Good evening and welcome to the August meeting of the Indianapolis Local Uh Education Alliance.

I'd like to begin by officially calling this meeting to order, and I want to take a moment to thank you all for being here.

I want to begin tonight by noting that uh Herado Britt, uh an alliance member informed us in advance that he is unable to attend tonight's meeting due to a family commitment.

Otherwise, uh we have the remaining eight alliance members here with us tonight.

And indeed, tonight we will be uh beginning uh a deep dive into the issue of school facilities, both the data we've gathered and what it means for our planning.

You'll hear from several different perspectives this evening.

And I'm grateful to each of our presenters for being here.

As in prior meetings, we will also hear public commentary after tonight's presentations.

We would ask that the comments try to stay focused on the topic of facilities, because that is what the Alliance is going to be exploring this evening.

So let me take an opportunity to at least initially extend a sincere thank you to Eddie Rangel for hosting us here at Amadonna, home to Adelante Schools.

Eddie, thank you for your hospitality and leadership, and I'd like to invite you now to share a little bit about your school and the community here.

Eddie.

And to tell a story of cross-sector collaboration, what and what children, not just adults, can achieve when we earnestly work to ensure our kids in Indianapolis are achieving to their fullest potential.

And I'm going to get the magic clicker.

So our mission here is on the screen in front of you or behind you, which everyone you can see.

And that's what our mission's all about.

We've worked alongside our community in solidarity to create a neighborhood school full of joy and opportunity so that our children have limitless opportunities at their fingertips.

They can prepare to be able to change for future generations through their own leadership and service to Indianapolis.

It was at one room schoolhouse.

About 11 years later, or 10 years later, um the building was annexed and sold to Indianapolis Public Schools.

And then the very next year changed uh to what is now school 72, a kindergarten through eighth grade academy.

Uh in 1970, they needed more space, so they built a wraparound, and that's actually the part of the facility that we're in this evening.

And then in 1994, the facility was upgraded to welcome students in the 21st century.

30 years later, we're here, Emma Donna Elementary Middle School, and we now welcome 470 scholars every morning and say goodbye to them every afternoon.

Um as you can see, our school is beautifully diverse, and we serve a multitude of students.

It's our scholars and students that drive our values as a school community.

Our values are ownership, swing, optimism, and solidarity, and we live in the action, beliefs and mindsets we operate with at our school.

And they also unintentionally but serendipitously spell the word osos, which is bears in Spanish.

And that has been the mascot of Amadonin for decades.

So surprise to us.

And we work to establish a working environment that prioritizes humanity and well-being for the adults in the building because they're the ones that make it happen for kids every day.

So you might be asking how does this all work to create opportunities for kids.

Well, over the course of the past five years, both during and after the impact of the COVID-19 school closures, we've been working diligently with our school community to get more of our kids to school consistently every day.

And we finally have achieved the 94% appearance rate last year.

Not only are students showing up more consistently now, but increasingly less of them are chronically absent.

So we're proud to announce uh just recently 36% of our students are now deemed uh we had a decrease of 36% of students who were deemed chronically absent by the state, which placed us fourth in the state of Indiana for largest decrease and in the top five.

And we know that when we get kids to school consistently on time and we provide them with high quality opportunities, they yield other results.

So this is just a snapshot of ILERN math proficiency for our third through eighth grade scholars.

We see that our uh scholars achieved the 12-point gain in math ILERN again with the actions that our school and our community have been taking to get kids to school and to offer them all the opportunities.

Consistency is a priority here, and so we know that's what all children deserve.

When we look at state island data, furthermore, students who return to Amadonin for even just a second year outperform new to Amadon and scholars by four points in ELA and nine points in math.

Furthermore, our youngest scholars, who predominantly have started in kindergarten and stayed with us through third grade, are rewriting the narrative for what is possible in schools like ours, regardless of what statistics in the attempt to dictate.

And so here you see over the course of five years that scholars at Amadon and Elementary and Middle School have nearly closed the gap between our school and the statewide average for third grade I weed three proficiency.

Additionally, it's not just some students who are learning how to read, and you won't see this reflected on the slide here, but it's all students, and we uh have a special elevation to make because 93% of our black students performed proficient on I read three, and that's uh 17 points higher than the state average.

Our goal of creating a school where all students and families want to return is a paramount for delivering on our promise to families and the community.

And so we all know that student professional isn't just the singular store of a school.

Uh last year, 93% of our families, when given the five essential survey out of the University of Chicago, uh, stated that they were satisfied or highly satisfied with the school overall.

And not only that, but again, I mentioned consistency earlier.

Uh, 92% of our highly effective and effective staff members have decided to return year over year.

And so that's something that provides students familiarity and what they deserve to walk into every day in the school building.

Not only just the academics and the satisfaction, but we want to make sure that teachers are able to do their jobs with as minimal distractions as possible, and so we're proud to say that our operational satisfaction at the school times the lunch things are happening, or you know, just different things that teachers need.

Um we give them the survey from TNTP Insight Survey, 40% of uh our results are 40% higher than the national average for schools that take the same survey.

And last but not least, Adelante schools have been able to operate transparently and accountably to multiple stakeholders, including Indianapolis Public Schools, our independent auditors, and our authorized with the mayor's office.

As you can see here, our financial metrics have consistently met or exceeded standard from our authorizer, and it's with this level of fiscal responsibility and consistency that we're able to continue moving Arielante more forward to create a joyous neighborhood school for our scholars.

So, with that, uh, our city and community has important decisions to make as we move out in there or forward into our future.

And so I want to note that these results that we share are not solely because of the amazing group of humans who work at Adelante schools, even though they are in large part, but it's because it's a result of the opportunity our city and uh school leaders have created for organizations like Adelante schools to exist.

So once again, welcome everyone to Amadana and Automanti Schools.

We're happy to host this evening.

I'll continue to speak as loudly as we can.

Oh, the hands over.