001District Board of Education. If you could all stand for the pledge, please. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the stand, indivisible. Hey, Mr. Bane, if you can call the role, please. >> Mrs. Ibold >> here. >> Mr. Oravon >> here. >> Mrs. Philot >> here. >> Mr. West >> here. >> Mr. Hay >> here. >> Thank you. First up, we have communications. >> Yeah, thank you. Um, great crowd here tonight. So, thank you for coming out. Um, just a couple quick thank yous before we turn it over to athletics. Uh, a thank you to our community again for an overwhelming support on November 4th at the ballot. Um we had twothirds of the voters come out and vote yes. Um truly an investment in our community. Uh but most
002importantly for me it's an investment in our kids right and that is what we are here for. So a thank you to the community. A thank you to our board of education for having the vision. Um this started over a year ago with a partnership with the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission. So truly a thank you for all the work that you guys did behind the scenes to get this on the ballot and help get this passed. And then lastly, a thank you to Michelle Philpot. This is Michelle's uh she's going to be finishing her term on the board of education the end of December. Um she has been the president for the last 2 years and has been integral in this whole process and truly a leader for the district. She is all in on
003Oills. Um, I can speak as a staff member the support that she always gives to us, but she is the biggest advocate once again for our kids and she has always questioned and pushed us on the things that we're doing um for our kids. And so, uh, truly from the district, a thank you. We do have a present for you. You can open that later on if you'd like, but once again, just wanted to say thank you and hopefully you are not a stranger in the community. All right. So, with that, we are going to turn this over to Mr. Ben Hegman, our athletic director. And Ben has a lot of athletes uh that are here along with coaches. So before we get started, congratulations to all of our student athletes here in the fall.
004Uh we had a great fall and uh we'll let Mr. Hegman recognize all of you. So it's over to you, Ben. Thank you. Appreciate everybody for coming this evening. Um we greatly appreciate the opportunity to come in celebrate some of our coaches uh and our student athletes. We've had a lot of successes this fall. Student athletes and coaches are here this evening. They really represent some of the best that Oak Hills has to offer, not only on the field in competition, but really as leaders in our communities and our schools. And uh we're really proud of each and every one of them and what they've been able to accomplish um in their own individual sports uh and with their teams. Um Mrs. Kot as well, thank you for your years of support for athletes. Um,
005it's been just a bunch here tonight. Thank you from from our hard for us as well. We compete in the Greater Miami Conference, the GMC. The athletes here will probably tire going on. It's widely considered probably the top, if not one of the top two, uh, conferences in the statewide. So, year in and year out, our kids are competing against week in and week out. competing against people that student athletes that that regularly represent the best competition. Um so to get recognized in our conference uh really is a big deal to win a title in our conference um is exceptional. We're proud of the kids that have done that. This year we have two athletes that were uh nominated GMC athlete of the year in their respective sport. Um, first one could not be here
006tonight as he is also playing basketball. So, they are probably in the gym at this point. Max Road is named our defensive player here in our conference. Um, Max was uh really an integral part of our team. He's a fourtime varsity basketball and football player. Uh, he led our conference in tackles, was first or second tackles in three of his four years. Um, the one game he did, he was third. uh he set a career record for 436 tackles over his career in the division. So Max it's a very impressive accomplishment for him. Um next up I have Renee Harper as Rene up here. This is Rene's second year as GMC athlete here and she's a sophomore. So, I think uh she capped off an unbelievable year this year by uh making it to the
007state 10th term for second year in a row. Last year, she finished in the top eight uh in doubles and this year she was in the top eight. Correct. And uh in in singles. Um I like to talk about these kids so many impressive accomplishments. Write it down and make sure I don't miss anything. Um she was all city player of the year, district player of the year, all Ohio. um really has been an exceptional uh member of our team and we're hope continue to keep watching. So uh congratulations our competition cheer team. Girls want to come on up swagger. I like to see uniform effort. I think the same thing happened last year where you girls were on your way to practice right before this. So, we'll get you out of here pretty quickly.
008But, uh this is the second year in a row that they defended their title in the uh building category. Um more about the category so I can actually speak a little bit more intelligently on it. But uh congratulations. They uh they said they're defending champions in uh in the GMC and that traditional build. They uh have their state competition in January and then head off to Orlando uh at some point in February for their national competition. I think I offered to sh last year. So love watching girls compete. See if we can figure that out athletics. Congratulations, girls. We are not done with tennis. We bring your whole tennis team. I got myself a bunch of girls here this evening. and coach. I probably shouldn't speak historically, but I think since I've been at Oakills,
009this has been one of the uh top tennis teams that we've had. Um, Coach Miller might be able to speak more to me about that, but I think this is one of the top performances that we've had as a team. Coach Miller was nominated by GMC coach of the year by his peers. Outstanding job for that. U and then our girls team finished second at GMC. So to put that in perspective, Mason has won 10 straight state titles and they're in our conference. So um it's pretty impressive that we're runner up to Mason this year uh in the GMC. They finished third in the city and they finished um fifth in state in the team competition. Um individually, we already said that Renee finished in uh in the top eight in the state and then
010in sectional and districts. Um Renee was uh the district the sectional champ and then Brooklyn and Paige um also competed and they were sectional champs in doubles which kind of cool. You got to compete with your sister and that's pretty neat accomplishment. So, um, all around our girls had an outstanding program. Awesome job. Cross country. Come on up, ladies. Go. So they qualified this year as a team uh to the state meet in uh Columbus which is an really awesome accomplishment. Uh Leah Coer, Ellie Py, Lucy Shuy, Megan Zimmerly, Sam Gats, Rachel Wonderlick, and ET B. Um another really neat thing about this group is at the GMC meet this year, all seven of these girls were first or second team uh conference. their entire um their entire top seven. I talk about a team
011effort. All of the girls were first or second team. Um and then Lucy um and Aaliyah were both first team. So awesome job ladies. Um let's see. At the state meet, they were third in the regionals at the state meet. Uh Aaliyah finished seventh overall. She was the top finisher from all divisions uh coming out of Southwest Ohio, which is uh our Cincinnati area, which was was pretty amazing. Aaliyah now ranks number two on our all-time record board um in the history of our cross country program. Um and she broke the 18 minute mark at 5 minutes. She's the only fem second female sports to do that. Um so that's a that's a really soccer player and get that coach. So um these girls had an amazing year. Um Lucy Lucy uh she finished year
012number nine on board. And fortunately, we graduated one girl. We only graduated one girlfriend. Correct. Congratulations. So, awesome job, ladies. Right back behind you, Mr. Connor. Owen Hut was a a sophomore student here at Oak Hills. uh rewind back to the spring and track and field as a freshman ran one of the best most mature races I think I've ever seen a kid run especially for a freshman to a point in the model race pretty impressive um he qualified this year um in his sophomore season more impressive uh Bowen is now our school record holder number one record for it the 5k at 152 23. I can do that on my side. I like that. So, no one has again two more years. A bunch of athletes here that we're going to be watching and
013celebrating class. Awesome job. Two more quick two more individual awards. Patty Len could not make it today. She's one of our girls soccer players. She's uh currently down in Florida playing uh in one of the she playing a soccer tournament down. Um but she's was district player of the year all Ohio. Um during her four-year career, uh we have three GMC titles in soccer, a four-time GMC all conference, three time all city, one time state, one time all region, and hot off the presses will not be released tomorrow, but we just found out that she is going to be named all American tomorrow. So, pretty exceptional career for her. Lastly, um Lindsay Consultant. There she is way down. Lindsay girls volleyball. Um during her career, Lindsay set the career uh ace record for no kills
014high school at 169 aces over her career. During her junior year, she uh won the Steve Shuck sportsmanship award. Um in addition to her school record, she finished fifth in career digs with 736. um played in the senior showcase this year was part of our fall academic team which is given to the highest team in um district 16 GP. So really proud of that on our volleyball team as well. So awesome job on your career. Congratulations. >> Thank you very much. Thank you. Congratulations again to all of our student athletes, not only for the accomplishments on the field, but how you represent us in our schools, out in the community. We always hear unbelievably positive things about all of you. So, congrats again. And I think Mr. Graham Key is going to try to pick
015take a picture of all of our athletes. So, athletes and parents, you want to head out to the hall, you can come back to the second part of the meeting if you'd like to, or uh you can head on your way. So congrats once again. Okay, moving on. Um, sure I'm in the right place. If I can have a motion to adopt the agenda. So moved. >> Second. >> Call the role, please. >> Mr. Oran, >> yes. >> Mrs. Philbot, >> yes. >> Mr. West, >> yes. >> Mr. Hayy. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Ivy. >> Yes. >> Okay. We can move on to the treasur's report. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Uh this evening, uh I have three items under the treasures report. First, the financial report. Uh we have October and November. Uh if
016the board would turn their attention to their packet and uh looks like it's behind the pink sheet and we we're looking at page 24 on the attachment. Uh, I'll give the most up-to-date financials, which is November of 25. Um, page 24, uh, total revenue for the month of November in the general fund, 2.6 million. Total expenditures, 4.8 million. If you turn to the back side with the graph, our ending cash balance for the general fund, 35 million, uh, 35.1 million. Uh, standard activity for the general funds. Moving down to the permanent improvement fund. No revenue to report in the permanent improvement fund. Our total expenses in the PI fund approximately 900,000. Uh and our ending cash balance uh is 2.5 million in our permanent improvement fund. Would like to note uh as our board is
017aware uh we do have uh three items that are paid out of our permanent improvement permanent improvement fund. Uh regarding debt uh those are an LED project uh our high school auditorium. You may recall that we renovated our high school auditorium oh shoot 2016 2017 in that range. Uh and then the final debt obligation uh is our energy energy conservation project and that energy conservation project happened in 2014. Um Mr. Nash was integral in that. Uh that energy conservation project has yielded annually over $500,000 in savings. So we've cut our energy bills from about 1.4 4 million down to about 850,000. Uh so that project has paid uh in paid in dividends uh very strongly. Uh and so those debt obligations are paid out of our permanent improvement fund. You can see that note there.
018467,000 uh in debt payments uh for the month of November. Uh if there's no questions on the financial report, I'll move forward to the legislative update. Okay. uh in your packet toward the front. Uh and I'll actually put this up on the screen for the community. Uh we'll just talk about this very briefly because we talked about this uh actually uh last month. Um with regards to some of the pending pieces of legislation. So, uh in your packet board members, uh it looks like it's page one uh which is behind that uh teal sheet. There are four items. There are four pending bills, pending pieces of legislation that passed both the House and the Senate. Uh, and these four bills directly relate to property tax reform. Property tax reform, as our board is aware, uh
019has been a very um hot topic in the general assembly, quite frankly, now for over two years, probably two and a half years. Uh finally have gotten to the place where these four bills have now made their way to the governor's desk. Uh the governor has not officially signed these bills yet. Um but I think it's important for our community to understand how these four bills impact not only public education, but impact Oakill School District. These four bills directly impact our local revenue. And I think why that's important is in our community in Oak Hills, our local revenue makes up 60% of our overall funding. The other 40% comes from the state of Ohio. So that 60% the state legislators have um have proposed to the governor to sign uh essentially changing how the rules
020were in place now for decades and that is of concern because we believe that the local control is is that the local control. um any levies that have been passed over in in our case uh our 65 year history of our district that was the choice of our community. Some of these bills will impact the choices of our community and I think that's the concern from the school district's perspective and all 600 school districts will be voicing this concern. As mentioned previously, we absolutely believe in property tax relief. It has to be done. We understand that. We also have to advocate for our district and once again as Mr. Beckenhob said what's best for our students. And so these bills will implement and will impact all students across the state of Ohio. Uh very briefly
021because this is very complex and um have additional detail in your packet, but House Bill 129 um pulls us off of the 20 mil floor um which will impact future reappraisals. those property values grow, the district will not see any sort of significant increase in revenue, which is a change in the law, a law that was established back in the 70s. Uh, House Bill 186, um, that one also caps what caps any sort of revenue growth similar to 129. Um, but 129, that first one I should say, tosses all levies into the 20 mil floor. And I know again this is very complex. Um, House Bill 335, I mentioned we have two different funds that have inside millillage, the general fund and the PI fund. That will cap the amount of growth we can see
022on inside millillage. Uh, again, this is a change in the law for the first time since 1976. So, the last item is House Bill 309. Uh, the budget commission. Uh that commission consists of uh the county auditor, the county prosecutor, the county treasurer. Those three individuals can adjust our taxes at any time. And uh quite frankly, that's that's a little bit concerning. Uh we have a great relationship with the budget commission. Uh again, it is concerning because the voice of 45,000 taxpayers have spoken on these items and uh these bills will certainly impact, you know, what that will look like down the road. So, it's very complex. It's not on the governor's desk to sign at the moment. It's passed both chambers. They will deliver it to Governor Dwine to sign. Um, and I'll keep
023you all posted. But I think what's important about this is understanding that all public school districts in the state of Ohio have to create a 5-year forecast. So, it's my responsibility to submit to our board a 5-year projection on our financial position. anytime changes like this come about, this will have a significant impact on what that projection looks like and what our future financial position looks like. So, um it's fluid. The story is always fluid. Uh forecasts can change and will change, but I think these four bills particular are quite frankly a historic moment at our state level. And so, I felt it was important for our community and our board to be aware of these items. And I'll keep you posted um as things progress. any comments or questions? Okay. Uh the last item
024that I have this evening uh we have guests uh this evening uh joining us and so uh I wanted to give the board uh an update in our community as Mr. Becken mentioned um for the first time in 28 years uh we're on the exciting journey of a new construction project and a new bond issue uh one of which will be right here uh new building here at Spring Meer. So that's exciting. Uh but part of that is is understanding how we can be the best best stewards of our taxpayers resources. And so the best way we can be best stewards of our taxpayers resources is is how are we going to finance these bonds? And as far as financing bonds, there's different strategies that are involved. And so uh we have partnered and I
025shared this with our board in our community, oh shoot, well over a year ago, but we have three partners that we work with. I'll first talk about our legal partner. Our legal partner is with Dinsour and Schaw. Dinsour Shaw provides all of the legal recommendations that you will see on any sort of bond issue moving forward. Brad Brewie is our attorney with Schaw. And so this evening, I'll ask when we get to those recommendations, I'd like to slow down a little bit and during discussion and kind of explain what those are about because it is it's it's complex and I need to explain those. Dismar and Schol is one partner. Our second of our third partners here this evening. Brayley Payne, uh Andy Broard, uh and Heather Arling with Brayley Payne are with us this
026evening. Heather's in Oak Hills alone. Right. There you go. West Side or at heart. Uh so we have Visor Schaw, Brayley Payne, and then our last one is RBC Capital Markets and Ken Castel's here this evening joining us. Uh, and I appreciate the three of them taking their time out of this evening to um to educate our community. So, with that, uh, we'll talk about a little bit of bond financing and I'll turn the show over to Heather and you have this presentation in your packets starting on page uh, page page three. Good evening. Thank you for having us here this evening. As Steve mentioned, uh my name is Harley and I'm here to discuss financing. Um we'll go over the fin touch on the market update plan finance as well. So as I mentioned
027council and here along with J and then school district myself here the ratings looks like so credit rating for a municipality and school district is the name as our credit score. So the higher the credit score, the lower the industry. It's the same for multiple entities. So higher the score here is in AAA which they just got upgraded. They were actually downgraded 12 years ago to double and now they're up here. Your credit rating is a wonderful credit rating. very top tier. Very proud of that. A lot of things go into that. Um financials are really important. Here is a chart of what we use as one of the benchmarks for these. You all go to the market and sell your debt to potential investors. This gives you a 25 year look back. So down
028here is 2020. Here's five. You can see down here this chart. I like this one here. So, we're looking at debt lancing buildings 30 years as a benchmark because there's brick and mortar. go out those two in this construction report on the balance to go on. It's usually your first year. So this will be your first payment. You all will be probably in will be your first payment. And then if you're looking at going up three years, this will be your last payment. These gray bars give you the high and low throughout year 1991 up until today. And then in the orange you have this average which is a typical yield curve. What we're in right now is not a typical year yield curve. This is as of December one. So that December 25 curve
029is either the market for the bonds next year will be going off to that or maybe any questions there. And here couple slides we'll be talking about plan finance and that includes doing short-term notes this year and next year. And this is similar to the green chart that we looked at. It goes back to 2000 and this year 2025 and it's into that one year big one benchmark. It's for short-term that are 12 months and one year long. The high is 4.65 and the low during CO is 082. We are currently at 18.62 on that. So, as I mentioned, I'm going to be looking at bonding dissertation notes. Next week, we will be pricing a $15 note issuance that will not be here. It will be in June of next year. And then in January,
030we're going to issue the remaining 53 million,000. those proceeds will be available to the district immediately. What that means is any expenses that need to be paid as well as investing those dollars. So that's part of we are maximum getting invested gives you a quarterly income of $700,000. Then in late March, early April, we will be taking out bonds that will be the full 68 plus money. Those will be used to pay off those two lines to patient notes to. So this chart plan helps explain a little bit better what I just walked through and also includes how we're maximizing every single we possibly can. So as I mentioned here in December we're issuing 15 million of the notes and January is remaining 53.5 million. So that gets us to the 68.5. Then for those
031who mature on June 3rd in March, we're issuing the full amount in March. So that is a little different, right? We'll have 137 million outstanding and that is allowed by the IRS to overlap for 90 days. And just to be conservative, you're going to overlap for 85 years. Why would we do that? We're doing that to maximize the interest. So back here, 700, a little over 700,000 per quarter, right? That's on the proceeds from those two notes I discussed. And then the 672 plus,000 is going to be earned in this little window here. 85 days on the $137 million. Then on June 3rd, when those notes come due, they will be paid off by the person's response and the district will have the CC project along with the investment as well. questions here. A lot
032of information. All right. our schedule here. Um, as we mentioned, pricing the first million or $15 million in notes next week on December 16th that matures on June 3rd, and then that will close on December 30th, and those proceeds will go into the district's account. December through February, we'll be working on all the disclosure documents that go to the potential investors for the bonds. And then on January 8th, we'll be issuing the second notes. We'll be pricing the second notes of 53.5 million. Then just February, we'll be talking to the reading agencies. So that double A2 that I showed you on the second slide, that credit rating that's just like your own credit score. We'll be talking to the rating agencies and they'll put a full report together um for all of us to review.
033and that will go to the potential investors that might buy some of the bonds. In early March, we will price the bonds which is for us a very important process. So when we price the bonds, we bring the bonds to all those investors, all those banks, mutual funds, insurance companies. We ask them to bid our bonds. Hopefully it's lower the rate of what we went out with. Um that to us is important because it sets the interest rate and your interest rates pay over a lot of years. Just as soon as your mortgage, you want it to be as low as possible. It's the largest cost. So we'll be focusing on that. It's our job as a supervisor to make sure they're the lowest rate possible and the most efficient things possible as well. So
034we will be looking forward to that. very involved. Um, mid-Marchch is when we will close the bonds and again those will mature and this will be paid off bonds. Any questions there? >> I have a question. So, is that is the whatever rate we end up with on that bond if if the rates go down in the future, do we have the ability to >> to refinance >> refinance those? >> Yes. We call it refunding with our mortgages. We call it revamping. Uh yes, you have the ability to the standard used to be 10 years. So any any date after those 10 years, but that's come down over the past several years where eight's kind of standard that we're working with. So we look at that as long as we can. And in this group
035here, uh both Brley Payne and RBC was instrumental. Uh our our bond issue that was just paid off for Rapid Run Middle School. Um again, it's called refunding in the public sector. We refinanced our mortgage. Uh we refinanced that in 2015 and we saved our taxpayers 4.9 million. So, uh, kudos to to our team here, but that's a great question because if rates do fall, we'll absolutely jump on that refinance at that opportunity. Question, >> ju just one other question. Obviously, the the Fed rate cuts have been all over the news, you know, the quarterly cuts and so on and so forth. So thinking about those cuts um obviously from investment income, from borrowing, from pricing, so on and so forth. Do you have any any thoughts on how that might impact you know not
036only revenue we receive but pricing? Obviously you mentioned we're we're double A2 credit rating which is lights out. Um but any thoughts on when you know when you hear those you know those big headlines about Fed rate cuts, how will that impact our bond issue? >> Sure. So um the note issue that's coming up that that mid one chart I showed you that benchmark rate has not changed a lot recently. So, I'm hoping timing is perfect for come down a couple of the notches. It's not going to be significant, but I'm hoping uh after Wednesday. We'll see. Um technically municipals are lagging to that um to the funds, excuse me. But next year, the ratio come down a little bit, especially in this one. We have the markets pretty quick to react and be proactive
037in lowering rates leading up to making a bid play. So it would be beneficial on the bond side. On the investment side may not be as beneficial and we were conservative on our projection of investment earnings. They should be too far off. Yeah, they will they should thank you questions. appreciate it. Thank you for being here. >> Okay, moving on. >> Yep. >> All right, next up we have the superintendence report. >> Yes, thank you. It is my pleasure to introduce Mark Wyers, our principal here at Spring Meer Elementary School. And uh I think Mark has a couple guests that are going to speak about a partnership that we have going on here at the school. So we'll turn it over to Mr. Wyinners. >> Might just need one moment to get our computer hooked
038up. I'll help you. Hang on a second. All right. Well, welcome to uh Spring Me Elementary School. So good to see all of you and uh I want to echo um Mr. Well earlier statements uh regarding the uh bond issue because that impacts us directly right and it just struck me as I was looking at you guys sitting over there that this is maybe the fourth to last time any board will sit next to which is interesting. Um, so what we're going to talk about tonight is a program that's been here at Spring Meyer for three years. Yeah, three years. Um, it's one you may or may not have heard of. It's a partnership with the University of Cincinnati that we entered into which has been uh very successful and it struck me as we
039were talking over one of the things we wanted the board to know. This just seemed like a gem uh shared. Uh so we wanted to talk a little bit about it and it happens not to let the cat flag that we may be receiving an award related to this later in the year. So uh that seemed like another nice thing to share with you while we have you here. So without further ado cuz you probably don't want to listen to me all night. Uh the person to talk to is Karen Singleton and my guest here at Springer. So I'm going to hand it off to Karen. >> Thank you. Good evening. I have had the honor of working with Aaron Harris here from the University of Cincinnati Econ Economic Center there for gosh we go
040back probably 15 years. Um I used to be a teacher in Deer Park um community city schools and I was able to bring the program there um to Deer Park. when I moved to CO Harrison prior to my time here at Spring Meer, um I was able to bring that program also to CO Harrison as well, I think in like 2018 and then just recently 3 years ago here at Spring Meer. So, it's been amazing. We have an amazing PTA here at Spring Meer that I would like like to recognize as well because they are so important and vital to the success of running our store here um at Spring Meer. Erin's going to kick it off with talking a little bit more about the program and the we'll be receiving. Um, hi, thank you
041for having me. Uh, we've actually had a a great relationship with Oakill Schools at the Alcohol Family Economic Center where I work at UC for multiple years. Brian was willing to take a chance on us. Back at CO Harrison, one from Karen asked to bring the program. A little bit about the economics center in case you haven't heard of us. Uh we are part of the college of education at the University of Cincinnati, but we are a separate nonprofit affiliated with the university, which means we do all our own grant writing and fundraising to be able to have programs like this at schools like yours for free. Um our mission for the last 50 years has been to provide financial literacy and econed at the K12 level. Uh so what happened 50 years ago when
042our center started is it was noticed that by the time we got to UC a lot of those basic financial literacy skills weren't quite there. Uh and that was prior to the new legislation that has made financial literacy mandatory uh class here in our high schools. That is something that our director, our previous director lobbyed for 10 years with the state to get that made a mandatory place. Uh my program is the Susan Sergeant Student Enterprise Program, uh STEP for short and we believe that high school is even too late when it comes to financial literacy. So there's data out there now that shows that most of us have um our predominant spending behavior set as early as 6, 7, 8 years old, believe it or not. Um, and if you have kids, you probably
043have seen some of that in motion yourself, especially this time of year when it comes to the holidays. Um, and they're spending safety behaviors. Uh, so our program is currently in 20 elementary schools throughout Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. I have been with the program for over 14 years now. It's where I met Karen. I actually fell in love with Dear Park School so much that I ended up moving my staff as well for many years. So, uh we kind of call ourselves uh but we work with Harrison for multiple years. Uh we've been here at Spring Meer and we recently added Brookdale Elementary as a part of our program. Can you just go into a little bit about what we do? That first picture you saw there was our very first step that we had
044here in um 2023 here at Spring Meer. Um our job is to help teachers um set up a school currency in their classroom. And now and Spring Meer was doing that previous to our rifle here with their Sparky Bucks. Uh we kind of take it on steroids and give them the uh funding to be able to do that a little a little higher. So students are earning uh sparky bucks or step dollars um every day in their classroom here in grades 2 through 5 uh when they make positive behavior choices uh good academic choices as well such as turning in homework um increased respect or behavior when it comes to you know respect for peers and the big one daily on time attendance. Uh it's been interesting as an educator myself for over 20 years
045to see some of the changes that we've all seen in attendance uh for various reasons. And so we're happy to have a program that kind of um encourages students to to to get to school on time with a little bit of incentive. Uh in an ideal world, kids wouldn't need to earn dollars to do all these things that we want them to do. But as you know, uh I don't go to my job for free and I'm guessing most of you either. So that has kind of an inherent you know human characteristic to to want more rewards. So um please so we believe in uh the basic fundamental economics concept of choice. Um what we do is we go into schools and allow the students to earn dollars as I said every week who are
046typically a 10 major. Um each of our students gets one of our red books. The uh smaller book is for grades and six and the uh larger one is for some of our folks in the younger grades. I work with typically students in kindergarten through 8ighth grade depending on the school that I'm here. We work with grades 2 through 5. Uh we give them a chance to earn those dollars and then we come in four times each year at the end of each quarter and set up a score uh where they get the opportunity to either spend, save or build. We still use checks. We haven't done full legal yet, but each of your students uh will get a chance to we call it their paycheck, but when they come to see us each quarter,
047they fill out their check for their earnings. Been some debate on this and I'm a former banker and and I get that aspect of everything's digital and most kids used to have to pay now. But I have been doing this job long enough former third graders who are now at UC who have come back to me and said, you know, my landlord actually makes me write one of those back. I hadn't been through stuff. So, we're going to know how to how to do that. Um, we recognize this is probably a dying art, but teachers like that it gives students a chance to practice things like signature, writing down large numbers. Um, and they kind of get to see what it what it looks like to use a real check. So, the first choice when
048they come to see us is spent. Uh, we have over 40 different items available for students to purchase. We do work on an inflated economy. And uh I like to say we did more in person for schools, but mostly it's just a chance for our students to have to do mental math with large numbers. So our prices range anywhere from $10 uh to $2,700 for a $25 value. Uh I will say that last year the number one item here at Spring Meer, sorry parents, was sucking. Uh we sold over 591 of those. I will say I didn't find really cute ones. So partially it's my fault. Uh we've actually seen an increase in some of those uh novelty item purchases, especially the stuffed animals. Since the co days when kids were staying home and at
049first as a parent myself, I was really annoyed by that. But as I talked to more teachers, um a lot of kids, it's kind of a it's a safety thing or it's a comfort. Uh it's an item that they find comfort in. So I I started feeling a little less bad about all those stuffed animals home with the kids. Uh but those items cost $400. So to be a selling my number one item here to be a $400 item versus one of my $10 items like a tattoo. Um that shows you the power of of saving. This is a price list of our items. We work with all kinds of kids. We think everyone needs financial literacy. And I think if you kind of look at the state of our country in general, you you'll
050realize that's the case. We did talk about stocks and bonds. Uh that is another program that our center runs the Ohio stock making. some of that basic knowledge is lacking in general. I hear a lot of volunteers, a lot of teachers who say, "I wish I had this program as a kid because I don't understand some of those basic concepts of of choices." Um, we work with kids from all different uh schools, demographic, private, public, underserved, um, affluent, everyone needs the concept of choice. Next, saving. Uh, close your ears, investment folks. But, uh, we do give our students the opportunity to save and earn interest here. We currently pay 10% interest, which I know if we can get a bond, that would be super exciting. Um, >> as a former banker, I always say to
051the kids, this is not really what we're going to see in the world. However, it is a nice incentive for them to learn about savings. So, they can save up for the bigger ticket items. And 10% is a lot a lot more exciting than 3.2 or or whatever. Although, I did see CD rates of bonus elements and stuff since the last few years. So, um on average here at Springer, students saved uh $459 last year. So, for for kids in second through fifth grade, let's look at this number of savings. 96% of the students here saved at least something during this war step last year. Uh and we ended up selling some of those photos you see are ticket items. A lot of UC basketballs here and the gift cost over 2,000. That's something the
052student has to save up at least 3/4 possibly four. And when you can get instant gratification by buying a stuffed animal or a novelty eraser versus, you know, waiting later on in the year. Uh that's a really important concept and it's really interesting to see how their brains turn and work and how they um talk to our volunteers when they're when they're working to figure out what the best option for them is. So that's really our goal. Our goal is to give them a safe place to make choices. They're not always going to be good choices. I do have kids that buy for stuffed animals. I'm not going to lie. uh but we want them to come back the next year and perhaps make a different choice. And that's one of the great things about
053working with grades uh 2 through 5 years. We have students who get to do the program multiple years and maybe we'll make a goal for this year and fourth grade on that particular those groups. So sometimes it's really neat when you see the kids at the December store. They will like Christmas shop for their family members or siblings or so that's really cool to see too. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, next slide, please. This is probably the component that makes our program the most unique out of the traditional school store, and that's the ability to donate. So, uh, recognize that we are a nonprofit ourselves. And while we'd love for our students to be able to hundreds of dollars back into the community, we have some restrictions there, but our students can give back for over
054$5,000 into the community, to a charity that is near and dear to their hearts. Meer has chosen Cincinnati Children's Hospital specifically earmarked for pediatric cancer research for the last 2 years and the students here have donated over 949 real dollars uh since 20 since 23 24 school year. How that works is uh you know we talk to them about the importance of charity and donating when they come to see us and they are a choice to either spend save or donate. Um, if they do donate, we give them a bright yellow orange sticker that says very welcome donated today until I will say I worked in lots of different types of schools. Uh, kids are good at giving, you know, whether it's because they saw overseeing charity or they don't always have the opportunity to
055to donate to charity. Uh, I think that's one of the probably the most heartwarming aspects of of my job is giving kids a chance to do that. And that's something that Spring Meer has been I 20 schools. Uh, they're probably one of my not my largest school, but not one of my smallest either. They've consistently been one of the top three donating schools the last year, which is which is awesome. I'm back. Uh the average Dream Meer student did donate $183 last year. We had over 83% of kids donating here which is higher than our average which is usually around 63% for all our schools. So volunteers uh one of the reasons I'm here today uh your school is special when it comes to or your district is special when it comes to parent involvement
056and PTA involvement specifically here at Spring Meer. uh when Karen she they were on waiting list this year for for quite a few years, you know, we are a nonprofit and we do you know it's myself and one other full-time person. So we're able to run this program to be school because of volunteers one of our business partners, but it can be a little harder to find uh businesses over here that are um size that we need to provide full-time volunteers. So, when Karen mentioned the PTA, I was skeptical because I've had other schools that have tried to to find full-time volunteers four times a year, but she she was accurate and they are this is my only school where we have six volunteers for the whole 4 hours that we're here um from your
057PTA. And some of those folks are here and they're fun. My coworker, we like hanging out with them. They're great with group of kids. Uh when they when they come, they're effectively cashiers. They help the students check out, pay for their items. Uh we do try to promote a teenager like I do. I work some of these days. I used to be like everything. Uh but we encourage students to introduce themselves to their volunteer. We have a quarter of a question where they can ask them, you know, where they were. This time they're going to be asking you what their goal is for the year. If you want to be ready for next week volunteers. Um we encourage some of those soft skills, but they also help the students make choices. they will be the
058first ones to tell you. Some of our friends have come up with $4,000 worth of merchandise and they may only have $400 in the in the first quarter. So, how do they make their choices? And we talk a lot about needs versus wants that basic principle. Um, talk a lot about donating school back so that they just and that's all because of the volunteers. If I could get every school to have a PTA like yours, I would probably be in about 40 more schools, honestly. Um, so thank you again for those folks. And there's some lovely pictures of our our volunteers. Every photo in my presentation today is from Spring Meer. Uh, if you follow us on social media, alcohol comic center, you see lots and lots more. Next slide. Just a big thank you
059for our volunteers and the hugs. I also get lots of hugs of the job. Next, which leads me to our 2026 step school of the year, which is my uh we recognize a school at our annual fundraiser every year. Uh this year is our 50th anniversary at the Alpo Family Economic Center. We're going to have a big shindig at Memorial Hall in April, April 21st. And one of the things that stood out for my staff um when it came to picking a school for this year was just the comprehensive approach and interest in financial literacy. So, it obviously comes from your educators here because they were the ones doing a lot of the work to help you figure out, you know, you were like administrator support has been amazing and then your your parent. I
060mean, we have some of your parents who've never even been to one of our stores constantly comment on our social media about how valuable the program was to their kids and getting that kind of parent involvement can be difficult at times. So when it was a no-brainer for us to choose free meer for our award this year. So Karen, Mark, some of our PTA folks are going to come and hear about what we do. Uh their next step is a week from Thursday on the 18th. If anyone wants to stop by and see what it's about for that event, we will have that video available after the event on the 21st. kind of get the word out. Uh Oakdale is our new school district. They heard about us through uh connections with CEO and um
061Spring Miner and they've been a great addition as well. Your district really seems to embrace financial literacy and that's great. Love to hear that. So, any questions? I like what I do. Talk about it all day. >> Thank you so much. Well, that's the step store. It's been a great addition to our school. And uh again, any questions? You guys, by the way, seriously, you're welcome anytime. Uh we're next 18. Yeah. So, if you want to come see in the library, uh it's really consider. Thank you. Thank you. >> Congratulations, Mark and Karen, and thank you for the partnership. It is very natural for us to be UC fans. Our colors uh match up. So, they're wearing those red and black colors from an early age. It goes right into the Bearcat. So, thank you
062again and congratulations. >> Okay, we can move on to district reports. >> No district reports. >> Okay. Is anyone signed up to address the board? Nope. Okay. Anything under old business? No. >> Nope. >> Okay. Then we can move on to new business, specifically treasurer's recommendations. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Item number one, the minutes. I recommend that the board of education approve the minutes of November 3rd and November 17th as attached. >> So moved. >> Second. Call the roll, please. >> Mrs. Philpot, >> yes. >> Mr. West, >> yes. >> Mr. Hayy, >> yes. >> Mrs. Ibold, >> yes. >> Mr. Oran, >> yes. Item number two, I recommend that the board of education approve the monthly financial statements for October 2025 and November 2025 as attached. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Call
063a roll, please. >> Mr. West, >> yes. >> Mr. Hayy, >> yes. >> Mrs. Ibold, >> yes. >> Mr. Oran, >> yes. >> Mrs. Philpot, >> yes. Item number three, I recommend the board of education approve January 12th, 2026 as the meeting date for the organizational meeting hearing and regular meeting as submitted. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Call a roll, please. >> Mr. Hayy, >> yes. >> Mrs. Ibold, >> yes. >> Mr. Yorgon, >> yes. >> Mrs. Philpot, >> yes. >> Mr. West, >> yes. Item number four, I recommend that the board of education approve the appointment of president proemp for the January 12th meeting as submitted. So at this time we would need a nomination. >> Um I would like to nominate Lisa Ibel. >> Second call the role. >> Mrs. ID. >>
064Yes. >> Mr. Orban. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Philpot. >> Yes. >> Mr. West. >> Yes. Tra. >> Yes. >> Item number five, I recommend that the board of education approve the following donations from Don and Kurt Stall, the Ohio Arts Council grant, Peter R. Marsh Foundation, the Western Hills Country Club, Krueger Law, and Kuanas. Uh, donation as submitted. >> So move. >> Second. Call the RO, please. >> Mr. Orban, >> yes. >> Mrs. Filpot, >> yes. >> Mr. West, >> yes. >> Mr. Hy, >> yes. >> Mrs. I board. >> Yes. >> Item number six, I recommend that the board of education approve the following appropriation adjustments as submitted. >> So move second. >> Call a roll, please. >> Mrs. Philpot, >> yes. >> Mr. West, >> yes. >> Mr. Hayy, >> yes. >> Mrs.
065Ibold, >> yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Item number seven, I recommend that the board of education approve the 2026 legal assistance fund membership as attached. >> So moved. >> Second. Call the RO, please. >> Mr. West, >> yes. >> Mr. Hayy, >> yes. Mr. Zy, >> yes. >> Mr. Gorgon, >> yes. Mr. >> Felpot, >> yes. >> Item number eight, I recommend that the board of education approve the resolution authorizing the transfer of excess funds from the debt retirement funds to the general fund as attached. >> So moved. >> Second. If I if I could just just mention a little comment on a couple of these coming up, but on this one particular, this is the 1919 bond issue. Uh this was over $50 million issuance for Rapid Run Middle School. The county auditor
066collects all of those funds and they did a phenomenal job. There was in excess of $150,000 on 50 almost a $51 million project. So it's for all intents and purposes to the penny. So those dollars will be going back to the general fund. Okay. Call the RO, please. >> Mr. Hayy, >> yes. >> Mrs. Eyolder, >> yes. >> Mr. Oran, >> yes. >> Mr. Philpot, >> yes. >> Mr. West, >> yes. >> Item number nine, I recommend the board of education resolution authorizing the issuance of classroom facilities general obligation bond anticipation notes not to exceed 53.5 million as attached. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Any questions or discussion on this? No. >> Okay. Call a RO. >> Mrs. Ibold. >> Yes. >> Mr. Orman. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Philpot. >> Yes. >> Mr. West.
067>> Yes. >> Mr. Hay. >> Yes. >> Item number 10. I recommend the board of education approve the resolution authorizing the issuance of classroom facilities general obligation bond anticipation notes not to exceed 15 million as attached. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Call the RO please. >> Mr. Orban. >> Yes. >> Mr. Philpot. >> Yes. >> Mr. West. >> Yes. >> Hy. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Eyel. >> Yes. >> Item number 11. I recommend that the board of education approve the resolution declaring intent with respect to reimbursement of temporary advantages made for capital expenditures to be made from a sub a subsequent borrowings as attached. >> So moved. >> Second. Any questions? >> Yeah, if I could explain that since I can't really read that motion all that clear. Um, so the board is aware
068that >> the community passed that bond issue and the bond issuance was for the funding of not only two school buildings, Spring Meer and Delhigh Middle School. Um, this will and with those schools, our partnership with the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission will provide a matching um contribution on those schools. This resolution here will add the high school air conditioning. So, high school air conditioning Columbus will also provide matching funds for high school air conditioning. That's the long and short of what this resolution entails. >> Thank you. You can call the role, please. >> Mrs. Philpot, >> yes. >> Mr. West, >> yes. >> Mr. Tray, >> yes. >> Mr. Zyold, >> yes. Mr. >> Shan, >> yes. >> Item number 12. I recommend that the board of education approve the request for qualifications of a
069construction manager at risk as attached. >> So move second. >> Can I just mention one other comment on this here? So the RFQ for the construction manager risk also known as the CMR. Um the the CMR is essentially their role will be not only to consult the architect um who we're going to talk about here in a minute. The CMR will consult the architect, but the CMR is also um the lead and the point with regards to all things related to this project, whether it's construction, demolition, budgeting, everything related to this project, the CMR is related to. So, the responsibility of us as a district with the CMR is we have to seek um RFQ. And so we'll have firms submit their RFQS to us which we will review and board members will be involved
070in that review and then we'll have to come back and essentially score that CMR and then eventually ask the board to approve who we want to lead this project not from the architect side of the world but from the construction side of the world. Uh and so this is the first step in that process. Typically this will last for several weeks until we receive the RFQS back. We will come back with the board with a recommendation on who we would advise or to approve as the CMR. All of these RFQS are posted on our website. All of them are will be in the enquire and all of them are on the trade journal which is the site that all construction managers go to to access potential jobs that are coming up. So I think that's
071important to understand that because this is a critical partner um in our you know in our future development with these you know with these school buildings. One one question on that, Steve. Wasn't that like a two-step process where we pick the construction manager and then they do a certain amount of work and then we come back and review that again. Is that correct? Correct. Yes. >> Any other questions? You can call the rule. >> Mr. West. >> Yes. >> Mr. Hayy, >> yes. >> Mrs. I >> Yes. >> Mr. Oran, >> yes. >> Mr. Philpot, >> yes. >> Thank you. We can move on to the superintendent recommendations. Thank you. Item number one, I recommend that the board approve the special education mediation agreement as attached. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Call a roll,
072please. >> Mr. Hayy, >> yes. >> Mrs. Ibold, >> yes. >> Mr. Organ, >> yes. >> Mrs. Philpot, >> yes. >> Mr. West, >> yes. Item number two, I recommend that the board approve the following personnel actions A through P as submitted. >> So move second. >> Call the RO, please. >> Mrs. Ibold, >> yes. >> Mr. Oravon, >> yes. >> Mrs. Philpot, >> yes. >> Mr. West, >> yes. >> Mr. Hay, >> yes. That is it for superintendent recommendations. >> Thank you. Again, no one has signed up to address the board. So, we'll move on to board discussion. Um, first item. Do you have that, Steve? Or do one of you, whoever. >> I'll take it. Um, so yes, we will be calling a special board meeting on Tuesday, December the 16th. That will
073be at 6:00 at district office. Um and that will be to officially bring a resolution for an intent to award an architect contract. Um we will be interviewing three architect firms on Monday and then uh after those interviews uh we will be moving forward with selecting an architect that we will bring to the board for that next step. So that's what that special board meeting is for on December the 16th. >> What time? >> 6:00. and that will be at our district office. >> Thank you. We can move on to the second item. So on the very back page uh we have board agenda dates potential dates and board development dates for discussion for 2026. Um, and really that is just for the board to review and uh potentially if there are are any issues
074or any dates that we would like to look at, we can we can take a look at those now before we bring those for approval in January. >> They look I mean we can have further discussion and change in January anyway. So yeah, and we at any time we could come back and and we can make updates to >> we may need to call some more special meetings next year just because of the the whole thing with the construction and all the paperwork that goes along with that. >> Yep. >> I would anticipate more special uh meetings as we get into the process of building in the next semester. >> Okay. And then the last item that we have um is the um election of board officers. You can pass that down. Um and that's
075those down please. Uh in the years past um we haven't really followed that much of a process for um how the board officers so specifically the president and vice president are elected. um we kind of inherited the process that was followed before I think all of us um were on the board. So I just did a little work to look at how it uh you know an idea of how it's supposed to work. Obviously I will not be here next month um but I wanted to provide you with an idea of typically how it um should work so that you guys can probably bring it back next week at our special meeting if you want to have some further discussion on this. But basically what should happen is at that January meeting we know that
076we've just approved Lisa to be the president uh what's that called prom. So that she'll lead the meeting beginning but then during the meeting what should happen is Steve would u take nominations for the president role verbally and then there would be a vote um again a verbal vote by the seated board members. the president then would be sworn in and would lead the nomination process for the vice president. We haven't typically done that role or done it in that way in the four years that you know I've been here but um I think it's probably a good time to do it that way. So I just wanted to provide you guys with kind of a base and then you can have further discussion next week about it. That was it. If you don't have
077any questions on that, um, we can, we have executive session listed on the agenda for tonight, but we are not going to have executive session now. Um, so we are going to go ahead with a motion to adjourn the meeting. >> So moved. >> Second. >> You can call the role, please. >> Mr. Oravan, >> yes. >> Mrs. Philpot, >> yes. >> Mr. West, >> yes. >> Mr. Hy, >> yes. Mrs. I >> Yes. >> Okay. Most injured.