9/17/2025 Forest Hills Board of Education

001Okay. I will make sure like you can check your video and then we'll cut everything back to the Mind check the camera. Check. Mr. Bell, >> Mrs. Jenn >> here, >> Dr. Mr. Mates of America to the Republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Dr. Simmons. >> Yes, >> Mr. Bell. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Janice. >> Yes, >> Dr. Mr. >> Yes. Mr. Bell. >> Yes. >> Dr. Mrs. Jennis. >> Yes. >> Dr. Tim. >> Yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Good evening everybody. Thank you for joining me up here. So, really quick, I'd just like to honor our science department at Anderson High School for receiving the Thomas Edison step award. and we run this through our biology program and wanted to quickly honor our teachers that teach

002science at Anderson specifically Alexander Goody Larson Courtney Troy. This is really cool award. I was kind of hoping actually Dave would be here but And we a number of our teachers are highly involved helping with homecoming student activities and things like that as really excited about that and really wanted to share this with Josh. >> Yes, definitely it's going to be shared publicly. It kind of it trickles into us. So the iron is hot. board meeting that you know for a fact of education. Hello and good to teachers association would like to provide a brief update regarding the of our building advisory committees known as BAC's the district advisory committee known as DAC my voice very advisory committees are born from language in our negotiate agreement to help ensure communication and smooth functioning of our

003district as one educational system While I won't bore you with the details of our contract, I will hit some highlights for you. Each school's building advisory committee has recently convened to begin addressing building level topics. Process involves agenda sharing prior to monthly meetings that includes feedback from both administrators and teachers, identifying areas for collaboration. These building level committees provide a vital channel of communication ensuring that building specific concerns can be raised and resolved constructively. The district advisory committee will meet later this month bringing together representatives from both for school district and for teachers association. This committee helps to ensure consistency across the district and creates an opportunity to address topics that might Beyond individual buildings together, the BAC and DAC process strengthen communication and problem solving. The for teachers association appreciates the district's continued support

004of these advisory structures which reflect our shared commitment to collaboration and success of every state. Thank you for your time. Good evening. On behalf of Forest Hills Foundation, it's hard to believe we're almost a month in the school year, which is crazy. Um, I will say that the year kicked off great. If you want to head to my next slide, um, some highlights from Last month on behalf of the foundation, we were honored to attend all the back to school events. Um, as well as we hosted a sponsored networking event at Mercer Social House. And I like to specifically point these two out in regards to it really takes a community to come together to support the needs of kids and how parents play a clear role in that without a doubt as well as

005local businesses. And so we were glad to participate in both of those events. and we are super excited. We will be recognizing nine individuals on October 3rd for our distinguished alumni awards. Um just wanted the ability to highlight them um and could share more details about the lunchon that's coming up. We have four three distinguished alumni and we actually created a new award this year called the distinguished service award for alumni. Um there was an overwhelming level applications we received about what services and how people give of their time and their talents in their communities. So, John Raymond, um, 1976 grad from Anderson High School. Um, as someone told me, if you're at Anderson, you know John Raymond. Um, so we're thrilled to recognize him. Keith Peduli is a um food and dining writer currently

006for the Cincinnati Inquirer and was also James Beard award-winning food journalist. Um Dr. Noren Danni is an acute care surgeon at St. Elizabeth St. Elizabeth Medical Center and our distinguished Anderson service award is going to Joe Moon who worked at Great Oaks for many many years and also did a ton of coaching volunteer teaching in the Forest Hill School District particularly at Anderson as well. for our chirping recipients this year. Um Samantha Bosch Clever um she actually is the current director of the residence and community engagement at Empower Me Living and it's an opportunity to continue to provide residence and supports for for individuals with disabilities. Um, if you know the National, the band, the National, um, Brian Davendorf and Scott Davendorf graduated from Turpin 9391. Um, and they are 25 year, um, touring band

007and also received a 2017 Grammy award, which is pretty cool. Um, a couple like fun facts about them. They actually started at Wilson and then went through through Turpin and they started at a very young age in the arts including music and how Forest Hills has played a huge part in their success. And then our distinguished service award from Turpin is Abby Den. Again, if you have any kids that are athletes in Maple Middle School, you know Debbie or excuse me, Abby. Um, she's fantastic and we're thrilled to recognize her as well. And then the last one, I forgot this slide. We do every year recognize a staff member. And for those that have heard the name Dale Swisser, he actually was a music director and orchestra director from 1965 to 2000 at Anderson High

008School. So 35 year career at Anderson. So we are thrilled to recognize all those individuals. Our distinguished alumni lunchon will be on Friday, October 3rd at Ivy Hills Country Club. It is open for anyone to attend. Um so if you are interested, um it's a $50 lunchon fee and we hope that you can join us. Also, just a couple more updates. We will be kicking off our online fundraising campaign at the end of this month, particularly with the campaign titled Rooted in Hope and Strength. So for the past 13 years, the foundation has been supporting all naval school activities, tutoring, as well as transportation home. And I recently had a conversation with a parent who was had kids in fifth grade, and she's like, "Wait, what do you do?" Um, so we really believe in

009the importance of having kids having the opportunity to find their place to belong. Um, and working closely with the Nagel team and staff knowing that's a big transition year. Um so we will be our goal this year is to raise $20,000 and we also have a matching gift of 20,000. So um just more information to come on that and then in addition to the funds raised will also support sources of strength which is in our second year here at um Forest Hills. So just creating more awareness and education around the program um and how that will be implemented 7th through 12th grade. And then lastly, our Denim and Diamonds fundraiser party. Super fun. Just wanted everybody to know it's November 15th um at Bel again with the lovely entertaining naked karate girls. Um and we'll

010have the online live auction. So um just save the date and more information to come from there. And then the last thing which I feel like is our theme this year for the foundation is about collaboration. And so I want to specifically highlight a successful way we've seen collaboration. We are in the midst of reviewing teacher grants right now. So the foundation received teacher grants totaling more than $260,000. Um collaborative grants. We had 11 um that are totaling almost a h 100,000. The reason I point that out is I always have said two things since I moved into this community is one it shouldn't matter where you buy a house in Anderson. the opportunity your kids get as an education. And so collaborative grants truly ha impact every single school in collaborative ways. So a

011shout out to the teachers and the staff that submitted those collaborative grants because that means we can have even a greater impact on kids education across the district. So thank you. >> Thank you Mr. and members of the board. Happy Constitution Day across our district. We have done a variety of ways to celebrate actual writing of our constitution just a few years ago. This is one of our first grade classes that got to make their own constitution. So, we typically will post some more information about that as we get some pictures in the post. Okay, cool. We got this early. So, we typically do that in all of our elementary buildings that are secondary. We recognize it through our social studies both high schools as well as our junior high. So, just wanted to set

012this in Yeah, that's pretty cool. >> Um, the other day we received the the state released the the new report cards uh from the entire state of Ohio. Um, so just going to do a 10,000 foot overview just of what we're seeing. Um, things change every year. I've been around since the inception of of state testing called the proficiency nth grade proficiency test which they gave in 8th grade which I never really understood that either but you know but it's evolved every year something's added something's changed something I'll touch I'll touch lightly on it very proud of my team uh at both the central office level and at the building level these guys just do tremendous where our teachers and our staff and prepare our kids. Um these are mandated tests. So it's not like

013oh let's just do that. We do that and we really try to understand and dive deep into the to the weeds which we will do but it takes a little bit of time. So, those just came out. Uh, just some interesting overview that I wanted you to to be aware that we are at a 4.5 stars out of five stars. Um, which is fantastic. Just again, we're in the top 12% of school districts in the state of Ohio. Um, so it means that we've seeded the state standards. Um, doesn't matter where we ever end up, we're always going to try to improve. Always. Um, it's kind of like the high jumper clear 7 foot. Okay, it's time to go 71. Here we go. Um, so 69 out of 607 school districts. Um, only four Hamilton

014County high schools received a five-star rating this year. Yes, I know who they are and they don't we don't compare. We're not like them in terms of type of demographics. If you look at similar school districts in Ohio, they're not listed as one of our similar ones. Uh but anyway, um very excited about where we're at. Um excited about where we can go. Just this is just a quick look. This is the five star. There's only 47 schools in Ohio that got done this year. And there's a reason they they've added another component to it. So I'll show you. So we're in this with the other 95 out of that 607 that received an overall fivestar rating. So excited about it. Looking forward to diving deep into the into it to understand where we're at,

015what we're doing. Um because obviously when you get into the information, you you start breaking down the types of questions and how and at what grade level. Um the next piece just shows you those components. There's six components in the overall rating. They're all given different value. They're not all weighted the same, which makes sense. Achievement, in my opinion, has always been one that we need to do well because this is about performance. This is about are our kids doing well? Are they performing well? Uh the main ingredient in this is the performance index. I've always I've always shot for 100 a score of 100. We're at 102 and change. So that is really good. But the grand total you can only get up to 109. for us anyway. That's that's the ceiling. So, we're

016we're pressing the limit, which is great. Um, but I've always wanted to be above that 100. I don't know why that's to me is that's high performance. That means you got the majority of your kids are testing at that third grade through high school. They're testing at advanced plus, advanced, or accomplished. And that is that those numbers have all been going up over the last four years for us and proficient basic and limited which is the more part has shrunk as kids move up and that that's fantastic progress uh which is the second one. We've had four stars and that's really the growth of our students uh that they're making based on past performances taking what they did a year before and seeing how to move again forward. It's hard to to really move up

017when you're already performing at a high level with it if that makes sense. That's, you know, so if I have to perform high in one versus the other, achievement is pretty critical. Um, doesn't mean we don't look for ways to improve. We we'll always gap closing uh five stars. That's basically the the there are subgroups within our school district. uh special education, um economically disadvantaged or your highest uh numbers, then you have um different ethnic backgrounds and depends on those individually. Uh we've done a good job of really helping elevate all of our kids. So, fantastic work. Graduation, which I think is kind of important. You know, it's hard to do anything if you don't have that degree. And so, We're at five stars with that. Uh they do the number that I'll share with

018you in a minute is really based off of the fouryear graduation rate. They also take a snapshot at five years. Okay. I still don't I still a little myth at the state because they kind of ding us on our special needs kids because kids can go until they're 22 years of age. Okay. And don't have to take their diploma. Okay. >> Do they really do they calculate it as they did graduate four years? >> So So my daughter, for example, who went through and did defer her diploma those three years, they don't count her as long, >> but it's kind of funny. >> Seems kind of ridiculous, >> but you know, it's in our denominator. >> Yeah, that's what I mean. That's ridiculous. >> Which is silly, but the state has never agreed to change

019that. and we've pointed it out many many times, but but it doesn't matter. We're going to do what's right. >> Yep. >> That's right for kids and that's what's important to me. So, uh early literacy um they added a component for us this year because even our um kindergarten kids get tested just so you know. And this is what got us went from five to three or four stars. If our fifth, we have to have 90% or better of our kindergarten kids on track entering into kindergarten. >> Don't think so. >> This time we had more than 10% that were not >> and and it's pro likely was phenemic awareness or likely didn't know all their all of their letters because it's tested early in kindergarten. So, it's how they're not required to be in

020our preschool and you know that's not a requirement. So, um that's an interesting one. I'm not sure why why we get here's the important one as far as I'm concerned. Again, uh 100% of our third graders advance to fourth grade. So, you give them to us and we'll take care of them. We we'll we'll we'll teach them how to read. We'll teach them how to to we're just going to educate them. we're going to help them out a lot. So that was kind of an interesting little caveat that they didn't test on us before 90% of and I don't know you can make there's nothing I've got zero evidence that says okay but it is that co group that's finally is that the rationale is that the reason I have no idea I can't say

021that other than things have been different since then in terms people, you know, a lot of people were at home for a couple of years and I don't know if that meant there was less numbers in preschool around you know that I wouldn't I wouldn't know that. So >> Larry, that hasn't changed in terms of the report card though. They've always held this weird >> they had that there but the first time it got up >> right where we've had I think it was even 95% of higher kids show up in kindergarten on track. But I agree with I actually don't think that's a good reason not to look at the data because to your point Mark we have really very little impact on that. So I'm actually happier to see our data in here

022and my guess would be if we went back and looked and I know Kim would have it that we have the data over the years. It's probably not that dramatically different and it is something we need to be attending to because what they're looking at is of our kids that were risking kindergarten, how many are we able to get on track by >> first? That's a more important metric than anything else. It's not how we got them. >> Well, absolutely. And what this says is we're not doing as well as we need to to be honest. I mean, we need to to do better with our kids in terms of accelerating their progress to get them back on track. So, I think it's an important measure for us to have. Um, the other one that

023came in to play this year, uh, and I don't know what caught most of us, most schools in the in the state was the college, career, workforce, and military readiness. Um, well, well, first of all, I'll get to that in a little I got a whole slide for that one just to because I wanted to It's funny because that particular one they used information two years ago two years ago 23 24 years so we didn't have any Melanie we hired Mel Melody Harton this past year to help us with developing more a more robust uh internship programs, which we're doing. Um, you know, they're wanting they're wanting kids that are going into the military to sign up before they get out and do their own so that they can get this deferred piece of paper

024prior to them leaving school. Well, I I don't we always have kids stand up because they're going into the military, but we got a zero for that. So, the methodology for reporting is to me very new. Um, and I'm not sure we know exactly everything with that yet. I think that's what everybody will be jumping into. Um, so and I'll talk a little bit more about that here in about two seconds. So, uh, the component ratings, this just I just threw this up and I'll leave that in there. It's it just shows you across the state in those six areas the number of schools. Um there are only 91 schools that got a fivestar and achieve. Again, I I still I'm sorry. We're a school. We have to that's important. Uh progress only 57 schools

025and five stars in that. And I think there is probably a correlation to high achievement and progress because there just less of a area to get to to improve. Uh but you can see this I'll leave that. But I thought it was interesting to be down to college and career. This last one that he just added, this is where the the bulk of people are in the two to three stars. Uh we start getting a few more here. Some of the schools uh actually some of the rural schools, some of the schools that have tech programs that are more robust in the tech technology schools have, you know, scored a little bit better. You know, like it or not, say what you want. I'm just telling we're a college preparatory school. You most of our

026classes are CP and above. Um we get some We get some points for advanced placement. Absolutely. Uh we don't have a ton of CCP courses, but those are important. We are starting to add those as well. Um because most of our kids want to stick around. They don't they don't always we have some that'll go off to either UC or or the MA or one of the other area campuses, but most of our kids want to stay at their high school, which is I think that's cool. That's nice. That's great. We want them. It's a good place to be. So, I think we're just we just have to keep growing this component. But it's just an interesting piece. Uh it's just data again. Um so key statistics now is like I said I already mentioned

027performance index score of where we're at. The highest maximum score is 109 you know so we're still in this rarified air um in terms of performance which is great. graduations at 96 plus uh five years 98 something um we want our kids to graduate obviously that's important um CCWMR college and career workforce military readiness I already mentioned it's information from two years ago so the big key is going to find out by graduation Who's enroll? Does that mean you're accepted or does that mean you're enrolled to be determined here? Enlisted. Got to kind of touch base on that. I don't know. My next question is it's easy enough if it's a state college that they should be able to get that number to the local schools that they are enrolled. a UC could easily or

028an Ohio State or even could get it to us enlisted. I don't know where that's coming from unless they reach out to us if it's done after the fact. So, we're still we're still digging around on this. This is going to be an area that we're going to turn upside down and find out how we make sure that happens. And if that's a different reporting mechanism than what's going on, I don't know. And the employed deals with like I said the um our workforce programs are they employed currently does boss sign off? Uh who's going to do that in EMIS? Is that an EMIS thing yet? That's that's the other piece. So a lot of that to come. Um and we'll be able to give you some more information as we go about with that.

029uh and the early literacy like I said already kind of talked about that so I don't really but that's you know that's based off of our our I ready scores for our our ready platform so we use our cut scores and that's we just hit that 90% uh and dipped under that and so that added that extra third measure for us um it just We need more support. We need to make sure it's really we really identify what that issue is. Is it letters? Is it the need of awareness? What component is it? And we will uh intervene and help those children perform with that the best they can to get them on grade level. Last one I just wanted to this came in since the last board meeting right after the last board meeting.

030And you may have I think I threw it out to you guys, but I also want our community to understand, you know, really excited uh congratulations uh to our high schools. But before I just say great job high schools, you got to understand those high school kids were junior high kids and they were elementary kids in our system that everything is a spiral and it and it it works up to their their performance. So these kids, if you're a kindergarten teacher, a first grade teacher, a second grade teacher, you can look at those kids and say, "Yes, I had something to do with that." And that is absolutely correct. Same with our pair of professionals. Same with all of our people. You don't think a bus driver has an impact on how a kid performs

031that day? Yeah, they do. It's all about their mindset. They come in to school. We've just got great people here. And I I just want to continue to remind people that we have a fantastic program here. Uh Anderson High School out of 93 uh high schools. Uh we're in the top 4.8% of all of them. Uh Anderson's at 4.8. Turpin is at 1.8. Um I even had somebody I'm not going to go into that not going to do it. Um, but somebody questioned Ohio and I go, "Okay, in the United States then we're in the top six%. Our high schools in the top 6% out of 17,91 schools that were looked at across the United States. So, we're rarified here. And congratulations to our staff and, you know, Chris, I really, you know, want to

032express to you, you and to all your fantastic job. Let's keep it up. You know, it's just it's neat to be around people that care, care about our kids, care about what we're doing. So, and the US World Report considers graduation rates, test uh proficiency, AP exam performance, uh, and the breadth of our college preparatory system. So, great job. Great job. >> Why we're school district of destination. >> It's why people like to come here. >> Yeah. It's why people want to come here. >> Um, sorry, I had a couple questions. Like first off like this stuff US News and World Report is awesome as Mark said speaks to why we're destination district and I know these you know this report card is based off of standardized tests and I ready and our kids just

033get tested to death with this type of stuff sometimes. >> But with that said there were some things that I noticed on there that I was hoping I could get some insight on that maybe are areas for improvement for the district. and you talked about some of them, but the the reading diagnostics and the early literacy piece, like you spoke about the kindergarten portion. When I'm looking at the fall 23 and fall 24 reading diagnostics, it looks like what it's saying is that each year from first grade to second grade to third grade, a a smaller percentage of our students are on track with their reading. >> So for 2024, for example, it said 77.6% graders on track with the reading, >> right? >> But 100% of those third graders will go to fourth grade.

034So I mean there will be kids that that will need intervention all the way into junior high and above. So and we'll continue to do that and intervene for those kids. Um again, you know, I was just trying to give you a 10,000 foot view. Um, I want to give my cabinet, you know, some time to actually dig into it. Yeah, we saw that. We looked into that, >> but I'd like them to look in and see why they'll have that ability to do so. And I believe we got a uh P&L >> committee meeting. I don't have the date in front of me. It's coming up >> October 20th. >> So, we by then we'll have some at least. >> Yeah, I know. somebody was calling around, >> but that'll help. I think that

035that gives us >> a chance to really give us an opportunity to look a little deeper into what that means and areas that we can define. Yes. >> Yeah. I I'm definitely not trying to put you on the spot. I'd love at a future meeting to get something like from those meetings when you're digging into the data some insight into maybe both on the successful things like what did you identify that we're doing that leads to high achievement >> but also on some of those other things like where might we be falling short and what can we be doing a little bit differently even with the college and career readiness like I know Melanie's doing an awesome job but how are we internally assessing what we want to see out of that program like forget

036what the report card says We should have targets that we're trying to reach with that and know to what extent are we reaching those what can we do to make sure we're reaching those more efficiently etc. I think we can do what we can do later. Um, again, I'm just kind of thinking about this such as Melanie is maybe at a later board meeting have her just come and actually go over her program and what what we are trying to accomplish and you can kind of see how those match. But that would be I'd want to give her some time on this way. I think our cabinet really is really good at digging into our data. >> So that I'm excited about about hearing what it is and what we can really, you know, laser

037focus on approving. Absolutely. >> It doesn't matter if if we' have been five stars, I've been telling you the same thing. We're going to try to improve. We want to be a tick matter and we owe that to our kids. [Music] I just had a a curiosity question. As a parent of my first recent graduate, we got a survey not too long ago asking some of these four work questions. Is he working? Is he in college program and I didn't know if this was feeding into that in any way. Um >> like a year I think a year in some of those. So we um received our reading for students who graduated to find out the different 11 given that we've learned the rules. It's really hard to look at now this graduation rate is

038still high to and finding that one point is diffult. So we did cast information. So after learning what we have we have writing systems in place. >> Yeah. Be able to get that information earlier. I was just curious actually having built it up wondering where that fit in. And Larry, one more thing that's completely separate from the report. So yesterday we had our presentation from Future Think. Is there a plan to share some of those projections public more public? I know it's a public meeting, but it wasn't a normal meeting like this. >> Maybe a future superintendent update or so we kind of go through let the public know where we're going, how that might affect our planning. >> Sure. >> Um I mean, I can give the data. I'd want it probably a little

039bit, >> you know, as long as we see the the general flow of what's happening with our with our enrollment. I mean, the big takeaway I got out the bat was it's not impacting us hugely in any way to to the point where we're losing enough students to have to be able to close a building or do any of that. It's just not there. Um, now five years from now, things can change and I would certainly encourage my my plan would be to do this every five years even though it's a 10 year. >> I just don't I think there's too many things 10 years out there. Nobody has a clue what's going to happen. >> And so you can do it every five years. I think you keep a pretty >> pretty good handle

040on where your growth is >> or loss whatever that may be. some things that I mean we're just doing this briefly that jumped out to me as well is you know we're not seeing evidence of just rows of kids leaving to go to private schools like when the kids are starting in our district in kindergarten they're persistent and staying through 12th grade um the biggest factors affecting declining enrollment are trends outside of our control birth rate new construction that are affecting not just us but the state the country so very thorough report and I think you know enrollment is a just a topic that comes up in a lot of different contexts and we've got these meetings as well >> and so I think uh just something Mark has said before if we can communicate

041a standardized enrollment data that everybody is is working from when they make assumptions all opinions all that type of stuff I think it would be really helpful to just get everybody on the same page Let me take a stab at that and you know share it with you at a a board update and see if it we get to it by the next board meeting. Could just do a a brief presentation on just I won't go into all all the survival ratio and all that other but but really what we're what we're seeing and the trends just to follow on your comment despite my report being boring we went over it last night. Um, no, I'm hopeful Jason's exactly right. We we get that. I wouldn't mind doing that next month at the board meeting,

042making it pretty, making it craft. But I know Rob and I talked offline as well, and he's already taken a lot of those projections on students and is looking at the future impact on FTEEs going forward. So, we'll be able to tinker with that a little bit going forward as well. So, again, back to your point, we all have the same data. At least we're all having the same conversation. We may not agree on it, but at least we're all coming from the exact same factors. And at the HR committee meeting, that's when Rob will move his piece with FTE and what that actually means for us, right? >> You know, because we count a body as a body versus where the state will count them as a half a body. Not quite sure why.

043Well, I know why. It's all about money, but it is what it is. So, but yes, we we do that and and Rob does a great job of tracking how many kids we have in our general ed classes, you know, and what's happening in our special ed ranks. Um, so those are key key pieces. >> Absolutely. We can do that. 71.1 for public commentary is committed to conducting this meeting in a conduct efficient manner to ensure that the meeting is completed in a reasonable amount of time while also recognizing the importance of fair and opportunity of public order to conduct an orderly and fair representation of expression. The board will provide a period public for public participation per policy 0169 February 14th. Public participation will be a total of 30 minutes. Each speaker will have

044three minute time limit speakers. Board does not discriminate based on the individual content. Speak the individual content of the speech at point of several people wish to speak on the same topic. Time may be adjusted at the president's discussion. Speakers should be prepared to respond to questions to clarify the issue. We have two speakers tonight. Good evening. >> I'm Ann Zimmerman and I'm here to talk to you again about Anderson's Park. and why they are such an important partner to the Forest Hill School District. I'm the co-chair of the committee to pass the park levy that will be on the ballot on November 4th. This levy will be a replacement levy. The current levy stops when this passes. This levy gives us a rate reduction over the current levy that is in place. It is

0451.8 mil, which is less than the current levy rate of 1.9 mil. We Township passed a capital levy in 2023 which authorized the park district to make a number of improvements in our parks like the new turf fields and lights at Riverside or the pickle ball courts at Kellogg Park. But none of that money from 23 is allowed to be used for the park's operations. To operate, maintain the fields, pay staff, and run programs. The park district relies on the operating levies that it has had in effect for decades. Unlike many other levies in Ohio, park levies actually expire after 10 years. That is an essential point to understand in making your choice in November. The school levies are continuing levies. As you're all aware, the park levy is not. If this ballot issue does

046not pass, the parks will lose their main source of revenue next year. They will no longer have the funds to maintain our parks and operate as a district as they do now. There is a direct connection between the Anderson Park District and the Forest Hill School District. Today, I will share a couple more of these connections with you, and I'll be back next month to share some more. Last month, I explained how our parks act as a theater system for our school athletics and how our school teams directly use park facilities. In addition to those previously discussed, our parks are a coste effective investment in youth and education. The levy is a replacement, not a new tax. It will cost $63 per year per 100,000 value of your home. For that modest investment, the park

047district maintains nine parks and the red flags, which serve thousands of students and families across the township. And on top of that, the average home in the township is worth about 15,000 more because of our park system. The total economic impact on the aggregate value of our homes in Anderson is $168 million. And for all this, for less than 300 per year, if your home is worth 450,000 or less, now that is great investment for all of us, and is a no-brainer if you ask me. Our parks contribute to a broader educational and community value. Beyond athletics, these parks support school events, outdoor learning, and extracurricular activities that are vital to our mission. I talk too slow, but our we do have signs in our website is preserveanderson parks.org and if you go on there,

048anybody here in our audience or streaming, we will get one delivered to your yard. >> And Ann, I asked you last month, but um the social media stuff, is that up yet? >> It is up. It's on Facebook and the others. It's Preserve Anderson Parks and we have our web page and it links it to you also. So, we have social media going. Signs are up. We're going to do some larger signs this next week. We're moving. We're We're getting a real positive response. >> Thank you. >> This is Jeff N. >> Hey, Jeff Nye. 1000 Ever Soul. Um, two things to talk about today. One's kind of two parters, kind of three. And Larry, I think you touched on this in response to maybe Jason's question. Um obviously there's a presentation yesterday about enrollment

049projections. Um and you know while the overall number in the 3435 school year is down one of the things that I noticed is that in the younger grades at that point the projection is actually up. And so I just want to point out that you're looking at a bottom line number doesn't tell the whole story. I want to remind you that please look at the whole picture whatever it is. Obviously it's just one piece of information to consider. So I was going to suggest you know redoing it again and obviously it's already the radar. So you know good on you there. Um, second is sort of related to this. I am interested to hear what the administration thinks like the actual number is. Obviously, if you lose 100 kids across the district, it doesn't change

050your staff or your facilities needs. You lose 100 in every grade in every school, it's a very different thing. And so, I wonder what the threshold is. You know, I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but at some point, um, you know, I think parents would be interested to know that. And then if you do think you need to make a change, you know, what do you look at as to how you make a change? Obviously you look at you know where things are programmatically the age of facilities the geographic location facilities interested to know what sort of things you put into that um decision or analysis. Um so those those are the first two things 1 A and 1 B. The third thing it's a little different. Um I'm a lawyer. I

051have a very small uh first amendment practice and so someone kind of brought this to me and I guess because of that and since it is Constitution Day I thought I'd bring it up. Um Apparently, one of the student clubs is planning in the next few days to host a memorial or a retrospective uh related to Charlie Kirk, who was murdered a few days ago. And what I want to say about this is that I will not be surprised if there are complaints or protests related to this. And if that happens, I really hope that we use this as a teachable moment in two ways. There's one obvious way. I think this is something that everyone in this room will agree on, which is that it's a teachable moment that we need to make sure

052our kids know that our political and social discourse cannot be defined or circumcribed by violence. It's never acceptable ever, ever, ever, regardless of whether you agree or disagree with them. And that's the obvious teachable I think we all agree on. The second um is the legal aspect of this. And if we do get the district does get more points, um I hope that we remember that student clubs and after school meeting spaces are designated or limited purpose public forums and we have to be viewpoint neutral there. We cannot determine who can speak or hold an event based on whether we agree or disagree with Charlie Perk or their message about Charlie Perk or whatever. We cannot give into heckler's veto on this or anything else and that's an easy teachable moment. Hope we keep that

053in mind. Thank you Jeeoff. I will say real quick about um kind of that future planning and enrollment whatnot. As part of our uh superintendent evaluation performance review, we had identified specific goals um for the superintendent role and one of them was to start using enrollment data and space data to explore future like long-term facility planning and option need. So this future think enrollment projection is kind of like the first step in that process that Larry's been working on to help us start moving down that path to think about what is what do our buildings look like 5 10 15 years from now. So we're we're getting there hopefully. Item 8.1, human resources, two fellows. Good evening to the board. Um, pretty straightforward HR report this evening. Couple retirements I'd like to shout out. First

054and foremost, uh, on the certified side, Cara Kaiser, eighth grade science at Nangle, 27 years in Forest Hills School District, retiring at the end of this school year. Uh, and similarly, Christina Teach, speech and language pathologist. Um, as far as I know, she's been at Wilson almost her whole time. Um, but she's been here 26 years and we certainly would wish both Tara and Christina u a an exciting final chapter here in their career as educators. Um, on the classified side, we have four individuals uh for approval this evening for retirement. Um, Doug Realison, 34 years at Wilson. Uh, and I not to jump down, but you can see Christopher Dean Tivy also listed on here, 31 years in the district, both of whom you'll see down below. We held public uh notice and in

055compliance with the rehire, but they're listed for reemployment. Um, so they're not going for very long. They do have to stay away for a short period of time. But other than that, Bob Hartley, also known as TUBA, not sure how many of you knew that, but uh Bob Hartley, 13 years in the district, uh is uh is eager and excited to retire at the end of October. And then finally, Cynthia How um here for eight years in PAR at Wilson. She'll be with us the rest of this semester and retiring effective January 1. So we certainly wish all of them the best and collectively among the certified staff 53 years and 86 years among the classified folks. Um item B we have a number of resignations on both the uh primarily the classified side. Um

056on the certified side I would just point out that Gene Bod is uh officially ret resigning. We did a one-year stop gap with her um for a rehire and she has announced her intent to resign effective at the end of this school year. Obviously wish her all the best as well in her final year at Wilson in Forest Hills. Um and on the classified side there, unfortunately, we've seen Anto Paris resign. Um and some of them unexard quite unexpectedly at the last minute. Um, and by the last minute, I mean it's unfortunately never a good time uh for resignation without somebody to step in in those those positions of the academic school year. Um, so you'll see a couple there listed for summit. Um, we're actively working uh Jaime's team. Um, and we have a

057final interview to replace one of those positions. Um, and then Cat Baloney, you may recall we were doing a job share with Cat over the course of this year and for personal reasons, she's not able to do that for the rest of this this school year. So, um, thank Cat for all of her time in Forest Hills and the energy that she's brought um most specifically and most recently at Summit and and the training that she provide, Ashley Shepka who's stepping in in her her position there with Kyle Mack at the helm uh the Summit Nation. Um, see a handful of appointments under item C and a bunch of supplemental contracts for various clubs, activities, and things like that. Um, and a number of volunteers as well listed. Can't do things without our parents and

058and volunteers in our midst. Always great to see those substitutes listed there. A handful of personnel changes and um and you know, great to welcome in uh quite a few student teachers and folks getting in our midst and doing some practicum hours. uh some formal student teaching later this year and it's not on my report but I would also uh just mention um we have a number of individuals uh paras currently who are in the process of obtaining their teaching degree they're doing classes at night and uh programs are cropping up all over the place to try to meet folks where they are to try to accelerate their uh educational pathway. Um we have established uh a bit of a formal slash informal partnership with ENKU that has a PAR educator program uh and then

059also with Franklin University that has a similar program. So excited about those. Just thought I'd share uh that with you all. I would also point out as I mentioned in Mr. Hook's board update last week that the board's HR committee meeting that Mr. referred to earlier tonight is scheduled to meet on the 10th of October at 4:30 at central office. Um and uh and then lastly, just in in light of uh uh individuals on our supplemental list for approval this evening, this is an action item. And so if there aren't any questions, superintendent recommends the board approve the HR report and its attachments as listed. This is action. >> Mr. Bell. >> Yes. >> Mr. Red. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Dennis. >> Yes. >> Dr. Simmons. >> Yes. >> Dr. Strickler. >> Thank you very

060much. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Uh this will be the beginning of the consent agenda with my two items this evening. The first uh agenda item is a very typical one in the beginning of the year past few months is resolution to declare impractical various schools with an updated list of students. Um that is 9.1. I'm assuming there are no questions about that. Thank you. And then item 9.2 is um the our annual bus purchases that we will be going through the EPC consortium. So, uh this is a resolution to allow us to work with the EPC to secure the buses bus. >> Just pretty much four buses every year plus minus. >> That is that is the program. Yes. Because when you try to get a 15-year rotation, we want to that keeps us

061in a good rotation. works out great with our mechanics. We can have them last 15 years. >> John, I haven't heard any updates. I know at one point in legislation we were hearing rumors about trying to get rid of the payment in li of transportation option. I haven't heard anything else about that in Columbus. They're still on break. starts from that week. >> No, no new no new news in that at this point. And then this is not a an agenda item, but uh Dr. Strickler had asked a couple questions today, so I wanted to fill you in. Um one thing was she was getting some questions about the late arrivals and bus drop offs and stuff like that. The answer is yes, it is happening and it's not something we're pleased with. It's not

062something works that way. The challenge we're having is we are still starting five drivers down every morning. And if we can get the subs in and stuff because you you will see there are patterns where days are a little bit some days are better, some days are worse. We are having everyone drive every day basically to the point that they I have to go down and be the dispatch. Richard has to drive. all our mechanics have to drive and and that is exceptionally problematic obviously uh because one big delay the other day was we had a bus broken down on the road and literally no one legally could take another bus to them. Okay, I can no matter how much I want to I can't jump in an empty bus and take anybody anywhere. I

063can do it once and then you'd be signing a termination paper on me, which I'd prefer not to happen, you know. So, those are the challenges. But some good news with it, and I hate doing this because Larry and Elena and Rob have, you know, obviously we feel like we're getting in a good spot. We bring on a couple people, which we did right at the beginning here, and then we had at least three people go out on long-term medical. So, we're back at point blank, but right now we have three in the pipeline. One, we're waiting for the final state approval. He's done all this everything, so final state approval. The other two are in training close to the end. So, but that that's still going to be another few weeks before we could

064get them. Now, we did do another uh bus rally this weekend. Okay. You know, truthfully, it was a little bit of a surprise. I'd like to thank Josh for stopping by and checking us out. Weren't sure we were >> going to start driving. Is that what it >> No, no, no, no, no. We won't talk about Josh driving the bus, but no. Josh came by to check check on Richard and I. We did actually have more people show than we had anticipated. Um, so in that we're calling it. We have three and a half opportunities. >> I mean, one person's short. >> Well, let me explain because this one I want to say, I want to say real publicly because this is pretty exciting. And don't pick on short. Okay, I know that's where you're

065going. Now, three and a half. We have three people who uh two of them are current actively looking for jobs. Okay. The other one is planning his retirement in six months. Okay, so that's that's that's still one of the three. The half is something awesome that we had always hoped would happen but actually happened. We had a Turpin High School teacher show up and she walked right up to us and said, "There's no way I can run around." I understand that, but is there any way if I get a license, could I help with all the after school events? That would be tremendous. Okay, because that's where we really run into some challenges, too. We have one day, if I'm making up this number like, didn't we have like seven trips that were supposed to

066go out by 2:30? So, there's seven buses that are taking someone somewhere and then Richard and Sarah and Christy are doing their magic, combining the routes and stuff like that. We have the physical buses, we just don't have the drivers. So, I'm putting the challenge out to all our staff. If if there's any secondary teacher, truthfully, as much as an elementary teacher might want to help us, it really their timing wouldn't help. It's really pretty much Anderson and Turpin if we get a couple of those teachers to do that and you know whether this young lady can can actually have the opportunity and works into her life to really pull it off. But it was exciting to see her. So I want to publicly say that. I'm not going to say her name because I

067don't know she want me to say but it I was it was real fun seeing her there and she was actually good with the bus. Richard just let her kept cruising. She was enjoying that. So, and then the other question you had when when excuse me is about the stop the stopfinder app where we are with the stopfinder app. It has three components basically. Let you know what your bus stop is and what the routes. after servers and all that got fixed and program issues we had that is up and running and accurate. Not a happy roll out but this that app is working now. Okay. Number two that it can do is then send out notifications. Richard's been able to work on notification and it has dramatically decreased the amount of phone calls we're

068getting when a notification goes out. We know that uh the bus is going to be a little bit late because when I'm down there dispatching, you know, phone ring and truth past couple times I've been down there, I've always been nervous because the phone hasn't been ringing. But Richard is attributing that to the communication piece. Okay. The third piece is the one that we've been talking about is the Geonet. Uh the actual name they use it is geozone. Okay. On the phone that will tell you when your child is within a range of your household. Okay. Right now we're not pushing that out publicly saying that any parent who has an app if they want to they can figure it out. There's tutorials and stuff in there. Okay? Because we don't do anything with it.

069There's nothing we can do. But every parent, and I think Wendy's uh comment was the parent gets a ding, your child will soon arrive and they're standing at the bottom of the driveway. That's because every appific less helpful, >> right? And correct. That would be like but every app once you're you're is set on your geo set is set on top of your property. >> Okay. So that's the default but I want to tell you why we're not pushing it out right now because if you know there's too many fun I understand bad but the wayfinder the tablets that go into the buses for the drivers that's what will give us the the highest degree of accur all that regularly and we are still working through that process as was planned. That was won't be

070a a process of roll out slow, you know, 54 of them one day and then all of a sudden everything goes. So, uh, but those are the process. Once we get the tablet all set up and we're confident that everything's right, we will push out another reminder to the parents with a little update, you know, where you can find your tutorials to set your geo up. >> So, is there something that people have multiple kids in the same school? I still have >> again that was uninstall. That has been those were the many conversations we had with Transfinder at the beginning of the year. Those issues are are should be rectified. If there's a a oneoff where something's not right, you know, anyone can definitely reach out to myself or Richard and we'll problem solve

071that one off at the time for sure. >> So, this is definitely helpful because I think we had talked up so much the different parts including the geo zone and people were expecting that and So that is incredibly helpful in terms of understanding the pieces and how we're working on them and problem solving. The one other question I would have maybe it's related to the geosone piece is um I've even seen a notification come through when a bus was late but the other comment I've gotten been several situations where buses are 15 to 20 minutes earlier than scheduled and parents don't know their young kids have gotten off a bus at a stop which is also concerning. We do send out issues for earlier. Now, these are oneoff things. We have found something out, too.

072I'm trying not to get way deep in the process. >> I know. I'm not trying to I'm just trying to hear all of the different pieces, and I'm not bringing anything to you that I've only heard. >> No, no, I understand. I understand. But there is one thing we did find out within the past 48 hours. As you know, they are refining those routes every single day. And for the past 20 years, the first month of school, they're tweaking routes and everything all the time. We found out though, or Richard found out, or Sarah, as they're making the edits, it doesn't pause. As soon as they make an edit, so let's just say Wendy's supposed to get picked up at 8:00. they make an edit trying to reroute or route and do some sets and

073it says 8:30 or drop off at 8:30. If a parent looks at that notification, boom, and doesn't look at because when they go in and delete it, they may delete that. So, we're trying there's got to be a set with trans that we can freeit without new times and stuff being forced out until we're 100% solid with. So that that's part that's part of the job. And the other part too, truthfully, again, when they're rerouting midstream, you know, literally today I was not in the district, but I had my radio on. They were literally one bus got behind. So they were divided up by three, which all of a sudden you will get someone early. A bus drives by, they're supposed to be last on the route, but that bus last kid. So, they will

074come in, but we do have with um kindergarters that those are phone calls. No kindergarters ever left without a a walk and things like that. That's that's so it again I understand there's a little frustration out there, but all I can say is teams, you know, busting their tail and trying to get it up and I've seen improvement every day. Keep looking for that. Any other questions? Okay. So, with that said, at this time, I respectfully recommend that the board approve 9.1 and 9.2 as part of the agenda. >> Thank you very much. Hello. Good to see everybody again. Um, pretty standard request here for overnight field trips. Uh, we have some music field trips. Um, Dr. Strickler, to your point, I looked I double checked the documents. It says on the spreadsheet you said

075you saw or you're approving Anderson and it is the Forest Hills School. That is how the form So that's just a slight typo on what you were seeing. So I did triple check that with you checking. I was away. No. So we're good on that. Uh, additionally request for an orchestra field trip. And then our standard athletic field trip. Some of these might or might not happen, but we put them up because that's when the OSAA tournaments are easier to do them at the beginning of the year instead of peace mailing throughout the year. So any questions with that? It seems like there's only an assumption that Anderson would be going to C Ohio. Not Turk might be going there as well, right? >> I would like them to go. >> Any questions? Thank you

076so much. Did you see the email earlier? You may have responded. Just asking for clarification around why we're looking at the financial forecast now because I asked you last night, but there was an email today asking today. [Music] >> Sorry. >> No, it's all right. Just so everybody knows because I had the same question last night of didn't we just look at that and isn't it November? >> Just look at that. You didn't just look at that. >> So, we've all asked just for the purpose of clarification. >> Okay, good. Um, yes, we are back tonight. We were just to the frustration of every school treasurer in the state of Ohio. You guys need to mic no one can hear you online. >> No one can hear me. Oh, sorry. >> How about there? Is

077that better? Thank you. >> Okay. Again, as I was saying, to the frustration of every school treasurer in the state of Ohio, yes, we are back again. Um, House Bill 96, which was the budget bill, changed the timing and few requirements of the five-year forecast. So what it did, it changed the uh fall forecast to actually be August 31st and the spring forecast to be the last day of February with the caveat that fiscal year 26, which is what we're in, the first submission will need to be by October 15, uh, 25. So um, unfortunately that's our next meeting. So, we need to approve it tonight so we can meet that deadline. Um, the other thing that's one of the things that has been so frustrating to treasures, but this is the way when a

078new bill is passed usually, they've been a little slow on formats and reporting and that sort of thing catching up. So, I'm sure some of you noticed that as you got this report, unfortunately, the model's not updated to the new requirements. So, for example, it is supposed to be what this legislator called a three-year projection. However, when they came out with the format, it's actually going to be year one, the one year in is going to be budgetary. It is supposed to be appropriation land and then three years projected from there. four future years. And as I said, the model still has five years in it. So, um, treasures are looking at that. We don't know what to call this thing. We don't know to call it a three-year forecast, a five-year forecast, a one

079and three forecast. Um, my favorite is up there that um came through the threads. This is a financial forecast. So, um, we went with that. Um, but just as you look through the report, you can see that some of the formatting is still for November, and in fact, it even has November still in there in places. I tried to edit the PDF to fix those things, but still, it's a little rough. Um, most treasures have agreed they're going to go ahead and bring to the board all five years. Uh we don't know uh when we get ready to upload it if the state is only going to take the the uh one year plus three. We're not really sure what it's going to look like when they start presenting it on their site. So a

080little bit different. Um but that's why we're back tonight. Yay. I'm sure I think for all of you. >> More data. >> Data. More data. >> Got some color on it. [Laughter] There is a little color. This is the only slide for tonight. I decided to do something a little shorter. >> Since we just have been through the long forecast, I want to present just this slide. And this slide presents the cumulative difference between the May forecast and this October forecast for all of the five years presented. It's mindboggling to look at this slide and see the differences, but you really have to remember that in five years, a half a billion dollars goes through this district. So the numbers are really, really big. So as you look at this chart, you can see that

081from May to this October forecast, our revenues grew by 1.86%. Now the primary reason for this growth was the state budget. So when I back in May when we did the the forecast the governor said he was going to take money then the legislator said they were going to give money. So I flatlined that state budget. Well, lucky for us, um, we ended up getting 1.1 million, uh, of new state revenues for this year, fiscal year 26, and next year we get an additional, uh, half million. So, next year we get a total of 1.6 million and then that trends for forward. So, that creates quite a change in >> that's in addition to what was already provided. That's that's an addition on top of >> Yeah. Yeah. So, in the course of the five-year

082forecast there, the difference between May and October, it made a $6.1 million difference in the in the balance. So, it took up that's what explains 1.14% of the increase. And that was by far the largest uh portion of the change. In addition, even though we um have not gotten tip dollars for the total property taxes yet, and you haven't seen that yet, I can go on the county auditor's website and look at what the final settlements are. The final settlements for this fall were up a little bit more um than what I expected them to be. So, I put in um some additional revenues in lines 1.01 and 1.06. Um increased both the property taxes and the tip revenues and that accounted for.81%. So, and lastly, the way the model works, it's been updated with

083fiscal year 25 actuals and in May it only had estimates and of course actual to estimates and $100 million budget are never exact. So when you put those actuals in and you do the trend up on actuals instead of estimates, you're going to create some slight variation in the trending amounts moving forward. So you have a lot of miscellaneous that makes up the rest of that change. Um expenditures, looking at the expenditure side, um that's up only slightly 72% over the cumulative forecast. This is due to a um due in part to a larger than expected increase in health insurance. We typically forecast our health insurance at a 5% increase because trend shows that over the past 12 years our health insurance increase has been 4.5% average over the last 12 years. Um this coming

084year starting January 1 is going to be a 9.3% increase. So this was really a rough year for us for health insurance. So bumped the benefits a little bit. Um also the other thing um even though the model is not updated for the changes in House Bill 96, they did put a new option in for trending inflation. and that was to um base up on the Federal Reserve's projection, a five-year projection for expenditures. So, instead of using 1 to 2% or trending back, I thought it made more sense to base our expenditures up on that amount and that was 2.26%. So, that made some changes and those cumulative changes were in there as well. So, that was Just a very very quick overview of the changes. >> Yeah. Done. >> So, and but if you

085still have 25 pages that the state requires that >> you would like. >> You kicked I didn't tell. Do we did you say why salaries is down? >> Salaries is down just because of estimates. When I'm doing the you're looking at it's in the middle of April. You there are things you don't know. You don't know what overtime's going to be. You don't know how many teachers are going to want their payout in June. Some teachers stay on the um payroll through uh August and that's kind of a personal decision. you've got that, you know, you're forecasting that all positions are going to be filled and we know that we had some uh bus driver positions unfilled and so on and so forth like that. So, it's just all those things and I think we

086were off by 1% in fiscal year 25, but again, >> yeah, then it carries forward. >> Yeah. >> So, far be it for me to look a gift horse in the mouth because I'm very grateful that the state came back a little bit of an increase. And again, that's a thanks to everybody who advocated for that because there were some very very rough models that would have hurt our our district and others around us. >> There absolutely were. So, I I'm appreciative for what we have, but I would also like to provide a reminder that when you say we're getting a million dollars and now it's at 6,100, which sounds like very large numbers. I did my quick math here to make sure I was right. 6,100,000 divided by 6,800 students means we get a

087starting place of $897 per student. So just a friendly reminder that the historical average in the state for educating a student is $13,000 per student and what the state is offering as their base rate for us is $897 per student. So we still have a long way to go when we talk about what adequate fair school funding would really but I'm appreciative we're where we are. >> That is a very good reminder and a lot of times when I I do the longer presentation you see where I remind everyone that our residents are still funding 75%. We still are conveniently funded by our residents through the tip dollars which originate with residents through the property taxes. And now the state funds us very little because of um they perceive us to be a wealthier school

088district with larger local capacity. And if you have that capacity that they based upon income and property values, they expect us to do more and our folks do quite a bit and we wish that we would like to see more equitable state share. You're 100% right. I'm glad you had that reminder. Thank you. >> This does help as far as I mean it it kind of obviously you don't know what happens two years from now when Ohio has different budget budget, but it certainly kind of firms up we should not need an additional tax levy until at least 2029 or 2030 based upon because you go into the data under here. have that have an extra $6 million certainly allows you to defer that for an additional year. Again, I appreciate went to you four

089or five years down there number variables that could impact the difference but >> every two years, >> right? That's what I said. So, you don't know. You don't know. But right right now as you talk >> right now as you're talking to the public like this last levy that we had, it's going to last us parabus going forward. It's going to last us probably about as long as any operating level we've had in the district at least as long as you know 25 years. >> Yeah, I think the longest has this lasted seven years. >> This one's going to be great. >> Really work with this one. I believe it it'll get close to that. >> Thanks. >> So, but like I said, that was very short. If you want the long version, if you

090really need to sleep, um you've got this one, 25 pages. And just as kind of a reminder, it does have a page for each line item in the five-year forecast. And if you are wondering what happened in a particular line item, just look at the index, go to that page, and it has a full page on that. Anyhow, that's short short and sweet on the forecast tonight. Uh any any further questions or comments? All right. Moving on to the monthly reports then touch. It's not. All right. The treasures uh report begins with item a donations as always and we received uh uh just over 2800 donations in the month of August. Just wanted to point out one thing. It is a board requirement by the high vice code that the board approve all donations. I've

091had some questions sometimes about well I know this school district was given this or that and if it comes in maybe from the foundation, it comes in as a grant. And if it gets posted as a grant, you won't see it up here. But certainly, um, we are just as appreciative of those grants and maybe we can think of some other way to to honor those. But I have had some questions, wait a minute, I know so and so gave this. I go back, look, sure, not there, but it's a grant, not a donation, >> all right. Um, item B gives you the snapshot of our five-year forecast, which has been modified to include the actual results of our fiscal year ended June 30th, 2025 as requested. Moving on, item C presents general fund, our

092five-year forecast uh for our four-year forecast financial forecast revenues by comparing our estimate on the forecast with year-to- date actuals. August was a high cash flow month as expected. During August, we received over 27 million in advance of the county's final reconciliation of the fall property tax settlements. Um we have later in September of course gotten the final settlement. Uh just to remember we do get two settlements of property taxes in a year. One in the fall and the second one in the spring. Item D uh presents the general fund for and the forecast expenditures by comparing the estimate to actuals. Expenditures in the general fund. You hear this every month. Absolutely stable. You can always divide total annual expenditures by 12. So with two months into our fiscal year, 17% of our fiscal year

093complete, we have spent 16% of our estimate. So good so far, tracking as expected. Um, moving on to item E presents the activity of the general fund cash balance balance at the beginning of the year. 31.2 2 million is what existed as the cash balance at 71 after adding the revenues received and deducted through August 31st. Our cash balance stands at 47 million and um as I said before that's a pretty high cash balance for us but we get two settlements. Next five months our expenditures will exceed our revenues and we'll be spending them down. At August 31st our unreserved balance stands at 37.1 million or to put the balances the other way that you see there on the slide. We have enough cash to operate the district for 169 days and after encumbrances or

094reservations we have 133 days of unreserved cash to operate the district. Item F presents the detailed um activity in our main permanent improvement special cost center. Um this item also tracks the financial activity of our summer projects. As we move to the second PI slide, you can see that we have finally completed all the payments from summer 24. And you have a final and complete accounting of last summer's projects. And this is the last time you will see a slide for 2024. >> Yay. >> Came in underestimates. >> I'm sorry. >> It came in under the estimated. >> Yes, it did. Whoops. I already moved off of it. Sorry. The third PI slide, this one up here, shows where we stand on budget expenditures and incumbrances at the end of August. Um, of course, we

095don't make final payment until we have complete sign off. So, at the end of the summer, even though most of the projects are complete, we still have 1.4 4 million in outstanding incumbrances. At August 31st, excuse me, we have paid out 3.1 million in expenditures and the total revised um summer project for 2025 plus 4.6 million. So, this slide will be in here for for the next month. And if John gets the buses ordered, we'll have a slide for our 26 projects. Thank you. We have cuz in here there's a comments for five buses. >> The ones I think the ones he's talking about were just 26. >> Yeah, >> these were these are last year's buses. >> Wait a minute. He just said four >> five last year. >> My dumb question. >> Sure.

096>> My dumb accounting nerdy question. Uh >> oh. get out when I see things I get. Why is a bleacher safety inspection not an operating item? Because it doesn't improve the life of any asset. So I don't understand how it meets the definition of fund. >> The cost of a permanent improvement fund is everything that it takes to put that ass keep that asset in place and ready for use. >> So calling that >> Yeah. All right, I'm flying. I just >> That's a That's a That's a good McC question. >> I was acknowled >> and I had an accountant nerdy answer. >> You did. Item G presents the um investment earnings for the first two months of our fiscal year 26 and then the right prior three years of history. Interest starting off strong

097with a total of 544,000 collected over the past two months. However, today the Federal Reserve kept the benchmark interest rate by a quarter percent and signal that they may make two additional cuts by the end of the calendar year. So, that definitely is going to cut into our expectations and probably going to have to dial back our our projections on interest. Um August 31st bank reconciliation and investments are presented in agenda item H. And I know Mr. you had a question about the adjustments um which I was totally brain dead and had to go back and check. The majority of those um account for the fact that as we're reconciling to our investment accounts, the investment accounts have a fair market value and we just have cash until we actually get the money. So that's

098that's what makes that up. Um item I presents the uh permanent appropriations by fund for current fiscal year 26. These appropriations are in the limit for the just passed forecast and the appropriation measure by a higher revised code must be passed by uh September 30th. So therefore we're in line with that. Item J, this is an annual item. This presents the rates for our employee benefits plan year. Our plan our plan year for employee benefits actually runs with the calendar year. So these rates are effective coming up January 1st, 2026. Luckily, all of our voluntary rates um for our employees remain the same. And in addition, the term life insurance and our AB and D insurance uh war benefit rates stayed the same. Unfortunately, the good news kind of ends there a little bit. Uh,

099dental rates increased by 8%. However, we knew that this was going to happen. If you remember, we had a large decrease back in 2023 in our dental rates. Um, Metife was trying to buy into the market. I think it was like a 12%. I'm not remembering exact. Yeah, trying to buy into the market. So, even though this is an 8% increase and our um per member per month uh cost is $10024, um that is still 86 cents less than we paid per member per month for our plan year 2022. So, it's kind of just getting the rates back up there where they've been. Um, and you heard me say this in the forecast. Unfortunately, health insurance increased by 9.3%. >> Um, >> is that I haven't contracted. I assume is that just a straight pass

100through if they increase the rate that gets passed right through. There's no >> It's a shared No, it's a shared cost. So, >> so at my point when we pick up half, they pick up half or whatever that >> it's Yeah, it's it's by contract. We we pick up the first 3% they pick up the next 3% then it's back to us for two back to them for two. Yeah. And if it exceeds 10 then we we meet to make changes to the program to be bringing under 10. Yeah. So um again rough year for us but to be honest with you our average increase over the last 12 years 4.5%. So, um be nice to go back to the years where we saw some decreases, but we'll keep watching that. And we are a

101part of the Swish Health Consortium. It's self-insured uh consortium. Um Squish spends a lot of time um over the past year. I actually am president of the consortium this year. Um they investigate and bid elements of it. It's self-insured of course. we pay the um the actual cost but they bid the uh third party administrator which is Anthem. They bid the softball insurance that we have. Um we look at premium we look at the premiums on pharmacy and as a matter of fact swish as a group um uh the health insurance ran really rough this year. Swish as a group made some changes to pharmacy. uh preventive drugs are now going to need to be an 90day script and we're certainly hoping that most of those do mail order. So there's been some things put

102in place for that. The other thing is if you look at our intra um intra district uh web you will see there's almost 20 programs web based programs on there infomercial so to speak to help our employees be smart consumers of health insurance. So, we we do everything we can and we'll continue to work to bring those rates down, but this was a bad year. Moving on to item A. Um, this is uh to request board approval of an expenditure that did not enter that did not issue a prior PO in accordance with the FIR revised code. This was kind of a a little bit of a mess up between Hamilton County ESC and um uh Great Oaks uh Great Oaks has the money in the career development to pay this. Uh districts thought that

103um Great Oaks was going to pay directly. Great Oaks was holding the money. So we're not the only uh district that finds ourselves uh bringing this and then requesting the money from Great Oaks to send it to Claremont County. Claremont County, Hamilton County. That was a sl All right. And that is the uh end of the treasures financial report. Any questions on the floor? Hearing? None. I respectfully request that you approve the treasures items 11.1 and 11.2 as part of the consent agenda which began with um action item 9.1. I'll make a motion to approve action items 9.1 through 11.2 as presented. >> Dr. Strickler, >> yes. >> Mr. Bib, >> yes. >> Mr. Bell, >> yes. >> Mrs. Jonas, >> yes. >> Dr. Simmons, >> yes. >> 12.1 discussion. I just had a a

104couple quick notes I wanted to to let everybody here know along the the lines of the the special meeting last night. One, I know um Mr. H is going to come back and talk more about future think, but as Jason mentioned earlier, one of my big takeaways as well was that students who start Forest Hills State, Forest Hills, we're a very stable district. And um that suggests to me that that students are doing well here, families are happy here. And I think that's an important for us to celebrate. It doesn't mean there aren't pieces we need to look at in terms of um enrollment changes for sure. Um but I I thought that was was worthy of note. So I just wanted to to reemphasize it. Um the other reason for our meeting last night

105was to continue working on our evaluation plan and process and tools. So as a board we did continue to move that forward. Um and I'm excited that that as a board we are going to be able to lead with an evidence-based evaluation process as we move forward. So, um, exciting work happening there. Um, as well, uh, with regard to beach acres and Ann spoke to the parks. Um, I know our family, um, is very appreciative of our parks in this district and it was one of the the things that brought us to Henderson Township. Um, just extending a thank you to everyone who took time to complete the beach survey this summer. I know it went on a lot of different forums. The data has been collected. is currently being analyzed um independently and the

106steering committee that is a collaborative effort between the trustees, the parks and the school district is going to be meeting in midocctober to hear the first presentation on that data and start to get a sense for what the community expressed in terms of wants and needs. So that work is also moving forward which is exciting. Um and then within the district, um I just wanted to share that what really stood out to me in terms of highlights across the district in the last couple weeks was a focus on connection and belonging in lots of different ways um across the two high schools. There was the first opportunity to paint parking spots this year and I think that's um just really exciting. the pictures I saw of like people were out having a great time and

107I think it gives our students just a little bit of ownership over over their spot for the year and you know wanting to um come to school park there and be a part of their day. Um and that you know connection and belonging extended to the summit bringing in um therapy dogs you know to kind of help create a culture of of caring and and belonging there. and then Mercer Sherwood Mosul participating in a rock the stands night last Friday night at high school during the football game and I was there with my daughter and her friends and it was just fun to see so many upand cominging eventual high schoolers um running around having fun and uh and enjoying being together across the different schools. Um so lots of great things happening to help

108our students thrive and um and feel connected to each other. Um and since I am a Sherwood parent, just a quick shout out that Sherwood PTO is hosting a kindness and event tomorrow. It includes a donation drive. So from 4:30 to 7:00, if you have old books, old but gently used books, stuffed animals, clothing that would benefit community partners, they are collecting in the Sherwood Circle tomorrow, 4:30 to 7. So um as usual, our district's doing lots of great things and shout out to all of the teacher, staff, and everyone who's making that. I'm quick. >> I haven't I haven't done this yet tonight. >> Seriously though, I want to thank everybody for >> for adhering to the serious. You all know what I'm saying. Um, no, seriously. I think it's fun to have these

109theme nights, I think, and as the self-appointed director of the theme committee. Uh, no. It's fun to see everybody red, white, and blue. We are one district. We're all moving towards one common goal. And it's just nice to have everybody on the same page, same thing. Every very excited to know next month, it's Halloween. So, we have an opportunity. Now, if you don't want to go full Halloween, I will allow for one month you to go orange and black since those are the colors of Halloween, which means if you have baggle stuff, as much as it pains me to say it, I will allow. So, next month, orange and black are Halloween. You'll be happy to know in thank in in November we'll be having a college themed night and our favorite night of the

110year in December will be ugly Christmas sweater. >> So that is where we're heading as we move forward. >> Hey, it's a ser serious. It's a serious job that we're doing up here, but it does not mean you cannot have fun while you're having a serious job. So that is all. Thank you for participating in this >> team. you know, happy Constitution Day. I'm glad you were able to share some of the stuff that students are doing in the classroom and um that's all right. Well, our meeting our next regular schedule meeting is Wednesday, October 15, 202. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Yes. >> Dr. Simmons. >> Yes. >> Dr. Strickler. >> Yes. >> Mr. B. >> Yes. >> 45. Good job.