February 18, 2025 Independence Board of Education Regular Meeting

001Okay. Okay. Good evening everybody. Welcome to the Independence Board of Education uh Tuesday, February 18th meeting. Um if we could call roll please. Miss Nap. Mr. Aila here. Mr. Bernstein here. Mrs. Laskkey here. Mrs. Sears here. Mrs. Hill here. And we are in session 601. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance 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. Okay. All right. Our meeting agenda statement. This meeting is a meeting of the board of education in public for the purpose of conducting the school district's business and is not to be considered a public community meeting. This there is a time for public participation during the meeting as indicated in the agenda. Um we

002will go into administrative reports. Would Mrs. O'Neal would you like to come up and share with us? Mrs. O'Neal is here from CBCC. Welcome. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Feels like a minute since I've been here, but not really. Um I have several things and you might want to use um write down these dates because I have several things I want to share with you um this evening. Um the all board's dinner that I know many of you attended and I as a brand new board member was not able to attend but I know it's lovely. This year it will not be in October. It's going to be in April this year because what they want to do is have both the uh construction lab and the um cosmetology lab open so people can tour

003it. And so that'll be open in April sometime. They don't have an actual date. Of course, I'll get that to you as soon as I I know it. But um they wanted that to be announced that it would not be until um of this year. Mhm. 25 of this year. 25. No, 25. This April. This this April. Uh, no. 26. Yes. 26. Yes. Because October, we would have it in October normally. So, it would be in April. Yeah. So, it'll be a year from this April, right? Um, grants. $120,000 was awarded to CVCC for the uh Super Rapids uh broadband node grant. That's a mouthful. The money will be used to create a telecommunications tower uh technology uh technician program. And there will be a resolution on our agenda this this month because you have

004met both your meetings before we have met. We're not meeting until next week. So we're meeting very late this month. So um but on that agenda in February um they will be um proposing that we create the some of that funds be used to create an outdoor tower training center. So that is going to be a part of that and I'm sure that the board will be uh very amanable to that. I also want to announce that we I uh they're going to be using Spielman Electric to help with the getting Rexville to approve all the necessary uh uh permissions and things to have that done. And I just love that they use other companies and then they partner with them with the students. So Brexville will be um involved in making sure that all

005the necessary things are documented for that. The goal is to have the tower installed and the area ready for installation by the end of this June. So, it will be located on the south side of the facility. The Business Professionals of America uh hosted uh a competition um and on this past Friday, a Skills USA competition was held and students traveled to Mahoning uh County Career Center and Technical Center to compete and I will share the results as soon as they're posted. um regarding um how our youngsters did. Um the superintendent created uh or nominated Mike Hall to serve on the work group to develop new CTE teacher professional development. And we all know how important professional development is. It's the lifeblood for teachers. I mean, they really need it. And so having a special

006group develop a CTE professional uh development session is really important. and they're working through um the Association of Career and Technical Education group in Ohio. They'll meet weekly um uh via video conference and they'll be doing this from February through March. And um I think this will be a great addition to the new teachers that come on board that need the support. So that I thought was a really a good addition. Speaking of additions, we also have a new board member from Brexville. as you know, they rotate on that board and so it's uh Twinsburg rotated off and we said goodbye to Rhonda, but we're welcoming Eva Omara who is a Brexville uh board member and she she has 48 years of experience in education and 32 years in Brexville. So, she comes with lots

007and lots of good experience and she's really a lovely person to work with. So, she is our newest board member. Um, as you know, in fact, a couple of you asked me about it. Um, Tuesday, February 25th, next week is the OSBA Northeast Regional Open House at CBCC. And it is from 5:30 in the evening until 8:00. And um there's no fee charged, but they would like you to log in OSBA and um sign up if you're going to go and let them know. Um there'll be important updates from the region and there will also be more importantly current legislative information that's happening relative to CTE. So I think that that's going to be uh a worthwhile uh thing to participate in. I will be attending. They said light refreshments will be served and I

008think that's the reason they want to make sure that they can be good hosts and have good accommodations for everybody. So if you'd let them know that would be great. Another report I wanted to share with you that I thought was really interesting and you know all schools are really watching bullying and making sure that you know there there's zero tolerance for that but they actually are watching and did some data study on what's been happening at CVCC and um the good news is the trend is downward this year um 2021 they had three major incidences that they had recorded and reported in 2122 school year they had four 22 23 they had four 23 24 they had three and in the 2425 school years so far they've had zero so they are obviously addressing

009this issue now that means that have we have to remember that doesn't mean it's eradicated it means those were reported cases so they didn't rise to the level that they were reported but I thought it was really really good that they have this initiative in place that they're recording this data and that we can have ready ready access to it if we wanted to know about it. So, I was happy um to have that information shared with us. It's my understanding that the superintendent from CVCC met with the partner districts and they had an initial meeting, I believe, and then they met individually and um he went around to meet uh I guess this recently in River. They um he discussed middle school uh course work there, additional things they'd like to see happening and

010independence. They talked about internships. uh and at Polaris he went to meet the new superintendent to welcome that individual. So I thought it was very good to see the superintendent out in the buildings out in the schools talking to superintendents inviting them in building their comfort level to work with him and allowing them to share what they think is important and they'd like to see happening through um CVCC. So I was pleased to have know that and to share that with you. I volunteered to serve on the curriculum committee and on the finance committee uh this upcoming year and our first meeting for curriculum is is next week. So if you have any curricular concerns or you'd like to have see some additions to the curriculum um you can contact me in writing to express

011your concerns or your suggestions. My email address will be given to you on a handout that I have in just a minute or two. So just forward that to me and then I will share that uh in committee. Um, and now I'm going to give you these. Let's take a look see at this first. It's so much easier for you for me to not have to just shoot dates out for you. So, this is a group of upcoming uh staff development. And on there, I do do I have it on there? I think I have it on there that I have my email address at the top. Um what what is not on here and you might want to jot down I don't it's it's kind of really wasn't very helpful in that regard but

012the February 22nd meeting you see there the upcoming training that's on managing policy manual which is always really fun to that's a fun thing to do is managing policy and then on the 22nd that meeting is about real world case studies and scenarios so that's probably pretty interesting because they give you real real life experiences. Um no information about well the other things you know uh the 27th is um on transportation. So February 22nd that module that they talk about there is on transportation. On the 28th, the special education is practitioners actually speaking about their experiences and sharing um that and they're also talking about the changes in um the legal landscape relative to special ed which is always always changing. Um and on the next page on the 28th that meeting is about um

013safety training, unemployment, uh compensation, workman's compensation. So those are upcoming things that they are offering to you and I think they're all, you know, something somebody certainly has interest in. I couldn't help but print this out because I was very anxious to see uh where we were going to land with um uh Career Tech in terms of money from the governor. So, this is a really nice little synopsis. I just gave you the part that's important to us right now. And um at the bottom I highlighted in yellow some of the things and it says um one of the things is to continue the state's investments in school choice programs. They didn't say to what degree. Below that they talk about 10 $10 million over the um millennium on Ohio principal apprenticeship program which I

014was really happy to hear because we really need support for training administrators especially principles to come into the classrooms and work in the schools. Um they earmarked $12 million for science of reading program and that's to um hire uh tutors and pay coaches. And I thought it was interesting, one little word there says requires. And what they're saying is if your school district is not up to par on test scores, that you are then required to use additional money of your own to support kids in the reading program. Um $30 million will be uh put aside for um uh school bus safety programs that are coming uh down the pike and $4 million will be put aside for the increased number of uh training hours from four hours to six hours for bus drivers. And

015then then we have $7 million for career tech. But again, three words there in competitive grants. So that means that we will be applying for those grants to get that money. The money is available, the seven million, but it just won't be given to us. We'll be in a competitive grant situation to get them, which is fine because um we do that and they will do that. Um on the back they talk more about the community school facilities. They're upping it from $1,000 per student to 1500. Um, and then they talk about uh driver training in schools, the grant program for that um through the Ohio Department of Public Safety. And then they talk about um funding, and again, you see those last two, they don't give numbers, but they're talking about supporting funding for

016school-based health communities. That's facilities for in communities where it's disadvantaged families and they need additional help with their health community. uh and their medical stuff. So that's an important thing, but they didn't put a number on it. And then they put 50 million, which I thought was an interesting number, 50 million over the time period to create a new vision program across the state for K to3 students that would include comprehensive eye exams and glasses as needed. So um that's just a nutshell of of some of the things that are coming around. Not new. everything is supporting what we I think almost currently have. Couple little nu nuances there, but um I always am interested in in the amount of money that they do give for each individual thing. And finally, I just wanted to

017say that February is career and tech technical education month and it's also 2025 board leadership institute is going to be happening May 2nd and 3rd down at the Hilton at Polaris. So, um, a board leadership institute is always good for any board member, whether they're at CVCC or on a regular board in the district. And I'm sure you know next week is public schools week, February 24th to the 28th. And I'm sure you'll be doing really good things, having something special planned here at school. And that's a whole bunch. So, that's what I have for this month. And, uh, I guess I'll see you again real soon because we're going to meet next week and then I'll I'll be back either whenever you wish. if it's that first meeting or second meeting, whatever is best

018for you depending on what your agenda looks like. Okay. Question. All right. Good. Oh, real quick, I want to tell you that I did attend the um bring your parent to work to school day last two weeks ago. I don't know when it was. Um and this is my second one for a different uh field. They just do such an exemplary job. um the timing, how they lay out coffee and pastries, you know, they have students sit you to the tables, they have students bring you up to the area in the CVCC. Um and a very regimented schedule. You're there one hour. They just do such a phenomenal job. Um and it's just again, it is just such a diamond for us in our districts to be able to have a place like this. So,

019yeah. And so close, too. It's really great. I have not forgot about what you said about turning right and getting out of there. Do you know how much that annoys me now? It's on my mind every single time I pull out of there. So, I am going to I'm going to talk to somebody about that. But I laugh so hard because they just finished doing that road work. Who didn't Never mind, Linda. I know. You're in public, Linda. Okay. See you later. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mrs. O'Neal. And two things just to follow up from um Miss O'Neal's um you know, review of some of the things that she knows has been going on in CBCC. I did have the opportunity when I met with the superintendent and um and and their superintendent

020there to talk a little bit about the opportunity for us to do internships with um potentially our current juniors who are in the program. So, uh Dave Mance is getting me that information. So, I'll be reaching out to them. um potentially any of the students that are in their automotive service technology, building and property maintenance and their power equipment technology to see if they would be interested in doing an internship with us over the summer. Um normally between your junior and senior year, you do an internship, it's paid. Um and then in your senior year, the first half of the year, you're finishing up your coursework and then you do the rest of the year, so that second semester in that usually same internship uh company. And so it's a great opportunity. I think for

021us to think about uh positions that we know are hard to fill in our district. For example, example, our mechanic for our buses, um our maintenance workers here that do a plethora of things right throughout the district. Um it's a great opportunity to, you know, grow some of our own students, um and who may not be looking to go to college right after, but could walk into an apprenticeship internship with us and then eventually um become a full-time employee with us. So, uh we're working on that. And then secondly, there is the new law in regards to the middle school. You have to offer career tech. So, um I will be working with uh Mr. Mance and Jamie Vanick to kind of think about where that might fit into our current middle school wheel. Um

022kind of those electives uh and see how we might um kind of think, you know, not hire someone else. That's always the problem, right? There's a lot of these unfunded mandates where they say, "Well, you have to offer a career tech at middle school." Well, great. Who's going to do that? And who's um you know, paying the salary of the person that's going to do that? So, we'll have to look and see. And I think my understanding is that's why um Mr. Hall is designing those training modules so that we could have a teacher at the middle school take those training modules and then be what they would consider um certified within these modules to teach a career tech class. So we'll be exploring some options for that. Thank you. Um treasure miss. Absolutely. So,

023I have quite a few things this evening for the update and I was going to do just a general update and then go into the agenda update so that when we get to my items, um, they'll make more sense. So, on our bank reconciliation, I don't know if any of you have really looked at it as much as I do, but there's different bank accounts we have in the district. We have Independence Bank, we have a dollar bank, and we have an investment account with US Bank, and then we have what I would call our liquid account, which is Star Ohio. So um we do our daily banking with independents and dollar and we do our um where we get some interest short-term interest is in the Star Ohio and long-term interest is in uh

024US bank and you try to match up your US bank um investments to the five-year forecast and cash flows and try to balance all this out. So in February this like a couple weeks ago I went in to move money for our first payroll and saw that our and it's you can see it's going low or star Ohio account. So, we dropped to 3.7 million, which is the lowest I could see on any kind of historical reporting. So, I went and looked deeper into that and um it really is relating to our tax settlements and our tax advances, not settlements yet, advances and cash flow and the three pay month of January. So, we had a lot of um nuances that happened in January that we haven't had happen before recently. So, um in January,

025I mentioned that we only had 226,000 for a tax advance, which is the lowest we've had. we only got 60% advance instead of 90% at collection rate because tax bills hadn't gone out so no one really had an opportunity to pay their taxes. Now those are out and escrow agencies really haven't started moving the money so we haven't seen a lot. So we only got 2.2 million um last Friday for our advance and I estimated 2.7 million and we are back to a 90% collection. So we're we're running four 500,000 short of what I thought we would get in. Um, and we have not got our true up back to 90% from the 60% January. So March is going to be pretty interesting to see what this settlement comes in at. Um, because hopefully people

026have paid their first half taxes and we see a little bit larger of bump. And historically in the update I showed you how the tax advances with the um, bank balances matched up. And the trend has gone from having more money in the advances early on and less in the settlement to less in the advance early on and much more in the settlement. So I'm expecting the same to be happening in March. Um but what this does is it's hard to predict when it's changing like this and it's hard to match your cash flows to your expense cycles. So a couple things that we're doing internally is making sure that we like your routine every day monthly budgets um are paid monthly. Like for instance, we have a bill from the ESC every month and

027it's a fairly large one. I want to make sure that's paid every month so that it's in our cycle of expenditure so I can start matching up cash flow expenses to income incoming cash flows better. So that's just something we're working on and I know um it was a little shocking to see some of those advances being what they are. So I want to give you a little background with that and that leads us into like purchase orders. Um there was a question on if we're all done with purchase orders from last year. So, there's one large one outstanding and that's the bleachers, which once the spring walkthrough comes through, we'll be pushing that out the door and it'll be off the books. So, I'm not worried at all about that one. And all the

028others um are addressed and and going to be done by the end of February, I would think. Um we have one where the company is still sending. I don't know how it could be on back order for this many months, but um they assure us it's coming by February. So, I hope in the next couple weeks we get that last little order in, we can move those out. So that would be the purchase orders getting cleared out so that we're just working with this year's purchase orders. And that kind of leads into the budgeting cycle that we're going to be heading into because we're going into March. So, um, one of the things I try to do is have templates available for the building leadership and administration and sit down with them like Kelly and

029I will sit with each administrator and building leadership and talk about their budget, what it was, what it needs to be, what we anticipate it to be, and try to start coming up with a pretty solid budgetary number in the building level. because with 80% of your costs being salary and benefits, that's where we'll spend a great deal of our time in terms of uh Superintendent Kogan and I, that will that's where we're going to put a lot of our focus and we need building leadership's help on the other items. So, that's going to be coming through. I don't want to jam everyone up in May. So, I'd like to try to start this in March with them so that by the end of April, we have a really good idea of where our budget

030sets. Tom and I already started on the capital um or the capital planning one or the capital improvement, so or permanent improvements. So, we're starting that process to get that set up so we can get a good picture. And having now these several months underneath us, I think both Superintendent Kogan and I have a a better idea. We're certainly not experts in the district yet, but a much better idea of what the budgets can look like, may need to look like, and also again time that out to what is the levy cycle, where do we see inflows coming, where do we see outflows coming? And balancing that cash flow to that is really important so that we can feel more confident with those things. So, we'll be pulling that together. And the we've communi I've

031communicated to the buildings that the last time to put purchase orders in is going to be April. And I have the exact date on the desk. I didn't bring it this evening, but trying to overly communicate to the buildings. This is the last day to get your orders in, plan ahead because we need to get them processed out and paid before the end of the year to kind of clean up and know where we're going to settle out at the end of the fiscal year. So, that's the budget and reconciliation information. We have a really neat thing. Um, also let me bounce to state foundation. I put on your on your seats. Um, the state foundation amounts. So, I had a question by one of the members about what do we get in state aid

032and as tonight's discussion at the end will be a little bit about the voucher um resolution on there. I just wanted to show you where we are with state aid and how it's progressed over the last several years. So I put on this SE chart as you can see once fair school funding plan which is our current formula system came into play which is in year 22 fiscal year 22 we got a 10.52 a 10 and a half% increase from the previous year so you'll see that and then each year we've grown a little bit I mean as perspective right I would say we've grown a little bit I don't think it's substantial growth but it's at least growth and we're growing because we're a formula district we're not a guarantee district. So the formula

033is helping our district. So we're getting a little bit more state funding. So why is this important? Well, if state funding, if they take from our bucket of public education and put to privatized vouchers, that could reduce depending on where they choose to take money from in the whole bienium budget processing um what's going on. So I just want to show you what we get amountwise. And then um just in case anyone's wondering and listens to me regularly and says, "But you say we only get $800 a kid. $850 a kid, but 1.2 million divided by a thousand kids is more than eight is$854." Because the state aid part, the basic aid is what we get $854 on. Then you have ins and outs coming in like this particular month in February, we received excess

034cost on a special education process where we're able to claim reimbursement on certain costs past a threshold. But we also have post-secary going out in that category. So that that ins and outs they're called transfers. They will alter monthtomonth. So I would I would envision us ending somewhere between one and 1.1 million in state aid for this year. So um and the final phase in if it goes with the bianium process would be year 27. So hopefully um I saw the initial and even Mrs. O'Neal's document said you know it looks like it's going to be funded. So hopefully that continues and that will help us. But and then the very uh anomaly out here is fiscal year 20 and that was because that particular year for the COVID there was huge reductions to school

035funding that year and it was mid year with no notice and it was really hard on school districts everywhere in Northeast Ohio and in the state and then it was very drastic and it was so drastic that they started trying to put limitations to it and starting to try to refund some districts. So, um, you can see that we went from 758,000 to 350 between 19 and 20. So, that was a really, really large hit that this district took for that. They did offer, uh, COVID relief funds and things like that, too, though. So, that had to have made up for some of this. Well, most of the COVID relief was federal funding flowing through the state. This was just truly state foundation. Got it. So I would say to you while yes, you got

036additional S or everyone got S or COVID relief funding, it was this was truly state a just cut. I think it was in the beginning there was a little bit of a panic. No one no one had experienced this. So they weren't sure what to expect and how long it might go on and what they needed to support financially. But um most school districts took a huge hit in that fiscal year 20 with just no notice. I just want to reiterate that because that was really hard to plan with. So um I want to just give that a little bit of data for you guys so you have it. Um, and then we have a really exciting thing on the agenda for my part. Um, I'm going to bounce ahead to the employee recruiting bonus.

037So, last year the district was offering a $2,000 recruiting bonus if someone is if an employee could recruit a bus driver who stayed one year. So, um, it's exciting for Al. Al recruited Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Dan. And, um, Al will be getting his bonus and Mr. Schmidt or Mr. Dan's been here for the year. And if anyone's gotten to know Mr. Dan, he's pretty fun guy. So, it's exciting that he's here with us. So, that's a positive light to help get driver relief going and maybe we'll even see more come through. Um, the common remitter, I want to explain it briefly before you vote on it this evening. So, a common remitter has to do with our annuities that we can offer employees as a courtesy to have annuity programming going and they're called 457s

038and 403bs and it's additional saving plans that employees can choose to do completely voluntary and currently we have 10 different plans going where we send 10 different checks out every month, twice a month for each pay. It's very cumbersome the way we're doing it right now. Um so one of the things we want to do is streamline this. This could easily be streamlined into what's called a common remitter. This one entity will then um we send the payment to the one entity and then they um distribute it appropriately to each individual employee with the amounts that should be deducted. The really two of the really nice things besides that efficiency of doing two checks a month instead of 20 checks a month is that um they also help you with IRS compliance for the 457

039and 403b plan documents which is something that is very hard internally to manage. So what tonight I'm asking for is just permission to have the relationship with Penserve. They will then evaluate plan documents which are very old and outdated for us. So, we'll be bringing you new plan documents in March to be approved and then we can get um streamline the number of programs that are offered and work with the people um to get that going smoother. So, that's the common remitter. And then just cleaning up data. This is the season to clean up data. I mentioned about purchase orders. Um we remove stale dated checks from our from us. Uh we did that process this month and I'm working on stale dated accounts that haven't had activity in the last five years. And I'm

040asking to create a new student activity where we would then once you approve the transfer of their balances into it that this student activity created this evening would essentially allow superintendent Kogan the opportunity to meet needs of students as they arise that maybe there isn't other funding sources for instead of just having stale funds sitting there with balances. So, and I gave you all that data. I won't bore you with it again and just read it to you, but you saw the different accounts and the amounts. So, and the same process for class funds of like 2022 21 I think. Um, and I'm going by memory on those. So, the same process they're just cleaning up data, getting it ready to close uh for effectiveness. And then there's two then and nows on there. Um,

041one for annual backflows, but the second one I really want to explain and that's um completely on my end. I dropped the ball on that. It's an ESC bill for services offered last year that I didn't understand and had to really look into it. So, um, I had to take my time to do some diligence on it to figure out what was going on. And so, that's why that one's a little bit, not a little, that's why that one's late and on there. So, I want to explain that. And then you'll also have the rates of pay we're presenting tonight just for um, transparency sake so everyone knows what our sub rates are, our student worker, both high school and college. And then Kelly referred to the uh, internship. We do have a skilled student

042worker level on there that would be for the internship programs we hope to bring to the district. So, um hopefully, uh this month is a lot of cleanup and a lot of setting up for for future months. Anything for me? That was a lot. It'll make my section go quicker, though. I promise. Thank you. Thanks for your thoroughess, Jen. You are so thorough. I appreciate it. Um Assistant Superintendent Tom Drying. Um so, wanted to give you a little a little staffing update here. Um, you know, we talked about it a few months ago and we, you know, listed some assistance with the recruiting company for our bus drivers. Um, we've we've it's working like it's it's working out well. We just uh we've got two drivers in training right now and and actually they're both

043on the agenda this evening. Um, one of them um was by way of this recruiter. The other one was by word of mouth, which is how we've gotten most of our drivers in the past. Um, and as of last what's today? Tuesday. As of last week, um we had two more names brought our way. So, we're, you know, kind of vetting those, uh people out and and seeing. So, you know, we get a lot of people that come through, not a lot. We get people that come through our doors interested in driving and then sometimes they find out what is required and it's it's maybe not what they thought it would be and other times it works out and then they, you know, it helps our district. So, stay tuned for that. But um you

044know, we'll take any positive light we can get with drivers, I'll tell you at this point because it's just really been a strain since day one for us um to be able to deliver the transportation. Um speaking of buses, uh we we took you guys voted to take a bus offline uh to remove from inventory a few months ago. It's taken a while. I actually just got the contract today that Jen and I will review tomorrow um for auction services. We've done this in the past. Um, you know, some districts will have a company just tow it away and use it for scrap and then you'll get some money. We've had success with auctioning our buses. Um, and so, uh, we're going to review that. I I would fully anticipate anticipate us putting that into

045auction. I remember the one year, the one that stands out of all the buses we've done, end up selling a bus to an art teacher from another district who for her weekend, she she bought the bus and turned it into art class on wheels. And so, she would go to different parties, birthday parties and do that. So everybody, you know, everybody has their different um purpose for the buses um after we get done using them. And um obviously we run them really we run our buses long. We get a lot of wear out of our buses. Um speaking of on the agenda, you'll see that we're um asking you to vote on going to uh to participate in Ohio Schools Council's bid process for buses. They do it every year and we're we're usually part

046of it every year. It doesn't mean we're buying a bus. just we want to go out and and be part of it in case we decide well it just so happens this year we are looking to purchase a bus um so we would purchase it for the next school year but before we do that we want to get we want to get in on the bid process with Ohio schools council so that's what that is um our last bus um you know we're we're on an every other year every two-year cycle um we've looked in the past and and some years we squeeze another year we were able to squeeze a second year our last um our last fulls size bus was approximately $99,000. We bought that in 2020. Since then, we have we had

047bought a a a shorter bus um in between that uh range in 2022. So, um so we're we're ready for another one, but stay tuned for that. Um our facilities evaluation, as you know, was is underway um with the architectural vision group. I matured the middle school a couple weeks ago in primary school, identifying different key areas and current conditions. I mean that includes mechanical roofing, windows, um electrical loads and and many other areas. They had um architects, engineers, um safety people there um taking a look at what our current state is and so forth. And so they're in the process. Today I just actually um shared our our our latest roofing analysis that we've had um done um that we've been monitoring for the past couple years. And so they're going to take that

048and I'm sure they're going to be here to present for us um when they're finished with that. um in a I think in a couple months. Um it's going to take a little while to put together, but um it was good to meet with them. Um and what would a meeting be without a bleacher update? So, um you know, it it's like I I walked the bleachers the other day and I saw some things that were improved upon, but quite frankly, there's more to be done. The punch list, a lot has been done and there's still some to be to be done. We've set up a tentative date in early March. They were asking come out this week and it's I said there's just no point. there's there's ice and you can't really see everything

049that we need to see. So, um it seems drawn out, but I mean a project this large there is always a punch list and you know the time frame as was because they finished you know right up to the season. This is this is pretty normal. Um so it's not lost, it's just long. Um so that's that's pretty much it. That's all I've got. Thanks Mr. Ding. Yep. Superintendent. So I'm excited. I have a group of people here to talk a little bit about our strategic visioning process. So, we're going to go ahead and get started with that and that'll be my report for this evening. So, I know I'm going to kind of call my my my peeps out back there. It's cold. She said it was going to be a sauna. It's freezing.

050Say you want to make it a sauna for men. It's freezing and it's freezing. My toes are cold. I know. I'm not going to make you feel. All right. So, um, we're excited to get started tonight. So, I have with me tonight Don Frank. I have Sandy, Dana Wolf, Natalie Hannah, TJ Ebert, Joe Graham, one of our students, Dbury, another one of our students, and Kelsey. Oh, we also have um I think he might be here for his wife, but um Dr. Hill was also particing group as well. So, we're just gonna kind of walk you through something. I think I would say that we're really proud of and really excited about So, I'm just going to kind of start everybody off just kind of remind you kind of where we started and where we

051are now. One of the things when I interviewed for the position here in Independence um that the board felt really strongly about was the fact that uh the vision kind of the strategic plan of the district needed to be updated. It had last kind of been crafted back in uh before co so we're thinking like 20189 and um and really felt like it was a great time with new administration to recalibrate and rethink about what the district vision and vision is. Um, and I came from a a district where we had done some of the work. And the one thing that I feel very strongly about is that you should not have um a strategic plan that sits on a shelf and nobody knows what it is and what it stands for and it's not

052a living and breathing document. So, I really wanted a lot of stakeholders involved. I wanted it to be something that would really be um kind of our directional system for the district. And so um in order to do that, you have to make sure that you involve a ton of stakeholders. And so the first thing we did in October of 2024 is we um had a lot of staff, we had students, we had alumni, we had parents, we had board members, we had community members uh that came together at the um civic center over in Independence and we met and this was uh facilitated through the Schlei Center through uh Dr. Andissa Roland. And so we came together and we really talked about um we did some different protocols about like defining moments in the

053district. And it was really kind of great because we had people who had been here for 30 years and then you had Jen and I and Natalie who had like literally just started and so it was great to be able to see what people said had happened throughout Independence all of these different years and like how we got to where we are right now. So that was really powerful. Um we did some mental models and we really kind of did some audits of where where is the district currently and where do we want it to go. Uh so that was October. We had uh smaller groups focused conversations. We brought in more parents. We brought in more students. We brought in more community members uh more people from the business. Um Linda O'Neal brought her

054in had some conversation from her perspective um having had students who graduated. So again trying to ask everybody about what is what what is you know what do they love about independence um and where are some opportunities for growth within the district. Uh October and November we had some small work with our teams mostly our teachers and our administrators. Um we then did a little bit more with our small work and then um reconvened our team in January to kind of roll this out to the large our group again from October, get additional feedback on that. Um and then spent January kind of finalizing the recommendation that you have tonight on your uh on your board docs and then um this is our board presentation. I am really proud that I never had to change

055any of those dates down there. So um I had that timeline just FYI. So, um, our strategic visioning members, I just threw, um, names up here, but just kind of to show you that it was a diverse group. And it was great because people even said like, "Am I sitting where it says parent? Am I sitting where it says teacher? Am I sitting because I could be all those roles, right? Um, alumni, community member." So, it was really great to have so many people that were part of this process. Um, and here's just some pictures of of the group getting together and um, learning and leading. So I want to just start with uh why we did the strategic vision and the idea is is that um school districts and many organizations can tend to

056be bureaucracies and bureaucracies get weighed down with the paperwork and the rules and the policies. Um and when you have a bureaucracy it really starts with who's the power and authority system. So when you think about government is the prime example of bureaucracy right you see how it works from a power and authority system. Whoever the president is, whoever is in the house, whoever's in the senate, all a bureaucracy runs from this type of a model. And really when you go through you see all these other systems, the evaluation system, the boundary system, the recruitment and induction, knowledge development, and the directional system is really at the bottom. And you see that because government's a great example of that. As we change presidents, as we change people that are in the House and the Senate,

057the directional system changes, right? Just depends on who's in the power and authority. So your directional system is at the bottom of that. Well, the idea is not to have a school district where it depends on who sits in the superintendence role, who sits in these seats, right? It shouldn't matter because when that happens, it's constantly changing for those who are in the organization of I thought we were this and now we're that. Um how come we started this and then it just ended? So we really wanted to make a switch from that bureaucracy to the learning organization. You see in a learning organization, it's the directional system that's at the top. And you see that power and authority is at the bottom because again going back to that whole idea of if the directional

058systems at the top of your learning organization, that's what guides everything. So if I decided to leave in a few years, the board who's sitting here when they go to replace that power and authority are going to look for someone who believes this because this is important to the board and to the community and to the u the school district. And so if someone sits in interviews but doesn't believe in what we're sharing here, then that person wouldn't be a good fit because the directional system is what you make all your decisions, right? When you have to make those tough decisions when it comes to finances or funding, um, bond issues, hiring, you're always looking at your directional system first. Um, and you look at knowledge development and transmission. A school district should not have

059one leader. A school district should not have just five board members who make decisions. The school district should have a lot of people who have all the knowledge and who understand the district and the mission and vision. The student voice is just as important as the superintendent voice, right? And so if that is our belief, then we become a learning organization. I will tell you this is difficult not a lot because we have to operate in both, right? We we can become a learning organization but we still have policies. We still have people telling us what to do and we still have people saying that you can do this or you can do that. So we have to of course we still have testing. We have all of these requirements. So we still have to

060be in a bureaucracy. But the idea is can you be a learning organization most of the time. Um and again it's difficult to do that but it can be done um when you're thoughtful about it. Um, and when you follow this with your directional system at the top and your power authority at the bottom. So, I wanted to put that down here because I think what I want you to listen for those in the audience, our board members, is how often you're seeing this size versus this in what we're going to show you that we worked on. Um, so I'm going to turn it over to TJ. Yeah. One of the first things we had the opportunity to do, first of all, I'm really proud of the work that we did collaboratively. Um, it was

061amazing. and all the stakeholders that were involved. The process that we went through um was just absolutely amazing and I was just thank you for including me as part of to be a part of the process. One of the first things we had to do like Kelly said, we had to see where we were at. So we had to we had to do some reflecting. We had to look at ourselves in the mirror and uh Anissa ran us through this images of school activity and what this gave us an opportunity to do it. each person in their role, principles, central office, board members, students, teachers, they all had the opportunity to see where where they where they go on this different chart. So, the guiding metaphors are over here on the right and then our

062core core business is here on the left. We definitely don't want our schools for for me to be seen as a as a warden and, you know, our teachers as a guard and our students as inmates. We definitely didn't want to be down there and we did. Okay, we'll the next slide will show you um this is these are all the different roles and and we're kind of in this section right here where you know students were seen as clients and and principal chief of staff you know we want to be leaders of leaders to be a learning organization. So again this activity gave us the foundation to kind of build our mission and vision on where we want to be. It gave us our starting point. And the great thing about this is we

063can do this in 3 to 5 years when we kind of evaluate our mission and goals and vision and we'll have this data to see if we've moved up into a learning organization. So it gives us that starting data that we need to see if we're making progress in our goals. Okay. So the next step was to um develop our core beliefs. So the core beliefs be before we could move on to our vision and mission, we needed to know what we believe in. So we came up with four district belief statements. Um the first one is we create an environment where student voice drives our actions and fosters greater engagement in the educational in their educational experience. Our next belief is that we inspire and empower students to achieve personal and academic growth within

064their school and community. The third one is we commit to making purposeful decisions that prioritize the success of our students through transparency, innovation, and community involvement. And our last belief statement is that we seek, develop, and share knowledge to ensure strong partnerships among our district, families, and the overall school community to support learning. And having that core foundation, we were able to move on to our vision and mission. Um so as Sandy said we used our belief statements to come up with our vision statement which is cultivating a legacy of excellence. Uh we started we didn't start with the word cultivating we started with the word creating but then as a team we decided that we already have a legacy of excellence and it's our job to just make sure we keep that. So that's

065why we changed it to cultivating a legacy of excellence. And then from there we created our mission statement on how we're going to do that uh with integrity. Our mission is to create a a collaborative and innovative educational community where our students thrive as active contributors to this world. So after we did our mission state, we came up with our mission statement, then we came up with um goal statements that our district has to achieve in order to reach our mission mission statement. So we talked about empowering the whole child development, which means you know not just going through our scores and their grades that they receive in the classroom, but the um entire child, which we'll talk about in a second. um designing valuable experiences and work and I kind of heard even talking

066up here like with CBCC um you know the internship program stuff like that um and I know that we as a staff we went to different businesses and you know seeing how our kids can you know incorporate what we have here at independence within our classrooms. Um aligning resources and knowledge for collaborative growth. Um and that even would consist of what we did the entire time of um meeting with residents, meeting with businesses, um collaborating with the different buildings and then collaborating with you know each other as teachers and then creating a welcoming and inclusive community environment. So when you walk into our schools, you feel like you are home. So our first statement was empowering the whole child development. And this one actually is my favorite one. Um I always say I love to

067teach. Yes, I love teaching the standards, but my favorite thing is just seeing in the end how um our students come and it's actually really neat to see where they come afterward and then they come back and visit. Um so excel academically, socially and emotionally with obviously our support. Um and again, it doesn't just take us teachers, it takes the parents, the community members. Um and then making sure that students are empowered in their education, that they have a voice, that they have a say in what they're learning. And then um you know even just creating compassionate resilient individuals you know that they're feeling for each other that they see you know not just what's in school you know the grades um that they are compassionate for one one another and then you know if

068they fail that it's you know it's okay to fail that they're going to bounce back up with the support of all of us. Okay the next one you're staying here because remember you got designing valuable experiences and work. Um what's important about this is that this is not just for students, it's for staff and students and that um the work for all of us is valuable and meaningful. Um we want student engagement with curriculum um an innovative and collaborative curriculum and that we have an culture of ongoing improvement for students and staff. And I really think that when we met, we thought thought it was important that, you know, we're all on one team and that we're all working together for this this culture. So um this was important for that work. Um another thing

069that we need to do and thought was really important was aligning resources and knowledge for collaborative growth. And so as we sit here and we hear the budget report and all of these pieces of parts, the buses, everything that goes into a district is how do we align all of that and make it so that kids can succeed. staff has the resources they need to help support kids and continue to cultivate this um this district of excellence and this legacy. So um that goes along with modernizing learn the learning environment where students can thrive and um that staff is continued to be empowered through learning opportunities, continual development and that we um you know as as building leaders of students that we can continue to help be innovative and be supportive through the community for

070students. Um, and then just like drive really like what's next for the community. So, we feel like it's a big responsibility and that that needs to be um factored in when we're talking about all these pieces and parts coming together to help students succeed. And then lastly, um, and Don mentioned this where you she highlights that feel like you're home when you walk into the building, but creating a welcoming and inclusive community environment where students, family, staff members are valued and respected, where parents are treated as vital partners. Um, we talked a lot about that and that really we can't do it without each other. Um, and that we have a culture of open communication and community partnerships. So, um this is an infographic that was designed Kelly's been working on and um that's going

071to be put out there. Like we know our attention spans are so short and those even those slides are overwhelming when we look at them. But this is just a beginning the beginning phase of what's going to be put out um for the community for students for staff so that everybody could kind of keep going back and like get a quick glimpse of like reentering oursel like what are our goals? Is what I'm doing today aligning with our goal? Is what I'm doing next year going to align for our goals? Like and as parents we can also see this. this I know it's just so important like what you guys do at home and we feel like we're helping raise your your babies. So, um just like always going back to this together and just

072having that um communication piece to the community, the staff and everybody's on the same page. So, so you should be seeing this and then more of you know more in infographs um coming off of this. Yeah, Charlene was great. she kind of came up and Tom worked a little bit and then Charlene took it and ran with it um and came up with kind of our cultivating a legacy of excellence. Um I'm going to go back for just a minute because um we do have students here and I feel like um it's important to hear their voice and so I know they're both like, "Oh, really?" Um so Joe, why don't you talk a little bit? Um Joe was there on the first day but unfortunately could not come the second day. um and went

073home and without me telling him, read through the rest of like all of the stuff that we were going to do the next day and sent me an email late at night um to try to give me some feedback. And what was the feedback? Um after looking at all the stuff that we were working on, um I really wanted to see our district become a pinnacle of education for other districts to look at. And I think our vision and our mission really focus on that to make sure we're providing the best experience for our students in whole childhood development. I mean, I liked when he said like, I want other districts to come to us. Like I want other districts to say I'm going to send my teachers over to independence or you all should

074be just like independents. Um, and that's kind of where, you know, we kept hearing that legacy and that excellent. And I think in one of them we have the beacon of public education. Like that sounds really impressive, right? The beacon of public education. Um and if we can become that. Um that's awesome. And remember that a strategic vision and mission is aspirational, right? You don't it's not like task oriented otherwise you're done. It's aspirational and it's like how do we finally get there? All right. I'm gonna put you on the spot. All right. What did you think about the process? I mean I think I think it was just good that we could like focus on moving on because like I feel like some school districts like they know like maybe they have some stuff

075like that needs to be fixed but then they don't do anything about it and I just thought it was good that we are trying to move on to something better and making like a full family home school district. Um it was great to have my students there because they um went to the different rotated around the different tables. So it was great to have their voice in there as well. Um so I did want to share this with you. So prior to this meeting um each of the building principles did a mini roll out of this to their staff. So take this maybe not as much into the goals um but a little bit of a roll out of like hey here's where we're at. This is what we want to present to the board

076um on Tuesday night. And so then I crafted a survey and had the staff take it. It was anonymous, but I just wanted to let you know that um 75% of the respondents um felt that the new vision, the mission, and the beliefs do reflect the values and goals of the school community very well. Um and 21.8% felt it reflects them somewhat well. So you have, you know, 95% of the people who uh that our staff in our building responding that like, yeah, I can kind of get behind this. This this is something that I feel is um is reflective of what our district can be and should be. Um 71.8% of the staff felt the new strategic vision is very supportive of their work. Um and 21.8% felt it was somewhat supportive. So again,

077back to that 90% that the the vision those goals support what teachers do in the classroom. Um in a sense that can we always get better? Yes. and do teachers need the resources and I can't remember what it was name but need the professional development when we had that being engaged and being a knowledge developer and things like that that's staff too not just students um and so really looking at that uh I think that kind of the common themes that came out which I thought was great is most of the people who commented on that said like this is great and I can get behind it and I believe it but what does it look like operationally what am am I doing differently in the classroom? Like, what am I supposed to change? What

078are my responsibilities now? If I'm cultivating a legacy of excellence, which is great, which tells me that they don't want it to just be a plan that sits on the shelf, that it actually is going to be a living and breathing document. Um, there was appreciation on the focus on teamwork and ensuring all voices are heard. the staff was appreciated that they saw staff in there, but they also saw students in there and they also saw parents in there that we are all in this together. Um, not just one group having to do all of the work. Um, there was um the respondents want clear actionable steps for implementation. Um, and they're still processing how the vision will be applied in their daily work. Um, and that's where, you know, as then the superintendent of

079the district, it comes down to how do I then work with all of the staff so we can operationalize this? So, we can talk about if we believe that students being engaged in meaningful work, what does that mean if we're giving worksheets? Because our worksheets definitely meaningfully and engaged. I bet I would say, Trip, do you love packets? No. So he's not going to be engaged. So how do we look at yes we have these standards but how do we really think about how we can think about our who right our students and what motivates them to learn and whether that's they like learning in a different way they want to attach it to something that they find meaningful. Um we need to ask their feedback. Teachers need to feel comfortable with at the end

080of a lesson getting feedback from students and saying what did you like about this? What did you not like about this? give me some suggestions. Um, so that's part of the goal moving forward. You know, tonight hopefully the board will vote on this strategic vision and mission. Um, we'll send out our communication to our families and communities starting on Thursday. Um, you know, we'll start doing the logo and the P uh and the public relation changes to reflect that new mission mission and vision. We do have a staff professional development day on March 7th. So, I'm going to be asking some members of our building design teams uh to meet with me to design that day for our staff. How do we start to take this mission and vision and how do we do the

081continue doing, stop doing, and start doing? Um because you got to take some things off the plate. And I think sometimes teachers just need permission to be like, you don't need to do this anymore. Um because you can't just keep adding onto their plates. Um it's not fair. And so we need to have those conversations about what are the high yield strategies that we want to keep and what are some of the other ones that we're like let's let them go um for a little while. Um and then obviously continuing the design work and focus on student engagement. And I think most of all transparency and communication. I don't think you can just run full forward and not keep stopping and asking and getting feedback from the students, getting feedback from the teachers, getting feedback

082from the administrators, our parents, our community. If nobody outside of our organization is seeing a difference, then that's a problem, right? Either we're not communicating it well enough or it's not happening. And we have to be okay with hearing it's not happening. And we have to do better at communicating if that's the reason. So, I think there's those steps there to really make this um a really cool and um and I think um just a really it's a great opportunity um for us right now to start and be excited about cultivating a legacy of excellence and what that means for our students. So, any questions from the board members? Could you go back to the infographics page, please? This way. I love this. I I agree like it helps you to get focused on what

083um we're looking at. So, are we going to try and do all four of these goals at once or do you need to achieve one to then go to achieve two? How is that? So, there um that's a great question and they are simultaneous, right? Um and they're different things within those goals, right? And so, to your point, there has to be some communication at our elementary building. they may do empowering whole child development really well at our elementary level and maybe that's not an area that they need to focus on as much but maybe they're like you know we really want to start with designing valuable experiences and work maybe that's where we need to start. Um it could be you might see this aligning resources and knowledge for collaborative growth more kind of

084maybe coming out of the administrative side of it of are we are we putting uh resources to those things that are going to help our teachers right are we giving them that professional development and sometimes teachers will tell you it's not even necessarily professional development all the time sometimes it's just time right time to do the things that you're asking me to do and so do we have those mechanisms in place so you might see more at central office. Not that that's not happening in the buildings, but um you know creating an inclusive and welcoming community environment. I've heard that sometimes, you know, especially if students are transferring in at the high school level, sometimes it's hard to transfer into our district. We have 80 kids in a class, right? They've been together for so

085many years. How do we really think about how we're acclimating those students back or even students who leave and then come back? Um how do we make sure that they're they're in that environment where they're feeling that? How do we make it so that our parents feel comfortable coming in into the building and asking questions? Um, and and I think there's a way you could focus on that as well. So, I think you can do them all at one time or pick some pieces and parts. Lynn, Mr. Aila, the two of you on the committee thoughts? I just want to say thank you for for doing this. um you touched on it at the very beginning during the interview process. This was this was like one of your top three bullet points that you mentioned

086to us that you wanted to achieve and you know after after you were brought on what was I'm sure all of us said it whatever you need and it's you know sometimes we're sincere when we say that but sometimes it's like we want you to to want what we want too but you were you were like no I really need this and you you took it and you ran and it was to the point where Lynn I remember she would just send us emails like you guys are coming on this day and you know I would ask Kelly like okay do you have your person lined up and she was already six steps ahead like she usually is. So I just want to say kudos to you for putting this all together because you were

08799% of it and it was really really important to you and it was fun to be part of the process because I have never even experienced anything like this. So thank you for doing it from start to finish and I think you deserve a round of applause really. So thank you so I did enjoy uh when I was there for the first time um it was very very interesting the speaker that you had I have been through this before but it was not nearly it was very much like reading um the entire plane deal it was like so stale she's going to swear very boring I'll say but it just was a lot of um there really wasn't interact. Yeah. not as much interaction and we didn't have anybody that came with the credentials of

088the speaker yet um to try to and I'll be honest that look um I feel like we have we're kind of like um you know 40 60 in some of these areas because I know that we've had we actually have already had a number of school districts that have come and toured like our primary school and young teaching took a number of people through different districts um about a year or years ago. And um so I know that we've had some of those accomplishments already, but sure certainly, you know, I've had a few things, a few issues when I look at my kids um going from now they're 18 to 40, but geez, oh man, some of them were doing the same curriculum, the same actual worksheets. from uh number one and number nine. So

089I'm grateful to see the the and the enthusiasm is here and it certainly is there the team that you have. I mean you guys are just amazing. I can't tell you every single one of you have done so much to help make our kids all of our kids feel like they have someplace to go if they need help or encouragement and you give it to them. so many times. So, I appreciate everything you I think this is awesome. Um, in a in a world where we're constantly wanting to compare. I'd be curious as to some of the school districts around here what they've come up with and see how how we um you know because we're we're fairly similar in a lot of ways and and see what we what we offer through this as

090opposed to what they offer and then pull ideas, share ideas um to make us a not just a stronger school district but a stronger regional educ education area. Um, I just want to thank everybody, those who aren't here and those who are here. I feel like in this room there's like this breath of like fresh air. Like it's just it's new. It's exciting. And I don't think that's just because Kelly and Jen are here. Like I I think that there you know there's things that we needed to grow on. And like I'm so proud of you all for like reflecting on that because it's not always an easy thing to do. Um, and this I think this is going to be incredible. Like I am so excited and even to see that you have the

091next steps already planned because that's what I was like, oh okay, now we have this like what are we going to do? Like it's so nice that you already like have it ready to go. I'm excited to see where this takes us in the years and thank you so much for all of you for doing it. It's fantastic. And for getting up your night on a snow day. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Um, yeah. So, that's all we have. Thank you guys. I just want to make one comment because I've been on many of these strategic plans and you're just horrible. You're on there forever. Yeah. The fact that you did this in this amount of time is amazing. Amazing. And the other thing is as a community member, this is going

092to read so well in the community. You know why? Because you didn't with a bunch of education ease that the community will not understand. You did such a good job with the way you put that together. It's so professionally done. It's clean, glossy, clear. It's excellent in such a short period of time. Congratulations. Dr. Hill, anything? I think it's ambitious and now it's going to come to people's buy in ationalizing it, but I think you guys have the right team to do it. Agree. Agree. So, we're going to call We keep calling it a strategic vision, not a plan, right? Yes. This is a vision and we're going to get Yeah. All right. So, anybody else want to say anything? Are we good? All right. Thank you guys. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you.

093Stay. I'll let you know if it doesn't pass. Thank you for coming. We'll need to go back to the drawing board. Joe, thank you for coming. Yes. Thank you guys. Thank you guys. I'm just going to give a minute for the room to clear. Oh no, it was it was that was her attention. Your body. Okay, cool. That's That's my report. Great. Yeah, we're just checking on public participation if anyone had entered in. I don't see anything, but I wouldn't see it anyways. Oh, I can go in and check, but I don't um I think I would have got an email, so I think we're good. Okay, I'm going to read it. All right. Okay. Public participation. It's the policy of the Independence Board of Education to hear public comment at board meetings. The public

094is invited to speak to any of the agenda items and other school topics at this time. Comments should be limited to three minutes. We had a computer in the back that you could enter your information in if you would like to participate. At this time, I don't believe we have any participation. Thank you very much. Um, we're going to move on to our consent agenda for approval of the January meeting minutes. That's it. Yep. And then uh mine I I've really covered it more more in the update, but the treasures report, if you'll please approve the treasures report, which was the um monthly reports of January, we have two small um appropriations and certificate of resources, which is again related to the um federal funds. And that's very normal that they keep adjusting them. Um

095we keep getting reallocations or allocations. So um there's two and uh it's the title one and I believe title 2 if I'm going from memory and then the common remitter with penserf please and the creation of the student activity account then the consolidation of all student activity accounts that'll go into the new account we're just creating a request to transfer the stale dated class funds as listed there so you could see those and then the recruiting bonus which again was so exciting that we were able to get one of our own employees to bring another free employee on board with Mr. Dan. The donate uh donation acceptance. If you'll please accept the donation of weight equipment for the middle school with an approximate value of 8,857 from the city of Independence Police Department. Acceptance of

096the middle school scoreboard for the gymnasium with an approximate value of $6,765 from the Independence Athletic Boosters. An acceptance of a donation from Mr. Verka, members of a church group who generously donated $500 in gift cards to deserving families. So, um that is amazing donations. Such generosity in our community coming to our kids and the approval of the and process for the two then and nows as listed. Those are my items. Okay. Yep. And now we'll go to Kelly. Um superintendent recommendations for the consent agenda. Um so you'll have the strategic vision on there that you'll approve. Um you have the second and final reading for those board policies. Our membership for SSA um res sorry our athletic association. Uh we have theou for um community college that's for our CCP students and then also

097for um LCCCC. And then um you saw the school bus or Tom talked about the um the high school council for the school bus. Um you'll see the integrated preschool tuition rate for the 2526 school year. We did not increase that rate. Um you notice those signs out there. We are um actively searching for um typical peers. Um so hopefully people will be registering for them. You'll see a student night a student overnight trip proposal um for the high school uh girls varsity JV and varsity softball teams. Um, I will tell you that, you know, part of the process of of doing these things, we should have more up to-date forms as we're looking through our policy and administrative guidelines. They're pretty antiquated. Um, we should have a chaperone, um, you know, a list of

098like what our expectations are with shaper rooms and things like that. What I can tell you is on this trip um the girls uh JB and varsity has decided to drive um down there. So parents will be driving their students down there and if a student, you know, if their parents aren't going, they'll be catching a ride with um another family to get down there. Um which is a little bit different. Usually you'll see them taking a bus or something down there, but because of cost and everything else, um they did decide to do to travel on their own. Um, so just kind of letting you know that that's a little bit different um than normal. Does that affect our insurance policy for them since this is a a school function? It is especially since

099they're driving separate. It is a it is a diff the uniqueness is there's different liabilities on the district for allowing it. Um, and then you see a seventh grade Dearbornne Michigan trip. That's just a day trip. Um and then you see the eighth grade, that's for this year. The Michigan trip is May. Um and then the student um overnight trip proposal, 8th grade for Washington, that's for next October. Um a little different than previous years, they are going with NOAC tours. So instead of them doing their own kind of finding a bus and finding the rooms and doing all that, they're going to go through NOAK. I think it's $40 more a student. Um, but it it puts all the liability on Noac tours. Um, you know, if anything happens, if somebody cancels, if something

100goes wrong, like they're the ones who have to do all of that. And, you know, they collect all the money, so we don't have to worry about trying to do that. They do offer scholarships for students, um, payment plans for parents, so it's a little bit different this year. Um, and then, um, the inventory removal. I told Tom, I'm not a fan of putting in, you have to put inventory for removal if it's $10,000 or more. That's a a law, uh, revised code. Um, so in the future, you probably, the only reason I say that is because people will see on here that we're removing bleachers, but Tom will tell you that we're not removing bleachers. They're a step to the old bleachers we used to have, and it was we have the bleachers. We

101modified them. We wanted to keep the bleachers, but we didn't need the steps anymore. So, and you sold them, correct? Yeah. Good news. We got $730. So, people see that you removed it and they're like, I want you to throw it away. Like, it just we can just put things out for auction and we don't need to have it on a removal under$10,000. So, we'll But it was it was on here so I just left it. Um, so that's all I have. Um, are you going to approve those or we're going to keep going with consent? Personnel, um, you'll see classified subs. Uh, supplementals, you'll see ski club for the high school, middle school, a seventh grade Michigan trip, track, um, and baseball. Um, supplemental contracts, you'll see um, for the 25 26, this is

102um, assistant coaches for football. Um, Matt Burns um, is bringing them in. So, you'll see the steps that at and then um other personnel when Jen spoke to the sub hourly pay and um the athletic contest workers and seeing some little college student workers and skilled student workers. Um so kind of just letting you know that that's it. Can I ask this question? Yep. Classified substitute John Caner. Is that our English teacher's husband? It's a kindergarten teacher. Kindergarten teacher. Her husband. Oh, that was the word amount. Got it. Got it. Got it. So he we were surprised and smiling. That's good. Okay. That's great. That's awesome. And then um that's it. Okay. What's the work session moving? Well, that's approved. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. Approval of the consent agenda. Um, approval of the consent agenda

103items F1 through I3 as presented, including any amendments presented. So move second. Call roll please. I would love to. Sorry, Mr. Aila. Was first. No, remember we went organization. We're doing now. Yes, Mr. Bernstein. Yes. Mrs. Laskkey. Yes. Mrs. Sears. Yes. Mrs. Hill. Yes. Thank you. Uh, new business. Uh, board agenda policy. First reading, no action. Um, that's the board of business complaints and governor complaints from Mr. C. Talk to us about that. That is the new policy. And then, um, care of students with chronic health conditions. Unfortunately, accidentally, that was left off the last group that we gave you and they were updating. So um Sandy Mulla has taken a look at that. So that is also there for your Okay. So this will be a first read on these. Okay. Thank you. Umformational

104items upcoming events. We have a waiver day Friday, March 7th. No classes for students and March board meeting dates March 4th and March 18th. Um board member discussion, actions. Um board member comments. Yeah, I wanted to just like I've done tried to do with most meetings is sort of highlight some of the previous graduates. So Nick Kashle, class of 2016, graduated from Hyram uh and then went another four years graduated from nemed. currently working University Hospital and radiology. He's part of the medical national honor society. So, class of 2016, he's already gone through eight years of medical schooling and medical school and he's well on his way to u his career path. Um I also wanted to um wish Evan McNamera good luck at the state swim meet. this weekend. Um, this is his third

105trip to the States in swimming, which I don't recall I don't recall ever having a swimmer go that many years in a row. So, good luck to him. Um, and that is that's all I have right now. Thank you. Um, next we um have our April work session date. we need to discuss um need to move the work session from April 1st and it's rescheduled for the 3 or the 7th. So we need to decide what works best for everybody. And do we know if we're going to have the assessments back or the we will we will by the 17th whatever the April date is the second. Okay. So not for this one. I mean, it would be great, but I don't I don't know that I can. So, what will be about? What will

106this work session be for? I don't know. I feel like we always have stuff to talk about. We can always cancel it. We could always cancel it. So, let's keep it like tell me what date works, but to your point, if AG cannot come on the earlier date, right, and we're going to go to the the regular board meeting for that, we may just cancel that. Okay. Okay. And the regular means April 15th. Yes. April 15th tax day. Yeah. Tax day. Only the finance from our church. I am fine with either of those days. Is there anyone who has a conflict with the 3rd or the seventh? When's Easter? Okay. I'm good either. Ron, I know you travel a lot. Thursday or Monday? Is Monday the 3? No. No. Monday the 7th. Oh. Uh, you

107know what? Monday would probably be better. Okay. 43. Yeah. Okay. 43. No. 47. 47. Sorry. 47. At 6 p.m. Yes. EAC. Yes. Thank you. Um Ohio School Board's Association recognition. Um, we are so proud to announce that Tony, um, with sincere appreciation for your dedication and service to public education, OSBA will recognize you for 10 years of service on March 12th at the Laurian County JBC JBS. Sorry. Congrats. Thank you. You're welcome. You guys are so proud. I'm proud of you. Are you going to go? You better go get some pizza. Yes. Yes. So, yes. Um, am I supposed to say something? Sure. Um, do you want the microphone? No, no, no. We got I just want to, you know, I look at the calendar and it's I really say this, you know, the five

108my five colleagues or four colleagues myself. It it, you know, it's been two years or I'm sorry, it's been a year ago at this at this time when we had to embark on finalizing finding a new treasurer and then starting to find a new superintendent. And you know, I've told you guys before, but it's it's been a lot of fun. So, this has been while the most stressful year was 2024, it's been of my 10, it's been um it it was a lot of fun. Uh spending a lot of hours in that back room over there debating, red debating, and things like that. So, um I couldn't do it without you. Can't do it by myself. And um I do value all of you and you're um especially this past year. You're always going to

109be special to me. Thanks, Tony. Are you invited? Are you invited to come on March 12th? Yes. And I'll need to know so I can register everyone. So March 12th is the that's one of the two locations. Yeah. I No offense. I'm not attending Warren. We'll go to We'll go to war. I I declined that invite. Their food looks better, but okay. That's funny. That's funny. Okay. Um, and number four, adopt resolution for the vouchers hurt Ohio initiative of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School funding. So that is back on the agenda. If you remember a few months ago, I kind of did the presentation and talked about it and then we tabled it for a little while just to, you know, get more information. Um, hasn't gone away. Surprise, surprise. Um,

110still there. And obviously you know that I feel strongly that you know this is not a private school public school issue. This is about um the government not funding public schools the way that they should be. Um it's constit it's in our constitution that they have to fund our schools. Um and people will tell you that people who say it's a different pot. Um it's the same pot of money. It's just where their priorities are. They're taking money out and they're putting it in the vouchers. Um and and that's unfortunate because there's a lot of talk right now and a lot of uncertainty in the public funding of school. And you know, we have senators making statements about whether or not they're going to take away the guarantee, whether or not they're going to take

111away um certain things, whether or not you know, schools can be fully funded. Currently, it is on the back of the taxpayers. and how I I can't believe that more people aren't emailing their legislators and telling them like people just can't continue to be taxed to pay for schools. It's found unconstitutional. Find a different way. Um but continuing to take billions of dollars and and siphon them away from public school. Obviously, as a private school student growing up, but a public school superintendent, I just feel like I need to advocate. joining the coalition is, I believe, $2 um per student. So, for us, you know, we're not looking at a huge amount of money. I don't know that it the lawsuits going forward, whether we join or not. Um I do think when they go

112in, it always looks better the more districts you have that are supporting that. I know right now, um Mike Hanlin, who's the superintendent of Chardan, has reached out to districts. Um so, you'll be getting an email from me. Senators are saying that they don't want a canned email. They would like letters from students and board members and community members about school funding and about the importance of public school and what it's meant to them. So, we will be doing a letterw writing campaign. We only have a couple weeks to get those in before they vote. Um, but I think our voices need to be heard and I think one way that you can do that is by joining this particular lawsuit. Well, I do I do think that this is totally the wrong way. Listen,

113parents can do what they they want with their kids, send them wherever they want. But this is totally wrong as to how they're uh financially trying to push the burden more the burden of funding these um the public schools on the taxpayers. Um, I was elected to support the Independence Public Schools and so I agree that um, I will be voting to join this coalition. I agree with you, Ron. Plus, I've had a number of residents here that say, you know, if we're going to be looking for more funding uh, through asking our residents for more money that we definitely should to make sure that we're advocating for any opportunities that we could possibly receive any money. So, I'm also support how much money would we get from this joining this lawsuit? Yeah, I've not

114seen any numbers in any fashion. Are we expected to get money if we join the lawsuit? Is that one of the standings for participation. Well, I think the premise is to try to protect what they currently are allocating to us and not let that be jeopardized. Yeah. But it's not taking from the public schools right now. Well, we don't we don't. So, the answer that the response would be, we don't know. So if if the lawsuit goes and says and the and the coalition wins the lawsuit, that takes $9 billion and puts it back into the pot of money. Now whether or not the senators in the education committee, then look at that and go, well, we were already earmarking that for private education schooling. They told us it's we're not allowed to do it.

115It's unconstitutional. They gave it back to us. Let's divvy it up among the rest of the districts in the state. the public school districts, we may potentially get money. They may go, you know what? Well, we're just going to put that $9 billion, I don't know, into another pot, but at least they're not taking it because it's not going to be sustainable for them to continue that. They're going to have to increase that 9 billion. So, I think that's why they're saying right now there's a question on whether or not they can continue to publicly fund our public continue to fund through the government the public side because there's a shortfall of money. But if you just reached over and took some of that money over, you could guarantee you could do all of those

116things that you're currently saying you might take away from us. So you don't know whether you're going to get a windfall of $9 billion. I can tell you that they are saying right now that school funding is going to be impacted. There's a person right now trying to put one through that says that they want to take away that you would have a stagnant property tax and then there would be an income tax that would then offset the cost that the taxpayers are paying. Now whether or not those things ever come to fruition, somebody wants to put a bill forward, I don't know. So you you're not there's no way to say you will or you won't. And I don't I mean that's that that's absolutely correct. We've not seen any simulations of of that

117because too much is unknown about that. I think like when I look at this and especially in our small community, we have such a divide of people who choose to go private, usually like Catholic, St. Michael's, um, and then we have public. And I I never want to offend anybody. I always want to be politically correct and like I want everybody to choose where they go to school. And I truly do want my friends, my family to choose wherever they want to go to school. However, I do see that in my role, like as a steward of the funds that we have in this district, like it's my responsibility to make sure that we are getting that money. Um, and so I want to make sure that whether that wherever that money is going that

118it should be going to public schools. Um, and so I'm going to be standing with the vouchers Ohio. Um, you know, and I and I do that because if we ended up going and asking for money in some way, shape, or form, like I want to be able to tell people we've looked in every other place so before we have to come to you to ask for more money. So, um, that's where I stand. Um, obviously it's a bit bit of a lightning rod sort of um, issue here. I you know I do echo what what Ron and Katie just said about like you know we do represent the public school district for this community and you know I I think if we don't fight for ourselves who's going to fight for us what what

119I want to there's two things I want to guard against is $2 per pupil. Let's just say it's $2,000 approximately. We have a thousand kids approximately. Um, I I don't want to make it sound like that's a nominal amount like I just do $2,000 just it's like Jen knows to me that's I like talking money and I like saving money in your own pocket. Yeah, exactly. So, uh, that's one thing I want to guard against. Um, I also want to guard against, you know, is this going to be a fee that we pay every year for these legal services for the the lawsuit? Is this just a one-time thing? because I don't want this as these legal things can drag out multiple years. Um I don't want it to be a $10,000, you know, $8,000$10,000

120um bill that we have, you know, that we have to pay. So that's just something I still want to while fighting for public schools, I in our public school, I still want to be a steward, a good steward of our money. Um because like Katie did say it, the bad part about local control with us is that it's local control financially too. So it's all on us. Um we don't get much help um from the outside and the help that we do get is is not um is not sustainable and it's not uh also not um reliable because it it it's it's it can vary from year to year. So, um I'm going back and forth between, you know, whether it's just because I don't like it, whether it's going to be, you know, versus

121it being illegal. I don't know. That's for that's for the courts to figure out. Um I I will say just it was a bit of a history lesson. I did find out today this has been going on since the mid1 1990s and it just kind of morphed into where it is now. Um and you know, we're what was it? A couple couple months ago, guys, we sat around having a knockown dragout fight about, you know, what do we do about our facilities? And, you know, we got to come to the taxpayers for 100% of that bill. Like, we don't get any help. And this money that that pot, a billion dollars, whatever it is, um, that's getting thrown all over the state. I mean, that could help us. It could help the community in terms

122of upgrades of our brick and mortar. We're not talking operational, but we're talking brick and mortar. So, um, it's it's just very, you know, looking at it through that lens, it's just very very disheartening to hear that that that's where that money is going to be allocated to, uh, from Columbus. So, you know, I've given it a lot of thought. I I will support it. I just, like I said, I just want to make sure that I that this is not an annual expense that we have and the only one really winning in this whole thing is going to be the lawyers. Like, that's what I want to guard against. um in the long run. But um you know this money whether it's directly or or by proxy goes goes from the state straight to

123these school districts or to these to these private schools. Um and they don't have the same standards that you know Mrs. Kogan and her ad administrative team have to you know have to adhere to. They just don't. And it's and it's it's not right. It's just not right. and you know, they have the ability to turn away students for any shape or you know, for any reason. Um, we don't have that ability and then we're still expected to thrive and we're held accountable, right? So, I just think it's not a level playing field and then you you're throwing in, you know, money that can that can help our community and it's it's just it just doesn't sit well with me. So, while I do understand and I do agree with with Ron in regards to

124sending, you know, nobody loves their children more than their parents. So, you know, whatever they want to do, I just don't think that this is the right uh right way to go about doing it and and you know, I'll I'll support helping this lawsuit um in any way we can and it's it's, you know, like I said, it's a small way to do it, but um I'll be you know, I'll be voting yes on. I feel just a couple I I feel like I'm totally not sold on the the situation of to my knowledge. This this this lawsuit started in 2022 and so it's been pushed. It was just pushed again. It was supposed to go to to court in in the fall. It was pushed to 2025. So to my knowledge, it's $2 per

125student per year. So to your point, do if we join now, are we retroactive to pay? And then if we if we if this get keeps getting pushed, it's not just going to be $2,000. And I then look into there's 617 districts uh school districts in Ohio. Less than 200 are have joined this lawsuit. And so what about the other 400 plus? Our formula district, what we just talked about tonight, I don't have I don't have confidence that that we're going to get any more money. I I don't think our kids leave Independence Public Schools um because only of the vouchers. They're gonna go anyway. And so I just feel like what is the reason why Brexel, Broadview Heights, Avon, North Royaltton, River Solen, why are they not in this district? Like why are they

126not in this lawsuit? I I want more information. I I want to to understand why, you know, the these these other 400 plus districts aren't aren't on here. Um, and so, as I totally agree that we are stewards of our money, I don't I just don't have faith in in our our our state giving us more money based on this lawsuit. And I think having this information shows we've since the 90s when we've had it's been it's been deemed unconstitutional twice. It's two two two court districts already. But look at where we're at today. Do we have faith that it's really going to change? So if we're doing this on based on principle, I want to base this on I want people to choose independence because we are the best district and we don't have

127to worry about being competitive with parochial schools. I want them to choose us because we're the best. And so that's how I feel about it. I don't feel like I'm sold on understanding the full do we get money, do we not get money? Is that 9 billion going to be uh put to independence? Because this formula district, we get $844, but we just signed that it's 16,000 to to educate our kids. So that's how we feel about it. And I I also I don't want to be a hypocrite. My kids did go to proial schools. I chose Independence High School because of all our opportunities and what we have to offer and because I do believe that we have the best education. Um I didn't take voucher money. Uh I could have taken voucher money.

128I didn't. And so I just want like that's where I feel that's how I feel about it. Um I didn't know we it wouldn't be retroactive since it started in 2022. Um I don't know where we're going. This information about Dwine and and um unveils his budget. our whole department of education like there's so many questions unanswered there's so many questions unanswered um and that's how I feel yeah not retroactive um would be annual the hope would be because it's we're kind of joining in at the tail end court is I mean the case is scheduled for the spring you know so hopefully at that point there's a decision made now whether the decision is the courts find in favor and not unconstitutional. Keep it going. Or they come back and go, "It you're correct.

129It is unconstitutional." Um, and then we see what happens, right, with the rest of the money. So, why are other What's the reasoning? Why are other districts Why is a third of the school districts in Ohio not are the only ones going on this? What What's the understanding of that? There are a lot of super and I don't Sorry, there's there are um some superintendents who don't really know um and don't really care about getting involved in advocacy and sitting on webinars um and finding out about fair school funding and you know what the vouchers are doing and you know they don't they're they're just not involved in that. I will tell you that the group that I'm involved in like the Mike Hlin and short like all those districts are heavily involved in it.

130Um we're trying to do legislative you know breakfasts with these legislators to explain to them about why it is unfair and how it it is hurting public schools. I think that's part of it. I think there are other communities that are probably divided and the board, you know, has four people that aren't going to vote for it. That it's been up for the board and the board just didn't pass it for their own beliefs. They may have five carries on the board who or three carries on the board who believe the same way you do. Um, so I don't think that it's that people I would think that more people if they understood it um and realized what it was doing would would be involved. I just don't know that that is out there. Also,

131in less populated districts, there is not a level of competition even available, right? I mean, in less populated areas of the state, I mean, northeast Ohio is saturated with students and districts. As you go further down, you don't have that. So, I mean, of those districts of the 400, I'd love to know where they are geographically, too. I mean, I know you referenced some right here in our area, but the district I came from, there was not that much competition to have this be on the radar the way it is here. So, I also think composition of your community and availability of different programs to you. There's not always available services. I mean, Jen, you just told us today that we the state basically says the value of each of our kid is $834 because

132we're 10%. We only get 10%. That's my son is worth $834. But if my son were to go to another school, he'd be worth $8,46. and that district or that I'm sorry that school that private school wouldn't have you know the list of rules and regulations that Kelly has to go through is like a New York City phone book right and that private school doesn't have those same guard rails or not as many I should say. I just don't think it's fair all the way around. Um, you know, again, I look at it more from a compliance standpoint, like, okay, you're getting the money, you got to get the you got to adhere to the same policies that these public school districts do, and it's like they don't, and they're not it's not a level

133playing field. Um, and again, I you know, like I said, there's a lot I can do with that billion dollars or a small portion of that billion dollars to take it off the backs of our residents here. So, um, again, it's It's a little muddy, but if you just kind of That's the lens that I'm looking at it through. And you know, and um to your point of, you know, if it was annual, it would always have to come before you for the vote to continue it. Like just because it's annual, you would like we wouldn't just keep paint. We would come back just like this and go, "Okay, are you reading?" We never have. We're up again. Do we want to still join? So there would be another opportunity to be like, "Hey, maybe

134at that point things have changed or gotten additional information. I hope it doesn't get to that point, but me either. Um, all right. Go. Motion to vote. Second call. Roll, please. Mr. Aila. Yes. Mr. Bernstein. Yes. Sorry, I forgot to type these in, so I'm writing them as we go. Mrs. Lassi, yes. Mrs. Sears, I am saying no to all the reasons that I already stated. And Mrs. Hill, yes. Um, moving into executive session, uh, to consider appointment, employment, dismissal, discipline, promotion, a motion, compensation of a public employee or official. Can we have a motion, please? So move. Second. K, was that you? I apologize. Thank you. Mr. Bernstein, yes. Oops, I messed up. Mrs. Mr. Aila, yes. Mr. Bernstein, Mrs. Laskkey, yes. Mrs. Sears, yes. Mrs. Hill, yes. All right. And we will enter

135in and take no further action afterwards. Um, and does not need to go in Jen session. Yes. Motion to adjurnn. We actually have to do that. No, you're not adjourning. Nope, we're not adjourning. Never mind. You're not adjourning. We're going into new president problems. I'm learning. 7:48 and then we'll reconvene and there'll be I think this at this time you would say there's no action. Okay. Presuming there's no action planned. No, thank you. You would say there's no action planned. No further action after executive sension. Thank you.