001Yeah, probably. All that I do. I've had it for a couple >> whenever you have time to get on the rails. [Music] Oh, she doesn't want to sit in here with us. I had to stash Cora in my office. I picked her up from the talent show. I thought maybe she >> probably I'm here. Everybody else comments. like my husband. [Music] has always Is he gonna go? >> Are you ready? All right. Good evening. It's March 11th, 6:30. Can we call the meeting to the order? >> So move. >> No, I think we go to the pleasure first. Can we do the pleasure? to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty andice for all. >> Can we have the roll
002call, Mr. Davis? Mr. Marks >> here. >> Mrs. Sing >> here. >> Mr. Summer >> here. >> Mr. Tullus >> here. >> Mr. Wolf. All right, everyone is settling down. Can we have Can we adopt the regular meeting agenda? Can I have the first and second, please? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> All right. Mr. Davis, any public commentary today? >> None this evening? >> All right. So, we will move to correspondence, recognition, and announcement. Mr. Kenny, >> welcome. Good evening, everybody. Uh, we're going to begin this evening with our annual state of the schools. Typically, this is a presentation or report and this year we felt it would be appropriate to uh create a video uh commercial using our student ambassadors and our students and teachers as the stars. So, if
003you would direct your attention for our state of the schools video for the next few moments. >> Keep going till we reach new heights. Going further than we ever thought we could. We won't let go. We'll keep pushing through the highs and lows going. >> Welcome home to Primary School. Indian Hill Primary is the gateway to the district. We serve grades K through 2. We are ready to welcome you to an award-winning environment designed especially for our youngest graves. It is a place where curiosity is encouraged, smiles are contagious, and joy in learning is evident within every classroom, on the stage of our renovated auditorium, and around every corner, including our student design playground. >> Projectbased learning uses our five Cs. communication, collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, citizenship. We have learned the five C's are important
004in our classroom and everywhere. Building thinking classrooms is about working together to solve problems. We use thinking boards to share our ideas with everyone. >> Welcome to Spanish class. We explore the Spanish culture while we are learning the Spanish language. >> Welcome to play studio. This is a space where we engage in open-ended play of our choice. We are agents of our own learning and practice social, emotional, and STEM learning in authentic ways. We are so proud of our student ambassadors here to share our amazing learning. >> Thanks for visiting Indian Hill Primary School. >> Welcome home to Indian Hill Elementary School. >> Our elementary school with an awardwinning design features unparalleled opportunities in STEM, project-based learning, financial literacy, and the arts is home to grades 3 through 5. In the elementary school, we collaborate
005and communicate to put our critical thinking skills to the test, working with each other and even sometimes the village of Indian Hill government to create realworld solutions to problems. Getting stung by bees at recess, our third grade students developed a pollinator garden to draw the bees away from the playground. We researched pollinator plants, determined cost and plotted the garden ourselves. We have Ecoville go time and I lab to explore our passion projects in STEM. And we can tell you all about aquaponics and hydroponics which is growing plants in water. We celebrate the learning with a farmers market. And did you hear the news? Our elementary school has secured nine of the top 10 elementary school teams in the state, including first place for the stock market game this year out of 139 competing teams. >>
006And our Braves broadcasters can tell you all about it in our newscast produced right here. >> Thanks for visiting Indian Hill Elementary School. >> Welcome home to Indian Hill Middle School. Our brand new, state-of-the-art, award-winning facility is home to grades 6 through 8. And we're a home with many houses, so students feel connected in an intimate way, learning respect, leadership, pride, and integrity. We are building a robust media program at Indian Home Middle School, growing our skills, and expanding our impact through creative storytelling on several digital platforms. An extension of our new media facility is this room, the Fab Lab. A high-tech maker space where students bring creative ideas to life. With tools like laser cutters and 3D printers, we design realworld projects. The Fab Lab is all about turning big ideas into reality using
007the latest technology. It's a place for us to think creatively, collaborate, and create amazing things that can be used beyond school. >> And what about our new learning facilities? From our village green in the main entry of IHMS to our great specific neighborhoods to our outdoor project porches, learning looks and feels different in these new spaces. Our school has been putting a lot of energy into building a place of belonging and reminding everyone that we are all part of the middle school community. In these neighborhoods, we come together for house activities and schoolwide competitions. And no matter which house our students are in, we are one big brave family. Thanks for visiting Indian Hill Middle School. >> Welcome home to Indian Hill High School. >> Our number one ranked high school is home to grades
0089 through 12, where our focus is pairing student passion with purpose and opportunity in academics, including STEM and leadership on the stage, in the studio, within the arena, and on the field. >> Arts are a core part of our school culture. from theater, visual arts, choir, band, orchestra, graphic design, photography and ceramics, digital media, and our award-winning Bravesbeat video program. With our IH Arts Conservatory, this year, students have an opportunity to learn dance, expanded experiences for our orchestra or focus on piano in our new piano lab. Many of these amazing ideas find a home in here, our newly opened Indian Hill Entrepreneur Center. While this center supports leadership learning in grades K through 12, it is housed within Indian Hill High School, providing real world hands-on IH experiences with professional partners. This year, that program
009has grown to include more than 200 students and 55 active partners. We also expanded our digital arts lab with a second facility that is now the home of our esports team, as well as an additional classroom for graphic design. Our students can obtain industry recognized credentials like cyber security, data science, machine learning, software development, and web development. Student voice matters as part of our annual big pitch competition. Our administration asks us what can be done to create an even better Indian Hill High School. As a past participant and winner of the IIH Foundation sponsored grant, I can tell you firsthand we have an increased service to our community, increased educational outreach to our younger Braves, and even started a real world stock investment program as part of the big pitch. All student initiated and school
010supported ideas. >> Last, but certainly not least, our unparalleled athletics. Last year, 23 student athletes committed to play at the collegiate level. Six coaches were named CHL coach of the year. Eight CHL championships were captured by Braves and seven student athletes were named as CHL players of the year along with boys and girls state tennis champions, soccer state champions, soccer national coach of the year, and you may know Jason Jao. He's a swimmer who helped set a world record. >> That is our IH promise and our dreams just continue to grow. >> Thanks for visiting Indian High School. >> Go. [Music] [Applause] This was great. Like this is everything you want a students to be doing. One thing I want to pinpoint which really stood out to me uh is it was not the faculty
011who was presenting it. It was our students, the student ambassadors who were presenting this video. You could see the excitement in their eyes and you could see the pride that they carry with them and that speaks a lot about this video. So great job. I heard so many great things that our district is doing. I hope all the parents who are watching or who are here are also equally proud of the things that's happening in our district. We're really really happy and for all of us it is very important that we put students first and that's what I think the video kind of just showed you. So great job I this is wonderful. >> This is the um a bridge uh version and we did send this out via news release and social media to
012over uh 6,000 members of our community. um in the uh regular version. Of course, our CFO MC Davis also gives a financial updates that's very important uh about the future. And so I hope you get a chance to uh to see that. But thank you and to all the students and staff who helped put this together. Um it's an amazing uh product, but more important it speaks to our culture and we hope people are proud. Um we have some other celebrations tonight and a group we want to um get here uh to next. So, first uh up tonight, I would like to congratulate Indian Hill High School student Ardisha Therani for her selection as one of 17 students nationally to be a 2025 youth advisory council member for the national nonprofit organization Creative Visions. As
013part of her selection, uh Ardisha will lead mental health awareness engagement activities and a collaborative mental health project in the Cincinnati community. Congratulate Congratulations, excuse me, to Ardisha. And we have, as you can see in the room here, some Aqua Braves to celebrate tonight who have joined us, uh, who were competing recently in the swimming state championships held February 20th and 21st in Canton, Ohio. Uh, our swimming world record holder, Jason Xiao, is here, I think, and uh, he won the state championship in the 200 freestyle competition with the boys team finishing in third place this year and our girls team finishing in seventh place. That deserves the first round of applause. This is starting to become old hat, but our coach Matt Harrison uh was once again named swimming coach of the year. And
014I have a complete list here that I will try to run down and if I miss anything, I apologize. But we have uh a number of things I'd just like to relay here. Of course, our 200 freestyle state champion, Jason. Uh, boys 4x400 relay state runner up. Boys 200 uh free relay state runner up. Um, and then we have Arjun finishing third in the 200 freestyle. Arjun 500 freestyle. Third place, our girls medley relay. Fourth place, Gabby Hens breaststroke. Fifth place, boys meddly relay. Sixth place, girls 4x400 relay. Seventh, Gabby Hens 200 medley. Ninth place, Bin Pontius Butterfly 12th, Bin Pontius 50 Freestyle 15th, Libby Holmes, Butterfly 16th, and Sophie Tinddale 200 Freestyle 16th. So, those are just a couple of the highlights. We had a lot of U members of the team who are
015here. Um, and just so proud of all of you students for all of your hard work. We all know the winter sports season is the longest season in the high school uh athletic season. And it takes so much time, dedication, and energy. And we are so proud of you. Coach, would you like to come up please and Mr. Phelps and maybe give us a little bit of an overview of the season? We would appreciate it. Before I hand it over to Matt, I would just like to say it feels like I have the opportunity to do this pretty often, and I do. We have continued to see success season after season and it feels like that is led by both our boys and girls swimming team every year with the success that we've had on
016on both uh sides of the boys and girls team. So, I just want to say congratulations to all of our boys and girls swimmers. Lots of fantastic races in Canton and it's a it's a really neat event. um fun to watch and and I was glad I had the opportunity to be there. And our coach of the year, Matt Harris, send uh first of all, thank you so much to the board and to Mr. Phelps for taking the time to recognize us this evening. We talk a lot before every meet about representing Indian Hill the best we can, both in and out of the water, and it's evenings like this that make us proud to do so. I've coached at other schools that don't take time to recognize the quote unquote not as popular sports.
017Um, so I'm very grateful for you guys to take the time to recognize these wonderful, impressive student athletes. Um, as Mr. Phelps said, we've had unprecedented success over the last several years. This is my sixth year uh, coaching here and every year the boys have finished in the top five in the state, which is an incredible accomplishment that only a few schools in the state can say they've had a run like that. Um, our girls have had almost as impressive as run, finishing top 10 almost every year. Um, a little insight into what the future of the program looks like. We took six boys and six girls up to the state meet this year. All six, unfortunately, of the boys are seniors and will be graduating this year, but all six of the girls are
018back next year. So, it'll kind of flip-flop a little bit as to who's going to be the focal point of the of the team. It'll be kind of all about the girls next year, but that'll be exciting because they've kind of been living in the shadow a little bit recently of the boys. So, it'll be fun for them to kind of be in the focal focal point of of of everything there. Um, again, just thank you to you guys. Um, unfortunately, not a lot of the uh group could be here because they're up in Columbus representing Indian Hill with the DECA state championships. So, just goes to show how impressive of student athletes these guys are that they're able to qualify for state championships in multiple activities like that. So, uh, thank you again. Congratulations
019to everybody and hopefully we'll be back here next year congratulating the girls on some wonderful achievements. So, thanks again. I just want to say how happy and proud I am of each and every one of you. Not only for your accomplishments, but as coach said, outside the pool, it's such a big deal. Hopefully, it's something you guys will reflect on and remember for years to come. But congratulations. What a great achievement and a great year. >> And a big shout out to the parents um from my understanding of swimming. It's a parent driven le activity a lot of times particularly this early morning. So, uh it's congratulations. You all made a lot of people very proud. I would echo the same thing with as my fellow members said really congratulations to you all. Congratulations to
020the parents because yeah I know swimming some of my friends kids they have and it is like early in the morning you guys start then you go to the school I I just cannot imagine how you guys managed to do everything so well. So congratulations and I'm looking forward for the girls for the next year. Yeah, one one more comment, then we'd love to get a photo. Um I just think it's rare also sometimes we have our faculty and staff members and their children. And so to the Bass family, uh it's so great, Logan, Lizzy, and to see a teacher's children while they're in the district getting to go through these seasons together. I hope that you truly enjoy it. Uh Mr. Bass is always helping and coaching and around the different sports, but to
021be able to be a fan, so special. and we've seen you a couple times now this year. So, congratulations. Congratulations to all of our student athletes. Um, if we could get a picture uh of the group and and coach, please. Thank you. >> While you guys are organizing, just just one thought um which is I graduated I graduated high school in 1993. So, it's been a it's been a minute. And um what I will tell you guys is that um I knew a I know knew a lot of folks in I knew a lot of uh students in high school that swam in high school and >> I would say that the >> discipline that you all have to have the mental toughness um while I know that you know you're swimming it for the
022love of the sport and the competition and those things that's going to serve you all really well in the future having to overcome and mentally push yourself. And uh and I think outside of the amazing accomplishment, um you're going to find times when you're at college or whatever you're doing 5 10 years down the road where you're going to be able to think back. I mean, some of you obviously are going on to continue to swim, but you're going to find times where you're going to look back and say, "I can push through this challenge I have personally. I can push through this challenge I have professionally or in a relationship because of the discipline you've had to show." And um I know when we hire people, I look for two athletes, no offense to
023any other sports. Um those that are endurance runners and those that are swimmers because they're just really mentally tough. So congratulations for all the discipline you guys have showed. >> Thanks everybody. Congratulations. Um students and parents, we are going to move on to another part of the agenda. If you don't want to stay for the remainder, you're welcome to. But if you don't want to, now would be the time for you to say goodbye. [Laughter] Thank you. >> Have a great evening. >> Thank you. Um board members, next up we have again um come to you tonight with some homework uh that was an assignment uh we were charged with earlier in the year. And so tonight, Erica Leopard, our director of pupil services, is here along with Mr. Nichols, and they are going to
024share some information on our preschool research to date. Um, and we'll turn it over to Erica and Jim down. Um, so several months ago, you all charged our leadership team with investigating some options for preschool and what it could look like if Indian Hill Schools were to host their own preschool. Um, currently we do house one preschool classroom that is run by Hamilton County Educational Service Center. It's split into two half-day sections and it really exists for the purpose of special education. So in the morning it is just special education. um there are six students in that section and then in the afternoon it's an integrated so there is a 50-50 split between students with disabilities and their typical peer models. So right now that's kind of what we have as far as a district
025preschool-wise. Um just some requirements for preschool that I think are interesting. Um I'm actually going to start on the right and move my way left. But uh most of the things that you guys are hearing about are governed by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. Preschool is a little different. It is governed by the Department of Child and Youth. When um OD reorganized into ODU, they separated and the Department of Child and Youth also does licensing for like daycarees and community preschools. Um the preschool ratio for ages three to five, we're really looking for like one teacher per every 12 kids at a very maximum with like 24 kids. That would be like a daycare center though. I think our preschool model right now, we never put more than 12 kids in a classroom
026just because it seems to make the most sense as far as being able to respond to three to five year olds. As many of you know, they're they tend to be a little needy. Um, and then the reason that we have the classroom that we have is just that public school districts are required to provide a continuum of services for preschoolers who have disabilities. In Ohio, preschool for typical children is not universal. It's not an expectation. So, the school districts that have them, it's typically driven by special education needs. So, one thing that we did was kind of take a look at our uh kindergarten class this year and where they reported they were going to preschool. So, you can see o over half, the vast majority were going to some type of private community
027preschool that did offer a full day. We did not ask parents if they opted for the full day. Um and then another quarter were going to a private preschool that only offered a half day. uh we did have, you know, a couple little slivers that they didn't go to preschool or they were going to another public school, they came from another state or uh they were combining a couple of programs to get a full day, which as you can imagine for a parent probably is not ideal, but you know, you make it work. Some additional considerations, like I shared, uh preschools governed by the Ohio Department of Child and Youth rather than the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. Our current primary school capacity doesn't allow for any additional classroom space for preschool. We do
028have one space. If you're familiar with the primary school, it's down by the art room. Um it's a space that's lovely and perfect for preschool because it has bathrooms inside of it. Um and then just another consideration, the majority of our kindergarten cohort did attend a preschool program that offered a full day option. So it seems like that's probably a driving factor when parents are choosing where to send their children. So, at this point, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Nichols uh to talk a little bit about our imagining process about what a preschool here at Indian Hill could look like. >> So, a labor of love here getting to talk about preschool as the uh former primary school principal. Um I had the privilege of working with preschoolers all the time and
029uh have done so in many settings. And so when you think about preschoolers, uh obviously there's some pretty specific needs when it comes to three to five year olds that look even different than it could for school age children um when you start in kindergarten. So um I did go backwards. I gave you bad info on how to click the clicker, didn't I? Okay. So when you think about it, one of the things as we started to consider what we have available here in the district is we wanted to think about staffing and space. What does that even look like? And as Erica's already mentioned, um we're limited with space at the primary school. Um and so we we would really need to consider would we be renovating spaces because we're building other spaces. Um
030but some key considerations when you think about that is you're going to want to create classrooms with restrooms. We have the best primary school in the world because they have bathrooms in there. And if you think about taking kids to common restrooms where you might take breaks, there's a lot of lost instructional time if you had to do that. here in our school district. We do not at our primary school. So, you think about all that instructional time you've gained back. Also, those restrooms need to be designed just for preschoolers. Obviously, their size and height requires some very specialized facilities. And then when you think about also the furnishings and the instructional materials, we wouldn't just be able to pull from other spaces. We would need those materials to be specific to that age group.
031Um, again, having just gone through a huge project, we know even from our primary to our elementary, the furniture needs are vastly different. And so, we'd want to think very specifically about that um if we were to um host a preschool. And then when you think about staffing, um there's some pretty specific requirements when it comes to the teacher. Um it couldn't be just somebody who maybe had gotten an associates um for most of the programs we're thinking about. we would either want a preschool teacher or somebody who has the early childhood intervention specialist um certificate. Those are people that um are qualified and certainly would be important. And then an assistant teacher. When you think about a program that we would want to run, we have the expectation of a very high quality program.
032And so we would want to make sure that's staffed appropriately. Again, when you think about 12 students in in a school age program, that seems like a very low number. When you think about preschool, that's just right. That's plenty of students in one section. So, we would want to think about that from a staffing staffing standpoint. Also, there are a lot of licensing requirements. Erica already ran through some of those with you. That's a pretty big lift and there are inspections. There's audits. Um, you have to get spaces licensed. It takes a lot of work to do that and you would need somebody to be responsible for those areas. It wouldn't just be something that you could put on some other staff member. they would need to be able to really intentionally focus on those.
033Um, other things that we would think about, we would want to make sure any space had its own security separate entrance. Um, right now, even for our ESC program, we have created a secure entrance for those families. They don't come at the same time of our other as our other students do right now. So, we need to accommodate that understanding we're bringing people into our our school space where kids are also learning. So, we'll want to think about that. Additionally, play space is really important. Um, we have built two beautiful playgrounds um in our district. Unfortunately, those playgrounds wouldn't meet the needs of this group because those playgrounds need to be able to be support ages 3 to five. There are some elements on those playgrounds that could support that, but the whole playground for
034this purpose would need to supervise that. It might not need to look just like those. There are many other ways we can we could do that, but we we definitely would have to think about it. And certainly the curriculum, the state outlines curriculum um and has that as well for preschool, but there are things that we would want to think about and make sure um the nice thing would be we know what our 5-year-olds, what our kindergarten program is. We would want to be scaling up and helping them get ready for that. Um we did some research. We've looked at all of the area preschools in the area. And so these are just averages that we put together just trying to get a sense of what the cost is out there. They really vary depending
035on whether it's a five-day program all day or four days a week, half day. I mean, pretty much anything you can think of in those variations is out there for parents, obviously, to meet their needs. So, we would want to consider what that could look like for us. I think in its truest form, a a school that we would would run would most likely be um a full day option program. what that day looks like could be different, but we would certainly want to provide that for those families that take advantage of it. Can >> I just say something, please? >> Again, these are um some some ranges and with what's going on with the state budget and legislation, these things can fluctuate and vary. School districts tend to also make decisions um very quickly
036when the state budget comes out by uh annually, which it will this summer. That could change. Sometimes they increase costs uh depending on funding. So, we'll continue to research this as we head into the summer. >> And then we just threw out some we put together some cost projections. And again, these are just that they're estimates. They're projections. One cost we can't account for yet are facilities. Whether that would be a current facility we renovate or um some new facilities that would would come along with some other projects potentially. Um we don't know that cost. So, that that's a TBD for us right now. When you start to think about staffing, um, and we're just thinking about per classroom as we try to average that out. If you had two staff members in there, maybe
037some administrative support, were somewhere in that $100,000 range when you think about those. And then we did just a little bit of a cost projection. Again, $250 could be a little could be a little low, could be a little high depending on what we try to do and what variations we might offer, but potentially a classroom could generate um revenue of $114,000. Obviously, that's not profit. That's just what it would would um would bring in. But then you'll start to look and see um beyond the teacher cost, we have operating cost. Um I think we would want to consider what what does even electric cost for a space like that. What does the uh ongoing operation of that look like every day? Um so that we're going in into it with eyes wide open. Certainly
038things like materials, professional development, insurance, those are also costs that we would want to consider. And then we talked about the play space. Uh again, just a rough estimate of somewhere between 50 and $70,000. That's a onetime cost. Obviously, once we get that play equipment set up, um it wouldn't need to be replaced annually. Um and then again, we talked a little bit about the ESC. If we were to consider this, one thing we could do is to bring the ESC program back to Indian Hill and we could run it ourselves. There could be some cost savings of around $50,000 for that. Um and then just again to finish, you know, obviously preschool is such an important program. I I we just cannot minimize the importance of ages 3 to five and that getting ready
039for um our our schoolaged program. When you think about the importance of that socialization, obviously academics is important, too, but students coming ready to us to socialize into kindergarten is so important. If I bet if you asked our kindergarten teachers, they would tell you that is a true mark of readiness um for early childhood. So, we we were excited to put this together. Um we're happy to answer any questions and if we don't have the answers, we're we're happy to go get them. >> Jim, did you all look at where and how big or how much space you would need to do this correctly? Like how many classrooms, where are some potential locations? Well, we know we we believe right now we've got probably at least two classrooms, but we were projecting around four classrooms.
040In talking to some of our neighbors, they feel like they could make that program as big as they as they want. Obviously, it it would be a high quality program. I think parents would gravitate towards it. Um, but we would put it in the neighborhood of two to four classrooms somewhere in there. >> And what about like lunch? Would they be like if it was at the primary school, would they metriculate to the cafeteria or just keep that separate? Yeah, we'd have to work through that. Obviously, they have a really full lunch right now, but I still think there's opportunities for them to access the cafeteria. Um, a lot of times in preschool, you can eat in your own classroom and so we would have to look at all those options. Um, I know the
041folks at the primary are very creative, but it's a long lunch span right now. So, we could work before or after somehow um work to get them inside. >> Any of the other schools around us, you know, the CHL schools or anybody offers a day or a preschool? You want to talk Eric on that one? >> Yeah, there are a couple of our neighbors that do offer some of them. >> Sorry. Thank you. >> Yeah, so um some of our neighbors here uh just in the kind of neighboring areas have either their own preschool or they're running something similar to us through the ESC. Um, so I think every school district we talked to is doing something different, but all something. Um, I can tell you there is a very near school district that is
042running something similar to what we're talking about with like full day options. They also offer half-day options and I think they fill four classrooms, similarly sized district. >> I've got a couple questions. So, do we have a full-blown proform on this yet? when you look at the space that will be needed and everything that's part of that. I don't know if you guys have talked, Mick and and and Erica and Jim. >> We are um we're collecting the information right now. Uh Mick and Jim and I have been working on that uh with a couple of our partners. Uh we'll have some uh overview to share with you as we head into the June work session and um we'll have some um information after spring break to share to kind of preload those conversations. Uh
043that works going on right now. >> Great. Thank you. And then have we looked at any historical data from other districts on how that how this could potentially affect our enrollment? Could that be a positive for us when we look at that bringing kids in earlier, keeping them in the district? Is there any data that you've seen on that? I mean, I can't say that I've seen data on on that specifically, but anecdotally, I think we know that um families just from what we've seen in the kindergarten experience is that those full day programs can sometimes continue to hold on to those preschoolers if they're offering a full day kindergarten experience. So, I think we we certainly would think that would be the case is that if you're in our preschool and you're living in
044our district, that you would obviously continue on here at our school. >> Have we looked I mean, as far as the facilities go, is there in any of the buildings beside I mean I guess obviously it makes sense logically for to go to the primary school but if we had space in the elementary school or wherever else do we know of anything existing today that could potentially accommodate this without having to build something >> no your office >> for a classroom of three >> Jim can you and Erica you can both use I And Jim, obviously at one time you're at the um the primary, Eric, obviously you were managing all the special education and and a lot of other things. Talk to us a little bit about right now from that slide, right? We
045saw there is overwhelming majority of our students that are coming to us in kindergarten have something, right? Part-time, halftime, full-time, and we've got a lot of kids coming from a lot of different places. Can you talk a little bit around um sort of the pre-esting that we do so that we know like right now right in terms of um kind of kindergarten readiness and what that would do to streamline how that may or may not help to have kind of sort of a major funnel to us versus a lot of different places um being able to benchmark kids earlier for interventions that need them and those kinds of things. >> Yeah. I mean certainly when you look and and kudos to the primary, they do a great job when you think about Smarter Start and
046how they're bringing kids in and the assessments that we get now um they do such a great job of getting those done and quickly being able to intervene with students. I I would see the similar options with preschool. Obviously the assessments look different um at those ages, but certainly as we know more about students and they're coming through our program um we're going to be able to to make some better decisions for them when they enter into kindergarten. And I could share just anecdotally from our one little classroom where we have kids coming being in the building. Those kids are rock stars when they come in the first day of kindergarten. Everybody else is trying to learn how to do school. The kids that are in our HCESC run classroom are already used to how
047do I navigate the building. The teachers taking them to all the places in the primary, the gym and the library and they're learning how to do things there. So there is something to be said for that continuity and for starting kids very early. They're ready for kindergarten when they come through the one preschool classroom we have. >> So uh board members, we will take any other questions that you think of uh moving forward. We're going to work on getting you some overview of facility design and we're going to work on some of the financial strategy pieces. We've got committee meetings coming up after spring break and then uh we'll work towards getting a more complete picture of all the programming you asked about as we head into the June work session. Thank you Erica and
048Jim for all that work. Appreciate it, Mrs. Singh. If uh I can move on to the superintendent report. >> Please go ahead. >> So tonight we have uh several items under uh seven there. Uh letter A is a resolution declaring impracticability of transportation and offering payment to parents in lie of transportation. Letter B is the approval of three overnight field trips uh including uh one in the future for an out of uh country field trip again uh with our Spanish group. Um letter C is approval of updated recruitment retention bonus for bus drivers. Uh board members, you may recall in the uh last few years we've worked to shore up competition with classified employees and really try to make sure that we have good retention strategies in place. Jim has worked very hard on this
049with our transportation uh director Diane and Jim and Mick have uh helped us to remain competitive in a time when we just have trouble getting employees and our school district's been able to maintain. Um, so Jim, uh, anything you want to add on that? >> I would just celebrate, um, Diane Spurlock and the transportation team. They've done an incredible job in a very difficult market. Um, it can be very challenging to find drivers, um, right now. And, uh, they've not only done a good job of finding drivers, but training them, um, and providing a really high quality experience for our students. Um, I would just, uh, there is just no better drivers than the ones we have here in Indian Hill. And the bonus structure um that she's put together is really creative. She's considered
050there's some uh grant opportunities for military. And so if you um served in the military, you could potentially um not only would that person get some resources, but so would the district. Um so her creativity and and coming up with some solutions to make sure that we're fully staffed and and transporting our students back and forth every day. Um her and her whole department just does a great job. So we appreciate her very much. Thanks, Jim. Uh, letter D is the approval of a summer health course. Uh, this has become very popular uh, over the last year. We've got good demand. Uh, we're going to continue this program. Uh, we also have a summer enrichment course uh, under letter E there. Uh, letter F is the approval again of science of reading professional stipens. Uh,
051as we've gone through the year, you've seen several of those board members. And, uh, letter G is, uh, approval of, uh, administrative contracts. This is the group that are up for their renewals this year. Uh as you see there, A through E. Uh under G2, three, four, we have our uh contracts for classified staff. We have a a change of contract definition. A couple of resignations and retirements you'll see there. And um under five, you'll start to see supplemental service contracts all the way down to the bottom through a tuition reimbursement. under number six. Um, unless there are any questions, board members, I would ask you to entertain 7 A through G. >> Hey, Kirk, >> just a real quick uh housekeeping issue. Item N under uh the contracts. That's John Mark Williams >> instead
052of John Mark. We'll note that in the uh the minutes. >> Thank you. >> Yep. >> Double N there. John Mark Williams. So again, board members, um, with that, um, edit, uh, I would ask for an approval of 7A through G6A. >> I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve 7A through G6A. >> I'll second that motion. >> Yes. >> Thank you. With that, can we move to the treasur report? Mr. Davis, >> under my report for this evening, we'll have the approval of the minutes for the February 11th, 2025 regular meeting. Approve the financial reports dated February 28th, 2025. We have three contracts for the uh 2024 2025 school year. Uh we have landscaping under item one. Uh item two is a staff laptop replacements. This is an annual annual cycle. Item three
053is a student Chromebook rotation for three grades. Another annual cycle. Um I would like to point out and thank the technology department. Mr. Gver's here this evening uh for for keeping an eye on the current uh market with these computers. Um we went ahead and did the purchase order and got these underway and we've saved about 25% over what we would have and and we ordered them at our regular time. So kudos to that group for making sure that they're keeping their eyes on what's going on with the market out there. Under item D is to approve the following contracts for the 202526 school year. Uh we are there are two of them with Aramark for food services, one for the elementary and primary schools, one for the middle and high school buildings. Uh these
054are annual amendments uh that go with the five-year contract that we we signed with Aramark when we did the uh request for proposals. Um this is amendment number three of that agreement. Item E is the approval to pay now and then invoices for Rockorn Academy. Um these are federal funds that we receive on their behalf and they no longer have auxiliary funds with us. So they get reimbursement um to the tune of 19,55249. Once again, that's a federal pass through. Item F is the acceptance of donations. Um nine of them from the boosters. Uh robotics club for a car. Uh athletics for discretionary purchases. Athletics payment for the residual payment for the golf outing. Uh the same for the arts. They got their discretionary purchases. the golf outing discretionary funds, the high school Latin club
055received a transportation grant, uh the arts beautifification grant, the athletics received money for a baseball spring break trip, and then also for the wrestling camp account. And then item 10 is from the foundation from the I foundation. The athletics department received $1,536 on behalf of the cross country team. So for all those groups and all those donations, we are very excited and very grateful that those donations continue to uh present the opportunity for great things for our students. So are there any questions this evening for the treasures report? >> I have a couple questions. Um when we cycle through Mr. D, when we cycle through um the adult laptops, obviously it sounds like we're on a schedule where we don't do them all at one time. >> Correct. Correct. Yep. Is that a We replace
056those every two years, every three years. What is this? >> Mr. Mr. Gerber, can I use your expertise there? >> On a threeear rotation over the years. >> Didn't know you were going to be on camera tonight, did you? >> Good thing I cover my hair tonight. You look good. >> So, we're typically on a three-year rotation, but over the years, we've had some things happen. We've we replace some early and and ahead of cycle. So, uh technically next year we do not have anything part of our cycle to replace. So we will be you know saving 80 to 160 a year. Um but yeah typically 3 years we rotate them and then we we recycle them after that point whether we decommission them or repurpose them for other other uses. >> That was going
057to be my question. I mean I know laptops they once they hit a certain point there's not a whole lot of value in them but right we we from the recycling sounds like some we repurpose but in other words do we donate or what happens to those? Um, if we recycle them, we do take we use a I have a number of different recycling companies that um we they will gather them for us. They'll remove them for us and then we get a certificate of destruction. So all data that's on there is destroyed in case there's anything, you know, that anybody's concerned about. >> Yeah. >> Okay. And then it sounds like for the students that's three grades. So is that on a four-year cycle with the students? >> Currently, yes. We're kind of toying
058with that. We're trying to maybe expand that a little bit because of the life of the Chromebook, the operating system is longer than the actual physical life of the device. Uh meaning um the device will last as long as the students will let it last. Yeah. You know, >> so with the with the Chromebooks for the students, is that at no cost to the children or do they is that part of their student account or how does that work? >> Well, there is a technology fee. >> Okay. Yeah, it >> it's more of an insurance fee that you know we use that to you if there's you know we need to send it out to get get some repair repairs done. Um but there's no fee to them. So you know Brody Davis gets a
059computer. We do not charge the family for that. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Great. Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Okay. You're welcome. >> Thank you, Bill. >> Any other questions? I'll make a motion to approve uh the treasures port item 8A >> through F10. >> Second. >> Mr. Marks. >> Yes. >> Mr. Tullis. >> Yes. >> Mr. Sl. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Singh. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Uh next up board members is our Neola policy updates for the spring. This is a first reading. Again, if you have any questions or comments about any of the individual policies, please let me know and um we will revisit these again uh next month. But you'll notice there are a number of our policy updates. Most of this is editing language to uh align with current legislation.
060All right, with that can we move? Is there any other business by board or administration? >> Yes. So, uh the consideration of the superintendent's contract um an extension of the current contract um for five years um up for consideration. Um so I'd like to uh if there's any commentary, happy to take that. If not, like to make a motion to approve the superintendent's contract extension. >> We have moved. >> Second, >> Mr. today with Laur >> Thank you bosses. >> Is there any other businesses? If not, then can I have the motion to adjourn the meeting? >> I just want to thank before we go our uh representatives of our faculty and our professional organization. Um and uh you know there's a lot that they do. We have a great partnership and appreciate you guys
061always coming here and the collaboration that we have I think is unique um that a lot of districts don't. So, thank you for that and for the rest of the staff that's here >> especially when it's 70 degrees and sunny out. >> We really appreciate you. >> Thank you so much all of you that came through. We appreciate your time. >> Absolutely. >> That I'll make a motion to go home. >> Second that motion. >> All in favor? >> I >> Thank you. >> All right. Good night everybody. Thank you everybody. Exclusive coverage on the Indian Hill Television Network has been a copyrighted presentation of the Indian Hill High School video.