001Good evening and welcome to the Garfield Heights City School District regular board meeting. This evening is Monday, August 18th. I call the meeting to order. Could I get roll call, please? >> Yes. >> Uh, Miss Cox. Mrs. Daniels, >> Miss Thomas, >> here. >> Miss Morrison, >> here. >> Dr. Kenny, >> here. Could I get a motion to adopt this evening's agenda as presented? >> So moved. Is there a second? >> Madam President, >> Mrs. Daniels, do we need to make a motion to amend tonight's agenda? um to move item number 5.1. >> Yes. Would you make the motion, please? If you will. >> Yeah. The initial motion. Second. make a motion. >> Madam President, I would like to um make a motion to amend tonight's agenda to remove item 5.1. >> Is there a
002second? >> Second. >> So, that's a motion by Mrs. Daniels to ex to amend this evening's um agenda to delete 5.1. And that was second by Miss Thomas, is there any conversation or discussion? If not, could I get a roll call, please? >> Yes. So, just to be clear, I have a motion to amend the agenda to remove agenda item 5.1. Motion by Mrs. Daniels, second by Miss Thomas. >> That's correct. >> I will take roll call. Uh, Mrs. Daniels, >> yes. >> Miss Thomas, >> yes. >> Miss Morrison, >> yes. >> Dr. King, >> yes. Could I I would now like to ask for a moment of silent reflection in the pledge of allegiance that will be led by Miss Thomas. >> Dr. King, quickly, we have to adopt a new agenda. >> Oh,
003I'm sorry. >> Could I get a motion to adopt the agenda as amended? >> So moved. >> Second. >> That was moved by Mrs. Daniels and second by Miss Thomas. Could I get roll call, please? >> Miss Daniels? >> Yes. >> Miss Thomas? >> Yes. >> Miss Morrison? >> Yes. >> Dr. King? >> Yes. Thank you, Dr. Mr. O. All right. Now we will have our moment of silent reflection with the pledge of allegiance led by Miss Thomas. 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. Could I get a motion to approve the meetings meeting minutes from the July 14th special board meeting and the July 21st regular board meeting as presented? >> So moved.
004>> Second. >> That was moved by Mrs. Daniels and seconded by Mrs. Morrison. Is there um any discussion? Hearing none. Could I get a roll call, please? >> Mrs. Daniels, >> yes. >> Miss Morrison, >> yes. >> Miss Thomas, >> yes. >> Dr. King, >> yes. Now, we will move into the board president's report. Thank you. I would like to commend all of the participants from last Saturday's back to school rally who demonstrated the support, bulldog pride, and school spirit that makes the Garfield Heights City School District unique and special. Hundreds of people attended our attended our principles and administrators hosted booths and back to with back to school information, prizes, and items for the start of the school year and more. Whether you had an ice cold refreshment, roller skated, or jumped in the
005bouncy house like Dr. Reynolds was witnessed doing, a great time was had by all. The event culminated with our students showing their skills on the marching band, the flag, cheerleaders, and our athletic teams on our brand new turf football field and stadium complex. Events like these are certain to help prepare the students and staff for the return this coming Friday, August 22nd, on the district's first day of school. We welcome back our students and extend our best wishes for them as we begin a new once again. Our dedicated staff have been busy this entire week with convocation taking place and welcoming me nearly 20 new staff members at our boot camp and orientation last week. Thank you in advance to all of our students, staff, and families for all that will be accomplished during the
006upcoming 2025 2026 school year. Some of the areas of focus will include emphasis on stream and steam education because it's what helps best prepare our scholars for their futures to be career and job ready. Literacy and reading and writing this year in the classroom and at home. So, please help your child become passionate and interested readers. And finally, but most importantly, Dr. Reynolds seeks parents parent involvement. Ask questions, send us messages, get involved at your buildings, join parent university, and more. Find a way to get involved in the Garford Heights City Schools. To close, and you will continue to hear me say this throughout the fall, we need the support of our parents for the district's renewal issue. It's not an increase in taxes and renews important dollars that funds our operations. By this meeting
007next month, we will have an issue number that we will share with the community. Please support the Garfield Heights City Schools and our renewal issue this November. This concludes my report. Are there any questions on the board president's report? All right, we will move into committee reports. Are there any committee reports? >> All right, hearing none, we will move into the superintendent report. >> Thank you, Madam President. The Garden City Schools will begin their 202526 school year on Friday, August 22nd. Kindergarten students will begin next week on a phase in schedule and we hope that everyone have a safe, enjoyable and relax a relaxing summer. Already the intensity and desire for success for the upcoming school year's emerging uh an added focus on intense uh intensive literacy, reading and writing will take priority with the
008upcoming school year. Now the district's emphasis on STEM stream um that focus will also be something that we're going to be uh very much so intense about. Um we will also ask for parents to to use many avenues available for them to become increasingly involved in students lives. Students demonstrate that more active role played by parents in students lives and the more successful our students can become. Please find a way to get more involved. We're going to provide several opportunities for our parents to be involved. Take advantage of those opportunities. On behalf of everyone in our school community, thank you to everyone who played a role in in making the back to school rally a huge success this past Saturday. I enjoyed seeing families very much and and uh and our new staff members and
009our community partners, Mayor Burke and other fellow city council members were in attendance as well. And this was an awesome event. I especially would like to thank those who donated school supplies, food, and other goods or materials to our students to ensure that they are properly prepared for the upcoming school year. In conclusion, we look forward to an awesome school year where every child is affirmed every day together. >> Thank you, Dr. Reynolds. Is there any questions or comments for Dr. Reynolds? >> Madame President, >> this is Daniel. Um I just want to um thank Dr. Reynolds and his team for just putting on an amazing back to school rally. Um it was truly just really invigorating um activity for to get our students and the community excited about the upcoming um school year. It
010was wonderfully organized um every year. It continues to grow. Um so thank you guys for all the work that you put into putting in such a nice um probably been the nicest events we've been throwing here in the community um for youth. So, thank you. >> Thank you. Um we couldn't do any of these things without the food going forward and your encouragement to to ensure that parents and the community is involved in the things that we're doing. This is why we we're providing these sort of opportunities for for this community and all our students. Um it was our educational advancement uh department that led the way, Mr. Denise Johnson, Tim Hurt, but everyone was involved. If you came out here, you were able to meet everyone on the staff. Uh, it was an awesome
011event. Uh, yes, I was caught in the Junction Castle. I didn't think anyone saw that. Um, but I enjoyed it very much so. Uh, it was a wonderful day. Beautiful day. Our band performed. We really, really enjoyed uh, being together. So, we we're looking forward to more activities, more opportunities for families to be a part of this, more opportunities for this community to be a part as well. So, thank you all for that. >> Any other um questions or comments. >> All right. Remarks from the public regarding agenda items, Mr. >> Okay, we will move on to uh reports and recommendations of the treasurer. Could I get a motion to approve um the financials for July 2025 as presented? So moved. >> Second. >> That was moved by Miss Morrison and second by Miss Thomas.
012Discussion Mr. >> always. Um so um July is the first month of our fiscal year that we flipped over and you'll see in the report that it was significantly under in expenditures and from what we are looking at last July. U I just want to touch on that briefly because um it is I don't know if this is well known that the district has made significant cuts and uh restructuring to address some of the needs from failing our renewal levy. And some of those you will start to see over the next coming months and they will look significantly larger in variance than what we spent last year. And that's by design. Um Dr. Reynolds has been a great leader of this school district and making sure that we are structuring the district to serve our
013students, doing it in a way with on the fiscal side that can support the academics as well as the situation we're in. So you'll see that uh in the report it's about a $990,000 variance in expenditures and that number should continue to increase as we look at our first payrolls of new contracts coming in September. But I just want to let you guys know that because you know our we had a state program or state workbook that you all approved with the May financial forecast and it was a serious issue, serious situation and the district took great steps including an administrative riff to adjust to the state mandates and the district you know expectation to make sure we are fiscally sound over the course of 35 days. Um, it's a huge, huge accomplishment for us
014to be able to turn around that time and it's it should be well known to the district and the community that we are addressing the needs and the realities of where we're at financially. Um, on top of that, um, we are in a great position when it comes to our federal grants. We're actually this month, you haven't seen it because we're a month behind writing, but we closed out all of our fiscal grants for federal year uh 25, which puts us perfectly in line with starting for federal federal fiscal year 26 with our new teachers coming in uh starting this Friday or actually starting tomorrow, I'm sorry. So, um, they'll be ready to go and we're actually on a really nice cycle moving forward. If you know, hopefully nothing changes with the federal grant allocation
015and cycle, but if nothing changes, our district is on a really sustainable path when it comes to our title programming. And that's really important because we have great people running those. Our title teachers who do the afterchool programs and who administer the programs to our students are what we pay those funds out of. and we did a great job in this school district of managing that and I'm really really proud that we are able to be on a sustainable cycle for that. So those are my two big points for the uh financial report this month and I'll take any questions you may have. Well, first just a comment thank you again to um you and Dr. Reynolds for your awesome work that you did in getting that 35page workbook together and turned around in a
016timely fashion. Any questions for Mr. >> Madam President? >> Mrs. Davis, >> I just would like to share the same sentiments of um Madame President, thank you guys not just for putting the workbook together, but actually doing the work and allowing us to see this turn around and just have a sustainability plan to ensure that our students have what they need with the resources that we have available. So, thank you for being out of work to ensure that we're able to educate our students here. >> Any other questions or comments for Mr. Dho? >> I'll just say one last thing. Dr. Reynolds is a fantastic partner. A lot of school districts don't have this dynamic where um superintendent treasurer are able to work and and move fluidly in this situation. And I think Dr. Reynolds
017is a great example of how that can be such a great thing when both perspectives are taken in because my perspective is certainly not Dr. Reynolds perspective and we can tell you the same thing. Any questions? All right, that was moved by Miss Morrison and second by Miss Thomas. Could I get roll call, please? >> Miss Morrison? >> Yes. >> Miss Thomas? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Daniels? >> Yes. >> Dr. King? Yes. All right. Could I get a motion to move and wave the reading of 9.1 through 13.1? I'm sorry, 14.1. So moved. >> Is there a second? >> That was moved by Miss Morrison and second by Mrs. Daniels. Is there any discussion? >> Miss Thompson. >> Um item 14.1. We still have a meeting. I said auxiliary director. >> It's auxiliary director and
018auxiliary band. Oh, I see. >> So, could we I don't know what our next step should be. >> Um, so we can do we can amend the agenda to eliminate one of them off the agenda. >> We would have to go back to the to amend the agenda. >> Yeah. So, if you wanted to do um amend the motion to wave the reading of items 9.1 through 14.1, make it through 13.1 >> and then we can >> Yes. Yeah. So, could I get an amendment to the motion to move and weigh um 9.1 through 9 to through 14.1 to 9.1 through 13.1? >> So, move. >> Second. >> All right. That was moved by Miss Thomas and second by Miss Morrison. >> Miss Thomas? >> Yes. Can I get a roll call? >> Miss Thomas?
019>> Yes. >> Miss Morrison? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Daniels? >> Yes. >> Dr. King? >> Yes. Now, could I get a motion to amend 14.1 to eliminate one of the redundancies of um the and actually I'm going to let Miss Thomas make the motion. Um, should we vote on items 9 to 13.1 first before we move item 14? >> Our last motion was a motion to >> Yes. >> Could I get a motion to approve the um 9.1 through 13.1 as amended? >> Second. That was moved by Miss Thomas and second by Miss Morrison. Can I get roll call? >> Miss Thomas? >> Yes. >> Miss Morrison? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Daniels? >> Yes. >> Dr. King? >> Yes. >> Madam President. >> Miss Thomas? >> May I make a motion? >> Yes. I would
020like to make a motion to amend item 14.1 to resend the position of auxiliary director. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Um point of order. >> Yeah. Um I think we need to make a motion to amend amend it and then have some discussion because what's the actual title? >> So which which is the correct title of the position >> sorry auxiliary director that we need to remove the auxiliary director. >> That was my question. So, the motion that's on the floor is to amend the um 14.1 to eliminate auxiliary direct and that was made by Miss Thomas and second by Miss Morrison. Is there any additional discussion? >> Madam President, Miss Morrison, >> I believe there is a typo also. Um, for the weightlifting fall person, I believe it should be Cody,
021not Coy. see it. >> I believe it's the same person >> as the event manager. >> Can we make sure that the it's supposed to be Cody? >> Okay. And we can we make sure it's correct in the minutes. >> Yes, absolutely. >> All right. Any further discussion? That motion was made by Miss Thomas and second by Miss Morrison. Could I get roll call, please? >> Yes. >> Miss Thomas? >> Yes. >> Miss Morrison? >> Yes. >> Miss Daniels? >> Yes. >> Dr. King? >> Yes. And thank you for everyone's help with that motion. >> Do we have any policy items? I don't think we have any policy items. All right. Could I get a motion to move away the reading of 16.1 through 17.3? >> Second >> that was moved moved away by that
022was motioned by Mrs. Daniels and second by Miss Morrison. Is there discussion? >> Any discussion? >> Madam President, >> Mrs. Daniels, um we have a deadline on which um we need this finalized. I did have some recommendations, just a few things that may need to be adjusted. Are we able to go on with those changes or those amendments or what those amendments have? >> And this is for 17.3 the um >> yes >> parent handbook. >> Um it depends on what the changes are because if there's substantial changes then we'll have to bring the parent handbook back for a vote. Do you feel like substantial? >> I I believe it's just on boarding um rewarding but it doesn't change the policy itself. Just a few words we like to exchange >> that we identified. >>
023Okay. And in particular the things surrounding equity language. >> Well, it would be remove switching out equity for additional words word choice. Okay. So that motion was made by Mrs. Daniels and second by Miss Morrison. Is there any further discussion? Can I get roll call, please? >> Miss Daniels? >> Yes. >> Miss Morrison? >> Yes. >> Miss Thomas? >> Yes. >> Dr. King? >> Yes. >> Any remarks from the public regarding miscellaneous school items? [Applause] At this time, I would entertain a motion to enter into executive session at 6:35 to consider the compensation of a public employee or official by division G1 of section 121.22 of the Ohio Revised Code. >> Dr. King, >> yes. >> Can we amend the time to 6:25? >> Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. 625. I recommend that the board enter
024into executive session at 6:25 to cons consider the compensation of a public employee or official by division G1 of section 121.22 of the Ohio Revised Code. So, >> is there a second? >> Second. That was moved by Mrs. Daniels and second by Mr. Morrison. Could I get roll call, please? >> Mrs. Daniels, >> yes. >> Miss Morrison, >> yes. >> Miss Thomas, yes. >> Dr. Kane, >> yes. And we will not have any board business after the conclusion of our executive session. Thank you.