001Good evening. The March 10th, 2026 regular meeting of the Mentor Exempted Village Board of Education is called to order. This meeting is being held in accordance with section 3313.15 of the Ohio Revised Code. Please place your mobile phones on silent mode for the meeting. Mr. Wade, please call the roll. Mr. Hayek. Present. Mr. Hardesty. Present. Ms. Apollo. Here. Ms. Martazza. Present, but will need to leave early to catch the Hopkins 5th grade concert. Noted. [snorts] Ms. Cook. Here. Thank you, and please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance if you're willing and able. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> At this time, please join me in a moment of
002silence in remembrance of our student, Cayden Dudas Richardson. Thank you. I would like to welcome everyone to the March 10th, 2026 regular meeting of the Mentor Exempted Village Board of Education. Board members have received the agenda and supporting materials for review and consideration through the district's paperless Board of Education agenda system, BoardDocs. The agenda is available for public viewing on the district's website beginning the Sunday prior to the meeting. Board members may contact the superintendent or chief financial officer for additional information regarding agenda items if needed. The board provides two opportunities for public comment. The first hearing of the public is limited to comments on agenda items. The second hearing of the public allows comments on any topic. Individuals wishing to participate must sign up prior to the start of the meeting either online through
003the district website or on site. Speakers will be called to the microphone, asked to state their name and address, and direct comments to the board president. Each speaker may speak once per segment with comments limited to 3 minutes. The hearing of the public serves as an opportunity for community members to provide input to the board. While responses may not be provided immediately, all comments are valued and will be considered thoughtfully with follow-up provided when appropriate. To ensure an orderly meeting and in acceptant in in accordance with Ohio Revised Code 2917.12 and Board Policy 0169.1, Any individual who disrupts or interferes with the meeting may be warned and or removed. This meeting is being live streamed and recorded and may be viewed live or on demand via the district's YouTube channel Cardinal TV Mentor Ohio. Thank
004you. I would like to make everyone aware that we have added one item to the agenda. The addendum was there. It's item L to the chief financial officer's report and recommendations. This was a late addition on the website. And at this time we have district highlights and recognitions. Good evening, Madam President, members of the board, and Mr. Wade. Uh tonight joining us, and I would ask her to come to the podium, please, is uh Tina Ludwig from the Northeast Regional Liaison for the auditor of auditor of state for a brief presentation. Thank you. Hello everyone. Thank you so much uh for a few moments on your agenda um this evening for job well done. Um as stated, my name is Tina Ludwig, and I am Auditor of State Keith Faber's Northeast Ohio Regional Liaison. Or
005as the auditor would like to say, I'm your personal customer service representative. It's my honor to be here on behalf of Auditor Faber to present the Auditor of State Award with Distinction to the Mentor Exempted Village School District. Each year our office is responsible for conducting more than 4,200 audits of our 6,000 clients statewide. This award places your organization in a select group as just about 4% of our clients qualify for the Award with Distinction. The Auditor of State Award is presented to local governments and school districts upon the completion of a financial audit that meet the following criteria defined as a clean audit report. The entity must file financial reports with the auditor's office by the statutory due date without extension on a GAAP accounting basis and prepare a comprehensive annual financial report. When
006I first started with the auditor's office, someone handled handed me one of those comprehensive annual financial reports. I still haven't got through it yet. >> [laughter] >> The audit report does not contain any findings for recovery, material citations, material weaknesses, significant deficiencies, uniform guidance findings, or questioned costs. The entities management letter contains no comments related to ethics referrals, questioned costs less than the threshold per uniform guidance, lack of timely report submission, bank reconciliation issues, failure to obtain a timely single audit in accordance with uniform guidance, findings for recovery less than $500, and public meetings or public records issues. This award represents the hard work of all of Mentor Exempted Village School District staff and employees who make every effort each day to attain accounting excellence. We'd like to recognize the board, the administration and finance
007department that have done an outstanding job watching over every dollar. What this truly means is that across the entire organization, you have the people and processes in place that understand fiscal accountability. Specifically, we want to recognize your Chief Financial Officer, Bill Wade, for his leadership, professionalism, and exceptional commitment to fiscal integrity. On behalf of Auditor Faber, I would like to present the Mentor Exempted Village School District the Auditor of State Award with Distinction. Congratulations. >> [applause] [applause] >> Thank you. Thank you, Tina. On behalf of the board and myself and the finance department, we are truly honored to have this award presented to us here tonight. I would be remiss not to say thank you to our finance department, which I'll call up here in a second, as well as to all the employees and
008staff throughout the district to really help us make sure that we are following the procedures and policies that we have in place in the district to meet the expectations for our community as well as the auditors. So, thank you to the auditor's office and yourself for presenting this award tonight. I would like to recognize our team members that are here with us today. So, if you could join me on stage, shake the board members' hands, and then we'll let you guys get back to your normal lives since you work so hard during the day. Our first person that I have is Rachel Griffith. Next is Mike Bowen. We also have Julie Pepka with us here tonight. Thank you. >> We have Tory DiPascuali with us. And Karen Brandt also with us here tonight. And last
009but not least, we have our assistant treasurer here, Mike Vaccarello. We also have a couple members who couldn't be with us here tonight, Tammy Rudler, Crystal Pierce, and Diane Burton. We couldn't do without them as well. So, I like to recognize them for all their efforts. Thank you very much and appreciate the time that the board's given us tonight to recognize our staff and our department. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Thank you, Mr. Wade, and everyone in the finance department. That was quite an honor. Next, we have approval of minutes. Do I have a motion? So moved. I will second. Is there any discussion? Please call the roll. Ms. Marchese. Yes. Ms. Cook. Yes. Mr. Haig. Yes. Mr. Hardesty. Yes. Ms. Iacobla. Yes. Motion carried 5-0. Next, we have hearing of the public on agenda
010items only. Uh there are no people signed up for session one. So, we are good to go. Thank you. Next we have the superintendent's report and recommendations. Good evening, Madam President, members of the board, and Mr. Wade. I have the following recommendations listed under the consent agenda and recommend approval of items 6A1 through 6A4. So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? Mr. Wade, please call the roll. Ms. Marchaza. Yes. Mr. Hardesty. Yes. Mr. Hague. Yes. Ms. Iappolo. Yes. Ms. Cook. Yes. Motion carried 5-0. Madam President, members of the board, and Mr. Wade. I am recommending approval of the purchase of a 10-passenger transit van for CARES. So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? Mr. Wade, please call the roll. Ms. Iappolo. Yes. Ms. Marchaza. Yes. Mr. Hague. Yes. Mr. Hardesty. Yes. Ms. Cook. Yes. Motion
011carried 5-0. Madam President, members of the board, and Mr. Wade. I am recommending approval of the elevator repairs and renovations by Schindler Elevator Corporation. So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? Please call the roll. Ms. Marchaza. Yes. Ms. Iappolo. Yes. Mr. Hague. Yes. Mr. Hardesty. Yes. Ms. Cook. Yes. Motion carried 5-0. Madam President, members of the board, and Mr. Wade. I am recommending approval of the one-year Class Kick subscription renewal. So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? Please call the roll. Ms. Marchaza. Yes. Mr. Hardesty. Yes. Mr. Hague. Yes. Ms. Iappolo. Yes. Ms. Cook. Yes. Motion carried 5-0. Madam President, members of the board, and Mr. Wade. I am recommending approval of the College Credit Plus MOU with Kent State University. So So Second. >> Second. Any discussion? Mr. Wade, please call the roll. Ms.
012Marchaza. Yes. Mr. Hardesty. Yes. Mr. Haig. Yes. Ms. Ayapolo. Yes. Ms. Cook. Yes. Motion carries 5-0. Madam President, members of the board, Mr. Wade, I'm recommending approval of the ground transportation agreement with Lake Tran. So moved. Second. Any discussion? Just as a real quick explanation on this one. This is the same contract that we had with them back in the late fall, early winter. Reason we're bringing it back, we've had three additional staff members that will be on leave through the end of the school year now. So we're using this just to provide some additional flexibility when needed for some of our special education routes. Thank you. Mr. Wade, please call the roll. Ms. Marchaza. Yes. Mr. Hardesty. Yes. Mr. Haig. Yes. Ms. Ayapolo. Yes. Ms. Cook. Yes. Motion carries 5-0. Madam President, members of
013the board, Mr. Wade, I'm recommending approval of the high school pavement improvements bid resolution. So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? Mr. Wade, please call the roll. Ms. Marchaza. Yes. Mr. Haig. Yes. Mr. Hardesty. Yes. Ms. Ayapolo. Yes. Ms. Cook. Yes. Motion carries 5-0. >> [clears throat] >> Madam President, members of the board, Mr. Wade, I'm recommending approval of agenda item C1 related to certified personnel and C2 through C6 all related to human resource matters. So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? Please call the roll. Ms. Marchaza. Yes. Ms. Apollo. >> Yes. Mr. Hague. Yes. Mr. Hardesty. Yes. Ms. Cook. Yes. Motions carry 5-0. >> [clears throat] >> Madam President, members of the board, Mr. Wade, I'm recommending approval of agenda item D related to administrative staff. So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? >>
014Yeah, before we take the vote, number one, I'm happy to bring forward these three administrators to our uh uh to our board this evening. We've got Annie Haram who's going to be stepping in as principal at Ridge Elementary School, Mr. Ryan McKnight who will be stepping in as our next athletic director at the high school, and Britney Mayjack who is going to be stepping into the director of CARES role here for the beginning of next school year. I know Mr. McKnight is here. I would appreciate it if he would come forward and maybe say a couple of words before we take the vote. Just like to say I'm incredibly honored and humbled to accept the position of athletic director at Mentor High School. Um greatly appreciate the support of the community that I've received up
015to this point. I'd like to really thank the school board, the central office administrative team, and Mr. Fullerman with providing me this >> [clears throat] >> vital role and this critical opportunity. This job always will be about the students, and I can assure you that we're going to do everything we can to maximize the opportunities we provide our students as athletes and academic within the schools to ensure they're responsible and productive citizens within the community once they graduate. So, I'm going to work very closely with our coaching staff to ensure that every one of our athletes leaves the program a better person than when they came in because I I do have an understanding having grown up in this community what a tremendous source of pride our athletics teams are within the school and community.
016So, again, thank you very much for this opportunity. Really look forward to getting started. >> [applause] >> Hold on, you're shaking hands before they vote. >> [laughter] >> Yeah. The slight confidence. >> [laughter] [clears throat] >> All right, do I have a motion? I motion. >> we have Ms. Ayala motion then Ms. Marchaza a second. So, >> Thank you. I'm sorry. >> unless there's more discussion it's time to vote. Seeing none, Mr. Wade, please call the roll. Ms. Ayala? Yes. Ms. Marchaza? Yes. Mr. Hague? Yes. Mr. Hardesty? Yes. Ms. Cook? Yes. Motion carries 5-0. Congratulations, Mr. McKnight. Congratulations. >> [applause] >> Uh Madam President, members of the board, Mr. Wade, I am recommending approval of agenda item E related to the administrative staff benefits. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. >> [snorts] >>
017Is there any discussion? No? Mr. Wade, please call the roll. Ms. Ayala? Yes. Ms. Marchaza? Yes. Mr. Hague? Yes. Mr. Hardesty? Yes. Ms. Cook? Yes. Motion carries 5-0. And Madam President, members of the board, Mr. Wade, I am recommending approval of agenda item F related to retire-rehire administrative staff benefits. Do I have a motion? So moved. I will second. Is there any discussion? Mr. Wade, please call the roll. Mr. Hardesty. Yes. Ms. Cook. Yes. Mr. Hague. Yes. Ms. Ayala. Yes. Ms. Marchaza. Yes. Motion carries 5-0. This concludes my portion of tonight's agenda. Thank [clears throat] you. The first item under board business is the first reading of a Board of Education Neola policies, and because this is a first reading, no vote is necessary. Start. Any discussion on that? Okay. Um next we have the
018second reading and approval of a Board of Education Neola policy. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? Please call the roll. Ms. Marchaza. Yes. Mr. Hardesty. Yes. Mr. Hague. Yes. Ms. Ayala. Yes. Ms. Cook. Yes. Motion carries 5-0. >> [clears throat] >> Next we have the legislative report, Mr. Hardesty. All right. >> [snorts] >> Well, >> [sighs] >> we have over 200 pieces of uh legislation or bills in the House and Senate. We'll go through all 200 of them right now. >> [laughter] >> No. Motion to adjourn. No, actually, um some will gain traction, some will not gain traction. There's committee meetings for the House and Senate Education Committees and the Finance Committee today, or they already had those meetings. Uh so there'll be more of an update uh, next
019month. But, I I went over six bills last month. The only one that I'll touch on again is uh, House Bill 671, which was Jamie Calendar um, put forth to withhold um, uh, state funding from public schools that entered the voucher lawsuit. The reason I'm giving an update on this is because it has been pulled back a little bit and now it's only being proposed that the um, portion of the voucher lawsuit funds would be withheld from the public schools if they join the lawsuit. Uh, so it has been pulled back. Um, it's still matriculating through the system. But, uh, I don't know how much traction it has right now. I'll also give an update on SB 19, which I reported on in January. Uh, it's passed the House and it's in the Senate currently.
020And that's the one where it's giving for fit extra tutoring to people that are struggling with math proficiency. Uh, so stay tuned for that because it is moving rather quickly. Um, some bills that I have not reported on yet. There's HB 500, which would make ROTC um, uh, career tech credit in our high schools. Uh, it has passed the House and is currently in the Senate. There's also HB 437, which will increase the uh, thoroughness of physicals for cardio monitoring to um, basically safeguard against um, heart defects and keep our students safe. Um, and lastly, there's HB 25, well, I'm sorry, HB 437, the cardio monitoring bill, has passed the house and is currently in the Senate. And then we have HB 25, which is has a provision for foster liaisons in the school. That
021has passed the house. Uh, so for foster kids to have their transition from high school into post-high school life more seamless. And that concludes my legislative report. Thank you very much. Next we have the student achievement report. I'm sorry. Yes, the student achievement report Mr. Ick. Thank you very much. So, let's talk about the spelling bee. The district in Lake County spelling bee, for the third time in 4 years, one of our students, Tia Geisler, a seventh grader from Shore Middle School, has won the Lake County spelling bee and the Tri-County spelling bee. She'll be heading to the Scripps National Spelling Bee competition in Washington, D.C. at the end of May. That's tremendous. And this is a picture of her and her parents, but look. Now, if you notice Mr. Porter in that picture, looks
022very relaxed. >> [laughter] >> All right. Okay. So, National Merit Finalists. So, Aisha Faruki and Nick Payne, please [clears throat] help us congratulate them for being National Merit Finalists. In the fall, these two students were named National Merit Semi-Finalists and now have moved on to become National Merit Finalists. Out of this group of 15,000 finalists, 6,870 Merit Scholarships will be awarded. So, as just former swimming coach. We had five students on our women's swim team to qualify for the state meet at CT Branin Natatorium in Canton. Marion Collins in four events, the 200 IM, 100 breaststroke, both relays, the medley and the 400 meter free. Libby Davis also qualified in four events, 100 free, 100 back, medley relay and the 400 meter freestyle. Maddie Holtz was part of both relays and Holly Bomberger on the
023medley and Sophia Messina on the 400 free. Shore Middle School Um their National Junior Honor Society students recently volunteered in February um for the Mentor Schools Food Market, helping to distribute thousands of pounds of fresh produce to community members. This monthly initiative in partnership with the Greater Cleveland Food Bank and supported by volunteers from the Mentor Area Chamber of Commerce and the United Way wouldn't be possible without the helping hands. We love seeing students learn the value of service while making a difference right here in Mentor. So, this is what you have to do. You have to take duct tape and cardboard and you have to make it into a boat. So, that seems like a good idea. And then they take a field trip to the Mentor Recreation Center to test them. That looks
024like this. Um students recently took the cardboard canoe challenge. Um there's our engineering students putting their creativity, teamwork, and problem-solving skills to the test using only com- cardboard, tape, and ingenuity. Teams designed canoes to see if their ideas would sink or float. Some boats stayed afloat, some well, provided memorable splash landings. But every outcome meant learning, testing ideas, adjusting designs, and discovering that failure is just part of the engineering process. Hands-on experience like this helps students think critically, collaborate, and apply classroom learnings in learning in real-world ways. Speech and Debate. Ellie Coleman is going to Nationals. February marks post-season competition for Speech and Debate, and Mentor High School has plenty to celebrate. At the NSDA North Coast National Qualifying Tournament, Ellie earned a third-place finish in the Congressional Debate, qualifying for the National Speech and
025Debate Tournament this June in Richmond, Virginia. Ellie also authored legislation that was debated by other students during the tournament's final round. We're also proud to share that along with Ellie, two other Mentor students have qualified for the OSDA State Tournament in March, Braden Shullack and Oliver Dawson. Congratulations to these students and to our Speech and Debate Team for its continued success. So, it's not a student It's not a student achievement update with a lot of little talk about AI. So, there's an AI committee meeting that has been meeting regularly and the uh the meeting the committee is composed of teachers, administrators, and three students from the high school who recently distributed survey, which was conducted among all of the high school students and returned by just over 600 students. The compiled data made a 20-page
026document, which Mr. Lynch was kind to send to me, but what I found particularly interesting was some of the student comments. Students were asked what they most used AI to do. That seems like a pretty good question, and the teachers were surprised. Most students use AI for mathematics. The teachers didn't think that would be the case. So, the kids said, "We use AI for math to find step-by-step problem explanations, to check our answers, to understand exactly where a mistake occurred, and to study for tests and quizzes, and relearning comments when we're stuck. Students consistently describe math use in AI as help explaining, showing steps, checking work, and helping when I don't understand. Math also shows the strongest link to problem-solving and critical thinking support. The second most used classwork in AI in manner was science.
027Science use is slightly less frequent than math, but still substantial. Common science-related uses, explaining concepts or processes, reviewing notes, studying vocabulary, and clarifying confusing concepts. Students often frame AI as a supplement to notes or lectures, and not as a replacement. Thank you very much. Thank you. At this time, we have the chief financial officer's report and recommendations. Mr. Wade. >> [clears throat] >> Madam President, members of the board, Mr. Heath, uh looking at our monthly financials, um currently, we are um now comparing to our February forecast, which we approved. And you can see that our current year-to-date revenue collection is about uh $4,500 below what we were expecting last month. Um again, that's probably a timing issue, just the way that uh some maybe some interest income. It really is what it comes down to
028is state funding um fluctuations that occur uh based on enrollment or based on funding that comes in or uh gets subtracted based on a number of factors. So, um and our year-to-date expenses are looking at to be about $670,000 higher than we were expecting back in February. Again, I think those are mostly going to be attributed to timing of uh purchases a little bit earlier than we have in the past, and that will kind of come out in the wash, so to speak, when we go out through the rest of the the uh projections that we have. So, when we look at our revenue to date, uh actual revenue for the month was down. We did get our advance about $19 million if I remember correctly from the county for our first half of the
029tax year collections, but our second half collections for our fiscal year just as a reminder. And then for the year, revenues are about $1.7 million higher than last year at the same time. Again, most of that coming in the form of other revenue that we're seeing continue to project higher. >> [cough] >> So, again, to summarize where we're at, we're pretty darn close to where we expected to be last month, so there's no real change there. Again, just as a check to the board, you know, we want to make sure that our forecast and whatever we have monthly are coming in relatively close and we are here as well. When we look at our expenses, our actual expenses for the month were up about $800,000, which explains kind of the timing issue that I was
030referring to last year. We got some purchases in in February usually that we don't get into March and or April. So, that's kind of attributing to where we're at. If you can see our salary and benefits are, you know, last year only about $49,000 higher, which is, you know, minimal when you're looking at, you know, $69 million salaries which make up our budget. And our purchase services are coming up a little bit higher in the form of tuition. Year-to-date, we're about $1.9 million higher again because of salaries and benefits and some of the growth that we saw there based on our negotiated agreements, so nothing out of the ordinary, all what we projected. Again, as I said, about 60 $667,668,000 higher than we were projecting last month. The majority of that coming in the form
031of some purchases that we made in supplies and technology in particular, in general supplies, getting those things purchased now, probably heading into spring break kind of make sure that we have the stuff for the second part or the last quarter of the year. And our tuition payments being a little bit higher than we had anticipated. Again, based on the wind time of paying bills. I've gotten a few questions from board members and a community member with regards to comments made where they believe that our staffing is higher than it was pre-COVID and it's been outpacing our enrollment. And again, we know we've had declining enrollment. We've seen from a teacher standpoint when we've shown the graph that has the parallel lines that goes down where our teaching staff has been being reduced. So this these
032numbers are the numbers that I provide every September in appropriations. So I went back and you know, we've since I started in 2021, which is basically your 2022, I went back to the first year of that forecast, which would have been 2019, fiscal year 2019, so the 18-19 school year, pulled the EMIS data and then used the EMIS data to report all staff. Mr. Wilson did it a little bit differently. I wanted something that I could be as consistent as possible on, so EMIS data is what we report to the state. It's all staff, so it's all funds as I've shared with the board, so that includes non-general fund expenses, so that would include your teachers at cares that aren't paid for out of the general fund, it would include anybody that we were paying
033for out of ESSER funds as well. And we always talk about on that graph that has that downward slope with the enrollment where we see that spike during COVID, those staff members were added. You can see that same kind of trend in the blue line below. You know, you see kind of that 116.75, 113.31, Those were people that we did add and paid for without ESSER funds. You can hopefully see where those ESSER funds stopped and we kind of went back to pre-COVID numbers and then have continued to decline our staffing and making those adjustments as we continue to move forward. So, what I would say is that our staff has actually gone down by about 2% since 2019 and as we know our reduction in student enrollment's gone down by about 14%. I have
034dug into that as well and I probably could have put some slides in here about student enrollment, but just as a reiteration live birth data and those students that show up when they come when they're supposed to be here for kindergarten is how we make our projections going forward. We have seen a slight dip in that ratio from the live birth to the kids that show up in kindergarten. It's down about 5% from pre-COVID, but it's not atypical for that to fluctuate. So, but what we are seeing the decline is not because kids are leaving. Our retention from the time that they start with us to the time that they leave is actually really, really good. It's near 100% and exceeds 100% in some areas because we get kids that move in, but when you
035have classes that are graduating 600, 650 and you only have kindergarten classes coming in because the live birth rates of about 440, that's why we continue to see the shrinkage that we're seeing. Again, need to continue to watch those live birth rates to students showing up in kindergarten because we don't want to not have kids coming in because obviously that would exacerbate the decline that we would be seeing potentially. So, we got to continue to work hard to make sure that we're going out and getting our kindergarteners here to school. And with that though, we will continue to see those adjustments from a staffing standpoint as we move forward. Uh we are expecting, as I've shared before, even in the last month that that's going to start to level off and maybe not be the
036same rate uh cuz we're seeing some steady numbers coming in with kindergarten. If And that's the graph I was referring to that we constantly usually show. But what I would go back to is if, you know, I I understand that people question, right? It's in a I think it's good that people question. I think there's nothing wrong with questions. Um I think it's important that we show the community when they do have questions or they may have data that isn't consistent with the data that I'm showing. I should have no problem going the step further to to support that it is factual data. And And the way I can show that is is on the graph behind me is that blue is what we're paying for salaries out of the general fund. If we were
037seeing a large spike in staffing as enrollment went down, so if our staffing numbers were going up and our enrollment was going down, those blue sections would be a lot bigger than they are. Um we're averaging about 3% increase year over year. And when you look at our contracts and you look at the raises that we've had, that's below what we're having. And the reason why it's below the projected increases, if you were to simply just say we get 2% for steps and we've had, you know, 2% 2% 2.25% We had 3 years of 2.75s and now we had a 3 this last year, you would expect those to be even higher. But they're not higher because we've been reducing staff. Um So, from a visual representation as a kind of a check for that
038data on that previous slide, you can see And this this comes right from those forecast presentations that I've done. I took formation of kind of multiple why it looks kind of broken up there and they're not, you know, really simpatico on the way if you look at it very closely. It's because I took multiple presentations to show you the factual data that we've published that has been audited. So, from '19 through '25 has been audited and those are actual numbers and 26 is our projection at the far end. So, um I think that should demonstrate to the community that, you know, staffing numbers are as we reported and in our line with regards to the student enrollment that we have. And that has been something that's been ingrained in me and I know uh Mr.
039Haig uh as a former mentor employee and administrator, I know 2004 we were doing the opposite, right? Enrollment was going down, staffing was going up. That's kind of what led us into the fiscal crisis and I know when Dr. Hoeyns uh hired me as a high school principal, it was ingrained from us that we were constantly looking at enrollment, we were constantly looking at our staffing to make sure that we had this kind of trend going um going from that point on. So, we've worked really hard as a district to kind of continue that and that's kind of why we've been able to stretch out these levies from 2004 through 26. We only had one in 2016. So, um wanted just to kind of touch on that tonight. I I've seen uh some comments on
040that, some questions on that. So, again, since I already have the data and I've already presented it in multiple forms, it's pretty easy to kind of pull that together and get that here tonight. Um last thing I just will mention, we do have the uh forecast on the amended forecast. Um there was that glitch in the system that left off the budget reserve. Um so, I wanted to make sure that that is added back in so that we can present that um as accurately as possible. Um that does not change any of the information that I shared last month. Um it's all below those lines. It's in, you know, line 9.08 and it doesn't affect anything that we have for our cash balance or our revenue or expenses. Um and again, I do intend to
041do another update on that in May as we have historically because that'll will us 10 months of data to continue to track that so that when we get together in June we kind of know where we're at. So those are the big things I wanted to touch upon but I'm happy to take any questions if there are any. All right, so just to prepare everybody we will vote on A through F and then we'll do G H I J and K separately. All right, so Madam President members of the board I would take action on items B through F and addendums may be acted on in one motion. So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? Please call the roll. Ms. Marchaza. Yes. Ms. Cook. Yes. Mr. Hague. Yes. Mr. Hardesty. Yes. Ms. Ayapalo. >> Yes.
042Madam President members of the board I act at the ask at the board approve the updated fiscal projections for 25 through 26 through 28 through 29. So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? Please call the roll. Ms. Ayapalo. Yes. Ms. Marchaza. >> Yes. Mr. Hague. Yes. Mr. Hardesty. Yes. Ms. Cook. Yes. Motion carries. Madam President members of the board I ask for the authorization for filing of the tax complaint against 8180 Manor Hill. So moved. Second. Any discussion? Please call the roll. Ms. Marchaza. >> Yes. Ms. Cook. Yes. Mr. Hague. Yes. Mr. Hardesty. Yes. Ms. Ayapalo. >> Yes. Madam President members of the board I ask for the authorization for for filing of the tax complaint against the Clean Express Auto Wash. So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? Please call the roll. Uh Ms.
043Marchaza. >> Yes. Mr. Hardesty. Yes. Mr. Haig. Yes. Ms. Ayapolo. >> Yes. Ms. Marchaza Ms. Cook, excuse me. Yes. Madam President, members of the board, I ask for the authorization of the filing of the tax complaint against JPG Properties. So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? Please call the roll. Ms. Marchaza. Yes. Mr. Hardesty. Yes. Mr. Haig. Yes. Ms. Ayapolo. >> Yes. Ms. Cook. Yes. Motion carries 5-0. Madam President, members of the board, I ask for the authorization of the filing of the tax complaint against part part tad land partners. So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? Please call the roll. Ms. Marchaza. Yes. Mr. Hardesty. Yes. Mr. Haig. Yes. Ms. Ayapolo. Yes. Ms. Cook. Yes. Motion carries 5-0 and that concludes my section of the agenda. Oh and yes excuse yes we did add
044out. Forgot my own ad. Thank you. Madam President, members of the board, I ask for the approval of the resolution to recertify the tax rates for the tax year 26, collection year 27. So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? Please call the roll. Ms. Cook. Yes. Ms. Ayapolo. Yes. Mr. Haig. Yes. Mr. Hardesty. Yes. Ms. Marchaza. And she is excusing herself to go to >> herself at 6:42. And that we prove that 4-0 and that does now concludes my section of the agenda. All right. We do not have any unfinished business this evening. Actually, I do do don't we have you were going to follow up on that survey you took on those on the other admin benefits. Um did we want to do that in open session or executive session? I think we can
045do open. We're not talking about one specific person. It's pretty general. Um We were talking about renegotiating a contract though, so I would I would prefer to not talk about that talk about someone's contract openly. Well, it's not one person. It's just It's just in general. We all had the discussion before. I think it's I don't think it's a big discussion. I think This is something we can easily I mean this is It's not something that we It's really something that we should be we should be very transparent about. So, if we were talking about one specific person, then I would understand. Fair enough. But if we're talking about contracts that are in force and we're talking about modifying those, then I think that's how we should be transparent. Like promises were made to these
046administrators and I don't know why we would change those while those contracts were in force. >> [clears throat] >> We have stipulations in place to allow us because of extenuating circumstances and that's our job as board members. So, um And to keep our promises. We keep promises to our taxpayers as well, so Certainly. Um I don't think we need to get into a deep conversation. I think you you said you were putting it out there to some other districts to see and I didn't get any updates, so I assume we were talking about it here. Well, I did provide an update in my Friday update. One of the ones in February. I got the I shared the data with everybody. Um that kind of reviewed Okay, but your email to me >> [clears throat] >>
047about on the subject was that we were going to it wasn't going to be a resolution to vote on. It was going to be you were gathering that data and then we were going to be discussing it at this meeting. That was my understanding. No, the data was sent to us a couple of weeks ago weekend update with the charts. And then no one asked to have that on the agenda. So, I did not put that on the agenda and Okay. I I wasn't prepared for that discussion because >> You and I talked about it when you called me last week that this was going to be something we were going to talk about at the table. In fact, we talked about that you thought we were going to we you thought we weren't That's
048how I discovered we it wasn't going to be up for a resolution to vote because you had said, "Oh, I walked away from that meeting thinking something different." So, >> [clears throat] >> I I don't I don't see the issue of >> Right, you you said to me, "What does the resolution say that we've already voted on it?" And I said, "I have not seen the resolution yet, but this is my understanding." And then you asked for clarification from both of Mr. Heath and Mr. Wade, and they agreed that the resolution reflected what I Right. when I discussed and we had and we all said that it was not including this new information. Right, I understand that. I got clarification on that, but it was that we were going to be discussing it. We were
049waiting for the results and we're going to be discussing it. So, Arida am I to take this as nobody wants to re- look into making more cuts or are we going to just I am not ready to discuss that right now. That is not on our agenda, so. >> Can Can I interject here? Absolutely. Okay, I I wasn't part of any of that conversation or email thread. Uh but my understanding is that we were going to be voting on the cell phones today Mhm. because we had agreed to, you know, discuss that and move forward with the cell phones. I know we were going to gather more information on the other aspects of the contract but it was never added to an agenda or prepared for a discussion. If we want to put it on
050an agenda at some point, then we can put it on the agenda and talk about it, probably in executive session like we did the cell phones. But I don't think it's something that we can just pop up and talk about Okay. >> without any without getting it without putting it on the agenda formally and actually preparing for that discussion. Okay, my understanding in that executive session was this that I thought we were going to be possibly voting on both. I was corrected in the interim. However, we were the whole point of you gathering that information was because in the executive session everyone said, "We need to have more information." So we have more information and now nobody wants to talk about [laughter] it. So my only reason in bringing it up when it's not on
051the agenda is because we're Don't we We're only one more board meeting away from you know, an election. So if you guys don't see this as a priority that's fine. We can It's not going to go away. We'll talk about it another time, but I don't know what the whole point of having those conversations in executive session were if we're not going to act on them. So you know. Well, I think there was limiting I mean, now to not go into what we talked about in executive session, which I don't want to do but I think there were other factors involved with you know, just rolling it out or discussing it. So, I I'm kind of confused on what we can talk about up here and what we can talk about in executive session because
052we are talking about it a contract. But I do think there were like I said some logistical issues that we can discuss. And I do invite a discussion at some point. But I don't think that today when it's not been on the agenda, when we haven't prepared for it, and I actually prefer to do it in an executive session cuz we are talking about benefits and the contract. I think that we can prepare and put put it on the agenda for whenever you would like or whenever we'd like. That's fine. If it's again, I'm thinking let's do whatever we can possibly do so that the community can get, you know, feel good about some decisions. So, I'd like it then if everyone needs more time, let's have it on the on the agenda for for
053next week. And I or next month. And I you know, there we there are certain things we have to be in executive session for, but at the same time in hindsight, we had those discussions about a contract with two people who are this contract affected in that meeting. And I don't know that we were supposed to do that. So, if we do sit down and have this discussion again, I think we it should just be the board. I mean, we value their opinions on it. And so, I'm not you know, I don't regret that we did have that you guys in for this discussion, but I was told that that really was probably a no-no. I'm fine with that. I will um seek legal counsel on that to see moving forward what we should do
054about having people in executive session with those things, um, and we can we can look about, you know, having a further discussion on this, but Are you okay with putting it on the agenda? Is everybody okay for next meeting? Are you talking about having an executive session or having it on the agenda? An open at the >> Either way. And the agenda's fine, but if we do executive session, I I may have I may want that to be just the board. So, I'd like to talk to counsel about who should be in executive session. And my personal opinion on this without, you know, going going into this is from from my discussion from our discussion in executive session what you're talking about moving forward with something that I was not supporting moving changes on until
055the end of the contract. So, I don't I don't know that there's a reason for me to go into executive session about that. I can say that in executive session as well, but you know, we we've made we have a current contract and there were reasons that we can change things mid-contract now and there's reasons to not be able to make changes. Well, you're one person. Well, there's three other four other board members. >> I'm I'm one person. So, I am saying I don't really have a need to go into executive session about that, but I'm willing to hear others' opinions, so I I will and I will ask legal counsel if we can who we should have in if there's a conflict. >> We can have anybody in who or or not in as
056we please. And we've done that in the past, so I don't know that we want to waste money with the attorney. >> just thought that what you had stated was that it was inappropriate that they were in executive session and I just want to clarify if it was indeed inappropriate or not. That's all. I'm I mean, we can always decide to have executive session without our administrators there, but Yeah. the fact that we're saying it's inappropriate, I'm not sure on that, so. Does anyone want to have any more discussion about about that at this time? Um I'm fine with it being on next month's agenda to talk about in executive session. And I I don't mind who whoever is there, whichever we decide. I mean, that's fine with me if we want the administrators there
057or not. Thank you. Okay. Um under new business, we have a discussion on shared services for summer school. And I believe that Mrs. Iapalucci, you requested this on the agenda. Would you like to start us off with this? Yeah, so I just I think we're all looking for ways to, you know, reduce expenses and to get get um creative. And I you know, as I'm looking for things, I don't have all the answers. I'm I wasn't I actually learned a lot of from your information, Mr. Wade. Thank you for getting all of that back to me so quickly. Um I am [clears throat] looking for ways that we can share services with other districts to reduce all our costs and as well as other districts. So, I reached out to Mr. Wade asking about how
058our summer school is run, um what our costs were, what our enrollment is, and um if there's any opportunity to um you know, link up with other districts and um actually the the your information shocked me a little bit. I thought our the enrollment would be much higher than it actually was. Um I don't know what anybody else's view of that was, but I was I was I thought it would be a little bit higher. Um maybe back in my day more people went to to summer school. But >> [clears throat] >> um I In in looking through this, Mr. Wade, Mr. Heath, is there any any opportunity here do you think for, you know, sharing these costs or sharing these services with neighboring schools? There's always ways that we can look at doing some
059shared services. Um you know, summer school I don't think has been one that's been discussed previously, but um I know, for example, the one thing that uh kind of drives some of what we do in the summertime is the third grade reading guarantee. Um and that impacts all of our school districts across the county. So, that would be one that um potentially we can uh bring up in our next superintendent meeting to see, you know, how other districts run those programs and is there some uh some possibility for some shared service there. Uh the the one other thing I'll I'll toss out um cuz as we got some of these numbers and and saw some of the the student enrollments, um we did try to get a little bit more clarity and see if there
060are any others that uh you know, we have students from other districts coming to us. Um really the only place where we saw any of that was at the high school and that was more with Lake Catholic in uh partnership with them where some of their students would come uh to uh take some of those courses here. Um but for the most part, we've been just taking care of our own students uh traditionally in our Title [snorts] 1 buildings um predominantly for summer school as well. So, those are Lake Morton and uh and Ridge. And um uh I I I I I I I for the most part it's our teachers. Every now and then we have to open up something to the outside if we don't have enough interest internally to fill those positions,
061but we we do tend to do do pretty well with with our third grade reading guarantee stuff over the summer. Um I again, pretty small numbers as you were saying though. So, I don't know if I have all of this same information that that you have. We may have different information because I was asking Mr. Heath some questions, you know, and I saw come up on the agenda. And one of the things I'm not sure if you had like a specific idea maybe about where we could share costs, but I'm certainly interested in Okay. Uh I was just that's why I was asking. I didn't know if we could say like we'll you know, bring in what maybe Riverside will be say want to send their you know, students to us and pay us uh
062you know, a tuition or if we wanted to just split and do the um um you know, like the special needs. I don't know. I was I that's not my wheelhouse. So, I just thought that might be an area. I do have a meeting coming up here with with Dr. Word from Will Lake and Dr. Van Arnam from Kirtland here. Um I think it's the week after spring break. So, I I'll be able to get some specific questions from them. We're the three that kind of communicate on snow days all the time and and we set up probably a quarterly meeting just to kind of go through different things that were working through in our district. So, that'll be a good opportunity to bring this up with those two specifically since they are so close
063to our district. I'd be interested to know what their numbers are, too. Absolutely. We'll try and gather some of that from them. Yeah, I would I would like all the numbers and just any pathways that may be available to us to, you know, share services and cut costs. It would be great if we're if it's at all possible. I was curious a few a few things. I mean, I think, you know, you you get one question answered and then you you have like three more. So, I think it's a it's a great conversation to have. Thank you for bringing it up. Um one of the things that I I was wondering is are we looking at, you know, kind of we're hosting and so we're we're you think is that along the lines of were
064you thinking like we would be the host and people would pay tuition to us and we would be providing the services or our students would be also students >> Either. I would be open to wherever because I don't know what the needs are for the other districts. So, that would be sure. >> Sure. That's fair. And and I think I would need more information for that, too. Just some of the things that kind of came to mind for me as specifically for our students that are in the third grade reading guarantee when when we're looking at um the interventions that these are these are students that are probably on reading improvement and monitoring plans at RIMS right now. So, they probably have an interven- I'm sure they have an intervention in place within our district
065for reading and their intervention is using the curriculum that we use and our intervention process that we use. So, um when we are housing the program here, they stay consistent and I think consistency is such a key for young learners, especially struggling learners. So, I would like to see if we could possibly be the host. If other people want to, you know, use our programs, that's one thing, but I I am a little hesitant about sending to a different district where it's not a curriculum that we've approved or that our students are maybe be um comfortable with for intervention. I know that with our extended school year program, we don't necessarily So, extended school year program is different than Cool Cats because that's a special education program. And that is something that we do have
066students go to CARES. And that's that's an open camp for a completely open camp, but it's an extended school year camp for our students with um needs that would be served at CARES. So, I know that we we do that and that that's a nice cost revenue source for us in in that situation. I know that we don't do that for our other special ed students. You know, we don't provide other like speech services or things like that. And I don't know if we have the manpower to do that, but and I know that um the information that I got from Mr. Heath said that high school summer school, we do accept students from other schools that want to come take that. And it is a higher fee for them because they're not resident students.
067So, we are taking into we are doing some shared services with that and with the ESY summer camp for CARES, but maybe there's a possibility to do something with And maybe and maybe reducing the number that we are not taking in will allow us to reduce our staff if we're not, you know, servicing as many students. If that makes sense. Rather than letting them come in and taking in more kids, maybe if we don't do that anymore, we can reduce our staff, saving [music] some money. Does that make sense? Yeah. I guess I'm not sure where What do you mean with reducing staff for for CARES summer school? >> you said the high school where we take in other students from other districts. So I'm saying if it's if if it's a if it would
068make sense. Now you get it, okay? I am sorry. That took me a moment. Okay. Uh Mr. Heath, I'm getting a little lost. So I think we're talking about three different things. Um there's a program in the high school and for summer school which is primarily remediation for people who want to stay on grade level and graduate with their class. My understanding is that typically um it's self-supporting based on tuition. I don't know if for sure if that's That's the case, but I think it is. Yes, that's correct. Then we're talking about the elementary summer school which I think is called Cool Cats which is funded by the title programs for the title schools. Correct. And then the third thing I think is ESY which is extended school year services which is also funded through
069special education grants. So I don't see where the costs are to the district from the general fund as it relates to summer school. And I don't know if it's a possibility if we take outside students to make it in more a revenue center. I don't know if that's if that's possible. Yeah, traditionally the the summer school programs aren't having a huge impact on the general fund. Um the one thing that we're kind of digging into a little bit more here this year is looking closely at the Title 1 budget. Um we have a couple shifts that are going to be taking place here over this at the end of this school year with our title uh funding. One is um more than likely we're going to be um based on the demographics now uh the
070shift would be from Ridge being a targeted assistance uh school to Fairfax actually now being a targeted assistance school um because their uh economically disadvantaged population has surpassed Ridge at this point. So that's one shift that's going to take place. The other shift is our Title 1 coordinator is retiring this year um and we're looking at, um, our title staffing to figure out what that difference in salary is going to be with the person that's leaving versus, uh, potentially somebody else stepping into that role. Um, if it's, uh, a higher salary, we have to be a little bit cautious with what we do over the summer to make sure that we have some carryover funds to pay for our regular title programming that we have during the school year. So, that's where the one potential
071cost-saving measure could come into play a little bit is as we're looking at that Title I budget at the end of this year compared to the beginning of next year, and we don't have those allocations yet, obviously, for next year. Uh, but once we get those, that may dictate a little bit more of what we can and can't do this summer uh, with the with the Cool Cats program. Uh, so those are some things that we're looking closely at right now where, you know, if there are if there are ways that we can uh, approach that differently or reduce the offerings, um, that maybe we're not seeing as effective as others. Uh, we want want to make sure that we're getting the most bang for our buck with this. And obviously, that's with, uh, the
072title programming that we have during the day during the school year. Mr. Heath, do we have the So, the Cool Cats program that's funded through Title I, is that in two housed in two buildings currently, three buildings? Uh, typically, we'll do it in we we do the program in one building. Uh, typically, it is for those title buildings first and foremost. So, students will be coming from Ridge, uh, Lake, and Morton. Uh, typically, we've been doing that, I believe, over at Lake Elementary and/or Ridge Elementary, depending on the work that uh we have going on in those buildings um because we have a couple of air conditioned sections there that we can put them in for the summertime. Um so that's an important aspect to that. Um if there are some students that have not
073passed the third grade ELA test yet that are from other schools outside of our title buildings, if we have open slots available, we will try and uh slide some of them in as well. So, I'm glad to hear we're we're really housing in one building that shares administrative costs and um Okay, that's that's great. So, a Title I school, what percent of the population of that school needs to be designated economically disadvantaged to be considered Title I school? >> For a for a school-wide designation, it's over 40%. Uh so we have two school-wide buildings. Those are Lake and Morton. Um the the targeted assistance buildings will be um those that are above the overall district average of economically dis- disadvantaged, so that can change from year to year depending [snorts] on the shifts in the
074enrollments, and over the last few years it's been Ridge. Um but as we've checked that monthly throughout this school year, uh Fairfax has uh leapfrogged Ridge, which is um uh prompting us to to have to shift that uh that programming and that staffing potentially to Fairfax next year. Thank you. That that ex- That explains a lot to me because I couldn't understand how if Fairfax is suddenly a Title I school Ridge then isn't. Like like you have to pick, and I thought, "Well, what happened? Did Ridge just have an economic boom over there?" But um it's more that we're kind of playing a shell game and we haven't gotten an increased number of Title 1 funds. We just have a higher number of economically disadvantaged. >> Yeah, and it's very interesting, too. I've I've been
075in charge of the the Title programming in a couple of really large districts down in Central Ohio and the the movement within those buildings has was always very unique. Uh we have to run the comparability reports every year and you know, it'll spit out, you know, based off our EMIS data what those economically disadvantaged numbers are and um, again, that district average might continue to creep up a little bit as well, which would potentially drop some buildings off. Um, you know, we're fortunate here in Marysville, we have seven elementary schools, so it's not a huge um, the a huge calculation to do and it's pretty easy to follow, but uh yeah, in Hilliard and Dublin when I was there, we had 15 to 20 elementary schools and those things changed pretty quickly depending on the
076developments that were being built in different neighborhoods, so and and that may be [clears throat] one of the considerations there, too. Obviously, we've had that neighborhood being built right next to to Ridge Elementary School now and and those families moving into the Ridge uh community there um, maybe lowering that socioeconomic indicator for us. Okay. So, you stated that we take out-of-district students right now, right? Uh >> [snorts] >> we we've seen that at the high school just like one or two Lake Catholic kids each year and we're it's not like we're getting a bunch of people from, you know, another public district at this point. Um, it's just been some of the uh Lake Catholic students that might not have access to summer programming. And they pay tuition? Correct. Okay. And does that result in
077a net gain or is that cost us money? It's basically covering the cost of their enrollment in that program. So, it's breaking even? Pretty much. Okay. This says um the extended school year is mo covered by federal funds, but you said except for when students have to attend other programs based on their IEP. What what kind of number is that? Um I don't >> Do we have a lot of students that No, most of our kids that I think that we send send here. I'd have to ask Mrs. Bowser the the specific number of kids that she sends out. Um so, the kids that do cost the general fund are the ones that aren't educated with us cuz we use our federal funding to pay. That are are or that are not? Are not. So,
078if we send a student out because of their IEP goals or team decision, that's typically covered by general fund. Right. And that is that a big number or not? Uh I'd have to look. I didn't I don't have that in front of me. I can get that to everybody. All right. Is there any more discussion about shared services for summer school? All right. Next, we have hearing of the public on any topic. Mr. Wade. Our first speaker is Alex Fish. Thank you, Mr. Fish. Our next speaker is Lynn Waseeka. Madam President, members of the board, Mr. Heath, and Mr. Wade, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you this evening. First, I'd like to give a hearty congratulations to Mr. Wade and all of the Minot school staff for your award on meeting all
079the strict standards in keeping the school's financial records. Being in the top 4% of the state is an amazing feat. Mr. Wade, you always keep a solid roof over our schools as our CFO. And although this has been discussed previously, I would like to again ask that the regular meetings of the boards be moved back to the Paradyme building. If that's something that you're willing to talk about, um it is so much more conducive to the audience to be able to see you and vice versa, so you can see us, than in this large auditorium. And finally, I'll be hosting a social to present information on Minot schools' May levy. And I appreciate the members of the administration taking the time out of your evenings to explain to my neighbors the reason for asking for
080this levy. So, I appreciate your being able to come, and I'm hopeful that we'll get some good turnout and some good questions and some good information passed around. Thank you for your time. Thank you. That's it. All right. Um do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. Mr. Wade, please call the roll. Ms. Apple? Yes. Mr. Hardesty? Yes. Mr. Haeg? Yes. Ms. Cook? Yes. Motion carries 4-0. Meeting's adjourned at 7:14 p.m. I'll get back