Olentangy Schools Board of Education, March 25, 2021

001good evening everybody i'd like to call this meeting to order it is march 25th happy spring break everybody made it um let's uh call the roll please mr king president mrs patrick here mr o'brien here mrs wagner feasel here and dr weiss here thank you let's all stand to say the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all welcome welcome everybody our first order on our agenda is to approve tonight's agenda do i have a motion the moved second second second second great call the role please mrs patrick yes dr weiss yes mr king yes mr o'brien yes and mrs wagner feasel yes thank you our first and only presentation tonight is a presentation on professional

002development it's going to be a year in review because we're done with our professional development days for this school year so we have vince dittelio and for her final presentation dr jackie merkel so if you could come up to the podium please and give us a review of what everybody has learned this year oh good evening thank you for having us um it's a little bittersweet getting to be our last time together jackie and i but um we're gonna do our best tonight so uh what we're here to do tonight is to really do a bit of an overview um of our professional learning for this school year um and we just like to start by kind of telling and explaining how we go about creating the focus for our professional development give you a

003little bit of behind the scenes look so um to start our planning we always start with the mission statement and the strategic plan and the strategic objectives of alleviating barriers to learning ensuring mastery of learning and promoting a culture of inclusive excellence are first and foremost on our mind when we think about planning pd we see teacher growth our growth as individuals as the pathway to meeting those goals so when we get uh when we started this process a few years back of really thinking sort of where where we were headed in the future we knew we had to create a new cycle of learning one that explores how non-academic skills which you've heard me talk about this before through portrait of a learner and other projects are paired with academic success to really create

004overall student well-being and with this in mind we sort of turned our learning towards focusing on teaching the whole child uh through social emotional skills that they need to thrive in the world today so three years ago we kind of kicked off this process with a discussion about the importance of relationships we thought that was a good place to start both between teachers and students students and students we know that relationships are foundational to any learning experience they provide the structure on which learning is built so that year in 2018 we examined the characteristics of strong relationships and strategies for building those in the classroom in 2019 we'd always say we don't we don't change our pathway we kind of bring in a new piece so we added in this piece of looking inward self-regulated

005learning self-regulated learners set goals they monitor their thinking they monitor their behavior their emotions and reflect on their progress students who know themselves as learners take an active role in their learning and are more willing to collaborate with others and then in 2020 we really look to leverage those two topics so relationships plus self-regulation to really develop this sense of belonging in classrooms and not only classrooms in buildings and also throughout the community so when individuals feel deeply connected and they feel supported by a group academic success and personal well-being increase this paired with the role out of our portrait of a learner just asks to further clarify the dispositions of the learner we are seeking to develop here in old tangie another important factor that we look at when we're starting to plan pd

006is our district professional development survey that survey is currently for this year being collected right now but over the last three years we've averaged around 94 percent of our staff reporting that they have grown professionally this overwhelmingly positive feedback tells us we are on the right track right that people are growing professionally also within that survey teachers have identified both social emotional learning and topics of diversity equity inclusion as significant challenges to their practices so another thing that we considered when planning the professional learning focus was really looking at what was happening in our community at the time that continued to make these topics relevant what data could we look at that suggested that this was needed that really took into consideration the voice of students as well as adults telling us that these are

007the topics that matter so the first source of data that we looked at was actually our panorama surveys which the student wellbeing team has talked about for the past couple years when you look at the sense of belonging data from fall 2020 we could see that 25 of our students in sixth through twelfth grade responded favorably to the question how connected do you feel to adults at your school meaning that 75 of students in maryland high school did not feel that they have strong connected relationships to adults in their school we saw that as room for improvement and growth then when considering third through fifth graders 59 of students responded favorably to the question how well do people at your school understand you as a person again we saw this as another great opportunity for

008growth that really tied in with the question of sense of belonging between fall 2018 and fall 2019 some of our greatest panorama gains was actually in the topic of sense of belonging you know there's still a lot of room for improvement and we wanted to continue leveraging that and recognizing that the pandemic also created new conditions where sense of belonging was important we think about the increased isolation that students and adults were going through the second piece of data that then presented itself in late spring and early summer was the drosd account that came out on instagram this was a space where over 330 anonymous students had posted about experiences where they did not feel a sense of belonging in our school community we saw examples there in those posts of language and behaviors that

009can damage belonging for all students and so through our professional development we were actually able to identify and talk about language and behaviors that do promote inclusion and belongings so those are some of the components that kind of guided our decision to continue down this path of learning so so once we sort of got get the idea kind of in mind we um what we're looking at here is our professional learning plan and i'll come back to this in a bit but this is actually formatted around a understanding by design approach which is a teaching framework that teachers use to plan lessons units in the classroom we still use it because we think it's a great way to clarify the end goal before we start planning opportunities so really getting our head wrapped around what

010do we want people to take away what are the outcomes that we're looking for then we go about the planning but even before that um we start much much earlier so part of my role and our role as a curriculum team together is to begin the research process and this starts really in about january of the year before where we start reading and reviewing the literature that's out there around these topics and first and foremost over the last three years we've talked about the collaborative for academic social and emotional learning called castle which has informed the ohio social emotional learning standards that that organization and their research base around self-management self-awareness social awareness relationship skills and responsible decision making are often where we start and um obviously they have years of research showing that these

011skills they they connect to academic success and that's across lots of different contexts and they also reduce other behaviors like stress anxiety and other dangerous behaviors sense of belonging is kind of woven in and out of those different competencies it's especially prominent in self-awareness relationship building and responsible decision making so along along with that the student experience research network is another research organization that sort of uh specializes in research around belonging they found that programs that help reduce concerns of belonging have particularly effective are particularly effective at reducing achievement gaps so that was something that we're really interested in is reducing achievement gaps and also that instructional practices that promote trust and enhance belonging also have long lasting student outcomes so not just a one-year experience for a student they can really really turn the

012dial for them so vince outlined two of the frameworks are two of the places where we have really gathered research in planning these professional learning experiences i would like to make clear tonight that we have had a lot of questions recently regarding the theoretical frameworks that have been used to plan our professional learning experiences and to be clear we did not and do not incorporate critical race theory into the teaching or planning of our professional learning you say that again louder so there's even and then there's even i guess from the research i want to make sure to like we're doing this reading we're doing the literature review we're talking and discussing and then from there it's not an isolated processing curriculum we start going out to other departments having conversations about these ideas and

013over the last three years we've even intensified that like a lot of work with people services talking to them because this is sort of where their heads are at a lot of times or with these skills um whether it's technology blts administrators all of them are kind of having discussions with us in the spring even before the plan is sort of rolled out so you know we're really collaborating around these ideas and then eventually in the spring we really get to a draft of this plan and the the plan like i said up here on the board the the backwards design framework begins with the end in mind it helps us capture our long-term goals driving questions and specific outcomes so the transfer goal obviously is what we really want people to take away from

014this year it's what we want to see showing up next year really that that staff you know really feel that they know how to develop this sense of belonging so that students can thrive in the classroom and beyond the enduring understandings represent the fundamental concepts and understandings that we want to develop over time the understandings take time right these are has to happen through conversations through collaboration it's not something we can do in a pv day and then finally i think it's the most important part is the essential question and this is what drives our inquiry this drives our discussions throughout the year and jackie and i really love this question it really has worked this year how might a sense of belonging be created damaged and repaired and if anyone like was out in

015the buildings during our pd days we saw teachers administrators wrestling with this idea and it's also a hopeful question because we talked a lot about repair and and how things these things happen relationships get damaged but we can do something about it and then from there we also had some more specific knowledge and skills jackie mentioned language talked a lot about how language plays a role in group culture and how language can really signify whether i belong here or i don't belong here and then also classroom routines and how those play into that also we also discussed uncovering and addressing microaggressions and how that can help build belonging and looking at how both explicit and implicit bias can impact belonging that's right so next uh we wanted to take a moment to share um our

016philosophy on professional learning in the district which might be different than you know some other school districts for us the choice to say professional learning instead of professional development is an intentional one and it gets at the heart of what we believe about teaching and learning we believe that educators deserve high quality learning opportunities and we design professional learning experiences that allow for choice perspective sharing idea exploration reflection and learning through discussion what our professional learning is not is providing training to staff or requiring everyone to think act believe feel the same way about a topic as someone else we work closely with each individual building and typically a group of administrators and teachers from that building to support their planning process and ensure that the delivery of learning objectives meets their unique needs furthers

017their current building goals and supports the growth of their educators we also debrief with each building afterwards we gather feedback from educators in their building and across the district and we share building specific feedback with the planning team after each pd day this feedback collection has allowed us to continuously improve our support think deeply about the next steps in our learning journey and work through any disagreements or issues that may arise because they definitely come up and we have lots of different perspectives on how we experience the professional learning we hope to create conditions that allow all learners to show up as their best learning selves we're tasked with designing learning experiences for staff that are engaging and encourage teacher growth because if we expect our students to continue growing we must expect the same

018of our educators so from here we'd like to talk about more specifically what we did on the three professional development days so we planned these three professional learning days for the district september december and february in general the days were grounded in four main components the first was assumptions goals and some type of grounding activity the second was our new learning for the day and the third was collaboration with other educators and the fourth was a share out and feedback component so day one focus on establishing a building level understanding of sense of belonging asking questions like what does it feel like sound like look like to belong in a space and what characteristics indicate that you do not belong in a space we juxtapose our staff stories of belonging with students experiences of non-belonging

019and this was able to help us to unpack those conditions that really promote belonging and we used a framework called the frayer model which is actually a vocabulary acquisition tool but we found it to be really effective here in helping us to dive deeper into the concepts buildings walked away with a personal definition of belonging that was unique to their individual building new learning then focused on the history of race and racism specifically how racism can impact our students sense of belonging we then modeled a strategy to support speaking up during times of discrimination to ensure that all staff and students feel supported in doing so and developing the language to help when these instances arise day two provided us with the opportunity to think about the way that language verbal and non-verbal can create

020damage or repair a sense of belonging educators refined their listening skills in this area by practicing with a variety of video clips during this exercise educators paid attention to the language and what it sounds like um when belonging is damaged and they were provided with questions that they could ask students in a learning environment when they notice that talk might be damaging to a peer's belonging diving deeper into the way that language has the potential to damage belonging we learned about the ways that implicit bias can lead to microaggressions in our interactions with students high school students created videos to share their experiences around this topic and illustrated how this sounded and the impact that this had on their self-worth and belonging in our community finally educators engaged in a strategy to support empathy building

021perspective taking and an action orientation during such instances on day three we sought to examine how a sense of belonging is impacted through our routines and our instructional choices educators spent time examining a visual to unpack the difference between equity and equality asking questions about what it truly means to provide support and access for all children in our care educators then went on to examine a classroom or building level routine using an equity lens the goal of this reflection and discussion was to isolate an opportunity to increase equity for students in their school building following a similar process in the afternoon collaborative teams focused on their instruction and their resource selection looking for key opportunities to increase equity and access for all so while the topic of race was a through line to our discussions

022of all three days we were intentional to incorporate a wide variety of student identities and experiences in addition part of our professional learning plan involves continuing the learning between these three days one way we do this is through offering courses through our olentangy professional development academy we had 140 educators participate in the experience this year in addition many buildings continue the professional learning during staff meetings their own collaborative time and various events hosted in the building while these three days serve as the backbone we know that the bulk of the work happens in the in between times so in terms of outcomes this year like jackie has shared some of these before to the board but also just to be clear on some of the feedback we gather like i said we gather it after

023each day to also for to debrief and see where we want to go next and after day one you know 89 of our staff replied that it was valuable or very valuable that doesn't include the folks who said it was somewhat valuable like that is really good data for teacher professional development and also we were able to unpack some of the some of the not as positive feedback on that day we met with buildings even met with some teachers throughout the district to really that really informed how we moved forward in day two on day two um dipped a little bit to 77 but we were still happy with with those results and also we got some pretty good actionable feedback that people wanted more time to sort of um to to collaborate with their

024peers they wanted some more time to sort of tackle these topics through collaboration so we built that in to day three in an additional block of collaboration and and i i think that was part of the reason why we jumped back up to 85 there which is a really good number um and aside from that feedback i also mentioned earlier the the district-wide survey that's being collected now in the response we've gotten there also the narrative feedback is important we always ask for narrative feedback because it's a place for people to share sometimes it's harder to make sense of the narrative feedback but i think it's important to just take a look at a couple of these quotes of what people shared that really embodied what we were trying to do here you know this

025one teacher saying belonging is something everyone wants and needs but often belonging is more richly experienced by certain people more than others like that that is that is that's where we were going with this topic another teacher mentioned make the moments matter take the time for each student to be able to share out their uniqueness and blend it into the content that you are currently working on those are those are really strong takeaways from our teachers that that are really things we are working towards in the district also to acknowledge like i did before not all of the feedback is positive and we we do get you know critical feedback and we try to pursue it we try to we try to have a conversation a building has a lower you know response rate or

026something like that to it we try to go out and have those conversations and see what we can learn from them and how we can adjust along the way so finally um a little bit of a preview into what is next we're kind of in that planning collaboration period right now and i still see this as the same cycle of learning like we keep adding another piece to the puzzle here and where we're at right now and this is we've you know obviously this is in draft status but when students feel like they belong they are empowered to take control over their learning they use their voice to speak up and make important choices about how they learn they demonstrate a sense of agency agency simply put is the power to act to make decisions

027and exercise control over your life classrooms that create conditions for students to embrace their agency are inevitably more equitable learning environments so we really feel like that's the sort of next step here is to really empower students to take more control over how they learn what they learn really becoming more active participants in the classroom and there's really four components that we're looking at and how to address that creating conditions for all learners to one pursue their interests and find a purpose you'll hear a lot of the portrait of a learner kind of weaving in and out of these here um you know really trying to create the conditions in the classroom for that second the conditions for letting students set personal goals personal academic goals but also well-being goals and really take care of

028themselves teaching them how to do that and then the conditions to use their voice and exercise choice voice and choice is a huge thing you hear in education and it's a great thing and it's way more complex but this idea of really letting students speak up but also make choices in their learning and then lastly um to create the conditions for them to make a positive impact on the lives of others um and we really see that that that line of agency kind of working through that and it seems like a logical next step for us um so although it's still draft status we're very excited about it um we see this conversation like i said as the next step towards those dispositions in the portrait of a learner and ultimately meeting the strategic objectives

029of alleviating barriers to learning ensuring mastery of learning and then promoting a culture of inclusive excellence so thank you so much for your time tonight thank you to jackie for all she's done for our team we're going to miss her a lot if you have any questions we'd love to answer them questions i i have a couple questions that have been asked of me um one of the questions that that has come up is why are we doing professional development i think you i think parents see oh my gosh these teachers have this day off well it's not a day off it's a it's a work day for them and i liked how you said that if we expect our students to grow that our staff should grow as well so can you you know

030help me explain that why why are we doing professional development well i'll answer it because i mean i've been in the district for 18 years when i came here from having been in five other districts in the state and talking to other colleagues um even as far back as 2003 there was no one doing the type of professional learning that we were that that i that i discovered that we were doing in olympia and it's only continued to grow and become more important it's it's a huge part of the reason why we get the results we get with the spending we get because we leverage this professional learning that we do to is is a key leverage point to making all of our professional educators better at everything they do and and we do it

031in-house with a very small team of really smart people and it is it is is really the backbone of our sig of the success of of our strategic plan um and they do an incredible job uh of of serving you know and serving the the learning needs of of our our professionals um it's been something that the board has been committed to because you approve the calendar you approve the the the resources for this professional development so again you know even for those of you who haven't who have been a part of different boards it's something that as a school a learning organization we've been committed to um for for a long time so the why is simple because it makes us better it's necessary for us to achieve our strategic objectives you know and

032again all of this all of what we're working on here i didn't hear the word indoctrination in any of this um creating conditions for all learning learners to do the things that are on that slot there's nothing evil about that we're trying to help all children be uh better through this type of learning so it you know the people that don't understand that i'm not sure they'll never understand what are true what is truly in the hearts and minds of the people doing this work okay so another question that i along those lines that i get is okay you're offering professional development so your teachers and staff can learn more so why aren't they learning more in academics why are we spending so much time in non-academic areas we should only be teaching the three

033r's what's the answer to that and that's a you know that's a question we get a lot too and i think that i mean it i mean we all know that there's other things at play when we're learning you know chemistry and biology there's there's other dynamics in a space for a classroom and i think it's when it's when those two things come together the strong academic pedagogy of teaching with that caring adult when students achieve the most and i think that you know with my own children like i can see that in the classroom when both those things are happening and it's i mean it's the people we remember right it's the teachers that we all remember they were great teachers not because they knew the most about you know writing and they did

034know a lot about writing but they also cared deeply for us so we really feel like that is the it's it is the thing that really matters is when they come together so and then the other piece of that answer too is that during the collaborative time we give teachers are collaborating with other biology teachers about how to implement this into their curriculum so that space and time they're given to collaborate really is that charge so how does this fit into a world language classroom how does this fit with kindergarteners they're having those discussions and they're also having them in between the pd days i think that's a misconception too that we're only learning like on those days we're learning every day during collaborative time which is amazing that our teachers have and we have

035opda packed with teachers you know in a regular year like if there's probably be teachers upstairs right now continuing their learning continuing their growth so i just really feel like the academics plus that you know social emotional the dispositions you know the caring adult when we put those together is where really where excellence and teaching comes from my final question was and i i had someone asked me this a parent asked me this she didn't feel that there was a problem with racism in in the school district she felt it was more of a problem of bullying and can you address that those two issues yeah so obviously i mean you could probably pull pull hundreds of parents in the district and everybody in their child will have a unique experience so while one particular

036parent or child may not be experiencing or have ever experienced any type of racism or discrimination another parent they and their child may be experiencing that you know on a yearly basis or one time and so those experiences are things that are very important very real and as vince mentioned they directly impact the ability to learn and so i see you know them potentially as two separate conversations but bullying you know is another thing that is occurring in the schools and that we take very seriously and we have investigation and reporting mechanisms put into place to ensure that that's not happening so um yeah i think that it's difficult to really boil down everything that's happening in the complexity of the student experience here into either just an experience of racism or just an experience

037of bullying i think it's a lot more complex than that and it's important for us to really listen to the voices and the experiences of the students and the families to understand the different dynamics of what's going on so i you know i would hesitate to make any any large assumptions about that day-to-day experience from just one family i think it's really important for us to think about the larger picture and i think a good place to do that is up coming up in april and i can't remember the date off the top of my head when we're going to have the student presentations april 21st april 21st the one community conference and that is where i learned the most year after year after year are those um student presentations and so i'm really looking

038forward to that thank you julie yeah does anyone else have any questions yes i don't have a question i have more of a comment um i think that the timing of this was superb because i i i have an 11th grader that goes to both the dacc and olin tangy and um when the kids returned to school it was quite a time for adjustment because they got very comfortable um in their smaller groups and now they suddenly doubled in size and they didn't feel safe and they didn't you know the dynamics completely changed and i was thrilled the teachers the instructors were um having getting the kids to take place or take part in exercises to kind of unify them and i think it was great timing because there's been a lot you know a

039lot of separation this year and our students need to they need help getting back to the way things used to be it's been a year so i applaud the timing and your efforts and that and then think tank does doesn't that um feed into a lot of where you'll be going next year it does in this year we're not doing think tank but we're having another event we're planning for the kickoff to school which isn't quite official yet but something similar but typically yes we hold a you know sort of this celebration of what we always say it's the it's the finish line in the starting line for the next year so we try to celebrate all the work our teachers have done obviously if you've been to that event teachers are out sharing hundreds

040of teachers here learning the first week of summer and then we're also kind of previewing where we're headed next year so yes and that that we're going to pick that back up as soon as we can bring yeah 2-300 people together so and even though we have to say goodbye to jackie merkel tonight we are going to be saying hello even though she's been here for quite a while to makila thomas and so she is on our agenda as well so um you know we'll we'll continue on with this great work and makila will work with vince to to carry on okay yeah since you know jackie's tomorrow was her last day we made her work to the bitter end yes i've got everything out of here happy to do it she's our inaugural administrator

041with our diversity equity inclusion team and she does she's done a wonderful job um just outstanding growing the program and i don't do we know what you're expecting did i announce that with me she's got a lot of life changes coming up we had a nice little send-off for um i being the person that i am gave her a dr seuss book as a send-off he did he wrote a very nice note in it oh i have to reveal that we don't want anybody to know that there's a heart in here but she's it's just been it's been wonderful to work with her and and learn with her and um sometimes cry with her but it's been it's just been she's done a great job and we know makila's going to pick it up and

042run with it so yeah thank you thank you yes thank you both great presentation thank you so much okay next we have my board president's report so welcome to spring break i'd like to thank all of the students and staff members who worked very hard to allow our district to transition safely to full week in-person learning for those students wishing to be in the school buildings your work and dedication does not go unnoticed we look forward to a successful final nine weeks of school so what have we been doing what have i been doing in this district on monday we hosted what has become a biennial event it's the olympia school funding forum with the school advocacy committee this year i was so proud and to report that we had all three elected officials in

043our presence senator brenner represe representative chris jordan and representative rick carfania were all in attendance the video of the program along with some of the answers to the questions that we couldn't get to will be on the district's website and we'll share that out i had a lot of other things come up i've got some questions to address and we'll get those answered but i hope that you all pay particular attention to the slides that were created um because this one slide that i want to point out if it's up could you put the slide up oh sorry um this one i i look at a lot of data and emily created this is a new slide that she created and i greatly appreciate it of the historical school funding throughout olyny since 2005. and

044i knew it was poor i mean that our funding was poor and it's poor but this just shows it since 2005 or 1999 the average amount of per pupil funding is 393 per student i went back and looked at through the the cup report and like the average school district back then was getting over 3 200 you know so even back then we were being funded wrongly um right now we're getting about per people for the last cup report and the average school district is getting over four thousand dollars um so this broken school funding formula does not work and has never worked for olin tangi our elected officials realized that but now it's up to the rest of the general assembly to acknowledge it they currently have house bill 1 in the house it

045it's got overwhelming support they we were told on our meeting monday that hospital one will probably get rolled into the state the house's version of the state budget um hospital one does fix the school funding formula is what they believe they also believe that it answers the question of is this formula constitutional or not it also directly funds charter schools so we wouldn't have to take our money and send it to charter schools um so there are a lot of good things with the house bill one that could get rolled into the budget the senate senator brenner told us that they are working on a plan nobody's seen it yet but they are working on their own plan which kind of causes me concern because when that happens when the house has one plan and

046the senate has another plan they duke it out and a lot of times what they come up with isn't a good plan so i i don't know what the senate is going to do it causes me great concern but we'll just have to watch for that but this you know we get a lot of emails and we see a lot of posts about people mad about something mr wraith has said um two million times this is the issue that we can all be mad about and act together on okay we usually do call to actions but in but at this point the house is for sure gonna pass the fair funding bill so we don't need to do a call of action yet um the senate is really where we're gonna have to work um

047so keep this in mind people but there's something even more that makes me angry more than this so speaking of funding it has come to our attention that ole and tanji will receive nothing nada zilch zero nothing from the american rescue plan that's the latest round of federal pandemic relief funding just like we've received nothing from the second round of federal pandemic relief funding this is because that the formula that is used to distribute these funds is based on title 1 funding of which olin tangi receives no title 1 funding this school year so while similar districts are getting millions and i mean millions in american rescue plan funding owen tangi are receiving is receiving nothing it came out in the akron beacon journal this week that the akron city school district which now has

048fewer students than olin tangi is receiving almost 100 million dollars in federal pandemic relief aid a hundred million dollars and that's after receiving 58 million dollars in the second round so they've received more than 158 million dollars in pandemic relief funding i just have to take my breath because that's that's lottery money that's hitting the lottery akron has stated that because of this funding they are not going to have to be on the ballot in november to ask their voters for more money why not with 158 million they don't have to ask voters for money like we do and they have to create a plan outlining how they're going to be able to spend all of this money all of this was stated in the akron beacon journal i'm not making this up so if

049you want to be mad about something be mad about that and then during the governor's press conference this afternoon he was asked a question about if townships were going to get pandemic funding and he said well there are a lot of entities that are not getting funding olin tangi is getting nothing and that's what he said in his press conference today olin tangi is getting nothing now he and his staff are looking at if some of the state's funding because the state got money that they can do something with and as it relates to the pandemic they are looking at to see how they could possibly get olentang something dublin is going to be receiving over 11 million hilliard over 15 million new albany 2.7 million upper arlington about 2.5 million the only other school

050district in the state not receiving federal pandemic money is autoville in putnam county which has just 459 total students grades k through 12. that's about the size of our smallest elementary school we are the sixth largest school district in the state we have expenses related to the pandemic just like all of the other 609 school districts in ohio yet we are receiving no funding from the american rescue plan and received no funding from the second cares act our district treasurer emily hatfield has reached out to congressman troy balderson and the ohio department of education which i would not have thought about ode but i'm very glad that she did because she caught their ear i have spoken with representative carfania and emailed representative jordan and senator brenner i've also emailed the ohio school boards association

051which advocates for ohio school districts and mr rafe has been in contact with the governor this is an issue that greatly concerns me having been involved in this district since 1997 appropriate school funding has been my number one priority and we will continue to and it will continue to be my priority until acceptable changes can be made people can complain about a lot of stuff and they have but it is this one issue we need to take action on a new school funding formula is certain to pass in the house but the fight will be in the senate as for federal pandemic funding we have been told that somebody's going to do something we just don't know when so people of olentangy whether you have kids in the district or not please pay attention because

052after spring break we will be letting the community know how they can become advocates for olin tng regarding funding mr rafe stated on monday and he continues to state obtaining additional funding is the issue that we can all rally around if you can tell i'm mad i'm mad and that's my report julie how much are we getting nothing zero nothing so for the mom who spoke eloquently in the diversity committee meeting that i was in last week was it last week we did a virtual diversity committee meeting she she said something that i hadn't heard before that there are she feels that there are students in in the building that have to do a walk of shame down to pick up a computer from the school um because they don't have the means to bring

053their own device with them into school um i wasn't aware of this and um she said it you know if we could do anything about that because other surrounding districts do my my niece and pickerington she has she's in sixth grade she has her device from from the school i would love to be able to do that but all of the surrounding districts get additional funding whether from the state or pandemic relief funding if i had pandemic relief funding that might be something to look at but you know i i'm sorry that i keep harping on funding but the the funding or the lack thereof the funding supports everything that we do you love the ap classes the banded choir in the elementary schools all the extras that we're we're able to offer our students

054you know we all we operate on such a small margin we spend less i'm preaching to the choir here i know but we spend less than the average school district in the state come on i you know i would love to be able to offer the students the com computer so they don't have to do a quote-unquote walk of shame i i'm i'm you know i'm sorry but there's a number of students there's no walk of shame there are a number of students who just don't bring their computers the three they leave one of the three computers at home because we have them available for them so let's just slow down slow it down on that well i'm just repeating yes please at the diversity committee yes i understand that but it's all about sense

055of belonging remember inclusion as well so we just have a lot of kids who don't bring to the places they have so yes mr rafe are you done you sure yes well i have a question yes did mr jordan or mr brenner offer anything specific that they're going to do to help us mr other than come to meetings yes they i they will be advocates for us now i get this question all the time why haven't they done anything for us and i will tell you that mr representative tarfania and senator brenner have carried fair funding amendments for us through at different times unfortunately they've been ineffective stopped or vetoed um you know i had this question asked me last night why why won't they give us more money and it does the the the

056answer is unfortunately because we're just one and we're so unique and there's so many other districts that will go and mr ray said this monday night do i have to go to the state house and start crying because they will go they will parade through the committees and they will they will plead their case we will plead their case too but people like representative edwards in athens county will say why should i give additional money to people who live in big houses or why should i give additional money to school districts who gets a's on their report card and that's the thought of a majority of people unfortunately at the state house why should they help olin tng the state says we're wealthy i don't feel wealthy i know our constituents don't feel wealthy when

057it comes to school funding but the fact of the matter is we're we're one and there are a lot of other districts who who feel they there's more votes in those districts i'll just let it say that that and it's got to change it just has to change and when the governor today said olan tangi is getting nothing i was kind of glad he said that because at least he has heard us he's heard from the people that we've talked to but i something needs to be done so whether it's voting for somebody else or whatever something needs to be done you know i mean mr jordan ran on his advocacy for the olympic school district i don't have any results to demonstrate that yes and today senator brenner posted that senate bill passed that's

058going to bring money to money to schools and so i asked him how much money only tng would be getting but i don't have a response yet nor do i yeah [Music] mr rafe yes man i'll do my typical walk of shame up to the podium all right well thank you for that impassioned report mrs feasel we all feel your same passion for this topic so we'll move on to some better things obviously you did mention our uh staff welcomed back all of our students and you know of course they did it in in true i think berlin had set a pep rally every period uh mr mcdaniels and shannon pajamas mr mitch daniels and shanahan middle school i had a pajama day there i think we those are um i can't remember the elementary

059school that is krista heritage elementary school teachers we're out welcoming welcoming their students back so again by all reports things are going well i think you know we're following the protocols and trying to keep everybody as safe as possible but you know just i think there's been a huge sense of relief and hopefully those of you with children are seeing good positive things uh going forward as we've mentioned like to welcome um congratulate makila thomas as the new assistant director for equity inclusion uh has been with the district for a very long time and has been actively involved i you read the announcement we made actually her and her family her parents have been on the diversity committee for a long time so um we're just very very proud to have her now lead our

060efforts efforts moving forward and it's a very nice picture todd i hope she agrees so aquila welcome all right welcome to your new role um so we uh want to congratulate our 14 elementary students who are excuse me old tangy students elementary and middle school who are competing in the regional virtual spelling bee i have a special um admiration for these students that get up there especially the ones you know we do more so when we do it in person i'm still traumatized by going uh out of my fifth grade spelling bee uh in the very first round because i misspelled the word cereal the food yes i still still have play every time i see the spelling bee i flash back cereal switch the e and the a sorry mine is patriots what round

061though yeah never forget that i was out first like first one out my sense of well-being or belonging to when they ushered me to my chair back in fifth grade oh goodness so i want to congratulate some students here from walnut creek elementary school our fourth graders used the lesson they learned from books they read in their class about a service project to raise money and donate items for children in foster care so very proud of those fourth grade students at walnut creek elementary school um this week we have berlin high school's theater presenting little shop of horrors and when we reviewed the slide i of course sang a song from little shop of horrors but i'm not going to do that here in public tonight um but you know obviously we're doing these things

062uh with limited seating available and the performances will be live stream so we wish those uh students at berlin high school all the best in their production i just thought greta was here to hang out with us i will yeah we are revealing the mascot for what the video plays with all that build-up elementary school hi my name is greta janagi and we want to welcome you to your school shale meadows elementary school at shell meadows elementary school we are going to be all about a sense of belonging we are going to cut we're going to be resilient we're going to inspire each other we're going to encourage each other we're going to be all about the positive change and showing true kindness and to start us off this year we want to tell you

063that you are going to be the shale meadow monarchs we are gonna be the monarchs in the meadows there you go yeah that was fun it was fun process so the little monarch is uh actually a little fierce too so we're all right with our you know fierce mascot so enjoy that so obviously as i told you i said set up when i sent you my board update this was going to be a really interesting week because we were sending out the graduation announcements of what we're planning to do so i want to recap that for for you and i know you've seen a lot of communication about this um you know we put really we really started thinking about this 2021 graduation plan as soon as we executed last year's graduation plan so you

064know all in all our our goal has been to try to select the commencement plan to honor and recognize the class of 2021. we know how important it is we know how much the feeling of losses has occurred you know we we tried to focus on on two main things as we analyzed all the different commencement plans that were available to us the first thing was the kids what would be the graduates experience and the thing we believe that was most important to them was celebrating something with their entire graduating class it was important for the kids to have an opportunity to be together one last time and the second thing was the family's experience parents being able to see their graduate walk and have their moment in the spotlight so we considered a lot

065of different options not one thing we considered is perfect for all the graduates excuse me um and that will allow their family members to view their um sorry i'm going to read that there's not one perfect solution that allows all graduates to be together and allows family members to view their graduations commencement walk so you know those were factors that were important as we went we moved forward so the things we actually considered there there were actually five because nationwide arena was one thing we considered but it was never made available because of the hockey schedule and potential playoffs obviously the schottenstein center at ohio state university is what was one of the things we considered but all of the the all of the venues we considered all of the types of setups we considered

066were then um examined based on those six factors you see up there and you know essentially it was which of these factors you know which of these factors could we check the most boxes on so you know could we hold the event rain or shine obviously at the shot and seed center yes that was the case um huntington park high school stadiums um the commencement walks as i've reported previously and this is now essentially the third or fourth time we have talked about this process publicly so you know you see there the venue capacity obviously ohio state was limited huntington park would have been limited high school stadiums are limited the commencement walks have flexible capacity because you're limited only by how big a car you have or how big of a vehicle you choose

067to rent visibility the shot and seed center would not have the same visibility there are 3 300 seats available in the schottenstein center of that 3300 1850 would be in the upper bowl of the arena i don't know if any of you have ever sat in section 302 of the schottenstein center but you can't see very much from that so you know that was a factor we took into place huntington park had very good visibility uh the high school stadiums also you know again low visibility from depending on where you're sitting in the high school stadium and we'd also have to uh have additional led screens um you know obviously the best visibility for a child receiving their diploma from their principal is in the commencement walk because right there next to the stage is

068they're getting their diploma um you know the whole group experience was also very important as we considered the graduation uh decision and obviously you know the stadium and the schottenstein center in huntington park would give that whole group experience the commencement walk did not give the whole group experience so that's why we tried to balance that out with the senior salute on friday um the timeline is really a critical factor now i know there's a lot of commentary about other districts that have chosen to use the schottenstein center but we i spoke to the superintendent in hilliard on monday and according to him even though they sent out an announcement saying they were going to be graduating from the schottenstein center ohio state university has not authorized the use of the schottenstein center even though

069they said in their announcements there will be five tickets per family they have no idea when the tickets will be available they have no idea when where where anybody will be sitting so you know those that timeline was very difficult um because we we need to make a decision so we can properly plan and execute this event the other concerning thing for us about the schottenstein center we had always planned to do all four of our graduations on that one day may 23rd because of the covet cleaning protocols we cannot host all four graduations on that date initially the schottenstein center told us that the 22nd of may was would be available we've subsequently found out that another district has the 22nd of may booked so while two of our schools could if we proceeded

070with the schottenstein center two of our schools could graduate on the 23rd but two of them with no alternative date for that would be a big problem to go to say the two schools who'd like to graduate in june because the first available dates they have are in june now you know again some other districts planned three separate nights so was that we haven't all we haven't done that we've always planned to do those uh graduations on on the you know on the same day um so you know that that really was a it was a really strong factor in determining what course of action we had to take when we made our announcement um you know again same thing with huntington park they were looking at a mate graduation they offered us a june

071rain date um the high school stadiums yes we could have all our graduations occur in one weekend but um we don't we cannot uh have an altar we'd have to have alternative dates for inclement weather um and with the commencement walk all the graduations can occur on that one weekend um and as i said before we can do those rain or shine and then cost was the last factor um shot and scene center if you saw my second second uh email that went out and the budgeted amount for the schottenstein center for this year was 51 000 um the the new cost to do it on two separate dates with additional covid cleaning protocols and all the other things that would go into it would push the cost to almost 200 000 huntington park would

072have been outside the uh budget the high school stadiums would be with inside the budget and then obviously the commencement walk are also inside of the budget um you know as we went through this process you know our principals did meet with their building leadership teams their their staff advisors um you know they did speak with students um you know the the constantly changing conditions of the pandemic uh you know affected that decision-making process and you know we've had a goal all along because people need to know they're already making plans plans you know people you know um plans that were made we because we've changed some of the aspects of our graduation weekend we are creating conflicts for some of our families i've got a lot of questions about why we didn't survey people

073there's no point in doing a survey when you know the outcome of the survey because we would have asked people what type of graduation ceremony do you prefer virtually everyone would have said we want the traditional graduation ceremony at the schottenstein center we know that but as we said in our letter the reality is the traditional ceremony that everybody expects wouldn't be occurring the visibility is is is will be really bad there'd be no music there'd be no procession there'd be no recession out recessional out um two of our schools would not have been able to how uh put all of their graduates on the floor of the schottenstein center because you can only the limit is 500 students we would had students sitting in the in the in the stands in the seats separated

074from the class so you know again they were just and again we knew all along what people wanted unfortunately given the conditions it just doesn't um you know the the timing the the secondary date was was hugely problematic so um you know that that's just how we ended up so where we are how i plan how we plan to receive proceed with recognizing the class of 2021 there will be basically three phases and again we think there are a lot of opportunities for students and families and to celebrate the the accomplishments of the class of 2021. um on friday may 21st first beginning at 8 pm the senior class classes at all four respective schools will gather at their stadiums for a senior sunset salute the speeches will be read by the valedictorians and the

075class officers and the principal and you know we're going to make every effort to make it a very very special night question is automatically answered if you can do this in your stadiums why can't you do graduation in your stadium well since this is a student-only event if there is inclement weather we are able to move this inside and still host the event in the gyms we can't do that with the graduation so that's the answer to that question i know some of you have gotten the second phase is our commencement walks on may 22nd and may 23rd we did have to move two high schools so berlin and liberty will be going to the 22nd and uh orange elentanti and orange will be on the 23rd while i know this may create conflicts for

076some families the commitment of the commencement walk is significantly less than the commitment of an entire graduation ceremony so whereas you know we go down we go to a and have a traditional graduation ceremony it would be you know a three plus hour commitment by the time you go to the venue have the ceremony leave the venue the commencement walk commitment could be as short as a half an hour so while we did have to move to schools and i'm very sorry that we may have created conflicts for some families i hope they're able to find a way to manage those conflicts um the commencement walks will be live streamed so family members who are not able to attend can still watch the event live as it's happening so they can actually see their family

077members receive their diplomas which would not have happened because of limited ticketing at other venues and as we had last year we're going to have the full radio coverage so families will be could be watching the event on their phone while they're waiting to drive up through the to be prepared for the commencement walk and then excuse me the third phase is we will have a professional virtual graduation ceremony that will be shared on the day of the commencement walk for each school it'll include all the speeches the senior video of the senior sunset salute and a slide that will honor each senior with their name called uh and and um information so uh those that is our plan going forward it is different there are other districts that are planning uh stadium graduations and

078holding out hope for the schottenstein center and you know all those different types of things this is our plan going forward so i'll stop if you have one have any questions ask any questions about graduation because i know you've been getting questions about graduation well it's not really a question it's just a statement that can you remember graduation that it didn't rain on us the first graduation i had to participate in was at polaris and your son might have been in that class because it poured forward yeah and and so 2018 grant it started off nice that day well it started out yeah it rained that day but it ended nice i'm just i i used to go to my car to warm up because it would be so cold yeah you know and rainy

079but i i just wanted to to say that it is a very very legitimate concern i know that's why you had to uh utilize that piece of information in determining a path forward so i just i don't know if everybody's aware but we always have the third sunday of the month and check the element well again you know the last thing i know you guys all know me well enough to know the last thing i want to do is disappoint anybody and it does it does i i feel badly that that people aren't able to accept this decision um and that it again it's just something else for us to be divisive about and it's disappointing because i mean it's disappointing that we can't do what people what everybody wants but i do think there

080are people that truly enjoyed it last year they embraced it they decorated their cars they the staff is out and uh uh you know celebrating with the kids there was a you know the the what we found last year for the people who really embraced the whole concept of the commencement walk is that it became about each and each individual child as opposed to a big ceremony that's about the class and i get it people want to see their other friends and all those other things and it's just not something i don't i don't feel confident i mean again if we went into this with the idea let's just go do this we'll post the stadium graduation these are the dates if it rains we're not doing it well that's that's the planning that went

081into people's thoughts last year that we're going to do it you're going to do the stadium graduation if it rains we'll we'll we'll send you the link for the virtual i think we're going beyond that by doing the sunset salute by doing the commencement walk and the virtual graduation how many people can fit in the stadium in our football stadium 1200 on the home side 549 on the visitor side so it would be very limited seating but again the visibility would not it wouldn't i mean you're going to put 500 kids on the field limited visibility limited you know i mean if you're sitting in the top row and they're just starting to like they do at the shot it's just a sea of blue robes going by [Music] so um [Music] you know we

082i can't i can't begin to tell you how much uh time and energy we spent on on on coming you know coming to all these decisions the different and again in an ever-changing environment because you know the things could loosen up things could tighten up i think what we have is a plan that properly honors the kids gives them opportunities to celebrate together gives parents the opportunity to see their kids get their diplomas and i know the virtual graduation will be just as outstanding as what we put together last year any other questions i have a comment more than a question just as a parent of a senior this year um you know it's it just to reiterate this wasn't easy to get to a choice that wasn't probably the most um wanted but i

083think this is going to be exciting for our kids i'm excited to do this with my daughter so you know it's all about the attitude that we take with it will be a tremendous change in what this can be for our kids it was thank you it was valuable to have a parent of a senior on the on our leadership team and a parent of a senior you know mr wright had a senior graduate last year so he got to you know experience this and and you know you know we we we also know that that our opinions of this the commencement walk we got a lot of positive feedback about it last year but we also thought about the fact that people have been locked up for two and a half months they were

084happy to get anything so maybe their attitude about it was a little bit different but i can promise you if you go into with this with a negative attitude you're gonna get a negative outcome it's just that simple so how everything in my opinion how most things in life work so um onward with our action items so i i we have uh some a couple administrators uh leading as i rosslyn scott's done a great job as a pupil service supervisor and i congratulate him as he moves over to big walnut to be their uh director of pupil services um i asked him how many how many members on your team because we have eight supervisors as an assistant director and a director he says it's me and a supervisor so he'll get uh he'll get

085a lot of great experience and obviously um jackie we there are this is applies to both ross and uh jackie but this this is one of those situations where we definitely emphasize with regret but we are happy for her and that she is moving on to a new challenge and she'll do great work at um grange insurance so uh and then we have the administrative employment of mrs thomas uh so congratulations to her i highlight three resignations here uh lorraine lori wax has been a long time lin support teacher she currently works at cheshire elementary school and then two of our longtime custodian jerry ball was at oak creek for forever he might have been there julie when your kids were there and he's just a super super guy and uh gloria hershey um has

086she does uh actually just has a stadium at olympia high school and does a lot of different uh the owns age academy and she's been in the district a very long time so i want to congratulate both of them on their retirement and then we have a long list of things for um we're gonna redo the track at ole tangi high school uh we've got a lot of loose furnishings at shale meadows did you get a pic did you pick anything out you pick your desk out all right very good um and technology fiber installation and our uh networking equipment there and then the lease replacement laptops which is part of our our technology plans so and then important dates coming up obviously end of third quarter this is definitely a much needed break for

087everybody i know it seems kind of strange because we just got back full time but um definitely much needed break so uh and we as we've highlighted last couple meetings the one community conference service plunge and then we start to sprint to fourth quarter and um hopefully a brand new school near next year that is as normal as possible so any further questions it was nice to see shell meadows i we haven't seen an update for a while and it's really looking good um in the coming days very exciting just on social media okay all right next up we have the treasurer's report good evening my report won't be used lively but that's kind of normal but just wanted to give the board an update on our 21 22 budgeting it is currently in progress

088and we are working to compile those budgets we start at the building and department level to get their feedback and input on where they need their allocations to be established we then take those budgets consolidate them roll them up into the five-year forecast which we will meet with our finance and audit committee there is a general review on the detail of the budget on april i believe it's either april 7th or april 8th and then april 12th we will meet with the full committee to discuss the five-year forecast in its entirety so we are closing in on that budgeting cycle and we'll have the five-year forecast at the second meeting in april for your preview we have several action items on the agenda this evening the february financials amended appropriations board meeting minutes donations the

089payment agreement for the liberty grantif and the bond resolution so i'll start with the february financials the district is as of february was still receiving first half distributions from the delaware county auditor's office we have received our final collection in march and we'll be able to update the board on where we landed with that border revision payments are not received on a scheduled basis so that's part of what's creating that overage or positive variance that we see for february casino tax revenue received in january was slightly higher than expected as we've heard from reports in the news the state budget or state finances are doing well casino revenue being one of those areas once the casinos were open the revenue generation from that is going up quickly so that created a slightly higher than expected

090return for us and then the governor's executive order 202101d increased state foundation payments to fy19 levels and so we received we'll start to see that incremental payment come back through the foundation we weren't sure that we would get that and so it's creating a variance on our unrestricted grants and aid in the forecast file personnel services decreased in cost related to substitute intervention aids and a decrease in athletic and educational trips of course doing due to some of the pandemic regulations and then our purchase services a reduced usage and alternative student transportation is impacting that line and helping us to be under budget fiscal year to date as of february and we have talked about the federal coronavirus relief funds that we have received those were only 1.3 million dollars and they were recorded in

091fund 510 so they are not posted to the five-year forecast but are posted in the monthly financial reports so that they can be tracked and are transparent and how they're being used the district has also received 247 000 from the sr1 round of funding those are also recorded outside of the general fund in 507 but they are reported in the information included in the fight the monthly financial packages so we wanted to point out that that's where you'll see those actual reports come in um and so those funds have been spent to date they're we've gone beyond what we did receive in covid relief funding and are now spending general fund to continue those operation needs again having more conversations with our representatives about how we can rectify the s or two contributions and or

092possibly the next round of federal funding it's very frustrating um amended appropriations and board meeting minutes of course are coming forward to make sure that we are in compliance with ohio revised code we have several donations that we would like to publicly acknowledge five thousand dollar to purchase chromebooks from the walnut creek pto to walnut creek and five thousand dollars for mascot t-shirts for students from the berkshire middle school pto for berkshire middle school we are grateful for all of those donations as well as in-kind donations that our community provides and their time while we know we still have restrictions for folks to be in the buildings we know that they're supporting their students at home and continue to support our efforts in a variety of ways so thank you for all of that the

093liberty payment agreement from the liberty grantiff excuse me that is an agreement between the schottenstein real estate group and olin tng schools the liberty grand tiff is where that agreement was required or the requirement came from that is a 1075 tiff meaning that the olympg school board did not have to vote to approve that tif resolution in 2019 it was approved between liberty township and the real estate company as a part of that we can pass the resolution in agreement with shot and steam real estate where they will provide us with a million dollars for permanent improvement infrastructure around the liberty high school hyatt's middle liberty tree elementary area because that's where the tif agreement takes place around sawmill and then the next step would be to have liberty township approve the list of items

094so what we're intending to use that for is to do some of the pavement work around hyatt's middle and liberty tree to reduce some of the bus lanes taking a look at the field parking for hyatt's middle and some other areas around the bus compound some of those items we had originally intended to use bond dollars for as we talked about our bond projects but we didn't understand at the time that the liberty payment or the payment coming in from the liberty grantif would have to be public infrastructure so what we can do though because of the purpose clause of the bond is use the bond dollars for other permanent improvement infrastructure that is not related to that area and use the donation or the payment from this agreement to do those projects so it

095will still allow us to provide permanent infrastructure improvements in the district it's just the reorganization of the project listing are there questions about that before i go on to the bond resolution the bond resolution that we have of course is the second round of debt that we are issuing this next tranche of debt will be to support middle school six and various projects we had discussed the last couple of board meetings whether or not we should issue the total remaining amount and we are not we are setting aside the portion that would have been allocated for elementary 17 and review waiting for at least a year until we can review updated enrollment reports and statistics to make sure that we need to move forward within that year or if there's another timeline that we need

096to establish for that second elementary building the authority remains intact it'll just be delayed until we actually sell the debt so we're saving on those interest costs to carry it if we would sell it all at once some good news to share with the community i think it's another great way to understand and communicate our transparency and efficiency in our fiscal management we have to of course when we sell bonds we have to go out to the rating agencies because we are selling the debt on the open market and so we maintained our aaa stable ratings with standard and poor's raising agency that's a fantastic accomplishment for the district especially considering the pandemic and the economic distress that has been um nation been incurred nationwide so we're very happy to report that we are able

097to maintain that strong position that strong position allows us to borrow debt or sell the bonds at a lower interest rate and it saves the community and taxpayers overall because we do get better deals or better rates on the debt that we issue so it's a great thing for everybody i equate it to being similar as to refinancing a mortgage or when you take on a mortgage you try to get the lowest interest rate possible so think of smp global being your equifax personal credit score it's helping us get that lower cost borrowing it's fantastic when we receive that rating smp was quick to say that they quoted very strong incomes due to access and participation in broad and diverse employment base a diverse tax base which continues to grow good financial management practices and

098oversight contributing to constantly stable general fund operations maintenance of availability of reserves averaging over 50 percent so as we talk about our five-year forecast and the importance of having that reserve balance that's another reason why or another measure that shows that we are stable because we have those reserve funds we are able to withstand some of the pandemic issues that we have incurred and strong supporter vote over the past decade those were the main components that they held our rating as high as they did even during these economic times so happy to share that are there questions i can answer for you about the bond resolution or any other item for that matter okay thank you all right next on the agenda we have our public participation session um just as a reminder we have

09930 minutes total for public participation five minutes total for each submitted piece of public participation per person we have randy wright reading tonight randy is just the reader these are not his words um when people submit public participation they are time stamped so they are read in the order that they were received just like if we would have people come in and speak they sign up and we take them in the order that that they signed up for so it's the same process and again i i think we have a lot of public participation tonight and so for transparency purposes any well actually all of the public participation is posted online then um so that you can read them um and so that we can read the ones that we may not get through because

100you may not get through them all i think they're over 40 42 i believe 42 pieces of public participation okay i read did i cover everything believe so okay mr wright take it away please esteem board members words can be powerful i'm sorry lisa uh excuse me lisa heinz 3457 mccama chase drive lewis center esteemed board members words can be powerful words have longevity and can be immortalized language is a living entity it changes and morphs over time until some words have completely changed their meaning words become weaker or stronger and meaning too with this in mind i implore you to rename the mascot for roland tangi high school while brave lowercase b is not offensive brave and braves capital b still evokes a stereotyped american indian caricature for those with young children it might

101evoke images of a red-haired scottish princess from a disney movie regardless stereotyping does not align with olentangy board's stated commitment to challenge and reject all forms of discrimination in schools and meet the demands of present and future society changing the image of the olympia brave only takes us halfway to rejecting stereotypes of the past after decades of controversy the atlanta braves opted to change only the offensive logo but not the name as our boe has done ryan helsi of cherokee nation recently said of this it's about the misconception of native americans and it devalues us and how we're perceived that stuff like this still goes on is just disrespectful philip yenyo of the american indian movement said of the atlanta braves m and only image only change what they fail to realize is they're still

102using a living culture as a theme for their team there is nothing brave about that while olin tangi could be seen as redefining the term braves the truth is it is not for a district predominantly composed of non-american indians to redefine we must honor not what the white majority of this district wants but what american indians have been saying for decades kevin gover pawnee tribe director of the smithsonian institutions national museum of the american indian obliges us to consider it doesn't feel like an honor when you do not confront the truth of the people you claim to be honoring you are honoring your white notion of heritage history with all the bad parts taken out keeping the name braves is path of least resistance and expense many have convinced themselves that brave is a positive

103term worthy of aspiration and that referring to an entire school or team as braves somehow escapes appropriation if braves is no longer a reference to american indians then choose from an array of other laudable qualities so there is no confusion if it is still a nod to our regional heritage for example olin tangi then find an appropriate word that leaves no room for interpretation this is not about giving into the current trend of cancer culture or being politically correct it is about maintaining the integrity of the district making our actions match our stated values we have a unique opportunity at this pivotal moment to courageously own the past name choice and be culturally responsive if we make this name change the board has asked the public to stop writing about this subject and allow the

104school committee to do their work but the committee was limited to keeping the name braves no doubt they have done their work well given that parameter there is no harm in providing committee the necessary tools to make a culturally informed decision i asked board members to give the committee three things the capacity to consider other names anti-bias training and relevant history for all committee members to enable them to look at name options more objectively at least one to two american indian tribe members to consult the committee the osd board of education agreed to promote acceptance understanding cooperation and appreciation of diverse groups of people the name braves violates this premise the bravery of this board is needed to follow through on those agreements to make a positive impact for our students and families and for

105the community we envision in the future i appreciate all that you do for our olsd community ashley wise 4842 normandy drive galena there is a link to a google link that is it will be available when these are posted dear board members thank you for your time and energy that you give tirelessly as you serve the students and families of this district my family and i are appreciative of the role you play from my understanding of the last board meeting parents and community members were asked to let the project committee process take place i completely respect that as we are we're a part of the project committee process for our own schools rebranding however i honestly feel under the current limiting parameters the board put in place of changing only the imagery and not the

106name it puts the committee in a very difficult place changing the mascot name for olentangy high school from braves to an acronym spelling brave is a noble but unsuccessful attempt to have your cake and eat it too the fact is a mascot name with any variation of the word brave or brave will be associated with native american people chief glenna wallace of the eastern shawnee tribe says in a statement written to the owen tng school board the word braves will always be associated with native americans firemen are brave police are brave essential workers are brave medical personnel are brave but the word braves like it or not will always be associated with native americans the attempt to change the mascot name to an acronym suggests an awareness that the term braves is problematic but after

107decades of being known as the braves are we to believe dropping the s and making it an acronym is true change or progress at football games games will fans share let's go balanced resilient attitude value empathy or will they cheer let's go braves will a community who has cheered on the braves for decades see a collection of character traits or will they see the same braves they've known for years but what about the members of the native america native american community who have respectfully asked you to change the name from braves or any variation of the word will they see our own tangi respecting their wishes to remove a degrading demeaning and disrespectful mascot name or will they see the school board re-gifting them the same slap in the face in a shiny new box

108besides making an offensive mascot name and acronym of positive character traits does not change the offensiveness of the word it spells would the district consider a mascot name with this acronym nice intelligent gracious generous energetic resilient according to the logic of the school board and plans for olympia high school that would be an acceptable mascot name describing desirable characteristics of an ideal student but the acronym spells out as offensive to many people in the african-american community and hopefully would never be considered as a team name members of the native american community told you in no uncertain terms they want mascots with any variation of the word braves to be removed from the district because it challenges their human dignity making an offensive mascot name and acronym does not satisfy their request it shows the district

109is aware of the offensiveness of the name but unwilling to change it i understand the bind you're in there are many in the community who would like to see the name stay the same because olantenji high school is a long and proud tradition with the name braves however the term braves for the use of a mascot name has been offensive demeaning and derogatory to many native people for far longer does our tradition as a school district supersede the current stated will and desire of the native american community whose long and proud tradition predates our school district by hundreds of years it's time for us to honor the wishes of native people by changing the name from any variation of the word brave the school board members have the power to do it but instead are

110choosing to place their priorities over the requests of the native american community offended by the continued use of a demeaning and derogatory mascot name we are better than this let's come together as a community and create a new tradition that exemplifies the one community that olin tangi strives to be respectfully submitted actually wise salon wise 4842 normandy drive galena same links will be available when posted hello board members the native american community has spoken and the school board is choosing not to listen the board received a statement from chief glenna wallace of the eastern shawnee tribe who were forcibly removed from ohio in 1830 she wrote the following the word braves will always be associated with native americans firemen are brave police are brave essential workers are brave medical personnel are brave but the word

111braves like it or not will always be associated with native americans eliminating the imagery is the most expensive thing if your school your community has already made that commitment then my advice is to eliminate the word braves i thank you for your sensitivity your desire to do the right thing and i realize that what i say may not be to your liking but i must be honest with you and ask you for you to think long term the board received a statement from delaware tribe which says the following to get rid of the olympia braves logo without getting rid of the name braves fall short of doing the right thing you can nuance the name braves to try to justify it with the dictionary or thesaurus logic but braves is clearly associated with a native

112american male often times a warrior the issue is not just politically correct but is human dignity issue here we have the chief of one tribe explaining that a mascot name using any variation of brave should be eliminated the delaware tribe our county's namesake says changing the name is an issue of human dignity this issue is about respecting and honoring the voice of native people but it's also about all of us who have spoken up only to be shut down this is about every business woman who stood up to their male counterparts only to be shut down and put back in their supposed place this is about every parent who advocates for their child with learning differences only to be shut down and told they just need to try harder this is about a district who

113spent the summer reading posts on deer osd where students express the pain disrespect and indignities they experienced in olympia regarding race identity disability and more these students courageously spoke up pleading for the district to truly become one community only for them to be shut down by a very prominent district administrator telling the students behind dear osd to stop posting because it was not necessary anymore after a summer of supposed awakening over issues of race after several town halls and staff professional development sessions about racial sensitivity the chief and the cultural director of native american communities from this area spoke up to say maintaining any variation of the word brave and a mascot name is an up front to their human dignity they spoke up and at the moment the board's position is to shut them

114down by replacing the name braves with an acronym that spells brave if this board does not protect the dignity of the people and the tribe our very county is named after how can we trust it to protect the dignity of asian olympia students who are currently being bullied and called corona bias by coronavirus by classmates how can we trust these board members to protect the dignity of black students who walk through middle and high school hallways hearing the n-word daily how can we trust this board to protect the dignity of religious students who are hesitant to be seen saying grace over their food before lunch how can we trust our district to protect the dignity of gay students being taunted with the f-word how can we trust these board members to protect the dignity of

115students with disabilities how can we trust this board to protect the dignity of students with dyslexia autism and other learning differences those questions are sincere and will only linger and amplify if the district is willing to sacrifice the dignity of an entire race of people just to appease local nostalgia and tradition the native american community and their allies have spoken up will you respect their request for dignity or shut them down thank you karina turner 265 tara glenn drive delaware hello board members the native american community has reached out to the school board expressing their desire for the district to refrain using any variation of the word braves as a mascot name this is a letter submitted to the olympia school board members from chief glenna wallace of the eastern shawnee tribe chief wallace spoke

116up on behalf of her tribe but the board shut them down by choosing to maintain a variation of the braves name here is the statement from chief wallace thank you for being interested in this topic for taking the time to reach out to individuals for seeking different opinions as you know this is a sensitive subject and one that is particularly of national interest now but also one that is not going to go away for that reason i hope you are thinking about long-term solutions i realize this is a complex issue with numerous viewpoints so let me just focus on mine as you probably know i i've been the chief of the eastern shawnee tribe of oklahoma for the last 15 years we lived in 26 different states before being the first tribe forced to remove

117from ohio after the 1830 removal act was passed our ancestors walked the almost 800 miles from lewiston reservation to indian territory in 1832. the land that later would be became the state of oklahoma in 1907. i've been active with ohio historical connection for almost 15 years advocating for federally recognized tribes i advocate primarily for the burial of our human remains here in ohio i advocate for establishment of a cemetery there in ohio where those unburied ancestors could be buried i'm an advocate for ohio updating its burial laws if you do your research you will find ohio is one of the top locations in the u.s for having native remains in their museums basements etc shameful that includes ohio historical connection which is the top five locations in the us ohio burial laws give little protection

118to buried remains 150 years and older that means looters can dig up even civil war bodies take metals buttons from codes etc and sell them at hefty prices with little more than a slight slap on the wrist and that is occurring wholesale there in ohio i also advocate for presuming preserving mounds mounds that were built by native americans and have historical cultural significance i am on the steering committee and my tribe was the original tribe to be supportive of the world heritage nomination for inclusion of mound sites there in ohio i love ohio it is my homeland but so many changes need to occur there i say this to say that the word braves will always be associated with native americans firemen are brave police are brave essential workers are brave medical personnel are brave

119but the word braves like it or not will always be associated with native americans i love the kansas city chiefs they are my favorite football team i also know that they have been so active in removing native imagery trying to do the right thing trying to prevent eliminate the negatives such as fans wearing headdresses fans painting their faces elimination of the tomahawk chop they have spent millions in their efforts yet what did i see on my local tv station the week of the super bowl a video of a second grade class with all the children doing the tomahawk chop some classroom teacher a well-meaning classroom teacher i have no doubt had to have taught them that that teacher did not realize how disrespectful how racial that is and those children are innocent yet perpetuating an

120act that is hurtful to us insensitive and i believe that incident has parallelism to your situation eliminating the imagery is the most expensive thing if your school your community has already made that commitment then my advice is to eliminate the word braves choose another logo one that will not continue to suggest native americans even though that is what you intend don't just go halfway thank you aaron franco 5008 normandy drive galena it is important that only tangi schools listens to the voices of all those that they represent but even more so to those of minority groups who are under representative in positions of power the feedback that the district received from the native american community stated that any use of the term braves as a mascot would be associated with native americans yet the school

121district still wants to move forward with the name braves why not choosing something non-offensive nothing is lost and changing a mascot but this effort to spin the name braves is offensive our school district has an obligation to teach its students respectfulness and inclusivity continuing the use of the term braves as a mascot is counter to that responsibility no matter what meaning the district claims in their meaning behind the term lori reynolds no address given respectfully submitted to the olympia school board lori reynolds currently resides in san diego california as a student at san diego state university she holds a degree in american indian studies and is currently pursuing a degree in anthropology she's a member of the polyup tribal nation located in the vicinity of tacoma washington while the us government does not allow natives

122to be enrolled in more than one tribe and only recognizes native heritage from the tribe in which they are enrolled ms reynolds also has ancestors from other pacific northwest tribes namely the yakima tribe and nez perce regarding the issues of using indigenous mascots to represent sports teams and names or terms related to native american culture lori reynolds shares these thoughts i look at it like this the name braves has connotations to native american males who are fighting or savage even if you take the mascot away because the name braves is not a station associated with any other group the name braves is still connected to and will have native american connotations and mental imagery it is not fair to perpetuate this racist imagery without consent and agreement with the natives of this land i would

123also submit for your consideration the historical supreme court case of brown v board of education and dr kenneth clark's doll test which as you know led to school integration the significance of the doll test at least in part presented us with the disturbing reality of how racially influenced our children have become via the promotion of stereotypical imagery and racially biased education and how this takes place at a very early age as educators i believe that you have both the opportunity and responsibility to help ensure the healthy development of young minds which will influence the communities of tomorrow as we move forward as a nation of diversity to earn a degree in my current discipline at my university there is a set criteria to complete a rigorous course of study inclusive the following courses anthropology biology

124physical sociocultural anthropology archaeology and anthropological linguistics it is also interesting to note that in my linguistics ant class we are we were just discussing how words are important words actually shape the way we think and perceive things even if truth is lacking in their association words can frame the way in which we view and perceive other people there are many examples of various people some i may add are or have been in leadership roles intentionally degrading others placing them in a category of being less than relating those scenarios back to the word braves this word also has connotations which we cannot easily detach from a physical influence psychological influence how be it it may be at the very subliminal level do we really want to perpetuate this notion of natives a brave is a male

125native this then negates the inclusion of females whom i would imagine also participate in your school's sports teams if the school maintains its stance on retaining the name braves that connotation along with the name will remain in existence along with any behavior displayed at school events using the name braves they're in the shaping of the perception of those from whom and originates this is all this also promotes stereotypical images for your audience and community to digest natives are more than fighters we are weavers craftsmen doctors and are partakers in all sorts of other roles in society not just fighting and warring one minute would it be offensive to you to have sports teams named the colonizers or the land steelers the name braves in its proper context and place of honor within a tribal group

126is not a bad thing the problem arises when it is appropriated and used by non-natives which then shapes the perceptions of others and defines who we are as native people this as opposed to allowing us to define ourselves and having having us tell you who and it cuts off trent turner 265 tara glenn drive delaware i am submitting this letter from the national congress of american indians to be read publicly we want to ensure native voices are heard in our conversation regarding the braves name regards trent turner dear principal griffith superintendent ray from the olympia board of education on behalf of the national congress of american indians i am writing in response to a request for assistance that we receive from a member of the olintanji high school community this individual informed us that the

127olympia high school community is currently engaged in a conversation about whether to retire its braves name and mascot and asked if ncai would provide the school and school board with some general information about the facts concerning the harms caused by the continued use of the native themed mascots in sports and popular culture that is the purpose of this email ncai is the oldest largest and most representative national organization representing tribal nations and peoples it has been leading indian countries consensus-driven movement to eradicate offensive native themed mascots from sports and popular culture for the past 50 years as the resolution passed by ncai's membership in 2005 explains the use of native american sports mascot logos or symbols perpetuates stereotypes of american indians that are very harmful the warrior savage myth has plagued this country's relationships with

128the indian people as it reinforces the racist view that indians are uncivilized and uneducated and it has been used to justify policies of forced assimilation and destruction of indian culture below are linked resources that provide additional details about ncai and tribal nations broad and long-standing opposition to the use of these mascots as well as the harms that they cause the links are left out for now but will be available in the public participation links please let me know if you have any questions or require additional information as you deliberate this critical issue i look forward to hearing from you sincerely ian record phd vice president tribal governance and special projects national congress of american indians washington d.c afton turner jane spellman laney wright and dr jessica spellman 265 tara glenn drive delaware hello we are

129submitting this letter from curtis zuniga from the delaware tribe to be read aloud for the owen tng community to hear it has been sent previously to the school board superintendent rafe olentangy high school principal mr griffiths the diversity inclusion team and the communications team we want the community to understand what that the native americans who have responded to our inquiry inquiry about keeping the braves name have all said make a complete change we intend to support their voice sincerely owen tangi students afton turner jane spellman lainey wright and olentangy parent dr jessica spellman md thank you for inquiring to the delaware tribe on this issue please note the delaware tribe nor our cousins the delaware nation in anadarko oklahoma have no contemporary presence in ohio we have both been in oklahoma since it was indian

130territory in 1870. however given the name of your town i can understand why you contacted us in my opinion i recommend a full complete change getting rid of native american mascot imagery is an action of removing race-based mascot images the time is right for such change throughout america i think the move to something like the knights is good but to get rid of the on tangie braves logo i looked it up without getting rid of the name braves falls short of doing the right thing you can nuance the name braves and try to justify it with a dictionary or thesaurus logic but braves is still clearly associated with a native american male often times a warrior not a knight not an army soldier not an athlete so being real about this is the best way

131to confront resistance to change i realize there will be a cost to the school district to reband the name but that's the price to pay for doing the right thing but it shouldn't stop there there needs to be an information campaign as to why the change is appropriate a lot of that will come from taking an honest look at the history of ohio and its historic racism against the delawares and other tribes like shawnee wyandotte ottawa and potawatomi such history could be incorporated into school curriculum a good resource is the ohio history connection website added i would ask specifically for input from the connections native american resources i appreciate you taking the lead on this issue it will be the dominant white population desiring sincere change that will make it happen not a small group

132of native americans seemingly acting in protest the issue is not just politically correct but it is a human dignity issue you can inspire our community to make a paradigm shift in social consciousness and overcome the racism of the past good luck curtis aniga director cultural resources department delaware tribe of indians five minutes remaining for the total session gwendolyn labor not submitted for privacy author is a minor hello olympia school board i hope all of you are doing well i'm a student in the olympia school district some of the main themes i have been taught throughout throughout my years of being a student in this district are inclusion and to be respectable others mrs turner shared with me letters and meaningful conversations she had with native americans originally in our area after hearing what she had

133learned i realized that though it was not intentional the olympia braves name is not respectful of native americans while changing the mascot is an extremely meaningful step it seems the job is not quite done i truly believe that changing the name braves is an important way to uphold the lesson of respect we as students are taught thank you so much for taking the time to listen to my thoughts and concerns best regards gwendolyn labor don mahan 587 meadows drive delaware we moved into the district's third moved into the school district 13 years ago in the hopes of a fantastic investment and choice to live in the olympia school district the hard work work the teachers and my child has put into what she has become and is graduating in may has outgrown our expectations of

134what she has accomplished she got into every college she applied for and her degree will be architectural engineering that's the wonderful part the bad part is that olantengi school district has decided to not celebrate her accomplishments has decided to not invest in in her anymore and is not giving her the graduation she deserves my tax dollars that i have paid and work to the bone for has let me down it is so sad and i was almost speechless if this news please reconsider a way for her to have a traditional graduation ceremony tracy greene 2200 kildare place galena hello as i am sure you know i am writing you today i am questioning the decision to hold graduation the same way as last year a lot has changed this year and we know more regret

135regarding covet our kids have thankfully been able to participate in sports and have parents supporting them for almost all the school year we are now back to school five days a week and the kids especially the seniors are doing better mentally this is their senior year did anyone ask them what they wanted and speaking to many and seeing many social media posts the seniors would like to find a way to have an in-person graduation with their parents attending this could be done by separating the kids into their hybrid groups and could take place in the gym to help with costs as olin tangy berlin explored all options to make this work for everyone including the seniors being a bear is historic this is making history by one of the only schools not allowing in-person graduation

136with parents two minutes please reconsider this idea and do what is best for our seniors and give them their graduation their accomplishment of 13 years of school thank you the dodd rogers 6790 falling meadows drive i am very disappointed in the decision to not hold 2021 graduation in person there are many safe options such as school stadium for the reason of cost and cleaning not being to host that shot steam seems an easy way out and not truly exploring in options we could have fundraiser if it's truly cost they are back in school and senior here has been stolen from these kids no prom homecoming seeing their friends pep rally homecoming do we really have to end this way please reconsider options david miller 5664 harrow glenn court galena we have supported the school system

137for 15 years in person graduation for seniors and families is possible and should be the intent this administration is not living up to the responsibilities owed to the seniors and parents that have supported the school system for years one minute this appears to be nothing more than a cop out use the stadiums and have aim dates worst case students on the field separate an appearance and stands both end zones erect additional bleachers as necessary do the right thing here or you will lose support from thousands forget additional funding i'll make it my personal mission to campaign against all future levi's levees if you can't or won't do the right thing for our seniors joanne ford 337 chaseley circle pal the school system has done a good job with remote learning and more importantly getting the

138students back to full-time in-person learning i'm extremely disappointed to learn the class of 2021 will do a drive up graduation all four high schools have a large football stadium that would handle a brief outside ceremony you've chosen the easy route and kids are robbed again of their high school experience denise steele 7515 overland trail delaware as a representative of the parents of oh class ohs class of yes ma'am i'll start over as a representative of the parents of ohs class of 2021 seniors we're requesting more communication from the school board on why a traditional commencement has not been planned for this graduating class school districts surrounding us have made arrangements to utilize their high school stadiums scheduled multiple days at the shot and steam to hold successful graduation dates for their high schools etc for

139example hilliard has booked the schottenstein center for may 26th 27th and 28th for each of their three high schools would a plan like this be available to all in tangie marysville and worthington to our understanding are using their high school football stadiums if liberty and orange stadiums are restricted due to student population size could additional seating be brought in to accommodate a commencement or is there a different issue that we are not aware of for these solutions our primary concerns are one that all students in the class can be together to celebrate their accomplishment at commencement and two that families can participate in seeing their student recognized in front of their peers teachers and principals as well as seeing congratulating their students friends and classmates the three-part weekend separates families from the community aspect of

140the celebration and diminishes the accomplishment and recognition that our students deserve and have looked forward to we liken graduation commitments commencement ceremonies and importance to that of a wedding a significant event is transpiring that is worthy of community recognition it takes a community to get a couple to the altar and to support them after they have tied the knot likewise it has taken a community to get our students to graduation everyone involved in that process should have the opportunity to celebrate together even if distance while last year brides and grooms held virtual weddings via zoom and graduation was held virtually as well drive through graduation was a welcome solution last year when the alternative was no graduation at all we have made significant progress in vaccinations and have seen pandemic infection rates coming down now

141weddings are happening in person because couples and venues have worked together to implement the distancing guidelines in a responsible manner isn't there a way for us to do the same for our community of families with graduating seniors we inquired back in february for a contingency plan to hold an outdoor graduation commencement for our seniors as a spokesperson for the 2021 ohs senior parents i am asking again that our students be recognized at an in-person family-friendly commencement ceremony not a drive-through graduation please let us know how we can work together to explore alternative solutions to the unacceptable one proposed on march 23rd thank you very much again did we get through most of them mr wright did we get through most of them i would say we got maybe just over half okay the rest will

142be posted online for everyone including the board members to read we appreciate the time that people have taken to submit the public participation um and you know as things go on we'll look at re-opening up public participation and doing it in public like we have done during normal times um so stay tuned we're we're waiting for that time to come next we have discussion items and our first discussion item is the reading of board policy updates from mr fetty dr betty good evening the board's policy committee met on friday march 19th to review the policies that you have before you they've also been posted on the policy committee's web page for public review did the board have any questions about any of the policies i had a question i submitted to dr feddy and he

143got clarification for me the committee recommended adoption of all the policies um so they'll be brought to you at the next meeting for adoption thank you [Music] next up mr rape we have the 2021-2022 attendance boundary update yes so i thought about it making a big slide presentation announcing our decision and all the different areas that are going all right instead put together a little video so i know good evening board of education and oil and changing community organ tangy schools is the sixth largest school district in the state and remains one of the fastest growing in the united states throughout the last 30 years owen tang has grown from one k-12 school building to preparing to open our 16th elementary school and 27th building this fall explosive growth over a relatively short period of

144time brings excitement and change our 95 square miles we call one old and tangy has changed from a predominantly rural landscape to a robust suburban community with high performing schools and strong spirit as we grow and open new schools we must adjust our attendance boundaries from time to time as superintendent two critical responsibilities i have are to assign staff and students assigning students involves examining our current attendance boundaries and following the board of education's redistricting guidelines a superintendent's committee of 14 community members functioned virtually for the past five months as a redistricting committee they met twice a month and took a deep dive into our attendance boundaries our building utilization our theater patterns projected enrollment they hosted three virtual community forums and sought your feedback ultimately they presented to me with recommendations for consideration the

145recommendation center on following the redistricting guidelines creating attendance boundaries for shale meadows elementary school relieving enrollment in buildings with projected student accounts over 800 next year and considering future growth in the district i cannot thank this committee of volunteers enough for taking the time during this difficult year to give their attention to this important task going into this year i thought this would be an easy redistricting process compared to many of the in the past however it has proven to be anything but that epic and continued growth creates a complex process additional opening of shale meadows this year middle school six in two years and not knowing exactly where elementary 17 may go are all considerations on top of the items i've already mentioned this redistricting decision will impact a total of 760 students at

146the elementary level 542 of those students will be moving into a new building and the remaining students will move from buildings that are experiencing high enrollment to elementary buildings that have room to grow being a part of our one on tangie family means we are all part of this outstanding difference this this outstanding district and no matter what school your child attends they will receive a great education as we look to the future we know we will be experiencing future redistricting decisions as we open middle school 6 and elementary 17. our goal in this resisting is to help position the district well for subsequent redistricting decisions as we continue to grow i'm now going to turn it over to scott leopold from cooperative strategies to outline the adjusted attendance boundaries effective for the 2021-2022 school

147year thank you thank you mr rave i'd first like to review some of the data and drivers by showing our current boundaries and data this table shows our current elementary schools their capacity their enrollment and their utilization which is enrollment divided by capacity the darker red numbers show facilities that are over utilized and lighter green numbers show facilities that have less students enrolled the table down here shows our feeder patterns our feeder percentages from elementary school to middle school and so for example a school like alum creek all of those students go to shanahan middle school so we show 100 here arrowhead splits three ways 39 of the students go to berkshire middle school 28 to hyatts and 33 to shanahan and the map is shown over here on the right the background shaded colors

148show the current elementary boundaries the thick purple outlines the high school boundaries and those medium orange outlines the middle school boundaries the school points are shown elementary schools in green middle schools in orange and high schools in purple as you can see we're experiencing utilization well over 100 percent at cheshire johnny cake corners olentangia meadows and heritage elementary there are other elementary schools that are also over 100 percent but schools like walnut creek oak creek and others have more stable enrollment and do not have a large amount of housing growth driving it we continue to see growth in the southern portion of the district around the polaris area the northern portion of the district near cheshire elementary and the central part of the district near arrowhead and shale meadows elementaries i would like to point

149out again that many of our elementary schools have a 100 percent feeder to a single middle school and others do not for example arrowhead currently splits between berkshire shanahan and hyatt's the committee did spend time in this process discussing feeder patterns but please remember the opening of middle school 6 will have an impact on feeder patterns and will provide an opportunity to revisit elementary to middle school theater splits that will have a longer lasting impact i will outline the proposed changes for the 2021-22 school year please note that there are no changes to middle school or high schools there are only changes to the elementary boundaries these charts reflect the changes that would be effective next school year enrollment utilization and the feeder patterns starting with the boundaries for shale meadows this area is shown

150in the green cross hatch and is composed entirely of areas that are currently attending cheshire and arrowhead elementary schools areas that are currently zoned to either cheshire or arrowhead elementaries that are also currently directed to hyatt's middle school will attend shale meadows this creates a 100 feeder from cheshire to berkshire and reduces arrowhead to a two from a two three school middle school split down to a two school split additionally the area in close proximity to shale meadows or the berlin meadows neighborhood and belmont place will also be assigned to shale meadows and they're coming from arrowhead and they will continue to attend berkshire middle school johnnycake corners is relieved by moving the growth areas along the route 3637 corridor to cheshire elementary school so that's the backfill that then fills in cheshire from the

151large area that will be moving to shale meadows moving on to arrowhead we wanted to try to point as much growth to arrowhead as possible because of its additional capacity the area between us-23 and the railroad tracks in the area between orange road and lewis center roads so this area right here would move from heritage to arrowhead this includes the existing orange grand apartments and additional developments planned for the near future additionally areas that are north of shanahan road and east of north road that currently attend heritage will move to arrowhead finally a section of homes off of old state road just north of cheshire will also move to arrowhead so in summary these changes utilize shale meadows at 83 percent leaving room for future growth in berlin meadows cheshire elementary is utilized 80 percent

152leaving leaving room for growth in that area for the near future johnny cape corners is utilized at 103 with the majority of its growth pointed at cheshire and that's that change area up here and this is the area that would be remaining in china corners heritage is utilized at 105 with its former growth areas pointed at arrowhead is utilized at 59 again with a lot of growth pointed at it this would include evans farms glenn ross south of cheshire road and the growth areas from heritage will all now become part of the arrowhead community moving to the southern portion of the district our drivers are continued overcrowding in olympia meadows the slight over utilization at glen oak and the availability of capacity at allen creek olentangy meadows will be relieved by moving several areas that

153are east of old state road to alum creek these areas include the point at polaris village at polaris park the edge of polaris and polaris view it should be noted that italia italia court avenue at polaris the village at worthington crossing summer view and the gardens at polaris will all stay at olympia meadows areas currently zoned to glen oak that are off of gemini parkway will also move to alum creek these are north park place apartments and condos and the lakes at polaris the retreat at polaris along with polaris grand which are both off of old state will continue to attend glen oak the resulting utilization at old tangie meadows is 95 percent glut oak at 92 percent and alum creek at 86 this creates a good balance that will allow the boundaries to absorb

154additional growth over the next few years again there are no changes to middle and high school boundaries and the resulting feeder split at alum creek is 75 to shanahan middle school in olympia high school and 25 percent to orange middle school and orange high school and that's illustrated here here are the proposed boundaries for 2021-22 without those change areas highlighted feel free to pause to get a closer look additionally this map and a school locator will be shared on the district website for you to get a closer look at this point that concludes our presentation thank you very much again before we go if you have questions we thank publicly thank the committee for all their work they were outstanding um a lot of them were veterans of the committee we had some new new

155people join us and they were all outstanding they they put in a tireless amount of work a lot of times the committees get real real aggressive they see things that we could fix and it's great for them to look at it because it put a lot of things in play obviously some of the people as we know when we hear feedback i have great suggestions about who else to move um but you know those are things that uh redistricting is a part of what we do obviously we're going to be opening a middle school the redistricting is going to be a lot more extensive for that this will help us set up for where well you know we have a decision to make about where elementary 17 is going to go you know i also

156want to make sure i publicly thank mr wright and uh for for leading that process and uh all the time and energy and effort and work he put into um making getting this all getting us to this point uh that that i had basically a pretty easy decision once we got it uh um windowed down to very similar options uh mrs davis and and dr fetty and mr meyer also helped a great deal with with redistricting so um i appreciate all the work they've done on it and did they do it so well they're going to get to do it again next year 18 months excuse me 18 months so with that i'll take any questions will they have a list of like neighborhoods that'll be on the website okay this presentation will be sending

157an email tomorrow okay so everybody'll get to see that presentation who's not watching here now all right thank you all right board action items we have three action items do we want to take them together and vote on them separately together okay what these are our um at the last board meeting we extended the teacher's contract for one additional year so a in the a and b are the extensions and then c is the new contract with the um the yeah yeah as i mentioned in your in my update the the all of the associations overwhelmingly passed the bus drivers were unanimous the custodians are unanimous and think it was 55 to 2 for the for the aids um out of 170 that were eligible to vote so they uh the president's all um asked

158me to extend their their sincere thanks and gratitude um for the the extension okay do i have a motion to approve action items a b and any further discussion on that item call the role please mr king yes mr o'brien yes mrs patrick dr weiss yes and mrs wagner feasel yes treasure action items please present them yes please i have treasure action items a through f for your approval so i have a please to approve treasure action items a through f salute i'll second okay kevin moves in a second any further discussion just a reminder that does include the resolution to sell bonds that was discussed during the treasurer's report can you call the roll please brian yes dr weiss yes mr king yes mrs patrick yes and mrs wagner feasel yes thank you now

159our superintendent action items mr rafe what do you have to present yes ma'am i have superintendent action items do i have any further discussion roll please mrs patrick yes dr weiss mr king yes mr o'brien yes and mrs wagner feasel yes thank you for your actions i need a motion to adjourn please so move one second everybody have a nice spring break or relaxing time or whatever you're doing but still stay safe call the roll please dr white mr king yes mr o'brien