001Uh, good evening. Today is September 20th. It is 6:30ish p.m. Uh, Mr. Mr. Davis, if you please call the meeting to the role. >> Mrs. Izz, Mr. Marks >> here. >> Mrs. Sig >> here. >> Mr. Son >> here. Mr. Phillips >> here. This point unless there's a request for executive session, we'll stay in recess till 7:00. >> Now, we need to uh adopt the uh regular meeting. Let's >> do that. Is there a motion to adopt the regular meeting agenda? Approve. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I now. >> Yes. So, so they had specific Hey. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. N. Hey, hey, hey. Yeah. Hey, hey, hey. Don't feel Heat. Heat. Don't feel Are you down? Oh yeah. Are you Are
002you Are you are you are you are Are you la? Oh yeah. Are you Are you Are you Are you Are you Are you Are you Hey. Hello. When lover comes in, La. When comes in la Heat. Hey, Heat. Hey, hey. Hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. 40 10 right >> it doesn't matter what you're >> doing here I'll tell you that was the first member I took the boo Let me tell you >> your hand. What's that? >> Maybe wasn't too bad. >> Ready? >> Uh, good evening. Thank you everyone for sticking around. It is now 7:00. We're going to restart the meeting at this time. Please stand for the pledge of >> allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation
003under God, indivisible and justice for all. Everyone, Mr. Davis, do you have any public commentary tonight? >> Uh, nobody has signed up for public participation this evening. >> Thank you. Uh, at this time we will move into item six, a recognition correspondence and announcements. Kirk handle. >> Yeah. Good evening everyone. Uh, thanks for being here. Uh, Mr. Talis would like to switch uh letters A and B in order and start with our operations update this evening. Mr. Nichols is not with us, but our construction team is here. So, at this time, I'd like to ask a couple of those gentlemen to come forward and we're going to do some brief updates on progress to the operations and construction project that we all see going up outside in the sunshine there all over campus. And uh
004Chris Sto is here from Scansa. Chris Payekch is here from MSA. Thank you, gentlemen. Good evening. >> Can you just give us a general overview of where we are with progress at each site? >> Sure. At the middle school site. Uh we currently have steel going up in the future eighth grade wing as well as the board office. Uh next week we're going to start receiving steel for the main entrance of the building. Uh which also includes the village green and the foreign language classes upstairs. So there's going to be a lot changing over the next few weeks here. Really get an idea of the scale of the building. Then in mid to October, we'll see the asphalt parking lot constructed out in front of the middle school. Over at the elementary school, we have
005masonry walls going up for the gym and the multi-purpose room. Uh that'll top out probably early October or so with steel following right afterwards. Uh we also have some slabs uh slabs scheduled over the next two weeks. Then over at the primary school, uh we've are almost done with gutting the interior uh where the new admin suite will be. Uh following that, we're going to start some renovations here as well as the addition out front. We'll see some action on the exterior of the building starting the first week of October. >> Thank you. You're welcome. >> Chris, do you have a slide deck you want me to pull up? Yeah. Yeah. U go good go the next one. So as Chris was talking through a little bit as far as timeline on the projects and
006you'll see some images here in a minute with some of the construction progress. You can see we're you know just past the halfway point and uh in September going to October and continue to move along with progress as we've discussed previously. So that that uh timeline continues to to hold true. Some images of the middle school Christo through the steel that's been going up and building starting to take some shape. More of the site work's going to start to come uh with some parking lots and things here over the next month and uh continuing that progress. Foundations of the elementary school. Um some walls starting to go up if you've been over behind the elementary school. Um so again just starting to get an idea of the the shape and the form and the different
007pieces that the the larger volume be in the the gymnasium auditorium um which will be one of the taller pieces. So that's ongoing over the elementary school and the primary school mostly interior at the front half. Um we start to see some some uh structure and things going up for the new addition. Uh the whole front part of the building has been pretty well demoed and and uh is in progress with utilities and and walls and so it's it's pretty exciting if you're able to get inside the building and walk through and uh they're good sports over at the primary school and every time we talk with administrators um kudos to them. Give them a a pat on the back as they're um they're having to put up with all that construction. Um, a couple
008things on the design side that we're continuing to work through is uh, you know, two two areas. We're finalizing the overall project scope and scale at the high school. Uh, from the very beginning, you know, the um, the area at the back and the commons and the lower end uh, is continuing to to move forward uh, with some of the concept development and uh, and design. Um, this shows more most of the um, the current pricing with the scope here. we'll look at here in a minute. Uh the base being the area in blue uh which is primarily music spaces. Um there's also some um electrical upgrades and uh furniture for the entire high school that's being worked on and finalized, but that um is also part of the high school scope. and then um
009some other utility and infrastructure upgrades that go along with the high school um that are part of that as well with the idea of that work uh being completed in the summer of next year August 2023 um as we finalize those documents and pricing. Go to the next one. Um, as far as the scope and scale, uh, is what was looked at in the master plan. I think continuing to address the needs and many of the wants in this part of the building, meeting with, uh, faculty and staff as we as we continue to finalize that. Um, looking at the music spaces. Um, there were initially some some additional improvements in the uh, trainer area um, that we're looking at trying to u modify and again continue to provide as much of that work as
010possible. the connection from the central plant to the high school uh is still part of the plan and making sure that that can happen as part of the overall infrastructure upgrades. Um that has always been the plan since uh early on and then some of these uh electrical upgrades as well. If you go to the next one, um kind of where the scope has landed in the high school, um based on that initial sheet, um again, upgrades and improvements to the music spaces. They're continuing to use those areas. Um making the orchestra space a bit bigger um so they can continue to be in that space um as long as needed. Some additional practice rooms, some storage. Um the idea being that any kind of improvement done in these areas um could could also serve
011any kind of future program that might happen back here. So I think being conscious of um if it's if it's equipment furniture, you know, that could move with these programs if need be. If it's upgrades to some of the spaces like bathrooms that need to be touched anyway, um that those would be in place for any kind of future modifications as well. So I think that's all been positive and working with the faculty and staff to um make these spaces work and serve the purpose they need to. Um electrical distribution like you say there's equipment that was identified early on the master plan that needs it's end at the end of its life. It needs to be upgraded and so that's also part of the scope uh and eventually that tie into the central plan
012as well. Um the other piece and we can we can come back if there's questions. The transportation building is the other piece that um needed to be finalized. And so this again is going back looking at the program needs at the transportation. Um one piece you can see there is a generator. So uh early on the need for that that building to stay operational during emergency situations uh was important as a um as a need. And so that's part of this this piece as well as some um upgrades to their space. the restrooms, um some of the finishes, kitchenet spaces that the uh the drivers uh and the folks that work in that building would need to continue continue to uh function. And so that as well is part of the overall scope for this
013this space. And you can see some of the costs associated with that that has been updated um since the beginning of the master planning process. And again, the idea of this space also being completed um per the original schedule at the uh end of next summer um as those that price and everything gets finalized. So, any questions on that? Like I say, those are the two pieces as far as design and and scope um that continue to be worked on um with, you know, in addition to all the other work that's going on in the district. Chris, what portion of the high school work has been bid out at >> you repeat that? >> What what portion of the high school work is out for bid and what remains to be put under a GMP
014yet? >> At this point, none of the high school work has been put out to bid. >> I noticed that on the slides on several of the slides, it said GMP pending until December 22. and I'm trying to get clarification on what's why it's going to take until December 22. Why can't we get that sooner than that? So, I'm trying to get some clarity on that. It was on several of the slides. Yeah. So, part of that again was just finalizing the um documentation as we kind of work through the different scope um and what ultimately would be in these spaces and what those final configurations are. Um, so part of that is just having final design documents that Scansky can then put out in bid. Um, and just going through that GMP process. So
015that was that two-month or so process. Um, as you have that information now, you have all the information now that you need to to get a bid. Are you still waiting for information to come in? >> I think the scope at this point has been finalized and um, the documentation is is being finalized as well. So, um I think that's why the the bidding process is was still a couple months out. >> Well, the sooner we could get it, I think the better. I' I'd hate to wait till December. If we could get it in late October, early November, I think that would help us to get a quantifiable number so we can lock it in and and just dot the eyes and and cross the tees. So, anything you can do to help us
016on that would be appreciated. >> Absolutely. on the the numbers itself and we're getting ready to not look forward here but borrow some additional dollars to pay for the extra work. How how confident are you guys in the estimate at this point? I I know as we move along the the potential risk for unknowns comes less and less and we're talking about existing space. But how comfortable are we with these estimates that it's going to be the GMP is not going to come back 10 15% higher than what we're expecting? >> Um yeah, we are comfortable with this budget. Uh even though that the design is in progress, uh we have uh some contingencies in there as the scope becomes more defined and crystal clear that'll help us maintain the budget that we're proposing here
017>> with the uh MCS team. I see you in the back there. Uh Mike, is that something you guys would concur with at this point based on what you're seeing? >> Yes, absolutely. This is where we are in the contingency that are building. >> Thank you. Any other questions at this time? Okay. Thank you gentlemen. Appreciate it. Uh thank you Chris and Chris. Um this time we will move down to item seven unless correctly anything else on six. Uh yes, actually we're going to have next our sorry letter A, our financial consultants are here, Heather Arling uh from Bradley Payne and Andrew Laskkey from RBC and they're going to join us now to talk through the financing scenario. Board members, I sent you some updated resources um last week and again today just so you
018would have them to pull up quickly if you want, but we can put those up on the screen as well. Good evening. I'm Heather Arling with Bradley Payne. After the district reached out to us um regarding the supplemental borrowing, we knew that we had two options. Either the capital markets or a capital lease through a direct loan placement at a bank. Having experienced these construction overages recently with a lot of districts, uh we thought we'd reach out to 35 plus banks around the US and see who would respond with the best rate and then we would compare that to the current capital markets. After that analysis, uh we knew that the direct loan would be the best option. Um Webster Bank sent in a rate of 3.75 for 20 years. We were astounded and very
019happy with that rate and reached out to the district immediately and then I will turn it over to Andrew. >> Yeah, absolutely. A very good um proposal from Webster Bank, which is one of the 35 banks that um we sent out an inquiry to. As Heather mentioned, um our our financing team was tasked with finding the lowest possible borrowing cost to fund this supplemental borrowing. And um those two options are a direct loan or a bond underwriting in the capital markets. Um in the capital markets is where um public entities typically borrow and that's where the district borrowed the 77 million which funded uh the capital facilities project. Um there are um a lot of headwinds right now in the bond markets. Um and um it is not terribly surprising right now that a direct
020loan from a finan financial institution is a better option for the district. So what you're looking at on the screen there are um the comparison of a direct loan for with the lowest rate being from Webster Bank at 3.75%. The all-in cost includes all costs of uh issuance and all um all additional costs associated with the loan um and the difference in rate between that and issuing a capital lease in the capital markets. So the grand uh total difference in financing costs and debt service is about 500,000 between those two options. Um this process was conducted last week. Uh Webster Bank submitted a binding term sheet on Friday which the financing team has reviewed and uh thinks it's a very good proposal. Um one thing that's important to note is that their proposal includes the
021option for the district to prepay this loan after 7 years after 7 years. So the district has a great deal of flexibility uh should you decide to either pay off the debt early uh with funds on hand or to refinance if interest rates are lower at that time. um pursuant to the resolution in front of you today um and um is the financing team's recommendation to um accept the proposal from Webster Bank and begin the process of documentation uh in order to close that loan by the end of October. So I'll I'll pause there for questions. So just just one clarification uh question is that you say that after 7 years if we have the option of paying early there's no penalty on it. >> Correct. >> So if it is before seven if you
022want to make a bigger payment then there's a >> it is common in the uh public finance world to have a period where the debt is not callable. Um the lender would like to know that there's at least some period of time that'll have that loan outstanding for the se first seven years. Um you could refinance your debt early, but you would have to establish an escrow to pay off that debt and depending on market conditions, it could be um more expensive uh for the district and not advantageous to do that. Um so so uh after 7 years uh there is no prepayment penalty and it can be called in at any time. And we we cannot refinance it before 7 years. Is that right too? >> You could, but it is more difficult and
023can be more costly and many times that would require the issuance of taxable debt as well. Um if it's considered an advanced refunding. So um it has been done and it was very common over the last couple of years when interest rates were very very low to refinance debt ahead of the call date. um very uncommon right now with how quickly interest rates have risen. >> Thank you. I know that at the last meeting going back several months ago um one of your teammates from RBC >> discussed in terms of the term right 20 year 30 year looking at that that many other school district are facing the same situation we are right where um projects are coming in over substantially more than what we have here and because the community is going to get
024value out of those well beyond a 30-year period that most of our peers are actually looking at a 30-year year um term. So was it just was it the finance committee's thoughts that we have the ability to debt service and so rather than extending it out 30 years that we would take it on a 20 year 20-year term so that we have less debt service. Is that is that what our thought thought process was? >> Yes. We looked at the 10 20 and 30 year all those and trying to be the best steward stewards of the or of the of the v of the school district. 20 years seemed to be good in terms of the amount of extra money we had to pay back for the for the interest and we were able to
025do that. So we were not getting too aggressive. So we felt that was a a happy medium for us to settle on and the 10 was a little too aggressive for us. So that that was why we settled on the 20. >> Great. And then in terms of um my understanding is that uh they've committed to the next 45 days or some period of time that will allow us to process and that we're they're committed to the the three and 3/4 days or whatever underwriting process we have to go through. >> That that's right through the end of October which is uh sufficient time for us to complete the process of uh all the paperwork and proceed towards closing. Um they they will commit to that rate. Go ahead. >> And it's already passed through
026their underwriting. >> You can come over to the microphone just so that other people can hear. >> Yes, it has already gone through their underwriting and has been approved. >> Okay. And will you guys speak to, if you don't mind, will you speak a little bit to the credit rating we have and, you know, how we've been able to how you guys have been able to negotiate pretty substantial terms relative to a lot of our peer districts. I think that'd be helpful for the public to know. >> Absolutely. Um, Indian Hill is one of three AAA rated K12 school districts in the state of Ohio and you know only probably a couple dozen around the country. So, um, very rare air. The AAA is the highest credit rating you can have. Um, and that has
027resulted in very low borrowing costs for all your financings over the last 10 years that I've been involved with. Um, a direct loan that we completed in 2020 um, was at 1.66% 66%. Um the master facilities project uh that was financed in 21 was completed at 2.75 approximately. Um and um part of that is market conditions at that time rates were much lower but a big portion of that is that there is really the district's unparalleled in their credit quality. Um and that has gone a long way with the direct loan proposals. um this bank um would likely not have been able to respond as quickly as they did. They were able to respond in a number of days um simply because um they could do their credit analysis very quickly um because of the
028extreme quality of the credit and they would certainly not have proposed a rate this low. >> Is it last question? Is it your guys' opinion that obviously no one can forecast the future, but based off of market conditions that it would behoo the district to lock in this total amount now versus waiting to see what potentially could be in the future or to split it with multiple different issuances or loans. Is that correct? >> No, no one no one can predict the future. I think it's that's really hard to do. Um interest rates have gone up significantly over the last year. Um, and there's a divergence of thought about where interest rates go from here. Um, but I think there is a lot of unknowns and there is a significant possibility that rates continue to
029rise from here. Um, even since Webster Bank put in their proposal on Friday, um, rates have gone up um, 15 basis points, 0.15%. Which in the, you know, sleepy world of public finance and US treasuries is is pretty unheard of. Um there's a lot of concernation about what's going to happen with the Federal Reserve. Uh they're going to release their um overnight Fed funds rate um expected to be increased tomorrow afternoon and uh tomorrow could be a very volatile day. It's um and I'll let Heather speak to this as your municipal adviser. Um but it is my recommendation that you proceed now. There's a lot of risk of waiting. And I'll say one other thing. One great feature of a direct loan is that this 3.75% is locked in as long as the district and
030the board wishes to proceed. Uh if you were to proceed with a capital market under that rate wouldn't be locked in for 6 to 8 weeks. So you would in fact if you took that route be waiting significant amount of time. So for for a lot of reasons I think it's a very good proposal um which makes sense to seriously consider and move forward with. >> I don't have much more. I think Andrew covered a lot of it, but I will also mention that in our analysis with the district, um, we also looked at fees, and fees can typically be higher in a capital markets issuance. So, we took that into account as well. Um, I was shocked when the 375 came in. I was ecstatic, like I said earlier. Um, called Andrew and Mick
031right away. um and then called Webster Bank and said, "Can you lock this in for us?" So, we are thrilled. It's the financing team um and excited for the the district. I would recommend proceeding with the 20 years for the 10 million. >> Any other questions for Heather or Andrew? >> Uh last month we approved two resolutions. Can you describe why we're we need to approve a third resolution tonight as opposed to the two that were approved last month? >> Those resolutions contemplated um a different security structure um for the direct loan. Uh it was a limited tax general obligation. um this uh capital lease structure. Um the bank proposed the same interest rate and if it the district were to proceed with a limited tax general obligation borrowing um it would require for formal
032approval by the department of education which can take 4 to 6 weeks which would um mean that we wouldn't be able to lock in rates today. It would be a couple weeks down the road. So um kudos to Webster Bank. A capital lease is considered not as secure a structure as limited tax and the fact they honored their interest rate proposal for either security structure is a big benefit to the district um simply because you can lock in rates today. So that this resolution is authorizing a capital lease direct loan 20 years. So the the original request out to the 35 banks stated that was an LTGO issuance. And when Webster Bank came back with the 375, I called him back and said, "What about a capital lease? Can you keep the 375?" And typically
033that's 10 to 25 basis points higher in rate. And he was able to keep it and lower the call from 10 years to seven. And Heather, will you just speak briefly just so everyone knows? Uh, you know, we've got two different firms here, right? We have RBC working as our investment banker, Bradley Payne working as our municipal adviser. And just share for the public briefly, if you don't wouldn't mind, how you sort of act as our protector, as our steward. Um, and maybe just briefly share that for 30 seconds for those that are unaware of that relationship. >> Yes. So the municipal adviser um has a fiduciary responsibility to the issuer which in this circumstance is the district. Um all recommendations that we have have to be in the best interest of the district and
034the taxpayers and then I'll let Andrew explain his role as the investment banker underwriter. >> Sure. Certainly uh if the district or if the capital markets had been the better option um Heather Arley and her firm would have recommended going that route and we would have served as underwriter and uh sold the capital lease to investors in the capital markets just like your bond issue in 2021. Um I think our whole financing team our goal is to get the lowest interest rate and the best terms and when we all came together and ran this process um I think it was clear to all of us what the best financial solution was. Thank you, Heather and Andrew. Thank you all. Um, any other questions for the board? Um, we do have under item seven, the lease
035purchase resolution. Uh, if there's no further discussion, I'd ask if there's a motion to approve. Motion to approve the um lease purchase resolution. >> I'll second that motion. >> Mrs. Iicults >> I >> Mr. Marks. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Singh. >> Yes. >> Mr. Summer. >> Yes. >> Mr. Tullus. >> Yes. >> Thank you everyone. Appreciate it. It's a a good deal for the school district and good to be able to put this behind us and move forward and get this project complete. So, thank you all. >> Uh, moving on, recognition, correspondence, and announcements. Mr. Kcki, by the way, >> I just want to reiterate what you just said, Mr. Talis. I think this is um the third large step that this board has taken in the last year to secure uh a healthy project
036when so many other public schools in Ohio and around the country are cutting program and cutting scope and cutting back. Um I think it we can't understate how important it is to the families and the staff and the children in the future of Indian Hill Schools that we're going to complete this original project. >> Good evening. Uh Brian Phelps, athletic director. I'll start off with some good news. Just came off the golf course where our boys varsity golf team uh were the champions of the Cincinnati Hills League tournament today by 13 strokes. So, that was a lot of fun. Uh tonight is about notifying the board of the athletic department's intent and asking permission to do so to start boys and girls golf, uh boys and girls bowling here at Indian Hill. Currently, there's only
037one other school in the CHL uh that does not offer bowling. Uh not offer bowling. Uh bowling is a winter season. Currently, Indian Hill offers 26 varsity sports. So, that would make 27 and 28 varsity sports. Uh some things that we consider when we talk about adding programs um are things like is there interest? And we know that there is. We did a little pilot last year and then again um asked for interest this year and we have a healthy number of both boys and girls that would like to bowl. I as an athletic director have been part of starting a bowling program that became very successful. And what I noticed um about the program that that was so good uh for the school that um where we started it often drew kids that were
038not doing other things. So it it really um it really opened up some opportunities for for for other kids to participate in athletics. Uh another thing that we consider is who will we play? It is an OSAA fully sanctioned sport. Um, and as I mentioned, CH CHL schools offer it all but us and uh one other school at this time. Uh, where will we play? There are a couple bowling alleys uh that um we should be able to uh use. So, I am told uh once if this is approved uh they will be able to u meet on that and that would be Crossgate Lanes and Blue Ash and and Stones Bowling Alley in Norwood. Uh we have a handful of potential coaches uh that we can reach out to and we will post um
039those openings once uh upon approval from the board. Uh how much the sport will cost? I think for boys and girls bowling it is a relatively cheap program to start or inexpensive program to start probably between 10 and $12,000 for the season for both. Um, so not 20,000, but to run boys and girls will be 10 to 12,000. And then again, and does it take away from other programs? And I believe that it it will not. Um, so at this time, if you have any questions, I'd love to answer those questions. >> Um, is this just high school or is this middle school also? Yeah, this is just high school and most likely we would just offer a varsity girls and varsity boys and part of that is um the space at the alleys that
040that we can get. >> How many kids are on a bowling team? >> Yeah. So each match um so typically there are two two matches and then Baker games and five bowl in that match. But after the first uh set, if you will, a new group of kids can bowl. So you may have five in the first and two are subbed out for the next round. Um but five players are needed. And it looks like we're at that 10 girls and 10 boys uh that are interested. We did in the winter we had a a request from one of our female student athletes that has bowled um just privately and she entered the tournament and did quite well finishing second at sectionals and doing very well at districts almost making at the state and I
041think she really has been the champion uh to uh recruit other females in our school to want a bowl and then we have a great group of young boys uh that some have experience and and really kind of the same thing. Um, a couple of kids really doing the recruiting for us. >> I just I just think Mr. F is a great opportunity for our kids. I think anytime that we can do things that engage our kids to feel belonging, feel part of something is a good investment and just appreciate your efforts. I know that you do a lot and there's a lot going on and our programming has really really evolved since you've come over. So I think fantastic. >> Any other comments about our new bowling program? >> We're not just doing this
042for bowling shirts, are we? >> We will expect personalized shirts from Mr. Phelps in the future. >> No, I think it's great. Thank you, Brian. >> Thank you, Mr. Phelps. I think that's a great celebration uh for the winter sports season upcoming. We'll get those positions posted for uh coaches. Uh next up, we'd like to congratulate our primary school assistant principal, Mr. Andy Gruber. He was recently honored nationally as a rising leader in education administration by the publication K12 dive, which is has national exposure uh across the country in education and um is big on social media. if you haven't seen any of their research articles. We appreciate everything that Mr. Gruber does uh to celebrate and serve our students and staff at the primary school. We're very proud of his work. So, congratulations to
043Mr. Gruber. Recently, the Ohio Music Education Association uh named all state orchestra and choir members, and we had record recognition this year um for our group. And in orchestra, we would like to recognize Aaron Scott. Um, and then for choir, we'd like to recognize Franny Bell, Connor Kaufman, Emory Cunningham, Sydney Frost, Joseph Kaine, Hayden Longbottom, Christy Rowit, Sarra Cassing, Emma Stacy, and Louis Vega. Congratulations to all of our honored orchestra and choir members for 2023. Congratulations. We had a big announcement a week ago. Uh if you haven't been paying attention, um next year in December, uh we are going to be able to showcase as the only public school in Ohio the production Frozen. Uh and this will be a first for public schools in Ohio. We're very excited. Uh Mr. Clark, our performing arts
044staff, and the students uh went through a very rigorous selection process with Disney. Uh Mr. Clark worked very hard to submit an application uh that showcased our talent and students and the productions the last few years and were selected as one school in Ohio out of 50 across America that will be able to show this publication first. And so next year in December we'll be able to show Frozen up to 10 times. We're working on the scheduling now. It will be a special winter performance uh in December prior to the holiday break. And um we're very excited for our entire program. Want to congratulate Mr. Clark on the hard work that he did uh to make that application and all of the students and those who went into producing those shows the last few years
045that were showcased in the application that allowed us to be selected as the school. This is also a prize. So we actually getting the production free of charge to use and you know how expensive those productions can be annually. It's an amazing feat uh for the program. So, we're very happy uh want to celebrate Frozen next year in December. Also, in my um announcements this evening, board members under letter E is the student enrollment report. Um I'd just like to say again for uh eight out of the last nine years, our enrollment continues to grow at a moderate pace. We're very fortunate uh in our public school and school community that we have families who want to come to school at Indian Hill and uh love to see the number of students and families entering
046the district every year. Uh Mr. Davis and I are also launching into an analysis to project out our enrollment for the next decade that we'll report out to you on in the spring. Uh but once again, our enrollment continues to grow this year. >> Mr. Dr. Ki, one thing I I thought was interesting on that data when we were going through it was and obviously every family just have opportunity to make whatever decision is best for their family and for some of those people it's private schools. But it was very encouraging I think to see the hard work that district has put on and all the teachers that we've seen a lot of folks that had their children enrolled in private schools that are coming back to the community school and saying hey the best
047decision for my child and for our family is here at Inhill Schools. And I think that's says a lot to our teaching staff. It says a lot to the administration, says a lot to, you know, the financial stability that our finance departments putting into it. And so you guys really should be commended. Our teaching staff, our classified staff, the proof is in the pudding when we have those many students that have opportunities to go other places, but say Indian Hill is where I want to go. Um, to me, that goes beyond the numbers. And I think you guys should really feel extremely proud of the work that you and the team are doing. >> Well, we are and proud of our teachers. I think you hit it on the head, right? We have teachers here
048who are world class people want to come and have their children experience things with our teachers. Uh, and this is the fourth year in a row I've said this when we go over this report, but we have more students coming in than we have going out from private to public. And there is uh always out there in the community, right, talk sometimes of where do people go and when do they leave or come to Indian Hill. We have more students who tend to come from private into Indian Hill than we have leave. every year that I've been here. So, we're very proud of that and proud of our teachers. Okay. Uh, next up, we have an exciting presentation this evening to update us on our strategic plan. I'm going to turn it over to Dr.
049Stewart and Dr. Given and Heather Hickden. I believe we have our team ready to roll. >> We do. Um, so just to provide some background to anybody who is new to this process, one year ago we were in the thick of working with a variety of our community groups, including our own educators, students, alumni, community members, and parents to decide where are some areas that we were doing really well and what are some potential areas of growth. And after a six-month process, we landed on this five-year strategic plan that we affectionately call the IH promise. From that plan, there are three main focus areas. And those focus areas are learners as doers, learners as individuals, and learners as the whole child. And within those three focus areas, we have 10 different initiatives that are guiding
050all of our work. I have to just comment that for me as someone who has been in the district for a while, I've never seen a time where we have our educational employees be so focused on what the future is for us. It's so exciting to be in meetings and regularly hear people refer to the work that they're doing that enhances what it means to be a learner as a doer, a learner as an individual, and a learner as a whole child. So, all of this work is especially exciting. Once this plan was officially adopted for the second semester of last school year, we really spent all of this work behind the scenes asking ourselves, how do we initiate this? How does this make sense? So we planned it using three different phases to move
051the work forward. The first phase is always called research. The second phase is called discovery and the last stage is called implementation. And from that point I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Gibbon who has dedicated all of her career time during the last semester and a half really talking about the strategic plan. Thank you. Um, I'm very excited to talk about this today. I had the opportunity to work with our new teachers and one of the things that they brought out up without prompting was how the strategic plan felt like a real part of their everyday work and that it was something that we have been embedding deeply into um all of our discussion and all of our professional learning. So, we'll start with a few numbers. Um, we have already started with
052our teams. So, uh, nine of our teams have been meeting and then you're going to hear a little bit later from, um, Heather Hickden, our chief communications officer, about our communications initiative, but we have over 75 faculty and staff that are taking part in this work. In the past, sometimes companies have a strategic plan and it sits on their shelf and there might be morals on the wall or, you know, beliefs on the wall. We're really h engaging everybody in this work and we're very excited about it. We're dedicating a lot of time and energy to this um and we're just excited about where this can go. Can we go to the next slide? Thanks, Mr. Kcki. So, Dr. Stewart mentioned that we're in the research phase. Um research for us is really about moving
053beyond the opinions of what we locally think is best. It's important for us to look outside of our walls and we're working hard to build our culture to um focus on perspective taking and in defining the work. So as we work with teachers, we want them to bring their background and their knowledge to this. We want for them to bring their expertise. We're also asking for them to step outside of their experience as a classroom teacher and really start to think about this from a K12 and even like outside of our walls perspective so that we can build program across that uh kind of catalyzes work at each level. We're grounding our work in research in peer-reviewed literature. We're um looking for proven programs from a broad range of educational institutions and we're trying hard
054to expand our possibilities beyond local to national and international standards. So the slide that you see in front of you is our first drafts of some of the definitions that our teams are creating. We want to make sure that these term teams um look at the language that we're building and define it in Indian Hill standards. What is it that we believe about these terms that we think is important, tie back to research and back to student experience? Um, it's important for us to develop common language in order for this to become a part of our culture and again, not just something that sits on the shelf. We'll refine as we learn more and test more ideas. So, what we're thinking about for next steps is we're working hard to develop our communication strategies. It's
055important that we have teachers and administrators in this work, but that's not who the work is for. The work is for our students and then changing the student experience. So, we're going to want to make sure that we have opportunities for students to give us feedback as well as for our community members to give us feedback on the work that we're doing. We're getting ready to start the second round of initiative team meetings in October and November. And as a part of that research, we're going to be looking at external exemplars, literature review, book studies, um, and we're going to internally review our own programs, make sure that they're connected. Once we, um, have finished our research, we'll be transitioning to the discovery phase. And as a part of that, we'll want to make sure
056we have criteria to make assessments of the things that we test. We're going to want to make sure we have a hypothesis. What is it that we do want to test? And we're define pilot um, programs and kind of how will that work. a little bit of um something to think about to put this in perspective. One of our initiatives is about um expanding career pathways. We already have some amazing things that Wendy Sylvius is leading in the high school in terms of providing experienceship opportunities for learners. We're really excited about that. Traditionally in education, you create the program and it it's really cool. You watch it grow. What we see the opportunity for our initiative teams and these initiatives to do is um to take a program that's accessible to a portion of the
057student body based on the skills and level of interest that they have right now. And if we start in kindergarten and we build those habits and attitudes, if we can help kids explore their interests and have more knowledge about how their interests connect with the outside world, think about how many students we're going to have ready and prepared to take advantage of that experience when they do get to high school. You don't want to start the conversation about careers when you're a sophomore. you want to start it in kindergarten at an a developmentally appropriate way. So part of this work will be how do these um initiatives build over time K through 12 so that we're graduating people who are ready to do great things out in the world. Before we turn it over to
058Heather Hickden who's gonna talk about some really exciting work that's taking place regarding streamlining communication, I I just want to say there's been some actionable steps that we've been able to take even though we're really only in the very beginning stages of research. So an example of that would be um even though the STEM group initiative team has only met once, it was really clear that we found some areas of need right away within the district. And one of those areas of need related to STEM has been computer science. Specifically thinking about the way that our students learn about coding. Our research indicates coding is going to be a part of every student's life. So knowing that, we were able to do some research and find some coding learning opportunities for educators this summer through
059the Ohio STEM Learning Network. And we were able to send teachers from every single building that could learn about developmentally appropriate ways to teach coding. So for example, Jen Anders went from the primary school and she learned all about low tech ways to code. Um we don't want our kindergarters to have too much screen time. So they're doing other things related to patterning. And every student is now taking part in that activity and learning about the beginning stages of coding all the way to the high school where we had two of our teachers go and learn a lot more. Now those high school teachers, they have a little bit more work to do because our students are walking in the door with a depth of knowledge. So they have to get ahead of those students.
060But we have already staff members who are really excited to take that on. Um and that just came from just one meeting. So I can't imagine what's going to happen happen as we have subsequent meetings though we will stay true to those three stages. There are some steps that we're able to take right away. >> I I just want to say before uh we dive in with Heather's one initiative um if we go back to a year ago the board of education um we had some charges to the group that became the steering committee. Uh Nancy and Nikki were a part of the steering team and those charges were to have uh collect as many inputs as we could from the school community. Um and we told our facilitators we wanted to collect more inputs
061at every level than any other strategic plan they had worked on and they um came through for us. They delivered on that. We had a lot of staff uh students community involved. Students was very important. We we said we wanted students at the center of the decision-m involved. We had students involved in every team as the advisories got together and and inform the ideas behind these initiatives. Uh we told people we wanted them to take time to do research and time to implement with fidelity. And I think we have that structure in place now. And we said we want to innovate with the best. We want to compare ourselves to the best nationally, not locally. And that's what we're doing. And then finally, we said we wanted to be very clear. We want people to
062be able to take this document, read it, and understand it and use clear uh transparent initiatives, action steps, language that everybody can can understand. And I think what we're going to hear next is evidence about one particular initiative and where it's gone. And again, we have a chief communications officer in this district and we have a team that works with her all the time. But I think this is great evidence just like the presentation Dr. Given just gave with all the work that she does of how our staff has run with an initiative that we are able to research uh do some experimentation with and implement maybe a little more efficiently and part of that's because of the dedicated we staff we have involved like uh Dr. Gibbon and like Heather. So uh with that
063I'll be quiet again and let Heather share with us streamline communications. >> Hi team, my name is Heather Hickden. It's my privilege to serve this district in the role of communications. Um, I want to give you first just a quick reminder of what it means from our stakeholders directly to streamline communications. If we could go to that next slide. Our promise was to develop and refine our communication strategy to include clear and consistent access to financial and districtwide information, embedded options to drill deeper for more detailed information, and to provide a more surgical approach to specific topics and audiences. We were very specific in what we needed to achieve. Um we are in discovery right now with this particular initiative. So if we go to the next slide, you can see what we did last
064school year to research. We were aspirational in who we looked at to try to model our way. We looked at 16 different organizations, their websites, how they interacted with their stakeholders, with their digital communications. And we did not limit ourselves to K through 12. We looked at university level communications, Harvard, Duke, Ohio State, UC. We looked at some industry giants, the New York Times, Apple, Starbucks, Disney. We looked at the Cincinnati Zoo, the Cincinnati Nature Center to try to find best practice. And if you go to that next slide, you're going to see what we loved. strong branding, classic design, simple content presentation, the ability always to learn more, and the value of a communications hub. So, coming soon, we are about to increase our printed financial communications. We have since 2018 provided a financial
065perspectus. It's usually in January, February of every year. Now, we're going to add to that two financial update postcards. Those are going to be mailed in conjunction with the five-year forecast presentation that Mr. Davis provides. Again, those printed documents going out to all of our investors is so valuable because not everybody is with us digitally in the community, but everyone is paying taxes, so they deserve to have this information. Again, that's coming soon with the 5-year forecast. Available now is our communications hub that lives on our website in the about section and department section. This is a digital imprint archive for all of our stakeholders. They can get our app information, our so social media information. They can contact us very easily to submit a story. Also available now within the communications hub. If you
066go to the next slide, are our new brand guidelines integral for an organization like Indian Hill to have this for stakeholders to know how they can use our brand. And then also there's a very streamlined process to request our logos for our parents and and any stakeholders who wish to have those available now also is our be brave re-imagined. So if you're unfamiliar, we have a mailing list of close to 5,000 subscribers. That includes all of our parents who are automatically um included in the distribution for this. Be brave is our every Friday weekly digital newsletter. We needed to reimagine it because we had a big issue at Indian Hill. Let me put some color to this for you. Last year, our department managed 374 communications within the school year. We had coverage of 165
067stories in traditional media. This is not going to be a news flash to anyone in this room. Our students and our staff members do incredible things and they do it all the time. This is the best problem we could have and we don't want to not celebrate the good work that they're doing. But be brave had turned into I I I call it almost it was a Mac truck that was driving into our parents' inbox every single Friday just full of all of this information. and we needed to kind of transform it into a Tesla and give people a touchscreen so that they could go deeper into the information that they wanted to see. So we did something that I haven't seen another K through2 organization take on, especially one our size. We now have
068six weekly newsletters fully developed that are embedded within our single be brave every single Friday. So if you go to the next slide you can see athletics and arts have unique mailing list 380 plus for our athletics 330 plus for our arts they send out a newsletter on Thursdays at 9:00 and then those newsletters are also embedded with MB brave they have Twitter video celebrations important dates they highlight big events that people want and need to know about. Um the other four newsletters if you go to the next slide are only embedded within be brave. These are our building newsletters and what we were looking for from the feedback that we got through the strategic planning process was clear consistent routine communications. Every building has the same template. We have equity now in how we
069distribute information K through 12 and it is weekly. Again, these newsletters, just like arts and athletics, celebrate our Twitter videos. They have important dates, uh, bulletin board of information, and then all of the quick links any of our parents would need to have access to for lunch menus, my schoolbox to make payments, all of it is right there every single week for them. In a quick note, I have to give a shout out not only to our athletic director, our arts director, but also all of our building leaders who do every single week produce a celebratory Twitter video. We did this in pilot last year and ran it on Twitter. It was incredible. At zero cost dollars to this district, we got over 47,000 views on those videos strictly to celebrate our kids. So amazing
070stuff there. I am one person standing in front of you. There's a whole list and team of people within this district who have taken on new learning, have been challenged to be able to bring this initiative to fruition for you. And I want to thank all of those people on that list. And I want to give a special shout out right now to Eric Samini and Denny Dubs who in addition to streamlining communications also work so hard behind the scenes to bring us new features every single year for our district communications. They are just absolutely priceless uh members of our team. Next steps for this is feedback. We're going to get it and then we're going to refine our practice for next year. We are fully implementing next fall. So, we want to see what
071works and the opportunities to improve. Thank you. >> Thank you, Heather Hickden. Uh, again, board members, I hope when you see this and I hope our community members when they see this that they are proud. I would just like to reiterate two points that I heard. U number one, we have an amazing uh breath and depth with our staff helping. Um, and and Heather is the first person to congratulate them always to put together our storytelling. But I I will say this, there's not another public school in America who's doing video storytelling the way that our staff is. And Heather gets a lot of credit for being the leader of those productions and helping to train and educate everybody about the why uh for our marketing and storytelling. And there is no public school in
072America doing newsletters with different formats and platforms the way we are weekly um that allow people to really dive deep and just pick those areas they're interested in. And that is because our public told us that's what they wanted. Um that which was really important during the strategic planning process. We learned a lot from those dialogues and this is just one example of an initiative that I think our team is running with and already implementing some amazing things. I'm so proud of this work and again thank you to everybody on the team. I just want to add to that I had the recent opportunity to spend time with this very talented and passionate group and the things that they're doing is very very exciting from a different standpoint from a a board member's perspective. The
073things that they're doing is going to set us apart and continue to make us innovative and a leader in education throughout the country, not just in Cincinnati, not just in the state of Ohio. So, it's very cool what's going on. And the other piece is as we achieve milestones, we'll be communicating those out to the community so that they can see the accomplishments that we're making in the years going forward. So, it's something that right now it's very abstract, but when we start to to get very specific and see these results, you're going to see the things that we are doing, and it it's going to be wonderful. So, I'm very excited for what's going on. I applaud everyone for their hard work. I I'd echo that as well and I was going to ask
074a question. Uh Dr. S, if you could briefly mention the experienceship program. Um that's something that's kind of come out of this process. I know it's in its infancy, but um something that I'm very excited about and maybe just give a little background on that and how that's kicking off. >> Again, this really was an outreach from the process of doing this strategic planning with our different stakeholders. and we heard loud and clear that we wanted our students to have some experiences outside of the four walls of Indian Hill High School. I think that times have changed a little bit where it used to be that it that you could graduate from high school and kind of figure out what you wanted to be. And we realize that we need to give our students some
075experiences while they're with us so that they have at least some idea of what's important to them, what they feel they have the skills to do. So the externship internship program is one way that we're doing that. Wendy Sylvius is a longtime veteran teacher at our high school and she raised her hand right away and said, "I'm passionate about this. I'd like to be involved." So she's really been working to develop it behind the scenes. Last year was the first year we started with a really small group. I want to say maybe eight to 10 students that were involved in what we would call a pilot program where we connected them with industry experts based on those students interests. Gained some feedback from both the students as well as the companies where they had some
076internships. Did some revision and now this year I think we're up to 60 students. it it's a lot that raised their hand and said now I want to be involved based on what we heard from that program. I think the next step is really what Dr. Given said is really important when we think about the programs that are developed from the strategic plan. It's really important that we think about growing them to the point that it's advantageous for all students. not just an an idea of a student deciding that they can take the class or maybe they qualify for a class. All students seem to have that type of opportunity. And just to add to that, I think Mr. Damado and and the staff at the high school are having these conversations. Um the experienceship
077program is already influencing other programming uh discussions which is really amazing to see and um our foundation partners and community members like Shelley Winland have provided a ton of support to our staff already uh and and grant funding support to help experience ships grow. And uh we're looking at some physical spaces for uh some entrepreneurship center that board members have talked about as a dream for years heading into the future to support this type of programming. It's very exciting. >> I was one of the business owners that had um one of the students and I'm telling you I was so impressed. I was super impressed with how organized Wendy was and how passionate she is and how well she had that program put together. Um, but then it got even better because I got my
078student who did a project for me that I honestly it was all trigonometry and way over my head. Um, I was just so impressed with how quickly he grasped what I was trying to accomplish and and it was kind of a challenging project. So I came away from that experience just I was I think I learned as much or more than the student did. It was really amazing. So, but I'm entrepreneurship and um entrepreneurship is absolutely our future and the more we can do to support that thinking regardless of where these students will ultimately have careers, their ability to think like an entrepreneur is so critical. So, I really appreciate what you're doing. So I just want to go back a little bit to the strategic planning because I was part of when it all
079started and it is just so exciting to see how it is growing. It is a great initiative that our district took and I think our teachers and our team is just running with it with so much of enthusiasm that I see in it and I really really appreciate all the time and energy that you guys are putting behind it. I think it is one of a kind probably in at least in Ohio for sure. I don't know if anybody else is doing outside Ohio, but it is one of a kind in whole of Ohio. And slowly as this plan gets implemented, it would it's going to change the look of education system that we have and Indian Hill will be one of those schools that would have already the would have this innovative strategic plan
080in place. So, I just wish I could turn the clock and bring my kids back so that they can have this experience. I'm not saying my kids didn't have a great experience, but what is coming up is just amazing. So, for any of the parents who are watching, your kids are in for a treat. They're just going to learn so much more and they're going to be so well prepared not just for college but for life with all the great things a team is doing. So thank you Dr. Gven for all the work you, your team, your teacher, everybody is doing. It's really commendable all the time and extra extra time that you guys put into to take this forward. And Heather, I'm not sure if she's still here. Heather, we really really appreciate you.
081You really have changed the communication of a school district and we absolutely love you. Thank you for everything that you do. >> And just to echo on the communications, to me, a big part of this is certainly an obligation we have to make sure the community is informed of what we do, but this builds the community that supports this school. And that really can't be measured in any one particular area. um perhaps with the exception of when we had to go pass a levy and vote and that support for the community comes through these communications. So, Heather team, whether you want, thank you for everything. This is critically important to what we do. Um it's going to be super exciting to watch for the next few years. Thank you everybody. Thank you for those comments.
082I I know I um can speak for our staff. Uh they mean a lot. Uh and when our teachers and staff get to hear them, it matters. Uh thank you all. Um, we're going to continue to take feedback and input from everybody and we'll report out again on the strategic plan when we get to January about next steps. If we can move on to the superintendent report. >> Okay. So, under letter A tonight, we have the school calendar that's in your attachments. Board members just as a first reading. We will not be approving that until next month. If you could just review that when you get a chance and if you have any questions. >> I had one question on that. Just I was looking at this briefly. It looks like the December winter break
083is going to bleed into all that first week of January. Is that that's different than the past? Is that accurate? >> Correct. Um, one of the reasons is the construction project and uh that's why you see an amended uh January plan. >> Um, that is one of the features of this calendar that's different than other calendars we've looked at in the past. Um we have tried to again honor many of the things we see traditionally in our calendars every year. Um vacation time, breaks, the the length of those times um when we would hold graduation for example. But there are some differences uh we've also made some uh changes with professional learning days and dates. So if you take a look at it board members and you have questions or feedback and you would let
084me know outside of the meeting then we will come back. We'll make sure that we get feedback with IGO with the team and that we move forward so that we can then uh uh do an approval next month at this time. Letter B is the annual review and approval of our career advising policy through our partners uh at the HCSC and the business advisory council. Uh we do this annually uh so that we have the right policies in place for career advising for students. Um letter C is the approval of our bus routes and stops. Letter D is a resolution declaring the impracticability of transportation and offering payment to parents in lie of transportation. Letter E is approval of two upcoming overnight field trips. One for uh premieres and one for our senior class uh
085annual trip. And then letter F starts personnel actions tuition reimbursements professional meetings. If you look at numbers uh 1 through 4 there, which is kind of a lengthy list as it goes across that next page down to 4 S through the tuition reimbursements, we have several approvals for classified substitutes and supplemental and personal service contracts for clubs. So board members, if there are no uh major questions, I would ask you to entertain uh number nine, letters B through F4S when you're ready. >> Motion to approve. >> Second. >> Do we have a second? >> Yeah, I think you did. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Summer. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Sig. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Hi, >> Mr. Marks. >> Yes, >> Mr. Tullles. >> Yes. >> Thank you, Mr. Kcki. Mr. Davis, your turn for
086the TR report. >> Under my report this evening, we have the minutes from the August 16th, 2022 regular board meeting. Approve the financial reports as prepared for the month ending August 31st, 2022. Um, we have one construction contract this month. It's for bulletin number three. Uh we had to replace the existing panel wire that was at a cost of $26,511. Item D is to approve uh the following student activity accounts. Uh we have six of those to approve. Those are the accounts that each one of the clubs sets up in order to maintain their finances. Um these clubs don't have them yet. they realized a need that they want to begin to start to track their finances, start to bring some revenue in and then uh actually start producing some expenditures for the clubs as
087well. Item E is uh some contracts. We have the Claremont County ESC, uh the Hamilton County ESC, the Butler County ESC, Cincinnati Occupational Therapy Institute, and the Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Those are all and those are all four student services um held outside the district. Item six is a short-term uh school bus lease agreement uh that we did for CCD. they were in need of a bus. We were able to provide them one for a short term and uh that actually has that term has completed. Uh we just need to make sure the board approves that for the uh for the auditor's sake. The acceptance of donations, uh we have four of those this evening. The IH foundation, 665 for the high school weight room. The foundation for IHTN, $800. again for the uh DUPS fund,
088$869.89. And finally, the PTO for the elementary school music department, $94,769. As always, we appreciate those donations, and with those, it helps us supplement the uh the great education that we get here here at Indian Hill School District. >> Mr. Davis, one question. Item C, is that 26,500? Is that coming out of our owner's contingency or where's where where is that light? >> That will come out of the owner's contingency. >> That's coming out of the owner's contingency. Okay. Thanks. >> Yep. >> There are no further questions. I would ask the board to entertain a motion to approve uh Roman numeral 10 items A through F. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Mrs. Zikolds. Hi, >> Mr. Marks. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Singh. >> Yes, >> Mr. Summerl. Yes, Mr. Tullus. >> Yes. >> Thank
089you. >> Uh, thank you. Uh, one more item, Mr. Davis. Under other business, um, you want to handle this? >> Yes, certainly. Um, I do apologize. This came in yesterday from, um, Ohio School Plan, and I wasn't able to get it on the board agenda. It is very brief and very quick for me to to explain. We did do a uh a um a resolution last month. It was item 82215. It was the substitute the Ohio school plan employee dishonesty and faithful performance of duty policy for our individual shity bonds that were required as the treasur superintendent and the president of the board to obtain this policy simply substitutes for those. Um Ohio school plan asked that I add one sentence to that resolution. Um that is whereas this resolution will be effective August 12th,
0902022. That was actually the date my shy bond expired. So they wanted to make sure I was protected for those four days between August 12th and the board meeting on the 16th. So are there any questions regarding this amendment to resolution 082215? If not, I would ask that uh the board entertain a motion to approve that amendment. Motion to approve the amendment. >> Second. >> Mrs. Leultz. >> I. >> Mr. Summer. >> Yes. >> Mr. Marks. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Sing. >> Yes. >> Mr. Tullus. >> Yes. >> Thank you, Mr. Davis. Thank you everyone for being here tonight. Uh, with that, is there a motion to adjurnn? >> Motion to adjurnn. There a second. >> I sure. >> All in favor? >> I I >> Thank you all.