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Vigo County Oversight BoardJan 8, 2026

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Automatic transcription, not the official record. This is what speech recognition heard at the meeting; it mis-hears names and numbers, and no editor has checked it. The clerk's minutes are the official record. Every line links to the moment in the recording — check anything that matters.

Voices were separated automatically and named from the meeting's speaker roster where the evidence supported it. An unnamed voice shows as Speaker 12 — a machine label, not a person's name.

Meeting
Vigo County Oversight Board · Jan 8, 2026
Length
1:03:34
Lines
177
Transcribed by
mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo
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  1. 0:00:00 — open the recording at 0 secondsSpeaker 0 (chair) I'll make a motion to approve minutes as is. Thank you, Mark. I'll second. Thank you, Heather. All those in favor? Aye.

  2. 0:00:08 — open the recording at 8 secondsSpeaker 1 (chair) Aye. All right. Thank you. All right. As you all are aware, the school board elected a new president of the school board on Monday evening. So with that, we have the swearing in of our newest oversight board member, Carrie LaBella.

  3. 0:00:23 — open the recording at 23 secondsSpeaker 5 I think Tammy, are you doing that?

  4. 0:00:25 — open the recording at 25 secondsSpeaker 6 All right.

  5. 0:00:28 — open the recording at 28 seconds Yeah, perfect. Raise your right hand if you have any of those.

  6. 0:00:33 — open the recording at 33 secondsSpeaker 8 (unknown — contaminated oath cluster) Aye. Aye, Carrie Labella. Do you solemnly swear that I support the Constitution of the United States?

  7. 0:00:39 — open the recording at 39 secondsCarey LaBella (oversight board member) Do you solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States? Of the state of Indiana. Of the state of Indiana.

  8. 0:00:45 — open the recording at 45 secondsSpeaker 8 (unknown — contaminated oath cluster) And I will faithfully execute and impartially discharge? That I will faithfully execute and impartially discharge? All of my duties as a member of the Bigel County School Corporation, so plan over Saturday.

  9. 0:01:00 — open the recording at 1 minuteSpeaker 14 all of my duties as a member of the Mego County School Corporation's Facility Plan Oversight Committee

  10. 0:01:04 — open the recording at 1 minute 4 secondsSpeaker 15 according to the law and the best of my abilities to help me out according to the law and the best of my abilities to help me out

  11. 0:01:12 — open the recording at 1 minute 12 secondsSpeaker 18 all right welcome aboard and congratulations on your election Monday night

  12. 0:01:30 — open the recording at 1 minute 30 secondsSpeaker 1 (chair) All right, I think we're just ready to jump right into it. Dr. Hemsall, are you ready? Yeah.

  13. 0:01:39 — open the recording at 1 minute 39 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) Good morning. And thank you for the opportunity to present here today. I am going to stay focused. I wrote out my comments so you can have more time with Gibraltar and less time with me. about the process that we use to create our reorganization plan. Joining me today are representatives from Gibraltar. We have Jim Thompson, Chris Kingery and Jennifer McCormick, and they will be coming up here and speaking to you in a few moments. Our plan is to walk you in our community members in attendance, watching online or watching archive video of today's meeting

  14. 0:02:22 — open the recording at 2 minutes 22 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) through the process that our board of school trustees use to learn about the physical needs of our schools. In the next 90 minutes, we will summarize about one year's worth of work. For more specifics or to view it in smaller chunks, we encourage anyone who is interested to visit our website where all the documents that were shared during our board meetings are archived and accessible, or our YouTube channel where videos of our board member meetings are also archived. Today I will provide a summary of the demographic study presented by Dr. Jerry McKibben in the

  15. 0:02:54 — open the recording at 2 minutes 54 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) fall of 2024. I will then turn it over to Gibraltar representatives who will provide a summary of the condition of our schools feedback provided by our employees and information related to best practices observed in and put into action by other school districts throughout Indiana. We encourage members of the oversight board to ask questions as needed don't have to wait till the end if you've got a question interrupt us please ask on Monday we plan to present a summary of how we use this information that will be shared today to ask many questions

  16. 0:03:29 — open the recording at 3 minutes 29 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) play devil's advocate consider many options incorporate community feedback and ultimately decide on the reorganization plan that was announced on June 23rd 2025 a process that took an additional seven months over the one year summer you're going to receive today for a full report on the demographic study please know that we can make arrangements to have dr. McKibbin present directly to this oversight board he has expressed that he's willing to do so if you want to hear directly from him an archived video of his presentation to our board of school trustees is available on our YouTube channel in

  17. 0:04:05 — open the recording at 4 minutes 5 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) short we have been losing student enrollment for more than two decades and the demographic forecast indicates that this trend will likely continue unless a significant change in our community occurs. Although the overall population of Vigo County is expected to remain stable according to his forecast, it is also expected that the median age of our county's population will increase. This is an indication that our population is aging. For example, in 2020 the number of residents 65 or older was 18,109 and in 2035 he forecasted this number to be 22 or over 22,300 or greater than a 23% increase.

  18. 0:04:51 — open the recording at 4 minutes 51 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) This is also compounded by the fact that the average size of individual families is also decreasing. Dr. McKibbin reported that currently on average, there are fewer than 1.9 children per family. Unfortunately, for the population to remain stable, Dr. McKibbin reported that we would need to have about 2.1 children per family and more if we desire to have a population increase. Therefore these demographic trends indicate that as a community we must do something that encourages new families to relocate to Vigo County and

  19. 0:05:28 — open the recording at 5 minutes 28 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) or encourage the current young adults to choose to stay here or return back to Vigo County. Unfortunately current trends indicate that more people are relocating out of Vigo County than into Vigo County. In terms of our schools specifically, the trend is for our rural areas to continue serving fewer and fewer students, whereas areas within the city will likely serve a stable or slightly increasing number of students. For example, Hoosier Prairie, Rio Grande, Fayette, Lost Creek and Riley, according to the demographic forecast, could see enrollment drops

  20. 0:06:07 — open the recording at 6 minutes 7 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) by up to nearly eight and a half percent over the next decade. Whereas areas of town in and around near Fuquay, Tarrytown, Farrington Grove and Davis Park could see actually significant increases. In the case of Farrington Grove and Davis Park, the current facilities would not be able to accommodate that predicted growth unless there are additional classrooms added. In light of this information, attendance areas will need to be adjusted. Unfortunately, the overall trend is for the number of students to decrease.

  21. 0:06:40 — open the recording at 6 minutes 40 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) During the 2021-2022 school year, Vigo County School Corporation served 13,603 students in kindergarten through 12th grade. Today we serve about 12,600 students in kindergarten through 12th grade. About a thousand less. Our current enrollment has already reached the level that the demographic study forecasted for us to reach in the 2033-2034 school year.

  22. 0:07:09 — open the recording at 7 minutes 9 secondsSpeaker 30 Since the construction referendum failed a few years ago, we have experienced an acceleration in our rate of enrollment.

  23. 0:07:14 — open the recording at 7 minutes 14 secondsSpeaker 32 Let me show you several different things that you can do on your iPhone 17 if it's stuck in this SOS mode and on network available to you.

  24. 0:07:22 — open the recording at 7 minutes 22 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) During the 1971-72 school year, when North and South high schools each opened, though that's the first thing. less of that but near that during the 2029 2030 school year the reason why I use that number is because if we are so fortunate to be able to start working on a new facility we were hopeful that it could open and begin serving in 2930

  25. 0:07:51 — open the recording at 7 minutes 51 secondsSpeaker 32 that's the reason why I chose that and I see you have this option over here I said network setting we anticipate that north and south high schools your network has some problems

  26. 0:08:00 — open the recording at 8 minutesChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) space they saw fewer than 600 graduates in the past West Vigo High School has served more than 1,000 students since it served that number of students it has had additional classrooms added to its facilities North and South high schools previously served more than 2,200 students during the 70s and 80s and so forth and each of them during the 90s had additional classrooms added which increased their capacity by another 400 to 500 students therefore the current combined capacity of north south and west high schools is well over 6,000

  27. 0:08:38 — open the recording at 8 minutes 38 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) students unfortunately we anticipate the total enrollment for north south and west combined to be fewer than 3,200 students during the 20 20 29 2030 school year the realities of our demographic study indicate that we must rethink how we proceed when this information is coupled with the realities of funding to support our students and the funding to maintain our facilities which will be summarized at a future meeting of the Oversight Board it becomes obvious that we must think differently about how we proceed because our current practices are not sustainable with the realities of our

  28. 0:09:19 — open the recording at 9 minutes 19 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) enrollment financial trends in mind we partnered with Gibraltar designed to gain a better understanding of our current facility needs however unlike previous facility studies we analyzed all of our schools not just the high schools and we gathered feedback from our employees who work within these facilities each day in other words not only did we analyze the mechanical and foundational conditions of our facilities but we also gathered information about and analyzed how these conditions impact teaching and learning daily our goal is

  29. 0:09:54 — open the recording at 9 minutes 54 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) to prepare our students with the most rigorous preparation possible so that as many students as possible walk across the graduation stage with the foundational skills and knowledge needed to compete with anyone from anywhere it has become obvious that our facilities are making it increasingly more difficult to meet the modern learning needs of our students and current and and our current practices are not sustainable unless you have questions about the information i shared i'm going to hand it over to the representatives of gibraltar

  30. 0:10:25 — open the recording at 10 minutes 25 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) so that they can provide a summary of the condition of our schools of feedback of the feedback provided by our employees and information related to best practices that

  31. 0:10:35 — open the recording at 10 minutes 35 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) are observed by being put into actions in other schools across the state dr hemsel do you know

  32. 0:10:41 — open the recording at 10 minutes 41 secondsSpeaker 1 (chair) Do you have a count on how many students we've lost that still reside in Vigo County but go to school elsewhere?

  33. 0:10:50 — open the recording at 10 minutes 50 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) Yeah, it's approximately 800. And that number's actually been fairly stable over time. We've not seen huge jumps in that number. That's the reality. We get a, here shortly, if they haven't released it here over the last few weeks, here shortly we'll have a report that we can go to the Department of Education that we'll talk a little bit about in migration out migration and where people reside and we'll take a look at that but over time that has been a fairly stable number okay you meant because you

  34. 0:11:19 — open the recording at 11 minutes 19 secondsSpeaker 1 (chair) referenced the drop in enrollment uh maybe accelerated after the failed referendum but the the number of students going out of county for schools did not accelerate after the ones who

  35. 0:11:31 — open the recording at 11 minutes 31 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) if they did they relocated because the number of people who stay here and it has become become stable. Now, the new report may indicate something different when it gets released. But the last time I checked that report, that number was not dramatically increasing. It was fairly stable.

  36. 0:11:46 — open the recording at 11 minutes 46 secondsSpeaker 1 (chair) OK. Do you have any thoughts or even better, any data on the chances of bringing back any of those 800 with the successful facilities plan?

  37. 0:11:57 — open the recording at 11 minutes 57 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) In terms of hard data, no. In terms of anecdotal, yes. In June 23rd, when we made our announcement of our plans, we were inundated with people reaching out to us, thanking us for taking this on. Local people who live here now who said thank you because they don't want to relocate, but they have young children and they want to see something that an indication that we're going to modernize the facilities for their child. I also received emails from people who don't live here, who want to return to here, and their reason for not being here is because of the condition of our current schools.

  38. 0:12:37 — open the recording at 12 minutes 37 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) The overwhelming thing, and I think you've heard this from our students who have presented at county council meetings and other meetings here recently, is that they are very excited about the teaching they receive, but the facilities themselves are lacking. And that has been a consistent theme that we've heard from our students, and that was actually echoed by students who stood here at this podium and presented at county council meetings during the month of September through

  39. 0:13:00 — open the recording at 13 minutesSpeaker 59 (board member) November wonderful thank you so does that 800 is that students that are going to other county schools or private schools or does that include like homeschooling within it includes homeschooling it includes people who

  40. 0:13:14 — open the recording at 13 minutes 14 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) live here and go to others it includes people who are using a voucher or going

  41. 0:13:22 — open the recording at 13 minutes 22 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) to a charter school you know st. Pat's is one of our actually one of our partners in that they've had a pretty stable enrollment for a long period of time and that has always been a significant part of this community and I think there are many many people who reference that they are a St. Patrick's family and that's part of their family tradition and history over time those numbers according to this report that we get from the Department of Education have been fairly stable over time the homeschooling is something that's been

  42. 0:13:51 — open the recording at 13 minutes 51 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) an increase but that's been an increase over probably about 10 or 15 years that's true statewide that's not just Vigo County that's a statewide issue

  43. 0:14:01 — open the recording at 14 minutes 1 secondSpeaker 65 (board member) Dr. Hemsall thank you would you talk a little bit about the due diligence that you and the school corporation did in selecting Gibraltar I don't know how many options there are out there but you can just talk about the due diligence and and why Gibraltar was selected well part of the

  44. 0:14:20 — open the recording at 14 minutes 20 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) reason why at the time that we approached Gibraltar part of it was we reached out to a number of different firms availability was one of the factors there were a couple firms that just that chose not to participate because of that we also took a look at conflict of interest for example there is a firm that I have very close ties with that I've worked with a lot in my previous school district we did not ask them we left them out of the mix there were also some people who have worked on previous studies here we did purposely omit them because of the fact

  45. 0:14:56 — open the recording at 14 minutes 56 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) that we wanted a fresh set of eyes a fresh look at things and then the other thing I think that when the board interviewed Gibraltar they had a comfort level with them especially given the fact that Gibraltar's in my opinion Jim may not want me to say this I don't know but in my opinion Gibraltar is really focused on practicality and efficiency and not on over-the-top design features and we thought that that was an important aspect for our school corporation is that our focus was on practicality and efficiencies that we

  46. 0:15:32 — open the recording at 15 minutes 32 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) could gain and I think it all goes back to a square foot that he used to help us figure out how in the world do we make the cost per square foot the least amount possible so that we can maximize what we spend on our kids and less on

  47. 0:15:44 — open the recording at 15 minutes 44 secondsSpeaker 70 (staff (district administration)) the actual facility well and I'll just add briefly from my point of view I think something that we focused on a lot when we were interviewing companies was our scope and our scale because we're countywide and we have so many buildings that needed assessed really narrowed down which companies could take it on and we really kept that in mind when like who could handle the 23 building

  48. 0:16:06 — open the recording at 16 minutes 6 secondsSpeaker 48 assessment anything else I can answer for you

  49. 0:16:14 — open the recording at 16 minutes 14 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) all right Jim Chris Jennifer I'll let them introduce themselves and how they want to do it and I will be sitting back here in case I need to be brought up for any piece of part of this thank you

  50. 0:16:34 — open the recording at 16 minutes 34 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) good morning members of the committee my name is Jim Thompson I'm a 35 year school planning architect and president of Gibraltar design with me is our chairman of the board dr. Jennifer McCormick dr. McCormick's role has been chief advisor and leading this process of assessment and study for the district with Bego County Schools and dr. himsel and his team also with me is Chris Kingery Chris is chief education and principal of our firm partner of mine and Chris leads the educational input dialogue with staff and the oh so

  51. 0:17:11 — open the recording at 17 minutes 11 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) important kids first always focus of how do these facilities best meet the needs not only currently for learning opportunities and achievement but also for the foreseeable future are these buildings ready to be agile and adaptable for school learning in the next say 20 years or so as we know that changes buildings need to change with those educational opportunities so it's a pleasure to be here we have been with your school district and here in the county as privileged guests and privileged to participate in this study

  52. 0:17:47 — open the recording at 17 minutes 47 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) for over two years now Gibraltar design just as a brief history we do work all over the state of Indiana we are k-12 or pre-k-12 focused we also do college University work such as just down the road at Vincennes University we've been serving them as their lead architect for over 12 years now it is about functionality best value and the opportunities for learning we're not flashy showy trying to win national competitions that's just not us I think school buildings are very important in Indiana and they have a purpose and we

  53. 0:18:22 — open the recording at 18 minutes 22 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) try to stick to that purpose with the dollar spent so maybe that's enough on us what are we going to try to do today for you we thought you'd appreciate right from the start as a committee seeing just a glimpse of the process that we went through I won't read all this to you as we go through this I liked what dr. himsel said your time as a committee is very important interrupt us ask us questions so that we're getting off target or there's a question please interrupt and if we don't know the answer right away we certainly will

  54. 0:18:55 — open the recording at 18 minutes 55 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) follow up with you to get that done so these are just some of the things that overview our current progress I'll just try to summarize it easily for you we collect everything and assess it and analyze it we collect the learning input from the building level staff teachers building leaders how is this affecting the learning environments we look at options and then we present solutions and go through that So we're going to take a look at one building in particular. It's a fairly simple building to go through to explain the process of analyzing the buildings

  55. 0:19:36 — open the recording at 19 minutes 36 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) and then imagine doing that for the 20 or so more other buildings that you have in this county. So just a bit of housekeeping for your convenience and anybody's convenience that would have a presentation like this. We just mark the locations of the schools. it is fair to say you have a lot of wonderful things going on with learning in this community you are somewhat unique and in the minority in that you are a county-wide school district for those people listening or not familiar with that that is not common most counties have divided themselves up back

  56. 0:20:09 — open the recording at 20 minutes 9 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) in the 60s terrific that you see an entire county embrace an entire county to get all your learners moving in the same direction and having those same opportunities no matter the address that does mean you have as dr. Hamsel said with demographics rural and shall we say urban city and then the elementary schools are mapped out for you as well I don't want to be remiss in stating an important fact and I do think it's fair to say as As we have done studies for dozens of school districts across the state, I do feel like we have a basis to compare.

  57. 0:20:51 — open the recording at 20 minutes 51 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) And what I would say relative to facility staff charged with maintaining buildings with limited budgets and with regard to custodial staff who work most often three shifts or two shifts for sure to keep buildings looking the way you want them to be represented to your students are compliments. Both groups do a tremendous job maintaining, sustaining, keeping them clean. It isn't fair to say it is an indication of how you feel about your students relative to how clean you keep your buildings and what you do with what you have.

  58. 0:21:26 — open the recording at 21 minutes 26 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) So our compliments as we can compare that to other districts across the state. So we're going to use Farrington Grove as the example that I mentioned we'll walk through. And then I'll show you a summary across the entire district of the data that we collected with regards to assessing the buildings for what they are. So we look at the sites, and you can see the chart that talks about when it was built, how many acres does it exist, which is the white boundary you see there, and other data that helps us, such as parking spaces, particularly, for example, with elementary schools

  59. 0:22:05 — open the recording at 22 minutes 5 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) or in the case of high schools with big events how parking spaces impact the whole campus environment also impacting the community's experience with the with the school and it is not uncommon important to recognize that over the life of a school district such as yours you're going to have a variety you're going to have schools which have less than five acres you're going to have some schools with more than 20 acres that are elementaries so you can have a widespread of acreage for example with elementaries and then it's not a

  60. 0:22:40 — open the recording at 22 minutes 40 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) coincidence that buildings built relatively at the same time particularly if the district acquired property at the same time to build those buildings the acreage might have been very similar not always because land is subjective in that regard relative to what's available but that is something to make of note then we looked at square footages of buildings and the floor plans within and started to assess if it had more than one floor how many square feet are on each floor subdividing the square footage we have a gym of this size and

  61. 0:23:16 — open the recording at 23 minutes 16 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) it means something for learning we have media centers it's not uncommon in older schools for example to have what I'll just say are really tiny school offices and if you had children that went through this district and you walked in in elementary you may remember you were standing in something that was not much bigger than me trying to check your child in if they came in at midday so those are all the different things one of the most important things about the square footages was the square foot per classroom just a brief bit of history

  62. 0:23:43 — open the recording at 23 minutes 43 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) there was a time in the 1950s and 60s and even early 70s when we thought we could teach little learners most of whom stand about this tall in a room of about 600 to 750 square feet now we know the new norm is 900 square feet children are bigger the types of activities it's not sitting in an old school room working on worksheets students are active and moving around in a classroom so that's important and that's why we looked at all those square footages many other things we looked at when we were collecting this basic building data I want to move you now to a manner in which we report out the

  63. 0:24:22 — open the recording at 24 minutes 22 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) condition of the physical attributes of the building so how do we report to viewership school board people like yourselves facility people the conditions of the building so you if you've had studies done or you're familiar with those many people use like a rating of 3.3 well I defy anybody to say what exactly is a 3.3 or versus a 3.8 or 1.2 or 6 so let's just for the sake of everybody being able to understand what you have three basic categories first the empty box there this is just the outline of a box means the item we're looking at whether it's an air handler the windows the roofs it

  64. 0:25:04 — open the recording at 25 minutes 4 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) means they're either new because you just did something to replace it or update it in the last two or three years or it's like new because certain things don't age. A painted block wall for example, a VCT floor can still look like new years later. The other end of the spectrum is things that absolutely with a building age out. Roofs deteriorate, mechanical equipment can fail after a certain number of years with industry standard and you can start using industry data and what you have meaning the years of things you have how old is

  65. 0:25:45 — open the recording at 25 minutes 45 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) this how old is that to start to understand the differences keep in mind buildings are living breathing entities air comes in air comes out just like a human body breathes we circulate water we circulate air just like our skin we have coatings on walls coating new floors so I think you get the idea that a building is a living which is why I go back to the compliments of the district's ability to maintain what they have as best they can with the funds provided the middle category is simply literally in between probably got a few

  66. 0:26:18 — open the recording at 26 minutes 18 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) more years left that it can live and be useful some things may be considered too old for some but okay for others so it can just be that subjective evaluation and that is basically I'm not reading all this to you but you can see that's basically how we categorized what we were looking at so now let's talk about what we did look at so this next slide represents a portion of again this elementary school and I'll explain to you the columns so you have the left-hand column that simply states the component system item in a building and this is

  67. 0:26:58 — open the recording at 26 minutes 58 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) looking in particularly at mechanical systems the things that make us comfortable with heating, cooling, air conditioning, and the pumps and all those things. The next column over is the condition. So it was that evaluation I just walked you through. And so you can see in this example how Farrington Grove has many aged end-of-life types of components in it. They're just worn out. And you can tell that also by the way with just watching trending reports of repairs. You have to disconnect it because it's no longer working and live without it, which causes some challenges.

  68. 0:27:32 — open the recording at 27 minutes 32 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) The next column is an inventory of what we knew about how many years in service it was, as best we could. Some piece of equipment, for example, have labels on them engraved to tell you the year it was installed. You have to look at existing drawings. And then the far right column is, I'll just say, it's a life expectancy based on some industry information. Some of you might even say, well, I have a water heater in my house and it lasted three years, and it should have lasted 10. What happened? So, you know, there are factors that impact life expectancy,

  69. 0:28:04 — open the recording at 28 minutes 4 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) but as much as we could and as objectively as we could, we tried to put that data into that column. So for this building, you can see how that comes together. We go through plumbing, for example, which is the heading on this slide. So we list the plumbing items, condition of those, life expectancies, and we go through electrical systems. I think the other thing we did is because you have active facility staff so some districts manage their facilities with one or two people and outsourced to vendors you have a great team internally so we took advantage of that and had

  70. 0:28:43 — open the recording at 28 minutes 43 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) several meetings with your facility team which I understand was not done in previous years but it's what Gibraltar does and so we listened to them and got their input because you know they're the front lines the boots on the ground they're the people that had to go fix the boilers or fix the chillers and I see your heads nice so thank you for kind of appreciating how that information so that can be valuable input as to the conditions of the buildings and also for example the importance because when they're dealing with the building they

  71. 0:29:15 — open the recording at 29 minutes 15 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) know what it's impacting because it's usually on the job report it's too hot in these rooms we need to fix this or this roof's leaking here so forth so we We collected all that input which fed into this. So that wraps up one building and we did that for every building in the district. Large or small, that's how we collected the information. Big milestone, we start to look at what we have. So I want to walk you through these next slides which simply start to summarize aggregate, quantify and qualify what you have as a district. So I'll explain the rows and columns.

  72. 0:29:54 — open the recording at 29 minutes 54 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) So the left side again just summarizes the components, whether it's site, mechanical, electrical, building. And then each column in this instance represents the elementary schools with the same look of condition just like I showed you Farrington Grove. So this lets a viewer see the whole district. could certainly even like squint your eyes and say boy there's a lot of black boxes with these columns for these schools but there's these schools look not so bad another question you may ask is what does the yellow mean so living

  73. 0:30:34 — open the recording at 30 minutes 34 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) breathing buildings require every year so Donna dr. Hemsall the facilities team you know they have funds allocated limited as they are prioritize so yellow represents ongoing work things that actually in some cases at the time I'm standing here may have now been completed so the district's activity if you will in terms of preventative maintenance is ongoing again with limited funds to get things done so no one's standing still doing nothing and so we just want to make sure we keep track of that as we know this journey of

  74. 0:31:08 — open the recording at 31 minutes 8 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) what to do with your buildings and every year we keep that information collected this manner so you're looking at the elementary schools and the data continues as it's aggregated the other thing that we like about these if you look at the any of these elementary or middle school you can then start to see a particular building and its singular condition if that's your interest but you can also so you can quantify and qualify a school building based on looking at a column and saying oh there's these areas that need attention you

  75. 0:31:48 — open the recording at 31 minutes 48 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) could also quantify and qualify it across every building so if you want to say are the boilers in good shape across the district or should we get four schools and all those boilers fixed or how are we doing with floorings or how are we doing with roofs aggregating that when you do have funds allows you to bundle and save money when how you execute getting them updated and fixed so horizontally you can see items that are trending across all the buildings that is important because when you've been doing this across the state like we

  76. 0:32:23 — open the recording at 32 minutes 23 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) have you recognize that school boards might realize like a boiler fails and then they ask the question well how many other boilers that are other buildings need to be repaired so then they take action in a particular year for a particular cause and replace all the boilers so then they have all new and so that means across all the buildings. And that's kind of how that happens most of the time anecdotally I could share that with you.

  77. 0:32:47 — open the recording at 32 minutes 47 secondsSpeaker 66 Mr. Thompson, one question for you. Yes, sir.

  78. 0:32:50 — open the recording at 32 minutes 50 secondsSpeaker 65 (board member) So help me understand, is the highlighted areas, are those assumed after the work has been done? So those were probably coded that way before the work was done, so it's safe to assume those are now probably white boxes?

  79. 0:33:02 — open the recording at 33 minutes 2 secondsSpeaker 91 You are interpreting that correctly.

  80. 0:33:04 — open the recording at 33 minutes 4 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) Thank you, yes. So yellow means it's in progress, it's happening, that yes they would become new or like new so it doesn't mean it's completely replaced sometimes it could just mean it's getting overhauled and serviced to make it like new and we did this same quantification qualification of buildings across the middle schools and across the high schools in the same

  81. 0:33:36 — open the recording at 33 minutes 36 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) manner just looking at components most of the time it can be even like high

  82. 0:33:44 — open the recording at 33 minutes 44 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) school high school to high school or three elementary schools are very similar I'm thinking of Ben Franklin you know the ones that were built at the same time oftentimes you can start to see in a district as large as yours okay we have three buildings built at the same time and they're all aging relatively at the same manner. Not always, but most of the time. So, you can start to

  83. 0:34:06 — open the recording at 34 minutes 6 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) see that in sub-subgroupings, if you will, within this matrix that we're showing you.

  84. 0:34:18 — open the recording at 34 minutes 18 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) So this milestone is complete. We have all this information. The next logical question when you're going through this process is, well, what are we going to do about all this? what would it take to fix all of this? So you start to prioritize, make observations, do that horizontal analysis, that vertical analysis of each building. And then we don't want to lose you in this,

  85. 0:34:44 — open the recording at 34 minutes 44 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) but then you have to start summarizing. OK, we're going to do this here, we're going to do this here, we're going to do this here. And you try to also capture a moment of time.

  86. 0:34:54 — open the recording at 34 minutes 54 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) say okay if we did everything tomorrow this would look like but I think we all recognize in this room you're not going to instantly do all of it at the same time so there is a little bit of judgment that needs to be used in terms of how you put the action plan together and at a later date first you'll hear some learning environment input from mr. Kingrey that's going to be important relative to what you do to because you're not just trying to fix the building you're also trying to more importantly make it kids first is it

  87. 0:35:25 — open the recording at 35 minutes 25 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) focused on is what we're doing going to significantly increase the learning opportunity and that can be the comfort of the room temperature that I'm not

  88. 0:35:35 — open the recording at 35 minutes 35 secondsSpeaker 84 sure kids walk out of a classroom and say gosh I failed that math quiz today

  89. 0:35:40 — open the recording at 35 minutes 40 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) because this floor was awful if I'm not trying to be silly I'm trying to just you know the reality is there's a perspective that maybe even sometimes adults lose sight up. But they might say, I was so hot and sweaty, I had trouble focusing. That'd be more of a reality in my mind than the color of the floor. So that's why I think we fit that mode of function, always value, those types of things. So just to start, some people don't like to see all the matrices, see all the boxes flying around. So if you just try to talk

  90. 0:36:18 — open the recording at 36 minutes 18 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) you in an elevator so to speak and said hey here's some things to kind of keep in mind as priorities for the district we just tried a partial listing on one slide here's just some bullet points to kind of think about relative to your whole district's facility assets which are millions of square feet

  91. 0:36:39 — open the recording at 36 minutes 39 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) I think you'll have access to this information and it was also as Mr. Dr. Hensel said available to everyone. So, but in order to keep moving forward and say, okay, now we need to start thinking

  92. 0:36:51 — open the recording at 36 minutes 51 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) about what would we do about all of this, we can at a moment in time say let's start to create a checklist and say we need to do things in these areas. So, sort of you have the conditions but then you can flip that and say, okay, now we need to address these items. So, you make a list. If you look at this on the left side Here are the things that you would address that are needs. And then you start to qualify it by school, quantify it with check marks. Yellow means the same thing. We just try to keep those yellow. These are in progress, are being talked about, and may be getting done.

  93. 0:37:26 — open the recording at 37 minutes 26 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) So therefore we want to keep those yellow to be aware of those as we look at this data. And we did this for all of the elementary schools. And I'm intentionally not trying to bore you with looking at a particular row and saying this is checked, this is not checked. I think you see how all this was aggregated. And then we divide it by middle schools and high schools. So Gibraltar still subscribes to the general discussion, by the way, of we have elementary learners and then in our state when children are in secondary schools, middle school, middle

  94. 0:38:01 — open the recording at 38 minutes 1 secondJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) learners if you will, some like to say they're sort of betwixt in between, they're sort of in that transition. and some of you may have had children who are in eighth grade and the teacher says children you got to get ready for real life because high school is going to start in ninth grade but you just kind of be cognizant of the middle school environment but we do generally try to report out information as middle and high schools and then elementaries if you're wondering why it's separated that way and there are some who say sixth graders still belong in elementary

  95. 0:38:30 — open the recording at 38 minutes 30 secondsJim Thompson (consultant (president, Gibraltar Design)) schools I went to a school for example had sixth grade in the elementary but our state generally has shifted towards six seven eight and then secondary in high school nine to eleven twelve but the buildings were assimilated and these checklists recognized the action plan on what to do about the assessments that

  96. 0:38:50 — open the recording at 38 minutes 50 secondsSpeaker 83 you saw I'll let mr. Kingery now go through the learning environment input

  97. 0:38:58 — open the recording at 38 minutes 58 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity. My background 20 years in public education in large school districts and I was drawn to Gibraltar 10 years ago not because of their focus not just on the bricks and mortars but the opportunity that you have when you are doing a school project that you can elevate learning and then the draw with the Vigo County School Board direction from Dr. Hemsall was this emphasis on getting that learning environment input and it's developing like a roadmap so if we were going to do projects let's create a benchmark and

  98. 0:39:32 — open the recording at 39 minutes 32 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) so how do you create a benchmark you get input from staff and so that's where i come into this process and you know 25 schools uh conducted staff surveys so we even did uh the alternative ed booker t washington and then the early learning uh deming uh to make sure that they were included in this process this was collecting data uh from staff and this went out to bus drivers custodians cafeteria staff everyone in the entire district and having 1 300 participants was pretty high return and so we were pleased with that data that we got the follow-up to that is my opportunity to meet

  99. 0:40:08 — open the recording at 40 minutes 8 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) with every principal and all the school leaders to walk through the data what did we find and also hear from their perspective what are some of those pinch points that they have you know in their building and what are they seeing because you know being someone who was a former school principal I realize you make it work with your day-to-day with what you have so to hear from them but also open their world up to something that's beyond you know their walls of their building that they're in charge of every day we felt like was important so this is just again we want to show

  100. 0:40:38 — open the recording at 40 minutes 38 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) you the process that we went through it's five pages of questions for every staff member seven pages of information if you are a middle school or high school because there's more components to to measure there. But this gives us an idea about where are those common agreements? Do they strongly agree or agree in a certain area or where do they disagree? And so it was it was very insightful but also included in that was the opportunity to look at a narrative that they were able to provide open responses to provide a little bit more context into why they feel like there

  101. 0:41:11 — open the recording at 41 minutes 11 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) wasn't sufficient parking or why they feel like the heating and cooling was not sufficient in their in their buildings so we took that in the same process where we started to quantify that data and I'm starting to look at trends so I'm starting to look across you know looking at the elementary schools now do we have some common need across all the elementary schools and then looking vertically you can see building specific are there some schools that are a little bit farther behind when you create that benchmark and which

  102. 0:41:39 — open the recording at 41 minutes 39 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) ones are a little bit closer you can see again just two pages of just overall data that we were able to assess and find those common trends for example at the elementary level I'm sorry I keep clicking back and forth one of the major components that you can find as a check needed at every single building additional outlets in the classrooms you think about how we're utilizing in classrooms now with one-to-one and devices and every child's hand when these buildings were built they did not anticipate that you're gonna have to

  103. 0:42:13 — open the recording at 42 minutes 13 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) charge 25 pieces of iPads and laptops throughout the day and so well that clearly came across from the staff that that was a need so what we started to do with this as we started and this is just an overall summary of things that we saw at all the elementary schools was exploring solutions for a safe and secure main entrance obviously the SRO program meets needs but also having something that's secure all the time even without an officer at that front was something that came up additional student support spaces for instructional

  104. 0:42:45 — open the recording at 42 minutes 45 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) needs and so the way that we used to learn is you went to your classroom and you stayed in that classroom all day if you've been into an elementary school recently that is not the case students are learning all over the building the other addition in the last 20 years is we have outside community groups that come in to support families come in to support students now 30 years ago these schools weren't built to have some of the behavioral health and some of these social services that are coming into support so where are they working at

  105. 0:43:13 — open the recording at 43 minutes 13 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) they're working in hallways they're working in tables they're working in the principal's office in some cases my meetings were in a different place because the principal's office was being used for an outside community group that's coming in to meet with a family in addition to that our education is involved so the way we teach kids the way we support kids again you're getting additional reading support in all areas of the building and you know our most critical students that need to a double dose of reading where are they getting

  106. 0:43:41 — open the recording at 43 minutes 41 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) that in some cases that's in the hallway as all the classes are passing because they don't have these small group spaces and so again we wanted to explore these because if you're going to talk about that the needs of the building from the the equipment we also want to talk about the learning environment stem and you know makerspace that came up in every single elementary school and I've seen the conversation shift from ten years ago of like oh I sure want and now it's shifted to need and every principal is like I need this program in my building

  107. 0:44:10 — open the recording at 44 minutes 10 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) I need my students to have access to this and what's nice about your elementary principals is they have that long-term vision of we can plant that foundation at the elementary level imagine what that's gonna do when they get to the middle school. Imagine what that's going to you know create a pathway for them when they get to the high school. And then we get to the benchmark. Looking at every building there is I can tell that the school corporation has kind of kept up with the aesthetic as best as they could

  108. 0:44:36 — open the recording at 44 minutes 36 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) but it's hard to do every school at once and so you do have a different elevation depending on which school about what's been done what needs to be done and so as you walk through it's pretty clear of the areas that just got flooring so that's been addressed but the areas that need new paint the areas that need some other things that are addressed so creating that benchmark and then also looking at interior and exterior updates there is sincere community pride from staff and principals in vigo county and that came across i mean they're passionate about in in most cases they were telling

  109. 0:45:07 — open the recording at 45 minutes 7 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) me stories about i used to be a student here and now i'm a principal here and so i love that uh continuation of like leading your your building but from that they wanted their building to be able to show the pride that they have that someone just driving by could see that. So this led us into creating a benchmark and I walked the school board through this and I want to make sure that I give you guys the same information but when we created a benchmark I wanted to set the foundation that what we're asking teachers to do today is very different than what we experienced. What

  110. 0:45:38 — open the recording at 45 minutes 38 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) we're asking kids to do today to learn is very different. My mom was a former teacher and she She retired 20 years ago. My two sisters are teachers now. My wife's a teacher. My mom comes in and she wants to arrange the room the way that it was 30 years ago. We all know that kids learn in different pockets. We've created zones in the room where kids can learn and do different things in different spaces. We want the classrooms to be flexible. So that has evolved. The way that we're delivering, it's not a teacher lecturing like I'm doing today. It's a teacher working with small groups

  111. 0:46:09 — open the recording at 46 minutes 9 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) and other people coming in to support in the classroom. And so to have those to get these spaces to adapt to be able to do that is going to be important. If looking at projects for the future. The other part that I'd like to add, though, is that teachers figure out a way. If you walk in there, whether it's teachers pay teachers, whether it's they're doing a GoFundMe, they're figuring out a way with the best that they can with what they have. So moving into experiential learning where it is more hands on, it's more social. And so that creates a little bit more space.

  112. 0:46:40 — open the recording at 46 minutes 40 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) Jim alluded to that a little bit early about space in some of these classrooms but that we are bringing experiences to the kids and with that creates different type of learning opportunities in that area looking at small group instruction we hit on that a little bit earlier but the emphasis of creating like a benchmark that every school would be able to have access to these small group spaces so that they could no matter your address have the same opportunity and experiences and then media centers have changed I think we all lived in the world where we saw this a lot when we were

  113. 0:47:14 — open the recording at 47 minutes 14 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) in the media centers we're not seeing that anymore it's a very active place it's a hands-on place it's a revolving door of students coming in all the time and then students getting services in there and so looking at media centers in a different way as well and then that makerspace that we alluded to earlier so many opportunities that create that foundation at the elementary level going into the the benchmark is my experience in in districts across the state of Indiana is there is a sweet spot in enrollment and where you can get some efficiencies and so we've that 550 to 750

  114. 0:47:48 — open the recording at 47 minutes 48 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) so for the the sake of today's conversation getting to 650 at the elementary level is is a perfect spot you know I've been in districts where we had really small schools and larger elementary schools and it creates a challenge when you have a smaller school because you have five kids move in into one grade level that is a huge challenge you have a school that sits at 650 and you have five sections of every grade level five kids moving in is not going to be a big deal to that classroom size and so you also get some efficiencies in this when you look at programming for students

  115. 0:48:21 — open the recording at 48 minutes 21 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) from special ed services to not having to share and having a teacher drive from one building to another building to service in the afternoon you have those efficiencies built in if you can get to that sweet spot at 650 started to build that program for it and we have started to analyze every single elementary school to say what would it take to get there if you were to get a building to 650 is that cafeteria size and is that kitchen going to be able to service is that gym space going to be enough all those different factors to be able to

  116. 0:48:51 — open the recording at 48 minutes 51 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) create a rubric that we will share later that shows you each each school compared to that program benchmark to show what it would allow now moving into the high school did the same process please

  117. 0:49:12 — open the recording at 49 minutes 12 secondsSpeaker 112 (unclear — possibly a board member's interjection, possibly Dr. Hensel continuing) I just wanted to interject there was a thing on the slide that said no preschool I want to make sure we understand we still believe in

  118. 0:49:18 — open the recording at 49 minutes 18 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) preschool we're trying to decide how much do you put in the elementary schools versus how much do you do something like Deming early learning center and if And if the board ends up choosing to put them inside the buildings, that's something that Chris and Jim are going to have to accommodate. If we decide to repurpose a building similar the way we do Deming, then that's a need that we don't need to worry about in the individual building because we still will have that space. Just to make sure that we're clear. We believe in pre-K. We want to continue to do pre-K.

  119. 0:49:49 — open the recording at 49 minutes 49 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) I want to make sure that that slide does not create other issues for us in the future. We do believe in pre-K and we want to expand pre-K.

  120. 0:49:56 — open the recording at 49 minutes 56 secondsSpeaker 59 (board member) So would the 650 sweet spot number include pre-k if you were to incorporate it in?

  121. 0:50:01 — open the recording at 50 minutes 1 secondChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) That number that we were kind of targeting does not include pre-k. And I would like to add in response to Dr. Hemsall, I spent a day at the Deming Early Learning Center and then I went in other districts to tell them about the experience. It was a pretty amazing experience. And if you want to fill your soul, go visit that place because there's a lot of great things happening there. Yeah, good question. and then looking at the high school same thing that safe and secure front main entrance I feel like the districts adapted to do the best that they can with what they have for those front

  122. 0:50:35 — open the recording at 50 minutes 35 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) entrances without significantly investing in the space but that was something that came up at each of the high schools aligning the program needs to repurpose some existing square footage and so we know at the high schools there's some available square footage how do you maximize that space to be able to utilize that and then again creating that same benchmark and it is again I keep going back to no matter your address the same opportunity and experience no matter what school you go to but creating that benchmark to know

  123. 0:51:03 — open the recording at 51 minutes 3 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) if I live here I live here I know I'm going to get a similar experience looking at improvements to the multi-use community spaces that that is adapted to community use and so to be able to create these spaces to be able to have them used in the evening and coincide with what needs to happen during the day is something that came up and then the same thing pride pride pride at the high schools and the middle schools from the school leadership and from staff and so in that it is we want our building to be able to display that to people that

  124. 0:51:36 — open the recording at 51 minutes 36 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) are driving by and then we started to quantify this to again starting to look across the district but then also looking at building specifics to start to go through a prioritization exercise about what would be most important if you were to address these high schools if you were to do new high schools what are these programming components that need to be the foundation for the future and then when I look at elevating middle school learning and I looked at the opportunity of going to the five middle schools and in that I saw some

  125. 0:52:12 — open the recording at 52 minutes 12 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) very clear opportunities that you could elevate we know that great middle schools make great high schools and so what are some of those things and I know that across five it's it's a it's it's hard to create that same equitable programming across five five middle schools but if you were to have less middle schools and you get those to an optimal size what kind of programming can you offer that is going to be dynamic and then even create your high schools to be that much better so and this is a slide you know in our work across the state of Indiana

  126. 0:52:47 — open the recording at 52 minutes 47 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) and it is what would you why is 650 what are some of the return on investments if you can get a school to 650 for elementary and if that's a range obviously but and if you could get a middle school to a thousand now there is there is a tipping point that a school becomes too large right and being a former school principal I can tell you when it starts to feel a little bit uncomfortable when you have 30 kindergartners in the classroom create some challenges but when you look at the efficiencies there's some financial and

  127. 0:53:15 — open the recording at 53 minutes 15 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) there's some operational and that comes from the way you're maintaining the building that comes from every staff that's all those different things you get a middle school in a thousand now they're looking at there as well creating that consistent offering at each of the schools and then again not having to share staff between one you have that continuity of relationship with the students and then moving into the facilities and capital planning imagine if you can get to that spot you have less schools to manage it obviously

  128. 0:53:44 — open the recording at 53 minutes 44 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) creates some ease on your operational budgets keeping up with some of the many things that Jim Thompson shared a little bit earlier from maintaining these buildings and obviously we just walked you through quite a few months of work that we did with the school board and I kind of want to set the stage of what you can expect for Monday and when we got to this point with the board they started asking what if questions and the goal was let's turn over every single rock let's talk through everything let's what if what what does this look like

  129. 0:54:15 — open the recording at 54 minutes 15 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) what it would it cost if we did this all those different factors is what we're

  130. 0:54:20 — open the recording at 54 minutes 20 secondsSpeaker 120 gonna walk you through on Monday too so that you can walk that same journey of

  131. 0:54:24 — open the recording at 54 minutes 24 secondsSpeaker 116 (board member) the what-if questions so I have a couple questions you had said you had 1300 responses from staff and whatnot how many total there's about 2200 staff members overall

  132. 0:54:38 — open the recording at 54 minutes 38 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) across the district and again we've done this in multiple it's pretty high percentage of participation when you include every person that we we had access to it that's pretty high return

  133. 0:54:50 — open the recording at 54 minutes 50 secondsSpeaker 116 (board member) we were pretty pleased with it and then also so mr thompson had mentioned like there are aspects of the facility that impact education and so when you did the staff survey results did was there a correlation on the building between staff results and the facility results and where you kind of see like thank you I wish you were

  134. 0:55:11 — open the recording at 55 minutes 11 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) sitting with me when we were creating the presentation because there was an alignment because I talked about the HVAC and that comfort and temperature the buildings that they've started to address that can be very clear education so the staff input and that is again we have access to that information it's online at the end we even brought it today but you can see even building specific about how they felt about the year-round comfortable climate in the classroom temperature

  135. 0:55:42 — open the recording at 55 minutes 42 secondsSpeaker 120 I would like to thank you guys for caring as much as we do and taking this time out

  136. 0:55:56 — open the recording at 55 minutes 56 secondsChris Kingery (consultant (chief education officer, Gibraltar Design)) over the next few months to work through this. And know that we are available for it. We will be bringing you information, but we will also be able to deviate if you have

  137. 0:56:08 — open the recording at 56 minutes 8 secondsSpeaker 135 a different pathway that you would like us to explore.

  138. 0:56:11 — open the recording at 56 minutes 11 secondsSpeaker 1 (chair) I hate to say, is that it? Because that's a lot.

  139. 0:56:22 — open the recording at 56 minutes 22 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) The answer is that is what we planned for today. We were told that we needed to stay within 90 minutes. We knew that we needed to build in questions. And so you actually asked fewer questions than we thought we might get. And so you've nailed our planning. We stayed within 90 minutes. For the record, Kerry, we stayed under 90 minutes.

  140. 0:56:43 — open the recording at 56 minutes 43 secondsSpeaker 140 Yeah.

  141. 0:56:43 — open the recording at 56 minutes 43 secondsSpeaker 1 (chair) I mean, I think a lot of the thoughts and questions that are in my head probably pertain more to Monday, and I don't want to get ahead of you there on how you blend the assessments with the actual plan.

  142. 0:56:54 — open the recording at 56 minutes 54 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) So basically, the information you just saw is what led us to sit down and say, now what do we do? We knew the reality of the fact that, in short, to get a little bit ahead, But we know on average it's about a million dollars per building that we need to be doing proactive maintenance. When you have 23 buildings, that's $23 million. We only have $9 million available to do preventive maintenance. And we've been doing that with general obligation bonds. So we knew something has to change. We knew the reality of our enrollment says something has to change.

  143. 0:57:32 — open the recording at 57 minutes 32 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) But we also know that the facilities need to be modernized.

  144. 0:57:35 — open the recording at 57 minutes 35 secondsSpeaker 112 (unclear — possibly a board member's interjection, possibly Dr. Hensel continuing) And so this is where we start playing, well, what if we were to do that, and what if we were going to do that? And that's what we're going to focus in on Monday.

  145. 0:57:41 — open the recording at 57 minutes 41 secondsSpeaker 65 (board member) A general question I think any of you can answer. I think it's just better understanding, and I'm kind of pulling this from just community members that have shared this with me. What evidence or what research, or maybe it's more anecdotal, that new facilities create better outcomes? And I think the temperature, right, I think that one resonates with me, right?

  146. 0:58:00 — open the recording at 58 minutesChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) The answer in terms of new facilities versus old facilities, you know, I think that, again, by using Gibraltar, I think the default is our preference is to renovate what we have as best that we can. What we're going to, when we lead you through some of the scenarios that we worked through, I think you'll find out that in order for us to address some of the things that we think we need to address, we always end up needing a new facility somewhere. For example, Farrington Grove and Davis Park are on 2.8 acres. It's not physically possible for us to get them to 600 or 700 students

  147. 0:58:39 — open the recording at 58 minutes 39 secondsSpeaker 112 (unclear — possibly a board member's interjection, possibly Dr. Hensel continuing) and still have parking and playground equipment and things like that. So when we start working through those kinds of things, that's what led to that. That's what we'll talk about on Monday. Anything else that we can answer for you?

  148. 0:58:52 — open the recording at 58 minutes 52 secondsSpeaker 147 It's very rare that I go through practice in our presentation and I actually come in under what I thought it was going to be. So this is unusual territory for us.

  149. 0:59:04 — open the recording at 59 minutes 4 secondsSpeaker 1 (chair) Yeah, we flipped through a couple slides that I think that I'll want to see later and maybe have some questions for Monday. Absolutely. Get a little more granular on some things there.

  150. 0:59:13 — open the recording at 59 minutes 13 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) Thank you. And again, as Chris had indicated, if we're going along and there's questions that we're not addressing that you have,

  151. 0:59:20 — open the recording at 59 minutes 20 secondsSpeaker 112 (unclear — possibly a board member's interjection, possibly Dr. Hensel continuing) please let us know so that we can make sure that we incorporate those into future presentations.

  152. 0:59:24 — open the recording at 59 minutes 24 secondsSpeaker 1 (chair) Yeah, I think the biggest question for me is how do you balance the needs of a facility versus the location of the facility? Being a countywide school district. And so I'll be interested to hear. I'm sure you're touching on that Monday.

  153. 0:59:40 — open the recording at 59 minutes 40 secondsSpeaker 112 (unclear — possibly a board member's interjection, possibly Dr. Hensel continuing) You came up with a lot of where we had a lot of consternation in trying to think through things. Yeah.

  154. 0:59:45 — open the recording at 59 minutes 45 secondsSpeaker 1 (chair) Yeah. I think similar thoughts to the school board of, okay, what do we do next? I think probably the same questions we're having. But knowing that you all have already done that, I think I'll try to show a little bit of patience here and save it for Monday.

  155. 0:59:59 — open the recording at 59 minutes 59 secondsSpeaker 154 Thank you very much.

  156. 1:00:00 — open the recording at 1 hourSpeaker 1 (chair) Yeah, thank you. Thank you. All right, next on the agenda we have comments from elected officials. I did add or administrators I know we have a couple elected officials here I don't know if there any comments from you all in the room Commissioner Morris good to see you and so the next up I guess since we we do have some time here open it up for

  157. 1:00:30 — open the recording at 1 hour 30 secondsSpeaker 160 public comment any comments from the public come on up to the podium

  158. 1:00:44 — open the recording at 1 hour 44 secondsSpeaker 163 (resident) prices right thank you to the board for the oversight committee for your efforts this is no small challenge to say the least I would imagine that with Gibraltar's experience I was kind of curious because

  159. 1:00:59 — open the recording at 1 hour 59 secondsSpeaker 165 (resident) because I want to make sure I understood this you framed it like 2029 2030

  160. 1:01:07 — open the recording at 1 hour 1 minute 7 secondsSpeaker 167 (resident) was I understanding that as a time when a school would be completed

  161. 1:01:14 — open the recording at 1 hour 1 minute 14 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) if we were fortunate enough to start as soon as possible sure we would not be able to get some of this work completed if companies have been that's my group

  162. 1:01:23 — open the recording at 1 hour 1 minute 23 secondsSpeaker 167 (resident) sure but when you said the work that's on due no no I can't yeah no no that was my question was so what did you does this anticipate a new high school for the 29 30 school our reorganization plan does include the possibility of new high school

  163. 1:01:49 — open the recording at 1 hour 1 minute 49 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) and we were using the 20 29 20 30 as our look now because if we were fortunate enough to be able to

  164. 1:01:56 — open the recording at 1 hour 1 minute 56 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) start sure the earliest we would be able to move into that building would be the 29th 30th school year so that's the reason why we chose that date is the date that we started looking for

  165. 1:02:07 — open the recording at 1 hour 2 minutes 7 secondsSpeaker 176 that point forward okay i appreciate it well in that same vein because you were talking about

  166. 1:02:13 — open the recording at 1 hour 2 minutes 13 secondsSpeaker 163 (resident) and you had mentioned the the loss of students population uh that the students have our families

  167. 1:02:20 — open the recording at 1 hour 2 minutes 20 secondsSpeaker 165 (resident) have chosen to offer to go to different schools when the new i'm just hypothetical the new school year the new school facility is completed let's say high school is there a factor for

  168. 1:02:33 — open the recording at 1 hour 2 minutes 33 secondsSpeaker 176 what you would anticipate enrollment up or down is for that facility when it when it

  169. 1:02:40 — open the recording at 1 hour 2 minutes 40 secondsSpeaker 165 (resident) comes to fruition and i'm not i'm not trying to put you on the spot please you always um i think that

  170. 1:02:47 — open the recording at 1 hour 2 minutes 47 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) Jim would attest to you build a facility so you have flexibility with them sure

  171. 1:02:52 — open the recording at 1 hour 2 minutes 52 secondsChristopher A. Himsel (staff (Vigo County School Corp. superintendent)) yeah because I think the new factor would be

  172. 1:03:02 — open the recording at 1 hour 3 minutes 2 secondsSpeaker 181 hey I want to we're hoping we're hoping

  173. 1:03:05 — open the recording at 1 hour 3 minutes 5 secondsSpeaker 183 I think that's part of the hope yeah I get it thank you

  174. 1:03:12 — open the recording at 1 hour 3 minutes 12 secondsSpeaker 184 thanks now thank you Anyone else?

  175. 1:03:23 — open the recording at 1 hour 3 minutes 23 secondsSpeaker 5 I'd entertain a motion to adjourn.

  176. 1:03:27 — open the recording at 1 hour 3 minutes 27 secondsSpeaker 187 I'll make a motion to adjourn.

  177. 1:03:29 — open the recording at 1 hour 3 minutes 29 secondsSpeaker 0 (chair) Thank you, Heather. All those in favor? Aye. Thank you, everybody.