Olentangy Schools, Board of Education 4.10.25

001All right. Good evening everybody and welcome to the uh April 10th uh meeting of the Orangi Local School District Board of Education. I'll call this meeting to order. Uh Mr. Jenkins, can you please call the role? Mr. Lester, here. Dr. Dabberco here. Dr. Wallak here. Mr. O'Brien here. Miss Shriber here. All right. Can you 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 don't believe we have any amendments to the agenda. That's a little feels a little hot on the microphone. Uh hearing. Yeah. Uh I don't believe we have any amendments to the agenda. Okay. All right. Can I have a motion

002to approve the agenda? So moved. I second. Second. Any discussion? All right. Mr. Jenkins. Dr. Dabberco. Yes. Dr. Mr. Wallak. Yes. Mr. O'Brien. Yes. Mr. Shriber. Yes. Mr. Lester. Yes. All right. For the board president's report. So, first of all, I hope everyone had a wonderful spring break. Uh it is uh always good to take some time to relax and recharge, especially as we head into a very busy time of the year with all of the end of year celebrations and with graduation and and all of that. This is always one of our favorite points just that we get to recognize all of the wonderful things that our students have done and that our um you know that our team has helped to accomplish. So, uh yeah, we're really looking forward to it and hope

003everybody has a great rest of the year. We'll talk a little bit more as we go along. Um as we've been doing throughout uh this year, obviously it's state operating budget season and that uh that's been a big focus because you know uh funding for public schools is always a concern uh especially in a district like this. So, we have been talking in each of our meetings about the progress of how that has moved forward and and the steps that have happened. Um, we'll talk about or I'll talk about that a little bit more here in a second and Mr. Jenkins will talk about that. Uh, but I want to provide what this put this discussion in a little bit of context. Um, school funding in Ohio for a long time is what charitably might

004be called a mess, right? It is it has had a lot of fits and starts. that's gone up to uh the state supreme court, you know, over and over again. There's been a lot of challenges and a lot of different ways that people have tried to address that. Um in a district like this, it is it has really been especially a challenge, especially as we're, you know, a higher wealth district and that has impacted the types of funding that has come in. And so over time, uh we have seen it on Tangi, you know, well before I got on the board, um you know, well before probably any of us, it's been a concern in this district. Um we've seen, you know, relatively low amounts of funding that have come in from the state. We've

005seen a little bit higher, especially with the passage of the fair school funding plan. Um but it's been a continual, you know, a continual fight uh for that to happen. And and what we are receiving from the state is not sufficient uh to be able to carry out this the sort of stuff that makes a district great like this. So the burden of of most of that has fallen on the local taxpayers. And in districts across the state, we've seen a couple of different approaches to what local taxpayers have to do. Um, in some districts, they have chosen not to pass levies. And we've seen what the impacts of that look like, right? The the schools are providing sort of the basics that are required by the state. They don't have the newer facilities. They

006don't have some of these things that allow schools to to to continue to thrive. Property values stay relatively low in those areas. Um, and then you have other communities that have chosen to support the schools through through regular le levy passages. And that's what we've seen in Tangi for the past 25 years or so. We've seen regular levies that have have gone gone forward and have allowed this district to grow and to really become the preeminent district in the state. Um, it is an investment that the community makes in its schools to see the value of that, to understand what that does for the young people in the community and what it does for the community itself. I mean, our property values are through the roof, right? The the standard of living is is so

007much higher. We I don't know if anybody knows this, Delaware County has the highest life expectancy of any county in the state. We're like five year five and a half years higher than any other count or than the the state average, right? A lot of this stuff comes because you have people that want to move to an area that has good schools and Ontary, right? We have provided uh so many opportunities. There are so many things that our schools do so incredibly well. And it's not just academics, it's athletics and it's arts and it's giving back to the community, right? So, we have an incredible experience um for our students. While that is going on, we are always mindful of the need to try to relieve the pressure on the local taxpayer. That's why for

008the past, you know, as long as I've been on the board, I know before before I was on the board, we've talked about cost-saving measures that we're trying to do. We're trying to find ways so that we can relieve that burden where the state funding is not coming in and we're trying to to make it the the best bargain that we can get for people. and we're continuing our advocacy efforts with the state so that we do try to get some of those funds. A few years ago, they passed the fair school funding plan that we thought was going to be a step toward getting some of those funds um you know coming in so that we relieve a little bit of that burden on the local community um as we get to this budget

009cycle. That was our expectation is that we would continue to have that discussion and try to find some additional funding so that we don't have to go back as often on the levy so that that when we do the the lower dollar amounts uh when the governor's budget came out and as we've talked about that the past couple of times you know they wanted to fully fully phase in the fair school funding plan which was good but they were using some outdated numbers and it was leading to lower amounts that Tangi would receive and and almost taking us back to the days of before the fair school funding plan. So, we've been engaged in continuous advocacy efforts to try to get, you know, more more for the district. The next step after the governor's budget

010is that it goes to the house and the house has its version of the budget and it and it's, you know, it's making all the markups that it does. the House version of the budget um takes a different approach to how it's allocating funds. And you know, there may be a little bit higher, a little bit lower in terms of the specific allocations that they're doing. But there's something that's really concerning that that showed up in the House budget that was approved this week, which is what's called a clawback. And what that does is it takes funds that the community again the community has had to step up and support schools that have voted these funds in for the schools to use and says over a certain percentage of our operating budget has to be

011returned back to the community. Right? So this is fund these are funds that the district has already received from local voters who said we want to make this investment in our schools and it has to go back. What that means is that our funding will go down to a financial emergency at a much earlier point than I think anyone was expecting. And Mr. Jenkins will talk about this more in his report. But this idea of taking funds back from the district is going to create a very different school district if that's ultimately adopted. So we are going to talk about this a little bit more in Mr. Jenkins report. We're going to explain it. We're going to try to give as much information as we can to the community because it's important that people understand

012exactly how it plays out. But this sort of idea of the voters have approved it and we're not providing additional funds to to offset that from the state. instead it's coming out of the school's coffers and going back uh there can have a very very very significant impact on what tangi schools are right so it is our responsibility as board members to try to create the most uh the the best school district that we possibly can and I and I'm here to say that this will make it very difficult to do that right as we go forward. So we'll continue to engage in our advocacy with with the state. We're going to continue to discuss this with the community. But what I encourage more than anything else is for people to get educated about these

013issues, to learn about them, to understand the pros and cons of everything that's happening, to speak with your legislators, to speak with us, and try to understand this because our goal more than anything else is to ensure that the the truly tremendous work of everyone in this district continues, that we continue to support the community in the way that it should be. So, I realize that was a little bit longer. There was a dead ending. Uh, but this is something that's really important and and we're really trying to do the best that we can for the for the district. Um, with that, I know that we uh Dr. Wallik has a couple of updates from the OSBA. We also probably have a couple committee updates. Sounds good. Uh, thank you, Mr. Lester. So, I just

014wanted to uh update the board and the community that uh recently the Ohio School Boards Association Board of Trustees met uh to accept the resignation of the CEO, Dr. Kathy McFarland. Um many of you may know that Dr. Kathy McFarland is a Nolan Tangi resident, a former administrator of our district, and so she has been CEO of OSBA, really being a voice for public education for school boards across the state. Uh what's exciting is she's resigning uh to take on the position of executive director of COSPA which is a national organization that is I mean it's essentially OSBA at the national level right so she'll continue to be an advocate for public education and school boards across the country so certainly want to wish her well in that endeavor u but also wanted everyone to

015understand that uh OSBA is currently uh starting the process of seeking out its next CEO So, some changes on the horizon there. That's good. Okay. Do we have any committee up there? I think facilities met. Yes. Uh facilities facilities committee met last week. Dr. Dabberco and I attended um we had very informative session. Um including presentations by uh Mr. Datillio who's here in the audience and uh the principal Carla Baker of um Bergkshire Middle School. So she described the difference in culture and the challenges that Bergkshire experienced when they were sort of over capacity at 1300 students in a school that was designed to hold about a thousand at max. Um everything from students feeling increased anxiety in the hallways because they're too cramped to uh teachers having to skip their planning periods in order

016to um supervise students who had to be, you know, in study halls in these sort of makeshift areas and and teachers having to plan, you know, in corners of the library while other things are going on and things like that. Um and even like the facilities wear and tear on on the facilities. she said poor maintenance was out fixing something in the bathrooms at least once a week because they're just being used so often. So that was very helpful because the overall um discussion also was around you know what do we do with the increased middle school population that's coming based on the population projections and so um Bruce Renan who has been working with the district for for many many years came out and went through sort of one by one with all our

017middle schools and said here's what an expansion on this middle school might look like. um and as opposed to building a new middle school um or perhaps in addition to um depending on you know what sort of plans we're looking at and I think overall the sentiment was that adding on to the middle schools was going to um not necessarily be the best choice for our district because of those concerns that that Mr. Datilio and Miss Baker um described and and the increased population in middle schools being making it harder to have a good cohesive school culture and allowing staff to give kids that one-on-one attention. So, um it was a good informative session that we talked about, you know, logistics of it and the sort of overall impact on students. So, um I know

018that's sort of part of the overall middle school discussion that is going around over what to do with Shanahan Middle School and whether and and with um a new middle school as well as we're considering it moving forward. So, the big picture of this, and there's nobody here that knows this more than Mr. O'Brien, the big picture is we're planning years ahead. We're planning 20 to 40 years ahead is what we talked about. Not not just in the next five years. We're planning way down the line. So, we you just call me old. We have pretty good projections that go plus or minus 1%. And um that's why we have 5-year forecast. That's why we have a carryover is so that we can be ready to take on the growth that's coming. And um that's

019our why. That's the why we have the carryover. That's why we do a five-year forecast. Um I think Mr. Gordon even had we saw one document was like a 40year plan for improvement. Yeah. I mean that's that's that's how you best manage people our taxpayers money is by planning and looking ahead and planning for everything that foreseeably is going to happen that we're going to need that money for. So that's the why we have that carryover. All right. Any other updates? So I guess the only thing I' I'd offer is so one I think Mr. Dabber College just called me old. I'll get over that. Um, but I do think the message around kind of elections matter, right? So, who represents us, who's our voice in the legislature matters, okay? Um, Senator Brener, Representative Lear,

020they are not our advocates. They're not supporting public education. They're not supporting the needs of Tangi. Mr. Loren is here tonight, right? willing to come to a meeting, listen, hear, be an advocate for us when necessary. Uh I wish we had that across the board with our legislative team, but we don't. And um matter of fact, I would say Miss Lear is an ad is an active antagonist to public education versus an advocate. And so I think we need to really think about who we support in the legislature and do they have our voice and do they have our interest in mind? Uh I don't think they do. Uh but I do think uh Mr. Loren at least is willing to come here, listen to us, hear us, have him share our point of view.

021Um we we may not agree, but at least he shows up. Uh the others don't. And um elections matter, period. Thank you. All right, we are going to move into our first presentation, which is the speech and debate team. So, we've heard lots of speech and debate. We'll have more speech and debate. Very much uh look forward to hearing from you all. So, come on up. Hello, I'm Rebecca Granada. I am the speech and debate coach at uh at Liberty High School and the other speech and debate coaches are here and standing. Yes. So, we've got speech and debate. So, speech and debate is an is a team event at all four high schools in the entangi tangi district and it's been for it's been at Tangi High School for the longest. We've had it

022since it was at one building and it has really taken off in the last few years. And so our students are going to talk more about that. I'm just going to kind of give you guys an overview of what speech and debate is because if you haven't done it before, you kind of don't understand. And the best way to understand it is to think of it like track and field for you athletic people. So track and field, there's people that run the, you know, hundred yard dash. There are people that do the field events and they're very different, right? Throwing the shot put is very different than running the two-mile. And so speech and debate is a lot like that. We have our debate events and debate. We have three main debate events. Lincoln Douglas

023debate, public forum debate, and congressional debate. And in public forum and Lincoln Douglas, it's one versus one is Lincoln Douglas and two versus two is public forum. They have to study both sides of a debate. So for two months they do the same topic and that means they study the aside and the next negide and they don't know until they get their room assignment whether they're going to be af or neg that round and they usually do five do five rounds of about an hour of debate each time and they have to understand each side. In congressional debate, they don't always do each side, but they actually write the bills, pass them, and get graded on their speaking ability and how they clash in arguments. It's a great event for for politicalminded people. It the

024students actually run the entire the entire room and they have a um presiding officer that keeps time and they go to Robert's rules of order. So they learn some really invaluable skills. On the other side we have speech and speech can go into three different buckets. I always say there is extemporaneous speaking which you are if you are a person with really great nerves this is the event for you. You get a topic and you have 30 minutes and your laptop to write memorize a seven minute speech. And yes they do this four to five times on a Saturday. new topic each time. And some of our really uh our really adventurous kids, there's both US extemporaneous speaking, meaning the topics are US topics, or there's international. And some of our kids actually participate in

025both. They double enter if they can. And then our second type of speech event are interpretive events. So these are ones where they're delivering something that somebody else already wrote. It might be a speech that somebody else already wrote. It might be a poem. It might be a piece from a movie or a play. And then the third type of speech event is the kind that they write themselves. So it's either an original oratory, think TED talk, or an informative speech with old-fashioned boards that they show um information about in their informative speech. Our competitions are Saturdays. We run kind of like a winter sport where we start practicing in September, October and it really gets running November, December, January. February is our districts and our state is in March. And so it runs a

026lot like a winter sport. We're a team, not a club. So just like track and field the points that they earn when the kids do well go into our team pool and at the end of a tournament you know there is a team winner besides individual winners. So yes they usually call up the top six in each event but um just for participating we get points in each one and we earn points as a team. Speech and debate of course is about speaking but it's about so much more. We teach them to care. We teach them to, you know, care about the message that they send. They know a lot about, they care a lot about how people are going to judge them, right? I always say something to my students. I I tell them,

027"This is a really hard thing that we do in speech and debate. I'm really proud of you for trying it." Because what's what are high schoolers most worried about? Being judged, right? And then I load them up on a bus and I take them every Saturday and they are judged five times in a row by adults they don't know. And um it makes them learn a lot about themselves. It learns about they learn about that message and how important it is. Um they learn to not only care about messaging but in the end they end up caring about each other. We kind of create this little community. It's even interesting in how well our students, even though we're from different high schools, we're still one Olant Tangi. How well we know each other. How when

028an Olant Tangi bus breaks down, another Olant Tangi bus will pick you up on the way. Or if we've overflowed our bus, we can flow it to another Olant Tangi. And they always get us confused when we show up at tournaments. Which Olangi are you from? Because our students know each other and we as coaches do, too. Um, I think it's really important when you guys are talking about, you know, um, h how you want us to have a a strong community. The kind of kids that do speech and debate, they're learning skills that will make our community better. They're learning how to listen to someone. Our best debaters don't yell and scream at each other. You know what they do? They listen and they take notes and they respond to that d that what

029the other person is saying directly because if they don't have clash we're going to mark them down. So they know that they have to listen and take notes. Our original orators tend to write about things that are happening right now and and things that are affecting students right now. So, you know, it these kind of kids will add to our community as they graduate and I think they'll come back here. Um, so we're going to let you hear a little bit from each one of our high schools because our students want to talk. You don't want to hear me talk, but I was just going to give you a quick overview. So, do we want to call is there Who wants to go first? Liberty, you come up first. You're my kids. introduce yourself and

030go ahead. So, my name is Shory Mishra and I've been doing congressional debate at Liberty High School for three years now. Hi, my name is Greca Yaletti. I'm a junior and I've been doing speech and debate for two years. I'm a captain of interp events and I complete compete in declamation. My name is Vsha Banana Makala. I'm a junior and I've been doing speech and debate for 3 years and I've been competing in declamation. So over the last 3 years that I was a part of the congressional debate team, I've had the pleasure of meeting so many new faces and it's been very interesting to see how much the team has grown. In just the last 3 years, we've grown almost 50% and in the 2024 to 255 school year, there are 76 people on

031this uh team and I've gotten to know many of them personally and we have a really strong relationship. And even beyond the school, we have good ties with other schools, other debate events. It's really neat to see how a whole community is formed around this shared love of uh oration and like debate. These students dedicate countless hours to researching, writing, and practicing, and it shows. In our 2025 season, we had 25 state qualifiers. In our 2024 season, we had a state champion in Senate debate. But this is not just a matter of numbers. Well, not all students make it to the state level. The experience in itself is incredibly transformative. We don't just walk away with trophies. We walk away with a valuable skill set such as confidence and public speaking, critical thinking skills, and

032the ability to articulate ideas under pressure and most importantly, the ability to communicate with others effectively. Um, more importantly, we don't just walk away with temporary achievements. we walk away with lifelong assets and lessons that we learned throughout the years. Um, no matter what profession or career we're going into, these skills will take us way beyond our high school years and will really benefit us in the professional world. And so, I think in that sense, speech and debate is not just about recognition. It's ultimately about growth and really figuring out who you are as a person and connecting with others. So, [Applause] is awesome. [Applause] Good morning, Oleni High School speech. Apologize. Good morning, Oleni board of education. My name is Norash Aluri and I currently serve as a secretary and interpretation captain for the

033Entangi High School speech and debate team. I am here to show off my team's many accolades as well as raise support for the entangi speech and debate team as a whole. This year high school underwent tremendous growth. We became one of the most competitive and well-known teams in the state thanks to our over 100 fierce and passionate competitors. At the 2025 Ohio speech and debate state finals in March, we as a team placed eighth in the state, sealing our position as a top 10 school in Ohio. For a team that hard for a team that hardly had 40 competitors just two years ago, my freshman year, this is insane. On an individual level, our team had one state champion, two state runners up, and multiple quarter and semiplacers this past state final tournament. We have

034consistently placed a sweep stakes at each tournament we go to and complete weekly all over Ohio. On the national level, we had nine total qualifiers this year, six in speech and three in debate for the national speech and debate tournament in De Mo, Iowa this June. We are also an NSDA charter school with over 200 NSDA degrees of achievement and even hold the student with the highest amount of NSDA comp competition points in the state of Ohio. Speech innovate is extremely beneficial to the mindset of facilitating maximum learning as it allows students to effectively collaborate with other students and embolden their public speaking skills. I can speak from experience about being given the opportunity to network with some of the most amazing OSDA alumni such as national finalists who went on to become distinguished members

035in society. We as a team are extremely proud of the hard work and commitment each and every student puts in a speech and debate and we ask for that same pride and support for our old Tangi speakers from our school district. Thank you. [Applause] All right. So now for Tangi Berlin speech and debate team. Now we're a relatively new club at Berlin as we are only three years old. Our first year we only had nine students participating on our team and now we have 64. We have seen massive growth within Tangerville and High School. Now, with those 64 students, 13 of them this year were able to participate in the state tournament, six of those made it to the quarterfinals and two of which going to semi-finals at our state tournament, getting statewide recognition. Now,

036at Berlin, since we are a new team, we love to stress building a culture around speech and debate, building a c culture of leadership, and building a culture of legacy. Now, that includes sending people to state obviously and getting those achievements, but it also includes implementing that legacy and those achievements into every single student who participates in this team. Now, we've seen that once again, we are not a club. We are not a resume builder. We are a team. We compete every weekend and we competitively decide to commit ourselves to improving our public speaking skills, to improving our communication because we see the importance in it. Now, as this is a student created and studentled club, it gives students the opportunity to promote productivity, to promote excellence, to promote inclusivity, and also to put themselves

037in leadership positions and promote their own skills. But is not only an outlet, an opportunity to improve public speaking and communication. It is also a forum to address issues and concerns that we will be face to face with as young adults. It helps students like myself be able to have an outlet to talk about these issues that directly affect us. I mean, what other club would you be able to learn about the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court competitively? How fun is that? But to us, speech and debate, once again, is not a club. It's a team. It's community and most of all, it's an opportunity to connect to the world around us. We're looking forward to continuing to grow as a team and seeing that number go up and seeing every single student

038that walks through Berlin Speech and Debate be affected and be able to recognize and actively communicate to the world around them. Thank you. [Applause] Hi, my name is Maya and I am one of the public forum debate captains for Orange High School. Um, this is my second year competing. Hi, I'm Samir Kandari. I'm one of the congressional debate captains at Orange and this is my third year competing. Now, much similar to much similarly to Berlin, we are one of a a relatively new speech and debate team. We've only been operating for three years. In winter of 2022, we we began our we began our competition. We began our team and in 20 in but in the 2023 season, we only had 14 competitors and and competed in two tournaments. We learned a lot about however

039that year we learned a lot about how competition works and how to strategize and how to win. We made incredible progress in order to progress into this year. This year we saw incredible growth as a team. We saw 200% growth in our membership, but we also made it incredibly far in how we and how in our success in terms of placement. We we had numerous state qualifiers including a finalist and a semi-finalist in Congress. And we also had 11 competitors place at novice competition which is really just a signifier of how we are going to continue to grow as a team well into the future. So it's no secret that Orange's speech and debate is a little bit smaller than the rest of our district counterparts. And to combat this, our first initiative starting uh

040as soon as possible either implementing it starting this year and next year is really working with our middle schoolers. And this is starting with Orange Middle School because we've seen as kids come into high school, they already know what they want to do. They already know they want to dedicate their time to the marching band, to theater, to sports. So to combat this, we want to start early because our future generation is what is going to propel us forward at Orange. I'm a junior at Orange, so I know my time is coming to an end and I might not reach all my goals in speech and debate. But instead of deteriorating, instead of this deferring me from pushing harder, it's actually making me push forward so I can see our future generation at Orange strive

041and reach the goals that I couldn't myself. Great. Any uh any comments for the group? I am just so impressed by everybody. Um whether you came up to speak or whether you supported your classmates, your teammates. Um, I mean, we obviously always celebrate when we have certain tangible accomplishments like advancing to certain levels, but I loved hearing how everybody supports one another and how it's really about your self-development and your relationships and building each other up and I think that's exactly what Olan Tangi is all about and I love to see it and I just so inspired and I can't wait to see how many more students coming up from the middle schools right now or elementary schools will be a part of your amazing teams. So much clap for it's it's no surprise that

042the highlight the best part of being a school board member is getting to see our students in action and getting to learn about the wonderful things that you're doing in our district. I was listening to each of you speak with this passion and conviction and and this enthusiasm. I was getting a little misty up here because it's it's very impressive. Um, auditionally, I'm going to go ahead and say I don't think anybody was reading the PowerPoint, which is something a lot of adults are incapable of doing. They got to read every bullet, you know. So, kudos. Uh, it's great skill set. Um, I feel like Dr. Dabberco and I need to drop in on on some team practices because he and I talk a lot, but we just sound like dum dums. No, I think

043it was fabulous. The only thing I'll say is so Miss Kandari, I've argued with your father at work a long time. You've been much more effective. Uh well, what what I I'll echo all of that. Um, and it what you just sort of showed here is kind of a perfect encapsulation what I was trying to say uh at the outset, which is when we invest in our students, right? It's really building up our community and and the sorts of approaches that you're taking to listening to each other um to talking about it civily, right? to finding ways to engage so that it's not just social media comment sections where it's not uh uh right but but to understand each side to to listen to those arguments and to get a better understanding of each other

044as we as we work to solve problems. That is something that's sorely needed in our society, right? And and you all are building that up and you're going to have those skills and then you're going to put them whether you're here in the future, whether you know you go somewhere else, no matter what, you're going to be enriching those communities. So it it's always a great activity. this is a a wonderful activity for for students to learn, but I'm just so impressed with the way that you're accomplishing it and the way that you're going to carry that forward. So, thank you really truly. Yeah. And Mr. Leer, I just like to add uh thank you for being here tonight, too, because there's so many great things that happen across our district and this is just

045another example. Um, so I really appreciate it and also want to thank our coaches uh for being here too because the amount of time that you invest that you invest above and beyond uh coaching these students uh really week after week after week because it's a long long season when you start in the fall and all the way through the winter. And then also I think we have some parents uh in the audience too. So, I always uh want to take time to recognize parents and thank you for what you do and thank you for sending us such wonderful uh kids on a daily basis across our great district. So, great job. All right. Uh so, you all are free to stay for the rest of the meeting if you would like, but uh if

046you have other activities, you're certainly free to go as well. So, uh if you want, we'll give you a second. Thank you. Thanks for your time. Uh we have our next presentation, Miss Ford to uh present on elementary literacy adopt. This is always the hottest seat to come into you know just absolutely presentation. So and then to think if I would have had all of them in the audience I would have been even more nervous. They did a fantastic job. Um, good evening members of the board. My name is Ebony Ford and it's my pleasure to serve our district as the curriculum supervisor K12 literacy in collaboration with Mindy Schultz, our assistant director of elementary curriculum under the leadership of Ben Statilio, who is our curriculum um, director. I'm here tonight to share with you

047updates on our K5 elementary core curriculum resource adoption process and recommend for your consideration the purchase of Benchmark Advance as the OOLSD elementary literacy resource for our students, teachers and families. Also, we are recommending that in addition, we continue with foundations in grades K through three and adopt 95% group for word study in grades four and five. Arriving at this recommendation has been a detailed and focused process. I stand before you today as a representative of a very large diverse group of stakeholders that engaged in deep exploration to ensure we are able to recommend the best resource for our students. You can see from this list there are representatives from every area that served on the review team to ensure that feedback was provided from all perspectives when reviewing the literacy resource options. representative came

048from areas such as curriculum, instruction or technology, pupil services, and data and continuous improvement. We also had a total of 34 pilot teachers, two teachers from each of our elementary buildings. The pilot teachers worked alongside their buildings literacy specialists to pilot the material options by putting them into practice with their students and providing feedback. There was also input provided from the district continuous improvement committee which consists of parent representatives. We even had input from our middle school literacy specialists to provide expertise about literacy instruction beyond fifth grade. Another important member of our team was our district dyslexia specialist who provided valuable feedback on phonics and word study instruction found in our pilot resources. While I know that we don't have time to read each and every individual name in their building, I would like to

049pause here to say thank you to all the individuals who served on our review team. Thank you for sharing your knowledge, your talents, and time because this process would not have been complete without each of you. Our review process encompassed several phases. First, we had a team that analyzed all the state approved resources utilizing a rubric and determined which ones were most closely aligned with our OSD literacy model. At this phase, we identified the top four. Second, we invited the top four vendors to come and to present to our team. Following the presentation, the team engaged in reviewing the materials through exploration of the curriculum's digital and print resources. From this examination, we were able to narrow it down to two curriculums, Wit and Wisdom and Benchmark Advance, and we piloted those in each of

050our elementary schools across the district. In addition to observing instruction utilizing the curriculums in our own classroom, a small team also had the opportunity to view the two resources in action in surrounding districts. Finally, we reviewed feedback from all stakeholders inclusive of our review team, our district dyslexia specialist, our district e coordinator, and the continuous improvement committee to determine our final recommendation. Here is a high-level overview of the work we have accomplished since I was before you in January. We had the opportunity to complete our second pilot which was benchmark advance. We also have been able to collect and review the feedback from all stakeholders as well as to conduct the visits to surrounding area districts. Throughout the next few slides, I would like to share with you some of the data we were able

051to receive. When surveying our pilot teachers and literacy specialists, 72% recommended benchmark advance as their first choice for core curriculum in OLSD. To ground our analysis of each resource as a team, we looked closely at Scar Bro's reading rope. Scar Bro's reading rope is rooted in the science of reading and illustrates how skilled reading relies on the intertwining of language comprehension and word recognition. Each strand like phological awareness, decoding, vocabulary, and background knowledge work together, gradually strengthening to create a fluent and meaningful reader. It was important to our team to see strong alignment across all areas of the reading rope to ensure that our selected curriculum continued to build upon the strong literacy foundation that our OSD teachers have built. Using a scale of strongly aligned, aligned, somewhat aligned, and not aligned at all, respondents

052were asked to rate each component of Scar Bro's reading rope to the lessons and materials found in benchmark advance. What you see in front of you is the percentage of respondents who felt the resource was either strongly aligned or aligned with each component. As you can see, there's strong alignment with background knowledge, vocabulary, language structure, verbal reasoning, and literary knowledge. We were also able to observe alignment with the word recognition strands of funological awareness, decoding, and site recognition. This alignment was lower than what was observed with the language comprehension strands. Due to this, we are recommending the continued use of Hegrity and foundations to support strong, explicit, and systematic instruction in those areas for GA for grades K through three, as well as adopting 95% group for grades four through five. In addition to looking

053for alignment of Scar Bro's reading rope, we were also intentional about selecting a resource that met the needs of our diverse learners. While we understand that no resource is perfect, we wanted one that provided a good foundation that our team could build on to support all learners. Benchmark advance includes resources and embedded strategies to help our English language learners. There were several supports found to address our students who need academic interventions as well as those advanced learners. A good percentage of our teachers also found that materials included were easily accessible to use for planning. Benchmark advanced structure and components contain these four areas. developing strong foundational skills, building knowledge, vocabulary and perspectives, reading engaging and diverse texts, and teaching to reach each and every learner. Quantitative data is informative, but qualitative data is where you

054can really start to understand respondents thoughts. For example, a first grade teacher shared, "My students were actively engaged in the learning process throughout my time with Benchmark. The texts were grade level appropriate and they the students enjoyed the various texts that they got to read and listen to each week. They really enjoyed working in the unit magazine and parents found the resources to be extremely beneficial and were impressed by it. My students enjoyed the writing that they did. It was meaningful and purposeful. They stretch out writing tasks to over three weeks, so it gives students plenty of time to focus on making their one writing piece really good. A kindergarten teacher also shared the following when asked why she would recommend benchmark as our core curriculum. the age appropriateness, the high level of engagement from

055the students, the allotted amount of time needed each day, which also allows some time for us to help those who need interventions as well as those who need enrichment. The fact that it aligns with all components of Scarbo's reading rope, the professional development from the company, and so many things. Before I end this presentation, I do want to share two more quotes that provide you with a peak into how our students were feeling about Benchmark. A fifth grade student said, "I think Olen Tangi should choose Benchmark Advance as our reading and writing curriculum because it teaches multiple different skills in a fun and interesting way." A fourth grade student said, "I like the novel, the slideshows, and close reading guides. They were fun and full of great stories. The writing was also fun and I

056liked how we did so much of it. All right. More writing. Exactly. In conclusion, if our recommendation is approved, there will be ongoing and consistent professional development opportunities beginning this spring and through the summer to train our teachers. Benchmark Advance provides robust and rigorous in-person professional learning opportunities for our teachers, our literacy specialists, and administrators. You will notice that a two-year rollout is proposed on the screen. This gradual rollout is exciting because it allows us to go deeper as we focus on each implementation of each component. We found great success utilizing this model with our recent bridges adoption. In phase one, benchmark advanced core curriculum would be implemented along with the continuation of foundations for phonics in grades K through three. We would also use the 202526 school year to get all of our fourth

057and fifth grade teachers trained in 95% group. In phase two, we would continue implementation of benchmark advanced core curriculum for grades K through five as well as add the implementation of 95% group for grades four and five. As stated at the beginning of this presentation, arriving at this recommendation was truly a team effort. Through our process, we believe we had conducted a thorough evaluation and analysis of the resources available to us from the state to select from. We believe that benchmark advance is a good fit for OLSD. It honors the value our the value of our educators by allowing space for teacher choice and autonomy within a consistent curriculum while also meeting the needs of our diverse learners. Thank you. [Applause] Well, okay. So, yes, I have to say something. I've said some stuff about

058this before. Um, again, student presentations and getting to see what stu I mean, that's always like winner winner chicken dinner. However, the next thing that I geek out about is how in the intentionality that goes uh into the vetting process and the selection of curriculum, adhering to what the state is requiring while um staying the course and staying steady with what we know is working in only Tangi, seeking out and looking for where the gaps are, where we think things are falling short and figuring out how to supplement that so that our students are getting the best uh literacy uh learning experience like this. This is um very exciting. I'm thrilled to hear about it. So, and thank you for sharing those quotes from both the teachers and the students. Um you know, it was

059only what was in the last year or two that we adopted new math curriculum at the elementary level. So, I know our uh our our K5 teachers have to be feeling a little bit of a of a stressor there with that, learning how to, you know, adjusting their lesson planning to meet one new curriculum and followed immediately by another. Um, so I think getting their input on this is imperative too. Um, but just kudos to the entire uh, curriculum department and everyone who had a say in this uh, piloting and vetting process. Thank you. [Music] All right. Well, thank you so much for the presation. Appreciate it. All right. Mr. Mayer, the superintendent report. Yeah. Good evening, Miss Ford. Thank you for that. I wanted it. I want to thank you for that presentation and

060for your leadership throughout the process. Uh you're finishing your first year in Tan. You still glad you made the move? Yes, absolutely. I knew she was going to say that. Um but you know, I want to echo uh Dr. Wallick a little bit because again how intentional we are as a district in making these decisions and the involvement and the scope of who's involved um across the district in making these decisions. And again, we just don't drop it uh on the doorsteps of the classrooms, the professional development that will now follow um uh with our teachers. Uh just incredible and extremely proud um of the work of our uh all of the people involved in that process. So, thank you again. All right. So, I say this all the time, but the two best times

061of the school year for me as superintendent, the beginning of the school year and the end of the school year. But I do I you know, obviously I like everything in between, but the reason I say the end of the school year is because we get to honor and recognize so many great things that happen um during the course of a school year. So, this one is chock full of celebrations. the superintendent report. And we're going to start right off the bat with congratulating Orange High School on the uh for the basketball state championship uh that was just won a couple weeks ago. Um you know, so proud of Coach Cao. I I hired him I think 10 or 11 years ago as a teacher and a coach at Orange High School. And um for

062me, when I watched the team play in the final four, I couldn't see the championship uh because I was out of the country. But um when when you look at and and the speech and debate talked about a team and what makes a team, right? And um when when you looked at that team, uh I saw kids who were unselfish. I saw kids who knew their role on the team. Um I saw a culture that just uh were there to support each other. Um and obviously paid off huge by uh going through the tournament and bringing home the state championship. So, congratulations to uh Orange High School. Also, that we like a month ago, Liberty Township unveiled a sign of all the state championships and it's already out of date twice. Twice over. That's right.

063Just in a month. We're just going to keep adding to it. Um, but absolutely also want to recognize our theater programs across our four high schools. So, uh I think Mr. Lester talked about this at the last board meeting, but the high schools have completed their spring musical season. Um, so you can see Berlin High School performing Anastasia Orange uh High School and Liberty High School performing Sweeney Todd and Xanadoo and Owen Tangi High School uh performed Mama Mia. So again, um I I know I always appreciated this as a high school principal because of the talent we have in this district um relative to the performing arts. So uh amazing job and just want to congratulate them on a great year uh in the theater program. So we're going to shift athletics. We went

064to theater, but let's go right to robotics. So, I think uh I think you might have been on the board, but we've had the robot actually here visit the the board. Um so, congratulations again to the Ozone Robotics team uh 4611. And we said when we built that new space over there, uh next door at the academy, the second floor, that the standard, they've already set the standard, so they need to repeat. Well, here they are again. So, they'll be back at the World Championship uh in Houston, Texas. Um so this is the third time in the past four years uh that they've earned a trip to the worlds. So you can see their their current ranking there globally. So uh job well done and you can see in the picture just many many uh

065students from across the district who participate and uh work with that team. Uh want to congratulate our HR department. Again, this has been a staple in our district because um you know, really recruiting never stops for us and we're fortunate because we have a strong brand uh here in Tangi. But one thing that we do uh we we conduct our own uh certified interview day uh every year right before spring break. So again, um we held that uh interview day, 159 interviews in one day. Um as well as uh part of our uh recruiting efforts, uh principles and district leaders also attended this year 25 college fairs interviewing 288 teacher candidates um really across the area at the career fairs. So it really helps us to establish a pool because as you know we continue

066to grow and we hire every single year. So, um, we're we're in the thick of hiring season right now to, uh, uh, fill any vacant positions that we have. Um, want to also recognize, uh, bridgeed partner JP Morgan Chase here. So, that two things, they've hosted a breakthrough STEM program at Orange Bergkshire and Hyatt Middle Schools. Um, so students participated in STEM related career exploration led by uh, mentors at JP Morgan Chase. And then you can also see coming up April 28th, 90 students from these buildings will spend the day at JP Morgan Chase. And again, it's it's I say we're just scratching the surface, but we started really building these partnerships a couple years ago. and um for them to have access to our schools uh really down to the elementary level and the

067middle school level and the high school to continue to um create awareness of the opportunities that are out there for our our students after uh high school has been incredible. So thank them for that and I am excited. Sorry to keep interrupting on this. I think it's really important to note this. One of the big goals of the state has been workforce development, workforce readiness. Something that they've talked about a whole lot and I I work in higher education and that's something that higher education is talking about a lot is trying to to bridge those gaps, right? Obviously, why it's called bridge, right? But we're trying to bridge those gaps so that, you know, we are meeting the needs of the the community that that is going to be employing all of our students in

068the future. So, not only are we providing the high level of of educational services to get everyone there, but we are also helping to build the workforce of the state. I I think it's just so incredibly important that people understand all the things that our district is doing and why it's important to fund the schools because we are playing a pivotal role in building that up. You know, when people talk about, you know, reading and math and stuff like that and and obviously those are important, but that's not all that our schools are doing and these services are vital. Absolutely. And it's it's applying what we're learning in the schools in the context of uh the workforce. So we are a pipeline K12 space uh for the workforce and you know uh businesses and corporations

069have realized that. So definitely uh continue to create partnerships and and one of the components when we're providing opportunities for our students outside of the walls of the school, right? Um and and this was a vision when we started the bridgeed program really bringing we heard this loud and clear from parents and students about internship opportunities, mentorship opportunities, work-based learning. So we've been continuing to uh work in that space and our assistant uh director uh Molly Preston has been incredible in establishing these relationships and partnerships. So just want to highlight a couple and this is a big one. So this is a partnership with JP Morgan Chase again. um which will offer internships for graduates from Tangi schools. So this year 25 uh 2025 graduates um so this year they're offering two summer technology internships

070for graduating seniors. So the days of sure in internships exist with uh rising juniors and seniors in college, but again they're coming down into the uh K12 space because because they're trying to create this pipeline um for the workforce. So this year uh this is new um so the opportunity was presented. So we had 76 students apply. 16 were selected for interviews based on the requirements um from JP Morgan Chase. two students were offered and accepted uh the internship position. So, uh Harini from Berlin High School um and Evan from Orange High School. And then I think Molly told me $28 an hour. Uh that's that's yeah, that's big money for internships. Um so uh you know we're we're ex obviously it was a hard decision um to select the two students and um we're

071confident that they're doing they're going to do a great job um for JP Morgan Chase. Hopefully they can keep on the hook as they uh graduate and go through uh college or their careers and then obviously we build on that. Um so that will be the goal. Also I want to mention uh so Robert Robertson Construction's one of our uh partners as well. So uh this spring they had a student from Berlin High School who participated in job shadowing opportunity and really it was a hook for this student. Um so they have offered him a full-time job upon graduation. So he's going to graduate uh just here in a couple months. So um you know again that's what it's about too. So, uh, Robert Robertson Construction, they've been a a great partner. Um, and, uh,

072obviously this has paid off for this, uh, young man here who will be gainfully employed here in a in a month. So, this is not common. This like this is not how school districts operate across the state of Ohio. The fact that our students have these opportunities is what sets us apart. So, thank you for sharing this. Yeah. And I and I appreciate it. And, you know, I Mr. Jenkins and I have been very passionate the really the last month and how important and how critical this funding this current bianium funding is for public education because Mr. Lester mentioned it um if if it goes the way it's sitting right now we're going to wake up in a different place and these opportunities that we're able to provide for our students we're going to have

073to make some hard decisions where we're not going to be able to do some of these things. um which really breaks my heart because we do public education really really well here uh in Tangi and the opportunities that we provide for our students prek12 in this district is unmatched and um again I would put it up against any school district in the country quite frankly. Um so well and I think the important thing to note too is that opportunities like these only happen because district administrative staff make them happen. And so when you hear sort of a boogeyman word of administrative costs, oh, the administrators get paid so much money, this is the sort of thing that they're helping create and manage for our students is the these opportunities for these companies to recruit, identify

074our students, come in all the way from the elementary level, provide those career pathways. And um I think further down in your um in your presentation, you or maybe it was last time um the student who did the C-SPAN video Yeah. Last year he did one on student pathways which was all about students who not understanding which career opportunities were available to them and programs like these that are done through uh Miss Preston um and her work through there show our students what's available out there because if you don't know that something is even a possibility you can't even imagine what you need to do to get there. Absolutely. We're and like I said, we're just scratching the surface uh because again, we're we're the K12 space is a pipeline for uh um businesses and

075um we have really really really good kids here. We have great staff. So, uh we're creating those partnerships and opportunities for kids. Absolutely. Um and I won't have it in this report, but the next I'll have another C-SPAN update that you probably maybe saw on social media. Uh yeah, I I'll have that in the next uh um superintendent report at the next um board meeting. And I do want to just because you mentioned administrative costs, too, because there's a there's a new line item in the current budget bill where school districts uh for them not to spend over 15% uh towards administrative costs. Well, we're just a little over 10%. So, we're well below that. And again, it goes to our efficiencies as a district and how we serve uh the community and the school

076district. But it is important um and Mr. Jenkins has uh shared this many times almost 76% of our budget we is in the classroom towards instruction so programming um and that's where it should be because that's our focus and our fundamental purpose. So um spelling B time again. So we're going to we're going to corre uh congratulate uh V-nav for winning the regional spelling B. Uh so he'll compete compete at the landmark 100th anniversary of the scripts national spelling bee. So coming up May 28th in uh our 27th through the 28th uh in Maryland there. So this is four this is the fourth straight year he's advanced um and his previous best finish was tied for 22nd a year ago. So we're going to get and well I think he's going to win it this

077year. I'm just going to say he's going to win it, right? We're not even going for the top 10. he's going to win it. Um so congratulations to him and uh wish him the best. Also want to highlight this too because this is again uh you see this the theme here through athletics, academics, the arts, but also um this is a program that uh we jumped into this year um and with Ohio State and with uh uh Dublin City Schools. So this coach beyond so student athlete life and leadership cont uh conference again sponsored by the Ohio State University. So we had students from Dublin and Liberty participate this year and we talk a lot about culture and culture is really important across the organization but uh we live culture in all of the things

078we do. So whether it's in the classroom, whether it's in the school, uh in a club, on a team. So for sure this is uh within the athletic realm, but um it's so important that uh we continue to engage our student athletes in this space. So um you can see the skills related to positive uh mental wellness um in a fun and energetic environment and and things that they're learning. So, uh, we had a positive response this year and plan on staying, uh, in the program next next year and expanding, uh, to even more of our student athletes. Yeah, I believe that this is a free program for the students to participate in. And I I just want to stress that this is something that the mental health and well-being committee's talked a lot about

079as well. You obviously have a lot of broad mental health uh, initiatives across the district, but there are special things that apply to different groups, right? in athletics, you may have special mental health needs. Um, and you know, gifted students and students in the arts and all these things. We're looking at those groups and different ways that we can do this. Um, this is a great program that that really taps into some of those student athlete um very specific focused things. It's interesting that we're seeing this like if you've watched some of the championship games that have happened at the college level, they all have sports psychologists now, right? They're always talking about trying to get in a good headsp space. That's there's really a recognition of that there and we're starting that positive pipeline

080now so that that you know when you get you know you're cut from a team or you don't get playing time or these sorts of things so you're able to manage that stress and be really um thoughtful about it. So these are great programs. We're we're really again just scratching the surface of some of the stuff that we can do. You know quite frankly there's a lot of pressure and it's very competitive um very competitive here. Um you know we we have great families, great kids, great athletes. So it is it's competitive. Um all right. So superintendent action items tonight. Um so you can see with regret we have two administrative resignations. Uh Patty Nyquist um will be leaving us as the principal of Cedar Ridge Elementary. So uh she's relocating out of the state.

081Um, and you know, she's been here two years, and I'm just going to say this because personally, I think she she's had a really really good year in leading that building this year. So, we are definitely uh sorry to see her um leave, but also uh understand life happens and uh want to wish her the best. Um also, Madison Ratliff, uh he will be leaving us as assistant treasur because he will assume the treasur role for Shelby City Schools, local school, city schools. Um, so again, Madison has uh been a big part of our uh treasures department and has done a good job. So, we want to wish him the best as he um uh starts as a uh district treasurer. You can see administrative employment up there. So, I think Adam, where's Adam sitting?

082There's Adam. Adam, you got to stand up. So, Adam Brener, I'm recommending um as new assistant principal at Oland Tangi High School, who comes to us from Tri Valley Schools, excuse me, was a principal at Dresden Elementary and assistant principal at Tri Valley High School. Uh taught at East M East Muskingum, Licking Heights, and Brookville schools, uh high school English, right? Correct. And now, Mrs. Kurthers, right, hired a new assistant principal. And I said this last time because I remember so we had a teacher who filled in a special assignment because we had a late resignation last year. So Adam, welcome to Tangi. This I'm going to tell you this is a special place. So you are in a good good position with a great leader back there. So appreciate it. Thank you. Also good

083haircut too which is important. What's that? He's got a good haircut too which is you're going to fit See, you're going to fit in well here. Um, also so Daniel Short, but we have John, that's your formal. So we have John up there, but D, everybody knows him as Daniel Short. So uh, want to congratulate Daniel making the recommendation uh, for Daniel to be the next uh, principal at Heritage Elementary. and and young administrators they ask us a lot about um trajectory and about next moves and you know about career growth right so it's it's always good in an organization we when we can promote from within and when the person actually deserves the position so uh Daniel has been here three years as an assistant principal came to us from Hillyard but he has

084done a really really really good job in that building he's had a great mentor in Susan um and obviously We know uh Susan's retirement retiring so therefore obviously here's Daniel but uh we did the staff meeting it was early on and Susan had already uh announced her retirement and so um you know we typically maybe have one teacher come up to us after a staff meeting but I think I had like I don't know five or six this time uh from Heritage in my ear about uh Daniel. So um so obviously uh I heard that but we also went through a process like we always do and uh Daniel uh did a great job uh through the process and earned uh the position here and was uh again selected through uh uh and and through

085a very very thorough process and overwhelmingly the feedback came back and he just rose right to the top from from all of the stakeholders involved in that process. this. So, just a little fun fact. Uh, so Daniel, Daniel and I both were Falcons, BG grads, right? Bowling Green. But he was Freddy the Falcon, the mascot. So, that's a little fun fact. Um, and I asked him, I said because at Ohio State, you know, Brutus, they always do the races and Brutus always wins. And I asked them how fast he is. Uh, and if they did, they have Bowling Green. But anyways, uh, that's a little fun fact. But we're we're excited. Um uh I'm excited to recommend him as uh the next principal at Heritage Elementary and I know that the uh uh staff in

086the school community uh is equally excited too. So we want to congratulate you and uh wish you the best. And then there's the list of uh retirements and uh retirements certified and classified. And this is the time of year where we'll see that. But also uh in education, we'll start to see more retirements because STRS lowered the years of service retirement age to 33. So, and I always say this and there's a lot of great people on this list and want to thank them for their contributions over 218 years of service combined uh in the district. So, thousands and thousands and thousands of kids um they have touched the lives of. So, uh want to thank them for their service over the years and wish them best in the next chapter of their lives. So

087um okay also a few recommendations have approval for students for graduation. Um so again this is the time of year uh where we'll um approve still some early graduates. Uh talk to all the board members of the second technology recommendation um for high-end computers and laptops within our uh schools as well as the Vonic TV awards. And I think this is the 10th uh grant um uh I think it cycle right 10th. Yeah. So it's the 10th grant cycle where teachers put in grants and how they're going to use that technology in the classrooms. So that is a recommendation also. Then the business management uh declare transportation as impractical for students and uh recommend approval of a resolution uh and related easement on district owned property at Berlin High School. Mr. board and updated the

088board um a couple board meetings ago that this would be coming. The resolution's ready. So um that's a recommendation uh tonight as well. Important dates. I'm going to get right to graduation because it's going to be here so about a month away. Um and we put this up there uh Sunday, May 18th. Uh it's a great day, great celebration for uh Owen Tangi, a culmination of um uh all of our graduates from Tangi schools and again we'll be well over 1,800 uh that day with the four um graduations. So Orange 9:00, Berlin High School at 12 noon, Tangi High School at 3, and Tangi Liberty at 6. So looking forward to that. And our next meeting, just a reminder, we will be at Orange High School for spring awards. Again, we'll we'll continue to get

089to honor and recognize um some of the great uh students and adults in the district. So, we'll be at Orange High School on April 24th at 6:30. So, any questions? All right. Thank you, Mr. Meyer. Thank you. [Applause] Mr. Jenkins. Good evening uh board members. I have a couple of different things that we're going to do this evening. I want to start actually um as we know we have been very discreet um you know very cautious and cherry with our um financial practices when it comes to our insurance. And part of the reason we do that is you know so that we can continue to provide highquality health insurance uh at an exceptional value. And tonight I'm actually going to invite a couple of individuals uh Susan Baker and Christy Gagas uh from Mount Carmel.

090Uh we have a very robust wellness program. Uh part of what we try to do is is not only be uh very cautious with what we spend but to encourage health and wellness. So uh if you want to come on up Christy and Susan, they're going to give about a a four to six minute review of of what's happened with our wellness plan in the last year. himself. [Music] Thank you. Um I happen to be an RN and I manage the um corporate wellness program for Mount Carmel and we provide Christie to the O Tangi um school district to pro provide support to the um teachers and the other staff of Tangi. Um we've been doing biometric screening since 2014 for Tangi schools. Um we provide registered nurses, registered dietitians and exercise physiologists and um

091they perform biometric screenings. We go to each of the buildings um throughout the fall season and then they provide um feedback on those results. Um, I then provide an aggregate report um that we review um with Ryan and um it's um there's three-year trended data which hopefully the goal is to provide targeted programming for the staff. Um some of the improvements this year um there participants without a primary care provider are uh have decreased um from 11% to 9%. Um, and what our screeners do is if they notice that somebody does not have a primary care provider, they um make a referral to one of the Mount Carmel um positions. Um, and we made 64 referrals through the um 2024 season. Um, self self-reported stress levels were decreased from 45% to 43% and stress is

092always a big um issue for teachers and and um education staff. and Christiey's done a good job of targeting program toward um stress management. Um glucose levels um have also um we've had a um increase in normal glucose levels. In 19 or 2022 we had 71% with normal and in 2024 84% with normal uh blood sugar levels. Um normal blood blood pressures have also gone up. In 2023 we had 49% with a normal blood pressure and in 2024 53% with a normal blood pressure. So those are really good improvements. Um the last um metric is metabolic syndrome and metabolic syndrome is a um is a group of conditions that can um lead to a risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and stroke. Um there are five conditions. High blood sugar, high blood pressure, um

093increased waistline, um high triglycerides and cholesterol. To have metabolic syndrome, you have to have three of those five conditions. At least three of those five conditions. 30% of adults have um metabolic syndrome. the um numbers for ol uh olent tangi for metabolic syndrome went from 16% in 2023 to 13% in 2024. So if you have any questions Christiey's going to present on the um initiatives that she has. So on the data, do we share that data with our health carrier and our stop-loss carrier to get better underwriting underwriting results? And we're working right now. Um I asked this question about a year ago and I love Sorry Susan. I love all uh things that are insurance and hospital, but the first things that happen are the attorneys get involved and say we have to have

094BPAs and we have to have all these cross agreements. We're getting all of those and and for good reason. obviously tongue and cheek with HIPPA, but yes, uh we also have a United Healthcare engagement nurse and we're really starting to try to pull all of our resources and make it a very comprehensive uh program. Good. Thank you. All right. So, I'm Christie. Um I am the wellness programmer for um obviously Tangi. Um there is a multitude of programs that I create. Um, I not only do it for the entire district, but I do it for individual schools. Um, and I do it for individual people or staff members. So, um, you guys keep me very busy. Um, so I'm not going to go over everything, but, um, just some, um, examples. Um, when people take

095part in the biometric screenings, um, they actually are eligible for, um, a membership at the fitness center that we have on 23. Um, it's a substantial discount. um it's usually um $1,000 um and uh $68 um and the uh discount comes down to um $250. So um this is uh very enticing to staff members. Um and then if you actually miss it um you are still able to throughout the entire year um a lot of staff members will contact me and say, "Hey, um I missed it. What can I do?" Um cuz you know I don't know how to miss my emails cuz you know I'm sending out canaries. I do everything. So, um, so I will go out to them individually. Um, they're still able to turn in biome or forms from their primary

096care. There's, um, and up until now, I actually am up to about 65 just within these, uh, four to five months. So, um, and then also, uh, individual programs that I do. Um, it's called the holiday challenge or maintain don't gain, and it takes place over about, uh, three months, and you do three ways. Um, and throughout that that um you just don't want to gain gain more than two pounds throughout that time during the holidays. Um, and then you get a free um, uh, two free two um, uh, one week passes to the um, uh, fitness center um, for to be able to work out um, enjoy the facilities if you just want to go to the spa, whatever you want to do. Um and then if you participate in all three ways then

097you get um to enter into um a 60-minute um massage at the fitness center. So and then um for um at the individual schools um I go around and do grip strengths um for uh the um staff to participate in and that's um gets very competitive. um the staff um you know they get on their whiteboards and start writing their names and then they'll go on the announcements, start saying like I'm beating you. I mean it gets very competitive. So um and then another one is the step challenge that's starting to go on right now. Um and uh that one also gets very competitive. I mean people be like like who's beating? I'm like am I beating this person? Like I can't tell you that. Like so yeah. um some for next year. Um the

098some of the goals that you know I also I'm a very competitive person myself. So I'm all always uh kind of bouncing around. I'm always improving on myself. Um and um if I you know especially on my um events I'm trying to create for the staff. Um, and so just like that step challenge, um, you know, and I think one of the very important things about my challenges and events that I'm making for it. And I think that's very beneficial about being able to go out into the district is being able to build those relationships with the staff members and hearing about what they need um, and what what's their stressors and what's happening with them. And I think that's very important about what I'm building with my program. So that's how the um you

099know these um March Madness event happened was because they were stressed out. So I was like this is perfect or the step challenge was created because they're like I'm walking around so much and I was like perfect step challenge. So that's how those things improve. um uh Kevin how you had asked about um you know we're collaborating with UHC and doing those um the uh you know the biometrics and those um uh those that data that's um one of those goals and stuff that we're going to be collaborating with. Um and then in the summer um you know building a program for next year and being able to get them dynamic and um you just knowing that we're still there for them. So, all right. Okay. Any questions? Thank you. Thank you. All right. [Applause]

100We work really hard um to try to make our health care costs stay affordable. Um feel like through uh the hard work and good fortune of the last couple years, it's it's turned out pretty well. Um, so I'm going to turn now to a totally different topic and talk a little bit about um, we we've heard earlier about the uh, fair school funding formula, the state budgeting process. Um, early February, the governor would have uh, led with budget that became House Bill 96. Uh, just yesterday, the House would have voted and approved the substitute bill. Uh, I will say that as far as for the the pieces that address, uh, funding formula, um, you know, we're we're appreciative because we feel like, uh, we've been heard in in ways by our our senators and our

101representatives for how that fair school funding formula incorporated some pieces that do address um, Tangi schools and our growth. Uh if you look just at the funding piece uh for the school funding formula, we actually have about a a 7.9% increase in the FY26 over FY25 and a 6.3% increase in FY27 over FY26. It's about an $ 8.6 million increase uh in total uh added together over the bienium. And then when you figure that right now the forecast is more aligned with the governor's version, it's actually pretty substantially better for the district. You know, we would be looking somewhere on the order of, you know, $18 to$20 million more in state funding compared to not where we are today, but where we would have gone because with the governor's uh version of the budget, we

102would have fallen uh probably 6 to8 million next year. So all of that um I I wanted to express and and be thankful. All that unfortunately is completely overwhelmed uh by one other provision that was added to the budget. Um there's a specific section of revised code if you're acutely interested in these kinds of things and it's Ohio Revised Code 5705.316. And you're not going to find it right now because it is a new piece of law that would go into effect. And what that law would do is it would say that public school districts in the state of Ohio may not have any more carryover uh cash than 30% of the most recently completed years total expenditures. So through a process that was actually honed uh in the amended and substitute budget bill, we

103would submit our balances by July 15th roughly to the um budget commission here in the county. The budget commission would have a month or so to start to see what uh amended uh tax rates would look like. And then by October 31st, there would actually need to be adjusted tax rates that would take in a subsequent tax year the amount that you exceed the 30% threshold and reduce your levies, your operating levies dollar for dollar uh by that amount. So I thought what and actually got to thank Mr. Gordon. What better way to show what this might look like than to put this law into practice as if this was going to happen uh right now. And we have to pretend that what we're going to look at here is the November 2024 5-year forecast.

104And so we're going to pretend that our ending cash balance of 2011, 209464 is where we will be. That I'm spot on 100% correct. And that's the number we'll be at June 30th of 2025. A little over three well a little less than three months from now. So that is more than 30% of that expenditure dollar of 30 366,231,192. So what the law would do is say, well, for every dollar that you are above that, we will take your 2025 pay 2026 uh levies and we will reduce them. And so we will in two separate fiscal years lose $91 million. I'll repeat that. We will across two separate fiscal years lose a total of $91 million. I'll call your attention to the revenue line. Right now, the fiscal year 2025 revenue is forecasted to be

105just a shade under 363 million. it would fall to $311.5 million because the way our tax bills work, we get about 52% of a collection in the first settlement which we would get in Marchish of 2026. Then we get about 48% or the the balance of it in August. Well, in March of 2026, you're in the 202526 fiscal year. And then in August of 2026, you're in the 2026 2027 fiscal year. So our revenue would also be down uh in fiscal year 2027. The most immediate impact that I see is there is a separate provision of revised code that is supposed to uh avail boards and communities and treasurers of major warning signs that you're headed towards fiscal disaster. Uh this would cause our district to go into the most urgent of those fiscal disasters,

106which is fiscal emergency. What fiscal emergency says is that if in a fiscal year your budget deficit exceeds 15% of that year's revenues, the auditor of state um has to look at just a couple of other real brief factors. uh but ultimately uh would declare you to be in fiscal emergency um based on how uh you know essentially they got to see if you can pass a levy. Uh that's one of the factors, but they wouldn't necessarily have to wait uh given how dramatic this is. So our spending deficit next year would be just shy of $80 million and then the following year it would be $90 million. Now, if you're wondering why does it why does it go down? Well, ostensibly we would have adjusted to that 25% sorry was 25 30% carryover. Um,

107but as you can see, we're already forecasting deficits in those years. And so, um, I don't know how else to view it other than we would be a district that right now has a carryover cash that we use to plan, uh, anywhere between 5 to seven years out fiscally. We have capital plans that go out 15 and 20 years. We know as a district that we can't just simply snap our fingers and get additional funding. Uh, in order for us to get more funding, we have basically two bites at the apple in any given year. uh at a primary election in either March or May or a general election in November. We know that if those levies pass, it takes uh you know into the subsequent calendar year before they start collecting. So depending on

108whether you pass in a primary or whether you pass in a general, it can take anywhere between six to 15 months for a full levy collection cycle. Well, during that time, it's not like, you know, we stop growing and kids stop moving in. So we have to have the cash reserves to allow us to continue to operate and program. We have to have those cash reserves as we have programmed into our forecast five additional buildings and the staffing that's going to be needed for those buildings by about 2030. So the analogy that I gave um that some folks have liked and some folks have said they it wasn't their cup of tea is you know a a large ship has to have enough water or it will run ground. Um additionally a large ship can't

109just you know fly up to a corner and stop or turn it. they have to start planning well in advance. For all of these reasons, we have a carryover cash balance that we know uh if you want to look without the passage of a levy, this is what we're forecasted to do. So to just simply look at the ending balance without looking at the revenue surplus or deficit that we're forecasting for as we plan into the future based on all of those growth needs and those other limiting factors that you know we can't just snap our fingers and a building is constructed uh from day one to day two. It takes about three years. You know we can't just snap our fingers and start collecting a new levy. All of those things take time. the

110more time that we have uh the more we need in cushion to be able to operate. Uh we don't get our real estate settlements um you know every month we get them every six months. So you know we have developed a policy as a board of education that sets into play what we think uh is a wellthoughtout cash balance that allows our district to continue to do the things that we do. Mr. Go back. Can we talk more about that slide? Go ahead. You can go first, but we do have some questions. Yeah. And I I I think it's important because this is something that we've talked about as part of the levy that that was going on last year. It's not like we're just carrying hundreds of millions of dollars every year throughout our

111budget just, you know, keeping from the community or anything like that. And again, this is stuff that's coming based on voted levies that the the community has passed. There's the sort of bell curve that comes with a levy, right? you get funding and it sort of builds up and then it slowly goes down over time and it's part of our responsibility to look at that and we have policies that talk about numbers of days of cash on hand that we have to have and we start to say okay at this point we're going to need another levy because either there's growth in the community and we've got to hire more people to respond to that or there's other stuff that whatever it is we're monitoring that constantly to decide okay this is what's happening. So

112when you see $200 million right now, it sounds like a lot of money, and it is a lot of money. Obviously, we have a very big budget, but as you go forward, it starts to draw down and draw down and draw down. And that's because we're growing so much. We need to hire new people. We've got, you know, all these expenses that go along with that sort of stuff, which is why we went on the ballot last year. to take this at an artificial point and take that out. It it it goes against the very foundations of what school funding is, right? I mean, it it's it it's running contrary to that because it's picking an artificial point when we happen to have a high degree that in a couple of years is going to

113be very low because of how that funding works. But I think let's get him to let let's get Ryan to the next slide because a high a high cash balance is relative, right? That's right. Go to the next slide. And you see where the townships are, right? It's ridiculous, right? Yes. Can I ask a question on your Let me make one comment and then Yes. I think what you're saying is we know we have to try to ride the wave, right? We have a crest and then we start to go into a trough, right? Well, you can't get too far down into the trough before you start to address it or by the time you are able to get a levy voted for or to do the things you need to do, it's too late.

114Right. And you're in fiscal watch or emergency. So it it's it's planning. It's it's organizing. But when you start to see revenue surplus or deficit lines, when you start to deficit spend and your forecast shows deficit spending, that is an alert in my mind that I pick up on quicker than I even do on ending cash balance. A and when you you go so far in the trough, we have to make decisions on cuts that we may have to make. and it would take years if any or some of those to come back, you know, to rebound. So again, it's it's just a very very uh big challenge and issue for us. And I just want to say as well, it it's not like any of this has been hidden from the community. Correct. And

115this is what I so appreciate about your office is is a high degree of attention to transparency for the community about what our cash balances are, why we're carrying them, the purpose behind it. We have won award after award after award for transparency and accountability. We we send out stuff to the community in our popular annual financial report that lists all of these things. We've gotten commendations from the state as as recently as last fall coming in to recognize us for this. Correct. So these are not things that we're hiding from the community. In fact, we're being very upfront. It's just the nature of the school funding system that the state has required of us. That's correct. Dr. D, let's talk about fiscal emergency. What what that's in red. So my training is that's bad.

116So what what happens with fiscal emergency? In fiscal emergency, the state appoints a commission. Um, I I probably ought to know exactly uh who's all involved. Uh, but it ends up being essentially a commission of individuals uh from state government that come into the district and those individuals uh really sit in your seat and make all decisions essentially of the district. Local people, right? because they have our best interest at heart when they come in and do that. These would not be local individuals. That doesn't sound very democratic. The these individuals that come in from the state would essentially control every aspect of the district. Uh when it comes to anything that potentially ends up in money being spent, which is everything, so next year the state could take over Tangi three months. So if

117if this 5-year forecast were certified, unless there was some provision to overlook um as I read the statute, which you see there is 33 uh603, I don't know how else to to define it other than our um deficit would be far more than 15% of our revenues. So if that commission comes in uh they also can go as far um as when when terms like notwithstanding anything to the contrary what what that term means is it does not matter what else there is in law that commission comes in and they are the authority contracts they can end teacher contracts this vendor thing that we're going to talk about you're not doing long-term contracts anymore what else can they Well, they control all purchase orders. They control all budgeting. They would do performance audits. Uh certainly

118one of the things that they would do would be to address every facet of the district from top to bottom staffing wise. Um minimums, transportation, correct minimums, everything. Yeah. Everything. Well, I just went on the auditor's website because I I hadn't really heard of because we do such a good job. I hadn't really investigated what fiscal emergency meant until that implication happened for our district. And it's it's right there that following a declaration by the auditor of state, a financial planning and supervision commission is created that may assume all or part of the powers of the board of education. Correct. Yeah. I I wouldn't be able to budget, write checks, the entire check register, everything is checked by the commission. Every every financial transaction has to have that commission's approval. So if it's okay with

119you, I want to read the list of all the districts in Ohio that are currently under so fair school funding two phases. That model has put the following districts in fiscal emergency. That's the list. There's no school districts in the state of Ohio under fiscal emergency in the framework of fair school funding. So, it seems like this budget model puts districts that have saved money into fiscal emergency. It does us. Um, I don't know what else to say other than it does us. If I can jump in. So, I the mechanism of fiscal emergency makes sense if you're an underperforming district that's making bad decisions that need someone else to come in and run it. We're a top performing district that's growing that makes good decisions. This is an unintended consequence of a bad legislative

120decision. Well, and Dr. Dabberco, you said this doesn't feel very democratic. I mean, I really think it undercuts and undermines the voters because they've voted on these levies, which is why we're collecting. And then if we were to have this body come in and take control, it's not the elected officials that the voters put in place to make those governing decisions for our district. And remember, we used to be 95% the the first four years of the fair school funding has increased the state share, but we used to be 5% uh state funded, 95% locally funded in this school district for years. And obviously, we've made progress the last four years, and that's why we continue to advocate for phasing it in uh the next two, fully funding it. and where we sit where the

121bill sits with the fair school funding piece that's good for uh Owen Tangi. However, this provision like uh Mr. Jenkins has stated really cuts our legs right out from under us. Fair school funding with updated cost sets. Correct. So, last comment on this slide. um 2008 financial crisis, school districts are lambasted for not having enough cash reserves to weather the storm. So, fast forward a couple decades, we've recovered, we've saved, we've planned, we've played by the rules, done everything we've done to prepare our kids to succeed, and we'll be in fiscal emergency if this is the law. and we would most certainly be back on the ballot in fall 25 and regularly thereafter and regularly every year. That's what's so perplexing uh about this is with that same 30% that just is always there. We

122would have to target what I would call a micro levy and you'd have to do it every year if not every other year at at best because you can't do a levy where you go five six mills because in that first year where your cash reserves build it does no good because it would just get wiped out. It would just be swept again. And if one of those levies fails because you have voters who are you know every year are being asked to do that then you're immediately back in cuts. That's correct. one one we we you know certainly opinions will vary. Um you know we we all know we got thumped uh pretty good in in March but we were able to regroup take some time because our reserves were such that we felt

123like we were trying to be proactive and plan for as you can see the outy years of the forecast. Certainly someone might say well part of the reason I voted no was I didn't see that urgent need based on your forecast. That's fair. But we were not put into emergency mode uh where a lot of districts they get to the point where if a levy doesn't pass uh there's some pretty significant uh financial reductions that have to that have to happen. And the I mean the one of the primary I don't want to speak for everybody. We all have our reasons for voting. But one of the reasons that we went on the the ballot to begin with is we're having such tremendous growth in this district that we need schools so that we're not

124overcrowded. And schools don't pop up like this. They take one or two or three years to build. So as we're thinking about this, we're trying to be intentional about planning. We went on at one of the lowest levy asks that we've had in a long time. That's correct. With the goal of trying to be as fiscally responsible and keep it as low as we can for the community. One of the things and everybody, you know, obviously there were a lot of folks that voted no on it and and the the the um the measure lost. One of the things that I heard most frequently as to why people voted no is they were upset about the state not paying a bigger share. That they're tired of the local community having to do so much because

125the state isn't contributing as much. What this measure is doing is not changing that, right? It's instead saying, "You've already voted for this, now we're taking it away, and you're going to have to keep going back and voting for this over and over and over again, which the community, you know, I mean, I heard a lot, well, the state will step in and and fix this. This is not fixing this." And what I did was I thought, I wonder um and so I scratched the itch. Um it's a wonderful slide. they so I looked um our carryover cash is currently 59.4%. Now I had to use audited figures and so I had to use our cash balance at June 30th of 2024. That was the only one I could do. So I, you know, you

126sometimes look yourself in the mirror and think, well, you know, may maybe maybe we have a glut of cash or what, maybe there's something to it. And I left more discouraged and shaking my head than ever. Orange Township, um, they're a calendar year, 288.61% carryover. You can see their cash balance at 1231 and you can see their annual expenditures. And this is just general fund. So, if you were to run out and grab their annual report, I didn't want anyone to think that I'm because this 5705.316 would only affect operating levies. So, for apples to apples, it's it's general fund to general fund. The city of POW 220.72% carryover. Liberty Township, you can see 95.46, 46 Delaware County 64.79 and the city of Delaware uh 60.38%. So I went out to the far right if

127this law impacted them that would be the reduction that they would see the sweep that they would see from their property tax levies in a subsequent year. And I I finished it off today by actually looking at the state of Ohio. The state of Ohio right now has a 31.4% 4% carryover and if this law applied to them, they would lose $755 million. The other thing that I discovered was that number would actually be a 41% carryover, but for the fact that the state of Ohio did about a $5 billion transfer throughout the course of the year. Now, I get it. They they did that transfer for very very good reasons. But you can't transfer it if you don't have it. So if I took that $5 billion and I increased the state's carryover at

128July, pardon June 30th of 2024, the state's carryover was about $21 billion on about a 51 or 52 billion general fund budget. About a 41% carryover. What are these other entities doing with the um carryover limit? I have they're all subject to the 30%, right? They are not. They're not. So, public schools are the only ones. Public schools are the only ones. If the intent of the legislation is to stop the school districts from overt taxing their residents by capping their surplus at 30%. Why is it okay for Orange Township to overt tax their residents by 288%. Why is it okay for Powell to overt tax their residents by 220%. When they were pounding their chest the other night how fiscally responsible they are. Yes. So, Mr. O'Brien, yes, I was at the PAL state

129of the city and these numbers were discussed and it was um it was a positive thing. Um it was it was smart fiscal planning for the future and it was applauded um for the city of Pal. And I don't begrudge them anything. I live in Pal. I think there are wonderful, beautiful things happening there just like there are across this entire district. But yeah, I I I I don't understand the difference. Yeah. Or the state of Ohio, right? What I think it shows is the legislaturator's complete ignorance and understanding of school financing and how school funding works. Period. I I definitely uh feel like we've got the attention of several folks uh and we're we're making that case as strongly as we can. Mr. Jenkins, another question about that list because there's some other entities

130on there that that receive public funds. What's the carryover limit for private schools that get voucher money? I know. What's their limit? There there would be none. What about the Cleveland Browns? What about their carryover limit since they get public funds? There there would be none. Okay. The other question is like what's Beth Lair doing about this? Absolutely nothing. What's Brener doing about this? Absolutely nothing. At least Representative Loren is here to listen and to hear our case, hear our story. So I give him credit for that. I gave him credit for that as well. But I will have to note that he voted for this as well. So I do appreciate you being here though and I and I thank you for your time and and for listening. Yeah. So and I'll just say

131it it is hard to look at this list. It's hard to look at at these other examples and not feel that public schools are being targeted. And when you have um when you are trying to build a state that is growing, when you are trying to um ensure that this state survives into the future, public schools are a vital part of that. Right? We give everybody regardless of their ability to pay an opportunity to better themselves. We we take as all the stuff I was saying at the opening, the things that we do to try to improve the community to build up people's um quality of life and to contribute to the overall welfare of the state are innumerable. Innumerable. The things that the people in this room do that all the people in the

132the various school buildings do um should be um should be recognized and celebrated every day of the year and prioritized and prioritized. And it is it is um exhausting to have to continually defend what should be recognized as a vital part of the state success. Well certainly um this provision the 5705.316 I was at the OASBO conference today. Um lots of conversations like this are occurring. Uh lots of treasurers, lots of superintendent um are sharing the impact and and really that was the overall intent tonight was to just be absolutely sure that everyone is aware of just how delletterious this would be uh to the Tangi schools u for this particular provision uh to to survive. And this slide to me encapsulates just how frustrating it would be that I'm sure that if you went

133around to different counties, I'm I'm guessing that you would find cash carryover that would be similar. Now, there certainly would be places where you wouldn't have it. Um, but I I can't believe that it's just school districts. I mean, we're all government finance officers. We all uh have the same types of things that we hear in GFOA about reasonable cash balance policies, making sure that you don't run the well dry, planning ahead. So, my guess would be uh you you would have probably a lot more of this than you would only schools in a particular county or area the only entities with too much cash. Well, Mr. Jenkins, you just said detrimental toangi schools. I think we could be even clearer than that and say it's detrimental to the 24,000 plus students that we currently

134have enrolled and their families and the pain that they will feel um when we can't provide them the services that we currently do. This would be monumental monumental in a not good way. Other questions. So what I have then for the rest of my action items um would be the board minutes for March 13th. uh the donations that you see there uh in front of you and certainly um I want to call out the entangi athletic boosters uh we know they have presented to the facilities committee um and they've installed the turf at OS and then at Berlin uh the indoor baseball facility um our boosters our community are just wonderfully supportive uh of our schools uh 2025 monthly financials uh for the month of February and the restated 403b. If you'll recall, um every

135time we add a group to the accumulated leave plan, we have to technically restate our 403b plan. Uh this is simply making that restatement and incorporating uh the classified intervention aids. And finally, the meta master services agreement. As you know, Meta is the entity that provides us with our uh fiscal services, our ERP, EMIS, uh so many of the various programs that we use to uh run pretty well the day-to-day operations of the school district. And those would be the items that would be presented uh as a consent uh agenda item. Any questions? If I could say this, particularly in the donations, community members that donate $1.3 million to the district don't do it because they don't believe in what we're doing. They don't do it because they don't believe in the schools and the

136legislature is going to strip that away. 5705.316 has got to go. Um, you know, it's that's what I'll say. And we I I do want to say um on our website and communications department has put together uh templates for uh community members if they so choose to reach out to um our local representatives and state representatives who are making these decisions. We will make sure that's in the board update tomorrow um because we have to continue to tell our story because uh we've seen it here tonight. We do a lot of really really good things and we do public school right here in Tangi. But and we do have uh three public participations. So I will step back there. Sorry not real quick. I just want to thank you know Mr. Meyer, Mr. Jenkins, you

137both have been out on the forefront of this really advocating. Um I know Mr. Jenkins, you testified and you know presented that material publicly. um we are out there trying to get this story told right and and it and it's important one because I think people it's hard when you look at just sort of numbers on a page to understand what that means in real life right so I appreciate you both taking a lot of time to to speak with our representatives to go out to advocate obviously we're we're doing a lot of that as well um but we uh I just want to recognize all really the hard work that you've done although this is very disappointing um it is not for lack of trying to tell our Thank you. Thank you. No applause

138for you. So, our first uh public speaker is Mark Butler and he wants to speak about the community arts network. Good evening. My name is Mark Butler and I live in the city of Delaware and I'm representing a organization called Community Arts Network which is a uh performing arts network and I want to give a shout out to the Tanny School District. Uh thank you for your faithfulness and courage. Uh I am not a member of the district but I'm a member of the community. I love public education, but I didn't come to talk about what I love. But I come to talk about telling the story of Camp Delaware. Camp Delaware was a uh United States Union Army training camp, Delaware, Ohio. 1862 through 1864. Along that beautiful Tandy River, you had two camps.

139You had camps for the white soldiers and you had camps for the black soldiers. I'm here to talk about talking about telling the story. Most folks don't even know, let alone Camp Delaware. They may think it's a young people's camp for swimming and things like that, but I'm here to try to educate in the in the two minutes I have left. Uh next next week will be uh uh April April 12th, 1865, start of one of America's most tragic events. That's the American Civil War. Um, so what we've done starting two years ago, well, started back in two years ago, my wife was walking down the beautiful street of Sand Dusky in Delaware, Ohio, and we looked next to the bakery before I went into the bakery to give me a donut. I saw this

140sign said, "Wow, American uh African-American troops mustered in in Delaware, Ohio in 1863." uh right along that old Tangi River on the east side of the river. So, we got to thinking, man, this story has to be told. How many people don't know about Camp Delaware? Very significant. And I'm going I'm going to I'm going to finish it up a little bit here. Um 1989, there was a movie called Glory with Morgan Freeman and all the big actors. And did you know that 20% of the men, black men who mustered in in Delaware, Ohio, were part of the 54th, the first black regiment during the during the Union uh during the Civil War. 20% of the black men went to Massachusetts because they could not muster in during the administration of Dennis and the administration

141of Governor Todd. So what we've done, we want to present free of think about fiscal. This is free of charge to the middle school through high school a a uh a film. We started has a stage play debuted at Ohio Westland. Great review. So we decided let's make a film out of it. My wife and I are not filmmakers. We are now. But um my my wife is a retired educator. I'm a current substitute teacher. But the story is it's very important. So we're offering this film free of charge to any district in Ohio to get the story about the significant story about which probably most folks don't know about the mustering in of the United States colored troops in our county in our community. Very significant. There was 163 camps like this. But Delaware

142and Ohio in general was very significant in the Civil War. So with that, uh, I'm going to How, how do you say, uh, Mr. Loren, uh, pass your time or concede your time? Y, I think Gild I'm going to concede my time. All right. Thank you very much for listening to me. Can we follow up with a question? Yeah, sure. How How can folks get a hold of you? Uh, I'm glad you asked that question. Um, I have some uh information I'd like. Can I come pass? Okay. And Mr. Butler, I believe we all received an email from you earlier today and you copied u Mr. Datilio and Miss Dr. Blackley. Um, who are the right people to get in touch with? My agent, my wife. She does a great job. She's doing great. Thank

143you so much. Thank you so much for that presentation. Really appreciate you. Thank you. [Applause] Uh, next is Mr. Brian Loren's uh representative from the Ohio House of Representatives and a member of our community. I should ask the chair pass. It's not my meeting. Thank you, Representative. Thank you. Good evening. In light of the passage of the house version of the 2627 bianium budget, I felt it was important to share with the board several amendments that I submitted in order to bring more funding back to our district. In working closely with Treasurer Jenkins and Superintendent Meyer over the last few months, discussing offsets and projects, it was important to me to advocate for our district and the other Delaware County schools that I represent. As a partner to Olan Tangi, a father of four graduates

144of Liberty High School, I submitted an amendment to annualize the cost sets at 3% for Delaware County schools, which would have generated $10 million over the bienium for our county schools. This is of course eliminated as the formula was adjusted to increase funding for all Ohio districts substantially. I was however successful in leveraging additional funding for growing districts which was amended to add $25 per student in fiscal year 26 and $30 in fiscal year 27. Finally, I submitted several am amendments pertaining to the clawback, the very item that we've been discussing this evening. first at 75% then at 50% finally 35% before it was ultimately amended at 30% up from the original proposal of 25%. In addition, the reserve forecasts have been reduced from 5 to 3 years. I understand that not every budget is

145perfect and this one as it stands creates a potential situation with respect to reserve funds. But the money per student is enhanced and provides a $555.2 million increase for state schools in aid over the bienium. The budget now moves to the Senate for their consideration. And while it has cleared the house, I want the board to know that I'll be working with the Senate to continue to advocate for the best possible outcome for Tangi and the other districts that I represent. Thank you very much. Thank you. Uh M represent just a quick question for you and I appreciate the um uh two things. First of all, Mr. Jenkins noted the uh the increase in state funding which is positive, right? that th those steps are certainly um valuable as we've talked about, but the the

146negative impacts of the clawback um wipe it out. So, I appreciate the the percentages at 75% and and those things that you um attempted to have done. Uh were you seeking to apply this uh clawback to any other public entities other than public schools? You know, it's a great question. Dr. Wallick has posed that to me offline. Um, as far as discussions in the budget, no. But I do feel strongly that it's something that the general assembly will be looking at next. And then ultimately, you voted for the budget. That's correct. Okay. Yes, I did. And you know this budget represents uh workforce development, healthc care, uh economic development, which is one area that I'm very passionate in. Uh it also takes care of our susceptible population. Um I can't read my own writing. Property

147tax relief and many other things that holistically bring our state together. And so yes, I did vote for it. Well, what I would and I want to echo what Mr. O'Brien said, which is we always appreciate having our representatives come and and as you and I have talked before, um we always appreciate a dialogue on these issues, right? It's important to understand the perspectives that are going on if we learn nothing from the speech and debate students earlier. They were a lot better than I was. It's it's very important to uh to to have good discussions about these things civily and thoughtfully and and to engage. I what I hope is that um the understanding of the impacts of some of these things are not lost on the legislature because as we've heard tonight the

148impacts for Owen Tangi are quite severe and for our community to continue to thrive for us to continue to provide the workforce development um that the state is looking for so that we can continue to um engage the community it is essential that good high quality functioning school districts like Tangi continue to be able to operate and I think what we're seeing is that this will have a very very very significant impact on our ability to do that. I concur. Thank you. One other question. Um because Mr. Meyer, you talked earlier about um how almost 76% of our spending goes to instruction. We have low administrative overhead. Um, so we're very transparent in our spending and very conservative with low pup per pupil costs. Um, what prevents the district from saying if we don't use

149it, we lose it. So that 118 million that would be given back, we should just spend it however we can real quick before it goes away. Any provisions to It's a great question because that seems like it's encouraging really irresponsible behavior. I think that that's been a big debate within the uh in the House of Representatives. Yeah. That that goes without uh mentioning. Yeah. All right. Well, again, appreciate you being here. I appreciate uh the continued willingness to listen and and I hope that uh some of the messages tonight uh will be heard. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh all right, one more. One more. Finally, Virginia Yodar um to talk about school funding. Did you All right. Hello. Uh, Virginia Yoder 2177 Ben Brush Place. Um, hi. I'm a mom of two in

150Tangi local school districts and uh, they're about to graduate. So, we are lifers. We've been here. They are 18. So, I just wanted to start by standing up and saying thank you for giving them a phenomenal education given that our schools have never been fully funded by the state. I've also volunteered in the past for Tangi for Kids. I have knocked on doors and walked and tried to get our neighbors to vote for our levies. So, I understand and I've been updating my notes as we got this phenomenal presentation tonight. I didn't intentionally um intend to speak tonight, but given that our representative is here who voted for this bill to put us into fiscal emergency, um even though he has advocated for it, I just wanted to express that it's frustrating that our state

151house doesn't value public education and votes to make life harder for our marginalized students at school. They vote to give our tax spending to private charter schools instead and prioritize football over our children. With the cap on the district cash reserves and at 30%, we're going to lose $91 million and potentially more. We have to go back to the ballot box every two years. The fair school funding plan was bipartisan. Why the change? Our community has worked hard to make our district what it is today. And now, because of who we elected, the future of this district can change for the worse. Because our members of the House think they know better how to run our district than our schoolboard members and administrators. It would be a shame to have to cut the extracurriculars we

152heard about tonight like speech and debate due to lack of funding or the theater programs. It's sad that our elected officials don't listen to us. I have called. I have written. Many of us have and we are unheard. Kevin O'Brien said elections matter and our residents will hopefully understand why changes are being made if this budget passes. and I hope that our residents will take action at the ballot box. I'm very interested in continuing to hear our next steps. Have we considered joining the vouchers for Ohio lawsuit? What do we do when our representatives do not listen to us? That's it. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Thank you everyone who who spoke. We always appreciate public comment very much. So, thank you so much. Uh we will now move into uh our

153first uh our I'm sorry our only discussion item which is uh Dr. Blackley speaking about a resolution to adopt the special education model policies and procedures. Good evening. Um I am here to explain to you really a procedural um thing that I'm going to ask you um to vote on to approve. But as you may know, Ohio has operating standards for education of children with disabilities and those outline state and federal requirements for special education services. Um the state also provides what they call model policies and procedures that provide a practical guide for implementing those operating um standards at the local level. we can adopt that model curriculum or um tweak that model curriculum or create our own. So in order to satisfy the requirements of the operating standards we actually have a current policy

1542460 um uh which is our special education policy and in there that policy states that the board of education will adopt the model policies and procedures. So why I'm here um talking to you about this tonight is in December uh the state released updated operating standards and it resulted in updating the model policies and after legal review of those changes it was determined that certain statements in the model policy conflict with existing state federal and case law. So for this reason, if you take a look at the resolution, um we are proposing to delete and or modify four statements in the model procedures and it does list them. Um page 10, destruction of educational records. There's a statement there that they're going to modify. Um page 14, a statement about independent education evaluations that will

155be deleted. um a page 33 a statement about extended school year that um will be deleted and then page 42 a statement about services. Um so my request for you tonight is that the board does approve the presented resolution to adopt the department of education and workforcees 2024 model policies in their entirety except for the suggested edits. So, this resolution will allow our policy to be in compliance um with the model practices. Is there any questions? Love a good compliance edit. So, that's great. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I'm serious. That's uh Okay. Uh so we'll now move on to our uh board action items which uh I believe we're doing as a consent agenda, not as individual ones. Right, Mr. Jenkins? Um they are all separate action items. Would you like me to make them?

156No, we can do these we can do these separately. That's fine. So uh the first action item is the recommended approval of the fiscal year 25 uh third set of board policy updates. These have gone through, you know, successive readings. We've we've sent these out to the community. Um Jack, can you maybe just speak briefly? We've we received a fair amount of feedback. I believe uh we received not much feedback. However, uh the release time for religious instruction policy was uh modified from the first reading after um further legal analysis um as other districts around the state have adopted Neil's model language. Um, so we've just removed some language to avoid um potential litigation um in that policy. Okay. The one thing I'll note because there was a little bit of a social media thing

157that popped up briefly uh that that I happened to see on the POW bubble. Uh there was a question about and I was I was amazed that people were reading this far into our policies which is great. I really really appreciate people reading policies. Uh there was a question about our non-discrimination access to equal employment uh or educational opportunity and there's some language in that uh in that policy that talks about uh us as a district not requiring people to ascribe to any particular beliefs or anything like that whether as part of employment or as part of um uh you know being a student. And really that goes with what everything that we say which is we're not trying to tell people how to think. We're trying to give them the tools to make their

158own, you know, decisions about things like that. And there's no specific litmus test or anything like that. If you look at our policies, that language was removed from policy 2260. And the person that saw that said, "Oh, no, you're removing this from the policy." It was actually just moved to a new policy that expands on it a little bit and talks about that. So those principles remain true. They're still part of the district policy. It's just that they were moved from one policy to the next. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. So, uh, any other comments about the policies? Uh, good. All right. So, uh, with that, I'll entertain a motion to approve, uh, the third, uh, board policy updates. So moved and second. I will second. Yeah. Sorry. All right. Uh, it's been a

159long meeting. We're trying to. Okay. Uh, any discussion? Right. Hearing none. Mr. Jenkins. Dr. Wallik. Yes. Mr. O'Brien. Yes. Miss Shriber. Yes. Mr. Lester. Yes. Dr. Dero. Yes. The next is the resolution that Dr. Blackley just presented on on uh adopting a special education model policies and procedures. Can I have a motion to approve that? So moved and second. Second. Any discussion? All right. Hearing none. Mr. Jenkins. Mr. O'Brien. Yes. Miss Shriber. Yes. Mr. Lester. Yes. Dr. Dabberco. Yes. Dr. Wallak. Yes. All right. The next is a privilege to add D. Andrew FA as a new facilities committee member. I'll note that we are always so deeply appreciative of people in the community willing to volunteer to be part of our uh committees, especially when they have special experience that allows them to contribute meaningfully

160to uh what the school district does. So we had a person who uh was interested in doing that and attended a meeting and I believe that the committee after they put on a presentation committee was uh supportive of them or or at least talked about their credentials. Yes. Um my understanding is that um I I had to miss one meeting when I was sick but um he came to a meeting. He missed our walkthrough of Shanahan Middle School that we had during one of our meetings, but then separately went to Mr. Gordon and did the walkth through and um the committee reviewed his um his resume and credentials and his interest and approved him at the last meeting. So uh we're recommending he be added uh now and normally we approve these at the beginning

161of the year but as things go on. So yeah facilities committees had a bit off cycle sort of recruitment but we appreciate everybody who's joined so far this year. That's great. Okay. So can I have a motion to approve? So moved. A second. Second. All right. Any discussion hearing? None. Mr. Jenkins. M. Shriber. Yes. Mr. Lester. Yes. Dr. Dabberco. Yes. Dr. Wallock. Yes. Mr. O'Brien. Yes. All right. Mr. Jenkins. The treasur consent action items. Yes. Board members, as per usual, uh tonight's treasurer's items are being presented as one single uh consent calendar. Uh item A is recommendation of approval of the minutes from March 13th. Item B, recommended approval of the donations that we covered uh in the treasures presentation. Item C, uh approval of the acceptance of the 2025, I shouldn't say approval of

162the acceptance, I should say acceptance of the uh 2025 um February 2025 financial report. Item D, the restatement of the 403b plan effective January 1, 2025. And then item E, uh the meta services contract, specifically schedules one and two, uh fees and services. All of those are being presented uh to be adopted by one single motion and vote. Would anyone like to separate out any of those? Right. Hearing none. Uh can I have a motion to approve them as a slate of consent items? So moved. A second. Second. All right. Any discussion? Right. Hearing none. Mr. Jenkins. Mr. Lester. Yes. Dr. Dabberco. Yes. Dr. Wallik. Yes. Mr. O'Brien. Yes. Miss Shriber. Yes. All right. Mr. Meyer. Superintendent consent action items. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Lester. Board members, I recommend approval of the following superintendent consent

163action items A through H. A. Specific human resource items administrative. B. Specific human resource items certified staff. C. Specific human resource item supplementals. D. Specific human resource items classified. E. Specific human resource items classified substitutes. F. Students for graduation. G. Technology items. and H business management and facility items. 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 discuss any of these separately? All right. Hearing none. Can I have a motion to approve? So move. A second. Second. Discussion. All right. Mr. Jenkins. Dr. Dabberco. Yes. Dr. Wallik. Yes. Mr. O'Brien. Yes. Miss Shriber. Yes. Mr. last year. Yes. All right. Congratulations, Mr. Becker and Mr. Short. So, uh, we go. Uh so I will now entertain

164a motion to uh convene into executive session as permitted by uh Ohio Revised Code section 12122G3 to discuss uh disputes involving the public body that are the subject of pending or imminent court action with legal counsel present as well as revised code section 12122 G1 to discuss the employment or compensation of a public employee. Uh and I'll just note that we will only be coming back to adjournment. We will not be taking any further action after that. So, uh, you're all free to go if you want to. Uh, can I have a motion to approve? So, moved. Second. Second. All right. Any discussion? All right. Mr. Jenkins. Dr. Wallik. Yes. Mr. O'Brien. Yes. M. Shriber. Yes. Mr. Lester. Yes. Dr. Dabberco. Yes. All right. Where? All right, it is 9:41 p.m. and we are returning

165from executive session. I will now entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved and a second. I will second it. Uh any discussion? Second. Hearing none. Uh I will call the role. Dr. Wall, yes. Uh Mr. O'Brien, yes. Uh, Miss Shriber, yes. Dr. Dabberco, yes. Mr. Lester, yes. We are a