Forest Hills Board of Education Meeting - 6/22/22 AUDIO ONLY

001welcome everybody to the forest hills school district of education meeting on wednesday june 22nd [Music] [Applause] [Music] mrs stewart here this is hospital here please everybody [Music] [Applause] nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Applause] by griefing we have three entrances and exits to the area the one main entrance that you came in there's one behind us and one on the other side [Applause] mrs stewart yeah bibb yes mrs janet yes dr rasmussen yes 3.1 approval minute for the special meeting on may 1st [Applause] [Music] yes 4.0 the procedures for public commentary remind you the board of education is committed to conducting its meetings in a productive and efficient manner to assure that meeting is completed in a reasonable amount of time while also recognizing the importance of fair and adequate opportunity

002for public influence in order to conduct an orderly and fair representation of expression the board will provide a period of public participation for policy 0169.1 at every regular board meeting public participation will be a total of 30 minutes each speaker will have three minutes if there are more than 10 speakers individual time will be adjusted down if it within 30 minutes the board does not discriminate based on individual content of speech or viewpoint of the but several people wish to speak on the same topic the time limit may be adjusted at the president's discussion speakers should be prepared to respond to questions from the board members asking to clarify 5.0 candidates for graduation [Applause] good evening everybody thanks for being here thank you uh for the opportunity here to recognize one of our students at

003anderson high school i've been up here a few times this school year for students to achieve their graduation requirements at a time different than the traditional graduation so it's important to keep in mind that education is not a one-size-fits-all type of arena and we're really proud of our graduates once they reached that mark whenever they reached that mark and for this young man it uh it really was it's all about decline we're very proud of him and very proud of all of the staff members who put in their time effort and often case extra effort along with will to accomplish this feat and so with that in mind the following student has completed all requirements for a department of government high school phil holland baker this summer since the end of school actually through the

004last semester of school to see will in action center office every single day hard at it doing what you need to do to achieve this very important adoption that you receive tonight so it gave me an opportunity to see it up close what our teachers do and the time that he's invested and the work that students do to earn their diploma so i personally want to congratulate will and wish him a success our entire office staff showed up with congratulations [Applause] [Music] [Applause] we'll when they get back into town we'll do a nice little ceremony at the school granting a high school diploma [Applause] uh first of all um technology teaching and money specialist and this meeting and all the efforts leading up to streaming and all the things that take place [Laughter] it's just

005not going to youtube um there's also a few other people i'd like to introduce tonight as part of the update but before i do so i would i would like to thank again anita echelman and nicole ward both fantastic administrators dedicated administrators and our district folks who have an opportunity to do some other exciting things in their career and so i wish both both of you the best to thank you for your service to our students to our teachers families [Applause] [Music] [Applause] this evening uh mrs brennan tiffany brain is with us [Applause] also some interesting sean is tiffany's wife he's with us i think this evening he is the baseball coach varsity baseball coach joseph anderson so it's nice if you're with us tonight to support your wife uh mr graham joins the forest

006hills family after an impressive uh humane impressive administrative career as a middle school principal in both oak hills and wyoming school districts most recently she served as the curriculum director in west clermont where she was positioned to take over west clermont's middle school as principal she has a vested interest in our schools and our community which is evidence to the fact that she has been a lifelong resident of anderson township and proud product of the forestville school history so welcome home without a doubt mrs brennan is all in for our students and our community while we are sad to see mrs ashley lead the school district this summer after a great career for us but we are very very excited to welcome mrs brannon home as i said before as the principal of naval middle

007school [Applause] [Music] [Applause] at summit elementary matt is coming out of this building where he worked a lot in this room coordinating efforts with teachers and students throughout the building mr hooray is transitioning from the innovation specialist role at mangle middle school to the new assistant principal at summit elementary following the cold war's departure prior to working at naple mr herrera taught at wilson elementary in both third and fifth grades for several years he also has teaching experience at minton woods mount auburn international academy and stephen foster elementary school mr hooray lives in anderson township with his wife also a product of the forest field school district and their children we're very excited to welcome uh matt redia to our administrative team matt i didn't see where oh okay good to see here [Music] two

008other updates that i have uh and that the first one is to remind everyone that our july board meeting will be on july 8th that will take place at 7 30 a.m in the morning and that will take place in this room uh the reason that happens at that time of the day is because it's generally a brief meeting and is mostly about human resources and ensuring that before a state required july 10 contract date that all of our employees are hired prior to that because it just makes it a lot easier for transitioning from one school district to another with all the paperwork and all the responsibilities associated with that so most schools try to have a july before july 10 day to ensure that all the staff is in place for the upcoming

009school year so that's why that meeting happens it happens at 7 30 in the morning because these individuals work for a living and because they can get here and have the meeting take place they can then get back to work and get that accomplished it's also on a friday and if you had it at 7 30 at night most people would not enjoy that time period either so we try to work around schedules also a little bit later the last thing i have in the announcements is that we have the calendar of school district 2223 calendar with the adjustments that were made that will be discussed tonight and voted and the second calendar is the 23-24 school year which will be a first reading for that so mr fellowes will update us on those if

010there's specific questions updates uh in that [Applause] second up sharika nayawallo claire mingle lindy demaria jessica cummingham and alicia great sorry what did they just say they want to do how much three times three is one nine three minutes i know but i can't do the shooting 90 seconds [Applause] yes go right ahead mr haggadorn there you go one minute go ahead we're ready you get a minute and a down half okay so i stand in complete support of a resolution that made an introduced later tonight the draft that i've seen begins with resolution to create a culture of kindness and equal opportunity and urge the board to vote for it for four reasons it's the right thing to do children and staff should never be divided into arbitrary groups with some paid as oppressed

011while others are blamed as oppressors something that foreign school district has clearly done and hurts learning we should never put barriers between children and teachers because of their identity we should emphasize those things that they all have in common it's unlawful attorney general dave yost has said quote curriculum standards will be contrary to law that they treat students differently on the basis of race he signed the 14th amendment to the u.s constitution the ohio constitution and the civil rights act of 1964. finally it's the will of the people the residents elected before the forest hills candidates last november attending crt was a huge issue candidates backed by the opposition to this resolution lost all four laws so please don't let a small loud minority literally overturn the results of last november's election i urge passage

012of the resolution thank you [Applause] forest hills school district website states that it provides an innovative curriculum high expectations and total devotion to young people furthermore the strategic vision states that the school district believes that learning takes place when women are secure valued and able to take risks the proposal under discussion today is in stark contrast to the strategic vision of the school district the previous speaker was correct but there are some elements there as i think that we can discuss but um the aspects that deal with the question of identity i think is what's at the core of tonight's discussion erasing all forms of identity robs the students of who they are we all have multiple identities linguistic identities national ethnic and so on it's not possible to not have an identity of some

013kind so barring a teacher from mentioning an identity is an impossible task this proposal is flawed in too many ways to enumerate in my short time this evening it's being used as a possible tool and not in the best interest of the students faculty and staff i'm out of time thank you [Music] can you please hold your applause please after a speaker so we could get for all 23. i appreciate that thank you [Music] go ahead claire whenever you're ready to go hi my name is claire michael and i pronounce it i was with a group of newly graduated seniors last night and when i read the so-called kindness resolution we were all thinking the same thing thank goodness we don't have to come back in the fall i am scared and sad for the

014students saying staying here the kids i met at the 5k diversity day booth and my friends i feel guilty about leaving we have great schools but your actions are crafting a district people are grateful to leave and embarrassed to say they graduated from [Music] [Applause] after an engaging two point two and a half hours an opportunity to learn and process from experts and then together students were asked is there any message you would like to share with the force to the school board if so what the next several speakers will share their feedback for you here are the first few students shared experiences with forest hills district in our discussion today what i learned from them was infuriating the school district has never been inclusive and welcoming as you would like to pretend it is

015the cancellation of diversity day was only the one that got people's attention you need to do better do better your students are employing you to make the best possible decision for their well-being listen to them do your job and what you were somehow elected to do and fight for what the younger generation needs stop pushing your personal agenda and follow what the general audience of the school wants yeah i want them to know that they aren't turning us into good adults and getting us ready for the future we're inevitably going to interact with different people of all types and the lack of perspective that they are giving us as a democracy we want to grow and create change and if that scares you i want you to think about why diversity is a fact not

016an opinion and no one can avoid it we need to embrace it in order to create a better world where everyone gets what they need to have good opportunities thank you have a few more a few more names to milan moore please line up phil gupton antonio quiolino wendy strickler and emily mingle um here are some additional student responses cancelling diversity day is all political and it's wrong with the board decided to make it that way because it really isn't political while i respect that the school board is trying to do the best by the students try to be blessed by the students and the community it has become clear that their methods are flawed my biggest ask of the school board is to trust the teachers trust the people who dedicated their professional lives

017to educating the student body the teachers thinks learning about diversity is important which they do but the board should let them teach if teachers want to play educational movies or read books in class let them do it have some faith in the professional educators who allow turpin to be the top 10 high school in the state of ohio give us diversity day please see us and listen the forest hill school board should learn how to act like adults and be able to talk about diversity without creating a problem this should be enforced in schools for all grades seven and up not just limited to juniors and seniors but i as i am a sophomore had a great experience with my younger age in november new campaign for going back to basics letting teachers teach and

018making education unpolitical do you genuinely believe you have succeeded in accomplishing this during these past few weeks there has been a massive student-led political response to the policies you and acid thank you mr president appreciate it like no previous work thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] here are additional student responses no matter what you do you can never suppress diversity don't sweep it under the rug and all that you are doing out of this is setting students up for failure diversity is necessary diversity day is necessary diversity day is a great experience that shouldn't have to be an extracurricular students are saying we are not going to stop we have students and members of this community have the responsibility and the means to make change and we will we will not stop until there is an

019equal right and opportunity for all actual equal rights and opportunities regardless of race or gender differences shouldn't be controversial treat others as you want to be treated and embrace learning spread cultures and celebrate difference diversity is necessary diversity is important because it builds empathy students said we learned a lot today and think most people did and a lot of people didn't go out who could have benefited this is why we should have it all in school so that those that aren't just passionate about it can also have these same experiences [Music] [Applause] i have more of the students comments the perfect place for lecture and discussion based activity is in school let us do these things in school get the stupid politics out of your head listen to the students you're supposed to be representing

020and benefiting you say that diversity day has no place in school obviously the students disagree look at your actions objectively and you should be able to figure out just how bad i guess this was forced to literally cancel diversity are you serious do better what the board did was wrong the board should be ashamed of their actions and their reasons for justifying the cancellation of this event this event was so extremely important because it's about education and acknowledging the differences between people and health race gender identity age etc create certain challenges and obstacles that others may not have diversity day is important because it allows people to learn about other cultures and backgrounds and also see the differences in people in our community running from your problems won't solve anything as adults you should know

021by now change is inevitable if you can't come to accept it now the time when it does come would be far more problematic at the moment although you were voted into office you do not act on the majority views of the student body that puts you in a dangerous position where you make decisions that you do not want it's irresponsible to limit our education in the way you have started to do and i do not appreciate it we cannot have intelligent conversations and discussion in our schools [Music] further comments from students at diversity day as members of the school board you have a responsibility to support every student in the district as well as to prepare them for the real world one that is increasingly diverse diversity day gives students the context needed to make

022decisions in this increasingly diverse world for example countless studies have shown that job applicants with ethnic sounding names are much more likely to be rejected from a job than applicants with white names and similar qualifications a student who took part in diversity day could take the lessons they learned this year and apply them years in the future if they become someone who reads job applications everyone can do things to establish more just society just as the founding fathers wrote in the constitution learning this is not any more political than learning those founding fathers and trying to write fair arms to prevent against said injustice and tyranny shall we require a permission slip to read the constitution next by blocking students from this opportunity you are all failing your duties to the children and the community

023this is so important for us to learn about so that we can make the world a better place in the future and so that we can really learn about the people around us you are inhibiting student growth through recognition of diverse concepts why are you afraid of diversity why did you cancel diversity today it's an educational experience with real world applications white people are so oblivious to the everyday lives of people of color and how race affects them favors we deserve to be heard [Applause] [Music] [Applause] correct it's recording just no audio they can't hear the audio's not streaming live into youtube it's like muted it won't go but it's showing that it's recording everything are you able to write subtitles so that people who are not here can read what's happening right there's no

024internet we can't share with other people you have internet you have videos correct you just don't have audio no audio i will have to watch the recording when it's over [Applause] thank you do what i can i'll search you can't deny that racism is in a forceful school district you can't deny people companies different backgrounds can't the more we deny our diversity the more divided we will become listen to your students right now who they're telling us that we matter less that the outside boys have scoped nothing to do with our education you're telling us you care less about that us than our outsiders listen to us and prove you karen i tried to deny me students as well as fellow students the chance to learn about diversity in school through denying us a chance

025to learn about the real world diversity is something that is all across the world and it's harmful to try to deny it by teaching diversity at a school level it will teach students empathy understanding kindness and respect towards their fellow classmates and anyone else they might meet throughout their life the students have made it bob and clear from our protests and attendance during the event it's clear that we want to learn about diversity let us learn it and make it at the school level please listen to us see us we will not stand for this unfair matchup [Music] rachel turner sarah [Applause] and one final comment from the students diversity day should absolutely be implemented into the school day it's not only a great chance to learn about differences prevalent in society but in bristol

026school district as well talking to students about their opinions and experiences helps students in our own district either make their voices heard uplift others or simply gain perspective when it comes to social injustice we have seen outrage in this community over an explicit message from this board to reject educational discussions and learning about diversity about each other and about our world to be very clear helping our students learn about their differences in a safe educational environment must not be avoided as it makes us all under more understanding and stronger together after the may 1st board decision to cancel students rallied around the critical learning they know they need and raised over 13 000 from this community in about 48 hours that should speak volumes to the support for the need for this learning and the

027fact that it should be happening in our educational system and is supported by a large part of the community you have heard from business members mental health providers teachers parents and students you've just heard feedback from so so many students well-articulated and powerful feedback you ran on parent choice and letting teachers teach you have the opportunity to do that i respectfully request you to postpone a vote on the resolution until you truly understand the implications and that you vote on a return of diversity day to both anderson and truman high school for 22-23 follow through on your recruited claims to let the parents choose and let teachers teach [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hello my name is emily mengele i have lived in anderson for almost 20 years and i am a very good teacher for graduates

028my 2022 turkey grad just returned from college sanitation they spent half a day doing doing diversity equality and inclusion activities very similar to the canceled diversity day actually my 2019 trip and grad was working for microsoft this summer and dei training is a standard welcome and accepted part of cultural culture by canceling first few day and proposing the so-called kindness resolution the school board is doing a great disservice to any student who leaves for college or the workforce because they will not be prepared for the [Music] [Applause] hello my name is cj hastings i'm an incoming sophomore in german high school i would like to talk about proposed resolution to create a culture of kindness and equal opportunity for all students and staff it pushes you right to get teaching of anything other than a

029cisgender heterosexual and caucasian mold within the school system this is harmful to so many people within the school system as there are many who do not fall into that including a majority of my friends and myself if you ban teaching of the different identities your teeth you are teaching us essentially that there is only one person that you can be and that end up one person is the only exists in the world we are not one person this proposal also says and i quote forest hills school district will not utilize critical race theory intersectionality identity or anti-racism curriculum for student education or staff friendly end quote forest hills will not utilize anti-racism curriculum what is the opposite of anti-racism curriculum racism curriculum [Applause] [Music] if you ask a teacher [Applause] please just let it give

030us a real education and let the teachers teach for your not like gracias foreign [Music] hi i'm i'm an incoming senior for anderson and when i used to tell my family and friends about anderson i used to be proud i used to tell them about how we abolished the mascot and replaced it with something less culturally insensitive and inappropriate but now with my co-workers and when my family asked me about my school district i am ashamed because i know that what is said about my school district and my high school is what is going on right now and people are so afraid of crt and people are so afraid of people of each other having their own opinions and teaching students other things and what politics say they want that they are afraid i stand

031here knowing that my pleas will not be answered because the school board has not only ignored not one but two protests from not one but two high schools and so i implore you please when you think of our future don't think about politics don't think about facebook posts don't think about what you personally believe think about the students who are begging you not as not as students but as people to let them see other people to let them experience diversity to let them experience events of the real world before they are thrown out without having without having any clue over the real world behind these cold bubbly walls of anderson township thank you for your time [Music] good evening everyone my son has a condition that robbed him of murder skills and his speech dropping

032off the daycare one day i heard two boys talking that's killian do you know him yeah he scares me my heart broke i knew it wouldn't be long before that fear returned into hurtful words and actions against my beautiful boy the kind of behaviors that typical children are taught to do around children like mine is to not stare do not talk about him do not point my husband uses his lunch breaks to feed killing and medicate him while there the kids ask questions well-meaning adults told them it was rude it wasn't he answered the questions karen is now the most popular kid there and kids literally cry they can't sit next to him at lunch all kids are taught to be kind kindness is not enough to wipe out fear and ignorance only open honest

033conversations about our different similar unique inherently unequal experiences will foster understanding sympathy and empathy to pretend my son's existence is equal his experience is equal to everyone else's is to negate the struggle he goes through every day and the strength he shows no child should ever feel bad about their identity identities are not optional and neither should i respect acceptance care and consideration [Applause] [Music] [Applause] first off the resolution has a very misleading title considering it composes the opposite the resolution speaks against intersectionality which is defined as the acknowledgement that everyone has their own unique experience of discrimination and oppression and we must consider everything and anything that can marginalize people gender race class sexual orientation physical ability etc and does the forest hills school mission statement not specifically state and i quote that it

034is to foster a love of learning pursue excellence and meet the individual needs of each learner and repeat each learner and are those learners not of different races genders class sexual orientation physical abilities are they not the resolution also references that forest hills school district policy code states that controversial issues may only be taught if they have to remain to the subject being taught how are the facts of history considered a controversial issue it's facts only made controversial by those that refuse to acknowledge the sex by specifically saying that anti-racism should not be advocated in the school you are indeed affirming that racism how can the school teach anti-bullying and not anti-racism when the two so often go hand-in-hand you specifically state that the school and teachers should provide a comprehensive education of america's history

035that quote either sanitizes its past or denies its possibility of progress yet you want to enforce a sugar-coated version of history and not allow us to recognize students individuality which directly prohibits the possibility of any moral progress many countries have heard of bloody history and their acceptance awareness and education of that history has given them a much more positive outcome than america's [Music] [Applause] mary gretner natalie hasting colin owen and jenny arnold [Applause] thank you hi my name is jill burkett ragasi i am parent to four kids in the district two here at nagle where i also serve as the pto president and two at mercer uh i wanna start this evening by standing in solidarity with all of these students and parents of community members who have spoken out against the kindness resolution as

036well as those who have spoken in favor of diversity day that's actually not why i wanted to talk to you tonight but i did feel it was important to say and it feeds into why i am here the lack of communication and discussion at the board meetings the lack of understanding of what the leaders in our buildings do are contributing to the cycle of outrage to the rumors in our community there are people in this building who want to collaborate and work together to put students at the center of what we do and work together and the board is not reaching back please do better our kids deserve it we don't meet look how many invested parents you have here tonight this is an asset let's use it to do amazing things [Music] [Applause] public

037education is under attack at every level nationally schools are under resourced understaffed and underfunded while we demand more and more of our underpaid and underappreciated teachers up to and including literally dying to protect their students from the epidemic of gun violence in ohio we're working within a funding structure that would be a constitutional decades ago and here in anderson we are facing a mental health crisis an alarming rate of student student suicide and a bank account that is dwindling by the day with no plan to pass a levy that will adequately fund our schools while our teachers and administrators fight to provide the best for our students what is our board of education doing they are spending their time drafting resolutions that will harm our students on every level in the short term marginalized students

038will be further ostracized afraid to speak up and unable to find a counselor to safely speak to about anything that could possibly be deemed controversial they will be denied the education needed to pass ap tests the acts and to prepare for college and in the long term they will be sheltered and unprepared to work in a global economy in which every fortune 500 company is ramping up their dei efforts not sending them in short this board who was elected by less than a quarter of eligible voters in the community is actively fighting against our students futures that we can all go as to continue hi i'm a parent of two children in florida school district including cj who spoke earlier who was involved in the diversity day movement and i wanted to start with the

039most important things that i don't forget which is the reading from luke 12 in the bible verses two and three nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered and nothing secret that will not become known therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetop i am coming to you today to say that it doesn't matter how many people elected you your job is to serve all of the students and part of that job is not operating in secrecy there was an email on march 30th from mr bib saying that diversity day was political but then we were told that it was cancelled for process there are so many examples of this and we deserve the

040truth we deserve transparency especially these students and the students of color and the parents of students of color that have talked to me since diversity day was cancelled they deserve better and they deserve the truth and i don't know how much time i have left so i want to make sure that i say the truth always comes to life [Music] my name is colin owens i'm a turkey graduate of class of 2022. throughout my time as a spartan i have many opportunities to make my voice heard but today i want to take one more to make the case for diversity diversity means a lot of things to many people to me it is about two things fundamentally respect and recognition it's about respect and recognition for the millions of innocent men women and children snatched

041from their homes brought to the new world separated from their loved ones and made it to work as slaves it's about respect and recognition for the millions more pain voluntarily to work on our infrastructure it's about respect and recognition for people broken by oppression in their homelands who seek liberty that their eyes can only be found in the united states we live in a country of immigrants but there is a clear cultural disparity that exists german americans italian americans polish americans irish americans so many histories and traditions that we hold dear however due to the barbaric treatment that they endured african-americans have been stripped of their ethnic and cultural identities and the term was coined to systematically group very peoples from a continent large enough to contain mainland europe the united states and china within

042its borders diversity today is not to place blame or feel responsible for actions committed generations ago it's a chance to understand those harmful actions of the past and learn how to respect those who are different from us while working towards a more inclusive future thank you [Music] well i joined many of the voices that have been here before you today to point out that this resolution that's been proposed obviously an anti-diversity measure what i'd like to really take a look at as we walk through this is what the actual language of this resolution is because there are some particularly problematic things contained within this proposed resolution it's safe that there is to be an avoidance of controversial issues where any more than one solution is being supported we can't we can't expect history teachers to

043teach about history without covering issues that were controversial and where there continue to be those who support different resolutions and like him of that this resolution states that this district will not support anti-racism as was previously stated the opposite of anti-racism is racism to state that district does not wish to be anti-racist is to support racism and is a racist act in and of itself it's heartbreaking to me to think that that is a resolution by which we would govern our school district where our children spend their days beyond that the dis or this resolution proposes that forest hills school district partners with parents to assist in their responsibility to educate their children i think the action with diversity days shows that that's not true parents did a diversity today [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] medicine

044physician and i'm also a medical parent i want to save the board we even those investors believe in crt education at the collegiate level we all can come together and say okay we won't teach it in our district even though our superintendent has said it's not taught in our schools i know we're not going to convince you otherwise but why i'm here today to talk is to discuss why this resolution is so dangerous it's dangerous because it's giving our board too much control over our education our students need to learn how to thrive in our increasingly global multilingual and multicultural society pondering racial ethnic and socioeconomic disparities helps our students understand our society it helps them appreciate what they have and help them grow into compassionate adults removing this removes the truth of the world

045from the education of our students our parents should have control and be able to sign permission clips to teach our students this truth our district consists of students that are mostly white and affluent this resolution would create present day segregation by not allowing our students to understand how the other half lives just like the 1950s sure a student of a different race or different socioeconomic status can physically come to our school but they will not be allowed to be understood we will not be able to discuss this as a physician i am very concerned about the future and the health of those students [Music] [Applause] i'm jeff knight i'm opposed to the resolution i understand what board's trying to accomplish with the resolution uh i disagree with your goal but uh that's actually not very

046talkative today if you accept the value of the need for a crt ban beyond that the point that i don't know how you can make a complaint curriculum by the time school starts it could ban anyone from requiring guidance or engaging students to consider reflecting on our partnerships raised class culture and other things that's incredibly wrong makes things totally unrelated to crt here's some things a teacher couldn't say to a student through this resolution they couldn't see it before you judge someone block a violent machine they couldn't say remember that some people had a heart attack those are appeals to consider or confrontation with class privilege culture race religion and other things how long those kind of comments is not creating a culture of kindness it's the opposite so if that's your goal the resolution

047is subject um here's some of the things you couldn't teach anything from romeo and juliet to atlas shrugged who couldn't teach about the emancipation proclamation brown support of education or the civil rights act 1964 because he can't do that without consideration or confronting privileged class race and racism uh what really got me out here is that you have to disband the hopes because the hope spot educates students about cultural differences that may put their peers at risk for suicide don't do that don't adopt it [Music] i'm a 35-year resident a 25-year educator and coach and a parent of a 2021 graduate and yes i realize i'm taking a risk as an employee statement here change is difficult and that's what this is about this is the fear of change fear that the status quo which

048is so for so long serve those in power is shifting beyond recognition fear that not if but when this shift occurs there will be no place for those who are now feeling persecuted and marginalized as a result of these catch-all booby men c-r-t d-i-d-e-i anti-racism intersectionality conclusion ultimately what inclusion strives for the entire point of anti-racism is why diversity and equity are crucial to the long-term success of our student schools and district so that all people feel safe heard seen and important so that all students feel confident that they have a place to belong to be themselves so they feel value that the aspects of themselves that they love and even more so for those aspects of themselves that they don't see these scary terms aren't so scary at all when you step back and

049divest them of their politicizing meaning this resolution of past will sweep vulnerable students into the shadows it will make some of those who are starting to like themselves like themselves a little bit less it will undermine the beautiful culture we have worked for years to create that has put our district at the forefront of the positive student experience [Music] [Applause] andrew grenery's your last speaker andrew grenier the last speaker while he's walking up there i have a quick question um generally at the top of the meeting we have correspondence to the board or treasurer or super and that part is mysteriously going no we can't i would like to give secretary's chance to speak tonight thank you [Applause] i'm not like everybody else who came up i've got two students in the district i just

050wanted to speak with some kindness and equality toward the board members and district leadership you're continuing the terrible job hiding hate calling kindness doesn't magically make this resolution kind no matter how many ways you excuse censoring education the result is unsustainable for both you in this district you use our own declaration of independence to justify our aggressive agenda remember the declaration of independence never mentioned equality for women it was written all men are created equal and are found in constitutional wallets to deny all but white landowning males the right to vote looking at the iw non-qualified thankfully thankfully we rely on more than founding principles today [Music] by attempting to solve a non-existent problem you create a host of new issues for us that may persist well past your terms you are crafting a legacy

051of ignorance for yourselves and asking the community to pay for it stop squandering resources and chasing ghosts stop pushing good people away let the teachers teach great leaders choose to lead by example when you're here [Applause] [Music] [Applause] should be a price [Applause] [Music] you will not take stuff off like you did with this resolution [Applause] [Music] is typical i'm asking you a simple question who removed it why was it removed it does not go in more discussions quick questions yes i did it leslie or no so-and-so did it it is a simple question why didn't you have a chance to go through the agenda i did yeah i heard it excuse me this is deflection and it is not answering the very simple question is it because you do not want us to discuss

052the correspondence that the community members right here have been sending us i think is that the stuff do you care about these students and these people [Music] everyone [Applause] [Music] should tell everybody in this community something about your ability to speak the truth it is a simple question simple can't even answer that discuss it in words [Applause] [Music] if that's what it was then just say it no that's not what it is you can have discussion and more discussion you can have that comment before discussion so why not okay i like to make a motion to amend the agenda and move one discussion up front oh i wonder if anybody will step in back and and go for some transparent conversation finally how there are several themes in the correspondence that deserve communication that is

053my point now i'm not gonna sit here and read every last thing but i made a list of these themes from the correspondence that this board has been receiving like always as per tradition that is discussed right around the time the superintendent does his update we have course correspondence treasures course assignments for science and superintendent that is pretty typical so simply ask me why all of a sudden that is not happening this month i think is a fair question and it deserves it's a simple it's a simple sentence even not [Applause] [Music] or it's actually not moving because if you look at the agenda you're not answering the question it's fine you don't want to answer leslie i answered the question [Music] you're answering a question with a question in my control room that's an

054s [Applause] we'll have to import you out ms uh hospital said that at our last meeting when mr hartman was yelling at the meeting so linda on this oh to have a brief recess so that we can go into an executive session we're not executive sessions but a brief recess of this meeting we need to get this thing under control this is not the appropriateness i'm talking about plays down this is a board meeting and i'm certain that there are controversial things that are bothering you but this is a board meeting you need to conduct business so i would like to recommend a brief recess i'd like to settle this room down and then conduct this meeting as it's supposed to be conducted this back and forth is not good for anyone it's going to

055escalate into something that you don't want to happen we're not doing that [Applause] yes [Applause] there are many hallmarks that are related [Music] and so as we continue with tonight's meeting i'd like to respectfully ask that we allow the board to conduct its meetings and that we refrain from anything other than that child beautiful noise in the back of the room you know what i'm saying we're a great community we have great teachers great students families [Music] it is a board meeting it has public commentary that is done and so now there is no more commentary so before they maintain it thank you thank you for coming and for investing in our students in our school i i greatly appreciate it thank you so i think um what we're going to do is we're going

056to make an addendum to the agenda to add 7.2 as board [Applause] corresponding to that [Applause] um mrs houseville yes mrs stewart yes dr rasmussen yes mrs jens yes thank you for the addition um there has been plenty of correspondence to the board as i mentioned um the most recent so first of all there have been many a lot hundreds um and what i tried to do over the last couple of days is sort of organize them into things so that we can at least put them out there most recently and and perhaps throughout the last several months actually the one major thing that emerged is a lack of communication with the public and a lack of responsiveness that's the first thing and i i think that we absolutely need to tackle that tonight in

057the appropriate agenda area for discussion um but again that is a fame emerging from the correspondence to the board i will say there are times where we will we are inundated um and sometimes we can't respond to every email but i believe later this evening we should be able to each one of us discuss how we're going to handle that because that is a growing problem in this community and our school board should be open the second big thing that occurred today is this addition of the resolution to tonight's agenda obviously right diversity day and i want to make a point too i didn't i didn't count because i lost track of at the meeting where the board canceled diversity day the school board president read emails as evidence to support the cancellation of that

058day and our corresponds correspondence shows a inordinate um amount of emails in support of diversity day versus the few opposing it so i want to be very clear about that correspondence and it's my understanding that people have requested those via freedom of information act so that's pretty easy to verify plus you know i just looked at my emails we also have had quite a few emails again i believe resulting from another freedom of information act request from mrs jonas to scott preble that indicates quote policy 9211 how can you approve this plan referring to the turpin outdoor learning space when the board is discussing consolidation it goes on to say that the urban outdoor learning space could be quote destroyed during quality consolidation i have seen that email because it was forwarded to the rest

059of the board that has prompted i believe an influx of emails and commentary from people wanting to know has the board voted on consolidation no we have not um and again we can discuss that further those are some of the big things over the last several months that have been coming our way now there are other small items of course but during board discussion i would like to discuss the following items as related to the board correspondence that we've been receiving one a lack of communication and professionalism regarding board operations and how we can come together and correct that for ourselves and for our community so i'm talking about internally and externally a procedure or at least every board member's approach to answering or not answering emails from community members including students i did respond

060to one recently that called me demonic and it's the b word and it told me to go f myself so you know i i just wrote back thank you for your very persuasiveness but i did respond um i think we also need to discuss our tenuous financial situation and levy that is another thing that emerged in the correspondence we've been receiving first amendment rights of students and attempts to stop them from exercising such rights an hr complaint i filed against mrs hospital for saying people who are against racism are charlatans and academics like myself and educators are elitist this new resolution will undoubtedly be up for discussion diversity day and a student's invitation to testify to congress about it and how we reinstate that teacher contracts those are up for negotiation next year we don't

061have a levy on ballot so that's a topic of conversation that needs to happen and related to consolidation it's time to pull this curtain back now there have been my knowledge there have been no illegal meetings but separately former board members did meet with the board um separately so it wasn't like it's no different than if somebody in the audience emails me and says hey can we meet to discuss this issue it was that situation and they presented a plan that was from something like 10 years ago that included selling off a high school and getting rid of about two elementaries there were several different scenarios so that is where this is emerging from but my point goes back to the number one theme emerging from our board correspondence which is a lack of communication

062and professionalism regarding that communication that transfer that is so desperate there was distrust before and i think we have moved from distrust to straight up fear in this community and it can be fixed if we pull back that curtain and just be honest and discuss so those are the things that i wanted to address in the correspondence that we've been receiving and those are the items i would also like to discuss further in detail as we move into the board discussion um and items 13.1 and 13. thank you for moving on to business operations [Applause] i have a little bit different some different event items today uh i have two informational items and then two actions the informational items is uh first one is 8.1 childhood wellness every three years we must look at our

063nutrition wellness policy and run through a rubric determine whether we are meeting the guidelines of the nutrition wellness process which we are we have it has a rubric was included in the board package if you notice there's only one thing that we partially meet the goals and it's the food non-sold foods and beverages and that comes into effect when we have celebration day and the snowy snowy comes in and sets up camp and gives out free snowys or we get some ice creams that are donated by the ptas and stuff like that that's a challenge that technically they don't necessarily need all nutritional guidelines so we can only say that partially means that but other than that we are in full compliance with the state and with policy 10. the next item on the agenda

064is another informational item and joey you want to try to show this presentation okay there is you know i revised code in july of 2011. and i must say i'm going to really stutter through this terribly because miss strauss our director of food services was unable to be here to explain this eloquently okay but in july of 2013 uh 2011 we have a high revised code 3313.814 required beach school district board of education each chartered non-public or governing school authority to adopt an affordable nutritional standards and types of foods that will be sold on a regular crisis during the school day so this was you know a law that went in the place and the best thing i can say forest hills school district is in full compliance with revised code the some of the

065things that this has us look at is we look at anything that we serve must meet or exceed the district's nutritional standards no foods or beverages other than associates that are associated with the district food service program should be sold during the school hours and it also allows us for unassociated food programs i.e the boosters at sporting events after after school activities do not meet those guidelines i mean we can still maintain the revised food set again it goes into different sets with selling through vending machines and stuff if you remember back in the day we could actually have soda machines when the schools were getting no longer and again any food sold after the time is up to the discretion of the board for after hours again those are the main big key points

066there is a table in the packet if you notice that talks about the different types of beverages that you must serve which must be 100 juice and the ounce requirements i think miss grouse put in there also so those are two informational items tia does a phenomenal job with our food service remember a few years months back she received an award that hamilton county had to come because we were the only school district that kind of met every single criteria for the awards mr house does a phenomenal job and the ladies and men that work in the cafeterias do a great job so those are my two informational celebratory items for that the business items that we do have is item 8.3 we are going to have a lunchroom price increase the federal government no

067longer is providing three lunches to all students as they have for the past couple years with the pandemic so we're going back to lunch normal lunch prices it's really just an increased price of the main entrees by 50 cents for the elementary and the high schools um and where that came in some of the stuff that as we all know in our own food budgets stuff is starting to go out of control we're moving just from hamburger buns being 1.62 up to 307. you know you're doing you know 5 000 hamburger buns a day that makes a big difference and you know and the most crisis written one is ranch dressing because you know every high school kid has [Music] food service and the final item is is remember last month we accepted the new

068process with ortho cincinnati price hospital what we have on the agenda here is a memorandum of understanding with mercy hospital the original contract was set to go through august 31st of this year it was not logical or practical to try to have trainers start a pre-season and then change all our doctors and trainers i think so mercy has agreed to a memorandum of understanding that their contract will officially be null and void at the end of this month and or if since these contract will be in full force july 1. so those are the other items that i have so at this point if are there any questions from the board okay so the superintendent recommends the board approve items 8.3 and 8.4 is presented as part of the consensus thank you john 9.0 human

069resources [Applause] good evening and for the record dewey's has the best ranch in the area yes um getting into the board there are a couple items that i'd like to bring to your attention this evening the first is the handler which superintendent as the board is aware we had a public hearing earlier this spring for ohio revised code on both the changes to next year's school calendar as well as the 23-24 calendar i received one email and it was we loved everything except for the day after easter not having off um but the response was if uh if that's the only thing the pros way outweigh the cons that was the one you know that was received over the last 30 days so the major changes just to kind of reiterate to you all really

070center around balancing the days between the fall and the spring semester and really trying to be intentional in where we place our fall and spring conferences with students so that we can get that conference in before the end of the term so there's an opportunity for parents to meet with teachers beforehand and rally a bit before the grade actually gets placed in that gradebook and then just the federal holiday for new year's being celebrated on monday the second and our teacher workday on the third for the primary changes for next year um so the superintendent recommends full approval of the calendar for 2223 and 2224 for the consent agenda moving on to the hr report june is a busy month but i feel like i say that often in the hr world but june is

071definitely busy we have items a and b as retirements and resignations for board consideration and i would just echo um mr privel's comments about this special and this board i know mrs ward is not here and i appreciate everything that you have done for our school okay she went to the restaurant maybe okay thank you um and a number of a certified classified resignation for approval this evening item c includes employment appointment employment personnel items d through i inclusive there's a number of change of assignments one of the things i'll just point out is uh one of the great things is when you see changes assignments what it's telling you is that when there are vacancies there are opportunities to fill from within and i really love the fact that we can give our educators

072or professionals whether classified or certified opportunities to do something different explore within the organization and grow within the organization so pretty exciting stuff item e we have 12 appointments uh for board approval this evening and mr credibles again um mentioned tiffany brennan who's still in the back and uh and matt ferretia matt was actually under the change of assignment he's already been in the organization but we're certainly very excited for the two of them to be joining our building level leadership teams bringing some significant expertise to our teachers which is awesome and support kids and families uh let's see here item g number of special services appointments at that time we've got a lot of folks working um course of study summer work it really never stops we also have a ton of athletic we

073have 11 pages of um of appointments for coaches advisors in item h so a lot of great people were coming into the organization continuing to work in various capacities with our kids and keep flipping because there's awesome people working with our kids and the last piece that i would mention skipping over we do have a volunteers just kind of per usual we kind of get all the folks approved in the summer for the upcoming school year um excited to say we have 187 substitutes for your approval this evening and that's across all categories so i'm an assistant teachers and other substitute personnel but i will point out that we only have two nurse subs so if anybody knows of nurses that want to sub in our school district have them email me and i'd love

074to meet with them great people coming in doing and doing great work last night would be a few revised job descriptions um as usual when we're hiring it's a great time they tend to revisit those and then items m is our salary schedule for our substitute rates for classified and certified staff since the regular meaning of the board last month our staffing fee is 800.23 as per the british and the superintendent thank you 10.0 teaching and learning curriculum good evening shane and i would like to present with you um the student parent handbook for the 22-23 school year we wish i guess shane brought the ranch dressing to head on to would be a good thing mr problems congratulations making it to your last working appreciate everything you've done for us as a team that's

075sitting over there and uh personally for myself on to the handbook uh preschool through sixth grade many of the changes that were in here were in the board update we gave you a kind of a highlighted copy of the changes and then a clean copy which is in the board agenda tonight many of the things in the elementary side of things we took out from kind of a high school lens such as hall passes in the elementary athletic directors athletic awards those types of things so we just made it a little bit more elementary more than i think so presenting with you the preschool through sixth grade handbook and similarly not too many changes for the 7 through 12 handbook again they they're highlighted some grammatical double-checking updating of names and titles and some phone

076numbers a couple things that were cut were the previous graduation requirements now that we have the class of 2023 requirements we don't need the old ones in there there's a couple other things that were a little bit redundant we wanted to update excused absences for anyone to make sure it aligned with board policy essentially that was it so with that the superintendent recommends this board to approve the grades pk through six and grade seven through twelve student parent handbooks for the 22-23 school year as shown in the attachments thank you 11.9 technology good evening for technology tonight we have united item 11.1 hamilton clermont cooperative contract which runs from july 1 2022 to june 30th 2023 this is the annual contract that we have with htc which provides software and network services for the school

077district any questions the superintendent recommends the waterproof annual contract for serving the clermont cooperative in the period july 1 2022 to june 30th 2023 and shown in the taxpayers thank you thank you 12.00 the treasurer's report begins with um the temporary appropriations for our upcoming fiscal year 23 there are only eight days left in our current fiscal year and i will tell you the treasurer's office is scoring like none other it's year-end and we also are implementing new software beginning july 1 due to the obstacles in the comfortable software so it's been quite a busy time in the charter's office this past month and the next day they promised to be quite the busy time too but anyhow i say that because we start this is how we start our new year we start out

078with temporary appropriations as per the ohio vice coach that's to get us through the summer while we finish our staffing and our planning for the upcoming school year the ohio revised code requires that permanent appropriations be in place by september so we will be bringing in full years of appropriation to you to approve at the september meeting right now february appropriations are set at 30 of uh current year appropriations just to get us through the summer agenda item 12.2 a presents the list of donors over the last month is to give a total of over 66 000 i continue to be amazed by the wonderful dinners we have in this district to support our program tomorrow agenda item 12.2 b is the statement of board accounts which would have been all funds activity over the

079last 11 months agenda items represents general fund our five-year forecast fund for the month of the fiscal year state ended may 31st may with the low cash flow month as we expected and the district continues to be on track to meet our five-year forecast annual revenue projection at the end of the month we're in so eight more days and we're right on track to make our five-year forecast numbers items d and e present the expenditures in the general fund and again we are also right on track with those expenditures with 92 percent of our fiscal year complete at the end of may we've spent 89.2 of our appropriations with another 3.6 committed for future expenditures agenda items fng you see the may 31st bank reconciliations and investments agenda item i is the annual request we

080bring this once a year and that's for the board of approval to set our travel mileage for the upcoming school year it is typically set at the current irs rate that current rate is 62.5 per mile if approved this rate becomes effective july 1 2022. item j is a request to approve the board service fund expense allocations for fiscal year 23 again request that um bring to you for the upcoming school year that said i respectfully request that the board approve the treasurer's agenda items 12.1 through 12.2 as part of the completed i'll make a motion to approve the action items what is it eight one three two eight point three to eleven point two is presented or twelve point two is presented okay this is janice yes this is stewart yeah mr bib yes

081dr res nissan yes this is hot spell and moving on to 13.0 board discussion 13.1 [Music] um just based on the public comments i'll start with the resolution that was that is going to be presented this evening it's working okay so first of all as a many in the community have reached out and explained that the agenda was posted yesterday morning and i reviewed it then and then later that afternoon it was changed to include the resolution um just some background i initially thought that or i you know presumed that the board president added it i asked who offered it and mrs hospital told me an email that mrs jonas was the originator she did not necessarily use the word author i have asked for that document not the pdf the actual document to identify

082who authored it i think that's a pretty simple request i have some major concerns about this and i am prepared to go line by line um that's going to be a lot of time i know here are some big things last month the indiana star along with the today show new york times and yahoo news and everyone else under the sun reported that the college board advanced placement program said it will remove ap designation for the from courses when required topics are banned that included controversial topics because i'm a college educator we discuss items that require critical thinking it is not my job to tell a student how to think it is my job to help prepare them to think critically so that they can formulate their own positions and arguments for that matter and

083i firmly believe that every teacher in this district does that i do not believe what they're being accused of essentially but we are now if this resolution passes floor sales will be at risk for losing the ability to offer ap courses the college board was contacted today they understand that this policy is resolution um is up for discussions and they said it will have to be examined and that means potentially removed so this district this district of excellence and education and what is this one gentleman often comes and says anderson college or anderson university you know the ap classes are gone so i would love to know one like what my board colleagues plan to do when we lose ap distinction over this policy um because that is a fact that is not an opinion

084the resolution also refers to and i quote well actually i'll just re read the excerpt whereas critical race theory anti-racism and all related euphemistic surrogates should similarly not be advocated in any form and fh fhsd is curricular or staff training now ms journalist ms hospital said this originated from you can you define euphemism for the audience so that they are very clear on what the language that this district wants to pass is what do you how do you define a union sure leslie um so to back up a little bit i i am the one who offered it when it comes to the controversial issues policy it should be noted that that has been a board policy since 2009 and what that policy says is and and everybody's um i think you know just not

085taking this part into account where it yes it does itemize what the three definitions of controversial issues are but it also says that these issues may be a part of instructional programming when there is a balance and all sides of the issue are discussed so when you say the ap classes could be gone because of this because we're banning discussions there is no banning it's just noting the controversial issues policy and all we want to do or the reason why i authored this is just to make sure that both sides are always being taught to the students [Laughter] when we're talking about anti-racism i know when you look up the definition of it it says you know when you oppose racism well i'm folks i i we really want to have an open discussion but

086there is no way to have an open discussion with all the chit or chatter and the laughing and we're trying to talk i heard what everybody said earlier about the lack of communication i totally agree with everybody we can do a much better job communicating i mean it isn't funny we are we're brand new it's like drinking from a fire hose we are trying our best that we can and it is hard when everybody is just laughing at us it's it's very disrespectful so back to what i was saying about the anti-racism i understand how people could maybe misread it but where i was coming from was the kindy's book the how to be an anti-racist it specifically states that concepts of anti-racism racism are to re-energize and reshape the conversation about racial justice in

087america and where i was going with that was i anti-racism it's being defined as activism we need to be treating everybody as an individual and not lifting some up based on their percep percepted perception of power and pushing other people down based on their power we're not labeling people we need to be celebrating everybody and i included the anti-racism in there because i don't want us to be taking on activists positions and again when you get to that part of it it's all i was trying to say was crt and anti-racism and then when it comes to the care program so i i had stuff prepared and i'm a little jumbled now so just to start basically with this resolution during the april april regular board meeting mr prebles asked us that the board needs

088to give him an administration direction on vision on the vision i realized again there is a lack of communication so i took it upon myself to prepare this and bring it to the board so we could discuss in my opinion something like this is what we all ran on and this will set the tone for the new super and how we would like to move forward and that's where i was going with this i mean i think it's like i said it's obvious to say that four of us were elected based on the platform of no crt and while the district declares there is no crt i agree there is no crt 101 class here but the concern was again the care team its association with its consultants the professional development training on control cultural

089responsive teaching using the books such as white fragility and utilizing this dbie model now it's safe to say that we can agree to disagree on what we actually think of the care team how it started and what it evolved into but to fast forward to you know our first meeting as a board in 2021 the super said the care team had ended and we took him for his word and the care team ended but what happened the months into us being in office certain incidents occurred which i think warranted this resolution so i just want everybody to know i'm here to support the success of all of the students again i think we all support our students but we maybe have a different way of getting there so i just want the community to know

090that we value students and staff and no matter the individual and really that's where i was going with that i'm sorry did i no because i asked you to define the euphemism you use that word so for the community so they're clear on what exactly you're voting if you wrote this and wrote you other other related other related euphemistic surrogates define euphemisms i know it off top of my head i mean you know it's if you put that in there it would be the other other related topics to opposing racism i mean leslie i'm not sure you know i i hate playing this back and forth game with you all the time and i guess it's not bad i mean if you're you have a problem with an email too and you wrote to me

091saying how last minute and how you maybe felt left out about all this you have created a hostile environment up here in the board [Music] i sarah our first interaction that we had after being elected and you set me up on a cbs interview no i did not yes you did how dare you make such an inflammatory [Music] at our very first board meeting where we all met as professionals as brand new board members within the first five minutes of being there you threatened us and telling us you haven't decided if you're going to sue us yet and then we have our meeting and as we're walking out you make sure to mention the same thing i that you haven't decided if you're going to sue us yet and i told you i wanted to

092be able to work with you i want to be able to respect each other to talk to work together to do the best thing for this district but you have made it impossible to do that i mean it's difficult communicating with you we all can communicate together but for some reason it it's it's hard to communicate with you if you don't agree with something somebody says you've got the media there um you don't come to special meetings you don't participate a lot my brother was in the er after he was found unresponsive and you know that he was about to die okay and that's why i was not at that special meeting shame on you leslie it's more than the special meeting i mean i could go i i there's this is about discussions and

093this is about respect and i'm still not done yet um the frivolous lawsuit that you that you are the complaint that you filed with our board that's not privileged against justice a bunch of money yeah and again to protect people against racism respect again you lead confidential information to facebook how dare you wow this is all recorded right because this is going straight to the state of ohio how dare you make such accusations sarah well i have an email specifically from the past board when they were too scared to talk to you everyone had to have conversations verbally with you so you can say all day that it's the four of us but to be honest i thought you as the most senior board member could help lead us and you have done everything you

094can to work against us to sabotage us and that's where we are right now thank you sarah for uh creating such a warm and fuzzy environment counter to uh what you claim okay again i'm just trying my hardest to be able to be respectful and get along with you so let me talk a little bit about respect it wasn't like i am not done and i'm not done yet though because then you brought up also my email about the outdoor spaces so i wanted to be completely clear to everyone public record i i know but you didn't read at all so when it came to the outdoor spaces again new board members drinking from a fire hose the policy manual is huge so i apologize for not memorizing and knowing every single one of them

095but at the april 20th board meeting i think it was bob had brought up the exploring redistricting and consolidating turn to turn to scott and said could we create some kind of committee to begin this discussions of this nothing has happened nothing is decided on and we bring it to okay april 20th meeting let me back up again too when it came to the meeting of us meeting two on two with an outside member about their past dealings with redistricting and consolidating there there wasn't a we're going to do one high school and we're going to get rid of two elementary schools no one has ever said that all they were doing is presenting the past information to us and just sharing with us educating us that's all we were doing so based on that

096conversation bob brought that up in the april meeting asked scott to do a committee now we again nothing has happened but when we got in our board information update all of the information about the outdoor spaces for schools again i support all of this for the students i want this for the students all i want i i don't want this to come back on us and say hey why did you guys let us build all these outdoor spaces shouldn't you have told us that we were considering or exploring this consolidation i mean i went ahead and called the force hills council president just to talk to her about this and specifically that code policy 7230 says any of these donations or gifts or anything need to come to the board for approval that's all that

097i was saying and then again communication leslie i am there with you we could do a really good job or we could do a better job of it and i would ask leslie [Music] could you help us with communicating i mean that is your forte i mean could you again i met with josh and i asked you know we talked about communication and again we should be talking here in the board meetings but again not everybody can come to these board meetings not everybody has the time to watch them so proposing to the board how would you guys feel about after the board meeting having a memo update and putting it on the news part of our website so the community can know what's going on and can update them i am all for being

098transparent but i think again we're brand new drinking from firefighters i don't think we know what's right or wrong so that's all i wanted to say katie have you felt like you've been communicating with regularly were you aware that the resolution was even a thing i found out that it was on the board agenda um [Applause] i do not personally feel like i am communicated with effectively i personally would like to see us talking to each other after committee meetings and letting each other know what's going on at each meeting like i have no idea what's going on for policy committee meetings or um facility meetings like i i think that somebody should be calling the head of that committee should call every board member and let them know exactly what was discussed i cannot

099read that every single one of those meetings i shouldn't have said that and so i think that part of us working together and being part of a team is say after the teaching and learning committee meeting either i call everybody or we split it up or however we want to do that i truly believe that we need to have those conversations i would like to hear from linda more often after the uh meetings with the legislat to hear what is going on so so internal communication right processes so i'm the most senior one and you would like my help sarah here's you here's a bit of information professional communication there it wasn't not it wasn't long ago when we had a board member up here who did not feel like she had the support from

100the other members of the board but that board member always got a call she always knew what was happening and we talked through issues that would be up for whether a motion a resolution whatever that is simply the board president taking the lead to say to call every board member and say hey this res so-and-so wants to put forth a motion a resolution whatever here's the background that way you are not taken off taken taken by surprise first of all um especially when it's you know in the 11th hour um so that's you know you're drinking by the fire hose i mean that at some point we have to get past that and accepts the responsibility so mrs jonas i'm not going to even really acknowledge the the uh onslaught of any illegal accusations you

101just made against me because we can let the courts decide that but yes we can i have every legal right to defend myself so you know and so do they for that matter the point is accountability and honesty you don't you get to just demand that and or respect when you don't ever give that respect either it's it's actually mind-blowing honestly but i again it warrants literally no energy because it's that absurd now back to this resolution um nearly every fortune 500 company has a diversity program my university has an entire office devoted to diversity equity and inclusion the state of ohio requires that we provide an equitable education to everyone it does not say equal it says equitable for a very specific reason that means little bobby is struggling in math guess what he

102needs math intervention we can provide that to him little jodie is excelling in match so we can make sure that she has advanced math and is not being held back but the way that this resolution is written is so sloppy and vague that it leaves the door open for all of these things to be questioned and now you know essentially we will wind up in court we 100 will wind up in court now what we are what we're saying is literally the death of expertise that's what happened bob what do you do you you give loans out katie you work at a fitness place a fitness place that just the ymca where i see from the community all the time that just had a month-long anti-racist campaign so is the why indoctrinating our kids better

103not send them to the pool this summer or t-ball um linda i'm not sure what you i believe is administrative assistant that's why you told me i went on katie or you're talking about katie you're an auditor sarah is that correct something is financed right i need an education so when i so what i did so so basically i made that show that this is a construct that is taught in law school and in graduate level programs i'm the only one up here that has actually reached that level of education and has ha and has has had education on it i still would not count myself an expert just because it was simply one item of many that was discussed in a class so instead i go to experts not edweek.org i go to actual

104sources to verify information and get assessments now i do share this resolution with a dean at a law school in a different state who just happens to be a colleague and he had he said this it's constitutionally void for vagueness any aclu summer intern would know that um that's a direct quote so when we ignore experts and purport to be experts this is what happens we end up with an oxymoronic resolution like this it's an oxymoron to call this kind when it is actually filled with very specific hate and a desire to ignore anyone who isn't a straight white person could you point out where excuse me i'm still talking it is a classic example of what academics and journalists refer to as political gas lining in fact if anybody would like feel free to

105shoot me an email and i'll send you the link to the handbook created um by this organization to actually develop policies like this and and and create this political astral turf attack around critical race theory because it's there's literal handbook and it's been shared across the country to convince them that this is a problem um so i asked my the dean of law school explained the vagueness in that part to me and he said well you could make an argument that kids with special needs can't be treated differently and that would mean no accommodations for you and that's an ada violation he said students that i already said this right students that need interventions for learning can't be treated differently thus they can't receive that help students identified as gifted should not be given curriculum

106to meet their needs because it would it would be treating them differently other random topics he threw out were how the universe was formed slavery theories in science or math the thin blue line on the american flag even the pledge of allegiance could be an issue because it includes the word god so it's so vague that it is now open to interpretation by whomever wishes to file a complaint so all flags should be gone from schools i i have a feeling people would be upset about that but the problem is it's so big and i'm going to go back to this point that i'm trying to make here of when you are not well versed in this sort of thing we wind up with situations like this where no matter what you say we are

107we will be up front with the college board that that's a fact and all of these other things are now open this is not simply and it's purposeful because in that handbook that i'm telling you about that again anybody can email me i'll send the link it talks about why it has to be intentionally made they want it intentionally made um but when it's enforced it's so vague so anyone anything is is open for being controversial um that that includes you know the things that i've already listed so i just don't understand why this is even a thing for and you can even boil it down to a really simple reason one we have 22 policies on the books dedicated to treating people properly to respect to harassment to whatever mrs jonas openly just said

108she doesn't think it's a big deal that mrs hoffeld named called people as charlatans if they're against racism i'm sorry i do have a problem with that i do think it's valid and i do think it is worth exploration because that is not studying a culture of kindness in our district it is instead saying a charlatan again here here i go nerdy professor with the definitions is a fake and a fraud and all sorts of negative things if you are against racism that is a big deal to me that does not set a climate of kindness in our district it sets up anyone who experiences racism and things like that when the kid at nagel down the hall is called the n-word or it's written on their locker which has happened or the kid that's

109jewish gets gets attacked because the sheer fact that they celebrate hanukkah and not christmas or that they don't celebrate a religious holiday at all is attacked and that happens that happens in this building now all of that stuff is open and that hurts people that are victimized kids that are victimized so this resolution to say that this policy has been in existence since 2009 it has but has never been added with all of this extra content these two pages of very specific content that are nearly cookie cutter to resolutions in texas oklahoma california you name it but again because it comes from the same handbook which i'm happy to share all of these resources with anybody who would like them um mrs jonas admitted this is political counseling diversity day was political when did i

110say that excuse me i'm still talking you did not let me rebut when you were talking so mrs jonas said when we four ran we ran on the platform of no crt so that's what this is so it is political and you know what doesn't matter this what matters is that kid and that kid and all of these kids that get up here and tell you you are failing us bob do you care then acknowledge them and everybody acknowledge them take this paper home with everything that they said and read it and let it speak to your heart because this is a game i don't want that back and forth this is a stupid game that we are playing here and it is dangerous and it hurts our kids period it doesn't matter this this

111is so silly we have teacher negotiations coming up next year we have ran off one of the best superintendents in the state no matter what he says you are and we have run him off we lost damn near half our administrator timon nagel and summit we lost the prince we've lost so many people it is time to draw the line in the sand and say let's just stop it is about the kids [Music] [Applause] [Music] in our community sent me a message today she i believe she's married to a white man and they have interracial children and she wrote me this long heartfelt message that gave me chills and i didn't have time to write back so it was five o'clock and it's also my daughter's 9th birthday today here i am and she said

112in her email or in her message to me that she'd been reflecting on this resolution and what that means for her and her kids and then she thought but now i want to think about what that means for you because you're actually in it and i thought you know what wow empathy that's empathy and you know what it doesn't even matter about me it matters about her and her family and her kids and that they feel welcome here anderson township new town it's changed it has it's not the same place it was 10 years ago or 20 years ago and you know what that's okay that is okay i don't i don't know how i do know how we got here because i'm working on a research paper about it i'm following the trail which

113is how i have the handbook that i keep mentioning it is this this deflates and diminishes them and it should say something if you say you care about then you care about what those students say then tell them right now what you're gonna do you're gonna turn around in five minutes and vote to pass this to pass this motion if you sit here and say that you care about everything those kids said their parents and then you turn around it's an oxymoron just like the title of this resolution and if you're not sure what an oxymoron is i think i already defined it you can't say you're kind when you turn around and say don't ever don't i don't want to know anything about you i don't know anything about you and you cannot tell

114me that you're kind when you say you're against racism you're a charlatan and you cannot tell me that you're kind if you say that oh you're just wasting resources and and it's frivolous because you have filed a complaint from one of the 22 policies that already exists policy 1662 that says you cannot say racist things on the job if we don't all agree that we can't do that then we got a problem we got a problem so this is tantamount to a gag order on top of everything else on top of everything else and you know what that means first amendment rights we don't have to guess this community does not have to guess what will happen because we have seen it play out all over the country and when things like this pass just

115like my friend at the law school who i went to said you're going to wind up in court with first amendment right violations because little bobby king and i'm so sorry i keep saying bob and bobby's just that not necessarily you but just the name um comes to class and says yeah my my dad's took me to the park today nope nope nope that's a violation and it is this is so vague so big that that makes it that even that is possible to be an issue to be a complaint to be a court case and and people have every right to defend themselves legally they do and they will and we will be in trouble and and frankly like shame on you if if you say we're going to be kind and vote for

116something like this that is a slap in the face to every single kid that's to every single kid that has emailed to every single parent teacher administrator that have been brave enough to speak out against this because they know they don't they're not doing this they know it i believe them [Applause] um i would like to make a clarification on the claim that leslie has made against me and i will read the claim right now i'm filing a formal complaint against board of education president linda hospital for violation of the anti-harassment policy specifically under the following sections national origin ancestry harassment race color harassment and bullying during a special meeting of the board i may first lend a house belt stated that describe those against racism or anti-racist as charlatans i am a hispanic woman

117and colleague who was exposed to her rhetoric while on the job after the meeting i reflected and occurred of what occurred and had to process the pain and public humiliation i experienced because of her targeted words hospital name called me and others who are against racism a charlatan is generally defined as a fraud during the meeting hospital also made other comments that included describing educators who are against racism as academic elitists hospital is well aware that i'm an educator and academic at a local university her targeted comments hindered me from performing my board of education duties by creating an environment with hateful rhetoric aimed at people of color who stand against racism and who are educators her behavior is not spirited debate between board members it was racially offensive and used name calling i request

118an independent compliance officer be assigned and that immediate attention be taken to protect myself and others from racism while on the job and in the presence of hospitals i believe her actions are like violation of foreign policy and have created a hostile and offensive work environment her targeted words were intentional and designed to inflict harm intimidation and humiliation based on my characteristics as a hispanic woman who stands firmly against racism in my career as an age educator i did not make those direct statements towards you leslie i was reading comments from the community through emails so those were not direct comments that at you towards you or against you there's an investigation that is going on right now so i don't necessarily think you doing saying this or me saying how i felt is actually

119appropriate right now until that case is settled um that doesn't this is public information and we're having a public discussion and a board setting i'll never try and so yeah i remember allowed to i wrote that and i haven't denied any of that in fact i'm the one that has been open about that okay because that is whether no matter what you say linda first of all the independent investigator is going to do that so i want to be careful what either one of us says as not to obstruct that situation now it is my understanding that when these things happen the result and everything else is made public after and that the rest of us we're not supposed to be necessarily discussing it now that's a question for the hr person so again i

120want to be careful with this back and forth the ultimate point is that i was exposed to name calling and i was exposed specifically to name calling because i am an anti-racist thank you for that clarification [Applause] shall we move to um actually hang on a second um katie did you want to discuss the levy situation so that we could clear that up just something we had just done i do i think we need to at least make a decision one way or the other as far as this year goes and i know we get a lot of emails about that and i think that's something that needs to be discussed openly i personally and i've said this to two people you included i i think it's fiscally responsible to wait until next year to

121do it um a levy this year will last longer it would be a smaller amount um i mean i i know there's a lot of financial hardship in the community um i would if we're going to have a levy one way or the other i'd rather pay less this year the next year there would be more um i know that's a burden for a lot of people in the community but i think ultimately they would make that choice when they vote so i think that's up to them um i know we've made cuts but i don't think it's possible to make enough cuts to to prolong a levy um i know you and i were in the meeting together with the consolidation i'm open to exploring that but this time to do anything with that

122is it would take longer and that's even if it seems like the right move because it may not make financial sense now things are a lot different now than you were 10 years ago as far as building costs and that kind of stuff so um i personally think we need to move forward to decide are we putting a levy up this year well elena did a really good job last meeting doing a presentation about the levy do you have do you like highlights that you can give about the levy that you presented yeah actually um microphone we also collected excuse me all right um we also collected a little bit more bottom line is that in terms of our five-year forecast we ended up in fiscal year 24 we are now projecting a uh june

12330 balance of six million dollars instead of two now six million dollars is still three million short of what the board's cash collection policy would be so while our position has improved the things that katie's talking about is still true the sooner you go for a levy and this is true at any time the sooner you go for a levy um so the less that that's going to have to be but deciding which levy you're going to go for depends on a lot of things it depends on what how how much cuts you plan to make excuse me reductions if any um you plan to implement so i think that a lot of it comes into play it's what katie says is true but sarah says it's true we have ended up in a better

124situation also i forgot a very important thing as part of that situation that improves the financial projections under the leadership of mr fellows we have identified 420 000 um in reductions that was put into the forecast beginning next year so that was fun sorry rob that that effort was one of the things that actually increased that month so we got more for our state funding correct we did we got about um half million more for our state funding so all those things told while it improved the picture and certainly impacts the levy amount unfortunately with the funding system the way it is in ohio and with no inflationary increases and as everyone has seen as we've talked about in the paper we're looking at inflationary amounting to eight percent um that would be we're going

125to probably have to look at a combination of reductions saying that the sooner you go the sooner you collect it i mean it's just comments the sooner you go the sooner you collect the lower amount you don't want i think i would rather go for a lower amount than wait another year and go for what could potentially be a significantly more amount or a higher amount and you know before my property values change i expect those to go up with the housing market the way it is so you know not only would i be paying more as far as it being a higher levy i could potentially be paying more because my house is now worth more like you can make we can still make cuts and i know we've been doing plenty of stuff

126with like efficiencies and doing the best we can but what gas prices went up so much that uh a lot of those efficiencies went up the window with how much we could pay for gas to run the buses um even with what you just said having more what in two years that didn't change the fact that we still need 11. and i i just i personally feel like it's physically irresponsible to wait and it's an injustice to the community because they will have to pay more so i would like to see one go on in november and then the taxpayers can decide if that's what they want to do or not alana does this require a motion to get a record a vote on record well um to actually put a lobby on the ballot

127um there are two uh motions by statues that need to be taken the first one needs to be taken by the 29th of july and that is a resolution that simply goes to the county auditor it's a resolution of necessity we're telling them of the need for a levy they look at our calculations of knowledge versus property evaluation and essentially certify how much a certain millage will generate we get that back from them that goes into a resolution to proceeds which needs to be delivered to the board of elections by august 10th should we wish to be on the november ballot so i think that we've done quite a we've had quite a few uh projections that are now um two to three months old what i think i would like to do is rerun

128those um with the ending your balance as i said we have eight days coming up and working feverishly in the treasurer's office to get to that ending balance at the end of this year so i'd like to update all those projections for a very unreasonable 7.7 so so i want to make it clear i just like to give up not not suggesting that in any way shape or form but we just want to take a look at those and we also take a look at the culture of homeowners we want to be very judicious in our fiscal stewardship unfortunately places like forest hills the state considers wealthy and they depend they expect our folks to shoulder a large burden of the cost to educate a child the state only puts forth about 33 percent of

129the cost educated child here in um forest hills the average around the state is 44. so unfortunately we know that our residents pay a lot of property taxes to the state but also go into areas that aren't as confluent as our area and it is i i hear rsms say that enough we want to help but how much is is too much and it's just hitting that sweet spot between what we need and what we can generate and continue to operate the school district that our residents have come to expect we have a jewel here in the township with that the education is top-notch here um we want to be also keep that affordable so we need to look at some different scenarios between what's affordable what's allowed us to continue um to provide the

130quality education are the numbers that different from what we need yes we can move forward with anything on this today though well we can um take a look at the old projections yeah the old projections are not material you know those accounts we like things to do but no good point just i mean as opposed to waiting to the very last minute why not see if we can get anywhere tonight it won't be that different do they they will not the last levy that we put on we promised our community that we would make the three-year commitment we knew at that particular point in time coming off the bomb and the moneys that were spent there that it was a levy that was not a long-term situation but one that was going to be getting

131us through a short period of time which was just for years and the commitment was to look for report here and obviously that can happen based on what i have looked at i won't be here for the further discussion on this but i think this is an unbelievably phenomenal school history and in six years i have spent a tremendous amount of time working with people like rob mike and others reducing budgets eliminating costs refining and doing many other things to try to be as fiscally responsible as possible in my now 17 years as superintendent funding model in the state of ohio does not offer opportunity for school districts to not pass levees it is an impossibility [Applause] now having said that the concept of pushing things off and utilizing dollars in ways that you stretch

132the buzzing budget so that over time pools go unfixed buses go unpurchased fences don't get repaired and other essential items necessary to educate kids or continue to be pushed off and some would say you can do a unit cost just decide what it costs to educate a student i have two sons we do not spend the same amount of money on those two sides and neither does anyone in this room who has children there is no unit price to educate a student they are only going up inflationary costs budgets so i don't want to be on a negative note this is a positive school district and i love this literature we need to be careful about kicking a hand down a road that will cost us an enormous amount to recover if we're not careful

133and i didn't say that i don't like consolidation i didn't say that here so i don't want to be misinterpreted that's what businesses do they find ways to consolidate they find ways to reduce costs they find ways to stretch the dollar they find ways to do what they do in the best ways possible at the least price but i have to remind you that kids do not all have the same cost and continuation of reduction of staff around them that serves them to pay electric bills and other bills is short-sighted typically we would bring the formal resolution of necessity i think that i know that the board has been given this i don't know if the board has some ideas of what knowledge they would want to look at and i can tell you what

134i would love to look at alana just an added thing whatever and maybe this is for rob too i don't know but any discussion about this you know also should include the fact that those teacher contracts are up next year um and how all of that factors in what that would look like and i think um the 4.9 would get us through to fiscal year 25. all right million um that scenario was run with a million dollars um that would be a logical thing that we would end up close to the 12.2 million at the end of 2025. and that is the scenario that addressed operating needs online which would not be a bad scenario that would give us some time to look at the efficiency of the district in terms of building configurations you

135know what they are set they are good and sometimes you come away with the conclusion you know what this is going to be good educationally this week and it's going to save us a little bit of money it's never nice it's never a bad idea to step back and take a look at what you're doing just to make sure that it's still valid and i think that this 4.9 levy would definitely give us and continues to see if there are more efficient configurations of the school district or more efficiently you rerun the reports and then and then could we talk about this at the july have this on the july meeting or i want to be able to i would have rather tried to move forward just waiting until that meeting is very close to

136the deadline and just we've seen these numbers over and over again can i i just don't know that they're that different you know i get like you guys are a number of people like the the broad scope of the numbers doesn't change enough for me to really meet can i make a suggestion i know that we haven't set it up yet but to tomorrow night um [Music] the last week of june um [Music] these numbers on the meeting that's not scheduled yet would that mean at that meeting we would have to take a vote on whether or not we agreed to develop that resolution i would bring uh the resolution um with the knowledge open and you could fill it in and it would be your choices so whether or not to proceed would be

137my recommendation you you can have as many meetings to talk about this levy as you would like the deadline is um until next week [Applause] i have a question about the resolution actually that was something i meant to mention earlier um and the bullet point list where it says now therefore be it as resolved or as follows if you want you know right there that first bullet point um it says schools may not use race socioeconomic class gender identity etcetera when the ministers administering blah blah evaluation programs again my problem is the vagueness and the door that this opens but and i'm i'm saying this with a educator head-on in higher education so if one of y'all over there can correct me if need be please do evaluation program sometimes we collect scores on tests

138and we separate them out whether it's by gender socioeconomic status race whatever to identify gaps and close those educational gaps sometimes that means providing interventions as i mentioned previously so my question is evaluation programs as stated in here so again we've got 22 policies that cover stuff like this but this specifically says that so in my mind i'm thinking can we not not do that anymore so we won't be able to identify those educational gaps um it's a pretty in fact in higher ed i just had a a very long retreat um where we looked at the way these types of things related to a biology program and they were able to close the educational gap once they identified them and show that through data which was kind of amazing i assume that also happens

139in k-12 education um but based on this would that put us out of compliance with the state or is that a local thing where we get to decide if we're going to try to identify gaps in educational um you know among students do y'all do either of you or any of y'all over there at those tables now is that a kid question from a hiring standpoint from an evaluation system standpoint you know we use the test neopez model for our teachers and our administrators which there's no discriminatory practices in that sense yeah no practices but currently with this resolution it says those evaluation things are not going to be used those things help us identify gaps so that's again what i'm saying this thing is very long and it's very vague and there are lots

140of holes like this i don't think anybody in here wants to not be able to identify gaps and learning among groups of students but that is a hole that is sticking out and it's a pretty i believe it's a pretty common um evaluation tool if you can't it's just interesting um but would it be noted that i know that it sounded like from the student feedback that they would like to see diversity day reinstated um at turpin high school and also added to the calendar for anderson high school so in the interest of being clear and open with our communication i would like to put forth a motion so that we are we are on record on how we feel about this in the district i would like to make a motion to ruin state

141diversity day at turpin high school for the 22 23 school year and offer it at anderson high school as well for the same school year or is this open to the students historically the student's planet um is student-led so there was a teacher involved the teacher helped i i don't know exactly what he does but it's student-led it's driven i i think it's very similar to any club where the students sort of decide what they would like to do and how to move forward and they have an adult available to help them essentially well the motion that was passed at the meeting it says zero resources so that means they can't even have it after school on campus um they can't have anything you can't even use student email that would be considered resourcing like

142i personally would be okay with being like an after school program and if they wanted to have an assembly of some kind to share that i think there are ways that you can still celebrate and and get to know each other and i know i've talked to a few students although i don't think i see any of them still hear about this um i believe the best way to get to know people that are different than you is to spend time with people that are different than you and that's that's rather than just race that applies to various religions socioeconomic backgrounds um and like the list goes on and on and on um i even told one of the kids we recently had a lebanese festival and i told him you should come to it

143you should come see you know what my personal background is like it's incredibly entertaining um but i i just was curious closely if it's just a black white issue at these or if it expands to get to know typically okay anderson still has a diversity club correct correct kyle's shaking his head why can't trevor call the diversity club um did you read the feedback from the students or hear those it's it's it's there's also culture and there's diversity those are different concepts related sure but it's not just about oh my grandma manuela makes some of this every christmas it's a little deeper than that i'm my motion is not about what you're saying i made a motion and it was seconded specifically to reinstate this student-led event so that specifically is what the motion it's

144not whether or not we're going to have a club or whatever but they could still have a club like they do at anderson and it could still be a way for them to expand their knowledge in this area i just want to make sure that what was voted on before does not prohibit that from happening in the future to be honest i'm afraid that this resolution will prohibit even a club now that i think about it um in the language um so that's also problematic because that then puts into play i mean every club i think even air has a club that's related to something similar so it's so obvious over their interpretation and whoever decides to um use it or interpret it and force it um can't so they can say so yeah maybe

145that's even a bigger point of discussion but it hasn't been voted on yet so the motion is on the table i'm trying to see if there is a way that we can allow where we can maybe sidestep what was done at the last meeting and say you know you can have a diversity club just like anderson does saying i i think you could get i think you could get a lot more done if you had a club that left regularly to really get to know people that are different than you than just one day i think that there could be a lot more done that way i understand what you're saying katie the motion though is not that so you have to vote no or yes on greenspace so we can discuss it i right

146and i see what you're saying i'm just saying like ultimately there's a motion and specifically this so i don't want to draw away from that because if we vote it's not going to be about club unless you put forth if this motion fails and you put forth you so that was my thought process and talking it out because i still think that i wish i wish some of those kids were still here that the best way to get to know someone and and to see other people so i understand that she's here she wasn't one of the ladies that you were but speaker's not here owen's not here no cj is my kid i know he's not here anymore support for her student playing his music i didn't mean it as in yeah he's just

147not physically here the the students that i talked to i know you were standing outside as well when i was talking to everyone um but my point still stands that even if even when you and i sat down and talked to each other outside at first it didn't go very well but i believe by the end of our discussion we were able to sit and talk civilly with one another and get to know each other and how we felt about stuff i i believe that leslie and i have been able to overcome some of that as well by sitting down and talking to one another i've talked to many of you in the audience and the same thing happens i you know i told people that i believe we agree on 90 of stuff and

148maybe that number is a little high but if you sit down and really talk to one another you agree on so much more and then we don't have this back and forth screaming and yelling and hour-long meeting because we can't have a conversation so i i don't necessarily disagree that having a diversity day is not a good thing there were questions in there that i talked to and emailed people that even my own background uh i was still getting upset about some of those questions and and very emotional so i don't know that some of that stuff is necessarily good for students who aren't as mature and able to handle some of those emotions i don't know that those are necessarily the best place even anonymously so i just have some concerns absolutely i understand

149your concerns it was often so like parent choice i know and to your to your bobs about can't you just have a club i would point to the cages of feedback from the students that say we want diversity day back it's not a club and that's why i put forth the motion specifically for this day so alana just to be clear and to help um help the others understand the process because there was emotion it was seconded more discussion can continue but there has to be a vote correct yes dr rasmussen does your promotions offer any opportunity for continued development today and activities related to it every year it's developed and and adjusted so i mean i believe that's built in it's it's it's like me changing my syllabus every semester because things change like

150the diversity day evolves each year and is developed so i sort of view that as just part of it part of the process of formulating a day i sure but two things i want to point out one a club of anything like this could be derailed in a few minutes with this resolution but two i'm going to go back not just to you but to i would challenge everyone on the board to say this is what the students want this is what they reported this is what they came up they said for the last two months what their parents did again opt in it is parent choice um and do we care about that do do you all care that this is what the students and their parents that had the opt-in choice are saying

151they want they want this they also pay tax dollars in this community and they are voters and they are clearly engaged in showing up and have been for months but that's a honest sincere question i think we should i i asked the question but i guess that's not good you can't ask it again i'm sorry you you addressed it you didn't answer can you restate your motion again leslie to reinstate diversity day at turpin high school and to also add it to the anderson high school calendar as well that's a great question i assume yes because that was reinstating it which for me means reinstating what they've done in the past and it has been often and i don't think there's anything wrong either with providing the content to the parents um and i made

152this point back in may the email complaints i couldn't find a single one from parents that had opted in um there were complaints so maybe i and i think it had a lot to do with the content and i think that what i would like to see is i would like to have the administrative team get with the principles because we have two high schools that should celebrate diversity i never ever once said i didn't like it or i didn't agree with it i just think that because of the content it became a controversial issue and it brought a lot of different opinions to the head and it needs to be kind of vetted through a little bit more and i would like to see the administrative team get together and propose something else that

153would be agreeable to everybody and for both high schools to participate in and if both high school students can get together that's even more diversity well we need to vote because the motion was second hit so is there any more discussion the last diversity that because of the material that was in it was because of why it was postponed or delayed or cancelled or whatever word you want to use the motion that was passed said diversity could not continue and it could not use taxpayer resources and so on i don't have a specific language but that was part of my problem was that these students can't even hold even if you don't want it during school hours they couldn't even hold it at school they couldn't couldn't even ask a teacher a question via email

154because that's a resource so you know i'm i don't even know how to respond because the motion did say all those things so what what you're you're saying is not necessarily aligned with emotion that you voted on i'd still like to see the administrative team with a new superintendent try to work this out yeah yes are we ready dr rasmussen no mrs hospital no i would like to make a motion to approve the resolution to create a culture of kindness and equal opportunity for all students and staff i'm sorry [Music] can i talk to you board members [Music] [Applause] did you you ran the motion through bill illegal he reviewed it yes i did where are we right now we're waiting for a second so now it's discussion time [Music] [Applause] [Music] is it possible

155to remove the anti-racism [Laughter] um [Applause] i would like to know why we just talked about how this is what students say this is what parents say every fortune 500 company out there doing this this is a global thing and i point blank asked do you care about what these kids had to say and why and yeah we're here i also want to know what happens to the naval middle school mural that's dedicated to representation because as soon as this is approved one person gets to say oh oh oh that's a controversial topic not only that this is a problem that society is in the process of debating there's more than one solution the issue might arouse strong emotion that is all in this resolution that's student artwork so maybe call bill and ask him

156what happens if we based on this resolution are forced to um cover up student art how that's covered under the first amendment i mean these are all this is the problem with this resolution it is the vagueness it is a vagueness and it is taking the position of being against racism and turning into some political thing when literally we should all be able to agree that you should not behave that way a student of color is a naval middle school and somebody writes the n word on his locker can he not discuss that can he not say that hurt and report that because that falls under here if i were the teacher taking that i might be concerned even hearing that that is literally the setup that is coming here and it is saying that

157you bob sarah katie that you don't care about what these students had to say what their parents had to say about what they need and what they want because this opens the door for that can you legally sure it doesn't mean there aren't it can't be there aren't loopholes to not even loophole some of it so obviously illegal or could be uh twisted that way and um and with and actually not even twisted but sound legal arguments um it's just freaking it's just it's heartbreaking because it it says you don't care to these people to these kids that are sitting here in the meeting the kids that are out there the kid who's the person of color that now dang can i tell my teacher that somebody called me the edward i don't know if

158i can or to the kid that might have two moms like it's a dangerous sloppy and slippery slope and characterizing being anti-racist as a bad thing frankly it's mind-blowing i don't know how people get hired at jobs when they say things like oh yeah being against racism is bad like no it just does not make sense the title itself is an oxymoron i will say that over and over there's a civil fallacy and it wouldn't pass in any college class it wouldn't leslie i'm sorry you feel that way but i just want to reiterate to everyone the controversial issues policy has been in the book since 2009 and what you are leaving out after those three pointers is these issues may be a part of instruction programming only when there is a balance to all

159sides so sarah this is what i'm talking about that means the holocaust there are holocaust deniers a black experiences racism it won't and might happen to have a story about that in a book well now we need a story that says no no you're racism you didn't experience racism don't don't tell me that that that's the slippery slope and if you don't understand that i'm sorry but but that's what i'm saying where it goes um when you say all that and i want to make one one very important point here this policy has been in existence since but it did not include all of these other very specific things that is the difference so do not get confused or blindsided or whatever by or tripped by the fact that that one policy has been on

160the book since 2009 it is the addition of all of these other things that make it problematic remote yes mr bibb yes dr rasmussen absolutely not mrs stewart [Applause] 24 hours you had that 24 hours [Music] wow you're letting every diver stand in this community no they are not welcome here that's what you're doing to the school district shame on you you're right let's move on to the reports to the board 14.11. [Applause] um districts and other public schools with schools to administer annual dyslexia screenings beginning 22-23 school year the update is that we're going to be having to spend some money obviously i think there's something 260 000 to fulfill this new 22-23 school year 14.2 policy committee report the policy committee meeting was held on may 23rd the administrative team worked with the

161neola rep on draft of nine policies of which you can find on board if you'd like to review those go to board docs and check them out this is for the first review [Applause] 14.3 human resources committee report [Applause] 13.4 forest hills foundation um foundation um stacy can't be with you today and we could really use her positivity tonight but i was asked to stand here um to share formal values that the forest hills foundation board has um i believe they were all are always part of our foundation's foundation that was supposed to be a joke for my kids to make them cringe um but we felt it was important to write them down and share them and i do believe these are values that we can all rally behind one we are student-centered the

162students are at the heart of what we do and we create we were created to be a resource for all students in all the schools and we want students to thrive and not just survive we are community driven we want to create a bridge between businesses community partners and funders so that teachers and staff have what they need all for the benefit of these students we believe in innovation we understand that education is fluid and ever-evolving and our goal is to offer funding to fuel the imaginative spark that will help forest hills stay at the top of the ranking in ohio and finally integrity those that came before me exhibited stewardship for our donors and transparencies in our financials our decisions and goals and we remain committed to that legacy so if these values align

163with your values then join us share your time talent and treasure i want to thank everybody who has made this such a successful year never doubt small contributions almost five thousand dollars is raised with just 20 million dollars to honor your student thank you for remembering us during the holiday season and welcome to the almost 2 000 new donors you are not alone you share similar values and you care about our students your generosity gives me hope for this community we do great things when we put kids first so two last things and then you guys can go one follow us let us be a raise sunshine and you're doomed scrolling on social media and uh get out your phones if they're not already and save the date for some fun events that will bring

164this community together thank you 15.0 executive involving the board and or school district school district that are subject to subject of pending or imminent there will be no further votes yes mrs stewart yeah dr rasmussen yeah mrs hospital yes [Music] thank you very much [Applause]