001[Music] foreign [Music] so [Music] hey [Music] uh [Music] hmm [Music] um [Music] foreign [Music] uh um [Music] um my [Music] foreign [Music] and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you very much mr zeeman would you uh be willing to administer the oath to mrs katzenberger myself betsy shaughnessy do hereby solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of ohio and that i will perform faithfully to the best of my ability the duties of member of the board of education of the city school district of the city of lakewood county and state at percent congratulations thank you very much [Applause] raise your right hand i nora katzenberger you hereby solemnly swear that i
002will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of ohio and that i will perform faithfully to the best of my ability the duties of member of the board of education of the city school district of the city of lakewood county and state before said congratulations thank you thank you very much and welcome may we have a roll call of board members please present here miss peter barcelona here miss katzenberg here great okay um i'll now call for nomination and election of the president i would nominate mrs shaughnessy president of the liquid board of education for 2022. thank you i second that motion and is there are no other nominations i move that we close nominations thank you this feels very strange to be the one calling for this uh
003mr zeeman would you conduct a roll call ms shaughnessy aye mr callahan aye ms beevey aye ms pete barcelona aye ms kasper aye i betsy burton shaughnessy do hereby sound like swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of ohio and i will perform faithfully to the best of my ability the duties of president of the board of education of the city school district of the city of lakewood county and state aid for sid congratulations thank you [Applause] thank you um i would now like to call for the nominal nomination and election of vice president i nominate mr callahan as vice president of the board i second that nomination and with no further nominations uh request to close thank you uh would you conduct a roll
004call please mr seaman mrs shaughnessy aye mr callahan aye ms b aye ms peter arcelona aye ms kastenberg michael j callahan do hereby solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of ohio and that i will perform faithfully to the best of my ability the duties of vice president of the board of education of the city school district of the city of lakewood county and state after said congratulations thank you sir [Applause] now i'm pleased to appoint our report chairpersons and co-chairpersons finance chairperson will be mrs petrie barcelona with ms katzenberger as co-chair building sites and major purchases mrs ms bibi chairperson and mr callahan co-chair education ms katzenberger will be the chairperson and mrs bibi will be the co-chairperson human resources and community services
005mr callahan will be chairperson as petrie barcelona will be co-chairs and policy is the president shares that and mr callahan will be the coaches i believe that takes care of that um next item is fixing the time and place of regular meetings we have that in front of us and i would move adoption of that resolution second it's been moved and seconded all in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed and the motion carries oh should we have a roll call for that i was getting there mr shaughnessy aye mr carahan aye ms beebe aye ms peter arcelona aye ms katzenberger aye and that was highlighted in yellow for roll call so it's purely my fault okay i would now call for nomination and election of the osba legislative liaison representative i nominate mr callahan
006thank you second it's been moved and seconded that uh mr callahan be appointed and this requires a roll call mr shaughnessy aye mr callahan aye ms bibi aye ms p barcelona aye ms katzenberger hi i will now call for nominations of the osba student achievement liaison representative president shaughnessy i nominate miss bibi i second it's been moved and seconded uh that miss bibi be named to this position maybe we have a roll call please ms shaughnessy aye mr carlahan aye ms beebe aye ms peter barcelona aye ms katzenberger aye thank you thank you the next resolution provides for the expeditious transaction of the business of the board of education of the lakewood city school district during this contains a number of items which i will say in the past we treated each as its own
007resolution and it ground on for quite a long time deals with bonds all the groups that support district activities co-curricular clubs at all the schools i would move that we adopt this resolution second mr zeeman ms shaughnessy aye mr callahan aye ms beebe aye ms peter barcelona aye ms casenberger aye thank you um we now come to um what is normally the comments of the outgoing and then the incoming president since it would be one in the same i will reassure you that there will not be two speeches under separate titles there'll be some hopefully not too long comments and i would like to start by expressing my gratitude to the citizens of lakewood for allowing me to continue as a member of this board of education and to my fellow board members for trusting
008me to continue as president of the board this year i'm so privileged to be working with the board committed to the children of lakewood into the community that we love each member of the board brings unique perspective knowledge and skill and it is a pleasure to work with mrs bibi mrs petrie barcelona and mr callahan times have been challenging but they have never given less than 100 in support of our school family and i'm also very happy to welcome mrs katzenberger to the board and i look forward to working with her towards our bright future i think it's fair to say that we had all hoped and anticipated that this january would have marked a return to normal and respite from the strain and disruption of covet while this has not proven to be the
009case we have learned from our experience over the previous year and it enables us to be more agile and proactive in meeting the needs and expectations of our students we have tools to mitigate the threat that we did not have a year ago and are in some ways learning to adapt to the presence of covid in our lives and to the rapidly changing information as to the nature of this virus make no mistake many of our students and many in the community continue to struggle with the emotional toll that this pandemic has imposed isolation anxiety loss and anger our effort to enable our students to cope and to reduce the burden they carry is paramount if they're going to thrive we as adults must display the same resilience persistence and imagination that we expect of
010our children as we work together to meet their needs i do believe that one message has come too loud and clear and cannot be ignored or postponed and that message is that each and every day we have the opportunity to make a child's life better safer happier filled with promise both for the moment and for the future we don't have a day to waste we have an obligation to act to meet the needs of our students as fully as possible despite the impediments we face we must excel despite the reality of the moment we cannot wait for the environment to change we were able to move forward in a number of areas during the past year and many of the goals for the coming year were initiated in 2021 and include plans to provide a
011safe and secure environment for our students and staff which includes addressing both emotional and physical needs expand communication with students parents staff in the greater community including the opportunity for respectful exchange of views reduce the continued impact of learning loss act to make changes supporting diversity equity and inclusion develop and implement a district-wide strategic plan encompassing all board of education responsibilities including community recreation and education and strengthening cooperation in areas of common interest with the city we can be certain that new challenges expectations and opportunities will arise and i'm equally certain that with the leadership we have in this district the teachers students and community to support us that we will meet each and every one of them i want to end by extending my deepest thanks to the teachers the principals secretaries food service
012and maintenance staff who keep our buildings runnings and our students learning thanks to central office and district wide staff for all they do to sustain and support thank you to superintendent nudes wiki and treasurer zieman their devotion to this district is in evidence every single day our imperative in the coming year is not just to make up for the learning loss of the past but to enable our students to excel and thrive and thank you for the privilege of being a participant in this wonderful endeavor thank you very much [Applause] and i believe that we can now have a motion to adjourn this particular meeting and then wait for starters so moved moved in seconded that we adjourned the organizational meeting thank you very much okay here we go [Music] um [Music] me [Music] so
013[Music] uh [Music] hmm [Music] hmm [Music] foreign [Music] ah [Music] foreign [Music] wow [Music] um [Music] hmm [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] hmm [Music] um [Music] me [Music] oh [Music] hey [Music] um um [Music] hmm [Music] hmm [Music] foreign [Music] uh [Music] can't do we start over with this meeting we start over like call to order but do we need to we don't need to do the pledge since we're located okay okay hello all welcome to anyone new who was not here at the organizational meeting i'm calling the regular meeting of the board of education for january 3rd to order and our first item of business since we uh would be do we need to roll call mr zeeman mrs shaughnessy president mr mr callahan here miss bibi yeah miss peter arcelona here miss castenberger
014here thank you thank you very much we said the pledge at our first meeting a half hour ago so we'll move on to an adoption of the agenda and this reflection of the agenda second the adoption of the agenda has been moved and seconded this requires the roll call please miss sonnethe aye mr callahan aye ms beebe aye ms pete barcelona aye ms katzenberger aye the next item in business is approval of the minutes of the regular board meeting held november 15th and approval of the minutes of the regular board meeting held december 6. we've had an opportunity to review these minutes are there any additions or corrections is there a motion to approve approval sorry i'll do second it's hard with mass to know thank you signify by saying opposed and the minutes are
015approved and we now come to superintendent ed zwicky's report good evening president shaughnessy vice president callihan distinguished board members mr zeeman it is my pleasure to welcome dr robin bevers pettigrew for a airfield middle school update okay good evening superintendents wiki state board members mr zeman this evening's presentation is going to highlight a program here at garfield that utilizes all of our competencies so the six competencies uh we were introduced to and we were told pretty adamantly that this is not just one more thing this is the thing so then we say well where is the thing and the things that we do very regularly here at garfield so i want to highlight that one of the most important pieces of the competencies is what was added this year which was the fresh lens we're
016looking through with diversity equity and inclusion and social emotional learning so one of our programs that we are so grateful we were able to re-establish upon our return is called our garfield ambassadors our garfield ambassadors are students who are hand selected by teachers our counselor and our administrative staff who on a regular basis are highlighting the positive things at garfield they are hard working they are dedicated and then we connect them with our new students who have transferred into the district or who are transferring from a different building having the opportunity for a new student to pair up with another student the hope with this is that they are able to get a better idea of what garfield is all about and then they are also to become more acclimated to the school building and
017then hopefully branch out and help others in the future so what i plan to do tonight is to have two of our ambassadors tell you about their experiences in their stories you'll hear highlights about collaboration and communication how this help works for their global awareness and growth mindset and is going to talk to you about what it means to express empathy to others so i'm going to introduce each student to come up one at a time tell you about their experience and then we'll do a little recap at the end so first i'll introduce one of our seventh graders miss evelyn gilchrist who is very nervous about coming up here today but i also let her know that she's fantastic she's been so hard working and dedicated and when we thought about the students that
018we wanted to present to the board and to the community she's one of the first names to come to come to mind so i'm going to pull up a step stool so she can reach the podium and then she's going to read to you what she has described as her experience as a garfield ambassador so ms evelyn gilchrist please come on up [Applause] hi my name is evelyn gilchrist i'm in seventh grade at garfield middle school i became a student ambassador this year i was nominated for this role by my teachers because i am a hard worker i show around new students who are new to lakewood or transferring schools i also help with open house my favorite thing about being a student ambassador is showing the new students around garfield being a student ambassador
019is important because students need help finding their way around and need new friends new students learn they have someone in garfield they can trust i show them i am kind and happy person and if they need if they have questions they can always count on me i always ask them how their day is going i get to ask the new students questions and get to know more about their experiences i still check in with the new student i was assigned and we are really good friends now being a new being a student ambassador helps me to know students are okay me and abdallah were together with a student so as ambassadors we collaborated to help new students adjust to their classes sharing classes or emailing other ambassadors helps us talk to each other about helping
020new students garfield is has super nice people here and you really get to know everyone because we are so open to each other [Applause] thank you evelyn and then i will have abdullah hannah come on up and tell us about his experience my name is abdullah hannah and i'm a 7th grade student here at garfield middle school this is my first year as a student ambassador as a garfield ambassador i meet new students at the start of the day and i show them around i help them with their locker stay with them in class or check in with them after class i explain their schedule and understand and help them understand when they have a split up double period most of the students i've connected with were in my lunch group so i was able
021to introduce them to my friends i have been an ambassador for three students this year and i still check in with them my favorite thing about being an ambassador is introducing the new student to the school and introducing them to my friends i just i decided to become an ambassador because it would be a good thing to do and i could start building a record of service to others it is important to be an ambassador because it will be easier for students to warm up to the school if a student is showing them around instead of a teacher i hope the students i work with will learn from me and reach out to other students and help them if needed i show empathy by talking to new students and asking them about where they're from
022i collaborated with evelyn once because she also wanted to help with a new student we switched throughout the day showing him classes being a student ambassador helps with my growth mindset because it's not all about me other people are counting on me to keep going and help support others being a student ambassador helps me communicate because i get to talk with people i may not have talked to before being a student ambassador adds adds to my global awareness because people are different and it shows you the different personalities and experiences people can have i really like my teachers here at garfield and i look and i like to show others how new students can enjoy garfield too [Applause] so from their story some of the highlights is the collaboration and communication that the students are
023able to uphold through this program they're collaborating with each other emailing each other to make sure they're keeping in touch with the new students and it's really awesome to see and evelyn mentioned in her story that one of the students that she served as an ambassador for is one of her good friends now although our star student couldn't be here tonight we'll highlight him in another meeting but he was one of those students who touched base with an ambassador when he came to garfield and now he is shining so bright he's a rock star so we know that this program is effective and we see these students make progress because they come in they have a friend immediately we provide them with spirit wear and then we make sure that they feel comfortable in the
024garfield family through a growth mindset students are stepping outside of their comfort zone we ask these students if they would be interested to be ambassadors and they are really excited to do it but they're also nervous because these are students that they've never met before but they get to have conversations and new experiences and learn about people who are coming from all over the united states and all over the world through empathy their understanding these students need to be connected with someone their age they need to understand what the garfield experience is like right out the gate so they can be comfortable they get some global awareness because they're able to be paired up with people to have different experiences and then there's the creative and critical thinking because they're making connections with people constantly
025talking about academic content where are your classes these are the teachers who can help you best in these areas and it's coming from the student perspective which is really powerful and it enhances the student experience because it's not just what the teacher said it's not just what the principal said or the counselor said when you met with them it's about what the other students believe about garfield and i'm really excited that we have students who are so dedicated to this program we want to make sure it happens every year and we want to make sure that our students who were once new become our future ambassadors so i hope this highlights for you all some of what we do here to make sure that the vision of the lakewood graduate stays alive and focused in
026everything that we do that concludes my presentation and i want to give some special thanks so of course our students who are so nervous about this we came up here and and spoke out loud and they're at a board meeting and you're doing something that none of your peers are doing so you're pretty awesome we're very proud of you to superintendent it's wiki dr palumbo for all of your support throughout this entire year our return and then all of our students and staff in the building who show their support of making sure that we have connections with students for years to come thank you there any questions no i just want to congratulate the presenters it's not easy to talk especially with the mask and you did a very fine job so thank you very
027much any questions no just impressed with the process and with the outcome good job thank you thank you excellent job thank you and i just want to thank dr pettigrew also and i want to recognize mr smith here as well i know he's a part of the leadership team um we met smith my our son liam uh just speaks very highly of you and appreciates your leadership here so uh don't want your work to uh to go unnoticed this evening so and also evelyn abdullah great job wonderful job excellent well next i'd like to invite mr mark walters principal of lakewood high school and mrs bridget versus burger associate principal and they're going to share some information around the 2022-2023 course guide thank you mrs netswiki president shaughnessy vice president callahan mrs bibi mr barcelona
028mrs katzenberger thank you for giving this opportunity to talk a little bit about the 2022-23 course guide which is on your agenda for first reading tonight so we we have some new additions and some changes to the format that i'd like to share with you well wrong way there we go so a little bit of history about the course guide when i first arrived to high school four years ago i noticed a lot of course guides in the recycle bin and then the following year when i got the bill for the course guide i realized it was costing us over six thousand dollars to produce the the course guide that was printing costs and also the formatting and and getting it uh ready for for the for the printing and uh it disturbed me greatly
029so we ended up actually reducing the number of of course guides and we just gave them out to the freshmen and any new students but that still was well over five thousand dollars just because the cost of setup of printing so this year we've gone to a new format and all it cost was about thirteen hundred dollars for new cameras for our ap photography student students and um mrs hersenberger's favorite word is upcycled so we purchased them to help with the course guide development but they're going to be used for years to come in our ap photography class so we have a new format and i'm going to turn it over to mrs firstenberger because she really did all the heavy lifting uh to make this happen thank you so um like mr walter said
030previously the course guide had been a a book i've got them in my office that date back to the 15 16 school year just for reference but every year you would find in the counseling office when scheduling was over bins of of these catalogs so this year um we moved to an online format and um one of the things that i'm super excited about with this is that we can make changes in real time so as we're aware over the last couple of years with the pandemic the ohio department of education has changed graduation requirements in the current school year for seniors who are graduating in may so now rather than having an outdated course guide i can go on to the website when those changes are made and update the graduation requirements so that
031if i'm an incoming you know a potential incoming ninth grade parent i can look at a product for lakewood high school that is completely accurate additionally because we can do that in real time if we have staffing changes we can make those updates right away the website is user friendly not only on a laptop computer but there are different mobile versions if you will so if i'm on a tablet or a phone i can access all of the information just if i just as if i were sitting on my school issued chromebook another thing that's really important as we look at our vision of a graduate and the um the empathy term we know that not everybody learns best looking at a computer i'm one of those people where if if i have to read
032something that's long and absorb a lot of information i would much rather have a print version so that i can go back for reference maybe physically highlight important things and this website has a printable version of the website you won't have the same experience with the pictures but you'll have all of the major core content in a printable version the other thing that's really exciting especially as we continue to work on our vision of a graduate work is that we can make photo updates to the website every year that showcases current students and the work that they are doing with the vision of a graduate so for the 2223 course guide we have reorganized it a little bit so you will see the addition of the vision of a graduate um platform with the student
033pictures of them actively engaged in their work in the previous course guide it it had seemed like as new initiatives came up they were just put into the course guide because we had to get them in there but this year we organized them into a format that hopefully makes a little bit more sense so for example um rather than every like college credit plus ap and credit flex all being in three separate places they're under the academic options um tab on the website for easy reference the other thing that we added was an awards section so for our students who achieve honor roll each quarter um the different national honor societies that we have celebration of excellence diploma with honors and then uh one brand new thing that you will see is the latin honor
034system so beginning with the class of 2022 we did not rank students but we still want to be able to recognize our students who um are performing very well academically at commencement and so you in the website you will see the different gpa criterias and then how they will be recognized at commencement with special ropes to go along with the metals and other things that they can achieve some one of the most exciting parts are the new courses that we plan to offer um strength and conditioning being won so that our athletes and students have the opportunity to get some physical activity during the day we've added four new ccp courses so college comp one and two and then college algebra and trigonometry all through tri-c and if i'm a student and i opt to
035enroll in all four of those classes i will leave lakewood high school with 13 credit hours through the ccp program like mr walter mentioned previously we have the addition of ap photography another thing that is so so exciting is lakewood high school is one of about 50 high schools in the entire country that was chosen to pilot ap african american studies so we're still waiting for more guidance from college board on what that's going to look like but we're very excited especially piggybacking off of the vision of a graduate work and the dei this fits right in with our focus another offering that we will have is african-american literature and then environmental chemistry which will replace our current material science chemistry so one may ask yes i'm speaking about this at the board meeting but
036how is everybody going to know when i don't get my annual course catalog what lakewood high school has to offer another way that we are going to work with our students with the vision of a graduate is our broadcast journalism class is going to put together a feature story so that we can present to students a professional video that shows the new format and what scheduling will look like for students that will also be shared not only in student homerooms but with our families as well and then we are set to begin scheduling on january 24th any questions so one thing i'm wondering is and i i know you already touched on the fact that we now do operate in a state where sometimes they change a rule in the middle of the same year
037but i do recognize that sometimes the presence of the standards or rules that existed when you were a freshman are what sort of keep you going through the years as far as some of those targets go so i get that this one will be live but is there still going to be a like a permanent record of what the standards and expectations are for each graduating class that doesn't necessarily change okay yeah yeah so what did i have a google doc of all of the um different graduation requirements because when the class of 2026 comes into the high school next year we will be operating under three different sets of graduation requirements so within the website each class will have its own tab with its own graduation requirements and then if there is a change
038that's made we can highlight it in yellow so that it is a clear change and so people can see that but then at any point at any time a parent can contact their student's school counselor and get a hard copy of what their student has achieved versus what the graduation requirements are if that makes sense yeah i get i get the changing targets is is is difficult overall so any other questions looks great yeah i do want to share this is so coming back off of break a new year um and i'm gonna have the boring covet update to give but both garfield sharing the experience that kids you know have ownership of their own building and the learning and the culture they want and then to have our high school here today those brand
039new course offerings were not easy to come by and they're doing it during a time where they are not just doing their regular jobs they are managing a coveted management system in a building so i applaud all of you it's amazing and our kids are going to benefit greatly from all of those experiences they're going to be able to have thank you no one just become a good question first of all it is it's impressive the lakewood course offerings have ever since my first contact with lakewood back as a college student have impressed me with how many choices our students have and how hard staff and teachers work to provide those choices because it'd be much easier to just do i guess a curriculum like we had you know but how difficult is scheduling these
040days i know you get students who want to take everything and who give up lunch for choir etc and then students in careertech and regular curriculum how any any comment on how maybe the digital world has made it easier or is it still as difficult as it always was or so i can touch on part of it and then maybe mr walter can touch on the other part one may think that with the master schedule that we have at the high school that having the students move to an online system it sounds pretty like we're coming into the 21st century however when we initially start the scheduling process and students are picking their initial courses that they want to take they sit down with our school counselors so every student who's registering for next school
041year gets a one one-on-one time with their school counselor and it's at that point that the counselor just types it in so we've looked um at the current student information system that we have and the amount of time that it would take to clean up on the back end the things like prerequisites it's not our time is better spent meeting with the students one-on-one and having them select their courses that way so in terms of the course selection process we have found it to be better to kind of stay with the process that we've been using in terms of creating the master schedule i'll let mr walter touch base on that miss me you have you hit the nail on the head the students want to take everything and unfortunately that's that's great thing because
042we're we're thrilled that they're involved in the arts and and and the higher level academics and the career tech programs um so the big challenges is creating a schedule that we can accommodate the most students so they they don't get blocked out of classes that they want to take and the reality is sometimes they do have to make a choice um because we don't have the the the numbers to support multiple sections of certain classes so that they do have to make a choice now we have partnered with a program that's designed to help us to reduce the number of conflicts a student have uh when they do schedule so the first step is getting the the course guide in their hands having them select their classes with their families and then then working through
043with the with the the counselors and then once we have those numbers we can plug them into a system that's uh supposed to be eighty percent fill rate on the first time and if that happens i'm gonna you'll see me dancing in the streets so yeah it's a it's complex and because of the electives that lakewood high school has to offer it makes it even more complicated and our goal is to to get the the kids scheduled in the classes that they need but also they want to take actually that many students all with individual programs music pretty awesome thank you i have actually two questions don't go away um first of all with the latin honors program that means you'll be offering laude magna laude does that completely replace the concept of uh like
044valedictorians and salutatorians and such or do those yes um several years ago the board made the decision to get away from class ranking but as mrs fersenberger said we still want to acknowledge those students that achieve the unbelievable grade point averages that they that they uh they work so hard for right which is i mean having those uh latin honors is a great way to recognize a lot of students i think that's wonderful um the second point having a new ninth grader at the high school i know that the middle school counselors were key and sort of helping the eighth graders make that transition and learning the uh getting used to the course guide so will you know this video be shared with them and and will that be incorporated um into their transition process
045at the roughly the same time as the high school students absolutely in fact we don't quote me on the date we just scheduled our 8th grade parent scheduling night so we can go through all of those nuances and and go through the graduation requirements and talk talk with the parents through the scheduling process to help support their specifically you know the eighth graders who are new to high school scheduling great we'll talk about it january 20th january 20th at 6 p.m at the civic thank you just okay thank you thank you so i had two final updates first january is board appreciation month and so each of you should have received a certificate of appreciation in a year that we chose as a year of appreciation for the lakewood city schools we could not be
046more happy to have all of you sitting here helping us lead this charge of student learning and ensuring that our safety and guidelines are there for everyone so we appreciate you thank you so much for all you do there have been i know more than ever emails and texts over the last couple of years because of covet and in meetings that were not necessarily scheduled that you had to come in for um or zoom with to ensure that we continue to move forward but appreciate all that you do and know that i know um and i know mr zeeman also knows it's not an easy task this job you all make looks so easy it's not so thank you very much we appreciate you thank you thank you and finally i just wanted to give
047an update uh about some of the covet 19 protocols that are happening and i know that we were just talking about how the the state changes graduation requirements every other year or every year and i feel that the cdc and the odh and and everyone else changes their policies and procedures um sooner than that and so you know there are things that we know and i'm grateful for that we do know something so coming into today and saying that we were going to fully mask and get back to school it was okay you know the decision was hard to make but i knew that we had enough mitigating factors in place that we would be fine and we can respect families that chose to possibly keep their students home these few days or for the
048week because they have other situations but the majority of our students came in we have over 4 500 students that that are enrolled in our district and we have to think of every one of them and so we had to be respectful of each other's decisions and so some of the data that we look at is our zip code data and just um prior to christmas and the holiday break we had 74.31 of lakewood community is vaccinated uh and so we continue to say to our community if they can please vaccinate we know from the research that is being shown to us and shared with us that uh students and adults that are vaccinated do not get as sick as others the other thing is that you know i look at weekly case western reserve
049university and the cuyahoga department of health look at daily case numbers and and they each week we're putting out little antidotes of what they felt like when the peak would happen and then when we could possibly see a reprieve and and so on 12 21 in cuyahoga they were saying daily cases numbers are expected to continue to add a sharp rise and they did uh we even saw that you'll see with our own numbers but then the you know the peak would occur the first week in january so i'm hopeful i'm hopeful that in the next few weeks we see some decline beginning to occur the next bullet is coveted by the numbers and this is on our own website these are our own district numbers and so these are students and staff combined and
050so i i do it based off of when we started school so it usually goes from like august 17th to september 22nd or something and it follows that same pattern uh month by month and so we had 42 cases between august and september september october 44 october november 45 felt really strong that we were able to while masking maintain our numbers the majority of the cases that were occurring were happening outside of school when masking wasn't occurring we weren't seeing an overabundance of cases or quarantines happening within the school building november to december obviously we started to have holiday time and people travel it was like everywhere else that it occurred that our cases went from 45 uh in no from october to november or november december case for 150 so for a total of
051when i prior to the holidays uh completed this we had a total number of 281 be it students or staff that tested covet positive that they shared with us and then preliminary data i was just looking at uh today between december 25th and yes on december 25th we had somebody inputting into our dashboard we had hired mrs brown to help us over the last two weeks so we could really ensure that our students that were participating in extracurriculars still had the same guidance that we were giving to our students during the school year and so at that time between 12 25 and 1 3 we had a we have a hundred and twelve and this was just students that are coveted positive at this time another thing we do know is that cdc and odh
052are urging schools to stay open and and then now they've also revised our isolation and quarantine protocols they are minimizing the amount of time we potentially need to be out if someone isn't experiencing symptoms anymore and have tested negative and so therefore right now we are working on revising our policy and protocols and we should have that out by the middle of the week just sharing some of the common ask questions over the last couple of weeks is when will our mass mandate end and oh my goodness i wish i had an answer for that and i would like to say today but it's not today and so we will re-look at because of the surge in covet 19 positive cases throughout our district alone and just our community we will re-look at this or
053reassess this february first uh where so that means that's a push out from my initial you know let's look at it around martin luther king weekend uh so we're going to wait a couple more weeks after that and then we'll reassess at that time when would you choose to close the district or go remote again you know i know that when i looked at area data i had about 48 different school districts in northeast ohio and only six of them went remote this week or even for the next two weeks we were urged greatly to keep kids in school and keep them in safely and so as long as we can continue to do that and our staff in substitute shortage doesn't get the best of us our student absentee ism does rate doesn't get
054the best of us we will continue to stay in school one thing i would hope not to have to do is to take the whole district remotely i'd like to look at it as a building to building situation or a case is the district cova dashboard correct i shared a little bit just earlier yes we hired somebody over the break to ensure that those numbers were correct but we also have to remember the dashboard is only as good as the people that tell us they have covet and so we hope that we continue to get our parents and our staff to fill out the form when they feel as if they or they know that they are positive or they've been in close contact with somebody else that helps us to continue to gauge our
055situation within our buildings and finally why won't you go remote for just at least a couple of weeks again i shared that you know we are doing exactly what the cdc odh and the governor and what governor dewine has asked us to do put a layered approach in we've purposely done that our new layered approach also is at the elementary level our students unfortunately will wear masks well at recess and at the middle school level when they're outside for recess another mitigating factor we put in place we've asked our teachers and our principals to not do small group work bringing kids to a carpet that now we're not three feet when we could be if we were sitting at our desk so we just asked our teachers to just hold off on any of that
056small group work or collaboration work that occurs when you pair up other individuals just for a couple weeks any you know you've questions us well informed through emails and that sort of thing so anyway yeah i mean i i i well i hope this wouldn't be the case were you two need to decide that say a building something needed to happen should uh the community or parents just expect to hear things via the like the sort of snow day type messaging or something like that or how would that work correct okay we are trying to so even during uh the last holiday break as a cabinet we were trying to continue to gauge the number of staff members that we would have on a quarantine or isolation coming into today or tomorrow we did look
057back at our management system our absent management system and we had approximately 106 teachers whose absences were uncovered between december 1st and december 16th and this is not just a lakewood city schools problem this is occurring all over the state in the united states so on average we had just under nine teachers uncovered per day during that period that's why when you're hearing of this exhaustion that's occurring between teachers and administrators it's because they're covering other classes or doing other duties that are not usually assigned to them and you still have your other job to take care of so today we did have 13 apps and teachers that were uncovered those do not go uncovered all day we do it you know we piecemeal it together so for example we'll ask teachers or principals who
058has time to cover you know a teacher's classroom from this period to this period and and i'll tell you our staff is outstanding they're they're doing just an amazing job trying to keep our students in school learning uh and so it's it's been um it's wonderful to see but again you know i really give a lot of credit to our building administrators and our building teachers for keeping you know the learning occurring any other questions that's it this that concludes the superintendent's report thank you very much okay we now move on to discussion of the agenda items uh we will vote on these at the second regular monthly meeting and the first uh is finance report miss petri barcelona thank you i haven't done finance in a while so might be a little rusty in
059this area but we'll uh we'll get through it i should have paid more attention to you mr callahan last time to make sure i got it down pat like you had it so first up um for the finance report we have the overall finances and the investments purchased and matured on the information we have is available through november 2021 so we have those investments as well as um that matured excuse me as well as the outstanding investments the investment earnings for regular board funds for the month of november totaled uh just over three thousand dollars bringing our fiscal year to date to just over 17 000 and then for financial information for again the month of november 2021 our general fund receipts totaled uh 1 million four hundred forty four thousand dollars and our general
060fund expenditures totaled five million eight hundred twenty thousand dollars uh we do have the fiscal year 2022 summary 2 which just notes some of the updated information with regard to the five-year forecast and various changes and so what we have our year-to-date actual projected revenues are trending with the five year forecast um let me see here any variances are timing related and should resolve themselves in future months uh that is of course important given that i noted what our receipts were relative to our expenditures our year-to-date actual and projected expenditures are trending within the five-year forecast um and again oh and excuse me with regard to expenditures and the variances will resolve themselves in future months so some bigger things going on within these we have the inclusion of the esser 1 2 and 3
061funds and the financial impact to both short-term and long-term strategies and initiatives for both things like personnel and non-personnel costs in a district big picture personnel costs overwhelmingly are the largest expenses for a school district so it's important for us to understand the difference between the two numerous changes were made to state funding revenue calculations and related tuition and student wellness expenditures recently in the excuse me in the recently passed biennial budget and they're impacting the year-over-year comparisons the ohio department of education is still working through the numerous changes associated with the fair school funding plan which is estimated to be released by ode sometime this month cash reserves are sufficient through fiscal year 2024 the financial summary report is provided to show both our monthly and fiscal year-to-date cash positions for non-general funds maintained
062by the district appropriation modifications will ensure that we are in compliance with state auditor's office and the county fiscal office all accounts have sufficient funds available to cover the increase in the appropriations and the amendment increases allows the district to legally encumber and pay funds up to the amounts appropriated so those are the two items on the report i did also want to note that last year actually we solicited applicants for the financial advisory committee which we'll need to meet again soonish um we're down to members and so my understanding is that uh mrs shaughnessy you have received some applications for this yes okay wonderful so so uh the board will be reviewing those and we should have more information soon with regard to the committee anything else on investments and financial information sweet thank
063you very much thank you we now move to discussion of building sites and major purchases items mrs bibi okay the we have a resolution to approve the replacement of the athletic turf at garfield middle school which doesn't seem quite possible yet because it seems like just yesterday just knew anyway as a result of the competitive bid process field turf met all the requirements and specifications to provide the materials labor and installation of the synthetic synthetic serve for the middle school stadium out here and the amount is four hundred and forty three thousand eight and eighteen dollars and twenty seven cents this is a preliminary field turf project uh estimate plus a deduct for reusing the cryogenic rubber infill it was determined to be suitable by phil turk i want this mr zeeman one of these
064days i want a definition of cryogenic rubber info please okay just just in case i need to know we solicited quotes we had a list of of approved vendors and as i said field turf turned out to be the not only the best but the only uh company willing to take on the job they all provided they were provided with bid specifications and the estimated project cost is 452 thousand dollars and starting no later than june 13 2022 and that would conclude my report thank you very much and mrs katzenberger we now move on to the education report to present those items okay um sorry uh we're we have several items on the education report the first being waiving of tuition for non-resident seniors a lakewood high school senior requested he will be allowed to
065complete his senior year on a non-tuition basis following his family's move to fairview park a resolution to designate the month of february 2022 as national teen dating violence awareness and prevention month lakewood city schools joins the ohio office of criminal justice services and other local and national agencies and organizations and designated this month as national teen dating violence awareness and prevention month and if you look into the statistics on this the numbers are higher than you might imagine and even start in middle school so it's a very important focus for us to have resolution to approve student clubs the garfield green team will be open to all garfield students and the purpose of the club is to raise awareness and increase green practices in our school and community activities for the year include garden box
066building adding information to school announcements collaborating with the lakewood garden center in lakewood high school and fundraising for an eco-tourism trip so it sounds great and also the uh miles maker and also the miles makers club will be open to all students in the mile students in the miles unit at lakewood high school the club helps prepares miles students for independent living and work in the 21st century students will learn to design and create a variety of products using high-tech devices such as 3d printers laser engravers material cutters and more and students will produce items to sell for fundraisers we also have a resolution to approve the lakewood high school course guide which we heard about earlier [Music] it will be as we know as we saw it will be available online and offers uh
067course planning that help helps students and families chart uh graduation requirements and last but not certainly not least we had a couple of gifts to lakewood high schools to lake there to lakewood schools lakewood high school west shore career tech daniel collister donated two thousand dollars to a scholarship established in memory of max max was close and alejandra mercado to be awarded to graduations graduating seniors of the class of 2021 who are planning to pursue an engineering degree samantha stewart donated three thousand dollars to be used as a college scholarship for an orchestra student and at harding middle school gwendolyn suckers donated a ludwig percussion kit for use by the harding middle school band program and that concludes the education report thank you very much we have no policies to consider and so we move
068on to human resources and community services mr callahan thank you president chaucey we have four items the first is regarding certified staff there are a total of 31 actions one unpaid leave of absence two appointments 27 special compensation items and one other personnel action secondly a certified non-employee coach or advisors we have one appointment there third with regard to classified staff we have six actions five appointments one special compensation and then regarding classified non-employment coaches and advisors we have eight appointments thank you very much we now move on to other board business i believe the first item is for both items are yours mr callahan thank you again we have two items that we are being asked to approve on one reading this evening they are both resignations one is a classified the other community
069recreation and education requiring a roll call vote mr zeeman may we combine these great so i would move approval of the two resignations second it's been moved in seconded and requires the roll call vote mr zeeman ms shaughnessy aye mr carlhand aye ms beebe aye ms peter barcelona aye ms katzenberger aye thank you thank you very much the resolutions cast we now move on to communications portion of our meeting um first of all i will ask any board members i think a number of us received the same emails in some cases but um i know mr callahan was going to respond to a couple sure go down the line and if anyone else perhaps i could summarize them and then there may be some that others would like to speak to that perhaps they received
070that i didn't uh or or anything of course to add um in summary though parents have emailed us with concerns about the returned in-person learning as uh the superintendent addressed some of those questions obviously earlier a few requested a delay in our return to the classroom again that one was addressed others requesting a remote option some of those concerns stem from very specific situations involving for example a vulnerable young child at home not eligible for vaccine and in those types of of circumstances it's my hope and perhaps we have that we can uh address some of those uh with accommodations or some of those unique situations um some parents have questioned our protocols and and best practices um superintendent edwiki responded to one that i brought her into on an email clarifying uh that one
071person's suggestions were indeed our practices and she touched on it earlier with regard to close or avoiding close group work and floor work um that type of thing were possible uh you know parents as uh the president's comments earlier talk about you know feeling the strain and of of not only a continuation of the pandemic but but you know the significant increase in cases as we're all managing our households and careers and everything else but so many and believe that with proper protocols in place and um that in-person learning is the best place for their children uh you know that sentiment certainly holds true uh for for my family and and for for many who've uh who've reached out to me i just wanted to reference a message i got on my on my way
072here um you know indicating that glad to see the school district staying open and requiring masks seems like everyone focused on keeping kids in school appreciate all the work of the administration i think that's representative of many uh families so again just wanted to convey there's a range of input i hope that today's attendance figures will reflect uh parents desire to have their kids in school and it's also my hope that future attendance records will will reflect the continued success of protocols that are in place thank you very much i'll start with mrs katzenberger if you received any communications that you'd like to share generally a lot of it is people wanting their kids to go back to school and students wanting to return to school as well but definitely a lot of trepidation about
073how it's going to go so i think you know listening to superintendents wiki go through the process of how decisions are made and the data that is used uh and some of the additional protocols that are being put in place this week to try and you know minimize spread and really really reinforce mass usage will hopefully help not only swage people's fears but keep our numbers low um you know i think that we're all just taking this one step at a time as we get back in and watching the numbers and it's it's it's challenging there's you know a lot of uh discussion and questions about you know protocols what if one family member tests positive when you know our you know the changing quarantine guidelines and such it's just a matter of keeping the
074lines of communication open as as you know superintendent has been doing in the last few days and at this meeting and we'll continue to do and i think that that's what's really important and just if people have questions reach out and you know try and get the answers and make sure that everybody feels comfortable with their mr plans barcelona thank you um indeed i i won't reiterate what we've been hearing because indeed we've we've been listening and reading and things i think just what i'd what i'd like to add as um just a parent and a member of this community and everything is that um [Music] the district but then we we as individual households um you've probably heard the term overall that we we have our own risk bank and though that that bank
075for our own risk is absolutely being pushed the limits right now i mean when omicron numbers are bad the numbers are bad we know um the challenges in our health systems and everything like that so we are all very cognizant of the reality of living yet another week a month day through this pandemic but the the concept of the the risk bank is that my risk tolerance and my households might be and likely is very different than yours um and other people that were around may be very different for for us things like going to work and going to school is the priority so we've cut out a lot of other things in our lives not everything i mean our family still has some activities going on but we've elected to make some changes in
076what we do who we're around what we're around in order to make sure that we can as much as possible not only stay healthy but if we can but also just to prioritize those things that are important i absolutely recognize and mr callahan noted this too there are many households in our schools employees of our district others whose risk tolerance is absolutely different due to very very specific and sometimes very you know scary needs in their own households and i respect and recognize that while we we as a district are remaining open to serve the needs of our community our children and everybody else that there are some households that have to make different decisions right now um and i guess i'll just say that i i'll do my best to work alongside the district
077to assure you that just like we've done for the past 20 months is to be as flexible and accommodating as possible and i can't i'm not speaking on behalf of district meaning everything that is needed will will occur necessarily the concept really is is that whatever your situation is work with the professionals in your building and and see how we can make it work especially if your students can't be in the building right now due to those needs that you have and just know that we'll we'll all just keep working and keep trying and as superintendent is wiki noted if things really change in different ways we will be flexible and the leadership here will make decisions as needed but we're gonna take one day at a time and see what we can do here
078but just just know that from one parent to others or just members of the community i respect the fact that you may need to make different decisions for your family and your kids and that's okay and likewise we'll try to just navigate and work through this as best we can as we have been over the past few months but that being open right now is is of of paramount importance as as much as we can and for as long as we can and perhaps for the rest of the school year as we navigate these um next days and weeks oh and i guess i'll just note too i also recognize that with these sorts of things that likely the anxiety for our kids too along with our adults is is likely there and so i
079guess i'll just note that we'll all do our best to be as as patient as possible with each other because any time our stress is pushed to these sorts of limits in these sustained stresses in the sense that we just don't ever seem to get let ups here is that um that i just hope will give each other just that little bit of patience and pause for when things are elevated or especially challenging that we that that we all really are just doing the best we can and that we'll we'll get through this thank you mrs baby any communications a lot of recognition of the email we've received this and and good points i think uh that that the superintendent did a great job of responding and and i appreciate that um two thoughts one
080a conversation that i had with some long time lakewood residents whose children are out of school but who had children in the school saying that you know what we've shown is the kind of leadership that they expect in lakewood and that i guess we've all risen to the occasion but but that they trust the leadership and the teachers in this district the adults in this district to take care of the children and that they feel they believe that we're doing that job that what we're doing is responsible and good for children and the second thing coming off of that and off of the other discussions here is i really think we need signs in the front yards of our school saying something the equivalent of heroes work here because the flexibility that our staff and
081has shown during this last almost two years now of constant change and stress is to me just astonishing and it's reflected in the way the community believes in us but it's also reflected in the outcome and the fact that we have children in school learning we have exciting programs that the ones like at garfield here and that our children are benefiting from the kind of leadership that you all provide for the school district thank you do you have any additional communications that you would care to address mr zeeman okay thank you very much this would be the time where we would open up for public comments however there are there is no one here who has requested to make a public comment so i will quickly move on to the next item which is we
082have need for an executive session mr callihan will you make the motion sure i move that we move into executive session for consideration of the employment of public employees second it's been moved and seconded this requires a roll call miss shaunicy aye mr caroline hi miss bibi hi miss peter barcelona aye ms katzenberger hi thank you and where will we be moving do we know lrc okay and at the conclusion of this business we will do no further business okay well thank you all for coming tonight thank you miss cold new year's night