Sycamore Board of Education Meeting May 18, 2022

001represent our entire community this includes every single student that is in our building which as of today consists of approximately 5 675 students every one of our 816 staff members and our entire 30 to 35 276 community members whether they have children in our district or not we use our mission in vision to guide us so to start tonight's meeting i'd like to to review our mission and vision as a district our mission is to cultivate a culture of academic excellence through inclusive and innovative learning opportunities for the whole child and our vision to is to empower all learners to reach their full potential in a globally competitive world um tonight we're honored to recognize our outstanding retirees who have really lived by our mission and vision for many many years supporting our children within

002the district so thank you um to begin i'd need a motion for the approval of the agenda which includes superintendents agenda items 12 and 13 and personnel consent agenda 3d so moved second mrs webber mr comether aye mrs weiss aye mr ballen aye this is bitter i am dr stever aye the agenda is approved i need a motion for the approval of the minutes so moved second any comments questions or corrections from the board mrs webber please call the roll and just to clarify the second was mrs bitter thank you mrs weiss aye mrs bitter aye mr comether aye dr steven aye aye mr mallett aye the minutes are approved mrs weber would you uh please give us a overview of the meeting protocol yes thank you uh mr ballen and welcome to all of

003you here tonight you are probably some of our most special guests of the year and we welcome you this evening um for those of you who are joining us in our virtual audience this evening the agenda for tonight's meeting is available on our board of edu education website the minutes that have just been approved will be posted on the board of education website as well for those of you who have public participation requests please send those to tonight's moderator bill fritz at fritz w at sycamoreschools.org and he will get those to the board when we get to the public participation section of our agenda but first this evening we are very excited to start it out with our recognition of our special guests mr lewis i will hand the meeting over to you thank you

004thank you mr ballant members of the board i completely agree that this is this is always one of the most celebrated exciting nights of our school year i would say graduation is the other one that we all look forward to but tonight we're here to celebrate the achievements the success the careers of a number of individuals on our team and as much as we're sad to lose them and see them go we know they're headed off for new new adventures new exciting careers potentially just things that they want to do now they get to make that decision so i know our students and our staff and the people that they leave behind from a standpoint of mentorship and guardian guidance and just you know many of them serving as parents and parental roles and you

005know doing things that's what's best for kids it will be hard to watch them go but we're excited for what lies ahead for them i'm going to invite some special guests up to assist me today mrs grace our sca president will join me and mrs friel who is our oopsy president will join me and then mrs wegner is going to assist as well so for our retirees i'm going to call you up one at a time it would be great as we call and talk about you you come and stand up here by us and then obviously head down the line from mrs wegner get your wonderful gift and then i'm going to ask you to stay up here because we want to celebrate all of you together we want to get a picture of

006all of you together we're going to give your families a chance to take pictures of you so you know board we'll have to pause our important meeting i know that you'll be upset about that but we want to make sure we give the proper time to these uh wonderful retirees so without further ado we are going to start with kim bryant our intervention specialist at junior high so a little information about kim kim has always worked at the junior high as a special education teacher she originally began working with students with behavioral concerns than students who were twice exceptional and finished as a class a categorical generalist kim plans to travel in her camper and spend time with friends and family kim also just accepted a position with the grand canyon conservancy and will be

007starting at the grand canyon desert view watch tower in july adventure next is martha dinaman secretary at eh green [Applause] so martha has been the exempt secretary since the 198-1998-99 school year she plans on spending more time with family especially grandchildren good plan martha good plan martha is also planning to visit family and friends in texas and new york she hopes to reconnect with many already retired friends she is excited to start a new chapter in the book of life martha having some retirees in my family they say that every day is saturday so enjoy that next kevin donovan bus driver transportation kevin has been a special needs lyft driver for the past 10 and a half years he has built great relationships with his students and family i got to personally witness this in

008my first year in the district as i rode the route with kevin and i can attest to the fact that your families love you so much that he told me a story right before we got up here that mr miller called him into his office and said you're gonna have to speed it up and stop talking so much to families because they're giving him coffee and gifts as he goes along the way so after retirement kevin plans on traveling with his beautiful wife pam pam thank you for taking them off our hands he will also play as guitar manager men's softball and soccer teams and do some gardening and reading so i'm glad you get to relax [Applause] next vicki essler teacher at blue ash elementary [Applause] vicki has worked 40 years at sycamore [Applause]

009in vicki i find that impossible when you're only 50 40 years old right i don't know how that happens 39 at blue ash in three different buildings so there's there's an accomplishment and of itself she was a second grade teacher in the last 32 years as a kindergarten teacher she has had the privilege of working with seven superintendents eight principals twelve assistant principals hundreds of colleagues and thousands of students and family vicki has impacted so many with her mentorship and guidance vicki plans are to travel play with grandkids and do more volunteer work that's awesome next linda furlong 4th grade language arts teacher montgomery elementary linda has worked at montgomery elementary for 25 years almost all at fourth grade with the same team after 25 years linda is finally graduating from fourth grade we're excited

010for you linda leaves a legacy of strong relationships with kids and family doing what is best for each student she plans to travel do yoga spend time with family and friends and linda i know just hearing from your colleagues how much they're going to miss your guidance and mentorship in fourth grade so you've left behind a great legacy and it'll be their job in fourth grade to carry that legacy on so thank you next anita harris educational assistant eh green anita subbed for one year in the district before being hired full time she has worked at the junior high and obviously now spent time at eh green but before that bobby b fairfax and anita one thing i know about you is we appreciate your dedication to all students in working with all students and

011helping them be successful she plans on spending more time excuse me with family and traveling so congratulations next amy johnson teacher mapledale elementary school amy began working for sycamore in 2000 as a substitute teacher returning to full-time teaching in 2002. her entire ohio teaching career has been at mapledale i find that often to be what happens here at mapledale a lot of people don't graduate from mapledale amy and three of your children went to mapledale so that's awesome as well what a family experience in mapledale she has taught grades 2 3 and 4 with 17 years in grade 2. amy plans to visit her grandson that's great she also plans on gardening scrapbooking enjoying time with family and friends congratulations amy connie merrill child nutrition junior high [Applause] connie started working for our child nutrition

012department in 1996 at blue ash elementary she then moved to eh green in 1998 and then to the junior high in 1999 finishing up her 26 years at the junior high she has also been a bus monitor since 2017 and thank you for that because that is a difficult position connie plans on traveling reading crafting and redoing her house and yards since she recently moved that doesn't sound like relaxing in retirement there connie but we want you to enjoy that new house thank you now it's another unique experience when you get to um recognize a husband and a wife all at the same time so terry merrill custodian montgomery mentioned terry started as a custodian at eh green the bus compound and also the board office he then went to work at the junior high

013then moved to montgomery elementary terry plans on enjoying life and traveling terry i hate to tell you you're gonna be working on a new house from what i hear so i don't think you're going to get to relax or rest too much but and i've already told connie if he drives her too crazy she can send them back and we can use them so thank you [Applause] chris pappas special education teacher mapledale elementary chris came to sycamore to teach junior high special education classes and was able to join a cohort group there to earn her master's degree with a reading endorsement next she was welcome to join the special education team at mapledale it's been a joy watching her teach students and working with her peers over all these years transitioning from the old mapledale

014building to the new one sycamore gave so many opportunities to serve on committees literacy council special education council third and fourth grade curriculum committees excuse me master teacher i was an overachiever a little bit a little bit but that's okay that's what we need right you're gonna leave a lasting legacy we gotta have somebody else to step up and pick up those things um and never forget the slo committee i think your colleagues would say let's forget the slo committee i'm guessing no one else shares that sentiment so chris plans on slowing down and taking it easy now i'm reading the next sentence ahead of this you're not going to slow down and you're not taking it easy she plans on going scuba diving ziplining parachuting from planes sailing traveling being with grandchildren and building

015a new home in greece while cherishing the years she spent with students and colleagues at sycamore and chris i can say we are going to cherish you the same so thank you [Applause] lynn stubblebine art teacher junior high [Applause] lynn has worked 23 years as an art teacher at sycamore junior high and for a handful of years for both sycamore junior high and high school lynn plans on spending time with her growing family traveling working on her own art and volunteering lynn any special art projects in the future anything you're thinking about the ones i started okay hey now you have time to actually finish our projects right so lynn we thank you for uh not only dedication to students but dedication to art education at sycamore junior high thank you sandra torp french teacher

016junior high i'm sorry i said sandra saundra that's just too many names too many letters right here in the middle but i apologize sandra has worked at the junior high for 17 years mentored teachers been a member of the sycamore advisory committee so that's awesome saundra plans on traveling spending time with family seeing friends sewing and knitting how do you say retirement in french put you right on the spot didn't it well saundra congratulations and again thank you for you know your dedication to students and especially with global language so thank you [Applause] and so to wrap up we also have some individuals that were unable to be here so i'll just read their names really quickly in their positions so that you know we want we we certainly value them and again we're um

017excited for their next chapter but also sad to see them go ken clark teacher sycamore high school melissa houston teacher sims elementary melanie howard teacher mapledale elementary laura leonard bus driver transportation randy lothrop teacher high school susan luttmer educational assistant sims elementary brian osborne psychologist sims in montgomery elementary diane raznik educational assistant sims elementary barb simon educational assistant blue ash elementary david stump custodian mapledale elementary brenda wissman educational assistant at eh green and then cindy zetterberg teacher sycamore high school again let's give these wonderful retirees a round of applause and school board members i would love it if you would come around and and shake the hands of our retirees and thank them for their work and then if you all could stay and get a picture together we would love that families and feel

018free to come up and get some pictures yes does anyone else need a picture before we release them and i am certain that you probably want to stay for the whole board meeting i know how exciting that is but we will completely understand if you do not stay so congratulations [Applause] give him a couple thank you so much tomorrow i gotta help i'll be right back yes okay always a great time and celebration to honor the amazing achievements of our retirees in the district as we move on with the regular portion of our agenda i have one public participation mrs weber is there any other public participation mr fritz i have not received any only misses step holds okay mrs dipple hello again i spoke at a meeting here three months ago regarding my concern

019about the lack of transparency your written minutes from that meeting say carrie dibble addressed the board on the issue of transparency she noted that several items on the agenda reference informational materials she asked how members of the public can access these materials she also asked how members of the public can be notified of special meetings these written minutes are misleading it sounds like i'm simply asking for information that i didn't know where to find that sounds nice but you know that that's not what i was asking or conveying i was asking why you were hiding this information if you listened to the meeting as opposed to reading the misrepresented minutes i posed questions about why information that is part of the public agenda is hidden in a packet why are those packets not posted in

020addition to the examples that i gave then i can show several more including today's agenda there are several items that you're voting on today that say their information is included in a package so nobody here can see what that is it's been three months since but the board has not provided any response to why these informational packets are not being provided nor how or when special meeting notifications are made or why they are not made i am well aware that the public has the legal right to make a public records request to get any information i was never asking how one could get the information you board members know that i know this because i had to involve you in the past after months of being ignored even with constant follow-up i finally received some

021of the requested information after asking for your help however i'm now finding that some information was still withheld i'm still waiting on answers as to why some of it was withheld over six months ago my questions are not being answered instead i'm now being asked for clarification no one asked for clarification back when i requested initially they just ignored the parts that were not provided only now that i'm showing failure to provide you'd like clarification board policy and ohio revised codes state that the district legally needs to provide requested records in a reasonable amount of time i know of several others who have also requested information that is not related to any of my records requests all have had the same experience as me being ignored and waiting three plus months to hear a response

022if hearing anything at all that's not a reasonable amount of time if one has to request the information and jump through hoops or prove that it's been withheld to get it then you're not being transparent you are being deceitful you are purposely hiding information which makes us wonder what is there to hide i'm guessing you board members get all of the information in these packets for public meetings without requesting it the public has just as much right to all the information that you get for the public portion of these meetings it is no more difficult to attach these packets than it is to attach the meeting minutes and agendas waiting three plus months is not timely or acceptable for some of this information in my records requests and discussion with administration and board i am

023finding too many things that are being hidden you the board and administration are aware of these things and are assuring me that you're making changes to prevent some of the past unacceptable behaviors that this that have been uncovered your policies also state that we cannot discuss personal issues at these public forums so i cannot give all those details in the meeting i'm abiding by your policies and ohio law you should ensure that everyone is i would prefer not to stand up here and have to ask these questions however i'm still waiting on responses to questions that i've sent to you as a board not public record requests information that i've asked over two months ago so what should one do when they are ignored by the board thank you mrs dippo moving forward onto the

024superintendent's agenda i need a motion for the approval of the school calendar so moved second just a couple of things to note mr ballen members of the board uh it's the third reading of the school calendar and just to refresh our memories we did a multiple readings and we spaced them out over evening meetings because we felt it was important you know for our community to get time to digest the information we certainly wanted to digest the information and we wanted to give time for i would say better information to be available to us because of our construction projects so no major changes from the last reading to this reading we had a few minor adjustments but i do want to thank our representatives from sca opsi our teaching staff our administrative staff in our

025district flight team everyone had input into this calendar we collaborated with numerous people we also got great feedback from parents in some of our work groups that we work with some of our advisory groups these calendars are not easy and we certainly can't make something happen for all you know everyone has an opinion on it but i think this calendar represents a very collaborative effort among all those groups that i mentioned and and i feel uh proud to say that that process worked and a huge thank you to mrs wegner and her staff because they worked through all of those meetings all those additional uh feedback sessions and what we're presenting to you today is is ready for approval so thank you uh just a quick question i'm trying to look at the colors on

026this but do you know mrs wegner how many professional learning days we have on the calendar for we have um three at the start 21 22 23 and then we've got one in september if you recall we had two at the end of the year and then we got feedback that that was not working so we split those up so we have one in um september and then we have one in april so we split those um so those are the professional learning days and then also in november those are similar to the collaboration days that we had with staff um this past november on 21 on on um 20 and 21 in november so those three four five six seven great thank you very much yeah i would just like to thank our administration

027and staff for working on this calendar and putting it together i mean if you know if we take a step back construction has dramatically impacted our calendar for the last three years and there has been a slight decrease in the number of overall instructional days on the calendar but what we heard loud and clear during the master facility planning process is that our community did not want kids in trailers they did not want kids and gyms where they're having classes so um if you look at the total picture of what we've done from a from a building standpoint with the minimal impacts that we've had on the calendar i think we've done a phenomenal job and then obviously as we move forward and construction is no longer an issue you know we'll see that those

028instructional days do go back up so thank you very much mr bell and i think it's a great point to point out the personal learning days that are in the calendar will kind of sunset after the 23-24 calendar those those will go back to in-person learning days for students and we're excited about that we obviously are all of our staff want to be in person with their students and not providing some you know opportunity to do it virtually but i think we felt strongly if we have to squish the calendar let's make sure that there's an instructional component to that so appreciate the guidance of the board on that and giving us some latitude to get through these couple of rough years with the calendar so excited to get back to normal with new buildings

029any additional questions from the board mrs weber please call the roll mrs speeder aye mrs weiss aye dr steve here aye mr ballen aye mr conaford aye motion passes i do have one question about the calendar not this calendar but when will we get our calendars in the mail again will we ever have those again mr lewis you know the paper ones the print calendars will we do those any longer we do not do those any longer they were just extremely cost prohibitive to what we were trying to do and honestly mrs bitter from the minute we printed them there were already changes to them and people did like them but i think the relevance of them were as much as people liked them and they were very colorful and they had great pictures they

030just weren't very relevant once we printed them because things change as you all know moment-to-moment so i appreciate the question though with that mr lovell master facility planning update with some exciting pictures of a progress on our new buildings so thank you and mr balance mr lovell is just going to stay up here for a number of items sorry exciting times well mr president members of the world thanks for having me i always like i've always said i enjoy coming up here in fact as i was sitting right back here looking at um honoring all of our retirees i can't i couldn't help but just make the connection between the work that we're doing to create these facilities and the reason we're doing that is because we want these environments that just create exceptional opportunities

031for teaching and learning and so giving our teachers the tools that they need to educate our students in the future now and in the future and so i'm just kind of anchoring in on that as we go through some of these projects and so i'm not going to spend a lot of time on this slide but again i just like to kind of put this in front of you all in our community just to highlight the work that's happening across the district but specifically i do want to focus on eh green today and obviously each meeting i come up i try to hit some hype highlights of eh green because that is our project that's going to be coming to a close here sooner than later and so we continue to be we continue to

032be on time with this project we continue to look for a temporary occupancy july 1st i always use caution especially with our staff listening just because we have temporary occupancy doesn't mean that we're able to get into the building but it gives allows us the opportunity to kind of do some of those finishing touches i do want to though highlight the fact that we have some exciting things happening that are really making this environment look finished we've got finished painting that's going on the ceiling pad installation is going up so when you walk into the environment it actually looks like a classroom the other thing that i want to note up here is the second half of may we're going to be bringing the boilers over from the old eh green and so just for

033a little bit of context for those that may not have realized this is that as part of this project we're actually reusing our boilers from the old eh green not only was it a cost savings matter but it was because we've recently purchased those so they're newer so what we've done is created a path forward to be able to leverage those in the new space we're also going to be working to get that bus lot ready and paved we got some of the final work done on some of the soil and that back there doing some concrete work in the front and then another really big kind of milestone for eh green is at the end of the month we're going to start moving in some of our kitchen equipment and that may not sound

034overly exciting to the average person but that is kind of the momentum that we get as we start to see the furnishings arrive so pretty exciting there mr lovell i've seen this picture twice today and i've been trying to figure out what is in the bar i'll say right corner that looks like it's missing a roof ah good question then yeah and if you don't know it's okay no i absolutely do know so that is our mechanical courtyard um and so the reason that we have a space there that has walls but no roof is because as you can imagine our mechanical equipment for a building that size is somewhat loud and so when it was designed we did that because we know we're close to the property line so that is a way for

035us to be able to take care of our neighbors minimize the noise of that equipment that's operating um you can access that kind of from the side but in that area there that's our shipping and receiving and all of our other areas so that's a really good question that's great thank you for i'm sure our neighbors appreciate that absolutely the other thing i do want to mention on the h green is that even though we get temporary occupancy of our new space on july 1st obviously we're going to be working towards getting our students in there but i think it's important that we always point out as well that this is also a renovation so we're actually going to have workers on that property through november as we renovate the gyms and renovate the um

036the current cafeteria that will be music space in addition to demolition of the actual site and the creation of new parking facilities on the property i also want to give a quick question how long will the demolition take the building that's going to be torn down so we have um i'm going to not give you a direct answer but i'm going to give you an answer how about that so our students last day is on june 3rd we have two days to be able to completely bring all the equipment get planes moving storage everything out of that building gray bot construction gets a hold of the building on june or june 6th that starts kind of the quote-unquote demolition period but that starts with remediation of the building so as you can imagine they got

037to go in they have to rip out electric they've got to rip out things before they can actually tear it down all said and done the goal is to have that building down by the start of the school year um so that we can get some of the parking in and then we can start again doing the um renovation site development we joke on this on the south part so where mr lewis was mentioning kind of that mechanical yard there if you notice up against the houses on hagawa there's high piles of dirt they call that mount hagwa that dirt is actually has to be moved across site because that's going to be going into the infill where the building has gone so there's still a lot of movement that has to happen on that

038site yeah great question thank you mr level the other thing if you don't mind mentioning just some of the things they did to cut down on the time that they've already done inside the building oh yeah so obviously with green um it's an aging building so there's a lot that goes within that so um there's asbestos remediation and things and while there's not a lot in that building one of the things that we knew we had to do if we wanted to keep on that time frame for demolition during the summer is to do as much remediation that we could when students weren't there during the school year so that looked like our crews going in over christmas break over spring break and on the weekends to be able to get in there take certain

039areas do what they need to do and what that does is that buys a significant time in the summer and it cuts down on overall cost of the project so that we make sure that we are actually having our students show up on the first day of school in that building um and again i will give a shout out to our team at eh green because um they've been learning in a space that has been an active work site all year not only with the construction behind them um but also there are areas that we've had to take ceiling tiles out in the spring and things like that so it's been challenging but to mr lewis's point a little bit earlier we knew that came with kind of the scope of the projects and not

040creating temporary spaces but being able to mitigate manage these projects while on site okay uh the junior high just a quick update here um these are by the way new drone photos and we post those out online as well so you can go ahead and take a look at those we appreciate our partnership with shp and getting those to us i think it just gives it's kind of like the exclamation point on what we talk about it shows you kind of the scale and scope what i want to do here is i really just want to focus on the lower half of this picture that is the theater and so this is really exciting so when you see that part right there that looks like the um the block is kind of coming out of

041the ground that is actually right where the bus transportation compound sat so that gives you a little bit of a kind of aerial 3000 foot view of kind of where that lands the reason i want to point that out though is because that that theater gym area is kind of the last portion of the project to get finalized so they've worked obviously similar to green we started back in the academic areas and we've moved our way to the administration areas and over here to the gym the auxiliary gym and the theater when you look at that though i just want you to kind of take a look at the size of that building the gym and the theater now that will be connected by hallways but just the size of that comparably speaking to the

042other half of the building and how large of that space it is and how much of a benefit that's going to be for our students but not only our students our community as we look at that theater and the work that's being done there um but anyways we've got some other bullet points there again slabs being pulled drywall's being installed in fact if you look at the academic areas of the junior high they're only a few months behind the academic area at eh green and that seems a little strange but the scale of the project the size of the project is much bigger but they focused on that academic area kind of first the last thing i want to show you here is an aerial view of our multi-use field over at sycamore high high

043school um i'm really excited to be able to share this with you because i think that anybody can can attest to driving down cornell road it just looked like they just kept moving dirt every time i went over them like did they literally just move the pile there today like what are they actually doing and so this gives us a really good view and in the upper kind of left-hand corner of this picture you see the new access drive going in there and then you'll see somewhat kind of a pad of gravel that's actually strategic because that was put in we actually have contractors that are out on site so for example our bleacher contractor actually was mobilized this week and they're starting to form the um form the where the bleachers are going to

044be going and so that's going to be parking for the contractors that are going to be on site but that actual drive is where the real new kind of access road is going to go so a couple updates here right now um top stool stripping and the cut is complete um they're doing the excavation for the final grade for the field in the bleacher area and that's really close to being done obviously with the wet weather it created some bit of a delay um the storm and sanitary installation is underway i mentioned the bleacher contractors out the next big thing which will be on 613 is moats our turf contractors start to go going to be beginning to mobilize and starting that field install and then lastly we've got the installation of the underground conduit

045for electrical and technology the reason that we put that bullet point on there is because i think it's really important to mention that it's not just building a field we have to build the infrastructure for the field which includes our fiber going out there electric and in the midst of that what we're trying to do is we're trying to equip those spaces so that we don't have to go back when we start to build on if we start talking about locker rooms and things like that out there we want to make sure that we are equipped all of our resources are out there so we can tap into it and not have to necessarily go back and rip out something that we put in so we're trying to be strategic in that manner but those

046are kind of the updates i wanted to share with you today obviously there's a lot going on across all of our projects there's constantly things happening at the high school i look forward to giving you updates over the summer with the high school because there's going to be a lot of action mr lovell you said something that was very intriguing to me about the junior high you know what i'm going to ask right go for it well you said that the academic spaces are just as far along as green and sure well this past week mr ballen and i had a tour from mr tudor of eh green and it's just amazing to sort of see that building come to life there is there any chance that we could be in the junior high this

047fall the new junior high no there is uh absolutely no chance that we'll be in the junior high this fall all right you know i had to ask that question absolutely okay thank you yeah i i think that just like green i think we have to recognize with the junior high even though it could be ahead of schedule um there's a tremendous amount of work that has to be done on that site in order to be able to create parking infrastructure things like that but i won't stand in front of you and tell you that um we they are significantly ahead of schedule with the junior high which is great um but we're also in an environment with supply chain issues so i always have to have that caveat um that something could go for

048example we do know that they're having a hard time getting electrical switches and we're not talking like in the classroom we're talking like the giant switch for electric for the building and things like that and so it's not going to impact the opening of the fall but it may impact us being able to be in that building even though it looks or feels complete i think the other thing that mr lovell and i just spent time on today was that we found out that the cooper road bridge and another bridge in our community are going to be under construction significant construction from potentially march of 23 to october of 23 which does and mr level did a great job of advocating for the district um just trying to appeal to their sense of look if

049you shut this down and i'm talking a complete closure of that bridge and i know several of us live that with the wella road bridge and we asked the guys it's similar in nature it is not as significant of a rehab as that project but it's still i think we learned it could be anywhere from 30 to 60 days closed captioning not use one of available lovell's terms we can manage that tension i didn't make the movement we can manage that tension going in to the end of the school year but the last thing we want to do opening a brand new school is to have that tension on top of us trying to open it so i would say odot was receptive our community partners montgomery and blue ash were extremely helpful so mr

050level is going to follow up and kind of give them some timelines that are important to us and we're hopeful that we can make the impact that we need to kind of manage that along so kudos to mr uh lovell for his leadership in that meeting today great thank you for the update as always yep um i need a motion for the approval of change order sims elementary school renovation project gmp number three so moved second i just i just want to call this one out i know this is a rather large number um this is one of those items that after we lived in the space we realized that there were some hvac concerns in a part of a new building and so there were some mitigation efforts that we could have but we

051wanted to create a long-term fix for it that would actually um not require us to be going back in the short term to do the bigger fix and so why we had the crew out there um we're just moving forward with this any other questions from the board mrs weber please call the roll mrs wise aye mrs bitter aye mr ballen aye mr comerford aye dr steger aye motion passes i need a motion for the approval of change orders for sycamore junior heist construction project so moved second anything from the board mrs webber please call the roll this is wise aye mr cumifer aye mr ballen aye mrs bitter aye dr stegner aye motion passes i need a motion for the approval of the change orders for sycamore high school renovation project gmp number two

052so moved back end i do want to kind of just jump in here and talk about these two the first one specifically for the occupancy sensors one of the things that we're trying to do as we work through the budgets of each of these projects and look at the contingencies and look at the money that's spent is any opportunity that we have to be able to come back and to be able to look at long-term energy efficiency we want to do that the district has me has committed long term um in investing in facilities that we can minimize the energy impact and cost savings to the district and so as we're doing these renovations we work very closely with our team specifically david davis i just want to give him a shout out to have

053an eye on some of these things and say hey what can we do now in order again for that long-term savings and this is one of those items that made sense um in high school and it is standard across the district the other one i do want to mention obviously this is a rather large number so i'm sure that you would love some explanation on this one as we started the high school project from the very beginning just to give you a little historical context at one point we were actually considering putting the transportation compound in the back corner kind of to the west of the gregory center in that area obviously the journey with the transportation department has been long and so as we were navigating towards getting the gmp set for the first

054phase of the high school and just as a reminder the high school has been kind of phased out in how we've approached that for gmps we were not the district at that time was not ready to commit to where that transportation department would be going but we didn't want to delay the total scope of the high school project at the same rate and so what they went ahead and do or what you went ahead and do it did is was agreed to the gmp to start the construction as the phases have continued we get closer to the conversation of now that we know the buses have to move from the front new lot entrance which we've had conversations about traffic flow site circulation and all that we know the buses have to go now to

055that new sp to a new spot which was identified over to where we were going to potentially put the transportation compound the reason that this is a change order is because that number was never identified from the very beginning and so what we're doing now is we're saying now's the time since we're on the site to go ahead and do this the significance in this dollar is because if we want to bring buses onto a site similarly speaking to all of our bus lots so whether it's here in front of mapledale or eh green the high school current lot it's not just regular asphalt that you would have in a parking lot there's significant work that goes into that lot to be able to support the way the bus is over time and so that's

056part of this significant cost is that we want to ensure that that lot is set and ready to go and so that's kind of how that lot and this number has ended up now as we've looked forward through the process and these progress of the of the total site yeah i mean i just this number still concerns me um you know there was always plans to have bus drop off at the high school so the fact that it wasn't in the original scope i just feel as a miss from our partners i understand the need for it and i understand why we have to do this but you know now this is the second or third time we've come back with pavement with additional costs to the board which have been very significant dollars so

057i understand we moved the transportation department around because we did but there was always bus drop off in the original plan at the high school we never would have had a high school or any school plan that there weren't going to be a bus drop off area for so um that's just my my comments on it yeah i appreciate it i i agree mr balant can you tell me how this affects the contingency yeah so i i could actually beth do you feel comfortable enough kind of talking through how we've looked at these numbers and how they play with the total budget because we do have funds within that we can cover this um but i'll let miss weber kind of sure um we have about a half a million dollars included in as part

058of the allocated budget for site circulation and roadway we think that most of the cost of this parking lot will be able to be paid for out of that once we have the the turn lane into the high school as well so anything that would not be covered by that would be come out of the contingency budget we don't have an exact amount of how that's going to be allocated at this point but we will provide you an update when we know and and i do um i hear your concerns um and i'm not here to say that um the cost isn't more now than it would have been if we did that at the beginning of the project i think we all recognize the situation we're in right now with the cost of oil

059and prices and things like that so i do recognize your comments mr lovell did i believe last time we talked mr hayden was involved in reviewing some of this to make sure that it was not included in the scope just to kind of verify yes yes sir what mr balant was concerned about um and just another question i'm assuming we're not going to have another change order for some kind of design element of the bus drop off or something like that like this correct like we're not going to have shp come back to us with a redesign of something that's going to cost us additional dollars correct as it relates to parking though that was all done in that site circulation package but then included or now includes this bus klein jurors our civil engineers

060have already submitted those plans okay thank you mrs bitter dr steger i just want to clarify who i was talking about mr hayden is our legal counsel from bricker that works on the construction side of our work i realize you i don't think you've met mr hayden but uh he's heavily involved with mr lovell i used to work with him and obviously in the prior role but he advises on anything construction and kind of manages a lot of the contracts the amendments with our architects and our contractors so kind of keeps us in that safe place from a legal standpoint so we felt it was important to go back and look at the scope of work to make sure that some of these things that we've been asked to fund were not included in any

061prior scope so any additional questions mrs weber please call the roll dr stegner aye mr comfort aye mrs bitter aye mrs weiss aye mr ballen aye motion passes i need a motion for the approval of the change order sycamore high school exterior athletics early site package gmp 3a and campus parking early site package 3b removed second i don't have any comments unless you have questions any questions from the board mrs webber please call the roll mrs weiss aye mr cumberford aye dr steger aye mr balance aye mrs bitter aye motion passes i need a motion for the approval of the agreement with klein integers group district paving projects so moved second okay just to give you overview of this so clangers is the company that we've historically used to um complete our paving projects whether

062that be anything from our tennis courts to our parking lots to our playgrounds whatever it may be this year we've taken a year off which was a really good decision of any paving projects in this in the district it's a good decision for many reasons but what we recognize is that we need to go back and we need to create a new five-year plan that incorporates our new spaces and our new buildings um and so this fee is to help us build out that five-year plan that's going to help us influence our capital improvement um projects and our budget that we'll be back to bring to you it's very similar to how we leverage garland for our roofing projects good plan thank you any questions mrs webber please call the roll this is wise aye

063mr comeford aye dr steger aye mr ballen aye aye mrs bitter aye motion passes i need a motion for the approval of service agreement infrastructure instructure incorporated mr balan as you can see mr fritz is coming to the microphone and i just want to say and appreciate mr fritz's leadership on this item he spent a good deal of time over the last year working collaboratively with staff and forming a committee to work on this item so i will turn it over to mr fritz to kind of give you that overview yep thank you mr lewis good evening uh so we have a history of having a learning management system here at sycamore back in 2002 started with blackboard and it's been with us now for 18 years and over the course of those years we've

064seen a lot of changes in that uh software industry in that space you've seen also google come into that space in the last 10 years roughly what you've seen then is a lot of innovation and the way now you interact with students in a different way obviously in the last two years online learning and in from learning management systems have really flourished and people said yeah we need an infrastructure we were going to do this two years ago and then i see mrs wagner shaking her head that's what we were going to do we're going to do a committee together look at picking one learning management system revisiting where we are today at that point which was blackboard learning management system which if you remember a lot of the colleges had blackboard as well so

065we went through a series since october quite frankly uh interviewing staff surveying staff having having 33 diverse staff members on our team from k through 12 grades as well as special area folks and asking ourselves we want to get to a place where currently today we have schoology google classroom which some people call an lms but it really isn't a learning management system and blackboard fragmentation trying to now bring it to one place where we could get perhaps a solution that would manage or be available for all of our k-12 and meet their needs i went through this did a lot of deeper dive demos actually mrs weber was on the part of the team as well i know becky was also on the team uh so what we did is got it down to

066three schoology bla and also uh canvas which is in structure which we're presenting this evening as well as another item or another lms called brightspace out of canada went through all that actually had 19 teachers piloted in the spring so we had a lot of engagement a lot of learning i will tell you some of the big items that people really focused on and i have them in my notes here but it was really around google integration we're using these google workspace tools we really wanted to integrate well for us uh how does it look for age-appropriateness on the k-4 space as you know some of these learning management systems look more secondary higher reddish if i could say that we really came down to looking at and seeing those pieces another one is integration

067with our student information system and grade book integration that i can move grades back and forth so we looked at it from a lens uh from how do i support this on the back end and a lens from our teachers from what's good teaching and learning practices and what this software looks like so i'm giving you a lot on this because i think we spent since october so i wanted to just not say here it is but i want to at least give you the big 30 000 foot picture in the work we did together and at the end of the day canvas which is really in structure also is a nice tool because we're using another one of their tools called mastery connect which is and mrs wagner could probably do a better justice

068than i can but our teachers use that tool and there's some integration as well there for our short cycle assessments and things of such nature so now the big heavy work after you approve this night is really about implementation what does it look like going forward so i'll give you a vision next year we're not saying teachers need to move off of where you are today we're giving you the opportunity for a year to make that transition we're going to provide training we're going to provide support but when we get to july 1 of next year 2023 you'll see me smiling uh as you know but also we will also have they'll be asked to move on from wherever they are today and we'll move into this fully embraced uh as well so given our

069teachers a year convert their data walk alongside them we're going to have some of our teachers that were here tonight actually uh supporting our retirees they're going to be some of our trainers in this so good work uh on all of that and all the folks together i just want to publicly thank uh mr fritz for just the process that he put together highly collaborative teacher voice administrator voice k-12 representation it was really just a very robust focused process that took in feedback from multiple folks even held focus groups folks that were not involved in the actual team he made sure any meetings were recorded so if folks wanted to have information even though they may not have been on the the pilot team they could certainly get it um and so i just want

070to publicly thank thank you mr fritz for your process very very well done thank you can you talk mr fritz about so this is replacing blackboard yes in in in july of 2023 we're going to give people the opportunity to transition that's correct so is is canvas a product of mastery connect so instructure is the parent company who actually manages both mastery connect and canvas they are two separate products if we want them to integrate there is a nice integration there so and we are looking at i don't want to speak for mrs wagner but we're looking at different grade levels are going to use um mastery connect and that'll that that's kind of working through so if we want some of that integration to happen we can this was the decision was not made

071upon mastery connect let me just be very clear that was just a byproduct that if we'd like to we can't integrate that but in structures ben the original manufacturer and developer of canvas they purchased mastery connect to add on an additional feature if people would like to use that mr fritz thank you for anticipating my question um but i i think at a future meeting i would like to hear from our curriculum team about mastery connect a little bit more and how we're utilizing it thank you any additional questions or comments from the board thank you mr fritz mrs weber please call the roll mr ballot aye mr cumberford aye mrs weiss aye mrs bitter aye dr stever aye motion passes i need a motion for the approval of administrative contracts renewal so moved second

072mr lewis any no comments other than you know obviously we we work through the evaluation process and uh obviously it's time for contract renewals uh per the guidelines of state law so we're bringing these contracts forward mrs weber please call the roll dr steger aye mrs bitter aye mr ballen aye mr cumber aye aye mrs weiss aye motion passes i need a motion for the approval of the classified director contract renewal that moved back end we're excited to have mr miller continue in that role and help us with our transportation as we know the next couple years are going to be very challenging with transportation we're excited as well mrs webber please call the roll this is weiss aye dr steger aye mrs bitter aye mr comether hi and mr ballant hi motion passes i

073need a motion for the approval of class of 2022 and i will ask that the parent of uh a proud graduate make that motion moved second so this is our annual approval that we asked for from the board the list that's included in the packet are obviously students that have the high school is certifying has completed their requirements of graduation so we're asking for your approval so that we can go next sunday and recognize these great graduates so i know that we have several up here sitting with us that are going to be uh emotional excited uh and proud and proud very proud so save it i save it for later it's gonna be exciting and uh it's again as i said at the beginning the retirees is a great day of the year but

074graduation is that culmination and um just seeing all of our graduates and seeing the excitement and the pride of sycamore on that day is huge so i do believe we have one of the best graduation ceremonies around mr lewis do you have the number of graduates that we have off the top of your head i do not have all that off the top of my head right around 430 i think i was just curious my guess would have been 440 but okay so that was close yeah it's a little bit smaller class great thanks mrs weber please colorado mrs weiss aye mr cumber aye dr steger aye mr ballen aye aye mrs better aye motion passes i need a motion for the approval of the resolution approving easement for duke energy sycamore junior high project

075second mr lewis any comments no comments any questions from the board mrs webber please colorado mrs weiss aye mr conifer aye dr steger aye mr balant aye and mrs bitter aye motion passes mr lewis moving on to other just just a couple of quick things obviously we just talked about graduation which is you know exciting and centos center next sunday will be great uh the other things that are going on is you know we have all of our a lot of our athletic teams are finishing up their spring seasons we had four gmc champions uh out of eight sports so that's pretty impressive i mean just they're having a lot of success so was girls lacrosse see if i can get it right boys track boys volleyball and one that i'm missing how can i

076forget this top-ranked state tennis team but so uh obviously that's going very well and then also our music programs i can honestly say this has been we keep saying hashtag may in the office because it's just been incredible the amount of stuff that is going on right now so just about every night there's a music event or a graduation or something going on so if you have no shortage of opportunities to catch our students performing or doing uh great things we had our first art fine arts signing a couple of fridays ago which was impressive 19 students going on to do fine arts in college and then this saturday we have forever green at 10 a.m to 2 p.m recognizing the history of eh green it is a self-guided tour if you're interested uh it'll

077be a great event we also have the luncheon for the distinguished alumni jerome bird at montgomery inn i believe it's starting at 11 30. so again just lots of activities and then the last thing i'll mention is our junior high choir was just selected to perform uh in new york so i know they're very excited they put that out for immediate release and that is exciting for our students to have those opportunities mr lewis you have to say it's at carnegie hall that's a huge accomplishment it is at carnegie hall thank you thank you very much but exciting times for our our students and all the opportunities that they have and i think it highlights the exceptional opportunities outside the classroom that our students have i also would like to add on to the um

078choir concert last night i went to the 8 15 show i thought they did a great job blending the high school and the junior high last night in their choir concert so congratulations to mr callahan and mrs stein anything else mr lewis need a motion for the approval of the treasurer's consent agenda that moved second could i could i take a moment backwards and just highlight one other thing i thought the after prom that was last saturday night was an excellent effort by a lot of parent volunteers but it was also really well the behavior of the students was exceptional i just thought it was really one of those marquee nights for the district and the volunteers that put in so much work over the course of months and then the night itself went off

079really well i just maybe wanted to comment on that mr comma fred i appreciate you bringing that up i think i'm still sleep deprived from the after prom but i would say the prom and the after prom the mr mader sent something out to all the staff to the to the high school parents you know complimenting the students then i witnessed it firsthand they were well behaved they just enjoyed the evening i think it was just exciting for them to be together and in i've been to a lot of after problems in my time of being a high school administrator i will tell you i've never seen anything like that the sycamore after prom was a whole next level of after prom so i'm not sure what other districts have but it was incredible i

080mean the food people were bringing around sushi i mean who has that at after prompt so a phenomenal job by all the the volunteers and huge thank you to anybody that stayed after 2 30 to clean that whole thing up because i was dead by 2 30. i couldn't i couldn't do any more but good job by all and thank you mrs dippold i think you probably pay a lot of the bills for that still it's treasure of the pto [Music] so thank you so much okay well but you know you know what it costs okay so we're under the treasurer's consent agenda okay i i wanted to point out just two items on on the treasures consent agenda this evening that just to give you a little bit of the rest of the story

081you do see that there's an increase in the child nutrition budget that's to cover additional food costs because as we've all seen when we go to kroger or other grocery stores at food costs have increased significantly so that has impacted the budget for our child nutrition program i will add though that as we noted in last month's board meeting that we have received significant additional dollars from the feds to cover our costs in that program including a grant that mrs warren recently submitted for that help to cover the additional costs of i believe um milk primarily for the program um where we're going to receive just about a hundred thousand dollars it's actually already in the bank so a very quick turnaround from the feds and providing an additional allocation to us to help deal

082with some of these escalating costs of food so thank you to mrs warren for again seeking out those opportunities and helping with the operations of our department the second thing is under the state grant area we have added about 30 000 to the budget for a safety grant from the attorney general's office that is uh due to the efforts of mr foster and mrs zelvey who applied for that grant and um provide and i don't know a lot about it but that's something mr lewis maybe we would like to make the board aware of some of the things that will be able to be accomplished with that grant so again just going after those opportunities when they arise and bringing those dollars into the district any questions any questions from the board this is whatever

083please call the role mrs weiss dr steger aye mr ballen aye mrs bitter aye aye mr comma ford hi motion passes i need a motion for the approval of financial reports april 2022 so moved second okay um i'm not i don't know that i have a lot of updates on the financial reports themselves i do want to just note that the first page of the financial report we always look at the five-year forecast um and how we are comparing to the forecast uh the report that you have this evening compares our results through april 30th through the forecast that was presented back in november so when you see this same report next month you'll notice that the dollars align much more closely because we've been able to provide some some updated information and look at

084the trends and some impacts on some areas of the five-year forecast so i guess with that does anyone have any questions about the april financial report this is weber please call the roll mr kamafer aye mrs weiss aye mr ballen aye mrs bitter aye dr steger aye motion passes i need a motion for the approval of the five-year forecast moved second okay um just an update a few pieces of information about the five-year forecast this is a report that the board is required by ohio revised code and overseen by the ohio department of education to provide a five-year plan for the general operating fund which is the the major fund for which we receive real estate taxes um it provides three years of historical information as well as five years of projected information so starting

085with the the 21 22 school year through the 25-26 school year the while this is required by the state of ohio it's also been a document that the board has used significantly in its planning in keeping us on track to meet different financial goals to make sure that we look at the impact of the large decisions of the board and to be able to communicate with our community about when we might see financial challenges or even good news about how we're operating as a school district so again while it's an ode requirement the ohio department of education monitors this we provide we um present it and and submit it to ode twice a year it really is also an important tool for our board of education as we as we look at our financial plan

086for our district so again this was approved back in november and so tonight i just want to give you some updates in both any changes that you would have seen primarily um in the part partially in the current year but also in the out years of the forecast knowing that this year is is probably is much more accurate as you get further and further out into time this is truly just a forecast but it is what we utilize to try to see where we might have any kind of financial issues and can head them off or make sure that if there's anything that we think we might be able to communicate with our legislature we have we can share with them the impact ongoing so i want to give a few updates on the both

087the revenue projections and expenditures things that have changed since we've last looked at the forecast in february so first is property tax collection i'm not going to go into a lot of detail on that because we've we've discussed that at prior board meetings where notified you that our property taxes actually came in a bit under projection for the current school year we have adjusted that somewhat downward in the out years of the forecast that is basically some of the impact of reevaluation of um and some board of revision work for our business properties um we really do take a pretty conservative approach to those and we'll continue to monitor that um you know for example we know that um we have the the natural gas pipeline coming in that will impact our tangible personal property

088tax for utilities um we just aren't quite sure when that's gonna hit uh the forecast because it takes some time until it's complete until the natural gas is flowing through it until um it actually hits the book and then there's a delay um in when those collections actually occur so it's likely that we'll see an impact of this sometime in the term of this contract or term of this forecast i'm just not exactly sure when it will be um we also have some some new construction coming on on the books um but but again with most of the what's going on in the district is in terms of corporate um improvements are actually going to be seen in our all other revenue line which is um tax incorrect financing agreements so that's just an update

089on property tax collection again i think we we've been really fortunate um in that when you think back two years ago what we thought might happen with our our property values for the for the most part they have stayed very stable and we've actually been able to benefit so from some growth in our community which is which is pretty exciting considering we're kind of self-contained within within 275 and and being able to continue to see some rejuvenation and growth in our community the next area that i want to talk about is is state funding and one of the things that i've continued to comment as we've had our monthly financial reports is that it looks like our state funding is coming in higher than what we had initially anticipated from the projections from the state

090last year and that continues to to be um be seen and we're actually up revising the future years of the forecast up a bit from where we had initially uh planned in that line of our funding i will just give a little bit of caution while we have some growth shown in 2024 through 26 when the state passed the new budget they only approved it through at the new funding model through so it could go back to the old model but i'm being optimistic that it will stay in place for future years and have have some minimal growth um you know we're still not seeing uh state funding where i think it should be because we still receive less per pupil than our private schools in the area do for for the education of our

091students um i'm not saying that in any way they're shape or form that i think they should receive less i think we should receive as much as they do so we'll continue to work toward that but it is edging upward a little bit one of the other areas in in the state funding line that we are seeing some growth is in the restricted federal grants and aid area and that's based on two things one of the things is that there are several areas of the of the foundation formula that instead of just being kind of these are unrestricted monies now they have been deemed restricted funds in that um the state will require us to report back that they were used for certain things one is that health and wellness monies that the governor dewine

092approved a couple years ago there's some additional reporting requirements funds for gifted which we you know have received in the past but it's now shifted into the restricted category um we've always spent well more than what we've gotten in gifted funds so it's not going to be any kind of issue with um being able to report that it's just that the it's the way that the state is reflecting it differently within the forecast and probably the biggest thing that is actually bringing more money into the district is the state basically doubled the allocation they had in their budget to assist school districts with the educational costs of our students with disabilities and these are the ones who have the most critical needs and the most costly programming to be able to to meet their needs

093and to be able to educate our students in our schools so the state is actually providing additional funding to help us with that so i think that's a great move on the state's part and it's a process that we see going from bringing us about three hundred thousand dollars a year this year we're projecting about half a million dollars but we anticipate that that may as much as double in future years just because of the the way the state's funding it so that's what we see as good news and finally in revenue um just the other local fund we're continuing to see increases in our tax increment financing funding of that 7.9 million that we received this year um nearly 6 million of that is from our tax increment financing allocation with our agreements with

094in blue ash montgomery um and sycamore township and we will see that continue to grow we're also seeing a change in how the state was working with tuition payments and those are primarily dollars that were going out of the district for tuition to cover john peterson scholarships and autism those are now being paid directly so that actually helps us with in that category as well so lots of changes in the revenue areas and those that we have have continued to drive carry across the the five years of the forecast we're actually seeing our revenue um have has increased a bit over where we thought it would be in november which is good news um on the expenditure side the there are a couple of things that we have changed since november one is while we

095knew that we were going to have a nine percent increase in health insurance effective 2022 um in our discussions with the butler health plan because of many of the things going on in the healthcare community large claimants within our plan um they are projecting probably another nearly nine percent increase in um you know that's after many many many years of some years no increase two percent you know i think on average our increase over the last five years was about two percent per year which is unheard of um in in the health insurance market but um so many things are changing in the health and health insurance [Music] areas in general that we're starting to see those changes impact us as well the other area that has been updated significantly since november and it's actually

096as a result of some of the discussion we had at our march morning meeting where we looked at our capital improvement allocations those are now included in um in the other transfers out area we're going to does reflect those that planning that we um presented to you in march so some additional dollars in those areas primarily for um roof replacement was a big thing and some reallocation of bond dollars back into into the capital improvement budget so overall i think what what we look at in terms of those two areas is how is our um operating how are our operating costs comparing to our operating revenue um in in this current year we are still at a point where while we have a slight drawdown projected in our cash balance our operating revenue is still

097exceeding our operating expenses for this year what is being what is occurring that's um making us reduce our cash balance a little bit this year is just that we're starting we're utilizing our cash reserves for those capital capital projects um that is also continuing in the fiscal year 2023 so starting in 2024 is when you start to see actual operating costs exceeding operating revenue um and so think about that that's been since um that when we passed our last levy um that that that has actually occurred and a lot of that is you know some some revenue enhancements either through the state and by the growth and vitality of our community um [Music] and then being able to have to control our costs as well so um i don't know yet you know you always

098say when do you think our next levy will be and i've said not earlier than 2023 i'm not quite ready to say 2024 but we are continuing to work really hard to make that happen and we'll be doing a significant amount of work as a as a flight team next year to to have that occur cash balance in terms of how that we are starting to see that draw down um over the term of the forecast a lot of that is due to utilizing that cash reserve for capital improvements um some of it does start to to be because of our operating costs um but still even at the end of this term of this budget we're still um above the 25 cap that we that we want to have in place in terms of

099cash reserve in comparison to our in comparison to our costs so um [Music] hopefully that provides you just an overview of where we are we'll be working and bringing to you uh next month our budget for the 22-23 school year so you'll get a bit more detail on how we're going to be allocating the the plan of the in the five year forecast um coming real soon um we will provide we will post the five-year forecast as we have um in all past years out on our website once it's approved we even archive some of our past copies so that our community can can review those if they want it's when it's submitted to the ohio department of education they also post it on their website so if anyone would be interested in finding it

100there so it's with an outside group as opposed to on our on our website so um i guess with that are there any questions i have two questions mrs weber thank you for a thorough update and thank you for the materials in the packet i appreciated that um my first question is was the op c contract that we are going to vote on later in this meeting was that can you clarify was that blended into the five-year forecast already yes mr comfort that is included in the five-year forecast thank you and then um my second question is related to the the timetable for the operating levy and you already answered the question you knew i would ask but my my question is if we if we are on a 2023 time line which we haven't

101taken off the table yet what are the deadlines by which we need to make the decision and execute that when is the point when we need to make the decision is it 2023 or 2024 i would say that's a decision we'll probably need to make in the fall of 2022 because it takes a good six months um to really get the planning in place for that and i but i think by november of 2022 we'll have a pretty good idea about whether we'll be able to um push that off a year so i'm not too concerned about that um as far as one of one of the first decisions that will also be key to that would be when you would put the levy on the ballot um and you i think with a with

10223 it would be probably in may and november would be your opportunity so you would have to take action as a board if you want to be on in may you have to take action probably in january or february of next year so um i don't know mr lewis and i we're going to work really hard to keep it off the ballot in 2023 because i've told you i don't want to run another levy um and i have i'm going to be done july of 2023 i think and even though i wouldn't be here in november i know what kind of planning goes into that and i'd rather be planning to [Music] make sure that our community has more time to think about that and that we've done than what we can to make sure

103that we've contained our costs so that's not something you have to do sooner rather than later so just to summarize as long as we make a decision by november of this year we should be okay to be on we could have choices to be on the map get out of choices so i apologize for giving too much information about my personal planning yeah i just really had a comment the new tool that we're using to actually see the report in this format i think is a big positive change from the way we've seen it before and it just provides tremendous amount of information to us so thank you to you and your staff who have implemented this i don't know over the last year and a half or so but it's really helpful to me

104okay you're welcome any additional questions mrs weber please call the roll mrs weiss aye mr conaker aye this is bitter aye dr steger hi and mr ballant aye motion passes i need a motion for the personnel consent agenda which includes addendum 3d i moved second mrs webber please call the roll this is weiss aye mr cummerford aye dr steger aye mr ballen hi and mrs bitter hi motion passes moving on to other board of education business uh item number one i did a motion for the memorandum of understanding with the ohio association of public school employees number 243 i moved second any comments mr lewis i was looking at mrs webber just because a huge credit to mrs weber mr lampe our legal counsel dr davis mr lovell uh they they spent significant amount of

105time working through this and um you know a huge thank you to opc 243 and their membership and their leadership because i think this is where it might have been a record time completion so i don't know that we've ever finished in one day well i and i do i want to thank them as well and then also the members of our team we approached this contract expiration with a bit of a different approach because with all the instability right now going on in the labor market and the economy we determined that we might be it might be best for us just to look at a one-year extension of our current agreement including some salary updates increases for our group to try to make sure that we really focused on attracting and maintaining staff but

106we also not knowing what the next couple of years whether what's going on right now with inflation and that is going to be continuing we felt it best just to look at a one-year agreement and also just continue much of basically all of our language that deals with working conditions for one year our goal is to to get back together with our oopsy group that and they actually just for those of you who are listening and wonder what that group is it's our bus drivers our custodial and maintenance group our child nutrition employees our clerical staff and our educational assistants so we're going to reconvene with them a year from now utilizing an interest-based bargaining model to revisit the entire contract at least that's our plan at this point in time where we feel like

107we have a better idea of how the economy is going to move forward to determine how to continue to to achieve those goals which is to attract good quality staff who are really part of the backbone of what makes this place work so getting ready for that a year from now but until then we want to thank that group for working with us to get it keep our labor stability for the 20 to 23 school year with this group and thank you thank them for all the work that they do to keep to keep our district where it is any questions or comments this is weber please call the roll mrs weiss aye mr comiford aye dr steger aye mr mallett aye mrs bitter aye motion passes and uh moving on to legislative liaison report

108thank you mr ballant um okay the ohio supreme court ordered the ohio redistricting commission to redraw the congressional maps by may 6 and on may 5th the commission voted 4-3 to resubmit legislative maps that it had previously submitted to the court on february 24th so stay tuned for that um state board of education selected stephen dacken by a 14-4 vote to serve as the superintendent of public instruction he was previously the vice president of the state board of education and he also worked for the columbus state community college overseeing school and community partnerships um house bill 126 was the process for local governments to contest property value through the existing board of revision system the bill was enacted on 421 of this year moving on to house primary and secondary education committee house bill 583

109just to refresh your memory this requires the state board of education to issue a temporary short-term substitute teaching license to approved applicants it passed the house and is now referred to the senate committee house bill 497 committee held the third hearing on house bill 497 which would modify the english language arts assessment to be administered once in the third grade and to eliminate retention under the third grade reading guarantee house bill 616 this is ohio's version of florida's parental rights and education bill or as it is also known as don't say gay bill this bill would task the ohio board of education to determine and define what is divisive or racist such things as critical race theory intersectionality theory the 1619 project diversity equity and inclusion learning outcomes and inherited racial guilt would be prohibited

110the bill would also ban any materials related to sexual orientation and gender identity for grades k-3 in all public and private schools this bill is currently in committee the ohio education association has called this bill reprehensible on every level and believes that house bill 616 would have a chilling effect on student learning and ohio's education profession which is currently facing a recruitment crisis um let me see i think that's all i have that's it for legislative liaison ooh sorry about that thank you mrs weiss um dr steger's student achievement liaison update anything from mrs weiss okay thank you mrs weiss okay thanks um first to all high school students who took advanced placement courses congratulations on challenging yourself working hard and completing your exams and thank you to miss um sanders at the high school

111who really had a great coordination system for that for both parents and students so thank you to her for that um i had the opportunity last friday evening along with mrs bitter and i think mr comfort you were there um to attend coral explosion at the high school oh yeah mrs wagner you were there too um this fun event showcased um choral groups from eh green the junior high and the high school and as a district i think we should be really proud mrs dr davis excuse me we were all rocking it that night um we should all be really proud of how the arts are available to students of all ages and abilities in our district it was really a great show and thank you to mr holt who invited us and um all

112the other teachers who participated and as we come to the end of the school year and the last student achievement report for this academic year i just wanted to take a moment to thank all of our teachers administrators educational assistants and staff for an amazing year for sycamore students i think one of the things that sycamore does best is instill a love of learning in all of our students we are creating lifelong learners who embrace the unknown and have the confidence to know that they can learn anything that they set their mind to what a wonderful attribute to carry into adulthood thank you mrs weiss mrs bitter and mrs weber policy project update i was just going to note that the board did me on may 3 to review several policies to provide additional input

113into the policy manual process we are going to get a draft of the entire manual to provide to the board probably early next week and we'll start having a review policy at our june first board meeting with the hope that we'll be able to adopt the revisions to the policy by i would i would guess sometime in july so gonna be a lot of exciting reading coming your way um in the next month or so as we update the entire policy manual so thank you to everyone on the flight team who has provided input and mrs bitter for attending several meetings and learning a whole lot about policy i'm sure and kenneth haycox who is the consultant we're working with the ohio school board association so we're getting close to the next the next milestone

114in that process this is whether you don't foresee any additional special board meetings all that will be done in regular board meetings where plan is to do it all in in regular board meetings so we'll go through the first review and we will see how it goes thank you let's let's let's really be committed to doing it within special board think we can great um [Music] dr stegers and mr cummerford sac commission so first of all mr comerford had his last stack meeting and everyone's very happy he was part of the um commission for the past year and a half so congratulations mr humberford you've done a great job and thank you for guiding me through the process of becoming the board member on that committee so thank you um do you wanna i can

115give you a summary but do you have anything to say about that okay so quickly um a quick summary the um committee that we or the subcommittee that we listened to was um helping us understand better district communication to families within the district so great job to communication because um 76 percent of people felt well informed um but on the teacher level so great job on the district level the building level everyone felt 80 87 of people felt well informed and at the district level 90 of people felt well informed so congratulations um to everyone for being able to provide information to all of us um the one one thing that stuck out to me was just having older kids and younger kids is that people are very happy in elementary school the teacher communication

116home but as they're growing up i don't think parents are really ready to let go of their kids in that daily communication from teachers so the junior high they wanted more communication from teachers um so the frequency 25 percent of the commas focused on these um some of them felt that if they had multiple kids in multiple buildings they were more overwhelmed with building information two times if it was district information it was four times more overwhelmed so we have an opportunity for growth as a district there um to make sure that parents aren't feeling overwhelmed with information and then this parents really liked um the s'more the parent portal notifications final form notifications and direct emails sorry i apologize my voice uh so their their idea is to come up with an extra layer

117of communication to try to fine-tune this process called the communication activators so whether it's about buses sports buildings etc they want to have an opportunity for reach out meetings and neutral locations um to try to help the community members understand what's going on in our schools so it's not just school-based it's also going to be reaching out to the community so that was their big idea mr comerford i just um i appreciated working with the sycamore advisory commission for two and a half years they've been a great group this year's presentations all four were excellent and um i appreciate them know they're in good hands with you dr speaker mr ballen if i could i just want to say thank you to mr comfort for his leadership on that committee and dedication to the to

118the work in the projects and you know i agree with mr comfort those the projects this year were all action oriented and i will tell you from the team uh the from the flight team the members that contributed to the projects they said they felt the projects were better than they've ever been and i would agree with that i really appreciated the work of the team they always do great research but they not only did great research but they gave us action-oriented items to act on and that's the difference so mr commerford we appreciate your work dr steger i'm looking forward to working with you on that committee and continuing the work with that great team that you can see there is still great interest in being a part of that team by numerous community

119members as you'll see forward on the agenda one more quick thing congratulations to the seniors who are graduating out of that committee also and then uh mr lewis are the new students you want to name them right now or sure yeah we have two new students that are joining us uh they're both juniors at the high school so they'll be around for a couple of years uh elijah hill and tan v maya so we're looking forward to working with them on our team they're both excited i thought i would have to like kind of twist some arms to come to a monday night meeting but they were like no i'll sign i'm ready i mean like immediately when i asked him so i was like well this that was easy i thought this was going

120to be a lot harder so excited to work with them and dr steger is right the students bring so much to that team um lauren barnes and nick cooley they're going to be leaving us but they're excited seniors ready to go off and tackle the next uh thing in their lives great thank you very much i need a motion for the approval of sycamore advisory commission officers so moved second please colorado dr steger aye mr cumberford aye mrs weiss aye mr ballen aye mrs bitter aye motion passes i need a motion for the approval of sycamore advisory commission members at large and representatives so moved second this is why i replaced colorado mr cumberford aye dr steger aye mrs weiss aye mr ballet hi and mrs bitter aye motion passes i need a motion to

121go into executive session for orc 121.22 g1 employment and discipline of a public employee official or regulated individual that moved second mr police colorado mrs weiss aye mr cumber aye mr ballen aye this is bitter i am dr steger aye motion passes we will not be taking any votes and we will join the meeting at the end of executive sessions you