001June 3rd, 2026 special meeting of the Chardon Local Schools Board of Education. The meeting is being held in accordance with Section 3313.16 of the High Order Rise Code. Adam, would you please call the roll? Mrs. Beichert? Here. Mrs. Clark? Here. Mr. Gaholichuk? Here. Mr. Landys? Here. And Mr. Mediat? Here. Welcome to the June 3rd, 2026 special meeting of the Chardon Local Schools Board of Education. Prior to this meeting, each board member received for their 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. Board members have the opportunity to call the superintendent and chief financial officer for information concerning agenda items
002and to request if needed additional information. 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 we're going to need a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as presented. Okay, I just want to say before we take the roll call that this meeting is to discuss instructional time and a reminder that the 26-27 calendar was approved last year and the 27-28 calendar was approved at our last meeting on May 18th of this year. So any other questions or comments about the agenda as presented? Hearing none, then would you please call the roll. Mr. Mediat? Yes. Mr. Landys? Yes. Mr. Gajotra? Yes. Mrs. Clark? Yes.
003And Mrs. Blankenship? Yes. Would everyone please join me in the pledge of allegiance? 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. Okay, so that takes us to the first hearing of the public or the only hearing of the public. It's a special meeting so we only do one hearing of the public and it's for agenda items only. So, Deb's getting the sheet. For anybody who signed in, I believe there's a copy of the rules for our policy for public participation back there. You have three minutes to speak. State where you're from and your name and where you're from. The first one on the list is Madeline Horvath. Are we on? Are we
004on? Okay. Good morning. Good afternoon. I'm Madeline Horvath. I live at 111 Winewood Place in Chardon. Good afternoon everyone. I appreciate this time. My understanding is that some folks in the community have created a petition to start school after Labor Day and that has led to the thoughts that perhaps our schedule is too long and needs to be tweaked in some way. In this case, the petition really can't be generalized, especially as the board looks at all of the information. One of the most important lessons I learned when I was on the board was that you can't make everyone happy all the time. When you try to change something to answer someone's request, someone else wants it just the way it was and somebody else will want it tweaked a different way from that. Right
005now, I would wager that those folks may not be aware of what's being considered or you would see them here. Maybe they are here. This is why superintendents get gray before their time. So as a board, you have to have a really compelling reason to change something as consequential as a schedule that affects every student, every teacher, and our busing schedules. What we need to think about first is the learning for our kids. Dr. Hanlon makes the case clearly that we are currently providing an excellent education for our kids by all standards that measure this and we are in alignment with neighboring and other high-performing districts. These are the most important aspects for consideration. I distinctly remember the problems we had with busing just a few years ago. We simply could not get enough drivers.
006We seem to have solved that problem with the two-tiered busing schedule and I haven't heard of any major chronic problems in the last couple of years. People need to know that their kids are picked up at a specified time, that the bus will be there, and that it will bring them back at the specified time. Our busing guru was just honored as the best in the state. This should tell us a lot. From the extensive presentation that Dr. Hanlon and the staff did in April, it's clear to me that the above interests have been very carefully considered. Yes, fourth, fifth, and sixth graders are in school a few minutes longer each day than the state requires, but they are being given really great opportunities which include STEM, arts, foreign language, and flex time. Why would
007it be better for them to cut this? Isn't it best for kids to have arts or STEM or unstructured homework time? I'm sure a little extra sleep or hanging with friends is fun, but should this be a driver in changing a schedule that works for the district on so many levels? The fact that our buildings are too hot is real and a real problem, but that will not be addressed logically by changing this schedule. Thank you. Thank you, Madeline. Okay, next is Jenny Pavlik. My name is Jenny Pavlik. I live in Hamden and I have a kindergarten, first grader, and third grader at Munson. Good evening. Tonight's discussion is about instructional hours, but I hope we can keep the focus on the students and families behind those numbers. Our elementary students are spending significantly more
008hours in school than what's recommended by the state, specifically for grades four through six, where it amounts to being over by 93 to 129 hours per year. Elementary students are not getting home until around 4 p.m. or later, and by that time it leaves less than four hours for dinner, homework, extracurriculars, bath time, and family time. There's very little room left for children to rest, recharge, or just be kids. Parents are seeing the effects every single day. Our kids are coming home exhausted, emotional, and overwhelmed. We're talking about six to nine-year-olds who are finishing their days completely drained, and that should concern all of us. Burnout does not create better learners. More instructional time does not automatically translate into better outcomes. If every decision ultimately comes back to test scores, then we should be willing
009to acknowledge that exhausted students are unlikely to perform at their best. Student well-being should be at the forefront of this discussion. The current schedule also creates significant challenges for parents. The nearly two-hour gap between elementary and middle school schedules is extremely difficult for many parents, especially those who work outside the home. Transportation appears to be the driving factor behind scheduling decisions, and if that's the case, I would like to know what solutions have been explored. Have we utilized AI assistance or other route optimizing tools? I'd also like to encourage the district to think creatively about alternatives. When kindergarten was still at Calc, buses stopped at both Calc and Park and Munson in the mornings. Could a similar schedule work between Park and Munson and the middle school to bring K-6 students into a more aligned
010schedule? A change like this could help reduce some of the extra instructional hours currently affecting grades four through six, and if discussions about moving seventh grade to the high school are on the horizon, a schedule like this could make even more sense moving forward. I also think it's important to acknowledge the bigger picture in which this conversation is taking place. The district is facing several major decisions in the coming years. There have been talks about moving grade levels, adding AC, building new buildings, and the possibility of a future levy. Families are leaving for Ed Choice programs, private schools, and homeschooling, and many of those families are leaving because they feel their concerns are not being heard. The school calendar is the perfect example. Many families supported exploring a change because it seemed like a practical
011solution to challenges created by the weather and our building conditions, yet it often felt like the conversation became more focused on one specific date rather than finding areas of compromise. While tonight's special meeting was scheduled in a matter of minutes, many of us are disappointed that over a two-month span, a similar meeting couldn't be scheduled to discuss a compromise on the calendar. Whether that perception is true or not, it exists, and perception matters when you're asking families to trust future decisions and support the district. Thank you. Maddie Bray? Did I say that right? Hi, my name is Maddie Bray. I have an incoming first grader and second grader at Park, and because of all of these conversations about this grade level, you know, K through six, having extra instructional time, it seems like there have
012been a lot of things circulating, like Jenny said, just in terms of restructuring the grade levels, and as somebody who has just been hearing concerning things about this four through six, or four through seven middle school, and I have these grade levels that are approaching and I'm starting to make choices about if we're going to go to the middle school or not, I was just wondering if this is something that you guys are able to give us insight on, if this is a conversation about changes of grade levels to help with these times that we're not getting with this, or we're getting additional in the school year, and if this is something that parents will have some kind of insight into what's coming. Thank you. Lisa Ramey? Hello, my name is Lisa Ramey. I'm a
013parent in this district. I have a going into seventh grade, going into fourth grader, and an upcoming kindergartner. I am also an educator. I would like to address what Jenny had talked about, the hours that we're over, but also tie it into the fact that the fourth and fifth graders are technically elementary students, and they are in a building that is being treated and following all the rules and the procedures of middle school students, including the educational time. They are on buses with middle school students and sometimes high school students, and I think we need to remember that these fourth and fifth graders is not developmentally appropriate to put them, all that responsibility on them, that independence. There's no scaffolding of when you enter into the middle school. They are just kind of thrown in
014the deep end and treated like middle schoolers, and I would love, I realize we can't probably move the fourth grade back, but I would love to see sort of a division of how the fourth and fifth graders are treated versus the sixth and seventh graders. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, that's all public participation. So our agenda item tonight is for instructional time, but before we get started, I want to thank our administrators for being here tonight. We appreciate you being here for any questions or information that anybody has, or any of the board members would have. I'd like to go around the room and have everybody introduce yourselves, and what role you play in for the district. We'll start with Diane. Okay, my name is Diane. I am the Enos Coordinator. Stephen Kofo, Assistant Superintendent
015of Business Affairs. Alana Hruska, Special Education Supervisor, and I oversee the Chardon Early Learning Center. Christina Sherwood, I'm the Principal of Chardon Middle School. Adam Tonko, Principal of Chardon High School. Josh Na, Director of Transportation. Matt Prezioso, Principal of Red Munson. Linda Legante, Outgoing Director of Student Services. Adam Tonko, Principal of Park Elementary. Lindsay Bower, Incoming Director of Student Services. Once again, thank you all for being here. I know every year you guys spend a lot of time looking at the schedules, the calendars, etc. And I know this year has been, a lot more time has been spent on this because of the issues that's been brought up. So I would really like to thank you, and I appreciate you everyone being here tonight and giving us any insight that you might have if there's
016any questions for your areas. I have said this before, I am not an educator, and I appreciate everything you guys do on a daily basis for our students. So thank you. So with that, I guess I'm going to open it up to the board to see who wants to go first and how we want to proceed with this tonight. Well, I'll make a comment. I think Mrs. Horvath started out with talking about the calendar, and you made it clear that that was passed in the last meeting. That's not an issue at all. And this is about start and stop times, and it really is about the transportation and is there anything we can change. I know the second person got up and said, can we study this? Can we use AI? Can we look at
017the logistics of transportation? And I think that's a really relevant question. When we get to the right point, I'd like to recommend that we do, the administration does, do a study of start and stop times and transportation. I highly recommend you use AI and use AI modeling and make recommendations, things we could use and should use for that. So I don't know if that's a motion yet or that's just my comment. If I need to make a motion at some point, I'd like to make that. Yeah, we're not taking, there's no action on this. And actually, I just want to let everybody know that typically a board does not get in this deep into the weeds when it comes to instructional time. And I know people have questions, and I understand that. I'm trying to
018understand how we get to where we are, but we take action on the calendar. We do not vote on hours, instructional hours. So I just want to make everybody here and in TV land understand where we're going with that. So yeah, tonight there will be no action. I guess my question would be for Josh, and I'm probably going to be answered because Dr. Hanwick has sent us emails. What do you do to make these bus routes? I mean, I posted a Facebook page yesterday from email to him. I didn't realize how many outside schools we were busing to, and that kind of changed my opinion. But assuming we're not using AI, there's some software probably, I would assume. So what does that process look like to you, I guess? Well, the routing software helps. It's
019not true AI in the sense that we're making inputs to have route decisions come out of that. A lot of this, I base the transportation schedule on the public schools, the start and stop times of the public schools, and then I work in where we have gaps, where we have room. I work in transportation to private parochial charter schools as it fits. And so one bus isn't doing just a single route, bringing kids into school, and then that's it. They may be going out two or three times in the morning and at least a couple times in the afternoon to complete routes at several schools. We put private parochial kids on public routes for our home service and then shuttle to their school of attendance as well. So it's really a game of Tetris making
020everything fit together based on the timing structure that we're given. We use bus route for routing, you know, for the routing and that. Right, correct. I would question what this topic is doing. I don't have any back-up history, I don't know why, which came from discussion-wise, but one of the discussions in those emails were we as a board can decide which school we service, which not. Can you elaborate on that? How do we decide that or how some are supporting some or not? I believe what's being preferred is impracticality. Yeah, for payment in lieu or impractical to transport, we look at schools, private parochial schools and charter schools that meet certain criteria and that criteria is a list of five reasons. We identify the primary reason, the secondary reason, and you see it as part
021of your board agenda for approval. So some of those schools we pay parents in lieu of transportation, where it's impractical for us to provide a bus and transport to. But I want to add to what Josh said is that the state expects that impracticality is the exception, not the rule, and we have to have strong reason for why, and there are only a prescribed list of reasons that the state will accept if a parent of one of those non-publics challenges that decision of our board to deem it impractical to transport that student, then we're the ones that we have to approve. Yeah, we have to legit answer, so I was just curious because a few schools were in that bracket that we don't support, I didn't know why. Right, and we can't simply say, you
022know, we don't want to go there, it takes too much time for us. That won't be a legitimate reason. I read the actual code or law or whatever you want to call it yesterday, and it very specifically gives, if you want to challenge it, parent has to get on the bus, parent has to, you know, and if they can prove if you hit every red light or every green light, you make it in under 30 minutes, where it requires your transport to them. Like it seems pretty strict from the state, and that's why when I post this about busing, I was kind of shocked like how strict the state is on us, and like I said, I won't argue if we should have to bus to those schools because that's the law. Yeah, this is
023both for understanding, we're not talking about here like structure time. Yeah. The discussion is that where I was reading it is prime time pickups are given to those schools, and we are just in our time to non-prime time to meet that kind of, so that's kind of where I was struggling to how it came about where we are short on school, and we are selecting this non-prime time because they need to be on a prime time because they have the aesthetic element. It kind of forces us to take what I would like. The only comment that I can offer to that is our general assembly over the past so many years has tilted the responsibilities of the school district in favor of those schools and serving those schools over our local students. Yeah. I think
024you may have been saying, keeping it simple, St. Mary's and NDCL gets dropped off at 8 a.m. We get dropped off for the 920. So he may be asking why do those private, the largest private schools we serve get the prime time? Why do we get an hour and 20 minutes later? And I know it's logistics. What is that? Yeah, I'm just questioning to, I'm trying to understand this, like what are those prime times and why they get it prime time and not we? But to your point, we are legally obligated to serve them before we serve our own kids. Kind of doesn't make sense, but then from a transportation point of view, it's not serving them before us. It's the routes that we've designed for Notre Dame. We run two buses in the morning
025serving all of Notre Dame. So the whole district, all 75 square miles, is being covered by two buses. I'm sorry, three buses in the morning, two in the afternoon. So we're locked, these routes in question also are about an hour and 15 minutes long. So, you know, I'm using the least amount of resources I can to service those schools because of the conflict and in bell times. We don't have enough time to transfer those kids, you know, bring them in on a public route and transfer them. So I'm using three resources in the morning, two in the afternoon to transport those kids by themselves. St. Mary's... So they're not impacting you basically that comes down, not much? No, no. And if we were to look at a, you know, a change, the private and parochial
026school, it would just change the model that we're using, how we're transporting kids. It's not that they're getting preferential treatment, it's just the way it's worked out based on the structure that's been given to me, based on the bell times. Thank you, that helps. So if we are talking our time or whatever prime time this time, the private school support does not impact us. That's not the reason where we are. No, because I would love to transport as many as I could on a single route and run transfer buses if I could. But it's just logistics. It's just the way things work out based on bell times and that. So a change with the public schools would just change the structure we're using to transport private parochial charter schools. Would that make it more efficient
027for you? It's always more efficient to put as many kids on a single bus as possible. And I'm not talking stuffing it full or overloading it, but to your point, we're running Notre Dame buses with 15, 20 kids on them. And that's a vehicle that can hold 50 comfortably due to a seat. And because of the timing, that's what we're doing. Thank you. Now, this seems like a good time to make this point too. We have more flexibility in the morning than we do in the afternoon. In the afternoons, I need about 45 to 50 minutes between one tier and another tier. In this case, we're looking at the public school. So between, say, high school, middle school as it stands right now and the elementary schools, I need about 45, 50 minutes to drop
028off tier one in the afternoon before starting tier two. And that takes another 45, 50 minutes for tier two? Correct. So it's the afternoon, it's the crunch in the afternoon because the times are closer together that dictate the start times in the morning based on instructional time. So basically what you're saying is you have to do the end times and then back up to get to... That's sort of how I do it, yeah, because I have to service, I have to make sure we can make it back to elementary schools in this case on time or within five minutes. So I take the end time I have at the high school, middle school and 40, 50 minutes to determine the end time at the elementary and then subtract six and a half hours at the
029elementary level to determine what time we do the routes in the morning. So if you're looking at morning times, our elementary schools, if we move them and earlier start, we're now crushed at the end of the day and we can't get them home. So really when you're talking mornings, the only movement would be high school, middle school. Moving closer, is that perfect? So like if we move, say we move the elementary schools 840 to start, but now they're getting out at... What time do you guys get out right now? 340. So now they're getting out of 310. We have no time, not enough time between our high school, middle school. Correct, we would have to adjust, we would have to adjust the high school. And then how I, you know, based on that scenario, how,
030you know, the start and end times for all of the other schools that we transport, you know, that's again a game, kind of a puzzle game. It's like, okay, how can we fit all of this in and either run shuttle buses to meet the public buses or create routes on the road in order to service these schools. How many buses do we have right now? What's our, what's the, how big is our fleet? We're running 35 routes altogether. That includes our van fleet. So we're running, we're running five vans and then around 30, 28 buses. And that's, I think you hit on it earlier too, is we're trying to take care of 75 square miles. Our district, I don't know how it relates to other districts in Georgia County, but I assume we're probably pretty
031good size compared to some of them. But that, I mean, I know when we did the three tier, we had issues where we didn't have as many kids on the buses because, or the bus times, the bus times were longer because we had to pick up more kids. Our bus routes were longer during that period of time, if I remember right. And that was one of the complaints we had from parents was with the three tier busing. I remember those days. I think Jenny might have mentioned it, and I had a passing conversation with Mike, and I think he talked to you about it, with the, we used to bus kindergartners to Maple. So can we bus four or five later, like on a separate route at the same elementary school times, arguably? What does
032that look like for, I'll say, inefficiency of busing? Because obviously we did it for kindergartners. Can we do it for four or five, and what inefficiencies, I guess you would say, would it create? It wouldn't create any inefficiencies. It would actually, it would actually probably help with filling buses. It's very easy to, you know, to run buses between Chardon Middle School and Park Elementary, including CELC. I mean, it's pre-K at CELC now, so that's a little different situation. But to run combined routes, K through six, middle school, and elementary is doable. Without getting too far into the weeds, you know, without getting too far in the weeds, it would, I have, I would have resources, I would run K through three months in buses only to avoid the transfer time between the middle school and
033Monson Elementary, because it's 15 minutes on a bus, the kids don't need to be on a bus, so I would run Monson only four through six routes, probably four or five of them to split the quarter to quarter months and keep the route times reasonable, and then have Monson only elementary routes. Again, we're kind of getting into the weeds there, but what it does create is a split schedule at the middle school. Yeah, it's the butterfly effect, really. Like, you change one thing, that fixes the busing, but then we have a multi-tier scheduling, I would say nightmare. Adam would probably not call it a nightmare, he's better at scheduling than I am. But we have four grade bands in the building, and if we had two or three of those on a different schedule than
034the other one, first of all it eliminates our ability to use certain grade band teachers. I have six grade teachers teaching a seventh grade class, that changes that because I'm going to have two or three grade bands of teachers on one schedule, they're coming in later than my seventh grade teachers who are coming in earlier, which creates scheduling issues, and specials are usually what's going to be the most impacted by something like that. So maybe it could, maybe, but we're looking at probably eliminating one of those opportunities for our kids to pick up on a world language. Like, our sixth graders now are being offered French for the first time next year, and that would most definitely go away. It makes the band and choir schedule almost untenable, like it's almost impossible to schedule for
035those just based on the requirements for those. And then you also have like a contractual issue, like I've got, we have an elementary schedule that says they're in the building seven hours and 15 minutes, and a middle school schedule seven and a half hours, and so like I would have certain teachers on an elementary schedule, but then I'd have others on a middle school schedule, but they're working in the same building, and that becomes, could be problematic it's a pretty collaborative building, but I think that at the end of the day they're like, I don't want to work 15 minutes more if I don't have to either. So I think that as much as it would create a more efficient busing, it creates a staffing problem from a middle school perspective, along with my secretaries
036will have to be split because they're not going to work that whole long day either admin would have to be split because you know there are contract issues for all of that, so it becomes an issue with that. Could I ask Christina, could you speak to the statement that was made earlier about fourth and fifth graders coming in and the transition support? Yes, so I apologize that the messaging hasn't been out, that we do not treat our fourth and fifth graders like we do our sixth and seventh this year. I'm especially proud that we have made a lot of significant changes for our elementary kids because as a mom of four myself, I recognize that this is not a middle school, this is more of an intermediate school than anything, and it is important that
037our fourth and fifth graders are treated as such, and our sixth and seventh graders are given more opportunity to become more independent and really use that executive functioning we want them to build into. Our fourth and fifth graders go to and from classes being led by teachers just like they do in elementary school. We have drop-off or dismissal procedures now to make sure our kids, our littlest kids, are going to the right spot. Teachers are walking them out of the building too, so our bus riders are being escorted by teachers to the Alcan where the buses are waiting. Our car riders are being escorted to the front doors. We have eliminated their time alone in the hallways this year significantly, and we've seen from what I've heard because this is my first year in the
038building, there's less when they go to the bathroom with teachers also. The teachers take the children to the bathroom and wait just like elementary schools. We put them in a line to take them to the bathroom just like we did in elementary. I know that it's scary and it's like as a mom if my nine-year-old was going to a building with 13-year-olds that's difficult for a parent, but we are doing everything we can to limit them. The transition times are different in the hallway so the littles are not with the bigs. They only go upstairs for art and cafeteria and PE and STEM, but other than that they stay downstairs where their fourth and fifth grade classrooms are. So Christina, I know we've talked about flex time and maybe not everybody understands flex time, but
039it's not like a study hall where they're just sitting there doing whatever they want to do, playing games or doing whatever. It's a structural time, correct? Yes ma'am. It's structured and it's also like scheduled, so it's not new instruction. So they're not in there learning new concepts. They're not being taught anything new. What they're usually like Tuesdays and Thursdays is ELA, so they will do something that supports what they've already learned in ELA or they do silent reading for some of it and then they do that other support. Some of our kids, you know, absent so they're missing a test or they're missing homework and teachers will pull them to make those up. It really helps them kind of manage the child stress level too that they have this built in 40 to 50 minute
040window where they don't have to worry about missing instruction and they can make up the work or get the extra help that they might need or I know Mrs. Clark is really it's the gifted services. If we need to do extension services for kids that are already reaching their goals, we can give them extra work that helps support their need to continue their learning journey, but on top of that we are also responsible for those specially designed instructional minutes for our special education students and our reading improvement monitoring plans, our RIMPS, and all of those minutes or a lot of those minutes are being serviced through that flex time too so that we can ensure that the kids are not missing instructional time, but just as importantly they're also not missing their specials because it's
041really important for all of our kids to get access to as many of those additional exposure opportunities as we can so flex is not a study hall and I think the teachers would would argue that passionately because they are very good at scheduling like what each day is for and they're also very good about pulling kids out of one flex and putting them in another so that they have a group of students who can benefit from whatever they're doing in that room at that point, but it's not new instruction but it's also not nothing. I just know that the opportunities that are available are a lot different than when my kids were there, Steve remembers those days, but yeah and I guess the thing that I don't understand and maybe it's because my kids are
042grown, my grandkids are just now coming into the district, but I think this is a great thing that we're giving these kids more time for more and having more opportunities. I mean that's that's where I'm having trouble understanding why yeah we may be over in four through six. Well six has always been at the middle school as long as I remember so six isn't anything new at the middle school. Yeah it's always been over. Yeah well yes that's that's always been there so I but so from my standpoint I'm probably one of the few up here if not maybe the only one that doesn't understand why this is an issue, why we can't just I mean I think it's great the opportunities here again the foreign languages our kids never had the ability to do
043foreign language there was times when we were cutting things that we were cutting all the some of the specials and some of the you know electives that we you know we couldn't offer and I just think that to me I think it's I think it's a great time great thing that we're able to do this and I and I guess that's where I'm having a problem understanding why we're talking about. I would agree we have a lot of students who are high performing who take accelerated classes like we have just as a point of bragging the highest PI score gifted PI score in the state of Ohio so like Chardon Middle School's gifted performance index is the highest in the state it's not just top 10 percent like like the district is which is also
044really awesome but our gifted PI at Chardon Middle School is the highest in the state so we are servicing our kids we are servicing them well but on top of that we are giving them time to explore art and decompress like my I had a daughter who was always in the high classes but she could not have done that if she wasn't going to art because art was a place where she could just let everything kind of go and just be creative when you know you're not really supposed to be creative in calculus you know like it is what it is so I think that sometimes I and I understand I was with my kids all the time I was a stay-at-home mom before I went to college in my 30s so I get about
045being home with your kids and how important family time is but as a parent of now adult children I also know how crucial teaching them these skills are and giving them opportunity to explore things that they might not have an opportunity to do so that when they get into their adult life they know how to handle the stress that they're in a look at a feel when they get into their big kid jobs I have one point here in this one the discussion one other part was we're asking and this is just for my check that we're talking about transportation as a concern a lot the discussion is we're asking our kids to wake up at 5 30 a.m to go to school which is fine but the cost is if I get it the
046transportation is the driving factor just to break it down for the timing if magically all the kids disappear and come to school or whatever transportation is not a concern then 8 8 20 is the ideal time is that right for what bridge are you talking about middle school elementary is 9 30 right now but middle schoolers are supposed to be in school 7 30 which means 6 15 the bus comes and they're up 5 30 to get ready and go so I'm sure everything has a price and in this case outbusing or whatever the restriction is so what is the cost if we have looked at it that if middle school is a 15 8 20 that extra hour means we need more buses and all that may be a point where people can understand
047that okay we can give them a 20 start but I don't cost going to be I don't know that cost with 7th grade first of all now your 7th graders are after hours so then it's the cost of splitting under dollars means start late than anything so it's that time frame we're not cutting anything in the structural time then they miss athletics yeah well I I came into this meeting thinking that transportation was driving this Josh what I hear from you is that there's some things we could do to be more efficient from a transportation standpoint any side is that true I mean there are but it but again we're talking about the costs of you know it's changes that we're going to have we would have to make at a building level right you
048know to accommodate those schedules I mean I right but we need I mean if you're not talking transportation is a concern then what's ideal I'm more this we're trying to learn like what is ideal forget the barriers forget the roadblocks what is holding us what is best time for the kids and then next question is why can't we give it to them because these are the barriers that's what I'm losing this discussion about them well if you really wanted to explore that one would look at the adolescent brain development research that says the high schoolers really ought to be coming in around 8 30 or 9 o'clock oh yeah but we would never be able to do that because of athletics and all the other things and same way I looked at the study and
049it says for middle schoolers at that age waking up at 5 30 it says no no you should not be putting them in a learning environment at that time so somebody needs to suffer a little bit outside of those published study because of some constraint is it transportation is it sports I don't know that I don't have that clarity I'm just trying to ask any questions it's all of those things the other concern going back to just early statements is the hour and 45 or 50 minute gap middle school and elementary and again so they made a comment that people will they will not come to the school some have to keep on an eight o'clock schedule ndcl and saint marys will probably increase just because for the parents being able to work they want
050to be in the public schools they want to have access to the things that the public schools have but too difficult with that gap that we have and you know as as josh mentioned there is flexibility and it could be sounds like there could be some adjustment for the elementary i'm more concerned about the elementary kids started at 9 20 i have nine grandsons that are 11 and under and i can't imagine some of these guys started at 9 21 yeah they just have very late start time i know they're like ready for a nap at 9 20 right for a snack or recess so i just you know that's my concern and when you mentioned that the buses are very not many kids around the ndcl and saint harry's buses those are not they're
051not told they're very around the 15 kids so you know is there any is there anything else where you do to just compress it a little bit well i'm not saying 20 in the back the back end is well no because again if you brought it down from 9 20 to 9 o'clock or 8 50 what do you is there anything that's all i found the elementary said it's really about that and again you just glad never heard this before how little ridership there is on that eight o'clock you know the eight o'clock delivery for saint marys nmc that's that's it's really not transportation or so what what else would have to be adjusted so i think it's with that big gap i think it's it's a topic to be discussed we've already discussed this
052at the elementary level the next year so 9 10 at this point so did everybody just hear that there there has been a there's been an official change the elementary is going to start 10 minutes later in the common school earlier earlier yes it's going to be a 9 10 instead of 9 20 that's that's an official change in that we were talking about the 20 27 28 year just your hand as big as the administration has decided to bring it back to 9 10 and we can study the interplay of those and continue to look at those things but i think the comments are that there will be trade-offs and there's no way to avoid that there there are trade-offs i want i want to put diana on the spot on the politics but
053i want to address the the statement that students are leaving under edge choice and going elsewhere and i don't believe the data i know you may not have the numbers but in general am i off at all by saying that the uptake in edge choice is students that were already attending the non-public schools as the edge choice expansion went into effect the non-public schools were encouraging students to apply for the vouchers that's the uptake in our edge choice outage it's not students leaving and withdrawing from our district and going elsewhere there's a small handful and we did leave within five years to see how many kids withdrew from sharded to a non-pub and it's a small handful every year and we we know that the kids that are sharding residents that have always been there
054are now taking part in that that choice because we can see numbers but right as far as leaving it's just a small handful of kids every year i just want to clarify that question and i think that's we've ever seen that across the state and it's not necessarily kids aren't leaving districts to go to privates or non-pubs but they're the ones that are already been there are the ones who've taken advantage of all the cuts of vouchers and stuff so it has a like increase do we know how many how many are true traditional homeschool kids yeah we know the numbers because they have to read they they submit a um a form at the start of the school year and christine keeps track of right now i think we're at and it's been pretty
055steady in the low 200s we're at 212 right now that's been the same for years it's been several years yeah since i started it's been about 20 years so it's nothing it's been so okay so that that i guess is students leaving the district are are i admit when i got on the board we had 3200 students we're down to what 2300 now right um when i got on the board and they gave us the projections on what our importance was going to be i'm like all those can't be true well they've come true so whoever puts those numbers together they're pretty spot on with where we're going to be and here again it's not just chardon it's not just the state of ohio it's across the country that there's a decline in student involvement
056and it's not just because of kids not enrolling in school it's because populations so i think that's one of the things that we need to address student is you know people it's just not even when you see the new housings and chardon they're not even projected to have that many kids in these developments so okay so i think that's something that everybody needs to keep in mind is these numbers were projected years ago and they're spot on pretty much diane just follow up question would it be accurate to say that we also see enrollment from non-publics into our school district from time to time did you mean discounts yeah again small handful but the transfer like often the eighth grade transition oh the transfer into our district every year we get a lot we get
057a lot of new ninth graders that right so there's a yes i mean there's just a given take we're not seeing a mass exodus to not public schools right and i think christina had on a part thing too and i don't know if linda wants to speak to this we are obligated with our not only are gifted but our special needs that to have certain services available and service time available so that has to factor into the day the times too correct yes when you have students with special needs are english language learners are students who are receiving title one reading and math services that has to be on top of what they already receive so we're not to be pulling them from english class or math class to get additional services to close those
058learning gaps so you do need to have additional time in there we also are not able to run services before or after school special education has to take place during the school day so in order to help all of our kids succeed whether it's at the gifted end or students who are trying to close learning gaps we need to have the time and the flexibility to do that while not taking away from their regular education as well and i think we also have to think too andrea isn't there a bill in columbus to increase recess time it is it hasn't moved since last october but it's out there to dub i think it's double eight recess i can talk about the day up to eighth grade yeah so it's an additional 30 minutes a day
059of recess that's for 60 minutes total and it hasn't moved i've been watching it too but if that gets added that's that's another layer that we will need to have discussion on how we respond to that well i think to me she mentioned it and we can have another conversation i i don't like harping on the gift tutorial because those are my kids and i feel like i'm fighting for my kids not for the gifted kids or not for the kids that are bored in general um but we he saw it once and i don't know if you've seen it as much because we've dug into him ben is so bored and does not go to school by the end of the year he was so late matt had him at a recess almost every
060day like to me there has to be something more in that flex time we can do for our gifted kids if we're not talking about reducing time because of ip the middle one and all of that how can we better be serving those gifted kids not just my kids webs and not just metal three at west there's teachers will identify extra work for them to do you know we do not have a full-time gifted coordinator we do not have any she does pd behind the scenes from what i understand but can you be doing something more that does not put it on the teachers because he's playing insane playing but he's doing educational games during flex time and yes it's great but he doesn't care so um we talked to miss we talked to mrs
061o'hara about that she's our gifted coordinator and she said if we were to use that flex time to help service our gifted students in addition to we already service them through those accelerated classes that first of all that the teachers would have to have the the gifted licensure so that strains staffing because not everybody has that gifted licensure the groups can be no more than 20 so when we have a lot of gifted students in the building and so if we're looking at the seventh grade flex seventh grade in general it's going to be more than one teacher that would need to be gifted licensure to pull out those 20 and then we have to make sure that we're we're hitting there's a certain number of minutes x you know total over the week and
062i don't she didn't share what that was but we would have to make sure that we're hitting that all the time so then they would probably lose that flex option as i was sick and now i need to make up a test kind of thing and that's not as huge of a worry like could that be done probably we'd need more staff or at least more staff with gifted licensures right now this the teachers that teach those accelerated classes have that gifted licensure but if you're looking at you know like somebody who doesn't teach an accelerated class then they have to go through that gifted licensure process to get that so is it possible yes it's possible it could be done we just have we would have to figure it out and make sure like
063where is it going to strain us in other places but it it's it could be worked out i mean to me right now we get told that but it's not the issue so why not have a staff person to be enriching kids too just like we have staff for the other led IEPs of title one and anything so if they're in school more we're building those kids up too i guess you could say i mean i don't know if you look anything from they get someone in there to leave them in science olympiad or future problems i mean there's stuff i did as a kid the power of the pen creative writing instead of writing for the test i just why not to me are we not doing that i've been harping on that for
064a while but like i said i don't i know a couple of other parents because i don't know what that population looks like i know both of my children were in 29 to 30 person advanced math classes so they're 60 kids and they're great i would assume qualified but yeah there's a lot okay any other questions for adventing comments or so i guess bringing this closure what i'm hearing is look at some part of the study of this issue and we can do some things we can bring those back to court and offer something for consideration so i'm guessing that the 26-27 school years are that so we're not changing that so these are these are not simple levers to pull but there's i would want to make sure that our services are coordinated that
065we do this appropriately versus jumping and major response of finding out that something didn't work like my only part is when we do this study it's a good idea to do it but let's see if we are thinking constraints of transportation this and that let's do the study learn what are our options right i understand that yeah let's go yeah just to clarify because we spent a lot of time on how would impact you know taking time away i don't think everybody must take away an instructional time in fact i think one of the one of the things i would throw in the model is how do we move back to start time from 920 to something in the eights and increase instruction time how do you give them 30 because again it's a very
066low number in the elementary school it's like 910 with the lbs or recess it's our lowest number you can change those times and actually have 20 minutes more in the school so all these concerns about taking away you don't have to again here in some of the busing bus constraints and throw it all in the model what would happen at nine o'clock 855 850 just look at some of these things and what we have to do and keep one of the one of the elements you want to have is that we want to keep the structures the time the same or a little bit more can we go up a little bit and we can i mean that's a conjecture but it could be and that's the way i would say like we've had that
067to the study that what is there is there what would be the impact of these five minutes back and having one of the criteria is we're not going to reduce nobody wants to do that we want to keep it up we want to keep keep what you have for the kids so well gordon i i actually agree with you i would like to see some of these instructional times increased because especially at the elementary level because k through three was in a bad spot this year with all our calamity days but i think we did hear from some of our community members tonight that wanted us to look at cutting that and we have heard we did have one parent in the past that thought we should cut the hours so that's where i'm defending
068keeping the hours where they are and like you said maybe increasing some of them but that's the reason why i was going down the road with um why would we want to educate our kids or spend the time educating outside anybody actually said instruction i think they're trying to say adjust the schedule for health well-being family life job do what we can do and i think i think the board would be unanimous that let's keep instructional time or increase it but let's try to change if we change some of the parameters so maybe somebody else said that reflected that i know those when they're talking about reducing days but that was that's not the issue this is the time what's best for family life and the children i know we had at least one passport
069i don't need to dwell on the issue but we did have at least one past meeting our parents stand up and talk about their child middle school's lunch and the hours during the day we need to cut that so um and i think that's what brought us down this road because we were talking about calendar and then we got into hours so i i agree that did come up the six meters or like 18 days over we'll take their hours and that i don't know why that let me read there's questions like why is that why do we have to have so much access in that grant i don't again that's all for the analysis well it's because the case six has it requires around about 900 hours a year and the seven to twelve
070requires over a thousand hours a year so because we have the four it's really important the instruction hours thing is really a four to six conversation i mean we're not that's where there's we're almost on par for k to three and it's low and if you like break it down six ends up being the most over and it's because in sixth grade they have gym so you don't have to count recess in their instructional time you can pull it out at seventh they're not guaranteed to have gym so their recess counts with their instructional time so sixth and seventh have that same schedule but sixth you don't have to count recess because they're in gym so it gives them more it looks like more hours but if you tell my kid you don't get gym
071or you don't get recess oh we're gonna have fun that's what you're saying is without the recess four and five are really closer over sixes yeah so that's it's really a four to six conversation but that's why i said like can we better serve them can we better be using this flex time for the kids who are bored okay well can we leave here tonight and let mike and his team take away what the discussion is and i know they spend a lot of time dealing with state mandates and everything else that they have to fill their days with but are we all in agreement that we can leave here tonight and move on from this particular thing until they have a chance to a little bit research on what is a what is best
072for the kids i guess you could say what i go from studies have been done and then maybe revisit this at a later date so we're on the line yes i think you pointed out karen that this is for the 27-28 school year so we're asking them to review a study to come back make recommendations for the 27 if there's no change or some change or just what can change they'll come back and give us some a report of the work of the 2027 school year at this time i would say realistically 2027 i just want to thank everybody for being here and taking the time out of your way like i said dealing with all these additional questions this year that i really know i was kind of bad so thank you all for
073what you do i hope everybody has a good summer so i guess the next thing is we have a second to adjourn so mm-hmm second our next report meeting will be june 25th mrs clark yes mr galhotra yes mr landis yes mr medyat yes and this is blank and ship yes 506