001would like to open today's meeting for the forest hills school district on wednesday may 18 2022. before we start i'd like to make a comment i would like to to remind our audience that this meeting is a meeting of the board of education to conduct business it's not a public meeting while i do appreciate everyone here and your interest in the proceedings today there should be no audience participation during the meeting and i ask that everyone respect the formality of the meeting and refrain from clapping cheering or other distracted noises our new board members have spent an enormous amount of time in trainings and countless meetings understanding our policies and procedures we take these responsibilities very seriously it is acceptable and desirable to have difference of opinions and i value the different perspectives of all
002board members i believe it will be a benefit to our district to have discussions about our agenda items so that we as a board will be able to make decisions that will benefit all the students in our districts as it should be and there are many factors that go into making decisions as difficult as some are i hope that the district parents and community will understand we are also very aware that social media has played an increasing role in communications with our stakeholders while content can represent personal viewpoints it is expected that any person posting about the forest hills school district is factually correct not manufactured rumors that create fear incite violence or harass or intentionally hurt people be very careful of what you read follow and believe as there is a great chance it
003may not be the whole truth the forest hill school district does not condone violence harassment or misconduct against any person at any time the board will be focused on duties as elected as elected officials and wish to unite our community with dignity and respect for everyone call to order ms cropper mr bib here mrs jonas here dr rasmussen here mrs hossfeld here mrs stewart was absent this evening pledge of allegiance please everybody rise one moment while we fix the tech technology issue here it'll be up on the screen indivisible with liberty and justice for all excuse me okay we have a safety briefing we have the front door that everybody most of everybody came in tonight we have a an exit door that's between those two panels back there and then there's another one behind
004us item 3.1 motion to adopt the agenda i'll make a motion to adopt the agenda second mrs jonas yes mr bibb yes dr rasmussen yes mrs hausfeld yes we have quite a few minutes to approve tonight we have approval of minutes of the special meeting on april 6th approval of the of the minutes of the regular meeting on april 20th approval of the minutes of the special meeting on april 27th and approval of the minutes of teaching and learning committee on april 28th may i have a motion to approve items 4.1 through 0.4.4 as presented i'll make a motion to approve items 4.1 through 4.4 is presented second mrs jonas yes mr bibb yes dr rasmussen yes mrs hospital yes 5.1 correspondence board of education treasure and superintendent i have one correspondence that's lengthy but
005it is from the alliance for high quality education in the state of ohio and it is a reminder that the alliance would like for the forest hills school district to once again participate as an affiliate district with that organization i think later today well i know that later this after this evening in mrs cropper's five-year forecast there will be some discussion about the alliance in relation to the fair school funding plan and so the alliance is a big contributor to supporting that movement and it has brought additional resources to our to our district so once again our affiliation with the alliance for high quality education in my opinion is a good affiliation this letter again is requesting that we join again with the other 74 member schools at this particular point in time and this
006will be on the board's june agenda there is no motion or action on this this evening it's just a letter of invitation to that organization thank you um i received some correspondence as well actually the entire board received quite a bit of correspondence over the last few weeks but i want to share some good news [Music] i was informed that one of our students at turpin high school has been asked to go to washington d.c tomorrow and they will be presenting testimony in front of a congressional subcommittee on civil rights and civil liberties at a hearing entitled free speech under attack curriculum sabotage and classroom censorship [Music] and wow um [Applause] so for time's sake you know i do just want to acknowledge everyone in the room and the hundreds now hundreds that have sent
007emails voicing their opinions and positions but most importantly i want to take a moment to acknowledge our incredible students i know that this has been a frustrating few weeks but i have watched you all organize and speak with so much poise maturity and kindness and you are the examples that we should follow all of y'all this is a time when many of you should be planning for graduation and enjoying the last few weeks together before you go off into the world but instead you've mobilized and inspired so many in this community and across the country you deserve to be seen acknowledged and heard so i want to take a moment to thank you thank you from the bottom of my cold little heart for inspiring me and so many so thank you [Applause] 5.2 the
008procedures for public commentary the board is committed to conducting its meetings in a productive and efficient manner to assure that meeting is completed in a reasonable amount of time well all also recognizing the importance of fair and adequate opportunity for public input in order to conduct an orderly and fair representation the board will provide a period for public participation per policy po0169 at every regular board meeting public participation will be a total of 30 minutes each speaker will have one minute this evening to speak because we have so many we have quite a few guests speaking this evening the board does not discriminate based on individual content of the speech or viewpoint of the speaker if several people wish to speak on the same topic the time limit may be adjusted thank you we'll move
009to 6.0 accommodations and recognitions kyle fender good evening everybody appreciate everybody being here and um for those of you that watched the board meeting or were here um a couple of months ago you heard me commend uh cerrone to farah for many other accolades and i made a teaser about a major scholarship that she was up for the jack cook found foundation scholarship jack kent cook foundation scholarship that she was up for which is a scholarship awarded for up to fifty five thousand dollars annually and i'm here not only to share with you that cerrone has earned that accomplishment but we also found out of another significant accomplishment for cerrone in the scholarship department and that is the ron brown scholar program of which she will be a recipient which is a forty thousand dollar
010scholarship now i'm i'm a father myself not quite of a kid ready to go to college but we've started looking at the cost of college so i am sure that 55 000 annually and 40 thousand dollars will help that for cerrone uh anecdotally i would just like to share that cerrone is one of the most impressive young adults that i have had the privilege of working with in my career in education and i could not think of a better person to be commending as a reminder for those of you that that were here and for those of you that weren't the jack kent cook foundation announced 100 graduating seniors to receive this award across the country of which cerrone has won i mentioned the 55 000 up to 55 000 annual cost to cover and
011when you consider that cerrone is going to yale in the ivy league um that money will be put to great use this scholarship program seeks to help high achieving students with financial need to earn a college degree responding to the rising tuition costs and economic challenges faced by families across the country the foundation increased the maximum amount of the scholarship to be awarded to keep pace with college cost in addition to substantial financial support scholars will also receive ongoing academic coaching advising graduate school and career count advising access to a network of over 2 800 active cook scholars and alumni scholars will also receive opportunities for internships study abroad opportunities and access to graduate school funding that was the first of the major scholarships cerrone is being committed for this evening the second is the
012ron brown scholar program this year's winners were selected from amongst 4 000 applicants and 50 were selected this uh this scholarship program was founded in 1996 and is now celebrating over 25 years it was named in memory of the first african american secretary of commerce and the program aims to advance higher education and improve the lives of service-minded and intellectually gifted african-american students and to accelerate the progress of impactful leadership and opportunities impactful leader those are great words to describe cerrone so i could spend the rest of the night talking about my admiration for this young lady but instead of that i will respect your all's time and suggest that the superintendent go ahead mr fender if i may she is a member of the superintendent's forum and has attended meetings uh the leadership is
013definitely equality she is a dynamic young lady and one that i have had the pleasure of getting to know more personally so i want to thank you for your help on that committee and for the leadership that you provided there and i have a son named joseph and if there is any money left he's off to college next year so anyway no i i wish you the best and and what a fine example you are for all of us how hard work dedication and commitment pays off you're a great leader and i look so i'm so excited about your future so congratulations to you before i make the the recommendation for emotion i would like to share that throne is a is a product of forest hills having come through air elementary in the nagel
014middle school and then anderson high school so as much as i personally would love to take credit uh for helping cerrone get here this has been a real team effort and throne is an amazing amazing person so with that i would ask the superintendent to recommend to the board to approve a special commendation of saron's achievement and a certificate be presented to her i'll make a motion to condem or miss sorry sorry commend i'm sorry her achievements congratulations and good luck that's really you did hard work that's awesome i'll second it mrs jonas yes mr bibb yes dr rasmussen yes mrs hospital yes congratulations 7.1 the superintendent update thank you mrs housefeld i have two comm items to speak about tonight we've had a pretty successful year when you talk about what has happened in
015the school district regarding wellness and one of the things that our current board was adamant about upon entering their roles was to update the district's website providing better opportunities for individuals to be able to locate to learn and to be able to access materials regarding this subject matter so the first thing i want to show is we have an update of our website for those of you who have interest and i'm certain that we all do what you'll find is that we have two links now second slide please two links on the website that are prominently displayed on the front of the website on the first page and so if you go to the resource center you will be able to see wellness right up there at the top i'll explain a little bit about
016that and if you go to departments in the school district you will also find a wellness icon down there at the bottom so it's very easy to find when you get to the website i want to thank josh bazan and all of the individual josh's our communication coordinator and all the individuals that have helped him to be able to get to this point it takes a while to update a website because there are so many things you need to go through for those of you who work in that world i think you know what i'm talking about and making sure that there's access and ease to that access is really important especially on a topic that has this level of importance so there are if you go to the next slide please there are four
017categories the district has a multi-disciplinary team dedicated to provide research based best practice ways to meet the social emotional and behavioral needs of our students and so listed there in the center is the team of individuals throughout our district that is part of the wellness team that has had also their thumbprint if you will on the design of our website and ensuring that the materials that are there are the ones that are aligned with our district strategic vision and that we are comprehensive ensuring that all of the information is available for folks so you see that up there mental health is one of the primary of four areas that we are making sure that is listed prominently on our website and mental health where is a dedicated page to mental health resources and programs organized
018by the forest hills school district if you look to the left it's kind of tough to see up there but the resources are available for forest hills school district there is a list of more than 90 resources if you press on that link there will be 90 resources available for individuals of the affiliates and the organizations that work with us to assist our students assist our parents and our families and are are important part of our community network to help our school system more specifically to help students in our school system you see other organizations that are with us like mind piece the national suicide prevention lifeline is on there you see on the bottom right side we had a community presentation and we will continue to put presentations from our community and organizations that
019are working with us up prominently displayed there and we'll try to keep those as up to well we will keep those up to date as new sessions are coming up we will update our website so that the mental health portion and all the resources associated with that are available for our students and for our parents the second uh high priority is school counselors and you can see up there that this page details the school counseling supports that we have in place our philosophy and beliefs along with contact information for each school counselor our counselors are we are following the american school counselor association standards and every counselor in our school system that is providing counseling services for our students is licensed by the ohio department of education so all of our counselors are licensed and
020we're following the standards provided by the state of ohio department of education and there are supports that counselors give i don't think that everybody knows the many things that counselors are doing and there are preventative programs that counselors are working with students on there are classroom guidance opportunities for counselors to work with teachers to provide lesson planning and to provide other information to bolster what's taking place in the classroom related to guidance counselors run small groups where they're working with students who have similar concepts or similar things that they would like to talk about and in those sessions we offer kids opportunity to have peer support and counselors help us with that we have community outreach programs and there are many community outreach programs in our schools we are blessed to have as many people
021working with our schools as we do and the many things that they provide for our students and our counselors and we coordinate with those organizations we have individual support which i'm certain you are all familiar with where we have individual moments with children and we work with them to better understand their needs and then to work with them their parents and our organizations and all the folks who can assist for individual needs of students and so that's part of the work parent consultation there are often times when parents have questions concerns they need assistance with research with with what's the best agency maybe to contact or the best person to contact or what are some pointers that you can give me to maybe help my son or my daughter in this time period where they're
022experiencing some difficulty whether it be social emotional academic whatever that might be and so we do have parent consultation and then we do as i spoke about a few minutes ago we have teacher collaboration and if you are a parent of an iep student you know that counselors psychologists therapists they're all involved in those conversations with parents about and children and their children about the best ways that we can meet the needs of those children and working together as teams is the best way to do that and so we encourage that type of collaboration and it it is essential that our parents are part of that and we want them to be a part of that on the very first day that we identify or a student identifies a topic or a need that they
023have the next one is our school-based supports and this page as you can see it provides context information and links to various departments programs and organizations that work with students in a school setting so we want students to feel safe we want them to feel secure respected and supported in their learning environment so again we have school school psychologists they also are licensed and we follow the standards set by the ohio department of education we have our pbis model which is our positive behavior interventions and support model we are one of only 17 schools in the state of ohio to have pbis awards in every single building that we have i think what's also important is there are not as many schools in the state of ohio as you might think that have nine independent
024buildings and so we have nine buildings that have been recognized for our positive behavior work that we're doing and this is empowering students to display appropriate behavior so they can be contributing successfully and be successful members of their communities along the same line in our school-based supports we have child focus that works with us and that's a mental health counseling agency that works with us to help our students and help build capacity among our staff to be able to assist our students we have hope squads that we've all heard about where there's peer-to-peer orientations and peer-to-peer training or training for peers to be able to assist we've talked about qpr in here before responding uh quickly to the needs of students and so those are the things that we have in our school-based supports the
025fourth area is the homeless and foster care section of our website and here this page as you can see it provides contact information and links to resources regarding student experiencing homelessness and students in foster care and in our school district like all other school districts these are um these are alive and well in our school many students identified in these areas and many many students who need supports in these areas again we are following the ohio department of job and family services guidelines in these areas and we work as much as we possibly can to ensure that all of our kids regardless of background homelessness whatever type of care they may have at home that we are engaging with them and we are providing the best opportunities possible so i'm very happy to introduce our
026new website and the many pieces and parts to it and the many opportunities for students for parents for individuals in our community and i would encourage people to go through here and take a look and i want to con want to thank the board of education and congratulate you on your work to ensure that this take was taken care of in this school year as we move into the upcoming year so kudos to our board and all the individuals who have worked to make this website possible and so this last one is the forest hills 5k that happened this past weekend given the fact that may is mental health awareness month i've added this slide this evening i want you to notice please that the board members and administrators of the district we are proudly
027wearing a mental health awareness sticker that we have on our lapels additionally we like to draw attention to the forest hills foundation for education and the nearly 2 700 people that participated in last saturday's forest hills 5k and that doesn't include the hundreds of volunteers community and business partners as well as other contributors that made the event such a success and later tonight stacey gillard who is with us the executive director of the foundation will talk to you about the fundraising component of that and i was told not to say anything because we want to unveil that later it's a special moment i think you're all going to love that earlier today i spoke with stacy to once again thank her for her leadership and for all members of the foundation executive board and its
028many army of volunteers though 5k is a significant event it is one of many that creates opportunities like after school tutoring mentorship programming and wellness programming things like scholarship and teacher grants robotics destination imagination and much much more that the foundation provides to assist us with our schools if you've not done so i encourage everyone to find out more about the foundation's work and to remember that every donation or in-kind service big or small adds value to the student experience and to build capacity among our staff to provide the best possible programming available to students i proudly wear my month of may wellness sticker tonight and also appreciate all that the foundation contributes to the forest hills school district i have one other comment a lot of people in the room and as a superintendent
029i'll keep these comments brief simply stated i want to thank the students of turpin and anderson high school for the way you peacefully conducted yourselves during today's student-led demonstration your actions served as a positive example to me of how our great system of democracy offers opportunity to share one's perspective express ideas and opinions and how to exercise one's constitutionally guaranteed right to assemble peaceably i am inspired by your thoughtful respectful approach and i thank you students for the way that you handled today thank you [Applause] thank you scott moving on to public comment again as a reminder speakers are encouraged to state your name when you begin please direct all comments to the board chair and to not any specific board member and not addressing specific employees please i asked you to be respectful during
030public comments so no clapping cheering booing or any other audience participation please give respect to all speakers addressing the board we have i'm going to announce four up at a time and um if when i mention your name if you could step up and and get in the line right over here by the podium i'd appreciate it denise mayer john wetting and i apologize if i'm pronouncing your name wrong fiona fawcett [Music] casey luperetto those are the first four you may begin good evening school board members mr preble staff and parents my name is denise maron i'm the founder and director of step up anderson it's a coalition for a safe healthy and drug-free community last week three amazing and intelligent young women at ohio state took what they thought was adderall as a study
031booster two are dead and one was hospitalized these were poisonings these aren't overdoses these kids did not think for one minute that they were going to become addicted they just wanted to study so we as a community need to wake up to these dangers as well as to those of vaping nicotine using dab pens with high dose marijuana as well as counterfeit pills there is no time left to say it would never happen to my child or my child is too busy with sports band theater etc to get involved with this stuff this is mental health awareness month and there's an 83 crossover between drug use and mental health what came first the chicken or the egg did an undiagnosed mental illness cause a child to self-medicate or did the child start experimenting and become
032addicted psychotic or in some cases schizophrenic high potency marijuana begun in high school has been shown to contribute to the suicide prevention sorry i passed out some things thank you denise thank you go ahead yeah one second all right today myself and hundreds of my fellow students walked out of our classes in the hopes that you would listen now i'm talking to you hoping again that you will listen listen to us when we tell you that we want diversity day in our schools we want a school board that cares about its students the decision to cancel diversity day has robbed many of us of a great learning opportunity i attended the event last year and i can say that it was deeply engaging and educational it exposed me to forms of diversity that are not
033common in our community it was an experience i believe my fellow classmates deserve to have and clearly want to have as demonstrated by their actions today okay you're good those who were able to attend today's after school event were lucky enough to get this experience regardless of your decision while these people have filled me with pride and joy by demonstrating their resolve to learn this content it shouldn't have it shouldn't have to be this way by being forced to organize outside of school many students were deprived of the opportunity to attend whether this was because of a lack of transportation or a lack of time these students should have an in-school diversity day and i sincerely hope that you will change your minds and allow them to have one next year your job is to
034help the students and it's time you start doing it thank you thank you [Applause] we could pause for a moment please hello i'd like to call up the next four um speakers jen si cio lino luis lavar wendy strickler and lindy demaria line up this is a speech by my classmate claire mangle hello everyone my name is claire mangle and i am a senior at turpin high school i thought my last month of high school would be full of studying for ap exams enjoying the last senior year events and hanging out with my friends instead because four-fifths of the school board voted to cancel diversity day my friends and i have spent hours coordinating a peaceful protest an extracurricular diversity day and talking to local media in fact i cannot be at this meeting tonight
035because i am currently driving to washington dc to testify to the house subcommittee on civil rights and civil liberties i'm going to tell the story of the students here as part of a hearing focused on how policies and actions like that of this board are disrupting education across the community dr rasmussen has my written testimony if any of you are interested in reading it while i'm incredibly disappointed in this turn of events and angry that this is how i'm spending my last month high school i'm amazed by the incredible support i've seen for diversity people in our national government support diversity day the committee supports diversity day thank you the time's up thank you [Applause] casey hi my name is casey luperiello i'm a senior at turpin and i've been a diversity day leader for
036two years now it's nice to meet you all but i do wish it was under different circumstances to start off i'd like to say that i know your job isn't easy you have to make decisions and with that comes with your reality that you can't please everyone with that being said i'd like to remind you who you're doing your job for and hopefully your answer would be that you're doing this for us the students after all we're the ones who are at school at the schools you run where they're seven hours a day five days a week for a great portion of the year and for that i ask you to listen not just here but really truly listen listen to what we have to say listen to what we want listen to what we
037need you have a responsibility to do what is best for your students and that comes with listening to us whether you personally agree with what we need or not we're tired of crying for help we're tired of crying asking for those who are supposed to care about us to just listen thank you thank you [Applause] hi i'm jen ciolino i'm here this evening as the parent of three children in forest hills schools a property owner and taxpayer in the school district and as an executive level technology leader at a global fortune 50 company i invested in this community because of the quality of the schools social emotional historical and cultural learnings are wise investments in our children's and our country's future allowing our students to self-direct elements of this learning teaches them leadership skills and
038critical thinking american competitiveness requires our board to uphold their responsibilities to our community by ensuring our students education prepares them to compete in a global economy failure to do so erodes their future prospects erodes the quality of the education this district offers and will erode the economic strength of this community and this country those who would spin the narrative to assert that this type of learning is divisive are only exposing their own frailties cultural learning strengthens our unity i encourage our board and our fear-based community members to embrace their own learning and thank you guys appreciate it [Applause] louise levar let's take a moment to call up the next four please we have christa well wessels sean martin karen mary harford and kerry buckovich okay okay my name is louise lowari four current school board
039members uh campaigned according to their website primarily on anti-critical race theory this past fall backed by a political party that has made it their practice to stir up fear of diversity and rejection of of solid educational practices the fear being ignited has interesting roots during the jim crow era thousands of black men were lynched for the alleged crime of dishonoring white women's innocence but today with interracial marriage legal and more common in this country that charge would not incite the same fear and protest so i believe the fear-mongering has shifted its tune to the need to protect white children's innocence to be more specific white straight cisgender children the excuse for canceling diversity day was that it was political and an indoctrination but it was the school board who called it that not the students
040i believe these four school board members care much more about care less about our students than they do about using their position to promote a political tool thank you louise wendy good evening i'm wendy strickler i'm here to speak about some of the false perceptions being spread in the community around canceling diversity day and to be clear requiring a movement to after school with no teacher support in may is for all intents and purposes a cancellation first there is an argument that this is an expansion to more students please do not buy into the audacity of that argument students are busy we all have commitments in may the decision to move this at the last minute in may eliminated this opportunity for students who work students who watch siblings students who don't have mobility to
041and from school students in clubs students in sports the idea that canceling a school event designed for school in may allowed for expansion is downright false number two this was costing taxpayer money let's be clear this place this was in place for six years with an agenda event and plans the speakers were free of charge this costs significantly less than a trip to the zoo a trip to the anderson town center or a leadership speaker coming in that argument is blatantly false and a red herring finally the argument that this is not educational a quick look at the ohio education standards finds reference to heritage wendy we appreciate your time all of which needs addressed andy good evening i'm linda maria so the argument that this is not educational or school appropriate is belied by
042a simple review of the ohio department of education content standards required by law standards starting in kindergarten include um and through eighth grade include is reflected through diverse cultures and is shown through arts customs traditions family color and language a recent research from the donald and charlie sol foundation with mit sloan management review states that the number one reason for the great resignation is toxic culture number one in toxic culture is a lack of inclusion and understanding of others creating a toxic work environment in which people now refuse to work today the students visioned created and put a powerful learning experience for themselves because the adults in this community entrusted with their education let them down in fact four students walked all the way from anderson high school to participate in the event today i
043as an educator myself learned so much from what these amazing kids put together when i helped with the event this afternoon thank you wendy krista krista wessels-guzman our vision is to ensure all students success and in this there is no us or them it's not a political conversation but due to recent board decisions this vision seems to be in direct contrast to the board's goals and position self-awareness and empathy are two essential skills for success which help navigate the us versus them are learned and encouraged through diversity inclusion training and they also happen to be the strongest indicators for future success and are tied to decreased bullying i work in corporate america have worked and traveled the globe and the businesses of today are prioritizing diversity inclusion equity and belonging in our globalized world you're
044not preparing our students if we miss the opportunity to give our students a safe place to challenge and grow to explore and to make mistakes here in their own home we miss the opportunity to prepare them for the adult world by removing diversity day and dni in the curriculum we don't stop the rest of the world from their continued focus on it we just under prepare our students as a bi-ethnic community member the daughter and wife of an immigrant a member of a bilingual household and change your time of a child that's a minority in this school i care thank you very much [Applause] sean martin i've come to this meeting tonight to request one thing do your jobs your job is not to take and take from students because they don't have the same
045ideas about diversity that you do your job is not to take away the choice of parent the choice parents made to opt into this diversity day event do your jobs your job is to build these students up not tear them down not to force them into moments of adversity do your jobs instead of always taking do your jobs and propose an operating levy students risk losing electives and katie even said all-day kindergarten is on the chopping block my daughter has learned to read a full year and a half before i did and it is all because of miss beller's all-day kindergarten do your jobs maybe look into how terrible the district is at collecting kindergarten fees i've heard fhsd is terrible at it maybe that can help pay for it do your jobs for everyone
046not just who you agree with thank you let's take a moment i'm going to add a couple more names on here darcy bean jonelle werman [Music] sarah fahrenkamp [Music] and sarah sudkamp okay i'm karen mayerhoffer i'm here to thank several groups first the four for forest hills who have woken up a community that was asleep at the wheel we all know a majority of our voters failed to show up last november and now they all understand what a huge mistake that was every event i've attended the last month has been dominated by conversations about our dysfunctional board a board that has lost focus or maybe never had it instead the consensus is that the board has become a platform for a political agenda your current priority should be funding our district at this point in
047time we have seen zero signs of addressing the subject instead you have decided to focus on a problem that never existed the floor for forest hills ran on a platform of giving a voice to all are you prepared to fulfill your pledge because up to this point we haven't witnessed it bring us a levy let us vote yay or nay let the voters express their voices i also want to thank all of you who showed up thank you karen appreciate it [Applause] my name is carrie buckovich and i have two children that have attended turpin high school one graduated in 2020 and lost his graduation to covet the other is a current senior at turpin high school i am here to plead to the school board to put the class of 2022 at the forefront
048of all your decisions for graduation it's obvious that members of the school board have had the opportunity to voice their opinions and make decisions that have caused angst for many members of the district as a result protesting in individuals using their right to protest have become quite quite prevalent on both sides of the aisle graduation is not about politics there will be many opportunities for both the school board those supporting and those opponent posing to argue protest and maybe even at some crazy times sit down and have an open dialogue about these issues but graduation should not be about this should be about the students and families that have earned their time on stage since it will be impossible to stop the protesting or potential deflection of what matters at graduation from the masses i
049am imploring linda hosfeld and the school board members to consider not being present at graduation i am aware it is a tradition to speak and it is not in the bylaws as such it is a very simple mature and adult decision that will allow graduation to be back on the students thank you [Applause] hello my name is darcy b i'm a parent here in turpan hills i have a mechanical engineering degree in a harvard mba i work with hundreds of organizations on strategy here in the area all of them have a dei strategy it's not optional i look at the board your main responsibility i tell all my leaders look up look around it is not optional you're not preparing our students for a global economy it is not an option i'm looking out at
050the parents and the students you guys need some committees some clubs all these other high schools parents equity and inclusion it's a real thing parents acro across the culture hands out across the culture it's not about one day it's about multiple events throughout the entire year don't let them take one day you guys have multiple events i'm here to help you you're going to lose teachers you're going to lose good students and you're going to lose your property values so look up thank you darcy [Applause] face the microphone and step back even better he's the fixer actually a little bit of distance because when you say a p or whatever that stops it's going to adjust okay hi guys um i'm jonelle weyerman i am a turpin parent i want to welcome the school board
051the new school board members and now i want to remind you of some of the policies that you ran on number one for the parent right to opt-in this is clearly the situation we find ourselves in for diversity day you cancel the event with conflicting reasons delay tactics and lots of no comments you do not respect the concept of opting in because you dislike the event for personal or political reasons number two letting the teacher teach interpret 77 percent of the staff hold a master's degree and they are the reasons why turpin is one of the top schools in ohio ask them questions they have the knowledge and experience to answer anything you throw at them work together instead of forcing your will they are professionals and have our students best interest at heart number
052three restore trust in the community help the situation by actually being transparent with your decisions listen and respond to the diverse ideas and needs of our community communicate honestly and with integrity in no other way will restore the trust that the board is actually working for the improvement of our schools thank you [Applause] [Music] hello my name is sarah farinkamp i'm a mother of two students in forest hills and i'm a global hr leader in a fortune 50 company in town sometimes my global executives ask me why do we have to do dei can't we just run the business in your case you might say can't we just teach our school and i'll tell you what i tell them dei is running the business the reason it's running the business is study after study and
053business case after business case has proven that diverse people in diverse thinking drives better results because it drives empathy for one another and a common understanding it drives creativity and thinking by seeing lenses and different perspectives it drives a sense of belonging for individuals to feel like they can show up in the workplace and show up in the school and bring them themselves and it develops better leaders and so i implore you to consider to reinstating the opt-in diversity day to allow people to have the opportunity to be more empathetic to be more creative to be more better leaders in our community and to give them that opportunity thank you let's uh take a second here and let's add a few more people i have um erica chizik ashley huebner lara dino and claire wagner
054please step up i think we're ready on the district website there's a list of board duties this is your job description highlights include recommending financing and funding options adopting a budget that demonstrates fiscal accountability adopting policies and you're only to do this in public meetings you are not meeting your responsibilities per your job description you insert yourselves into areas that are not within your job description you are creating practices instead of following proper procedures needed to adopt new policies you have not been transparent and you have not communicated your plans we need to know what you are going to do in terms of a levy and cuts to the budget you've discussed cuts like cutting full-day kindergarten and closing schools but you've not seriously discussed your plans in any of these meetings parents need to
055know your plans we need to know what you are going to do if you are not going to talk about the budget we need to know why because that is a critical part of your job we want strong schools and to maintain programs and services thank you erica chizik miss housefield says she does not want to divide the community the literature that you use to get elected would give me a reason not to believe that the incompetence that you've demonstrated the last six months has given me a reason not to believe that and quite frankly i believe that is so that you don't have to talk about hot button issues that your voters voted for and that's funding our schools you know that we have to have more money to keep the district going you
056know that as soon as you tell these people that you are going to raise their taxes or close the school the community that put you in power will turn on you so you're turning on our children and making diversity day a boogeyman but now school's out so what are you going to do you have to start actually speaking about our finances and not just the pool do you all think it's weird that some of the members never talk in the outside of executive sessions i do people at home need to start asking these elected officials what the plan is to keep the schools top ranked to keep our property values up thank you erica hi i'm ashley humid i'm a freshman at anderson on the forest hills website the welcome message states forest hills is
057a place where all members of the district are engaged in pride in providing educational opportunities that empower students to excel with the tradition of excellence and supportive community forest hill school district provides an innovative curriculum high expectations and total devotion to young people i believe that we have a supportive community that wants what is best for the students i am unsure about the school board providing us with the best educational options and being totally devoted to students diversity day would help empower us to excel since anderson township is a predominantly white community my fellow students and i need to learn about diversity we need to be prepared for life after high school and we need to be aware about other cultures my future roommates or co-workers may be of a different social or ethnic background
058i wish the board would think about me and other students when making large decisions especially about what we are learning i hope diversity day happens at both anderson and turpin next school year diversity thank you thank you hello i'm claire wagner and i'm sophomore class president at anderson i also had the pleasure of organizing the walkout at on anderson i will try to keep this short because this is not my just my story to share as a student as a student body and a community we have become happily oblivious to the power we hold in conversations of diversity we have the power to step aside and we have the power to amplify others voices we have the power to learn about experiences other than our own and lastly we have the power to make a
059change this isn't just about the cancelling of diversity today but the racist and ethnocentric biases behind it this is about the pure abuse and power our school board has committed this is about how in the midst of a four year long mental health crisis within our district our school board has done nothing to support their students in times of need instead the school board puts their energy into cancelling an annual event that has been happening for the past seven years diversity day is a day to teach about cultures and stories other than our own it's a way to teach our students to accept others differences and varying opinions without diversity day our students are being raised in a homogeneous society without knowledge or acceptance for others no matter how hard you've tried thank you i
060want to call a few more names up here um give me a second uh tina mooney roger green geneva green hannah smith and april rausch you could please come up and line up please okay lauradino i am a mother of two small children that will be entering the school district this coming fall i didn't actually vote for many of you on the board but that's okay um i do agree and find many similarities with you um as written in an october 2021 correspondence i received from some of the current board members that i hold in my hands right now i read your individual letters which in part resonated with me as a working mother for example you explained that you are comfortable listening problem solving and leading diverse groups of people i ask you were
061you listening while students and parents protested the delay and cancellation of diversity day you wrote working for a global company has given me the opportunity to work with people from different countries and cultures and team environments while bringing high ethical standards and global perspectives to the table i ask you are you preparing the students to work within a global company with the cancellation of this day you pledge to be transparent in many decision making in any decision making thank you [Applause] my name is hannah smith and i'm a junior at turpin high school i'm a third generation immigrant and my grandma was taiwanese diversity day is about starting a conversation it is not political diversity day is not only defined by race but also sexual orientation and gender identities which is why i feel so
062that the board members and opposing community members need to recognize the importance of diversity day at turpin high school by canceling diversity today you have told minorities and i especially as a minority feel like you don't care about us you are do not have the consideration of terp and high school students and should be ashamed that you were since you were put on the board to help us and for us you should be ashamed that you're good you're good we're so school board you have failed you have failed your community thank you sarah tina mooney i think we've gotten a little bit out of out of order so if you could just say your name when you get up tina mooney okay i'm a proud product of forest hill schools i loved my school years
063my education here prepared me in so many ways to succeed academically it prepared me to succeed in college and graduate school and it prepared me to be a leader as well as a member of a community what it did not prepare me for was to succeed in a diverse world in a diverse workplace you may believe that it's more important to notice similarities but colleges and employers they want people who understand and respect the differences and unless we expose our students to those opportunities they're not going to they're going to walk out into the world just like i did totally not prepared because we are such a homogeneous community we have to go out of our way to make sure we prepare our students for those important aspects thank you [Applause] geneva green i want
064to take this opportunity to speak to how this all makes me feel as a minority in this community um this comment isn't for those who are already sold on things like replacement theory or whatever this is for people who are reasonable and just want a nice community that cares about others i can't speak for every marginalized person but when we when i when i live in a community where an optional opt-in event designed to promote conversations across racial and cultural bounds becomes controversial people like me specs in a sea of others uh feel uncomfortable at best imagine leaving a community that says we don't want to understand you and your experiences i can talk about what i know as a quantitative psychologist a phd in the measurement of human behavior with years of marketing experience
065companies that seek to understand their clients and their employees and their world and promote an action on what matters to those others are most successful don't we want to be a successful community discussing and understanding differences is not dirty or divisive thank you very much [Applause] my name is roger green i'm the rector of saint timothy's episcopal church and the proud parent of two kids who went to mercer nagel and turpin and i just simply want to implore you next year to make this event an event for everybody to be behind it to be supportive of it it's optional if parents aren't into this they can opt out but as we've heard from everybody before me this is the kind of thing that our community needs to be doing not only for our own community
066but for the world we need to be able to respect difference love it cherish it and include everybody no exceptions thank you good evening i am april rausch i'm a parent educator and taxpayer i've shared my opinions widely and specifically with board members tonight i am speaking on behalf of the organization showing up for racial justice which is a national organization supporting diversity in the entire world showing up for racial justice cincinnati has released a statement in support of our students today we are proud of student leaders who are centering a search for knowledge empathy and social justice the curiosity and kindness of our youth is something that we celebrate it is a beautiful thing when young people want to learn about experiences and people different from their own join in community and ask hard
067questions we would like all those in forest hills school district to acknowledge the wonderful values that you've instilled in these students and work together with them in curiosity thank you okay we're going to move on to here is that the end of public comments that is the end of public comments um hannah smith are you there stan no no i mean stan isn't that the right word i'm [Music] thank you okay and moving on to uh candidates for graduation 9.1 anderson and turpin high school class of 2022 presented by scott prebles members of the board in your packet you see the names of 588 students who represent the senior classes of anderson high school and turpin high school both high schools will use the cintas center for graduation ceremonies on saturday may 28 anderson high
068school students will graduate at 3 o'clock p.m and turpin high school students will graduate at 6 30 p.m i recommend that the board approve the granting of diplomas to the candidates listed in the attachments provided this evening and any students who enroll in anderson or turpin schools after this date subject to the satisfactory completion of all state and local requirements as noted for graduation and prior to your vote i would like to congratulate all of those students whose names are listed in our agenda this evening i think we need a recommendation please i'll make a motion to approve the granting of diplomas to the candidates listed in the attachments and any students who enroll in anderson or turpin high schools schools after the state subject to satisfactory completion of all state and local requirements as
069noted for graduation second dr rasmussen yes mr bib yes mrs jonas yes mrs husfeld yes business operations 10.1 sports medicine health membership let's applaud the graduates yes thank you tonight uh in business operations we just have one agenda item at 10.1 uh but it's a pretty significant agenda item we have completed the rfp process for a new partnership with health and sports medicine and we are awarding that to the christ hospital ortho cincinnati and um with this some key points in the agenda or in the rfp was christ hospital will supply five full-time trainers two at anderson to a terp and one at nagel we will also receive a hundred and fifty thousand dollars annually to all three athletic departments we will receive fifty thousand dollars annually to a facility's athletic facilities upgrade and they
070were also pledging twelve thousand dollars to the forest hills 5k annually for the term of this contract the health partnership piece will also work with athletic training mentor programs health care professional experiences internships externships speaker series and participation in career fairs this is a large and very exciting thing for forest hills school district at this time the superintendent recommends that the board approve the sports medicine and health partnership with the christ hospital network as part of the consent agenda john i just wanted to thank you and your team for working so hard on that con the agreement and thank you for saying that because i do i do need to point out this was a team effort we have members from teaching and learning and all the athletic directors that were involved in this process
071thank you everybody thank you yeah [Applause] we look forward to that partnership john thank you 11.1 human resources report rob fellows all right good evening to the board and our guests we have a number of items it's may in a school district and there's a lot going on in the human resources department the first item item a is retirements and we have four for board approval this evening and i i am not going to dwell too much on on on these but i would be remiss if i didn't make a comment or two the first one is an administrator in the district who happens to be in the room in the back and um and he is an incredible individual um and when i think of the picture of the servant leader steve traylor comes
072to mind steve has been in the district for 22 years at maddox elementary and he has been a stalwart principal through the years he is beloved by many and if there is a silver lining in this it is that his approval of his retirement would be contingent upon his rehire working in a position in central office where he'll be able to work alongside new teachers new staff in a coaching role alongside learning design specialists as part of our attempts to continue to recruit the best retain the best and and really take advantage of steve's knowledge institutionally as well as his incredible leadership academically um and so he um is gonna he's is asking me to stop talking and um but if if if you please join me in thanking steve for his time again he's
073not going far but this has been it's been a i know it's a emotional roller coaster for him we have three classified staff as well and um terry bollander 10 years at turpin and mercer linda meyer is a paraprofessional who has been with us for 25 years a lot of people know linda she's phenomenal and works with some of our most at-risk students in the district and does so um with an absolutely large heart and giving spirit and dwayne stewart dwayne stewart 31 years in the district he's been the head custodian at anderson high school for a number of years and um he's a he's the real deal um so we are going to miss all four of these individuals and certainly the staffs at those particular buildings are um lavishing celebrations upon them as
074they kind of gear up for their next phase in life um and uh so that's retirement we have item b a number of resignations there um for the board to consider this evening item c leave as absence there are two on the docket this evening item d are our employment items the personnel items that encompass d through um uh k and a couple that i would like to just point out um the first would be on the administrative side i'd like to um i'd like to welcome zach mccormick back into our district as the athletic director here at nagel middle school zach was introduced pending board approval the other night at an awards evening spring awards he is a graduate of turpin high school he has served he's worked in in the business area but
075then he served the last two years prior to this school year at anderson high school as the assistant athletic director and he's been this past year in west clermont and we're excited to have him before the board for approval to replace john vandermeer who has resigned and we're excited for him and his new journey at deer park i'd also like to um point out that just today we were able to finalize after a relatively extensive interview process jackie revereman jackie has been the dean at white oak middle school she has been at the middle school level for 15 years and she is before the board for replacement here at nagel middle school as one of the assistant principal positions she is coming to the district with a wealth of knowledge experience in a number of
076areas that are going to really add to the the experience of our nagel students here in the building let's see i'm going to jump over we've got a lot of reappointment of personnel items both on the certified side and the administrative side several pages worth and get to item i uh special services appointment you can see there we've got a lot of stuff that goes on in the district even after the students leave and so these are summer uh course of study type things as summer school teachers camp kern preparation for additional work there and work beyond the contract for certain special education services that we provide throughout the summer item j is our coaches and counts advisors and a number of volunteers in item l as well let's see there are two job descriptions
077for approval this evening and as is our practice anytime we have kind of a an opening in the district we always are looking at our job responsibilities making sure that we're keeping them updated so we have a school nurse revision to the job description there following chris wolfer's resignation that has been approved prior and the coordinator of teaching and learning position which has been vacant for several years and that has been revised to update some of the work that steve will be doing in the district and i would add that we have been working very closely with the board of education um and uh and and are excited that this opportunity will come at no additional ftes in the in the district um the last one would be an mou for the opc 177 acknowledging
078for 11 and 12 month employees the federal holiday for juneteenth this is something that was passed through uh both the house and the senate in d.c last year and was signed into law by governor dewine just about two months ago so um that is in that report as well questions for me no but can i comment and say mr trailer i was sad to see your name listed as resigning from the principal at maddox i'm you're an amazing leader over there at maddox and you will be really missed i'm happy that you're going to come back and mentor some new employees but you're a great leader and you will be missed at maddox so thank you for all the work [Applause] mr trailer uh this is uh year 37 for me and uh almost i
079think as many for you and i want to tell you when i think about an elementary principle the qualities the leadership the commitment the care for not only students but for families and for staff i see you and i am thankful that i've had an opportunity to work alongside of you and i appreciate your efforts and i wish you the best in retirement this district has had a great opportunity to take advantage of you sticking with us so thank you so much steve and best wishes to you can i say something about him too and just let the waterworks flow my first kiddo started at maddox and we were looking to buy a house in anderson and we're zoned to maddox steve probably doesn't remember this but i called him before i signed a contract
080on my house because i wanted to know that the principal was a-okay the school was good and i in typical leslie fashion i asked a million questions and he handled it with grace and just kindness and um just a sensibility and understanding for like new parent kid going into school for the first time and all of that and it was incredibly comforting and i'm so heartbroken that we're gonna have to i'm gonna have to go home and tell reagan mr traylor's retiring maybe i won't tell her and she'll just be surprised in the fall but thank you seriously for everything you do and have done for all of these years you will be sorely missed but we'll see in central office [Applause] i would i would just close by saying we will begin our process
081for his successor here and hope to have um that uh wrapped up within the next three to four weeks for sure um we're eager to find although big shoes to fill the right person for that particular school and that maddox community and then i just want to say one other thing because and i can't see him but i think he's back there somewhere is doug doug baker back there okay so so doug was also on the agenda and i and i missed doug i'd just like to point out that school doesn't function without our custodial staff kids don't get to school without our transportation department and we don't often see these folks but they get the room set they get everything organized so doug also happens to be president of the oopsie 177 group um
082and he is the current head custodian at sherwood and we are excited uh although sad for sherwood we're excited and i know dave spencer sitting in the back is very excited to have doug stepping in uh after mark's departure there so doug kind of standing in the back is the symbol for uh like the 31 years of dwayne stewart and all the others terry um that that do great work for kids that we don't always get to celebrate so thank you rob moving on to teaching and learning and curriculum kim pence good evening and steve while you're still drying your eyes as a bonus mother to too maddox mustang we appreciate you and i've been holding that secret for a while he is now going to be very angry with me later i appreciate it
083student fees teaching learning has one thing tonight so this was hr's night to shine we have just our updated fee schedule for next year really the only additional fees it's something we've already addressed but it's a reminder to our community that we do in grades k through 12 have a 75 dollar device usage fee that we are looking at for next year so that is the significant increase other increases it depends on the class they were small primarily based on inflation with the cost of a couple of books that students may use in a language arts classroom at the high school level otherwise that's what we're looking at um so the superintendent recommends the board approve the attached school fees for preschool through 12 for the 2022 2023 school year [Music] good i wouldn't want
084to consent no that's consent yeah 13.0 treasurer mrs crawford yeah the first thing we have tonight um is the five-year forecast as you know the department of education of ohio requires school districts to submit a five-year forecast of our general operating fund of the school district the first submission is due in november and an update is due in may so if we could move the slide so [Music] what is a forecast and how do we prepare it a forecast is generally prepared by looking at past trends and revenues and expenditures and accounting for all known activities and future predictions of what may happen the important thing to remember that a forecast is not a road map of where we're going but yet it's a planning tool to look at the revenues and expenditures we anticipate
085coming up and it's a planning tool that must change and remain flexible as instructional plans change and as our revenues increase or decrease along the way this year as many years before us it has brought many financial and instructional changes and we continue to revise our forecast as we look for efficiencies and we learn of expenditure necessities you want to change the next slide up sorry i think we've got a slide too sorry go back to the last one we're still in that this slide here it has the challenges to forecasting and there are many challenges to forecasting and i present this slide every time i present the forecasts just to remind us of the very many variables that we have limited or no control over and those variables determine what our future revenues or
086expenditures will be the first two challenges on here the state revenues and property taxes those are very material to the forecast they alone comprise 97 percent of our revenues in addition one other challenge you see up there that hasn't been that problematic over the past several years has turned into a real problem the last couple of months and that's inflation fuel prices alone have risen nine percent and given that we have 61 routes on the road every day that's really been something that we've needed to rearrange some expenditures in our budget to be able to cover few costs so again i'm not going to read all those to you they're in i give them to you every year and you have it in uh board docs there so moving on to the next thing and
087again when we talk about the five-year forecast i always like to put it in context of our overall budget the five-year forecast only includes the general fund so it only includes the top fund that's highlighted up there the general fund does account for 86 percent of our total budget it is the only fund in the forecast but i have highlighted fund 507 up there that is our esser funds the kova dollars that we have gotten one of the things you could use covet dollars for is continuity of services and that's what we used it for and i want to point out that overall we have moved 2.4 million in expenditures from the general fund down to the esser fund in fiscal years 21 and 22 and in fiscal year 23 our year coming up just
088starting on july 1st we will have 1.8 million left to spend out of the esser funds that will alleviate some of the burden on our general fund so as there is currently no more plans from the government to continue getting the covet dollars the expenditures that support the services that are currently being paid for out of 507 those expenditures must return to the forecast in the later years of the forecast moving on to the may forecast which i say which as i said before is an update to the november forecast our cash balance has improved just slightly from the november forecast looking at this chart the blue bar on the chart represents for the fiscal years listed along the horizontal axis the revenues for those years the red bar represents the expenditures for the fiscal
089years listed along the x-axis the red bar i'm sorry the gray line represents the cash balance from the november forecast and the blue line represents the cash balance from the may forecast as you can see the cash balance line is slightly above where it was last november and so since it our revenue outlook improved slightly and our expenditures reduced a little which is what caused the a little bit more positive cash balance one of the things to note when you look at this is that our cash balance will be in compliance with the district's cash balance policy through fiscal year 23. the district's cash balance policy says we will have a cash balance of 10 percent of our revenues we will be in compliance with that through next year so through june 30 23 we
090are in compliance given this forecast the district does fall a little short of meeting our cash reserve policy given the current trends in the forecast we will fall short by 2.5 million in fiscal year 24. we will still have a positive cash balance of around 6.5 million but we will fall short of having those reserves that to be in compliance with our own board policy that is something that the board and the administration will need to address over the coming months the next slide is going to talk a little bit about the changes in revenues and expenses in the forecast from november to may that that caused the cash balance to be just a little bit higher so if we looked at our revenues the revenues from november to may increased by about one and
091a quarter percent or in dollars 1.1 million the primary reason for the increase in revenues had to do number one with the fair school funding model um that's something that was imp that was a new state funding model that was implemented just this school year ode is still working out how they are going to implement what the legislators passed and as a matter of fact we do not have a manual yet telling us how they went about calculating the formula for the district so we are still waiting on that but as i say they've implemented it and face it in slowly over the years and as we come to the last couple months of our fiscal year we know that we can increase our projections in what we're going to get from the state by
092around 458 000. another reason behind the increase in revenues in the general fund are all-day kindergarten tuition increases over the last several years we have been around has been our average in the years in which we had all-day kindergarten of course uh during the covet year during 2021 we did not have all-day kindergarten so our first year back we have increased our tuition to around uh 900 almost uh 975 000 so that was unexpected giving given past trends have been around in the 775. 000 range so again another reason another something that came out of trends medicaid reimbursements were a little higher than expected medicaid reimbursements run run a couple years behind when the services act is actually performed given that you submit your services to the ohio department of jobs and family services for
093reimbursement they look at the services that we provided as i say it runs a couple years behind we weren't sure if some of our remote services then from the covet time frame number one would be allowed and number two we did not offer as many services during that time frame down just a little bit so in the forecast i had reduced our expected revenues from medicaid by about two hundred thousand um really we were only down about a hundred and thirty thousand so we were able to put a little over seventy thousand back in the budget um so that was the increases for the current year that we're in fiscal year 22 which ends in june june 30 just coming up here and those revenue increases are trended into the later years of the forecast
094and we are expected to maintain those trends and that is the assumptions that that we list it for revenues looking at the changes for expenditures expenditures for fiscal year 22 decreased by about 2 percent or just under 1.8 million that sounds a little higher than it actually is because the majority of that 915 000 is really just due to timing it's money that we thought would be spent this year but on reflection and looking at our programs it was moved into next year a lot of that has to do maybe an example is a textbook purchase so textbook purchases and instructional materials that were expected to be purchased this year have been moved into next year so timing difference and that amount is moved into fiscal year 23 in the forecast and just due to
095general budget efficiencies as always we asked our department and our building budgets to be judicious in their spending and return what they can to the general fund if it's not needed to and they certainly answer the call so the rest of the expenditure decrease had to do with the cash efficiency efforts by our staff those those things are carried forward into the 23-26 year the other change that unfortunately had to be made and in talking with the other treasurers throughout the state and the state experts on forecasting they what was suggested is to bump the inflationary rate to 5 for fiscal year 23. that's up from just around 1 to 2 percent we had very low inflation in our five-year forecast so for fiscal year 23 we bumped the inflationary increase in our materials and
096supplies purchase services capital outlay things like that were bumped up by five percent um we did lower that back down based upon the advice that we were given so inflationary rates from fiscal years 24 through the last year the forecast range from two to three percent in addition thanks to working with mr fellowes and the human resource department he was able to find some staffing efficiencies moving some people around i know that there will be a slight loss of service in some areas but i know that he's working hard to to cover that but anyhow we took out 420 000 of staffing costs beginning in fiscal year 23 and that is trended throughout the forecast keep in mind that those staffing reductions are added to the 750 000 that were taken out in fiscal year
09721 remain out of the budget so that kind of in a nutshell is the changes between the november forecast and where we find ourselves now and i don't know why this chart is missing one of the pi it's on the the board doc one but i'll just i'll tell you what you have there then this chart depicts well if if the other one was up there the chart depicts revenues from 2019 through 2022 and actually it presents the breakdown of revenues between the years and since the chart is not coming up i will read it from my copy i'm sure you all can't see quite that far but the one on the left in 2019 starting with state funding 32 percent of our general budget came from the state in this year only 27 percent
098so a drop of 5 percent coming from the state what came from our taxpayers through property taxes 51 percent in 2019 in 2022 tiff arrangements with the township which of course are actually property taxes that flow through the township and are given to the district through service payments they were 13 of our budget in 19 and 14 percent of our budget in 22. so the purpose is that unfortunately state funding while we are very pleased with the new model and getting more money than we would have gotten under the old model it still falls way short of funding our schools in a district that the state considers to be wealthy moving on to the next slide to look at our expenditures what do we spend our money on while we're service organization the most important
099thing we do is teach kids and you do that with personnel so of course we spend the majority of our budget is spent on salaries and benefits we spend 84 percent of our budget and that's pretty typical among school districts to spend 84 of their budget on salaries and benefits that's down a little bit because if you remember what i said at the beginning of the presentation there are salaries and the esser funds went to pay for some of the salary and benefits that would have been a general fund had it not been for the covet dollars the district spends nine percent of its budget on purchase services three percent on materials and supplies excuse me one percent on capital equipment and three percent on debt service and just other miscellaneous i have one last
100slide here and um i just one of the things when i talk i always like to point out that for seals is a good return on the investment and the other day when i was speaking someone in the audience said yeah good bang for your buck so i thought oh i like that i'm going to add that to my slide so however you want to look at it our district's a good return on your investment and definitely a good bang for your buck i'm very proud to say that the treasurer staff works very hard and every year we are audited every year by the state of ohio and every year we receive the state auditor's award of distinction it's very important to us to exhibit good fiscal stewardship for the residents of this community that
101entrust us with their with their money and more importantly their kids but also in doing that the district spends less per pupil than most school districts in hamilton county and while we spend less our performance is higher so we are fifth out of 23 hamilton county school districts in terms of performance as judged by the ohio report card and amongst the top 10 in the whole state our tax rate our residential tax rate is lower than the hamilton county average and as we know both of our high schools are in the top uh 4.4 percent 4.4 percent in the state and the top 6.5 in the nation so we have a lot to be proud of in here in forest hills and the next couple of slides are just graphic residue uh well i've got
102the actual numbers and you can find this on board docs so this this is the residential tax rates in hamilton county and if you look at those you can see that forest hills forest hills ranks 17th in the county out of 23 district when it comes to a residential tax rate no one likes to pay taxes including me but i think that we are a good value here in forest hills so one of the other things i want to mention when people think property taxes they always think they go to the schools and they do but many places get property taxes and here in anderson township 53.9 percent of your property taxes goes to the school and i know that that must surprise some people that 47 almost 47 of your taxes go somewhere else
103but when people think property taxes they only think of the schools so property taxes do go to support others and of course we have two taxing districts so for a village of newtown residents 56.1 percent of their taxes go directly to the schools and both of those are down as a percentage of the total taxes both of those are about down one percent since last year and that's no surprise given that there have been a couple of county um levees passed since we've passed ours so the percentage that for com of your property taxes that comes to forest hills has decreased comparatively a little over the last year moving on to the next slide and this is a slide that i just love that i stole from the state report card and it's not coming
104out real good on the screen but if you can see forest hills what this chart shows is along the bottom you see how much the schools spend and then on the vertical axis you see the you see what the performance is so where you want to be is in the left hand upper quadrant and you will see that forest hills has the highest performance and spends less than anyone who has performance above them and i think that maybe this is a graph we could get on the website and show because i think this just points out what we're talking about low cost high quality high performance and again the next slide in this presentation's inboard docs just has the numbers that were that was that were on those scatter diagram and the last slide just
105reminds us of the important return on investment that said i don't know if the board has any questions on the forecasts any comments questions yeah this is house filled my eyes sure i know it's bored but may i ask yes elena i heard you correctly saying that we've got a reduction of about five percent from the state of ohio even with the additional resources from the fair school funding plan that was the percentage makeup of our budget in terms of keeping up with inflation that would show that in the state of ohio contributed 32 percent of our budget in 2022 they only represent 27 percent of our budget so it shows that the state has not kept up with inflation and not kept up with funding funding our district so this is commentary it's certainly
106not a question as a superintendent of a school district that continues to receive less resources from the state of ohio that continues to make attritionary reductions in the last three years of nearly one million dollars taxpayers at the local level continue to have an increased burden from base based on what i'm hearing from this these are essential things that are happening across the state of ohio to school districts like forest hills that's why it is imperative for the for the fair school funding plan to continue moving forward and i know i'm only one superintendent of many across the state of ohio but the consistent reduction in percentages of dollars coming to school districts like this one is ludicrous we continue to push more and more responsibility on our local voters we continue to put boards
107of education like this one in very difficult situations to have very difficult conversations about the very students that we serve and the programs that we provide it is so disappointing to me after all of these years that we do not have a state funding model that does not include an inflationary component so that we don't have to continue to have this unsettled conversation with our community across the state of ohio in schools that are excellent high performing school districts with phenomenal parents communities that support their schools the burden continues to get worse and worse and worse and it's commentary i'm not suggesting that anyone has to answer that it is my 17-year experience in school districts like this one your voice is important in this conversation you must reach out to your senators your elected
108officials your congressmen to talk about this issue with them because this board of education like many others is faced with very difficult circumstances very difficult circumstances so i just want to make my comment on that um it's a very difficult job that we have that the board has that the community has the resources continue to go away and the common thought is that we're inefficient that we don't know how to budget that we don't understand the financial situation well we continue to cut and cut and deny programs and we're getting very close to another set or another series in this district not because of our board not because of our staff or our administration because of a funding model that is not appropriate to educate students in the state of ohio thank you [Applause] yeah
109i very well said scott thank you thank you for that i wasn't trying to catch you off guard atlanta i'm in support of your work very much so thank you no that was very eloquent i i appreciate it it's you know it's hard to deliver such a sombering message when it's in finance but when you balance that with the amazing things that our staff and students do it's just pretty amazing we've got something special here that we need to protect so moving on to april's financials um item 13.2 on your agenda um the first item item a presents a long list of donors and we are very thankful for all of those over 42 000 just this past month thanks to all of those item b is the cash activity statement which presents the expenditure
110and revenues in all board funds not just the general fund or the five year forecast fund all the funds are there item c presents the general fund that we just went over it presents the general fund receipts by month and fiscal year to date ended april 30th and april was a large cash flow month we received a couple of large receipts that we only received twice a year and this was our second receipt of them we received our second installment of the tif revenues uh 7.4 million and we also received our second and final receipt from the state for homestead and rollback and that was 2.8 so those were the primary receipts received during the month and as we talked about in the five-year forecast revenues are tracking a little higher than we had originally
111anticipated items d and e and your agenda present the expenditures in the general fund for the month and the fiscal year to date ended april 30th so again you hear me say this every month expenditures are very stable we can divide them by 12. so with 82 percent of our fiscal year complete at the end of april we've spent just over 81 percent of our appropriations with another 3.3 set aside for encumbrances so right where we expect we we would be and as you saw by the five year forecast a little less than we expected at this point in time the bank reconciliations and investments are presented in agenda item fng and the appropriation adjustment detail is in item 13.2 i respectfully request that the board approve the treasurer's items as part of the consent
112agenda items 10.1 through 13.2 h thank you for your attention tonight i'll make a motion to approve the action items 10.1 through 13.2 as presented second mrs hospital yes mr bib yes mrs jonas yes dr rasmussen yes thank you elena thanks on to um 14.0 board discussion i have an update um i'd like to provide you guys on the superintendent search so scott if you want to close your ears we have been working with k-12 our business consultant to assist us with this search and they've been working very very hard putting in a lot of time and hours into it [Music] they are a very long-standing company they they've been doing searches for since 2001. our forest hills search was launched on may 6 with postings of the superintendent vacancy the announcement has been posted
113on our district website which you can go to this website and check it out i don't know if we can put that up or not but if we can't that's okay it was also posted on the ohio school boards association what they've done so far as is conducted a series of 16 focus groups which is really incredible that they're pulling these off most of them started this week and i believe they are holding them up until tonight as well so they're working very hard the focus groups entail the students staff administrators community leaders and the community at large so far they've done 16 focus groups with 269 attendees let's see here the currently the focus groups includes a search profile criteria questionnaire which has been sent out to to the community and it's available on
114the district website if you haven't had a chance to finish it um we have 446 questionnaires returned the deadline for submitting is monday may 23rd once we reach the deadline k-12 will produce a superintendent search profile which will be made available to the public and the board of education certainly appreciates the values and the interest engagement of everybody in the community the application deadlines for for that is due the deadline is june 1st and then the board will expect to begin screening candidates the week of june 6 with the interview week june 13th and the 20th so that's a quick update on the superintendent search linda i'd just like to add if anybody you know wants to know i i think it's great that the firm the two gentlemen that are sort of leading the
115search have forest hills connections one is a former i believe wilson principal and the other is the former turpin principle so just from my perspective i find that comforting to know that they understand our district and um you know i just wanted to throw that out there as a added comment so people know like they are a great firm yes but they also have this connection to our district that i think is going to be helpful as we move forward there's only 446 respondents uh so far yeah are we just advertising it on the website or is it anywhere else is it in the paper they are um i don't think i don't believe it's in the paper i think they're doing website and reaching out to community members we submitted some names the website
116will keep keep you guys updated if you if you want to check out the website it'll be updated yeah the link for the superintendent search information is right up top i mean you can't miss it um i thought we would have more of the respondents than that me too by now yeah you said the deadline's monday is that correct deadline is monday okay thank you um i wanted to thank bob buck and his team for a successful camp kern this year thank you so much for that the kids had such a blast i mean and also i wanted to make a note you know as we come to the close of another year i just wanted to thank all the teachers and the support staff for a great year and you know we're thankful to
117have dedicated and compassionate leaders within forest hills so thank you for all the teachers for this year [Applause] okay we'll move on to the reports to the board of education item 15.1 teaching and learning committee um katie stewart could not be here tonight her son is actually graduating so she's doing all those festivities with the family sarah did you have anything or no comments no we'll we'll move um katie is the chair for that committee so we'll just move it on to next month 15.2 technology and facilities committee we met was it last wednesday yeah the last wednesday um whenever some of the stuff that we're going the the asphalt projects are on schedule for the summer and then the nagel roof replacement is on schedule for the summer those are the two big things
118we got going on it was a silly question entire roof no no just or just parting portions the back portion portion maybe it wasn't a silly question then okay item 15.3 we have the legislative liaison report i've asked um jody did you happen to get that email that i sent you to put it up on the screen by any chance you didn't get it okay all right i'll just roll through some of the legislative items that are that are pending house bill 290 which is the backpack bill which ensures that money flows kids to empower families and students to choose the the school that best meets their need it's referred to the house finance committee in january 2022 if you want information on the house backpack bill can be found on the the backpack bell.com
119website house bill 436 it's a dyslexia bill which requires school districts and other public schools to administer annual dyslexia screenings beginning in the 22-23 school year it was signed into law in january 2021. we have house bill 497 it's a third grade reading students will not be retained for not meeting third grade guarantee proficiencies however all interventions in summer and during the fourth grade year must be made available this bill is pending in the house committee since december 2021 house bill 529 teacher transparency required public and non-public schools and public colleges participating in the college credit plus program that's the college credit plus plus program the plus is a big deal because we do have college credits so this is in the college credit plus program to post course curricula and other related information online
120this is pending in the house committee since january [Music] house bill 554 teacher license flexibility if a person is retired and their license has lapsed they can get it renewed for a period of two years house bill 583 this is substitute teacher expansion which allows districts to engage in two-year contracts rather than just one year house bill 606 which is a seizure seizure safe school requires school nurses to develop a building plan for each student that is vulnerable to seizures this is pending in committee primary and secondary education review in march of of this year and lastly the house bill 616 which is critical race prohibits public schools and non-public schools from teaching or providing training that promotes or endure endorses divisive or inherent racist concepts this is referred to the state and local government
121committee just this year may 2022 that's uh what's going on up the house let's move on to 15.4 which is forest hills foundation drumroll i am so excited to hear you guys stacy hi linda and the rest of the school board good evening my name is stacey gillard i'm the executive director of the forest hills foundation um we're going to kick off the report tonight thanks to adam and jody um this is hot off the press a video that we just actually can put together today thanks to dave kalanick for doing that for us so check out what it looks like when the community comes together for the kids [Music] so [Music] i want to thank leslie for being one of those um and that meant that people were out there really recruiting their network
122their friends their family to support our kids and their mental health and wellness and then lastly we had over 225 volunteers so there were a lot of people it took to get pull an event off like that um and so i'm proud to report it said it in the video but i can share publicly that this year's 2022 forest hills 5k raised a hundred and forty thousand dollars for the kids of forest hills hey jody it's okay one four zero comma zero zero zero [Laughter] so there's there's a couple things that stand out to me and listening to all the commentary tonight um listening to our students many parents is that i want the students to know that we do hear you and we understand that you are asking for help when it comes to
123mental health and wellness so two things that stood out to me one our community rallied because it was around the mental health and well-being of our kids i can't tell you how many businesses were like we're going to give you more money we want to do more we want to be a higher level sponsor because of our commitment to mental health and wellness for our kids and the second thing is is that it's about this i felt on saturday it was more than just an event in our community it was about everybody coming together having fun getting resources around mental health connecting with students and staff and a lot of people when it comes to supporting our kids and so the forest hills foundation will continue to look at ways we've had a lot of
124growth this year which is awesome and we will continue to find ways that we can continue to impact forest hills students and lastly i would be remiss if i did not thank also our team of seven a mighty team of seven um that worked on this for the last six to nine months and that was amy heiss and sarah flora who were the co-chairs this year megan woof see i'm trying to like talk away right megan wolfe lauren tishler um jamie holleran and nicole whiting and so those women really stepped up and allowed us to have such a successful event so on behalf of the foundation just thank you thank you thank you i love seeing how our community comes together it happened this weekend and we look forward to continuing to do more great
125work for the kids thank you amy amy hi thank amy amy question where um does forrest get his clothes because he always has the best outfits and rob matching [Music] oh and bob i didn't i didn't see bob you weren't there when i went by but um oh y'all were the best hype men ever well you did not see me in those costumes i saw you jogging i was like it was so much fun and there were so many people there and students and it was just really really cool so thank you to the foundation um and to you know rob and bob and forrest for [Music] not humiliating themselves but being the wonderful clowns we've all grown to love and adore um no y'all really were amazing and so thank you stacy stacy i
126have i have a quick question for stacey when was the first run what year was it do you remember okay so it was the foundation was created in 2008 right so the first run was in 2009 but it was independent um we just had some parent volunteers that got together and then eventually it fell within the umbrella of the foundation okay so the other thing too i want to say is this year as well we raised four times the amount of money that has ever been brought in from the forest hills 5k so thanks again for everybody's support [Applause] item 16.0 executive session sorry oh i'm sorry 15.5 that would be the teacher uh teachers association report donna lover i do not have 140 000 to give tonight so i hope it wasn't any indication
127that i was missed without that i want to make sure i start the evening i know stacy's still here and following that tonight i was just like i knew you were going to announce that so on behalf of the teachers i know i sent a nice thank you but thank you to our students from our students with our students with our families and community being part of that over the years it's really outstanding to see great success so good evening to the board mrs cropper and superintendent scott prebles what amazing month of may sometimes may we look at things are kind of wrapping up and in some ways i say it's gearing up this month has been so full of great things from watching our students as they're preparing to graduate watching our students lead
128watching our teachers celebrate our students watching our parents and our community come together for the great things with mental health this month as well as just looking at i always state about graduation may is always month to graduation it's the month of that but it takes all of us every single one of us to get that student that's graduating to that spot and i always want to make sure that i know a lot of our students are in here tonight i know a lot of you send thank you notes and you appear back to your elementaries but as to the board to remind us that it's really a culminating experience here in forest hills as the proud president of the 500 teachers of forest hills school district i truly want to emphasize the mission of
129fhta which has to advance the role of teaching learning and practices for all staff inclusive to all students we want to build and enrich the diverse caring staff that we have to help our diverse growing community tonight i will address three topics fhta and oea updates legal as well to the district celebrations and then three transitions just like you miss hospital we also participate heavily in legal formats within the association it's required of fhta to work collectively with the ohio education association and every year there are two what we call spring ras where our representative assembly were over usually about pretty close to about 8 000 teachers throughout ohio attend this year our delegate chris preston attended on may 7th and fht is proudly to present we've been there every year for the last 30
130years we've had a teacher present and be possible at those ras and which is an opportunity for us to understand and hear you mention many tonight and i won't mention them all but collectively looking at all the legal things and what happens with that is it's really important for us as teachers and educators in our profession to be aware of changes that are occurring we also had the opportunity to re-elect scott demaro who here in forest hills we've had the opportunity to come and speak and i'd highly encourage for him to come again and show the collective and collaborative atmosphere that presents itself here in forest hills and then also we are celebrating in ohio the new ohio state superintendent steve decken and that opportunity we've also asked steve to come here and be part
131of our school community it's really important to re-establish these kinds of things it helps just like the work that scott's doing with the financial aspects it helps for our school district to help get its name on the state level and to help us as teachers to advance teaching learning this month the association also hosted in person which we're very very excited of and so were the teachers our general assembly where we were able to pass our emergency covet mou and we also made changes to our own constitution and bylaws and in that respect so that the board understands we have will host five executive team members next year and we also uh passed to limit some of our terms including our president our president will now serve an eight-year total max ability and i will
132say this very nicely no one should have to do that job for so many years it's a great opportunity but it does have a lot of work with it second is celebrations just as i mentioned earlier with graduation i also noted this month as well as the 5k but i also want to make sure that we celebrate all of our retirees we were able to celebrate i believe um rob maybe help me here i believe there were 12 total teacher retirees when you put those numbers up and you start talking about who those people are and you listen to what they've done and i always call it the work of work coming to work every day and being there with students and closing the door or being present with your kids and i say our
133kids because kathy said right in front of me you become our kids and that day is very important it's not about awards or trophies and all those different things really for students it's about having caring adults who care about them and that relationship building is essential to a great school also with that this month we've also seen our students excelling in sports we see them excelling in the arts i know this next couple weeks here there's still students competing i see students doing crazy academic things the young lady this evening that we were able to celebrate with that scholarship to help her achieve is just absolutely phenomenal it also comes with this there are 800 forest hills school district employees that stand behind those students and as teachers we are very proud of each and
134every one of you also i want to make sure if there's parents here tonight as a teacher leader i am only as good as you allow me to be and thank you for sharing your children with us as teachers here in four schools thirdly will be transitions a lot of changes occurring and as you mentioned tonight we are in the search for our new superintendent as president i've had the pleasure of working with directly with five of them they're all very i don't know i must be really young um but i want to make sure tonight that i take a few moments to make sure from the association that i know as school is ending and the teachers are going to be going off and you know relaxing enjoying their summer i hope and rejuvenating
135for next year that we want to take time to talk about scott previls it is a complete honor to have great educators with us in our school district i've worked with all of them and i'm proud to say that all of us have had great relationships the association works directly with the superintendent and as president i've always made it my effort and opportunity to make sure i establish a quality relationship on a professional level with our superintendent that helps us as a board and as association work collectively for the well-being of our staff our students and our school community and more importantly our students scott has served us in that capacity he is an extreme professional when bay village called and asked about scott and tracked me down i said scott who i pretended i
136didn't know who they were talking about having a quality superintendent and having that opportunity to work with somebody like that is a real privilege from the teachers and having someone who understands educators and someone who understands student school fine it's i mean the list is very very difficult everyone is replaceable all of us but some people have special abilities and they bay village is very fortunate to get you scott and we're very fortunate that you've been here with us for these years good bad and ugly and strong and hard we also recommend and understand as the teachers that the work that you've done at the state level for financials for our schools for all the schools in ohio are just like you talked about earlier it's a very difficult challenge and you really put yourself
137up for that that i can't thank you for enough and i can't thank you enough for your friendship and also helping me work with boards and helping us get through goods and bad situations we have a little something for you i know you're not going to like this so here it is and it's become as i can tell you many times scott has said something to me and i say yes whatever in your actions and you guys know i'm a history teacher at heart if your actions inspire others to dream more learn more do more and become more you are a leader that's from john adams thank you for the years of collaboration with the forest hills teachers association supporting students and our school community our sincere gratitude and appreciation for creating excellence in public
138education it has nothing to do with contracts scott it has to do with relationships this is on behalf of myself vice president mike roberts from air elementary ben shoals our treasurer at turpin brook lovely our membership chair chris preston our delegate nagel gail garza our secretary from turpin and courtney youssef our communication chair it's also from all of our 500 teachers and all of our students it takes all of us and i want to make sure i tell you tonight on behalf of the teachers in forest hill school district thank you so much for your time and dedication [Applause] it's obvious that donna talked with my mother earlier today she paid me and i thank all of the teachers and the great relationship we've had it has been an honor to work with this teaching
139staff and this administrative staff thank you so much and for these students so with that transition there will also be the transition of the association this evening i had the opportunity as you spoke about the superintendent search and i know i'm going a little bit long as it is may and i will hustle along here i've attended several of the committees and listened and listening is our most important skill as a leader and i take that pretty seriously the one thing that i i really did hear over and over again they asked the three questions what makes a great school what are the challenges and what do you want in a superintendent the first one there was no doubt whatsoever that our schools have provided outstanding quality education to our students the parents and the
140people i heard speaking talk nothing about anything except how great their kids have loved being here that's a wonderful thing to hear and that's something you cannot buy that's something that's earned by professionals the challenges were about being divided and really when you talk about great kids in great schools the divide needs to stop and that will help us all grow together the third one is about replacing a superintendent what are the qualities that you need there for me above and beyond whether you want to hear it or not is someone who understands kids i always say we talk about this sometimes is you know we're in the kid business that's what we do that's what we're here to all the other things that we all go to school in college for and all the
141things that we have degrees in those are things that are extra but you've got to make sure down deep that people that are working with our students our staff our teachers are people that really are here for the right reasons and that's for kids and that's really key this summer i will be transitioning on taking a leave and i will be bringing in my new set of leaders my president we're going to have a vice secretary that's also like a vice president we're going to transition our delegate into all of our roles and we will be combining a couple items there after 18 years of serving as the president for the forest hills teachers association i will take that opportunity in august to change that role and what i want to leave for you as
142a board is welcome those people embrace that work make them part of your work ethic make them part of your day because they do great things for our community they're always here they're always willing to work together it's not about contracts it's about relationships with that congratulations to our graduates and thank you for a great school year item 616 executive session i move that we go into executive session for the purpose of to consult with legal counsel regarding student educational progress and placement ohio revised code rc 121.22 g3 and to discuss matters required to be kept confidential by federal or state law regarding student educational progress and placement higher revised code rc 121.22 g5 thank you we will not be voting on anything this evening so i'm going to i'll mention the next regular board
143meeting is june 22nd 2022. i'll second yeah yes