001welcome everybody to the forest H School District Board of Education regular meeting on Wednesday October 18th call to order Mr bib here Mrs Jonas here Dr asmon here Mrs Stewart here Mrs hosfeld here president hosel members of the board at this moment before we really get started I think it would be appropriate for us to acknowledge a terrible loss that we suffered recently in the Forest Hill School District just a few short weeks ago a Turpin student passed away and while it's impossible for us to put it into words the impact this loss has on our students and staff um I would ask our thoughts and prayers be with the family um that they're still dealing with with this loss I do want to mention for for anyone we do have resources on our website
002uh if you're struggling not just now but with this in particular uh we have some resources available there um at this point before we start I just ask that we'd all kind of have a moment of silence remember this family thank you thank you Larry um item 1.3 the Pledge of Allegiance everybody please rise I pledge allegiance to flag United States America the stand Nation indivisible andice item 1.4 we have the safety briefing the doors that you came in is an exit door as well as two of the doors down here in the front on either side do I have a motion to adopt the agenda I'll make a motion to adopt the agenda second Mrs Jonas yes Mr bib yes Dr resmon yes Mrs Stewart yes Mrs hosfeld yes item 3.0 the minutes do
003I have a motion I can make a motion to approve items 3.1 and 3.2 as presented second Mrs Jonas yes Mr bib yes Dr risson yes Mrs Stewart yes Mrs hosfeld yes item 4.0 we have the reports of the Board of Education First up we have the Forest Hills Teachers Association Mr Chris Preston hello and good evening I hope you all all are enjoying fall I have a brief report to give I've mentioned my visits to our buildings since the start of the school year that have a purpose of saying hello to our staff and communicating and appreciation for the work they do with our students since last month's board meeting I've had the pleasure of visiting air Maddox Sherwood and Summit elementaries I plan to wrap up my visits to our buildings with Mercer
004Elementary this week I can tell you that our forest teaching staff is filled with energy smiles and an appreciation for a community that supports and values education in the home one of the ways that we bridge the gap between school and home is through parent teacher conferences our high school and middle school staff completed their fall parent conferences a few weeks ago and our elementary teachers are gearing up for their round of fall parent conferences starting next week as a middle school teacher I see firsthand how important it is to have open dialogue clear communication of student strengths areas for growth and ideas for support are critical conversations to have between teacher student and parent we thank our parents and Community for being strong supporters of our students and their education and we admire our
005students for their hard work their energy and the daily inspiration they provide us by listening to them we can gain ins sight on how to improve their experience in the classroom the Forest Hills Teachers Association remains dedicated to the welfare and development of both our Educators and our students we appreciate the ongoing collaboration with Forest H School District Board of Education community members and Partnerships with our parents thank you for your time thank you thank you next up we have the superintendent update oh I'm sorry I need to back up don't get off that easy I won't race you uh Stacy Stacy Gillard with the forest HS Foundation man you turned around awful fast you're taking off well you got to be careful walking down those stairs too um good evening I hope everyone is
006doing well um on behalf of the force Hills Foundation um I look forward to sharing a few updates with you this evening um first I'd I'd love to start with um we are in the Final Days of our 15,000 15 years 15 days 15,000 campaign um I just checked so this was probably like at 1:00 this afternoon and we were at 7,800 and actually I just checked and it's over 12,000 so between today at 2 and this evening um we did send a special email out in regards to the fact that we continue to support a child focused therapist and how these funds can be used as we continue to help and support the kids health and well-being um so if you have not participated every amount counts again this goes to the kids to
007our community and we um hope you will join us as we celebrate um 15 years second thing is on Friday of this past weekend so last Friday we were so honored to recognize um actually six five distinguished alumni and one distinguished staff member at the luncheon at Ivy Hills Country Club and I know some of the folks in this room were in attendance you can clearly see Victor Prince is on this picture this was from the event um Brian Reed both from Turpin DD Hamlin from a retired staff member from Air Elementary and then Annie Warner who graduated from Anderson in 98 um two of the recipients were unable to be there one actually was in Switzerland um sent a message a video message from Switzerland um Phyllis frell um the second person was it's
008just leaving my mind Dr T John wi Houston um and he was actually actually at a work conference he works for the University of Cincinnati um and in their psychology and addiction um services so what I wanted to say is I for those that were in attendance I always think it's so great that we take time to honor and recognize alumni that come out of this community I also want to say that after that luncheon I was so inspired and so motivated by seeing so many wonderful people talk about that about the Fantastic district and community that we are a part of and so I just it was a lovely event um we will continue to um keep in touch with these alumni um but it just was a really great evening to know the
009caliber of people that come out students that come out of this community so congrats to all of the 2023 recipients and the last thing I have tonight is um who's ready for some fun because I don't know as I was driving here somebody was yelling at someone in their car um and I was like man we need more love we need more kindness in this world so I'm ready to share some fun with everyone um the fall Suare is actually going to be on November 11th it's going to be at Ivy Hills Country Club it's going to be a fun night as we celebrate 15 years um we have several folks that have signed up to be hosts probably about 23 um individuals and we look forward to a fun evening again this is one
010of the foundation Signature Events that we Host this is in the fall and then we do the 5K in the spring um so if you have not been we encourage you to come it's a great opportunity connect with other parents community members as we continue to support the kids so any questions okay and just a big thanks to everybody for your support the foundation is able to do the work we do based on our donors and people that support the organization so thank you thank you next up Mr hook with the superintendent update thank you president hosell members of the board um very proud uh to say that all nine of our school buildings within the Forest Hill school system for the first time will be awarded and recognized by the high Department of Education
011for its successes in PBIS which is positive behavior intervention support support systems PBIS has been shown to improve student achievement student Behavior as well as school climate and the framework helps students by focusing on their strengths and building on their confidence to succeed it's a research-based system that utilizes a positive approach to discipline which leads to a reduction in office referrals in school suspensions both in school and out of school uh that obviously those decrease instructional time for students there are approximately 3,656 give or take one public school buildings in Ohio uh and about 611 school districts last year only 375 schools and only 16 districts were awarded U and honored by uh the state for the their accomplishments in PBIS so again uh we believe um that we're in some pretty rarified air thanks
012to our our staff our administrators and teachers um that work so diligently at it each each building has a PBIS team that works on this um and so in an upcoming board meeting um we would like to invite them in and and recognize them and uh because that's not easy work it's hard work and um it's just truly amazing what they've done so kudos to everybody uh I believe um for the second time our district as a whole will also be recognized so when that's all when it all comes in from the state and who knows when that'll happen because I don't know where the state is right now whether it's which part of the government it's in so uh but we will have some more information on that as it comes along legislatively I
013think some of the the two Piggies are um is OD U alive and well or is it now with the Department of Education and Workforce but we haven't decided yet I don't think anybody knows uh there's an injunction right now in place up in Columbus uh which kind of freezes the the process um I believe until the 20th or so of October and then there'll be a ruling um so we shall see where that ends up um but it it certainly there are some issues that we got to deal with and some of that deals with the science of reading and and literacy as well you know there's some pretty big things the dyslexia bills or you know you got to have some place to be able to to communicate with and so we're in
014that limbo phase hopefully that'll move forward um however that's determined but we'll move forward and give us some some clear definition of guidelines there um the other one that's out there that I just wanted to make mention to you obviously everybody's aware of property tax valuations going up across the state double digits um you know I do want to say um you know it's sitting right now in House Bill 187 um those have been passed over to the Senate who will probably start their hearings next week on their version and then they'll go into a conference and then we'll have to to figure that out the reason I bring that up is you know as we move you know supposedly this would be going into effect January 1 okay so that's not too far away
015um but I don't want there's we're still deal with House Bill 920 okay and so how does that interplay right now we're thinking we believe it it's 27% property tax increase as an average your house may go up more somebody else's house may go up less but on average it's going to be 27% okay that doesn't mean you're taxes go up 27% okay that's what house bill 920 did back in the late 70s okay it put a a limit so what happens is the amount of millage that you have the amount of millage that you have sorry the amount of millage that you have that you're collecting gets reduced the auditor is required to do a reduction factor to lower that down okay even though it's 27% increase you won't pay that okay we can't
016collect anymore than what our original levies were passed for at that time so if it's this last Levy when we put it on the ballot was for total of 6.9 Ms to collect X number of dollars will only collect X number of dollars it won't collect at 6.9 not at a 27 because they all apply the reduction Factor can I tell you exactly what it would be no but I'll bet you it's going to be south of it's going to be around five maybe in that neck of the woods I'm guess that's a rough guess it's just a guess there they'll have to do that but he's required by law or she the auditor has to reduce that down it's that reduction Factor that's what 920 does so you won't be paying 27% more in
017your property taxes and I think once we have that final figure I think Atlanta we we'll have a pretty nice detailed thing but I just I know things yeah people start panicking you know in some counties you're talking 40% that's scary I can understand that you know um the other piece you know right now um about half of the district in the state of Ohio are on the 20 mil floor now goes back to a little bit of school Finance 101 you're require every school district that collects State dollars is required to have at least 20 Mills on the books you have to you can't go below what happens is they raise you up they you know other words you apply to say you're on the 20 mil floor right now like a Indian Hill
018Indian Hill they're on the 20 mil floor they can't go below 20 Ms so guess what a 27% pay uh increase in property tax does to them okay you apply the reduction Factor so they can't collect any more dollars right well that millage that reduction factor is going to drop below 20 Mills they're required by law to raise taxes back up to the 20 mil floor so if you living in Indian Hill right now I would say that the treasur is probably looking to see who what's going to happen but about half the districts in Ohio are in that so that's one of the biggies they got to get figured out quickly okay we're not on the 20 mil floor so this whole thing won't impact Us in the same same manner at all okay
019um now how fast they can get this all settled how fast Auditors can get this on the book so that they know there may be some delay and that could create some problems that's the other thing that everybody's a little bit worried about how fast can you get this all in place because all of a sudden you start getting towards um you know the end of your fiscal year if you're on the front end of a of a levy cycle like we are okay if it's delayed a few months okay we'll still get our money you'll still get your money from the state you'll still get it but think about it if you're on the backside of a levy cycle where you're barely you're ready to go on the ballot or you go on the
020ballot now and you fail I don't know what you do yeah you have to borrow money from the auditor or from the state you have to find someplace because you you'll be struggling to make payroll so there's some unique things that's taking place at the state level and I think what's happening is all of a sudden our legislators are going oh this is a biggie yeah this is this is big this is a lot of districts in Ohio so um I look I think that you'll hear something pretty quickly and at the end of the of October and into November you know but they got to move pretty quickly cu this all supposed to go into effect January 1 so stay tuned you know like I said I think that and trying to decide who's
021running the State Board is is the the big biggies that are going on there are other things going on for sure but I also wanted to mention a couple weeks ago uh myself Atlanta um John eert um we met with uh representative Rachel Baker and her aid about the possibility of receiving some funds from the state capital projects um budget uh share I shared that information on a recent board update but I think we're all really hopeful that it can come to fruition just so you know in brief uh the state's capital budget is managed through the Ohio facilities construction commission ofcc um and that provides dollars it was part of the tobacco settlement way back and try and part of the derol cases you know trying to find an answer to to public school
022funding um but the dollars for um a specific project can be submitted to a State Rep or a state senator um we have identified one of the first things we'd love to have uh it's about a $400,000 price tag on it uh are these are digital security radios of and and the system that supports it uh that would enhance our total school security program um that would be really nice because it provides instant communication throughout the district even as hilly as ours is it it will provide instant communication throughout the district and with our SRO um you know I think we learned a very valuable maybe a scary lesson um with the situation with the F the fake Callin over at Princeton um what was the worst thing that happened to him nobody's cell phones
023worked it's like going to a Bengals game trying to send a text out or get a you you you can it's all hitting it at the same time that's what they found out and this this is an answer to it but it's not a cheap answer so I'm I'm hopeful we we'll give a couple other items as well um and we'll be sending those to representative Baker here by the end of this week or the first of next week and as I understand it then the lawmakers submit the all the requests that come in to um the finance chairperson and Leadership committees uh review those requests finalize recommendations for possible Appropriations in the I think their the deadline is in June of 24 so stay tuned that would be a be an awesome thing that
024really would um I can't think of anything that would be really help our district that would be nice so stay tuned I'll keep you posted if hear any more thank you thank you Larry I just have a quick question when you're talking about PBIS and then you mentioned the 3,656 schools in Ohio and there were 375 schools awarded is there a place that people can go to check that out yes you can go to the State State website t uh just go to the search bar go into PBIS you you'll kind of have to click around in there and you can find it okay great thank you also for explaining the property tax and the Mills and the and the um it's a scary thing right now um the floor level I don't think a
025lot of people Rec realize that so um thank you for explaining all of that to everybody so okay moving on to Public public commentary 6.0 uh I uh the board is committed to conducting its meetings in in a productive and efficient manner to ensure that the meeting is completed in a reasonable amount of time but also recognizes the importance of fair and adequate opportunity for public input the board provides public participation will be a total of 30 minutes each speaker will have a 3 minute time limit if there are more than 10 speakers individual time will be adjusted down to fit within the 30 minutes we do not allow yielding time the board does not discriminate based on the individual content of the speech or Viewpoint of the speaker if several people wish to speak
026on the same topic the time limit may be adjusted by the president's discretion speakers are asked to speak from the podium address the board and are also asked to clearly State their name and address we have three speakers this evening uh first up we have Kevin mjek good evening I don't really feel like I need the microphone so hopefully everybody in back will be able to hear me I'm told I can be fairly loud my name is Kevin mishack I leave live at 8433 Holiday Hills Drive right over here in Su States I've enjoyed coming to these board meetings for several many years prior to co met Bob bid at one of my meetings and uh it's it's nice to see them kind of go back to how they used to be nice and boring
027and quiet uh my topic to last month was on academics and my compliments to the district on the staff's focus on academics over the last few years I know it hasn't been hard uh hasn't been easy but you have accomplished and and I do appreciate that uh my topic tonight is on Behavior public and school Behavior Uh over last few years we have not enjoyed quiet peaceful school meetings all right to my left and to my right are evidence of why that's a fact um it's unfortunate it would be nicer to see us all go back to more civil discourse I don't really expect that and I don't think any of you really do either um the board may want to consider the district may want to consider additional video surveillance so that when things
028not if but when things get out of hand again we will at least have video evidence for our officers here to protect us so they can address the issues appropriately um one of the issues that I've seen here um is private phone use to video surveil other members of the of the community all right who doesn't love it when you have a phone shoved in your face don't we all we look forward to those opportunities all right so it's a bit of a provocation we've seen it again tonight this Ras saw it tonight it was fun so the other behavior that I'm concerned about is bullying in the school all right I am aware of a few incidents antidotal all right and I'm concerned about the district's reporting I'm concerned mostly about staff's reporting of
029those instances my advice to the community is if your child is physically assaulted in school you may want to consider turning to andersh Anderson Township Sheriff's and file a report to make sure that your child is protected from physical acts of bullying in our school district because that would be unfortunate if something were to happen tragically and not go reported till after the fact have a nice night thank you uh next up we have speaker Olivia crock pardon me if I've pronounced that wrong say good evening my name is Olivia crk and I'm a 20-year-old college student at the University of Cincinnati I come here tonight to speak of concerns that I have regarding the future generation of girls in the school district there are many individuals involved with the school and running for school
030board who fail to recognize the fundamental distinction between males and females as an athlete of 10 years in both cross country and track it breaks my heart to hear people in the school district support the idea of allowing boys and girls girl Sports regardless of age hormone treatment and surgeries the biological differences between boys and girls are evident it's important to protect the Integrity of female sports in order to support the dreams of young girls and maintain fairness it is not fair to allow a boy to compete in a girl sport simply because he does not feel comfortable in his own body why do his feelings stand above the girls who will lose out on countless opportunities because of him it's the job of adults and faculty members to step in and help address the
031real Mental Health issues causing this and it doesn't end with sports it's appalling that those affiliated with the school have no desire to protect girls in their locker rooms and bathrooms girls deserve safety and privacy in vulnerable spaces especially at the age where their bodies are beginning to change the adults in this District have a duty to protect these young girls and provide a safe Single Sex space I would also like to touch on the recent controversy regarding the diversity mural here in this District I applaud the school for taking measures to cover a mural that claims to depict diversity when in reality it promoted indoctrination of young students of course the idea of inclusion is wonderful and everyone should have an equal opportunity to succeed however in today's society this comes at the expense
032of freedom of speech and erasing female rights as I said I'm a student at University of Cincinnati and this past summer I was failed in a diversity equity and inclusion course that was required for my graduation the reason I was failed is because I used the term biological woman while completing a project where I wrote about the rights and opportunities of females in sports and how they're being taken away by males this is where I quickly learn that diversity equity and inclusion truly meant division exclusion and intolerance schools shouldn't endorse ideologies that promote mental health issues the Eraser of women and the suppression of free speech nor should schools contain artwork or literature that revolve around sexuality and claim to show diversity let's continue to keep these things out of school and protect the Integrity
033of female sports thank you thank you next up we have Mr uh Jeff NY hi Jeff NY 1000 ever Soul um two things I want to talk about today one is something I've talked about before which is a plea for transparency um for at least the third time in the last few months last month's consent agenda was not approved unanimously uh I'm reading here from Robert Rules of Order which is the par parliamentary manual for the board it says that the consent agenda is reserved for routine or non-controversial matters to which no member objects um in other words if any member objects to any item in the consent agenda that should be removed from the consent agenda and discussed and debated separately does not require a majority vote requires only one member's request it's not
034only in Robert's Rules of Order section 41 there's a Schoolboard policy 165.1 D or E that says the same thing so so if there's any item in tonight's consent agenda that is not in fact unanimous please remove it from the consent agenda discuss and debate it so we know what it is that is not unanimously approved simple transparency um second a couple of weeks ago we got an email from the superintendent that said something to the effect of our first priority at Forest Tales is creating a safe and secure environment uh for the students including uh their mental and emot wellbeing um it is really hard to believe that it is really hard to take that at face value with some of the things that have happened in this District in the last few months
035including at Nagel recently and in the last year and a half or so including the resolutions you guys passed last June um last month you heard from I don't know eight or 10 students in this District people who actually go to school here who stood up here in front of you and said that makes me feel less safe it makes me feel less secure it makes me feel unwell please listen to them and repeal that resolution thank you next up we have human resources good good evening to the board um we have a few items on our HR report this evening um and then I'll spend a few minutes working through our FTE reconciliation that we went into a lot more detail on on Monday at the HR board committee meeting um starting with item
036a we have retirements and I would uh be remiss if I didn't take a moment um and I know I do this every month um but particularly on this month um we have seven new retirees for the board's uh approval this evening and uh collectively uh and then there is an eighth where there's a a revision on the date um so Ed Zimmerman we celebrated a bit last month um but the the prior s constitute 200 over 200 years of experience in the Forest Hill School District collectively and um that in it of itself I feel like is uh is worthy of attention recognition and deep sense of gratitude uh for their commitment to our students um that's not to That's not including the additional years of service that they might have um in strs
037uh working in other school districts as well so just in this District alone 200 years among them um and uh we certainly wish each and every one of them all the best and a happy um final year final stretch here uh as they wrap up the first quarter of this school year and look forward to um many memories in the in the um in this final year of their their uh career in Forest Hills um and um and I would make mention too that um one thing for the board's consideration on this um we tend to see these retirements come in over the course of the school year and sometimes they you know come at different times if the if the board recalls we did put in place um article 47 uh an early notification
038incentive and that is uh something that I know has kind of gotten some people's attention there's also the early retirement separation incentive um but that early notification is really helpful on a staffing side because it gives us plenty of time ahead of uh ahead of time to kind of consider next year and implications and all of that so just something to keep in mind as as uh as we're considering um this this evening's report um I would then just draw your attention down to um our volunteers list always like mentioning them we have over a 100 volunteers for your approval this evening and certainly want to thank them in advance and uh for for being part of making this place a great uh great place and I say that on the heels of so many
039wons and just the things that have that have happened over the last couple weeks I know madx is is coming up Friday um it's just it's just incredible what our what our uh parents and Community um do for our schools um so thank you there for those volunteers a number of job descriptions just updated some trailing our negotiations and just some uh verbiage on some of those um job descriptions there and um and then that's it on the actual ft or the um HR report if there are questions on that happy to answer them at this time before moving on to our FTE reconciliation all right so um got a presentation up here I promise it's I Limited lied it down to about 36 slides so um I did get a couple laughs thank you
040um no I will be brief but I I would like to kind of generally give a an overview just as a reminder to the board um in October we do this in the HR department every year we we kind of reconcile where we ended the contract year um closing June down and then as the dust starts to settle in October um looking at uh any changes in the classification groups so the chart up here represents um where we are in each of those different job classif classifications as compared to closing out last contract year in June of 23 and you'll see down at the bottom you can see the total FTE uh reconciliation there on the far right corner at 12.01 um in terms of a net reduction so there are obviously some nuances in
041this and I and I think sometimes times it's it's worthwhile just mentioning what we mean when we say FTE it's a an acronym that I know we love in education to have an acronym for everything um and sometimes that just complicates things but this is a full-time equivalent and it is it can be misunderstood because it doesn't necessarily equate to bodies in the district right so obviously uh 0.04 would be a very interesting um employee but it's about uh as a percent of the total um hour in that job classification so between teachers and admin assistants um you can see you know there's there's uh a you know like admin assistance for example 25 straight up we've we're not sharing any um in that category and it's 25 individuals and in some places particularly in
042transportation Food Service where there hourly more hourly um not as many f um full-time individuals they'll be split out there so if you go to the next slide I'll kind of um break this down uh bit by bit here and starting with our our largest job category and that's our our certified our teachers and um I also got the opsy 273 that's our pair of professionals you'll note an overall net reduction of 12.15 in our certified staff it's important to keep in mind that about 34% of that is a reduction of those funded positions that were three-year positions there were three uh intervention Specialists and one counselor at the secondary level um I say counselor at the secondary level the intervention Specialists were at the elementary um and those had been um uh understood to
043be a three-year time bound position um I do want to pause on that because uh it is worth at least noting that while the funding for those positions has dried up and we knew that going in and in good faith made those reductions our needs in those areas have not really reduced any and I think uh since Co you know you've been hearing enough from us in terms of uh board information updates just in terms of some of those areas that we are um we are certainly looking at and and leaning into to try to make sure that we're getting the support that we need but that having been said in addition we obviously made a few reductions ahead of our uh operating l in May those are listed there as well there is a
044typo the four central office FTE those are in the certified staff there were two that were secondary learning design Specialists there were also two District case manager positions um that were um combined uh and absorbed into a um that um coordinator position that Brad early has assumed so we'll get to the administrative side on the other in a minute um other than that the um the additions we made we did add a 0.5 is at air um due to student enrollment and and need there that was an additional 0 five that was reduced the year prior and not filled so it is a bit of a return to where we once were and that brings me to uh just a a sidebar in terms of how we calculate our FTE I shared at our at
045our um committee meeting on Monday that with our transition from FileMaker in HR to e finance being in full alignment with our Treasures Department um Atlanta and I are are excited to transition the the the manner in which we calculate our um FTE into what we consider to be position controls um which in essence the board approves X number of teaching position for example and at this meeting we would report out the percent that that has been filled and if we've gone over that the reason why that's a nice way to to go at it is because of the fact that when we get to transportation for example we're five routes short so it's going to appear as if maybe we've added in transportation when really we're not even Yet full if that makes sense
046so um I know it's a little complicated I'm not doing a great job of explaining it but just know that um you know this this would be a great example of a 0.5 is that wasn't filled one year but it's still a board approved position so we're under we might be at 95% fill rate where we really want to be at 100% okay does that make sense can I can question to follow okay so when we're looking at um well the screen I have up it says like we we are down 12 FTE are those positions all needing to be filled or are we have we lost and that's kind of what I'm what I mean that's well that's why I was trying to figure out if we we need on the certified side it's
047a little bit more uh it's it's a little bit easier to to understand because we're not dealing so much in variable hourly positions um so these are positions that we knew were being reduced the Esser positions as I mentioned the positions that were reduced by attrition measures leading up to the levy and so you know in terms of are they needed back um they've been pulled out of the five-year forecast right so those positions now Esser was kind of a bit different nuanced on its own but those were pulled out the the in anticipation of the levy those were pulled out of the 5year forecast so if that answers your question actual reductions but like Transportation says we're down 2.84 but we we're actually looking to hire bus drivers so that's where I why it's
048just odd when we talk about it in these terms and I think our new system is actually going to be really helpful and'll it'll make this process a whole lot more um palatable I think for for everybody to kind of see truly where we are okay um as far as par professionals we did add a 08 that's a Monday through Thursday so it's a fulltime but it's Monday through Thursday perah um at our preschool and so was that was based on need and continued uh you know student enrollment and and specialized need at the preschool level if you go to the next slide please um Jody or yeah thank you and uh in 177 of this uh category we've got a net reduction of 2.91 and this kind of speaks to what you were saying
049so I've I've kind of mentioned this already we do have five vacant routes it appears as if there's been an increase in transportation but we're still not full okay um similarly on other support it includes uh other support two two positions of which would be um intervention AIDS and and bus monitors um the intervention AIDS um those were the higher resign positions last year that we added kind of around this time maybe last year September is for enrollment so those were pulled out um and so again that's factored in but it wasn't really something that was considered to be in the 5-year forecast because it was a higher resign positions in terms of true additions the maintenance position there was an additional ad that um that we had notified the board about uh I think
050July or August and we filled that position and then similarly in Food Service we've added um and those were previously vacant positions as well next slide last one on the exempt side admin and exempt side I mentioned uh the special ed coordinator for the preschool absorbing a couple of those different um District case manager responsibilities on an administrative contract and then the exempt admin assistance net impact was an increase of 1.22 um really offset by the reduction in that Allerton Hill contract um I know it's cold are you cold yes I know very cold um anyways uh so that's just something it's not necessarily the par for par but it was something that we felt was uh highly needed um in supporting our Communications Department and I would say on that note Arden Miller has
051been phenomenal um she's been a great addition to the team and really excited to have her with us um and uh and then we had previously uh two in payroll that one of them went down and upon her retirement we brought it back to where we've been in the past that was a lot I'm sorry questions I asked mine okay with that I don't believe we've started our consent agenda so I think I'd like to recommend that the board approve um the HR report as presented um this does start the consent agenda oh are we on a consent yeah okay great thank you thank you thanks Rob thank you re next up bizops thank you president hosfeld I actually do not have any actionable items this evening I just wanted to give a couple quick
052updates to the board on a few items uh the first thing I did want to let know the ofcc grant at this point has been completely contracted out and all items that we're in that Grant will be beginning to get purchased and installed and stuff for the remainder of the year uh very happy to get all that under contract finally it's a federal money is quite the the paper trail to get taken care of and Miss Crawford is definitely making sure that we stay on top of that the um other item that I want to talk about too is a Remer the facilities committee meeting we will be having on the 24th at 6:00 we did have the opportunity uh Mr Corley Miss Crawford Mr hook and myself to sit down with fsse to go
053over the large facilities assessment that I've been informing you guys on it was a small document only 711 Pages uh it was an extremely detailed document and we will be having uh the head of FSC at the um facilities meeting to give a brief overview of some of their findings and then Mr Corley and I are working to refine that to make sure we come up with a a strong list of priorities that we will be discussing at that meeting um another thing that I wanted to bring to your attention you've probably seen a lot of the great Communications Mr bison's been putting out with school safy month um it's been a great thing we had our core team meeting as normal and everything and so really appreciate to this has been one of the
054best communication sets that I think we've had for safety month in quite some time and I I just want to publicly thank uh Josh for taking care of all that for us and doing a great job of it and I guess I should include Arden too because I'm sure she is making stuff happen from there also and I will Echo what Mr fellow said uh we actually work pretty closely with Communications on a regular basis and and Arden's been a a great help great asset um and that gives me a segue into we can finally hurted cats okay we now actually have a date for our community meeting that we have when we discuss safety with all the variety entities here in the township and we will host that on December 5th uh right now
055the exact time is not but it will be at amm time morning time somewhere between 9 and 11: uh it will not be a 2hour meeting we'll get uh invitations and stuff set out but I thought I'd have a save the date for for the board and anyone uh listening some of the have people that will uh be part of this this meeting and a share out of information Anderson Township Fire and Rescue Hamilton County Sheriff's the township uh the parks we have representatives from for Hills Council that will be coming the foundation will get invites TSA and Homeland Security EMA County will be invited and it's a a wide variety of topics and again this is something we haven't done since Co really excited about it and it's just great information share you know
056it's neat to hear what the township is doing in the Realms of safety all the way you know to the county and everything so it's a great opportunity for all the different entities to share out information and and a time for all of us to sit down for a short period of time and discuss some topics so at this point as I said I do not have any actionable items does anyone have any questions on the information I shared at this time what does the FSC stand for uh Four Seasons environmental okay and then um season environment and then base so will the pi list that we had out for the levy that two-pager will it change based on these assessment to to some degrees yes I mean U I don't want to steal a
057thunder because there are some real exciting news from the facilities assessment that we're that we're going to get we we'll share out but uh yes I mean the general in general we're still dealing with roofs and asphalt you know brick mortar stuff you know so some of the priorities will change order okay uh and everything but that's through their detailed analysis by engineers and Architects and designers say this it will tweak it's not going to be a I'm not going to say it's going to be a dramatic okay shift but it definitely gave us Insight that we did not have before to make more informed decisions most definitely good thank you John okay thank you thank you John next up teaching and learning okay I have the fun ones um I'm just asking um presenting
058for approval for a couple of overnight field trips uh the first is a Turpin uh choir field trip that they're going to ask to take in February going to New York City it's very similar to about a year ago we approved one for Anderson choir to go so now Turpin is looking to go so a lot of great opportunities over the course of a few days for them and the other one is for the turban dance team um they get invited it seems every year to perform at Nationals down in Orlando so they're asking to go in March um so with that I'm asking for your approval as part of the consent agenda any questions okay thank you nope thank you next up teaching and learning with kimim teaching and learning with Kim um Betsy
059could not be here tonight she had a prior engagement so I'm just actually presenting on her behalf um it's a contract for coai K I wasn't sure exactly if it was Kai or otherwise um it's an agreement with Forest Hills and the Cincinnati Occupational Therapy Institute um this is really to support the need for occupational therapy at Mercer Elementary um the contract and the agreement actually began on September 24th of 2023 and it will continue through June 2024 it is worth noting that this was on our Hamilton County contract we now have a reduction from Hamilton County and so um this will replace just that portion to support occupational therapy so um with that said it's recommended that the board approve if you don't have any questions was the price the same on the close
060so it's about it's I think maybe $800 more okay but um otherwise it was the same okay any other questions okay then I move that we approve the reduction sorry resolution with kotai there we go thank you next up we have the treasures update um starting the first item on the treasures agenda tonight is um agenda item 11.1 and this is a workers compensation um settlement that we're bringing to you tonight it's in the amount of $4,000 the settlement has been reviewed by our attorney and our third party administrator of our self-insured workers comp program this settlement will resolve this claim and it precludes further legal action arising from the employees employment with the district so I don't know if we have any questions on that so moving on to the regular monthly report uh
061the regular mon monthly report of course always starts with donations and as you can see on agenda item 11.2 a uh during the last month monetary and in-kind donations um totaled just over 249,000 and as always we appreciate all the donations that supplement our students experience so thank you to all those donors moving on to um Item B this is a state of board accounts which of course um presents all uh fund activity for our current fiscal year and tonight's report covers the first quarter of our fiscal school year um 2324 now I've added some a couple columns to this report that I thought um might give you a little bit more information and a little bit more uh transparency about where we are at the end of every month in all these funds so
062the columns added are actually the last two on the right um the first um the first added column is the encumbrances and that column presents the amount of encumbrances outstanding at the end of the month um encumbrances of course are the amount of funds that are committed to expenditures but they've not yet been paid so there's still that amount still in our fund cash balance so and of course then the last column is the unencumbered fund balance at the end of the month which of course takes the cash balance minus the incumbrances and shows the funds that are left to be committed um within that fund moving on to item C this presents the general fund uh revenues so this is our five-year forecast fund presents uh receipts for the month of September and our
063fiscal our first quarter to date so September was a high fairly High cash flow month is expected during the month uh we received the final installment of our property our fall property tax collections from the county so remember we get two of these a year one in the fall and um one in the spring so that is the uh final of our fall collection at this point revenues are tracking as would be expected the next two reports items d& present General um fund expenditures and at the end of our first quarter in our new school year we have spent 22.3% of our Appropriations with another 11.1% committed for future expenditures moving on to item F this presents the activity and our main permanent Improvement special cost center for the month of September and for our
064fiscal year to date so this is where um we deposit our tax revenues that come in for our PI fund and of course we have not yet got the first um installment and taxes from our new Levy just passed that first installment will come with the spring settlement and as Mr hook said earlier we hope that spring settlement's on time we're we're a little bit worried and we're watching alsville 187 very closely so we we hope it's on time um moving on the next report item G is our September 30th bank reconciliation and Investments um agenda item 11.2 J shows the increases to uh Appropriations uh for the month all these increases are due to the Grants awarded by the forest tills foundation for education so I know Stacy presented those last month and we
065actually have the the revenue now and we are putting it in the funds for the the awardees to be able to spend um moving on a agenda item I presents the rates for our employee um benefits plan year which our plan year runs with the calendar year so our plan year starts on January 1st 2024 voluntary um benefits rates so those uh rates or those plans paid for by the completely by the employee remain the same um so the vision life accidental death and disability rates all had no increase from last year health insurance did increase our total premium increase by two or 3.2% but over the last nine years our percentage increases in health insurance have actually ranged from a decrease of 3.8% one year and our highest was an increase of 10.7% so
066with the average increase over the last 9 years being 4.2% so with our increase at 3.2 I think our Consortium serves as well and of course remember our health insurance is a self insurance but we do bid out those administrative costs and things that are included in that so we're um pleased that um we're able to contain those costs our Dental um increase was small it actually increased by 9/10 of 1% and as always as part of the um swish Consortium and also with our insurance committee uh which all three of our associations sit in sit on sorry about that sit on um we do take time to work with heran who is the broker that runs swish to make sure that we're pushing proper education programs out to help our employees manage um their
067health and um to educate them on um primary care and the things that they can do to um effectively and efficiently um utilize their health insurance so we we do try to keep that education piece going to keep our our rates down um that said I believe that uh concludes the treasur report and I respectfully ask that you approve the treasures report um as part of the consent agenda that starts with 7.1 and ends with 11.2 when when will you receive you think we will receive the Tiff the 15 million in Tiff is that a spring um we actually um part of the Tiff agreement with the township says that they have it to us within 30 days after the final settlement each settlement so I actually have in um October we received half of
068it so we got about 6.8 million earlier uh this month so in October we have received the half um from the township okay so it too comes in two steps like that okay when's the other half come in um 30 days after the final spring settlement so they have 30 days to to do their calculation and get us the the our share okay I'm sorry any other questions no questions next up we have the committee reports um first we have the teaching and learning committee um we need to vote on the agenda I'm sorry that's okay I'm moving on fast here today I will make a motion to approve a um the consent agendum agenda item 7.1 to 11.2 as presented um I have a quick question okay since there was no action item in
0698.1 do we need do we start it at 9.1 and then include 7.1 not to make things more complicated but um or does it not matter we're okay if because we are saying to approve the consent action items those thank you for the clarification informational item okay so I think but good question do we have a second on the Mrs Jonas yes Mr bib yes Dr resmon yes Mrs Stewart yes Mrs hosfeld yes now up we have the committee reports we have teaching and learning all right so we met October 4th um and we went over some of our course of study updates um we've put together or they're putting together a wish list uh for art and um I only put down art was there other groups that music PE they have wish lists
070as well okay I only put down the pottery for for art um I know we don't need any textbooks and so we'll be working on Health in the spring um and I know we pushed back um social studies due to some legislation um but we do need to be diligent about getting on that as soon as everything is put together um and we also talked about the uh dyslexia law and looking for characteristics um let's see let's see what else did I have um I know we got grants for the spelling be and we have a parent guides for all the elementary school grades and uh working on putting together a parent survey did you have anything else um so we had talked about too with sources of strength how we So based on the
071save act and Aaron's law we were given um I guess certain vendors and we did hope Squad wasn't on there so the alternative was sources of strength and this is a preventative program rather than a responsive program like hope Squad um the one in five world run right we talked about that Parent Academy uh School connection survey we talked about Rachel's Challenge too looking into that that cuss a little bit I missed that page it was sticking together so it was a lot it was it was a good meeting it wase um Katie when you say wish list can you elaborate on what that means um get back to that page it was what what the teacher teachers would want and those um where did I put it it is um like PE might want
072more basketballs or Nets or something like that I don't I wrote down a pottery Kil for art that was the the biggest one I remember here yeah it was that one stuck out a little bit and so it was just resources that they would want for music RP drama that kind of stuff is that things that the district would provide or that's something that that can be used more broadly to Outsource through donations and PTO and that kind of stuff or Kim wants to answer yeah we I mean typically every five years we do a review because we we our state standards now with our electives like the state is still in the process of finalizing but in conversations we've had with Representatives we're not seeing that there's exped changes so stud we're waiting to
073see okay so this is our opportunity to look at resources that are going to support their instruction in the next five years we have like last year with science I know our foundation helped us with resources so um that helped to offset some costs so we are if anybody's willing to donate I have a pottery CL just kidding I don't I I would love one though stud set aside budget okay so we anticipate that unlike textbooks we'll still use that to support our Le okay thanks I was just curious it sounded I don't know like an area of help so thanks thank you next up we have the policy committee so on the um the policy committee met on October 5th and we met with a small group of people with uh Neola who is
074our policy update committee that we've been working with for a long time and they brought forward some updates to um some of the policies that we had that have been come down through the state um for instance uh I'll just read off there's 16 policy revisions in there if anybody wants to see them they're on board dos and you're more than welcome to come out um go check them out and and read up um there's conflict of interest third grade reading employment of personnel for curricular and extracurricular employment of personnel for curricular intradistrict open enrollment immunization care of students with active seizure disorders Board of revision complaints and counter complaints facility Securities volunteers SCH school calendars Student Records Transportation Transportation by school Vans public attendance at school events and equivalent education outside the schools um
075so 16 policy revisions we're bringing them forward for a first reading which means you have until the next board meeting to check them out and if you have any questions you can certainly reach out to us any questions no questions okay we'll move on to um the human resource committee report uh we met on Monday the 16th Rob gave a pretty good description of what you know we had spoke about in the um HR committee meeting I think the biggest takeaway is going to be the position control system that the treasurer's office and the HR office will be able to talk to each other and it'll be filled positions verse you know new positions so I I'd like to see you know I'm eager to see that when it comes up I think it'll be
076be less confusion with the FTE and everything too so that's about it for me thank you next up we have um board discussion any board member would like to take the floor I'm moving on then to 14.0 uh adjournment uh we have the next schedule board meeting on November 15th same Time same place do I have a motion to adjourn I'll make a motion to adjourn second Mrs Jonas yes Dr asmon yes Mr bib yes Mrs Stewart yes Mrs hosel yes thank you all for attending this evening