we have our board council with us tonight. So if we stumble along the way, she can certainly help us, and help us back on track as we look at policy. So tonight, we ask you to bring your computers. We'll be looking at, bylaws.
I hope you have found your way to policies is where we are tonight, as we look at board govern board governance. And we did point us to the bylaws. And so, hopefully, we've already and if not, we have been familiarizing ourselves with the bylaws, but we'll take a deep dive into into them now. So, it is, number zero zero zero zero, which is bylaws. It's where we will, begin tonight.
And, some of these are self explanatory, so we'll we'll just walk right down them. For instance, policy number zero zero one hundred, which is definitions. That's what we began tonight on definitions and, definitions of just what they are. I saw them. But if anybody, have any questions on the on the definition of what they've been, certainly, you we can, pause and ask questions on that.
But, here we have, definitions, which is what does a board what is the definition of a board, definition of bylaws, certificate, Any questions on that? So we move on from definitions. We can and then next is the name. I think that's pretty self explanatory too on the name. The purpose, I think we can stop right there. Let's let's let's go over purpose.
That's number policy number 0112, which is, the purpose. And so the purpose tonight and if and if anyone else certainly wanna read, I call them and you certainly you can read once we get as as we continue to go down to these policies. But the school board exists for the purpose of a governing system for providing a free public education in grades three k through 12 on a resident, children, and children
of qualified employees who may be allowed to transfer into the school corporation as required by law attending the Metropolitan School District of Pike Township. So are there any questions, any comments you wanna talk about that? Is that self explanatory? Is that good enough for you? Anybody. K? And, and that's and that's by and that is. Now now you may need to help me out, doctor Bishop or or, Janine, but
I I sat with Neola for probably two years or so. Two to three year, doing policies. Missus Randolph and I was always on that team. Now Neola is the help us with Neola. Explain to us who Neola is. Yeah. It's an organization that that does kind of model policies and monitors legal changes and advises school boards on amendments they may need to make based on changes in the law. Often, we'll give the boards, an an option among, several different legally permissible policy options.
Some may be more stringent, some may be more permissive, and gives you kind of a say in how you wanna craft those policies. They're not mandated. They're just recommended and kind of, gives you, something that you know is legally sufficient, but also a starting off point if there are things that that you want to look at slightly differently. Yes. It's one of a couple Yes. It's one of a couple of organizations that run-in policy, but NEOLA stands for the Northeast Ohio Learning Association. They handle Indiana, Ohio.
They cover Florida as well. They cover several states. They have a team of lawyers that, work with, representatives to provide that feedback to us, and to make sure we're in compliance with the updated, laws and amendments that come through throughout the the sessions that come across, whether it's a short session or a full fledged session. We we generally know we're going to get, some adjustments. And sometimes, some of those adjustments are, they're not necessarily changes in the policy as
much as they are changing the wording of it or going from removing his or her and making it plural and those types of things. So sometimes they are just technical corrections. Changing code citations. Yeah. Correct. Yeah. And so that's who that's who Pike, has, certainly leaned into to help us do legislation that we need to be aware of and laws. And I think doctor McKessick I think I said I think I said name doctor
McKessick McKessick McKessick, he he used to tell us when we were, going through policies with him, especially if it's state, he would he would tell us that this is not debatable. This is not up for grabs. This is state or or or policies that that we could probably lean into and massage, he would let us know the difference between them. So and I don't know who y'all have now. So doctor McKay was great. He was a long time educator and then did, the neola representation for many, many
years. He retired almost two years ago, and now we have doctor Reed, very similar, former superintendent, also is working at the, college level, but she too has that lens. And very similar to doctor McCaig is very clear about what is and is not, a point to discuss. And she's been great with us and transitioned pretty seamlessly, when she took over for doctor McKay. So whoever's on that team, I think you'll enjoy. I think miss Kelly and miss Barnes have set over the years on that, but
but you will enjoy, that information, on that team. Okay. So we we move on to boundaries. Mister Anderson, you wanna take boundaries? Excuse me. Mister president, what team were you talking about? The the leg the what is that? The policy. The policy. The policy team. Do you know do you know who's on that team? You and I. Yeah. Thank you. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. So y'all y'all will enjoy it. Y'all will enjoy that. It's very informative. We're education. Okay. Okay. Mister Anderson, you wanna take boundaries? Boundaries. The Metropolitan School District of Pike Township is comp is comprised of the area in
the description on file in the administrator service center. And that's all I have on this side here. So that's pretty to me. Anybody else have anything on that to me? That's pretty self explanatory. Let's see. My computer has done something. Alright. Address. Now, miss Kelly, why don't you take address in the next one since address is just what it is address. Okay. Alright. Address. The official I am. Did you go blank? No.
I'm looking at my hour. I have some other things. You want to pass? For the moment, yes. I will come back to me. What about you, Doc Moore? You wanna take those two? The address, which is, PO 011, 151115. The official address for of the, street corporation shall be 66901 Zionsville Road, Indianapolis, Indiana 462, 68. The board authority, which is, o one two one, I'd like to say the superintendent
of the corporation shall be conducted, by the board of education here and after sometimes referred to as the board, which, is, constituted and is governed by the laws of the state of Indiana. Alright. So we we have any we have any feedback, any comments on that there, the suit the board authority? I got, you know, maybe, maybe a question, but when it talks about supervision, you
know, sometimes, you know, when board changes, that definition becomes subjective, depending on, you know, as I've said before, we see board members come and go. Definition of super supervision changes. So what does that exact what does that entail when it says supervision? Is that we're just watchers, or is there times where we see something, you're like, okay. You know, we have to make a recommendation or we have to get involved.
What does that what what does exactly that means? The supervision of this corporation shall be conducted by the board of education. Supervision. That's a supertunity system. Supervision. Education. Supervision. That's a supertuned system. We know who's talking about. Yeah. Okay. You got the supervision. Right? Supervision? Yes. So mister Anderson asked what and and mind you, none of us was here when these policies were created. So so so so we don't know what was intended. I think it's now it's incumbent upon us to find out as mister Anderson has
a question. What does that mean and how far does that go? Does that make sense, Janine? Mhmm. I think so. I mean, I think the key points I would say is that, you know, as we've always said, you guys are the legal authority, for the district. It's in your name that the district sues. It's in your name that the district is sued. And I think it was we hopefully go through some of these, like, board powers that might help kind of flush some of that out as we go as we go too. I think board powers certainly will will flush some of it out, which is the next one up.
Steve, if you wanna take that. Are we board powers Policy zero one two two two. The school board shall be a body corporate and as such capable of suing and being sued, contracting disposing of real and personal property, and taking and holding in trust for the use of benefit of the corporation, any grant or device of land, and
any donation or bequest of money or other personal property. The power of this board extends to those matters expressly granted by statute or those matters which may be necessarily implied from such powers specifically delegated as being necessary to carry them out. The Board of Education in exercising any power granted to it by the Indiana home rule statute, shall retain the power to act through written policies in situations in which
there is no action required by statute or by statutory prohibition to act. The school board shall have the management and control of all facilities and programs in the corporation and the employees, students, and other persons entering up on its premises. And then there are several Indiana codes referenced at the bottom, which I'm sure dictate a lot of what's in that policy. They do. Do. One of the things that I saw when reading this and interpreting this and my
interpretation is sideways that y'all helped me. But when they talked about the school board should, the school board shall have the management and control of all facilities, programs, and corporations, and the employees, the students, and other persons entering upon the premises. Now I thought that I thought that that that's broad, but I also think that
that's important. What you have tonight, is is a amended, policy, proposed. And so you will see some language there. And this is a proposed amending to one of our policy. Actually based on this policy already that's in place. For example, many of us have, have, credit in cred credit in our community. And and and things get to all of us, by way of one or another
depending on where we at in the community. And so I think it's ultra important that we, the board, knows who's coming into our district, who is who is mentoring, who is who is volunteering around our children. Because number one in our wheelhouse, other than policy, number two in our wheelhouse is safety. And if we, are not aware of who's coming into our district, they have not,
let's just say, we don't know, but we can't leave it to others such as principals or, others. We we can't leave it to them to make sure that people have been vetted properly. For example, if something happens and I had this conversation with doctor Young. If something happens in our district to our children, thank God for our superintendent and thank God for our principals and everybody else, but they're not responsible. Who who who will be, responsible is the school board.
And so I think it's ultra important that we understand that and and put in policies that insulate us as a district and protect us, especially where they need to be strengthened that. And you'll see some of that in this policy right here because, we can't afford just because maybe for lack of a better word, just because maybe little baby wanna come in and and mentor our children, but we don't know about little baby. We don't know who he is or she.
And, we could be letting anyone, in in in hauling our children. That's just one example. Anybody else on that line? Mister president Doctor Moore. The question is, I I always hear you often say that you've you've got great tenure on the school board. When you look at this particular policy, do you have a list of people who will be using the properties? Who are using the property? Yes. Do you know who's using the property this month or next month? Do you know according to this policy? No. I don't. No. I don't.
And and and that's why and I I'm I'm glad you brought that up. And that's why we are going over policies because because we need to know what is our reach and what is administration's reach. We need to know what has been already put here in writing so that we're not grabbing for straws. What is our governing? And so, yes, I'm I'm I'm glad you brought that up. One of the things, that that we have took note of is that, yes, there
are to answer doctor Moore's question. Yes. There are certain people using the building and using our properties. But but we have left that in in the hands of I think it's, building I think it's I think it would in this case, it would be a mister Gruber. But but these are things we should know. And we should be included, even even if not well, I just think we should be included. And what that looks like, I think we need to define that. So I do have a question on that. What what is the procedure today if somebody wants to I know I was at
the, food pantry one day and a bunch of people were gonna do it. It was pretty easy to tell this was not all pipe people. And it was, I think, Lebanon had was renting out the, performing arts center. What what is the process for somebody like them to read? Well, I I can tell you this, Steve. Let me let me go back to something that happened to to to me. And and I'll just use it as an example. That happened to my church years ago. We wanted to we wanted to use Jiran, because we was coming over into the district moving from the North Side, and our church was not ready yet.
But but we were coming to Pike. And we reached out to Pike to use. We emphatically got shut down, said Pike doesn't do that. It's a separate to the church and state. And I just said okay. But coming to the board, I've learned differently. So that's that's so so when you ask what is what is the procedure, I do know that you go through the at that time, it was the athletic director, which which I don't mind saying it was it was mister Perkins. Okay. At that time, it was mister Perkins. Mister Perkins emphatically said no.
It's separation of church and state. I think now it's it's mister Gruber. I think that the am am I right, doctor Bishop? Am I right? I was asking doctor Bishop. Sorry. I didn't Oh, okay. Well. So that So doctor Bishop, is it are we right? We you are correct. We have a, non athletic facility agreement form and an athletic facility Okay. Agreement form. Those forms are completed and returned to mister Gruber, who works closely with our building
principals to determine if there is even the possibility. He works with doctor Young to make a determination if we're able to move forward with the agreement. And along with those, there are rental guidelines and pro process processes when, that is granted. But there is a formal process that is submitted to mister Gruber who works closely with doctor Young and the building administration of the requested building to make a determination. If I may, doctor Webster, I will also say that, we also keep a calendar
of events so that we know who is in our building based on the facility usage, whether it's non athletic or athletic. I think it is just a matter of sharing that information with you because it already exists. That is something that we generally cover every Monday during our cabinet meeting. Mister Gruber places that information there for us to access, and we especially know in the evenings, for example, we we have a partnership with a local soccer organization who
is in many of our buildings in the evening. And so it is, it is there. The information is there. It's just a matter of making a determination of how you all want want that shared. Okay. We got a comment. Go ahead. So that's that's good information. I'm glad that we're, you know, we're, refreshing ourselves with the the policies because, you know, a lot of us, we first come on to the board and we go through this and then we get so caught up, with, you know, being a board
member that sometimes we forget to come back and we kind of refresh ourselves. So I see that here. I was not aware of that. But when you look at the the policy here, the school board should have the management and control. But how can we have management and control if we don't have that information? We don't know who's coming in. So that's something that it could be in the bible somewhere. I guess when we get further down, we may come across something that I don't know. So I won't speak out of turn. But that's something that I think that we should put on our list, to to take a look at. And, also, the motivator behind that is that first sentence.
The school board shall be the body corporate corporate and as such capable of suing and being sued. Yep. So when it talks about all programs, all facilities of the corporation and employees and students, that right there is like a reminder to me. I don't know why everyone up, but it's a reminder to me that, yeah, that we have to know these policies so that we can act, within our jurisdiction to prevent being sued or we have to sue someone. Mister vice president. I think it's, thank you, doctor Bishop, for that information.
I think it's important that we understand that the board needs to have access to monthly activities. Whether we attend them or not, if we are liable as a corporation, we ought not to have to hear out of the community that this group is meeting here. We ought to be able to look at our schedule and say, this particular organization is at Pierron, this month. Or this particular organization is at, New Augusta.
I I think that's only fair, because, people don't like to hear this in many cases. You work for us. We don't work for you. Yeah. And, that's what this says right here, whether people realize that or not. And it's important for us to understand how these facilities are used. Understood. I have jotted this down, and I'm sure we will have a discussion upon doctor Young's return. Absolutely. If I may, doctor Yeah. Go ahead. Sir.
So I'm in year three, four of policies. And one of the conversations that we have had in the policy committee is often been, and even with cabinet, is the magnitude of policies. And when you're talking zeros and bylaws all the way to the nine thousands, you're talking about almost 800 pieces of documents. And it is at times a daunting task to know what each one of them is and how it specifically relates to you and what specifically it may be asking
of not only the board, but administration or staff or students. We have long toyed with trying to find a better way to make this information more accessible to you all. Because as much as I appreciate Noah and I understand the system, it's not always user friendly. When you go into and try to type a single word to get a specific policy. Last year, we reached out to Nela to determine if, there was another way to
potentially provide you all with maybe even hard copies. And their response was, well, you can print them yourselves. Great. We can. But that was a new point from trying to make it more user friendly to you all. So we began the process of trying to at least go through and comb, all of the policies to determine responsibilities, and we began that process. Then we were gifted, the last group, with 65 new poll updated policies and an
additional 13 revisions, and that that has pushed the work back. However, now I'm at a place where doctor Reed has been very, very helpful. And what she has done for us is, created a PDF version of all 700 pages, where you can type in a single word and keep you out of completely
the Neola system. Wow. So it becomes more manageable. On top of that, today, I was able to at least finalize a draft that lists all of the policies that will give us an accountability system in regards to checking that things are met. If it says we're to do a report yearly, that report is given. If it requires the board to do some things, it comes a check system. I am in the rough stages of that document. I want to share the folder with you today so that you know the direction
that we would like to go to manage this very massive document that may that we all rely on when we're making decisions. So I'm excited about the fact that we've somewhat gotten over the hump of trying to wrap our arms around such a large document and how, hopefully, it will be easier for you to find things sooner, quicker, and have an accountability piece for all
of us in somewhat of a dashboard to, make sure that we're on top of all of the things that we're supposed to be on top of. Doctor Bishop Sir. My secretary is working on I have a notebook of, of policies that are the core of in the nutshell of it. And so, it's in my my vehicle. I didn't bring it in. I didn't bring it. So if I have a policy issue, I have a notebook with, I started in,
so I can carry it anywhere I wanna go and every policy that I I I I'm I'm I'm working on a specific area of policy right now. And so, every policy that I have so far, it's been transformed in a notebook Mhmm. In a hard copy notebook. And it's just easy to go to, And and it's been helpful for me. And, I've heard a lot of things, since I've been putting that together. A lot of policies have been, you know, tampered with in some way and not
the right way. Because when you do it that way for your understanding and to see how the policy works because it's a living document. It is? It is a living document. And so, that's how I work with it. It's similar to what you're basically saying. I create my own, policy going forward. I I wanna go back to doctor Moore and and mister Anderson on this on this here. One one of the things that that we talked about in our retreat was, communication.
And I think that is, I think that is one of the board goals this year and, also administration goal towards communication. Again, it it it's a matter of of we, the board, the governing body, seeing what our role is and and then see into it that that we that we're getting the communication and we are communicating both two ways three.
What our wishes are and what the wishes of the administration is. And and so it could be, at, I I like doctor Moore's point to the it's a it's a matter of informing and how however we choose as a board to receive the information, it's a matter of being informed about who's using our facilities, a, b, c, d, e, f, g. And so we can we can fix that as a board. Now let's go back to mister Anderson. And and I'll just use me. You know, for the first four, five, six years we've been on the board, I,
me personally, I have looked at policy when I get a chance. I haven't looked at it. You said something, but, but there are those that I do look at that I know, wait a minute, here's an issue. And so I go look at it like human dignity. But since I've been drilling down now specifically on policy and what and what and what the role of the board, administration, and all that, some of the things that I see we have run into is already here. And all we gotta do is lift it out, abide by it, and see to
it then. So that Yes. Go back to vice president Anderson. One thing that he mentioned that because of elections in and out. Mhmm. We have never created, in my thinking, an onboarding type of situation for new members. And and on that, on onboarding type of situation, there needs to be a a simple way to get to bylaws. That ought to be one thing that, people need to to address coming in because
being in the organization that I'm in, bylaws really don't come into play unless and and hear me well. Bylaws are just not important unless somebody is violating. Right. Nobody really addresses bylaws in most organizations unless you have to. And that goes back to leadership. Yep. The leadership knows how to work with people. Bylaws will never come into play because there's a a great sense of respect and and and and, work ethic with people to where bylaws will never have to come
into play. But they are the safeguard as miss Barnes. They are the safeguard. They are the safeguard. And, and I think it's important. But going back to vice president Anderson, I think it's important that we create a a a an onboard, booklet for, new board members. I'm not gonna be here forever. And some would like for us to leave today if we have to wait for the next election for it to take place. But in many cases, new board member members need to have an on onboard type
of situation when they come come on this on this particular board. Because I had to learn cold turkey, and I probably didn't learn the right way for some people. There's a certain I've learned that there's a certain way people want you to to to learn on this board, and I ain't built like that. And, so, that's why you need to create me. That an onboarding, concept needs to be and those bylaw and these excuse me, not bylaw, the policies, need to be somewhat, in in introduced.
And hopefully, what you're doing now, can be fitted into that hand into that onboarding type of handbook that I think is necessary. I nobody else probably knows it, but I Well, doctor Moore, as you drill down and and we'll probably get down to it depending on time. So my own boy, miss Anderson's own boy, we had doctor Floyd. I wondered why. And my my my my thought was why is the superintendent bringing on school board
members and onboarding them? That that was my thought. And and and I've been thinking that for and and and I've and I've I've listened to all of us, including the miss miss Lomax, time on the board. And I've listened to all of us talk about the onboarding, which is true, the handbook. But when you drill down into these policies, you're gonna find out policy wise, the superintendent well, it's under orientation. So you will know. So go, go to orientation. You'll see it. And I'm not gonna get there, not today.
But, but, but in orientation, which is onboarding, it's the superintendent. It's the, budget, the chief, the chief, the CFO. It is the board president. It is, it was a few more. All of them attend and have a part in orientation and they, and is already in the policy and they, and they talk about the board, policy bylaws, what to
expect. If y'all go to orientation, you will find that. Now what do we do with that? If we like that, we can take that, enhance it. As you just said, Doctor. Moore, put it in a handbook. Here it is. Or, or we change it. But so, you know, it's already there. I, I, I found it last week and I said, wow. Because I was thinking, why do the now I don't know if Doctor. Young has, has, participated in orientation, but I know doctor Floyd did. And so, it's there because it's part of the policy.
So we just need to lift it and then decide if we if we wanna make this something different or anything on that, Janine? No. I would just say that these bylaws are hard to read in a vacuum because if we get to the proposed amended policy, that goes down to the operations that doctor was talking about. So they aim to go all the way into the 9,000 section to look at how we deal with various groups that wanna use the facilities, which could be people who just wanna use it on an ad hoc basis. It could be something like the Boy Scouts who are gonna meet once a week
at such and such place, and we kinda deal with those each a bit differently. And I think what doctor Webster's goal is is to try to funnel a little bit more, at least the ones that are going to have connection with our students, more directly through the board so that you do have a lot more transparency on those pieces. Attorney Carriage, what I and I agree with what you're saying. But when you talked about the the nine thousands Yeah. Getting into the nine thousands, I think that there needs to be some areas that
you don't have to give all bylaws. But there need to be some areas that people need to know, about. It it might not even be 10 bylaws. Yeah. If if you need to have five serious bylaws that will serve as a movement towards venturing into whatever bylaw you need to. The most serious bylaws coming in as a board member. Mhmm. It doesn't have to be all night. Okay. Yeah. Do you see what I'm does that make sense? Yeah. It does. And I think another thing that might be helpful is when the board does have
questions, if we can then pull that specific policy for the full board. Because often, if I if I have a question from an officer, typically the president, of course, then we'll talk and share that policy. But whether that's disseminated to the whole board, maybe that would be helpful, just for some additional context. But you, you know, we're here to work for you, so you tell us how you want us to address that stuff. So that would be one that we as a board, doctor Moore and others, we we would say, hey. This is what we want, and and this is how we wanna see it.
And that's what we kinda do with this one. Yeah. Absolutely. Get to the point of going through it. Absolutely. So, any any other comments on this, board powers here? I think that's where we at. Right? Board powers? Let's go to board philosophy. Who's the next? Miss miss Barnes? Actually, I do wanna go back to Go ahead. Go ahead. Go back. Just one thing first, I guess, to keep in mind. It in the third paragraph, it does say that we retain the powers to act through written policies in situations where no action is required. So a lot of our action is taken by setting the policy that then the
administration works with. Right? So if if we would not do this, I was going by if we wanted to say we're gonna have a policy nobody can use the school buildings, we just put that in a policy and and then that's done. Obviously, we're that is not what I'm suggesting we would do. But so you if if we had policy guidelines that then they are executing on, I still think it's a good idea to see what's going on in the schools. Honestly, I would like it just so I know when the school are having plays. I can go to them. You know, it's a little easier place to see it.
But so just just keeping that in mind. And as we're affecting things, we affect things a lot through these policies, which is probably why we have over 9,000 policies also because of that. Okay. Any anybody else know that? So what so what's your ask, mister? No. I was just saying, like, so when we're saying, like, you know, we, if there are things I wasn't sure really where we're going with some of, I guess, the original ask even, like, what what people are having. If we're just wanting to be informed on what people are using the buildings, I
think that's a 100% appropriate. If we wanted to approve everybody that's using the buildings, you know, that's a different thing, and I think then that becomes a policy issue. Okay. It's more where I would put it. Okay. Alright. Miss Barnes, if you would do, philosophy or the board. A school board is a legal entity for providing a system of public education within a geographic area of the state of Indiana. The system was created by and is governed by state statutes. The school board has the dual responsibility of implementation implementing legal requirements pertaining to public
education and for meeting the desires of the citizens. While the board has an obligation to determine and assess citizen's desires, it is understood that when individuals are elected or appointed to represent citizens in the conduct of specified educational programs, they, at the same time, are endowed with the authority to exercise their
best judgment in determining policies, making decisions, and approving procedures for carrying out the responsibility. The board declares and thereby reaffirms its intent to, a, maintain two way communications with citizens of the corporation. The board shall keep them informed of the progress and problems of the school corporation, and the citizens shall be urged to bring their aspirations and concerns about the corporation
and its schools to the attention of this body, B, establish policies and make decisions on the basis of declared educational philosophy and goals. C, act as a truly representative body for citizens in all matters related to programs and operations. The board recognizes that ultimate responsibility for public education rests with the state.
But the board of education has been assigned specific authority through statute, and the board shall not relinquish or fail to exercise that authority. Y'all, that is a lot. That's a lot. Anybody wanna dive in? I do. Go ahead, doc. I know you did. I almost called your name. Thank you for compliment. I think sometimes we lose Yeah. That we work for the citizenry. We lose that. Yeah. Some of us do we don't I don't think we realize that.
We we work for the citizenry of this district. And, if I could use the word work, or we serve. Let me use the word serve. And, we we must not be afraid to exercise the living document, the policy. And the community has, a right to know, what's going on inside of this district. And, not just certain organizations know, but all elements of the community must know.
And And I think it was important that that that it's it's under we understand that that we are elected by the citizenry, and we must make decisions and policies from right, miss Phillips, that will, govern our district and make sure that the citizenry understands the movement of the board as it relates to what's going on. Am I, miss miss policy? Am I had an order on that? No. You're not.
No. You're you're weighing on it. You're weighing on it. And then I think what's so ironic about it, in this particular situation, we cannot be afraid to be an authentic board member. We cannot be afraid to do that because we have a lot of responsibility in making sure policy is living and moving, in the district. And, sometimes we can get sidetracked if we get what we have board members. And, we let things get away from us when we should be moving in a
way in a direction that, the community can see that this board is working for the community for the betterment of education of our children. So I think and then and then will anybody else who wanna weigh in, but this this is my my weigh in at this point. And so I think it's important again, that we that we remember that. And and and I can I can emphatically say I'm not and I will not? Let me say it again. I I I have not and I will not lose sight that we have dual,
commitment here. And I've prob that's probably why I can be at the grocery store or I can be at church or I can be, I can be at the Healthplex, anywhere. And the community is gonna remind me of something, that either not going well or going well or they have a complaint. And I cannot be I cannot be and I said this when I first came on at orientation. This was this was me. I said this then. I cannot be dismissive of the community if they have concerns that and I'm a
board member because, you know, we were, we were, we were hit with, with the hush and the open door and which it is. And you gotta know the open door law. And we were hit with all of that and we were hit with how much we can say, how much we can't say. We were hit with all of that in orientation. And I get that. We should be. But, but I cannot be dismissive of the community who put me in a position. And if they see that there's some injustice going on in our corporation and and it's and and and and it's spoken to me, I'm gonna have to know how
to digest that. And and and and and I'm a have to know how to handle that. And and and when and when we see this, because we'll get to this area, we'll we'll we'll remember that that I'm not just the whole board. So and and he talks about that down there. It's seven of us. But we have to know how to be inclusive of all seven of us. I just can't promise a a a a community member something, and and I'm gonna go take care of it. I can't do that. I have to know how to listen objectively and then get it back to the
board to say, y'all, this is what I'm here. And so, so that's, that's, we gotta know how to balance that. And that, and that's, and that's major. I think we learned that Some of us learned that quite quite tough, when we went through the the the, this is a prime example. When we went through the, the the teacher negotiations, the community let us know. Hey. What are y'all doing? And they and they they sounded off pretty good. The beauty is that we understood board.
We understood board policy. We understood what we could say, what we couldn't say legally. So I think here we are again, and we got elected again. So so these are things that are crucial to me, but but we gotta know how to adjust those. Anybody else wanna weigh in? So yeah. So I think, you know, we talked about how one policy affects another. Right? So this one, very clear on our communications and the community have where that is. Very clear. They grew there. I think everybody said communication. We we had to go communicate with them, then communicate with us. They elected us. They put us on here.
There's another policy. It's good bit further down, one forty three, that maybe I don't know if we'll get there tonight or not. Go ahead. Put put put that in. Significant communications from students, parents, other citizens, staff members, and other individuals and organizations to individual board of education members or to the board as a whole are to be conveyed to the office of the superintendent of schools for dissemination to the entire board. I that gets touchy to me. Okay.
Well, one, what's a significant communication? Right. That that's a little Read that again, mister Guiffrin. Significant communication from student Parents, other citizens, that's a key one in here, staff members and other individuals and organizations to individual board of education members or to the board as a whole are to be conveyed to the office of the superintendent of schools for dissemination to the entire board. And I just I feel like policies like that there's probably one or two other out here that that I think follow the same thing.
If they give an indication of us not hearing directly from the community, but hearing things through a filter and I wanna be fair so, like, nobody can come out in this administration. This was adopted in 2011. 2011. Adopted before it. Any of us were on the board. But it did have Neola at the bottom of it. It does have Neola at the bottom of it 2010. So that's why I don't know I don't know where this comes from, if it came from a previous administration, if it administration, if it is something that is a legal requirement, in which case we just need to figure out how to how this
works. But it it was one that I thought directly kind of contradicted there or at least Okay. Work's intention with with this particular policy that we just read. Let me ask you a question. Say it another way. What you just read. Say it another way. Do you understand what you mean? Well, I understand what you mean. I don't wanna say it another way though because I don't know I mean, that's me interpreting a legal document. What I hear it saying is that communication to the board is supposed to follow through the superintendent. It would be an extreme way to hear that, but people could take it to
that extreme. It does say it says significant, but significant isn't defined. So, it worries me that that we would have a policy at all indicating that the community can't come to us directly. You said it. Mister Anderson. Mister Anderson. So we've run across this, especially with during the last, administration board members who were getting, different information. And no but when it says significant, it's still subjective. You know? Mhmm. It it it's gonna depend on what you view as significant, but I may not
view as significant. So if I catch word from the community that, I don't wanna use, some I'm gonna do some of those. Like, we're gonna have a protest. You know? To me, that's significant. Depending on what the protest is about, that that's significant. Yeah. You know? I'm gonna report that to the the superintendent. Hey. I caught word from the community that something's gonna happen with the protest. That's it. Now if it's something that say if it's something that maybe involves someone in the administration, that you can only share with the board members, then we may only have
to go to Janine about until we can figure out okay. It it could be illegal matter. You know? Where does it where does that to your point, where does that define? Mhmm. You know? And so I've never you know, that's a good question. I've never seen where it's actually you categorize what's significant, what is not significant. So I think as we reacquaint ourselves with these policies, it brings us all up to speed, in unity. So in that way, we kinda all all on the same because that actually reflects leadership. So our interpretation, if we can all get on variable pretty much the same page,
our attention of these policies, you know, moving forward. But that's I would say, doctor Bishop, do you know or will we need to get guidance? Is this the wording have to be exact? No. It's like the example that, miscarriage and I worked on and miscarriage put the wording in. You have the leeway to add, remove anything that's not legal statute. Right. There you go. Right? And so, this, 9500 that doctor Webster is going to be speaking to you about
is a perfect example of the board having the ability to, revise a policy based on information you feel is needed. So this policy, Nola shared with us in 2010, is another opportunity to clarify or expound upon, mister Anderson's thought process in defining or, speaking about what significant is. Miss Carriage, anything you wanna add to that? I would just say that that no, mister Hooper, this is not a legal requirement
or language from a statute. Typically, you can tell if it has a code citation at the bottom. A lot of these are kind of, like I don't wanna say they're aspirational, but but they're more like the these are the the ideals that the board is setting down, and then we're gonna get into the nitty gritty of them, further down. But but, yeah, I agree with doctor Bishop that if there's language you guys wanna explore differently and sometimes what I'll do is I can pull for you what other districts have, And it's sometimes a lot of them also use NEOLA, but they may
have tweaked things differently as well. So you can kind of do a comparison, which I think can be helpful. That helps. Because I knew the ones clearly, and they say, I see whatever color I can from what I read, it's actually code. A really badly written policy, and I'm like, oh, well, well, it's by the state code. There you go. That's why I But the NEOLA, I wasn't sure how required those were. So okay. And and and that's your code. That's your code. Right. The states are your code. Yes. Yeah. Put the numbers down down. Yeah. And so so so this is where I would ask a doctor McKay on something like this.
I now you just state what we do with this? He would usually say, it's up to the discretion of the board, but I highly recommend. Now let's go back. Maybe we don't like the language. That's that's why we're here, and that's why that's why we are bored. So that we don't like the language. We we get together with the board and decide and the superintendent and decide what we're doing. Right. Well, in in as much as what I don't like the language within two, I also don't like having two policies that seem to contradict each other. Yeah. In some way.
And that is problematic because then you well, which one do you go to? You have two of them contradict each other. So Well, I expect that this one here, I I didn't know that. It's not illegal. Mhmm. Right. Of course. So that kinda gives us a little leeway. Yeah. But then, you know, depending on who you have on the board or on the administration, I mean, some people can use this gray area as well. Right. You know? So that's that's I like that shit when you have those two Yeah. Situations that somebody will use it for their benefit.
Yeah. Yeah. And then Now what I would hope y'all is as we go through the policies because this won't be our first we we we're going to take a deep dive on these because because we may be we may have to be the group. Some of them are wrote thirteen, fourteen years ago. We may have to be the group that that make the amendments or make the changes. But what I would hope because there again, all of us are seven board members plus a superintendent that's absent. We all can be gone at at some point including the superintendent.
But I would hope that our intentions for making or amending or and I would hope that it was good intentions here, mister she have two. That the intentions were Yeah. Not to weaponize any policy, but but for the good of a district. And so I would hope that that's our that's our intent as we drill down and look at them. Absolutely. Doctor Webster, if I may, just as a, so that everyone is aware, as a
board, just as doctor Webster reached out to miscarriage regarding wanting some adjustments, the policy committee has met, and there have been policies that have been brought to us that we've worked through and said, you know, not what we have a process. We don't need to add it. Okay. And so you have the ability to, do that if in fact there isn't something that's legally required. Right? So when you're going through your review, if in fact you decide, I don't believe
this policy is pertinent because this dates all the way back to 2001 Right. As an example. Right? You also have the ability, as long as it doesn't, remove required legal obligations, to remove it off of the table. Right. That really is a process where we would work with NALA and miscarriage, of course, to make sure we're legally aligned. But just as easily as we can add, we can remove. Thank you, doctor Bishop. And if I saw it right, I think one of the policies I was looking at last night preparing for this and I wasn't aware of this going into some
people talking about how going through this is good. To approve or amend the policy, it's not just majority vote. It was five out of seven have to have the vote now. So that's something for us to keep in mind also that Alright. Yeah. We're trying to get on through. We got we but but but I knew this will be a be a big one. Any anybody else? We don't wanna deprive anyone or not. I have a question. Yeah. Go ahead, miss miss Boggs. And maybe this is a doctor Bishop question or maybe it's, miscarriage. So in regards to the policy that mister Hofer brought about, what, we've heard the
the the con side of that policy. Could you perhaps speak to the pro side of the policy? I would think that the original intent of the policy would be so that the board and the superintendent were all aware of major issues that could affect the district. So you don't have a certain board member who's getting this information and not sharing it or a faction of board members who are working together, but they're not, you know, bringing in the full board or the superintendent. So I think it is highest and best that that would be the intent behind
it when it was adopted. I mean, I can only surmise. Go back to communication. Yeah. And and I think having a policy that says that any something to the effect of any board member or superintendent who hears a significant complaint will bring it to the board. I mean, I I agree. The last thing you want is not, well, one, none of us can do anything by ourselves anyway. So we you have to bring things to the board. It's a body that just makes sense to do. Yeah. Okay. Got it, miss Barnes? Okay. Alright. Well, let's move on to bylaws policy, and that would be miss Wilson one thirty
one one. K. Bylaws and policies. The board shall adopt bylaws and policies for the organization and operation of this board and the corporation. The bylaws and policies may be adopted, amended, and repealed at any meeting of the board, provided the proposed adoption amendment or repeal shall have been proposed at a previous board meeting, and once proposed shall have remained on the agenda of each succeeding board
meeting until approved or rejected. I have my mouse so I gotta play with this thing. Any resolution? It keeps getting on us. I'm sorry, guys. Any resolution under the emergency conditions shall expire automatically at the first public meeting of the board following the abatement of the emergency unless the board moves to adopt a resolution as a bylaw or a policy. Bylaw shall be adopted, amended, repealed, or suspended by two thirds vote of the full board.
Present is a manner, authorized by law. Policies shall be adopted, amended, or repealed by a fifth and five is, five sevens vote, of five to seven. Of the vote, full board present in a manner authorized by law. Two thirds of the five member board is four members. The adoption, modification, repeal, or suspension of the board by law or policy shall be
recorded in the minutes of the board. All by laws and policies shall be published in the board policy manual. Any policy or part of a policy that is succeeded by a term in a negotiated agreement shall no longer be enforced and in fact as a policy. Further, any policy or part of a policy that is inconsistent with the law or with a decision rendered by the court of competent tradition, jurisdiction shall be shall no
longer be enforced and effect as a policy. The board may adopt, amend, or repeal administrative rules of order for its own operations by simply resolutions of the board passed by majority of those present and voting. You know, in 2022. So I wanna add I I wanna go back up to just to that to that, last one, and this is the last further further any policy or part of policy inconsistent with the law.
So this is why we always always, consult with Neola so that they can keep us, abreast. Seven board members, we're not abreast. So that's the reason why we consult with Neola so that they can keep us abreast to make sure that we are that our policies are in line with, with with with state. So that that I wanted to point that out. Anybody else on anything else on this? If nothing else on this, then we'll roll on to, the superintendent selection.
That would be that would be me. Policy zero one three two point one, superintendent selection. School board shall exercise executive power in part by the appointment of a superintendent who shall enforce the statutes of the state of Indiana, administrative guidelines of the state of of the state school board and the policies of this board. Any comment on that?
K. No comment, then we will move mister Anderson to administrative authority. The superintendent shall consult with the board with regard to the development and or revision of policies. The superintendent shall be shall prepare guidelines for the administration of the corporation which are not inconsistent with statutes, regulations of the state board, and or the policies of this board. See policy twelve thirty dot o one. The superintendent shall be delegated the authority to take necessary action in circumstances not provided
for in board policies, provided that such action shall be reported to the board at the next meeting following such action. So any comments on that? One thing I'd like to read that bottom one that bottom line again. The superintendent shall be delegated the authority to take necessary action in circumstances not provided for in board policy, provided that such action shall be reported to the board at the next meeting following such action.
So, depending on what the circumstance is, and it's say doctor, you have to do something that's not in board policy. I don't know, depending on what it is, if the next board meeting is a safe place to report to the board. Right. Because it could be something that's confidential, but, you know, policy states. Yeah. You know, and that's Indiana code there. That is Indiana code?
Yeah. It's Indiana code there. That's legal. Well, this refers to the general authorities. This code provision refers to the general authorities of the board. I have a hard time imagining something that is not provided for in board policy. I mean, any employment action certainly is covered in board policy. Student discipline actions are covered in board policy. I I don't doctor Amin, I'm trying to even, like, come up with an example. I mean, to me, this would be an unusual circumstance where maybe the board then has to ratify, an action that the superintendent took.
Maybe some I don't know. I mean, even emergency operations are covered in policy. So I'm I'm struggling even come up with an example. Example. It doesn't state how it's reported to the board. So say if we just, by chance, we come across a situation like that and we all get a note. Does that I I mean, it doesn't state how we should. So I'm assuming that even if we got a note, if it's something that we don't wanna in the middle of a board meeting, hey, by the way, board, such and such. I don't know. I think we'd like to get that to you know? So Yeah.
I mean, I think when we have doctor Young here to talk about the superintendent I mean, I I would again, I can't think of a single example that would not be covered by one of our policies. Like, if we terminate an employee, you're gonna find out on the HR report. If we, I I I'm just trying to think of anything Exactly. It would yeah. And I just can't. So was can we put a pin in that? Because Yeah. Yeah. I think it's an important thing to kind of drill down into, but I'm just coming up kind of a good point, honestly. Well, it's all I was gonna say was I assume, I mean, you know, doctor
Young's gonna use the wisdom if it's something that came up we came back and wanted to be outside board policy, but it should not it falls under what would be an executive committee thing, then he he would call it executive session and give it to us then. We we could we could put a pin in it, and then and then when he because he will be in on these positive deals, he can perhaps give us some some insight. He seems like almost a catchall. I but yeah. I mean, I'd like to hear his opinion on it too because I'm just not really who hired?
Well, we have a policy for hiring. Yep. We have a policy for hiring. We have, even a policy for wellness. For example, you know, COVID taught us a lot, in regards to how we there's a policy for that. There's a policy for purchasing that would cover something that we lost overnight. Yeah. An emergency purchase. Correct. And so there are many elements within the bigger categories, that we have from a a NEOLA standpoint that that, honestly, I'm with miscarriage. It it covers just it covers quite a bit.
So we're hard we're hard, and stressed to find something that's not out of policy that you'll have to. Objectively, not to say that it wouldn't exist because you'd I never say never. But, it it's there is quite a bit covered in policy. Okay. So we will we will we'll pin that one because I think this next one is very interesting on the judicial. We do have about fifteen minutes before the Okay. Yeah. I see that. But I wanna This is That that we'll we'll make this one our last one. It's because we wanna give y'all a short break before we get to it. But let's go to this one, though.
This just just judicial because I think we have had, some examples of this. Who's next? Miss Kelly. Policy 0133 judicial. The board may assume jurisdiction over any dispute or controversy arising within the corporation and concerning any matter in which authority has been invested in the board by statute, rule, a contract, or a policy of this board. In furtherance of this it's in furtherance of its judiciary function, the board may hold
hearings, which shall offer the parties to offer the parties to a dispute on hold on. The board may hold hearings, which shall offer the parties to a dispute on notice duly given a fair and impartial forum for the resolution of the matter. Anybody, I I I wanna weigh in, but I'll wait and see because this this will be our last one, but I'll wait and see if anybody else wanna weigh in for I think this one is important here because, again, one of the things
that we were told in, in our onboarding is that, we have to be careful how we receive information and take information because not only are we the the governing body, but we are, for lack of a better word, the supreme court too and the district. So, when, when when we are receiving info information, we have to be careful because because once we receive too much, then we we would have to recuse ourselves in
matters, that are very important. And so I thought that this would I thought that I would remind us of that. And that's why I'm always, careful about what I what I take in from the community. Because I also realized that, you know, we if we have to give a hearing, the court of appeal, that's us. So anybody else on this? I see, it also gives, well, how I interpret it, it gives a lane Lane lane. For the superintendent to operate. Because it said the school board may assume jurisdiction over any dispute of contra controversy
arising within corporations. So if we deem, board action necessary, then we can assume that that jurisdiction. Mhmm. If not, you know, we don't deem that as necessary, and we feel that whatever superintendent sitting in that seat is handling whatever the controversy or the dispute is. Finally, then, you know, it gives us an option. And I think that's just something that, you know, we reacquaint ourselves, you know, that, you know, do we wanna get into the the weeds or the lane all the time? No. Don't want to. But if we have to, we may assume that jurisdiction.
Well, unfortunately unfortunately unfortunately, as you all know, those I I think it was just you and I probably that was left. We had to we had to exercise this. I don't know if miss Barnes and mister Hock was on the board or not. But but but we had to exercise this. And so, unfortunate oh, miss Kelly. I think she was. We had to exercise this. And so and and the I I go back to doctor Moore's statement earlier. The boy ain't no white place to trade. This we have we have a great responsibility. And our great respond and and we we we can't play game.
We can't play favoritism. We have a great responsibility. As we talked about, do we have to drink coffee? No? No? No? Yes. But we do have to be mindful of our judiciary responsibility and it and they're grave. And unfortunately, sometimes, you know, it may it may be it may rule against. And even our behavior, we'll we'll get down to that and and the policies. We we have policies governing our own behavior as a boy. And so, you know, it's it's always daunting and and and awakening, to, to see
your responsibility. Miss Cherry is gonna take us down, our that policy that we had some amendment to and, for your for your reading tonight. Thank you all so much. So this is I won't keep you guys too long because I know you need a break before the board meeting, and I'll let you read this on your own. But this is a draft, and it's for discussion purposes only. It's not being we're we haven't gotten to the point where we're introducing it. But this would be a, revision to policy 9500. So, again, getting down into the operations part.
And this was brought to, us and doctor Bishop and I worked on it together because doctor Webster was concerned that we're bringing in groups that work directly with our students, but they're not presenting to the board, and they're not getting approved by the board, and sometimes you might not know. So these would be groups that are much more enmeshed with students, not somebody who just wants to come in and rent the, you know, library for, you know, a one off function or something. So what this what the proposed, change in the red line would be is that,
any such group would have to come to the board and do a presentation. The board would have to approve that group coming in, and it would be subject to an annual approval. Basically, you'd be guided by the best interest of the district and its students, and then it clarifies that any, individual working for one of these organizations is subject to our, same criminal background check. I I think that's covered in other policies. Anyway, we just wanted to kind of belt and suspenders that within this policy. So that's not not to say people are coming in without that check.
We just wanted to be, you know, extra cautious with that language. So I'm happy to, discuss this further. If you guys wanna read it on your own and you have questions or you wanna talk about it next time. Can I ask one question before you dive into it? Do we by putting I understand the reason behind this. I think it's probably similar to the reason why we vote to approve donations. Right? There might be something that, for some reason, we wouldn't want. Do we run into any legal risks of first amendment rights or anything if we
were to approve organization a, but not approve organization b, would we be opening opening ourselves up to? So, I mean, somebody's approving them proofs. Right? It may not just not be the board. So and if somebody approves this group and somebody else wants to sue because they think this has happened before and they think they should be allowed in here, it's gonna be you that's sued anyway, so it may as well We might as well have the policy. No. We might as well have the policy. And and and and and my and and my reasoning, Steve, forget it.
Let's let's go back again. All of us or or in the community, and and, and here we go again with your responsibility. Community look at us and say, hey, y'all have so and so over there and they are a, b, c, d, e, f, g. In other words, they are book they are werewolf. Yeah. Well, we may not know that. Right. And all of a sudden they're in our buildings, but they're handling our children. And it's a safety issue. Yeah. And, so, that's why we now we we really need to look at look at this and have people look at people.
Actually, mister Anderson asked for what is it that you requested? All of the, mentoring organizations, I think, be presented to us. And, they were. And it's one organization with not on there, and the community was talking about it. So that's why we said, oh, we need to we need to look at this and see what we're doing. So Did you have something, missus Barnes? I do. I'm wondering if does this apply this, the red line part apply to groups performing
arts? So there's, I don't know, a a puppeteer group that wants to come in and do a puppet show at one of our elementary schools. Would this policy apply to that performing arts group? Like, they're not mentoring No. I'm not. Performing, but they're still in proximity to children. Would we would we have previously put such a group under this policy? Because we we wouldn't because we have them more like ad hoc groups that come in or they just wanna do, like, a presentation. Yes.
Generally, those, we run them through, background checks and all those layers, but that type of example would not fall under, this particular policy. If you notice the title of it is educational institutions and organizations. That's right. And so we're really kinda narrowing down who this would be applicable to. So I'm not necessarily convinced that a a puppeteer or performing arts would be would fall under those parameters.
I guess then my follow-up question would be several performing arts group for children do, market themselves as educational. Mhmm. So that's why I was I mean, I feel like it's it's great to me. You know, if I have a Shakespeare troupe and we perform for children to teach them Shakespeare, why why does this not apply to me? Or does it? So it's it's just great to me. That's all. So these are more talking about programs and training we would give the students. So, like, an ongoing, interactional, experience versus, like, I'm gonna put on a play and
let you guys ask questions afterwards, and then you're never gonna see me again kind of kind of thing. And, my men, we we, we did the father's what was it? We did the we did the Friday night football, patrol. And, mister, this was way before we've been doing it for, gosh, fourteen years. This was way before I come on the board. Fourteen years. But one thing, mister, Sydella, one thing mister Sydella handed all of us was an
application for a background check. Oh, yeah. And, and, and we had to get background checks, turn them into Mr. Sydella and be approved. And unfortunately, some didn't get approved, because of what came back in their background, their history. So I think that, when we talk safety, again, we have to be overly concerned as a as as a as a board when it relates to safety. So I think that that was why, you know, we felt that that that we
should look at that. So was that it? Yeah. And, again, I know you guys just saw this, so please read it, ask questions. Again, it's just in a draft form at this point, so we're open to suggestions and questions and thoughts. And So was tonight helpful, you all? Yes. Alright. Alright. So we're off to and and we'll be doing them again, down through the down through the year. As a matter of fact, if doctor Young doesn't have anything scheduled for us in a work session, then we'll just do these, in place.
Okay? Alright, y'all. Thanks. Thank you, mister Webster. Thank you, mister. I think this is really great. Yeah. Afternoon. And and he gives us chance to ask questions that we get to know. Part: 2
Okay. Thank you so much. And then page two is your return flight. Little flights. Okay. You need one of these. Buy yours. Oh, Oh, this is, this is a loan. I'm sure how we we're gonna have a work session on you guys. What? A work session is not. Yeah. Okay. Yep. I know it doesn't affect everything. Okay. Just so it's before that I hear it. Hey. Hey. So everybody that everybody, we got two leads forward. We have two of these that need to be cured.
Yeah. Okay. I'll do mine back then. You do check that. We're good. Oh, he just said to check it. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Doctor Hanna will take care of it. You could do. I got them all? I can use it. I think we're good. Miss Barnes, you've been emailing your meeting. You got it. I'm sure. Thank you. Mister president Thank you. Whenever you're ready. Shall we stand for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and into the Republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for
all. Well, good evening, everyone, and welcome to our Metropolitan School Board District of Pike Township regular school board meeting. And we are on to our agenda for the evening. If there's anyone that wish to speak for the good of the cause, you may step up and state your name and take three minutes and share for the good of the cause only. No good of the cause, then we move on the spotlight on Pikes here at Dorsey. Good evening. It's wonderful to see you all again. We've had a lot to celebrate since last we met.
Our Pike High School girls basketball team celebrated their third consecutive sectional championship with a 71 to 53 win over Plainfield on Saturday. They face Lawrence Central at 7PM. This Saturday, Valentine's Day at Greencastle in the regional championships. So we're looking for a back to back. The sectional was actually a three p as I said. They have had a tremendous season and we could not be more proud of them and their amazing coaches. We also wanna celebrate the fact that our Pike High School freshman boys basketball team finished out their season by winning the freshman county championship.
Additionally, I think our boys varsity basketball team probably gave many of us almost two heart attacks this last two weeks. First with their impressive 56 to 53 win over Ben Davis. And then this week with an 84 to 81 overtime win against a highly competitive Mount Vernon team. That was on Tuesday, and we had guests like Caitlin car Clark, Pike grad, Mike Mark Monteith, and then Pike High School basketball legends, and twenty twenty six Indiana Basketball
Hall of Fame inductees, David Teague and Chris Thomas, watching, and they were that both actually honored at halftime. So we appreciate them coming and allowing us to celebrate them in advance of their induction in March. In addition, our Pike High School swimming and diving team did an outstanding job placing third in the IHSAA swim and dive finals with Angelina Michael Madison Crane, Lori Boslett, and Emerson Allen advancing to state. And Angelina actually set a new school record in the 53.
The previous school record was set as the kids say in the nineteen hundreds, actually, in 1989. So we're extremely proud of her. Last but never least, we'd like to sincerely thank the generous donors listed on this evening's agenda. Marion County press prosecutor, Brian Meers, in his office, donated hats and gloves to the students at Deer Run Elementary School. A special thank you to Doctor. Moore for coordinating that coming along and also helping some of our littlest friends put on their gloves. That was a fun time and the kids were very excited to pick out their
hats and gloves. Art to remember donated a three hundred and ninety four dollars and thirty five cents, and classroom supplies for Mrs. Kirkwood's art class at New Augusta South. OrthoIndy YMCA donated $500 to our Pike Red Zone Food Pantry. The Pike Township Educational Foundation donated $590 to Laura Overmyer science ICP hands on materials grant at Lincoln Middle School. They donated $800 to Tina Flynn's geologic time and dynamic earth grant at Lincoln Middle
School, and they donated $1,500 to Natasha Anderson's edible art lab grant at Pike High School. Our Guyton Creek Elementary School PTO donated $1,500 to fund, Guyen Creek Elementary School student field trips. And last but not least, prior to winter break, Eli and Lily Eli Lilly and Company's indie RLT site, which is actually located here in Pike Township, provided Christmas gifts for 19 of our Pike families. When you see the photos of these gifts, which basically filled up Room 5, I
think there were four bicycles. It it was phenomenal. All of our social workers were amazing. They collected, gift lists from our families, that could benefit from the gifts. And the people at Lily's actually called and said, can we have more? So it was incredible, and we're so grateful for their generosity. This follows their donation to our Pike Red Zone Food Pantry. They said we're in Pike. We wanna support Pike, and we cannot be more grateful for their support. Awesome. Alright. Thank you. Reports to the board, superintendent above and beyond award recognition. Doctor Justin Hunter.
Mister president, members of the board, doctor Bishop, tonight we are excited to have the opportunity to have doctor Tapler to come and present the Supertors Above and Beyond Award for the outstanding persons at his building. Good evening, mister president. Good evening. Members of the board and doctor Bishop, we would like to acknowledge missus Lori Bonner, Lincoln Middle School staff member, for her willingness to serve in a dual role as guidance counselor and assistant principal on last semester. It takes a rare kind of educator to step out of their comfort zone and
into a challenging and at times trivial work assignment. Yet she did so with grace. Missus Bonner did more than simply fill a seat. She bridged a gap and traded the quiet sanctuary of her counseling office for the high energy demands of administration. Her willingness to serve in different capacities is a testament to her character, which certainly bears fruit in the good works that she does. Also, she demonstrated an ability to navigate the complexities of discipline and administrative logistics without losing her gentle spirit. Supervision. She brought a counselor's heart to an administrator's desk, treating She brought a counselor's heart
to an administrator's desk, treating every interaction as an opportunity to mentor while remaining genuine, approachable, and reminding us all in schools that really our schools function primarily on relationships and not just regulations. We are grateful for the time that missus Bonner served in an administrative capacity this school year, and the impact of her service has left a lasting imprint on our school's culture. Alright. Next, we would like to acknowledge mister Dan Nicholl, Lincoln Middle School assistant principal, for
his transformational change and contributions as a building leader. There is a distinct difference between holding a title and truly rising to the occasion. And from the fall semester to the present, I have observed mister Nickel transform and grow in his role as an assistant principal. He stepped up to lead the school wide testing on multiple occasions this year and has expanded his reach to support students in grade levels beyond his initial assignment. He demonstrates a remarkable willingness to learn new things. Mister Nickel didn't just accept these challenges, rather he navigated them with steadfastness and a
calm focus that reassured everyone around him that he, excuse me, that they weren't going to be in good hands. He possesses a refreshing transparency in a profession where it can be all too easy to feel the need to have all of the answers. Mister Nickel has the courage to own his knowledge gaps, and he has the drive to actively seek and capture knowledge as well. He leans into new experiences on the job, taking the necessary steps to reach the next level of leadership.
Mister Nickel is a true innovator, constantly bringing new ideas to the table to challenge the status quo and improve our school culture. He is an example of one that not only works harder, but also leads smarter with the heart geared toward constant growth. Next report to the board is a website presentation. So, Dorothy, Dan Burton Burton Checker, and Nicole Faulkner. Good evening, mister president, members of the board, doctor Bishop. We are so excited to be back with you tonight and what has felt like
a long time coming. As you know, Mr. Borden Kecker serves as, our multimedia communications specialist. He puts together the wonderful alumni excellence videos you see and a lot of the videos that we produce here at, the ASC in addition to doing many other things here in the district. And Mrs. Faulkner is amazing. She is our navigation specialist. So she helps our students also a lot, our teachers and our families, with any tech difficulties they may be having. She is especially busy on remote learning days. In addition to that, she serves as basically our lead on our district website.
We came before you last year at the end of the school year, and we're very excited about a website refresh. At that time, we were hoping to, take our current platform and update it in a way to make it more modern and to allow us to better tell our Pike story. Unfortunately, as you know, based on what doctor Young shared in his Friday notes, the plan was paused due to, honestly, costs.
When we got that contract, miss Faulkner did an amazing job in terms of negotiating the price for the refresh. But the year over year increase was 6%. So we were concerned with that, especially in light of the current economy and school funding. So we immediately went into research mode. We did not know at that time kind of where websites were. I think we had probably switched to final site probably three years prior. So we looked at four different website providers.
They were FinalSight, SmartSight, Edlio and Apogee. In addition in in addition to looking at their cost and use, and how well we think that they would work for our district, we looked at ADA comp ADA compliance. As as you probably know, the deadline for ADA compliance is April. So we're doing a lot of things well in terms of accessibility, but this is providing us with an opportunity to make sure we're we're doing even better to making sure all of our community members can access the content we're sharing.
But that's huge in website spaces because many of us have been trained that PDFs are just like the golden standard. In terms of ex accessibility, they are not. So, that was one of the key questions that we put before these website providers. Our providers, smart sites and final site, go to the next slide. Yeah. And when we talk to them, you'll see a difference there. Final site is our current platform With the redesign, it was gonna the redesign alone was gonna cost between $10,000 and $15,000, and then you'll see that year over year
increase that we mentioned. In addition to that, at some point, and we don't know exactly when, Google Translate is going to stop supporting the product. So because of that, they're suggesting that you use Weglot translation. As you can see, in order to do that, there would be, for five languages, a $1,000 charge. And then there's that price goes up for 20 for 20 languages as much to $10,500 a year. Right now, we have access to a 190 languages in ParentSquare.
That's our parent communication tool, our community communication tool that we launched two years ago. Smart sites is their website platform. With smart sites, there would be a migration fee, but then as you can see an aesthetic fee, but then the year to year increase is not there making it a cheaper product. And that translation aspect is built in. The other two web products that we looked at, were Edlio and Apteryg. And the commonality amongst all the sites other than SmartSite was within that two to
three year period when your website's probably gonna start to look outdated. If you want to change it, you're going to have to pay anywhere from 6,000 to 15,000 to $20,000. That's generally not something a lot of websites are going to allow you to do on your own. So that was a significant factor for us just knowing that in this day and age with technology, you can have something that's like top of the line today and within a year, it's probably going to look a little bit obsolete. Again, we've looked very closely at the ADA comparisons between our two finalists.
With those, we felt like smart sites was a stronger option. It has most of those guardrails built in. And again, we have all of our schools with school websites. We have many different people that are contributing information to our website. So making sure that anyone that is contributing material to our website is following those ADA guidelines. So people that have, vision difficulties can see the content. So it's reader, readable by screen readers. That was extremely important and smart sites of the two website finalists had the most
built in, ADA compliant measures. In addition, we found that it was just a lot easier to use. I think that maybe we've had four to five websites, since I've been in Pike. And one thing I can tell you about websites is they used to have web developers and web masters for a reason. Now you don't and it's gotten easier, but there's still a lot of backend things that have to be done. So Ms. Faulkner particularly knows a lot about final sites back in, and it's not always super
easy to utilize. It's still a bit clunky, and especially then again for our school web administrators. It takes a lot of time or a lot more time than we would like for them to do some of the things that we would like to happen on our website to tell our story. Smart sites is very different in that aspect. It's very drag and drop. And there are several features, that we would have access to where on the other websites we looked at. And we reviewed probably up to 30 different school and university websites to see which platforms they're using, to see what looks good and what didn't.
And by and large, you're going to get about five layout options, and then you're kinda stuck with those. And if you can move them around, you're lucky, but you're pretty locked into the content, the display, and the material that you showcase on your website. With smart sites, that's very different. You can rearrange the content. If we have a video of a exciting celebration that we want to put at the top of our website, that can be the banner for two or three days, and then we can switch that out and we can do a photo display.
If there's an important event, we can move the calendar up. If it's registration or enrollment time, we can make sure that information is at the top of that page without losing the navigation and the menu that our families are used to. I think the other thing that we were really excited about when it came to smart sites was the fact that it is integrated with ParentSquare. So anything right now, if we put something on our website, it's on our website. We share something in ParentSquare, it's in ParentSquare. And then we're also posting to our social media channels.
From an efficiency standpoint, now that these two platforms interact, anytime I our schools anyone that's using, Parent Square that also has access to our school website, would be able to take what they put in Parent Square and share on social media as well as on the website. So it would allow us to have that static content that parents are looking for, school start times, uniform information, the things that you're going informational lead to look at from a website, but then also the great news that we're sharing on a more
regular basis via our social media channels. Right now, honestly, just, because of a time factor and we look at analytics a lot. So we're we're putting our content the most frequently updating our content where the people are. So we know right now that's our parent square and that's our social media. So those are the places that you're gonna see the daily updates with this. That makes it much easier to make sure those daily updates are also on our website. It also has one of the things that we really, really appreciated about the refresh
that we have proposed, which is the place to showcase our district testimonials. We didn't not showcase testimonials when we didn't move forward with the refresh, but we did put them instead in parent square and on our social media. This will allow us to prominently showcase those on our website. So by and large, after reviewing the websites, especially with the cost considerations and it being a cost savings, after our review, we really thought that moving to smart sites would be the best move to recommend or at least to bring forward to you,
as an option because it has the responsive modern templates. Our website is not gonna look dated. We are not going to have to pay money if we decide we wanna show a video at the top of our page or we want to move the calendar up or the quick links down. We will be able to do that at both the school and the district level. In addition right now, as far as calendaring, it can be really hard because the website calendar is separate from the parent square calendar. So in the schools, you have a lot of our families.
I can see like how our schools are using their parents where I can see that they're sending calendar appointments. I can see that they're sending RSVP, invites out to families. I can see how many direct messages they're going out. They may be utilizing their parents were calendar more than the website calendar just again, because it's the extra step and it's a bit clunkier. Whereas this again, will allow that integrated approach where we'll be able to do it in one location and it will be reflected to the public facing website as well as within parents square where our parents are going. Facing website as well as within ParentSquare where our parents are going to view information
and within the app. It's inclusive by design. Again, write once, publish everywhere, and the translation is huge. We have received so much positive feedback since switching to Parent Square about, how much our families who have, preferred languages other than English appreciate getting the messages that we are sending out in their preferred language. In addition to that, we've seen an increase in participation in family conferences since adopting parents square and sending conference information out to families via parents square.
It's working really well right now for our district, and we think having an integrated platform for the website will not only save us money, but also be more efficient. And we're prepared to answer any questions you may have. I've got one question. First of all, though, thank you for all the clearly, the diligent work you guys put in. I know it was frustrating probably whenever told to pull back originally because of cost. I think this proves it was the right decision. It I think we've landed probably in a better place. I did feed your presentation into, Copilot, and it agreed with you that SmartSite was
the Good. The right recommendation. So there you go. But and I know you mentioned responsive design, but I just wanna make sure, how does this look on a mobile phone? I know that's how most people are surfing the web at this point. Amazing. Amazing. And honestly, it's so funny because I actually forgot. So one of the other things beyond the 6% increase yearly when we went back and said, okay, let's look at this. They said, Oh, you know what? We forgot to add in a $2,000 cost for a feature that you guys weren't using and we want to add that on. So there was an additional cost.
And so at that point it was just not, I mean, if we couldn't have found anything better than obviously we would have had to figure out what to do. But from that standpoint, I think that was extremely frustrating. But from the standpoint of looking at things, even when we went to final site, Parrot Square came along and said, hey, we have this website platform at that time. And that was probably a year ago. We looked at it. We said, you know what? We think this has promise, but it's not quite where we need to do need it to be in terms of looking professional within that year.
They bought a web company, and they are honestly at the top of all of the various sites that we've looked at. What we did find interesting as we were looking at these other companies is they're all purchasing or bringing on communication platforms. So I think what we're gonna see is most web developers are going to have, like, a parent square type feature. So my thinking is that this is likely something that we'll have to do probably on about every two year basis just to try to make sure we're getting the most benefit for the lowest cost possible. Alright.
Miss Faulkner, is that right? Yes. Thank you for your work. Thank you. I believe in excellency, especially when you go into the public. Tell me how you're going to to make that happen for us, to to to make it look, I mean, just phenomenal. How that's about the only way I could say it, that would project that we are on the cutting edge. Yeah. Definitely. So we've, obviously, we've in our research, we've looked at all of our surrounding neighbors
and their sites and what they what they're doing. One great thing about SmartSites is they, have a lot of new, designs or templates, layouts, and then they pull them down. So they're they're ours. They don't they have the templates, and then we can choose one, and then they pull it down, and then another district can't take it. So that allows us to have that unique piece, whether it's that calendar layout, whether it's the photo gallery layout. Those are those pieces are unique and designed.
They design them. We can choose them, and then they're ours. And then their designers are constantly creating new pieces, that allow, you know, other districts to go and take this calendar layout. Well, we have this one, and so it won't be matchy matchy, so that we can stand out, and be unique. How often, would will you be able to to to move the site when certain things are happening. For instance, you have a sectional game going on this a regional game going on
this week. Then you got something else going on. How quick will you be able, to apply, this site to the things that are going on? So long term, if we are our goal is to launch by July. So, we're you know, keep keep working on current events, with our current website. But, in the future with the new site, once we launch, hopefully in July, we would be able to if, you know, there's a regionals and we wanna pull that up, I can pull that up, in five minutes as long as we have our
content and graphics ready to go. I can pull that up, hit save, publish, and we're ready, like, we're there. It sounds like you would like to see a lot of movement in the site. Yeah. So that's one thing we like about it is that, it's very stagnant currently right now, our our site. It's Yes. It is very it's very stagnant. And so we can take those highlights that are happening and be able to pull them up, whether it's in a calendar event, a news article, a video reel, different things. We can highlight those and move those around, based on the needs that, as miss
Dorsey said, that tell our story. Thank you for the work you've done. I have a question. You had mentioned the calendar feature that's in Parent Square. My question is if if I'm a parent of a high schooler, a middle schooler, an elementary age child, is there a way for me to see all those calendars all at once so then I can decide as a parent which activities and things that I can go to to support my kids? I'm not sure. We'll have to do some more, digging into the specifics on how the calendars merge
in ParentSquare. I know as far as schools multiple schools, I know that all of our schools can land on the district calendar, if we want them to do that way or the district events can go onto the school calendars. So there's some configurations there. But as far as all in one, we'll have to do some more, research on that. I don't know. Miss Fall I'm sorry. I would just encourage that, only because that situation does occur in our community. Absolutely. And we don't want parents to feel like they can't support while they're trying to
juggle three calendars for three different schools. We can I feel like we can make it easier? The the idea, that that that I I would like to see is, a piece in this site. For instance, like this winter, just create a a a page, that, will give insight to, graphics, about, you know, closure, buses not moving, doing those particular times. Put something in graphics, for for for our families.
So, you know, for instance, today, we had a e learning day, I believe. You know, those kind of things can be pushed further in the minds of our our our community if we create the the graphics and and language for them to see and be more in touch with with those particular days. You know, you know, when when it gets cold, you know, create something, that makes the community interested in going to the site, to see what's going on at that
particular time. I said, well, I can go to the site now and see what what's going on. Oh, well, buses are not running. This is this. Those are kind of things that I think are informative. I I I do agree with the educational piece, but, but the practical piece is more important to community and family as they move their children, through the communities during these cold days and these shutdown days. I mean, I mean, I came through the community the ice the community the first day, it was cold. And I stalked kids on the bus stop because apparently, that parent did not get
communication. Maybe they didn't have what it took to get that. And so but if we can create something, that will be visually, connected to to their to their mindset about what's really happening. I think that is one of the nice features too. Right now, again, our website and our parent communication platform are not connected. So we're updating, like, the alerts on the website and then sending out the alerts through ParentSquare should we need to send something about a school closure or an unexpected
event with this platform, we would have the opportunity to just check a box and say, yes. We want that to pop up on our website as well. So it's a one place solution. In addition to that, I have to give Parent ParentSquare credit and that they are coming out with enhancements all the time. Like, they if you ask, like, this it would be really helpful to have. Usually, within, like, two months. They're we're working on this and we're rolling out that. And if we ever have issues, the support is immediate Thank you so much.
Yeah. I think that's that's crucial. Thank you so much. Yeah. I think that's that's crucial what, doctor Moore was sharing. That's that's just another form of communication that our parents would have access to. So I think that's crucial. Thank you all. Any other any other comments? If not, thank you all. Thank you. Alright. We move on to, action items. And first up is action item a, minutes of the board of approval for 01/22/2026.
And if we accept the minutes as written. Second. Been moving second that we accept our minutes from January 22 as as approved or as written. Are there any questions? You want to vote all in favor? Say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed. Thank you. Action item b, resource report doctor human resource report, doctor Hunter. Mister president, members of the board, doctor Bishop, I ask that you approve the HR report as presented. I move that we approve the, human resources report as presented.
Second. It's been moved and seconded that we approve our HR report as presented with the nature and the confidentiality. No, questions on this HR report at this time. We move on to vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Alright. We're on to the supplemental board report, doctor Hunter. Mister president, members of the board, doctor Bishop, I ask that you approve the supplemental report as presented. Move that we accept the supplement board report as given. Second. Second. Mooten second that we approve our and accept our supplemental report as presented by doctor
Justin Hunter due to nature. Again, confidentiality won't attain no questions. We're on the vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Pose. Thank you, doctor Hunter. Thank you, sir. Next up is, Jennifer Colhan. All right. Good evening, Mr. President. Members of the board and Doctor. Bishop, I come to you this evening requesting approval to apply for the IDOE educational benefits review grant for the 2627 school year. Motion is in order.
I move that we accept action item b, request to approve the educational member review grant application as presented. Second. Moved and second that we accept action item d as presented. Are there any questions? I do, mister president. Doctor Moore. Miss Glenn, could you give us some insight on it? Sure. So they are offering there's a, educational benefits review has been done by several states in The United States. Indiana has not come on board with that, and they would like for districts to pilot a program, basically, where we would become kind of a a test for how
that would work. So the educational benefits review process is going to look at three years. Typically, I should say, three years of IEPs to see if what we are writing in our IEPs and how we are the information we're putting in there is actually benefiting the child. So just to kinda make sure that we're on on par with that. About that not being on board in Indiana. Yeah. What does it look like here in this district to get to to to to be on board? What does what does it look like? So What what are what are your what's your structure? For the grant?
Yeah. You're saying what are we proposing? You're going to to meet the needs of that grant? Well, if we were to get it, what I would hope is that the team that would be that would be trained, there's gonna be anywhere you can do three to 10. I'll probably choose 10 because I want as many people trained as possible. They would then be looking we would take a set of students' IEPs. So there would be some students that we'd be using as our test case for the training. We would be implementing that information throughout the entire school year. We have monthly we call them building I'm sorry. Yeah. Building support team meetings.
We would be implementing that training and kind of having those conversations next year for 2627 because we would be learning as well. It's gonna be kind of, you know, we won't go full force probably until the '27. And then in the '27, my plan is for us to implement that kind of district wide starting with elevate ed or if we still do that again, our professional development week, start doing trainings then and then go forward with full throttle. Miss Cohen, could you break down could you open up the acronym?
The IEP, you said? The IEP, the individualized for the community? Yes. Absolutely. The individualized education program Thank you. Or plan. They use that word interchangeably. Anything else? So I requested so having had a job that had an IEP, I'm all for doing anything we can to make them better for the kids. What, if any, extra burden is this gonna put on the teachers that use this? Is this going to be more work on them? Is it gonna result in less work for them? What what's the impact to our staff on it? I have not done as much research about the actual impact of what a teacher
would go through. Okay. I I know very minimally because we just this is kind of how we're all starting this whole thing. There is some work to be there is some work that would that would take place. So I think that as we're doing this, we're gonna have to be really mindful of the time that we're giving teachers. We have to be mindful of the students and the caseloads that teachers have. Our my goal if you if you look at students and kind of where I think the greatest need for this particular skill is probably with our life skills students. And the reason is because most often with with students that have IEPs where we're
making little incremental growth, we we miss sometimes what where we could go. And so my hope is that we really get it ironed out and really refined well for our students with most significant needs. Augusta's doing pretty good with their life skills, I think. And so No. No? No. Gusta North? Yeah. Yeah. Mister Dobbs has some things going, I think, with the last teacher of the year last year. Yeah. And so I think he's implemented some stuff this year, and and I'm hearing it's it's real good. I think that's important because that life skill piece is going to be very important
here in the in the very future for some of these young people in the the climates in which we're living in right now. Thank you. Will the teachers still utilize the PLC as a place for training? We do. Mhmm. Would they would they use this particular, learning of the IEP part that you're trying to implement? Would they be using the PLC training? We certainly could do that. My the first place we need to do it is our monthly building support team meetings. Our secondary is now included in that. I think when you were with us teaching, they weren't always included in that.
But now we've kind of broadened that and they're included. And then we would extend it out to the PLCs through the department chairs at the secondary level. Yeah. And then because I think it would probably allow them to be more, repetitive in those because you have so many PLC meetings because those IEPs do require, a real understanding because those are the ones where you get deemed through the Department of Education. Yeah. That's good. Can you find 10 teachers? I'm sorry. What? Will we be able to find 10 teachers? Oh, it's not just teachers.
So Thank you. Yes. So it's a you know, the best you know, we believe in inclusion and special ed. We also believe in inclusion when you have teams like this. This. So we have I proposed a general ed teacher all the way to special ed, to speech language pathologist, to an SL to a school psychologist, a district administrator. I mean, it's gonna be a team of various different disciplines. Thank you for not cherry picking. God bless you. Yeah. Alright. Is there any other discussion or questions on action IMD?
If not, we're on the vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Pose. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is action item e, mister Gruber, a, request to accept this. Thank you, mister president, members of the board, doctor Bishop. I'm seeking your approval tonight for action item e to accept a combined bid for the Fishback Creek, mechanical project as well as the New Augusta North heat pump phase two project as presented. I move that we, both to accept the bids for the mechanical and New Augusta
North heat pump projects as presented. Second. Moving second that we accept action item e as presented. Are there any questions? No questions. We're on the vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed. Action item f, g, and h are request to approve, mister Gruber. Thank you, mister president. Again, members of the board, doctor Bishop. I'm requesting your approval of action items f, g, and h, which include, request to approve a change order for the Deer Run interior refresh project, additionally, a change order
for the Pike High School turf project, and lastly, approve, a zoning petition with Midwest Sports Complex as presented. I move we accept the Deerlawn Elementary School midlife refresh project change order, the Pike High School turf project change order, and the Midwest Sports Complex zoning petition as presented. Second. Moving second that we accept action item f, g, and h as presented by mister Gruber.
Are there any questions on items f, g, or h? Yes. Thank you, mister president. Could you give some insight on the Midwest sports complex zoning? Yeah. So we've had a relationship with mid Midwest Sports for quite some time. Now it kinda goes by Midwest softball program. Years ago, we purchased a portion of the old golf course over there on New Augusta Road in order to build the new Eastbrook. As part of that, we maintained four softball fields to the east of that property. Since the construction of Eastbrook Elementary, we have leased back the softball fields to Midwest
Sports for them to run a softball league. It's been a great partnership for us for a long time. Back in December 2024, if you'll recall, we invited in Republic Development, Lennar Homes, and Ashen Village Development to to kinda give you an idea of the housing development that was going in directly to the South of East Brook. With that, now that they've moved through phases one and two, Midwest no longer has direct access to the parking lot by one of the softball fields. So the only way they can access the property is through East Brook.
Unfortunately, when they built Eastbrook, they elevated the property for stormwater and those type of things to ensure we had proper flow. And now there is a small four foot embankment on the back of our property, and they can't get a vehicle down into that parking lot. They are proposing to build on their dime a ramp from our parking lot down into their parking lot. But with that, there comes variance restrictions and so on and so forth. So they have requested to petition the city of Indianapolis for approval to expand the
gravel lot down there as well as adding the ramp. The approval of this tonight does not authorize them to construct the ramp. It simply authorizes them to seek the variance through the city of Indianapolis. At any point in time, we reserve the right to sever all ties and and not move forward with the project. The, so this is the the dot that is connecting the housing situation that we had earlier last year. Correct. I was wondering when those can come back up. Thank you. We we are optimistic that we will eventually have access through the neighborhood, but it
won't happen until that third and final phase is completed. Thank you, mister Gould. So so we're not we're not voting tonight to bind ourselves into any type of a contract. It's just simply to No. Seek the zoning from the Yeah. And and I imagine at a later date, if the variance is approved by the city, we would come back to the board for approval of a long term lease Right. So that they can invest those dollars to build that ramp and see some level of return on renting those fields for softball events, but we would bring that back to the board for approval.
Okay. I'm glad you explained that. God bless. Any other any other question? Not we're going to vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Holds. Thank you. Thank you. Mister Gruber. We, next up is missus Gray, miss Gray, contracts and, donations action items, I and J. Good evening, mister president, members of the board, and doctor Bishop. I request your approval of action items I and j, which include 11 contracts and eight donations as presented. Motion's in order.
I make a motion that we approve action items I and j, the con the 11 contracts in the eight donations that have been made, to our corporation. Did did I hear a second? Yes, you did. Second. Been second by missus Wilson. The mood is second that we accept action items. I and J as presented. Are there any questions on action items I or J? No questions. We are on to vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed. Thank you. Thank you. Missus Gray. We're on to action items.
I'm sorry. Board items, doctor Moore. Thank you, mister president. Excited to to hear tonight, the long awaiting, website. I think it's important to use it as much as possible as an educational and marketing tool for not only students, but parents, to give the, I think, hopefully, a greater insight on on what, if I could use the term the guts of pipe looks like on the inside from, from a from from a updated, website that, will
probably, hopefully, stay on the cutting edge, every six months or every year, whatever it takes, to make it happen, because it's it's very, very important because that is an an integral part of, of, marketing, our system right here, in in Pike Township. Thank you so much, miss Dorsey, and yours those who have worked with you. Miss Wilson. Okay. Just wanted to say, is looking at all the donations that we've received, the generosity
of people's hearts, and the fact that they have taken time out to donate to Pike Township, it does my heart good to see those donations. And to further, as I always say, I'm happy to see that our boys' basketball team, our girls' basketball team, the the swimming team, and also the, wrestling team have all excelled. And the more we win, the more we bring winners to Pike Township. And I just wanna tell all the coaches, thank you for taking out the time
to be the leaders that you are to keep our students here in Pike Township. Thank you, miss Wilson. Doc, mister Hoefer. You almost promoted me. Alright. So I just wanted to, first of all, thank, mister Hop. He, coordinated for me to be invited to speak to a local cub scout troop that meets in Pike Township. Tell him what it's like to serve on a school board. Don't worry. I said all the good things. And so, so that that was a lot of fun getting to talk to them. Like miss Wilson said, you know, big congratulations to the girls, basketball team, the swimmers,
obviously, the boys that game, the other night. That was a nail biter. So, just love seeing our kids competing hard, and I love seeing them do it in the right way, which which, you know, means the most, to me. So, really appreciate that. And then usually things are so packed, so I don't fit this in. But I do wanna give a shout out and thanks to our, ROTC program at the high school. They all the time have, students that are in at the food pantry volunteering and working. There was a whole slew of them this last Monday, and so I really appreciate
their dedication to, serving our community and just understanding what it is to, to serve and and and to give back. So appreciate that. Thank you, mister Huppert. Mister, Anderson? I would like to pay compliments to mister Wally and his team. In light of the student protests, that happened Yes. Last week as though we would never advocate any activities that would, bring tremendous security risk to our students. I do recognize the past that they have, and I hope they keep
Same passion, especially for the 18 year olds when we vote, at the polls because that's where real change happens. But to mister Walling and his team, I was there. I walked the school, and, woah, they were on it. They were at every door. They were ready to go. They were waiting. They were prepared. So I appreciate that in such a short notice that he was able to and his team were able to pull that off. So, congratulations to them and thank you for their work. Thank you, mister Anderson. Missus Barnes? I have no comments this evening. Thank you, missus Barnes. Missus Kelly. Miss Kelly. Alright. First, I would have to add, to what mister Anderson was saying.
First, very proud of our students for stepping up and wanting to self advocate and advocate for others, and then appreciating the safety and how it was done and very well, run for our and keep our students safe. I very much appreciate that. Wanna remind everyone, treasures is coming up March 8, so please get your tickets. We, again, cannot have all those wonderful donations from the foundation if we're not doing
if our community is not donating. And that's our biggest fundraiser of the year, so we wanna make sure we're supporting that. The teams that are our teams right now are phenomenal, and so looking forward to Saturday hanging out and watching, hopefully, another win, and go Pike. Thank you, miss Kelly. Doctor Bishop? Thank you, doctor Webster. I I would like to take an opportunity to thank, all of our buildings. We do have family conferences today. And so in all of our nine elementaries, three middle schools, and our high school
along with pipe preparatory, our teachers and administrators were meeting with families, helping them get to their locations to meet with all of their teachers. And we definitely want to thank them for all of the time time and collaboration that they spend with our families to do the best, that we can for all students. Thank you, doctor Bishop. I I just wanna share some of this. You know, I I don't know. I think when we get caught up into the into the ball games and to the excitement, we had, we, it, there was a phenomenal game on. Tuesday.
Tuesday night with Mount Vernon. Mount Vernon. Yeah. And so we had a group of boardrooms were sitting together. So, we had some fans down in front of us that was not Pike. Matter of fact, it was Mount Vernon and it was such it was such a competitive game back and forth and so, it got down to the probably the last second shot two and they hit Mount Vernon hit and and the and the fans of Mount Vernon was sitting in front of us and they jumped up.
God, if I shouldn't but they jumped up, they kissed, and they turned around at us and they and so I said, okay. Started telling y'all forgive me, but I did. Yeah. I started telling him, I can't we can't hear you. We can't hear you. Ain't that real petty? Oh, petty. Y'all thank y'all so much tonight. I'd like to take the motion I'd like to take a motion to adjourn. God privilege. Yes. Go ahead. Mister Troy, is it mister Troy or mister? So moved. Second. Meeting adjourned. And you're dealing with me sometimes.