001August 18, 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 Revised Code. Deb, would you please call the roll? Mrs. Blankenship? Here. Mrs. Clark? Here. Mr. Albright? Here. Mr. Midyat? Here. And Mr. Patternetti? Here. Welcome to the August 18, 2025 regular meeting of the Chardon Local Schools Board of Education. Each board member received for the review and consideration the agenda and materials associated with each agenda item for the board's consideration via the Electronic Board of Education Agenda System Board Docs. The public can access the agenda through the school district's website one day prior to the board meeting. Pursuant to Board of Education Policy 0165.1, this meeting is a meeting of the Board of Education and public
002for the purpose of conducting the school district's business and is not to be considered a public community meeting. There are two opportunities for public participation during the meeting, as indicated in agenda items designated as public participation. Board members have the opportunity to call the superintendent and chief financial officer for information concerning agenda items and to request, if needed, additional information. Upon request of the superintendent, the district shall make reasonable accommodation for a disabled person to be able to participate in this activity. This meeting may also be replayed for later viewing on GTV network and video on demand site. The Chardon Local School District is not responsible for the video and or audio quality or future availability of such recording. So the first item on the agenda is the adoption of the agenda. Do we have
003a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as presented? So moved. Second. Any questions or comments on the agenda as presented? Hearing none, would you please call the roll? Mr. Albright? Yes. Mr. Patternetti? Yes. Mrs. Blankenship? Yes. And Mrs. Clark? Yes. Okay, next is the Pledge of Allegiance. Tonight we're being joined by our Chardon Middle School fifth grade student, Lena Molnar. 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. First of all, I want to welcome Lena to the state of Ohio. I heard she's from Texas. So in recognition of fifth grade Chardon Middle School student Lena Molnar for your contribution and commitment in serving as the Board of Education's Pledge of Allegiance leader
004on this 18th day of August 2025. So thank you, you did a great job. Do you want to turn around here? Thank you. Thank you. The mission of the Chardon Local Schools, we commit to high achievement for all students. Next is the hearing of the public for agenda items only. There are none, and there are none. Moving to the consent agenda for tonight, we have seven items for the Board's consideration. Item 3.1 is Approval of Minutes as detailed in the associated enclosures. Item 3.2, Approval of the Warrant List Check Pay Report as detailed in the enclosure. Item 3.3, Approval of Administrative Certified License Classified Supplemental Non-Contractual Personnel and Compensation Related Items as detailed in the enclosure. Item 3.4, Approval of the Personnel Agreement with the ESC of Northeast Ohio as detailed in the enclosure. Item
0053.5, Approval of Student Services Agreement with the ESC Western Reserve as detailed in the enclosure. Item 3.6, Approval of Student Services Agreement with Berkshire Schools as detailed in the enclosure. And Item 3.7, Approval of Curriculum Agreement with the ESC Western Reserve as detailed in the enclosure. I'm recommending your approval of these items. Do we have a motion and a second for the consent agenda? So moved. Seconded. Any questions or comments? Hearing none, would you please call the roll? Mrs. Clark? Yes. Mr. Albright? Yes. Mr. Medjot? Yes. Mr. Paternitti? Yes. And Mrs. Beikinschop? Yes. Thank you, Madam President, members of the Board. And this is introduction of student liaisons for the 25-26 school year, and again this year we're going to be using or having six student liaisons, TJ Adair, Hayden Bunker, Aubrey Fechik, Jordan Fisher,
006Henry Sweet, and Walter Sweet, who will serve as those liaisons. And we have two of our liaisons this evening, which if you both would like to come up and I'll let you introduce yourselves and we'll go forward with your presentation. There's a clicker. I think you can do everything from the podium, there's a clicker, so you should be good. Hi, my name is Jordan Fisher. I'm one of the student liaisons. Is it on? Just make sure it's on. On the side. Yeah, it's on. Do you need to turn your computer? Oh, I see. There you go. Okay. So my name is Jordan Fisher. I am proud to be a student liaison this year. I am involved with NHS Student Council, I run track and field, and I manage our topper boutique at Chardon. Outside of
007school, I work at Condon's Pizza, and I'm always finding ways to stay active. After high school, I plan to go to college to study marketing. Hello, my name is TJ Adair. I'm a senior at Chardon High School. I'm the Student Council Executive President, and outside of that, I'm a member of NHS. I like to stay active outside of school. I'm a member of Scouts, and I play basketball with my friends. I'm a summer camp counselor for the Chardon Parks and Rec Department. And a little bit about me, my father's in the army, so I found myself moving every two to three years, but this time we're here to stay. So I'll be here at Chardon until I graduate, and hopefully receive admission to the United States Military Academy, where hopefully I'll learn to fly a
008helicopter in the army. That's my kind of life goal. Okay, next we have Walter Sweet. He is also one of our student liaisons. He is very involved at Chardon. He is an NHS Vice President, he's Student Council Officer, and he is the captain on the golf and tennis team. And after high school, he plans to study biomedical engineering at Ohio State to become a dentist. And very fittingly, up next is his twin brother, Henry Sweet. He is the Vice President of Student Council. He is also the NHS Treasurer and a ski club member. He's captain for both the boys' golf and tennis teams. He works as a carboy at Fowler's Mill, and he also plans on going to Ohio State to get his degree in mechanical engineering. Next we have Aubrey Fechik. She is our
009NHS Vice President, and she's also a class officer. She plays, she's on the volleyball team, and she plans to, she committed to go to Washington and Jefferson College to play volleyball and get an education in medicinal chemistry. And last but not least is Hayden Bunker. She is involved in so many extracurriculars at the high school. She is the President of the Mental Health Focus Club, HMM, member of NHS, President of Great Pals, and she's involved in Student Council as well. She's the captain of the girls' soccer team, and she coaches younger soccer players that play in rec. Her goal is to also attend the United States Military Academy and to grow her leadership and discipline skills. And that's all we have for our All About Us slides. That's great. As you can see, a really
010impressive group of students came to see us here, so look forward to hearing from them. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on to Superintendent's report. This evening, just a couple of quick items to report on. From the standpoint of construction manager at risk projects, the transportation business affairs facility is, work is focusing on the front building, building A at this time, building B. We have an occupancy permit for the security vestibule at park opened on time. Mace room phase one at park also was completed on time. Phase two of that current restoration project will be, we've done multiple phases there. We'll start next year as soon as school is concluded, and the Monson masonry restoration was completed on time as well. Just a few quick notes on school opening this year. Again, we opened for staff
011on the 11th of August. Students returned on the 13th, and just want to thank our maintenance department for doing the work that they did to prepare our buildings for our students and staff to return. Transportation for their work in preparing and transporting our students this year. And also just a quick thanks to our staff, our faculty for making our buildings and classrooms so welcoming for students to come in this year. The year kicked off very smoothly overall. Cell phone policies, just to remind the board that this school year opened with the new legislative restriction on cell phone use by students in effect. We were not required to implement until January 1 of 26, but elected to begin the school year at this level. I do want to spend just a moment to make sure that
012there's clarity that what is indicated is that cell phone use is restricted during instructional time. But instructional time, as you can see, is defined as any period of time that a student is expected to be in attendance. It includes not only formal instruction, but supervised activities, transitioning between classes, recess, meal periods, field trips, and so on. So essentially it extends to all aspects of the instructional day. So we are underway with that at this point, and again, just emphasizing that we're ahead of what was required by the revised code. So that concludes my report for this evening and moving forward to superintendents recommendations. Item 5.2 is a recommendation to approve the Chardon High School Overnight Out-of-State Field Trip to Costa Rica. This will be occurring in the summer of June 2027. So we're moving forward
013now with plans to have that aligned for really a year, 18 months from now. So with that, I am recommending your approval. This will be student funded and the typical trip that we've taken. So moved. Do we have a second? Second. Are there any questions or comments about this trip? Is this the common trip for Spanish, or is this a new idea? Do we know? No, we've done this trip before, but they do rotate trips around a little bit. So it's not just this Costa Rica trip. This is the one they're choosing to do this go around. So it'll take a while to build participation and so on, which is why they seek approval early on. Yeah, I ran into, I'm trying to think of the teacher who heads this up. Kristen Nitzwicky. Yeah. And
014she said that this year's trip was very, it was a good trip. It was, everything went off. That would have been like France and Spain that they went to this year? Correct. Okay. So this is just a different option. Right. Cool. Okay. Anyway, she said it was a great trip. So, okay, any other questions or comments? Would you please call the roll? Mrs. Blankenship? Yes. Mr. Albright? Yes. Mrs. Clark? Yes. Mr. Midyat? Yes. And Mr. Paternetti? Yes. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. Next item is item 5.3, this is approval of resolution 2025-19, an amendment to administrate contracts as detailed in the associated enclosures. I'm recommending approval. Can we have a motion and a second? So moved. Seconded. Any questions or comments? I read this, this was just language to follow the law,
015right? I read it last night and it's escaping me what it was. It's language to line it up with what we just approved in the handbook. Okay. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Would you please call the roll? Mr. Paternetti? Yes. Mrs. Blankenship? Yes. Mr. Albright? Yes. Mrs. Clark? Yes. And Mr. Midyat? Yes. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. Item 5.4, this is resolution 25-20, establishing school bus stops for the 25-26 school year as detailed in the enclosure. Do we have a motion and a second? So moved. Seconded. Any questions or comments? This is just a yearly thing we have to do with bus stops. Deb, would you please call the roll? Mr. Midyat? Yes. Mr. Paternetti? Yes. Mrs. Blankenship? Yes. Mr. Albright? Yes. And Mrs. Clark? Yes. Thank you,
016Madam President, members of the board. Item 5.4. These are driver certifications for our 26th school year. Do we have a motion and a second? Blankenship? Yes. Mr. Albright? Yes. And Mr. Midyat? Yes. Mr. Midyat? Yes. And Mr. Paternetti? Yes. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. Item 5.7 is approval of an agreement with Frontline for the addition of Frontline Central software and support to our administrative software package. I am recommending approval. Do we have a motion and a second? So moved. Second. Any questions or comments? We're reporting an HR package that ties our substitute with our time and attendance. So moved. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. We are required by law to update this plan associated with the use of the Student Success and Wellness funding that we receive through the
017Ohio Department of Education. District receives about $135,000 or so in our state funding associated with this. And the primary expenditure out of this funding that we receive is our ongoing contract with Beechbrook that we've had in place since 2012, really, working with our students and so on. So you can see some of the data updated in there. We need to have this plan available for documentation of what our expenditures have been. What about this? Does it amount to a very year-over-year? I don't remember. It keeps reducing. It's been going down since it was instituted. It was actually instituted in the biennial budget prior to the current and it's been declining. Is there any way to try to acquire more funding for this? Not through that source. It would have to be through a completely different
018grant or something like that that we would have to pursue. Any other questions or comments? I'm just wondering if you would pursue a grant, is there a way to show conclusively that's improved in time? I'm not even sure how you'd go about getting more money, but it seems like something that's hard to measure or put indicators on, so how do you not do anything but fall back in these areas if money is decreasing? I don't understand that. That's a great question. We have had that discussion before that a lot of times when you're talking about intervention for mental health services and things like that for students, that when you're successful and you head off something more pronounced, how do you know that you were able to head it off by the program? So it does
019create certain challenges to, you're always kind of relying on past data to say this is actually what occurred and using that to seek other funding and things like that. But again, it is a challenge in that whole sector to show that something didn't happen because of the intervention that you put in place. Is it kind of the overall mood of the state, is that kind of reflected in all areas? Because I really only am looking at generally the general financing picture, but are they trying to cut back everywhere, including in this area? How do I want to, I would say yes. I mean, certainly I would say that overall our funding is in jeopardy in a lot of areas. So, yes. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Would you please call the roll? Mrs.
020Clark? Yes. Mr. Mediatt? Yes. Mr. Paternetti? Yes. Mrs. Blankenship? Yes. And Mr. Albright? Yes. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. It is approval of the subrecipient agreement between Georgia County Board of Commissioners and the Chardon Local Schools Board of Education. I'll have just a brief comment following motion and second. I am recommending approval. So moved. Do we have a second? Seconded. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. I just want to recognize Steve Koffel in the back and Deb Armbruster for their work on this. This ends up being approximately $430,000 that we will be receiving towards the transportation facility through a grant facilitated through or administered through the Georgia County offices. And ultimately, as you see, the commissioners approve and partner with the school district on this. This basically was a grant
021that was available for the rehabilitation of, quote-unquote, lighted properties. When we saw this funding was available, Steve and Deb worked to make sure that everything was completed and as required. It's been a three-year process as it's been with the give and take of what's been required to submit, to substantiate the work. The work for this actually was completed back in June 23 and 24 for us to do this because it was the early phases of demolition on that site to get us to the place that we're at today. But it is, again, it's a funding source that we're able to apply to this project and it wouldn't have been possible without Steve and Deb's efforts to get us to this point. Is this in your forecast already? Did we already count on this? No. We
022did not count on it. We already counted on it and spent it. No, but it goes into the capital improvement plan, so it's Steve's. Oh, I'm sure Steve already spent it. This is already taken care of. Well, thank you, Steve. Thank you. This is a big amount of money, large amount of money to receive for this project, so we appreciate your efforts. Steve did most of the work. Let's just be honest here. Team effort. Is there any other questions or comments concerning this? Would you please come around? Mrs. Blankenship? Yes. Mr. Albright? Yes. Mrs. Clark? Yes. Mr. Midgett? Yes. And Mr. Paternetti? Yes. That concludes my section of the agenda. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. First item on my agenda is the Treasurer CFO report. I put a link to Ohio Checkbook,
023as I usually do. So you go out to Ohio Checkbook and all of the transactions have been updated as of the end of the last month closed. I also have a link to our financial summary, and I'm going to go ahead and give our financial summary, but I do have another movie today. But we're going to give the financial summary first. So the first report we look at every month is our cash reconciliation. We did balance book to bank. We had some really minor adjustments, a dollar and a penny. We have $36,097,953 in the bank. Now, it's higher than it has been, and it's always high this time of year because we got our first tax settlement. So here is our cash summary report. I highlighted a couple of funds. Permanent Improvement is going to
024run just like it did last year. We did get a tax collection, but then we've already got a lot of projects. Steve's already got a lot of work in place. So after opening conferences, it's running in a negative, but nothing to worry about. And we'll look at a chart on that later. The 022 district custodial, we're not used to seeing that in the negative, but we already did our requisition for our workers' comp, which is about $85,000 a year. So the purchase order is sitting out there. We actually pull a posting from every payroll, and that builds this fund back up, so there's nothing to worry about there. And then auxiliary services, of course, we don't receive all the money for St. Mary's until February. So we let them spend because we know it's coming,
025and then we receive the money by February. I do want to point out, though, the new fund on here, the 070 capital projects fund. This is the transfer we did last year. We transferred it to the 070. It's already completely encumbered. There's a purchase order out there for the final phase of the transportation compound. So after we exhaust that purchase order, that fund will be back to zero. We always look at a comparison on our spending plan, and we're comparing to the May forecast, you know, how close are we. We did receive $377,704 more than anticipated. We're under budget by $8. So this is a positive effect on our cash balance. Of course, the gray line in this chart is last year's cash balance. The blue line is this year's cash balance. Last year we
026ended up with about $16 million. This year it's going to be about $15.7 million. Here's a breakdown of that $377,000, and most of that was in taxes. Our tax collection came in higher than anticipated. This is for a lot of reasons. Mostly it's tied up in either delinquents or new business. We also received a little less money in state funding than anticipated at this time, nothing to worry about, and a little more in other revenue. And that other revenue came from a Medicaid payment that was paid from last year. The $8 is really not even worth talking about. Our expenditures are very close to what we anticipate. We look at monthly revenue. We collected $14,366,000. This was in that first tax collection. Well, we compared to last year. Last July we only collected $10 million,
027but that's because we didn't get our final settlement until August. This year we got our final settlement. In fact, if you remember, we got our first advance payment on the last day of the previous fiscal year. We got all our money a little bit earlier this year than we did last year. So that makes a lot of sense. Our monthly expenditures, $2.9 million, which were just a little bit higher than last year. You can see on this chart on the bottom, a little bit higher in purchase services and other expenditures, which is transportation compound expenditures. Right now, since this is the first month of the fiscal year, it's the same for a fiscal, so I didn't do extra slides. We always look at salaries. Our salaries were $1.4 million, so our total salaries for the
028year, because this is one month, the fiscal. We had two of 26 pays, and we're estimated at $21 million. Now, I look at this bar chart and I see a story. I see we have a three-pay month in October. I see we have another three-pay month in May. I see we're funding summer school, because our salaries are a little higher than they usually are in June. I can see supplementals are paid in January, so you can tell by this graph what is going on throughout the whole year in salaries. Overall, Deb, how much of the budget, you say, goes towards salaries, like paying our staff? Typically, it's about 80%. Because we've been spending so much in capital out lately, those percentages are a little skewed. But if you go back and look at averages for
029salaries and benefits, about 80%. Okay, thank you. That's pretty typical. It's pretty typical for a school, because we're a service business. Yeah. So we always look at our true days. Our general fund balance was $28,338 million. And after open purchase orders, $26,101 million. Our average spending is $3.4 million. And if you recall, we spent $2.9 million, so we were well under average for July. Awesome. $172,000 plus per day. 164 days before open purchase orders and 151 days after. On the chart on the bottom are the last five years, 22, 34, yeah, five years. And as you can see, this is our cash balance for each point is a month in the year. And so it's pretty standard pattern. You can tell we get our taxes, and then we go down in January, then we get
030another tax collection again, and then we go down towards the end of the year. This is the same chart as this. This is just in a bar graph. And it just shows our cash balance at the end of every year. And this one's the projection. Food service. Wow. It's blank. It always is this time of month. It's our starting point, right? We did buy materials for the first day of school. So we had some purchases. So you're going to see more on the bar graph. We did have a deficit spending, because, of course, we're not receiving any revenue in this fund. Still great balance, 712 plus thousand in this fund. This is what I was talking about. Permit proof is going to look a lot, if you recall. This chart looked like this all last
031year, where we dipped under and we ran in the negative for a while. And then we came back out. Reason being, we did receive tax settlement. We're going to receive a little bit more tax money. We got to collect Lake County and your homestead enrollment yet. And then we have a second tax collection, which I haven't spread out, but it could all come in one month. It's, you know, it's estimate. And then my favorite slide is, you know, what are we spending our permanent improvement money on? We spent $794,000. We spent a new window at the high school. We did tile in all those rooms in the 200 Hall. We bought a nine-passenger van. We had some traditional park benches. We did have to pay county auditor fees because we have to pay for the
032auditor to collect our taxes. And then the biggest portion, this pink, if you recall, I asked for a transfer last month that went from permanent improvement to the tan loan, the O02, so that we are prepared to make our tan loan payment. And so that's what that big pink portion is. Lastly... Where did the park benches go, just out of curiosity? I think they're in the front of the high school. Oh, okay. That's a good place to have seating. Finally, we look at our self-insurance fund. Our self-insurance fund reserve total is $1.8. We did lose $47,000. It's understandable. You know, the revenue is lower in the summer months because we don't collect payments from the classified staff. So now it's going to go back up a little. We're real happy with where it is. The
033balance is $2.4 million. Well, knowing that, we see claims usually go up during the summer. Yes, that happens, too. I think next month, this next one we report, we'll really see some claims come in, because they come in a little bit later. Yes, correct. Any questions on that? Okay, sit back, relax. You know how I make an AI podcast? I posted that on the Treasurer's website. Well, I went to make the AI podcast this time, and it's a new feature in Google Notebook where it makes a video. So I took the same presentation that I just went through, and I dropped it in, and it's only a seven-minute video, so it's not really very long. We'll let you play it. Right. I even tested it ahead of time. Oh, shoot. Welcome to The Explainer. Today,
034we're going to do a financial health checkup on Chardon Local Schools. We're diving into their official July 2025 report to turn all those numbers into a clear story about how the district is doing as it kicks off the new fiscal year. All right, so here's our game plan. We'll start with the big picture, then we'll zoom into the day-to-day operations, take a look at future investments, and wrap it all up with a key measure of financial stability. Let's jump in. First up, section one, the bottom line up front. We're cutting right to the chase here. The big question is, how much cash does the district actually have in the bank to start the year? And here's the grand total, just over $36 million. Now, that's not just one account. That's the district's total cash balance
035across all of its different funds combined. It gives us a really solid snapshot of their starting position for the fiscal year. Now, you might be wondering, where does that $36 million number come from? Well, it's not just pulled out of thin air. It comes from this document right here, a detailed bank reconciliation. It's basically like balancing your checkbook, but on a massive scale. You match up the money in all the different bank accounts to what the district's books say. The fact that it all lines up perfectly is a fantastic sign of good financial management. Okay, on to section two. Let's check in on the general fund. You can think of this as the district's main checking account. It's what pays for teacher salaries, textbooks, you know, all the day-to-day stuff. The key thing we're looking
036at here is are they sticking to the plan? Which brings us to the million-dollar question for any budget, right? It's one thing to have a plan on paper, but it's a whole other thing to actually follow it. So how is the district really doing compared to what they forecasted? Well, the good news starts right here. On the income side of things, revenue is trending almost $378,000 better than they projected. That means more money is coming in the door than they expected at this point, which is always a great start. And what about spending? Get this. It is almost unbelievably on target. The district has a favorable trend of just $8. Yep, you heard that right. Eight. That shows some seriously tight and effective control over the budget. So when you put those two pieces together,
037more money coming in than expected and spending that is just nailed down, you get a really healthy, positive boost to the district's cash balance. You really can't ask for a better start to the fiscal year. So where's all that extra revenue coming from? Well, if we dig in here, you can see that local taxes and advances, those top two lines, are responsible for nearly 95% of that positive difference. That usually points to a healthy local economy and good, efficient tax collection. Okay, so we've looked at how the year is going so far. Now for section three, let's zoom in a little bit and look at just the month of July. We want to understand the specific flow of cash, what came in and what went out during those 31 days. Whoa, check out this massive
038difference just for the month of July. The district brought in over $14 million, but only spent a little under $3 million. Now that might look kind of crazy, but it's actually totally normal. Why? Because July is a huge collection month for major property tax revenues. And just to put that in perspective, let's compare it to last July. Revenue was up by nearly $3.8 million this year, and that huge jump, it was driven almost entirely by, you guessed it, those local tax collections. So far, we've mostly talked about day-to-day operations. For section four, let's shift gears and see how the district is investing in the long haul. We're going to put a spotlight on something called the Permanent Improvement Fund, and it's all about building for tomorrow. So what exactly is this fund? Think of it
039like a dedicated savings account for all the big long-term projects. We're talking about things like major building repairs, buying new buses, or other big-ticket items that are meant to last for many, many years. And you can see the rhythm of that fund right here on this graph. The blue bars are money coming in, the orange bars are expenses going out, and that green line tracks the cash balance. See that huge blue spike in revenue in July from taxes? That's followed by planned spending throughout the rest of the year on different projects. And where does the money for this fund come from? Well, you can see here it's almost entirely funded by local taxes. I mean, that tall blue bar for taxes just dwarfs everything else. This fund is a direct investment by the community right
040back into its school facilities. And this is my favorite part, because it's where the numbers become real things. That money isn't just sitting in an account. It's being put to work. In July alone, over $794,000 was spent on tangible upgrades, like new windows at the high school and a brand-new nine-passenger van. These are improvements that students and staff see and feel every single day. All right, it's time for our final section. Let's pull the camera all the way back out and answer the most important question of all. What's the final diagnosis? What does all this mean for the district's long-term stability? To figure that out, we use a really important metric called days of operating cash. Think of it as the district's financial endurance test. It answers a simple question. If all new money suddenly
041stopped coming in, how many days could the district keep paying its bills and keep the lights on just using the cash it has right now? It's their financial safety net. And the final number is 151.45 days. Let that sink in for a second. That means Chardon Local Schools has enough cash on hand to operate for about five months with zero new money coming in. By pretty much any standard, that is a very, very healthy and stable financial position to be in. And looking a little deeper, you can see exactly how we got to those 151 days. But even more telling are these five-year trend charts over here. They show that this strong financial health isn't some one-time fluke. It's clearly the result of consistent, long-term, careful fiscal management. So at the end of the day,
042this whole financial checkup tells a pretty clear story. It's a story of a school district starting the new fiscal year on incredibly solid footing, and it's a story built on careful planning, effective management, and strong community support. And that really brings us to our final thought. With such a strong financial foundation in place, the real question becomes, how can the stability be turned into action? How can it be leveraged to create the absolute best learning environment and the best opportunities for every single student in the district? Because at the end of the day, that's what it's all about. She's way more energetic. I feel like she's very optimistic, too. Yeah. She also has favorite charts. That's the part I like the most. I say that all the time. Okay, so moving on, is there any
043questions? So I'm going to post that out on the website, and so the podcast pretty much takes things. So moving right along, section 6.2, 6.2, our donations, and CSUN associated closures I am recommending for your approval. So moved. Do we have a second? Go ahead, CJ. Okay. Any questions or comments concerning donations? As always, I would like to thank our community for these awesome donations. It means a lot to our students and staff and the whole district. So thank you. Would you please roll? Mrs. Blankenship? Yes. Mr. Albright? Yes. Mrs. Clark? Yes. Mr. Midgett? Yes. Thank you, Mr. President. I'm on board. That's my agenda, 6.3. 6.3 is equipment disposal and detailed in the associated closures. I'm recommending for your approval. There's a lot of it. Do we have a motion and a second? So
044moved. I'll second it. Any questions or comments? It is a very long list. Mostly high school. They were cleaning out prior the start of the school year. The furniture. Any other questions or comments? No? Would you please roll? Mr. Albright? Yes. Mrs. Clark? Yes. Mr. Midgett? Yes. Mr. Paganetti? Yes. Mrs. Blankenship? Yes. Thank you. The next section is the Board of Education reports and recommendations. Andrea, Charter Schools Foundation. Nothing super exciting right now. We have a grant deadline by the next week. I'm just waiting on that for fall grants. Okay. Next we have what's my place here? Legislative. I mean you could dive into this for a really long-winded session, but essentially there's some rumblings that are going on that could be in favor of the schools and possibly not. We'll have to wait and
045see what happens. Okay. And then we'll go into Auburn Career Center. The new superintendent, Joe Glavin, is just hitting the ground running. He's doing an awesome job. He has the privilege of being the superintendent's take on the first year that Auburn's had in 13 years without active litigation against their contract teachers there for a long-standing disagreement. But he was able to basically repair that damage and craft an optimistic contract with them that's going to benefit everybody. So, victories. And they had a national skills national champion in nursing. That's a big deal. That's the first national champion they've had. Congratulations to us. Anything else? Student-staff liaison, James? Yep. I've been in school three days. Come on. There's a lot going on. Thank you to Mason Cole and Communications for preparing the presentation. First, we are thrilled
046to welcome back our Hilltopper students back to school. This time of year brings plenty of anticipation and excitement for both students and staff. We wish students good luck as they embark the 25-26th school year. We are excited to welcome new staffers for this school year to the Hilltopper community. New teacher orientation was held August 6th. Those in attendance heard presentations from various district officials in preparation for the start of school. The district also is getting ready to kick off a new season of Hilltopper Athletics. Our teams have been hard at work in practice and competition. The girls golf team recently participated in Riverside's Beaver Invitational Tournament while varsity football recently participated in a scrimmage with men in high school. Good luck to all of our student athletes. We look forward to watching all your success
047in the coming weeks. And finally, to see things, Chardon Schools is now offering a high school job training elective course that provides students with disabilities or in transition programs with real-world work experience. This program provides students with skill development and support to prepare them for employment after graduation. This school year students will spend time at Tri-Point University hospitals, solar manufacturing, tractor supply, and more. During the first week of classes, students spend time at Heinen's where they work on various tasks including cookie packaging. That's my report for this evening. Okay, so that brings us to 7.2 approval of amendment to the superintendent's contract. We're not adding anything to the contract. All we're doing is trying to clarify some of the languages in the contract and to make it so the interpretation is correct. This change is
048just going to make it more like Deb's contract, the treasurer's contract. So that's all this resolution is is to change some wording to make it like I said, a clarity of it. So that's what's being done here. So do we have a motion and a second to approve the amendment to the contract? So moved. Are there any questions or comments concerning this? I just want to continue to thank Dr. Hamler for his hard work. I think personal superintendents are definitely underpaid. So when you're talking about contracts, we thank you for sticking around and keeping working hard. Thank you. Anyone else? Deb, would you please call the roll? This is hard. Yes. Mr. McDutt? Yes. Is there any? Yes. Would you like a check? Yes. And Ms. Robert? Yes. Okay, new business. Do we have any
049new business tonight? No. I just want to real quick acknowledge one of our board candidates who will be on the November ballot. Gordon Landis is with us tonight. So he will be on the ballot in November. That brings us to the second meeting of the public for non-agenda items. There are none. There are none. Excuse me? Okay, you need to sign in. Okay, that's okay. Are you Crystal? Yes. Okay, here. Yeah, well she can do that after. What's the other one? It's just a regular meeting. Okay. Okay. Please state your name, where you're from, and you have three minutes to state your... My name is Kristen Bibby. I live here in Chardon. I have a daughter who has been in Chardon schools since kindergarten and she has started her first year at Chardon Middle School
050as a fourth grader. I am here today because I have some concerns about the communication. I've already spoken to Mr. Hanlon here about these. The communication error was very detrimental to my family. It happened with transportation. We made several attempts to contact transportation to let them know that there was an error made on our bus ride app. Basically, it ended up that our child was missing and the police report was filed. We did not know where our daughter was for over an hour and fifteen minutes. All along the way, we had to have conversations with the bus garage about this matter and while I understand that we are praising the start of the school year for our transportation team, my daughter was the one. My daughter was the one that was lost and reported missing
051for an hour and fifteen minutes. Her parents did not know where she was and we were told several times by staff at the transportation department that she was dropped off. She was dropped off at her bus stop at Chardon Park Estates and left there when she was supposed to be going to Just For Kids Daycare. I rushed home. She was not there. I dropped everything I was doing at my job and I rushed home to find that my daughter was not home where she was supposedly, where I was told she was by the transportation team. I brought this concern to Mr. Hanlon. Luckily, she was eventually found but there were many discrepancies in stories or many lies that were told along the way by the staff and many mistakes that were made by the staff
052of Chardon and I feel like they failed my daughter. Respectfully, I was told, and sorry for your inconvenience, this was not an inconvenience. This was terrifying for my family and it was quite frankly negligent. So I'm very concerned. I want these staff members held responsible and I sure hope it doesn't happen to any other children because while you may have 1,500 kids in your school getting on the bus, if it was yours, you'd be devastated that this happened. And I just wanted the board to know because we were told by the police that they couldn't trust any of the staff that day. So I wanted the board to know about this incident. Thank you. Thank you. So that was the only one? Okay. That brings us to adjournment. Our next regular board meeting will be
053September 15th here at 530. Do we have a motion and a second to adjourn? So moved. Would you please call the roll? Mrs. Clark? Yes. Mr. Albright? Yes. Mr. Mediath? Yes. Mr. Paterniti? Yes. And Mrs. Blankenship? Yes. Thank you everyone for being here.