001[Music] he [Music] oh [Music] he [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] he [Music] maybe we can make probably from right now HS that they have [Music] it's is it sectional first [Music] than [Music] so quiet okay here we go welcome everybody to the beaver Board of Education meeting for February 15 2024 please call the road Dr fiser here Mrs hunt here Mr Morrison here Mrs Rano here and Mr Taylor here please stand for the pledge I pledge aliance to the FL 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 going to need a motion in a second to approve the agenda's presented we move second any discussion please call the vote Mr Taylor yes Dr fiser yes Mrs hunt yes
002Mr Morrison yes and Mrs Rano yes and we're into presentations we have two presentations this evening and the first one is our school Spotlight and we're going to look at Ankeny middle school tonight so with that I'd like to invite Mr shimar principal at anony to come on up and he can introduce his group good evening everyone um I have a group of students three students that I will invite up here here in a few minutes um after I give you a little bit of background um about what they're going to talk to you about tonight so to give you a little uh background um and purpose um on two classes that we piloted this year um during our school day um part of our anony team our counselors um and at the time our
003principal Mr Baker um and I visited Mason schools last school year um they have been doing um an empowerment um and impact classes for the last several years um and we went to go see what this class was all about uh this year we were able to Pilot um the empowerment class uh which is for girls in any grade level at Ankeny um and uh the following uh thing are some of the things that um it focuses on uh we wanted to help build life school or life skills for positive mental health and physical health um we also uh it is gender specific the empowerment classes for girls and the impact classes for boys um the goal is to help students build confidence and resilience when faced with a challenge and this also ties in
004nicely with our social social emotional learning component in the district so to give you a little bit of background as I said we did pilot it this year and we had six students that were in the first semester of our empowerment class and up here we have some of the topics um that our teacher focused on and they focused on stereotypes and labels confidence and self-esteem body image the scary power of negative words combating relational aggression AKA drama healthy communication social media Safety Human Trafficking and self-defense career exploration women of History influential females benefits of exercise and they were able to exercise a couple one to two days a week that was part of the component our impact class uh focuses on the following topics some are similar grit growth mindset leadership problem solving skills
005goal setting healthy communication and behaviors social media safety self- advocacy benefits of exercise weekly physical activities self-improvement building meaningful relationships and values and beliefs so down at the bottom it says their students will have an opportunity to focus on self-improvement in the midst of a busy Academic School day so one of the things that we have done um this year as we're going through the scheduling process is that we have uh conveyed of this information to our students as they're uh considering what they want to register for next year um and we're hoping to next year build um the uh number of students that we have in these two individual classes so here's just a few pictures of what the students did um they did uh spend some time learning self-defense from officer major saac
006and I will introduce him here in a little bit they also had the opportunity to go uh to uh a game at uh Nutter Center to see the right State women's basketball play so I'm going to invite um three of our students from the class um and they're going to come up and share with you um a couple of things uh either what was their favorite part of the class and then what they learned about themselves um throughout the um semester so first off I'm going to have Olivia Massie who is an eighth grader here at iny hi my name is Olivia um so my favorite part of empowerment was I believe being able to talk with my teachers and my friends every day we had about like seven girls in there one of them
007which um she did move which made me very sad but um we did talk a lot we had a lot of exercise um we did a lot of fun things my favorite part though was I believe the women through history presentation project because I got to learn about a lot of people that I didn't know actually it went all the way back to the 1800s I believe right yeah we did quite a lot of decades um some of mine I did were the 80s and I didn't do a lot of famous people like Madonna um which is she's really fun person but um I learned about myself that I actually am a very social person and that I really like to talk with my friends um I learned a whole bunch about like self-defense from
008officer major sack um I learned a whole ton about different women and how to deal with different types of drama which I have dealt with a lot of drama being an eighth grader you know you have a lot of a lot of friends who like to be very very dramatic about situations so [Applause] and next we have seventh grader Bella France hi one of my favorite part parts of the class was the UD basketball game CU I feel like we just like got to bond more uh throughout like the game and stuff and I learned about myself that like like I'm a very socialized person and like I like to talk a lot with like my peers and with my friends and stuff like that Dylan Bernett seventh grader hello I'm Dylan and um one
009of my favorite parts of the class was hanging out with a lot of kids that um would enj you immediately on how you like you like on your name on what you do like drawing or anything and also I learned a lot about self-defense and how most people Jud how people look on themselves and stuff I want to thank the three students uh for taking the time out to come uh to share with you tonight I would last but not least like to have um officer Dave major sack uh who was our school resource officer between koi and Ankeny it's also national uh school resource officer day um so he's going to tell you a little bit about what he talked about with the students well Mr Morrison they can't keep me away like they
010can't keep you away I came back again there another St at the uh school resource officer position the middle schools now so so um basically what you just heard was um what the empowerment's all about it's the Authority or the power given to someone to do something so what my class and I try to um Empower into these young ladies is that they always have a fight in the game never give up if you're attacked if you're bullied if you're messed with always always always protect and defend yourself so that's why the um the defensive tactics part was a was a great hit with these young ladies they got to kick on me a little bit they got to kick on the bags and and we' like to go outside and actually do real life
011scenarios what's around you the surroundings that you're in how can you um go into an area and say that doesn't look safe I'm going to stay away from that okay or you got that the spider senses coming out in you and you're like I just don't feel right so what are we going to do to make it right okay uh what's the safest plan what's the safest exit so I'm really excited for this class yes there was a only about seven young ladies in it but I think if we with my help and building it up I think we're going to have a lot more kids in rest because some kids were like I want to do that class I want to do that when we're talking about it so hopefully it gets it's built
012up higher than than where it is now but thanks for the opportunity to help teach these young ladies and I'm right at home so I appreciate everything good job [Applause] ladies great thank you very much appreciate you coming out tonight uh our next presentation is our high school happenings and we have uh three students with us tonight we have Abby Marin and Katie and so they are Juniors so I'd like to invite them up to the microphone they're going to give the board an update on what's going on in our high school right now all right good evening um my name is Marin sandis and this is Katie Anderson and Abby McCarty and we are here to talk to you as a part of student council at baver Creek High School about some of the
013happenings at our school like some of the sport events coming up and just other information about the sports and then some information from the Committees that student council and then some other announcements and information from the high school so as for student council we currently have five committees working on individual projects um with our blood drive committee we have a schoolwide student blood drive on March 7th currently getting signups with 120 out of 180 spots filled already um student council is also hosting the high school annual dodgeball tournament on March 14th and signups are currently happening now um we are running a school we are running a districtwide food drive from the 20th of February to March 1st and um each Home Room from each school that donates the most food will be rewarded with
014the cookie party on behalf of student council and our community service committee has organized us to volunteer at Evergreen preschool again this semester and that is on the 23rd of this month and um we are also currently planning Community outreaches to begin with a volunteer organization to rrange for all student council members to participate in some volunteer hours this semester and finally student council has received over 80 new applications this semester um for next year and we are currently in the interviewing and conducting um some planning processes right now thank you as far as sports for student council our Sports programs are continuing to make our school proud both the boys and girls high school basketball teams are projected as number two seeds for the upcoming tournament the boys play at home this Friday being
015the last game before the start of the tournament the first tournament games are at Centerville High School gwalk statistics have both the boys and girls basketball teams currently in second place the swim team is competing at Miami University University this weekend for districts which will provide each competitor an opportunity to qualify for stay in Canton Ohio recently both the boys and girls swim got second at gwalk when it comes to wrestling Jeremy cell and Isaac bulgaras from the high school are both ranked number one in their weight class by jwok Nate Bono Elijah papalos and Noah wgar are all ranked third yeah our bowling team is going to districts and sectionals both teams are helping to qualify for States and our girls team is currently placed first in gwok and our boys team is second
016the academic team is tied for first place with Northmont being undefeated 8 to Z speech and debate is going to state in a couple weeks hopefully to qualify for Nationals almost all of their team has qualified for State thus continuing their amazing season lastly tryouts for spring sports like track and field lacrosse and men's tennis are beginning now so I'm Abby um kind of just to wrap up this presentation with some overarching information from the school um the 27th of February so in two weeks is our act day which is where um The Freshman will report to Ferguson hall as normal but all the juniors are registered and will be taking the act on that day and then sophomores and seniors luckily get to stay at home and they have their assignments online um our
017peer listening group right now is planning the annual teacher versus student basketball game which is called Hoops for Hope and they're also organizing say something week which is a schoolwide Spirit Week made to help unify the high school against bullying and to kind of guide towards the prevention of bullying um the weekend of jazz is at the end of this month and it's organized by our band Department um Beaver Creek students will be performing on Friday and then Saturday there are about 20 jazz bands from the surrounding areas and four Headliners that are going to come together for a fun-filled music field weekend um our Color Guard recently got second place at their competition at belber high SCH school last weekend and they're competing again for finals this weekend and then also our show choir
018received third place at Loveland show fest last weekend and they're also competing again this weekend at ol and Tangi and then lastly tryouts for our spring musical School of Rock are happening now thank you so [Applause] much thank you so much appreciate all that information it's good to know that and that concludes presentations for this evening thank you all for coming we really appreciate it okay we do have two speakers tonight so before I call you up I just wanted so it's Jared Cutler and Diana anger I just need to tell you that you'll have three minutes in which to speak you need to give us your name and address um there will there be no comments from the board but should your comments require a response someone will'll get back to you so we're
019going to start with Jared Cutler uh Jared Cutler 3188 Ibis Court Beaver Creek 45431 members of the board thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight I appreciate it I want to take just a moment say a word of support for Trans students in Beaver Creek and the rest of Ohio as you know in January the Ohio legislature overrode the governor's vo of House Bill 68 which means that minors will be unable to receive gender affirming care in the state of Ohio trans girls will be prohibited from participating in girls and women's sports in Ohio this is just one of many pieces of legislation targeting trans Community I'm appalled by the cruelty and hatred on the part of the sponsors of legislation that targets our trans family friends and neighbors I'm particularly concerned about the
020impact this toxic and demeaning legislation has on our trans students our friends and family in the trans Community have been bullied harassed and picked on their whole lives they shouldn't have to endure bullying harassment and being picked on by their elected representatives the community group I community group I participate in citizens for better Beaver Creek strongly and unequivocally it condemns all legislative attacks on the trans Community calls on policy makers to abandon or reverse all policies that don't treat all of Ohio citizens with respect empathy and compassion to the trans members in our community I just want to say that with all the attacks and violence currently being directed your way many of us are on your side we're disgusted by what we see being done to you and you have our love acceptance and
021support to those who reside in Beaver Creek City School District I ask that you always act with respect dignity and compassion in your conversation Behavior with the lgbtq plus Community please oppose any and all mean-spirited hateful legislative attacks on the the trans Community House Bill 68 is merely one of many legislative attempts to deny the humanity and dignity of our trans friends and family I would ask that each of you would act with respect compassion empathy and support for a population of Ohioans who have known far too much persecution in their lives as it is we trust the school district to Endeavor to protect all students regardless of gender identity and to provide equal access to educational extracurricular opportunities we all have choices to make in terms of how we treat other people choose love
022choose respect choose compassion and choose to stand against the legislative hate being directed at some of the most oppressed and vulnerable among us thank you for your time thank you Diana anger good evening I'm Diana uner and I live at 3461 napan Drive uh thank you Board of Education members for allowing me to be here tonight to speak about uh our Levy committee our school levy committee I am the chair of the citizens for Beaver Creek schools committee and I like to give an update for those who are watching on recording or live stream as well uh and I wanted to inform you all that we are working actively on Reinventing our website it's very close to being introduced we're trying very hard to reach out to the community more through various platforms including our
023new YouTube channel we have the first of our video series on educating the public in short Snippets about school funding uh being finalized in the next few weeks so we'll look to have that uh rolled out um these short videos are going to Spotlight expert in our in the area here uh in Beaver Creek City Schools district so that the public can see that school funding questions that they may have may uh also have information that's coming from outside of the district that could be useful to them in order to make positive decisions around ballot measures um where School levies are concerned we are uh actively using our social media outside of Levy committee or sorry Levy uh campaigns um so that the public is used to our presence all year round uh and we're
024looking for more engagement there and specifically we're looking to involve more people in the community from all walks of life so that we can have a really active committee that can reach everyone that is in Beaver Creek City Schools uh we have approximately 42,000 registered voters in the district and so we're aiming to reach as many of them as we can our work is focusing on educating the public at the basic level on school funding and its effect on Beaver Creek City Schools but also giving folks who are really interested in learning more as crazy as that seems about Ohio school funding uh we're we want to give them the option to do a deep dive on any of the subjects that we're going to be highlighting we responding to the Public's needs the questions
025that they have been asking and our intent is is that not starting over every time we have a levy campaign educating everyone over again on how this works we'd really like to focus Levy campaign time frame on actually campaigning with the information that is specific to whatever that levy issue is um so our work as a committee is going to continue to center around our mission which is to ensure that Beaver Creek City schools has the funding that the district needs in order for the district district to meet its missions so be looking for more information from us here in the next few weeks and we're excited to have the opportunity to serve the district thank you thank you I'm me need a motion is second to approve the following Board of Education meetings January
0266th 2024 organizational meeting January 6th 2024 hearing on the tax budget meeting and January AR 6 2024 regular Board of Education meeting so moved second any discussion please call the vote Dr fiser yes Mrs hunt yes Mr Morrison yes Mrs Rano yes and Mr Taylor yes and want to items for board discussion yes tonight we have a number of items that to go through with the board uh the first one uh you may recall back at our um Regular board meeting in January 6 uh we had a presentation from Dr fiser uh in regards to two programs uh really board tools uh that the board could utilize for board meetings so what we were charged with is really get kind of gathering that information so I want to go through that with you now if
027you don't mind so you have in your back right side pocket um a large paperclip you want to grab it by the large paperclip and then and uh you'll understand why I didn't do the small paper clip but if you take the small paper clip and you open that up you will notice that this document has multiple colors on it so the reason it has multiple colors we had a team of individuals I would say about 12 individuals sat through both these presentations uh these are individuals who make up the cabinet but then also are the individuals who really work on creating the board book and the board agenda and what we asked them to do is not only to sit through this this but to identify what they felt were the strengths of escribe
028uh which was one of the programs and then what were areas they felt that were lacking or that were not um or that they still had questions about then the second presentation was on board docs and so we asked them to do the same thing so the reason they are colorcoded is because if you see a green comment that matches the green comment all the way through it's the same individual so that's why we did it that way uh same with red same with yellow and then you might say well there's no purple on this other page that was because they didn't give a comment on that page so I wanted to provide that with you that is four pages of information regarding the two programs there in addition you will notice that uh escribe
029and board docs have both provided to the board a full presentation or breakdown of their um of their product uh along with a uh pricing list for the district I will say interestingly enough the pricing for both these is remarkably the same I mean they are spot on almost uh same price and and not not nearly as expensive as we had thought they would be um for us to look at I'll give you just a snapshot but uh of kind of what the thoughts were of the group was there are some really great features that both of these offer um I do think there is there's going to be a steep learning curve for our staff um I think there'll be a learning curve for the board but I do think uh there were some
030benefits uh that we saw instantaneously as we sat through the presentations um my recommendation to the board is to allow you to digest this and really kind of get some direction from the board moving forward at a later meeting if the board is interested in moving forward with one of these programs the timeline just to give you an idea of timeline um it looks like there's about a 10 week buildup to go live with a board meeting and our recommendation from cabinet was that we would want to if we make a change we would want to initiate that in the summer um to do it during the school year just seems like there's a lot going on uh but maybe a June July starting it the first one in June doing one in July and
031then one in August we kind of get our feet underneath us a little bit and uh so we really would need to have a recommendation moving forward by the first week of April we if we make a decision by the first week of April uh if the board would like to move forward with this um then I think we can we can hit that that we're actually doing something for a June board meeting any questions about that it's a lot of information I will even the the documents that they provided are very descriptive and uh you know we would be happy to answer any questions you have even after you read it so my intent would be to put this back back on as an item for board discussion next month to see how the
032board would like to proceed at that time sounds good okay thank you uh the next item Item B is uh I wanted to give the board I want to use the word heads up I guess uh so you are all very aware that during last school year we spent a lar large amount of time working on our new strategic plan for the district and I will say uh and I think Bobby will agree with this Bobby really LED that effort uh with leadership acceleration what is different about this plan that is different than the plan that we've done before is there is a lot of action um we gave an update last week regarding all the Committees and every committee is very active and and there's a lot of movement happen happening a lot of
033discussion on these topics which is great it's exciting it's actually creating change which is the purpose of the strategic plan however there's one group I happen to lead that group and it's the one identity group and uh this is probably not new news to everybody but there has been some conversation regarding um how do we look as a district meaning what is our makeup and what I mean by that is surprisingly as we went through the Strategic plan one of the pieces that came out pretty loud from our students was this one identity and what I mean by one identity is we have students who go to our elementaries their Valley Vikings uh their Fairbrook foxes um they're every Elementary has a different um they have a different color they have different colors they have
034really a different mascot uh main is the Beavers but their beaver looks different than our beaver and um so it was interesting to hear that our students had a very strong push that they wanted to become beavers like they they feel like they don't really become beavers until until they're in Ferguson hall and um so we Implement that into our strategic plan and I just want to let the board know we are moving very quickly with that topic and this is not a change that we see anything happening relatively quick um but we feel it's very important for us to communicate out to our community um really what is happening we have communicated last year to our PTO because we knew that information was coming and our some of our PTO have already started changing
035shirt colors to orange and black um and um so one of the things that we feel is important is to at least tell our community hey this is an item that we're looking at it's and what is our why our why is because our students feel very strongly that this should be a change so I want to share that with the board because um I didn't want the board to be taken aback by a comment about what's happening to the anony trur Chargers what's happening to Valley Vikings Fair Brook foxes you know so on and so forth a big piece of that is we want to honor that history you know we because the committee is made up of really everybody who has graduated from Beaver Creek with the exception of myself um so it's
036interesting to hear everybody who's on the committee talk about who they were what they were um and adults I think struggle a little bit more with it because it's part of their identity um and when we talk with our high school kids and we met earlier this week with a community group on this topic the community group was pretty adamant they felt strongly it should be Beaver Creek beavers all the way through when you walk in as a preschool student you're a beaver and when you walk across the stage you're a beaver and um so just want to let you know we're going to start exploring that work I will keep you updated on that but um that is not something that usually goes now if we were changing mascots that would be a problem
037or we changing colors we have no interest in doing any of that we we just want to kind of build and and re-emphasize who we are so you'll hear more about that in the future any questions about that okay um item D oh no I'm sorry let's go back to item C this is an easy one I believe um each year we the board tends to do a joint session with Beaver Creek Township and Beaver Creek City uh Beaver Creek city has reached out and it is their turn to host and I know this is super early but I figure the earlier we get in on our calendars the better off we are September currently we are scheduled to meet on September 17th that is a Tuesday that is not a normal day for us
038uh but it is a Tuesday on September 17th the city would be hosting us in September and they had asked if we would be willing uh to go to them let them host on September 16th that is a Monday and their meeting would start at 5: p.m. so it be a 5:00 P p.m start time God bless you be a 5:00 P p.m start time and as you know we try not to have a whole lot of action items at those meetings um so we'll we'll kind of load up um the month before so or the month after so I don't know if that works for your calendar if it does I see some head shaking if it does okay then uh we'll go ahead and make that change Donna and I will make the
039change anak will'll change it on our website and uh we'll get a notice out that that's GNA I guess we won't need a notice if they approved it tonight yeah we'll need to vote on it okay then we'll ask the board to vote on that change uh tonight and uh or we could you know what joy since I don't have it on here do we want to just do it next month I I can let it we have plenty of time that way you can put on your calendar we will add it next month for for approval all right and the last I'm sorry item D not the last item but the last item for for me um want to talk to the board about kind of some of the issues that we're feeling here
040in the district and this should not be a surprise to our board one of the things that we recognize and we've seen this happen over the last four or five years is the growth of our preschool and um as you may recall we had three Wings here at central office we now have two Wings here at central office because we converted the third one uh about three or four years ago uh in the two classrooms we also have three classrooms that sit over Parkwood right now and we are projected to have a another classroom that is going to be needed for next year due to growth in our preschool program as a result of that we are struggling to identify where that other classroom will be at this point um and uh we are seeing
041a lot of pressure at our elementary schools currently we we've known that for some time we've had individuals ask if we can redistrict there's no need to redistrict because any movement from one school to the other just creates the exact same problem in the other building so the board met uh probably about a year ago and we looked at timeline for our bond issue and we were projecting that we would be on uh the ballot this November for a bond issue really to initiate our Master facility plan moving forward and um one of the reasons I bring up uh the preschool is because uh we feel strongly part of the part of that Master facility plan was to turn this building over to our kids uh really convert this building to be a preschool Center
042um we would not have our District Administrative team here at all and then we would look for other locations that's probably more information to come on that topic but as we start looking at our Master facility plan uh we feel that it is prudent it's needed that we move forward or we start making those moves now so what I would like to propose to the board and I'll let Joy Jump in here Joy and I have been in conversation over the last couple weeks on this topic is really looking to come in March and April to the board with numbers to uh pass resolutions to move forward with a November bond issue and I think that's advantageous to us for a number of reasons one it takes two board meetings for those um resolutions to
043be passed and once that second one is passed then we are on the ballot and it allows the district the opportunity really to begin the communication out to our residents and and I think it's really critical that we begin in that communication uh before we hit summer so that they understand what's you know what is happening why is this need here um what what does this bond issue look like not only financially but what what are they going to get for their money what in turn do they get so um so really want to come to the board because we've not talk timeline and I would like to propose a timeline of of really coming back in March to pass the first resolution and April to pass the second so Mrs kits Miller anything you
044want to add no I mean Tyler and and and I and um Miss Ron we've been in lots of meetings here within the last month with Bond Council bond agent um meeting after meeting after meeting and we're slowly but surely getting those numbers put together I've made multiple phone calls to the county auditor to work on the estimates and the numbers with him so I think we're getting there I'm I'm really hoping that we are going to be ready in March I mean it's it's a push um and I told Mr Aon that when we started when he said do I want to go in in March I was like okay so hopefully um it's it's going to be a push but I think we're going to get there so definitely and I think what
045we're experiencing here with our preschool is just a microcosm of what's happening in the district and the more you drive around the more you're in the township the more neighborhoods you see in the city that are popping up um again we don't build schools overnight it's going to take three to four years for and a and a big school with all the amenities that you know with the fields and everything um that's probably you're looking at maybe even up to four to 5 years for that to open so we will feel a lot of pressure during that time frame if we were successful in November so um just feel like we probably need to get this ball rolling if that's what we're going to do it it makes sense for us to respond to the
046needs of our families and our kids uh with what we're seeing any discussion any any concerns okay if not we'll shoot for March and April I will just say there's a lot of discussion out in the community just about exactly that topic yeah morning to my barber shop yeah they're talking about in The Barber Shop they're talking that's well I'll tell you that's where all the messages get spread everywhere yeah all right well thank you very much appreciate that we will continue to look at that and we will share more information uh when the time's right regarding what we think we can do with this building for preschool because we have to move a little quicker for that so with that I'll turn it over to Mr Alexander he's going to talk about the ELP
047uh program the expedite local partnership program and this relates directly to the bond yes so good evening board and Mr uton and Mrs kits Miller I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you tonight about the El program which is also an item that is listed for approval this evening the expedited local partnership program or El permits School dist districts that are over 2 years away from eligibility for State assistance under the classroom facilities assistance program or cfap to receive a district-wide assessment and master facility plan from the Ohio facilities construction commission program participants may spend local resources on a separate and discret part of their overall Master facility plan and later deduct qualifying expenditures from the school district share under cfap when the school district becomes eligible Ohio facilities construction commission will assess the classroom
048facility needs of the Beaver Creek City School District and in conjunction with School District administration develop a districtwide master facilities plan the school district May then expend any local resources including the proceeds of bonds to complete a discret part of the overall Master facility plan that is either new construction or major renovation any project approved under ELP shall where applicable comply with the Ohio school facili designed manual Ohio Revis code and commission policies when a participating School District later becomes eligible under the classroom facilities assistance program the commission will reassess the classroom facility needs of the school district counting the qualifying local expenditure amounts already spent as part of the local share if the school district has spent more than the local share on approved expenditures the state will reimburse the school district for the
049amount spent above the approved local share so why is this important for our district as we move through the implementation of our Master facilities plan we expect that a large portion of our project may qualify for reimbursement approving this resolution today is the first step to ensuring compliance so that we can receive reimbursement when the beaver Creek city school district is eligible we do know that our district qualifies for 16% reimbursement uh what we do not know is when we will become eligible that may be 10 years from now that may be 15 years from now we are unsure of that but we do know that we are eligible for 16% reimbursement and approval today would start that process so what that means in a nutshell is some other board some other superintendent some other
050Treasurer is going to get a check from the state that's going to help offset the project that we do and and it'll be millions of dollars that the state will be giving to Beaver Creek City schools at some point because this board moved forward to accept that program so it's it's a win it's 16 cents on the dollar for those parts of the project that are eligible so it's a smart move for the board and it will pay not only for the future board and uh staff but it will also help our community so fantastic thank you thank you thank you and that concludes items for board [Applause] discussion under Financial reports I'm going a motion in a second to approve the following January 2024 Financial reports fiscal year 24 certificate of estimated resources and
051Appropriations and January 2024 donated items so M second any discussion um real quickly I would like to point out and you look at this the sheet that I gave to you the um balance sheet that we are 58% of our way through this fiscal year um currently our total operating receipts were at 49.2% so we're about 9 1.2% behind that is due to to the fact that we haven't started our first half collections of real estate receipts um we actually did on Friday receive a payment from the county auditor so we are starting to collect so you will see that um start to you know catch up here within the next month or two and we'll be fine um I did want to point out that we did receive our Casino tax this month in
052the amount of $527,000 I mean so you know it's a little over a half million um it's a 2% increase over what we received last year um so um I always just think that's an interesting one to look at um because that is not based on the wealth of the community or anything like that all the school districts are the same and it's you know per the student count so um which is a great thing expenditures are also running under budget right now by about 3% but as you can see when you look at your supplies textbooks and teaching Aid line we've only spent 39% of that budget but um as we get closer here here within probably the next month or two um we'll be spending a lot of money on curriculum to go
053ahead and purchase that get it ready for the you know get it into the teachers hands so they can look at it before they start next year so again that's going to be a real quick catch up there um so one other item of note is that we have finished our state audit um it was a clean audit um we will know hopefully by the end of this month there'll be a press release as to whether or not we qualified for the auditor of State award um I just kudos to to Jamie and to the the rest of the team I mean it's a lot of work but well worth it and I think um I'll I'll be really surprised if we you know don't qualify for that auditor of State award so um but
054yeah we're we're good so thank you yeah thank you [Music] Jamie okay please call the vote Mrs hunt yes Mr Morrison yes Mrs orano yes Mr Taylor yes and Dr fiser yes new business I'm going a motion a second to approve the following the employment salary changes leaves of absence and terminations approval of application for expedited local partnership program approval of the resolution authorizing the 2024 2025 membership in the Ohio School Athletic Association approval of type four resolution and the approval of revisions to the 2024 program of studies so Mo second any discussion I just want to talk about two items on here one is item C that is a standing uh resolution that we pass each year just for our our community to understand uh in order to be part of the ohsaa the
055board has to adopt that we're a member there meaning we'll abide by the dsaa rules and then item e is approval of the revisions for the 2024 program stat just want to thank uh really Dr fiori and her team for the amount of hours countless hours that are spent pulling that together for our kids I would challenge any school district that to look at ours uh we have great great opportunities for our kids and uh and our team really sits trying to look at what can we do that makes it makes it exciting and interesting for our K so thank you for all your work on that okay please call the vote Mr Morrison yes Mrs Rano yes Mr Taylor yes Dr fiser yes and Mrs hunt yes and we're into announcements so February 19th
056is President's Day no school all office is closed February 27th is a community cat chat Beaver Creek Board of Education it'll be right here from 2: to 3 March 12th is the next Community chat at Panera at the Fairfield Mall from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and March 21st is the next Beaver Creek Board of Education meeting at 6:30 and we're at to board comments Dr fiser thank you um boy what a meeting there is so much going on here right now um I am I am proud to see all the great stuff our schools are doing I always love the school Spotlight uh excited about all the changes that are coming um boy it's a lot um I do want to take some of my time this evening to um reflect on and raise
057awareness of some of the issues uh that Mr Cutler raised regarding House Bill 68 um for those who aren't aware House Bill 68 uh is a bill restricting access to health care and also requiring the schools to uh ban certain children from participating in uh sports that agrees with their gender identity um gender dysphoria is relatively uncommon most of us really don't ever experience it and so for me at least I found it really hard to understand what that might be like and really to understand what it's like for a child who's experiencing that or for an adult who's experiencing that but we have such a large district with uh so many students that even with only one and a half% of people being affected by this we're talking about over a 100 families in
058Beaver Creek that are facing um the state now cutting off their Access to Health Care um that their children need and then some tiny fraction of that who may want to participate in sports and are now feeling like they're really not welcome which is never a position I want to put uh students in so at a high level um what transgender means is that just means that somebody's life experience feels different than the gender they were assigned at Birth um for a lot of people who have never experienced it like I said it's it's not something that comes intuitively so I would just ask you for a minute to experience to imagine the experience of what it would be like to wake up one morning and find yourself in in a body that is the
059opposite of the sex you've lived with your whole life something would be horribly wrong and it would be jarring and once you get on over that shock of one day suppose it happens the next and the next and you're going through this for weeks imagine how um disorienting how difficult that would feel to live with on top of that now imagine you have to go to work you can't just stay home you've got to feed your family what are you going to do what clothes are you going to put on in the morning what bathroom are you going to use that's a problem by the way that has no good answer um no matter what you choose you put yourself at risk of being uh called awful names or even potentially physically assaulted um for
060me personally I can imagine this experience would result in an intense feeling of discomfort uh both in my own body and in the constant fear of rejection from my Society my community the people around me everyone I see um it would feel pretty scary so now on on top of all that imagine your child going through puberty so that was a hard enough time as is uh as a CIS which means my gender identity and my sex align with the standard that means that you know for me that was an awkward time I think for a lot of us that was an awkward time we know that middle school is tough on kids but for a kid going through these kind of problems as well these kinds of mental challenges uh and and it is
061it is very very difficult and in light of that it is no surprise that the stat statistics show that 82% of transgender people have considered suicide and 40% 40% have attempted and so that's why this access to mental and uh psychological Health Care are so essential for the over a 100 Beaver Creek families that are probably affected by this so having established kind of who it is that we're talking about here with this law um I thought it would be important to describe a couple of things this law does and talk about things I think we should be doing as a district to try to support these families as they go through this transition through this change in law um House Bill 68 strips families of these medical freedoms and the parental right to control
062the medical decisions that their uh children need um in public relations messaging about the bill and in a lot of the media coverage you'll see they talk about how they banned experimental surgery on miners but in fact there were no hospitals in the state of Ohio that were providing gender affirming surgery to minors it's not a thing what they don't mention as often is that they're also Banning access to hormone therapy in the state but only for the treatment of gender dysphoria that's because hormone therapy is actually used pretty common has been for decades for children with something called precocious puberty I've been doing some reading on this what that means is sometimes kids start puberty in like second grade right and they're not ready for it their peers aren't ready for it it is
063common medical practice to delay the onset of puberty for those children and for a child who is going through the trauma of dealing with gender dysphoria being able to delay those effects of puberty is really a huge huge thing that you want to have available for that child it is reversible it is not permanent and it has been uh safely used for a very long time so um all this is important to us as a district because what it means is that these families um who are facing this are now these families and these parents who are already struggling with raising a child who is a target of a lot of online harassment uh frequently demonized in the media as um just all kinds of awful names these children are going through this and their
064parents are struggling with getting them the right Health Care they need and they've just had that option taken away so now they have to consider am I going to travel out of state to get the health care that might help my child stay alive help my child survive puberty without uh considering suicide um so that brings to the first thing I think we need to do as a district and I think uh we will do um and that is be understanding that some students will need to miss more days of schools and and right out of this population of a 100 this is not going to be uh as trivial as I probably thought it was when I first started doing the research I really didn't understand uh the prevalence um but fortunately the I
065think the pandemic has taught us all how to do much better with remote work right I mean a lot of our students my kids when they're out sick for a day they've got their work to do at home it's great Ian I think that works pretty well the second thing this bill does um that I find particularly nasty to our our transgender students is it requires that we as the school district tell transgender girls but only transgender girls that they're not welcome to participate in their gender Sport and I find that particularly egregious because it makes us the villain I never wanted to be in the position where as a school we have to tell children you're not welcome here that is the opposite of what I stand for um so in my view and
066I think we've heard this a lot Athletics is a great way for students to learn discipline and teamwork it builds Community it is very important to me that we provide the same opportunities to all of the students and that brings me to the second thing that we need to do but frankly I don't know how um I would like us to see have a plan to accommodate all children in the district who want to participate in our Athletics programs we collect taxes from everyone we have a duty to provide the same quality service to every single student and this law doesn't excuse us from that Duty so um I have some additional notes on on kind of the sources that I found but I've been looking at things like Mayo Clinic and the original legislation
067um but I I just hope that moving forward we can really work to do our best to uh help these children who are targeted by this law uh feel like they're still a welcome part of one community so that's all I have thank you thanks Mr MO welcome back okay well thank you um skits Miller I loved the excellent and detailed financial information that you gave us this evening congratulations to you and your team on on the clean audit so that's phenomenal so thank you uh I loved having the two groups here as well this evening the the group uh from Anne as well as the high school uh gave us a lot of very good information uh the in particular the high school group uh went into you know we've got so many kids
068doing so many wonderful things they really highlighted that and did a great job talking about the you know speech and drama talking about music with all the programs going on Etc they talked about Athletics uh with all of our teams right now either in first or second place doing a phenomenal job and maybe I missed it I maybe I missed it you know when you get old you you you you don't hear everything all right but I didn't hear them say that our academic team is also undefeated all right so I think that's something I wanted to share as well and then I want to thank uh Mr Alexander for your work on the elpp uh definitely shows Forward Thinking very necessary okay that's all Mrs H oh that way um I just wanted to
069thank our cabinet um just I was kind of just thinking over some of the things that have happened in the last few uh weeks and months and just the multitude of Community Partnerships that you guys have cultivated uh I know Paul you enjoy attend rotary um and some of our other cabinet members attend that as well um hosting the faith leaders luncheon for uh people of all different Faith to come and partner with our district um I had a conversation with Bobby today during my day job um about just supporting some special needs students that we have in our uh Church community that just trying to find ways to help support families and um I just think it speaks to the character of the people on our board on our cabinet that bobb's willing to
070come on her own time to provide training for our volunteers um so those kind of things I just I'm sure there's great people in all districts but I just have a hard time believing they're better than ours so uh I'm just really grateful for all the things you guys do to be out in the community and be partnering with the community um and doing those things cuz I think that matters I think our our families see that um and I think that speaks volumes and when we ask them for um you know financial support or whatever it is um I think our families know that you know it's a partnership and they're not it's not always us asking you know I think we're we're really um the cabinet has really made an effort to get
071out in our community and Community chats and all of those things just keeping an Open Door conversation which um I know Joanne and I have talked a lot about you know since we got on the board about just loving the fact that the cabinet is so visible ible in the community and I think people feel that there's an approachable um aspect to you all that maybe that didn't always exist um so I just want to thank each of you for that and what you've done to create that culture um and we just want you to know we appreciate it okay Mr Taylor okay uh just to add to that I think this system has really been great uh providing a culture of Engagement uh to the community uh the kids coming in from anony and
072the high school oh sometimes we forget in schools that that who our customers are really and that is the kids uh that that we service every day uh there's a lot of other influences out there trying to to work against or maybe sometimes for that but is still they are ultimately our customers um so Joanne and I were at the uh well and Carl as well at the show choir uh performance in Loveland it was great they took third place don't know have a clue how they were beaten I mean they were just awesome completely awesome so Carl and I have a uh a bigger stake in it for their kids their my granddaughter his daughter as well being one of the um solo performance performers in the the show choir but it was great
073they make us look really really good um want to uh thank Paul and the the staff for um providing the faith leaders group that we had thought it was very informative and again that's Community engagement that the message gets out there and in many ways we we uh have a common purpose uh in a little bit different directions but still it's all about families and connections to families as well okay let's see um at the career center we have three new board members uh from Zena Cedar Cliff and Fairborn and um so it kind of there's seven members on the board there and so three new members make make a big difference so it's nice to have that and there here the sad thing is about all of that is that makes me the senior
074member there so that scares me a little bit um but things are going great uh just like uh just like they are here we're mid mid year and uh at the career center of course we are all about uh sending kids into the workforce and pro providing Pathways for them to do that and all is going well um you mentioned how fabulous our treasur is well we have a new treasur there who is equally as fabulous wonder who she is I wonder daugh but yeah so it's all good I think that uh I did I was going to say something about how hital 68 as well but thank you for your presentation on that cuz it is you're welcome politics a lot of times get in the the pathway the things that we do you
075know we educate all kids everybody that walks through the door so we have to we have to service them at at that level and discrimination is is definitely not a good thing so that's it okay so I was at the dentist this morning and thinking we really don't care just okay just saying but the point is so he always comes in he'll say so how Beaver Creek schools Joan and he doesn't live in Beaver Creek and you know me we're great and he said to me you know there's something about that district and I said oh that's true and he said I have to thank your school district he said because during Co you were one of the few districts that felt it was important to keep your kids in school now remember he doesn't
076even have kids in Beaver Creek and I said to him he said so I want to thank the board I said no you need to thank our superintendent and our teachers and the administration those are the people who kept the district open not the board I mean yep okay we okay it but it was a superintendent that brought the recommendations to us was the teachers who had the guts to be in the classroom every day so you know I tell this all the time so I just want you to know you are so appreciated by people who don't even have kids in our community so I just so that had nothing to do with the dentist but just saying I thought that was really nice for him to say that and he didn't have to
077say anything so thank you all people are amazing you know I love you that's the truth Bobby thank you for our curriculum you know I tell you this all the time our kids are very fortunate to have you and your staff give them the curriculum they have I wish I had that curriculum when I was going to school I mean these kids are very fortunate so thank you for that you know our band our concerts are great um and if you haven't gotten your tickets for the weekend of jazz there are still tickets available because I went on site to look at it and all I have to do is go to weekend of jazz.org and you can purchase your tickets Charlie and I our so we're ready to go and if you haven't been
078to weekend of jazz Saturday night is the most exciting so you just you want to be there for that and with that I need a motion a second to take us an executive session for the appointment employment dismissal discipline promotion demotion or compensation of public employees code 12122 G1 and the purchase or sale of Real Estate code2 1.22 G2 so moved second please call the vote Mrs Rano yes Mr Taylor yes Dr fiser yep Mrs hunt yes and Mr Morrison yes okay thanks for coming [Music] everybody [Music]