Sycamore Schools Board of Education Meeting April 1, 2025

0017 PM gonna call the order. Mrs. Logan, could you please call the role? Mr. Ballot, Mr. Harris, here. Dr. James here. Mrs. Bidder, here. Everyone, please rise for the pledge of allegiance. 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. At the beginning of each of our board meetings, we like to go over our district's mission and vision. Our mission is to create a culture of academic excellence through inclusive and innovative learning opportunities for the whole child. And our vision is to empower all learners to reach their full potential in a globally competitive world. Can I please get a motion and a second for the approval of the agenda? So moved. Second. Thank

002you, Mr. Balant, for your motion. Thank you, Mr. Harris, for your second. Mrs. Logan, please call the role. Mr. Balant. Mr. Harris, I. Dr. James. Hi, Mrs. Bidder. Hi. The next item on the agenda, and the reason that we're here today is to talk about why we're here today. We're here this evening so that the board of education can address the continued discussion surrounding the recent conduct of a teacher at a board meeting. We welcome all of you here today and thank you and good evening for being here. We understand that emotions are high and we've heard from members of the community who are upset, disappointed, and demanding accountability. We respect and appreciate your engagement, and we take your your concerns seriously. We are fully aware of the pain this situation has caused. Remarks that

003carry racial connotations, whether they are intended or not, have real consequences. We understand the gravity of this. That's why the district responded with formal discipline and why we as a board are committed to ongoing work to foster a safe, respectful, and inclusive environment for all members of our school community. We're here today as a board, the board meeting to have a discussion with each other. We're going to hear from our community through public participation and then we're going to move forward with discussing action steps and coming up with action steps. So, board of education members, let's begin. Would any board member like to say something before we start talking about action steps? Yeah, I would just like to say, you know, um as one board member, um I've listened to the community. I have heard

004from everyone and I just do want to make a statement to start out with that uh Mrs. Grace's behavior was completely unacceptable and does not represent the values of this school district or of the hardworking teachers, administration or staff members that we have. I do want to thank everyone who has come here this evening. It is so good to see that there are still so many people who are dedicated and devoted committed to this wonderful school district. Um, we have listened to a lot of feedback over a concern of yours and ours. And after hearing that feedback, we decided that it would be very important for us to meet in public, have a public discussion about next steps. um to ensure that everyone understands that we expect and hold this district in the highest esteems

005possible. I assure you that we will continue to uphold the values, missions and u mission statement and vision statements of this district. We know that we have a lot of work ahead of us and we are committed to doing that work and to regaining your trust and confidence in us. Last night you heard Mr. Lewis uh many of you heard Mr. Lewis um conduct a virtual forum with the community. If you did not have a chance to tune in to that forum last evening, you can uh hear the recording of that event on YouTube. It is currently posted there. In that uh forum, Mr. Lewis uh clarified some details regarding the misbehavior of an employee and answered questions about the disciplinary process. I hope that if you uh did not get a chance to listen

006to that that you will. Seeing that he has explained a lot of that process already. Tonight our focus should be in my opinion uh to focus on our future and how the district can move forward. Be clear. We understand that the fabric of this district has frayed and that is very disappointing to me. as a result of uh decisions that were made regarding a discipline and the behavior of an individual. One individual does not make this district. It will take time to sew that fabric back together, but I believe that we can do it. We will do it. This is a community that takes a commitment from each of us to do the hard work ahead and developing plans to restore the community's confidence in us. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you for

007your comment. And um I think that what do last night as Dr. James just explained, last night was a a question and answer session from our superintendent and this evening is going to be a moment for the board because we cannot get together very often except for during board me to have conversations. So this is our chance to discuss with each other how we may bring action and move action items forward with our district in what Dr. James just said. So would you would should I have a list of of ideas and comments that people have given us from the community of how we might move forward and what action steps we may take. I think all of us should weigh in on that and then I think we should do public participation and have

008everyone speak to us and give us your feedback. and then at the very end we may decide to change things or add things at the end. But let does that sound like an okay procedure for this board right now? That that would be fine. Um hopefully we can identify some themes that we have heard so that the community understands that we have heard listened and that we've heard. That's right. So the themes that we have heard um have been that we need to reaffirm the board's commitment to anti-discrimination, to inclusion, to prioritizing the well-being of our students and our staff. Um we have been requested through some of our emails and through some of the speakers that we had at our last board meeting um to bring back or discuss sort of reintegrating the culturally

009responsive practice committee. That was been one request. We have been asked to have we've been asked why Miss Grace has not apologized and we have been asked to make sure that she apologizes to Mr. Porter and the staff. Uh Mr. Um Lewis explained yesterday that there was that she was unable to speak at that time um because of the agreement that she signed and therefore we are we want her to be able to do that. Um we have been hearing from board community from community members that all board members excuse me all staff and even board members might want to go through an anti-discrimination training. Um we have talked with um people about board of elections and whether or not the information that's on our campaign committees is transparent. We have also had conversations about

010the Ohio Ethics Commission and whether we should check with the Ohio Ethics Commission to make sure that our campaign committees are ethical. We've been asked about our campa or our conflict of interest um board policies. So, these are all general themes, I think. Have I missed anything, Mrs. B? Just one thing that I would chime in. Um, you mentioned that, um, Mrs. Grace was asked to apologize to Mr. Porter and the staff. Um, I did send this morning a letter that I received last evening, uh, from Mrs. Grace and her representatives to send out and that got sent this morning uh, to Mr. reporter separately and then to the sta entire staff. Is that is that letter going to be made available to the whole community because I think this has tarnished the whole community?

011Certainly, if that's the direction of the board, I'm happy to make it available. Um, you know, and we can we I can probably send it out using the same method that I used to send out the information to the community. That was just not one of the directions that I had received. But if that's the desire, I'll do that this evening. Yeah, I would like it to go to the whole community as one board member. You know, I think this is something that's, you know, it's been in the news. It's affected our entire community. Um, and I think the entire community should should, you know, be able to have the opportunity to read her apology. I agree with that. I'll do that. Um, if it's okay, I'll do that in the next few minutes. It's

012pretty easy to do. So, Mrs. Bitter, when you went through kind of these action items, I think there's kind of two buckets and and just maybe for the sake of the meeting, if we focus on the the the incident of Mrs. Grace's actions, start with focusing on that um and then maybe transition to the second part, which is transparency and uh board of elections uh any investigation just so we don't keep flipping back and forth. Okay. So, how would you like to what items would you like to discuss for the actions? Right. And I think you talked about training. Um you talked about um a board the board's commitment. You know, I would like to understand more what is the board actually committing to. Um it's very easy to say we commit to anti-discrimination um

013anti-harassment, you know, whatever word you want to choose. But what does that mean to this board? That's what I want to know. I I think that I mean what I would suggest is that and I did ask this question and I I I think it's something that we need to understand better as a board. What training do like does our staff have like what what type do we have some type of anti-discrimination training for our staff? I'm kind of our policies are very clear that we don't you know that we don't that this is not allowable in our district. So, you know, there's already policy in place. What, you know, I don't understand what commit at at a minimum, I think that we should have Miss Grace have this type of training. Do you agree

014with that? I think it's bigger picture than that. You know, I would like to see the the board commit to an annual update uh or the administration, you know, to ask the administration to give an annual update to really look at all of our training, to look at our minority hiring and recruitment and to really to to to look at the bigger picture here and not just focus on, you know, what does anti-discrimination and harassment mean. Uh we have updates from the administration on a regular basis. you know, maybe this is something we work into our calendar so that we can present this information to the community and the community can know what action steps we're working on. Really increase the transparency around training, harassment, discrimination into minority hiring. You know, I've been on the

015board for a long time and, you know, we continually talk about ways to recruit more minority teachers to make our sure our teachers look like our students. Uh, but have we ever taken that step and really talked to the community about that and presented that in a board meeting? Um, I don't know. So, I think that would be that would be a stronger action statement than just to say, you know, we want we're against or, you know, we're for anti and I was just bringing up themes. I I think we have to have something very specific like we Yeah, I was just that's what Dr. James had asked me if I would come up with the themes that we were receiving from the emails. We received a lot of emails and we had members come

016to the last meeting and give us input. So, I think that's an excellent idea. I just don't want to put words out there that say anti-discrimination because every one of us would commit to that tonight but I don't know what that means to each and every one of us right we have to have specific steps so that's what you're proposing is that we what you just said is a proposal does anyone have anything to add to that does anyone disagree with that or is everyone I I think that's I think I think there's several components I think that to review the training is one portion of it I'm pretty confident that we already have proper training in place just from what I've seen in the past Um, so, um, you know, I think the training

017is a piece of it. I think being transparent to the community on what we have as well as updating the community every year, um, you know, on all the all of our, um, sensitivity training, all of our, like I said, minority hiring and recruiting, you know, we can put a lot of things into this to really show the community steps that we're taking to make this district a better place. I I think with that training, with those ideas, plans, um goals, um one of the things we always used to have in our in our schools was smart goals, goals that we can measure and do different things with. So I think having not only having administration report out on that, but having a definite plan for those kinds of things as well. Okay. And that

018would be something that would involve lots of people and lots of components as well. And if I could just jump in for a second, as I stated last night, um I think it's important that we do report out and tell you the types of training we're already doing before we jump to a conclusion that because of the actions of one person that our entire staff needs more training. there is already not enough time for the amount of training that we have um the amount of curriculum training that they do the amount of and I'm not saying that it's not war not needed but we already do um plenty of training around those topics I don't want the actions of one person to spur this immediate reaction of we need more training more training because our

019teachers are already overwhelmed our staff is already overwhelmed so I think there's a balance point I would appreciate the opportunity for our team um because I don't have it in front of me. I you know this was obviously an action step that you're bringing up. I would appreciate the opportunity for us to come back to you with what are we already doing to see if there's a need uh for additional training. Um you know you mentioned the uh culturally responsive practices team. We just changed the name. It's called the AES culture and climate team. We wanted it to be more um inclusive of the work that we're doing as a district because it's bigger than just, you know, a culturally responsive practice. It's about what is our culture and climate? Is it welcoming for all?

020Mr. I think that's a bigger picture item. The culture and climate team I'm I'm familiar with it, but is there, you know, is there information that's put on our website about what you guys talk about at these meetings or how would our community know what this committee is doing? because I think that's important. Um, not just to have it, but so that people know what we're doing um and that we are doing something. Yeah, I don't think that's a bad idea to find ways to um include that information like in our newsletter that goes out and giving people updates on what we're discussing, but really that could go for anything in our district that maybe we don't regularly report out about. So, um it is really hard to report about all the things that we

021do in the district. Um, obviously this is a sensitive and hot button topic. So, we certainly want to make sure that it's transparent and open to the community. Um, one of the things and, um, I saw her come in, Mrs. Reese Mensah, I hope you don't mind if I call you out. I don't know where you went, but hi. We had a great conversation um with her and and she was one of the founders, originators, uh people that really pushed us um into being better as a district and having these conversations and sometimes hard conversations, right, that need to be had. Um but one of the things that she said to me was, "Well, what happened to the parent engagement on that committee?" And I think what what we started to see and she said

022this herself, you know, people that have older kids, they start to kind of age out of your team and then, you know, you've got to go back and replace them. So, I think being able to say that we should make a commitment to re-engaging some parents onto that committee. Um, I I also meet with a group of leaders uh from the community, meet with them quarterly. Um, and it's not just about I think when we uh get into conversations about climate and culture, we often get into conversations uh specifically about race and I think oftenimes we just dig into black white. Um there are we are represented by so many more people in this district than just black white um that we need to be engaging all of our community members and truly have a

023representative committee that has representatives from all different stakeholders in our community. So I think what I would say to the board is that you know if that's one of your action steps that I will make a commitment on behalf of the administration that we will carry that out um and bring you results from you know re-engaging that committee and making it a a more engaged uh team and a more I'll say um publicized team and what they're working on. I absolutely like that idea. I think it's great and I think it it just shows the community what we're doing as a district, what we have been doing and what we're continuing to do. I think it's very important and it does inform the board as to right because and maybe that's also part of the

024annual update on you know on this whole topic um and and I would love to um have board representation on on that uh committee as well. I think that helps us to understand um what's Yeah, we have to be careful Dr. James about if it's a board committee or just a committee of the superintendent because then you there's just there's just regulations around if it's a board committee. Are we saying it's a board committ? No, we're not. No. Right. No. So I was But you if you're saying have board board representation on it, does that make it a board committee? We would just have to check some things. Oh, I would think that we could participate in a committee without it being considered a board meeting. But let's not board committee. a board committee. Yeah,

025we can check that check that out. Yeah, I think it's not a I don't think it's a commit. Is it a committee? Is it a Is it I don't think it has to be a committee. I think it can just be um I mean even if I mean board member representation, we have several things where boards are represented, but we don't but it's not a committee, right? Or is that not correct? Mrs. Logan, are we stepping into a different The board has tried to make sure that we we've created a board policy committee this year over the last two years. Um, so as an official committee, we have our Sycamore advisory comm council, we have our business advisory council. So we we are we have three committees right now. So, and we're trying to be

026very careful and deliberate to make sure that we call what we call a committee, which is a board committee, and then what's a superintendent committee. This could be a topic as well. Um, and to make sure we are being fully transparent with the community, maybe you review all of your committee structure and make certain that what is a board committee is definitely a board committee which adheres to the open meetings act and then the the other committees that aren't. Um, and to define those and make sure that all of that is in alignment. Yeah. And I I would like to add that I think that having some type of committee is board committee is not a terrible idea because we can't not only will the board be in you know clear not that we weren't

027informed before but we will definitely be more informed but we typically we have events right so with with our business community we do our business breakfast we do events and I think we should consider the idea of bringing our community together for this this type of committee and having more types of community events like having a speaker, an annual speaker or having some type of breakfast or having something that we can come together as a community and as board members we can attend um that that talks about the issues that are being raised in that committee. Um and I think it's right our district is so diverse. There's so many people from so many backgrounds. Um, I know that individually at schools we have our cultural or heritage ceremonies. My kids went to Sims. That

028was amazing. I know schools are doing this and that's beautiful. But what if we as a district also did it because everyone knows about Sycamore. Sycamore is all about inclusion. Sycamore is that is our strength. Diversity and inclusion. That's what's in our mission, our vision, and we care about it. So why not have it be a board committee? And and I would say just one cautionary thing that I would say is with a board committee, remember you have to set up a structure, bylaws, all those components. And I I I and I think one of the things that I would say is we can certainly go look into that and not like you guys. I think tonight your your purpose is more of developing the action steps, right? you can give us that work to

029do um with our legal counsel to dig in and see if that would be um needed or not. I think what I would tell you is you can do all those things and be transparent without making it a board committee. I think we can publish information, we can put information out there. Um if that's the goal of just being open and transparent, I think we can do that without establishing all those other additional layers and minutes. And you know really it it's you know the rules of order that you have to follow just like a board meeting. And I don't I think we're complicating the problem by doing that versus just aren't we get let's get to the source of the you know issue and try to problem solve the issue and you know if

030we think we need to have a more engaged group then you know that's something that we can take care of without doing that. But just to get you back on the problem solving mode and you know action step mode, um Mrs. Logan and I will happily take that and do some research and report back to you. Let it be clear that I was not suggesting that it be a board committee. Got it. Okay. I just I saw your eyes light up. You wanted to be on the committee and I think on the committee I think a board member can be on the committee without it being a board committee because you're just participating offering your feedback. ipating. Okay. So that is we're talking about issues related to actions um with regard to the action at

031the meeting. So we're still on that subject. Is there any other item that we would like to address or consider for that for I'm lost here. For what? Like we said let's put it in the bucket. You said let's put it into categories. You said let's first this incident. Are we I'm moving on? Yeah. No, I I you know there's other things that I would like to talk about. You know um in the past we have put discipline on public agendas uh where it's in the minutes um it's in personnel consent agenda and the public can see that we voted on um discipline via suspension. Uh things like that. Um this was not put on there per Ohio revised code. It does not have to be on there. I would like this board to commit

032that all further discipline and suspensions are put on public agendas are in the minutes and that our public can see them. You know, I thought about that too, Mr. Ballot. Um, and I'm wondering if we cause an issue by doing that. Let me explain. Mr. Lewis superintendent has the authority to issue suspensions without board approval. When we put a suspension on the agenda, the board is then voting on it one way or another. I would say I would suggest that should a suspension require a deduction in pay or stop and pay that we put on the agenda that the treasurer has the ability responsibility of of um putting on the agenda. the fact that there is a suspension of pay for each day of the suspension. So that we are approving withholding pay rather than

033voting on the suspension if you understand what I mean. You because once we start voting on the suspension we are really in essence taking away some of Mr. Lewis's responsibilities. You would still be Yeah, you would still be authorizing me as treasur CFO to um withhold payment for those days of suspension. So, you would still be it would be as part of the agenda be approved. Yes. Yeah. I you know um I I can see what you're saying, Dr. James. Um, I for one board member, uh, I don't feel I'm taking away Mr. Lewis's right to put something on to to suspend someone without board approval. I think from a transparency standpoint, I think the community would know where everybody stands on the suspension. Um, and I think that's one of the things that um,

034has come out of this uh, incident was, you know, there's questions in the community. You know, where do board members stand on this? And I think that that makes a public statement of where we stand on disciplinary actions. I, for one, as a parent in this community, I I want to know if a teacher's suspended. I want to know if a bus driver is suspended because I want to know why they were suspended. I know that's not going to be on the public agenda. Um, but there's there's ways you can find out that information through public record requests. Yeah. I think what's coming out of this whole incident for me is is the need the increased need for transparency to our community. Um, and and that's where I stand is I think that the board

035should be able to vote on suspensions and disciplinary actions. Mr. Lewis, how do you feel about that? Um, I mean, I'll just say from my past experience, um, it that's been a norm of putting it on an agenda. Um, so to learn recently that it was not required cuz my I mean, I've been here this is my 13th year in the district and it to my knowledge everything has been put on the agenda. So, just like we talked about with, you know, the ACT committee, I don't feel like it removes any authority. I think the board understands that that's part of the responsibility. Let me just say Chad Lewis does not enjoy suspension or doing that because it's not a fun part of the job. But um I do think for transparency with the community

036and making sure that um the communication goes well with her department and you know that's where they take the information from to um get direction and approvals and seeing that pay um is adjusted. I don't have any issue with it being on the board agenda. And um and even if it's just as you know one of the things I leaned over to said to Mrs. Logan is if you're worried about it removing any authority, it just needs to be on as an acknowledgement for a dock of pay. Um so that it is done that way. So um even if it's done just to acknowledge it so that it again being transparent for the community and also for Mrs. Logan's department, I don't have any issue with that. Has past practice been to do even with

037those suspension administrative leaves as well? I believe so. Yes. Um and because and the way I was always trained is if anything has any adjustment to pay um it should go on there for transparency. I think we should do it. I mean really it's about your authority to be able to run the day-to-day and handle the personnel matters. And I think that's an excellent idea. If that's our issue is that people feel like we're not being transparent, then we absolutely should do that. I will apologize to the board cuz last night at the um session I did mention that I would push for disciplinary suspensions, which terminations always have to go on, but disciplinary suspensions to be on every board agenda because I do think it's important. So, um I will self-report myself. Yeah. I

038mean, I think another item that I still have not heard from all the board members is an acknowledgement that this was unacceptable behavior. This was unacceptable behavior. I think every board member needs to state their feelings on this behavior. Um, and and tell the community what they really feel about this behavior. I have done it several times. Um, but I have not heard it from all my fellow board members. Okay. um when it I'll be glad to say something in regards to that. Um obviously the behavior is unacceptable. Um but looking around and you know I've put a lot of thought into this the last few weeks. Um all of us have had one of those days. We've had Oh, let me finish. Let me finish. We've all had a black day. We've had a

039day where we've made a choice that was not a good choice. It could wasn't that extreme. But we've all had something happen or could have happened, but through the grace of God, it didn't. Okay? None of us is perfect. And I think sometimes before we start to throw stones, we need to think about that. We're all flawed human beings who've made mistakes. The behavior, no, it's not acceptable. It's not acceptable behavior. Behavior has consequences. And I not not disagreeing that it doesn't have consequences. Not disagreeing with that at all. Having your reputation dragged through the mud is a consequence. Losing respect from your co-workers and people in your community, that's a consequence. Losing pay, that's a consequence. Nobody's come out of this unscathed. Okay? We all need to think about that. The behavior was unacceptable.

040If it wasn't if it wasn't unacceptable, we wouldn't be here right now. I'm just going to say I respectfully disagree with you, Mr. Harris, and you, ma'am. I am appalled by the behavior. And looking at how it has impacted so many people, it has impacted our students in terms of role modeling. It has impacted the community who are now embarrassed, shamed to have our ne our uh district dragged through the mud. I'm appalled at the behavior. Um, and I'm hoping that um there will be enough um rehabilitation so that this staff member uh can enter back into the the um classroom at a later date. The behavior is unacceptable. We should put suspensions on our board agenda or on our meeting minutes. We should vote on it. We should put terminations on our agenda as

041well. We have been a very transparent board. We have also been a board that has allowed and really facilitated our superintendent to run the day-to-day of this district. And that's happened and here we are. So, we can't go back and undo the actions of the past. All we can do is work on moving forward. That's it. We don't we don't have the option. You can't go back in time. So, here we are as a community. We are a community that values diversity and inclusion. People of all races, religions, LGBTQ kids. We value children with disabilities. We value inclusion. That's why people move here. People want in. They don't want out. They want in. And we have to make sure that as a district and as a board, we keep this district positive, strong, and inclusive.

042And if we have a situation like this like we just had, we sit together as adults, as professionals, and we come up with a way to work together to build together. This has been a huge challenge, a huge challenge. But it's also an opportunity. It's an opportunity to show our kids how adults can do the right thing and how we can address the issue and say how can we do better. We're going to listen to every member of this community today again and we will continue to listen and we will continue to make whatever action we have to make so that this district stays strong. And this was unacceptable behavior. That's why there was a 45day suspension unpaid 15 days, Mrs. Bidder. Okay. So, let's keep moving forward. So, we we talked about some ideas

043of how to help our staff or at least Miss Grace get the training that we believe that she should have in order to come back to the district. Some members of our community at the last meeting mentioned other instances of discrimination that their children faced at the district text some texting issues going on. Um we've had some other issues of people reaching out to us as well regarding discrimination for students. So what can we do on behalf of our students to help with this issue and what are we doing? Can we also do the same type of review of knowing what it is that we're doing on that? Can we review our board policy to make sure that if a child is receiving a text, for example, or getting bullied or feeling like they're being

044discriminated because of some protected class? How do they also report? We know how we know that that's through policy AC, but how can we as a board do something with that? Anybody have any ideas? Review of our board policies, maybe getting out to the public. if you have an issue or if you're a staff member and you feel like you're being discriminated against, what you can do. I think we have clear policies and practices in place with the opportunity for bullying reporting. Um u you know, we do get an the board gets an update on an annual basis uh per Ohio Revised Code. Uh but maybe Mr. Lewis, you can jump in. What you know, what practices are already in place for our students, staff to be able to report Mr. or Mr. level. If

045this is more of an HR thing, um we we have several things in place. I would say from a student aspect, since that was the question that was posed, there are numerous opportunities for students to report. Um they should always start with their building administration. Um find someone that they trust and can have a conversation with, their counselor, um someone of that nature that can take the information and kind of help them. Number one, I think we always want to problem solve at the lowest level and figure out if we can resolve the conflict. If it's an ongoing conflict or an ongoing um bullying situation, when you use that word, um you know, there are certain definitions that have to be met there um to qualify as bullying and and work through the steps in

046the process. There's also an online form um an online process that they can fill out and um or they can go through the uh 100 um I think it's 18 1 800 safer O which is another anonymous opportunity if they don't feel comfortable identifying themselves they can go through that process so um there's numerous ways for our students um it's really about the comfortability of a student to do that and to advocate for themselves, but also um we need um parents when they hear these things from their students. Um certainly try to help them filter through it and assist them with that process and get it to our administrators um so that they can get involved at the earliest level. U what we don't want to do is let it go on and fester and

047then kids try to help problem solve themselves and not report it to people. And um uh being a dad of two teenagers, uh they're just not developed enough to problem solve that in their own brain um necessarily the right way. And the last thing we ever want is uh a students to take those matters into their own hands and not pick a right path um to get back on track. So um I would say early intervention and getting it to our staff as quickly as possible is who are trained um in these things. and we actually have uh staff members in our office who are trained um in the investigative process to um help out with that. So yeah, we have a pretty strong process already. Is there a reporting aspect to that? I'm sure

048there is with the administr the building administrators keep track of that when they get that report, what action was taken, that kind of stuff there. And I just keeping it confident I mean keeping as confidential as you can. Yeah, no doubt. And there's I think what I would say is there's always bullying is a common word that again it's an overused word and I don't mean that I don't want that to sound flippant or like uncaring because it's not um you know everything is not bullying but doesn't mean that it doesn't qualify as bullying um but we have to go through the steps to deci to determine if it was a founded um situation and what were the circumstances surrounding it. Um it's usually pervasive. It's ongoing. it's um pretty significant and severe versus you

049know miss Dr. James is looking at me funny is not bullying. Um so it's just you know the balance of trying to uh find the path but the the administrators report back to um not only the complainant but the person that's on the other end of it the respondent um to try to problem solve at the lowest levels but sometimes it gets escalated and we have to get involved at a district level um to help find a path um through it. But um I think the most important component there is just our parents need to know that's why our school administrators are there. That's why our counselors are there. Um that's why our social workers in the district lean on us for the support um if you're having those issues. Mr. Can I can I

050just touch on really quick Mr. Ballet? You uh mentioned just kind of staff training as well. I think that it's it's important for the board to understand when it comes to non-discrimination or any type of training. Um our staff does go through compliance training every single year. It's called the vector program and there are different deadlines throughout the year and some of those trainings are related to just um Ohio legislative guidelines that we have to train in, but there's also um training on title n bullying prevention. Um there is equity inclusion training on there. Um, in addition to that, every new employee that's hired gets a copy of policy ACR, which is our non-discrimination policy as well. So, um, there are mechanisms in place that we have. So, I just thought it might be helpful

051for you to know that those things are in place with our staff. Thank you. I would, uh, like us to refocus. We are here to talk about how the board views itself in in terms of moving forward. Um, so if I may, I'd like to uh bring us back to the topic of transparency. We've talked about putting suspensions on the agenda. So, it's I'm fine with that. There's another um issue that I heard repeatedly um in the communications that I received and that has to do with us being transparent about how we are handling uh donations from um unions. And so I would like for us to talk a little bit about that. Um there is not a law that prohibits a candidate from taking contributions. Um and in fact uh to try to prohibit

052that would be infringing on first amendment rights. However, there are some things that we could do to help ourselves be transparent to the community regarding taking donations. Want to talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I agree. I agree, Dr. James. And and that, you know, that is a topic that is has come across loud and clear to me from the community. Um, you know, and one of the things I think that Mrs. bitter uh mentioned in the beginning is um you know let's talk about uh um starting a independent investigation by the Ohio Ethics Commission on you know each board member to see if there's any conflict of interest or see if there was anything unethical done in in campaigning um so that we can get an independent uh report an independent um I

053don't know Mrs. is better. You know the word better than me. Independent uh opinion. It's it's called an opinion letter. It's called you request an opinion letter from the Ohio Ethics Commission and you go through the process and you file it and then they if if they can I mean if it's related then they will if they need to make to the community tonight that you know I think we should do that. I actually was the one that suggested that. I think that's an excellent idea. I do that all the time. I suggest them all the time because it's a perfect way to go through a process and make sure that you're you've checked all the boxes, right? Um, and I think that's an excellent idea. And I do want to say that we have

054received a lot of those questions and it is important to understand that for campaigns, everything is transparent in that it's on the Hamilton County Board of Elections website. So if you go on there, you will find the campaign committee for every candidate that runs for office in Hamilton County and well not some of them go on the Secretary of State. So depending on the office, but for our local office, we're at the Hamilton County Board of Elections and all of the donations, every single donation we have ever received is on there. You can go on there. Every single contribution, every expenditure we've ever made is on there. like we have to report everything and it's all on the website. Anyone can look at it and in fact people look at it all the time. So

055I do think that it would be good for us to first of all clarify that. Um I do think it's important to clarify and just answer that none of us none of us none of the four of the five people on this board who received an endorsement from the pack that's being referred to received a donation. None of us did because they didn't give donations to individual members. So that's not true. go on the website, look at the pieces of paper, and see if you can find it. If you can, please send it to me. I'd like to see it. Um, and individual human beings are allowed to donate to whoever they want to. That's part of the First Amendment. That's part of living in the United States. That's part of living in a democracy,

056and we all know that. So, if you want to know who's donated to my campaign, please, by all means, look there. But we could also commit to putting the website of the Hamilton County Board of Elections if we wanted to. I'll put it on my I don't have a website, but if I have a website, I'll put it on there or we could put it on our website for us like our district. Like because this will be an issue in the future, right? Like when we're all gone, when we're not on this board anymore, this could be a serious thing that happens regularly. It's not a bad idea to say, "Here's how you find out who donated money to your board members." You should do that. I think it's an excellent idea. So, I'm happy

057to do both of I think both things. Yeah. I think, you know, I'm I'm fine with both of them as well. Um you know, obviously um you know, once somebody is elected that they're elected. So, you know, we can't force a candidate to disclose on our website what information or who who they received their donations from. the community can go out and look. There's there's a pre and a post um report that's issued. So, prior to voting, the community can go out and look to see where their money has come from. Um I'm I'm I'm fine with both of them. I will just say the Hamilton County website is not the easiest thing to navigate. So, just putting a link on that is a good idea. Uh but it's not going to take somebody to

058I don't think it we can take them to ex our exact pages. Maybe I don't know. I'm not an IT person, but um we just have to be able to see what we could do. Well, we Yeah, I mean maybe that's I mean we could print them out and put them in a PDF and then put them on the website. We could you could do that. I'm happy to do whatever anyone would like to do. I'm I have no I mean I'm fully transparent. And by the way, when you run for office, you get audited. Like there's all kinds of things that happen. There's a lot of transparency in that at least at the local level. Maybe not at the federal level, but at the local level there is. So I I think we do

059go ahead and one of the commitments that we take is to get an independent opinion on um any potential ethics violation. And so each board member will request a report. We're self-reporting to the Ohio Ethics Commission. I believe that's for them to give results. We have to I think we need to check that. Maybe either all of us as I mean maybe they we can list all five of us and then they can do it or maybe we all have to individually do it ourselves but I do think we have to figure that part out. Okay. So let's ask for legal advice on how to do that guidance on how to do that. Yeah. Okay. So those are the those are two items. All right. Any other items that anyone would else like that would

060like to any other themes we have not covered? I know that you're going to talk, the public is going to talk with us. We may have more themes and things to add to our list after this after that, but is there anything that I have not brought up? You know, I something that just keeps in the back of my my mind uh about donations and whatnot. I know we cannot uh it's not unlawful to take donations from anyone but what happens is the optics don't look good when a candidate a board candidate and we're supposed to be nonpartisan is being supported by a political party or union or whatnot. I we can't prohibit it from happening, but I would like to go on record as saying that I just I would discourage uh candidates from

061doing the accepting those kinds of um support and donations. I'm just going to we can do to stop that. Pardon me. That's something I can commit to. I I just don't want it to be appear as though um any subsequent actions that are taken by board members um would be perceived as being biased toward whatever group they received the donation from. So, just a an opinion. Just wanted to go on record and I'll just share that if you want to know who I who I receive donations from, you can go on my website and you or excuse me on the um Hamilton County Board of Elections and see and most packs like the pack for the school district is a nonpartisan pack. So they have I mean teachers are comprised of Democrats, Republicans, independent, completely

062nonaffiliated people and that's a that's a pack, right? They're not affiliated. So I think that that's kind of what's it at issue at this particular moment. Um, but I don't think it's a bad idea at all for everyone to know and I think people will know um over time especially because our Ohio legislature is really pushing right now that unfortunately and I don't think this is a good thing but unfortunately that local races will indicate if you're what your political party is um next to your name. So that is something that's being pushed at our at a legislative level right now. So that might be happening um whether we like it or not. But I appreciate your opinion. And one other thing that I heard a lot was this uh feeling of erosion of confidence

063in us as a board, trust as as board members. Uh it takes so long to build trust and relationships. It takes a split second to destroy it. Let's talk about how do we rebuild this trust that we need that we want. [Music] Um you know I I think the the erosion of trust was that people felt that the decision that was made for the discipline was um not appropriate. What do we do? I think communication that we've talked about. I think um transparency that we talked about are big. Um you know, those are two things that right away come to my mind. You know, how can we engage the community more? We've talked um you know, for the last several years. I think we've made great strides in the past year, year and a half

064on different um ways to engage the community and I think we've made significant progress. Uh but you know, just continuing to engage the community, continuing to um seek their input. Uh continuing to um you know, communicate and continuing to be transparent with the community. I agree it's going to take time to rebuild. Uh but those are some things that that initially come to mind for me. I agree as well. I think, you know, being transparent, I I think that we don't typically have this many attendees at our board meetings, but we I mean, this is special board meeting, but we are we are very transparent. We are putting everything out in the agenda. We are having full discussions in our board meetings. We have our meeting minutes published regately after. We are talking with our

065community. We've actually do we're doing a self-evaluation as a board together. We came up with goals. We talk about our goals at every single meeting and whether we're where we are at the level of where we are. We talk about everything. This has been a everyone's in everyone's making decisions collectively type of board and we are putting a lot of energy in making sure that we are collaborating and working as a team with our superintendent and with our treasurer. We are having regular meetings for academics, for finances. We are constantly getting ourselves trained um as much as we possibly can. I feel like we have to continue to do that. We have to I think having some type of maybe it's not called a board committee but some type of cultural community committee where we

066are discussing these types of issues that we know are so painful for everybody in this room. That's why you're all here because that's that's why you're here, right? and talking about these issues is very very important and we have to continue to do that. But I think you know Mrs. Bidder and this goes back to what I said in you know when we first started talking about this there there has to be more than talk there has to be more than words there has to be actions and that's what we're talking to the community about tonight. Um you know you know my initial question was okay we can all commit to anti-discrimination but what does that mean? And I think those are that that's what the community is looking for is what are the action

067steps that come out of this. And you know, again, it's not the words of saying we're going to commit to these things. It's what we do over the next 2 3 4 12 months um to show the community that yes, this is what we're doing. So I think, you know, when we're working on board agendas, we need to have these topics on there um you know, we need to bring these things back to the community and and you know, stay stay focused on actions instead of words. I agree. Are we board members, are we ready for public participation? Would anyone like to say anything more? Mrs. Logan, Mr. Lewis, do you have anything you'd like to say? Dr. James, you look like you want to say something? I know we've we've talked a a lot

068here this evening. Um, I'm trying to recap and summarize in my mind what we have committed to because I do feel that we need to commit to some action steps this evening. So, can we recap? Yeah, I know one of them for sure is that we're going to do um request an opinion letter from the Ohio Ethics Commission for all the board members. So, that's one. We are going to do we want to put the do we all want to print out our our um pages from the Ohio or from the Hamilton County Board of Elections and because they're hard to find and put them on the website. We could link our pages to the website. What I guess we need to come up with something on that one specific. What would you like to

069do? Would we all commit to I don't have again I don't have a website so I can't commit to myself doing that but I should we start publishing it on our own personal campaign committee information and commit to that. What what action can we take on that? I would just recommend from just some we're getting ready to go reboot our website because it's there are some things that we're actually working through changes on just to make it more dynamic um a little more visual. uh appeal visually appealing and some other things that we're working on. So my suggestion based on some of the work that we're doing, I'm looking over at some of my team members that are on the team working with me to kind of work through this reboot that I would suggest

070we probably create a Google folder. Um take the PDFs and put them in there and then put the link right on like the board of education page and one of the, you know, the numerous links that are there. I think that's the most transparent and easy. Again, I think what I've heard you all say is that it needs to be easy for our community to find. Um, and community, I hear you. I know that's one of the things that you hate about our website is it's not easy to find things. So, I promise you that's another commitment that's separate from this I'll make to you is that we're going to make it more user friendly and easy to find things. Um, because as a parent, I want to be able to click a button and

071see all the things that I need to know as a parent. So um that is not easily transparent at this point or easy to find. So if if the board would indulge me I would I would suggest something along that line. Yeah I think that's a good idea. You know I Mrs. Bidder you know there was also uh we had started the conversation about the AIES culture and climate team or I guess this is Dr. James, you know, you had asked the question, but we started the conversation around the AIDS culture and climate team to include information in a newsletter on our website um to look at other ideas on how we can use a culture and climate team, speakers, community breakfasts, uh that type of thing. Um to we committed to reviewing training and

072determining if there's any additional needs that would come from our administration. Um you know, discipline on the discipline on the agenda. Um we committed to having Mrs. Grace's apology letter go out to the entire community. Those were the notes that I took. Okay. Mrs. Logan, did you take notes of those things? Then we I I do and luckily we're recording the meeting as well. So if there's anything we've missed, we can go back and Yep. Okay. I would just reiterate or articulate for the first time that these are topics that one night's discussion doesn't solve. And so I am hoping that all of us will continue to look at these topics and think about how we can address these topics on a on a regular basis. We can also um take all of the things

073that have been compiled and will continue to be added and at the next board meeting we could come to you with a formal resolution for you to approve that would identify all of those action steps and you could approve it formally as a commitment to the community as well. I like that idea. But then I also like a followup on a future agenda like to give the community an update on on where we are on all these actions. This isn't something like Dr. James says that we're talking about tonight or at the next board meeting and and just going to file away. um you know, put it on a a regular agenda three months from now or whatever that time period is to review, you know, where we are, what we've done, and what do

074we still need to do. And you know, maybe work some of it into board goals for next year um or administrative goals as well as we're starting to look at um you know, what we want our administrators to focus on, what we want the board to focus on next year. Um start to work it into our goals as well. and we can add it on to other board business every single meeting if we that would be easily enough for us to do that. So I think that's a good idea. All right. So then we're going to move on to our public participation section. And I'm going to read I read this at the last meeting and I'm going to read it again. Um, good evening again. Um, before we welcome our first speaker this evening,

075I'd like to take a moment to review the guidelines for public participation. Public participation is an important part of our meetings and we value the input of our community. To ensure an efficient and effective meeting, we have allocated a maximum of 30 minutes for public comment. We will add more time if needed. Individuals addressing the board must be stakeholders of the district, meaning they reside in the district or have a connection to it as defined in our policy. Each speaker will have up to three minutes to speak. Please state your name, address, and any relevant group affiliation before beginning. If multiple individuals wish to speak, no one may speak at a second time until all who desire to do so have had the opportunity. All comments should be directed to me, the presiding officer. Individual

076board members will not be addressed directly. Board members are not expected to respond directly to comments during this portion of the meeting. We ask that all speakers maintain decorum and remain respectful. Personal attacks, profanity, or disruptive behavioral will not be permitted. The board reserves the right to interrupt or end comments that are repetitive, obscene, threatening or personally directed at individuals. The presiding officer reserves the right to enforce decorum and if necessary take appropriate action to maintain order. Additionally, please note that the board does not hear compliments or complaints about Sycamore School District employees during public comment. We welcome feedback though through our email, our website, and through direct conversations. We appreciate your cooperation in following these guidelines and your commitment to constructive dialogue. Public comment is a valuable part of our process and while we

077may not respond immediately, please know that we're listening and we take your input very seriously. Thank you. And we will now begin public comment. The first person I had um reach out through an email is Todd Balish. Yes, we do have a podium set up. Chad is and Chad's going to make sure that the uh microphone is working for you. Test and you do have three minutes and Mr. Harris is going to be the time. Thank you. My name is Todd Balish. I live at 11267 Ironwood Court. Um, members of the board, members of the administration, thank you for the opportunity to talk to you today about some of the concerns that I have with how the board managed this situation. um specifically the amount of time it took between when the event happened and

078how long it took for the community to find out that it happened through a formal communication. Additionally, I'm concerned about how disciplinary decisions were made. We hold our students to very high standards. And as a parent of a a high school student and to a graduate of Sycamore High School, I hold myself and my elected leaders to even higher standards. I'm concerned that the discussion on such a sensitive topic happened behind closed doors and the significant reduction in the disciplinary action that was applied from what was recommended by Mr. Lewis originally and the outcome that I understood happened. I'm also very concerned about the apparent lack of recusal by board members who potentially and it sounds like some did receive some financial contribution. I did very much enjoy some of the suggestions that were made

079by the board and I would recommend that the board adopt some policies that if you received financial contribution you recuse yourself from the discussion and from the vote if possible. Obviously, there would need to be some thought behind if a candidate if all of the candidates uh all members of board received a contribution. We'd need to come up with something there. But that could be an an opportunity for you to avoid the conflict of interest. We're better than this. And I'm confident that when we grow together because of this, we'll come out stronger as a community. Thank you. Thank you. I've got a letter that I'm going to read which is from prayer school board members. Some I worked with, some I didn't. Some I'm just going to add lib as I watch this meeting

080and I don't know what I might say. So bear with me. But I'm going to start with a little joke. You may or may not laugh at it. The old Mark Twain book, God needed practice in creating an idiot. So we created school boards. I used to use that often when I would open up and I try to work with parental groups or or whatever. That's something I believe. I love school boards. 12 years on this one. I listen to you intently and I I think that there's policy and there's procedure, but I don't see the real proactive. This is a very bad situation. If I I you know from September I think 18th. I actually did a little test with my computer, my AI agent. But since it occurred, it was 196 days ago.

081Okay. And you I've got my little monthtomonth. That's a long time. Nothing has happened. And while you talk a lot about procedure, they're very important and they can be enhanced, but there needs to be consequences this situation. I I'm I'm embarrassed as a former board member that I I felt like I was watching a soft shoe. So, I can read the letter. You all have it. I hope that with my signature on it, with others signatures on it. These are people that care about this district. I don't think any of them are candidates to be next on the BOE election, but I think this community does deserve a proactive board. Only four of you here tonight. I just think about I I was on for 12 years. I never missed a meeting. So I encourage

082it to be proactive and be proactive in a situation that is seen on on various communications that people have sent me. Now I I didn't hear anything about this 128 days ago. This is a serious and Mr. Harris, I I I do hold myself accountable and I have not ever been considered to be a perfect person. But if I did something like was done at that board meeting 128 days ago, I'd like you to carry me out in cuffs. Okay? I would deserve it. Thank you. I'm out of here. I'll leave my letter. The letter is published. Anybody that wants to read it, thank you. Thank you. Sorry. Next we have Brad Cmerford. Thank you. Brad Kmerford 8460 Calumet Way. The oath of office for the board of education is important. Each of you answered,

083"I will to this oath." I know you each take it seriously. Two phrases from this oath stand out to me relative to recent events. The first is understanding that the citizens of Sycamore Community Schools have placed in you a committed trust. The second one is I agree to faithfully and impartially discharge my duties as members of the board of education. Impartiality is really important. You are beholden to the entire community, not to any one person, even if that is a really close friend. There are two kinds of bias, conscious and unconscious bias. Sometimes people have an unconscious bias that they don't even realize. I would like to illustrate this with an example and with apologies to Mr. Lewis for using him as the example. If Mr. Lewis had arrived to a board meeting drunk, exposed

084himself, made a racially charged comment, and sent a bullying text message to a female co-worker, would he still be employed at Sycamore? The answer would be no. The answer should be no. I believe this board would have acted swiftly and rightly so. In this scenario, there are clear policies. There is clear right and wrong. After doing a public records request and reading through the details of the investigation and the grievance, I'm even more concerned about what has transpired. However, this is not the forum to go into those details. I have a series of rhetorical questions for this board. What example are we setting for our students and our staff in regards to racially charged remarks and bullying? What precedent are we setting for our staff and our students when they violate these policies? Do our

085families want their children to be taught by such a teacher? How many families do you anticipate will be requesting a change of teacher if they are placed in her class? With great power comes great responsibility. Transparency is important. It's directly linked to the committed trust that the community has placed in you. If the Cincinnati Enquirer had not brought this story to life, would the community have ever known what happened? In the last board meeting, I highlighted ethics concerns. I still have them. I'm now aware that a lawsuit has been filed against this board of education, and the allegation is that this board has broken the sunshine law. This is an extremely serious allegation. If the school board is found guilty, the committed trust that this community has placed in you will be broken. I'm sincerely

086concerned. Sycamore is better than this. Thank you. The last person I have that has signed up is uh Kim Ree Mensah. Good evening, Kimberly Reese Mensah, 8916 Cherry Street. Um, before I um I just need to collect myself for just a second because I'm a bit flabbergasted at what I just heard. So, I'm a little surprised. However, um I believe that our board has our children, this is what I believe, as someone who's been in this district for a very long time, has swn a lot of seeds here, has many children, gone to this district, and worked with many of you in this room. Okay? I believe the board has our children's best interest at heart. However, I must say it's important that the board remain unified when presenting itself to the public and making

087sure the focus is our children. This is not a this is not political. Again, this is about our children and let's not use this opportunity to inflict our personal views in this setting. We're going back and forth and the public eye does not promote unity within our school community. After meeting with several stakeholders in our district and our community, I believe that we are sick more and we are very capable and not only making a decision at this point that best serves our children in our community. At this point, regardless to what happened in the past, at this point, I understand that there has been there have been many emails, letters, misinformation. Let me just say I thank a lot of you have emailed me. I've gotten lots of emails and inboxes. Thank you for

088that. I appreciate it. However, there's been lots of misinformation from the media circulating around our district. And I I have to say I was very surprised um that some of the former board members who wrote the letter, I've worked with some of you. I I've seen you around. Um but two of you in particular, I went to you when you were serving as a school board member and asked you about diversity and inclusion and about children specifically in special education. And I was blown off. And what I was told was, well, I have to concentrate on and some of the the the people who I'm I'm talking to in particular are not here tonight, but um I have to say that I was flabbergasted um to hear or to see that when I went to

089you on certain occasions about diversity, inclusion, and the special education department and was told and I and I quote, "Well, my focus is more on the regular ed children because they don't get enough attention." That threw me. So, I was very surprised. Although I appreciate the letter and I understand your merit and why you wrote the letter, I'm just concerned that not everyone had the right uh agenda here when it came to signing that letter or even circulating that letter. Um, in closing, um, I have many African-American parents, uh, and and community members strongly believe that Mrs. Scarce, am I saying her name right? Scarce. scarce. I'm sorry. Needs I'm sorry. Grace. Grace. Okay. Thank you for that. Needs to be either removed from the district permanently or have a longer suspension and attend further

090education and training when it comes to sensitivity and diversity and accountability. I believe this woman did this because she could. And I believe that as my husband would say, she got caught. I believe she's done it on many occasions and I think she's done it before. We are Sycamore and many of us have worked tirelessly together to make sure this district is a district that people want to come to. That's why we are here. I I'm sorry. That's all. Thank you. Thank you. That's the the last. Do you have one more? Sorry. That's okay. Okay. How's it going? I'm gonna try to follow the rules. I'm not going to lie, though. I'm not very good at rules. Um, so, can you please state your names? Oh, yeah. See, see, I already screwed it up. Okay.

091So, I'm Julie. Um, and I live at 4940 Myrtle. Um, and my daughter is a high school student. Um, and we've lived in this district um, her whole entire school career. Um, and we she's been to Sims and Blue Ash and you know, all the rest. Um, so, um, I really like what everybody said, so thank you very much. I'm allowed to compliment these people, right? That's great. Um, so one of the things I heard, um, was how do we show our students that discrimination in our schools is not okay? We don't hire racist teachers. That's one thing I feel like is good. Um, and then I brought my daughter here when she was one years old, knowing that this district was inclusive and that they had many different cultures here. In her in her

092kindergarten class, there was 50 different countries represented. And I love that, and that's why she was here. So, this situation is beyond disappointing for me. Beyond. Um, I appreciate the transparency um of our superintendent. I don't think I'm supposed to say that. Sorry. Um, and I definitely definitely understand that people make mistakes. Um, I've everybody makes mistakes. I totally agree with that. Nobody is perfect. Um but sometimes and yes there have been consequences but I just definitely think that when a mistake is made where someone is making racist comments that that's sort of beyond like we've we've gone beyond where it's don't do that that's bad that's Not. It's like all the other things that happened. I can understand why we might say, "Okay, like that wasn't our best moment. Let's try to recoup." And

093like maybe that is the dumbest guy I ever met. Right. Why did it have to be the dumbest black guy you ever met? Why? It shouldn't have and it shouldn't be like that and it is disgraceful. We are not including we are not inclusion and diversity when we're accepting that 100%. And I I hate it for us. I really do. I don't understand why termination wasn't put up. I don't understand why it's not being put up. I don't understand and I need to understand. And I'm not trying to ruin someone's career. I would hate that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. John Mccurio. Yep. John Mccurio, 7953 Schoolhouse Lane. As you know, I've been in the district since 2003. Been a former school board member for 12 years. Um, this issue eats at the fabric of

094what defines Sycamore. A lot of us, including my family, moved here for this issue that is on trial. First problem I want to address is all discipline has been put on a board agenda for the board to vote on dating back until at least the mid 90s. This was the first time that it wasn't on the agenda for the board to vote. I'm glad to see that you're recommitting to the protocol, but it does raise questions why this one issue was not put on for a vote. I watched Mr. Lewis's presentation last night. Most of the questions were about the word termination. That's what the community is trying to figure out. Is this Mr. Lewis or is it the board? I don't think it's clear. I've heard transparency out of you guys all night long.

095Why don't we make it easy? Let's hear what the community wants. Let's hear the transparency by a show of hands. Who supports termination? Why don't you do that for us? Mr. McCary, I will tell you that my personal opinion, although was never voted on in in uh executive session, my personal opinion has always been for termination. Thank you. Next. Nobody says all I need to know. Thank you. My opinion has Are you finished? Sorry. My opinion is that it is worthy of termination. The behaviors were worthy of it of termination. My opinion. We did not take a vote. That's two board president. Any comment? No comment. Mr. Harris, comment. Thank you. We're in public comment. So, we're going to do public participation and then after that we the board can talk after that, but we're

096not going to we're not going to do a question and answer thing right now. We'll talk afterwards. We can there are some things that we can we can discuss. There are things we can't discuss. David Evans. My name is David Evans, former board member here at the Sycamore Schools, 11 1939 Grandstone Lane. As past board of education members member at the Sycamore Community Schools, we all understand the challenges and rewards of the position you now hold. through your lead your leadership. The key role of the board of education is to maintain and enhance the culture and the communities you represent, the strategic vision of the school system, and maintain the high standards and expectations of the school district. The recent personnel issues that have received national attention have created a level of uncertainty as to

097what this school board represents. the reported and confirmed facts about a Sycamore teachers disparagement and race-based comments about a building administrator which violates board policy AC on non-discrimination a teachers attending an official school function under the influence of alcohol which violates board policy GBC staff conduct GDP on drugfree workplace the sea master agreement agreement section 7.2 on a drug-free workplace and a teacher displaying unprofessional conduct towards a fellow staff district employee which violates board policy GBC under staff conduct. The collective weight of these facts appear to go far beyond the limits of school policy, community norms, and the expectations of civil collegial human interactions. We all care deeply and are concerned about the future of this district. We implore you to review the policies listed above and take specific public actions to demonstrate the to

098the community that all understand the gravity of this situation. The ultimate challenge is to maintain an indisputable level of professionalism and integrity of the elected office you hold in every situation you face and to serve in a manner that honors the utmost level of trust this community has placed in your hands. This letter was signed by Jean Stopc who served from 1998 to 2017. By Ken Richtor, who served from 2004 to 2015. By Diane Adam, who served from 2006 to 2019. By John Mccurio, who served from 2009 to 2021. By Melissa Weiss, who served from 2016 to 2023. by Brad Cmerford who served from 2020 to 2023 and myself who served from 2018 to 202021. You all talked about having a recommendation for expulsion. You could have put this on the board agenda. It takes

099two of you to do that, but collectively you decided to duck this decision. We've read this into the minutes officially and you have a copy of what was read. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Good evening. I'm Jason Demaculangan, live at 12031 Timberlake. I am a parent in the district um as well as a resident and uh have served in the community as PTO president in the past for the Green School and the junior high, been very active. So to the comments earlier that Mr. Balant had said, uh well few things. one is I don't always want to see white black issues. So when we address these things I I like that we want to address it as a whole as a bigger picture on what it might inclusion might be in diversity. Um also

100the fact that uh you brought up about teacher representation. I've sat on some committees. I've sat on some hiring committees as well. And just to make it on record and so that the public understands and knows, there are some cultures where if you decide to be a teacher, your parents would probably uh cut you off, not want you to be a part of their community anymore. So it's very difficult for some cultures to actually participate in education so that the student body is that the teachers and staff are reflective of the student body. So that's a very difficult thing to overcome. um to address different committees. I serve on several committees of Chad over the years and Frank um where they're more informal committees. So I stand by not having to make everything a board

101committee where you have to follow rules, procedures, and all that because some of those informal conversations are very helpful. when you uh talk about what can the board do actively I think it's to you engage these you engage the residents of the community and I think you should be encouraging them more to be part active participants because a lot of the hearers say that you do what they do are more like the social media keyboard warriors they want to complain but they don't want to take an active task so what you can do is to enable and ask the residents of the community to take more active participation I've served on a committee with Miss Lawson. One is our ambassador committee throughout the district. Our teachers and staff don't know what that is where it

102is embraces cultural diversity and a lot of the buildings don't know and where parents can um be a part of that. So to say that there are a lot of people saying things, they're not actively doing things. So you should get your voters whoever voted for you and say please take an active participant active participant either on one of Chad's committees whether it's PTO or one of those because we have seen a decline of volunteerism and all those things. So that's where you need to ask your residents your voters to take an active part and be volunteers and to be actually part of the district as opposed to just complaining about the district. Thank you. My name is Ben Goodyear. I live at 11227 Grandon Ridge Circle. I'm a father of two alumni. I just

103want to point out that my kids are a living testament to how successful Sycamore is and how they serve our community. And I think one incident by one person who I think personally she should have been fired. Uh if it was my business, she'd have been fired. But I do not know and nor I've ever been told what the legal ramifications were for making decisions that the board has to make. I'm not a former board member. I don't know all the policies. So excuse my ignorance. I just want to say that vilification of our administration and our board is not helpful to solving this problem. We need to look forward and learn from this rather than looking backwards and get it on Facebook and vilifying our community members. It's it's just so we we want

104to Sycamore wants to be better. Be better at that. Be participatory in making this place. We're the number four school. I think Mr. Lewis said last night, make our school number one in this in the state. Let's focus on that and everything that encompasses in that rather than dragging us down because the more we worry about what this lady did and keep dragging it up and dragging it up, all it does is bring us down. It doesn't promote this community to be brought forward. And I speak from personal experience having to deal with some of these issues in my business. And I can tell you it's not fun to be on the national news for these type of things. And we've had to deal with it. And I the only way is moving forward. It's

105not looking backwards. And so I would encourage that all the stuff you've talked about tonight is if it's a learning experience to move the ball forward. Everybody wins. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Do we have any other members who would like or any other audience participation, public participation? So, Charlotte Jones at 9003 Bordeaux Court and my question is uh bringing it back to the students moving forward um if this teacher returns how are her interactions with the students going to be monitored and um in such a way that doesn't rely on student reporting if there are problems in the classroom. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, do we have any other me any other audience members like to have public participation? And I know we don't normally, but Miss Jones, your your question

106is a really good one. Um, last night I talked about that a little bit. I don't have any definitive answers for you sitting here this evening or even last night, but it's certainly something that's on our mind. Um and certainly something that as we get closer to that return because um the individual is not currently working um not currently engaged in a classroom or with students um certainly something that we have to consider and um I would say um another commitment that I'll leave here with tonight is that um I really believe that any parents or or uh the parents of the students uh that could be placed in that classroom deserve to be notified. Um and also an opportunity to um potentially meet with that teacher prior to um the school year starting or

107the class starting um for an engagement to see um because the question that got asked last night several times was uh what if I don't want my child in that class? Um, and I think that's an also a really good question and that's something that um, you know, certainly I'll I'll respect um, and our our high school administrative team uh, would respect the choices of our community and at least understand, seek to understand. But, um, I think there are multiple layers that we have to get through um, and also multiple layers of um, recovery steps that I need to see before I would ever put any students uh, back with a staff member. And I would say that's the other commitment you have for me is that if I don't think it's safe, um, and

108I I use this gauge all the time. If I wouldn't put my students in there, um, I have two students, one about to go to the high school. Um, if I can't put my students in that classroom, I'm not going to put your students in that classroom. But I appreciate the question. I felt like I should address that because that was more of an operational question than a board question. So, but thank you for asking it. Okay. So, we um as a board have come up with some action items. I do think that um obviously there were many issues that were brought up during this public participation. Um time for please. Sure. Sorry. I will fill this out and get it to you. My name is Larara Wall. I am at 4940 Myrtle Avenue, Blue

109Ash 45242. I would like to bring it back to our students. Uh we were talked about how our students that are going to be racially profiled or treated in any kind of harmful way or negative way. How are we going to support them in having a safe place for them to go in any of our schools if we are promoting this lady to still be here? I'm a teacher and I will tell you I have a thing on my door that says safe adult. Is that going to be on her door? Are we able to seriously tell our kids to dial our a number in case something happens to them because we don't have a safe place for them in our school? Is that what it's come down to? We talk about how we don't

110want our kids to take it upon themselves if there's any bullying or any kind of like discrimination going on with other students, right? Why not? Nothing's going to happen in the first place, right? So, how does this work for us? How does it work for our students? Students deserve to have safe space. And when they are walking halls knowing that this is happening and knowing it's allowed, how are they safe? That's all I have. Thank you. All right. So, I think if that's it for public participation, we're going to we're going to continue with talking about as a board if there's anything that we've heard that we would like to add to our action items that we've brought up so far. Um, I will say that something that stood out to me, um, that has

111been mentioned to me multiple times in my time on the board is the, um, ambassadors program in our district. We have a lot of students who are, um, coming into our district. There's many, um, English language learners. There are parent volunteers at the PTO's that are helping students get um get acclimated to our district and trying to help support diversity and inclusion in our district. And um I do think that that should definitely be part of the committee if it's not called a board committee, but I hope that that's encompassed in that because that also promotes inclusion for our parents and our children, our students and their parents into our inclusive district. So, I hope that we will add add a consideration to making sure that they're part of that group as well and so

112that they have the resources from the district to be successful as well because I think that promotes inclusion as well. Any other items before I Well, I I want to say thank you to everyone here um who has taken the opportunity to share your voice with the board. Um this is really very important. Um this is really hard. This was a terrible situation. It was inappropriate behavior. It's not acceptable. I would like you to know that our board and administration have been committed to teamwork and collaboration and we have consistently rep consistently supported the recommendations of our administration and we remain committed to this moving forward. I think Mrs. before we stop I you know I I I would like that's fine you I would like to just say can I say what yeah it

113please okay um I just want to say that you know these challenges have been really painful for everyone everyone in this room including me right they provide every one of us with an opportunity we now have an opportunity While all eyes are fixated on us, everyone's watching us, right? Everyone's focused on this issue, especially our students and our parents. We're at a really incredibly challenging time, not just at Sycamore. It's not just here, it's everywhere, right? Statewide, national, we have parents who are really worried about issues related to these topics. And I believe that we should move forward as a district to reaffirm Sycamore's commitment to addressing challenges when they come. And they will continue to come. They will. We're d we need to make sure that as a board that we can have civilized

114conversations with one another, professional conversations with our superintendent, with our treasur, that we can seek legal guidance when we need it. That we don't talk about things in executive session, and we don't share attorney client privilege information with the public. That we don't talk about personnel matters, which is something we normally don't do, but we're doing today because it exposes our district to great risk. We are transparent board. We work very hard. We commit our time, our energy, and our lives. We volunteer. We are volunteers. We are not We don't have an office of the district. We're volunteers. We put our our hearts into this district. We have children who go to school here. We volunteer so much of our lives to this district and we love it here. And we don't agree with that

115type of behavior. It's not okay by anyone's standards. It's not okay. We don't run the day-to-day of this of this district. We do not run the day-to-day of this district. And I want to say that as a board member, I will reaffirm my commitment to inclusion. That's why I moved here. That's why I I ran for this district office. And I want to make sure that our district fosters a school environment where every student and every staff member is treated with dignity and feels respected, valued, and supported. And I thank you all for being here. Every member of this board, please feel free to speak as well. Yeah, I you know, I want to just bring up, you know, what I I I listened to everyone. I took great notes. Um, one of the things

116we haven't addressed is the students and that came up from a lot of people. Um, I have two students at the high school. It was all over Instagram. You know, they came and showed me, "Dad, look at this video." And there were thousands of likes or how you know, maybe not likes, but you know, thousands of whatever um on this Instagram and a lot of them were from our high school students. We have not addressed what are we going to say to the students. How what what what are we saying as a board and as a district to our students? You know that this is not okay. This behavior is not okay. We we've got great action steps or some action steps but I think we have completely not addressed the student parties. That's what

117my concern is. Yeah, I I agree and that's why I brought it up earlier. I think we have to not just address the staff issues, we have to address the student issues. I completely agree and I don't know I don't know the answers to that. I don't know how to address the sta the student issues other than to continue to teach children, work with children, help them through our positive behavior intervention supports, our MTSS programming that we have throughout our district that we're getting reported on regularly, quarterly pretty much. I think we have to maybe add that in. I don't know. Maybe we find out if there's more information on how to support that. I know we sent out an email to explain to families if their children needed counseling after this event. We did

118offer that, but that's probably not going to do enough. But what actions can we take? Let's have that conversation. What can this board, what can our administration Is there an apology from Mrs. Grag to the students? I mean, this this is deeply affecting our students. It's not just our community. Um, you know, to let our students know that she does not represent the values of this community, the values of this district, or the values of our teachers, and that this behavior is not acceptable. I would say from my standpoint, from a student standpoint, um I would say whenever we problem solve situations, um you always ask the smartest people in the room, which is the students. Um, so I would I would say from my standpoint, I would get together a group of student leaders

119uh that I know and and that are capable of those conversations and just start to engage and uh let them tell me what they believe and what they're hearing and what they're feeling, how they're reacting to the situation. I think Mrs. Jones question is a good one for the students. How would you react if you were placed in a classroom um with this staff member? Um, so I I think from my standpoint that's an that's an easy discussion for me to be able to organize with students. Um, I'll be honest with you, I don't know that I'm equipped um to do that by myself. So I'll probably seek out some um expert opinions of how to handle that conversation because I can have a conversation with students about, you know, what changes do they think

120that the high school needs to make. I think this one's a deeper, harder conversation um that involves a lot of emotions and feelings. So, I think that's a excellent place to start, Mr. Lewis, and thank you for your leadership. We wish we could answer your questions. We wish we could correct the record. We wish we could do so many things, but we can't, unfortunately. Mr. Lewis will answer that question for you because I think that that's what we need to know. What are you limited to? What is Mr. Lewis? That's his responsibility. And what is the board limited? And I'll just say for my standpoint, um I explained this last night. So if you didn't get a chance to be on that meeting or watch that video, um I clearly explain the role of the

121school board and the role of the superintendent. um anything that I do not have the authority by myself um to terminate an employee. It takes a majority vote of the board uh for me to be able to terminate an employee. So um that that's that's step number one. If I do not believe um that there is support for termination, then I have to make decisions that I believe are in the best interest of our school district. A and I explained this last night, a 45day suspension in education is unheard of. Um it's I would say um usually a 10-day suspension is the lengthiest suspension and the next step is termination. Um can I finish please without comment? Thank you. I I'm trying to explain it and answer your questions but I I can't do it

122if you keep making comments. Um, and what I would say is just from that understanding and that standpoint, um, when we reduced the from 45 to 15, that was not a board decision. They didn't vote on it. They didn't participate in that decision. That was solely mine. And the way that works is we have a um, a legal counsel representative go in with these individuals. Um, I was not in the room with these individuals. They keep coming out. They keep bringing me information and they bring me are you agreeable to these circumstances. Um what I think hasn't been mentioned is the amount of money that it costs to fight certain situations. So whether it was 45 days of suspension or 15 days of suspension, um I don't know that it's worth six figures that I

123can spend on students. Um because whether it's 45 or 15, I'm still getting her back. I care more about the therapeutic components. I care more about is there actual things that she's going to do uh to prove to me that she's going to be able to come back and be a thriving member of our staff community. Um so if I had her at 45 days and there was no therapeutic component, no training, no responsibility to um do any of those things, then we just get her back with nothing that really has changed. So, uh, from my standpoint, was it worth spending the extra money to fight it or was it worth getting those therapeutic components? Um, getting retraining, uh, getting, and I I I listed all of these last night and I can list them

124again for you. Um, therapeutic components, substance abuse counseling, fit for duty assessment, non-disparagement, non-disclosure clause, and sensitivity training. to me that was more valuable than an additional 30 days of suspension uh with no um training component. So um I hope that better explains my standpoint of what I'm allowed to do in my role of superintendent. So I'm not going to be able to answer that question. So, there was no vote brought to There was no vote. So, I I again in conversations with legal counsel, um I'll just say that if if I make a recommendation and it does make it on the board agenda for termination, it voted down. Um one of the one of the opinions that I got from legal counsel was then there is no discipline. So, again, uh I we could

125sit here and do the whatifs all night and I appreciate your u engagement and your seeking to understand. I do know that there are certain information and I explained this last night. There is certain information that I'm not going to be able to answer and the board is not going to be able to answer because it's protected u by executive session. So, I know that that's frustrating. Believe me, I know that that's frustrating. Um but I'm also not going to get myself in trouble as a single dad of two kids um that is full-time. Um, and I put my heart and soul in the, um, 80 hours a week and the 40 hours that I've already put in this week, probably with the weekend. Um, I'm not going to get myself in trouble by answering

126your question just so that I can answer your question. I apologize for that. I really wish I could all of you. Um, but I do need to stay employed and um, I do appreciate being employed with uh, the young men that I have to take care of. So, And you can find that video on YouTube. It is actually linked out there. Um, so and I apologize for that. I there is no good way for me to uh send information to you if you're no longer on a mailing list. I I understand that it's um we'll have to find a better way to get you information. And if you could recommend any way that we could increase that communication, yeah, it was on the Facebook page, but it was Mhm. And I think that would also

127help with our transparency as well because that is sometimes we are sending out emails directly to the the parents who have children in the district right now, but you're not getting it and it's explaining some of the very questions you're asking have been explained in writing to the district, but you don't get that. I know. And that causes some distrust, too, because it sounds like you're not getting all the information and then you're seeing it on the news. And this is this is an issue with trust and transparency for sure. And that is something that we need to figure out how to work on. And I know it's really hard when we don't have kids in the district, but we need to put stuff out on social media and get it out to people understandably.

128And I'm wondering how you even knew about this meeting if we're Okay. Yeah. Thank you for being here. You know, I believe every every situation is a learning opportunity for all of us. And uh I take this as a learning opportunity. We've learned some new things. Um, I have reflected on how I respond to things individually, um, and how I would respond to things as, uh, a board member moving forward. Um, I appreciate having this time to hear input from the community. I know we have a lot of work to do. Um, I do want to move forward. I think people want to move forward, but when I say that, I don't I'm not saying sweep things under the rug, the carpet, but learn from this situation and make sure it does not happen again.

129So, that's my commitment. Someone asked um about process and I just want you to know that every item is put on an agenda. It's voted. Most items that need action in our district are voted on by board members. People have reached out and asked these questions. You can see how we vote. You can see if it's a yay or, you know, yes or no on every single vote in the meeting minutes. There's a process. And the board does not do the day-to-day. We oversee the running of the district, but we do not do day-to-day. And we do not do personnel matters. We vote on hiring and firing. We do not hire and fire. This board doesn't. Um, so I just want you to understand this process. Um, if you will see, as we just said

130tonight, that when there is a suspension in the future, you will see it on an agenda and you will see us vote on it. Um, that will be part of our process. Apparently, that was done in the past. That's that's a new information to me, but okay. Well, even if we've done it in the past, I didn't know we have not not done it. So, um either way, we have transparency communication issues to be working on. We have a lot to work on and we always will continue to reflect on our actions and how our board is perceived and how we are with our community and we will continue to work on it and you have my commitment for that. We did hear. Yes, sir. We did. We did, sir. We heard it. We Well,

131once No, we cannot once. No, we can't. And so, I'm going to leave it at that um under legal advice, but that is not something that can be done here. Okay. It is a special mean. I just want to clarify. So a special meeting, it's not a regular meeting. So a special meeting, you can only do the things that are provided in the notice. So the notice did not mention that there would be any kind of personnel action. So it would be an invalid action even if they wanted to do it. So it was not part of the notice. A regular meeting is when anything could be placed on an agenda, but not at a special special meeting. The next Yes. Okay. So, are we um we have our action items. If a board if

132a board member decides to create a motion to do that, then that will happen or superintendent puts it on the agenda. Okay, we're going to we're going to stop this conversation because we um have fulfilled our we are in the zone of where we can talk and what we can say and what we can't say. So, we've reached the limit of what we can say on personnel matters. So, we Is there anything else anyone would like to say? Okay, meeting is adjourned. Thank you.