001all right good evening today is wednesday march 9th it's 6 30 pm this is the only tangy board of education regular meeting called a meeting to order would you please call the roll dr daberkow present mr lester here mr o'brien here mrs patrick here dr wise here all right would you please stand and join me in the pledge of of allegiance and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for oh all is better all right i'll uh entertain a motion to approve the agenda as written [Music] mr lester have a second please second any discussion on the agenda no all right please call the roll mr lester yes dr wise yes dr apricot yes this is patrick yes and i'm mr o'brien yes all right so
002we'll do a brief presence report so just a couple quick things so tonight we've got the uh much anticipated state of the schools report from mr ray as well as the district calendar and an exciting night because we get to name middle school number six uh which is up in between cheshire elementary and berlin high school so it's exciting uh exciting time um i know ms patrick you've got some updates from the facilities committee you'd like to provide i do do you mind if i first i'm on the osba board of trustees and um the last meeting i was sitting here on a meeting for training and then we had our um i think we meet about three times a year on march 6th was a saturday we had our meeting and one of the
003items that we talked about was house bill 126 that's where we as a board have to pass a formal resolution to contest property valuations and that was voted out of the house zero to ninety so it's back with the senate which is good that's what we were wanting and the ohio school boards association joined last year they dropped out of the national school boards association and formally joined the consortium of state school boards there are 22 states that have joined it's about half the price that we paid we weren't getting legal representation really with the national school boards we did they didn't feel that they were managing funds well so they voted to join the consortium moving on to facilities brandon and i attended the facilities meeting last week and they did some number crunching
004and we're still waiting for some additional information from scott leopold that we get uh that we use for enrollment projections but last year there were 1 172 permits pulled in our district and so when we look at that we normally we we look at permits pulled and that kind of starts the numbers with enrollment um our current enrollment that is used for the five year forecast has a step down so i think it's 700 then it goes to 550. um we are forecasting that we will be more than the 1172 in 2021. so they're going to revisit the numbers and then take a look at when the curve may flatten and that all being said we had made the suggestion to the board that we kick out elementary school 17 to the was it 25-26
005and i think they're going to re-evaluate that and recommend moving it back up construction costs the inflation is crazy and every year that we wait it could be an additional three million dollars to build so um and with intel coming in there's a bit of concern that we can even get people to bid the project so it might be in our best interest to move that up and so that's what the committee will be voting on next meeting to bring forward to the board okay um also it was mentioned that we are going to need at least i believe three slc's next year which eats up capacity a little bit quicker than anticipated and if we do move forward with elementary 17 for the 23-25 or is it 24-25 school year then we might be
006able to combine some of our redistricting efforts when we do the middle school we also discussed the tech building project so i'm going to suggest that this evening after we convene that we take a little field trip down to technology and take a look at what why this has become an issue one of the things that could work to our favor is don kenny donated land kind of in front of on the other side of the condos in front of olentangy high school and we have a couple parcels that you can't really use for much and then orange township has the center parcel they would like to make a swap with some property that we have behind olentangy high school and then we would have that whole lot of land that we might be able
007to put a technology facility in so did i miss anything else [Music] thank you very much you're welcome anyone have anything else nope all right we'll go to our first uh presentation item or only presentation item in the state of the school mr ray as i've heard the principal spinner say like there's a lot everybody's talking about it [Music] i like this scandal that's right well good evening thank you for this opportunity and thank you for everybody in attendance always love having having people here at our meeting so um again thank you for this opportunity to present the state of the schools report for the 21 22 year school year um we developed a new long-term strategic plan in 2017-18 we began presenting to the board in the community a report that aligned with that
008strategic plan i updated the board on our progress with four strategic priorities last summer and now we'll present a broader perspective related to the strategic priorities and organizational goals with reference to our current state and the future direction of our organization so let's first begin with a review of our strategic plan and that starts with our mission our vision and our values we are each aware that the foundation of our district is our mission to facilitate maximum learning for every student it's an endeavor that not only impacts over 22 000 old and tangy students it impacts our entire community our vision is to be the recognized leader for high performance and efficiency and education and that's what we are striving to become as an organization we know that strong schools are essential to long-term growth
009and prosperity and we are committed to making smart financially responsible decisions that ensures that our students can achieve and our community can flourish finally our values are the behaviors that we expect from everyone in the organization so that we can achieve our mission and move closer to the vision of our organization so as we go looking back to 20 august of 2020 the last time i presented a state of the schools report was actually during the 2018-19 school year as we look back at our progress with in the strategic plan i really want to take a second to remind everybody the context in which we've been accomplishing this work and all that we have accomplished since my last report this video is a snapshot of the spirit in which we approach every challenge we face
010here and reminds us all of the optimism we bring when tackling a pandemic and finding the myriad of solutions necessary to succeed [Music] welcome back hold on tangy you guys got this [Music] we got the safety part down now we decided to work on making it feel like school again i think we're gonna be able to do a great job with that it's gonna be challenging but we can all do it we can all work together to make it happen [Music] thank you um and when did we present that that was august august 20. all right dustin get me back out of here you got it all right so it's it's one thing you know it talks second about navigating the pandemic though it's one thing for a school district to successfully pass a levy
011but another thing to do it in the beginning of a global pandemic as we navigated facilitating maximum learning in a covid world we continue to offer our students meaningful experiences within the health parameters and met students where they were in all facets we grew in all ways from enrollment to enhanced programs like committed distance learning to the number of schools to what we learned and emerge from the pandemic as now the fourth largest district in the state of ohio so here's a an overall view of our strategic plan it includes four strategic priorities and 12 organizational goals and they're not presented here and please remember that as presented here they are not in any kind of hierarchy or prioritized order for instance i'll be talking about ensuring mastery of learning last in this presentation but
012that's simply because of how we organize the presentation and i really like to save the best for last please also remember that there are multiple departmental goals and objective objectives related to each strategic priority and when i ask each department to report on progress related to the plan i received more information than it's possible to share in just one this one presentation much of our accomplishments and information presented is also used to create our district quality profile summary that we release each fall and highlights our most significant key performance indicators as we move forward i'll be discussing with you different key performance indicators and the metrics we want to monitor and report on in the future so let's get to our progress the first area i'll discuss is our strategic priorities students and stakeholders and
013the goals within alleviating barriers to learning expanding community engagement and promoting a culture of inclusive excellence i'm very proud of the progress that we've made in this area for we cannot truly facilitate maximum learning for every student unless we alleviate non-academic barriers to learning we often believe that the work we do in education can be life changing the work we do with regard to addressing non-academic barriers to learning can actually be life-saving so one highlight in june of 21 coach ryan day and dr houston of nationwide children's hospital shared about the pressure to perform on students and the strategies for all tangie parents to support their children's well-being coach day is an old tangy parent and spoke about his personal story and his passion to advocate to destigmatize mental health it was an impactful discussion
014that has led to additional parent academy partnerships with dr houston and nationwide children's hospital initiative on our sleeves our future in this area will center on improving the programs and practices we have in place and continue to expand existing partnerships dr fetty's team is creating a robust approach to alleviating barriers to learning that includes prevented preventative curriculum and programs as well as targeted responses to students in need the level of community engagement we have here remains consistently strong the fall 2021 quality profile gave light to the impressive amount of extracurricular opportunities at our schools and if you want to see community engagement at its finest attend any event at any one of our 27 buildings and you will see the outpouring of support a huge outpouring of support from students parents and staff our olympia
015key communicators group was reinstated to connect staff leaders parent volunteers and engaged business leaders in the community to share key facts and current events at the district level most recently we received great feedback from our winner meeting that was the information we shared was helpful and it very impactful the next phase for community engagement while it remains strong we can always do better one of the many future expansion opportunities lies in the portion of our community that does not currently have students within our schools like local businesses community members without school-age children our growing older adult population and our own alumni to support the growth of our newly founded alumni association we began creating alumni connection digital newsletters to connect alumni with us and one another we will continue to work with the olympia education
016foundation to expand that network and welcome more alumni into the association i think it's going to be about 1700 a year now for the next 20 years at our current uh graduating class level and then the final goal in this area of students and stakeholders is promoting a culture of inclusive excellence which has been a major focus for the district and i continue to be proud of the work done in this area while these topics are complex to address and require tough honest conversations we remain committed to dedicating resources to this goal as promoting a culture of inclusive excellence allows us to achieve our mission upcoming our second one commun uh our one community district service plunge is coming up on march 19th which is a day for that all our students staff and community
017members can come together to support support local organizations making an impact in our district last month this ontangi school special olympics held their first ever student staff basketball game i'm proud to report that the osso basketball team took on the olympia schools intervention staff and were able to secure an overtime win so it was a wonderful demonstration of inclusion within olin tangi moving forward diversity liaisons and clubs continue to promote heritage month activities and cultural events to give students our students a worldly informed perspective in addition we continue to examine curriculum to ensure freedom from bias and the inclusion of diverse perspectives and teacher professional development provides staff with tools to instill a sense of belonging in all students and create and include create inclusive classroom environments the next area i'll discuss in our strategic
018is our strategic priority resource stewardship and the goals within maximizing investments in revenue modeling fiscal responsibility and transparency and managing assets wisely this year the district took advantage of historically low interest rates refunding more than 148 million dollars in debt saving the district more than two saving the district more than 22 million dollars in gross savings it's fair to say that the greatest strides recently made in this area are the passing of the first two years of the fair school funding plan in the state budget and with the governor signing house bill 169 that allocated over 20 million dollars in pandemic release funds to our schools these wins benefit everyone in our community as we continue to advocate to keep our local tax dollars here in olentangy moving forward mrs hadfield's team continues to manage
019cash flow needs with market rate of returns to maximize investment revenue we will host a fair school funding summit this june inviting state legislators and leaders from 34 similarly underly fun underfunded districts to celebrate the success of our legislators work in this area and continue the conversation to keep ohio fair school funding permanently in ohio law with regard to modeling fiscal responsibility and transparency there are a few items listed here for you to see but the fact that we've received the auditor of state award with distinction 10 consecutive years says it all this award given by experts shows that the district consistently provides clean and accurate records and reports the treasurer's department meets regularly with the finance and audit committee to review the monthly monthly financial reports the treasury team is developing training materials for
020booster and pto groups that will continue to be available as these organization organizations rotate leaders the goal we ma the goal to manage our assets wisely is critical if we want to be considered a recognized leader in efficiency in education as stewards of taxpayer dollars we must be efficient and manage our assets wisely at all times we are consid constantly looking for ways to save money without compromising educational excellence as is the norm we opened a new building shale meadows elementary school on time and under budget that is particularly impressive given the pandemic increasing material cost and supply chain issues one of the challenges we face moving forward when managing assets wisely is related to the competing needs of technology and additional needed permanent improvement permanent improvements across our district which will only increase as
021our buildings continue to age as and as we grow we have a five-year a 10-year and a 20-year capital plan that we continue to review make updates and ensure that funding is available to complete these projects moving on the next area i'll discuss is our strategic priority internal processes and the goals within implementing a digital conversion expanding our talent management strategy and striving for a culture of operational excellence the pandemic highlighted the importance of the integral role of technology in the classroom for students and staff we had already already begun the work on digitizing digitizing our staffing processes and some tongue twisters in here which has been a collaboration across departments to integrate automate and communicate these updates and introduce our new digital systems last week our human resources team trained all administrators on a
022new applicant tracking system and the treasury team successfully completed the digital conversion to e-finance plus this past winter as we plan for the future a digital conversion is never fully complete because technology is always evolving and improving we will continue to try to streamline all of our processes for parents staff and students and prioritize network accessibility reliability and speed school and classroom operations rely on technology for basic operation so we must continue to ensure a stable technology environment if we aren't planning ahead for increasing speeds and more devices being connected to our network we will severely damage the efficiency and effectiveness of our district operations also of growing importance is security we must keep student and staff data secure and we must teach students to be wise consumers who understand their role as digital citizens
023with regard to our talent management strategy uh objective our human resources department has made significant process improved process improvements they look at the entire journey of an olympia staff member from a person first making the choice to complete an application to being selected as a new hire to their onboarding and orientation continued professional learning through their exit or eventual retirement olentangy is a destination district with a strong brand and a widely recognized name in education mr mr meyer dr fetty and their teams continue to strategize ways to attract and retain top talent top talent by evaluating the compensation structure building a positive environment and culture and ensuring professional development is available for all staff both classified and certified a departing staff member shared with us on their exit interview i've loved and will always cherish
024my time at all in tangi schools and have nothing but positive things to share my school has amazing leadership and a wonderful culture established by the administration next next steps here is that we're looking to capture is what we're looking to capture is the olympia employee experience over time we're working with cohorts of new hires to develop their journey in olympia schools how they develop and the outcome of their time in our district we hope to utilize information captured by these employee journey maps to improve the employee experience as we strive to build a culture of operational excellence we also build a sense of pride one important thing for our community to recognize is that as we continue to grow the answer isn't always to just build more school new schools our operations team works
025with our facilities committee to continue to leverage this the space that we already have to meet our students needs but when we absolutely must expand into new school buildings there's no district better prepared to seamlessly staff a new school to staff a new school building than we are here in olentangy our hr team put their skills to the test in moving olentangy teachers into cdl last year and then moving them back to their home schools while simultaneously hiring and staffing shale meadows in the fall of 21. last fall next steps here is last fall we piloted a new texting tool that we would provide for increased dialogue between parents and building staff we're exploring implementing this at the middle and high school levels we're also in the process of reviewing and auditing board and superintendent
026committees and creating efficient work plans for each of these groups and lastly the final area i will discuss is our strategic priority learning and organizational development and the goals within establishing our brand identity fostering leadership development and ensuring mastery of learning over the past three years much work has been done to create a brand identity for the district and each individual school the brand identities put into words and phrases what is truly means to be a member of olin tangy school's family and each school community we developed visual representations that are inclusive consistent eliminate eliminate trademark infringements and are able to be trademarked and monetized for a new income stream for the district and our schools next up will be determining the mascot the colors and the marks for middle school six the communications department
027here has implemented a trademark and licensing program which approves vendors to work with our logos and marks and also approves or denies all designs that use our school names and logos change doesn't happen overnight so we're trying to get to everybody still doing this but we currently have over 40 licensed approved vendors and the community and communications reviews brand project requests daily to ensure our district and school brands remain intact each year here with foster fostering leadership development each year our professional development has focused on a theme that we want to enhance for our staff which will in turn benefit our students last year staff learning was centered around creating a sense of belonging in our schools our classrooms teams and more this year vince detilio presented to the board about learner agency and how
028we position our students in a more in more empowered roles as learners mr dittilio mr wright and mrs davis have also unified our administrator legion lessons to be around the portrait of the learner dispositions which i'll discuss more in a minute here coming up we will be releasing a new olentangy professional development academy platform for professional learning the new platform will incorporate real-time feedback in all of our pd offering pd offerings and differentiated opportunities for the location and the method of learning and lastly we know that academic excellence is is consistent here in olentangy however we are never complacent we know that we can always get better we've developed benchmarks in our annual report with standards higher than the norms of our similar districts and the state we do this so we can continue to
029challenge ourselves to provide academic ex a better academic experience for all of our students this year's annual report had us meeting 18 out of 21 indicators and while we know our students continued to succeed academically three years ago we embarked on a journey to answer the question what do we want our students to be like as adults our community our teachers and our students partnered with us to chart this course the outcomes we identified prove that maximizing every student's learning is marked by more than just acquiring knowledge but also developing key dispositions as a learner along the way staff are implementing lessons around teaching students to be purposeful resilient curious and kind so they flourish as learners in the classroom and beyond looking ahead i'm pleased to share middle school and high school scheduling is
030underway hiring for 2223 has already begun and mr d'attilio and the curriculum team have already begun to plan next year's staff professional development in february we held our third and final pd day and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive 87 percent reported valuable or very valuable those are incredibly strong results and i believe they're indicative of our abil indicative of our ability to stay in tune with the needs of our staff as they work to facilitate maximum learning for every student the ongoing success of our district will continue to be dependent on strong support of teachers and staff so they can meet the needs of every student so as i conclude and we move through our day-to-day activities and responsibilities it's difficult to pause and reflect on the impactful work that happens every day here in
031olentangy the report this report gives all of us on the leadership team especially the opportunity to do just that just that pause and reflect it also holds us accountable ensures that we are purposeful in our work as we continue to move this district forward i can say without reservation i can say confidently that our students our staff leaders parents everyone here strives to live the mission to facilitate maximum learning for every student every day and i am infinitely proud of the people and the work that makes olin tangy schools the special place it is thank you all right excellent report any questions for mr ray no kevin you get any questions down there thank you just a comment thank you oh it is a special place to be okay well you know there again there's
032just there's so much and i know it was long but first draft was even longer so i don't get it i i could stay i don't know yeah i tried to i tried to cut this out since i wasn't going to be uh because i was going to be up here so long but i got overruled by the communications department because there's always so much great stuff to share um i had the opportunity to attend this event on march 3rd called seeds of change how many teachers participated 24 teachers took a course facilitated by our curriculum team on a program called seeds of change and they opted into this new type of professional learning and the course was sought to inspire teachers design to design a personal inquiry project perform research and develop a product
033that would have meaningful impactful uh student learning and then so the teachers kind of did what they make their kids do they came and presented in a you know around a forum and um parents and and other staff members and administrators some students came and got to hear their presentations and and they're putting their uh this into practice in their classrooms and we're excited to watch those seeds of change grow uh all throughout the district so complement those staffs this is one of my favorite slides coming up so two a week ago two two weeks ago tuesday about that two special young ladies ebony and essence wise were honored by the blue jackets i was actually i was i wasn't at the game mr wright was at the game and i get a text with
034a picture of their picture on the jumbotron um they received national recognition recognition for their italian talent and resiliency and breaking through barriers in sports because there's quite honestly not a lot of female hockey players in the world and especially female hockey players of of color so we applaud them i understand it was just a great evening for the wise family so coming up we have our one community conference uh actually i'm sorry take that back we we just completed on february 28th our one community conference african-american read-in we had these virtu these authors it was a virtual presentation but these authors shared their journey to become authors they shared their experiences and advice with our students and families one of the there's a young lady i can't remember how old she was uh 11.
035was as a published author as part of this group so that was a really a great presentation um by our equity inclusion team and then we are the top fundraising um district in the state for the american heart association i highlight two schools here walnut creek and tyler run ended up in the top 10 schools in the ohio kentucky region did a great fundraising campaign mrs lambert as a teacher there had an issue so they were highly certainly highly mode motivated at walnut creek so i compliment them compliment them on their efforts um if you have an opportunity to see a literally broadway quality performances that happen in our district at a much more reasonable price than you'd pay if you go downtown but liberty high school is performing mary poppins and berlin high school
036will be performing uh mamma mia here coming up in in march so great performances uh all the time by by all of our theater productions so if i really had you know if i hadn't expended so much energy on the state of the schools report i might have you know popped into an abba song with mamma mia but i want to embarrass myself too that's why mrs davis made it long highlighting some action items here i do want to highlight the resignation of makila thomas she is our assistant director for equity and inclusion at the end of this year uh her family is relocating out of state so um i just want to pick her to replace um jackie merkel when she left us a year or so ago and and she's done a great
037job stepping into that role and keeping the keeping the ball moving forward for the equity and inclusion team so we will now start that process to find uh her replacement so a couple corrections i want to highlight there that we've had to make to some staffing issues and then there are three amendments to the contract for fanning howie as we continue to do work throughout the district elementary school media centers are all being redesigned uh preschool four additional preschool playgrounds um creation a collaboration space on tangy high school and liberty middle school and then some renovations here at our district offices those were all planned for as part of the last the 2020 bond issue and then there's our important important dates coming up we as i mentioned you previously it's hard to believe but
038third quarter ends this week and with starting which means we are rounding third and heading for home uh with the fourth quarter coming up and our next board meeting's march 24th all right very good any questions for mr rafe on the superintendent's report nope all right thank you all right the next agenda of the treasurer's report i do not have anything to report okay and just for the record she's sitting in for ms hadfield tonight who sustained a knee injury in a fall and she's been kind of her ability her mobility has been challenged so hopefully we wish her well and hopefully get back to good health okay that brings us to public participation sir we'd like to remind everyone that public participation is the community's time to present any ideas issues or concerns to
039the board of education public participation is not a dialogue or discussion it is an opportunity to present any ideas or concerns to the board in public forum the board of education will respectfully listen to the comments public participation will last for a maximum of 30 minutes each participant has a limit of three minutes to address the board of education participants will not be allowed to secede their three minutes to another person participants must state their full name and address when stepping to the podium public participation procedures are established by the board of education policy 0169.1 the policy was revised by the board of education on october 12th of 2021 the policy in its entire entirety is available on the district website as an exhibit to the october 12 2021 meeting minutes [Music] i think we
040should look into getting a smaller bin at this time i would like to call mike coleman to the podium please mr coleman if you could state your your name and your address please yeah mike coleman powell ohio hi well folks um that was quite a good school report i heard there tonight unless i didn't hear this i don't think i heard anything about the matters that many of the parents here have been coming to speak to you about around crt social emotional learning the guidelines the curriculum around those topics and the things that have been happening between the school board and the parents and as i understand it it's one of those that is a topic that's supposed to be kind of compiled by you guys curated and rolled up to the board of education
041with this particular meeting format where we just stand here and just tell you what our concerns are and we keep talking about the same topic this just turns into what i heard last week you guys call a scene a ranting session a public theater i just don't know what else it could be because there's just no dialogue here and there's no reporting on the grievances and concerns that these precious parents have regarding their their children this is just silly there needs to be better cooperation and collaboration in that in that way tonight i'd like to request in the spirit of transparency and sunshine laws and this sort of thing that i'd be made available to see the crt the sel and related and close cousin topics uh the material that is being used to help
042these teachers dive into those topics with the children i'd like to see at what age this begins i'd like to see that curriculum or how those topics are communicated and and worked into the classroom i really do want to see that one minute remaining thank you [Music] i have run into a number of your staff members who are very unhappy with the way things are happening here between the school board and the community some of you know that others of you maybe you don't know but i'm here to tell you they're unhappy lastly some of these what parents would call road curriculums like crt scl and related they are getting reined in across the country it's just it's not if it's just a matter of time and i hope you guys are ready to be
043able to rebuild the relationships you have destroyed with this community when that time comes please start winding it back and start building these relationships with this community now don't wait thank you so i don't know if it's mr ray for ms griffin will you take the a on getting this public records request okay maybe if you could sidebar to make sure that it's specific enough that we could meet his needs but okay next item would parker parker please if you could state your name and your address please um my name is parker parker i live at 5880 blue stoneway good evening mr rafe and the board of education thank you for giving me the time to speak this evening i remember the first day of junior year as one thing anxiety unlike many cisgendered students
044who are happy to see their friends and catch up from summer break the whole day i was concerned and worried about one thing being dead named and misgendered by my new teachers the anxiety and fear resulting from this followed me throughout the day until i've subsided in one class it subsided because my teacher asked our class to share a name and pronouns by my teacher asking me this i found a sense of belonging a sense of hope but also a sense of relief for once in my life i didn't have to worry about fighting for my true identity just by my teacher asking it showed she cared however this relief will not be available to me or any other trans students again due to the current pronoun policy that is limiting teachers from directly asking
045or surveying students about our pronouns because it's a sex behavior or attitude simply put this policy is harmful to trans students in our district especially harmful to students in our district especially our trans and non-binary students already trained students are extremely vulnerable especially with mental health according to the trevor project 52 percent of non-binary and trans youth have seriously considered or attempted suicide this past year i'm part of that 52 percent along with so many of my queer friends the reason why is due to the lack of acceptance around us i've always been a student in the olympia school district for me and many other trans students this experience has not been positive we constantly face being dead named misgendered and forced to endure ignorant comments by staff and students every slur every time i
046misgender misgendered or dead named it feels as the truth part of my true self is being chipped away except these chips can't be glued back on there are permanent reminders that society does not see people like me as my true self the current board policy limiting teachers from directly asking our pronouns doubles down on this trauma for trans youth one minute left the trevor project also discovered that trans and non-binary youth who have their pronouns respected are 11 percent less likely to attempt suicide that is all it takes one simple question to reduce the possibility of a student like me to attempt suicide by drastic numbers but pronouns can't be respected if no one knows what yours are and they can't ask our current board policy is limiting teachers from doing this and it's only
047going to feel this trevor project suicide statistics all i'm asking for right now is to be respected as a human being right now i'm being asked for i'm asking our school school board to change the policy and not equate asking for pronouns as a sex behavior or attitude their current policy makes teachers fear fearful to ask students for their pronouns while i understand the board's concern about a misinterpretation of laws the school board used to make this policy it is unacceptable that our board has not found a balance between parental concerns and the well-being and respect our trans students deserve because in all we cannot facilitate you could finish please good facilitate maximum learning for every student when not every student such as trans students like me don't feel safe accepted and valued in our
048district and our current pronoun policy which is limiting teachers from asking students their pronouns is preventing me and many other trans students of having a sense of belonging in our community and district thank you for your time thank you next jordan knight please come up [Music] if you could please state your name and your address uh jordan knight misty dawn drive columbus uh good evening i appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight i'm the proud father of two girls in fourth and fifth grade at oak creek we're so grateful for our admin and teachers and staff there i'm here tonight because we received an email from the school letting us know that fifth grade growth and development presentation would be given sometime between now and the end of the year by the school nurse my wife
049and i looked through the slideshow and thought god bless the nurse presenting this topic of hormones and changing bodies to a group full of young kids as we look through the booklet that went along with the slideshow though again for elementary fourth and fifth grade students we were disappointed to find references to differences between biological sex and gender identity in the content back in the fall when lgbtq month was changed from the month of june to the month of october providing an avenue for this content to be discussed in public schools we were surprised that the district would promote and celebrate this there were documents sent out by the equity and inclusion staff to educate parents and students on the 20 different gender identities that are celebrated today we reached out with concern and we're
050sure that this content would not be discussed at the elementary level but of course here we are i fully believe that equity and inclusion is essential in a community but one group's ideology cannot and should not be taught as universal truth in a public school in our home we believe you should love your neighbor as yourself we believe that people always have the freedom to have their own beliefs and live their lives as they see fit we are certainly no one's judge we also believe that we have the freedom to not agree with validate or celebrate other people's personal beliefs and viewpoints gender identity is an ideology certainly not settled science people's personal opinion and theories absolutely cannot be taught as truth in public schools and if permitted allows for a slippery slope of ever-changing
051policy based on whatever the cultural issue de jour is i don't demand that my ideologies or religion or viewpoints or political perspectives be taught by the district if i want that done i'd enroll my kids in private school your role as a public school is not to disseminate a specific ideology but to provide a foundation of universal truths to our kids such as math science history reading and writing so that when ready they have the tools needed to make an informed decision for themselves with the guidance of their parents it seems to me that the district would be better served abstaining from taking sides on issues like this and leaving those conversations to be had by the parents where they belong as i said previously this is not an issue of legitimacy of any given
052viewpoint but simply the delineation of the school's role in our students lives and the parents role it's my hope that the district reconsider their policy on this matter and return our students curriculum to the basics thanks that is all the public participation we have for tonight we'll now transition to uh section 10 our discussion items call up to the podium dr jack fetty for the first reading of board policy updates good evening the board's policy committee met on february 16th to review the policies that have been provided for you there are it's a rather light batch of policies in comparison and a number of the policies you may have noticed were policies that were just approved by the board in november but there have been a few changes to orc that caused some minor changes
053after we adopted those so there's just some small changes there were there any questions on any of the policies are all of these driven by um orc or is there anything that came before the committee before my time um they're all driven by orc or uh what's known as edgar um which is a out of the u.s department of education okay administrative government response is the ohio revival code yes i i have a question and it's about backstory that you may or may not know but um policy 2271 college credit plus yes and um there's some new regulations around students that have to be 18 and registered with selective services yeah so that was one of the policies that we approved in november and then the state added to it after the fact after we
054did that that in order to be eligible for college credit plus if you are 18 you have to register for the selective service i don't know the draft right right that's right i just that really caught my eye having a 17 year old it's about to be 18. and is that a new ohio i had to do when i went to college no mr o'brien point of clarification if i might i think when you do anything for college if i remember way back many years ago you had to register for a selective service that almost do anything at a college and um yeah the federal funding right and this is just clarifying the extension of that policy to college credit plus it's just ironic that it came out that we added it right before a
055war broke out or an invasion whatever i just thought the timing was i don't know caught my eye yeah okay anything else no no i'm up to date on that thank you process right come up and talk about the 2023 2024 calendar yes we are looking about 18 months out now this is the annual presentation of the district calendar this works in two readings uh per policy and uh per components of our initiate negotiated agreement we will present the information here tonight to you as our draft this information will be shared with our staff in our community with a link to provide feedback on this draft with the board recap that will come out in the next couple of days we are required to collect feedback for a minimum of 30 days so once this
056is shared we will collect data and information and feedback through april 15th i do want to highlight just a few things this is a calendar that is anchored in the philosophy we have developed over the last several years based on need and based on feedback from staff and community and also want to add that with uh mazzetti here tonight this calendar is created uh the joint partnership between our team and um our our team with ota so we do thank them for their input as we work on this draft uh so we are crea are offering or recommending as a traditional start date of the third thursday in august which has been the same for about the last five years one of the different things we're presenting on this calendar that will seek feedback is
057in october we have our coda day we have split this up prior to have two fridays off in a row and so we wanted to give feedback with a slight change that we're making it a thursday and friday within the same week and extending the first quarter slightly so we will see that that in the week of october 16th it's a three-day student week with a teacher work day and then our traditional coda day off on friday the 20th regarding winter break we it's kind of interesting winter break exists the way we are drawing this up we have the traditional holidays during winter break which occur on mondays on the calendar we're presenting so present some unique issues about when to come back and when to leave so what we did is we started with
058where do we want to finish the year and so if you'll look to may we have in the past several years done all we can to be finished by memorial day so we started with that in mind with the teacher work day on may 24th and so what we have for a winter break is maximizing the number of school days in the first semester and second semester with the known start date of august 17th and our traditional finish date of may 24th so it does wrap around and it essentially becomes a wednesday to wednesday break which is not something we typically do but with the the placement of the holidays it seems to make the most sense in our draft and then the last item of note is that our traditional spring break is presented
059as the last week in march of 2024 so i present that to you any immediate questions that i could answer for you i guess one question is look at the minimum like we don't do snow days anymore we have a minimum number of hours we have to be in session based upon this calendar kind of where are we versus the minimum hours with the high school with with our high school day i would say we are we have a cushion of approximately 30 days and at the jack help me on the elementary and middle there in the 20s about 23 24 extra days with about another seven days at the high school because we do have a very long high school day high school schedule great any other questions on the calendar just one quick
060one can you clarify for people that might watch this or or that are here at what code today is teachers know what code today is but um folks that aren't teachers might not know um the it is a central to that when i first moved here i thought it was for the buses i did two back in 1999 and quickly earned as a teacher no it meant something different but it is a central ohio teaching group that has hosted a variety of professional development on a typical day and so a large number of central ohio districts have that day off for staff to be able to take on an additional growth opportunity should they choose instead of having staff request and us needing subs and it becoming a disruption to education over the years it
061evolved to uh with our partnership it made more sense to have that day off so teachers could choose to use that that day for professional development just to clarification you said our district provides 30 days above the minimum that's not the exact number but with uh you know we have to have a minimum of i think it's a thousand and one hours yeah for high school we have to have a thousand and one hours to be minimum and with the uh educational minutes at the high school level we have an additional 30 some days built in of the minimum hours that we would be able to accumulate if if we had a calamity of sorts and missed five weeks of school at the high school level we would still meet the minimum state requirements for
062hours of instruction and that's elementary as well it's a little bit less it it staggers down i know the high school number is a thousand and one and then it's something in the 900s and then something very close to 900 and all of the levels have a minimum cushion of four weeks middle school is close to five and then no high school is almost seven weeks okay safe to say we far exceed what the state requires for oh yeah absolutely sir okay yep um i know it's not a district it's not never on the district calendar but would graduation probably be the 19th of may yes uh again traditionally we have looked at the sunday before memorial day for our commencement exercises i believe we are maintaining or making sure we do an extension with
063the ohio state university for securing the schonstein center with that targeted sunday so on this calendar in 2024 i would anticipate our graduation would be sunday the 19th of may we anticipate traditional graduation this year we've already sent that out very soon all right thank you well let's re reiterate that we are on thank you we are incoming we're we're first time ever we'll be hosting all four yes so it'll be a strange pack day that's great all right anything else on the calendar no any questions thank you very much all right all right miss davis uh we're gonna talk about middle school number six please yes good evening everyone so we are now at that point where we are going to you are going to name middle school six so we have conducted a
064survey in our community and we'll share those results here um first i wanted to remind us all of the board policy for naming a school facility and so the the naming of the schools the board of education's responsibility the mascot and colors comes later but right now our board policy directs us to have names based on local history or geography no directional names no names of historical figures or individuals so we currently this has been the policy of the district for as long as i can remember me too yes and as i shared at oef last night i've lived in the district 32 years which is really a lot all the buildings were named during that time except for poland tng the original so anyway olentangi's five middle schools have been named after either townships
065or streets in the district just to kind of remind us berkshire liberty orange hyatt's shanahan there's some overlap there between some go both ways with townships and streets we received 280 suggestions to the middle school six survey which was exciting and uh suggestions were for olin tng berlin middle school and then you can see the next responses we received at glenn meade middle school gregory pyatt because the school is on piet road and so on and then you can see that the suggestions ended up being two three four people from pretty much on down those first after those first couple so given that um the suggestion was made for olin tangy berlin middle school overwhelmingly and the school is located adjacent to olentangy berlin high school which was the reason most often given for suggesting
066this name on behalf of the district leadership team we are recommending the name for middle school 6 be olin tangy berlin middle school i like it i think it makes sense right everything in the middle schools orange middle goes to orange high liberty middle goes to liberty high berlin middle we'll go to berlin high i mean it's very consistent with how we've addressed this issue so i think it makes a lot of sense does it cause any acronym issues since we already haven't i think we have we have discussed the acronym issues with obms being olentangy berkshire middle school and so that's more of a internal coding or you know a science naming convention that we use and so we have brainstormed ways to address that internally to differentiate between the two skulls if they
067have logo wear that say obms they're going to have different colors and different mascots that will differentiate them externally but internally we have figured out how to best manage that within our systems anything else no if you you'll you will have you have to have board action item next for somebody to make a motion in second and whatever you know of course you do have the right to just pick your own name we just said that as our own recommendation but you know and i i'm sorry i do want to reiterate because a lot of people said during their suggestions that it just makes sense because it will be a total direct feeder to berlin high school yeah we haven't done the redistricting process and that is not certain by any stretch and and you
068know liberty middle school was actually a 100 percent feeder to olentangy high school when it was opened and then obviously fed liberty all of liberty high uh but now it is split um orange is still the 100 direct feeder as is shanahan but um it's highly likely but not necessarily thank you for that bit of clarification mister there's a little asterisk to that that'll get used okay we said all right thank you thank you okay all right so now we'll go right into it and i'll present board action item a in that action item is to approve the name of middle school number six as berlin middle school olentangy berlin middle school so i'll entertain a motion for that so moved kevin second a second second mr lester any discussion all right please call the
069role ms griffin dr dabber cow yes mr lester yes mrs patrick yes dr wise yes and mr o'brien yes so the building is named all right uh mr rafe would you please present the superintendent action items uh yes sir i'd like to present superintendent action items a through g for approval all right can i have a motion to approve a superintendent accident of a through g there's an atg any discussion on the superintendent action item all right being none please call the roll dr wise yes mrs patrick yes dr daberko yes mr lester yes and mr o'brien yes i'll now entertain a motion to adjourn a second plea second all right any discussion on adjournment all right please call roll dr wise yes mr lester yes dr daberko yes mrs patrick yes and mr o'brien
070yes next meeting is march 24th thanks for joining us you