Celebration

Zionsville Community Schools AA+

Congratulations to Zionsville Community Schools Chief Financial Officer Regina May and her business team for their excellent financial work. Under May's leadership, ZCS has maintained Standard and Poor's highest credit rating (AA+), the highest of any Indiana Public Schools.

Legislative Update

Superintendent Rebecca Coffman reported that in total there were 48 legislative changes in this session that impact education. She highlighted some of those bills.

1. HEA 1001: Requires school corporations to provide curricular materials to students at no cost. This does permit a fee to be assessed for lost or damaged materials.
   
2. HEA 1002: Requires the SBOE to develop new graduation requirements by 12/31/2024. As part of this bill, each school corporation is required to include instruction for all students concerning career awareness within the curriculum. This bill also requires juniors and seniors to have a 30-minute meeting with post-secondary institutions to discuss career opportunities. Each high school must hold a career fair (ZCS partners with area high schools to host a career fair annually).
   
3. HEA 1167: Live Stream Public Meetings. Starting July 1, 2025, school boards with elected members must provide a publicly accessible platform for live transmissions of meetings, and keep archived copies of the live transmissions, including agendas and minutes.
   
4. HEA 1177: Firearms Training. This bill requires the Department of Education (DOE) and the Indiana State Police (ISP) to develop materials with recommendations for the safe possession and storage of firearms in a home with a child. This requires the DOE to provide the materials to school corporations for annual distribution to parents (after 12/31/23).
   
5. HEA 1591: Employee Matters. This bill requires a school to provide information to the IDOE concerning an employee who was physically injured by a student during the scope of employment. School corporations must expend at least 62% of tuition support on teacher compensation.
   
6. HEA 1608: Human Sexuality. Prohibits a school, a school employee, or a third party from providing instruction in human sexuality to a student in prekindergarten through the grade 3. Requires a school to notify a parent of a student’s request to change the student’s name, pronoun, title, or word to identify the student.
   
7. SEA 167: FASFA. Requires seniors to complete the FAFSA by April 15. Exceptions:
   - Parent files a waiver declining to complete
   - Principal/counselor waives after making two attempts to
   contact the parents
   
8. SEA 391: Requires the board to review usage of school buildings.  Requires select school corporations to share referendum monies with charter schools.

New business

Each year, ZCS teachers review courses to determine if additional instructional materials are needed to meet students’ needs.  After reviewing current materials, Indiana Academic Standards, and updated course outlines, Assistant Superintendent Kris Devereaux asked the Board of Trustees to approve six new novel titles for seventh and eighth grade language arts and a new text for ZCHS speech class. All materials were board approved.

Director of Operations Matt Doublestein presented a first reading of a new policy that would provide guidelines and procedures for the use of school buses by non-profit entities and other groups as allowed under Indiana law.

Next meeting

The next regular board meeting is July 10 at 6 p.m. in the Zionsville Community Schools Educational Services Center at 900 Mulberry Street, Zionsville.

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