001Stand for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Good morning and welcome to the Hamilton City School Board meeting. U Mr. Fraser, if you can call the role, please. >> Miss Matthews >> here. Dr. Hopkins >> here. >> Mr. Davidson >> here. >> Dr. Copus >> here. >> Miss Manuso >> here. >> Um, next on our agenda, um, city council. I don't see anyone from city council, so I'll turn it over to our superintendent, Miss Andrea Blevens. Good morning, uh, President Matthews and, uh, school board. I thought I'd come up here this morning. As we know, this is a big day, uh, for Hamilton City Schools. Um, as
002we've been over the last few months talking about how to manage a growing deficit here in the district, uh, caused by factors both at the state level, uh, with reduced funding in the for foundational formula as well as property reform that has created a real, uh, issue here in Hamilton where we are deficit spending this year with next year's deficit spend grows to over $10 million. And so, uh, our board has been engaged in a number of conversations on how to address this. We have held a number of community forums, met with different agencies to let them know what is going on, to gather input. Um, I think it's really important to share that this is with a heavy heart today. None of these items that we are going to talk about are things that
003we want to do. But unfortunately, our budget is out of balance and we have to address these for the 2627 school year in order to ensure that we have a quality school district for every student, staff, and community member here in the city of Hamilton. Um, and so we'll go ahead and get started. And I will tell you, I'm emotional at this because this is our team. Um, no one wants to be in this situation. However, I do believe when you see this plan and you walk through this, the amount of care and concern and priority that has been spent to ensure that who Big Blue is, who we are, the quality product that we provide will continue to maintain even though we face these situations. So, I first just want to start here by
004showing uh in October, Mr. Frasier started us down this course with our updated form forecast. Uh, in that forecast, it references those dollars that I was speaking to. This year, we are on target to spend a deficit. We're going to overspend by almost $5 million, 4.7 million. Next year, you can see that that is forecasted to be over 9 million. It is important to note that in that 9 million of a uh projection, there is already about a $1.2 million reduction baked into that through attrition. And so really truly uh what we are projecting in spending versus bringing in is about a $10.12 million deficit here in Hamilton City Schools. And you can see that that continues to grow. There are also additional factors. Um in February, Mr. Frasier, our treasurer, will present an updated
005forecast. And there are additional um unfortunate situations based on some local property tax laws that have passed in the last 90 days that are going to change these numbers even further. Mr. Fraser, I don't know if you want to speak to those at all before we move on. >> Uh yeah, thanks Andrea. Uh so there's been some property tax reform and and it will affect Hamilton City School District. Um, right now we're we're kind of learning that new law and I'll have some updated figures for you guys here uh coming up, but what it looks like is somewhere around $2 to3 million in lost revenue of property tax uh dollars as we move forward. So, um again, the these numbers were what we knew back in October. Um, and we will have additional information uh
006on the February forecast and you'll have some additional information even before that from me uh specific to property tax reform. Um, but again th those numbers are it'll be a little bit worse actually than what those numbers look like. So, >> you know, we think it's important for our community as well as the board to understand that that's why this plan is so important right now. uh throughout all of our conversations both as a school board and with our community through our forums and different uh groups as we've met on this uh our recommendation from my seat uh Mr. Frasier's seat, Mr. Wright and our senior leadership team is to try to cut that deficit to as close to zero as possible for next school year. Now, I will tell you with these recent changes,
007we will not get there with the plan that I'm going to present. We will still offer we will still operate at a small deficit but based on our cash reserves we will be able to maintain without having to make additional cuts during the 2627 school year beyond what you're going to see in this plan. Okay. I do uh just want to talk about why that's so important. Uh you know today is going there's going to be a lot of heavy information that's on here. This plan is going to impact each part of our district. And so instead of doing that multiple years in a row, we are doing that one time. And that is really important to us to al to allow our district to work through this process, but also to provide stability for
008us next school year and going into a new bienium when we aren't sure what the funding looks like. You know, understand that our forecast right now is if that the funding formula stays the same, that could help us long term. We want to see what happens if if the state decides to put more money into public education or if additional money is taken from the state foundational formula. We are equipped to manage that and not have to have a knee-jerk reaction right away. In addition, having these cuts keeps us out of fiscal caution. Um, as Jeremy talked about when he files his forecast, if we have a negative cash balance in out in two years, then our district would be put into fiscal caution. If this plan that we're getting ready to discuss uh would
009not happen, if we were to just continue overspending when Jeremy files his August forecast next year, we would be on that list for fiscal caution. So that we are very close to this line. This is why this is so timely for us to make these changes. I think it's important to note that the plan that you're going to see in front of you really prioritizes our students and our culture and our uh staff in this district. However, this does not get us out of financial concerns moving forward. And so, this is a call to our board and to our community. We are going to have to really look at some long-term planning to generate new dollars in our school district. Right now, we are taking those internally. We are tightening our belt because we believe
010that we can do that without needing to go back. But in a number of years, if this landscape does not change in public education, we are going to need some community support on this. We have not had a new operating levy since 1993. There is no current plan. This plan is to address the deficit. This is not a if we don't pass a levy, there is no plan in the immediate to put a levy on the ballot. This is instead we are doing this now to provide that financial stability, but long-term we are going to have to start brainstorming what does that look like? How can our community help us support quality public schools in the city of Hamilton? As we worked through this, the number that we're going to recommend um for this, if
011you remember in December, uh the board authorized Jeremy and myself to come up with a spending plan that cut $9.5 million from our operating budget next year. The plan that we're going to present to you today is $9.6 million in cuts. And again, we will still operate at a small deficit with that, but with our cash reserves, we believe that's right. We do not want to go into a surplus. We only want to cut what is essential to keep this district afloat and quality flowing in all of our buildings. So, the big driving question for our team was how can we provide a high quality experience while reducing spending. The big strategies that you're going to see in this plan involve building consolidation. You know, as we've talked before, uh, Hamilton for generations has been
012known as a 10,000 student district. And today we are funded on the full-time equivalency of 8,200 students. That is that's that's a large decrease. The state funds us on each individual. Each full-time equivalency of a student is how we receive our dollars. And so those changes have caused us to look at some of those things. In addition, outsourcing programming where we think it makes sense so that we can still provide the services to the community while reducing costs and then right sizing and reduction of positions. I do encourage the board if you have any questions. I know many of you have seen the different brainstorms, you've weighed in and and provided feedback. This is now kind of that full package of what we believe we need to do moving forward. We'll start first here. These
013are $1.3 million in cuts of things that are not positional uh reductions. For instance, if you look at building operations, uh something as simple as changing our HVAC sess uh settings in the buildings by one degree. So, in the winter, keeping it one degree cooler in the summer months, keeping it one degree warmer. That's that generates quite a bit of savings for our district. So, that little change will help us long term. In addition, we've started the lights off campaign. Uh thank you to HCTA for partnering and branding that with us throughout the district to turn off our lights when we leave at the rooms to unplug our uh different appliances to make sure they're not generating charges because any and everything here we are looking at and analyzing to try to save money. The
014other piece here is we are reducing our postage spending. Um, each of you in your folder have the actual dollar amounts of each of these items here, uh, in your folder on that color-coded sheet. But you can see here that we we're in a digital age. We have found that we can communicate with families and share report cards and things on an up-to-date moment as opposed to mailing everything home. So, our community will see that that is a change that we started actually at the end of first quarter this year to try to lower spending. In addition, we have quite a few uh classrooms that there are different appliances in our classrooms. everything from coffee pots to uh refrigerators and different uh conveniences in the classroom. We are going to limit those to try to
015again draw back the charge. We're not going to eliminate them all. We still want to have those modern conveniences. Many of you probably wouldn't have gotten out of bed today without a cup of coffee or things along those lines, but we are going to try to just limit some of those modern-day conveniences in the classroom to save money on energy. The second bucket here is transportation. So we use a thirdparty uh company which is called Everdriven. They help to transport uh many of our special education students as well as our McKenna Vento or homeless students who we still educate but are required to transport outside of district limits. We spend about a million dollars a year on providing that third-party agreement. One of the things that we analyzed was the cost if we were to
016use some of our permanent improvement dollars that are not part of general fund expenses to purchase some 12 passenger vans and actually be able to employ some additional Hamilton City School staff members through our transportation department to drive those routes. So, our people driving our routes at a cheaper cost. It actually is projected to save us about $600,000 uh this calendar year. So, these are not small pieces. I I do want to note the the savings there is because we're able to purchase the vans out of our permanent improvement dollars. They'll be added to our transportation fleet. The next one there in curriculum, you'll see there's other changes as we go through here. Um but Bloxy is a program that we use throughout our district. That was something that came out of COVID. Uh we
017used that it allowed teachers to monitor students screens when they're taking a test or things like that. Now that thank goodness we are back to in-person learning, we believe that we can do without that program, which is an annual cost for us every year. In addition, we use a phonics program uh that is called really great reading. That program costs about $100,000 a year to uh purchase for grades K through three. When the science of reading requirements came out from Governor Dwine, we were ahead of the curve. We were already starting to implement really great reading. Uh that was part of our shift to science of reading. However, really great reading is not a comprehensive science of reading program that is approved by the state, which means our district had to purchase an additional program
018to meet those state requirements. That other program also has the same phonics components in there. So, what we are doing is eliminating the use of really great reading and replacing it with our program's phonics instruction. That should save the district $100,000 each year. On the technology side, Ford Edge is our provider of technology. They're our kind of outsourced partner for that work. We're extremely grateful for Ford Edge, but we have worked with them to analyze that contract and just make some little adjustments to it uh where we don't need as many uh you know uh day-to-day support or as many help tickets because we've got internal boots on the ground. Um the next two that you see here are actually not any loss of services. uh but we are just packaging those a little bit
019different and leveraging those permanent improvement dollars differently. So for instance, all of our uh staff devices in this district require Microsoft. What we were able to do through Microsoft licensing is work with Ford Edge to secure a 5-year contract, tie that to the actual purchasing of our devices that we use in the district to uh relieve the general fund of that expense while still providing that resource to our staff. So, it is not actually a cut, but it is a cut to general fund spending. The same is true for VoIP. I always say this wrong, but those are our phone and network services that we have here. We are due for an upgrade. Typically, that comes out of a general fund expense. However, we have been able to work and create that a five-year package.
020Uh that saves approximately $220,000 a year in that particular area. Uh in addition uh when we analyzed we have analyzed every bit of spending from everything postage to stamps to programs. One of the things that we looked at is in our current agreement on our p with our pod our printers that provide all of our printing service here. Uh we have pod printers for teacher convenience in each of our pods. Those are essential. If teachers need to print something off quick uh we can do that. However, when that contract was developed, we paid at a high tier, assuming we would be printing 20 to 40,000 sheets uh in a given calendar year. We're not even at 5,000 sheets in a calendar year. So, what we've been able to do is renegotiate that agreement to a
021lower tier pricing while still providing the service. So, it will save us about $10,000 each calendar year, which might not sound like a lot, but when we're trying to to look at everything to preserve our quality, these are things that add up very quickly. On the last side, you'll see here human resources. Um, each of our uh secondary buildings are blessed with full-time counselors that are part of our HCTA teachers union. They work 186 days along with all of our other teachers. However, uh when counselors were added to our district, we also provided an extra 15 days to work over the summer. Those were originally created when scheduling I remember back in the day where in the summer we would have postits and you're handcheduling kids and there's a lot of intensive work that used
022to go into scheduling with modern technology though I'm not always a fan of it. Um it is something that has helped us to streamline that process and we believe that our team will continue to work well by reducing those days by seven. So our recommendation is to take our counselors extra days from 15 to seven or to eight I'm sorry we've reduced by seven. Okay. In addition, um on here you'll see retire, rehire, associate superintendent. Um Mr. Wright signed in blood to me when I took over this position, a three-year uh opportunity. When we were looking at this, um having an associate superintendent, especially of his quality is really important to me. He helps me to do so many of the day-to-day operations so that I can be active in the community. I can be
023connecting with other agencies. I can be out there telling a Hamilton story. Well, one of the things that he because he is eligible to retire that we would like to make a part of this package. Mr. Wright with his years of experience well earned is at the top of that pay scale for associate superintendents. Next year we would like to have him retire rehire which would bring him back at the bottom step of that associate superintendent pay range. The nice thing is that is the cheapest and most inexpensive way to continue having an associate superintendent especially of his caliber. And so that is baked into this that will save $25,000 a year um for the district. In addition, we've analyzed all of our supplemental coaching positions, everything from uh sports teams to quiz team to
024bowling, golf, and we've looked at just the number of staff. We are very blessed that we have a robust coaching and supplemental uh staffing list, but we believe that we can reduce some of those positions just based on both interest and and different things. Uh we believe we can save about $125,000 with streamlining some of those positions. I think it's important to note that we are not cancelling any extracurricular activity. There aren't any in it. It's just the number of adults that are supporting that where it makes natural sense. For instance, you know, um we have some teams that, you know, they might have a boys and a girls version of it, but they travel together and there's a very small number of them. Well, in most of those cases, they have a head boys
025coach, a head girls coach, a head assistant coach, and a head assistant coach on both sides of that coin. I think we can streamline that a little bit and save our district some money. Any questions on this first sheet? You will see down here at the bottom, you know, like I mentioned, our goal is to get to 9.6. Um, there will be a running total as we go through these things. I want to reiterate, we don't want to cut any of these things at all, but I do think many of these things make natural sense for our district and actually help us operate more efficient. You're going to see one of the things when we first started discussing this uh with the board, I remember Dr. Copus saying this is, you know, my ask is
026that this is not on the backs of our teachers, that these cuts are distributed throughout our district, that all departments are taking that. You're going to see that there are a number of administrative cuts. You'll actually see a breakdown later by category. Uh these are standalone uh administrative cuts. Others are based on some reorganization that we're doing, but we currently have an assistant athletic director in our district. We would reduce that position. Um that assistant athletic director is also our football coach. um he would be given a teaching job at the high school, still being employed, but just in the time we're in, we we cannot really justify having two fully released individuals at the high school running our those athletic pieces. In addition, here at the board office, we uh have recommended to reduce
027one executive director position and absorb those responsibilities in our CNI department. I made a promise um a long time ago when I started as a leader that we will always model the way. You're going to see throughout this presentation that there are a number of cuts that are coming from this board building and that is that is important to me. We must model the way. I cannot ask others to do what we won't do. And so you're going to see that there are um uh four different cuts that come out of this building and that percentage is higher than most of our buildings impacted in that on purpose to make sure. So those two changes right there will save about 372,000. So now we're at 16. Okay. The next are some of our support service
028positions. Um, a number of years ago, um, our, uh, long-term EMIS coordinator started talking about retirement, and EMIS is an extremely important position in our district. EMIS is actually, uh, very important to Jeremy's work as well as ours. Uh, EMIS helps to determine our daily attendance rate. It's how we are funded. It's how our report card is determined. There are so many assets aspects of that role. And so when we heard that that was going to happen a few years ago uh through the ESSER uh opportunities, we added an assistant EMS coordinator. Well, now the time has come where that long-term uh EMS coordinator has retired and we are just recommending to not fill the assistant EMS coordinator. We would go back to one in the district as we had for many many years. I
029do think this is something the board would have to consider as we move down the line if if we always have to have a transition plan. I think trans transition plans are important. However, I believe that our EMS coordinator is doing a phenomenal job and and will be here with us for some time. In addition, um one of the recommendations is to reduce uh one SRO through retirement. We have a number of SRO's here. This will make sense. I I want our community and our staff to understand we are not um dropping safety at all. Safety is still a number one priority in this and and this will make a little more sense as we run through the presentation why our team feels we can go with one less uh school resource officer in our
030buildings. In addition uh Mr. Krenell's position which is the community coordinator outreach uh that is a full-time position right now uh he has actually uh gone through a series of uh medical challenges. He was okay that I share that this morning and he is going to be going for medical retirement um at the end of this year. that position would be eliminated when he he's already on leave, but at the end of this year, that position would go away and we would not fill that position. Now, it is important to note that that work was extremely important. His role was to help connect our children to workforce and to the community. Uh both Mrs. Wisgrove in her current capacity as well as Ty Smallwood are going to continue to work through this particular uh this
031role to make sure that our students still have opportunity and access to be connected with work in the local community. Then the last one here is um again out of our office is reducing one board of education clerical position. Uh we have a front desk here that their main purpose is to answer the phone and open the doors. Our team will take on a little more and create that uh a rotation to still make sure that that customer service is there. But again, that saves about $60,000 uh to our local budget. Okay, any questions there? There's no fun way to go through these, so I'm I'm just going to keep rolling, but please stop me if you have questions. So, that takes us to about two million. Now, is where we start getting into big
032ones. Um, one of our recommendations is to close one of our eight elementary schools. So, as I mentioned, our uh student enrollment has seen a hit over the last decade. Many of our buildings uh when I first got here, even just seven years ago, were over 800 a grade level. And it used to staff when we first got here 444. So every grade level had four sections, four teachers, four classrooms of approximately a hundred kids per grade level. That has dramatically decreased uh in certain buildings. And so our recommendation on this is to close Fairwood Elementary. Fairwood Elementary would be the school that would be shut down uh due they are one of our smallest enrollment right now due to that. We also believe that we are able to uh distribute those staff and students
033to local community schools without doing a full redistrict. We are not going to change the boundary lines of all of our neighborhoods. That is not what's happening here. Uh Fairwood would be mostly distributed between Crawford Woods, Riverview, and Bridgeport. Okay. The biggest savings in this piece you can see over here is 1,800 is 1.8 million. It's it's the overhead cost. It's the cost of running a building. It is. There are two additional administrative cuts in there. The principal and assistant principal. We don't need double that because there is one at those other schools. As well as clerical, a nurse, a student family support specialist. The bulk of the teachers have to go with the kids. There is no part of this plan that is raising class size from where we currently sit. And so the
034bulk of our teachers will travel with the kids to those new locations. And teachers will be given some choice. We'll talk through that here in a bit. Um however there are some natural reductions by consolidating that we can we can play with those numbers. The first one um is our three specials teachers at those buildings. We won't need double specials at those other schools. They're already equipped with those. And then we do believe we can have one less teacher from each grade level because of the consolidation. Okay. Then you can see here two EAS um with that and then custodial and food service. Um, this decision was not made lightly. Um, it's really important that we have we have amazing facilities in this district. Uh, we are not in any way, shape, or form selling
035that building. However, I think it's important to note when you see this slide and the next slide, you're going to see that 30% of the cuts come from doing this. By being able to do this, that is that many more staff positions we were able to retain. That's that many more programs we were able to keep in place. So, trust me, I know what a large decision this is. However, we think it's in the best interest of the entire district. Now, we do not want to leave the building um empty. It's a beautiful building. Uh we're not going to sell that building because we have needs. Currently, we have uh six buildings that support pre that supports preschool that is run by our district. Um, we spend about $5 million uh in a calendar year
036on preschool. Our plan with this is to turn Fairwood into the Hamilton Early Learning Center where that would be a preschool consolidated site. All preschool would happen there in our community in our building. However, it would be run by Butler County ESC and Butler County ESC in exchange for only charging us what it costs for them to run it, which they obviously do have different margins than we do and different agreements and those pieces. Um, is we are able to save an additional $1.2 million in what we pay for preschool. Preschool would still be offered to all Hamilton only. That would not be open to other uh local communities. It would be open at no cost. We would continue to transport all of our special education preschool students who need it and the structure would
037stay the same. It would still be four days a week an AM and PM se session. Uh but that would remain the same. So again, you can see what those pieces look like. Obviously, if they're going to employ their own program, we will not continue to need to employ the number of teachers that we have uh because our preschool teachers are a part of our K12 bargaining unit as well. And so there are some there's about 20 teacher cuts in that plan. There's also an administrator cut in that plan because we will not need a dedicated preschool supervisor because they'll be doing that oversight in that work. Um any questions? Okay. So we're at 5 million. Some other various elementary cuts and then we'll move on to the secondary impact. Um we are going to
038reduce two title teachers throughout the district. not in those buildings affected the Fairwood uh staff and and I want to make that note. Just because we're talking about Fairwood, it does not mean that the staff at Fairwood are the ones that are impacted by this because of bargaining agreements, because of bumping rights and seniority. So, these changes will affect all of our buildings throughout the district because they are part of that plan. Um I don't want anyone at Fairwood or in preschool to think all of a sudden they are out of a job. That is not uh that piece. and we have a very clear communication plan on how we're going to communicate with our staff both that are displaced andor are without a job. Additional cuts though that we're looking at in our other
039buildings um is our number of title teachers. As you know, not only are there issues at the state funding level and the local level with property tax, but the federal government, which provides uh dollars to us to through our uh title program, that has continued to decrease year after year. And so for year after year we have used general fund to pick up that difference. Unfortunately we are not in a case where we can do that. So we would have to reduce two additional title teachers in that area. In addition uh just based on class size right sizing we can reduce three classrooms due to class size in those other buildings. Again not raising ratios keeping our ratios the same but just where enrollments have changed. Typically what happens is we have a sixth grade
040uh at a building that will have four sections. Well, the fifth grade only has three. So, we don't need as those fifth graders roll up to sixth grade, we only need three teachers. So, that's where those reductions are made. The other piece that we're looking at is reducing our instructional coaches. Currently, we have eight instructional coaches that support our elementary schools. uh while they are a necessary I believe a resource and a tool and have even been a part of Governor Dwine's uh you know science of reading implementation plan this is an area my priority is to try to keep these cuts as far away from students as possible and so we we had to look at our instructional coaches our plan for this is to put all eight of our current coaches back into
041classroom positions and redesign what the role of the instructional coach looks like we have heard from teachers over and over that they need ESL support or they need behavior or data support. And so really rebranding what coaching and what support looks like for our staff is crucial in that. But that would be determined probably in February. Job descriptions would go out and that would be open to anyone in the district. We would look at three to support elementary and one to support uh secondary. Actually, I'm sorry, two to support elementary, one to support secondary, and then the ESL would support all the way across the board. We also uh have looked at and met with many people and an idea that has come up over and over at our elementary right now. We have a
042unique structure for specials. We have the traditional art, PE and music that are all taught by certified teachers. We then have a fourth special uh that is computer lab and that is taught by a media coordinator. Uh that is a classified position in our district. Uh unfortunately in 2026, children have their their devices everywhere in the classroom. They're using technology. They're using those pieces. So when we looked at areas that we could save uh dollars but still ensure that we're providing enriching opportunities for kids, uh our recommendation is to remove computer lab as a special and replace it instead with library. My tech director doesn't like when I say this, but I have a 13 and 15year-old at home. They spend a lot of time on screens. What I like about that change is we
043would be able to put books in their hands, ensure that they have access to rich literature in the classroom and in the school each day. And we have beautiful libraries if you have been in our schools. And so that would be the change that is there. We would be switching out lab for library and we would be re removing that position from our elementary schools. Okay. It's 1.3. I think we beat up on the elementaryaries pretty good, huh? Let's go secondary a little bit. some secondary changes that uh we believe need to happen. The first one is eliminating our TOSA. That stands for teacher on special assignment. That is actually a dean of discipline and that is at our high school. That is a retire rehired position that we already only analyze each year from
044year to year. Uh with some of the changes that we're talking about here, uh we feel that needs to be again something that is as far away from the students as we can. um but eliminating that TOSA position. We also now that our smaller uh grade levels are starting to get into the high school. We have right sized our class size at the elementary but not so much at the high school. Those smaller class sizes are getting there. Our largest class at our high school right now is our current junior class but all of the other classes are significantly less because of that. We recommend due to class size that we can reduce four positions in that particular piece. We also, our structure is interesting when it comes to supporting our libraries here in Hamilton.
045At the elementary level, we have those classified media coordinators. At our secondary, we have full teacher certified librarians. We have three of them. We have already started kind of downsizing as natural retirements happened, but we believe as part of this cut, we need to eliminate the media center librarians at the secondary and replace them with that same structure at the elementary. So, no library will go unserved. We will still have a full-time media coordinator in that particular place in every one of our buildings. we would want to keep one head librarian who would oversee that would stay as a HCTA position that would oversee library services ordering coordination for the district. Okay, so you can see those changes there. The last one is uh looking at just class sizes and those pieces uh the natural
046pieces we believe that we could reduce four sections at the middle school based on numbers. Again, I want to reiterate, we are not raising class sizes from our current staffing structure. It's just as these smaller classes are traveling through our district, that's opportunities for us to right size. So, those changes are over a million dollars. Okay. 74. The next one here, um, we would like to combine our freshman and Hamilton High campus into one, one joint 912 high school. Um, when I first came to Hamilton, we had over 2100 10th through 12th grade students walking through the halls of Hamilton High School. We didn't have the room to have one combined 912 campus and is the reason that we created a freshman standalone campus. However, that has brought both some good pieces but also some
047challenges with a 9-month transitional school. Now that we have the room at Hamilton High School, uh we would like to combine those two. And again, most of the savings here are those overhead costs. We don't need need as many admin to run one high school as opposed to two separate buildings or clerical or those pieces. In this particular model, we would staff it as we are right now. So, our current staffing structure, admin and counselors to students. At our high school, we have one assistant principal and two counselors per grade level. Okay? We would recommend that same model. So, one of our assistant principles from the freshman campus would travel to the high school along with the counselors. The bulk of our freshman teachers will go there. We need the teachers to teach that. Uh
048when we really started sitting down and looking at this, everyone said, "Man, is there really room there?" Today, there are 22 open classrooms at Hamilton High School. 22 open classrooms today. A big piece that we spent a lot of time analyzing and reanalyzing and rediscussing was making sure that none of these changes are putting us at capacity. None of these changes are going to again create such overcrowding or high class sizes or those pieces that it's lowering our quality of our program. So us in in putting these two campuses together, it allows us to continue classes, programming, supports for kids, extracurricular opportunities. It actually will help, I think, create. Many of our freshman students don't see freshman year as high school. We have battled that for a number of years. They see that as middle
049school. They I I've heard many times it's called the 8.5 grade level. It's not middle school, but it's not high school. And so, bringing them into that, they also um you know, Mr. Smallwood was our freshman principal for many years. I think he will do a great job creating a community and some structures inside of the high school to help onboard freshmen. Any questions there? That savings again mostly on the overhead is 1.2. I will share probably a question uh floating around in your head is then what are we doing with the freshman campus? We do have plans for what we would like to do with that space. That is a space that we will utilize. There are a lot of needs in this district and I actually think there's some positive programming that can
050come out of some of these things. But because it's not a savings, that's not a part of the plan today. I would recommend that probably in the next week, we would follow up with what that plan is because I don't want to leave people out there wondering in and those pieces, but it is our priority today to those people that are directly impacted based off this reduction. They're our first priority and then we'll circle back when the dust settles. Okay. Some other miscellaneous cuts um is looking at our we have a program called extra hours. It is drop in homework help at our secondary schools. Um on average it costs us about $55,000 uh throughout all of our four buildings. We will still have extracurricular opportunities and homework support in those pieces, but that particular
051program is just one that we felt was a high price tag for the return on what we're getting out of that. In addition, uh, in each of our buildings, we have something called TLC's, which are tech technology learning consultants, coaches. They are our current classroom teachers who outside of their workday are paid hourly to help their colleagues with tech to help teach them on how to integrate with AI to, you know, fix the printer or things like that kind of peer-to-peer support. We provide an X number of hours per per building each year. Our recommendation is to reduce that number of hours by 25%. So for instance, right now we provide 800 hours of support. We would go to 600 would be the piece there. With the consolidation of two of our buildings, we do
052believe that we could eliminate one of our Ford Edge uh technology supports that's on the ground with two less buildings to cover. We believe we can do that. Obviously, that is not a Hamilton City School employee, but that is a build expense that would save over $78,000 for the district. So, those changes there are another 140. This one's a hard one. Um, one of our recommendations as we were looking at um what to do, each of our buildings right now are blessed. We have a full-time RN in each of our buildings. Those are part of our staff. they are in our HCTA bargaining agreement. Um, and and we pay for the quality that they provide. Um, as we've looked at how do we lower costs but continue to provide a lookalike service or a quality
053service, one of our recommendations is to partner with Butler County ESC to outsource our nurses. And so what we would do is maintain one district RN and then put LPNs in every single building. So, every student would still have nursing support every single day at their building. However, it just lowers our overall cost in that particular piece. I will tell you, I've reached out to surrounding districts. This is the model. Whether their LPNs are in their district or whether they're through the Butler County ESC, Fairfield has this exact model, one RN and the rest LPNs in their district and many of our surroundings. I actually could not find a district within the area that had all RNs across the board anymore. So that's another savings of half million dollars. In addition, we looked at really
054sat down with our building administrators and talked about, you know, what are essential, what can we uh shift on. One of the positions that we added just two years ago coming out of SR dollars was uh safe and secures. They are hall monitor. They help with um you know security checks, different things in the building. Uh we also have our SRO's that support each of those buildings. And so we looked at what we could do. This is not cutting safe and secures districtwide. This is only looking at those eight elementary schools to reduce that that position is not necessary. Um that does not mean those eight that are in the elementary would be the one affected. Do remember this is all just categorical the positions not the humans because there are bumping and and different
055pieces along that along those lines. Any questions? Okay, almost there. This is what this looks like by category. So all that you're seeing here, there are 153 personnel decisions that are impacted in this. One of the promises that I made to this board when we started is that it was equitable and tried to be as equitable across the board modeled the way. So if you look at we currently have 57 administrators in our district, there are seven that were part of those reductions in those slides we just went over and you've seen before. That is a 12% cut across our administrative team. In addition, HCTA, even though there's 75 that are impacted by that, there there's such a large number there. It's a 10% reduction. The one that you look up up here, oopsie 151
056are our clerical and our educational assistants. If you look, there are 42 on that list, which is 20%. I do want to make note that 26 of those are preschool. Okay, preschool EAS. We are not cutting I have heard a lot of I actually have have received some calls of you're getting rid of EAs. No, we need those. Those provide essential support to our students. Uh the AAS that are on this list are associated with preschool andor due to the building combinations and consolidations. The one nice thing that we have worked very closely with Butler County ESC on Butler County ESC actually pays whereas the teachers it's quite a different of a pay scale. Their EA pay scale is a little bit better than what we pay our preschool EAS. So, EAS up to 10
057years will actually make more money if they sign on with Butler County ESC to provide the same job in our district doing preschool with our students. Uh, they have also guaranteed, we have worked very closely, that any staff on this list that is displaced or, you know, without a job because of this, they're guaranteed an interview if there is a Butler County uh, ESC opening. And so I want to give a big thank you to the ESC, Chris Brown, Jeff Brandt, uh Ken Olm, and their team, Laura, uh to make sure that they are helping try to find a smooth landing, a soft landing for our team. No one wants any of these positions to go away. When we first started talking about this, Dr. Copus, I remember you saying, you know, well, we need
058these. And I remember saying back to you, we need every position in this district. However, this plan that we've put together, we hope you will see, is doing its best to try to minimize impact to our students. And I have to advocate for our students each and every day. That's my first obligation to this community. So, you can see the different categories uh that are there. And transportation, you might say, "Oh, there's no personnel cut." That's because we are already so thin. There will be savings baked in there with combining routes with some of those pieces, but this is just a presentation by the personnel. Okay, some key takeaways and then I'll kind of open it up for questions and then move on to timeline. I think it's really important to talk about this is
059January. Nothing changes now. Yes, we're trying to do some of those things on the first slide to to edge out some extra savings where we can, but all of these described changes would take effect in August of 2026. that is important to us so that we can give four to five months for our staff to have as much notice as possible. I myself have been on a list where with layoffs I found out on the last day of school one time. I found out in April where hiring season is already over. We are going to provide extreme care to our staff to walk through this process. We'll talk about that here in a minute. But I I I just think it's important to note nothing changes during the 2526 school year. These changes really are
060focused on efficiency and reducing overhead cost wherever possible. That was our main driving force here. It is right sizing now that we are funded on 8,200 versus 10,000 students. I will tell you a massive plan of mine after we get through this is how do we go out and compete for local students? How do we build back to that 10,000 strong student body? That's my goal. None of these plans can be are irreversible. We are not selling any of our buildings. We are not using allowing other things that are not for the benefit of our district in any of our schools. And so nothing here is permanent that we can't continue to evolve as we should with our community as it changes and evolves. This allows us in most cases to do business without raising
061class size or dramatically changing what and how we do it. Though preschool would be done by Butler County ESC, it will look very similar to what we do right now. It will use our building for our students. It ensures that we are cutting from HCSD where we are. We are still trying to provide lookalike services. We are not asking our schools to be less safe or to go without through these changes. I want to reiterate that this is not a long-term fix to financial concerns. I'm going to say that again. This is not a long-term fix to financial concerns plaguing not just Hamilton City Schools. This is across the state of Ohio. However, this allows us to reduce our spending without hurting student safety opportunities and learning. We were able to look internally this time.
062If two to three years down the road the landscape does not change for public education funding, I can't make you that promise that the proposals I would stand here I could stand behind and feel we are still providing a quality product. I share that because we are going to have to figure out a long-term strategy to generate new dollars and cuts moving forward have to be the absolute last resort. However, I think it's important for our community to realize we are not asking for new money at this time. We have looked internally. We have tried to reduce costs. We have tried to improve efficiency so that we don't have to go back and ask for new dollars. We are not threatening to take anything away. There are no pieces along that line. Um and I
063just think that's really important for our community and our staff to understand that I come with a heavy heart. The last thing here I want to talk about um in a bit is our communication plan. Our priority over this next week, because this plan is going to get out there today, um is to communicate and support our staff, our students, and our community through this change. Change, no matter whether it is okay or not, is trauma. We know that. We know it's hard. The unknown, I think, is the scariest part of it. So, I am hoping after today and next week's conversations that will help our staff and community feel some asurances. But to our families, I want them to know that we will be providing a ton of information in the coming months to
064help with this transition. This is not the only time you're going to hear from us on this particular piece. So before I get into communication, I just want to open it up if there's any board members any comments, any I know we've had many conversations about these pieces, but >> Mrs. Blevens, I have a few comments. Um, >> first of all, I want to say thank you uh to you and your staff for the unbelievable amount of research and study and effort that you've put into this. I agree with something you said early in your presentation that I don't like any of it, but I certainly understand it. Um, a couple things that I appreciate about your plan, uh, that it does affect the entire district. >> I think that's appropriate. Um and also you
065recently stated that nothing is permanent, >> correct? >> And nothing is irreversible I if funding issues do change and and I think it's critically important to make this statement also and uh former board member Mr. Sprag is with us today and and Miss Baker's here al Baker is here also. Thank you for being here guys. He has correctly pointed out in the past on multiple occasions who's responsible for this. Now, I've read recently, as we probably all have, on uh social media posts about, oh, you know, it's it's poor management and things like that. Let me categorically say it is not poor fiscal management by the Hamilton City School District. The people that are responsible for this are the elected politicians in Columbus that are defunding public education. Um, now while the equation on school
066funding is complicated and convoluted and depends on variables that change literally every day, in my opinion, the solution is simple. The equation's complicated. This the answer is simple. Next time we vote, we need to elect people that are pro public education. And there are politicians out there that are pro public education. Uh if people in our communities don't want this to get worse than it is, uh that's what they need to do. They need to do a little research and a little study on their own and find out who those candidates are. That's who they need to elect to office. One of the in my opinion, one of the big successes of this plan, and most people won't know what this means, but it keeps us out of fiscal caution. >> Yes. >> And what
067does that really mean? that that means basically that we get to run our own district, not the state. >> Right. >> And while that may sound very simple, there are a lot of districts around us that can't say that, >> right? >> And as you just pointed out, we are not asking for additional funds right now. >> Um, and there are a lot of districts around us that are. They have to. Uh, so I I appreciate your efforts here. U, it's unfortunate that we need to do this, but we absolutely do need to do this. And uh >> I do know we have a few other board members that want to make comments. But Dr. Copus, I just uh I think this is important for the community to notice. Um when we put out this
068communication here in a bit, there are staff talking points. We have also attached the list and and you have copies of those in your folders today of what's going to go out later this afternoon that includes the list of our local legislators. Here's here's my recommendation to anyone and and after we get through this, I said this to our team this morning when we rolled out this plan. I'm heartbroken to present these things to you, but I'm also angry. And with that anger drives, I've always said this, don't get angry, get organized. And so once we get through these things, I will tell you, I do think we need to continue conversations. We need to start getting the word out. Um, I have been meeting with our local businesses. What's so amazing, and I've said
069this before about the city of Hamilton, they have all reached out and said, "Would you mind giving us talking points?" Because we know how important public schools are to the success of our businesses, to our workforce development. And so, in addition to not only staff talking points and legislative contacts going out today, those are also going to our local chamber, to our local city, to our vision commission, to different people so that they can help be a part of this because communities are only as strong as the public schools that are there. only as strong. So, Dr. Copus, I appreciate that. I agree with you. This cannot be the end of this conversation. This is simply the middle. And so, we have to continue advocacy of exactly that. >> Open. Go ahead. >> Uh, Mrs.
070Blewins, Mr. Wright, and Mr. Frasier, I appreciate the effort you put into this. I know you've been working on this for weeks. It's a hard thing to do. It's hard for this board uh because we're affecting lives. And I know you spent sleepless nights over this, but it's something that has to be done. We didn't create this mess. It started on the state level, >> right? >> Question I always get is, well, you knew it was coming, didn't you? No. We had in place what was called the fair funding formula that was implemented a few years ago. It gives stability to the school districts knowing what their finances were going to be. Well, we had a general assembly and a governor decided we're not going to follow that. They cut our funding >> this June.
071>> Yeah. >> And we didn't know about it. Actually, in June, we're still wondering what >> July is when it passed. But yes, that's when >> and since then they've cut it even more through property tax legislation. It's clearly on a state level that they're anti-public school. I I think we can all agree on that. We have a governor and a general assembly who cut public education funding, which is called for under the constitution, but they funded $2 billion over the next two years to private schools and parochial schools who don't have to follow the same rules that we do. They're not required to educate every student. And what's important and and I've brought this up many times over the last year. We have some students that cost us $100,000 a year to educate. We're
072responsible for that. State does not give us any funding. Federal government doesn't give us funding. We pay for that. And you know, if the legislature wants to continue with uh their voucher program and um that sort of thing, make the playing field fair. If you're going to take state dollars, take the state test, educate everyone who enrolls in your uh in your building, and don't be selective. And we're being penalized because somebody doesn't like pen public education. This district's facing a major challenge, but it's not the first time we've had challenges. We meet those challenges, and we're going to meet it here, and we'll prevail because our focus, this board and this administration and this district is on providing a quality education to every student who attends here. >> Thank you, Mr. Davidson. I I
073think it's important to note, we talk about ed choice. 82% of the residents that live in Hamilton attend public schools. the the public schools cannot fold. There is no capacity for other choices to do that. Nor are they equipped to be able to do the quality and the continuum as you mentioned from our students that cost that much because of their medical needs to our high-end. We go from students that need onetoone care to national merit scholars. That is the continuum. And unfortunately, that does cost money to do, but it's the right thing to do because we are here to educate every kid. So, Mr. Davidson, you're 100% right, but it's important to note 82% of the kids that live within the city of Hamilton attend Hamilton City Schools. So, I want to say thank
074you to your team and staff for taking uh time and going through this with a fine to comb and with with heart and humanity towards people that are going to be losing their jobs and the changes that it's going to bring to the district. We know whose shoulder that this squares on and it would just be um you know in the best interest of like u fellow board members said to make to take the time to really look at who they're voting for when they cast that that vote. And it's time it's it's time to to wake up and be cognizant on who you vote for. Not just striking a vote just because of familiarity or anything like that, but really look at who you're voting for and why you're voting for them and what
075they stand for. because we're seeing the actions of what happens when you just haphazardly just cast a ballot and and the decisions that has to be made and that the fact that you know if thank goodness that we don't have to go into fiscal caution because the ones that are that would cause us to potentially go into that are the same ones that are that are you know throwing the rock and hiding their hand and allowing and making us to have to hold the bag and and make these kind of decisions. So, I'm I'm thankful for you guys taking the time to really allow these cuts to be as far as away from the kids as possible so will not impact their day-to-day so we can continue to provide um amazing safe spaces, amazing teachers
076safety and continue to producing those merit scholars, continue to allow kids to have those extracurriculars to allow them to be great. So, I'm thankful for this board that, you know, that that's that's supporting these cuts in terms of making sure that we do our best to be we we've always been good stewards since my tenure on the board of being fiscally sound and um as we approach making decisions on how we spend our dollars, being fiscally sound and putting thought into it. Not again just you know throwing money to everything doing everything but putting making decisions sound decisions on how we spend our dollars to make sure which is why we do have the cash reserve to be able to offset and be you know absorb some of these costs. So I'm thankful for the
077team and for the dedication that went into it and um making sure again that we we we we do just what's necessary not trying to overdo anything. So, I'm appreciative to be a part of this board and and seeing it through during this time. And we're going to be we're going to come out on the other end stronger through this and and stronger as a community. Like you said, continuing to keep those conversations going, continue to inform the parent, continue to stay transparent through this whole process. No one's hiding anything. No one's keeping anything from anyone, but want to make sure that, you know, as we roll this out that it's with care and concern and with um with our whole heart. So, I thank you. I appreciate everyone here. Um, first I just want
078to echo my my very strong agreement with my colleagues, Dr. Copus, Mr. Davidson, and President Matthews. Um, but I'll add a little bit more. I want to speak to the heart of our our staff and our students and our families right now. Um, I want to acknowledge first the weight of this moment. I'm also a fellow educator. Um, and so I know how heavy in particular this is for our staff. Budget reductions, they're not abstract numbers. They're they're not. We looked at them as abstract numbers today on slides, but every one of those numbers corresponds to a staff member, a family, a student, a classroom, and our shared community. Um, I've lived through funding cuts like this before when I was employed in Columbus City Schools during the 2005 state funding crisis, uh, that had
079similar, uh, issues surrounding it around property tax and the change to, uh, income tax at the time. I've also lived through this at the university level in 2019. So I know the uncertainty, the anxiety, um the emotional toll that these moments carry and you can feel that in this room right now. At the same time, I know that our responsibility as educators and as a board is to ensure the long-term well-being of our students, which means protecting the highquality educational experience that we've been talking about and emphasizing over and over again here today. And that's one that includes strong academics, extracurricular opportunities. As you recall, we're doing everything that we can to protect all of these opportunities that we bring to students in Hamilton City Schools and the resources and supports that allow our students
080to thrive. I want to publicly commend the executive team who have been placed in an impossible position. All of you, I I truly am sorry that you're in this position. This plan reflects extensive research, thoughtful deliberation, and most importantly, what I'm really, really proud and humbled by is the amount of compassion that you have put into this plan. All of you, thank you. The team has gone back to the table numerous times since we first kind of became aware of this mess in October, as Andrea or Mrs. Bleven, sorry, stated, to ensure they were developing the best plan possible given this terrible situation we are finding ourselves in. Their work centers our staff first and foremost while also honoring our students, their families, and our broader Hamilton community. So, while these are choppy waters, this
081plan resents represents rather a careful valuesdriven effort to navigate these choppy waters together with care, integrity, and respect for all who make our schools what they are. And I'm really again proud and humbled to be a part of this board. um to be a fellow educator. Um and thank you again to the executive leadership team. >> I don't want to uh reiterate too much what everybody has already said because you you've all encapsulated what we're what we're feeling and thinking through this beautifully. And I thank you all for your for your comments and I deeply agree with everything that's been said so far. Um, I I I also want to just take a moment to just think about the the people in our community that are impacted by this because while we don't have the
082choice, we still have incredible compassion for the situation at hand and how it will impact our community, our our neighbors, our friends, our our families that are that are part of our community. Um and and it's too bad that that we're in this place and that it's a necessary thing to do. Uh so I just really want to to put my heart out to everyone who's impacted by this. And I hope that all of our community will will truly see how much time and effort and work has gone into this by our team. And I just want to acknowledge as well that you you are all humans and you're doing a tough job, but this this the work that you're doing doesn't go unnoticed. and the impact that it has on you is also um
083something that I think we need to acknowledge. So, um, as a as a parent in this district, um, I am I am really behind the fact that we are able to do this without impacting our students in in negative ways. And I'm thankful to our past and current board uh, for for helping to guide that and to our administration for for implementing this plan. Um, and I I I thank you all for that and and we are we are here and available to our staff and our community for questions and conversations. And I think it's important to know that we we're we're here for uh conversation and uh to see the best way forward. >> Thank you all. And I need to tell you that I know that um as you mentioned uh Mrs. Manuso,
084many of you know people that will be impacted by this as your neighbors, your family members, your grandchildren, your, you know, your your children. Um, and so I appreciate your trust. I appreciate your openness and us sitting down and having conversations about how to get here. I can assure you that no decision was made light and nor will the communication be light about how we do this. That is our priority right now is how we're going to communicate this. I'm going to put an overview timeline of just where we've been as well as next steps for the board and then I want to just go through our communication plan today. Um I am very grateful that we have TV Hamilton here to uh film this board meeting today. Uh there is a reason that this
085board meeting is not being shown live and I will express that here in just a few. Um but it that is to ensure that we have personal conversations with our staff. let us be the people to deliver this message to our team. And that's important to me as a leader. It's hard. I've stepped into this role six months ago. I think I said this at um at the forum. This was not on my superintendent bingo card. >> This is something that superintendents don't want to go. This is superintendent 101. But I will what I will tell you is I will do it because it's the betterment. It's I'm going to make sure that this is done the right way by our people, by our kids, and by our community. But do not think that I
086don't realize the weight of this moment and I will turn myself inside out to help timeline where we've been. We are now here in January presenting that finalized plan. We will then um start conversations with affected staff and I'm going to show you that plan because it's a very comprehensive plan. I know you each have seen drafts of that, but I think it's important for our community to see that today. As far as the board is concerned, the next steps for the board obviously being there, Carrie, as you mentioned, um, but in February is where we will actually, you notice there were no names on these lists today. There are names behind every single one of those particular things. In February, at our February uh 24th Tuesday board meeting, I'm still getting used to Tuesdays.
087Um, we will present that riff list with the names of our employees. From that point on, every board meeting, I assume you will see recalls. Even since starting this, if you remember, that list was 153 that were affected. The conversations that we have to have as of 1:00 this morning, because they've continued to change, is 101. We are continuing to hit that list every time someone retires. So, I do believe that a number of our staff that are going to have to have very difficult conversations will be recalled and continue working in this great district. So, I think that's important. But in February, you'll see that list of the names that will be up for board approval. At that same meeting, Jeremy is going to have the pleasure of doing the updated February forecast, which
088will still be doom and gloom because those changes haven't taken effect yet. He will circle back towards the end of that of our school year to show you what that actually has done in numbers to our forecast and how that's been solvement. You saw them before the property tax piece if you remember, but now that that's in there, I want you to have an accurate picture of what that looks like going into uh next school year. We um for the rest of the year, our priority is working with staff placement. Okay, today is the overarching uh piece of this plan, but that is not um that's not where this ends. One of the reasons why we have done this meeting this morning and I have asked Steve to tape this but not push this out
089live is because we want to have conversations with our staff who immediately will know when seeing this presentation that that means something for them. And so after this board meeting is over today, we will meet with our preschool staff today. At that same time, our HR uh executive director of HR is traveling around to our buildings to meet with our elementary the the uh lab clerks that are affected, the nurses, the safe and secures. Again, not letting them know whether it's them that is on that list for the riff list, but letting them know of the changes. We've got to do right by our people so that no one is blindsided by this. There is no way to pull our whole district together and hear this announcement at the same time. So, it's important that
090we are doing this the right way. After Mike and I finish with that, we will be traveling to the buildings to meet personally with with each nurse and librarian. We will then go to the freshman campus this afternoon where we will hold a all staff meeting and let them know of their move to Hamilton High School. We will then go to Fairwood to meet with their staff this afternoon so that they all know. I do want to say thank you to the Journal News for being here to cover this, but also respecting that we want to tell our people this information. They should not see this on a social media post. They should not see this on the journal news. I know there are a ton of rumors that are out there circling. I can't
091control those, but I'm hoping I can land some anxiety by being there to deliver this message. We are then going to ask every single building this afternoon after dismissal to call a staff meeting so that their staff will hear what is going to go out this evening to the community. In that meeting with the staff, there is a community letter that has been put together that you actually have in your folder as well goes over the four large scale. The four big massive pieces of this are the closure of Fairwood, the combination of the freshman campus to the high school, outsourcing of preschool, and outsourcing of nursing. Those are the four massive, okay, big structural changes. We then in the letter did put those same categories of reductions for each of our categories so that
092people know our staff deserve to know that before it's out in the community. In that same meeting, as I referenced uh when I was in response to Dr. Copus, we have put together, you have this in your folder as well, when we start talking to staff, their anxiety is going to go up. They're not going to hear half of what we're reading. So instead, we have put together an FAQ and talking point sheet that they will take with them so they know exactly what's happening. We've put in there questions of how will staff be supported? Will staff have a voice in this process? How is student learning affected? How is transportation? So, you will see all of this also in this FAQ is when they will be told that this presentation will go out at
0935:00 tonight. Okay? At the same time at 5:00 when the presentation goes out, that is when a a community letter will come from me. That community letter is what the staff will see during their staff meetings, but will explain the changes, and you have a copy of that in your folder. Then after that, at 5:00, we have two groups of parents and students that I think need extra information immediately, and that is Fairwood and our preschool families. And so at 5:15 there will be a letter that goes out specifically to Fairwood community to the Fairwood families that has very tangibles to help calm their fears of their child has a place. Their their child is still a valued member of Hamilton City Schools. This is no fault of any community. And so it says here
094that they will be reassigned to Bridgeport Riverview and Crawford. It says that families will receive notification in the coming weeks of their new school for next year. However, if I'm a mama bear, that's not soon enough. And so, we put together a link where all of our Fairwood families can actually click and put what street they live on and it will tell them what their school is for the 2627 school year. Okay, it will eventually, it's not populating probably because I have to click off of it, but it'll show you an image of the school and those pieces. In addition, in that letter, sorry, I have to keep scrolling back and forth, we explained that transportation will still be provided to all of those students. Those parents are not responsible for getting those kids to
095those new schools. We have not changed our we transport all students at Hamilton City Schools K through 12 at the onem radius. For any Fairwood student, if they live one mile from their new school, there actually are a number of kids that will live closer to Crawford Woods than to Fairwood where they attended. but the bulk of them will continue to receive transportation services. I don't want families to fret about that. In addition, our district will open some openhouse opportunities so that parents and students can go and see their new school starting to meld into a new school community. Okay. We are going to find ways to honor Fairwood. We are going to find ways to ensure that this is made to where all kids have a continuity of learning and access. The amazing part
096is every one of our elementaryaries are amazing. Everyone are strong institutions of learning, community, and support. That was something actually a silver lining I thought of about 3:00 this morning when I first got here. That was one of my missions as the director of elementary programs is that regardless of where you live, regardless of whether you're a falcon or a bobcat or a royal, you had a similar experience. And so our Fairwood Falcons are going to be welcomed with open arms into these new school environments to become and continue as a Hamilton City School student. So this letter will go out to the Fairwood community at 5:15. At the same time, our preschool families will also receive a letter. Theirs is very similar, but what it means for preschool that all of them will still
097be guaranteed preschool at no cost. That that will still be consolidated. And there's actually a lot of very positives with consolidating that beyond just the savings into one building with resources and supports and pieces along those side. We also uh Butler County ESC is going to mimic our enrollment process. It's very similar to what we do already, but they are going to mimic that. So that is not a new barrier for our families when enrolling in Butler County ESC's preschool next year. It is at no cost. There will be no change. They will still be a part of our district. I also really want to stress this because I had someone say this. Are you opening up preschool spots to other communities? No. This is for Hamilton City Schools just like it's run now. Okay.
098So, we've tried to put these letters out. We know that there will still be a lot of big feelings and emotions in in this day. This is a heavy day. However, it doesn't stop there. While staff will understand the whole plan, they're not going to know how they're impacted. Like I said, these changes will impact every building across our district. And so, starting next week, myself, Mr. Zerry, and Mr. Wright will be traveling to every building throughout the district. We will be meeting with every single staff member in two categories. One, if they are being laid off or rifted, we call that reduction in force. I realized earlier I've just been using the term riff. um of what that means for them. They will be given a folder of information to help them. In there,
099there is a personalized letter of recommendation from me, information on how to apply for unemployment in COBRA, how to become a sub for Butler County ESC, as well as the contact if they choose to want to take advantage of any of these Butler County ESC uh conversations. I will tell you, I will be in every single one of those conversations. It is extremely important to me as the leader of the district to sit there and to express to our people that this is no fault of theirs. We are going to have to say goodbye to some amazing staff members in this district. We're going to do that the right way. And the other conversations that we're going to have with our staff are the ones that are displaced. They still have a position. For instance,
100the Fairwood staff, the bulk of them are going to go elsewhere. Um but we want to provide some choice. We want to make sure their voice is represented in that. we have large a large number of options. So they will be given a survey in those meetings. In that uh survey it will ask them to rank within their lensure area what grade level. It will also rank buildings. We will then ask them what's more important to you. For instance, I am a 49 language arts social studies person. I will tell you my first passion is eighth grade language arts. If you said to me what's more important building or grade level, I would say grade I would say grade level. That is my bread and butter if I was a teacher. We are then going
101to use seniority for all of our displaced staff members. So the most senior displaced staff member is going to get their first choice if it's an opening and then work down the list. We think that's the equitable way to do this. We then once all staff members are placed, we will then start recalling as there are vacancies. Okay. But by next Thursday, every staff member in our district will know their status for the 2627 school year, whether they're m staying in their same building enroll, whether they're transitioning to a new building or role, or whether they do not have a secured job for the 2627 school year. Then Mike and John will work on that puzzle of where they go. When we get to the February 24th, as I mentioned before, that will be the
102um where the names of those displace or those rift people will be presented to you, excuse me, as well as the contract with the ESC. I think it's very important for our board to see that contract at the same time we're saying goodbye to staff members. And I don't think we can do one without the other. So, that meeting um will be uh you know, a long one, especially with Jeremy's forecast as well, but we will walk through all of those pieces. So that is our timeline. That is our hope. Um if there's any other comments or questions, but that concludes my presentation this morning. >> Thank you for your presentation, Miss BL. Greatly appreciate it. Next on our agenda is to consider a motion into executive session. >> So, so moved. >> And it's
103to um to confer with attorney or update the board of education concerning disputes involving the board that are subject of pending or imminent court action. >> So moved. >> Yes. Thank you. Have a second. >> I'll second. >> Mr. Fraser, if you can call the role, please. >> Dr. Hopkins. >> Here. Yeah. Mr. Davidson, >> yes. >> Dr. Copus, >> yes. >> Miss Matthews, >> yes. >> Miss Manuso, >> yes. >> I do think it's important to note that the board does not expect any action when we return from executive session. There'll be no other business, but we will come back to adjourn. >> Thank you.