March 4, 2024 School Board Meeting Summary
KEY TAKEAWAYS: A $10.4 million plan to renovate the JSHS ground floor was proposed with the initial money for phase 1 to come from the foundation’s past fundraising because the school corporation has already exceeded its current debt capacity. The organizational structure for the effort to rewrite all school policies was presented and the first two new policies were approved. Revisions to two other new policies were discussed in the work session prior to the meeting. The board approved moving the central office to the building next to WLES on Benton Street and the transportation group to the current central office next to the Happy Hollow building.
Agenda with links to board documents
TOPIC TIMESTAMPS (Youtube Recording)
6:15 discussion of proposed non-discrimination policy
35:20 discussion of proposed nepotism and conflict of interest policy
1:18:11 communication from the audience
1:58:10 new school policies organization structure
2:05:15 approval of two new policies
2:08:19 introduction of 10 additional new policies
2:10:05 moving the central office to Benton Street
2:22:54 after- and before-school care program
2:41:16 discussion of a proposed plan to start a new $10.4 million construction project
The following is my summary of the public school board meeting, not the official meeting minutes. My personal thoughts and opinions are given in italics and represent my own views which do not necessarily reflect those of any other member of the school board. I identify myself as Mumford in the summary but use first person when describing my personal thoughts and opinions.
The school board held a work session the hour before the school board meeting. This summary covers both meetings:
0:39 The work session began and Austin listed each of the first 10 policies proposed by the school’s legal counsel, Church Church Hittle and Antrim (CCHA), to see which did not need discussion and were ready for a vote during the regular meeting. Two of the ten policies had no proposed edits: A275 School Wellness and A350 Civility and Decorum.
6:15 The board discussed proposed policy A100 Non-Discrimination and Anti Harassment. Witt recommended adding “including gender status, sexual orientation, and gender identity” to the list of protected classes and said that these are included in our existing policies. The attorney from CCHA, Amy Matthews, recommended not including gender status because it does not have a legal definition. She said this presents a concern in how it would be enforced and implemented.
Yin asked about the difference between this proposed policy and the proposed C200 Anti-bullying policy. Matthews responded that the policies comply with different laws. Bullying is addressed in a state law, is defined as student to student, and is not limited to those in a protected class. The proposed A100 policy covers federal discrimination and harassment laws.
Mumford recommended changing the Title IX coordinator from the athletic director and assistant athletic director to the assistant superintendent and changing the Title VI Coordinator from the WLIS principal to the assistant superintendent. Other school districts consistently use district-level leaders as the Title IX and Title VI coordinators. Mumford said that no other school district that she is aware of uses athletic directors as Title IX coordinators. Witt said the decision to assign the athletic directors as Title IX coordinator was intended to place the coordinators closer to students to help them feel more comfortable. Mumford said that athletic directors work directly with coaches and that it would be more appropriate for a district-level administrator to handle sexual harassment and gender discrimination reports rather than the athletic directors. She also recommended adding email addresses for each coordinator to the policy to make it easier for community members to contact them.
Wang asked about the form that is referenced on page 4 in the second paragraph. Matthews said this could be a link when the policy is added to the school’s website. Wang said that there was no form provided and he has not seen it. Matthews said that CCHA has a form that she recommends. Greiner said he would work with CCHA to use their form and noted that the form does not need to be approved by the board, but that he would be happy to share it.
Wang asked about nondiscrimination in regard to genetic information, which is contained in our existing policy 3122, but excluded from policy A100 that is proposed to replace our existing policy. Matthews said that genetic nondiscrimination is required by state law and this law is listed at the bottom of the proposed policy along with other legal references. She said that genetic nondiscrimination is something that could be added to the school policy if desired, but would not change the school district’s obligations which are primarily about insurance.
Austin said that alternative versions of proposed policy policy A100 will be prepared and presented at the next meeting.
35:20 The board discussed proposed policy A125 Nepotism and Conflict of Interest. Mumford asked about the last paragraph on page 1 which states, “ A conflict of interest occurs when a School Board member or employee knowingly or intentionally may benefit financially from a contract with the Corporation or a purchase made by the Corporation.” She asked if this prohibits board members from accepting political contributions from school contractors. Austin suggested that school board members can accept political contributions from school contractors if they don’t know it is a school contractor. She explained that she doesn’t know everybody who does business with the schools. Matthews said that this type of conflict of interest does not mean it is prohibited, but the policy requires that all conflicts of interest be disclosed, including any potential benefits to school board members. The state has a conflict of interest form that CCHA recommends school districts use. Matthews said that all employees should be asked to complete the conflict of interest form annually and said that most boards do it during the reorganization meeting in January. Mumford noted that as a teacher in our district and as a board member, she has never been asked to complete a conflict of interest form. Greiner said that the administration will add this to future organizational meetings and asked Matthews to provide the conflict of interest form. Cronk shared that at her previous school district, they would send out the conflict of interest form to all employees and board members two months in advance of the school board meeting in which they would be accepted. Witt said that she would like to see this added as there have been allegations about her having conflicts of interest in the past and this would provide her an opportunity to state facts.
Mumford asked about page 3 paragraph 2 where it states, “If a staff member has provided an unusual amount of extra help for a student and the family would like to express appreciation, small non-monetary gifts may be accepted.” She noted that current policy does not prevent teachers from accepting small monetary gifts and asked why this limitation has been added. Austin said that these gifts all go through the parent council, which is legally different. Mumford said that some parents provide small monetary gifts directly to teachers. Matthews clarified that the proposed policy allows gift cards but would not allow cash gifts to prevent bribery. Witt and Greiner both said that parents should not give cash gifts to teachers or staff. Yin said that in Chinese culture, people often give a small red envelope containing money as a gift for good luck and that this is not considered bribery. Austin said that if a gift raised any red flags, the teacher would probably come forward and talk to their building supervisor. There is a practice in our district for some families to give small monetary gifts and for teachers and staff to accept it. I don’t know of any issues or concerns with this cultural practice, so I am not sure why the administration wants to impose this new limitation. If adopted, I think it will cause some awkward situations and some may not comply.
The work session concluded. It was wonderful to have a work session to discuss policy revisions. This has not been done in the past by our board and is a positive step. I would like to see a work session discussion of all agenda items before regular school board meetings.
1:02:50 The regular school board meeting was called to order.
1:03:10 Ron Shriner, JSHS principal, had teachers come forward and recognize students for their service from several clubs: Mary Beth Boyd with Gay-Straight Alliance, Andi Hipsher with ECO Club, Marydell Forbes with Students Demand Action, and Shriner for Jane Helton with National Honor Society. This is a wonderful time to see the variety of ways that students excel and the support provided by teachers!
1:18:11 Communication from the audience (those who had signed up before the meeting began):
● Becky Creech (parent, JSHS science teacher, and coach) spoke about the role of a school board. She shared that the only employee of the school board is the superintendent and referenced the hiring of the JSHS principal. She said that the job of the school board is to set policies and the job of the education professionals is to work within these guidelines. She shared the concern about the education professionals being micromanaged. I agree with Creech’s message that the school board’s role is to set policies, provide oversight, and not micromanage. An important part of providing oversight is asking the superintendent questions and pointing out things he may not have considered. As a board member, it is important to take every vote seriously and not just rubber stamp the superintendent’s proposals.
● Jonathan Eifler (JSHS science teacher) shared that a friend, who was potentially applying for a teaching position at the high school, texted him after the February school board meeting’s vote of the JSHS principal and asked why anyone would want the job. Teachers are hard to find. Eifler said he chose to work at WLCSC 7 years ago because the science department, administration, superintendent, and school board demonstrated that this was a respected place to be a professional. I agree with Eifler that the level of contention between board members makes things difficult. My view is that the efforts to limit public access to information is at the heart of the contention between board members. I also agree that there is a teacher shortage, though it is interesting to note that teacher turnover in our district has improved a lot from where it was a few years ago. In the year prior to Yin’s election to the school board, 23 teachers resigned their positions (2018-2019 school year). But there has been a good trend since then and last year, just 12 teachers resigned their positions (2022-2023 school year).
● Graham Whitcomb (JSHS science teacher and co-president of union) shared that as a union leader he is regularly asked to help solve issues between teachers and the school corporation administrators. He said that on average they have a serious issue every two weeks. Whenever a concern is shared with Greiner, Roth, or Cronk, they respond promptly and professionally. The building-level administrators are respectful. He said that as professional educators, they have been trained for years on how to solve problems. I agree with Whitcomb that in our school district, union leaders have always had a great relationship with the superintendent and other administrators.
● Lori Windler (JSHS media center specialist) said she is grateful that WLCSC has a full-time certified library media specialist in all three buildings, that there are no issues with funding to provide databases and new books, and all three buildings have updated library facilities. She appreciates the freedom she is given to do her job and allowed to have a diverse collection of books and materials. She assisted in the development of policy 2520 last fall that was adopted by the board (December 2023 1:43:18) and does not want to see it changed. I wasn’t sure, but perhaps Windler was speaking against the newly proposed policy H250 which is quite different from policy 2520 that she worked on and was passed in December. However, as I noted at the time it was passed, policy 2520 does not provide any procedures. Perhaps Windler helped develop the procedures that are now included in the newly proposed policy? I’ve received no information about this.
● Randy Studt (JSHS German teacher) referenced the proposed policy A100 and his desire to include both sexual orientation as well as gender identity and expression explicitly as protected classes. He said our current policies intentionally include these groups and he heard the discussion in the work session about adding these terms.
● Emily Ohland (parent) briefly described her involvement in public education as a music teacher and a volunteer. She shared that her family is one of the many in our school district who have children in the LGBTQIA+ community, specifically the trans and non-binary community. Ohland said that one of the amazing things about our community is that she can share this without fear. She is asking the board to include sexual orientation and gender identity and expression in the non-discrimination policy because it shows our support to transgender, non-binary, and genderqueer individuals.
● Colin William (parent) said that from February 2023 to February 2024 the school board spent approximately 150 minutes discussing meeting minutes. He asked that this be reconsidered as a priority and that the board focus on real issues for teachers and students. I couldn’t agree more with William’s point. The school board officers have repeatedly refused to correct inaccuracies in the meeting minutes. I email my requested changes to the minutes in advance of the regular meeting and when they are refused, my only option is to make a motion in the public meeting to correct each inaccuracy. Many of these are simple mistakes that would have been so easy to correct before the meeting. Others are due to a disagreement about what message the minutes convey to the public. My view is that the minutes should accurately record both actions and board discussion during meetings, similar to our own West Lafayette City Council minutes. Austin explained that she rejects my requested changes because she does not want to create a paper trail of times when the board has disagreed (February 2023, 6:31). Rather than try to fake the appearance of unity with inaccurate meeting minutes, the board officers should schedule work sessions to allow the board to discuss topics where we disagree and allow for compromise to arrive at decisions we can all support.
David Kucik (parent) shared that unanimous board votes are important for a united community and asked the board to find a way to compromise. He also shared his concern with transient housing in our school district. He asked the board to provide a representative to the zoning board meetings that hear special requests for transient guest houses. If the board officers would schedule regular work sessions and allow discussion this would enable compromise that would help the board arrive at unanimous decisions much more frequently. Holding a one-hour work session before the regular meeting to discuss policy revisions is a step in the right direction. I really hope that the board officers will adopt what is a common practice for most school boards and hold a work session every month to discuss all the items on the agenda for the upcoming meeting. Items that are not previously discussed in a work session should not be brought for a vote in the regular meeting.
1:41:50 The board was asked to approve the consent agenda items:
Current policy requires two school board members in order to remove an item from a consent agenda. Witt said that she will abstain from voting on the personnel report as one of her children is listed and asked that this item be removed from the consent agenda; Yin supported it. Mumford asked that the February 12, 2024 minutes be removed from the consent agenda as discussion is needed and Wang supported it.
Voted 7 out of 7 to approve the remaining items on the consent agenda
1:46:54 Approval of the February 12, 2024 Regular Meeting Minutes. Mumford said she had previously requested a change to the minutes on page 3 section E: “Discussion continued as to why the Secretary of the Finance Board did not was not allowed to review the meeting minutes and provide input." Austin said she was uncomfortable with Mumford’s proposed word “allowed” and asked for another word. Witt said Mumford had access to the draft of the minutes a few days before the meeting so “not allowed” does not seem appropriate. Mumford clarified that this statement is in reference to the finance meeting minutes where she had requested changes and the board officers did not allow the changes. Austin asked if instead they could just delete the entire sentence from the minutes and Mumford agreed. Mumford made the motion and Wang seconded it. At the January meeting, I was elected as secretary of the finance board, but was not invited to help prepare the finance meeting minutes. The draft contained a large number of errors, so I proposed revisions in an email to the board prior to the February meeting. My revisions were refused. So, I made a motion at the public meeting and pointed out the inaccuracies. Austin moved to table the issue until this meeting. After considering it for a month, Austin decided to scrap the version she and Schott had produced and use my version of the finance meeting minutes. She added it to the consent agenda this month and no one objected. So, those errors are now all corrected. This issue is about the way Schott described the discussion at the February meeting (40:04). Schott was incorrect to say that I did not review the finance meeting minutes prior to the February meeting. The issue was that I was not allowed to correct the errors in the finance meeting minutes prior to the February meeting.
Voted 7 out of 7 to delete the sentence claiming that Mumford did not review the finance meeting minutes
Yin said that she would like to make a suggestion about preparing the minutes which would help decrease the amount of time spent discussing the minutes at board meetings. After Mrs. Julian drafts the minutes, all board members should be allowed to suggest revisions. Then the board secretary, Schott, can update the minutes so that the version presented at the school board meeting is accurate. Austin said that there have been speedbumps as she figures out how she will do things differently than Witt did as president of the board. Austin agreed that we need a better process and asked Yin to write a document describing her proposed process. Austin said this is similar to how she asked Mumford to draft a communication plan for the board. The “process” for drafting and revising meeting minutes has never been clear and has caused a lot of contention between board members. I hope that Yin’s suggestions will be adopted. The communication plan Austin referenced came about because I documented times over the past year where not all school board members were provided with the same information. Austin asked me to propose communication procedures which I did and I hope they will be adopted.
Voted 7 out of 7 to approve the revised minutes of the February 12, 2024 meeting
1:56:44 Approval of the Personnel Report.
Voted 6 out of 7 (Witt abstained)
1:58:10 Matthews, the attorney from CCHA, asked for approval of the proposed Policy Development System which describes the organizational structure of the new board policies which will be arranged in eight sections. Mumford asked how the transition from old to new policies will work. Matthews said that newly adopted policies can be posted to the new website while old policies remain on Board Docs because the board will vote to rescind conflicting old policies at the time the board votes to approve new policies. Mumford asked when our subscription to Neola and Board Docs expires. Austin said that our contract with Neola ends in April and then we would need to get our own subscription to Board Docs. Greiner said the question will be if we want to use the new website that Brandon Hamilton, Technology director, has begun creating or if we want to continue to use Board Docs. Cronk said that we will have access to board docs until June 30 and that if we want to continue to have access to the old policies we will need to pay for a subscription. Which system will be used to post policies will be the board’s decision. Mumford asked when this would be decided as nothing had been shared prior to the meeting. Greiner said that it will be decided at a future meeting. Austin said that they were waiting to see how things went with the policy revisions before deciding how policies will be posted. Greiner offered to give the board a presentation by Hamilton on how his new system will look as well as provide information on the cost of a Board Docs subscription so that the board can make an informed decision. Witt asked if we would need to vote to delete the corresponding Neola policy when approving a new CCHA policy and Matthews said yes.
Voted 7 out of 7
2:05:15 Approval of rewritten policy project A275 School Wellness.
Voted 7 out of 7
2:06:02 Approval to repeal policy 8510 which has been replaced with A275.
Voted 7 out of 7
2:07:31 Approval of rewritten policy project A350 Civility and Decorum which does not replace any current board policies.
Voted 7 out of 7
2:08:19 Matthews from CCHA shared new proposed policies: B100 Board Authority and Philosophy, B125 Duties of the School Board, B150 Organization, B175 Functions, B200 Membership, B225 Board Meetings, B250 Board Meeting Ethics, C200 Anti-bullying, C350 Student Discipline, D175 Board Staff Communication, and H250 School Library Material Removal which will be discussed at a future work session.
2:10:05 Greiner proposed Relocating the Central Office and Transportation Center. As announced at the February meeting, the Wabash Valley Education Center will be vacating the building next to WLES on Benton Street. Greiner is recommending that the central office be moved to the Benton Street building and said it will be a close to cost neutral change. The Benton Street building will provide more space for the central office staff as well as a room for school board meetings. Greiner is also recommending that the transportation office be moved to the current central office building by the Happy Hollow building. Greiner noted that at the February meeting, Yin and Wang asked about the possibility of using the Benton Street building for a preschool pilot program. Greiner said that he recommends locating the preschool pilot program in one of the school buildings instead, because this allows for oversight by the principal, access to playground equipment, safety, and prompt qualification as level three of four on Paths to Quality. Cronk said that moving the central office to the Benton Street building would give the business office additional storage space for files and more private work spaces. Yin asked when more information will be shared about the proposed preschool pilot. Greiner shared he is working with WLES and WLIS principals as well as Roth and Cronk on the plan and will be sharing information with the board in the future. Wang motioned to approve these relocations and Witt seconded it.
Voted 7 out of 7
2:22:54 Roth asked for approval of the Safe Harbor Before & After School Care Agreement. She also shared Safe Harbor’s Enrollment Agreement and Safe Harbor’s Program Changes. Safe Harbor provides before- and after-school care at WLES and after-school care at WLIS. They also provide a summer program that rotates yearly between the WLES and WLIS buildings. Safe Harbor follows Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) requirements which allow the program to accept vouchers from qualifying families. They have increased capacity from 30 to 55 and are at capacity at WLES after-school care with a waitlist. There are openings for before-school care at WLES and after-school care at WLIS. Roth also mentioned that the after-school care program at the Wellness Center is also at capacity. Wang asked about the possibility of increasing capacity at WLES since there is a waitlist. Nancy Beall, owner of Safe Harbor, shared that Indiana has set a capacity of 55 children in one space no matter the size of space so unless they are given another room, they cannot increase capacity. Wang asked about the summer program and Beall shared that WL families receive priority enrollment two weeks prior to open enrollment to the entire community. Wang asked about the possibility of providing the summer program at both WLES and WLIS so that more students can participate. Beall agreed that there is a need, but said it isn’t possible because rotating buildings each year allow deep cleaning on the off years. Yin expressed her appreciation for their service and thanked Beall for her willingness to share these changes. Yin asked if annual feedback is solicited. Beall said that they changed directors in December and she is unaware if feedback was sought in the past year or two but said that they would be soliciting feedback moving forward.
Voted 7 out of 7
2:33:25 Cronk asked for approval of the WLCSC and WL Public Library MOU and Memo. The WL Public Library is planning evening and weekend events at the Grand View Cottage and has asked to allow patrons to park at the Central office/Happy Hollow Building parking lot.
Voted 7 out of 7
2:36:44 Cronk asked for approval of the Skyward Contract Agreement and Memo. This is a three-year agreement which provides a large discount compared to annual pricing. Witt asked what the increase is and Hamilton responded that it is minimal.
Voted 7 out of 7
2:38:26 Cronk asked for approval of the Network Equipment Purchase Agreement. She shared the E-Rate II Category Project Approval Memo, Project Cost Breakdown, and Publication Media. The technology department indicated a need for upgrades to our network infrastructure as well as equipment. The costs are eligible for a 50% discount from obtaining federal e-rate category 2 funding.
Voted 7 out of 7
2:39:53 Cronk shared the financial update with Financial Report - Funds, Credit Card Statement, Claims Docket , and Object Breakdown. Payroll specialist, Nathan Snyder, was voted as the Indiana Association of School Business Officials School Support Professional of the Year for region 4. The state board of accounts audit just finished and more information will be shared during the April school board meeting.
2:41:16 Greiner sent the board a memo proposing renovation of the JSHS Ground Floor. The West Lafayette Schools Education Foundation (WLSEF) raised $1.6 million dollars that they are proposing to transfer to the school district in order to begin renovations of the JSHS ground floor (the locker rooms). The foundation is requesting that these funds be tracked separately in a construction fund designated for the ground floor renovation. This will come to the board for a vote in April. The Fanning Howey Study divided the renovations into 4 phases. The estimated cost of phase 1 is $2.65 million and the estimated total cost of all 4 phases is $10.4 million. The leaders of the foundation believe that they can raise sufficient funds to cover all the costs associated with phase 1. Witt shared her concern about children having to change in front of each other twice a day for physical education (PE) and asked Joel Strode, JSHS athletic director, about providing locker rooms that allow students privacy. Strode said that these are just initial drawings from KJG and that Fanning Howey added to them. He said he leans towards listening to the experts about what is needed for our facility. Strode said that PE teachers, coaches, and administrators shared their feedback about providing safer locker rooms with supervision. The plans include open spaces with additional separate spaces that can still be supervised. He noted that we are not close to breaking ground and there is still a lot of feedback to gather.
Mumford said that she agrees that we need to renovate the locker rooms. This has been a need for many years. She asked how the school district plans to pay for this more than $10 million dollar project, besides hoping that WLSEF will raise the funds. Austin said that accepting the money from the foundation is a first step towards the construction plan and then we can ask the foundation to fundraise additional funds on our behalf. Schott said that we should spend the money that we have and when we run out of money we will stop. Greiner said that this is why he asked this project to be broken into phases so that we only start on a phase when we have the money. Greiner said that we will not begin phase 1 until we have the money. The hope is that after phase 1 is complete, this will increase fundraising for the other phases. Greiner said that he will look at our rainy day fund and the operations fund to determine the amount of school corporation funds that can be allocated to pay for the next phases.
Mumford said that she recalled the foundation reporting that they raised about $3.5 million to help pay for the recent construction projects. She asked if the school district received those funds. Cronk said that this $1.6 million is the money the foundation raised for the prior construction projects. Cronk said that this $1.6 million is in a CD that can be transferred to the school corporation. The rest of the donations are in the form of pledges and the foundation is not sure when those gifts will be received. Mumford asked why the foundation is not offering to transfer the money to help pay for the construction debt our school corporation took on to pay for the prior projects. Cronk said that the foundation raised the money for the purpose of construction at the JSHS and said that the foundation determined that it can be used for this new construction project. Mumford said that the foundation originally said that they were raising money to help pay for the prior construction projects, but never transferred the money to the schools. Now it seems that the foundation is saying that they will only transfer the $1.6 million they raised if the school district uses it to start a new $10.4 million project. Greiner said this isn’t really a new project because renovating the ground floor is part of the unfinished work at the JSHS.
Wang asked about donors who gave restricted donations that were designated for a specific purpose and if this use of the funds matches the request of the donors. Greiner said the WLSEF board of directors discussed this and they feel comfortable that using the donations to renovate the ground floor lines up with donor requests. Schott said we need to do something to show that we are making progress in order to increase our fundraising capabilities. Witt said that the school corporation began serious discussion about this JSHS ground floor renovation on November 17, 2021, but said that there were informal conversations even before. Ron Shriner, JSHS principal, said that renovating the ground floor was always part of the overall remodel plan at the JSHS, but that this project ran out of steam about the time of the Performing Arts Center project. Austin said there were leadership changes at the foundation and also the pandemic at that time.
My children have participated in athletics at the JSHS for years and it is obvious that the ground floor locker rooms at the JSHS need a major renovation. What I don’t understand is why the school board didn’t prioritize this need over many of the other projects they decided to do instead. Between 2017 and 2020, the board authorized borrowing $95 million to complete the projects that they chose to prioritize. When they decided which projects to fund, they implicitly decided against funding athletics projects, including renovating the locker rooms at the JSHS. Had I been on the board at the time, I would have advocated for prioritizing this and other athletic projects.
Even though I’m convinced that we need to renovate the locker rooms, I don’t see how we can afford a new $10.4 million project. Last year, our school district’s debt payments were $350,000 more than the debt service tax revenue. Because of the way the school board structured the borrowing for the recent construction projects, our scheduled debt payments increase each year from $6.1 million to over $7 million by 2036 and continuing until 2039. The school district’s financial consultant suggested at the September budget hearing (18:30) that the only way to borrow additional funds is to divert referendum money away from education and operations spending and towards debt service.
A very tricky additional issue is that there is currently a great deal of uncertainty about the stability of our debt service tax revenue. Tippecanoe County Assessor Eric Grossman explained that a new state law will likely decrease the assessed value of large rental properties, which make up about 35% of the total assessed value in our school district (J&C Feb 1, 2024). The worry is that our annual debt service revenue could decline by as much as 15% while at the same time our debt service payments are scheduled to increase by 14% over the next decade.
The school district is also waiting for results from the early childhood education study to help determine what to do with the Happy Hollow building. Why is the foundation telling the school board that they will only give our school district the money they raised over the past 8 years if the board agrees to start the locker room renovation project? That wasn’t the donors’ original intent and it is not clear if the school district can currently afford the locker room project. I don’t want to end up in a financial situation similar to the one the board faced back in 2019 when they voted for a reduction in force of teachers.
2:59:19 Board and Superintendent Reports:
Legislative - Austin said she didn’t have much to report from the legislative session.
Superintendent - Greiner listed wonderful things happening in our schools: HS Musical My Fair Lady, HS literature fair, WLIS student Sharanya Kar who is headed to the nationals spelling bee, HS boys basketball team for being sectional champs, robotics for receiving gold at district, She Devils dance team placed in the top four top teams at state, and Mr. Levy for his Golden Apple Award.
Public Schools Foundation of Tippecanoe County - Mumford said that spring grants are open until March 6th. The cupcake bake off was February 15th.
Parks and Recreation - Wang shared that they are doing an impact fee study for a possible city ordinance to collect fees to support parks and recreation. Their summer camps at the wellness center (125 slots) and the nature center (50 slots) were filled within the first minutes of registration. The wellness center has part-time and summer positions for high school students.
Committees - Mumford asked Austin to share why she has removed school board members from many committee assignments. Austin said with all the previous committee assignments, it gave the impression that the board needed to have its fingers in a lot of different things, so she picked just the important ones. Mumford asked about committees that require board member involvement like the negotiations and wellness committees. Austin said that the legislative committee just finished, so she can do the negotiations and wellness committees herself, if she is available. Wang suggested forming a policy committee since it is difficult to schedule work sessions with all 7 board members. He said that some board members have more time and flexibility to work on the policies which would reduce the length of board meetings. Austin said that we used to have a policy committee, but there were “suspicions'' so she decided to do it this way with the whole board. For comparison, here is the list of board leadership and committee assignments since 2016. I would not describe the issue with the policy committee as “suspicions.” The issue was that the policy committee (Austin, Witt, and Greiner) was not following Indiana’s open door law. Rather than disband the committee, they can just comply with the requirements of the open door law.
Board/Teacher Discussion - Witt said that they discussed the JSHS principal search. April 8th is teacher professional development even though other school districts have closed for the eclipse. Witt also said they discussed plans for the next school year. Mumford asked if there was a discussion about class size, particularly with the large 5th grade cohort resulting in some classrooms with 25 students. Witt said that this was discussed and we currently have 3 5th grade classes of 25, 1 class of 23, and the rest are 24. She said there are two fifth grade teachers on the committee and they were grateful for furniture rearrangement that opened up space in their classrooms. She shared that our teachers have a lot of confidence in the process that principals and the central office use to evaluate class size. 25 students is the highest class size we have ever had in the younger grades.
GLASS - Yin shared that there is a high demand for school psychologists and speech and language pathologists. GLASS surveyed them to learn about their work environment and needs and has proposed strategies for recruitment that include paid internships and signing bonuses.
Zoning Committee - Yin asked about the comments shared by community member Kucik in March and February asking to have a school board member serve as a representative at zoning committee meetings in regard to transient housing. She said she has attended twice and spoke at the meetings as a resident. Austin said if board members are interested to email her.
West Lafayette Schools Education Foundation - Schott said the foundation received a record number of applicants for scholarships with 67 applications. 2024 Wall of Pride Class will have their ceremonies on April 11 and 12th. The Scarlet and Grey Dinner and Auction will be on April 19th.
Redevelopment Commission - Marley shared that they have two new members: Arnold Chen and Kristen Edmundson. There is going to be some street realignment in the levy to accommodate the new project there. The Cherry Lane trail project was approved. APA Consulting, who is doing the early child education feasibility study, are in the early stages of surveying the community and collecting input.
Location: Happy Hollow Building, LGI Room
Future Meetings (calendar link)
● Policy Work Session - Monday, April 8th at 5:00pm at Happy Hollow LGI Room
● Regular School Board Meeting - Monday, April 8th at 6:00pm at Happy Hollow LGI Room (enter from North side/pool side of building)
This document is my summary of the public school board meeting, not the official meeting minutes. My personal thoughts and opinions are given in italics and represent my own views which do not necessarily reflect those of any other member of the school board. I identify myself as Mumford in the summary but use first person when describing my personal thoughts and opinions. Previous agendas, minutes, and audio recordings can be found at the WLCSC website.
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