001it's 701 and i'd like 702 i'd like to call our board meeting to order mr robson will you please call the roll dr demarco here mr reckon road here this is tomas here mrs walker here and mrs newman here uh we're going to say the pledge please stand and join us actually going to get it right this time i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to regard one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all i would like to thank um every our audience for being here tonight um i wish we had this at every meeting uh thank you so much for your attendance um i'd like to welcome our virtual audience as well uh that will be watching this once it's recorded um it's going to
002be a super interesting evening i'm sure um so we before we get started um i just wanted to remind everybody uh here that this is a board of education meeting for the board of education to conduct the business of the school district and by law we are required to hold this meeting in public it is not a public meeting this is the board's meeting to do the business we do allow public comment and we and if you are interested in addressing the board uh you would need to sign in on the computer um our communications director mrs petrina is over there you need to sign uh up and give your name and where you live and what you're interested in addressing the board about to be able to speak to the board we allow a
003maximum of one hour of public comment and that's per our board policy we allow five minutes per person to address the board we will not allow any yielding of any remaining minutes from one person to another so if you don't speak for your five minutes then you lose those five you lose whatever remaining minutes you have cannot transfer them to another person [Applause] um i also want to remind everybody that our board of education and school district is built on a foundation of being safe respectful responsible and kind we expect everyone in our meeting tonight to follow those guiding principles if any person is disruptive during the meeting or during public comments they will get a warning and if they persist they'll be asked to leave the meeting we're gonna we're gonna start tonight with
004um student um a student presentation that i'm super that we're all very super excited about to hear so i'm gonna turn it over to dr lloyd to lead us off thank you i appreciate that i'm really glad everybody came out to hear him as well and i'm sure that they are uh too to see this large audience a couple things i heard that mr spagnola told you nobody comes to the board beat me sorry not sorry um you know our school district a few years back prior to the pandemic met with about 45 to 50 or so citizens included teachers administrators and uh in residence and created something that we called a portrait of an olmstead falls graduate and the portrait of an olmstead falls graduate was really meant to capture the kinds of skills
005that are necessary in order to be a successful person in the world and those things i have them here in front of me are a citizen creator collaborator communicator critical thinker self-confident and self-director those things are part of what i think is preparing students for success beyond their time with us those things are not measured by the ohio state report card but those are things that are certainly near and dear to us i think what you're going to see tonight that mr spagnola brought his friends with him and there are three presentations that you're going to hear the first will be the withheart student summit that you probably read a little bit about and our students participated in that from high school the lead program which was brought to the high school by mr spagnola
006and then i think the final one may i may have messed up the order a little bit is the lean six sigma project that 20 of our high school students worked on and 20 of our high school students will leave high school with a yellow belt and lean six sigma which is a pretty big credential for anybody to have much less for kids to have so mr spagnola i'm going to turn it over to you so ironically i've now lied to the kids twice because i gave them a different order but we're going to follow your orders okay i think that would probably put them all at ease and true story uh inadvertently the kids all did ask when i asked them to present um how many people do show up and i said nobody
007like you got nothing to worry about it's like five board members and you all know dr lloyd um but guys you'll be great tonight you know trust your work and and i'm excited for you ladies and gentlemen of the board dr lloyd mrs kogan tonight i have three groups presenting this evening they are representatives from the ela leadership academy program called leeds students from our first cohort of lead six sigma which we're extremely proud of as well of our as well as students that participated in our kindness summit all different experiences but for our students it really demonstrates our ability as a school system to inspire and empower our students through authentic and engaging experiences and i couldn't be more proud to be a part of that you stole the second paragraph in my speech
008because i said furthermore if you're familiar with our portrait of a grad each of these students opportunities are intertwined with the pillars of olmsted falls portrait of a grab these experiences reinforced good citizenship had students create and generate generate ideas developed communication collaboration skills fostered independent critical thinking developed self-confidence as well as created opportunities for our students to be self-directed all of these kids made personal sacrifices to participate in these activities as they require them to miss some school make up their work or complete workout work outside of their normal classroom duties i want to personally thank all of them for participating in these endeavors as well as joining us this evening let's give them a round of applause before i turn it over to the kids lastly i would encourage the board members to
009ask questions we want this to be engaging and interactive and i know for a fact that these kids are going to rock their answers so with that i'm going to turn it over to our first ever and one of the few high schools in america by the way to participate in lean six sigma training are soon to be introduced uh yellow belt certified at our next board meeting we're gonna honor all of them but i asked three to represent and talk about their experiences i did not frame them in i said be authentic have fun with it and really tell us why you wanted to do this so without further ado i would like sarah tomash emerson long and ben zak to please come to the podium [Applause] all right uh is this on okay
010um yeah uh so so a little bit of background uh us and about like 15 other students we went through lean six sigma training over uh four sessions and at the end of it we completed an individual project to like show that we had we understood the basic concepts of lean six sigma and lean six sigma it's like an organization or a method to improve processes and make them more efficient and it can be applied to like all sorts of businesses as we saw in our training and one of the coolest parts i think for all of us was we actually got to go to vitamix and take a tour around the facility and you could really see like how they implemented everything and how much focus there was on organization and communication and they
011really walked us through how lean six sigma helped had helped them get us help them get them there and it was really interesting to see like all the real world applications of it um and before starting this experience i and i think sarah and ben too really had no idea what we were really signing up for like we didn't know what this was at all and we really quickly learned that it's a really big and important thing and like a lot of people are involved in it and it really kind of gave us like a step up above all of our peers and everyone because we got to complete this training before high school was even over and i think it was just a really cool experience hello everybody i'm gonna reiterate yes we in
012the beginning i had absolutely no clue what this program was or even what lean six was i originally when i had gotten the invitation i actually was sick at the time i was like i wonder what this is opened up the email and i immediately texted my sister and asked her do you know what this is and she immediately told me if i don't participate i will never hear the end of it um so that and the beginning of our uh endeavors and the whole process we were asked why we had uh signed up for it and again i had said what i had said and i am glad that i listened to my sister it was such a magnificent experience the amount of people that were part of it was fantastic it really felt
013like a really important event really really worth the time and yes we did miss school hours we had to miss up makeup assignments but it was worth it really worth it i know for when we had to make projects for in order to get our yellow belt i know i learned a lot and i know a lot of people might have done really specific to business projects mine was on waking up in the morning and if anyone i'm sure you have teenage siblings it's kind of hard to get them out of bed i yeah it's very hard to get me out of bed as well i learned that uh in order to when you're setting problem solving and you're trying to get solutions some solutions don't really work one of my solutions was move my
014alarm clock for my away from my bed but i got very creative and had to turn that alarm clock off while not getting out of bed it resulted in me breaking a lava lamp and unfortunately not my alarm clock very fantastic experience i really loved it the project was very very informative and like emerson had said going to vitamix i mean when we when we went to baltimore's it was a fantastic experience very well worth it and i hope others get to experience it as well so i participated in lean six sigma because i asked my parents what it was and they told me that it's really important to people in the business world and how you can apply it and you can also apply it in i think they said the health fields and
015i.t but i am going to school next year to major in business analytics so this will be super helpful because a lot of people in my major get certified in this at their first job or while they're in college and it's cool that i'll already be certified in the first level of it before i get there and i'll have a look up on everyone so while they're getting trained in yellow belt i can start getting trained in my green belt which will be really helpful on my resume also we learned a lot of new organizational charts and maps which i've seen in my parents presentations for their real world jobs and everything they use these kinds of organizational methods to display information it'll be really cool to know how to use those already also just
016anytime that we get an opportunity to present more and work on our presentation skills is super important because you're always going to need to work on those this is a really cool opportunity because we also got reviewed by a panel of local business owners and leadership leaders in the community so it was cool because we got to hear the critiques from them and just learned to get better at it and personally my project was to improve microphone or mic checks for my acapella group and i learned that just through a lot of simple fixes and mistake proofing small things that i could take the process and reduce it by 200 percent from 30 to 45 minutes down to 10 to 15 minutes which would save a lot of time because we do the process by
017monthly and we're in the midst of implementing it now so i'm excited to see how it helps and it's really it was really cool to see how we could apply all these organizational techniques to all of these real-world processes like i think emerson's was going for a run and yours was getting ready in the morning and mine was for an acapella group you can apply it to so many different things so it was really cool and really helpful and i think on behalf of us and everyone else who participated in the program thank you to everyone who helped with it [Applause] [Laughter] no i have not improved my process by 200 percent well right now i'm currently around eight percent there's a lot of room for growth yeah i kind of found that at least
01850 of my time is just to get out of bed still working on that i think i think there's three i think so there's yellow i think there might be a fourth one for people like who teach it oh okay so yeah i think they're said yellow green black and then master yeah so all right good thank you thanks guys so much [Applause] i'll take care of that when i get up so i see you looking um next we have our representatives uh from our uh swc kindness summit if if you've been following me on twitter or dr lord anyone else on twitter we've been collaborating which is a life skill with the eight schools in the southwest conference to build community not only within our own building to impact our culture in a positive
019manner that's an inclusive culture that supports all of our students but also to break down some barriers and hurdles with our peers right down the road who are all the way across town to o'leary our farthest west school that we will compete with one of the things that we've committed to is we're going to be doing a book study with our students from maria so we're going to host a couple of the sessions and then berea is going to host a couple of the sessions so at this time i would like to turn it over to the students from the swc kindness summit christina cox colin simon montana good enough which is an amazing last name and last but not least ava mahoney so why don't you guys come on up and i'll work the
020slides for you foreign all right so uh we're here to present on the sbc kindness summit that we went to i think last friday so some of the goals of the summit were to bring an impactful and heartfelt student summit where students gather and connect with peers from other communities to explore ways in which we can be agents of change in creating a positive school culture that is inclusive and respectful of all cultures develop self-awareness find our voices and lead the change in building a better tomorrow where communities are united purposeful in creating and sustaining welcoming environments that are inclusive of everyone alright so who was there it was kids from all of the eight schools in the swc conference kids of um different ages different backgrounds kids of different color and ethnicity and kids
021with different sexual origins or in oriented orientation all right um what we talked about was the struggles that kids go through throughout the days of school such as like the way that they're looked at and their race and sexual and gender orientations we talked about microaggressions and biases and like how to identify those and we talked about ways to make the school more positive we learned how to make like the school more inclusive and like more positive um we learned how to practice cultural cultural humility and how to be more aware of the things we say and the things we do and how to treat others with more respect and not judge people just because of the way they look and where they come from so my takeaway overall through the whole thing was that
022i think we thought that this is a single school problem and it's only happening in olmsted falls when all eight of the districts deal with all these problems every day and it's not just here one thing i took away from the summit was like i said before that each of us have our own differences and everyone needs to respect that and be kind to one another and basically the main idea is to treat others the way you want to be treated similar to what ava said i mean treat people with kindness respect their differences and like include people you don't normally talk to just be as positive as you can to make the school environment more enjoyable so during the meeting it was said that you can't hear anything if you're talking and janae can't
023be here so i have to read her quote but it says it was a big eye-opener for students of different races backgrounds and religions to see that we are all human and we all have differences we wouldn't know that or learn that if we weren't open to listening to others sort of talked about this summit with some of your friends that didn't get to attend the summit and had they had um any reaction to it yeah my friends they were like why weren't you at school so i was like um well we got to go to this field trip but it was more of learning and they just like asked more about it so i told them the stuff that we said and they thought that was really cool that all the schools are coming
024together and learning about this i think personally my teachers were super interested i feel like the day after every class i went to my teacher asked me about it and they asked me what i did and they were super interested and i think that's i think that looks really good too because they're interested in what we're doing outside of learning their subject that they're teaching us were you like the um the lean sixes the kids were like what am i what am i getting myself into 100 i had no idea what this was and i was like sure why not i just remember spagnola being like you're not in trouble you're not in trouble [Laughter] if you think if you if you could just say think of one word of how you felt after you
025participated in the summit could you think of one word about how you how it make you feel if not it's okay but can i use two words uh open-minded i like that i thought he's proud i think i'd say like more interested i feel like i didn't like focus on these topics before i went like now when it's like an eye opener you know i want to learn more about it i'd say like educated likes i got to learn about more of the problems and like more of the solutions so hopefully i can bring that excellent thank you did you trade cell phone numbers or contact social media with any of the other kids you worked with from other schools i followed a kid on instagram i won't lie what did she say i followed
026a kid on instagram okay but maybe not for the reasons yeah [Laughter] what i didn't say about these kids is i pushed out an email to the staff and i really had one criteria kids that are influential within their peer set if you're going to make a difference in the school system you find those that can lead directly or indirectly with their circle and if we grow kids within the circle eventually we grow the entire climate and culture so thank you guys for coming and participating you three ready so last but not least i have um carly abbott hadley allen and sam chisnick uh that are going to be representing the hundred kids that participated in the leads program that i started i actually did it in parma and then mrs kogan actually went to
027a conference who did something and mentioned it to me and said hey i saw this really cool thing and i said let's do it um and so she was able to help break down some of the financial barriers so that we could provide this opportunity for our students and these are three of the 100 kids that participated so come on up guys so a few months ago we attended a program called leeds and lead stands for leadership enhancement and development series and our purpose in being in this program was to address the need for enhanced success skill training for students and key leadership positions within the school environment and 100 kids were selected throughout the whole school and they were recommended by staff staff members such as teachers counselors and administrators and leads consisted of
028a three-part seminar over three months and it aimed to teach students important life skills such as teamwork and effective communication skills these skills are skills that students will need to have in real world world situations in and out of high school so during the program we are taught many important skills with the purpose of having tools to use in the real world one day we focused on time management goal setting and team building and to practice these skills in a fun way we played games so for example to work on team building we did a blindfolded relay race in which one player had to direct their blindfolded teammate on where to go in order to obtain puzzle pieces and i thought these were going to be a lot easier than they were actually kind of
029found out the hard way well carly found out the hard way when i almost ran i almost ran her into a wall a couple times but we also worked on communication skills we discussed the different personality types we talked about self-discovery group dynamics and efficiency we were taught the different mindsets such as prisoner vacationer and learner and how to apply them to our lives we practice active listening self-awareness emotional intelligence and first impressions and for this one we played a game called finding nemo where one person was chosen to be nemo and we all had to go around and introduce ourselves and find out who nemo was and met a lot of new people what we enjoyed during lead was working with our peers and uplifting staff heather was a big one for us she
030just made the environment so much better and just had everyone engaged fun activities such as relay races charades and taco tuesday turn-ups we also had self-discovery opportunities to meet new people self-improvement and expressive outlets okay these are like videos of examples of the activities we did if you want to play them which one would you like first you can pick i mean equality is not great um so in the first video we had to get in groups of seven or eight kids and we all had to put two fingers on a hula hoop and we had to take it from like up above our heads to the ground with like a balancing it all together and we couldn't let one side fall first and we couldn't drop it and like this seems really easy but
031it was actually really difficult and very frustrating and it taught us how to work with our teams and also communicate with our teams on a strategy that we were going to develop to get the hula hoop to the ground successfully faster than every other team awesome if we don't have sound i'll have you guys narrate this one as well i was not there oh okay so this one was with all of the 100 students so it's probably the most difficult one we did and there was just enough they call them blobs i think on the ground for every single student participating and we all had to get across like diagonally we were in four groups and we all had to get across but we couldn't exit the square until every single student was on a
032blob and if someone stepped off the blob they would make us go back and restart and you can see it in that video we had to restart and this took honestly about like a half hour to figure out you can hear heather okay and then this one was we had to get in a line we had a deck of cards and we had to each person got a card and we had to line up from like ace to king and way no two to ace in order and then once we lined up we had to drop our cards and the goal was to get done faster than all the other groups and i think the fastest group got done in like a minute and 25 seconds and so this helped us work with communicating each
033other and also developing helpful strategies to help us get through these tasks we were not the fastest group nope does anybody want to ask any questions so have you have any of you done anything differently after you went to this that you've said to yourself i wouldn't have handled something in that way or i wouldn't have done this if i hadn't learned what i learned i brought up the the mindsets a lot i don't know if that really applies to it yes a very like upfront person like i do things without thinking about it first and now like ever since like i've been sitting back and i've been thinking about something before i go and do it and get frustrated when i can't like achieve the success that i want i think my time management
034i have horrible time management me and carly were running in here last minute my bad and i think that they had us pinpoint things that we needed to work on in our lives and that was a big one for me and we would set goals about them and one of my goals was to like manage my time and like set myself up to like do well with school and with grades and stuff and honestly like it's really helped a lot like the skills that we've learned i was probably talking in front of other people like i hate you anything presentations let's go ahead and give these guys so as mrs cogan found out with lean six sigma i don't always follow the rules because we were supposed to take 15 kids and i took 16.
035tonight dr lloyd said about 10 minutes for the entire presentation but i really wanted to showcase all the wonderful things that really dr lloyd mrs kogan dr tapman afford us on behalf of the board of education to allow a guy like me to think outside of the box or work with central office personnel to do amazing things on the west side of cleveland we're one of the few school districts that has offered our kids these opportunities i couldn't be more proud to work at homestead falls so thank you everyone [Applause] yeah so a couple things we're going to repeat the leads program we've talked about that and then just today dr tabman myself mrs kogan met with bw as well as steve the trainer from lean six sigma we are repeating that cohort we do
036have some ideas to repeat for seniors dr chapman suggested maybe we do a junior senior cohort everything has you know monetary expenses and conferences but we'll get creative like we always do but yeah and if there's something we're missing we're always circ searching too but the feedback from the kids for leads were definitely worth doing again the feedback from the lean six sigma kids definitely worth doing again and then the swc we are actually myself brian siftar and adam the the principal from mid park and the a.d from brier are getting kids together to create a set of standardized student expectations for a student section we felt the power from the swc summit is why aren't we doing more collaboration with the other other buildings so we're doing the book study we're going to continue
037to do some of those things so that was a really long answer but yes but these guys open the doors for us which i appreciate outstanding thank you thanks guys can i send them home yes yeah you do not have to say there's going to be a lot of adulting going on and this is a for any of our audience that is standing seats have opened up and if you would like to sit please find a seat all righty um so we are going to do administrative reports next and then the board will be going into executive session for a short amount of time and then when we come out of executive session uh we will proceed with hearing of the public and then through our consent agenda when the board goes into executive session
038uh we'll leave the room and you guys can all stay here and we'll meet in another room so um moving on to our administrative reports first up is pta council this is jen prougar so i'm with the kids i'd prefer the 10 people standing here so our early childhood pta is zero to six years old they earned two membership awards nominations from ohio pta they have safety time coming up in june there are still some open spots in those sessions they are redoing bargain bonanza which they did i don't know a couple years ago where moms bring all their stuff and sell all their baby clothes and baby stuff that they don't need anymore that'll be coming up in may and they have a million outings that they do with these little kiddos they are
039bowling the zoo alpaca farm and some spring break fun at swings and things our falls linux ecc is kindergarten to third grade they also earn two membership award nominations from ohio pta they have a cookie dough fundraiser that they're working on right now so if anybody needs cookies hit up a k to three they're um frozen cookie dough they're amazing just pop them in the oven and bake bulldog party rock is something that we've done for years that's been on hold for a couple years and it's a big fun friday night party where the kids get to come and there's a dance party in the gym and they play games and they have a photo thing and pizza and just lots of fun they're also doing breakfast buddies uh this is the mom's version the
040grandma version ant version um where they can come and have breakfast in the morning with the kids uh stem night was hosted a couple weeks ago they had over 100 students and families attending last week was right to read week they chose the book frecklejuice to read with the kids so all the classes read the same book during the course of the week and i'm sure if you're on facebook you've seen pictures they had photographs of every student in the building and there are 702 students so they were all photographed and they were all hanging by classrooms in the hallways and they all had positive feedback for parents add a little card so we stapled all those and they all made cutouts of themselves and silhouettes were hanging it was the most amazing week ever
041and they love it um talking about you know self-affirmations and how special you are and how everybody's different and it was just awesome um and i think kids love musicals has that started already today started today so they have a um the musical theater project comes into the buildings and they host a two-day production with each classroom and these artists come in and they're doing cinderella and peter pan i think this year and they they just bring the stories to life with the kids through singing and acting and costumes and dancing and all kinds of inclusive uh performing with the kids the kids love it i think this is our fourth year you should just be up here talking about this fourth or fifth year but the kids love it every year it's just awesome
042so that was something that pta was able to do for them again intermediate school fourth and fifth grade they also earned a membership award nomination so these nominations are every month there's something ohio pta puts together and if you earn that many memberships that month you get these awards and so they have one also playhouse square they had a virtual performance where the kids could watch it in the classroom they just finished up a fundraiser with grand pacific popcorn um in town here uh they have breakfast buddies coming up in may uh they do a fifth grade luau for the fifth graders it's kind of like their little send-off party um and then field days are coming up the end of may as well middle school the dodgeball fundraiser was a huge success our winning
043team was sixth grade um i've heard that they haven't won sixth graders haven't won in quite a while i think it's always been seventh or eighth grade but these boys were playing hard and they they pulled it out at the end so they got to play the winner of the high school dodge ball which was staffed from all the buildings middle school also has a raising cane's fundraiser coming up as well as staff appreciation week high school their dodgeball fundraiser also was a huge success all that money goes towards scholarships the senior scholarships are being decided now for the high school and then each of the ptas has money set aside for those um our pta units all of them give out 38 scholarships this year totaling almost 12 000 and those go to graduating
044seniors each one of them is 300 so and then overall olmsted falls ptas have over 2 000 members we work in partnership with a wide array of individuals and organizations to broaden and enhance our ability to serve and advocate for children and families pta is dedicated to children's educational success health and well-being through strong family and community engagement we could not do these things without the constant support and encouragement of our administration the school board dr lloyd and the building principles are always behind us in our efforts to fulfill the mission of pta we certainly appreciate it the opportunity to serve the students and families in our olmstead falls school district and look forward to continuing the great relationships we have with our administration for many years to come [Applause] are there any questions from
045the board for pta sorry that's uh you get said you can answer from thank you so much mrs prugar dr demarco polaris update just making notes um sorry we met uh gosh at the beginning of march after we were being off in february for a monthly meeting and um we also then did maybe the first ever superintendent superintendent board meeting or board member meeting was that the first ever that we did yeah since well i've been here for a while yeah that's the first one um it was pretty cool we got to sit down and kind of talk about what's going on at polaris what's going on at olmstead balls and how are we serving each other well and what we could do better so um i took away a couple things from it um
046hopefully dr lloyd did too he can contribute to my report if he'd like one of the things i thought was really cool that we talked about and discovered was that polaris got some additional funding and that funding will directly benefit homestead falls schools by way of career counselors supporting our career counselor so some additional resources that we can use um was it high school and middle school or just high school it's just high school but i think that with the seven eight um emphasis or career exploration requirement we might be able to do some things there too so so some more support from polaris um what else did we do we talked about the calendars and coordinating the calendars to benefit all the students in the district and then um we went over some of
047the enrollment numbers and uh one of the things i found particularly interesting because i know we talk about well why what happens to those kids or why didn't those kids get in and i know that's something that the superintendents were discussing how they could could find out with the help of our high school administration um where those kids are we had 10 kids that were not admitted that applied and were not admitted and so why were they not admitted where are they going um how can we still serve them and help them figure out what we need to do for those kids um so of the 133 that applied 123 were admitted um they could be on wait list we aren't really sure i mean they were the highest number i think that we've had
048yeah it was 49 of our sophomore class student population that applied and 45 was admitted to the players program so remarkable and then finally they are doing a student honors night april 12th so um i look forward to attending and i believe that some of our administration is is also invited i'm not quite sure who but because it's you me i thank you okay so i'm excited to celebrate our student success there at polaris with all of their counterparts any questions for dr demarco from the board thank you so much excellent dr dr chapman all right good evening good evening everybody uh so operations were in full swing for planning for summer uh summer projects and then for the new school year so um heath crocodiac sam chen is working are both working closely with
049brett and i as far as for purchasing uh and identifying those key projects that we have to do over the summer it's best to do when the buildings are not occupied but then also we have our general summer uh maintenance and repair activities that we have and we're always looking for uh summer workers so high school college age or adults can apply and i just want to send a big thank you to the pta because i think they've pushed it out to their families and members and then also the coaching staffs uh at our middle and high school levels because again i think those we reached out asked those coaches to help recruit kids and the applications are coming in this last couple weeks they've really picked up so there's good work experience opportunities for
050the kids and it helps you know the home district that they they attend on this on the certified side the teacher side uh we're looking at those class sizes at the grade levels at the very various grade levels and some reassignments are happening uh principals had informal conversations with those staff that were affected and official notices did go out the last week and a half that gives the staff time to prepare for those new assignments and meet with their grade level teams and really feel prepared as they go into summer and then return in august and then also we have on the board agenda tonight our first new hire on the certified side for next school year which will be our french teacher mr may long time teacher for us 20 plus years has retired
051and so um the high school world language department did a nice job recruiting interviewing and then securing the best candidate for that and really the benefit for us is that they can already begin collaborating but the benefit for the district that's losing this new hire they can also plan for how they're going to respond to that loss so all good things it's busy but it's that time of season so it's good my written report's attached so if there's any other questions any questions from the board thank you dr chapman oh okay oh sure assistant superintendent mrs cogan good evening everyone i just wanted to highlight a few things one is a follow-up to ms walker's question in regards to if these programs are going to be continuing with the lean six sigma program we are
052looking to do two cohorts next year one in the fall and one in the spring and we are going to try to see if we can find a corporate sponsor for that we've had a little bit of conversation with some of the companies who want to host those off-site meetings for the students so some of them have expressed an interest in doing that so i probably am going to lean on dr lloyd for that a little bit because he's great at being able to secure donations and corporate sponsorships so we're hoping that we'll be able to cover the cost through that because it is about a thousand dollars a student but based upon the student feedback and i think it's well worth us investing in that with the leads program we'll continue to use some
053grant funds with that so some of our federal grants that come in were able to use funds for things like that also i as you know i said i am the vice president i'm sorry i'm the president-elect for the ohio middle level association and the executive director for the uh the middle level which is like the american middle level comes in and they work with us and they're from the whole entire um the whole entire state so stephanie simpson is their executive director and she came and visited the middle school this past monday um just to see all the phenomenal middle level practices that they have in place there with their advisory their teaming how they've done their mentoring with their students their advocacy for their students so it was really great to have her
054she had nothing but great things to say about the middle school and is asked if she could maybe share their contact information with some of the other schools in the country really to share some of those practices so that was really great for the middle school they've done some awesome work there and then um just to kind of follow up with uh with our jen prugar's you know report was right to we read week last week and as much as i love working with our teachers and our principals it is so great to get into classrooms i know some of our board members as well had an opportunity to go and read to our students and i have the opportunity to think next week is ecc's right to read week so i'll be in a
055couple classrooms there it is great to get into the buildings and see our students um it's it's great to just see the joy and how much excitement they have with their learning so that's it any other questions thank you mrs kogan mr robson treasurer's report so we're happy to see that uh the ohio department of education has finally cleared out their new funding formula that comes to us on a bi-monthly basis so as as of the end of february we're able to adjust our cash flows we'll now go in and after the end of march and make some adjustments to the entries that we've made on the accounting system as to what type of funding uh funding categories at the receipts that we'd received prior to the corrections have gone into so we'll be working
056on that the nice thing is if if we look at our fiscal year to date revenue we're 201 ahead of the forecast from last november and our expenditures are 508 000 less than what we had forecasted that gives us a seven hundred nine thousand favorable impact on our projected june 2022 ending cash balance so we look to be um three 3.027 million higher than we were in february this time last year february 9.1 million versus 8.4 million by comparison we project our june 2022 cash balance as we said earlier to be about 2.9 million higher than it was in june of 2021 barring any unforeseen circumstances you know we anticipate anticipate our ending cash balance to exceed those projections by approximately seven hundred thousand dollars cost containment uh continues to drive that positive performance uh
057we're nearing the completion of our our fiscal year 21 audit we were notified earlier this week that all items have been requested have been received and they're working through that now the the state auditors are are short staffed they're behind across the state in school audits and they've sought in and received an extension through i think they told me september we expected to be done in in march of this year we expect to be done mid april at this point but it could be delayed and they have until the end of september to to file those capital improvements you know we've talked about that the last couple months and monson especially at the board retreat uh heath kohiak has put together a nice plan of and identifying those needs that we have district wide and
058our mission now and and the big task is to figure out how the heck we're going to pay for uh for all those so somehow if there's new money to be had if there's a reallocation of existing funds maybe leverage some of the current pi monies that we have coming in today or the reality is a combination of all those items to get those projects started as soon as possible and carry out and complete the list that heath has put together i talked with nfp the other day and i think we mentioned this at the last meeting we expect our insurance premiums to increase again uh for uh fiscal year 23. 23 and it's going to be in in the 10 range i think is where we're at you know we had a 7.25 increase
059for fiscal year 22 and those premiums are they're not covering the current claims that we have out there today so our reserve is dwindled down substantially so we have to increase that to a point where at least what we're collecting is covering claims and we need to work on building that reserve back up and we'll do that the amounts and rates resolution from the cuyahoga county budget commission we typically receive that for march and we present that to you again based on the tax budget that we had presented back in january the county board tax budget commission is also behind so they've sought an extension for 30 days and they have told us that we will have that to be presented to us at the april meeting so we're about a month behind with that
060but uh we're in good shape and we'll we'll bring it to you when we receive it from them we're working now believe it or not on the may 22 five-year forecast it seems like we just finished and submitted the november one but it's that time again uh in looking over the initial draft and where we're at i'll be honest with there's very little that needs to be changed uh for the remainder of the year i think we you know we we made that november forecast pretty doggone accurate we've got the real estate collections dialed in pretty good on the revenue side we just need to adjust restricted versus unrestricted funding i think that's that's pretty much where we are we'll tweak future years a little bit based on our capital improvement plan because we know
061some of that money is going to have to come from the general uh general fund in particular they're going to take buses out of there you know to start with so um but i don't think there's going to other than that you know i don't anticipate a whole lot of changes in the forecast are we still consulting with chris moore yes yes or the forecast yep yep any other questions thank you goodbye happy to be back thank you dr lloyd um couple things check that i just wanted to uh to share this is my 27th year in education in my 14th year in olmsted falls in 2007 i was brought in from westlake city schools to assist quite honestly in increasing test scores and increasing our value-added assessment performance it was one of the things
062that uh that honestly i was pretty good at and we did a lot of that whenever i was in westlake for nine years and those scores improved considerably and so what i did was provided a lot of professional development to our teachers on how to conduct an item analysis on how to take the previous and it went through the proficient ohio proficiency test the ohio achievement test and other things and um our test scores and olmsted falls had only done always done pretty good um but they increased and um we continued to accumulate banners of excellence right that was an obsession excellence and excellence with distinction which is like super excellence because they had to have another category of those and if you talk to the teachers who were part of that process whenever that
063was going on um i think that uh you'll find and what i found um and began to to realize later on was there a lot of unattended consequences whenever you do those sorts of things school is a little less engaging and for those that are in the room who have taught you'll remember those buckle down ohio buckle down books um that we did and you would we would drill and kill on lots of different things it certainly raised the test scores but the unintended consequences is school is less engaging um it's it's not a uh as happy of a place for uh for for kids i don't think it's happy of a place for the adults that are required to do that as well and and it certainly doesn't inspire and empower kids and i
064remember one particular opening day staff meeting and those who attended that will remember test scores being put up on the screen the value added scores of a particular grade level and a number of people feeling disrespected as those scores were you know were not good enough despite excellence with distinction so in 2012 when todd hoadley took the job for dublin city schools i was fortunate enough to be interviewed for about four hours and then got the job as the next superintendent and in 2012 because of i think how i viewed how it went down with those teachers being chained i asked for all the test banners to be removed from the buildings they were hanging up in the halls and for those of you who remember walking down the office hall they were there they
065were they were impressive there were 15 of them or something like that and that was uh but they were they were displayed everywhere um and i said and promised myself i would never ever accept another accolade as a school district or a building for test scores because i think it sends a horrible message and they were taken down for a reason because i think the way your environment looks and the things that you put on your walls are important i think words are important and i think your actions are certainly more important than your words and so we took all those banners down in in 2012 when i became superintendent and i had the support of the school board at that time and thankfully i still have the continued support of the school board and
066we we plotted and began to navigate a different course um at that time and what i've been able to witness i think over the course of that time is the culture in the school has improved for everybody it's improved for the teachers and when you're not running after and chasing the dragon of test scores it tends to unshrink the curriculum it tends to and it was shrunk before when you want to get test scores and you're doing item analysis you're looking at the exact standards that they're for the indicators that they're focusing on and that's what you're going to drive after certainly you're going to teach literacy and math but other things become more important we have never in this school district been more focused on providing a robust student experience in academics arts and
067athletics when you ask your parents and when you ask your students what are your dreams and aspirations for your kids and i've asked that question a lot as have the principals and others they do not say hi test scores they say things like i want my child to be happy i want my kid to come to school and have friends i want him or her to be accepted when they're at school i want them to learn reading and math and social studies and science and the arts i want them to participate in athletics i want them to make a difference in the world those are the things that when you ask the question what is the purpose of school and what do you want from your school district that is what they say if you're
068a parent who wants high test scores i am not going to be the superintendent that is going to raise those test scores intentionally the things that we do in fact do and the things that you witness tonight that these students presenting on are things that they're going to take with them as young adults into the world and make an impact nobody cares that you got an advanced score on the eighth grade math proficiency test if you did great that doesn't mean that we're trying to score low it just means that that's not what our focus is on and so as we continue down this uh this road of focusing on more on the holistic experience we're finding new and better ways to inspire and empower our kids and i found in 27 years of working
069in this field and being really good at raising test scores the test scores don't inspire and empower kids teachers do so thank you okay all right at this time um the board is going to go into executive session it will just be the five board members and uh we'll go to a different room you guys can all stay here don't know how long the board will be i don't anticipate the board being that long um but we do need to go into executive session we will be going into executive session for item number one the employment employment dismissal discipline promotion demotion or compensation of public employees or regulated individuals or the investigation of charges or complaints against a public employee or regulated individual unless such a person requests a public hearing i'll accept a motion
070from the board at 803 to enter into executive session mr robson will you please call the roll dr demarco yes mr reckon yes mrs tomasz yes mrs walker yes and mrs newman yes we'll be back in a little while thank you hold on we're we we're recording we're not recording yet but we're going to i'm sorry we're not recording yet but we're going to so hold on all right mr dean you're up okay do you hear me am i coming across it's not i will he's on we can't all right talk loudly no i still can't hear mr k this one works okay where is she that's what we need where were you 45 minutes ago okay good evening members of the onsted falls and onset township school board it is with regret to advise
071you that you are in violation of ohio state laws as well as state and federal constitutions violations are subject to fifth degree felony charges and civil rights penalties under the freedom of information act i gave to the school board i requested information specifically item number three a reference quote indicated under ohio revised code section 4731.41 quote no person shall practice medicine or and surgery or any of its branches without the appropriate license or certificate from the state medical board to engage in the practice i requested a copy of that notarized document to the school board the response from brett robson treasurer is quote documents related to item 3 of your request do not exist the request is extremely narrow requesting notarized authorization along specific health procedures from the board of health or similar state entities
072i didn't write that i didn't make it up i'm sure you didn't contact the state legislatures that is established written law you were engaged in unlicensed practice of medicine in addition reflected in the olmstead falls school district policy manual section zero zero zero zero by laws title philosophy of the board code po118 status active adopted december 17 quote a board of education is a legal entity for providing a system of public education with a geographic area of the state of ohio the system was created by and is governed by state statutes the board of education has a dual responsibility for implementing statutory requirements pertaining to public education and for meeting the desires of the citizens by your stating my request for a copy of the appropriate licenses or certificate for the state medal board to
073engage in the practices do not exist the school board is in violation of ohio revise code 47311 473 1.34 47112.02 as well as federal and state statutes on the school board meeting of october 21st 2021 i gave each school bed member board member a copy of those ohio revised codes and as much as the school board abdicated their responsibilities to the superintendent of which the board pledged to uphold to voters under the oath to state and federal constitution state statutes without having required authorization in deference to board policy and to the voters of olmsted falls and olmstead township the board as well as the superintendent could be held legally accountable for violations of those laws superintendent jim lloyd as chief administrator knew or should have known the law was being violated to save further embarrassment
074and any negative reflection to the cities citizens of olmstead falls in onset township i respectfully ask what and how the school board intends to address the indicated violations of law and civil and individual rights as stated i further request deferment or rejection of any consideration for you for renewal of superintendent jim lloyd's contract schedule one year in advance until the indicated violations and improprieties are addressed and finally resolved i will anticipate a reasonable but proper response in the near future in addition i have copies of this request to all board members and i would ask the treasurer to incorporate in the born minutes a copy of this request thank you always remind say it again with your what what what are you requesting from the board it's in there okay right here miss suzanne corley
075good evening my name is suzanne corley and it is with thoughtful contemplation that i'm here tonight to implore the school board not to renew jim lloyd's contract please consider the following common core implemented and promoted under jim lloyd reduced academic standards achievement and readiness have resulted test scores have declined it's been indicated that olmsted falls no longer ranks in the top 10 school districts in the cleveland metro area parental and student input and concerns about the substantial changes implemented via common core were dismissed rejected and even mocked two jim lloyd masked our children and implemented on other unnecessary and harmful covet policies to receive esser funds lloyd knew he was required to mask our children require invasive testing and encourage students to participate in experimental vaccines vaccines as a condition of accepting this funding lloyd
076was deceitful in justifying his actions our children did not need to be masked it was a choice he did it to receive the money it was a choice what we've been through for the last two years was a choice three jim lloyd agreed to implement social emotional learning criteria as part of the agreement to receive esser funding it is a documented fact that 20 of the ester funds are required to be allocated to sel themed programs and materials thus jim lloyd hired jim knight to do so to my knowledge no parental input or concerns were sought or considered regarding implementing sel in our schools and many parents have since voiced concern and are rejecting sel outright it is disheartening that the olmstead falls city schools mission statement says nothing in regards to american values but
077wokefully proclaims quote empowerment to be citizens in a global community also consider spirit week's transgender day confirms olmsted falls city schools is following the herd of cultural wokeness right over the cliff and lloyd is leading this charge jim lloyd deceived parents and members of the community claiming that critical race theory is not active within olmsted city schools foia requests of email correspondence between jim lloyd and olmsted fall parent proved that jim lloyd was notified and knew about crt-themed lessons and promotions taking place in classrooms mismanagement of funds our school budget was in a vulnerable state which likely contributed to lloyd accepting the esser funds funding priorities were given to support common core and other high-cost data collecting and data driven technologies funding was gravely inadequate for the much needed acquisition of new buses and bus
078and bus facility maintenance which resulted in unsafe conditions for our students and drivers jim lloyd has treated parents with whom he disagrees very poorly lloyd is condescending combative disrespectful vindictive and retaliatory jim lloyd has established a group called key communicators which even uses and manipulates to spread support for his actions and messages on social media and in the community so essentially jim lloyd is no longer the right choice for superintendent for olmstead falls city schools the track record of floyd's time as superintendent is adequate to show that it is time for fresh new leadership in our schools leadership that better aligns with our academic goals and with the principles and values of our olmstead falls community thank you [Music] ms loretta ms lorena mccafferty good evening i am loretta mccafferty just as a follow-up from
079last month when i brought up about the protect ohio children coalition and they cite all the school districts in ohio that are practicing with evidence crt scl csc all the other alphabet your permission may i give this i wish i had six i just have one handout that tells about the project ohio children coalition so you may all want to check that out it lists olmsted falls as one of the school districts that have evidence that this is being taught in our schools to the school board members you were elected to represent the taxpayers the parents and the students in this school district you have failed in your position as well as the superintendent as a taxpayer i insist that you not renew the superintendent's contract thank you [Applause] mr is it geno corley i
080wasn't planning on saying anything but my wife put my name down on the list so i better say something uh it's good to see uh so many parents in the audience um we've been showing up and it hasn't been this big so that's awesome to see you all uh i i guess the only thing that i've been wondering i am a parent i am a taxpayer at olmstead falls uh loved it here love love everything about it uh i think what comes to my mind dr lloyd is i would like to ask you if you think if you could do better as a superintendent and same question for the school board do you guys think you could do better if you don't want to answer it now i just would like you to think about
081that and hopefully maybe we can get a response somehow anyway thank you [Applause] miss joy ionica i wanted to speak to the good character of dr lloyd a few years ago my girlfriend was having difficulties with her child and a school administrator and she was at wit's end and dr lloyd happened to be walking out of the school building the high school and i caught his attention and he stopped he was on his way to another meeting or something else he had to do that day and he listened intently to what she had to say he immediately took action and he gave her the peace of mind that she needed because she struggles her children struggle and he listened and that's really important he listened and he acted she was able to then have a
082follow-up from the school administrator and things moved on swiftly from that and that left a huge impression on her and also with me that i could catch the attention of our school superintendent in the middle of a busy day and he stopped everything so thank you [Music] w.g mccafferty good evening you have deceived us with your mixed alphabet soup of marxist and social ideology that is being taught in our district i insist that the board does not renew your contract especially a year before it's due [Applause] miss carly taylor good evening um when i learned that dr lloyd's contract was up for renewal um i thought it was important as a parent of a child in the district to come and share my experience with what my son has experienced in the district so far
083my son is in second grade last winter he qualified for special education um and basically he was very behind in pretty much every single category you could think of he was very behind um however even prior to getting his etr completed his iep in place the services that he needed were actually already being offered to him through the school through i know from my own professional experiences that that is not typical for most schools and at a later time i did ask one of the team members on his iep team about that practice and she informed me that that's the school district's philosophy is getting the services in place for the kids um which i let her know like i don't know many other school districts that do that um he has steadily made so
084much progress he um his most recent map scores shown that he's pretty much caught up to a lot of his peers he's he's very close most parents of kids with special needs don't think of our primary goal for our kids is not getting the highest gpa it's not thinking about like those big pictures we're thinking about normalcy that's our goal every step of the way that he has made of his teachers his paras speech therapists the otas both principals at falls linux have been nothing but positive encouraging generally excited and proud of his accomplishments i almost feel like when i talk to them at times it's like his accomplishments are their accomplishments um and despite all the challenges he's faced he genuinely looks forward to getting up each and every day going to school sometimes
085my husband and i will joke with him and say how about if you go to work today and we'll go to school for you he never wants to take us up on that um i also wanted to speak to the culture that has been created amongst his classmates last weekend my son had an indoor flag football game and he played against several of his classmates and he was emotional for some unknown reason and after the game was over hours later that night one of the students in his class had his mom reach out to me to ask if he was okay he was totally fine but i just think that goes to show that you're creating a culture where kids genuinely care about each other um also during black history month he learned about many
086inspirational figures he learned about i'm okay which he just calls martin like this is his buddy um rosa parks ruby bridges um he said to me one day he's like without people like them i wouldn't be able to go to school with my friends and that was just so meaningful that an eight-year-old could grasp that um and he even one point said to my mom the one day he's like when i become an angel can i meet martin luther king ruby rosa parks rugby bridge is still alive he's told me all about it um and he just expressed his appreciation and the inspirational things that they've done for him also during this time we've sought outside medical help for addressing my son's needs one of them was receiving speech therapy through cleveland clinic his speech
087therapist had previously taught at a pep school so she's very well versed in ieps etrs and things of that nature the first day i met her i brought both of those with them and she was just so blown away at how well written they were she also as she worked with him throughout the year marveled at the progress she saw in him in so many areas to the point where she even told me one day she's like i frequently have parents ask me where should i send my kids what's the best school district to work with my kids she told me that she now plans to tell them olmsted falls um so i just wanted to speak that while we hear a lot of noise at the end of the day what should be considered
088most in the direction of the leadership of the school district and the position the board should adopt is stories like this and i know mine is not the only one i could probably get a dozen more people if at the bare minimum to share similar experiences because you know a special ed parents we kind of stick together so um i just wanted to say that it should be experiences like this it should be the effect on the individual student should be the progress that they're making not mass mandates not politically charged topics but how it's affecting kids thank you barb crayjack good evening i wish to thank the school board member who went to the bus garage and took a tour of the facilities i hope a picture was worth a thousand words if you
089haven't yet been there i'm asking you all to go ahead and make an appointment to stop in and see the bus garage we really enjoy seeing you guys and we really think it would be in your best benefit to go see that now mr lloyd i did not appreciate the communication that occurred between yourself and the director of business affairs which led to a note in my work mailbox asking me to stop into the office after my routes so i could just check in with him in the 10 years he was my supervisor i never had to once check in with him when i went in there my bus driving was not even talked about everything that was mentioned was about the meeting i attended what was said why did i say it et cetera
090et cetera this meeting i thought this meeting was a place i could share my my concerns in an open public forum without being um intimidated or or have a retaliation um you know the of the other three members there were four of us here that night and the other three members they were they were targeted too they were asked why they came what was their purpose again it's just an open public forum we had concerns and we wanted them to be noted and i realize after the february board meeting that i would have a target on my back i also realized that after tonight's meeting that target has gone from this to this mr lloyd i will tell you this right now i will not tolerate any further intimidation retaliation or harassment in any shape
091or form it is illegal you can't do that if any intimidation retaliation or harassment continues no matter how small i will seek legal counsel i'm a good employee my record shows you this but i also have seen that when a person has has felt scorned they will try to hurt the person who has spoken out the public will probably not notice that a toxic work environment is present in the system here many of the employees are afraid of speaking out against the concerns or injustices they encounter in this workplace fear of retaliation and intimidation is the major reason an employee who has a grievance and will will more than likely suffer that situation for days months and years instead of mentioning it for fear of the retaliation or intimidation why is it that this intimidation
092and retaliation has become a status quo it is a status quo school board members why is it that you have allowed this to go so far is there no concern for your employees why are you not providing them with a safe protected environment to work in you must remember that all the employees from the part-time cleaner to the principal in our schools are an integral part of making sure that all the students all the students get the best education we can possibly provide them a positive work environment free of fear would go a very long way towards that goal now i know some of you are going to say oh she's just a disgruntled employee no i'm not i have concerns i voice those concerns and now i have the fear of threat hanging over
093my head or on my back as i say i am not a disgruntled employee i love my job i actually enjoy waking up at five o'clock every morning to come in and make sure i'm there on time i'm a driver with 32 years 32 years how many of you have 32 years in in your employment i do another one does it's rare but i actually enjoy it and i look forward to coming into work every day and i look forward to spending many more years as a school bus driver thank you [Applause] ms kraje can i ask you a question can you so i'll just speak for myself um although i'm bored president um i'm just asking you as a board member so i would expect our administration if an employee came to a public
094meeting like you did to voice a concern i would expect our administration to have a conversation with that employee outside of the meeting in a private setting during the workday to understand you know their concerns so um i'm from what i can see on my end that is what occurred and if our administration did not have that conversation with you then i would say we have a big problem but the fact that they did reach out to you in a private setting during you know your work day to understand your concerns for me as a board member they followed the right procedure i'm sorry that you see it as intimidation i see it as following up with your employee to understand further their concerns i understand where you're coming from i can see your point
095of view the fact is that this director of business affairs came directly to me and i had to have an email a phone call a text or whatever it was that comes down from his boss you know i'll tell you how far it's gone all right this week well last week we put on the board we have a board to communicate with each other okay but everybody knows what's going on down there at the garage people had asked me when's the next board meeting when's it coming up what can we go what's it doing blah blah blah i said you know i'm getting tired of individuals and ask me so i put it on the board next thing i know people are coming up to me and saying hey did you know so-and-so is and
096this is so and so is my boss is coming up and asking us are you going to the meeting is barb going to the meeting what's she going to talk about why is she going to the meeting what's the big concern are you okay that's fine thank you very much i appreciate that um again i think that these are conversations that need to occur the director of business was not here at the board meeting so he heard from the administration that was here i don't know if he watches our board meetings i'm just saying to you he was not here and the people that were here asked him to follow up with the employee and that's what i would expect someone to do thank you very much we appreciate you coming and voicing your continued
097concern mr larry abbott good evening i guess i wasn't really expecting to talk too much or talk at all but my daughter standing up here showing me up kind of got me up here um first off i have to say that you know i love living in a district where there's a so much passion on both sides of of the issues i've sat through many many of these school board meetings township board meetings and simply business meetings all over the place and have listened to a lot of people make very good points on both sides of like i said a lot of issues my caution however is that when the passion comes out in the form of yelling screaming threatening many of these points simply just get lost in the weeds i'm happy here tonight
098though unlike some of some other meetings i've been to that thus far everything has been said respectively so for that i applaud every one of you aside from monetary numbers of um of any system to me the most important thing in um that i look at in determining a leader is the kind of people that they surround themselves with in this case i'm talking about principals counselors teachers various other staff here at oamstead falls school system i feel we have excellent faculty all you have to do is look at the students that's that's really where you need to go look at those that have graduated what they're going on to do how they thrive look at the students that are here now the programs available to them i can tell you my my youngest daughter
099that was here tonight two years ago she never would have stood up in front of hell i'm sorry in front of a couple people alone a whole room full of people and like i said now she just shows me up [Music] lastly in this case i ask that we look at those that have gone on and have gotten teaching degrees and looking at where many of them are trying to start their career and you'll find out many of them are here or have tried to get here they're on waiting lists to be here olmsted falls thank you [Applause] david campbell hello um i guess i want to echo some of the sentiments i just heard and i think it's great that this many people have difference of opinions i wish we could all be disrespectful
100and be able to voice things outside of here because i see so much hate sometimes on both sides of issues so it's it's just great to see i'm sorry didn't come with any notes um i guess i think about this thing overall as a parent and i i've heard some of the concerns and you know one of the things that was a big topic for a while was just what was going on with coronavirus a few months ago i did come to a meeting and i did express at times i didn't agree with all the policies of the school i thought some of them were a little too harsh and i wish they were a little different but i took a step back and i've thought about it even deeper since then and realized that
101dr lloyd was really trying to do the best thing for our students it might not have been the best thing for every single person or what everybody always wanted but it was a policies were set forth to try to keep the school safe and trying to do the right thing people forget sometimes you know back in july i think it was july or august of 2020 before the fall started a lot of districts in the area were talking about canceling sports there weren't could be practices people were jumping away to these strong conclusions and the leadership at least we saw from dr lloyd was well the kids can practice and it felt like he was trying to take a sensible approach to all of this so i applaud him for that as for the test
102scores um you know i i did remember years ago that they talked about changing how things were going to be i anticipated some of the test scores going down what i've seen at least from an education level is i've seen my niece and nephew go through the district and they've been very successful in terms of their professional development as well as my nephew you know his pharmacy the progression he's made so i feel like the education for them has been excellent i feel like the education for my kids have been excellent as for the environment in the schools i think it's great that we're having an inclusive environment i think there's a lot of kids out there that need that type of thing and i think we should all respect everybody's differences again i don't
103agree with everything that everybody does or thinks but i want a forum that kids can express who they are and express their feelings and just have a positive outcome so i guess i'll just close up with saying i don't think it's my position to tell the board whether they should renew the contract not renew the contract or whatever i'm hopeful that what i'm expressing at least is one data point is apparent that i'm pleased with the progress of the schools thanks molly hitch i sent an email on march 16th asking why my request for the board to resign or step down wasn't nobody did anything and nobody responded and nobody responded to the email so when i was here last time i asked how i was supposed to get a question answered and you told
104me to send an email then i send an email and you don't respond to the email i can give you my answer right now please i'm not stepping down i did not break any oaths i did not you took an oasis it did not violate any laws so that's my answer your answer is okay thank you have you read the ohio constitution i'm not stepping down uh you continue on have you read the ohio constitution because article 1 section 21 says no citizenship be compelled to participate in the health care system and the masks and everything that you guys did and allowing jim lloyd to implement that mandate and abdicating your duties you should not be sitting in those seats you took an oath and you broke your oath phil what do you have to
105say about that i'm the only person that agr wanted to address you if no one else does no one else will i'm asking phil you don't feel like you broke your oath you don't believe that to be true mrs hitch this is not a back and forth and you know this i i told me to send an email i sent an email and i didn't get a response now i'm getting a response i'm giving you my response if that i'm asking phil for his response why won't you let phil speak another board member does not want to give you your his their response they do not have to i chose to give you my response if this is all you have to say we can stop your minutes now what i have to say is
106we need fifteen hundred signatures to remove these people we need fifteen hundred signatures it doesn't have to be parents it has to be citizens registered voters that's it 1 500 and these people are out here they should not be in these seats they broke their oaths that's it [Applause] jen abbott like my husband i could not let my daughter show me up so i'm here um where's your other daughter she's at school doing extremely well thank you for asking she is sitting beyond all of her peers so um i'm sure due to this education but that's you know um really not why i'm up here i think all i have to say is look around here right now at the people who came out today to support dr lloyd and are advocating for us for
107our students and i think you don't really need to look any further for those of the people here that don't understand that the world was in a pandemic and a lot of um nobody knew in the entire world knew how to do anything and things were changing and how that can't be understood um is a different topic but as far as the school as far as our superintendent as far as the education that kids are getting here look around dr lyd you should be very proud of what you're doing look at these people that are all here supporting you telling people out loud that they're supporting you that's all the proof you need to redo this guy's contract he's one of the best superintendents if i've ever seen this district so jim baldwin like previous
108school school meeting that i went to i didn't plan on speaking but uh after hearing some stuff i felt i had to you know dr lloyd mentioned something about um our children working and doing things they love i have a 24 year old and a 26 year old that graduated from this district they don't go to work they go and do what they love my son is a baseball coach and a school guidance counselor and my daughter is a speech pathologist both have master's degrees and they've done far more than i've ever expected them to and thank you thank all of you i i can't express it enough what this district has done for my children for my family you know when we moved here 21 years ago we we never really expected it but
109i fell in love with this community we volunteered and i just thank you everybody look at the support here i mean i don't want this man to resign or sit down anybody else who's with me all right that's all i have to say thank you very much laura pollock farr i hope i pronounced that right you pronounced it perfectly speaking at a board board meeting is very much outside of my comfort zone but i have become increasingly concerned that the people who speak the most and speak the loudest are sometimes perceived to be the majority and i do not believe that that is actually the case as such i felt compelled to speak i am deeply concerned about some of the things that i've heard here tonight things that should not impact our children well
110public public education is never an entirely neutral endeavor i feel like we have we are losing sight of what is best for all of our children in the community at the macro level by attempting to limit education to specific belief systems furthermore i am appalled at the behavior i have seen on social media towards elected officials and employees of the district those conversations are not productive that is not how problems are solved i do not view the district as infallible and i do not agree with every decision that has been made while we've lived here however i understand that my feelings are based on my personal opinions and beliefs and those are not representative of the entire community therefore i do not demand that my way is the only path that is taken i do
111take issue however when people demand that their beliefs and opinions are the only ones that matter in a diverse community like ours i want to say that i do have complete faith in the board in dr lloyd and in every employee of the district in that when they come up to work each day they make their decisions in the best interests of all the children in their community thank you sorry i literally signed up 30 seconds ago so just bear with me um i this is my i'm gonna be honest this is my first school board meeting i've never attended one i had full trust in these people right here for my children we have three sons we have one in the high school one in the middle school and one at ofis we moved
112here three years ago almost four my husband and i are both alumni from olmsted falls i'm in healthcare i have been through the pandemic i understand people's concerns but we specifically when we had our kids i said my dream sorry is to have our children go through a district and a community that we did because it means so much to us and at the time when we had the kids you know it just you know fiscally just wasn't appropriate for us at that time we just couldn't afford it to be honest we couldn't afford it but now that we are established our first thing that we said we need to be in olmsted falls our boys have to be in this amazing city so we moved here three years ago from a district which i
113have also said on facebook you know in in conversations with people i have we came here from a district that borders ours and when i tell you that this city is one of the most amazing districts i don't say that lightly our boys have struggled our for our fourth grader now wants to be a fourth grade math teacher because of mr mr englehart my middle schooler who is an introvert is quiet doesn't have a lot of friends has utilized john's safe place dozens of times and he struggles but that area in that school has done immense i can't even begin to tell you how much it has benefited our son and our high schooler who is loud and extroverted and is you know involved in everything in sports is thriving in this school sorry i'm
114getting emotional i cannot thank you enough for my education for my husband's education and for our children we gave up a lot of stuff to come to olmstead falls because that's how much we believed in it and how much we wanted for our children and i think this goes to show how amazing this city is and i cannot thank you enough [Applause] it looks like we're down to our last speaker of our public comment section john mercer [Music] good and long evening i want to say that my name is john mercer i am a 32 and a half year employee of the district and i wanted to take a moment to say to the board a thank you and i want to do that in the context of a little historical memory i'm old enough
115to have some historical memory and when i was a young teacher and literally today in class some of my students said can we see a picture of you when you had something other than gray hair and i had it so we look at it uh it was sad back then cleveland magazine was doing its annual rate the suburbs issue we didn't win but for some reason they did uh this is back in the 90s they did a focus on olmstead falls city schools and in that focus they likened our schools to the centerpiece of two different communities the falls in the township and they said that olmsted falls wasn't a place of flash and dash it was a place where people got things done and i know that's true because the the modern technology i
116had when i started teaching was a piece of chalk and a slate board which i still have come to my room i'll show you and i still use it but what they said that stuck with me was they said when there's a problem the people of olmstead falls gather together almost like an old-fashioned barn raising and they solve the problems together and i want to thank you because i believe that you're keeping that barn together you're keeping our horses in the barn and you're keeping that barn and that structure together and we've faced a lot of challenges in the three plus decades that i've been here first of all the state of ohio decided that they knew how to teach better than we did and they came up with the dreaded proficiency tests and the
117standards they created were actually lower than the standards we were teaching at the time and we had to be careful not to dumb ourselves down just to meet that mandate and that was followed up by federal mandates no child left behind race to the top and and on and on and once again we struggled to make sure that kids were always at the center and the board made sure that that structure enabled the teachers to do that and then the big challenge came covid and nobody had been through this before and suddenly we're all out of the barn we're all at home teaching through the internet trying to make these tiny little screens a meaningful barn and then finding ways to get back into our safe places our safe spaces our school and you helped
118us and enabled us to do that and you've heard the amazing success that it has yielded our students when they graduate they go to college generally the college of their choice and they succeed or maybe they go to the military and they succeed and we have a significant number of west point graduates in our history other service academies but we do really well with west west point i'm not sure exactly why and if students go directly into the work world they succeed too and they get that foundation here the community business partnerships that you have enabled our barn to create and be a part of they really work as we saw from kids earlier today kids doing giving back to the community sports teams doing yard charges and raking leaves for the elderly during the
119fall season then i could go on and on but i only have five minutes and it's really late but i could only tell you all these things happened because i can stand shoulder to shoulder with really incredible teachers my colleagues are the best and you've enabled all of us to gather in this barn and i really appreciate that and the barn is safe and it's clean because we have a staff that does its job and and continuously succeeds with safety cleanliness and ask some of our kids ask any high school who's timmy and they know that he's their favorite custodian and so i just wanted to say to you thank you for keeping the olmstead falls tradition the bulldog spirit alive and for letting me be a part of it for almost 33 years thank
120you [Applause] on behalf of the board i would like to thank everyone for addressing the board there was a lot of courage at the podium tonight i know it was a lot of first time uh speakers to the board a lot of veterans speakers to the board which also takes courage and we appreciate that very much moving on in our agenda we would like to recognize uh a generous donation of 530 from the middle school pta uh for donation uh for washington dc student scholarships and we appreciate that we are now moving on to our consent agenda so i will accept a motion from the board for uh consent agenda items listed in categories five through nine is there any discussion from the board on consent agenda items five through nine mr robson when you're
121ready will you please call the roll dr demarco yes mr reckon road yes this is tomasz yes mrs walker yes and mrs newman yes motion carries if you're looking at the agenda we're now on 11a and we will be voting on uh the superintendent contract renewal before we do that i wanted on behalf of the board to explain uh a little bit uh to the audience of what the process was uh to negotiate uh the superintendent contract uh the superintendent contract um the board has two uh the board actually has only three jobs and uh one of those jobs is to hire and supervise the superintendent the second job is to hire and supervise the treasurer and the third job is to establish foreign policy those are the only jobs that this that the school
122board officially has and negotiating with the superintendent for a contract falls under those jobs for some statistics around superintendents there are seven thousand one hundred and ninety four school superintendents in our country here in the united states there are approximately 613 ohio superintendents in our state there are 107 reported teachers in ohio according to the ohio department of education teachers and superintendents are not compensated in the same way teachers and bus drivers and cleaners and support staff are compensated through a collective bargaining process that the individual does not negotiate by themselves it's through a collective agreement and they are not compensated on their merits they're compensated based on the local negotiations in that school district so a different school school district will have different negotiations and different contracts with their teachers and their support staff
123and our district will have a different contract to give you some idea of what superintendents are compensated nationally and at the state level approximately 25 percent of superintendents nationally uh have an annual compensation of 137 385. uh 75 percent have 202 941. in the state of ohio uh 25 percent of superintendents are compensated 134 75 percent are compensated 198 our current superintendent uh his base salary for 2021 and 2022 is 1500 i'm sorry 152 488. he's not at the bottom and he's not at the top okay um i want uh some of you spoke about wondering why we were approving or renewing a contract for the superintendent one year before his existing contract is up we are by law required to do that and so if we did not negotiate with the superintendent [Music] and
124approve or not approve a contract by march 31st of this year we would be in violation and we would be breaking a law so to answer that question for all of you when we negotiate with the superintendent we are allowed by law to do that in executive session and that's what we have done over the past couple of months um and uh so you know if you've attended our meetings or looked at our rsr meetings you've seen that we have gone into executive session and that's what we've been working on and we're allowed to do that by law there was there's a lot of moving pieces to go into negotiations when you're negotiating with your superintendent and your treasurer they're both very similar we conducted an environmental scan at the beginning of the negotiations of
125other superintendent contract contracts within the northeast ohio area we looked at superintendent contracts in the following schools midview north ridgeville north royalton rocky river solon strongsville and west lake and compared those superintendent contractors contracts to the contract that we have currently with our superintendent so for any of you that might have seen on social media or were questioning exactly how how is it that we've come to this point we've come to this point um because by law we're required to and it's not uh the superintendent doesn't say to the school board i would like this i would like this this is what i want to be paid and we agree it's not like that we understood what what other superintendents were getting compensated in the area we wanted to make sure that we were negotiating
126a fair contract for our current superintendent and there were discussions back and forth it's very much like a sports contract right you know you understand what other uh sports people are getting paid and you want to make sure you don't lose that talent or you're prepared to lose that talent right and so that's the work that the board did and i thought that uh it was important um for you to realize that um it's not a singular conversation it's a collaborative conversation and it's an understanding that that is agreed upon and come to and um it takes a lot of hard work and we're prepared to take a vote on this contract tonight and i'm very proud of the work that the school board did to uh come to this point tonight and i'm proud
127of the work that the superintendent did to also work with us to come to this point tonight i'll accept a motion from the board for um approval of the superintendent contract so moved second is there any discussion on the approval of the superintendent contract yes mrs newman i would just like to make some comments um let's see this is on okay yeah i am currently in my you may know some of this but i'm going to take you through a little bit of history i'm currently serving in my seventh year on the board of education i was initially appointed in february of then subsequently i was elected twice by the voters to serve on the board in addition i'm a mother to two successful graduates who spent their entire k-12 experience in olmsted falls city
128schools one who went on to succeed in college the other who went on to succeed in the trades both of my boys are well prepared for life as a result of our school district they're self-sufficient contributing members of society and they're happy my youngest child sarah who you heard earlier from tonight is a senior at olmstead falls high school and she's also very prepared to take her next steps into adulthood i give you this background not because this is about me but because i believe that my lengthy lengthy personal involvement in this district is really relevant to my views on the renewal of dr lloyd's contract one of my biggest surprises after being appointed to the board back in february of 2016 was the bandwidth required by the district administration not only dr lloyd but
129the other administrators to effectively carry out our strategy day in and day out given the breadth and the variety of issues that arise often unexpectedly our vision as a school district is to inspire and empower all students to achieve their full potential and become meaningful contributors to our society and i truly believe that dr lloyd leads our school district with this vision first and foremost in his heart his mind and through his actions he is not perfect i'm not perfect none of us are dr lloyd and i haven't agreed on everything along the way we've had a lot of tough phone calls a lot of tough conversations i like to think we've learned from each other as a result of those but i appreciate that we can have those conversations and i can't think of
130anyone else that i would rather entrust at the helm of our district than dr lloyd he has demonstrated tremendous leadership centered on what is best for our students by being a vocal advocate in finding better ways to evaluate performance than the mandated state testing score system i believe that dr lloyd's courageous and collaborative decision making through the pandemic was outstanding during a really difficult time the job of a superintendent never ends he works 24 7 i'm convinced he always has to be prepared to receive that unexpected phone call at any time of the day or night regarding an issue maybe with a student or a staff member and i can't thank him enough for the work that he does so it is with my very thoughtful consideration after many years of experience in this district
131that we are extremely fortunate to have dr lloyd's intellect passion energy and commitment as our superintendent thank you are there any other any other discussion from the board if not i have uh something i would like to say just just a couple comments by the way i didn't know we were going to prepare a whole thing like that [Music] i'm over here with little notes okay um no thank you cynthia for that and i echo your comments uh mr corley can we do better absolutely we individually we can do better as a board we can do better dr lloyd can do better brett can do better my relationship with jim started when my son was a in first grade my older son was in first grade something happened at the school and uh i fired
132off uh an email that in hindsight probably should have been left in drafts for a little while uh and i think at that time jim was probably more gracious than he should have been in his response but that's how my relationship with jim started so i think we've come i think we've come a long way since then but you know anybody that was here at the last meeting heard um you know some disagreement with direction that had been taken in the school with the pbis survey and all that stuff right um so i think we're able to have frank conversations when necessary amongst ourselves and with dr lloyd but yeah we can do better and that's part of the process right that's what we teach our kids in school learning growing trial and error recalibrating
133always doing better so i thank you for that comment because it's a it is a good one mr abbott stole my thunder a little bit because the one comment i was going to add was was building a team right any organization you know you really can judge it by the team um one of the emails we got this week from a concerned citizen it was it was really interesting because this person said you know look it's nothing against our district the teachers are great the administrators are great the buildings are great the curriculum is great everything's great i'm paraphrasing a little bit but jim's got to go and that just didn't make any sense to me whatsoever right and again he's not infallible he certainly can do better in in certain areas but when you
134look top down from line two all the way down and you don't have much to complain about that says something about line one so i just wanted to say that and thank you and i will be coding i would just like to um i agree with certainly both of what phil and cynthia said as i'm obviously a new member of the board i chose to run for school board because i believe in public education i believe in what it does and i don't think you could find a better a more passionate or a more committed advocate for public education and that's why i certainly support it can i just say ditto you all got it covered i feel like i have to do my street i've also been around for quite a while and have
135been involved very deeply in the schools from the day we set foot into this town and i'm here because i believe in what we're doing i believe in who we have doing it um and i see the product of that every single day whether it's in the community whether it's in my home whether it's in my professional life through our grads that i end up with i couldn't be more proud to be sitting in this seat and sitting here next to all of you guys and doing what we do so i appreciate you thank you um i did prepare a remark i've served on this board of education for nine years with dr lloyd as our superintendent he was uh came on in august of 2013 and i was sworn in in january of 2014
136so we've been together for quite some time throughout this time i have witnessed a superintendent that is wholeheartedly dedicated to homesteadfall city schools and to the individual success of each of our students his passion for public education is strong and deep his desire for learning to focus on the whole child has resulted in a balanced school district that values academics arts and athletics among other things he has fought like a bulldog for public education reform in areas of standardized testing and fair funding he is revered as a leading advocate throughout the state amongst his educational peers his commitment to responsib to responsibly maintaining a district that is safe responsible respectful and kind for every student is evident in the many student programs that we have i mean we just heard three of them tonight dr
137lord and the board of education have created have worked hard to create a solid professional working relationship built on a foundation of open communication respect and trust between us there is intense collaboration and purposeful focus rooted in our strategic plan this guides our conversation and decision making process dr lloyd is forward thinking and a change agent seeking to constantly improve how we do things it is his responsibility to make recommendations to the board and when he does they are collaborative and well thought out olmstead falls city schools has always been a respected school district throughout our area and consistently the number one reason people move into olmsted township and olmsted falls we can thank dr lloyd for his commitment and hard work to maintain this in my opinion we have one hell of a good
138superintendent and we should feel very lucky as a school district we should be celebrating that we have stable leadership that is collaborative with all of these people here and all of you we should be thankful our superintendent is laser focused on the success of every single student in our school district instead we have a small group of community members who don't see it this way and are determined to change the narrative what has resulted is deliberate instigation that causes agitation and upset it has community members neighbors pitted against one another spewing nothing but negative and unproductive speech our school district does not deserve this kind of attention we deserve much better than this is necessary i do the tenants of our school district are to be safe respectful responsible and kind as i see it
139we have reckless disrespectful and unkind behavior it's truly unfortunate that a better example cannot be modeled for our children who attend our schools with all this being said it is in appreciation and with deep respect for dr lloyd that i will be casting a yes vote mr robson will you please call the roll dr demarco yes mr eckenroad yes mrs tomasz yes mrs walker yes and mrs newman yes motion carries and i'm damn proud of it you're all more than welcome to stay we just have uh some like housekeeping items that we're going to discuss um if you if you want to leave great we appreciate everybody's attendance um i'll just wait just a couple minutes congratulations we're still rolling okay okay great [Applause] david this is dr demarco back to the table [Applause] is
140she all right we probably could have ordered this a little better dr lloyd i need you back at the table i think we should have ended up yeah what sorry i know we should have oh wow okay uh schlechty board conference on may 13th and 14th um so that weekend is prom yeah i got a problem with that what is it again it's may 13th and 14th i could go on the 13th but i probably and i my son's graduating on friday i can attend on saturday i'll attend on saturday but it's up to you guys well i don't want you to attend by yourself i don't i mean i can always do friday okay all right okay so lonely world sometimes it's not tonight all right this is all right i'm sort of gonna
141be friends a little bit about this so i've attended every selecty board uh conference that they've had and um while i i i appreciate selecting more than i can say and i'm beyond glad as a board member that we are involved with them um i felt that the last board conference that they had was a little redundant for me and um i'm just wondering if it's going to be different if you're going to change it up i haven't gotten an agenda from steve i'm guessing you haven't gotten one from anissa so i can check on that to find out so i mean again you know i i absolutely love i know here in schlecky and i'm just speaking for myself um we did just kind of have schleichtee at our board retreat and it's not
142that we don't want to be supportive of our network and it is a good opportunity for other board members uh that have not ever attended their board conference to uh interface and engage with other board members that are part of the network um but i i'm hoping that it has a little bit of pressure i will get the agenda i've heard i think from two out of five right i heard from yeah yeah get the agenda to us and tell them that so perhaps maybe if i go it would be saturday morning for a little bit okay yeah do that i could do it i could do saturday morning for a little bit okay but but not the whole day and [Music] uh i maybe could go friday but if i'm the only one all
143right okay okay is there any other general board discussion on anything that the board would like to discuss um i i guess i just wanted to follow up i know it's may but the doodle was sent out about changing the main meeting oh yes okay yes so um uh i don't last i checked uh we could not come up with a date we have a work session scheduled and so probably what we're going to do is only have one meeting in may and have it on the work session night so it's like may 3rd i think i have to look the regular would have been 19 the 19th century i can get this second thank you yes which that was a change date as well i think so so uh 99.9 chance that our main
144meeting will be our regular meeting will be on may 4th but we'll obviously send out a notice we just haven't done it yet well you can't so you will be canceling the 19th then that's a no-go yeah the 19th is definitely a no-go that's getting canceled in fact so mr robson yes we're canceling the 19th we're canceling our work session and our regular meeting will be on may 4th wednesday it's a big change and we don't like to do that but it's necessary which just uh leads me to say that um [Music] we have not populated the work session discussion topics right usually at the beginning of the year we kind of map out what we want to talk about um and pro like longer term projects that we want to work on and wow
145it's already march and we haven't done this yet and it's sort of you know the president and the superintendent kind of do it here's what i just don't want to happen and so dr lloyd and i will be working on this maybe he doesn't know it yet but he does um to populate the work session right there's there is stuff that we could be working on right and we need to make sure that we do that and it's very easy to say oh we just push that off until next month and then we don't have a meeting and then all things get pushed off and we shouldn't do that and so um just know that it's not preferred to not have two meetings a month but may is um necessary i mean one of the
146things we could take a look at are the topics that the board generated that didn't necessarily get on the agenda for the retreat or or more uh follow-up on the items that we did talk about at our boardrooms too yeah we yeah we could always do policy but we kind of have a system for that now um but you know again forecast as well if we're not going to have a work session in may we can do the draft oh that's right and then approve it is that too early is that too early for a draft in april no no but to approve it in may it has to be it's got to be done it has to be approved in may i think we'll be up but it's not too early in the month
147we'll shoot for that you know i i don't think there's a whole lot of changes we're going to be doing to it right other than some capital items so it looks good looks good okay yeah i forgot about i didn't forget but i did forget okay um okay so our next uh our next uh meeting is our work session on april 7th and then our regularly scheduled meeting is on april 14th it was changed it's not the 24th you didn't want to meet on a sunday huh why not um i appreciate the board very much thank you very much for um all of your hard work um in recent days and um i i super appreciate it i also appreciate um our superintendent and our treasurer who also did a lot of heavy lifting as
148well so um thank you i will accept a motion for a german at 9 36 pm and you can call the roll when you're ready mr absolutely dr demarco yes mr eckenroad mrs tomas yes mrs walker yes and mrs newman yes thank you everyone