Bexley Board of Education May 11 Regular Meeting

001so so sorry guys oh god um all right there we go nice video all right looks like we've got everybody okay and it's 6 30. so i will go ahead um and get us started so in accordance with ohio vice code 121.22 house bill 197 and 404 i hereby call to order the board of education for the bexley city school district regular board meeting of tuesday may 11 2021. mr smith will you please call the roll mr barno here ms mineo here ms mitchell here mrs powers here ms snowden here thank you all right moving on can i have a motion um to approve our minutes a second thank you um sorry i think ms mitchell we're working on our locations i'm all in favor of approval of the minutes please signify by saying aye

002aye aye any opposed same sign thank you that motion carries all right so um moving on in our agenda uh this is a great time of year for us uh we always have the opportunity to talk about friend of education which is an award that is given to individuals or individuals who have made a significant contribution to the public education of the city of bexley it's somebody or people who are not current employees of the bexley school but someone who goes beyond the ordinary to give his or her time to our schools so this year i would like to announce that the award for the friend of education goes to the medical doctors on the bexley city school cover 19 evaluation team so we can all give them our virtual hand real big hand so

003the medical doctors along with the rest of the evaluation team helped develop develop our covenant team integration strategies for our schools classrooms cafeterias athletic teams and venues they also helped draft our 50-page covet 19 handbook that served as our reference for all of our students employees and parents they freely shared their expertise wisdom and wisdom with our staff and administration to address the multiple multiple questions this pandemic threw at us in october they began to discuss and develop a metric that we could use to make our learning mode decisions using the data that we had available when the cases increased in november they began and continued to help us meet weekly to offer the recommendations of the learning mode to myself and dr good as one nominator said our watch team our evaluation team understood

004that they were not the decision makers um but and that there were several times they did not always agree with each other and there were also times when their advice was not followed but their strength was their ability to ability to engage in civil discourse and it was a pleasure to watch their passion and see what they could do for our bexley city school district learning community community so um it is my great pleasure um and with appreciation that i announced tonight that our uh medical doctors of our evaluation team dr abby norris dr ted braskey dr mary lynn nyland dr jim mcdonald and dr allison norris will be recognized as this year's friends of education recipients an engraved brick with their names will be installed in the alumni plaza to memorialize this recognition and

005we thank you all very very much for your service to our our community all right so um oh and i also need to go back real quick sorry to um just take us out of order for one minute our approval of the agenda sorry can i have a motion to prove item 1d the approval of agenda so moved second thank you all in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed same sign thank you that motion carries so at this point in our meeting um can i please have a motion from a board member to enter into executive session for the per under ohio rise code 121.22 for the purpose of discussion with respect to public employees for appointment or employment so moved second thank you all in favor please signify by saying aye

006i think it's wrong oh you're right thank you can we do a roll call mr smith miss powers hi miss video yes mr barno yes miss mitchell yes ms snowden yes thank you all right so we will be moving into executive session and we will when we come back out of that we anticipate board action so we will join back on the public zoom as soon as we're through with executive session thank you all for your patience and we'll be back as soon as we can philip you're unmuted sorry just waiting on victoria and then we'll get moving again all moving around here there we go okay um i need a motion to reconvene out of executive session still moved second okay thank you um all right all in favor please signify by saying aye

007bye hi hi i need to the same sign all right that much worries thank you so now that we're back in regular session um i would like to entertain a motion to appoint uh john barnow on behalf of the board of education with authority to negotiate a contract with jason fine for the position of superintendent thank you i'm sorry is that a second alicia oh yeah sorry i just i've got some of these seconds yeah thank you all in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposing sign thank you mr barno let me make sure i was clear because we're on we were on zoom can i um i'm going to recall this vote because i wasn't sure which you were saying hi to mr barna because of the delay all in favor please

008signify by saying aye hi hi hi thank you any opposed same sign thank you all right that motion carries unanimously um all right so with that we start on board updates on our agenda and i am going to start just with um a thank you to our community members and our and to dr fine for going through this process with us i'm super excited about it and we have i have down here on our agenda which i i want to follow the superintendent search under miss uh powers report because she has been our board representative in charge of our superintendent search so we can say a few more things there i just wanted to start off by by saying congratulations and thank you and we're looking forward to working on a contract so um and

009also on our superintendent policy committee which is my other report uh you will see policies on our agenda tonight that um you've had information about from dr good and osba i would just remark that they are um administrative in in um nature and do not really have much uh content or perhaps true abuse so i know you've all had a chance to read them so nothing more needs to be said about that so moving on to miss powers and miss powers maybe you want to start at the bottom of your assignment with the superintendent search i will do that um so i have comments about our process and i have a couple extra comments so i just ask everybody to bear with me um on the superintendent search as marley noted i was the person

010on the board who was appointed to assist with the search process we had a very compressed timeline and we did that in order to get to the end of the process by this point in the year by early may and that's because that is when in most districts contracts are awarded and and you know that's sort of the end of the time limit for contracts and we didn't want to go any further beyond that um because we wanted to ensure that we were casting the widest net possible and that we were making it easier for possible candidates to decide to apply uh to our district i'm so grateful and i know the board shares my gratitude to all the bexley stakeholders including students parents staff and community members for all their engagement throughout this entire

011process our process began when we selected a search firm and then the focus groups held by ray and associates which culminated in the formation of an 11 point quality profile for what we were looking for in our next superintendent rain associates contacted through their different processes over potential candidates and ultimately 31 folks applied through their application process candidates were screened by ray and associates and top candidates were identified from the states of new jersey new york ohio and texas the board interviewed candidates and ultimately three candidates came to visit with us here in the district on may 4th last tuesday for a full day of interviews it was a long day for everyone and it was a busy day stakeholders worked with ray and associates to develop questions to help lead the q and a

012sessions those sessions were very helpful to the board because it permitted us to get significant input from stakeholders we received 298 separate responses to the candidate impression form request the sessions were also helpful to our candidates each of whom learned so much about our district through the process that went on in particular our candidates commented on the outstanding job our students did in putting together and asking questions in their sessions and so i was really proud of our district for how all of that went with their leadership as well as the leadership of many other stakeholders so a big thank you to all of our staff students parents community members and everyone who participated and i want to also say thank you to ray and associates for their work and support every step of the

013way we are very excited to be at this point in the process we had an outstanding group of candidates for our next superintendent tendon and as a result it has been a wonderful but difficult process each candidate offered different talents and strengths with dr fine we would have someone who can lead us into the future as a strong communicator a good listener with a deep understanding of special education a commitment to the district's work on diversity equity and belonging and a collaborative and team-building leadership style we recognize that he has not been a superintendent but we also recognize that he will have great support here in our district his optimism and enthusiasm for bexley and what we can do to continue to build our district resonated with a number of our stakeholders as well as

014with the board i'm very excited and grateful to be at this point in our process with such a fine candidate and i didn't realize i was making that pawn until tonight when i read it sorry candidate let me now go to my other reports quickly thank you bexley wreck since our last board meeting on april 6 the beckley bexley rec board has met twice we met on april 7th and we met on may 5th and highlights of those meeting include that there have been plans put in place for the reopening of the pool which will be may 29th albeit with a reduced capacity due to cobit but we're very excited to have that community resource opening the chamber of commerce has plans for taste of bexley to take place at jeffrey park on september 23rd

015jeffrey summer camp is going forward and they are already at capacity the summer activity brochure is available online this year and we got to tour the beautiful expansion of the jeffrey mansion and it's almost complete it is spectacular we are so grateful that the bexley high school senior party can be held in the new carriage space it's going to be a wonderful evening in that space and so it looks great and i'm really pleased that the rec department could provide that the next meeting of that board is on june 2nd my last report is on the franklin county school board alliance the board alliance met on april 10th there were discussions about covid and end of year event safety student vaccinations and the ed choice school voucher program the next meeting of the alliance is

016this thursday april 13th that's all i have thank you thank you very much uh mr burno thank you so first of all um i i think uh dr fein is uh is an attendee here but i'd like to welcome dr fein to our district i'm excited for the prospect of dr fine coming in to our our district that we are excited to have someone that has the excitement and the the experience that he has even though he does not have the experience as a superintendent we think that uh we have uh to borrow victorious upon a very fine person and coming in as our superintendent um i look forward to to working with with dr fine here over the next few months and in the transition and and with such great support and administrative staff

017that we have i think the the transition and especially with dr goode in place right now having all of those pieces in place will will put us in another level that i'm looking forward to i think i would like to also talk about our other two finalists in in especially reading through what we heard from the community the comments uh the the the input that we had and um literally hundreds and hundreds of data points that we were able to look through and look through these candidates and i i'm so ecstatic that we had three highly qualified awesome people authentic people that came in that especially when we were able to interview in person to make those connections with all three of those and and deliberating and talking about these these candidates and reviewing everything

018that they've they had to offer was not an easy task and i commend my my colleagues my fellow board members and on respectful hard decisions but making making the decision ultimately with dr fine so i wanted to to talk about the other two candidates briefly and make sure that that we recognize the high quality people that they are and and the authenticity and the the desire and the the enthusiasm that they showed so again welcome dr fein to bexley um and i look forward to speaking you to you soon um with that said a couple of reports uh mr pettit and i met on the tech advisory committee and we we went through a lot of stuff mr pettit does an awesome job with with the with our technology and one of the things that

019we talked about is when mr pettit came in did a technology audit put us on such a great track for not only infrastructure but putting in place like a service catalog for for all of our users students parents teachers to use but talked about you know looking at doing maybe not a full audit but definitely a new three-year plan a new uh technology plan um and and with toby in place too to have that input and and having toby as our tech integration coach looking at the different aspects and where we have gone over the last three years especially after covet and and all the the issues that we've gone through and now learning to how to handle remote issues and and all the different things that we that weaknesses that were there that we've

020been able to address including a new firewall that there will be uh installed over this summer in improvement and updated service catalog i don't want to get too technical because i don't understand most of no seriously i did i want to make sure that i touch on everything the tech integration coach with toby he is our principal over the summer school and and how that is going to to help integrate further our technology and and toby's integration into our district um as far as talking about digital wellness which is obviously something that that we always need to address and things that come up that we know that that we need to refocus our our efforts um as always and talk about inclusion and and bringing people uh the more opportunities that we were able to

021do over covid with hot spots and laptops and different things that we were able to to provide those that maybe needed that additional support um in in providing that to to those families and and those uh students that needed that additional help um and as i pointed out um and obviously with the one-to-one um again can't think the be bef enough for help helping with that um and and providing us with that opportunity not only through the pandemic but as we move forward um and again we're in year three of the of the technology plan and and we talked about looking at you know updating that and maybe doing a new three-year plan as to what our new new horizons look like especially after going through the pandemic athletic board we did have an athletic

022board meeting um specifically the ohio ohsaa and and the the high revised code actually talks about what types of gpa requirements that school districts need we talked about eligibility and how we would handle as a district and keeping our standards where we want to keep them as well as making sure that we're meeting all of those requirements under the high revised code and ohsaa requirements we have a we have a second follow-up meeting we had some really great breakout discussions our students offer great perspectives our coaches and having in those breakout sessions and talking about um how maybe a present or a recommendation to the board after that meeting which is next is the 20th next thursday that we will be doing by zoom and talking about those issues and perhaps coming to the board

023with a with a policy not only on gpa requirements but also how many classes that that a student has to pass to be eligible as well as our study tables and the things that have been very successful um and and i apologize for going on so long one other thing miss mitchell and i were able to participate it was on april 8th it was a couple days after our last meeting in the community coffee some awesome discussions and it provided quite a bit of opportunity just to have good discussions with miss mitchell and i and and various community members that came from all different questions all different angles and having a good back and forth and having those discussions and and i i think those are great ideas and um obviously with the new superintendent

024we'll have you know conversations and coffees like that but i think it is also good for for us as board members that to be able to participate in those and get the get discussions you know on whatever topic and not just telling the public what we want them to hear out let them ask questions and miss mitchell and i i mean i'll let her speak for herself but i i thought it was a great conversation it was an hour we set it set a time limit and that hour by fast because we had such good conversations so with that said those are my reports and sorry for going so long thank you no we appreciate your work um all right so moving on to ms mineo okay thanks uh ms snowden um so i'm gonna

025approach the um superintendent comments first and then i'll move on to my board reports um so in regards to our recent superintendent search i'd like to thank thanks to all of the candidates all of the applicants um and most especially to our three finalists i have to echo what mr barno said that it was truly an honor to discuss education with all three of them and kind of talk to them and get to know them it was truly an honor we had we're very lucky to have such a great group um thanks to the members of our community that took an active role in the search process and to our search firm ray and associates for the hard work and willingness to be available to answer questions as needed i feel like i had a

026lot of questions for them and of course to my fellow board members um it was definitely an extensive and extensive process that we went through um okay so regarding our move to connect um to move into contract negotiations with dr fine i'm excited for what he can bring to our district besides this weekend besides reviewing data and feedback and watching the candidate forums i spent the weekend actually talking making connections with literally friends from grade school high school and college who have experience in education um discussing what makes a good leader really kind of like trying to take a look at that and something that i heard time and time again is the superintendent the superintendent helps up the tone and the culture for the work um and that's really one of the reasons i'm

027excited to support dr fine is because i think the energy and excitement and experience that he brings to our community and our school culture not to mention his uh personal and professional special education experience um it's on a personal note i say this to the teachers um and coaches and staff who work with my own sons i thank them often for making them making my sons better humans um and taking kind of a look at the whole person not just the skill or the grade i'm excited to see where we can go and how we continue to grow in directions that support the development of good humans and not just successful students so i'm excited for the culture that dr fine looks to bring and i dr fine i know you're on i hope this

028is okay i stole this um i stole this from something that you submitted to us it's a quote directly from you it says i have chosen to live my life and to lead my community in schools with a sense of relentless optimism um i think that's a great culture and tone to set forth for our district moving forward for our students moving forward so i'm very excited about where we can go how we can grow okay so now i messed all my papers up um here we go so my um legislative report i will tell you that on april 21st h house bill 110 passed april 21st house bill 110 passed um it has to do with budget and finances i could give you information but i would have to say if you have like

029serious questions about what it's all about kyle's probably a better resource than i would than i am i'm not gonna i'm not gonna um pretend that he's not um and then currently hospital 290 is up for discussion and they it has to do with vouchers for public um for it has to do with the vouchers for public charter and private school so if you want information about how to um weigh your voice in on that house bill board members let me know and i can forward you some information and that's my report great thank you very much ms mitchell yes give me one second i was moving stuff around on my keyboard here so that i don't forget yours on you i know the feeling and then i'm like wait where did everybody go um

030i don't think i need the zoom uh there so for bef um we had 68 alumni bricks that were installed in the piazza um we had five classroom grants come up for a review they'll be reviewed in our next board of governors meeting on may 20th and each of the grants touched on literacy diversity equity and inclusion and art in the arts in bexley m factor will be hosting its high school mentoring event this friday for rising 9th graders and they will receive a free book of choice courtesy of the bef um brant family grant read for life endowment um the gratitude event obviously had lots of views online i actually watched it a couple of times because could get to see all the little faces was a real treat um of just expressing our

031um our gratitude and thanks to our incredibly hard-working faculty this year we still this goes without saying we still need donations for the one-to-one technology so if anybody's out there looking for nifty tax deductions this is a great time to give a nice one-time gift um and then or do like i do and do a monthly deduction from your account i had the opportunity to and i don't think i mentioned it but the bef will meet uh again by may 20th at 7 00 pm that's our next meeting i had the pleasure to i represent the board of education initially i was asked to represent um in my role with the bzap for the city of bexley but we had enough representation uh there and um so i represented the city the schools uh for

032the city the bexley steering committee for the livingston avenue plan it's a joint committee between the city of columbus and the city of bexley had our kickoff meeting last week where we brought together city leadership from both communities stakeholders from both communities to talk about reimagining the livingston avenue corridor to not only include the the residential but the business district as well we set timelines uh schedules and we'll begin a series of joint meetings where we will hatch out the the goals it was a really productive meeting to have that many different minds involved and then i did prepare a statement in regards to our superintendent search and i think my my fellow board members sort of know i'm i don't shy away from speaking my mind but i do want to take the opportunity

033to absolutely thank our community and our stakeholders our administrators and our staff for our weighing in giving us quite a lot of information to digest and think about but i did consider how best to approach my remarks tonight um i've never desi never hidden my desire to serve this district by advocating for what i believe in for those who so often do not enjoy the privilege of influence and deference that others do and when doing that everything in my power to expect and challenge bexley city schools to not only be equitable valuable and impactful but also a district i would be proud to have raised my children in to that end understanding the role of a board member and governing all too often demands one does not put individual needs first a governing body such

034as ours that is so intimately tied to our community means that at times we are not going to agree we are simply going to see things differently and it is however differences that often perplexes and leave us fumbling over one another angry sometimes frustrated and most certainly exhausted it is also our greatest strength we were given a moment to consider for the first time in our hundred plus year history a candidate that didn't always fit the two familiar what looks like bexley and in a time when we as a community have faced and began to question our district internally internally and externally about who we are i was elated at that opportunity we are fortunate to have built a district that top-tier talent not only considered us but 31 candidates made it through a big

035pool they had incredible resumes and accomplishments 31 people wanted to work for this incredibly dedicated board to lead what i feel are some of the finest educational leaders and faculty members in the state they are very special and talented people and shape the most amazing minds that will absolutely one day lead and that is because of all of you and our community and i'm deeply excited and grateful for that the idea that our first ever candidate of color elaine me as i said yeah in weighing the zoom videos in community conversation i still viewed a different candidate as my choice and that left my heart somewhat heavy that doesn't diminish the clear talent that dr fein has cultivated in his years as jones middle school principal and i'm confident that it will translate to success

036for bexley this does not diminish the impressive resume that dr bell and his incredible work and understanding the literal epidemic of losing students of color in higher education and beyond is work that's critical to the conversation and one we all discuss often as a board i still understand and deeply value a highly functional board of education we are the arm that takes a lot of hits but steers the success of the district and sets the priorities that will hold the superintendent treasurer accountable for its academic and financial well-being without saying again that 31 people actually wanted to come work for a board full of stubborn highly demanding ever curious and deeply critical people who still remain committed to the functionality and success of this board in our district we understand our oath never expected us

037to always agree but build consensus and work to support the success of our schools and i was honored to have an opportunity to weigh this very critical decision on behalf of the district regardless of my personal choice dr fine's success is our success and it must be i will continue as always to support the district and work in every way that i'm called upon to make sure that that is successful and that's all i have for today thank you i appreciate everybody's input very much and moving on now to our student representative our student council president who i believe this will be your last month ms george is our student council president um sarah can you tell us first i just want to say thank you guys so much for everything you guys have done

038for us this year and personally me i've enjoyed this opportunity to sit on the sport with you guys and hear what you guys have to say so much so first i want to say thank you for that um to dr fine obviously i won't be here next year to see you and you in action but i have total confidence that you'll be able to provide our school system with the support and leadership it needs as for a student council basis um we just elected our student council president for next year i'm happy to say that's quinn hall he is a fantastic fantastic person and i'm turning over the gavel with him with full confidence that he will lead us in the perfect direction especially with the high school next friday is our clash of the

039classes which we have been waiting to do for a long time now we're really excited about it um it's going to be the last friday that everybody is there together and it's going to be socially distance outside and very lucky to be able to have some type of normalcy within the student council this year so that's all i have and thank you guys again so much for having me this year thank you sarah very much and best of luck to you here i tell everybody what are you doing next year i'm attending bradley university where i'll be studying special education fantastic we'd love to have you in our education world thank you very much for all you've done all right so then we're moving on to our superintendent's report uh dr good well good evening

040and congratulations to our board of education which represents bexley's families and governs their public schools i speak only on my own behalf when i say that i'm pleased the process for selecting a superintendent is nearing a result certainly my commitment to this wonderful city and its children's education will continue through the transition of leadership and beyond so far as i am able i am confident that dr jason fein will find as i have found opportunities to make even better and already very efficient highly effective public education system one that is ranked by u.s news and world report as the best in central ohio well done bexley we have so very much to be thankful for a truly professional faculty and staff that supports learners growth across all domains physical social emotional and cognitive extraordinarily clean

041and safe facilities and grounds maintained by a crew of dedicated women and men who care as much for bexley city schools properties as they do for their own homes an unparalleled administrative team that provides appropriate leadership and confidential accountability for all personnel children and adults our administrative assistants receptionists and secretaries who serve with a smile and regularly deliver ahead of schedule and under budget and of course the incomparable food service operation that truly is bextra and more in fact this month we celebrated all school staff and made certain we remember those who are less often recognized the accounts payable and payroll clerks our curriculum leaders and instructional coaches school nurses classroom aides and interpreters drivers of vehicles keepers of warehouses discerners of data coordinators and managers technicians and directors you see even within the microchism

042that is mexican city schools it still takes a village and while the proverbial buck stops with me the superintendent everyone knows that inclusion and collaboration iterative solutions and communication are the keys to our shared problem solving and subsequently our shared success in this respect bexley has never disappointed i trust that the next superintendent will be afforded the same spirit of what i call our collective communities mind glow it is what contributes to being the best in central ohio and i'm genuinely proud of all of our residents contributions to that achievement on to the consent agenda tonight we are seeking the board's renewal of contracts for licensed and certified professionals the length of contracts is determined using three criteria ongoing training or professional development holistic scores that consider both the employee's job performance and the student's

043academic growth and finally the note the negotiated agreement with the bexley education association congratulations to all those being renewed for a one year a two year or a continuing contract also we seek the board's approval of resignations due to employees moving to another district or for the purposes of retirement these friends will be missed now there is still work to be done here in the summer and the proposed extended service contracts provide extra paid workdays and then we have some but not all of our fall sports contracts and a contract for a highly skilled student worker to operate lighting and sound in the auditorium which i believe we all know is sorely needed as well as a contract for a new food service employee and we welcome yolanda shipe and finally we have a few

044new home instructors and classified substitutes for the board's consideration i'm also asking the board to sunset two policies whose corresponding emergency authorizations expired at the end of december and to approve changes to the business advisory council policy that will allow the board to be represented in regional business advisory council conversations hosted by the educational service center of central ohio there is also a policy change that requires us to file our safety plans with the state's director of public safety instead of with the ohio department of education and another policy change that recognizes registered as a credential in addition to licensed and certified for the purposes of hiring and finally a proposed policy change that brings us into compliance with the law requiring those teaching in preschools to be tested for tuberculosis the last items on

045the consent agenda are the handbooks for a second reading the high school the middle school and the elementary school handbooks which you have seen and this the second the gifted handbook which now will ask dr colleen boyle to introduce for a first reading colleen thank you dr good thank you members of the board for your time we're introducing a brand new gifted handbook to you it is a k-12 scope basically what we've done is taken the district's prior gifted operating procedures document and expanded it to include a more comprehensive document for gifted education in bexley city schools now our intended audience is families teachers counselors and administrators by having a single document our hope is that it creates a sense of transparency and clarity around all of the processes and procedures in the department the

046purpose of the document is to document and communicate our processes and procedures to inform readers about law policy along with district opportunities and programs and then also to share resources for supporting gifted learners in the classroom and at home our goal essentially is to have a one-stop shop so that people can have a single place to turn when they've got a question about gifted education the handbook also includes information about academic acceleration which is not exclusive to gifted learners but it is managed both by the state and our district by local gifted staff so it seemed appropriate to include it in this handbook we've added components of the book on our website and we will make the full document available online for anyone to access once it has reached full board approval thank you thank

047you thank you colleen is joined by members of our community this evening to share the results of the recent equity audit which will lay the groundwork for potential modifications to the board adopted graded course of study colleen thank you again i am pleased to be able to kick off our group presentation to update the board and the community on the work of our ela secondary curriculum audit team we have several speakers joining us tonight to represent the team and that includes staff members crystal carly and michelle rogers students ruby holtz and philip martin and parent jessica willis i'm going to start us off with a quick overview of the process before i turn it over to them to share the outcomes now beginning in february we assembled a multi-stakeholder team together to conduct an audit

048of our secondary english language arts curriculum the purpose of this work was to provide guidance as we continue to develop and implement an ela curriculum that ensures all bexley students consistently experience a sense of belonging the district's committed to create a safe and equitable learning climate for all students of diverse backgrounds and identities this is the result of our current socio-political climate calls from the community and our students and at its core ethical best practice part of that work includes creating and delivering an asset-based curriculum that is culturally re culturally relevant to all of our students that it serves as both a mirror and a window where students can see themselves and learn about other perspectives in the process so evaluating and revising curriculum is a giant task because of the scope of what curriculum

049entails we opted to begin with ela for two reasons first and foremost it is in the middle of the district's five-year curriculum revision and implementation cycle work with ela began last year with a deep dive into the curriculum to identify strengths and needs and adjust alignment and scope and sequence as needed now work stalled when the pandemic hit however it created an unexpected opportunity for us as this audit was a logical next step as we pick the work back up and move it forward second ela is a natural entry point for culturally responsive curriculum and instruction language is how we communicate which is at the heart of all learning so this was a great place to start it's important to note this is just a start it's not the only place such an audit will

050occur we felt it was important to pilot the process and start small which is why we limited our work this year to secondary ela curriculum but the work is going to be ongoing across all grade levels and content areas k-12 social studies is next to begin the curriculum review cycle next year and other subjects will follow our intent is to embed this audit process in the review cycle moving forward now the review process from the audit is cyclical in nature and it's going to occur in two ways first the formal audit which we're sharing with you tonight is represented by the green circle that you'll see on the next slide and it's a multi-stakeholder process that begins with gathering samples of the focus curriculum utilizing teams to assess the samples and then use the scorecard

051to gain qualitative input from others analyzing the results and forming a summary of conclusions and action steps that work then is revisited in the future for further review and the cycle just focuses on a small portion of the curriculum typically one or two units per grade band as a sample and starting point now the formal district-wide process is very valuable to help create direction for our ongoing work but the audit doesn't stop there as i mentioned it's just a sampling of this of our overall curriculum just due to restrictions of time and resources but our teachers review and revise all of their units of instruction on an ongoing basis so our intent is that our teachers will use a similar reflective process when they're revising their own curriculum and lessons in their classrooms and take

052the feedback from the audit as a guide when they're making their day-to-day adjustments to their lessons they may do this through a combination of department or grade level work or independent planning now on the next slide you'll see there are three areas of focus within the audit first the teams conducted a review of the curriculum and texts used in class this included novels short stories and poetry and non-fiction editions the esc of central ohio's team randomly chose two units from each grade band 6 8 9 10 and 11 12. and although the audit teams ended up reviewing one unit per grade band during the formal audit process our district ela staff provided them with all of the text and instructional materials used during the units and made them available for the audit team to review

053they were very forthcoming and freely giving of those resources the teams then rated the units using a slightly modified version of what's called the culturally responsive curriculum scorecard that was developed by the education justice research and organizing collaborative at nyu we then used the same scorecard to provide insight into instructional approaches used in the ela classrooms and then finally as the purpose of the audit is centered on student sense of belonging we assess the student experience within our ela classrooms as a critical part of that evaluation and we'll share more information about each of these components as we move forward in the presentation now the work was conducted by a core team that was comprised of bexley teachers and support staff parents students and community members sheree wells of the esc of central ohio was

054brought in to support the work from its conception to its conclusion and she helped facilitate the core team workflow and several of the working groups throughout the process here you can see the full list of the core team members that were engaged from beginning to end committing many afternoons and even some evenings to this process additionally bexley chief academic officer jill abraham and our secondary principals provided input and support along the way now the core team's role was to finalize the audit process facilitate the stakeholder working groups that allowed for wider involvement of others draw conclusions from the data and make recommendations the final team summaries will be provided later in the presentation but first i thought i would invite some of our team members to discuss the specific working groups and the data found

055along the way we're going to begin with crystal carly a middle school ela instructional chair to explain the work of our ela staff throughout this process crystal hello next slide please all right so as the work started our secondary ela staff was asked to share their desired outcomes from the audit and on your screen you see the word walls that reflects the um collaboration of our conversation held during that first meeting from the beginning hopefully you can see why the words that are bigger our staff have recognized that a culturally responsive ela curriculum needs to include diverse materials that are engaging and representing and representative of all students you can go on one one yes so during our professional development in march uh the department yeah go back yeah there we go um the depart

056uh in department meetings that followed we reviewed sample units selected from our curriculum by staff from the esc and during that review we utilized the cre scorecard to examine the frequency and type of representation of various groups of people we also had conversations about our teaching practices and reflected on diversity within our ela curriculum as a whole overall staff have been trying to be very intentional about the widening about widening the array of voices from within diverse communities represented in the text we use we also try to connect our selected texts to our students and current events where we can in our review we realize there are some groups that could be better represented as shown on this slide um we also see value in creating a document that shows the vertical um the first

057vertical alignment of text used across the 6 12 curriculum since it's not possible to read novels or larger texts that represent every group of people every year a vertical alignment document will allow us to ensure there is representation over the whole middle and high school experience and then we can focus on bringing in other supplemental voices through shorter pieces that round out our instructional units next i'd like to introduce ruby holt and philip martin to share information about the voice of students in the audit process hello my name is philip martin and i represented the high school portion of the curriculum audit the input from students in grades 6 through 12 in two different ways first the esc developed a short survey based on the elements of the cre scorecard that others were using to

058review the selected units 710 students completed the survey including 400 from the middle school and 310 from the high school representing 55.3 percent of students in middle and high school 10 students the data showed that between 62 and 86 percent of students answered favorable to items regarding their ability to safely ask questions and share differing opinions and opportunities to think critically and engage in their ela classrooms although these numbers were slightly lower for students of color all student groups were very favorable in their opinions about the classroom environment the data also revealed that half or more students feel they relate to the text used in class only sometimes or rarely on the other hand half or more students reported the texts they read highlight non-dominant populations sometimes or frequently but this number was somewhat lower

059for students of color opinions about whether readings in class inspired students to think about social justice or reissues of equity were more varied without one dominant opinion thank you now i'll turn it over to ruby holt sorry about that earlier my computer has been glitching following the survey focus groups were formed at the middle and high school to gather additional information that couldn't be captured on the survey students of diverse backgrounds and representatives of baarp were invited to a pizza lunch and we led conversations with them about their perceptions of representation and belonging in the ela classroom groups included 11 middle school students and 14 high school students across all grades we asked our classmates questions to understand if they relate to the text we read in our ela classes if they feel the text

060we read highlight non-dominant populations in a positive way and if they feel a sense of belonging in class for each of the questions some individual students had strong opinions one way or another the selected quotes on this slide were selected as examples of the general conversation and most common opinion in the groups students in the focus groups generally said they sometimes relate to the books in class comments included notes about the text being older having limited people of color or limiting the characters of color to specific time periods or roles such as slavery or civil rights eras our classmates recognize that there are texts featuring african americans but there was concern that there were few examples of other racial or ethnic groups and that stories about people of color were primarily focused on oppression or

061struggle without representing other life experiences or aspects of identity or they were told from white perspectives despite concerns about the books we read in class students in the focus groups typically feel a sense of belonging in the class there was a mix of opinions both wanting to talk about race more often than during black history month while also feeling uncomfortable talking about race particularly if the student is the only person of color in the room as you can see the last quote on the slide reference events of last summer just to give everyone listening some backgrounds on may 25th 2020 a black man named george floyd was pinned to the ground by a white police officer named derek shovin in minneapolis minnesota this combined with other events that had their roots in races and issues

062surrounding race such as the previous shooting of a black woman named brianna taylor sparked protests in the country and all and around the world over the summer and started national conversation about race and racism even though derek shelvin was found guilty on all three of the charges that he faced the work to stop racism is far from finished part of the reason the district began conducting curriculum audit was in response to those events next i'd like to introduce jessica willis a bexley parent an educator in a neighboring district to share information about the role of parents and community members in the process thank you ruby my name is jessica willis and like she said i represented the parent group in order to ensure diverse perspectives were brought into the audit community engagement and communication was

063a critical component all of the documents shared data reviewed and notes from the conversations held during these meetings were made publicly available on the district's website for anyone to review a form was also provided for individuals to provide commentary or feedback on the process and the information provided our goal is to maintain transparency during the process and that information will remain available online for anyone to review one of the key working groups that participated in the audit was comprised of bexley parents and community members a call was put out in all school building newsletters in february inviting individuals to participate in the working groups it was also shared on social media platforms including the bexy minority paranoians facebook page initial interest was around 15 people with nine parents and community members working on the project

064all the way through these team members included parents of bexley students across all grade bands it also included several area consultants with expertise in diverse youth literature and culturally responsive teaching including representatives from bexley public library and neighboring university affiliates the role of the working group was to review a sample of the ela curriculum this included one middle school unit one ninth and tenth grade unit and one unit from the 11th and 12th grade bands the participants use the cre scorecards to examine representation of diverse characters and authors and texts and how diverse groups are portrayed it also took a look at social justice themes in text including the novels in any short stories poems non-fiction pieces and in teacher materials after reviewing the materials independently the team team came together to discuss what we

065experienced the individual scores rating using the scorecard varied widely however the conversations within the group showed a lot of common perspectives similarly to the student and staff discoveries our work group felt that there were intentional efforts to bring diversity and variety into the classroom but we also felt that there were groups that could be better represented as listed here we would like to see more of a range of representation of individual groups we look forward to seeing how the curriculum continues to evolve to include a more varied perspective and examples of the complexity of the human experience finally we greatly appreciate the willingness of the ela staff to allow us behind the curtains and we hope that they invite us in the future as resources while they have these conversations with their students this was

066truly a collaborative effort next i'd like to introduce dr michelle rogers the becca high school ela department chair to share the core team's recommendation and staff action plans thank you thanks jessica kyle you can stay on the slide for a moment after each work group compiled their reviews and shared findings the core team reconvened to look at everything in order to understand the big picture view of diversity and equity in our ela curriculum the team concluded that our students feel valued and heard while in our ela classrooms although they recognize that teachers and students are still developing the skills and comfort level when it comes to discussing issues of race within the classroom the team also determined there is a need for more diverse voices within the text used in our ela classrooms to represent

067a broader array of experiences among different groups of people based on those conclusions the team put forth the following recommendations first the team recommends the district utilize newer and more diverse materials continuing the practice of offering student choice and text and format where appropriate in particular the team encourages educators to include more voices from the asian american latino middle eastern and lgbtq communities and that represent varied family structures economic status and ability to do that the team recognizes the district needs to set aside their appropriate financial and support resources for teachers along the way and finally the core team recommends surveying students again in the future to monitor change and continue to provide them with voices in the process next slide so in the recent weeks the ela departments in both buildings have been developing

068action plans for our next steps on this work based on the core team recommendations in our own findings each grade level or teacher has selected one or two units to revise for next school year and each year we will review another one or two units until we work our way through the curriculum at that point it will be time to start back with the first units again as we revive unit rise units and continue with the rest of the curriculum review cycle for ela we will also develop a vertical chart to identify which key texts are used across multiple middle and high school grade levels this will allow us to ensure that there is diverse representation across text over time and that texts are aligned to grade specific standards and not duplicated from year to

069year then we will pursue new texts to provide broader representation particularly for specific groups identified during the audit next year we will utilize the textbook adoption process to review and select anthologies for courses where they are needed and finally we are looking forward to opportunities to access professional development particularly learning from other classroom teachers who focus on diversity and equity in secondary ela classrooms our consultants from the university and the library communities have provided us with lists of resources from which we can draw as we move forward with this work and district leaders have been intentional in their budget process to set aside funds to help cover the expenses of any new techs or professional development required now i'm going to turn it back over to dr boyle and i will just say on behalf

070of the core team that it has been great to work with dr boyle she's been an incredible listener she's been engaged and she's hands on and this was for all of us i think our first deep dive with her on something and it was a great process so we thank you for that dr boyle thanks michelle i appreciate that so as we close i want to share appreciation for the support of the board and the administrative team and then most importantly the engagement of all who are part of this process along the way all of the individuals who served on the work groups and the core team including our teaching staff amazing student leaders parents and community members and the esc spent an incredible amount of time and energy on this work staying late reading

071novels giving up lunches or planning time researching resources analyzing data the list goes on and on and it was a new venture for all of us and so you know i appreciate everyone being willing to give it a try and to give feedback along the way so we can have a really refined process for cycles moving forward we're excited to take the next steps in developing and implementing an ela curriculum that ensures all bexley students consistently experience a sense of belonging it's going to be an ongoing collaboration across levels and will be work that takes time and commitment our goal is that our ela staff will continue to informally do this type of analysis and i'm seeing them do that already in the week since this audit has concluded and we look forward to applying

072the formal process to work in other content areas in the future so thank you for your time thank you that was fantastic i so appreciate that very thorough and thoughtful report um does anybody have any questions i do first dr boyle i just have to say i am beyond over the moon with this process that you all shared with us um and and walked us through and i just hats off to you and the core team and the work groups um dr rogers i mean just to see this um sort of played out it in a very easy to follow presentation that we can share with our community on this work that we have committed to um i'm really really excited about it so i just have um just a couple of comments really i

073was so excited to see ruby and phillip thank you so much um i don't know what we have to do to continue to include students in presentations but i was trying not to light up so um thank you really excited about that um i the the data points that you guys provided to us sort of affirmed what i think that we on the board have seen in our own data um just that experience for students is um sometimes different and i and i appreciate you for acknowledging that and calling that out and really speaking to how you would um bring that into the classrooms in a practical way um thank you for sharing the list of the core team members i think sometimes when work gets away from the level of the board it's hard

074just to know who's stepping in and giving um our district feedback and it was really wonderful to see names i was familiar with and names that i wasn't so thank you um and then the only question that i have is um dr boyle you have mentioned that this work will act as a feedback as feedback and a guide and maybe my question is not so much for you but for the board is should we be thinking about taking it from a guide standpoint but an expectation of how we want um this to be applied district-wide so this may be a longer-term question and just putting it out there and you know i like to let things do for a little bit before i chew on it so giving you all the opportunity to do the

075same so thank you great job everyone i really really appreciated it i just want to add my appreciation this work is so important um it's being done in such an effective way patiently with thoroughness inclusion of the important voices and i think to alicia's point the ability to use this first incredibly well done process as a guide for doing this again and again and continuing the work not just um once but giving us a template for continuing the work it won't stop um and so i'm so grateful to the undertaking of this important work and and the huge effort from all the stakeholders thank you any other questions or comments all right i just want to say um somebody in your report said that this is a work on the complexity of human experience and

076i love i love that that's that really encapsulates what you all have done um and are working to do as we all are and i've just been deeply appreciative of the work so thank you all very much for sharing your time with us um i think that and you know um that dr good is that the end of your comments for tonight just about i want to thank dr boyle and the team for that presentation i have one final comment to make you know in just 19 days memorial day weekend in the stadium we are hosting the graduation ceremony for 180 bexley high school seniors and i will say i could not be truly could not be any prouder of a class that has endured arguably one of the most uncertain senior years since the

077late 1960s and early 1970s and i know because i was a student then if you'd like to show your support for these graduates these survivors these thrivers watch for details about the reverse parade which will take place on saturday may 29th at 10 a.m this is truly a tribute to a community's coming together and supporting our graduating class through a pandemic and i thank you for that thank you very much um i just want to go back for one second sorry is dr boyle are you still with us you're just like no i want to go i'm still here okay i did just want to thank you um i have had children in the schools for 20 years now maybe um and when i first started with a with a child in kindergarten the gifted

078program was so confusing to me and i spent many many hours sifting through documents and trying to understand things and i literally brought tears to my eyes when i saw what you had done with this um this handbook thank you so much as a parent of child gifted and twice exceptional child it it just it is such good work and i'm so grateful that we have it in our district now and i cannot thank you enough for for your work and your team's work on that so i just wanted to make sure make note of it thank you all right so that moves us on from the superintendent's comments and all of that good work to um some of our action items so if i could have a motion please to approve items before you

079do that i just had two or three very quick things that i wanted to highlight from everything that was in the superintendent's report and one of them was on the um gifted handbook that you just commented on i had the same reaction to it and in particular i just wanted to share gratitude for the second half of that report of the gifted handbook which contains so many resources an appendix a glossary so much additional information for our community and i'm very very grateful that that all of that is there as a as a huge resource i'm very thankful for that i wanted to also on another topic turn to the policies that we're adopting or looking at tonight and i appreciate the new policy bf bcfa which is the one that provides us flexibility to

080go with the esc for services you know for the work that dr uh good described we don't have to but i think it's a great option for us so i'm very grateful for that and with respect to the handbooks i did have a bunch of questions as usual and i got all the answers i needed and i wanted to point out that i had a question so i thought others might have the question about the transition to middle school the the revisions to the handbook take away some of what's been there before in terms of transitioning from elementary to middle school and so i asked about that and i just wanted to point out that i was reassured that that the transitional support is still being given it's being given in a slightly different way

081by um having that work done in the elementary schools at the end you know as we as those students prepare to transition instead of in the middle school but but the changes don't reflect that that support will no longer be there it's just being done in a different way and i was grateful for those responses that i received from a bunch of different people but that one came from jason caudle and i and through dr gooden so i really appreciated that and i just wanted to bring that to everybody's attention and that's what i got thank you great thank you um all right so now i need a motion to approve items six d be like boy through k so second thank you uh this is personal matters so can i have a roll call

082vote please mr smith miss powers yes this video yes mr barno um i am a yes on everything except i have to recuse myself for 6e because my daughter is on there as a coach so i will recuse or abstain i guess not recuse abstain um from voting right approval of oh yeah yeah sorry no it's six for approval of supplemental and stipend request yes my daughter kaylee heater is on there so otherwise uh yes for everything else thank you uh miss mitchell yes and miss snowden i am a yes for six b and then d through k but no for c no for six c everything else yes is that right yes thank you thank you all right so moving on um in our treasure in our agenda for our treasures report uh mr

083smith can you yes thank you um i'm gonna try to see if that slides in did the forecast come up yes okay great good work you need one of those sport center oh wait it went away no that's fine i'm gonna i just wanted to get it on there first so i'm gonna talk about a few agenda items and then finish with the forecast um so monthly report i wrote i'll just pretty much incorporate the five-year forecast and the monthly stuff or the monthly stuff into the forecast um 7d auxiliary services so this is state money that we have on our books for uh not our private schools like saint charles and because they are purchasing a significant amount of technology uh it's over that twenty five thousand dollar threshold so that's an improved improvement

084or approval on our side but again it's state money it's no cost to our our district or taxpayers um there's a memorandum of agreement with opsi regarding um bus drivers that we've been working on for several months so we're happy to to have that for your approval and uh cooperation with our oopsie union um 6g is a fiscal specialist job description as you know and i mentioned last month joan roberts is retiring we're we're modifying that uh job title and description to more appropriately um fit the duties of that job we've finished receiving applications i'm excited to see that the qualifications and applications that have come in we'll start interviewing that within the next probably a week or two and should have it based on um their their experience i'm feeling very confident that we'll

085have a high quality candidate for um to replace joe um now we'll get into the fun part of the five-year forecast um i took a quick second to find a nice quick fun graphic about um trying to to forecast in the year of covid as you know like a year ago when we were here um we had approved two forecasts in may one on may 5th and one on may 18th because the state had budget cuts right in the middle uh right right as soon as we did our first forecast and from that point um [Music] from as soon as we passed the second forecast we were looking at 635 000 of cuts in in that year and this year and the states changed that twice on us um to the good so that's um

086that's an example of how fast things um can change on us and as you and as we've all experienced as a community we've changed several ways of learning modes and um that that affects finances in several ways too but um you'll um we'll um sorry i'm just trying to get this to go here there we go so again as i've said many times there's many things about a forecast that that moves and changes we're in a fortunate district that we have the resources to be able to do that to the best needs or to to respond to the needs of our students so what happens for the may forecast typically in a school district you make changes that you know on revenue for the year most of our revenue is in this year we'll talk

087about those numbers any significant changes um any significant change changes in expenditures we don't really have anything significant in expenditures i'm going to talk about tonight we did make a small change for insurance benefits you've heard me talk about in december medical mutual gave us a little bit of a premium break on our insurance and so i made that small adjustment um this time of year we're talking about staffing assumptions and changes with retirements that changes some a little bit of the forecasts for next year we've added in the forecast additional grades for cassingham and maryland in the third grade level as well as intervention specialists and also this time of year we also finalize and review our fy 22 budgeting and that's been mostly completed and incorporated into this budget for next year uh

088so the significant revenue changes that that we've made for this fiscal year in 21 is i mentioned that state funding that was revised or changed since our november forecast to the good of 226 thousand dollars that was done by executive order and governor dewine income taxes were known for this fiscal year and finalized at the end of april i'll talk about that through several slides and then property taxes are known which which also are um varying a little bit better than white than what we had projected so this is a a variance on the on the right of variances in revenue on the forecast so i've just taken the first few lines of revenue and you can see property taxes are doing better of 522 000 that could just be a little bit of a

089timing issue again property taxes are collected on a calendar year basis so but it does based on preliminary review it does look to be better and not so much a timing issue the income taxes um [Music] we'll we'll talk about that again in a few more slides but done very well this year that the 8.4 million dollars is an actual number uh and that is the highest we've ever seen in bexley in the near nearly 20 years of collection so that's that's great news but i'll put an asterisk on that as i don't think that that's uh that's a number that we can rely on every year and then 1.035 the unrestricted state state grants and aid that's our state foundation so 291 thousand there's a there's been a few small adjustments from that 226

090on the previous slide but that's in response to the change in um the governor's executive order there's another line that was significant in revenue and i believe i think at this when i presented in november that same day we got word that the state was going to issue rebates on workers compensation for us that was about 300 000 that's not reflected in these lines that i've highlighted here but just another example of changes that happen literally the day that i present a forecast to you so um to let's talk about income tax where i'll spend um the majority of this evening on is that 8.4 million dollars that we received this year and why you see reductions the following year um of several hundred thousand dollars again this is the our most volatile line of

091uh of the forecast at least on the revenue side and we we want to be conservative here because we've seen some significant drops in this over the years uh or not over the years in a couple instances um and if you look at the right hand side of this graph here or you look at the the key at the bottom the numbers i'll i'll just read off the numbers in the in the april so this is cumulative in 2017 we had 8.1 million dollars the following year we had 6.8 that then that remained stable for fy19 fy20 we saw a pretty big increase almost to 8 million and then we're seeing 8.4 so we've hit an 8 million amount before but then saw a significant decrease and at the time we get very little information

092as you've heard me say over and over on our income tax the state department protects that information rightfully so of our taxpayers but sometimes you can get a little information from them and i got a little bit of what was happening this year of 8.4 because that seemed high um so graphically this is another way of looking at it our income tax comes in several buckets that top bar or the green bar is employer payments so in individuals who have their their wages withheld through their paychecks that is normally the most stable bucket here you can see some some decent growth or stability 3.2 for the first couple years then 3.4 then 3.6 the at three year average of 3.4 but then you see it shoots up to 3.9 million in this fiscal year the

093the next two beneath that the red and the blue uh does have some variants and that you those are usually individuals who do not have or are individuals who do not have their employers withholding these can be um self-employed individuals they could be high high wage earners so you see some um some fluctuations there and you did so you see in the red if you look at hopefully you can see my cursor fy 20 in the red we had 2 million this year we saw a reduction down to 1.8 almost 1.9 million but in the blue which is the individual filers 2.7 million increased up to three three million so what i really want to highlight now is that employ employer withholding amount um i've high so this is a i guess an internal spreadsheet

094that i keep and i've i've pulled off the employer payments so if you look at the chart the dark blue is the april payments over the last uh four years so in april 2018 you can see an april payment of 925 000 again for april 2019 april 2020 977 000 which was a increase of five and a half percent which is um not too too far off or not i mean it's within reason to see a five and a half percent increase in some of these years but in april 2021 i saw 28 28 increase just in this particular bucket which really stood out to me of of what what was going on because it like i've said many times the employer portion is is pretty steady um the increases are reasonable but see a

09520 increase was like what's what's going on um and the state department of taxation you can see i've kind of quoted their email responses to some of my questions that that one employer had a significant increase in reporting in december that was paid for january uh this year so i responded to them i said how about the subsequent months that they've collected and the response was as you can see january to april 2021 this employer remitted similar amounts compared to january to april of 2020. so that goes back to my um or the assumption that i've made that i'm not sure that our income tax will be as strong as it was this year because for whatever reason there was a significant payment from an employer which i don't know the employer's name um to

096[Music] to residents that live within back sleep well it would have to be one of the larger employers in our in the city like a capital or the city of actually correct um so not necessarily employers within the city of bexley but employers probably within our region that have a significant amount of employees that live in bexley or or significant earners um so significant i would say significant employers um with a payroll that's sophisticated enough to submit uh payroll deductions for taxes because not not every not every employer has the payroll sophistication to submit um their taxes to the state it's it's a huge it's a huge jump like that's more than an anomaly it's like it's like a throw-out i mean that that's part of my job i believe to to monitor this and

097prepare for it and not just say oh we got 8.4 million dollars next year um i i believe that's what you want me to prepare you for for these for these dips or maybe anomalies um 2017 we we didn't know so when i started in 2017 that 8.1 million dollars i i was fresh here and it looked like a nice increase but when we dove into why we were getting it it was there were reasons for it that we could now i know to ask a little bit more from the state and they've been they've been good partners to give me as much information as they can but all i can tell you is it's an employer i didn't mean to interrupt sorry they interrupt as much as you guys would like so um one

098thing that i think is always important many districts look at this and i believe um you've asked me this question before is how much how much money do we have at the end of the end of the day um how can we compare ourselves to other districts with what how much cash on hand do we have on june 30th that another way of saying is if we were not to receive revenue um after june 30th how many days can we operate on on our reserves um as you know it was very important for us this year to have cash because of swings in in revenue this the county delayed their property tax revenue by by a month or maybe maybe six or eight weeks i'm starting to forget how long it was but we didn't

099get our full collection until september um that's significant i mean we have to have significant amounts of cash to be able to swing that to be able to make payroll and pay the utilities especially over the summer at the same time the the federal government delayed proper i'm sorry income tax collections last year um delayed it to july so we saw if you'll recall um maybe if i go back a couple slides you'll see that this this green here green line you can see normally in a year we we collect anywhere from nearly three million to three and a half million but this past july we collected one and a half because of the federal filing delay of income taxes so that that's why it's important for a district especially with an income tax to

100have a little bit of cash a little bit more cash on hand than a district that solely relies on property tax normally but again last year because of the delay of property taxes it was um we're fortunate that we we have the cash balance to be able to to make um to to make payroll and make to keep operations running smoothly so um if you ask me what what would be the target for a district like ours i would say at least um 90 days um in in the years four or five of a forecast and you can see where we're above that um this is a chart that we that we usually talk about a lot and especially lovely time when we're when we're talking about that stair step of when a levy happens

101we we get revenue above our expenditures and then expenditures are almost like a ramp up so you can see that happening here with the top two lines the blue and the red the blue being revenue where we've finally seen that first year collections from our levy of 2019 and if in actual 20 it was a just a partial collection from that levy again this year is a full year's collection in addition to good strong income tax revenue uh so when we were talking about 11 2019 that green line the ending cash balance was we were seeing a much steeper cliff um we've we've done well with um the the finances of revenue and expenditures so that that green line is not so much of a of a cliff for us at least that's how it

102looks right now um so that's all in all i would say uh we're looking stronger than where we were in november financially um part of that is due to the revenue um coming in expenditures are are under forecast which is always good to see nothing substantially off there and i will leave it up to questions we can obviously pull up the the larger document of the forecast if if you want to point at something in there but i'll leave it to questions from here um mr smith could you pull up that last slide real quick i just wanted to see that um so i know we had kind of talked about when we talked about the whole wind might we need to go back out to the public for a levy and we sort of

103projected 23 or 24 if we pushed all the way to 25 it's a much bigger gap and a bigger ask based on this graph just if all things kind of stay relatively the same correct yeah so you're talking about the the gap between the red and the blue yes that's through the further um the further the levees push the larger um potential ask could be but that gap has um gotten smaller since november if you look at the year 25 that gap between the red and blues gotten smaller mm-hmm so i will zoom in here for us so another line that i didn't put on the um in this slideshow is this line right here is line 6.01 the excess of revenues or surplus or deficit so this 3.5 was right before the levy you

104can see we're running a deficit that was significant um and we're not seeing anything like that for several more years as of right now so seeing a significant surplus this year again that's due to state funding income tax property tax covered relief dollars are not part of this forecast but they have helped us um not incur one-time expenditures that we've seen through um through covert right right which which has helped us i mean there are some things um that we were able to spend with kova dollars which is great because that's certainly what it's intended for okay any other questions of mr smith it's victoria i just want to um say that i've already had the benefit of being able to have gone through all of this with mr smith before this evening i am

105so grateful to you for keeping such a detailed eye on what's going on with our revenues bringing the numbers to us and making it super clear of what you're seeing what we can expect going forward and helping us to you know guide our thought process on the budget it's super super helpful and i'm really very grateful to you thank you thank you thanks so we'll um i'll convene the finance committee here in the next couple weeks they haven't seen an email from me but i do plan to get them together and we'll talk um about this forecast talk about um it get their feelings on on levees and where we are financially and um and talk about the future hopefully of getting out of a coveted environment and going from there but um we met

106in the fall i think it's time for them to to get back together and kind of review how we've we've fared over the last year great thank you that's all i had this evening thank you very much all right um can i have a motion to approve items for b through g so moved thank you thank you any questions for the questions all right um all in favor please signify by saying aye aye aye any opposed same sign thank you that motion carries all right so we're moving on to the public participation portion of our meeting tonight mr trailer mr smith do you know if we have anybody signed up for public participation we have two people that have signed up for uh public comment this year great thank you um then i will address

107that accordingly um thank you so although under state law the board of education is not required to offer public comment time during our regular board meetings we welcome the opportunity to hear from our community members as such we incur encourage your participation within certain parameters prior to the start of the meeting we ask that you sign in which you've essentially done online and when you speak if you could please state your name and addre an address for our records if you can also limit your comments to five minutes per board policy finally we know the public comment is just that it's the public's opportunity to be heard it is not a question and answer session with the board we look forward to hearing your comments and per our policy we will not respond to public

108comment and meeting or as individual board members but you can be assured that we're actively listening and taking notes for future reference and review so given that mr trill if you could admit our public participation members all right the uh first uh participant will be shelley bloom and she um i have given her the ability to speak in this meeting so she's up thank you hi members of the board thank you so much for having me um my name is shelly bloom and i live at 474 south parkview avenue i'm a parent to a young child and though we don't currently use the schools we've been super excited for our child to be part of the learning community when he is ready for kindergarten and despite my love for bexley it gives me a lot

109of pause to be excited for my son to partake into schooling knowing that the leadership currently allows some space for students to be and feel unsafe according to a school report by the non-profit learning for justice the most amounts of bullying harassment and abuse occur outside the classroom when things aren't supervised despite this harassment of any kind impacts our learners so what happens outside of the classroom most certainly and without a doubt impacts the learning that happens inside of the classroom we know that bexley is kind of like a bubble and one of whiteness and affluence that can very easily slide into the perfect situation for white supremacy and chauvinistic patriarchal values to breed but i believe in the anti-racist culture that the school is working on and i know that the schools can't control

110what happens outside of their walls but leadership can absolutely control their responses when i heard about what happened to the nearly 60 senior girls and the lack of response from the schools i was horrified the board policy states in section jfcfr which is the bullying and hazing section that prohibited behaviors include are not limited to repetitive and hostile behavior with the intent to harm others through the use of information and communication technologies um such as distributing or posting photos or videos online without consent or knowledge and using websites social networking sites blogs personal journals email instant messages to circulate gossip and rumors to other students so what happened with that ranking list was a clear violation of the board policy and i'm really glad that the girls eventually got justice for the perpetrators um but

111i'm very concerned that it took as long as it did and i'm even more concerned about the follow-up speaker who came to the buildings i cannot imagine how those five dozen individuals felt knowing it took a week for action to be taken and then to have to listen to a speaker who is not a certified mental health counselor um probably unlikely rehash some trauma that safety expert is a white woman who goes by big mama which is a character from a tyler perry movie released back in 2000 and it kind of gives me a question makes me question how the district and have paused about whether that individual is culturally sensitive enough to speak to children so in all the situation was mismanaged by multiple people and at multiple points our students deserve better and

112i realize that this is a school year of several hardships but it's never going to be a convenient time to dismantle the systemic issues that persist in our schools we need leadership that trusts the victims first not ones that make excuses and no boys will be boys what type of mindset we need leadership that's fair and puts concerns about the long-term impact that this has had on our female students as priority and most importantly we need leadership that is action-oriented and thinking about what we can do in the buildings across all grade levels to dismantle this type of culture getting an equitable and inclusive curriculum is paramount to beginning to make changes and we know that early intervention is the best prevention this goes beyond just having diverse texts it's about the conversations that happen

113from these texts and the supports that are put in place i know that diversity equity and inclusion are issues that are deeply important to dr jason fein he is beloved in upper arlington for his commitment to student inclusion that said our community has a lot of work to do we need to dismantle the systems that give grace to toxic masculinity and oppress women and other marginalized individuals our new leadership should be thinking about how we can start conversations about these topics in elementary school and provide support to those educators who are already doing the work we need to stop with the buzzwords and take action bexley is a community that was founded on redlining and intentionally maintaining toxic undeserved power our leadership needs to make significant changes to be a more inclusive place these are

114the kinds of issues and concerns we should make a priority as we turn a new chapter in our learning communities our students deserve to be safe feel valued and be heard thanks so much for your time thank you very much uh mr trill we have another uh community member yes that is saul darrow i am searching for him uh mr darrow if you're in uh the meeting still could you please press the raise hand feature so i can i i don't see him in the attendees currently um okay thank you let me see if i see him even in our attendees i was looking earlier at the attendees but i don't see him there he was in earlier he he left the meeting some time ago okay okay well i guess um moving on then

115that will end our time for um public participation um and move us on to any other matters that may properly come before the board of which i do not believe there are any we have also been able to finish all of our work and executive session in our first executive sessions this evening so we will not need to hold this second executive session that was put in his place holder for under item 10. so that takes me to our adjournment can i have a motion to adjourn place marley before we adjourn can i just make one comment that i had intended to make earlier tonight about our retirees i know you attended and i also attended the retirement celebration today um i thought it was really a very special moment of reflection on uh wonderful

116teachers uh who've had many years of service and and harley williams did a really lovely job speaking to the attributes of those of our teachers who have retired this year some really wonderful people that we are truly going to miss and that we have all as a district learned so much from and also there were teachers who have um dr goode mentioned who are moving out of our district or or um leaving and there are just fantastic teachers um that we will not have going forward who have been an important part of the fabric of this district and who taught my children and and many other people's children as well and so i just want to say thank you um it's great to have that recognition of those folks as they retire and and also

117those who are leaving um so i just wanted to say thank you to them and on behalf of the board um you know godspeed to them yeah thank you very much uh okay so emotion for adjournment please thank you thank you all in favor please signify by saying aye hi hi any opposing sign thank you that motion carries good night all thank you for your work good enough