The following are notes from the November 21, 2023 superintendent advisory council meeting at Hamilton Southeastern Schools. These notes were provided to me by one of the attending members to share with the community. Note that these were notes taken live from the meeting, so they are subject to error. The current SAC consists primarily of interim superintendent Dr. Kegley and members from each of the district’s PTOs. The current HSE Board members also have a representative that attends the meetings.
The live notes:
- Kegley thanks people in the room for supporting and advocating for the referendum that successfully passed! Kegley/Dowling visited 46 places to share information about the referendum.
- Introduced Ryan Taylor, replacing Kim Lippe, former Assistant Superintendent of Staff and Student Services. Returned to HSE, used to work under Kim Lippe. Here for 20 years, 27th years serving schools, consulted for a few years in private sectors. Happy to be back. He is new Executive Director of Staff and Student Service.
- Foundation update:
- Giving Tuesday starts a week from today [November 28th]. More info for Game Day (see flyer). Basket prizes will get additional funds (I think). [Editor comment: Game Day is an HSEF fundraiser that occurs in the spring. The PTOs from each of the schools in the district are asked to donate a basket for the silent auction at the event. The Foundation gives cash prizes to the PTOs for things such as the PTO whose basket(s) drive the highest bid.]
- Seniors: scholarships launched. There are 40 to give totalling about $100k, $16k is largest amount. You can look online to apply. [Editorial note: If you have a senior, make sure you look to see if they qualify for any. Can’t get what you don’t apply for!]
- The HSEF gave out grants to 18 out of 22 schools. This was the most ever. Grant cycle is open now until 12/19, and grants can be requested for up to $2,900.
- Mr. Lozier Update, director of prek-12 initiatives:
- Ford Next Gen Learning update [Editor comment: Ford Next Gen Learning has been covered in board meetings and elsewhere.]
- Kids these days will change careers 5-7 times in their lifetimes.
- Kids today will create jobs that don’t exist yet.
- 3E Grants slideshow:
- Every graduate knows where they are going
- k-12 pathways
- Experiences starting in kindergarten to learn about types of opportunities.
- Supports kids/families/communities, create a pipeline of qualified employees.
- Career relevancy leveraged for learning, shows kids why they need to learn something.
- What experiences do we want to create for all 22k kids prek-12 to have before they leave?
- Schooling is based on a factory model (think bell system), schools need to be responsive to allow for these types of experiences.
- Currently in phase 2 (see slide); slow is smooth, and smooth is fast (esp when we are a giant school system)
- February will be Envision Day 2
- Will be a shift in hiring and how they train teachers.
- Explorer Report available on website (https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1696250469/hsek12inus/qphvore5k3ez1ozw1bwe/FordNGLHSEExploreReport.pdf)
- How did HSE get picked by DOE for this grant?
- We were written into 3E grant by CIESC offshoot.
- There were rural, urban, suburban schools, not a lot of models for suburban.
- HSE Playgrounds and Athletic Fields Overview presentation (see slides) by Matt Rapp, director of facilities
- New plan for schedule of maintenance/upgrades for playgrounds/athletic fields
- Durbin still has a playground
- Decisions made by committee (facilities community scheduler handles Mudsock and other organizations using our fields)
- We have a lot of aging buildings with playground that need replaced and upgraded.
- Committee identifies design elements for playground.
- Playgrounds consist of hard and soft surfaces (like basketball court and also mulch area)
- (Design slide: safety is left off of slide. We hire a safety consultant; a teacher needs to be able to see all the way across the playground. Don’t want barriers, like enclosed slides)
- Work with 2 local vendors for playground equipment, lefthand slide is traditional equipment, right hand side is less traditional.
- Can’t get parts for tube slides, they are going away.
- Open to the public 24 hours a day, so gets a lot of use and abuse.
- Next slide is some hard/soft surfaces (gaga ball, map, southeastern elementary has new soft surface: turf)
- We do gmax test, which is required for football, we report to ihsaa,
- Has to measure below 200 for concussion risks, so we started doing this measurement on our playgrounds (Love this idea!!)
- We are the only ones in the state that does this
- Accounting dept identified we needed to replace equip, so it was added to budget, will do one per year. List is determined by age, but living list. Some pieces might need replaced at a different school so it might get bumped to the top. Example, FCI is scheduled for next year, but its going under renovations, so they will do a different building next year
- Want to get away from PTOs from paying for playgrounds and athletic fields
- One school purchased something from Sam’s Club and installed it (not safe or rated for school safety!), school realized they needed to streamline and take charge of playgrounds
- Hired Context Designs to work on fields, also did our playgrounds
- Looked at capacity of fields
- HSE football field has extra padding under it, our gmax is still at 80 for the test,
- Softball fields, survey identified things like a missing sidewalk at softball field to make things accessible (although we aren’t out of compliance bc we are grandfathered in)
- Tennis courts, can only watch from upper right if had mobility issues. HSE Hs tennis court will be redone next year with added sidewalks for accessibility
- Does have slides for every school, but we were limited by time
- Facility committee meets monthly, we have 22 buildings
- Kids loved watching playground construction and it was an on-time project,
The following are some of the slides from this meeting:
