001Yep. >> I'd like to call to order the meeting for Monday, October 27th of Lorraine City Schools Board of Education. Call the role, please. >> Mr. Ferguson, >> here. >> Mrs. Washington, >> here. >> Dr. Bal, >> here. >> Mrs. Nazario, >> here. >> Mr. Sturgil, >> here. >> Mr. Scott, Hi, good evening everybody. I'd like to uh invite uh the assistant principal from Garfield, Miss Olivia Acres, to the uh podium and uh she is going to present our students and lead us in the pledge this wonderful evening. >> Hi everyone. So I'm here to share that we have a couple of our wonderful fifth grade students here with us. And so we have Leilani Blendette and Rose Cheney. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands,
002one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. and they're going to share either what they like about school or their sports they play. >> So the first one is Leilani. >> Can you help with the microphone? >> Okay, please. Thanks. Or hand it to him and hand it to him. That's easier. >> What's up, Leilani? >> I like to play soccer. I won the championship back to back. >> Back to back. Nice. I love school because of recess. >> What's your favorite subject? >> Uh, math. >> Nice. >> Who's your favorite principal? >> Can't [laughter] choose. She said I got two. Good answers. >> Um, I participate in art club and safety patrol and my favorite subject is um, language arts and science. >> Nice. What's your favorite kind of art? >> Um,
003kind of cartoony animated type style. >> Nice. >> Cool. >> Thanks for coming and hanging out with us for body. [applause] >> Was it good to have you up front with your family so we get a picture to brag about the fact that we got to know you tonight? >> Let you guys go first. Anybody? >> Yes. for a little while. >> I don't know who that is. This is one way. This is a oneway lane now. [snorts] >> Recognition of visitors. Seeing a hearing. None. First hearing of the public. Public. Anybody gots anything? No. All yours. How does this work? Do I have to sign in? Do I >> Is there a sign? >> Yeah, there should be a sign in sheet right there. Yeah. >> All right, I'll do it like city council.
004So, Brandon Votzki, 319 Georgia Avenue, Lorraine, Ohio. I came in here today to talk about the potential retirement and renewal of Jeff Grant. Um, everybody probably knows that, you know, Jeff and I have some differences. Um, this certainly isn't me coming to attack Jeff or his position. And in a lot of ways, honest to God, I really respect a lot of what you do. I'm just seeing the passion right here with the youth. Like, I think that's genuine, right? >> Um, at the same time, the district is in need of improvement and I think we all understand there's room for for growth. I don't lay that on Mr. Graham um or Dr. Graham. I have always said the majority of the issues that we experience inside the buildings are extensions of problems outside of the
005buildings that people in the district are are unfairly tasked with trying to improve upon and that's a difficult job. >> Um that being said with whatever is going on that has a consideration of retirement and and drawing the the pension, I would ask that the board consider potential opportunities to make this an improvement for the district. And that doesn't inherently mean that Dr. Graham doesn't return to that role. I would say one maybe there could be a consideration for is it time for for something new. It just that's that's not a shot at anybody. It's just in time new ideas, fresh blood. It's it's a well established, you know, path to try to to generate different results. The other thing is that maybe we could do kind of be creative and if you are going
006to be drawing a pension, if you were willing to enter into some sort of negotiations with the board where maybe it could be an opportunity to save money on that position, right? So we hire new, we probably hire in at a reduced rate, but at the same time, maybe if we could do some sort of offset based on the pension that you have, could be an opportunity for you to continue in that role, but maybe help the district save some money, which we know uh the district could use. So that's really, I think, the end of my comment. I hope I signed in well, but if not, you guys know how to get a hold of me. So, >> thank you. >> Okay, anyone? >> I just comment very, very briefly and and Brandon, I
007appreciate your comments and and I have nothing but respect. Um, just real quick side note. Um, a couple years ago, I did volunteer and accept a $30,000 pay cut. So, to your point, recognized it and and I'm trying to accommodate exactly that, but thank you. And I want to add uh for everyone that it's not just that. Um between not having to employ a search firm to find a new superintendent and the fact that Dr. Graham is willing to defer his severance and uh vacation pay, we're talking about six figures in savings just right there. So there has been some give and take about that and we're going to talk more about that in our next meeting. I think is when we've opened to the public for that. But but I just want people to
008understand that that there is a considerable savings to the district going forward. Um I also feel really bad and I'm going to ask you to stand for a minute. Um, since we met last, we've lost a student and I think we need to have a moment of silence. >> Thank you. Um, at this point I would uh entertain a motion to approve or amend the minutes of the October 13th meeting. Uh, reserving the right not to read those minutes. >> Discussion. Roll call, please. >> Mrs. Washington, >> yes. >> Mrs. Mr. Ferguson, >> yes. >> Dr. Ballard, >> yes. >> Mr. Sturgil, >> yes. Any old business? Reports and recommendations of the treasurer. >> I have items 8.01 through 8.03 for approval. >> Discussion. >> Got a motion. >> Roll call, please. >> Dr. B.
009>> Yes. >> Mr. Serge. >> Yes. >> Mr. Ferguson. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Washington. [snorts] >> Yes. >> Mrs. Nazario? >> Yes. Okay, Dr. >> Thank you. And and like to make a couple comments really uh briefly anyway on the upcoming levy. And my comments are not intended to be pu uh persuasive uh just factual. Uh we do have two renewals on the ballot this November. Uh one is from the early 90s, a combination of levy renewal levies, not a new tax, uh from 1991, 1992. Uh the other is a renewal levy from originally passed in 2012. And for those who don't know, a renewal levy uh for schools anyway, uh whatever was originally passed, the school district cannot collect any more money than that. So what we're asking our taxpayers to do based on
010a levy is to um for a levy that is uh the first one which has been collecting the same amount of money since uh 199192. for the last 35 years. The last the other one since 2012, which is for the last 13 years. So, this would not be an increase in taxes. Again, it's just to um continue to pay the taxes that originally passed many, many years ago, decades ago, actually. A couple of things that kind of come into play in terms of what we've done to reduce spending. Uh in the 2023 2024 school year, uh we reduced we we had $4.7 million worth of cuts. In the 24-25 school year, we had another $2.7 million worth of cuts. In addition, over that period of time, we saved about $900,000 in healthcare and we also
011through a teacher severance package uh were able to save millions of dollars moving forward. We saved some money this year. um we save a lot of money moving forward and the the whole premise of that is based on the fact that we encourage teachers who were being paid at the higher end of the salary schedule to move on whether it's through retirement or to move to another district or be employed in another district. Um and we would hire people at a lower rate because they were less experienced. So again our goal is to make sure we provide the same quality of education but we did lose some very very amazing teachers in that process. Uh but again, our goal is to make sure we're being as respectful to our taxpayers as we can be. In
012addition, which is a side note, uh from again the renewal levies, which are not a new tax, um through the federal government this year, um again, this was after our budgets were done. Happened in over the summer. Uh we lost about $900,000 in the federal government. We lost about $4.1 million in the state government. Then we lost another million dollars uh from the county government. So right now we are in a tough spot financially and again we will be rolling out our financial plan moving forward. But a lot of these all three of those things that I mentioned to you are things we did not expect. So again we're planning huddling up working with the board with the administration. We'll work with the community uh to make sure again we're being as respectful to our
013taxpayers as we can be. I'd like the board to consider for approval. Excuse me. I'm sorry. I'm going to interrupt. Mrs. the Would you uh >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> No, you didn't know. >> Oh, yeah. >> Good afternoon everyone. Sorry for the interruption. >> No, not interruption at all. >> With us from Garfield Elementary, Miss Arabella Schaefer and she is a fifth grader at at Garfield. So, what some of your classmates did Elementary. What's your favorite subject? >> And what do you do for fun? >> Um, I like recess and um math. >> Nice combo. >> My two favorite >> boys and girls club. >> Nice. >> So, what do you do for fun? >> Um, like play like play games at school. >> Very good. Very cool. I tell you what, why don't
014you come on up? Bring your family. Let's get a picture. >> Exactly. Good luck. Good luck. >> Big smile. >> [clears throat] >> No. Thank you. >> Back to you. >> All right. Like the board to consider for approval items 9.01 to 9.09 personnel matters. So move >> support. Any discussion? >> Yes, I have a question. The 9.01 um the new position for the new person uh new person in the new position. Um can you please speak to a pay increase or not a pay increase? There's >> And I'm looking which one is this? The SOC position? >> Uh the safety coordinator. >> Excellent. Yep. um what we had what we did a couple of maneuvers here and again money is an issue for us and there was some positions uh throughout the course of
015the past couple of years that we've been reducing slowly. It's our safety compliance officers and what we did was uh we had five at one point we narrowed it down to four then three then two and again at the beginning of the year we eliminated two of those positions. Um what we did was uh those positions are eliminated. Uh but we also had a position through resignation uh for the person who and I won't go too much in detail because our entire safety plan is built around it. Um but a person who oversees all the monitors in the district uh to make sure that everybody's on the same page for emergencies um as well as day-to-day operations of the district. Uh that person resigned and one of the SEOs is going into that position uh
016at roughly the same rate as the person that was vacated. So when you look at the net, well, first of all, we eliminated three but added one. So there's a net loss of two positions, but the safety um the safety coordinator and [snorts] the position that was vacated are roughly the same salary. >> Thank you. >> No, thank you. >> Thank you. >> And there's a skill set that goes to monitoring those that's technology based and that person is more than qualified. >> Okay, any more discussion? Roll call, please. >> Dr. Ballard. >> Yes, >> Mr. Mr. Sturgil, >> yes. >> Mr. Ferguson, >> yes. >> Mrs. Washington, >> no. >> Mrs. Nazario, >> yes. >> Like the board to consider for approval items 10.01 to 10.09, operations matters. >> So move >> discussion. I've
017got a really good dad joke about piano. >> Okay. Do you know the difference between a piano and a tuna? >> I I do not. >> Okay. You can tune a piano, but you can't piano a tuna. >> Thank you. >> Roll call, please. >> Dr. [laughter] Ber, >> yes. >> Mrs. Washington, >> yes. >> I feel guilty laughing at that. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Nazario? >> Yes. >> Mr. Sturgil? >> Yes. >> Uh, report? Any other matters? >> Nope. We are good. That's all I have. Any new business? Committee reports, requests from board members. Second hearing of the public. >> Can I I want to do a committee request. Can we do a um update on communication? >> Mhm. >> Thank you. >> For next board meeting. >> Um it doesn't have to be
018but soon. >> Uh yes. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Um >> hearing the public. >> Yes. while I'm here. >> You don't [clears throat] have to sign in again. >> Thanks. Brandon Votzki, 319 George Avenue. So, uh, one, appreciate the the information on my my first comment. I appreciate that dialogue. And I even got some more information in the audience. And that's a beautiful thing. I don't think that was expressed particularly openly or publicly. And maybe that's an opportunity for improvement here, right? because when you when you just get the select information, kind of like the WebMD effect, you have enough to get yourself into trouble and convince yourself when something's really bad. So, a little bit more context and information can be helpful. So, I appreciate that. Um, and I just
019I do hope that you guys will utilize the opportunity to the best of the ability for the sake of the district. Um, the other thing I want to mention while I'm here, it's a point of contention. I have yet to hear a [snorts] single student or staff member say anything positive about it, but the schedule change in the high school and the switch back to the periods. I would love to encourage some thought and and consideration or reconsideration. I I haven't heard anything good. I've heard students are getting burned out. I've heard faculties getting burned out. I don't know what brought that change about. It has been concerning to me and I don't go fishing for the complaints. They have come to me organically. So, while I'm here, I wanted to to mention that just
020to kind of put it on everybody's radar. And that's it. >> Very good. >> Can I go out of order again? Do you want us to vote? >> Can I speak now? >> There's another Sorry. Oh, it's more public. >> It's okay. You're fine. Keep going. I have to sign it still anyway. It's all right. >> You first. >> I was trying to find it in last week's or last time's minutes. I'm not gonna go with that. Um, so I know that we have moved to um an all Google platform for like emails and all that good stuff. So last meeting we approved a $3,000 expenditure I guess um for Zoom and then now this time we are also approving another [snorts] almost $500. So, if we move to Google, why do we still need
021Zoom, a Zoom contract if we can have Google Meet for free? Free, I'd say, just because I know you guys have a contract still with them. But is there a reason why we're still doing Zoom as well? >> Uh, yeah. >> Can you grab the microphone, please? Yep. Thanks. >> So, around CO, we were providing a license in Zoom uh for every staff member. There were about a thousand licenses and those licensing licenses included unlimited recording of meetings, unlimited length of meetings up to like 36 hours or so. So not completely unlimited. Um but there were a lot of benefits that went along with that. Um the the tier of Google Workspace apps for education that we use does have a time limit on the num on the length of meetings uh that are provided.
022um and recording is very limited as well as things like AI uh um uh dictation of notes and things like that. Uh we went ahead and bought 25 licenses of Zoom uh that are used by 25 individuals so that when they have Zoom meetings, it removes the limitations of the Google classroom time limitations and recording and things like that. We went from a th00and to 25. Um, and then because we had so many users on the Pro Zoom licenses, many meetings were recorded. There was a lot of space taken up with recorded meetings. So that additional I think it was $487 or something like that was used to maintain those recorded meetings because we had by reducing the number of licenses, we had run out of space. um we wouldn't be able to record meetings
023anymore, which are very beneficial for going back and uh reviewing points that were made or um creating notes for for ideas and things like that. So the initial uh 3,000 $4,000 $3,000 somewhere between that was for the 25 um pro licenses so we could continue on that platform where it's necessary and outside of the time limitations and then the additional $480 uh was to maintain the amount of space we've been using in the Zoom cloud platform for all those recorded meetings. If we hadn't bought the additional storage, we would have lost access to all of the recorded meetings. >> Okay. So I the reason we used to record meetings was so then we could play them back for kids during COVID when you know they might not have been actually logging on in the moment.
024Are these additional or these licenses that you now have purchased? Who are these being purchased for? >> Those are for um directors uh administrators [clears throat] pardon me um and other similar positions where the Zoom platform is more appropriate than Google Classroom. >> Yeah. Sometimes um outside we're Google we can do Google meets but a lot of times outside folks don't. So we also have to be set up to make sure we're meeting with others with their prop their their excuse me their platforms. But if you guys have questions be good in the back. Thanks This is my first board meeting, so you guys are with me. >> Welcome. I'm Katie Hartman. I am a teacher over at Rice. So, I just had some questions and concerns um about how we're managing some of the
025behaviors that are going on in the schools. And Katie, if I could jump in real quick, can we talk offline? And the reason I say that is um uh we had people in previous board meetings who spoke about this and they were so specific that people knew who we were talking about and that's illegal. So if we can maybe they're inappropriate, if we can maybe just talk offline and figure out what we can do, but we do have some plans and we have been working with Rice um and I can meet with you after the meeting if you don't mind to get something set up for tomorrow. I just don't want you to go too specific. That's all >> I know. >> Okay. All right. Thanks. And I trust you. I just uh that last
026time folks just uh got too specific in their concerns. >> Yeah. I just My concern is just that it's not >> I don't know. I I don't feel like things are being handled and the behaviors are just getting worse. It's just compiling. And every time the kids come back, it's a bigger issue. they're doing something worse and then they're coming back and [clears throat] then it's gotten worse. Like when are we going to draw a line of like this is we're not doing what's best for our kids at this point. Like we're not taking care of the kids and we're not taking care of our staff either. So our staff's being hurt, other kids in the classroom are being hurt and our kids aren't being taken care of. They're scared to come to school. We
027have, you know, teachers who, I mean, aren't scared to come to school, but are coming to school with the mindset of, am I going to go home with a black eye today? Am I going to go home with bruises? We shouldn't be doing that to our teachers, and we shouldn't be doing that to our kids. So, I guess my thing is just when are we when are we going to start doing what's best for our kids and placing them in places that are best for them? because in we can only do so much in our schools. The kids need extra support that we're not able to give them with the therapy and things like that. So, if it's not something that we can provide within our school, when are we going to start looking at
028that and doing what's best for the kids to help them? Appropriate placement is always the most important thing in dealing with. Agreed. Anyone else? Thank you. Um, the next board meeting will be Monday, November 10th at 5:00 p.m. right here. Be there or be square. Uh, you had something before she started. I'm sorry. >> Um, no. I just I've missed the [snorts] opportunity a couple times. Thank you for uh adding me in. Um we I Lee hosted a town hall um for school board candidates. Um two of us are leaving for sure. Mr. um Sturgil is running again. And I just wanted to say it's on um our TV20. Um we had the four candidates that are running um answering uh different questions from students and from the audience. Um they did a great job.
029They all participated and it lasted almost two hours. So they were really good sports. Um and there's also the uh chip event uh candidate night that you'll be able to watch too. And it had a lot of people that are running um city and county um it had the levy information and the board uh candidates as well. So, I urge everybody to get out there and be um educated voters and please vote. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um at this point, I would entertain a motion to go into executive session for reasons D, negotiations, and A2 employment. >> So, move support. >> Uh roll call, please. >> Mrs. Washington, >> yes. >> Dr. Bor, >> yes. >> Mr. Ferguson, >> yes. >> Mrs. Lazario. >> Yes. >> Mr. Sturgil. >> Yes. >> Uh, we will
030not be making any decisions coming out, so it's just going to be us. Thank you.