001The March 17th, 2025 regular meeting of the Chardon Local Schools Board of Education is called to order. This meeting is being held in accordance with Section 3313.15 of the Ohio Advice Code. Mrs. Blankenship? Here. Mrs. Clark? Here. Mr. Albright? Here. And Mr. Medjot? Here. Welcome to the March 17th, 2025 regular meeting of the Chardon Local Schools Board of Education. Prior to this meeting, each board member received for the review and consideration of the agenda and the terms associated with each agenda item can afford to consideration the electronic board education agenda system board drafts. The public can access the agenda through the school district's website one day prior to the whole meeting. So, the rest of the board needs to remain. It takes us to the first item of the agenda, which is the adoption of
002the agenda. Do we have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as presented? So moved. Second. Are there any questions or comments at the board agenda? Okay, so the board will consider a motion to adopt the agenda as presented. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? The motion has been adopted. Pledge of allegiance. Pledge of allegiance. Tonight we're going to be led in the Pledge of Allegiance by a third grade Munson Elementary student, Vincent Verostak. You please. That's it. You can just go right here if you want. It's okay. Perfect. Yep. Face the flag and everybody will join us in the pledge. So, when you're ready, you can start. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and
003to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thanks, Vincent. We'll ask you to stay right there and Mrs. Blanketschip is going to come out. Great job. Thank you for doing that. You did an excellent job. So, in recognition of third grade Munson Elementary student, Vincent Verostak, for your contribution and commitment in serving as the Board of Education's Pledge of Allegiance leader on the 17th day of March 2025. So, thank you. Thank you, Vincent. Hang on. We'll get a picture. All right. One, two, three. All right. Thank you. Thank you. The mission of the Charter Local Schools, we commit to high achievement for all students. Okay, that brings us to the first hearing in the public. There are none. There are none. So, consent agenda. Thank
004you, Madam President, members of the Board. We have a number of items on tonight's consent agenda. I'll try to move through those quickly. First item is item 3.1. We have approval of minutes for the February 18th regular meeting as detailed in the enclosure. Item 3.2, approval of the warrantless check payer report as detailed in the enclosure. Item 3.3, approval of administrative certified license classified supplemental noncontractual personnel and compensation related items as detailed in the associated enclosure. Item 3.4, approval of program of study for Chardon High School as detailed in the enclosure. Item 3.5, approval of program of study for Chardon Middle School as detailed in the enclosure. Item 3.6, approval of the update to Infinite Campus student fees for Chardon Middle School, Chardon High School as detailed in the enclosure. Item 3.7, approval of renewal
005contracts with Medical Mutual Services as detailed in the enclosure. Item 3.8, approval of resolution 2025-04, approval of power for schools sales confirmation renewal agreement as detailed in the enclosure. Item 3.9, approval of resolution 2025-05, authorization for the Ohio Schools Council to advertise and receive school bus bids on behalf of the Chardon Middle Schools as detailed in the enclosure. Item 3.10 is approval of participation in the group retrospective rating program with Shakeley and the Ohio Schools Council. This is for our Workman's Comp program as detailed in the associated enclosure. I'm recommending your approval of these items. Do we have a motion and a second? Moved. Second. Any questions or comments concerning the consent agenda? It looks like the curriculum was like and or. It's like real small changes. I didn't see a whole lot of big
006changes in the curriculum. That's correct. For the program of study? Yeah. It was almost like vocabulary changes. They're basically just minor tweaks. Okay. Any other questions or comments? Would you please call the roll? Mrs. Blankenship? Yes. Mrs. Clark? Yes. Mr. Albright? Yes. And Mr. Midgett? Yes. Thank you Madam President, members of the board. That brings us to item 41, which is presentation of our student liaison report. I'm happy with this this evening. Okay. So the seniors visited the annual presentation, which was focused on the prevention, substance abuse, and drunk and slightly distracted driving at the Parkside Church. And afterwards, we picked up our caps and gowns for graduation. Then this past weekend, Sharon put on the Little Mermaid, and it was very good. Recent testing, we had eighth and ninth grade, took the PSAT on
007March 11th. Tenth and eleventh grade took the ACT on March 11th as well. And then twelfth grade was given a chance to explore a career they're interested in or take an avion survey. And then afterwards, eighth through eleventh grade scheduled their class. And then we had NHS induction and graduation on March 6th. The sophomores were inducted to begin NHS, and then seniors graduated from NHS, and they received their courts for graduation. And then once they come, we have spring break next week. Well, thank you. I can't believe we're thinking about graduation. Yes. Flying along. Thanks, Abby. That's for sure. Thanks, Abby. Okay. That takes us to superintendent's report this evening. I have just a few items. First, I wanted to also congratulate the inductees to the National Honor Society. The National Honor Society had an
008opportunity to participate in that event, as Abby mentioned this evening. She also touched on the fact that we had Little Mermaid this weekend. They did a great job. It really was an outstanding production. Very proud of our students and program advisors. Did a wonderful job. On the topic of state funding, everybody's must-hear is there's been a lot of work in the last month on fair school funding and the Ohio binding of budget bill. A lot of workgroup members, including me, provided testimony to various committees, House Education, and House Finance Committee, urging them to fully implement the model. Don't think that's where we're at at this point. Amendments to the governor's budget were due on the House side on March 14th, and the House will continue to consider those amendments, and it's expected that they will
009move along with the amendment process and have a budget over the Senate side here pretty quickly. I'm going to show you the anticipated schedule, but it seems that it's moving more quickly than in typical years. Again, community members are urged to contact our legislators to encourage complete implementation of the model. And just a reminder that the fair school funding plan is actually Ohio's school funding formula. It is in law. It is what the legislature is to be funding. But the big issue is that the base cost input side is not in laws as to at what level the legislature will fund those. So that's what we're encouraging them to fully implement that and keep the integrity of the formula. Kind of on a related note, I participated last week with a statewide webinar with the
010League of Women Voters. This program is entitled Cost, Capacity, and Share of Responsibility, getting the hard school funding. And again, the topic was pretty much the same thing. House Bill 96, budget bill, and what needs to be done to fully fund traditional public schools in the state of Ohio. Just as a reminder, the budget process, and I'll just kind of jump ahead to where we are. We're moving in that last square on a rectangle on the top right. We're at the House looking to see the House unveil its version of the budget here very soon as they vote out of that chamber and move it over to the Senate. And then we'll see the same process play out with Senate education, Senate finance, and ultimately early June or could be sooner than that. The Senate
011will move its version of the budget out. And then typically what happens is the two chambers don't necessarily agree on the budget and it goes to what is called conference committee, which is made up of leadership representatives from the House and the Senate. And they attempt to hammer out the differences and then vote it out of a joint budget out of both houses. And then it goes to the governor for consideration. And the deadline is June 30th for him to enact this budget. Until midnight, right? Until midnight. We've seen some of these go down to the wire. There are a couple of items on tonight's agenda that I just want to call the board's attention to. A couple of us were discussing this prior to the meeting just in passing, but the Power for Schools
012agenda item. Chardon Schools participates in an energy aggregation program through the Ohio Schools Council. This program saves all of the member districts. Us included a significant amount of money relative to our electricity bills because we are able to aggregate over 300 school districts in the state that participate in the program as well as some other public entities. And tonight we have on the agenda renewal of that agreement with the Ohio Schools Council in attempting to lock in our energy acquisition for a multi-year agreement. It is interesting to note that as we see more, like Amazon is building a large data center in Ohio and other changes that are occurring that are placing more demands on the energy infrastructure in the state, the cost of electricity is going up. If you just look at your own
013home bills, you'll see the impact of that. So this program is very important for us. We also have a couple of agreements on this evening for the district to participate in the E-Rate program. E-Rate is the federal, what's called the universal service fee that's on all of our phone bills that we pay. And that money comes back to school districts in the form of supplements to technology-based initiatives that serve students, internet access and so on. What we have on tonight is actually two agreements. One is for a structured cabling project that we'll be undertaking this summer to improve our data infrastructure in the district and also then network data equipment, which is basically stuff that's in wiring closets, switches and the like that will enhance our ability to deliver network services within our schools. Those
014programs will leverage E-Rate dollars, but they will also be funded in part with district funds as well to supplement the E-Rate funding that we receive. Finally, and I'll spend the greatest amount of time this evening mentioning the TDA Planning Services Agreement that we have on the agenda this evening, the board's direction in keeping with our district success plan was to continue from using the presentation that TDA provided to the district in September as the jumping off point, continue with the work to evaluate some different ways that we might consider moving forward with capital improvements in our district. The one I'm referring to, or the lowest level I'm referring to is what I consider to be maintenance and repair. As the board recalls from the September presentation that TDA did before the board, there were three
015ranges of facility needs that we have in the district and infrastructure needs, looking at things like plumbing, electricity, building envelopes and so on. Those were divided out into immediate needs, less than three years, three to five year needs, and then more than five year needs. There was a significant list of repairs that TDA brought to the board's attention. While we have been tackling a lot of those things in order for us to accelerate that, we need to really put a cost and a schedule to that. So that's one phase of what TDA will be looking at for us. A second is what I consider to be more significant reprogramming and renovation costs. This would be, for lack of a better term, if we were looking to go out to the studs and really reinvent or
016reimagine what our spaces at say the middle school or the high school could look like and do more complete renovation and design it to meet our educational programming needs of today, what would that look like for our school district? And again, what TDA will be doing is looking at putting cost and projected schedule to that so that the board can consider it. Finally, Deb, if you could scroll down please, we will also be asking TDA to take a look at new construction. This time what we'll be asking them to consider is, again, at the board's direction, what would it take for us to construct a new pre-K to third grade elementary building and a new auditorium to seat approximately 500 people and what that master plan might look like. One of the scenarios that will
017be considered will be to look at number one, building on the current park elementary school auditorium site, potentially including the library parcel, which everybody knows is now available with the library moving off the square. A second consideration might be to build at the site of the current Chardonnay Early Learning Center, install the existing calc and explore opportunities to utilize that property as well as our current student high school parking lot to build that new pre-K to three building. And another consideration might be to build on the existing middle school site, which essentially would be adding on to the middle school in the direction we're currently sitting now and to also include this space and to incorporate an administration building as part of that new pre-K to three construction. It's important to emphasize that right now
018these are conceptual exploratory plans. We would need to have further discussion with the community before we would proceed with any kind of funding request, but I believe that this scope of work is what satisfies what the facilities committee was interested in seeing put together and to put cost and schedule projections to these and then there can be more substantive conversation about these. So with that I'll pause. I don't know if there's any discussion on that point this evening. And there's certainly opportunity for that as we get to that as an agenda. I was going to say, do you want us to ask questions later in the agenda? I think once we get it on there. Okay. All right. So that completes superintendent's report, moves us on to item 5.2, and it's my pleasure to now
019we move to the recognition of our outgoing head football coach, Mitch Hewitt. As everyone is aware, Mitch has chosen to step down. I know after a lot of consideration on his part, probably some soul searching, if that's fair to say, as Mitch considered everything, and it would certainly be appropriate for our board to recognize Mitch for a distinguished career as the head football coach at Chardon High School. His contributions have certainly been clear on the field of play for our student athletes that have participated in football, but I think much more important has been the culture and the impact that he's had on our community with moving these student athletes out into our community and for them to be contributing members of our school community. So with that, I'm going to turn it to Karen
020Blankenship, board president, and Mitch, I'm going to ask you to come forward and be recognized. So it seems like yesterday, you and I sat in the library at the high school discussing the dinners for the football team. That's right. 15 years ago, yeah. So like I said, it seems like yesterday. So anyway, okay, tonight the Board of Education has a special accommodation for head varsity football coach Mitch Hewitt. Accommodation recognizing Mitch Hewitt for his continuous commitment to the success of our Hilltoppers. Whereas Mitch Hewitt recently stepped down as head coach of the Chardon High School varsity football team after 14 highly successful seasons. And whereas, why can't we move it? Whereas Mitch Hewitt was a standout player for Chardon football, serving as a team captain during his junior and senior seasons, helping lead his team
021to the Division II state championship game in 1998, his senior year, while earning numerous local awards, including first team all-state defensive player, co-defensive player of the year, and the runner-up for Ohio's Mr. Football Award. And whereas Mitch Hewitt won 128 games as head coach of the Hilltoppers, maintaining a winning record in each of the last 13 seasons, including 31 consecutive victories from October 2020 to September 2022. And whereas, under his leadership, Hilltoppers recorded 11 playoff appearances, including five conference championships, one Final Four qualifier, and back-to-back Ohio's High School Athletic Association Division III state championships in 2020. And whereas, Mitch Hewitt was named Division III Ohio Coach of the Year by the Ohio Prep Sportswriters Association in 2020. And whereas, Mitch Hewitt has shown dedication and commitment to developing a culture that encouraged Hilltoppers students and
022athletes to succeed in both academics and athletics. Now, therefore, it is acknowledged on the 17th day of March 2025 by Chardon Local Schools Board of Education that Mitch Hewitt is hereby recognized and congratulated for his outstanding career and contributions to Hilltopper athletics. Mitch, in addition to the commendation we have for you, that we hope will serve as a memento and a recognition for all your contributions. Yeah, very grateful. Thanks, folks. Thank you. I'm guessing, Mitch, you might want to say some things. I know you want to introduce some important people there. I'd say having a board meeting on St. Patrick's Day is either brilliant or could be really dangerous. That's my first thought. I'm just grateful. I mean, I've been blessed with a lot of great people in the community, a lot of great support.
023My wife, my kiddos back there have sacrificed a great deal. But the community is unique, and I think we have a great replacement. So I'm excited to see Coach Landy's take over. But it's a labor of love. I think the extracurriculars of a school is the vitality of what a school actually is. I think it's the benchmark of what it is, because it's what people see. I know we care about test scores here and all that other stuff, and that's all good stuff. But ultimately, if there's a great student section, if there's all these things taking place, it says something about what's happening inside the schools and the halls. And I think Chardon's a special place, and it will continue to be that way. And I'm not going anywhere. I'm not dying. I'm just... I
024heard today some kids got in trouble in the hallway, and they were super relieved to know that they got to contact Coach Landy. All those things were...that's exciting stuff. Thanks folks. I'm going to sit here, because I think Mason wants to get a picture. That should be good. Yep, we're good. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Thanks for everything you've done, Mitch. My wife just asked me not to kill me. We're going to go. I was going to say, you're more than welcome to stay. It's riveting. What was it? St. Patty's Day crowd showed up. I spent my four years on City Council. Thanks, guys. I really want to miss the financials. Now we have Building Showcase and Chardon Early Learning Center. I'd like to thank Doug Hyam and Kristen Theron, who will present the showcase. Good
025evening. It's an honor to be here and address you as the principal of Chardon Early Learning Center. After spending many years at the high school, I've had a unique opportunity now to see both ends of the educational journey in our district. From our youngest learners just beginning their academic path to the graduates who are ready to step into the world, this experience has given me a deep appreciation for how every stage of a student's education is connected. The foundation we build in the early years is critical as the skills, the character, and the leadership we develop in our older students. Each step along the way plays a vital role in shaping the future, not just our schools, but of our community. Chardon is a special place because of the dedication of our educators, the support
026of their families, and the support of the board to ensure that every student has the opportunity to grow and succeed. Whether in our early learning classrooms or the high school hallways, we are all working together towards the same goal, developing well-rounded, confident young people who are prepared for whatever comes next. I'm excited about the presentation tonight and grateful to be part of a district that values the full spectrum of education. Thank you for your time and your continued support of our students, our staff, and our schools. Kristen? Thanks. So to go off what Mr. Heim was saying, I kind of just put together a little like a portrait of our tiny tuppers. I know I think when people look at the portrait of a hill topper, it's natural to think of older students like what
027they're doing and where they're going to end up, but I wanted to show you that we are really working on that in the little sense too. So it's been an interesting year in our building and obviously we're preparing for another huge change coming next year. So right now we have 83 students in the pre-K. That includes 43 students with disabilities. They're on an IEP of some nature and 40 students without disabilities. We have 3 a.m. classes, 3 p.m. classes, and then we have one all-day class right now. We also serve six students itinerantly in community programs. They've opted not to come to our preschool for whatever reason, and so our related service providers go out there and serve them there. The annual referral average is 25 to 35. This year we have 22 already, which
028means throughout the school year people are referred to our preschool for either their coming of age, they're turning 3, or even like a pediatrician just noticed something, a parent just noticed something, those kinds of things. So we've had quite a few this year. In kindergarten, the current enrollment is 141. There are six general education classrooms. There's one title classroom. We have two intervention specialists. And then our specials include world language and physical education, art, music, and library tech. Right now our curriculum, we got a brand new curriculum for the preschool this year. It's called Creative Curriculum, and it has a new assessment piece. It's called the Gold Assessment. It is been very, it's been a labor of love, but it's a really neat program, and it's all encompassing for everything, for like ELA, illiteracy, for
029math, for social-emotional, for fine motor and gross motor. It even includes like cooking lessons and things like that, so that's been really neat. We are finishing up, I believe we have one teacher left that needs to finish up the letters program, which is what we chose to do for the science of reading, and so all the other teachers are certified in that now. Have that, and we are still kind of aligned with the rest of the district, even in preschool. We have the Bridges Program and Hegarty and Fundations, which is what kindergarten does in the older grade levels. So that's been great. We're exposing them in our room so that when they get up to kindergarten, they already have a little leg up there. We still have a huge community engagement piece. These two pictures
030are from when we had the high school students came over and did little skits and drama productions for us. It was extremely adorable. And then Chardon Smile Center comes out every single year to talk to us about dental hygiene and safety and things like that. And that's always very cool, too. They are so great with the kids. It's amazing to me. We also have the SRO comes over and talks to us. The fire department always comes out and they bring vehicles for us. And we have the Giaga Chardon Library. They come in and do programs with us as well. The preschool, they come and do story time every month, but they also come and do some things with the kindergarten classes as well. So that's really nice. We also have a collaboration with the preschools
031in Giaga County just for kids. The Head Start St. Mary's Notre Dame. So some of our students, we are serving there. And then when they come to us from there, we have a good collaboration with them where we're able to ask them how things were, what we can do to serve and help them and that kind of stuff. We also have a super high parent involvement in this building. I came from another district where that was not really the case. The district was really large. And so it's always heartwarming to see how many parents are involved every day and every week. And as a preschool, we don't have busing for most of the students. So I get to see the parents almost every day at drop off and pick up. And it's really, it's just
032really lovely to see how much they care and how we are a team together. So that's nice. So I just want to spend just a little time talking about how we prepare our little tiny toppers to be that portrait of a hill topper. So we provide a rich language environment for our children so they become good communicators. We, you know, model effective communication. We encourage those authentic language experiences through play. We're building creative. We're creating continuous learners by cultivating a love for learning. We design and implement really engaging lessons so that they are excited about coming to school and they want to keep coming back to school. We encourage students to create through open ended art. We have in preschool, we have different centers, obviously, and we always have open ended art in the kindergarten.
033They also have a lot of opportunity for open ended art and they have their art lessons as well. We are always encouraging the students to become critical thinkers by explicitly teaching problem solving skills through those social emotional lessons and inspiring them to think critically and find solutions to their problems. We have a school wide PBIS system. And so that really encourages our kids to honor their commitments. We provide those clear expectations. We encourage accountability. And then you can see that when they're interacting with their friends, when they're completing their work, our PBIS core values are to be safe, be kind, and try our best. If you have not heard our song, we have a song. I'm not going to sing it, but you should search it up. It's really cute. Our classrooms are also very
034supportive, family like environments. I think that's extremely necessary when the kids are so little so that they can become true collaborators and contributors. There's no fear of speaking out in public. There's no fear of doing something wrong. Everyone is welcome and everyone is a little family. So I do want to thank you. I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank Miss Elegante, Mrs. Williams, Miss Ruska, and Mr. Hyam for their support this year. We had a somewhat interesting start to our year and they show up every day and support the students, the staff, the building. It's been much appreciated. I know all of them have other duties and other jobs that they are still doing, but they continue to show up for us each week. Specifically, Mrs. Ruska took over the preschool program. She's
035doing an amazing job. She's truly someone that we can count on. And I'd also like to thank Mr. Hyam. He stepped into a role that he never wanted with enthusiasm, with kindness, and never ending support. He shows up every day with a smile and a willingness to do whatever job is waiting for him. I am sure he is anxious to get back to his older Hilltoppers, but we're very appreciative that he came down to Tiny Tupperland. Thank you. Thank you for that presentation. It's great to get some insight and truly some wonderful work that happens at the Early Learning Center every day with our youngest students, so thank you both. Moving forward, item 5.4, approval of resolution 2025-06 to adopt special education model policies and procedures modified. I am recommending your approval and have just
036a brief comment following motion and second. Do we have a motion and a second? So moved. Seconded. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. The board may recall that you already adopted this resolution to utilize the model policies and procedures developed by the State Department of Education. And it was noted following that approval that at the state level that there were some inconsistencies between state law and the model policies and procedures. Therefore, there is a recommendation to adopt this resolution, which just closes the kind of the gaps that existed between those two pieces. So with that, we can, unless there are any questions, we can put a roll call. Are there any questions or comments concerning this? Nope. Okay, we have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye.
037Anyone opposed? Motion has been adopted. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. Next item, item 5.5, resolution 2025-07. Accepting invitation to join the Chagrin Valley Conference for Inner Scholastic Athletics is detailed in the enclosure. As the board recalls, League Commissioner Dr. Donald Lewis visited us last month to extend the invitation, excuse me, to the district to participate in CVC. This simply brings that full circle and executes our intent to participate in the conference. Again, as a reminder, this will be in 2026 that we will be fully participating in the CVC. So with that, I'm recommending approval. So moved. Do we have a second? Second. James can answer. You? James can answer. Okay, any questions or comments concerning this? I'm actually impressed with Donald Lewis. I called him up to message for him at like
0385 in the morning because I figured it was an office phone. I think he called me back at like 545. This is a zealot for this. So apparently he loves it. He does. We had like a 40-minute conversation before 6 in the morning. I see you got that vibe from him in his last presentation, how much he loves it. I did. So I'm excited. If you call that number, it's actually like he's going to answer it while they're calling back, which I appreciate. Any other questions or comments? Okay, we have a motion and a second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Motion has been adopted. Thank you, Madam President, Members of the Board. Next item is item 5.6, approval of the proposal from Bend Design Architecture for professional design and master plan concept
039planning services. It's detailed in the enclosure and also similar to what I commented on during Superintendent's report. With that, I am recommending approval. Do we have a motion and a second? So moved. I'll second. Any questions or comments? I guess my only question, and this was a very short proposal, so maybe there's more around there, is when do we bring the community in? Because there was A, B, and C for remaking schools and whatnot, and I'm very curious what our community would say. I mean, just a quick read over. The first thing that hit me was everyone keeps talking about bringing fourth grade back down to elementary. Is that ever a possibility? And then do we renovate or do we actually consider this new building? Because I think they spoke strongly against the high school.
040I'm not sure if they'd speak strongly against elementary school. I'm not sure when we involve the community, but I think that needs to be done before we go in and say you have option A, B, or C, pick one. Yeah, and thank you for the question. First off, the first two items on there really aren't so much changing what we're currently doing. Okay, so the only place that we're really getting to something new is when we get down to the new construction concepts. And I'm sure as we have our discussions with TDA, we will begin the process of bringing community in kind of concurrent with development of those proposals and starting to share not only what the contents were of that September facilities assessment, but then what these planning concepts look like. Okay, yeah, I
041just didn't, like I saw we would come back to the administrators or something in a bullet item. I didn't see community mentioned, so I just wanted to make sure it was still out there on the table. Yeah, absolutely. And again, as I know the board is aware, this was envisioned to be a long-term, this is not like a quick turnaround item. So building that capacity and understanding within the community is very important, especially if we're moving to a new construction. I'd say I'm very excited to see if we can focus on renovation or if there's a little bit of a better, less expensive option if you take one of those elementary schools as they ascribed and tweak it a little bit more if that ends up being cheaper or better services in the long run.
042So I'm excited to see all the proposals I have. But I have my own opinion and I'm sure the community does too and make sure that they're considered. Absolutely. Do we have a timeline on when we can expect to have some of this information? Yeah, the TDA will get started right away and I would hope that we're completing this between now and August. But we'll get more into that as we start to engage with the process. Any other questions or comments? I think this is an important step forward for us to take a look at all of our options. Okay, we have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? The motion has been adopted. Thank you Madam President, Members Board. Next item is item 5.7. This is approval of
043proposals with Safe Air Contractors as detailed in the associated enclosure. This is just to continue the abatement and kind of light classroom renovations that we've been undertaking for the last several summers. I believe it's half a dozen or so give or take classrooms at the high school and at the middle school to continue that work. Do we have a motion and a second? So moved. Second. Any questions or comments? Warm, safe and dry. No asbestos. Right. Keep going. Okay, we have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? The motion has been adopted. Thank you Madam President, Members Board. Next item is item 5.8. This is approval of contract with Lake Tech Communications for District Network Equipment Project under the federal EBR8 program. I touched on this in my superintendents
044report. I recommend any approval. Do we have a motion and a second? So moved. Second? Second. Okay, do we have any questions and comments? Nope, we have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? The motion has been adopted. Thank you Madam President, Members Board. Next item is item 5.9. This is approval of an additional contract with Lake Tech Communications under the federal EBR8 program for the district structured cabling project. Essentially, this is a transition of our existing multi-mode fiber connections that exist in the district. They will be upgraded to single-mode fiber and this will permit higher bandwidth throughout the district. And again, this is being done as part of the federal EBR8 program, so I am recommending any approval. Do we have a motion and a second? So moved.
045Second. Who is first, Mr. Mediat? That's Todd. Todd, okay. Thank you. Do we have any questions or comments? Okay, we have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? The motion has been adopted. Thank you Madam President, Members Board. Final item that I have this evening is item 5.10. This is also technology related. This is approval of a contract amendment with Windstream for the Washington Street property as detailed in the enclosure. I'll have just a brief comment following motion and second. Do we have a motion and a second? So moved. Seconded. Thank you Madam President, Members of Board. Essentially with bringing the Washington Street compound online, which is anticipated for July of this year, that facility is not easily connected to our existing fiber network that exists among
046the buildings that we have here. So this is just a separate agreement with Windstream to bring that online separately but as part of our overall network. Any questions or comments? Okay, hearing none, we have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? The motion has been adopted. Thank you Madam President, Members of Board. That concludes my section of the agenda for this evening. Thanks Mike. Thank you Madam President, Members of the Board. First item on my agenda, 6.1, which is the financial summary for January. I do not have a podcast. I ran the AI program so many times today I wasn't happy with it. I ran out of tries. So I will get a podcast out there and I'll put it on the website. But my apologies, I don't have
047one today. Again, the picture here is AI generated. It's generated with Gemini now. We've moved to using Gemini instead of CHAT GPT. Pretty much the same. We're going to look, and I've got some funky flips going on. I did add this presentation to the Treasurer's website and it flips on the top of the Treasurer's website so we're getting some graphics going on. Our February bank reconciliation, $30,217,569 in the bank. We did balance. We did have a small adjustment, $718.69 that we are still looking for. But I assure you we will find that before we close February. Our financial summary, our cash summary report. We usually look for negatives in this third to last column. If you recall the last few months, and we'll see it in the chart later, our PI was running in the
048negative. But we kept saying this is going to come back out. It's going to come back out and it did. We got a rather large, larger than anticipated tax advance. We haven't got the final settlement yet, but it brought PI right out of the negative. And so we actually have $316,000 in there. Also, we had auxiliary in the negative for quite some time. We're going to talk about auxiliary a little bit further on my agenda. But we did receive our final payment from the state and shrewd up our St. Mary's auxiliary funds. So the only funds we see that are running in the red is athletics, which we know this is going to happen all year until we do a transfer at the end of the year because we're not charging fees, activity or athletic
049fees, and grants, which of course we use first and then we're reimbursed. So it's getting closer. You can see at the end of the year where things are really starting to clean up. Our general fund spending, we always look at our spending plan. We received $210,000 less than we anticipated. That's because of the tax advance. You never know where it's going to come in. It adjusts, so we'll see where we end up when we're closer to true up. I have a feeling we're going to be on the other side of this. We're going to be collecting more. So that's nothing to worry about. We are about $500,000 under budget. I'm seeing most of that in salaries for a lot of different reasons. We're going to look at some salary charts later and talk a little
050bit more about the why. So this is still a positive effect on our cash balance in comparison to our forecast of $288,000. And you can see down at the bottom, last year's cash balance ended at $23,000,000 this year. It's looking like $18,400,000. That's going to fluctuate still to the end of the year. So our revenue that we received in February, $7,936,066. Pretty much all of it or a big, big chunk of it was our tax advance. Number two, we still are waiting for our final settlement, which I can tell you came in yesterday. And collections were very good. We were well over 100% again this year. We did receive, we compare always to February of 2024. We received more tax money. We received more state revenue than we did in February of 2024. But other
051revenue is down, and I can tell you most of that's interest. We have less money in the bank. Interest rates are down. We're collecting less interest than we did in 2024, so that makes sense. Our expenditures for February, $3,050,000. We spent more in salaries and benefits. We spent more in purchase services and other expenses. About $136,000 more, so it's not too bad. But that's to be expected. Inflation, raises, everything's more expensive than it was last year. Annually, we've collected $28,359,000 is more than we collected at this point annually last year. And all year we were like, oh, it's always less. It's less because we moved that one mill. This is where that tax money's really shining, where that second advance was much larger than anticipated. You can kind of see it here. We've collected more
052state funding than we did last year. And then again, other revenue, we're falling back on interest annually. Expenditures year to date, $25,788,000. We're spending more in salaries, or less in salaries, and more in purchase services and other expenses. There's a couple of reasons for salaries. We're going to look at the chart. Hopefully I have it next. Great. This chart usually I show each month and what we pay in salaries, if you recall. But what I decided to do is change it up a little. So this is total salaries from 22, and this is for teachers. Total salaries for 23, and then it dips in 24, and then it dips again in 25. Now these are actual figures from the beginning of the school year till now, and each one of these years. So our salaries
053are decreasing. Why? One of the biggest reasons is because the EPC buyout. We put that EPC buyout in at the end of 23, so we started dropping in 24, because we kind of removed the higher end paid teachers and got some lower end paid teachers. We also had to attribute it to our staffing adjustments. We analyze staffing adjustments every single year, and we keep that really tight. We're really proud of watching that. And then the last reason is I did budget for a science of reading stipend that's going out to all teachers, and that's coming in less than anticipated by about $100,000. So our true days, and we talked about this last month, our true days was down. In fact, after our conferences, we were under 100. It was 90-something. But because we got this
054tax advance down, here's our cash balance. This was last month, so our cash balance picked back up, and so does our true days. So now our true days are 140 before opening conferences, 118 after. Our average monthly spending is $3,741,000. If you recall, we are $3,741,000. We spent $3,050,000 this month, so we were under that. Our ending cash balance right now, $22,140,819. So we're right on target. Food service had a deficit month, $55,799, and the deficit fund balance, $755,879. We've been running in a deficit, not too worried about it, because we did reduce our lunch fees. But the deficit was bigger than I've seen in the last few months, so I always have to dig into the why. We did submit for our subsidy money. It didn't come in in time. February's a short month,
055so we're probably going to see a much higher or smaller difference when we report on March, because we'll probably get double subsidy money. So that's the money we get from the federal government on free or reduced lunches. We have to apply for that every single month. And why it didn't come in on time? No, we don't know why, but sometimes that happens. I've seen it happen a lot in the past. So permanent improvement. So again, we talked about permanent improvement earlier. Permanent improvement was running in the red. Here's where we were. Now we got this tax advance. The blue is revenue. The orange is expenditures. And now here we are. We're back out, and we're going to end up in the green for the rest of the year. We're going to get more tax money
056in March. A little bit of homestead rollback in April. So we're going to be fine until the end of the year. So here's that big tax advance. We received $576,000. Year to date, $1,797,000. And again, you can see it right here. We didn't spend much, as we knew we wouldn't. PI always slows down, especially this time of year. And right now we're working on all the projects that are going to start either in May, if they can, or June, most likely, as soon as the students are gone. So our spending will go back up again in June. We did buy touchscreen thermostats and remote sensors. We did instrument repairs, more specifically a Bundy clarinet repair. And we have the COMDOT copier maintenance fees every single month out of this fund. Lastly is our self-assurance fund.
057And our self-assurance fund went down a couple hundred thousand. Last month, if you recall, we had the seed money that seeded. And that's a one-time cost to the district. So now, if you look, we received $615,000 and our expenditures were $403,000. So our fund increased $211,000 as we thought would happen. And as you can see, this uptick is coming back up. And I project that that's going to come up a little. We are going to have, in March, it's going to be five weeks of claims, but they're looking pretty decent. So I don't think that's going to be a terrible hit. So are there any questions? Okay, if there's no questions, we'll move right to 6.2. 6.2 is equipment disposal as detailed in the associated enclosures. I am recommending for your approval. Do we have
058a motion? Todd? Do we have a second? Any questions or comments about equipment disposal? No? Hearing none. Okay, we have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Motion's been adopted. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. Next item on my agenda is 6.3. 6.3 is approval of a resolution 2025-08 accepting the amounts and rates as determined by the Jogga County Budget Commission and authorizing the necessary tax levies and certifying them to the county auditor for fiscal year 2026. After a first and second, I do have a brief comment, but I'm recommending for your approval. So moved. Do we have a second? Second. Any questions or comments? Okay, so the Chardonnay Local District met with the Jogga County Budget Commission on February 19, 2025. The meeting was attended by
059Mrs. Blankenship, Dr. Hanlon and myself. Auditor Walder expressed the opinion that the Chardonnay has done a really good job using excess cash on meaningful projects. Prosecutor Flays praised Chardonnay for spending down their high cash balance on needed projects including the transportation compound, safety and security projects. The 2026 tax budget was passed with the unanimous vote. Any other questions or comments? Thank you for going and presenting. That was fun. I think that speaks a lot to where we've come as a district in the past year. So thank you guys. They told us to serve the taxpayers by using the funds we received, and we did so. So, good job. Yes, thank you, Deb and Mike. I didn't think they'd say those things about us, so thank you. Come a long way. We have. Any other questions
060or comments? Okay, we have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? The motion has been adopted. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. Next item on my agenda is 6.4. 6.4 is approval of appropriations. Amendment number four is detailed in the associated enclosures. After a first and second, I do have another brief comment that I'm recommending for your approval. Do we have a motion and a second? Okay, Deb. The changes included in this amendment are a reduction in funds for St. Mary's. That's our auxiliary, and as we talked about on our cash summary report, the finals came in. When the state first estimated St. Mary's, they estimated them at a lot more students. So when the actuals came in, they reduced the students, and it reduced their funding
061about $20,000. So that's included on this amendment. And then we had grant increases in 019 Chardon Foundation, and, Andrea, you've done a lot of reporting on that. That's higher than it's been lately, so we have more funds there. Our 516, which is our idea B, special education, was increased by $324,000. We got an additional $28,979 in Title I funds. We got an additional $5,950 in the Stronger Connections grant. We got another $26,000 in improving teacher quality grants. And then the literacy grant that went for three years, we had some extra money at the end of last year, and they allowed us to carry it over a fourth year for an amount of $217,206. So the certificate of resources I always attach, that's the report that we, after we approve, or after the board approves the
062appropriations, we submit the certificate to the Budget Commission for their approval. Any questions or comments? There's a lot of grants that I think you guys need. Yeah. I don't think, some people notice we don't have a grant, but that's all extra work, so we appreciate it. Everybody has grants for a lot of the state. EPA and Otter State, and there's all different entities that have different grants that we're constantly out there looking through. Any other questions or comments? Okay, we have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay, the motion is adopted. That concludes my section. Thank you. Thanks Deb. So that brings us to the board reports. Andrea, Shard Schools Foundation. Nothing to report reminds me that I have to know them under the next set of applications.
063Legislative? Haynesville's considered a peaker plant. So all these, he mentioned data centers. Any of the things they're trying to do. The argument on this one is that replacement levies are difficult for people to understand. I mean, all of our levies theoretically could be eligible for, to put a replacement on the ballot anytime. Because none of them are collecting at the voted millage that it was voted at. So we could theoretically reach back and pick any of our levies and put them up for replacement to bring them back up to voted millage. Again, the argument is that the average taxpayer doesn't understand a replacement levy. Would it be listed as a replacement levy if you did it that way? Under the current law, it would have to be listed as a replacement. And so using a
064hypothetical, if a levy was passed, an operating levy, let's say it was passed at two mills. Today it's collecting one mill of effective millage. The district could put it back on the ballot as a replacement levy to replace that up to that one mill and bring it back up to its full two mills. I remember last fall Berkshire had a replacement levy on the ballot. And that one was for a levy that was first passed in 1989. PI. It was a PI. Okay. And the original millage on that was, I think, I don't know, two mills or something. But the effective millage right now was like, I don't know, I think .89. They still listed it as two mills. But I actually, I was at a forum, I asked the question, you know, because I
065didn't think they would get the two mills, because that was the 1989 value. And he said, no, we're actually only going to get .89 mills. So what's the difference? Because in that case, they would only get the effective millage. If they had a replacement on the ballot and they were replacing up to two mills, it would go back up to two mills. Right. They had a renewal on the ballot, which is different than a replacement. Oh, I see. Replacement is replacing millage. Renewal is simply a renewal. Renewal versus replacement. See, that one was a renewal. Got it. Okay. So in this case, they would want you just to have a whole new levy, say we're going out for two mills instead of going back. Okay. And again, the counterargument or the argument in favor of
066this legislation is that much like we're explaining it here, the taxpayer doesn't understand what a replacement levy is. I don't think I've even seen a replacement levy on the ballot. It's not super common, but it is available as a mechanism. Because if it fails, you lose the levy altogether. Right. Oh, yeah. That's a good point. So if you go to replace, then what you are making goes away too? If it fails, yes. Okay. But if you renew, then? Yeah, then it's more. But if the renewal fails? Well, you lose that too, but it's probably easier to pass. Sorry, Todd. I appreciate that. Number two. Yeah, this is our 40 and 22 kind of run together. They would reduce taxes on disabled veterans and eliminate them on surviving spouses of veterans, which I think is good.
067But I honestly, if you're disabled in service of this nation and state, I really don't think you should have taxes anyway to begin with. House Bill 3 seeks to assist in the imposed costs. So this is one of those mandated mandates that came out last year, I believe it was, where they want to put seatbelts on schools that have nothing to do with that. So not looking to cover the costs. They're looking. Yeah, there's like 10 different. It would be a cursive lesson for our kids too. Cursive lesson? I like the old-style cursive. I do too. It's very pretty. That's all that I write. Really? That's all that I write. I find though, because I write stuff on different projects and parts of work that kind of drop that over the years and just got
068into like box letters pretty much everywhere. Whatever goes down fastest, right? Yeah, cursive is a good thing though, I do think. Yeah. We have time to do that, I don't know. They learn it in third grade. Or don't. Second and third grade. Like the old-school calligraphy or? Not calligraphy. Very basic. Let's not get outside ourselves. I can type it myself. Senate Bill 7 requires K-12 substance abuse training so that would be in your wheelhouse starting all the way to yours. And I don't know exactly what that's going to look like. Seems like you're going to have a lot of opt-outs on that probably. Is that like training the staff to look for it or like talking about it with the kids? It's pretty broad. Some of these are really long reads. Okay. Really long reads.
069I cracked one open and it was like 120 pages. Okay. Yeah. They probably did not. I don't think they did. So, you know, there's a lot of them. And then this is only like, yeah, this is like 25%, maybe. I don't even think it's 25%. And then House Bill 96, which Dr. Hanlon talked about, basically, it's kind of steering the state away from constitutional mandate to fund public schools. And nobody seems to really be listening. A lot of people have spoken up about this and have made all kinds of logical appeals as to why you wouldn't want to do that. But nobody seems to be listening. So I think that's going to hurt, too, is what it seems like. So that's what I'm going to talk about for legislation. The Auburn report is also kind
070of an ouch to some extent. Superintendent Brian Bontempo has submitted his resignation. He wants to go in a different direction. He seems optimistic. So I'm happy for him. But I've only been on the board for a little bit. And I recognize that he is really good at what he does. You are. And it's going to be really hard to fill those shoes. But we have signed a contract with the ESC to do a superintendent search. And I guess I'm eager to see what that whole process entails. We have already reached out to industry partners because we want their input on the last three candidates, the top three candidates. And we're hoping to have that finalized by the end of May. So he's leaving at the end of the school year? Yeah. So you'll be working
071some late nights? Yes, possibly. It'll be interesting though because from my standpoint I see the industrial aspect. But there's way more than that. Looking at all the talent. Like one of the former graduates, this lady, Kim McCoon Gibson, started a restaurant and was just on the news for culinary skills. Like there's the culinary, the beauty, public safety, industrial. And in addition to that all the education related things that you have to know too. So finding a person that can do all of that and be an advocate in all those areas, I think is going to be challenging. You said going a different direction. Does he just want to take his life addiction direction or is he clashing with Auburn people about where you guys are going? No, he said he's done enough in education. He's
072kind of got that notch on the pole and he wants to actually do something outside of education now. So it wasn't a clash within you guys? No, I would take a guess that in all of the times he has advocated for the school somebody noticed his skill and picked him up for a higher wage. Because like here I don't know how people do this job or what they get paid. I told him, same as I told Dr. Hamlin, you could not pay me enough to be a superintendent. Period. I wouldn't do it. Along the lines of the public safety bill, that complex is done. There will be an official ribbon cutting April 23rd at 10 a.m. If you're available you should go because it's a sweet building. Is that the one that's like out further
073back? Yeah, you have to go down into the back entrance or across the... It's kind of like a causeway that goes behind the weld shop and the carpenter shop and all that. And opening that is why they now have the ability to do the medical area, right? And it's much more high tech. Basically, I think I mentioned this last time, half of the number of paramedics and firefighters that are retiring are coming into the workforce. So right now, every fire department around you is looking for paramedics. And they're hiring them straight out of Auburn. They're hiring them before they even graduate. So they're a short supply. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. There's challenges everywhere you look. Sounds like one of my kids needs to be a paramedic. That's another job. My daughter is interested in that job.
074And that's another job that I don't know that I could handle. Not from a physical standpoint. Those people see stuff that I just... God bless them. Supply and demand. If it's a short supply, they'll probably increase the wages, I would imagine. Probably going to turn a more lucrative field. I think people are going to have to do that. And I think, fortunately for them, it seems like every time there's a police levy or a fire levy on the ballot, it seems like those pass, at least here. But at some point, I think you're going to hit a threshold one way or another. Because I don't know how many people see the direct impact on their insurance rates based on the staff and equipment that the fire station and police department has available. But it makes
075a difference. I think being well-versed in these things or keeping the community up to date on them is really important. Yeah. So that's that. Thank you, Todd. James? So thank you to our communications department, Mason Cole, for preparing the stories and the pictures I'm going to show you tonight. If you're interested in stories like these, you can find them on our district social media, Facebook, Instagram, and on our website. Starting off this evening, in February, Chardon Middle School was one of 12 host schools for the Greater Cleveland Council Teachers of Mathematics competition for fourth and fifth grade. This year, over 1,200 students from 50 schools participated across northeast Ohio. Students spent the morning working in teams, solving story problems, making math constructions, and doing a mental math challenge. These students put in a lot of
076work during weekly practices leading up to the competition. Congratulations on a very successful and mathematically fun morning. Students at Park Elementary recently took part in a special service project in support of the Geauga County Animal Warden, combining kindness with learning as part of the school's One School, One Book program featuring Fenway and Hattie, a story about a dog's adventures in a new home and neighborhood. First through third grade students made and bagged homemade dog treats to send to the county's shelter. Third grade teacher Mrs. Pecone prepared the dough and students eagerly rolled it out, cutting the treats into fun shapes before baking. In the kitchen, Mrs. Sanislo helped bake the treats while Mrs. Cease assisted in transporting the trays from the auditorium to the kitchen. This hands-on project not only reinforced themes from the book,
077but it also taught the importance of caring for animals in need. The Chardon High School Model UN team recently traveled to Case Western Reserve University to compete in the Cleveland Council on World Affairs Spring Conference. These 20 hardworking delegates represented nations of the world to negotiate, debate, and resolve some of the most pressing global issues of the day. There were over 500 students from across northeast Ohio participating this year. This was the team's last conference of the year. Congratulations to these students and coaches on all of their hard work. And at the Chardon Early Learning Center, Mrs. Amy Ridgeway's class learning about Frank Epperson, the inventor of popsicles. Epperson invented the popsicle in 1905 when he left a cup of juice outside overnight and froze it. When he returned the next morning, he found the
078new and delicious treat. Mrs. Ridgeway's students followed Epperson's process to create their own frozen treats. And just in the nick of time... I'd say something good came out of that cold weather at least. Let's hope they can't wrap it up anytime soon. I love this character building. It was awful to be done. Rough winter. It's been such an easy winter. Are you crazy? I work outside pretty much, so I'm good. It's a good one. It's kind of good. Mrs. Aubrey Quinn's sixth grade accelerated ELA students recently wrote postcards to individuals living with Alzheimer's in Sarasota, Florida. That's where Todd's been. For the organization Neighbors Needing Respite. Throughout the month of March, Neighbors Needing Respite celebrates armchair travels where participants learn about and meet people from all over the world. Members of the organization will soon
079receive postcards from the CMS students telling about their lives, interests, and wishing them well. So thank you again to our communications department. Thanks, James. Celebrating this 7.2 is approval of Board of Education member Todd Aubrey to attend events. Pursuant to Board of Education bylaw 0.75.1, the Board of Education makes recommendation to approve the request of Board of Education member Todd Aubrey to attend the OSBA Cuyahoga County Open House on February 5th, 2025. A trip to the State House in Columbus to testify before the House Education Committee on March 4th, 2025. And the Education Leaders Summit on March 12th, 2025. The expense report for reimbursement is attached. So if we can have a motion and a second and then we'll ask Todd some questions. Yeah, absolutely. Shall we move? Second. Okay. So Todd, do you want
080to tell us about some of the things you experienced? Yeah, so when I went to the legislative liaison meeting, the presenter was emphatic that legislators just don't hear from board members, generally. It's not very common that you're mostly from superintendents or treasurers. And so from that standpoint, because most of that meeting was about House Bill 96, I decided I would go to Columbus and oppose the reductions if possible or represent the school in opposing the reductions to educational spending and the Fair School Funding Act. I don't personally think it went all that well. That's just my impression of it. And it was also informative to learn that our congressional representative thinks we have a $30 million savings account in the form of Windfall's recent tax relief, which is not at all true. It was only
081$800,000. Yeah, it's not at all true. That's the amount of money that we saw of that, right? Yes, and I think that's part of the issue. I think a lot of people believe that there's a lot more. Where did the $30 million come from? I don't know. She hasn't returned a phone call for me to find that out. I would like to find that out. But apparently I've said enough about unfunded mandates that that was also another question that was asked because we just don't see eye to eye on that either. But I was appreciative of the variety of people and the passion they had for representing the children involved in this. And that's really what I think is the sad part here. In efforts to save money or reallocate funds, a great deal of
082children are going to lose out in this equation. And I can't help but think that some of this is almost like a vendetta, which is frustrating because if you make a decision that is going to cost these children, and these children have been through a pandemic, they're in the middle of a mental health crisis, how long is it going to take to turn that around? That's my question. Probably it won't happen before they graduate, which is going to impact communities across the state. So when people were giving clear information, I noticed that Congressman Adam Byrd, who was in education, kept basically reiterating what they were saying, that it's emphatically true, but it seemed like there wasn't a whole lot he could actually do about it, which was actually saddening because people were talking about special
083education being impacted in a variety of ways, and how this is going to force districts onto the 20 mil floor, which is going to cost taxpayers locally more and not the state. It didn't really seem like it was finding a good place to land. So I know that you have led an effort to write letters, which I appreciate. You could thank the people you know who have done that. And I would encourage anybody to make phone calls and write letters because a lot of these things, you could just pick one of these bills or this, and it's just not good across the board, more or less, and there are unfunded mandates. I don't care what anybody says. What's bad is that the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. We could get
084hit with a lot of these things all at once. That's what's going to happen. Well, you have property tax reform going on, certain bills, and you have the school funding piece going on, other bills, and those are on a collision course right now. Right, and who knows what's going on with federal funding on top of it all. And federal funding, yeah, absolutely. If I could just offer before to interrupt your comments, but I know you said you didn't think it went very well, but I do speak with a lot of folks that were sitting in the room representing various organizations. They thought you did a great job as a school board member, and we don't see very many school board members providing testimony at the legislature. So just to give you the other perspective. I
085appreciate that. I watched it. I thought you did great. I can imagine that was an intimidating experience testifying in Columbus. Well, it wasn't so much intimidating as by the time it got to me, so many people had made so many valid data supported points that were just kind of just flying over people's heads. I was like, wow, I really don't know what I can even add to this. I mean, in terms of like one of the hospitals they want to promote American government and American history, and I don't know what school district was there with their students, but I think there's about 14 of them or so, and they were very attentive and very respectful. And that was encouraging because I think people need to see this and take it all in because they're going
086to be at some point maybe in those seats or maybe some of our students. Well, I don't know. But I know that bothers sometimes some people to have students there in places like that rather than in classrooms. But I think it makes a lot of statement. I just I was impressed with I mean like they were they could represent their districts very well. I mean, I told some people writing letters and my brother, I put a picture of my kids and their shirt in here, told them to put a picture like these are the kids, these are the faces, you know, so if they can show up there. Yeah. But thank you for going down. Thank you. I want to thank you. We as a board got CC'd on the email back to our representative
087clarifying the property taxes as well. So thank you guys for clarifying that with her. Again, don't know if they heard it, but we do not get that windfall. Actually, I'm hoping I can get a call back on a statement issued to that effect because I'm not sure where that information came from. But if that is a prevailing concept, it will make any efforts at getting levies very difficult. And that is actually getting closer and closer. Who's that? Thank you. So we have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Motion has been adopted. So that brings us to new business. Do we have any motion for any new business at this time? Hearing none. Public participation for non-agenda items. Do you hear what anybody does? I got sidetracked. Sorry. None.
088We have none. Okay. So that brings us to meeting and adjournment. Our next regular board meeting will be April 21st at 530 here. We have a motion and a second. So moved. I will second. Okay. All in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? 7 o'clock sharp. Thank you everyone.