Okay. Hey there. Brandon had a question. Uh-huh. Good evening, doctor Jones. Good evening. How are you? Good. How are you? Great. It was. Oh, yeah. Pass the ball last night. No. I do not. Oh, I understand.
Don't go. Wait. You're putting that man on the man? Which is perfectly gone. Thank you, whoever. Yes, Yeah. Who was that? I know, but I love it. I didn't even see this. I'm afraid I'll forget something. I'm not. I gotta know. This is the only thing I heard is worth keeping in the car. Okay. Mister president, whenever you're ready. Shall we stand for the pledge, please? I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for
all. Good evening to everyone. And on the behalf of our entire board, welcome to our MSD Pike Township regular school board meeting, 01/22/2026. At this time, is there anyone that wants to step up and speak for the good of the cause? You have three minutes. You may feel free to do so at this time. State your name, and, you may speak. Hello, board. My name is Kate Price, and I'm here with, the scouts BSA, troop two two
seven, and, I'm here to talk about my Eagle project. I'm a senior at Pike High School, and I'm an alumni from Fishback Creek Public Academy. I recently completed my Eagle project, which consisted of rebuilding, planting beds at the outdoor lab at Fishback. Once I complete my Eagle, Scout requirements, I will be the first female, Scout, Eagle Scout in Pike Township. So that's exciting. I would like to thank the board, doctor Young, doctor Steele, miss Nordy, and mister
Grubber, the director of facilities, for approving and assisting me with my Eagle project. I had over seventy two man hours of community service to fish back. I would also like to take this time to thank the board and doctor Young for allowing, scouts from scouting the scouting America program to recruit from Pi Township, schools every fall. Scouting America prepares young people to make ethical and moral choices over the lifetime by building character, leadership and fitness for lives of impact and purpose.
Thank you for your time. Good evening, mister president, board, superintendent, cabinet. I'm Marty Hoefer. And as you know, I serve as a secretary for the Pike Township Education Foundation. I'm here tonight because we are thrilled to see over $11,000 in donations on the agenda tonight. This this includes $4,199 in classroom grants and over $7,000 given for specific district needs. Numbers tell one story and our teachers tell another great story.
In Christy Gordon's classroom, which you see on your list tonight, these funds are supporting our kindergarten learners as they are quote caught doing good. And at the high school, we are funding Katie Martin's grant to provide glasses for students, removing a very real physical barrier to learning and ensuring that they can clearly see. As we continue to have an unprecedented number of grant requests from the staff, we our need for resources continues to grow. Our main fundraising event is treasures for education, and that is happening on Saturday, March
7. We need the support of everyone in the room and watching online through attendance and through auction bids, both in person and online. The more we raise, the more we can give away to the students of Pike Township, which is my absolute favorite thing to do. So please visit our website to get involved. The website is pike-ef.org. Thank you. Good evening, board. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Toni Johnson. I'm the founder of WardUp, tutoring. It's a platform. It's online. It's for families k through eight.
We are offering thirty day free sponsorships. It is academic online step by step guided support. I wanted to create this platform to help parents outside of school hours, Just give them an additional resource and tool. We're not trying to replace the teachers, but we do wanna ensure that our kiddos are getting the help that they need outside of school. So I wanted to share that information. You can log on at www.worduptutoring.com. And if you go to student sign up and fill out the information, you can get thirty days free access. Alright? Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. No one else, then we, move on to spotlight on pipe, Sarah Dorsey. Good evening. It's wonderful to see you all. As always, we have a lot of wonderful things going on in Pike. So I'm just gonna hit a couple highlights. We're excited to share that three of our Pike High School wrestlers, Iommidi Dada, Nathaniel Anderson, and Serene n d I n NDIA. I'm sorry. I wanted to say that right. So let me slow down. Won the mic championships for their respective weight classes last weekend.
If you're following Pike Wrestling this year, they are doing amazing. So we want to congratulate them. They've had several individual and team wins. They celebrated, senior night for the boys last week, and we just wish them luck with the rest of the season. In addition, we want to share that miss Alexis Warren, who teaches science at the Pike Preparatory Academy, was selected to receive a highly competitive Lilly Endowment Incorporated teacher creativity grant for her project, which is titled Reflections of Renewal, Conservation, Family and Global Perspectives.
And she's going to use her funding, which could be up to $15,000 to explore the Great Barrier Barrier Reef, hike national parks, engage in coral conservation, and learn from Aboriginal traditions while traveling in Australia. We're gonna highlight that in tomorrow's Pike proud communication, and it also has information about how she plans to utilize that to benefit our students at Pike Preparatory Academy. Last but never least, we'd like to acknowledge the generous donors listed on this evening's agenda. One fellowship church donated 20 boxes of hygiene out items valued at $1,800 for families
in need at Snack Crossing Elementary School. The Pike Township Educational Foundation, as missus Hooper mentioned, funded six grants totaling 4,199 to support classroom projects at Fishback, Central, New Augusta South, and Pike High School. They also donated $3,040 to Pike High School's robotics team. Wise Incorporated donated $297.50 to fund field trips and substitute costs for Pike High School. And we're extremely excited to just briefly share the story behind the other donation listed.
Last year, we began inviting faith leaders with connections to families in Pike to collaborate with us in an effort to identify areas where we can work together to enhance our support, for the community we serve. When we met this November, a portion of our conversation pertains to identifying existing and potential challenges. During that time, doctor Young provided the group with a brief update regarding the state cuts to CCDF voucher funding, which is, you know, has had just a widespread impact on preschools and childcare providers across the state.
Our meeting attendees immediately inquired how the funding cuts would affect Pike families, what the impact would be, and if it would be possible for them to help if they were able. As a result of that conversation, this evening, you'll be asked to approve a generous donation of $3,971 from Solid War Bible Church to cover CCDF funding shortage for families in our living care program at Guyon Creek Elementary School for this semester. So we're extremely proud and grateful, for their support and hope that that is a blessing to our families.
Last but not least, I want to borrow a phrase that I've heard, our president, pastor Webster use that I really like and I'm probably gonna paraphrase, but I'm gonna apologize and ask you to blame my head and not my heart for failing to acknowledge our donors from last week. I knew it was coming with our above and beyond, and I was definitely, a little bit hijacked in my emotions rather than my head. So we want to acknowledge Chartwell k twelve's donation of nutritional drinks and shakes valued
at $81,000 Wow. To support our Pike, sports program. Also, Carolyn Care Incorporated's donation of $200 to purchase snacks for one of our life skills classrooms at Snacks Crossing, WC Preston's donation of $50 to our Red Zone food pantry, and the Pike Township Educational Foundation's donated donation of $816 to support a classroom grant at Guyon Creek Middle School. We sincerely appreciate all of the businesses, organ organizations, and individuals who choose to share
their time, talent, and treasure with our students and educators. Thank you. Alright. Thank you, miss Dorsey. Reports to the board, alumni excellence, doctor Young. Thank you, and good evening, mister president, members of the board. This month, as we recognize our alumni excellence recipient, I'm really excited, this evening to recognize someone that has a very unique story and is also one of our, more recent graduates. His name is Zach Smith. My name is Zach Smith. I graduated from IT After I graduated there, I went to the University of Indianapolis,
to play soccer there and engage in exercise science. I ended up graduating early. Just wasn't enjoying soccer as a player as much as I thought I would. Wanted to get my career started, so I was able to graduate undergrad a little bit early. And I got an offer to be a GA with the team as a kind of dual sports scientist and team manager. But then also got to do some cool things that were aligned with my career goals, and then got to do a an accelerated master's program while I was there. I went out to do my internship at sport in Kansas City.
Really enjoyed it, but discovered that I loved working with data and kinda like being a little bit more in the background than a performance coach. That's where my my focus kinda shifted, in this really unique position popped up at the University of Florida. My title is data management analyst, which has evolved a lot. But essentially, I get to sit at the intersection of artificial intelligence and college athletics. And our main goal in our project called AI powered athletics is to create this
big database. So anything from performance data that's collected on the field or the weight room to medical data and then also academic data. It's really the first time that this has ever been created to look at the holistic view of a student athlete. Sometimes it's really just performance driven, but we wanna make sure that all aspects of the student athlete are, encompassing our data so that we can empower large scale research that uses all of that data. Ideal day for me involves a lot of interaction with people.
I love working with people. So talking with coaches, translating that to researchers or to our back end. So the strength coaches that are in charge of, like, making them faster, stronger, or explosive, we kind of support the coaches in essence by providing them easy access to data because they do routine testing so that they can take that information a little more easily and see where the athlete is at, whether they need more rest, more training, more of a specific type of training. We are a little bit more on the back end just kinda providing a service
almost like a third party, to help them organize the data and draw some insights out of it. Yeah. So the the exercise science class that mister Ollaha taught, being able to go through that class and questions that he would ask alongside playing a sport was was really cool for me because he would be asking questions to us that directly related to how we felt in practice. He was really easily able to connect our athletic experience to the class and say, how did you feel?
Why did you feel that way? Why did your body respond that way? And I think that it just made it come to life a lot more for me. That's that's where my interest probably came from the most because they're asking questions about things that directly pertain to my life right then. But one of the main things that Pike offers is a is a great environment to learn and to connect with different people. And it's it's directly played out in my career in the job that I have right now. I work with a lot of different occupations and a lot of people from different
backgrounds, people that operate differently, communicate differently. And growing up in Pike, you were just you're just immersing. It's not it's not something that you realize in the moment that you are learning about other cultures, other age groups. So that, you know, it's it's just kinda something that happens, but I haven't appreciated it until you get out of high school. But Piper prepared me for that. Zach is he's out of state, so he could not be here, but I think he's just one more example of what Pai graduates and their respective professions are out
there doing. So we're glad to, highlight him. Thank you. Alright, doc. Yeah. I think you're up next, so you can stay there. You and, mister Carrie Manders Yes. Come on up and let you reports to the board. Thank you. And I I know that, here in a second, I'll turn over and let mister Manders, introduce, the other presenters that might be here with him. But we had an opportunity to talk a few months ago, and they have some really innovative ideas for the Crooked Creek area that we kinda share between Pike and
Washington Township so much so that I really wanted him to come and present to the board so that you all could hear directly from from him and from his team on what some of those ideas are. I think, ultimately, they would love to to have support from the district, but I told them, hey. I need you to come and and and share share information with the board and and see what questions they may have, and and we'll go from there. So with that, I'm excited to turn it over to mister Manners. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Thank you, superintendent. Thank you, president of the board and the board for having me tonight. I'm here with a couple of my colleagues, Colleen Heater, who is, our fund our,
grant writer, Wendy Noble, board member, Wendy Camp Manders, my wife and board member, and, Richard Sleepy Floyd, our board chair. My mission for the past thirty years has been to improve the quality of life in the Crooked Creek community, which is the Western part of, Washington Township and the Eastern part of Pike Township. My neighborhood actually is split in the middle between Washington and Pike. I, my website, kmmfoundationnd.org, provides an overview of my past work.
I began the Crooked Creek Cultural Campus Project with a vision and three overarching goals. One, to attract youth to engage in activities that will provide opportunities for fun, creative, and inspirational participation that promotes critical thinking skills, developing productive engaged citizens. Two, to provide opportunities for intergenerational community building, which since COVID has kind of just disappeared and needs to be really rebuilt. Three, to create an economic engine that will provide needed commercial development, services and employment
opportunities for this underserved area. Excuse me. Joan Servais donated 3.5 acres of woods, near the corner of 62nd And Michigan Road for this cultural campus project. Those woods will be maintained, for tree identification and environmental science to be conducted by Indy Parks. A visioning committee was formed after the purchase of the property or the donation of the property to shape and define my vision over an eighteen month period with educators, artists, musicians, area residents, clergy, theater experts, and others.
We commissioned a facility feasibility study conducted by IFF supporting the project. We are now purchasing 4.5 acres to the west of the woods to develop a 15,000 square foot building with a 200 seat, theater and will also have an outdoor venue. The vision committee envisioned a facility that would have coffee hours to exchange community concerns or issues, collaborating with the library for family game nights, book clubs, financial and writing literacy classes, intergenerational movie nights, to have kids work with professional comic book artists, to
create their own art, their own characters, their own story lines, exposure to puppetry, an educational recording studio so they can learn, each side of the microphone, both the technical part of it as well as the the performance part of it. Theater craft, improv theater, and the traditional arts, all transferable skills providing critical thinking capabilities that kids and adults can engage in and learn from. Our goal is to add, not to add to and enhance existing opportunities in our community, not duplicate services that already exist.
We've had early discussions with the public library, Indie Parks, IU Heron School of Art and Design, Brown Hound Studios, Actors Theatre of Indiana, Arts with a Purpose, Area Private Schools, and Washington Township School District, and others seeking collaboration. Now we're inviting Pike Township, school district to join in our collaboration with the Crooked Creek Cultural Campus. I'd like to introduce again, Sleepy, who is going to proceed with the presentation. Thank you, Carrie. Thank you, board. Good evening. Good evening.
Just to, just elaborate on what, Carrie was discussing. We hope that that this would comes a truly a community space that's also driving the arts in the district and and the surrounding areas. You know, the intention is to unify intergenerationally with, other with across generations, across art disciplines, and just create a a unifying hub for for the the area, the Crooked Creek area, which as, Carrie mentioned, serves both districts, Washington and Pike Township.
And, me being a Pike Pike Township resident for a better part of fifteen years, is very near and dear to me. I'm also a community organizer myself. I'm a professional musician, and I'm also adjunct faculty at the University of Indianapolis where I teach in the school of music. And so I spend the great majority of my days educating youth, through arts and advocating for, arts in schools. There's approximately, by my estimation, on on the short end, about 48 schools within the
465 loop that do not have arts and music, programs. And so for me as a as a professional musician in the in the arts actively, it's very important to me for many reasons. The main reason is the legacy aspect of the arts. And we we all have been a part of studies that have shown how, you know, how arts benefit, you know, learning, they benefit recidivism, outcome just outcomes in general across the board. And so I've I've really prioritized that, and and, you know, more of my latter
years as as I've gotten these grays and and things, and I've traveled the world playing music, to bring those ideas back home and to, like, really prioritize the the future. And so this is a big part of that of that legacy. And so real briefly, I'll just run through a few slides. So we've saying, like, it's designed to serve students, families, the educators, and neighbors alike. So we will have a, you know, a host of programmings, neighborhood concerts, evening, interactions,
arts arts and music workshops during the day, you know, performance guilds, just anything you can conceptualize. We hope to attain that through this space. Then, again, the area is the eight acre site at the corner of of Michigan Road and 62nd Street. So it's really kind of that it's it would be that it that connector between the two districts. Again and here's the, kind of the mark markups of of what we are envisioning, where there's, you know, a great use of the greenery spaces.
And we we tend to use we intend to use all of it for for just, you know, great community activities and events. You know, we'll we'll have the, youth workshops and plenty of creative enrichment activities designed to to just stimulate growth. And then, as I've seen as a as an educator, career pathways is a is a big prioritization for, the youth of Indianapolis. You know, a lot of them when they get to that age, they're ready to hit the workforce. And, my philosophy behind that is that if we can teach them attainable and sustainable
skills at a younger age, the younger we get them, the more likely they are to achieve, you know, great success as they move through life. And so this this this place would serve as a hub for that mindset of of just career advancement and career pathways. So just a rough timeline of, you know, this year spent, you know, speaking to, board members and and institutions, and just garnering general support and and and information as
it relates to the project. We with anticipation of breaking ground next year. And so, we really just wanted to just get in front of the board and and just under you know, let you all know that we share the same commitment of just making sure that our students have, you know, immense opportunities and creativity and expanded learning opportunities that would just, you know, enhance enhance the quality of life for all the citizens of of the district, but more most importantly, the youth of of this of this district and this area.
So thank you so much for your time. I'm here to answer any questions. I could turn it over to Carrie. We can If you have any questions, I'd love to answer them as well. I have a couple of questions. Mister Manders, I I wonder what happened with this program. I think I maybe a year and a half ago, two years ago at Saint Monica Mhmm. You spoke about this program. I think, Joanne Franklin was there. Last year. Okay. Last year. And I was there, and I I thought this idea was a, was a phenomenal idea. I didn't know, what had happened to it.
But now that I see that you still have that that ball rolling Oh, yes. What what does the relationship with the school district look like? Can you speak a little bit how that between us and you guys? Will it be something that the students Well can utilize in summertime? Or Sure. Well, help what again, we're flexible. What we wanna do is have a discussion to see what where the collaboration works for us. Mhmm. But I'm envisioning that the school would have we field trips there. We were like I mentioned earlier, we'll have indie parks doing tree identification, environmental science,
and the three and a half acres of woods. So that there'll be opportunity for field trips as well as for artistic ability or artistic opportunity. We come out for field trips. The house that's existing on the property is gonna be moved. We're gonna use that for the dirty arts, ceramics, and those types of arts. And then the new building will be for the fine arts, the clean that have to be have a a clean, fine environment. So we're really looking at having a space that can be really, used and productive productive use in the community. With a 200 seat venue, we understand there's no 200 seat venues in the city
and, that there's a niche that needs to be met, and so we're here to meet that niche. As far as the relationship with the school, we're your, community is who we wanna serve. So we need to reach out to them and let them know what's happening. You mentioned that, you know, it's been a slow rollout. It's been a slow rollout because, you know, this is a grassroots project that we've been building over a couple of years, actually, about three years now with all the the, visioning committee and all. So, we want a relationship where the, pipe community will support the project to bring
it to fruition, but also be among the participants, and beneficiaries of the project. You know, I'm I'm impressed, because the the passion is consistent. Just as, now that you have other people with you, it was just you by yourself. And now, you know, I I get a better idea of what that looks like. I'm excited for that. Thank you very much. See, and hopefully that we can have a collaboration. Outside of that, it looked like on your on one of your, pictures here that do you butt up against the I think it's a pumpkin patch or, at the
very northern edge touches the blueberry farm. Yeah. The blueberry farm. Blueberry farm. So We've actually talked to them about possibly having a relationship for catering. We're gonna have a caterer's kitchen, and we wanna have local activity. I mean, this one one of the benefits of this is to to generate activity in the community, economic activity. So we wanna bring them in as well. Good. That's why I wanted to, I want I like to hear that you said that because, we also we send our our children there to collect pumpkins sometimes. So Absolutely. I've been pressed. Thank you very much. Well, my pleasure. Thank you so much for your interest, and I I do have to say give
Colleen credit. She was with me as well, at at Saint Monica's. Okay. I was gonna add in, from a programmatic standpoint, how we could serve, you know, going back to your core your original question, how we serve the how we see envisioning serving the students. Right away, there would be after school activities. Like, what I see immediately, upon opening is an after school program that would be that would service kids from those after school hours from the three to seven window. So a a great deal of our activities, within any art discipline will be built
around that particular, block of time daily. And so, right away, that that's, you know, one of the first program ideas I would love to see, happen right away. So that's a prioritization for us. So this will be classified as STEM? It would it would be more STEAM, sir. Add the a. Arts. Yes. At a at a big a in the middle. But yes. Absolutely. And and that's the beauty of where arts are moving. I mean, we we live more in the music tech space now. You know? So now we have to you know, there's a greater prioritization through my organization, Inspire
Music Collective, which is an organization that serves youth through the music technology, shifting from a more classical training and from musical perspective to more of a technical perspective. That does two things. It doesn't require you to have studied an instrument for five to ten years. It also breaks down economic barriers that says that you cannot afford if you can't afford private instruction. You know, most kids that look like me don't have have access to cellos or violins right away. You know? And so that breaks down those economic barriers, but they may have a laptop or
an iPad where I could teach them how in twenty minutes how to make a beat. You know. Or instead of saying, hey. You wanna be a rapper? Like, that's like going to go to the NBA. But if you wanted to be a producer, that's very practical. And and you can immediately start making money, you know, with, with a year or less of training. And so we're we're gonna look to tap into the technology piece along with the classical training, but then also infuse the real world practicality of where we are as a society where technology is driving almost everything.
Like, our alumni spotlight here that he's got athletics. That's something that is on the cutting edge, and it's the same thing happening on the artistic side. So just wanted to elaborate on that. So I got a question. So, well, first of all, you listed all the stuff you do. You have a you are a very busy man for some of the nickname sleepy. I know what yes. You got that right. No way. You got that right. A stable coffee. I I love the merging of of technology with the arts. Like you said, the idea of so much music now.
I don't know if it's good or bad, but it is being made with technology. So Absolutely. One question. Is the idea you kinda hook them with that and then even go back and have some instrument education also. Absolutely. And then also, I was thinking we we go occasionally over to, like, Footlight and see Mhmm. Plays and things. Is that something that you're envisioning coming to Pike Absolutely. As well? Absolutely. Having a theater company similar to Footlight that has a small footprint in that neighborhood primarily, that's a great example. But, yes, to your point. Absolutely.
And, yes, the reverse engineering, like, as you I've from what I've seen with my teaching, and I've worked with kids that have no musical ability, and some of them are, like, you know, almost superstars in the making as producers. Mhmm. Because the auditory element of it, just hearing things, it allows that those that syntax to escape. And and so once you have that, regardless of your musical acumen, you're able to, you know, live your best life, so to speak, because you can you can you're
able to get your ideas out whether they be drawing on a picture, you know, drawing a picture or, you know, making a beat. Mhmm. And so, yes, still the I've seen, like, the reverse engineering happen where someone latches on to something significant, and then they wanna know all the backstory about it. You know? It happens to me as a jazz musician when I'm when I'm teaching kids about Miles or West Montgomery. You know, and and when I tell them, like, hey. West Montgomery lived around the corner here. You know? They're like, what? You know? And so they just go on this deep dive. YouTube is their catalyst.
You know? We we run our kids from YouTube a lot from things that they don't want don't wanna see, but if they find something they're really interested in, they'll go and do, like, deep dive research. And so I'm seeing that every day. I love that. Maybe you guys will have the next Rick Rubin come out of there. Can't play your instrument and make some Beatles documentary there you guys. Yes, sir. Also to answer your your question, a little different way, we're working with Indiana Actors Theater of Indiana, and they're up by Civic Theater. And Civic Theater has a very vibrant, educational program, and they don't wanna compete with
them. They wanna partner with us and bring stage craft to our community so you can learn not only how to be an actor, but how to be a producer or a stage manager or those, stage craft positions. Okay. Love that. I really love, your idea. One, this is the neighborhood where I grew up. Awesome. So I'm super familiar about exactly where you're talking about. Have you seen our signs? I have not. Well, that's where I grew up. That's not true. It's okay. Now, but it's okay. Keep an eye for them. Definitely. And plus, I'm a teacher from the arts. So I'm I'm totally embracing everything that you're saying. And I'm excited that this resource is gonna be available, for our community.
I really like that. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity. Unless there are any more questions. No. We're done. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Alright. Thank you so much. We're on to, board finances. Miss Monet Gray. Good evening, mister president, members of the board, and doctor Young. Per Indiana code IC five Dash13Dash7Dash five through seven, the board of finance is required to reorganize annually in January. Typically, the Board President and the Board Secretary also serve in those same roles for
the Board of Finance. In your packet this evening, you'll find two documents. First, the written report assessing financial condition, which uses the distressed unit appeal board or DUAB, annual financial indicators. Second, the annual investment report. The written report assessing financial condition includes both the required duab charts and a narrative explanation to provide you additional context and clarity around the district's financial condition. If you have any questions as you review the report, please feel free to reach
out to me. Next, the 2025 investment report. All district investments are made in full compliance with Indiana statute IC five dash 13. In addition, interlocal government cooperatives such as the Hoosier Fund are permitted under IC 36 dash one dash seven. The district uses a layered investment strategy, which each layer is based on liquidity. Meaning, how quickly the funds can be accessed when needed. The first and most liquid layer that we have is our Huntington operating account, which
represents our cash on hand. As of January 1, the interest rate on this account was 2.5%. The next level of liquidity is the Hoosier Fund, which is a statewide investment pool through an interlocal agreement. This is considered a short to medium term investment while still remaining very liquid. This rate can fluctuate throughout the year and it ended 2025 at approximately 4%, down from 4.8% in 2024. The next level in our liquidity structure are the certificates of deposit.
These are time deposits and are considered medium to longer term investments. We work with Baker Tilly through a competitive bid process with which provides us access to CD rates across roughly 3,000 banks and savings institutions. We evaluate and project our cash needs and then select CD terms such as three, six, nine, twelve months or longer based on these projections. This strategy is often referred to as a laddered approach, which investments are set to mature in phases, and allows us access to funds as needed without locking them all
up. This concludes the Board of Finance report. Mr. President, I will return the meeting over to you. Thank you. Are there any questions on the board? If I may, mister president. Yes. My concern, miss Gray Mhmm. Is the idea of, last year, with the s b one. Mhmm. Now we in January, s b one came into fruition. Mhmm. Property tax issue. There are three dynamics financially that could affect us. Mhmm. The first one is going to be 850,000. The second one will probably be 58,000.
The last one will be somewhere about 134,000. My question is, in that context, are we in in in have we are we gonna be okay with that particular cut that is being impressed on on all educational institutions? Are we gonna be alright? We don't have any layoffs coming or cutting anybody back or anything of that nature. I just I just think people need to know that. Mhmm. That's might not be interesting to a lot of other people, but that's going to
affect a lot of, programs in our school, possibly. Absolutely. A lot of those dollars just to jump in will follow sort of on our operation side. And, you know, every every week, from cabinet, we talk about savings and opportunities that won't be felt in the classroom. Yeah. And I'll always keeping staff is is a priority, based on our our current projections. You know, cuts and layoffs aren't things that, you know, we are currently considering. I think if things continue to go the way they are, you know, we'd always
look through attrition primarily. And when people leave, there may be opportunities and positions not to not to maybe fill those positions, but under the current, projections with the biannual that we're in, there's there's no intentions on, any sort of cuts. And and I think the service we could provide the children will stay at at at the level it is. That's almost 1,900,000.0, a little bit over that in those three years that are going to affect us. And I just, we're just concerned about, our faculty, our staff, and our programs.
Yeah. Are we gonna be able to maintain those particular situations? And, and also great question, doctor Moore. And also, we're gonna have, Barry Garner with policy analytics. And so he'll be that is that's in March. In March. So in March, we'll get an opportunity. Mister Garner will come and and kinda really dive pretty deep into the impacts, share specific numbers, you know, potential levers and all of those things that we that we can So we we are we're not anticipating any staff cuts. So I think it that needs to be openly said.
No. In that okay. No. Good. Because, you know, that's a lot of money, that, is going to be retracted from us. It is. And I'll and I'll give credit to these people right here on the on the front second row. Without any ask of me, they are constantly constantly looking at programs that are underutilized, or ineffective, and where we can keep a high level of service to our students and families, but yet make cuts and and reduce in in cost so that it's not failed. Yeah. Secondly, if I may Sure.
I I saw the referendum piece in here. Mhmm. Has has our resources hit our accounts yet? They come out in December? We got them in December. Superbible. We did. We did. Thank you. Alright. Any other questions? I just wanna comment. I heard that you said that in March, they were gonna come in and do, is that gonna be a work session or a presentation? Be a presentation, board meeting presentation. Mhmm. Board meeting presentation. Yes. And policy analytics, they've actually modeled out just to piggyback on doctor Young said, they've modeled out, until 2030, just the impact of the bill and how it's gonna affect
Pike Township. And they actually complimented us on our financial health because we're in a a great position compared to some of the other districts and the impact, but they'll elaborate on that more when they come in March. Could I also interject this? What I'm hearing, in Hamilton County Mhmm. And other counties that people are going to be going back to referendum, my duhales Mhmm. Because of this particular situation. And is it possible for us, to know where we're going with referendum, as it
relates to, during the course of the year? What are the items? We we know we have those three buckets, those bucket areas we work in. Are we going to continue to work in those bucket areas? Are we gonna move in other areas that are that fall in the ram of the, referendum? Yeah. I think we're we're we're kinda limited on those areas because of what we, share share with the community before they voted. So we'll stay in those areas. One of the big, things that impacts that obviously is the assessed value. Pike Township's assessed value went up.
And what was crazy, if you look at a map all over the state of Indiana, there was really, it was touch and go. Some communities assessed value went down, some went up. We benefited from an increase. But I think one of the things that we're hearing and what we believe is that won't be the case moving forward. Okay. So those are some things. If your house costs more, you're gonna pay more taxes. Most definitely. We'll be collecting more. But if if your house costs less, then that's less money we're gonna collect through, you know, the the referendum process. So there's a lot of unknown.
To your point, I think we'll probably get to some of that even in in in in March. And my question is basically and I I don't excuse me, mister Perez. I don't mean to take a No. Go ahead. My my my concern is I I just want if we, have to do referendum again, that the that that the community will understand it. And, that we need to do it. It. And so I'm asking that there would be better communication about the referendum during the course of the year. I know you have certain designated, months that you want to report on that.
But I I think, if you could reassess that particular, discipline towards referendum. Because, if we have to go back or whoever's on the board at that particular time have to go back for referendum, We want the community to feel good about coming to the to make that happen again for us, because, they were very nice the first time. We had some percentages there, but I'm just hoping that we can communicate much better with the community about referendum because it's their tax dollars.
And, they need to know in case we have to go at that area again in that area again. Thank you. Alright. Thank you, missus Thank you. Gray. We're on the action items. First up is minutes of our board of education reorganization meeting. Motion is ordered to approve. I'll make a motion that we approve the minutes of our board meeting on 01/08/2026. Second. The mood is second that we Move our our previous board meeting 01/08/2026.
There any questions? No questions. We want to vote all in favor. Say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed. Next up is, approval of our academic calendar, doctor Maggie Bishop. Good evening, mister president, members of the board, and doctor Young. This evening, I seek your approval of action item b, approval of academic calendars for 2627, 2728, and 2829 as presented. Make a motion that we approve the academic calendar for 02/2728, 02/2829.
Second. We move and second that we approve action item b, our academic calendar. Are there any questions? I do have a question. So my understanding is this is approving pending the approval from downtown of the exception that we need. Correct? Yes. The, ten zero three flexibility waiver was submitted in December. The Indiana Department of Education shared with us that they would not be approving flexibility waivers at their January meeting because they are now meeting every other month, that means
those approvals will come at their meeting on March 4. If worst case scenario, they didn't approve those two, it would just affect October 9 and January 4. It would not affect the other days, the start date, the breaks, the end date. So it really just affects two particular days in the calendar for the next three years. Okay. So I know one of the reasons we wanna go ahead and vote was for transparency. People have been asking. I've been getting emails from people about it. So will we still go will we now go ahead and post these online so people can send them with that caveat or whatever language you put in there around
it? We would post it online. We would make sure that it would be clearly stated online that this is still pending. But we wanna get it out there so that people can start making plans. Okay. Yeah. We have to approve. To approve. Yes. We have, the template ready for the website that will roll first thing in the morning. We'll also share that information with our district wide with our staff, making it very clear that that we still need approval on these two days. But, as you all know, you're receiving questions about that. But in working with doctor Young, we wanted to make sure we tried to share
this information as soon as possible, but also knowing that it really is just two days that are up to play and when we've got plans, if in fact something came up that pertaining to those two specific days. Okay. Thank you. Alright. Any other questions? Nope. Alright. We're on the vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you, doctor. Thank you. Okay. We're on to human resource, doctor Hunter. Action item c. Good evening, mister president, members of the board, doctor Young. I request your approval of HR report as presented. I move that we, approve the human resources report as presented.
Second. So moving second that we approve our HR report as presented due to the confidentiality of our human resource report. We are on to vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed. Thank you. We're also have action item d, supplemental board report, doctor Justin Hunter. Mister president, members of the board, doctor Young, I request your approval of the supplemental report as presented. So moved. Second. The move is second that we approve our action item d, supplemental report as presented. Likewise, we are on to vote.
All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you, doctor Hunter. Thank you, sir. Action item e, request for revised cost. Doctor Alicia Gatewood. Good evening, mister president, members of the board, and doctor Young. I am requesting the approval of action item e, the request for a revised cost for the English language arts grade six through eight textbook adoption. I move we approve the request for a revised cost for the ELA grades six through eight textbook adoption as presented.
Second. It moved and second that we approve action item e as presented by doctor Alicia Gatewood. Are there any questions? How much was the increase? That was the one thing I I didn't see. Or $40,839.53. Okay. I don't have a question per se. Thank you. I've we there were some of us that did have questions, and we were emailing, and we got responses very quickly. I appreciate that Of course. Even when it was after. You were supposed to be looking at your computer, but I'd also like to state
that, if you would to share with the public why the increase because that could be a concern to anyone who doesn't have the information that we have. Absolutely. The cost for increase is actually twofold. We actually have an increase in student enrollment. So we have more students, so we need to make sure that they have books. And then also publishing costs went up in 2026. Thank you for sharing. Of course. Alright. Any other questions, statement, comments? If not, we're on to vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Posed. Thank you, doctor Gatewood.
Thank you. And we have next up missus Monet Gray for action items, f g h n I. Good evening, mister president, members of the board, and doctor Young. I request your approval of action items f, g, h, and I as presented. I move that we approve, action items f, g, h, and I as presented. Second. The mood is second that we accept and approve action items g f, g, h,
and I as presented. Are there any questions on f, g, h, or I? No questions. We hear none. All we are on to vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Pose. Thank you. Now we're on to board member. I am doctor Moore. I have nothing tonight, mister president. Missus Wilson? Nothing other than, I noticed there's a bunch of young people here, then they stayed through this whole thing. I take my hat off to you. Thank you. You're not gonna talk about IU? I'm waiting on. All you all you Purdue fans.
I I knew I knew I knew I had some. I was unaware about that now. I just They had to remember. What a game. That's alright. Alright. Well, don't forget about the girls. Can I tell you about those girls? Go ahead. Talk about poetry and motion. If you want to see a poetry and motion, come watch the girls' basketball team. They have a game tomorrow against Carmel. You will not be disappointed at all. They're very disciplined. They get the highest ratings from the referees because of their discipline and how they're
very sportsmanlike. And miss Bishop's daughter, she's a beast on the bone. Mister Alright. Well, as a Purdue guy, I won't make all the jokes I wanna make about the Or you're a Purdue guy. You can't even tell us the rejection. You can't. Anyway alright. So, it was already mentioned tonight about treasures, but, I just wanted to our table is full for treasure, so I wanted to challenge the other board members to, also see if you could, fill up a table at the treasures event.
And, because, like I said, all the money that they put in towards Pike, it really does, it it helps. It's needed. It's a must, and so we really appreciate everything that they do. I did wanna remind everybody we had a good conversation earlier about the impacts of the taxes and and everything with the finances. This is a short session downtown, but they're still trying to do big things. One of the bills, I think it is still out there. I haven't heard of it getting shut down, is a proposal to eliminate property taxes, which would have clearly a huge impact.
I don't see a world where that passes, but I don't see a world where a lot of things that go on today happens. So, if you like public schools, I would encourage you to call downtown, talk to your, your representatives downtown, and let them know how you feel that that you wanna continue to support public schools. With that in mind, I'm glad miss Dorsey, pointed out the name of the church. I wasn't sure if they were renaming or not remaining anonymous or not, but I did wanna also personally thank Solid Word. They do a ton of things for the Guy and Creek Middle and Elementary School
all the time, and just having them step in to fill the gap where where our representatives downtown are failing our students. I appreciate seeing the faith community do that. I've talked to some other churches. I think there are more folks who are going to see more of that in that community from that, the faith leaders that have been put together. And so just, I like seeing people actually represent loving their neighbor instead of just talking about it and then doing the opposite. Thank you, mister Hofer. Mister Anderson. Oh, I would just like to, also get another, recognition for the Boy Scout troop
for being here. Mhmm. I appreciate you being the first, the first female to accomplish that your your accomplishment there and your goal. It's good to see miss Hop back there. Good to see you as well. Also appreciate you about the online, the after school, tuning service. My daughter, she's benefited through the year from different services, so I know other kids will be able to benefit from that as well. And I'm also really excited about, what, mister Amanda came through about the new, possible, the the theater that we're gonna have.
That is such a huge deal. I know a lot of us didn't get a chance to go over to Saint Monica when they had a a big presentation there, but, it left a lasting impression on me. And he still has the same passion, which, mister Sleepy. I forget the rest of his name, but, he he kinda brought it home for me even more. So, I I really look forward, and I hope that we we can have a collaboration, with that project. Thanks. Thank you, missus Hansen. Missus Barnes? First, I'd like to graduate miss, congratulate miss Price on your accomplishment of being a
former scout as well, but to have a female Eagle Scout that I get to live to meet and to see is pretty exciting. So congratulations. Yesterday, I represented the board at our district wellness council meeting led by mister Jacob. Chartwells, received the Innovative School Lunch Makeover Award and the Innovation in the Preparation of School Meals Award for their work feeding our Pike children. Our school nurses held a successful immunization clinic for our students, and they administered flu
shots to our staff. I was also able to hear how Reach for Youth will provide mental health services, not only for our students, but also for their families. So they offer more of a wrap around service, for ARCH children, and that was something we voted on during our last school board meeting. So So I was able to get some kinda in really good details about that program. And, also, our assistant principals are currently working on their applications for America's Healthiest Schools
Award, and I think we're gonna do really well this year just like we did last year, probably even a little better. And lastly, board members, we are invited to greet our community at the third annual mental health fair on Thursday, March 12, from 5PM to 06:30PM. It's right before our board meeting the same evening. That's at Pike High School. And earlier that day, mister Gary Sales and Daryl Flash Gordon will be speaking, during
the sports mental health summit for our juniors and seniors at Pike High School. And I don't know if you remember last year, we were kinda concerned about the attendance that activity is moved into the school day this time, and our juniors and seniors will be participating. Thank you. Thank you. Missus miss Kelly. Alright. Good evening. Good evening. Super excited for having an Eagle Scout with us. That is awesome. Many, many, many, many scouts do not finish that accomplishment, And so that is awesome.
Again, our the Pike Foundation, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all you do. The amount of money that has been donated to the classrooms and back to our students is awesome. Our other donors, the list, the last two weeks has been impressive. We've had so many donations from the community. Again, we've been really kind of emphasizing our getting our, relationship, this district's relationship with
the community solid and keeping it to where we are they know we're a part of this community, and the community is a part of us, and we want to continue that. Again, I wanna echo, treasures again because that's where the money is raised by the foundation. So all of us that can support attending treasures, that would be awesome. And, just the good information that we got about things that are going on in
our community and, being involved. And if you're able to help and be a part of that, even better. So. Thank you, miss Kelly. Doctor Young? Thank you, mister president. January is National School Board Member Appreciation Month, and, we just want to and I I'm sure I speak on behalf of many people in our community. Just want to thank each and every one of you. I also wanna recognize and thank Chartwells for helping us just pull together a small token of our appreciation for for everything that you all do, and, we're better because
of it. So thank you. Thank you. And if you want me to let it That's it. Jim, I I certainly appreciate all the board members and the value that you bring, to the board, and we look forward to a a great, great year. We do have a school retreat coming up, thirty first, I believe. Yeah. And so we look forward to planning and talking about our path forward. I I wanna say a a shout out to, mister Keith Hollins, our girls, coach,
and, Jeff Teague and his staff. If you if you were not at, Southport game last, the game last week against Lawrence North, it was a barn burner. We had a really good opportunity here. We lost one of our boys. Is that and is that is that is that student back? I don't know. Is that student back? Anybody know? I'm not sure. Okay. Is he Okay. Doctor. Bishop is is not in yes. He believes. Yes. Okay. One of our students got hurt, and, they had to pull him out the game.
And I think that that contribute to a, that that game. Second half coming. Yeah. Going off the middle edge. But tomorrow night, our boys do play in Carmel, and our girls play here. And so we just, I'm excited because we have a chance. I think if if if if we just get some good grace, we really got a chance to be represented, both boys and girls basketball. At the end, we really look like we have a state team. We just hope that we can get there.
Alright? So we, encourage the board to support, our boys and girls basketball. Stay warm this weekend, and it's going to be cold and projected snow. So let's, I'll make sure we do our best to stay warm. Nothing else, like to entertain a motion to So moved, mister Franklin. Second. I I need to sign it to you. I missed one place.