001Uh welcome everyone to the local Local School Board District uh Board of Education special meeting. It's Monday, February 23rd at 6:00 p.m. the DHS comments. Uh the special meeting of the board of education in public for the purpose of conducting the school district's business and is not to be considered a public community meeting. There is time for a public participation during the meeting as indicated on the agenda of civilian board bylaw 0165.1. Um call to order please. The call. Mr. Benson >> here. Mrs. Ste >> here. >> Mrs. Russell >> here. >> Mrs. Trice >> here. >> Four members present. All right. Uh next we'll do the pledge of allegiance. Let's stand and face a flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it
002stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. We have a portion on here for public participation. We are wanting to do that after the presentation because I think that some of those questions that you all might have will be answered during that, but we will get back to it. Just want to let you know um as part of that public participation. Um it's for the agenda items only. Um this time is allowed for community members to speak to the board regarding an item on the agenda. Um, if you have already registered your to sign to speak, please uh get to if you haven't um I can turn over to you. Um, go ahead and start with your president. >> Okay. >> Thank you, President Benson. I'm here today to
003uh make a recommendation of the board to approve a reduction in force for the 2627 school year uh for the listed certified and classified staff, which I'll I'll get to in a second. Uh but first, the board here is here this evening to perform what is at once both a vital community function and the least desirable task that they're ever called upon to do, which is make tough decisions that impact people's lives. None of us here at this table take these decisions lightly or make them without great deliberation and considerable thought. What you're going to see in here tonight is a small glimpse into the collaborative work of our administrators over weeks and months of time. It's my intent to place tonight's reductions in the context of our overall financial and enrollment picture first of
004all, and I'd like to speak second of all about some of the steps that we've taken and will take to minimize the number of position position reductions that we're recommending today. I'm going to start with a couple of key points uh that answer the question, why are we here and why is this necessary right now? First of all, last year's failure of the bond issue, plus some rising costs of just about everything that we pay for here in the district are exerting pressure on the budget to the point where we're now in deficit spending. So, uh we are now just using existing general fund balances to address emergencies where facilities are concerned and eating away at what was a uh small uh budget surplus. Second, today's cuts are a part of the overall cost reduction
005picture. I'll be detailing some recent cuts that have been made, other proposed cuts, and possible future cuts as well. And finally, these proposed reductions are sufficient for now. If the November renewal levy passes, this levy will be called a fixed sum levy. And I'll mention this again at the end of the meeting, but in November, a vote for this levy will actually lower your property tax bills slightly, but it keeps us at the level of funding that we've had for several years. As you'll see, everything we do, every dollar and expenditure of revenue and expenditure needs to be understood first through the lens of student enrollment. We spend a lot of time thinking about improving teaching and learning and making decisions about what programs and curriculum to provide. In the end, the number of students
006we have prek through 12 drives our funding and is thus a huge factor in what we can provide. Vermillion's uh enrollment trend is clear. This is K12. Compared to 2016, we have 22% fewer students. remains enrollment boomed through the 80s and 90s and has slowly dwindled ever since. This decline in the number of young people in our district is reflected all over Ohio. If you look at other districts, by the way, we have a growing population in Ohio. Fewer younger people. The number of adult staff members here has expanded and contracted to match low uh rising and lowering enrollment over the years. For example, recently I led a group of people uh from the class of 1985 through the building. They were here for their 40th reunion. They wanted to look around. After walking around
007and talking with them for a while, hearing about the three home classes that used to be over here and two industrial arts classes with two teachers that used to be down at that end of the building, I finally asked them, "How many people were in your class?" There were 250. Our kindergarten class has 100 students. Enrollment drives state funding uh through a funding formula. So, it's a big deal. Much of what you're going to hear us talk about over the next few months has to do with local property tax revenue. But when the size of the overall pie shrinks for whatever reason, it leads us to where we are today, faced with the need to cut costs. Part of the challenge here is that just because enrollment decreases, many of our costs don't decrease. For
008example, we're not paying any less for gas and electricity than we were 5, 10, 15 years ago. I'm sure you all understand that. This is a look at our current K12 enrollment with the 12th grade on the left side, the class of 26, and the class of 2038, which is our kindergarten class on the right side. When we look at the number of students in our district right now, you can see this trend playing out even over the span of age groups we have in the buildings. There are only three classes left in the district with more than 130 students, and they'll be gone within five years. The highlighted portion, the red circle is our current K5 population. And you can see the downward trend among the students in the younger classes, the number of
009students in younger classes. I would mention here that the uh the counties, both Erie and Lorraine County, do projections of birth rates based on all the factors and demographics within the community. And what you see here is what it's going to be for for Vermillion for for a lot of reasons. So I want to uh talk first about some of the trends in our revenue and kind of just a general look at our at our budget picture. So in this picture uh the blue line which is the lower one is our revenue over a period of years from 2023 on the left hand side to I believe 2030 on the right hand side. So the the orange line the blue line's revenue the orange line is expenditures. So the expenditures have been above the revenue
010for several years. When the orange is above the blue in any given year, we're deficit spending. In the red box, I've highlighted the this fiscal year and the four after it to illustrate the main point of what we're trying to accomplish here today and the main reason that we're here and with the other reductions that we are enacting this year. Those lines are getting farther apart. next school year. Uh that's the one that is to the left of the box. They're half a million apart. 3 years after that, they're $3.5 million apart. Uh to give you a little context for that, our our budget has been between 26 27 million a year for the past several years. Okay, I've got a screenshot here from uh Mr. Clingern who's our treasur. Uh the budget forecast that
011he does twice a year is required by the state. And uh there's been a summary slide. I've got a blown up version of it here that you'll be able to read in just a second. But if you've been to board meetings over the past few years, you've heard Justin sit right here and give the 5-year forecast uh twice a year. You might be wondering where those lines, the orange and blue lines were off the left side of that chart before we got to where we are. Well, we've been aware that those lines are converging and crossing and they cross in the past couple of years. Here's a quote. As far back as 2022, this shows Justin was highlighting some of the items that we'll talk about here today. Facility investments and staffing levels. I cited
012the failure of the bond issue back on the third slide. In this slide, I'm just pointing out that since 2022, Justin has been stating that aging facilities were going to put pressure on the general fund because we don't have a permanent improvement levy. We're one of only 56 uh districts in the state of Ohio that don't. This board recognized that a year ago when you approved the bond issue for the ballot, all of you. He has also been saying that we need to keep an eye on our staffing levels. That's the second highlighted portion there. This is from 2022. I know that we're here today to act on reductions of teaching positions, but we've shed positions in the teaching ranks, in administration, and among our classified staff since that time. I'll be detailing that here
013in a moment. When it comes time to talk about reductions, one of the first things people say, understandably, is that the board should cut anything but people first. This simple pie chart shows why that is possible, but only on a limited basis. In our district and in every public school district, salaries and benefits, which is the blue part of the pie, are an overwhelming percentage of a school's budget. The other portion are things that are finite resources like buses and technology and cleaning supplies and textbooks. We can figure out ways to squeeze every penny out of this part, the red piece. You'll hear about some of the things that are part of that in just a moment, but there's only a limit to what you can accomplish chipping away at the red part of the
014budget. I asked Justin for a list. We've been talking for some time about these things. Of course, uh some of the things that are putting pressure on our budget, some of the costs that are rising, and these are the few of the things that we've been we've been talking about. Healthc care benefits, uh this, you know, list probably won't be a surprise for those of you that do the bills at your own house. Healthcare benefits, top of the list. I'll come back to that in a second. Things like utilities, gas and electric are more expensive now. supplies. Really, not much of anything that we buy that makes the school district run is cheaper in the area of supplies. Food, I'll come back to that in a minute. We know about grocery prices. Purchase services, I'll
015come back to that in a second as well because that's just kind of things that we buy from other entities and and uh professionals and and businesses around the community. Maintenance, fixing anything is expensive. you know what what used to be at at my house a a $100 plumbing call starts at 250 now. Um things like this affect us in a big way because we've got three bigger buildings, two of which are a little bit older, so things cost more curriculum. So a lot of what we have is electronic comm uh curriculum, things that are accessible to our students on their Apple MacBooks. And um here's what I'd say. After being the curriculum director for 3 years, what I've seen is that after co when everybody bought electronic curriculum because it was really the only
016way to do business, you know, in that environment, many makers of electronic curriculum tools and software and websites are jacking up their prices. They're going up uh 5%, 10%, 15%. Um and we have a lot of that throughout our district in in addition to like you know books and thing regular kind of curriculum that you might think about. Um but that is something that is is skyrocketing in cost. The cost of labor everything uh classified staff teaching staff administrative staff that's going up as well. Let me go back to healthcare. Uh we spent we spent a lot of time talking about this one and uh not a lot of time doing anything about it because like you we're really limited in what we can do about it. The blue bars uh on there are a
017cost of a family plan, what our teachers and any of our employees uh pay and what the district pays for their health insurance. The orange lines are um a family plan. And this is kind of this this chart goes from uh years and years ago until the the current year. Um the orange family plan, the blue single plan are both the same in that they're up 160% over that time frame and that's going to go up next year if we're lucky. Five 5%. And that's that's a lot of money. The healthcare costs us a lot of money. So if you own a business and you know you have workers that have healthcare insurance through your business, you know this it's a it's a huge co cost factor. Okay. Um as we talk about budget reductions,
018things that we've done over a period of time, uh I mentioned purchase services. So, uh, one of the first things that we did, um, when we kind of started looking at all the things that we were buying and looking for ways that we could trim trim the budget was, uh, Justin and I sat down with Sean Bergman, uh, our technology director, and Karen Blackman, our director of, uh, student services, pupil services, uh, who oversees kind of all of the special ed, and and many of the other things that, uh, we buy, professional services like speech therapy and things like that. We went through everything that this district spends money on in purchase services, every single line, to look for ways that we could maximize the effectiveness of it, or we could get it somewhere cheaper
019and, you know, we could buy something cheaper than we're buying, find another vendor for it, go to a competitive bid process to get it. And I have good news and bad news about that. The bad news is we didn't find much much of anything that we could cut that we could get a cheaper way. The good news is that's because we're already getting it very efficiently and for a price that that is really hard to beat in the private sector. I'll give you a couple of examples of this. When we got to the line item for our copier contract, schools run on paper, by the way, if you didn't know that. We got to the line about our copier contract. I had not looked at our copier contract before and I said that's not really
020how much we pay for our copier contract and Justin said yes it is and kind of described the the process that we had used to get the copier contract that we had. Uh Sean uh is excellent at his job as a director of technology. All our kids have MacBooks and we we talked about the the expense of that. Back during COVID when the district got a lot of its MacBooks, got a lot of its Apple uh laptops which are expensive. We got on a cycle with Apple and with some resale companies that allow us to sell them back to a company uh after we've used them for a couple of years. Is it three or four? >> Four years. Four years. I was a technology director in my my old district. So, I know a
021little bit about laptops, a little bit about Chromebooks and things like that. I came in thinking Chromebooks are a cheap cheaper choice. Certainly, we're going to find an area there where it's it's possible to cut. What we sell back Apple laptops for is amazing. It's I I've never seen anything like it. I really did not believe that like we actually give them a a four-year-old laptop that a student a 13-year-old has been using for four years and they pay us that much back for it. The bottom line on that one is is it expensive to get on the Apple train? Absolutely. And that was done with some CO funds, you know, back in the day. Once you're on it, it's a good bargain. Still, we ended up talking about um some ways that we could
022maximize that. Maybe using other devices when these expire at the at the younger grades, and that's something we're going to continue to talk about. Um purchase services is something we'll continue to look at. Um we have looked at uh every every time you hire somebody who's a kind of a professional speech therapist, um school psychologist and things like that, you have two choices. You can either contract with a local educational service center to buy it or you can employ someone yourself. In the in the areas where it's cheaper for us to employ someone oursel, we do. In those areas where it's cheaper for us to go to North Point ESC or Lraine County ESC, we have a choice of two. We can bargain, you know, one against the other and take a look. We use
023both and we get the we get the cheapest one. So, that's some of the ways that we've kind of maximized the efficiency of our operation in that. Not that that work is ever done. It's it's it's never done. We'll we'll keep looking at that as time goes on. Purchase services. When it comes to uh personnel reductions, um you will see that this reflects uh fiscal year 24, 25, and 26 in the top left and um down the left hand side the number of administration, the number of teachers and the number of classified staff that we have. So the middle column, the wider one, shows the number of reductions that we've made since 2024. Um, so what you'll see there is that we went from 15 to 13 uh administrators, which 13%.3% of our overall administrative
024staff uh in 2024 since 2024. Uh we've gone down by six teachers since that time, which is 4.6% 6% of the teaching staff that we have, which that's the biggest group, the biggest group of employees we have in our district is sta as teachers. It's about 50% of them. And then finally, down at the classified staff, uh it's gone down by one since 2024. And uh that doesn't include the one that's on the the paper uh later on the agenda, but for about 1% of that. So when people have left, when people have retired, when people have taken a job somewhere else, we've looked at every position like long and hard to see if it's something we absolutely positively have to meet, have to have. I'll give you an example of that. Um, we have
025a number of intervention specialists who work with our students with special needs in all three of our buildings. Uh, when I got here, we had we had quite a few of those. As the needs have shifted from building to building, we've transferred people from one building to the other. And then some of those numbers that are in that teacher category come from us looking at case loads that are low enough among those teachers like the number of kids that they have where we can reduce one and still provide just as adequate just as equal level of service as we have with a with a greater number. And so as those people have left you know um we've not replaced them among the administration line. There's one I can speak to um fairly informed about and
026that's me. I was a curriculum director and assistant superintendent before I got here. Um since October I've been the superintendent. Uh I was not replaced. Now I'm superintendent, assistant superintendent and curriculum director. Um I'm one of the two most expensive employees in the district. That's not just true here. It's true anywhere. And I'm doing the two the job of the two. That's I kind of recognized back before I even talked to the board about becoming a superintendent that you know where we think we're headed that might be something that that could be done. So that's just that's one of the one of the two there. Other reductions. Um these next couple of slides are things that we are currently talking about. Um I put these in the current category. Some of these there's a conclusion.
027Some of these we kind of know a direction we're going to go, but a lot of them are going to come back at a a future board meeting where we're going to sit here and we're going to say, "How about this reduction? We're going to act on it." Uh the board is going to act on it. I'm going to ask for their approval for for other reductions, but we've been working on them for a while. in athletics. Um, uh, Andy Stillman, our athletic director, has met with all of our head coaches to talk to them about items within each of their individual sports budgets that, uh, they felt like they could trim, and he, he and Justin and I have had a conversation about that. We've looked at our pay to participate fee. Um, we
028have a ton of students here involved in activities. I don't know exactly how many, but up and down the line, everything from chess club to football to marching band to to show choir or uh concert choir, all of our groups like that, we have a ton of kids involved in more than one activity. One of the reasons why is that we've incentivized that by having a play pay to participate fee that is much lower for the second, third, fourth activity that you participate in. Right? That's a good thing. But since the since the pay to participate has been um uh was first kind of I voted on here and included as part of our program, it hasn't been raised. It hasn't been raised. So you can look around, you can look around at other districts
029and see uh some districts that are lower than ours, but you can see a whole lot of them that are higher than ours in the current, you know, situation. That's something that we've got to look at. So that'll be something we'll be talking about, too. Um there are other cost reductions, um things that Mr. Stoman is going to be looking at between now and, you know, the beginning of next school year when when sports start for next year. Supplemental contracts. Every adult who does something with individual or groups of kids during or after the school day that's outside of their teaching role is paid what's called a supplemental contract to reduce those to kind of reduce the overall budget hit of those because that needs to be done. Uh we've got to talk to the
030Vermillion Teachers Association. It's an item that is negotiated into our uh contract with them. And so that's something that's got to happen over a period of time. Uh that the the first part of that is actually going to happen on Wednesday uh this week. Curriculum. Um we have kind of we started the year saying that we were going to uh purchase a new math curriculum which is typically a five or sixyear uh subscription contract. And uh kind of as time went on, once that levy failed in in November, um I kind of started looking in other directions for this, kind of using what we've got and maximizing what we've got. Um as a kind of point of comparison, last year we paid $250,000 for a K5 ELA curriculum. So this one would have been um
031this one would have been probably K through seven or eight. And I think it probably would have cost every bit of that much money. That's that's that much money that we're not going to to pay. Building budgets. Uh Justin has given our principles kind of a a target percentage to cut within their building budget, which pays for kind of everything else outside of what we talk about in these presentations within their buildings. And they're going to come back and we're going to talk about that uh next month before next month's board meeting. We're looking at the technology tools that we use whether it be um or not technology but like workbooks and things like that too. This is curriculum within uh classes like workbooks or Lexia or Alex or others. Um I've asked our principles
032and they're talking with our grade level chairs and department chairs right now about what's vital to have as opposed to what's just nice to have. We're going to come back with that list as well. materials and supplies. Right now, our principles are also examining the materials and supplies, uh, things that they got within their they buy within their building. Um, Justin did some good research into kind of what's being done at some other schools. Uh, found a couple of good examples of schools that, you know, kind of I think spend less on supplies with a similar just a little bit less fewer number of kids. And so, we're we're kind of talking about that. This leads to an area that's not really a reduction. But it's probably going to be one of the few ways
033that you you notice in this presentation that have to do with actually raising revenue uh without a without a tax increase for people. And that is an increase in student fees. Um technically student fees are for consumables. Uh right now if your kids in a kindergarten classroom that means all the things that you can imagine in a kindergarten that are consumable. Well, there's nothing in a kindergarten classroom that's not consumable. everything is consumable. You don't want any of it back. But that there, you know, also things that we have like third graders get a my math workbook and then all the way through seventh grade they get a math workbook. Those have been paid for out of the curriculum budget since I've been here and I think I think forever. And I've never seen one
034that's less than 20 or $25. Multiply that times, you know, 100 115 kids in a class uh across a grade level. You get an idea of why that kind of stuff is so expensive. We understand that there's a limit to what we can ask families to pay for fees. Um almost 40% of our families uh have a free and reduced lunch. So, you know, they pay a very reduced amount of fees or no fees anyway. So, there's a limit to how much raising those kinds of things is going to get is going to make money for us and not put uh families who are already in a tough spot in a tougher spot. But that's something we've got to consider. And transportation. Um, I just talked to our transportation director this morning, Amber Stler, and
035uh, she she and um, Justin and I met and we've talked about this in the in the past month. Uh, we've delayed the the purchase of a bus um, and we have delayed the p purchase of a van just kind of due to the spot we're in. Uh, vans and buses are one are two of those things that are really expensive, but you know, you can't use them past the end of their useful life. Well, we're stretching out the useful life by another year for these. Um, and that's a big ticket item. a a bus that uh is equipped to handle wheelchairs, which is the one we're looking at, is $148,000. And a van uh that hauls enough passengers for take our kids to private schools and things like that is $74,000. So, you can
036see how those kind of things add up real quick. Finally, in that area, we are mauling over um one of the other few areas where we can, you know, kind of raise funds without raising taxes, uh which is looking at uh school lunch prices. We've kept our school lunch prices as low as possible by law for at least the time that I've been here, probably a long time. And um you know this is the first year in a while that you know the the that budget for school lunches, the cafeteria budget is probably going to be really close to being in the red at the at the end of the year. Our cafeterias operate very efficiently. They're phenomenal. Um a lot of kids eat the food from our cafeterias which is good and that usually
037goes very well. But this takes me back to what I said about food costs. You've been to the grocery so you you know what that's like. um that's we're kind of faced with the same thing that everybody else is faced with. So, I think we we need to look at uh school lunch prices. Technically, school lunch prices is something that the uh that the superintendent or treasurer recommends to the board a little bit later in the school year as we get close to, you know, like looking into the next the next school year. All this brings me to uh today's recommended reductions. These are uh the ones that are listed on the superintendent report that I'm actually recommended. I want to say a couple things about them. Since the time that I took over in
038October, uh, which was followed by the failure of the bond issue, Justin and I have been talking about our current financial situation and the impact of legislation that that's kind of happened since the budget bill last year as it made its way through the state house. The final decision for this proposal was mine, though I asked for recommendations from building principles and then collaborated with them as a group to arrive at the list that you see on the screen and is on our agenda for today. Something else I'd mention about this, the terms of our contract with the Vermillion Teachers Association drives the timing of this proposal. So the question, you know, may to occur to you, why, if you're looking at all these other cuts over this period of weeks and months, why is
039this happening now? Well, after your vote, affected teachers may have the right to displace other teachers according to their union contract, and they have time to do so if we do it if we do this in February. We're doing it in February because any shuffling that might occur does occur. When it does, there'll still be opportunities for teachers to seek other teaching employment during the time of year when schools are looking for teachers. So, that's why this is happening uh in February. This is not the end. Um not not even close. Um I just wanted to kind of wrap this part up by talking about some things that I think we'll be re uh recommending in the future. Um, I can't be specific because they're not official yet. Uh, but there are going to be
040between now and the end of the year other resignations or retirements. It's just every year there is it's it's this time of year. Um, I know of a couple of these that will be on upcoming board members board meetings already, but they're not official. based on the needs of students. Uh these open positions may go unfilled uh and when people leave and they almost most may also be filled by teachers who fill the positions who are being reduced today. So teachers who are on my recommended list of reductions may be eligible to fill some of those positions. I'll be letting the board know about the results of some of the other reductions that I'd mentioned, kind of coming back to update everybody on that andor asking for all of your approval as appropriate on things
041like pay to participate or uh lunch prices. There are other non-teerreated uh personnel moves that may happen as well in that time. So, we'll be we'll be talking about that. wanted to sum up by saying this first bullet point is what got us here now. Um the the issue on our budget, the uh pressure on our budget that was caused by the failure of the bond issue plus the rising costs that we've had over a period of time. Second, uh today's cuts are part of a a whole list of things that are going to be uh cut. I've detailed some of these and you'll be hearing about more later. And then finally, these proposed reductions are sufficient to make our budget balance for now if the November renewal levy passes. What I said at the
042beginning may may have been counterintuitive. I want to I want to say this and and this is has to do with the the renewal levy in November. It will actually lower property taxes slightly. Voting for it lowers property taxes slightly. Um, how's that possible? Um, well, uh, Justin and I, after weeks and months of trying to digest just what's coming down the pike from our legislature and look at what impact that's going to have on the district, kind of finally put together a 17-minute video that explained this. And, um, we're going to, you know, give people access to it 4 minutes ago. If you get that QR code, you can see it. It's a YouTube video and our voices are on it. So, you probably want to wait till later or never if you're, you
043know, Yeah, it's Yeah, but we are trying to explain what's what's about to happen and what's happening right now is a you know, unfortunately, it's a just kind of a shadow of of what's going to happen at that point. So, um, with that, I'm sure President Benson that there are people with questions or comments, people that would like to speak. Yes. Um there's a lot of people signed up here. So, um we would like to enact the five minutes or so. We're going to, you know, obviously give you time to speak, but if you're just, you know, just we'll just try to be mindful of everybody's time. All right. Uh first person here is Katherine Schwans. Schwz. >> Good evening and uh thank you for the board letting me uh address you tonight. My name
044is Katherine Kitty Schwan and um I have addressed you several times and I appreciate uh every chance for me to be able to come up here. Um I have two children uh who are currently in uh VHS. Uh they are eighth graders. Um one of them is Veronica who is a uh she uses special education. She uses the specialists. Um they are integral into her uh current success. Um I really want to thank them for that. Those services are absolutely essential uh to her to her. Um my son also enjoys robotics recently uh did extremely well play six. Um so I want to say that that is because of teachers and I'm here to uh say how much I support and um I hate that there's any reduction. I did vote for the levy. Um
045I believe in that we can find a better way to fund schools. Um and so the point that I want to come here to say is that um the legislature is the way to address this. Um they are unconstitutionally funding the way that they're doing it and they need to do better. over the last uh 50 years they have cut um the spending down um from their side of things um from 40% to under 20%. So I ask people to to look at um uh people like Matt Huffman and uh and ask them to do better. Um, I like um tonight that the presentation showed um that the first cuts were to uh administration and uh the other things people that that I hear online a lot is, you know, it's got to be administration
046first. Well, that's it. It was teachers last. Um I do see that there, you know, I I enjoy that the way it is. I appreciate the presentation showing the reduction in um where things are are ultimately going to be where things are need where it's needed most right now is where we have the most kids. So and I understand that I don't want it but I I do understand why this is happening. Um mainly what I want to say uh is that you know as a public we need to find a better way to come together as community and support um a better way forward. And so I hope that people will do that. And um I'm hoping that maybe instead of uh going after you know property taxes uh we look for ways like
047uh CAT like that is a uh the the corporate you know where these are all the jobs that um the future jobs is what we're training our kids for uh to be successful and and be able to go out into the job force and uh not having uh really a a strong corporate tax face is, you know, is not they're not investing in our youth. And so I'm hoping that that's a better way. Um I believe legislationally, um the community should be speaking about that more. Um but yeah, I think we should come together and continue to support our school and I thank you for your time. >> Thank you. >> Um any comments? Um I have a PD Mark I think is what it says on here. Is there somebody that signed in after
048her that wanted to speak? Okay. Um, got June Gunther. Are you still wanting to pass? >> Okay. That's what I was say. That's why I want to do the presentation first. We feel like some of those questions might have been answered. Um, okay. We got Arlene Olsen. Is that right? Thanks for all you do. I know you've done a lot of research. I know you're up against the wall. Uh Arlene Olson 1491 in Vermillion. Um so just a a few thoughts. I just think we have to be really creative and I agree with Miss Kitty in regard to um approaching the legislators. I think there's more than one way to skin a cat here. Um, I might be trying the sky, but I think we should contact our legislators and pick up some dirt there.
049Um, education is so important as we know, and without that, and without reading, writing, and the music, I don't know what we're going to do. Um, cutting cutting those couple uh special reading specialists is troubling to me because that's so important. No one with a career tech job. Oh, it's troubling. obviously. But um that being what it said um also again in regard to being creative, possibly having um a volunteer tutoring program in regard to some of that might be helpful. I've heard of things in different areas, different cities where they've done that and has been very beneficial for like senior citizens connecting with students and that kind of thing. Um, and uh, I don't know, I know you've got things in all kinds of directions um, in regard to reducing busing costs. Um, I
050know different things come buckets, personnel, etc. Um, but for example, maybe sixth grade and older, maybe they could walk to school if they're within certain parameters and promote car pooling. um and um just creative solutions. I also not sure if it's public to see the budget. I sort of like to see that. Um also I don't know if you know Ammerst High School um past year or two they have a pretty amazing robotic tech program and uh actually LCC um I believe um a good amount of money towards that. they had a little funding in that regard and they've been training um students in that and I think the trades as we see in the news we're in the world um there's such a need for it um so I think cutting that is a
051mistake but I think you all thoughtful considerations thank you >> thank you thank you for comments uh Justin uh we we have all of the financials posted right so I know you mentioned that you wanted to to see the budgets and stuff like that. Just wanted to highlight. >> Absolutely. Miss Olsson, any any any budget, any type of number that you'd like to see, just send me an email and I'll send it to you. >> Thank you. >> Can I comment? >> Yes, absolutely. >> Miss Olsson, I really appreciate your comment about being creative to find some ways to help fill the gap. Although it's not going to necessarily solve everything, but ways to help, you know, reduce some of these gaps that we're going to see. I've seen other districts do similar things like
052you said the volunteer tutoring, bringing some parents in that maybe have some additional skill sets to help with, you know, filling some of that reading gaps in classrooms really can be beneficial. So, I think more of the public that can bring forward some of those ideas. We'd really appreciate it. >> Well, we had the more program at middle school and I believe in the last two years it's been dismantled. I know that that was hugely successful and I I I'm a huge fan of the more program and I don't know why the decision that was to cut that but >> that's something that would I think would be very beneficial. >> Well, that was me so I can speak to that. >> Um Project Moore was originally a uh a grant program. more stands for
053something. I don't even know what it stands for. It was existence before I got here, but uh it paired up uh people from the community with adults with uh middle school students. It was fourth graders that we used it with and they would come in and read with them. Um kind of answer comprehension questions about what they read. Um yeah, I I know a lot about it because I did it. I was one of the tutors with the fourth graders and I I mean I loved it. What what's not to like about it? It connects people with, you know, in the community with with our kids. It's great for the kids. They ran in every week, you know, really wanted to see that person that they came in with uh came in to see and
054read with. It was about relationship building as much as anything else. It had some reasonable research base to it that showed it had success or at least in the in the pilot version of it that happened somewhere besides here somewhere ago. um that went away when we added reading specialists at the middle school, ironically because um the amount of time that was spent in there, 45 minutes we kind of dedicated to reading remediation time with reading specialists. Um, there's not a month goes by that an adult in the community that was part of Project Moore doesn't see me or say something to me or text me and ask about it coming back because it it really it really was it was good for a lot of different reasons. Um reading reading remediation is um I
055it's remediation itself is very difficult and very expensive and you know any principal or superintendent or treasurer will tell you that uh we threw the the reading specialists at the you know kind of reading deficit issue that everybody faced after co to kind of you know try to do that. One of the one of the reading specialists whose position is on here, I'm glad that came up, is actually part of a team at the elementary school that goes from grade to grade to grade. And they split the kids up into small groups. All of the title teachers, the regular teachers, and the reading specialists are all in that grade period at the same time. And so we've got really small eyeball to eyeball small group instruction. The way that Mr. Mr. Maler at the at
056the elementary school kind of uh got that together, organized that was it was really really smart. And eventually when he got to, you know, the point where we had to consider a cut, he said, "You know what? This is this is small enough now. We got small enough groups and we're really into doing this in a really efficient way. I think I hate to lose this person, but this is maybe one that we could live without because of that." So, but I love project more. Do I need to I have a question about the career ed. Are you cutting all career ed or just one position? >> No. On the recommended list is uh one of two dedicated career ed teachers that we have here at the high school. Uh one teaches agricultural education. Uh
057this one was at uh was actually just added. Uh we're kind of building up a a career education program that started with kids in 8th grade and was going to end up with kids in internships and you know things like that. um kids working as juniors and seniors and it it was going to take a while to ramp up and I think and we were on our way there but >> well because my kid has part of her IEP is that career so that >> no um if it's in an IEP it's going to it's going to stay >> uh and we have a lot of different ways that we do that. I I think becoming more efficient in career education, one of the things it's about is like making everyday academic classes relevant to
058careers. And I mean, I had some experience with that as a as a high school principal. I think I think it's maybe even more valuable than having a person in a room who's teaching kids about careers. Um, you know, I look at algebra class a little bit well, I wouldn't have looked at algebra class differently, but you might look at algebra class a little bit differently if you know that you're looking at a career path that you know, for which that's important. So, I think that's something uh I can tell you that Mr. Perry, the high school principal, is intent on doing exactly that, >> integrating it. >> Yes. Yes. >> There's definitely also volunteers in the community that can help out with care in a way that maybe program. >> Good reason. >> All
059right. Good ideas. And um like you said, you know, contact legislators to help help us uh continue. We know obviously um uh Wes and Justin have been they could tell you long stories about how that they've you know been trying to fight that fight and we're not the only district that's in this situation. Um so next on the list we have Amanda Aldrich. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. I do some people here. Um, my name is Amanda Alers. I am a parent active PEO chair of the book Elementary School. Uh, a business owner and a passionate community advocate. I also operate the moms over Facebook group who boasts nearly 900 members. Very passionate, very active. In addition to these duties, I was also an integral part of the fall 2005 living committee.
060I come in front of you today to speak on behalf of parents, moms, and those of us who are in the trenches every day with our kids. I also come to you as someone who not only uses my voice at meetings and online, but is consistently active both inside and outside of the school system to provide real solutions and improve communication as needed. It is my opinion that we need less blaming and more hands-on fixing if we're going to make any of this better. That's why I've decided to make this statement to you today. The disappointment that I felt, and I know I wasn't alone, following the failure of the capital improvement levy was practically tangible. As someone who literally wrote the talking points, I knew the improvements needed for the middle and high schools
061were not optional. They are critical needs that must take place for education to continue without serious consequences. The kids are already facing obstacles due to putting off these repairs. I did not want them to be pushed any longer for fear of greater problems. That said, I feel the vast majority of our community either did not understand or did not choose to acknowledge that the levy failure would ultimately mean cuts to staff salaries. This is the burden that I carry and sincerely wish had a different outcome. I have seen firsthand while working closely with the board, administrators, teachers, almost everyone there, almost everyone here, support staff, and that every penny is already stretched. Contrary to the keyboard warriors, in my opinion, there are no exorbitant salaries. The ones who do do make a decent wage, have
062been in their field for decades, and are near retirement. I do feel that those individuals should strongly consider retiring early to make up this gap. This would also allow us to bring in less experienced educators who require lower salaries. These new educators also have a hunger for change and improvement, which I strongly feel is something our school systems can always benefit from. Education is ever changing, as it should be. The more staff we have, who are encouraging new approaches that are not only best for them, but for the kids, should be embraced wholeheartedly. We cannot continue riding this wave of traditional models if we want to provide our children education competitive with neighboring communities but also across the country. We want to provide the best possible education we can. That means alterations to the roster,
063then so be it. I also want to encourage you to consider cuts to higher salaries over cuts to positions. Um again, this is written before some of that, but I do think that applies. Our peers and monitors are truly the MVPs, tackling the hardest cases with the least amount of appreciation and monetary compensation. As a parent of a child with special needs, I cannot tell you how grateful I am to these and other support staff I come in contact with throughout this academic career. I am especially thankful to for this his school counselor Monroe Austin as well as behavioral specialist Strong Scoffield for consistently going above and beyond to help not only my child but every single child they come in contact with. These individuals aren't just showing up to do their job and go
064home today. They are actively and relentlessly engaging with everyone. They strive to help understand, connect, and improve the educational experience for kids like mine. Kids who 20 or even 10 years ago would have been dismissed as quote bad and left to float along without any support. Because of their due diligence, attention to detail, and willingness to problem solve, my son is now thriving and loving school. If they had not worked as hard as they do, I would have considered homeschooling a long time ago. I would sing their praises for the rooftops for all they do, as I have seen it with my own two eyes. Finally, I would also like to take this time to address those of you who like to comment, and I'm not addressing the people here. It's more the people there
065who love to comment that they don't have the time or energy to volunteer or to be educated about the issues that affect our kids, yet at the same time are quick to judge the board, administrators, and teachers. Please stop. just get out from be behind your computer and spend a few minutes making a phone call, sending an email, showing up to the school, and asking them how you can help rather than complain about things that didn't go your way. Regardless of what changes come out of this today, we will all be needed more than ever. I am sick and tired of answering the same questions about what is going on with the schools, why teachers make the decisions they do, why the budgets were cut. if they would have taken even 30 minutes out of
066their week to read the newsletters, email teachers, and show up to volunteer at PTO events, then they would see how hard they really have it. Instead, they callously wipe their hands and say, "Good luck." to the rest of us. I cannot tell you this has been going on for way too long. If you can take 10 minutes to scroll Facebook and 10 minutes to respond about how upset you are about these cuts taking place, then you can absolutely take 30 minutes to show up and make a difference. Change starts with all of us and now is the time to act. You need to make all of our kids a priority. >> Thank you. >> Um I just I'm going to comment on that. I mean that I just thank you for that cuz you said
067I think where you know all of our hearts are with this right and thank you for being an advocate for the schools and the community cuz I am a silent um member of the moms of a million page just because I have chosen not to engage it has not voted well for me in the past so I just do not um but I follow and I do you know if I see something on there I will mention it but I also see you definitely you know advocating and saying the things and it's everything you said is correct right I There's not a teacher or an administrator here. I think that has not been emotionally invested with our kids and our schools and our community. And I will tell you this has not been easy for
068a single one of them. I mean, just these two sitting right here, the hours that they have put in, you know, to coming up with these decisions that I'm sure has been in the middle of the night on weekends, right? Because I mean, sometimes, trust me, you have not but was I think we've got like a midnight text from you once in a while, you know, with a thought that has come, right? is always there. These are very tough decisions and very much so for the heart of our community and our kids and our schools and not decisions they want to have to make. Right. So, I did appreciate what you said and the the advocacy that you do. >> Yes, I agree. Thank you, Crystal. Um, I did want to highlight a couple points.
069Um, I think it's important like you said for the people to be informed, become informed. I mean, all of us is we're out here this public. we're we have kids in the school district. Also, um I think you brought up a couple good points about um teachers retiring early. I don't I don't know. I think there's some things with the VTA contract and stuff that might not allow them to do that. Um so there's certain certain things as far as cut going after people that are make making more money, hire senior teachers, stuff like that. I don't know. But, you know, I think I think you bring out a lot of great points and um you know, have more people be informed about what is going on, what's happening. Um, next, >> can I make
070a comment too? I also just wanted to highlight you mentioned the b the failure of the bond issue and yes, we were all very much disappointed in that, but I think it's also important to note that this isn't punitive because of the failure of the bond issue. When the bond issue failed, then the reserves that we had that we were using now have to go to pay put a new roof on this high school. And so now our cash reserves, our savings is gone. And now we're stuck trying to figure out how do we make ends meet. So I just wanted to highlight that that is this isn't a punitive thing because it hasn't happened. It's just now we're running out of savings >> because I think, correct me if I'm wrong, Justin, but the
071way this has expedited things essentially, right? I mean, eventually we were going to run into an issue, but now we've had to pull >> seven million dollars essentially out of our general fund to put into a capital improvement to do these things because of that. And so now where we were trying to push it out, push it out, push it out, now it's on our doorstep. >> Correct. What makes things difficult on the school finance side is cash flow. You know, anybody that owns a business understands cash flow. Our lowest cash flow is right now up until we get that first payment of property taxes. And so what what I'm looking at down the road is if we need to pay for a roof and we need to continue on where we're going, what does
072our cash flow look like a year from now? What does our cash flow look like two years from now? And um we're still getting quotes right now for this rooftop. But um that's our biggest concern. That's what made us sell our long-term investments. That's why we're stockpiling as much cash flow as we can right now to hopefully pull off enough to cover uh the roof and then also have enough to make payroll this time next year. Um, next we have Carrie Fire Bear. Carrie Carrie that signed up here. No. Okay. Um, Heather Hearn here. >> Hello. and thank you for the opportunity to speak. Um, my name is Heather Kern and I'm here tonight as a parent, volunteer, and someone who has witnessed firsthand the extraordinary impact their instrumental music program and an assistant director
073for Grace Robson has on the students of this district. I know that these are incredibly difficult decisions. Budgets don't make room for emotion, but schools are built on people, on relationships, and on the adults who shape our kids' lives every single day. And that's why I feel it's important to speak about the assistant band director position today. Our instrumental music program serves more than 150 students at Veron High School. That is not a program that can be effectively supported by a single educator, nor should it be. The assistant director is essential, not optional. She leads sectionals, provides individualized instruction, manages communication, supports rehearsals, handles administrative responsibilities, and keeps a large Europeround program running smoothly, all while doing her duties as a teacher in this building. Cutting this position will directly impact the instruction stability and
074support that our students depend. Beyond the structure and logistics though, this program is deeply personal for so many families, including my own. My children have grown under Grace's guidance in ways that go far beyond music. For my son, Gayen, she has been the difference between shutting down and showing up every single day. There was a day when he was having a panic attack at school and she picked up the phone and called me not to send him home but to say I know how much this matters to him and I want to help him push through it. That kind of compassion and dedication is real and Grace has been a steady positive reassuring presence for him and so many other kids like him. The culture of her band exists in a large part because she
075helped create it. She makes this program a place where students grow, not only as musicians, but as people finding their strength, their voice, and their place in this world. Parents and volunteers are actively investing their time, fundraising, and resources to strengthen our marching pen program. The assistant director role is part of the foundation that makes that investment effective and removing it must create a strain that impacts our students directly, academically, emotionally, and musically. I respectfully ask the Lord to look beyond the light and see the people behind it. To consider the students who are thriving because of our music programs here at Berlin High School. To recognize the mentorship, the stability and the guidance that Grace provides to every single day and welcome to more than 150 young people. This position matters. Grace matters and
076the students that she support every single day matter. So, thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Thank you, Heather. Yeah, these these conversations are tough. They affect people's lives. We we are with you on understand. Um any any comment anything want to add. Okay. Um got Casey, I think it's Is it also heard? Pass. Okay. Cassie, I'm sorry. No. Um, Alexis Web. >> Hi. Um, my name is Eliza Swift. I have a son in the Vermill Vermillion Elementary School. Um, I just wanted to to make the comment that my husband and I um both in our professional roles, we have been in and out of pretty much every school system in Northern Ohio uh for what we do. And when we were settling down and buying a house, we actually chose Vermillion specifically because
077we had been in and out of the schools and we uh saw the impact that the staff was making on the students themselves and we wanted our children to be raised in that environment. Um so even though he is only in elementary school, this is kind of the first we've had to experience this and so I wanted to kind of have that convention back. Um my other than that I just I guess had a question about the budget. Um what if any grant funding has been explored for any of this or like any purchasables or um or what could be helped? >> You want to take that just? >> Yeah, I mean there are um a number of grants that we do apply for and that we do receive. Um the vast majority of them
078are federal grants. However, um there's also the million education foundation does an phenomenal job of doing things to offset our supply budgets to help uh give students more opportunities than they normally would have. Um there's Erie County Foundation grant we receive as well that that uh we also use. Um there's a city froman uh donations that come through that again help. These are all um phenomenal things that that in and grants that provide opportunities for students. Um but but they're nowhere near near dollar amounts that need to offset these types of things. >> I was just curious if there have been any that >> Yeah. Anything else? Yeah. >> Okay. Good. >> Thank you. >> All right. We don't have anybody else's name on here. Is there anybody that we missed that I mispronounced your
079name or um Okay. >> All right. >> Can I just say something really quick? Just from a business perspective, I owned a business in this town for 20 years. And if if my accountant came to me today and said, "We need to go back and you have to run your business today on the money you had 20 years ago, we would be out of business." This is the biggest business in this city. We have more employees employed through this district than any other business in this city. This is a business and it it's hard to look at it like that sometimes because it is so people oriented and I I love the I was in band, I was in choir, I was in sports, I was in all of that and it impacted my life
080immensely. But we are running on money that we ran on 20 years ago. It has not increased. Correct. 20 years. And it is impossible to run a business like that. It hurts. It's hard. And we're doing everything. And I for 10 years I've been on the board and every 5-year forecast from three superintendents and two treasurers now has said the same thing that this is eventually going to get us. And the financial financial burden that the state and local and federal governments are putting on our communities is ridiculous and unconstitutional and it's making it very hard for any district to run as they should be. None of us want to do this and we have all all of us graduated from here. None of us want this to happen. Um, our superintendent, treasure, and administrators
081have done a good job of keeping it as minimal as possible, and we're going to keep working to try to have that minimal. But this is just, you know, I'm so glad you're here to to show your concern and to listen and to learn. But we just we need to really come together and and work on going f, you know, for the future, getting this next levy to pass so we don't have to continue to do this. And it's just I just wanted to say that it's it's hard and it's it's not fun. >> Just piggyback on what Sarah said. I um debated you know whether to share a little story or not but I will tell like so we all have kids in the district. I mean all the board members anyways and so
082you know again not only because of our commitment to this role but because of our personal involvement investment here right it matters and it's affected and so my daughter is one you know that one of the um people on the agenda tonight is important to her right so she came home last night from her basketball practice crying she was so upset because that's when you know the news came out and all of that and she understands thank goodness but you know she said well mom what what happens if you vote No. And I was like, well, that's fair. Okay, I I could. But if we all voted no, then we would be taxed with what do we do then? What what's the alternative? What what's the other solution to keep the school going? And I
083we don't have it right. It's it has been clear as you can see, you know, in this. It's been looked at. Every area has been looked at. And there's not one. And I Yeah, I have a daughter in band at the middle school. You know, I have my oldest who is on the basketball team and this is her, you know, gym teacher from last year and her basketball coach and they make an impact and they develop relationships. They are doing exactly what they are here to do and that is like developing relationships. I mean, that's what it's about, right? That is why Vermillion is what Vermillion is. And I don't think we can understate that value at all. It's so important and this is hard. So, I will just >> Yeah. help us out in
084November. >> Yeah. I mean, in that end of it, >> so to that end, yeah, if we could, you know, we don't want to have to make any more of these decisions. I guess that's where we're at, right? We we do not want to have to do this again. We don't want to do it now, but we don't want to have to do it again. And so, I think November comes when this next, you know, which I don't want to use the wrong verbiage. It's a levy that's coming. It's a fixed sum levy. Um, when that comes on there, we we need the help of the community, right? so that we don't have to. >> Well, the beautiful thing about million is when somebody is in need, how many benefits have we been to it,
085the Germans or you know, this town wraps their hands around their arms around the person in that family and we get through it. So, we really need this town to wrap their arms around this district and we need to make positive impacts and we need to make positive choices and we really we're just going to need everybody's support as we move forward. >> Yeah. And I think we just encourage everyone to keep asking questions, keep getting involved, >> coming to the meetings, please, >> please ask us and share your ideas, share your thoughts. I mean, one thing that I've spent some time the last couple days explaining to others is, you know, well, if enrollment's down, you know, why don't we have enough money? Well, you know, as you know, from, you know, running businesses,
086there are fixed costs and there are variable costs. you know, whether we have, you know, a hundred less students per grade, the cost of actually running this high school is still the same. There are some fixed costs. And so, you know, we need to make sure that we have the funds and the infrastructure here to really support our children. So, I would say just please get involved. Please keep coming to us and asking questions and, you know, we will answer them to the best of our abilities. All right. Yeah. Yep. With that, I recommend a resolution to the board to approve the reduction in force for the 2627 school year for the following uh certified and classified staff as listed. >> I'll second. >> Call the roll, please. Mr. Benson, >> yes. >> Mrs. Steppp,
087>> yes. >> Mrs. Russell, >> yes. >> Mrs. Trice, >> yes. >> Motion approved. 40. The sixth item on the agenda is the dates and location of upcoming board meetings. Meetings will be held in the Berillian High School Commons. Um 12:50 Sanford Street at 6:00 p.m. Unless otherwise noted. Regular meeting Monday, March 9th, 2026. Regular meeting Monday, April 13th, 2026. Regular meeting Monday, May 11th, 2026. Um public participation public participation section of this board of agend board of education agenda is specifically designed for the public to address the board with their compliments, concerns, ideas and/or questions. The board welcomes your comments. If you wish to address the board regarding an issue, the board would remind you two things. First, your comments should be factual and respectful of the rights of others. And second, before coming
088to the board with an issue, you should have first addressed it with the appropriate teacher, staff member, or administrator. This meeting of the board of education and public is for the purpose of conducting school district business. Time allotted is 30 minutes total. Is there anybody that would like to speak about something other than the agenda? I know. Sorry. Let's just All right. Um this the eighth portion is the adjournment. I uh can I get a motion? >> I'll move. >> Second. >> Um, call the role, please, Jess. >> Mr. Benson. >> Uh, yes. >> Mrs. Steppp. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Russell. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Trice. >> Yes. >> Motion approved. 40. The time is 7:12 p.m.