Mt. Vernon Board of School Trustees

Mrs. Bond shared the following Good News:

1.  MVHS had four student named as Rising Stars by the Indiana Association of School Principals:  Riley Britt, Kiley Hunziker, Molly Reece and Lillian Woolston.

2.  As an effort to help with staff morale, district administrators offered staff a customizable sundae bar and delivered their treat to their room or area of work.

3.  MVMS National Junior Honor Society sponsored a food drive that collected nearly 2,000 items for the food pantry at MVHS.

4.  MCE Student Council led a service project to collect items for "Journey Bags of Hancock County" and collected nearly 500 items.  This is a service that provides clothing and toiletries for underprivileged children in Hancock County.

5.  WRTV Channel 6 featured Dr. Parker along with IPS, Pike and Lawrence Townships' superintendents in  a segment on handling COVID-19 in schools.

Mr. Ben Williams began his  presentation spotlighting Mt. Vernon Middle School by acknowledging the awesome people that work at MVMS.  Mt. Vernon Middle School is a Unified Champions Schools designated by the IHSAA; STEM Certified by the Department of Education; a Gold Star Rated Counseling Program by the DOE; and a school where teachers want to teach, even during a Pandemic.  After discussing how they wanted to approach monthly staff meetings, they decided that teachers wanted to learn from each other and the opportunity was launched for breakout sessions for the 4 T's.  Teachers are teaching other teachers in various tech tools such as Google Classroom and Google Meets; Canvas, Dochub & Hyperlinks; Kami, Mentimeter,  and Screencastify.  And in spite of the pandemic, MVMS is still having fun with events such as band and choir concerts, virtual student of the month and much more. 

Mrs. Stephanie Miller stated her presentation spotlighting McCordsville Elementary would center around what does the classroom look like?  She went around to several classrooms and videoed what teachers were doing.  First year teacher Savanna Chapple uses an XP-Pen StarG640 to provide synchronous instruction.  Teacher Emily Cronk uses an iPad Pro to Canvas screen share.  First year teacher Abigayle Price ZOOMs with all her class meeting at the same time.  All grade levels are sharing the load by one teacher taking a day or a subject area for the week.  They create slides and voice over the lesson.  Students can type directly and it is submitted through Canvas for fluency checks. Whether a student is virtual or in-person, they are all receiving a high level of instruction.  Mrs. Walls asked, when virtual, how many hours are spent connected with students.  Mrs. Miller stated teachers have morning and afternoon office hours where they meet with students.   Mrs. Walls also asked if students were doing virtual time with art, music and p.e.  Mrs. Miller stated yes they are as these teachers are going above and beyond to keep students engaged.  She added the Virtual Support Teacher concept is absolutely working as they have been helpful meeting and doing lessons with students.  Dr. Parker  added the principals have the opportunity to do what they want with the Virtual Support Teachers, but perimeters have been set of what is expected of them.

Mr. Smedley gave a report on the Certified Staff Evaluation for the 2019-2020 school year.  He began by stating last spring  the school year ended like no other year.  Along with the Governor's stay at home order, schools were advised that the state was cancelling all standardized assessments that were normally given in the spring and factored into a teacher's evaluation.  Executive Order 20-20 was issued which addressed how schools would administer teacher evaluations and outlined two options districts could use when completing the evaluations.  Option 1 - Conduct Performance Evaluations for 2019-2020 as planned, but they may not be based on objective measures of student achievement and growth on statewide assessment; local assessments that were not completed before the last day of in-person instruction; or observations that were not conducted prior to the last day of in-person instruction.  Option 2 allows districts to carry over performance evaluations for certified staff from the 2018-2019 school year.  It takes into special consideration two groups of teachers, brand new teachers and teachers new to Mt. Vernon, but came from a prior district.  An agreement was made with CTA that no brand new teacher would receive an evaluation lower than an Effective and teachers who came to Mt. Vernon from prior districts carried over their evaluation from that district.  Final teacher ratings showed 72 Highly Effective; 172 Effective and no one was rated Improvement Necessary or Ineffective.  It was determined a fresh evaluation was warranted with administrators and Option 1 was applied.   Final ratings for administrators showed 10 Highly Effective; 12 Effective and no one was rated Improvement Necessary or Ineffective.  

Dr. Parker recapped the Future Growth Plan presented at the November board meeting.  He reminded everyone that nothing will be built until student numbers warrants it.  There are three options to consider.  Option 1:  addition/renovation of the current administration building to PK-4 ($36,500,000) and addition/renovation of the current transportation building to administration building ($3,800,000).  Option 2:  new elementary/Pre-K ($42,000,000) and renovation of the current administration building ($2,000,000).  Option 3;  new elementary school K-4 ($34,000,000), renovation of 1/2 of the current administration building to Pre-K ($8,000,000) and renovation of 1/2 of the current administration building ($2,000,000).  He noted as current debt will be falling off, Debt Service Fund would stay approximately the same.  

Two virtual town hall meetings were held to present the plan to the community with more than 80 in attendance, 66% being a parent of current MV students, 36.2% MV staff, 57.4% MV community members and 6.4% others not listed above.  80.9% of the 47 responses to a survey regarding the Future Growth Plan indicated they were highly supportive of the proposed options to accommodate projected enrollment growth.  42.6% wanted to build a new elementary, while 27.7% wanted to renovate the current administration building.  Dr. Parker's recommendation is not to go with Option 3 as it has the same price tag as Option 2.  

Mr. McCarty made a motion to move forward with Option 2.  Mr. May seconded.

Dr. Parker introduced representatives from Lancer + Beebe that were in attendance to answer any questions board members had.  Mrs. Freeman started the discussion by saying she was torn going back and forth between Option 1 and 2 and agreed Option 3 should not be considered.  She struggles with renovating the current administration building and since it is older, ten years down the road having a huge expense.  How do you build a state of the art building when renovating a building this old.  Mark Beebe stated they did a walk thru of the administration building, meaning looked in every mechanical room, every easily accessible space to analyze every mechanical space, etc.  If the choice is to renovate this building, it will be a total renovation (new windows, plumbing, mechanical equipment, etc.) and it would be equal to a new building.

Mrs. Smith asked what the timeline was depending on which Option is chosen.  Mr. Beebe said 12-14 months to renovate and 18-20 months to build new.

Mrs. Walls stated she is struggling because the cost figures are almost equal.  Struggling with our community is growing and people are moving to our community for logistics and schools and may expect a different level and more innovative and creative learning space.  Can we truly give them that if we renovate as the community wants as reflected in the survey.

Mrs. Freeman assumed if the administration building was gutted in renovations, we would be able to create a state of the art building. Is then the reasonable thing to do is be fiscally responsible and use what we have as the outside won't look the same and inside will look like new, but why then don't we just build a new building.  

Mr. McCarty expressed concern about the current roof at the administration building.  Mr. Elkins assured him that the roof is four years old and the best roof in the district, every square inch in the high quality rating.  

Mrs. Walls stated she appreciates how the administration building is utilized now with the Preschool, Alumni Center and space for PLC.   It is important to have room for teacher training and community use and struggles with giving up that space.

A big concern of Mrs. Freeman's is how do we know that we aren't putting ourselves in a financial bind ten years up the road.  Mr. Elkins responded to that by saying we have the capacity to finance this completely through our normal budget process through structure of the Debt Service Fund and doesn't feel like anything will dramatically change in the future, which it would have to do.  Assessed value grew 8% this year and we are looking at setting up financing at historically low rates.  Dr. Parker stated anything we do at the elementary is subject to referendum because of the cost of the project.  We may want to entertain the thought of a referendum in the future, or it is possible if we don't want to do a referendum, citizens may push us to do one.  

Mr. McCarty stated we know our community is growing, we need more space as our current space will not be adequate.  At this point we need to open the door without settling on the actual option.  Dr. Parker said whatever you decide to do, no money will be spent, we just need to know what path we want to go down so details can be worked out.  Mrs. Freeman asked if they would be stifling the process if they table the vote to January's board meeting.  Would any additional information come in play that would warrant postponing.  She reiterated that she is concerned about ten years up the road not having funds for teacher raises, textbooks for students. etc. as all of these things are important to her.  She asked Mr. Elkins again if this fear was unfounded.  Mr. Elkins responded funding will come from student enrollment.  He does not believe we will get ourselves into a bind.  We can also pump the brakes if circumstances change.  Mrs. Smith reminded everyone that  we would not build until enrollment numbers warranted it. 

Mrs. Freeman feels like the administration building can be renovated into a state of the art building and if we can have that in a spot we know, is that the more responsible way to go. She voiced concern that they were not ready to make a decision.  Mr. McCarty stated everyone needed to feel comfortable making these decisions and he was not sure everyone did, but the challenge is there was a time crunch as far as getting things moving.  He is comfortable with the finances, but worries about continued current concerns such as traffic, parking, etc.  Mrs. Walls stated with the projected growth comes more traffic and wondered if the plan presented accommodates that traffic growth.  Mrs. Smith added that the designs presented regarding traffic flow included future possibilities to reroute traffic.  Dr. Parker reminded members that traffic is only a problem at drop off and pick up times and special events and because our drop off/pick up schedules are at different times at the elementary and middle school/high school, it is only a problem twice a day for approximately 30 minutes.  Dr. Parker wanted clarification from Mr. McCarty as he made the motion to move forward with Option 2 (building a new school), but something he said made it seem like his motion was more about renovating this building.  Mr. McCarty stated he was referring to the site itself of the current administration building as the center of the campus today and as we think about traffic and flow, etc., how do you decentralize in such a way that it allows for campus growth and building growth as opposed to building a new elementary on a completely new site.   Dr. Parker also reminded everyone that Option 2 did not include the price of land if we did not build on land we currently owned.  He feels that if we purchase  the land to the north of the administration building, there would be ample space to do what we need.

Mrs. Freeman asked Mr. Beebe his opinion with making this decision,  He stated he could only tell some of the pros of each option.  Renovating the administration building (central campus) would allow sharing of the existing spaces such as outdoor athletic fields, parking, etc. and provide close proximity to SRO's.  He felt the traffic path previously presented provided a clean way to minimize traffic issues.  Building a new elementary provided flexibility of exactly what it would look like and being able  to pick a location. 

Mrs. Freeman asked members if they wished to move forward with the vote.  Mrs. Walls stated if they table the vote until the January, 2021 meeting, would the two new board members feel comfortable voting or want to table it for another month causing more delay.  Dr. Parker stated he was comfortable with moving the vote to January.  Mr. May feels comfortable in the fact that the new board members can be caught up to speed to make the decision.

Mr. McCarty made a motion amend his previous motion of moving forward with Option 2 and table the vote until the January 25, 2021 board meeting.  Mr. May seconded, and the motion carried 5-0.

Mrs. Smith made a motion to approve Resolution 2020-45 to transfer funds as presented.  Mr. McCarty seconded, and the motion carried 5-0.

Mrs. Walls made a motion to approve Resolution 2020-46 to adjust account lines within funds presented to reflect a positive or zero balance at the conclusion of the 2020 fiscal year.  Mrs. Smith seconded, and the motion carried 5-0.

Mr. McCarty made a motion to approve Resolution 2020-47 to encumber funds as presented.  Mrs. Walls seconded, and the motion carried 5-0.

Mr. Elkins presented the Two-Year Farm Ground Lease Bids received for the 63 acres of land owned by MVCSC located at 100 North and 600 West in Greenfield.  He asked permission to enter into a one year lease with the highest bidder, Crossroads Family Farms (Brad and Stacey Stephenson) for $303.10 per acre for a total bid of $19,095.30 for the period January 28, 2021 to December 31, 2021.  Mrs. Walls made a motion to approve the Farm Lease as presented.  Mrs. Smith seconded, and the motion carried 5-0.

Mr. Elkins asked permission to enter into a five year agreement with Sharp, our current copier contractor, to renew our current contract as presented.  Mr May made a motion to approve the copier contract as presented.  Mr. McCarty seconded, and the motion carried 5-0.

Mr. Elkins presented a list of technology items determined to have reached the end of its typical life cycle and/or became damaged, therefore, no longer needed for school purposes.  All items have been removed from the classroom and/or school use.  He asked permission to declare the items surplus.   Mrs. Smith made a motion to declare technology surplus as presented.  Mrs. Walls seconded, and the motion carried 5-0.