Board of Education Meeting - 06/17/2021

001currently being in place so no restrictions that way in terms of requirements but obviously that would be subject to change if something changes statewide and as of right now we are not planning on offering a virtual program like we did this year just our regular options and then um just want to reiterate i know we put an equal examiner but we are keeping the staggered start that we did this year we got a lot of positive feedback on that with students getting a chance to really meet their teacher learn the building get assessments done in those small groups we are reducing it to three days thought four was a little bit much um so we're doing august 18th 19th and 20th will be those staggered starts and then on monday august 23rd all students will

002be there and again at the lower levels that's where we can get all those star assessments done and the teachers have time to spend some one-on-one time with the kids doing that it's going to reiterate that and then i do want to also under whole child just share we have been getting a lot of calls and emails um on critical race theory so i wanted to take a moment just to kind of share some information on that from a district perspective i think walnut our goal is to create an inclusive learning environment where all students feel safe and welcome with the death of george floyd last year many educators including someone big walnut reflected on how to teach diversity and acceptance of others some of our teachers included activities in their lessons that were aimed

003at getting students to reflect on race and racism as a district we continued teaching topics in social studies and language arts classes that address race such as slavery and the civil rights movement since returning from winter break we've had an onslaught of emails and phone calls regarding critical race theory when we started receiving these calls and emails asking if we were teaching crt or in some cases demanding that we not teach crt our team had to google the term while we've heard of critical race theory we were not exactly sure what the theory encompassed at that point we had not discussed at any district level meetings and while teachers continued to teach race related lessons for our state standards it was not an effort to teach critical race theory to our students in the meantime

004we have had other parents reach out with increased concerns about what they feel are racist comments and behaviors being directed at their children by peers these parents have requested that we make an increased effort to focus on diversity quality inclusion in our lessons we met with our administrative team and discussed the topic we quickly realized the complexity of the issue and that we needed to have additional discussions to create a more structured approach to teaching these topics we all agreed that it would be important to emphasize teaching our students to be respectful of others perspectives and backgrounds while we do not teach crt nor promote a specific ideology it is our goal as a public school district to encourage students to seek multiple perspectives and use that information to formulate their own opinions as they

005become adults in our society the timing of the emergence of these topics in conjunction with the pandemic logistics has been very challenging to be quite frank our team was focused on keeping our school buildings open this year as we head into next year we will be working on how to address these topics currently making their way from the national news into our district with our students in an age-appropriate way this will not be a quick process but we will provide opportunities for community input and involvement we ask for your patients as we work through this process our end goal will continue to be the creation of a safe welcoming learning environment for all of our students i just wanted to share that um for those watching at home as well as we've continued to get

006lots of calls and emails as this has become apparently a really um hot topic nationwide to know if anyone else want to share anything before yeah i'd like to back up to 7.2 what what if anything what's your vision for a mask mandate i'm getting calls on that matter too um right now it's not required so it would be optional and i apologize that was my what i meant when i said no orders in place currently so if that would change um unless the board directs me otherwise i would assume we would follow any state orders that would come into play but right now there aren't any that affects schools you know you just have to wear a mask if you go into a medical facility for example but there are any now on to

007the crt it's not on the agenda so i wasn't prepared to present i believe this is a topic that the board needs to review either in a work session or in general session that's why i made a request that it be on the agenda for tonight okay and i think what we've heard from administration is that nothing's really changed from last year and discussions about curriculum choices related to that at least from what i heard from your statement are are in the offing so having that discussion with the board and being able to come back and say this is what we think we're going to do and this is the direction we'd like to go and that discussion with the board i think is on its way but since there's no decision or discussion as

008of yet of how to i don't know i don't know what discussion would benefit tonight well i don't know if it would benefit tonight either but i think it is the responsibility of the board to decide we've had the the issue here is crt isn't but diversity is correct well you said that crt is not in the curriculum but diversity inclusion and equity of people from is cultures being respectful yes but that's not what's being promoted on the national level which is what's filtering down which is what i said that this is all a national level so people are hearing it and reaching out and we're getting lots of calls and emails so that's why i wanted to share that we didn't even know what it was we had to look it up but yes

009we are still teaching those topics that we've always taught and with due respect we had an email in february okay that we all got yeah no i'm speaking of the one of the lesson plan at the middle school and i said in here we have had people try to include those things and if you are on our district email you saw we sent something out that said hey we're getting a lot of calls on this please teach your standards but we ask that you not teach anything else beyond that until we have an opportunity to work through this did you get that email if not i can forward again i just wanted to reiterate it came from a place of people trying to you know look at what's going on nationally and and coming from

010good intentions and we just said hey we need to put the brakes on because these words mean different things to different people it's very charged politically we want to take an opportunity to look at it but i think it's important to mention as i did in this piece that um while we're hearing from people not wanting that we're also hearing from people who are have children who are minorities who feel that their children are treated for racism and so we have an obligation to make sure they feel safe and welcome as well so looking as a district at how we address some of these topics in a way that is not pushing anyone's agenda on kids but teaching them to think critically and be respectful and i guess angie i think you and i've talked

011about this before but that you know my hope is that our students are able to have thoughtful thought-provoking and civil conversations about all topics and that i want our students to learn to think critically about things to be able to share their opinions by being while also being open to the opinions of others and i think you know that most importantly i want our students to be inclusive and respectful of others while appreciating diversity and having empathy for your fellow humans and i don't know i guess i feel i'm frustrated that this national issue has become an issue in our community when i think that that's one thing that we've always talked about is are students being respectful and inclusive and open to others and i guess that just taking taking an issue that i

012feel is a non-issue and dumping it on a school district well i i guess one thing doug to your point as well i i guess from my perspective i'm not an educator so i don't feel that it's my place to determine the curriculum at the school you're a board member and it's a responsibility of this board to establish the curriculum that's stated in statute that's not doug's saying to the detail of every issue that's taught the curriculum of this district is supposed to be established by this board it's an over cycle it's not oversight i'm not expected to write lesson plans no but we're we're expected to know what's being taught and approve it prior to it being taught well i i feel like i do know what's being taught and i i do approve

013what's being taught because i mean i agree with with the angie's statement wholeheartedly i i and i think that's a big reason why a lot of people really love this school district i mean that is part of our mission our mission is to inspire and guide each child to his for her maximum potential that is equity and that is what we're talking about that's not equity that's not no not by their definition who's they who's they who do you why do you think this is a national issue i don't know because it's being promoted by they who is that well they would be the ohio school board association who had a member resign because they took their position i think i gave you guys the uh resolution from the state board of education who took

014that position right those were sent out from the ode to all of us through the two things that you sent thank you for providing those copies because they clarified what you were referring to i saw both of those when they were issued neither of those mention crt as in critical race theory they did use the words diversity and inclusion that is not the same thing and when i read that resolution i don't i don't have a problem did you watch the meeting where they passed the resolution no i did not i did and the proponents did mention crt okay my only point when i brought it up at the last meeting where everybody seems surprised is that i believe this board needs to have a discussion if the rest of the board members don't believe

015that it's fine i think that discussion can come once we have the administration has an opportunity to clarify and kind of do what mark talked about in his message to staff earlier this year and kind of come back with their position and i think that we can take a look at that and see where the board is at that point but i agree with sherry that i don't know that it's my responsibility to write lesson plans and as a board member yes we have oversight of that but i don't know that our role is to is to figure out the best way to do this and present these kind of issues to kids i know i don't have that expertise i guess i'd just say from your statement i don't have any problem with continuing

016the efforts that i feel like we've constantly made to create an environment where all students feel welcome and all students are accepted even though i recognize that those efforts don't always culminate in success for a variety of different reasons my own personal feeling on the topic is that whatever label you want to throw on race relations it's a problem in our country it's an issue that's deep rooted far beyond this community but things happen outside of this community that impact this community and i guess i hesitate in any situation where we want to shut down the discussion of ideas which i think is different than promoting or advocating for certain ideas but i think we're a stronger community when we have discussions about ideas that people have different perspectives on and if i look back

017through the history of the united states necessarily maybe even the world it seems like we run into lots of problems lots of times when we try to shut down other people's perspectives and ideas and their backgrounds in an effort to try to keep whatever discussion isolated on whatever it is that a particular group in power has and so i have no problem having the discussion when you and your administrative team are ready to come back and look at the situation and say here's what's going on in the world here's what we've been doing here's how we'd like to adjust if we would like to adjust and having a discussion around that to be able to give the board's feedback at that time i have no problem when do you think that might be well i

018can tell you that it's a big topic so that would be august into i think it's something where we need to get input we'll have to meet with teachers we're not the ones in the classroom teaching obviously so a lot of our teachers don't even realize the connotation the political connotation and some of the terms and just the discussion you had there about what does diversity mean what does inclusion mean sometimes people have different perspectives of that so there needs to be some training in conversation around so might be putting together a plan at retreat or is it just more exploratory um hoping to get started on the plan i mean our goal is we're going to be spending a lot of time this year on it because as i said in this statement quite

019frankly it kind of hit us out of left field in the middle of the pandemic and so we just kind of said you know we don't want to just rush into some training or some um way of addressing it without the opportunity to spend some time on it so it's a very complex topic so i certainly don't think it's something that we're going to be able to rush through i can tell you um the principles come back right before we treat so we'll probably start really we've had some internal conversations at a district level but it's gonna be probably really starting to dive into it so if there were changes or edicts or more language like what mark provided to the district in his email back in february we might hear about it then somewhere

020in the august 12th meet time frame thank you anybody else says anything on that topic all right we'll move into construction doug good evening good evening so i'm going to try and talk about something fun so i sent all of you an email just before the meeting this one because i was out there today but it's right there on the first monthly report so the three pictures you look to the left under site athletics as the publix driven by it on all the future home stands are up right red tall and big handicap accessible ada compliant ramps on the bottom of them and the press box shows up this week gets craned into place next week so very visible very exciting to see but i've sent you some pictures just so you can see that

021and those for the public will show up on uh the next eagle examiner if you don't get a chance to kind of drive by quickly in terms of the elementary school obviously it's essentially done but we've listed central energy plant again we've talked about this for a while we're so we're actually running a couple ac units ripped up units in the building so one of the three classroom wings is actually having final painting it actually has some flooring in it uh case works showing up in another week and a half so again those have gone on tours you go to some of the building and it's like hello where are we other parts we're moving in 30 days that's logical for a building of 300 plus thousand square feet so again there are units now

022we're running here that was probably the exciting thing for me is as angie would say that's where i'm geeking out on something but it is exciting to show a pro big progress in that regards um in terms of the high school i kind of already touched on it but you can see there in that third block uh again flooring some of the wings cabinetry it's really starting to take shape um probably the biggest thing that's still missing just to share is the front entrance has glazing and a big eagle that's probably still about 30 days out when i was checking today what the status of that is so that's one of those last kind of architectural things to finish uh the skylights and the student dining there's a lot of things coming to the stairs

023are built a lot of things you'll see an eagle examiner have and maybe i'll just make a another lighthearted note our wildflower detention ponds are blooming great not at full bloom year one if you will uh fish and wildlife again is pleased with what they see they will cycle and bloom at different stages depending on the plant material through the summer uh i i don't know the type of plant i reached out to them today uh it almost looks like a black-eyed susan but not what it is but i'm hoping assuming it's something maybe in that species but you see a lot of yellow flowers and white flowers in certain areas of those ponds so it sounds like a good science project to kick off it does i'm gonna have to read a shout out

024to mr jadis um so i'll stop there we're on schedule still still to get the keys december 1st or november 30th technically uh so maybe i'll stop there on the monthly update if there's any questions on that document so we are on schedule for we are on december receiving of the keys yes january move in yes school continues yes so the other two reports um again they're on the financial side i think the next one you have is ours it's the multi-page one the only thing i really want to point out is the the very bottom there where we stand in terms of there's 270 either not encumbered or potentially encumbered i did want to point out if you saw last month's last month's show we were almost negative didn't it i was in owahi

025i don't know how 200 and some thousand i do know how it happened 200 and some thousand dollars left a few days after i left for hawaii so i did not take a beautiful vacation on behalf of the district i'm sure you must be clear that you're joking in this moment so uh yeah thank you publicly everybody public record ethics thank you sir um so there were a couple things they did they had included the additional drive which is funded from that donation actually they had that listed both in a math air and as a fact that it should not be that's funded through the donation so they had listed that i believe at almost 240 000 so that is no longer on the list because that is that what's that 280 yes 280. so

026that alone practically gave me a heart attack when i saw that and then one of the line items they were forecasting its line item is still on there and there's some soil on top of the football field we we we had a a bust in terms of the elevation of that so we need to move that they were carrying i believe a hundred thousand it's actually gonna end up being about forty five thousand but they've dropped into this report to sixty five thousand so there was another number that went from almost zero to a hundred so between the two those two alone zapdar are balanced so the 270 we've gone through with the fine-tooth kind of to make sure it is correct it is the correct number to the best of our ability in terms

027of forecasting so i'll stop there because i know it was a little messy and apologize i wasn't here last month the last one is gilbanes again this is quote unquote our money but their contingency to spend at ours and the architects approval not much has happened there but they're still negative again i do not foresee them at any time suddenly finding money to become to the plus and the item they're still tracking is they even leave a space to kind of call it out at the bottom there the asphalt which they are still happy to report we've actually asked all the initial code around the entire high school we're starting to prep curbs and what in the front of it so they're tracking that cost and still hoping they come in reduced if you will

028um because that's a number they're carrying with their with their final numbers they were quoted as more than what they agreed to charge us so that's why that delta is on there so so i'll stop there any questions on the money any questions on the project or okay thank you so much i might have a question i don't know if this is the right i think this might be the right time to bring it up it's not necessarily uh germain to these documents okay precisely it has more to do with email that you sent prior to this for the furniture and the conversation that you and i then had yes i'm going to i'm going to think two months ago maybe end of april yeah the email to you was in april then oh yes

029okay april after the april work session yes when it was a conversation around the gmp and so i'm just wondering if there so if i read this correctly what i thought i understood was a an action by the board in april of 19 around an understanding of value engineering that may or may not have now taken place what i am unable to find so there was no formal there's no formal resolution the board took relative so for the public the issue at hand is we have two there are nine classroom wings three each and three story wings of the building two of those nine currently as prescribed will not have furniture in them when school starts they also want to have students because they're additional space the building's built for 1851 students we're just shy

030of 1200 or 1150 i believe angie right now at the current rate of growth we've looked at some of those models mr cooper's talked about those i believe it's at least five years before we even have to use some of those classrooms so to save money to keep the project going it was deemed necessary or an option was taken to eliminate the furniture from those classrooms and talking to yourself the best of my recollection it was discussed at a board meeting but what i could not find in my records not a resolution discussed at some point as we discuss a lot of things we're going to buy this apple or this orange or not this apple this orange i could not find a document in writing that specifically said be removed furniture it's going to

031save us roughly 150 to 200 000 could not find that it's not part of the um the gmp where we go through and do the it was not part of one of those documents no more of our conversation with friends so i look through because sometimes as you know we'll bring to you hey we're about to award a contract we're not going to but for instance we didn't buy one of the we have a future plan for some parking for instance that was a very visible discussion item and i could find an item listed for that i could not find a written item specific to a document that was transcribed to the board that said here is this dollar and this number and this scope i happen to have the opportunity to participate in board

032agenda review and so maybe i'm putting mrs lee on the spot but i said hey this has come up um just wondering you know i'm having some difficulties i'll try to get something out before the next board meeting and i don't want to speak for mrs lee i included her in email response i don't know if it's appropriate now or not in terms of her response i can either say it or if you want to say what you believe my response was i remember having the discussion okay what meeting that was i don't know i don't remember that it was an actionable item at that with that discussion but i remember that as a board we talked about it right the decision we the architect did find notes from the standpoint of when it was

033discussed at a administrative level non-board member level was all the way back august of 19th he has a note that says discuss this we're going to investigate what the dollar value is so he actually found a note in his his minutes his internal minutes that reference the first germination of the idea hey we're trying to find we're trying to save money here's an idea that was the only documented written point that he could find in his notes where it was actually he did not recall presenting i know he hasn't been to a lot of board meetings or have any kind of writing that was presented to the board uh when i asked him to look through his records as well so i i suppose then and and that is a recap of the conversation we

034had and i appreciate that i suppose then that i certainly recognize as i shared then that decisions get made along the way in order to bring a project to completion and you know that is what happens and i get that but i also would imagine that there needs to be a conversation by us at some point around so what happens when we find need for those facility or that space and how is it that we are looking at back filling what needs to be built out for the entirety of the project and i'm it's so that it's clear i just am hoping to engage in that conversation at some point and if you tell me like our superintendent just did that might occur in august or whatever that is i'm great but i'm not sure

035where to expect that on the radar as we're looking at receiving the keys for this facility in december correct so i like my response in there and i'll refer to superintendent hamburg as well money wise and this is only bird in hand currently so there is no need for the furniture now the furniture would sit there for at least five years and actually some of it longer than that because we don't need both floors for up to eight to ten years these are my opinion professional opinion that also the type of furniture we would buy and i put that in the response what we're buying today we would not have bought five years ago and that's just a fact unfortunately the way school design the way just the open spaces have you been in our

036school how it's designed how it's being used how it's being implemented the types of furniture what on the architecture are completely different just go to our middle school 10 years later completely different so i can't forecast what may or may not happen in terms of programming or use of those courses the uh money the only thing jeremy and i spoke a little bit is right now we currently have 25 000 a year that's typically earmarked and permanent improvement funds for furniture that's for the whole district right i was going to say but at that rate it would take six years in order to come up with a dollar correct currently this building if we bought the same furniture at today's price is about seven to ten grand of room um so it'd probably be closer

037to 12 to 15. right yes we'd be able to buy one or two rooms if we expect if we inflated that number at the same amount we probably go by three rooms plus or minus um that's all the farther i can take the conversation at this point i would just add that if we projected with enrollment we would need more then we would earmark that out of the rest of the eye so maybe that got done instead of another project or instead of buying other capital equipment at that point right and again i'm totally fine with all of the answers mr schwartz that you've provided in that that um analogy as well madam superintendent my my only wondering is at what point do we engage in that part of the conversation at what point do

038we have the 3 500 and 3600 classroom wing discussion about hey this we're opening a brand new facility with x number of classrooms that aren't furnished and here's the plan for that and here's the set aside or here's how that's going to occur that would seem important to me the proper vehicle on my side would be we meet jeremy myself mark cooper and ron mcclure meet constantly to look at the pi fund and so we need to make sure we're allocating and looking at this a couple of years out so we start to have as a placeholder we've planned through roughly fiscal year 24 so about two and a half years after the high school opens but we're one and a half based on well it opens in january but yes um but anyways based

039on that based on enrollment projections which is always a snapshot in time we wouldn't even need to support that money for probably to use the math you just reminded me of three and a half years after that so in other words that's right but we're not quite there yet so that seems like the proper instrument to use as angie said start building a placeholder again just just as we do with a lot of that stuff so we're capturing the money not knowing what the scope would be not knowing for enrollment will happen and not even knowing you know if we'd really want to buy it so so i guess to answer your question we do have a vehicle and so we're almost there in the planning standpoint i know what you're saying we need to

040make sure there's a line item for it so maybe one of those maybe one of my recommendations is or my request no that's what it is so maybe one of my requests to you is i schedule some time with you so that i can better understand where that might come from i think you were here when we talked about the outside athletic you know we've talked a lot along the course of the project i'm trying to do the things now that are harder to do later so infrastructure takes in so we didn't want to cut square footage to be able to have every room furnished so that was kind of we did have those discussions along the way and again i don't think it was something that was actionable unfortunately needed to be helped um

041but those were the same discussions if you remember kind of how we talked about the outside like they talked to our coaches they would really prefer to have a turf baseball term softball field one of each instead of two no totally right that was kind of the same conversation that hey as prices are continuing to go up on different things um you know things come in that this was missed in the bed whatever how do we make sure we still get these other things that we want to make sure we have and so that was a discussion that we had and i know shared here i just act on it that we were taking that we thought it was more important to have some other permanent fixtures in the furniture the plan has always been

042used for that okay and there's money left at the end when we get done at the heist the current buildings um probably not going to be because you recall the bond issue that failed had money build in to put new flooring in the current high school the current intermediate building which has some really old chip tile as well but since we that one didn't pass the one that we passed did not have money pulled in for that so that's where we're using the the bond proceeds but if there's anything left that's also something we can look at that would be a best case scenario worst case scenario would be we'd be looking at that again again and that sounds great i was perfectly prepared actually in april i thought this was a moot issue at

043that point after you had explained it to me the first time i just came to find out through must have been your question in reference to where that actually where that happened as we talked about august of 2019 and it not necessarily being there or as easy to put your hands on or on this person's notepad versus that person's notepad so it will help me again my request is at some point over the next month you and i sit down and i just better understand that yeah and i guess i'll state i did not nor do i believe we had the capability we did not go through the tapes so we did not go through the last year for two years of tapes to try and not necessarily i understand a statement just to share

044unfortunately um i did want to add real quick just because we've talked just a moment go ahead mr cross i've been on the board for three and a half years and i can tell you that the subject matter that we're discussing was mentioned twice once before leanna was on the board where angie said that those third floor rooms wouldn't have some of the loose furnishings that wasn't a discussion that was a statement we never had a discussion as the board on this topic because if we had had it i waited for it as a matter of fact you will recall that i came into your office and asked you about the furniture gmp because i missed the point that it got thrown into the athletics correct in gmp that's correct correct i was waiting for

045that to come up as a topic in discussion so we could reserve the money i understand okay the the those rooms were not the first time angie brought it up which makes complete sense the items you buy will be out of warranty by the time you use them right true but the people are paying for an 1851 student capacity high school that will not be in 1851 student capacity on open pardon the building absolutely the structure will be but the building won't we don't need that furniture on day one also the prices i mean we're dealing with massive inflation and construction you know all this we've talked about all that this is how we manage that and stayed within our budget to still build the building large enough for 1851 students otherwise we would be

046looking at cutting sport footage there are lots of decisions design decisions and again i go back to like the conversation about the vault is where yes we could do this or we could do this and there was discussion around why that made sense at the time i i just don't agree that we need it right now but if the board wants to direct us to do that or put something on the agenda let us know we'd be happy to do that it wasn't why i brought it up why i brought it up was because in your email to steve's response you claimed that the board had made that decision and we did not correct i'm agreeing with you after further reason okay although one of your peers is agreeing that they recall the statement the

047discussion occurring so i know now we have a an if then kind of thing i i voted for gmp-5 knowing full well that those two wings were not having furniture so i can't tell you the exact minute and moment in time there was a discussion that pins that down and i guess if you really felt that way and waiting for that discussion the vote of gmp 5 would have been a hell of a time to have that discussion well like i told you doug i still don't have a cavea of gmp 5. okay i'll get you one tonight you thank you anything else thank you doug thank you thank you so we're out of session we have no recognition so i'm going to go to the treasures report all right so reporting on the close

048of may we have one more month to go and our fiscal year will be over and it's been quite a fiscal year quite a quite a school year quite a fiscal year um happy to report though that we continue to trend what we've been seeing all along where our revenues are slightly over and expenditures slightly under [Music] the majority if you'll recall in and i have it in the writing of the financial report but a big portion of that are for our revenues our estate giving money back from the cuts as well as the several rounds of workers compensation refund so that that really accounts for a lot of it only other thing to note we've been carrying you may recall in our forecast a transfer been watching our food service fund and and how

049things have been going looking like we will not need to make that transfer so that's good news but the you will see most likely next month or next meeting not next month something called in advance we are waiting on a sizable reimbursement from our school nutrition program that will allow that to go into the positive so needing to make in advance so i want to just give you a heads up on that that good news is that we we do not need to have the transfers looking like but do need to to have that next meeting some some number of an advanced tickets to the pasta in that fund which then gets paid back to um to the general fund so that's that is all i have for the financial report any questions or comments

050does that food service fund include like salary and benefits of employees yeah yeah salaries and benefits and then food all the food costs i figured that was in there i didn't know if the employment costs yep yep um there are no other questions the other item on um under me and we've been having kind of an ongoing conversation on this regarding a levy either in the fall or at a later point in time so wanted to to provide this opportunity to kind of i guess make a final thought on this whether we wanted to have a resolution for for next meeting and then a second one would need to be done in the july meeting any discussion on that i i can i've been giving it some thought if you wanted me to to give

051a quick thought on it but i wanted to also allow the opportunity for the board to discuss i would appreciate your perspective yes you've got the best pulse on the finances sure um as i've as i've kind of shared over the last several meetings you know it's always nice to know that you have the funds and that they're there however we and i guess just to also say we've been talking about this for some time that we know that we've been seeing the trajectory of our finances and that there is going to be a need for additional funds i don't anticipate that changing but over the last several years we have been able to do things to kind of keep that that trajectory off and not have to ask um and i would say that

052if if these were normal times that uh you know i might have a different opinion um but as i said earlier and as we've kind of discussed this has been probably nothing but an abnormal year so i'm not exactly sure how the community has been impacted by the pandemic i think it's worthy to wait and and see allow some additional opportunity for our country our community and our state to continue to recover i'm not sure what our our state formula is going to look like we always are cautious and try to be conservative on what is going to be coming our way from that hopefully we'll have additional information of that what what funds we may be getting um everything i'm seeing is not going to be worse than than what we're planning on which

053is flat funding um we have been as we've talked about we've been fortunate to receive uh various stimulus monies that we're looking at planning out and using those to uh to help with some additional supports um so for for these reasons to be able to continue to monitor to continue to see what they make sure that we're knowing what our needs are our finances were better as i showed in may's forecast so for these reasons i would be comfortable waiting and not requesting one in the fall continuing to plan continuing to watch being cautious but it allows us to have further knowledge and it provides our community with an opportunity to another year actually by the time we would collect the new funds it's about a year and a half let me clarify that so

054even though the elections would only be about six months apart the collection would be a year correct later correct um so for for these reasons looking at where our funds are at this point in time um i think we we need to continue to be cautious like we always have been but i would feel comfortable waiting until um this spring jeremy one other just clarification on something he said when he talked about um the federal stimulus funds providing additional supports so with that last round of funding that finally got us over back um we were in the red with those cuts that last one got us above that we were able to use that money to add some of the whole child supports that are in our staffing plan that we worked on with you

055so looking at mental health support looking at school counselors at the elementary level adding two of those back in which we have had for over a decade now um so those are things that we had planned and think are really important for our kids especially coming out of the pandemic especially during these times that we're able to pay for um for a year or two in some positions for two with that stimulus money some grants are may run out after one so we will be it's not a permanent payment for those i just want to clarify that well and with that i think i i shared during the may forecast update that the the arp the third round of funding is is available to be used through the next three school years i talked with

056our area coordinator with ode and they actually they thought that what we were starting to think through of of looking at using those funds in a three-year period was actually really smart and would they they're encouraging others to do the same type of thing just so you're not getting so many things all at once and it's so it's it helps to make it more sustainable so okay yeah i personally think there's a lot of uncertainty going on i spent time with a business that i work with today who has business but the costs of materials and the cost of them doing business they're trying to execute contracts that were bid on and finalized be pandemic in some cases and trying to absorb expenses post-pandemic based on material costs and things like that and i've had

057some similar discussions where without the thought of ppp coming again and some of those other things there are some businesses that may be in some more challenging spots this year maybe than they were last year that's just my own observation and so um i think seeing where that nets out within our community i think you having another six months of seeing what this looks like and this model looks like and as we add some of those supports in i think it makes sense you'll have to forgive me i don't know that it makes sense i mean to your point earlier about discussion i guess i i hear the recognition that there is a forthcoming need and based on the information that you shared honestly i can't i think this was last month where you had

058forecasted out a couple of things if there's a forthcoming need it seems to me like it's a cheaper solution to go on in november versus potentially weights whether six months or a year you're looking at savings and if there is a need don't we want to do that when it's financially responsible to do that is it cheap is my assumption correct is it cheaper to do in november for our our community than it would be to wait and anytime you are you are waiting the millage will be slightly less the millage would be less by asking sooner correct than later yes so the conversation of is there a need is there a need yes why wouldn't we my question is why we're always going to want more information we're always going to want i mean

059seriously we're always going to want a clearer picture we're always going to want to have more unknowns be quantified for the best of our ability and if there's a need and it's cheaper to do it now versus later that's almost the same conversation we just had about the facility it's this is the way that you do it and save money if there's a need and otherwise it i mean now otherwise it looks like you're waiting for a carrot and stick kind of idea because it would be very late at that point to have decisions made for the upcoming school year whereas if we had a situation that we did in november we would at least have answers for how to plan for the upcoming school year those are those are that's all all valid points

060and i i think we've kind of talked about those as well as other things as well i'm i'm i'm i am sharing with you that i would be comfortable waiting and it ultimately if i would be comfortable not doing it at all right wait but what what what our superintendent just said i wish we didn't need to sure i would be very comfortable not asking at all and saying that we're continuing forward it's been 11 years since the ask of new money while we have been on the ballot for the request of renewals we haven't asked for new money in over a decade if there's a need and angie just said i wish we didn't need to so do i but if there's a need doesn't it make sense to be responsible and offset that

061at a lower price to our our constituents or our community than wait six months and have it at a higher price that almost seems to be unfair i think that's something for the board to do right no i don't know i get that and that's why i'm saying i think that's a really valid point and i agree to an extent i think part of it too that you need to consider is waiting could potentially benefit a lot of the members in the community when it comes to cash flow if people have struggled through 2020 true people are still struggling in 2021 trying to get out kind of back to you know waiting a year maybe and extremely beneficial for those i i agree and that's probably where their vote would would tell us that that

062they would be at least they would have the choice their vote would say hey this isn't the time for me and if we communicated which there's always been some sort of pride committee or something like that if we communicated cheaper now than later the need is real we've just heard it from both of them if your financial situation is this isn't the time for you i get it that's your vote if this is a situation where this is the time for you because you'd rather see it be cheaper than more expensive downstream i get it but at least you've had you've we've presented the opportunity for people to make a decision whereas if we wait then it again it gives the appearance of like the carrot and stick of hey it's more expensive now we

063need it because the need is still going to be there then jeremy if the levees put on the ballot for november and it passes yes sir when's the first collection the first collection would be in january of 2022. so the same time when's the first collection first collection is january of 2023 well the danger with waiting is going to be you're comfortable with waiting for may what if it doesn't pass in may how uncomfortable are you going to be the day after the election i think if we're going on we're saying we needed to pass or there will be three professions i mean we shouldn't go on with the attitude of giving like let's go on and see if it fails i mean that's when we work with consultants then the advice if you don't

064go on just like hey maybe it'll take us three or four times let's just keep running campaigns because then you get fatigued with your committees and your community so and please no i wasn't suggesting i know i just that's what i'm pointing out on because that's always been well you know it's like let people fail it and then we keep having opportunities before things are cut i mean yeah we would be at a point where we couldn't maintain current programming or make additional ads at that point to support the growth all right i can i consider make a case for either one at the end of the day you know we'll do what you decide um there are pros and cons for both and if we work in the situation we're in economically and i

065might feel differently as a community or as a country and i guess the only thing i'd take exception and maybe not even exception just maybe just clarification because i don't think you necessarily meant it this way and maybe you did related to the carrot stick kind of analogy i mean i guess for me as every time i've considered an issue up up in this chair it's never been about um do this or you lose that it's we're asking for this because we need it um and so whether that ask makes sense now or whether that sense ask makes sense next year depending on the factors you've cited i mean i agree it's debatable but i guess from from my seat this board and i think even in this particular case it's never been considered to

066ask for money um only because it's needed not because there's some sort of punitive response if it doesn't come back and and i don't think you meant that that way but i think there is a large part of the community that feels that way that you know when you put something on and you give them the realities of the economic situation that that is some sort of threat or what have you along the way right and just and i know i interrupted i apologize for that but i wanted to make sure i jump in because what i think i said is that's what lends itself to the perception of the carrot and stick conversation where if what i heard was that there's a need and it's cheaper to fulfill that need now by waiting the

067potential perception is there we'll hear that perception one way or the other and i think the other irony is that i'm the one maybe right now advocating for this conversation because it's not always been my opinion that that's what the need is so hearing the treasurer and superintendent say it's a need then it seems like the responsible thing if i believe the treasurer and superintendent is to do that um and to your point about carrots and sticks i don't believe we've ever asked when there hasn't been a need before just like the bond issue or other things i think that those things have been needed as a community continues to grow so what i to clarify what i think i intended to say was that's what opens up the door to the perception otherwise people

068can bark and chirp and say those things but it's not necessarily true no and i appreciate that and like i said i didn't think it came out that way so i just want to make sure that thank you that that's out there because i know those perceptions exist and even this explanation even this conversation between the two of us those positions will still exist sure sure and there's nothing that it's going to change related to that so jeremy my question is what i mean there's obviously some thought that still has to occur here nothing is up for decision right now but my question is the numbers that you provided us last month are still accurate in terms of what the potential ask would be i would say it's close i i would have to take

069a look at update where we're at now with another probably a month or two of information and but yeah i don't think we have the month or two isn't that right no we've already had a month or two of extra information since we since we got that so i would we would use our levy model which is within uh the five-year forecast and make sure that what we were putting on to our resolution was and and the time that we would have to make that decision would be next meeting next meeting so there isn't a moment for a vote here or there isn't an action item my request would be that we would at least have that on hand so that if a motion is made we would know what that was i wanted to

070um comment on this because last month i i made the point um a little bit of the sticking point i had or that i was struggling with is the federal dollars that we've received were and are intended to help address extra resources that learners may need to overcome losses or you know struggles through the pandemic and we don't even necessarily know what those are at this point but i can also appreciate after thinking about it for a while that successfully implementing a jump from where we were or are now to where we should be or more importantly where we really want to be in one year might be next to impossible you know so i think that since the federal funds and the unemployment refunds that we got or the bwc refunds we got can

071help us kind of bridge that gap that we would be able to or that i would be comfortable waiting until may 2022 to put it on the ballot but like you said at that point it would be imperative that it passed and i and i think whenever whenever it goes on i think we're always going to have this struggle of you know the people who are like well if you need it last time you should have asked last time and but then you have the people well you you know if you didn't really need it then you should have waited i mean i think whatever whatever we do there's going to sure be a you know a subset of people that the population that maybe don't think they made the right choice but agreed and

072i was just going to say to jeremy's point right i've had feedback back as people have talked to me about how can you ask when we're coming off correct yeah right and for some people that's not a big deal and there's other folks that i know that that's been a really big deal right and so i think you know cheri you made the comment about the the community's ability to sustain that at this particular time versus maybe in may and what does that look like and that's something that i've been weighing [Music] and i agree with that as well uh but but the way to find that out i guess would be to potentially ask and again whether it were to pass or fail certainly if we were to put it on i would be

073of a mindset that well it's because we need it and therefore i'm supporting it for that reason i think it would be responsible on our part if questioned by folks that said hey it's been hard for me or something along those lines that it's really a cost-benefit analysis where we're trying to do the responsible thing and make it as cheap for you given what we've gone through as possible and therefore the cheapest solution the most cost effective solution is to do it now whereas if people are struggling and again i am not at a loss of empathy for that in fact i the argument would be on on my case that the most empathetic thing to do would be to do it at the cheapest price point for community members versus waiting and again looking

074at a difference of two to three mills so i could look at a community constituent and say i respect that i understand it you have to do what you have to do in terms of voting your conscience this is the cheapest way for us to do it and if we've always been actually board member wecker when i started attending strangely enough in august of 19 because that's when i submitted my petition to run for this board used to say that we're a community that taxes ourselves responsibly it seems to me that the responsible way to tax ourself is to do it at the cheapest price point versus looking at collecting additional millage because we missed the potential window i think lots of valid points but i guess the perspective that i have is having talked

075to um and some members of the past levy committees and having run a levy campaign a number of times and kind of looking at it from that perspective and those folks have some serious concerns um from having discussions with friends and neighbors as to even if there is a need of how successful a levy would be at this point because of the concerns that many in our community are facing because of a pandemic and and that's kind of what has really given me pause with it you know knowing that some of our who i would consider some of our strongest supporters are very very concerned about moving forward at this point in time when at past board meetings our treasurer has said yes we can make this stretch and i think that's kind of where

076i fall that you know and knowing that we have these federal funds you know i think i think the other difficult thing of all of this is thinking back to having run levy campaigns is and that a school district is never rewarded i feel like for doing good planning almost and it seems like in this district especially that it has to come down to this do or die situation and you know and that's that's incredibly frustrating and i don't know how we get past that but i feel like if there's already this perception amongst many of the folks who would really who would really be out there pushing and supporting this levy on our behalf when they have concerns about it i mean and that's kind of where i'm falling that i'm like and and

077i go back to that with the carrot and the stick that you know it goes back to well if we don't pass this everybody wants to know the list of well what are you going to cut and you're like why does it have to get to that point you know and the way not to get it to that point in my opinion is is to ask and and i don't want this so out of this entire meeting i'm really uh concerned that that i use the carrot and stick metaphor and that's gonna be that's going to be the thing that's going to live on from this not at all my intent which is just about taxing responsibly it's a reality about who many people perceive correct correct and and which is why again my the

078strongest argument we would have against that in the moment is we've been trying to be responsible i'll come back to the first thing that jeremy said which is there's a need but i would be comfortable if if i mean it's preposition so if we take there is a need uh as as the sentence segment then then the conversation is the responsible thing to do is ask for fulfillment of the need so not carrots and sticks for getting all root vegetables there's always a need right as you look at potential asks and doing some of the things that we've talked about here in terms of those basic health and wellness types of supports that we're talking about starting to phase out and share speaking of you know how many obviously sooner is better right but i

079mean when when in your estimation from the forecast and everything just to kind of refresh does it get to be like dire time serious cuts i mean all along just to remind folks that are currently tuning in we have been cutting things throughout the last few years um everything from instructional aids to not filling open positions and i could let you guys speak in chapter and verse about how we've been doing some of those things i feel like those are things that we've we've hurt ourselves from i want to want to choose this wisely because i want to be honorable to everybody that has really worked hard to make this district as great as it is but they could have done more had they had more resources around them that's probably the way to phrase

080that so you know is it i know in some past issues that we've discussed you know we can talk about hey we've got two chances at this before it has a serious impact or x number of chances obviously if we go in the fall we have x number of chances plus one but i mean you have a sense of what that number is before things get really really tight well i'll just go into the the forecast the um fiscal year 24 which would run from july 1st of 2023-24 at the end of that period uh we are at a negative one million approximately um without any new without anything new that is correct so looking at kind of the trajectory we're on um if we had not passed something then in um i think backwards

081here um basically next year [Music] then it would it would become pretty critical so next year meaning yes both may and november chances correct so so that is yeah go ahead if it's november because we've done we've been down this road before to steve's point earlier you can't start a new school year without knowing if you're going to have the resources right here and so we would have to i would argue if it didn't pass in may we would definitely have to not fill positions larger class sizes i don't know if we'd be a point cutting cutting but it would be not adding positions that we need to add for both growth and the whole child supports that we've talked about for sure and then the following year [Music] so in may so if i'm

082hearing you because because this is the first time we've kind of had this level of what might happen if then scenario again if then not any other metaphor at this point um if in may no success then in august of 22 when school would start back up there would be a realized lessening of uh offerings or opportunity for students or or the plan that we've put in place i don't know as though or larger or larger class sizes or it wouldn't be steps forward it would be steps in or it would be running on a hamster wheel essentially yeah is absorbing position so if somebody leaves we don't fill it now we have a bigger class size at that grade level obviously with the way that we want education to be in the classroom personalized

083it's hard to do that when you know it's not it's not like when we were kids and you just have a room full of kids in lecture as we've grown it's been a challenge to keep those numbers where we want them already so right not having those teachers built in and be able to add them as kids move in would that's where you would see a decrease in services so we're not talking about a person's job but we're not adding the keyboard we'll do the scenario at that point and i would say much beyond that now we're looking at cutting yeah and just to clarify kind of the timing of things is um so you always collect in january i think kind of to mr crowley's point when he was asking those and it's so

084there's the opportunity of passage within this this calendar year and then it begins the next january so same thing the opportunity would be in may i think actually i have here there's an august and november there's those elections and if it doesn't pass within the 21 calendar year then you don't start collecting on that in the the 2022 calendar year so then you would right next year it wouldn't start collecting until then the next calendar year so as we sit here and and i agree with leanna everybody's exhausted from covid everybody's exhausted from a lot of the things that have been going on both from a geopolitical standpoint i agree with that statement um but to hear hear again there's a need and the superintendent say if we weren't successful then there would be ramifications

085which there are always right there's in the decision-making process there's always uh scenarios where you have to plan contingencies and the idea of potentially waiting until may at a particular price point and then i would assume same might be true in november at another price point would we then be saying boy we wish we did something coming out of covid even though there was an exhaustion level or fatigue and to that end would there be uh the wish in that moment that hey if we could have gone back in time and done it boy we'd have been better off because i guess that's what it comes down to in my mind about the responsibility factor and i i do i recognize and i believe also that you have those relationships with those folks that have

086run those committees in the past i don't necessarily see them or hear from them frequently and i believe that's where their minds are now i just believe that everybody's kind of mind is there which is why i further believe it's incumbent upon us to try and guide the responsible decision or at least the responsible request and if that is a not that i would ever want something to to not be successful but it's at least we're doing our due diligence there's a responsibility that we have that we're taking seriously we tried it and now it's going to be more expensive should it not be successful i don't know another way to say it than that so maybe i should just stop so what i heard from the timeline question was fiscal year 24 is when

087we're approximately a million dollars in debt in terms of and any request made in november of this year or not made would begin drawing in 23 22 anything beyond that would begin drawing in 23 at which point there would be significant causal conversations about if then yes thank you so doug i think typically you're in a different group of folks kind of socially and whatnot in your connections what's the what's the perspective in the community from the folks you talk to about the need to address growth i'm in a different group that stumped me you have you've got a longer you've got friends here we are all our friends but you also have a i'm not well oh wait steve just opted himself out no i mean i think you know you've got longer-term ties

088in the community you've got connections with some folks more than i do is somebody that's only been here 12 years or what have you that's kind of what i'm referencing um you know when you talk to folks what do you hear i don't think it matters whether it's on the ballot in november or on the ballot in may it's going to be a hard sell either way because there's not a need or because of the cost well it's unfortunate but i think some people will remember videos that said we weren't going to ask for additional funds so i just feel it's going to be a very hard sell it's going to be a very hard sell regardless of timing or it's going to be a hard time at one point than another regardless of timing

089and to be honest with you it may be might be easier if it's some minor millage [Music] but any millage worthy of going on the ballot isn't going to be a minor millage it would be more minor earlier than later well it would and minor is not two years we're talking about dollars and cents i don't your question would be to your point it's going to be cheaper if it's on the november ballot i guess in a sense since i believe it's going to be a hard sell whether it's november or may it might be easier to sell november on your sales pitch of for jeremy's whoever wants to get blamed that it's that it's to be clear we will all get blamed that's why i said i thought we were all on i just

090meant in terms of folks that you connect with outside of our board to clark i know it is it is a valid point though that if it's on november is going to have less impact on the people as far as the burden the other part is that if if uh if if it's pushed to me there's nothing more valuable than time and you burn up uh six months of that you can never get back with a question that it doesn't matter whether that question is asked in november or may you don't know the answer the like i said earlier though if you push it to may now you're going to get into critical and to angie's point yes been there done that before and it didn't work well for the students the kids are the

091ones that are impacted by the decisions that are made on when to put a levy on the ballot and at the last meeting i made a point that if it's pushed to may it's for a political reason because you've told us do you think it's political to say because we think we can mandate it and allow people to recover from cova that that's political or that's being compassionate for people well it is a political decision you can't call it anything but is this is it a better chance that it passes in may and i guess it's the connotation of what you mean by a political decision i look at as we're trying to discuss something to be the most considerate we can of our community and balancing that with trying to have our needs i

092don't think anybody here is sitting here trying to make a what i think of them and maybe we have a different connotation of what political means in that sense i took it as not being a positive thing the way he said it i think white way it's a dangerous word it's what it's just a dangerous word i it's just one of those words that everyone i mean i i a decisions to be made right you can make a rational decision the minute you move into the area that it'll pass better in may than november that's politics i don't necessarily think that it's it'll pass better i think it's that you know a lot of the people that i come across they're they have not really had huge huge hits to their family income but i

093also know there's a lot of people who have and so thinking about those people and those people's needs and what may work better for those families and their cash flow i don't think that's a it'll pass better later i think that's like like we're trying to do the best thing for everyone in our community i mean that's that's what i'm thinking when i'm i'm not i'm not you know like oh you know when's it gonna pass better that's i want it to pass whenever it goes on i mean that's the goal you know and and like leanna said you know the school districts are not rewarded for planning they are not rewarded for working really really really hard to save money wherever they can because then it's like oh well see then you didn't need

094it anyway that's like no like we we have to work with what we have um you know i think if we i i can see i can see reasons to do both but i i agree that you know i i think a lot of people in the community feel like they just they'd like to get through one year you know let's get back to school and see what that looks like being you know normal if it's completely back to where we were in 2019 and then kind of you know have a few months of just like okay take a deep breath and now let's move on to the next thing well we're discussing this in june the decisions if you put it on the ballot in november is made in november and times will be

095different then you asked me i gave you my answer well i also asked you about a need but you haven't answered that question pardon i also asked you if there was a need but you haven't answered that question well we have uh there's a reason why doug always votes no on negative revenue spending we have a different point of view [Music] so are you saying that there is a need for a new levy ask based on the growth that's accumulated you could look at it that way but that's i look at it that if [Music] you know what your revenue is next year and you exceed spending that revenue then you're not physically responsible in some people's eyes let me ask this question doug well no i guess i won [Music] fiscally responsible is providing

096the opportunity to determine for oneself fiscally responsible is the opportunity to make someone a decision for themselves is that is that exactly responsible is not exceeding your means okay not exceed and if there's to now i think brad's question of if there's a need and we can see that in 24 we turn negative and cannot operate in that manner then by transitional property i mean it almost has to be that in the affirmative that yes there is in fact a need so if it's a opportunity to provide somebody the right to provide our we're sitting here as five people trying to determine what we think others believe whether they're tired from covid whether there's you know let us just get back on our feet whether i'm extrapolating properties of my friends in my social circles

097based on their uh economic performance or abilities we're trying to extrapolate what we think based on the five of us our community needs the most responsible thing is the point i'm trying to make and it's a question now to you is the most responsible thing if there's a need to put it on now or later well to start with the 24 the million deficit actually i believe uh 23 showed a deficit of as well so it wasn't to that extent so there's a need the i was looking at it's line 10.01 which is our fund balance and this is from the may forecast that was approved um and it's one million thirty one thousand seven fifty seven in the end of twenty four and what's the deficit in 23 um maybe we need to clarify

098deficit deficit spending or or the ending balance being negative i guess i i'm speaking mission critical when it's i'm a simple man all right expenditures greater than revenue fair enough now that we've now that we've we've defined that negative spending is potential in fiscal year 22 so next year however you'll recall that this we still did not have a plan or know the funds for our stimulus dollars so we're we would about be level in fiscal 22 and then there would be uh probably at what we're seeing currently about 3.8 million deficit spending in fiscal year 23. by deficit spending that's into our cash balance and savings correct and that's still at a 60-day cash balance we would still be at a 60-day cash balance at the end of that year yes to answer your

099question i think i have already he says there's a need so then it's a question of when and if it's cheaper on the taxpayers to do it in november versus may that answers the question you still have an answer to my question whether you think there's a need whether i think there's a need i've been very critical of every budget for the last three and a half years do i think that we need to spend as much as we are is that what you're asking me i'm asking you is there a need to request more revenue to deal with the growth that has occurred within this district and sustain health and wellness in increases in staffing that we've discussed previously as a group is there a need to be able to find additional funding to

100sustain those things i really don't see it myself how would you propose we would pay for those then without asking for additional funding at some point by making your budget neutral to revenue and that's what everybody in the world has to do and how would we do that when state laws require certain requirements of staffing and things of that nature state laws do require certain staffing but not all staffing and i believe we have on the agenda i mean if you're asking jeremy's contract's up i had a discussion with jeremy until that 83 percent or 83 cents of every dollar is whittled down you're not going to get your spending under control when i came on the board i believe it was 78 or 79 cents of every dollar and how about the revenue side

101and a revenue model that doesn't address the consistent growth that gets imposed upon this community based on decisions by land developers and the communities at large that support those things there is no new development in sunbury and there hasn't been in the city limits in how many years four or five the enrollment this month is down 46 from last month you're right doug there's not an entire new brand new community behind my house over off of barley corn that is correct and that community has been being built for 10 years it was utilized for the bond request for the middle school and gre i wish i could live in a world where all i had to worry about was not raising taxes and had to actually care about delivering services to students because it would

102be a much easier world to live in well you can make me out to be the most uncaring person in the world but that's not the case doug i don't think you're the most uncaring in the world well that's that's in your life comes out they may say that but i don't say that you just did i did not say it you insinuated that did not insinuate anything doug i just said watch the tape you'll see oh i will do that because i've got nothing else to do to watch tape after tape after tape to catch stuff that you miss in public meetings on a regular basis there you go again why do you insist on insulting me because i'm tired of rehashing stuff with you over and over again and did you ask me

103a question or did you just let it set i wasn't going to make a comment all right time to move on well yeah about five minutes ago selected board policy first reading of the following policies policy 1310 employment of the treasurer possibly positive policy 1340 non-re-employment of the treasurer policy 8740 bonding jeremy would you like to speak to those issues sure so recommending that we revise the 1310 and 1340 there was a change to ohio vice code and i'll actually we'll talk about the change in this down in the business items as well but i'm recommending that we have our first reading of this to include that we be able to um in lieu of a bond be able to have this on our insurance policy as well um and that would be for each

104of the currently bonded individuals we bond the treasurer we also bombed the superintendent and the board president um and then so 13 10 that includes a paragraph 1340 revises the one paragraph to include that that is also if um unable to get a bond or an insurance policy so including that language and then if we are providing this on our insurance policy instead of bonding it it renders the 8740 policy unnecessary and recommending the rescinding of that then questions this is an update to the 2008 so this brings us current in terms of best practices correct all right so we'll see that one again next meeting board member items of interest go ahead steve how did you know i had something just guessing all right well so i suppose one thing that's occurred since our

105last board meeting has been we held at graduation i really want to commend the high school staff particularly mr jados and mrs mcdonough for what they were able to provide to our students i would also like to take note in the fact that in 2020 we also held a high school graduation uh that was uh admirable given all of the things that were going on and the fact that other high schools around us were not holding graduations as an outcome of graduation i've had the blessing to attend several graduation parties from which i hear from people who are also at those their level of appreciation for what this district our superintendent and our staff went through over the past school year it's actually resounding in terms of how appreciative folks are that their kids were

106in session over the last year i'm extremely proud of big walnut for all of their efforts as i have two children who went through the school year in person i recognize that there won't be the opportunity for the virtual component to continue and certainly understand that that is also an outcome of where we are from expen a level of expenses my hope would be as the administrators begin to plan for the coming school year that we take a critical look at those things that went well over the last year those things that we can learn from as well as those things that did not go well over the last year we've already heard this evening from our superintendent that you know looking at a soft start might be one of those that gives me great

107hope as we continue to move forward i would also submit that it's not just on our the lessons learned are not just the lessons learned is are not just incumbent upon our administrators and staff to consider it's also on families how how did they approach student illness how do they do those types of things for their own children and what those responsible opportunities are for parents as we move forward one humorous thing humorous is not really the right word in such a situation but i did have my daughter and son keep all of their delaware county general health district notifications of covid in my hand i hold 16 between two children so that's almost one per month per kid and i i hold that up only as an artifact of what we've been through and

108the fact of the matter is that as you look around our county one school district in the county actually did not return to in-person at all even in a hybrid fashion if i understand the world right state state hybrid or state hybrid they were the only ones that didn't go back full-time okay thank you uh so knowing that we we were in the situation of doing that from day one gives me a source of pride and again i would just hope that as angie and the team consider all of those lessons that we've learned that we continue to do that and reflect on those the five of us thank you leanna how about you um just a couple things i guess playing off of steve steve's comments about graduation a couple of the things that

109i've heard at some of the parties that i have attended is how appreciative the families are of the fact that our district involves the students and that there's no long-winded speeches by brad some old guy you know whoever it might be wait he says brad and you said some old guy so you want to you want to clarify unrelated um no but you know that there's not a whole lot of long-winded speeches by old guys and just how enjoyable just a graduation ceremony is and because because a day belongs to the kids and i think families are just extraordinarily appreciative of that part of our graduation ceremonies and then the other thing is goes to big walnut education foundation that group i've met with them a couple times this last month as part of my

110board assignments and i think i mentioned about the 93 000 worth of scholarships that they gave this last year but in addition to that mark praderi who has served on that committee for at least a decade and just has done a ton of work with that group he's actually resigned his position as i think its chair is the exact title and just wanted to make this board aware that he was stepping down from that responsibility he is being replaced by i think there's only one chair but i can't remember exactly how he decided kelly foreman roberto is stepping up to chair that committee and i also know that diana butts has played a huge role with that group but just wanted to make sure that mark was recognized in public to say thank you for

111his efforts he's just you know he's done a whole lot for that group after he retired from big wanted i think it for 41 years of service as a school counselor and tennis coach too so staying involved is certainly kudos all right thank you doug how about for you got nothing sure ditto uh what lyanna and [Music] steve said about graduation i heard i work over in delaware so i had several co-workers and people that i know through my firm whose kids graduated over there and one of one of the comments was the pictures their students had pictures with the masks on and so they were just like like i can't believe you know they did that so um i know that a ton of time and energy and work goes into planning all of

112that and setting it all up and tearing it down and you know i think that i think it just went great and it was exciting to see all the kids faces as they went through and so thank you to everyone who played and i wasn't able to attend but as i've been out through the community um i guess it's been interesting i haven't heard as much from big walnut families as much as i've heard from families of surrounding areas complimenting us on what we've done and seeking ways to come into the community or as someone said yesterday i just can send my kids over there even though i live in olentangy right and i had to correct him on how that works but um no so i would just echo the same thanks and i

113think not just the thanks of our community but i think this has been a year that has gained our district a lot of respect in the area for how our administrative team is handled so kudos to all of you as well as the staff that are working with you to make all those things happen it was a public participation so item 12 this is a meeting in the board of education in public for the purpose of conducting the school district's business and is not considered a public community meeting it's a time for public participation during the meeting as indicated in the agenda please reference the criteria for public participation which is attached to the agent jeremy did you have anybody to submit that was when we're looking to participate i have not received any submissions

114at this point and to clarify are we still accepting online opportunities for public comment yeah i think we would does that change at all as borders and stuff wind down maybe as we go to the new school year okay certainly if somebody's not able to come and they want to reach out ahead of time always happy to share something but now that we're back without restrictions has anything changed on public meeting orders related to that i know there were some things we were allowed to do we are still allowed to have a board member participate remotely i believe it's through july the end of july it's july 1st it changes july or wasn't it june 1st i think it's july because we can check but i believe it's july i think it's through july um

115that footer could not be extended i would guess what the orders looked and it wouldn't be but maybe they're finding that that has you know been a good solution as we talk about lessons learned for other situations as well when people are unable to be in person okay yeah i mean i'd be all for it i just didn't know how the how the laws have never checked with tammy she checked with osb and i thought they said through july okay um is there any unscheduled public participation so typically we ask folks to register if they're in but if not you're here and wanted to say anything you still have three minutes to make a comment to the board come on up if you wouldn't mind coming to the podium please is this like when i

116when i go up before genoa township i have to give my address do i need to do that if if you would state your name and uh we'll take your address as well i believe that's what's on our performance awesome annette mcmurray 3690 worthington road galena ohio i just want to echo what i heard today about our school district and our community i am proud to be a member of this community i've been a member since i was 11 years old so it's it's a special place and i want to commend you all for keeping our kids in school and providing them with i think a really positive year even through all the struggles so i just wanted to commend you all for that so thank you very much i do also want to give

117a little bit of i guess time or or talk to the the subject of crts i think that it is something that's been talked about a lot in our community i'm engaged with a lot of folks that live here and i do think it's something that we have to address as a community and i'm glad to hear that you guys are stepping in that direction and i think you've done a really good job in the past of including parents and community members and i would even say students in conversations like that and i would encourage you to do so again and just have representation um across our community with that and then i'd also like to comment about the idea of putting the money on the levy um i must commend you guys for having

118that conversation because again it's something that i've heard out in our community people are talking about it and i think there's valid insight into thinking about you know how are people dealing with where we are currently um and i mr fuji what you said about you know are we taking what we have and what we hear from those our circle of friends versus kind of really what's going on in in the larger community i don't know if there's any way to get a true pulse on where we are um but maybe even a quick survey out i mean when they're pretty expensive yeah just to do like hey here's a google survey not really productive it's not scientifically accurate yeah i was just i was like kind of thinking how could we get a pulse

119on it because i think we all i mean if we look around the room we probably are all very similar socioeconomic demographics discussing but we do have a wide range of folks within our community that are dealing with things that maybe we don't necessarily have to deal with on a daily basis you know we have one of the things that i'm big on is i think about my mom and dad who live in this community and their taxes continue to go up um i think about you know the education and the quality of education we have here in big money so it really is this kind of you know back and forth game and i you know what brad talked about earlier um with the growth that we've seen um i'm been a very big

120voice in our community when it comes to that growth and and how it needs to be done responsibly and it's very difficult when you deal with developers you really don't care about anything but the bottom line um so i wanted to to commend you all on an awesome school year and so no it's not like the music starts playing i was trying to hit it before no i can tell you're wrapping up i was just trying to sorry about that no i just want to commend you on i want to commend you all for the the conversations that took place tonight um you know this this is my first time at a board meeting so uh thank you very much for the hard work that you guys do thank you anyone else okay that brings

121us to business items an item 13-1 to recommended the board approve a resolution waiving competitive bidding and authorizing a contract with multi-ventures limited for the boiler replacement project at harrison street early learning center based on an urgent necessity you can have a motion please so move thank you doug okay so this is the uh steam boiler at harrison street elementary this year it was installed in 1957 uh so it's definitely beyond its useful life as i've said a few times to folks as they've come into conversation by urgent necessity i said this was always never an if but when and when is now uh we've definitely patched it done what we can to keep it going for several years beyond its useful life but we have to wait until we get through heating season it

122had leaks it had some other challenges we can't destruct our investigation competing season's over we started that in mid-april uh in may we started investigating the possibility of replacing it what would that cost how would we do it can we get the new one in there just a single door uh and working with uh various various players um the dollar value is 115 just to say share and if you look at the resolution that's a not to exceed or up to is the authority you're granting uh the superintendent under her design so i'll stop there and see what questions you have so action is required on this tonight yes that is the desire that's hence the urgent necessity again if we wait till the 29th uh in my conversations with so a couple things happen

123we can't even we can't even guarantee the schedule to the boilers ordered in this day in this culture right now with how materials are so the manufacturer will not give us a hard delivery data i should say give multi-ventures limited the proposed contractor a hard delivery date i was on one of the calls with the manufacturer rep until an order is placed so an order cannot be placed until the board grants authority to go under contract that's driving the schedule but best case if we award tonight everything goes perfect we'll have they'll be out of our way before school starts and then the unit will start in time for what's predicted as temperatures in mid to late september 12 more days moves at 12 more days ideal situation anything goes wrong in either case we're

124looking into october or early november we're already trying to develop plan b and c should something happen whether it's approved tonight the 29th or whatever happens uh in terms of how we'd provide temporary heat and other things and i can go down that path if you wish but uh it's sort of like the bond issue you just said or the levy traditional funds you wait there's ramifications that it's not going to change the conditions will not change if we wait to the 29th they'll actually get worse doug is this just the boiler or service lines it's just a boiler although i'll point out the service lines continue to fail in fact the original assess the cessna back in 2016 had almost 1.2 million in 2016. to basically update the whole hvac system in this buildings

125to share so this is just a small portion of it we we have money and we have funds within multi-ventures contract to continue small repairs to the service lines because they continue to rush and fail as well so it's just the boiler but this is not a one and done the system will continue to age out and continue to have challenges have any of those service lines been replaced already yes portions thereof have especially in the last five to ten years is what i'm told some of them though are inaccessible they're within concrete walls or within slabs but some of them within crawl spaces and those are mostly the ones that are leaking and then they rest inside and outside is what's happening so those are the ones that we've been able to assess and

126replace i'm guessing this is our oldest boiler in the district yes what's the next oldest boiler i know that's also a silly question but if we can forecast the top of my head so it probably in that just because i happen to have been a principal there for a period of time walk in there building was built in 1974 i think is that right bw the original the original 50s like this 1950 so is the boiler from 49 is the boiler from back to the permanent improvement log that boiler based on current assessments is actually well below other components in that building like the roof the water source i'm thinking out loud the rooftop unit so that the way we get heat in that building is a little different than harrison street so it has

127more rooftop units although the source is still a boiler if you will but that's as my recollection that's not on our radar for the next five years other components related to heating and cooling are though it's not on a radar in the next five years i don't believe so but the rooftop unit so how it distributes it localized to the rooms is the roof is what's going on with memory now the water service to the building is there's a couple other components that are really high priority that we intend to do before it reopens as a elementary as currently planned my colleagues on the board might be rolling their eyes as to why i would be asking about the next oldest boiler but it's only because this this is kind of as an emergency waiver

128is that right for a competitive building bidding because we're because this surpasses the fifty thousand dollar threshold or whatever and in order to not do competitive bidding because of the need a couple things so it's it yes it is because of that part of its timing also if we were to we would have had to hire an engineer gone through the design bid build process at a minimum that's three to four months unfortunately we've known about this issue for several years so that's actually that's actually 200 000 my memo talked about 115 000 in the budget we've been carrying 200 000 on the permanent improvement for a couple years we've been slowly whittling it back going let's do as little as possible once this does fail um and we've whittled down to 115. i think

129we need to push we're pushing it back we haven't reassigned those dollars from the original 200. we need to push it back about 125 to throw a bunch of numbers out there but it's always been known but in each year we patch it do what we can go into heating season and only at the end of heating season are we able to investigate if something failed assess the ability to patch it and but of course that doesn't leave us that time ideally we would have hired an engineer in december and just assumed we were going to replace it but we're still trying to hedge our bets and not spend the money and unfortunately we we lost that is what happened thank you anything else or okay jeremy mrs lee yes mrs dorsch yes mr crowl

130yes mr fuji yes mr schneider yes thank you item 13 2 it's recommended the board approved the following account 353.32 cents to dollars transfer from the capital project fund to the payroll state check fund so moved so moved thank you steve is there a second one second thanks jeremy you want to speak for this one yeah this is you may recall a month or two ago um a transfer the opposite way um as we were reconciling and taking care of things um noted that um that transfer needed to go back to correct an issue so this is the amount in that the payroll account to send that back and clear up the negative balance that's in that and we have no i'm told we no longer have any outstanding payroll still checks and that's kind

131of indicative of going more electronic more electronic over the years so it's always nice to not have outstanding checks anything for jeremy [Music] mr fuji yes mrs lee yes mr crowl yes mrs dorsch yes mr schneider yes item 13 3 it's recommended the board approved the resolution to impor to employee dishonesty and faithful performance of duty policy in lieu of bond rc 3.061 get a motion thank you sherry is there a second a second thank you jeremy while you're at it keep going yeah um so as part of ohio revised code 3.061 to be able to take advantage of having a employee dishonesty and faithful performance bond the board does have to grant that through a resolution um so requesting that resolution to be able to do that and i think as i shared in

132my board update this week it actually doesn't save us huge amounts but by kind of i call it counties of scale when you're taking the economies of scale and putting it into our our insurance policy instead of having three different bonds um you save money so it's a couple hundred dollars but uh happy that it it does that as well as having taking advantage of this opportunity in revised code i think the resolution kind of if you read it kind of walks through all the the process and what it is any questions for jeremy on this one okay uh mrs dorsch yes mrs lee yes mr crowl yes mr fuji yes mr schneider yes item 13 fourth recommended the board authorize the agreement with the ohio school plan for the district liability insurance coverage effective

133july 1 21 through june 30 22 the amount of 131 532 kind of a motion please second thanks second let's steve sneak it in this is our annual insurance and um property liability crime all the the different policies that are not only required but also prudent to uh to carry so jeremy i've got a question sure but the incident at the playground at gre are we enjoying those uh playgrounds yes our playgrounds are insured and actually i think it was a year ago we had a individual come out from the insurance company they periodically come out and inspect all of our equipment and things at that point in time it did pass um and so but that playground equipment isn't on our property that's my question i believe the agreement i would have to pull

134it out for sure mr crowl but i believe the agreement with sunbury is that it's jointly insured that we both are carrying insurance on that as part of our our playground and property that we use for school as well as something that could be used by the community i believe that's the case but we are we are carrying that on our our schedule of property is that easily attainable the agreement with the village uh i know we have it off to try to find it in the file cabinet in your spare time i'd like to read it okay any other questions mrs lee yes mr fuji yes mr crowl yes mrs dorsch yes mr schneider yes item thirteen five it's recommended the board approved the following donations 99 donated to the middle school student council

135from the big walnut middle school staff 157.85 to biwe from the boe staff or the military support fund and 82 dollars from the big walter high school drama club or to the big ball in a high school drama club from an anonymous donation have a motion please don't move thank thank you sherry thank you all for your efforts to contribute mrs lee yes mrs dorsch yes mr crowl yes mr fuji yes mr schneider yes item 14 i didn't know if you were going to do a human resources report or if you wanted us to roll right through um yes i can just give a quick update for mark the first one obviously would be your item with jeremy's contract certified contracts the annual certified contract recommendations are on there following their sequences outlined in a

136negotiated agreement administrative contracts these are again um are folks that are up for contract administratively in their next sequence under 14-4 we have um resignations for some folks that are leaving the district we wish them all well in their next endeavors we do have under 14.5 two teachers um for their negotiated agreement to get a stipend for organizing hartman camp so it was a day camp versus overnight this year but they still were the ones that organized that event under 14.6 this is a secretary position you may recall that we had one secretary of position that we temporarily absorbed with the intention of always adding it back in when we get ready to move into the new district so for the new building um just absorbed it for a year to try to get by

137again with the uncertainty at the end of last year with the pandemic so are planning on putting that back in especially getting ready for that mid-year move and then under 14.7 alyssa the preschool intervention specialist is a half-time ad due to numbers of students requiring preschool or special needs students um the other one is a replacement from a retirement or 14.8 we have a request for a leave of absence as permitted under the bwa negotiated agreement we're happy to answer any questions all right can we go ahead to the resolutions item 141 to recommend the board approve a five-year administration contract extension for jerry buskirk treasurer effective july through july 31st 2026 common motion so moved so i remember being in this room and um kind of coming in from a public discussion where um

138i think that might have been the first time at least i'm aware of where we brought in some members of the public to meet some folks that we were taking a look at at least in the treasurer's position and then being able to have the opportunity to to kind of interview and just how refreshing it was to have a candidate not just with jeremy's competence and capability and experience coming from where he came but also the added benefit of being a member of our community in our community and um you know i for one have been i wouldn't say surprised but i've been certainly been impressed with what you've been able to do in service to our community and i appreciate that and um i'm excited to be able to work with you a little

139bit longer and hopefully with approval extend your service with our community a little bit longer so i want to thank you for all your efforts mr fuji yes miss lee yes mr crowl yes mrs dorsch yes and mr schneider yes apparently i'm the only one that wanted to thank you i did so with the guys and i'll just say thank you all it has been a pleasure and in the words of mr andy wecker i think we've chopped a lot of wood in the four years what is the half-life on a wecker item 14-2 it's a recommended board to prove the certified contract recommendations for the 21-22 school year have a motion please so moved thank you a second a second thank you sharing questions or comments from the board here everyone you're right miss

140lee yes ms dorsch yes mr crowl yes mr fuji yes mr schneider yes item 14 3 it's recommended that he want to approve the attached administrative contracts have a motion mrs lee yes mrs dorsch yes mr crowl yes mr fuji yes mr schneider yes item 14 4 is the recommended board to prove the following resignations effective at the end of the 2021 school year have a motion please so moved thank you steve is there a second second thank you leanna thank you all that are they're leaving us for your service to the district i wish you well mr fuji yes mrs lee yes mr crowl yes mrs dorsch yes mr schneider yes item fourteen five it's recommended the board approved the following stipends for the 2021 school year have a motion please so mrs lee

141yes mrs dorsch mr crowl yes mr fuji yes mr schneider yes item 14-6 is recommended the board approved the one-year 220-day classified contract for casey fox general secretary big walnut high school step five affected the 21-22 school year have a motion please so moved thank you okay thank you jeremy mrs lee yes mrs dorsch yes mr crowl abstain mr fuji yes mr schneider yes item 14-7 it's recommended the board approved the following one-year certified contracts affected the beginning of the 21-22 school year have a motion please so move thank you lyanna for a second mrs lee yes mrs dorsch mr crowl yes mr fuji yes mr schneider yes item 148 it's recommended the board approve a leave of absence for the 21-22 school year for jennifer rinali big walnut high school intervention specialist so moved

142thank you steven thank you mr fuji yes mrs lee yes mr crowl yes mrs dorsch mr schneider yes item 15 next schedule next board meeting we'll be back here 7 30 a.m on june 29th we'll also be here at 6 30 p.m and july 15th um still continuing to stream meetings and just as a reminder for folks we actually typically have one board meeting per month in july instead of our typical two so barring some sort of drastic or urgent need that'll be the one time we meet in july item 16-1 it's recommended the board enter executive session to consider the employment appointment of a public employee official and to discuss confidential information related negotiations with other political subdivisions regarding requests for economic development assistance could have a motion please so moved thank you steve

143is there a second second thank you leanna [Music] mr fuji yes mrs lee yes mr crowl yes mrs dorsch mr schneider yes we'll be heading to executive session here is not anticipated that we'll be needing to come out to make any sort of public actions so we appreciate you all joining us this evening and have a good night