By EMELINE HAWKINS

For the Northwest News

Northwest Allen County Schools will host this year’s 133rd annual Meeting of the Northern Indiana Superintendents Club.

The event, planned Oct. 4-5, will have nearly 35 active superintendents as well as a number of retired superintendents. No funds from NACS will be used for the event, but the board will be soliciting donations from vendors and other partners in the future to help cover the cost of the event.

The Blue Flame culinary program will serve breakfast for the meeting, giving students a chance to show off their program’s success.

For this reason, the board voted to establish a one-time fund for the purpose of collecting and distributing funding from external sponsorships for the event.

NACS Superintendent Wayne Barker also provided an update on House Bill 1001, which deals with the state’s biennial budget.

As of that report, the bill contained parts that Barker said would affect the amount of funding schools would get.

If passed, the bill would pay for textbooks for public school students rather than having families pay them, but this would then be taken out of the lump sum given to each school district.

Barker’s research based on the current budget model shows that nearly $160 million would be used toward textbooks, but this would be taken out of the 8% increase in funding per student, leaving only 5.8% to actually be spent on the student.

The bill also has a section that deals with the expansion of the school choice voucher system, which would benefit only private schools, not public schools.

Per Barker’s research, the bill would have a $240 million increase for the expansion of vouchers, which would be equal to a nearly 70% increase.

While the budget so far is a rough draft, Barker is eager for the Senate budget to come out with revisions in order to be able to plan ahead for NACS.

Board members also voted to move the location of school board meetings, effective April 2023, to the Perry Hill Elementary Gymnasium.

The move, according to Board Vice President Kent Somers, is to ensure there is Wi-Fi and audio and video needed for each board meeting, as well as to make room for new central office staff, and allow for more space for people who wish to speak and attend school board meetings.

The board also received a notice about the settlement of the JUUL Labs litigation.

Per the board meeting agenda, NACS is being offered a payment in exchange for releasing JUUL Labs and certain related entities. Partial payment would be received in September 2023, with the rest coming over time.

Per the agreement, it does not restrict how the funds must be used.

In other news, the board:

• congratulated Ronda Berish, Elizabeth Davis and Andrew Deatrick for their upcoming retirements in June and thanked them for their years of service;

• accepted a donation of $1,765 to Carroll High School in memory of Kaylee Ables, to be used for emotional disabilities supplies, community-based instructional programs, school psychologist materials and basic needs of students with disabilities; and

• asked people to keep the Hoffmann family in their prayers, after the recent unexpected death of Donald Hoffmann, husband or relative of multiple NACS staff members.