001I'd like to call this November 13th, 2025 rescheduled regular board meeting uh of the Madina City Schools Board of Education to order. Would you all please rise for the pledge of allegiance? I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for its one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Mr. Chambers, would you please call roll when you're ready? >> Mr. Nichols >> here. >> Miss Parkers >> here. >> Miss Prickard >> here. >> Miss Syer >> here. >> Mr. West >> here. Thank you. Um, first up is uh first up is the uh approval of the regular board meeting minutes from October the 14th. I would entertain a motion. >> So So moved. >> Thank you. >> I'll second. >> Thank you. Any questions or comments
002on those meetings from the October 14th meeting from anybody? Hearing none. Mr. Chambers, please. >> Miss Proud. >> I. >> Mr. Nichols. I >> Miss Parkerst. >> I >> Miss Moyer. >> I >> Mr. West. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Are there any additions, removals, modifications to the agenda from anybody? >> I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. >> Thank you. Do I hear a second? >> I'll second. >> Thank you. Um, any questions or comments on that from anybody? No hearing? None. Mr. Chambers, please. >> Miss Parker. >> I. >> Mr. Nichols. >> I. >> Miss Perrick. >> I. >> Miss Smeer. >> I. >> Mr. West. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Um, first up, uh, Superintendent Communications, information and discussion items. Mr. Sable, it's your floor. >> Good evening.
003It's nice to see such a large crowd here and I think we are projecting our voices a little better tonight. Sounds louder and clearer. Um, I'd like to start by recognizing and congratulating our newly elected uh board members. And I'm going to ask you to stand. Uh, Vicky Drooie. So congratulations to Vicki [applause] and and as I think most know Vickiy's uh been a support of Madina City Schools for some time uh leading uh kids first uh and working with legislation and financial and levy efforts. then Aaron Hair. [applause] And Aaron has been a member of our finance committee uh working uh in the background with the nittygritty uh with uh Dave uh and the community committee group uh not only on levy information and updates, but also day-to-day operations and finances. Thank you. Uh
004so both of them will be sworn in at our January uh organizational meeting uh at so next month is the last meeting. They're uh replacing uh Becky Parkhurst um and Joe Nichols. Uh and we'll have a few things to say about you at your last board meeting uh next month. [laughter] >> All good. Next up, uh, Veterans Day essay contest winners. Uh, as you know, we honored our veterans, uh, on Tuesday during, uh, Veterans Day. Very special day, uh, in the district, uh, assemblies, uh, across our buildings, uh, honoring the parents and, grandparents, uh, great-grandparents, and, uh, community members. I I know it's a recognition day that's near and dear to me with um my my dad being in Vietnam and uh my uncles in various branches. So, it's always special when we come to
005this time of year uh that we're lucky to be able to work with our VFW uh through their efforts with our students at our middle schools. Um, so this evening and every November, uh, we get to recognize our essay contest winners. And I'd like to invite, uh, Amy Busby up at this time just for a minute. All right. Good evening. Uh since about 2019, we have partnered with the American Legion uh Post 202 on their Veterans Day uh contest. And this contest was made uh possible uh by the Legion and was open to all of our middle school students grades 6 through 8. The students were asked to answer the question, "What does Veterans Day mean to me?" And this evening, it's my honor and pleasure uh to present the winners of this year's essay
006contest on behalf of the Legion um members who are not able to be here this evening. Uh each of the first place winners at each grade level will recite their essay and receive a certificate and a monetary award. We will also recognize the second and third place winners at each grade level and present them with a certificate and a monetary award. Each of these awards have been graciously sponsored by the American Legion and Post 202 who continues to support this initiative. At the end of this presentation, I want to invite all the students to join me right across the hall into the PDC because we're going to get a group picture that we can share um not only with the uh Legion but also with our community. So, without further ado, I would like to
007introduce Kayla Clayool. She is the sixth grader um at Cleot and she's gonna come up and recite her essay. Do you want this? Are you okay? What Veterans Day means to me by Callayool. Veterans Day is an important holiday that we celebrate every year on November 11th. It's a time to honor all the men and women who have served in the United States military. To me, Veterans Day means showing respect and appreciation to the people who worked hard to protect our country and freedom. When I think about veterans, I imagine people who are brave, strong, and willing to help others. Many of them had to leave their families and go far away to serve. Some faced scary and dangerous situation situations, but they didn't give up. They kept going because they wanted to keep us
008safe. I think that takes a lot of courage and heart. Veterans also reminds me to be thankful. I get to go to school, play sports, and spend time with my family because of the sacrifices veterans made. On this day, we can show our gratitude by saying thank you, writing letters, or attending ceremonies at school or in our community. To me, Veterans Day isn't just another day off. It's a day to remember real heroes who fought for what was right. It teaches me to appreciate what I have and to always respect the people who served our country. Veterans Day means being proud to be an American and thankful for those who made it possible. Something to remember is that it's November 11th to honor and respect the men and women who served in the military and
009to say thank you for all the that they have done. [applause] Okay, next I'm going to invite Olivia Zigafus. Did I say that right? Yeah. Okay. She is the uh second place winner from the sixth grade. She is a cleet student of Mr. Baker. [applause] All right. And the third place winner is Grace Banner. And uh she is a sixth grade student of Mrs. Rimera at Roots. And unfortunately, she was not going to be able to attend this evening. So I'm going to give this to Mrs. Hartery and she'll uh take care of that for me. Okay. Now we're on to seventh grade. Um, and I'd like to welcome Evan Yanmas to this podium. And he's here to read his essay. What Veterans Day means to me. To me, Veterans Day serves as a profound
010reminder of courage and sacrifice. It is a day to honor the men and women who have served for the United States armed forces. Those who have dedicated their lives to safeguarding our nation and defending the freedoms we cherish today. Veterans Day is not merely recalling about recalling history. It is about recognizing the individuals who have shaped our country through bravery and sacrifice. When I reflect on Veterans Day, I consider the true meaning of sacrifice. Many veterans left behind families, friends, and homes to serve a greater cause than themselves. Some returned back home, forever changed, while others made the ultimate sacrifice of never coming back. Their courage reminds me that freedom carries a price, and it is our duty as citizens to appreciate the peace and security they help secure. This day also compels me to
011act to express gratitude, not only through words, but through respect and kindness. Whether attending a Veterans Day ceremony, writing a letter of thanks, or simply listening to a veteran story, every gesture of appreciation holds significance. Veterans Day represents pride in our nation and deep respect for those who have served it. It reminds me that being an American is a privilege earned through sacrifices of others. To honor the veter to honor our veterans is to carry forward their legacy of courage, unity, and devotion to our country today and always. [applause] Okay. And next, I'd like to invite Brantley Dimitrov up. Uh he is the second place winner for seventh grade and he is a a root student of Mrs. Weaver. [applause] Okay, where's my third place student? There we are. Uh Ava Beamer um is the
012third place winner of uh the seventh grade contest and uh she is a student at root of Mr. Gambascini and I'm not sure she's here this evening so we'll hang on to this too. Okay, then I would like to introduce Aaron Atkins. He is the first place winner uh in 8th grade. Um student of Mrs. Shook. What does Veterans Day mean to you? Veterans Day is a day that honors those who serve, who fought for our country and sacrificed and put their lives on the line for us. However, some maybe even most veterans believe that they were just doing their job and not really as heroes. I met a man who is a Vietnam War veteran on March 29th of this year during Girl Scout cookie season. March 29th also happens to be Vietnam War
013Veterans Day, a day he celebrated for those who w who fought in the Vietnam War. During this time while he was at our booth, he talked about what he did, but the main thing I took away from that is that he did not want to be called a hero. Not directly to him, even though many would still see him as such. He said that many vet veterans believe that they are not heroes and just people doing their jobs. However, most people view them as heroes because of the sacrifice they have made to go into a job such as the US military. Whether it be the Navy, Army, Air Force, Space Force, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard. They risk their lives, risk their quality of life, and risk not knowing if they've ever see their family
014again for the safely safety and honor of their country. Veterans Day is also a day to honor those who risked everything for their country, for their people, and for their families. and friends to have a better life. That's what Veterans Day means to me. A day for those who took this job not knowing the risk and not saying no to the duty of the job. Those who gave their lives and went in knowing that they may never come back. To those who are serving now, knowing that they may never return to their homes and to the country in which they have served, yet taking the risk for those who love. Veterans Day is a day to honor the risks of those who protected this country with their lives, to see other people happy, and to
015see their rights protected. And to those who took that risk, we salute them. We give them the highest honor. Not as heroes, but not as the grandest of saviors. We serve them. But as people with families, with lives, with dreams, who risked it all to protect our nation. We give them the greatest honor for their service. We salute them for generations to come. And it shall never be forgotten what they gave and risked for our country, for our people, for our rights, for our freedom, and for our lives today. [applause] Okay, [clears throat] an eighth pre eighth grade second place winner is uh Connor Murray. See here. Okay, he's not here. So, we'll make sure that he gets his award. And then finally, we have Sydney. And I'm gonna not probably say your name right.
016I'm really sorry. Sutandar, are you here? She's the third place winner um in the eighth grade. [applause] >> I was I was close. There you go. >> Okay. Well, thank you very much. Uh, congratulations to all the students and I just really want to take a moment to thank um the middle school building principles for helping coordinate this essay contest with not only the district but the Legion and for the teachers who help promote um participation in this particular essay contest. Um I think it's an important um interest and uh a very big way to show respect to our veterans. So thank you. So Amy, do you want to take them into the hall now or you want to wait till after the >> now? Okay. So all of our contest winners, uh, you're just
017going to go right across the hall, uh, so we can get a picture and, uh, put you up on our social media and share it with the Legion. Our next presentation for this evening ing. Uh I'm excited to share with the board uh the hard work that's been going on at the high school uh related to uh our portrait of a bee as well as college and career readiness. Uh trying to reinvent uh what high school looks like uh to better meet the needs of our students and preparing them uh for their futures. Uh this is work uh that is not only happening at the high school but we recently had an administrative team meeting uh where we engaged in conversations uh of how there could be a trickle down effect and impact work that's
018happening at our middle schools as well as at the elementary level. Uh so uh Dr. Teddona and Jackson the floor is yours. >> Well good evening. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share the exciting work as Mr. Sable said that is occurring across the district and giving us a chance to highlight the exciting opportunities that are moving forward at the high school. >> Here we go. So over the years we have had many conversations with community stakeholders where the topic of career readiness has often come up. thinking about what those experiences needed to need to look like from the start throughout a student's educational experience to make sure that when they do leave Madina City Schools, they have a direction um and a path that is right for them. It has been a
019commitment that we have had to the community first within our last strategic plan and it was a topic that was at the forefront of our thinking when we put together our portrait of a bee competencies. Over the years, as we've thought about what this meant for our students in the classrooms, we were really struck by this idea that students cannot be what they cannot see. And how can we create those connections from preschool and elementary, middle school, and high school to give students an opportunity to explore what those career pathways mean for them. One of the areas that we really focused on thinking about creating career readiness framework uh connections was with our within our deeper learning work. And as many of the stories that have been shared with you at prior board meetings, you
020will see that through our partnerships with our community, we have been able to show students how what they're learning in the classroom um has meaning and relevance to what happens outside of the walls of the school. When we uh really thought about what this meant at Madina, we leaned into the framework that was developed by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce that prompted us to think about at the preschool and elementary levels, our goal is to build career awareness, helping students to explore all of the different opportunities of careers that are around their community. As we move into the middle school years, we really focus on career exploration and giving students a chance to really understand their passions, their interests, and how that might relate to a career pathway. And what Dr. Ddona is
021going to talk about is our focus is thinking about at the high school career planning and what do those experiences need to entail over the four years to present those that clarity to students before they graduate. So I will turn it over to her to talk more about the work that is occurring. So this led us to the following driving question over at the high school, which is how can our systems and structures adapt to better prepare our students for their individual futures. And obviously that's a big undertaking given the size of our building, but it's something that we are incredibly passionate about. So we started by asking our various stakeholders just what they would like to see in the high school experience. And I think you can tell from here that they want something
022very individualized for their students or for themselves if you're referencing the student perspective as well as project-based, hands-on, engaged, purposeful for where it is that they are going. It needs to match their interest. They want to be prepared for the career that they are going into. So all of this sums up into making learning purposeful. How can we make learning purposeful for 2,000 different students that walk the halls of Madina High School? Easy, right? So, we're doing this by exploring pathways and capstones. We've heard a lot about capstones, but we haven't heard as much about this idea of pathways yet. So, our pathways are meant to meet those needs of our students. So, how do we figure out what those pathways are is we look at our graduating seniors. So, we took the past four
023years of senior data because they fill out this form at the end of the year. It's essentially our senior census that tells us what their plans are and where they are trying to go and what journey they want to go on. So the data kind of speaks for itself where we have a lot of future doctors and nurses and people in the medical field followed by a lot of engineers or computer science people followed by business entrepreneurs. We have a lot of students going in a lot of different directions. So we took this information and created these eight pathways. So you should see a very much alignment to the slide that we just saw telling us where our students go to what we are trying to explore over at the high school. And you'll see
024at the bottom there's an there's an exploratory pathway because we have students that don't know what they want to do yet. So they should have an opportunity to kind of explore everything. And our plan is to expose students to what it is that they're interested in prior to them embarking on just jumping straight into that career or jumping into a major that really they haven't kind of dipped their toes into yet. So our plan is to expose students sooner so that they can kind of see what their futures can look like and help them dream a little bigger and maybe see something that they don't know even exists yet. So, one of the most powerful quotes was this from a staff member saying, "If done with intentionality and inclusivity, this work has the power to
025transform how students experience school, not just as a place they attend, but as a space where they can grow, explore, and thrive. And that's our goal is to meet those needs of all of our students in a way that is intentional for their specific futures. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Thank you. Uh we we just recently received our preliminary data from our strategic planning process through the surveys uh as well as the focus groups. Um, and it it's really uh impressive how in tune uh some of this work is that we're doing in terms of what the wants and needs that are expressed through uh those surveys that we received especially from our students. Um we had uh several hundred students at the middle school and the high school
026complete the survey. Uh we had uh over a thousand community members and parents complete the survey. Uh and we had hundreds of staff members complete the survey. And these themes in terms of having a connection, an ownership, a purpose, uh having a path uh that's more directed uh is reoccurring. So, we're going to be sharing that information out with the board uh in the coming months as we continue to process it. Um, and uh, I I think we're going to see some of this work potentially tied in directly into our strategic plan. Uh, just from what I uh, have seen with the pre preliminary information, which was actually just this afternoon before came here tonight. So, it's that fresh. >> Um, >> Mr. Sable, if I may add something, Dr. Tonella, thank you for your
027presentation this evening. Um, I do appreciate this aligns. I know not all of our students go to college. Um but I have two that are recently still are in college right now and college they want them to apply to a specific college or interest um right away. Those days of they do have that exploratory um non- major decided but those days are kind of going by the wayside. So it is important that in high school they explore and see what they're interested in and learn. Uh, I know from my own experience there were things I didn't know were careers when I was in high school that now my kids do. So, I appreciate all the work that has gone into this and the intentionality. Um, also for our students that are not collegebound, it is
028important to know what you're interested in as a as a career or whether you want to go to the career center or take get an associates degree or an apprenticeship or go straight into the workforce. It's important to be exposed to those things so that you can be something that you have seen, right? And get out there and explore your passions and find out what they are and and contribute. So, I appreciate all the work that has gone into this. Thank you. >> Thank you. Yeah, the direction piece, my own experience. My daughter's a junior at Ohio State, just changed majors this year. I wish she was able to have more exploration even before college in making those decisions. Uh next up, I'd like to invite Principal Newton. L Canvan is our presenting school this
029evening. >> All right. Thank you so much for giving us an opportunity to share some of the work that we're doing at Ela Canavan. Um, so I am always really proud of the collaboration that takes place at Canavan, especially when we are faced with a challenge. Um, so tonight my goal is to highlight the collaboration that we do have at Canavan, um, specifically with a problem that came up this year in August, um, with our kindergarteners and their low language scores. So before we dive too much into the presentation, um, I do want to give you a little bit of background on our kindergarten class. So when they came in in August, we know that 82% had attended preschool, which is a pretty high percentage. Um when you think about basically four out of every
030five pre uh kindergarteners had attended preschool, working on those pre-academic school skills, being in a classroom setting, that to us was a really high percentage that we were excited to see. But we also know that this group of students have experienced some unique circumstances um being born between 2019 and 2020. These are our true COVID babies. Um, so we also knew that, you know, they had some disrupted social interactions. They had varied learning environments of what those preschool settings, daycare settings might have looked like. Um, so every year at Alakanovan, we do a speech screener. Our speech pathologist is amazing. She works one-on-one with every student in that those first couple of weeks. And what she does is she sees who is proficient in basic language skills because we know how important those are for
031future success. Um, you can see from 2023 to 2024, we were in that 80% proficient coming in in August. However, this year in August, students were only at about 68% proficient. So, our team knew that this was an area that we had to hit. We had to hit hard and we needed to pull all of the tools out of our mail, out of our mailbox, out of our toolbox to really target this and help get our students in a place to be able to be successful. So, I'm going to pass it off to two members of our team tonight. Um Katie Allen is one of our reading intervention specialists and Heather Pantosia is one of our kindergarten teachers. Okay. So let's start with what are language concepts. So in kindergarten what do we want to
032focus on? We want to talk about vocabulary, sentence structure, how to formulate a sentence, comprehension, answering wh questions, verbal expression, being able to express their needs. So all of these are official building blocks for future academic success. So gaps in these language skills will affect following multi-step directions. That's something we need for daily life, whether it be in school or outside. Express their daily needs clearly. Engage fully in classroom activities. So without targeted intervention for the 68% of um or the those that weren't on at grade level, we needed to uh work with them now in kindergarten so that they didn't have reading difficulty, social challenges or academic struggles throughout school. So we brainstormed, we worked with our like um Mrs. Newton talked about our SLP, our speech and language teacher, kindergarten teachers, our reading
033intervention, and we really wanted to target this area throughout their entire day. So, we these are our top five areas of where we addressed this. We uh committed to having rich conversations in the classroom. We found that our morning meeting setting where we do a lot of our work was a perfect place to do that. uh we would a teachers would ask questions and model how to ask and answer questions and then that eventually became a student-led uh process where students were asking you can see in the top picture that students are asking and answering questions to each other. We went on to do interactive readalouds. We know that that's something that happens in early elementary a lot. Um so teachers were reading books aloud to kids but they were very purposeful. the questions that
034they were asking, the predictions they were making, the vocabulary that they were addressing. We knew what which kids needed what skills, so we knew exactly who to ask those questions to and how to help those individuals. We also do something in kindergarten called purposeful play. Every kindergarten classroom has these rich play environments where children can practice their language skills in authentic ways. Um, some examples of that are stores, building blocks, farming scenarios that go with our CKLA knowledge unit. So, the two that we really want to focus on with you tonight are these bottom two areas. So, we uh incorporated a deeper learning project that focused highly on this language building. And we also then had students be taken out of the classroom at some point during the day to work in a small group
035with our reading intervention teachers, myself. And this is where we targeted the very specific skills that they needed. So, first we're going to talk about the deeper learning project. Okay. Um, hi, I'm Heather Pantoa. >> I'm Nikki Peppard. And um we are part of the kindergarten team. And um in this summer I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in the project-based learning um program that the district offered us to learn more about project-based learning. And there um with uh Jess White, we had planned a um project-based learning um >> about bringing stories to >> Yeah. about bringing stories to life, how stories can come alive. And so that was in the summer. And then um when we came to school, little did I know that our uh kindergarteners would um be struggling with
036the language. But um my team we uh got together and we decided that this project was um very important now to help develop those language skills. So um we knew we wanted to do this project. It was m how do we can we make stories come alive? And so knowing that we wanted to do this, we wanted to provide background knowledge for our kindergarteners. So, um, our first unit in CKLA, um, has to do with nursery rhymes. And, um, they would we would practice retelling nursery rhymes, helping develop that language. And we had our fifth fifth graders, if you can see in the corner, they um, acted out the nursery rhymes for us. They So, they were showing our kindergarteners how stories can can come alive. they were showing that nursery rhymes come alive. So
037in project-based learning, the first step is you have to launch um your project and have it pose a problem. So we um reached out to the Madina County District Library and told her about the project that we wanted to do. And so she she um I don't know how to make it go, but she she posed this problem to our kindergarteners. Hello. Is this thing on? Oh, hi everybody. Miss Jennifer here from the Madina County District Library. You know the one just off the square. I'm sending you this message because we need your help. We know how exciting reading can be, but not every kid knows that. That's why we need you to help us show how exciting stories can be. I mean, look how quiet it is in here. Maybe if you can help
038us make reading come alive for our readers, they'll remember how much they love reading and then they'll come check out lots of books. Otherwise, I'll just have to keep reading stories to Percy, and he's not a very good listener. Plus, he keeps eating all of our books. Percy, not in front of the students. >> Anyway, I think you're just the group for the job. Mrs. Pantoa told me this was a class of really good readers. So, what do you say? Can you help us make stories come alive so that people get excited about reading books? >> So, that was the problem. Um, she posed the problem to our kindergarteners. Then all of our classes um step two, we gathered our uh kiddos together and they had to discuss and share their ideas on how they
039could how they thought they could make stories come alive and the discussion and um just promoted uh moral more oral language as they had to explain their ideas. Um, and so as we read various stories in our CKLA unit, um, they were repeatedly, um, using language skills to retell stories. [laughter] Okay. And then so step three, um, students were giving given voice and choice. They, um, had to discuss, um, and generate ideas on how they wanted to make their story come alive. Um they talked about acting it out as they had seen the fifth graders do. Um throughout the unit they were constantly retelling. We did puppet shows. Um and so then um one of my groups wanted to make a video game and I was like well we can't make a video game but
040we could make a game board. So they talked about how game boards could make stories come alive. But whenever they were sharing their ideas, we're constantly encouraging them. And when in retails to stretch their ideas, stretch their sentence as they shared um what they were thinking. Like we were if they said because or something, we tried to give them sentence starters and things like that to help them stretch their stories. Um they also had voice and choice in which story they wanted to present. So step four um is this the project is not just a dessert activity. It's something they worked on continually throughout the whole unit. So like I said before continually practicing using story maps telling the beginning, middle, and end. And it was really neat to see because each time they retold
041a story, you could hear their language >> growing as they added on and um to their sentences and stuff. So um so revisit revisiting the project throughout the year promoted language skills. Um they also um had to give feedback to one another which is an important part of project-based learning. So, it was neat to see them. They had to learn how to give um >> feedback. >> Feed Yeah. critic, not criticism. Yeah. And how to take it, which as adults even that's hard, but just how to phrase their words and um speak to one each other in a um polite way. And um also how to speak clearly so if you were giving feedback, speak clearly so people on your team understood what you were saying. So it expanded their sentences and vocabulary with each
042Yeah. And then it expanded their sentences and vocabulary with each retell. So then finally, step five, after they've worked on their project throughout um the unit, they would give feedback. They would make adjustments. Step five um is presenting their project. And we've chosen to present it to the community. still a work in progress, but we are right now they're um we're recording their um retells. Um and we're going to create a QR code for it. So then when um the public they can go to the library and click on take a whatever you do with a QR code, take a picture of it, I don't know. And then they will see that um our kindergarteners making those stories um come alive >> and hopefully inspire younger readers. >> Yeah. And they also as they are
043presenting they have to know unlike how I'm doing right now that they need to speak clearly and slowly so that um you know the audience their audience can understand them and hear them. So they worked on a lot of oral language skills. So here's some Yeah. Then the medium Then the medium goat and cross the bridge and the troll said, "Who's that tied over my bridge?" Then the other the big goat ran over the bridge. He said try. Then the troll says, "Who's that trip trying over my bridge?" And the big build knocked the troll off the bridge and then he got his yummy grass. Once upon a time there was a little chicken. She was going on a walk and soon later she came under a tree and a acorn fell on her head
044and she saw the sky was fallen. So she went to go tell the king and then she made met Penny Penny. Penny Penny the sky is falling. How do you know? How do you know? A pizza on my head. Then let us go to the key. And she kept rocking and so she see the sky fall. How do you know? A piece of f on my poor head. Your teeth kept on locking. Oh, okay. So um when we did our stories come alive project it's it bet the um >> competencies >> um as collaborators as they worked together to um create their final project. Problem solvers as they were working together trying to figure out what part someone was going to do or in the retell and the story map who's going to do the
045beginning, the middle, the end. respectful citizens just communicating nicely and respectfully to one another and communicators which was the whole project just communicating and um talking to one another. All right, the last part that we want to talk about is what we did in small group. So something we worked on in small group with uh children were was sentence formulation. I put up exact pre and post answers that a child, a little girl of mine that I worked with had. Walking the baby turned into a mom is walking the baby in a stroller. Them are swinging. You can kind of see that her is running and how we need to formulate that. We talked about worked with prepositions. I have a little friend here that um we had little frogs, not the dogs there, but
046we had those frogs all over our school working on on in under, in front of, just bringing it into our everyday work. We did a lot of sentence repetition, storytelling also in small group. We did, it was October, so we um joined in with the month's pumpkins and the witches. We did receptive and expressive conversations talking about how things are alike and different. It was very interesting. You'd never know that a child didn't know that a bird goes in a nest, but these are things that we found in the the screener that we did that these kids were lacking. They didn't understand how why and how things went together. So, here's the big thing. This is what made us really excited. Here's our pre and our post. So, you can look here and you can
047see that between each classroom, we have three classrooms. our August scores of what was um below proficient and then how much we grew by November. And then as a whole grade level level, we are now at 93% passage. [applause] >> So I don't know if the board has any questions, but I do want to just thank the Canavan team for all of their work. And our speech pathologist is Katherine Vitk. she couldn't be here tonight, but she has done a lot of work that has really helped us be in a good spot with these kindergarteners. >> I'd just like to say, [clears throat] you look at a project like this or this type of learning with even kindergarteners, but it builds on everything. So, by the time that they're adults, they're knowing how to do
048project-based uh projects in the real world, whether it's engineering or anything else, and how to work with others and how to clearly and concisely communicate. And it also shows that when you engage students with lots of fun things, it's a game with a purpose, you look at your numbers, that game with a purpose is proof in the pudding. So, absolutely, >> very good. So, thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. The only other thing I wanted to add to what Mr. West said was I also love that the fifth graders were involved and we collaborated with the library and just just great work. So, thank you so much. >> Thank you. My heart is full uh to to have a group of our teachers come up here uh that participated uh chose to participate in
049a summer workshop, see that uh reflected right at the beginning of the year into [clears throat] innovative classroom discussion. Uh our our teachers continuing to learn and grow. then using data to shape and determine the instruction for this specific class. Um so making sure that this class's needs are met which are different than last year's might be different than next year's and pivoting in order to uh meet those needs. Uh and then on top of it uh the connection to our portrait and the the use of the lingo. I don't know how many times Tina has talked to me about we don't want dessert. [laughter] So, I appreciate you coming this evening and sharing. We need more teachers teaching like kindergarten teachers in the district. [applause] Last up is our committee presentations. Our curriculum, facilities,
050and policy committees uh have met this past month. So, I'd like to invite uh Tina uh as well as Ryan and Chris for committee presentations or committee updates. >> All right. Good evening. Um, our board curriculum committee met this Monday and um, we talked, we had the same presentation um, that you guys just saw from Alisa on the high school pathways and it's just like Erin said, it's a very exciting thing to see our deeper learning and our career pathways merging um, together at the high school and then to have that work it will trickle down into the middle school and elementary school. So it is it is really exciting and it's really a restructuring. So it wouldn't be adding additional staff. So we're going to do it with the staff that we have. Uh
051we're just going to rethink how we are presenting the information. So that's really exciting. So that was one thing we did on Monday. Um and then another thing that we talked about was AI which is also another um that has a lot of implications for careers in the future. So, it's something that we know that um we need to be on top of and ahead of and so we are spending this year really getting to know um some of the AI applications for education. We have our January PD day coming up and uh the teachers will have an opportunity to attend a various number of um AI sessions. So, that is going to be very exciting. We also had special c uh guest star Craig come to our board curriculum um meeting and he shared
052with us an AI statement that our district is working on just to let just to let um our staff and our uh families know where we stand on um AI in education. So that is what we did in board curriculum. Thank you. Thank you. Uh we in the facility committee we talked about the uh we had to rebid the PAC roof. We got uh three competitive bids on that and you have one on the agenda tonight to approve. So that was uh the main focus of the facility committee as well as the fiveyear capital improvement plan which we will probably see again next facility committee meeting to go through it again. We had uh Andrew joined um virtually and we had small turnout. So, we're going to do that again. Any questions? Thank you. >>
053We had our policy committee meeting this month and we uh as we do every time we start with policy, we looked over a number of different policies. So, the policy committee will have a month to digest those and look those over and then we'll meet again in December to determine if they're ready for a first reading. Um, there's nothing extremely controversial or anything uh where we would get the public's input. They're really all legally required updates. So, nothing major to share, but just letting people know where the policy committee's at at this time. >> Mr. Chambers, you're up. Hello. How are you? [sighs] Nice seeing you all again here. Uh I know we met just about an hour ago for something else, but I want to talk to you about financials. Uh our October financials.
054Uh, as we always do, we begin with the beginning balance as of uh July 1st, $41 million. We had $45 million in revenues and $31 million in expenditures since that time. Our ending balance as of I thought I'd change that to October. Our ending balance as of October was $50 million and uh we had a decrease of $4 million from September's time. Our revenue, our total revenues, as stated, $45 million. This is 44% of the five-year forecast that was approved here in October. Real property taxes, $30,700,000. Uh, this is 24% over last year at this time and is a direct result of the levy that was passed in November of 24. State foundation is at 6.4 million. This is 5.9% over last year. And uh uh this is adjusted for student counts. This also includes
055our um monies for um what is the casino revenue itself. Our expenditures for the year we uh $31 million overall. We're at 28% of our total expenditures based again on the five-year forecast that was approved here in October. Our personnel services $18.8 million. This is 3% above the prior year and uh you got to remember that in the prior year uh July and August were at 27 pays. So that is uh in with uh the monies that are from July through October. Our benefits 7.9 million. This is up 13.8%. Again we must remember that our uh benefits increased our medical benefits increased by 18% this year. So we're we're running about where we should be. And then our other expenditures have $5 million. This is up from the previous uh year itself, but uh all
056but all the categories are an increase I believe except for the supplies which are below last year at this time. Our investments uh this is a good thing, but we know this is going to be up because t uh rates are up. So, we're at uh $900,000 over the fiscal year and this is up $139,000 from last year at this time. And finally, our uh forecasted funds, True Days cash, uh we are at nearly 160 days in cash right now. Uh if you look at this and compare it to last month, last month we were higher in our categories for July, August, and September. And that is because we were using the May's forecast. Using the October forecast, uh it pushed us down a little bit as to our two days cash. And finally, all
057the information, as we state all the time, is on our website. Uh we keep updating that with the information that's presented to the board here. Any questions? Thank you very much. As soon as Mr. Chambers sits down, we'll have board communications. Who wants to go first? Any volunteers? >> I'm not going first, but I do have a question. >> Sure. >> Um, just regarding committee. So, you said I believe finance committee is meeting next week. Is that correct? Okay. Thank you. >> Joe, you want to go first? >> Sure. I guess uh since Becky's not going to go, you talked first. Um no, I uh I actually don't have uh too much uh kind of everybody really covered what I had talked about in the superintendent presentations. Um I was at the uh curriculum committee.
058Um the AI conversation, I don't know if that was um longer or shorter than expected. And if it was longer, that was probably my fault just because I'm a programmer. I work with AI all the time. Um, I had just a couple questions, you know, nothing earthshattering or anything like that, but just clarification questions of of things that I've seen in my workplace that um just wondering, you know, uh if those had been thought of and if uh those conversations had started, which Craig was like, "Yeah, we've we've talked about them." And even Aaron said, "Yeah, you know, those conversations, we're still having those um really massaging out exactly what we need." Um even though Craig wanted uh all the AI stuff done like five months ago rather than, you know, five months from now.
059I'm sorry, I'm off the board after this. I can't help. Um but uh >> you can still help. >> Yeah. Yeah. if I got free time, I got other stuff scheduled. Um [snorts] but uh in addition to that, you know, the one other thing that I was going to say is, you know, um uh congratulations to everybody that had won this election cycle, especially the um well, I'll say uh three school board candidates. Um because I'll throw Jean into that even though you didn't get uh called out as a an elected official, newly elected kind of. Um but Aaron Vicki um congratulations. Welcome to the board. Um in January, you can't take my seat yet. I'm still using it. Um but uh it's it's it's a fun, interesting, crazy ride. Um, but uh we can
060talk more about that off camera uh if need be. So, um yeah, that's that's about all that I really wanted to say today. >> How about you, Miss Richard? >> All right. Um I want to congratulate the Madina students of the month, Addison Slaw and Lewis Strong, and um the career center, Sabrina Boyd, who's in engineering and technology and design. Um I attended the girls district final soccer match um where we beat Mags one to nothing. Um unfortunately both the boys and the girls soccer teams lost in the regional semifinals. I also attended the youth rugby camp. Um had over a hundred kids and it was kind of like hurting cats with the little ones. I mean, they all wanted to throw, kick, and everything, but they they were um they settled down there towards
061the end. Um, girls cross country finished eighth in the state. Boys was 20th, and I'd like to congratulate all the athletes as it's coming out in the paper. I know some of you don't know what a paper is, but I do. Um, making all state and all conference teams. Um, the debate and speech team was one of four schools from Ohio to be selected as a lead as a leading chapter. And if any of you have any extra money, um, they they are looking for funds for their trip to Harvard. You can just write a check out to the debate team and drop it off at the high school or mail it in. This Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the drama club is putting on Peter and the Starcatcher. Friday and Saturday are at 7 and
062Sunday is at 2. Um, holiday concert is December 4th at 7. Encore December 6, it's uh mainly kids at 6:00 and parents come at 7. Orchestra on December 3rd at 7. Um, Key Club helped the friends of the cemetery yesterday pull flags off the veterans grade graves. um wait fourth graders are t tour touring the oldtown cemetery to learn local history which I think is really good because um they just had 30 stones refurbished so you can actually read them. Um I want to remind anybody out there who uh graduated from a county school and you're 18 to 23 you get free adult education classes. So, um, we have a special building now. The old Acron building is just for that. So, if you're interested, go out there and apply. Um, last night the Hall
063of Fame committee met and our five new inductees are Matt Patrick, Andrew Miller, George Smiley, Michelle Elegot, and Patrick Thompson. and Iso Stockman, grandmother of basketball player Tony Stockman, who was a cafeteria manager uh at Canavan for 20 years, passed away at the age of 90. Thank you, >> Amy. >> Certainly. All right. So, uh since the last meeting, uh right after that, we went to the high school and gave an award. Uh and then after that, of course, I always bring up the band. The our marching band was getting ready for state competitions. So, uh our admin team wonderfully came out there and wished them well, which was very nice. Um and then the next day, my daughter and I who graduated last year and really misses band, we went down to Columbus and
064cheered them on. They the band got their 23rd superior rating. So that was wonderful. Um the next week they did again uh we hosted at Madina the OMA state competition for several other schools at uh Duke Stadium and a lot of our parents and students really stepped up and helped out with that. It turned out really to be a nice day. Thank heavens. um as well. Uh then I also assisted with uh stuff the bus which was a neat experience. I truly did not anticipate how many uh people from the community do read the papers, do read do read the uh social media uh and bring their uh used gently used coats and uh hats, mittens, snow pants. We I I actually spoke with the gentleman who was doing that and he told me that
065we collected over 500 coats. So that was it's just heartwarming and warming in and of itself. Um also otherwise I attended the policy meeting and the facilities meetings. Always very interesting to see what all is going on in our district. So thank you. You want me to go first and you want to go last? >> I'll go. But thank you. Okay, go ahead. But thank you. Um, just to follow up with what Mrs. Moyer said, just a thank you to our community. We have a very generous community for donating those items to the stuff the bus campaign. Thank you. And I wanted to congratulate our newly elected and our one reelected board member. Um, and thank all the candidates for caring enough about our school district to run. Campaigning for public office can be a
066slog and it takes a lot to put yourself out there. I'm grateful that we have community members that are interested in serving and it is important to continue to keep our local control of our of our school district. The only other thing I wanted to mention is I mentioned this to Mrs. Cassie a while ago, but I had attended a webinar about um it was focused on high school students and college students about finding employment and what skills employers are looking for. And it was it consisted of four employers and one of the things that they were talking about was project-based learning. And it was so interesting because as I'm watching this, I'm thinking we are doing this. You know, they were encouraging parents to look for these things and students to pursue these things
067in their districts. And I was just overjoyed because like we're already doing this. We are a leader. We are ahead of the curve. So I just again wanted to shout out to our curriculum department, all of our teachers, everyone involved, our principles in encouraging this, not making it just dessert, making it a full course. And we are doing such great things and we just need to always share with everyone all the great things that we are doing at our district and what great staff and students we have. So, thank you for all of your hard work. In the spirit of of Thanksgiving coming up and dishing out some honey, I think is what we talked about um at our opening day. Uh thank you to everybody. >> All right. Um I I'm not going to
068congratulate our new uh board members, elect and our returning one because I called them the night of the election after the results were in late, but I did it. Um, yes, I'm sorry. I just wanted to congratulate you. Anyways, um, but I did want to say about the election. You know, uh, anytime we have an election in this country, that's the great American experiment known as democracy at work. And it's doesn't matter who wins or loses, but it's the process and the the fact that we get to go vote and choose who we want in our elected officials. So, that's the part that I truly am thankful for in this country. Um, looking forward to the candlelight parade on the 23rd and ride the bus again. That's always fun. Um, I do want to shout
069out to Mrs. Jones kindergarten class for sending me a whole bunch of thank you little notes. Um I received that and um I got to go read to them a month ago and they all sent me a nice little card and it was it was kind of nice little thing to have. Um, and just on the project based learning and the things that we do here, as as Ryan mentioned, I remoted in from the facilities meeting because I was on vacation visiting my mother in South Carolina, but I had a nice long discussion with my uh sister who has two daughters in their public school system and she was telling me about this new thing called project-based learning that they were just starting this year and I just looked at her and go, "Yeah, we've
070been doing that for a very, very long time." So um it's new to them not to us. So that means we're on the forefront. So um and that is a good thing. And that is all I have. Uh do we have any public participation? No. I will just move past that to treasures action items. G. >> Yes. If it please the board. Item number one, it's recommended the board of education approve the October 25 treasures financial report. Item number two, it is recommended the board of education approved the following supplemental to the 2526 permanent improvement. Uh we have uh Claget principal account monies feed the bees at the high school DC and other trips at Claget and link crew at the high school. Um, number three, it's recommended that Modina City School District Board of
071Education approve the engagement of Ray and Associates Incorporated to compile the annual basic financial statements for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 2025. The financial statements will include the related notes to the financial statements and be accompanied by a managerial discussion and analysis and pension/opb related schedules which are considered required supplemental information to the basic financial statements in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America. I would entertain a motion to on treasures action items. Number one, the financial report, number two, the supplemental to permanent appropriations, and number three, the GAP engagement letter for fiscal year 25. >> I'll make a motion to approve uh action items G1 through three. >> I'll second. >> Thank you. Are there any questions or comments from anybody? >> Hearing none, Mr. Chambers, when you're
072ready. >> Mr. Nichols. I >> Miss Perchard. >> I >> Miss Parkerst. >> I >> Miss Smooyer. >> I >> Mr. West. >> Yes. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Sable. Your action items, please. >> Is recommended that the board of education accept the following donations to Madina City Schools. I want to thank Plastipac um Mr. West's employer for their donation, annual donation of water bottles uh to our cross country uh annual Milt Place Festival. Um, I'd also like to point out uh the donation for technology equipment uh to the technology department from the athletic boosters and that donation was to refresh the distance learning lab um uh for the athletic department as well as other meetings. Uh, also uh a donation from uh window branding uh decals um from uh Hurf Jones. Uh if you
073haven't noticed uh the new flashy windows on the front and side of the high school. Uh those were uh all donated to the district. Number two is field trips. It is recommended that the board of education approve the following overnight field trips in compliance with policy 2340. All of these recommended field trips uh are uh camps uh that our students and organizations have participated in the past. Uh most of these uh are occurring over the winter break period. Number three is transportation. It is recommended that the board of education approve the attached parental transportation contract for the 2526 school year. Um we occasionally get these recommendations coming out of transportation if we have a student uh that is not feasible for us to transport on our own or as a cost savings uh to go
074into contract with the parent for transportation. Number four uh is the roofing project uh which Ryan had mentioned earlier this evening. It is recommended that the board of education adopt the following resolution for professional roofing service to replace the performing arts center theater roof section 0 or zero uh with alternative items 1 A and 1 C per attached at the cost of $119,000. Uh that is a project that is really needing to be completed. Uh I know there's been some patchwork up there to make sure uh or to limit uh the the leaks as we move through the season and head to next summer. I do appreciate uh the work to go out and rebid that to get additional bids because that resulted in a substantial cost savings for the district. And number four is
075personnel. It is recommended that the board of education approve uh the following personnel recommendations pending completion of all required uh paperwork uh to the human resources uh office. I'll entertain a motion to accept uh superintendent action items H. >> I'll make a motion to >> second. >> Thank you. Any questions or comments from anybody over here? No. Mr. your chambers. When you're ready, please. >> Miss Smeer, >> I. >> Mr. Nichols, >> I. >> Miss Parker, >> I. >> Miss Pritchard. >> I. >> Mr. West. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Um, I would now um entertain a motion to enter into executive session to consider the appointment, employment, dismissal, discipline, or compensation of a public employee or official. uh discussion with the board's legal council of disputes involving the board that are subject to
076pending or imminent court action. And that's it. Do I have a hearse second for >> I'll make such motion. >> Thank you. So I have a second. >> I'll second. >> Thank you. Any questions or comments on that? No. Mr. Chambers. >> Miss Parker. >> Hi. >> Mr. Nichols. >> Hi. >> Miss Pritchard. >> Hi. >> Miss Smeer. >> I. >> Mr. West. >> Yes. >> Thank you. And we will not be having uh taking any action following executive session. And that's it everybody. Thank you very much.