001Big crowd. Big crowd. Y uh hello, welcome to the uh Wednesday, June 18th, 2025 Talmage Board of Education meeting. Uh glad you all are here. We have a few guests in the crowd and uh whoever is watching, glad you're watching with us uh this evening. Let's start off our meeting as we usually do with the pledge of allegiance. Please stand. Remove my hat. And I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. There you go. Uh, thank you. Mr. Hostettler, could you take attendance, please? Davis here. Here not here. Here. Uh here. Thank you. Uh welcoming guests. Uh we have like I say a few people here. We'll get to you all later
002uh in the agenda. And we're under fire or that or pizzas coming in. One of the two storm tornado warning. Tornado warning. Warning. Not for us though. Are we good? This is pretty stout building. I was going to say if you got to be somewhere, this is a place to be. We're in pretty good shape. Let's keep going. Uh barring tornadoes. Uh going down to prior uh meeting uh minutes. It is recommended that the board of education approve the minutes of the May 18, 2025 and May 24th, 2025 meetings. And as usual, meetings can be found online in digital form if you'd like to go back and review them yourselves. But I I would need a motion. I'll make a motion. I'll second. Uh, any discussion, any comments, edits, what have you? We're good. I
003didn't see anything myself. Mr. Hosteller, take I uh next up, Mr. Hostetler. Again, we have recommendations of the treasurer. It is recommended that the board approve the financial reports for the month of April 2025 as they have been presented. And I would need a motion and a second. A motion. A second. Any discussion or questions on anything? Uh or Mr. Hostettler, is there anything to point out? Not on the monthly reports. Okay. Okay. All right. Uh then I would ask for a vote count. Mr. Davis. I Mr. Mr. Hi, Mrs. Ross. I f I go ahead. Yeah. I wanted to just take a moment uh to talk about the uh the budget bill in Columbus which will determine uh where we go with school funding. We obviously are going to be on the ballot in
004November and we have been working through a determination process of what that millage level should be. the um proposals by the governor, the house, and the senate for the budget bill and specifically the school funding piece are vastly different and we need to wait until the the budget is is finalized uh simply because the the differences are so great that it will affect what millage we determine to put on the ballot. uh by by statute it is u required to be done by June 30th. the committee, the the joint committee between the House and the Senate, I don't believe has met yet, but they will, and they'll hammer out something uh either one version or the other or a combination compromise maybe of the two. But once that's done, we will have better direction on
005what funding is going to be then uh for Tal City Schools and can better determine the millillage for the fall. So, it's good. We're good. All right. Well, thank you. It's still out there. It's really coming down outside. Oh my. Oh, let's go fast. I don't know. I don't want to go. Can we move to the other side? Yeah, we may have to move into the hallway. Get under our desks here or something. Uh yeah. Uh okay. Going forward uh uh contracts. Uh it's recommended that the board of education approved the attached contract between Total Education Solutions and Town Mage City Schools between July 1st, 2025 and June 30, 2026. I will need a motion and a second. A motion. I'll second. And any any thoughts? Have you reviewed? I've seen it. Uh any comments
006on that? That's the last of our That should be the last of our alternate placement uh programming. You've you've approved a few other ones. Uh this is normal and customary as this is a standard standard agreement that's generalized um for students. We presently, I think, have two students in that program. Uh it'll probably be one. It'll be down to one early on in the year. Okay. Very good. I ask for a vote. Mrs. Ross, I Mr. Davis, I Mr. Perelli, I Mr. Fer, I uh contracts uh continuing. It is recommended that the board enter into a 5-year contract with Julian and Group for the purpose of conducting an annual cash and GAP audit required by the state of Ohio. The average annual cost is $21,390 and the RFP was done in coordination with the auditor
007of the state's office. Uh, need a motion. A second. I'll make a motion. I'll second. Uh, is there any discussion on this? A little clarity. Yeah, let me let me uh kind of explain the situation. Uh every year every school district is audited uh both from a cash standpoint and a gap uh standpoint. Our current audit uh contract with Wilson and Phillips has expired after five years and the state either will come in and audit the district with their staff and personnel or they will allow you to go out and contract with an independent firm, an auditing firm. uh and that's what I have preferred over the years and they've allowed us to go back out for another five-year period. Uh they create the RFP and send it out. We had four firms that uh
008responded. The state then grades uh the the firms in in different areas and gives them a total score and then uh the the costs are are part of that. the uh the RFP then comes to me and I give my input on on my thoughts and and which firm I would prefer. Julian and group they scored the highest in the overall rating with the state uh and there are the ones who also do our gap conversion at the end of the year. We we take our cash basis of governmental fund accounting and convert it to a GAP uh report which has personal uh views has never made much sense to me because we're a we're a cash basis uh business so to speak but we were required to convert to GAP uh and since they
009do our gap conversion I thought it would make sense for for them to do then the audit as well for some efficiencies uh within the same firm. So the state approved it and uh we're here to approve the the contract for the next five years. How long should it take him to do an audit usually? Uh well again that depends on whether it's the state or an independent firm. Uh an independent firm will be on site for probably less than a week. They do a lot of their work uh offsite remote. Uh we give them access to our records at Neonet. Uh they will come in and pull vouchers and do some things on site that they can't do off-site. Uh but they're here probably less than a week in most cases. So they're very
010efficient. they they've done uh this process with in coordination with the state audits before and they've got a process that works for them. So, it's it's it's smooth. It's it's good. The state, on the other hand, will send their audit team in and camp out on your front lawn for weeks. Okay. Hope nobody's listening to this, but yeah, it's it's much more efficient with independent firm. All right. No, no other questions. All right. Ask for a vote. Mr. Pasarelli. I. Mrs. Ross. I. Mr. Davis. Hi. Mr. Fair. I. Uh recommendations for the superintendent of schools. Uh it's recommended that the board approve a one-year contract uh June 30, 2025 through June 29, 2026 with the Service Employees International Union Local One. She's out there. Uh the contract is attached and applies to this uh classified
011team of Town City Schools, custodians, maintenance, grounds, pair professionals, secretaries, and food service. I would need a motion. I'll make a motion. Second. Uh, I've reviewed the attachment. Any questions that we have? Uh, is there any comment? Well, first of all, just thankful to our classified team um in working with us on a one-year contract given the financial um difficulties of the district at the present time. We we kind of had to walk a tight rope with this one, balancing the fiscal challenge of the district with um being able to attract um you know good solid mostly part-time employees. So what you'll see here is a lot of our classified staff are like the cooks in the kitchen, the paraprofessionals who work with our kids in the classrooms. Um our maintenance custodial team. Most of
012our classified team do not have health benefits. Um and uh a lot of them frankly were competing with the Chipotles of the world and uh the other part-time jobs out there where you've seen a significant step up in hourly wages over the last three or four years. So, um, we feel like we've been able to walk that tight rope with this one-year deal, able to get some of our, um, some of our lower, um, hourly rate employees up to a more competitive range so we can attract good folks to the district and at the same time balancing that against um, against the fiscal constraints of of of the district. So again, very very thankful to um the team for for coming together on this deal. And again, it's a one-year deal. Uh other details within
013it really minor. There there is they have one additional paid vacation day. It gets actually gets them consistent with the the teacher counts during during um the the school year. Um I think that's you know really th those are the highlights. So anything? Well, thanks to you and the team who worked with them to put that all together. So, I appreciate that very much. So, I would ask for a vote. Mr. Passelli. Hi, Mr. Davis. Hi, Mrs. Ross. Hi, Mr. Fur. Hi. Uh, continuation. Uh actually uh it's recommended that the board approve the memorandum of understanding with the service employees international union local one to offer an employee severance plan to eligible classified staff. MOU is attached. Uh need a motion in a second. I'll make a motion. Second. Uh any questions on that attachment?
014Any comments on the attachment? Yeah, this is part of our negotiations with our classified team uh as we uh offered to our teachers. This is a cost um cost-saving measure that the district is taking on to offer a severance to our classified staff. It's only for folks that are eligible. So, they have to be with the district 12 years or more or be retirement age. Um it's a it is a lower amount because it's in general our um classified team makes less than our than our um certified staff. the um you know and we've we've kind of warned our classified team uh they are very aware that that there is a very good chance unlike our teachers deal that did go through and we were able to offer that to their teachers because there ended
015up being money savings for the district by by providing that to the seven uh staff members that took advantage of it. It is frankly unlikely that a scenario would end up that the district would be proceeding with this just you know it's possible but our our classified team has warned that the chances of us of it making cost sense to do this is unlikely but we're offering it and may maybe we'll be surprised so okay very good good I ask for a vote Mrs. Ross hi Mr. Davis hi Mr. Perelli. Hi, Mr. Fair. Hi. Okay, switching gears here a little bit. Uh, handbook. It is recommended that the board of education accept the 2025 26 uh, Town Middle School handbook. Uh, changes for the years were highlighted in yellow for us to review with the
016attachment. And, uh, would ask for a motion. I'll make a motion. I need a second. second. Uh very few changes. I think you'll notice in there just so we always Mr. Manion's on this quick. Uh he takes care of this and uh he got he updated their uh the employee list. There's slight changes to the employee the staffing in the building. Um you know primarily you'll notice there's an additional dress code uh requirement about footwear. Proper footwear should be worn. So some of the kids weren't wearing proper shoes to school. And then there's also a a um restriction on smart watches. Now we have already restrict the use of iPhones and other electronics. Uh now that that extends also to smart watches. So um that's that that's a new feature of the handbook this year.
017Rest of straightforward. Anything? Good. I ask for a vote. Mr. Passerelli. Hi. Mrs. Ross. Hi. Mr. Davis. Hi. Mr. Fers. Hi. uh personnel items. Uh we have quite a laundry list of items to review here. I I would ask for a motion to take them all together. 5.1 through I through I think it's 5.29 or 30. All of them 529. Yes. And uh as one motion and uh would ask for a motion and a second to do that. I'll make a motion. I'll second it. Somebody and then discussion. Is there anybody in there? There's a lot there's a lot I'll pull out here, but I think we have some guests in the audience. So, I think it's only fair uh to to introduce Megan Greece and her her families with her tonight. So, Megan, uh
018Megan, we are recommending tonight to be the next um assistant principal at Townage Elementary School. So, Megan, if you don't mind maybe introducing yourself a little bit, tell us tell us a little bit about yourself. So, I'm Megan. I come from We live in the Hudson area. teaching in the last 13 years. Um sucked around quite a bit before that just kind of taken on a little bit more and more leadership responsibilities over those 13 years and really excited to join the college team and be part of the amazing things happening at the elementary school. I'm really great. Thank you, Megan. and and so the board knows and the public knows this pretty exhaustive process that Megan had to endure and some very very strong candidates for the position but our our teachers were involved
019in the process our administrative team were involved in the process so we're we enthusiastically recommend uh Megan for for hiring and becoming part of the team at Townidge Elementary School tonight um not we won't vote yet so we'll I was going to Yeah, we got more. I got more to cover. We got more. There's there's, you know, I'll say goodbye before we say hello. So, I have some we do have some folks that are uh departing. Um, you know, all all great stories, but but uh part part of the, you know, part of the process when when when you have um the great people that we do here in Townage. So, I'll start at the bottom. Jack Harkas is a custodian at Townidge Elementary School. Jack's been with us for I think you know 15
02016 years maybe a little longer than that. Been a great resource at our at our elementary schools and he's um he's moving on to retirement. So we're excited for Jack and his family as he begins the next chapters of his life. Uh Tony Enzaldi, fourth grade teacher, Townage Elementary School. How long has Tony been with this court? Five or six years. Yeah, five or six years. Seven. Wow. Okay, Tony, what a great uh teacher. He's been here at Townage, so he will be dearly missed. Uh Tony, uh is had an opportunity. His his wife works at West Western Western Reserve Academy. They live in Hudson, so they he got a job. I think he'll be able to ride his bike to work. So, um we're excited for Tony and certainly will will miss him dearly
021at Townidge Elementary School. Nicole Angelo, a similar story, family for family reasons. She um is is moving I think west of here. Um so um Nicole's a an intervention specialist for us. Did an amazing job and we will miss her her dearly as well. Also moving Kylie's moved I think all the way to Texas um I believe. So uh Kylie McInturf is first grade teacher for us. It's done a great work. Um again family's pulling her towards uh towards other horizons. So, we're we're we'll miss Kylie dearly. And then uh I'll Megan Haynes I'll I'll go next with. So, Megan has been an intervention specialist with us just a year. She's also though played um she's also our softball coach, our varsity softball coach, and was also a um our our freshman volleyball coach. She
022did a lot more than just intervention specialist. Did a great job for us. Again, had a new opportunity. um and she's taken advantage of. So, she will be uh dearly missed and we thank Megan for her service to the district. And then Emily Lee um also at Townidge Elementary School. She's a school counselor. Uh just been with us a year. Um she just got an opportunity she couldn't pass up at uh at another school district in administration. So, Emily's moving moving on to the administration position that sets up uh the opportunity for Jennifer Stewart. So, a name very familiar with everyone. Jen's been with the district many years, was a counselor here at Townage High School, was the assistant principal at Townage High School, and most recently was our districtwide MTSS coordinator. Um, has done
023a great job um implementing really a new new MTSS system here at at at across town. um the opportunity to get back into counseling was too good for her to pass up. So, she's excited to um join the team there at Townidge Elementary School. So, we're excited for Jennifer. Um the I think the natural question is, well, Steve, what about MTSS? That work will continue. Uh but given circumstances, we do not intend to fill that position at least uh for the time being. Um, but we have plans in place at each one of the buildings to continue continue our progress around the multi-tiered system of support, the MTSS process. And in fact, I think that's an expertise that Megan Greece brings to uh Tomage Elementary School. So, um, we're we're excited for that as well.
024Um, let's see. I'll also welcome aboard, uh, one other one other new hire tonight, Alexis Klene. She's basically befilling the Nicole Angelo vacancy that the the resignation we just talked about. So, Alexis Klein is a new will be a new teacher joining us this year. I think she has six or seven years of experience at a charter school in Akran. Bundle of energy actually has um has experience working with Mr. Booth back at Lake. I think she was actually a student of his back at Lake. So, uh knows her really well and uh brings a lot of energy and to to uh to Townage Elementary School. And I'll ask Courtney and Roy if there's anything I'm missing here you think it's worth pointing out to the team. Yeah, the team has been busy. I'll just
025say that we're lining up really nicely with our substitutes for the coming year. We have a kind of an uptick in substitutes which is always a need for us. We're thankful to everyone that's involved in our summer school program. So you were approving a number of those tonight. the tutors and folks that are part of our extended school year. That's the ESY component there that we talk about. I think those are the highlights for the for the board tonight. Any questions, concerns? I have none. All right. Great. Uh Mr. Hosteller, I ask for a vote. Mrs. Ross, hi. Mr. Pastor, hi. Mr. Davis, hi. Mr. Fh. Hi. So, moving. Congratulations, Megan. Yeah. Congratulations. Uh, moving on. We'll let you keep talking about good stuff, I guess. Yeah, if you could just bring up this slide,
026just one slide tonight. All kinds of good things happening, but some key things I wanted the board just to keep keep uh keep in the loop. So, I'll start with the stuff on the blue side before we get to the good stuff. Um, cost reduction efforts. So, again, we mentioned already that we won't be refilling the MTSS role for the time being. We won't be refilling you accepted, Mr. householders uh retirement last month. We won't be refilling that position for the time being and and you've also previously accepted um our assistant treasurer position retirement last month and we won't be uh refilling that position. In addition to that um you know we have a a math position at Townage High School that is not being refilled, an ELA position at Townidge High School that is
027not being refilled. um a second grade position at Townage Elementary School that's not being refilled. Um we're doing a little bit of reshuffleling with our foreign language department and an e position. So we have a a vacancy in our e uh English learner teacher position that um we will be shifting um one of our foreign language teachers into and won't be refilling that foreign language position. And then we we had spoken in previous months about um the health teacher position at Townage High School. Uh we've shifted things around to bring um uh bring Mr. Hagedorn up from Townage Middle School and he'll be serving the high school now. Mr. Epstein will be serving the middle school. That will create a little bit of gap in our health program for now. It's something I, you know,
028I hope to be coming back to the board uh and and talking about how to fill that gap once uh we we pass a levy. So, a lot going on. Uh just really proud of the team for kind of thinking outside the box. very thankful of course to our teachers and our classified team for um putting together contracts that I think that are fair to to uh fair to the teachers and fair and and the staff and fair to the district as we work through this. Um so next up um on on other updates for the board summer projects um we do have a number of things going on in the district as we get ready for the new school year. Um there's some some new classroom walls that are going in at Townage Elementary
029School. It's something we've talked about before. We put one in at first grade last year. We're putting uh classroom walls in at second and third grade um just to help with being able to it really provides us a little bit more flexibility about how teachers can use the spaces in those suites. In addition, some carpeting, some additional carpeting. Um, we I think uh for teachers that have been in the building, we've removed there's some steps that took up some space that really weren't uh very useful at Townage Elementary School, those steps have been all removed now and then we're in the process of carpeting and and making making those spaces look good and we'll certainly be ready for the new school year. And then of course excited with the prog progress with the baseball field.
030um looking forward to um looking forward to a grand opening of that stadium and when we have meet the teams night. Thankful to our donors for helping to make that happen and thankful to our construction manager for delaying the u the invoicing on that project so we could get that done and looking forward to the kids being able to use that field uh next year. And then um I'll I'll just bring it up now because it is a project, but it's on it's definitely on the good stuff side, too, is the weight room project. It's about a $200,000 upgrade to our weight room. So, we've it's a substantial upgrade. Equipment in there was 15 years old. Um the um we've moved from I think five racks to nine racks, so more kids can be training
031uh simultaneously. modern equipment, safer equipment, um just really a nice upgrade and it's all sp all funded by really two entities. The townage boosters um you know close to $130,000 donation from our townage boosters. So very very thankful to them and then also an over $50,000 donation from the Lowry family. So, we will uh next month be bringing a resolution to the board um for a 15-year naming right for the facility for the call it the lamb uh Lowry family wait room uh for a 15-year period and uh they're very supportive of that because they know 15 years from now it'll probably be time for another upgrade, right? So, uh because that's how long the first weight room lasted. So again, just very very thankful to our supporters um and a nice nice upgrade for
032our kids. Um and then just some other things Mr. Mr. Hosteller already mentioned about levy planning. So again, the board has a work session scheduled for uh July 14th in the morning at the MEC to talk about um to talk about the next steps and hopefully by then the state will provide us with enough guidance that will know what millillage and again the goal would be to come up with a millillage that um is is is sensitive to the costs um potential cost to our taxpayers, not ask them for any more than we need. And then I I did want to bring to the board's attention um our career tech spending. I think I've mentioned to this before to you this to you before. Just want to make you aware that we we are kind
033of in negotiations if you will related to um our our spending and our um cost sharing with with the the six district compact. So, um, and it it's going to be a process. We may need to get some board members involved in that at some point, but it's, uh, just kind trying to come with a fair process because right now the district's spending, uh, $1.4 million on career tech, and I think it's pretty expensive cost per pupil. So, figuring out a safe way to share cost is critical uh, going forward. But I did I just wanted to bring that to y'all's attention that uh we're kind of in the midst of deciding how those payments are going to flesh out. All right, any questions on that? All right, so let's get get to the good
034stuff. Um so track and field amazing. We got of course M. Ross was was witnessed to to a lot of uh just awesome awesome performance especially by our girls at the states. We had um our 4 by 800 team of Tangangeras, McKenzie and Michaela Martio and Alli Hay placed 15th in the state and then Alli Hay followed that up with placing 16th in the state in the 800 meters. So congratulations just awesome awesome performance just extends the tradition of of Townage Track and Field I believe to Panga Mackenzie Michaela Ali that's also a school record time too. So pretty amazing and I'm not sure if Alli's was Alli's school record too. Yes, it was. Wow. So division one. It's all division one which I think we're like three kids away from being division two. So
035um the best of the best. Best of the best. Good point, Mr. Ferris. Yes. And then uh you know, capping that off with suburban league honors, Michaela Martio was the co-runner of the year. And then Bella Richards, a high jumper, was our the field athlete of the year in the suburban league. So just awesome and very very thankful to coach Shadawa, his whole team, and all the athletes for just a great year. Our townage softball. So, as we uh bid farewell to Miss Haynes for for her one-year coaching, she delivered a district championship to Talmage. Again, extending our um awesome legacy of performance for our softball. And then our softball kids um also got significant suburban league honors. Naomi Richardson, Lissa Taylor were honorable mention. Second team, Katie Huth and Pton Almond. the first team
036suburban league Danielle Chardan and Leila Stasak. So congratulations to all them for their um recognition. Last month we talked a little bit about our graduates, our awesome kids graduating. I just wanted the board to know and and the public to be aware. It's an awesome website that Kelly Christopher put together employed the enrolled employed enlisted website kind of talks about really over like a three or four even longer look back you know where our kids are going to school where they're going to work and where they're enlisting in the military or police or fire. And uh so pretty awesome website and I encourage everyone to check that out. And then just a preview of next month. Uh career tech was is a topic we'll talk about next month. Uh Mr. Obni will be here with
037some of his kids to talk about the good things happen with our theater program. Um so looking forward to that as well. Those are the those are the the good stuff and highlights for town city schools this month. Thank you. Well done. Wow. A lot going on. Uh any questions about anything? Oh my gosh. Nothing. Nothing. Uh well, let's go on again. Uh we open it up to the floor. If there's any comments that you all, our visitors would like to make, this would be the time to do it. None. Good. We're excited to have We are too. Yeah. From those who were in the interview. So, they're excited. So, they get excited. We get excited. Molly. I'm gonna meet Molly. What's your name? All right. Very good. Well, with with nothing else, I would
038ask for adjournment. Need a motion. I'll make a motion. I'll second. Mr. Ownetler, vote. Mr. Cross. I I that's it. Thanks for coming. Appreciate it very much. Good meeting.