001[Music] Don't fall asleep. >> Remember we had to do somebody got a room today. go anywhere else. [Applause] >> They're great. >> They're comfy. How are you guys? >> Did you want your [Music] I'm so glad that she's doing [Music] well. We have blind. [Music] >> We'll give you If you rememberbody [Applause] [Music] Although many racing [Music] What's up? There we go. >> Welcome. [Applause] I'm still good. Yeah, I got mercy. Sure. [Music] >> Pass the phone, right? I got myself [Music] big picture. Excellent. There it is. >> Ready to go. Firstbody. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Good evening everybody. Like to call the board meeting for Wednesday, August 20th, 2025. >> Mr. Bell, >> Mrs. Jennis >> here. >> Dr. Simmons >> here. >> Dr. Short here, Mr. Viv >> here. Then uh item 1.1
002is a retiree employer. Mr. Mr. Phelps. >> Good evening. Uh this hearing is provide public notice of superintendent's recommendation to rehire the following individuals into their same positions in accordance with Ohio Code which requires action to be conducted at the regularly scheduled board meeting on September the 17th of this year. There are two individuals, Doug Cornelson and Wilson and Dean Tibby, maintenance tech 2, maintenance office. This is uh following public notice that was properly noticed on July 18th earlier this summer. Any comments uh Miss McKinley for the hearing? >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Have item 1.4 pledge. All right. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. State bottom on both sides
003came in. Item 2.1 motion to adopt this motion. So motion second >> Mr. Bell. >> Yes. >> Dr. Simmons. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Jennis. >> Yes. >> Dr. Strickler. >> Yes. >> Mr. B. >> Yes. Item three, we have 3.1 approval of minutes for technology facilities committee meeting for June 9th. 3.2 approval of the minutes of the special meeting for June 9th. 3 approval of the minutes uh for regular meeting on June 25th 34 to the regular meeting on July the 10th and 3.5 approval the minutes of the special meeting on July 2. >> All right. I'll make a motion to approve items 3.1 through 3.5 as presented. >> Second. >> Dr. Strickler. >> Yes. >> Dr. Stim. >> Yes. >> Mr. Bell. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Gen. Super. [Music] Where is she going? Well,
004>> yeah. All I can't believe [Music] Right. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] >> Yeah. [Applause] Right. Right. [Music] Yeah. >> Here you go. [Applause] [Music] I mean, I care. I mean, he's a great [Music] >> guy. check. Check it. >> It's delayed. Are you hearing like a feedback? >> Yeah. [Music] >> And I don't She's supposed to [Applause] [Music] day for her and you [Applause] I can't get it. [Music] Perfect. Show me your next year. Next year. Yes. >> Whoever wrote it. Squeaky wheel. Squeaky wheel. >> Streaming mic test. Perfect. >> That's the same thing. You did say I didn't How does that work? Yes. Shadows. Pizza roll call to bring us back. Ask me. No, just ask me to roll. >> Alana, will you bring us back out of executive session? >> Sure. Mr. Bib >>
005here. >> Dr. Strickler >> here. >> Mr. here. >> Mrs. Jonas >> here, >> Dr. Simmons >> here. >> Reports to the board of education 5.1, the Forest Hills teachers report association report. Mr. Preston, >> I'm sure you're excited. >> Absolutely. I'm excited. Absolutely. >> Well, uh, good evening to the board. On behalf of our members of the Forest Hills Teachers Association, I am proud to help kick off the start to this 2025 2026 school year. This time regularly brings fresh energy. Uh students arrive eager to learn and our educators are refreshed and ready to inspire, challenge and support them. Our shared theme remains clear. success for all students. That success depends on the continued strong partnership between teachers, families, administrators, community, and this board. When we work together with trust and collaboration, each child
006in Forest Hills can thrive. Our association looks forward to another year of teamwork, progress, and the joy of seeing our students grow. Thank you for your commitment to public education in Forest Hills. And here's to a year filled with opportunity and success for every student. >> Thank you. >> Item 5.2, the Force Hills Foundation for Education. Miss Gillard. >> Good evening. Welcome back. Tomorrow's a big day. If you're a parent and your last name's between A and L, the kids are departing from the house. Um, so on behalf of the foundation, we're thrilled to kick off another year. I did want to spend a little time um, first and foremost thanking so many people that allowed the foundation to have a very successful year last year. So, if you want to go to the next
007slide, we are proud to report that as of last year, over $230,000 went directly back to supporting kids um in the district. And so that is based on the many donors that supported the foundation businesses. Um and we're super thrilled about that. If you can go to the next slide. So, there are three different ways the foundation actually awards grant money. Um and you'll see here these are numbers from last year. Um but we are we award grants through the district. So in a collaborative effort through the district also through teacher grants and then also awarding grants through studentled grants. And there are two programs specifically at Nagel the the afterchool clubs and transportation home and the sixth to seventh grade transition program um that we fund as well. So on behalf of the foundation,
008just thank you. Thank you to all the donors, businesses, um, across our community and beyond, alumni that saw the importance of supporting kids and public education. Today, I will say that we also raised a significant amount of money last year, which enables us to give even more money this coming year. Um the foundation brought in $482,000 last year. Um which enables us to really look at where we can give more support to students in the classroom, outside of the classroom in these variety of ways through grants. We all know, you all know, um everybody that's sitting here tonight, education is evolving and so are we. And so we are committed to continuing to be student centered, community driven with innovation and integrity. I had the privilege of speaking at convocation on Monday. It was really
009great to welcome all the staff back. Um just to give you a little snapshot, I decided to uh have a theme around ice ice baby. And the focus was stop, collaborate, and listen. And collaboration, I think, is key, not just in this community with the district, but beyond. And so ways that we as a foundation, as a school community, can continue to collaborate with other other entities and organizations within the township, I think is really important for us all to do great things. We have three signature events that will be taking place this fall and spring. Um, our distinguished alumni and staff awards lunchon will be Friday, October 3rd at Ivy Hills Country Club. We will have our Denim and Diamonds fall fundraiser this year again at Belterara on Saturday, November 15th. And lastly, our
010big community event, the Forest Hills 5K, will take place in 2026, which is crazy to say, um, Saturday, May 9th. So, love to get those dates in front of everybody and and recognize there's a lot of ways that you can attend an event, but also support the organization. Um the foundation spent a lot of time identifying some key focus areas particularly in the work that we do with the goal of it says less than but it should be greater than raising $500,000 this year. Um and the four areas I just wanted to point out was one increasing student engagement and voice. Um the last couple years we've had students participate in the grant selection committee, but also this year we plan to work with the schools to identify different student focus groups to actually hear
011what kids are saying in regards to what their needs are today and how we as a foundation can better support that through financial donations. Um also what does a significant difference mean? We you know we all want to make a huge different on difference on the lives of students. How do we continue to find enduring and meaningful ways and what does collaboration look like to make that happen? Also increasing our alumni contacts. Um today we just finalized we have about 15,000 um alumni contacts and that includes both Turpin and Anderson and we know there's a lot more people out there. So we want to continue to make an effort to identify those folks, get them back in the loop of of knowing and understanding what's happening here and how they can be a part of
012it. And then of course always unlocking new and reoccurring funding. It takes an army of people as I just mentioned that we raised $482,000 this year. We have 27 board members. Their names are on the left. Um I did want to welcome a couple. We have four new members. um Keith Renampamp, Katie Schmidt, Cara Shabaya, and Whitney White. Um and these individuals worked tirelessly throughout the year to support the mission of the foundation was which is to support resources and opportunities for all kids to succeed. Um big thank you to many businesses that partner with the foundation as well. I did want to make a quick shout out that we will be hosting a sponsor networking event um on Wednesday, September 3rd at Mercer Social House. So, a lot of all the local businesses will
013receive an invite to that. And the last slide I have is the theme this year for us is just collaboration. How we continue to collaborate within the district, within our community as leaders in our community with the goal of we all want to support students and their education. Thank you. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Item six, superintendent update. Mr. Hook. >> Thank you, Mr. Gre. Members of the board. Um, August one it began. We turned the fire hose on and let's it all started drinking out of it. So, it was really neat though to see our administrators uh come back from a well-deserved uh respit as much as they could get. Anyway, um but uh we hit the ground running. I've just got a tremendous team that works extremely hard uh with the singular goal
014of success for all of our kids. And um we hit it hard on the 7th of August with a full full-blown uh administrative retreat. Um making sure that we had everything in place, trying to make sure that things would be perfect for tomorrow. Um and we knew we had teachers come rolling in also a week later. So August 7th was a long day. And I also want to thank the foundation for partnering with us. Uh that was really fun at the end of the day work day. Uh we wandered up to wanders. >> Nice choice of words. >> Wandering monsters. Wandered to wandering monsters. And so um just finished there with having an opportunity just to mingle with people and and so it was a great day. a lot accomplished and um we had 47
015like I said we had 47 administrators um throughout the district both certified and classified. Um we also then jumped real quick into tech uh into our tech role. Um we had tech camp on the 13th uh with all of our new hires. There's so much technology that we use, you know, and and it's different a little bit at different places. So, uh, we spent a lot of time getting everybody up to speed understanding, uh, how it works here in Forest Hills. Had parat training. That's another one of those areas that we don't hear about, but those are critical critical roles for us. uh they support our special needs kids. Uh so a lot of training there. Uh restraint and seclusion training went on all week. Um it was just um really exciting because you start
016seeing the buildings getting ready and getting excited. Um new teacher orientation where where we welcomed uh 34 new certified employees. they came in. Um, it's we spent a whole day with them just helping them understand the ways of the forest. You know, it's just it's a unique place. It's and a wonderful place and um it was it just neat to see the excitement and energy that they uh produced. And then all just focusing in um on the Monday the 18th which is just two days ago and um where we had approximately 700 staff members report uh to Nagel. It's about the only place we can get them all in at one spot now. We have to make sure we're not enough parking spots, but we get them there. Um, it's just fun, you know, to
017get see everybody back. And, um, I just wanted, like I said, we have six new administrative employees. Um, out of that group of 47, 34 new certified employees, 26 classified employees. It's not that it's so much more than normal. We're pretty big organization. So, but it's a busy time, you know, and we were hiring. I know Rob is hiring. You might be hiring one more right now, I think. So, um it just doesn't stop. So, we've been gearing up. It was great to see everybody back. Um I got to share my top 10. There's a And they got the picture with the football in the air. One of our prizes. Uh it's kind of a you'd have to be there to know what's going on. But every every year after I'm done, I get several
018emails from people say, "Would you share that top 10? I want to share it with my spouse tonight." Like, so I said, "Fine. I don't care." But we just a little bit of an icebreaker to get things going. And I do want to mention uh our thanks to the Anderson High School Summer Orchestra that started the whole thing off. Uh it's just it reminds