001I'd like to call to order the uh me sorry the April meeting of the board of education. Is this on? Is this on? No, it's not. Okay, I think I got it now. Yay. Okay. Um if we could all stand for the pledge, please. I pledge allegiance 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. Hey Mr. Bannon, can you call please? Mr. West here. Mr. Ay here. Mrs. Mrs. Zyold here. Mr. Yorgavan here. Mrs. Philpot here. Okay, first up we have communications. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. President. It's my honor to bring up uh Ben Haggamman, athletic director at Oakills High School for our athletic recognitions. All right. Thank you very much. Uh this is great.
002It's about the biggest crowd we've had at one of these. This is fantastic. Um, always appreciate the opportunity to come up here and uh kind of highlight and celebrate some of our student athletes that have really accomplished some pretty impressive feats. Um, we've had a lot of really good accomplishments um in our athletic department over the winter, but these are athletes that have uh accomplishments either at the top or conference or at the state level. And so, we just like to take a minute to uh to recognize them and their coaches. So, we appreciate the time. Um, so first up, if I could grab uh coach Robin Porsche and the girls bowling team. I appreciate it, please. So, we have two uh different things to celebrate with this group. Uh, Coach Robin was named GMC
003Coach of the Year this year. Uh, this was a really neat accomplishment. I would say that it's voted on by the peers. And so when you look at the 10 schools in the GMC, the Masons, Lakodes, uh there's some of the top public school conferences in in the state of Ohio. And so for her peers to recognize her as our our top coach is a really neat accomplishment. Um and Coach Dave with her as well. And then our girls bowlers this year were the uh the league champions uh in our conference. They were the GMC champions this year, which which again is just an outstanding uh accomplishment. Um, always fun to watch these these per perform. Coach Robin does a great job. All right, so Emma Brunner and Leila Manis, Ella Wyman, Maddie Roster, Katie
004Bacon, Anna Shadic, and Mary Bacon. Congratulations, girls. See these kids all the time. I'm always worried about pushing their names when it matters. But, uh, So, if I could have boys bowling team, you're up next, please. All right. to our bowling program on the boys and girls side. Uh typically as as you can see pretty much every winter when I come up I can give highlights. Um we're we have one of the top programs uh in the city. So uh really excited for these guys here this year um for their accomplishments. Tanner Isles uh Tanner put your hand up real quick. Tanner was GMC bowler of the year again in our conference compete. very impressive. Um, and then these guys made it all the way to state this year, finishing 12th at the uh the
005state meet. I think uh we had some high high hopes for a state championship. If we could ever get through that first uh that first that first set and we we'd be better off. So, uh, but coach Bill Lips as well as Zach Anderson, um, Preston Banziff, Jason Ebie, George Eas, Joe Herszner, Tanner Isles, Gavin Johnson, and Pton Lips. Awesome job, guys. All right, wrestlers. Hi. So, we had um three of our wrestler, four of our wrestlers uh won awards this year, but uh here with us today is Lily Anderson and uh Chaz Talrigo. Chaz was our lead champ at 120 lbs. uh also qualified for the state meet this year for the second year in a row. Uh had an outstanding career and did I see that you just committed to Baltimore. So congratulations.
006And then Vanessa Lilia Anderson also qualified to the state meet this year. Two years in a row. First year, I'm sorry. Um two for first years. That's awesome. um and wrestled up there at Columbus this year as well. And so we're really proud of her. She did not have the opportunity to wrestle for any league honors because the GMC does not recognize women's uh wrestling as an official sport yet. But we're fairly hopeful that by next year that that will be uh that will be recognized sport in our conference. And so, Coach Lank's done an awesome job with our girls team was just telling me about all his uh his first world problems now as we may have a team too big to fit in our space. So, I'm I'm excited and hopefully that's uh
007that's accurate. So, great job, guys. And I believe of our athletes that were able to attend tonight, um that is it. We had a couple other athletes that qualified for state as well. Brady Singler and Emry Pink was an at alternate and then Zoe Wordman was 16th place in girls diving and Jeff Sloan uh placed in the 50 freestyle 100 freestyle and swimming as well. So um hopefully we have more accomplishments here this spring but that's those were our winter accomplishments. So thanks for giving us some time. Hi. Okay. Thank you, Ben. Oh, I think that we were wanting to get a picture with Mr. Graham key of all of those athletes. Yes. Yes. If you guys step into a hall, that would be great. Thank you. Okay. Could I have a motion for adoption
008of the agenda, please? So move. Second. Let's call the role, please. Mr. Ay, yes. Mrs. Mrs. Zybold. Yes. Mr. Oravon. Yes. Mrs. Philpot. Yes. Mr. West. Yes. And treasur report is next. Thank you, Mr. President. Uh several items this evening. We'll start with the financial report. If you would find in your packet the financial report for March. Uh it will be behind the blue sheet. You actually have two reports. I'm going to go with the most recent which is the March report which is the second page in your packet there. So March 2025 uh total revenue general fund 3,657,000 total expenses [Music] 5,275,000. Uh if you turn to the side of the graph, our ending cash balance for the month of March, 37,141,000. Uh no activity out of the norm to report in the general
009fund. Uh if you would uh look toward the bottom of that sheet, you'll find the permanent improvement fund financial report for March. Uh total revenue for the PI fund in March, 110,000. uh total expenses 97,000 and our ending cash balance in our permanent improvement fund is $4,65,570. just like to note for the board uh that Beacon uh the Beacon Tri Health agreement uh our partnership that we have through 2028 uh we did receive uh payment from Beacon to the tune of 46,000 uh and so uh you'll see the offset there uh in the um uh the expenditures as far as building and capital outlay because those funds are going directly to pay for the turf, the second turf which was 100% privately funded. Uh and so that's a re reimbursement until 2028 with that donation
010there. Uh several other items like to note for the board and the community this evening. Uh we do have uh the Oakills Alumni and Education Foundation. We do have that dinner coming up to recognize our distinguished staff and distinguished alumni. Uh that dinner will be on May 7th. Uh so May 7th at Western Hills Country Club. So, we appreciate the support of the foundation and all that they do to recognize all of our staff members, but particularly that evening, it will be for our alumni uh as well as distinguished staff on May the 7th. Uh more information on the website. I would like to note uh just an update on the state bianium budget. Uh I know our board has had discussions about the budget uh from the state of Ohio, which we receive in
01124-month increments. So, we know our budget from our state uh once every two years. And so our state funding will expire here in June. And so after June, all bets are off as far as how much we're going to receive from the state of Ohio. What does that mean in the big picture for us? 40 cents on the dollar comes from the state. So 40% of our revenue comes from the state. So it's a significant portion of our overall revenue. Uh right now uh there is a bill that is floating around in the House and then once it passes the House it'll go to the Senate before they ultimately take it to Governor DeWine in in June. So where we are as of today is the House Finance Committee voted on this bill uh just
012the committee not the full house. Uh the House uh finance committee voted on voted on this bill on April 1st last Tuesday. Uh and there's good news and bad news. Uh the good news is is that our state funding that 40% uh would be held harmless. And so that 40% for us um is about roughly 26 million and that would be held harmless for a 2-year period because again the state operates in two-year cycles. So that's the good news. Uh the bad news is is as of the proposal here from this uh House Finance Committee, our local funding, which makes up the other 60% of our pie uh would be adversely affected. And so there's a cap on how much the state per this proposal will allow us to have in our savings account. How
013much can we keep on reserve? How much can we have on hand? Uh we talked about this as a board uh last month uh which is presented on our website osd. us if you want to see the the whole financial report which is about maybe 10 minutes something like that. But this is a big deal because we want to protect not only our state funding but our local funding. And I think the concern not only for Oak Hills but all 600 plus districts is that local funding is a local choice. Our community as well as all the other communities across the state of Ohio have the choice on the level they want to support their local school district. And so there is concern. Uh reached out to Representative Oddioso and expressed our concern on behalf
014of the uh the board and our district that you know not only do we want to protect our state dollars but we certainly want to protect our local dollars as well because you know as the board knows and our community knows what we do as far as stretching our dollar and how we have built uh a reserve that is not exorbitant by any means uh has been a lot of discussion and a lot of prudent decisions that the board has made over the years. So, we want to protect those local dollars. We'll continue to advocate accordingly um and continue to reach out to our legislators. Key dates coming up, April 9th, uh the entire House of Reps. April 9th will vote on the bienium budget. From there, again, it'll be kicked over to the Senate.
015The Senate will vote on June 11th. Uh after the Senate votes, it goes to conference committee where both the House and the Senate have representatives in the conference committee, which will happen on June 24th. And then the end of the road is June 25th as far as as of tenative dates right now on when both uh both chambers will ultimately pass this forward to the governor. So stay tuned. I'll keep you posted as things come about. Um see I have one question on that. Y so that um the the limit on the potential limit on the um amount of cash we can have on hand. Are they looking at the next year's budget? Are they looking at a period of years? What's what's the current thought process there? It's a great question. Uh my understanding
016would that this would occur next year. Uh however, we have to be cognizant that school districts operate on school years. So our school year runs fiscal year runs July through June. The ones that would be reducing our budget would be the Hamilton County Budget Commission which consists of the Hamilton County Auditor. So to answer your question, Mr. Mr. Hayy, it would be about a half a year of funding that we would see the reduction starting in 2026 as of now is the proposal. Any other questions? Which which would then mean that we would have to go back to the ballot and ask voters for tax increase sooner. Correct. Correct. Because there is a proposal of a cap again on how much you can have in your bank account, how much you can have in reserve.
017Uh Mr. West is exactly right. The cap that is being proposed by the house is what we view as the minimum. And when we get to the minimum, that makes uh our board, our administrative team, that puts us in a position where we have to start beginning to look at action. And there's only limited ways on what action you can take in a school district. Really, there's three as a homeowner. You can add, you can reduce, or you can borrow. School districts can't borrow. So we can add potentially through a request of the community or we could reduce and typically reductions unfortunately occur which in within our largest area of our budget which is our staff. Uh and again that's not specific to Oakills. Uh any school district typically has about 85% of the budget
018is personnel because we are in the people business and that is our sector. So Mr. West is exactly right. It could drive districts back to the ballot. Uh while time is short, April 9th again is a tentative date, I anticipate a lot of discussion here in the next 5 to 6 days because our association, Mr. Brandt's association, uh we have aggressively opposed what is being proposed at this point. And we're not on an island, you know, we're we're at our cash reserve. this could impact up to 86% of all districts across the state of Ohio. So, it would be a significant uh burden unfortunately back on the local taxpayers. Um, and we prefer to keep that independence between state funding and local funding because that's how the system has been now for the last 50
019years. If I could just point out one other thing, um we spend as a district $2,000 less per student than the average school district um in the state of Ohio. So when you spend $2,000 more or $2,000 less than the average school district, that means we're lean and we don't have any more staff than we absolutely need. So there really isn't anywhere for us to cut. So, it's really a shame that they're proposing this and it actually made it through the committee because it would be devastating to our district much more so than the average district that spends a lot more per student that has a lot more staff members per student. It's a great point, Mr. West. And last thing I'll say uh with regard to stewardship is is the amount of taxes assessed
020by Oak Hills. There's 23 school districts in Hamilton County. Uh Oak Hills assesses 17th on that list. And so the lowest is 23rd. We're at 17th. We're near the bottom of the list as far as Hamilton County taxes assessed. And the last request was over a decade ago, one in a quarter of a century. So I keep going on and on about stewardship, but I'll stop there. The only other thing I have this evening is we are keeping an eye on the federal level as well. Uh you may have heard proposals about um actions going on at the um federal department of education. And so at this point, all of our federal funding is intact, but I will certainly keep you aggressive if anything changes on that situation. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Wayne.
021I don't need that back. Um that next up is superintendent report. Yeah. Well, thank you all for coming out this evening. It's a pleasure to see you all for uh this night. Uh Mr. Meller will give us a principal report. I think we're going to do a little something with Newsies. Is that correct? Outstanding play. Congratulations to all of our parents here. The kids did an outstanding job. So, thank you for being here. I will just say real quick at the end of this, we would love for you all to stay, but we also know you're busy dinner time. So, if you want to uh remove yourself at the end of this, that's no problem. We can do that at the end. So, thank you for being here. Mr. Taylor, welcome. My name is Adam
022Taylor. I'm the principal here. In front right here is Mr. K assistant principal. Um, thank you for coming. Um, and after Mr. range report. I think we need to lighten the mood a little bit. So, that's usually how it goes. We got very talented kids, uh, very talented directors, uh, Emily Matt's here and Chelsea Swman. So, they're going to make us feel a little bit better. We got creamed on by the goons yesterday. Our strike really struck out. I heard they arrested crunchy. Did they get that too? No one's seen him. Good morning, everyone. What's so good about it? Would you get a load of these long mugs? Can these really be the same heroes who made the front page of the New York Sun? Front page of what? News stop the world. Tell her
023to have an even good cell. Would you look at Des? Where's me? Where's me? Wait till my man gets loaded to this. I won't be last tonight. You really got to see the pig. You got yourselves in the pig. I heard they rusted crunchy. Where's Jack? Did they take him to the refuge, too? Haven't seen them. Okay. Can we sell this curiosity long enough to drink in the moment? I'm famous. How much does being famous pay? You don't need money when you're famous. They give you whatever you want. Grabs such as a pair of new shoes with matching laces. A permanent box with a [Music] sour look at me. I need to suddenly know the name of swirl and a bar Jes. My son or dream with my feet in it for one more minute.
024[Music] crazy. My heart. So I just Hello, good evening. My name is Chelsea and I'm the choir director here at BMS and I also co-direct the musical with the beautiful, lovely, talented Emily Mets. We hope you enjoyed our modified version of King of New York from our recent production Junior. We had 93 students involved. So, this is just a snapshot of our cast and crew. Usies was an incredibly fabulous success bringing in over,300 guests. It was a rewarding experience for our students and we are extremely proud of all of them. Hello, I'm Emily Powerfulla. I'm the band orchestra director of Bridgetown. Our Bridgetown music program has had amazing growth over the years um in student involvement with now over 50% of our students in our school having some involvement with our music program. Um we
025enjoy the opportunity to provide a high quality experience for so many students and I would like to thank the board and our community for their continued support of our program. We actually have a couple of students that would like to speak as a class. So, I'm going to turn it over to our amazing students. Hello everyone. My name is Zachary Debbie. I'm an eighth grade student here at Bridgetown Middle School. Our news cast has worked extremely hard to put on this production and their hard work displayed in a lighter version tonight is only a small testament to a more significant purpose. Before my friends and I highlight the wonders of our outstanding music program, I'd like to thank everyone for giving us the time to hear our story. I'll start our speeches by covering two
026of the four main music opportunities at BMS. It has been a great honor to be a part of this wonderful music community. Throughout my time at BMS, I was lucky enough to almost instantly find my niche. In only seven short hours, I met Mrs. Mets, one of the my favorite English teachers, and Mrs. Sweep, one of my greatest choir directors. I have to say that nothing could ever make me want to trade the time that I've had with the two of them for anything. While participating in the BMS musical, I have learned various skills that will accompany me for years. Not only has my knowledge of theater grown, but my involvement within our community has as well. Our environment has always been built upon trust and creativity, allowing everyone to have the chance to grow
027in their own unique way. I have always loved the teaching style of our directors on and off of the stage. When my final musical season at EMS ended, I left with the new maturity and selfworth that no other directors could have instilled in me as Mrs. Sweepman and Mrs. Mets have done in these past 3 years. Similarly, my experiences with the BMS orchestra have included many outstanding performances. Some examples include a joint performance this year with our 7th through 12th grade combined orchestra featuring the Oakills Middle Schools and Oakills High School. Most recently, many of my classmates and I earned a superior rating at the Soul and Ensemble Contest. These successful events couldn't have been possible without the guidance from Mrs. Power. My BMS music experiences have truly been an honor because they have opened
028me to new opportunities and challenges. They have helped me establish and support a strong growth mindset in my life and the lives of others. And I am so grateful to our directors and music teachers for providing me with this memorable journey which I will cherish and continue to reflect upon in the future. Thank you. Hello, my name is Heidi Weber and I am an eighth grader here at Bridgetown Middle School. I was the stage manager at this wonderful musical production and throughout my time at Bridgetown, I've been involved in many music classes. I've been playing the flute for 4 years now. As an eighth grader, I would love to tell you more about my experiences in band. First, I would like you to imagine an activity or class that you participated in as a child.
029An activity that you've looked forward to every single day and enjoy putting all your effort, heart, and soul into. For me, it's band. Although it has and always will continue to have its challenging aspects, it it encourages me to grow and learn responsibility. When I started playing the flute, I could only play about 5 minutes and now I can play over 40, which may seem easy, but took lots of practice and help along the way. Much of this help and encouragement I received came from my teachers, including Mrs. Power. She's taught me numerous life lessons, including the value of perseverance, and has prepared me as best anyone could for my future use at high school. She did everything she could such as staying after school to help me with difficult music pieces and helping me
030to understand music theory if I was ever confused. I recently performed a duet at a solo ensemble competition and we are superior which couldn't have happened without her. She's created an environment that is full of hard work and laughter. Throughout my involvement in music, I've gotten to know so many different people and created friendships that I never would have imagined. If I have a bad day, I get to band and I immediately feel better. My life is so much better because I've had this opportunity. Thank you. Hi, I'm Alex. I'm an eighth grader here at Bridgetown Middle School. I've only been in choir for about two of my three years at Bridgetown, but man, these moments have been extraordinary and amazing for over a decade, 11 years to be exact. This program has doubled in
031size. Students have had incredible experiences in these years such as performing at the University of Cincinnati College conservatory of music feast of carols concert and various honor choir events. The choir program has had a powerful impact on our school community. This class has become more than just a place to sing. It's where we grow, make lifelong friends, and unforgettable experiences. Choir has given us opportunities we never thought were possible. In December, we had an amazing chance to perform at the high school auditorium. It was nerve-wracking, but so exciting. These experiences push us out of our comfort zones, and help us believe in ourselves. The friendships we made in choir are special. We support each other, laugh together, and create awesome music as a team. This sense of unity and teamwork extends beyond the choir group,
032positively influencing how we interact with others in all aspects of our lives. Our prior program has opened doors for us. We've completed an MIP music and the parks and had several successful adjudication evaluations at this event. These experiences teach us so much about music and life, helping us develop discipline, time management skills, and self-confidence. Choir isn't just about singing. It's about the personal growth and self-exression. It's a place where we can convey our emotions and develop a strong sense of identity. Our choir program our choir program enriches our lives throughout the weeks. It's a place where we learn, grow, and create lasting memories. We're grateful for this opportunity and thank you for your ongoing support with this program. Thank you for your time. And I would like to add those students wrote those beautiful speeches
033all on their own. I mean that's such a testament to all of their educators. So please give them a giant round of applause. Before we close, I leave you this beautiful and inspiring quote. England in the arts engages kids in their community, improves self-esteem, and builds the creative skills that are required for a 21st century workforce. I would like to thank you for your ongoing support of this program and the thousands of students that it has reached. I will now turn it back over to Mr. Adam Taylor, and I appreciate you all so much. Thank you. Thank you. kind of feel like this is a drop the mic, right? I mean, I hope everybody's out of the the doldrums that we just went through. So, thank you very much. Yeah. Ready. And next up we
034have our direct reports. And I'll ask Mr. Parker and uh Charlie's here as well. So Jeff and Charlie, you guys will walk us through just an update on uh the happenings around our master facility. that is she turn there. So that was so impressive. The words from those kids were great. Um the the state we're going to turn off here in a second so the uh the graphic can show up a little bit more. Um so thank thank you board of education for giving us uh a few minutes to present an update on the uh master planning and community engagement that's been ongoing um here in Oak Hills. There we go. Um so we're going to review kind of the master planning at a real high level. You give me like three slides and then
035I'm going to hand it over to Mr. Parker, my colleague, and he's going to share some more detailed information that's been going on for the past few weeks. Um, so master planning, uh, a reminder is that when we have a successful master plan, we can check the box on these three items. Number one is the plan needs to be educationally fantastic and address the needs, educational needs of the district. Number two, it needs to be financially responsible. uh the request cannot be too much and we we need to make sure we're not out over our streets um stretching people beyond their their um capacities. Number three is that we make sure that the plan is community developed and community supported and we've been actively working with your district since about February. We've had a great
036amount of response from the community and uh we we're excited with the momentum that we have right now. Um, so a timeline is uh in the fall the uh state of Ohio walked on your buildings and gave us some baseline information. We received that in January and that's really when we kicked this process off with cold night at Delhigh Middle School, but we we've been moving. So we've had the community advisory team which is a group of of uh residents who have been advising this plan and uh we've met January, February, March I believe up to four meetings with that team. Um we've also done a lot of focus groups and so we've been meeting with a lot of different constituents and stakeholders throughout the community getting their feedback and receiving information on where what
037is the preferred plan. What this is all leading to is kind of a presentation um in the month of May towards the end of May. It would come to you guys for approval and it would then go to the state and they'd say, "Okay, we're on board with this plan." Which would then give you the opportunity on election day to go to your voters. Um and as a reminder, we we know that this opportunity is to generate about $68 million and that would be a non- tax increase. It was a renewal um of the bonds that have been in place here uh since the late '9s. there would be a renewal non- tax increase tax. Uh this slide is just a preview of uh the configuration that the state provided. So in the verticals it's
038it's it's 14 verticals, preschools through 12. The state is involved with K through 12. So we know you've got your ongoing early learning center on the state. But the state recommended this baseline plan and the plan would be to do four uh elementary schools all equal size 750 students and two middle schools. Um we've gone down to market and kind of tested with with some folks and for the most part that that substantial change of where you are when you've been here. So um Jeff is going to show some more examples of this iteration but we just wanted to share this is kind of the baseline what the state recommended. It also has some work in the high school. That's what this red represents and would also involve some improvements to the high schooler dramatic
039meeting with the uh air conditioning up there. So, so I'm going to hand it off to M Parker and he's going to address some of the latest and greatest uh for our development. Thanks Charlie. Good. Good evening board. Thanks for having us again. Um I'm going to start by just reviewing some site studies. Um there's been a lot of conversation about replacement of facilities at the cat at the community advisory team level and we just kind of as a due diligence as a proof of concept we wanted to do some studies to ensure that these that those are actually viable options. So this first one is actually where we are right now middle school and the right here is the multi-purpose room that we're in. So, the goal here would be to keep the multi-purpose
040room because of its relative young age. Uh, we're also trying to protect the freshman baseball field about here in the back. So, to do that, we would want to we would call for an early demolition of the existing gymnasium. The so the blue part is the new school building. The white pieces there are the existing building. So, we can essentially shoehorn the building in around the existing Bridgetown Middle School while keeping this facility the multi-purpose room and keeping the uh the freshman baseball field. If we move on to Delh High Middle School, similarly the you know all the white out front here is existing. This is the existing the I think it's about 20-year-old multi-purpose building. Out in the back here, we're showing the construction of a new middle school. And over here on the
041right is what it would look like after after all that is done. Okay. So, these are all really just trying to demonstrate that we can keep students in class on their campuses while we're doing this work. Okay. This is Spring Meer Elementary School. Um, again, the white piece out here on the front on the curve is the existing building. There is some real estate out here on the back that would accommodate a replacement. And on the far right here is kind of how that begins to shake out. One of the benefits is that it gets the school off the street and creates a lot of queuing space for on onsite queuing. So that would hopefully kind of ease traffic tensions on the roadway. The purple out in the back is play space for the elementary
042kids. Finally, Seal Harrison. Uh again, just a proof of concept. The white block is the existing we would build the new Seal Harrison on the existing parking lot and ball field here. that would allow us to um complete the building, remove the existing co, develop new parking lots, bus lots, play spaces. Um and again, this one creates a lot of offsite queuing for folks to get in off the street, drop off, and pick up and get back on their way. All right, any questions on those proof of concepts before I go on? All right, we will move on. So, as Charlie mentioned, we've had four community advisory team meetings. Uh we really covered some ground at the last meeting. U the group did some really heavy lifting and I'm going to share a little bit
043about um the outcome of that group. Again, this is that that baseline plan. And um the state the state really wants the district to have a master plan that addresses all of the facility needs, not just the most immediate facility needs. So that's why you see, you know, replacement of these elementaryaries, improvements and expansion at Oak Hills High School. Um those may be kind of lower on the priority list. Um but the state needs to know kind of what directional iss. All right. So we asked the team to to develop a series of options. Um the top three options are on the screen in front of you. Uh we took those to our last community advisory team meeting and we had some conversation around impacts. um you'll see that there several of these have consolidated
044elementary schools and we we really dug into what are the impacts of that, what does that mean to our community. So we talked about the realities of transportation um of staffing and not least of all the reality of redistricting. So you consolidating five elementaries into three elementaryaries that has a really big impact on families and their dayto-day So, what one of the primary takeaways of these three options was that they all featured three middle schools. That was kind of the the foundation of the of all of these schemes was keeping three middle schools. So, from from there, we began to think about, okay, how do we fit this into the big overall budget? And as you saw before, you know, the whole thing is about $300 million. 302. Um, but when we think about, as
045Charity mentioned, that initial segment, right? You know, the rapid run millillage is rolling off. We want to essentially replace that millillage. Um, so that we don't have to ask taxpayers to pay any more than they're paying today. Um, that would equate to 65 to 68 million. And so the goal is to see what can we buy with that initial 65 to 68 million. Once that happens, the state comes in and they and they will put up their share which is actually 61%. So they'll put 61% 61 cents on the dollar toward that next phase. So we ask the team to really begin to unpack that next phase, what we are calling segment two. And then finally that what's left that remaining 150 that is really for the next generation to figure out it's that far
046down the road. Okay. Any questions on the pie here? Very good. So again focusing on that first segment. We had a series of questions for the group. Uh we had them discuss at tables kind of what they thought was the right answer and I'm going to roll through those. The first question was should replacing Delh High Middle School and Bridgetown Middle School be our first priority? Should that be what we do in phase one? If the voters elect to fund this work, should this be what we do first? And you can see all of the groups said yes. Right. So that fortunately that 65 to 68 million is about the right size to replace Delhigh and bridge and again keeping uh these multi-purpose facilities. The next question was how many elementaryaries would be best supported
047by the community. Right? How many elementaryaries is right for the community? You saw in the state's base plan, they reduced the district to four, right? So, we asked the team to wrestle with that. Six out of seven groups recommended keeping five elementaryaries. Again, just to primarily minimize the impact on families. Um, you've got a big a big district from a geographic perspective. So if we reduce to four or to three, you've got transportation issues where kids are being transported further distances for longer periods of time. So uh again, six out of seven groups recommended five elementary schools. But again, that's that second phase that would be funded with the state's share. Okay. And then finally, if we had roughly $95 million to spend on that second phase, that's what we anticipate getting from the state.
048Um, what should we include in that phase? And seven out of seven groups said we need to replace Spring Me. Seven out of seven groups said that we need to air condition the high school. Um, four out of seven groups said that we should replace CL Harrison. And three out of seven groups said that we should replace Delshshire. So that really just begins to give us a priority list of what's important to the community. Does that make sense? Those responses. Very good. So next steps, we have two community forms scheduled. One at Oakills High School on the 22nd and one at Brook Middle School on the 30th. and the district is working hard to get the the word out on those and where we will begin. We'll continue kind of testing these outcomes and these
049results and and ask more of our your neighbors what they think is the right answer for Oak Hills Schools. Any questions for chairman? I have one question. Since the the money from the state comes in at a later date, which we don't know what that date is, and they don't adjust for inflation, if there's not enough money there to do CO Harrison, what what becomes the plan then? Uh they they you're you're exactly correct. they if you guys spend let's just say 65 and they come with 95 that's kind of an agreement against we'll spend 65 later on in the road we'll give you 95. Um the goal is to figure out a plan that addresses it in it the inflation may be within that. So our advice to you for now is to probably
050select a plan that's maybe 75 million in today's dollars which would give you that protection knowing that we're going to see inflation. Um and then when they come let's say 7 9 10 years down the road I don't know if it's 10 years probably way away uh that 95 will be able to absorb that scope. So that's that's one method. The method number two is is let's say you pick out 95 and let's say in 3 years it's worth 105. Um they would allow you to find a way to raise 10 million more and the good news is um uh they would then match 61% of of the delta that you put in. So it's one of those kind of math exercises that you need to look at at that time. But for now, I
051knowing knowing this district, I would I would play the first scenario conservative and be safe and and hedge things out, you know, 7 7 8 years uh and see what that what that would be. Good question. Anyone else? Could you speak to timeline as far as when our when action is going to be needed? Sure. Um, back me up on this chair. So, um, board will present will be presented with a plan that hopefully represents the preference of the community. Um, that will happen in May. There will be a series of reviews and approvals by the state. Um, and that takes us to November. Jeff, would that need to happen at the May regular meeting? Uh, or is that something around the development? I I can't exactly remember the date for OFCC. So, we'll have
052a a regular meeting. We they've actually they've actually slid your approval from July to to October and so they they just recently told us that because they're delivery of the master plan came so late. Uh, they can do approvals every month, but they kind of hold it to certain quadrants. It's usually January, July, October. So, we've written them and said we'd really appreciate the approval by October and that would give your voters, you know, the voters confidence uh that they would be a part of the table because by October would be the commission approved. So, we would have approval in the spring. We would send it up to Columbus. They they draft it up. There basically be an agreement that says Oills will do this. The state of Ohio will do that. and then uh
053the final approval will be there on October commission. So from a from a board's perspective though, we're talking to May regular meeting where the board would have to approve in order to pass on to the OFCC. Yes. So, we're we're literally a couple weeks out and obviously we're going to do our community forms and assuming everything goes well there, then we'll have to present our final plan to the board for for your guys approval so that we can pass it up and meet the deadline in May for OFCC. Correct. Okay. Okay. Just for the board, one of the themes as well from the community advisory team was balance was important. balance on both sides of the district regarding Green Township and Delhigh Township. So, some of those slides up there tried to capture the balance
054which was communicated by the community advisory team. So, just to let the board be aware of that as well. Any other questions? All right. Share share the news of the uh the forums. We want to get as many folks out and get feedback as much feedback as possible. And uh so we're we're deciding where we are. We're happy with the momentum. Just got to continue it and get some good responses. Yeah. And we really appreciate all your guys' efforts. I know we met today, uh Mr. Grampy, myself, Mr. Bane, and your uh PR team uh just really working hard at getting getting our website built. We were already on our way there. So, thank you again for the partnership. We really appreciate it and uh we look forward to uh you know bring a recommendation
055back here in May. So passing of the microphone. Okay. Next agenda item is uh for constituents to address the board. And we do have one person signed up but I don't see her um is Jen Sheldon. So, I'm wondering if she just thought she was signing in cuz hers was something on stage. Um, yeah, I know. Yeah. So, um I don't see her. So, I guess we can go past that. Um, do we have anything under old business? No old business to report. Okay. Next is new business and we can move to treasurer recommendations. Sorry. Thank you, Mr. President. Item number one, the minutes. I recommend that the board of education approve the minutes for the regular meeting of May 3rd in the development session of May 17th as attached. So moved. Second. Call the
056role, please. Mrs. Ibold, yes. Mr. Organ, yes. Mrs. Philpot, yes. Mr. West, yes. Mr. Hy, yes. Item number two, I recommend that the board of education approve the financial statements for February and March 2025 as submitted. So moved. Second. Call the role. Mr. Yorgon. Yes. Mrs. Philpot. Yes. Mr. West. Yes. Mr. Hayy. Yes. Mrs. Eyeball. Yes. Item number three. I recommend that the board of education approve the following donations from the Oakills Alumni and Education Foundation, the Delshshire PTA, Delhigh Middle School PTA, Greater Cincinnati Foundation, Key Bank, CO Harrison PTA, Oakills High School PTA, Harvest Home Fair Association, Oakills Band Association, Melinda Fiser, Oills Coral Boosters, Heracross Family Orthodontics, uh Dylan and Michael Miles Arts Sonia Oill's PTA Rapid Run Middle School PTA Jill Schmidt and Jama Holland as well as Maryanne and William Gray
057as submitted. So moved. Second call the RO please. Mr. Philpot, yes. Mr. West, yes. Mr. Rafy, yes. Mr. Ly, yes. Mr. Oran, yes. Item number four, I recommend the board of education approve the following appropriation adjustments as submitted. So moved. Second. Call the roll, please. Mr. West, yes. Yes. Mrs. Eyeborg, yes. Mr. Mrs. Philpot, yes. Item number five, I recommend that the board of education approve the resolution accepting the amounts of the tax rates as well as tax levies, certifying them by the county auditor as attached. So moved. Second. Call the role, please. Mr. Hayy, yes. Mrs. Eyold, yes. Mr. Orban, yes. Mrs. Philpot, yes. Mr. West, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we have superintendent recommendations next. Thank you, Mr. President. Item number one, I recommend the board approve the policy revisions to the
058Oak Hills local school district policy manual as attached. So moved. Second. Is there any discussion on these? Are we clear? Yes, I have a discussion on one of them. Okay. Have a microphone. Okay. My concern is policy 5223 release time for religious instruction. Um, I don't believe that the proposed policy is compi in compliance with the spirit or the letter of the law that was recently passed by the legislature. So, I'll start at the end and go back to the beginning if you want to hear more. But, um, basically the definition that is in the policy is a madeup definition that I does not do not think complies with the bylaw. Um it was basically written for the excuse of not allowing um the parents option to utilize uh the law that was recently passed
059by the legislature. Uh as far as release time to go to religious instruction. The other thing that I have a problem with is it lists uh it limits to 30 minutes the amount of time that people are allowed to leave to attend religious instruction. I think that's totally unrealistic. and once again does not really comply with the spirit of what the state uh implied when they passed the the law. So, I would like to see that uh extended to 40 minutes, which is the length of the um class periods at the middle school and 43 minutes. 40 minutes be fine. Uh 43 at the high school. Without doing that, it's just unrealistic to expect that the parents can exercise the option of pulling their child and sending them once a week for uh religious instruction.
060And it really doesn't matter if we agree with the idea of religious instruction and that parents should be able to pull their child out to give them religious um instruction. Uh the law says that uh we have to give them an option. It was just recently passed. It was passed overwhelmingly um in the House and the Senate by combined more than 2/3 of the legislators. um the definition that we use for four classes does not comply with that close to that. So this is the the title of the bills they passed a number of education bills at one time and the title of the bills were um uh parental bill of rights. I think we're taking the rights away from their parents by passing this. I think this is too big a deal to possibly
061be stopping on the rights of parents and the uh intent of the legislature without further discussion. So I would uh recommend either changing that 30 minutes to 40 minutes if it matches their length of our special classes. Um and I would also uh like to delete the madeup definition. It does not comply with at all with what the state um similar definition of one of the laws. It does not match with anything I've been able to find in the internet. And there is a section of law of Ohio law that specifically says how you're supposed to use definitions and we did not follow that which is basically you're supposed to use the standard language that people use and so to call it oncore subjects now core subjects does not match with the Ohio law uh
062you can't just change the name of red to blue and expect to utilize that for the purpose of uh doing what you want to do and I think that's what we did um and the session 1.42 of the high defense code talks about what what definition you're supposed to use. So, um there's also an OC section that talks about um parental notification of core curriculum requirements. That is the definition that's very much in opposition to the definition that we used and uh any number of definitions you can find on the internet say that um do not use the the things that we call non-cores. They're not cores. Core means center, right? That's required stuff. That's that's language arts. That's math. That's science. And that's social studies at middle school levels. So, if we impose this
063policy, if we pass this policy tonight, basically what I'm saying is is we will not be able to comply with the Ohio law cuz parents won't be won't won't be able to exercise their option of pulling their child out of school once a week and send them to um religious instruction. So, I'm not saying it's a good idea to send your kids for child for religious instruction. I'm not saying it's a bad idea. What I'm saying is the legislature passed it under a bill of rights for parents. And this, in my opinion, will preclude them from being able to exercise their rights. So, we can change the definition. We can we can pass it uh with me voting no. Um we can change the travel time. The time including travel was 30 minutes in the
064bill. I think that's totally unrealistic because if you take a minimum of 5 minutes each way, that means it's 20 minutes of instruction. So, basically, you're saying you can't do it. I I've heard of some school districts that are saying you can only do this once a year and then trying to claim they claim they're complying with the law. Um I think the intent of the law is that if parents want to exercise this this option, they can take their child out of non-core subjects or they can do it during lunch. They can do it in recess, whatever. So um 40 minutes I think is a minimum to be able to to actually accomplish and live up to the spirit of law. So hey Mark, quick question. What is the definition that you're talking about?
065Is that on here? Yeah, the definition is in the proposed policy where we claim that any subject that gets agreed is a is a core subject. That does not meet with the standard definition that you can look up online anywhere. That's not that does not match with the definition we've used in this district for years. And if we get sued, I wouldn't want to put all our principles on the stand and say, are these core subjects, did you consider them core subjects in the past? I would say they would they would have to say no. We call this encore which means extra, right? We don't call them poor subjects and so we try to change the definition and and I just think that that's um not fair. It doesn't live up to the spirit or
066in my opinion even the letter of the law. So, um, the other option we have is we can table it for for legal review and ask the the, um, attorney if this is correct language and if we're opening up ourselves up to some liability or we can talk about it in a development session. Um, or we can go back to our old policy. Originally, we had a policy uh before this was even mandatory. This law just becomes effective on the 9th. Okay. But the law allowing for it has been effect for many years. and a previous board before any of us were on the board authorized it without all these conditions. Now, I don't think it ever really happened. If it did, it didn't happen very often, but they didn't put all these conditions on.
067So, the the legislature passed this law to say, you now have to have a policy that allows for this. And then we write a policy that makes it very difficult, if not impossible, at some levels of schools. So, um it's up to you. I I intend to vote no as is. We can change the definitions which I would be happy to agree to if we just uh take out the definition for core classes and just use the word core class instead of defining what it is. Change it from 30 to 40 minutes. I'm fine with that. Or we can table it or um have talk about it in development session or the board can decide to pass it as it is. Any any other question? Can I just respond real quick to that? Um, just
068I want to be clear that we are in partnership under contract with Neiola. The these aren't our policies. We we contract with Neiola. They follow the law. Um, and these are all options. So certainly the board can determine that these are all options. Like I said, the board can determine how many minutes they want to approve or not. Uh, one of the options was to include any grade uh grade bearing class. That doesn't mean the board has to approve that. to your point, Bart, uh you can expand the minutes as we were trying to stay consistent with what is is available because there's a lot of you know this is new so there's a lot of coming and going and we were trying to say from a practical standpoint you know working around the lunch
069and recess in elementary uh certainly study hall is not an academic class there's no grade at the high school so really it's up to the board uh but I want to be clear that it it's not that we as administrative team didn't follow the guidance the this is a Neola policy. It's it's all predicated on law. Okay. And so speaking with our rep, policies are guaranteed to hold up in court. Uh to your point, Bart, um as long as we're using the options presented now, adding time, uh number of days, that's not an issue. If the board wants to do that, we can certainly do that. Um but again, that's that's this is a board policy. This isn't this isn't an administrative policy. I I couldn't disagree more that that it's legal just because Neola
070says it's legal. First of all, they don't guarantee anything. If somebody gets sued for violating this, it's us. They also are under no obligation to follow the spirit of the law. So even if it does meet the letter of the law, it does not meet it does not meet the spirit of law by far. So the spirit of this law is to give parents the right to decide whether they would have their rather have their child once a week in gym class or art class or music class or the whether they would um rather release them to send them for religious education. And as far as the time, I don't know how we can defend saying 30 minutes when our class periods are 40 minutes. And if somebody decides to take their child out of
071class and send them for religious instruction, it would be more difficult um and cause more problems. What what are you going to do with that child when they come back 10 minutes early and classes? So if they left when the bell rang, they came back when the next bell rang, that would actually cause less disturbance than if they came back 10 minutes early. and we're saying, "Hey, sit in the hall." You know, we got 30 kids here. Sit in the hall for for 10 minutes. So, it to me it makes no sense. The 30 minute thing, uh 40 minutes, if the travel time's 5 minutes each way, it only gives them 30 minutes of class. If we make it 30 minutes, 5 minutes of travel time each way is 20 minutes. And it's really taken
072away the option spirit of what it's intended to do, which is allow religious uh instruction. Yeah. 30 amendments was predicated on the fact that if the board accepted the policy that anything with a grade any class with a grade would be attached to it to your point if if the board wants to to move away from that and just do the four core then board certainly can do that then the 30 minutes doesn't apply. We were using it as all electives and specials would count as a as a core in the sense that there was a grade attached. But again, this is a board policy. There's options to it. If the board wants to uh adjust the time, the number of minutes, the number of days a week, that's certainly within your right as a
073governing body of the board. Right. As far as the Neola definition, um you can define anything as you however you want, but I don't think that's the definition the state intended because that's not close to the definition they use when you talk about our obligation to notify parents of what uh core curriculum is as far as at the high school level. And um I will tell you as a principal law just because I wrote policy for 25 years is the definition he uses common language, common use. I I have I have it. It's actually a section of Ohio law and it says what the definition is and I mean I can I can read the whole thing for you if you want. It's only two sentences. Words and phrases shall be read in con context
074and construed according to the rules of grammar and common usage. Not some madeup thing we made up so that we don't have to follow this. words and phrases that have acquired a technical or particular meaning, which is a meaning we've been using in this district for a long time of what a core course is versus an encore um whether by legislative definition or otherwise shall be construed accordingly. So that's what the law says. So we're saying is well we're going to use a different definition so we don't have to follow what the legislature intended. And since there's a section of the law that talks about students being allowed to make up work, I think it's very clear the legislative intent was that parents can pull their kids out of specials or encors, whatever you call
075them, or now we're trying to call them core classes. Um, and I I don't believe that's that complies with Ohio law. So just to recap your your suggestion would be your suggestion to change that would be to go back to the normal definition of core classes which are the math science reading those those classes right and increase the time to 40 minutes. Just making sure I got that correct. So I'm not sure um you know because this is one agenda item Steve I'm not sure how we address that in the meeting. Um, like do we do we vote to make a change now? Is everybody is everybody okay with that? I am supportive of that. Yeah. I mean, if everybody's okay with that, then we can then we can certainly go back before you approve
076it and work with our Neil rep to, you know, to increase the time. I got to make sure I got the times right before we we get off of this. But yeah, we can change that option from 30 minutes. Uh, the other I think the other thing was is uh do we want to keep one day a week or is that matter to me? I'm fine with that. Oh, I should point out too. I should point out too because of what I believe is a bunch of school districts trying to pull studs, and I'm not talking about orders, but I'm talking about stunts where they say, um, you only have to do this once a year. Okay? the there is a there is pending legis legislation out there right now that says and it hasn't
077passed yet the pending legislation that says each district will have to provide at least 1 hour a week for release time for religious instruction. So even if we pass this in 30 minutes uh and some other districts pass you only going to do it once a year. I think the legislature is going to come back and say guys they're trying to cut corners here. We want to allow at least one week or one hour a week and up to two hours a week. Now, you know, could it be two hours, three hours, four hours, 5 hours at the high school? Maybe in the future if somebody wanted to do it if they had a study hall. I would say yes. I don't think anybody thinks it's a good idea to take people out of their
078special courses every day, all day. But the law uh just said we have to allow people to pull their kids out of class to go to um these to religious instruction. So and that's not defined by us. That's completely up to them to recruit who's going and to set that up as our only obligation and the liability is 100% on them, not on us. Well, and to your point, there there's there's in the budget proposal now, uh it it states that they're looking at uh a minimum of 1 hour, but no more than two, right? So, this may change here once the once the bill come or the the bio budget comes out in June. Anyway, uh I just want to make sure I I'm clear though if we if we look at uh moving
079to 40 minutes in elementary, middle school. Okay. Um, are we also talking about uh just our core the four core? We're going to allow parents to to come out of any any of the elective or specials. Is that accurate? Correct. According to the law, they're not allowed to pull them out of the core classes. So, they would be allowed to or if we work with them and say, "Okay, we'll do we'll do it during lunchtime and and then 10 minutes of the core, whatever it works out to." But I think anything less than 40 is just to the point where it's almost ridiculous and nobody's going to exercise that option because it's too short a period of time. Now the high school class periods are 43 minutes. You know, I guess for simplic simplicity reasons,
080maybe we should just make it 40, but we can make it 43 also just so they're not standing all for 3 minutes looking for nothing to do. So but I'm I'm fine with 40 minutes everywhere. So for 40 minutes would would accommodate the elementaryaries. 45 minutes is at middle school and then 43 would be at the high school. So we'd have three different Okay. So you're saying is it 45 at the middle school? I thought it was 40. That's 45. 45. Okay. My bad. I would just make it 45. But if we make it 40 across the board 45 then we're covered. Mhm. Now the only other question then would be, you know, number of days um during the week or you know during the we want put a minimum on that. Are we going
081to let kids do it 5 days a week? Do you want it? I'm I'm perfectly okay with one because I think that's one day I think that's what the new law is going to say. If assuming it passes then I think it will. Now that's going to probably raise it to an hour. I wouldn't have a problem if people think that that's a little um problematic for a schedule. If we tell the legislature, hey, we're not trying to get out of this, but 45 works a lot better for us than an hour and maybe they would change that to 45 minutes inclusive of trail. If you guys are good with that, we'll we'll we'll make that adjustment. And what we can do is I think you can vote on the other policies with the exception
082of this policy and then we can re we'll revise that with Nola bring that back in May. That would be great. And we'll clean up that around the core subjects and we'll add uh 40 minutes to it one time a week. 45 whatever they Yeah. 45 I mean 45 just 45. No, just hear me out on this. the elementary then when kids come back they're they're possibly coming in 5 minutes late. That's I mean I'm 40 minutes. I'm perfectly okay with making it different for the different buildings and just saying hey it's 40 for elementary and 45 it kind of you know part of the part of the thing is how long does it take them to get wherever they're going to do their instruction and get back. So, you know, I think 5 minutes
083each way is kind of on the low side, but you know, making it 30 minutes total just makes it impractical to even exercise the options. But no problem. So, okay. We'll get that we'll get that revised up and we'll bring that back in uh uh at the May meeting. Since we don't do uh business items at the development session at the end of the month, we'll have it ready for May. Okay. Okay. I recommend make a new motion to recommend that the board approve the policy revisions of the local Fills local school district policy manual as attached with the exception of policy 5223 which is released time for religious instruction. But I move that the rest of the uh revisions be adopted. So moved. Second. I actually think I have to make that recommendation. I
084I believe it's either the president or or the president. I think that's what I was saying. I I won't say as well as uh let me go back. Okay. So item number one, I recommend the board approve the policy revisions with the exception of policy 5223 relate to release time for religious instruction as attached. Okay. So moved. Second. And you can call the role. Mrs. Ibold? Yes. Mr. Oran? Yes. Mrs. Philput? Yes. Mr. West? Yes. Mr. Tra? Yes. Item number two, I recommend the board approve the following no kills local school district student trips as attached. I will just make a note. You'll see these are in real and we do apologize for that. Unfortunately, uh with some of the things you heard tonight when you get into state championships and particularly wrestling, swimming, bowling,
085you don't you don't have exact dates and so we're going to change our kind of our procedure to bring those hopefully in the fall as long as we get the dates from the state and you guys would approve them ahead of time and then if we have kids qualified, it's already approved. So, I apologize. It's in the rears on this one and we'll clean that up. Sometimes that's just how it happens with the way the state uh matches kind of fall out. Makes sense. Okay. So moved. Second. Call the role, please. Mr. Orvan, yes. Mrs. Philpot, yes. Mr. West, yes. Mr. Hay, yes. Mrs. Eyeborg, yes. Item number three, I recommend the board approve the following personnel actions A through I as submitted. So move. Second. Call the roll, please. Mrs. Philpot, yes. Mr. West,
086yes. Mr. Hayy, yes. Mrs. Ibold, yes. Mr. Oravon, yes. That's all I have. Thank you. Okay. Again, we have no one else signed up to address the board. Do we have anything to discuss under board discussion? Nope. Okay. If not, um I would like a motion to move into executive session for the employment of public employees or regulated individuals. So moved. Second. Call the roll, please. Mr. West, yes. Mr. Hayy, yes. Mrs. Ibold, yes. Mr. Oravan, yes. Mrs. Philpot, yes. Hey, we will not be returning to this room to world. Thank you all for coming. Have a great night.