October 2021 Regular Board of Education Meeting

001here on monday october 25th i hereby call this meeting of the board of education of the nardoja hill city school district to order this is a typical meeting of the nordonia hill city school district board of education it is a meeting in public but is not a public meeting the public is invited to watch the proceedings of the board there will be an opportunity for public participation in the open forum section of the meeting a little bit later if you are uncomfortable with open forum comments and questions may always be submitted to the board and administration for an email and phone call matt please call the roll mr bossy here mr larimer here this is matt [Music] allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands

002one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for help can i get a motion for the approval of my suggestion i'll motion on second please call mr yeah yes yes mr strong yes communications all right we have two items for communications the first is scott leopold from cooperative strategies was to be here to talk about the facility project steering committee he got tied up with his travel but he did send me his update that i'll i'll read now cooperative strategies in seoul harris day in conjunction with district staff are in the process of developing a facility's master plan which will guide the district's facility decisions over the next 50 to 75 years we began the process after selection process in early over the summer we assessed your facilities to validate the findings of the

003ofcc assessment this data provides current efficiency costs for all the facilities which will be used throughout the process this fall we started the community engagement phase of the process that began with the educational futures conference which was held on september 22nd discussion topics included students careers and schools of the future approximately 75 community members attended and 25 participants viewed the presentation and completed an online survey this level of turnout is typical at this point in the process parallel to the educational futures conference we launched an application for participation on a steering committee to help guide the process 31 applicants applications were completed and all were placed on the committee the committee represents a broad cross-section of the community and has pledged to keep an objective view in the process this is an advisor advisory group

004which will make recommendations to district leadership the committee has met twice so far the first meeting was held at nordonia middle school on october 6th we discussed the process reviewed some background information and spent time on questions and answers the second meeting was held at northfield elementary school on october 20th and focused on educational framework topics which will be discussed with the community at our next large community meeting on november 10th at lee in the cafeteria from 6 to 8 pm the committee will convene three to four more times over the next several months the november 10th community meeting will discuss the educational framework that the committee will then use to gauge how the community may respond to different options topics include but are not limited to school size grade configuration renovating versus replacing schools

005and start times the survey will be active online for a week following the community meeting the steering committee will review the results at their next meeting on december 1st the committee will use their next two meetings to develop specific facility options or scenarios which will be presented to the board on january 10th at the same time we will also launch an online survey survey to collect feedback we will also hold a public meeting on january 12th at nordonia high school from 6 to 8 pm to collect feedback in person the committee will evaluate the community feedback in january and february and bring final recommendations to district leadership in march 2022 and that's from scott leopold with the cooperative strategies and i guess if i could reiterate anything it's that the next uh meeting is open

006to everybody in the community that's november 10th at lee eaton from six to eight pm the second item uh in communications is the new quarantine guidelines and this is i think something that's going to make a lot of people happy as you know we have since the beginning of the school year have a mass mandate in effect for all students and staff members now the the main reason for the mass mandate was to keep kids in school what we knew was that with the new state quarantine guidelines introduced in the summer that there were two ways to keep kids in school one is if kids were a vaccinated and they were a close contact of somebody who had tested positive for covet they could stay in school also if somebody was wearing a mask and

007they were close contact of somebody that tested positive they could stay in school we were not allowed to discriminate between those who were vaccinated and unvaccinated so the mass mandate was enforced for all students and all staff members well i have good news today the good news today is that the state department of health has revised their quarantine rules the quarantine rules that the state has set out now is that to prevent quarantine you do not need to be wearing a mask when you're in close contact instead if you're a close contact all you need to do is start wearing a mask for 14 days and you can stay in school so i'm going to give a few more details of this and i'm going to talk about what my recommendation is going to be

008later so first let me clarify this we're talking about contact within the school setting if the student is a contact of somebody outside of school at a birthday party or a sleepover whatever it might be they will still be required to quarantine under the guidelines but for those students who are contacts of positive cases in a school setting this is what they can do to stay in school they can wear a mask for 14 days they should monitor themselves or have their parents monitor them for symptoms if symptoms develop they should isolate and get tested now these students may return or may take their masks off on day eight if no symptoms have developed and they have a negative test between days five and day seven the test needs to be proctored a pcr or

009antigen test it cannot be an over-the-counter test that you buy at cvs that you give to yourself now those that do not want to wear a mask do not have to they can quarantine at home but in short students would not be required to wear masks to school unless they ended up being a close contact of somebody who tests positive now there's also uh new rules for those students engaged in extracurricular activities like band or sports if i am a let's just give the example i'm a football player and i am sitting next to somebody in class who tests positive for coping what i would need to do is start wearing a mask as an athlete i would need to get tested that day the test would need to come back negative and if it

010comes back negative i can still participate in athletics i would have to wear a mask though at all times possible so during the school day on the bus when i'm going to the event on the sidelines in the locker room but then you know when one place going on i could take off my mask and go out and play those athletes then or band members would need to then get another test between five and seven days that would need to come back negative and if they do then they're out of quarantine and they would not need to wear their masks anymore some things haven't changed we are still required under cdc law until at least january from what we hear to wear masks on buses so all all people who write on school transportation would

011still need to wear masks vaccinated students are still um not required to wear masks even if they're a contact any student who's vaccinated who was a contact if somebody who tests positive for covet does not need to put a mask on they can keep the masks off we still highly recommend the kids wear masks and staff members wear masks we know that there's no that that a mask alone does not prevent the spread of coven or flu or cold we know that it is one layer in a multiple layered effect we know that cold and flu season is coming so we still highly recommend people who wear masks but they're not required to and we still highly recommend people get vaccinated if they're able to do that now we do know that the five to

01211 year old vaccine is to be looked at the first couple days in november we expect that when that vaccine is approved the five to 11 year old vaccine we will have a in-school vaccination clinic probably in the first or second week of november and i will give more information on that so because our goal is to and something we all agree on i think everybody in this auditorium agrees on whether they agree with masters or not is we want our kids to be in school and until today master is the way to keep kids in school now it's not so my recommendation to you later this evening is going to be to rescind the masking mandates that you implemented in august effective immediately and then um starting as soon as you vote yes hopefully

013mass will not be required in our buildings anymore they will be required of transportation and they will be required if somebody's a contact any questions yeah i got one yeah i found this after we were talking earlier so if i'm a quarantine person my symptoms come in i take that test and i come up positive does my time start from when i take the test or when i first started my quarantine or how do i want to say my yeah good question you know my 14 days yeah that's a good question um here the truth is this if you actually test positive for covet you stay out of school shorter than if you're a contact a positive test for coping is only 10 days out of school so if i'm a man that gets sick

014i sit next to my class i start my quarantine a couple days later i start having symptoms and a day after that i test positive my isolation time starts with the day that i felt symptoms if i was asymptomatic but my parents took me to get a test and i came back positive then the isolation time starts with the positive test it's confusing i know it's something we talk about every day okay how many how many days and i think the other thing that confuses a lot of people i mentioned earlier is that when we're talking about days the first day is day zero so if i'm a contact today that's day zero tomorrow is the first day the day after that is the second day so on the eighth day people could um return

015to or take their nest off any other questions [Music] okay well i'm excited about that i think probably a lot of people are and my plan would be if the board does adopt that but i would send an email message out to all families tonight so people know that tomorrow the mandate's changed all right next item on the agenda is open forum however i told mr evans he could come up and give his uh cdcc report first and then we'll jump into open forum thank you for the consideration i'm jim furos i'm nordonia's representative to the cuyahoga valley career center's school board and i'm on the school board for the cuyahoga valley career center i give a monthly report this is my report for the month of august so mr brown dr clark president larmer

016arrested school board members the annual wreaths across america project is underway cuyahoga valley career center's power equipment technology construction trains and education professional education professions students are joining the cause to ensure that all veterans at the ohio western reserve cemetery are honored from now on until november 30th the career center students from the powder equipment technology program leading the way chris the construction trades program education professions are using this opportunity as a service learning project gathering reach sponsorships as a way to honor those who have served the nardonia high school career showcase took place on wednesday october 13th the event was kicked off by the mayor of macedonia nicholas malnar a panel of professional professionals presented to the 10th grade students who are preparing for their cuyahoga valley career center tour on november 11th deb

017monaco the career center specialist for the dardonia district coordinated the efforts with local community and business members the panel was selected to mirror the cuyahoga valley career centers programs so that students could hear firsthand what it's like to work in the various industries some of the presenters at the showcase included gary jackson from jackson comfort systems michelle dusek from penske transportation services kristen vader with dreyer physical therapy sandra franklin and carrie salado from the clinical clinic maddie davidson from tomorrow's dentistry and wc vance from the client uh cleveland state university washington school of college of engineering these students also learned why cuyahoga valley career center students have a competitive advantage over their peers and finally the state of ohio's tech cred program is now open through the end of october techcredit is a statewide program

018that gives businesses an incentive to upskill their current and potential employees after identifying the technology related skills required employers can partner with the career center as their training provider for an industry approved credential once proof of completion of the tech related credential is received the employer can be reimbursed up to two thousand dollars per employee up to a maximum of thirty thousand dollars our next regular board of education meeting for the career center will be this thursday october 28th and it will start with an all boards dinner at 5 p.m where representatives from the eight school districts represented by the career center followed by our career center board of education meeting at 6 30 pm this concludes my report i thank you thank you [Applause] next item's open forum although the public has the right

019to attend board meetings it has no inherent right to participate in the deliberations of the board without its consent speakers may offer such objective criticisms of the school operations and programs as concern them but in public session the board has the right to request the complaints about school personnel or against any person connected with the school system be directed to the appropriate administrator the board asks anyone wishing to participate in open forum to please sign the law since we have a big room and there's quite a few of there there's down in front ready to sign um if you know you want to speak uh don't wait till the person before you comes and sits down let's try and work our way down here and wait off to the side so we're ready to go

020if anyone wants to speak now's the time uh thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak this evening i'm here to speak to you all about the um an incident that happened in the nordonia middle school with a staff member and the policy and procedure used in the incident and how the policy and procedure used ended up violating the civil rights of a student i spoke with the uh principal and so forth and i sent in writing information on regarding the actual incident itself where a member of the staff at norway just made an inappropriate comment regarding to my granddaughter she was coughing in class and instead of offering her some type of like what's wrong with you or condolence she basically made a statement of why is she smoking bloods and if she

021was not smoking blood then she might not be caught um this procedure was alarming i was contacted during the procedure of this whole thing by the middle school principal who kind of downplayed the whole incident and said it was just an important appropriate comment from a teacher i responded with my displeasure in a letter and i began to make contact with the school officials uh regarding you know what's going to happen in this situation there was no response from anyone and as a result of that i began a email chat just so that i could have a record of the procedures and policies that were going on this in this incident um the procedure basically meant that my granddaughter was verbally assaulted and was introduced cognitively to drug use and the drug use therapy it's

022kind of like contacted by the principal who don't play the incident and then again no response until i made email after speaking with the principal at the school his procedure was to offer my family my granddaughter drug and alcohol truth i was a little bit appalled at this because we don't have a drug problem i've been an educator for 30 years and my husband is a policeman and so that the thought of drugs and the use of them has never been talked about in our house so now my granddaughter has this information in her mind that she just can't take back uh after pushing and pushing i was finally um of course quit speaking with the school itself because i just felt that the response to offer us drug use was a little bit stereotyping

023and i felt discriminated against that i would even be offered this when the drug conversation initiated with the staff and so after that um i just felt at no time nothing was followed there was no procedure it was basically me constantly saying what's going on what's going on what you guys gonna do and just for the safety of my granddaughter at this time this person was never removed from the educational center she was around my granddaughter the entire time um even though she was blue for three days after pushing and pushing i finally got an answer after i just said that i was going to call other officials regarding her violation over civil rights then i got an answer that the person the staff member would be sent home for three days with no pain

024i then asked which i was not satisfied because i felt that this person should remove from an educational um place or at least be assigned at the very least someone with that type of mindset cognitive thoughts to be around middle school children and older children um this made me feel easy and so even though i was not satisfied with that i pushed for something to happen and something happened i didn't want to be the type of person to just keep pushing and pushing and pushing because there was something that was done and so to kind of finalize this and to make this an educational moment for my granddaughter and just to make the procedure better uh asked for an apology for my granddaughter just to show people make mistakes people have to stand up for

025what they know is right and you know make apologies people do deserve a second chance um i was greeted by one of the top you know we talked to you we did something um that's it she's not going to get an apology the staff member apologized to the class but i felt that she made a personal comment it should have been a personal apology and it also made me feel like the other students became more important than the assault that was done by staff member at no time that the following procedure doing this whole thing protect the civil rights of my granddaughter and at no time was the threat removed from the presence of the teacher being there it was very intimidating and emotionally disturbing for my granddaughter and it still is to this date

026she has children asking her does she actually use drugs or smoke bloods and she doesn't even know what they are this entire procedure protected the staff member and the policy procedures must provide equal rights for both parties involved not just one policy party in this procedure um i wrote to the board on september 26th because the nordonia has the authority and the function of the voice to concern itself primarily with the questions of policy in the school and so this is why i bring this to you the procedures used in this educational setting must include protection for the social and emotional well-being of all children as stated in the northern staff conduct manual district employees are expected to always conduct themselves in a professional manner especially when engaged in the activities of educational or supporting

027the education of this district students as well as foster respect confidence and ensure safety the donors policy manual states that mordonia is an alcohol and drug-free school however drug language information and where to provide children in an educational setting and erase the drug-free environment the donated statement regarding establishing and maintaining the environment for drug-free can also confirm that the use and conversation regarding the use in certain types of drugs being used is also prohibited staff conduct also maintains and states consistent with educational missing of the district that staff members must maintain a professional relationship with students at all times that is not a professional relationship with a student to introduce cognitive the use of drugs and the type of drugs that are out there staff kind of uh because notorious school does not have a

028policy the staff conduct also mandates that the state's consistent with educational ministry that staff members must maintain professional relationships with the students children enrolled in their districts must have their civil rights safety and emotional and safety well-being protected it's imperative that the policies and procedures are enacted to alleviate future harm from any children including minority children as an educator and administrator for over 30 years the following procedure has always been used in my educational settings and this has always always ensured the safety and well-being of children if there is an accusation or an incident occurs the parties involved is automatically removed from the situation which everyone knows that is called administrative need whether it is paid or unpaid an investigation must be conducted and all parties must be informed and kept it for during the

029process this is a duty of policy of anyone who served people to make sure that all parties involved in any type of incident appropriate as this is that everyone has an open line of communication and that people speak to each other as we are all adults and we must be able to speak to each other and make sure that our children are safe from verbal and physical heart because verbal harm is cognitive harm and it is mental damage this is something that i could never bring but take back from my granddaughter's head i don't know when it could be triggered later in life but i feel that it is in danger and that conversation was a danger i didn't even understand this teacher might at some point decide she might want to bring some drugs

030to school i don't know because i don't know what happened other than okay we said she's gonna go home for three days i don't know if there's any drug testing i don't know what the policy the procedure that happened overdone some of it is confidential and i am fully aware of that but there are some policies and procedures that should be in place that would give me some assurance that even though i don't know every single thing that's going on that there is a procedure being followed when something like this occurs and it should have never occurred and i don't want it occur again not for my grandchild but for anyone else's grandchild because it is a danger cognitive and so once this is investigated and there is a conclusion and the evaluation has been

031made then there's got to be a disciplinary action and that disciplinary action should fit whatever has happened and allowing the teacher to say something of that magnitude never be removed and then to have a child walk around and be questioned because of the lack of policy in place is unacceptable for me and so at this time i am asking the school board to at least to sit down with me or anyone else or any other parents here which i'm sure would appreciate a written consistent overall policy that does not violate the rights of children because my daughter granddaughter her rights were totally violent she got absolutely nothing from this other than being assaulted verbal and i think that is unfair i think it is wrong and i'm here this evening to ask a resolution and

032for us to work together for a common goal which is our children and to me even though it's a civil rights violation i don't care if the child is born with great wounds no one's child deserves to be spoken to in that way i appreciate you taking the time to talk to me this evening and i hope that we can find resolution um i also have copies uh that i would like to leave the board thank you um [Music] good evening my name is leah borden and i live in hartsville terrace in macedonia even though i've been an educator for years i can honestly say that i did not feel it was necessary to attend board meetings unless for special occasions like when i received my tenure at mayfield or seeing students get awards it

033was not until i attended my first meeting here in this district in september that i learned that my presence and voice is necessary at these meetings i've had the privilege to sit on the district's social and emotional learning or seo committee with dr clark dr deb wallace and the administrators to select the best seo program that will support all students within the district as a school counselor for the last 14 years parents of three children and chair of the split culture committee for the district's eredonia diversity equity and inclusion council i was hoping that my experience in this subject would provide some insight from someone who's in the trenches to ensure that all students experiences are considered throughout the selection process while working closely with dr deb wallace for those that may not know she's

034the district drug and alcohol coordinator i was impressed with all the late work she put in and her committee the last two to three years to evaluate the current seo programs within the district after reviewing the data from her research and seeing that second step was only for grades k to four and that different seo programs were being implemented in different buildings it was clear to see that this district was in need of a comprehensive program from k-12 that was relevant and user-friendly for counselors and teachers our school council our school culture committee was able to play a part in meeting and interviewing two separate seo programs back in april seven mindsets was by far the most relevant and provided opportunities for parents and community members to be involved in making our schools and community

035better we also received feedback from teachers and parents that supported the seo program selections with it's been extremely disappointing to see this movement of misinformation spread during board meetings across the u.s i mean i was happy to see that our community was beginning to put focus on school related topics not just academic like anxiety depression and bullying but this newfound concern for mental health has come with accusations that educators are responsible for things that are not that are the direct opposite of who we are even indoctrinating and teaching critical race theory yes i said it crt which isn't even tied in k-12 schools i'm discussing diversity which is something that spends time in schools like not making fun of people that are different from you um and that should be present in our conversations we

036talk about school period i'm sure i can speak for other educators when i say i pride myself in partnering with parents not replacing them public schools afford students the opportunity to engage and interact with people that do not look like them have different points of view different value systems and different religious beliefs seo development teaches students a lot of things effectively identifying and managing their emotions how to set and achieve personal and collective goals how to solve problems how to effectively address interpersonal conflict develop and demonstrate empathy for others develop and maintain healthy relationships and make responsible decisions students are given the tools that are necessary to thrive and progress in the real world creating a safe space in our schools to allow students to exist together learn from each other learn these tools and

037experience that no news story or textbook can put in the words my husband and i have taught our children to be kind to others while they're speaking to not interrupt help people in need to be accountable to be responsible and to be open to be friending and hanging out with friends that are all races we must all understand that these things are not shared and observed at all households i keep hearing complaints about the cost of seven mindsets any curriculum of any kind purchased for an entire school district would be expensive after our discussion we determined that this curriculum would be roughly 20 per student we must now think as a community about our priorities i hope that we can agree that we all take pride in having a great school district for our children

038to attend we must be fully invested in the culture in our school buildings the ndeic conducted a survey and found that students feel like they don't belong have body image issues felt they were not smart and have observed discrimination i'm not saying that seven mindsets can solve all the world's problems but i am saying that openly embracing the possibility of our children existing in a physically and emotionally safe school is priceless ma'am that's five minutes if you could try and wrap up this seo development is invaluable and the seven mindsets curriculum is worth everything thank you [Applause] right if you think you're a b you are if you think you do not you don't if you like to win but think you can't it's almost the same you won't you have to think high to

039rise you have to be sure of yourself before you can never win a prize life battles doesn't always go to the stronger faster man but sooner or later the man who wins is the man who thinks he can john c maxwell wrote his book 21 irrefutable laws of leadership elevated thinking equals extraordinary results and the seven mindsets curriculum is a simple outline of positive thinking the current district that i work for we just adopted the seven mindsets there are several teachers who teach in the district that i work for but we reside in the northern schools who have embraced the set of mindsets i want to give you a quick snapshot within five minutes more questions of what the set of mindsets are the second mindset is an approach which is based on the premise

040that success depends less on what person knows but much more significantly significantly on how he or she thinks the mindsets provide the foundation for resilience motivation and meaning in life simply put it's helped to create positive and sustainable transformation so i want to piggyback off of the ndic that we would adopt this curriculum if you have any questions thank you thank you my name is dr deb wallace and i do all the alcohol tobacco or nicotine and violence prevention programming across the district there is a group of teens at the high school called the mental health ambassadors and i am their advisor and they are a group of peers who are interested in decreasing the stigma associated with mental health disorders and increasing mental alumnus among the entire student body in late february and early

041march 2020 the school conducted a survey regarding student mental wellness please note that this survey was conducted just prior to the pandemic and the lockdown here were some of the results 68 of the respondents said they knew someone here at school what they think as depression mental illness or suicidal thoughts 77 percent of respondents said they know someone who has high stress or seems overwhelmed 46 percent of respondents said either they don't know or were unsure of how we deal with stress in a healthy way we will come back to the significance of these statistics 18 years ago nordonia purchased the grant money the second step program it was then a state-of-the-art curriculum we saw that the research that stated when students feel connected to their school and to each other and can learn to

042manage their stress and their anger that barriers to success such as drug and alcohol use absenteeism and discipline referrals decreased and a sense of belonging and academic achievement increased at that time we purchased the state of art program there was five user manuals one for the counselors in grades kate through eight and three self-animal kids that accompanied the lessons for the elementary schools as time changed we found that this sel program was not sufficient second step remained a strong foundation for us and continues but we needed to augment the curriculum with multiple programs and activities over the years to address the ever-changing needs of our students do you remember the student the statistics from the mental health ambassador survey we can safely assume that those numbers have increased in our students as a result of

043living through a pandemic currently we are seeing upward trends in suicidal ideation and difficulties in regulating one's anger and anxiety the amount of these instances in this first quarter far outnumber what we typically see over the course of an entire school year even if we were to upgrade our current program with the new updated curriculum a digital learning platform and a staff training component it would still cost money and if we were to update our current program it would still not include our high school students or have the versatility of the seven mindsets curriculum its portal its ease of instruction the broad range of well-researched topics assessments and coaching our student our students can benefit especially now from a state-of-the-art seo program and they are totally worth it thank you hello my name is karen

044byers open segment hills i have a 10th grader at the high school and i'm here to represent positively in argonia i'm here to thank you we would like to say thank you to the administration and the staff thank you for continuing to do your work in this very difficult environment we find ourselves in thank you for continuing to put the needs of the students and the district first in your day-to-day working thank you for making the september board meeting an open air meeting at lee and running the tent and the chairs so that the attendees did not have to wear masks they could attend the meeting without any incident and thank you for taking the heat about them complaining about the fact she spent the money on the tent and the chairs thank you for

045moving this october board meeting to the high school auditorium so that it would allow as many attendees as possible to be present we'd like to thank you for taking the time to work to answer the 27 plus record requests that you have received since august 5th of 2021 including mine i understand that this has taken time out of the workday for the staff that continue to gather the data to fill their requests and i understand that you're spending additional money on legal counsel to properly respond to those requests and to protect the privacy of the students staff and others involved so why are we up here doing this two reasons one is to let you know that there is a very large portion of the nordonia community that sees all the good work that you

046are doing we want you to know that we support you and we will work alongside you in providing the best education possible for our students the second reason is to show that things can be done in a positive way and without attacking people we have seen behavior at the last two broad meetings that shows that some people will not respect the job that you do nor the position that you hold they use whatever means they can to attack you we know you encounter it every day we want your job we're sure they will follow me in this form possibly tell you everything that i'm wrong about but please know we see you we support you we stand with you in putting the education of the nerdona students first and above all are of our own

047personal opinions when we can once again get around to students first we will know we are headed in the right direction thank you on november 17 1957 and one of his most famous sermons loving your enemies dr martin luther king jr preached returning hate for hate multiplies hate adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars darkness cannot drive out darkness only light can do that hate cannot drive out hate only love can do that it's exciting that unity week kicked off today uh what a great way to unify our wonderful community and work towards strengthening love and respect between one much as dr king has preached even though usually we kicked off today and is set to run all week here at nordonia we all have noticed that there's a lot of division

048in our community right now especially with the school board election as a concerned parent and taxpayer community i am supporting three candidates who i believe have already exemplified unity time and time again even when they are personally attacked by others that disagree with them those three are mr ellis mr kearney and mr kopeck i also want this community to be aware of the division that has been created and fostered here by our school leaders which is why we need immediate change often you will hear dr clark and school board president mr larmer preaching unity in fact mr larmer has been very vocal on social media supporting two candidates who he elect alleges will bring unity to the district however i must say that this is far from true after a public records request was fulfilled

049i received a copy of an email thread between dr clark our school board members and a concerned parent this email threat occurred in august of this year our school board received an email from this concerned parent regarding the president of the bonus diversity council who's also running for school board this parent detailed her concern regarding this man's blatant ignorance of her request to stop contacting her sexually harassing her and propositioning her for sexual favors this parent gave the board a copy of a police report she filed against this man for harassment she said she's been harassed on multiple occasions made uncomfortable in her home and fear for her safety while living next to this man she even had a protection order filed against them she told dr clark and our board that she feared sending

050her child to a district that would overlook these concerns and not protect the children this email went unanswered for several days until mr bussey brought it back to the board's attention dr clark said he would refer to the district's legal counsel their response was redacted from the records request in this email thread the board members go back and forth a few times trying to figure out what they're going to do mr strong is the only board member who vocally speaks out and wonders how a person like this is allowed to continue as an orgonia committee member when other people in the past have been encouraged to resign for allegations of misconduct the board members and dr clark continue to go back and forth but no resolution is accomplished which is a shame to say the

051least dr clark of the board members basically just sat in their hands and did absolutely nothing to help this mother who was asking for help mr larmer and the rest of you board members let me ask you this would you have done the same thing if the man in this situation was mr kopeck mr kearney or mr ellis i highly doubt it another email was found in the same thread between our board president and dr clark no other board member was included in the email in this email mr larmer our school board president says to dr clark i guess we need to come up with a plan as to how we handle this if it comes up an open forum or if tammy or bill bring it up in a meeting if this man tries

052to sue i want him to go after tammy and bill individually not the board for those of you didn't hear me i'll read it again this is mr larmor i guess we need to come up with a plan as to how we handle this if it comes up in open forum or if tammy and bill bring it up in a meeting if this man i'll leave his name out tries to sue i want him to go after tammy and bill individually not the board now i don't know if that's illegal but at least it's highly unethical to me okay mr larman would you care to comment on this no thank you that's what i thought so why would you want this man to assume this is mr strong and mr bussey did they do something

053wrong why would you exclude the rest of the board what would be your goal in getting this man to sue mrs strong and mr busty mr strong this is the exact divisive nature that mr larner seemed to be campaigning again against yet is caught here in this email engaging in mr larmer is actively encouraging one of the current scoreboard candidates to file a legal suit against two sitting current board members shockingly even ask that to be done in a personal manner nothing can be further from unity than filing a lawsuit against another individual for those of you want to see this division that i'm talking about i have like plenty of copies of these if you want to see them i'll give them to you that's all i got to say thank you [Applause] guys

054i'll give it to you thank you for your anonymous accusations my name is kelly cavallack and i'm in north field center i'd like to start saying after the last meeting i was fully expecting to hear more about katie vickers one of the students who spoke that night i hoped maybe there would be a feature of mandates affecting special needs kids because two of my three children are special needs i found one article in the akron beacon journal that led with her story and then simply reported on the rest of the meeting on social media however there was plenty of news going around your neighbors played amateur sleuth to find out how long you've lived here whether or not you grew up here if you've ever had a speeding ticket and so forth they make public

055threats including death threats against parents and staff spread gossip and drama rather than collectively coming up with ways to help it seems that some have forgotten that this entire fight was about children from the beginning keeping them safe and continuing their education instead you have made it about you and your desire to win and be right consider the following situation several days after the september 27th board of education meeting current board member tammy strong spread blatant vicious lies on her public facebook page about the audience behavior her false information was confirmed and elaborated upon by members of the community including the well-known wife of the candidate thankfully video evidence proved her dishonesty ms strong issued a weak apology and then erased all evidence of the original thread tammy endorses three specific candidates and it is

056concerning that they condone this behavior another concerning situation involves a letter i had an opportunity to read in this poorly written grammatically pathetic dumpster fire of an essay the author slandered dr clark principal wright mr larmer and other nordonia administrators the author apparently intended to boost awareness of afromentioned candidates alice kobeck and kearney but instead they made themselves and those three men look foolish the entire letter read like an angry facebook post made by a spiteful shrew they claim that the district doesn't communicate implying that the board is harboring some kind of secret agenda if all calls email blasts newspaper articles public school board meetings and mail out several times a year facebook twitter and all that aren't enough for you then that's on you being informed is a personal responsibility even when all the

057information is right in front of you and just because you don't like what you hear doesn't mean you haven't been informed you might ask yourself why should i care about all this online drama the answer is this we do not want this type of leadership environment in nordonia hills we want teachers parents and board of education members who will fight for our children not for their personal or political agenda leaders who will bring the community together rather than foster conditions for division the two situations i spoke of are precisely why sel and dei programs are necessary for raising productive members of society especially in these trying times we have all been fighting the same war for almost two years but it's not about the virus anymore at this point has become us versus them right

058versus left you versus your neighbor we are trying to make a difference in our community by spreading positivity and tolerance but that does not mean accepting intolerance 100 years ago the city of cleveland put up posters advertising free classes for non-english speaking residents many of you have expressed disgust in people who are originally from cleveland akron or elsewhere somehow believing that only folks who are born and raised in ordonia are worthy of our school system but the headline message on that poster 100 years ago still stands today many people one language and in the end i would hope that we all believe that education is greater than politics after all each nordonia school has the same motto inspiring every student to value learning community and excellence thank you my name is mike esposito i live

059in 8457 i spoke about uh mass about everything like that i think thank you again for everything that you've done um even though you're pushing for the and mass mandate um i just have personal concerns being my my kids are backstage so if anyone is thinking the reason we wear masks isn't to keep yourself safe it's to keep other kids safe and that's concerning um on another note not as political stuff i saw the tax settlement um that thank you very much for the trailer pull off and accomplish there i hope very much that when it comes to the use of those funds you'll consider capital needs of the district more than anything else but you get one-time money it's got to go to expenditures that are long-term not necessarily stuff it's compounding we want

060stuff to to pay off in spades for decades um hopefully that if we invest it right uh they'll actually actually allow us to stretch the life of that levy they passed last time and maybe do do more more with less so to speak um keep doing that so i wanted to thank you very much for that um after that last meeting i went down that online rep hold facebook folks i i just wanted to say something and guess about seo about diversity in this district um i've mentioned before that i grew up in the sherman falls area um it was not a diverse district uh they called the bubble and we had maybe one african-american uh family hope history and that did not prepare me well uh for life and for dealing with people with

061different backgrounds educations and religions and things like that what prepared me for my experiences with other kids on the athletic arena the wrestling man all the other schools i went to um and i think it's crucial that we actually push forward and get the best the brightest and the most diverse educational experience for these kids because that's where they're going to be uh years later and uh you know if we're not there's a saying if you're not moving forward you're falling behind and that's what this district needs to do it needs to move forward um i've used the analogy and i said online i said it can be you know the next brexit that's hudson that's whatever and i didn't mean it from a from a negative perspective because somebody clapped at me and they

062said you know why would you want to be in those areas and um it's not about the demographics of the areas it's about the desirability and the great services they provide and i look at our school discriptions as one of the crucial underpinnings when it comes to making this area desirable i have clients and i say the desirability of your area the attractiveness of the area and the growth of the area it's driven by public services and think of it like the legs of a stool you have functional government be it a city a township school district governance you have security of investment policing fire you have excellent infrastructure your roads and bridges and transportation but the other thing that draws people here people who want a amazing experience for life is the school district

063you knock out one of the legs of the stool and it's just uh it's not too far until you become something less than in terms of experience so thank you very much i hope we can move that stuff forward and i really hope that that was those funds of this district not get put to good use in the long term thank you i can i get a motion for the approval of the contract addendum for fire oh i'm sorry i'm yes i do uh on october 13th was uh the northern hills foundation meeting and there were a few uh takeaways from the meeting first off the school ambassadors which is a representative from each of the schools comes to give us uh to help maintain a connection between the foundation and the schools they all

064had good reports of some fun activities and fundraisers that they were doing and i'm looking forward to the next month the foundation itself is attempting to create an alumni database just to maybe help out with some of their fundraisers and some of their other ideas and projects when we come tonight's caring for nice which is one of their main focuses 51 students or families were served with food bags since the last meeting and that's very low number and the big the fear of the foundation is that some people might be underutilizing the advantage of you know their food insecurity and what we can do to help them a letter went out to the schools and families that inform them of the services it is strictly confidential nobody knows who anybody is you need help and

065they're there to help you they want to make sure everyone is aware that the pantry that they get their food from is fully stocked they're able to even provide a one-time deal if somebody just needed something to tie them over for a day or two they could do it you don't have to be on the recurring list they also have food bins at every school so that if child is hungry during the day they could find a you know healthy snack to get them through to the next meal and then the backpack program which is what those 51 bags represent right now the uh foundation is looking at a potential two to three more months of free food from the afrin food bank that's the residual from the copic relief fund after that we'll be

066charged with the foundation and all the generous donations they get will assist us so that program will never falter we just want to also let you know that the business expo is on saturday uh november 13th and uh the foundation will have a booth there and i think if i'm not mistaken they're going to be joining with the district because we are associated to a point seven mini grants were granted and they totaled uh three thousand two hundred and twenty eight dollars and sixty three cents for all seven and uh they're looking forward to the next round so hopefully more faculty will get involved in asking for the money uh i think i'm not sure i think the date is either thursday i think it says thursday that trick-or-treat on the track because it wasn't

067it was uh because originally it was scheduled for the 21st there was inclement weather i saw it got rescheduled it's kind of like well i better know what it is since this is the 25th but the trick or treat on the track sounds like an awesome event children can wear costumes adults trick or you know do their trick or treating in a very safe positive environment we have to thank peterman for supplying well over a thousand dollars worth of candy so it's not going to be you know a limited event and the last item is that they've already are planning for the next golf outing for a tentatively the first saturday in june of and uh i don't think they have a place exactly in mind but they'll be working on it for details to

068come thank you uh listen i had the curriculum advisory committee that we went to on september 30th we visited the innovation lab which was very impressive it is going to be open during the business expo so i encourage people that are going to visit stop in um i took several pictures and we were going to put together a slideshow but if we don't have it anyway next month so we'll have a live stream next month yes and todd can explain it all right todd so if you want to add on to that um the equipment they had in in the innovation lab was just incredible um and this is literally hands on kids and eventually i mean they're hoping to eventually roll this out to the community was the long-term goal not there yet long

069term but the hands-on goal in the regular classroom kids have the opportunity to design and build and make plans for and then they then they can go to the innovation lab and actually create what was just theory in the beginning um which is just an incredible um opportunity for for that a lot of the equipment was very uh reminded me a lot of when i've taken tours at cvcc um like the um 3d printers and some of the other types of machinery and such there um really is incredible when you're here for the for the expo definitely go in and check it out and we will make sure that we have something a little more i'd like to be able to align pictures of actual equipment with what it's capable of producing um and i

070just so everyone has the ability to see what we really are being able to offer our kids here at school and how that can grow and develop this isn't it's kind of in its infancy i mean it's it's up and running and working but the growth that this opportunity offers is just exponential getting to that real quick too is um they're hoping to have a class for this in place and actually we started a few years back with project lead the way if anybody's in the middle school then they know that those classes are available to their students and then we went back to the evening and added the robotics class there so now we're moving it up to the high school so i think it's great to be able to build upon that and

071keep going forward all right this is not a uh a board committee um but i sat in on the nerdonia safety and crisis team meeting on october 22nd it's a committee made up of police and fire officials and our principals and our school counselors and our psychologists the meeting goes over physical safety and then it also goes over crisis and emotional safety and those type of items and i just want to say uh i was overwhelmed by actually sitting in this meeting and just really hearing directly from the counselors and the psychologists in the administration team they're really doing a lot of emotional triage on a lot of our students this year it seems like they're there's a lot of emotional needs it's a very overworked group of people a very stressed out group of

072people and i really appreciate everything they're doing our students are lucky to have them they're working very hard day night weekends it doesn't matter when it is they're always available to help these students someone is around to work with them and there's a lot of needs going on right now so i just want to say thank you to all them i appreciate everything you're doing all right next item uh now we're gonna do the approval of the contract addendum for the superintendent can i get a motion i'll motion i'll second so this addendum dr clark's contract has a uh kind of bonus clause in it it was based on our uh school district grade report card grade and there is no report card this year so we had to do an addendum to the contract

073and he's going to get a bonus based on the last available grade that we had which was a b a year and a half ago anyone have any questions or comments hey thank you please call the roll mr foster yes yes mckinley yes mr strong yes all right the next item is you approve the contract addendum for the treasurer and i get a motion emotion one second uh same concept for mr brown it's a little bit different but it's the same concept the wording because there's no school district abc brave this year um we have to change the wording for his contract also you have any questions um mr brown mr blessing mr martin yes yes yes all right uh let's move into the superintendent's report item one i recommend you approve the consent items

074listed okay you see you'll be adopting tonight revised board policies and a new board policy you'll also be approving a couple field trips the youth youth program to go to their annual camp and then ordonia high school choir going to nashville tennessee and also it never ceases to raise amaze me the generosity of our community a donation of speakers and stands and storage boxes from lydia ray to use in the high school auditorium with the value of twelve hundred and fifty dollars any questions mr burns item 2 is a recommendation to approve a resolution rescinding the requirements regarding face coverings effective upon implementation of the ohio department of health's new quarantine guidelines a motion second and i double checked today and they are effective immediately so assuming this passes anybody that wants to take their

075mask off would be allowed to although we highly recommend you continue to wear your masks you know i know dr clark went over this earlier does he have any questions mr brown mr boston yes mr alarm yes miss matlin yes this is mckinley yes this is strong yes i was kind of expecting like graduation everybody again all joking aside we still do encourage it and but we're in a better place with this quarantine guideline item three is a recommendation to approve the contract with seven mindsets effective uh november 1st through july 31st 2024 motion second i would like to say a little bit about this a superintendent's job is to set direction supply resources and hold people accountable the direction i set is to create a safe learning environment for all students physically socially and

076emotionally i am not an expert in social emotional learning but we do have many experts who work for the district who are principals counselors psychologists teachers and our own doctor deaf for two and a half years this committee's been working to find the sel program that will best suit the needs of nordonia kids after much research and study they selected seven mindsets and i trust the professionalism and expertise of our team and i'm ready to supply them the resources to do their jobs most effectively now i did provide the board information about seven mindsets in june with the anticipation of a july recommendation a couple board members asked for more information about us so we delayed that vote we held a work session in august dr deb was available to answer some questions from the

077board about seven mindsets i talked to my administrative team who said let's give it one more month so people can come and and speak and and ask questions we did that at the september board maybe so after getting feedback from the board community um i have submitted a compromise tonight initially we were talking about adopting a five-year contract but i am recommending a three-year contract and that way the entire program will be paid for using federal grant money and no local operating funds will be used i i know that some are accusing me of steamrolling this but that's not accurate we're at a point where it's time to adopt we've squandered time for our staff to be trained and we risk losing the ability to use our esser funds if we wait longer we have

078heard our professionals speak about the needs our students have spending about twenty five dollars a student of federal grant money is a small price to pay to provide our students all our students a school environment that is safe emotionally and socially of course when a program works well we will never truly know its value because how can you measure the absence of conflict or the lack of abusive dating relationships or the suicide ideation that doesn't exist if we can help our students learn the skills to navigate the tumultuous world they live in and we can do it for 25 bucks a kid with no general fund money i think we have a moral imperative to do so do you have any questions yeah i do um back in august when we had our meeting we

079talked and discussed this and we discussed with dr deb and dr deb said that she was going to put together a presentation for us and she was possibly going to bring somebody in from seven mindsets so we could understand the curriculum that's not happened yet and when i look through our board policies this is our board of education policies 7.23 states that uh textbooks and electronic textbook adoption procedures it says the board shall provide an opportunity for parents to review the selection of textbooks and reading lists and instruction materials in the academic curriculum used by the school in the district the board shall establish shall establish textbook or curriculum committees which may include representation of teachers who use the text administrators and other staff members students and parents may also be asked to serve on

080these committees also if i look at 7.24 which is the selection of resource materials and equipment other than textbooks part e here states a listing of all resource materials should be made available for the use of the professional staff and for the information of all board members i just i don't have i don't know enough about seven mindsets i've heard both sides tell me about set of mindsets but i just me i thought we were going to uh after that august meeting we were going to have something more uh visual and from the company to be able to go over and understand a little bit more of what we're voting on and what we're going to adopt into our own curriculum and um like i say i i don't have anything against it because i

081don't know enough about it but i just have a hard time adopting something that i don't know enough about i don't know the curriculum enough about and i was anticipating that we were going to get um a better presentation on it to us as the board who has to adopt this and that would be my only concern with this i know um the second step plan i didn't realize that they purchased 18 years ago so that means that both my kids went through school under that and i know it failed them because they still have anxiety and depression going through all the way through graduation so i think we do need to improve the program the problem with approving this tonight is we've never seen curriculum we've never been curriculum given any curriculum and the

082board that is what we are supposed to be the board shall be the sole authority in determining and selecting all the following to be used for the schools under its control textbooks instructional instructional materials academic curriculum and that's board policy 7.23 under textbooks and electric textbook adoption procedures i don't want us to come back and be like hudson after what happened there when they were using curriculum that nobody really knew about um i think we need to do our due diligence and we need to be careful on what we approve and until i actually this i mean this was never presented to the curriculum advisory committee um it hasn't been presented to the board so to vote on a curriculum that i've never seen i just can't do that and i know there had been

083concerns too about the administrative team and educators that they had their own concerns so that's my opinion on it but we need we do need to do something but i need to see a curriculum before i refer to that i mean policy 7.23 um refers to academic curriculum this is not academic curriculum students will not be graded on this um you have been presented with ample um research dr deb did include in the last board update more information um about about the program i would still like to see the lessons just some examples that's all when she talked in august she said that she would bring in things like paint whatever the pamphlets are everything else so we can see them and review them and look at them that's my only problem we haven't seen

084any of that the only thing we've had is some you know some board uh you know minutes that were sent and small paragraphs just describing what it is i'm not saying we don't need seo okay i i i've seen incidents at football games between different racial backgrounds i've seen at different areas i work in the city of cleveland so i understand how it comes on that but and i don't want to see that come here but i i just i think as a board member again as tammy alluded is like with hudson um we as a board need to know what what's in that curriculum and see what's in that curriculum and in everything that they're going to do for us [Applause] now joe you said this wasn't per se a book and curriculum isn't

085it more of a matter of the way it's taught and what is stressed in the classroom what a teacher observes and tries to address because depression and i'm not the expert of this any of the folks who are here that are could talk about it but but what it is the the initial part of this year will be this the teachers being taught how to implement the curriculum uh the the the program dr deb are you still here would you like this is she still here would you mind coming up and answering some of these questions at the last would interview it said using the curriculum advisory committee to review any curriculum well again right what will happen now is the committee will start training the teachers on how to implement it the curriculum will

086not be rolled out to the students until next school year the 2022-23 school year so there will be ample time for the committee to determine which of those modules from seven mindsets are implemented into the curriculum but that's why you wanted to see what the curriculum is before we vote on it look you have the opportunity i don't know what to tell you and so we put the brakes on dr david [Music] specifically um you want to happy no just clarification dr well it's because i truly do understand what this is about you know socially emotional that it isn't like here read this book and we're gonna test but isn't it more of a way of presenting more of a way of observing more of the way of intervening more the way of addressing situations

087in the classroom than it is to stand there like you would in trigonometry which i never took for obvious reasons but uh physics or any of that that's a curriculum that's a book and you gotta know this but this is a more of an interpersonal you know the hurdles that life throws at you that if you don't learn to overcome them you are a wonderful person but that's what could possibly want you well the seven mindsets is an sel program and like other seo programs it has some basic tenants that that it operates by um it's sort of a good thing for there's seven of them there's usually seven months in a school year and how it's set up is that each each month is one of the mindsets and under each one of those

088mindsets are a weekly lesson on something that pertains to that mindset um the mindsets are something that i think all parents all teachers administrators can agree on on you know how to treat people equally how to live up to your best potential um i have um the book is in front of me and i know i i apologize i don't know where i dropped the ball i thought i had offered that to people and i'd be happy to i would have been happy to arrange that i just didn't know that that's what folks wanted because i'm more than happy to do that but the seven mindsets for example for example everything is possible is the very first one and that's just a lesson on we can do we could do what we put our our

089mind to basically and then underneath that lessons how it's how it's done is through portal technology is a big deal now it's not like the same the same curriculum that we had with just some user manuals and some puppets and stuff animals it's a very different animal this day it's all about research it's all about evidence-based practices it's all about how to best communicate with our students about the things that are important to them as well and in order to be successful so those are those are how the lessons are set up um and they're all it can be done in in digital form for example if we were able to go back to virtual running we would still be able to present all of that material um on a particular digital list so very

090easily very easy um very easy to administer do you have examples of the curriculum that's what i'm asking so that's what yeah yeah you never really see you can't message me we can we can get we can we can get our our our consultant to absolutely show you everything that we need to have you walk through the portal how to how to get to each lesson that's what i'd like to see that's all i've been asking all you need is to let me know i'd be happy to love you to have you too thank you appreciate that i think you would be impressed with the technology because of it and it's very well organized and again it's very user friendly currently the program that we're using is really it's it's large and the only counselors

091are recommended to to do it this way teachers would be trained and that's why dr clark is talking about spending the rest of this year and getting teachers prepared to roll this out to all of our students so that nothing is rushed in that we're all planning and the community and teachers will all be a part of that that process because this particular curriculum is community-wide um in addition to students like here's my here's my dream is that i've wanted a comprehensive program for a long time and this is the reason like saying the same language spoken in all grade levels i can imagine um you know a family that has several different age-grouped you know siblings and i can imagine coming to you know um coming i like let's just say that let's just

092say it's a one at a dinner time or something they learn something about everything as possible today and then this the first grader who says you know this is what we learned in school today and then the seventh grader says well we also learned about everything as possible and to have you know and hopefully to generate some kind of conversation around the dinner table or around around the sofa and talking about that stuff so it becomes more global instead of high school today okay yeah i don't like that thank you dave yeah you do a lot of work for the students in the community you know the school so i do appreciate it all you have to do is say the word i will get barred on the phone and and you can and she'll

093take you right through the portal okay thank you now i've read through um the seven mindsets you know what those themes are and what the goal of trying to help our our students acquire and honestly i everything all the research i have done and i have done due diligence in research going and looking at and trying to find information and at the end of it all i'm sitting there thinking about my own four children and my youngest is only in third grade and i stop and i think this is what i want for mine um and it is [Applause] no at this time mr larimer yes miss matlin yes this is strong no she cares guadalupe and the diocese of cleveland parking agreement i'll make the motion take a second a second we're very excited

094about this if anybody has kids allegedly you know how awful the traffic is and our lady of guadalupe has worked with us to allow our carpool lane to go into their parking line students will be escorted from ledgeview over to guadalupe and that should alleviate a couple miles of traffic on shepard road so we're very excited [Applause] any questions just have to plow the parking lot for them yeah we will plow the parking lot and we're very happy to do that they're doing us a favor and we're really excited about it mr brown mr boss yes yes ms matt yes item five is a recommendation to approve the limited license agreement with the grenings for the property improvements on south bedford motion a second matt do you want to talk to the board about this

095i think you've seen it in a board update but just with the community here talk a little bit about what we're doing there yeah so you all will recall that mrs krennic her property borders our soccer field across the street um there had been some water drainage issues from construction and effective the foundation on her home so we went through litigation with that and reached a settlement there and now as part of that settlement she has to have a mud wall erected in between the two properties but needs our permission to do so because that will infringe a little bit on her property a little bit on ours but her engineer tells her that that will be a permanent fix so does anybody have any questions that license agreement is just so by law um

096her engineer can do work while technically being on our property and other property so it's on both properties and for attracting the school property yeah it's right dead in the middle but because she is a private citizen having equipment on our property that will mess with a bit of our grass she by law has to have our permission basically in right to do that um what about like maintaining it maintenance on it is she responsible for that being a mud wall it's called a mud wall it's a landscape wall it's maintenance-free we will probably mow our part of it once grass starts to grow on it rick wolf will oversee the project on the district side but it's maintenance-free once the grass is seated so awesome thank you anyone any more questions okay good mr

097brown mr bossy yeah mr barber yes christmas yes yes item six is a recommendation uh to for our gymnastics club to be granted varsity status and we're doing high school motion on motion second and many people don't know that we have gymnastics but we do and they're great kids and they've been a club for three years and um this will allow them to be varsity team which qualifies them for playoffs [Applause] yeah we have a coach we've had and we've paid the coach for the last three years so this is no additional cost to us it's just a matter of the ohsaa will not recognize that nordonia has a varsity path 16. okay thank you mr brown mr bossie yes and item seven and i recommend you approve the personnel items listed promotion here you'll

098see the annual salary adjustments for our teaching staff we do these in october and february there are a lot of them this year i think during co but a lot of teachers went back to school and then there's a lot of just the typical kind of stuff the curriculum right things you'll see the winter supplementals new assignments and really nothing unusual in the personnel agenda issue this month well like you know what i take them back i'm going to say i'm going to call out uh three folks first of all i'm going to keyshawn smith you guys remember keyshawn smith who is probably the happiest guy he's ever met it's going to be our buildings and grounds monitor here at the high school he's going to work the front desk and if you want a

099friendlier face than keyshawn smith at the front desk i don't know you'll find it and then when you look down at our substitutes jamie swansegger as you may have heard that we hired to our knowledge the first employee who is deaf and she will be a substitute food service worker she's a baker by trade carolyn victor who retired after 30 years as a teacher is going to come back to work in our cafeterias as a food service substitute so we're excited about that anyone have any questions mr brown sister busty yes mr lymer yes miss madeline yes yes mr strong yes and that concludes my report uh board meeting from september 27 2021 and uh if i may just give a brief overview of our financial changes and we're now getting into the forecast the

100district had ended the month of september on the revenue side of things with a 3.3 increase and what's mainly driving those two are our property taxes and we came in 1.1 higher than we did last year as well as our tangible personal property tax which gave me 5.6 higher than last year some of that contributed to the reappraisal that was done in 2020 as well as a new construction that has gone on in the district that came from the tax rolls some areas where we're seeing a decrease in revenues is tied to the unrestricted state trends and aid i'm sure you've heard over the past months the change in the state funding bill for schools as a result of that the funding model itself has changed where it went from a model that funded where

101the student had resided and now where the student is educated so in the past a lot of the funding will come in no matter where the student is being educated and as a result of that the district will get refunded and then we would enter then give that money to the district that is actually educating the student with the new change in the state funding model this element of the deduction going out to the educating districts has been removed so that that money is going straight to them so consequently the district is not receiving that money upfront and that will be experienced throughout this whole year you'll start seeing that is where our revenue last year of the state aid is being higher because of that deduction that's no longer in place for this current

102year so on the other area that is driving revenues high is in the all other revenue line and that comprises our tips that we receive from different entities particularly the summit county summit county port authority tip that we've received through september was not received last year until later on in the fiscal year and that's why there's a higher through september so like i said overall 3.3 higher on the revenue front than we were last year on the expenditure front we are two percent lower than we heard last year so things that are driving that is mainly in the purchase services our perfect services are areas where we pay for contractions contractual agreements or transportation or educational tuition that we provide that we send our kids to to other districts our transportation last year we had

103a one-time payment for co-good related that was done um as a result of the school closure back in spring of 2020 that was settled and finally paid out in august of last year and we did not have this this year so that's why our transportation is higher last year we have now resumed the normal transportation payment schedule so that should play out throughout the year um so overall those were the main areas on the expenditure front two percent increase in expenditure when compared to last year so when you look at that through september you're showing a net income of just over nine million dollars today which leads to our unencumbered fund reserve fund balance of 16.2 million and that's where we're ending through september when you compare that to last year at the same time

104frame we're at 15.4 million so that is our financial update for september [Music] all right and then on to the forecast overview as a result of the settlement that we just recently received i would like to just disclose upfront a couple of the assumptions that this is done when i'm discussing here this analysis is basically looking at the forecast that was adopted by the board back in may for the future years that are out in that forecast i did update the current year of fiscal year for the appropriation measure as well as the estimated receipts so the current fiscal year is updated the additional years are tied to the may forecast that was born approved keep in mind in november you will get a full forecast review so this is just a prior kind of

105meeting after that that is something i'm going to make clear so that you're aware of what i'm comparing to so without things being the same if we didn't have a tax settlement we would operate the school district from the may forecast through 23 24 fifth we are in the black you would then go into the red rejected red and 24-25 as a result of the settlement and the decisions that the board had made in the past board meeting with moving the uh obtaining that first settlement that came in and moving those expenditures that were historically paid on the general fund into the permanent improvement fund now that will now prolong the district's operations in the black through 2425 so those are some things that we have done with this current distribution that came through it

106is important to note that the forecasts that are out there right now do project exit spending and obviously that can not continue based off of just how you become a sense how you operate your own personal finances or your business you can't spend more than you bring in so this is something we want to address long term and down the road but as for right now uh we know with this movement that the board has made in the last board meeting push that operations into the black through 24-25 and as everyone's well aware there are initial settlements that will be coming in over the next four years and how that is applied will be discussions for the boards to have in those coming years but we do have some flexibility and good help for long

107whether it be capital improvements or operational needs so those are the discussions that we're having down the road but just as a brief overview of how this plays out with the district's finances overall it's a very good thing thanks man mckinley yes strong yes motion periods 5-0 item number two on my agenda is for an approval of adjustments to the appropriations for the 21-22 school year and that'll be for the permanent improvement fund and i recommend for approval no motion just so you're aware of what's going on with this recommendation is back in september with the board approved their annual appropriation measure at that time we did not have knowledge of whether the settlement would move forward or not so we appropriated the permanent improvement fund at just over fifteen thousand dollars now with that

108action that was taken in the last board meeting um we are going to start spending money out of this current improvement fund and we need more than 15 000 so under a higher law we cannot spend money that's not appropriate for and this is [Music] yes next item is a recommendation to approve the statement of purpose and budget for a student activity fund at the end just a new student activity purpose and budget that was submitted for the even student council yes mckinley yes this is strong yes and finally item number four is to a recommendation to approve a then and now certification or a couple invoices that were not have not been paid out of the i'm just so you're aware of what transpired with that one from what i understand these bills were

109unpaid and we're not um i'm not sure why they weren't paid but they came to our attention and we have to pay them and unfortunately services were rendered and therefore our purchase order wasn't in place so man i was under the impression i know this has happened in the past the same thing but i thought a procedure was put in place to eliminate these uh types of situations where we're paying after the fed instead of before so is there a breakdown somewhere or didn't was it not comprehensive enough no i can't really speak on what happened from december and january last year so i can't respect what you're inspired but there obviously are purchasing procedures in place that are important to follow for uh not only just operational standpoints wrestling ohio law like you pay

110something like this until the board approves that so there's a need for a procedure mr bussey yeah mr lymer yes miss matt yes mrs mckinnon yes this is strong yes 5-0 all right our next meeting will be monday november 22nd and i anticipate that we'll be back at northfield elementary um seven o'clock normal meeting time thank you motion to adjourn yes