001Sorry about that. Uh, all right. Good evening everyone. I'll uh call this meeting to order. It's the uh April 24th, 2025 meeting of the entangi board of education. Uh, Mr. Jenkins, can you please call the role? Mr. Lester, here. Dr. Dabberco, here. Dr. Wallak here. Mr. Mr. O'Brien here. M Shriber here. All right. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Uh the agenda uh the agenda has been distributed. I don't believe there are any uh edits to it. All right. Can I have a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. A second. Second. All right. Any discussion? All right. Hearing none.
002Mr. Jenkins. Mr. Lester. Yes. Dr. Dabrico. Yes. Dr. Wallak. Yes. Mr. O'Brien. Yes. Miss Shriber. Yes. All right. On to the board presence report. Uh so these are always uh some of our favorite meetings of the year. Uh it's just such a joy to uh recognize all the amazing achievements of our students. Um and you know we have uh students that just do so many things so well from academics and athletics and artistic achievements and and it's always great to take an opportunity to uh to recognize that. But it's also great to recognize all of the work that goes into making sure that those achievements happen. Right. all of you in this room played a part in in making sure that that your students uh are able to get where they are today, whether it's
003take them to practice or, you know, helping them study or or any of the other various things that you do to to help enable their success. So, uh we want to thank all of you for your role in in helping to uh make this district an amazing place to be and certainly all the the students for for all of the work that you've done uh to get to this point and and beyond. So, thank you. uh after the recognition ceremony, you are all free to stay for the rest of the board meeting. No one ever takes us up on that, but you are absolutely free to stay. Uh but uh we will give you some time to to head out and enjoy the beautiful weather if you want to do that after that. Um in
004terms of the board president's report, I want to just continue our discussion around the state budget, which has been um a consistent theme throughout this year. Uh for those of you that that maybe don't uh pay as much attention to this or or haven't uh seen it this year, uh every two years the state uh does its operating budget where it goes through and decides what it's going to be funding for for various public entities uh throughout the next two years. Um it's a long process. It starts with the governor who goes through and and sets out his set of uh funding priorities. Then it goes to the house and then they do their version. It goes to the senate. They do their version. Then they have to come back together. It's you know it's
005government, right? it takes a long time. Um, but it it's really important for school districts like ours because the amount of money that we get from the state, every dollar that we get from the state is one less dollar that we have to seek from the local community. Um, traditionally, districts like ours have not received a whole lot of money from the state. And and you see that play out in in having to seek levies and and all that sort of stuff that we've gone through for a long period of time. That's why it has been a very strong priority for this district to try to get as much as we possibly can in state funding and to advocate for all the amazing things that are happening here to ensure that the legislature recognizes that
006and pays their fair uh fair share to support our schools which again are essential to the success both of this area and the state. Uh when the governor came out with his original funding priorities, we were happy to see that he wanted to continue the uh fair school funding plan that was passed a couple years ago. But we had some concerns because the data that he was using or the cost sets were outdated. And what that means is that we were going to be getting an artificially low amount, frankly, to the point of maybe what our funding was before the fair school funding plan. And again, that puts the burden very heavily on the local community if if that sort of funding plays out. Uh after that, the budget went to the house. The House
007of Representatives acted very quickly in this case. Normally, they take, you know, about a month or so. They they acted in just a couple of weeks. Um their version of the the funding uh you know proposal had a little bit more than what the governor was providing. A small amount more which any any amount more we we are always uh happy to see. But there was a provision called the clawback that would limit the amount of money that a school district could carry over from year to year in its operating budget. And of course, districts get money through levy cycles that come in and then it sort of builds up and then we use it down over time and hopefully we stretch that as far as we can so that, you know, we're we're being
008efficient with our funds and we don't have to go back on the ballot as soon. Um, this would take money that was already voted, the community already uh uh voted to support that and send it to the schools and take it back, take it away and and return it as a form of property tax relief. The the problem with that is that it comes at the expense of school funding. And if we want to continue to have the operations of Tangi schools as you know them, we have to then go back on the ballot immediately. And with some of these limitations, it becomes very very hard to provide the level of services that that we do on a regular basis. It would require us to basically go and have a series of micro levies every
009year or two just to stay afloat. And if we didn't do it, it would send the district into a state of what's called fiscal emergency where the state can come in and drastically reduce um the services that we provide to try to make sure that you know everything is functioning properly. That's not something that we're used to here in Tangi because we've been recognized over and over again for our good fiscal management. Um including by the state. We've got a presentation tonight of yet another award on that. Um, so it's something that's really important that the community looks at and starts to talk to representatives about it because this clawback provision could have a very very very significant impact on all tangi schools and it could happen very very quickly. Um, the next step of
010the budget process as we talked about is it for it goes to the state I'm sorry to the senate. The senate will look at it. They'll try to decide what they want to do and then they've got to you know try to to to find a way forward based on their different visions of this. So, we certainly hope that people will review this, understand it, you know, um make whatever conclusions you're going to make from it, but then speak to your representatives and let them know what that impact might be on on you as a taxpayer, on the community, and on the schools. Uh we have a lot of resources on uh our website about this. We have a lot of resources that are in uh the the mailers that we send out. Uh but
011again, we just really encourage you to to get up to speed on this. In a minute, we'll show a video by Mr. Jenkins as well that talks about this a little bit more fully. If you want to stay for the whole meeting, we'll talk about it even more. Uh but this will certainly be the cliffnotes version of it. Um so that we can uh make that clear for folks. Uh before we launch into that, we have a couple committee updates. We had the mental health committee uh meeting last week. We heard a presentation um from a community group that's interested in safe storage of firearms. Uh recognizing the impact that that can play in mental health crisis and other things like that. and wanted to talk about ways to uh promote the safe storage of
012firearms and and uh discuss some opportunities to engage the community about that. Uh we also heard from a student group uh that uh runs a program called teens supporting teens where they really work to uh you know to to help provide each other with support and understand um the challenges that can come with being in a in a district like this and and making sure that we create an environment where everyone feels um included and and supported in everything that they do. So a lot of good work happening there. We'll continue to do that. Um, I don't know if we have any other committee updates. Uh, we do we we haven't had facilities yet, have we? Not since the last. No, not facility. We do have a finance and audit committee meeting next week. Which
013lets me remind people on your comments, we're not asking the state for money that's not ours. You send a dollar you send to the state, only 10 cents comes back to Delaware County. and we're just asking for our money to come back to help us educate our kids so we can stay off the um ballot a little bit longer. Um and that's a committee meeting next week. It's open to the public. You're welcome to come to a finance and audit meeting. It's next Thursday at 6 p.m. 1800 1800 um 6:00 p.m. I thought that was an address. um at um in the Berlin room at the um administrative offices. So, you're welcome to come and and see how all of the things that he's going to talk about uh is drilled down into the budget.
014Yeah. And if you have questions about it, feel free to reach out to any of us. We're always happy to talk about this. School funding can be a very very complex topic and it's not always easy to to sort of get through it all. Uh but if you have questions, please let us know. Um any other committee updates? I think we're good. Okay. Uh then uh Dustin, I think we've got the video by uh Mr. Jenkins. Hello, this is your Tangi Treasurer, Ryan Jenkins, with an update on state funding for Ohio's public schools. Appropriate state funding for Tangi schools equals tax relief for our residents. Ohio's lawmakers are currently crafting the state budget for fiscal years 2026 and 2027. The next Ohio bienium budget will make the laws that define how the school funding formula
015works and will determine how much funding each Ohio school district receives. It is imperative that our lawmakers hear from Tangi residents on what is needed to provide tax relief for our residents. As of April 2025, the Ohio House has passed the substitute version of Ohio House Bill 96, which contains the bianium budget. The bill will now be deliberated by the Senate. While there are aspects of the school funding formula in House Bill 96 that would benefit Tangi residents and in all gains made in state funding would be wiped out with the addition of a new Ohio Revised Code section 5705.316 commonly called the clawback. clawback would be incredibly harmful to our district as it would require the county budget commission and the county auditor to reduce levy collections to eliminate excess cash balance carryover beyond
016a 30% threshold for schools. This would lead to between a 90 to $100 million loss in levy collections for the 2025 pay 2026 tax year. and Oland Tangi would have to seek additional operating levies in small increments nearly every year moving forward. In Tangi, we pride ourselves on fiscal responsibility and diligently save taxpayer dollars to accommodate growth, rising expenses, and unexpected costs like natural disasters. The clawback would dramatically reduce our reserves and have significant negative impacts on Tangani schools and ultimately be detrimental to our students and community. It is imperative that the clawback provision is removed from the bill so that schools does not experience a loss of previously approved funds. Levies that have already been approved by our community to support our highly successful schools. According to current law, this loss in state funding
017would put our district in fiscal emergency beginning in the 202526 school year and we would have to strongly consider cuts and financial reductions that will dramatically impact programming and classroom instruction. We urge all Tangi constituents to join us in advocating for fair school funding for Tangi schools. We have created template messages to send to key legislators to make your voice heard. These messages can be downloaded and personalized and either emailed or mailed so that our legislators hear from our district's residents about how important these issues are to our schools and community. Thank you for taking action to support Ohio's public schools and Tangi. For more information, please contact me, your entangi treasurer at ryan_jenkins osd. [Music] us. There we go. Uh, okay. Well, uh with that then we'll move on to the main event here
018of the the uh proceeding or of the evening which is our uh student staff [Music] recognition. We're all counting on you. No pressure. Dustin, we good? Yes, we are. Tonight's meeting is a special one for us because it is the evening that we as a board get to recognize students and staff members for their outstanding achievements in co-curricular, extracurricular, and athletic activities. Many athletic and academic competitions are scheduled for later this spring. So, we will recognize those accomplishments at a separate board meeting in June. We are very excited to celebrate some of our students, coaches, and adviserss on their outstanding accomplishments this evening. As I announce your name, please walk to the stage and have your photo taken with board president Brandon Lester and Superintendent Todd Meyer. These photos will be mailed to your home
019in a few weeks. For academics, earlier this school year, we had the uh honor of celebrating our district's national merit semi-finalists from all four district high schools. We are proud to announce that the following semi-finalists, some of which are here tonight, obtained the rank of national merit finalist. Of the 1.6 million students that take the PST, approximately 8,000 students or less than 1% of the eligible national student population are named national merit finalists. From Tangi Berlin High School, Adeline Bowen [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Grace [Applause] heightamp, John [Music] [Applause] Peterson from Olantangi High School. Profi [Applause] Adari, Sanjay [Applause] [Music] Ganes, Jacob Hirs, [Applause] Vahin [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Kakala, Arya [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Travidi from Olan Tangi Liberty High School. Shahif [Applause] [Music] Anani Anushka [Applause] [Music] Chaba, Ethan Grec. shop. [Music] Hershel [Applause] Natala, Kasein
020[Applause] [Music] Palmer, Rishi Rajamani, [Music] [Applause] from Olant Tangi Orange High School. Cushi [Applause] Gagrani out of here. Matt Wang, sorry, Matt Wong, my apologies. Congratulations to our National Merit [Applause] [Music] semi-finalists. We now turn to recognizing our phenomenal student athletes. Many students, teams, and coaches have received individual state level honors in their sport this year. The board congratulates the following students from Olantangi Berlin High School. Alejandro Agalar, 2024 offensive co-player of the year, OC Cardinal [Music] [Applause] Division. Sole Cordal, second place, division 1 singles, 2024 OSAA girls state tennis tournament. [Music] [Applause] Tiana Estrada, OSAA State Gymnastics. Fourth place all-around, third place bar, sixth place [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] beam. We're good. Aiden Evston, 2024 offensive co-player of the year, OC Cardinal Division. [Music] Tyler Klein, swimming championship, 500 freestyle, sixth [Applause] [Music] place.
021Coach Mark Nory, 2024 OC Cardinal Coach of the Year and OC Champions in Football. [Music] [Applause] Claire Walden, 2024, girls soccer, first team, all [Music] state. From Tangi High School, Evelyn Fitz, fourth place, 2025 Division 1 state championship diving. [Music] Coach Kyle Hamrich, boys soccer, 2024 district champions and 2024 regional [Applause] champions. Jodi Han, Central District girls golf player of the year. [Applause] [Music] Thomas Naylor, State Swimming Championship, 200 yard freestyle relay, seventh [Applause] place. Coach Calvin Hickden, Olant Tangi High School, 2025 OSAA state tournament, girls swimming, 10th place. [Applause] Jake Pianowski, state championship wrestling, third place, 157 [Applause] [Music] pounds. Nick Pianowski, state championship wrestling, seventh place, lbs. Coach Clark Ransom, 2025 girls basketball OC Cardinal Division Coach of the Year. [Applause] Matt Seagel, State Swimming Championship, 200 yard free freestyle relay. Seventh [Applause]
022[Music] [Applause] [Music] place, Owen Thomas. OSAA state swimming championship 200yard freest freestyle relay. Seventh [Music] place, Evan Tilman, state swimming championship 200yard freestyle relay. Seventh [Applause] place, Coach Matt White, Olan Tangi High School Wrestling, 2025 OSAA state championship, 10th place. [Music] [Applause] Sawyer Wilbanks, boys soccer OC player of the year and first team all Ohio from Olan Tangi Liberty High School. Elena Aldrink, all state girls cross [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] country. Maddox Berley, state swimming championship, 200yard freestyle relay, eighth place. [Applause] [Music] Blinken Gardner, 2025, All State Boys wrestling, 165 lbs, OC Central wrestler of the year. Andrew Leonard, OCC player of the year, district offensive player of the year, first team allstate [Music] football, Carson Li, OSAA, state swimming championship, 200yard freestyle relay. Eighth [Applause] place, Reed McDaniel. Eighth place, OSAA state swimming championship,
023200 yard freestyle [Applause] relay. Coach Ryan Snively, runner up, division 1 boy state golf championship. [Applause] Jake Struck, first team Allstate Ice Hockey, Greater Ohio Hockey League Player of the [Music] Year. Campbell Williams, All State Swimming, eighth place, 100yard butterfly, eighth place, 100yard [Music] [Applause] backstroke. from Olant Tangi Orange High School. Braden Allander 2024 all state cross [Music] country. Kenzie Carter 2025 OSAA state championship wrestling state runnerup 120 lbs. [Applause] [Music] Brooke Chapman, second place, 2024 OSAA Girls State Cross Country Championship and first team all Ohio Foot Locker All-American. Tyler Culver, 2024 boys soccer team. Boys soccer first team all Ohio. [Music] Emma Coino, girls volleyball first team all Ohio Central District Player of the Year. Gavin Gayler, 2025 boys wrestling OC first team, seventh in state. [Music] [Applause] Lydia, sorry. Oh, great. Good to
024see you, Levi. Levi Davis, 20125 boys basketball first [Applause] team. Gavin Gayler, 2025 boys wrestling OC first team, seventh in state. [Applause] [Music] Oh, sorry. My bad. Lydia. Did I I didn't do Lydia yet. No. Lydia Heinrich. OSAA. State Championship Wrestling. Third place at 170 [Applause] [Music] lbs. Jenny Hatcha Aelenos, OSAA State Championship Wrestling. In fifth place at 235 [Applause] lbs, Macy Medley, all OCC Central division and all state [Applause] gymnastics. Bella Indinga Mopa, state championship wrestling 2025, seventh place at 130 lbs. [Applause] Coach Brian Nicola, 2025 OSAA state champions, girls wrestling district champions, and state dual champions. Lexi Riley, sixth place, OSAA Championship Wrestling at 145 lbs. [Applause] [Music] Trayon Shrader 2024 first team all Ohio [Music] football Matthew Shro 2024 Allstate cross [Applause] country Jacob Slack 2025 boys wrestling OC first team and
025state qualifier [Applause] Chloe Tomkins, OSAA, state championship wrestling, fourth place at 135 [Applause] lbs. The board would like to celebrate the passion, discipline, and creativity of our district students and ensembles. Congratulations to the following for their excellence in the visual and performing arts in the area of performance from Olant Tangi Berlin High School. Sorry, say that again. Perfect. Shay Manley, all state [Applause] choir from Tangi High School. Lake Weeks Allstate Orchestra. [Music] [Applause] The following students were named to the 2025A Allstate Orchestra. Ethan [Applause] [Music] [Applause] CIA, Pratik [Applause] Kala, Ben Curran. [Applause] [Music] Hershel [Applause] [Music] Natala Nathan Sanchez [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Zaros receiving superior ratings at the state orchestra adjudicated event director Jill Bixler in the Liberty High School Chamber Orchestra, Prelude Concert Orchestra, and Symphfana [Applause] Orchestra. Receiving OMA All State Choir
026recognition. And here tonight is Tori [Music] [Applause] Edwardson. Receiving OMA Allstate Choir recognition. Altha [Applause] Harjono, Samuel [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Harono, Llaya [Music] Urbanic, Abig Abigail [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Woff named to OMA Allstate Orchestra and here this evening are Gideon [Music] Beal, Benjamin Whitehead. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] 10. The following students received superior ratings in duet acting at the 2024 Ohio Thespies. Maddie [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Bolton, Natalie Deutschondorf, [Music] [Applause] Nick [Applause] Franklin, Alana Groves. [Applause] Named to the 2025 All Ohio production of John Proctor as the villain were Orange High School students Preston [Applause] Brer and Jonathan [Applause] West in the area of visual arts from Tangi Orange High School. Parker Scoffield 2025 Scholastic Silver Key National Award winner for digital [Applause] art from Olan Tangi High School. Haley McCrae, 2025 Scholastic Gold Key National
027Award winner in sculpture. That's it. Congratulations. On behalf of the entire board, I'd like to once again applaud to the many students, outstanding students and coaches and advisor rec advisers recognized this evening. We are very proud of your accomplishments. I don't think you're high yet. All right. Uh, so we're back. All right. You guys you guys stuck around. That's good. So, all right. Uh, all right. We will move on to our uh our next presentation, which is the honor of state a war with distinction presentation. So, uh, Mr. Scott Brown, welcome you to the stage. [Music] I know you were worried about me falling into the pit. Done that before at my own high school and pits covered. So, it's all right. I was I said that I said we got to be careful. Yeah.
028Um, I appreciate a few moments on your agenda this evening to really celebrate a job well done. My name is Scott Brown and I serve as state auditor Keith Fabver's central Ohio liaison or as the auditor would tell you if he was here as your personal customer service representative. It's my honor to be here this evening on behalf of Auditor Faber to present the auditor of state award with distinction to the Tangi school school district. Each year, our office is responsible for conducting more than 4,200 audits of our 6,000 6,000 clients statewide. This award places your organization in a very select group as just 4% qualify for this award. The auditor of state award is presented to local governments and school districts upon the completion of a financial audit that meet the following criteria defined
029as a clean audit report. The audit must file financial reports with the auditor's office by a statutory due date without extension on a gap accounting basis and prepare a comprehensive annual financial report. The audit report does not contain any findings for recovery, material citations, material weaknesses, significant deficiencies, uniform guidance findings, or other question costs. Breaking through the audit speak, I like to say this award represents the hard work of all of Tangi's staff and employees who make every effort each day to attain accounting excellence. We'd like to recognize the board, the administration, and the finance department that have done an outstanding job watching over every dollar. What this truly means is across your entire organization, you have the people in the processes in place that understand fiscal accountability. Specifically, we want to recognize Treasurer Ryan
030Jenkins for his leadership, his professionalism, and exceptional uh commitment to fiscal integrity. So on behalf of Auditor Faber, I would like to present the Olangi Local School District the Auditor of State Award with distinction. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Congratulations, please. So, uh, I wanted to make sure that the people who were really responsible for this were here this evening and luckily, uh, seven out of 11 of them came and so now they get to be, uh, introduced or slashed embarrassed, whichever way they might see this. Uh, assistant treasurer Trisha Heater, if you don't have to stand, I guess, if you don't want to, but at least [Applause] wave, have him stand. Um, accounts payable/accounts receivable specialist, uh, Kristen [Applause] Newman. Uh, executive assistant Christina [Applause] Lyle, payroll supervisor, for lack of a better word, Leah
031[Music] Douglas, payroll accountant, Amanda Burton, uh, payroll specialist Megan Newman, and our benefits coordinator, Susan Coulson. [Music] Uh couple members couldn't be here this evening. Uh Lorie Zay who is a budgetary specialist. Vicky Bober who also works in accounts payable budgetary. Uh Jennifer Glorioso is a uh accountant on the budgetary side. And then Madison Ratliff uh another assistant treasurer. They couldn't be here. Uh but no, I I really this staff right here tolerates me every day which is probably worthy of an award. Um but they make sure that everything is done and it's done well. Uh this award really belongs to the entire school district though um from every single uh person in in this entity that makes sure that we are accountable, we are transparent uh and we are mindful of our taxpayers resources.
032So very thankful to the board of education to Mr. Meyer uh and everyone uh for their efforts and truly making this a team award. So thank you very much. And now my staff, you can go [Applause] [Music] home. There we are. Just a quick note, thank you, Mr. Brown, for uh coming and and presenting that. We always uh appreciate the uh the attention that you all uh you know provide in this and the service that you all provide as public servants as well. Um and just so thankful for our entire Treasury team and Mr. Jenkins, you all are are uh really just do amazing work. So, thank you so much. Hey, Susan, I know you're getting in extra steps, but hold on one second. Hold on one second cuz I also want to congratulate Mr.
033Jenkins and the entire Treasury team. I mean, they are consumate professionals and serve over 3,000 employees, but many, many more with supplementals. and the work that they do um for this district, for this community is remarkable. So um congratulations award welld deserved and thank you for what you do to serve the organization. So we appreciate you guys. Thank you. So now Susan All right. All right, Mr. Meyer. All right. Well, it was uh, you know, nights like this where we're able to honor and recognize so many uh of our wonderful students um, you know, remarkable talent that we have across the district. So, obviously uh, thanks to the communications department for organizing and coordinating tonight's uh, recognitions and obviously thank you to the board of education for continuing to support the mission of the district
034and all the great things that we do um, in the district. So, first I want to highlight Ben Currion and actually I was trying to catch him because he he received an award tonight and he's remarkable. So, he for the third consecutive year is winning a prize. So, this year he has won first prize in the annual C-SPAN documentary competition. So, I'm going to read a little bit about what he produced. And if you haven't had the opportunity to see the video, watch the video. It's it's it's amazing. So, C-SPAN Classroom Student Cam Video Documentary Contest is an annual national competition in which middle and high school students produce a documentary on a specific theme. Ben was one of more than 3,500 entrance in this year's competition. His six-minute documentary highlights the national vision zero
035initiative and it aims to eliminate traffic fatalities and severe injuries among all road users while increasing safe, healthy, equitable mobility. Ben's documentary features testimony and conversations with state and national leaders as well as law enforcement agencies highlighting the complexities of traffic safety. In his message to the president, Ben proposes that AI combined with science and data can be seen utilized strategy to help save lives on the road. His concept didn't only focus on autonomous vehicles. Ben also outlines how AI can improve car safety systems, driver awareness, and introduce smart highway technology, including variable speed limits based on congestion and other factors. We need him on route 23 bad. Earlier this spring, Ben was invited to present his documentary at the uh International Bridge Toll and Turnpike Association's annual summit uh that was held in Dallas.
036So um just want to congratulate uh him and I know he's been at the at this uh for a few years and I actually got to see him last year at Liberty Middle School. Um but congratulations to him and in the work that he does. also want to recognize our business advisory council um for this year. So, and I also want to recognize and I don't know if she's here, our assistant director of strategic partnership, Molly Preston, because Molly has done a is she still here? She was here earlier, but anyways, she has done a remarkable job the last two years of really taking on this business advisory council and really uh defining its purpose. Um so our business advisory council is comprised of business leaders that provide support and insight on educational and financial
037uh issues facing the district. So some examples of things that uh we've done this year um indust in instructional tech make it awesome project invited business partners to participate which we had many participate with our students um OEF updates multilingual updates ways businesses can support EL students as well as with pupil services ways that the BAC can support students with disabilities and then ongoing discussions on how the BAC can provide inter internships and job opportunities for students and we've highlighted a lot of um opportunities that we're providing through businesses um and through the school district for our students is so they are a very important important partner in the work that we do outside of our classrooms in that space. Um also want to recognize uh this is Ohio Health uh career fair. So, uh,
038Tammy Sensible, who's a science teacher here, um, took a group of students to Ohio Health and you can see, uh, they got the experience and speak with experts in many, many of the, uh, health related fields there at Ohio Health. Um, also want to recognize and sometimes we do so many great things uh, in the district. Uh, so I have to get some information sometimes from community members, from sometimes from staff members. Obviously, a lot goes to communications, but Miss Shriber actually uh tipped me off to this award u from Tangi High School. So, I'd like to recognize Tangi High School Winter Guard um who was named the Scholastic Regional DoubleA state champion at the Ohio Indoor Performance Association uh state championship. Um so, want to congratulate them for their efforts and we'll probably see
039them maybe here receiving an award uh in the uh summer in June. I'm also again always want to highlight um uh our schools and the work they do for military families. So we have 22 of tangi schools received the purple star designation uh with Berlin Middle School and Walnut Creek added to the list and you can see 11 schools also renewed as designation this year as well as the other. So, uh, again, I want to congratulate our staff, uh, and the efforts that, um, they do in honoring, recognizing, uh, the military and our military families. All right. So, district advocacy efforts. I just want to kind of summarize where we've been, what we've been doing, and obviously, uh, we have really important advocacy, uh, to continue, um, at the state house. So way back in
040February, uh Mr. Jenkins and I gave testimony to the educ uh house education committee at the state house. We continually uh meet with legislators and have discussions with the legislators. So anyone who will listen to us and who is willing to talk um we we want to talk with them to tell our story, our own tangi story and obviously the impact um that the state budget has on Tangi. uh focused our April 11th uh 2025 board of education uh update around the state funding clawback uh met with key communicators in the communications committee. Um our communications department met with the communications committee to share about state funding clawback and to solicit guidance. So also we're getting feedback on how we can um continue to amplify uh the message in the community. So that's really important
041for us. shared uh template letters and phone script on our district web page. And as we finish up our uh staff meetings across the district and uh we had two today at our transportation centers, um we continue to uh deliver this message to our staff as well. Um posted the funding priorities image with a call to action on our social media pages. Um so I I think that it's getting good traction. Um so people are paying attention and we'll continue to do that. Uh, Treasurer Ryan Jenkins recorded a state funding video, updated video, which we all saw uh, tonight. And, uh, you know, Ryan does a really, really good job of breaking it down into simple terms, um, and, uh, communicating um, you know, which is a complex topic as Mr. Lester mentioned, but, uh,
042you know, Mr. Jenkins does an excellent job. So, we're glad to have him, uh, continue to do that. Continuing to do that. uh state funding update message sent to all staff on April 17th and to parents and staff on April 20 uh2nd. Remember this year we started we have non parent residents who can sign up for list serve to receive on tangi schools information and that uh uh group that list serve is growing week by week. So that's also uh a communication channel for us. Um and then also we have done media interviews whether together with Mr. Jenkins and I or uh separately. So, um we did an interview with the Columbus Dispatch. I was on the radio. Uh they um recorded a segment which I think will play this weekend um WDLR and then
043Mr. Jenkins did an interview with AB6 ABC 6. I think it was yesterday. Um so we continue to uh again educate the community because it's extremely important um as we work through the next uh few months um before they decide on the final bill that's presented to the governor. So Ohio budget schedule and I just want to put this up so moving forward. So next next week they're back in session. Um so April 28th um so for about uh 4 to 6 weeks this will be in the Senate. Um the the Senate testimony begins with Senate committees. Public testimony with Senate Finance May 26th, Senate floor vote is scheduled for June 12th. Um June 24th, conference committee adopts the final budget report. Uh June uh 25th, final House and Senate vote on the operating budget.
044Um and then June 30th is the legal deadline for uh the governor's signature. So um we've talked a lot about that. uh when we still have an opportunity and time to continue to tell our story and again the impact of the state budget on Tangi. Um and we've said it many times for every uh dollar we get from the state one less dollar we have to ask from our local uh taxpayers and you know I will say this and we it's evident tonight we produce a really really really good product and and provide an exceptional student experience for our kids. Um, so we need the continued support in order to continue to do that. So, uh, again, we're going to continue to, uh, uh, advocate for Tangi, uh, whenever we can. Um, also, uh, call
045to action. So, I just want to point this out, and Mr. Lester, you had mentioned this. Um, this is located on our website. So, stay informed. How people can stay informed on the state's bienium budget. Uh, take action and contact your legislators. And it's it's really simple. If you go to our district website and you scroll down district news call to action, we have uh script templates to just make a phone call. It's going to take about 20 seconds or you just download a letter, attach it to an email, and uh we have all of the contact information uh for state legislators on that page. So, um, and of course we're asking, uh, for help from community members or staff to help continue to amplify that message and to share, uh, what they've learned in
046these conversations, um, with their friends and neighbors. All right. Uh, superintendent action items uh, this evening. So, we are excited to uh, recommend four new administrators um, this evening. So Allison Chadwick uh in the accounting department. Um so uh that's the recommendation we're going to make. Um she's going to come she's coming to us from uh the private sector where she's been a lead accountant and senior accountant uh in the private sector. So we're glad to have her and uh we're recommending her to start May 5th. Uh Bridget Chapman who's an uh recommendation for assistant director of uh pupil services. Um, so Ms. Chapman will is coming from Ohio State back to the district. She used to work for the district as a speech pathologist and um, she's coming back to the district. So, we're
047excited to have her. Uh, Lisa Nemoth and I know I saw Lisa here. So, Lisa, wave, you're with your h what's your husband's name? Mike. Mike, congratulations. Um, so we're excited. Uh, Miss Neoth uh, will join and Tangi from Mary'sville schools. um and she brings with her nearly two decades of STEM related experience as an educator and administrator. So, we're extremely happy to have her as a new program administrator of uh STEM Academy. Um so, we're looking forward to really getting to work with her and how we can continue to propel that program forward in the uh district. And then Mr. Kevin Sherman, he's there. I saw Kevin, right? All right. So, Mr. Sherman, the new principal recommendation at Scotto Ridge Elementary School. Mr. Sherman has been a member of the Onangi community since 2006.
048Uh most recently uh serves as an assistant principal at Walnut Creek uh since 2018. So, um I just want to congratulate all of you in the interview process because we run a very very rigorous uh interview process and here we're hiring three external candidates and one internal candidate and you know at the end of the day when we start these pools um we always look for the best candidate uh in these pools to best serve the district and who can bring the most value um to the district to help us meet our our vi our mission. So, uh, congratulations, um, to all of you and and welcome, um, to tangent. It's a special place and you guys will figure that out, uh, really quickly. I know Kevin, you already know that. So, all right. Um,
049also a couple retirements. Uh, Linda Sabbo from Walnut Creek, uh, music teacher, and then, um, Kathleen Lepley, food service. Uh so last last board meeting what we had over 200 years of service. So we have two this time so 14 years of service but still we want to thank them uh for the wonderful 14 years of service that they've provided to our students and families here uh in Tangi. All right a couple other this is a big one that's that I want to start this one. So tonight you will be approving the class of 2025 seniors seniors for graduation. So the entire class, so approximately 1,800 students, um that we will see on May May 18th at the Shottenstein Center. Um so obviously pending certification of completion of all the district and state requirements, but
050uh just a great day, a culmination really of a a fantastic school year, we we'll get to honor and recognize all of our seniors uh uh during graduation. So uh you will be approve I'm recommending the list and you'll be approving the list tonight. um also uh recommend approval of the 20 25 26 student fees. Dr. Blackley will that will be a discussion item tonight where she'll discuss uh fee recommendations and then also she will discuss quickly the approval of the curriculum purchases for our literacy adoption which we had the presentation at the last meeting um from Miss Ford. So, uh, that'll be a recommendation for tonight. And then we just have one business management facilities item, declare transportation as impractical for, uh, I think we have a half dozen students, um, or so. And
051then, um, important dates coming up. Senior awards right around the corner. May 5th, 7 p.m. at Adventure Church. Class of 2025 commencement. Again, that's May 18th. And it didn't make the slides, but I do have it on the slides on my uh, copy. I want to highlight all of the high school art shows which start this weekend. And again, we have tremendous talent uh in this district. And when you see the art shows at our schools, unbelievable. So, Berlin High School uh this Saturday, April 26th from 11 to 3. Orange High School, uh Artsfest, April 27th, 11 to three. Liberty High School, April 27th, 12 to 4. And then on Tangi High School will be Sunday, May the 4th. um 12:00 p.m. to 4 p.m. But I it's just it's just great. Just stop in
052for a half hour and just walk around if you have time on any of these days. If you're driving around, it's just a a a great thing to um just to go and observe and then just see again the great talent that we have in our uh arts programs across the district. So uh and then our next board of education meeting, we'll be back at OEO um in the Berlin room Thursday, May 8th at 6:30. Any questions? All right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. [Music] Jenkins. Before I get started, I owe one apology to one of my staff members, Don Alt Vader, uh also does payroll, and for whatever reason, I got excited and uh left her out. Uh but Don wasn't able to be here tonight either, but I didn't want to
053miss anybody. So, we've talked a lot about state funding. Um tonight, what we want to do is just kind of do a reset to make sure we know where we are with our priorities in the community. Uh it's critical that state reps hear uh from our constituents. We've talked a lot tonight about uh what we like about the bill and certainly pieces we don't like about the bill. We've not forgotten that the House's version uh kind of creates a hybrid fair school funding formula. Uh so while we've said that hey uh we understand that we're going to get more uh with the House's version through some things uh like uh you know growth supplement for students. Uh we do want to hearken back to the fact that we were very active in the fair school
054funding formula process to begin with. Do still believe that an inputsbased model is something that will ultimately serve Ohio students in in the best manner possible. So we don't want to forget um that what we want in our uh funding formula is that the state share is not decreased. Uh certainly in the as introduced budget uh in the governor's version uh our state share was going to drop pretty dramatically. We were going to go to the threshold of 10%. Um we wanted uh the current cost to educate to be used not data sets from 2022. Uh it's kind of hard to tell exactly because the House sort of used the funding for this school year as its start, but then it certainly did not necessarily use the fair school funding formula to determine every piece
055of the new funding. We get more, but it really didn't necessarily follow the fair school funding formula. Uh so some of what we're talking about here in the House's version is sort of hard to tell. Uh all I can say though on a positive note is it is clearly more funding. Uh the simulations were showing in the as introduced uh that we would actually lose uh state funding and we're now not only not losing uh but each of the two years we would actually gain. Um so when you combine not losing over the buying and budget with gaining about I want to say my my number is around 5.5 million. It's about a 12 to$15 12-15 million difference for the district, but these are still the priorities. Not wanting uh the state share to go
056lower than it is. In fact, wanting it to be 20%. Fully funding the fair school funding plan uh with the changes. Uh but really the final bullet point uh has has in many ways moved uh to the top of the list of of things that we need to be very diligent and and vigilant with and that's removing the provision on restrict restricting the cash balances to 30%. It's kind of ironic this week uh the Ohio auditor of state also announced the financial health indicator uh dashboards. These will be, as you can see, not only uh for municipalities, counties, governments, uh you know, that aren't schools. Uh but it will also be for schools. And it's highly ironic uh given the clawback provision that the second bullet point uh pursuant to Ohio Revised Code 3316.03. And
057these are FAQs taken straight from the Ohio auditor of state. Uh OD uh and the auditor of state may declare a school district in fiscal watch or emergency if certain criteria are met. Um so this coming out this week was was kind of interesting. Uh some would call it serendipitous. Um what are the indicators? They're going to be a group of dashboards. Uh I think there's 16 different indicators, but it's going to look at things like percentages, ratios. they're going to be gathered from the financial statements. So whereas the clawback provision is going to come strictly from the five-year forecast, this will actually come from a broader set of data uh which will be our um financial statements that we file on a GAP basis at the end of every fiscal year. I know this
058is a bit wordy so I'll try to summarize it as quickly as I can. So why do we have the FA FHI report for each city, county, or school district? Uh we want to recognize early warning signs of fiscal stress and we want to be as proactive as possible to keep districts from going into caution watch or emergency. And then it talks about how it was developed. And it's interesting that the very last sentence in 2024 the auditor of state used a similar process for schools. They actually would have worked directly with schools that were in caution watch and emergency to find look fors. you know, what is it that is a common set of factors for a public school district that would cause the 33163 designation to occur? And certainly uh what that says
059as a reminder uh fiscal watch per uh3 is that your current operating deficit and remember your operating deficit means your expenses are more than your revenues. So, if that operating deficit exceeds 8% of the previous school year's revenue, you're technically in fiscal caution. Now, that has to be combined with the inability uh to pass a levy. Um the law doesn't necessarily say that ye shall run one. It just says one isn't passed. So I I assume uh at least until you get into uh caution or emergency uh you know the board as a body politic would still have the ability to decide when and how and where and if a levy would be run. Uh but just simply looking at the definition then of emergency. It's that same definition. Operating deficit exceeds previous year's revenue
060but this time it's 15%. And so if you look at it through that lens, uh we know that the clawback immediately uh for the 2025 uh 26 school year uh would exacerbate what we're already forecasting as an operating deficit and would exacerbate it to the point that it would exceed 15% of this year's revenue. I say this year because we'll be one year hence. um we would have the same effect in 2026 27 when you look at the deficit per trade for that year compared to the revenue in 2025 26. So I just stole my thunder on my slide here. Uh what is fiscal emergency? Um once a levy has either failed or uh depending on you know that you all it says in the revised code is once an auditor the auditor of state
061is able to to verify that a levy is not going to be uh in the offing or is going to pass when you combine that uh with that operational deficit exceeding either 8 or 15%. It does not say may it does not say can. It does not say should. It says shall. We've already, as I mentioned, run some numbers to take a look at what this would do across the state. Uh, just strictly using the definition of operating deficit being more than either eight or 15%. I want to say it would put over 300 public schools across the state, the clawback would in fiscal caution, beg your pardon, fiscal watch, uh, or emergency. I think I said it right the first time. fiscal fiscal caution or emergency. So, we believe that if that happens to
062us, uh you know, if we went into emergency, uh as we noted last time, there's a commission uh that comes in and controls essentially all aspects of the district's finances in many ways, all aspects of how the district runs on a day-to-day basis. Almost nothing, when you boil it down to it, uh doesn't have dollars and cents behind it. Uh they can take control of and change contracts. Um, as I mentioned last time, those provisions uh can supersede the uh the provisions of law can supersede any conflicting provision in a bargaining agreement. It can um supersede any conflicting provision in a board policy. Um, the commission enacts solutions that are really about balancing the budget, not necessarily about the things that we prioritize when we're trying to meet the needs of our students and our
063community. So, things like class sizes, staffing, educational programming. Uh, I'm sure the commission would say that their goal is to make sure that the finances are right so that those things aren't impacted. Uh but as we know uh levies have been approved uh by members of this community and they have a certain expectation as to the service levels that we would provide and so it's uh pretty natural to assume uh that those types of service levels would have to be impacted if the commission is here to rightsize so uh so to speak the budget. Uh the irony is not lost on me that on the same night that we're being recognized uh by the auditor of state for our fiscal practices, our accountability, our transparency, um our willingness to promote to our community. Uh that
064these resources are being spent in ways that impact student u you know 24,000 students, more than all but three schools in this state. Uh that we're ready to potentially have a provision of law that would put that same school district in fiscal emergency. Um it's almost hard to believe. So questions about those um four or five uh I'm sorry if they were not the the most edifying slides in the world. I just had a couple of comments you or questions. You had indicated that we had worked with legislators to come up with the fair school funding or at least gave some input. It was sort of a collaborative process. Do you have and that you that wasn't necessarily the case with this House Bill 96. Is that is that accurate? We provided lots of feedback
065and input to be fair uh to Mr. Loren's. Um we provided our our perspectives believe that he listened. Um, at the end of the day, the uh pieces that we really wanted in the bill when it came to the fair school funding formula, as mentioned, were were sort of hybridized and changed. It It's hard not to look at the simulations of funding and and not at least be appreciative um and and happy that we would get more funding. Uh I would even go so far as to say um that you know we worked to submit some amendments to the clawback um you know the one-sizefits-all approach of there's x% whatever that is you know we provided our feedback that it should be contextual each school district and their um you know duallyy elected board members
066who serve the community we think should develop those types of policies and procedures uh in coordination with their community. Uh we believe strongly as a district there is a very good reason why we need uh right now about a 55 or 60% carryover. Uh we've talked in with this body before about planning four and five years out staffing facilities plans. Uh you know it's entirely possible that a different school district uh might have different factors that would uh change their particular situation. You know we're one of only 85 school districts in the state of Ohio that's growing. Uh so we provided initially the input that this should be something that every local school district should develop policy like we have uh around. Um you know we we were told that that probably was was just
067simply not going to be a solution uh that that was viable. Uh so we uh asked and worked with different percentages really our our goal was that you know as mentioned there should be none. um when we proposed 75% uh it was essentially just totally dismissed. Um so to to be fair uh we believe we've been heard uh that being said uh the end product clearly didn't recognize uh our priorities the way we wish that it would have. And I I just want to add the piece on the funding growth factor for districts that are growing like like well no districts grow like tangi but districts growing across the state. Uh we did advocate for a growth factor growth supplement in the in the formula side. So obviously legislators did listen to that piece. Um
068but the clawback provision was just put into the bill with to me in the 12th hour really nobody knew about that so there wasn't much time to react. Um but and to your point about us attempting to plan four or 5 years down the line. The fair school funding formula although is dependent on the budget cycles was sort of a long-term plan. Is that right? like several over the course of several years there's a phase in um for the fair school funding for the fair school funding formula. That's correct. And after this budget cycle for the next two years, do we have any idea what their plans are for the future? No. Okay. No. Thank you. No. the and really the the House substitute bill. I hate to say that it because it looks at
069the the the base level of funding and some pieces of what happens for uh what 26 looks back at are clearly still informed by the fair school funding formula. But as far as for what you get in 26 and 27, um I believe it's section uh 265.345 of the bill. It's not in the codified provisions of the revised code. It's a section at the end essentially says they're going to take a snapshot uh of the 2024 25 funding. They're then going to give you uh like half of the gain that you should otherwise get in the first year and then half of the gain off of the second year over the first year for us because we're growing the supplement uh allows pretty well our growth. Um but to your your point, Miss Shriber, yeah,
070it was phased in when the formula was first announced in the 21-22 school year. Uh there was only about 16% of the difference in funding formulas that was recognized in any increases, it moved to 33. Last year was 50. This year it's essentially 2/3. Next year, if the fair school funding formula in its native uh form and and everything that was uh originally announced and touted to be, it would have moved to uh 83 and a3% and then completely fully funded uh by the 2627 school year. Just a question about the political process for the clawback. Um when did we give our testimony about the clawback before the House folks? Um there was no testimony. Um so the way it was inserted was in the amendment. Um if there was testimony that week, I don't
071recall seeing it. Um we gave testimony early on in February. Uh but it was added as an amendment and it's awfully difficult to get your bearings about what all the amendments say. Um so we we were unable uh to testify. I'm I'm not sure there was even an opportunity to testify. Did anybody uh any educators, people that do this for a living, people that get awards for doing school finance, were they asked about their opinion about the clawback before the vote or during the amendment process? I would have to say yes. Um we worked uh with uh Representative Loren's. He did know about it. We immediately made contact. He he contacted us. Uh we also would have worked with Mr. Loren through some of our contacts at the state house. Um you know we reached
072out to Representative Lear. Uh we just weren't able to connect necessarily. Uh we intend to reach out as vigorously as we can to Senator Briner now that it's gone uh to the Senate. Uh but I would have to answer that yes. I I believe that uh we had an ear that was at least listening to the points that we were making in Replorn. So, just trying to figure out the timeline of when we first heard about the clawback because they voted they voted on a Tuesday or Wednesday. When did we first hear about the claw clawback in relationship to the vote? So, literally everyone first heard about the clawback when the omnibus uh amendments I believe were released on the irony of all days, April Fools. Um, April 1st. So, it took a day or
073two. I can actually remember the text um from you know one one of our ears at the state house that said uh overall funding looks pretty cool. Uh you know district's going to get more we got to look into this thing called the clawback. Not sure what that is. So I went home that night looked into it and by the next day Mr. Meyer had already heard you know from from his group of folks that this is problematic because at that point in time it's 25%. They took a vote, I believe, April 9th. So, it was barely a week. Uh, when you throw in a weekend, obviously no one showing up uh on the weekend. U it was maybe uh four or five quote unquote business days uh to uh decipher, understand, try to provide
074any feedback. Uh you know, it was it was it was nearly impossible. But no hearings, no public testimony, no opportunity to so I hate to speak in absolutes. If there was a if there was a committee hearing or if there was some opportunity for uh school folks to go testify, I was not aware of it. In fact, I'm I'm reasonably certain that once the omnibus amendments uh are are in place, it it it just simply goes to the full house to consider within 3 four 5 days at most. I know they caucused a couple times, but I don't think anyone was able to testify. Yeah. Just one brief um thing in in your response to Miss Shriber's question, you mentioned that we when in speaking with Representative Loren and others had proposed a a a
075system whereby we might work with our local communities to talk about the appropriate level of of carryover and that we were told that that was not feasible. Um it it's not not feasible because it wouldn't work because that's what we've been doing with our communities for the past several decades with great success in what we're doing in terms of financial management. They were saying it was not feasible because that's not what they wanted to do. Is that right? I I like to say that they were disincclined to hear our opinion. So I I mean it obviously you know in government different bodies have different priorities. we understand that that they they view it differently. I think what we have shown over an extended period of time, as we showed again tonight, is that school districts
076can do this very well, um, do it very responsibly, and we are a model of that. And that when you put these artificial lines in that take a district that is getting awards left and right from the outer state and immediately throws it into fiscal emergency, um, there's something wrong with that at the the basis level. There is something wrong with that. I would say that it would be hard probably for the average person to picture how you could go from, you know, an award for um, you know, perfectly clean audit. You could go from a district that receives a GFOA award uh that awards our acter every year. Uh, we publish and send out a paffer. Um, there's nothing about what we do financially that we don't inform our community. In fact, uh, this
077week a question was raised in an email from a member of the community that I answered and the the question made me want to say, you know, at times when people point those things out and and the document that they send that, you know, causes them to say essentially, well, what about this? you know, you you guys u the implication is you're not doing something right and aha, I found this data every time. It's data we've published that we've put out and I'm more than happy uh to answer those questions. Um certainly reasonable minds can disagree about what ultimately the conclusions are. Um, but there's there's never been an uh a moment in time, in my opinion, in the last 3 years, at least since I've been here, where a question about financial number or
078someone in the community wants more detail, the source that they feed right back to us is what we fed to them. And I I appreciated that thorough response to um in that email. That was Thank you for that. Yeah. So, so I I'll go off the rails a little bit, but I I think this is more symptomatic of, you know, and I said at Alaska, elections matter, we have a legislative group, whether it's Loren, Lear or Brener, that don't necessarily advocate or have sufficient influence to change things that we need to change. And uh as much as we talk about um the things we want, we've got three folks that don't listen to us, that don't advocate for us, that don't achieve the things we want to achieve. And so we've got uh three legislators,
079frankly, Lorenz's new has no influence. Lear anti-public education. Brener, a career hack that's bounced between the House and the Senate and has done nothing. Uh, and frankly, I think the people of Olangia deserve better and that's what we should be advocating for is better legislative representation for the things that we deliver for the school district. Um, that isn't happening. Can only say that we will continue to uh exhaust every effort. Um, I appreciate um you viewpoints, Mr. O'Brien. Uh we will continue while the process uh works through to contact uh you know Mr. Brener, contact our senators. Uh that ultimately is where the bill is right now. U you know we we've heard some feedback um that the Senate has uh some trouble. We've even heard some feedback from Mr. Brener himself uh that he
080has some issues with the clawback. Um so understand uh that each of us obviously are entitled uh to how we feel about a particular matter. Uh we're going to keep working at it and you know uh try to as much as we can get the Senate including uh Mr. Briner who's who's always been gracious and uh had you taken the opportunity for Mr. Meyer and and I to speak with him. Uh but certainly we all know that there are times where uh despite fervent efforts um you know there's just enough uh will the other way uh that it doesn't go necessarily the way you want it to go. And you're correct. So far at least through the house it didn't go the way we wanted it to. But we're going to keep fighting. It's not
081over. Anything else? So, what we have then for tonight, our treasure action items, um the board meeting minutes from April 10th, uh the donations that you see for the Washington DC trip, uh acceptance of the March monthly financial report, and then updated appropriations. And before we get to any of the action items, we do have one uh public participation uh slip. I don't I think it's um shall I bring it to you? Well, I can read a lot. I'll have to cheat. Let me see if I get this right. Rohan Batia. Did I get it right? Keep it close. It's natural. Oh, sorry. It looked like an R. I'm sorry. Sorry. Just to be clear, it's 3 minutes is the time limit for this, correct? Thank you. Thanks. [Music] Hello everyone. My name is Rohan
082Batra. I'm a current senior at Tangeni High School. I've been a student in this district for many, many years, and with the help of my teachers, family, and incredible educators, I've received, I'm fortunate enough to be attending Cornell University next year. Now, it might seem like my time here is winding down, and I could just ride off into the sunset with my blue and gold diploma, but before I do, I want to leave parting thoughts on a policy that affects every single one of our students in this district. Class rank. Page three of our 2021 to 2022 student handbook clearly states a student's GPA and rank in class shall be entered only on his her record used for internal purposes not released without consent. But this policy alone is not enough in my opinion. I
083believe Oland Tangi should use class rankings only for scholarship purposes for two main reasons. One class ranking has destroyed student morale in my own high school and I'm sure it's similar for those for our neighboring high schools as well. And second, the value of class ranking in admissions has declined so much that I truly believe that it's actually causing our students to end up in worser universities. As someone who gives my 100% in everything, I've seen how class rank transforms healthy competition into a toxic comparison. A study from the University of Wisconsin at Madison links class ranks to increased stress and depression. At Entangi, this is more than a statistic. It's my lived reality. Our counselor, Miss Hamilton, told me that students are taking so many CCP classes to boost their class rank that we
084see them often fall into depressive episodes. Alfie Khan and Ruth Canara, both leading education critics uh for the New York University, say it plainly, competition drives insanity. In this case, these class rankings are driving insanity. Worse yet, class rank pushes students to choose weighted classes over classes that they find meaningful. One of my friends in a conversation told me he's not going to take a leadership elective next year simply because of the fact that it would drive down his GPA. The current solidatoran told me plainly the fact that he had to give up all these classes was not worth it. Meanwhile, the value of class rank through college admissions is going down tremendously. The National Association of Secondary School Principles confirms its declining value. When students are continuously focusing on driving up a number, they
085are not focusing enough on doing stuff of value to actually bolster their chances of attending their dream universities. Behind every single GPA is a story. A student studying while conferring a crying sibling. Someone pushing through anxiety. A teen quietly carrying family burdens while trying to smile in class. Class ranking does not see this. Now, students at Mason High School, the number fourth ranked public high school, which has actually made their rankings private, have told me that this policy has increased their levels of happiness and their levels of approval in this school. Let's follow their lead. Let's make ranks private and counselor accessible only for scholarship purposes. This isn't only about lowering your standards. It's about raising humanity for the future of this school district. Let's tell students that they are enough. They are not just
086numbers. They are people. Thank you. So, uh, Rohan, as you're, you know, feel free to step if you want. We don't usually talk back, but I think we all would maybe have an opportunity like an opportunity to respond, especially. Yeah. So, um, so first of all, thank you so much. It's rare that we get students to come and give public participation. It does happen from time to time, but we always value your voice incredibly. Um, one of the the challenges of being on a board is we don't work directly with the students in all circumstances. And so understanding the student voice is incredibly important. Um, the the topic that you've brought up has been a concern that I think a lot of us have have talked about generally in terms of achievement culture um, and
087some of the stresses that can come with that. I know it's been a focus as we've looked in our well-being department over time. What I might suggest is I know Dr. Barren is here. see her there, the the lady in the blue outfit. What I might suggest is that you might talk to her briefly. And this could be something that one we bring to our uh mental health and well-being committee uh to talk a little bit about. It's something we've uh thought about over the past uh few meetings about um specialized issues in in education that that may create different forms of stress or other sorts of um of negative impacts on students. And that's something we'd be very much interested in hearing about. We do have um students from each of the high schools
088on our mental health and well-being committee specifically to get that student voice. So I know that they would be enjoy being part of that discussion and um whenever we can have that come as a student driven um you know uh uh issue it it's one that we very much take seriously. So I'd encourage you to maybe add up with Dr. Barretts over there and if we can get that on one of those agendas we'll be happy to do it. Uh but in the meantime, I I really appreciate um your thoughtfulness around the impact on on your peer students. Um as well as on, you know, just the the culture of the school itself. It's always something where we want to achieve well. We want to have high standards, but we don't want to harm people
089in the process. Agree with that 100%. And I just like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to give and speak my voice here today. Yeah. I'm just very impressed with how well researched and how much time and effort you clearly put into um this topic and it's one that's very very important and something that I've certainly seen is um some of the unintended consequences of such a high achieving district may be that toxic achievement culture that we certainly want to try to combat. So thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you. What are you studying at Cornell business? Thank you. Thank you. proud of you. All right. Uh so we are moving then to our uh first discussion item which is uh the student fees. Student fees and I for sure before you go
090I can see I'm heading out and you can reach out to I'm I'm Michelle Blackley the chief academic officer but I'd love to chat with you. Okay. Um, always great to hear from our kids, right? Their lived experience. So, thank you. Um, thanks. Good evening, board members. Um, my first um, discussion item I have for you is a rationale for the changes in student fees. Uh, that tonight we're asking for your approval on those changes. As you might imagine or guess, the reason for um at most of our changes are um due to inflationary pressures and um particularly um the cost of groceries affecting our family and consumer science courses. Um and then we're also um seeing an increase in advanced placement testing fees in all subject areas, which is of course out of our
091control. Um at the middle school we do have an increase in cost in some consumables but you know as we continue to make decisions um from the lens of cost savings and cost avoidance um in every opportunity we can. This is an example of where the middle school art teachers came together and did an assessment of supplies and realized that um across the middle schools we do have enough supplies that there was no need to um add the fee this year. Uh and additionally in seventh grade digital creation the change in the curricular focus um we realized we didn't need that fee. Of course elementary school fees will remain at zero with no proposed changes. Um the other thing that we were looking to change is a clarification really. We have a $25 um fee
092for competitive clubs like debate club in the no. Um that is actually changing to $25 per event. Are there any questions on this item? Am I just a history lesson? Am I right in remembering that there used to be elementary fees and they're Yes. No. broken. Yeah. Yes. $35. Correct. I I do think it's important to put the fees in context, right? So, um pay to participate fees. So, for us, for all Tangi, if you have a student in activities, it's $80. $80. Yes. Heliard's 100, Richardson's 125, Westerville is 150, Ghana is 200, Brownsburg is 500. And so I think we've done a really good job of keeping our fees in check and not using a fees as a way of kind of backdooring a levy, right? So we really trying to keep the fees
093very reasonable. Um, and I think it's $80. And hey, I have four girls go through that played sports that we pay fees, but and it feels like you're getting feed to death, but at the end of the day, our fees are very reasonable relative to other school districts and what other uh districts are doing. So, I commend um the administration on keeping these fees very reasonable. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. So, now um tonight I'm going to ask you to consider approving um our proposal for literacy resources um which will be a total cost to the district of 2,755,336.72 and I realize that it is a significant and substantial ask and a financial commitment of the district. So tonight, um I just want to take a few moments to give you some more information.
094Um number one, to explain to you the why. Why are we making this um substantial purchase? Number two, what are some specific details about that purchase? And then lastly, what um are some cost savings, cost avoidance um strategies that we put into place with this process. Um, first, uh, I just would like to remind the board that, um, Ohio Revised Code states that we did need to align our English language arts um, resources to the science of reading. The law also further stated that we can only use core curriculum from the list of resources established from the state. Um so therefore to align to that state law the state requirement we did need to we do need to adopt a core literacy program. So tonight I'm um asking that the board approve the purchase of
095Benchmark Advance as our core literacy program and 95% phonics core um the phonics core program. Some other information I think that's important to know with such a substantial um size request is that benchmark advance um is a core curriculum that will be used in all 17 of our elementary buildings and almost um 10,000 tangi students in grades K5 will use that curriculum. The purchase is actually a three-year um subscription and contract, 3 years worth of digital resources and student consumables. So, the total cost for the 3 years is $2,190,42542. We were able knowing this was coming down the pike, our the curriculum department did a great job at at budgeting. So, we are splitting that cost over two quotes. one um for um fiscal year 25 and then the second part of that purchase coming
096out of our fiscal year 26 budget the 95% phonics program um and 95% is the name of it so it sometimes gets confusing wondering what the other it gets confusing right so it's the 95% is the name of the program um it does benefit over 3500 students in grades four and five across 17 elementary bu um buildings. Again, this is also a three-year purchase and that total cost is $564,91130. Um note though and and yet another way that we as um a curriculum team are looking at cost savings, cost avoidance. Um it was determined we already use foundations as a phonics program in the district. it is on the state approved list. Um so we will continue to use that K3 and there will be no additional phonics program purchased at this time for those
097grade levels. So lastly um again being such a large purchase um I did want to give you an opportunity to see why the three-year contract was chosen. um benchmark advance actually if we purchased it annually its initial cost would be $2 million uh with a yearly renewal fee of $610,000. So over 3 years that would cost the district $3.22 million. Also, if we purchased the um benchmark advance annually, teacher training, and that would be 25 days of teacher training, um would be an additional $77,000 each year for that training. Um so, the three-year benchmark proposal that I bring to you today, that three-year contract, um it not only includes the 25 days of teacher training, but then it also saves the district, um one 2220,000 in potential costs. Additionally, with a multi-year contract with a
09895% BONX program, we received a 15% discount and also f fixed cost on our resources for the next three [Music] years. Thank you for allowing me to give you an overview on um our request. Hey, and board, I'd also want to point out so that uh Mr. Jenkins, correct me. We talked about this. The state did provide $990,000 uh towards the adoption, the new adoption. Correct. How much? 990,000. Correct. Who's paying the rest? We are. But uh you know, I did I did want to point that out. Yeah. State did contribute. Well, and and I think it's important to understand with this stuff, it's not like there's a version of this out there that costs $50, right? I mean, it's any there's not open source, right? And we're not buying for one elementary school. Like
099I said, we're buying for almost 10,000 students, right? So, I mean, that there are costs here no matter which program we identified. And so, it's it's trying to find the one that works best for us. And that we could be as fiscally responsible, but these are going to be large purchases no matter which option we go with. That's correct. Yeah. And we save money because this is multi-year. Correct. That is correct. Would that be more difficult with the carryover limits? Yeah. Yeah. And without being able to plan more than two years out, right? Yes. Yeah. Thank you. Everything we do planning wise becomes exponentially harder with that provision. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks. All right, Mr. Jenkins. The treasurer consent action items. Let me get back there. I was looking for research on the amount of
100money from uh House Bill 33. It was tucked away in the last bianium budget to provide. I was looking for the amount per pupil. I guess I could divide backwards and figure that out, but that's where it came from, the 990,000. It's impressive that you can divide both backwards and forwards. So, it's great. just through. So tonight's treasure consent action items um per usual will be presented to you all as one single uh agenda or calendar asking you to uh vote on them all at once. Uh but the items um for your consideration would be item A which is the April 10th board meeting minutes. Item B, uh the donations noted in the treasures report. Item C, recommending the acceptance of the March 25 uh financials. Item D, uh the revised appropriation uh measure for
101FY25. And again, I'm presenting items A uh through D as one single motion uh and action unless any member of the board would like to pull an item or items out for further deliberation. All right. All right. Would anyone like to pull any of those out for for separate deliberation? All right. Hearing none. Uh can I get a motion to approve the entire slate of consent action items? So moved. A second. Second. Right. Any discussion? Right. Mr. Jenkins. Dr. Dero. Yes. Dr. Wallik. Yes. Mr. O'Brien. Yes. Miss Shriber. Yes. Mr. Lester. Yes. All right. Mr. Ry, the superintendent consent action items. Thank you, Mr. Lester. Board members, I recommend approval of the following superintendent consent action items A through J. A. Specific human resource items administrative. B. Specific human resource items certified staff. C. Specific
102human resource item supplementals. D. Specific human resource items classified. E. Specific human resource items classified substitutes. And with a big star, F. The class of 2025 seniors for graduation. G. 202526 student fees. H, student overnight and out of state field trips. I, the curriculum purchases uh for literacy adoption, and J, business management and facilities item of uh in in practical transportation. I'm asking you to approve these items by one single action and vote unless you'd like to discuss any of these items separately. All right. Would anyone like to hear these separately? Maybe reading all the names for graduation. Okay. No interest then. Uh, I'll uh entertain a motion to approve the uh entire slate of consent action items. So moved. A second. Second. Any discussion? I would say congratulations to all the new hires, but
103um a little shout out uh Mr. Sherman, welcome to Cider Ridge. Um there's three crazy girls going into third, fourth, and fifth next year. Be warned. All right. Uh Mr. Jenkins, please call the role. Dr. Waller, yes. Mr. O'Brien, yes. Miss Shriber, yes. Mr. Lester, yes. Dr. Dabrico, yes. All right. I will now uh entertain a motion to enter into executive session as permitted by Ohio Revised Code section 12122G1 uh to discuss the employment or compensation of a public employee. And I'll just note that uh we will not be taking any action other than to adjourn uh when we uh return. Uh so can I have a motion? So moved. A second. All right. Any discussion? All right, Mr. Jenkins. Mr. O'Brien. Yes. Miss Shriber. Yes. Mr. Lester. Yes. Dr. Dabberco. Yes. Dr. Wall. Yes.
104All right. We are going to executive session. Better bring my purse with me. It's 9:56 p.m. session. I'll entertain a motion to any discussion. All right, Mr. Jenkins, please cover. Yes. Dr. O'Brien. Yes. We are