This fall, voters in White River Township will be asked if they want to raise their property taxes for increased security and mental health support in the county’s largest school system.
The Center Grove school board unanimously approved a measure Thursday that could put an operating referendum on the ballot during the November election, making it the third referendum in the last year in Johnson County.
If voters pass the referendum, it will increase property taxes by 11.5 cents for every $100 of assessed value, which would bring in an additional $24.8 million over the course of eight years starting in 2020. It would cost the owner of a $200,000 home an additional $112 per year in property taxes.
The referendum is currently being reviewed by the state Department of Local Government Finance. It will also need to go before the county’s Election Board for approval before it is placed on the ballot.
Center Grove would first see that additional money next June, although the district could choose to spend money on some of what it is proposing as early as Jan. 1, spokesperson Stacy Conrad said.
Center Grove schools has not yet made a plan for the order in which it would roll out the services and technology it wants to add. A committee formed by superintendent Rich Arkanoff will meet during the coming months to discuss those plans in more detail, Conrad said.
School officials would not specify who is on the committee, but said Arkanoff has been meeting with parent groups, community members and clergy leaders for more than a year.
Supportive of increased safety, not of increased debt
Some parents, teachers and school board members chimed in to show their support for the Center Grove referendum during a public hearing Thursday evening.
It is the right move for the future of Center Grove schools, said Peggy Young, a parent and teacher at Center Grove Elementary School.
“I speak in favor of the security support referendum,” Young said. "It’s built around ensuring students and staff will be safe and is transparent. It will be spent on monitoring, improved response times and added mental health support. It’s a proactive solution for future safety needs.”
With the prevalence of school shootings throughout the country, the time has come to not only ensure schools are more secure, but to help students with mental health issues before they get to the point of harming others, school board member Jack Russell said.
“These issues are country-wide. Until Columbine, we never even thought we’d need anything like this. The term ‘not if, but when’ just chills my mind, thinking that could happen at Center Grove. We have to do everything we can do for prevention,” Russell said.
“You want to try and capture behaviors showing up in kids before it becomes so ingrained in them with anger issues. You want to catch it early.”
Having quick responses from EMTs can save lives in the case that students become victims of a violent attack, school board member Scott Alexander said.
“As a former firefighter, I can say it’s all about (that) response time,” Alexander said. “EMTs are taught the ‘Golden Hour’ rule. You have an hour to get them treated and to a trauma center. It’s ingrained in every one of us. As we continue to look at society and how things have changed, we’ve got to adapt and change with the times.”
White River Township resident Keith Poor was the only one to speak against the referendum at the meeting. He said Center Grove schools should get itself out of debt before asking taxpayers for more money.
“This administration is trying to build a Cadillac system. They have bonded themselves right into the poor house," Poor said.
Center Grove parent Lisa Porat, who will lead a political action committee in support of the referendum, said she is willing to pay extra money for the referendum if it ensures children’s safety.
“We desperately need to provide services for staff. We need to deter violence and provide every opportunity for students to succeed,” Porat said.
Although Greenwood Mayor Mark Myers did not attend the meeting, he sent a letter in support of the referendum.
“As we watch our televisions each night, we see violence rising not only throughout our own state, but also our nation and the entire world. It is because of this society we are now living in, we must be proactive and look to the future of securing the buildings where our children spend a third of their lives,” Myers said in the letter.
“I also believe that with the higher numbers of mentally disturbed people we have in our world, we must be proactive with them and provide the experts in the mental health field that can reach out to our children and help them get past certain stages in their life and become better citizens in our community.”
Mental health, classroom support on wish-list
If approved, the district will spend the biggest chunk of the extra money — $1.15 million per year — on mental health and classroom and teacher support.
Center Grove will use that money to hire additional counselors and improve and expand mental health services. The district is looking at the possibility of hiring counselors from outside mental health agencies for those positions, although the details of those positions as well as the number of counselors Center Grove would hire have not yet been decided, Conrad said.
The stress students feel in this day and age is greater than ever, said David Lawson, an English teacher at Center Grove High School who spoke at the meeting.
“I’m happy to see the focus on mental health, not just building security,” Lawson said. “When I was in high school, I didn’t deal with the stresses these kids deal with. I’m certainly in awe of the stresses they face. This will go a long way in helping them feel more safe and secure.”
Following suit with live monitoring system
The second greatest amount of money — $1.06 million per year — would go toward installing a live monitoring system, with a goal of cutting down response times and even preventing crises from happening in the first place, Arkanoff said.
Those goals came from a Thought Exchange survey Center Grove conducted this spring. With the survey, the district found parents wanted the school district to have increased security, faster response times in emergencies and great mental health support, he said.
With the money for live monitoring, Center Grove schools wants to increase the number of school safety officers to nine from two, adding at least one to each school building. The school safety officers, unlike school resource officers, don’t have police powers but still monitor the schools and build relationships with students.
Center Grove also wants to add analytical cameras and software to its buildings. Those cameras would pick up on how people typically occupy the area of the building they are in, such as walking, sitting or standing patterns. If there is unusual behavior, such as someone harming other people, the camera will pick up on that behavior and start photographing the person. It will then send those photos to school police, Arkanoff said.
It was a trip to a school district in Littleton, Colo., just a short drive from Columbine High School, earlier this school year when Arkanoff saw the analytical cameras and other advanced technology that inspired school officials to improve Center Grove’s security, Arkanoff said.
Clark-Pleasant administrators also visited Littleton for ideas before successfully passing a similar referendum in November.
Arkanoff also saw Littleton’s live monitoring system, which officers watch around the clock, and is looking to do something similar. Instead of looking at footage after the fact, Center Grove police officers would be able to see what is happening at all the schools with a wall of footage at the Emergency Operations Center, a $5.17 million facility the district is borrowing money to pay for and plans to open in September 2020, according to school board documents.
The money that will be set aside for live monitoring would also pay for bus stop arm cameras, which Center Grove schools hopes will capture the license plates of drivers who speed past stopped buses. If those drivers are ticketed, it may serve as a deterrent for other drivers, Arkanoff said.
Improving response times
The remaining $900,450 each year would go toward improving response times.
With the money, Center Grove schools can hire more school resource officers and install lockdown and emergency alert systems. Those alert systems would allow anyone in the school that uses a pull station, like the pulling mechanism of a fire alarm, to initiate a lockdown, which immediately notifies police, first responders and staff of the emergency at hand. The system also gives audio instructions to people in the building, according to Center Grove’s website.
With the referendum, Center Grove schools is looking to add to its arsenal of security, which already has its own police department, school resource officers and school safety officers. Center Grove also has a LobbyGuard secure check in-system for guests at each building and secure entrances, as well as security cameras in each of its buildings.
If the Center Grove referendum question ends up on the November ballot, it will be the third time in 12 months a Johnson County school district has asked residents to raise their property taxes.
School referendums have seen success around the state and locally.
In November, 57 percent of voters in Clark and Pleasant townships passed a referendum for Clark-Pleasant schools, which allowed the district to create its own police department and increase mental health services, including hiring the district’s first mental health coordinator.
Then, in May, 63 percent of voters in Needham, Franklin and Union townships voted in favor of a Franklin schools referendum, which will allow the school district to raise teacher and support staff salaries and hire a mental health coordinator and school-based therapists.
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”The question” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
If the referendum makes it onto the fall ballot, voters in White River Township will be asked the following public question:
"For the eight (8) calendar years immediately following the holding of the referendum, shall the Center Grove Community School Corporation, Johnson County, Indiana, impose a property tax rate that does not exceed eleven and one-half cents ($0.1150) on each one hundred dollars ($100) of assessed valuation and that is in addition to all other property taxes imposed by the school corporation for the purpose of providing funding for (a) live monitoring of facilities, (b) improved security response time and deterrents, and (c) added mental health and additional classroom supports for students."
Source: Center Grove Community School Corporation
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Here is a look at what the additional $3.1 million a year would be spent on if it is approved by voters:
$1.15 million per year for mental health and classroom supports
- Additional mental health services and counselors
- Classroom behavioral support across all grade levels
- Additional staff focused on social emotional learning
$1.06 million per year for live monitoring
- Additional school safety officers
- Analytical cameras and software
- Live monitoring of facilities
- Cyber security monitoring and protection
- Bus stop arm cameras
$900,405 per year to improve response times and create deterrents
- Additional school resource officers
- Lockdown alert system
- Emergency alert system
Source: Center Grove Community School Corporation
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Here is a look at how much more homeowners in White River Township would pay in property taxes per year if the referendum passes:
For a $150,000 home;$75 per year
For a $200,000 home;$112 per year
For a $300,000 home;$187 per year
To find out how much you would pay, visit www.centergrove.k12.in.us/saferCG and click on the tax calculator option on the left panel.
Source: Center Grove Community School Corporation
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