5/21/25 Forest Hills School District School Board Meeting

001meeting. May I have a roll call, please? Mr. Bell, here. Mrs. Jonas, here. Dr. Sims here. Dr. Strickler here. Mr. Bib here. And all rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands nationy and justice for all. Safety briefing. There's a exit at the top of the stairs, one at the bottom stairs, and one right over here. And item 2.1. May I get a motion to adopt the agenda? I'll make a motion to adopt the agenda. Second. Dr. Simmons, yes. Mr. Bell, yes. Mrs. Stonus, yes. Dr. Strickler, yes. Mr. Bib, yes. Item 3.1, the Nagel Middle School science state qualifiers presented by Mr. Mack. Thank you. Dr. Mr. Mrs. It is my privilege to introduce two distinguished Nighthawks this

002evening. Nixa and Jacob Pucket. These outstanding students successfully advanced through both our local and regional science fairs to earn a place at the state level competition. While Mr. Preston, our president of the Forest Hills teacher association, as well as one of our seventh grade science teachers at Nagel, was originally planning to present these two students to you this evening. He's actually serving as a chaperon on our eighth grade Washington DC trip. So, I'm happy to be in this place instead of over there right now. So, Um, so in his absence, I'm honored to step in and have invited Fritz and Jacob to briefly share their project's topic and a little bit about their experience through the process this evening with the project that we did water testing of the creek in my backyard. The reason

003we did this is because we had a seventh grade field trip in our first quarter that was all about finding if the water was safe in the Little Miami River. And the reason we did it in his backyard is because the creek in his backyard is a contributor of the Little Miami River. So, we took uh plenty of tests in our creek, including what, 20. And um there's only a few that were very high. And uh we figured out that our creek was safe for animals to drink out of, but not for fish to live in. And uh we just did many uh research about how little Miami and um our creek that were very high so we would like to acknowledge on behalf of the Forest Hill School District their achievement by offering them

004these two certificates. [Applause] Thank you, Britz and Jacob. I just want to say I think I was standing next to you guys at the science fair with my daughter peppering you with questions and I was very impressed you were able to answer all of them. So, nice job and congratulations. Item 4.1, executive session. Pursuant to Ohio Revised Code section 121.22G1, I hereby move that the board adjourn to executive session for the purpose of considering the employment and compensation of a public employee or official second. Dr. Strickler, yes. Dr. Simmons, yes. Mr. Bell, yes. Mrs. Jonas, yes. Mr. Bib, yes. We right back. second. Mr. Bib, yes. Dr. Simmons, yes. Mr. Bell, yes. Mrs. Jonas, yes. Dr. Strickler, yes. Uh, item 4.2, two, resolution to resend the board's acceptance of the treasurer's resignation and acceptance of

005the separation agreement with the treasurer and approval of a successor employment contract with the successor with the treasur, excuse me. I'll make a motion to approve the resolution to resend the board's acceptance of the treasurer's resignation and the acceptance of a separation agreement with the treasurer, approval of a successor employment contract with the treasurer. Second. So, real quick before we vote that we can have discussion, right? Yes. Yeah. So, obviously we've been talking about the treasur um position for a while. Atlanta's contract expires um in on July 31st. And um a couple months ago, uh the board voted to um accept Atlanta's resignation and a separation agreement. Um, we've heard presentations from two different search firms on the on um to hire to replace the treasur and um the board's decided to move forward with

006uh retaining Atlanta as our treasurer moving forward and we've agreed on a contract with her. And so what this vote is is to resend the resolution and the separation agreement that we had previously agreed to a few months ago and replace that with a new contract for Atlanta as treasurer. And I would just like to take a quick moment to say that you have been incredibly professional through all of this, Elena. And in this time of financial angst, I think it's really important that we have somebody at the helm who is financially knowledgeable, brings historical knowledge to the table, shows great integrity, and has the well-being of the district at heart. So, thank you for considering this new contract. Thank Thank you. Dr. Strickler. Yes, Dr. Simmons. Yes, Mr. Bell. Yes, Mrs. Jonas. No, Mr.

007Bib. No. Item 5 or actually item five, the minutes. Um, we have 5.1 approval minutes for the special meeting on April 4th, 2025. Uh, special meeting on April 9th, 2025 and the regular meeting of April 16th, 2025. May I get a motion to approve the minutes? So moved. Second. Just to make a note, there's I think in the third one there's a note about a Jason Bell. I wasn't sure if he was a board member or not. I think you guys got first and last name messed up. Oh. All right. We'll take a look at that. Okay. Um, Mr. Bell. Yes. Dr. Simmons. Yes. Mrs. Jonas. Yes. Dr. Strickler. Yes. Mr. Yes. Item six, uh, candidates for graduation presented by Mr. Hook. All righty. So, want to have a motion to approve the granting of

008diplomas to the candidates listed on your attachment. um students enrolled in Anderson and or Turpin high schools after this date obviously will be subject to satisfactory completion of all state and local requirements. So if something happens between now and then somebody makes it across the finish line, we'll take care of them. Uh but we're very excited with graduation coming up this weekend. Anderson High School uh with 37 graduates. Turpin High School uh we're sitting at 246 graduates. And so we're very excited. Uh we are changing back to the venue we had been to before. Uh so we're back at at Northern Kentucky University uh just a few minutes down the road. Um, so I think it took them a little bit longer to get used to the confetti cannons. I think that was the big

009the big question. So, uh, they can handle that. And so with with that, uh, I recommend the board approve the granting of diplomas to 553 current candidates on your attachments. I'll make a motion to approve the granting of diplomas to the candidates listed in the attachments and any students who enroll in Anderson or Turban High School after this date subject to satisfactory completion of all state and local requirements as noted for graduation. I'll second Dr. Strickler. Yes. Mrs. Jonas, yes. Mr. Bell, yes. Dr. Simmons, yes. Mr. Bib, yes. Congratulations to all of them. That's exciting. [Applause] Just a quick heads up for those of you that are speaking, we have I think 14 speakers. So everybody's time, just to give you a heads up, is adjusted to 2 minutes and 20 seconds. And then so

010we have uh item 7.1 reports of the board of education, Forest Hills teachers association. Miss Garza, good evening. It's got be taller. There we go. Uh, good evening. Uh, my name is Gail Garza. I serve as the vice secretary of the Forest Hills Teachers Association and I'm a science teacher at Turpin High School. I am here to deliver the FHTA report as Chris Preston and many other building district and district staff are currently leading approximately 350 eighth graders as they explore our nation's capital. Events like the Washington DC trip, Camp Kerna, and a wide array of Forest Hills School District supported extracurricular activities provide extremely valuable enrichment and growth opportunities for our students. The time, effort, and dedication given by our teachers, staff, and administration is invaluable. We thank them for making these opportunities possible.

011I have two additional items to share. First, I'm excited to report that the Forest Hills Teachers Association has received a fiscal fitness award for the 2023 24 year from the Ohio Education Association. Fewer than 5% of local associations successfully apply for and win this award. Best practices such as developing an annual budget, reporting monthly financial statements, and conducting an annual audit are all evaluated. Congratulations to FHTA treasurer Ben Schultz, Turpin math teacher, and past FHTA treasurers for continuing to provide financial accountability to our membership. Second, I would like to thank the Forest Hills Foundation for Education for all of the support their grants have provided to teachers and students and for hosting the Forest Hills 5K on May 10th. As always, it was amazing and heartwarming to see our community, students, families, and staff come

012together to support each other and for the efforts of the for and the efforts of the Forest Hills Foundation. Thank you to all the organizations and volunteers whose dedication made this extraordinary event possible. In closing, on behalf of the Forest Hills Teachers Association, I'd like to wish everyone a safe and enjoyable summer and have come back rejuvenated in the fall. Thank you for your time. Thank you, [Applause] Mr. 7.2, Forest Hills Foundation for Education. Miss Gilligard, you're tall and I'm short, although I got my big shoes on tonight. Um, good evening, Stacy Gillard with the Forest Hills Foundation. Um, we are beyond thrilled of how well May 10th went. Um, from the weather, which as we all know, this lovely rainy weather, how we looked out that day, I don't know, there were higher powers

013helping us out. Um, but we had just such a great event. I love to say that clearly this is about a race and we had over 2,300 participants come. It's about way more than a race. Um, it's about how our community, both businesses, staff, students, community members, families, kids, all can come together to support all Forest Hill students. And that is the goal. That is the goal of this event. Um, we were thrilled that um, this we actually brought in the most money we ever have in the history of the foundation. Um, so over $163,000 was brought in and this will directly impact teacher grants um for next year as well as um student led grants which we're super super excited to hear more from students as we head into next year. I think I've

014said this a handful of times at this podium. You know, all of us sit in this room tonight and are listening from home because of kids. And let us always remember the work that we do and why it matters. and we need to take time to listen to those kids. So, the foundation will continue to find opportunities for students to get involved so that we can hear what their needs are as we continue to move forward as an organization. So, just a big shout out to everybody that helped, you know, over 200 plus volunteers. Um it's if if you were there last Saturday, I mean, you know, um I also want to give a quick shout out, Mr. Charles Ogden. Is he here? He's not here. um he came in actually as our top fundraiser.

015So um individuals, student, staff, whoever could um create a team and then from that team you could raise money. So kudos to Mr. Ogden for his support and um his first year of energy and commitment to that. We appreciate that. So uh just a couple other things as we round out the year. We will be hosting the foundation partners with um Abby Whited if you want to go to the next slide. um college essay workshop for so for all of you. I don't know about you, but I have a junior incoming senior next year. Um this is a really great workshop that the foundation partners with Abby Whited. Um it will be hosted on Friday, June 6. It will be at Nagel Middle School. Um but it's a great opportunity for students to come and

016get a head start on their college essay. So she has the ability to work one-on-one um with the students, which is awesome. And then in a sentiment we were all sharing just congratulations to all the graduates this year. Um we are concluding our campaign to cheers to a graduating senior. Um parents could make a $20 and $25 donation. The other part that I thought was even more special was they could recognize staff. Um so who were the teachers? Who were the coaches? Who were the people along their journey here at Forest Hills that has directly impacted their lives. So, all that information is shared on our website as well. And then just finally, we wish everybody a great summer. Um, you know, I get to stand up here. We have a board of 29 people

017because we're here to support kids and their needs today. So, here's to a great summer. We look forward to another great year next year. Thank you to everyone that donates, supports, shows up for the foundation. It's about the kids, and we couldn't do it without you. Thank you. Real quick, Stacy, I think it's also we owe you a thank you as well as several of the other leaders uh that helped put on the 5K. Um Laura Dino, Stephanie Brown, Mana Hail, Jen Shrager, Stacy Foreman, Megan Wolf, and then of course Amy Heis, who is uh retired, I guess she she said, from helping planning the forest till 5K. But thank you so much to you and all that you do for the foundation, helping make that event possible. Yeah. [Applause] Item 8.1, superintendent updates. Mr.

018Hook. Thank you, Mr. Be. Um, quite a quite a a flash of activity in May. It is I call it the May blur. Um, every every day, every evening, something's going on. And so a lot of excitement, so many activities, but obviously first and foremost, I want to say congratulations to our graduates um as they get prepared to walk across the stage and and have an opportunity to start the next chapter in their lives. And that's a that's a it takes a village to do that. It parents and neighbors and friends and families and um it's just an exciting time of year. Um, I also want to thank our teachers and staff who just make it memorable uh memorable to for our kids. Uh, met with my student leadership, student group and and that came

019out loud and clear. They're just so positive about our school and what and moving forward. Um, I also want to uh make mention uh Camp Kern, another great success. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Buck. I know that's a that's a challenge, but you know, it's kind of a right of passage. and my kids who are still, you know, 27 and uh almost almost 22 um still speak very fondly of of Camp Kern and and what was involved there and just the the camaraderie and so it's it's pretty cool. Um what I didn't get a slide up there yet uh was Washington DC. We're in the midst of that. So, we've descended our eighth grade class on Washington DC and uh you know, they've been seeing all the monuments and u getting pictures of the capitol

020and you know, just it's just an one of those incredible learning and memorable experiences as well. They did, we did have four buses get delayed because of Trump moving from the White House to the Capitol and we just happened to be going through and you know it shuts it all down. So they're all going, "What is that? What is that?" Great learning experience. You know, I remember being uh in Springboro at the time when George Bush came through Main Street and how they had that moving blockade. You don't get to see that. That's not something you see every day. And of course, black hot helicopters above you. That kind of creeps you out a little bit, but uh just that whole experience. So there there are going to be a lot of stories to tell

021in the eighth grade uh kids' homes here shortly. So they should be heading back uh pretty quickly. So uh just the theatrical performances um musical performances, art displays have been going to uh the different buildings recognizing uh staff retirements um which is always fun. I just I think it's amazing. Uh again the 5K congratulations. It was an exciting time. Uh it was neat to get the weather to cooperate. We're so appreciative of the uh Forest Hills Foundation for Education and all that they do. And I want to add my congratulations and thank you to Amy Heis who's hanging up the the running shoes, I guess, for this event. But we appreciate all her help with that. Um, I had to figure out a way as soon as it finished to get to the American Legion

022as they were also having a dedication of their flag, new flag pole and and bricks. So, made it there and back and so not quite sure how I did that, but um nothing illegal. I made sure I turned right and did everything properly. So, had to have my breadcrumbs laid out ahead of time, but just so much fun going on and we still got a few days yet. So, um, enjoy this time. That's what that's the thing that I try to tell kids and things I try to tell parents. It's crazy. I know it, but this time is so fleeting. You just have to enjoy it. um been spending a lot of time with uh politicians, which uh I'll leave it at that. I just been spending a lot of time politicians. That can be

023good and bad. uh doing our due diligence with um um with our senators and our house reps trying to push push a a solid budget forward. Um so met again last week in Columbus with our legislative committee. Uh spent several hours today um had lunch with uh Senator Brener. uh not Brener but uh Blessing rather talked with Brener but u was actually with Blessing today um just making sure where we're at and at the very moment we were talking today um the Senate leadership group was meeting to kind of figure out which amendments to go up and down with and it's just a small group of them that we don't know for sure what the Senate's going to produce. uh we will first week of of June we should see that um obviously there won't

024be perfect agreement so then the conference committee comes together what I'm hearing out of the Senate um is is good in the sense that um hopefully it's not going to hurt us um which sounds kind of bad doesn't It doesn't just hope it doesn't hurt us. Um, obviously the governor's budget was not good for 60% of the school districts in Ohio, including us. We lost quite a bit of money. Uh, the House version was better, but they did a bridge formula basically scrapping the fair school funding uh model. Um, I expect that the at least what I'm hearing is I'm expecting that the fair school funding model will make it through. Probably won't be funded fully. You're talking about an additional $2 billion in the budget and they're not going to pass that. I the

025math is there and it's not good. Now, I'd rather have the funding in the funding model in because it it's easier to to plan. If you got a if you got a model, it may be percentaged in a little bit slower. I don't know that for sure. And again, we won't know until we see it and then it's going to go to the conference committee. And um so the the advocacy is still there. I do believe that we're going to be okay with the guarantee, which for Forest Hills specifically is critical. I mean, we'd have to have to get off of the guarantee. We'd have to, and this is a anecdotal number, but probably pretty accurate. You're talking probably 800 kids before we get any more money or ever get on that that formula. It's

026just there's a handful of schools in this in the range that we're at. It's we're very similar to Lovelin in that way. You just you the formula just doesn't fit us. you know, I wish there was something that worked for everybody. But, um, that said, the other big one that came out of the blue, of course, in the, uh, in the House version was, um, the ending balance cap, which I think they've heard that loud and clear. I think that's going to be adjusted pretty dramatically. Don't know what don't know. The auditors association came out with a plan that if it's anywhere between 30 and 100% cash balance, um then it would trigger just an explanation. Make sure you're explaining what it is. Much more doable. Um, the 30% cap flies in the flies in

027the face of local control. When your constituents pass a levy, they've said, "Yes, we want something. For them to take that piece away is not right." So, what it ends up at, we just got to wait and see. I think it's it's not going to be 30%. I would be stunned. But here's the other thing, you know, and they come out of that and I've seen it year after every two years when they come out of the the conference committees, you don't know what you're going to actually see. Nobody saw this 30%, you know, end of the year cap coming. Nobody. It was like, what is this? And that the scramble happens. So, uh, we still have to wait and see. I think that's going to be adjusted pretty good. So, I think at the

028end of the day, you're still looking at the Senate version, or at least what I'm hearing, um, that it's going to be a little bit better for all schools. We won't be hurt, which again is is a positive. So I think um but it does kind of keep intact the funding formula, the new funding formula. So that's kind of the the gist of what I'm hearing and where it's at as of today. But as I said, leadership was behind closed doors today. And according to Blessing, Senator Blessing, they go through every amendment from all the different senators and it's a thumbs up, thumbs down. So, what comes out, we'll we'll see. So, that's kind of where that's at. I just wanted to give you an update. Um but sending letters um you know engaging um

029our legislators is critical. It's important and um I think that's that's we're doing our doing our work and you know like I said it's fun. I don't know if it's fun but it's it's it's stuff you got to do and I think that it's important to do important for our kids. Those are the kids. That's that's we're their voice. And so I think that's really important. Um I'm doing a little bit of a hodgepodge of of different things because I just want to make sure you um have some information on a few items. Um population obviously is changing. Um we're expect you know what I want to do uh as soon as we get past graduation is is engage a third party um company to really take a hard look at our uh enrollment projections.

030Uh a lot of the modeling is just done based off past ex past information. when you bring in another companies a lot of them look at live births survival rates they it's a variety of pieces which I think can help us as we continue to look forward in into staffing situations um I think there's some unique pieces I just want to make sure that you're aware of uh that as I look at some of this uh information and data uh just since the 1819 school year we've gone from 10% % um economically disadvantaged to 19%. Okay. Is that significant? What does that means? That means we have more kids in our school system that are economically coming from disadvantaged households, which means we have to be able to support all of our kids. Okay. Um

031it's just one of those little data points that shows are we changing a little bit what's changing in Anderson Township and New Town. Um I think one of the other things that's really important to understand is that um we've had 104% increase in autism rates in our district in the last five years. Um what's that too? I I can't how do you know? Um, what I'm saying is our special ed population, while it's not growing leaps and bounds, it's slightly ticking up. But this is the the severity of disabilities within our children is is going up. And I just want to point to the fact that we had in 2324 we had four classrooms of uh ESC classrooms um which are really specialized rooms for some of our most challenging students uh physically and behaviorally.

032So it can be a variety of reasons. So, we had four. Um, next year we have nine. Okay. Now, it's not just one teacher. It's one teacher. And some of these children have one or two paras. You could have a a specialized nurse. We have a feeding tube or uh, you know, just a variety of health needs. And some people wonder, well, why? First of all, we're required, but secondly, it's the right thing to do if there are children and we're here and we've got them in our school system. We have to make sure that they have what they need um for a free and appropriate public education. The reality is, and I've heard people say, "Well, can you go over to this school system over here that that specializes in it?" Well, good luck

033getting in. First of all, um there's no no room in the end for specialized classrooms in Warren County, Claremont County, Hamilton County, Butler County. You know, as soon as they open up a unit, a specialized unit. Um and it's usually coming into the ESC's will have them, but there are also some other private institutions that will. um they're full and there's waiting lists. So, we have to be able to pivot and move and maneuver and make sure that we are providing what we can for these kids. So, um I just I only say that because that forces us to look at our personnel. I'm very I'm very attuned to personnel and I'm very um and these guys will they they know they've been in meetings with me that you know when they ask for somebody

034we need another this or that person I go why why do we need this person what what's what's changed I need to see that and so we've done a really nice job and I'll give uh Rob Fellows some credit there because he's he's engaged our principles as well. Why why do we need to change here? And so what we've done is we've captured some classes that because we are having a decrease in our overall enrollment, not dramatically, but yeah, there's a decrease. I can see it, but it doesn't always translate in one classroom. It's spread across the district. So the difference between what's the difference between average classes of 24 or 22? Well, that's a lot of students when you spread them over, you know, nine sites, but it doesn't work that way. One of

035the things I can tell you is watch and Rob does it in and when um he shares at the human resources committee meeting the little grid with the little blue boxes and red boxes. We're following how many general ed teachers we have at let's say at Maddox in second grade and then we know what is that population. Okay. and wherever we've been able to because we try to hit a a range because we know the younger the kid is, the smaller the class needs to be. Okay? We can't run 24 and 25 kids in a kindergarten first grade classroom. You trust me, you don't want to do that. That's, you know, God love them, but that would be a that'd be a lot. That's a tall order. So, we try to use a range and

036you'll see that we're hitting those. And in some places where we had maybe the year before we had four um general ed in one class or for one grade there might have been five. We've reduced as long as we stay in a range and re we've reallocated those to the additional ESC classrooms the additional PAR support which has gone up quite a bit just the ability to handle and work and get kids and be with those kids that need it the most. So I you know, we we're very slow to move in terms of adding staff, as we should be. We should be responsible with our staff. Uh but I think what I want to say out of this whole piece is um we're doing a nice job in making sure that the kids that

037need it most are the ones that we're we're getting them to. So, um we're very aware of our secondary as well. You know, Larry, can I interject for just a minute? I'm sorry. I'm feeling compelled to say something about that just in terms of the presentation of thinking about our kids' needs. Um that we are Forest Hills and from an all means all perspective, it's not just about immediately looking at outside placements either. Oh, right. Um, not just from a a cost or availability perspective, but first and foremost because it's our responsibility as the least restrictive environment for our kids and just from an inclusionary standpoint to look at can we meet the needs of our kids here and if so, let's do that and how do we do that? And that should absolutely be

038our starting point. That's that's where we that's what we drive for. It's better that we have our kids here. Yes. you know, so if as long as we can provide for their needs and that's but like I said, it's there's nothing out there anyway. It's just it's it's tough. It's tough. But we're not the only ones, too. I don't I don't want to sit here and say we're just so unique. I'm I'm hearing this from other superintendent. Oh my gosh, you would not believe the number of of high needs classrooms that we have. Just why I don't know. I don't know if anybody can tell you. There's a lot of hypothesis out there, but you know those Larry just to dovetail kind of what you said and I I think this is one of the

039things that the public doesn't necessarily understand and that if we've had a say six to seven to 8% decrease in enrollment. This isn't a manufacturing facility where if you have a six to seven% decrease in revenue, so to speak, you don't suddenly have a six to seven% decrease in your cost. It's not a onetoone relationship. And I don't think a lot of people understand that. You're trying to maintain those ranges in your classrooms, 21 to 25, 22 to 26, whatever that number is. And you know, a 6% decrease in enrollment combined with these two factors that you have up here, doesn't mean there's going to be a reduction in staff. There can't be a reduction in staff. And I I don't think a lot of people understand that it's not a standard business model where

040if you have a decrease in the top line being students in this case, you should automatically have a decrease on the expense. It just doesn't work that way here. Certainly, you will hit a critical mass point and I'm sure you and Rob work on that day in day out. And you suddenly see, oh, next year we only need three second grade teachers because reducing from four to three, we still stay in that range. Yes. Yes, but it's not one of those where, oh, we have 14 less students in the school this year. We should have one less classroom. It just doesn't work that way. And I don't think people overall understand that it's not a oneto-one case. That's nailed it. It's exactly right. So, and I I I just wanted to bring that up. I

041just, you know, sometimes I think it it gets lost. Um, you know, we we added one m a m a maintenance guy. Um, well, actually custodial just because we knew that Larry Corley was going to be extremely busy after we passed the PI portion of our levy and the summers and really the whole year now is just really busy for that. And that's not going to let up because what we're trying to do is to make sure that our buildings that we have right now go another 25 years plus. So um and if they're taken care of, we can do that. But you got to take care of them. You can't just wish it to happen. It it it takes an effort. And you know, I just that's a whole another subject and we'll talk

042about that at another meeting, but uh when we go into facilities, but I just wanted to share that that was kind of an important thing because we're in that personnel time of of the year. So, um I also will get to you next month a lot more detail um for uh our family engagement survey. We just closed it today. So, I'll be honest with you. I grabbed what? Six six little points. I think I grabbed six points um just that stuck out um on on the survey. There were a lot more questions and we'll share the whole thing and all the the data that comes with it. But like I said, I think it closed midday today. So, I haven't even looked at it all since then. I looked at it earlier Monday and yanked

043these off. We're up to about 194 responses. I just thought some really interesting things on just trying to get a snapshot. I'm always trying to figure out how do we get a little better? You know, we're a great school. How do you get a little better? You know, it's I just always have believed that if you're not putting energy in and trying to get a little bit better, then you're going to slide. And nobody wants that here. Um but just 93.4% agree or strongly agree um to the question, I'm generally happy with the educational experience that my child has received in Forest Hills. This is just a a raw number percentage and we'll get into a lot of this um in June. I just we just need time to dive into the into the information

044and we'll share that with all the board. Uh 90 a little over 90% my child is appropriately challenged by the school's academic curriculum. um 97 almost 98% uh I'm provided an opportunity to meet with my child's teacher or teachers face to face at least once a year 96% uh when I reach out to the school staff member with a question about my child uh most of the time I receive a response within two business days those are those are important to a parent um 98.8% 8% uh agree or strongly agree I'm invited to meetings so that I can learn about what's going on in school. Uh 94.8% um my child's school is safe is a safe place to learn. You know, like I said, this is just this is a 20,000 foot piece. will bring

045in the whole thing in June and and give you an opportunity to really dig into it and as we will, you know, trying to just understand how we can get a little bit better, just keep getting a little bit better and it's that's kind of what we try to drive for and we're excited about that. Um so we'll bring that in in June on this data. Um, I think it's, you know, obviously we haven't had an opportunity to dig into it deep, but like this data kind of complements some of the other data we've had on, um, you know, uh, our test scores that are out there and and how those stack up in the state and nationally, on the, um, recognition of our, uh, treasurer and our treasurer staff on financial transparency, the satisfaction

046of our parents. And I think it's easy to, you know, watch a board meeting and see conflict and bickering and, you know, political stuff on public education, all that stuff. But the data we have show that parents by and large are satisfied, that we're performing at high levels, that we're spending money responsibly, that we're transparent with our our our funds. So, I'm interested to dive more into the data and see what's there. I am curious if you had a chance to look yet. While you know those numbers are all overwhelmingly positive for the people that say weren't as satisfied is is there any theme that's emerging as why I haven't seen it yet but again I took today when I we put this together it was like a 20 second glance I was running from

047one thing to another. So, okay, we'll actually be diving in into it as a complete staff. Great. You know, next week when we'll have our CAT meetings and start really throwing it up there and um we have a chance to evaluate comments and different pieces like that. This is I just wanted you to know that it was out there. We're we're moving on it. Um and so, yeah, thank you. We'll get to share that in in June. It it's exciting. I think it's all by and large very positive and I think you you you hit it on the nose. We got a heck of a school system here, you know, and for the for the people that are using this school, you know, the teachers, the staff, the parents, and the most importantly our students,

048this is overwhelmingly a very positive environment. Are we perfect? No. Nobody ever said we were. but we will continue to try to do the right thing for our kids. Um, and that's that's just what we're going to do. So, I just wanted to share that a little bit with you. Um, the one other thing I did want to mention real quickly. Um well actually two things and it's not up there but there was a group that came out and you may have seen it in on heard of it on WLW. It's on every news wire uh here a week ago or so. We've got a group up in Columbus that is trying pitching the idea of an amendment to get rid of all property taxes. Um, I can tell you right now overwhelmingly from the

049governor through the entire legislature, doesn't matter which party you're from. Um, it's a resounding I won't say the word that I was told. Um, but it was a no because here's what the no sounds so good. Oh my god, get rid of all the property taxes. Okay, you're talking about fire, you're talking about police, you're talking about schools, which is the primary funding for school systems. You have talk about a complete collapse, you know, you're talking about our township and cities. Um, it's just so shortsighted. So, you can expect, you know, they have to get 400 and whatever it's odd number of signatures to get it on the ballot. Um, but I can assure you there will be a heavy uh response against it um from both sides of the the aisle. I think that's

050pretty apparent. At least that's what they're telling me as so as we speak today. Uh the last thing I wanted to mention is um and I want to recognize him is Jeff Weber. Uh Jeff is our police officer here that's been uh working with us for so many uh years and uh he has spent a lot of years as a fireman and as well as a police officer. Um and he is retiring and uh I think he's going to the I think he's tired of Ohio weather. That's the truth of it, isn't it? So I do want to give him just a small token of appreciation. [Applause] Larry, I just had one follow-up question as we're thinking about how to continue to contact legislators, legislators around the funding piece. You commented you've been meeting with

051the legislative committee. Was that education, finance? Was there a specific committee you were meeting with at this point? Is there one we should be reaching out more to? another right now. The biggest thing to do is um the biggest for forest hills is is making sure we maintain the the guarantee. Correct. Which sounds good. Understanding that better. Well, first of all, I think your senators help and your leadership. If you go to their website, you can see who their leadership's um senators are. Um, they will announce, like I said, next week they're probably going to have I'm trying to say think what day. I'd have to look it up, but um I think I have that on our website who you know who the legislators are in the finance as well. Um, so I would

052continue with mainly not just the smattering but focus in on on the Senate leadership. Okay. Senate Finance Committees um because I think Senator Senate Senator Brener who heads the education is also good and I've tried to touch bases with him as well. But those are all if you go to Google Senate legislature in Ohio, they'll come up and you see committees and you click on that and you can see who they are. Okay. Okay. Good question. Thanks. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Hoot. Uh item 9.1, uh procedures for public commentary. The board is committed to conducting its meetings in a productive and efficient manner to ensure that the meeting is completed in a reasonable amount of time while also recognizing the importance of adequate opportunity of public input. In order to conduct an orderly and fair

053representation of expression, the board will provide a period of 30 minutes for public participation for policy PO0169.1. And at every regular board meeting, each speaker will have three minutes. Except for today, it's reduced down to 2 minutes and 20 seconds. Um, if more than 10 speakers, individual time may be addressed, which what we did. We do not allow yielding of time to others. The board does not discriminate based on the individual content of the speech or the viewpoint of the speaker. If several people wish to speak in the same topic, then the time limit may be adjusted at the president's discretion. Uh speakers are asked to speak from the podium and address the board. Speakers are asked to start state clearly uh start clear by clearly stating their name and address. And as I said

054we have 14 speakers. Uh first speaker is Mr. McKibben. Please Hi um Paul McK McKibben Neagle and Turpin parent. Um this month I have seen fantastic performances by the Nagel choirs and the Turpin uh orchestras. Our schools have superb music uh programs. As we all know, these superb performing arts programs are one of the mess we need to continue to advocate for strong public funding for our schools. These programs are one of the many reasons why we chose to move here. It's what makes Forest Hills uh special. I urge the board to do all it can to end Ohio's unconstitutional school voucher program that hurts public schools. I also urge the public to support candidates for Forest Hill School Board who will also support us in this important uh mission to end the voucher program.

055Thank you. Thank you. Up next, uh Kevin Mishek. Kevin Mishak, 8433 Holiday Hills Drive. Uh, my son graduates this year. He was a student at Anderson Hills High School until he transferred to Live Oaks two years ago. Uh we were very happy with that transfer. Um I didn't fill out your your parent engagement survey. I didn't see the need. Um Anderson didn't really suit my son's 504 needs. Didn't meet them. Last nine years were less than satisfactory. But why tell you a survey when I can just tell you in per person? Uh my daughter, ninth grade, Forest Hill School District is thriving, doing quite well, excellent student, going to be doing advanced placement, cheerleader, whole nine yards. Um I seriously consider changing schools this year. Vouchers, why are parents leaving Forest still school district? It's

056not because of vouchers. Vouchers just came in a couple years ago. Parents are pulling their students. Why is that people? What's what's changed over the last seven, eight years? I mean, I've been here for the last five, six years. I've seen the changes. All right. Do we continue to focus on academics, athletics, and the arts anymore? Is that our primary consideration as a school district? I know it was when I moved here nine years ago. It was the top reason I moved here nine years ago. I can't say the same thing. Not now. I I went through DEI under Scott Prebles. I went through COVID when the private schools were kept open and our schools were shut. When you when you disbanded the the business advisory group, which was our only ties to the business

057community, when I hear McNick gets millions of dollars from TQO alumni. All right. When Sycamore gets seven eight million dollars for their pool, you know, we we no longer reach out to our community, reach out to their taxes. That's what we do. We penalize those who want to leave. You can lend the school voucher program. They're still going to leave. Can I ask a quick follow-up question? What is the source of your data that students are leaving at a higher rate now than before? Um actually the fiveyear forecast if you look at that for the last seven eight years that shows a decline in students that doesn't say they're leaving to go to private schools they're going somewhere and actually you I'm just I'm curious what is your data to support that students are leaving

058to go to private schools. One of the reasons we're please please answer the question. What is your source of data? Would you allow me to just give me the source? How many students are on school vouchers right now? 1 126 in Forest Hills. And where are those vouchers being sent to? What do you mean? Who gets those vouchers? Where are those parents redeeming those vouchers from? Yeah, the private schools. There we go. Yeah, but 90 93% of those were already going to That's my That's my point. That's all. Thank you. And again, we're losing students, right? Would you agree that our enrollment is down over the last seven, eight years? Well, I have no further comment. I I I do want to address that. Elena, you and I had a conversation about this yesterday. What

059are some of the the the issues on the five-year forecast enrollment data isn't actually reflective of true enrollment in the district and also doesn't address the way that we change how we counted average daily membership of our students. Correct. It does not include all the districts that all the students that the district educates. What it does is it is the enrollment of the types of students that they put through the model and those students don't include um for example do not include preschool. It only includes all kindergarten students at half day since we charge tuition. It um JVS students are at 25%. Um, so it doesn't that's not a good headcount for what we actually have in our district. That's actually what the state used. So if I may, so the data you present in

060your five-year forecast is not complete. It's not accurate. That's not what I said. the data and the enrollment that's in there pertains to the numbers that are used to compute state funding to compute a particular line in the forecast. So the trend analysis that you put in your report showing a decline in that enrollment is not it is in line with state requirements, right? Yeah. So you're saying that even though you're abiding by state requirements, you're saying that even though you report that you're educating have fewer enrollment students, fewer enrolled students, that's not true. We are abiding by state requirements when presenting that data. No, no, no, no. If state requirements, we're done. You're saying you're saying the data you're giving the community is not accurate. Next speaker, please. Thank you. But real quick, that

061emiss data is more correct. Correct. Or I mean that well correct is an odd term to use because and I see what you're getting at accurate. I'm sorry. Yeah, I see what you're getting at. It's kind of semantics, but when you look at the enrollment in that particular note, it pertains to the state revenue that is calculated. So it does not include all correct all but that EMIS report that you guys get monthly it it it tracks the kids much more accurately. How how could we it counts all students as opposed to those that only go into the state formula calculation and just looking over those you know month by month you can still see there is a decline enrollment. How how can we share that you know because that that's a topic of are

062we is enrollment going down is it not? I mean, if you shared the information, people would be able to see it and and you can see, you know, maybe Anderson's going down and Turpin, you know, it it shows the number of kids more accurately. I I don't know. I mean that certainly could be a report if it's the board's um you have it that certainly could be um I know we use we use one for um that Rob uses that's all of these come from the from do from the department of of education workforce. Uh there's another number if you take the U state testing results and where when you know when you get the report card that'll say their students and then what she has to use on her five-year forecast probably is tied

063more to average daily membership which is a whole another calculation and it goes into um the cup report you can kind of see it do I want to say we're decreasing in students yes but not at as I said in my uh when I share not at this rate that's oh my god we can get we can let 25 teachers go we don't need them it's not like that some of the needs have changed too in the same time period needs have changed and there were times of higher enrollment where we had students out in module modular buildings outside of schools as well which would suggest maybe at those times enrollment was uh so high that we weren't able to sufficiently meet those challenges and So declining enrollment doesn't necessarily mean people are leaving. It's

064a bad thing they're transferring out of the district. There are a lot of factors at play. But to just for some context on that 5-year forecast, it shows that our 2025 enrollment is 6376 when in actuality our enrollment is 7,155. And if you look school by school, some schools are down, some schools are up. So it's our enrollment is pretty steady from year to year, it's 53 student 58 students fewer total than last year. And that's the monthly report you were just um talking about, Sarah. All right. Next speaker, Sean Martin. Okay. Sorry. Good evening, board members. My name is Sean Martin. I'm a parent and resident at the Forest Hill School District, uh 1113 Shanganger Drive. I'm here to ask you to stand with our students, our teachers, and our taxpayers and join the

065vouchers Ohio lawsuit alongside over 300 public school districts fighting for equitable and constitutional school funding. Uh let's look at the numbers. Um the state share of funding per student in the Forest Hills in Forest Hills is just uh $88.56. Forest Hills contributes $7,82540, bringing the total per pupil base cost to $8,8560 with the state's additional categorical and guarantee funding of $2,1344. The total state contribution is $2,822 per student. That leaves local taxpayers responsible for over 11,800 per student to maintain the district's operating costs of 14,71 per student, which is still below the Hamilton County's average of 17,272. Meanwhile, private schools receive $6,166 per K through8 student and $8,48 per 9-12 student. through ed choice. That's two to three times more state money along uh going to students in private schools, most of which are religious

066or for profit. That uh uh than uh what our public school students receive. And it is not just a funding issue, it's a justice issue. We are told these vouchers are to help disadvantaged kids, but by the data, it tells a different story. According to the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, 92.77% of Ed Choice expansion voucher recipients in 2024 were white non-Hispanic and 93 uh.65% were students who did not qualify as low or who did not qualif not not qualify as lowincome. The program is not helping Ohio's most vulnerable students. Uh not to mention children with disabilities. Thank you. Up next, Katie Howard. Katie Howard. Sorry. You say Howard. Thank you. Good evening. Uh my name is Katie Hower and I actually live in Mason, Ohio, but I grew up right here in Forest

067Hills. I credit the amazing educators at Air Elementary for starting my lifelong love of learning. I just retired after 35 years in education. Currently I um also work with a nonprofit public education partners and we work uh with organizations around the state on pro education issues. I believe that public education is the heart of our democracy. Our founding documents in Ohio, as well as the Ohio State Constitution of 1851, make clear that every town should have land set aside for public schools, paid for by the public. Public funds are for public schools. Forest Hills has gone and and I've got some data here, but a lot of it has already been stated, but you've gone from pre-ed choice expansion having 52 voucher students in fiscal year 23 to this year as of April of of

068this school year having 1,181 vouchers and only 2.5% of that qualified. Y as low income. So the majority of students that are take that that are getting vouchers in Forest Hills are not lowincome students. Many of them also never attended these public schools here in Forest Hills. They've been receiving private education for many years, but now they basically get a coupon from the state. That amounts to over $5 million that has been siphoned away from Forest Hills students to private schools. Furthermore, under the proposed budget, um, as Mr. Hooks has already uh gone through, the current proposed budget is really damaging to this district. And it is my understanding that only 319,000 real quick um out of the 1.1 million Times up. Sorry. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. fiduciary responsibility to fully fund public schools.

069Thank you. Next up is Dan Salceto. Hi, I'm Dan Salceto live at 5793 Brookstone Drive and um I've got sources cited so please take notes if you like. First topic inappropriate Forest Hills classroom and school library content which is sexually explicit, lewd and hits and fits the Ohio law OC 2907.01 1 of being sexually offensive and obscene. Past examples shared were The Perks of Being a Wallflower, as well as a list of several inappropriate books in our middle school library. Per Ohio law, such examples are deemed harmful to juveniles when any material which describes or represents nudity, sexual conduct or sexual excitement intended to to appeal to the purant interest of juveniles in sex and or lacks serious literary, artistic, political and scientific value and that sexually objectifies a person. Further, Ohio law 3313.60 60

070uh prescribes curriculum specifically limiting sex education to sexually transmitted infections, sexual abuse, dating and sexual violence, dating violence and sexual violence. And OC 3313.6011 requires that schools emphasize that abstinence from sexual activity is the only protection that is 100% effective against unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease. Period. A board a board member per OSBA in the FHS SD code of ethics and conduct are to make and enforce policy as well to follow Ohio law. Therefore, do your jobs and apply zero tolerance on any future breach. Stay focused on academic improvement through policym, adhering to state law, and walking the talk of your culture blueprint. Thank you. Thank you. Real quick, Mr. Salceto, I have a question for you on that. Um, have you read Perks of Being a Wallflower? Yeah, you have. What's it about? It's

071about a guy that's able to watch a lot of different things going on because he's he's uh he's kind of on on the on the outside of these different circles. So, yeah. And the book was published in 1999. So, I'm curious about why now you're coming with a complaint to the board about it. because of the incident that happened at Turpin High School where one of the students um was read aloud in class and she uh uh complained to her parents in which turn the parents sent letters to superintendent and copy the board. Which class? I'm not at liberty to say it. I It's a It's in your Forest Hills. We have it through the Freedom of Information Act. So, it's in your record, sir. Okay. So, you should find your source. I'll be happy

072to send it to you. It's been redacted, but you guys know what happened and there's a lot. It has no literary value. So, follow the law. I think that's a subjective statement. Um, could you speak at all how to the the epilogue of that book might um relate to that earlier scene and how understanding and being able to relate to that character would help with the final message in the book about being part of community and the importance. I mean, I'm not a teacher. You're not a teacher. So, actually she is. Well, maybe she You're not a teacher in this district. Are you? Yes. I am not a teacher in this district, but I do defer to the teachers in our district. Yeah. You didn't choose the book. I didn't choose the book. So, I'm

073I'm not here to make a comment on that. I'm here to to tell you what the law says. And if there's a student, back to you've been talking safety and safety and our students, etc. Mhm. that if there's one student, there's probably 10 or 15 behind her that felt sexually objectified. So, whatever the epilogue may or may not say about it, if there's a student hurting in there, and I hear you talk about it a lot, Wendy, we got to look after our most vulnerable, etc. Look after her. She's someone's daughter. Oh, 100%. And I agree with you. And I will say two chapters later that is absolutely addressed in the book and how in terms of how it's discussed with the character. It doesn't matter. Ohio law asked that if there's any you can

074read the law, but I think it is because you're taking it out of context and presenting a chapter with no context of when it was used, what what the purposes in the book, what the lesson was, what the learning was. I'll send you your own paperwork. It's in your records and so I'll send it to you. You read it. You give me a call. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Up next is Christy K. Hi, I'm Christine Kant, 1800 Denfield Court. I wanted to make three points about vouchers. Um, the first one is our government and the church must be separate. I belong to a church. I love my church, but they should be separate. Um the majority of private schools are religious and so our tax dollars should would be going to supporting

075a religious institution. And so that's a hard no for me. The purpose of public education is to provide our society with a population um brought to their best function, their highest use. Uh private schools don't have to admit all people. They don't have to follow a specific curriculum. Children with any disabilities, physical, mental, behavioral, emotional, um, uh, anyone requiring any extra educational help, could be excluded from becoming the most they could be. So to have our best educated society, public education is necessary. And we have a state funding policy that we've discussed here tonight that's unconstitutional um, and in under further stress. and um to take to supplement funds to go for to take away from our public education is mismanagement. Um and um so again, for me, it's a hard no to support any

076vouchers. Um and we need to just firmly support with 100% of our tax dollars our public education. Thank you. Thank you. Up next is Brian Carlson. Brian Carlson, 6331 Glengar Drive. I have three items to share with the board tonight. First, I call on the board to do its duty to protect the district by joining with other school districts in the vouchers hurt Ohio lawsuit to hold our state government accountable and fairly fund public education. Whatever your feelings are on vouchers, your duty as board members requires you to act for the benefit of the district. Letting the state government steal public tax dollars from our district and redistribute to private entities violates the spirit of public education. You must stand against this. If you cannot, then I suggest you resign. Second, public commitment has lately

077been filled with people hurling unfounded accusations at Forest Hills teachers and staff of corrupting our children with sexually explicit materials. To all the teachers and staff, I'm very sorry that you have to be falsely and publicly accused of harming our children when you're doing your best to help them learn and grow. Thank you for your commitment to our kids welfare. And finally, I've been attending most board meetings throughout this school year, and I find myself concerned at the lack of presentation of data on educational progress and goals. Um, every meeting we get a very detailed report from the treasurer about how the district's finances are that month, but we don't get a report like that from the superintendent uh on the educational outcomes of our students. This is what the public education system is for.

078It's it is its primary purpose. Yet, we don't have repeatedly uh reported on monthly metrics. So, I am calling on the board to do a couple things. one, if you don't already have these sorts of metrics, right? Like, uh, third grade reading level, uh, absence rates in the high schools, right? Uh, sixth grade, um, math performance on basic, whatever those are. Work with the superintendent to come up with those and then hold all of us accountable, right? So that we know how we are doing because I do not want this to be misconstrued as saying that the district is performing badly. In fact, I strongly suggest the district is performing well. But if you don't have repeated monthly accountability, then you don't have anything. You don't know what you're doing and you don't know why

079you're doing it. So, as a a member of the public who's been coming to these meetings, I think that's something that really needs to change in how these are run. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Up next, Kristen Colony. Hi everybody. I'm Kristen Kalanick. Um I'm from Anderson Township here. I have two kids at uh Turpin and at Wilson. I'm going to speak on the Economic Policy Institute report on vouchers for Ohio and why it's important that we join the lawsuit uh for a number of reasons. One, because these programs really are allowing public funds to support private schooling or homeschooling, ultimately diverting money from public schools, which ultimately impacts the educational outcome for all of our students here, regardless of level of ability or regardless of socioeconomic um status. Um, in addition to that, the

080report that they provided highlights that proponents of vouchers often claim there's no harm to public school funding since our funding is based on a per pupil formula. as Atlanta has reiterated several times, but their reasoning is often flawed because many school costs, as Mark pointed out, such as building maintenance and administration are fixed and do not easily or are not easily reduced as enrollment drops. When students and their funding leave for private options or if they start in a private school and then take that money, public schools are left with the same fixed costs but less revenue, forcing deeper cuts to essential services like teaching and learning materials. The EPI introduced a fiscal externality calculator which is actually really interesting to go play with and talks about the total district losses from voucherinduced enrollment as

081it declines. I believe that Forest Hills needs to join the fight not only to lend the voices from this district to make it less palatable for our politicians to erode what they fund for public schools, but also because we need to defend what we have. We went and worked hard and I'm wearing my Levy shirt. I knocked on doors for weeks to try to raise funding for this school or for the schools across the district. We need to defend this because if we ever want to go back to our constituents again and say it's time to come to another levy, we have to show them we did everything, that we tried everything to ensure that we had all the funds that were necessary from the resources we have always been constitutionally made available to us.

082And two final points, I want to congratulate Elena. You're a wonderful treasure and we're so glad to have you. Thank you. And one more thing on the books. The people who choose to ban books are never on the right side of history. And that goes for everyone who helps remove those books, too. Thank you. Can I quick clarifying question on the on the ed choice? She made the comment that ed choice can be used for homeschooling. My research says that is not true. Is that Okay. I just want to make sure historically that has not been true not true now on the table. Up next is Ann Zimmerman. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Anne Zimmerman. I live at 800 Markley and I'm a resident of this district. My children and grandchildren went to

083our public schools and got great educations. I have offered to make a restricted donation to the school district to cover the initial cost of the entire district joining the vouchers hurt Ohio lawsuit should the board vote to join the suit. I had originally asked to be anonymous until I actually make the donation, at which point it will be public record. Anyway, that decision was so that this didn't become about me, but stayed focused on the voucher issue. Vouchers are hurting our public schools. Our state has only one pot of money, and it distributes it among its priorities and programs. With over a billion dollars expected to go to private schools and vouchers next year, that leaves substantially less for our public schools. How can we possibly justify private schools getting more than $8,000 from the

084state for a high school student it enrolls while Forest Hills gets less than 3,000 for educating that same student. I care about our public schools in this state. The current funding system is unconstitutional and unfair. Joining this lawsuit will help increase the chance of better funding our school district. I ask this board to embrace its constitutional and fiduciary responsibility for our public school district who this board represents and vote to join this lawsuit to help protect our district. Thank you. Thank you. Up next is Kimberly Alto. Hi, good evening. I'm Kimberly Olaf. I live on Royal Woods Court. I'm a parent of two children in the district that attend Mercer. Um, per usual, everybody has covered primarily the data that I was planning on sharing and um, and so I wanted to take the opportunity

085to welcome Mark to the district to the board. Um, we've heard good things. Uh, I am the president of Advocate FHSD. We're a local nonprofit and we um, focus on providing um, verified data and accurate information for the community so that they can um, understand it in a more digestible way because a lot of this is very complicated. Elena does a wonderful job of um of presenting information. We truly appreciate that. Wendy and Jason have given a couple of master classes which we truly appreciate and um and it has been helpful to us and to the community. And I wanted to say a big thank you to the people who have shown up tonight. I think that over the last three and a half years, we have watched our community grow and really show up

086with the right data. They know how to verify. They know how to how to reach out to the district. They've learned how to prr. They have done all of the things that we hope that they would do to create an informed electorate in this community so that we can continually show up for this district in a meaningful way with accurate information and not misconstrue things or fall into the trap of disinformation or get into a an argument with someone over whether or not a book is um should or should not be on our on our role, you know, our roles. Because you know what, we could argue that most books are um fall into that category. It's again subjective. But the thing that I am perhaps most proud of and and have learned to be

087the most significant thing that we can do is show up as a community. And as part of the school community, the best thing that our district can do is show up by joining the um the lawsuit against the ed the Ed Choice program. If we are not willing to stand up for ourselves, we cannot ask other pe we cannot continually ask other people or expect other people to do that on our behalf. So I encourage you guys to join. I think it's going to be a valuable thing. Even if we don't make it, I think it's a worthwhile investment for us to make to ensure that we have protected our funds as best we can. Thank you. Thank you. Up next is Sarah Sudamp. sensing a theme. 10 11. Good evening. My name is Sarah

088Sugamp. I stand before you tonight not only as a resident and deeply invested parent with children attending Wilson Nagel and Turpin, but also as an attorney and an educator. My professional background coupled with my family's firsthand experience navigating both local public schools and private schools compels me to urge your immediate and decisive action in joining the vouchers hurt Ohio litigation. The Ed Choice voucher program along with scrapping of fair the fair school funding model poses a profound and escalating threat to the financial health and equitable education mission of Ohio's public schools. As Sean explained, the Ed Choice vouchers result in a staggering disparity, which forces our local property owners to shoulder over $11,000 per student to cover our district's operating costs. A figure that is tellingly less than the tuition at many private schools. Beyond

089the un undeniable financial drain that the Ed Choice program funnels public school funds into a parallel system that operates with significantly less accountability and equality. This should be especially concerning to those who are critical of how Forest Hills spends money. Our public schools are constitutionally mandated to accept and serve every child within our district's geographical bounds. This is a foundational principle that stands in stark contrast to private schools which retain the complete discretion to select their student body. As a parent, I've personally navigated both of these systems. My oldest son is gifted and has ADHD. He attended a local private school. Our experience there illustrates that private schools often lack the resources, specialized expertise, or legal mandate to effectively support students at either end of the learning curve. If you think of it as a

090spectrum, they do a really good job at serving those students that are right in the middle. In fact, Ohio's system shifts the responsibility of funding these specialized services for private school students directly to public schools like ours. The shift of responsibility allows private schools to avoid federal oversight. It also places significant logistical and resource strains on our district, even with federal reimbursement for the services that are provided. I have a lot more to say, but I'm out of time. Thank you. Thank you. Up next is Ken Ken 7362 Ruggate Court. Expenses are outpacing revenue in the latest version of the five-year forecast, which you'll review later today. Per the the fiscal year 2024 cup report, Forest Hills has a 122 to1 pupil to administration ratio. This compares to similar districts ratio of 161 168 to1.

091I looked at a similar district, Centerville Local Schools, which covers 31 square miles compared to the 33 square miles of coverage for Forest Hills. Center Center Centerville has a better district pupil density ratio, meaning more students are attending Centerville per square mile than Forest Hills. Forest Hills has 53 FTE administrators compared to Centerville, which has 37.5 FTE administrators. What is more interesting is Centerville has 1,366 more enrolled ADM and that pupil administration ratio is 209 to1. That is 87 more students per administrator than Forest Hills. Centerville also has three more school buildings. So, why are we paying $421,000 more a year in average administration salaries to handle three less school buildings and 1,366 less enrolled ADM than Centerville? I'm asking the board or someone to contact Centerville and ask them how they can manage three

092more school skill school buildings and 1,366 more students with 15.5 less FTE administrators. I respectfully asked the board to start looking for ways to reduce the burden on elderly taxpayers by cutting expenses. Another large levy in 2026 is not going to help those on fixed incomes remain in their homes. One last thing, when you look at the October uh building counts, in October of 24, we had 6,85 students spread out across the buildings, and that includes preschool. That's down from 7,122 in October of 22. 7,112 and 22. Moment's declining, folks. Up next is Natalie Hastings. Uh, hi. Thank you for your time. Thanks for having me today. Um, I'm have something else to say, but just really quickly wanted to um comment on a couple of things. Uh the home the homestead tax exemption hasn't

093been updated in 15 years, which is one of the reasons why our elderly homeowners are um needing in relief. Not to mention the owner occupied tax exemption hasn't been updated in about 15 years. That's about 2.25%. So those are the things I would be advocating um for if I were worried about that. Anyway, uh and finance committee testimony is due this Friday. So, um, anything else that's happening on the Senate side before they present their budget in June, you have to submit testimony by this Friday. Um, and then they're going to have people speaking over the next two weeks. And, um, also wanted to mention, uh, SB96 is the one that talks about voucher expansion with homechools. Um, just because that came up. Um, but I'm here tonight to talk about um I'm the proud

094parent of a um soon tobe graduate of Turpin High School and I wanted to take a minute to thank the Forest Hills teachers, staff, leaders, and board members who um gave him the excellent education that he received and it started at Mercer. Um Miss Oakley was a standout for him. Um she's retiring this year. Um we'll miss her. and we we took a detour to private school for a few years and we found our way back in seventh grade and uh my son CJ loves band and Mr. Sheridan, Chad Sheridan gave him just a great experience. He was in a small um band classroom before so he was getting used to a big one. He loved it. U Mimi Clark loving um how he would ask lots of questions. And in high school um CJ

095discovered theater and I just want to shout out Mr. Leber who um really coached and mentored CJ into becoming a real person. Mr. Funky, Miss Beershank, um let's see, sorry, Mr. Ker, um Mrs. DH, Mr. Gets, Mr. Craft, Mr. Bridges, Mrs. Amarojo, Mrs. McKitty, Mrs. Haley, Mrs. Martinez, Mrs. Cooper. And just really quick, I wanted to shout out also Gail Garza, who taught my son last year in chemistry and helped me realize that it was okay to major in music. [Laughter] [Applause] That was pretty good, actually. Up next is Mary Gardner. Was okay to meet you. While she's coming down, I just want to say I too will miss Mrs. Oakley. Two of my three had her and loved her. Amazing. Hi, Mary Gner. I live at 1038 Nimitz Lane. I'm a parent of a

096Maddox student. I'd like to talk about parent choice and education, but it's not for the same reason as the previous speakers. It's because the idea of parent choice has been twisted to mean something else and current Forest Hills parents don't always have our voices heard. There are schoolboard members who send their kids to other schools, prospective candidates without children, and political activists who don't actually know what is going on in the average Forest Hills classroom, but they speak and make decisions as if they do. We just saw the results of the family engagement survey, and on the whole, district parents are overwhelmingly happy with the schools. We appreciate our teachers and administrators and we're tired of the spectacle. I have a third grader at Maddox and her teachers do an amazing job of including parents

097in the educational process. Not only are we able to review a full classroom library, but we approve every speaker that comes into the classroom, even for something as benign as recycling. We approve the viewing of G-rated movies and juice boxes. Parents are included to the extent that they choose to be. But there are people who are committed to attacking public education and undermining parent teacher collaboration. It's not enough for them to allow families the choice to opt in and out of activities like diversity day or comprehensive sexual education. These non-parents want to make the choice for us as parents by denying us opportunities. Month after month, we hear from people with no active involvement in the schools about some political red herring. Recently, a speaker without kids in the district, I actually meant at a

098past meeting, but it just happened again tonight, um shared what he determined to be inappropriate reading material for teenagers. So rather than letting families choose the books that they are comfortable with, he thinks that the choice should be taken away from all of us and asked for the book to be removed from circulation. But we as parents have the right to determine what is or is not age appropriate for them to consume. Interestingly enough, a public records request showed that that same individual has actually emailed the district requesting confidential information about children's personal health. I'm not afraid of my kid reading a book, but I am afraid of strange men inquiring about her body. My message is to any current or future board member, any so-called Thank you. Lever. No, she wasn't referencing you. No,

099no, no. She wasn't talking about you. Wasn't reference. Yeah. Can you take a bathroom break? You You can blame my aging bladder. We're gonna We're gonna take a quick 10-minute recess for recess for restroom breaks. Nope, we don't need to. I think I didn't know that that you couldn't sign that you were supposed to sign in. So, I've been here since six o'clock. I wasn't going to address the same thing that everyone else is addressing regarding the voucher. So, if I could be permitted to give to have just a moment. Okay. If you say no, but I am fine. Go ahead. Okay. I I just wanted to point out u my children um went to private school, Cincinnati Country Day School. And when I sent them there, I sent them there because it was a

100more diverse uh student body than Anderson than Forest Hills was at the time. So I had uh I I wanted to have them experience a greater number of uh different nationalities and peoples. So, uh, and there's that's one of the reasons that I sent them there. And the voucher system has more than one reason for existing. I think what we're all talking about here is the Forest Hills School District when we ought to be considering the alternative, the opposite end of things, and that's the voucher system. Most people, when I was sending them, we got $75 to send it for a bus fair, and that was about all you got during the year. Now, I understand there's more that you get in the form of a of a voucher, but still those who send their

101students using vouchers are are uh spending more and and uh have to undergo more expense to get their kids to and from school and uh and and so on. The uh the fact is though that a number of parents prefer to send their students to a different school. Are those schools um ignoring uh diversity? Not from what I've heard. Are they ignoring a student's um studies? From what I understand, most of the Catholic schools uh do minimal amount of of religious training or teaching. and the ones that I when I taught there um I didn't notice that that was an excessive sort of thing. What I do think though is that when you send something like a a letter out saying that you oppose something, you really ought to consider both sides. And since everyone's

102looking at it from the standpoint of what happens to Forest Hills School District and not what happens to the students and the who and their parents who want the voucher system, you're not really considering both sides of the issue. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Now we'll take a quick motion or we just now he can the president Sorry about that. Now we're going to start our consent agenda. Item 10.1, human resources report. Mr. Fellows, make it quick. Well, good evening and in uh the interest of time, the HR report is there with the attachments. Um I would simply like to acknowledge um a couple retirements and uh resignations. Uh first and foremost, uh Carol will 20 years in the district uh counselor at Anderson High School. We wish her all the best. She

103was exceedingly excited when Stirs reduced its eligibility requirement because she was planning to go next year and uh Christmas came early I think. I don't know. Um similarly Dave Everson uh has been at Parah in the district for 25 years. He's a uh lives in the Summit area. Uh he's been at Turpin High School in what has now become the RISE classroom there, working with Chris Jennings. And um similarly, he is uh his his partner in crime, Chris Jennings, is also retiring. You might recall approving his retirement last month, I believe. Uh that is a midyear retirement for Chris. Um Dave said, "No, I'm going to beat you to it." So he's actually um resigning effective October 1st. So, we get him for a little bit longer and then wish uh he and Carol all

104the best in retirement. Uh I think Carol's going to Australia to the Australian Open. That's her exciting like first yeah foray into retirement season. Um I'd also like to just draw our attention to uh Larry Corley's departure. I know obviously the board is aware of his uh decision to resign and move to another district that will remain nameless at this point. Um, however, he joined us seven years ago in the midst of the uh tail end of the construction project and uh his uh work in those seven years um is is truly uh commendable um and uh trying to steady the ship a bit with fewer folks kind of helping out. he now has that part partner in crime in Brian Stewart working to assist with our custodial staff, but certainly wish Larry all the

105best in his future. And then obviously uh super sad to see that Betsy Ryan has announced her decision to resign. Um and Betsy is not here this evening. Um but but wish her all the best. She has she's listed as a resignation. She's already retired um and did the whole retire rehire process uh before I came over to central office um and uh certainly her impact and imprint in this district particularly in the areas of student services special education um has been uh significant. So, um, wanted to make sure to, uh, call her out by name, even though she's unlikely to be watching right now, and she's certainly not present, but come on. And I, but she will be sorely sorely missed. Her historical knowledge and passion for this district are unprecedented. And she recently

106completed her doctorate program, which uh, those that knew her knew that she was uh, working on that for a long, long time. So, I know she's not uh, she's not finished in the world of education. Um, but we certainly wish her the best at the end of this school year. The rest of the report is there. Um, it's there's a lot of important things in there and you've had a chance to review them. Um, do you have any questions? Wendy, you were talking before about replacing Betsy. Do you want to ask that question now? Oh, I I was wondering. I had put an email forth and I don't know if there's a specific answer to it, but as I was looking at the mental health information reviewing, teaching and learning, which is on the committee

107to review tonight, um I was just wondering if there was a plan in place for replacing her because she has brought such um an incredible wealth of knowledge and expertise around special education and manages so many different pieces. I wasn't sure what the next steps were. All I want to Okay. Okay. Good. Thank you very much. Thank you. 11 business business operations. Mr. Edgar. Good evening board. Now I'm stressed. I have to be faster to rob fellows. Yes, you do. That's usually not too tough. You want me to set a timer for you? I'm sorry. Low hanging fruit. I had to take 20 seconds. So to do that, I'm going to go off script a little bit. Uh Mr. Bib, you and I were talking a little bit right before the meeting and some of

108the board members, if you notice, we had some uh questions uh about the C the compostable U. We had a question from from a sixth grader from this building, right? Yes. Yes. Uh great project and concept. The challenges for the district it is a a larger financial uh piece that would cost increase over the district. Also, another challenge is right now we don't even know if they're even available because the the bids have not been placed out by the EPC yet. So, we don't know if anyone's awarded the bid. anticipation is they won't do it because we are the only district that did a pilot with them. And also the challenge with them, they're actually not recyclable. They're compostable. So compostable trays get put in with regular trash. Yeah, theoretically, I mean, I guess it

109could slow the landfill or increase the quickness of the landfill, but overall they're not recyclable trays. So, yeah, if something's on there that's looks a good price, we'll definitely take a look at it, but at this point, our anticipation is we probably are not going to be able to move forward with that program. So, John, were you or Bob, did someone respond to the student to give them that information? Not yet. We're waiting for the meeting. Okay. Yeah. think the sixth graders reaching out with an issue we definitely want to be getting back. I was very impressed with that and the the way the program came here at Mercer uh with with the teacher involved, Miss Cox, and I think it was a great great idea, great effort, and I appreciate it and I agree

110with it. It's just there is an operational challenge to it. So, I can appreciate that. I would definitely like to keep it on the radar. I mean, if nothing else, his impact could be putting on our radar, continuing to look at what are alternative options because I understand compostable isn't recyclable. But if it still is, you know, more easily digestible in a landfill and helps, you know, from that perspective, I think it's it's definitely worth pursuing what our different options are, recognizing they're not always going to be easy, but they might be worthwhile. We spend a lot of time talking to our kids about service and the community in the world, and that seems like a a great example of actually acting on on that and that's a theme we look at with any of

111our engineering and stuff. You you'll notice that today one of the the boiler bids that we're doing we've moved to a high efficiency boiler system to you know increase you know economically for us but also just environmentally reduce the uh energy needs for the boiler systems too. So those are some of the things we it is something on the forefront of my mind and my team's mind to be looking for affordable you know options that can also be positively impact our community and environment. Yeah. So thank you. Just wanted to share that out with you guys. Okay. Um I have three things on the agenda today. The first one is a resolution to transfer the educational equipment to Miami Valley Christian Academy. As a reminder, this is auxiliary service equipment. We are just a pass

112through agency to the state. And so, uh, we were talking with the state on this and we had found out that we can actually take this off our inventory if we transfer to MVCA. And the the school also has to be amicable to doing that for us. They're they're amicable doing it. So, we're working with legal to uh finalize the process so we can get it off our inventory, less on our staff to have to mess with. Okay. So, that's uh item 111. Item 112 is the looking to award the contract for the uh excuse me, I'm getting them out of order in my head. The chiller at Turpin to Design Build Inc. That will be a project that will actually take place more in the winter months uh because that is the large chiller

113that is going on top of the auditorium over at Turpin. And item 11.3 is awarding a bid to the Ger Company for the replacement of the uh Negle Middle School boiler. And that's where we're going into the high efficiency model boilers that will help us financially and ecologically I guess for lack of better way to say that. Okay. So those are the three items that I have on the agenda. Does anyone have any questions on these? Okay. At this point I respectfully request that the board approve items 111 to 113 as part of the consent agenda. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Rob had you beat Did Did you time it? Teaching and learning. Mr. Buck. Good evening. Uh for teaching and learning, I'm bringing three items uh to the board. Um the first item

11412.1 is the Hamilton County Education Services uh C uh annual agreement contract. Uh we do this every year. Uh we talked about a little bit of the staffing things. Um this includes gifted services, multilingual education, uh primarily special education. So instead of uh employing our own employee, we can service for uh different hours of that contract. Uh and the contract is in front of you. Any questions on that one? How is that contract negotiated? Um Dr. Ryan, Larry meet each year. They kind of do a service fee that kind of incorporate some of the just general things and then we look at students needs as we go through there to see what the needs are where we have personnel where we need a contract personnel but I know Dr. Ryan, Larry um meet with that

115each year, year to year basis. Do we get to negotiate pricing at all? Not much. Not much. They they set the prices. Um we select from that smorgus board based on our needs particularly within the district. A lot of it's a related services OTPT speech. That's a lot of it, but there's other pieces to it. Um so then there's a um administrative fee so we don't escape inflation right is do we have any control over the certificate like do we look at the certifications of these people and their experience and whatnot that come in or do we completely leave that up to Hamilton County that they're the ones who are in charge of who they're in charge of the personnel that so it's completely outside our need yes they do act they actually do the

116hiring ing do the service the benefit program is through the ESC etc. So yeah now obviously if there's somebody that does isn't working out they'll listen to us and then do we have that ability? Yeah. Okay. And everyone they hire is fully lentured. Oh yeah. In their field. Yeah. Thank you. Item 12.2 is school fees for the 2526 school year. Uh you'll notice in the attachments uh that are in the agenda. Uh we kind of work with our teachers on this, our our building leaders on that um kindergarten was already adopted uh by the board in December of 24, but we take a look at workbooks and how much workbooks are and the shipping of the workbooks and construction paper and glue software that we use in the high schools. So you'll see not only

117some increases, you'll also see some decreases that we're no longer using. and that's brought to you each year as well. Any question on school fees? Last item is 12.3, an overnight field trip. Uh every summer, the cheerleading coaches from Anderson and Turpin High School take their squads to a summer camp at the Great Wolf Lodge. They are planning to do this this year from August 5th through the 8th. There are approximately 55 students and five chaperonings attending. Um, I ask for the approval of 12.1, 12.2, and 12.3. Any questions over the field trip for cheerleading? Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Up next, 12.4, the Nico service agreement, uh, presented by Mr. Moore. Good evening, everyone. I am coming to get the approval of our new service contract with NECO, our uh mental health

118uh therapy partners within our elementary schools. Uh we went through a very extensive interview process uh with school counselors, district administration uh and our current partner mind piece, our overall partner mind piece uh to find a partner that can number one save us money. Uh we are having Neco come into our buildings with a therapist in each building free of charge of the district. Obviously, there's an expectation of a case load for them to to service our students. Uh, but we are also in addition to that going to receive uh a case worker that's going to be able to work with the students and the families. Um, and again, that's also at uh zero charge to the district. Um, and so with those additional resources, we're going to take a really strong look at some

119of our uh support continuums and see other ways that we can kind of help and support our kiddos. Um, our elementary kiddos need some uh need some help. uh NECA was able to come in have a very strong reputation. I spent probably 30 minutes with the three reference checks that I did asking some pretty in-depth questions and all came back uh with glowing reviews. Uh so I am asking if there aren't any questions for approval of 12.4. Who funds NECO? Neco, it's in privately private insurance based I believe is what we're um so they Yes, I'm sorry. Yes, they are private insurance based. uh they are a very large company that have their uh biggest footprint in the foster care system actually. Okay. Thank you. So just to follow up, I've got a couple questions

120with regard to the the private insurance. We moved to that model last year and we saw a reduction in the number of our families that were getting services. How are we going to work with NECO or even just within Forest Hills with our families to ensure that families who need support, children who need support are able to get support and that insurance isn't a barrier because I don't know about you, but insurance has been a barrier in my life and I'm pretty educated with trying to make those phone calls. Yeah, absolutely. Great question. Um, they do um do take private insurance. One of the issues that we saw with child focus was actually because even if they gave their best efforts, they were severely understaffed and so we had a lot of people refusing the

121service because they were waiting for the intake process to happen. Okay. Uh we saw a lot of folks fall off because of that. Um Neco actually met with them for two and a half hours the other day. Um the case worker and the therapist, it's their charge, they said within a week to get the paperwork done for the family. Um they will even go out to the home if need be. uh but they are hoping to um try to get the families a little bit more involved in the therapies as well that keeps them uh I guess in in line with the service. Another thing that I will give a shout out to child focus they are being very gracious in creating a uh a transition plan so that our kiddos have little to minimal

122interruption in services. Okay. Um another question what happens if we can't meet their case load requirements? So right now um in most of our buildings I think we're going to be okay. Um right now for Neco at a minimum they're looking at 10 to 15 to start. They're looking then at a max of 20 to 25. And I believe in most of our buildings we're going to be able to hit that mark I think uh Wendy pretty pretty easily. Okay. And then the last question I was wondering about, when we talked about this last year, um it was my understanding that part of the plan, because we're not putting anything into this, so we don't really have any ownership over these therapists in our building, but if we had a moment where we needed to

123pull a therapist for, let's say, a suicide risk assessment, that there was that capability. And I was left with the impression this year that that may not have been the case, that that there were therapists on hand for risk assessment, for crisis intervention. And that that's a critical piece of what we need to make sure we have in schools to make sure our children are safe and taken care of. I'm glad you brought that up and that was one of the I think the frustrations that we had with the change in the billing that Child Focus had previously. Um right now the way it sits with Child Focus based off of their model um anytime they're interacting with a kiddo or a family crisis or not, it's billable hours. even unfortunately in that type of

124situation. We asked that I asked that uh question specifically with Neko and they said if a kid needs us to do an assessment we're doing it. Um and so there is not that type of uh I guess billing uh barrier uh that would come into play. So they are yes absolutely willing to do that. Is that a situation where we need to have some kind of foundational funding just on hand to to cover that service or is that just are we just trusting that that's just going to happen pro bono? In my conversations with the other districts it happened uh pro bono. Uh their billing model is a little don't quote me on the numbers but it's about a 6040 model where 60% of the time is going to be billable but we do have

125around that 40% uh that they are able to help out with situations that may arise. Okay. So if you know Johnny's having a meltdown in the hallway and they're able to help and support that, they will do that. Okay. Great. Thank you. Yeah. Um so I just want to clarify there will be a therapist in every high school and then will there be a therapist in all nine schools or Oh great question. So right now this is about the elementaryaries. Okay. Uh we're in the process of the interviews uh for the secondary buildings. Secondary. Okay. And what is the referral process? Can family self-reer? Is it a teacher? Is it a counselor? Like how does a a student in a family get to the therapist for services? I told Neko that we had the open

126referral and they said they actually prefer that. In some of the other districts it was closed and they said they actually do prefer um our model of having an open referral system. Right. Okay. Open meaning anybody a family could refer themselves. Student could ask teacher teacher. Yes. anybody's concerned just relating to the finance piece like I know I I hear you that you know private insurance is billable they'll do some proono to do an assessment and whatnot but there are families that either don't have insurance or mental health care isn't covered on their insurance so what what's the answer there for those families through the generosity of the foundation uh we've been able to help support those families okay awesome okay so everybody will have access there won't be a financial barrier whether or not

127they have insurance correct and we have not had that issue this year um I've helped some families get set up with that. I fill out the form and then my job is just to make sure that they are routinely coming to meet with the therapist. So I I check attendance, things of that nature to make sure that our money is being well spent. Great. Cool. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh number 13, technology. Mr. Me, good evening. We have one item for technology tonight. It's item 13.1, kindergarten Chromebook purchase. Tonight, we're asking for the approval to purchase Chromebooks for kindergarten classrooms as presented in the agenda. Are there any questions? Do you So, we're switching from the iPads because the Chromebooks are cheaper and more reliable. Do you know what we're saving by switching?

128Uh, probably around $75 per device. Okay. And I feel the need to ask in this context. We are obviously still limiting the amount of use of Chromebooks in our kindergarten classroom as more and more research comes out to suggest we don't want our kids on devices all day long that it actually the brain is just becoming clearer and clearer that it's a distraction as much as anything else. So good to have but not our primary mode of of operation. Absolutely. Sure. Wendy, I had asked Kim about that and they said they use them about 25 to 30 minutes a day and it's just for I Ready and Seesaw. Perfect. Thank you. Any other questions? Yeah, one one. Steve, sorry. Um, so we're buying the We've talked about this in um facilities and technology committee, but

129what's the process for um you know, the kindergarten gets the the Chromebook, they work through it, and then they get recycled. The plan is to recycle back. Can you just for everybody's benefit, how does the process work? What's the lifespan of a Chromebook? Um how many students use it? What's the recycling process for it? So, what we usually get around seven years or so out of a Chromebook. Um, as opposed to about four years for an iPad. Um, and right now the Chromebook program for the district is every fifth grade student and every ninth grade student gets a new Chromebook during that time period when they're in school. Um, the kindergarteners at this point have only been using iPads. This year was a pilot program. We piloted the Chromebooks in six classrooms in those kindergarten

130classrooms. And that that pilot showed us that the Chromebook was an acceptable alternative to the iPad. Um and and getting that result that made us feel like we could go ahead and outfit the rest of the kindergarten classrooms with those Chromebooks because the iPads are end of life. Once those I uh Chromebooks move out of the fifth grade and nth grade classrooms, we take those Chromebooks and we move them down to first, second, third grade, etc. Um, since this is the first fora into kindergarten Chromebooks, this is our first major purchase for Chromebooks for kindergarteners. Um, at the end of their lifespan, they too will be recycled back into the system to be replacements for, uh, for example, when a student has to send a Chromebook off for repair, something like that, we'll use the

131Chromebook as a temporary replacement in that instance. So, is the plan then to keep these Chromebooks at the kindergartenner level and when they move to first grade, they get one of the recycled ones from fifth or nth grade? Correct. Okay. Yes. Great. Thank you. Sure. Any other questions? Thank you, sir. 14. Treasur update. M. Carver. First item on the treasur's agenda is the annual resolution to accept the amounts and rates as determined by the Hamilton County Budget Commission. This resolution is prepared by the Hamilton County Budget uh Commission and that it is their certification back to us of our voted levy tax rates, the effective tax rates given the impact of House Bill 920 and the dollar amount to be raised by each levy. By passing this resolution, we are accepting their calculations and certifying

132that we do need these um taxes in order to operate our district. The authoritative source for this action is the Ohio Reise Code section 5705.34. Moving on, the second item on the treasur's agenda is the 5-year forecast fund. And as you know, um we present the uh first installment of this in November and then in May we take another look and give an update. So this is the required May update and um first of all I know the first couple of slides you see every year but it's important to remind that this is simply a planning tool. It's an estimate of what is likely to happen in the future and it is just based upon a snapshot of what today looks like and then we adjust from today to reflect all known activities of the

133future and then we have to make certain assumptions and predictions of what may happen. In other words, it's a living document that comes that becomes outdated once any additional information comes to light or new events happen and that would make us change our assumptions for the future. So, as such, it's a planning tool at best, not necessarily of a road map of where we're going to be. And again, as I said before, it's period updated twice a year as new information becomes available. Um moving on to the next side you see the forecasting challenges there. Um and as we make the forecast we have to make assumptions and some of them can be uh very difficult. We do base those assumptions on past trends and what knowledge we have at this point in time of

134what's going to happen in the future. These are some of the challenges on this slide that we face every year. Um, one of the challenges that was particularly difficult this year, of course, was the state foundation payments because we know what we've seen. The House budget says we're losing 850,000 over the first um over the bienial um almost over $2 million for out of the five-year forecast. Um, that was the governor's version. Sorry, I think I said house. Whoops. Sorry, I misspoke there. That was the governor's version. But then the house comes along and gives us a little bit. So gives us um 127,000 the first year, 63,000 the next year. That's not much of an increase for a hundred uh million dollar budget and really includes more inconsistency. We can't count on what they're

135doing. So yeah, so just to uh keep in the forefront that the five-year forecast will change as new information comes to light. Um on the next slide and I know this is a slide you see um every time I present the forecast because I think it's very important to realize that this is only the general fund. The district has 20 plus other funds. Um actually uh 21% of the district's budget is in other funds and there are activities and staffing that those other funds um take care of. As a matter of fact, last meeting you saw we went through the federal funds and we talked about what things those funds took care of. So again the general fund takes uh comprises uh 79% of our budget. Moving on to the next slide, um you see

136our current uh 2025 projections, our year that's going to end here just in another um month and a couple weeks. And we do expect to end the year um with receiving just under 108 million in revenues and spending just under 102 million in expenditures. The expected gain for this year, the expected revenues over expenditures is 6.3 million. That's not surprising considering that our current fiscal year, fiscal year 25, is the first full year of collections of the 2023 tax levy. So, of course, um, school district see higher revenues over expenditures in the first few years of the levy. and the revenue builds up some general fund cash reserves in the subsequent years of the levies. As expenditures continue to grow with inflation, but revenues are held revenue growth is held flatter, expenditures will take over

137um the revenues and you'll see later in the forecast that we start to spend down some of that cash balance. So moving on to the next slide slide. This is um the revenues um that we expect to receive in fiscal year 25. And you will see that 72% of our revenue in fiscal year 25 comes directly from our taxpayers. It comes to us in the form of tax payments or tiff payments. Tax payments flow directly to the district from the county. TIFF revenues are resident or business taxes that are paid just like everyone pays their taxes to the county. The county then sends those tax revenues to the township as a tiff payment and then the township remits to us a portion of those tiff revenues as per each tiff compensation agreement that we have

138with them. One of the things that I always pull the tiff revenues out of the other revenues because the state does not have you put um tiff revenues in property taxes, but it is taxes our people have paid. So I consider it coming from um property taxes rather than coming from other. One thing to note is tiff revenues do lose their identity when they throw flow through the township and they are no longer held to the restrictions that property taxes are held to but still they do come from our residents. Um and we are mainly a residential uh community. Um 88% of our property taxes come from residential property owners as opposed to business or industrial taxes. Um in 25 23% of our revenues come from the state and 5% of our revenues are derived

139from um miscellaneous sources such as uh rental fees, Medicaid reimbursements, um our all day tuition payments are deposited into the general fund. And in fiscal year 25, this um particular section of our revenue is a little higher than normal because it included the return of the advance or the loan that we had given to the PI fund at the end of our fiscal 24 to fund the summer projects. So that's a brief uh synopsis of what our revenues look like. Moving on to the next slide, um you will see what our expenditures look like. So in fiscal year 25, we're forecasting that 23% of our general fund budget will be spent on salaries and benefits. This is in line throughout with districts throughout the state. It pretty much ranges from 80 to 85%. Um we

140run our own transportation. when you see people in the lower end of that 80% they typically contract out some services. So why that that's usually why they're on the lower end. Um we don't have any subcontracting in our district. So we're right there at 83%. 9% of our budget is spent on purchase services. That's items such as utilities. We spend about 2 million a year in utilities, electric, gas um throughout throughout all of our buildings. The other um large portion of this is the um Hamilton County ESC contract that you just um uh heard about a bit ago. That that as you can see in board docs is 1.9 million this year. So those make up a large portion of our purchase services. The additional 4% of the general fund budget is spent on materials

141and supplies. Um uh 4% is spent on uh debt issues, capital items and others. Um debt issues in the uh general fund that are paid out of the general fund include uh the lease purchase on the uh central office. It also includes the lease purchases on the uh operations center and the buses that were purchased um slightly before I got here. I believe they were purchased in 17 or 18. So, right before I got here, um, moving on to the next slide, slide eight. This slide presents the differences between the November forecast versus the May forecast. Um, we have some good news. Um, as the end of the year approaches, revenues were up about 1.5 million. Um those were due um primarily to uh larger than expected tiff revenues. Um tiff revenues uh with the

142construction in the uh township had been increasing by about 400,000 per year. This year this uh 400,000 per half, let me say. This year um the one we just got that just came in a couple weeks ago um increased by 1.2 2 million. So, and that was due to the apartments there um by the town center. So, um I was a bit surprised that um keep in mind that you pay taxes a year in the rears that the full valuation was already on there when they weren't they aren't even being rented yet. So, that was a bit surprising. But anyhow, that was the primary reason for the larger than expected um revenues. Um well that that basically forms the baseline for the future years then right it does. What you'll find though um it it

143does form the baseline and I would wait till a change comes in but a lot of times what happens is you will see that um once the valuation is set they'll go to the board of revision and ask for decrease. So yeah but some I mean in that vein in that yes exactly you're right that sets the baseline though. Yeah exactly. um expenditures uh were uh slightly over forecast by uh 600,000 and it was primarily um due to two reasons and and both uh both of these reasons were simply timing not necessarily um going to affect the cash balance in the long-term forecasts. The first um timing uh difference we made is we had uh transfers out throughout the forecast to transfer 340,000 each year into the legal provision uh PI fund to pay for

144the performance lawsuit settlement. Um, with all the discussion going on in the state house, Larry and I had a talk and while neither one of us believe and it doesn't look like the 30% cap is going to be there, it's rather to be safe than sorry because you never know what's going to happen with the state budget. So instead of uh moving so we increase that transfer um over a million u7 uh to the PI fund. So again just the timing throughout the years of the forecast not additional expenses. Um that transfer was partially offset by lower expenses. Um mainly in the technology um area a bit in the maintenance area as well. Um uh especially in the uh technology area. We've got incumbrances outstanding uh for technology equipment that is not going to make

145it by the end of the year. So therefore the cash basis uh the forecast is uh reported on a cash basis. So those expenditures will not be in this year but they will be moved to next year. So again just a timing thing. Um the net result of both the uh revenue and the expenditure um uh variances was an increase to the fiscal year 25 expected cash balance of uh nine $977,000. So good news there dumb question. If the state ends up putting that 30% line in that you can't have cash beyond that is that looking at the general fund balance of cash that I mean that's it's that fund and that fund only that they're looking at is what the house proposed and what is in their sub bill. Um you've got a lot

146of other scenarios floating out there and the county auditor association is weighing in and they were planning to extend it. One of the scenarios I believe came from them, they were planning to extend it to all funds. So they would look at 30% of all expenditures and then keep that. So there's there's a lot of talk right now. Well, that was my question because if they look only the general fund, we could transfer out monies to other funds and always hit the 30% number with or be under the 30% number without actually losing money, which is what we've tried to do here. Right. Right. That's exactly that's exactly that's what we're doing. That's what I'm trying to that's where we're headed right now with all that. That is exactly what we did. Some of the

147other options would be is there there is another fund out there. Um the number escapes me, but anyhow, there's a fund out there that a lot of people transfer um money for severance payments, right? So that when you get to the end, so there there are other places to transfer some funds that you already have committed. So reservations of fund balance so that you can get it layered out a little. So, we'll continue to watch that and adjust our accounting um as we go along. But for those who aren't paying attention, this is a fiscally responsible decision to try to protect our consistent money management should our representatives make poor decisions on our behalf and by establishing it before it goes in. Yes. No, nobody could go in and question like you guys are only

148doing this as a reaction to the new bill. You're like, "No, we started doing this before." Yes. So we've established precedent. Yeah. So we'll we'll continue to uh take a look at that. Moving on to the next slide. This um kind of is a snapshot of the five-year forecast for all years. If you look at this, you see revenues. They were represented by the blue bar. And after uh the uh 24 and 25 years you see they grow at a slower pace than expenditures which are growing at u inflation rate and within salaries and benefits we have that growing in line with our negotiated settlement um attrition past attrition trends. We have 2% built in uh for most of the line items except for if you look at materials and supply, you're going to see

149course of study um which kind of makes it go up and down a little bit. But anyhow, that's uh what we've got on there. Um can we talk about this one for just a minute before you move on? So the reason 25 is higher than 24 is because that's the first official year we had the new levy. Yes. in effect. But from 25 to 26, 27, 28, 29, it is consistent because House Bill 920 says the amount you bring in will not change. Correct. Correct. And yet expenditures increases because there are inflationary increases in all of our lives. So that is why when we look at this five years down the road, revenue um excuse me, expenditures outpace revenue. This is not poor money management. This is not poor business management. This is the nature

150of how schools are set up to be funded. Correct. Correct. And it would have been nice if back when they instituted House Bill 920 if they used some reasonleness. As we've seen, we understand you do not want 30% increases. And I'm not even sure what the increases were back in those days. But at some point, you also have to have a minimal level allow a minimal level for to allow us to keep up with the inflationary increases that we have. And if we were able to keep up with inflationary increases, we wouldn't have to go back for a levy as often. We are forced to go back to a levy because we cannot change. Correct. Yes. That raw amount fair amount. Sorry. or if the state funded a fair amount or if the state funded

151and I'm sorry what adequate and equitable amount which is what the Ohio Constitution says they are to do. So back to your slide that said they're funding 23%. Yes. Of our needs and we'll leave it to the public to decide if they think that is adequate or equitable. Yeah. And one thing, the reason um the levy, the levy that was passed in 23, um the reason there's two years of increases is because property taxes are levied and collected on a calendar year basis. And of course, our operating our fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30. So when it's passed in 23, the first amount came in spring of 24. So that was that year and then fall of 24 and um spring of 25 gave us a full years of collection and 24

152just had a half year of collection. Therefore that's why you see the stair of revenues. That's helpful on this slide too. Atlanta. Um, obviously when we get to the point where expenditures are exceeding revenues and our cash balance gets to a certain level, that's when we have to go back to the community to ask for a levy. You know, when we passed the last levy, we were told four to five years. Looking at these projections with the understanding that we don't know what's going to happen at the state level, where are we looking right now? What what would you project is when we would next have to go back to the community? When we look at this, you see that um looking at this, you can see that expenditures start to exceed uh revenues in

153year 28. And if you could advance the slide, I think the next slide shows it a little bit better. Um yeah, this has it here. So, uh, in year three, so year three, um, out, we're still having our revenues exceed our expenditures a bet by a very small amount, just, uh, 700,000. Um, year 28 is the uh, first year that we see expenditures exceeding revenue. And then when we get to year 29, you can see that the net loss um the net amount by which expenditures exceed revenues is 5.7 million. We still have a fairly strong We're forecasted to have a fairly strong cash uh balance at that point, but fiscal year 29 um would probably be the best year at this point. Looking at this forecast would be the point at which we should

154go. And of course, that would be a discussion with the whole board and we need a lot more data. But in looking at this um certainly fiscal year uh 29 looking at this forecast with these assumptions no promises a lot can change a lot of factors out of our control right but yeah that's that's good to know we still have several years yeah so um looking at the the last slide and this is the last slide I have um that'sformational um this of course shows our days cash on hands and when we talk about the other data that we're going to look at this is certainly going to be part of it. Um this is a statistic a benchmark that you see on the monthly report and it is one that is shows that it's

155essential that schools maintain adequate levels of fund balance to mitigate current and future risk of expenditures maybe that we weren't planning for. Um and GFOA and other advisory organizations such as um ASBO, the Association of School Business Official, the N the national ones recommend that schools have a minimum of 60 to 90 days on of cash on hand at the end of the fiscal year in order to minimate mitigate risk. So as you see with the current assumptions, our cash balance is still going to be pretty strong in 2029. So that's that is um going to be a discussion that we're going to have to have. So the next slide uh just to conclude uh Forest Hills remains a good return on investment. Um our performance is high. Our fiscal responsibility, our cost for pupil

156is lower than county and state averages. And um also our residential tax rate um is right at the average in the county. So I know we've had a school district pass a levy at the May. So we probably um given that will increase their millillage will probably slip under the average for the county at the end of this year. So I believe that this shows Forest Hills uh remains a strong investment. I know this was pretty uh quick uh review, but if it wasn't enough, you've got 26 pages of financial data if you're having a little problem with this um insomnia. That said, do you have any questions? Quick quick question. Would it make sense for us as a district to put out there for public consumption the assumptions that go into this? Um yeah,

157and that is actually what's in the notes. It does explain at a pretty high level um what goes in there uh the past trends. It shows what the past amounts have been. Um certainly, yeah, if you'd like to sit down, we can maybe beef them up. I'm just I'm thinking bigger picture like just general big picture like our general assumption on based on the teachers contract this and this our general assumption on benefits is this salaries is this so people can just get a general idea again it's one of those where I think we can start to eliminate the standard monthly questions as we provide more information to folks so that they so they know more. I think that's a good idea. Yeah. I think too if we could sit down and go over the

158notes, I think yeah, being the accounting professor, I'm sure you've got some good tips for me. I I do understand the notes, but I'm and that's the other problem, right? I mean, I I appreciate that I'm looking at it through a lens that most people don't have, thankfully for them. Um, but I I again, you know, you get you can get lost in these in a hurry and have really no idea what they're saying unless you understand, you know, governmental accounting and whatnot. So that's why I'm wondering if we can put something together just like a one page one sheeter so the general population can have just kind of a general understand like here's what we did and here's why we did it and then it also allows us as a board to have discussions

159about the reasonleness of those assumptions. Okay. Yeah, that sounds good. And again, I know you and I talked before the meeting, we'll sit down, we'll start. I think that's a good idea. Thanks. Yeah. Are you going to go over the five-year forecast or or that was just a part of it? Because I have some questions on some of the pages. Well, that was the the overview, the PowerPoint. So, did you have some? Yeah. Yeah. If you have questions, now would be the time to ask. Yeah. Just really quick because I heard you. So, you guys said you might have to consider a levy in fiscal year 29. You guys So, on the on page five on the note in the bottom of the box, no levy is forecasted throughout fiscal year 29. a levy that

160was run in fiscal year 29 um would not appear on the forecast until 2030. Okay. So in 2030 you're projecting I wouldn't this far out you um typically um even if it shows the need and I would say hey this is it's looking bad in in 2030 keep in mind that we're going to have to consider some levy options to go ahead and it's it's not typically done to put them on the forecast that far out because a lot could change with in five years with valuations and you know we're going to have two more state budgets and a lot of that. When's the next time that the teachers contracts will be negotiated? What year is that? Let's see. We are in the second year of a three-year contract. So, we'll have um 25 26.

161We will be negotiating it in spring of 27. That right, Rob? Yep. And that would be for the 2728 school year. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Sorry, really quick. I thought you were going to go through these. I have a couple notes. Um, what specific funding is based off enrollment? Well, when you go through it, um, the base cost and the base cost is based off of enrollment and a couple of the other fundings, but to be honest with you, we're on the guarantee. Okay? So when you use those enrollments to go through you will see that it only calc and then you put in the 10% state share we only have um the formula only says that we will get like 5.6 million. So we are on the guarantee uh to the tune of six

162I think it's 6.2. If we go back, there's um the payment reports are in the finance committee and we went through that the finance committee um notes that's on board docs. Okay. And then on what is this page nine? This is unrestricted state aid revenue. Why is it all the same from 25 all the way out to 29? It's the same amount. Um because that tied at all to enrollment. No. Again, we're on the guarantee. Okay. Um and so not knowing what the formula, if there's going to be a formula, if it's going to be the fair school funding formula, if it's going to be the bridge formula or what it's going to be, I flat I flatlined. What do you just kind of take the average of the last three or four years and

163just flatlined that going forward? Um actually, I just took this year and flatlined it going forward. Okay. So, it would take us hundreds of students to get an increase any additional dollars. So, it doesn't That's why it bounces around a little year to year, but basically projecting flats. Conservative and makes sense. Hopefully conservative. Yes, definitely conservative. Uh what about on page 14? Um there there's a big jump expenses 27 28 29. Is that projected for union contracts or what is that? because that I mean that's almost like a five million dollar jump between some of those on 14. Yes. Um 14 is the overall expenses. So we'd have to go back and look at the individual line items to see which one has the jump. Um I would imagine um if you look at page

16418 you will see that um the course of study planned adoptions. So you will see a huge jump. We spent quite a bit this year. Next year, if you look at um 2026 at the chart under there, you're going to see the course of studies that um they are planning to adopt. I'm on page 18. Okay. And then when we get to 27, looks like um going to have a math uh course of study. That's when um teaching and learning is planning to have uh course of study adoptions. So those expenditures would have created a pretty I mean a million dollar over a million dollar jump between 26 and 27. But between 26 and 27 it's almost what $5 million four and a.5 million. See 26 27. So there are several of them showing a

165million dollar jump. I think it's just what it adds up to, right? Like employee benefits looks like about a million dollar jump. Yeah. Um supplies and materials that was a million dollar because of the course study. Yeah, those are the only two I'm seeing. Six, seven. Yeah, I'd have to go back and million dollar job purchase services right like in the notes you're saying salaries are anticipated to increase by 1.3 million every year then we have the course of study that's 1.1 million it still doesn't account for the whole five million but we're halfway there on just those two things alone yeah oh salaries is more than that on these charts because it's 2.5 million 2.5 benefits are 1.1 the 1 million in benefits and the 1 million in purchase services. That's 4.5. That's the

166difference basically. And then the course of study. Yeah, I included that one. That's if you look at page 19, you'll see the movement um in we have about 1.1 forecast and capital outlay. But um as we said, we had the apply uh supply chain issues um where we had to move the money from 25 uh to 26 and we still had the budget for fiscal year uh 26. So there's the timing issue there as well. So the short story if we add up slides 15 on we get those totals for what we see in SL in page 14. Yes. The line items add back to the uh page 14 is a summary page of all the expenditure line items that follow. That's right there. That's just a really significant jump. Okay. And what about page

16725? It's the last. So I guess my question is when we looked at the November 24 projected end balance of fiscal year 29, it was like 16 million and now on the May 25, we're looking at 26 million. So it was a like a $9.8 million increase, I guess. What happened over the last six months? Wait a minute. Which number are you looking at, Sarah? Sorry. When we look at the five-year forecast, what page are you on? Very last page. The last page. Last page. Is that 23? Is that the unexpected tiff revenue jump that spread out over those years? 23. when you look at um when you look at if you're talking about the revenue and um the expenditure I those are the net cumulative for uh for forecast impact so over the course

168of the five years. So that's over the course of the five years. So when you compound um some of the changes we've had, the numbers add up pretty quick. Okay. Like just over that six-month period, that change for some of the stuff I guess over the five years is the 9.8 million increase. Once you take the changes that we put in that have happened over the last six months and then you look at the accumulative effect over five years. Yes, that's what I mean. If you have the TIFF for one year is a million over the course of five years it's 5 million. So there's five million right there. Right. So right there. Yeah. That's the the bulk of it right there. Yeah. But maybe that would be a good thing on your 15. That's

169exactly that's what I'm that's exactly right. That's what I'm trying to There you go. Well, thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions on the forecast? Give it back up. We done. All right. Moving on to the monthly reports now. So, yeah, I'm door dashing a pizza. May's a doozy. All right. Um, starting with the uh first slide on the April reports. Uh the first slide you see donations and during the month we received over 13,000 which brings our total donations for the fiscal year to 484,000. Moving on to slide B. That gives you a snapshot or item B, sorry, gives you a snapshot of our November five uh year forecast. Just to remind you, next month we'll replace this slide with the May forecast. um want to wait till that forecast is approved. Moving on

170to item C. This presents the general fund our five-year forecast revenues by comparing the the estimate that we have on our forecast with year-to-ate actuals. You can see the largest portion of our revenues again come by from local ser sources as we talked and at the end of April um the district has received all the property taxes we would expect to receive for our 2025 fiscal year. And when you take a look at that it says we received 100% that's just because of rounding. You can see that um we're a little short there by about 133,000. So what happened is there was a huge increase in board of revision cases. Typically we have about 20, we had over 300 this past year. So that um created uh even though we had forecasts that there was

171going to be some decreases um because of that we did not have as much in there. So a little bit of a decrease there. Um moving on to um expenditures item D. Um you can see expenditures in the general fund. um with 83% of our fiscal year complete at the end of April, we've spent about 80% of our appropriations. So, we're tracking exact exactly where we would expect to be at this point in the year appropriation. Item E presents the activity of the general fund cash balance. The balance at the beginning of the year 23.3 million and then after adding revenues received any expenditures deducted year to date to April 30th. Our cash balance stands at 34.6 million. Or to put enough another way, we have enough cash to operate the district for 125 days.

172And after incumbrances, our unencumbered balance is 30.3 million. leaving us with 110 days of unreserved cash to operate the district. Item F. So, can I ask a question just because I'm just morbidly curious now about if I'm doing my math right. So, okay. Our ending cash balance in April is 34 million and our general fund budget is about a h 100red million. So, we're over the 30% cap at this moment. We are, but the cap would be looked at at the end of the year. at only one point in time. Okay. And this is a high cash flow for us because we've just finished getting all of our um revenues from the the county that we get in two big scoops, you know, two different times of the year. So, when we look at the

173rest of the year, they will not be as high cash flow and we'll we'll we'll eat that cash balance down um to be where it's expected to be on the 5-year forecast. Okay. But when they would look at it would be June. I'm just thinking about how this becomes a problem for districts with the eb and flow of cash over a year. Just have to encumber a lot more things before the end of the year so it reduces the balance. But I'm thinking more transfers. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Um, yeah, as a matter of fact, I know we talked about last time, but just to remind you, out of the 610, 612 districts, when they include the island districts, um, we were one of 85 districts that would have been under the 30% cash balance

174in 2024. But this is a high point in this is a high point during the year and we're at a high point of cash balance in our levy cycle right now. meaning 200 and something districts would have been over. Is that what you mean? Because you said we're one of 85 that would have been under. Yeah, the majority are over. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. So, moving on to item F. Um this presents the detailed activity um in uh revenues and expenditures for the main uh permanent improvement special cost centers. So we use this item to also track the financial activity of our summer projects. And as you can move to the second slide, you still you see we're still waiting on one encumbrance um to be paid out from the summer of 24 2024 projects. um

175in discussions with Mr. Eert and Mr. Corley. This work has been done. We're happy with it. We've been accepting it. The vendor has not sent us an invoice. So, of course, can't pay without an invoice. And I know John is trying very hard. No, we won't get it free. They'll figure it out eventually. But hopefully they'll send that and we can this slide will be done. But then moving on to the next slide, you will see a description of all our all of our 2025 summer projects as well as the estimated budgets and expenditures as we begin to uh prepare for next summer. As you can see, we've already expended 200,000 and encumbered just under 2.3 million of the estimated 4.9 um budget for our 20 our summer 2025 projects. Item G presents the interest

176earnings for the current uh fiscal year to date and has two years of history. Uh during the month of uh April, the district received 212,000 in investment interest to bring our total investment earnings to 2.1 million for this fiscal year to date. Moving on to uh the next slide, you see our April 30th bank reconciliations and investments. And moving on to the next couple of slides, um, agenda items I and J detail some adjustments to our appropriations. And if you take a look at those adjustments, they're all in the 500 funds, which means they're federal uh, grant dollars. Um, and throughout the year, the federal grants reallocate um, allocations and send us more. Sometimes they take take back a little. So these are all uh positive um adjustments. So we just need to get those

177into our appropriations so we can spend them. Um moving on to the last slide, item K. Item K requests board approval of an expenditure that did not issue a prior PO in accordance with the Ohio Vice Code. In order to pay this, we need to have board approval. That's fine. Um that said, in addition to this PowerPoint, you also have a cash position uh report on board docs that uh details all funds um activity uh for the fiscal year to date. Please don't go through that. So yeah, we we could go over it live before long. Nope. Save that for another day. Another day. That said, any questions on the monthly reports? That said, I respectfully recommend that the board approve items for 14.1 through 14.3K as part of the consent agenda, beginning with item

17810.1. And thank you for your attention and your time tonight. Thank you. I will make a motion to approve action items 10.1 to 14.3 as presented. 14.3K. 14.3K as presented. Second. Sorry, I had to adjust my papers here. Dr. Strickler, yes. Mr. Bib, yes. Mr. Bell, yes. Mrs. Jonas, yes. Dr. Simmons, yes. Up next is finance committee reports or committee reports, I'm sorry, finance committee. Yeah, we last met as the finance committee in March and I believe in the March board meeting I gave a update regarding that committee. So there's not been another meeting since then. Okay. Uh 152 human resources committee. All right. Human resources met on March 6th and I do think that somehow missed our our agenda last time. So um just a couple quick updates because I know it's getting late.

179We had a conversation about um using the the firm subsolutions to help with sub hires and that has been a a very good decision for us. It has reduced the number of um unfulfilled positions both across certified and um um uncertified staff over the past few uh year or so I believe. So I think the plan is to stick with them. Um and then we spent a little bit of time looking at some of our academic achievement data. So, uh, to the point of one of our speakers, I agree. I think bringing that that data forth would be important. Um, the particular comparisons we looked at were, um, ECC comparisons of the different, um, districts involved in the ECC. And we looked across third grade math and reading as well as high school, ELA, um,

180and history. And in all of those areas, in all of the ECC comparisons, we are within the top two, if not the top, um, across many many years, longitudinally comparing from anywhere from 2010 to 2017 forward. Um, so academically very very strong in terms of our our overall results and and what we our students are continuing to to demonstrate. Um, and then again did that comparison which Alena speaks to of the cost per pupil in Hamilton County and where we stand which is on the lower 25% of the districts that we were compared to in terms of cost. Um, we did look at some of the enrollment data and I had asked about raw numbers. Um Sarah and I were in that meeting wondering about that and looking at that there has been a change.

181It's not a huge change over time, but there has been some decrease in enrollment in terms of looking at seat to seat but also then wanting to understand more about how does that include students who are not in a seat in our district but uh for whom we are responsible whether that's for transportation or other responsibilities. Um and that also led us into the conversation which Larry referred to earlier which is we are also finding we have some students who have more um intensive needs in our rise classrooms with some social emotional needs in um our extended services classrooms. Um looking at socio economic status and some of the needs brought on by that. So again trying to um understand that it's not an applesto apples comparison in terms of numbers and needs and how

182that impacts our HR conversations. But um overall early on class sizes were looking good for next year. Many positions had been posted that were open and that work is largely underway right now, hence the need for a July meeting. So um so that was the HR report from March 6th. Uh thank you. And the teaching and learning committee meeting, you're up again. I'm up again. So teaching and learning. Um Katie was our lead on teaching and learning. So, I will defer to to Mark as we move forward, but we met on March on that meeting. You're welcome. You want to talk about this one? No. Um, but I'm happy to talk about tonight's meeting. We met on March 10th and um spent a lot of time actually in that meeting as well, overlapping with the

183HR discussion talking about special education. Um, at this point in our district, 11% of our students receive special education services and 7.3% receive um 504 support. So that is over a thousand students in the district about 18% or one in five students um in each classroom. So there are definitely needs to be met and services to be provided. Um we look specifically at where we're seeing increases in needs. It is with um the categories of emotional disturbance, autism and other health impairment. Um and that is part of what has led to the need to look at additional RISE classrooms and a lot of the additional supports we've been looking at. um looking at successes, we have been on our report card closing the gaps with our um students in special education, making sure because we

184know that they absolutely can learn um and can achieve. We have to figure out what the supports are that they need to be able to do that. So um gap closing is a a huge um accomplishment in terms of making sure we're meeting kids needs and just the the amount of staff who have been um supportive of meeting all those kids' needs. challenges largely um live right now around behavior needs especially in the primary level classrooms which is a little bit different than what we've seen in previous years. Um so there is anticipation of opening new classrooms especially at the primary level to support students next year and um extended services classrooms um for our students to make sure they're getting the supports that they need. Um last month we did pass the new model

185policies and procedures. So I won't spend time thinking about that. They had worked through some of the um changes in those supports and then we discussed mental health services and that led to my question earlier about the drop-in services and making sure that NECO was going to be able to provide the supports we needed for our elementary students. Um school links. I did want to share that we are looking at making a move from Zello which has been the um platform for looking at career um workforce development you know assessments to help understand what your interests might be that has been used elementary through 12th grade. It will still be used elementary but looking at making a change to school links in the higher grades um that will allow more parentfriendly access tracking of different

186badges needed for graduation um access to college applications. So, at the higher level, there's more of a link to what our students need for future career um and career college workforce needs. Um code of conduct is in the works in terms of updating and there's been some work done around looking at intra district transfers and really tightening up those policies and procedures a little bit to make sure um that we are not overwhelming any of our buildings and that we have equitability across all of our different buildings. I think those were the basics from that meeting. It was it was a lot. So, thank you very much. Item 16.1, board discussion. Does anybody have anything you like to say? Just congratulations to the 2025 graduates. Yes. Absolutely. Congratulations. Yeah. I have You want to You

187have a few things. Uh, and we're going to talk about the the resolution to join vouchers, the voucher lawsuit in a minute, so I'll I'll skip that stuff for right now. But at first, I wasn't here last month, so I just wanted to welcome Mark. I didn't have an opportunity to welcome him, so welcome here. You know, it's always the end of the year is an exciting time. Um, I reflect on as my son's moving out of elementary school and going to Nagel and all the nerves that come along with that. But, um, you know, all the end of year festivities at all the schools are so meaningful to the students, uh, and the teachers. And one in particular was the the band concert this year. And I wanted to shout out the the Forest

188Hills um band program. The coordination between the elementary schools and middle schools to put on an amazing concert um at at Anderson High School last week was was something else. Um you know, we heard about the Forest Hills 5K and all the success there. And I don't know, like just being out there and just getting away from the politics of school boards and school districts and all that stuff. Everybody's out there having a good time, smiling. Doesn't matter what political affiliation you are. Just people are out there supporting the school district is is so awesome to see. Um, so those were kind of some of my more general comments, but there were a couple other ones too. The first I I just wanted to ask questions about the the uh parks committee or the parks

189board is have formed a committee on a study for what to do with the beach acres land. And I know Wendy, you were at and and Larry were at the meeting and I wanted to get an update on that and also just kind of find out where we are with membership. I I would like to I have a lot of market research experience and I'd like to be on that board as well or be alternate if you can't make it. What are we doing with that? Who's on this committee? And then what's the latest on it? Yeah. Do you want me to give an update right now? Yeah. Okay. That was first on my list. Um, so the there has been a steering committee formed which I'm very excited about with um the Anderson Township

190Parks Board, the Anderson Township Trustees and the Forest Hill School District. Uh, Larry and I were at a meeting yesterday, I think. Um, so and it really appeared to be largely a kickoff steering committee meeting. There had been some um initial work with an organization that is going to help put together a um large-scale survey to gather information from the community about what we want to see happen with the beach acres land. Um there was I think by that um group to be honest with you a little bit of putting the cart before the horse and trying to start coming up with survey questions without really understanding what our community needs were. So the meeting this week was really a chance to um put a pause and say timeout. The focus isn't parks as a

191whole. The focus is really this beach acres land. The focus is really getting good information from our community without putting their ideas in their head about what we might want, but what is the vision for how this parks land could be used in a way that would benefit our community. Hopefully, you know, in a collaborative effort between the schools, the parks and the trustees. So, there are some initial focus groups starting that will have very open-ended questions. Um, they include different leadership groups within our our district who are being invited. Round one, I believe, is tomorrow. Round two is not yet scheduled because we're trying to to take it a little bit slow to make sure that we're getting the information we want from those focus groups. There will be a survey coming that as

192a district we will make sure we send out through district means that will also be available at Anderson Day day single day um and other park events throughout the summer. Um there'll be a larger survey that will be sent to a random sampling of homes and then there will be a smaller version of that same survey available to anyone in the community. Um there will also be at least one community open house so that community members can come and make sure that their voice is heard about what the next steps are. So, I am very positive about the the opportunities we have at this moment to look at how we can most successfully come together across our different leadership organizations and really do this slowly and well to make sure that community input is a

193part of what's happening. So, please keep your eyes open for that survey. Um, it's not out yet, but um, as the focus groups are taken care of, we will be closer to um, to sharing that with you. So, I think it's exciting work. I was glad I could be able to be there. Um, I will say our next meeting because they are really it's hard to bring a large group of people together. Um, we ended up with it on Monday the 9th, which is the date we have our Forest Hills board work session. So, we're squeezing that in at 1:00 before our 2:00. Uh, Larry asked me if that was 1 to 1:45 and I said, "How about 1 to 158 and then we'll drive down the street." Um, so it it is challenging to

194find meeting times and they do tend to be looking at daytime meeting times with that group. So I do think in terms of involvement, it probably is important to have people with some flex in schedules and I would love to have an alternative because I could see with the pace at which this is moving summer vacations and things like that that interfering. So I like your idea of figuring out who who can represent and who alternatives are. Um, and I'm open to that. I'm glad to be a part of it. I was involved in some of the early coffees um around trying to to bring people together. So I'm excited to see it move forward. Great. Yeah. Um I guess let me know how to can contribute um and we can talk more about that

195at another time. I appreciate the update on it. All right. So one other thing that I want to to address here in the board discussion. We've had the last several months, we've had speakers come up here and read excerpts from books completely out of context suggesting these books be banned. And I I I want to get an update because last month when I was out of the country, I was listening to the board meeting and a comment was made that these books had been pulled from the shelves and that caught me off guard. And in the communication uh Larry that you've given us and the board is that these books have been pulled subject to review and then the the entire process for reviewing books needs to be updated because it hasn't been updated since

1962014. And I guess I just want to understand the rationale for pulling I think it was seven or eight book these seven or eight books in particular um to to launch this process of reviewing books that are in our libraries or instructional materials right why was the decision made to pull these books specifically well with the information with some of the information and the concerns we wanted to make sure first of all that our process which is our uh administ ministrative guidelines that is really how do we carry out a policy number in particular policy 2520. uh as I mentioned to you um all in my brief that um what we wanted to what we found was that the process for reviewing and when they initially come to into a library hadn't been updated since

1972010 um different time and place. Um, also our research quickly found that we had no documentation that even that process was done. Not that it wasn't, but there was no documentation to say it say that it was. Um, so we decided that and and really that's my call, but we decided as a group the smartest thing to do was would be to pull them. Let's look at our process. the the um administrative guidelines again, which is how we enforce the policy. Um and we I sent you out a draft of what we we wanted to do. This was with building principles. Um we don't have media specialists anymore. That was part of a cut way back, but we did some of the people um our innovative innovation specialists is what we call them now. Uh

198but they helped us develop kind of a new way of of just looking at that because we get it from a lot of ways. Books can come into us in mass by a company that donates it. um somebody gives them to us, we can purchase them. So, we just wanted to make sure that what we were doing, we were actually doing some due diligence on it. Um so, we've got a draft together. Um it's something that you just can't pull it, you know, pull the plug on right out mid year. Um so, we wanted to make sure um that we had a good process Like I said, uh it's it's a draft. You you see the draft. We've added uh so there's more than one set of eyes on on it when it comes in.

199We're not looking at going through every book, but the ones that we were presented with. Um not that we agree or disagree. Those books may ultimately be back. Some may, some not. I I don't know that. But I want to have have the process so that it's very transparent. You can see it and parents have an option to say I don't want my kid to be able to go into this library and get this book. That's a possibility too which we never had. So that's kind of the the idea. We are meeting again mid June. Um right now I'm just trying to close up the school year. We'll be meeting mid June uh with my um DT my district leadership team which again is the that same group of principles. Um we'll finalize it. Then

200we need to make sure that we everybody understands what it is and how it goes through and then we'll go from there. So, I I appreciate the the effort to update the these procedures and make sure that our any instructional materials that we're getting are vetted as they need to be. My concern is the precedent that's this sets for someone complaining about a book and um particularly the nature of of these books. the the books that were complained about were um would fall under this boogeyman DEI umbrella of this this madeup problem that doesn't exist in school districts. And these books center diverse voices. They center um voices of LGBTQ characters. Um they talk about child sexual abuse and sexual sexual trauma and they speak to a very diverse group of students that reflect issues

201and challenges that our students are going through today. Each one of these books are awardwinning critically acclaimed books. Books like The Hate You Give is is a book like that is is reason why we shouldn't be banning books like that's a book people should be reading to have a better understanding of things that are actually happening in our society related to race that are different than what you might see as folks interact in different neighborhoods. And so, you know, I come back to this like our culture blueprint, this every moment matters and all this stuff that we we could keep putting out there about like our 20 square feet and we respect each voice and we serve and support each other and we be honest and authentic, but then we pull these books that are

202specifically targeting these culture wars that have been just pummeling our school district for the past four years. And we have a couple speakers come out and speak about these things that have no credibility to be able speaking on them that they're informed by Moms for Liberty, which if we are following any guidelines from Moms for Liberty, we have failed as a school district. Okay? And we have hundreds if not thousands of parents who reached out about Diversity Day. Hundreds if not thousands that reached out about the mural, that reached out about evaluations. and we don't get any response, right? Like I I remember when this this room was packed with people saying, "Look at us." when the mural was painted over and there was no response, nothing in terms of what happened and why we

203did that. It was just covered up and then painted over. And then one unreliable uh non-parent comes up and reads excerpts from the book from a book with no context and we just pull these books. It sends such a bad message that we are targeting books featuring diverse characters and diverse topics at the whims of political requests. And it sets a precedent for all right, we did these books. All right, what are the next books? We're not satisfied with because Moms for Liberty's got a book a list of hundreds of books and they've been at this in many other states. I am ardently against banning books and I would very much like to see these seven books put back in the libraries. I don't want them use as a context for revising our procedures on

204this. If we need to update the procedures, great. Let's do it in an objective way, not with these seven or eight books in mind. And then we determine a process for how do we determine whether a book needs to be reviewed. Is it one single parent's complaint? Is it a a a group's complaint? Are we reviewing every single book that's coming into our library? I'm surely we're not doing that with the hundreds of thousands of books that we have in our our libraries. And when you were telling me like how many students are checking out books from the library at Anderson and Turpin Anderson there was three this year. Three. So why are we pulling books when three students checked out books? Right. Right. And if we're concerned with sexual content in these books, like

205have we heard of the internet? Like what the Like there is so much content out there that is readily available to kids in elementary school even. So like banning a book to preserve the sanctity of these children like get around some kids, listen to what they're talking about, look at what they're watching on YouTube and look at the content that is readily available online. It's so ridiculous that we would even consider this stuff. I'm so fired up about it and I would like to ask that all these books be put back in the library and we disregard any of the speakers that have come in previously suggesting that we pull any books from our shelves. Can I real quick I I feel like most of us are probably in a similar place at the end

206of the day. It's it's the process by which we get there and I think that's really more of what's going on here. I and I I certainly I'm not Larry and I'm not in Larry's mind. Um I I I think it was a realization again credibility speakers, non-credibility speakers, everybody's allowed to talk. Fine. I think it just it highlighted an issue for for Larry and he made the decision to pull and then evaluate the process where I think Jason what you're saying is we should not have pulled. We still need to make sure we have a process. Yeah. So, it's it's it's more like what came first in your opinion. It should have been process then pull if you need to or don't pull. I said that I'm not part of that right now versus

207Larry's pro Larry's decision to pull and then process. I I mean, I think that's where we are at the end of the day because I don't think based upon the emails that I've read from Larry and listening to him tonight, I don't think there's any predisposed notion by you to ban these books uh based upon a single speaker or a single complaint. At least I would hope not. We do have processes for that as well as so I I think it's a matter of and I I don't know where I mean ultimately does fall under our purview because we're the board. It's it's just a matter of we need I think we all agree we need this process in place. We need to make sure it's well articulated. We I know I know Sarah sent

208an email like we need to make sure we we understand the definitions that are in the process because different people have different interpretations about what is vulgar, what is not. And so th those are discussions I think we we need to have. The question is simply and and I I do tend to follow with Jason on this. I I don't think that pulling them before the process was necessarily again it's an opinion like there there's no right or wrong answer in this. Like it's it's a very gray area. I don't think that pulling them prior to the review was necessarily the right call from my perspective. But again, I don't sit in your chair dealing with it day in day out. So, I do a little bit defer to how you reacted and and if

209I was in a similar position sitting in the superintendent's chair day in day out, I may have reacted the same way. And I hear what you're saying. I guess the piece I would just add to that through the teacher lens is that one of the things we are working so hard as teachers to create is critical thinkers who can understand experiences beyond their own, who have empathy, who um have a greater knowledge of the world. And we can't be out there experiencing everything. That's just not the way the world works. And books allow an opportunity to do that. and teachers in all of our classrooms are working so hard to try to foster reading and a love of reading. And that starts early on with good early foundational skills and phonics and what have you.

210But at some point that involves finding those books that kids connect with. And that means having a rich, wide, diverse body of literature in your classroom so that students can go in and I know in I've been in classes where there are contests around reading different genres and you know and how you know the opportunity to read different books and um do mock newberry challenges and um present books in a presentation back to your class to try to convince other students what they should read. Right? To get students to want to do that, you have to have lots of different types of books available so kids can find what interests them, what's going to hold them and grab them and make them want to read. And if we start limiting what the options are, even

211through saying parents can sign off and not having access to classroom libraries, we tie a teacher's hands in terms of trying to help create that love of learning and that love of reading. And I just think we have to be very careful about that slippery slope. Well, I I guess obviously I probably feel different than you guys. I appreciate you being cautious and at least pulling those books. Um, and just to you know, I'm not for the book banning. I think it's the pornographic material. I'm I'm not sure is has a place in the schools. So under the Supreme Court precedent, the BOE of Island Trees Union Free School vers PICO, it's a case in 1982 and basically the Supreme Court held that local school boards may remove book books that are pervasively vulgar and

212unsuitable for children. So I mean for me that's why I was asking what does the school district think the definition of pervasively vulgar is? I mean does that meet the definition of pornographic material? Um because also I I mean I would want to know all of that. Um I don't think those pornographic books, you know, have any place in the schools. If they're in libraries, you know, at the public library, you know, parents can expose their kids, you know, that way. But as the BOE, the in loco parent is Latin for in place of the parent. And I think as as the board of education, it's our job to make sure that we're not letting anything, you know, that crosses the line maybe get into the hands of the kids. So, um, I would appreciate

213the investigation you guys do and I hope, you know, moving forward there's some kind of process to be able to look at these books and obviously have that word defined. that that case that you mentioned said the school board may decide to pull which would suggest that it's a board decision if we're going to be pulling any books and the board never made a decision on whether these books should be pulled. Secondly, I'm assuming in a few minutes you're getting ready to argue in favor of parent choice on these vouchers, but you're denying parent choice to read books and these are not pornographic books. They're sexually explicit chapters. What is the epilogue in uh talk about in Perks of Being a Wallflower and the context in the chapter or the excerpt that was read a

214couple months ago here. So the context is understanding this child into adults experience of feeling alone and isolated. And it basically speaks to a wonderful letter he has written back to a stranger about how there are times we all feel alone and we all feel isolated and we may have been through trauma but we are important in the world and every one of us is important and even when we feel alone we're part of that community of feeling alone and that it's important we're all here and we're all part of the story and that's the message ends with. And that's a message I would love every one of our teenagers to have heard. And that Perks of a Wallflower book was specifically for seniors, which I guess you're closer to being a young adult. Um,

215but that book was actually read to a 10th grade class, and I think that's why the parents had emailed in specifically this lucky one. This is available to seventh and eighth graders. I have an eighth grader. I I mean, I wouldn't want this in his hand. Um, I think there's much better literature that can be read out there. But I I think there's I understand you don't want to ban any books, but there is precedent that the board could vote if you determine something is pervasively vulgar and unsuitable for children because I'm not sure why anybody would want pornographic material in the schools. Yeah. I I think you're let's just what what's going to come down at the end of the day? I'm trying to be pragmatic in in interest of the fact that it's

21610:05 p.m. and my pizza order is probably going to be here in three minutes. Um, at the end of that, we can sit there and say Larry did the right thing, Larry did the wrong thing as far as pulling the books. The school year's over. So, from a pragmatic standpoint right now, it doesn't matter from a like purely pragmatic like at this point doesn't matter if you pulled them or not because school's over for the for the for the summer. So in that vein rather than sitting up here ha us having a dialogue about this which we're not going to get anywhere sitting here right now I I think what makes sense is for you to have that meeting in June and then at a June or July board meeting involve us so that we

217can clearly understand what's going on and then we as a board can come up with a definition if we agree with you if we think there should be more lit you know more language less language and we as a board can go from there because I I mean we're We're sitting here right now arguing and we're not going to come to a conclusion. It's the end of the school year, so it really doesn't matter if they banned him or not right now. Like it just it it it does not matter right now. Yeah. And we can and and you can publicly admonish Larry and certainly that is your opinion. As I said, I wouldn't have pulled them either myself, but just from a very pragmatic standpoint, it it doesn't matter on May 21st. It doesn't

218matter in the context that the kids can't check them out and read them, but it matters in the context of it sets a precedent that we're willing to pull books if someone comes and complains about them at a board. But that's where the process going forward, right, will completely eliminate that. That's something that wasn't in the draft that I would very much like to see is like what what's the process for when you decide to pull? Yeah. Like when to review like what is the threshold when we decide we're going to review a book that we have in our library? Like any book coming in and there's an auto review, great. But like if someone complains or there's an issue with something read in class, like what is that threshold that defines this is a

219book we need to pull for review, whatever it might be. That's something I would like to see. Once you have a process, you won't be pulling any, right? You would just review it and see if it Yeah, I think his point is just if some parent complains, what do you do? Right. You have to there is a process when that happens and that's a bigger that's a secondary issue to this this issue kind of showed that there was some flaws with the with the process for it even being bought to be put in into the library which should be done at the building which we do at the building level with the people that that with our principles. We'll have a group of principles, you know, so it's again it's in draft form. We'll certainly

220share that with you as soon as we have our meetings and and again and we as a board ultimately will approve the process that we believe makes sense for our district. Correct. So all right. All right. That's all I have before we get to the voucher stuff. Unless anybody else has comments. I just have two quick things. Superintendent and treasurer evaluations are actually in draft form. So, our board will be moving forward with evaluations in the near future. And I think that's great progress. So, kudos that we're we're getting there. And, you know, I like to do my shout outs. So, um I'm taking Cal Fender's lead on the academics, athletics, and arts. Um academics. Just again a shout out to Fritz and Jacob on their science fair presentation earlier. That was amazing. Um, as

221well in terms of academics, there are four tupin turpin students, Jacob Dashler, Luke Elliot, Hayden Meyers, and Brandon Thcker, who qualified to compete in an in-person stock market game competition at UC, um, and her highest scores there. And Kyle Eastston wrote an essay that earned one of the six $30,000 scholarships from the CEO of the Better Business Bureau. So, we have got kids doing great academic things in our district. Um, athletics pains me a little bit as a Sherwood parent, but congratulations to Wilson as they are the current reigning champions in the sixth grade Olympics. Um, arts, Frozen was a huge success and I had the pleasure of seeing MMA Mia a couple weeks ago. And man, do we have some talented singers in our school. Um, we also recently got the best communities for

222music education award yet again and I think that's outstanding. Um, and then community and service. The Anderson High School Environmental Science Club hosted an Earth Day on April 19th and focused on different presentations around careers and sustainability and other important things for our world. Forest Hills 5K certainly brought us together. Camp Kern brought our fifth graders together across the district. Ayer hosted their annual global adventure day to learn about experiences beyond their own. and Mercer assistant principal Kimberly Beard was named the 2025 outstanding second in command administrator by the Ohio Association of Elementary School administrators. So we have got amazing things happening across academics, athletics, arts and community and we should all be focusing on that great work. And there is one more go ahead and brag on your son too and the project that

223he had that he completed because that's an awesome thing that happened in the district. I wasn't going to mention that, but um my son Eli is working on his Eagle Scale project and actually got one of the Forest Hills Foundation grants. Um they spelled his name wrong, so he didn't get it by association with me. Um but he actually built a an amazing gravel path on the back field of Turpin from the HU parking lot to the athletic entrance where a lot of students traverse every day. And when it is muddy and when it is icy, it is dangerous and it is messy. and the custodians have been, I believe, appreciative of less mess. Um, and we heard back from from Larry Corley that it solved a problem and is um already well in use.

224So, wish that was the case back when my kids were here, right? I'm saying something for like 30 seconds and I'm done. One, I applaud each of you sitting here for three and a half hours. And you might think I'm being funny, but I'm not. Yeah. Because it it's you guys being out there that are that committed to this that that really makes all of this worthwhile. It's it's funny to listen to people on each side of the aisle talk. And and I I truly love the different perspectives on things. What makes me laugh probably though is those folks that decide to talk and then immediately leave without listening to what's the other the rest of the meeting. And it's one it's those things that make me take those comments with a grain of salt

225and kind of think whatever. Um two I I would just like to make a point about each side of the aisle that we have certainly uh in in play here. And I made this comment to a couple people on the board. I I always I I refer back all the time to Antinine Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. If don't people don't know who they are, I'm sorry. Um two incredible Supreme Court justices who have passed. They were on complete opposite ideological sides and I believe in over 95% of the cases that they both were on if there was a difference of opinion they were two on the opposite sides and yet they remain best friends for life. I would like to think that we as a district can accept that other people have opinions that

226are different from ours, not call them out, not cat call, not talk behind their backs. Let's treat each other with decorum and treat each other as we want our kids to treat other people. Thank you. I'm done. All right. My piece is coming. Okay. Oh, good. We're almost done. All right. We got two more things. Uh 16.2 resolutions to join the vouchers hurt Ohio. Uh really quick um for those of you who are saying I am taking a bribe. I work in a financial services industry. I have specific license. I'm an elected official. That is defamation. That is slander. I have not taken a bribe from anybody. I got an email from a citizen offering to join and paying for it. I don't see that money. That's not a bribe. The district gets the money.

227There was no pressure for me to do this. It was a simple question. As I look at what the state budget is doing to our district, taking the money away from us, giving it to other entities who do not have to follow the same rules that we have to follow, who do not have to pay for transportation for other students. We pay for it. We take care of that. That is why I decided to do this. That is the only reason I decided to do this. Not because somebody pressured me. One email is not pressure. I've had pressure from this and I've not changed my opinion on any other things. So, one email didn't pressure me to do this and that's all I have to say. Yeah, Bob, I think it's unfortunate that those accusations

228were levied against you and the most vocal of those people don't even come to the to the board meeting to discuss it. We also had our uh lawyer, Bill Deeders, um comment on this, which essentially from a legal perspective um says there's no violation of Ohio law, ethics, this doesn't constitute a bribe. And so, um, you know, it it's unfortunate that that the conversation went that way instead of focusing on the issue of of the voucher lawsuit. So, I'm sorry that you had to deal with that. And if you have issues with what we're doing, direct your anger and your frustration to the bureaucrats in Columbus. They are the ones who control this, not us. Yep. 100%. I would just add that it was June of 2024, so almost a year ago when I first

229brought this to the table. So, this is not a new conversation that evolved from a a single me email. This was a discussion we'd been having and we had received other emails about um needing to to think about how we actively work to protect public education in Ohio. Um, every family absolutely has a choice. You have the choice to be a part of our amazing schools that are Forest Hills for free or you can choose a better option that that meets your family's needs. But this isn't about a choice of rugged individualism and everyone gets their own. This is a choice about the the common good. And the Ohio Constitution says that there will be a public school system for the common good. in the same way we fund roads and police and defense and

230all of our schools as part of the common good. And so this decision because at the end of the day whether it's pulled directly out of Forest Hills or whether that happens up here there is one pot of money the state budget is required to be balanced at the end of the year. So, if we start allowing a billion dollars to go to a state voucher system, they're going to have to pull that money from somewhere else to balance the budget. And education is one line item in the budget. So, if the money goes there at some point in some way, it's not coming here. As a public school, if we were funded in the same way vouchers are currently being funded, if we were getting $6,000 from the school per student, which might actually

231be adequate and adequatable per the constitution, we would have over a decade before we'd even need to have a conversation about a levy. So, this isn't just about our kids. This is also about the taxpayers. This is about you and me not wanting to see another levy before we need to. Because the reality is, if the state is only paying 23% of the cost of educating our students and they start to take that away. The only other source of income we have is property taxes in this community. It means we're going to have to come back to you sooner. So, we absolutely need to look at how to address this. I think it's also important to understand that there have been different variations in vouchers around for a long time and they've had parameters and

232controls around them and with the ed choice expansion that has all gone away. Anybody can get a voucher. Everybody gets something. There is no limit to those. Which means we can have a billionaire family in Forest Hills sales. A billionaire family with four kids. If they send their four kids through the private school system through the current Ed Choice voucher expansion, they will get about $35,000 to supplement them sending their kids to private schools. A billionaire family. this isn't being used in the way it was originally intended. There was conversation that if we go forth with this, we're going to deny um private school opportunities to kids who want them. In our school district, it was 6% or less of students from low-income stu families who were taking 6.35%. Thank you. 6.35% of families from

233low income who were taking advantage of this. That means 93% of families were families who had already made decisions largely to be in private schools and were now getting a subsidy to be able to do so. It is in our best interest. It is in our kids' best interest. It is in the taxpayer best interests that we support this. And one of the emails we got, I think, said it beautifully. This is not about private versus public school. It's about protecting the fundamental right of every child in our community to a highquality, comprehensive education within a transparent and publicly accountable system. It's about safeguarding the financial health of our district and ensuring that our public schools can continue to be a cornerstone for all of our families. So, I have a couple questions. Um I

234I um think about this a little bit different than you guys, but just um we had the donor come up and say that she was going to pay the initial fee. The lawsuit isn't just one year. It it will go on and on. So who pays for it the second year, the third year, and the fourth year? I mean, I think that's for the board to decide in the second year, third year, and fourth year. Great. I believe somebody sent us an email said they would fund raise for it. Okay. Um, have we looked at the financials of this at all and how the money so far has been spent because this has been going on for two years already. Has anybody asked them about they don't produce their financials publicly? That was on the

235website. There's there's no financial data. It does. It does say what they're spending their money on. That's like 25 cents of every dollar goes one place, 25 cents, and then 50 cents. Are you talking about the private schools, what they're spending their money? No, no. The lawsuit, the coalition, the coalition. It It tells cents on the dollar what they spend, but there is no overall financial report. So, we don't know how much money they've received, what they're spending it on, at least public. Wouldn't it be smart to know? I mean, you've got 300 school districts. There's probably some a nice bucket of money. What's it being spent on? And isn't there supposed to be some type of decision here in the next month or so? In 2025, the lawsuit is supposed to go to court.

236So, we are first on that first level of court. Okay. Um, and according to the OD stats, it shows that 1,152 students in Forest Hills uses those vouchers. So I I don't know like who who are we to say that we know how to educate somebody's kid better than than they do. Yeah. And I think remember this is what we were just talking about. You guys have you have to have decorum. Yeah. Yeah. I I don't think we're to say what's what's best for anybody. People can homeschool. People can go to private school, charter school, whatever have you. The issue is whether public tax dollars should be paying for it. Sure. But if it's coming out of one line, that's students, right? All students education. Yeah, that's how I see it. But the it's not

237when they're red, not when they're reducing what we're getting. Okay. And I had asked Elena that this is the ed choice expansion has been going on for two years. Can you please tell me how the ed choice expansion program has directly affected Forest Hills the last two years? And I think a lot of people and Wendy have said it better than I could say it. And I know that I've a couple of you have emailed me and I've told you um back in prior to fisc year 22 um those students were in our enrollment accounts and I got revenue for all of our students plus all of their students and then there was a deduction taken out which was more than I got per pupil. So back before then it was like we got the

2382600 for everybody and then the the 6,000 or 7,000 for those students that were private came back out of the bottom. So we were at a net loss of four or 5,000 per student that came out beginning in um fiscal year 22. They started funding them directly and it's just exactly what people have said. Bob said it, Wendy said it. There's a pie. And when you look at how that pie has divvied up over the last couple years, a large portion has gone, excuse me, has gone to vouchers. Um, and I've given that to to you, Sarah, and to I think to most of you who have asked for it. I've handed that out. Um, so that's that's the issue. That is the issue is that pie and that divian out. Um, and that's the

239state pie. Yeah, because it does. How directly has it affected Forest Hills over those years? Because on the five-year forecast, I mean, I I don't see a dip in revenue at all from those vouchers. The issue is that we have the state right now telling us they can't fund public education. Well, you can't fund public education because all of a sudden you have a billion dollars going out to vouchers. And with regard to your question about the the families and the increases, um, we and I'll look up Forest Hills numbers. I can give you the general state numbers. There was a only a 3% increase in enrollment in private schools. There was a 300% increase in use of vouchers. So, the vouchers are being used by families who'd already made the decision to go there.

240That's great. That's your choice, 100%. But now we're funding it for families who had already made that choice and already made the choice that that was how they were going to use their money. That's fine. That's personal choice. It is not your choice to have public funds pay for it. And the answer to your question about the direct implication on Forest Hills is this is why we're here putting forth resolutions for fair school funding and to get our fair share and to be equitably funded and to think about increasing the base cost. And we have legislators saying we don't have the money to do that. Well, you do. you're choosing to spend it elsewhere and it's not constitutional. Sarah, just I think I let let me try to answer your question if the best I

241can. I think to date we have not had a huge impact historically from either from 22 till now from the change from the direct voucher system. There hasn't we haven't seen a huge dip in state revenues. the fear and I think this is what's driving the lawsuit and I think that's what's driving those of us up here who were deciding to go with that way with with supporting it is that going forward they're going to continue to put more and more money into the private they're going to continue to change that the fair state funding formula they're going to continue the 30% cap they're going to start to institute more things so you're absolutely right historically I don't think there's been a huge impact to us financially you agree with that that there hasn't been

242much of an impact because you haven't seen the revenues really dip in the We do have we have numbers though. We have the governor's budget simulation. No, not budget. I'm we're talking historically. I know. But it's telling the governor's simulation is telling us how much money we're going to be losing that we used to get. Again, Jason, we're talking historically. We're just talking historically. But we Yeah. Data. That's I'm just saying we we have not seen a huge dip historically. We have not seen a huge dip, but I think like we've heard people Thank you. That's all I wanted to hear. That's and and that's that's that's the the point isn't we can sit here and argue the point isn't where we've been. The point I think that most of us are trying to argue

243is going forward if we continue down this path. What is going to happen with this one, you know, line item, what are they going to do? Are they going to continue to go down this path of reduce the fair school funding formula, increase the voucher system, put the 30% cap in place? That's I think the fear that's driving this whole coalition. It's not that most districts have been horribly impacted historically. It's that as a result of the change Yeah. It's the what exactly. It is the whatif scenario that everybody's talking about here and they wouldn't have been we wouldn't have been historically impacted to a great extent because voucher expansion just opened up if I believe it was in the 23 school year. So this is new but the expansion has been huge and unlimited

244and with no parames dry. Yes. And we see the details to to the proposed budgets. The state the state operates residually budgeting, right? You can say what you want to. It's it's all good about gosh, we ought to do this, we ought to do that. They look at this pie and they go, we got to fund this. It's how much can we do? That's why you get this the fair school funding model not being fully instituted with inputs at the current level because they can't do it. The pie is bigger. than what they have in their general revenue fund. That's that's kind of what's happening. Quick, just again, as hopefully you can tell, I'm fairly pragmatic. If we decided not to join this lawsuit, does it impact anything? I mean, you have 300 school districts.

245I I can't imagine 3001. They're be like, "Oh, now we've got a critical mass." I mean, is this one of the or is this one of those things that we are more I don't want to use the word union, but it's a little more we're trying to be in solidarity and trying to create a solidarity with all of the districts in Ohio to try to show the state government that we are all together on this. I think there's solidarity, but I also think to the point of several of the speakers in our community, if we don't show that we're advocating, if we aren't part of the solution to advocate to protect our school funding, um then we are not doing due diligence when we then have to go back and ask for another levy when

246the money gets cut because it's not there. And correct, public schools are where they can cut it from. And I went through and did a little tally today of all the emails we've received and checked any that I could identify as parents. Um, we got five times more community emails as of 3 p.m. today. I'm familiar with favor of this voyage voucher. Those are very specific data and overwhelmingly the majority of those are parents compared to those who were against the voucher. Um, our community has sent us a message as well that they would like to see us be advocates and on the right side of protecting public school funding. And just a last note, so again bringing up some court precedent in in 2002, Velman vers Simmons Harris was a case at the US

247Supreme Court that addressed the federally federal constitutionality of school voucher programs. The US Supreme Court ruled that the voucher program in Cleveland, Ohio did not violate the establishment cause of the First Amendment. And the Zelman case has been cited 240 times in federal and state courts, including 14 times in the US Supreme Court. I just think this is a waste of money. I think this is a problem at the state. And again, you have a donor for the first year. We know it's going to go longer than that. I don't think it's fair for taxpayers to pay for a political lawsuit. And that's but we also have we also have state law. We also have state supreme court law that has deemed our states public funding model unconstitutional. And I think that's that's an important

248difference. Zelman Zelman was federal. This is questioning our state constitutional obligations. I mean you said Sarah this is a state issue. This is article six of So then also the Supreme Court of Ohio has already established the fact that the voucher program is constitutional and if you know I don't know your actions are going to deny if this actually goes through. I mean you're denying,00 families the right to use these vouchers and how do you know what's best for them? I mean that's So we're not denying 1100 families because we didn't we did not lose,00 families to vouchers last year. We lost provided me the data. It's on the Ohio Department of Educa or Ohio. No, I'm sorry. That's how many students are receiving vouchers. Yep. You are absolutely correct. That does not mean they

249just started going to private school last year to get the voucher. The large majority, you said we're going to lose,00 students opportunities to go to private school. That's not true. I'm going to argue that a thousand of them were already in private school and are now just taking advantage of a voucher that has become an opportunity. They don't have to of then and now. I mean, you're you're taking that opportunity away from people and I just don't think that's right. I don't think it's right to get in a political lawsuit with taxpayer money. Okay. But let me ask this question. Where I don't want to debate you. Where do you want the money to come from though? If you're if you don't want the levies, you don't want to support more state funding. Where's the

250money going to come from? They got to figure that out at the state in Columbus. And that's what we're trying to help them figure out by joining a lawsuit because it's constitutionally that's not the way to get it done in my opinion and I just shared my opinion why wasn't the resolution last month the way to get it done sharing president. Then the last last thing I want to say and that's only the last thing I want to say is we're sharing opinions is I we have got to knock it off with the social media attacks on our fellow board members. Okay. We had a donor reach out. We had someone reach out offering to donate if we wanted to do this that requested to remain anonymous. Correct, Bob? Correct. And you publicly doxed that

251person after they requested to remain anonymous. But Jason, I can do whatever I want to on social media. I can share my records request if I want to. I You don't get to shake your finger at me and tell me it's wrong. You sure can. I'm a board member. I can do what I please. If you don't like it, that's fine. I don't like that you want all these pornographic books in the schools. I think that's perverted of you. So the comments that have been elicited on your post though that have referred to that donor as some of the most disgusting words that you could refer to that person as the accusations that have come up suggesting Bob has taken bribes as a result of it. I'm all for using our social media platforms to

252inform people, encourage them to be engaged, right? But the I don't know just the the language used the the choices used to it's just really unethical for to me and I just again this is the second time we've I've had this this conversation with you in the past few months and I just really find it unbecoming of a board member. That's fine. You can shake your finger all you want. I think your advocate and all your anonymous people I mean that's so much worse but okay. Thanks for sharing. On an amusing note, I think it's entertaining that we're talking about $10,000 a year, which is 1,000th of 1%, right, of our annual budget, which is akin to me debating 45 minutes ago about whether or not I shortter extra pepperoni on my pizza. All right.

253So, meaning simply, hold on. Just meaning very simple, like like we we all have our ideologies and we all have our experiences and what not that are driving us right now. But at the end of the day, the financial impact of this on the district is incredibly immaterial. As I would teach my auditing class on a million dollar budget or $100 million budget, if we found a $10,000 difference, I would say please stop looking at it. No one cares. So on that note, I would make a motion to adopt the resolution to join vouchers hurt Ohio. Second. Do you hear Jason second? Dr. Strickler. Yes, Dr. Simmons. Yes, Mr. Bell. Yes, Mrs. Jonas. No, Mr. Bib. Yes, Lord Almighty. We have Go to executive session now. Go to executive session. You have executive session right

254here. Sorry. Pursuant to Ohio Revised Code section 121.22G3, 22G3. I hereby move that the board adjourn to executive session to meet with board legal counsel to discuss disputes involving the board andor school district that are the subject of pending or imminent court action. We're not expecting second. Dr. Strickler, yes. Dr. Simmons, yes. Mr. Bell, yes. Mrs. Jonas, Mr. Bib, yes. We will not be taking any action after this. Thank you.