001all right good evening all for a one hour earlier than usual meeting of the Wyoming Board of Education this is our February meeting called to order may I have a roll call Mr J here Mrs Zer yes Mr pm here Mr Thomas here thank you please join me in the pledge I pledge allegiance to the of the United States of America and to the rep for stand may I have a motion to adopt the agenda as it is presented to us move second I will call this iser yes Mr belm yes Thomas yes Mr G yes all right thank you at this time we're at recognition of the public we do not have anyone on the list correct all right then I will move on to committee reports uh belonging in inclusion collaborative had a
002um our last meeting on January 28th and during that meeting we continued our monthly discussion series we uh we had this last meeting it was led by Lori Shriner and El Brown uh and just appreciate them and appreciate all of our all of our Representatives who continue to engage um our staff members and community members in powerful conversations our next meeting is scheduled for actually tomorrow afternoon 4:30 thank you all right and the citizens advisory committee you want to update us we had a meeting we had a meeting we did I didn't show we missed you probably the teams are progressing uh lson without a need for a lot of help so uneventful meeting for our part no but they're progressing to the date where they will do presentations 10 listed those the March meeting
003um we will have it our meeting which going which B yeah so again the two two groups are one best practices for students and staff and utilizing temporary instructional spaces and then two social media um and its impact on students and families and in March the CAC meeting and the board meeting uh it's set up for the temporary instructional spaces study group and in April it's set up those menes are set up for social media yeah great yep great work from the teams uh and again we shifted those back one month because we need just a little bit more time but still we'll make it in time to hear a report before we have to make some really cral decisions yes on the uh place to put our children during the the switch okay the
004district leadership team has not met so I'm going to skip that and go on to facilities I'll start and anyone on our facilities uh Team can can join in again extremely busy time this will always be an extremely busy time with regard to primary facilities susp respectfully um and so we've had a few key events that have happened um one of those was a question and answer session that took place on February 9th and that was with the Friendship United Methodist Church uh and we were we were talking with the church group about the possible use of the church as a temporary School site um many many questions that is not finalized yet and so we were there to answer questions from from the church members another key uh event here was a meeting that
005took place with our primary facilities core team members on February 13th we met with Mike Richley of Richley Architects um and Grill bom brombeck from HGC and the purpose of that meeting was to review all of the critical actions that need to be taken immediately as part of the pre-construction process so there's lots that goes into construction before construction actually happens and so we're we're looking at all of the work that needs to take place between now and the start of construction uh also we did recently have a friendship United Methodist Church neighborhood meeting uh that was on February 20th and what we wanted to do was work with the neighbors that lived around the church to talk about what our preliminary plans would were um how we would address any potential impact on um
006neighboring residents and so that was a helpful meeting and the the last thing I was going to share is actually happening tonight several of our primary facility Court team members are going to be going to the Wyoming Planning Commission meeting that's tonight at 7 o'clock again to share temporary schools based plans the preliminary plans foro used the use of friendship um and that's part of the plan process did you have a good turn over turnout for the Neighbors yeah 28 28 okay that is good yeah good good good okay thank you any okay uh policy review I'm gonna skip it because we are in the middle of a first read and when we get to it we'll talk about that then no happy to do it or if you like you don't mind oh take
007it uh we had our meeting on February 4th um off schedule a little because we um pivot to look at the income tax collection when the income tax comes at the end of of January that's why we didn't have our regular meeting at the um before the January board meeting so um uh change the date to look at income tax but we started with the salary benefit analytics something that we do as a regular rhythm again with 80% of your expenditures are related to salary and benefits it's something that we look at every meeting just um to make sure we're on track and there are no variances and the reports uh we did review the January income tax payment we had a strong and healthy collection this quarter and so we had had two that
008uh weren't so strong and healthy so rebounded a bit and so we were excited to see that um still uh right on Trend expected to to come in right around um you know a 1% increase from last year just as a reminder I thought your forecast includes a 3% forecasted increase we modified that down a little bit this year after we saw those first two quarterly ctions that were not strong um but that this last do it so we're hoping to come in right on forecast at um at approximately 1% uh we took a look at tax rates um uh tax bills have all gone out and uh hopefully people are paying their taxes property taxes so we talked about about uh tax rates with um of course our um the passage of our primary
009facilities bond issue so we looked at the new bond issue coming off coming on and the high school paid off debt rolling off off and so that worked exactly as we had intended it to work and and also looked at the tax rates and just made sure that all of that aligned with how we expected it to look and it does um so that was good we also spent quite a bit of time looking at something called the cup report which is a benchmarking report that's published by the state and is released about this time every year uh they release data that um uh you can compare any public school against any other uh public school in the state so it's nice to identify some of those benchmarks I think there maybe about I don't
010know between 30 and 40 line items on the report where you can pull up your school district and then uh we just identified three of our peers you can just drop them right down from the menu and so we looked at our data compared to maira and Marmont and Indian Hill which are three school districts that um you know in this in Southwest Ohio high performing that we often get questions about art performance related to so we looked at all of those benchmarks and just just to build understanding and how that helps us understand our own finances and uh how they relate to some of those other communities because we often get questions at that um that was also the topic of a finance Friday a few weeks ago so I released the cup report
011out there with those Benchmark districts on the report so if you have questions about that you could always pull that up and take a peek um we reviewed um from our primary facilities perspective we just did kind of a quick quick update on uh bond issue planning we are on track to issue the bonds in March uh we're nearly complete with the official statement which is the offering document that um that goes before the bonds are issued and then um we had Moody down for uh our ratings meeting not last Friday but the Friday before so normally uh school district will travel up to Chicago and and have a meeting with the rating team you're required to get an updated rating it's it's like um just like your credit number if you're going to uh
012buy a mortgage and you have to have an updated credit number this is how uh we they assess our risk and so a government debt is issued as rated by either moody or standard and fors we are rated by Moody School District of L and travel to Columbus do the rating presentation but we thought it would be awesome to have them come down here and so we had the analysts here in Wyoming they ate at gabes we took them on a bus tour of Wyoming uh they had a wonderful experience they were lovely spent a couple hours uh in this room learning all about how wonderful Wyoming is Genie represented the board and the districts very well Tim did an incredible job it was wonderful to have them here in the room and actually just
013hot off the press we we got uh today about 5:30 they have affirmed our double A2 rating which is um means that we have really great credit so so that's uh fantastic um uh it's just it's part of the process and uh you got to have a credit rating before you can go and actually issue the bond so it's an important part of the step and that we're progressing through all of those steps so can check that box uh we are moving towards pricing on March 13 you want to buy the bonds just know that March 13th is the day to look for them with your investment adviser and then we talked a little about the state bium budget uh the state budgets in two-year banum we're coming off of one working into another one
014that will be 25 26 26 and 27 and we saw uh right before the meeting the governor rolled out his version of the BM budget it's a it's a long process so the governor rolls out his version the state I mean the house rolls out their version the Senate rolls out their version and then through conference committee all this gets resolved and a budget gets signed by the governor ideally by when the new fiscal year starts on July 1st I've been saying for many years with regard to our state funding we've been on the guarantee since 2019 we haven't seen any increase in state funding at about 5.8 5.9 million do and and you've heard me say that our job our advocacy is to hang on to what we have and so um the governor's
015budget would reduce funding to Wyoming City schools in both years of the bayum by about $300,000 each year so um you've heard me talk about this in the new school funding formula we are not winners we haven't been we won't be all of the metrics that actually rate US very favorably with Moody High income High property values those are things that were're penalized for in the school funding formula so when the state deems you more wealthy in the funding formula components they want to send you less so that what for us and so we've been fortunate to Advocate and hang on to this guaranteed amount and that's where our advoc advocacy needs to continue to be through this dium so got a long way to go very early again we've only seen the governor's version
016of the budget the house will happen next then the Senate and uh so we'll continue to evaluate their versions of the budget as they're released and and how not just how public how Wyoming shakes out but public schools in general you know in this version public schools are getting less nonpublic vouchers they're all seeing significant increases and Ohio um Public Schools educate um about 85% of of students in Ohio and so 85% of our students are not going to see an overall increase in the budget but I those other those other educational institutions that receive state funding are are receiving increases and so um you know with no accountability no elected people from a public school advocacy perspective continues to be very frustrating and uh that will continue to be our battle have we tended
017to see you mentioned this the house and the Senate budget is coming we tended to see that this Governor's budget in particular is more more or less favorable than theirs relative to school funding or is it say it's less favorable towards Public Schools than it ever has been before normally it has normally the the governor's budget has been better um there are some there are some other issues that are part of his budget that are impacting the reductions of public school funding across Ohio not just Wyoming there's a significant tax cut and so the rhetoric coming out of the governor's budget is that they can't afford to fund more money the public schools because they're cut taxes because they're cut they're going to cut income taxes true yeah the issue is that they will also
018tell you that they hear from families across Ohio that property taxes are high they are not hearing from families across Ohio that income tax is high so I we made CH and I went to a legislative meeting on Friday and we made sure to point out that um any reduction in state funding to Public Schools would end up resulting in higher property taxes because you know we continue to have demands from our communities we continue to believe in the instructional programming that we're offering and um nobody wants to make any of those reductions so cuts from the state would require higher property taxes there's no magic that we can do to just absorb that yeah so but as the others come out part of the challenge will be it might get worse yeah staying asid
019as the starting point is okay yeah what is the point in getting rid of the guarantee but so from if you you watch the governor's if you read anything about the governor's proposal he he's sort of hanging his head on the fact that the guarantee is about enrollments and he doesn't want to fund empty desks if I'm saying that right you guys remember sort of reading that um ours you know we've have remarkably stable enrollment we talk about enrollment a lot as a board and a lot of our board meetings you know we've been you know plus or minus 2,000 students forever and that's what our forecast our enrollment forecast says as well um our our portion on the guarantee is is is about as as our property values and income went higher in the
020new formula we the formula generated less money for us and so they put us on the guarantee it is irregardless of our number of students so rather our number of students went up or down it wouldn't have mattered because those other factors were weighing more heavily in the formula uh it goes back to the implementation of the fair School planing formula Wyoming is not wi and in the model correct we so well well his argument is that most school districts are on the guarantee because of enrollment that's not the current situation in fact the last time that they tried to make a modification to the guarantee they had a kind of a buffer that your enrollment had to change greater than 5% in order to to go down more than 5% in order to lose
021some of your guaranteed money our enrollment the most ex changed is 1.8 which is nothing in the whole grand scheme of things you know it's you know a few kids for a grade level which doesn't change our staffing it doesn't change the materials we buy doesn't change our program I mean you have to lose many many many kids in order to reduce your Staffing and change your programming reduce the supplies and that's just not where we are so ours is not about enrollment it's about how we don't fall well into the metrics of the formula it's not that's not a helpful answer it's not a logical answer but it is the answer it is the truth no it is the truth it's just that in order to hit the the the bottom as some people
022have we're HB 920 no longer plays a role we would have to do some destructive things to our district correct correct so that's really not an option it's not an option so the guarantee has always been that one thing you could kind of hang in there and and now with that gone now we're looking at taxation I mean I how else that is accurate yeah any reduction in state funding with result then our next operating Levy being higher that's the reality of it or a reduction of Staffing and programming which I know that we don't believe where the rural schools they have not had they they've not been through the ringers quite yet correct are they they not impacted by vouches for the most part they private school in SE so they haven't felt what
023we suburban and certainly with the for the record we aren't losing students to vouchers either I mean we look at that every year in our enrollment it's not that's not something that's happening to Wyoming City Schools um but from a state perspective so not only is the St is the governor saying the state will have less money because of a projected or an Ask of an income tax cut but we know and we acknowledge that they're sending a billion dollars in doors so that you can't ignore that no and it's it was a billion last year and yeah might be 1.5 billion by the next year so 1 billion going to 20 or 10% of the children in this District I mean in this state who with no accountabil attached attach all right all the
024good news I got for today sorry I think John didn't want to give we did we're we're we we will have to come to some idea some plan and we will have to go to the community because this is it will it will be a death no we will have to will be asking the community for some support and advocacy it just um we need to wait and maybe see what the House's version looks like and that will give us a better idea of you know where things really are shaking out in the legislature um and that will help us or representative hin is such a fond he's so fond of public schools I'm sure he'll work for our not no so this question though from earlier do you find that it often changes in
025the house or has consisteny of Chang in my Ming though you're like as it goes on it's just going to get worse not better it changes it changes all the time and again I if you've listen to me talk about this and I know I wear you guys out with this but I I talk about March we often talk about March March Madness in terms of basketball March Madness during the bium is just that it's Madness you'll see a print out in the inqu one day where we might be increasing 500,000 the next day you'll be losing 200,000 like and it change changes that fast so um that's why you kind of have to let it shake out a little bit and uh and kind of settle and and start to get um work with
026our lobbyists and our our um educational associations the superintendents the treasurers the Schoolboard folks and who were up in Columbus in these caucus meetings every day they can help us with what they're hearing and they can they can sort of point us in the right direction in terms of how things really tend to shake out and then we can get organized and ask support whether that's letter writing it's emails all of that is very effective we we' have been off to testify before we might need to do that again all right thank you we will go on to the Board of Education report which is the policies that we had a first read of last month um we kind of went into detail then is there I have received no questions are we good to
027go then may I have a motion to approve the uh Board of Education report I'm sorry there is okay then let's let's uh the second item is the resolution authorizing um our membership in the Ohio High School Athletic Association I think you all got a copy of that is there anything you want to add no just that that allows our students to participate in on all of programming and and that's been really important when you think about our swim team wrestlers and and basketball players who have been we can't play that's right so back to abing the Board of Education report may I have a motion to do so still moved second uh roll call Mr FM yes Mr Thomas yes Mr G yes Mr ther yes thank you okay now we're ready for more
028good news from Mrs Johnson none of this is bad item a approval of the minutes from January 27th the regular meeting and the planning meeting of February 11th Item B approve the statement of revenues and and expenditures for month end January 31st this part's actually really great item C accept with appreciation that wonderful list of donations absolutely an incredible list this month L from the foundation wonderful from PSA remember PSA approved that allocation for the year and then we spend those funds and then they reimburse them for that so we'll see those numbers three times a year um boosters is huge yeah boers yeah it's a wonderful L and then item d uh the pration adjustments for the month of February and item e approval of the report please all right may I have a
029motion to approve that report so move second any have the roll call Mr FM yes Mr Thomas yes Mr G yes Mrs yeah thank you all right thank you all right now we are ready for a superintendent okay have uh several Personnel items number one is a recommendation to approve a resignation for the purpose of retirement and this is for June grub uh June is our emis coordinator and if you don't know anything about emis emis is everything data everything get that gets reported to the state uh so it's critical information and June has done a phenomenal job with within this role she came to us in 2020 and we wish her the very best and um and so that'll be a position that we'll be posting and uh and looking for a new coordinator
030uh but super excited for Jim number two is a recommendation to approve an appointment to the for the director of pupil services and I I'd like to talk for about this just for a brief moment um I am excited to be in a position where we're able to recommend an appointment for for this role as you know it's a it's a critical role in The District uh we have done a great deal of listening to to our parents to our staff numbers over the last several years about the the role that this uh this IND individual plays in The District we've actually formalized a lot of feedback that we've heard through an audit of our intervention or special education services um and just have done a lot of personal thought and reflection on this position
031and had many many follow-up conversations with again with families with community members with with our staff about this role and in in those conversations we've really you know come to the conclusion that number one has got to be an individual who understands and knows students staff and and families within our community and number two we talked about the fact that this has to be a person who can build a vision develop tangible plans for for staff members and for families to be able to follow provide high levels of training for staff and for families um have the ability to coach to celebrate and to hold people accountable for the work that's happening here in the district and also have an ability to engage staff and families not only through WR communication but also through face-to-face
032communication and so all of all of the work that's been done to think about the the critical attributes of that role where we where we've come to is is excitement in the fact that we have someone in this District who can live up to the challenge of everything that that that position calls for and so I am super excited to to be here tonight to recommend the appointment of Dr Gina kersner who's with us today um for the role of the director of pil Services you know Gina has an incredible knowledge of of intervention an incredible knowledge of instruction in general um she is an incredible leader and AD advocate for kids um and you know we say it all the time that there's no better way to say it Gina is a developer of
033systems and that's critical in in this role um she's skilled and engaging staff and families within the work um and again like I said she has this awesome knowledge of of intervention and instruction in general I am particularly excited about the leadership that she has provided at the primary level and what that leadership will mean to students to staff and to families on a much grander scale p12 um and I'm excited for that work to happen right away so that's that's number two that's that's a lot but I wanted to go into dep thank you because we we've thought so critically about that about about that role and um and we'll get j a chance to to speak here a bit but I wanted to to share that background um if you continue down with
034the agenda number three is a recommendation to approve several athletic supplemental contracts those are all for spring supplementals number four is a recommendation for a pay adjustment and this is because a staff member was teaching an extra Bell and that extra Bell ended on January 30th of this year number five is a recommendation to approve these are all camps you can see football fun Camp Wyoming volleyball camp and wrestling camp all great opportunities for students uh and number six is a recommendation to approve an overnight field trip another great experience for students and this is the DECA program this is in Columbus and then two other items Item B is a recommendation to renew a student Club that's the Colson Cowboys mentorship program that is created to support students who are new to W high
035school it's been a great success and then C is a recommendation to approve a name change for a course you can see it is changing the course name from integrated composition and that's for juniors and seniors to college prep integrated composition and that's just to fall in line with the naving conventions of all of the courses I questions I I know you did in in terms of of our people Personnel um position I know you did incredible amount of work and thinking and and I thank you as well as our assistant superintendent for the amount of of time and thinking you put into this and and where we where we need to go in terms of building our our programs for for kids yeah it it was interesting too to there were so many people
036who who came to me to say gosh when I when I look at the job description or when I hear of the the conversations around focus groups um so many people said you're you're defining J first you're defining her in that role I just have to to kind of listen and and and it was powerful to hear very powerful to hear yeah thank you may have a motion to approve the superintendent's report have a call Mr Thomas yes Mr G yes Mrs yes M yes all right thank you uh Gina what we normally do at this time is uh open up the floor it's all yours I mean normally this is where we tell you where the coffee shop is and you know what to do but you're ahead of us on all that as
037well I mean really I just I'm so humbled to hear um that that very kind feedback and um you know I I've got um I have a lot of of years invested in Wyoming um four years as a principal um but certainly four years as a teacher as well and um there are many many many children and families and and certainly our staff that are very near and dear to my heart um I care deeply about all of all of you and and and this whole community and and just absolutely so excited um and U just really honored to have you trust me with with this new opportunity um and I'm really committed to continuing to do great work for kids so thank you very much thank you very much all right thank you and
038now we have a another superintendent report yeah one more additional Personnel item and this is a recommendation for an athletic supplemental contract and this is for the middle school boys tennis coach all right may have a motion to approve so moved second I have a second second sorry I thought you were say second I know okay and a roll call Mrs she yes Mrs ER Odin Mr falme yes Mr Thomas yes thank you all right thank you the superintendent's update just just a few things to to mention um I know we do things differently and and aren't talking about community events sometimes in in as a as a standalone so I thought it was really important to just say congratulations and thank you to the Wyoming high school students for their Black History Month um
039celebration and learning experience it was awesome um they did a great job you want to talk about the content of you a little bit I think it was focused on um black history and the role of black artists and music yeah yeah super engaging yeah it's great great celebration so that was phenomenal um the uh next item again just to continue our focus on primary facilities we will be soon reaching out to community members to share an important engagement opportunity March 6 and we're going to be having our first of many design uh Community forums and so we're going to be talking specifically about the the hilltop design um but in the information that goes to homes you'll see whole layout of what the entire process is going to look like all the different opportunities
040are going to be coming up but it's going to begin the next session of community engagement and that's a really exciting uh exciting process again that's uh March 6 and be on the lookout for that I think we might be sending some email communication before that even gets to homes um so that was important and then I just want to say thank you to our maintenance team and our entire Elementary staff our primary staff at Elm School um we had a a pipe burst in one of the classrooms yesterday and um so we we got the whole the whole system worked well um that was a problem in the in the primary school the fire department reached out an alarm went off we got to the school we shut the water off our maintenance team
041came in um contacted Rhonda work through the the proper protocols and our maintenance team and Gina and entire Elementary crew worked to create plans for today we had students come in today and um and they navigated their their day around some of these things there was a quick remediation of the of the problem and I think actually all of the equipment is going to be taken out tomorrow looks like um our third and fourth grade students were working in the the library and in the gym and they did a phenomenal job and and they called it um it was um so it was almost like was a national holiday ago with the flow day and of course you know me I got a selfie with the with the kids this morning but just an exceptional
042job um we we talk about our Factor right um we can't control the events that come into our into our lives we can only control our response to get the best outcome that we can that we can possibly imagine and that's what happened at uh at Elm and really throughout the district so kudos to to everyone involved yep any other comments they have plenty of time to make their meeting who's got something else to say please all right well I guess in that case may I have a motion to a j don't Mrs yeah Mr F yes Mr Thomas yeah yes thank you