001Good evening everyone. Welcome to the October 7, 2025 Indian Hill Board of Education meeting. Can I call the meeting to the order? Can someone >> or we go straight to the pledge? >> Okay. All right. First we'll do preservation and I see we have some younger braves here. Can I invite you guys to lead us? >> Thank you. Come on in. I pledge to the algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Very good. >> Good job, guys. Love that energy. >> I know. All right. Can we go on to the roll call? Mr. Davis. >> Mr. Marks. Mrs. Singh >> here. >> Mr. Summer >> here. Mr. Tullus >> here. >> Mr.
002Warfl >> here. >> All right. With that, can I have the motion to accept the agenda? >> So move. >> Seconded. >> All I >> can we do a roll call? >> All in favor? >> Yep. >> I Okay, with that, can we move Mr. Davis? Is there any public commentary today? >> None this evening. >> All right. If that's the case, can we move on to recognition, correspondence, and announcement? >> Yes. Thank you, uh, Mrs. Singh. Welcome everybody. Uh good evening. Uh we're going to move through our agenda tonight because we have a number of presentations, but we're going to start off with our monthly lead now video. So, if you could turn your attention to the screens for a minute. Tonight's our annual homecoming. We've got so many braves we welcome back onto
003our campus. It's Friday night, which means the community comes alive here on Drake Road. Families from all across our school district are coming together to celebrate all that it means to be a Brave. >> We are here for the EDU heroes and the sports and the community and everything wonderful. The turnout is really truly remarkable. It's contagious. >> Let's go. Let's go. very small community, but everyone supports everybody and it's a good support team and and schools and all the kids. >> You can have fun, hang out with your friends. >> The atmosphere is electric. >> Homecoming is a great time to get the community together, watch our Braves win. It's a very important night for our community. Go after it and get the ball back. Be aggressive. When you look around the home of
004the Braves and you get to see all of these family and friends come together, people from different generations. We've got children here. We've got great grandparents here and they all join to have fun Friday night on the hill. There is nothing like our homecoming. There's no other place to lead now like an Indian Hill homecoming. Thanks to everybody who helped put that together. It's quite a tradition, as you know, our Indian Hill homecoming on the hill. And uh it's so great to see everybody who comes back. And we had alumni uh come back and spend time with us down on the field. It was amazing to see how many alum were back this year. And as our athletic department leaders and our activities leaders have made this a bigger and bigger event, we really appreciate
005it. I want to shout out Latif Johnson, our campus life coordinator, who helped put together the entire parade with partners. Uh it's quite a a feat and a great spectacle and uh everybody has fun. So, thank you to Latif and everybody else who volunteered and worked uh on the parade. Okay, we're going to move forward. I just want to point out one recognition tonight and that is the 10 IHS students who were recognized as part of our National Merit Scholarship uh competition for their outstanding performances last year on the PSAT tests uh and the National Merit qual uh scholarship qualifying test. Three of our students from IHS have qualified for the National Merit Semi-finalist competition. Noah Kaufman, Andrew Hoo, and Sophie Tinddale. In addition, seven of our students have been recognized as National Merit Commended
006Scholars. Uh, and we are so proud of all of these students for the work that they have completed and everything that they do on behalf of their school. They're such great examples of scholars. So, congratulations to those students. We're going to move forward with the program now, board members. And up first tonight, um, oh, sorry, one one more announcement. Um, our chief communications officer doesn't like a lot of attention, but she's sitting in the back there, Heather Hickden. And recently, Heather was recognized as the 2025 National Communication and Community Engagement Award recipient by the National Association of School Superintendent in Chicago. Heather was honored during this annual convention. This is a prestigious national award that recognizes exceptional leadership and those who elevate transparency, trust, and connection between schools and communities in public relations and communications.
007Congratulations, Heather Hickden. If I could chime in and further um embarrass Heather a little bit, the the importance of that role. I think it's important people understand what that role is. Um this is obviously, as we all know, a public institution. We use public dollars to put the mission forward. And this board and this administration feels it's very important that our community get to see what it is we do. And I tell anybody who ever asks me, "What is it you're doing in the school?" You can open your mail, get the mailers you see, check your emails, go to any of our social media channels, and see exactly what it is we're doing inside the building, inside the classroom. And in a day and age where there seems to be more speculation and myths and
008rumors about what's happening in schools across the country and even in this district, having the ability to see what it is we do day in day out is fundamental to the mission of this of this institution. So, Heather, thank you for everything you do. It is truly truly important work. We're lucky you do it, but we're even luckier you do it so well. Um, and that means the world to us and to the school. So, thank you for that and everything else. >> I would I would say that Bear said it for all of us. We all truly feel really proud to have you here. You you are just exceptional and since you have come here like I have seen the change because I have seen the other me uh the person who was here
009before you the communication then versus what we have now it's like a day and night difference. You not only do a perfect job you not only do a great job in forming a community but you also invest into students. The ambassador the student ambassador program is your brainchild and you know every time I see a students presenting it just m gives me goosebumps to be so proud that our students are being the leaders and you have given them that platform. So you know kudos to you great job Heather that you're doing we're really proud to have you here and congratulations for this award. I know it's not a small award you make it look small but you truly deserve it. Thank you for everything that you do. >> Congratulations. All right, moving on. Um, we're
010going to invite now our director of pupil services, Erica Leopard, up and Christina Smith, our primary school assistant principal, to join Dr. Stewart for a report on MTSS and our student support processes here at Indian Hill. If any of you would like to leave and not attend at this point, this would be a good time to leave students because there are going to be some lengthy presentations coming up, >> long presentations coming. >> Okay? And if you want to stay, that's your choice. There's your chance. >> There is a five-year forecast coming up. That will be breathtaking. You should see these graphs. They're out. Um, I want to thank you for the opportunity to talk about all of the great things we're doing here at Indian Hill Schools to support our students. And just to
011make sure everybody knows, this is Christina Smith. She is the assistant principal at the primary school and Erica Leopard, the director of pupil services. And we are really happy to be talking about intervention services and how for our district intervention doesn't always mean students who need um remedial services in order to meet grade level standards. is also our students who maybe are not working up to their potential as well even though they might be even above grade level. >> Absolutely. >> So really excited to share about the student support process and you know when I think about the Indian Hill promise which states that we will prioritize students by empowering their voice in personalized collaborative and inclusive learning environments. I can't help but think about how we built our MTS system around our Indian Hill
012promise, which is to ensure that we're providing an inclusive and accessible and equitable educational learning environment for all kids. We want to make sure that they're able to reach their fullest potential and that we're providing the right supports at the right time, whether it be academic, behavioral, um, you know, individualized. When you think about multi-tered systems of support, better known as MTSS, there's three specific tiers to MTSS. You have tier one, which is the universal supports, and that's where we provide high quality instruction for all of our students, kindergarten through 12th grade. We provide universal interventions accessible to all. And then moving into tier two, that's where we provide targeted supports. And with tier two, um the targeted supports, this is where we'll provide, you know, just targeted interventions, uh where you might need a
013little something more than that core instruction. And then tier three, that's our intensive interventions. And that's where we'll provide very specialized strategic interventions in a small group setting. >> Is it up or down? >> Um, there you go. >> Thank you. So, just to give you guys kind of an overview of some of the services and supports that we offer to students across our district. Uh this is kind of a highle view of all of those things. So a couple to highlight that are new this year. Uh at the middle school they started a boost program which is sort of like many of you are familiar with like reading specialists getting some math intervention things like that at the primary and elementary school that's now moving on to our middle school and they're taking on
014kind of that that same structure and they call that boost. uh step at our middle school is an afterchool program where students can stay and get some homework help from any of our certified teachers. Uh at the high school we've added guided study hall which is really with a focus on executive function skills. So it's a place where students can go in and they can work on homework, study for tests, uh actually take tests, but they're given a whole lot of structure about how do I break this down into smaller parts? How do I tackle a big long project? How do I even start? So, some of those things that we know that they're going to need in college and even beyond in the workplace. And then like Dr. Stewart said, this also includes services
015for our students who are achieving above grade level. So, we've got honors classes, we've got advanced placement classes, we've got students taking college credit plus classes. So, really, there is kind of a robust offering for whatever students might need here in the Indian Hill School District. So, some celebrations. I am not going to read every single one of these, but I did want to highlight the number of students that really are accessing all of this robust menu of services. And when you put all of that together, about 72% of our kids here in the district are getting something that is outside of just showing up for a seven bell day and taking their academic classes. So they might be getting time with a school counselor. They might be getting some time with a reading specialist.
016They might be getting two or three services. They might be getting some reading specialist services and also getting some gifted services because we know kids don't fit in a nice neat little box. Some of them have great skills in one area and might need a little support in another area. And I think the beauty of and I'm going to brag a little bit and probably embarrass uh Mrs. Smith. She really has been building this system for over a decade and it has been with the focus of there aren't um I think traditionally maybe even when some of us were in school you heard high students and low students or students who are advanced and students who were behind and what she has recognized with this system is that kids are all over the board. They
017have all sorts of gifts and talents and strengths and needs and this system really does provide for that. So when we wanted to make this easy for people to understand. So Mr. Babis, if you don't mind clicking on that image, it should take us to a website. And this website is built to share with people and then if you would mind just scrolling for me, Mr. Davis, thank you. Um just step by step of what it means if you have some concerns about your child so that they can so that everybody in our community, parents, caregivers can see these are the that we take in our multi-tered systems of support. This is going to go on our website tomorrow so that it will be available to anybody who wants to look it up. And then
018additionally, we created this in a paper format also for the teachers so that they can have it in their classrooms in case they need to refer to what are the steps that we use throughout the MTSS system. And in addition to that, we just want to ensure transparency and consistency between both parents and teachers to understand, you know, what's happening and when and how. Um, in addition to that, clarity and shared understanding of the process is essential. So, we really worked hard to build this. We also use the design thinking process behind our our work and our steps. So, we're really proud of that as well. Think we can go back to the main screen. There you go. Oops. Wrong way. Thanks. Okay. So, really excited to get to share a little bit about a
019new platform that we introduced this year. So, last year we were using or years previous we were using a different platform and that platform in particular provided us an opportunity to store all of our data universal data that we collect kindergarten through 12th grade in one location. However, there were some limitations to that platform and we realized very quickly that we have all this great data in one place, but then we're having to take all these extra steps to individualize and formulate and and determine the best plan of action for students, whether it be for intervention or enrichment. So, we came across a program called Branching Minds, and it's absolutely phenomenal. I feel like I could be a sales rep for Branching Minds. I really I really >> stay right here. We're going to make
020sure of that. >> Um it offers so much ease of use and it really gives time back to the teachers and I just think that's extremely valuable. So what you see here, all of this data that you see is is not it's not Indian Hill data. This is fake data from their demo site. But this is just an at a glance view of the branching minds platform. So when a teacher logs in, this is the information that they see and it captures some very important information for us very quickly. So, we have some early warning indicators that you'll see notated here. A, B, and C. That's attendance, behavior, and course performance. And then also tier students, as I mentioned before, tier one, tier two, tier three. So, based on all of our universal screeners, we've
021predetermined cut scores and benchmarks for assessments. And it allows an at a glance view for teachers to quickly see how students are progressing, not only with grades, but also the normed data that we're collecting for students. >> This is something that goes year to year. So when a student goes from third grade to fourth grade, a teacher can look at their third grade process and see where the kid is needing some help. >> Yes, it does. So to be able to have historical data like this on kids and when we put intervention plans and branching minds, those will easily transfer from year to year. Great question. So the early warning systems uh that was the ABC attendance behavior and course performance. This specific report here that you see list or posted, this is something that
022admin or anyone across the district um could pull and really determine by school, by grade, how students are doing with attendance, with behavior, with course performance. because we know these those are three very important essential pieces of data that sometimes you can't capture in other data systems where if a student is missing a lot of school that's certainly going to affect their ability to you know in um achieve in a in a good rate. So in addition branching minds also offers the ability to quickly uh put together an intervention plan. So reading, math, SEO, behavior, speech, social study, science, whatever it might be, it'll take that data and then it'll help us determine the most efficient way to identify the needs and then build a very comprehensive intervention plan. And the ease of use with
023this, we were able to drop in a lot of goals that we know are really good for kids. So teachers don't have to think through what those goals might be, but they're already loaded up there for them. And so it just really saves a lot of time. uh when you think about group size and time of week and minutes per session, the fidelity of how interventions progress is also an important thing and branching minds helps us uh track that data and inform us of how students are performing. So one of the probably well there's so many great features about it. One feature that I really really really um am excited to share with you is that there's a library of intervention researchbased um evidence-based interventions or supports. What this means is the teacher doesn't have
024to do all the research on what should I do and how should I do and what how what's it going to look like. It's all there for them and it actually is mapped perfectly to where the deficit or the enrichment needs to take place. So this is a report that I'm really excited about. So when you think about tier one, tier two, tier three, tier one being green, tier two yellow, and tier three red. In the past, we've been able to uh calculate behind the scenes how many students are moving out of tier 2 into tier one or from tier three tier tier two, but it took time. This just a couple clicks and it'll give us a report like this per school, per grade, per class, how students are moving and achieving and you
025know meeting their fullest potential. Right. So, we've got some next steps for we've rolled out branching minds uh just at the beginning of this school year. Um by the end of this school year, we've agreed across all four buildings that we will have consistent use of this program for analyzing data, housing the data, and building plans. That's going to allow to your point, Mr. Tolles, for that ease of that information going from building to building, teacher to teacher. to me seems to be the greatest asset of this is being able to particularly when you go from fifth to sixth, 8th to 9th or I guess second to third as well is having that teacher immediately having the snapshot of where every kid is starting in their class and being able to build on that plan
026and not have to start over for the parents not have to start over >> at every building really is going to be a game changer. >> Yeah. And really the beauty of it was we were already paying for a data warehouse product to hold all of our assessment data, all of that kind of historic stuff for kids. Now we have that, but on top of it, we have the ability to quickly analyze, create groups, create plans, and that time that is saved. Teachers don't have to come out of the classroom. We don't have to get them subs so that they can have a day to to do all of that. It's minutes. I would think would also save a lot of wasted effort if if yes >> whatever process a doesn't work for that student
027that can be captured as data so we don't try it again when they get to the next grade >> you are not starting over yes >> that'll be impactful >> yeah so and then also that hub of researchbased intervention has been really great so Christina actually spent that that decade that I talked about building this MTSS system one thing that she did for teachers was created um just the what we called automatic interventions. So, they were things that teachers could kind of pull out and use as their first line of defense if they saw something concerning. Now, we have this like it's easy. It's in one place for teachers. They're not coming to Christina or to an intervention specialist to say, "I don't know what to do. Help me." They've got all of these things
028at their fingertips. And the great thing is it's analyzing all of this data and saying, "These are great interventions here. Here's what we suggest." >> And you said that can all be shared directly with the family. So they the parents can see their own child. >> Yes. >> Because that's something that >> Yep. >> haven't been there. It can be a little overwhelming to not >> We take a lot of data. >> Well, yeah. And to not know what to do, frankly. >> Sure. >> That's a scary thing to be as a parent. This feels like it's kind of an organized, >> you know, put some boundaries on. >> Yeah. I think that's a great point, Mr. Talls. And and what I would say humbly is our teachers do know what to do and now
029they're doing it in real time which allows them to save their efforts for more strategic thinking to really get these interventions and enrichments in place quicker. >> Oh, wait. America. Before these two take their seat, I just want to say that um I I want to just give thanks to uh the two of them and Mark Richardson who did a lot a lot a lot of research all last year. Whitney came on and helped with that as well to find this program. It's hard to speak about what this means as far as return on investment because our net of buying this program ended up being basically free because we found other programs that were not as sophisticated that we stopped purchasing in order to buy this. So, it didn't cost our district any more money.
030But it's hard to put a number on it when you're talking about a teacher's time and what it means for a student that they can start interventions immediately for a child on like day one of school rather than having to wait until you go through all of the cumulative records which used to be paper and pencil. So it's just an incredible opportunity for us. >> Erica, >> yes. >> Christina, I love what you guys are doing. It is absolutely awesome. I hope we can get this publicized enough for the school district because this is something that is is not it's not front and center on it. >> I know I'm getting to you. I'm getting to you. But I want to give them the the uh this uh the the gratitude that we have right
031now. So, we appreciate the information, this in-depth analysis. This is awesome. Really is. And I just want to thank you personally for this critical program for our students, helping them to thrive and accelerate and all the different programming. I knew we were doing some of that but not all of that. I think it's absolutely wonderful. Thank you. >> And just to add on to that, you said it's hard to put a return on the investment. Well, you you said it in your numbers at the introduction. 72% of our students, 72 are impacted by these programs alone. And now with this additional tool, it's going to be that much that much easier >> to funnel these resources to the to the folks that need it. So, thank you. >> Yeah, it'll be quicker, too. Like, you
032know, beginning of the school year, we are just doing all these things. I think this is just going to be a came Oh, yeah. >> I say some of us remember the the years of spreadsheets and you'd have your ruler out making sure all the you were on the right line for the right kid and >> Right. And by the time you do all the assessment sometimes, you know, 3 months of intervention has already gone. >> And true >> sooner we could start the intervention, the better results we are going to see. So great job in doing this. No, this is phenomenal. Like I just love seeing all the great things you guys are doing. I wish I was here. I'll say this. I have said this so many times. I'll say it again. I
033know people are bored. I seriously wish when I see these things that I wish I could be here again as a kid like the >> you can't be >> I know I know I'm too old for that but I wish but no thank you thank you for the great work that you guys are doing I think it's going to be really amazing for kids thank you for everything you guys do >> just one more thing I know we got to move on um for those of of us who don't remember or for those who might be listening at home as well this is Christina Smith's first year as an assistant principal at the primary school, which she's knocking it out of the park. Uh, but she's been a professional leading this work with us for
034well over a decade. >> Yes. >> And was our dean of students who was a teacher on special assignment, not paid an administrative contract, and did that work to earn her way into administration, and she has definitely provided a return on investment. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Erica. Okay. So, we're going to move on to the next presentation if it's okay with you, Mr. Kcki. Is that okay? We move on to the state report card. Just want an opportunity again to leave the room if that's what you want to do before I get into the next presentation. >> Okay. >> You should get a double badge. >> Double badge. As as a reminder, the Department of Education publishes a report card on every public school in Ohio every single year. And so this is
035our chance to just kind of review some of the information. I'm happy to share that Indian Hill School District was one of the school districts to get five stars. That's the most that you can be awarded during any single year. And so when you just look at this overview page, there is a lot to celebrate. And I'm going to jump into some of those celebrations right now. Progress, I think, is really important and it's a very difficult measure for us as a school district because what progress does is it allows us to look at how much knowledge does a student gain from year to year. And when you have nearly a little over 50% of your students rated as state identified as gifted and scoring in the very highest range to make another round of
036growth can be very difficult. There's only so many questions per test every year. So the fact that our district came up with really um favorable scores in progress is a huge celebration for us as a district. They say that progress is the great equalizer because there are schools out in achievement that their students can't pass the tests but yet they show progress from year to year. So for us to both pass the tests at such high rates and be able to show that our students are making progress from year to year is really phenomenal and we should congratulate the teachers for their work in that area. Another celebration is something called gap closing. So if you look at the chart that is the brightly colored chart, there are goals that are set by the Ohio
037Department of Education and we need to show that for every single one of these groups that we were able to make progress to show you what it looks like on this side that's slightly covered. I wanted to show you this is the goal that's been set by the Ohio Department of Education. And then that line shows where we have exceeded that goal. So when you look at that, we've exceeded it in every single one of those categories, which is also another really big moment of celebration for us. And then lastly, we had a new category that was on the state report card called college, career, workforce, and military readiness. And we got four out of five stars, and we were one of the highest in all of the Cincinnati area. The unique part about this
038criteria is they didn't actually tell us what they were going to measure before they collected the data. So, it was a little bit of a surprise for us to see like what we were going to be measured on. We now know and we now feel like we are going to get five stars in this category every single year. But because we are keeping such great track of our students and what's happening through their high school years and beyond that, we were able to earn four out of those five stars, which again I think is really kudos to what's happening at that high school level to keep track of students even after they graduate. So those are some of our big celebrations. When we look at next steps, I think that anytime we get a data
039report, we want to look and say, what can this tell us about improvements? There's always room for improvements. I think we've been able to identify some learning gaps that we have in third grade ELA, fifth grade math, and eighth grade math. We're already working on all of those. We've had meetings already this year to address that and talk about what we're going to do. As we've talked about before, we really believe our MTSS system with the support of Branching Minds is going to make a huge difference for us. And we have already had an opportunity to train every single teacher in the district about Branching Minds and how to use it. And lastly, we want to determine how to assess and intervene so that our kindergarten students are able to show their reading readiness. The
040difficult part about this is that we only have 20 days at the start of the school year in order to capture their learning. And for some students, it's kind of a shock starting kindergarten and then by day 30, they're 100% where we need them to be. So, we're trying to figure out how we can do maybe some things in the summer to make sure that doesn't feel so shocking when they report to school at first. >> That is what I have for report card, but I'm also able to answer any questions that you may have. >> Want to just jump in here for anybody who's listening and I I say this to our board every year and our and our community members. The Ohio State report card has flaws. It also is a measure that
041we look at every year and we look at every part of it and it is but one measure amongst many measures that we look at for continuous improvement every year. It is only one snapshot with one typology. There are others that we look at throughout the year every year also with the goal as Dr. Stewart said of continuous improvement. >> Thank you for that Dr. Stewart. I will echo a little bit on what uh Kirk was talking about as far as the different measurements that the school district can be assessed on. I think the expectation I won't speak for the board just myself but we want to be at the top of the top the way we are as a community the way we are as a teachers and how we take care of everyone.
042I think that's the goal and the expectation. You know that >> but we want to reiterate that that that everything is cohesive and that kind of goes hand in hand. So I love what you say. we know where our gaps are and how we can correct those going forward. So, >> yes, >> I love the proactive approach. So, thank you. >> You're welcome. My pleasure. >> I would say the same thing what Craig just said that I love the part where you said we know where the gaps are and we're already working on it and there's always room for improvement. Always. >> I love that part and I'm just happy that we are already working on >> closing those gaps. Yes. >> So, you know, thank you. Yes. So, this will be a really nice
043carry when we talk about making sure that we don't define our success or lack of it based on one test on one day. I think it's really important for us to see the trajectory of what happens for students when they start doing things like the Ohio State test in third grade and how does that transfer all the way over to more rigorous testing by the time they're in high school and they're taking advanced placement. So, I have some more really interesting data. I'm not going to spend time reading all of this to you, but I think one of the things that I want to be able to show is that last year our students took 1,222 advanced placement exams. Our students are invested in participating in rigorous curriculum and showing what they have learned over
044time. And if I could just highlight a couple of these bullets up here, one of them that I think is really interesting is that we started to offer pre-calculus. Um, our initial class was in 2024 and so already this past year we had 74 students who raised their hand and said, "I want to take AP calculus and had a passing rate of 99%." That's incredible. Um, I also want to point out what's happening in computer science. So, in 2019, we had 10 students who were taking um one of the two computer science advanced placement exams. This past year, 65 students. My guess is in the next five years, that will at least double. That will at least double. And then, if I could just highlight what's happening in Spanish, as you know, our district has
045had a commitment to starting Spanish early. We started at the primary school and some of our students choose to take it all the way through high school. And if you look at Spanish language and culture, which is a very popular advanced placement class that our students take, um, we have had 100% passing for the last 11 years. Now, let me highlight one more thing. Spanish literature. I'm just going to be very transparent and tell you that even at my ripe age, you could not pay me enough money to be in Spanish or literature class. It is so challenging. The students read very complex books written in Spanish and then they discuss them all in Spanish. Very rigorous books. For the last 13 years, 100% of students have passed that exam. Most schools don't even offer
046Spanish literature, let alone have this kind of success. So when we talk about like the role of us in district office and with the principal team to look at our data, it's looking at all of that data all the way through to make judgments about where our gaps are and what we can do and to make sure that our students are progressing in our curriculum that we offer. >> So is it fair to say Dr. Stewart that where we are today as a school district and this AP topic that we are compared to the rest of the state would you say we're >> Oh yes. Yes. They don't include any of this information um in the report card, but absolutely I would say that we offer as many advanced placement classes as schools that are
047two or three times our size >> and as well not only offering them but the number of students >> successful >> and very successful success rate. So there's three things. What's offered, what's taken and the success rate. Yes, >> there's actually no comparison in the state of Ohio for a school our size in terms of success rate year in and year out. And even during the pandemic years, what was very uh we were very proud about is our students scores actually went up um when they were even more isolated and studying at home. So there there's no comparison. >> Is that is it is this comparative data like do schools report out publicly the number of AP tests given in this type of assessment? um we have to report it to the Ohio Department of
048Education. They ask that and it is a very small portion of the state report card like very minuscule but it's not one that makes a big difference where it's its own rating that we could do it in comparison with other school districts. We do that informally. Mr. Kcki and I do when we're in conversations with other superintendents and assistant superintendent. I don't know a school that's offering as many as we're offering and has the level of success. And if I could just say thank you to our families and our students. I mean, you think about this. Our seniors are taking these exams well after they have already found out that they have been accepted at very rigorous universities. They could very easily say, "Oh, I got into Harvard and I'm done and I'm just going
049to go down there and fill in the blanks and walk away." But they don't. They go into that room and they give it their absolute best. That's that is the type of character that you as parents are raising and that we have the honor to work with every day. >> Well, I just I'll go back. There's that other intangible which is the the culture >> and the community that uh you strive to build from the early years from elementary. Yes. >> Going all the way through. And as we see more continuity now with the programs and support resources that were applied to students, I also see that coming through uh in in the classes as they form that that identity and culture. So it is it's it's competitive but it's also supportive. >> Yes, for
050sure. >> Unique balance. >> Yes, our students can be slightly competitive about their academics. Whatever. >> We try to keep that on the down low around here as much as we can. I just have one more short report for you and again as we are looking at data I just want to demonstrate the type of synthesis that we're doing on a regular basis and so this is something called the senior report board of education members you have the entire report in front of you so that you can see it again I won't go through all of these bullets but it allows us to look at exactly what happens for our students when they do graduate like where are they going and what are they doing so if I could just point out one fact under
051the counseling facts the very first statement is 1,380 transcripts were processed by the counseling department with an average of nine applications per student. And when we think about that, um, that really is like some individual care that our students are receiving that's not typical of a high school department. I just happened to be in a meeting with Dr. Jackson, one of our high school counselors after school. She had to step away from a phone call. It was like 4:45 and she came back and she said, "Is it okay if I leave now, Melissa? I have a student who has just decided that they are going to apply to MIT. I need to go home and write a very different letter of recommendation." That's the type of dedication that I think our counselors are showing on
052a regular basis. What goes along with this report also is we are constantly looking at where our students are applying and where they are getting in when it comes to the most competitive schools and in the United States that would be the Ivy League. And so we're constantly looking at that and when you look at your report what you will see is in most cases our acceptance rate at Indian Hill is higher than the average rate. Now not all of our students choose to go there. Some of the schools in our general area, like some of our state schools like Ohio State, are offering such incredible deals. We actually had a student that was offered immediate acceptance into med school as an undergrad, as an example, that they don't always end up going to those
053schools. But I feel secure about their acceptance rate and that we're getting students ready for the most rigorous of of collegiate content. Just to add to this slide because I think it's very important visually for parents who get to digest this information in the future and I really appreciate that Dr. Stewart is showing this report tonight. When you look at these schools that she's pointing out, we talked last month board members about some of the myths that that come out of of our communities. And we we are in a very competitive region of both public and private schools. There is a myth that students who go to the private schools that leave Indian Hill are going there because they'll have a greater chance of success getting into an Ivy League school. That I just said
054that's a myth. It's a myth. These are the facts. Thank you so much for your time to talk a little bit about the data that we have and how we are constantly synthesizing that data at a very micro level, meaning like per student all the way to looking at a cohort of students and what happens as they travel through our school district. >> Melissa, thank you. Thank you. This was great to see. It's great to hear. Um, I hope people take a look at this and understand and and we said it earlier to me the data is a point of reference we look at when we decide are we doing a good job as a school. There are so many other things we do that don't show up. >> Maybe they show up in the
055admittance rates because I think colleges are looking at the whole childic plan, >> but the data is there plus all the extras are there and it really makes me comfortable and confident in our ability of what we're doing right now. Um, this comes with a lot of work by a lot of people and I say it all the time, the stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's not just, you know, we don't just have principle of these buildings. There's a lot of people working really hard to make these things happen. Um the story you told about Dr. Jackson, A doesn't surprise me at all, but B is just an example of the little extra things we do around here that make me so proud to be associated with the school, make me proud to have
056my kids in this school. And you know, we're not to the college age yet, thank God. But it's exciting to see the middle school age. there's a whole other but but I I just I really appreciate this data and it's great to see this affirm what I've always seen from the inside of of we do have a lot of people working really hard to educate our kids that it is happening so thank you >> welcome >> thank you Dr. Stuart going to move on now to our fabulous CFO treasure, I believe. >> Oh, >> no. >> Sorry. Wait. We've got one more. Sorry. We've got one more academic report this evening. I'm sorry. We're going to turn it over now to Dr. Stewart again with Principal Whitney Buell. >> I think we should just let
057Whitney talk. People are tired of hearing me talk. >> Last but not least on the academic report. >> I'll be right here waiting. Okay, >> feel free to add. Um so every year we give an update of where we are with our strategic plan and u this year is our fifth year of our strategic plan which was um initially a five-year plan. So we'll talk a little bit about where we are and then what our next steps are um with this. Um so as everyone knows we have um three high yield strategies that um teachers are working on in all of the classrooms. I think I presented at the end of last year about 100% of the teachers implementing these things in their classrooms with building thinking classrooms PBL and leadership um and the elementary
058and primary out are implementing the leader in me program um this year which has been really cool to see like kids talking about things like being proactive and thinking win-win and you hear them already using that language. So it's um it's really cute to see them and you know them trying to take leadership roles in their classroom. Um and we started with learners as doers, learners as individuals and learners as whole child. And these three um strategies encompass all three of those things. And then we also really focus on the five Cs because those are things that we have heard in the workforce that that's what our kids need. So we start as young as kindergarten to talk about the five C's in all four of the buildings so that they are ready when they
059go out there. Um so it's more than just their academics which Melissa just shared. It is do they have the skills to communicate with one another to collaborate with one another. Can they uh think critically? Um, so we feel that's very important and you could probably ask any of our kids if they know what the five Cs are and they could tell you what the 5C's are because they are so prominent in all of our classrooms. Um, so that is where we are with our current strategic plan and then we'll talk about what our next steps um that we're planning right now um Dr. Stewart and I um so oh well first of all sorry I forgot we added this. You're good. Um, so th this is some of the return on investment that we
060have seen through this five-year plan. Um, like I said, we talked about the five C's. Three of our four buildings are STEM designated for the state of Ohio with the middle school going for that designation. And then we are also um designated um through AASA um as STEM as a STEM designated district. Um we have personalized professional learning for all of our teachers um so that they can learn how to implement these strategies in their classrooms and they do that on their own time and then they get a flex time we call it um in order to fulfill that. Um and then we have lab classroom experiences where they go um it started as they were going and visiting classrooms in their own buildings along with our coaches and then they debrief they talk about
061what they saw and then how they could implement it. And now it's gotten to where they're visiting other um buildings. So, for example, third grade teachers visited second grade teachers this week and they got to see what's going on in the second grade classrooms and then so we can again build that bridge between the two. Um, and our fifth is going to sixth and some of them are going to high school classes to see what they're doing in the high school classes. So, it's really just making sure we're all on the same page and learning from one another. And it's been really nice that everyone is welcoming. When a coach reaches out to a teacher and says, "Hey, can I bring five teachers to your classroom?" Um there's never a time where we don't get
062a yes. It's also cute because when we go to the middle and high school, the kids are super excited to see their elementary and primary teachers. So um so that's been a lot of fun. Um and then we have champion leadership as um I think we've shared before. We had BTC champions and PBL champions this summer that gave training inhouse to their colleagues because they have been out there, they've gotten the training. So, we've built a train the trainer model. Um, so we're no longer sending them out other places to get this training. We have these people in house. Um, the student experience um with Mr. Davido and the EC has been something that has been built in the last 5 years. And then um as I talked about the seven habits um and and
063the leadership portion. So, these are all things that five years ago we did not have and now we do. and you can see them in any of the buildings as you come now for next steps. Um so our t so we're looking at what are we doing next? Um because we're not just going to end this now that we're at the end of that we'll be at the end of five years. So Dr. Stewart and I um have developed um a timeline where we are going to go through three different phases. First, we're going to assess where we are, what's going well. Um, and we're going to use that um time in November and December. We're going to pull together focus groups, uh, members of the community. We're going to send out surveys to the
064community to to get the their input. We're going to get recent alumni. Um, and we're going to have current students in the room just like we did when we developed this strategic plan. Um and then January and February after we assess where we are, where do we aspire to be, where do we want to be with the next strategic plan? And then at the end, how are we going to achieve this? And we will have all of this to share with you all at the April board meeting as to, you know, what we feel like the next plan should look like. Um and we're not going to say we're just going to leave this old plan behind. We're going to build upon it. um because we don't want to okay we did that check now
065we have something brand new we have things going really well and so how do we continue to build on it and finally um we just want to look at this as like our kindergarteners are going to graduate in the year 2038 that's when they will graduate and so we have to you know give them the skills that they will need in 2038 and that's going to look completely different today than today so we have to think about that as we build these plans too. And so that's how far ahead we are thinking is our current kindergarteners and how can we re um prepare them for 2038. >> You guys mentioned one thing in there about about bringing back the recent alumni. >> Talk about that a meeting or two ago when the entrepreneurship center. >>
066There is such a good opportunity to bring those kids in to see what's working in the entrepreneurship center and perhaps what's not. Um if there's not that's okay. learn from that. Um, but I love that idea of bringing in our most recently departed graduated students. Just tell them when they've been in the college for two, three years, what worked, what were you behind on, what were you ahead on, you know, what could we have done better for you? Having that, particularly as stuff is changing so fast. I mean, >> absolutely. >> It's a rapid pace and learning from them. Those are our best >> to me that's our best data point of what they say when they get either into the military, the real world, world, or college. having that data point and hopefully as
067we keep working out our alumni network that's something we've been looking at is how do we improve that accessibility that's going to be a great data point to have. >> That's a really important point and um uh Dr. Stewart and Whitney have really put together a great engagement process. I think one of the things that we tried to do five years ago was cast a very wide net and make sure that we were taking input from everybody and the expectation uh and bottom line is that student voice is going to be a part of this just like it was 5 years ago and so students will be engaged as well. We're really excited about the report out and what we do with our promise heading into April. >> Thank you ladies. Appreciate your >> Thank
068you. Okay, I jumped the gun before because I was so excited, but now it's time to transition to our CFO and treasurer, Mr. McDavis, for what really is a new um four-year forecast board members as a part of response to new legislation. Uh people may recall that we used to do a 5-year forecast in November and again in May that shifted with legislation uh that took place over the summer in the new banial budget. And so here we are with Mr. Davis and his new modified four or fiveyear forecast, whatever he wants to call it. >> Thank you, Kirk. I was going to explain all that, but you did a great job summarizing it. I can put my uh thing down and go back to my seat. We're all done. Um now, I'm going to
069continue with the five-year forecast um format. It's what we all know. It's what we all understand. Um the rules were changed a little bit with the uh with the U budget bill over the summer. Um the main one being that we're now doing this in October of this year and in February going forward and then next year you'll see this report in August. So we're going to do an August and a February five-year forecast each year. Um that's the biggest change. Um as I go through this, I like to talk about uh some things that will affect finances as we go through. I always give you important dates that are coming up. Uh November of this year, we have a board of education election. Uh December 31st of 2026. Um that is the expiration of
070our current expense levy passed in May of 2021. Uh November of 27, we have another board of education election coming up. December 1, 2027 is the final payment of the 2016 bond refunding. And then June 30th, 2028 is the expiration of our collective bargaining agreement with IHPO negotiated in July of 2024. So those are some dates of importance as we look through the the future of our finance. Um just a little overview of what I'm going to talk about tonight. I'm keeping it very simple, very high level. Um district revenue forecast. U if you remember in May I used the word uncertainty a lot. I'm going to continue with that with that phrase tonight. It's a very uncertain future as far as revenues go, not just at Indian Hill, but throughout the state. Um, we'll
071look at our expenditures and then I'll do a quick summary of the five-year forecast as it as it applies to both revenue expenditures and what that looks like moving forward. We go revenue overview. I know this might be a little hard to see if you're out in the crowd, but it's just giving you an idea of where our revenue comes from. Uh you'll see it. The upper green box is our local taxes. Uh that's our real estate tax, our public utility tax. Um the bottom yellow box is all other revenue. Um what that is is exactly what it sounds. It's a collection of all the things that don't qualify either into state sources or local taxes. Um but you'll see it's 15.33% of all our other revenue. almost 95% of that is the tiff that
072we collect from Kenwood Township. So again, linked to property taxes collection. Then in the middle you'll see state sources. Um down at the bottom of that the the biggest number in that box is state share of local tax 7.56. That is the state share of property taxes. So again another revenue source linked to property taxes. Again the theme of how our revenue is collected here. we are collected through local property taxes. 5.76% of our funding is collected from the state of Ohio through their formula and then restricted aid which is another calculation of some costs that go into a year end uh type scenario is another one and a half%. So we're just about 7 and a4% of our funding comes from the state of Ohio. Very unusual for most districts in the state. Again,
073we talked a lot about property tax, so we're going to take a look at what the district revenue forecast looks like for property taxes moving forward. So, this is our current year, 2026. Uh, did I do this one by taxes? No, this is actually by school year. So, 2026, this is what we anticipate collecting. You'll see it's very flat from 2025. we're going to bump up a little bit because we are going through re what is known as t property tax reappraisal. Um we'll see our our each house in the Hamilton County will be reassessed and given a new value based on current sales information and then that will be used to calculate new property taxes. You see, we get a bump for half the year in 2027, then a collection of fullear taxes in
0742028, and then moving forward, we get we see small growth. Again, this is a breakdown of the property tax value for the entire district. Um, this is uh this is actually done by tax year. So, we are waiting for the values for 2025 that will be collected in school year 2026 or calendar year 2026. You can see tax year 26 where that property value re the where the reevaluation comes in. I have estimated approximately 11%. Where that number comes from is we received a calculation from the state of Ohio and we'll talk about here in a minute when I talk about some house bills that are coming through um the Senate and House right now. They estimated about 17% growth. I think that's a little high for us. um that may be more of a
075Hamilton County average, but it gave me the notion that we are going to see another pretty significant uh growth in here. Nothing like the 30% you see here, but it still would be 11% will be pretty significant for our district. Now, I always give these two these two definitions very important for the talk anytime you talk about property taxes. Uh the first one is House Bill 920. House Bill 920 is a bill that was done in 1976 and it was a it's all about tax reduction factors. So what House Bill 920 does is as property values go up, your tax rates come down. Not the taxes you pay, the tax rates. And what that's supposed to do is to keep your property tax payments fairly flat over time. What that does for a school district
076is keeps our revenue fairly flat over time. Now the one the one thing that will change that those factors is something called the 20 mil floor. The 20 mil floor mills are how how property taxes are collected. It's how they come up with the uh the number that you see on your tax bill. The 20 mil floor is exactly how it sounds. Once a school district reaches 20 mills, they can no longer go below that. So as those property values rise, they shr the the tax rates shrink until they get to 20 mills. As they hit 20 mills, property values go up. So does the the amount of property taxes collected. That's the two definitions that are very important as we talk about property taxes. So, as we talk about property taxes today, and I
077hate I hate using a lot of text in my slides, but I feel this is very very very important, not just for the five of you, but for our community as well. So, right now there there's a con I'll use the word confluence just as it says up there. This was prepared by the Ohio Education Policy Institute. So, we've got four bullet points there that are happening right now. There's rapidly escalating home values. We just saw that in the prior slides. A relatively slow growth Ohio economy with below average per capita income making it harder for many taxpayers to pay their rising property tax bills. Okay, we'll talk a lot about senior citizens who are on fixed incomes. As their property as their their property taxes rise, it becomes harder and harder for them to
078meet that obligation. Bullet point three, 20 years of state tax policy changes that have diminished state and local resources available for schools and local government funding. This basically says that our policy makers in Columbus have have lowered the income tax significantly over the last 20 years and have made it more difficult for uh local for local school districts to raise that local share because they're now getting they now need to get more of the local share in order to have the same type of education in order to meet those uh revenue needs. Finally, four uh ci local citizens dutifully and repeatedly supporting real property tax increases forced on them by a system that is overly constraining as it relates to certain certain property tax growth. We go back to House Bill 920. Is it easier
079to run your business if your if your revenue increases over time and especially with inflation? Absolutely. When you run a school district, is it extremely hard to run a school district where your revenues are flat year after year? extremely and that's that's the situation we now find ourselves in. What that has what that has produced is a litany of bills uh that have come out of Columbus that are trying to fix the property tax situation. And when I say fix, it's property property owners are looking at their their bills and saying we can't afford to pay them anymore or we do not want to pay these increases anymore. and and the the the entities that need this this fund the money are saying we've played by the same rules for almost six decades now and
080now that property values are rising and that revenue is actually rising with inflation for us we want to put a c they want to put a cap on it okay so in house bill 96 our bannual budget bill you'll remember that there were a lot of things that came out of that as far as the collection of property tax the levying of property text. Uh, Governor DeWine veto line item vetoed. I believe it was 67 lines. Was that right, Kirk? Um, I have put a few of those in here. Um, just so we can see kind of what he what he was looking at. Um, there's already been one that has been overridden by the House and Senate and I will get to that summary of House Bill 96 override veto. Um what it's doing
081is it's changing the way you can ask for property taxes through levies. Um the there's a lot of writing there, a lot of text. I won't go through it all, but essentially it's creating an idea or notion of um we're going to make it so it's harder for school districts to issue um levies that won't count against the 20 mil floor. Okay, does that make sense? So, that's what House Bill 96, the first override, is doing. There's a there's a bill coming through right now, House Bill 186. Um, this one is this one the first one's not extremely important to Indian Hill. There's ways we can do levies that we we could talk about. Um, and and that'll be part of the conversation moving forward. House Bill 186 is much more important for Indian Hill
082Schools. Um, what this essentially is doing is trying to create an inflation cap on that 20 mil floor. So again, they're trying to put they're trying to take as property values rise, revenue rises, they're trying to say we only want it to rise a certain amount of money. What that means for Indian Hill is as we go through that reappraisal and we look to gain more revenue, they're saying we could potentially lose $4.5 million of future revenue. So if I go back to this slide, as we see this go up, our revenue should have a corresponding jump. what House Bill 186 would say. We're not going to let that increase with inflation as much as as much as it normally would. Okay. There is also other bills pending senior property tax credit. There's a there's
083already some reduction factors out there for Homestead and um can't think of the other one off the top of my head, but they provide relief for homeowners and senior citizens. That's what the state share of property tax is when they pay it. It's about 12 and a half percent in most instances. And so when you look at your tax bill, if your tax bill is $1, you're paying 87 12 cents of it. The state of Ohio is paying 12.5 cents. Okay? That's simply what that reduction factor means. They're looking at the bills, not just House Bill 156, but others uh to try to provide some relief for seniors to try to get them some more reduction factors so their their property taxes aren't escalating at the same rate that everyone else's are. Um House Bill
084335. Um this is very concerning for Indian Hill, the elimination of inside millillage. Um we are at the 20 mil floor. 6.41 6.41 mills of that 20 mills are inside mills. So what would happen if they eliminated inside mills? We would believe we would be below the 20 mil floor. I don't know if our reduction factors would put us back up to 20 mills. I don't know how that would work. Again, we go back to the word uncertainty. Uh right now, this bill has been eliminated, but it's back in another format through the House Ways and Means Committee, and they are trying to do some maneuvering with it. So it'll limit the increase in revenue to 3%. Um, again, much less than 11%. Uh, House Bill 420, 420, 421, and 422 kind of go all
085they go together. Um, discontinuing the continuum. Um, what this means, it sounds like they're trying to eliminate property taxes fully. I think what they're trying to do with this bill is to eliminate the continuing levy. So, right now, Indian Hill has a series of levies. uh the one from 2021 is the one that we would renew after 5 years if we vote on it. All of our other levies are continuing going back all the way to the 70s. So those are all collecting and they're getting reduction factors. Um if we discontinued those again uncertainty what would happen? Um again we're more talk about the inside millillage. Uh the triumph of the taxpayers 422. Um they're trying to increase the voting threshold required to pass any new levies simply now 50.1%. Um there's numbers floated around
086like 60. Finally, um this one is a constitutional amendment amendment to eliminate property taxes fully. This is the one we have to be very careful about as a I guess I should say as a community of a state statewide community. Um this would be to go to the voters and say we could eliminate property taxes fully. Um we did that uh the marijuana bill. We did that with um trying to get the the threshold raised to 60%. So there's been some con some amendments like that in the past. This is for property taxes. So if those were red, if those were eliminated, we would not only go into chaos here in the school district, you know, what would we do? Again, uncertainty, but local governments, police, state, they police, fire, um zoo levies, all kinds
087of things out there in the world that would go away. The other concern here in the district is all of our bonds are secured. All of our debt is secured with property taxes. So what happens to the debt when they become unsecured? So those are that's a big thing for us right there. Um that's potentially scheduled for 2020 November of 2026. Um, we need to make sure we're talking with people to get them to understand what the full ramifications of passing such a measure would be. Um, again, any state that doesn't have a property tax has other taxes. It's simply you you can't get taxes get replaced by other taxes. So, at the end of the day, we're still the government's going to have to figure out how to fund these things. They've they've decreased
088the income tax. they've done other things. So, they're kind of in this situation where if this one gets passed in 2026, a lot of uncertainty. So, that was my my doom and gloom on the on the revenue side. Talk a little bit about expenditures. So, this is a I gave you this chart similar to the revenue. You can see personnel cost. We're up there about 70 73% of our total costs are between salary and benefits. Purchase services are 16.5% and then all other expenditures are down around 10 and 3/4 in include supplies, capital uh capital improvements, debt and other obligations. You can see that rising with the cost of inflation over time. 2025 is a historical year. 2026 is a budgeted year. I did this little chart. The next few the next few slides are
089going to be based on school year 2023. So, I wanted to show a little bit of where we were and where we are. So, this is 2023. This went through all of this went through all of those things I just told you in that graph. This is a comparison of where we were in 2023. So, in 2023, 74% of our expenditures were going to salary and benefits. Now it's a little bit below 73. We rounded. So again, purchase services went from 15 to 17. We're going to talk quite a bit about purchase services here in a moment. Quickly on our salaries, uh from 2023 actual to 2026 budgeted. Uh we were up 10.1% or about 3.4% per year. Um why are we up this why are we up this amount? Uh this includes new positions.
090It also includes salary increases that are offset by replacement positions. For example, when a teacher retires, we will hire a new teacher who will come in at a lower level and get paid less. So, all of the increases that our staff gets is offset by that. And then any new positions we add for a year, that that results in the total gain for the the salaries category for that year. benefits. This is up almost 20% over the same period, 6.6% per year. Why is it? Medical insurance. Okay, any of you now know or out there in the real world, medical insurance is going up. Okay, uh this is 44.4% of our benefits budget and 8.6% of our total budget. So, when you think about salaries, you start talking about what are your next biggest expenses?
091retirement, health insurance two and three. So, we've got 8.6% of our total budget. Why is it going up? Our 2026 renewal was 15.1%. Okay, 15.1%. Since I've been in this district, we've only ever talked about one increase over 10% and that was the year we switched to the high deductible health plan. Ended up going negative that year because of of a plan change. Every other year since I've been here in 2016, we've had single digits. 15.1 may be closer to our norm moving forward than it is the single digits. That's the uncertainty of this benefits page. We also did an increase in HSA contributions for our employees, retaining employees and incur recruiting employees, all part of salary and benefits. So through the collective bargaining agreement and then our conversations with our classified staff, we made
092the decision this year to increase our HSA contributions. Purchase services, we talked about it a little earlier. This one is up 23.2%. Over those three years. Why is that the case? Okay, purchase services includes a lot of different things. Okay, I've listed three here. There's three on the next page that are samples of what purchase services are. It's exactly what you think they might be. Utilities qualifies as a purchase service. Our p our utilities are up 70% from 2023 to 2026. Very scary number, but there's a very good reason why. Couple reasons. Any of you who have looked at your September heating and cooling bill knows it was a lot more than it was last September to heat to cool your house through August. Okay. inflation. The second piece is this building did not have
093heating and cooling in 2023. So, we've opened up this space. We've opened up some space down the street. We're now heating and cooling more square footage. So, that's how we got to 70% on our utilities. That one is about 2.2% of our total budget. So, again, I'm trying to put this in a little bit of perspective. Okay, we talked about those other numbers with 8% of our budget and 54% of our budget was salaries. We're now down to 2.2% of the district's budget total. Went up 70%. Not great. We need to try to do some things that we can control, but it's not easy to control utility costs. Okay. Related services. Mrs. Leopard and Mrs. Smith gave a great presentation earlier today about related services. This includes anything that we have to go outside of
094our school building to hire those services in. Interpreters, uh, occupational therapists, nurses, we have full-time nurses here that are dedicated to students. So, all of those services are peopleoriented and people are now costing a lot more money than they did three years ago. It's a significant increase in benefits and salaries, um, insuranceances, things like that. So if we're hiring a third party, those are going to be more expensive. We do have to have the tradeoff of is it more economic for us to hire that person in and maybe we don't need them next year and have to let them go or can we even acquire that person? So there's some some human resources thought that's put into each one of those decisions. Okay, as we look at this one, this one's up 40% from 2023.
095Why is that? More students. I just talked about the inflation factor. So, the combination of more students and and the inflation of these these things make it go up 40%. That's 5.1% of our total budget. Again, we've talked about medical insurance that's went up significantly, a significant share of our budget. Same thing with related services. Custodial. Custodial. We entered into a contract I believe was back in 2020. Um that was renewed after the 2023 school year. um for three more years I believe if I'm thinking right maybe it was five but that's almost 30% over 2023 again people business they've got to get people and it's hard to find people who want to do those jobs so you've got to make sure you're paying them a a competitive wage they've increased they've actually reduced the
096number of school districts that they they now go to because they can't find enough people to man those school districts they wanted to stay in Indian Hill that was their choice Substitutes. We talk a lot in here about substitutes. Um that's up 13% from 2023. Um that's about 1.3% of our total budget. This one's can have we can have some control over it. Part of it's uncontrollable. We don't know who uh might have to take off a whole year of school. We have to hire a full-time sub for the entire year. Um there's a lot of factors that go into subs. So, do we have some control over that line item? Some. But do we have less control over it sometimes? Yeah, absolutely. Commercial insurance. This one is a biggie. Again, half a percent of
097our total budget. It's up 71%. Okay. Again, we're paying for hurricanes in Florida. We're paying for fires in California. All those things go into that inflation cost. And we've also got a brand new building here that we're we're ensuring that we didn't ensure in 2023. Um, again, controllable somewhat. We could do an RFP, a request for proposal to look for other insurance companies that might be less. Um, that's an option for the end of the year. Uh, but at the same time too, it's not completely controllable. There's a lot of factors that I just gave you that are going into the increase in commercial insurance. Lastly, I put professional development and travel. This one is actually down 5.3% from 2023 based on our budget for 2026. If we meet our budget in 2026, that's down
0985% over three years. That's half% again of our total budget. Okay. Why did it go up initially? Because we had a strategic plan. We had to figure out how we were going to put that in action. Took a lot of professional development to get that rolling. Now we've trained those folks. They're training the folks that are here. That's the payoff of this. So that number we intend to go down over time. And then in summary, I put together the projected revenue expenditures and cash balance. Cash balance is very important. Okay. As we go through this, you can see our expenditures exceed revenue through every year of the forecast. We have to try to come up with some ways to make the expenditures go down and then hope that we we meet our projections in revenue.
099Over time, our cash balance goes down. At the end of this 2030 projected cash balance is at 7.3 million. Right now, we are at 14 million at the end of 2025. days of cash on hand. This is important as you think about the amount of that carryover balance. How many times could we pay the payroll if we didn't have any revenue coming in? And I'll tell you a quick story before I finish here. Back in 2016 when I started, the district had just finished up an inside millage issue. And for some of you who don't remember that what it was is the district decided to move some inside millillage which is allowable by the Ohio Revised Code from general fund to permanent improvement. Permanent improvement fund does not exist in the district then does not
100exist now. So the idea was they could move the money there, get some things fixed, some roofs, some buses, do some things that you need with the permanent improvement fund and then the taxes, they were at the 20 mil floor, so they would have fallen beneath 20 ms in the general fund. That would have had to go back up to 20 ms. So they were going to continue making the same revenue. Okay, they had a c a significant cash balance on hand that far out exceeded this 108. Okay. So, this went through several steps of appeals, finally made it to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said in order for this to work, it has to meet a criteria. You have to have a a need in both of the funds for which the transaction
101occurred. We had a need because we didn't have permanent improvement fund and we needed buses, we needed roofs, we needed all those things. In the general fund, we had a huge carryover balance in surpluses every year. So the Supreme Court said, "You don't have a need in the general fund." So we refunded all that money. When I came aboard in 2026, all that had been resolved. And what I couldn't understand is why a district with a huge cash balance and surpluses every year would want to make this move. And what I found was that the notion was we want 365 days of cash on hand. So we want 100% carryover. And I said, 'Well, that's interesting. Why would you need a 100 100% carryover? Because we don't know what's going to go on in Columbus
102about the uncertainty. 10 years later, it's all come full circle. And if I don't have a 100, you know, we won't have a 100% carryover. If things get chaotic and uncertain, this could come into to be very important how much cash we have on hand. There's a great picture of me. >> Can we just follow up on that point real quick because for history for people that remember and and I know Mrs. Singh probably remembers this uh but when we were going through the last bond levy iteration which was a historic bond passed and we were in great position. One of the things we talked about at that time also was the number of days cash on hand in case there was uncertainty and also what that cash balance uh carryover would look like. And
103uh both of those things are very important strategically for boards of education to do long range planning. though when when Mick talks about uncertainty, that is the real problem for us that we had 6 months ago and we have still today as you're trying to put make long-term decisions here is we need to know those tools are in hand and that we can work with them to make really good decisions. And with the litany of bills that are coming out right now, which is the largest attack on public education funding in over 70 years, it it really is an uncertain time. And so that makes it hard for school boards and it makes it hard for longer range planning. So we have to watch and see what happens this fall for sure in October and
104November and then we'll report back to you and then we can talk about some of those tools and how to make sure they're as accurate as possible. And this is really important information. Uh again, Mick always does such a great job. I just want to say thank you. This is really hard work and he had to do it a month earlier and there's all this uncertainty, but this is about as detailed as it can get. >> Yeah, Nick, thank you for this. I Every year we go through this, the the few takeaways I have are just how virtually no control we have over our revenue. And I don't care what business you're in, if you are wholly separated from your ability to control revenue, it's a very difficult scenario to live in. Um it's not
105getting any better right now with the various changes proposed in Columbus. Uh we'll see how that happens. But but the other takeaway is it's expensive to operate the business we operate. It's expensive to perform at the school level we perform at and we talk all about controlling our costs and you know competitive pay. I personally feel it is critical that we continue that investment into the to get the best and the brightest teachers out there. Um could we pay less? I guess I don't think we would get as good of a product as we get. I don't think we would have the arts conservatory. We wouldn't have the entrepreneurship center. We wouldn't have all these things we see at every one of these board meetings is above and beyond what most school districts have. And
106those things come with a cost. And if we want to continue to operate this school at the level it operates at some point, you know, there's only so much control you have over these expenditures. Um, and yeah, you can make little dents here or there, but the reality is it's just an expensive operation. Um, and you know, I don't know. I guess what I'm trying to say is just people understand that it's the dollars we get are being invested in people. And to me, if we want the best people, we've got to pay the best. Um, and so it's it's important we continue to do this. It's important people understand just how difficult it is to find people, how difficult it is to operate year in year out in the city in the setting. So,
107thank you for for providing that detail. Um, I hope people do go back and look at this and understand how the expenses are. I mean, when you look at it at the first slide, just the raw number, it's it's kind of jarring. And then you get into you start realizing why it's we've got more people in the district, so you got more teachers, you got more administrators, we've got more of everything. Um, and it's just it's it's it's tough. So, thank you for all the detail on it. >> Sure. And one one point you made there was was really I want to kind of emphasize it a little bit more. You talk about, you know, the future of the of our profession. Kids aren't getting into the teaching profession like they once did. We are
108very fortunate that we have great students. We have a great place to teach. We pay very well and we have great benefits. And that gives us a competitive advantage when we need to go out and recruit new teachers. We are very fortunate. The same with bus drivers. You know, you you think about who gets our kids to school. We need to be very competitive with our bus driver pay because, you know, right now there's a an immense shortage of bus drivers. You know, I might be getting my CDL over the summer, and I'm not joking about that because at some point, I would rather be the treasurer who got kids to a to an athletic event than the one who sits in his office all day in the dark. I'll work extra to make sure
109my work gets done, but it's important to me that those kids get to that athletic event. So that's kind of the future we're looking at as far as, you know, the expenditures go and then the uncertainty of revenue just makes it that much more difficult to prepare. >> Thank you, Mick. >> Yep. >> I can move on to the superintendence report. >> Um board members, we've got a number of items here under the report that you'll recognize. Uh first up, uh 7A is the second reading of our 2627 school calendar. I've had no negative feedback about that during the last month. Um, thank you. Item uh B is an approval of an overnight field trip for the future. Um, and item C is a resolution declaring impracticability of transportation again. And then under letter D,
110we have our uh personnel actions, tuition reimbursements, professional meetings, and approval of some contracts and rates as well as a couple of uh retirements and resignations. Uh, if there are no specific questions, I'd ask you to entertain 7A through D6A at this time. >> Make a motion to approve items 7A through I lost >> D6A. >> Thank you. >> Second, >> Mr. Tullus. >> Yes. >> Mr. Summer. >> Yes. >> Mr. Sing. >> Yes. >> Thank you. With that, can we move to the treasury report, Mr. Davis? >> Of course. Under uh the treasures report for this evening, I would like to approve the minutes of the September 9, 2025 regular meeting. Approve the prepared financial reports for the month ending September 30th, 2025. Uh we have one now and then invoice to pay for
111strategic advancement consulting uh for $8,261.25. one contract to approve this evening for Hamilton Claremont Cooperative Association for $42,880 for internet services. Um item F, I would like to skip item E temporarily to go to item F is the approval of the treasur's 5-year forecast. And then item E is the acceptance of donations. Uh we have one from the IH foundation was a DVO gift for $35,000. Uh the IH boosters for a brand band trailer purchase. Uh the band is very excited about the the new trailer uh that we have that we can now get to all of the uh the events that they want to get to. Uh $8,800 the IH boosters for two donations for the athletic and the art director discretionary purchases. Uh both the amounts of $7,962.50. It is with the help
112of the those great organizations and the people who donate to them that help us uh be able to supplement the great education and the great uh experience that our kids get here. So with that I would like to if there are any questions or concerns if not I would like to entertain a motion to accept uh treasures report item A through F. I'll make a motion to approve treasures report item A through F. Second >> Mr. Mr. Sro, >> yes. >> Mr. Tullus, >> yes. >> Mrs. Singh, >> yes. >> Thank you. >> Uh, next up, board members, under uh item nine is our Neola policy updates. Again, this is a first reading for our fall policy updates. Um, we don't need to do an approval tonight, just to notify you. If you have any
113questions or concerns about any of these policy uh or guideline language, please let me know. So, just for the board's um just just to give you an idea, there may be a change to uh let's see, I'm looking for the item. It's the credit card policy. Um there is an part of that policy is a recommendation by the auditor's office. Um there has been some discussion about whether um different districts are going to use that recommendation and I would like to look at that further and that may have additional language. Was that >> Z? Oh, thank you. Item Z. Um, there may be some additional language or resolution that the board to consider moving forward on that. I'll give you more information before next meeting. >> Thank you. >> That will be good. Uh, with
114that, do we have any other businesses by the board or administration? >> Yeah. Can we just ask young man? What's your name? >> Grayson. That's what I thought. Can we just recognize him for the time and effort he's put in tonight to do his community service? >> Oh my god. >> Excellent. >> Oh boy, you're going to sleep well tonight. So am I. Thank you for being here this entire time. And thank you, Mom. >> Has this been the most fun thing you've done all week? I'm just guessing. >> I'll take that. >> Sure. >> We don't need a qualifier. Let's take that as a yes. >> So, >> do you have any questions for anybody while we're here? >> All right. So, at this time, I would like to adjourn the meeting. Can I
115get a motion? >> I will make a motion to adjourn and go. >> All in favor? >> I All right. Good night, everybody. Thank you for being here. >> Thank you everyone. Exclusive coverage on the Indian Hill Television Network has been a copyrighted presentation of the Indian Hill High School video department.