001here. Miss Green here. Mrs. Tally here. Mr. Twist here. Thank you. Um, we do our 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. Thank you. Um, any additions or deletions to the agenda tonight? Nope. Um, our board, our treasurer wasn't able to be here tonight, so Kevin will be sitting in for him tonight. Uh, can we get a motion to approve the agenda? So move. I'll second. Can we call the RO? Mrs. Tally? Yes. Miss Barnes? Yes. Mr. George? Yes. Miss Green. Mr. Twist? Yes. Right. And then um actually, Miss Barnes, um CWA is not going to be here tonight to present. Okay. So, I apologize. That should have been already removed,
002but it snuck on there. I mean, not yay that they're not going to be here, but just yay. We get a shorter meeting tonight. Okay. Um so, the next thing is public voice. Do we have anybody for public voice tonight? Uh, we do have one, uh, Rob Steedman. I wrote this up. I'll send it to you after I'll send it to you after uh, as well because I don't know if I'll be able to get to it all in three minute. Uh, over the course of the last few meetings, I've been speaking to raise awareness and support for the Canal Winchester baseball program. To that end, there are two points that I wanted to raise tonight. First was around the improvement plan, which I will actually skip over based on a conversation I just had
003with Miss Hunt. Uh, but you can read that it was around field availability for the 2026 baseball season. Uh, it seems like that concern may no longer be a concern, so I won't address that now. The second was around fundraising. Uh, currently the athletic department provides a stipen of roughly $1,000 to $1,500 to cover costs associated with baseball program. Uh the reality is baseball is not an inexpensive sport compared to many of the other sports. In order to safely play a baseball game, the team needs to have one or more of the following opt uh items: baseballs, mound clay, batters, box clay, infield mix uh to repair low spots, field conditioners to avoid injury while sliding, diamond dry to dry wet areas after rain, grass seed and fertilizer. While some of those will go away
004if a turf field is put in place as part of the improvement plan, the reality is those are all required to be put in place. Now, uh just to put some rough dollar amounts together, one dozen baseballs costs about $98. Each game uses anywhere between five and 10 baseballs due to foul balls being lost in the field and in the homes behind the baseball uh field. Uh the 2025 baseball season saw 16 dozen baseballs used for high school, five dozen balls used for JV, which allotted for almost the entirety if not all of the funds provided by the athletic department. Unlike basketball, football, or soccer, where balls are immediately returned when hitting in the stands, when a baseball goes into foul territory, the return rate is only about 50%. So mo most of those costs
005are sunk costs. This means the remaining cost, rightly or wrongly, is currently falling on the baseball booster club. This is where the fundraising comes into play. Fundraising Canow Winchester community is incredibly difficult. While Canow Winchester has grown over the years, it still remains a relatively small community. With athletic fundraising being federated out to individual sports and boosters, each local business is being hit up multiple times by different programs for the same funds and resources. There simply isn't enough to go around. The baseball program has held a couple of different fundraisers over the last couple of years. But the reality is the majority of the money's raised from those fundraisers coming is coming directly from the families that have players in the program. So, not only are families being asked to play a $150 pay to
006participate fee, the same families are also providing additional monies via the fundraising efforts. With that in mind, a couple of weeks ago, the baseball program was presented with a significant opportunity to rent the high school and middle school baseball fields for a Central Ohio summer baseball tournament. The fee quoted to the tournament was $150 per game. While it took some coordination to gain approval from the district, the baseball program was available to leverage the varsity field for two full days of games on a Saturday, Sunday, and the middle school field was able to be used for a full game on a Sunday due to rain on Saturday. The 20 games that were held generated a total of $3,000 in funds. However, upon completion of the event, the program was advised the entirety of the funds
007would have to be given to the school district and placed in the school's general fund. Considering no one aside from the head coach from the district provided any assistance in getting the fields ready or maintaining them during the event for the funds to be pulled and placed in a general fund without access to the baseball program does not seem to be in the best interest of fairness or in support of the program. I believe the process to rent the fields needs to be rev re-evaluated to ensure funds generated for baseball, even softball field rentals go back into both programs. This will help defay already expensive costs which ultimately fall on the parents and families in order to make this program function to the level of an OC school. These tournaments are practically begging us to
008take their money. There's no reason for the fields not to be rented. They're available. they're unused and need to be maintained even during the summer to ensure that weeds and other problems don't occur over the summer season. However, if the process is not updated and the funds are not directed to the baseball program, it makes no sense for anyone from the program to make themselves available during the events or hold them at all. These funds could go a long way in making the program a leader in the OC of both onfield results and best in conference field experiences. It's free money. They want us to take it. We shouldn't tell them no. Thank you, Mr. Can you email us those comments? Okay. Thank you. Those fees go to the school and not to the to
009the baseball. They go neither to the baseball boosters nor the athletic department. We were advised they go. Okay. Thank you. Want to make sure I understood. Next on the agenda is our um superintendence report. Did I miss that? Oh, executive reports. Treasures report. Thank you. Sorry, I don't see anything to go find it. Go ahead. You want to go with the superintendent and we'll come back to that. Thank you. All right. Good evening, uh, board members and community members. As we close out another school year, I want to take a moment to share some highlights from the end of the 2425 school year. We officially wrapped up the school year on May 29th with students and on May 30th with staff. I want to sincerely thank our students, staff, and families for a strong finish
010to the year. Whether it was final exam, field days, or farewell events, the energy and support throughout our schools made the end of the year memorable. Our seniors celebrated several beloved traditions in the days leading up to graduation, including the senior walk and picnic, the senior awards program, and the senior sunset. Congratulations to the class of 2025. We are incredibly proud of their achievements and excited for their future. As we look ahead to next year, we'll be reviewing our graduation processes and procedures to ensure that this important milestone is a positive experience for all students and families. On May 30th, our staff gathered for our district-wide end of the year celebration. It was a special time to recognize milestones and achievements across the district. We honored staff for years of service. Excuse me. I have
011to switch here. Let's see here. We we honored our staff for years of service, celebrated our retirees, and recognized this year's building and district award winners. It was a joyful and fun way to close out the school year. And I want to thank everyone who helped make it a celebration to remember. Congratulations to our 2425 retirees. We have Tom Schmidtz, Sandy Thomas, Jackie Collier, Deb Canini, Brenda Hargus, Deborah Moneyreak, and Nancy Vance. We also may have two more on the agenda tonight. I'm just going to quickly make mention of. We have Nancy Miller who is a third grade teacher at Winchester Trail. And I just want to make sure that this one did we get a is the letter on here, Cindy? Okay. The other one we do not have yet. So, I'm going to
012hold off on making that announcement. And then also, congratulations to this year's building service award winners at Indian Trail. Uh, building service award winner was Katie Puit. At Winchester Trail, Mackenzie Malin, Canal Winchester Middle School was Drew Lennox. And Canal Winchester High School was Hunter Hutchkins. Operation Center was Will Spencer. And here at the education center was Bo Hughes. So, congratulations to all of them. Also, our district award winners. Um, we have our helping hands award winner which was Bob Murdoch. Rising star award. We give two of these, one at the elementary and one at the secondary. Uh, those two awards went to Lexi Derubo and Cassidy Luther. And fun fact, both Lexi and Cassidy are both alumni of Canal Winchester. So, we're excited that they're back with us. Our fighter fire award is Will
013Melton and our golden apple award was Jasmine Smithers. At this time that concludes my report and thank you for again for your cons continued support for us here at Canal Winchester schools. Thank you. Are you ready? I'm not aching. Oh, sure. Um, 297 I thought was the number 297. I think I heard that was the right number. I was going to say we were right around 300, but 297. and we'll what's really you know we'll continue to graduate students throughout the summer as they meet those requirements as well. So, and then my comment was um in our uh weekly board report, I love the commercial that was done with all of the administrators and I was just curious who did the production. Uh is that the one that was for the funday to get everybody
014excited for it? So, Craig Lenger was our director and videographer. I love and all the things. Yeah, that was a fun fun quick day. He did a great job with it. I wanted to see more. I'm like, what what's gonna happen next? Yeah, that was a lot of fun. Thanks for sharing that with me. Of course. Are there any board committee reports? I'll go first for uh CWJRD. So, um, we had our meeting a couple of weeks ago and just I want to touch on some of the fall programs that are open up, uh, and actually some of the summer programs that we have. So, uh, the CWJRD in partnership with the Canal Winchester Performing Arts Collective has several performing arts, uh, training camps going on over the summer. So, they're doing some musical theater
015workshops. Uh, they're doing some, uh, steel drum, I think, uh, workshops and some others. So, make sure you can look on cwrecation.com for those. We also have fitness camps and sports camps going on through the summer. Um, and then currently open for registration. Um, so more than just kind of the sports and the youth sports that you've heard about in the past, uh, this CWJRD is really kind of stepping out and and increasing their offerings. So, uh, they're offering things like IS sound baths. uh you can register for that. Karate, yoga in the park, and then of course our normal uh sports programs. We got cheerleading, fall soccer, flag football, flag base or false fall baseball, fall softball, and volleyball are all open for registration right now. Not yet. It's coming. What was the first
016thing you said that was out of the box? I rest sound bath. What is that? Do you know what that is? it. So, it's kind of like a uh meditation type activity where you uh sit in a room and and are kind of surrounded by sounds and it gives you an opportunity to meditate and kind of clear your mind and relax uh for the time of the of the the session the session. Yep. Is that just for you or adults still? Just wondering. It is not just for It is not just for me. No, it is for anybody. Anybody who wants to register, it's open for She said you. I know. Um, next OSBA legislator. Hi, good evening. Uh, last week the Senate Finance Committee adopted a substitute version of House Bill 96, marking the
017Senate's initial changes to the state budget. While the Senate bill includes language suggesting a continuation of years five and six of the final school, I'm sorry, of the fair school funding plan, it notably removes key components that ensure the plan remains equitable. Um, critical elements such as uh updated base cost inputs and full formula funding have been eliminated. Instead, the Senate's version guarantees district funding at 2021 levels, which fails to account for inflation or the actual cost of educating students today. A new performance-based provision has been added. And while it does provide funding for enrollment growth, the Senate proposal ultimately deviates from the intended full implementation of the fair school funding plan. Instead, it introduces a bridge funding model, which is like a flat funding type of model. Um, it also undermines the plan's core
018purpose, which is providing transparent and equitable funding based on student needs. Compounding these concerns are the various property tax provisions included in the bill. Um, the funding lost under the Senate plan is not fully offset by these measures and a significant financial impact on schools statewide. According to a statement from Allin for Ohio kids, the fair school funding plan requires the state to fund the actual cost of educating students with up-to-date costs, not based on which students perform best on standardized test, which studies show are biased against lower income districts. The substitute bill also does not eliminate the cap on cash carryover as we had hoped, but it raises the threshold at which a county budget commission must reduce the district's property tax collections from 30% to 50% of the district's carryover balance. And to
019show our full support, during a special board meeting uh we had on May 28th, the Canal Winchester Board of Education unanimously approved and adopted a resolution in support of the fair school funding plan as it was originally intended to function under the full formula. Additionally, I had the pleasure of joining uh concerned citizens on May 22nd at McGill Park where we discussed public funding for schools and the impact the proposed state budget would have on our schools. This community conversation was held at the invitation of CORE for public education, which is a coalition of central Ohio public educators committed to advocating for fair and equitable school funding. The Ohio Senate is expected to vote on version of the budget in the coming weeks and the general assembly must pass a final version and submit it
020to the governor by June 30th. That concludes my report. Thank you. Thank you. There any questions? Next, the student achievement leaison. Nothing to report. Thank you. Great. Um, next on the agenda is the treasury report. You ready? Yeah. Okay. page in a hurry to get to second page. I'm not I'm not sure. So, I'll have to see. But I'll get it I'll get it updated and I'll get it in there for sure. Um he's gonna get you for that. Yeah, I know. He's been getting all It's probably in there somewhere. I just can't find it. Um, so for the month of May, this just the the overview. Um, total revenues. Let's see here. Nope. See, look, I pulled this up and he doesn't even have those in there. I'm just going to pull it from
021Excel. I'm sorry, guys. I don't I don't I don't have May's got it somewhere else. We can put it on the agenda for I will get this updated. We have another special meeting coming up this month, too, chat with you guys about that. See before we end, but we might need to do a couple. Sorry. I don't think I thought that a little bit. Let me see here. If I can find That's not the right one that I put up there. So, okay. Well, we'll just wait. I'll email you guys. I'll find something. Okay. That's fine. If you can email it to us and then um you know we can take we can look at it the next meeting that we have on that agenda. Thank you. Um so the next thing on the agenda
022is our district reports um for Indian trails. Oh, actually um does anyone have anything on the district reports that they want to discuss? I did want to make mention um that uh May is mental health awareness month and I do uh I appreciated the um breakdown of data for the signs of suicide um that shows the the statistics of our students in the middle school and the high school um that had uh past suicidal thoughts or had tried to um made at least one attempt to harm themselves. Um those statistics were disheartening but um I'm not surprised at those statistics but I just wanted to thank you for including that in the report and also um I wanted to uh congratulate the district as a whole for making the um or reaching one of the
023uh promise goals of uh the five positive performance I don't think I said that correctly. So, uh, kudos to everybody. Um, we celebrate every achievement and I'm looking forward to see what the next milestone will be. I was just going to ask Mr. Ramsey, we had a shot putter, correct? Do you have any idea how she did? Okay. Fantastic. Good. Good to hear. Good to hear. And I believe that was the only athlete we had at the state. Boys or girls then, right? Okay. Very good. Anything else? All right. The next thing is our consent agenda. Um a motion for approval of this consent agenda. Get a second. Second. Okay. Thank you very much. We'll look first at number two, uh, which are the minutes from our regular meeting in May and then also our
024special meeting on May 28th. Looking on to number three is donations. We had three donations this month. Uh, one for the mini pitch, which will be placed in between the two trails. Um, we had a donation from uh, David Sweeney uh, for Science Olympiad in the amount of $3,000. And then we had a donation from Kenneth Molder again for the S Molder scholarship fund in the amount of $12,000. So we want to thank all those individuals for their donations. Number four is our certified personnel. We have several resignations uh and a couple different contract extensions. As we move on, we are we do have two certified recommendations. uh one Laney Ring as school counselor and uh Genesis Battle at the middle school as well. And then the remainder we have uh extended days. We have
025a couple to finish up for the 2425 school year. Um for our school psychologists who have been filling in, we were actually down a school a school psychologist all year and so our other school psychologists filled in to ensure that we didn't drop the ball. Moving on to 2526, we have extended days for the upcoming school year. And then we move into our contract recommendations for our certified staff. Um, and those are broken down into one year, two-year, threeyear, fiveyear, and then we do have two continuing contracts. There's a lot of information there. Those are routine items. Moving on to number five, which is our classified personnel. Uh we have a bus aid resignation and we do have two recommendations for um aid positions. We're also approving our mental health interns and again as Miss
026Tally said it is mental health awareness month but the interns work very closely with our mental health specialists. And then we are moving into our classified 2526 contract recommendations. Those are a little different. Those go two years, I'm sorry, one year followed by two year, two year, two year, two year, and then they have the ability to get a continuing contract. And then to wrap up, not quite yet. To wrap up the classified position, we do have um two substitute custodians for approval. Moving on to number six, we have our supplemental uh personnel and stipens. And again, I'm just going to reiterate this in the first couple months, you're going to see resignations a lot. Um, we did change our process to approve everybody in May, which means our coaches will all be under contract
027for the entire summer. Um, that just protects us and them. So, if we have to clean up anything, you will see resignations that will happen. We're also rescending contracts for the same purpose. They might be moving into new positions that you'll see later on. And then under supplementals, we're hiring uh the remaining positions that we had had open for the 2526 school year. And we also have our stipens for our academics as we move into next school year. And our volunteers and number seven and eight are routine items. Kevin, you can speak on those. So the current year that we're integrated next year started September like last This is started next year. And then moving on to number nine, we have our overnight field trips request. Um we have uh Canal Winchester Middle School has
028set the date for their 8th grade social studies trip to Washington DC. That will be next year May 19th through the 22nd. And then also we have our BTO medical uh career pathway students who are attending the conference and competition in Nashville, Tennessee which is coming up here June 17th through the 22nd. And that is all for the consent agenda. Pardon me. Can we take a vote? Miss Barnes? Yes. Mr. George? Yes. Miss Green? Yes. Miss Tally? Yes. Mr. Twist? Yes. Thank you. Um, next is our action items. A resolution authorizing the transfer of funds. Motion myself. transfers. I think you guys have already talked about previous meetings. First one is the termination that's taking money from the general fund. Would you mind opening that up? Yep. So one,000 that's when forecasted $525,000 service fund.
029That's because we service this year free lunch for everybody lost. My best calculations figured out that was the difference having the way it was but remember we picked up for disadvantaged people funding for that. Um, now the third one, I think Nick had previously talked to you guys about transferring the full amount. This was for the the um 070. This was the money that was borrowed for the performing arts and athletic facilities. He was originally contemplating transferring all of it. Um, because we're going to have to pay it back, right? It's the borrowed money. We know we're going to pay it back. Um but for now he's going to transfer the it's five years worth of principal and interest. So this will get us through the end of the five-year forecast through June of 2029.
030$5.5 million will cover that loan principle and interest. Does he have a plan for after the five years? I mean we're still going to have to pay it. So, I don't know if he he if he'll transfer it to the 070 account or if or '070 fund or if he's going to transfer. I think right now just with the budget and everything kind of up in the air, he wasn't sure that he wanted to do all of it just yet. Kind of want to wait and see where, you know, yeah, that was the probably know more here in a few months really. Yeah. So there's definitely the plan moving forward, but just with the questions on the budget on when we're going to do the transfer. I guess my question is if we do that
031amount, does that get us um under the threshold of if the state bill does pass the way that they're doing it, the 50% does this get us under that so that we are not having to give up funds right that are over that 50% over a need for what we're trying to do for our addition. Right. I think if that sticks that 50% I think then we may have to transfer some more. Okay. Yeah, we're kind of waiting to see where that lands. Okay. Um, do we need to take a vote now, please? Does anybody have any other questions? Okay. Yes. Mr. M. Yes. Miss Green. Yes. Mr. George. Yes. Is there a document I'm going to need to sign on tonight? Um, no. All right. Not, but I don't think so. Not for that.
032Okay. Um, and then, uh, next we have, um, pay to participate fees. I move to approve the pay to participate fees for fiscal year 26. $150 per activity for high school students, $100 per activity for middle school students in accordance with the guid guidance outlined in the athletics handbook. Second. So, this amount has been in place now for quite a few years, I want to say. Um, and we're we're recommending to keep it at that same price. No questions. Anybody got any questions? Mr. George? Yes. Miss Tally? Yes. Mrs. Green? Miss Green? Sorry. Yes. Miss Barnes? Yes. Mr. Twist? Yes. Does anybody know what policy number that refers? this athletics handbook. It's I don't I don't think the amount's in the policy just says that just in the handbook. Okay. Next is uh contracts private
033tuition. I move to approve the private tuition contracts to educate students attending Eagle Wings for 2526. I'll second. got this. Yeah, this is another placement that we have for one of our specialized students. So, just contracting with Eagle Wings for next school year and actually Kevin. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I can't. Um, but yeah, there's four students I think going to take a vote, please. Mr. George, yes. Mr. Twist, yes. Mr. Tally, yes. Miss Barnes, yes. Miss Green, yes. Thank you. And the final reading of um a motion for the policy that had a first reading in May of 2025 for a school board. So move. Thank you very much. So this one policy we're ready for approval um with our changes to open enrollment. This policy actually will be where now we will allow
034our staff member students to attend uh now Winchester schools tuition free. So we did need to update that policy. Great. Um any any discussion? We take a vote. And just for clarification when you say staff are you referring to um all remember reading in the policy it's fulltime staff. Um, no, it's all staff. So, I'll check that. Something that said full time. Okay. I'll look at that. But it should it is all staff. Yep. All positions. All staff. Okay. Contract for you know, is that all staff? Contracts or substitute? Like for example, we have our ESC staff and our ESC staff that we would h uh have which again we are trying to move a lot of our staff back here to Canal Winchester but for example the psychologists that were with ESC they would
035still be allowed to have their staff here substitutes right now um would would not fall under that really it's it's the same practice as we've been having it just moves it from the open enrollment policy to the new uh resident eligibility of resident Yep. Thank you. We take a vote. Mrs. Tally. Yes. Miss Green. Mr. George? Yes. Miss Barnes? Yes. Mr. Twist? Yes. [Music] Number seven is our board discussion. Um, board policy for second reading. Yep. Thank you. So, um the last board meeting um where we talked policy, we had both the one uh that we just approved on staff member students and then also um a policy on um anonymous complaints. So, uh just want to take a second reading to have the uh ability to discuss that, the opportunity to discuss that for
036you guys. Um, moving forward, I do not believe we will not approve this at this meeting. Just an opportunity for discussion. There are two different policies um that I shared with you all. Um, and it's just two different ways of reading the same thing, but wanted you to have an opportunity to have both of those. I did send those out, I believe, on Friday. Is that extra? I have some. Yeah, we just got to find one out. So, I'll say I I I have I I don't like anonymous complaints. Um but I have a problem with saying that the district will not investigate anonymous complaints. Um, I I think that there's a difference between an anonymous complaint that is of a very general nature that says, you know, somebody did something, but that's very different
037from an anonymous complaint that is very specific in the nature of something that was done and and has verifiable information. I think to have a blanket statement that says we're not going to do this um potentially puts us in a problem if we have an anonymous complaint about a very specific situation and we don't investigate it because we have a policy that says we won't. So the one policy well both policies state that if something is egregious illegal correct yeah so there's currently policy that we have on there's four different policies um anti-harassment policy let's see here uh child abuse or neglect sexual misconduct towards students and whistleblower protections all four of those policies by law are required to allow anonymous reporting um and so those are set aside those we cannot say we will
038not accept anything on those anonymously and so that does remove it. I believe that what was put in here is if you look on the copy that is in color. So it has like it's four pages. Uh nope. 4141. Yeah. Yeah. It's they're both the same number, but the one that's in blue, that one here, if you look under the first paragraph under policy statement, it simply just states that um while all concerns are taken seriously, the district will not initiate formal personnel investigations based solely on anonymous complaints unless the complaint presents a credible and verifiable legal or safety concern. Um, and again, that is what policy says. I just wanted to say I do agree with the way this is written. Um, we also want to be mindful of schools resources in that they
039don't have that kind of time to constantly investigate numerous of an anonymous complaints um, if it's not credible. But I think because of that provision in there, unless the complaint presents a credible and verifiable legal or safety concern, I think that that still covers those kinds of concerns that maybe Mr. George was referring to. So I I agree with the language is written. Those policies read very contain information that's the same. It's just how they read really when you look at it. So, and I will say there is no policy from Neiola on anonymous complaints. I just want to say that I I'm in favor of of protecting staff from uh frivolous anonymous complaints. Obviously, if it's if it's severe enough that falls under one of those four categories, I do believe that I mean,
040obviously, by law, we're we're required to, and I agree with that. Um I I just believe that um and I think the one that's not in color might be just a little bit stronger worded and it and I think it's um it kind of explains certain definitions of what a what anonymous is. um or maybe what a what is required for it not to be anonymous. Um so it just kind of gives some definitions I think in that in that one that other one I don't know if it's going to be one or the other or a combination of the two you know depend on on what everybody thinks. Um the definition is is um listed in section seven on the color as well. Very good. I can identify. Um, I guess the only question
041I would have is what other types of complaints are there that would require even if they did identify themselves other than the four mentioned here um that we would be referring to. So if if it is anonymous, legal or safety, but it fits into one of these four categories, what other kind of categories would there be? like what do what what is not being written here as a category? Well, I think if you look staff conduct was one that we had talked about um and actually uh Mr. Twist and I have sat down and kind of looked through some things on what would and what would not. Um, but that would be one that there would be an expectation to put your name on it. I'm I guess I'm just going to like throw one
042out that I don't think fits in any of these in first reading it. Theft. So, if you know and you don't want to provide your information in your name and you know that someone's stealing from the cafeteria, I'm just gonna make it like, okay, let's just say that's one of them. Would it be illegal? Would it fall under a legal thing that you still would investigated then at that point? Even though it doesn't really fall under one of these four categories, it would still be an investigated item. I would say yes. Yes. I was just kind of curious as to what what is it we don't know. Yeah. If we would have a staff member that something with theft, I think that would be something we would that would fall under a legal concern and
043that would be something we would investigate. Yeah. Like I said, I'm I'm just concerned that that we get some anonymous complaint that doesn't fit under the under the four categories and we don't investigate it, even though it has verifiable information. Um, we don't get a number of those. So, I'm not necessarily concerned about staff resources. We don't get enough that I need that that I think we need to be concerned about it. And you know, there's there's a difference to me between something that's credible and verifiable with with facts, dates, times, places, um that than than something that's just, you know, not verifiable and has no facts behind it. So that that's my concern as I'm looking through these. Um, and I don't know that we've received any anonymous complaints that we've acted on from
044that had credible information in them that we or that we didn't act on that had credible information. But I do believe that there have been some anonymous complaints that we received that did not have verifiable information and we didn't act on those. And you know, if that's if and I and I think that that's a good way to do it. I don't know how to formalize that in a policy. Um, but I don't know that these policies as they're written right now, I I think that we would end up not investigating credible and verifiable complaints just because they're anonymous. Do we have to say the district will not initiate or can we say the district may not initiate? Meaning we could decide what we want to do one way or the other, but it's not
045necessarily um that we won't initiate at all is that we basically will make a determination based on what we get. But um we may not initiate instead of will not initiate. Well, that's what we do now. Mhm. So what we do now is we look at the we may not initiate and we determine whether or not it is something that we would investigate. So and why do we feel we need to go from may not initiate to will not initiate. I was asked to put a policy together on anonymous complaints. And I believe that there have been many anonymous complaints. I shouldn't say many but enough that have been investigated. Um, and then on the other side, many that or enough that aren't investigated, um, aren't looked into or aren't followed through with. And so
046it's it's a hodgepodge of what is looked at, what's not looked at, um, how in depth that's, you know, uh, we we go as we're looking into these. Um, and I think it's it's safe to say that staff need to be reassured that if somebody uh has a problem with something that they're doing that they can't just make a frivolous statement about somebody without having some backing from the district. But is it fair to say that, hey staff, we're not going to investigate you, even if we have a very credible and verifiable complaint against you because it doesn't fit one of these four categories? No. If somebody makes a complaint and puts their name and phone number on it that we can then follow up, the district could then follow up with that person to
047find out more about the information, where they got the information, that sort of thing. Then it's it's fair game. It's anonymous is the point. But what's the difference? If you have an anonymous complaint that's got credible and verifiable information, what's the difference of whether you can talk to that person or you can verify the facts that are written in the complaint? Well, and I I agree with you. I understand what you're saying. I've got a stack of those in my in my bag that I feel like we haven't followed through with with some of those. Right. So then maybe the policy needs to be That's why I believe the policy needs to be in place. Well, then maybe the policy needs to read will investigate if the anonymous complaint is credible and verifiable. Yeah. Well,
048if it's credible and verifiable in what way with facts in the complaint verify. So information. So then so then we're looking into that. If I have an anonymous complaint with the who, what, when, where, and why, why do I not investigate that? Do I not investigate that just because somebody didn't put their name on that complaint? Well, again, I've got several in my bag and you have them as well. Yeah. No, that haven't we haven't looked into. That's That's what I'm saying. Maybe the policy should say an anonymous complaint with that is credible and verifiable will be investigated. But who's determined whether it's credible and verifiable? The person who can read it and determine if it can be verified. The ones I've seen, I can't verify them. They're they're too generic for me. I I
049have no idea who they're talking about or what they're talking about. But maybe you run in different circles that you can verify based on the information you've seen there, you can figure out who they're talking about. I can't. So unless you come to me and say based on what I've read here, it's this person. I believe that they're discussing this person and it's this is what they're talking about. You could do that. Maybe you could do that because of people that you might know that might have written it. But it just depends on who's writing it, what information they're giving and whether or not we could figure it out about what they're trying to tell us. But I'm not going to jump to conclusions or go and accuse anyone of anything. I feel like if
050you want to write something to us anonymously, that's great. But you've got to give us facts so that we can look it up so that we can investigate. You can't. They have to be facts about someone to me. But how do you know if they're facts? If it's a who, what, when, where, and why? You know, it happened at this location at this time. It involved this person. That's credible and verifiable to me. If I can if I can go, that's one of our policies. You know, talk to a store manager or review video or, you know, if if if there's something I can cred if that's credible and I can verify it, then why do we not investigate that? And then secondly, we're putting ourselves at risk of something else happening down the line,
051the same person doing the same thing, and then it comes back. Well, hey, I reported that this happened six months ago, and the school district didn't take any action on it. Well, I think if the things you're you're referring to though are the things that are listed there, those four things. But no, it doesn't necessarily it's going to come back on us. Yeah. No, but it doesn't necessarily have to be those four things. It could be something outside of these four things and it still might come back to us. It's, you know, hey, to Vanie, hey, I reported that this I reported anonymously six months ago that so- and so was stealing and I gave them some information on when and where the theft happened and the school district never followed up and now they're
052missing $30,000 because Kevin's embezzling money. That's why I don't have financial, right? I know. I know. For listeners, that's a joke. Yeah, that's a joke. But yeah, I I think the policy can be written to handle those situations, but and and that's why I wanted a second reading on it and to have a conversation and discussion. I did not want to vote on it tonight. And maybe and maybe it's, hey, we need to stand up a committee of, you know, whoever some of the administrators and maybe a school, you know, maybe one of us schoolboard members to look at anonymous complaints and say, "Yes, that's credible and verifiable." Or, "No, that's not credible and verifiable. We're not going to review this. We're not going to investigate this one. But this one, we are going to
053investigate because we think there's enough facts for us to be able to investigate it. And that might be a a good idea because then no one's taken a single view of whether or not it's credible. It's it's maybe it's a committee of three or four people that look look at it. Yeah. And I'm sure we all have our differing opinions. Um, but I feel like if a complaint is serious enough, someone putting their name on it increases the credibility of that alleged offense or complaint. So, I'm pro um people identifying only because if the if there is something um egregious or something in there that the school needs to know about often times we might need to follow up with that person as well to get additional information for the investigation. Um, and also I
054feel like the purpose of this policy is really to address those other concerns or complaints, not necessarily the four listed because this is saying the four listed already has policy that governs that through laws. So what we're talking about is that gray area stuff and I feel like someone identifying themselves increases the credibility of that. So that conversation I agree with you on how do you determine what's credible and what's not. I agree with you on it does improve the increase the credibility but at the same time I don't want to discourage someone from not telling us something that they feel is important enough for us to know even if they don't want us to know who they are. A lot of times people don't want to identify themselves, but that doesn't necessarily mean that
055what they're trying to tell us doesn't merit an investigation. And that's why I think that even if someone didn't want to tell us who they are, that we should still be able to um look at it and make a determination of whether or not it's something we think is credible. But this is saying that we're doing that. Unless the complaint presents credible and verifiable legal or safety concern, like we're still going to look at it even if it's anonymous. That's what that's what 4141 is saying. But this 4140 is not saying that. It's saying that we will not investigate. And it doesn't put a caveat on it. It just says will not. It says unless unless the nature of the complaint falls under a category. Yeah, that's one of the four categories. Okay. I'm leaning
056more towards the 4141. I think that's a lot more it has more balance to it. Yeah. But but I I think we still need I think there still needs to be a mechanism to say, hey, is this a credible complaint if it's anonymous? And I mean maybe part of that is before you know if we're going to discuss this again in the future maybe we get an idea of how many anonymous complaints we've received in the last year so we can understand hey if we stand up a committee of three or four people you know how much work is going to be involved so we can understand from a staff resource perspective what it's going to take. I can absolutely do that. So right now we're saying that we would like to have a mechanism
057to review it if it's credible and track how many we're getting. Get an understanding of how many we've had like over the past year. So if we decide to do something and if we decide to say you know stand up a committee to look at anonymous complaints we'll understand how much resource you know what kind of resources it would take uh to do to do something like that policy uh 4141 the only that's different from 4140 is when it comes to retaliation. The 4140 says that any staff member who retaliates against a complaintant may face disciplinary action. But on 4141, it doesn't say anything about what will happen if a staff member does that. I think it was a good conversation and that's it's a good place to start and yeah, thank you. I agree.
058Well, you said There's no disciplinary action discussed in 4141 about disciplinary action regarding retaliation, right? I think that's important that that needs to be addressed. It's it's there. It's just doesn't include the l the same language from 4140 because it literally does say that the complaint is concerning staff conduct. So I think that that's important to make sure it's called out specifically. Okay. So what's the next step? I will put some information together regarding how many anonymous complaints we've had over the last year. And then I will also um like you guys have these already electronically I believe, but I will uh take some of the feedback and put some other policy drafts together as well. Thank you. Do we Adam, do you know um how do other school districts handle this? Do other school
059districts have policy? I found one. I didn't look any a whole lot further. Okay. And actually was going to try to do some of that today, but Okay. Got away from me. So, okay. I have spent some time looking for other policy because that's the easiest way to find it instead of creating it. Like this was a mixture of some Jack GPT Adam and I both like using it in different ways and asking it to put a different spin on it. Um so I have not been able to find anything else within policy. So if you have the one that you found that would be great to share just as an example. Um I think some negotiated agreements have language in them. Okay. uh that would be addressing it, but I have and and again
060I've just looked at the local central Ohio ones and searching anonymous. So if they pop up, that's what I Okay. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. I have the one right here and I can forward that on everybody at some point. Yeah. Um do we have a need to go into executive session tonight? Nope. Not that I'm aware of. Number eight is closing items. German at 801. We got a move and second it. I move to adjourn. Second. We get a roll call, please. Mr. George. Yes. Mrs. Tally? Yes. Mr. Twist? Yes. Miss Green? Yes. Miss Barnes? Yes. Thank you. Everyone have a wonderful summer. We'll see you next month or maybe later this month. We are