001education regular meeting on the forest hills school board june 28 2021 7 p.m roll call mrs bissinger here miss choice here mrs meyer here dr rasmussen ms absent dr heiss here please rise and join me pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance exactly all right so safety briefing all right guys we have a lot of people in this room okay we need to get through our meeting i expect uh some respect and some decorum safety briefing we do have exits to behind me and to the right and then to your right and behind you um again and i brought this up last one we have a lot of people here there's a lot of emotion which is fantastic i appreciate everyone being here we we need to have maintain decorum we're all good law and order
002people let's follow the rules and everyone will be heard item 2.1 can we motion to adopt the agenda i'll make a motion to adopt the agenda can i get a second second miss cropper miss joyce yes mrs meyer yes mrs smith singer yes dr hayes yes item 3.1 approval of the minutes for special meeting may 21 2021 a motion to approve or do each one individually okay i'll make a motion to approve the minutes of special meeting may 21st 2021. second second scrapper yes mrs meyer yes mrs bissinger abstain dr heiss yes item 3.2 approval minutes regular meeting of may 24 2021. make a motion to approve the minutes of the regular meeting may 24th 2021. second robber miss joyce yes mrs meyer yes mrs bissinger abstain dr heiss yes item 4.1 correspondence yes sir
003uh we received this from elita hart who is the president and ceo of ipm food pantry here john eckert and forest hill school district volunteers thank you so much for giving of your time to help us provide healthy food for families at the air elementary mobile pantry by partnering with ipm food pantry as we feed families and nourish souls you help us share food hope and encouragement with those in need we certainly appreciate you with gratitude elita hart president ceo of ipm any other correspondents all right moving on procedures for public commentary the board is committed to conducting its meetings in a productive and efficient mat manner that assures that the regular agenda of the board is completed in a reasonable period of time honors the voluntary nature of the board's time and using that
004time efficiently and allows for a fair and adequate opportunity for input to be considered the board offers public participation to members of the public in accordance with the procedures below the board applies these procedures to all speakers and does not discriminate based on the identity of the speaker the content of the speech or the viewpoint of the speaker in order to permit the fair and orderly expression of public comment the board shall provide a period of public participation at every regular meeting of the board and publish rules to govern such participation in board meetings individuals who would like to share their thoughts considering a topic on the board's agenda should do the following list the agenda item or topic on a note card which is at the entrance of the meeting room sign the card
005including your name address telephone number and group affiliation if and when appropriate and give the card to susan monk over here individually recognized by the board president during board commentary remarks should be addressed to the board as a group please do not go after one board member or more and be within a three minute time limit if several people wish to speak on the same topic the time limit may be adjusted and it will be adjusted we already have 17. the presiding officer may prohibit public comments that are frivolous repetitive and or harassing interrupt warn or terminate a participant's statement when statement is too lengthy abusive off-topic obscene or irrelevant request any individual to leave the meeting when that person does not observe reasonable decorum or is disruptive to the conduct of the meeting request
006the assistance of law enforcement officers and the removal of a disorderly person when that person's conduct interferes with the orderly progress of the meeting call for a recess or an adjournment to another time if the lack of public decorum so interferes the orderly conduct of the meeting asked to warrant such action or waive these rules i'm not waving no participant may speak more than once on the same topic unless all others who wish to speak on that topic have been heard the portion of the meeting which the participation of public shall be invited shall be limited to 30 minutes unless extended by a vote of the board so we did last time as we took the 30 minutes and we divided equally among all participants i anticipate that will happen again what i will do
007uh is we have a mercer elementary presentation item 5.1 i'll give anyone that wants to do or speak publicly to have that time period to get it in when we start 6.1 we will divide up the time equally and and then it will be set so item 5.1 mercer elementary presentation hello my name is guy ferrai media specialist at mercer elementary due to this year's co-bid restrictions we modified our annual student-led innovation conference collaboration from all of our elementary schools media specialists and i think that's your that's on you although i could i could turn it around and show it to everybody i know well there's nothing to hear yet here it comes due to this year's code restrictions we modified our annual student-led innovation conference and we made it virtual with collaboration from all
008of our elementary schools media specialists and our high school teacher faculty we curated student-led projects that they created to help teach their peers students had ownership over their content the projects all had a technology focus and students created docs slideshows with instructions and created videos to help teach other students students from all of the elementary schools had access to our website to explore on the last day of april hello forest hills school district forever today i am talking on parts of the virtual learning conference so uh it felt good this year to be able to teach actually the opportunity to teach students virtually because we're totally the last year of our campaign so it's nice to still have the opportunity to um do it even though it was not nice for the student-led innovation conference
009mercer students created over 50 sessions that could be viewed by other elementary school students there was a very broad range of technology topics they included graphic design music making educational tools digital breakout rooms and computer coding hello according to the languageology and technology um last week of april students from across the district had time during their school day to browse our topic to teach and that our participants are given a choice about the topics that they learn about some kids more passionate about all of our students met the challenge of switching to a virtual conference this past spring and we all are looking forward to next year's return to an in-person time thank you all right item 6.1 our sr3 related program members you received um last week a document from me that talked about
010s or three dollars in this in the federal requirements for s or three dollars is that they are used for learning loss in school districts and so what we have presented to the board of education is the plan that we'd like to move forward in the upcoming july board meeting the plan talks about individuals that we would need to bring on board for learning loss those individuals are working with students across our school district who maybe had have gap closing to take care of in in light of the fact that we had a year of covid there's also staffing in the model that are specific to student services or special needs students and that term in this document that i provided to you is a two-year term for those individuals so the plan tonight is
011to bring this again to the attention of the board to let folks know that we in fact are using our s or three dollars in compliance with federal requirements for learning loss there are positions that go across our elementary schools that's where most of our emphasis is going to be as it always is when we're talking about intervention and we're talking about tiered structures to help students and then there is specific staff in here to address the needs of special needs students and that is specialized staffing so that was provided to you sort of today so that there's an affirmation on your part that this is moving forward and then what we would do is in the next month complete the process to attract individuals with the appropriate certifications and expertise to be able to
012fulfill these jobs so there is nothing on tonight's hr report related to this it will come to the board of education at the next board meeting in july thank you item 6.2 relationship and wellness action plan thank you forest hill school district has a strategic plan which contains the overarching vision statement striving to ensure success for all students the vision challenges us to meet aspirational goals or aspirational values one of which is to obtain cultural awareness equity and inclusion which leads to our mission or our purpose to empower each student to achieve personal success every day and which ultimately defines priorities both educational as well as operational so those priorities that we have had now for five years are to prepare students for post graduation success through rigorous learner empowered approaches core content and real
013world application to provide improved learning for students through a framework of job embedded learning and collaboration for educators and to provide a safe and secure safe secure and inclusive culture through fostering personal responsibility and well-being of students and staff two others are to demonstrate responsible stewardship of taxpayer investments through efficient equitable and transparent resource allocation and the fifth and has always been and will always be to deliver multi-source communications through informative proactive and real-time channels so for the purposes of my comments tonight the strategic plan has led to the development of four cultural cornerstones in our school district and most everyone who has been in a board meeting or has been in the district over the last two years is aware of this particular document it defines our cultural cornerstones in our district and they
014are learning relationship and wellness collaboration and innovation so why do we use the word culture in our school system in regard to students and teaching and learning effectiveness according to richard defour a leading voice in the movement to improve schools through professional learning communities in which teachers come together to analyze and improve their classroom practice positive and healthy school cultures and school climates are the foundations of high quality learning environments and create conditions for effective teaching and learning to occur we have had professional learning communities in our school district for four years where our teachers meet and collaborate regarding student experiences and performance strong positive classroom culture supports children's social and emotional needs and development children thrive in a school community where everyone contributes and everyone is valued the classroom culture is created through the
015language we use the responsibilities that we encourage with our students and the procedures that we teach on a daily basis a purposeful classroom culture teaches children the social emotional skills they need to succeed in the world in and out of school these skills include understanding and managing emotions setting and achieving goals feeling and showing empathy for others maintaining positive relationships and making responsible decisions all of which has influenced has dramatically influenced our decisions regarding staff professional development in the forest hills school district now as the district prepares to continue work in the 2122 school year to achieve cultural cornerstone goals recognition exists based upon recent feedback that concerns exist related to aspects of critical race theory embedded in relationship and wellness cornerstone development materials and activities so as such a few things have taken place
016not only in our last board meeting but leading up to this board meeting first a relationship and wellness professional develop our relationship and wellness professional development plans have been paused not eliminated they've been paused with full intention to implement align goals and priorities of the strategic plan that i just mentioned no number two no continuation of relationship and wellness professional development has been scheduled with the hamilton county educational service center in the upcoming year number three last year's consultant is not scheduled to provide wellness and relationship professional development for the 21-22 school year in our district number four i met with tom hagedorn and i believe tom is here somewhere this evening i think i saw him tom is the author of founding zealots how evangelicals created america's first public schools and i met with
017him to discuss his findings and allegations regarding forest hills school district relationship and wellness professional development programming five i attended a meeting at the patriot center located at clef pike on june 15 titled stop critical race theory and other radical agendas from the forest hills school district the meetings agenda contained three items how to eliminate crt from the schools how to eliminate comprehensive sex education from the schools and strategies needed to win four board of education seats in the upcoming november election obviously my presence at this meeting drew some attention however i must say that i was treated with respect with dignity and was included in two hours of brainstorming activities excluding discussions regarding upcoming board elections i learned a lot during the meeting i also formed a relationship with a gentleman by the name
018of dan salcedo dan facilitated the meeting that evening and since the meeting i put together a relationship and wellness action plan that dan graciously agreed to review and who actually provided editorial feedback to me some of which has been incorporated into the plan mr salcido does not consider himself to be an expert in critical theory but has facilitated many meetings in his professional life as a businessman i was impressed with his facilitation of the meeting on that evening and felt he would be a good person for me to reach out to mr cecedo is not in ohio tonight but did give me authority to share our work together most impressive to me is when dan said his concerns are not politically motivated as a father of seven and the grandfather of moore he wants what
019is best for the development of kids i respect dan and i thanked him and thank him now for his assistance in my work to lead to this meeting so i reviewed the plan the last time we were together that i felt would be necessary and then after going to the meeting the other day and some other conversations and some reading i've adjusted a little bit but back at the last meeting my goal was to develop a comprehensive diversity belonging including strategic plan process that reviews goals and progress towards strategic vision success for all student priorities remember this is about student success reviews diversity and inclusion professional development materials and their intended use to influence priorities and practices of wellness and relationship professional development it includes stakeholder community participation and feedback for the first two items
020that i read tonight it includes multiple forms of transparent communication regarding the diversity belonging and inclusion relationship and wellness professional development and overall progress of these things with web links faqs and it includes frequent board of education progress reports so the plan's first step is to clarify the approach to student wellness engagement and belonging additionally there is a need to engage a small group to be involved in the conversation and to review the work to date of the team that has been guiding student wellness and relationship professional development in our district a goal of this review and engagement is to inform the strategy for ensuring that students are supported in feeling a sense of belonging and to articulate the next steps for the district leadership to take to ensure that students teachers and administrators as
021well as community members clearly identify and understand expectations of this work before moving forward so i'd like to do is have adam please put up the plan this is the plan that i developed in coordination cooperation with mr salcedo and again he and i talked a few times he does not consider himself to be a critical race theory uh expert he actually doesn't told me that he didn't say that he was an expert in much of what he and i discussed as i am not but we are working together based on feedback and the building of relationships so that we can serve our students in the best ways possible so there you have it in front of you and the goal of this plan develop a small that was dan's that's one i'm gonna i'm
022going to talk to you that dan felt was good because we need to be nimble develop a small balanced and actionable actionable citizens advisory group to audit forest hills school district relationship and wellness professional development initiatives to review associated information needed to design plan and execute further relationship and wellness professional development and to provide specific recommendations to the forest hill school board of education for future implementation of wellness and relationship student and staff programming inclusive of a stakeholder communication plan so there are some measurable objectives that we talked about that have made their way to this document it is to ensure that crt and its doctrines are not intentionally taught to students nor included in staff professional development notice i said not intentionally talked the second one in transparent fashion acknowledge merits of care team
023relationship and wellness cornerstone goals and prevent the inclusion of crt explicit content in future relationship and wellness cornerstone professional development and the third one is to develop recommendation a recommendation presentation for the forest hills school board of education for their consideration in areas of relationship and wellness cornerstone policies processes content and communication so what's this look like it's going to be five meetings no more than five meetings it each meeting has a specified actionable process in place so the first obviously thing that needs to happen is to develop the cag which again is the citizens advisory group action plan inclusive of meeting dates project and agendas and desired outcomes which i have just shared with you to develop a process to solicit and select citizens for the advisory group and it has individuals who are
024responsible to do those things the first meeting of our agenda or our plan would be to review why we are here and what our charge is which would mean why is the committee put together what is the charge roles responsibilities norms of how we are going to work with each other we have a care team overview and connection to forest hills school district strategic plan and cultural cornerstones that overview would be what i have learned in the feedback sessions as well as my conversations personal with the two gentlemen that i have talked about and other community members including those who are in significant support of what's been taking place with wellness and relation relationship and wellness within our district and who believe based on some signs that i'm seeing that wellness of kids is an
025extremely important aspect of what we do in our school system audit of crt to forest hills relationship and wellness staff professional development there again we would audit that and we would see what what has taken place and where are we at this particular moment so our first meeting will be to kind of take a look back of where we've been and currently where we are at this particular point in time the second meeting that appears on the plan is to review you know it's easy for us to suggest including myself direction and and all the things that we believe are important personal professional but there are policies there are procedures there is law which i've talked about and has been brought to my attention that under my watch i would not promote anything that was
026unlawful well so here it is we need to go through our district policies and guidelines regarding non-discrimination and equal access to education we need to review the attendance of professional staff at meetings and what they may and may not do in those meetings and and the things that we are providing to them we have to have a general review of our ohio department of education mandated standards for curriculum in the state of ohio lest you believe it there is a set of standards that we must follow and included in those standards are requirements and if we don't meet the requirements then our local taxes go up because the state of ohio will not fund us and so therefore there are mandates in our curriculum and instruction that must move forward to ensure that we receive
027ode approval there needs to be a general review of critical race theory legislation there is legislation in the state of ohio right now house bill 322 house bill i don't know if everyone in the room has seen those but i have been involved in that and have read those and am participating and learning more about that and how those things might influence again if it is legislated it is done legislation drives ohio department of education which drives local school districts if it is legislated it is done that is associated with finance for our school district and we will review the board policy 4139 of staff discipline briefly when something happens in our schools in a classroom on a bus in the cafeteria sometimes at the edge of the property we investigate we look at what
028we've learned against our policies we look at those policies and then we have to make we have to make decisions based on contracts that we have discipline codes that we have for students and then we apply what most would like to hear discipline but most of the time it is consequences to students and it is instructive information for staff and we have a progressive student code of conduct and we have a progressive staff disciplinary code and that we follow so we would need to do all of those things at the second meeting just to make sure that we're all grounded on what we can and what we can't do and so i don't want to make any mistake about making sure that we are educating ourselves in the in the things that we need to
029be doing the third meeting is to review the relationship and wellness building and central office district programs that may augment relationship and wellness professional development what i meant there i think i missed type is we want to make sure that our strategic plan is or that our wellness and relationship is is fulfilling the obligation that we have in our strategic plan i want to review mandates and requirements of health and wellness resources allocated to forest hills school district the governor of the state has made this a priority the governor of the state gives us elena 300 roughly thousand dollars to ensure that wellness and relationship activities are happening in our school district it is a governor requirement that schools have these things so once again we are required rightfully so and we are happy to
030move those things forward in our school district i want to conduct a relationship and wellness belief purpose and vision development activity so now we've heard where we've been we've talked about critical race theory we have reviewed our policies we've reviewed mandates from the state we've done all of that so now what's the future look like are we going to continue to talk about this issue are we going to move forward and help our students and develop professional development that is in the best interest of our students are we going to continue in a political discussion or are we going to hone in on our students and ensure that they have the things that they need to be successful in our schools that's what that part of the process is about then we will develop forest
031hills relationship and wellness goals and priorities so just like the strategic vision we will have an overarching review of the of the vision for our wellness and relationship what our mission is going to be what is our purpose and then we will outline in there opportunities for the board to consider of specific recommendations so then we go to the fourth meeting of this series review and finalize the belief and purpose statements and the forest hill school district relationship and wellness vision statement i fully believe that this will be at some point arduous work and it will be it will require additional time to talk and think and read and and collaborate and so the fourth meeting is a bit of a duplication on the front end but it solidifies where this consensus would be for
032this citizens advisory group to be making recommendations towards the board and then finally the goal would be to develop a recommendation for the board of education to consider in areas of relationship and wellness policies processes content and communication within our school district and meeting five is available should we need extra time to make sure that all this stuff gets put together uh in a way that meets the expectation of the group that i would like to bring together so now that i've shared concepts of the plan and again i want to thank mr salcedo for his assistance in this uh most of the work mine edits his recommendations uh but he was pleased with where we were the last time that he and i talked on i believe it was friday afternoon so our efforts
033in providing cultural cornerstone development activities to our staff and creating a school culture that values and respects all students it is working despite our best efforts we will experience failures and have setbacks in our effort to build a culture that is always welcoming as an organization we acknowledge those times when we fall short despite our best efforts we also know that there will be successes and we need to celebrate those moments and we need to celebrate our students and the successes that they have and celebrate our teaching staff and administrative staff for ensuring that students have what they need to be whole to be uh educated um across all aspects of of their life forest hills is a destination district folks this is a destination district go to any realtor's office and you'll see either
034one or two on their documents this is a great school district you go to the township anderson township review where you have surveys you see on there we came here for the community for the school system for the parks and some other amenities but you will always find school system at the top we are known across this country for what we do in music education arts education we are known throughout this country u.s news and world report we have a's on every niche report that that measures our buildings we have students that are all over this country in institutions of higher learning who own businesses who are in this room right now adding value to our community you've come back okay this this is not a school district that is not impactful in the state
035of ohio so when this conversation happens in our school district you know it is in other school districts in this state and when you leave tonight go do some research on where critical race theory meetings like this are happening and you will not find that it is only in forest hills you will see this audience and many like it in many many many school districts across the state we are taking the feedback we are acting we are communicating and we will ensure that our students have the best relationship and wellness opportunities that money can buy attracting families from across the state the nation and the world is what forest hills does because of high academic standards and proven results but also because of the work we continue to do to ensure all students achieve their
036greatest potential and how we strive to make sure every student feels valued and supported in our school community this is not critical race theory this is compassion this is empathy and what great forest hill school to school district educators and staff members are called to do every single day the committee's makeup i'm certain is of concern to everyone in the room it will be a diverse group of citizens citizenry with a goal to include parents from all levels of the district representatives from anderson township and the village of newtown the business community the field of health and wellness as well as myself and other school representatives there's a meeting schedule that will be published once we find who the committee is we will begin our work hopefully still in the month of july with a
037report to the board of education at the next board meeting and reports that will follow that over a three-month period as we plan for welcoming our students back and providing them the best opportunities possible in this arena thank you i would like to piggyback on that i would like to pick you back up on that from just one board member's perspective um so no manager wants to be surprised by something happening on his or her watch and i feel like that happened here the past year and for that i owe you all an apology as a board member i am sorry that i did not catch these concerning content earlier it was an extraordinarily challenging year communication wise and i'm sure you all can appreciate that but that's not an excuse those of us at
038this table right here are the highest authority in this district and if something happens on our watch we answer for it we should never be surprised by something happening in our schools and some of us were so moving forward let me be crystal clear no employee of this district certainly no consultant or coach or anyone charged with teaching kids has a right to push a personal agenda private beliefs on students no matter what they are no matter what they are we're here to educate this is complicated we're here to educate but it shouldn't be complicated we're here to educate period when difficult conversations arise in the classroom we need to direct and diffuse but not divide those of us who send our kids to public school place an incredible amount of trust in the people
039who lead them and i believe that's why this is such a contentious issue we who lead this district and that's us at this table mr prebbles all the teachers administrations anyone who touches a student's life we need to take that incredibly seriously it's a privilege and i sincerely hope that this situation and what has fallen out of it will be a learning experience that none of us soon forget that's all thank you um i still in looking at all of this and and looking at the action plan i think it's pretty good i have a lot of questions and so i personally will have to do my research and then i'll be able to have some real conversations with people in the community with the board members so i'll do my homework and you guys
040keep doing what you're doing and and eventually we'll all come together i truly believe that i actually was remiss at the beginning here i would like to welcome julie bissinger to our table listen for first meeting back unlike starting uh uh your first meeting back to a full house um we did have patty taylor resigned to last meeting we had 12 members of the community put in their names for the interim spot i appreciate that we had four former board members we had three people who were or have applied for the uh or to run in the fall and then five other community members and it was very heartening to see the amount and all of them had excellent uh resumes and reasons for helping so i appreciate everyone who put in their name um
041for me i think you know scott spoke very well over this our you know wellness and health student health is a is a major concern of ours it's a major concern of all parents the we want to know what our kids are being taught we want to know what our teachers are being taught and how that's going through i see this plan as a plan that that addresses a lot of the concerns of everyone in this room the the we can say that there's there's no crt or no whatever in our in our district and then you go through and and you know we have thousands of pages of professional development to go through and that's where i like the idea of this community action group or citizen action group or advisory committee where we're
042going to have people from from all walks that go through and i know there's a lot of commitment on everybody here to to make that happen to go through and to look at the things that that we're teaching our teachers and then what our teachers are teaching our kids so i'm very hopeful that that this fulfills the cornerstone of wellness and and belonging that we all want our kids to have uh without any the division and actually providing a unified uh structure for for them so i appreciate that um this is a little bit in advance i'll say you you brought it up about the state as i talked with tom brinkman uh today too about the the state uh uh what the state's doing he said that right now they're in their last section
043last session of the of the whatever i guess this fiscal year or what have you he doesn't anticipate anything now he said but that is one of the priorities uh come september so i'm going to ask that along all right so before we get to superintendent updates i just want to give a quick heads up we have 19 people who put in or who gave us the uh their participation forms as of the end of the mercer presentation uh that allows us a minute 35 to kind of collect your thoughts i will be picking them randomly from the stack but and another resident asked if we would call a resident podium to tell the next person they're on deck which i think is a great idea too so you can get a little heads up
044and head of steam going so uh item six point three superintendent updates beyond that they just do it all right all right i do have some correspondence so this is and this is uh this made me feel really good the other day when i attended the meeting uh i left um papers that were passed out to me uh folded in half um and this is the part about the respect and dignity that was provided to me in that meeting there and i don't know who did this and nor do i ever want to find out but it was meant a lot whoever wrote my friends and family are going to be praying for you hang in there so um at that critical race theory meeting um i know there's good people in our school district
045i know there were great people in that room they treated me with respect we had a good discussion i learned and so off we go so i appreciate whoever wrote that very much thank you alrighty so public comments uh we'll start with tom hagedorn and on deck will be michelle rolfes all right thank you yeah so you know i'm a fan of the fraser crane show and he always his standard line is i'm listening okay so i think the board and the um administrator they're listening so that's good um just i just have some random thoughts i've changed what i was going to say just have some real random thoughts uh first one is dan salsida is a great guy he helped facilitate our meeting we really don't have eight he's one of our leaders
046but i appreciate the time he's spent to work on this but you know those of us that oppose this are going to have to look at the details which i'm very glad that you know you have a published plan there i think we need transparency transparency and transparency all three um and uh in this whole process that would be would be awesome i heard i wasn't sure you know you're writing notes uh i know uh uh is the care the care program is paused i believe paused was that the word i'm not sure well relationship and wellness okay okay fine so um that's been paused i know as a part of that there was a person in every building that was supposed to implement so i'm assuming from that that means not just the training
047but also the uh just i'm making a statement just the um the administration the putting this into the schools hopefully will also be paused but that will be in the details uh thank you you're welcome thank you next up oh yeah michelle rolfes and then jason hackl i'm michelle rolfes and you've thrown me for a loop so the tone is is quite different than i expected based on the last meeting i'm very glad to hear that you've got this investigation that you're going to be doing you're going to involve the community and i think what you will find i have complete confidence that you will find it is undeniable that the care team goals and the materials that were used had crt as the basis and i think you may have discovered that the critical
048race theory eliminates the individuality of children and substitutes membership of race and oppressed status we don't want that teachers have to identify their own inherently racist and oppressive natures they have to become anti-racist they engaged in training that included divisive concepts of white supremacy privilege equity implicit bias whiteness and oppression those are the tenets of crt and we don't want that in any way in our community or in our schools i have two daughters of different races than mine their diverse group of playmates and family see and accept them and one another with their hearts their friends and our family are not irredeemably racist and that is an assertion of crt when you delve in you'll see it it is important to me that my daughters could be viewed as anything other than as unique
049individuals or be judged by race rather than their character effort gifts and service to others and that's true for all children of color no matter what race or that they would be considered oppressed because of their race their identity and value come from god who created them teaching the discrimination of crt will corrupt the innocence of our children and i'm glad that you are making a change thank you hackl and then next up will be kurt hartman i'm not really supposed to be uh upset because this whole discussion is supposed to be helpful to me so i should be one of those that should be all for it and i think that people that look like me are the most threat to this many uh years ago my my daughter came home crying and she
050said hey daddy they were they were calling me all kind of bad names and and she was all all upset and you know how that is you're a parent and when my daughter said that to me i was crushed my daughter my wife and i and my daughter went to the meeting and when we went to the meeting um they were saying things and my daughter and i was i was upset surely i was upset and my daughter said my wife said hey she said it'll be okay it'll be okay she said it'll be okay and we left we went home see that was something that i knew that no matter what took place in that school there was something at home that was going to be greater than what took place at the school
051so no matter what happened i knew that what we had there was far greater and it could beat that i know if i loved her and i nurtured her we were gonna win my daughter is a lawyer today thank you yep thank you thank you next up is curry hartman and susan erickson is on deck thank you um i got to say again i'm comforted by the words i hear this evening but i kind of gives me a little pause because for months after months we've heard it repeatedly declared especially by superintendent prebles that we don't have crt in forest hills and there's yet to be an acknowledgement by this board by the superintendent that yes you were indoctrinating crt in the system intentionally or unintentionally it was occurring when you look at the cares
052program website you talk about ensuring equity of voices changing of attitudes and behaviors that the staff were to understand their own implicit bias microaggressions and privilege that is crt marxist language that some members of this board love to advocate and you have yet you have yet to acknowledge it has occurred so when you tell me you're going to change don't just put lipstick on a pig because it is still a pig the standard is high and you've got to go if you're going to do it do it openly come and with transparency just don't call it one thing and still do it you've yet to acknowledge it you've yet to acknowledge the bullying that occurs for people who criticized crt in the past that would be a good first step acknowledge crt did exist in
053the school and that bullying existed against those who criticized it that's the first step thank you next up susan erickson and tammy morris you've gone back hi y'all we're all here because we want healthy outcomes for our children that's number one priority in my life and probably everybody in this room we've been told time and time again crt was not embedded within the care program here are some excerpts of literature that i pulled from websites and propaganda that was sent to the teachers our schools and educational institutions are perpetuating white supremacy another uh website went to the video in which lyles dunn said in this moment with ongoing racial injustice and blatant white supremacy on display this was propagandist and out to all the forest hills school districts staff then began work around understanding their
054own implicit biases micro aggression and privilege they're asked to document eight things on a piece of paper among them were gender sexual orientation race socio-economic class religion among two other things and then they were asked to look at some of these things were level of privilege and some of them contained disadvantage and they were supposed to look at these things and then draw feelings of guilt that is the basis of critical race theory uh we have been told that the care program started in relation to the suicides that were plaguing our young people nowhere within the care program doesn't mention teen suicide suicide ideation how to prevent teen suicide or how to deal with depression amongst our students this is not what the care team is about no matter what they say and i'm just
055going to leave you with what martin luther king said i have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will be judged by the color of their skin not or by the help not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character thank you jimmy morris and jamie lay is on deck first i wanted to say i like what i heard you saying earlier um superintendent prebles i hope you'll follow through and be very transparent about with what you're talking about um my husband and i have an eight-year-old daughter in the district we do not want her to be taught critical race theory because crt is the belief that racism exists in every relationship and every interaction crt is the division of everyone
056into two groups the oppressors which are the whites and the oppressed which are the non-whites crt is the belief that institutions are racist individual character does not count crt is for equity not equality crt teaches us fact that our system of law and order is racist and must be dismantled it teaches as fact that all whites are born racist and are racist even if they don't act in a racist way it teaches whites to be ashamed for being white it teaches children that race is the only thing that matters it teaches children to become activists for marxist ideas it teaches hate and division this garbage has no place in a free society thank you jamie lay and uh louis loire i apologize lewis good morning zondeck louise louise lower sorry good evening everyone i've seen
057a lot of misrepresentation of what our stop crt community's intentions are on the internet and locally and printed in newspapers and i wanted to address what we are for so the truth can be heard we are for inclusion and diversity of thought and ability for all students we care about good character individualism ethics above any racial grouping we are for equality equality of opportunity for suit for all students to meet the standards this includes ieps or any other support systems that individuals need this allows students to apply themselves and to go over and beyond we are for high academic standards for our students and a wide variety of course offerings equity of outcome is not a metric we are interested in we are for a school system that teaches that america with all of its
058painful past is the best place on our earth to live that teacher that teaches america has overcome many of its imperfections in america today any single person has the opportunity to do anything that they want to be with hard work and ingenuity that includes america that teaches america deserves to be preserved that teaches capitalism can lift anyone out of poverty and capitalism provides innovation and ingenuity crt is marxist and is in direct opposition to all of that we are for a transparent school board with ample opportunity for input from our community a school board who leads and considers all sides of an issue for compromise we are for a fiscally responsible school board that doesn't blow through money and then ask for more and i do like what you said about the what's coming up
059and i do request that some of the stop crt group be included on the invite on the advisory i think it's important for everyone that we all have input and that would be good for uh transparency and trust in the you catch school district thank you louise and michael fullen is on deck good evening first i want to applaud the work that the district has been doing with the care team and however that does become adjusted because you're helping teachers to better understand the reality of each of their students so that in doing so it creates a learning environment where each student feels that they belong and that their voice their learning their ideas and their experience matter every student deserves this kind of learning environment but the students who struggle the most um are
060the and lack a sense of belonging are the ones who most need the kind of environment the care team was offering in addition our teachers and the administration have been working hard to offer excellence in education that helps students to learn the the breadth of the experience of our american past to understand the dynamics of our present day and to help them move forward as leaders in the community of the future they need to be well prepared with knowledge and critical thinking and problem-solving skills as well as an appreciation for the breadth of experience that the diverse peoples around them share we want you to know that many in the district have supported you all along and will continue to support you in the efforts that you develop but i do have a question i
061looked up what critical race theory is according to the american bar association and their definition on their website said that it is not a diversity and inclusion training but a practice of interrogating the role of race and racism in society that has emerged in the legal academy originally at harvard and has spread to other academic scholarship fields and that then puts it at the academic level and i think that um that's not what we're talking about here so it would really help if we could have a clear definition of what critical race theory is so we know how to judge it thank you thank you michael poland and mary martin is on deck good evening due to lapses and transparency in the forest hill school district many public records requests have been made recently some
062of these many requests were related to the work of a diversity consultant who was hired by the district to train teachers on april 26 forest hill board members accused citizens of harassment because they made records requests and asked questions directly related to her work as a consultant in the district and i quote a group of people selected a black woman to harass and it's wrong another quote these are adults harassing this woman and there there are shades of racism all over it end quote 50 plus record requests countless emails requesting information and only this request is singled out because the consultant happens to have a different skin tone this is weaponizing race this is unacceptable because it clearly sends the message that you dare not request information from someone who has a different skin tone
063than you do lest the board will call you harassers and racists this unchallenged manipulation is disgusting and dangerous furthermore at the may 24th board meeting when questioned about the veracity of the harassment and racism accusations a board member said quote a white person does not get to tell a black person that they should not feel harassed by their actions or scared or afraid you and white people don't get to tell a person that they are not experiencing that end quote that is wrong legally and intellectually we all have the right to speak freely under the first amendment we are all provided equal protection under the law per the per the 14th amendment the civil rights act of 1964 prohibits public institutions from discrimination on the basis of race the equal opportunity acts of 72 and
06474 do the same for employers in schools a white person does not have a right indeed they do we all do saying otherwise violates at least two amendments three federal laws and several state laws sir thank you thank you mary martin is up and rachel setac is on deck hi um and i have trying to do bullet points because you addressed some things and i do commend you both for saying something about it and for putting into action some reprimands um i as a teacher i always talk about this tripod of parent-teacher student that builds the relationship when you're trying to have a conference or to get something through but i want you to remember please that parents are the first and the most important influencers in a child's life and well i commend what
065you've done i also beg you to please god not make this just be lip service it's positive and it seems to be in a good direction but let's make sure that we follow through well um when i was walking in here tonight somebody said oh you're ridiculous and when i have these conversations with my millennial nieces and nephews they say oh you have to teach history but we also can't put a pro put any programs in that come and go with the direction of the wind we need to be educators and base them on research and evidence and crt is not that and i looked back for some things about what abraham lincoln did during the reconstruction after the civil war and a reporter from a reporter from the boston journal wrote that when lincoln
066came into jefferson davis's office he came in not as a conqueror not with bitterness in his heart but he came with kindness and as parents we want our kids to have a glass half full so keep our children's glasses half full fill their buckets with old programs like the you know fill in your buckets thank you thank you next up rachel c tech and sharon scott is on deck good afternoon my name is rachel c tack i am one of the students that came back i attended forest hills school district k-12 and i'm now an attorney in the anderson area and owner of my own black-owned woman-run law firm we have heard from superintendent superintendent rebels about how there will be no intentional teaching and there will be he's not an expert what he didn't
067tell you is that we i did have the opportunity to talk with superintendent prebles about how um the care program did have critical race theory embedded in it and that i would be available as a resource and since i'm a lawyer i am going to be holding this district accountable for negligence as well as just intentional acts we have to be informed about critical race theory it's not always going to have the words critical race theory critical theory sometimes it's going to come under the form of equity of microaggressions privilege and implicit bias those are terms that if i have been if i have been corrupted by those concepts when i was in school i wouldn't be where i am today because i would not have pursued my god-given potential without exception please return the
068power back to the parents so that they can have that ability to shape their children's worldview and please leave the division to math thank you next up we have darren scott and then on deck is david lobach first i do want to say thank you for listening i appreciate your apology elizabeth that was very nice uh on the learning for justice website that the care site took you to for teacher development there are classroom resources one of them is about identity it gave a list of categories that you are to answer and this is how you find your identity it then gives you a picture of three people and you are to use this template in categories to help you give an identity to that person in the picture categories are race gender religion ethnicity
069socioeconomic status language marital status parent or childless sexual orientation education career in my opinion this lesson is programming children to immediately put people into a category without even talking to that person you are making assumptions and dividing people into groups just by looking at them isn't that profiling that is crt i've been taught to treat all people with respect and dignity in order to know someone we must talk to them get to know them interact with them find out about their life experiences and it's not up to me to give them an identity it's theirs and that comes from life experiences if we are meant to bring people together we must not divide but speak of our shared life experiences speak of our differences not make assumptions just by looking at someone as the board
070of education your main objective is to educate our children in reading math science history keep keeping them safe a second and please do not forget this is my child that i have entrusted to the forest hills school district to educate not indoctrinate thank you what's up with david lobach and then kevin misiac is on deck i just have a couple brief comments um reflects some of the conversation we've had first i'd like to thank you all for listening and for moving forward i think that was really a big first step as far as this committee i've got a couple comments on that you should have goals and objectives and there should be a review semi-annually or annually to compare how it's doing against those goals and how to adjust the plan accordingly afterwards but but
071ongoing is a real key to it thank you well thank you is it miss yak is that how you say it no miss shack all right my name is kevin mishack my daughter will be a sixth grader in the summit and my son will be a ninth grader in anderson we moved to anderson township five years ago after i did research about the best schools in cincinnati area that i could reasonably afford i want to thank the school board for your work so far unfortunately i'm very disappointed in the developments i've seen over the past few years others have spoke about the current programs and its issues i'd like to remind everybody scott prebles was hired as superintendent in 2016 the care program was introduced in 2017. anderson high school has a new mascot but
072the renovation contract is incomplete and the pool issues are unaddressed for student suicides in the past year or two under the leadership of scott preble's and the care program turpin high school's rating on greatschool.org has dropped to seven it was nine when i moved here increased administration cost due to hiring assistant superintendents to help scott while we've lost school students and funding to private schools i have friends and family that have pulled their kids out of the school system finally a voter approved increase in property taxes for funding forest hill school districts the superintendent mentioned that the funding for this program was 360 thousand dollars your budget is 88 million dollars annually we're talking about a 360 000 project what you're wasting my time picked up bill armstrong bill armstrong with jim schultz on deck
073and some of the people on the board know i've spoken many times i just kind of wanted to reiterate a few things we teach our kids responsibility at home and if you make a mistake or you do something wrong admit it take the consequences do what's right why are our so-called leadership of our schools and district not doing this for instance we're supposed to have inclusion for all our students yet my daughter uh in 2020 went to live oaks we get the yearbook and they forgot to put in anyone that was a junior in live for the live oaks curriculum may not seem like a big deal to some but for others it is i don't understand why this wasn't brought up to those students and let them know that hey we made a mistake
074this is what happened and why instead we have a student that has no pictures from one year of high school on another note the reason we waited until now is because as some of the board members know my son was railroaded in 2019 after he was attacked by a teacher that then became an issue because the teacher's parents or parent i should say was a um police officer mr armstrong thank you i'm not finished sir sir sir i'll take up the other minute sir your time is up we have done an excellent job today of everyone following the rules thank you next up jim schultz nick and then tyson butler is up next good evening everybody my name is jim schultz i am not thoroughly involved in all of the details i think we've all
075gotten some education here tonight on the topic but uh i don't need very much time to say that from a distance it seems like the school board should be focusing on reading writing arithmetic history science the fine arts i just i don't i think the social engineering belongs in the home in the church any place but in these four walls you know there aren't enough hours in a day to teach it seems to me like there just aren't enough hours in a day to teach the fundamentals you know anyhow that's all i wanted to mention thank you and god bless you all tyson butler and then lisa statton is on deck and go um so this is i wanted to come up here and really just talk about your legacy quickly obviously but we have
076board members that are going off of this board god you came forward and it's trying to implement a plan i am for one raising my hand and saying i want to be on the citizens advisory group okay second we will find a lot we've done a lot of foia requests there's been a lot of effort countless hours by a lot of people in this audience that just want their kids to be in a safe place and the legacy that you guys are going to leave is going to transcend there's some of you that are legacy board members how are we going to remember you when you're gone when you're walking through kroger and we see you out in public how are we going to remember you and that's the biggest thing that we have here
077this whole issue with care is not a partisan issue let me repeat this is not a partisan issue at all okay you want the best for our kids and if you're taking a step to move forward towards that if you're taking a step towards that then we want to be a part of that no matter our political affiliation no matter our walk of life and that's what you teach us and that's what everybody has wanted to be from day one okay that's all i got thank you lisa staton satin and then beth becker has it started hello my name is lisa staton and i just wanted to thank everyone that came out today and brought books for the book drive and i also just wanted to say that you know we have an amazing school
078district anderson township is an amazing place to live and i know that we are re-looking at some things but i hope that we continue to focus on diversity and inclusion and belonging because it is so important and it is something that makes our school district great so thank you so much thank you and uh beth becker excuse the eye patch scratched my cornea i could wear the pirate patch for you all but i don't have it with me so i'm beth becker and i am a proud forest hills parent i just like to add what lisa said earlier i want to be clear about which why we chose to do this book drive today the time and place were absolutely intentional we wanted to show our board and teachers that we support them the parents
079out there today represent many parents who choose to take action in the form of serving our students teachers and community i'd also like to add that two of the children victimized by students making nazi memes of their photos are children that i love families that i do life with children i've watched grow up since they were literal toddlers if you have any doubt why our cares team is needed i encourage you to listen to their stories if you don't know what i'm talking about i encourage you to message me and i will tell you what happened i've witnessed one of the strongest women i know break down in tears multiple times over what happened to her child in this very building this is why the cares team is needed i'll close with this we collected
080almost a thousand books today that will directly impact the future of the children in our community in positive and impactful ways serving altruistically is what we do if that's you too i welcome you to join us thank you for your time thank you i want to thank everybody here this was fantastic the information that we got was was well thought out it was obviously heartfelt and i really appreciate it and i appreciate the audience the the um the audience and your your participation your obvious emotion but your your ability to to channel that in in in positive direction so so thank you i didn't give my typical speech about i don't purposely cut people off i we're just i'm trying to be fair to everybody i didn't give that the beginning i hope you saw
081that through this this process next up now we get into the exciting things the uh business operations mr broadwater item 8.1 good evening under business operations 8.1 it's the 2022-2023 district calendar adoption it is per ohio revised code 3313.48 b a public hearing on this district calendar was held on april 26 of 2021 the proposed draft of the 2022-2023 district calendar is attached superintendent recommends the board approved the 2022-2023 district calendar as shown in the attachment no one can clear a room like you can mr well you really sold the business operations part of the part of the program 8.2 is certification of standards governing types of food and beverages sold on school premises there is an attachment for the board to review as of july 2011 ohio revised code 3313.814 requires each school district
082board of education and each chartered nonpublished to approve the district uh calendar adoption 2022-2023 i make a motion to approve the district calendar adoption for 2022-23 second ms cropper miss choice yes mrs bissinger yes mrs meyer yes dr heiss yes now item 8.2 thank you uh just continuing as we said as of july 2011 ohio revised code 3313.814 requires each school district board of education each chartered non-public school governing authority to adopt and enforce nutrition standards governing the types of food and beverages that may be sold on the premium premises of its school and specifying the time and place each type of food or beverage may be sold the standards specified in 3313.816 and 3313.817 are minimum standards and do not preclude the adoption of more stringent standards by the local educational agency the forest
083hills school district under the authority of tia strauss food service supervisor and myself mike broadwater assistant superintendent of business operations and human resources is in compliance with ohio revised code 3313.814 and again there is an attachment that does outline the certification of standards governing motion to approve i have a question yes um well i don't know if it's a question or comment but i do appreciate that we do not spend above what we bring in in this area however and i appreciate that we meet the standards but it's not very healthy like we do a lot of chicken nuggets is that something that we i'm sure that other people have noticed this and i've been meaning to bring it up for four years so tonight's the first time that it stood on its own so
084is there a way around that i don't know if i have a solid answer for you via tia strauss being able to do that but what i can tell you is the federal government does provide certain nutrition and when you're trying to maintain the budget and she does a very very good job of it that that's the balance right yeah well i haven't said anything because you know who nobody wants to propose adding money right now but it's a lot of pancakes and chicken nuggets i will i will make sure i address it with her i will i will take it back and we'll double check i can tell you budgetarily it is in great shape uh and we did this past school year and this this coming school year will be feeding every student
085uh for free so it's it's a great program but you can always look at it and i'll take that message back to ms strauss yeah okay can i get a motion to approve is that an agenda yes we're approving a certification of standards governing types of food beverages sold on school premises make a motion second class yeah that's our bill miss cropper miss choice yes mrs meyer yes mrs bissinger yes dr heiss yes item 8.3 bid opening thank you this is the bid opening at the anderson high school sherwood elementary parking lot resurfacing project the purpose is we have a couple parking lots that are in need of repair the anderson high school it's the north lot which is by the auxiliary gym is in desperate need of repair sherwood elementary it is the entire
086parking lot that will be resurfaced the cost is 237 thousand four hundred dollars in total for both combined bids were opened and read on wednesday june 23 of 2021 for the anderson high school sherwood elementary partial parking lot resurfacing project the superintendent recommends the board approve the resolution to award a construction contract related to the anderson high school sherwood elementary partial parking lot resurfacing project to west side paving and excavating incorporated who was the lowest bidder as you see in the attachments that are provided with all of the bid tabulations i'll make a motion to approve the attach resolution to award a construction contract related to the anderson high school sherwood elementary partial parking lot research for team project and to west side paving and in fact that's a lot of words all right miss
087cropper miss joyce yes mrs bissinger yes mrs meyer yes dr heiss yes next up human resources report mr broadwater thank you moving on to human resources i will point out a few items the board was provided the report on friday and i did field quite a few questions and hopefully gave some answers but underneath item c which is appointments the one i would like to point out is as you recall last board meeting one of the board meetings we approved mr fellowes to be our director of human resources and and that's not what we're doing tonight brown but well we would like to say congratulations to mr kyle fender who will be replacing mr fellowes and we're excited for kyle to take over that role so kyle congratulations there's a long history of excellence there
088as principles of anderson the other item that i will point out is i'm going to move to item m which is the memorandum of understanding you have two mous there the first one is with our forest hills teacher association it is making us otez 2.0 compliant otez is the ohio teacher evaluation system we were using otez 1.0 ohio department of education has altered that to otez 2.0 and that is the verbiage needed so that we're compliant with that the second one is the anderson weight room supplementals there were three supplementals that were added we worked with the teacher association to add those what i would state is those supplementals are being paid through the athletic budget uh and are commensurate with what was paid last year it's just a different process so that we can
089make sure that we are covered with our insurance should anything happen in the weight room so you'll see a strength and conditioning coordinator you'll see a weight room supervisor and an assistant weight room supervisor supplemental per quarter and again it is nothing different than what we did last year other than to pull them in under the forest hills umbrella so that we make sure that we are covered with insurance so with that since the regular board meeting of may 24th 2021 staffing has remained the same at 779 and the fte worksheet is provided for reconciliation superintendent recommends that the board approve the personnel items as listed all right can i get a motion subdivide this so the supplementary salary schedule get a motion to approve the supplementary salary is good make a motion to approve
090the supplemental salary schedule second ms cropper miss choice yes mrs meyer yes mrs bissinger abstain dr heiss yes next will be athletic workers portion of the agenda will need to be to be voted on separately can i get a motion to adopt the athletic workers portion of the agenda i'll make a motion to approve the athletic workers portion of the agenda second ms cropper mrs meyer yes miss choice yes mrs bissinger abstain dr heiss yes and finally the overall hr report voted on minus the supplemental athletic workers portions i move that we approve everything else under the um hr report in a second ms cropper mrs bissinger yes miss joyce yes mrs meyer abstain dr heiss yes thank you next up math course of study thank you board on behalf of the teaching and learning
091curriculum team it is recommended by the superintendent of 10.1 the math course of study and 10.2 the new textbooks for the math course of study this is the second read the first read was in may both the course of study and resources have been at center office for the last 30 days for review so we are recommending at this time the final recommendation of the math courses study and textbook adoptions a motion to approve i make a motion to approve the math course of study as presented as well as the new textbook adoptions for this one there's one at a time okay okay a second second ms robert miss choice yes mrs meyer yes mrs bissinger yes dr heiss yes now item 10.2 new textbook good options for the mass court math course of study
092make a motion to approve the new textbook adoptions for math as presented second ms cropper miss choice yes mrs meyer yes mrs bissinger yes dr heiss yes thank you thanks next up 11.1 foreign exchange student turpin high school good evening uh teaching and learning student services has three items just to for your hopeful approval this evening 11.1 is our exchange student the administration of turpin high school is requesting approval for juan rubio bonilla from spain will be a student there for the 21 22 school year a resident host family has been selected for him and he will be sponsored by the council on standards for international educational travel we have reviewed all information as required through board policy 5114 and included that information in our review the superintendent recommends the board approve the enrollment of
093juan rubio bonilla at turpin high school and that the board authorized the waiver of instructional fees for him thank you you got a motion to approve i move that we approve the enrollment of juan rubio bonilla at turpin high school and i'm happy to do it that we are now going uh transatlantically again can i get a second that's for sure second mrs cropper mrs pissinger yes miss joyce yes mrs meyer yes dr heiss yes item 11.2 11.2 is our hamilton county educational service center service agreement for next school year 2122. this is an agreement that forest hills enters into annually with hcesc to provide special instructional services to the district costs as i've included here are based on prorated access costs incurred by hcesc we remem we remit monthly payments for these indicated services
094um as invoiced by uh the esc all of the services are to be performed by hamilton county through the 21 22 school year and i i will add here that this is the area that i did review with you and provided kind of a hopefully a detailed accounting of each and every service that's included in this agreement i noted in our special board meeting a couple weeks ago of the increase in the speech and language costs occupational therapy costs and our psychology costs atlanta provided for us a cup report which is a district or a state profile report that includes our students with disabilities by categories and they are essentially how we are funded through a weighted funding system in that report if as we all have reviewed you will note the increases of our
095students with disabilities in the areas of speech and language there's also a noted increase in our students with vision impairments multiple disabilities and um even in my own analysis there's an increase in our students with other health impairments over the years so hopefully you've seen that noted increase as i as i shared and the reason for the increase in cost of services i will also add in just my own review of this report and as i mentioned a couple of weeks ago that even our students with autism our students with preschool who are i'm sorry identified as a preschooler with a disability have also increased as well although it's not noted yet in this report so i i just i wanted to make sure i noted that for you this evening because i know we
096had promised that information um the superintendent recommends the board of proof participation in the special instructional service to the forest hill school district i make a motion to approve participation in the special instructional services as presented second ms cropper miss choice yes mrs bissinger yes mrs meyer yes dr heiss yes 11.3 11.3 is also a hamilton county educational service center contract for services and this is with immaculate heart of mary for the 2122 school year this is our agreement with the hamilton county educational services to provide auxiliary and special education services to our non-public in this case it is immaculate heart of mary costs are based on prorated excess costs also incurred by the hamilton county educational service center we remem remit monthly payments for these services as invoice and i should add here that
097the funds flow through us as auxiliary and federal allocations um they're they're specifically allocated by um as federal funds for non-public spending so they do not come through our general or our forest hills budget they come specifically through our part b special education funds as well as our auxiliary funds not to put you on the spot why do they do that um so that there is a public entity that's managing those funds that's the only way they flow so and the calculations are also based upon the calculations for how much ihm is allocated it is included in our district student with disability count so it is all uh so this yeah so this contract is obviously public because we're talking about it but if it went straight to a non-public then you never know where
098it was correct and we operate with ihm and have specific responsibilities as a result in terms of evaluation for students with disabilities and and those types of activities thanks um motion to approve yes i make a motion to approve participation in the special instructional services to immaculate heart of mary school as presented second ms robert miss joyce yes mrs bissinger yes mrs meyer yes dr heiss yes all right thank you item 12.1 the hamilton county cooperative contract good evening item 12.1 under technology is the hamilton claremont cooperative contract it's the annual contract with hcc for state software and state network support any questions about this contract this evening superintendent recommends the board approve the annual contract for services for services with hamilton claremont cooperative for the period july 1 2021 through june 30th 2022 as
099shown in the attachments can i get a motion make a motion to approve the annual contract for services with hamilton clermont cooperative for the period july 2021 june 30 2022 as second ms cropper miss choice yes mrs bissinger yes mrs meyer yes dr hayes yes thank you thank you item 13.1 uh temporary appropriations 13.1 presents the temporary appropriations for our upcoming fiscal year uh 2022 which begins in just a couple days on july 1st these appropriations will serve as an inner measure to operate the district during the next few months and over the rest of the summer as the district finalizes staffing contracts and instructional programs and services for our upcoming school year we will be bringing a permanent appropriation measure by september 30th as required by state law i respectfully request that you approve
100item agenda item 13.1 motion make a motion to approve the adoption of the 2021-22 temporary appropriations at the fund level for all district funds as presented mr cropper miss choice yes mrs bissinger yes mrs meyer yes dr heiss yes item 13.2 treasures report item a of the treasurer's report presents a list of donors whose gifts totaled over 46 000 over the last month from 23 different donors we are truly thankful to receive this outstanding report from our support from our community um item b is a statement of board accounts which presents all funds activity for the over the last 11 months for the period ended may 30 2021 item c presents the general fund our five-year forecast receipts for the month and the fiscal year to date ended may 31st may was a high cash
101flow month mainly due to the biennial collection of revenues from the tip revenues that we got from anderson township and the amount of 7 million our total revenue collection for the month was 11.8 which was certainly a high cash flow for us items d e present the expenditures in the general fund for the month and fiscal year today may 31st expenditures and fund as we talk about every month are very stable throughout the year you can pretty much divide them by 12. with 98 of our fiscal year complete at the end of may we have spent 88 percent of our appropriations with another three percent committed for future expenditures agenda items f and g are the may 31st make reconciliation investments and final appropriations for our current fiscal year are prevent presented in item h
102item i is an annual request that we bring for the board due to board policy we set our travel mileage rate to the current irs rate at the beginning of our fiscal year the current rate is 56 cents per month which is down a penny and a half from last year's rate of 57.5 cents so a little savings there our new rate as i said will be effective july 1. item j is a request to approve the board service expense allocation for fiscal year 22 which again begins in a couple days i respectfully request that the board approve items 13.2 a through 13.2 j motion to approve i make a motion to approve the treasurer's report as presented second ms cropper miss choice yes mrs meyer yes mrs missinger yes dr heiss yes and then
10314.1 for discussion but this you and i would talk about the pool committee later no this would be a good time okay well i have some good news um so we've talked about what to do with the pool and how to proceed for a long time and so we've spent some time digging into that for the last month and the way we're going to set it up well we're going to discuss this but i think the way we're going to set it up is put it as a subcommittee underneath the technology and facilities committee which forest is a chair but i will chair the subcommittee and that's because of the experience that i've had in the past with mr broadwater with the township committee we're very fortunate to have miss bissinger on the board now
104she was on the township subcommittee that looked at trying to solve this through community partnerships so what we're going to do is first of all this is the official announcement that it's going to be formed and so we'll start looking for people to join the committee i have a long list of people that need to be represented groups and also what we'll do is just start with an update on everything that's been done so there's a couple years of numbers that have been circulated there's some options that have been put on the table current state of the anderson pool what the short-term plan is for the swimmers for the next year and then also come up with a long-term plan so we should actually get somewhere so i have a question considered a board committee
105or a superintendent's committee it's a subcommittee of a board committee yeah okay so it's a public meeting kind of committee yeah sure though yes yes yes we have this yeah people okay we have this yeah way back when on the facility yes people can't attend yeah i i think that that's how it works you can have yeah more than two board members at it as well because it's about oh yeah that is a that is a benefit to doing it that way it's a notice committee now generally on these we'll still keep two so there's not a decision made outside of like a meeting like this yeah and again this committee doesn't make a decision this committee is charged with putting recommendations to the board so i would hope it's so it's june i would
106hope that we could have something of consequence by the end of the year knowing that a short-term plan for the anderson swimmers i believe is already in place so we would be looking at beyond that but all of the elements are there to come up with some sort of decision here and move on it thank you so anyone who's interested should reach out to me district email please okay thank you okay now reports of the board of education anderson township economic development committee report i was not able to attend the last meeting but i don't think there's anything that relates to the schools right now okay uh finance committee met last month nope okay forest hills foundation report is this the last one no no no no i really have nothing to say uh we
107did not meet our the foundation board did not meet in june uh we took we but we will meet in july usually we take july off but we're going to meet in july instead we did have my retirement party last week so i am retiring in what two days i think whatever i guess wednesdays the 30th is my last day i just want to say thank you to all of you sitting here i have the utmost respect for everyone at this table at this table at that table i think um i think we're very blessed in this district to have such dedicated people first who step up and do the work and you know it it gets contentious sometime but we work it out you know we we always always do seem to work it
108out i think we'll work out all of it um i just want to thank you over the years for the support you've given me and the foundation i'm going to buy a new microphone from foundation funds no kidding um i don't have to be kidding i but all the support you've given me over me personally and the foundation i mean it's always been i make a call to any of you and say we need this for the foundation and the answer's pretty much yes he's like what do you need what do you need to move the mission of the foundation forward and the mission of the foundation is so that every kid in the school district has the resources they need to be successful whatever those resources may are so that's what we do that's
109what we raise money for so just having your support over the years and you know we started this we saw our first board in 2008 we were we're a startup we were a startup business like we didn't like we we didn't really even know okay what are we going to now we formed this foundation what are we going to do and we had to do some work and do some good work so that people realize oh they're legit they you know they do what they say they're going to do and it wasn't me it's been a great board it's been a lot of volunteers over the years on our steering committee you know we've had some fantastic board members that are just always willing to step up and do what needs to be done so
110i am extremely extremely grateful for everything the school district done has done and the people sitting around this room to support the foundation i hope you will continue to support the foundation and basically that's money i mean what we do helps so that tax dollars don't have we pay for the stuff that tax dollars aren't the tax dollars that aren't there we supplement with private funds that is our mission and we've been able to plug a lot of holes that way and we will continue stacy gillard is my replacement and she comes in with a lot of experience she will do a fantastic job she's very enthusiastic has as i said a lot of experience she's already building relationship with people in this community and i think it's in really good hands so thank you
111all very much i've enjoyed my time and i appreciate everything you've done to support us so this kind of reminds me of my last board meeting because there's a lot of emotion here and i am the new liaison to the foundation um elizabeth gave me that job and i'm happy to have it and after i went off the board i have been on the foundation since and i want everyone to know that it did start out as a fledgling organization but uh at some point someone made the brilliant decision to make dee the executive director and she's been the executive director for 10 years and this is the part where i'm it's going to remind me the last board meeting um i know dee so well um we've been through a lot together we've um
112had similar paths and i can't think of a person i respect more and i just want to say thank you and before i start crying scott wants to say something and he won't cry well i might um so i said this the other day at the retirement party 4d uh and i mean it from the bottom of my heart the amount of um encouragement that our staff gets from the work that the foundation does and certainly under your leadership and the mobilization of everyone in the teams and the boxes and the work and all of that it um it's cool it has a coordinator and that happens to be you and so in our school district over the time that you have been on the foundation you've brought lean up thank you you have now
113i'm going to cry because i can't see deep you've made that all very possible for us and i talked about this the other night as well i believe that your interests are genuine they are pure and they are about kids and they are about building a community that serves not only the students here but the entire community so your work extends beyond the forest hill schools and beyond the foundation and it is individuals like you that make a township make a city or a state strong and i appreciate that and i i know the entire board does so we wish you the best in retirement we hope that we see you around at soirees and things like that i'm pretty certainly certain we will but again from all of us in the forest hills schools
114staff certainly the board will probably make some comments of their own but we thank you very much and many many things have happened for students and on behalf of students thanks to your work so thank you very much and i wish you the best the best of health and a long long retirement that is much deserved thank you i can't i can't not say anything um just quickly so i really have two words that i feel like i should deliver to you and they are well done you served in this role so faithfully and there were so many times that you would call and say what do you need i will help you get it done there were so many times that you've challenged me because we don't always see eye to eye and d
115in my relationship is a perfect example of how you can be friends and professional and disagree sometimes and work each other through it and at the end of the day we only had students best interest in mind and i just thank you you've made this district and this community better and you continue to do that as a trustee and i just well done yeah and so dee i've been with the board almost four years and i think you were the first person i met and you just have been so supportive and honest and helpful i just you mean so much to me i mean it's been more than than a friendship um i don't know if i would have gotten through some things without you and so i just want to thank you for that
116and know that you know we will continue on because i know you will i'll be right there with you thanks for all you do i'll speak on behalf of myself and i've been on the board for 12 years now so all through the entire foundation uh we we go way back to a lot of i mean your commitment to the kids of our district is unmatched and on behalf of myself and then of course the randy and jim and rich and all of the board members before us i just thank you for everything i know you'll still be part of everything that we're doing so thank you all right yep that will move on we'll give you some flowers and we're going to move them all right item 15.4 human resources committee report we have
117not met legislative liaison report i talked about what i said with tom brinkman earlier the the budget's still out there the house and senate are trying to reconcile the fair funding plan and they're still as i understand still working on that so there hasn't been nothing decided yet that's still in committee policy committee report i think the policy committee has met all right diddy well what did we do sorry go ahead we did and we went over a few policies uh three months okay nothing for this this meeting all right safety committee report i believe they have not met yet teaching and learning committee nothing technology and facilities has not met since our last meeting forest hills teachers association report [Laughter] well uh hello and good evening evening everyone my name is chris preston as
118boris mentioned i i'm a seventh grade science teacher and a team leader at nagle middle school and also serve as delegate both to the ohio education association oea uh and the southwest ohio education association swa oea for the forest hills teachers association which is fhta uh thank you for allowing me the time uh to speak as donna lauver our fhta president is unable to be here this evening so i have three brief topics i promise i will keep them brief first the work of our forest hills staff and what they accomplished last year allowed for arguably the most important thing in education to occur and that's student learning learning about academic content friendships happiness diverse viewpoints problem solving failure success silliness relationships social interactions team building collaboration creativity excitement perseverance dedication and empathy i'm sure
119that we could all add a few more to that list if given some time this past year was a monumental task a huge undertaking and yet our staff was dedicated and steadfast in their daily work which helped support the learning that happened each day in the forest hills classroom wherever that classroom was and however the instruction was delivered secondly if this past year has taught us all something is that we should expect change and disruption sometimes as the norm adjusting the change and challenge has been a part of the daily work since i began serving as a classroom teacher here in 2003. the work that occurs each day and every day by our district administration building administration our teaching staff and our support staff is the real success of our school system as we end
120the previous school year and look into the next school year may we continue to find shared solutions to support learning in our classrooms fhta will continue to help play a role in that conversation we have our building level advisory committee teams known as bac that will continue to meet throughout the year in our buildings to address topics that can have an impact on classroom instruction in a positive way also our district advisory committee known as dac will continue to meet regularly throughout the school year also to find solutions throughout the district that can have a positive impact on classroom instruction third and last part of my role as an oea and sw oea delegate is to understand legislation and policy at the local state and sometimes national level that could potentially impact our students and
121staff here in forest hills as this board and district are most likely aware the fair school funding plan contained in the house passed version of biennial budget bill known as house bill 110 has a deadline of passage by the ohio senate this wednesday june 30th there are supporters of the house plan that includes the fair funding model and supporters of the senate plan that does not include the model supporters of the ferris school funding plan argue it represents nearly four years of work in an attempt to address four previous rulings of the ohio supreme court starting with the duroth decision in 1997 that ohio's education funding system was unconstitutional because it didn't properly calculate student need thus the local taxpayer has been asked over time to bear much of the cost one of the goals
122of the fair school funding model is to address the over-reliance on property wealth in determining determining a district's ability to fund its local share gary shearer a republican from circleville an original co-sponsor of the legislation in the ohio house of representatives was quoted as saying our current school funding model has been broken for a long time the cut patterson school funding formula is long overdue and will drastically improve the education of our youth for years to come john patterson a democrat from jefferson ohio and also an original co-sponsor of the legislation was quoted as saying so many hands have played a part in this bill and to see it moving forward is a real win for ohio students ohio districts and ohio taxpayers the ohio senate has introduced its own version of the budget that
123indeed increases k-12 spending over the short-term term of two years however supporters of the fair funding model argue that it does not address a key part of the school funding problem which is the over-reliance on property wealth over time the ohio school board association buckeye association of school administrators and also the ohio education association formally supported the passage of house bill 110 which included the fair funding model we are all anxiously awaiting the ohio senate decision on our future state budget i ask that we as we as forest hills continue to be aware of policy and legislation that supports providing a sustainable high quality public education for our students in our communities of anderson and newtown thank you for your time this evening thank you we do not have an executive session our next regular
124meeting of the board of education is july 26 uh 20 2021 at 7 00 pm uh which will be here either in this room or the other depending on what's going on there where there is also going to be a meeting on july 7th at 7 30 am for hr related activities that need to be done before our july or end of july meeting so with that can i get a motion to adjourn you in a second second ms cropper miss joyce yes mrs meyer yes this is messenger yes dr heiss yes thank you everyone for coming