001Call this meeting to order. Roll call, please. Are we doing the pledge? Pledge. Oh, pledge. Sorry. Thank you. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Now, let's move to roll call. Mrs. Melissa Walker here. Mrs. Scotterman here. Mr. Moer here. Miss Amy Walker here. Mr. Wigton absent. Absent on vacation. All right. I would entertain a motion to accept tonight's agenda. I would like to make a motion to um remove Emma Ruie from item J1B. Please. Do we have a second on that? I'll second. Any discussion? That's just um we had a some personnel accept a position and prior to tonight's meeting um has uh asked to be uh released from from that position. So
002that's the rationale for that. Mrs. Con. Oh, you already Mrs. Cotterman four. Mrs. Melissa Walker or Miss Amy Walker or Mr. Moer four. Now let's go to uh entertain a motion to accept the agenda as amended. I'll move. I'll second. Any discussion? Roll call, please. Miss Sammy Walker, Mrs. Cartman, or Mrs. Melissa Walker? Or Mr. Moer? Or and entertain a motion for approval of previous board meeting minutes. So moved. Okay. Second. Second discussion. Mrs. Melissa Walker. Four. Miss Amy Walker. Four. Mrs. Carterman or Mr. Moer. Uh, four. And then item E, presentation of certificates. Uh, Mrs. Snder is unable to be here tonight. Um, she had recently had knee surgery. Um, she was on the agenda last month and wasn't able to be here as well. And I did recognize her verbally. Um, so we
003can just go ahead and move on. Okay. Uh, recognition of visitors. Any visitors like to speak? Seeing none at the mic. Uh, administrative committee reports. Item G, legislative. Um, yeah, I've got an update on a couple alarming bills that are being discussed down at the state house that could um, greatly impact public schools. Um, first one is House Bill 33 335, which is a property tax reform bill. Uh this bill is set to be included in the final version of the 2627 budget bill. If passed, the ability to levy inside millillage would be removed, which for our district alone would uh take away about two over $2 million from our district annually. Um there's also um an informal first hearing or there was one on House Bill 335 last week. Um or I'm sorry, that's
004the same bill. It was introduced by just a little bit more about it was introduced by Representative Thomas. Um, and also in that bill includes the property tax relief now act. Um, and the goal of that portion of the bill is to reform Ohio's property tax system. Um, and so I just want to encourage you guys to contact our legislators. Uh, Representative Marilyn John would be uh one and then Senator Mark Romanuk would be the other one. We want to contact them and let them know that uh these bills need to um really be reconsidered um as there's no alternative funding for public schools at this point. That's all. All right. Uh, athletic board of control. We meet next week. So, no report. Thank you. Any student representative tonight? I didn't think so. Facilities. Uh,
005Mr. Neon couldn't be here tonight and he did not have anything to report. Um, he will be presenting at next month's meeting and we'll have many things to report at that time. Thank you. Board policy, uh, no report. All right. Student achievement, not a whole lot. At the high school, we had 218 students graduate on June 1st. 117 students graduated with a GPA of 3.0 or higher. 66 students graduated with a GPA of 3.5 or higher, and 12 students from that class had a 4.0 GPA. At the career center, they held their annual graduation ceremony last Friday, June 13th, with 86 graduates participating. They had a total of 124 graduates, 101 graduating from a career development program and 23 from a certificate program. 39 of the graduates also earned their adult high school diploma. In
006addition, they had the following student achievements. Two adult diploma program welders earned welding certification. Four certified nurse aid students earned their state certification and all five dental assisting graduates earned their dental radiography license and have now passed a registered dental assistant certification. And then lastly at South Mrs. Cox would just like to give a shout out to her staff for a great year. She appreciates everyone's efforts. They saw tremendous growth in many areas and she would also like to thank the students and their families for all their support. Their motto for the year, how lucky are we? We feel truly blessed at South to be able to positively impact our students both academically and socially, emotionally. That's it. All right. Thank you. And superintendent update. Uh I'll be brief um just to to update you
007a little bit about what's going on uh in the district over the summertime. our uh custodial staff and our technology team are busy in the buildings um cleaning uh planning uh getting everything ready for next school year. Um and then uh administratively um essentially we are all reviewing uh different pieces of data from the past year and uh planning for next year as far as um you know instructional planning, budgeting um looking at our building capacity and and facility needs. So um we'll be busy this summer as we prepare for 2526. Thank you. uh presentation. Mr. McVicker, Mr. Blankenship. Good evening. I think I put at each of your places just a one-page sheet of some of the the points that I wanted to go over. Uh and I will also be brief. Um, one
008of the things that we're doing this summer following the spring after we collected the tech department collected all the Chromebooks uh from the students has given us a chance to take a look to see what damage we might have and have those repaired over the summer so they're ready for the fall. um in the fall we will hand them out and hopefully we get out ahead of the I was given a broken one or I never received that because we are handing them to them and they're turning them on in front of us and signing that yes everything works. So second year that we've had this process I think it's worked pretty well. So we'll continue with that. Also the disconnect and reconnect uh that we have um just completed that with the staff devices.
009We try to get out ahead and coordinate that actually with uh John Neron's uh team uh try to get out ahead of their cleaning and the custodials uh so they don't custodians don't have to do that. uh that we're able to disconnect, get those moved, they can clean the rooms, let us know that when the rooms are ready, and we can start the reconnecting process. Um it's worked out well. Again, we every year we go back, we try to tweak it and make it a little bit better. Uh speaking of the repair process with the Chromebooks, this is the uh second year that we've had with that we've outsourced those repairs. Um trying to stay ahead of it. the time that was involved three years ago that our staff was taking to uh make those
010repairs of the Chromebooks was just too much. That's all they were doing. They were not getting out and working with teachers and and enhancing the technology in the classroom. So, we outsourced that. We're continuing to monitor it. Uh Luke and I try to keep ahead of those things. We still feel that it is the best approach right now to maintain the the fleet that we have. Unfortunately, um, we're unable to continue with the purchasing cycle that we had started this this school year because of the finances. So, it's going to be incumbent upon the crew to make sure that we keep those things working and in working order. It's not going to be easy. Um, also with the upgrading of staff devices to Windows 11, uh, Windows 10, which had been predominantly used on our
011laptops, the the staff devices throughout the district, that will no longer be supported at the end of October and 2025. Uh, so the crew is working to upgrade those. Unfortunately, Windows 11 demands a little more resources of the of the computers and the age that they're getting to will slow them down. So, we're also going to be battling that, but we will continue to do with what we have and and make the best of it. Uh the final thing that I want to point out with the the review of the 2425, we were fortunate to receive a safety grant which allowed us to put on four buses a new camera system, a new video system. Um the original ones, the ones that we had on there anywhere probably from 12 to 15 years old. The
012picture quality was poor, the coverage was poor. Uh Mike Yos did some quite a bit of work and homework to find a company uh a vendor provider that we could bring in. We're able to get it within a a safety grant. So very little general fund money was used for that. But the the improvement is uh is worthwhile and hopefully he talks about that when he has a chance. preparing for the 2526 school year again um to continue to support uh the staff with their technology use. One of the things that we're going to see this year, and I'll mention it, um I might as well mention it right now, uh but I was going to get to it a little bit later, is with in the area of cyber cyber security. Uh there's going
013to be the multiffactor multi-step authentication, multiffactor authentication. There's going to be a lot of requirements that we're going to have to put into place. It will not be comfortable uh for the district, the staff to work with, but we're going to have to do it. Um we have partnered with another company um another provider with OBM uh is working through we're working with them to develop a uh cyber incident plan and we're anticipating to do a tabletop study with that a tabletop scenario sometime in July just to see if the plan that we have put in place will work um and then also to find those places that we need to update and correct And what that is is we can look at a fishing attack, a malware attack, anything that would attack our systems,
014whether it's financial or through the network. And then how do we respond to it and what steps do we need to take? Um it'll be interesting, but we're looking forward to it and it's a necessary thing that we need to do. Um ongoing challenges again expanding the capabilities of the security system uh as we've added cameras and upgraded to uh digital system from the old analog. We're finding areas of the buildings that we need additional coverage. Um the administration has come to us, the tech department and asked we need uh we need some cameras in these areas. We need devices in uh on exterior doors and uh some of our athletic fields uh that we're trying to work through and we're looking for grants that hopefully will be able to support that. Um I mentioned
015the cyber security compliance and and data recovery. Uh that was quite a bit of time that that Luke and I spent in taking a look at what the best approach would be for Madison. Um, and we will continue with that. Once we have the plan in place, then it'll be ongoing to uh to monitor that and make sure that we update it as necessary. Um, I put on there also the device replacement schedule. As I mentioned, um, with the with our financial situation right now, we're not able to continue with that purchase cycle. Um, we will start to see devices dropping off. uh they get to the end of life, the student devices when they start approaching the end of life, we can no longer do uh state testing through those. Um so hopefully we
016can continue. I put some dates in there u and also costs of what those devices would be to replace. We're pushing it down the road, but it's going to become a necessary evil um because the majority of our curriculum is different delivered through that technology. So, we've become very dependent on something uh that we right now are going to have a tough time to sustain. And then finally, the three people that that make up the tech department, I mentioned, Luke, uh Luke Stro's up in the the booth right now, uh but he's the one that really pushes the the department and makes things work on a day-to-day basis. And then Gino Malikica, Melissa Murphy are the two people that are on the front lines and they're trying to maintain um you know about 4,000 devices.
017So it's a tough job. It's a tall task, but I think they're up to it and they've been able to do it so far. So any questions with technology? Excellent. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Blanket. There we go. Good evening. Um, I sent you a copy of this and the uh a printout of the slides that I wanted to go over. Um predominantly the food service department um relies on our own funding through the food that we produce and the reimbursements from the feds and um the state and from student payments. Uh the only exception to that is any bad debt that USDA requires that we're not permitted to absorb. So, that's on your agenda under uh the treasurer's business later um for some of that that's aged out uh to the point that we
018need to reimburse it. So there's a lot involved in food service unrelated to the actual preparation of the food with all the data uh counts and everything that we uh have to prepare data wise to receive our uh funding. The other thing uh is the free and reduced process which is processing applications and also uh direct certification. Direct certification is um a process where our computers speak to the state and we have to do it three times a year. I try to do it once a week um and what it connects with ODJFS to identify our enrolles that qualify for Medicaid SNAP benefits that qualify them for uh free or reduced meals automatically. So we try to do that frequently so that we don't let anybody slide through. Um we also receive a review once
019every 5 years and uh I'm going to talk more about that in a little bit. Uh for the free and reduced section um I've put in there the the income limits. So the 2526 income limits are out. Uh so our application that will be available after July 1st uh will be based on those guidelines. So if you're um 130% of the poverty level, you're you qualify for free or um 185% qualifies for reduced. As far as I know, the budget bill hasn't been um finalized yet, but as far as I know, it does include the state paying the reduced portion again, which would mean our quote unquote reduced students will receive free meals because the state is paying the 30 cents and 40 cents uh that they would otherwise owe. Um, while we're on the
020subject of free and reduced, one of the questions that comes up sometimes is, uh, why isn't it free for everyone? C is the program, uh, community eligibility provision is the program that allows a school to provide free meals for the entire enrollment. It's a formula that they use where they use an I um ISP which is identified student population uh which is based on direct certification but does not include reduced kids. So and no one uh is included that filled out an application. So, just to put in perspective where we're at as a district, our free and reduced total enrollment right now is around 66%. But when you put it into the formula to produce for C, we're only at 51%. So, when I do the math, 51% into how they uh would fund us.
021Otherwise, um we would our income would drop in food service. So at this time we in my opinion we can't switch to C just because of the funding um process. Is there any questions about that? The the meals we ser we served 348,000 meals between breakfast and lunch this year. That's a little over uh almost 2100 a day. So, they stay busy in the kitchens, that's for sure. Um, and do a great job uh producing those meals. Um, our enrollment, as you know, did drop some this year compared to last year. Our meal numbers were about the same. So, I looked at what the participation rate is. Uh, the blue is the statewide average. Uh so for breakfast this year we're at 19.5% of our students eat breakfast here and 62 almost 63% lunch which
022is both of those our participation has improved um this year over last year. uh pricing as we look forward. Uh our current prices are $3 and a quarter for a high school lunch at $3 for the uh K through8 and all breakfastes breakfasts are uh $1.75. uh we're it'll be on the agenda next month, but it looks like based on I've done some calculations using our labor cost, which is going up, our our fringe costs, which uh Brad talked about last month, are are going up, and our food costs continue to go up. So, we're we're looking at a about 50 cents per meal uh increase on breakfast and lunch across the board. And I'm adjusting the adult rate uh up to match our uh at least our reimbursement amounts. So menus, it is challenging
023to create menus that are uh in compliance with all the rules. I did uh send out a a newsletter article to all the parents to try to help explain some of those rules because I think you wonder why are you giving them beans if they don't eat beans. But um so all those rules I tried to explain. We do use an online menu system um which does validate our menu compliance and also then allows a public facing site where they can uh select their me see what we're serving for the day actually select the items they're going to eat and it'll give them all the nutritional information about that. U the other thing that I tried to do uh this year was I did a survey of the students. I asked uh with Google forms
024students that had eaten in the cafeteria grades 7 through 11 and I had 103 responses and I asked them things such as what's your least favorite uh meal, the most favorite and uh those kind of things. Um asked them what they wanted to add on to the menu. So, I use that uh information to try to improve the menu going into next year. Uh the big loser, by the way, is hot dogs for some reason. I don't know why, but it was the biggest loser, for sure, uh we talked about this last year, which is that the they continue to adjust the rules that we have to follow. So going into the fall of this year, the biggest change is the added any added sugar in milk. Uh and I will say Smith Dairy is
025our vendor was purchased by Prairie Farms about halfway through the year. So they've switched and in that process they've switched to milk that was compliant for next year's rules. It was not popular. We got lots of complaints. So apparently that small adjustment to the uh sugar content was noticeable to them but it's what we have to follow. So, so, uh, extra things that we had to do this year, uh, the five-year annual, the five-year review that the state does, they came in, that was scheduled for this year. And then the USDA had a contractor going around the country doing a survey that, to be honest, I tried to opt out of because it was our review year, and they told me I was not allowed to opt out of that. So we also did that.
026Um so the way the administrative review uh works is the state has three it's basically broken up into three sections. An administrative review which is I'll go into what it entails. The resource management and a procurement review. Two of those parts. The resource management section and the procurement review the state contracted out to a vendor that did the review. For the administrative review portion, they went through all of those sections and I ended up uploading over 120 files to the web for them to review. And then they also scheduled a visit which they were here in February for two days and there was a whole bunch more papers that they had to go through. they they went through our free and reduced um list every third person up to 495 kids and verified that I
027did it right. So um it's very very thorough the resource management section is those sections I uploaded about 55 files and the procurement review which was how we purchased was another 46 files. So in all in all it was 220 files and thousands of pages of data that they looked at the uh the reason there's a unicorn on there what when in February when we had our visit from the state she was in the room on the second day for our exit conference and she said um what we have here is a unicorn and I wasn't sure what was coming next and she said that she rarely sees this maybe once every few years but we had a perfect review. So she um said that about our administrative section the resource management there was no
028problems found the pro procurement review we had two corrective actions which have been resolved with explanation. So, all in all, I think we did a really good job with that. And then the USDA survey, they came out um for 3 days. This is just what they put on their web that they were looking at. And basically what they're trying to do is come up with what actual meal costs. So they had interviews with the principles, um our head cooks and myself and they try to add in custodial costs, um teachers aids, teachers that watch, lunch, all that. They were trying to get capture all of that cost on top of our regular food costs which they also collected while they were here. They went to East View, the middle school and the high school, and
029there was a lot more files there, menu compliance things we uploaded and everything for that. um and they were here for three days. While they were at the middle school and the high school, they also sent two extra researchers that um met the kids as they came out of the line and would tag their lunch and document a number and then they wouldn't let them throw away their trash. They would monitor what was being thrown away to look for those the beans that get thrown away and that kind of thing. So they that was one thing they're going to hopefully include in their report. We should see the results in about a year. Um and all of that is handled by our staff which I think I owe a big thank you to. Um they
030do a fantastic job. We have 29 contracted positions and four to six subs that we rely on almost every day. also the custodians and teachers, aids and administrators that help in the lunchrooms. Uh without all of the our staff, it wouldn't be successful. That's for sure. That's all I have. All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Item I uh entertain a motion for treasur business. So move. Second. Okay. Discussion. Okay. Um, first thing we'll do is talk about the one the monthly financial report. Um, talk a little bit about the revenues. They're up 4% so far fiscal year to date, but the vast majority of that, almost all of it is in the uh was in the August collection of the levy that was passed in 2023. So without that, we would be pretty
031much flat. Um, I just wanted to kind of reiterate a little bit. Miss Walker talked about the House bill. So, right now the inside millillage, just the inside millage would cost if it got taken away, reduce us by about 2.2 million a year. We'd also lose about 200 212,000 or so on Homestead and roll back. So, 2.4 million reduction. The levy that was passed in 2023 that we all worked so hard to help get passed and the community passed brings in 2.9 million. So, by a stroke of a pen, the legislature is pretty much going to wipe all that hard work and everything that the taxpayers voted on out if it gets passed. Um, even though revenues are up 4% for the year, expenditures are up 6% for the year. And that is, as um
032Mr. Blankenship alluded to, a lot has to do with uh benefits. The personnel costs are only up, salaries are only up about 2.7, which is well below the six. But by the time you put in the 8%, which is, you know, over almost $900,000 increase so far this year in benefits, which is health insurance, that increases the expenditures by an average of 6% so far for the year. Um that being said, you know, we are our expenditures and our revenues are where we anticipated them and are forecasting them to be. It's not where we want them to be, but that's where we expected them to be. So nothing out of the ordinary there. Number two, temporary appropriations not to seed exceed 50%. Basically, you know, we have to start the year with telling the county
033auditor, yes, we're going to spend money in FY26. We start them off with temporary appropriations, not our permanent budgets, and we set them at half of what we spent this year. So, I've got those for to sign after we vote on them tonight so I can send them to the county auditor. Um, that being said, we will need a special board meeting next Wednesday just to approve the final appropriations because there's going to have to be um an advance on there that I don't know exactly how much it's going to be yet because there's one more payment for um health insurance claims that I'm going to have to pay before I can tell you how much the advance will have to be. Uh, three, approval of blanket and super blanket purchase orders. Um, like we
034know we're going to have to buy fuel next year. We don't know how much we're going to have to buy. So, we have to put on a blanket purchase order. Same way with electricity. There's a lot of things like that. So, I can't just do it without board approval. Auditors ask, you know, did did the board approve you to have super blanket purchase orders. So, that's what this is. Uh, number four, the appropriations modifications. that is changing the appropriations for the year, but like I said, I'm going to have to have one more meeting um next week to do the final one to send to the county auditor. Number five, it prove it insurance quote. Um that is for property and liability P&L. Um, I did contact a different agent and just had them look
035at another option and they came back and said they couldn't match the price, couldn't match the coverage. Um, it is a 5% increase over last year. Um, but that being said, they had to increase the property value by almost a million dollars because of increases in costs to replace and valuation increases. So, you know, we're getting hit with higher insurance costs just like every homeowner out there. And the last um thing, the approval of a transfer of $9,53463 from general fund to food service fund. Mr. Blank Chip alluded to the bad debt that the food service fund was carrying. The audit that he had this year said food service is not allowed to carry it and basically said that we have to do this. So, it was uh the USDA or state auditor said, you
036know, it's something that had to be done. So, this is um bad debt that's 19 years old or older. So, can I can I make one correction there? And I anticipated this being corrected on the agenda. Um it's for um students whose inactive students who are 19 years a of age or older. Oh, I misunderstood that. Okay. So, students that are 19 years of age or older. Yes. Okay. All right. But it's still $9,000. Yep. So, that's what that transfers for. Um that concludes what I had. Do you guys have any questions on anything in the treasures report? Oh, Mrs. Melissa Walker, four. Miss Amy Walker, four. Mrs. Carterman, four. Mr. Moer, four. Uh, entertain a motion including the addendum for item J. Matter of personnel. I'll make a motion. Second. I'll second. Discussion. Mrs.
037Melissa Walker. Four. Mrs. Cartman. Four. Miss Amy Walker. Abstain. Mr. Moer four moving to item K superintendent business motion to accept super I'll move second discussion uh the only item there um I'd like to address is number three And um just to make you aware um if you would go ahead and approve those handbooks tonight, I will be bringing an amended version back to you next month. Um had uh and it'll be uh related to attendance. Um there was something brought to my attention just this week um regarding um from our Mid Ohio Educational Service Center attendance officer and uh something that needs corrected. So um I'll have that on there uh again in July. That's it. Any other discussion? Call Mrs. Mr. Scottman four. Miss Amy Walker four. Mrs. Melissa Walker four. Mr. Moer
038four. Any item L visitor comments? Any visitors like to make comment? Seeing none. President's business. Uh we have our next board regular board meeting July 16th here at the middle school and entertain a motion go into executive session for employment. So moved. Second. I'll second. And discussion. There won't be a vote to reflect reflect anything after this. Mrs. Melissa Walker, four. Mrs. Scar, four. Mrs. Amy Walker, four. Mr. Moer, four. All right. Thank everybody for attending and