001so no we're at 6 30 we're just going to wait for one final board member and then we'll get started appreciate everybody's patience hi everybody hi thank you all right so are you guys waiting on me i'm sorry all right it's not easy to get here all the time i'm well aware all right i will start actually closing out of that with our call to order um in accordance with ohio price code 121.22 and house bill 197 and 404 i hereby call to order the board of education at the bexley city school district regular meeting for tuesday april 6 2021. mr smith will you please call the roll mr barrow here ms mineo here miss mitchell here ms powers here ms snowden here thank you um can i start with the approval of minutes please
002can i have a motion to approve our minutes so moved thank you and a second a second thank you all in favor please signify by saying aye hi hi any opposed names thank you that motion carries all right um i also have a motion to approve our agenda for this evening's meeting so moved second thank you all in favor please signify by saying aye hi hi any opposed same sign thank you that motion carries all right so we're moving on to board updates and i started with that um i just have a few things to note on the superintendent policy committee we're looking at some new policies that are coming down the pike from legislation the osba has created a new way of um sending some of the required policies to us through our board
003doc system so mary davis is working extra hard to figure out how to get that all to us in a timely fashion and i'm looking forward to it i think it'll be a great um much more streamlined approach so look for that next month uh we continue with our coffee and conversations other board members will have the opportunity to um to and our superintendent um to do those this coming month and uh there'll be sign ups for those soon uh i just wanted to express my appreciation to the administration and all of our staff for the wonderful free summer school offerings i've heard so many great things about it when i look through it i'm really really impressed with everything we're able to offer i'm just thrilled about that so that i want to say
004thank you for that and finally i'll just say his little senior class um update the i think i reported last time that we've got the prom set for may 8th which is fantastic um we've got graduation practice on the 28th uh parade like last year like a reverse parade that'll go down um this year we'll do fair avenue to drexel um at 10 a.m on saturday morning so i know the graduates are really looking forward to that and then graduation on the 30th sunday morning the 30th at 10 a.m and the administration is giving a survey to the senior parents right now to see if we can get an idea of how many uh how many people want to come and then we'll start i think they'll start parsing out tickets after that so i'm
005really really pleased with the creative thinking and opportunities that we have this year to celebrate our seniors so that's it for my report ms powers is next thank you um bexley wreck the rec board met on march 3rd there was extensive discussion of the commonwealth park landscaping project which will include a playing field so it's exciting there was discussion about the plans for pool operations for the summer in addition bexley rack continues to update for summer programming they have once again pivoted their child care as a result of our moving all in and so again i i thank all of the bexley rec folks for continuing to respond to our needs as we continue to be able to do more for having children all in there they have transitioned out of the backpack again for
006care uh the next meeting of bexley rack is tomorrow actually i'm sorry franklin county school board alliance the last meeting of the school board alliance was mostly focused on the ed choice voucher program i was not able to attend that meeting but i've reviewed the materials that they provided and the next meeting of that group is this saturday i'm going to give a quick update on our superintendent search towards the end of the month the board will have the opportunity to consult with ray and associates our search firm as they continue to work to bring us candidates that will fit our identified priorities for our superintendent finalists will be invited to be interviewed in early may as part of the interview process we're planning forums for stakeholder groups including a community forum where all community
007members will be able to watch the candidates who will be you know separately interviewed assuming you know we have a number of them and we expect to they will be able to watch each of the final candidates respond to questions we are planning to live stream or record it so that community everyone has the opportunity to watch the board will invite community participation both in suggesting questions to ask the final candidates as well as in providing feedback regarding the candidates i'll be working with ray and associates on setting up a portal for submission of questions that will be collected and reviewed by our search firm in addition to the community forums there will be separate interview sessions for administrators teachers and staff students pto booster groups and similar other partners i want to add a
008note of appreciation for the work that ray and associates is doing and note that they have been fielding questions not only from me but also from our community they've been super responsive and have made themselves available to talk with community members who have questions they're working very hard for us we will continue to provide updates at the bexleyschools.org website under um the board of edu the board of education tab and underneath that the superintendent search tab so look for further updates there and i want to add one final comment tonight this past summer our board issued a statement acknowledging the voices and expectations of our community in response to events calling on us to confront racism not only through conversation but also through definitive action we recognized our critical role in shaping and cultivating an
009educational experience that ensures that each student regardless of race color ethnicity religion and sexual orientation feels valued supported and free recent events again have brought clarity and reminders of the critical importance of ongoing work to confront racism i want to state my support for and solidarity with students faculty staff and community members who experience racism or other injustice including people who identify as asian-american pacific islander and reiterate my commitment to continuing the work to confront and combat racism in our country thank you marley thank you mr uh mr burno thank you i just have a couple of brief updates um technology uh mr pettit and i are actually meeting tomorrow morning so next board meeting i will have an update or not tomorrow morning thursday morning um didn't want to scare you brad uh thursday
010morning we will be meeting um in regard to athletic board as i stated before we we have not had any athletic board meetings but just in the vein of athletics i've been to a couple of track meets already it's great to be be at an athletic event again and be outside especially and a little chilly sometimes but i'll take it but all the sports are are rolling along and and outside and it's good to see softball team out lacrosse team is out track and everyone else so i i can appreciate that more than words can say and hopefully a lot of other people are um the uh as you mentioned miss snowden the coffee and conversations uh miss mitchell and i will be participating in the third we have one on thursday at 5 p.m
011that miss mitchell and i will be participating in with dr good so we will be available for that i'm not sure of the sign up process but that will be taking place this thursday lastly uh i've been attend we've we've had some negotiations with the teachers union with our contract um without going in any specifics because i can't uh we did meet yesterday we've met a couple times before that and uh with that said i can't really get into any details but we we have been meeting and trying to to work out details of hopefully a new uh agreement um fairly soon so with that said i don't have anything else thank you um ms miniel hello everyone um so just a super quick super quick brief update um as far as legislation what's going
012on the big i feel like the big push right now is or the big conversation right now it's about house bill 200 and senate bill 145 and they are both um looking at the report card and how um the overall goal is to simplify it to make it a more beneficial tool for families at schools um communities to understand what's going on so that's what um that's what's going on with that um and just a quick like appreciation i think for um that's funny um just a big shout out to everyone i can only speak for the students who live at my home um but the last two weeks um going starting our third week have been really super um high energy high excitement high success so in gratitude to everyone who has contributed to
013make that a reality for our students and that's it thank you so much so important um sorry about that i it i thought i opened a new tab my bad that's quiet all right um all these zoom excitements right so um i do not see miss george on our call sarah here we'll check in with her um i'm sure she'll have a report to us soon and and she can email us something if um or if she comes in later we'll listen to her report later um so we'll move on then to the superintendent's report did you miss miss mitchell yeah i skipped right over you sorry about this okay i was so fishing around for sarah that i forgot you that's okay mitchell just a real quick uh bef is gearing up to um
014celebrate together in gratitude uh event on april 21st uh they just finished collection of videos and i submitted a video on behalf of the board of education um greasy face and all so you're welcome um for our teachers and staff so we're looking forward to that event at seven pm they are um looking for any uh donations or connections for um hold on some that i word this correctly um sponsorships for staff gift bags so if you have any connections um where that would be useful that would be wonderful just send me an email [Music] march 12th i was not able to attend the conversation with ijoma alohu i always mess up her last name and i'm terribly sorry about that um conversation uh the author of so you want to talk about race as
015you know the district has been engaged in that book study for the last semester this whole semester recently i was really bummed about that it's the one time i could not get out of my work commitment because this particular book reads like a personal memoir at times for me but i heard that it was a really really fruitful conversation um and wonderful event and bef was part of making that happen so we thank them um and then the minority parent at bexley minority parent alliance is having their annual um uh event uh on april 11th i don't want to tell you wrong it might be the 12th i lose track of the dates because of basketball um so if you guys are able to attend that that'd be wonderful it's a zoom event um where
016they'll be recognizing our students and our seniors um uh that event has obviously had to change because of covid but as always a really uplifting and inspiring um opportunity for us to showcase and celebrate our students uh in our district um and i do not have any report on facilities so that's all i have and now dr good take it away thank you very much that's good good evening and happy spring to everyone i am pleased to share the superintendent's report section with some of our district leaders that have championed a safe learning environment we'll begin with dr harley williams who will speak about covid the trends in our positive cases and quarantines what the latest on how department of health guidance is related relative to attending school or gatherings at events and then an
017update on our mitigation strategies and we'll hear from sam mcmasters who will share the biannual bullying report that's required by statute and while it's difficult to note trends given the interruption to in-person learning over the past year and because of differences in how incidents are reported we're pleased that a plan is in place to utilize our new tools to gather data and work toward what we call inter-rater reliability so that we can make more valid inferences about trends in bullying harassment and intimidation in the future and then finally we'll learn from our chief academic officer jill abraham how the district is responding to learning loss and other effects of the pandemic the governor has issued both opportunities and resources to schools and we're excited to share some of what's in store here now and in
018the future to ensure any gaps in cognition and concerns with emotional well-being are being addressed appropriately and in a sustained fashion so we'll begin with dr williams dr williams thank you dr good thank you board of education members um uh thanks for having me give me one moment sorry to interrupt so i can go get your uh powerpoint from my files oh thank you okay i just thank you i want to thank everyone for the opportunity to share um how we're doing so far since spring break you know there are a lot of questions and a lot of work as tyler's putting that together i'll summarize how how things are going since we came back for spring break with the all in is very well i couldn't be happier with the information i'm about to
019share with you um and again it's it's it's through the efforts of a lot of people i mean every i could go on and on and take most of the time thanking individuals for this but so i have put together just a few slides uh and then i'd be available for questions after that uh to kind of i guess demonstrate why i feel things are going so well so tyler if you if you would move to the first slide here here's here's some numbers for you um [Music] and it doesn't go back so far we've had a total of six students that have tested positive since spring since we came back from spring break i believe one student might have been positive right at the end of spring break on the first day back of
020school but the numbers um remain low the kids are doing a great job with their masking and their distancing it's their students and so they're not perfect and we keep reminding him but i am so impressed when i walk in the cafeteria and i see the little little ones pull their mask up before while they're eating if they want to ask for something it's just it's just been remarkable but the numbers have been extremely well we've had if you take a look at that last 10 days column you'll see the high school had a total of 34 uh quarantines though and that was mainly to to a we had we had a an athletic team member who tested positive but impacted about seven students and then the next day we we had two or three
021other students with high fevers and we we shut down the team um [Music] and i'll talk about that here in a little bit but we shut down the team for a few days just to make sure that marion hadn't found its way into into our school and and i'm happy to report that um last night we um the students who were concerned about both tested negative and allowed us to use our rapid test kits to to everyone else who's been possibly exposed and we brought back students um back to school today so that number is inflated but it really didn't end up being according to most but we didn't have another way to categorize this more like we just kind of shut down a team for a few days to make sure that things weren't
022going the wrong direction and and happy to report they did not they're going to go to the next chart this is this is an incredible sensor vaccines um we have goose eggs all the way up and down as far as staff that's been in quarantine or had positive cases among our staff since spring break uh if you go to the next slide and and these rapid test kits that we have we're using them um and still encouraging families to request them from a school nurse if they'd like to have a test it's about 15 minutes or some technology involved as i mentioned yesterday we used these to we after we had after we had learned that the students that we were concerned about possibly having coveted tested negative then we use these just to ensure
023that our team one of our teams could get back to school and things like that so that worked out very well you can request a test basically the tests are for symptomatic people or asymptomatic people if there's a potential exposure it's how we're how we're using them but they're replenishable [Music] if you would like one at home if you're watching this just contact the school nurse if you have questions anytime someone is sent home for symptoms we send home test kits for the entire family things like that masking mask the mass did arrive on time as i'm sure many of you know and they got distributed and um [Music] you know we've had a few issues with the mass that we've had to replace a couple that might have been washed and the seams might
024have came out but i think that's been two or three um people that have contacted me to have asked for a replacement mask so overall extremely happy with the way the masts are going the staff have comp made many compliments about the ease of which to wear the mask and to teach in the masks and there were about 200 students that had alternative masks approved to wear as well between between this board meeting and the last board meeting next slide please lunch is we're eating outside we've had great weather we've had a couple days where it was iffy um but we are developing our plan i think the best way to say that our lunch plan is that we over prepared and we thought it'd be easier to back down with some uh plans and
025that's what we've done um we've found that the bexley picnic is alive and well outside students like to eat outside elementary schools eating on their yoga mats and blankets and towels in front of this building here they have each school kind of has their own plan that works for them but instead of going to what the details of the plan i just i'll let you know that we're eating outside as often as we can and we're following six feet of distancing uh when kids are unmasked and eating but the lunch thing was was a um [Music] a worry for me and how that was going to work out and i'm happy to say that uh through everyone's efforts that's going remarkably well i'm happy to report that and it is going so well uh also
026uh nate i wanted to update we we were notified last week um asked if we were by nationwide children's hospital if we wanted to administer the pfizer vaccine to our 16 year old students or older we've accepted that offer that'll begin on tuesday the second dose will be offered on may 4th to be eligible you have to be 16 years old on april 13th you have to also have parent permission form that needs to be completed and returned we have 400 vaccines that have been allotted to us we have 466 students who will be 16 years old on april 13th some of our students have discovered have already received some of their vaccines already i contacted csg today to see if they'd be interested i haven't heard back because we will probably have some extra
027vaccines and nationwide suggest that i contact the local school to see if somebody else could use it so they don't go to waste uh and and so we'll give them an exact number i know as of today we which is pretty good being a former high school principal getting forms turned in from 16 year olds is a good it was sometimes a challenge but we've had 60 students so far turn their forms in in one day and we'll give nationwide a final count on friday and then we met with their representatives today to make sure we uh how things would be set up um so we're excited to host that here and then next slide quarantine um you know since we last met they changed the guidance of schools to three feet which then basically
028took away the modified quarantine we no longer have that so the questions we now now ask is there if the students were within a minimum of three feet or less than three feet of distancing when we're doing our contact tracing teachers have done a great job of uploading all their seating charts so on the rare occasions when most of those six cases that we've had to be honest with you i would say only one they they were in quarantine before they contracted the virus so we haven't had to do a lot of contact tracing but it's it's it's nice to go into our shared documents and see teachers that have uploaded all their seating charts we had a case today and i stopped by and did contact tracing today before i came into work and
029um it's that's that's working well so far and again it's not just not just the school community but i'm talking parents and everyone else is they're just doing a fantastic job and that's and it's much appreciated because um we're seeing the results of that attention to detail and that kind of support and just a reminder i'm only as good as the data that gets reported to me and so i just encourage and continue to encourage parents when they have a been exposed or a positive case to fill out the confidential reporting form on our website so that we can continue to contact trace and keep track of students to help ensure the safety of everyone here in our school district next slide uh mrs snowden did a great job explaining everything that happens uh with
030our prom and our outdoor graduation plan [Music] and so i don't really need to share any more about that i can answer questions but i say the theater and the athletic program as mr barnum announced to music concerts they're occurring and we're meeting with teachers and coaches and advisors to to talk about mitigation strategies um making sure we're following the new health orders or 25 inside the building and things like that um so it's it is as close to normal as we've been in a year and i'm happy to say that it's just nice to hear noise in the hallways again and kids laughing and uh moving away from classes so it's a good time to be at the back be an educator i think that's it right tyler where do i have a yeah
031that's it dr william help would it help if um we if our kids do have the vaccine to just send you a note so you can cross that off as a one that you don't reserve or you're just gonna work off of the ones you get i'm just gonna work off the ones i get we're not tracking or keeping track we will hold the vaccine cards for those that get their vaccines done here we'll hold them and so they can they don't lose them in between the administration um people have asked whether or not they can come just for their second vaccine um we asked that question today of the nationwide reps and they said no they you have to get your first and second dose through this program there's no makeups this is a
032one-time event um once it's gone you'll have to use [Music] other private entities or doctor offices or other clinics to get your vaccine but i did ask you elisha if i could get brian's cell phone number because i would like to have a potent to have an ems squad um in our parking lot that day just for precautionary purposes oh yeah yeah he can give you the number that you would call to schedule it i i'm pretty sure the process is pretty easy i'll let them know thank you great thank you dr williams um that's good thank you so um there are more questions for dr williams thanks again harley great job sam mcmasters is going to go ahead and speak about our bullying report sam thank you good evening everyone um i know in
033the past laceon smith has presented the bullying information and i did work with her prior to her departure on the report for the fall semester so the information in this report is compiled for incidents that were reported from the months of june through december of 2020 and just one thing to remember as we look at this information that this was a time when we were in hybrid or full remote so that could impact and we certainly cannot determine causality here in our numbers but i think it's important just to remember that that could influence um the reporting here um it's also important just to think about as a reminder that when an incident is reported to an administrator and is investigated if it is found unsubstantiated that does not mean that the incident did not
034occur i think what we want to remember is is that when administrators make those determinations it is only about whether or not it rises to the level of bullying harassment or intimidation under the bullying policy so if it's unsubstantiated it certainly does not mean that things were reported that didn't happen it just means that that they were unsubstantiated under that policy so for the purpose of this report i also just think it's important to note that building principals evaluate these or investigate these reports as they come in we continue every year twice a year we work with our administrators to review our reporting policies to in our investigation procedures so that we're compiling the most useful data possible and i think that's what dr good referred to when he started out this evening was just
035you know we want to make sense out of the data and we also want to make it productive for us so that we can make decisions one challenge that we do face is how incidences are reported and a challenge so for an example would just be i think we had an incident this fall that was reported where a student just wanted someone to know that someone was seen with a mask that was not being worn properly so that may not have fallen under bullying harassment intimidation but it was a way for a student to report something so we are always looking at ways that that students and faculty have a way to report things that maybe are not bullying harassment intimidation and so as we move forward it is just what are those mechanisms to
036report other situations or um situations of racism that someone may observe in the district that they want to have reported so that may not fall under this policy but but we want to make sure that they have some way to to do that so just that we will continue to review the data in a way that just ensures accurate reporting and then continue to look for and determine trends and address that ongoing systematic continuous improvement for the district if you have any questions i will certainly attempt to answer them miss mcmasters i just want to clarify the three columns um reported substantiated unsubstantiated um really reflects just what the state requires we track correct that's correct okay but all the other nuances the gray area we're keeping track of that's correct yeah okay so let
037me just follow up on that it may be that what alicia just asked and you just provided information on um sam is is what my question is too and and let me just start by saying i appreciate your noting that um just because something is unsubstantiated doesn't mean something didn't occur it just means it doesn't meet the definition and the policy but as to the those other things that um aren't substantiated as bullying and maybe as to some other things we so is it the case that we have ways of keeping track of all those other issues in a different kind of um a place where students or people who um appropriately could make a report can report that other behavior that they view as a problem and then we address it in a different
038way yeah and i think that's where um i think dr good referred to this as well is is just how those determinations are made and so you know we continue to analyze and look at that when you know a student may report something to a building principal or to a teacher that's not that doesn't fall under that bullying harassment intimidation and so it's handled either as a discipline issue or it's handled as some other type of situation that the building administration may be handling that's that doesn't fall into one of these categories so that does happen on occasion anything that that rises to that level where or if it's reported in our online reporting system we do track it on this on this document so um there may be a situation in you know at
039the middle school in one of those three that maybe wasn't um bullying harassment intimidation but we tracked it as a reported incident because the the way the statute requires us to report the number of reported incidences so if someone reports it as bullying her asset intimidation we have to count it i got it okay thank you i appreciate it sure any other questions um no you know i don't have a question but i am going to just throw in for the other board members just an fyi i i reported something um on the uh website uh i don't know if i don't remember if it was in 2020 or 2021 um but i have to say like i was like so it was really an interesting experience to go through it from like the other
040side of it as opposed to hearing the report going through the process and i was very impressed um with the res the principal response and the way the whole it was it was i have to say that like i hated to have to do it or i was unfortunate i hated to be in a situation where i felt like i needed to report something but i actually looking at it from the other side was um impressed by the how the way the process like the process worked thank you thank you sam i appreciate the report um finally we'll hear from our chief academic officer jill abraham about how the district's responding to the learning loss well good evening everyone i'm excited to talk a little bit more about summer school this evening as it was
041referenced in some of the board reports and as we're hearing from community members who are getting their kids signed up we began with that summer summer school plan really back in february when the governor asked districts to consider putting together an extended learning plan that would address the observed needs of their students as a result of the pandemic and so we felt really good at that time because we have been watching our students intently and studying data um all throughout the year and feel like we've been really having a good pulse on on what our students needed and so um with that charge in february we began to look ahead to the summer and um really assess where we were at that point a frequent conversation i have had with the principles and we talk
042about it every month we start every meeting with our principal council to talk about gap closing what are you doing what are you noticing how are you responding what's changing what's working what do we need to do differently and so when we got to february we took a really close look because at that point we had winter data and we had some really great findings we found that while many times when you listen and you hear people concerned about loss of learning or gaps we found that our students were doing really really well and in many ways were in similar places where they would be in a typical year or were closing the gap that we had noticed in the fall and so with that we planned for summer the one area that stood out
043to us tremendously was the fact that quite simply our bexley kids needed to be with their peers and they needed a really good dose of joy and so with that we proceeded with our planning for summer school and we utilized the the leadership of toby fisher who's serving as our summer school principal and asked him to help reach out to some folks to see who might be willing to design a passion project or something that was content related or intervention related or summer camp like that might bring our bexley students to school honestly we weren't sure how many teachers would would have the energy to re-engage in summer after a really long year and they rose to the occasion as they always do and offered some really great experiences for our kids and so if
044you've had a chance to look at the course catalog you'll see that there are opportunities for our bexley students even our entering kindergarten students to become to become acclimated with their peers in each of our three schools i asked toby today just what were our numbers looking like we have 513 course registrations so 513 courses that have been registered for from 250 unique students seven of our classes are already full and have a wait list and that registration will remain open until may 3rd that's awesome a couple of things that i do want to point out in terms of the intentionality of what we offered from our kids we know we've seen we've observed we've done a lot of surveys to know that they want time together they don't want to do online summer school
045that's not their first choice they don't want to zoom in they want to be together that's the reason we've developed the sessions as we have we also heard from parents even through some of our development of our hybrid 2.0 that we needed to be really thoughtful about that transition to high school and that that was a difficult way for our students to start high school this year and so knowing that our eighth graders had an exceptional year what could we do intentionally to better support their transition up to the next level so there's something very specific for our ninth grade students there are sessions as i mentioned earlier that were designed to bring in incoming kindergarten students and there are also sessions that are targeted to support early literacy and numeracy for our k-3 students
046so i i think if you've had a chance there's so many great things in there uh and i'm super excited for for what that will offer i also want to point out that when the governor asked us to create these plans not only did he ask us to figure out what the needs were who were the students that were most at risk or in need of additional support he provided us with a great budget that allows us to not only offer this experience for free to bexley students but in working with mr smith we believe we'll be able to offer this experience not only this summer but next summer as well and so again when we think about the extension we're excited about what this what this long-term plan can be for our students we
047also are working in partnership with otterbein and i hope that dr allison mcgrath might be on the meeting tonight i'm not sure if she has i didn't check to see who was participating but several months ago when i talked about thinking of summer school she was on the board meeting that evening and as a bexley parent and she's also on the faculty at otterbein she reached out to me the very next day and she said i heard you're thinking about college students i think i can help and so we had otterbein students who have their education majors who are part of our instructors for our summer summer school so that partnership has been been of great value to us and being able to offer such a great great course registration for our families so as
048we move through summer our goal is nothing but joy and to provide kids with the support especially our high school kids we've still got the typical credit recovery and some of the college writing course some of those things that we typically would offer but our goal is to get everybody set up as they return to school in august so that our spirits are a little bit lighter and we've had the opportunity to stay engaged and then again we'll we'll go back to our typical practices of assessing our kids creating thoughtful goals in response to what we see to individual students and then planning planning planning great instruction to support our kids so if you want to see the plan in its entirety you can find it on the district website it's actually under the student
049staff and student learning section and it's a link or if you go to the ode site ode has a collection of all the districts who submitted plans and you will find our plan there questions you might have it's abraham i am so excited it was the first time when i looked read everything that i thought man i want to go to summer well there were a few things i was interested in as well yeah and you know my kids were like oh no they took off out of the room but i'm like yeah no i think this might they were thinking that traditional style so um fantastic job thank you and what a great score with otterbein students awesome yeah i i did have an opportunity to review the plan and i circled the language
050that working on issues that promote joy and peer interaction i thought that was a really lovely way to think about what in addition to the educational support what our students are looking forward to this summer and the the courses the variety of courses that give so many different options for our students that are going to be fun some of them you know academically supportive some of them just pure fun i'm really grateful for all the work so thank you thank you very much any questions for um ms abraham i just wanted to add how awesome it was and and who would have thought that kids were so excited to do summer school right that's a good thing i know 513 just sounds like um like amazing uh okay great thank you very much uh dr
051good you have anything else for us you i do well first of all i want to thank harley sam and jill and um kind of reinforce we have success because we're using data to drive our decision making and so the emotional and mental health well-being of our our students is a priority it's one of the board's priorities as well and then the data bears out that we need to focus there and so i'm really pleased that we're doing that i think the bullying harassment intimidation report also reflects we're doing a good job of intervening and using those positive behavior intervention uh supports for children to really consider the choices they're making and make better choices that are very pro-social and then of course as harley indicated i'm so proud of our community both the school
052community and the greater community that they continue to observe those different mitigation strategies and we have minimal minimal incidents of positive covet rates and quarantines and so again using data really helps us make strides forward and i appreciate our district's leadership team and ensuring that so there are a couple of items on tonight's consent agenda that i'd like to highlight um first of all and reflecting on jill's presentation there is a position description for summer school teachers that i'm asking the board to approve there's also a position description for a diversity equity and inclusion leader this position description is the culmination of input from many community members students k-12 and even higher education faculty and staff and then also interested others and this leader will continue the equity oriented work that's outlined in the board's
053strategic plan work that was led primarily by liaison smith previously so the diversity equity and inclusion leader and the leader of experiential learning and community engagements roles aligned to the board of education's anti-racism and communications priorities so these two professionals will serve on the district's leadership team and they'll do a number of things they will develop monitor and evaluate they will collaborate coach and consult they will advocate they will model and network and they will advise and support and report they'll do all these things in the context of the board's policies the district's programs and our personnel so those two together are really going to inform our efforts and move forward the board's work towards the goals they've set in their strategic plan so i'm asking the board to consider approval of those position descriptions
054the building handbooks are also on the agenda this evening they're there for a first reading and we also have five items from the business office one that includes roof maintenance hvac software upgrades firewall services and finally the disposal of a loan piano at montrose elementary school so john eichenberry is joining us when the board gets to those items he's happy to respond to any questions the board may raise relative to those business expenditure requests and that's the end of my report thank you um mr dr good were you able to um ascertain um on the handbooks and i don't know it at the high school handbook about the calendar i know that um mary had mary davis had researched that and the board had adopted a calendar early on and then made a revision to
055that calendar and because we're awaiting potential implications to the calendar from negotiations we're going to use will reflect the currently adopted calendar but it's subject to change so it will be watermarked draft until we conclude the bargaining process so for example if through that bargaining process there were additional days added to the calendar or additional release days on the calendar we wanted to reflect that in the final versions of the handbook so before we issue those we'll certainly make certain the most recent board adopted calendar is there and thank you and right because this is just the draft for tonight but is the most the most recently approved calendar has our start day on on what on august 11th or august 17th i don't have it in front of me it is on the website
056the one on the website is the most currently a document perfect thank you that's what i was looking at okay good the board but the parents generally want us to begin on july 4th if they've about had it like that so um yeah well i appreciate it and i like i understand that there are a few more things floating around and hopefully that will be resolved by next month when we seek to approve those handbooks and just to add on to that as dr good pointed out there are uh you know when we talk about the calendar and teacher days and professional development days that all has to kind of gel together so you know we i think we usually try to approve the calendars a year a year in advance just to give an
057idea but usually especially in a negotiation year we have to depending on length of school day and all the other things that go with with that calendar and professional development especially um and to fit into our strategic plan of how that would work with professional development and our teachers and everything else i think that that has to be fluid until that that bargaining process is is completed and we have an agreement so just i just wanted to add a little bit more kind of context to it as well i appreciate that thank you um all right any other questions from board members i don't have a question i just want to um appreciate the opportunity that we had to provide input on the drafts for the for the positions i'm excited that these positions are
058are out there and in particular i'm referring to the dei leadership role and i'm glad that we had an opportunity to provide input and i want to say thank you for that thank you um all right then can i have a motion please to approve items three b through j no moves thank you all right any questions about any of these items all right then because these involve personnel um we'll need a roll call vote mr smith miss mitchell yes mr barno yes ms mineo yes miss powers yes ms snowden yes thank you all right so moving on um for tonight's agenda treasurer's comments mr smith thank you um so reviewing the monthly financials uh this month of the month of march we received our final settlement of property taxes for uh the first half
059collection of 2021 and so as a review property taxes are collected on a calendar year basis from the county so our fiscal year straddles straddles that so so there's a few few things to point out in that 522 thousand dollar variance that very top line general property taxes um so question is why why is that different than how we forecasted it i can account for about 241 000 of of that variance and those include new construction as if you put on your levy hat from a year and a half ago new construction is new money um so that's why we would receive that's why we've received some um and in the forecast in november we forecasted uh an increase in property values based on the triennial update from the county we were conservative on that
060increase so the increase was about 24 million dollars on our total valuation of the district but again if you recall house bill 920 essentially says we don't receive any new taxes um or receive any new uh any more revenue based on valuation increases with the exception of inside millage so there is some inside millage gain um within that 241 thousand dollars that i was able to account for uh the other thing is um board of revision adjustments so we take in some um based on history of um adjustments on mainly commercial property um and also residential so when individuals want to um dispute their valuation on their homes or if there's a sale on a on a property or something is torn down and then the tax bills change those usually go through the board
061of revisions this particular year we um we saw some unusual um numbers i guess uh same along the same lines as new construction to go back on there like normally we see about a million dollars of new construction in residential property every year this this year we saw 3.7 million so a pretty significant increase in new construction but same along those same lines of border revisions they were more favorable to us than what we've seen in the past and then finally um we saw an increase in our tax incremental financing which is essentially um parcels or properties where a portion of their tax or the tax directed towards the schools or other entities is directed to the municipality to pay off the improvements so think about the main street area there's there's been some infrastructure
062improvements in properties and the city has taken on some infrastructure expenses to support those so they get some taxes in that way and then it comes to us via tiff so it's not traditional i should say but we saw an increase in there so um that leaves almo just shy of about 300 of variance that i need to account for or figure out the best i can come up with with that variance is timing which is something i say a lot but it's true so normally like going back to what i very first said that the taxes are collected on a calendar year basis so um people can pay their whole bill in january or february or they can pay half and half um and some years it's it's more but so looking at the
063data the between 2015 and 2018 that split so that that split was about 59.41 in the first half meaning we received about 59 of our 59 percent of our annual amount in the calendar year in that first half and the other 41 in august in 2019 and 2020 that change that percentage split change again going from 5941 to 5347 at the time we attributed that to the irs tax changes in 2018 because of how much you could deduct for your taxes and we saw a bunch of people um kind of shift how they paid some taxes um so if um if that person so we again we went from 59 to 53 over a two year period i won't know what that percentage split is until august or september of this year so i could
064come back to you and say it was the percentage or timing difference or if not i'll need to figure out something else usually it could be delinquencies but we don't have high delinquencies here but if it just went from 53 to 55 that would account for that roughly three hundred thousand dollars in difference which is still um under what our normal rate was that might be a little complicated to to get but uh my assumption right now is it's a timing of um or we're going back to what we normally saw from 2015 to 2018 on um the payment of taxes being more upfront in january than more of an even split over the year um the rest of the the monthly financials um pretty much the same song and dance i've been saying for
065the last couple months on the expenditures if what you're seeing there is pretty much trend um and nothing too significant to note there april is our income tax payment month not a large payment but we'll we'll monitor that and i'll have a report for you in may and in addition that will that will update our five-year forecasts as well coming in may any questions on financials before i move on okay thanks uh one other item on the agenda to note is the amended appropriations um as you know this is what we come all right i come with you a couple times a year when there's a significant change the the change that i'd highlight this time is uh tyler if you'll scroll down to probably page two or three right there that's fine um yeah
066that's fine um so what i what i'll highlight here is on the left hand side you'll see fun numbers zero zero one zero zero two those are fun numbers if you look down to 507 and 510 the elementary secondary school emergency relief fund and the coronavirus relief fund those two are both directly tied to covid response federal stimulus dollars you'll see us call them karzak dollars or sr dollars which is the 507. so you can see significant dollars there um the 507 and there's different uh different uh acts that are kind of lumped in together in 507 um so and there's been three different rounds of stimulus for us so uh their auditors have classified those as 507 but to give you an idea of what we're spending those dollars on right now um technology
067very early on ppe very early on uh remote learning summer school as ms abraham mentioned and we're we're trying really hard to to um hold to save some funds for next year summer school so we can offer another robust summer school and what's great about the last round of esser funds or relief funds is we can go until 2023 so if there's even more funds we might be able to do a third summer school depending on the on the needs that we we see obviously we won't hold up we won't return anything we'll spend every dime um mr smith you mean uh 2023 in terms of how long we have to spend those dollars yes so if we went all the way into a third year of summer school that would be in 2023 right
068yeah the summer of 2023. so we have to spend by the 31st december that year uh we would we would have to spend by september 30th oh the 15 23. sorry yeah the federal government has a different um spending calendar than we do um than than states but their their requirement is september 30th um sorry that's a good question so we would have summer school paid out by september of 2023. yeah no dollars left behind spend it all right yeah yeah and we we may not have enough funds um by summer 2023 that would be um i think that would be there's good and bad to not having any left if um but we're evaluating our budgets for next year this month and identifying areas that would be allowable under these grants primarily due to
069learning loss or social emotional improvements for our students we don't want to um we want to address the needs right now and not really hold back funds for for three years yeah i'd agree with that yeah so as we as we identify um needs will and if we can appropriately fund them through these grants we'll do that first like we do everything else every year if there's other grants or dollars that we can use first and save general fund we do that normally but these amounts are larger than what we're normal what we normally see out of grants so anything any 500 fund are federal funds there um the other other grant that i believe you're aware of is a diversifying education grant that's new and that is a state fund or federal fund in
070the 590. of 140 000. that's a combination of two grants um that grain is 70 000 of that 140 but i thought i'd highlight that that's a that's a change from the last appropriation measure um we have spent um about i'm sorry i didn't add all this up we've spent about 250 350 000 of our grant monies as of right now summer school will be one of the larger expenditures um remote learning was as of today the largest expense a singular expense and we like i said we'll still be evaluating come for next year finally um i'd like to just take a moment to appreciate joan roberts um in the exempt section of the agenda you saw her resignation slash retirement she's been with the district since 2007. when she came on she started in
071payroll which um is if you talk to any treasurer one thing you don't mess with is payroll so you it's incredibly difficult to find individuals in these positions now in schools it's it is um a cutthroat thing when you lose someone in the treasury's department especially in payroll but we are fortunate enough to transition joan in 2017 to the assistant to the treasurer role and find another outstanding payroll person um but it's you don't understand how how much of a relief i have knowing i have a payroll person and then a backup payroll person in joan um especially my first couple years here it's been great so we will look to fill that position it's sad to see joan go but she's going to focus on her family which she loves dearly and i admire
072her her love and dedication to her her kids grand granddaughter and even mother so um just wanted to wish her well and thank her publicly and um she already said that she would she would help with the transition and she won't be too far away if um if i'm in a pickle so um she is a tremendous employee we will miss her as you know it's a tight-knit family up in our hallway and she um she is just great so that's all i have thank you yeah we will certainly be sorry to see her go um all right i think i'll take a motion to prove this and then we can have questions if you want to so can i have a motion to approve items for b through h still moved okay thank you
073um okay any questions um miss nerd and i just had a couple of questions for mr eikenberry on the uh hvac software john um can you refresh my memory when was the last time we did a software conversion so this conversion is a physical conversion so the request is for the equipment to the space um so at the beginning of 20 we would have done a upgrade to the operating system software and so this is this is physical not software or this is this it is physical yes it's uh it's the software package that controls the climate uh in your spaces okay the uh it was scheduled for 2020 but didn't happen uh no the the we've done ongoing physical conversions uh so modules wiring cabling um i guess the operating system software the the
074different uh i think we're on 3.6 right now so in terms of your question regarding uh operating soft ongoing software upgrades that was done in 20 yes and this includes this software upgrade includes any additional software upgrades that might come with the system like if they say hey we released a new version or something we get it automatically or do we have is that an additional expense it is an additional expense this request is for uh the ongoing of converting spaces to this operating system if you will this opportunity to move it over i understand i don't think that was clear when i was reading it so thank you for clarifying that for me sure and then i have only one other question about the roof um i know we had talked about when we
075back when we thought we were going to have a facilities um group frequently meeting but i know we talked about a master planning schedule um and this roof um uh maintenance is this just a tear off or is this an overlay what and is this just for a part that's scheduled like a newer part of the build or older part of the building like i don't know when you say roof it's a section and i'm guessing we do sections based on when we built the buildings that is correct so two parts to that uh this is actually just a a repair the section uh section 11 uh was the tear off was done in 15. uh this area of roof is under the cooling tower so it's a a what i would call a high
076drama area in terms of vibration no sunlight so this is a repair to put a cricket in to help uh keep water away from this area uh it it it's within the the bounds of the warranty so the warranty stays on it um okay yeah that's huge in terms of the capital planning uh from the previous friday report uh i'm glad to report that we had a perfection group energy solutions division visit over spring break to begin to kick off the tour assessment and uh analyzation uh part of the project certainly more tours and visits will will come forth uh but the planning the capital replacement planning project is is underway so i'm happy to announce that uh and that was in the 26th uh the most recent friday report so we um i use
077energy solutions in several of my buildings john's they're really really good they'll help identify some opportunities for you and you're so this tear off the full tear off we did in 2015 but the repairs that we're making still fall under the bounds of warranty it it keeps the warranty in place uh the the reason there is a charge uh assisted with this cricket is uh i continue to search for highly competent roofing contractors good luck it's yeah yeah so i uh i said thank you no and uh i'm i'm asking for approval contract with with finney to uh do this repair in this in this high drama area um very good choice i've put them a lot on a lot of my buildings and they actually did the roof for me at a veterans memorial
078so very very good choice great thank you thank you any other questions in this section all right so i have a motion in a second all in favor of approving items for b through h please signify by saying aye hi hi thank you any opposing sign that motion carries all right so we are moving on to the public participation section of our agenda tonight mr um trill i believe that we have one person signed up for public participation yes it's mr ersom okay great so let me just um start that off um so although under state law the board of education is not required to offer public comment during our our regular board meetings we do welcome the opportunity to hear from our community members such we encourage our participation within certain parameters prior to
079the start of the meeting so we ask you to well previously we would have asked you to sign in but now i know you've signed in in advance from with mr cho which i appreciate very much if you could start by stating your name and address for our record that will help us you could also please limit your comments to five minutes per arbor policy finally we note 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 but for our board policy we will not respond to public comment in the meeting or as individual board members you can be assured however that we are actively listening and taking notes for future reference in review
080that being said uh mr trell if you could um start our our public comment oh can you hear me i can yes thank you okay all right gerald urshan thank you so much i i had no idea that uh that uh this was a privilege to be done at the meeting so i do appreciate that bexley does offer that thank you so much i do have a prepared statement i realize i only have five minutes and it is in fact simply a statement for consideration so again i thank you i believe that bexley schools is going down the path of teaching critical race theory i believe this to be divisive and damaging to children i want to be sure to have my voice heard as i'm certain many others stay silent fearful to raise opposition
081i did have a very recent and productive conversation with superintendent dr good regarding bexley's race education platform he directed me to the school board advising that it would have been under your direction therefore i'm asking for transparency that the school board publicly posts a written direction that they gave bexley schools both administration and staff regarding making changes to become an anti-racist school in addition i'm asking that the board disclosed the vetting process of this formal direction involved entities viewpoints that collaborated with and or reviewed the proposals what professional organizations if any approved other curriculum parameters prior to implementation along with any research that was utilized finally what process or processes were put in place to evaluate the implementation of this program regarding the impact of both teachers and students either positive or negative that could
082be academically reviewed in other words data driven moving forward from this the next step will be to see how the school system took your guidance and translated it to actual presentment to students again for transparency providing this process to the public providing access to the professional development presented to administration teachers and students as well as the actual lesson plan curriculum changes that have occurred or are occurring under board direction that concludes my statement i would just like to add one other quick note and that was to the beginning of the meeting in which it was uh indicated that ray and associates has been super responsive to citizens regarding questions i have submitted an email to ray and associates and ask for a written response in which he still as of yet has not responded this
083should be boilerplate it involves um the very reason that bexley chose reign associates uh in regards to um equity uh and other items that they very specifically in fact the school board covered that in a powerpoint presentation and so uh i would just like to offer that as a as a as a note to my experience with that thank you again very much uh for the opportunity to speak you're welcome thank you very much for your participation hey marley what was mr er is it ursham what's his address oh yeah i'm sorry could you tell us that for a record thank you did he hang up i'm still here it looks like it unmuted me for a second my address is 795 chelsea thank you absolutely and how do you spell your last name because
084it shows up and then it flashes away sure it's ias and edward h and henry r and robert s and sam a is an apple m is in mary i'm i miss the a thank you again thank you for your participation tonight all right so we are moving on to other matters as may properly come before the board i do not have any additional matters for that section tonight which means that we will be moving into executive session um and [Music] i need my there we go so can i please have a motion to move into executive session under ohio revised code 121.22 and the reason for our executive session tonight is to consider items with respect to a public employee for appointment and or employment as well as for preparing conducting or reviewing negotiations
085or bargaining sessions with employees concerning their compensation in other terms of their or conditions of their employment so i need a motion second i was waiting for what you wanted that was the motion i needed thank you what's the motion in a second um i think mr um smith will you please call the royal for that miss mitchell yes or here yes mr barno here or yes or whatever i need to say yes ms mineo yes miss powers yes ms snowden yes thank you all right so for um our board members if you could please move on to the platform that allows us to have executive session for our public who are viewing um you will just see an executive session sign up we will i don't anticipate any um decisions to be made coming
086out of that or any votes um but um i can't rule it out so we will leave the meeting open we will come in and have a proper um dismissal of the meeting once we've completed with executive sessions so thank you all for your attention and i will see you on the executive session platform shortly thanks thanks kyle can you hear us hi all right so can i have it is 10 o'clock can i have a motion to adjourn our regular schedule board meeting of april 6 2021 so that was uh victoria's emotion and michelle is second all in favor please signify by saying aye aye aye mr burns are over there hi any opposed same sign okay that motion carries thank you all good night thank you