001hey there um uh you hey marley yeah i gotta run to the restroom i'm sorry that's all right okay [Music] so yeah you enjoying your time i'm sorry that's all right you know healthy eating always sounds good until exactly okay i'm just looking we got victoria and you alicia so we're still waiting i know um this mineo is coming from her early morning job so we will um wait a minute for her as well once we uh but we might start once we get mr burno on so i think we're i think his computer's just loading so we will be set in just a second okay i got so many screens up i'm not sure who i've got here sorry um let's see there's a little bit better i appreciate everybody's patience um there's no
002way all right now i'm grabbing some technical difficulties but we'll keep trying ah there's ms mineo great thank you so we're waiting for mr barno's computer to connect but i know he is um able to listen because he's texting me um so um we'll go ahead and mister or mr smith if you can add him in when he comes in that would be great all right moving right along then all right in accordance with ohio revised code 121.22 uh and house bill 197 and 404 i hereby call to order the board of education for the bexley city school district special board meeting for tuesday june 29th 2021. mr smith will you please call the roll miss mineo here miss mitchell here mrs powers here snowden here thank you and again we'll add mr barno in
003as soon as he pops in all right can i have a motion to approve to this morning's agenda so moved second thank you all in paper please signify by saying i i i could you hear them all any opposed same sign okay thank you that motion carries all right so [Music] uh dr good if you would start us off with some superintendents comments we appreciate you being here and i know you'll be sharing some of this with um this presentation with uh dr fine which we're very excited about so you guys can take it away certainly certainly thank you very much for the opportunity um especially the board president and the treasurer for kind of honing in on their agenda at this special meeting typically this end of the year meeting is to close the
004books but as you know in the state of ohio when administrators or professional licensed employees are under contract to one district it's a courtesy to allow that district to know by july 10th that they'll be leaving that district to go to another district so that their board can release them from their contract and um this morning's agenda will include the nomination of two administrators for mexico city schools leadership team and i'm going to ask dr fine to talk about the process and give us a little bit of bio for those two individuals but again express my appreciation to the board and to the treasurer for allowing us to include this in this special meeting today so dr fine you want to help introduce to us um two new members of our leadership team uh yes
005thank you so much dr good and before i do that just a big shout out to dr good for for your guidance and support it's been a crazy couple of weeks we appreciate you getting back into town we know you've had a lot of stuff going on but much appreciated i look forward to continuing working with you and leaning on you as we move forward also big shout out to kyle smith our treasurer thanks for getting things ready for today uh it's an important meeting to close things out but exciting news i want to go through a couple of things just a reminder we did this at the last board meeting but just a reminder of the process and then excited to recommend some great folks so let's start on the dei position huge thank
006you to steve shapiro and jill abraham they created a really important transparent process uh we've had lots of great feedback also a big shout out to melissa kolashmilando jason cottle raquel armstrong for supporting steve and jill through that process and just a huge thanks to our community members staff members and students who assisted for the dei the leader of diversity equity inclusion we had 78 applicants who applied after a paper screening we moved 11 applicants forward we emailed them and asked them to provide a response a one-page uh response which was a letter to the bexley community uh telling us what they would do in their first year as the leader of dei we had uh one person withdraw at that point so we had 10 uh candidates that provided that feedback and we brought
007in some community members some bexley alum we brought in some staff members and we screened through that process and we were able to narrow that pool down to six i then screened with those six individuals at that point and then we brought three candidates forward for in-person interviews we had a student room we had a parent room and we had a staff room we also want to thank 23 community and faculty members that contributed questions for the in-person interviews for that process we completed reference checks and then i held one final interview with the uh the final candidate and i am excited to recommend marcellus braxton for the leader of dei in bexley this morning marcellus comes to us from capitol university law school i believe he most recently served as the assistant dean of
008student affairs he has flourished directly supporting students and staff in achieving success and breaking down barriers since 2015 he has also served in various teaching leadership and professional development roles in higher education with a focus on dei initiatives prior to his service in higher education he practiced law and earned a bachelor's in economics from the university of pennsylvania a juris doctorate from the university of north carolina and a master's in philosophy from the university of missouri marcellus is also a published author sought after presenter and a respected leader and for anyone that was in the room that evening marcellus is magnetic excuse me energy and enthusiasm to amplify the voices of our students and families made him the standout candidate to lead our district forward so we're really excited to recommend marcellus as our leader
009of diversity equity and inclusion so i will continue on with the montrose principle we have in the late hours yesterday we are excited to announce that we have landed on a fantastic candidate it really was the same process i'm not going to go through all of the things that we did but i do want to thank um jill abraham and melissa lando for fine-tuning this impressive process i'm really excited that we've got a process in place for how we onboard administrative roles in bexley melissa also played a primary role in coordinating over 40 interview team members that included nine students uh who did an amazing job just like they did at our dei candidate night we also had a wonderful turnout of students or questions provided which i'll talk about here in a second i
010want to thank sam mcmasters colleen boyle and jill abraham who facilitated our interviews and just a a big thank you to our community members and students for showing up uh we had 30 individuals apply for the mantra's position very strong candidate pool uh 14 candidates were identified for further review uh after a paper screening we followed the same process we asked them to reply to a prompt prior to the interviews where they talked about how they would ensure that montrose is an inclusive school with a strong commitment to equity uh at that point we did have one candidate withdrawal so we had 13 candidates where jill abraham our chief academic officer held zoom screenings eleven candidates were moved forward at that point and we brought in another uh advocate review team uh and they were
011able to narrow our search down to four candidates four amazing candidates we brought them in front of community members staff members and students we use 37 responses a very impressive uh turnout 37 responses were submitted by our families and our teachers our staff members of montrose to provide questions that guide us through our conversations two candidates were recommended to me at that point and i interviewed them and as of yesterday evening i am excited to report uh that we are recommending naisha clayton for the principal position at montrose elementary naisha has spent the last five years leading the daily operations as the assistant principal at wagner road junior high school in reynoldsburg she spent the previous year as a principal at a k-6 charter school for impressive knowledge in the area of curriculum instruction focus
012on relationships and empathy along with close to 20 years of experience in education made her the standout candidate to join our leadership team and the montrose community so we are really excited to welcome naisha thank you mr exciting thank you again i just want to end in i just am so proud of the team for creating a process that has been so well received i've received such great feedback from our community members and our students and our staff for the process so kudos to jill and her team for creating a system for us to move forward thank you well pending the board's approval congratulations marcellus and naisha i know both of your reputations well and we're very excited you know leaders only as strong as those um around whom they you know what i'm about
013three hours behind you so i don't have all my words this morning i'm sorry in essence you want to hire people that are smarter than yourself so you look better that's and i think that's what we're doing here we're continuing to create a team that's going to provide extraordinary leadership to bexley city schools along those same veins one of the the tasks the board charged me um with completing and really one of the final tasks that i'm hoping the board approves today is taking a look at the alignment of our administrative classifications and their compensation and ensuring that it is congruent to those exempt roles and responsibilities that we have in the district and so we did a lot of work in that regard this year we also took a look at comparability to other
014high-performing districts and how they've organized their leadership teams we thought about some of the challenges bexley's been through in the past those being succession when administrators and exempt employees in key positions leave the district a lot of times that institutional knowledge exists in that individual we need to make certain we have created a structure where there's um some sharing of that knowledge and also anticipates potential succession although it doesn't obligate the board to that and we also need to think about how we need to be prepared for potential disruptions in the future to the education the learning environment and our operations we know the pandemic is not over we're watching closely the delta variant now we know that there are some challenges with vaccinations of youth and that may cause some families to elect to
015not have their children vaccinated for one reason or another and so we need to be able to pivot in those circumstances and we need the consistency in our district people that have lived through these and led these processes for us um to continue to lead those processes should we be in those positions in the future so i have a few things for the board's consideration the first is really a first reading of that table of organizations so this is a policy and that's why it's it's cca and it's the organizational chart and you adopted one actually as soon as i got here that kind of reflected um past structure that was in place what i like about this new one is it does several things um one it it um well let me just let
016me walk through some of those changes with you um first of all we've we've placed the director of employee relations in here and you'll know maybe sorry one second sorry to interrupt you um kyle or whoever's in charge of could you pull up the yeah as we're talking thank you yeah so why don't we just go from the top to the bottom then vex the board of education of course governs the district and it has two direct reports two of the most important decisions they make and they've done well in naming kyle smith and jason fine as this two direct reports the blue boxes the dark blue boxes are administrative positions all of the boxes represent exempt positions so an exempt employee in the state of ohio is somebody that's not eligible for overtime and
017they do things like professional work administrative work executive work um actually technology is also considered an exempt role and generally these employees are compensated at above 23 24 000 the difference between an exempt employing the light blue boxes and the dark blue boxes the dark blue represent the administrators in the district and these individuals exercise independent judgment and they have primarily administrative duties so those are the differences otherwise it's very similar in terms of how their compensation is structured non-exempt employees are employees that are eligible for overtime so if you're looking for the distinction between people that are on this chart and people that are not on this chart that's the main distinction so we look at the superintendent and treasure the superintendent has their executive assistant and the public information officer that report directly
018to them as well as what we're asking the board to consider is the elevation of that chief academic officer to the classification of deputy superintendent and the change in the director of staff and student operations to director facilities and operations so those are the individuals that would report directly to the superintendent the superintendent would evaluate those people the reason i've asked the board to think about that deputy superintendent change is um we need someone who can continue to facilitate those conversations of the different actions that are required in order for us to provide a free appropriate public education particularly during these extraordinary circumstances like a pandemic when we have leadership changes when we're beginning to discover some significant disparities in protected class students achievement and opportunities and other situations such as this it also provides
019for the board that security that if something god forbid should happen to dr fine we have someone that can step into that capacity as an interim versus having to go to the esc and ask van gogh to get up and come in again so i think it's a good thing for the board to do this in fact um jill abraham who's been our chief academic officer has filled many of those roles in the past couple of years this would formalize that and it would adjust her salary uh commensurate with what a deputy superintendent in a district of like size would earn so that would be i believe 155 000 and that's in another board action um director facilities and operations we've talked about that in the last two regular board meetings the need for the
020district to begin to focus on that facility master planning and have someone that's really dedicated to that work harley would continue dr williams would continue in that capacity it's a title change the level of responsibility doesn't change nor does the compensation and some of those departments that previously reported carla would continue to report to him like athletics and extracurriculars food services and certainly business management and all of those functions that occur under the business manager like maintenance and custodial operations etc um you see that on there as well but again we have a business manager that's going to is receiving cross-training and in the event god forbid something should happen to dr williams we have john eichenberry who could as an interim capacity step into that role to keep the district moving in a seamless
021fashion so you begin to see that pattern that's one of the things we've talked about this year is what is that succession planning that needs to be there in the event of but doesn't obligate a board to naming those people as the permanent replacement when we look underneath the deputy superintendent there's a secretary that reports to that person the principals would continue to report to that individual because that is your chief academic officer there's another change i'm proposing and that's the what is currently titled the coordinator of curriculum and gifted but in fact this person has done a lot more than exists in their current job description they have actually helped identify a data warehouse vendor they've helped select that populate that warehouse trained staff in the use of that data warehouse help us extract
022data from that interpret that data report that data that's going to be so critical for dr fine and for the board to set new priorities for the district and now we'll actually have a foundation of data upon which to make decisions and set those goals this individual also has led the remote learning for the district both the facilitation of the plp the assessment of its effectiveness providing intervention where we saw some gaps in the delivery creating reports and is prepared to continue to take us to next in that regard they're also helping with the continuous improvement plan or what's called the comprehensive continuous improvement plan they support ms abraham in completion of that so all of these things this individual has been doing again we don't pay overtime to exempt employees so the proposal is
023that we re-title this appropriately as a director of curriculum and gifted so they're on the same level as our director of student services director of employee relations same level as principals director of technology and increase that salary to be commensurate with those responsibilities again you'll see that there's we have a person reporting to that it's the leader of our community engagement experiential learning that doesn't mean that person would become the director of curriculum and gifted but it would mean that they're familiar with that work so that in the event we would god forbid lose dr boyle there's someone that could step in there and help continue to move that work forward you slide across there's the director of employer relations which is the new position we created this year and the leader of diversity and
024equity marcellus braxton would report directly to melissa clastrom and lando um we're really focused in this area to create some new systems and um i was going to look up on the phrase that dr williams used in one of our last executive leadership team meetings we're no longer working till something breaks but we're actually planning for refreshing on an anticipated basis and so this is part of what we're doing across the district director of technology is there and then i believe the rest of this is the same so those are the changes in the table of organization i think that whoever whomever dr fine designates to serve as his cabinet could be anyone on this chart these don't necessarily prescribe a particular um group or cohort of people to meet with him on a regular
025basis but it does show the lines of reporting which our current policy requires us to indicate so those again i think i think we've what we have here is something again that appropriately aligns the classification and compensation to the examples and responsibilities it is comparable to an infrastructure that a high-performing district would use it does anticipate potential succession and additionally would provide that continuity the district and the community deserve for potential disruptions to our learning environment and the operations and those really were the charges that were given so those are the table of organization proposals for you there's one additional thing on the agenda that is my item and that is we have compensated someone out of class below their level uh where their position occurs and that's the public information officer's position it was
026just slightly below the range and again we want to be fair to individuals and compensate them appropriately i will give a shout out to our public information officer for doing a lot of things no one necessarily anticipated we would need to have done this year doing live streaming on multiple occasions for multiple events taping not only performances of individuals but even classroom lessons so that they're available to to our community members and also our special meetings so when we had our task force that looked at our learning modality when we had work groups that were focused on diversity equity and inclusion when we had author visits these are things that weren't necessarily excuse me anticipated in the original job description as well tyler provided a really sound direction for many of our auditorium productions and
027continues to provide remote meeting technical support as the president soon just pointed out a little bit ago when she said tyler could we see the table of organization that's who she's talking to the public information officer and so we've been really pleased with the level of professional and support that he's given the district but i might recommend at least that he be compensated within the range where that position lies on the the classification chart so that was the other recommendation i made and i believe those are my items and i'm happy to answer questions great thank you very much does anybody have questions for dr good or dr fine marley i have more of a process question before we approve these would we pull what we're voting from the the grouping of the vote to
028discuss it or should that because this is just dr good and dr fines like presentation right like this isn't it so we'll um address these in we do have votes on these so the way we'll do that is policy reading is a first reading so that would just be having been able to benefit from dr good's explanation um and then the next meeting we'll have a second meet a second reading to formally adopted if we choose to but the others are contract items that we would approve today and the policy part is the organizational chart correct yep that's exactly right and it's just on as a first reading so we'll under g under 2g here we'll recommend to approve b through f to b through f and that'll include just the first reading of the
029organizational chart so if we have changes and ideas and um for the or yeah any changes that it's whatever for the organizational chart we can do that at the next meeting before we finalize it so i have two more comments i failed to save so i'm glad you pointed that out alicia and marley but this is a first reading i don't want the community to believe that this was done in without dr fein's input he and i work closely together on this and so it's it's tactically important that the first reading occurs under my leadership and the second reading occurs under his leadership so it's clear and transparent to the community that this is something we've worked together on and we both support and coming forward the other part is you know it's a chicken
030and egg about job descriptions you go ahead and create a job description for these new classifications first or do you seek the board's approval before you go to the effort to create a whole new job description and um so what i shared with the board and kind of my my preview of of these recommendations were those specific things that would be added to those job descriptions so that you were clear the job descriptions would evolve pending the board's approval of the table of organization i wouldn't want to include those in a job description and then have the board not approve a table and then we would have to go back and re-craft them so and if the board doesn't approve those i'll need to find a different way to have or json will need to
031find a different way to have those additional responsibilities completed so it again we could have done it either way i chose to do it this way but it's not going to be a real difficult task to go ahead and amend those job descriptions and the administrative ones will still come before the board for your reading the exempt non-administrative will not and that's just the honor past practice i appreciate you saying that dr good because we've been talking about it i know and i think you know one of the positions that is on this org chart um is melissa claus from landros and she will be able to help assist she's the right person to do the um that role is the right person and she's the right person to do that work of writing up
032those job descriptions so we have really um solid and distinct understanding of what what each role does um so we'll look to approve those to the rest of the board we'll look to approve those by the august meeting have those solidified by the august meeting but we'll start with hopefully confirming the um organizational chart in our july meeting thanks for calling that up alicia add a comment about the administrative hires um and to follow up on what you're saying marley i'm really grateful for the planning on the um job descriptions i know it's um been a busy time and we've been the administration has been working hard to fill those roles and we have approved job descriptions as we've gone along but to make sure that everybody who is in the administrative organization chart has
033a clear understanding and the board has a clear understanding of how those jobs interact i think it'll be really helpful to have a review of those job descriptions i want to say congratulations to dr fine and and dr good on these um great hires that they're proposing today i'm really excited to have these roles filled with these very qualified individuals that we've heard about so a thank you to that and also on the administrative chart that we're looking at today not the chart but the administrative staff changes today is mary davis's last day or tomorrow and i just want to say thank you again to mary for all the work that she's done she's been such a kind and pleasant part of the administrative team in office and she's worked incredibly hard to to get
034us to this moment every day and so a big shout out to mary also yeah thank you very much for mentioning that and board members who are in town um if you're able to go by tomorrow um it's her day in dr good's last day i'll come up and in john in our finance department i think it's going to be a celebration for her as well so if we can stop by and toast them with a little coffee and cake um okay any other questions under two um item number two i just had kind of a dr good answered my question in his additional comments if this was something that both he and dr fine were working on um and putting together um the um the other question that i had or maybe this is
035more just that for public consumption that this this looking at the organizational chart wasn't something random i know that when dr good came in back in october we had asked him part of of coming in it's kind of an outside looking in and honoring pax practices to look at where we were and how our district functions and how we could be more efficient so um i guess i'm just kind of confirming that this has been a process that started kind of back then when we start when we asked dr good to look at where we were with the organization and then as we move forward for hiring dr fine and getting kind of a working together partnership between the two of them to get this done so i just wanted to make sure that that
036was clear first of all and second of all that this is something that we've also as a board had input on as we've gone along the way which is which i think reflects uh how a governance team should work is that we may not agree on everything but as we move along to make sure that you know as we provide the public with this information that it's not just something that we're throwing at them at a meeting but this has been going on a long time with a lot of input from a lot of people so i guess i just wanted to make sure that that was added to the to the discussion thank you thank you i appreciate that um all right so can i have a motion to approve items 2b through 2
037f thank you um mr smith that requires a roll call vote sorry i'm moving slowly today um so really uh mr barno yes miss mitchell yes ms mineo yes miss powers yes snowden yes thank you well i add my hearty um welcome and excitement for um both miss clayton and mr braxton welcome to bexley we're thrilled to have you and really excited um for the work that that's ahead of you and and and having you as part of our team so thank you for that all right moving on to the treasurer's office mr smith thank you mr snowden um again thank you for allowing us to have this special meeting at this end of the year it makes the work a little bit easier um as opposed to getting this to you on a regular
038board meeting by having this special meeting um allows me several more weeks of work in june um but the items that you see before you are the fy21 final appropriations so sometimes between um an amendment of appropriations in the final there are some changes whether it be grants or revenue perhaps that we reflect changes in our general fund budget or other grants as well and then by law we also have to have temporary budgets in or a temporary budget in to the auditor's office by july 1 so we can financially operate and pay for any expenditures prior to that date and uh that's here before you and just how i like to talk about the appropriations is um it's not necessarily um we will follow that budget or we will spend if you're looking at
039this 42 million dollars think of it as like it's our spending limit we may have personal credit cards that say we're gonna you're allowed to spend twenty thousand dollars but you know in your own house that you're not gonna spend that you may spend five ten thousand dollars but so this is almost like a spending limit that we get authorization from and checks and balances from the county auditor item 3d is transfers and advances transfers are monies out of general fund to support other funds it's not alone it's it's essentially a gift food service is is it is an operation or program that most school districts cannot financially support within itself or their food service program can't support within itself um we're no different um and this year especially we we did lose quite a
040bit of revenue potential in the food service department not as bad as i was expecting but but still did lose some even though we did provide free lunches and breakfast to all of our students the federal government reimbursed us it still was not enough to really cover our overhead costs the second item there is the cross categorical unit um that is a unit that we share students with with white hole they come to our building and we we count that separately mainly because we also use federal funds to support that program so um separate accounting within the general fund um but transferring it in there it is the cross categorical unit is on the five-year forecast and it's the budget is not rather large the other items the advances um we're required to have funds
041at a zero dollar amount sometimes we don't receive the funds from the state in time and that's the case in all of these um we had a lot of different funds this year a lot of small ones um and a couple big ones that we weren't used to mainly with the coronavirus act so this is just a timing issue of the state also cuts off their reimbursements in early june by about the 12th and we have more expenditures come through after june june 12th that we don't get reimbursed for yet so this is just a loan from the general fund and the um once we receive the funds either in july or august we'll see a return of advance in a board meeting to return these funds back to the general fund uh that's all
042i had happy to entertain any questions um kyle i have one for you really quick oh tyler took it away what um on that last one the transfer and advances what's the uh city of bexley crf what's that line item at when crf stands for coronavirus relief funds municipalities also received um similar relief funds and we had conversations with the city that um that they would allocate some of those funds for us and we're uh just haven't received it from the city yet um and that they also have their own needs too that they're checking on so as right now we're advancing 71 000 in there thank you yeah thank you any other questions for mr smith okay i appreciate that um that thorough report kyle very much and congratulations to coming to the end
043of another year especially a doozy of a year um all right so can i have a motion to approve items 3b through 3d submits second thank you all in favor please signify by saying aye aye aye any opposed same sign that motion carries thank you all right does anybody have any other matters that should probably come before the board i sent you a text message about the parade decorations yeah um so did you do you happen to have them or john do you have them melissa we have parade decorations i don't think i do um i'll go look in my basement again um i'll find something i'll i don't have them so i was going to put it on everybody's radar um i'll pick up some uh are we using rick's truck yes that tells
044me what to what we're using it for okay and i know dr fine for his um car has got a you know got a sign did you guys see that alicia did you see that there this year that the celebration association is not providing the signs for the cars so if we could put if we could get a sign that says board of education that would be good do you want me to order it through the sign vendor that i work through sure time okay it just needs to have bexley board of education correct right okay that'd be nice thank you and i have kyle brought over to me the engage equipment power empower bracelets that we can throw and i have a costco size box of candy so i think we should be good
045okay um all right you know if i have a vehicle ah i don't know if you have a vehicle yet that's a good question um a person i can reach out to i don't mind yeah that'd be good thanks jason if you can find somebody let us know and if not we'll start digging i have an idea too so if you if you need an additional idea dr fine send me a text thank you all right thanks all looking forward to that on sunday okay um so that moves us into our executive session we do um anticipate a vote after our executive session so we'll move out of this meeting we'll be on hiatus on the screen then we'll come back and address items um six and seven on our agenda so if board members
046you would please leave this meeting and go into the um separate executive session link that kyle sent us i will see you shortly thank you we need a vote on that thank you kyle um thank you so in accordance with ohio revised code one two one point two two um i almost could do this from memory um can i please have a motion to hold executive session for um the to discuss items with respect to public employees and um employment and compensation so moved thank you thank you um all in favor please signify by saying aye aye aye aye any opposed same sign okay thank you that motion carries and we're going into executive session thank you all right i was the slow poke on that one we've got everybody back on okay so it
047looks like we've all made um come over to our back into our regularly scheduled special board meeting of june 29th and um having exited our executive session we are now able to vote on item 6a can i have a motion to approve item 6a please so moved thank you second thank you um that is a personal item so a roll call vote please mr smith miss powers yes yes minion yes mr barno guest miss mitchell yes snowden yes thank you all right we are excited about that so that comes to the end of our agenda for this morning can i have a motion to adjourn please i moved second second all right third fourth thank you all in favor please signify by saying aye and the opposed same sign all right fantastic that motion carries
048we are out and i appreciate everybody's help very much on this end of end of fiscal year meeting and i will see you all on sunday um with um good cheer for fourth of july and candy what time is what time tomorrow is the um the send off oh yeah if you can just and if you want to drop off or just drop by the district office anytime lunchtime is right kyle so we're gonna we're gonna cut the cake at around 9 30. uh in the morning breakfast perfect yeah i mean we and then we're going to have some sandwiches around noon and then probably leftover cake again um because we like to eat cake all day long i'm sorry i'm probably we'll just stop by for lunch to say goodbye because i have a
049breakfast meeting okay and then working for us john said the afternoon victoria and i are out of town so we won't have any issues of the of uh majority of people being there um so you guys enjoy um dan i will see you soon i hope and um we will um i'm still around i'm good yeah i know that's true we will see you soon um all right give my best to joan and mary too all right thanks guys have a good day bye thanks