Westlake City School District Board of Education Work Session April 14, 2025

001What's up? What's that? I call to order the Westlake City Schools Board work session for Monday, April 14th, 2025. Roll call. Craft here. Here. Venukan here. Lamb here. Lazinski here. Would you all join me for the pledge of allegiance? 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. As we gather today, we remember our vision. We educate for excellence, empowering all students to achieve their educational goals, to direct their lives, and to contribute to society. As well as our vision, the Westlake City School District will provide a dynamic student centered learning environment. Our district will be characterized by high achievement, actively engaged learners, mutual respect, shared knowledge, pursuit of new skills and capabilities,

002collaborative learning, willingness to take action, a team commitment to datadriven continuous improvement through a strategic planning process and tangible result. It is wonderful to see everyone out there. Thank you for coming today. Uh many of you I I saw just a short time ago at Rotary. So, thank you for presenting them or and joining us today. Um, we're going to move right into let's see um you approve the agenda. The agenda. I move to approve the agenda. Second. Discussion. Roll call. Craft. Yes. Lazinski. Yes. Penukin. Yes. Lamb. Yes. Pern. Yes. We are going to move right into presentations. Dr. Gag. Yep. Uh we're going to start Mr. Patton, if you want to bring your team up to the podium. While they're uh heading up there, I can introduce you. So, we do have uh Mr.

003Bob Patton with us here this evening along with his inaugural internship class. Um this was uh a concept that you know in talking to Mr. Wilson and as we are looking in our strategic plan and planning for the future what we're one of the things that we wanted to do when expanding opportunities is to try and get real world experience for um as many students that would want to participate in it. So uh Mr. Wilson tasked Mr. Patton with putting something together and you know we do know some of this because as Mr. Craft mentioned um they did come to Rotary recently as well and Mr. Patton pretty much went to some of his AP classes and recruited and um put together uh a really dynamic and special group of students where um having that

004first group to come in and do something is so important. And when you get to hear about what what these folks are doing, it's really a great way to start it. And um our vision for the future is to hopefully have him uh have this experience available for more and more students. I think next year he's up to like 22 that maybe have signed up for the the course. But the hard part of this is getting opportunities for kids. And so as Mr. Patton came out to Rotary, one of the goals there was to uh put this concept in the ear of our Rotarians and and possibly being able to open up other avenues for our upand cominging students. Um and even this here this evening to not only talk about it with the board,

005but also get out on on YouTube and if anybody is watching that would be willing to participate in this as well. Um so they've really done uh an excellent job. Uh Mr. Patton's even reached out to chamber and I think recently met with Nam Baker um to just trying to build these opportunities and we know that's going to be a challenge for him and his students. But it's really kind of fun to hear not only what Mr. Patton has done but the stories of um uh these special students who are um being able to participate in it this inaugural year. So that is my introduction. I will turn it over to uh Mr. Patton and his uh students to take the rest. Yeah. So, thank you. I appreciate uh the opportunity to come here. Um

006sort of explain what we're doing. Obviously, you know, when when Mr. Wilson called me last year and sort of pitched this like, hey, do you think you'd be able to put this together? Um I was fortunate. I've taught AP Gov here in Westlake for quite a long time. I knew kind of the students we were looking at. I knew after talking to uh Mr. Wilson that we wanted to again truly be a pilot program where we wanted to keep the numbers small to be able to kind of figure out how to do this moving forward. So I did I had uh there's one other student that was in Judy is sick today. Um wasn't able to make it. But so we we started with seven, we ended up with six. Um sort of had to

007talk to everybody and sort of do some convincing as to hey I think this could be a good opportunity or a good idea for you to do this. Um just to give you a little overview of kind of what this is. There's a lot of school districts across if you just take Northeast Ohio that have we call them like mentorship programs where at the end of kids senior year uh you know you end school May 5th and then kids will do a twoe mentorship program. Um I think that's good but I don't know that it gives you like a great look at maybe what it is that you may want to do or something you may want to pursue. So, the idea of having this go from, you know, you're basically looking at um almost

008six months of doing this. Uh we we kept it smaller this year with 125 hours. Everybody here has had significantly over 125 hours. Uh we moved it next year to 150. Um we have some requirements for kids to get into the program. It's now instead of one credit, it's two credits. There's some things that um these ladies have helped with sort of get this program going and tremendous feedback to me. I've gotten feedback from the businesses. We would not be in the situation we're in next year with 22 kids without these kids. Uh they've done an awesome job. They they've really sort of been honest with me and that's something I asked them last year like, "Hey, if we're going to start this program, I need feedback from you as far as how to do

009this." Um, so I can let each one of them kind of discuss a little bit about what they're currently doing. Um, I know I can fill in for Judy. So Judy is uh, and this is I I think uh, it's been a good experience for everybody, but Judy's working at the Cleveland Clinic at the Learner Institute. She's worked with a medical student and done some cancer research where she's working with cells and has been able to do experiments. um she did it as part of a summer internship that she got on her own and then when she got into this program and we kind of kicked this program off. She I I reached out to the Cleveland Clinic. She reached out to was like hey if if there's an opportunity to continue this would you

010be interested? They said yes and she's kind of continued this on throughout this year. So I'll kind of everybody can kind of go and and give it if anybody has any questions we can go from there. And if you want to yeah step up to the podium and then when you are down you know you could step to the sides before before you begin Mr. Patton do you remember something that Judy shared with us at Rotary one of her conclusions that Oh yeah. Uh so so one of the things and I I think this is key for everybody. You know I I I've been involved with some other school districts that had these mentorship programs and I think sometimes when you're doing a 10 10hour or two week it's difficult to maybe get a real

011feel. One of the things Judy had an idea of what she was doing is she really thought that's what she wanted to do for her career. She's had a great experience. She's really enjoyed it. But the one thing she's realized is I don't really want to do that. She wants to stay in that field, but has sort of realized like with this experience, I've enjoyed it. It's been good. I've learned a lot. I' I've had a great opportunity, but I don't want to do that. One of the reasons for internships, right? Yes. 100%. So, I'm Ava Kennedy. Um, I work at a immunology and pathology laboratory at Case Western Reserve University. Um, I've been there since the beginning of last summer and I'm going to continue until July 1st when my PI is leaving for

012another lab. Um, it's been a really great opportunity to do this. I kind of knew before Mr. Japan announced the program that I wanted to do research at case and I was actually going to ask my guidance counselor if I could like combine a lunch privilege with an early dismissal so I would have enough time to get over there and get back before my practices. So when he announced this I knew that this was going to be the perfect opportunity for me to have more time to go over to case and you know work in the lab. um my PI and the two grad students that I work with have been super helpful not just in teaching me you know procedures around the lab but also just how to navigate in a science world and

013how to approach the world in general. Um, one of the biggest things my PI has taught me is like the concept of golden eyes. Um, which is paying attention to small things that other people might not realize, whether it's in lab experiments or, you know, interacting with friends or talking about a discussion. And I think I've learned so many skills um, as far as like learning procedures, how to ask questions about different experiments, how to present our findings at different lab meetings. um and being there has really just given me an opportunity to see what I want to do for the future and has definitely like reaffirmed my belief that I would like to pursue my MD PhD. Thank you. Um so my name is Kavia and I'm currently interning at 42 connect which is

014a digital marketing firm and uh the owner of it is actually Mr. Patton's friends. So that's how I got connected to this. But I currently work under one of their account managers and I wanted to do marketing. Um I was interested in doing marketing in the first place was because I already had like an interest in business and so I wanted to explore the marketing field since it is a big part of business and a big part of all fields in general. And so I learned a lot of different ways to like capture people's attention and kind of um get them to take what you're putting down basically because I think that's what most businesses that's the most important part of a lot of businesses is to get their consumers to actually really value what

015they're offering. And so a lot of that is with wording. And so one of the projects that I was doing uh was an email marketing newsletter for their firm. And so every week or every two weeksish, I would write an article um about kind of the new developments in digital marketing. Like a big part of it was AI. And so the introduction of AI with a lot of these different aspects of digital marketing was kind of changing up the market. And so I would write about those developments a lot. And what I learned was I was able to apply what I learned to a lot of the different projects I was doing. So, um, with LLS, I know I came to one of the BO, uh, oh, I came to the PTA council meeting here

016for LS, but I was able to apply a lot of what I learned in my internship to my LLS campaign as well. And so, I learned a lot of different skills that I definitely could use for the rest of my life. Um, but I do think what I one of my conclusions too was like although I do think marketing is very valuable a valuable asset to have in any kind of field. I don't think I would be interested in just pursuing marketing alone. I think it's something that every uh it's a great skill to have, but I don't know if I would want to kind of just pursue a career in just that. But yeah, thank you. I'm Summerr Spreen and my internship was at St. John Medical Center, which Mr. Patton helped to connect

017me with the volunteer coordinator there. But I thought it was a good opportunity for me because I think I want to go into healthcare, but I'm not exactly sure and med school's a really big commitment. So, I wanted to like make sure that that was definitely like what I wanted to pursue. And each day I would be placed within a different department and I would get to shadow the health care professionals in that department, see what they did on a daily basis, like what their educational pathway was to get there and kind of see how all the different like units in the hospital work together. Um, some of the examples of the departments I visited were the emergency room, the ICU, graduate medical education since St. John's is a learning hospital, which really helped me

018out because they did a pretty good job of explaining stuff to me when I like didn't know what was going on. but um also like radiology and stuff like that. And um it kind of helped me focus on some certain areas that I want to pursue more in college and see if like that's really what I want to do. And I also think that um I got to interact with the patients a lot and I really think that helped build up my like skills with interacting with people because like up until now basically most of my interactions have been with my peers. So I think that those communication skills will really help me out in college. Thank you. And I'm Ashley Spreen and I've been working at Northshore Gastroenterology which is a private gastronenterology practice.

019It's in the Cleveland Clinic building off Columbia Road if you know where that is. And um since Northshore is a private practice I've gotten to see both kind of the business administration and the clinical aspects of it which I think is um important to understand how um like these medical facilities function as a whole. I've gotten to be in some meetings where they've talked about supply issues and um done some calculations on how much does it cost for each person to do a procedure, how long does it take, how much does it vary by doctor, what are the doctor's preferences, and how do they affect how they run the business. And then I've also gotten to go around with lots of different doctors who specialize in different um parts of the GI system. I've gotten

020to be with nurse practitioners and even some of their um medical students. And actually there was a recent Westlake graduate who was there, Colin Walsh, if you know who he is. So I've gotten to be with him a little bit. But um and I think it's been really helpful in helping me understand not just like what the technical skills you need to be a medical professional are, but also how important it is to be thoughtful when you're interacting with the patients and help them understand what you're what you're offering to them and what their treatments will do and how you can help them and what options they have. because there's a pretty big gap between how much patients understand about what you're providing them and um like what you understand as a medical professional. So,

021I've helped them figure out some ways to teach people about the different treatments we're offering to them and kind of help them feel comfortable in what they're receiving. And I do think it's pretty there's not enough stress on the communication aspect and a lot of people who are looking to go in the medical field as there is on kind of like the scientific knowledge. So I think that was a really important experience for me to understand um how much of a role that plays. Did you meet um Rachel Quailer there? I did not. Okay. She's uh doing uh her rotation. She might even be a doctor by now but doing a rotation. She's a Weslake graduate also. A couple of students that they've been from a lot of different schools. So, okay. Dr. Toba is

022my doctor. Yes. He's wonderful. He's very funny. And they're looking to offer a scholarship to to the Westlake students who are there. So, that's pretty cool. Wonderful. Hi, my name is Antella. I was at St. John's Medical Center and I work specifically in the pulmonology office. And what I really learned there is a lot of medical like like I learned a lot of vi like how to take vitals. I learned signs of heart failure, lung collapse and I learned how to read scans of um like PET scans and CAT scans. and it was very informative of um really what patient care is like because I didn't really see myself going into patient care, but I realized I actually liked it more than I thought. So, that is definitely something I'm now considering as I'm going

023into college. Um, but it was also just a really good learning experience from um the standpoint of seeing what um the different like the a doctor versus a nurse practitioner cuz um the doctor would go out into the ICU and she'd be there for like a few days but then and she wouldn't see every single patient, but the nurse practitioner would see every single patient. And it was definitely interesting to know if I wanted to be more around in different hospitals or be in one place like an office as the nurse practitioner was. And thank you. I So I think as you can see there's a reason why this has been successful this year. I don't think it takes real long when you hear the plat. Speaking of juniors here, you could add to that.

024pretty bright kids and and again have really helped me good feedback that we've gotten. So like if you go from this year to piloting it uh when we did our course scheduling uh for next year uh many of them went in to the rooms uh talked to students and we have basically tripled the amount of kids we have and I I would expect that number to keep growing as we go on. Uh so we're 22 students next year. We actually haven't I've already met with those kids once. We're going to meet with them again. Uh and and again, some of the feedback that we've been able to get from them is the importance of basically scheduling. So, I know our guidance department is basically going to handch outside of this, which they're all doing. Uh

025so, to to basically make that work for students to get that experience. So, that's one part of it. The second part of it was just to meet our academic requirements at Westlake to have enough credits to be able to do this. We added it's going to be a two credit class now as uh they gave me got a little feedback early that hey, this needs to have an honors designation because this is hurting my GPA. Um so, we added we added the honors designation to it too. Just again th those are some small things. There's many many things that that they have have gotten good feedback from. And then I guess you know one of the biggest thing as you can tell pretty medical heavy this year. Um we have more students next year that

026aren't just interested in medicine. Got quite a few. It's it's a much wider range uh for next year. I know Liz's daughter is involved in this next next year also is interested in going into art. So I mean there's got we've got a much uh wider range of students interest. So, like one of the things that I have been doing and if anybody can potentially help with that is I'm looking for people that would be interested in potentially hosting our students. I'm trying to get as many of those contacts as I possibly can uh for the students that are doing this uh next year. So, I I would be happy if anybody's got any questions for if we could bring students back up to ask them some questions uh as well as along with you

027with you, Mr. Patton. Just a a comment. you know, you've done an incredible job, I think, in picking this off and even as Kabia was saying, um, you know, her placement is from through a friend of yours. So, that's how things get started at times. You know, it's networking through this person that you met and that person you may know, uh, previously. Um, so we're hoping it grows from there. And, and having heard you at Rotary already, um, just something that and and, uh, Mr. Patton said um said it a moment ago where although it may have impacted your GPA um specifically, you know, with it not being an honors designation or that sort of thing, some of you shared that you believed that it was a benefit though, whether it's either on applications or

028other type of things to be able to add this experience to it. Do you feel like in in that component um when you were either explaining it or in an interview or or applying for a school, did you feel it had any benefit? And if so, do you have a an example or Yes, I think for sorry I think for me personally it really helped because my PI was willing to write me a letter of recommendation for college. um he was very passionate about the schools I was applying to and encouraged me to kind of branch out and applied places that I thought I might not get into and he wrote me a very strong letter of recommendation along with connecting me um to various people at different schools and professors. I think that definitely

029had an impact on my application and might be one of the main things that got me into the schools that did. And and did you anybody else was going to chime in? Oh yeah. I was going to say for me one of the biggest factors in choosing to do this was that um if otherwise I would have had to take a bunch of classes that I didn't really want to take in order to fulfill the credit requirements for graduation. And I feel like this like going out and actually seeing how this what I've what I've been learning for the past 12 years actually um functions in the real world in a field that I'm interested in was so much more valuable in me trying to decide like what I wanted my major to be and

030what I cared about and kind of writing some of those like supplemental essays which is more about your personal goals and um just kind of the things that you enjoy. Um, I think it was a lot more helpful in actually getting to do something rather than just sitting in the classroom being like, "Well, I have to be here because I have to graduate." So, that that was what it was for me, I guess. Yeah. I would say specifically, I think it really helped you stand out. Like a lot of schools really focus on like your extracurriculars now and that's not like an opportunity a lot of other students get and being able to include that and then also like some of the supplemental questions that a lot of schools would ask like, "Oh, how'd you

031get interested in your like field?" Well, I had an example right there to be like, I had experience in this and I did this and that was really helpful for writing all those essays because pretty much every student had it. So, I would definitely What schools were you I mean, are you considering just going down the line starting Kavia? Um, I'm committed to UPEN. Okay. I'm probably going to commit to Northwestern. Okay. I'm still deciding, but my front runner right now is UNCC. Um, also still deciding, but probably UCLA. Um, I'm committed to Overland College. Okay. So, what? No Ohio State here. Actually, I think all of you are well ahead of the game because I know uh kids that are juniors in college and they still don't have a clue of what they want

032to do. So, that you could eliminate something or think that you have an interest to pursue it further. I I you're just so far ahead of and that is look and and that may still change. I mean, I know it changes for a lot of us. And there's a lot of people probably sitting up here and in this that thought they were going to do X and ended up going a different direction whether it was after school or after grad school. It can happen. And I the thing I think that's good for something like this is you are getting some experiences and I like I don't want to put down like because our at the high school we offer a ton of really really good electives and there's some great like classes that kids can

033take um to do things. I just think this is a different pursuit and I do think it's a different opportunity for kids that want to maybe hey, you know, all these kids up there and I know a lot of their paths. I mean, they're taking quite a few AP classes and I think this fit with I think that was getting over sort of the hump of getting kids to understand that, hey, you can do this and this is going to look just as good on a resume to get into college as it might be taking one or two more AP classes or advanced or a CCP class. this is going to be good for you for many, many reasons. I mean, one of the things I don't know that is that they're not at this

034point yet. I just know this because I've had other kids with with basketball connections and things. Um, one of the things I think will look really good in a year or two if they do want to do something their freshman to sophomore year of college, sophomore and junior year of college, I think it's a it's a differentiator between them and some other people where if you're looking at an internship between your junior and senior year of college or sophomore junior and one of the questions comes up, you can absolutely, hey, I did this. I did this for six months. I did something just like this. I had this experience. So I think some employers might be a little bit more inclined for these students than maybe somebody who hadn't had that experience and is just

035looking for their first time where these people have been involved in a business had to be around had to do things had expectations on them. I know some of them have had some projects throughout the course of the years that they've been given like hey you can do this and then report back. So I I think it's been just a different experience for people. I do like I said I mean they they did an awesome job. I was not expecting I know when I told Mr. Wilson. I was hoping we would double it uh next year for for year two. I wasn't expecting 22 kids, but I think that's a testament to when they went in and talked about their experience and and did a really good job about selling the program. So, um, I

036think a lot of credit goes to them and kind of what they did and how they were able to sell it this year and even their bravery for for going into a class that didn't exist before, but also going in and all of you probably knew your GPA down to a significant decimal point and and go into it and say, you know, this it's probably not going to help my GPA, but it's going to help me. and and to be able to see past that I think is huge and and it's a great thing for you guys. Any other Well, Mr. Patton, we've we've heard a lot about the program through Mr. Wilson. Um and it's wonderful to hear again the second time. I'm just as amazed time too hearing about the wonderful program and

037all the things you're doing. So, thank you Mr. Wilson. Thank you Mr. Patton. I think about those connections that you touched on and how might you how might you reach out to those connections in the future. Sometimes it's just maybe an annual note or letter uh from when you head off to school. Just wanted to tell you about what I'm doing because those people are going to be uh continue to be influential people in your lives. Uh but that connection many times is very important. I think about some of those projects that you worked on um and how will you remember all of those things that you accomplished uh say this year and add it to your portfolio so that you can pull it out in that interview one to five years from now because

038it will be significant. So great work. Any other thoughts or questions? Knowing the growth and also knowing having worked with Clara and trying to help her find different options. Um, knowing you're going to be looking for different positions for next year. If there's particular areas, you know, whether it's marketing, coding, you know, whatnot, if you could get that to Mr. Wilson, he can get it to us this way. Sometimes it helps sort of like, hey, so and so would be a good person to talk to. I have. So, like I said, I I met with the the kids who signed up for the class next I met with them a couple weeks ago. Uh we are actually meeting tomorrow morning before we go out on break because I kind of gave them a couple things.

039Uh and this was feedback that a couple of them like I Ava didn't mention it. I you know her Aya and Judy kind of got 100%. They they wanted to do an internship with these individual programs and they sent I don't know how many you sent out. 40. Yeah. They sent out quite a few emails to different places and got responses back. It's one of the things when I talk to the kids right off the bat is to, hey, not a bad idea for you. If you kind of have an idea what you want, put a resume together. I'll be happy to look at it. If you want to put together an email, I'll look at it and kind of help you structure it and then send it out to some people. So, it's one

040of the things I talked about a couple weeks ago. I know like I know your daughter already has done that. Um, I'm meeting with kids tomorrow to kind of see who else has done it. The other thing I told him is, hey, if you've got some contacts, if dad, uncle, dad's friend, mom's friend has somebody that does something and it might be something you want to do, now's the time to use those. And then I can follow up with those people. And that's kind of some of the things I've been doing. I've had some I've had quite a few meetings with individual businesses and in different groups. Went to the Rotary Club. I met with Nan Baker. I'm actually meeting with a person that she put me in touch with. Um, I've sent quite a

041few emails out. Just about everybody that's hosted our kids this year is going to host them again with the exception I think of Case just because they're going through some stuff right now that I don't know that they're going to be able to. But everybody else is is planning on hosting our kids. So I will I'll be happy to get it. And then look, truth be told, if anybody has a contact or anything, feel free send it send the email my way. I will do I will take it from there and reach out to that person and and make the contact. And the most difficult part is once I've been able to explain it to people had really really good feedback. It's sometimes business community not the easiest to uh return emails and phone calls.

042That has been challenging. Have you reached out to the alumni? I did. I I mean I actually had two meetings with them. I met with them and then we did a conference call last week. Um provided them they've been really good. Gave them a bunch of information. We put together a flyer that they're going to send out to a bunch of people. We are supposed to touch base again. So, I kind of gave them some dates, just some target dates. Like I said, we're meet I'm meeting with kids tomorrow morning. When we get back from break, I'm going to wait till AP testing is over because again, a lot of the kids that are in this program this year, they're all taking multiple AP classes. It's a lot of the same kids next year that

043are taking multiple AP classes. So, I'm going to let AP testing get done. Then we're going to meet backtoback weeks and hopefully by that particular point I will have quite a bit of feedback back from chamber of commerce um some people from the Rotary Club from the alumni association where I will have and then just the people that I've met with I'll have a good idea I as I told you guys at the Rotary Club one of the things I'm trying to do is get as many people as possible maybe not everybody but try to get as many people by when they walk out of school in June we'll have a pretty good idea about where everybody's going to be at. Just makes the transition easier in August, September. Just because for seniors that that

044when we're starting, we're looking to start in the first two weeks of October. Transition in August, September, it a it goes very fast. They're doing a lot. Seniors are doing quite a bit of stuff with you talk about homecoming, writing college essays, applying to colleges, visiting colleges. There's a lot of stuff going on in those first six, seven weeks. So, I'd like to try to make that transition as smooth as possible so that when those kids do get started, August and September are more about here's my schedule and know where I'm going, try to set up a schedule that kind of works for the business and for for for the person. So, that's that's what we're kind of So, anybody that has anybody um feel free. I would Yeah. Can you send us or email

045us like a flyer or a one pager? I have two things. I have a kind of expectations from a business standpoint like hey here's what we're looking for and I have it from a student standpoint so I I'll I'll get it to I'll get it to everybody uh tomorrow morning I'll forward it out to people I know okay that'd be great any of the internships involve a formal text like this is what we do here's a book I want you to read it and it's going to help you understand I'm just curious yes um I had to go through a lot of safety training okay um beforehand so there were about three three-hour safety meetings Um, and then we have a bunch of books in the lab over like different safety protocols that I had

046to go through and take like an end of safety unit test on it. So, thank you. Anyone else? Just curious. I can speak. So, one of the things that they're all going to get, um, we I I met with somebody at the Greater Cleveland Partnership, Emma Baloney. They're all going to get an IT certification for this year because everything and everybody did involved it in some way, some form. So, all we we kind of set that up. all the the kids next year will get the same thing. I'm just going to continue this with us. So, it's it's another sort of like added bonus. They don't need it from a pathway to graduation, but that is something it's it's something that you can add on to to to graduation and have moving forward. So, they'll

047all have that as they uh as they move forward here, too. And Emma's, like I said, she's going to continue that for next year for our students. So, pre-apprenticeship. Yeah, it's a pre-apprenticeship program through Greater Cleveland Partnership. So, we did it. Yeah, we met with her last year and I met with Emma at the beginning of the year. Um, they're all going to get that. Um, I just have to wait till they're all done. So, as soon as they're all done, I'll send that paperwork out to them and then they'll get all that certification. Super. Anything else from the board? No, I was going to I was going to email Matt Dolan, but he's already been contacted at GCP. Who's that? Matt Dolan. I have not met with I met with Emma does their pre-apprenticeship

048program. So, look, if you've got somebody, send them. I'd be happy to uh try to hook up with them also. Awesome. Anything else? Good luck. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you again. Dr. Gagan, we'll move on. Yes, we will. Uh we have uh another great group coming up here and we have a couple of our teachers leading it from Dober Intermediate School. Uh we have uh Bridget and Angie coming up to talk to us about the Dover campus. So they were here earlier. We had um they were presented uh uh a grant through um the educational foundation and they presented earlier about what they have been doing so far over at Dober Intermediate School and for a night in the garden. Was she there? standing in the field of grass to that same spot in

049the center photo and the right photo activities. So, um you know, as we shared last time, we're working with students, parents, members, staff, businesses, um and other community volunteers. And for now five years, so half a decade we've been on this adventure to improve outdoor learning. And we've accomplished quite a bit in that time. And if you'll head to the next slide, um, one of the things we've really been focusing seeking out the classroom I can really maximize our student and our staffing in these spaces and really continue to improve the health of our city school students if we have a comprehensive And so you're going to hear a little bit about our this evening and and some of the things we've already done to try that. Um but first I'm going to turn it

050over to Tiff. Hi, my name is So I have an eighth grader and a fifth grader currently. Um, both of my children have had the privilege of having these two wonderful teachers here for science and math. When my daughter was the eighth grader now, when she was in fifth grade, she spent about half the year, in her words, planning and collaborating with classmates to plan this pollinator garden. Um, and then she recruited me to come help her plan plant. and we did all the planting and from there I've kind of been hooked in with her. Um part of the project when they started to garden they had some students submit essays for a contest about what pollinators mean to them and she won a little award and got to present it and from there came

051home and said to her dad, "Can we please do something to support bees? Please, we need to we've learned like they're rough shape. We need to support them." And so from there we now have three beehives at our house. Uh we are four years of that. We've been learning a lot about it provided honey for our neighbors and it's it's interesting to see how it's grown. Our neighbors now are not spraying. Um they're planting more native wild flowers. It's just become this thing, you know, it's how it out into the community is kind of amazing. And they don't all have kids or whatnot. And that's been um she was there. She wished that there had been that type of Now they can go in the garden about some more things because my son said it

052would be awesome. There is medical on the property. There are trees lining the backed Right now I let them go outside of guy's counselor's office. They can go in there quiet space the outdoor corner. So we had um a member of a parent cut some logs from wood. Our plan was to put them in the grass so the kids could walk around on them and we need them kind of make them ground for seaf. So they've been sitting out there since summer, but these kids they've been carrying over one by one their 20 minute recess and they have in the little wooded area where I can see them almost like a little fire thing out and they climb on them and they you know they sit and chat and that's not going into the need

053especially with the fifth graders. So I'm hoping like that don't access club or service. your time before one whole thing and all the students there welcome. We're so good that the kids brought us donated not only their time but also labor and resourc I think a lot of reasoning. [Music] That's where I want if I hadn't imaging I can take I mean I take her. So like I think kids are crazy until the amount of kids they got. I think also also at their as you're well aware there are many issues that come with building in the district. So I think this might be one of those ways that we can increase our staff pride in the space getting that out and a lot of teachers space in front of the school and that's removed.

054So it' be nice they really love to go out there having a space outside that why we need your help for this. I think we've been pretty good about securing our own funding. Up until now, we've seen over $15,000 grant support. However, we've never been able to find a grant that will fund nonical materials. Like everybody wants to Yeah. get kids outside, but to fund um like a landscape designer, not a lot of that. But I'm finding that again like all of our kind of together like we're not the whole so if we have the architect architectural plan we will be able to ask the community to support us but not that kind of situation. So he reached out to Patty. Listen, I so many multiple public um churches, cemeteries, uh any human colony. done

055for special needs private res. This was one project that started a few years ago that we did and I thought it might be beneficial where James Ohio they have this giant open space uh parking lot that's the main buses it's too slow they can't do anything beneficial with its but it's a central part of their campus and they had approached us the idea something useful to do with this space. So we ended up we created a plan for this area. This third board office is adjacent to this also. So actually board offices as well as um perspective they love the idea outdoor classrooms things like that we don't know how it all works Uh know the students are always lingering. Um parking lot. So we end up class event center. Um So they had something

056that they not all the boxes bad ways. Okay. Yeah. Did five A couple. So showing you that is kind of kind of where the direction um put together a set of plans, right? So, so um I generated a proposal conceptual design spaces. Uh this this conceptual design plan needs to outdoor areas at the home. Transforming them into vibrant functional spaces that foster a deep connection while instilling a sense of civic privacy plan serves as a guiding vision development of courtyards main entrance recess are retention facing garden focused on maximizing the use of utilized spaces that sample highlight outdoor classrooms, interactive learning environments and screen areas opposed to back. Our design goals outdoor classroom learning areas designated spaces that encourage learning beyond traditional indoor classrooms seamlessly integrating nature into the educational experience. Nature connection. Consider pathways,

057seating areas, spaces that allow students public nature while promoting mental wellness walking. Consider walking past courtyards, other spaces, encouraging exploration of enhancing aesthetical the aesthetic flow of the school grounds. Pollinator native plant gardens incorporate pollinative pollinator friendly plants native species throughout the landscape to support local ecosystems and provide educational opportunities on the importance of biodiversity and functional use spaces reimagine unused and underutilized areas to serve dual purposes including outdoor meeting spaces quiet retreat areas and interactive learning Absolutely. I think that's one of the So, uh, typically a project like this, I would expect starting point, we probably have about 100 hours, uh, worth of my design team's time putting it putting it together. For design work, uh, for my team, charge $150 per hour. Uh that's our entire team. We have nine professionals on staff.

058Landscape designers, landscape architects, construction professionals, uh estimators, things like that. Uh so you do your quick math, 10 100 hours, 15,000 would be probably about uh probably about a pretty good starting point. If you went out and handed hand handled a hired a landscape architect firm for this scope of work, it would be I would guess minimum twice that would be the starting point. Uh the Patty Group is committed to giving back to our communities. Uh before I wrote this up, I approached my owners, told them what I wanted to do, told them I wanted to be a part of this. They basically said cover our direct costs and you can get it done. So for this design work, that scope of work, I presented um a design agreement uh at $7,080. Uh give you

059a quick rundown uh of what that looks like. Design will focus on overall themes of civic pride. One with nature, ensuring that the school's outdoor spaces reflect strong connection to the community and commitment to the environmental stewardship. This is a conceptual guide. So there would be no construction details, no plant labels, bid documents, anything like that. But it serves as a foundational vision to steer the thoughtful development of these outdoor spaces in the future. Uh typically the way this process would go, we would create base plans, scale drawings of what the buildings look like. We would put down what's we call bubble diagram, some loose kind of ideas on how things would should lay out the way they would function, bring those back before anything gets developed. So I have to be have to be

060careful with your dollars time doing this. So we don't go too far without being hit. So those concepts in place come back uh for who wants to sit in or anybody who they tell me to be there. I'm open. I'll lay it out there for everybody. So uh once we got that approval, yes, things are headed in a very good direction. We go back down. We ended up finishing creating scale drawings for those areas, 3D images to go along with them that they would have a set of lands pathway success project. Uh the cost is $7,080 or $7,8 Wait for very open, you know. the pollinator garden that we did the original slide that would be uh back up. It was you know right you could that area you know once they had drawn up

061a set of plans right they had show here's what we're going to do with this absolutely I have something to look at that'd be something where you can spend $20,000 without an eye. But as soon as they get a couple businesses to bring in and help with some of the materials, reach out to contacts, we have giant logs to be bench built in benches. All of a sudden, I don't know about it. I was going to go let's just say parents teach you to go out and buy that. or you find a business or you know so say how much is each piece of it going to cost there's a tremendous range of it and usually you can get there as long as you have a plan of what the end game is I think

062of an example the Westlake education and how many foundation like that. Uh part of part of the we have to have this design. But the educational based say the table or something once you weren't willing to put money into whereas once there The goal with the plan would be where all the red spots are. Oh yeah. It's going to change. So, don't even be looking at outside. Give or take a few dollars. Yes. All right. Good evening everybody. I appreciate the opportunity to present funding to be in this position. Um, so I'm going to be discussing a permanent improvement fund. Um as you know permanent funds are designated for maintaining upgrading expanding our facilities and infrastructure. Uh these funds are essential for us to make our facilities and campuses uh safe and functional. So when

063I look at permanent improvement funds there's kind of four main categories that I consider safety and security. So that's everything from security cameras buttons. Another category is facility maintenance and upgrades. Those are things that I kind of consider attached to inside. Um transportation and parking is another category. Uh this fund also is used with the purchase of vehicles, school buses, um and maintaining parking lot and finally athletic and extra. So renovation sort of feels in terms of upgraded lighting that kind of stuff. Um our current uh PI levy revenue uh it's approximately 1.1 million that we bring in annually. Uh I want to note and I put it there this year and for the next four years so far that out of that one approximate it's $100,000 every year. So realistically what we have to

064to work with is million dollars every year which sounds like a lot of money. Uh but we'll dig into it here a little bit. You'll see that it fairly um so starting out I wanted to call out predictive PI expenditures. Right? So predictive PI expenditures are those things that we see scheduling out in the future. uh things like parking lot uh resealing fractal ceiling scraping. Um that's done to extend the life of our parking lots maintain our facility not just visually but also extending that bus replacements. Our goal is to have three per year. We don't have really a small our fleet is kind of large size. There about 40 school buses that are currently. So replacing two or three buses a year puts us at a 12 to 15 life cycle. Uh vehicle replacement

065again I look at that as our white fleet. So our pickup trucks that maintenance uses are van are vans that are used by transportation transport students. You look at approximately one placement here, we have 12 right now. Uh so again that that puts us at that 12 to 12 or 12 or 13 uh year cycle and then some other projects on our shortterm PI list here. This is a list of projects that we targeted for the next three to six months to be completed. Um when looking through uh beyond those predictive uh expenditures that we need to make uh when looking through what other option what other things that are on our list uh potential expenses uh would be uh we looked at uh I looked at urgency and safety as the number one factor

066um next the educational impact the long-term cost savings investment that ultimate budget efficiency $1 million. So fitting in as much as we can. So working our way down this list here, mobile panic buttons. I know there's been some discussion there about that, a lot of discussion. Uh I anticipate uh seeing that on the next regular board meeting as an agenda item. Uh that's going to be uh OSC cooperative purchasing. So get a better price that way. A portion of that is going to be paid. So uh that 57,000 total number for the system that's going to come out of uh next item is the besturation. We've been working on that here since last fall and I'll come back to that question. Um the again asphalt playground in the back. I know that's a hot topic.

067It's been on our radar for a couple of years. It is one that's in not great shape starting to a bit of a concern for safety. Um so that's something we'd like to take care of. That's received a a quotation. Uh and I hope to have that summer. Uh rooftop unit replacement at the PAC. That's something that the board approved back towards the end of the school year. Uh that is scheduled to be installed and up and running for spring break. That's I'm hearing it's chipped. Uh hot water storage tank at the high school as well. We had an issue with a tank that um sprung a leak temporarily and it's something that needs to be replaced um so it doesn't fail cause a significant amount of damage. in the process of gathering estimates for

068that. And then some other things here, door replacements at the transportation building, stuff that has uh needed to be addressed, vehicle replacement for maintenance, uh down as well. Uh transportation just happens to be up in the rotation for parking lot cracking. So we'll beating front and rear lots as part of that project. uh tables and chairs were here at the board office. Um and then interior painting at the high school. I want to touch on that as well. Um that the the interior painting uh uh items listed on these uh are kind of placeholders, right? So, we know that we need to kind of have a refresh every so often, but I wanted to let the board know that after walking through the building, speaking with principal Woods and custodian there, seems like there's not

069as much of a need there that project scaled back. Uh there are some areas that have specialized textured paint there, but thanks to the the custodial crew there, that building over the years, they've painted sections of the building over the summer and during breaks. So, I I kind of when I always think about that, I don't know if you know the Golden Gate Bridge, right? They start painting at one end and they work their way and by the time they're done, they start over again. I feel like that's kind of what's been going on there a little bit. Uh, and so I'm I'm glad to say that that's in better place than I thought it was. you know how much you may I have not gotten to that point here but I think it's going

070to be a small portion of budget free discuss that now we're at ultimately when you combine our anticipated or recurring expenditures with those oneoffs that we have to decide what we're going to do every uh you see that our PI uh projected PI expenditures are well above our budget each year. This year alone we had a total of just under $2.5 million uh in projects that we had listed out. And again, some of those most of those are needs, some of them are wants. uh just looking forward in years 2026 and 27, you can see that we're above that amount all need to potentially have some discussions about how we want to proceed maintaining our facilities what our think challenges is Mr. House and I have spoken through this and I appreciate you presenting this

071tonight Mr. This is very similar to the information that he brings and his predecessor before brought to our finance meetings uh to kind of discuss you know looking at um going back to the beginning of this presentation you know we bring in about a million dollars a year uh in P and so as we look at the expenses we have a couple different options obviously we continue to close items further along just keep pushing them out, you know, kind of handling it that way. Um, some of it is, you know, questions on what is the appetite of the district. Um, and as Mr. said, we 40 buses. Um, you know, replace three per year 14 year replacement cycle on each bus. um you know it's that number that we're good with or are we good

072with 20 year replacement cycle and so that frees up some more money. So it's looking to to go through these inspirit uh and then saying okay do we want to do it with other money uh we have general fund dollars uh at some point in our conversations uh at least initially through uh finance I think we've brought it up in some of the public meetings as well you know we're probably going to have to look at doing PI an additional PI or a bond issue either either way at some point to address some of these larger projects because again when you're looking at what's in front of you here and just doing some very very you know quick math you know we've got about $5 million to take in over the next five years but

073you know got six 11 say you know 13 14 million $15 million the screen there And so we're nowhere close to being able to cover. Again, some of them are are wants, but most of them are needs. Really, a lot of them um as Mr. House is saying, when you're looking at uh sealing the parking lot, we're we're not doing it to make the stripes brighter. uh you know, we're doing it as a long-term investment to extend the use of that parking lot without it crumbling away and having to do uh a floor replacement. So, you know, pieces like this we look at as investments in our facilities uh not necessarily just trying to, you know, make greater lines for the park. um you know so when we look through these different pieces um we

074are seeking uh we again through finance we we've started with uh what we're seeking input from the board on how we want to handle these um because as as our teachers brought up even at you know dis's the little you know there is crumbling you know playground and that's being addressed you know this summer that's plans for all our you know there's constantly pieces that jump I hear you know the other that I just have to, you know, talk about as a little bit is um you know, we have the same expenses as a as any of you or me as homeowners. Okay? Just exponentially uh uh great. So, uh Mr. Lzinski leaned over here and uh uh you know said when we're looking at a roof for this building that's about a million dollars.

075You know, it's not a a $30,000 roof or $50,000 roof. It's a million. Uh we have a not a hot water tank but a hot water storage tank because the way that our our buildings are set up is you heat x number of gallons it goes into storage tanks it gets circulated throughout the building so you have hot water available um and then back and reheated um you know the storage tank is a $15,000 you know is that end up what it it's coming in at I believe it's the quote that I got and I'm still working through it was just a little bit under that okay so but you 10 to $15,000 on on a storage tank uh for our hot water system. So, you know, uh things and and that was not something

076we were planning on uh uh replacing. Um that one is at uh the high school. And so, you know, you are getting to the point with some of your equipment at the high school where you're what we about 15 years in uh on the high school since uh opening it. uh uh maybe a little longer now, but um we're getting to the point where we have things pop up and we're not expecting to replace it, but we need to because like in this case, it it it's leaking and cannot be repaired. So, um it makes it very challenging as we look at PI trying to manage uh uh the needs, the wants, the emergencies that pop up and make sure they all, you know, are addressed. the electronic board signage, especially being able to scale

077back the painting of WHS. Um, the Dober campus, while we know where the Dober campus is, we do have a fair number of people who are coming that do not know. I would really encourage us to move that as a higher priority. Also, it's the only one that does not have any signage. And whether we're talking our uh medical services, you know, emergency services, soccer tournaments that take place, it wouldn't really help for, you know, a family member picking up or dropping off who don't know where this building, these buildings are. I think something signage in the front there would be extremely helpful for a number of people. I know we're going to have a conversation further about what's going on with state funding and potentially, you know, the impact of carryover and whatnot. I

078mean, when we did pass this PI, I and I was not on the board at the time, but I was involved in the the levy committee at the time or the operating fund committee. Um, we knew that 1.1 million was not enough, right? And we've always known that. Um, more than likely, I'm guessing if you know, I I've said repeatedly when we go back to the ballot, whether we break some out as additional PI money or particularly a specific fund for whether it's redoing the pack or the pack in athletic facilities and specifically naming certain things out would definitely be, I think, helpful for a number of people in the city in the community. And you know, we've been shipping away at DIIS, but at the same time, there's still some things that that do

079need to end up happening, whether it's talking about um you know, floor replacement or the cabinetry. I know definitely needs to we've been going through putting the new vestibule in. Um so I think we've done, thank you to the finance committee for, you know, making sure that some elements keep do moving forward. One thing and I'm sitting here just trying to kind of figure out I think it'd be helpful if we just sort of okay here's kind of what we need to spend still at DIIS in the pack like for renovation by facility. Yeah. I think it I would like to I mean I can still keep doing the the back of the envelope numbers here but well and I think some of the pieces so uh let me jump let me answer your question

080uh there or let me address your your statement there uh first and then I do want to talk about the vestule uh uh real quick. I I we need to give an update on that. Um when we look at some of the numbers, so for instance, there are some of the pieces on here that we view as needs uh for the for the pack. Um there if you're looking at doing a full-blown renovation of the pack, uh that would be very very different than numbers that are presented here in front of you today. Um you know, this does not include I've not seen anywhere on here about talking about full redecorating of the interior. Um and and I've had pe and the reason I use that as an example is I've had people ask me

081about that of when are we doing the full tear out and redecorating everything. Um that's not something that's put in on your uh PI. Uh we're looking at more of uh maintenance that would need to be uh maintenance items or uh I think we might have you know uh lighting or or things like that that are rigging rigging more of the the actual behind the scenes nuts and bolts that make everything and that's right I believe so. Yes, sir. Because you're feeling the pack needs more than Yeah. No, I think it needs a renovation but I I think that's that's that's been the hardest thing is Sure. I mean, we I know that there's a speaker or two that's not working. Uh, you know, right before one of the shows, uh, hose became disconnected and

082the pit had water getting into it. So, yeah, I mean, uh, a renovation would be great, but how do you do that before some of the other things that we have on our list? So that that's depends upon sort of you know in a renovation is going to be much more either big spend whether it's something that or whether it's a quick down there's there's a that collects water right well there is a pump there what I understand same area different I guess the pump fail flooded and then flooded a bit. We're lucky this time the water didn't go into the pit screen disconnect. Correct. So the pump was pumping out. It was pumping in just within itself. So I would caution to either not to things. All project back around 20. We did our

083Construction projects Saturday. No. Um, you know, because no one responded. It's not, you know, they don't necessarily tell you why they're not responding. They just literally Well, so we went back to the uh the attorney and said, "Hey, what do we do right now?" And said, "Okay, well, you know, what are some companies you've worked with in the past? How do we call them through it?" And so, we've done that. And so, we've reached out to a couple companies directly. We've had some ongoing conversations with one of them. The other one we're waiting for some more information on. Um, the one company uh that we've been having ongoing conversations with said they just missed missed the notice and so they didn't they didn't see it and therefore, you know, didn't respond. So, uh, we're working

084with them to try to get things worked out. Now, uh, as this whole process and some of it ran uh, uh, overlapping, but um, we had worked with what's called a criteria architect and it was Bill Dodie. Bill Dodie. Okay. So he's a and he's a local architect. Correct. And so the criteria architect uh and again similar to like what we did with baseball softball we had I think uh Osports did it correct? And they kind of give you an idea of what what you're doing not far off from what the gentleman was talking about you know tonight. You kind of give you a vision of this and so uh uh Mr. Dodie uh did a a proposed vision of this and then that's what your companies are supposed to work off to give you

085uh bids and stuff. uh giving that to these two companies asking for proposals. The one company we're in contact with um does not feel that it could happen this summer. Okay. So, let me restress that. Does not feel that it could happen this summer because they're just so backed up. Well, it's I think it's I think it's a combination of things including and I'll be the first one to tell you uh they sent me some wonderful pictures from 2013 when that vestibule was added. Okay. And it's far more integrated than you would think. Um, and so so when they I mean they they took off the entire brick work of the building to add on and uh uh add steel structure and rebuild that hill there. So it was I mean they got a pictures

086of the whole building just side open the corner open there when they uh took all that glass I think too low. It doesn't have two peaks. Correct. two yeah multiffactor almost for technology terms but it not exactly uh but uh so they don't feel that if happen to take it all down put a new one in before the students are in and being your main entrance it's going to become a challenging piece so uh what they have talked about is are we as a district open to different ideas yes and so they've brought up is saying okay one option would be leading the vestibule as is and then adding a smaller vestibule onto the office area. So the office area would have your two levels of uh security. Okay. Um and it would be but

087it would be separate from your entrances that your students go through at the beginning and end of day. Okay. That's option number one that they figuring the inside versus well we wouldn't be able to do it inside uh the inside of the office at DIS. I you you know it better than I do. Yeah. I don't believe there's enough space in there to create an internal vestibule. It's a tight space to work in and it wouldn't be ideal. Maybe have room for one or two people in that space. So it's putting an addition then in front of it. It'd be putting something on the in that courtyard right in front of that doorway into the office that satisfy the security needs then. Well, in that essence, you would have a door on the outside that

088would then give you an air lock between a second secure door before you go into the office. So, uh it would be much smaller to the vestibule than any of our other buildings, but it would serve that same purpose where it would both be a temperature air lock and then also two levels of secure doors access before. Do you have estimates that that might be? I think I haven't received estimates on that but I would imagine so based on the scope when when we think about that administrative area couldn't create another entrance easily sky block the entry I don't know that. So, we're open to any idea. Um, and this is where just having conversations are the other one that we've talked about is um as you go into DIS, you have that brick work,

089not really an archway, but a entryway I'll call it. Uh, that needs to be rebuilt. Okay. Uh what about putting your secure set of doors there? I know. So it wouldn't be a it would be a secure court guard, right? It would not be a secured vestibule because you'd have an open area, but the walls are nine 10 feet high. Yeah. Nobody would I mean, you're not jumping over that that brick wall, right? Um and then you could put something there and you'd have a you know, maybe an overhanging weather. No, we would actually look at doing like doors, actual physical doors. picture that you know u an example at the uh public library I don't know if you're aware of this or not but the fencing around that is USC something along those lines

090and that's and we have gates on the back of our courtyards of the Sorry. Yeah, we have I mean for the back entrance is there. So we have two levels as well and we're open to anything as we talked to and this summer. So, I think a lot of the other pieces could and even if we're looking at like the front brick work there, that's something that could be done in two sections because you have your your pillar in the middle that holds it up. Um, so even if we couldn't get it all done during the summer, probably finish one area while they're finalizing the second one and make it safe and secure for students. I think the latter he has something that's going to be functional. Uh would they repeat on that area? Not

091if you did like gates or doors. We kind of Mr. house put together just a very just an idea of you know what would like exterior doors look there by photoshopping some of those together and it would just be you know you could put in I think what was about eight doors I think it was two packs of four doors so you'd have just doors there we put an overhang again stay out of the weather a little bit if you're buzzing in you know we get buzzed in um but we could look at gates as well and we look at number of we just want to know something yes I think we're willing to do something. You don't want it to look like you're a cage, which is why I was laughing over here. You

092don't want it looking like you're entering a prison. Um, the other one I mean, why are we talking group? They've been doing a number of different exterior renovations with outdoors. They might have some suggestions that he or Patty, sorry, the Patty group. It sounds like it's very much interested in working with the school district. He might just have suffered with that. They might be able to help dress it up. I think it's more of a security. He didn't like all that new concrete. Correct. I agree. But he might have seen something that we have not seen somewhere else. That's the only reason I was saying I was not unless you're class. Does that make sense? I didn't really think much about that, but Well, no. I mean, if you could make it look like a

093but have durability and I'm just trying to run my head around it. thinking US embassies around the world and and you go to public library doesn't but I'm thinking trying to understand you talk about this is this is keep folks out well that's that's the thing from libraries opening at the back area. You can get into the library. There is that barrier. No one no one's going to get the doors in there. Yeah. So I think what with this project and the direction that I think to this even as I'm looking at at that to where um from what I think I'm hearing from the board is it doesn't have to be the best that we were discussing that what we want is at the end goal we want that double layer eventually and we

094want And and so I think with that I don't think we have a strong need whether it's at that um entry point or if it's right at the door um whichever one and then I don't know gate door you know different drawings and and try to get an idea we may find that the gates look terrible the doors look great doors look great gates look better than we thought they were going to and it works. So I think I think hearing an openness to explore that. We don't want it to look like only if you're a fifth or sixth grade. I know. Is that helpful? Absolutely. No, I appreciate the feedback. Oh, I thought you were just saying I just can't believe they were oldest building in the district. the newest it still looks great

095and and no buses this year just buses for next year talking about as many as three our oldest bus in the district it's I'd have to check I would say it's in that 17 18 range so I want to send a message that the three buses here 82 I think that two to three that you had talked about we don't want to end up in the position that pass we had to go and buy I don't remember how it was 11 yeah we don't want to end up in that position again um I do think it's if the vest depending up I think it sounds like a lot if that project can't get done with this year. I think got enough on the wish list. So, I think we can do something else. I I

096was already gohead signed when the the high school project got put back. So, there something else pulled up also. I think this needs to be our top priority for safety. No, I cannot get done this year. Say that again. If it cannot get done just based off of timing and everything, that's the reason why. But if we're going for something other than the whole vest, it sounds like it could be done. Well, again, adding that second level of security is our top right. Yeah. Right. It's been our main project for this planning this year for this upcoming summer and that is our goal to have done and companies you're talking correct. Yes. understand what else I have some good guidance here. Thank you. Yeah, we're gonna just be worried about Hey guys. Yeah. Thank you.

097Um we're what we're going to do and when you look at the agenda we're getting into a while. Yeah. So I had to refresh my Yes. So, we're going to get into getting reports in hijack legis. And so there there's two items legislatively that touch on this evening. One is house budget proposal and then other one is something that needs to be in this verification department but let's start with um the council budget and you know when I was uh presenting and by state of the schools and heard a lot of stuffs and I made the comment that you know people watch what's happening but truly directs I wasn't trying to show that. So this is how the budget goes. The governor releases his proposal. The house then released their budget. Now we're in a

098blazer after that governor as he signs it step. Look at it. Sit back at Yep. Just a habit out there. Yes. any description fact. really described as school district. Oh Yeah. Let's finish. Okay. So this light We did not. Let me let me talk about our prior conversation, but bear with me. Um, the city of West Well, hello. That's fine. think that some districts do things like emergency all of our You're getting their taxes automatically raised um so state of Ohio state will qualif from charge. So everything's based. So Right now. better. Let me We also consolidation resources maybe negotiate that's Staffing, maintenance, and this year. So it's not just expectation and that's exact. So when we look at the results have not been asked operating since 2006. It wasn't a valid we found that

099Sandra wants That's brought it up. education purposes. Apple burning That's stats. This Salt your seat. Yeah, absolutely. Make sure this is this is a lot of So, Rocky River, I mean, they're going to be roughly, you know, just Anybody? Not just of the district are 12. We're talking as a question. said that they're so This is Well, They say that There's your problem. Now does not include public. Get maturity. So, let's go back to our house. goes on. It doesn't And that's So the tens of So Holy Spirit, please financial advisor. Um, people take But that's how you're not going to go to church without being on the ballot. It's not that we're just we have that early taxes next year. So, it's that game that we're looking I can't do here. We invested we

100invested shortterm you know we're limited amst tell January you know $17 million there's a pure possibility they investments possibly investments that are longer than potentially a loss trying to sell you know liquidated right now what we had initially um and you know we would want to be prepared for it some challenges so not only how we invest in that because we are able to operating. So, it actually benefits the district and benefits the community. Um, you know, the other piece that we just have to it's not massively huge, but it is I think that is I'm not realize this when you're on the ballot district and I'm not talking about like a committee who's promoting the I'm talking about the county will charge us for essentially reducing the whole so precinct we get bill as

101or it's directly deducted from our payments that tax payments so it becomes a channel um you know I I I grew up um I love duct tails, you know, and and I think that sometimes people look at this and say, well, all this money they're diving through coins, you know, swimming in the gold coins. This is not this is a plan for us to stay off the stretch out our legs as long as possible to provide that stability um and stability for This should be a challenge for us keeps it way through and stays but said publicly we want to take measures we're trying to have that measure that we want to make for you. Thank you. our next board meeting. I'm happy to show the verbage that I've got. Uh basically, it's a whereas

102uh budget requirements high quality education capital. I am adding it about how we have not passed an operating level since 2006 not. Uh we strongly oppose carryover provision budget and that has Senate also eliminate budget financial ability. department something interested there are a number of districts that are working on some of them are bundling it with school funding they are impacted by that at the state house level um some are separating I would say just have one. We have some time. I think one of the things I want to point out you know the term advocacy really it's even have that perspective How many talk about the fact that believe me told us two years ago burn it or burn it then that list that I mean we just spent giving the million dollar there's

103$10 million stuff we could have done that goes against the DNA of our entire that's not the expectation we have advocacy is actually perspective as you're looking at because you know there is a but you know some of the quotes it's like well district like I said that's and so it also It's that area where you know it's against turn around and spend that Columbus that really does not put the slide up again. to where we do and we have for a long time about what we do. So to put us in a position like that just remember one of the earlier we're not there but your point that Every good city of that hasa rating money in the bank and has their five years do that every solid corporation successful corporation of the family.

104They have a solid balance sheet. They have solid capital and by giving into such a plan that we have longterm plan. We have our balance sheet and our cash flow statement. We know it's going to work. citizens of Westlake, we've all banked on the entire community said they're doing great work. We've made sacrifices and we don't want to give it all away just to make our audience. It seemed to me that the governor that the governor was kind to those an interesting point. I think you know especially going on right now I would say let's see what's invite That's something that based off of [Music] whether it's staff I think we could send out an email to then take out I did these two and I and I a couple times respecting and considering has

105been essential effort and I used community specifically because we have to the expectation. Um we do believe that 30% will punish districts like West for good longterm planning over and we're hopeful that with the advocacy of our community, the Senate and House will find a solution that provides true property tax relief without this perceived punishment. That's really how wanted to vote on this, but this is obviously better. I I think the All right. Um, I do have one more legislative item that I would like to get to and I'm not going to spend too much time on this, but I do want to bring it by Friday as it states on the bottom of that that I have up there that by Friday, this Friday the 18th, um, you have to sign a verification that

106are not participating in DEI. in in Westlake. I know that date on the bottom. This is dated April 7th. The US Department of Education has changed the data. However, Ohio Department of Education came out and said, "Yes, Department of Ed, but in Ohio we are maintaining um not and we had conversations uh just about whether or not this structure sacrifice. that's subject to interpretation outside of your direction. Yeah. So, I guess the the thing about it and really the core of it the and and we've gone through our court policies, we've gone through our student handbooks, we've gone through um everything that we have just to seeing if there's something that we didn't consider, didn't know of. And and we is who? me and and uh some people on my team, my administrative team, and

107and be able to go through and and and some AI um to be able to to dump things in and see if we see if they find something that we don't. Um and the other thing and and so we're really not seeing it. And the only areas that we need to really revisit would be like um uh gender-based or or um uh a group like women's leadership group, you know, um or any type of uh or Italian-American club. we have that, you know, where um because the the rules state that the admission to a group, you should not be denied anything based on sex, race, national origin. So, if it's if it's an Italian heritage group and and only Italians are allowed to join, then that's a violation. Can't do that. So, but I don't

108think any of our clubs are like that. No, they're not. I I don't believe they are, but one of the things that we need to do, what I what I'm going to ask and I'm going to send a message out to staff. And so my request is going to be to resubmit your purpose statements and and because we'd have to go back through and and find all the purpose statements. Um, I even think back to a WHBS story I think from last year or the year before where they covered the club fair that we have and they talked to kids and I remember specifically one of the groups saying, "Well, this is the name of our group, but everybody's welcome." And so, I know that we're there, but just for this, I want to make

109sure we have it official. And then we can then we really even have to look at our scholarships to where you know we can have a scholarship saying this scholarship is only for students who go to Michigan. Okay, which we have which is fine because you know it's saying they have to you know for people going to that school but anybody who applies could be any sex could be any uh uh race or any nation of origin. It's not about that. It's about that particular school. But if we have a scholarship come in and say only females can apply for this scholarship or that even if it's not a scholarship within our district, if even if it's a third party that's coming through us, we would then have to go and say, "Listen, we can't

110promote your scholarship unless you modify your your um requirements to apply." Okay? So, we can't promote um scholarship. So like I said, we as far as programming, we don't have programming, you know, but but then you have to go down from layer to layer to layer to see the different items that can be covered and um things like making sure your organizations are structured a certain way, scholarships are are being um offered there. So there there's really there's really not a lot for us in there. So it's not anything that is going to be a heavy lift for us. We're not concerned that there's maybe some smaller student groups that uh might be on the fringe and but that's why I'm sending out to all staff and and I'm going to send something to staff

111saying if you if you do have a group and anything that has any type of name obviously science olympiad is something we're not worried about right you know it has nothing in the name or in the in any type of way you can look at it and say this is only for you know this sex this But it was open to everybody. Oh boy. Yeah. It was open to everybody and and and so but you're going to have that. I mean there there are going to be times where you you have you can have your Italian heritage club and and you can say it's open to everyone and maybe the only people interested are Italian and that's just how it is. But it is open to everybody. And so that's one of the things that

112um you know but you can have people are just interested in dietary you know and then they want to go and learn those type of things and we join the group. So that's one of the things that we would have to do is just make sure all of our purpose statements are aligned to make sure that it's not only for a certain group and I really think it's going to be more gender based than anything else. You know women's leadership is an example. you know when you have a women's leadership group well the implication there is that this is designed specifically for females so I think we need to make sure either either the purpose statement is going to be very clear that it is um open to everybody or it just becomes a leadership

113group or something like that would you be in that particular case would you be able to create a men's leadership group you see you know what and but but then that group would be uh would not allow women in so I mean this and and so what we're looking It's taken down. That's okay. But um what we're looking at here and based on the guidance that was sent and the document I need to sign is we can't create groups that will discriminate against sex, race, nation of origin, that type of thing. Okay. So I can't create a men's leadership group. I can't create women's leadership group. So do we have any religious groups in the school? Because I know some of the kids, didn't it come up last year that they wanted a place to

114pray or something? But that's not a religious group, right? And that's that's opens you up. Yeah. And then it's almost like saying, you know what, we have meatless options for Lent. You know, we we accommodate to groups. I mean, but we don't we don't organize or structure. If someone says um and we've kind of gone through it before in regard to the religious release time. If someone if if St. Lad says, you know, that we we've started a group and at noon we're going to do Bible study, go ahead, you know, we'll release you, you know, or if it's over congregational or, you know, uh or any type of thing like that. or um the Catholic faith comes out and says, "You know what? We've now decided, you know, the pope had said that everybody

115needs to all Catholics need to pray at 9:00 a.m. every day." And and if people say we need a place to do that, then there's a room over here and if you want to go do that, go ahead. You know, we would do that for any that would happen with any uh religious type of group and anything like that. It's not a set club where we have the prayer we have created a prayer club or something like that. Can we have space to this or do that? The answer is yes. Kitty kitty club. So what kitty club? Anything else for the legislative leaison? That was a lot a lot of stuff though. Lot going on. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you for all that information. Student student achievement. Student achievement. Nope. Yep. on superintendent

116committee reports. We've had policy committee, but you guys have seen the policies, so I don't think we need to go through treasure committee reports. We had met last month. We'll be meeting again to do the five-year forecast in May, and we set the date for that already. Um, and so we can present the forecast for the May 4. So, thank you. Share that with us. Did did uh did I read in that bill though that with the changes that they would no longer require fiveyear forecast drop it down? There's been conversations about yeah dropping down to a three-year forecast again. uh which would make it easier to it it wouldn't our problems wouldn't go away but it would make it easier to well I think that's the scary part about it is uh I think

117sometimes you know when you put your blinders on right you don't see what's coming and you know my thing would be uh in my professional opinion is uh I would encourage a district to still do a fiveyear forecast even if we only submit three years but uh we want to be able to have a longer range outlook just see It's anti business response. Yeah. To your point, right? Yeah. Any um should I put that in the resolution? No, please don't. Any that is I can move on to board comments. Um I would like to say congratulations to Westlake High School on a phenomenal uh guys and dolls. Oh, without a doubt. Without a doubt. I only saw a little performance on Saturday night. Wish I could have gone to the performance on either Friday or

118Sunday. that could have seen both uh performances. My daughter reassured me that the Sunday performance was as good as the Saturdays. Yeah, I saw a flawless uh production on Thursday night. Outstanding. It's so amazing that we're able to prod that challenge team, huh? Yeah. Yeah. And didn't Hillary Patriot win the Barry Manalo award? She's gonna beat Barry Manalo. Barry Manalo is going to present her with the award. It's cool. Yeah. Very cool. Very cool. I mean, talk about a legend. And when and where? At Barry Manalo concert in Cleveland. Wow. I don't know the date of it, but I know Katie E's going, but she she was going to the concert anyway. And speaking of Katie, if I can jump into board comments and just thank her um for a great senior appreciation event. Um

119she did an incredible job organizing it. We she had over 85 people register and we had darn close to that show up. Describe it a little bit more like you served. Sure. We just had treats and and so she she was able to get a donation from uh Chick-fil-A for cookies. Uh she bought a sheetcake from um uh I think Giant Eagle or something and uh Kim Tucker, one of our elementary principles, made uh personalized cookies as well. So it it just and then we she had students um serving uh um you know coffee and punch and and those kind of things and uh it was really it was really wellreceived and and a lot of fun and then they went right into the show. So our seniors went right in to the guys and

120dolls and what I heard they loved it. I should also add with Katie and the entire team that behind the W they can hit the mailboxes. Uh it's really nice. Great. Great. Is that um is that posted on our website? It's on there. Well, it's actually a flip book. So, if you go on our website, it it has that, you know, page turning type of say if somebody wanted to post it on their social media, you do that. There's a that's Thank you, Dr. Gagan, for flipping pancakes for actually didn't. You could just We also had a very I was looking for Yeah. Gotcha. Gotcha. and uh board member Lamb for participating in the uh Westlake Educational Foundation run. Likewise, uh Mr. Mr. Third place finisher foundation had a had a super uh super four

121mile run raising funds with that 16 over or seven I was wondering what age group you ran. I was in the old man. I don't know if I'd use the word. I wanted to bring up something that an association of nonprofits uh has brought to our attention and that is the Westlake Veterans Memorial Park proposal. So this is something that u a number of nonprofits in Westlake have a dream and their dream is to uh build a Westlake veterans memorial to heart. Um some of the places that they have uh uh suggested may be a good place for such a park. plate park. Uh potentially uh city land either across the street from the police department or at the corner. Uh next up, police department right on the corner of Hillyard in Dover Center. Another

122uh another piece of real estate that they were looking at is real estate that we're discussing tonight right on Dover Center in front of the Dover campus where the old do school. Old school. Thank you. And uh why would they suggest something like that? They wanted the board to have this simple white paper uh along with some renditions of what it might look like with the idea that u uh visibility association with academics and education with Westlake City Schools and as a means of educating students. um uh they've had conversations with the city, including the mayor. Uh it it would be something that if if the board of education said, "Hey, this is a great idea and we want to participate uh the city of Westlake would participate in some way with either maintenance um

123andor building." But just it it's something to consider and uh I'll just mention it to you and I'd like to talk about it again in some any questions on that. Yeah. Um well, we need to talk about it and discuss it and also what's the procedure for this request that our two teachers made tonight for 7,000. When do we discuss that? Is that something? I don't even know if that's something that that needs to be board approved. It wouldn't uh but there is a process that we have to follow when we select architects and things like that. But if we're paying the money, wouldn't it have to be board approved? It doesn't create a threshold threshold. So you could just automatically give them the $7,000 and say go at it. We could Yeah, we if

124we follow the process. Okay. So it isn't something we need to T's not going to go buy a car for No. and and what the what the educational foundation went through was gosh this this certainly seems like um certainly seems like it's it's more of a board of education decision rather than say a nonprofit stepping into providing because there's there's a lot involved in it if that's helpful. Yeah. The only the only thing I would say um on the uh the veterans I 100% behind it I think it would be fantastic. Um, my only concern would be is that the land where the old do was at one point we were almost going to use it for reconfiguration of busing and and yeah, staging and things like that. And I would really hate to give

125up something that could be potentially used um for us and and it could be a variety of things and it might not even be for us. It could be for the board that's five or 10 years down the road from Look at that long-term planning. See, that's what we do. So that's and that's that's that's even though it's not a big piece of land, I as Scott would say agree, we really don't want to ever give up something that that is on city land really on city the old city hall would be perfect. We'll engage in conversations. We'll meet the groups and and we'll we'll we'll kind of see where it goes. One of my biggest concerns is with it being on civil property, especially knowing how many kids from the do campus then head

126south to library depending upon what is put there and making sure that it is respectful or you know you don't want somebody driving by and there's kids skateboarding across the road. So that's what Cleveland and when you think of a veterans memorial what are some of the things that come to your mind first flag definitely bunch of flags a solemn place solemn yeah parking water I I just think of water I think of DC water uh flags what have you but something mentioned is he thought it would be uh appropriate at uh plate park with the uh water area there. So, respectful what have you. And that's also where the parade for Memorial Day. That's right. So, there's a lot of room in parking up there. Yeah. Right. So, some other thoughts out there as

127well. Is there a motion to adjourn to executive session? Oh, wait. New York. Listen here. Speak up. We went over the four mileer. We went over guys version. I had the uh unique uh pleasure and honor of doing a chapron for our choir trip to New York City this past weekend. How many days was it? It uh we left on Thursday morning and I'll tell you what uh tell you what uh we really banged it out over the course of four days. Yes. Um uh our very first day I believe it was our first day um uh we went down to St. John the Divine Church and uh that's where the the kids performed and uh it was an amazing performance. Um there was actually uh I was able to go two years ago to

128Chicago and um they sounded great there too. This year um there was uh a lot of uh uh people in the audience. Uh there was actually an audience of uh people that uh watched the performance and uh it was great to see and and uh the kids did an amazing job. Mrs. Butler did a uh an amazing job putting it all together um and keeping everything uh flowing. Uh there were no visits to any uh emergency rooms or anything like that. Everyone came home. Okay. Um but the one cool thing about the uh the the church that they performed in was that uh apparently if you put the uh Statue of Liberty uh inside of it on its side, uh it can span the entire length of uh the church. Uh which was pretty cool.

129Oh, that's awesome. Um, the kids were able to do a number of things after that. Uh, we, uh, went down to, uh, Time Square. Um, visited there. Uh, the kids, uh, were able to, um, and I'm trying to go through things in my mind as I'm telling you. We went to Sylvia's restaurant in Harlem and had dinner. Uh, we went to a a place called Gails that, uh, um, the servers are actually uh, performers uh, that are hoping to get into shows. So every, you know, two minutes, someone's building out a Broadway show tune um to the people who are eating there, which was really cool. And it gave the kids an opportunity to see, you know, um upandcomers, so to speak. Um they were able to the children or the young adults were able

130to go to a workshop where they um learned about uh um how performances were put together. they were able to kind of put one together themselves and um I I believe uh one of the ladies that helped put on was also in a show that we saw. Oh, what show did you see? Uh I'm a long story behind that, too. Okay. But that was Saturday. Um we went to a Yankees game. They lost to a Yankees game. We made it into the Yankees game. We were down the right field line. We saw, you know, judge was right in front of us. Everything you hear about Yankee fans is true. They were loud. They obnoxious. They, you know, screaming at everybody. Um, none of us in our group had any type of uh MLB paraphernelia on,

131so we were in the clear. The two folks behind us had San Francisco Giant gear on. We all felt as though they were the brave souls uh in the stadium that night. Um but uh throughout this whole experience it was great for the students to be out and about in New York City to really take it in and it was you know just one of those life experiences that you get to be a part of. So it was not just a hey we're going to sing. It was a hey we're going to experience the entire atmosphere of New York City. Um which is a city that never sleeps. It really doesn't. Um, other things that we were able to do, uh, was to jump onto the Staten Island ferry so that we could go past

132Statue of Liberty. Got an opportunity to see, uh, the Statue of Liberty, uh, twice, going, both going out to Staten Island, and then we immediately jumped off the boat, got back on it, and came back and saw it again. But one of the neat things was um so we're on the boat and there's seating, the kids are all seated and uh we're getting ready to leave and there's this old couple that's just sitting amongst all of our Westlake students and I'm sitting there thinking to myself, "Oh my gosh, I you know, I hope they're, you know, I hope they're used to loud situations because these kids, you know, they're going to be loud. They're kids, you know." Lo and behold, um, as we're traveling out to Staten Island, come to find out that one of

133the other chaperons had talked to them before getting on the boat and come to find out that it was Sarah Highland's mom and dad. Now, Sarah Highland is the daughter, uh, the oldest daughter in Modern Family. Okay. And it was her mom and dad. Well, ironically enough, we were going later that night to see The Great Gatsby that was starring Sarah Highland. Oh my. So, we got to spend a few minutes talking to her mom and dad and uh they were, you know, they were more than happy to talk about uh Broadway and performing and um you know, encouraged the students to you know, stick with it as long as they can. And um Mr. Highland was talking about how, you know, the kids need to uh to read Shakespeare, you know, every day because

134it's, you know, Shakespeare is amazing. And um it was really neat to see them. Um but we did get to the shows. We saw the outsiders. That was great. Um and uh the performance was amazing. The kids were all like glued to the stage. Um went to dinner uh at a pizza place. Obviously, I had to have dinner in New York City at a pizza place. went back, saw The Great Gatsby, and that show was just amazing. Uh, and it was as amazing. It brought more. Um, and it was great to see the kids, you know, um, on the bus ride back from both performances because they were just talking the entire time about what they saw, how, you know, hey, did you see this? Did you see that? And um different students were talking

135about different things which was really neat to see with regards to you know the the the the performances on the stage to you know the stage you know how it changed throughout the course of the two shows and you know everything that went on behind the scenes uh that the you know that they had been a part of not but what two weeks ago with Guys and Dolls they were a able to see some of it going on and know how to to check it out. So it was a great time. I said earlier Mrs. Butler did an amazing job of putting it all together. The chaperons, there's 16, I think 16 total chaperons, I mean, coring uh uh 82 kids going down in New York Street is uh quite a task, but uh all

136the chaperons kept it together. And uh all the students were great on uh on every aspect of the trip. And um it was a great experience for them all. And uh I hope that they they really took away from it what I took away from it. It was to for me it was to see them you know being a part of your city. So excellent. Thank you for sharing. Very nice. Any other Well, hold on. I still have one more. Unfortunately, we're gonna get the hook. Bust right back up. No, I I actually met with the head of the library today, Porter Public Library, which was a great tour of the library. Had, you know, great conversation with him. Director Bangles. Yep. Wonderful. I'm Yeah, he had me. He had me before I walked in,

137but um Are you a member of Rotary? I I am not. No. I thought he would have invited you Wednesday invited me to band. Oh, his band looking for a drummer. Are you going to drum for us? No, I cannot drum. But the library is just an amazing place and I'm so happy that we're able to work with him and to, you know, really um help build on what they've got going on there. What else? My report's confused. Any other board comments? No, I move to adjourn to All right. I second discussion. Uh if I if I may. Um uh we we have a motion and a second to adjurnn to executive session to discuss the appointment employer dismissal discipline promotion to motion or compensation of an employer official. Um any comments? Um, you can

138call roll through executive session at 9:03 p.m. Uh, a long meeting. Yes. Cra, yes. Manukan, yes. Lamb, yes. You're not. Yes. Motion carries. You're in executive session. All right. This is a record, isn't it? Very long. This is an average