2/20/25 Forest Hills School District School Board Meeting

001e e e the uh uh Thursday February 20 2025 regular board meeting in the session want to me get a roll call please Mrs Jonas here Dr Simmons here Mrs Stewart Dr strickler here Mr BB here and if we can all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance please I pledge ALG to the flag of the United States of America and to the republ for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with li and justice for all we have a safety briefing and we have three exits one at the top of the stairs one at the bottom of stairs one right here and may I get a motion to adopt the agenda can I make a motion to amend the agenda please and just take out the social studies from the consent no yeah yeah

002you can make a motion to if provide it that's really up to the chair it's permissible under Robert's Rules but it's really up to the chair it's just more the consent voting really I mean do we have to take it out I think it's just one person needs to you just have one person needs to have it's out okay mean you just want to remove something out of the consent yeah 11.3 if we could second okay motion I mean you can do it either way Roberts rules allows for either way if you just want to pull it we can do that again it's at the discretion of the chair so either way is permissible just to pull that as a from the consent agenda if if that's what you want to do could we vote

003on which item the 11 do you want the whole thing pulled or do you want part of the can we can we pull it from the consent yeah okay that's all I was asking just make a I guess we just R it as a 134 might want to make a note on it so when you get to it it'll vote on that by itself okay so do you want me to just approve the agenda then or yeah but we just let her make sure she gets it record I'll make a motion to approve the agenda and take out 11.3 at the end of the consent get a second for to approve the agenda second Mrs Jonas yes Mrs Stewart yes Dr Simmons yes Dr strickler yes Mr bib yes uh item 3.1 approval of the

004meance excuse me approval of the amendment from the teaching and learning committee then 32 approval of the minutes from the budget here we can do those all correct together correct yes approval of the minutes from the um budget hearing and organizational meeting last month and 3.3 approval of the minutes of the regular meeting for January may I get a motion to approve those minutes I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from 3.1 3.2 2 and 3.3 as described in the agenda I'll second Dr Simmons yes Dr strickler yes Mrs Jonas yes Mrs Stewart yes Mr bib yes then item 4.1 candidate grant for graduation from Anderson Mr Fender good evening uh thank you for making space for this on the agenda tonight this is one of the fun parts of the job we have

005a a young man who has taken advantage of our different Pathways that we have um available to students at both high schools um and we all know learning is not a one-size uh fits-all approach and so G's taking advantage of one of the pathways that we have um to finish up his credits early and um he wants to receive diploma early so that he can he can start his work and go you know enter the workforce and and start making money so uh G's a young man that I've gotten to know really well over the last four years and Incredibly proud of um of his growth and the fact that he's made it to to this point to to be an early grad so we were hoping he was going to be able to make

006it tonight I was just peeking around I don't I don't believe he is he's probably working uh and so um with no further Ado I'd like to recommend that the board approve that Gabriel James Snyder be recommended for graduation I'll make a motion to recommend Gabby Snyder for graduation second Dr Simmons yes Mr bib yes Mrs Jonas yes Mrs Stewart yes Dr strickler yes item 5.1 or items f [Applause] item 5.1 uh air Elementary Miss Heather Holly hi everybody hi everybody I'm Heather Holly I'm the principal at era Elementary we are so excited to share about our sixth grade ambassador program these students and four additional students and Mrs Martin have made a huge impact to air this year so we are just going to take a few minutes and they're each going to share

007a little bit about their impact in Legacy at air thank you I'm Ava I think it's really important for us sixth graders to be role models for the younger kids I've seen how excited they get we help them and I love being able to show them what it means to be involved I'm eie I helped out with the all and food drive and worked to inspire others to donate it felt good to make to know that we were making a difference by helping others in need TW I love working on the all in food drive helping to spread the message about generosity it was amazing to see um how many students wanted to help others through the drive hi I'm Mrs Martin the school counselor and these sixth grade ambassadors are so dependable and they're

008so like easy eager to learn and eager to help and we're so um thankful that they come with a positive attitude and we are so um grateful for them because they're able to get a lot of work done quick and I couldn't do this job without their help so thanks guys so much no I was passionate about encouraging other students to donate for coin Wars I felt great to know I was help I felt great to know I was helping others understand how important it is to support a good cause hello I'm sahaj hello I'm sahaj and I went into classrooms and helped kids understand coin Wars and participate it felt great to be a part of something that brought our school together hi my name's Josh being part of coin Wars was awesome I

009spread the word about the fundraiser and made sure everyone understood how important it was it was exciting to see our school come together to support a good cause as an ambassador I loved getting the younger kids excited about the walkon and I got to be the mascot our goal is in AAS make everyone at air feel happy safe and appreciated I hope my work has made the school more intelligent and help create new ways to find help with funding being an ambassador has been an amazing experience I enjoyed helping with e plus R equals o and explaining that to the students thank you so much guys for letting us come and just appreciate their work thank you thank you thank you [Applause] good to see you again all right item 5.2 science Regional qualifiers in

010the University of cincin for Chuck from Chuck OG PR presenting thank you very much and I hope everybody is able to stay warm is a bit chilly out there um I have the honor as a secondary director of teaching and learning to name 27 students that will uh move on in the regional science and Innovation Expo um they will be uh competing after our January 5th at the University of Cincinnati and with the opportunity to move on to Columbus um with that being said this was my first uh time going through our science and Innovation Fair wow yeah if uh if you've never been to it it is it is definitely worth taking a Saturday afternoon um students from all over um our district K all the way up through 12 and uh really takes

011an army to put it on uh couple people that I'd also like to thank as well Bob Buck Laura hold Camp Barb Sanger Kim Calder Dave Brandon and Cory Mullin because it really takes an army to put this on so congratulations to those 27 students moving forward and thank you hey Chuck real quick um when is the regional science and engineering Fair um I the Columbus one is in May I'm not 100% sure when the one at the University of Cincinnati is okay Bob would you have an idea I can definitely get that to let's find out so we can share with public too and we also I'll work with Josh to get that out as well great thank you thank you March 15 it is March 15th all right great there you go that's

012the science teacher item 6.1 uh reports to the board from the for Sals Teachers Association Mr Preston or am I am I good here are we got it it's uh well hello and good evening to each of you uh last month I shared building and District advisory committee work providing system level supports outlined in our negotiated agreement while that ongoing work is important in helping to ensure collaborative problem solving strategic planning and thinking and ongoing effective communication with the district our association also performs Outreach to help meet its mission of providing support to our Members First We host monthly meetings with elected fhda representatives in each of our buildings those sessions aim to uphold our profession by bringing people together to Pro to provide highlevel professional reinforcement for our certified staff the sharing of best

013practices and sharing information at both the state and National level that could have an impact on both students and and our profession second our association builds Community with our members across the district by hosting social events several times throughout the year to welcome and invite them to be part of a broader network of Educators this year we added a new teacher luncheon at the beginning of the year so that our new members could have immediate contact with staff in their building fostering a sense of connection and support third I personally make the rounds throughout the year to each of our buildings plus new path to build relationships I do my best to be present in the environment where our teachers are doing the work our community and trust them to perform I represent an organization

014that is here to support encourage and help contribute to strengthening our work environment so that students can be successful last through all of this activity our goal as an association is to continue to strengthen and enhance public education in Forest Hills so that we can better serve our students and our community thanks for listening thanks Mr President uh item 62 Forest Hills foundation for Education Miss Gillard good evening this thing's a little sensitive tonight isn't it it is it's okay keeps us on our toes um I am thrilled to be here on behalf of the Forest Hills foundation and have a few updates to share um if you can go to the next slide one of the things I definitely wanted to make a final plug out to all parents and students is that we

015are still collecting applications for the PTO Community Grant three years ago the foundation started the community Grant because we knew it was important to hear from students directly and parents as key stakeholders and so they can request funds um for different initiatives they work on so if you're a student or you have have a student or you're a parent um we have about $25,000 in grant money that we're willing to give out and are excited about giving out and so the deadline for this project is actually um next Friday so you all everybody that I just want to put a plug so all students parents um make sure you fill out an application and then all of the grants will be awarded in mid March um I'm also excited to announce um that we I

016think last couple months I've shared that uh the Forest Hills 5K will be hosted on Saturday May 10th we are very excited about our theme this year which is one Community One Finish Line and I'd like to add I think what's great about it is this is an opportunity for all of us to come together there may be many different paths we take to get to a Finish Line um but truly this is a community effort a community event and I have a couple people here that are going to introduce themselves and just share a few quick updates all right hi I'm Jen Sher I am coordinating our ambassadors this year so ambassadors are people in our community staff students parents who want to support the fundraising efforts for the 5K so we have a

017QR code link here and if you're interested in becoming an ambassador and supporting our efforts please um fill out our ambassador form or you can EMA email me directly with more questions um we've got lots of great incentives for our ambassadors we're going to be offering um like gift cards weekly prizes things of that nature and again this is just one great way for everyone in the community to come together and help raise money for this great cause hi guys I'm not as of of an elegant of a public speaker as these two are but um I'm l know I'm a parent in the district I'm also a board member um so I'm just here to talk about the sponsorship opportunities for anyone in the community who wants to get involved anyone out there um

018if you guys want to get involved I just want to make a quick thank you to um orthos ciny to Big Frog and to Tri-State Running Company um and take note they have a nice little discount weekend uh coming up for um our community as well um I think I hit on and everything and we're just looking forward to having this wonderful event um I just knew about it a couple years ago and found it and wanted to get involved so just inviting everyone out to be one Community um cross that Finish Line together for folks that want to get involved how how do they do so um for folks that want to get involved there are there's information on the website if you want to sponsor there's a QR code that will take you

019directly to the sponsor information as well as um a payment portal and more information will be coming out um on the website on Forest Hills um website as far as signing up for the run and getting involved for the ambassadors um it'll include our run running clubs for um the schools so just keep a lookout for more information to come great thank you thank you [Applause] uh item 7.1 uh superintendent update Mr Larry hook just getting our my our slides back up there we go so um we just received an email from the Department of Education and Workforce uh our Banner celebrating our standing as a five five out of five star school district received this letter from director Steven dhin from the Department of Education and Workforce uh Dear Mr hook on behalf of

020the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce I'm pleased to congratulate the Forest Hills Local School District for earning the overall five-star award for the 2324 school year on the Ohio school report cards this remarkable accomplishment highlights your District's commitment to advancing academic achievement and supporting Student Success overall five-star Awards recognizes those who consistently give their all to creating and engaging learning environment that Fosters growth collaboration and success I commend you and your team for your dedication to providing students with the tools they need to excel academically and personally your work will have a lasting impact on the lives of your students once again congratulations on this well-deserved recognition I hope this award serves as a source of Pride and accomplishment for your community and will continue to inspire success in the years ahead and so

021I do want to acknowledge uh the tremendous work by these administrators back here our principals our teachers our staff St uh this is a huge team effort and we are in some rarified air in the state of Ohio um and it is something and I'm not saying that test scores are all in all but when you take a look at it it does say something about what's going on and I'm just so proud of of seeing our kids up here they are performing at the highest levels and it doesn't take long to listen to that and realize um we got a good group of kids and I just want to thank our entire staff for this and I'm just going to pass this along um so you guys can take a read on that so

022again congratulations to our entire staff and our students just doing a fantastic job also want to uh give a little Kudos out uh especially now that it's uh so cold right here this is our marching band last week in Disneyland I get Disneyland so I guess they're rubbing it in reminding us of how different the weather is out there so um I see a lot of bare arms and I'm going oh boy should have went on that trip that was a good one uh but fantastic job representing uh the Midwest out on on the coast and so really excited for them and their those experiences those are experiences that um you wonder well what does that have to do with anything you know what 20 years 30 years from now they'll be able to talk

023about that to their children and so it's a special experience that they've had a chance to experience so congratulations to our marching band on their performance out in Disneyland um also just wanted to update you I've been continuing to move around I saw several faces from Air because I was just uh meeting with their student council and and their leaders um been really enjoying uh that opportunity to to talk and engage with kids uh we don't have a real set agenda I just we just go in and we talk I talk maybe for 10 minutes engage them about leadership what they think it is and how boy they're on their game you know and they understand and and that they can be leaders within their building within their school or classroom within their teams that

024they're involved in organizations they belong in they can be a leader at home and so we just have a great time talking about that and I just listen and talk and and we just have a great time uh we also then uh talk about you know what they like and you know what they could change and and they all you know want to change School menus for lunch and of course uh they're still they still get excited about school cancellations and snow days and all that kind of stuff and uh so it's it's fun it's fun to hear what they have to say but they're really sharp they talk about like to have some more science classes and I'm going now you're talking an old science major I'm kind of going all right now we're

025going I like that um so really some kids are really in tune more than sometimes we give him credit for and that's it's just been a joy and I told I told him this is the highlight of my day I get to get out of the office and get there to the building level and talk with kids and um it's just exciting so shout out to air like I said I recognized a couple of them the twins are so identical I they did they fooled me earlier this week too so um they are dead ringers for each other so it's kind of funny but uh still continuing to do that we're going to meet with our high school kids uh and our second AR Junior High we bring those guys over to the central office

026it's a little easier you know and and uh again just engaging having those conversations um um again about leadership and and it's also we're targeting you know just trying to make sure that they feel engaged um and take ownership for their schools so it's pretty cool um last thing I'm going to talk about because I have been spending a huge amount of time since last week on uh legislation with the state budget uh Governor dwine announced his budget um that came out um and the simulations just came out so uh we were anxious to see that um not very pleased I'll be just blunt with you uh when nearly 60% of the school districts in the state of Ohio have a reduction in funding from the state that's problematic that means the system isn't working

027right um without getting into it too much we a long way from where the final budget will be that's that's the good news hopefully um so what happens now is that gets tagged with a um house number and then of course they'll have their adjustments to it um and then that'll move over to the Senate they'll do the same thing chances of them agreeing will be slim so that means they'll have a conference committee before they finalize it uh and then goes to the governor back to the governor so what the final result in each of those steps they'll have simulations how it impacts Forest Hills or how it actually impacts every school district in the state of Ohio um so um I'm not panicking but I'm also doing my due diligence with our legislators

028I've had a couple of meetings and phone calls already with our legislators and Senators um tomorrow morning uh we have the legislator Senate and House uh from Southwest Ohio we're all meeting um again over this and then um next week I get I get a meet again with um well with our um lobbyists you know basically trying to give some Alternatives because right now you know and it's maybe this is heresy to say a little bit but the state the funding system the fair school funding act trying to put it all in in two years it's just not working when 60% of your schools are losing money then it's a problem that means the inputs that go into that formula are not working they weren't working for us anyway because we were a guaranteed School

029District you know my goal was let's Hold Us harmless and that that would be my advice to our legislators slow down okay if if we're in a we're on in a down economy the receipts weren't where they thought they would be and expenses were higher than they thought then slow down on your implementation of it okay because you don't want to hurt schools either um at the the current level right now if you did if they we took the uh the um Governor's simulations uh Forest Hills would stand to lose uh about $261,000 uh first year of the banial budget and 328,000 in the second year now when you look at the overall budget you go is that huge well yeah because on a five-year forecast it compounds so from year one you know instead

030of it mean 260,000 it's 260,000 and then the next year the fiveyear for it's another 260 plus then the 328 and then it exacerbates itself as it goes matriculates through the fiveyear forecast so now you're talking Millions you so it's not cheap certainly there are districts that are hurt worse than us but again when I look at just Hamilton County you know and I start looking it doesn't make sense to me it really doesn't when you have two school districts that are better more financially well off than us you can pick who those two are they're getting such a huge in increase you wonder what what's going on because there's nearly not a change in enrollment well the inputs probably in transportation because they transported bunch of kids to other campuses my guess is that's

031part of it but it can't be all of it it's so it's not right yet it's it they just need to slow down and get it right instead of hurting people hurting schools because what happens okay there's 600 608 of us so all of a sudden your fiveyear forecast that you've already planned to go out five to six years or whatever they've you know their current situation is and then all of a sudden you put this on top of it that loss in funding all of a sudden now you lose two years of operations and all of a sudden you're going back to your your public it becomes that Mouse on the on the wheel so got a lot of work to do between now and it's due into June by law once in the

032last couple of decades I think they extended it a month because they couldn't come to an agreement but typically um it's required by law to have the the budget banial budget done by the end of June so um spending like I said I'm spending a lot of time with with legisl ERS trying to make them understand the bigger picture um I just we don't want to hurt schools not just us and obviously I've got we've got our stake in in Forest Hills but it's the majority of schools in Hamilton County it's the majority of schools in Warren County and Claremont and it's it's not good and so I'd rather um slow it down and keep everybody whole versus trying to push in the fair school funding mind model and damage people so um more to

033come I'll keep you appraised if I know soon as I know more and um like I said there's a lot happening here in the next couple of weeks um but I I would imagine who knows how fast the the house will get theirs in place so um as soon as it is I'll shoot it all out to you or land well one of us you'll see it in realize that still got to go to the Senate and go through that process but uh just wanted you to to know we're we're doing a good fight so um the other things uh really only other thing I wanted to add and this isn't on here um think that's my last kind of my last slide um just a real quick update with Anderson High School um and

034I'm going to just give you the 20,000 foot View we had a failure in one of the um sprinkler system that froze um obviously what happened then was the water damage well the water damage happened to one of our larger um electric um panels um we had to have Duke shut that off um so these are not like your panels in your house these are some big mama jamas and and they're not cheap so those have to be dried out before then we have to have Duke in there and then we have to have an inspector come in to be sure that they can actually turn it on and make sure it it functions properly so um there's some hoops to jump through uh we are on it right now makes it difficult with no

035electricity we have some emergency electricity going in a couple of generators were blowing air in hot air in and um but obviously it's that can't function as a school yet so um our goal is to we'll be working on that until it's up we don't there isn't really another option there isn't another little can't go to the Firehouse can't go somewhere else it's just there's too many bodies so um we obviously cannot have school tomorrow um we'll as far as Monday it just depends how far they can get with it because like I said they have to have that completely dried then they do some testings and the inspector has to improve it uh so if we can't go on Monday we'll make an announcement Sunday but I want to give our those workers every

036opportunity to get it get it in place so that's kind of where we're at um it's not ideal obviously but you got to do what you got to do and we'll get it up and running and you know we'll have it'll be covered through our insurance you know we'll have to front it obviously like you always do but we'll get our insurance should cover that okay so I just wanted to give everybody a quick update on what that was too so Larry I'm curious about any thoughts you have I mean I appreciate the work you're doing meeting with legislators uh legislators at this point the potential budget deficit that we're looking at at this point the almost 300,000 and then just over 300,000 after that that's based on the governor's budget that keeps the guarantee

037but reduces the percent we're getting my understanding is in the house there is even talk of getting rid of the guarantee altogether do we have any sense of what the ramifications of that would be I assume they would be worse speak to that that would be catastrophic to us we are on the guarantee in 2025 uh to the tune of 6.2 million as a matter of fact I know I had printed this out for um uh uh Larry earlier in the week um I still have it I do you've got and he's got it right here that's very good but um we printed out the schools on the guarantee in the state of Ohio there's 18 Atlanta I don't mean to interrupt I know it's always someone's first time watching can you just give a

038quick overview again of what the guarantee is oh sure um when the state computes the amount of funding that they give each school they have a big long formula that they go through and this formula changes every couple of years that usually changes with every budget or at least with every Governor so the fair school funding model this is probably going into year five or in year four of it um but anyhow it's a big long calculation you put in a lot of variables there's a base cost you take that um uh uh times all your pupils there's like six categories of special ed students you get a certain amount for each of those so your count of those special ed students and then that's part of the formula and there's six or seven more

039things actually the explanation for the formula is like 20 some pages long so I'll I'll I'll try to be a little quicker than that but anyhow you put all this in you get to the bottom of the formula and it's a number and then you look at what schools got in this case about six years ago and in our case the formula uh computes to 6.2 million less than we got six years ago so the guarantee is that you get to keep what you had in previous years so it's very important to us that we continue on this guarantee so um and that said I do have a list if you guys wanted I brought extra uh 187 districts on the guarantee um at the top of the list is Mason 14 million and then

040one two 3 four five six seven places below that is Forest Hills was 6.2 so I uh sorted it on who's on the guarantee to the absolute most to who's on at the absolute least and I hope the uh formula short-term explanation made sense I know as chair of the finance um Department I have been uh speaking with Dr Simmons I think that um given this budget season that as we look towards our spring uh finance committee meeting that we should do a deeper dive into what the inputs are and how that actually affects Force tills so I apologize if that was too short but 26 pages I was trying to make a little bit uh in between there hey Larry I Echo Wendy's comments I appreciate your work on this and advocating for the

041schools um you know in addition to the public school funding being cut uh money in the budget is increasing for voucher private school enrollment and so it is you know the idea of like getting them to slow down I think this is the intent to continue to defund public schools so um keep up the good work but well we'll keep at it it's they they are hearing us because I think initially and this is just from our lobbyists that have been actually having direct talks with and that it was full steam ahead cut and now it's kind of wait a minute okay they're slowing it a little bit where it'll end up yet you know I think we still all have a lot of work to do so we'll keep up our part anyway so

042yeah that's that's all I have thank you uh item 7.2 membership in the Ohio High School Athletic Association Mr L hook again yes this just our annual um approv approval uh we have to do this to be eligible to compete in inter Scholastic Sports in state of Ohio as well as uh postseason play that kind of thing so um seeking your approval for that make a motion to approve Force Hills continued membership in the Ohio High School Athletic Association for the 2526 school year I'll second Dr Simmons yes Dr stri yes Mrs Jonas yes Mrs Stewart yes Mr bib yes thank you thank you item eight 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 resonable amount

043of time while also recognizing the importance of adequate opportunity for public input in order to conduct an orderly and fair representation of expression the board will provide a period of 30 minutes for public participation per policy p1691 at every regular board meeting each speaker will have three minutes time limit and there are if there are more than 10 speakers uh individual time may be adjusted uh we do not allow the yielding of time speakers are asked to speak from the podium and address the board speakers are are asked to start by clearly stating their name and address um we have seven speakers uh the first one is we have eight speakers first one is Tamara Winters that is a live mic hello everyone my name is Tamara Winters I'm at 85 21 Northport Drive just

044over in Su of of States I am a Forest Hills Mom an army brat a preachers kid I have family who came here on the Mayflower we've got frontiersmen we had folks fleeing conscription in the Prussian Army we come from indentured servants and slavers civil servants and Merchants Seekers and sinners I even had an ancestor hanged for supposed witchcraft you can look up Lydia Gilbert of the Connecticut Witch Trials that's my family all of this to say I am America and so so are you in all of our glorious contradiction I come here today to ask that the Board of Education remember that education cannot and must not be one-sided especially as we study American history I think of my own education a quarter century ago in what was then solidly Republic Republican Virginia in

045my history classes we learned about the Boston Tea Party and the human cost of Revolution we learned about Le and Clark and we learned about the Trail of Tears we learned about Robert E Lee and Nat Turner's Rebellion we studied how the Civil War tore us apart and how the failures of reconstruction laid the groundwork for Jim Crow we thought and debated and wrote and talked and our teachers challenged us to think hard about where we came from as well as where we could go this was 27 years ago in Virginia's most conservative District where every other street is named for a confederate general these were not controversial ideas in the 9s back then our teachers were allowed to teach The Good the Bad and the Ugly so that we may better understand how to

046be we the people I want this for my son and all of our kids I want a school district where teachers are free to teach and the school board does not fear to teach American history as it is not just as one party wants us to see it as this board makes curriculum decisions I know that's part of the agenda today this American begs you not to let partisanship censor the rich experience of rigorous learning that makes us better citizens and better humans I leave you with this there is no honor in pledging allegiance to a flag while setting fire to what it stands for thank you thank up next Mr Jeff n hi Jeff NY 1000 ever Soul um the first thing I was going to say is that the state budget looks like

047it's going to be reducing the amount of uh funding to K12 public schooling even before you account for the inflation that appears to be coming so hope the board is giving the administration all the resources it possibly can to make sure we protect those funding sources um the second thing uh that's been the news a lot the last week or so is this dear colleague letter from the uh Department of educ just want to remind the board that dear colleague letter is not law it does not create or change policy um that particular dear colleague letter is essentially a legal argument and as far as I can tell as far as the letter itself discloses it's a legal argument that has never been adopted by any Court anywhere as applied to K12 Public Schools uh

048it certainly may be the case that there are changes in the law uh on Horizon if that happens I hope the board consults with legal counsel about how to make sure we're complying with the law excuse me but I'd also like to remind the board the last time this board waited into race-based policy changes what we got was a federal lawsuit that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars hundreds of hours of staff and board time dozens of teachers and a lot of embarrassment for this District I don't think the board enjoyed that I know none of us out here enjoyed that I hope you'll think twice before waiting at that again thank up next Jen CIO hi jino live on 5 47 Village Drive in Ivy Hills you our kids have a lot of experiences

049that they learn from when they're at school trying out for the team and not making it studying for a math exam and getting a bad grade writing essay and seeing red lines on it there are so many experiences our children have during their education that offer growth opportunities but are difficult to navigate my youngest faced one of those when he was here at Mercer the assignment was to learn a story that was meaningful for his family a wonderful way for children to connect personally to being curious and seeking out learning the story my son learned learned is that his father was born in Chicago because his father's parents had to flee Greenville Mississippi under the threat of being lynched they were escorted out of town by law enforcement with almost nothing and they had nowhere

050to go when my son learned this story he and his brothers started to cry and they said why did they want to kill my grandma allowing the children to explore this type of real family story may be uncomfortable suppressing it sends the message their experiences aren't welcome right now many of us are engaged in a manufactured culture War where the language we've used to create an effective learning environment has been weaponized and we're doing so under the guise that discomfort is divisive while ironically espousing that empathy is weak I stand here today to challenge this board to set aside political rhetoric and political distractions none on our school board should be stoking these divisions but instead should be focused on our mutual mission for our children nurturing their well well beinging developing their knowledge and

051arming them with the skills they need to navigate an Ever Changing world thank [Applause] you up next Colleen Berliner good evening I'm Colleen Berliner I live at 7879 Meadow Creek Drive um and I find it very interesting Miss Jonas that you do not want to talk about Social Studies books because I do I was shocked when people started sending me while I was on vacation pictures of very wildly biased and inappropriate text that you were saying that our hardworking education and learning committee were considering for for use in schools so I made two phone calls 212 and I discovered that that book was never under serious consideration because it was above the budget nobody looked into that book and nobody thought about it again because we couldn't afford it but you went out and you

052created a false flag issue and you fired up a bunch of people about something that was not even a problem and as a PR professional what I am saying to you is this is not going to work anymore you did it with CRT and it was a lie Mr bib admitted that to Fox News not even 10 days after the election that for a long time you knew CRT was not taught in the schools I can give you the quote right here he said and I quote we did public records requests on teacher training and teacher professional development because the district kept saying we are not teaching CRT to the kids which they are not these false flag issues have to stop if you're going to run for Schoolboard again I think that's fantastic it

053is our right as Americans to do that and to serve our country in any way we care for but you do not have the right to lie to people and suppress opinion and use lies for your own gain which is what you did here you wasted a lot of people's time you made Mrs Stewart who's on that committee look stupid you made these people look stupid and it was for nothing because we don't believe you stop if you're going to run for school board run with integrity and use your truth not your lies thank you it it was on there nice [Applause] try eyes all up next Kristen colonic hi I'm Kristen kalanick and I live on Meadow Creek Drive uh in the coming years as uh Larry said earlier we're going to see some

054serious budget cuts coming up uh thanks to the Republican leadership at state and federal levels he mentioned Mike dewine's most recent budget the news is reporting it will cut more than a hundred million do from public schools while simultaneously increasing the budget for private schools by 220 million this fiscal year private schools will receive nearly $1.3 billion dollar of Education funds from the state of Ohio in all this could end up accelerating a need for a levy campaign here in Forest Hills some Ohio districts are reaching out to the state to collectively Sue to retain the funding former board president Jonas and I suspect bib too will decline to join have declined and will decline when facing Cuts community members could wisely look to the district leadership and say what's your plan where's the strategy

055what are you going to do to date every request we've made has been responded with we don't have one we kept the one from Linda a few years back FYI we were in different times then the context has changed drastically and you all are sitting there with a job to do you avoid special meetings you don't come to the discussions that the community wants to have bib was the only one who showed up to Levy discussions along with Atlanta failing to plan means you're planning to fail as Atlanta pointed out during the levy campaign we don't have any places really left to cut in fact our lean approach to spending has truly prevented us from doing anything about something that has been important to the community which is the Anderson pool despite the lack of

056a plan or any consideration what actions we could take that might impact us in a positive way bib Jonas and Stuart have made a decision they've been working for the past few months as many people know to fire the treasure on the basis of a fake evaluation the community pushed back and so it sounds today like they're going to announce instead that they've forced her to resign to try to mislead us into thinking it was her decision Atlanta crop has been the one person who actually provides high quality services to you all she treats you and the community with more respect candidly than probably many of us deserve she's been transparent in her financial strategy and her approach has kept the Forest Hills Levy requests lower than nearby districts while still allowing teachers here to

057return stunning performance spending more to recruit a replacement whose salary will be guaranteed to be higher than what you pay today is financial mismanagement this Comm Community is tired of it we're tired of watching you sit there and tear things apart that are working just fine while sitting Sidelines when other things need to be addressed join the lawsuit get your jobs [Applause] done up next kly alt off evening Kimberly alof Royal Woods Court to be honest all the other speakers really covered a lot of what I was planning on talking about tonight so what I'm going to bring up is a little bit about what I have been involved in the community since you guys have been elected into the into this office I built a group along with other community members called Advocate fhsd

058because of the actions that you guys have taken over the last three years we have 2600 community members who join us on a daily basis for updates for factual information for sharing the basics of what finances mean for what curriculum changes mean so that they have the opportunity to be engaged in the community in the school district and understand the issues that we're facing Kristen obviously outlined a a lot of the financial things that we're going to be facing soon but one of the biggest things that I think we're actually facing is a basic misunderstanding of what each of us is talking about when we use our definitions of the things that we disagree on if that makes sense I have my definition of a good education for my child is something that is celebrated

059something that they have an opportunity to grow from and in those opportunities they're going to be faced with things that they won't have the be able to experience in their daily life they're never going to live in a minority body they're never going to live in an underprivileged Community they are not going to see what a shanty town in another Community might look like I've traveled the world I've gotten to see those things they might not have that opportunity but I expect them through reading through curriculum through studying history to be able to at least absorb some of that from someone else's perspective that they're not going to have when you all talk about curriculum when you all talk about what it is that our children are learning it's things that need to be hidden

060from them it's things you don't want them to see it's things that you're afraid that they might experience because they might know something about someone else or learn something about themselves that they didn't know before and most of those things are pretty benign but yes there are a few things that your kids are going to get get challenged about I reread as an adult several books that I read in high school including To Kill a Mockingbird Brave New World among others because I was curious how I would see those books in my perspective as an adult and I can tell you I didn't get half the themes as as a high school student I caught a little bit of it but they're not going to be absorbing the things that you think they're going to

061absorb but they are going to have the opportunity to figure out analysis to figure out how to approach something to figure out whether or not it was true or relevant or how it has impacted the future based on how it was dealt with in the past thank you [Applause] thank up next Kevin mishek Kevin mishack 8433 Holiday Hills Drive Cincinnati Ohio uh my children and I joined the community in the public school system about nine years ago my my son is a senior graduating this year from Anderson liveos my daughter is a freshman at Anderson next year she'll be taking AP maybe US history I took the time to review the books for apus history and the alternate books I found them slightly slanted of course that slant has to do with the last 20

062years or so but it certainly wasn't a factual based narrative it was a very one-sided presentation of those last few years that's unfortunate I agree with some of the speakers we should have a factual based we should have a balanced look those history books didn't present that I apologize I didn't see it that way all right um opportunity cost 10 years ago we got brand new school Nagle High School $103 million we spend $5.5 million a year for the next 20 years paying for that building imagine my surprise last last month when I discovered that our permanent Improvement fund which is the money that we use to repair those schools to put the roofs on do the parking lots all those things that we've been deducting $315,000 per year it's a lot of money right

063you guys said so earlier tonight $315,000 a lot of money to spend on something every year we take that out of our we've taken that out of our permanent Improvement fund get service we spend 5.5 million dollar a year at a Debt Service but we had to take another $315,000 out of the permanent Improvement fund what was the opportunity cost that was buses that we didn't get for transportation that was Roofing that we didn't get on our school all right we didn't have the money for it so we raised 11 we need to fix the schools right we increased the Improvement fund that's wonderful all right we're still taking $315,000 out of permanent Improvement fund for Debt Service why why oh and by the way school funding for those of you aren't aware it's based

064on student enrollment whether it's here or a private school there's a lot of other factors but basically so students in the state and there's so much money and they divy it up among all right we peaked out on enrollment about five six years ago that's where our guarantee is taged to thank you up next Tara ladenburger all right good evening evening work all right uh thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight my name is Tara CER ladenburger 2768 Senate Court I have a fourth grader and eighth grader and a sophomore at tpin high school I am a proud graduate of Anderson High School class of of 1995 during my four years at Anderson High School I had the honor and pleasure of being a member of the women's swim team and we were more

065than just a team we were a family and the pool was our home during those four years I learned more about myself and life in general more than any classroom could have taught me my Fondest Memories from high school were on the Anderson High School pool deck with Larry Lions as our fearless leader we learned to work together during grueling practices encourage one another to to be our best and to be the best we could be in and out of the water we also learned how to deal with loss self-esteem were improved College scholarships were earned and to this day we stand by each other I have seen pictures of the empty Anderson High School pool I have gone on a self-guided tour of the Anderson High School pool the heart and soul of the

066Beloved program is broken in need of repair as a community member former Anderson High School swimmer and former Barracuda coach one can imagine my concerns for this space what is the current plan for the Anderson High School pool actually this was written years ago I asked how soon can repairs begin but I'll ask again community members and swim team alumni are concerned and hopefully District leadership can work together to develop a plan to repair the pool so many swimmers have called home while the pool didn't go down during your leadership I'm here to tell you that the program is dying the program that I loved the program that I work hard for is dying to date the Anderson High School girls swim team only has nine swimmers it was bumped up to 10 I believe

067it was a diver SL swimer God lover um not big enough to field every event at a dual meet not big enough to field every relay so as my sister and I watched in uh turp in high school and Anderson High School dual meet we sadly watched as the Anderson High School girls did not have a 200 IM competitor once a top 10 program in the state of Ohio is now dwindling to almost nothing for the first time in history in the Anderson High School girls swimming program to my knowledge we did not have a district qualifier this year not a relay not an individual in the swimming program we are Miss missing out out on program opportunities that other districts that that are competitive with us offer such as water polo water safety lifeguarding

068courses Etc the Anderson High School pool thank you thank [Applause] you all right uh Human Resources 9.1 pup activity appointment Mr Rob fellows good evening um sorry sorry again um 9.1 is uh an action item before we begin our consent agenda with 9.2 uh 9.1 is a pupil activity appointment that is recommended the board approve the following pupil activity appointments as presented in the attachment I'll make a motion to approve the pupil activity appointment as presented second Dr strickler yes Dr Simmons yes Mrs Jonas yes Mrs Stewart no Mr BB no item 9.2 is the HR report and this does uh begin our consent agenda for uh the rest of this evening um we have a number of retirements one of whom was on prior we've got a date change part of that is uh

069the state moving from 34 to 33 and an opportunity to head out at the end of this year as opposed to waiting until December U that's Mr cook at Anderson High School 28 years um the other uh teachers I'll I'll list off here T Tim Estel 30 years at uh Summit Elementary Lisa Frick 34 years at Nagel uh Chris Jennings 22 years years uh intervention specialist at Turpin um Chris I would note is uh retiring midy year uh next school year but we're going ahead and getting it on now um and then John lanidor art teacher at Maddox 33 years um so 119 between those that haven't already been approved not withstanding the date change and certainly wish them all the best um trying to convince Mr Jennings to stick it out the whole year

070um but he has other plans so um excited for really for all of them on the classified side we also have a handful of retirements for approval this evening combined 83 years Betty Feller um 10 years at uh Anderson she worked in the district also for a number of years as substitute um in other roles Lori Kota health aid at madx more than 22 years Deb sonnan nurse at uh at Nagel um more than 29 years uh Robin steans bus driver four years and darc zomac 18 plus years as a par professional at Mercer certainly wish all of them the best um in their uh future endeavors and uh we give them substitute teacher applications immediately upon exit um uh Item B there a number of resignations uh including a few supplemental contracts we have

071a leave of absence for approval this evening and item c um and then item d i just point out uh among the a number of appointments uh you'll see a bunch of Camp Kern things coming on gearing up for that as we're uh preparing uh to take our kids out there for that formative experience spring supplementals and the like um would like to call out a special shout out to a new teacher at air Elementary coming in middle of the year um picking up uh a music position there and uh he's done a great job it's tough to kind of come in in the middle of the year um but he's he's doing an excellent job um moving on down in our agenda we have a few substitutes for approval this evening um uh one

072Personnel change uh Miss Adams moving from a bus monitor to a driver um so Richard's happy and also not happy I mean it's like he he needs both but um we definitely need drivers and really excited for her to hop in there um number of Volunteers in item e and our student teachers of course we've got some coming in for some practical experiences classroom observations um and uh you know the like the rest of this school year and then G there's a number of job descriptions that we're just updating there's a couple that are pertinent to uh current or anticipated postings but um it's also a little bit of just trying to align um when we when we bring these forward uh and making sure that you know there's some consistency in terms of uh

073some of those administrative positions and some of the essential functions that fall therein and then finally there are two salary schedules for uh approval this evening there minor edits the one um the supplemental salary schedule is really just a date change for payroll um with uh boys volleyball coming on last year um just giving them the go- ahead to pay them uh in June as opposed to uh you know the fall season where that payment comes um when is that come not March but uh when's The Fall season yeah November November yeah so that's just a a little ad on a couple of those items in the supplemental schedule and then the final one is the admin assistant uh salary schedule which really just reflects the um job title change for the one of the

074job descriptions there we used to call it media now it's learning Commons who knows what it'll be it used to be library but that's what it is so no change to the schedule um other than those minor edits any questions how many bus drivers are we down now John we're still floating about the four five we get a couple we lose a couple it we're just in that we're still in that cycle Dr Ogden is going to go through the CDL training though just so he can be on the sub list just just saying okay he's being serious I'm being serious careful what you're good at Chuck you got it piece of cake I 10.1 bizops good evening everyone uh I just have three items on the agenda for this evening uh the first item

075at 10.1 it is the agreement and release uh for the asphalt work that was done at the Operation Center if you remember we chose not to accept some of the work so we have reduced the amount of payment down from 77,000 to 47,000 the item 10.2 is where this one I want to explain a little bit if you notice on the board agenda this is an averti resolution to advertise and solicit for bids for two playground walls two separate playground walls one at Summit one at shwood shwood Sherwood thank you I'm a little slow today as you see on those both of those individually are below the the bidding needed threshold those are rough quotes that we received towards um in Midsummer when we go back out and Larry and I you know we research

076quotes we need to have this bid process in in place if we get above a threshold so very possibly if we can do it quoting you know follow our policy on quoting we can get this on the books much quicker a bid process will take a month plus if we get the quotes and we've got our three quotes and we can get a quote below threshold we will go our straight you know three uh three quotes and bid out straight does that make sense to okay thank you John I was thinking the bidding threshold was 50,000 has it been up it's been up to 75 got it thank you yes and these are part of the permanent Improvement plan schedule yes yes they are part of the permanent Improvement plan schedule uh we've known we

077needed to get uh both walls replaced and up updated so yes it is part of the permanent Improvement and our last item I'm sorry Laura I'll keep keep my hands away from the microphone in Podium uh this is again on the roofing projects that we have coming up we will we've been working on this actually since September uh again we're doing this through a Consortium base through aqualis Consortium with true uh truecraft as our main vendor and roof connect is the Cog between aqualis and uh true craft so once we get the contract all solidified this will just give the board option to sign it at that time so we can have everything on the books just what we did last year okay any questions on any three of those items okay at this time

078I would respectfully request that items 10.1 and 10 through 10.3 be accepted as part of the consent agenda thank you very much thank you joh uh teaching and learning 11.1 uh Chuck Ogden good to see everybody again um the first item I have is actually approval of our turning out I think this will be the third Nagel trip to Washington DC scheduled for May 18th through the 21st of 2026 any questions any thank you thank you 11.2 multilingual course of study Miss Tinsley good evening okay so the multilingual course of study that is 11.2 this is the first course of study that we've had um for our multilingual students we have been providing resources and working to provide interventions within our Core Curriculum but it is critical that as um students are in need of

079further intervention as far as learning how to read and write in English that this was something that we felt was very important um and we needed to be more formalized and and how we are providing resources and training our teachers and so I'm very proud of the work that this team has done um within that course of study as we do with any other course of study we pull together a group of um content area leaders and we work with them and we we as in consultation with other experts whether they're from the Department of Education and Workforce Development through our local Educational Service Center um and even in collaboration with other school districts we take time to go through and look at our state standards and how to support the learning outcomes for all

080students um we also have worked to go through tools to ensure that the text and which we have included within our courses of study support our educational need that it's a right fit for us as a district um that there is evidence of success from the use of the resources and also through the the scope and sequence of the curriculum um we also um consider things such as the capacity for sustainability including things such as cost um and we also need to look at not just when we're looking at the adoption of a curriculum but the professional development and the training and the support and the coaching that go goes on during the implementation um and as we continue to make changes and support those professional learning communities within our school so I know I

081gave that overview last time when I presented a course of study I just felt um that I wanted to review that again we have had resources um on for review for the last month in our teaching and learning area actually we've moved them up to the conference room we've had um several people come and take interests and I'm grateful for the interest that we've had in what we do because teaching and learning is the heart of what we do in the district so at this point we are recommending the multilingual I know 11.3 that has been taken off of the consent agenda um that is for the social studies course of study and again we follow a similar process and there are resources that have been there um I know that that will be up

082for further discussion later but at this point um we are asking for approval of 11.2 I would say go ahead and stay in kind of sequence just and that's what 11.3 go ahead and over and then then do your vote on that so that will be 11.3 will be a separate vote um I know that was pulled out of the consent agenda so with that it is the social studies course of study and again I reviewed the process that we use for our courses of study regardless of what we do we do align to our state standards for social study studies when we are looking at AP courses those are college level courses um that students may elect to take and those we do follow our um National College Board standards um and so those

083resources have been listed within that course of study as well are there any questions do you know that sociology is not listed on that resource we don't have it we don't not list it there are no changes to the text for sociology okay am I saying that wrong Chuck any other questions I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda from 9. 2 to 11.2 as presented second I think we don't we need to keep the treasure stuff or no I mean is the treasures should just vote you should just vote on 113 yeah yeah probably and then we can vote on the whole we so we're going to vote on 113 first yes okay if that's okay yep can we have a motion um to approve 11.3 I'll make a motion to approve 11.3

084second before we go can I talk a little bit before we yes be appro I just um I wouldn't I feel comfortable with the course of study um but there's some books that I question um on that list does it work better now okay um you know I had reviewed the social studies course of study and I'm okay with the course of study but there's some textbooks that I'm I just think they are missing some facts or they twist facts um you know I'm no history expert um but I know that our young minds deserve better than a bias view of what history is O there's there's we go um we need to stand up for Quality education because our students deserve better and we need to be more responsible responsible stewards of the taxpayer

085dollar there's a lot of just um some of the Publishers it's political commentary of their opinion um themes seem to be biased when you're talking about you know current events and I just think there's some books that we can do a lot better on um just some examples of stuff that are are in books that aren't correct and again it is current events but you know the Russia hoax and the mher report in most of the books it states you know the investigation found links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign but did not bring um charges against the campaign end quote but there were news outlets in March 24th of 2019 saying the Muller report did not find the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with Russia government just silly little minute things that

086are not factual are in some of these books okay they're not um history's history I mean we should be teaching factual history and I just have a problem with some of those so all right I'm just sharing my opinion you guys thank you can we let people speak please no you can't speak if you don't let all just think their way you don't let people speak there's no need to interrupt it solves nothing it creates chaos please my experience when looking through these books was that a lot of them my experience was that a lot of these books read as opinion pieces when it talked about anything in 2016 202 or yeah 2020 anything relating to the Trump campaign there was an obvious slant there were lots of adjectives used and it was no longer

087just a factual piece it read like an opinion piece and I have no problems teaching I'm sorry is that public comment no it's not God you're annoying there we are again I'm not okay with teaching kids lies and that's exactly what I am reading in these books they are all things that have been disproved yes they are all right can no thank God my where my kids go to school they don't teach propaganda all right let's okay hang on can we can we control it just a little bit please it solves nothing the back and forth it does nothing so we have we have history books here that are a thousand pages long and you have a couple passages that you're not okay with and you're suggesting we get rid of the entire book well

088no because after talking to Kim about that we talked about you know if it's just you know a part of the book and they're not teaching it that's one thing but I found a lot of in going through the courses of study and the units and the statements that they would be going over it's some of the sections have not correct information in it especially when it deals with the current type of events I don't have to be a historian to know what happened in current events that I was a in these in the in the textbooks in the textbooks there are references there are references in each chapter of where this information comes from second um you you posted this stuff on Facebook why don't you talk to Kim before you did that to

089get the correct information before inciting all this distrust for our teachers you you're perpetuating a lie because that's not true I was sharing information okay hold on let's let's let us try to have a conversation up here so we can so like I said I W they had a teaching and learning committee on a Wednesday I went to central office on a Friday and all the books were right there those were the books that I had went through I had expressed concerns about quite a few books more than just the American Pageant um nobody gave me an updated list saying that that was removed or anything like that so I had just posted about getting people to come and look at some of the books so to say that I was lying that that was

090never considered were were crazy that's a lie were you told before the post that that book was not going to be considered I I wasn't given anything saying otherwise you were told that were you told were you told that it was not going to be considered there were there were probably six books on there that I was not okay with but that's the one that's the one you posted about MH and you were told in advance before you posted that and then afterwards took a Victory lap as if your post got the book pulled and that wasn't the case I'm sharing information I mean you guys are just so not okay with just sharing the dear colleague stuff I'm just sharing information so you hadn't shared any information since November 3rd 2021 on your Facebook

091page check and you've had nine different courses of study in your time on the board that you've approved without sharing coures of study nine courses of study that you've approved that at no point have you asked the community to get involved come with questions I'm talking Ela science computer science Wellness Elementary Innovation music art PE Health drama film uh I didn't know I needed your guys's approval to post on no but it's it's curious that I I I have conversations with Kim when I need to so why don't you have conversations on this one why post to incite distrust among our teachers to suggest indoctrination is happen why are we not talking about why that book was even an option it was awful that book was awful why would would we want our kids reading

092that okay so you hold on so you don't when when we're offering a course A History AP US History course the Publishers send books to the district to consider for adoption I teach my marketing classes I get marketing textbooks from the Publishers all the time and I review them to determine is this something I would like to use instead of the book I'm using so having a book in central office and reviewing a book to see if it's something worth adopting is not the same as we're adopting this book that book was not part of the course of study and my understanding is you were told before you made that post that it wasn't part of the course of study I don't remember that I mean there were other books that were supposed to be

093taken off of there too that's not the case at all and that's not how the course of study is That's goes the first reading and then the second reading of it so during that time there are books in there sometimes they get rid of them sometimes they don't I had never I mean been where they had gotten rid of them like that but no okay so we have this one book this history book but you I I have eight other books that you had put uh tags in on different pages and I think I think it's important if we're going to talk about the books are there all in my tabs I mean there were other people in there all right so what are not tab any books okay well there were other people in

094there I mean you can't say that they're all myab I tab books I believe Kim tab books Sarah may have tab books yeah Katie and I tab books Sarah has what are some of the issues so like in the psychology books what were some of the issues that were tagged I I don't even want to read from that psychology book out loud in this meeting it's that graphic one okay so two I would like to go back to when we went to that teaching and learning committee we approved the curriculum and we said that we would look at those books separate that hap that is what happened during that meeting we had a AP History book that they are using one type of book at Turpin and a different book at Anderson because one teacher

095likes one book one teacher likes another book and I was going to go over this in our teaching and learning committee uh recap when I get to that that part of us going over those books we realized that and this was after that meeting because we didn't look at any of the books during that time frame we like I I stayed after and looked at some of the books and flipped through them and one book in particular I believe it was the American Pageant read like a history book until you got to 2020 or maybe it was 2016 and all of a sudden it looked like an opinion piece and then after Trump's term and we start talking about Biden it goes back to reading like a textbook where we're not putting in a lot

096of adjectives and opinions and this book when when talking to Kim I said this book has so many lies in this specific book that I don't even understand why we would use something like that and I know that she read it as well and that is when it was essentially taken off the table because we already have another book at Anderson that did I agree with everything in it no but I'm not going to pull a book for four sentences like that's you know like if there's four sentences throughout the book that I'm like e that's a little iffy I'm not going to pull it this other book was paragraphs and paragraphs of information that just was simply incorrect or has been disproven or however you want to look at it and so I am

097not talking to you and so we talked with Kim and said hey we already have another book that works why do we have one book for Anderson and one book for tpin when we are one school district we shouldn't be getting two different educations at two different schools We Are One District let's condense it down to one book that has a more neutral tone that makes sense to me and that was something that we had since agreed upon there is no reason to have books for one school that we don't have at another like let's align our curriculum it is something we have been working on for the last three years and I believe that was something that we talked about during that meeting is why do we have two books we looked at them

098later not during the meeting and said hey this one doesn't doesn't fit and doesn't sit well in my opinion where this one is written with more factual precise information and I think it's better to just choose that book that's less controversial and I get that and I appreciate the work you you all have been putting in but Sarah you're still saying that you have problems with the the not the book that the book the US history book that is going to be adopted got problems with plenty of them and and before before we came here tonight I was told we would only be voting on the course of study they were going to look more at the resource materials list and maybe try to find other books but that's not the case anymore so I

099was told the same thing you know I think at at some point the the books that are here are the ones that have been vetted and are out from some of the best Publishers we have and some of the best authors who are historians and have created these materials and then beyond that you know I went through them too and I maybe didn't like the description of Clinton in one of the pages but at the same time myly what you're talking about too my expectation at this point is that these are resources that our teachers will take and they will use the pages they need for the students to get the information they need and they will be discussed in such a way that students get the information they need and they can be used

100as a tool for critical thinking and critical analysis and I trust our teachers to be able to use the course of study standards that come from the state standards and from the AP standards exactly because I went through and align those to teach the content and that's that's the perspective I bring on it they [Applause] resources yeah I mean if if we want to have a talk on the books as a whole like I find it curious the things that they're they're issues with are related to Trump related to Black lives matter related to racial tensions and the Muller report but if we want to talk about the whitewashing of history that occurs in these books like that's an honest conversation we can have you know I'm I'm just curious of why those are the

101sections of the book you went books you went and read on because there's nothing in any of our history books on redlining there's nothing in any of our history books on the Tuskegee syphilis study and our students are going to get half a paragraph on Black Wall Street in the Tulsa race riots no one of those books there's a whole chapter on that side there's not a whole chapter I went through and looked them up sure it is the CP history book there's half a half a page a whole chapter on that right so um in the eighth grade history book we get a paragraph on Jim Crow laws and half a paragraph on suffrage but you had issues with a page of saying the US government abused power against indigenous people and black slaves

102and Spanish col this is in the eth grade history book history alive passages were tagged on page 27 do you have Sarah Jonas tagged this page yes or no did you tag that page I no I don't know what you're talking about I was fine with the eighth grade books I was too all right so let's go through the books and understand what you're not what you're not okay with and like I just said I was told before we were before today that we were approving the course of study and that the resource list they were working on I don't have my page for page and my quotes and everything like that that's not what was supposed to be happening today and that was my understanding what was happening I was prepared to have this

103conversation yeah I know it how about the psychology book uh Katie you had said you had issues with the psychology book I do have issues with the psychology book and if you bring that psychology book into the classroom you will be sending a note home to parents about the graphic nature of the sex ed that is in that book Okay so first yeah in the psychology book because that's not even we're going to talk about mental disorders we're going to talk about bipolar anorexia and then we're going to talk about sex ed and how often people have anal sex and how often they look at pornography and how it's okay to have uh explore homosexuality and multiple partners and sex hold on it hold on why is that in a psychology book and you might

104be okay with that I'm not okay with that and as soon as you start talking about sex ed you need to send a letter home hold on hold on Katie there are four pages devoted to motivation and emotion related to sexual emotion sexual orientation and sexual dysfunction in this CP psychology book and it is not one of the standards so my expectation would be the teacher is probably not using that particular section I was concerned about the students having access to the entire book online and that was a concern I had voiced to them and is it possible to leave that section out because it is doesn't follow the standards but it is relatively graphic and so I had mentioned to Ken that it when we upload the book is it possible to leave that

105section out and looking at the current book that they hold on doesn't fit the standards using at the current books that they used for the psychology they're not they don't have that sexual tone to them at all and the problem is going through some of those standards yes they talk about gender roles gender typing all of that of course in Psychology but it is within all of the sexual stuff I mean it ju it just I don't understand why our kids need access to some of that yeah well the first thing I'll say is that this is an AP Psychology class so it's not a required I'm a board member and I'm voting on what I'm given to vote on whether or not I'm going to have my opinion and that's my opinion so so

106yell all you want this this is not a required course this an AP Psychology class so the first thing is is that if parents or students were uncomfortable with this material this is not a class that they have to take so they can make that choice on on the front side second this Myer psychology text is the text that is used Across the Nation and that still doesn't make that okay elements of gender identity uh transgender violence and suicide um genetic influences and sexual orientation social emotional devel like social emotional development was tagged that's that's identity and social identity Theory stuff that's nothing to do with sex did i' say Sarah Jonas tab I mean I mean whoever put the tabs in they were all the exact same looking Tab and so the issue is

107one it's not a required course two I would question your credentials to be critiquing a psychology text and three this is parent I you know I mean I don't I don't need a license I'm a parent but you don't know this stuff is my point just because you're a parent doesn't mean you know I can look at the course of study I can see what they're supposed to be learning and I can see this textbook and there are other instances in this school district where kids have maybe read things of the sexual nature that they were not prepared for that they have felt extremely uncomfortable with and I think that we should I I don't know why we can't if the standards align why we can't use those pass books as they don't go into

108all of this because the p books are outdated and that gives our kids an a disadvantage and we should get rid of some of those materials especially in an AP class where they're required to take an end of course exam and I'm glad you brought that up you know it's not the AP book it's the college prep book no this isn't the AP psychology book I'm pulling from now it was more the college prep one the one was fine College Prep one and again I would still argue that's an optional class it's an elective class for students who choose it and you don't know what area of psychology students might have interest in and so there's I think it's our responsibility too to be we're going to spend how much $600,000 on books here's another

109variable to it just like Ela we spent all this money on our Ela curriculum a year or two later don't wine comes back these are the books or these are the things you're allowed to have you know the books you're allowed to buy if you're not in that bucket you have to then go out and buy more this is probably going to be coming with social studies so are we going to waste our money on some of this if it's not going to be approved I mean we don't know well I spend a lot of time doing work with the state and I'm going to bet we're at least 8 to 10 years out from those decisions from the state around social studies the focus is reading right now it's going to remain period reading

110for a period of time and math will be the next area of interest um yeah I don't I don't feel like any is that better hello yeah I I understand I mean this goes back to the conversations back from last year on um the health curriculum like the the discomfort you have with this type of content in in the classroom and one by by suggesting we remove this from from the course or remove this from the text um deprives students the opportunity to learn about this stuff that might be interested in going down this for a field of study in college down for a profession exploring more about this stuff understanding things that are happening to their body understanding things that are happening to their friends and the idea that well this is something that

111should be talked in the home or taught about in the home i' challenge that the majority of parents either AR aren comfortable or too knowledgeable enough to be able to cite statistics on I'm going to go back to this transgender violence and suicide or the psychology of sex or what gender expression means like that's people who dedicate their lives to understanding these things and providing the context in these textbooks isn't something a parent readily able to just have a conversation with their kid about and and answer those questions place of learning right can I say something real quick yeah I am not shy you is my wife about our political opinions with our children I've had children in this District since 2007 my youngest son in eighth grade I've not had a teacher or a

112child say anything about a teacher with bias anything like that they've not come home and said my teacher is saying this you guys are saying this it's different that's what I'm basing my decision on right now Iana call the vote please because we're I think everybody's mind's made up Dr strickler so are we doing the course of study separate or you doing the whole thing together whole thing we have a motion in a second on the social studies um curriculum um agenda item 11.3 this is the entire course of study okay it's what's listed okay then it includes the books includes the books okay it's what's listed within the uh 11.3 yes Dr Simmons yes Mrs Jonas no Mrs Stewart no Mr BB [Applause] yes item 12.1 Treasures report give it a second for the

113slide to come up there we go um beginning with agenda item 12.1 a is donations as always over the last month our donations total just over uh 208,000 for the month of January which brings the total donations for the year to just under 436,000 as always we are very very thankful to our donors who supplement and enrich our educational program moving on to the next slide Item B gives you a snapshot of our five November 5year forecast our most recent forecast the next slide item C presents the general fund our five-year forecast re uh revenues it compares the estimate on our forecast to our year-to-date actuals at January 31st um during the month of January we received our first installment of the Spring's tax settlement that amount being 5. 5 million and of course we

114also received our semi-monthly payment of state aid which amounts to 1.6 million per month moving on to expenditures item D this presents just our general fund expenditures again just are uh fiveyear forecast expenditures and you hear me say every month expenditures in the general fund are very stable throughout the year you can almost uh divide the annual expenditures by 12 so with 7even months past or 58% of our fiscal year complete at the end of January um we have spent 55% of our estimate so so far so good spending again tracking exactly where we would expect at this point in our fiscal year moving on to the next slide um item e this presents the um activity in our general fund as uh according to our cash balance so the cash balance at the beginning

115of our year on July 1 2024 was 23.3 Million after adding revenues received and expenses deducted year-to date January 31st our cash balance stands at 27.5 million at January 31st our unreserved balance stands at 21.8 million or to put the balances another either way we have enough cash to operate the district for 100 days and after incumbrances we have 79 days of unreserved cash to operate the district moving on to the next slides um which are the um uh three slides on the permanent Improvement the first slide uh presents the activity fiscal year to dat revenues and expenditures for our main permanent Improvement cost center um when of course uh is where our taxes are deposited into so moving on to the second slide you can see where we stand on uh the financial activity

116in our sum summer of 2024 uh Pi Projects um we are final sign offs uh to pay continue to trickle in because as we've discussed we do not pay until we are happy with the work and everything is received and signed off on so if you look look at that we currently have 353,000 in incumbrances waiting on the final sign off from last Summer's projects moving on to the third slide of itmf um you will see a description of our upcoming 20125 summer projects as well as the estimated budgets and expenditures as we get begin to prepare for our upcoming summer moving on to item G you see the investment earnings for um the first seven months of our fiscal year 25 and you also see three prior years of history in terms of investment

117earnings and of course if you take a look at that there's been a big change over the last three years in terms of investment earnings moving on to the um bank reconciliation Investments they are presented in agenda item H and the last two slides um uh agenda items I and J details some adjustments and Appropriations so if you look there you will see a change in um fund uh 003 which is our permanent Improvement fund uh the reason for that change is we need to increase the appropriation to cover uh the roofing projects and also for the purchase of a maintenance cargo van 08 Appropriations were increased due to increased earn uh interest earnings that of course is a scholarship fund um where the principal stays static and interest earnings are uh awarded to the

118students at the end of the year so we've earned a little bit more interest than we were anticipating so we want to make that money available uh to the high school to give out scholarship when you go on for the rest of the funds all the funds there that start with 500 those are Federal grant funds those funds are increased or decreased um due to Federal grant reallocation adjustments which which occur regularly throughout the year so um the uh us uh Department of Education makes an initial award and then later a few months they look at who has um sometimes they get new schools sometimes uh School sizes change and they allocate the money at various intervals during the year that's what they've done and we've adjusted our budgets um in order to uh accommodate

119that change in allocation um also on your Treasures report tonight you will find the January cash position report which details every fund we've dived into a couple here but the cash position report details every fund and uh special call center that the district has so that concludes um the treasures report for tonight but I did want to mention one thing I want to announce that we have received word from the state auditor's office that we do again uh qualify for the award that they give out for financial reporting and I want to make sure I have a special uh shout out to my staff they are tremendous um everybody knows Mrs rolon there in the back yay jie but then you can also give a a shout out to some of them actually listen to

120the board meeting so thanks thanks to them too [Music] yay congratulations and to you Elena thank you thank you Elena congratulations to you and your staff thank you are there any questions on the treasur report if there are none I respectfully request that the board approve the consent agenda listed tonight those are items 9.2 through 11.2 and then also 12.1 a through J I will make a motion to approve the consent agenda items 9.2 through 11.2 as well as the treasures report in 12.1 I'll second Dr Simmons yes Mrs stri Dr strickler Excuse me yes Mrs Jonas yeah Mrs Stewart yes Mr bib yes item 13 uh committee reports teaching and learning Miss St I mentioned some of what we talked about earlier but we um we're also looking at expanding uh CCP offerings on

121top of our AP courses this will give students uh college credits um and we're going to offer teachers opportunities to get accredited so that they can teach those classes as well uh scheduling for the fall or next school year uh started in January um as you've already seen tonight we added a multilingual course of study which Kim has already gone over um obviously we were reviewing books for social studies and making sure everything was aligned with um being one school district and making sure we're saving money and um aligned with the state standards all I have thank you I'm 14.1 board discussion does anybody have anything they like to say I I do have a few comments um we go okay you guys here yeah can we turn it up a little how's that better

122little I'll try to talk loud as well all right so first um yeah we have have some shoutouts um from our schools first starting with Maddox um excited to to share that the uh uh median growth in uh on the I ready test for all K through six um is 82% toward their annual goal in reading and 70% for Math and there's more than three months to go so ahead of pace there um the student council is in the process of collecting cereal boxes to donate to families in need they are targeting 525 boxes um Tammy Noble one of the third grade teachers lead leads this initiative called Kids Care and what they do in this around Valentine's Day all the students write a note or make a craft to go inside some decorated bags

123that they send to the Anderson Senior Center so they dropped those off this year senior uh the kids love doing it the seniors at the senior center love receiving them and then on February 13th um the kindergarten students walk the neighborhood with notes of kindness to deliver to the neighbors in the Maddox community at Wilson in the past month uh students have been able to trade in their blue cards for either some prizes or snacks at the um uh in the K through6 level also they were able to trade in uh blue cards to pick books at the bookmobile um the Wilson wayy teams met recently um to um tie back into their kindness week with an activity for a schoolwide kindness change they wrote down what they're going to do to be kind and

124review peaceful conflict resolution strategies and then on February 6th they had an art show and book fair where all parents were invited in and so excited to go see my son's artwork that he' been working on over the course of the year so some shout outs um I have some other things that I want to chat about that I I just I hope we can have some civil conversations around these the first thing is the meeting that we had earlier I appreciate Bob and Katie and Wendy attending Sarah I was disappointed that you weren't there to discuss work back off I you know you don't have to shame me for not being I'm trying to I'm not trying to shame you are don't say that that's wrong I work we've been trying for months to

125get congratul a meeting on the board to discuss this stuff and the most that could be allocated to us was 30 minutes before a meeting I mean in if we're going to get the job done and work together it was a really productive meeting we only half hour we had a really productive meeting we got through a lot of the process of the evaluation for the treasure and superintendent and that should be something that we're we're all participating in and so I I appreciate that you work but I mean I don't know heads up that you're not going to be there would be nice the second thing I want to talk about um going to call you to tell you that I'm not going to be there so sorry so I want to talk about

126the the the process with the treasurers contract here I'm really uncomfortable with how this process has played out we're going to be going into executive session after board discussion um to chat more about this and I'd really encourage the crowd to stay around afterwards because it's like we're coming back out to vote on something I have not seen what we are voting on and we're voting on it in a little while it's never been presented to me it hasn't been shared with me the vote that we're going to be taking is not on the agenda and it's been known for a long time that this was the the the month like the deadline is March 1st that we had to have this vote by now and I think that's deceptive to the community that this

127information wasn't on the agenda that we were going to be having this vote even though we knew we were going to be having this vote I have some more comments that I I'll share about this when we come back out after executive session but I um um not at a place where I'm able to share some stuff but um another concern I have is leaks that are coming out from our board I found out that we were planning on having a vote tonight after a member of the community found out and I heard from a member of the community the only people that knew that a vote was pending potentially were the five of us Larry Alena Alena's lawyer and our lawyer yet a member of the community knew and reached out and share their

128um thoughts on what was happening with the vote so how's that happening who's talking and sharing with people stuff that they're not even sharing with the the rest of the board like I said I didn't find haven't seen anything either I did you but you knew we were having a vote tonight found out we were having a vote tonight it says that when you look on the agenda yeah that we're voting on the treasure no that there's two I we're going to Executive session right but that not that there's a vote well we've known there was going to be a vote tonight for a while right so and let me explain a little bit so I've had a phone call with the attorney like five minutes before he came in here we have to make

129a we have to vote to add this to the agenda afterwards right so it's nothing nothing illegal nothing hiding it's it's the way at all but we knew a vote was needed tonight as my is my March 1st was the deadline where a vote needed to happen corre so it should have been on the agenda that there was going to be a vote happening so the the community could know some things weren't finalized is is all I can is all I'm going to say okay and I'll let I'll let the Bob I talked to you on the phone last night and I mean that was the first I heard that this was going to be happening and that that's the first anybody heard I even then how did a Community member know that's news to

130me because you're the first person I told because all right and then Sarah I'm I'm really not trying to shame you here I I really have concerns over what's been happening on your campaign Facebook page in the last couple weeks and i' I thank you for visiting my page I will continue I'm not going to talk to you about my Facebook posts well these are on your public page with your your campaign mhm so my my concern is this is that one the timing is that that pay CH has been active in years and suddenly it's active and all of a sudden there's posts suggesting that the school district is indoctrinating kids supporting school choice and vouchers casting doubt on the district's intentions which creates a lack of trust in our teachers because I shared

131executive orders that were happening currently all I'm doing is sharing facts you're the one drawing up all the conclusions you pulled up all this Dei and Care stuff that's where' that come from it's truth it's factual it all the Care stuff used to be on the website why why post why post that because I can that's why you can I'm I'm trying to understand because you're posting it as a board member this isn't your personal page you're posting this as a board member sharing information okay so let's talk about this diversity equity and inclusion stuff like what is it you want the the community to know that the care about The CARE program and and you and you posted about uh dear colleague letter the dear colleague letter about diversity equity and inclusion so what

132aspect of diversity Equity inclusion belonging are you not do not support all of it it it goes to divide everybody it's all based on oppressors and being oppressed and lifting others up I I'm not okay with that we should judge everybody by their Merit and how they act and how they treat each other that's all that I'm doing is sharing information right let me you guys are the one created an uproar about it you had the news come Leslie's got a message back there she's calling Sarah is a racist you know that's it's crazy all you guys use the buzzword of calling people names okay so diversity equity and inclusion has become a it has become a buzzword but let's really talk about what what we're talking about here when you when you say you

133object to it do you object to diversity in and of itself like are we looking to create cookie cutter widget kids in our schools who are all who all conform did you see the website and how they were going to be discussing with kids about their white privilege and their microaggressions and all that I don't know where you're getting that but that's not what talking about it was on the website and obviously you've seen my page because you're talking about it I had screenshots of the website and then when everybody brought it up and the citizens advisory committee and all of that for HS took all of that down off of their website okay so you're it was something that was okay why would they just take it away like that obviously there was something

134big going on I don't know I didn't take it off Equity are are we hoping for inequity of course not but you have equality for all you shouldn't lift others up just because of so should I take off my glasses and not wear them because you don't get corrective eyewear so I shouldn't either I mean that's that's no that's that's not what talking about no it's not it's the website and you know exactly what the CARE program and everything but you can play stupid I mean whatever this is Sarah that is not what that is that's wellness and the care team those are two totally different things but two totally different things Sarah my you you you want I'm assuming you want students to feel included right so but if you're against EI how would

135you like to see these things achieved in our schools what are we not achieving Jason yeah okay so the idea that well we should just treat everybody the same and treat everybody based on Merit is is good in theory but in practice that's not what happens I can show you study after study that demonstrates that there is racial bias that there is gender related biases I have two for you here do you have like complaints with the School District that is that happening here you clearly have complaints with the district about what yeah that doesn't what we're saying in listen what we're saying you're talking about the bullying and everything that's going on I I I don't see that we're getting reports of that happening I don't understand why we need a program to be

136able to treat people I'm getting ready to tell you that's what that I'm getting ready to tell you so what we see here is one of several studies where student or teachers were grading papers a a sample of teachers were grading papers and the only difference in the papers were if the author of the paper the student had a traditionally black sounding name or traditionally white sounding name and the papers with the traditionally white sounding names were graded higher than the papers with the traditionally black sounding names same thing in employment and labor where we see resumés sent out to jobs all over the country and rumes with white sounding names receive 50% more call backs for interviews and so the idea of this type of programming and I feel like the danger of continuing

137to to attack this type of programming is a misunderstanding of of what's trying to be done it's not about indoctrinating it's about add addressing these type of issues helping our students understand that yeah Merit is important right but these accusations that oh someone's a Dei hire these the reason Dei is in place in in work is to make sure that qualified people in minority groups are getting these opportunities over unqualified white people okay right and my confusion comes because I don't have a clear definition of what you mean by Dei like the multilingual courses study that you just approved like that that's got Dei all over it based on what I understand of of your understanding of it is is handicap parking Dei oh the accessibility thing okay how about how about nobody nobody's doing

138anything with the Ada and violating how about nursing stations it's an executive order that we've been given by the president that we're not doing the Dei so I don't think your argument is with me at all it is because you're an elected official following the law you're an elected off law actually says our responsibility is to include all kids yeah of course it does where does it an executive order is not a law two it doesn't make it illegal it's only a threat to withhold federal funds it doesn't say anything about not us being able to provide programming so what I'm trying to find out is like a nursing station for new mothers in a place of public accommodation is that Dei to do I know because I'm trying to understand what you consider de

139and whatnot I'm trying to figure out what this has to do with because I'm going to get to things that we work in school is time off for a religious holiday Dei you can't say no to taking time off school if I want to pull my kid out of school for whatever reason I have that right to do so because I'm their parent you can't tell me no if I want to pull my kid out of school for Ash Wednesday and I do that you can't tell me no right that's that's Dei that's including your religion and accommod making accommodation and policy for your religion I don't need an accommodation you simply can't tell me no if I want to pull my kid out of school we have a policy we actually have a policy

140that says you can do that okay but but you make it but there's constant attacks and I bring this up because Sarah the other day you made these attacks on the on Dei but this Dei stuff is happening and and you're selectively okay with some of it like can we learn about R&B music in school how about Camp Kern scholarships is that Dei because we're providing Equitable things to people who can't afford to go on this trip so we're not treating everybody the same anymore it's when you're disciplining differently is there evidence that that's happening here sure they did that in The CARE program yes yes they did it was one of the pointers actually we have some data that Wendy can share The CARE program indicated there was data that students from minorities students

141with disabilities um in Forest Hills were being disproportionately disciplined and that that's a problem based on the percentage of kids in our schools we would expect a certain percentage of discipline it should be proportional and that wasn't happening there was disproportionate data the indication of that is we we do have a problem there's something happening in the same vein of not getting graded in the same way not getting job applications through in the same way discipline data was showing up separately which indicated the need to have conversations about why which is what good teachers do and it's what care was all about and I feel the need to to speak to this a little bit because it keeps coming up as this example which at this point is disinformation care care was the acronym created

142by the committee that developed this and I was a part of spearheading that work so yes I feel very pass about this and I will stand behind it care was chosen as the name because as teachers we care about our kids and we care about their outcomes and we care about them not just as learners but as individuals and we care about creating environments in which they can be successful in the classroom and we have a diverse student body in Forest Hills that's not a buzzword that's the reality of our classroom situations whether we're talking about religion or gender or so socioeconomic status or race or whatever the different factors might be we have diverse students we should the combination of our diversity is what makes your child special and makes my child special and

143what we know about the brain and learning is that when your child your anybody kindergartener your second grade daughter your 10th grade high schooler walks into my classroom if they feel welcome and included in my classroom and included in the curriculum and in the learning that's happening their brain washes over with what I call the happy chemicals dopamine and serotonin and you know what those do they Prime the brain for Learning and what we want our kids to do I assume you like me is for our kids to learn when they're at school and so if we're not accomplishing that we're failing on part of our basic Mission as teachers kids are not in a position to learn if they don't feel seen and valued and heard and what kids bring to the table is

144not always going to be the same thing I bring to the table and if I'm not willing to acknowledge that I might not be able to see that through a different lens then I may leave them feeling excluded by accident and I would never do that intentionally as a teacher but here's an example um donuts with dads happened in a lot of our elementaries for a lot of years great idea I hate donnuts but lots of people love them right but who are the kids who may immediately have felt excluded from that opportunity military dad who's away deceased father living with grandparents living with other family members only mom at home doesn't matter we had kids who would immediately respond to something like that with a sense of I'm not seen this wasn't meant for

145me and that's not what we're trying to create at school so a small Small Change donuts with dudes bring whoever you want bring your important person doesn't matter and all of a sudden that opportunity becomes broader and open to others but would I have necessarily seen that without conversation around how to see outside the lens of what I know from my own cultural experience no not necessarily so care was about having conversations and Reflections nobody was ever made to feel badly nobody was ever made to feel oppressed that wasn't the point of the conversation the point of the conversation was sometimes if you're asked a provocative question watch a video read an article you start to think about something from a lens you've never thought about it through and maybe it's the lens that one

146of the students in your class brings and I'll give you an example of one of those provocative questions that we would ask teachers can you name three female scientists most people I talk to can't okay so let's have a conversation then about what we're exposing our kids to in terms of the variety of scientists who exist in the field and let's have a conversation about why we've been working so damn hard to get girls into stem and maybe why they're not well if you've never seen yourself represented in a science classroom in 13 years of study maybe it didn't occur to you that was a possibility that's kind of how our brain works it works based on pattern recognizing patterns and predicting patterns from them I could talk about that for hours but I won't

147um and so putting up a picture of a female scientist does it hurt anybody no could it have a big gain yeah possibly because we start to switch that pattern predictor so the purpose of care which was with faculty and staff only was asking the questions and doing the reflection to think more deeply about who are the kids in my classroom how can I have better relationships with them if I better understand who they are and the autobiography that they bring into my classroom because it's going to be different than mine and that was through cultural competence which are the example I just gave you doing that thinking so that we could better advocate for our kids develop relationships with them and by doing all that engage them and if they're not engaged they're not

148learning and that's our job while we're here that's the work we were doing and if you want to call that diversity equity and educa and inclusion great because I want to see our diverse student body getting the Equitable needs their needs met and every single one of them feeling included every single day [Applause] if that was the purpose why did you guys have the book club with Robin D'Angelo's white fragility I mean what was the purpose of that uh the book club I was involved in when when I was here actually used the Rea Hammond's book that one too but the white fragility one was part of the Care documents too I mean they were looking yeah again I think sometimes when you look at literature through other perspectives you start to have different conversations

149about what you may or may not have understood I don't see a problem with that you can take the ideas you can leave the ideas but at least you're having thoughtful critical discussion about the ideas and again I differ those ideologies I differ from you but I think at the end of the day we all need to be able to have different views and opinions on all of this stuff but it's it's like it's it's hard to have coners ations with you guys because it's you guys are right or you know or it's nothing and it's just at the end of the day our kids are seeing all this and what we really need to do is be able to be United instead of so divided and it needs to come to a point where

150we have to realize that we love our kids and our community more than we all hate each other and we really need to come together well but we can't look how I mean look how you guys are acting we're we're trying to talk I mean it's at the end of the day that's what it should be all about yeah I I absolutely agree but that means making sure our kids feel they're included and then they belong I'm not sure how it's not with everything I just said about what the intent of the work was I mean if you're asking me if I'm right or wrong on whether every kid should be included I'm right and I agree you're right agree with I I agree with you we should we should nobody should be treated different

151for any kind of reason no but that's the point is that again just like we have I'm not talking about gles stuff but listen here's the thing when we talk we we all accept handicap parking and parking for expectant mothers because we recognize certain people have different needs but where you you have a problem is when we start talking about equity in terms of race right and we know through history and why it's important to teach social studies that in the 20s in the 30s black people were not afforded the same opportunities to own property to own their own homes because of redlining because of actions of Banks and uh the government and that is how the middle class family generates wealth is through home ownership and so reinvesting into those communities to redistribute funds

152to ensure Equitable conditions and opportunities for everybody is part of what Equity is in the same way that we provide handicap parking for people who can't ambulate as well but then you have problems when those type of things come up in textbooks it's it's the same it's the same thing it's just Equity based on race and you're not okay with it and you want to vote down an entire curriculum because of this type of content in a in a history book not the entire curriculum like I said I only had issues with a couple of books but the the books again like I the sentiment you say about we need to come together you know we and remember our kids are watching all this let's do it but back to why I brought this up

153is that yeah you're you're right you have the right to post whatever you want on Facebook but the the posts lately have been in my opinion disparaging and haven't been under the guise of trying to bring us together but rather fire up a percentage of or a portion of our population and if I'm being honest Sarah I find it very Unbecoming of a board member yeah I know that is pretty rich that's all I have for public comments great but but please though uh I do want to reiterate please stick around for after executive session um there likely other discussion happening and a vote does anybody have anything else to say yeah I have a just a couple things I just um for those who couldn't hear because I was sitting on the speaker cord

154for our work session before the meeting um we did have a great early conversation about evaluation talked about some actual dates and process and the tools to use the adapted version of the Neola um templates that were available better aligned to the forest HS job descriptions so I feel like we are making some progress on having an evaluation system in place which is one of our three main focus areas as board members so I'm excited about progress there so thank you to everyone um or reminder about the Forest Hills Foundation PTO grants due February 28th I'm going to go home and remind my son so put that out there for everyone else as well and Saturday May 10th the Forest Hills 5K which is always an amazing event for our community um some shoutouts real

155quick um kindness week was mentioned in Jason's U Mercer and Summit both spoke to that as well um as well as a new opportunity this year where there's some different grade level groups happening across the different elementaries and Mercer it's the family nests and at Summit it's the summit Squad those groups both met this week and students got the chance to interact across grade levels in some different tea building and collaboration and again just another way that I think our buildings are really working hard to build a sense of um community and belonging and that's awesome that they're doing that so um those are exciting things that are happening um Summit also held a fourth through sixth grade student and parent enrichment night with different math science um opportunities some Socratic circles so a chance

156for um parents and their kiddos to come together in some of those opportunities and then a mentioned a great turnout at conferences and their recent PTO dance so lots of good things happen in there um similarly Anderson had a new family information meeting for their upcoming Raptors that was um very well attended the Tempest was a fantastic winter play despite all of the illness Brewing around us and dance divers and cheers are head at cheer are headed to state so that's very exciting there and then at Turpin finally um swim and Shear also headed to State there so we've got lots of different competitive teams heading out um there is an large solo Arts competition in our area called the Overture Awards and we have two students Eden be in vocal music and Abigail rer

157in dance who qualified for the finals there and tpin also just had their final showcase and share a spotlight with two days of sta staff visiting classrooms to observe the qualities of a portrait of a learner which is a reminder is how we look at our kids whole child Beyond just the the academic testing on which we're obviously doing very well from Larry's earlier report but also skills like being a um good collaborator Problem Solver empathetic learner um kind of all sorts of different skills that we really I think want to invest in for our kids so lots of amazing things happening in our district and I think it's important to remember that and then I just had a question before we wrap um I know it was mentioned that there was a recent me

158meeting community meeting with the parks and the park board and the the trustees to move forward on a survey and that all of that is potentially wrapped up into whether there might be any role for the school district way down the road in that if there might be a pool conversation in that facility and since that was brought up I just didn't know if there was an update from that meeting in terms of next steps in that collaboration the meeting was essentially that there were two people who put bids in there was no survey there was no anything they were just going to move forward with the two people that put bids in bids for a survey bids for okay it's a comp it's a excuse me it's a company they've got two companies that

159they're going to bring in and interview and that's the company that will actually do it's a marketing company that will actually do the surveying so okay all right and so that'll be a community survey so keep your eyes open eyes and ears open at some point this is a community survey looking at how to use the beaker's land to best meet Community needs so I think starting to put that on people's radar would be a great idea likely come sorry likely it'll come from the parks okay District but I think everybody all three groups are involved in the process so right now the next thing is decide between these two which one's going to move forward with the survey Okay so likely a park survey at some point but the idea being is there a

160way that we could collaborate to best meet all of our community needs including our district needs here so all right that's all I have thank you anybody else uh 15.1 executive session pursuant to Ohio Revised Code section 12122 G1 I hereby move the board ad journ to Executive session for the purpose of considering me employment of a public employer or official we anticipate action may be taken after and pursuant to Ohio rise code section 121.2 to G3 I hereby move the board adjourn to Executive session to meet with board legal council to discuss disputes involving the board and or the school district that are subject of pending or imminent Court action may get a motion one second or make what second Mrs Stewart yes Mrs Jonas yeah Dr Simmons yes Dr strickler yes Mr bib

161yes e e e place on the agenda for approval the release and separation agreement the Consulting contract and the resignation of the treasurer second Mr bib yes Mrs Stewart yes Mrs Jonas yes Dr Simmons yes Dr strickler yes may I have a motion motion to release motion to approve the release and separation agreement the Consulting contract and to accept the resignation of Al of Alana Cropper upon execution I'll make a motion to accept I'll second Mrs Stuart wait can we have some discussion before we move forward please yes I am concerned that our job is to be transparent with the rep with the public and that it doesn't make sense that if an employee wanted to resign that there would be any need for any additional documentation or consultation or otherwise if an employee was

162choosing to resign we would W wish you all the best and raise our hand and say have a great life if we didn't want want an employee to resign we would offer them an contract to remain unemployed so this combination of a resignation with additional consultation does not settle well with me I have the same concerns in Atlanta I first want to say that I'm sorry this is happening and um it's been a pleasure working with you and I think the work that you've done has been commendable um and it's demonstrated by the response the community has given to this um the awards you've gotten from the state auditor's office and I found you nothing but um helpful easy to work with you've always answered my questions my responses so thank you very much um

163but I think there are a few important points to make is first Atlanta I want to make it clear you were offered a choice to resign or be non-renewed is that correct that's correct it was communicated to me that the three members were not in favor of me continuing okay so um I think in in the spirit of transparency we've been having these conversations since September like obviously we've been going in executive sessions since September with the same exact reason to talk about Employment contract and whatnot and if the choice was there the choice was made not to renew an employee who otherwise would like to continue working in the district I think the public should know like why the board has made this decision and to this point to this point the board has

164been unwilling to share that publicly and I have asked Atlanta and she is okay with this conversation happening in public and so I would like to ask my board members what is the rationale for not for deciding not to renew Atlanta and going down this route I'll say the same thing I've said the whole time I will not publicly talk about HR matters I agree age all right so so you're not comfortable talking about HR practices her evaluation is is public record and there's things on there where she's given a three out of 10 develops and executes sound Personnel practices and procedures she got a three has respect and credibility with their point employees has a three out of 10 what is the evidence to suggest that she was unsatisfactory in those areas has respect

165and credibility of her employees three out of 10 evaluates employees fairly and effectively three out of emplo and it should also be known Atlanta did not sign this and my concern around also just like to point out that in contrast when her staff was surveyed the results were quite in contrast to that they were all Superior ratings so I alluded to the process earlier and how I was uncomfortable with it and part of it goes back to how I found out we were even going down this path is our I want to be very clear not to violate any executive session information here but when when we first met to talk about this it was clear to me and I think Wendy that this decision had already been made before we even talked about it

166that the the other board members had had already talked and discussed this and in full transparency before I started this role I was told they're going to try to get rid of Atlanta and I think there were some pretty serious allegations made she's had a 30-year career doing this award winning award-winning lar and honestly like Larry I have to say something to you too I'm disappo pointed about is like in December I called you and asked you to Advocate to the rest of the board on Atlanta's behalf and you said that's not your role this is the board decision yet in the last few days you've been talking to the lawyers to get this on the agenda and get this over the finish line and I feel like that's a while while on the flip

167side you're sitting in Atlanta's office having friendly conversations with her I I feel like that's not how we treat people and had the opportunity to advocate for her for your teammate and didn't we had on the flip side work with the lawyers to get this over the Finish Line in time for us to vote on it before March 1st I didn't appreciate that I think there's some serious allegations that have been made about Atlanta and if true which I have found them to not be true from talking to people and and going back and watching poort prior board meetings and I think the board the the public should have the right to know I mean there's been allegations of mismanagement of funds seven seven seven Figures it's like where's the where's the proof of that

168so really quick Jason okay like honestly like it's not a like the dec the decision's made right she's already signed the paperwork so like it's it's not hurting anything like this is just about transparency and letting the community know why we wouldn't why we're not renewing Atlanta that's all I'm asking you to do because here's the thing too is this Consulting agreement she's going to work through the remainder of her contract which expires Janu July 31st we're going to pay pay her a Consulting agreement we're going to her consulting firm and we're going to hire another Treasurer that's getting paid alongside her consulting firm which hold on at the same time at the same time when we just found out that the state's going to be cutting our funding by $600,000 so in a time

169of financial uncertainty getting rid of a 30-year veteran in this role just doesn't make sense to me I'll tell you per this agreement both parties shall refrain and making disparaging remarks and comments regarding her so I do not think it is appropriate I've I've not said anything disparaging the contract that is being signed I've I've not so anything that you're saying could hinder her ability to get a job somewhere else so I'd be very careful with what you say going forward yeah I've I've I have I have think I care about what any of you have to [Applause] [Music] [Applause] say yeah I will say I I will say here's what I'll say is the I do not work for you no I do not I was elected to do a job based on what

170I think is the correct answer it is not my job to do what you individually say nice try here's here's here's the here's the last thing I I'll say on it before and I know others might have comments or we'll get to our vote but um the mismanagement of money um from everything i' I found and learned these were Esser funds provided to the school district um Esser funds were um relief funds to help school districts during um during Co when um you know obviously we're in financial uncertainty in that time as well um every year this the state auditor gives us the auditor's award and I mean that tells me there's no evidence of financial mismanagement at at no point at no point I was sitting in board meetings as you all were before

171being elected and being elected here at no point in any Treasures report court at any public meeting here have any of these claims that were brought up in executive session uh been brought up at a board meeting or I'm on the finance committee or on a finance committee meeting no one ever has any questions for a land at the meetings there's never any insight into what you're dissatisfied with and there was no feedback provided on her evaluation which is something that irks me the most it's not Atlanta's job to ask for feedback is the board's job to provide feedback and an improvement plan if you're not satisfied with her performance and that was never given to her and so I feel it's my role as an elected official to be transparent this is my opinion

172this is how I see things playing outa thank you for your uh service to this district and um I think we are going to struggle to find anybody nearly as qualified As You Are [Applause] thank you I appreciate the [Applause] support oh my God you guys [Applause] are we voting yes take a vote please Mrs Stewart yes Mrs Jonas yes Dr Simmons No Dr strickler No Mr bid yes next meeting motion to make a motion to adjourn the meeting I'll second motion motion second I didn't hear who motion then who second I made a motion to journ the meeting a motion she Mr bib yes Mrs Jonas yes Dr Simmons yes Mrs Stewart Dr strickler yes [Applause]