001The April 20th, 2026 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 HIO Revised Code. Deb, would you please call the roll? This is Clark. Yes. Mr. Gohocha. Yes. And Mrs. Blankenship. Here. Welcome to the April 20th, 2026 regular meeting of the Chardon Local Schools Board of Education. Prior to this meeting, 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's 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, this meeting is a meeting of the Board of Education in 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 the 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. 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. I'll second it. Do we have any questions or comments? Hearing none, Doug, would you please call the roll? Did you say something, Ash? Oh, I thought you said, okay. Mr. Gajotra? Yes. Mrs. Clark? Yes. And Mrs. Blankenstein? Yes. Okay, next we're going to be led in the Pledge of Allegiance by third grade Munson Elementary student Carolyn Flattig. She'll lead us in the Pledge. Carolyn, you want to come up front? I pledge 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. I'm going out tonight to do this. So in recognition of third grade Munson Elementary student Carolyn Flattig. Thank you. Your contribution and
004commitment in serving as the Board of Education's Pledge of Allegiance leader on this 20th day of April of 2026. So thank you. You did a great job. Commission of the Chardonnay Local School District, we commit to high achievement for all students. Thank you. Okay, so no hearing of the public for agenda items. So next is the consent agenda. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. We have several items on tonight's consent agenda item. Item 3.1, approval of minutes is detailed in the associated enclosure. Item 3.2, approval of the warrantless check pay report is detailed in the enclosure. Item 3.3, approval of administrative certified license classified supplemental non-contractual personnel and compensation related items is detailed in the enclosure. Item 3.4, approval of course guide for Chardonnay Middle School for the 26-27 school year. Item 3.5,
005approval of the renewal agreement with frontline for absence management, time and attendance, compare analytics, fiscal planning and budget management is detailed in the enclosure. Item 3.6, approval of participation in the group retrospective rating program through Shakeley and the Ohio Schools Council is detailed in the enclosure. Item 3.7, approval of agreement between Chardonnay local schools and Guaranteed Trust Life Company to offer supplemental student accident insurance coverage is detailed in the enclosure. Item 3.8, approval of out of state overnight field trips for Chardonnay high schools is detailed in the enclosure. Item 3.9, approval of student services agreements, multiple as detailed in the associated enclosures. Item 3.10, approval of the agreement between Chardonnay local schools and North Coast Tutoring for home instruction services as detailed in the enclosure. I'm recommending your approval of these items. Do we have
006a motion and a second? So moved. Seconded. Any questions or comments about the consent agenda? Hearing none, would you please call the roll? Mrs. Clark? Yes. Mr. Gajotra? Yes. And Mrs. Blankenship? Yes. Thank you. Just for a moment, I'd like to take a moment by its actions this evening. The Board of Education employed two new administrators to our district. I'd like to take a moment to recognize them. First, Anthony Forfia. Anthony comes to us as the new assistant principal at Chardonnay Middle School for next year. Anthony? First, I want to just thank everybody and thank Dr. Hanlon and the Board of Education. I'm Anthony Forfia and I'm greatly looking forward to being at Chardonnay Middle School. You're welcome. Next, I'd like to introduce Lindsay Barr. Lindsay will be joining us next year as our new
007director of student services. Lindsay, the floor is yours. Thank you. I'd like to say thank you to Dr. Hanlon and the Board of Education. I'm really excited to get back into the community where we live, where our kids attend school, and I look forward to carrying on the strong foundation that Ms. Olegante has left within the Student Services Department. So thank you for this opportunity. Lindsay's also an alum of Chardonnay High School. Oh, I wasn't going to put the year out there. You know, there's just certain things you won't do. When it starts with a two, you can put it out there. We're still doing well. So welcome both of you and certainly appreciate your time this evening to join us for the meeting. Welcome to you both. Next item that we have is recognition
008of transportation. Director of the year, Josh, now through the Ohio Association of School Business Officials. First, I'd like to introduce Cass Freeland representing OASPO here this evening who has OASPO's presentation for Josh. And then Mrs. Blankenship will follow that. Good evening, Board President Blankenship, Vice President Clark, members of the Chardon Board of Education. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this evening. My name is Cass Freeland and I'm the Communications Director for the Ohio Association of School Business Officials, or OASPO as we call it for short. OASPO is a professional association representing public school treasurers, business managers, transportation directors, food and nutrition service directors, and as well as administrative support staff. In other words, we represent the folks who are on the business side of schools. I'm here to recognize Transportation Director Josh
009now. He is the Transportation Director of the Year. So that's one of four School Business Officials of the Year awards. We recognize a treasurer, a food service director, a transportation director, and then a business or operations director, one each year. So Josh was chosen from his colleagues around the state. He was recognized for turning Chardon's transportation program into a productive, innovative pillar. He created a new revenue stream by providing maintenance and training services to other districts, and I think we all know how important this is with the challenge that transportation represents right now. He moved the entire department into a new facility where I think we are right now, and I had a little tour when I got here, so that was really wonderful. It still smells like Lowe's. It's great. And he's improved transparency
010and trust with families by implementing the Bus Right app, which gave families real-time information about where their students were, and we all know how important it is that they feel a sense of trust of where their kids are and who's taking care of them. He has nearly three decades of experience in transportation and operations management, and he's held leadership roles in public school and transportation, property care, guest services, and safety and security. He holds a bachelor's degree in environmental studies from Cleveland State and a master's degree in historic preservation from Ursuline College. So please join me in congratulating Josh Now, the transportation director of the year. So, Josh, I'm going to ask you to stay right there, please, and Mrs. Blankenship is going to come around and also has a resolution to present. Okay, Josh,
011you're going to have to hang in there with me on this one. There's a lot here. So, the Sheridan Local Schools Board of Education resolution, recognizing Josh Now as the Ohio School Business Officials Transportation Director of the Year 2026. Whereas the Sheridan Local Schools Board of Education is proud to recognize outstanding individuals whose dedication and service significantly enhance the educational experience and well-being of students. And whereas Mr. Josh Now, transportation director for Sheridan Local Schools, has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the safe, efficient, and reliable transportation of students, ensuring that each child arrives at school and returns home securely each day. And whereas Mr. Now possesses extensive knowledge of federal, state, and local transportation laws and regulations, and consistently applies this expertise to maintain the highest standards of compliance, safety, and operational excellence. And whereas
012Mr. Now has shown exceptional leadership in the planning, coordination, and management of transportation services, fostering a culture of accountability, professionalism, and continuous improvement among transportation staff. And whereas he is deeply committed to innovation in school transportation, actively seeking and implementing new technologies, strategies, and best practices that enhance efficiency, safety, and service delivery. And whereas Mr. Now is dedicated to the ongoing professional development of school transportation personnel, mentoring staff, and promoting training opportunities that strengthen skills, knowledge, and leadership capacity within the department. And whereas his collaborative approach and willingness to share expertise have positively impacted colleagues, students, families, and the broader Sheridan community. And whereas in recognition of these exemplary contributions, Mr. Now has been named the Ohio School of Business Officials Transportation Director of the Year for 2026, a distinguished honor reflecting his professionalism, leadership,
013and service. Now therefore, it be resolved that the Sheridan Local Schools Board of Education hereby congratulates and commends Mr. Josh Now for his outstanding achievement and expresses his sincere appreciation for his continued dedication to the students, staff, and community. And be it further resolved that this resolution be entered into the official minutes of the Board of Education and that the copy be presented to Mr. Now with recognition of his well-deserved honor. Congratulations. Everybody good? Congratulations. Sheridan has ever won that award, any of those four before. It's the first time. Can I say something, Clifford? Sure. I just want to say I have the unique advantage of seeing you as a board member and a parent. I've sat through, watched through all these different softwares, all of these different school changes, and you continually come back
014with us, so thank you for sticking with us. But also as a board member, we get text, if there's a bus problem, who's going to rescue the bus? Josh. Friday night football, 5 a.m. in the morning. So thank you. I mean, your job is tireless and endless, and so again, making sure our kids get where they need to be safely. We thank you for hanging out with us and for doing such a great job. Thank you. I will circle back on my report. Most of the items we've already addressed this evening, but I do want to touch on capital improvements and where we're at, capital improvement wise. Tennis courts, we have a base course of asphalt applied to the tennis courts. We're waiting for the weather to warm up here so we can get the
015second course. Once that's completed, we'll have about a 25-day waiting period before we can apply the sport surface that will go on top of the two coats of asphalt. The parking area behind Chardon High School is progressing on plans to complete the removal of the underground storage tanks that are on site and some other demolition work to prepare that area in what will remain a gravel parking lot for right now. The roof replacement at Park Elementary School will be recommended for approval this evening, and work will commence on that project as soon as we close out the school year for this year. That will be the auditorium. And the over spring break, the new playground installation was completed at Kelk, and students are using that resource now. So with that, moving on to item 4.3,
016Today we have the teacher spotlight presentation for Park Elementary School. I'm going to introduce Park Elementary School Principal Donna Pacone, who will introduce the presenters that we have here this evening. Hi, I'm Donna Pacone, and I am the proud principal of Park Elementary. Each grade, K-3, works with students with their heart and soul. I wish you could see every teacher present today, every teacher, and the great things that happen at Park. But today, I only have a few of those exceptional teachers with me. I have Amy Ridgeway in kindergarten. I have Samantha Putterbaugh for music. She teaches at both schools, Monson and Park. That's 600 kids music. And Natalie Whiting, and she's a third grade teacher. So this right here, I thought I would share a book with you all real quick, because one of
017the biggest things that we do in kindergarten is we learn how to read. So we've been spending all year, this is Molly Kenisha, and she is the third of the beautiful Kenisha children over there. So Molly wants to be a vet when she grows up, and she talked about that in Mrs. Putterbaugh's presentation with the music concert that was just coming up. And I happened to find just this morning a book about vets, so can you read it for us? Can you go ahead and open up your book and read it for us? At the beginning of kindergarten, we learned letter names, letter sounds, and she's going to use her backup just once, but I know she looks so cute right now in her little cheetah outfit. I just gave this to her. I did
018not give it to her this morning. I wanted her to go ahead and do a full three, so it's not going to practice, and she's going to do her level three voice. Go ahead, girlfriend. The vet has a big job to do. What? The pets let the vets do the job. Can you read that one? Look, look, the vets, it's like the vets, yes, I can do it. Awesome job. So that's what we've been up to in kindergarten. All right, come here, girlfriend. Great job. That was awesome. Thank you to all my cousins. Good evening. My name is Samantha Putterbaugh. I'm a music teacher at Munson and Park of, like she said, all 600 elementary students. Last week, our kindergarten and first grade students from Munson and Park performed their spring concert. When I grew
019up, it was a really special experience, not just because of how well they performed, but because we were able to bring back seventh graders and 12th graders to perform with our elementary students, many of whom were former students of mine. They joined them on stage, and it created a very nice full circle moment that was incredibly meaningful for our younger students to see what their future in music can look like. And not to mention, it was very cute. Just to share a couple of other updates on our music program. This year, we've also made a strong effort to connect our students with the community. Our second and third graders from Munson had the opportunity to perform at Maplewood Nursing Home and Chardon Woods Nursing Home as well. And our first graders will visit Chardon Woods
020next week for their concert songs. These experiences are valuable to them. They give them a sense of purpose to help them see how music can bring joy to others. In December, our kindergarten students attended a performance by the Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall, which was made possible by the generous support of the Crescendo Club. And that opportunity allowed our youngest learners to experience professional music making at the highest level. We are also incredibly proud to have sent 10 of our fourth and fifth grade students to perform with the Ohio All-State Children's Chorus this year. That is an achievement that reflects their dedication and the strength of our music program. I'm really proud to say that our music program is alive and well in Chardon. And our students truly love coming to music class. And more
021importantly, that love continues long after they leave elementary school. And it's something we work hard to nurture every day. So we thank you for your continued support of music in our district. Thank you. Hello, I'm Natalie Whiting, third grade at Park. And I do also get the honor of teaching Tommy as well as Richard, two of my lovelies this year. In third grade, we are continuing Witten Wisdom, our reading program, and have just completed some of the OST prep for the state test that they took last week, the ELA portion. For math, we're continuing the bridges, the 2.0, and we're looking forward to 3.0 upon approval tonight. And we've been singing lots of songs on area and perimeter, and I won't make Tommy sing any right now. But we have been singing that a lot.
022Next week will be our OST math. Some ways we've been supporting some science standards. We've attended the Great Lakes Science Center earlier this year. We've had jogga parks come into the classroom to talk about animals, scat, tracks, and other facts. We've completed some hands-on activities on rocks, minerals, and soil types. Next week, in the afternoon, we will have Ohio State University Master Gardeners Program come to us and teach about plant life and plant some beans with our kiddos. And in May, both Park and Munson will be doing a wax museum where they read a Who Was or Who Is book, and they are that character for the wax museum. And lastly, we look forward to our visit to the middle school to get ready for fourth grade. And we'll be practicing the comms and stuff
023in the classroom to kind of ease some of those nerves. So that's third grade. Mrs. Whiting. Do you still team teach or is it just you? I do. Okay. I didn't know if that was still a thing. They have two teachers that they switch between. That's what my kids did. So I was just curious. Mrs. Whiting, I just know I'll be happy when the OST prep work is done. I can tell you where he gets it. It won't go too far. Okay. Thank you all for sharing some insight into the great things that are happening at Park, and certainly appreciate what you do every day. Next item is item 4.4, 4.5, and 4.6 are all related to curricular recommendations this evening. And with that in mind, I will throw it to Assistant Superintendent Dr. Ed
024Klein, who will provide a brief presentation about curriculum adoption and then the recommendations that we have this evening. I was going to say thank you, Dr. Handel, members of the board. I was going to talk about the exciting world of math magic here. But thankfully, Mrs. Steinmetz is here. Mrs. Steinmetz loves math. I like math. She'll leave when we're done, too. I'll leave before the financial report. Right. Just more math, just different type. Okay. So this year, as we go through, we do focus on what our mission is. That is our grounding work, a commitment to high achievement for all of our students. We brought together a committee of teachers from kindergarten through 12th grade looking at what are our standards, what are the standards from the state of Ohio, what are the resources that
025we're using, how are our students performing longitudinally, and where are there opportunities for growth. Curriculum is what we teach. The materials are what we use to teach them. I'm asking the board, or Dr. Handel is going to be asking the board here to look at both of those, both of what we teach, the courses of study, and then the second agenda item after that will be what we're using to teach those. Our process is that we have our staff review through those. We look at where any deficiencies may be. We look at what our student performance trends are, what materials, what research is out there changing on that. We look at what we need to make changes to. We invite community input to that process, and then we bring it to the board, assuming pending
026approval here in a few moments. Then we will go into the purchasing of those materials and we'll have opportunities for staff to be trained up on them. Parents always have the opportunity to review those materials that we use any part through this process. Our five-year plan for curriculum and instruction in 25-26, we're focusing here on K-12 math. Next year we will be looking at K-12 social studies for a five-year purchase, and we'll have a two-year renewal. I'll talk about why we're in that two-year process with science. ELA will be the following year, and then science grades K through 12 will be the following year, and we'll continue the cycle thereafter. That five-year plan brings into standards alignment, courses, study revisions, materials, implementation. It allows us to continue that alignment across all 13 grade levels and
027to offset the work of ELA and math, which are the heaviest lifts, especially for our elementary teachers who are teaching both of those subject areas. We are continuing this alignment. This is the piece where we have science offset by two years. There were financial constraints that the district experienced in 08 through 13. There were some curriculum work that was delayed during the pandemic, and we do have to make adjustments as the state makes adjustments, and so when those happen. All of our courses of study have been looked at, kindergarten through 12th grade. We have multiple, for each one of the grade levels as we move through 7th grade, there's one course of study. Then we get into an accelerated model with Algebra 1 at middle school and Algebra 1 at the high school. Algebra 1
028is still Algebra 1. It's just an accelerated model being used there in the middle grades. Likewise with 8th grade and 8th grade. The standards are the same. How we're doing it is slightly different. That's why you see a difference there. We do offer a number of different AP classes. We also, not listed on this sheet, is a college credit plus class that we have on college algebra and college trig. That is not a board, it's not a Chardon class. It's a Lakeland class. Our students do have the opportunity to take that one. And in multivariable calculus, we do offer that, depending on the number of students and depending on our ability to staff that. I should take a moment and pause here. Mrs. Steinmetz, am I missing anything? Okay, great. We start grade accelerating in
0295th grade. Yes, thank you. When we grade accelerate in 5th grade, those are the same standards and the same methods there. Same resources are being used there. It's not until those Algebra 1. In the elementary grades, we're recommending the approval of bridges. It is the same program that we have been using. We're just looking to adopt the third edition. We currently use the second edition. In the middle grades, Mrs. Steinmetz? We're going to adopt Amplified Desmos Math. We're hoping to adopt Amplified Desmos Math. We already use it in 6th to Algebra 1 at the middle school. The 4th and 5th grade are hopefully going to be added on to it. And then 8th grade at the high school. And in the high school, now this is for 8th grade math, Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra
0302. We're looking at open up resources. This will allow our teachers to have some flexibility. The textbooks are not designed for engagement. They're designed to be used. I guess is the word I'm looking for there. They're hands-on. It's math. We're not looking at pretty pictures is what I'm trying to say here. We do listed in the agenda items. I just didn't have a slide for it. We do have a number of different AP classes as well. Each one of those has their own different unique resource. Those are primarily single vendors because they align their resource strictly to the AP curriculum. Dr. Hamlin? Ed or Stephanie, I also seem to recall on the open up that that was basically an open source product. So as instructional methods continue to be refined, the materials are going to
031reflect that. And essentially teachers and students will have access to the latest and greatest materials around a particular content standard. And we are working with a facilitator from ESC Northeast Ohio who's going to guide that work as we work through the first year of implementation of that open source. Thank you. I have one question. On the 2.0 to 3.0, what's changing? Is it just they found glitches? Because math is math. I'm just curious. Is it software update? What is it exactly? Some are software update with the pieces that the kiddos are using at home or in the classroom. Others are moving a section from early in the school year to later in the school year. Others are, Mrs. Ridgeway, who was just presenting as well, was part of that process as well. This way. Okay.
032So that kind of leads to the question, when I was on the committee, they asked how you guys, the teachers, determine what curriculum they want. And I believe you presented that before I was a board member and then obviously long before Ash was. So they go through a two-year process as the math team to pick your curriculum before you even present it to us? They started looking at different material. Mrs. Steinmetz has been looking at materials since the last time that we formally adopted, as have all of our teachers that were part of this committee. But Mrs. Steinmetz truly does take a lead on this piece here. She has opinions about the different materials that are out there. I should be glad to offline that discussion. So we do compress that one year because we
033want to get through curricular revisions as well as material acquisitions. Part of my job is wrangling them to stay focused and say we have to figure out what we teach before we figure out how we're using it to teach it. One more question I have on the open up research. So most of our stuff is online. Everything is happening. So you mentioned something about books. I was also curious because you look at online and there is no easy way to reference without going pages. So does it offer any option to print stuff? There is a book option? I'm just curious with you. There is a print option with open up resources as well as the teachers will have the ability to put it in their Google Classroom, for lack of a better word there, to
034make it ours and manipulate it for Sharton. Again, back to the phrase of math is math. Now we're just figuring out what math problems to use, what topics have to be introduced at what times. Thank you. Going back to the earlier, K3 has workbooks that come with bridges. Why would it go from the second edition to the third edition is if bridges, if they wanted to fix something or change something, it's all to be better. And then the middle school program, fourth and fifth grade will be getting workbooks to go along with because they're a little more paper-oriented than online-oriented and then sixth and off to be active to not need the workbooks because we'll just print what we need to and have a teacher create to go along with it. Are your kids old
035enough to do sixth and seventh math yet? Yeah. Okay, because I say my oldest is in her advanced algebra. And I never thought you could do math on a computer, but sure enough. But Hadley still does use her scratch paper to figure it out for sure. So it makes it harder that if you want to look at just one page in a paper versus flipping four websites and all, but either way, I agree that it's good. I'm always curious, right? Math hasn't changed in 30 years, but the way we go and upgrade of methods, that's good that we are keeping up to date. So thank you, Dr. Klein. Appreciate it and Stephanie, of course. Thank you. Moving on to item 4.5, this is the actual action to recommend approval of the revised courses of study
036for the 26-27 school year and going forward. As was indicated in the presentation, this is what we teach, the content standards at every grade level or every subject, math subject that we're recommending this evening. So with that, I recommend your approval. So moved. Do we have a second? Second. Any questions or comments about the curriculum? Hearing none, would you please call the roll? Mr. Gallagher? Yes. Mrs. Clark? Yes. And Mrs. Blankenshirt? Yes. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. Next item is item 4.6. This is approval of the materials that we use to teach the courses of study. So this is the recommendation to adopt new textbooks for 26-27 school year. You probably should change the term from textbooks to instructional resources, but nevertheless, those are listed specifically here and I am recommending your
037approval. Do we have a motion and a second? Yes. I'll second. Any questions or comments? No. Then would you please call the roll? Mr. Gallagher? Yes. Mrs. Clark? Yes. And Mrs. Blankenshirt? Yes. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. Next item is item 4.7. This is approval of an agreement for the implementation of the School Links platform for college and career readiness. I will have a brief comment following motion and second. I am recommending your approval. Do we have a motion and a second? So moved. I'll second. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. For a number of years, the school district has been using a platform called Naviance for our college and career readiness and basically connecting students to workforce readiness and college. We are making this transition to School Links. School
038Links is going to basically replace Naviance as the platform that is being used. So that's where this is coming from. With that, unless there are other questions. Any questions or comments? Thank you for expanding on that after my email question. Then would you please call the roll? Mr. Gallagher? Yes. Mrs. Clark? Yes. And Mrs. Blankenshirt? Yes. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. Next item is item 4.8. This is approval of a recommendation to appoint legal counsel additional for the 26-27 school year. We are recommending the appointment of Peterson and Peterson and I'll have just a brief comment following motion and second. So moved. Do we have a second? Second. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. This recommendation is necessary because the board's typical legal counsel, Weston Hurd, has a conflict of
039interest that they notified the district of related to one specific matter involving the board. As a result, we needed to seek additional counsel to handle that particular case or situation and Peterson and Peterson are capable of doing that. And we have used them in the past. Correct. Any questions or comments? The local? Yes. Okay. It's like when I Googled them, they're the ones next to Brown Barn. All right. That's close to me. Yeah. And Mr. Peterson as a charter. Charter and grad, yeah. All right. Anything else? Very none. Deb, would you please call the roll? Mrs. Clark? Yes. Mr. Gehoff? Yes. And Mrs. Blankenshirt? Yes. Madam President, members of the board, item 4.9. This is approval of a change order for the tennis court project related to the soil stabilization that was completed to facilitate
040the earlier installation of the asphalt. I am recommending your approval. Do we have a motion and a second? So moved. I'll second it. Any questions or comments? Hearing none, Deb, would you please call the roll? Mr. Gehoff? Yes. Mrs. Clark? Yes. And Mrs. Blankenshirt? Yes. Thank you, Madam President. Item 4.10, approval of the selection of bidders and awarding of contract agreement for the park elementary roof replacement. This is for the auditorium, I should say, to gridiron guys construction as detailed in the enclosures. Excuse me, I will have a brief comment following motion and second. I'm recommending your approval. So moved. Do we have a second? Second. Sure. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. Because of the scope of this project and board policy requires the district to seek competitive sealed bids, the board
041complied with the law, completed that bidding process. The bids were open last week. The bid tabulation for all bids received is included in the agenda item. Gridiron guys was the lowest responsive and responsible bidder. The scope review meeting was conducted on Friday to ensure that there were no issues with the sealed bid and understanding of the project. There are none. As a result, the recommendation this evening. What's the timeline of this project? Work will, mobilization will start on May 27th and their hope is to be completed by the 4th of July. Any other questions or comments? Hearing none. Would you please call the roll? Mr. Gehocher. Yes. Mrs. Clark. Yes. And Mrs. Buckinshott. Yes. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. Final item is item 4.11, board policies first reading. These are all of
042the policy provisions are included in this agenda item. You can see again that it was an extensive list of changes. Most of these changes are due to alignment with the current state of law and therefore we are recommending approval of these, or not, I'm sorry, we're recommending them to the board. Tonight is first reading so no action will be taken. Now I do want to point out there is one adjustment to a policy not included in the update and that deals with policy 5113, inter-district open enrollment. This isn't a significant departure from the operation of the district for a number of years now, but to ensure that there's clarity with policy, the recommendation is to revise policy to basically restrict open enrollment, prohibit open enrollment from districts outside beyond the boundaries of Chardon schools with
043the exceptions of continuing to accept children of staff members, which is referenced in our collective bargaining agreements, and also to continue to maintain under open enrollment students that had previously been accepted under open enrollment policy existing at that particular point in time until such time that they would exit the school district whether it be through commencement or withdrawal from the district and returning to their home district or whatnot. The impact of this is not significant, and Dr. Klein I'm going off memory, but we had approximately 30 students attending on open enrollment presently and of that it was about 15 were staff members' children. Am I close? We're close. 35 students total, 15 were staff kids. So we have about 20 students and those 20 students that are not staff members' children have been already here
044for quite some time. We really haven't accepted very many new students in under open enrollment for quite some time. I do want to make sure that the board and community understands that when the Chardon board approved implementing open enrollment, which was back probably in 2012, 2013, somewhere around there, the reimbursement for students that were attending on open enrollment was about $6,000 per student that chose to enroll in the district. With the changes that have occurred with state funding over time, we are presently receiving no dollars for a student that open enrolls to our district from another school district through inter-district open enrollment. Again, I want to restate that we are not receiving any funding for students that we accept in from another district. And as a result, it really makes the policy a non-starter for
045us in terms of local resources being used to sustain that educational program with no reimbursement coming from the state, which is why the policy revision is being recommended. Well, I just want to say too that when we did open enrollment, we did it to offset the number of students that were leaving the district for other districts because that was costing us money at the time. So that's why we did open enrollment. What we did was to offset what was being taken outside of the district. And that's a great point, Ms. Blankenship. The students that are leaving the district, there's no longer money for them either going to another school district that might continue open enrolling them. Basically, under the current state funding formula, it's funded where educated. And as a result, under our circumstances, being
046so deep into the funding guarantee from the state, it does not bring with it any additional resources for educating those students. With that, as I say, every time we have board policies on first reading, they are available for the community to review on the agenda through BoardDocs. They can also be accessed by contacting the district's administrative offices. We will provide copies of any of the policies that anyone wants to see. Feedback on those policies can be provided to the school district, and next month they will be presented for second reading and approval. And of course make the board aware of any feedback that we receive on particular policies. With that, that concludes my section this evening. Thanks, Mike. Deb? Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. First item on my agenda is 5.1. 5.1
047is the financial summary presentation for March of 2026. And as always, there's a link in here if you want to watch my AI video for March. It's a positive one. I actually told AI to use the word positive, and it did, literally. So let's hop in. First report we look at every single month is our cash reconciliation. We ended March with $33,328,000 in the bank. We did balance, book to bank, and accounted for every penny. The second report we look at is the cash summary report. And we always look at this third column to the right, and we look for negatives. So we see negatives in this column. We've been talking about some of these funds. I found this really cool checkmark graphic because I wanted to talk about some of the funds that were
048in the red. So our PI was in the red, and we talked all year that we were going to get our final tax settlement in March, and we did. So we came out of the red. In fact, we have about $300,000 left in the PI fund, and you just approved $179,000 is going to go to the roof, and then he's going to have about $100,000 left. So he is going to spend the fund down as we recommended and as he promised he would. So the second one is the 022 fund. We've been talking about that. That's the second checkmark on the screen. This is where our workman's comp was posted. And I always said after we had so many payrolls, we'd come out of the red, and we certainly did. Down at the bottom is
049our 300. That account is still in the red. That is our athletic account. That account is in the red every single year. So we have a June transfer scheduled already. It's already part of our forecast. And then the last one is just our grants. It's all our 400 and 500 accounts, which of course we use first and then are reimbursed. And then at the very, very bottom, highlighted in yellow, our cash summary does come up to our amount that's in the bank of $33,328,000. So for athletics, that'll be a transfer from the general fund? Yes, it always is. Yeah, so we've already built it in our forecast. So yeah, absolutely. So now the first thing we do is we kind of compare to our spending plan. So we received more. We spent less. Always really
050positive when that happens. We received $325,000 more, spent $211,000 less. We're going to detail that in a minute for a positive effect on our cash balance of $537,000. Now, you know, these fluctuate all month with our spending plan. These are actuals, are replacing estimates. So I think we're going to be a little bit closer after the next three months. So let's take a look at where our differences are. So the extra that we received from the $325,000, we received some extra tuition. And, you know, we just talked about open enrollment. We're not getting an enrollment. Where's tuition coming from? With special education tuition. So it's a student that's attending here. This parent might live in another district and it's a special ed student. That school is responsible for those services. So this is all reported
051through EMAS. It comes through on our foundation reports. And we don't know what services from year to year. As a treasurer, it's an estimate. It came in a little higher than anticipated. Also if you recall, this year we started charging athletics for transportation. So that's coming in a little higher. And you can see right here in this detail, we got our tuition and our athletics. So those are the two largest effects of that additional money. And then down below are expenditures. And we are over in salaries, but under in purchase services. And again, just things that haven't cleared. Yes, Mike? Could you just expand please on charging athletics for transportation? I want to make sure that someone listening at home doesn't think that we're charging students. No, we are not charging students. So all it
052is basically is a fund to fund charge. Athletics, what we did is we separated athletics out until its own bucket. We call it the 300 Athletics Fund. And we want to know what athletics costs the district. Bus drivers are all paid out of the general fund. They're all paid a lot of the stuff that has to do with salaries. But the transportation, the athletics is all in the 300. So what we're simply doing is Josh figures out how much a trip costs on the general fund and we just bill the athletics fund. And the athletics fund pays it and then that way the expense is accounted for here. And we have a very true cost of athletics. Is that you're looking for Mike? Thank you. Sure. Over to the right, I just want to talk
053about actual revenue. We've actually received 38 million, 191 this year. We projected to receive 40 million, 947. Those numbers are pretty close because we've collected all of our taxes for the year, right? But we do have some state funding that's going to be trickling in. So we're going to be very close to projection by the end of June. Down below are the expenditures and this one looks like a bigger difference, right? We've only spent 28 million, 111 and we projected 41 million. And we'll see this again. You know how we always talk about two days of cash. We talk about our monthly expenditures. Our monthly expenditures are about 3.6 million, right? We have three months left, 3, 6, 9, 12. We do a couple million dollars of transfers and we have an extra pay in
054May. We're going to come in very, very close to 41 million. So now we look at this March and we kind of compare it to last March. What are the differences? So this March we collected 8.9 million. Last March we collected 8 million. Well, why is the difference? Because this year we got Homestead a rollback early and last year we got a little bit later. So we're going to see a bigger difference when we do April next month. And then down below are our expenditures. This year in March we spent 3.3 million. Last year we spent 3.5 million. So this is looking good, right? Receive more, spend less. But the reason that we spent less is because look at our purchase services. You see that big are the, I'm sorry, other expenses, which is our
055capital outlay. Last year we were building this building and now we don't have those expenditures anymore. So we're spending less this year than we did last year. I do see the salaries and benefits portion is bigger. Is that just because standard of raises? The salaries, and I'm glad you asked that because I looked at that too, the salary and benefit are bigger because this is the first year that we had substitute teachers getting paid from a purchase service. So I had to reduce salaries and increase purchase services. But we're actually paying all of our building subs we decided to pay out of salaries. So my purchase service is light and my salary is a little bit heavy. But I'm glad you saw that. That was pretty cool. We always look at salaries. So our March
056salaries were $1.7 million. Our annual salaries $15,851,996. We've completed 19 of 26 pays all the way to the star from the left side of this chart. Those are all actuals. And the only estimates left are these three months. And again, pay, May is a three pay month. I always try to explain that. Does it mean people get extra money? At Chardon, they just get paid every two weeks. In two months out of the year, it falls where every two weeks is three times. My husband's corporate job follows the same schedule. Every month, we always look at true days of cash. Our general fund balance right now about $27 million before open purchase orders, $25 million after. We average about $3.4 million a month in spending. Daily $113,000. We just got our last tax payments. Our
057days of cash went back up. We are at one of the high points of our chart. This chart on the bottom left shows the last five years and it shows that our spending is very predictable. We're low cash in the same months every single year. We're high cash in the same months every single year. It only fluctuates every once in a while when the settlement comes in maybe in April instead of March. On the bottom right is what I believe true days of cash are going to be at the end of the fiscal year. I did make a little tweak in this chart. I just want to point out to the board and I made a note on it right here on the screen. I was taking 20 days because there's an average of 20
058work days a month and our daily rate was higher. The chart you see on the bottom right that comes out of our forecast software bases it on 30 days a month. I made that adjustment. All that did was make our daily smaller. That way this will all equal towards the end of the year. I just wanted to point out that brief change. Seventy-five is our trigger for talking about levies. That says 71 and 28. Would that be beginning or end of 28? The logic on 30 versus 20 is we are paying expenses anyways. We don't have a whole lot of part. If it's a salary, it's 30 days. The salaries are paid. 80% of our budget is salaries and they're paid. The lights are still on on the weekend. I wanted to true it up
059to our forecast chart so that when we're looking at it every single month, because we watch this number every month, I wanted it to be true to the forecast. It makes more sense this way. We always look at food service. Food service is our 006 fund. We did have a small deficit, but the two graphs you see on the left is revenue. The blue is 26 and the red is 25. You can see it runs pretty much the same pattern. We're doing great. We want this fund to be at 300,000. We just did some orders that are in open purchase orders. You can't see here. This fund balance will be down a little bit further at the end of the year. The permanent improvement fund, this chart is just all over the place. The permanent
060improvement has been above red. It's been in the red. It came back out. It went back in. As you can see right here in March, we got our final settlements. We'll get very little revenue, if any, for the rest of the year, but we'll just be spending down as close to zero as possible. For revenue, we received $611,239, $2.3 million year to date. It was that final property tax payment and the homestead enrollment tax. On the expenditure side, we only spent $23,904. Most of that was on our auditor tax collection fee. We have to pay the auditor to collect our taxes. There's a big portion of fees that come on at every tax collection to go to the auditor's office. We also got some shelving racks here for the Washington facility and some backflow preventer
061tests. Don't even ask. I don't know what those are. You don't want it to fail, I can tell you that. We just did the same test at work, and I asked the guy doing the test what they were. Things I don't want to know. Exactly. Did you have a question, Ash? No, I'll just make a comment. They charge us to collect the taxes and give us... Yes, they charge us. It's actually annually. You'll see it when we do the five-year forecast. It's about $500,000 a year. It's a half a million a year. All county auditors charge. It's not just specific to GIACA. The last one we always look at is our self-insurance fund. I was talking about this last month. I could see that the claims were light, and yes, they were. One thing that
062really makes sense is because all of our staff are now on HSA, a high deductible HSA, our claims costs are going to be lower January, February, and March because people are using their deductible. This is a different year. We used to have part of the people on the PPO and part of the people on the HSA, but now we're 100% HSA, so we are seeing lower claims costs. I thoroughly expect claims costs to come back up. I'm not seeing it yet this month, and I'm paying these on Friday, but I thoroughly expect it to happen. We are at a balance of $2.8 million in this fund, and our reserve amount is $1.948. I think it's important to note, too, that we have put in a lot of programs to help the employees contain costs, not
063only for the district, but for themselves. Absolutely, and we actually have two more going into play that we just used on that committee, on the insurance committee. I'm really excited about these. One is FedLogic, and it really explains to our employees government programs that they qualify for, like when they're turning 65, when they go on Medicare, or gosh, one thing we just learned, Mike, is when someone has a premature baby, you can apply for Medicaid, and they'll pay after the first 30 days that the baby's born. If it's still in the hospital and having trouble, you don't have to use your insurance for that. So there's all these federal programs that I'm not smart enough to know about, but this company is. At our employees, there'll be a really nice resource for them to call.
064So now our news section, our topper facts. So the first question is, has the tax burden shifted? Now, we've been talking about this for months and months, right, with property tax reform, and yes, the state is not giving us the same amount of money that they did. In the forecast frontline software that I have, I had the earliest chart I pulled was from 2007, but I thought the differences were amazing. So in 2007, and this is the percent of expenditures, or the percent of revenue. So in 2007, property tax covered 69% of the revenue that we received. In 2025, it was only 70%. So that wasn't a very big difference. I thought, hmm. But in 2007, the state revenue was 26%, and now we only receive 16%. So yes, the state is giving us less
065than they used to back in 2007. The federal amounts were the same, and you know, my question always, right guys, why? So I got to other revenue, and here's where it was. So our other revenue in 2007 was 1%, and in 2025, it was 10%. Now this is something we've been working very, very hard on, and it's a very slow climb. So what does the revenue have in it? It has, we're getting charges for using this facility for billing transportation costs to Cardinal schools. It has interest. We started investing our money about four years ago, and we've done really good with interest while our cash balances were on the upside of our levy bill curve. We've been negotiating TIFs and RIDs with the city that are kind of outside the tax collection, but we're still
066getting made whole by those entities. There's the tuition that you saw with special ed. MRDD pass-through, we've tripled the amount of pass-through that we get from that revenue. Medicaid, and then we have all kinds of other things like scrap and pass-through fees. One thing I want to point out, I didn't really put on this slide, but another reason our other revenue looks really good is because we've added some extra programs. We've been talking about preschool for years, right? We do a transfer for preschool at the end of every year inside the general fund. Why do we do that? Because I keep track of how much preschool has cost us. We used to pay that money out. Now we pay ourself. So we pay ourself for preschool. Now we're paying ourself for vocational, where we used
067to send that money out, right, Linda? And now we're paying ourself for it. So that is other revenue. That is money, our money, that we're giving ourselves and not giving somebody else. Any questions on that? I know you're really excited about these charts. I was going to say, does your other revenue include your grants and stuff? No, that's at 4%, the federal. Okay, so like the grants and stuff you guys apply for, is that coming through? Which grants? The grants for demo and stuff that you guys are applying for too. No, this is just general fund. No, this is total, but no, it's not those. My question is in the state revenue, was it gradual decline to 16 or you just saw more shift within last year's year? What do you remember? I know I'm
068putting you probably. Yeah, no, it's been a gradual, I would say gradual decline over time. There was a decline when the fair school funding plan went into place. Yeah, if you look at the history over the last two decades, basically there's been a shift from the general assembly and the state funding for school districts like Chardon and shifting that burden back to the local taxpayers to accept that to fund the local schools. And it's that impact of successive legislative changes that have occurred during that time that have eroded that state revenue and shifted responsibility here. And one more question I have on the other. Are these consistent where we are in the other? I know these are investment based on the high interest rate we had last few years. How do you see this other,
069can it hold to 10% or do you have an opinion on it? I'm sorry. The revenue from all these others, is it pretty vulnerable? I'm sorry? The 10% amount, do you think that will sustain high interest rates? Yeah, I think it will sustain, but as our cash bill is declining, our interest is declining. So as long as we can combat that with some of these other programs that we're doing, we could see it drop. That's what I'm looking because you mentioned last year or so already is two points down. So there might be a question there next year or two. It might drop a little, I would agree with you there, but we're still trying to do everything we can to come up with other means of revenue. Thank you. I think it's important to
070point out that Mr. Kofol, Josh, Deb, all of our admin team is working to find this money continually. Dr. Hanlon is a state funding guru. So when we sit here and we, some of our tech, some of our people in the community don't like our admin shall we say necessarily. These guys are working hard to save our taxpayers money, find more money, do everything they can to better educate our children at a lesser cost to our taxpayers. So thank you guys all for working so hard all the time. I don't think people see that necessarily. Of course. Okay, so the last slide is, this is like my absolute favorite. So for those of you, I know, and I have, if you guys can't see this on the screen, I have these charts printed in the
071back. They're flow charts. So if you want, yeah, if you want to get up and grab one, just so you can kind of follow the flow. So for those of you that don't know me well, in my previous years I used to be a developer. Okay. And so is Mrs. Blakenship. So we start talking flow charts. This is how we designed our programs way back in the day, right? So what we were thinking, and actually this is Mr. Gell-Hotra's idea, we are always, you know, we're talking about property tax abolishment and what could happen to Shardon schools, right? If we lose all of our property taxes, we did a presentation with all the other school districts, you know, we don't get a replacement. We're going to be done by June of, what's it say, 27.
072I mean, that's next year. Okay. So what we say to do is kind of, like, what can we do? So it starts out at the top and it says if property taxes are abolished. If they're not, this is business as usual, right? We maintain, commercial pays about 2.3 million, public utility pays about 1.6, residents pay about 25 million. Okay. We're not high in industry here in Shardon. We are projecting an operating deficit by 2030. That's already on our five-year forecast that we submitted in February. So sometime in 28 we're going to have to recommend a levy, some kind of levy for consideration. This will be up to our five members here to decide what kind of levy. If that levy passes, then we go down to continued operations, project our next five years and we're
073good to go, right? If that levy doesn't pass, we have to go make some cuts because we can't run out of money. We're not allowed. We have to balance the budget so that we come back and ask for whatever kind of levy the five board members decide to put on the ballot for consideration and again, if it passes. So now let's go to the not so fun side. If property taxes are abolished and that actually passes, what's our immediate loss? Well, our immediate loss is our 2.3 million in commercial, our 1.6 in public utility and 25 million in residential. Now, is it lost that day? No. But it is only six months. It'll start January of 27, so we'll get our first collection in 27, which is actually the second part of 26. So we'll
074collect about 15 million more before our tax revenue goes away. And that's right here on this chart. So at that point, we don't know at this point is the state going to have a replacement revenue? Maybe. Maybe not. And is that revenue even going to be sufficient for us to maintain life, right? So there's actually two questions in that diamond. Is there going to be state revenue and is it sufficient to maintain operations? If it is, we zoom right over here to continued operations and it's business as usual. If it doesn't, if it's not sufficient, we're going to have to do some major budget cuts. And then if we could do some budget cuts to meet operations with what's left, then again, we're good to go. We come back to our continued operations and project
075our next five years. If we do budget cuts and it doesn't, it's not sufficient. And if you recall, you know, losing $30 million would take an awful lot of cuts that wouldn't be sufficient. We would have to go back to our voters, back to the board, and they would have to decide only possible levy at this point would be income tax because there isn't anything else that we could put on the ballot. So we'd have to put an income tax on the ballot. If the income tax did not pass, this is when we would be at, okay, this is when we'd be at cease operations by June. If it did pass, I just want to point out that commercial in our area pays zero. Public utility, we have an electric and aluminum company, pretty sure
076they're not going to lower their costs, are going to pay zero. And the working class, the working people are going to consume 100% of our $30 million debt. I think I talked about this at a meeting before. I don't like that part of it. But anyways, that's how it would go moving forward. We would have an 18-month waiting period before we get that tax money. So we'd have to find some short-term revenue. We'd have to take a loan. We'd have to do something, figure out how we can, you know, keep operations going until that income tax money starts rolling in. So we have to identify that short-term funding. And then once that comes in and we get our income tax, here we are again, continued operations, good to go. You said in a previous meeting,
077was it like 3.5% income tax? Yeah, 4% I believe we said. It was 4%. It was equivalent to our $30 million of what we get now. Okay. Yes. So it boils down to two boxes here, either in order to run the school, it doesn't matter where it comes from. Either it comes from the top box, property tax as today, or income tax, either or. There is no third option basically. Correct. Now the state could sufficiently help us. That's for my next. There is nothing else state can do. The state only brings money from property tax or income tax. Right. The state itself does not receive any property taxes. The state, all property taxes that are collected in our county go to our local entities. In fact, the state pays a homestead rollback for eligible individuals.
078So if property taxes run away, the state would actually get like a 10% raise. Yeah, so that's what my question was here, that if state is covering revenues, what are those streams that they have to pick up this much? That doesn't exist. Who knows? That's exactly. Gordon had mentioned a sales tax. That would be a state level. That's either income tax or sales tax primarily at the state level. Those are the primary resources that they would have to draw. I know that was a lot. Do you have any other questions? No, thanks for putting this together. It gives at least clarity to the team. Okay, great. Moving on. Section 5.2, 5.2 are very generous donations. It's detailed in the associated enclosures. I am recommending for your approval. Do we have a motion and a second?
079Motion. Second. Any questions or comments about donations? Thank you. As always, on behalf of the district, the students and the staff, thank you to our community members. It's always humbling to see every month the donations that are on our agenda. So, thank you. Any other questions or comments? Deb, would you please call the roll? Mrs. Clark? Yes. Mr. Galhotra? Yes. And Mrs. Blankenship? Yes. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. Next item on my agenda is equipment disposal as detailed in associated enclosures. I am recommending your approval. So moved. Do we have a second? Seconded. Any questions or comments about disposals? Hearing none, Deb, would you please call the roll? Mrs. Clark? Yes. Mr. Galhotra? Yes. And Mrs. Blankenship? Yes. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. Next item on my agenda, 5.4,
0805.4 is approval of agreements awarding Zuccon Associates an extension contract for five years. They perform our financial audit. As detailed in associated enclosures, I am recommending your approval. Do we have a motion and a second? So moved. Second. So, Deb, this is for the yearly audit? Yes. Any other questions or comments? This was emailed to us. You shopped around, shall you say? I thought I saw it in a board update, mentioned something. Right. No, I did not shop around, but we did. The state shopped around for us. We don't get to shop around and pick our own auditor. Five years ago the state shopped around for us and Zuccon was the least expensive. Okay. We've had them for five years and we had the option of either going back to the state or the state
081gave us the option to maintain Zuccon for five years and we chose to do that. Okay. It's so much easier with consistency, especially they know how it's done, right? Right, and you get pretty much the same people every year and they know how you operate, they know where to find things. It is much simpler. Any other questions or comments? Deb, would you please go? I have one, sorry, I have one on that. So this company audit other schools. Do they bring best practices, share, hey, this is what they're doing? Anything comes out or just that's going on? They know as well as what other schools do, but organizations like OASBO and the Auditor's State Office gives us best practices all the time. So auditor is just plain doing all the best practices. So we adopt
082those best practices. I do a lot of PD. I talk to a lot of different chargers. I was like, Deb talks to a lot of people. Yeah, I do. I wasn't sure. Depending on what audit, like ISOs and all those auditors come up with some experience. That's fine. Thank you. I'm sure public education audit is a whole other. Yeah. It is so much fun. She says with a smile. Having a mother who's in public education auditing, I can sense your sarcasm, Deb. Any other questions or comments? Deb, would you please call the roll? Mrs. Clark. Yes. Sister Gail Houchra. Yes. And Mrs. Blankenshaw. Yes. Last item on my agenda is a, it's 5.5. It is a then and now certificate of detailed and associated enclosures for St. Mary's. I am recommending your approval after first
083and second. I'll just have a brief comment. So moved. Do we have a second? Second. Brief comment. Again, this is for St. Mary's. This is from St. Mary's. Pass through funding. They have the funds to cover the PO. They just did not do the purchase order before the invoice came in. It was for their nursing through PSI. So it was an error. Any other questions or comments? Deb, would you please call the roll? Mrs. Clark. Yes. Mr. Gail Houchra. Yes. And Mrs. Blankenshaw. Yes. Thank you. That concludes my section. Thanks, Deb. Okay. Shard and Schools Foundation. Mr. Landys is not here tonight. I did not hear anything about a report from him. Did you? No. Okay. So legislative. Andrea? Yeah. Dr. Hanlon gave me a list of some of the bills that are under consideration.
084Stuff that I continue to mention. Nothing new and exciting to me, quite honestly. He did point out Senate Bill 19, which was the one about math improvement plans. That's moving along, but now they've changed it so that we won't have math improvement plans, like we have reading improvement plans. But they still do have achievement improvement plans. So we'll see what that ends up looking like by the time it comes out of the House. My favorite part of this bill was how no funding will be provided to support the bill's provisions. So they're going to give us rules about math and not tell us how to fund it. Another unfunded mandate. Yes. Pretty normal for the state. So I think I've, in the legislative report, learned that you just watch and wait and then react later
085on, unfortunately. So we will keep watching if anything comes through. And then you have the first reading tonight of things that passed already, and we had to change policies to follow through with it. So I think right now the big thing, honestly, legislative wise, is funding and property taxes. That's our biggest issue, honestly. Okay. So on to Auburn, then. And I went to the meeting, and my life has been chaos. So the one thing that sticks out of the Auburn meeting is they did hire a new treasurer. He came to Auburn from a year at Rocky River. I believe he was their HR specialist, and I'm not saying his correct title there. And before that he was a principal at Mentor, and before that he was a CTE career technical at Mentor. So he was
086one of the only, I sat on the board to go through that treasurer experience. He was one of the only ones who had career tech experience in his background. So I think that he brings a lot to Auburn to work with Joe Glavin, who was hired last spring. So between the two of them, they are going to continue, Glavin has hit the ground running this year, continue to hit the ground running next year. I know they've already continued talking RIFs, grants to continue their programming, all of that. So I think that will be really exciting for them. And our students obviously go there, so that benefits all of our students in the trades who may not want to do college, or some of them can go to college afterwards, criminal justice tends to lead towards
087a college degree after Auburn, stuff like that. So that's exciting. Well, thank you. Student staff liaison, James is not here, but we have AI. And I'm sorry guys, I still can't get Google notebook to say Chardon right. Two Chardon middle school student scientists, Michael Mele and S.J. Moore, recently earned excellent ratings at the regional science fair held at Kent State University. Michael presented his project, Battle of the Bridges, while S.J. presented Fermentation Frenzy. Congratulations to both Michael and S.J. Chardon High School's academic decathlon team competed at the Ohio State competition, securing 22 medals across various academic categories. Additionally, six students qualified to compete in the virtual national academic decathlon competition later this year. Congratulations to the team on their continued success. Chardon High School student Susanna Crosby's art piece, Botanica, has been accepted into the
088highly competitive 2026 Ohio Governor's Youth Art Exhibition. This marks the second time Susanna has been selected to participate in this statewide show. We are very proud of this impressive achievement. Hilltopper track and field athlete Toby Rogers set a new school record in the pole vault event at the Nordonia Nights Relays on April 11th. Toby recorded a vault of 14 feet, six inches, breaking the 1989 record. Great job, Toby. I know, the music in the background reminds me of Mr. Albright, because he always wanted music. He's going to be so disappointed he wasn't here for that. Okay, that brings us to hearing of the public for non-agenda items. Mr. Klein. Oh, okay. Bill, you'll have to help me with the last name. Are you still here? Oh, okay. Where's my neighbor? Okay. The board does have
089reason to recess to executive session tonight for matters required to be confidential by federal law or state statutes. There will be action after exec session, so anyone who wants to stick around tonight, feel free. I don't know how long exec session will take. We will go to another room. Those of you who want to go home, our next meeting is May 18th, so we need a motion and a second to go into exec session. Is there any questions or comments? Let's call the roll. Yes. Like I said, anyone who likes to stick around, feel free. Madam President, members of the board, item 9.1, approval of resolution resolution 26-12, authorizing approval of a student-related agreement as detailed in the enclosure. I'm recommending your approval. So moved. Do we have a second? Any questions or comments? Very
090good. Would you please call the roll? This is authorizing the superintendent to take the necessary steps to commemorate a district facility consistent with board education policy. Do we have a motion and a second? Any questions or comments? Yes. I don't believe we have any new business for tonight. Meeting adjournment, so our next board meeting will be May 18th. We have a motion and a second to adjourn. Meeting adjourned. Meeting adjourned.