001Good evening. Welcome to the special meeting on the Canton City School Board of Education on Monday, January 12th in our Timken Career Campus in downtown Canton. We now call this meeting to order at 6 p.m. Please silence your electronic devices at this time. And if you would, please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. If you are here tonight, we welcome you. And if you are online, we thank you for taking the time to navigate our webpage to join us. Mr. Gruber, can you please call the roll? Mr. Brown. Present. Mr. Parks. Present. Ms. Watkins. Present. Mrs. Brown. Present. Okay. Now we need approval of
002our agenda for tonight. So moved. Second. Thank you. Okay. And now we'll go to our superintendent's report. Tonight's public speaks during tonight's question and answer period. The Board of Education is here to listen to the community concerns, but they will not respond to them. All responses will be given by the superintendent, Talbert, or his staff. Tonight's feedback session will be governed by the same rules of quorum used during the public speaks portion of our regular board meetings, which means that the president may rule out of order any person using disrespectful language, obscenities, or arguing a point. The meeting will conclude at 730. Any remaining participants will be asked to fill out a question card so their inquiries may be reviewed by the board. We thank everyone for coming out tonight and look forward to a
003productive feedback session. Thank you, Vice President Brown. So thank everyone. I'd like to thank everyone for coming out tonight. This is our third meeting to discuss our budget on reduction plan that we have to do as a result of our October forecast. And the state has required us to put together a reduction plan, a written reduction plan, and submit it to them by the end of January. That plan will be approved by the board at our January 26th special board meeting. So tonight, what I would like to do is to go through our agenda here is recap basically how we got to this point and walk everyone through so everyone understands how we ended up with our five-year forecast and the deficit in 2028. We'll talk briefly about our funding sources, and it's just basically
004one slide of where our money comes from. Then we'll go over the plan in a much shorter fashion than we did last time. And then we're going to open the floor up to you guys to give you an opportunity to ask questions and to make comments. And after that part of our meeting is over tonight, then we will wrap up by discussing what the next steps are so everyone's on the same page. So to kick us off tonight, I have a short video montage of a few meetings. For fiscal year 2024, we're estimating we're going to have an available balance at the end of this fiscal year of about $41 million. This is one of the healthiest five-year forecasts that I think I've seen in a long time in this district. Information that he supplies
005us is vital to making sure that the district is moving in a positive direction and that we're able to remain fiscally responsible to our share, our stakeholders. Looking at this five-year forecast, we don't know what the state's going to do funding-wise. We'd like to see the list of the 36 school districts negatively impacted by the repeal of supplemental targeted assistance. We'll just go through some of the names. First on the list, this is largest reduction to least largest reduction. Number one, in the state, Dayton, second, Toledo, third, Cleveland Municipal, fourth, Canton City, fifth, Lorraine City, sixth, Youngstown City, ninth, Akron City. All of these districts appear to have certain things in common. In May, we were able to remain solvent through fiscal year 2028. That is no longer the case. We are staring at a
006deficit of over 17 million dollars now in fiscal year 2028. When they pulled the rug out from us on September 25th, it was a shock to the system. The forecast that's in the packet, that was prepared prior to the vote. Once we knew the vote took place and the repercussions of that, I had to update this. We updated this morning. It's in your hands now. Again, we used to be solvent through 2028. That is not the case. As we are currently constructed, we anticipate a deficit of 17.1 million dollars in 28. In 29, that rises to 37.5 million dollars. And in 2030, it's an incomprehensible 58.5 million dollar shortfall. I don't need to tell the board or people watching at home that decisions are going to have to be made. When is it going to
007end? So everybody's setting out in the suburbs, not caring? They're coming for you because there's money tied to your district. They just haven't got to you yet. So we wanted to start off by showing that video clip there to just make sure that everybody understands that we kind of anticipated this coming. The Kansas City School District back in the fall of 2023 had a five year forecast that board members who sat here and have been here for a long time said was the best forecast that they've ever seen since their time on the board. You go to May and June of 2025 when the state legislature, they were debating what was going to happen with school funding and doing the biennium budget. And all the school districts in the county held a forum to discuss
008what was being proposed. And we were in a sense sounding the alarm to what could happen if the wrong things happen with school funding. Then we fast forward to our board meeting in October where a five year forecast that was done in May said we were going to be solvent through 2028. And in that clip, you also heard that, yes, we had work to do. 2029, we had a negative number. 2030, there was probably a negative number. But at the end of every forecast, there's always a negative number. The forecast that we saw in May of 2024 would have shown a negative number. We reduced that negative number that year. Between 23 and today, we reduced over 100 positions, making sure that we were able to remain fiscally solvent for this community. So the reason
009why we are here today is because of decisions that were made in Columbus that directly impact school districts, not only the Canton City School District. Although we're here to talk about us today, and yes, we are going to be hit harder than some. If you've paid attention to school funding, the fair school funding formula was not fully funded by the state of Ohio. What we are losing, something called targeted supplemental assistance, which for us is about $4.3 million, was implemented during the fair school funding formula to hold districts like Canton, districts that had high poverty, harmless, as the formula was being implemented. The formula did not fully take into account what it actually costs to educate students that have high needs. So while they were figuring that out, they put in this targeted supplemental assistance
010to make sure that districts like Canton got enough money to educate their student body. They also created something called the supplemental assistance, a supplemental aid. This was put in place for small rural districts or suburban districts who, when the new fair school funding plan came into effect and they were put on the formula, they were going to get less money until the formula caught up to current costs to educate students. So they were put on this supplemental transitional aid. That money held their funding flat or held their funding the same as it would have been in 2021. And so they remained on that until this year, and we remained on the targeted supplemental assistance. So what is different today? All the districts who got targeted supplemental assistance were told that that was going to be
011cut to zero. All the districts on the transitional aid took a five to five percent cut this year and an additional five percent cut next year. For us, Kansas City School District, we are now on what they call the formula. Our school funding is based on the formula, which would be great. And everyone will tell you that the formula gives us more money per student. And it does if it was fully implemented at twenty twenty six costs. But we they are still using twenty twenty one inputs to determine how we are funded. So please understand that we are expected to now pay twenty twenty six bills with money from twenty twenty one. So in essence, we are taking a four to six million dollar a year cut that we did not expect and did not
012have included in our forecast until October of this year. There are folks out there who will tell you that, yes, at the start of twenty twenty six, we had a forty one million dollar carryover and we did. And they are saying they will say that that is a negative. No, the only reason that we are here not under state takeover right now for finances is because we were fiscally responsible over the last three to four years to put money in our savings account for a rainy day. That rainy day will be here in twenty twenty eight if we don't do something about it. And that's why we're here talking about a reduction plan. We want to make sure that no one other than folks in this city or in this district have any say on
013how we spend our funds and what programs we need to offer to our students. So that's the plan that we're going to talk about today for fiscal year twenty twenty four. We're estimating. So, again, what we've lost targets, we lost target assistance. We lost target assistance. Four point three million dollars, a reduction in overall reduction in state aid that combined those two combined equal four point seven million dollars. We've also lost money at the federal level. Special education about two million dollars. Title one about five hundred thousand and twenty first century, about two hundred thousand. And that's this for this year. The information we're getting out of D.C. is that there will be further cuts going into next year from the federal level. As you know, everything hasn't continued to increase in prices and we're
014being funded based on what things cost in twenty twenty one. So, as Mr. Gruber said in the video, something has to give something has to be done. The plan and basically we are impacted by this more than some because 80 percent of the money we use to operate this district either comes from the state or the federal government. And so I think people need to understand that while you hear the school districts are responsible for raising property taxes and that is that is the case. The only other way we receive money, the 20 percent gap we have has to come from taxing our local base. But when the state or federal government makes a change here, we are impacted more than some of the districts around us. So we need to make cuts. And I
015want people to understand that some of the consolidation plan, a lot of the consolidation plan that you are going to hear tonight were put was put in place as a part of our last strategic plan. Some of these things are not new and I know we're receiving more media coverage and there are more people from outside who are looking in on us right now. But this board and this community put a bond issue on a few years ago to build two new elementary buildings. We did that because the community wanted to go to neighborhood elementary schools. Also, by building those two buildings, we were going to be able to consolidate buildings and get out of some of our older, our older aging buildings that had over 64 million dollars in deferred maintenance. Again, a way
016we were trying to be fiscally responsible to cut costs as we knew things were going to get more expenses, a way that we were going to try to stay ahead of the fiscal cliff that was coming because of the COVID and the ESSER funds. We were able to successfully do that until the rug was pulled out from underneath us by the state of Ohio. So the plan that you're going to hear talks about reducing buildings and consolidating programs. Also, because of that, we're going to be able to make staffing reductions. And then at the end, we would have to reduce our purchase service and materials. And I say that at the end because the lion's share of the money we spend in this district goes to paying people and paying for places. The stuff that
017we buy only equates to about 4% of the money we spend. So buildings and programs, just closing down the buildings themselves, the actual physical closing down the buildings, consolidating, reducing duplication, those things we think would get us between $950,000 to $1.3 million. Personnel, again, 84% of our operating expenditures for fiscal year 2025. We will make $3 million in cuts in administration, nine positions, approximately 10%. $3.5 million in our classified staff, approximately 34 positions. That's about 5% of that staff. And then our certified staff, $5.5 million, approximately 29 positions and about 4% of that staff. And then purchases and spending, between $500,000 and $1 million, we'll reduce there. Again, that is a moving target because it depends on enrollments. But that's 4% of our operating, buying per things, that counts for 4% of our operating expenditure.
018So the K-6 elementary transition plan, and I'm not going to walk through maps and do those things today. If you are interested in the zone changes and all of those things that are going to come with consolidating buildings, you can find that on our website at our previous board meeting. If you are a parent or family member here tonight, we have meetings scheduled at the buildings to go in depth on attended zone maps that the board will be considering as a part of this plan. So just to go through, starting the 25-26 school year, Cedar Elementary, which is currently a K-3 building, in 2026-27, it will become a K-6 building. In 27-28, all the students in Cedar Elementary in that K-6 building will move to the new Lincoln Elementary. And the Cedar Building will be
019used for other district purposes. Gibbs K-3, our elementary building, will become a K-6 in 26-27 and remain a K-6 in 27-28. Harder, which is currently a K-3 building, will become a K-4 building. Harder K next year will only be those students who in 27-28 will attend Lincoln. So they will only take next year kindergarten students who live in what will be the new Lincoln enrollment zone. The fourth graders at Harder next year, so current third graders, will only be those students who will also attend Lincoln the following year. Students in one through three, so students currently in kindergarten through the second grade at Harder, will remain at Harder. At the end of this school year, for next year, half of those students will go to Lincoln and the other half will go to Clarendon, which
020is Harder's sister school. Stone Elementary, which is a K-3 right now, will be closed and will remain closed. Clarendon Elementary, or Clarendon Intermediate School, is a 4-6 building. Next year, Clarendon will be a K and a 4-6 building. So as I mentioned earlier, Clarendon is the sister school to Harder. Any new student enrolling in kindergarten that would normally not go to Harder next year, they will go to Clarendon. So there will be the new kindergarten students at Clarendon. And we did that because we didn't want those students to enroll at Harder and then have to immediately transfer to next year to Clarendon. So they're going to start at Clarendon and be at kindergarten. The remaining students at Clarendon will stay there through 4-6. The following year, Clarendon will become a K-6, as half of the
021students in grades first, second, and third at Harder will transition over with them. McGregor. McGregor is currently a 4-6. McGregor is the sister school to Cedar Elementary, which is the first school on its list. McGregor will close at the end of this school year. That was going to happen next year, in 27-28 anyway, because it was going to combine with Cedar to move into the new Lincoln building. We're speeding it up because we need to make the reductions now to save the money. So McGregor will close at the end of this school year. Students will be spread out between Cedar and Patrick for next year. And then again, the students who are at Cedar, all those students will move together to Lincoln in 27-28. Yutz Intermediate Schools, currently a 4-6. Next year will be a
022K-6 building. The Yutz building will pick up students who are currently at Stone. Yutz will be a K-6 for 27-28. AIM. It's a K-6 choice school. It is a balanced calendar school. Students can attend AIM from all over the Canton City School District. In 26-27, AIM will return to being a neighborhood school on a traditional calendar, and it will be a K-6. This was made as a part of our reduction plan to get more kids closer to school and to reduce busing around the district to save money. ARTS is a K-6 choice school. Again, very similar to AIM. Students can enroll in this school from anywhere in the district, and they receive transportation. Next year, when we started this process, ARTS was going to become a 1-6. Before we put the plan before the board
023for approval, we might look at having some kindergarten students who live in the neighborhood attend, similar to what's happening at Harter. So you might see a change in that at our meeting on the 26th. In 27-28, the Arts Academy program will move to the Crenshaw Building, return to a 4-8 program. The elementary school that it now lives in will become a neighborhood elementary, return to Summit Elementary. Again, currently, what we have is a lot of the students who live in the Summit neighborhood are bused to Gibbs. So in order to make sure that more students have the opportunity to walk to school or have a school in their neighborhood to reduce busing as a part of this plan, we will return Summit to a K-6 elementary, and that will start in 27-28. Patrick Elementary is
024currently a K-6 building and will remain a K-6 building, although its attendance zone will change a little bit as we shift to getting students closer to where they live. Patrick's attendance zones are mainly impacted by opening up Belden, which will take some of those students away from Patrick because they live closer to Belden. Worley, currently a K-6 elementary. Worley will be closed next year. It will be mothballed for a year and then used for district purposes in 27-28. All of Worley will move to the new Timken Building. The new Timken Building is larger, holds about 500, 550 students, and it will take students at the Timken Building from the current Worley and some of the students from Belstone who are not going to Yutz or to Gibbs. Fairmount Learning Center, located in Fairmount Elementary, which
025is one of our older buildings, will be closed. The building, like Belstone, will be listed for sale and will be sold. The programs at Fairmount are not going away because they're very, very valuable programs. The staff and the programs and the students will move to the Compton Learning Center where we have room on the second floor. Support buildings that will also close. Our Business Service Center, we will look to move the programs or move the staff out of that building into another district building and we will sell that building. So we will be down that building. Our current Administrative Center, which is located on this campus, will also move central office to one of our other buildings and then we will demolish that building to make parking for the many needs that we have on
026this campus where there's no parking. Most of this reduction plan was in play two years from before where we are now. It was done because we knew that we had too many buildings for our population. Some of the things you're hearing about are things that had to be put in place that are simply being done to help us reduce costs to get away from the $17 million deficit that we now have in 2028. Summarizing what we've done, that in a two-year period of time, we will reduce staffing costs by $12.4 million, our capital outlay by nearly $3 million, our materials and supplies by a little over $1 million, and our purchase services by $1.3 million, totaling $17.7 million in reduction. So what this does to our balances, fiscal year 27, $15.5 million, fiscal year 28,
027$1.3 million to the good and not $17 million to the bad. Fiscal year 29, that leaves us with $10.5 million deficit in fiscal year 29. That means if something doesn't happen, something doesn't change, I'll be making the same speech in September or October of next year because the state will ask us again to do a plan. This is what happens when folks who are put in office to live up to a constitutional obligation to fund public schools don't accept that obligation. If you think that this is just Canton City, you're fooling yourselves. All it would take is for you to do a Google search of five-year forecasts of public school districts to look to see where they all are. An article was in the Beacon Journal not too long ago that said 45 school districts
028are going through what we're going through right now in the state of Ohio, and that is up from 25. That is not an accident. Folks will tell you that more money was given to public schools than was ever given before. I will tell you that you can also Google that the fair funding school plan was shorted about $2.5 billion. So something has to give. And so we can either bury our head in the sand and hope and pray that folks are going to give us money or we can take control of it ourselves. We believe we put a plan in front of you tonight that helps us take care of that. We will do everything we can to be fiscally responsible to live within our means and to protect our core and what we value
029here in this district. But if nothing changes at the state level, we only have a few ways to get dollars in this district. That is increasing enrollment or going back to our voters. And so we will be forced to place a levy on the ballot probably in 2026 for new funds, 7.9 mills that will generate approximately $8.4 million a year starting in the spring of 27. And that is if something doesn't change. And so that that is our picture here. Again, we're going to do everything we can to be fiscally responsible. That has been our challenge since I was hired by this Board of Education. The year I was hired in the spring of 2020, we had just passed the levy. The Board of Education at that time made a promise to this community to
030make cuts. We made those cuts in the fall of 2020 as we developed our strategic plan. If you looked at our five-year forecast when we were sitting here in 2023, we would not have needed new money until 2029. The history of this district with levies was that every seven years this district would ask for new money. We were going to surpass that and go nine years without asking for new money. So we believe that everything that we've been doing lived up to our promise to this community. And we ask that you continue to have faith in us as we continue to adjust and live in our current reality. So that being said, I'm going to open the floor for questions. And we'll have two people in the audience with mics and we'll circle the room
031for questions for the remainder of our time this evening. We have one up here. All right. Thank you. I have a few three questions, actually, if you don't mind. You mentioned that 2021 inputs for the budget haven't been updated in a while, and that's a big reason for some of the shortfalls. Is there a time that's known when those inputs get adjusted? I'm guessing inflation-related issues are the issue there, right? The difference, of course. Do they adjust those for inflation at any predictable or known time span? No? They have not published a timeline of when they are going to potentially increase these input amounts. Is there any kind of history to when they have changed that? No. No? Another question. It's more specific towards a school in my neighborhood, Harter, but I was curious if
032there was any more details about other schools that were being closed. I know you mentioned some of them and some of the details, but I guess if you only want to answer for Harter, I'm fine with that. What's going to happen to some of this, like to Harter, for example, when it closes, what's it going to become? And I'm sorry for missing that. Harter will be repurposed and used for the district or other district uses. So it will be open and it will be used so it won't sit empty. Other buildings that are older, and we talked about this, we've been talking about this since 2022. We have a lot of buildings, and I remember back in 2022, even our newer buildings like Harter is approaching 30 years old. It's hard to believe, but we
033have buildings that are much older than that, that are becoming more difficult to upkeep. So some of the buildings, most of the buildings were very old, such as Bellstone, Fairmont. We're going to look to get out of them. We're going to sell those buildings. Those buildings do have a lot of deferred maintenance in them. And instead of putting the money that we have remaining left, those capital outlay costs you saw that we're going to be reducing, we're going to leave those alone and we're going to move on. And so we can have the funds to maintain the buildings that we currently have. So that's what's going to happen. But Harter, McGregor, Cedar, those buildings, Worley, those buildings will remain a part of the district. And we will use them for other things. And you're seeing
034a central office is moving. Our warehouse is moving. So things will be moving and other programs may move into those buildings. And as we develop those things, we'll share those with the community. Okay. Another one is I don't know how this might you might not know this because enrollment fluctuates year by year. But do you have any sense of what kind of changes in teacher student ratios there are going to be like percentage wise? Is there like an average around for every school or yes. So a few years back when we were doing our strategic plan, we were very intentional about class size and we know how important that is. And so we we set some ratios. We were at the beginning. We were 20 to one in kindergarten. We've since moved that to, I
035believe, 25. But we've added age to every classroom. And then K to three, we were 22 to one. And then from there up, we were 25 to one. Moving forward as a part of this and trying trying to reduce staff, kindergarten will move up to about 28. But keep the A. Our K through three will move to 25 like every like the other buildings. But or actually K to six will move to 25. And then up from sixth grade on up, we'll move between 25 and 28 is going to be the new phase. We've been blessed with being able to keep class sizes down. And we did that intentionally. But at this point in time, in order to make the reductions and to be able to be able to fit the number of students we
036need to fit in some of our smaller buildings, we have to increase class size a little bit. It's a great question. Thank you. And one more. I noticed all the all the changes you mentioned were to elementary schools. I didn't see any changes mentioned to middle schools and high schools and early college program. Sounds like those programs and schools remain mostly unaffected. They're going to see some class size changes. They the reductions and some of the things that you saw happen there at our last plan. We went from and I don't know if people notice this, but layman was its own middle school and we consolidated it. And now it's early college. We moved the early college program from here. So those programs took some hits early on. Crenshaw will be taking on some kids
037taking on the kids from arts so that we can put more people into that building to make that more responsible. But right now they are not seeing buildings close. Those are some of our larger buildings. And so if we're going to be fiscally responsible, we need to put more students in them. So we're not closing those buildings as of as of as of yet. As you see, there's ten point five million dollar deficit in twenty twenty nine. So if something doesn't change, we'll be talking about those buildings next. Thanks. That's all I am. Hi there. I'm Stephanie Sweeney. I'm the executive director at Stark County Hunger Task Force. We currently have a backpack for kids program in seven Kansas City schools and we're serving around twelve hundred kids a week. So my question and concern
038is there are many organizations like ours that are providing essential services to Kansas City schools. And there is going to be a lot of pivots, a lot of changes, a lot of new buildings opening while I sat down and had a plan pretty much immediately of like what schools need to add. We need to pivot our kids. Who should we be contacting within the district to make sure that no kids slip through the cracks like next year? I want to make sure that we are still serving twelve hundred kids a week and more potentially. And I know that a lot of other organizations have those same concerns. So how would that be addressed as you kind of figure this out and reconfigure everything? So I'd recommend that you reach out to our family and community
039engagement department and the directors. And she will be able to work with you and connect you with those resources and bring in other people as part of our staff who will be able to help you and know that we really appreciate everything you do to support our students. I think that's what makes and I don't think I know that's what make Canton such a great place to live and to work. This community truly wraps themselves around the students. So thank you very much. And we'll continue to partner with you. And it is really important as we we as we move and shift our district around that we don't lose those connections that we have. A lot of our buildings have local resources, community resources that help. So we'll make sure that we work closely with
040you and those other partnerships as well. Thank you. Hi, yes. My name is Jean Anna Lefterin and I'm the parent of five students in the district ranging from middle school to preschool. So needless to say, we are very much affected by all the changes. And I completely understand the budget changes and that we really have to be brutal in cutting back. What I'm concerned about is where we're looking at on the educational basis, because when I do my research, if I'm not mistaken, since twenty twenty one twenty two school year, this district has had one school that is continuously rated a four or four point five on the state report card. Yet that school is being dismantled and closed. And that is the Arts Academy. And I'm very concerned why we're not protecting and fostering
041the education that our students are getting there and trying to bring that to the broader spectrum within the confines of what we have. Instead, these students are now losing their dance program, their intense art programs. They're being separated in most cases from teachers that they've only ever known. I have two children that literally were born into the Arts Academy. They were born when my older children were there. That's all they know. And now that's being away from them. And I don't understand why when we have a school that is setting an example for the rest of the district with such a high rating, why is that school kind of being dismantled and taken apart? So the Arts Academy is not the Arts Academy is not closing. The Arts Academy will be transitioning. And and see,
042I want to write. You said it was shifting to crunch for grades four through eight now. My question is, you know, I've got a kindergartner that is used to his weekly dance class, his music class. He's now losing that because the the program as a whole, starting from kindergarten, leading them through is gone. So so what's the Arts Academy itself accepts kids in K one, two and three. But those students aren't in the actual Arts Academy that acts audition. The audition part of the Arts Academy starts at fourth grade. And we've been working with the Arts Academy and their staff since the beginning of this school year as a part of our strategic plan to make sure that every student in the Kansas City School District has the opportunity to make an informed choice on
043how they're going to be best educated. At a pre at a meeting before we had this budget reduction, we talked about our pathways of choice or what we're we're calling our champions way. That we are begin implementing starting next year where, again, all of our students will be able to choose starting in the seventh grade at the way they learn best. And so whether that's through creativity or through the arts or or through leadership and service or through discovery and design, we're going to create interest based job related choices for our students. And so as a part of that, we met actually with aim and we met with the Arts Academy started the beginning of the school year to say, what is it going to take? What do we need to do to make your
044programs even better? And as we talked with the staff at arts, they said we need to get back to auditions and making sure that we truly had students who are really interested in the arts. And we also need to make sure that we have the space in the room to do performances in our building and that we don't have to wait on buses to take us and transport us around. And so even though we are making reductions, we also believe that we need to do this in a manner that plays close attention to what people value and why I want to do this. And so even though we are making reductions, we also believe that we need to do this in a manner that plays close attention to what people value and why I wish
045that I could keep the K one, two and three together there. When we talk to the folks that are looking at the arts and we visit other schools that are doing this art, it usually starts at fourth grade. So what we're putting together is the Arts Academy at Crenshaw, which will give the Arts Academy the opportunity to have more kids there, to have more students audition and get in. We'll also give them an opportunity to have a built in alternative performance space because that space is there. It will also allow us, because Crenshaw has CareerTech, the students be able to span to seventh and eighth to be able to use another funding source to fund the arts development there to use CareerTech dollars and not have to be so reliant on local and state funds.
046It gives us the opportunity to stack funding, gives us the opportunity to make sure that this can go on into the future. So that's why we understand, but I do want to point out that each year more and more of our buildings reach state and surpass state expectations. So while they're not four yet, right, they're not fours yet, we had buildings that were three, three and a half stars, right, multiple buildings. So we are getting better every day in this district and we appreciate all the things that are happening at the Arts Academy and we're going to continue that to the best of our ability. So is there a way to guarantee that the K one, you know, two and three across the district will be exposed to kind of the pathways leading forward such
047as the dance, the intense art, the theater that our kids at the Arts Academy and the younger grades get now. So as even though we're making these reductions, all of our special classes that we have for our students, our elementary's K to three do not have dance. And they, but they do have art classes. And, and they do have music classes. So all of our elementary's have that. All of our intermediate buildings, the kids are exposed to two specials a day where they can do that. And as we continue to develop these pathways, we're going to make sure that all students understand what's available to them and that they can audition and go to arts if they would like to. So we will continue to do that and our team is here. And if we
048can find a way to incorporate dance and movement into some of our other specials, we will look into doing that for you. What is wrong with the old way? So, so what I can tell you is that majority of our administrative staff were born and raised here in Canton, Ohio. And I can tell you that we make the decisions that we make because what happens to this place is important to us. I make decisions that I make daily because what happens to these students is important to me. I am where I am at today because some people right over there at Temkin Senior High School staff members who didn't have to do it took an interest in Jeff Talbert. People took me to learn how to be a Lincoln Douglas debater, took their time out
049of their, out of their busy schedule away from their family to take me to the Akron Law Library. People took me on college visits to introduce me to what it was like to be a college student. And even though my parents wanted me to go from day one, they had no clue what it took to go to college because they weren't afforded the opportunity to go past the eighth grade. So everything, every decision that I make is couched in making sure that the next Jeff Talbert living in this community has every opportunity that I had. And so what I can tell you is that while these buildings are beautiful old buildings, their roofing systems cost twice as much for us to fix than the ones in the new buildings. And we don't have the funds
050anymore to do them. So I could fix them or leave them. The next, the next thing, why, why all the attendance changes? Everything that we do in this district is dictated to us by a little blue book. It's not a little blue book, it's about that thick. And it's filled with Ohio revised codes and laws that we have to follow. Everything. We don't, this board does not sit here and make stuff up out of thin air. Laws and codes are made in Columbus, Ohio, that we are obligated to follow. And I can tell you, a lot of them I don't agree with. But in this world, just like we teach the kids, all we have every day are events. And the only thing we can control is how we respond to better ways of doing
051things. New buildings, LED lights, new buildings, better HVAC systems, new buildings, hold more students, allow us to be more efficient. So therefore, we are going to have to move away from what's old and what's tradition and move into the new. And so that's why the change. The next thing, when we were in school, Kansas City was the only option. Now there are a host of charter schools and the state of Ohio is paying for people to attend private schools. So either we are going to learn how to compete or we are going to be sitting in rooms as adults looking at empty chairs. So if we don't change how we do business, if we don't make sure that what we are selling to our families and to our students, the folks in this community are
052willing to buy, then we will become irrelevant and cease to exist. And I believe that there are people who want to see that happen. So we can stay here and we can bicker amongst each other while the more organized group who wants to see us close because we cost more and we spend more than what the charters do when. And so that's why we're making the decisions that we are making today. I hope that answers your question. I just wanted to make a statement. There's I felt this is a good opportunity since there are so many parents into the room. We're faced with these decisions because in the last budget, the state appropriated $2.44 billion to universal vouchers and an additional. So for a total of $5 billion between charters and parochial, so we're short
053$5 billion on a cut. That's you guys are paying for that taxpayers. You're funding that. And when the parents start to realize that we are funding to parallel school systems and that's why your taxes look the way they look, your property taxes, that also needs to be part of the conversation. And so these cuts are painful. We all realize that and it's it's a shame that we're putting the needs of the 90% of all people attend public education and we're catering to the 10%. So that should be known and that should be a talking piece for any parent who's who's here because your child is getting shorted because we're worried about the ultra wealthy and we're not paying enough attention to local school districts. Just wanted to point that out. Thank you. Can you speak
054to what's going to happen to the cross categorical classes? How we can anticipate where our special needs child will end up over the next couple years? Will they move to whatever school attendance zone school or are they going to be located in other areas? So as a part of the building of our new two elementary schools, we included in each of them for cross cat classrooms. And we also included with those buildings, adaptive building, adaptive playgrounds, and those buildings were designed to house our cat catalog, our cross cat classrooms. And at that time, we only had eight. And now we are up to 10 as we are seeing more and more students with needs moving into the community. And so we're still working on where those other two are going to be located. We're also
055looking into expanding our autism services as well and and actually are planning to visit some programs for that. And that could be a use for one of our buildings, doing more of a school that is specializes in autism and meeting those needs of students, which we believe is a growing need in the county. And so we believe we are uniquely positioned to be able to offer that because we have some newer buildings that won't have anything in them and which will give us an opportunity to meet the needs of the county while also bringing in more revenue that could be used to support programming. And and so I guess to kind of answer your question, the majority of our cross cat units will be in our two new buildings when they open. And then we
056will locate the remaining units and buildings that have space. And we will work with families to make sure that those wherever you're located is closest to your houses that possibly can be. Thank you. Any other questions from back here? Hi, my name is LaVita Hampton and I am a parent of now two students and their Kansas City School District. I had a total of five, but they have gone on to higher levels. So I just want to know as a parent, I keep hearing if we don't do something about it. What exactly is it that parents, us in the community, what is it that we can do so that we, you know, can keep our schools open? We don't have this conversation again in 2026, 2027. What is it that we can do? Great question.
057I think that what we all have to do is we we definitely have to pay attention to what's happening in Columbus. Policies are made in Columbus. And we always talk about that bad policies have an impact. And and we're not all going to agree. And we don't have to all agree. And we don't have to have the same political interests. But I do think as citizens, we need to be involved and we need to know what's going on. And and a lot of things happen when it comes to education and a buying in budget bill. And this bill is so big and things are slid in at the last moment and people have no idea what's going to happen. So I just ask that everyone pay pay attention that if if something's a headline somewhere
058in a newspaper article that you can't see, try to find a way to get access to that article and don't just read the headlines. Make sure that you are informed. Make sure that when it's election time you understand where the people who are running for office, how they feel about education and make sure that that whoever you vote for, that their belief for public schools aligns with yours. And so that's not me telling you how to vote, who to vote for. Just make sure that when you do participate, that you do participate and that you are aware of what people are going to do when it comes to public education. It's it is clear that right now that the folks in Columbus believe that there should be multiple ways to educate kids at the public
059level. As was mentioned earlier, there are two two types of district system school systems in Ohio. And we've been struggling for years to fund one. And now we're trying to fund two. And so something again, something has to give. But I just say to folks, get involved, know what's going on. And then we ask you to even get involved here locally. We need more parents, more community members involved in the schools to help us. This is this is a great turnout tonight. And I ask that you do come here, you ask questions and you challenge our thinking. You've heard me say this before, and I continue to say it. The more people we get in the room, the smarter the room gets. And so this is a great opportunity. So more of this, more people
060being involved and more people being in the know is what we ask. Thank you, Elena. I wasn't going to say anything, but that last question made me change my mind. I can say some things that the superintendent can't say, and I'm going to. This is two years ago, two years ago. No, it's been longer than that. It was the last biennial budget that I was on that side of the table. And I sat there and I said, if the state of Ohio continues to do what it's doing, that in two years, it's going to be catastrophic. Beyond that, it's going to get a lot worse. And that is exactly what's happened. This stuff was known. So let me give you a couple of things that you can do. Number one, partners for public education. Go
061there. Honesty for Ohio education. Go there. This school district has for a very long time since actually since the inception, been a leader in the lawsuit against the state that has declared these vouchers to be unconstitutional. And the superintendent hasn't said that. I'm going to say that. I'm on the steering committee for Ohio equity and adequacy in public education. That's the vouchers hurt Ohio project. That is another Facebook that you need to pay attention to vouchers hurt Ohio. That lawsuit in June, a Franklin County judge declared Ed choice vouchers to be unconstitutional. This district has supported it since day one. In fact, this district was the second district to sign up. And that was only because Cleveland Heights University Heights had its meeting a few days before we did. You have to you have to
062pay attention to that stuff, too. That's the way that's the way that the state will be fought. You also have to demand honesty from the people sitting up there. You know, this is nothing you can partner your way out of. This is really serious. And if the state by annual budget in two years is the same as it was this time, it's over for public education. So it takes everybody to get involved and to pay attention to force your media to start paying attention to this. You know, the repository is owned by Gannett now and almost every Gannett paper. Sorry, Sharita, but almost every Gannett paper in this state has covered this issue better than the repository has. And you need to demand that of them, too. You know, the Columbus dispatch, the Cincinnati Inquirer
063and on down the list, those are all Gannett properties. And they've done a better job than our paper has. You know, this is a very this is this is serious and it's daunting and the train is too far down the tracks now. It's not going back to the way it was, even if things get better. This is generational and this is stuff that no community should ever have to deal with. But it's here and, you know, come see me to get involved in these groups. Just, you know, come to my Facebook page. You know, there's there's links to that stuff there. But this is this has to be a community effort. You know, Jim Thomas, our rep sitting in Columbus, needs to hear about this. Jane Timkin, our state senator, needs to hear about this.
064Both of them voted wrong on the biennial budget and voted against funding the fair school funding program. Both of them did it. They need to pay a price for this because your kids are paying a price for it. So come see me. I do have a question, though, Superintendent, actually two. Number one, how is this going to affect the district's strategic plan? And secondly, how is it going to affect extracurriculars, not just athletics, but also after school? And I say that because those are really important to this district. It is. Thank you, Mr. Resnick. So the strategic plan, this first round moves the strategic plan forward. And a large part of that strategic plan was to open a new elementary's and move to K to six back to K to six elementary's. And so it
065moves us forward when it moves us towards that. The it also moves us forward as a part of the strategic plan. We had a goal to make sure that every student had an opportunity to make a meaningful choice in how they learn and that we have programs aligned to that. And as we continue to move through this school year, we will begin to talk about the pathway program that we will be initiating for kids through seven through twelve and to increase the amount of job skill training that all kids have starting in the seventh grade. And so that will continue. And so that's going to continue. Again, if something if we still have that ten point nine million dollar deficit, we might impact some of that and have to delay some of that. But as
066of right now, when we talk about making these moves so that we are able to keep the main thing, the main thing we believe we're able to do that and make these reductions now for that. And then as far as extracurriculars and we're talking about arts, music and those things, we're not having to touch those. Some of the things that that a lot of folks don't know about maybe we should do more talking about is that we've been able over the last few years to expand that with some offerings, especially our music program, our band program. We have our our elementary band program that has what is it called zero period band where kids from all the elementary schools are able to go to our middle schools and take band in the morning before school
067starts and then go back to the elementary. We are growing our band. We are growing our choirs. We are expanding our arts program as a part of this this move. And so we hope to continue to expand access to all extracurricular activities and not just athletics. However, what we've been able to do with athletics, the building that was just built over here. So everyone knows I've seen on social media can't spend all that money building that new all that new athletic stuff. This building here was built with federal dollars, one time federal dollars that we were given that are never going to come back to this district again. And so we use that money to build that building outside there. And that building has brought in nearly three hundred thousand dollars in revenue that is
068used to support athletics. Thus taking that hit off and fewer students will be on the buses. But if the buses have to pick you up, you're actually still closer to the school you're being bused to. So it's a shorter bus ride for most more students. Good question. Sorry, I didn't cover that one last call for questions. Any more questions or comments? If you look, if you have other questions about the boundaries attendance zones, there are still scheduled meetings occurring this week and next week. And then our final meeting for us to vote on the plan will be on the twenty six, which is two weeks from today. Thank you all for coming out. Yes, we make a motion to adjourn. Make a motion. Second. I'll say by aye. Aye.