001To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Mr. Sheldy, please call the roles. >> Mr. Achim here. >> Mrs. Schneider >> here. >> Mrs. Click >> here. >> Mrs. Mahales >> here. >> Mr. Sabolski >> here. All right, we begin tonight's meeting with special reports and recognitions. Tonight we are recognizing two students from Harmon Middle School as Rotary students of the month. They are Sage Bradic and Henry Truck. May I please have a motion for approval? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Mr. uh Schroy, please call the role. >> Mrs. Schneider, >> yes. >> Mr. Sabolski, >> yes. >> Mrs. Mahalis, >> yes. >> Mr. Achim, >> yes. >> Mrs. Click, >> yes. Would the
002students please come forward and get your certificates? >> You can start at that end. >> Put that on and take a picture with your certificate. Get over that way. >> All right, Mr. [ __ ] >> Thank you, M. Mahal from Board of Education. Uh it seems like I have said this more times than than uh than I can think of is that uh when I talk to the students, they're so respectful about what they've done and what they've earned and we talk about um what the Rotary Club is and and how they're going to be recognized at the board and they're their typical selves, very thankful and very appreciative and very respectful. And then I talk about a couple times how they're going to be recognized in front of other people and be given things and
003they're like and and if you note Sage and Henry, they're two individuals that are that is them that they do not want the recognition. They just do. They are leaders by example to the extreme. Um respected by peers and and faculty uh both alike. Um one of the faculty faculty members said about Sage that she is defined by her incredible internal drive. She's deeply dedicated and self-motivated, approaching every challenge with a hardworking spirit and a genuine desire to strive for success. But her impact extends far beyond her personal achievements. Another teacher said, "Sa possesses a truly great attitude and an infectuous positive mindset, making her someone who could work with anyone. She doesn't just talk about excellence, she embodies it, serving as a powerful leader by example who inspires everybody or everyone around her. Without
004any further ado, I'd like to introduce to you Sage Brad. Good afternoon. My name is Sage Brad. I'm an eighth grader at Harmon Middle School. I have two younger brothers named Rudy and Bo Brad. And Rudy is a sixth grader at Harmon Middle School and Bo's a third grader at Lean Elementary Middle School. They both drive me crazy, but they're one of my biggest supporters in every aspect in life, whether it's inside and outside of school events such as 8th grade orchestra concerts and soccer games. Some of my other biggest supporters are my parents and my grandmother. They're always there for me when I need it, and they drive me to different practices and school, and they even helped me write this speech that I'm giving you to you today. Some of my favorite things
005to do is play my violin that I have been playing for four years now and doing art such as painting and sculpting. Some of my favorite subjects in school are math and science and I'm hoping to study these sub subjects more deeply when I get to college to hopefully become an orthopedic surgeon. Some of the clubs I'm involved in in the Aurora City Schools is Beta Club. Beta Club is a nationals honor society that I got inducted into at the end of my seventh grade year. Beta Club has taught me a lot of amazing things such as leadership and serving the community. Some of the things that we do in Beta Club is hold different drives for different um community services. One of the drives that we held was Sotober. Sotober was when we collected
006a bunch of different socks from different grade levels and we donated them to homeless shelters. This year, we collected over 2,000 socks and we donated them to different homeless shelters inside and outside the Aurora community. Some of the things that I like to do outside of school is spending time with my younger brothers and my dog named Ranger outside. And I also like to go hiking with my family and go to soccer practices and games. I just wanted to say thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak about myself and thank you to the board of education, the Rotary Club for the recognition and thank you for all that you do in the Aurora community. Thank you, Sage. uh you know, we take a look at those individuals from our staff that we send
007out names or they send names to us and we vote on those that are recognized the most amongst our staff. Our next individual up and my assistant uh Dr. Ruststein and I both vote as well. And our next student up is is Henry Truck. Henry's an individual um that I think I've known since he was this big. I've been coaching him or yelling at him. I don't know what he'll consider it to be um coaching him for a long time and and um you know he's a kid that I've looked at him like yeah he's definitely going to be a Rotary candidate at one point just because of things I've seen him do over the years um and how selfless he is. Uh teachers have said about Henry he's someone whose energy for learning and
008innovation is truly contagious. Henry embodies the ideal student and teammate driven by boundless curiosity and an inherently inquisitive nature that means he always wants to learn more. He's the one who you could say that the expression to think outside the box was created for. He's not content with the status quo. He is incredibly creative and consistently thinks outside of the box to find original solutions to any challenge. This intellectual drive combined with his dedication as a hard worker and his ability to work well with others exactly what makes him the strong leader that we are celebrating today. So I'd like to hand it over now to Henry Truck. Hello, my name is Henry Truck. I would like to thank the Aurora Board of Education for inviting me here tonight. My teachers at Harman Middle School
009and the Rotary International for this honor. I would also like to thank Mr. Ramage who is my first baseball coach and a mentor to me. I'm an eighth grade scholar athlete and I play football and baseball and I run track. We just wrapped up an eighth grade football season and my team had a successful year and I enjoyed playing wide receiver and outside linebacker. I'm excited to work in the offseason on both my baseball and football skills and I can't wait to play in high school. Academically, I started the year off strong. I'm in double accelerated math which is a challenge every day but Mr. Turp is a great geometry teacher. Next week we are going to Washington DC. I'm glad that we're going even though the government is currently closed. I'm a member of
010the Beta Club Junior National Honor Society and we are about to start selling donuts in the mornings before school and we are going to donate the profits to a charity we vote on as a Beta Club team. I don't have a problem getting my hours every month because I volunteer at the church in Aurora teaching Sunday school and helping with service projects. I have three brothers and I'm the second of four boys. When I grow up, I want to be an entrepreneur. When I was in sixth grade, I'm in first place in the youth entrepreneur contest. My idea was to create a grass that only grows a designated height. I called it study stems. I still think the idea has potential. Congrats to Sage for being recognized tonight. Also, and thanks again to everybody on
011the board, my parents and grandparents in this awesome town I call home. Thank you, Sage and Henry, for modeling leadership and integrity, kindness, service, and dedication to academic excellence. Thanks for coming. And thanks to your families, too. >> You going to get pictures? >> Yeah, feel free to We'll pause for a minute. We'll get pictures and then they can the families can go. >> And families, anytime you'd like to leave, you're welcome to leave and you're welcome to stay whatever you want. right there. Yeah, we'll wait if you want to do right there. That's a nice picture. Stay some ammo. Henry's already gone. Henry. >> Henry. >> He didn't He didn't waste any time. He's like, "I'm out of here. Okay. All right. We have no public comments this evening. So, we will move on
012to the approval of minutes from the regular meeting of September 22nd. May I have a motion, please? Second. >> Are there any additions, edits, subtractions, anything? >> All right. Then, Mr. Shley, please call the role. >> Mr. Sabolski? >> Yes. >> Mr. Achim? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Mahalis? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Click? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Schneider? >> Yes. >> Right. Minutes are approved as written. And now on to the superintendent and assistant superintendent reports. >> I'll just do this when you go. >> Okay. Uh as promised, uh we are going to dig a little bit deeper into our report card this evening. And so the the first slide there uh just a quick overview. Um this is actually going to be a joint report uh with myself uh and then Mr. Hayes just due
013to the length and the detail of digging into all six components of it. I did want to note that uh Mr. Maganico actually was going to be doing it with us uh since a lot of the work he does as director of pupil services um pertains to the gap closing uh piece specifically. But uh he had uh other plans. Actually, I assigned him other plans. He's down in Columbus at the U federal programming conference uh because that is a new responsibility of his. I think this board meeting uh would be way more fun than that conference if it tells you about the federal programming and Miss Stewart can attest to that. Uh having been to that conference a number of times. So anyways, he is not here. So Mr. Hayes and I will split this.
014So um I know that we put this information out there. It's a huge congratulations to to our students, our staff, our administrators, our community uh for us to earn a five-star designation again from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. So, that's the fourth year in a row uh that we've earned five stars. Um and this year there were 47 districts that were able to earn uh a fivestar score. We were one of those. I don't know exactly how many have been able to get a fivestar over the four years, but I'm sure it's a much smaller the number than that. So uh the six components uh are up there. Mr. Hayes is actually going to go first. He's going to talk about achievement, graduation, and then college, career, workforce, military readiness, and then I
015will take the progress, early literacy, and gap closing. And and certainly we can take some uh some questions at that point in time. Um, this is something that we're very proud of and and we do want to celebrate, but as I always like to say in terms of being a caveat, you know, we just passed out those green standard standard medals and we just heard from those students, we do way more than just test students and earn these kind of accolades. That's a small piece to it. Uh, but it is very important uh to celebrate the good work. Um, and and we do have these high expectations that you know that we do earn these uh designations moving forward as well. So, Mr. Hayes, you're up first. >> All right. So, I'm going to talk
016with everyone about the achievement domain. And the main uh driver with the achievement domain is the performance index score, otherwise known as the PI score. And so, our PI score for uh this report card was 104.5. You can see on the graphic up there, there's a maximum for a district of 109.8. Um the biggest thing here about PI score is that it evaluates how students perform across all levels of any state test. that goes from the earliest learners all the way through high school and they get more points based on how well they do. So it's not just about are we proficient, it's as Dr. Milstitch just alluded to, how do we continue to excel? How do we uh go beyond being proficient, the basic standard and you know continue to elevate and so uh
017incredibly proud of these types of results and it's a testament to not only our wonderful kids, the the great families that we have that truly value education, but our teachers in the classrooms every day, our administrators, our instructional coaches who are creating the conditions for our students to thrive and continue to uh excel beyond, you know, seemingly beyond measure. Uh this past year was the highest PI score in school history. Uh you can see there the third bullet point uh the average PI score for uh a particular school district would be 87.9 and so we are well well above that. But I want to break down the um these trends a little bit more. I alluded to this at our last month's meeting. Um so one of the things that I think is really important
018here is looking at uh historical data. So uh the graph on on the screen represents the last five years uh of PI scores. And what we're seeing here is continual upward trajectory. So continual improvement in those scores. Uh and what's even uh probably greater is the fact that we're seeing greater uh numbers of students scoring in the advanced and the advanced plus domains which are the highest uh areas to uh score in. And we're seeing uh continually decreasing numbers of students scoring in the basic and limited ranges, which again is just a testament to all of our administrators, our teachers creating those conditions for our kids to uh grow. So it means they're seeing the kid that maybe at that proficient level. They're finding ways to continue to push them and help them grow within
019uh the right academic setting, the rightcl setting. Um and so again, just incredibly proud of these types of results and it goes back to that um that qualitative story behind the quantitative data. Uh but again, it's always great to see that upward trajectory and the continual growth at those uh upper levels. Then another thing that I just wanted to point out is it's often a question of how are we how are we doing in comparison to similar school districts and also uh where are we at when kids are kind of ending their educational journey with the Aurora City School District. So the chart on the left hand side represents our students at the high school level and those those are the different state tests that they have to take there. And I just put this
020graph up here because it kind of shows again that upward trajectory. So over the last five years we're continuing to see we had great results in 2021, but we're continuing to see those results uh you know take off. And then on the the graph on the right hand side we have uh Aurora uh in all those state tested areas in the blue. uh and then similar districts in the green and then the state in the gray. So what you can see there is Aurora is you know going above and beyond in terms of uh not only of course the state average. So again when we talk about hey are we hitting the regular standard the state standard of course are we getting to where other similar districts that we would compare ourselves are. Yep. And
021we're going above and beyond that and and um so I think this the graph on the right reflects this past school year. The graph on the left reflects the last five school years. who again uh incredibly proud of our of our students and our staff for committing to the level of rigor uh the passion that's required to continue to excel. So just really um you know great results in that regard. The next uh area that I wanted to touch upon would be the the second domain here which is graduation. So I'm not going to go into as much detail on this one. This is pretty uh uh straightforward but you know we get evaluated on how many students graduate. So, uh, they look at two different things. Number of students in a four-year cohort and
022then number of students in a five-year cohort. So, the graph in the upper right hand side reflects uh it's actually the class of 2024 is what they use for that particular state report card. So, you can see a 98.2% passage rate. And then when we look at a 5-year cohort, we have 251 out of 252 kids graduating. And some people might ask, hey, what's the difference between that four and fiveyear cohort? And that really reflects um students who might have special education related services that have the ability to delay graduation. So it's really about hey students that we're making the right decisions for them. Some people would say oh well you're getting dinged on your report card because they're not graduating in that four-year cohort but it's about making the right decisions for them and
023they have the ability to remain there. And when we look at that five-year cohort we're still getting those kids across in the way that's right for them. And so when we talk again about doing things that are individualized for the the student looking at the holistic uh aspect of our learners um that that graduation rate really reflects that. And then once again just again we have our district at the bottom in the bar graph compared to the state and compared to similar district. So right on track where we would want to be. And then the last area that I'm going to touch upon is the college career workforce and military readiness domain. This one is new. So in the previous four years or three years of the uh state report card going with the star
024system uh the college career military workforce readiness was not part of the report card. Uh but this is the first year that it's actually on there. So this one is a little bit more convoluted. So although we were a fivestar district overall and had five stars across the board, this was the one domain that we had a four-star rating on. However, I wanted to provide some context with that. So, one I have up here, there was only 60 districts in the state of Ohio that received a five-star rating on here. And I put this spreadsheet together, which just outlines all of the diff districts that received a five-star rating. So, I'm just having this there for people's context so you can see the approximate number of districts that receive that. And again, there's over 600
025districts in the state. So, when we talk about, you know, approximately 60 uh school districts receiving that uh five-star rating, it's very limited. And one of the things I'd point out to everyone here is this column E in the spreadsheet, the number of students in their graduating classes. We're looking at graduating classes of 65 uh under 100 in many cases. And really a lot of ways a lot of school districts that are gearing more towards maybe um a vocational training, things like that. So just wanted people to have that context. Um let me just put this back here. And just in terms of again comparing ourselves to similar districts really everyone uh else that we compare ourselves to uh geographically as well as academically we're in that same boat. So schools like Hudson received a
026fourstar schools like Solen received a three star. So we're pretty much on track uh with that. However uh around the area there's a lot of discussion about uh what what goes into college and career readiness. And so the way that the state actually evaluates this, I'll actually go back here, is they have all these different uh areas that they're trying to do the right thing of giving students multiple pathways to showcase that they're college and career ready. Um, however, so there all these things that I'm showing you here are ways that they evaluate that. However, only the ones in the blue are areas that they're using for the report card. And then what I'd throw out there to people is that what's not included in here is college acceptance. Um, so we could we could
027have if we just had every student earning an honors diploma, uh, which would mean they'd have to take a certain number of, you know, uh, global language course courses, which may not be the right fit for them. Um, you know, we Okay. >> Yeah, it didn't look like it's paused. >> Okay. >> So, what we're really looking at is, okay, are we having a rural learners uh, you know, college career ready? We feel like we are. when we're working with lo local school districts, we feel like we're doing the right things that we're trying to operate within the do the regards of you know what the state is providing to us. So we're continuing to evaluate those measures. Uh two weeks ago actually Dr. Dr. Milsuch and I met with the provost of Kent State
028University where we were talking about um some of the uh industry recognized credentials that our students can earn that will actually get them uh to qualify for the college and career readiness aspect that the state is evaluating here. Uh so we actually have another follow-up meeting with them to kind of develop maybe our own internal system that we can use uh in conjunction with Kent State. So what what what I'm basically saying is we're looking at other pathways to or opportunities to really uh meet the the college of career readiness aspect of the state report card. However, we don't want to jeopardize our own value system either at the same at the same time. So um just wanted to provide everyone with a little bit of context regarding this because it is new and it
029has uh a little bit of uh some unique chatter going around the state about how it's uh how they're evaluating school districts. So, those are the three domains that I wanted to cover and happy to answer any questions for you. >> Take that clicker. And should we um pause there for a second? Were there any questions on those three domains or components, excuse me, for uh specifically that last one since it is new? If not, I'll go ahead, but just wanted to give you guys a chance in case there are any questions. Good. No. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Hayes. Uh so, I had the other three components. Um and in these ones we were five stars and two of the three and the literacy ones which I'll discuss we were four stars this
030year. So uh Mike talked about achievement levels. Mr. Hayes talk about achievement levels. Uh I am this component is progress and I know the board has heard me talk about this before. So uh progress is really just how much um growth students are uh achieving. So the ones I'm talking about in terms of gap closing and progress is not just their achievement levels but really what the anticipated there's an anticipated growth that students are expected to make in a year and that's what progress is about. Both of those are measured. So in terms of progress we had another very strong year on progress. Um in terms of the growth index uh that 14 number that's just showing showing uh that there were um the uh the magnitude uh of the growth uh was obviously larger
031than expected and the effect size 0.15 uh plays into the amount of evidence that there is that their students had that growth. So, uh, if you look at the color coding system, I'm going to show you this in a moment, but the, uh, gray, which you can see in the light blue, that those grow progress levels are both, uh, significant significantly above a year's growth. And there's, uh, it just depends on how much evidence there is according to the state, uh, that it was above growth. So, that's the gray and the blue and the light green is is essentially expected growth. Um and then you have the yellow uh which is under and so is the red and then the light gray will be not rated. So overall picture you know very strong growth and
032then if you dig down into uh the different testing areas you can see all that dark gray uh which is what we want to see and even the light blue um as well are the two highest areas and then you can see all the green which is expected growth um and then essentially just one area biology where it was not. Um so very strong progress scores and typically that's what we see we we see each year teachers working with the students uh working through our MTSS system um and really getting that growth with individual students over time leading to to excellent results. It is interesting to look at this though because uh for example our um our biology scores achievement level-wise were looked pretty good face value. um you know we were for the most
033part pleased with those but you can see according to this measure progress we we should have uh had more growth with those students. So that's something we'll have to drill into. Um on the flip side um sixth grade math was something we've been trying to figure out that little puzzle. Um you know we weren't where we wanted to be in terms of achievement scores but then you look at this and actually the growth um you know is is pretty solid. So it's you really do have to look at all these measures together to sort of get a full picture. But good news is that we really do have strong growth uh for the most part across the district. Um in terms of um gap closing, so this is another measure um and what it I'll
034show you this in a moment, but it's really math and ELA are all of our subopuls of students hitting their achievement levels. then our sub population of students hitting their gap closing or their progress me measures but it's broken down instead of just all students. It has that but it has um you know Asian students, black students, socioeconomic status, um this students with disabilities. So it's got all your subgroups broken down. Um and so we did, you know, overall we uh we did very well there. We are five stars. The one thing you'll notice is the gifted piece and I um and we'll talk about that in a moment. I do want to dig drill down into that one a little bit, but that's essentially what the uh the gap closing is. So you can
035see these are the uh our targets in terms of achievement. So if you look at the the yellow dots there, that's where we are supposed to be achieving in terms of like the goals for all those subgroups. You can see no problem, right? Every single subgroup is meeting and actually really surpassing uh their targets. So doing really well there. Um if you dig down to the that didn't click, did it for me? If you dig down through the subgroups, um you can see in ELA, there were three of the subgroups that that passed the growth uh measure and there were five that passed the math. So, according to this, you know, there's some things that we need to look into with certain subgroups to try to maximize uh growth, which is kind of what we
036do, you know, a lot of times like with our just professional development day, um MTSS, you know, really trying to remove barriers and make sure all of our learners are growing as much as possible. So that's that's sort of the picture there. Then um this specifically is gifted and you can see with the performance index and the progress everything looks good. The area where we're getting caught up with gifted is actually gifted identification and service with a couple of our subgroups. And I'm going to click this one more time. This is um this is a really challenging one. So uh we know that this is an area where we're not getting uh as many points obviously as we would like to on the report card. That's why Becky Quinn wrote that grant uh to bring
037in the speaker uh who's worked with our our staff uh here uh and we had the evening program um with our students who are economically disadvantaged and then underrepresented minorities. Obviously um the goal would be to have uh students in those subgroups being identified um and then also serving them. But one of the issues um are is that it's based upon the Terteranova test in second and fifth grade and there is no test prep for that. Like we don't test prep for gifted. It's just they're either identified or they're not. And so it's a really challenging one if if uh students in these subopuls don't meet that, we can't really serve them. And so, you know, it's it's really kind of a conundrum of of what we get with that. Um, so I just wanted
038to bring, you know, the board's attention to that because it's not like OSTs or something else or APs where we're actively preparing. You don't don't do that for gifted identification. So, it's a challenge. I I don't really know what else more to say about that, but it's it's a challenging measure. Um, early literacy, uh, we, um, scored four stars on this one. Essentially, there's there's different components to this. Um, we do really well internally on our fall benchmark reading assessments, which I'll I'll show you in a minute. Uh, like Ames Web essentially is that that's the metric that we use. So, we don't have a lot of students on reading improvement monitoring plans. Um, so that's why that's not taken into calculation up there. So, it's essentially just how many students pass the third grade
039reading test and then how many students are promoted to fourth grade. So, you can see 100% are promoted to fourth grade and that's weighted at 40%. And then we uh around 72% uh passage of the third grade reading test which was weighted heavier. Typically we're higher than that. Uh and that's something that we showed you already. There are a couple contributing factors to that that feel we've you know we should be in much better shape already this year. Um but that you know that's essentially what what happened with that measure. Still four stars but obviously we'd like to be five in that. And this is just that measure of showing you in the fall scores, you know, in terms of early in the year our students being on track to be readers, you know, K1,
040two, three, four, five, you know, they they tend to be, you know, 90 90 some percent. Hit that. Okay. So, I know that was a lot, but we told you that was that's why it was a joint report and we're going to drill down. So, um, so key takeaways definitely strong achievement growth, upward trending PI, um, early literacy and and the college career, uh, metric are still areas that, you know, we're digging into. And then we're always, you know, with the work that we're doing. Um, you know, gap closing, trying to get maximize, you know, learning for all of our students. That's that's always a goal. That's always the principal's goal goal each year, too, uh, when we're setting those goals. So, we'll continue those efforts. Um questions on any of that uh of the
041six components or comments? >> Well, the results show that we remain focused on continuous improvement that we're not resting on our laurels. Um I wonder with that college, career, whatever that is. >> Yeah. Work uh military workforce readiness. Yes. I wonder when the results come in and they see that there's such a gap between that and our other scores in addition to other districts >> if the criteria will change. Do you think that? >> Yeah, I was in a um legislative update on Friday and there is um some traction there potentially. Uh actually I wrote a letter last year and a lot of uh districts did too about the flaws in that measure and other things that could be included like Mr. Hayes said college acceptance. we'd take that for college acceptance and then retention
042or completion successful completion of one year or just some other things that that should be included. Um there were a lot of frustrated districts with that measure and we knew it was coming and we were pushing back against it. So it's fine. I mean we still had a four star. It's just not as if we bombed it or something. It's still very good but um I do potentially think that'll change moving forward. >> Anything else? Well, thanks to all who contribute to those um results daily. >> All right, >> that's it. >> Yeah, that is it for the reports. Well, this >> ours Mr. Shirley is up next. >> Okay, >> well done, guys. >> Go ahead. >> Um financial report for September uh 2025. Uh general fund financial report for the month of September.
043Expenditures exceeded revenues by $597,100. This decreases the general fund cash balance to $25,66,743 to end September 2025. Through the month of September, revenues were point4% less than projected while expenditures were 1.1 less than projected. Uh revenues for the month of September, revenues down 76,000 compared to last year. Um a year-over-year change of uh negative -2.2%. However, through uh fiscal year to date through September, revenue is up a million, a little over a million dollars compared to last year, a year-over-year change of 4.4%. The month-to-month comparison um is stemming from a difference in local tax revenue and tuition receipts, whereas the year-to-ate increase of 4.4 is more in line with what we projected in our forecast budgets. Um revenue received through September totals 23,565,330 of the annual budgeted total of 53 million. Uh the amount of
044budgeted revenue remaining is um a little under 30 million. Expenditures for the month of September expenditures are up 124,000 compared to last year. A year-over-year change of 3.3%. through September expenditures are up 560,000 compared to last year, a year-over-year change of 4.3%. Um, the month-to-month increase is due to an increase in salary and benefits compared to prior year, which also contributes to the year-to-ate increase in expenditures. Again, the majority of this is stemming um from the additional severances that were paid out uh in the in like July and August um from the we had a higher amount of people kind of leave the district, retire from the district at the end of last year. So, that's still uh kind of shown itself since we're early in the year, but um we'll see that kind of
045start to even out as the year goes on. uh expenditures through September total 13 million a little over uh of the annual budgeted total of 52,974,74. The amount remaining of budget expenditures is uh $39,835,939. The total cash balance for all funds is $27,542 $542,941 uh with the general fund having a cash balance of 20 a little over 25 million. This overall cash balance is $592,000 less than at the end of August, which again is due to our uh tax revenue collection slowing down, but the expenditures kind of stay the same. So, um, when we receive those tax revenue, that's kind of really our big influx of cash for the year and then we, uh, kind of hang tight until taxes roll back in in, uh, the winter spring. So, uh, we'll, we'll see a lot
046of expenditures going out this time of year, um, until about February when those tax revenues start rolling in again. Uh and then I also have a then and now statement which is needed to make payment to Limx Inc. for an online learning solution at the middle school. >> Okay. So exhibit D1 is a resolution to approve financial statements and reports. May I have a motion, please? >> Second. >> Are there any comments or questions for Mr. Shiraldi? >> All right. Then please call the role. Mahalis, >> yes. >> Achim, >> yes. >> Mrs. Schneider, >> yes. >> Mrs. Click, >> yes. >> Mr. Sabolski, >> yes. >> All right. Financial statements and reports are approved. And then exhibit D2 is a resolution to approve a then and now statement. May I have a motion? >>
047Second. >> Any questions? >> All right. Then please call the RO. >> Mrs. Schneider, >> yes. Mrs. Mahalis, >> yes. >> Mr. Sabolski, >> yes. >> Mr. Aum, >> yes. >> Mrs. Click, >> yes. >> Okay, that concludes your report then. >> Yep. >> Concludes. Okay. >> All right. On to new business. We have a resolution to accept gifts and contributions, um, which is exhibit E1A. May I have a motion, please? >> Second. >> All right. I won't read through these tonight since it's posted online, but we do thank all the donors for their donations and also for the positive um support that they give to these groups listed from our schools. Are there any other comments? All right, then Mr. Shaldi, please call the role. >> Mrs. Click, >> yes. >> Mr. Achim, >>
048yes. >> Mrs. Mahalis, >> yes. >> Mrs. Schneider, >> yes. >> Mr. Sabolski, >> yes. >> All right. Next, we move to personnel resolutions. There are 11 of them and I I will take them together after I read through. I'll get a motion in a second. Exhibit E1 B1 is a resolution to accept resignations. Exhibit E1B2 is a resolution to award supplemental contracts to district personnel. Exhibit E1B3 is a resolution to award a teacher a one-year limited contract. Exhibit E1B4 is a resolution to approve the introductory appointment of support staff. Exhibit E1 B5 is a resolution to employ part-time support staff. Exhibit E1B6 is a resolution to employ support staff substitutes for this school year. Exhibit E1B7 is a resolution to employ long-term substitute teacher for this year. Exhibit E1B8 is a resolution to award
049supplemental activity contracts to non-district personnel. Exhibit E1B9 is a resolution to employ a specialist for this school year. Exhibit E1B10 is a resolution to employ a licensed substitute teacher for this school year. And exhibit E1 B11 is a resolution to improve to approve an increase in substitute custodial rate. May I have a motion, please? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Are there any comments or questions about those resolutions? All right. And Mr. Sheldy, please call the RO. >> Mrs. Schneider, >> yes. >> Mrs. Mahalis, >> yes. >> Mr. Achim, >> yes. >> Mrs. Click, >> yes. >> Mr. Sabolski, >> yes. >> Right. Those resolutions are approved. Next, we have exhibit E1C, which is a resolution authorizing the Ohio Schools Council to advertise and receive school bus bids in the on the district's behalf. May
050I have a motion for approval, please? >> Um, Mr. or Dr. Milst Stitch, would you please just give us a little back? >> I would be happy to. I was hoping you're going to look my way. So, uh this is just sort of standard operating procedure in terms of uh going out to bid to uh do these purchasing or leases of buses. Um they are very expensive and getting more expensive. Was talking to Mr. Arquella today. You know, we were shocked when it was getting to the point where it was $100,000 for a bus and now we're hearing could be 120,000 or 160,000, you know, for uh each individual bus with the new equipment. So, yeah, it's crazy. So, that's way beyond our $50,000 uh limit in terms of uh just getting bids. So, we
051need to go through the official or excuse me, getting uh quotes. So, we have to go through the official bid process. And this is just uh getting the board's approval to go ahead and do that through the OC. >> Are there any questions? >> Paul, are those stock units or are they special um outfitted with special equipment? >> Yeah, I mean the four of these are just your your basic buses. Obviously, one would be the passenger lift uh for students with special needs, but you know, just like cars are so expensive with, you know, uh all the new equipment and cameras and whatever else they're they're putting on them and safety equipment. So, yeah, just just stock uh could potentially be up to 160. >> Very expensive. >> Go ahead, Mr. Arquala. >> They are
052not stock buses. >> They're not. Once we get our buses, >> well, we are looking into that right now. Uh, so we'll see uh if some of that could defay the cost, but I don't know if we have a firm answer on that yet, but uh Mr. Arquil is looking into that. >> Do we currently have any buses that are released? We trade those in. >> We we do. Do you know how many what what's our current uh stock >> off? So we're leasing to own five buses at a time. >> So we're paying on one bus every year and now we have to have two leases going at the same time. So that pay one bus per >> so essentially we can't afford to just go out and buy five buses you know each
053year with our PI fund. So that's why we're doing lease to own pay on a few and then over time. Yeah. >> So, is the price on these um not that price that you quoted is not just for the chassis and the bodies. That's all in like what what we were expecting them to cost once we outfit them with the various uh features that they need. >> Yes. We come back to the board once we figure out >> and then come up with the price for us. So once they're outfitted, you're expecting somewhere between 100 and 120 per bus. >> Between 120 and 160 >> once they're completely outfitted. >> They were 120 last year. >> Okay. >> And our just to you know, just so I know the board is aware, but our our
054uh permanent improvement funds in terms of how much we take in each year is only about 88,000 context. That might be need to be the subject of next month's report. Actually, I might give a little update on that. But >> okay. All right. Then Mr. Shelby, please call the RO. >> Mrs. Click, >> yes. >> Mrs. Mahalis, >> yes. >> Mr. Sabolski, >> yes. >> Mr. Achim, >> yes. >> Mrs. Schneider, >> yes. >> All right. Next, we have exhibit E1D, which is a resolution to approve mandatory updates to the policy manual as attached. And I've asked Dr. Milstatic to give us some background on this before we proceed. >> Do we need motion? A second. >> Can I have a motion, please? Sorry. >> Second. >> Okay. We'll go now. Yep. Just want to
055make sure we have those. So, I know the board's fully aware of what uh this policy update is all about. you know, giving my weekly updates and trying to sort of prep us for the last couple of weeks. So, I know that we did do a full policy manual and and uh Jennifer Click was a part of our board policy committee. Um, however, in terms of timing, that did end up being playing in our favor. Uh, because House Bill 96, which is the bianium budget, um, there weren't just budgetary items. there were uh a ton of language mandates in terms of changing policies and operational uh things that schools had to address. So u and this is online as well but there are actually 37 policies uh that we now need to update. Um House
056Bill 96 took effect in summer. Uh that law the laws actually um were set to begin September 30th and we've adjusted our practices internally in the district but the policies provided to us uh weren't even ready. So we kind of had to wait for OSBA and you know Neiola uh districts had to do the same so that we could get those policies look at those policies which brings us to today. So we have 37 policies and I've got them queued up here and uh the resolution is that we would um approve all of these which we are able to do given this situation. This is very unique. Normally we would you know have one policy or two policies maybe three if it's a crazy month. This is 37. So this is a really uh unique
057time. Um so uh I wanted to give the board uh the policies in advance which which you've had and then we can have discussion tonight. We could uh approve all 37 of these. Um we could have some questions and comments about one or two or a couple. Um, and the board could say, you know what, we're going to table those or maybe we need one more month of discussion and we could amend the resolution to approve all them except for and we could list those and then those could be on next month in November to uh vote at that point in time. So, those are those are kind of our options. Just knowing that this is truly a unique situation and in my 11th year in the district, I don't think we've ever seen this
058before. Um, so I know OSBA and the companies that provide policies are going a little crazy uh themselves trying trying to keep up with that. So does that help in terms of setting the stage of where we are? Yes. >> And opening up for comments and questions and particular policies. >> Uh, and from my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, >> we need to talk about at least policy INDA, which is correct, patriotic school observances and exercise because that policy as written gives us an either or option. So, we have to come to a conclusion about that tonight or table it. Um, before we go to that policy, I'd like to ask, are there any other policies that you think we need to discuss tonight that we might need to table? >> Oh, and I
059should mention too, out of the 37, um, really we had no choice on language for almost all of those. It was just mandated. There was some permissive language, uh, for a smaller number. A lot of those policies we just went with the language that we had before. We had already made internal decisions on like the cell phones uh you know for example or our bidding policy. You know some of those we had already made those decisions. So um we knew what the language was but this is the INDA. We had not discussed previously. So most of this is is really just mandated language requirements that we had to do to be in compliance with House Bill 96. >> Okay. So the policy INDA deals with um the pledge of allegiance. That's our either or option.
060Um either we we we resolve tonight to um direct the administration to um for the children to to recite the pledge daily or regularly, you know, quote unquote. So I guess we just open that up now for discussion. >> Could you tell us which um currently practice. >> Well, they all do it regularly. Um, and I know that uh, you know, I know that Harmon does it every day and I believe that uh, the elementaryaries uh, do it every day. Um, I'm not sure about the high school is it every day or just Monday? >> Every day. So, essentially we are uh, for the most part doing it um, every day already even though our current board policy doesn't necessarily spell that out. Um, so this one would say that it needs to be done
061every day. Um, but obviously we're already doing that without it being a part of the board policy. >> Okay. Um, anybody want to go first? >> Just find it better to have continuity buildings and provide the language and states that we do every day. Just not have options. sometimes especially if you try to >> have continuity with the buildings every day just like we did >> just like buildings do I think the language I think would be appropriate if we just >> so the first option what's your >> I agree I think it's important that the children say the pledge daily so I would I would vote to um make that the the language daily. >> Any other? >> So, if you all agree, we can we can vote on that tonight. If you don't,
062>> we will table this policy. Um just in the interruptions of a school day or school week um by like requiring it every day. Sometimes there's days that are unusual and so would that disrupt the ability to be able to say the every single day? >> Well, I timed my this takes 10 seconds. I did it today. >> So that is Yeah, that's that that's I guess my only concern about it because we do it already every day anyways. But I don't know for for half day kindergarten uh you know if it's in the afternoon and we did in the morning or if there's a a field trip or something unique with the schedule. >> Can I ask >> and we don't and we skip it. Yeah, that's my only concern. I mean we do
063it all, you know, every day. I guess as long as the board's comfortable if if that's the board policy and it says it, you know, every day but something happens and we don't do it on a day that that's I guess okay in unique circumstances. um you know that we're all understanding it but our rule of thumb is that we're going to pretty much do it every day. >> How we do it? Yeah. >> I have four starts so I do. >> Yeah. So it is an expectation that you do it as part of morning routine. So you can walk by and I can do five times a day. Not to interrupt the others, but to make sure that we practice. >> Okay. >> Anyone else? >> I think it should be said every day.
064>> You don't think it should be? >> I do. >> Oh, you do? >> Okay. >> So, it sounds like um we actually could potentially um approve that one then tonight uh with consensus from the board. But um when I update this one before we finalize it, I'll just make sure that we get rid of the or and it'll just have the the first phrase and the board's comfortable with that. So it'll just say the first part and then we'll get rid of the second part that says it does not require the daily recitation. >> Okay. So in that case, we can go ahead and approve this. We can vote on this tonight and >> Okay. >> With the with the daily requirement. >> With the daily requirement. Okay. >> Y can I ask a
065question? Yeah. >> In the second option, there's a statement made that staff and students are prohibited from altering the word of the pledge of alle wording of the pledge of allegiance. What is that's not in the first one? What's that? What's the purpose of having that in there? >> Um because um or having what's the purpose of having it in one option but not the other option? Yeah, the OSBA isn't as >> Oh, you're saying however the board encourages reciting pledge now. >> Exactly. >> This is just the first paragraph of that section. >> That's Yes. Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. So, exactly, Jen. So it gets rid of that and that that line covers at that next line. Does everybody see that? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah, that's helpful. Thank you. >> Okay.
066Anything else? If not, we'll go to a vote. >> Any other uh questions about any other policies? >> I already asked that. >> Oh, you did? >> I was I was looking at my computer screen. >> Okay. Mr. Sheldy, please go. >> Mrs. Click. >> Yeah. >> Mrs. Mahales. Yes, >> Mr. Sabolski. >> Yes, >> Mr. Achim. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Schneider. >> Yes. >> All right, they're all approved. >> Okay. >> Um, and next we go to discussion items. We have the calendars. >> Yes. >> For the next two school years. >> So, um, I am actually going to pass this over to Mr. Hayes because he's done a great job with the leg work. Uh, so I'm going to have him just talk to the board a little bit about where we are
067and what we've done so far. Obviously, this is a discussion item, but we would like to bring these to the November meeting and actually have both years approved next month. So, Mr. Hayes. >> Yeah. So, the fir the first thing is just that presenting two two years worth of calendars and uh our thought process is that we want to uh plan ahead and give our families and our staff members the opportunity to uh be forward thinking especially when it comes to holidays and things like that. So our our thought process would be to have these two years approved this year and then say at this time next year we'd only be looking at one year looking at the 2829 calendar and we'd be following that practice every year after that. Um a few things just
068to uh go into this uh process. So when developing these uh calendars it can always be a sensitive subject. When do we start school? When do we not? Uh and uh who gets to make those decisions or or how does how do those decisions come about? And so as part of this process, we've engaged a multitude of stakeholders. So uh we've had our teaching staff, we've including our our executive members of the uh A.E.A. our our union. Uh we've had classified staff, we've had input from the financial office, we've had input from the um board's communication committee. Uh we've had Mr. Arquilla uh from a facilities transportation aspect. Um, we've had we've had it with our PTO groups, both elementary and Harmon High. Uh, we had it presented at the superintendent advisory council, which includes
069students, staff members, parents, community members, business members. Uh, giving everybody the opportunity to understand what goes into uh that calendar and giving allowing them also the opportunity to have input. Um so one of the things uh that we always have to look at is how do we optimize uh the learning environment for our students. That's what's really the driving force behind constructing the calendar. Beyond that we have to look at okay if we want to optimize the learning environment what restraints do we have? And so the state requires our students to be in school for 101 hours during the course of the academic school year. We s we go way beyond that. enough to build in enough days for snow days and things like that across all the BU buildings. And so the other confine
070that we have is uh the number of contracted days for our union. So we're looking at 185 teacher days. So we have to fit those 185 days uh within basically August through May. you could potentially have some time in June uh as it as it could be, but uh we're really looking at those 185 days and how do we fit them in to have some sense of balance between both semesters? Uh how do we how do we weigh in things like um all of the students that are involved in something like our XLT consortium when we look at a timing of spring break for example, we have a number of school districts that are also uh working with us uh and having our students go to their districts, things like that. Um, we look at
071then the one of the things that many people didn't know through a lot of our stakeholder engagement was the windows that the state gives us for testing. And so some people might say, why are we starting school so early? And one of the uh things is we want to have as much seat time as possible before our students are required to take their state assessments or their AP assessments when we're looking at dates that are uh prescribed by the College Board that uh set are set nationally. And the state of Ohio, for example, for all of our OSTs, has multiple windows that generally uh begin in late March and run through late April. And the College Board mandates that AP testing begins the first full week of May and runs for two weeks plus a
072third week with makeups. So, our thing is we want to have our students have the ability to have as much learning time prior to those assessments. uh we wouldn't want a student to say be working really hard to earn college credit and AP exam and then have five or six weeks after the fact. Um a couple other things that we put uh have in consideration is that with a lot of state testing or AP testing that goes on, we have more days in the second semester. So we usually have a little bit of an inequity there. So you might have fewer days in the first semester and more days in the second semester, but given the number of state testing days, uh we feel like, hey, it's better to have a few more days in
073the second semester because kids are being pulled out with alternative schedules to accommodate the number of testing days. Um so those are just some of the factors that uh go into, you know, prescribing this calendar and the 25 26 year this year was a little bit of an outlier when it comes to the start time. So, uh, you're looking at the 26 27 and the 2728 school year starting between like the 17th and 19th. Every year besides this year has been plus or minus two two or so days around that calendar for the last several years. So, we're looking at kind of being right back into that that mode where we're starting uh, you know, families really have almost you know, a little more than two full weeks in August before coming back. But that
074allows us to have um you know enough time to meet the 185day requirement, giving our kids the optimal form for learning um while having the appropriate breaks built in for you know holidays, things like that. We also look at having uh a structure to allow us to have three days um in a row before winter break to allow for um semester exams for our students as well to not have kind of interruptions or several years ago students might have ended the first semester after winter break. And so that was a bit of a a tough learning opportunity for them where they had to come back, have a week or two, take their exams. It was a little bit of of a difficult time. So we really want to be able to have that the end
075of that first semester uh before winter break. So those were just some of the things that go into making the calendar. We feel really good about all the number of stakeholders that we've engaged in the process and just wanting the board and any other community members to uh you know have that awareness as well. And I also just want to thank everybody for all their input and um you know time spent you know because all we want to do is give our kids the best conditions possible. So with that any questions I'll be happy >> just add the one change that we made uh because we did have a couple of drafts and then we did recently change 26 27 if you can just let the know board know about the just that one change
076from the first draft. Yeah, we we had we had um a couple different drafts as we were going through this process and one of uh one of which had um our staff records day in the 2627 school year coming after Memorial Day. Uh so it was that Tuesday after coming back. Um the tradeoff there was basically removing the Monday after Thanksgiving in uh next school year's calendar. Uh so people would go back for um and have school on that Monday. Uh and then the uh teacher records day would end before Memorial Day. Uh and then students last day would be a Thursday uh in the end of the semester. And through a lot of the the discussion, people felt like they everybody would want them Monday after Thanks Thanksgiving as well, but when they looked
077at uh in retrospect, uh students and staff alike probably being ready to be done at that end of May at that that point in time. And then that particular year uh next year um there's you get back from Thanksgiving and there's three weeks and some of the discussion with groups was okay we get back Thanksgiving everybody can uh see the light for winter break coming with three weeks ahead. Uh but then just depending on where the days fall for example the 2728 school year has that Monday after Thanksgiving. So always just kind of depends on uh where things fall. >> Okay. Any questions yet or you just want to chew on this for a month and that's what we'll do. Okay. Thank you for those explanations. >> Yep. Thank you. >> Are there any board
078items? No. >> All right. Then I will entertain a motion to adjurnn, please. >> Second. >> Okay. Mr. Shaldy, please call the role. Mrs. >> Yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Mal. >> Yes. >> Mrs. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Schneider. >> Yes. Break.