11/19/25 Board of Education

001Board of Education regular board meetings. [snorts] Miss Craropper may get a roll call, please. >> Mr. Bell >> here. >> Mrs. Jonas >> here. Dr. Simmons >> here. >> Dr. Strickler here. Mr. Bib >> here. All rise for the pledge of allegiance. To the flag of the stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> 1.4 safety briefing. There's an exit at the bottom of the stairs and one at the top where everybody came in. Think everybody's been here before. Should I get a motion to adopt the agenda? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Mr. Bell? >> Yes. >> Dr. Strickler? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Jonas? >> Yes. >> Dr. Simmons? >> Yes. >> Mr. Bib? >> Yes. >> Item three minutes. May I get a motion to approve 3.1 through

0023.6? >> Uh, yeah. Before we um vote on the minutes, I'd like to move to >> revert the minutes. >> Just can we have a second? >> Oh, yeah. >> Oh, I thought she Okay. >> Okay. Go ahead. Sorry, Dr. Simmons. Go ahead. >> Yeah. I had the uh October 15th minutes. There were revisions to the minutes that were sent out today, and I'd move to revert the minutes voted for to approval to the original minutes that were sent out. Is it October 23rd you're referring to? >> Thought it initially was October 23rd, but I think it was the October 15th minutes [snorts] with the uh future things presentation. >> So there are you talking about the email that I had sent to Elena? >> So there's three different adjustments on there. >> The ones

003for the 10:15 meeting was just to add about um the survival ratio. only 50% of kindergarten age children choose to attend Forest Hills. That was a key takeaway in our um presentation from Future Think. And then just the line that says that students are not leaving Forest Hills for public school, birth rates are lower. I think it's a combination of many variables. So >> yeah, >> that's what I was just it's it's I mean we've got two more kids on the transportation in L this month. So some kids are leaving for public school, >> Private school, I'm sorry. >> Yeah. To [clears throat] me, it seems like we're emitting important data there. Uh the central thesis of the declining enrollment that was given to us by Future Think was declining birth rates in the district

004statewide. Um and that was uh the presenter was asked directly if there was evidence to suggest students were leaving four private schools. The answer was no. So I think omitting that line uh is omitting important information that was part of the presentation. It was directly asked of the speaker. So I'm fine if we want to add >> I mean she said that it's a combination of many variables while they're leaving not just strictly because of birth rates being lower. >> Okay. Well, we can I move to uh revise the 10-15 minutes to add Sarah's uh edit about the survival ratios comment, but leave the initial comment that about uh birth rates being lower. >> I'm fine with leaving the comment about birth rates being lower. I object to the word choose in it. I mean,

00550% of children who are born end up in Forest Hills. Some of them may leave the district. Some of them may leave the state with their family with job moves and other some yes will choose other options for preschool and then may just choose to stay there through kindergarten. But I I think the word choose is a little strong when you're talking about a a zero month old. >> We don't we don't do exit we don't do exit interviews either so we can't >> 100% accurate. But the whole point of that part of it was the fifth to last slide on there. It was showing year after year that group of I think it was five was it was the 50% >> year after year after year. >> Yes. 50% are coming in based on

006birth rate. I mean we have no idea what happened between zero and five in terms of choice and children's outcomes. So um I I just I think we can say about 50% are coming in. Yes. To the second point, what we understood from the rest of that chart was 100% indicated students are staying if not growing and almost every number on here is between 99 and I'm looking at a high of 115. So she very much made the comment students in Forest Hills, families in Forest Hills are happy in Forest Hills and staying in Forest Hills these numbers that I don't clearly represent that. Okay. >> I don't deny that when they're here, they stay. But she made that comment that it was 50% choose kindergarten at Forest Hills and the other half go elsewhere.

007>> What's that? And that's that's the the point. It's that's not what she she said. 50 50% do >> attend Forest Hills. We don't know the reason why the other 50% don't because there's a lot of things that happen. You got people who are 35, 38, 39 years old. They're moving in out of the district, >> right? >> We don't know where they're going, >> right? Like I have no problem with the comment that 50% of based on survival ratios 50% of the kids go to Forest Hills. >> Yes. >> But there there's >> that's that's fine with me. >> There's a because that's the factual statement. We >> we as you as Bob said it's not like we did interviews of people to figure out like the 5-year-old like hey >> the 5-year-olds. >>

008I mean it'd be fun. >> Yeah. >> Legos. So then the the motion then would be to add the verbiage based on the survival ratios about 50% of >> just attend >> kindergarten age children attend Forest Hill schools >> and then we will >> uh keep the line students are not leaving Forest Hills for private schools birth rates are lower. I would put something in there about there's many variables or >> if you don't want to remove that, but >> it's not just because birth rates are declining. >> Any second on my motion? >> I would second. Yes. >> Okay. I want to make sure that I have the changes correct. So um on the first one uh where it says let's see let me go back to the 101 15 minutes >> where Mrs.

009Jonas would like to add based upon survival ratios only about 50% of kindergarten age children choose to attend Forest Hills. >> We'll say to they attend Forest Hills >> 50% about 50% attend Forest Hills >> attend Forest Hills. Are we still saying yeah based upon surviv survival ratios we're starting with that correct >> y and that underlined comment to remove we're leaving in is my motion >> okay so 10:15 leave that okay I would the only thing I would do I know and you made the motion Jason is on the underlying one I just say enrollment is declining a number of factors including lower birth rates. >> I'm fine with that. Yes, >> I'm fine with that, too. >> You got that, Elena? >> Yes. >> Enrollment is declining for a number of factors, [laughter]

010including birth. >> I'm a slow writer. >> Go back and watch the video. >> Yeah. >> See, Wendy, Atlanta doesn't take notes like I do during meetings. [laughter] >> I'm still impressed. >> Still impressed. All right. And the third item that uh on the 1023 minutes um >> Oh no, >> it was just um he was reading that version of it. That wasn't the original one. He was reading the proposal, the first proposal. That's all it was. >> Right. So it wasn't the Burrio was not currently in place. That was a proposed resolution to be more inclusive. >> Right. And just so everybody knows, it's just important for the minutes to reflect, you know, what actually happened and going back through and reviewing them and making changes if needed be. I think it's really important

011just for the record. >> That's fine. I agree. >> So, Dr. Simmons read aloud the Berea city resolution. >> Period. Period. >> Okay. >> I'm on board with that. >> Yep. >> All right. So to vote on whether the uh minutes can be amended with these changes. Um we have a motion by Dr. Simmons, a second by Dr. Strickler. So Dr. Simmons. >> Yes. >> Dr. Strickler. >> Yes. >> Mr. Bell. >> Sure. >> Mrs. Jonas. >> And it's not it's based on the changes that we all agreed to. >> Yes. >> Mr. Bib. >> Yes. Okay, that was a vote to make to [laughter] amend the minutes. Now we need to go back and vote to approve the minutes. >> So >> I'll make a motion to approve the new minutes as stated. >>

012Amended >> or as amended. I'll second. >> Mrs. Jonas, >> yes. >> Dr. Strickler, >> yes. >> Mr. Bell, >> yes. >> Dr. Simmons, >> yes. >> Mr. Bib, >> yes. >> All righty. >> Thank you for entertaining that, guys. Moving on. Yes. >> Uh, >> sorry. I know. Dang it. >> Item four. Item four, uh, reports of the board of education, Forest Hills teachers association. Mr. Preston. [snorts] >> Well, good evening to each of our board of education members. As our teachers are gearing up for the push to the end of the second quarter, I have three updates from the Forest Hills Teachers Association Association highlighting our most current work. First, elected FHTA delegates within our organization continue active involvement in both local and state association representative assemblies in November and December. These meetings

013are held both locally and statewide, usually on a Saturday. They focus on internal structures, voting on constitution and bylaws amendments, and listening to keynote speakers or guest discussion panels. These gatherings provide valuable opportunities for us to engage in conversations about policy, professional issues, and topics that impact our educators. Our delegates p part participation ensures that FHTA has both a strong voice in statewide discussions and remains connected to the work and advocacy happening across our region. Second, FHTA recently held its fall general assembly where members reviewed and ratified updates to our own local constitution and bylaws. The process began in December of 2024 and involved an internal audit to ensure legal compliance. We now are on a schedule for another round of the work in five years, notwithstanding a need to make amendments sooner. This reflects

014our commitment to fostering equitable support of our membership with integrity and transparency using consistent communication and a strong prek12 representation structure within our organization. Last, FHDA was pleased to attend and support the Denim and Diamonds event last weekend to benefit the Forest Stills Foundation for Education. The foundation's ongoing contributions to innovation, student experiences, and classroom support are deeply appreciated, and we value the partnership between the foundation and our Forest Hills educators. That concludes my report for November. Please, all of you, have a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday. >> Thank you. Thank you. You too. >> Up next, the For Sales Foundation for Education, Miss Hail. Good evening. Stacy Gillard could not be here tonight. Her sons are having their soccer awards night. So, my name is Mana Hail. I am the communications director for the

015Forest Hills Foundation. And this slide is perfect to show you that we had our, as Mr. Preston mentioned, our Denim and Diamonds event this past Saturday. The next slide will show you some more details. Um, many of you were at this event. We thank you for your support and your fantastic dance moves on the dance floor. Uh, over 300 people participated in various ways, either by attending, bidding on the more than 70 auction items, making donations, and or buying Bengals raffle tickets. Our total gross amount raised surpassed our goal. Over $147,000 were raised, surpassing our goal. [applause] We thank all of the volunteers without whom this enormous undertaking would not have been possible. I will not read every name, but they are listed there for you to appreciate as well. Thank you. This is all

016for the kids. And the next slide will tell you about something else where we are really proud of. Our rooted and in hope and strength fall campaign was also a great success. Over $14,000 were raised and they were matched by the Hayden family foundation for a total of over $28,000 raised. This campaign raised money for Nagel's after-school clubs, which are especially critical for students during this important transition time in their lives. They find hope, belonging, and connection by joining the 23 different clubs at Nagel. The foundation has been supporting Nagel afterchool clubs for nearly 15 years. This campaign also supported sources of strength which is at the secondary level mental health programming and we are so proud of the community not just for the denim denim and diamond support but also for supporting our fall

017campaign. Our next slide will talk about the $140,000 were just awarded in teacher grants, which I think you probably are aware of. Our next cycle of grants coming up in January are our studentled grants. These were formerly known as PTO community grants. We decided to rename them to make it a little more transparent as far as what our goal is, which is we want our students coming up with ideas, telling us what they need, coming up with brand new ideas none none of us thought of. We are hoping to award $25,000 in student grants. Um on this slide, you will see an example of a studentled grant which was five laptops for the Anderson newspaper. Um, these students have a newspaper called the Raptor Report. If you're not aware, I hope you make yourselves aware.

018It's a pretty fantastic publication and we are proud to support them. We also just awarded uh Lauren Olsen who is their teacher uh with some cameras. That was a teacher grant. The cameras are also for the Raptor Report students. Um, our final slide is just in the spirit of thanksgiving coming up. We leave you with this quote. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. This was written by Melody Bey. And I thank you. Good night. >> Thank you. >> Can I ask a question? Do we do any kind of community um district news sharing the grants like teacher grants or stuff like that that list out everything? >> Do we do that? >> I think there's usually posts on social media when when you guys are

019handing stuff out in classrooms, >> but is there like a district-wide news communication showing all the grants so parents are, you know, aware of all the teacher grants, student grants, everything like that. Is that something that in just in the spirit of transparency? >> Yeah. What we did this year, if I'm if I may. >> Yeah. Um, we provided each school principal with a list of the specific grants that that school was awarded, including, you know, those great photos with from the prize patrol. Those are shared via their platform. So, their principal newsletters. Okay. Um, we definitely want the specific communities that are benefiting from the grants knowing what's happening. This was something that we did this year specifically in the idea that we don't just say we got we gave away this much money

020for 39 grants and many of them were collaborative. We actually named them out. Um, and that was something. It's 39 grants. So, it's a lot. So, we thought maybe going specifically school to school was the way to go. And I did hear back from a number of principles including we also shared with the PTO's. >> Okay. >> They also send out newsletters and I heard back that and I saw from my own students uh newsletters that they were shared. >> Okay. >> Because I agree with you that we need to do more than just say numbers and vague. But I mean >> Mana at the beginning of sorry at the beginning of the year when the Forest Hills Foundation was at each open house we also had flyers specific to our elementary schools that showed

021exact I was there for Sherwood. I saw exactly how much Sherwood had gotten in grants and what the grants were. So they you also have flyers specific to Wendy building. We work really hard to create those impact flyers by school. Those are also available digitally. We have been doing a lot of targeted emails per school. This is a lot of work. These are nine different emails specific. This is not just general. We do general, but those specific emails will have links to those impact flyers, which absolutely itemize. >> So, I think those are all good. I think just maybe a district-wide piece on our schools website would be good for maybe external >> community members just to see what's going on. I think that might be >> I can share with Josh easily. >> Thank

022you so much. >> Next >> superintendent update. Mr. H. >> Thank you, Mr. May. Members of the board, go ahead and roll my slides. Okay. Obviously, um this is supposed to be a pretty big week up in Columbus. As a matter of fact, I'm heading back up tomorrow. I think I just got back, [laughter] right? Heading back up because of the legislaturator's trying to spend a lot of late nights before break. And I think they're trying to get on break this week. I think some things are in session and right now going on. The ones that we're watching, of course, right now is what's going to fall out with the um House Bill 129. Um that's basically dealing with districts um and certain type of levies that will now be calculated into the 20 mil

023floor. Basically sub substitutes and um emergency levies which prior were outside of the 20 mil floor. Um doesn't impact us as as as greatly because we're not on the 20 mil floor but 400 and some schools are. So, that's that's a lot out of 613, give or take. Um, House Bill 309, uh, another one allowing county budget commissions, uh, to reduce millage on certain voter approved tax levies that could impact us. Okay. um the one that this is kind of a standalone versus the one that went in through the um through the budget bill that was passed. Uh all of the and I think I'll talk about this in another slide, but all of the um school districts went down and testified before the county commissioners and we had several people there and and Atlanta

024spoke, I spoke. Uh Jason spoke. Um we had Natalie was there, she spoke, but other schools as well. Um I'm pleased to report that they passed on that. So at least for a year. [laughter] So >> passed meaning decided not to decided not to do anything. Yes. Yeah. Sorry, let me rephrase that. Yeah, they decided not to uh reduce it. So that was good. That was we're we're happy about that. uh 335 uh House Bill 335 is still there looming. Um and so that deals with uh capping the inside millage with inflationary growth. Okay, those are the short versions of those. Those are the ones that really have some level of impact to us. There was another one, but we're you know basically we're not on the 20 mil floor. So, uh it just cap

025caps inflation, you know, to some some point uh versus uh just uh re redoing it based on property values. So, uh as I said, we we also produced a joint statement uh that all the superintendents and treasurers um in Hamilton County signed. Again, just trying to make sure people understand we're not we're not against, you know, property tax reform. It just needs to be done in the right way. Okay? I don't think sometimes people in Columbus understand the trickle effect and who at all impacts. You're not just talking about schools, but you're talking about fire. You're talking about police. You're talking about retire retirees, senior citizens, you're talking about children with disabilities. Uh, you know, there's just a lot of pieces to this. Um, so we're just I think we just have to keep talking

026and making sure and try to educate as much as we can. uh people uh at in Columbus as well. Uh local control is still critical. You know, um what we're doing with tax incentives, etc. You know, the the bar has moved dramatically over the last decade or so in terms of where we get state support. You know, currently we're, you know, and change percent. I mean, we're we're we're getting down towards the bottom of the 50 states in terms of state support. The average is 45%. Across this country, so we're we're considerably below that. Um, so I think just an awareness, >> what' you say ours was in Ohio, >> we're around 33%.8 or and change if I'm not mistaken, if my memory serves me correct, but I know we over we're at 45 is

027the national average and we're cons we used to be right about there, >> but not anymore. We've just the the burden has shifted on property taxes to the homeowners away from uh businesses etc. And so, um, it's it's apparent. >> It becomes apparent then. Um, next slide. But that's real quick. This is going to be a busy week. I I'll have more um I hope I don't have a dep depressed drive back and then I'll try to update you as much as we can. uh on Friday uh 5year capital camp, you know, we just had a facilities technology committee meeting on November 6th. I'm not going to say a bunch about it because I know uh Mr. Be and Dr. Simmons were there. So, I'll let them kind of update you, but just so you

028know, we got some big things coming uh this this year. I think after we get past this this school year with our capital improvement plans, we'll be able to get more into preventative maintenance, which will not be nearly as as pricey. We've been fortunate that uh interest dollars have also helped support our PI fund [snorts] and we'll ride that horse as long as we can. Uh but we also realize that that may be going down. So, uh, but we certainly have the the high dollar figures in it. Um, and John may have more information on that as he goes through his presentation as well. Uh, air handlers unit at Turpin and replacing the turf and track there. Uh, effectively at the end of life in all practical purposes. So, uh, districts, um, we got air,

029um, air, we roof replacement. That's a total replacement. So, that's the I think that's the last full replacement, isn't it, John? >> Yeah, it should be our last full one that we'll always have to tweak and patch pieces and stuff, but I mean, as far as the whole uh, membrane, that's that's a big one, but so, we should be in a good spot. uh Nagel. Uh what's happened there is that is probably the most used natural grass field there is. And if you've walked on it, been around it, um we need to do something about that. So I just, you know, and we've been talking Tiff Tiff I know Tiffany will be in full agreement uh with it. So we've had some discussions. We've made sure that we kind of move things around. Um, and

030we we believe we can put all this in this year's updates. Um, that means the actually moving to an artificial turf. Uh, as well, you just got to remember you got at least you got four football teams in the fall on that. You got four lacrosse teams. you got 100 plus kids in track and field and they don't just stand on the track. >> Uh plus all of the other stuff and so what's happened is there's no growing season. So I mean there's just no growing season. So uh it just makes some sense for us to to do do that. And besides that it's going to help with fizzed and wellness programs there. You know, you're talking about 1,200 kids annually in the in that site, in that building. You know, that's the largest population

031that we have singularly in our district. So, it's a bunch. It's a bunch. >> Are we doing that for fall of 26? >> Try and do it next summer. >> Yes. John's going to talk about the the bid process. We try to we're working with Moes to, you know, give us a a little bit better deal because we're also doing doing turpins and so I think they're willing to work with us. Plus, they're in our backyard, >> you know, so uh we've got a good relationship with them and so he'll talk about state term pricing and stuff like that. So, um so that's where we are with with the five-year capital plan. He'll go into more specifics and if you have any questions. So, next slide. Uh, just ongoing strategic plan monitoring. Uh, priority one.

032Uh, and in particular, I just wanted I just threw out a couple of pieces trying to um, you know, students, we just got back one of one of the community surveys. Um, you know, in terms of how do you do you feel connected and welcome at school? and uh high percentage um almost 84%. Secondary is about 80 a little over 80%. Um always looking to try to get that higher. Um so just just a couple of little high high notes on that. Uh strategic plan uh 1.2 2 the percentage of students in the Excel program. Again, that's a lot of our that's that's growing uh quickly. I think it's almost doubled actually from 7.4% to 14% this year. So, it's gaining some quick legs, which is what we wanted to do. Um so, we're very

033excited about that. Um, and there'll be some more information coming out about uh outreaches that we're going to be doing during the calendar year. Okay. All the way through May. Um, and then 2.1 uh student performances on assessments. These are all of our kids, all of our assessment, you know, just in general. Uh, the performance index and percentages. you know, this is um um how our kids do on the third grade all the way through the EOCC's. And this is just an overall number, but we're at 84.8% uh proficient. And what that means is passing is proficient. Then there's accomplished. Then there's advanced and advanced plus. So all the kids that are in those ranges, if you're at basic or below, uh you're not in that percentage, doesn't mean we're not going to get you

034there. It just means we got to intervene and really help out those kids. So uh just a quick highlight on on strategic monitoring. Uh next slide, >> Larry, I appreciate the comparisons to prior years. Have we yet set kind of goals for what it is we want to see? Like when I look at 84%, is that good? Is that bad? if we took three previous years and looked at where we started in terms of where we want to go. I'm just trying to put that in a reference point. >> Yeah, we can. Um, and we'll have that. Yes. >> Great. >> Yes. Um, all right. What's my next one? There we go. Just PBIS recognitions. We just were uh notified announced in December. Sorry, wrong month. Um, all of our schools, 100% of our schools,

035which is exciting, were silver or gold. Uh, Forest Hills. Uh, trying to figure out, we got a picture with a big award and it didn't say, but it looks gold. [laughter] So, it was funny. So, there's really not We were acknowledged as a district, but specifically, you can see the schools have done really well. And this this is the positive behavior interventions and support systems that all of our districts are involved in. And and uh fantastic job on their on their part. That's that's we're always looking for always want to be in gold. I mean, shoot, why not? But and we're close. >> What's wrong with your elementary school? >> I you know, I was thinking the same thing. [laughter] >> Except yours, Wendy. >> Um however, [laughter] >> is that one kid? um having

036been a part of this evaluation process and I don't know if it's it's still the same so I welcome uh feedback but it is a lot of steps to demonstrate what you're doing from having your um different um overarching goals set to they come in they interview students they ask what the overarching goals are they ask how those look across different settings like it is it is serious so getting recognition at all is tough and silver and gold is a great place to be so I'll give uh Sherwood kudos for that but you know we'll see if I can do anything to help >> there we Yeah. Uh, next slide. Also, um, I mentioned to you, I believe last month, uh, both of our high schools were ranked among the top 5%, but also now

037we that we're notified. >> Oh, that's cool. >> That all of our schools have now uh, made it. Nagel, the top 8% in the state of Ohio. Best schools. Congratulations, Tiffany. as well as all of our elementary schools are in the top 10% in the state of Ohio and that's by US News and World Reports. So, a lot of stuff in that, but it's, you know, we just got a good school district. We just do. And we got great kids, great teachers, great uh administrators and uh families that support our schools. Um we're really blessed. We really are. Way to leave out the board. >> Oh, did I not say the board specifically? [laughter] >> No, absolutely. Of course. >> Uh we just have a very supportive community and and it's it's neat again, you

038know, just different things that Denim and Diamonds with the Forest Hills Foundation. I mean, it's everybody doing a part, you know, and that's that's what's cool about it. It's really neat. Um, finally, the most important slide probably is what happens if we get snow Armageddon. Uh, well, I just we sent out a reminder. Uh, just so you know, uh, we annually do that just to remind people. I think we did it here a couple weeks ago when when they were we were going to get a little bit of snow just in case. Um, but the best thing to do, uh, and I just want you to understand there's a coordinated effort that takes place really early in the morning. So, I have a handful of people that drive this actually drive the roads, okay? Uh,

039with transportation, so we know we're getting a a real look, a real time look. And that usually starts anywhere a quarter to 4 to about 4:15 4:30. Uh 4:30. Um I get my first call and then I hit the I hit the computer. I start looking at radar. I start looking at all that stuff and I got another guy back here making calls to townships and state, you know, people, road removals. Uh it's a coordinated effort to see how people are doing. Um I've been in districts before where we could get the lots cleared off, but but the city didn't bring in their workers until 6:00. Well, we couldn't have high we couldn't get couldn't get it done. We've been very fortunate. We got great partners with Anderson Township and I mean they do a

040fantastic job. Um and and they communicate well with us. So all that those pieces of information then I start texting um area superintendent and see what's happening in there as well just to it's a reference. We got to know what we got coming on and then by we usually have a um we like it if we can we try to make a decision or I try to make a decision by 5:15. I won't blame anybody else. Uh but it's 5:15 maybe 5:30 latest because we do know that we've got drivers coming in. So if I can if I know it well enough in advance we call it um and then that triggers another series of events. Um and uh one is a text to all of you. Uh which is the same text I send

041then to all of the these guys back here and all. And then then I start working with uh Josh and with Jody and um others to so we can get on the news. That's a different whole different call animal. We've changed the website. Um so there shouldn't and and we obviously send out our one call system and that gets out there. So um it triggers a lot of things in a short amount of time, you know, and and another thing we have to try to determine is can we get our parking lots cleaned off and salted in time, you know, and that that's really a huge piece, too. So lots of lots of moving parts. It happens pretty quick. But um just want everybody to know that that's there. We also, like I said, put

042it on our website. So if you ever get up and go wondering, oh, I don't know what's going on. Go click on the website. It'll be there. That's that's the easiest if you But some people like to watch the news and get get up early and watch it. And >> so that's it. We have a lot of stuff and it's who knows? I've heard it's not supposed to be a fun winter. So, don't know if that's true or not. Believe in the farmer's almanac. Maybe. [laughter] But that's it. So, thank you very much. >> I'd like to thank you for taking one for the team because my daughter's friends all want to know if I have a role in that decision on school board and I'm happy not to. >> No, no. I I I'm

043one of those you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. So it [laughter] you just got to make the right the best decisions and once in a while you it's you miss it. You know they predict Armageddon and it rains. So I think that was my first year that happened. I go well we got a rain day. Doesn't happen often but it did. >> All right. >> Item six procedures for public commentary. I'd like to thank Mr. Nye for making me read the disclos. >> Yeah. Thanks Jeff. [laughter] You couldn't take one month off, could you? [laughter] >> The board is committed to conduct >> begins. >> The board is committed to conducting its meeting in a productive and efficient manner to asssure that the meeting is completed in a reasonable amount of time

044while also recognizing the importance of fair and adequate opportunity for public input. In order to conduct an orderly and fair repres representation of expression, the board will provide a period of public participation per policy p0169.1 at every regular board meeting. Regular participation will be a total of 30 minutes. Each speaker will have three minute time limit. If more than [snorts] 10 speakers, if there are more than 10 speakers, individual time will be adjusted down to fit within 30 minutes. The board does not discriminate based on the individual content of the speech or viewpoint of the speaker. If several people wish to speak on the same topic, the time limit may be adjusted at the president's discretion. Speakers should be prepared to respond to questions from the board members seeking to clarify the issue. >> Could

045you spell your last name? [laughter] >> Absolutely not. I can go for 30 minutes if you want me to. >> Everybody has a three minutes. [laughter] >> All right. Um I I guess I wasn't going to say this, but the foundation board just found out this afternoon what Mona point out the tremendous job um everyone did fundraising for Denim and Diamonds. I am not on that committee, so I can take no credit for it other than the obscene amount of money I paid for an Anderson High School parking pass for my daughter at the silent auction. So thank you to all of them and and you're welcome for a very expensive parking pass. Um, what I was going to say today, uh, ties in with some of the things that have just been discussed here,

046as a lot of you know, wait, did I say Jeff Nye 10,000 ever sold? I don't think I did. >> You violate, you violated everything. >> Oh, man. So, I get to start over. Okay. No. [laughter] >> Um, as many of you know, because I saw you there, I spent uh a few days earlier this week at the Ohio School Board Association conference up in Columbus. um you know learned a lot of interesting things, met a lot of interesting people and uh I drove up with Aaron and Jeremy and we drove back together and on the way back we're just discussing some of the sessions we'd been to and some of the things we're discussing and I just wanted to highlight one of the things that was I found really compelling I I think Aaron

047and Jeremy did too is that there were a number of presentations from districts who were talking about the ways they involve students directly in the decision-making for the district and whether that's sitting on building your district leadership teams or representing the district as ambassadors to the community at events both inside and outside the schools. Um it gave the students a real sense of ownership over their education environment and leadership opportunities that was really beneficial to the students to the teachers and staff to the administration and to the community. And so, and I'm not suggesting that, you know, students necessarily have any significant degree of control over the trigonometry curriculum or anything, but there are lots of ways to get students involved. And I hope that we all think much harder in the future about ways

048we can do that better here in Forestdale. Not saying that anyone's doing it poorly. I think it's really important. I think it should be a point of emphasis for the board. That's all that's all I have today. Thank you. >> Thank you, Jeff. [laughter] Jeeoff, I'd like to know whether what you paid for the parking pass is more or less painful than the fashion hit I took for really sparkly boots that hurt a lot, but we're all about the diamonds. [laughter] >> And and real quick, I want to congratulate you and Aaron and Jeremy. Um it's not easy campaigning. It's not easy putting yourself out there. It takes a lot of courage. >> Thank you for running and Dr. Heis as well is running. It's not easy, >> but congratulations on your win and to

049piggyback what Mr. Hook talked about the snow. You all three have children in the district. Um the phone calls will come from your children and their friends. Uh is school open tomorrow? Can your dad do something about it? Is school open tomorrow? You will get 10 to 15 a day. So congratulations. [laughter] Uh up next, human resources. Mr. Fellows. >> IU fellows. >> Good evening to the board. Item uh 7.1 starts our consent agenda this evening uh with our calendar adoption for the next couple years. Those are listed in there and and uh as you recall we had a public hearing in accordance with the fire revised code last month. Um so those are there for approval. Uh they've been up on our website. Um and uh we're looking forward to anxiously getting those locked

050in and and making preparations uh well on the eve of making some preparations for for the upcoming uh year in 2627. Um questions on on the calendar. >> Can we have school start after September 1st? >> Well, there you go. Yeah, everybody wants to start after Labor Day. Get out before Memorial Day, have a week at Thanksgiving, two weeks at Christmas, >> squeeze in some school every now and then. So, it does look like the way the calendar falls for the next two years, we do get out before Memorial Day, which I know just happens based on how all the dates fall, but that is a question I've had. So, no, but yes [laughter] to this, right? >> But the word we is a little nuanced because we is true for students. >> Sorry, I'm

051[laughter] looking at the student calendar, >> but in 2728 it does bleed over. It's a leap year. Um and we did some creative problem solving with our uh district advisory [snorts] um council just in in terms of uh the spring election day and trying to be nimble around that in the same way that we are in November. So um so anyways that's that. Any other Yeah. >> Yeah. Um it it seems like every year we just get a little bit earlier going back to school. Can you give some insight, I guess, into when you're building one of these calendars, the factors you're considering? I mean, I know there's a certain number of days that we have to be in. You have to have your um PD days, holidays, all that type of stuff. But like

052it looks like our phase and days are moving to Tuesday and Wednesday >> this year, right? like kind of what's the thought process going behind >> it's a it's a lot of different factors but um there's a balancing act that happens between the first and the second semester which is a larger deal at the high school level when you're dealing with AP classes and and things like that. Um the high stakes testing takes a significant chunk of time in in the spring semester as well. So you'll notice that the spring semester is longer in terms of student days. Um, it also depends, quite frankly, I joke about leap year, but the way the calendar falls, um, and then the way that our contract language applies when those days fall. Um, you know, there's a a

053work day after the new year. Uh, so that will kind of impact when we return, which week it we return there. um you know and then we I would say if I I've gone back and poured over the last decade plus of of calendars and we tend to be in the in the middle of August for the most part. U you know this year we've got you know yet you notice we moved up just a a slight tick. um which uh everybody's got uh their right to an opinion on whether we're holding our kids uh out too long or they're ready to go back mid August. Um but um >> yeah, I think that I mean honestly there's not just one thing, there's just a lot. Yeah. >> One other Rob Oh, sorry Jason. I

054was just going to add as an additional thought. Having been in education for about 20 years, I feel like about a decade ago what >> my thoughts weren't done. Go ahead. [laughter] I'm adding on to Rob's comments and hopefully some clarity unless you would like to disagree and then by all means continue. [laughter] >> Um about 10 years ago, I feel like there was a little bit of a shift earlier across the state as everyone started to recognize that state tests which ostensibly test the entire year's curriculum are happening in March and April. So if you weren't starting till September, you were potentially losing two or three week more weeks of content coming into tests when you still then had another six, eight weeks on the tail end. So I don't know if you would

055agree with that, Rob, but my sense about 10 years ago was we all started shifting a little bit earlier to try to get in more of the year's worth of content before we're sitting kids for a state test that sensibly requires a year's worth of content. >> Are the state's tests become getting earlier, being administered earlier? >> Are they being administered? I mean, >> you get a window and that's >> Yeah. It used to >> hit that window. >> Yeah. I would defer to our our district testing coordinator on that, but I would say that that those windows have changed, you know, where it used to be pretty locked in on a couple weeks of OTT or whatever it might be. Um, now it's Windows and it can start as early as X, but if

056you start X, you only have X number of days before you have to finish. So, it's >> it's a lot of triangulation that happens. Um, >> and it would have gotten earlier because it used to be one test, O GT, right? Sure. And now you have how many high school tests and they each get a twoe window and they can't overlap so much because you've got students taking the same test. So, yeah, it has it has widened and pushed back. I think there are a lot of factors there. >> All all that to say, I mean, truly, it is in the scope of things, it's it's a you know, a marginal creep up into August. Um, you know, I'm looking at uh I did a a calendar comparison with um a number of schools, many

057of which are in the ECC, and this was a a couple years ago, so I'd have to update start dates, but um you know, everyone that I was looking at, the latest one at that time that was going back was uh Winton Woods in on the 21st of August. The earliest was uh looks like Little Miami the 15th, but even last year we had school districts Mason I think went back quite a bit earlier. Um so >> yeah, >> it is a factor too not to be lost that when that start date is identified then we've got three days prior with our staff >> and then we have orientation for all of our new staff the week prior to that. So >> you've got uh counselors returning ideally like the first week of August and

058if it creeps up too much then you know we're looking at end of July and all of a sudden the summer is bye-bye. Um >> um then the one >> sorry Mr. Simmons what else would >> the one other thoughts >> thing I noticed that Thanksgiving is an entire week. >> Yeah. So, so this was a bit by um uh some popular demand in terms of having that full week at Thanksgiving. I know that there are some districts that are that have already moved that direction. Um so, we found a way to snag a day here and there and put that on the t the Monday, Tuesday of November, uh Thanksgiving week. So, we'll have a uh three-day fall break for for parents. That Friday will be a PD day for our staff. Um, but

059that's one of those days. Uh, moving it into November. The other one came out of the spring. >> So, PD will be the 27th, the day after Thanksgiving. >> Uh, no. No. The uh I'm not sure which calendar I'm looking at, but >> Okay. Well, I guess my bigger thing with the Thanksgiving is one I feel like if we're going to this and it's on both calendars, there's no like coming back from that. Like people are going to get an expectation like we get a week off. like this is going to be the expectation moving forward and among our parents thing. >> So I think we're saying we're committing to this >> for the foreseeable future. The second thing is just most uh people don't get Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday off work and so this puts

060an additional burden on either finding child care or using annual leave or sick day leave. Um, I guess what are I don't know. The kids want it, I'm sure. Right. But I'm just I'm concerned about the burden it places on families for additional child care needs for three days that they haven't traditionally had to rely on child care for full day. >> It's a great point. The only thing I would I would add is we're we're merely shifting where that child care need may have otherwise been. >> Okay. It was on a Monday in October and Monday in February or March and it's moving to the Monday Tuesday. >> Okay. >> It's in other words, it's not another Yeah, if that makes sense. >> It's it's really the same thing you guys did because we

061used to just get a week off for Christmas or maybe a week in a day and then I think it was about six, seven, eight years ago you made that switch to go to two weeks. So, you just started cherrypicking a couple days here and there. >> Yep. >> And just bulking it all into the same group. So, overall it's the same number of days off. It's just you're chunking them. Yeah. >> Rather than a random three-day weekend here and there. >> Yeah. The top the and you might remember from the board update, I I can't remember when it was, maybe a month or so ago, the the the number one biggest feedback that that we got in terms of parents was locking in two weeks at at winter break. >> Yep. >> The next

062one was this, you know, week at Thanksgiving, >> you know. >> Yeah. >> And I would only add that it has ebbed and flowed and so it's not something that is necessarily you can't come back from, but >> sure I understand. I mean, I think of it in in the context of like this is now >> we can go on like a significant trip on Thanksgiving now, right? Um >> Yeah. >> Disney. >> Yeah. >> Disney. >> Wendy, did did you have another question or did you >> No. Okay. >> Sorry. [laughter] >> Sorry. >> She's already stolen one person. >> I was making sure Dr. Simmons had a chance to >> I'm good. I just wanted to hear some of the rational behind it as some thoughts I had when looking over it. >>

063Sure. No, they're good points. Um, so hopefully with enough notice, you know, folks will be able to plan and adjust accordingly and, you know, tethering it to that Thanksgiving weekend where it's a heavy travel travel week, you know, uh, hopefully that'll be, uh, well received, uh, from parents, students, and staff alike. Um, if there are any other questions, we'll just move forward with the consent agenda. 7.2 is the HR report. Um, have a number of retirements there under item A. Uh, collective 242 years. um among uh a number of certified and one classified employee. Um and uh I would also add that one one of them is just a a change in the resignation date backing it up a couple days uh to coincide with the last workday of the first semester. Um but uh

064for those those listed um just thank them all for their service. A a couple of them are intending to um be rehired and that will come in accordance with uh proper notice and hearing and and all that uh starting in February. We'll get that noticed. Um we'll do the um the actual hearing in in March and then my uh hope would be to uh that the board would act upon reemployment in in April. Um, so, uh, for Tracy Eert, Mark Ernst, Brad Kurland, Donna Meckley, Deb Miller, Donna Pruz, Mary Beth Shy, and Trish Sullivan on the certified side. Um, incredible amount of years of service for the Forest Hill School District and and outside of the district. We wish them all the best in their future plans. on the classified side, Kelly Sunday. Uh over

06530 years of uh >> say she's been here for she's been here for a while, hasn't? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, she's been here uh we've got over 32 years in the district. Uh she's a head cook at Air. Um and uh I was just talking with my son about uh about Mrs. Sunday and mentioned, "Yeah, she's she's going to be retiring." He's like, "Wait, what?" I was like, "Yeah, in like December. It's coming up." So, um definitely uh thank her for her her service and all the lunches that she's helped prepare for our kids over the years. >> Um items B, C, D, and E are fairly straightforward. We have a number of volunteers listed. Um I would point out under item D just on the uh the appointments. Um I just want to

066shout out to um to John Eert and to uh Chad Raleigh, our new coordinator for uh maintenance, as well as Brian Stewart, our our supervisor for custodial. Um you know, we lost uh Dean Tibby, our electrician. Uh and uh and then right on the heels of that, we got notice from Bob Hartley that he was uh retiring as well. So it was two out of the maintenance department that was pretty significant. And when your maintenance department is is uh as small as ours, uh that was there was the potential that we were going to, you know, struggle to find an electrician. Um but through their efforts, um we've got both positions filled and backfilled. Uh we moved Kyle Eden over from custodial position into uh the maintenance position for Bob. Um and we hired externally

067uh Richard Heinesman for um for Dean Tibby as an electrician. And word on the street, John is uh two thumbs up for both. Great moves. And like I said, have backfilled those custodial positions. So that's that's positive news on that end. Other than that, couple bus drivers on appointments, couple uh Yeah. Yep. paraprofessional and um and and we're moving. So, uh number of volunteers to be specific, 131 need them. Can't do life without them. They're listed in there. And uh and then a handful of student teachers as well. Uh one of whom you taught. >> I did. Stephanie Patton's going to be joining us at Anderson. So, that's exciting. >> Fantastic. And we have one Sarah Lindseay who was an Anderson grad. Uh so, it's always nice to bring them back and and give them

068a little bit of insight into what we do. So, questions on the HR report. >> Is the section D, the classified, are those all new FTE positions? The 15 PARS, two health aids, and one monitor. >> No. Okay. >> Those are coming off of their probation contract. >> Okay. Okay. >> If that's what you're referring to. >> Okay. So, Okay. Never mind. >> Yeah. There's there's a bunch of them that came in like over the summer and so it's that 60-day point. >> Okay. Okay. >> Where they'll move on to their one their first their one year and then they'll go to their uh they do three two-year terms uh as a limited employee. Any other questions? Thank you very much. That concludes my report. >> Thank you. >> Go Hers. >> [laughter] >> feel

069like those are fighting words at this table, Rob. I don't know. >> I mean, I'm okay with it. Just whoever's happy. >> Rob's still mad about the Turp and Anderson game back in 2019. [laughter] >> Item 8.1, a resolution declaring impractical transportation. Mr. Eckert, >> good evening. Um just we'll do that real quick with item I've just said have the two items on the agenda today. Uh 8.1 declaring impractical u as you see this is not something new that we've done. Couple followup um things on that Sarah I have confirmed that um we there is no time frame in where we can just cut this off. The best way to explain this after talking with uh legal and making sure we get everything straight. The best way to look at this is these are just

070people that are in the district. Take high school. We don't schedule juniors and seniors. If a junior and senior never, you know, ask for a bus until later in the year, we still are responsible transport them. we are responsible to transport these you know outside schools regardless and if we had already declared something impractical if someone comes in and needs to do it which is follows that way. So it's just really more like to look at as they're requesting transportation that is due to them and therefore we've declared it impractable. So therefore the the additions to the list. And Wendy, you had sent uh me an email real quick about this asking some questions about the longevity. Um very preliminary look real quick. Bobby Daniels has done some digging for me. There is no immediate

071that anyone that's been with us for any substantial amount of time that has jumped to this list that she's found. She has not gone through every single thing, but quick sampling. These for the most part, you may have been with us in kindergarten or something, but you know, they've they've been traditionally in that setting. >> Okay. So these are students who are already at schools outside our district and have heard about the payment or trans may have moved exactly what's happening here. That's a huge hearing. Well, you can there's a bunch of people who live in my neighborhood. You can tell based on where they live. I'm like clearly people were talking in a neighborhood gathering and they were like, "Hey, did you know you can get free money?" I did not. [laughter] >> But

072that's exactly this confirmation. These are not students leaving the district. after they're like, "Hey, it's an extra 1,600 bucks. Awesome." >> Already there and now realize they can get the the funds. Yes. Thank you. >> And my guess the few hundred they receive would not cover the tuition for the swap either. >> Is that John? Is that a state law that we are following with the transportation and with like so we can't set a cut off? >> No. >> Like we're [snorts] just we're obligated to follow the state law on this. And >> now what we don't necessarily have to do is retroactive. They can't say well for the past five years no you know but within that year legal set >> is it do you prorrate it for the remainder >> can't be prrated

073and where we've moved with that if the student is new to that school that is prrated but if they've been there just again it's like they just now asked for transportation >> but I mean like if they ask for it in January do we just give it to them for the second semester like does is that dollar amount just for January operational The way we do it, if they've been enrolled the entire year, we just pay forward because they were eligible the entire year. If they just come in, enroll, >> okay, go back to the the concept of transport. The senior >> who asked for it in January because she's finished with her fall sports, we give it to her just same way. Now, if they a student just moves in, if it's a new

074enrollment to one of these schools, those are all prorated. Yes. >> Seems a little pass backwards, but >> I know I was going to say I don't think that's exactly the same because the senior who finishes sports and we start providing a bus in January. We're not somehow retroactively providing a bus back to September. >> She had the opportunity. They had to >> Is this again? Are we complying with state law? This is not 100%. >> We are not this. We're not going. You know what? We're just going to be nice people and give them [laughter] the full year. Correct. We're just completely nice. >> Every Yes. >> I'd like to go back. I'm just send my kid retroactively to privacy. >> The nice long explanation I got from legal. >> Good. All right. Okay.

075>> That's fine. Thank you, John. >> Oh, no problem. >> Okay. Now, uh before we talk about the cooperative, just real quick thing, I've got to chime in and I don't want to steal anything because uh Dr. Simmons and Mr. Bib had to listen to me ramble along quite a bit a few weeks ago with the with the facilities committee me. But one thing that Mr. Hook has said and where we are, we're getting to where we can start doing the preventative things, the the the smaller things that don't lead into bigger problems. We still have some very large ticket items right now. Uh the overall PI program is roughly 5.2 2, not PI, excuse me, the Yeah, the PI is roughly $5.2 million for this upcoming rotation. And if you notice, we've also I've

076tried to get away from calling them summer programs now because in the past it had to be the summer because it was always ripping off a roof or shutting down an entire system. Well, now we're not doing that. The fact that we've actually started moving on some of these things already because we're doing smaller but very critical things. We're doing some small flooring jobs at Neagle. We have some um significant playground main equipment improvements. We're taking care of the tennis court resurfing. We're uh I'm speaking for Steve, but with the technology piece of it, we're going to do some phone system upgrades that are not large ticket items, but they're now available. The monies are available to start doing these things and some PA systems. So, we'll still see some large ticket items, but we

077you're going to start seeing more small ticket items that are even below bid thresholds that we're putting down the PI program to and that's the thing. So, ideally, eventually we'll get down to everything's a lot smaller but a lot longer list. So, does that make some sense to you? So, we're in a really good spot. Um, I'm very excited about everything we've got going and I'm really excited now that we can start taking care of the things that we've put in place. Um, so with that said, um, last month we talked about the air handling unit that we're putting in to Turppin. This month's agenda as far as the PI program goes. Again, our turf projects, we've chosen to go through consortium, the EPC, just like we did two years ago with Anderson. That turned

078out to be a very valuable process, very clean. They take care of EPC handles all the state bidding, all the paperwork and process, and they have they do all the due diligence that keeps us 100% legally compliant. Obviously our legal team backs over so all the documentation so it's nice clean set and so assuming we pass this resolution we will contract with the EPC to do both turpin project and the negl middle school project of turf uh turf and uh track improvements across the board. So item 8.2 Two is the motion to to adopt a resolution to approve the cooperative contract for stadium and improvements for Nagel and Turpin through the EPC. >> John, real quick question. Do you know how much annually we we spend fixing Nagel's field? >> No, I don't have a

079great number for uh >> Ballpark. No, I Okay, I I will have to get that because there's sprinkler repairs tied in and all sorts of stuff. I can get some >> But long term it's >> long term >> it's cheaper to do the turf >> exponentially cheaper. Yes. It'll just again like Mr. Hook was saying we're talking with the the safety aspect of the quality of play, the availability of play, the community use that we'll be able to go forward. It makes it a much more viable operational uh environment for sure. >> John, will the Nagel field be lined for multiple sports even though there's not soccer at Nagel, but soccer could be played there for example? >> Yes, we we are setting it up for a full use field just like every high school.

080We will be having lacrosse lines on it. >> We'll be having the soccer lines and all the football lines. So any current, you know, >> and then we're going to over the summer, we're going to fence that around. Yes. Well, so people know that that's why the fences are going to go up to keep >> foot traffic and bikes and cars off the >> driving. >> Cars especially. >> Cars are the biggest. There will be no way for >> you. You you'll still be able to access them and walk and, you know, exercise. >> Just not drive. >> Just not Yeah. Not drive. >> Right. Because that's one thing we don't want. We're not locking it down for the commu from the community, but we're locking it down from the >> people that aren't going

081to take care of it. [laughter] >> Okay. So, with that said, at this time, are there any other questions on either topic? Thank you. At this time, it is recommended that the board approve item 8.1 and 8.2 as part of consent agenda. >> Thanks, John. One one last thing I'll note regarding this for the community is um John along with Josh in communications done an awesome job of uh detailing and telling the story of how we're using this PI money. Um if you can go onto our for sales website under departments, facilities and then ongoing projects and there is a whole host of information about um spreadsheets. You can see the past projects, current projects and future projects um anticipated projects broken down by year as well as pictures. So you can actually see evidence,

082I guess, of what's being done and the difference that the community's money is making on our district. So it's a fully transparent process um in the facility and technology meeting. Uh Bob will give an update here in a little bit, but we go in detail on all this stuff with with the entire team. Um but the community is able to see exactly what's being done, how much everything costs, when it's been paid, all that stuff on our website. Again, that's departments, facilities, ongoing projects, and it's all there for you. >> Thank you. >> And thanks to Josh because he's really one that makes it look good for us. I appreciate it. Thank you. >> Thanks, John. >> Uh, up next, teaching and learning, overnight field trips. Tensley. [clears throat] >> All right. Good evening. Um

0839.1 is for our overnight field trips. We have two wrestling tournaments that we have dates for that we just each year come when we have those dates updated. We also have an event for theater and film that's coming. So um we ask that we go ahead and approve those as presented. And then 9.2 Two, we have a proposal for facility dog internship agreement for both for all um secondary schools Anderson Turpin and Nagel. It is a partnership with an organization called Circle Tale. It's a local nonprofit that provides both service and facility dogs to August to schools and community organizations. Phase one of this initiative is to just partner with the secondary schools. Um there are already several districts I'd shared with you in a board information update regarding different districts that do partner with

084Circle Tale. A couple of those include Cincinnati Public, Fairfield, Lakota, Mason, Milford, Oak Hills. Um this partnership comes at no cost to the district. The Hope Project is a project that um with the brainchild of of Tiffany and some folks that she's been working with has been looking at how do we engage our middle schoolers. And I think that she's done a phenomenal job at really building a culture at middle school where I know I have an eighth grader that when he comes home at night, he's disappointed. He'd rather be at school. Um, >> it's amazing >> and that's a wonderful thing to to create the feeling when that could be maybe the hardest, most challenging time of a lot of people's lives. And so with this, she was asked to work at the foundation,

085the Hayden Foundation, and a couple of other donors who wanted to support hope and belonging and and a welcoming environment at Nagel. And one of the things that came from that was this kind of hope and dream to bring animals, dogs specifically, to to the school. Um, through the hope project, the initial funds that are needed for training will be covered that way. They'll also be working with different organizations from PTO, studentled um projects, and other fundraisers to help provide support for any of the costs. It is a rigorous process for the dogs to be certified as well as the hosts. Hosts are our teachers who have asked to be part of that. Um they do have to go through like I said significant training. Um there will be no pause that actually set foot

086on our grounds until after the training is completed and that there we have identified that it is a match for the school for the teacher for for everybody involved. Um we have other handlers that are also trained as well so that there's no instructional time that's taken from students that if we have to have rescuing breaks and that kind of thing it will be happen it will happen with the handlers that are not involved with leading instruction at that time. So um if you've seen the contract they're pretty detailed. I feel pretty confident in the amount of work and vetting that goes into this process. And so at this time, um, we are asking that you approve the contracts as presented. >> Could you do the paw thing again? >> The paw? [laughter] >> Um,

087>> Chuck had offered to come stand next to me and >> and do that >> model for me, but I I said I had it. So, [laughter] >> Kim, can I I've seen programs like this before. I'm just I have a few questions. first um like like what is it going to look like like it during students in the halls walking by there's a dog they can pet or they come in the classroom like how do you envision this actually looking >> dayto-day >> am I allowed to tag team on to your question because I had something similar thinking within our MTSS framework kind of where this this fits is this all students all the time is this specific when it says therapeutic to students who need >> a I was going to say a

088pause but that sounds you know >> that's actually It's actually very cute and accurate. Yes, I think that it is for those students who a lot of I mean, what do we do when we see dogs? Most of us, unless you're not a dog person. When you see a dog, you're like, "Oh, that makes me happy." Sometimes Ralph, Josh's dog, comes to the visit to visit on Fridays at central office, which is probably the day that I need decompression the most, and it makes me happy. So, the idea of having the animals there is the is is for that. It's kind of that moment especially within um some I'm gonna use the wrong word Jamie. It's not the calm down room. It's prior to needing a calm down space, but that disregul like when students

089are disregulated sometimes having those animals can help support that feeling of calm. And so the intention, >> am I using the correct term? I confuse them. I use them interchangeably. So I wanted to be sure. Um but it is it's around creating positive spaces. It's around deregulation. Um you know the other thing too is that we have to be cognizant of animals and making sure that spaces are calm for them. So we wouldn't put dogs in situations where they themselves would not be able to be regulated. >> So they're not going to be in the hallway during transitions. >> I can imagine that there may be a moment that they are but that wouldn't that's not the purpose necessarily. The the purpose is for them to be in spaces where they could be loved on

090and cared for and right give something back to students. >> Um, all right. There are people in this community that don't like me. I get it. But I'm getting ready to say one of the something that's going to be wildly unpopular. >> Like I have some concerns with this. I love dogs. >> Huge dogs. >> I think we agree on dogs too, but this worries me. >> Okay. I've seen these programs. I guess my first question is has our legal team reviewed the contract and given a thumbs up on it. The contract that we are being shown here. >> Yes, we've also had communications with um our insurance. I know that we have some underwriters that we're talking with. Um I've talked at length with a variety of different leaders and superintendents who are in

091these other districts who provide um >> this service to schools. I know that we've had conversations around like what if people don't like dogs or what if people are allergic to dogs. There's going to have to be communication that goes to families so that we know if we have families that are like don't let my kid around the dog they won't be in those spaces. So we'll just have to be thoughtful and mindful and um >> I know that we've had questions ourselves about if a dog would bite a child what happened. So th that goes to my concerns in the contract and I know a lot of this is boilerplate but we are assuming all of the responsibility based on how the contract says for an incident like that. There's all this stuff in

092here that says we agree to indemnify and hold harmless the organization that um that we acknowledge all these risks and we are acknowledging we don't have the right to sue should something arise even out of the negligence of the organization. I feel like that puts all the legal burden on us. Should something happen and even though these dogs I have the best dogs in the world, but you can get in their face at the wrong time, they can snip, right? Um, and I love the idea and I hate trying to being this voice here, but I I just have some concerns about it and I don't know how to resolve them. >> I think um one of the considerations too is the amount of training that does occur and that after like it's not just

093a okay, here are your dogs. to see you later. We have consistent communication with Circle Tales. They will also continue to come and visit, do site visits both at the home of the person who has the animal. They will come to the buildings. They will offer ongoing support and training. Um, when I've talked with other leaders who have worked with them, there is not there's not concern and there's not been incidents on their watch. >> Are the dogs muzzled when they're in the school? >> No. >> I think it's almost Correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, because we do a little bit at UC. >> Yeah, that's what I have experience with. Yeah. >> Um, I mean, they're almost service or therapy dogs. Like, they're they're they're not pets, >> right? >> Like, it's

094so it's a it's a it's a different level of dog. Like, I I understand what you're saying. I think it's it's a totally different level of dog >> that you see walking around. I mean, I you walk around the airport sometimes there are dogs just like this that walk around and provide comfort to travelers. It's it's that exact same concept here. I know what you're saying, but it's not a pet. >> Correct. >> Like the pets that we have, like you can get in their face and like I have three of them at home. Like you can get in their face and they growl at you and and give you >> these dogs, I think, are trained exponentially more than any of our dogs ever will be. And I think that's the difference between what

095we're thinking about with dogs and possibly attacking, growling, biting, nipping versus these types of dogs that are going to be in these facilities or at in the schools >> prior to prior to them. >> Well, there there's there there there's a chance with anything. >> Yeah. >> I mean, there there's a chance when you train a bus driver, they do something stupid and take a left on red. >> I'm like, but they have proper training and at some point you have to rely on the proper training. That's and I I mean this is one of those like I I will freely admit like I will rely on you guys. You've done far more research on this and it's not like we are the alpha adopter in this situation. There are certainly a lot of other

096school districts that have done it. UC does it and I' I've never heard anything negative about is there a risk? Yeah, there's a risk to doing anything. >> There are other organizations who use different programs. We went with circle tail because of the amount of training. The the dogs have to have a certain level of obedience training before they even begin this process with our adults and then the adults are also part of the training. So, and they they have to go through and pass training together and have certification. Um, and so when if we're at April and they're not kind of meeting and matching as a duo, then they will not move forward. The dogs are typically one to two years old. Um they are either labs or goldens. Um I think the breed

097matters. I think the age matters. The number of service matters. The match matters >> and that Circle Tales does not then step out. There's also in the agreements and I I haven't shared that with you. Um there is an an agreement that is between the host and Circle Tale. They will be doing home visits. Do you have a lid for your trash can? Do you have access to go in and out for for breaks? Like it's a very rigorous process and Circle Tails part of that process the entire time. If there are issues with illness, what have you, they help us navigate that. The reason we take ownership is if Rob Fellow says he's bringing a dog to central office, baker's cross, man. If he [laughter] does, then if he chooses to leave and work

098for another organization, he doesn't take the dog with them. It allows there's some protection for where we place the dog and that it's essentially our decisions about whether it can or cannot come. >> What about an agreement between Forest Hills and like the handlers and like what your expectations are going to be like? Who pays for the dog food? Who pays you know? There's a ton of questions. My biggest thing is allergies. Um >> because my little one is allergic to some pets and it's just the dander and everything that gets into the HVAC and all that. And I know you're trying to do a good thing by bringing the dogs there, but then there are going to be those students that are isolated away from that because they can't be around the dogs. >>

099Well, we'll have to we will have to look at designated areas and see what feedback we have. >> What are you talking about per school? >> One. >> Just one. Can we do that for >> peanutary? We want to see who we're also wanting to >> Yeah. But the peanut allergy is different because it's a table at the cafeteria. This dog's going to be all over the school >> and that's I mean ultimately there has to be the communication with our families and they have to be able to tell us what their concerns are so that we could plan around it. >> But so you're our legal team has reviewed it and they've given thumbs up and then we have insurance coverage >> should an incident happen. The host also has to have >> and

100the host also. Okay. Should a financial a situation require us to financially make somebody whole, we have insurance to cover that. >> Yes. >> Literally. >> Financially, not literally, figuratively whole potentially. >> Um. >> Okay. Okay. >> But through as far as like food, our hosts >> will provide the food. I mean, they're getting a dog out of this. They they will have some skin in the game, but at the same time, we also have raisers and different different things that there won't be a cost in that respect to to us. >> So is this dog like eighth grade science teacher is this dog sitting in that teacher's classroom? Mo more than likely in most of the situations um we try to pair with a counselor sometimes an intervention specialist I know like in Turpin's

101case it is not one of those but that we are working with others the handlers >> and things are involved so we have it in the locations that we need to >> that also helps keeping it away from the general population >> that's not the eighth grade science teacher >> right that's in the middle of school you're you're with an intervention specialist or you're with a counselor >> and we'll be smart too I mean we have we have situations to where today is not a good day to bring the dog to school. So, it won't necessarily be an everyday thing. We will make reasonable decisions. >> Okay. >> I think about my kids response to their dog our dog when they've had a hard day. And you're right. There is there's something. So, I'm I

102appreciate all these questions. I agree. They were all the things swirling in my head, too. >> Um but I I at the end of this, I guess I would bring it back to >> a dog to come to cabinet meetings. [laughter] I can see how this would help with emotions and and providing a sense of calm and for some of our kids and moments. Yeah. >> And really quick, the hope project, >> is that something that you guys are going to be doing moving forward? Like I I agree with a lot of those transition programs and everything, but I don't think it's a good idea to have high school teachers having overnights with eth ninth graders. I don't think that's a good idea. >> Well, I I think context is everything. I think being clear

103about what those overnights So, in in the proposal, um there were a couple of options discussed about just different like we have overnights with Camp Cern, we have overnights with Washington DC, we do a number of things like that. So there are some are there hope camps that we can have to support a transition and get kids excited about okay I love my middle school experience can I love my high school experience just as much I think we have time to plan that and just like we would with any other overnight we would come here and go through our process so right now there's not anything on the table specific right now from the project it was kind of a let me dream big and share with you what are some things that we would

104like to do to continue to inspire um our kids as they move into high school because high school becomes more challenging. And so how do we prepare our kids for that excitement that we want them to have with learning? Um so it's not to say that we won't have those moments or we won't have those proposals, but if we do, we're going to follow our processes. >> Okay. And like a legacy wall and all that stuff too. I would hope you guys would follow policy and >> 100%. >> Yeah. Okay. >> As somebody with a sixth grader, I'd like to see it continue. >> And we will what we'll do is we'll continue to follow policy and bring it to you for discussion. >> Kim, thanks. I usually if I have something that in depth,

105I'll call you in advance or something. I didn't have a chance to read this contract thoroughly till a few hours before the meeting, so >> I didn't wasn't trying to string something on you, but I appreciate you answering the questions. >> It's okay. I do want to mention too that as we talked about wellness earlier and while we've kind of created an overview for you know our our dreams around the hope project the the intent too when we talk about some of those different um grant requests and things we are working Ali and I and I know Josh and I are going to meet here soon to talk about kind of that overall wellness in terms of what does wellness in the forest look like um and so that's something that I hope we'll also

106share what like how does sources of strength fit in with our facility dogs and all of the different things because I think it's hard for people to understand how all those things are connected. So, that's something we are working on. Um I think that can also help us as we talk with donors and um just our families about >> kind [clears throat] of that umbrella of wellness in our district. So, that's coming. >> Well, and I think too regarding wellness like um Ali was able to share the student connection survey data, right? And And one takeaway looking at that is three-year trends. Like almost every metric we've been steadily increasing over the last three years, which is awesome to see. The variables that seem to be the ones that consistently are falling below are things

107like a sense of belonging or um finding a a positive outcome to deal with a difficult situation. and initiatives such as this >> I think can go a long way to addressing some of those yeah mean scores uh that students seem to still struggle with in our district. So I I Tiffany too like thank you for trying to find these type of opportunities for our students and creative outside the box ways. Um, being a middle schooler was probably the most uncomfortable moment in my life. Being a high schooler wasn't that much better. Um, if we're able to do things, especially in the age of social media and all of the pressure that we didn't have as teenagers, if we could do some things to give kids a little hope and motivation, >> that's all we're

108trying to do. >> Yeah. It goes back to what you said about the culture she created at uh, Nagel. I mean, I've had four kids through Nagel. you came through and the the fourth one was there and it was a night and day difference from the other three. So, whatever you've done, keep doing it. It's >> I appreciate you saying that to Tiffany because I don't think that it's said enough to her >> that what she's done has created magic and that when when she tells me to dress up like a cowgirl, I'm going to do it. When she tells me that she's when she tells me that we're doing this glow party, we're doing it. So when she even though I too is reluctant to talk about dogs, I'm standing up here and telling

109you all I can about dogs because I believe in her and her vision. >> Yeah, for sure. >> Can I ask one more quick question? Yep. >> About Excuse me. >> I'm not dressing up like a cowgirl tomorrow, by the way. >> Go ahead. >> One of the grants going through was about American history uh curriculum for like 12 kids in an ESC program. Will that curriculum align to our courses of study? >> Yes. >> Okay. And we've already done that review and approval and all that. >> We I think are still working with the team. So we have funds there, but we still have to go through and but we absolutely will go through that process. >> Okay. Just curious. >> Yeah. >> Anything else? >> All right. >> We have to vote on

110this separately. So >> I get a motion on 9.2. Thank you. >> Motion. >> Thank you, Kim. >> I'll make a motion to approve the Circle Tail Ink Dog therapy internship agreement for Anderson High School, Turpin High School, and Nagel High School. >> Second. >> Dr. Strickler, >> yes. >> Mr. Bell, >> yes. >> Mrs. Jonas, >> no. >> Dr. Simmons, >> yes. >> Mr. Bib, >> yes. >> All right. And then >> and I will add that they had to convince me with all those same questions multiple times. >> They they really did a good tag team on me. [laughter] >> I love the idea. >> I'm glad that we've had their people look over it and the right questions asked and all that. >> It's a good It's a good program though. It's

111I've not seen one as comprehensive as this >> ever to be perfectly honest with you. So My only request is that one of the dogs named Lary. >> I like that. >> Second. [laughter] >> All in favor. >> Oh gosh. Oh. >> All right. Now we're back to our consent agenda. Item >> [laughter] >> uh 10.1 treas 10 point one the treasure update. Sorry. The first two items on the treasur's agenda concerning our upcoming fiscal year uh 2627 that begins on July 1 of 2026. So uh and that would be the preparation of the tax budget. The purpose of the annual tax budget is to demonstrate the need for and the use of the taxes that are collected by our district. So when you look at House Bill 309, which has been passed by the

112House and pending in the Senate, they uh the budget commission is going to be focusing on this report a lot closer. So item one is a resolution that's requested by the Hamilton County Budget Commission. This resolution uh permits the district to file a modified tax budget for the 2627 fiscal year. And the modified tax budget presents information for those funds that receive tax revenues and eliminates the requirement to present information for those funds that do not receive tax revenues. On the modified budget, the DIS our district reports its approved 5-year forecasts and appropriations for debt service, permanent improvement, and building funds because those are funds that uh receive taxes. Agenda item 102 is the calendar that outlines the requirements and timelines of the Ohio Revised Code to present and file the fiscical year 27 tax

113budget. And as you can see by the calendar in your agenda, we will be asking the board to approve the tax budget at the organizational meeting on January 10th. Prior to that, the tax budget will be available to the public for viewing at our administrative offices beginning on December 18th. Um, according to a high revised code, we will need to place a ad in the Cincinnati inquir and that ad will be placed on December 12th that announces the availab the availability of the budget in the administrative office. The required budget hearing will be held immediately preceding the organizational meeting on um January 10th. After the board's approval, the tax budget will be filed in the auditor's office prior to the January 20th deadline by the Ohio Revised Code. Moving on to the treasures agenda, item

11410.3, our monthly reports. You will see that it begins with donations as always, and donations over the past month total just under 5,000. Um, that brings donations for the total year to slightly over 12,000. Item B gives you a snapshot of our October 5-year forecast, our most recent forecast. [snorts] Item C presents the general fund, our 5-year forecast revenues by comparing our estimate on the forecast to year-to-ate actuals. Primary revenues received during the month of October include the fall payment of our tip agreements from Anderson Township, which was just under nine million, and our semionthly payments of our state aid, which amounts to about 1.6 million monthly. Item D presents the general fund, our five-year forecast expenditures by comparing the estimate on the forecast to year-to-ate actual expenditures. As you hear me say every meeting,

115expenditures in the general fund are very stable and you can divide the total estimated by 12. So with only four months or 33% of our fiscal year complete at the end of October, we have spent 32% of our estimate. So again tracking right where we would expect. Item E presents the activity of the general fund cash balance. The balance at the beginning of our year on July 1st was 31.2 million. After adding revenues received and expenditures deducted year to date, our cash balance stands at 47.6 million. We are at a very high point in our cash flow as we have received one of two annual payments of both property taxes and tiff revenues. Those will be spent down over the next three months as expenditures over the next three months um will exceed revenues. Currently

116at October 31st, our unreserved balance stands at 39.7 million. Or put another way, we have enough cash to operate the district for 170 days. And after incumbrances, we have enough cash of unreserved cash to operate the district for 142 days. Item F presents the detailed activity um in revenues and expenditures for our main permanent improvement special cost center. That's the cost center of the PI that uh receives the taxes and that is the only special cost center that is put on the tax budget. We do have other PI uh special cost centers uh for turf funds, um auditorium funds, things such as that. And you see it listed on the cash position report monthly. Lana, real quick to interrupt you. >> Oh, sure. >> Um, you said st the stadium funds just to squash a

117rumor, no money from Turpin stadium fund was sent to Anderson's. Correct. >> That is correct. And as a matter of fact, um, at the facilities committee, um, we did present that we have, um, don't have it right in front of me, but I think it was around 437,000 in turfins fund that will go towards TUP replacement. We also haveund uh around 139,000 in uh a fund that will go towards Nagel's turf. So we do have some other funds and you'll see it when we prepare um our fiscal year uh 26 uh projects. We have those funds as being used to complete that. So good point. Um moving on to the next slide. This is where you can see where we stood on our summer 2025 projects. Um, so at 10:31 we've paid out 3.8 in

118expenditures. That's out of the total revised budget of 4.6 million. So we are still waiting on a final sign off of about uh 254,000 of the summer projects. And again, as you've heard me say numerous times, we will not um pay until we get a sign off that the work's complete and done. Item G presents investment earnings for the first four months of our fiscal year 26 and the prior four years worth of history. And as you can see, interest is starting off strong. Um we to date, we've collected a total of 1,57,000 so far this year. We know there's been a couple of uh interest rate cuts by the Fed. We did meet with our investment advisors um earlier in the month. We've flattered a little bit more in long term so that we

119hope to kind of yeah flatten things out, minimize the impact of the rate cuts. Uh moving on to the next slide, October 31st, bank reconciliations and investments are presented. And then you have items I and J to um on appropriations. It just shows the effects of the changes this year in appropriations. And what you're going to see is um uh what was talked about earlier. Uh we received 140,000 in teacher grants during the month of October. We've received some additional grants that you'll see in [clears throat] on the November report as well. So, the appropriations um we needed to increase the appropriations in our special revenue funds, our principles fund fund 08 to account for those grants. Item K, uh requests board approval of an expenditure that did not issue a prior PO in accordance

120with Ohio Reise Code section 5706.4D. You also have the October cash report which details each fund and special cost activity for the month in the fiscal year to date. Any questions on the financial report? >> Accounting questions. [laughter] >> All righty. Um hearing none, I respectfully request that you approve the treasures items um within the consent agenda, which starts with items 7.1 through item 10.3 and excludes item 9.2. >> I'll make a motion to approve action items 7.1 through 10.3 excluding item 9.2 as presented. >> Second. >> Dr. Strickler. >> Yes. >> Dr. Simmons. >> Yes. >> Mr. Bell. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Jonas. >> Yes. >> Mr. Bib. >> Yes. Up next, we have committee reports. 11.1 is the policy committee. I think it was Jonas. >> Woohoo. Second reading of the policies. We

121met on 10:14 and it was due to changes of legal updates. Um, I can repeat everything I did last time or if anybody had any questions or whatnot. Wendy, I think you got Did you get all your questions answered? >> I did. Yes. Thank you um to Larry for clarifying a a couple pieces. Um with regard to policy, everything that's in it makes sense. I know I have had a couple questions in the past with regard to the cell phone policy and making sure that we are um overt about the exceptions to the rules for IEPs 504s and health concerns for students. Um, I know I got a couple questions at the beginning of the year when the high schools, some of the high schools just put out a general no phones ever policy. So,

122just making sure as we put this policy into effect that we are um acknowledging that piece and making sure students feel supported with that. Um, but I appreciate your responses to my questions and that we've been able to update the policies. >> Um, I had two questions related to policies. Um, the first was the interclassic athletics policy. uh policy 2431. Um I guess >> no change, right? >> Never mind. Keep going. >> Yeah. Procedurally, how are the students um how are we communicating to the student what the student code of conduct is, athletic code of conduct is, and how do we verify their acceptance of that code of conduct? They meet they meet every year with the athletic directors and the coaches. >> The students the students do before the season. >> Yep. >> Okay.

123And the reason I ask because it it um section B says that violations could that could rise to an athletic code of conduct um that could result in their removal from the team. And it gives a list of possible things like use of alcohol, drugs, and tobacco, violation of school rules, all that type of stuff. Um given that this is the criteria through which a student would either be suspended and then have the opportunity to um what's the right word um appeal that decision, I wonder if we should put some comment in there about like um um some is not an exhaustive list of possible conduct violations because it reads as these are the reasons, >> but there's reasons beyond that that could come up to result in a student being removed from a team.

124And if we're explicitly stating these things and there's no leeway for something else, if we try to suspend them for something else, I could see >> um >> fuzzy area there. >> Yeah, I I gotcha. It's hard to list every single thing, right? You could put conduct detrimental to >> something like that. Yeah. Yeah. >> That's we cover ourselves in that. Um, >> you don't always know what happens in in the locker room, on the team, on the sideline, in the, you know, in any of those unique scenarios. >> Yep. Yep. >> I would agree with you in terms of adding that. I will say having been the parent who has sat through those meetings with my oldest, they they are very clear about just the messaging is more around you represent >> your school

125and our community all the time, whether you are on the field or off the field. and you know that that that's kind of the the messaging for both the parents and the students. So I do think it covers it a little more broadly but I would agree with you in terms of just having a >> and other >> Right. Yeah. Yeah. Then the only other question one I had a question on was uh policy 3213 the student supervision and welfare. Um, it says in there that staff members are prohibited from electronically transmitting any personally identifiable image of a student, including video, photos, blah blah blah, um, through the use of social media, online networking, um, email, text. That happens regularly, though. I mean, there's newsletters that go out with pictures of students. There's teachers that

126have social media accounts showing off cool things that they're doing in the classroom. The district >> sports stuff. And so it seems like there's a regular violation of this policy. So I'm wondering where the what the threshold is between what seems like it's commonly shared versus what we're explicitly saying we don't want you sharing. So, it's not private student information, but it's clearly pictures of students in school doing things. >> Well, we do have an opt out uh program. So, there are kids that we do not take pictures of, right? And that's that's kind of the it's easier to do that than it is >> to get permission for every >> right >> type of photo. and and that I totally get, but the policy is specifically saying you're not allowed to do any of

127it regardless of whether students are opting in or out. >> Yeah. So, staff members are prohibited >> from electronically transmitting any personally identifiable image. But then it does say at the end um unless such transmission has been made a part of a preapproved curricular matter or co-curricular extracurricular event or activity such as a school sponsored publication or production. But to your point, if it's a, you know, Insta volleyball page, right, >> or is that then technically a violation? So, yeah, I guess the question is the pre-approval >> and what's happening there? >> Well, I can't pull it up for whatever reason. [snorts] So, if we have heartburn with it, we can always pull it and put it in our spring. We can pull that one and our spring update. >> What's interesting is that's not

128a change. I was just going through and reading them as we had them and it caught my eye. >> So, it's probably something I should have caught last year. >> And I think your point is valid because we don't want any of our teachers to get in trouble for doing something that has been common practice because all of a sudden it's picked up. >> I gotcha. >> Right. And also, while we're at it, we should update the online networking media. I don't think anybody's had a MySpace in quite some time. [laughter] >> Throw Tik Tok on their >> p. >> So, it's in existence. They're not saying pull. It's already there, but maybe we come back to review. >> Yep. In the next policy committee meeting. Yes. So maybe we don't need to pull anything

129out because it just is >> we're not voting on a change right now. >> Okay. >> Do we need a vote on that? >> I think we're just saying since is we're not voting on a change with that one. We're keeping it as it is and we'll next policy committee meeting we'll review to see >> who whoever's on that committee. Yeah. And if we need to change. >> Yeah. >> But with the rest of them, because it's a second reading, do we vote? >> I think we do. We make a motion. Yeah, >> we have to. >> I'll make a motion to approve the changes to the policies as presented. >> Second. >> Dr. Strickler? >> Yes. >> Mr. Bell? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Jonas? >> Yes. >> Dr. Simmons? >> Yes. >> Mr. Bib?

130>> Yes. >> Uh, up next, 11.2, Finance Committee. Dr. Simmons. >> Yeah. So, um, we had our finance committee meeting last month. um some of Mr. Hook covered in his superintendent update about some of the legislation that we've been tracking. Um you know, I don't want to get in the weeds too much on these. Uh Atlanta did a nice job in our in our meeting going through several of these House bills coming down the pipelines, but a lot of them are focus are targeting property tax relief um in different different ways. um capping inside millillage um uh from statewide property tax relief to limit districts ability to uh collecting levies. Um and Mr. Hook also mentioned that on October 30th myself and um Larry and Atlanta went and spoke at the Hamilton County Commissioners meeting

131and and on the surface it sounds like why would you ever speak against property tax relief, right? And I I get it. It sounds like such a good idea and these these ideas we're hearing at the state level of eliminating property tax like yeah let's go for it right the problem is and Mr. Hook alluded to this and I and I want to read something that Alena shared to it with us at the um at the meeting. This is from the Ohio Education Policy Institute or OEPI and this was their analysis of residential property taxes in Ohio, a balanced approach to reform. It's a a long report um but there's a section in the executive summary that kind of builds on some of the stuff Mr. Hook was talking about. Um, it says, "Compared to

132other states, Ohio's wellestablished culture of local control has resulted in the state delivering a higher proportion of public services at the local level than is typically the case. Within that context, most school and local government budgets in Ohio are financed by a combination of state and local resources. However, this essential partnership has fallen increasingly out of balance over the past 20 years with Ohio's state tax burden falling while Ohio's local tax bur burden has increased. At the same time, the composition of who pays local taxes has also been changing with a series of state tax policy changes over the last 20 plus years, shifting the local property tax burden more toward homeowner homeowners and farmers and less on business taxpayers. And then it goes on and lists a whole confluence of factors that have resulted

133in residents paying higher property taxes. And I bring this up because all over the the state, but we see it here in Forest Hills, like it seems like every year there's a levy for something else. We just had a parks levy. There's safety levies, library levies, school levies, and that always results in our property taxes going up and it sucks. But the issue isn't the school district mismanaging funds or spending inappropriately. It isn't the parks spending inappropriately. When the district comes with a levy, it's an operating levy to maintain our current operating budget or our operating expenses that continually increase every year. And I have an example of of that that we talked about at the finance committee meeting and that is the uh increase in medical premiums. So, as Miss Craropper just showed, 80%

134of our uh revenue comes from local property tax local property taxes and tiff money. >> And within our operating budget, remind me again, it's something like 85% is people. >> So, that's salaries, benefits. Okay. So back in 2024, um the district negotiated with the teachers association on a new benefits plan and um took into account the as you know obviously we know health insurance costs are expensive those are r rising and we had an opportunity in this meeting to chat with um Chris Preston of the four hills teachers association to get his perspective on kind of teachers thoughts on these rising expenses but I want to put some dollars on that um When the new plan was uh agreed upon in 2024, the single employee share for um uh for a single employees monthly premium

135was $16622. Next year that increases to $22,22.38, which is a $58 a month, which um comes out to $528 a year. Is that right? No. Uh where hold on. No, that that's the district share. It's a $58 a month increase per share that the teachers are paying. On the family share, it's a $151 increase over the last two years. But the district shares also increased significantly. So, in the last two years since that was renegotiated, um the district share has increased uh where's my thing for the single employee share? Uh $69. So that's the $528 a year per employee that the district is contributing on the single employee share of the PO plan. On the family employer share, the annual per family is $1,356 a year increase over the last two years. Okay. And how

136many employees do we have in the district? We have about um 860 but about six 650 actually take the insurance. Okay. So we've >> so 650 are taking the insurance and depending on if they're in single employee share or family employer share. We're paying an increase of either $528 a year per employee or $1356 a year per employee. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars. And this is an increase that happens based on a percentage- wise every year at different rates. So when the state or county commissioners are talking about and and all these different house bills talking about property tax relief and it sounds awesome, our money in our district comes from property taxes. And as these expenses continue to increase, and this is just benefits as an example that we're looking at,

137those become significant and we need to go back to the community to ask for more money because the state consistently doesn't provide their share. The Ohio Constitution explicitly says that the state is required to provide free public education for all students in the state. But what they've done is shifted that burden as was in this OPI described in the OPA EI report to local residents more and more over the last 20 years. And so I think one of the things that Elena and I have talked about and I've talked with Josh about this too is being more intentional in telling the story in between levy cycles of things like how we're using money for the permanent improvement funds. Um how the costs of the district eb and flow given g due to changes in uh

138benefit shares for example. So the community is regularly aware of changes in operating expenses and we can clear clear up some of the inaccuracies out there that well the district just keeps coming back to us for more money and our proctor taxes just keep going up and up and up. So many of like all of us up here live in Forest Hills and so many people live in work in the district live in Forest Hills like we feel the same exact thing. But the way the system is set up at the state level, that's where the problem is coming. And should the state move forward with statewide property tax release or eliminating property taxes altogether, there goes 80% of the money coming into our district, right? So where is that money going to come from?

139We're gonna have to make one, massive cuts to our district, but two, it's going to get filled in with consumption taxes and sales taxes and other taxes that we would end up paying anyway to make up for all the money for our schools and parks and safety and and libraries and all that type of stuff. So, it's a really important thing as Mr. Hook is talking about going up to Columbus and we're keeping track of all this legislation. It really sounds good on the surface, but there are severe consequences to this. And it it's not a matter of just eliminating property tax. The system needs to be reformed at the state level and we need to make sure we're holding our representatives and state senators accountable for that. Was I accurate in that in that

140assessment? >> Very good. >> Okay. I said to Atlanta, "Explain this to me like I'm in fourth grade." So, um, [laughter] >> so Jason, I guess just from my perspective, what I would say to the community is when you hear comments made from our commissioners or otherwise, we're going to reduce your property taxes. The question we need you to ask is how's that going to impact the schools, the parks, the libraries, the police, the fire, you know, fighters who I would like to show up at my house because >> it's a great sound bite to say reduce property taxes, but a lot of this has become a Rob Peter to pay Paul situation and they're not talking about what's happening behind the curtain in terms of the impact it would have >> on us and

141all of the other >> um entities that I don't know about you, but I very much appreciate as part of our community and rely on as part of our And part of the story there too with the benefits is like you know every three years we have a new teachers contract and you know teachers salaries typically are going to be getting increased by a percentage in those in those contracts. Um and a lot of that is due to inflation and cost of living increases uh step increases based on how long they've lived here. But we can see evidence of that that the teachers share the percentage increase for both sing if they're on the single PO or the family PO is a 21.0% 0% 06% increase over last year alone. >> Yeah. But don't forget

142there were years in those there were years. Yeah. Like it went it went down five it's gone from the single family it's gone from $55 a month four years ago to 578 this year 5 years later. I mean it's it's like a 3% per year increase. So >> yeah it went it went down it went down 15% from 23 to 24 when we negotiated the contract. Right. But it's gone up 21% since then. >> I'm just saying in the last 5 years it's gone from $55 to 576. It's not a big increase. Sure. >> It's basically inflation. >> Um so the at the same time over that five years from 21 to 26 the uh share that the school district pays is $495 a month more now than it was in 2021 which equates to

143almost $6,000 a year per employee. So those are massively increasing costs over the course of a levy cycle that are just associated to benefits. that help explain why we need to continually go back to the community when our operating expenses exceed the money we're bringing in from the last levy. Um, and then the last update beyond the legislation, the OPEI, um, federal grants. So, the question came up about some of the reshuffleling happening at the federal level at the Department of Education and we talked some about some of the federal grants that uh we bring in. And as of right now and any information that we've gotten, any existing federal grants that have been awarded to Forest Hills are likely not to be affected by the shuffling efforts that have happened thus far, but we'll

144definitely keep the the community updated should that change in the future. >> Is there anything else? Oh, good. >> Okay, cool. So, that's it for the finance committee. Next, teaching and learning. Mr. Bell. >> All right. You you see the minutes that are out there as well. I mean, really our our focus was was threefold. Um we met on October 15th. Um Kim led most of the meeting and uh we talked about first of all, we talked about obviously the state report card. Um obviously it was a great report card as we all know. I'm not I'm not going to go through all the the details that they've been going over the board quite a bit. The one thing that we did focus on was the only area we did get the three stars in

145that was the college career workforce and readiness aspect. Um, everybody in administration is well aware that you don't want we don't want three stars anywhere. And there's kind of I think we kind of have a a twofold two-pronged attack for that one so to speak. One certainly it seems to be there's a documentation that needs to happen that we not we didn't necessarily have before. So there's some crossing of some tees and dotting of some eyes. so we have the documentation that's so we can show every year what's going on so we can try to improve that way. Um but that's not all we're certainly doing. The other big aspect that we're doing on is trying to get more kids more involved. Um as you can see and Larry certainly uh illustrated that with his

146uh note up there earlier today the Excel project you know we they just literally doubled in the last year. So just different ways and and and to listen to them talk about how just the expansion [snorts] in the Excel project between not only getting more kids involved but getting the community more involved with the kids and having that partnership with the community. Um you can certainly see that's going to have a big impact going forward and obviously we've already seen a nice uh sizable increase in that. So that was certainly a focus of our meeting uh the state report card and then the Excel and then we went through we talked certainly about the uh the mental health aspect. We're we're pleased with our new contract. Uh from a mental health uh standpoint, it's one

147of those it's it's kind of a a double-edged sword. We're we're pleased with the new contract. We see an increase in the number of students that are going out and actively seeking um the me through the mental health through the mental health uh partnerships that we have, which is great to know that we have those partnerships out there that are seeking that. Obviously on the other side, you do want to ask the question like like is the increase simply due to better access that we've had before or is there the other side where there's something we need to be doing better to be more involved, more engaged and that's why they're seeing it. So, it's it's it's great that we have this partnership and this is I'm not saying anything that they don't already know,

148but it's also one of those like we we we need to continually be involved in making sure that we understand why there that there is that increase and what can we be doing better to make sure that we're engaged and certainly we talked about the different surveys that have gone out. Um we did talk about uh trying to in some of those surveys trying to do a three and fiveyear study so we can see the increases and decrease rather than a one or twoear study. Uh and certainly they're taking that under adisement going forward. So those were the big the big focuses in that was the mental health, the Excel, and the state report card. >> Wendy, is that a good quick >> summary? Nice one pager. [laughter] >> That's my job. >> Up next

149is the uh technology facilities committee report. Uh we met on the last week, was it? >> One day last week. I think it was the sixth. Uh, one of the biggest [laughter] one of the biggest things we talked about was the uh the preschool reenrollment. >> Sherwood is a busting at the seams, I hear. >> And so the the talk is what do we want to do? What's the district look like going forward? Um, do we expand onto another building? There is the beach acres property. which we did something like what Oak Hills did which ties into the pool >> meeting coming up on December 9th. >> There's a whole host of opportunities there. It depends on how that goes. >> Um [snorts] and we discussed what it would cost to renovate the pool at

150Anderson. Um, and you're looking at anywhere between 9 and 12 million at this point, which doesn't seem feasible. It It doesn't seem like the right thing to do if you ask me. Four years ago, if you would ask me, I would have been all over it. But sometimes reality smacks you in the face and you're like, it doesn't make sense. Um, the next big thing is what we've been talking about all all day or all evening is the uh the nagal turf and the track and the turp and track. Um, I think those questions have all been answered. And then we looked at the summer projects for the next several years and you guys all should have got the email. I had John sent it over to you just now going through what >> I

151thought it was sent out early. I apologize. um everything that we've got coming up for the next several years. And if you go past this year, I'm sorry, next year from 2026 to 2027, it goes from 5.2 million to 2.3 million in spending. So all of the >> fixing has been done, so to speak, and now we're just maintaining what we have. I guess that's the easiest way to explain it. >> Y >> um I don't know if there's anything missed. >> No, I mean a the strate just starting some of the discussion of the long-term strategic planning of some buildings, right? Um the pool obviously is a we get emails about it. It's been a huge issue forever. That that number is significant, right? And Larry was able to provide several different estimates for

152options. And I think one that he did present was the cost of removing the pool and demolishing the bleachers to create a just an empty space that could be used for something else. Classrooms, uh indoor turf, athletic area, like there's the possibilities are endless. >> That cost was around $750,000. >> That doesn't include the cost to build it up to whatever else it would be. just the remediation >> the remediation to have more a usable space once again. Um I know that there's so many people in our community that are passionate about this. Um I mean there's been several estimates that have been shared over the last couple years on it and they're all in excess of $10 million over replaced to get that pool operational again. In the meantime, the Turpin pool has been

153um livened up. >> Uh fresh paint. Uh we see the new air handler coming in, right? And branding has been included for all three schools, Nagel, Anderson, and Turpin. So when you're in there, it really does feel like a Forest Hills community pool that all three schools that use that are represented even though it's in Turpin's space, records for Anderson, Nagel, Turpin, the colors, mascots on the wall, all that stuff. Um because obviously high school identity is important to people in our community. know it is something we're aware of it. There are numbers we're constantly looking at. I I wanted to you said it but I wanted to make sure it is a we get a lot of emails on the pool and we're aware of it and it is something that we've asked Larry

154to look into and he has provided some information on it. just and I'm not on the committee but just to follow up exactly what you said like >> and it's one of those we all see we all get the emails and all that like we are where we are like it does not do any good for anybody to complain about why we are where we are like that it's not solving any problem it's a sunk cost it's in the past to talk about how we deferred maintenance and we should have done this we should have done that >> it wasn't done it is what it is we're there we are currently right here we are trying to solve the problem going forward forward. There's nothing you can do to undo what was done in the

155past. So, if folks could just appreciate like the board is sitting up here, administration is sitting over there working actively to try to figure out the best solution both from effectiveness standpoint and from an efficiency standpoint. It does no good to look at the past. Let's just focus on what we can do going forward to make the best decision for the district. >> And we absolutely are. I mean, those are discussions we continue to have. This is not something that's that's gone by the wayside. It is continuing. Yeah. >> And it's slow, but it is intentional. >> And there's some uh technology stuff. We looked at some um Google Classroom um things. There's a something called security classroom where the teacher has student a device control over the student. They can see real time what

156they're doing. >> You're not paying attention there, Little Johnny. >> I like that. >> Um and there's another one uh called Securely Pass, which Yep. I think me and Jason had so many questions on it where if a student needs to go from the classroom to the nurses station to the front office, >> the teacher signs them out and they have to check in when they get there and if it's a certain amount of time that it should have taken to get there and the student doesn't arrive then a search party is formed. [laughter] >> I like it. U we did get here also um about transportation with the transfinder route finder whatnot and obviously the the roll out of that had a few more hiccups than we had anticipated. Um those have been resolved

157to to our understanding and it is moving smoothly. Um >> unless you have two kids in the same building then they're >> that's something still show. [laughter] >> Yeah. >> Interesting. >> But can you now track where a bus if you only have one kid in the building you can track. So it's it's no longer just there's a bus in front of congratulations. >> It's intentional that for a safety reasons to not be able to track exactly where the bus is, but you can uh >> widen the essentially geoence to give it a word of you want to know when the bus is at this stop or when it reaches I'm widening the area of when I want to know the bus is in this zone so you can have a further heads up. I

158know that was a problem is the bus was arriving. I think we misstated that early on. I think it was stated that you were going to be able to to track and for safety reasons that it's intentional that we don't want people doing that. >> It would be a safety issue. Okay. >> Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. >> We can track it. >> Yeah. In the district, I'm sure. >> That's where there was a misunderstanding. [snorts] Okay. >> And we got um [clears throat] there's some laws that have changed as far as bus transportation allowing us using white vans. Um so I asked about if we could NASCAR the vans out. We can we can find out about that and get some revenue in from that. >> All right. >> But that is

159that about the gist of everything. >> Cool. >> Up next board discussion. >> Well, it's almost nine o'clock. >> I know. >> Pizza time. >> Is the pizza coming >> almost next month. Goodness. >> Oh, yeah. Next month. Thank you for the college theme night tonight. Next month I holiday theme could be ugly Christmas sweater. It can be whatever your best red and green is. Whatever your best blue and white is, I don't care. Um, pizza may or may not be delivered at 6:45. >> Got my final board meeting. I've been threatening to Door Dash. So, you may see pizza being delivered next month at 6:45. >> Just saying. He's walking right in. I'll try to make it not during the middle of the pledge of allegiance. >> Oh my gosh. >> That's all I

160have. Um, I just wanted to share I did attend the OSBA meeting as well as some of our um, new elected board members this past Sunday, Monday. Um, attended some great sessions around ideas for engaging in community um, forums, town halls, increasing accessibility of the board as well as communications and thinking about different ways to have some kind of mini sound bites to help um, get get messages out as we've discussed. Um, in terms of uh delegate votes, all four of the original votes we had looked at did pass. That includes um OSBA advocating for local control, universal lunches for students. There was nothing in here, the original ones that was really of concern, career tech boards having control over curricula um and advocating for us to continue to control our property taxes that commissioners

161could not um take away. And then there was the final resolution. Um there were three resolutions brought forth and at the end of the day um those three all did go down and the original racial and equity platform remains as is. >> So um that's just the update there. Um couple shoutouts. Uh I'm going to do the the secondary buildings. Nagel we heard a lot about tonight in terms of um their focus on hope and recently they had an impact day which was all about connection and community. So just um as you alluded to so many great things happening there to to support kind of our children as as a through a whole child approach. And then um AHS and Turpin just to hit a little on the art and science coming together. Um Anderson

162had their periodic table of pumpkins. So um always a fun art project to see bringing in those science pieces. And then um Emily Kasa Grande has two art students, Noah Zelen and Ella Davidson, who currently have ceramic artwork on display at the mount um and are being recognized for that. So before that goes away, I need to get over to the art building and see it. So um just really so many great opportunities for our students and I want to acknowledge that. And then as we go into Thanksgiving holiday, just to say that I am grateful for this community and our families and educators and all of our shared focus on our kids. So, thank you to everyone out there for all you do every day. >> Great. >> Um, yeah. So, I just had

163a few few things to say. I want to um piggy back on Bob's comments earlier and congratulating Jeff, Aaron, and Jeremy on um um the election and looking forward to working with you all and the commitment you made to the community. Also wanted to thank Mark. Uh I know it didn't go the way you had wanted, but really thank you. [laughter] >> Hopefully the mic didn't pick I don't care. >> Um the I you came in >> you came in last. You No, no, no, no. You came IN [laughter] >> you came in in April on short notice. Got up to speed really quickly um in a contentious at times board and uh I appreciate your contributions this year. So, thank you very much for that. Um I'm not on the teaching and learning committee,

164but I had brought these comments up at the um uh facilities and technology committee and I was asking I was asking Steve about them and he kept referring to the teaching and learning community. So some just some things that I wanted to I guess make sure were on a radar or I guess I can follow up and touch base with Kim maybe at another time on our progress with these. The first was related to AI and I we had an AI committee. Is that still a thing? Right. Um, >> oh yeah, we did. >> One of the things that we've been working on at uh University of Cincinnati in in our school with our instructional design is um you know, initially within the last couple years, there was so much resistance to AI. It's like,

165oh, we don't want our students to use it, you know, like it's absolutely zero tolerance policy to all this stuff. And then when we talk to our advisory boards and industry professionals and I'm assuring most of you here like but we all actually use it every day to improve efficiency um to generate ideas and whatnot, right? And so the shift at the university level has been to educate students on h how to use it as a tool and integrate it into problem solvings in a productive way that doesn't blend into creative thought or learning or substituting critical thinking but rather than having like a no tolerance policy to it but trying to better understand how it can be leveraged as a tool because as it's not going away. It's only going to get more accessible.

166Right. So, I mean, those part of conversations that we're having on >> Yeah. >> right? >> Yeah. That's what I would do. >> That'd be great. Yeah. I'll give a just a quick quick 100,000 foot. So, we essentially revamped the innovation and AI this year. We had if you would have told me we'd be where we're at right now, I I would have said absolutely not. >> Um, and we have exceeded my expectations tenfold. As Kim mentioned, coming up with guard rails not only for teachers but for students in v various age ranges. Biggest thing we have to worry about from an AI perspective is furpa and protected information, right? So there's a thousand I I get 20 emails a day on AI, right? But there are a couple that meet Senate Bill 29. There

167are a couple that are really usable. There are a couple that because they cost money, too. Yep. >> There there are ones that really work. And then again you have the educational component. So um we actually just did a great job helping me. Uh the committee has produced guard rails like I said for teachers and for students. Those are coming out very shortly. But more importantly is we have some serious early adopters that are I mean they're gone. Trainers left the station in a great way. So um they're going to be leading a multitude of sessions for our intra district uh professional development on March 6th. And so now it's the deployment. So we will essentially we used to call them technology champions. They'll be more innovation AI champions to help with a multitude of

168the projects we have. But to also help lead that charge within AI. It's not whether you're using it or not. It's how to use it. Yep. It's like when email first came out the internet. Like I'm I'm going to stick with my memos which I would still like to go back to on the record. I'm just saying but that's where we are. That's that's just a quick quick >> Yeah. I'd love to get a warned update. Um, yeah, I like I'm I'm really happy to hear that. And I think Steve was telling me too that there's a list of like approved AI platforms in the district which could also as part of a parent academy educate parents on what those are. So when they're assisting their children with homework or um >> well I I

169would add bringing parents up to speed almost like social media like don't be afraid of it but it's not to for example it is to add suggest suggest to your original work just like you would as a college professor right like >> or or president shrubbery right that's still my favorite so those are definitely things worth hitting on like I said the committee has done uh like >> right >> they have just done amazing work and I would be more than happy to share what they've done. >> Awesome. And that um we those PD days are great but I think one thing that we benefit from at UC is just a dedicated instructional design team and to ensure ongoing training and support. >> So it will trickle down to the PLC's so that it it

170is it is it is going to be within the forest be the leaves of the forest. >> Excellent. Um, >> that's an analogy. >> You gota get that on his shirt. I blacked out from [laughter] >> Thanks, Will. >> Um, and then the other thing, and again, this is coming from stuff I'm seeing at the university level. So, I want to make sure it's something we're addressing here is um title two of the Americans with Disabilities Act related to to digital accessibility and the requirements for um websites, mobile apps to all be meet accessibility requirements, >> right? So, that's something that I'm sure you're teaching and learning, right? is ensuring that we'll be fully compliant by the 26 27 deadlines. >> Yeah. >> Our deadline is April 27. >> April 27th for us. >> Ours

171is earlier. >> Yeah, ours is April 26. >> 26. Yeah, like ours is earlier. >> Oh, you get the extra year. >> Got it. >> Okay, cool. But it's on the radar. Working on it. Excellent. Excellent. Um I think that is Oh yeah and then I had some a few different at the primary school shout outs. Um we mentioned I think it was last month that Ayer uh assistant principal Huga had promised to shave his head for achieving the uh walk-athon goal and he actually went through with it. Yeah. So he's >> it's already grown back >> right it had happened right so then the kids were able to watch and cheer them on. So so that was fun. um uh Maddx student council members um before school one day under the guidance of a

172couple of the of the teachers made sandwiches for our daily bread. Made more than 100 sandwiches which uh directly help u families in need in the community. Um the Anderson Township Fire Department visited Sherwood to talk with preschoolers about fire safety and see how our fire truck works, different equipment and whatnot to u you know educate on community safety and um you know leaders in our community they're helping with service. Um, Summit had their pumpkin discovery day. It's an annual tradition in the fourth grade um where students complete different STEM related projects integrating pumpkins such as weighing and measuring um graphing and whatnot which is fun, right? Like helping students engage in a more creative way with the content um that that they can have fun with with their learning. Um and I think at

173Wilson Fox 19 came out for the annual Halloween parade um and interviewed some students and highlighted some of the celebrations that they had had there. So awesome stuff happened in our districts at at all levels that I want to be sure to highlight. >> Thanks. >> That's it. >> And this week is coin wars for anyone in elementary. So find your change, please, as to help support nine united. >> Um I would just like to say happy Thanksgiving to everyone and I would like to congratulate the three of you on your wins. Um I know we might not agree on everything, but I think we can agree that we want the best for the district and their students. So, I wish you guys all the success and you can reach out to me of a

174resource if you need to anytime. >> That's it. >> All right. >> Uh, nope. One more. >> Item 12.2 budget hearing organizational meeting. We're setting a date with a vote for >> January 10th. 8 a.m. >> January 10th. >> 8 a.m. >> I did not ask for not. >> I didn't ask for that either. >> I'm going to be up at 2 a.m. that day because I'm running a half marathon that morning. So, I'd like to make a motion to move that up a little bit so you guys can suffer the pain that I'm going to suffer that day. >> I'd like to make a motion to approve the organizational meeting date of January 10th, 2026 at 8 a.m. Second. >> Dr. Strickler? >> Yes. >> Dr. Simmons? >> Yes. >> Mr. Bell? >> No.

175>> Mrs. JONAS, >> I had to have one no in my my time here. I felt it was a good one. Uh our next regular meeting will be on uh Wednesday, December 17th here at 6:30 p.m. May I get a motion to adjourn the meeting? >> I'll make a motion to adjurnn. >> Second, >> Mrs. Jennis? >> Yes. >> Dr. Simmons? >> Yes. >> Mr. Bell? >> Yes. [laughter] >> Dr. Strickler? >> Yes. >> Mr. Bib? >> Yes. >> Everybody have a happy Thanksgiving and a safe one. >> I want to say no. Let's have pizza. But I was told it wasn't the right time. >> Please do.