001Mr. Henry. Happy New Year to our Canton City family, staff, and community and those watching. We welcome you all to our 2026 Canton City School Board Organizational Meeting for January 5th, 2026. I have been chosen by my colleagues as President Pro Tem for the purpose to lead the elections of the President and Vice President of this school board. We will start with our new members to be sworn in. Mr. Gruber, you'll step down in front of the stage. Do you, Schuyler Parks, solemnly swear to support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Ohio, and that you will faithfully and impartially discharge your duties as a member of the Board of Education of the Canton City School District, Stark County, Ohio, to the best of your ability, and in accordance
002with the laws now in effect, and hereafter to be enacted during your continuance in said office, and until your successor is elected and qualified? Congratulations. Do you, R.J. Van Allman, solemnly swear to support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Ohio, and that you will faithfully and impartially discharge your duties as a member of the Board of Education of the Canton City School District, Stark County, Ohio, to the best of your ability, and in accordance with the laws now in effect, and hereafter to be enacted, once in said office, and until your successor is elected and qualified? We welcome Mr. Parks and Mr. Van Allman to the Board, and we're excited for you to be here. Thank you. Now we will begin with a Pledge of Allegiance. Please stand.
003The United States of America and the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Mr. Gruber, can you please call the roll? Mr. Van Allman. Here. Mr. Parks. Present. Ms. Watkins. Here. Mrs. Brown. Here. Thank you. Now may I have a motion to approve the agenda for this organizational meeting? Yes, motion to. OK, second? I'll second the motion. All in favor? Aye. OK. Now we will open the floor for nominations for our 2026 president. I would like to nominate Scott Russ in his absence. Are we doing it again, or do we do it again? Are there any other nominations? Oh, I'm sorry. We need a second on this. I second. And there are no other nominations. Can you please call the roll? Mr. Van Allman. Aye. Mr.
004Parks. Aye. Ms. Watkins. Aye. Mrs. Brown. Aye. Next, we will open the floor for nominations for our 2026 vice president. I'd like to nominate Kim Brown to be our vice president. Do you need a second? Second. Any other nominations? It's been moved and second. Can we call for roll? Mr. Van Allman. Aye. Mr. Parks. Aye. Ms. Watkins. Aye. Mrs. Brown. Abstain. In the absence of our newly elected board president, I will continue with the nominations for the board appointments for 2026. We open the nominations now for board president pro tem, and I'd like to nominate Myra Watkins. Is there a second? Second, Skyler Parks. Any other nominations? Hearing none, roll call vote please. Mr. Van Allman. Aye. Mr. Parks. Aye. Ms. Watkins. Abstain. Mrs. Brown. Aye. And now we open the nominations for our board
005secretary pro tem. I'd like to nominate Skyler Parks. Second. I'll second. Roll call please. Mr. Van Allman. Aye. Mr. Parks. Abstain. Ms. Watkins. Aye. Mrs. Brown. Aye. Now we open our nominations to appoint a member to the OSBA legislative liaison. I'd like to nominate Mr. Van Allman for that position. Second that motion. Any other nominations? Hearing none, I'd like to roll call vote please. Mr. Van Allman. Abstain. Mr. Parks. Aye. Ms. Watkins. Aye. Mrs. Brown. Aye. And now we have our nominations for the OSBA student achievement liaison. And I'd like to nominate Myra Watkins please. I'll second that. Any other nominations? Roll call vote please. Mr. Van Allman. Aye. Mr. Parks. Aye. Ms. Watkins. Abstain. Mrs. Brown. Aye. OK. The Canton City School District Board of Education designates the treasurer as the district's public records
006custodian. Ohio Revised Code section 109.43A1 permits elected officials to select a designee for all elected officials of the public office. If the public office includes more than one elected official, the purpose of the attended public records training certified by the Ohio attorney general. The board designates the treasurer to serve as the appropriate designee for the purpose of satisfying the mandatory public records training imposed by the Ohio Revised Code section 109.43. Also, we authorize the superintendent to select and employ legal counsel and to initiate legal actions to protect, defend, the interests of the board, the district, students, and its employees. Such actions may include but not limited to appeals of tax issues, workers in unemployment compensation, litigation, and action for administrative agency. Finally, we authorize and approve the director of state and federal programs to apply
007for grant funding. We will need a motion and second for these authorizations. I'll make a motion. Second. A motion has been moved and seconded. Roll call vote, please. Mr. Van Holman. Aye. Mr. Parks. Aye. Ms. Watkins. Aye. Mrs. Brown. Aye. OK. Now we need a motion to adjourn. So moved. We'll signify by saying aye. Aye. All righty. We'll adjourn for 15 minutes, and then we'll start our regular board meeting. Good evening, and welcome back to our first regular meeting for the 2026 Kansas City School Board of Education on this Monday, January 5th in downtown Kansas. Please silence your devices at this time, and would you please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. We welcome our two board members that were just sworn in, Mr. Parks and Mr. Van Holman, for those of you who are
008just tuning into our meeting. We know that your contribution will be very valuable to our district. We are proud of our community, and we are proud of our rich tradition. If you are here tonight, we welcome you. If you are online, thank you for taking the time to navigate our web page and join us. We now call this meeting to order at 6 PM. Mr. Gruber, can you please call the roll. Mr. Van Holman. Here. Mr. Parks. Present. Ms. Watkins. Here. Mrs. Brown. Here. We want to recognize our visitors tonight that are joining us, and also we want to have approval of our agenda. Are there any changes or corrections? Just one this evening. This is Vice President, and it is on page eight, item number four, under adjustments. We need to adjust Georgiou Jackson
009to read scale 06, index 0.11 for the 2025-2026 school year. We want to approve the minute. I make a motion. Second. It's been approved and seconded. Do we need a roll call? Yep. So we'll need a roll call, please. Mr. Van Holman. Aye. Mr. Parks. Aye. Ms. Watkins. Aye. Mrs. Brown. Aye. And now we have a hearing of the public. Is there anyone signed up? We have approval of the minutes. Oh, I'm sorry. We have to have approval of the minutes. For December 8th, our special meeting. December 8th, our regular meeting. And December 18th, a special workshop minute. Were there any changes or comments? We need a motion and second. I motion that we approve the minutes for each. I second. Mr. Van Holman. I approve. Mr. Parks. Aye. Ms. Watkins. Aye. Mrs. Brown. Aye.
010And now we're at our hearing of the public. We do have one speaker signed up this evening. This is vice president. But before I call the individual, we ask that the speaker state their name and address and whether they are a resident of the district for the record. Remind this evening's speaker that the board allows three minutes for each individual to address the board. And finally, the president may rule out of order any person using disrespect or obscenities. With that being said, this evening's speaker is Theodore Hunter. Thank you for allowing me to speak. My purpose is to inform you of some of the potential safety problems that could result in serious illness or possibly law issues that would hurt the proper function of the high standards as a board of education you have already
011set for the students, staff, and administration of Kansas City schools. My qualifications for addressing the board of education come from 64 years of participating in the discipline of amateur wrestling, freestyle and folk style. I realize some of the difficulties that boys of unmarried women encounter daily, which has a profound influence on their character and their behavior and possibly for success in life. Three minutes is a little time to explain important issues that need to be discussed. Therefore, I have prepared more thoroughly a study of immediate concerns that you have. I wish to address two problems this way. All wrestlers should take showers after practice. One way to accomplish this is to demand that all wrestlers after practice take a shower and assign captains to verify adherence to this rule. No shower, no practice for the
012safety of teammates, no practice, no competition. You are still required to attend practice and support other team assignments. I'm here to improve discipline in the sport that requires discipline and self-control by example. Lyrics can have a profound and negative effect on the mental and spiritual development of black boys because they are listening to it more than anyone else, thus creating a negative effect on anyone in the environment. To solve this problem, no negative hip hop lyrics should be in the wrestling work environment. As a coach, they should be aware of what his subjects or his wrestlers are being subjected to. I'm sure some parents would not appreciate the degrading words about women and racist words about a complete culture of dignified and moral people that myself and many other black people represent. Because something is
013popular doesn't make it safe for our children or society. I understand some of the situations black boys must go through in this society because at one time I was a black boy. Some things you will not be able to understand unless you've been a black boy. Wrestling is not a play sport. There are injuries in every sport. But wrestling can be minor or catastrophic. It's imperative that instructors or coaches be experienced enough to be able to understand proper technique to reduce the chances of injury and to be able to demonstrate effective technique that works. There are several stages of learning, beginning with youth, which are necessary for each level of learning. More technique and convincing with their ability should be applied. Prerequisites for all coaches should be knowledge of application for youth, middle school, college,
014and international sports. Points to consider should be technique, motivation, and skill drills, strategy, team and individual, injury rehabilitation, conditioning and strength training, team discipline, dignity, respect, and integrity. Life skills lectures should be done daily. Public image and representation of Canton City schools, parental and guardian involvement, and improved academics and social skills for students should be applied. I wish to offer my expertise as a consultant for the overall wrestling program of Canton City schools, youth, middle school, and high school. There are many things that should be looked at closer to be proactive to eliminate future problems. Please consider further consideration to improve all sports programs and coaches within Canton City School District. I can be reached at 330-309-9806. Thank you. Your response will be addressed to you at the next board meeting. OK, thank you, ma'am.
015You're welcome. We had a parent from Ms. Kelsey Bryant, she's the parent of a student. And she requested that all parents have access to our Kickboard app, which is a social emotional learning app that we use to implement our multi-tiered interventions and also our PBIS program. And our parents do and are able to get access to that program. They're able, they need to go to their building principal and ask to get access, where they can see the actual progress their student is making. Now she wanted the same type of access when we had a program called Class Dojo, where there was two-way interaction with parents and teachers. And since we have adopted one communication tool, and that's Parents Square, we went away from having multiple programs that reached out to parents. So parents, we use
016the Kickboard app to monitor students' behaviors. And you can see when they are receiving points and receiving rewards for doing the right thing in the classroom, and you can monitor that by looking at the app. But if the teacher needs to talk to you, they will contact you through Parents Square. We will not use that app. And the reason for that, at one time, we had, I think we had Remind, we had Class Dojo, we had our e-school app, and we had email. So parents really didn't know where to look to hear from someone at the school. So we now have one way that we contact parents, and that's through Parents Square. So anyone who's looking to get more information about how they can see how their kid is doing on Kickboard, check with your
017principal, and your principal will be able to get you access. Thank you, Superintendent Howard. And now we'll have the Treasurer's Report from Mr. Gruber. Yes, Mrs. Vice President, this evening I have 10 recommendations for the board. Start with item number one, recommendation that the board adopt a mileage reimbursement rate of 72 and 1.5 cents as established by the IRS for 2026. Item number two are annual standing resolutions, six of them. The first one is to authorize the Treasurer to secure tax advances from the county auditor when funds are made available. Second one, authorize the Treasurer to invest inactive funds at the most productive rate whenever inactive funds are available. The third one, authorize the Treasurer to pay all bills within the limits of the appropriation resolution as bills are received. Fourth one, authorize the Treasurer
018to make transfers within funds of the approved appropriation. Sixth standing, or excuse me, the fifth standing resolution, authorize the Treasurer to amend the official certificate of estimated resources when necessary. The last standing resolution is to set a maximum blanket certificate limit of $1 million. The third item under the Treasurer's report, recommendation to increase the hourly rate of lifeguards and staff assistance to $11 per hour in accordance with the Ohio revised minimum wage laws. The fourth item under the Treasurer's report, recommend the board approve the payment of the annual membership dues to the Ohio School Board Association. Item number five, recommend the board approve the payment of the annual membership dues to the Ohio School Board's Association Legal Assistance Fund. Item number six, recommended the board approve the payment of the annual membership dues to the
019Ohio Education Policy Institute. Item number seven, recommended the board approve the 2027 tax budget as it is presented in exhibit one. That is the district's request to the county budget commission to collect local taxes on behalf of the district. Item number eight, recommended the board approve a five-year depository agreement with Huntington National Bank. Item number nine, recommended the board approve the monthly financial report for November 30th, 2025. And the last item under this evening's list is a lengthy list of donations, which the board greatly and the district greatly appreciates. Thank you, Mr. Gruber. I make a motion that we approve the treasurer's report as written. I'll second. And are there any questions or comments? Hearing none, we'll have a vote. Mr. Bay and Allman. Aye. Mr. Parks. Aye. Ms. Watkins. Aye. Ms. Brown. Aye. Includes
020my report. Thank you. Superintendent Halbert. Thank you. First, Vice President Brown, I recommend that the board of education approve section A, human resources certified staff, which tonight includes retirements and resignations, leaves of absences, appointments, and adjustments. I make a motion to approve. I second. Any questions or comments? Hearing none, we'll call. Mr. Bay and Allman. Aye. Mr. Parks. Aye. Ms. Watkins. Aye. Ms. Brown. Aye. Vice President Brown, I recommend that the board of education approve section B, human resources classified staff, which tonight includes retirements and resignation, leaves of absences, appointments, and adjustments for our classified employees. Any questions or comments? Mr. Bay and Allman. Aye. Mr. Parks. Aye. Ms. Watkins. Aye. Ms. Brown. Aye. Under our education services report tonight, we have two items. The first one, Vice President Brown, I recommend that the board
021of education approve section C, item number one, which is our plus 22 graduates. I make a motion. Second. Any questions or comments? We'll call, please. Mr. Bay and Allman. Aye. Mr. Parks. Aye. Ms. Watkins. Aye. Ms. Brown. Aye. And then finally, Vice President Brown, I recommend the board of education approve section C, education service report item two, which is approving us to move forward with training in the new tech network curriculum. And that would be at Crenshaw Middle School. So moved. Second. Mr. Bay and Allman. Aye. Mr. Parks. Aye. Ms. Watkins. Aye. Ms. Brown. Aye. The third item. Yes. I don't have that on me. It's the IB. Vice President Brown, I recommend that the board approve that the superintendent move forward with exploration and implementation of the IB primary years program as presented at
022the November, 2025 board meeting. Motion. Has been moved and seconded. Any questions or comments? We'll call, please. Mr. Bay and Allman. Aye. Mr. Parks. Aye. Ms. Watkins. Aye. Ms. Brown. Aye. Okay. So for the final part of the meeting tonight, for me, we're going to discuss the full reduction plan. So just to kind of walk people again through where we are. So back in October, superintendent, I mean, treasurer Gruber, I'm trying to give you my job. Treasurer Gruber did his, his three year forecast now. And in the third year of that forecast, we had a negative number of a little over $17 million. That triggered the state to request from us a written plan to reduce that negative number, actually make it a positive number by the end of December. And that plan had to
023be presented to this board of education and approved by this board of education. And the purpose for this process is to make sure that we are on top of our finances, that the board is aware that we do have a deficit and we are deficit spending. So that that negative number did not move into the second or into the current year. As it moves closer to your current year, the state becomes a little, a little more angry and they could come in and take control and make decisions for you. So it is a very good process. One that luckily we were given an extension to take it into January because I was out for the most of November. And then so today we are going to talk about this plan and lay out how we
024are going to reduce that $17 million over the course of the next two years. So that when we reach 2028, we do have a positive fund balance. So as we've gone through this process and we've worked as a team, we've kept what we value in the forefront and all the decisions we make is making sure that we are living up to the striving for excellence, building leadership and supporting community. And so we think that we have a pretty good plan. And as we go through this process, everything that we've made a decision on is to do it in a way that protects our core business, that protects what we believe is important for our students and our families and our staff. And you will see some things that will be a shift and will be
025a change. But without this change, we are not gonna be able to make these reductions. So as I mentioned earlier, the large share of what we do and what we spend our money on, 84% of our budget are people. And so no matter what you do when you're making a budget cuts in education or in a school system, you are touching people. And so we're gonna talk buildings and programs, which will lead us to a reduction in personnel, which will also lead us to reduce spending. We believe that consolidating buildings and closures just in closing the buildings alone will help us reduce transportation costs, reduce operations costs and help us with staff duplication and that staff services and supplies. So the first part of this is our K-6 elementary transition. That was happening without this
026budget deficit. It was something that our last strategic plan we put in place and we went out and we got a bond issue passed and we're building to a new elementary school. So we were going to consolidate elementary. Because of this, we are now speeding that process up. So we talked about this back in October, but I'm gonna go through it again because the need to speed it up to gain savings this year, rather than waiting for Lincoln to be finished in 27. Some of the grade transitions or building transitions have changed. So first of all, opening in the spring or in the fall of 26, Timken Elementary. Timken Elementary will replace Whirling. The Whirling staff and Whirling students will go to Timken Elementary. Again, it is all of the current Whirling will go to
027Timken. Some Clariden students, some Stone students and some Gibbs students. The Whirling building will be repurposed. It'll be mothballed for a year, but the following year, 27, 28, it will be repurposed for district use. The Whirling attendance zone will pretty much stay the same except that it will pick up and go into the Myers Lake area. But it will pretty much stay the same attendance zone. Picking up some of Bellstone, you can see that there on that map. Because of this transition, Bellstone will close. Bellstone, at the end of this school year, we will have the building appraised and we will offer the building for sale. And again, the part of this plan is making sure that we have fewer places to maintain and to upkeep. And so we're not just gonna leave buildings all
028over the city. We will follow the process and get rid of the buildings as soon as we possibly can. The attendance zone for, again, the students at Stone Elementary. Some of the students will go to Gibbs. So if the kids live south of 19th Street Northeast, they will go to Gibbs. Students who live east of Nemesilla Creek and the railroad tracks will go to Yutz. Students who live north of 19th Street Northeast and west of Nemesilla Creek and the railroad tracks will go to Temkin. Temkin will be around 500 students. When all the transitions move and I believe the building holds what, 550? So it holds 550 so it'll be pretty packed and that was the goal for this transition. Yutz Elementary. Yutz currently is an intermediate school. Next year it will transition and will
029become a K to six building. Current attendance kids, the students going to Yutz will be current Yutz students and some Gibbs students. Some students who are currently going to Bellstone but they live in the Yutz neighborhood will attend Yutz next year. Again, that attendance zone, northern and eastern border is the city borders. The western border is Nemesilla Creek that we talked about for when the Bellstone slide and then the southern border is Mahoney Road to the east branch of the Nemesilla Creek and for all the people who are listening at home or here in the audience are like, will you talk about Nemesilla Creek or which way is this? The north side, I get that. For our parents, we're gonna send you letters telling you, hey, here's a school that your child will attend next
030year so you will know and we will try to get that information out before our parent meetings so when we have our parent meeting, people will come knowing where their students go to school but this is the best way because you really can't see these maps and if you know the city, you know where I'm talking about and most of these, there's just a few tweaks to some of these and then some of them you're gonna hear about tonight are major, major changes but so for the most part, the Yutz's zone staying the same except for K-3, you don't have to go to Stone anymore. You're gonna stay in your neighborhood and be closer to your school and you're gonna kind of get that theme through everything that I'm talking about. We are truly, truly,
031truly trying to get to neighborhood schools and reduce transportation and in that first slide, I talked about how can we save money? We, because of where us busing our own students all over the city, we spent more, over $2 million more in transportation than we received from the state and trust me, transporting kids and non-public charters help with that but we also have a lot of buses around the city as well and this is gonna allow us to be more efficient. Gibbs Elementary, when we last spoke, Gibbs was going to be K-4 because we weren't ready to transition because Lincoln wasn't open and some of the kids at Gibbs, in order for Gibbs to be a K-6, needed to go to a K-6 Clarity. We decided to go ahead and move forward and you'll see
032why as I continue through this presentation. So Gibbs is gonna be a K-6, it'll expand from the K-3. Again, they will take some kids who are currently at Gibbs and some Yut students there, their new attendance zone. Again, a northern border, 18th Street between Cleveland and Market and 19th Street between Market and the city's eastern border. The eastern border, Nemesilla Creek and the railroad between 19th and Mahoney and then the OJ's Parkway south of Mahoney to 10th Street Northeast. The southern border, 10th Street Northeast between Cherry and OJ's Parkway, 9th Street Northeast between Cherry and Market and then 12th Street Northwest between Market and Cleveland and then the western border, which is a change, Cleveland Avenue from 18th Street Northwest to 12th Street Northwest and Market Avenue to 12th Street to 9th Street. Patrick Elementary.
033Patrick is on this because they're already a K-6, but we are changing their attendance zones and shifting in a little bit. If you've had a chance to visit Patrick, Patrick has our highest enrollment as far as our current elementary school. Every room at Harters used to teach class. I mean, Patrick used to teach classes. We have art on the cart. I believe we have music on the cart and we would like to balance the enrollment a little bit. So we're shifting some of the attendance zones so the rooms could be used for the purpose that the rooms are made for. So the majority of the Patrick students will remain. Some Patrick students will go to Belden. You'll hear me talk about that later. And some McGregor students, current McGregor students will transition to Patrick. So
034the northern border of the Patrick attendance zone will be Tuscaraw's West from I-77 to Route 43. Third Street to South, Third Street Southeast from Route 43 to Sterling Southeast, and then the industry railroad tracks. South eastern border will be Sherrick Run Creek and then Allen Avenue Southeast and Mill Street Southeast. And then the western border will be I-77 to the railroad tracks at Navarro Road and then Dubra Avenue Southwest from Danner Road to the city board. Cedar Elementary. When we last spoke, this past next school year, Cedar was going to remain a K-3 and McGregor, its sister school, would remain an intermediate building until Lincoln was completed and ready to open in 27-28. We've decided that in order to get savings now and not wait until that next year so we could have two years
035of the savings that we are going to combine Cedar McGregor next school year into one building. And then they will all move together in the fall of 27. That will allow us to realize those savings in 26 and also realize the savings in 27, which will help us reach our goal. All of the current Cedar and most of McGregor students will attend Cedar. The attendance zone changes. Again, these attendance zone changes are impacting students who are now going to go to Patrick. So the northern border is Tuscarawas West. The eastern border is I-77 from Tuscarawas to Navarro Railroad tracks and Dubra Southwest to the city border. The southern border is the city border and then the western border is the city border. So pretty much the same there except for that kind of that eastern
036border there, which we are working to send some students to Patrick. Clareden Elementary, when we talked last time, Clareden was going to be an intermediate school for one more year. Now it's going to be a K intermediate school. It will be kindergarten and grades four, five, and six. And we're doing this because we're making a change at harder. So any student who is going to attend, any new kindergarten student who is going to attend Clareden for first grade in 27, 28 will take, will enroll as a kindergarten student in 26. We didn't want to enroll them at harder for one year and then move our youngest students to a new school building the next year. So we're going to enroll them. There'll be space because of some other moves. There'll be space there at Clareden
037and we will have a couple of kindergarten sections to go along with four, five, and six at Clareden. Again, it will remain a four, five, six building. Current Clareden and harder students will still attend. So the border's there. The northern border will be 12th and 13th street northwest between the western border and I-77. The eastern border will be I-77 from 13th street northwest and 4th street northwest. And then Arlington Avenue from 4th street northwest and Tuscarawas West. The southern border will be 4th street northwest from I-77 to Arlington. And then Tuscarawas West from Arlington Northwest to the city border. And then the western border there is the city border there on the northwest side. Harder Elementary. Harder will be a K-4. So we are taking all the kindergarten students out of Harder who will be
038going to Clareden the next year, which will reduce Harder to probably just one kindergarten section the next year. The students in kindergarten will be students who will be going to Lincoln the next year. Those are students who live in the old Baxter neighborhood on the southwest side. And so those students will be going. There's, we can't fit them in the Cedar. Cedar is jam-packed. So they're new, they're gonna come. They'll be with only students in that kindergarten class who are gonna move with them to Lincoln. So they'll know those kids and we'll move teachers with them that will help them be familiar to help ease that. And we'll have things in place to help that transition. So if you are a kindergarten student living in that Baxter neighborhood and you're enrolling, you're enrolled at Harder
039with a bunch of friends who will be making the transition to Lincoln with you. Fourth grade students. Right now, Harder is K-3. There are current third graders at Harder who will be going to Lincoln because they live in the Baxter neighborhood. We're not gonna move them to Clareden and then turn around and move them to Lincoln. So we're gonna let them stay at Harder for one year and then at the end of the year, they will go to Lincoln. Now, current K-1, 2, and 3 students or K-1 and 2 students who are at Harder who are going to Lincoln, they will stay there for first, second, and third grade. There are also some current K-1 and 2 students who are going to Clareden. They will stay there next year as well because Clareden won't have
040first, second, and third grade. At the end of next year, the students who are going to Clareden will go to Clareden and the students who are going to Lincoln will go to Lincoln. And that at point in time, Harder will cease to be an elementary school. The reason for that is the majority of the students who go to Harder are either driven there by their parents or bus there. A lot more students live within a walkable distance of Clareden. So we are going to keep Clareden at that Northwest End K-6 Elementary. Harder will be repurposed and open up the 27, 28 school year as a new program that we believe will give us an opportunity to meet the needs of some of our neediest students, but also generate revenue. And we need to look for
041ways to generate revenue by offering some of the programs that we believe we are uniquely positioned to offer to other districts in the county. So stay tuned for that when we're still studying it, but the building will be used. Let the folks know that neighborhood, the building will be used by us in the future. So for next year, the attendance zone orders are a combination of Clareden and Cedar, Lincoln boundaries. So kind of explain that. And then kind of went through all these things. Current first, second grade students will stay harder. Current third grade students will go to Clareden if they live in a Clareden neighborhood, harder if they live in future Lincoln neighborhood. Next year's kindergartners that live in current, harder Lincoln neighborhood will attend harder. Basically, better way of explaining it than I
042do. All right, and then the next phase of this, that was just the K-6 transition. We knew that was happening. We sped it up. It was supposed to take place over two years. It is now, it is all happening pretty much in a year. Now we're going to consolidate programs and close some buildings. So you heard me talk about Belden. Currently, Belden is the home of our AIM Academy, which is a balanced calendar school. Next year, AIM will return to a traditional schedule and it will be a K-6 elementary school. Called Belden. And the reason for that is again, when we look at where our kids live, I think right now currently 30% of the AIM enrollment lives in the Belden attendance zone. And then if you take the kids who will be shifting from
043Patrick that currently go to AIM, that number gets closer to 40%. We also bus a great deal of kids who live right around the corner from AIM to Patrick. And so by making AIM a K-6 elementary school, we cut down on the amount of buses. And so you're getting that trend. We're talking walkable, more elementary schools that are walkable for more students. So we're talking, even if they're not walkable, they're shorter bus rides, which means we can turn buses around quicker. And so again, trying to generate savings without touching classrooms and things that we offer. So we had an opportunity to meet with that staff today. And on the 13th, we will meet with those parents to let them know and the options that they have. So the students who are currently at AIM, who
044don't live in that Belden neighborhood, they can transition back to their homeschool. They can apply and choose to attend another one of our choice options if there is space. And they can apply to stay at Belden as an inter-district enrollment, but there won't be any transportation. The good thing is we were working with the AIM staff for them to transition to become a STEM school. And that is still going to happen. So Belden will be a neighborhood school, but it will also be working towards becoming a state approved STEM school. So again, Belden will be open. And the attendance zone for Belden will be, the Northern border will be 9th Street between Market and Route 43. Lawrence Road Northeast between Route 43 and Spring Avenue Northeast. Some of those current Gibbs students will be going
045to Belden. 10th Street between Route 43 and the OJ's Parkway. The OJ's Parkway to Mahoney, to Belden, to East Branch, Demacilla Creek. The Eastern border is the city border. The Southern border will be Tuscarawas West from Market to Cherry. 3rd Street Southeast from Route 43 to Sterling Southeast and the Industry Road railroad tracks. And then the Western border will be Market between 9th Street Northeast and Tuscarawas and Cherry between Tuscarawas and Cherry Southeast. A much bigger zone than what Belden used to be, but it will help ease some of the, it will help ease some of the overcrowding at Patrick, but it will also shorten bus routes and allow a lot more kids to walk the belt. Canton Arts Academy. We, as of right now, when we spoke with them this morning, next year, Canton
046Arts Academy would be a first through sixth elementary school. But after talking with them, we are gonna explore maybe having K there next year. There's some good reasoning for doing that, so we will continue to look into that. This year, we've been working with the Arts Academy and working with them. We did a SWOT analysis of how they felt the program was going and what they felt needed to happen to improve our arts programming. And one of the things they stressed to us as a staff was that they wanted to focus on more fourth, fifth, and sixth grade, and they wanted to bring back seventh and eighth grade. They also wanted to make sure that we brought back a more stringent auditioning process so we could truly get kids who are interested in the arts
047and then one big thing they asked for was performance space, that they didn't have to sign out, they didn't have to get a bus, and they didn't have to miss class time, they could just go use it when they needed it. And so we really wanted to make that happen for them. Unfortunately, the building that they have is landlocked, and to be honest with you, I actually have drawings of a building for them that we had drawn up with our first strategic plan, and we're just not able to acquire the properties with the finances that we have now, we're not able to do that. With the recent addition we added on to Crenshaw, we now have space in the bottom of Crenshaw to have a separate school. The plan was to turn Crenshaw's gym into
048an auditorium, so we met with them today, and in 27 transition, arts will transition to a four through eight choice program that will be located at Crenshaw. So it'll be the Arts Academy at Crenshaw Middle School, they will have a separate entrance, they will be at on the lower level there. Mr. Dixon and his operations team worked with our architects to get these renderings that we think we should be able to do. There are enough rooms for them to have their own area there to operate as a school within a school there, and for them to have an auditorium of their own for their performance space. And so this here is something that we thought could happen with that Crenshaw space, and this will allow us to do that. The fact that it will be
049housed at a middle school with CareerTech programming will allow us to integrate some of the CareerTech fields there, and some of the CareerTech fields align right with our arts programming and the creativity pathway. So we will again meet with our parents to let them know this and how this transition will happen, but it is a year and a half out, so we'll start for the 27-28 program. We hope that this will allow us to expand our arts offering to grow the number of kids who are in our art specific school, and we will feed that up into our arts pathway program at the high school. The arts are very, very important. We have a lot of kids who learn that way through creativity, and we want to make sure that we are supporting them in
050their growth as we move forward. So with arts moving, that leaves an empty building. That empty building will become Summit Elementary. Summit will reopen as a neighborhood elementary. Currently, the kids who live right across the street and around Summit get on a bus and go to Gibbs or go to Clareton, and we bus them when they could walk. So keeping with the theme of cutting down transportation and saving money without impacting the classroom, this will allow us to do that. So in the 27-28 school year, Summit Elementary will reopen as a neighborhood elementary. So the new attendance zones will open in the quarter 27-28 school year. Again, the northern border will be 12th Street Northwest between I-77 and Arnold Northwest, 17th Street Northwest between Arnold Northwest and Cleveland, 12th Street Northwest between Cleveland and Market,
051and then 4th Street Northwest between I-77 and Arlington. The eastern border will be Cleveland Avenue Northwest between 17th Street Northwest and 12th Street Northwest, and Market Avenue North between 12th Street Northwest The southern border will be Tuscarawas West between Arlington and Market Avenue North and the western border will be Arnold Avenue Northwest between 17th Street Northwest and 12th Street and I-77 between 12th Street Northwest and 4th Street Northwest and then Arlington Northwest between 4th Street Northwest and Tusk. This will impact some of the kids who are going to Clarendon because the kids who live closer to the park, they were bussed up the hill to Clarendon and so this will allow us to kind of balance that out and again have more kids who either walk or have a very short bus ride and again
052that will allow us to pick those kids up, drop them off at school and go do something else and that again will save miles, which will save dollars, which will save jobs. Fairmount Learning Center, Fairmount Learning Center will, the programs there will move to Compton Learning Center. Right now the top floor of Compton is completely empty. So the programs there, we're not cutting programs, we're going to move them there. We'll be working with the staff to determine if some of the programs may need to go to different buildings because of the age groups but everything that's in Fairmount will move out starting next school year, Fairmount will be a prey and will be listed for sale and will not be operated by Canton City Schools moving forward. So to summarize where we're going to be
053with the K-6 elementary transition and the combining of some of our programs, Cedar will be a K-6 instead of a K-3. Cedar will move to Lincoln in 27-28 and Cedar will be repurposed for a program. The buildings will become a K-6 and remain a K-6, Harter will become a K-4, 26-27, it will be closed as a school and repurposed in 27-28, Stone will be closed in 26 and the building will be sold, Clarendon will be a K-4, 6-6 intermediate kindergarten building for a year and then will become Clarendon K-6, McGregor will be closed at the end of this school year and then the building will be repurposed the next school year. Yutz will transition to a K-6 next school year and will remain a K-6. AIM which is currently a K-6 choice building will become
054Belden, a neighborhood K-6 and will remain a K-6. Arts is a K-6 choice program, will remain in its current location for the 26-27 school year, then will transition to grades 4-8 and will be the Arts Academy at Crenshaw. Patrick will become a K-6, will remain a K-6 but will have some attendance zone changes and will lose some students to Belden, will gain some students from McGregor and Cedar. Worley will transition and change its name to Temkin and move into a new building. That will be next year. Fairmount will be closed at the end of this school year and all programming will be moved to Compton unless the team decides that some of it may fit in another building. So that is a lot, but by doing that and consolidating buildings, we get out of a
055lot of buildings and like I said at our last meeting, we're still operating the same amount of buildings we operated when we had 13,000 students. That causes us to have duplications in staff, duplications in services and I spend a lot of money on upkeep. You heard me toss this number out before, some of our older buildings like Stone, like Fairmount, like Schreiber, which I didn't talk about and I will have nearly $64 million in deferment. Right now you're saying we're trying to cut 17, let alone using $64 million to fix that stuff. So if we can get out some of our older buildings that cost more to repair and stay in our newer older buildings, which are about 25 years old, it will be cheaper for us to repair and we actually have some money
056put away to do just that. That's what we hope. So moving on to support buildings. We have two buildings that we are going to look to move out of. The first one, I lost the slide, the first one is not on there. It is, did you take that off? The first one would be the business service center where our treasurer, Mallory, resides. We're going to sell that building. I don't know where he's going, but he's getting out. But we will look to get out of our business service center and sell that building and then we will also look to get out of the Nadine McElwain Administrative Center and that property building will be demolished and it will be turned into parking because we have no parking here as we continue to grow our adult ed
057and the Bulldog Activity Center is jam packed all the time. So I can't tell you exactly when that's going to happen, but we hope to be moving in that process by the 27-28 school year. So total with all of these reductions and closing of buildings, staffing, we will save just under 12 and a half million dollars. Capital outlay just under three million dollars, materials and supplies just over a million dollars and purchase services, 1.3 million dollars for a total of 17,757,757 in savings. That gets us to where we need to go and we'll get the state out of our hair. So if you look at the year end balances, 27 will have 15 million left over, 28 1.3 million and we're still broke, but it's a positive number, especially when you have nearly a 200
058million dollar budget, not enough to work with the next school year, but we don't have the state coming to tell us what to do. But the scary part is in fiscal year 29, even with these cuts, we still have a negative number of 10 and a half million, over 10 and a half million dollars and again, what we need people to understand is that when we pass the levy in 2020, we said that we usually go seven years before we need more money. Seven years would be 2027. The last forecast we had had us with a positive balance until 2029, which means that the board would have lived up to their promise to this community of extending that levy for more than what we usually you do. Our budget was cut by four million dollars
059at the state level and three million dollars at the federal level programs that help our kids do better. And if something does not change, we're going to be doing this exercise over and over again. For instance, just last weekend, if you watched the news, governor signed into law a new kindergarten rule that is being touted as aligning kindergarten start date, because right now some schools have August 1st as their date and some schools have September 30th as their date. And if you're our students, if you're five by September 30th, you can start kindergarten, at that time you're four. The new law states, and again, it's being done to align days, but the new law states that if you are five by the first day of kindergarten, you can start kindergarten. I don't know how that
060aligns because not one school starts on the same day as the other school. We don't even have schools that start on the same day in our district. AIM starts in July, so if a kid is not five in July, they can't go to kindergarten at AIM. But if the next week they turn five, they can go to kindergarten at one of our other schools. The scary part about it is that they're cheering that this will save the state millions of dollars because kids won't get to go to kindergarten. And so I always ask the question, well, what kid won't get to go to kindergarten? We have students who are in preschool right now who go to preschool for either free or very low cost because we receive federal dollars through an early childhood expansion grant.
061Those students, the ones, and it's probably about 40 students a year, I think, that there are 40 of them that will start kindergarten at four because their birthdays fall between the start of kindergarten and September 30th. Those students will not be able to go to kindergarten next year. And because the federal law says that you can't use that money to pay for five-year-olds for preschool, they can't go to preschool either. So where do they go? And this isn't just something that our folks in Columbus missed because we wrote them a letter and told them this would be something that happens if they did this. They knew that this would cause a problem and yet they still passed the law and they still cheer that kids living in poverty will not have the opportunity to go
062to preschool or go to kindergarten. So that's where we are. And so we are going to look out for ourselves and do the best thing. That's why it's really important that we make these hard decisions now so that we have the money because we cannot count on people to do right right now. And so we're going to do this. And then after this year, we are going to need additional revenue. And so we're going to have to put a levy on the ballot in 2026. Again, the newspaper and things coming on social media will tell you that the big bad schools are wasting your money. Please do your research. We, the state, is taking their responsibility of funding public schools and not just Canton, not just Cleveland, not just Akron. If you follow it, you
063will see that the state used to fund 60 percent public education. They have moved to now 40 state, 60 percent local. Everybody's going to be coming back looking for money. So we have to come back because that 10 million dollars, if we're going to have to go after that, then we're going to have to cut programs. We're going to have to cut things we offer students. So it probably will be a 7.9 million levy on the ballot in November of 26. That will generate an additional 8.4 million dollars, and that will get us over the hump. And then we will promise again to this community that we will live within our means. And hopefully, people won't see that as a bad thing. I never heard of having money in your savings account being a bad
064thing. But we were told we had too much money in our savings account, so they took money from us. And you can Google that, and you will find that as well. I don't have to say names on someone that we put in the office who said that about us. So that's where we are. We're making these cuts. My hope, as I talked to some of the staff today, classify or certify staff, our teachers. We have 90 teachers who leave us every year. We need to cut, I think, 29 or 30 of them in order to make our budget. So I think we'll be able to meet that reduction through attrition without layoffs with teachers. Our administrative staff, we need to make nine cuts there. That's about 10 percent of our administrative staff. I believe we
065have four or five retirees already. And if we don't get any more, then we will have to make cuts to our administrative staff. And our classified staff, now, our classified staff's a little different. Like, our teaching staff usually stays all year, and they go at the end of the year. So we lose 90 between May and in August. Our classified staff kind of comes and goes all year long. But it's over 100 throughout the year. And so we probably will have to make some reductions. But we think that over the course of the year, a lot of those people may be called back. I hope that that will happen. It's not something we want to do. But in order to make, in order to make sure we do not have a negative number move in
066the year, two of our forecast, we're going to have to make these tough decisions now. The goal is for us to have our listening sessions. We'll have a meeting. We'll have a meeting next week for the community to come and to ask questions about this plan. We'll clarify as much as we can for them. And we'll take suggestions and recommendations. I have to say that we put a lot of time in this, but I've never done one of these and not have somebody give a good idea at one of the community meetings that are usually put in the plan somewhere. There's not a lot of wiggle room in this, but it's good for everybody, for us to be transparent, so we will be. Also, starting next week, we have a bunch of parent meetings because
067parents need to know where their kids are going to school, and we want to get that information to them as soon as possible. So we will have, starting at Worley on the 7th and then Bellstone on the 8th, then we go to AIME on the 13th, Yutz on the 14th, Gibbs on the 15th. Then next week, we're at Patrick and Arts on the 20th, Cedar on the 21st, and Clarendon on the 22nd. So we're going to get out and get as much information from our families and our community as we can before we put the final plan before the board. So you have all the information before you approve the final plan on the 26th of January. So there's a lot of moving parts, but what this does is it gets us closer to the
068right size, it allows us to make the necessary reductions by ending some of the duplication, by allowing us not to replace some staff that's leaving us when it comes to teachers, and it allows us to get out of some of the buildings that, quite frankly, we've needed to be out for a year. So with that said, I'll leave the floor to the board for questions. Okay, a couple of questions. What is going to be the basic enrollment in all the schools? Is it going to be like 500 or smaller? So it depends on the building, the occupancy. So the two new buildings, we built them big for a reason. We needed them to be big to hold a lot of kids so we could go to K-6. But most of them we are going to
069try to get to as close to 90% as we can with occupancy. We want them full. And the reason for that is what we're hearing, if you remember last year, there was something in the budget bill that talked about buildings that weren't at capacity were going to have to be offered for sale to non-pubs and charters. And what we're hearing is that votes are being collected to maybe bring that back. And so we want to make sure that the buildings that are newer, that are ours, are full, and they're not subject to any law that comes out like that moving forward. So we're going to try to keep them as full as possible. And that's why you're seeing the moves and changing some of the attendance zones, to make sure buildings are full, but to
070also make sure that they're not too full, that classroom spaces that are designed for certain things can't be used for those purposes. So full is like 300 and some, 400 and some? So some of our, most of our buildings, 400 is full, like 400 is jam-packed for some of them. And then some of them, 500 is full. So we've got bigger buildings, like Belden, Patrick, bigger building, believe it or not, Cedar for now, Summit. And then we have some buildings like Clarendon, which is a little bit smaller, which will be just over 400, will be jam-packed. Yutz is bigger than you think, but somewhere just over 400 will be packed there. Gibbs is a little smaller than those other ones, so just over 400 will be packed there. So we're looking as close to 400
071for some and some between 450 and 500. And then Lincoln, 700. Oh, Lord. So my second question is, what would the classroom sizes look like? And will there be an assistant in classrooms that have to be larger? There are a lot of teachers out in the audience, and I refuse to answer that question because I can't run out of here fast enough. That's a good question. So as we speak right now, our class sizes, and when we did our restructuring, our strategic plan, we went 25 in kindergarten with an aid in every kindergarten class. We went to 22 grades, one through three, and then 25, four through 12. With this, kindergarten will continue to have aids in every kindergarten classroom, but they will be between 25 and 28 in order to make the reduction. Our
072one, two, and three classes are going to have to move closer to 25 from 22, and our four through six will remain at 25. Our seven through 12 will be closer to 28. And that's going to allow us to make the reductions that we have to make as well and allow us to be able to fit 400 kids in some of our buildings because we have enough classrooms to do that. That's a good question. So with it being crowded like this, what will open enrollment look like for students outside the district? At our elementary buildings, not a lot. At our elementary buildings, but there's still Crenshaw Holds, 800 kids. There won't be 800 there. Maybe five, six, so there will be room there. Layman Holds, 750. It's pretty full, but we can squeeze a few
073kids in there because the early college students go to college early, and so they're not there as juniors and seniors, so there's some space there. There's usually 200 students out, so we can get students in there. And nine through 12, we have space all over the place. McKinley once held 2,200 students, and it's down to like 16. So we have space. The key with open enrollment is to not take kids that make you have to hire more kids so you have to hire extra teachers. You want to fill classes up, and so we will monitor that and continue to do that. So I think we'll still be able to do it in spots. So open enrollment within a district, because I don't want my child to go to Patrick. I want them to go here.
074Is there room for that? It'll be if there's space, and that, again, intra-district open enrollment will be first, then open enrollment. But those who open enrollment will have to transport themselves, right? Yes, they have to transport themselves. So there will be, again, there will be some space. They said it. I think Timken holds 550. There's only 500 students there, so there's 50 slots of folks. There are some spots, but it's going to be tight, and that's on purpose. Good question. Are there any more questions? Yes. Superintendent Talbert, approximately how many cuts do you anticipate to the classified staff? 35. That'll be about 1% of the total staff. Does that go by seniority or by work ethic? It goes by seniority. Yes, it goes by seniority. Any other questions? As we move forward with this, we
075will put on our website frequently asked questions. We will also have an email address. I think the email address is going to be something really nice, like feedback at ccsdistrict.org, so people can give us feedback. Again, we want as much information as we can, so that this Board of Education can make the best decision possible. Superintendent Talbert, you mentioned earlier in your presentation that you were going to discuss Schreiber. Are you going to do that today or at a different time? So if you remember back when we did this, we first talked about restructuring. Schreiber was on the block to move the world, if you guys remember that. Then we kind of backed away from that. But Mr. Dixon reminded me today, and that's really old, and then so we started talking about it. We
076don't have a plan for where, but we are going to explore if there's an option to move worldly into a newer space. Not worldly, but Schreiber, the preschool program to a newer space. And we want to get this out there because it always keeps coming back. We are not getting rid of our preschool program. So everybody, like every year, we get asked that question, and it's like we have a really good preschool program and we're going to continue to do it. I think we do a great job of that. And so, but we are going to explore maybe one of the repurposed buildings that we have, maybe putting them in there and move them. So we will look into that. Thank you. Other questions? So where is the business office and the administration office going
077to move to? They're just going to camp out on the street? We're going to cut everybody. No. So we will move together, and it could be into one of the repurposed elementaries because we will have a few. We have McGregor, we will have Harder, we will have Worley. So there will be some that ones that we are keeping that are newer buildings. So we can move into those, but we will, again, take a year or so to look into that and we won't do anything with the current buildings until we know what we're going to do and we want to do it in a way again that is fiscally responsible. Again, it's those are two buildings right now that again, we were if we can get under one roof, one of the buildings at least
078will be a safe. We don't have to clean, we don't have to eat and we're all under one roof. And so we'll look into that right now. It's getting everybody into an elementary building where they need to go first and then we'll come back to that. That concludes my presentation for tonight. Thank you, Mr. Tabbert. We look forward and to our meetings that are scheduled, go to the website. We can look at specific times and dates and we hope you attend and participate. Are those meetings going to be online? I mean, yeah, no. Okay. Okay. Do we have any new business? Oh, no. Executive. Well, okay. We want to make a motion to adjourn at this time. You're free. Seconding second that meeting adjourned. Thank you for coming.