001All right. Good evening and welcome to the regular meeting of the Vermillion Local Schools Board of Education, Monday, August 11th, 2025. Uh, this is a meeting of the Ver Vermillion 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 a time for public participation during the meeting as indicated on the agenda. Vermillion board bylaw 0169.1. Call the role, please. >> Mrs. >> here. >> Mr. Benson, >> here. >> Mr. Habermill >> here. >> Mrs. Stepp >> here. >> Mrs. Russell >> here. >> All members present. >> Okay. Please rise and join us with us. >> Got two new two flags on the side, too. >> Wherever you want to go. >> That's good. >> All right. I pledge allegiance
002to 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. >> Thank you for those. >> Y makes it nicer. >> All right. Item four, legislative report. >> So, there's been like little to no activity since the last time we had a meeting. There was like maybe one session and what I read from it was like pretty much nothing new. They're still working through the the vetos and then the overturns of the vetos and so Okay. >> Um I really don't have anything to report. >> Okay. Thank you, Chris. Item five, public participation on agenda items only. I've got uh Kate and Veronica. Is that is that on based on something on the agenda or is that something
003different? We got we have two publications. >> Okay. I just want to make sure. Okay. >> And on down. Item six, superintendent report. Dr. Hy. >> Yeah. So, we get to meet our new teachers. >> Uh, so if you come forward when I uh call your name and uh let the board um get a get to put a name with a face, that would be appreciative. Uh just come up in front of the lectern. Uh Jess Benson. Jess is going to uh It says sixth and seventh on here, >> right? >> Yes. >> Yeah. sixth and seventh grade science and social studies. Um Cassie Brunau is going to be a VHS intervention specialist. Ashley Carlo, VHS integrated math. Brooke Meyer uh is going to be at the middle school intervention specialist. Sarah Moore is going
004to be an inter specialist at the middle school as well. Megan Murphy is going to be a fifth grade English language arts teacher. CC Rich is going to be one of our two counselors at the middle school. Emily Rich is going to be an SMS intervention specialist. Angela Sansenbacher, VS Vocal Music. And last but not least, Sawyer Schaefer is going to be a first grade teacher. These are all of our new teachers. These are our board members. >> Welcome to Congratulations. >> Yes. >> Thank you. [Applause] And then uh under B is um the second reading for the changes to a couple of policies. One is the evaluation for the superintendent. The other was evaluation for the treasurer. >> I'll move. >> I'll second. >> Call the RO, please. >> Mrs. Inennis, >> yes. >>
005Mr. Benson, >> yes. >> Mr. Mr. Habermill. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Steppp. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Russell. >> Yes. >> Motion approved. 5-0. >> That's all you got. >> Thank you. On to item seven, the treasures report. Um, Justin, >> thank you. Uh, recommend resolution for the board to approve the financial report for July 2025. That's attachment B. >> Move. >> Second. >> Okay. All right. So looking at our general fund um through the month of July, the district received 4.9 million in general fund revenue compared to 5.3 at this time last year and 4.8 million in fiscal year 24. Uh the district receives tax advances in the month of July and it's on pace to collect its historical average revenue. Moving on to food service revenue through the month of July. Uh the district
006received a whopping uh $1,300 in food service compared though to3 $739 last year and $188 uh the summer of 24. Food service should continue to collect its historical average return once students are back in school. And then looking at all funds through revenue or from revenue standpoint through the month of July, the district received 4.9 million in all funds compared to 5.4 at this time last year and 4.8 in fiscal year 24. On the expenditure side of things, looking at the general fund through the month of July, uh we expended 2.8 million from the general fund compared to 2.5 at this time last year and 2.6 in fiscal year 24. Uh the district can expect to spend slightly more this year than it did last year. And down below is a historical cost by category.
007You can see our salaries are right in line uh slightly lower than they were at this time last year. Uh insurance and retirement again right in line slightly higher uh than last year. purchase services a little bit higher, supplies a little bit higher. Uh Capital Outlay is the larger one that you see there, that's for the buses that we bought. We bought these buses back in October. It just took until last week for them to be delivered. So, because we bought them last year, uh we couldn't write a check though until this fiscal year. They're showing up this fiscal year. Uh so again, there's your breakdown of your 2.8 million compared to your 2.5 to your 2.68. Um, looking at food service expenditures through the month of July, we've expended $54,000 compared to 36,000 last
008year and 40,000 in fiscal year 24. And when we look at all funds, uh, through the month of July, we've expended $3 million from all funds compared to 2.6 million at this time last year and 2.8 in fiscal year 24. And then looking at the cash side of things, uh general fund through the month of July, we have a total of 11 million in cash compared to 19.1 at this time last year and 19.5 in fiscal year 24. Again, the big decrease in cash is we had to make that transfer to the capital projects fund last year for this roof and other things. Um on the food service side through the month of July we have a total of 171,000 in cash compared to 368,000 last year and 376,000 in fiscal year 24. Uh the
009reason you're seeing the decrease again um cost of labor but more importantly just the cost of food has really gone up in price. Um and then when we're looking at all of our cash through the month of July we have a total of 21.6 million in all cash uh compared to 22.4 in fiscal year 25 and 23.8 8 in fiscal year 25, I'm sorry, in 24. And then if you look to the next page, cash by fund, um there's the breakdown of the 21.589 million. If you look, our largest fund is our general fund, followed by our capital projects fund, which has 7.6 million in it, followed by our scholarship fund with 1.8 million, and then our our fourth largest fund is our library bond. Again, it's not our money. It's the money we use
010to pay the debt on the on the library for just over half a million dollars. [Applause] Um, and the last thing is on the investment side. Uh, through the month of July, we've earned a total of $50,31445 in interest compared to last year at this time, which was $67,188.73. Uh, it's a difference of $16,874.7373, which is 25% less uh this July compared to last July. Can I ask a question? >> Yeah. On the cash by fund page, We're in the very beginning of the fiscal year. The staff manage athletic funds. Why are they negative? >> So the athletic fund um when we give them a budget, that budget is we bring them to zero at the end of the of last year and so we give them a budget this year. Uh they've spent this
011much money out of their budget this year so far and then we don't collect any revenue to offset this from our gates until we start having football and everything else. >> All right, makes sense. Mhm. Any questions? Call the RO, please. >> Mrs. Inennis, >> yes. >> Mr. Benson, >> yes. >> Mr. Habermill, >> yes. >> Mrs. Steppp, >> yes. >> Mrs. Russell, >> yes. >> Motion approved. 50-0. B. Recommend a resolution for the board to formally recognize district support organizations per per board policy 9211. Uh, Sailor Middle School's PTO, Vermillion Elementary School PTO, FFA, and the Vermillion Band Boosters. >> I'll second. >> Any questions? Call the RO, please. >> Mrs. Inennis, >> yes. >> Mr. Benson, >> yes. >> Mr. Habermill, >> yes. >> Mrs. Steppp, >> yes. >> Mrs. Russell, >> yes.
012>> Motion approved. 50 C. Recommend a resolution for the board to approve the then and now invoice of $3,781 to James Zupka, CPA. Uh, attachment C. >> I'll second. >> So, this is actually an invoice from our auditors that uh they didn't send to me and so I just got it and because it's over the $3,000 threshold, I'm unable to approve it without your authorization. >> But you agree with it, right? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. It was for work they did that just I don't see the billing until they're complete with their audit and they never build me the last portion of their audit. >> Okay. >> Gotcha. >> All right. Call the roll, please. >> Mrs. Inennis, >> yes. >> Mr. Benson, >> yes. >> Mr. Abram, >> yes. >> Mrs. Steppp,
013>> yes. >> Mrs. Russell, >> yes. >> Motion approved 5-0. >> And D, recommend a resolution to approve the permanent appropriations for fiscal year 26. Attachment D. >> I'll move. I'll mark I'll second >> uh just a couple changes from the temporary appropriations that we did. Um on the first page there is the certificate of estimated resources. That did not change from the original estimate that we did in July. Uh what did change is the second page here, the August appropriations. What I did is I just originally I just put those in there uh as placeholders. Once I insert all the budgets for fiscal year 26, I match our appropriations to equal exactly what our budgets are. You can see the changes there from July to August. The main difference is a little um 3.2
014million more for general fund. Um a little bit more of a budget in there, 198,000 in food service. And at the time we did we were just throwing in estimates for our federal funding. All of our federal funds have been released and those are the amounts in the August appropriation side. Okay. Any questions? Call the role, please. >> Mrs. Inennis, >> yes. >> Mr. Benson, >> yes. >> Mr. Habermill, >> yes. >> Mrs. Steppp, >> yes. >> Mrs. Russell, >> yes. >> Motion approved. 5-0. >> Thank you, Justin. >> Thank you. >> Item eight, consent agenda. The superintendent and treasurer recommend that the board of education approve the consent agenda items. Action by the board of education and adoption of the consent agenda means that all items are adopted by one vote unless a member
015of the board, the treasurer or the superintendent requests that any such item be removed from the consent agenda and voted on separately. A. Approve the minutes of the July 14th, 2025 regular meeting. B. Recommend a resolution for the board to approve the memorand memorandum of understanding for the school year with new story schools for special education services at $6,50 per month. C. Recommend a resolution for the board to approve the CCP new course incentive payments, which is a new initiative introduced in Ohio's bienium budget, House Bill 33, to Devin Snook and Christine Reynolds. once the district is reimbured from the DEW. D. Recommend a resolution to the board to approve the 202526 contract with Ohio substitute teacher services. E. Approve the employment action. Resignation. Kleta Herpa, bus driver. Leave of absence. Lisa Rose, bus driver.
016F. Approve the one-year classified limited contract for the 202526 school year to the following as listed. G. Approve additional hours and training for classified staff for Aiden Gachel and Bradford Huntley. H. Approve the one-year certified teacher contract for the 202526 school year to Megan Murphy. I approve the special rate project of 30 $34 per hour for new teacher orientation August 11th to August 14th, 2025 to the following. Megan Murphy J. Approve the extended service contract from August 1st, 2025 to May 31st, 2026 at the PDM rate to Brooks Baffford up to 200 additional hours. K. Approve the one-year additional duties contract for the 202526 school year to the following as listed. L approve the one-year non-eing supplemental contracts for the 202526 uh to the following as listed. M approve the additional four hours on August
01720 20th 2025 for the following vees educational aids as listed. O approve the additional 3 hours on August 20th 2025 for the following SMS educational aids as listed. Any items to be removed from the consent agenda? >> I just have a a clerical error. Um, under L, Tony Budka, co-s SMS seventh grade head football coach should be level 16 and not level 13 >> for both lines or just one just seventh grade. >> Anything else? >> Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? I'll >> move. I'll second. Okay. Call the role, please. >> Mrs. Inennis, >> yes. >> Mr. Benson, >> yes. >> Mr. Habermill, >> yes. >> Mrs. Steppp, >> yes. >> Mrs. Russell, >> yes. >> Motion approved. 5-0. >> Item nine, dates and location of upcoming board meetings.
018Meetings will be held in the Vermillion High School Commons, 1250 Sanford Street, Vermillion, at 6 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Regular meeting of Monday, September 8th, 2025. regular meeting of Monday, October 13, 2025 and regular meeting of Monday, November 10th, 2025. And item 10, public participation. Now, Kate and Veronica, if you'll come to the podium, make sure you state your name, please, and your address. >> Hi, my name is Catherine Shu, or Kanis. Um, we both live at 13001 Cherry Road. Uh, Veronica Gart is going into 8th grade here. Um, I have I'm going to break up my comments and let her speak in the middle. Um, so I'm here to speak about an issue that I learned about last year at Sailor Middle School. Um, last year multiple children were harassed and bullied and called
019slurs. I was appalled and I talked to the mom that was involved and urged her to take action. And when that action uh didn't result in anything really being done or it abading, uh she moved her her children uh out of the school. Um they were using the n-word uh towards her kids and um my child and others have also heard slurs about um uh people assuming um their orientation and also um other slurs that uh that they've been experiencing. um those two children are going to come back into the school system um due to uh the school that they were going to not having the bus situation. um she doesn't want to come back and I build for her. But I'm hoping to ask the board and the schools um as we have a
020new principal um to maybe take issue uh take this issue to heart and really bring like a better uh environment and really strive that we're not having um kids use these slurs um in like using it like sport towards kids. It's just not appropriate. Um, so I hope that that better culture and hope can grow. Uh, Veronica wanted to come today to speak about her experience and I'm going to give her another minute or so here to just briefly talk about what she experienced. Go ahead. >> So I've experienced and overheard multiple things the nword multiple unders being used very often and none action taken. There was some, but not position that should have been. Um, and a lot of people just don't care about what the other thinks or what the other feelings are.
021Um, and a lot of people just don't like each other or they think it's fun to um call people names or just make fun of them in general. So that brings me to my next point and I have been up here before speaking against um the next program that claims that it wants to do moral character. Um I recently found out that only 24% of the revenue um that that program brings in actually goes towards the kids out of 35 million. Um and yes, we're going to have to deal with it. And yes, it's parent choice. Um I I feel bad that the the threat of lawsuits, thankfully that part is gone now, but they've added into the state budget um taking away again your guys' local control of what we voted for um to
022expand the amount of time that LifeWise can have or any RTRI program can have. Um, and uh, I just hope I'm asking again that you maybe reconsider um, at least asking for the certification of what type of background checks are done um, if it's procreing or BCI or just asking for basically keeping a standard. I know that that causes possible uh, entanglement and I do understand that. But I really do think having that kind of transparency will give um some of us in the community uh a little bit of uh peace of mind um because I know that if you don't force it, the program doesn't change unless action is taken upon it. Thank you. >> Speak to that. >> The lifewise piece. >> Um yeah, we we've talked about this before, right, Kate? And
023uh you know the legal advice that we've taken is that if if we get entangled with that then when something hap when something does happen then we have liability for it and um you know we just it really doesn't make sense for us to accept the liability for a program that's been forced upon us by the state legislature. The other thing that and I for forgot to add that part in um is uh they did change the state law to now enforce that recruitment efforts can happen on school grounds. Um is is there anything I know that that that's now state law, but is there anything that we can do to reduce the amount of bullying that is possibly going to come? We're just going to have to see, you know, kind of deal with
024it as it h if it happens and and when it happens and uh if it's happening within our school when the students are there, we will deal with it like we would any other time. >> Um if it's happening when they're with the LifeWise people, you know, they really have the responsibility to deal with those problems themselves. >> The main thing I'm worrying about is when the kids come back with their recruitment papers because they're getting promised ice cream or pizza parties and kids are getting told, "No, I can't because my parents don't like this." and then they get told that they're going to help and that has happened repeatedly throughout um the I think they're claiming they have up to a thousand schools now. So >> yeah, if those things happen in our schools,
025we will deal with it appropriately. >> Okay. Okay. >> I'm I'm hoping for a better culture here at the high school. So >> can I make a comment? >> So first of all, Veronica, good job. >> It's not easy to get up in front and talk of people and you did great. >> That's what I was going to say. Um, secondly, and and for both of you or anybody, you know, it's it's not easy when you're on the wrong end of that type of talk, right? So, always encourage people, your friends, encourage them to go talk to an administrator, talk to somebody and make sure that people know about it cuz sometimes you think people know about it and maybe they don't. you know, I I see our SMS principal in the audience and and
026I know we have a new principal here and I really feel confident that they would be interested in helping to correct anything that's wrong. So, good job though. >> Yeah, I'm very proud of you for stepping up and please always feel free to come and talk to any of us or your principles or teachers. I I really am proud of you. >> I agree. Thank you, Brent. >> And they will listen to you. >> Yep. and they and none of us want those things happening in our schools and and we want to have that positive culture where kids are getting along, the adults are getting along with the students, we have great relationships and and so we we can only do that if we hold people to a standard. So, but sometimes we don't know
027about these things as as Mr. Herman was saying, the students know these things. They see it. They live it every day and and sometimes they think it's obvious to the adults in the building and a lot of times it's not. So be be willing to step up to someone that you trust in the building and tell them. Okay. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> On to item 11, adjournment to executive session pursuant to Ohio Revised Code section 121.22. I hereby move that the board adjourn to executive session to consider the appointment, employment, dismissal, discipline, promotion, demotion, or compensation of a public employee. I'll move. >> I'll second. >> Call the role, please. >> Mrs. Inennis, >> yes. >> Mr. Benson, >> yes. >> Mr. Habermill, >> yes. >> Mrs. Steppp,
028>> yes. >> Mrs. Russell, >> yes. >> Motion approved. 5-0. And the time is 6:24 p.m. >> Are you ready? >> All right. Motion to move. I'll second. or favor. >> Mis, >> yes. >> Mr. Benson, >> yes. >> Mr. Herman, >> yes. >> Mr. Ste, >> yes. >> Mr. Russell, >> yes. Motion approved. The time is 7:48.