001to call to order the August meeting of the Oak Hills Local School District Board of Education. We can all stand for the pledge. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Mr. If anyone can call the roll, please. >> Mr. Gordon >> here. >> Mr. Spot >> here. >> Mr. West >> here. Mr. Houston >> here. >> Mrs. I >> Okay, first um item of business under commun under communication is the swearing in of Mr. Beck. I think we get to go up front for this. your right hand, >> sir. Um, I, Dan Beckenhoff, >> I, Dan Beckenhoff, >> do hereby swear >> that I will support the Constitution of
002the United States >> that I will support the Constitution of the United States >> and the Constitution of the State of Ohio >> and the Constitution of the State of Ohio >> and will faithfully perform the duties >> of Superintendent of the Oak Hills Board of Education. >> of Superintendent of the Oakills Board of Education. >> Thank you. You're welcome. [Applause] Okay, moving um on to the next item under communications. >> Yes, thank you Mr. President. Uh good evening everyone and uh thank you for attending and uh so that's a tough act to follow by the way. Uh so congratulations. Welcome aboard. So >> yeah, so obviously we have talked about the bond issue for quite some time and uh it has been on our agenda uh really for at least the last six to
003eight months at least and that was under director's report and so I think moving here forward uh that it would be a good idea to put it under communications just to spotlight it at the top of our agenda and so you know as everyone uh on the board uh Dan myself and most of you in this room they're really just for the record uh So, uh, exciting times. No kills. We're officially going on the ballot, uh, on November 4th. And so, that November 4th issue, um, is going to be the same amount of taxes, no tax increase based on what you're paying today. So, uh, certainly that's great news. Uh, there was an FAQ at the front door, so anyone's welcome to grab an FAQ. Uh, they are also, um, available on the website as
004well. So, just a couple quick highlights, uh, which again are all on the website. Um so no tax increase based on what you're paying today. Uh the state's going to match uh at least up to 50% of the project. So that's a big deal. So um you know we fund our portion locally. Uh the state will contribute at least the other half of the project. So the project's going to occur in two phases. Phase one with local dollars uh which will be on the November 4th ballot. the local dollars would go to construct Delhigh middle school, brand new Delhi Middle School, brand new Springmeire Elementary, uh as well as high school air conditioning. So, every student will be impacted by this bond issue uh in one way, shape, or form. Um in phase two, there
005would be a new Bridgetown Middle School uh and then any sort of residual funds. So, phase two will be funded by the state of Ohio. And so phase two will uh will allow our district to construct a brand new Bridtown Middle School. And then if there are excess funds after phase two, we can address other needs in the district um according to what the community wants and obviously with the board's uh support and approval. Um I did provide to each of you and and why phase two is is a little bit of uh an unknown other than Bridgetown is phase two funds will come in the future. What does the future mean? uh that's at the state of Ohio's discretion. When they have the funding available to them, they will disperse the funds to us.
006And so, uh that you know, we're not going to put a time frame on that. That could be anywhere from as quick as three or four years to further down the road. But, uh I think that's important to understand that there are two phases to this project. Uh in front of you this evening, I provided you a copy of the actual ballot language. And so, the ballot language is is here. Uh the board has a copy of that. uh as well as the financial impact to the community member. So as mentioned in full transparency uh if you rec recommmit reinvest it'll be seamless. There won't be an increase in your taxes based on what you're paying today in full transparency. Uh if it is defeated there will be a reduction in the community members taxes
007but um we've we've discussed with community wean and I have gone out we'll continue to go out. There is there is a desperate need at this time and the need is uh overcrowding certainly space issues, aging facilities and so as stewards of you know our community's resources uh just because a building's old doesn't mean it needs to be replaced. Uh however there is an impact uh financially when it starts to become more inefficient to operate than to just start fresh. Uh we do have eight of our nine buildings are at least 60 50 55 years or older. So, uh, we're on we're on the path where we construct new buildings about once every 30 years. So, if the community does not support this issue, uh, we could look we could be looking decades down the
008road and be staring in the face at buildings all of our buildings except Rapid Run being anywhere from 70, 80, 90, 100 years or older just like Deli is going to be 100 years old here coming up in 2026. Um, again, communication is our responsibility. So if there are any community members or small groups that would like to hear from Mr. Beckenhoff and myself, we'd be happy to engage them accordingly. We will engage the staff uh on staff um in service days on the 11th and 12th year of August. So um you know, obviously getting their input and questions that they may have, the website, social media, Chris Grania will continue to have that up to speed. Uh then I think it's important also to understand that we're preparing for the future and there are
009steps to this process and we're already looking to the next steps. So obviously our focus is on educating the community and letting the community make a decision that they're well informed about. But we're also looking into visiting other schools that have new construction. Appreciate Ann's support with that. Uh welcome board members to potentially visit those schools as well. um you know with with the different designs and so on and so forth. That's down the road. But just to let the board know, you know, we are preparing accordingly. So um if if the community supports the levy on November 4th, uh we can move quickly into the next phase. Uh as far as what that looks like, um also provided u and shout out to Dan, also provided are a list of levies, levy dos and
010don'ts. uh there are suggestions from legal on what our staff and administrative team should and should not do throughout this process and so that'll be communicated accordingly uh at the inservice day as well. So um again certainly there is a need uh it is what August 4th so we're quickly approaching hard to believe absentee and so on and so forth. So we're going to continue to educate as much as possible so our community is informed. Any questions or anything? >> Just a couple just a couple things to add. Um, one of the things that you hear sometimes to the community is why don't you just renovate or remodel buildings you have. Um, the state assessed buildings and because of their contribution, it's actually less expensive for our taxpayers for us to build new buildings than
011it is to renovate the other buildings. So, if you can get a brand new building for less of our local dollars because of the state chipping in thing, I think that, you know, that's a huge consideration. The other thing is like Steve was saying, the taxes will not go up from last year till next year if this passes. Um, which is the same tax amount that people were paying 25 years ago. So, it's very unusual to see a tax levy where it never goes up because it's a bond issue. So, it it doesn't go up and it hasn't gone up for 25 years. And if this new 37year period of time, basically, as long as, you know, we don't have some weird weird weird things happen, you'll be paying the same thing 37 years from
012now. So that's a 62-year period where you're paying the same amount of money towards towards new buildings, new construction bond issue. And also there are pockets of new development in our district. Uh Trailside Village over there in Green Township, uh Spring Meer as well as Bridgetown will directly be impacted by those new uh you know those new homes going in over in Trailside. So that's just another um another reason why you this bond is needed. I would follow up and say thank you to our community advisory team that spent a lot of nights uh time and helping to develop this plan. Um so shout out to them. Just a lot of work went into coming up what phase one would look like and then what phase two would look like as a recommendation for the
013board. >> Okay, thank you. Can move on. Can I have a motion to adopt the agenda? >> So move second. Call the role, please. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Mr. Philot, >> yes. Mr. >> West, >> yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Mrs. I >> Yes. >> Okay. Next is a treasures report. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Uh the treasures report this evening. Uh there is not a formal monthly report since uh the month just ended here on Friday and we're we're closing the books for July uh as we speak. So just a couple things to share with the board. Uh we are required um to provide an investment report on any sort of commercial paper. It's Ohio Revised Code. All of our investments meet the requirements per Ohio revised code. Um I've shared with
014the board before board appoints me to have the ability to invest community resources and we aggressively do that competitive rates uh on a daily basis and I think our vendors know that as well because if it's net 30 typically they're getting payment 27 28 29. we're holding on to as much uh cash as possible to invest. So, um that is a requirement. Also required is is if you are using debit cards, credit cards, purchasing cards to disclose the rebates, uh the district secured $7,669 in rebates. So, credit card uh not points, but actual dollars that come back to the district. So, about not quite $8,000. Um the only other thing I'll share is is an item on the agenda. Uh our medical, Mr. Beckenhoff and I represent the district for um medical and dental renewals.
015As far as insurance, obviously this is uh very very important because it's our second largest expenditures behind salaries. Uh our medical insurance renewal rate uh for uh is increasing by 12.4%. And so that's a significant increase of 12.4. Uh you may ask, what's the driving factor? uniquely enough uh and quite frankly a little bit frustrating uh prescriptions and so prescription costs continue to to unfortunately elevate and skyrocket uh we have done and then on the dental renewal and I'll jump back to medical on the dental renewal it's 10.4% uh the consortium average was 9%. So the consortium of average on health was 11. We came in a little over 12 based on prescriptions. But I think it's important for as the board may be aware you know not only through the consortium of 10 other
016school districts who all had a little bit of a rough year as far as a renewal. Um but we continue to try to do everything we can to mitigate insurance costs. Um, in our forecast that I submit to the board, um, I know there's quite a bit in the assumptions, but, um, shoot, at last check, there's 12, 13, maybe up to 14 or 15 actions that we have taken over the years to try and mitigate our health insurance costs. We've had good years and bad years. Uh, but overall, we've had very, very good years since we've joined the consortium. things that we have uh implemented in collaboration with our unions, uh spousal search charges, wellness checks, um fitness opportunities, mental health initiatives. So, um we're doing as much as as much as any school district
017can do to try and contain these costs, but um some things are really out of our hands, but just to give you an update because, you know, that's a significant portion of our budget. And so, I felt like it'd be appropriate to share, you know, where we are with that. That's all I have. Thanks. >> Any questions for Thank you. We can move on to superintendent reports. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. President. No superintendent report tonight, but we will start superintendent reports in September. Uh that is when we begin our board meetings where we go out to the school buildings. Um September, we are scheduled for Oak Hills High School and Mr. Brian Connors will be uh delivering our superintendence report at the September uh board meeting. We look forward to that. >> Okay,
018we can move on to district reports then. >> Yes. So for district reports, we have Rachel Cersi with us tonight. Rachel is going to give us an update on the student wellness and success fund. It is something that we are required to do every year. Um, and really thank you to Rachel for all of her work, not just with this, but for everything she does in student services. So, thanks, Rachel. >> Thank you. >> Yes, I'm here to talk about our student wellness and success funds. Um, you should have in front of you two documents. One is just an overview of um sort of one pager overview of our funds summarizes and then also the actual plan um that we have now amended. It's a several page document that says policy success funds plan. Um
019so this plan if you recall uh I was here last year about this time I think it was in July when we wrote our initial plan. These funds have actually been in existence since uh 2019. They've not flowed through and it is we're very grateful that the state has continued these funds um for the student wellness and u but last year was the first time that we were required to write a plan. always had a plan but we had to write it and articulate it with um how exactly what initiative we were going to use and then they had some criteria of how to spend those funds and then also monitoring we also had to tie it to a district goal. So we have been tying it to our attendance goal. So Dr. C and
020I have been working um very around the clock I would say on our attendance initiatives. Um and as you're going to see a lot of this aligns perfectly with with our work with attendance. Um so now as we come into this school year, we did uh use all our funds from last year. U so thank you for all of everyone's support on that. Um now we have remaining funds for fiscal year 2025. You're going to see at the top of the one pager how much funds is left is the student wellness has 844,000 that pot there um 661.32. um that will now flow through and we can use that this year. All those funds have to be used up by June 30th of 2026 and Steve keeps us on our toes and making sure it
021all gets and Jamie I would say Jamie probably but Jamie tells us >> and um we also added into our plan this year what's called disadvantaged people people impact aid funds. It's not required to put into this plan, but the state um puts those two funds together. We get reports that way and we also have to submit a report to the state based on those two funds. So just for ease and transparency, we thought let's put both of these funds on the plan. Um that's like over reporting on our end, but we thought it would be helpful. Um the changes uh for this coming year, we are required to now amend the plan. We don't have to write a full new plan, but we have to come in and amend our existing plan. We did
022spend all the funds, but what we decided to do is just make some minor tweaks. Um, the plan still is required to spend at least 50% of our funds on mental health and wellness initiatives. That's uh they still have criteria and all the criteria is saved from the state and how the funds can be spent. We there's a list of initiatives that you can spend it on and then like I said it has to tie into a district goal. Um we stayed with attendance of course because that's our um district goal. Um and I would say Dr. C if you're okay. We would love to come back and and share a little bit more about our actual district attendance work at probably a further board development meeting because we have a lot of attendance. Um
023and also to share our actual goals that we set last year and the growth and the gains that we made in attendance in particular and some of the work that people did through this grant. That's a bigger presentation, but I I I think we would definitely like to show you some of our graphs and our trend data. Um certainly we have room to grow. We still have work to do, but we made huge gains. Um so the the tweaks in the plan um are minor. Um the things that we're going to change um obviously we still have our mental health services. Uh the big pot of funds you're going to see about 731,000 around uh there will continue to be allocated to our existing school sites and counselors for what they already do with mental
024health. Um not all of their um services that school sites and counselors do can be used with these funds because they also do special education evaluations and other things that are in their job. uh responsibility that are not mental health related. So the grant has or the funds have to be specific to mental health services. So a portion of that can be used for really recouping into the general funds. So that's what we'll do with that fund. Um the change is however is going to be an initiative too with the family engagement work. Last year, um I don't know if you remember, but we used and we contracted with a county Hamilton County Educational Service Center for um a family support specialist, a social worker, and some professional development services through attendance. What we decided
025to do, although that was very helpful and helped us launch a lot of our attendance work, um we all met as a team um and we that's part of the requirement is to do a partnership meeting. We looked at our data and we decided to instead of having lots of different people for an FTE here and a two FTE there or like a point 2 I'm sorry 2.4 we decided to take all of it and put it into one FTE and to one FTE of a family support specialist. Um it didn't change the overall allocation but it did focus our efforts into one role into one person. Um, so we will be working and really that was driven from our data. The data was good. Um, but we felt like we would get more bang
026for our buck, I guess you could say, by taking one person and really hitting it with um, with engagement work for our families. >> Is that still through the ESC? >> Yep. So, it'll be contracted and then if we find that it keeps working and we don't need it anymore, then that would be it's not hired position. Um, and then the DPIA funds, we added that in as a new initiative just so that we could um, obviously add that into our plan. It's not required, like I said, but we did put that in initiative three. Um, that is the category from the state. It's called culturally appropriate prevention services. That's the language and it's pretty much prevention work. Anything that we do in the prevention area and it has to be aligned again to attendance.
027So last year we used it for counselor work in that field primarily when they do attendance intervention plans and we'll continue that and our BCBA they do some prevention work with behavior support. Um and then we're going to this is the new one at the very end $10,000 towards a behavior health and wellness coordinator and get her title correct. She's at Delhigh Middle School. U she's been there the last two years and she was through grant funds fully paid the last two years and they have asked us to now contribute $10,000 because her entire grant was taken away all of it 100%. She cost $100,000 but prevention first where she is coming from has agreed to pay for the $90,000 for us um through some other grant funds that they're getting through the mental health
028board. Um so we have met with uh our partners through prevention first. The mental health board worked diligently I think to to get them to um put in and contribute. When they contributed they contributed 90,000. So we were really happy with that. Um and so we were going to put in those 10,000 and Hy Salman who is over in Del Middle School has done phenomenal work. So we really want to reach out to her. I think attest to that. Um, yeah. So, that's our summary. I think we we've made some huge gains and and thank the state that these funds are still any questions. >> I have a question. Do these funds then get renewed? >> Well, they come in on an annual basis. So, that's kind of where we kind of keep waiting for
029Steve to let us know if they've been, you know, moved in. Um, Steve, I you probably know a little bit more when you get notice on this. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, every two years for the state budget. So, if the state renews the funds, then they're employed. So, fortunately for us. >> Okay. I can say when Bill and I go to some of the safety conferences, the governor has been very um he has presented on this particular fund and shared through his safety grants and his student wellness that his is um it matches the the wellness part of his the state initiatives. Um so that is where I think these funds have still continued and it's been good for our work in attendance. Well, thank you. >> Thank you again, Rachel and Dr. Sloski and
030the team for all the work that you guys do with that. Appreciate that. >> I'd be really interested in seeing that attendance data. >> Do we have anyone signed up this evening? >> We can move on to old business. Okay. Under new business, we can begin with the treasurer's recommendations. >> Mr. President, item number one, I recommend that the board approve the minutes of the regular meeting of July 14th as attached. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Call the role, please. >> Mrs. Felpot, >> yes. >> Mr. West, >> yes. >> Mr. Hy, >> yes. >> Mrs. Eyebolt, >> yes. >> Mr. Oran, >> yes. Item >> number two, I recommend that the board of education approve the medical and dental insurance renewal rates for 2026 as attached. So moved. >> Second. >> Call the
031RO, please. >> Mr. West, >> yes. >> Mr. Hayy, >> yes. >> Mrs. Ebol, >> yes. >> Mr. Orb, >> yes. >> Mrs. Philpot, >> yes. >> And number three, I recommend the board of education approve the lease agreement with Oakill's Youth Athletics as attached. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Call a roll, please. >> Mr. Ay. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Ehold. >> Yes. >> Mr. Yes. Mr. >> Philpot. >> Yes. >> Mr. West. >> Yes. >> Four. I recommend the board approve nominations of a delegate and an alternate for the USBA capital conference as submitted. >> Do you have the um >> uh No. So the board Yeah. So historically the board would would discuss capital conferences in November. Um the dates on >> and if we make the nomination we can change it
032later. Correct. >> Yes. >> So move >> second discussion. We have a nomination delegate and an alternate >> and typically we do president as the delegate and vice president as the alternate. Is everyone okay with that? >> Okay. and call the roll, please. >> Mrs. Eyebolt, >> yes. >> Mr. Organ, >> yes. >> Mr. Hilog, >> yes. >> Mr. West, >> yes. Mr. >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. Beckhoff. We have superintendent recommendations next. >> Yes. Item number one, I recommend that the board approve the following Oakills Local School District student trips as attached. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Please. >> Mr. >> Yeah. >> Mr. Gold. >> Yes. Yes. >> Mr. L. >> Yes. >> Item number two, I recommend that the board approve the following personnel actions A through U as
033submitted. >> So move. >> Call the RO, please. >> Yes. >> West. Yes. >> Yes. Mr. >> Yes. >> All right. Again, no one has um signed up to address the board. Um anything under board discussion you want to talk about development session? >> Yeah, I think we can. So, as of right now, we've kind of created a tenative board development um schedule. So in Septe or in August, we have safety and security, athletics, and MTSS update, which could potentially include attendance. Not that I want to say that right now, Dr. Spolski, but we have an MTSS update that we were going to do, and that would probably naturally fit in there because that was one of our main goals as part of the MTSS process. um September at least tenatively is early literacy and
034um elementary math. We have new curriculum programs in both of those areas. And then we are also looking at secondary literacy um with possibility of some coaching updates as well. And then when we get into October and November, those are typically our report card updates. October would be all of our elementary schools going that night and then November would be the middle schools and high schools. We like to separate those out just due to the amount of time that it will take for each of those levels. So that's kind of a tentative schedule. Um I would be happy to take any recommendations from the board on anything else that we would like to include. >> Those sound good to me. >> Yeah. Possibly just updates related to the building construction. >> Yes. And I had
035planned, Jason and I to talk today um about him potentially as part of district reports in September board meeting possibly giving an update on facilities on some of the things that we've done over the summer and being able to do that at a regular board meeting. >> Okay. >> Like the parking lot that they actually put into use the other day. >> Wait, what? >> The parking lot they're working on. They were using it the other day. Interesting. >> It's needed. >> Yeah, that sounded good to me. >> If anybody has any feedback after the fact, just pass that on to me. >> Great. >> All right. Anything else? Could I have a motion to return? >> Second call, please. >> Mr. West, >> Yes. Mr. >> Yes.