GACS Board Meeting - 3/16/22

001the march 16 2022 geneva area city school board meeting for the board of education i welcome all of those in attendance tonight amber we can't hear you at all testing can you hear that okay all right calling to order the march 16th geneva area city school board of education meeting welcome to those in attendance tonight roll call mr lilly mr arndt president ms fisher mrs metzler here mrs dixon here and mrs ortiz present are we in compliance yes we are thank you can we all please rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty okay is there any correspondence this evening um yes so i did have a number of emails

002regarding some of the recently created instagram accounts as well as an email from a student asking that phones be reinstated i also had a few emails from parents about building level issues that were then redirected back to the building principle thank you are there any agenda modifications there are there is a new 7e the old 7e is now 7f there is an addition to 7f7 substitute cafeteria in addition to 8a4 substitute cafeteria there is a new number nine and then therefore the old 9 10 and 11 are now 10 11 and 12. thank you it is now the time for the hearing of the public this will last a total of 30 minutes each person that would like to address the board will be given five minutes and you will be alerted when you have

00330 seconds remaining we'd ask that you state your name and address for the record we'd ask that you come to the front to the microphones that you are able to be heard hi i'm jennifer wilson i live at 3215 south myers road i have four kids in geneva schools three of which have ieps this year while doing our annual meetings i've discovered some huge flaws in our special education system etr is not matching ieps special education teachers being new and not even knowing the current iep even half the year in the main teacher asked how a student qualified for x amount of services last year and only was going to receive x amount this year with the same goal the special education teacher responded i don't know i wasn't here last year that's an unacceptable

004response you've been teaching my kid for half of a year this happened in february she's been working with the child since august if any other parents are like i am they don't understand ieps or etrs or anything in between i was lucky enough to find a teacher outside of our district to help me understand them a little we need better communication with parents in the special education department parents need to be more involved and we often don't know what questions are asked or even what our rights are we need to do better our schools receive so much funding for these kids with interventions it needs to be applied to actually helping our children succeed i'm no longer going to sit back and watch as my child gets pushed grade to grade without learning the current

005material i'll be here every meeting every year for the next 18 years fighting for my kids because i have three more that are going to be coming to geneva i shouldn't have to beg for my kids to be taught it should just be happening by teachers and special education teachers that was an unacceptable response from her even the teacher looked at her like she was crazy thanks thank you michelle craig 200 cherrywood circle geneva ohio my initial plan for tonight was to highlight examples of how teachers and staff are being targeted seeing as most of these examples are open cases and i cannot comment on them i will ask a few questions and share some excerpts from board minutes over the years if this board does not know why i chose to read these specific

006minutes then i guess you have some questions to ask and work to do example number one dr treeharn why was a teacher placed on administrative leave based on a rumor on an anonymously run social media page while you continue to remain in the same building with the child while being investigated by the geneva police department for peeping into occupied restroom stalls to our board why did you allow dr treharne to remain in the building while being investigated by geneva police for peeping into occupied restroom stalls why do the five of you continue to perpetuate a double standard i am curious if any of you on this stage tonight are aware of walter haverfield's standard of evidence regarding title ix that's the law firm that you have on retainer example two i would encourage all current

007board members and our new superintendent to start reading through passport minutes i have spent some time researching and found this exchange from five years ago at the may 25th 2017 board meeting there was a conversation between ed beshear and eric cujla about staffing needs in sports fundraising part of this conversation centered around the strategic plan which included requests to fund various extracurriculars the following is a list of items that were discussed freshman sports middle school cross country and tennis there was mention of finishing jv baseball and softball fields and quote gamba has also requested the board to fund a major and flag line advisor mr lilly cautioned that any positions that might be considered to be added now would more than likely have to be cut in a year or two without passage of a

008levy i have stated before that unless dramatic changes take place there will never be another levy past after further reflection i feel that unless this board improves on its community relations and quits being tone deaf we will stagnate this is most likely the very reason why this body had failed to pass a levy for over 20 years simply occupying a chair on this stage isn't enough anymore do work example three why are teachers told that they are not allowed to speak to board members that they must follow the quote chain of command what exactly is the chain of command is there a picture is there an email many of these teachers live within this district and have personal relationships with people that are sitting on this board furthermore they live here and pay taxes here

009unlike you dr treeharn you have no right to tell someone who lives within this district who they may speak to on this board to this board wake up example four we have had four coaches resign as well as multiple teachers that are on the fence because of your management style dr treeharn no one wants to work with you or for you no one wants to work here is that alarming to anyone here get out of the echo chamber board of education and start listening to people in this community pull your heads out of the sand and start asking questions i found out today that the twenty seven hundred dollar tech boards that not one teacher wants at the high school can only be mounted on a brick wall which means that in most cases the

010kids backs will be to the teacher's desk and white boards this will cost 121 500 for the high school alone no worries though if you don't have a wall that will work we'll just give you a cart to put it on more money wondering what the kickback is when you drop that kind of money on a whole building and honestly most likely a district i've not confirmed what is happening in our elementary buildings the person who has who hasn't been in a classroom in over a decade making the choice despite all the surveys questionnaires and conversations 30 seconds it's a puppet show meanwhile the sign coming into the high school is still broken the first thing people see when they pull into the parking lot is a broken beat down crushed mess the symbolism there

011is not lost on me that sign is a visual representation reflecting how each of our teachers and staff feel on any given day at geneva schools [Applause] hello my name is erin van buren and i live at 225 centennial street geneva ohio i've gone student i've gone to student parents teachers and other members of this beautiful community to get a perspective of how we can make our school district a better place for our students to start off i found a an app that is enrolled with some other schools in the in the county it's called stop it this is a great opportunity for students to anonymously report bullying and in detail report what kind of incidents happen a place in the school for the kids in special ed classes to practice activities of a daily

012living with washing machines and dryers stoves refrigerators etc we are given piles of homework every night and are overworked to the extent that our brains can't take it the solution nap time not in exactly a whole block where we all get our blue mats and sleep for an hour just 10 minutes where students and sometimes teachers can take a break and relax a daycare program for teenagers who may be in a family situation where guardians are putting the responsibility on their oldest making them stay home from school to watch their siblings this also goes out to teen parents who may be tempted to drop out of school in order to raise their kid this gives them the opportunity to get an education as well i would create a student center in our media center it

013would come it would comprise a nice lounge area for students to do work and create better better social skills among students and help them with conversations for real world scenarios that's if you allow students to be in the media center provide free access to sanitary supplies in both bathrooms that include spray on deodorant hand sanitizer baby wipes and the scariest words of all pads and tampons some of these are because some kids don't have an opportunity to bathe themselves once or twice or even three times a week due to water bills unclean water homelessness etc a teen pregnancy program or even a small space offer pamphlets and resources for a teen parent whether that's a presentation hands-on learning on how to properly raise a baby how to put on a diaper how to make a

014bottle you can incorporate this into classes like child development give out weekend food backpacks a mentoring program in the community and in the school like big brother big sister but for students to learn from a teacher advisor or even upperclassmen to gain social skills knowledge and to help grow a teacher recommended atec coming to the schools to do landscaping for the students in special ed classes to expand their knowledge of this of the subject require a school supply list to share among classrooms high school teachers provide tissues pencils notebooks etcetera by themselves as far as i know that goes for all teachers there are steps there's just there are statistics that a teacher spends about 500 on a classroom per year makeovers for some of the classrooms i've compiled some students including myself who would

015be happy to give a makeover to some rooms in the districts if given funds it's a good way to give back to the teachers who sometimes buy things for their students out of their own pockets as the last comment stated all we would need is a hundred dollars a classroom and probably only one classroom a month that's seven hundred dollars a school year to redo the media center we heard it was more than two hundred thousand to originally do with seven hundred dollars a month compared to that organize a book and cl a book and classroom supplies donation for teachers remember this statistic uh read previously this is a way to pamper our teachers for their hard work to help the vaping issue at the high school install vape sensors in the bathrooms that alert

016security about suspicious activity keep the school library a little late but i thought i would share that school trips to the library the public library class by class a student sta along with pta high school students helping helping out along with the pta even for even for credit in class class for students to learn basic necessities 30 seconds sewing child care and cpr is a huge necessity and i only know a few students who actually know how to use this information let alone get to it [Applause] okay we will need a motion for the approval of the minutes michelle moved second roll call please mr arn yes ms fisher yes mrs metzler yes mrs milliken dixon yes mrs ortiz yes is there a motion for the treasurer's financial report moved second roll call please ms

017fisher yes mrs metzler yes this is milliken dixon yes this is ortiz yes and mr arndt and a motion for the approval of the invoices so move second roll call please mrs metzler yes this is milliken dixon yes this is ortiz yes mr arndt yes and ms fisher yes are there any informational items you have the investment report as mentioned last time rates are going up the fed just raised the overnight funds rate from between 0.25 and 0.5 so like i said we're finally seeing some two-year three-year investments in the two percent range and over um which is up quite a bit from where it was so that's a good sign very good mrs dixon the legislative report oh it's my turn already i apologize i'll be ready in one second good evening everybody so

018there's a lot coming down the pike and i want to remind everyone that our representatives work for us and we elect them and choose them and pay for them pay them so if you have issue with anything please uh reach out to them and let them know how you stand on a given issue so with that being said uh governor dewine signed into law senate bill 181 the bill establishes restrictions on policies that prevent students from wearing religious apparel when competing or participating in interscholastic athletics or extracurricular activities the bill also permits certain officials to limit the wearing of religious apparel if a legitimate danger to participants is identified but requires an administrator or official to offer all reasonable accommodations additionally the bill provides civil immunity for schools and school districts among others there was

019a second hearing on h bill 455 which would provide an opportunity for concealed handgun licensee or qualified military member to avoid charges for carrying a deadly weapon onto a prohibited place including a school zone if the person leaves upon request and penalize excuse me and penalize failure to leave upon request or returning with said fire next is governor dewine also signed into law house bill 51 the bill allows a public body including a board of education to temporarily meet remotely until june 30th of 22 and that went into effect immediately when he signed it the house finance committee held sponsor testimony on hb 290 which would establish the backpack scholarship program under which all students would be eligible for fifty five hundred or seventy five hundred dollars depending on grade level to use for private

020school tuition or other allowable expenses a substitute version of the bill was introduced but the committee did not vote on whether to accept the substitute bill the house state and local government committee accepted a substitute version of house bill 327 which would prohibit school districts and state agencies among others from teaching advocating excuse me prohibit them from teaching advocating or promoting divisive concepts and allow the ohio department of education to withhold funding for non-compliance the substitute bill makes changes regarding which concepts are prohibited and which are allowed it also removes the non-compliance funding penalties and requires the state board to amend the professional code of conduct for educators additionally the bill includes specific requirements for boards of education those requirements are requiring each school board or other public school governing authority to annually adopt a

021policy approving a list of balanced partisan and non-partisan activities that are consistent with the bill's code of conduct provisions and do not promote one opportunity over the other a second requirement is permitting a school district school or teacher to require a student to participate in a political campaign lobbying effort or practicum involving social or public policy provided the student selects from the school board approved list of opportunities excuse me i apologize um the house criminal justice committee held sponsor testimony on h.b 459 this would prohibit an individual in a restricted offender category from being in a position as an employer employee independent contractor or volunteer with any person group or organization who has extensive contact with minor children the house families aging and human services committee held sponsor testimony on hb 454 which would prohibit

022all school personnel from encouraging or coercing a student to withhold from their parent the fact that the minors perception of their gender is inconsistent with their sex this bill is to be designated as the save adolescents from experimentation act or safe um i had the pleasure of speaking with david thomas our county auditor to get his interpretation of the s bill sb 112 we talked about uh foreclosed property being turned over to a school district so mr thomas's interpretation is that our county does not sorry i lost my place abandoned the bill would require abandoned land to be forfeited to the state instead of a school district so we had a question about we don't do that dot dot dot so mr thomas said it doesn't affect geneva area city schools ashtabula county doesn't participate

023in land bank ownership like this many areas i guess have a certain land bank ownership where multiple parties can own um a given property and when it's foreclosed on then they choose where it reverts to so it doesn't doesn't apply to us so i'm just going to drop it this is the last you'll hear of it from me the senate passed sb 168 which would establish the ohio mobile training team program that provides basic firearms training programs to school safety designees and includes quarterly training required for continued certification just a couple more the senate passed um concur resolution 14. the resolute resolution can't say that word today i guess would urge congress to make changes to the fair labor standards act to allow a person under age 16 to be employed between 7 pm and

0249 pm during the school year the house unanimously voted not to concur on senate changes to house bill this is the bill that would prohibit a property owner and a school district from entering into a private pay agreement and prohibit a school district from appealing the decision of the board of revision additionally the provisions of the bill would go into effect for complaints filed for tax year 2022 a conference committee will definitely be convened to reconcile the differences between the house and senate versions of the bill um hb 562 would require the state teachers retirement board to reinstate the cost of living adjustment and that would begin july 1st of this year uh house bill 565 was introduced to add five students as non-voting members to the state board of education i thought that was

025really interesting actually i just want to pause on that a second they want to include students on the state board of education not as voting members but as contributors as opinion givers hp 582 was introduced to reduce term limits of school board members from four years to two years to limit a school board member to serve no more than four consecutive terms and to repeal the requirement that school board candidates appear on a non-partisan ballot and last one governor dewine signed into law sbe 11. the bill makes changes to paid leave for juneteenth it requires school districts to grant regular non-teaching school employees who are employed on an 11 to 12-month basis paid leave and removes the requirement that school districts grant paid leave to regular non-teaching school employees who are employed on a 9

026to 10 month basis that'll make sense and it was a lot this time thank you mrs metzler mrs metzler helped me pare it down even it was more than that but i that i found out this time so thank you thank you miss fisher the atec report uh yes for the second month in a row the um third monday falls after third wednesday so excuse me sally can you move that mic closer to you pardon me can you move the mic closer to you we're having a hard time hearing okay a monday morning email from scott waldega the superintendent out there and they are working toward spring quarter they attended the home show at the ashtabula mall getting the word out that we have skills that we're teaching that people looking to home remodel or

027in the construction business can look to for employers or employees and we are also pushing the final population for the next year we still have some areas that have gaps in the number of participants that were going to various schools and and the sophomore reporting in order to get those as full as we possibly can and that's all i have for today thank you the report of the superintendent sure first our administrators will be providing a brief report as they have been each month and we'll be starting with our director of student services mrs porcello all right i just wanted to start with some numbers currently in the special ed department we have 450 plus active ieps those are in district students we have 12 active initial evaluations going on and there are 142 current

028504 plans within the district that people i oversee are working on this past month i submitted the justification for alternate assessment the state asks for each district to say whether they feel they're going to be under or over the one percent limit that the state is trying to and the country really is trying to put on students taking alternate assessment if you say yes then you have to justify why and also provide a plan as to how you're going to lower your numbers for the pre for the next year as of right now geneva has 15 students that are set to take alternate assessment and that does put us below one percent take it or leave it with the new decision-making tool that the state came out with um another thing that came to my

029attention this month is our state support team sst-5 is going to be providing a training on ieps at the end of the year june 7th is the date and i did include the flyer that they sent us where i'm able to take a small team five or six people down to canfield at the training there's two section two sessions to it in a one-day period the first one is talking about compliance with regards to the office of exceptional children's monitoring guide and then the second session which i think is going to be super beneficial um to our intervention specialists is a small group session where we bring ieps that we have written and with a small team of people we go through five or six different sections of the iep to look for compliance and

030look for ways that we can improve them which is one of my goals this year and we've been working diligently on doing that the last thing that i have to mention is that next week is going to be my secretary's last week she is retiring after 17 years second page of this includes some nice comments that i received from a number of staff members about sally's silly things about her what i can say about her is that in the time that i've known her she's one of the most hardworking and dedicated people she makes sure that the special ed department and anything else that she is asked to do or touch is run appropriately in a timely manner usually a very quick manner and she's truly going to be missed thank you thank you thank

031you next mr marco john is going to provide the high school report this month thank you mrs purcello for turning this over mr weatherholt um he always asks our teachers and staff if they have anything to go ahead and put on these positives that he turns in for every one of the board meetings and as the pages increased unfortunately mr wetherholt became a little bit sicker a little bit more ill every time there was another page so once it got to 12 pages he decided he couldn't make it tonight and decided i would go ahead and do this um but just on behalf of mr weatherholt and myself we feel very lucky to be able to work with the wonderful staff that we have and most importantly the tremendous and talented students that make coming

032to work every day so worthwhile so a lot of this is the student's hard work guided by the wonderful teachers um the first thing was the quiz bowl we've been talking about that students that participated in academic challenge quiz bowl competition still going on and we keep getting more and more students to come out for that so proud of both the varsity and jv quiz bowl teams and i think they have an event tomorrow and another one on another one on saturday yesterday in our media center we had mock interviews atec put that on stacey zapatelli we were lucky enough to have a number of members of our community come and give mock interviews to our seniors our seniors dressed up for the occasion they were prepared and according to atec geneva high school at

033least thus far did the best job of any other school in the county their scores were the highest in the county in their mock interviews and i i guess i'm kind of proud and it's not surprising that that we were able to do that because once again our kids do an excellent job uh thank you mrs shmanski as the senior english teacher preparing these students for their mock interviews a.c.t prep feeds many mrs smith's english class is able to go ahead and get food for working on a.c.t prep so with every correct response students earn 10 grains of rice for the world food program which is the world's largest humanitarian organization delivering life-saving food assistance in emergencies and working with vulnerable communities to improve nutrition and build resilience so as our students get smarter and

034more prepared for the a.c.t they're actually able to go ahead and supply food to many needed families lids for sid our pbis class hosted a hat day on march 11th and students could wear hats at school and with that they had to go ahead and i think donate a dollar they collected for our beloved student sydney brown who is battling some very major medical issues and we we love sydney and our students showed it pajamas for ukraine the pbs students also hosted a pajama day that was today and they raised 275 dollars for humanitarian efforts in ukraine we had four eagles of excellence in february freshman taylor schultz sophomore justin lynch jr jonathan reynoso and senior grace moon were the recipients our science fair um our numbers used to be much larger in in a

035number of years past uh however the quality of the projects has stayed at a high standard and our science department has dedicated themselves to always prepare these students for the science fair and for um jobs careers in the science area and once again this year the the students were very impressive adobe design if you get a chance uh you can stop by and look at what olivia reese was able to put together with our eagle pride design that is in the glass area just out this way by our uh our weight room live you uh i think you're here tonight and you did a you did a wonderful job it looks so beautiful to be able to walk down that hallway and brings on so much school pride our blood drive uh our senior class

036put on a blood drive superheroes save the world thank you for saving lives they were able to go ahead and get 95 pints of blood which goes directly to you know our community in the communities in northeast ohio this is also going to enable a 500 scholarship to be given out in may advanced placement biology a couple of very very neat things first of all our students completed a dna gel electrophoresis lab this past week this is something that our science department worked hard to go ahead and get for our students to be able to have that experience the more that they can experience here at the high school the better prepared they will be in college to go ahead and use these and when they walk into college into these classrooms they're going to

037know uh what that device is how it's used and how to perform their their labs also another thing that mr barbo does as ap biology class is they read ominous dilemma and when they complete that and have some discussions on it they go ahead and try to try to put together a a meal for them in the morning i guess a breakfast but some of these some of these things might be a little bit out of breakfast area but they try to go ahead and show uh farm to table and how and how uh how that works so almost everything was locally produced that they bring in to go ahead and make breakfast in ap biology so some of the things were venison egg casserole blt sandwiches eggs cheese and ham muffins pancakes and fudge

038once again this was all produced locally locally sourced and it was very delicious however i don't remember getting any fudge wood shop our students the weather's getting better outside and our students are getting a chance to go out with mr dalton and work on our uh work on our four sheds that need a little tlc so they're working on that in the fall and now the weather's getting better again they're going to go back out there and and finish the restoration of our four sheds on the east side of our building our philanthropy club they have they actually met via zoom on a snow day on february 4th so that they could go ahead and decide where the five thousand dollar grant that they're in charge of could go to they're waiting on the final

039approval from the ashtabula foundation and they are meeting again on april 23rd to go ahead and clean up the community each one of the philanthropy clubs in ashtabula county will go ahead and clean up their communities on april 23rd to the board there's a graduation 2022 information sheet that is also in this packet that's a letter that went out earlier back in back in january that explains all the things the students need to do to prepare for graduation and graduation practice cap gown tassel the last three sheets are letters that went home together in a bulk mailing about when the testing dates are for the high school students some test taking tips for our students for end of course exams and then finally a uh a work that mrs de backer has been doing and

040it's going to be a two-day event here um to work on our social and emotional learning this is something that our our staff feels very strongly about that our students and our staff but our our students truly need some social and emotional education to help them get through these very difficult times that they're going through we have a lot of students that are are hurting in many ways and we try to go ahead and listen we try to go ahead and find help for them this is a way to go ahead and show that two days of school are there to go ahead and help help them help them get ready for the rest of the year and the rest of their lives for many of our students and their students families it's been a

041difficult two years and we want to go ahead and help guide them and show support with this two day social emotional learning thank you thank you thank you thank you next we have mr riley who will be sharing his report about the middle school good evening in the pork packet right out of right out of the top of it there is a picture of the eighth grade girls cbc champs who did a phenomenal job this past weekend in securing the championship uh one of the things that i what kind of struck me as as just wonderful to see is that they played a lot of team ball meaning there was many times down the court on offense they were passing the ball around three or four times waiting to get the best shot and an

042open player and then they would put it up as opposed to just grabbing it and running and shooting up and that's good to see when the coaches are working at that level to get them prepared to come up to the high school but a great effort on the part of the team and also the coaches emily corlew and brian o'dell second off the honor roll and merit rule for the second quarter is listed there we did have a grade level recognition assembly on the 24th of february also on march 4th we had a straight a donut celebration i've included the number of students that were recognized because it's pretty impressive this year rather this past quarter 205 students for the honor roll 68 students for the merit role and then 93 students for the straight

043a um in the first granny quarter there were 80 students that got straight a so i went from 80 to 93. um i think i'd ask the students that i kind of challenged them going into the second grading quarter to see if they could move that number up and they did i challenged them this time to see if they could get the triple digits um going into the end of the third quarter um so they were they did a great job with that but i think one of the best things i'm going to remember about that straight a donut breakfast is uh and the student council was the ones that provided the donuts this time there were a few students but one young lady in particular she's sitting there and she just finished up or

044was in the process of finishing up a jelly donut that's got all the powdered sugar all over the place her mouth was completely covered in her face i just said you have a good time you like that don't it's just it's all she had to say she went right back to eating she was not the only one but uh there was there was a few like that so it's kind of neat to see uh the parent group update they did their first ever scholastic book fair they raked in just under five thousand dollars worth of total sales they opted to take the cash out option which would brought them in just over twelve hundred dollars with the intent to use that on some activities that they're thinking about doing for the springtime that will impact

045all of the students so i'm looking forward to looking forward to that so maybe although maybe only a handful or a few handfuls obviously if students purchased books they wanted to give the money right back for the entire student body i think that's a great uh great way and and they're just doing phenomenal could be more more pleased with them we have had the issue where we've addressed with the morning arrival um as i had indicated last time it was significantly uh getting better um i would like to say it's getting even better than that i think most of the students are in and off of their cars and the cars are off the street rather by about 7 22 in the morning which is pretty good it used to be well after 7 30.

046so we're getting much better i credit the transportation department but also more parents are less parents now are driving because of the warmer weather so i think that's going that's helping us out a little bit along the way but even if i or one of the staff members aren't out in front of the building for some reason their parents are trained they're all go they're going all the way down the end of the driveway and dropping their kids off now which is which is kind of what we had wanted to see so kudos to everybody on that end the extended learning program has finished for the school year we had some track a lot of a lot of our teachers are our coaches so with the track season starting we were just running into staff

047shortages but i did put some numbers down there they were somewhat impressive um we had recommended 36 students overall um at the grade six and 20 attended uh throughout the course attended just about all of them throughout uh grade seven we had 30 attended out of 45 and and grade 8 24 attended out of 36. so that's roughly of the students that we initially invited based on all that information roughly between 56 and 67 percent of them decided that they wanted to come and many came all at once there were 52 sessions total that equaled 104 total hours so if a student took advantage of that and came to all of them which many of them did they got a 140 hour 104 hours worth of added instruction this year so that's that's that's a

048lot it's a lot for the students to take in it's also a lot for the teachers because they gave up their time some family commitment sometimes they had to juggle around to make sure that they were committed to the process so i'm very pleased with that so i did list the staff members there that helped out throughout the course of the year testing dates are are listed there we start next week with the sixth through eighth grade ela and then we'll pick up the rest of them after spring break uh we have had the students and uh go through a couple of restart readiness benchmark tests and are looking at some of the information out of that so the teachers can kind of take a look at those test questions see how the students have

049done and then use that in their lessons leading up to the test is one last little extra effort to kind of get them moving forward with that we are working on an air boot camp concept that we talked about last board meeting they were encouraged to select those those are tested subjects were teachers and tested subjects encouraged to select 20 to 25 students that they thought based on their academic work in the classroom based on all the data that we've had those students were kind of on the bubble of maybe passing the test and they thought if they can have them for just a little bit extra time on some specialized really just focused instruction they can maybe possibly get them over the hurdle so at this point in time right now we have the

050ela 8th grade has selected 20 students sixth grade in math has selected 41. we do anticipate there will be more math coming up after spring break which is when they wanted to do it anyhow so we're kind of looking forward to seeing how that goes the enrollment numbers are there pretty much the same as they've been for the last couple of months and upcoming events just obviously spring break which i think the students and staff and everybody's looking forward to student accomplishment acknowledgement management rather this this month i did leave a copy of the talon which is our last edition of the school newspaper students just did a phenomenal job with that as they always do as i said after i received the very first one i was just floored at how great it was

051and this one's just um i think it gets even better each time so i'm looking forward to each quarter as they move forward with that one um i did list the editors for this particular issue as well and finally like i always do i always like to take a moment to acknowledge the staff member because all the staff at the middle school is doing a phenomenal job but anna hazler for her efforts not only in the classroom but also as a member of the building leadership team she's done a great job she recently created a google classroom for the teachers that's allowing us to put all kinds of information our tbt records our blt minutes everything that go in into that spot so it's almost like a one-stop shopping spot now for our staff rather

052than going to multiple emails going to multiple google drives they just go to one spot find what they need open it up and they can work work through their work through their project there so she does a great job um she like the rest of the blt sometimes they're a couple steps ahead of me which is good because i like to think i'm a couple steps ahead as well so for them to kind of work work at that pace in taking on those challenges it's just truly a pleasure so i just wanted to highlight honor this time that's all i have for the middle school mr riley i'm sorry mr riley will also be presenting for mr live birth this evening uh who could not be here thank you scott left this information i did

053present i did to give all the board members the uh the packet that he had left for me um a few comments on his end was that saturday is that saturday march 19th will be the 35th annual scholastic poll at grand river academy in austinburg good luck to geneva scholastic bowl team that is coached by anna markijan and brenda unsenger he has been completing the spring testing provisions meeting with all of the buildings this week to make sure that everyone testing knows the parameters of testing security protocols he came out to the middle school for instance last week and helped our staff already with that spring testing starts next week with the ela testing in grades three um april fifth and seventh is grades three march 22 24 is grade four uh april sixth and

054eighth is grade five grade six is march 23rd and 24th the same thing with seventh and the same dates with 8th and then ela 2 is on march 22nd and 23rd and finally he has a reminder to the parents that it is important that we test all of our students that are eligible to participate please make sure that your child gets plenty of rest eats a good breakfast and does their very best on these state tests and that is all you left for me thank you thank you thank you thank you next we have miss gustin who will be reporting on gps good evening um it's definitely hard to follow mr market john and all the great things that are going on at the high school with our students by no means is this everything

055that goes on at gps i just kind of picked three highlights from the month we actually had a virtual family night back at the end of february on the 23rd we kicked off the kids heart challenge through the american heart association via zoom parents signed up ahead of time a notification was sent home they can indicate if they wanted to participate that night how many participants they would have if they needed a chromebook and then we put together goodie bags courtesy of our pto with like popcorn fruit snacks juice boxes for anyone who would be playing bingo from home um and sent that with directions on how to join uh the zoom link so we we kicked off the heart challenge that night with our rep from the american heart association we played bingo for

056books that night because we used to play it in person many of you showed up before and helped us with that it's kind of a tradition with the scholastic book fair um and so the kids got to win books the next day they brought their cards in to win books but we did play four bingo games mrs shepherd was there to help miss fleek was there to help they both teach at gps dr treyharn came for the first time and she got called bingo numbers and then you can see on the board report i like did like a highlighted chart at home with the numbers as she called them for everyone and then you can see everyone on the other image from that night from home and it was kind of interesting everyone did a

057really good job of like muting from home and the first couple minutes while everyone was logging on they would like show their pet or what other interesting thing they wanted to share with the group so we had about 30 um 30 participants and some like families played together with like other families that lived by them or they were close friends with so we did a survey on that and everyone said they you know they really had a good time but they want us to get back to more in-person activities so that is our goal for next year to bring it back in person i wanted to bring the scholastic book fair in um we had it actually booked in november but obviously we couldn't have it that first week back in november but we do

058have it on the books for next year at conferences to have the scholastic book fair back with us and then we can play bingo for books in person um we did celebrate read across america week the last week in march last sorry last week in february going into the first week in march miss fouts does a great job of putting that together for us every year she's a big fan of dr seuss so we did have a spirit a week that week one fish two fish red fish blue fish wear your red and blue fox and a socks wear crazy or mismatched socks and shoes happy birthday to you in honor of dr seuss's birthday they actually dressed up like their favorite dr seuss character and that day at lunch our wonderful pto um had

059like mini cupcakes um in honor of dr seuss and they even had that theme and all of the kids got like small little gift bags like party favors for the day and then miss fouts did a book reflection contest where the kids won um three books to take home so that was really nice you can see some images there some of the teachers mrs taro got really into that crazy hair day as you can tell a lot of hairspray we always kind of wonder how she drives to work with her hair up all high and if like people look at her she's driving in but that just shows you how much spirit our teachers do have and how dedicated they are to our students um so my final highlight from the month was fifth grade

060science um they did l dissection um so they're learning about how energy flows through an ecosystem in one direction from photosynthetic organisms to consumers um and decomposers so the exchange of energy that occurs in an ecosystem can be represented on a food chain so the students dissected barn owl pellets um and it's you know hands-on it's inquiry based that's how kids really do learn best um and then through that dissection they collected data by classifying the bones that they found there in those pellets into types they separated the bones by pray pray type and they um made their own conclusions about the owl's environment and eating habits so i did put a couple pictures there for you to see you have to tell them they were wearing rubber gloves oh yes yes of course you

061know it is a little disgusting but you know it gives them a nice precursor activity until until biology when they get in high school so that is all for the month thank you thank you thank you next from quirk we have mrs dougherty giving her board report good evening everyone it's always a privilege to come up especially this evening as you can see i have classroom news and i get to share all the wonderful things that our teachers work very hard at doing every single day so to start off we do have first grade mrs webb and mrs schroeder they celebrated the beginning of march read across america you're going to hear some repeats here they read many dr seuss books and listen to some staff members staff members came in to read i got

062to go in to read i love doing that and um and they read poems shared books through partner reading each child received a dr seuss themed goody bag with a bookmark pencil and character eraser and a mini notepad for them um we're continuing to read all of the doctors books and work on their readers theater their ar levels are continuing continuously getting higher and kids are reading in front of the class daily we're really working on that we continue to fill up our writing journals as the students learn many new strategies to extend their writing with more details and for longer periods of time which is what we're working on as a whole building and they also are continuing to hone their phonics skills by writing some poetry shared poetry our autism room mrs espanak

063is the teacher there and she's been wanting i'm to do something to this effect for quite a while she finally had the opportunity she is putting together peer-mediated groups for her students and how she's doing that is she asked for teacher recommendations of students that would be good role models and what she's doing is training them on you know different social skills that our students in the autism room need and they've been doing trainings in the morning she's shows videos and that i was in on one yesterday for a brief minute and so they are getting ready to start meeting with her students she will cycle them in through the week and so that they can interact with her students in the room and working on those social skills so the students that were picked

064and are training they're very excited they're very into it i think it's going to be a great experience so i'll keep you up on that reporting on that and it's nice that um like i said she has been talking about this so it's nice that it's it's come about for her in kindergarten they're happy to brag about the fact that they have students in both classes that have started to choose ar books so they're moving along with their reading as well and they're at their reading level they're reading them in class taking them home thank you parents and to practice at home and taking comprehension quizzes over their books they're loving it and it's been motivating them to want to read both kindergarten classes are focusing on social skills i think we all are and

065working to be pax leaders bucket fillers they're working very hard to make positive choices that's one thing that they do learn in kindergarten coming into school our school initiative is to improve writing stamina and skills like i said that's what we're working on kindergarten students are working to increase their stamina respond to a given writing topic by getting their ideas on paper using pictures words and sentences and we've been collecting data on that it's been really interesting to collect data on that for the kin for kindergarten grade level the teachers have been teaching me some things with the rubrics that they have and how we're beginning visualizing verbalizing that writing process so it's been very interesting and they also celebrated reading across america and they just looked into different genres of books from mrs stoll

066in music um and this is for all of our buildings after she's also incorporating our writing too very impressed with that after learning about the science of sound in music the fifth grade is putting their knowledge of frequencies and sound waves to use by playing their recorders they have the recorders out i know parents are happy about that too and so um they've been working on that the students found three practice questions for the state science test that involved music and answered them so she went over that with them so test prep and then the next one is about writing the fourth grade classes participated in a mystery box activity to complete a unit on composers the students read a description of the composer and then they walked around the room looking for that for

067pictures that matched and then they did a writing activity afterwards i really appreciate her incorporating that writing into her daily lessons as well and i do know she mentioned that mrs gustin did get to sit in on the one the fourth grade activity and the students were excited about that in fourth grade mrs hall's doing she did something a little bit different she really trying to connect local theater so she streamed a play that is offered from the cleveland play house which is in our neighborhood and in playhouse square and it was about the civil rights movement and they're learning about that in social studies and in reading so making connections and it exposed the students to live theater as well as learning so getting all the creative um the creative students involved too with

068that so it was very nice how she made that connection and then fifth grade i put plus because they've shared this with a lot of our teachers having morning meetings that's not anything new but mrs kirk did find something somewhat of an interactive morning meeting and it really fits in with our writing that we're working on it fits in with our student emotional learn there's their emotional learning portion so there's different components there's a joke for those of you that like to joke around and they will work in the morning when kids are coming in on that and then they can go over and once school has started discuss it and review things together and it's it's a great way to get a lot done in a short amount of time review and just things

069to think about um the interesting thing too is that there's information about healthy practices like breathing yoga it'll ask them poles which do you like better hamburgers or hot dogs so it gets them giving their opinion and that it's it's really with the social emotional learning um some examples you could do a writing prompt what is your greatest talent so the students are talking about themselves and what do you do when you see a classmate struggling with something so and we've also can incorporate our writing goals into that as well and she shared that with many teachers many teachers have started using it and they do like it so i appreciate her sharing and i do have some shout outs mrs sack gives away i should think i shared this before the golden shoe winner

070and that honors each class each month that holds themselves to spectacular behavior and sportsmanship and i have been in gym class and we do need to learn sportsmanship so they are working on that um it's not the end of the world if you lose a game so it's okay so the this month's golden shoe winner is mrs bordeaux's third grade class she has a large group of students and they have really progressed they've come a long way getting better at getting ready for instruction of the game and showing that sportsmanship so i'm very happy with that as well and then i have a little picture here of audrey shannon and jalen arthur they're in mrs nelson's class they helped clean up cork playground during their recess recently so we do really appreciate that and they

071should be proud of themselves i know they are and a shout out to spiderman for taking the time to visit our students at core he was in yesterday and to mrs laura jones for letting spider-man know that cork students wanted to meet him so it was they really enjoyed that even the older kids everybody did it was such a nice experience for them so and that could lead into a writing activity as well so thank you thank you thank you and lastly we have mrs brazenko reporting on austinberg good evening a lot of things will be repetitive um but this summer we're hoping to have extended learning again for the students last year it was a great success and i think it was a something that we need to um discuss further and make sure

072that happens also we're going to combat the summer slide the district is offering summer solutions for grades k-4 if the families would like this resource summer solutions is a flexible program that can be incorporated as part of our summer learning or students can complete the workbooks at home independently grades k-3 will receive a reading summer solutions book and grades 4 will receive a mass summer solution books if parents opt in parents have until march 25th to return the flyer to their school their child's school and when school resumes in the fall students return their summer workbook and receive a treat and that is for all three elementaries so not just austin the elementary schools are gearing up for kindergarten registration mrs simmons and bobby mccoy created really bright posters for each elementary school and they've

073been displayed in businesses around geneva as as well as our buildings and this year families will register online and then in april they'll get a call from our their prospective schools and we will set up the um process for them with their appointments the press release was created and that was also sent out and i look forward to seeing the new and returning families in may at their screenings again read across america dr seuss's birthday was march 2nd and what better way to celebrate than to read and many classrooms celebrated by reading and writing since that is one of our initiatives as well second graders were authors and wrote about a visit from the cat in the hat and students wrote about what the day would look like if the cat in a hat actually

074showed up their house and what they would do with them the students then typed their final copy and added their picture and they are displayed in the second grade hallway i also attached um some in the back on the other page for you to see i have to say that mrs hollis was dressed to the nines i really thought she came from the book she was really there austin berg elementary is hosting scholastic book fair this week actually and we're excited to have parent volunteers back in the building once again and if anybody is available tomorrow we still need volunteers to help tomorrow the teachers have a wish list and actually they have little baskets with their names on it and they put books in there that they would like to have for their library

075and families then go ahead and purchase something extra for their classroom teachers which is really nice i've heard that a lot of books have been purchased by families for the teachers i would like to thank asa for organizing this event i know it's you know something above and beyond and the volunteers that are there to help also mrs cosey's reading class read about oh mrs cozy cascatelli it is a new pasta that they're reading about in scholastic news i've never heard of this um with the help of mrs stocker and mrs palmisano the students had an opportunity to actually try it for themselves to see if it really was the perfect pasta the pasta was uh almost to me it looked like an oyster that was like turned like this and it was able to

076hold a lot of sauce and the fork was able to get in they actually cooked it they bought the pasta they cooked it they delivered it each one had a little container of it it was actually pretty good the pasta though is pretty pricey it's about six dollars a box and you can only get it online and the students really enjoyed the transition from actually reading something in scholastic news and being able to try it out themselves and make their own determination if it was you know as good as it was in writing thank you okay all right the superintendent recommends the adoption of the enclosed geneva area city school district 2022 2023 school calendar moved second in discussion mrs metzler i have a comment i and it relates to a later agenda item about

077the letter of support for the spire and i just um it concerns me that they sort of we're at their mercy they want a lot of support from us but like for graduation date we don't we don't have a graduation date for next year it's not on the calendar it's tba and that bothers me for people who need to make travel plans or graduation party plans that sort of thing and so i just want to say that i'm not going to hold up the calendar or anything because of it but i just want that out there yeah and we will have opportunity later on to discuss some of those questions and concerns that's the calendar you know what i mean the connections i understand thank you thank you yep any other discussion so i just

078wanted to add um when this was sent out to staff uh it it was calendar a for the staff that are here had more votes that it received so calendar a is the one that i'm recommending that the board approve this is the calendar that has a last day for students of june 7th and staff for june 8th i know it was brought up by some staff at our district leadership team meeting that that was their preference the other one i believe had students finishing or i'm sorry staff finishing june 12th and there was a concern for summer sport camps would have to get put pushed back because of that but it did win not by many votes but it did receive more votes so okay all right roll call please mrs milliken dixon yes

079mrs ortiz yes mr arndt yes ms fisher yes and mrs metzler yes the superintendent recommends that the board approve the enclosed inter-district open enrollment policy for the 2022-2023 school year moved second any discussion just wanted to know there is no um content changes on this it is basically the same policy as the district has used in the past roll call please mrs ortiz yes mr arndt yes ms fisher yes mrs metzler yes and mrs milliken dixon yes the superintendent recommends a motion to accept the following new revised replacement policies for board adoption the policy numbers are listed on your agenda move second discussion please i did want to note you'll notice that policy number 4439 is um stricken it was on last month for the first reading and the reason why it is taken off

080or table till next month i know that it was mentioned in the legislative update about governor dewine signing senate bill 11 into law and so that will actually impact this policy so instead of approving it now and then having to prove it again once those changes are made hopefully it will be revised for next month neola who works with us on our policies has not come out with their revision yet i reached out to them and they're hoping to have something soon as well roll call please mr arndt yes ms fisher yes mrs metzler yes this is milliken dixon yes and mrs ortiz yes the superintendent recommends that the board allow the superintendent to utilize 24 football helmets that have not passed reconditioning and are past their 10-year shelf life these helmets will be used

081for the purpose of promoting geneva pride within the community move discussion this is going to be a spring break project for me i plan on visiting various businesses across the district to again sort of meet more business people in the community as well as ask them to showcase a helmet somewhere prominent to promote geneva pride roll call mr lilly mrs fisher yes mrs metzler yes this is milliken dixon yes this is ortiz yes and mr armed yes the superintendent recommends that the 2022-2023 budget with the amounts and rates as determined by the ashbury county budget commission be approved moved second discussion i was just asked to clarify one thing when you get down to schedule b on this resolution c years that stands for continuing all of our levies as some of you know are

082continuing operating levies as far as the property tax goes kevin could you say that again please when you look at this resolution you see down where it says schedule b are levees outside the 10 mil limitation it all says that they are not to exceed c the letter c years that c stands for continuing as all of our property tax levies are for continuing period of time none of them are limited you know they weren't put on as ten years five years they're not subject to renewal but they are subject to house bill 920 which reduces their effective millage down drastically basically down to almost 20 mils from a voted amount you see uh just above there 42.39 outside the 10 mil limit those are about the effective rate of 20 mils okay thank you

083thank you mr president roll call please mrs metzler yes this is milliken dixon yes mrs ortiz yes mr arndt yes and ms fisher yes the superintendent recommends the following personnel actions for the 2021-2022 contract year move second any discussion just a couple points to make certainly i would like to thank mrs o'connor for her her um years of service to the district um and in regards to a few of the resignations um just so that we're all clear on why they resigned john maribel had submitted a letter saying he would like to thank us for the opportunity to serve as an assistant varsity football coach the past several the seasons it has proven to be a wonderful growth opportunity both professionally and personally i now find it necessary to resign the assistant varsity football coach

084position to allow me to pursue other opportunities i look forward to being able to again serve as a football coach should the need arise and don shimsky resigned as he's moving to the head coach position roll call mr lilly mrs milliken dixon yes this is ortiz yes mr arndt yes ms fisher yes and mrs metzler yes the superintendent recommends the following personnel actions for the 2022-2023 contract year move second any discussion please can i ask one question yeah um the substitute teacher list it seems is it bigger are we are we adding to it i was not here last year to say comparatively speaking but i will say because someone else had inquired about that it includes anyone that wanted to sub so even if they only subbed one day or they're a regular sub

085for us they're still on the list it is very similar in length to previous years for me this year i would say i'm sorry it is very similar in length to previous years okay um i know that this year alone it has grown due to the flexibility we've had um with that bill passing outstanding and we gave him a 25 payment how much 35 35. okay roll call please mrs ortiz yes mr arndt yes ms fisher yes mrs metzler yes and mrs milliken dixon yes okay we are moving on to the discussion on the letter of support requested by spire dr so um i could share a little bit of background information on this mr orloff from spire had reached out to me requesting a letter of support my understanding from a conversation that i

086had with him and i did invite him to come this evening to share but he was unable to make it he informed me that the city is doing a partnership with spire to add one [Music] outdoor field they're partnering specifically with the city of geneva recreation department i'm told that the soccer field would be east of the aquatic building and track area the concept is that spire will share this field with the rec program that the rec program would have the first shot at usage of the field and then spire but in theory it would you know allow another outdoor field to be available you know so it could help if other entities want to use it i did ask how they would be utilized again he he did say that it was one filled

087and it would be used by geneva rec inspire but inspires usage it would open it up to geneva as well just by the mere fact that they would have more fill time available um the it was intended specifically for the wreck usage and he stated our usage if it's available so there would be no cost if we would need to use it if it was available and that's really all of the information that i have i know that they're requesting the letter by friday so if that's something that the board you know certainly wants to approve i'm happy to write it and get it to him dr trejor so have you written the letter you haven't drafted it yet no i've not okay the language that you shared with us about the suggested language so

088um their law firm had sent some suggested language if we wanted to utilize it in the letter i think sometimes they do that when they're preparing things to help out whomever they're asking for a letter of support so it's maybe not as burdensome on that group or person kind of just to help them out in that aspect to that point i would say that i'd be more comfortable if you wrote the letter because i thought that their letter of support really uh made it sound like this glamorous fantastic kind of partnership that everybody can get behind and support and maybe we can but i feel like we need to write that letter of support coming from us and how we would like it worded yeah their definition of partnership is not my definition of partnership

089they they want to advertise that we are partners geneva schools and the spire and i i feel like more like an employee of theirs we need to wait in line like everybody else we need to i just i don't know i've got issue with it may i interject some knowledge sure youth soccer in geneva is huge it's not run by the city athletic department they have a soccer league their own members and everything else they have their own fields they maintain them they do the parking lots they do everything themselves they do they do the refs the insurance and they have money in a bank they manage it well it's not run by the city we have to fight to play indoor soccer and i know that because my daughter played soccer to play soccer

090out there so if they're building additional outside fields at spire because they're partnering with the city of geneva that doesn't even have soccer fields right now and they don't support the soccer what's to say that our our our school soccer teams aren't shoved outside to play outside now or in the the new fields that they're playing whenever you enter into a partnership you lose control that's yeah those are part of those are my concerns as to mr i just and i think the only thing i'll say about that is they're not actively requesting us to be in a partnership with them they're actively requesting for us to support the partnership between spire and and the city so i mean i guess the question is can we support their partnership regardless of whether our schools or

091any of their teams are able to use the new field isn't that the same issue though how how can you separate geneva area city schools from geneva city i mean i understand that the rec league and the school leagues but what i mean is it's a geneva facility and geneva doesn't get any preferential and i think we should i think that we should get priority it's here in our district it's here in our community it's our same children it's our same students it's not like the soccer leagues the rec league are are i don't know students at mentor schools they're geneva students i mean it's it's always seemed sort of ridiculous to me that they get to make all the all the decisions that spire gets to make make all those calls about when we

092can and can't use their facility what we can bring there it's not even our football field right i mean we have to take all of our stuff to pack up every little crumb we brought there and take it back with us every week it's like we're guests in our own city and it and it bothers me well so i'm not saying i disagree with you but i am saying that we're guests because we don't pay their electric bill we don't pay their heating bill we pay their taxes we felt we made an agreement with them so that it didn't totally close so that our kids did have a facility because the taxpayers don't want to pass another levy and they don't want to put a sports complex on this property so although i don't think

093that the relationship is perfect we're so fortunate that we have a place because i think once that 10 years runs out i don't know if we're gonna have a place do we really have a place now is my point we have a place that's no we we don't have our own place we definitely don't have our own place but we have a place for the majority of the time is it perfect no do we get preferential treatment no but we don't we don't pay their bills you i mean one electric bill there is forty thousand dollars we pay as much as established city schools and we are we're right there equal to the it's if they want to use it for graduation graduation is my issue making us wait and wait and wait to give

094us a graduation date that's our like 12th choice when when when everyone else within even fargo youngstown cleveland can come and use it at the same i just don't think it's right i i just don't think that the agreement we have with them benefits us no and it never has well okay then why did we why then why did we make an agreement with them that that i oh i guess are we what are we saying are we saying that we want to support this partnership with the city inspire or we do not because that's the question if we do not want to support it then we will not write a letter of support but if we do want to support it we need a letter of support i would ask that dr trehorn write

095it and we would need a motion so that would be the question if anybody don't think we should write a letter of support because give me one moment please i i don't see if our agreement with aspire doesn't benefit us then how is the city of geneva's agreement with the spire going to benefit them and if that's not the case then i don't think we should support it what what is dr treeharn what kind of communication did you get from spire if any about not getting a letter of support from us what what impact would that have on this agreement i believe uh not to be quoted but i believe it was something i'm paraphrasing um to the effect that they certainly would want one from us but that if they didn't get one it

096wasn't like it was a necessity so then what is it for what's its purpose is it to help the grant process is that what it is i mean i i don't want to sit here and speak for them that's why i invited him to come when he said we did not have a very thorough conversation because initially he was going to come this evening and speak and then i'd received an email a few hours later indicating that in fact he was not able to come so so we want to write this letter based on vague and and incomplete information well that's that's the decision on the board that's not right that's so that's another reason i think not to i am not in favor of writing the letter no i mean i don't think the

097letter is going to benefit them or hurt them i think it's just going to put something in writing that's coming from the school board that may or may not be accurate may or may not be accurate as far as us supporting them if we're not 100 supporting them why would we write a letter that says we're 100 supporting it if we don't right okay what do you think any anything else no i i i think that that jamie is correct number one they throw it at us at the 11th hour and they have always done that since day one when they were built everything that comes to the school board comes at the 11th hour and they want us to act on it and they want us to act on it with limited information i

098think that's the wrong way to do business what what are we what are we owning up to support what what what does the support garner us in order for you to support something there has to be something in return there has to be a a positive outcome in the future for you to put your endorsement your john henry down to support something what are we going to get we don't know that because once again they threw it at us at the 11th hour so i would say that we need a little bit more information before we enter into any type of signed paper saying we support something we'll get the same thing we always get from them which is roadblocks and excuses and that's what we get from them can i ask mrs fisher do

099you have an opinion on this well having been here since the beginning of the um can you move your mic closer so we can sorry we can't hear you i having been here through all the spire negotiations and so forth from the past and attended the meetings prior to that when our public sports field over on on eastwood street was destroyed by flood and by vandalism and we found ourselves with a whole bunch of kids who wanted to play football and nobody to play no place to play and the band and all the related track and field and everything else and we had a very contentious relationship with the spire and we had months and months of meetings and back and forth and then finally the night on this white horse came in and he

100was buying the facility and we weren't going to be having to deal with all of the negative back and forth that we had been dealing with and i think the thing that turned the day was we started thinking about the positive things okay we haven't got a football field but we have land we have some money left over from the construction of the school buildings maybe we can get the people of the town interested in a levy to support a football team where they won't support education maybe we can do something to cover our bases and keep our teams on the field and our band on the field until we can get our own field and they stepped up and they said yes we will give you 10 years free we have to have some

101we have some rules just like every house has their rules i don't go into somebody's house and and wipe my feet on their living room carpet because that's not their rule so i i can understand i agree that we should not sign a letter of support when we don't know what we're supporting and that part is fine but i also think that the negative um setting up contentious relationship and a negative attitude toward the spire is not going to move us anywhere it's going to move us backwards if anywhere if anything because if we want from looks of things we haven't moved very fast and very far on our new our football field we haven't we have done i mean nothing is happening and at the end of 10 years we're either going to be

102playing out on the parking lot or we're going to have to have another agreement with fire and if we start getting into a contentious relationship this far ahead of time by the time we get up to that deadline we're going to be out of luck so my my opinion of the whole thing is more information i want to know i agree that we need to know what it is we are supporting with our letter of support why they feel it is important to them to get it from us and then move from there okay just to be clear what i'm hearing from all five of the board members is that there's some discomfort in signing a letter of support but one thing i want to clarify is that we do not have an option to

103get additional information because they have requested this letter of support by friday so if our decision decision is not to give this letter of support then they will not get a letter from us and we all need to be in agreement that that's okay yeah and maybe next time they'll give us a little more time yeah yeah i mean to have two days notice to give them something that's not 100 sure why we're giving it to them that that's unacceptable do you as long as we politely tell them that it's given to us on tuesday the day before school board meeting wanting a letter by friday that that's by accident no that's absolutely intentional okay well and if we want to play well in the sandbox with them sally and i appreciate that that's that

104we should and and could do that but they need to do that also well that's what i said maybe next time and let the spire set all the rules maybe next time they'll um give us a little more time and give us a little more information so we can give them what they want but until since they didn't we won't okay so so we can move on from this we are all in agreement we will not support the request and that's fine i just do want to clarify though the initial first contact with me was not tuesday that was my last conversation with him once we were going back and forth in emails i want to say i received it i thought i had the date in here but it was sometime this weekend so

105it was very tight but it wasn't tuesday just for the record so less than a week before they needed it yeah okay thank you dr trevor for clarifying that anything further on that okay moving on to other doctor treehound do you have some other yes um so recently per the ohio department of health they have now come out to say that k-12 schools are no longer required to report cover 19 cases to local health departments we only need to report cases if the student was if the school rather tested a student for the virus and the result was positive so we are no longer required to maintain a reporting system for parents to report cases notify parents of cases among staff students or coaches report positive cases to our local health department again unless the

106school were to test a student and the result was positive however they go on to note that it's important to keep in mind that quarantine and isolation measures which are outlined in the mass to stay test to play protocol which has been posted on our website will remain in effect they do support in-person learning by allowing any student exposed to koba 19 but not symptomatic or cova-positive to remain in school while appropriately and consistently wearing a mask i will say on my end i do still plan on sending emails as i am notified as unfortunately i had to send one today with two cases but i do plan on keeping that communication and updating our dashboard as long as they're getting reported to me um i think that the rubric that we've utilized throughout the

107school year has served us well i think it's been sort of a good um pulse to keep us on and and to keep kids in school so again as long as i get the communication i'm certainly happy to continue to do that additionally we have our soaring eagles um for the month of march so at austinberg first grade we had kanai navarro chosen by mrs greenwood um she went on to say that canai is a well-meant well-mannered little eagle he always says please and thank you he is a positive role model for other students diligently follows classroom rules and procedures and that he is soaring academically he has shown great improvement in reading and math due to his positive attitude can i always greets others with a smile on his face and kindness in his

108heart keep soaring can i in third grade at cork um chosen chosen by mrs jackham we have kendra taylor she wrote that kendra shows her leadership by always helping others especially when conferencing with her peers she is a quiet leader and always shows kindness towards others she always has a smile and she's a great listener kendra is currently on the winterfest court but she is so humbled that she would never know it moving on to gps ms fouts nominated kindergartner zion grady and noted that zion is a model student in and out of the classroom he is a hard worker and well-mannered zion is always willing to help and is a friend to everyone he is the definition of a soaring eagle at the middle school miss ball chose seventh grader caleb shimsky and she

109commented that i have chosen caleb because of his hard-working and positive attitude caleb is a kind polite and friendly student who always puts 100 effort into his work completes his assignments come to class comes to class prepared and is an active participant in the classroom he sets an excellent example for his peers both in and out of the classroom through his hard work caleb has been able to maintain all a's and b's on his report card this school year while also participating in football and track caleb always follows the school and classroom roles and is a great role model for his peers caleb has demonstrated great determination and perseverance in overcoming any obstacle placed in front of him and he is the epitome of what it means to be a soaring eagle geneva middle school

110i am very proud of all that caleb has achieved this school year and i'm delighted to nominate him for this award and finally at the high school um mrs barbo nominated freshman janelle cotz valeras and noted that he is a young man who any teacher would love to have in class he earns solid grades and attends school regularly he is hard working kind thoughtful and self-motivated he always has a smile on his face and a friendly hello to share as in english as a second language student he never makes excuses but instead works harder and strives for more in addition he takes time at the end of his school day to clean and organize the classroom for his teacher he soars like an eagle in more ways than one keep up the good work so

111congratulations to all of our soaring eagles [Applause] just as a follow-up from the public comments from last month in regards to the nurse at gps which actually is gps and cork there is no open position to post which is why that has not been posted so at this time we are just looking for subs to fill in that position um for now i'm looking to put together with the help of the ashtabula county educational service center a job fair for the county so i've spoken with the superintendent there mr candela and brought this idea up at our last superintendent meeting this was something that i had done in my prior district and was a part of and basically all of the school districts in the county would come together they could set up a table

112and then we would invite everyone who wanted a job for next school year to come to fill all positions not just teaching positions but it could be a nurse position counseling positions bus drivers tutoring positions any position that districts are struggling to fill people would come and they could visit the different tables for each district which they may be interested in applying provide their resume sometimes if there's time you could ask a few quick questions of them and it's a great way to build the pool of applicants so hopefully that will help us fill some positions for next school year also looking to partner with the geneva library so recently i had the opportunity to bless you stop in the library and i briefly sat down with the branch manager lauren webster so i plan

113on scheduling another meeting with her soon to continue our conversation on how we can partner with one another specifically at the elementary level we have a plethora of our middle school students who go across the street on a regular basis to utilize the library which is great and obviously our high school students can drive the majority of them but we're starting to brainstorm ideas on how we can promote reading and literacy at the elementary levels and utilize the library some other reminders and updates as a reminder again the red bow 5k is a saturday at 9am at gps you don't have to run it you can walk it you can participate in person you can participate virtually again if you have any questions with that you can contact jessica kirk mr backer one of our

114high school counselors recently sent out five pages of scholarships to students so 30 scholarships better opportunities for our seniors to apply so i just wanted to again put that out there so parents are aware if you have a child who's a senior i would certainly ask about those because there is money out there for our students i won't get into great detail because many of the administrators already comment but state testing does start next week and again those start third grade through high school again i wanted to remind everyone because we are getting closer and it will happen before our april board meeting april 2nd and 3rd there is a free pop-up clinic at lakeside high school again they'll be providing dental vision and medical services you don't need an id and it's first come

115first serve and lastly the geneva area chamber of commerce will be holding their annual chinese auction starting at 1 pm here at the high school on april 10th for anyone that would be interested in attending thank you i have one thing okay go ahead kevin on the food service report yes the the 6500 increase from february 2022 and then february 2021 is is that due to just the current climate the fact that we for the first time a long time have a positive balance is due to the increased reimbursement problem no no for the food cost uh the food costs in the center were for um under receipts it's uh 31 403 for 2021 and 37 9 16. can you explain that well we're we're serving more meals this year than last year you know

116we had more kids at home online people had to pick up meals quite often at the school if they didn't come up so you you can see down at the bottom lunches twenty five thousand four twenty four compared to the same time last year twenty thousand forty two same with well i guess not the same with breakfast looks like we had more breakfast last year because they were picking up breakfast along with lunch but that difference in lunches is gonna more food that has to be purchased to serve those lunches so that would account for the cost food costs being higher this month this month compared to a year ago all right thank you i could also add that i know that she's been having some food chain supply issues so some of the vendors

117that she's been able to utilize in the past to maybe have get better costs because of the supply issues she's having to use other vendors and it's driving up the price they're all scrambling for vendors the bids that are utilized to get most of the food for the cafeteria they aren't able to supply at the cost the food that was bid so they have to go out and look for it as dr rina trihar mentioned at a higher cost thanks anyone else further okay i'll just report briefly on my visit to austinberg i was able to visit them the last week of february and this visit was a little bit different because i basically walked to the school with mrs berzenko and we kind of took a tour of all of the different classrooms as

118opposed to me sitting in on any particular classes which was very beneficial for me because we were able to talk through a lot of for example we went to the computer lab and we talked about how the students get 30 minutes a week in the library and some of that time they are using in the computer lab to work on their typing skills because it's important that these students have typing skills if they're taking tests on computers so this is something that you know these students are doing and the k and one use the computer lab and the second graders are transitioning to chromebooks so there's a lot of skills that these kids will need so that was one example of you know a stop along the way we we took a look at the

119computer lab it is connected to the library at so it works out well for that and we continued on our walk through the building i was able to stop in at the special needs preschool the unit that is a satellite unit for the dd unit a lot of the places that i may not have necessarily sat in before i was able to stop in talk briefly to the teachers um you know say hello see how their classroom is going mrs brzenko talked to me about i asked about the subs the sub situation and in her school building she's got a lot of reliable parents coming in as subs and tutors so she was in a good way the day that i was there i guess those days can vary but she's got some very reliable

120parents that actually look forward to coming into the school and volunteering their time to be substitutes and she also talked to me about the extended learning program that it was very well received they had it was very well attended they had eight of their own teachers that worked that extended learning program so that was pretty successful for her and finally i'll just say um the second graders were working on their typing skills and learning how to type and insert pictures in the documents that they were uh trying to create and they were hanging in the hallway so that was kind of cool to see such young children kind of doing things that maybe some of our older adults really aren't even that skilled at doing i mean it's necessary for these students to do this

121but it's something else when you actually see that they're actually accomplishing that and i'm sure they feel tremendous pride in being able to put that up on the wall and say that they did that on the computer so i appreciate being able to go into austin berg and i always appreciate going into all the buildings austenberg holds a little bit special for me because my daughter was there and i appreciated being able to come into the building and take a look around again so thank you to all of the staff and mrs brzenko that's all i've got anyone else okay we will move on to the second hearing of the public uh still 30 minutes for this hearing of the public each speaker can still have the five minutes of speaking time and be alerted

122at 30 seconds if there's anyone that would like to address the board you can step up to the mic and state your name and address for the record my name is brock 196 south broadway geneve ohio um i've been trying to keep myself as limited in my involvement with with not having our questions answered kind of giving in to the prospect it's not going to happen i passed the point of anger but this week i did want to at least make the board aware that i received a photograph of a local teacher who has over 24 years of experience with this district and in the subposting it said title ix um that's available for anyone who has access to the sub portal actually i'm still listed as a sub so i have access to that

123plus i can message one of you know our friends who try to step up to help you guys out in the pandemic and i was just i was really frustrated you know i you guys have one your title nine website doesn't even work your link doesn't work currently so you actually have to go back and you have to follow the site map you have to go back one link you have to click title nine directly and then if you don't click specifically the title nine policy you go nowhere it's blank it's not accessible so if i google it and i click it i have nothing whereas if i go back and then i click your title nine policies link and it says title nine description then walter haverfield's you know legal precedence comes up has

124you know a few things on there and and right away it says you know the first thing in the investigation is you know both parties have to be notified and then the title nine goes through but both parties weren't notified because one was an anonymous instagram user of which three to four days of investigative time was given to what i would assume is legal counsel based on the the rolling agreement that you would have with an attorney i mean i don't know i work at a law firm but maybe it's different there um i built 325 an hour so that's 325 dollars per hour that i bill i know that maybe you have a unilateral agreement but i would say most partners at law firms bill from 575 if they have a few complaints on

125their record up into 3 500 per hour which is probably more relevant for this situation knowing that that amount of time unknowingly went into this is is concerning to me as a citizen like i said i'm not trying to make a personal attack i'm just saying that the fact that we can do it to a teacher 24 years we could do it to an administrator indiscriminately but you know i've i've been the section of criminal investigations you know myself that that have been dismissed um and i know that people in front of me have as well but i think that it's strange those people don't face the same consequences i'm sure i haven't i know that most people probably think that michelle and i sit in evil air thinking of insults to hurl at everyone

126every day i assure you we do not um do we contentiously bring things to the public yes but to to hone in my point i think that it takes extreme i think it's an extreme statement you make to the community when everyone else is held to different standards when i see every section of the title ix invocation not upheld with this most recent allegation but i can pull a public police report that shows a one-month active investigation where someone made a complaint that complaint was then investigated there was another party that was given notice it follows every single piece of that down to i don't know maybe the quid pro quo and that's not a legal opinion that's me reading a piece of paper i'm not trying to be a lawyer here i heard a

127lot today about you guys want to tell the community something tell me that if i have a child and they come to you with an allegation like that that you would take them seriously no matter who it is if they were here 24 years or 3 months or you think it's bogus and if you're going to keep one person's you know story quiet please for the love of god don't put the accusation for a teacher of 24 years from an anonymous complaint on a sub forum that was screenshoted and sent everywhere because now that person whether he did whether he didn't and you guys know i would assume now and that person's back in school that this was completely frivolous and shouldn't have been followed that we wasted a lot of time i'm guessing that

128you i don't want to say wasted a lot of money but you know as somebody works at a law firm i think of them synonymously and um can we please have a conversation soon about some of this because i don't feel like we're on the same page and i feel like a lot of people in this room feel that way and instead of fighting all the time 30 seconds it would just be more pragmatic to be able to shake hands have a dinner disagree where we disagree but please embrace us because we're the community and we're not going anywhere even after anyone's contract expires [Applause] okay the superintendent recommends the board hold an executive session to consider the appointment employment dismissal discipline promotion demotion or compensation of a public employee or official any discussion roll

129call please mrs fisher yes mrs metzler yes mrs milliken dixon yes this is ortiz yes and mr arndt yeah we will not be taking any further action when we return from executive session i'd like to thank you all for coming this evening and have a good night