Mentor Board of Education Meeting November 19, 2024

001e e e [Music] good evening the November 19th 2024 regular meeting of the mentor Exempted Village board of education is called to order this meeting is being held in accordance with section 33131 15 of the Ohio revised code please place your mobile phones on silent mode for the meeting Mr Wade please call the role miss aapo here miss chling present Miss maraza present Miss Payne here miss cook here thank you and please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge alce to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for I would like to welcome everyone to the November 19th 2024 regular meeting of the mentor Exempted Village Board of Education prior to this evening each board member

002has received for their review and consideration the agenda and materials associated with each agenda item for the board's approval via the district's paperless Board of Education agenda system board docs the public can access the agenda through the school district's website and the agenda is available through the district's website for public viewing the Sunday prior to the board meeting board members have the opportunity to call the superintendent and Chief Financial Officer for information concerning agenda items and to request if needed additional information there are two places on the agenda where the board entertains comments from the community the first hearing of the public is dedicated to those who wish to address the board on agenda items only the second hearing of the public is dedicated to those who wish to address the board on any subject

003whether it be an item on the agenda or another topic to participate in the hearing of the public section interested speakers must sign up prior to the start of the meeting signups are available online through the school district's website or on site prior to the start of the meeting you will be called to the microphone when it is your turn to speak and at that time we ask that you please state your name and address questions to the board president each person may speak only once per segment and comments are limited to 3 minutes the purpose of the hearing of the public is for our community members to address the board the board continues to welcome feedback from the community as an important component to conducting business this is an information gathering opportunity for the

004board and administration so we can work to best serve our community if at the end of the public participation we do not make a statement please know this does not demonstrate a lack of care for comments shared by our community rather we want to be thoughtful in our approach and we will provide a response in a timely manner when appropriate in an effort to maintain an orderly meeting based on Ohio Revised Code 29712 and board policy 01691 any person doing any Act which obstructs or interferes with the conduct or orderly progress of the board meeting will be warned Andor removed from the meeting this meeting is being shown live and can be viewed On Demand on our YouTube channel Cardinal TV Menor Ohio thank you because we do not have any District highlights and recognitions

005this evening we'll move on to approval of [Music] minutes do I have an do I have a motion to approve the minutes for the October 8th 2024 regular board meeting Madam president I move to approve have a second second any discussion Mr Wade please call the rooll Miss marazza yes Miss Jing yes Miss aapo yes Miss Payne abstain uh Miss Cook yes motion carries 40 next we have hearing of the public on agenda items only our first speaker is Linda O'Brien oh there she is Linda o'ban 5842 Tanager Court here in Mentor as you know from some of my prior comments I conduct a summer camp for children that's a reenactment of the years of the American Revolution through a reenactment process this year we had 221 campers They Come As Time Travelers they will

006be entering others somewhere between 2 grade and 7th grade 94 of those 221 are from here in Lake County as the children progress through the week they make a decision and if they choose to be an American Patriot they prepared themselves for signing their own copy of the Declaration of Independence with a quill and Inc Mrs O'Brien does this relate to our agenda yes this is about achievement oh I'm sorry thank you they are required to read the following pledge please listen carefully they will raise their right hand and they will say it like this I Linda O'Brien do solemnly pledge to honor God protect my country and provide for my family I know that Liberty comes from God and that freedom is a precious gift I promise to stand strong for the values that

007America was founded on to treat all as equals to be grateful for my god-given rights of life liberty Justice and the pursuit of happiness now I hope you listened to those words I had Minister this to each and every one of the students and I am really concerned about the fact that a number of our older campers struggled to read every one of those words as I think about a student achievement I think about that for the fa past four years coming before you I have asked you to focus on the basics Reading Writing and arithmetic if a fifth grader cannot read this pledge how well are we teaching read reading that's my question to you is there achievement in Reading when a fifth grader can't read these basic words I'm sorry to tell you

008that I won't be able to stay and listen to your rest of your meeting today probably that will cover student achievement because I have to pick up my granddaughter from Christmas Pageant rehearsal uh but please know this is a very serious concern of mine and many others and I'm looking forward to some serious reconstruction and renewal of our educational system after July 20th I thank you for your time thank you our next speaker is Lynn Mazika Madame President members of the board Mr Heath and Mr Wade thank you for the opportunity to address this you this evening I would like to speak on an item listed under unfinished business on the agenda it is my understanding that the board always follows the law of the state and federal government so a separate policy on the

009ban of trans students using the restroom that agrees with their gender as proposed in state senator s sereno's uh Bill 104 is unnecessary and is one more way to single out and hurt some of our students trans students face enough pain and discrimination our schools need to be a safe space for all all students including them it is spiteful to pass an unneeded policy on a bill that's not even in effect as one state senator recently said this bill is not about bathrooms it's about demonizing those who are different and our children are watching and listening to this fearmongering this bill has nothing to do with student safety and everything anything to do with political opportun opportunism Ohio Federation of teachers president Melissa Cropper said in a statement there is no epidemic of student assaults

010in bathrooms and locker rooms and it is a poorly considered bill that will bring up huge enforcement issues it is more like than likely going to be litigated another reason not to consider an unneeded policy and finally do we write policy for every law that's passed in the state of Ohio I think not and I don't think we need to for this thank you for your time thank you our next speaker is Lindsay wall good evening Mr Heath Mr Wade president cook and board members I would like to speak on the items listed under new business tonight I have been following the bills that are listed on the agenda for quite some time I have worked with several organizations across Ohio members of the House and Senate and talked with local religious leaders about the

011strong opposition we have for the two RT bills I am sure tonight you will hear many reasons as to why religious release time is not a good fit for our district from the safety concerns to The Unwanted school day disruptions I am going to highly encourage you all to watch the testimony given today and last week at the State House on both RT bills there were over 200 submissions for opponent testimony last week and today the last I heard this evening they were still sorting testimony but they the Senate education committee had received over 300 50 pieces of testimony I'm happy to send the link to that testimony later after this meeting there's a lot of important facts that were shared what I would like to speak on here tonight is more about why I

012do not feel religious release time is something we should accept in our district right now the choice to adopt an RT policy is up to the local school boards which is where I strongly believe that should stay I do believe that there are some districts or cities where this could be beneficial or more easily implemented this may be an appropriate option for communities with less opportunity for after school religious programs fewer local churches or just fewer religious schools on the list for school choice however this is Menor Menor has a wide variety of private schools with religious curriculum Mentor also has a variety of programs and activities for students who want to place their religion outside of school hours within one mile of my own home there are nine churches many of those have multiple

013different service hours on Sunday along with several options for weeknight service and then also have special group events throughout the week now with vouchers available to families who do wish to have more of a religious based curriculum there are many options available wasn't that the point of school choice but now of course that isn't enough right this is unnecessary for many reasons this is this discussion tonight is beyond unnecessary considering the board members who have brought this up for discussion are more than aware of the status of these moving bills the added topics tonight on the agenda are strictly for performance it is honestly disgraceful and unfair to our district to our students families and staff I mean my goodness whatever will we have to talk about at the meetings once these bills do become

014law books no threats on a school bus nah those are jokes right perhaps instead of attempting to create a policy about bathrooms or bringing this forward we could actually try and do something productive like you're supposed to do thank you thank you our next speaker is Andrea Bliss good evening I'm Andrea Bliss on Liberty Street I have two kids at Shore I'd like to speak on the discussions surrounding the release time religious instruction policies which appears on this evening's agenda even though I sorry even though I feel that these discussions while I'm so sorry God even though I feel that having these discussions while there are currently bills working their way through the State House is premature I believe that religious freedom and religious expression are very important I also believe that these things are

015very personal and not something that should be governed or forced into the public sector while I understand that RT policies May soon be required by law I would urge the board not to act rashly in an attempt to set an example or standard for other districts I believe our board would be wise to hold off on policy discussions surrounding RT until a future date when the fate of these bills is more clear and the specifics of the bills have been finalized into law the danger the dangers and risks of our TR Pro policies as they affect the students of public education are something the Board needs to consider at length many of our community members have voiced concern over the district's test scores and I fail to see how allowing 1 hour per week if

016that were to be the allotted time frame to be dedicated to religious instruction would serve to improve student performance in school it actually seems to me that it would lend itself to doing the opposite of that in our district the schedules are broken down into a blocks of approximately 40 minutes this means that there would be no way to promise that RTI programs would be confined to just lunch recess study hall or advisory time there would based solely on the current structure of the district schedules be overlap into some other course or class period additionally we have many students who are food insecure and rely on the free lunches that they eat at school so to then devote that lunch period to off-site instruction would be depriving some of our students of a meal that

017they depend on it is so important that the board ensure that whatever policy they adopt regarding our team I RT not jeopardize our students abilities to thrive finally the implementation of RTI policies leaves the door open for outside organizations to step in and interact with our students which would likely violate our District's policy on special interest groups which I know is a policy that Mrs Payne and Mrs iopo feel very strongly about enforcing please do not rush to build a policy on this matter as it has ramifications beyond the risk of violating the guaranteed separation of church and state State as defined in our first amendment thank you for your time and consideration thank you our next speaker is Tina Perkins good evening I am a Menor Schools parent with kids actually in the district

018and I am speaking about the agenda item of release time for release religious instruction I am aware that it may soon be Ohio law if that happens I recommend Menor Public Schools follow suit with other Neola schools such as Berea public schools and Toledo City schools and deem all classes core classes which align with oi Ohio Revised Code 331 [Music] 9.74 it states that core classes are English language arts Math Science Social Studies foreign language and Fine Arts that leaves lunch and recess which is 40 minutes long at the elementary school level I will also argue that eating lunch and expending energy is also essential for our students the same board members advocating for RTR have said that they want our teachers to get back to the basics of Education this is not the basics

019of public education if you speak to teachers you will know how precious instructional time is every minute counts in the school day the community has expressed concerns over Menor school student students literacy rates the foundation of literacy is built in elementary school I can't imagine our students scores will increase with a we weekly disruption especially if they haven't eaten or had recess there are many options for parents who choose to incorporate religion in their children's lives there's religious Services multiple times a week including classes for children there are peral schools there's Ed Choice all of these choices give parents plenty of opportunities to choose how they incorporate faith into their family I don't believe the public school system should be included I personally do not think it's about religion at all I think the common

020goal is to disrupt the public sector to decrease proficiency if it was about religion there would be an after school program not during I hope you will look into these neighboring Neola schools and when the time comes instill a policy that deems all classes are core classes thank you thank you our next speaker is Barbara huser my name is Pastor Barb holshouser I'm an ELCA Lutheran pastor and I'm retired I'm here to speak on behalf of many clergy uh who are not able to speak up because they are currently serving in congregations the reason I'm here is to voice my opposition to the RT and any Affiliated groups seeking to bring RTR R into into the public education setting and I have three talking points the first one has to do with the role of

021public education we have to answer the question what is the responsibility of public education it's not just about answering that question but a clarifying the purpose of public education that is essential when it comes to RTR public schools are not responsible for carving out time for parents to provide religious instruction to their children it is the responsibility of the parent to take time to do that public education is not responsible for finding that time for parents creative uh ideas for uh religious instruction have happened throughout history there are private and church Affiliated schools that were established to include Rel religious instruction Faith formation materials known as catechesis have been provided to families since the beginning of the church and catechesis was intended to be taught in the home not by the pastor the priest the

022rabbi the Imam in addition when this country was settled families established Sunday schools before churches were even founded because there was no clergy many of our Sunday schools predate the founding of this country therefore I stand in opposition to RTR because it's not the responsibility of public education to make it convenient for families to provide religious instruction talking point two belief is a matter of interpretation what that means is that even within Christianity what is asserted emphasized and taught is not uniform Christian belief is not a monolith it exists in a Continuum an RT is often used by particular groups who insist on certain beliefs being right influencing students to accept a particular view as faithful or Godly it is naive to think that students participating in RTR won't stop fall into the Trap of

023imposing their beliefs opinions on others the result conflict bullying division is this what we want for our schools or Community thank you our next speaker is Susan cednik good evening my name is Susan snck I live at 7539 Little Mountain Road in Menor um there was a few things I wanted to speak about one is the we'll start with the religious release instruction and how that relates to Senate Bill 445 um I just I wanted to say I think that there's maybe some Mis uh misconceptions about it it's really a simple program where you're giving the community if the community wants this for that we should offer it to them is what I'm saying it's not requiring anything of public school teachers to take time out of their time this is completely on the kids

024own time it's it's something that the parents do decide on for their kids but it's a choice you don't have to if you don't want your kid to go to religious instruction you certainly don't have to and I think fear-mongering about there's going to be bullying and Starving Children isn't really a fair argument I think it's just if you're Community wants it then you should stand behind the community cuz you're working for the community um I think that help you know Supreme Court has made this legal it's it's nothing out of the ordinary there are plenty of schools that are doing it I think we should at least give families the chance to do it if they want if it doesn't work out then we don't have to stick with it but I think it's

025unfair to demonize it when it could be something very good for kids and again it's a choice if you don't want your kid doing it you don't have to um anyway I I just think that that it kind of shows a little bit of ignorance and backward thinking if our district does not do that especially if you have people that want that the other item I wanted to address is with the Senate Bill 104 and the bathroom Bill I'm just hoping that um with the way things are going that you guys would please adjust your policy to reassure parents that the nonsense about guys in the girls' rooms will be handled um I I think a lot of people are under the impression that you guys will just um go around the law and I

026think that you should make a stand to the community to say that you're going to follow the law and that you care about the safety of girls and women so I would ask that you do that also I just want to make a quick Point here um it's sort of a minor issue but I just I wanted to bring it up because I think it shows a little bit of hypocrisy um when you're looking at the recommended acceptance of the following gifts in tonight's agenda um there's a lot of people that have donated goods and services particularly someone has DED uh donated backpacks and lunchboxes I think that's awesome what I don't understand is if we're people are offering to contribute books why aren't they allowed to give books but other people are allowed to

027do backpacks I just I think it's dishonest and disingenuous but anyway thank you thank you our next speaker is Jennifer alad not seeing Jennifer our next speaker is Melanie mjus good evening I'll also be speaking on the uh release time for religious instruction policy tonight um wanted to make three main points about U my concerns about these policies um when they are offered by external organizations uh the first and a lot of this has already been covered you know the first is really the impact on instructional time in the classroom it's hard to get through all that needs to be taught in a day as it is um and we know that every subject that students are learning is of educational value and educational benefit which would make basically the entire school day Core Curriculum

028uh since these programs do not allow for students to leave their core classes that basically leaves lunch in recess every day um and the ability to take students out safely get them off site get them to a program and get them back into the classroom within that lunch and recess period um does not really seem logistically sound um my second point is the disruption to uh the class to the classroom but also to the staff that would have to be involved you can say that it doesn't involve the staff but it absolutely does especially in the younger grades these students are not going to get themselves ready to go by themselves these students will have to be watched to get on whatever Transportation they would need to get on and they would need to be

029watched when they come back that absolutely takes time out of teacher and staff's day takes their distraction away from the students who stayed in the classroom also uh poses A disruption when they come back in um in fact the Westerville School District outside of Columbus rescinded their Rel just release time policy earlier this year due to in part the level of disruption that was happening when students were coming and going I personally would not want to be an elementary school teacher um with kids coming back who had not had a chance to have recess that day uh but most importantly I want to highlight the significant safety concerns with these programs as well especially around background checks uh for example there was a religious release time program in the Firelands District in Ohio that actually

030hired as its program director a former teacher who had been fired and lost her license for inappropriate contact with her students if their background checks are missing something that obvious what else are they missing and are these programs required to share information on the background checks for their program staff and volunteers with the school district parents have no Assurance of what kind of people they are sending their children to in these programs uh there's also just not much information about how these programs would be required if they even would to accommodate children with special needs children with IEPs with uh learning differences or how those would be uh handled Within These programs I think with so many questions so many outstanding questions on how these programs would work it is premature to say that the

031district needs a policy at this time thank you thank you our next speaker is Deanna scrim hello my name my name is Deanna skirm I live at 6803 Glen Karen court and I have a child at Shore um this is regarding the religious instruction I want to say on a positive note on what the board and the schools should be looking at is woring about the decline in education due to covid and how we can gain those gaps or worry about test anxiety not just because they're on IEP 504s and have other disabilities in general test anxiety a lot of kids have it why don't they include hey let's see what your test scor is without music in the background like instrumental and then take another say oh let's compare these quizzes we had the

032music like it calms the mind down that's the kind of stuff we need to implement not worry about the religious part and the only positive like if people want to show get the kids involved in community and how to be a good kid how to have good morals be kind to the other kids that are different they have special needs they don't look because a boy wants to dve up as a female is that boy hurting beating up on your other kid yelling that you would have to have police or the principal involved no just acknowledge hey how are you that's all these kids need not to be like God's going to punish you I'm not I'm Catholic I am not a deep believer I have my things and my own rules the big one

033upstairs has judgment none of us can and with this religious instruction the LifeWise Academy it's funded it's Christian nationalism backed by a lot of money and Betsy the boss well I know a lot of my family and friends they did not like her in that position she's funded this also as part of project 2025 which is former Trump and will be the next president that is he getting Kickback I when I read to see okay what what good can come of this I didn't see anything it says reach out to non-christians teach lessons to the untr CH children no it's good morals on page three thank you it's oh my gosh thank [Applause] you can I absolutely thank you the next speaker is jacqu McCormack tonight I'd like to address a few items that are

034on the agenda first I would like to State my support for a policy that would match the recent passage of Senate Bill 104 which prevents biological boys and biological girls from entering any other bathroom or locker room except for those that align with their biological sex or gender neutral single star if you refuse to create a policy you will be reaffirming what you have currently in place which is allowing anyone access to whatever bathroom as long as they identify as that gender that day mind you this is without parental permission we already have a parent going on news stations and stating to journalists that her son will continue to use the girl's bathroom and will not be using the boy restroom what disciplinary measures will you apply if a student breaks this new law in

035reference to House Bill 445 the religious time release policy there should be absolutely no reason why Lauren Maggie or Jenny would not support this policy your own statements you've made when you defend your decision to retain sexually explicit age inappropriate books should be enough for you to support this policy three of you continuously vote to retain books talking about how there are more than two genders for our kindergarten through fifth graders and use the excuse that other parents can decide not to let their children read those books along the same lines you should rebut any parents that are stating that their kids may feel left out when other kids may leave once a week for religious studies for their sincerely held beliefs when you blast your beliefs all over the walls and encourage children to

036buy pronoun pins sold at lunchtime by The Pride club and allow teachers to ask students which pronouns they want to go by without their parents consenting allow for pride in lgbtq Flags to be displayed in classrooms and allow academic guidance counselors to send emails to their students which include a link in their signature line about pronouns and why students should be asking others for their pronouns then you should also have no problem with students exercising their right to their religious beliefs even if they don't match yours if you don't support this then you are a hypocrite Maggie and Jenny we're keeping score of your votes and when you're up for reelection next year we will ensure that our Republican majority doesn't forget your votes are visible and cook and gesling you are far too liberal

037for [Applause] Manor thank you our last speaker is Michelle graph thank you uh Michelle graph I wanted to speak uh to oppose the uh release for religious instruction um the bottom line is I think there's already more demands than the district can support in terms of um various mandates uh re instruction time is precious and the bottom line is there are other options so for instance my own kids we sent them to PSR they went to Sunday school so I had no problem finding time outside of school hours for them to obtain the religious instruction that I wanted them to have and um and if there is something that's priority for parents there are other options so I don't see why we need a policy for this I do have serious safety concerns as well

038we go through so much to verify that the people coming into our schools pass background checks have fingerprints all those things why would we release our kids during school time for unvetted programs and it's not the school systems job to vet these programs so again there are other options I don't see what this solves and um you know this is better managed outside of the public school system so and again I also agree that you know there was comments that it won't be a burden you know it won't require any resources of the school system why not provide that option it will I agree with the comments that it will definitely provide um a drain on the resources in terms of getting students to where they need to be God forbid something happens why a

039student is released to that do you think they're going to not come back on Menor schools and saying why did you let this happen I mean it's just there's too many questions unanswered that I think we should uh oppose this thank you thank you that concludes uh public participation next we have our superintendent's report and recommendations good evening everyone uh we are very fortunate to have a recommendation on the agenda this evening for our new leader for the Department of Transportation this will be for Jackie Sturm to begin serving in the role of the director of safety and transportation beginning on January 1st 2025 I want to thank Chris poorus the superintendent of uid for working with me to allow this shift to happen midye with this position we are going to have Mrs Sturm

040build upon the shifts we have made in the transportation department this fall and continue to work with our bus drivers to create safe and efficient bus stops and routes in our district she's also going to bring an area of expertise in our district around school safety as she was pulled into being part of the safety team in uclid earlier this school year one other Transportation item that I know I have heard from our parents a lot over the last couple of years is looking at a parent app for transportation as I've mentioned previously we have new routing software this year that we have been using to make our routes more efficient we are now looking at some of the additional components of that system that may help us with some of the challenges we continue

041to face as we navigate the bus driver shortage around the country a group from our District Administrative team that has been working in transportation all year had the opportunity to see a demonstration of the systems navigation software and Hardware last week these devices would be installed in our buses and provide our drivers with the routes driving directions and stop locations that we currently have on our hard copy routing sheets this component of the system would also allow us to send immediate routing changes for the split combined and double routes that we are having to run on a daily basis due to the driver shortage the software would also allow us to automate our pre-out bus inspections and keep electronic records instead of the current paper copies that we are using the final piece to the

042puzzle is a parent app that will provide realtime updates on bus changes and routing times on a daily basis we felt these components of our new software are worth a closer look so we're going to Pilot these items in five buses at some point here during the second semester to determine if this is something we want to fully Implement for the 2025 26 school year I know this has been a long time coming so I am pleased that we are a couple steps closer to resolving this part of our transportation issues Mr Heath I just had a I know I had talked to you earlier so um figured I'd ask the question now I know you're prepared for it so the um position that we had just so the public is aware just in case

043they have similar questions that I had the position that um of the person who resigned she was only getting paid about 80,000 or so give or take with performance bonuses and then this new position is at about 140,000 so um I know we had director of transportation and safety a few years ago then we kind of Switched that over um so if you could just kind of speak to and justify that cost difference and kind of speak to why we're doing that so people understand sure um as most of you guys know um I've spent a considerable amount of time in the trans transportation department along with five or six other District administrators just trying to keep our buses running every day uh we've learned an awful lot about Transportation probably more than I ever

044really want to know about Transportation um uh and we realized uh fairly quickly that we needed a a person um that had significant contract language knowledge um I think that's one thing that we still continue to struggle with uh even putting five or six uh District level administrators over there uh the the contract language for transportation's pretty pretty complex um so trying to to find somebody that would be able to navigate that uh was one of our top priorities um we also realized that we needed a person that could come in and maintain that positive uh direction of the culture that we're currently building in the department um I think that's the one thing that we currently are most proud of right now that uh department has come an awful long way in the last

045six to8 weeks um just because there there's this level of professionalism coming out of that department now um the drivers have been phenomenal helping each other out and we want to make sure that that continues um we also knew we needed someone that had um a a really strong positive voice uh to work through the demands that uh the the Menor Community has for our transportation office um right now that's a lot of that has fallen on me and um if you've seen me standing on street corners during the day I apologize um we're just trying to check on the safety and and efficiency of our routes um I've been stopped on a couple of occasions uh by our fantastic Menor Police Department questioning why I'm standing on a street corner um with a my

046notepad writing down notes uh when I explain what I'm doing they're oh I'm so sorry thanks for for doing that for us so we we want somebody that's going to be able to come in and and kind of work through some of those things as well um we've spent a a considerable amount of time just discussing the the entire structure of that department um it because we want to make sure that we've got a model that's going to be sustainable here for the next few years as well um again we're we're kind of reverting back to the model that we had uh would be like three or four years ago now um where we had a director of uh safety and transportation that um was a district level administrative team position uh so we want

047this individual ual to to make sure that um uh they have the support they need so we want them to be part of that um that team meeting that we have on a weekly basis um just to make sure that uh we we we keep telling the drivers even when we bring in somebody new it's not like we're going away I think uh a lot of us that have been working over there are fairly uh uh invested in in how this department runs now and um you know probably some of us to a sickening standpoint kind of like doing it as well just from the logistical side of things um so anyway as we had those conversations about that structure that that's what kind of led us into this role you know kind of looking

048at what we had previously we do have a job description that uh um for this particular role of a director of safety and transportation um so we started to try and find that individual that had that that skill set and and we are very very fortunate to be able to bring in somebody that's at the assistant superintendent level in a different District to come in and serve in this position and Mr Heath is that um that's why because the previous person who was in the position I think in 2022 is when they left they were making it about 112,000 but they didn't have a masters they didn't have this additional experience correct okay and and and just looking at that salary schedule because we literally did pull the same salary schedule from when we had

049the director of safety and transportation previously and we went straight off of that salary schedule um so that's uh that's one of the pieces to the puzzle there final thing that I'll mention is just from a school safety standpoint um if you'll recall my first year here um we we asked Mr Porter to continue on as our school safety officer and thank you for bringing it up um Tristan I think we still need to pull his name up off the website because we haven't been doing that for a couple of years uh now we had that for the first year we had a stien that uh was assigned to him to serve in that role um over the last two years it's been uh kind of a combination of Mr Hammond uh Mrs Estus and

050I serving kind of that role um so having one person to really kind of drive that work and and have some cohesiveness to it I think is going to be a great addition for us thank you so much for explaining that absolutely Mrs Sturm has a unique um resume I think because of her experience here in our own District as a Elementary building principal so all of that Insight lets her understand the pupil side of it the parents side of it and then her experience in uid and Personnel lets her understand the employee side of it so it was a I think a delightful bit of serendipity for us to have her available for us I'm so glad that she's willing to come over and I would just add that uh from a financial perspective

051we still have a net savings um back in 2021 when I first came back to the district and was doing business operations we had business operations an assistant Treasurer and a director of safety and transportation um total salaries totaling over 335,000 even now you know we're looking four years later 2425 uh total salaries are projected at 290,000 so um if you look at over the time we've had savings um there's some efficiencies that needed to be addressed but uh from an economic standpoint we're still that positive Madame President members of the board Mr way I have the following recommendations listed under the consent agenda and recommend approval of items 6 A1 and 6 A2 so move second any discussion Mr raade please call the role Miss Payne yes Miss Jing yes Miss aapo yes Miss

052maraza yes Miss Cook yes motions carry 5 Z Madame President members of the board and Mr Wade I'm recommending approval of the resolution declaring the used Surplus equipment of the Board of Education are no longer needed for any school purpose and authorizing the sale of the Surplus equipment by public auction so moved second is there any discussion Mr Wade please call the role Miss iopo yes Miss Payne yes Miss Jing yes Miss maraza yes Miss Cook yes motion carries 5-0 Madam president members of the board Mr wait I am recommending approval of the resolution to approve board member expense reimbursement I will call these out separately as each board member requesting reimbursement will abstain from voting on their own resolution so let's start with the resolution to approve reimbursement for Maggie cook so moved second

053any discussion please call the role uh Miss Payne yes Miss aopo yes Miss uh gesling yes Miss maraza yes Miss Cook abstain the resolution to approve reimbursement for Rose iopo so move second I need discuss s please call the role um Miss Jing yes Miss Payne yes Miss uh iapo abstain Miss matza yes Miss Cook yes the resolution to approve reimbursement for Virginia Jing so moved second any discussion please call the role misso yes Miss Payne yes Miss Jing abstain Miss maraza yes Miss Cook yes the resolution to approve reimbursement for Lauren maraza so move second any discussion Mr Wade please call the role Miss Payne yes Miss Jing yes misso yes Miss maraza abstain Miss Cook yes and the resolution to approve reimbursement for Annie Payne so mov second any discussion um who two

054people at the same time I didn't I second you seconded I knew that I got it so miss Jing yes Miss maraza yes Miss aapo yes Miss uh Miss Payne abstain Miss Cook yes all motions carried 4 Z Madame President members of the board Mr Wade I recommending approval of agenda item C1 related to certified personnel and C2 through C4 all related to human resource matters so moved second any discussion please call the rooll Miss Payne yes Miss Jing yes Miss AO yes Miss maraza yes Miss Cook yes motion carries Z and I'm also recommending approval of agenda item D related to administrative staff so moved second is there any additional discussion please call the role Miss Jing yes misso yes Miss maraza yes Miss Payne yes Miss Cook yes Miss uh motion carries 5

055Z thank you thank you thank you thank you next we have the board of the Board of Education report and recommendations um under business we have a second reading and approval of policy 5136 which um relates to NE uh personal communication devices do I have a motion so moveed second any discussion Mr raid please call the role Miss Payne yes Miss iapo yes Miss Jing yes uh Miss maraza yes Miss Cook yes carries 5 Z I have a quick point of order question the um administrative staff transition days did we lump that all in with the F with the prior item I just want to make sure we covered that was that covered under D it was both of those items or do have to do that separately yes that that was lumped in with

056the administrative it was just on the second page so I just want to make sure we covered it yes okay next we have the um legislative report okay I apologize in advance it's going to be kind of long because things are busy at the state house uh so first starters uh state board updates there are a lot of proposed rules for open open for public comment um oh sorry this is actually just one the odw has a lot of them open um this is the the one for the state excuse me state board is regarding um post conviction instruments established under the Ohio Revised Code and amendments to the rule to clarify the State Board of EDS uh recognition of their Authority and established procedures for considering them you can comment on those as members

057of the public on their website for the odw they've got lots of rules um open for public comment everything from how rate schools to lunch and breakfast programs intervention standards for districts declared to be under um academic watch so lots of rules open for public comment I invite you to go to their website and check those out there too if you'd like to weigh in um in the last month we have had one legislator meeting Mr Heath Mr Wade Mrs iopo and I met with house representative Jamie calender to talk about issues around public school funding and support related to our district um including funding uh the third phase in of the fair school funding plan excuse me stages five and six um of the fair school funding plan for the um upcoming budget the

058state budget um as well as financial support for more secure facilities and um also Mental Health Services we talked about a lot but it was a great meeting um State House Updates this is where all the action is right now we have officially entered Lane duck now that the president presidential election is over so lawmakers are back at the State House I'm very very busy um this is the end of the 135th General Assembly we're about to enter the 136th in January so this is really the time for lawmakers to kind of make their last chance moves to get their bills passed and across the Finish Line before having to start all over again in the next general assembly so because of this we see a lot of bills sort of being sped through the

059legislative process which is normal um but that means unfortunately that there's fewer opportunities for the public to weigh in and public testimony um nevertheless there have been lots of hearings there are about 190 bills right now that could impact education that are pending more are being more are actually being filed every day so they're they're not done yet so lots going on um I'm going to touch on just some of them um there have been tons of committee meetings over the last couple of weeks um The Joint property tax Review Committee their report um they finished up already but their report should be coming out like in the next couple of weeks um and some of their recommendations we expect that they will make it into the budget for next year uh the house primary

060and secondary education committee met um a couple of times already and I'm not going to cover every bill they went over just sort of the Heavy Hitters the ones that are you know kind of have a high likelihood of passing or or you know there are a couple that are on our agenda tonight so I'll go over those quickly but um there have been there's been a there was a really long hearing on House Bill 445 uh which is on our agenda tonight um as we know would require school boards to have a policy in place for release time for religious instruction um there's a companion bill in the Senate as well which you know sometimes it's basically the same bill in the Senate the other chamber and they just kind of get them started

061in both Chambers to see which one finishes first um so that bill it's its companion bill is Senate Bill 293 um that one had a hearing today and um uh I think that was sort of like in the afternoon I didn't get to tune in but I think there was some opponent testimony heard um there was also a second hearing under the um Senate education committee for House Bill 432 and this regards um alternate uh credentialing Pathways for Career Tech Educators um happy to report that Dr Joe gev actually went down to the state house to testify for us um in support of the bill which would um basically enhan the ability for Career Tech Educators to get on board with Career Tech um and because it's it's very much in demand and we're trying

062to recruit more Educators in that space so thank you Dr claven wherever you are the house Transportation committee also met and they adopted a version of House Bill 279 this is around busing and bus safety um this would um increase the penalties for illegally passing a stopped school bus I think which we all know happens all too frequently in Ohio um it would also designate August as school bus safety month um and then several other committees met but again I'm not going to go through all those cuz there is lots going on um I do want to report back on Senate Bill 29 which we've kind of been reporting along the way I mentioned that there would be fixes to this one there were a lot of unforeseen consequences uh of the bill that was

063written and they didn't really expect a lot of at least that we were told they did not expect a lot of the implications and problems with this bill that had to do um with like the notifications of parents uh to parents if we were going to be monitoring School issued devices um so the fixes I think are going to end up in House Bill 432 um and uh let's see they're going to remove the language about the 72-hour rule um they're also going to be adding an emergency clause in that bill too so um it looks like that one's shaping up to be a much better looking Bill and much more practical um in application um on the desk for Signature from uh for the governor signature is Senate Bill 104 which is also on

064our agenda tonight um this one the Senate concurred which means it just passed this bill um earlier this week um it is on dwi's desk for Signature though he has not signed it yet um I think in the past he has said he will um though again hasn't happened yet he does have have the option to do nothing which would mean the bill would pass into law anyway um we'll have to just wait to see what he does at any rate if he does sign it it would go into effect about 90 days after excuse me exactly 90 days after his signature if there is no legal challenge during that time so I'm kind of wondering what we're going to see with this bill I know the ACLU and maybe one other group has decided

065that they would like to file suit uh against this bill so we kind of have to play this one by ear and make sure we're staying in touch with our legal council to understand how we can um ensure that we comply with the law um this bill kind of sped forward just for a little bit of background originally um I had reported out on this bill as House Bill 183 it is now Senate Bill 104 and really just what happens is sometimes if if lawmakers want to move their bill forward a little more quickly and kind of Leap Frog over some other legislation just speed it along they'll slide it into another bill and that's what happened here Senate Bill 104 is actually more than just about um the bathrooms um it is actually also

066about college credit plus programming which is you know fairly uh bipartisan and broadly appreciated bill um this one is um again it was combined with House Bill 18 3 which was Adam Bird's bill um and now we've got um Senate Bill 104 all encompassing these things so that's why we see a lot of things happening within one bill that seemingly have nothing to do with each other um so I think we've we've talked about the bill in the past I'm not going to go through the language we're going to get more into discussion about it later um it will I do want to note though I don't know if that I've noted this before in my reports that this one not only prohibits like public schools um from um establishing B rooms for multi-gender or

067unisex or non-gender use but it also puts some prohibitions on universities as well and that could mean that we have some complication because we're we're not only regulating spaces for K through 12 education but we're now looking at um university spaces which are utilized by adults so that's that's just something that could complicate the process down the road um there's also no funding to I should say there's no funding to uh help dist or universities accommodate um the law so we wouldn't be able to have access to any funding to upgrade our facilities or change them as needed okay and then I have a lot more to actually discuss um that is legal related but I you know I think we're going to do that when we report out on our conference um highlights and

068takeaways so I think I'll just wait to do the rest uh there there's updates on case law and all sorts of other good stuff okay thank you very much next we will have the student achievement report Mrs tesley thank you ah thank you the first quarter of the 2425 school year was completed on October 18th the second quarter is well underway and continues to be packed with an array of learning activities to support the development of well-rounded successful students here's a sampling of the opportunities and events of the past month the first round of National Merit honors has been announced annually the National Merit Scholarship Corporation names high-scoring students by recognizing National Merit semi-finalists and commended students some 1.3 million eligible pupils take the PSAT and the nmsqt tests annually and the top 16,000 that's

069less than 1% of the nation's graduating seniors are named semifinalists the remaining top 34,000 test takers within the top four % are assigned commended student status Menor semifinalists are Brian MCA Mark pastor and Zaron Shams menor's commended students are Ryan Chen Adam Sher Lucas pataro Matthew suar and anushri Zimmerman congratulations as affirmed by our strategic plan framework for the future Menor schools is committed to expanding College and Career Readiness opportunities the men High School annual career Expo was held on Wednesday October 30th an impressive turnout of over 1,260 students engaged with 63 businesses from a wide range of Industries over the 3-hour event participants had the opportunity to connect with representatives from Fields including manufacturing Health Care construction cosmetology accounting it Aviation law enforcement the military and more the event provided valuable networking opportunities allowing

070students to explore potential career paths and gain insights into various professions through our growing business outreach program Cardinal Connect our district has a goal of working together for a better partnership between business and education we're grateful for the generous involvement of so many local firms to provide this important exposure for our students Veterans Day is an important occasion on the district calendar among this year's activities were Lake Elementary presenting an evening fifth grade concert Fairfax and Sterling Morton holding veterans breakfasts and Orchard Hollow hosting a special honoring our veterans assembly these events help students connect to the veterans in their families and understand the sacrifices made by all who have served our country an exciting schoolwide clap out was held on Friday November 1st at Menor High the student body celebrated the groups who qualified

071for their respective state level competitions featured were our boys cross country team the marching band and students zaran Shams Aiden darini and chaan Assan who qualified for the Ohio High School mathematics Invitational Olympiad next month we look forward to celebrating all of our hardworking fall athletes including our varsity football team who will play St EDS this Friday at 700 p.m. the fall sports award program will also be held this week speaking of football 12 Varsity players from the boys team and five members of the girls flag football team hosted students from cares for the third annual cares and Menor High School football Clinic car's students took a tour of the training facilities and had a chance to try in the helmets and shoulder pads that the varsity team team wears players paired up with the

072care students to go out to the field for a pregame warm-up and a run through various football skill stations including passing catching and footwork drills the care students were divided into two teams to compete in a short game of touch football with their High School supporters as coaches the day ended with Awards pictures autographs and pizza a special thank you to Nancy sandon and Don shes for volunteering their time time and for donating the food another special thank you to Northeast Ohio flag football for providing the medals and footballs for each student it was a memorable experience for everyone involved the fighting Cardinal marching band was proud to receive the coveted Superior rating in their Ohio state competition finishing their contest season on a high note they continue to offer spirited musical compliment that the

073football teams triumphs on the field during all these postseason games each year Mr Shan stair sophomores makes suggestions for school reforms and improvements to build a better Menor High aligned with our strategic plan that encourages students to engage with the community in authentic learning experiences the school board administrators and teachers were invited to see their presentations and we appreciated hearing their insights and ideas the Menor theater opened its 101st season with the hit comedy the nerd on November 1st through 3rd audience filled this fine art center with laughter as the Antics unfolded on stage this was the third time the show was performed at Menor high and members of the 2003 and 2007 Productions came back to support the curtain students they're already hard at work getting the spring musical 9 to5 ready for audiences

074last month's Menor High School fall orchestra concert directed by Mr Matt yoke and Miss Katie Driscoll was performed for a Full House the program included Mozart's A Little Night Music and Aaron Copeland's Fanfare for the Common Man the orchestra will be presenting a special holiday concert on December 11th and the Menor Mentor High band will perform on December 17th last month's evening of coral music with the Menor High School choirs directed by Mr Adam Landry was very well received their fall Cabaret fundraiser will be this Saturday at 7:00 p.m. here at the fine artart Center this parent organization event features our choir students performing pop and Broadway music in solos and small groups and tickets are available online on October 28th and 29th men High hosted the think fast interactive vaping dangers presentation the program

075focused on educating but and raising awareness about the dangers of ecigarettes each grade level attended a session and student teams engaged with the kind content through a fun game show style format the memorial and Shore Middle School choirs under the direction of Mr Glenn kma performed their Autumn musical programs last month and Memorial's band is preparing to present their concert on December 5th it was a great day for Menor at the Ohio school boards Association Capital conference in Columbus last week the students at menor's Lake Elementary gave conference attendees a great look at their houses at the student achievement Fair the visitors learned how lake has incorporated a house system to create a culture of belonging every staff member and student is engaged promoting a sense of healthy competition while teaching students how their efforts

076contribute toward the whole group in a second student achievement Fair Booth our CTE Allied Health students shared highlights of their Career Tech program students learn Essential Health Care skills for entry-level medical positions and discover their aptitude for the field Allied Health provides certification and a strong foundation for the next levels of medical education at a postsecondary Institution for nearly seven decades Menor Public Schools board members have participated in osba to adopt best practices and work for the general advancement of public education in Ohio all five members of our Board of Education were able to attend the 2024 Capital conference Mrs aopo and Mrs Payne collaborated on a presentation sharing our cell phone policy no cell Bell to Bell the session gave an overview of the mentor guidelines the rationale and preliminary data on the improved

077enforcement of the program the capital conference offers three days of specialized learning sessions that include important topics such as legal updates education Trends governance governance issues and legislation many of the sessions are focused on student achievement this year session topics included Workforce alignment increase physical activity to promote Wellness connecting classroom experiences to Real World Learning curriculum and the science of reading renovating small spaces to improve student engagement continuing covid remediation to best reach students still impacted by learning loss postsecondary success and alternative graduation Pathways Gathering qualitative and quantitative student feedback data and foundational special education knowledge to facilitate board members making informed decisions the wide array of learning sessions Let each of us select topics of concern specific interest or of special pertinence to our district we look forward to sharing more information on the

078state report card ratings and companion data during Mr Heath's Cardinal campaign Cardinal C presentation on November 21st next month we'll look closely at our enrollments in some of our High School courses such as our state tested core content areas a quick overview shows that 30% of Juniors and seniors are enrolled in advanced placement courses 43% of Juniors and seniors are enrolled in CTE programs and 27% of Juniors and seniors are enrolled in college credit plus courses overall 78% of our upper classmen are enrolled in some type of college or career ready program this year we support our schools and children in our community Through varied initiatives and everyone can help for nearly 30 years the Menor schools Foundation has funded special classroom Grant grants and student scholarships their key fundraiser pancakes for a purpose Returns

079on Thanksgiving morning from 7:30 to 11:30 thanks to the support of mentors Yours Truly restaurant and from November 25th to December 6th give the gift of warmth through the fourth annual coats for cards program new and like new coats gloves and hats are being collected for those in need items or cash donations can be dropped off at the Board of Education building or the elementary school offices thank you and Happy Thanksgiving everyone thank you very much at this time we have the Chief Financial Officer report and [Music] recommendations Madam president members of the board uh this is our annual requirement by hobis code to present a five-year forecast uh so remember that our financial forecast is derived by these fiscal beliefs that all fiscal decisions should be made in the context of our five-year forecast

080so this is a very important document for us not only from a regulatory standpoint but from a financial planning standpoint Point um we realize there's management options attached to every dollar that we every dollar spent must add value to teaching and learning and that we must aggress we manage our largest expenses which are salary benefits special education and facilities and we believe that quality is always cheaper in the long term so when we look at our current fiscal year um we're projecting our general fund Revenue to be almost $111 million our projected general fund expenditures are about $114 million putting us at a projected loss for the year of about $3 million when we look at a quick snapshot of our forecast over the next 5 years what we can see is we intend to

081continue to deficit spend in each of the out years of the forecast and when our ending cash balance then is obviously decreasing accordingly based on those projections the one thing that I would note um in fiscal year 29 at the end of the year we're looking at a 3.5 million deficit which by law is not allowed you cannot have a cash balance in the negative uh value we're not the federal government so when we make our forecast there are some key assumptions that we have to make based on the information we have at the time so that the board and the community are aware the assumptions that I made is that uh in 2027 when we have the tri update to our current evaluations that just came out this past summer we are assuming that

082things will start to normalize again um data would tend to believe that this is the case if you were to look at evaluations over the course of a long period of time this past year was the last few years have been kind of an anomaly um so we expected to kind of continue to go back to a normal uh increase so we would expect that in 27 class one property which is residential property would go up by about 10.38% and our historical trend of Class 2 valuations going up very little during the training updates would uh increase at 72% it also assumes our historical increases in class one new construction of 8.5 million annually would Inc uh continue to happen and we see a negative 1.5 million for Class 2 in new construction uh because

083of tiffs and other forms of abatements that usually occur or maybe that the property that was done was demolished and they haven't built it yet so there's a variety of things that can kind of happen there um and again annually we see about an $2 million inre increase in public utility property taxes uh pup and we assume our historical collection rates of 99.6% would occur as we move forward that being said uh we know that 69% of our money comes from local property taxes in the form of real estate property taxes and public utility property taxes equating to about $ 76.2 million we received 22% in state funding um 24 million of uh 24.9 million of that with uh almost 16 coming from the fair school funding plan um we see about another 1.4 in

084restricted funding and from the holstead and roll back exemptions that we get as property tax owners that are paid from the state we receive about another $7.6 million we receive about $9.8 million in other Revenue that's primarily made up of twis payments our interest earned uh income as well as payment in Li of uh taxes that receive from the city of Menor um which total about 90% of that 9 million and again this is just for the general fund so when we look at the Historical perspective uh I think a visual is always important for the community in the uh board when you're looking at our Revenue um you can see the property taxes is in that blue section uh your state taxes are coming in form of unrestricted Aid in the green uh and

085then we're seeing our tangible purple personal property tax in that yellow line and then we see the operating um values kind of going up from there but the big point that we see here is that we're not seeing drastic increases in Revenue um again this kind of explains why next year when we see the revaluation occur because of house B 920 and us not being at the floor we'll only see an increase on the inside millage and that will help protect the taxpayers from larger increases than maybe some of their neighboring uh school districts are seeing uh throughout the region so key takeaways uh we're expecting our uh Revenue to be closer to $111 million uh up from uh 110.85862400 is uh projecting to uh increase our Revenue by about $2 million or 2.85% and

086the district will be in need of new Revenue dollars in the near future when we look at our expenses the majority of our expenses goes to Personnel costs almost 84% in the form of salaries and benefits um our Personnel costs are projected to be about 95.6 million with 68.7 coming in the form of salaries and another 26 or almost 27 million coming in the form of benefits our next largest area is purchase services to support the operations of the school this would be uh areas that we purchase to support student learning um this is where we have budgeted our school resource officers in uh in the continuation of the SSO program uh in other areas that we do purchase services and then the rest of the expenditures are made up about $ 6.5 million in

087the form of supplies Capital Improvements debt and other operating expenses when we are looking at school expenses with 84% of our budget being salary and benefits obviously enrollment is a huge piece of that puzzle because it relates directly to uh educating our students are supporting our students in the form of transportation uh the number of buildings that we have open for secretaries Food Service Personnel so on and so forth uh what we can see is a trend that has been uh seen throughout not only Lake County but across the state with that declining enrollment um and we're seeing that in 2025 we're kind of hitting that what we're expecting to be the the kind of the valley of that and then it's going to start to level back off we uh are assuming based on

088what we have seen historically over the last 5 years and align to our birth rates um so we are down to 6,527 students uh in our October payment from the state based on our is reporting um we're expecting that to see a slight uptick potentially of four kids and then kind of leveling out right around that 6600 uh student range so with that the assumptions that I've made in the expense side of the forecast is for all the out years we've assumed that an annual 1.5% salary increase uh to the base for all members that's certified classified administrator and exempt we've assumed All Staffing levels are remain constant B based on the current enrollment projections so we're not in we're not forecasting any increase in staff moving forward or a decrease uh we're forecast does

089include the addition of two new bus AIDs that we added this year three new bus drivers a reclassification of an office Aid to a secretary 3 and the new director of transportation and safety so all those assumptions have been included in the forecast and our forecasted in the out years um there's an assumption that Healthcare will increase annually at a rate of 7% uh this is a little bit more aggressive than even the national average which is about 8% I feel based on our current health care plan and the work that we're doing that we can uh continue to be in that 7% range and hopefully shoot for uh better and based on the Congressional budget offices uh publication the budget and economic Outlook 2024 to 2034 most areas outside of the ones listed above

090were expecting that we'll see an inflationary increases between 2.25 and 2.5% annually so when we look at this from a visual perspective you can kind of see uh 2024 was our uh fiscal year end actual we're seeing what we're projecting based on our budget and our forecast updates after going through uh a portion of our fiscal year because we have the the you know we have July August September and October now finished so they're included in the assumptions that we're making in the forecast and you can see the rest of the assumptions and how they play out in the other areas would I always tell the board in the community to look for here is there anything that stands out to us that doesn't make sense or would raise a flag and you can see

091that there's nothing that really in my opinion would say okay why can't we explain that that can all be explained by the assumptions we make um an example of an anomaly would be the purple here but if you've come which I know you all have because I see you every single month we should all be able to if I was to quiz you and like open up some sort of technology and say what is the reason for this we would all say that is because Mr Wade it's the transfer that you made in 2023 to fund the capital Improvement plan so there was a one-time transfer so that's an anomaly those are the types of things that the community and the board should be looking for and and be able to understand and explain why

092we are seeing those things so you can see from this we're seeing a uh a typical increase because of the inflationary uh increases that I explained in my assumptions so one of the other things that I shared with the citizens Financial advisory when I presented this last week is I think it's always important to kind of uh keep ourselves in check because one of the things the citizens Financial advisory always wants to make sure that we're doing is that we're making accurate assumptions that are in line with historical Trends so that we're as close to being where we think we should be uh and we're not understating revenue and overstating expenses so at the end of the year that we're seeing a 10% swing um I would say that the historical annual expenditure change uh

093prior to this is a 2.38% we're expecting a 3.71% in the out years and a lot of that kind of goes back to salaries and benefits we're still kind of unsure right we have a collective bargaining agreements with our certified and classified staffs that are unknown so the 1.5% is is a placeholder uh I think it's a reasonable placeholder and then 7% on Healthcare uh again is in line with that maybe a little bit higher than we've seen in the past and that can equate for some of that but I would say to the board and the community I would say that this is a check and balance that says that we're making some pretty I would think Fair assumptions and that aren't outlandish and causing us to be overly inflated on our expenses so

094our key takeaways again we need to make sure that we're monitoring our enrollment to ensure our staffing is in line with our enrollment if we start to see enrollment Trends where it's going up and we need to add staff obviously we'd have to make those assumptions and add them to the forecast the same thing would be true too uh I know in discussions with Miss Payne with regards to private school increases that we saw from 24 to 25 based on what we would believe could be accounted to the increased expansion of Ed Choice vouchers uh was a little bit higher than it has typically been in the past and if that continues that could cause our enrollment to continue to decline rather than kind of level out so those are the things that we have

095to kind of Monitor and continue because you know if we're educating kids and we're seeing continued decrease in enrollment or an increase enrollment those are going to fluctuate where we're rejecting uh special ed costs uh you know sometimes you know students have severe needs where they have to have special education which we're obligated to provide and those costs can be very very costly for one student because that's what we need to do to provide education for that student um so we have to make sure that we're cognizant of that and making sure that we're looking at all options and then again uh you've heard me beat this drum as well we have a capital Improvement plan we have to make sure we're maintaining our facilities uh and that's another large expense for us so we

096need to make sure that we're keeping those things in mind um we need to find ways to slow spending our and flatten our expense curve as we have over the past few years I think that can be shown here I highlighted this in the uh citizens Financial advisory you know we've really if you look at 22 23 and 24 and 25 there's not a whole lot of growth there we've worked pretty hard and we've said this to the community it's not always about asking for additional Revenue it's about controlling expenses and I think that this would show that we have really tried to do that um and that's something we got to continue to do as we move forward I do think it's important to to point out um to the community and the board

097that you know our average growth and you've seen me present this in a number of ways I've compared to other local municipalities I've showed you um where ours is at but over the previous 5 years our average annual growth total was only 1.22% inflation during that same time was 5.67% so because our relative our uh our revenue is relatively flat and inflation is going up at a you know a much higher rate you know four times almost five times that inherently if we didn't have any raises what that says is we'd always and this is the issue with school funding in Ohio on some level right you have flat revenue and constantly increasing expenses is just by inflationary costs you're always going to have to go back for New Revenue so it's just something that

098this is the way that we fund schools in Ohio so what you can see too is that over the next 5 years we're projecting an annual growth in local tax of 1.06% our annual total revenue is going to go up about 7% while inflation I said is like you know coming in that 2.3 2.25% rate we're seeing that it's going to continue one of the things that we're going to probably see two things are going to happen too with a revenue standpoint that we have to be cognizant of as the economy continues to improve we've benefited because we've seen High interest rates on our investments over the past few years because interest rates have gone up as as interest rates start to go back down the safe Investments that we are obligated by law to

099invest in those interest rates are going to drop so we we've been seeing millions of dollars two to three million dollars a year in investment income that's not going going to necessarily be there for two reasons one as interest rates stop drop our investment interest ratees going to fall accordingly with it because people are going to start to take their money out of Safe Investments like treasuries and securities which we can invest in and put them into the stock market which we can't we're not allowed to by law as well as we're deficit spending so the amount of money that we can invest is going to be going down at the same time so you know that's again just to kind of explain why you might be asking yourself why is this going down over

100here then that's partly because of not the only reason but it it's just one of the main reasons where we get some extra income I do like to remind the board um we have a a cash operating Reserve policy that dictates um that we have to have a cash fund balance of 15% of our annual fund expenses which for this year which would be $17 million in approximately which we can't fall below which in our forecast currently we do fall Below in the year fiscal year 28 we also have our 5% uh set aside for the budget Reserve fund which statut toally cannot exceed 5% of the prior Year's Revenue which last year our revenue is 109 million or 638,000 which equates to about $5.5 million so if you look at where we're at and

101again you can see this is kind of that flattening of the curve that I spoke of our days cash on hand is projected to decrease uh as the amount of cash balance that we have decreases and as I said in 2028 we actually fall below our policy which states that we can't fall below $17 million which is roughly 90 days um and that's usually the industry standard um that we want to make sure so we're not going towards the proverbial cliff and when we look at kind of this graphic here that kind of shows the same thing as we kind of get into 27 and 28 we're getting closer to that Red Zone here because our as our short uh budget surplus to shortfall is a percentage Revenue comes in and this graphic here kind

102of shows because this is when our forecast ends is in 29 but we can statistically show based on historical expenses and revenue Trends kind of what's going to happen if we were to kind of look at 30 and 3 1 so this is basically this is a statistical analysis this isn't done with the same level of care that we do for you know through 29 with the assumptions that I shared earlier you can see that that deficit spending would continue but what's important is over here on this bottom left of the screen Sorry Miss Appo I think I caught your head there um it says importantly if you were to put a levy on and you're looking at had a low range or a high range what would those values be if you went in

10325 what would they be if you went 26 and what would you be in went 27 and you can see that the range in 25 Falls between 4.2 and 5.26 and if you wait that goes to 5.26 to 6.83 because now you have to cover the increase in expenses and so on and so forth so as I talked to the assistant Financial advisory and I talked uh to Mr Heath and his team and we were looking at kind of the Strategic plan and looking at the ways that we were trying to focus on what we feel is the best course of action for the district I ran a few scenarios for the board just to stimulate some initial sinaps firings for future discussion um because I've already recommended this a number of times that we

104do my belief is that we need to pass new money by no later than the end of 2025 calendar year so if we were to pass a 5 mil Le in 20 by November 25 the first collection would come in B school year 26 the half collection with a full collection coming in 27 so it would generate about $13.6 million when it's fully implemented what you can see is that in 26 it means that we're balanced 27 we're balanced and then if nothing else changes based on my assumptions we're starting to deficit suspend again in 28 29 so you're looking you know you're looking basically for a 5year lifespan based on the current assumptions that we have here and that's at 5 mil and I would say that that's just maintaining again what we're doing

105there's nothing nothing added to that if you were to go to a 6 mil or a 5.9 mil you're going to generate about $16.3 million and that going to put us in uh the black through 2028 and you know you're probably looking for a levy closer to 31 so that gives you another year at least of kind of stretching that out and again it assumes nothing else changes everything stays the same um what you could do here though is you could take some of the money the extra money that you're getting and you could use that for other Capital Improvements in the form of safety so some of the vestule discussions and other safety discussions that the board started to have uh with Mr Heath and his team you could use that extra millage to

106kind of fund some of those projects that we had to cut back on because of the failure of the pi Levy from last November if you push it out to next year or the next year of 2026 you're looking at 6.9 Ms again not collecting anything in 26 because you're not going to pass it till November 26 at the latest you're looking at about 18.8 million million in total but you can see you're only not de suspending for one year and that's the first year that you collect the full Freight uh you're def suspending in year 29 so really with this one you're only going to get about maybe four years before you're asking for additional Revenue so I just bring those to the attention of the board and the community just to continue to

107plan out of where we're at again this is a continuation of sound fiscal management of our expenses as well as the need at some point to have to seek additional Revenue the board is going to be tasked obviously with the support of Mr Heath and myself to Give opinions you know I love to give an opinion so I'm happy to give one whenever asked what is going to be the timing for what amount what type of Levy and how much but these three scenarios I think give the board a little bit of an insight into kind of where our options are the citizens Financial advisory I think Falls more into the uh 2025 uh part of the discussion um to get that money uh sooner so it can be less of an ask and then

108it's going to be dependent upon what we want to achieve as a group uh would be that millage rate um there's also something else at your table that I'll just point out that I didn't put in a slide there is the Squire patent bogs uh 2025 calendar for for levies uh please remember that by law we have to have that filed 90 days in advance but it's a two-step process so really it's more like the 120 day 110 day for the first piece to be passed then we take that to the county auditor they certify it we come back we vote and then we would take it to the Board of Elections prior to that 90th day the other thing that the Board needs to start considering uh when you start looking at levies is

109the levy going it be a general operating Levy uh which would count against the outside millage um or would it be an emergency Levy which would not count towards the outside millage um General operating can go from 1 to 5 years or it could be continuing emergency levies can go up to 10 years they cannot be continuing is there um is there specific guidelines that you have to follow for it to be an emergency Levy like is there an orc you know no it you have to meet X Y and Z there's no yeah the name is Mis it's a it's it's kind of a misnomer when it comes to the Emy Levy no there's not specific guidelines it's just a matter of uh what the board it's to obviously you have to be in

110an operating deficit but I'll get more clarification on that specifically but not really it's really kind of when it comes down to the gist of it it's really e do you want it to count towards the outside millage or not emergency levies are fixed dollar if you remember as well M uh so a fixed dollar amount so if it we say it's going to raise $16 million it always raises $16 million it never increases a general operating Levy is a fixed sum so the millage can never exceed the approved millage so there's a little bit difference there and because we weren't at the floor currently when we had the anomaly that we saw this past year our taxpayers were protected because of House Bill 920 so that's something that we should consider moving board mhm

111so when we look at kind of a summary uh we are deficit suspending all the 5 years of the forecast they're written there un red um we should continue to work to monitor our spending and find ways to control costs again continue to flatten our expense curve in the out years of the forecast um we continue to deficit spend our cash balance is depleting and we will fall below the recommended minimum standard of 90 days cash reserves by FY 27 and will below our general fund operating budget Reserve limit in fiscal year 28 so we will need to continue to find ways to again to cut costs and strongly consider additional general fund operating dollars um as early as the end of calendar year 2025 and this forecast was recommended for approval by the ciens

112financial advisory committee on Thursday November 14th 2024 I'm happy to take any questions I thought that the citizens Financial advisory asked great questions and we're definitely supportive of what you shared Mr Wade and based on their recommendations I would think that we as a board would want to have maybe a special work session to talk about what the feasibility is of those various scenarios especially looking at the deadlines for special elections and if we were going to do something earlier in the year versus a year from now um so we could make that decision and have enough time to have all the paperwork filed I would agree just as a uh a point of reference too uh it does not look like there would be anything locally on in May um and if there's nothing

113else on except for us we have 45 precincts so it would cost us about $90,000 in May um if the state does put an issue on which there is the potential I'm hearing uh from some sources that I have uh that would split the cost down to 45,000 and just as a point of reference for the board it cost us about $30,000 to have the November emergency and Pi Lev on so there is a cost associated with this as well can you say one more time what was the cost for the November about 30,000 last year y and and you expect it would be the same uh November 25 uh yes I would expect it to be similar yeah thank you because we'd have more than one other issue sharing with us yeah so it

114kind of gets split amongst everybody if the state's on they take half the cost so if that State issue was to get on and obviously we can't Bank on that because the timeline's going to be quick right um because we'd have to have everything kind of at least the first resolution pass by the middle of January at the latest would be my recommendation and talking to legal counsel on that so that would be a quick turnaround and if I recall correctly anything that would be passed in 2025 is collected in 2026 whether it's passed at a special election earlier in the year correct or at the end so it's like you get two bites at the Apple gotch so to speak I would prefer one any other questions Mr Wade did you make any assumptions

115with the fair school funding plan and I did I assume that it would continue based on our discussions with uh Senator Sereno and Troy and Mr Kender uh I did assume that we would see the continuation of the phasin uh in 26 and 27 and that the base cost would uh increase as well that at least for the first part of that so we did assume in the out years that would continue so you assumed both things okay thank you which also assumes that the guarantee would still be there and we'd still be on the guarantee of some sort do you feel that's optimistic or realistic I feel it's realistic good I try not to be optimistic in my forecast okay very thank you again Mr Wade um just a follow up from our conversation

116today just in case other people have that question about the Ed Choice vouchers that is not um a part of the the forecast like we can't forecast of how much are going to be utilized next year we didn't anticipate this amount of private school increase um so that's based on historical data and you said live birth rates yep so it's live birth rates and historical data so if we do see upticks or down ticks in any form of enrollment um that we didn't see historically that would impact us potentially here with regards to expenses not from a revenue standpoint though because again uh from a revenue standpoint taxes aren't impacted by student enrollment numbers nor are is currently the state funding formula thank you Madame President members of the board Mr Heath I ask that

117items B throughh and addendums be acted on in one motion so moved second is there any discussion please call the role Miss pay yes Miss AO yes Miss Jing yes Miss maraza yes Miss Cook yes motions carry 5- Z that concludes my section of the agenda thank you very much next we have unfinished business um the first item I I ask Mr Heath to give us an update on our SSO contract uh yeah just a couple of quick things uh we met with the school safety uh board liaison group on October 30th uh we discussed some of the revised language that uh we got from our attorneys on that contract um that we're hoping to enter into with the city of Menor on uh on these ssos um I sent that contract language over to

118Mr philipak and chief gunch on October 31st um I know there are still a couple of items that uh are somewhat restrictive when it comes to the actions an SSO can take based on a language in the contract so um uh I I had discussed that with Chief gun we happen to have a phone call about another issue here uh just a couple weeks ago and kind of talk through some of those uh possibilities and I've uh sent that language over to them to take a look at um to hopefully resolve some of those issues um did give them a couple more dates um to to try and meet here uh either right before or right after Thanksgiving so that we can get that wrapped up I think we are getting very very very close

119now so we're excited about that thank you I also spoke with um Mr flippac about that as well and he um you know is definitely open to working things out with us so and again I I think the one thing and and again uh Mrs painton and Mrs cook are the leaon for that school safety uh committee and um I think we've discussed the risks at length now um and I think we've got a pretty good sense from across the board that uh we want to get this done um I express those sentiments to uh to Mr philipak and M and chief gunch um when I sent them over the language changes too Mr Heath if if it would be beneficial for Miss Cook and I to be in that meeting um I'd be happy

120to join okay I'll let you know how it goes thank you okay let's see um moving on to new business we have oh I'm sorry no no unfinished business the second item in the discussion is for um Senate Bill 104 um Mr Heath can you start us off yeah I just so everyone knows that you know as we've done this far we'll make sure that uh we are in compliance with the law uh we're getting regular up updates from legal counsel on the bill and uh we'll keep you guys posted as uh as we're going through the next 3 weeks here prior to our December meeting um literally we have a weekly meeting with our legal council to talk through some of these issues and he's been very proactive actually was uh doing a presentation

121on uh Senate Bill 104 implications um and was able to send us those slides be before you even did the uh presentation itself so we're getting regular updates on that but again uh we will follow whatever the law dictates to us great thank you um as we open up discussion I know we have we want to have discussion on Senate Bill 104 and then we have House Bill 445 and I know we have um just the interest of being productive and respectful dialogue I ask that just every person on the board allows if you want to speak that's great we hope to have good dialogue but let everyone else speak before we take a second turn and of course we'll have unlimited turns but just please let everyone have a chance to speak before we

122we continue um with Senate Bill 104 we do have new legislation and um that is expected to be signed by Governor dwine as is maraza outlined for us today um Senate Bill 104 will impact the college credit plus and it will also designate multiple occupancy facilities in public schools and higher education as Des designated for biological males and biological females um in anticipation of Governor dewine's approval it is prudent for us as the board to discuss compliance and as an elected official I did take an oath to follow the Constitution and the laws of the land and I do support following this law if it is enacted um the failure to follow laws puts men are public schools at risk for losing funding and lawsuits and I will protect Menor public schools by following the

123laws this is consistent with my stance on March 14th 2023 where I supported following the law at that time our legal advisers um cautioned us that failure to follow laws could jeopardize 5 to6 million in federal funding and because we are dependent on this funding for special education for tutoring and free and reduced lunches jeopardizing this money is not fair to our taxpayers as laws changed we we need to adapt we do not have a current policy that contradicts this mandate and as a board member I would charge superintendent Heath with ensuring that all communication is compliant with the law um Mr Heath I ask that you inform the board of any potential compliance challenges with Senate Bill 104 and recommendations on how they can be addressed would anyone else like to discuss sen Bill

124104 yeah I'll go ahead thank you for giving kind of a rundown of what that what this bill is um and that it it is anticipated to be sign to be signed whether he signs it or not to go into into law um before before I I discuss it when you say and and while I have the floor is it okay if I ask quick Q&A just for some of you to some of you um so I don't lose the floor but when you say following the law is that mean committed to creating a policy I don't feel creating a policy is necessary we don't have a policy now okay but I'm committed to making that we follow the law okay so we will create procedures that follow the law I expect us to completely

125follow the law okay um so first I understand the recent and impending laws um as they pertain to transgender Community bring disappointment and frustration to many I have compassion for everyone that is affected now should Senate Bill 104 become law I have no doubt that our administrators teachers and staff members will help those affected to navigate these changes when dealing with new policies three meetings are required from what I understand what I've been told now the first um is to have discussion another meeting to have a first reading and then another meeting for to vote um my intention um and I'll speak for myself but in kind of getting the ball rolling um in advance to this becoming a law is so that the district has time to prepare for these changes and can create

126a plan of action to support the students who are affected by it um despite our disagreement I believe this board is committed to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of every student while complying with the law so I appreciate hearing that you you know obviously we don't really have a choice we have to follow the law um because our curent our Neola updates are coming up and we do not Mr he there is not a bathroom type bill that we can use with the ne updates is that correct so they've got the um actually no they they do not have a current law or current policy that we would be looking at um obviously we would they're very well aware that this is coming into into law and they're I'm sure they're actively writing policy as

127we speak okay um the one other thing kind of to your point with the you know the three different meetings that would be needed and obviously we've got three months to to kind of get that done still um but if uh if we got into a time cren I special meeting could be could be called as well okay and it's not real quick too Mr app it's not uncommon for Neola when there are uh many laws that get passed during this time of year for them to do a special release in February okay and Mr Heath do you believe that there need we would do you suggest a policy to make the things easier to comply with this law I again I we don't have a policy now we just follow the law um it

128could be a policy it could be an administrative guideline could be well there's not a a change in handbook language whatever but there's not a law right now about with the bathrooms so we're just following Title 9 regulations that's that's what we're following um so my my other question then with um concerning the kind of under the same umbrella houseville 68 is there an intention to have a policy for that because it is Law and we don't have a policy for it the Safe Act and what sports tell me more okay um it's the saving adolescence from experimentation act and save women's sports act that was passed um I think remember um dwine vetoed it they overrode it and then there were some Court stays but it is now law so so we just continue

129to follow what the o SAA puts the guidance out and they they had put the stay on um uh any transgender athletes participating in sports back at the beginning of the year so we're continuing to follow that okay there's other portions of that that have to do with counselors so I just I that's something that I feel we we were already behind on so the delay in that house full 68 and not having a policy is what kind of created a sense of urgency here um for this bathroom bill so um and because because Neola doesn't have a policy for either of these we do need eventually we would need if we were to have a policy legal to draft something um and this is why we kind of took the initiative to have legal

130get that ball rolling um Mrs Payne found a bathroom policy from Mida uh in Ohio and they've been using it since January of 2024 with no issues we would need to add some language to that and we were in head discussions with legal over that we need to add in overnight accommodations um that's not that wasn't in the Alli policy and make sure that the effective date would of if something we would prepare what we asked legal to prepare would would be would follow the law so in the event there's a court the courts intervene then the it doesn't affect us we would be compliant um but that so that we're set up and ready to go when that does become law and um you know that's why we ask legal to take ex that

131existing policy and just make some minor adjust adjustments so make sure we're in compliance um legal did agree that we can use that effective date of the law to be the effective date of the policy that way you know like I said if there is a a stay placed from the court we will be covered um we had hoped to have this ready for us to discuss um as a board tonight to make changes if necessary so we can be ready to go and um unfortunately you know Mr Heath you I'm not sure why you intervened to um our to our request um that were by two two board members I felt that in doing so and reaching out to our president and vice president that put us violating the open meetings act and you

132know this I feel like this is an infringement on our ability to do our job and the fact that our request was denied is concerning and I I certainly plan on taking this up with legal because we don't have a policy or bylaw saying that we need that one board member has more power um we don't have like I said we have no we have no policy or bylaw stating that you that our president or vice president have authority over uh other board members to access our board attorney so this is very concerning all board members have equal power and the right to seek the resources that we need to do our job and that is a bylaw that we have so that is something that needs to be worked out I think in the

133future um there's no reason that we shouldn't push through these policies for these two for house B 68 and 104 um when we do these Neo updates coming up and like you said we do have it we have 3 months and we have about three meetings so it would by the time we got everything ready to go you know the policy would be in effect uh the law would be in effect so you know I'm not sure we'll hear I'll get to hear from everybody else it sounds like Mrs cook is not is opposed to having a policy which concerns me a little bit um I know in the past miss maresa you had mentioned mentioned the board handles the what and the administrators handle the the how if we don't have a policy how

134are our administrators supposed to have guidelines how are they supposed to um dictate to the staff and to parents and and how are we supposed to discipline if we don't have a policy to go by um they policies ensure the district adheres to the requirements of the new law it reduces the risk of legal penalties or lawsuits we're board members we get sued my names on there I don't feel good about not having a poliy um a written policy translates the law into clear actionable steps for our administrators teachers and staff and having a policy in place demonstrates good faith in complying with leg legal obligations potentially mitigating legal risks um you know I'll I can go on and on I don't know why these particular laws potential law um why why this isn't something

135because it's such a litigious issue why would wouldn't want to protect the district and have a policy I'm I'm I'm I I'm interested in hearing um from everybody to see what what your reasoning [Applause] is yeah anybody else did did you want to speak on that Mrs yeah I didn't know if okay it looked like you were going for your microphone so okay um so I agree with Miss iapo I think we need a policy um effective you know we could start working on it now but I would like to have reassurance from the board that they would support a written policy um this issue has been a concern in the past so in March of 2023 a significant number of parents rallied behind a resolution that I had proposed with the backing of former

136board member Tom Tuttle this resolution mirrored the State Board of Education stance titled to oppose the proposed changes to Title 9 and to affirm parental rights and local control of Ohio p through 12 education it did include language that would have enabled us to publicly oppose the inclusion of biological boys and girls bathrooms in locker rooms um and in girl Sports while a similar resolution passed unanimously in the neighboring Riverside District uh mind you they do have a a very split board um but it passed unanimously on that that resolution our board chose not to support it um resulting in a two to three vote which I respected that decision um but I did sub quently advocate for House Bill 183 I wrote written testimony in support of it um because I felt like this

137was a topic that really needed to be addressed since we decided locally we weren't going to you know do anything different here I respected that but then I took my uh position to the state house and and advocated there so although the bill awaits Governor dewine's signature I think it's crucial that we prepare to draft a policy once the bill is enacted to build a strong Foundation of support we must appeal to the majority the data from the latest election for our specific District indicates that the successful candidates shared the same ideology that's reflected in Senate Bill 104 our previous Levy did not pass our additional funds permanent Improvement Levy we are considering as you heard tonight placing it back on the ballot in spring or fall but without making any changes that resonate with

138the majority of taxpayers in our district we cannot expect different outcomes moreover the recent election data reveals that our community is not as Centrist as we pre previously believed we had a high voter turnout at the last election in Menor of over 80% um for presidential votes especially now while Trump garnered 57% of the vote Harris received 43% Bernie Marino did win by about 5% as well he held a very strong stance on this subject I'm sure we all saw the uh commercials and and we were probably all at that point done listening to them um whatever side you were on but it it's imperative that we Implement changes before we approach voters again for their support in their in a new funding Levy in Ohio some additional data as well I think this was

139provided by Mr Wade I think it was from osba the data about the levy passage and failures so in Ohio 50 out of 68 renewal levies passed that's a 73% pass passage rate only 22 out of 72 additional funds levies passed which is a 30% passage rate these numbers are pretty alarming and we have to do our best to appeal to the majority of taxpayers especially since almost 80% of our budget comes from our local taxpayers I think tonight we saw about 70 but still the vast majority comes from our local tax taxpayers this is one change that I I see that we can make because we need to Garner some support from our community we can't continue to make these decisions that go in opposition of our community and then expect a different outcome

140when we ask them for more funding I do want to also address Mr Heath I believe you've stated at previous board meetings that we do have gender neutral single stalls at least one of them in every single one of our schools we do okay so that I think that's helpful to note um especially once this passes you know that there's an option there so so my question also is you know without policy how are we going to apply any disciplinary measures for those students or staff who violate this new law if a student does not comply and uses the bathroom of their gender identity which we heard a speaker speak about tonight apparently there's um a parent who's already gone out and said my child will not use the bathroom you know that corresponds with

141their biological sex so in that scenario without a policy I'm assuming it wouldn't be in the the student handbook because we need policy that drives the student handbook policy drives administrative guidelines so I'm not quite sure other than pseudo policies that aren't really policies I I don't know what other options we would have to enforce this and could you tell me without policy what would be the disciplinary action for a student who identifies as a boy as a as a girl but is a biological boy and then proceeds to continue to use the women's facility lock a room bathroom whatnot can you tell me what yeah we don't we don't have the answer to that yet I obviously from a disciplinary standpoint there would have to be some sort of consequences if a state law

142is being violated can you have disciplinary action um by the school without policy without any kind of student handbook update you could it' be in subordination because everything is still part of the code of conduct and it would be tied to some sort of code that we would have in there so it it'd be very easy to to figure out what part of the code of conduct we would tie it to from a consequence standpoint that discussion hasn't taken place yet though okay I think you know for me I think we need a policy I I don't see why we wouldn't it has been such a contentious issue in our community and if we're going to follow the law anyways why don't we just write a policy so that the majority of people can get

143behind us rally behind us for a future Levy and support us again this is jlee um I happen to be at that meeting in March of 2023 was our 4H hour and 15 minute very lengthy at the time that that resolution was presented I asked Mr Tuttle what the source was who wrote that he only told me that Mrs Payne you'd given it to him but he didn't know where it came from and I asked it on the floor where it came from but I didn't get an answer so I don't know what the source of that Shea resolution was but I do know it came with some caveats that it didn't have any force of law that it was and I know how contentious it was from September through December until they had another

144version of it written but regardless um the fact that we are committed to following the law is the most important consideration in my mind it's the overriding rule that governs everything we do as a district so as we followed the law prior to this once this uh SB 104 goes into effect then any changes that we need in terms of um if uh NE doola comes up with a policy of some sort or if there are other considerations from an administrative point of view those will be made clear to us because at the same time the college credit plus guidelines I think there were some tweaks in that so that will also be part of the whole guidance for um how we enact that because those have a lot of deadlines uh in the college

145credit plus for application parent signatures and so so forth so whatever any of this encompasses I am absolutely committed to following the law and I agree that you know as a district our duty is to be sure that we are compliant and that's an overriding thing Beyond things like um District policy but just following the law in general so I would hope that Mr Heath once we have a decision from the governor or it goes into effect whatever is going to happen with s SP 104 that he would let us know where we have areas that need to be short up or modified and that because we are subscribers to Neola so we're already paying for that service and we're like hundreds of other districts in the state all of us are waiting for those

146same guidelines I don't see that it makes any sense to draft a policy without all the information well a policy would be offered to us or not depending on what's advised because sometimes there are even pros and cons to how it's written and what is written and that's what we have our attorney available for in addition to our Neola guidelines so I feel like we're premature until this is Law and if we need to have a special session a special meeting because there's a an urgency that our regular board meetings won't allow us to act in timely fashion then we would do that and Mr Heath would make sure that the administrators all of the staff are familiar with what the law is any modifications to what has been and what is current and that

147they would be given guidelines through the student handbook as well so there's a lot of moving Parts but until we know date certain of what's going to happen I don't I don't understand why there's an urgency until we know what the governor is going to advise or if it's something um even Core case es I'm assuming it's going to be enacted but we don't know that quite yet it'll be soon obviously do you want to go you want me to go next sure oh yeah I mean I'm I'm inclined to agree for all sorts of of reasons including those just outlined by uh Mrs Jing um so I want to start out with a question if I may for Mr Heath um and then continue with it okay so Mr Heath you said um that

148we would uh use the code of conduct to meet out any discipline that is necessary I mean there are laws that we follow without policies right that's kind of what I want to hear about how do we follow those laws how do we stay in compliance with them if we don't have a policy on the books we look closely at what our code of conduct says uh again any Behavior we can tie to some sort of code um and really I think the work that we need to do as as a District Administrative team is look through okay what are consequences for this type of violation moving forward since this would be something new to us at this point in time okay and in the absence of having a Neola policy sorry second question and

149I'll be done with questions in the absence of having a Neola policy would we then have to pay our attorney to create a policy around this topic yeah so again I think a couple of action steps for me right now coming out of the initial part of this discussion um is one to ask Neola if they have the policy language working right now if they don't that's when we could um if directed by the board to to start looking into what policy language um we might consider that's when we would incorporate our legal council into that sort of conversation um I was able to pull the ELA policy here right now since I had not seen that official language yet so I was able to pull that into a a Google doc as a starting

150point and if just to make sure I've got this down correctly to from from my direction um we would also need the addition of the overnight trips included is that the other piece okay um and then obviously our our other steps will be to make sure we've got a plan of action for the the students that are going to be impacted by the passage of the bill um and then working through that communication piece with all of the board members with our families uh and our students moving forward so I think I've got four too things on the list right now already busy before he leaves the meeting thank you so um you know that alone that tells me we're going to need to rack up some billable hours of taxpayer dollars that we would

151need to create a policy around this if um since if if NE is is not available so already we're spending attorneys fees um on something that I it doesn't sound like we need quite yet um or maybe not at all if we if this passes into law and we're able to execute on it like we have with H hp68 or even other laws that are in existence that we do not have policies for um so in addition to to just the being practically minded in being careful with their spending in taxpayer dollars um you know I think that what I learned I learned a lot at the OSB osba conference and I hope we get a chance to talk I want to report out about the delegates meeting and so on but they spent a

152lot I went to a lot of the legal sessions and they spent a lot of time um talking about um gender identity issues in the law and and Title 9 and so there's a lot of discussion and what my my biggest takeaway from that was that this situation is very fluid and that um this is this is a very thorny issue uh very controversial for some folks that we are watching our courts grapple with in real time and that's how the law is supposed to work that is how our courts are supposed to work um for that reason because it is so fluid and because it is not yet finalized and probably never will be finalized because that's just how the law Works um I don't think that it is wise for us to put

153in writing at this time and in fact that is what the attorneys suggested let's see how this play out plays out there's very likely going to be lawsuits flying again there there already are um and not commit to a policy right now if it's the law we follow the law we all swore an oath to uphold it uh we will follow it no question in the meantime we watch we wait we stay in touch with our legal counsil and take take his advice um and we try to contact him as little as possible so we don't rack up dollars upon dollars of spending which we have seen Skyrocket over the last three years um so the overall advice um to by from OSBI I want to point out as well and just kind of Center

154this discussion a little bit more make it less about bathrooms and more about kids um is is that you know at the heart of this issue our students our miners our children and family Ames and to me that is what we continue to lose sight of I want to make sure that we are looking out for these families these kids have B basically become a political football for the past three years and it is heartbreaking to watch some of these kids go through um what they've been through so I want to make sure you know let's discuss this sure what are we doing to protect these kids and their families what are we doing to support them from a mental health perspective that is our first priority that is who we should be looking out

155for they have been at the center of this legal fight this board fight for years now and I have deep concerns about their well-being so again all very fluid osba attorneys and other attorneys who presented uh last week said be sure to talk to your admins be sure to talk to your staff your teachers your supervisors your guidance counselors and sure they've got the right training to handle things once if the if this law um goes into place um and make sure we know what is actually happening on the ground in the bathrooms in the classrooms in our guidance counselors offices and and make sure we know what's actually happen happening and what is actually an issue involve our school counselors very early in the process so I hope that we are doing that if

156we're not yet I really recommend that we do so those are my thoughts thank you any additional discussion I just have some followup um so how exactly without a policy and and again when when we were talking about how when we met with U or spoke with um legal the intention is obviously in other words postdating the you know whatever he came up with because we knew it would take time for for the the when for the bail to become a law so we're not trying to push anything ahead of the time we're just trying to be prepared um how can you ensure compliance with staff with our Crossroads counselors without having a policy to point to I I don't I feel like that that's that's putting the district at risk um you know we

157have another reason for my sense of urgency is we have that portion of the bill that would say you know overnight stays and we have spring trips coming up so I you know I I don't want to I don't want to risk that that bill goes into law and we're not prepared um and I think I I understand wanting you know wanting to way I don't want to feel like we're we're pushing this but I think I've I've listed some some good reasons why but I think it's we can't forget that that things are going to change here and January the title 9 is going to is anticipated a change the you know there's there's really no I mean yes there may be some Court stays but if if the the thought in Columbus is

158that if Senate if House Bill 68 was able to to go through and become law then this this bathroom bill will will be law regardless of what happens in court so I I just you know I can't can you point to another high litigious law that affects education and the kids that we do not have a a policy for anybody House Bill 68 we need to we need one well us asked right that but prior to this this these two these subjects I feel like that I feel like we're we're treating I feel like and and correct me if I'm wrong but there's no urgency or desire to have one it's almost a way of of how do I not to put this responsibility well well it sending a message that you know we're going

159to follow the law but we're not we're not you know what what I'm hearing Miss maresa what you had said about the kids that have gone through this I I my heart goes out to our our students who this affects but what I never hear up here is the students who have been for the last how many years that we've had allowed open bathrooms who've L their privacy their right to privacy who have anxiety who have who who just withhold from using the bathroom I me this let's not forget that that's the majority of the students and we have to worry about them as well and their parents and we know that the community wants this why would we not create a policy to show that we we not only are we going to comply

160but we're going to take the appropriate steps to make sure that the staff and everybody you know has proper guidelines just to me it smells like they're you're protecting this group and I and I think that that's um I don't think that that's that's right and my again my name's on here if we get sued and you know that would what would be the first thing in a lawsuit that they would point to us is why didn't you create a policy to protect to make to ensure that every single person in the building and all the parents and all the students are aware of what those guidelines are so I you know I just I think it's very negligent and you know I I can't I I don't I'd like to I'd be interested to

161see besides house full 68 which that is brand new where we just decided to say we'll follow the law but we don't back it up with the [Music] policy anybody yeah I I just have some additional notes as well um obviously I agree with Miss Appo and to miss Cha's point about osba I sat in some of those classes too now one of them I did have to walk out of because I had just about enough of the two lawyers critiquing parents and giving such a bad connotation to parents who have fought for their children to not have to use bathrooms with other genders um so they were continuing to make and Rose was in the um in that conference with me we both ended up walking out with a handful of people because they

162had the one uh person had had stated the lawyer that was teaching the class said you know I'm from Michigan and I want to apologize on behalf of you know Betsy DeVos um and then she continued to say oh look at these parents defending education parents protecting you know children these were all people who were pursuing litigation and suing schools for allowing you know boys into girls bathrooms vice versa or hiding uh transitioning from parents asking kids pronouns things like that and they continued to make a mockery out of those parents so i w was in those same classes too but I I unfortunately had to leave out of one of them because I'm not going to sit there and allow people to make those statements about parents who are pursuing Avenues to protect their

163children so um also to to Rose's Point yes we want to ensure that those children who identify as a different gender have somewhere to go to the bathroom which we do have the single stalls um I think that's a great option but we cannot forget about the other kids who feel uncomfortable we've received emails with parents whose kids are not using the restroom they're getting urinary tract infe infections some kids have been through some pretty terrible situations and they do not want another gender coming into their bathroom it's already uncomfortable for them to be in there alone anyways um to be in there you know with other folks rather um so you know I I also think taking this argument the argument that we're making is not to talk about whether we support or don't

164support the bill the argument that we're making that is not about that that would be a straw man fallacy we can't take an argument and change it into something else so that you gain support for your side we're not doing that I'm not going to do that I'm stating I think with rose as well that we would like to have once this goes into effect we would like to have a policy reflecting the changes that are going to be required by the state I don't understand the push back I really don't I don't get there's risks if we don't put a policy together I don't understand the risk if we do put a policy together I think that we have a huge opportunity cost here if we don't make a policy I think we're going

165to lose support we can't afford to lose any more support private schools have already you know gone up 250 kids last year between last year and this year we cannot continue to go down this route of not appealing to the majority of Voters and think that we're going to continue to have their support [Applause] I don't think we're saying a anything about a policy or no policy what we're saying is we're on the brink of all of the districts in the state being in the same position or a change in the law May necessitate a a dramatic change change in in buildings and as we've all stated we are going to follow the law that's not up for question or debate that that's the rule so everybody who's a niola subscriber is going to have

166the same need rather than you know maybe 2 weeks from now everything will be firmed up maybe tomorrow afternoon everything will be firmed up what whatever the time frame is once that 90day clock begins ticking we will engage with our niola representative because everybody's going to be looking for that same guidance so I I'm not objecting to doing whatever they advise is the best course of action in order to protect students the well-being of the district and Clarity for every one so in my mind to write a policy proactively or take another one and ask the attorney to go over it may not reflect even some final details of the law maybe it will I don't know but we're this close to S SP 104 being uh signed into law and that's when we should

167develop whatever the is the best guidance to to make it easier Mr Heath may have a preference he may want you know based on um how that's going to be rolled out one of the things that I relistened to that meeting from 2023 at the time that we discussed these matters there were concerns about facilities that there there would be a single stall bathroom for example in every building but a building as large as the high school may not have any reasonably accessible facility for after school basketball games for example so we may need to develop a plan to provide more facilities and that was a discussion we had almost two years ago but I don't think we've moved forward on that because we haven't had additional resources to invest and there were no resources

168attached to this bill as I understand it I don't think there's any money attached to this that's correct so those are other important considerations and I'm not saying not to follow the law I want to be clear about that but you know in order to make sure that we do the best job for all concerned I say we give it a couple of weeks and and see where this L and then get started on on doing whatever we need to make sure that our student handbooks are compliant that our staff is trained and prepared and that you know it would make sense too to have a conversation at the administrative level with families and students so that everybody is on the same page and and it's clear as to what the plan is I think

169that approach is so much um more thorough than jumping to a policy that um I I understand that the two of you saw it we we haven't seen it we haven't heard any details on it um and we don't know what the final version of the law will be I believe it will be enacted um and again complete agreement with compliance um to your point with how do administrators have guidelines if they don't want know what the parameters are and that would be by following the law um right now we are following the law with Title 9 we don't have it in policy and we never asked for it to be in policy and nor did you so when when it wasn't what you wanted you didn't ask for it to be in policy then

170for clarity and now that you see it differently um um it has changed so I don't have a problem with following legal guidance seeing how things Lie by next month we might be looking at policy but right now looking at a policy that our our lawyers haven't looked at our Neola we haven't seen where Neola is we haven't seen what we need in our district um I asked Mr Heath to look at what compliance issues we may have um and by that I mean you know we have a play here and all of the other Halls are closed we have a biological male bathro a biological female bathroom I don't think we have a family bathroom in this area so what what how will we create compliance in things like this similarly when there's a

171football game at our football stadium at our basketball stadium so we need to look at things and when we're building our solutions to be compliant because we must be compliant with the law there's a lot more to consider and I do appreciate that we have this discussion now because I I think it is important for us to be compliant it's going to take some time um some of these issues that I just mentioned might might take more than three months honestly and and might take money so we're going to have to look at some things unfortunately this bill doesn't have have funding that comes with it to help us be compliant but maybe we can talk to our legislators about that as well I just I'll let me W actually it's I believe it's my

172turn to speak oh I didn't get to speak second time yet so um Madam president those are all great points I I I do want to add one other thing is because you mentioned football games and not you know a lot of community members adults come to those games as well and so we would need to think about accommodations for those those folks too not just students in that sense so um you know I'm I'm disappointed that Mrs pay and Mrs Zopo didn't stick around for those sessions because if they had they would have heard that um those parents who are litigants in those lawsuits um are having trouble with with getting with with them being successful because they don't have standing and what that means is that they have failed again and again to

173show actual injury because it's they're not their children um they're filing filing these lawsuits because they're upset with the policy not because they have um standing and the ability to show that there's been um some injury made on on their children so again learned a lot in those sessions and I really appreciated being able to go so I'm very grateful to the taxpayers for helping us do that um again this is a very fluid situation um anything we can do to save costs as we saw from Mr Wade's presentation today is going to be important we need keep that front and center as well um be responsible with our spending um this does not look like a practical way to move forward I'm definitely in favor of waiting anybody else want to go a second

174time okay you have the floor okay um I just want to correct you I don't know if you were talking to me or who you were talking to saying that we wanted a different policy before when but it wasn't when it didn't wasn't in our favor I never people wanted a policy keeping we wanted what this law was giving us we wanted a policy protecting privacy girl in bathrooms so I don't know what you were talking about before but that I didn't ask I'm not flip-flopping is what I'm saying um you know the whole point in us getting the ball rolling early is because of all those things you just said it's going to take some time to figure out how we're going to accommodate everybody so you know we're splitting hairs here it's gonna

175it's it's it's going to be law and we have to you keep saying we have we're going to comply you don't you don't really have a choice so yes that that that is I I figured that that but you know it it we have possibly 90 days and we there's a lot to figure out so I'm just trying to say we need to be on top of it and again especially after Mr uh Wade's presentation this is one more way to gain trust from our community and we know what's down the pipeline we know what's down we know what's coming there's big changes the pendulum has swung I don't understand why you know if you want to fine we want to wait a couple we want to wait a little bit that's fine we will

176have a special meeting we will we will continue to fight and push for a policy so that we have a smooth uh roll out and that we we're not liable because I I don't want my name I don't want to be sued because some parent sues because they you know nobody knew that there was a policy I looked it up and it was fine so my I told my kid they can go on in so you know again this is going to this is going to be in front of us and it's not going away and you know I will continue to push to do what we do for every Major law that affects our students in our buildings and have a policy I just want to reiterate that because there was a comment made

177insinuating that we have to provide single stalls I don't believe in the bill that it says we have to provide single stalls it states I I think that um we that the the individual who may be identifying as a different gender has a choice to use single stall bathrooms or the bathroom that they are their biological sex is in accordance with so I don't think we have to go and change all these bathrooms per the law um just to reiterate that point um I didn't propose an actual policy it was a resolution clearly from the meeting with the resol the resolution meeting it was very clear that we weren't willing to write a policy so why would I go and try to write a policy when that meeting was very clear that there were three

178people who were in opposition to the resolution and to the idea of doing anything different um and we keep saying it's the law there's no one law that it points to just for clarification we're following case law from many discussions that I've with legal and with Mr Heath there's no one law that's like you got to follow this it's case law it's based on the six Circuit Court decision that was made several years ago am I correct Mr Heath yeah okay so I think you know Jenny Lauren Maggie if we could get your Buy in that yes you would support once we could I'm fine with like let's not write anything up until it becomes law but once it becomes law are you guys willing even if noola doesn't have a policy are you guys

179willing to create a policy that's what the discussion is tonight I'd like to ensure that we have some support to write a policy for that I know Jenny you had mentioned you're not opposed to it but are you for writing a policy once it goes into effect once we actually have the verbage the final passage if dwine was to sign it tomorrow and our our legal council which I know miss maraza you made some comments we actually had a lengthy discussion with him we're not supposed to discuss all of the legal counsel advice because that then violates attorney client privilege so we have to be very careful with what we say um because we were also told different information so uh you know we have to be careful with that but I would like to

180know are you guys okay with writing a policy once the bill is enacted let's say it's enacted tomorrow dwine signs the bill are you guys going to support writing a policy I'm absolutely not committing to that right now I appreciate your honesty mhm yep sure I don't know enough about what would be any downside of having a written policy there have been plenty of times over the course of my board service where I just made an assumption like well you would do this and then the legal voices that we um work with would point out something that I wasn't familiar with that creates a Nuance or a another perspective that I'm not qualified to say what I would say is this that this will likely become law if Neola and our attorney would advise creating

181a policy that would govern these actions or not I would follow their advice because again I'm not an attorney I don't have any kind of a legal training that would give me the expertise that would be important our our attorney and Neola work to help create Clarity and governance and to also limit concerns and liab ability so to me that that makes the most sense and as somebody who's in favor of the best um practices for our district as I I think everybody here is committed to that we might have different approaches or different viewpoints but I I don't think any of us want to put the district in Jeopardy students in Jeopardy that's why I brought up the the discussion that we had in March of 2023 because there was a recognition that we

182may have some facilities issues and I agree that's not something we could I don't care if we came up with something tonight you know the um planning and budgeting for something as dramatic as any kind of facility the price tag I thought we had bandied about one time was like it's $50,000 to create a single stall bathroom that's a lot of money so and I I don't know what the the final outcome will be for all this but I am prudent enough and supportive enough that I would be on board with whatever is advised by niola and our lawyer I would agree with that as well if if our lawyer um says this is imperative I follow the legal advice I'm here to protect the district so if our lawyer says it's imperative to create

183a policy then that's that's what we're charged to do if our lawyer doesn't say it's imperative but says that he would he he would be totally you know in fine with it he'd be able to defend it it makes sense but he's not like you have to do this because that's typically in my my experience it's been he gives us the options and says like hey this one has a little bit more risk this one doesn't he doesn't really tell us what to do he gives us the options and then we're able to make that decision as a board because he's not on the board he doesn't make that decision we do so well I I think we're splitting hairs with that I I I would have to hear what he says you know yes

184there's sometimes there are some gray areas and I guess it would have to I'd have to hear the risks and the benefits it's really hard for me to make that decision when I haven't spoke with him at all on that so I guess I have to reserve my judgment right now now but I'm open to you know hearing all of the options and and weighing the um listening to his advice or and Neola okay just to make sure I've got my to-do list in place one more time cuz I added a couple things um so I'm going to be I actually already reached out to Neola um to see where their timelines are on policy language for Senate Bill 104 uh I'm also going to ask about House Bill 68 if they've got theola policy

185on that and I'm assuming when we get to new business we'll want to know about House Bill 445 as well so I've got those three things on there um I will be talking to legal counsel about risks um both from putting a policy in place and for not putting a policy in place and just kind of get some legal standpoint there um we will be working with our admin ative teams on the plans of action for the impacted students um when this bill is officially signed into the law and then also working with the administrative team on the disciplinary consequences for students violating that law and then final piece is I will continue to communicate with the board on all of the policy language and the plans for what I'm going to ass assume are

186all three of these items Senate Bill 104 House Bill 68 House Bill 445 did I capture everything yes welcome thank you all right um and we'll continue to do that obviously our next um board meeting is uh December 10th so I know we've got about it's a quick turnaround because we're a little bit later this month so we got about three weeks here um uh obviously there will be movement with with all of these as we move forward but um we'll make sure that we continue to give you updates and if um if it's one of those situations uh like we've done the last couple of weeks here where there's like a midweek update that needs to go out um I'll make sure and do those as well just to make sure that that communication

187is as timely as possible then too all right can I can I have one thing on this subject so this this upcoming policy committee that Lauren and I are part of yes I don't I don't know how beneficial that is because correct me if I'm wrong we're going to do what we did last time and just go through and and I I found some of the updates and there's quite a bit so we speak about them or we we review them and some of them we can't talk about because if I've talk to another board member or she has talked to another board member about them we can't discuss that CU that's an right that's an open meetings violation so is it been should we just get together as a board and go through all

188those together since we have to do that anyways I'm not really sure I I also have some comments on that too because if our po if we're saying we have to have discussion first before we ever have a first reading I never see those policies until it is a first reading because I'm not on the committee so I think we have to align across the board if that's what we're saying we need to do discussion first reading second reading final vote you know on the second reading then I think that we need to align that as well which when if we have the committee that would be committee meeting board meeting first reading second reading I think that's redundant or is the committee meeting does because there's just two of us count as a the

189discussion in that process that potentially could count as a discussion I think that was one of the reasons when we got into the uh the Neola policies knowing that they had updates twice a year that um we would put those in front of everyone that's part of that board policy liais on committee to um to make sure that we've got the the right language and there are some things obviously that we would be tossing out to to the group for our first reading that nobody's seen yet um where we tried to mirror what that Neola policy manual creation process was where we had two board members on each of the uh chapters to kind of go through bre and Wordsmith some of that ahead of time so that you at least there was some board

190input into what we were putting out for the first reading so um that was the purpose of it if we don't think that's necessary I'm more than happy to take a meeting off my schedule well I I think too to that point um you know if we're going to call that a discussion then what's the difference between me and Rose going to the attorney and saying hey we want to propose a policy for a first reading and we don't have discussion first I think we just whatever we do we need to align it you know if we're going to say we need discussion it should be we need discussion with the whole board across the board every time yeah can I have some clarification I was under the understanding that when it went to policy

191committee it was not new policy that we've never seen it was update to current policy is that incorrect yeah the only additions might be something similar to what we're discussing right now um you know Neola potentially could put out some new policy that uh is based off of a new law that was passed um so th those would be part of those conversations then if if we keep the current structure so when we had our board governance meeting um we had discussed as a group and we were all in agreement that when we were proposing something new or we wanted to discuss a topic that we would initiate that in new business and we would um we we would discuss it in in new business so that everyone heard the discussion and we weren't keeping

192that from being off the agenda that it's it's always on the agenda if someone says I want to talk about this it goes on the agenda that's the practice we've been having and then if there is um through the discussion if you see that we have people that want to move forward with it then it goes forward and that that is when we start paying our lawyer to draft things for us and craft things and and that was how we were con controlling costs for the district so if Neola has already drafted it I guess we we don't have to worry about controlling a cost but perhaps if it's completely new we wouldn't send it to policy committee if it's just an update then our policy committee would would check it out I'm just spitballing

193here and yeah or again we could just disband that policy committee and and just bring everything under new business and we can say hey here's the Neola policy language that we currently have from their updates and put it on for one month you know just as a discussion if there's anything that resonates with anybody that they want to make some comments on could certainly have that uh conversation then we can tweak those uh that language and then do a first reading a second reading and and call it done just eliminate one more one of our committees I think that makes sense too because then it prevents you know any other board members other than who's in the committee from talking to other people about those changes so it just puts us at more risk for

194open meeting acts uh violation would we have the ability to CU I remember in our last policy committee meeting we made live edits it took a good chunk of time um so if we did this this way would we we would certainly get the policy language ahead of time um would we be making edits live during our meeting or would we be sending them to you in advance like how would we envision that working CU I'm open I'm open to this I just want to understand what we're getting into here and and again probably the way we would approach that I any time we get the Yola policy updates you know Bill and I are going to take a a look at those and see if there are things that align to what it is

195that we currently do um if there's something that we don't currently do that that's being required of us obviously we'll we'll need to implement that but um if there are some things I we don't have to accept all of the little update changes that they make um but we can uh we can do like we normally do in those Google Docs just have those that that Google doc with you know the green highlights for the additional language the red uh highlights for the the language that's being removed and um and toss that out to the group to review you know prior to the to the meeting we can have the discussion at the first meeting under new business um and then next meeting have the first reading yeah and go that go that direction that

196saves US money too on another another meeting absolutely and like I said it helps my calendar so I don't mind that at all so with that being said then uh we will cancel that December 2nd meeting of the policy committee um in uh I will try and get all of those updates done um either this week or next week to include in our board update for the week um that way everybody's got the Google dock with all the updates um what I will share with the group is we've got um the Neola updates and then we also had our uh School nurses and health techs take a look at the current policies that we have just to make their edits and tweaks based on what their current practices are so there are just a couple

197of little things in there um that will toss out as well but I'll separate those out for you in the Google Doc itself so that you can see those those differences so you'll have the Neola updates first you'll have the uh Health tych pieces second just as a reminder too we do have it I believe in in our organiz organizational meeting bylaw that we do appoint for that board committee or Vote or whatnot so we might need to take a look at that we'll put that in the update in the update as well yeah yes okay thanks all right good okay um moving on a new business we have the discussion of House Bill 445 U Mr Heath can you start us off again on that one sure um just a couple of things with

198the release time for religious instruction um just so everybody knows um kind of some of the work that we've done here already um back over a year ago uh Mr Hammond actually attended a meeting for us uh with the LifeWise Academy group um I believe uh lieutenant governor hustad was leading that up here uh in Lake County so he attended that got some initial information uh regarding LifeWise um over the summer um one of our local pastors uh Pastor Ian Neil from Trinity Church over on uh Johnny Cake uh Ridge Road I reached out and wanted to meet to discuss um LifeWise with me as well so uh in August I sat down with him um he pre presented me with uh a lot of the documentation um one of the the things that we

199wanted to look at right away as well I one of the the the papers that uh they shared with us was um a list of individuals from the community that had an interest in um uh LifeWise being implemented in our schools so uh with our schools um so there are 90 people on that list um what I wanted to make sure and do is go through and and look uh at exactly which families um have students in our district so that we could start to try and identify okay what buildings are we talking about how might this work uh just from a logistical standpoint um knowing that there was conversation around House Bill 445 um with that information I think we've got a total of 32 students that uh were captured in that initial list

200um eight from the high school three from Memorial eight from Shore four from Ridge one from Hopkins two from Morton you writing all this down Mr Wade no okay I'll get it to you later uh one from Orchard one from Fairfax two from belflower one from cares and one from the preschool um based on everything that I was able to capture in uh our student information system um I believe right now there are three different churches in Menor that uh have connections uh with a couple of different buildings uh one is with Hopkins Elementary one is with Ridge Elementary and one is with Memorial Middle School um so that's the information I I have right now um and again you know just kind of in the background kind of working through logistically what uh we

201might need to consider um should House Bill 445 become law as well Mr Heath could you repeat that so you said Hopkins rigin Memorial have churches interested how many students at Hopkins uh there are interested um there's one student Hopkins right now okay uh there are three at Memorial um and four at Ridge based on what I'm seeing in there okay thank you and I think the highest number was eight at the high school eight at the high school and a at Shore at Shore okay thank you these are people that are affiliated with the churches you're talking about um these are people that uh had signed up through that LifeWise piece that wanted uh to see LifeWise imp mented within the the Menor schools Community um so just going off that list and trying

202to find out where the students were so that we could start to figure out logistics behind some of this so that's where we landed right now and I can share some of that information because that's just some of the stuff that we've been digging through here recently um knowing that we were going to be having the conversation here this evening okay [Music] um I think I'm going to start the floor with Mrs iapo because you asked the for a discussion for release time and actually it was me oh I'm sorry um yeah I I actually had asked for discussion uh specific to policy 5223 which I don't know Kristen would you be able to pull it up on the screen um since we all kind of received it about a week ago could you just

203yeah you you probably do you need to send it to her Craig got it okay um 5223 it's the one with options I'll send it to you here Chris and it's in a separate document thank you just so everybody can see some of the information um but just while she's pulling that up to touch base on some of the the data points that Mr Heath just discussed I know a little bit about the LifeWise process um the original intent of putting out something to community members was not a huge push it was just to see if there was a little bit of interest um so that's not an all-inclusive number they I don't believe that they've sent out any I know for fact that they have not reposted resent out to their congregations anything it

204just started off as a group of about five or six churches that were kind of interested in getting this done and it was very you know hey will you sign this to see if they even had interest within the church Community to start it so there was no big giant push for you know enrollment um I'll wait until it gets up on the screen just so no you're fine thank you so much okay so here's the policy um I had spoken with a few churches in the area um I happened to attend one of them just out of full transparency um and we are growing we've got a lot of people who would be interested in this program that have not filled out that link yet um so just to let you know uh so

205and that was shared with me when I met with the as well he said here's the initial list I'm like okay thanks that gives us a starting point to start looking okay good um so and that's just one program LifeWise this this is not particular to LifeWise LifeWise a program that uses this type of policy to um you know provide the services using this policy so long story short you can be of any religious um have any kind of sincerely held religious beliefs and utilize this policy it doesn't have to be LifeWise so just so everybody's on the same page there um this policy was provided to me actually by our attorney I believe in July kind of around the same time when Mr Heath was having those conversations as as well I poked around

206and tried to see if if Neil had a policy and um they do so and they have different options so a couple different things um I had attended a class at osba I know we haven't done our full rundown on what we attended what we didn't but I thought this one class was actually fairly interesting it was talking about how we um you know a choice vouchers are here to stay is what the class was about and we need to start becoming school choice that was their their class they were like we need to start being school choice because they were seeing people flee from their school and they actually have an increase in their enrollment um I believe it was Toledo schools so they said you know we need to start competing with these

207parochial schools we need to work with parents to retain students and I see this as a way that we can compete um I'll dig in a little bit in a little bit I'll dig it in a little bit in a little bit wow I'll dig into um the fact that we did have a policy and and it was removed when we transferred to New York so I'll dig into that in a little bit but I want to um just kind of hit on some some points here so that osba class talked a lot about this the parent and school relationship and engagement and you know I see this as a way that we can provide without parents having to pull their kids out of our district if we look at the trends I've been marking

208them for the last few years about um homeschooling private schooling and our enrollment and homeschooling we've seen just from last year to this year we've seen an increase of 14% private schooling we've seen an increase of 36% in one year that's unheard of we have not had that kind of increase for several years we've been kind of you know in a few years ago we were at 642 then 679 then 644 then 670 and now 914 students that's a lot a lot of students not to mention our previous Levy failed I think by about a thousand was am I correct Mr Wade I try to block it out Mrs P I'd have to look it up like 600 oh it was less like 600 okay so either way our private school students now outweigh with

209the levy failed by um our enrollment went down from 6,828 to 6,627 that's been pretty consistent with about a 3% decrease so I I really see this as a way um to accommodate and to like that class said be school choice if people are seeking private schools because they feel like they can't retain their right to their religious beliefs then we need to ensure that they feel comfortable and a simple policy like this sends a message that we respect their right to their religion and we support parents in their decision to raise their child with whatever beliefs they see fit I know we received some emails stating hey you know we don't want this program because our child feel is going to feel like they're left out you know we've had that discussion in reference

210to the books and we had Parents saying hey my kid you know we don't want this book in our schools and the response that we received from even a few board members and people who um spoke at the mic was well your kid doesn't have to check him out well the same thing applies here your your child doesn't have to partake in this program um it is a you know hands-off policy so as you can see here I'll just kind of go over some of this you need to have parent or Guardian consent um the sponsoring entity maintains attendance records and makes them available to the district they also Pro they provide and assume liability for the student the student assumes responsibility for any missed schoolwork so transportation of students to and from release time

211instruction is the complete responsibility of the sponsoring entity so not the schools the parent the guardian and or the student the Board of Education its members and employees are immune so we are we are not held liable for any injuries arising from transportation to and from release time instruction further nor boards funds will be expended for and no District Personnel shall be involved in the provision of religious instruction know we talked about or we heard when we received several emails about well you know what about kids who are going during their their lunchtime and they don't have the funds for their lunch I've heard from other places that you know and I'm sure we would be the same way I don't see our lunch Ladi saying you can't get your lunch a little early and

212take it with you when they know that that child can't afford lunch also I don't see any churches who may be housing programs like this deny a child lunch I'm sure they would provide it for them so um those are some points there uh these are additional oops sorry oh you're good yeah you're good so these are some additional options so in high school students can actually earn up to two units of credit for their cours workk um completed during the release time instruction as you could see these are I'm not read through the whole thing but these are some of the guidelines that they have to be have to be met for that um and here's a really important part because I know we heard tonight that you know Rose and I agreed to

213a policy that we have and we we like enforcement of policy that says we can't you know force or encourage with outside organizations you know in our schools so um participation in our schools so staff members shall not promote nor can they discourage participation in release time programs for any religious instructional program so we can't promote it we can't you know not we can't uh discourage it either so it's a pretty fair policy um also when we were with p and wager we actually had this pretty much exact policy I know um we all received it today from Mr Heath when I had requested it but we did have a policy and I'm not sure I know Maggie and Jenny were assigned to this section and then it didn't carry over on the spreadsheet where

214it said like comments if we were getting rid of a policy um it would put like the policy there and then the new policy and it would say like comments as to why we were getting rid of it I looked back at that spreadsheet and I didn't see that now I'm at fault as well because of course I approved of hundreds of policies at one time and I didn't catch that we were getting rid of it so that's also part of my reason as to why I'm proposing it today because we did have a policy we didn't have a discussion at the table in front of the public of hey we're going to remove this policy that we have and that we've been having since I think um and actually shardan uh Maggie continues to

215use that same policy um the Neola one right up here so you know I have some questions as to um I guess why it wasn't brought to the attention of the public I don't think if it was we would see you know no push back I think we would have seen some push back um just some points about LifeWise since somebody else brought it up they do have some studies where it does show an increase in attendance um decrease in school and in from in school and out of school suspensions they have surveys that show teacher satisfaction with the program uh they can see difference in children's Behavior so I just don't see the reason why we wouldn't support this I think that um one of our I think we have it right in the

216back of here one of our Visions is encourage strong Community Partnerships if you don't want your child doing it you don't have to enroll them in this but if if other people do and it'll keep them at our schools so that they're not going to use Ed Choice vouchers so that we don't continue to see massive decreases and then that's going to be reflected at the ballot when people go to cast their ballot if they had to remove their children for that reason um it could negatively impact us so I just see this as another way of showing the community we're going to work with them um we support you we support your parental rights and allowing you know people folks who want to partake in the programs let them [Applause] okay is anyone else

217in favor of moving forward with a a policy to have a religious release time instruction I am but I I do have some comments I just was waiting does anybody else have anything go ahead I go ahead go ahead I I don't want to um I think this is very similar to the previous discussion if they create the shall change in the policy or I'm sorry in the law on HB 445 that would be the time to take this up um I'm not aware of anybody ever having utilized this option I don't I don't recall any organization offering pull outs during the school day in a fairly lengthy chat with the folks from LifeWise when we were at the Capitol conference [Music] um I couldn't understand at all why this couldn't be an after school

218or before school program they were adamant had to be during the day well we've heard you know from people via email and a couple of our speakers this evening if you bookend time where you've got 40 minutes to get children gathered coats on lunches ready and travel somewhere even if it's next door to the building have whatever activities are planned and then repeat the process and the the school is still going to have to take attendance for who's going I mean that that that we have to know who's coming and going we have people signing in and out for a dentist appointment so and that's a a parent or Guardian doing it so there would be um responsibilities uh on the shoulders of office staff uh our our uh nutrition services potentially the school nurse

219if you've got students who have medical issues or significant allergies all of those other variables if you moved this program to right after school when a lot of parents are looking for child care options that makes so much more sense it removes a big problem which is covid falling behind um focus on the basics a couple of people spoke about wanting to make sure that we focus on the basics and our core classes and to me any class that's graded that we're providing uh a highly qualified subject specialist to teach is core to the students total uh instructional program so I mean I'm fine with anybody who wants to participate in any kind of uh religious training my children went to the Parish School of religion you know the CCD classes they used to call

220them and those were on Saturday mornings for a time they were after school so this is one program that a well organized or uh group is offering but I have a big problem with it having to be embedded in the school day it's so limited for what they could offer having been a teacher with Little Folks yikes getting you know I lost my Mitten I can't find my like oh my goodness trying to push that into this very small window is going to be frustrating and and of limited value doing it after school if it's important to the parents to have this option I'm sure that parents would support an after school option just as readily as doing this during the school day when you'd have to worry about making up missed work is the

221responsibility of the child that's never true that's always on the teacher to make sure that the information was shared or the work whatever it might be so I'm assuming it would just be during lunch and not involving misted work of any kind but 40 minutes is mighty skimpy to do all those pieces and parts and and to get lunch packed or if the students buying their lunch they they have to do that transaction uh in some of our nutrition services you know those those hardworking folks they're they're on a pretty type turnaround as well so I don't understand at all why it would have to be during the school day and as I say I'm not aware that that policy was ever used for a religious pull-up we've always excused religious observances you know so

222if um your your mosque your synagogue your whatever your religious tradition might be you you might might have a special day of Celebration or parents of children who are Jehovah's Witnesses generally don't come to school when we have school parties because that's inconsistent with their religious beliefs and so those kids are are um certainly given an excused absence but I have a hard time imagining that this religious pull out would have much of an impact on what you were talking about Mrs pay as far as people wishing to homeschool their children or wanting to use Ed Choice vouchers where you know they can have a variety of Options under a variety of circumstances so I have a big problem with this just the logistics are crazy it's after school I think that's that's perfectly fine

223and then parent parents can pick their kids up from that program and then they have the freedom to have an hour an hour and a half whatever it might um be then you're not going to run into all those other problems of trying to take kids off site for 40 minutes Rose did you want to go ahead go ahead um I'm still writing so actually I know you had things to say I just want to write down a few points please okay um so first I just want to say this is religion is a this is a constitutional right to practice our religion it's separation of church and state was intended to provide freedom of religion not freedom from religion and it was intended to protect the church from the state not the other way

224around so I just want to state that on the front end um many schools do allow this um Jenny I know if you spoke with um buddy at at the conference he he painted the picture and this is very very common in Ohio especially um and they have reported those schools have reported and you know improvements in academic performance behavior and mental health um we know enrollments down we know Ed Choice vouchers are here to stay so we have to compete and I think osba teaching a class on how we have to I think one of the classes was how to treat schools as a business or if work um appease the customer we have to start adjusting um private schools right now are having open houses this time of year and are heavily recruiting

225we will we have seen the increase in the use of vouchers as we expected but as you know birds of a feather flock together so we should anticipate more and more families moving over to private schools um right now we are compet our district is competitive academically with our Fine Arts CTE our athletic programs our new commitment to cracking down on disciplinary issues the enforcement of the cell phone policy our SRO initiative um and what is soon to be a mandate to secure safety in restrooms which is an issue that has concerned many families and community members so adding this religious time release would check another box for parents when making their choice where to send their kids we have to compete with private schools now more than ever and so this is just a

226step toward making our district more appealing to families who are considering private schools or perhaps bring families back to our district who had left um if you haven't noticed as I said before the landscape of public education is is about to rapidly change and we need to adapt with it we can be a district that offers parents the best of both public and private education it's possible we can become a unique combination of the two and I believe offering religious time release would give families a reason to stay at Menor or to choose Menor over a private school and it's a parents opt in it's once a week and it doesn't cost the district a penny when we spoke with buddy I first met him in LifeWise and learned more about it last year at

227the conference and I was really amazed because a lot of the emails that we got there's a lot of misunderstanding of what this actually does and so and and Buddy was really great in at explaining and kind of painting a picture and um you know it's it's it's not it's not this logistical nightmare as as as everybody's talking about again once a week and you know this this would just be a policy saying that we can do it but the next step would be then having to figure out logistics of it and so obviously we're not going to do something that doesn't make sense for each for our buildings so just just to make that clear um just in response the when you talk about after school and weekends that is not realistic for a

228lot of families you know we have parents who work nights we they work weekends um my daughter is a in the school and she's in the Refuge Club is after school and she's had to miss a number of them of meetings because of sports um work you know doctor's appointments it's just not feasible so I think this is a more Equitable option because you you know yes the the the perfect scenario would be send your kids to something on the weekends or after school but that's just not reasonable and and frankly they have a right to to you know practice their religion during the school day like other kids can um LifeWise just for the is one example and it doesn't have to be LifeWise but they explain this this is not going to be

229pulling kids out of reading or math this is these are not core classes and it would not require makeup I know um you know I work in schools especially in the elementary school library time is grab the first colorful book you can find and then go and talk and play and goof around so you know I would be okay if my daughter missed lunch recess in library or you know whatever order so there's ways around that we can make it so it's not just 40 minutes because it is obviously very tight and you know life Point talked um or LifeWise talked about um how you know sometimes we're eating so the lesson that they teach makes it fun and they're all eating together or they're doing art projects together they're incorporating activity recess so like

230the kids if they if it is recess they're not missing physical activity they're making sure to incorporate that in there so I think that's important um you know I just I just think um we we this is one more thing that we could do to say some we're doing something different we're listening to the community so that when we go and ask them for more money they feel okay they're being heard we're making changes and you know this frankly could help our reputation because right now we make decisions up here that lean very left and we all know by the the election results that that is not does not reflect our community we can no longer call this a div a divided Community we're not divided we're there's a mandate now and it's what was

231the percentage of 57 to 43 yeah I mean to me that that that speaks volume so this is just one more thing and again if you don't want your kid to participate you don't have to participate I was told that um with the books I was told that you know someone emailed me saying that they're what about the kids who are sitting there and and and they watch their classmates leave for this and they're not part of it are they going to feel left out well that was my concern with the library and I ended up having to take my kid off of the our red light green light um thing because she was devastated that she had was the only kid that had a leave Library without a book um what I would say

232to to the to that it's you guys told me that's just part of it you know and we adapted we have students you know my daughter always says I want to leave when the kids go and get extra help how come I don't get to get picked out kids are getting pulled left and right for for um for if you've been in elementary school you know that that's that's very common so I don't think it's going to the the worries that this would make kids feel bad if they're not going I don't think this is going to cast a light on that the way some people assume um you know I'm trying to think of some of the other arguments um yeah the another thing is you know I know P there are people that

233don't practice religion and that's fine um we were told when we had this book discussion about certain ideologies that parents do not have the authority or right to dictate another Parent's Choice for their child so that cannot be a reason that we don't have this policy because of what another parent we were told that you don't your kid doesn't like a book about you know a dad molesting his daughter then don't your kid doesn't have to read it same thing here if you don't practice or you that's not your cup of tea that's fine you don't have to sign up for it but I think it's important to have this as an option and you know this is the new the the new way I in the past public education and religion two separate things

234well times are changing so Kristen sorry to bother you again would you you mind bringing up that slide I sent you um so just a couple things Slide Five please is that the right one don't want with the graph on it whoa keep going there you go thank you so this has brought been brought up a couple of times it's been brought up in our legislator meetings and I just have to put it back up again because I keep hearing that um students and families are leaving our district district in droves for private schools and home schools uh that is not the case so I would like to correct the record once again um these are the numbers as of the summer that Mr Wade and Mr Heath shared with me did confirm that they

235are correct we're staying pretty flat in both areas so just wanted to point that out also I want to point out because this is I've heard a couple times already and I feel like I have to say the numbers from the 2024 election with regard to the presidential election are virtually the same as they were in 2020 we have a 5742 is split in 2020 it was virtually the same 5643 so not much change so whatever perception of a mandate is um I just don't agree with um thank you Kristen that's that's all I needed for that um so a couple things I don't agree with jumping ahead to create a policy until we have Clarity on the law I think that's a sort of a foolish way to to put the C cart before

236the horse uh we need to see this law pass first we need to understand its full implications and its final forms we need to go through things with our administrators with our attorney um there's just too much to Think Through it's this is not the thorough way to do it so if and when this La law pass bill passes into law at that time we address it we create the policy that we are legally required to pass um and and that'll be that for me it's it's that simple I do want to make a couple of distinctions between um LifeWise because I'm hearing a lot about LifeWise today and House Bill 40 445 um and the policy that we had up here earlier it it says nothing about partnering with any thirdparty entities what it's

237actually about is the parents right to pull the child from the district and I did check with other school dist districts who have this policy enacted right now and it is entirely on the parent to arrange things to pick them up to take them out partnering with a third party is not part of this bill I want to make that very clear and secondly I also want to make a distinction between practicing and expressing your religion and instruction those are different things we welcome as U Miss chesing pointed out we welcome the opportunity for students to express and practice their sincerely held religious beliefs in school we have no problems with that we've been doing that for years instruction is what's dealt with in this latest legislation that is a very different thing so I

238wanted to make that clear I don't have anything else to say on this I'm not interested in doing a policy until it is law thank you he basic um thoughts in that is that right now we have legislation in both the house and the Senate that is changing the proposal is to change the words from they may have a released time policy to shall and it I think it's also it's premature it neither has passed out um if it does we will follow the law law and we will create policy but I don't have a desire to create a policy when we just have an opportunity to with May and that isn't because I'm not religious it's not because I am against religious teaching um it's because as a public school our priority has to

239be educating the students and as a teacher I know that we use every minute to do this that even includes lunch in recess quite honestly um we have social skills groups at lunch time often teachers use remediation For Recess I don't think that doing this aligns with our strategic plan where we were trying to get physical activity in for students on a daily basis this policy um would be loss of educational time we would be utilizing staff for transitions um we would need while we may not be liable when they're traveling or once they leave the building there is a transition time as they're coming in and we're doing attendance and they coming back and doing attendance that our staff would be responsible for organizing and and mandating that would and these are people that

240already have busy jobs jobs they have other things to do I don't know if we're using multiple um groups that come in that they're all on the same day so this could be happening all the time um the policy that is before us the the Neola policy doesn't say anything about duration and frequency of the release time I know that LifeWise utilizes 1 hour a week 1 hour a week would be more than our lunch and recess time so we would be missing instructional time and then on top of that that would be door too I'm assuming 1 hour so they still have that you know 10 minutes to get there and do attendance and 10 minutes to come back and do attendance then get into the class we're losing precious instructional time it doesn't

241align with our strategic plan without a mandate from the LW to put this into place I have no interest in moving it Forward I'd like to um if everybody's spoken I'd like to go a second time uh just had some additional points first miss maraza you your data did not include this year so the jump that I spoke about the 36% is because of data that I received this year for for private schools it went from 670 last year which is what you had to 9914 this year do that come from our it it did came from Missy yeah so okay I'm going to verify that thank you I could send you the email as well if you like I'll contact Missy thank you yeah no problem so um just you know your data did

242not include that which is why you have different information um I think a jump of 244 students in one year to private schools is a pretty big jump so just to address that also just a couple different um points I know we heard about you know LifeWise they do have three I think 22 they're in 322 schools now I'm not saying that's just a simple reason to jump on the bandw again and and do it I think it just fits we had a policy it was basically silently removed um without a discussion on it with the public to make them aware that we were removing the policy when we switched over to Neola and I think you know it it would be wise for us to choose this policy to appeal to our our constituents

243and our taxpayers and parents who like the Who challenged the book last year for I think it was this it was kindergarten through fifth grade it was the it might have been this year I don't even remember but it was the um the book that talked about jez Jennings as a hero and talked about how there's more than two genders and that that mother felt like her you know not only are we not accounting for her beliefs we were actively pushing against her religious beliefs and so she removed all four of her kids from our district and they're now going to a private school that's not just anecdotal evidence because we do have the data to support that we had 244 other you know 44 students leave our district as well so you know we

244do have some data to prove that people are removing their kids because we they feel like we're pushing against their beliefs um I just want to remind there were some comments I think earlier today that talked about Westerville and how they actually rescinded their their Nea policy um they actually had a levy that failed right after so just as something to keep in mind you know I just think I'm disheartened to see such push back for a policy and that would allow parents to keep their kids in our school it would it would send a message to the community that we value their parenting their we value what they value even if we don't align with it even if we don't agree with it and I think that we're making a really unwise decision to

245say well we're just going to wait until the law tells us to do it because right now the law tells us we can why do these people want to do it because they can so if the law says they can do it and we have a pol you know had a policy that said they can do it that's why people are doing it you know they want they want their children to have their sincerely held religious beliefs honored and taking something like lunch and recess let's say library I know a lot of folks use Library if you're using let's say LifeWise as an as an example the kids are still reading they're reading the Bible they're they're reading there's still an aspect of school and education just because it's not in the educational facility it

246doesn't mean they're not being educated they're being educated but just not something and as you saw with high school they can get two credit hours something that aligns with everybody here you know just it's just not something that aligns with everybody here so those are my points I I respect the board's decision but I don't think it's a wise decision I actually would like to motion for a first reading tonight including the option um at least that we have a vote on it I had something further on on this it wasn't just Westerville but Bowling Green huran ganna Jefferson and Madina have all resented their policies so I'd be interested in knowing whether it was a logistical frustration or what the cause was that there must have been some complications presented by this and I'm

247back to my original argument which was is that if this is important to parents then taking advantage of an after school option I can't believe that it wouldn't be at one one day a week or you could have Whatever frequency you wish but that one day a week would be impossible to to fit into a family's plan when this is so valuable this clearly you're mentioning sincerely hell Bel beliefs and and many of us have that same dedication to uh religious training for our children I made sure that my kids got to their PSR class every week and that was throughout the school year and I know the Lutheran folks have their Sunday morning Sunday school the Methodist families have their uh um preparation for confirmation as well as their Sunday school program Bible school

248or Bible um summer Bible school vacation bible school is what I meant to say um is offered so that if we had this available after school whichever night of week it would be perhaps a help to parents who are looking for additional child care coverage especially if they're working so I don't think it washes that it has to be during the school day where it creates the maximum amount of disruption and potentially learning loss and doesn't align with our strategic plan I would be fine with whomever but it's curious that there aren't any other groups there's this one I don't know that much about them but I do know the gentleman I spoke to is from Gan and he said they didn't have it that school or that District didn't have it that wow if

249he wasn't able to pitch the value of it to his own kids school maybe there's you know some downside to it in terms of just the logistics I'm not judging content I'm just saying how that would impact all the adults responsible for those children leaving in the middle of the day and if you had kids at the high school I don't know when he would take them from the high school they're they're um demands on their time are significant some of them don't even have lunch yeah kids are eating as early as 10 o'clock in the morning I have a quick point of order because I made a motion and then Rose seconded it so I just think that that brings that motion then to the floor so just as a quick I don't know

250if anybody heard Rose she did second my motion second I didn't hear I didn't hear did you I heard no I had I had any first okay we have a motion on the floor if is there any discussion I'm just going to let you know to Jenny Gana he didn't have it at his school well perhaps he has a school board in Gana that didn't listen to the people so that's all I'm going to say there I don't think that's an indication of it not being something that the community wants we did I don't want to interrupt you but we did have at least one of the emails said if you do this I'm pulling my kids out if we do what if we enact this uh Rel religious release time yeah that they would

251withdraw their kids from the district well we know we get that on the with the books we've it's coming from both sides so so I don't know that you can make a hard and fast cause and effect and I think the studies that were referenced by the fellow from LifeWise he did you get the information Mrs cook some actual data so they did give me a book um and a reference to a study um not a peer reviewed study it was um a study that they did where they interviewed teachers um that had students that went to LifeWise so supporters supporters of LifeWise so not not a scientific study but a a study nonetheless um you know we and we did spend quite a bit of time I spent quite a bit of time at

252OPA speaking with the people from LifeWise and again I have it's not that I really have a problem with any of their teaching they seem like nice people um it is really for me losing instructional time and the resources that it would encumber in our district um because it it it is a loss of of student time and it is it does take people in um that that would then need to do a job to make this happen and and I'm just not for that but we do have a motion on the floor we had a motion to bring for first for to bring this to a first reading and and Rose seconded it is there any more discussion yeah I just wanted to finish so it should be noted we part of our strategic

253plan was was battling this the emotional crisis our kids are we we we sat down and appealed to three state you know of our two State reps and a state senator how can we help our kids who are in crisis well giving them hope and giving allowing something like that is is a part of our strategic plan that would fulfill that um and you know again this is just a policy that says May and then we figure out the logistics to see if it makes sense and nobody's talking about losing instructural time and you know again so we we know from what bill just presented we are going to be asking for more money and it costs a lot of money to put it up and I'm not supporting it if we don't start making

254major changes I would agree with that statement um I also I also think you know Mrs cook you you guys have this policy in chardan so do you disagree with having it where you work we don't have anyone coming in and using religious release time but you do have the policy so that's the same thing that we could have we could have the policy and then you you have to meet certain criteria in order to use it so um just a point there I just I agree with rose I think we need to start making some changes if we don't make any changes I could not support getting behind a levy um if we don't start kind of trying to work with the community and based on the election results I don't think we currently

255are I think we're we're making decisions that are far from what the community is valuing [Applause] so I would like to make can I get clarification Mrs Payne your motion for a first reading on what uh the first reading on the 5223 Neola policy including the options thank you I would like to make a motion to postpone this indefinitely I'll second that it's on record at least any discussion please call the rooll uh hold on one second which motion are we rolling postponing just a quick point that the our election results in men are in 2020 pointed one way and then we still didn't make any changes and here we are again you guys are you know I'll make an additional Point since you're continuing to go back and forth I I find it deeply

256distressing that you two are essentially holding hostage our Levy to get something that you want and I just I'm it makes me very worried for the future of this board its ability to work together and the future of our district that's all I'm going to say that's that's not at all what we're saying but that's the rhetoric you guys have to to use we're saying it's expensive and you talk about C you know being fiscally responsible it's expensive to put it on who would put it on expecting a different result when you've made no changes that's insane we can have this discussion at another time wait wait you can't interrupt wait we have a motion and a second on the Flor for discussion and then I asked for the role to be called so we

257need to move ahead wa we you just allowed Mrs maraza to speak I get to speak you don't get to make that decision that's not fair you can't allow her to speak and me not speak excuse me nobody nobody is speaking with you right now I'm sorry why are you not gving her why are you not ging her Mrs pay what would you like to say I just want to address those had hominin attacks that were just made on Rose and I in our character I don't have children in the district which I get thrown at me all the time I still put in the hours the effort because I care I care I this is my I'm an alumni of Menor I care about other people's kids those kind of attacks have no place

258in this board and that is exactly why we're in the position we're in right now an ad haminim attack is a an attack on character I attacked your actions and your words no you just did a personal attack I'm done what you've done before please let's call this meeting back to order we have a motion on the table to move this policy to First reading we have a second we have a motion to suspend indefinitely and a second Mr Wade can you please call the way Miss Cook yes Miss maraza yes Miss aalo no Miss Jing yes Miss Payne no motion to postone inde definitely passes 3 to2 okay we will now move on I wanted to um bring up another issue in new business that I saw at osba and then we can talk

259about things that we saw at osba um one of the things that I saw was actually a vendor and I don't typically get super impressed with the vendors but I was taken by this group um they're called start school transportation active threat response training and their job is to mitigate risk Elevate student safety and improve driver retention and it is a um training to improve safety on school buses this the program is um an 8h hour program is 4 hours classroom based which would incorporate our SSO SRO um custodians cafeteria workers bus drivers really anyone because it's unlimited you don't pay per person um and that would be 4 hours of training um teaching them to kind of threat assess and notice things it is created by a um retired police officer and the people

260that work are retired police officers current active duty police officers um and also a secret service member so highly trained individuals there are several local um districts that have taken advantage of this um Falls Shaker Heights Bedford shardan Kenston um with really some great results and I think that it's something that we could look at and discuss and I'd like to have our um administrators look at it because the four there's four hours of classroom training and then there's four hours of Hands-On and the four hours of Hands-On would be at our bus drivers and our bus drivers are often our first line of defense so our bus drivers they're with the kids every day sometimes for years they understand patterns they understand um when a kid is off they might be the first person

261that sees them in the morning and the last one at night and what that 4 hours of training in the bus is is in the parking lot they're driving around with the bus they'll shoot a blank they'll have um they'll act out scenarios what if somebody comes up to you and says so and so has a gun in their book bag or something like that they teach them how to respond quickly to be able to practice the threat assessment and to to get help and it can save lives so I just think it's an excellent piece for us to investigate a little bit and see if it's the right fit for our district and I know that our um bus drivers do receive training but this training is really very specific to being a bus

262driver and I think it could be very valuable so I'd just like to pass that on and um if anyone else I went to several other osba sessions anyone wants to talk about their sessions I was grateful for the opportunity to attend um I went to sessions on paral rights in K12 education um I went to one that was very interesting on advocating for dollars and cents in public education and they highlighted the importance of meeting with our legislators formulating testimony and they focused on Fair school funding there was an excellent one out of Mason City called The experiential learning program and it was run by students which I thought was really great for our strategic plan because it worked on um highlighted work centered training and um it was also student L the goal

263of their district is that every student has at least one job shadow or an internship before they graduate and often those internships because their longer periods of time would go in the summer after school and it's all student L it's a the last period of the day they have elected students that are leaders and those leaders run a website that creates um they work with alumni to create opportunities to Shadow they have an extensive Alumni network they um in addition to shadowing they do internships paid internships they they Network for jobs in the future it was an excellent run program um I don't want to go through every single thing uh we I also went to addressing behaviors by students with disabilities um a connecting Schoolboard standards and student achievement which outlined a board self

264assessment procedure for boards to identify their strengths and weaknesses and create goals to improve board operations which I thought could be something to really help us it provided Clarity for advancing student learning goals I went to a board member's role in budget planning which really talked about um more of a deeper dive into budgets and being the voice of the community and how um to be able to ask questions with that and then of course our lovely student achievement sessions where we had our students that Mrs um jine highlighted today and then finally ended the conference with noell bell to Bell which was really excellently done by Mrs iapo and Mrs Payne jump in next so uh this was my first conference and also first opport opportunity to serve as the uh Delegate for the

265assembly for the legislative platform uh where we basically all go and vote on what we want to be included on osp's platform for which they Advocate on our behalf so just as an update to report back out we had voted as a board on a couple of amendments that were going to be added to the platform for consideration the first one was to allow districts to charge for labor costs directly associated with the perceiving and fulfilling public records requested requests excuse me um we did not decide to support this so that is how I voted of course um we were in the minority that actually passed by quite a landslide so that is going to be incorporated in next year's legislative platform uh the amendment to include uh the clause about um requiring School tax

266Lev money which has been voted upon to be used for the funding of schools be exempt from tiffs tax increment financing as well as cras uh and then of course um we had voted to um support this but also add the um uh rids as well uh so that was all actually done and then approved so that one will be added to the platform for 202 2 as well in the meantime osba will REM uh for the remainder of the Year they'll be out there um advocating for the full phasing of the uh the fair school funding plan the updating the base cost inputs for the formula and including esc's in that formula and updating Transportation weights for transporting non-public and charter school students I'm not going to go through all of my sessions I'll

267just say um a couple of the sessions I attended one was on community engagement which was awesome awesome um by our neighbors in Beachwood um they had a a lot of great ideas on how to you know board members could be more accessible and visible to parents and in kind of just doing um taking a stock of like who attends our events and more importantly who isn't and why that's happening and how we can involve those folks who are not as engaged um listening circles for parents Community input sessions um quarterly discussions which we kind of already do with our Cardinal Cafe so and then start tracking the new folks who begin engaging to see what we're doing right so that was really fascinating I would love to connect with them for some more ideas

268on how we could since it's part of our strategic plan to improve Community engagement I attended a great session about dialogue um The Optimist here uh then learned of course that it's important to remain solution oriented um and that dialogue training for board members and admins and teachers could help us become good examples for students and we could even Workshop these trainings with students and really just be the um models that uh we all should be for our kids um and then I attended some sessions about um gender issues uh the enforcement of Title 9 I will just highlight ler versus brigh which did away with the Chevron Doctrine I'm not going to get into all of the details but basically know that ler brigh is going to have an enormous impact on schools it's

269changing the way federal agencies are able to make decisions about um following the law so that's going to mean big changes across the board that was a Supreme Court decision um and again just to reiterate the laws around gender identity we don't have a lot of answers on case law yet a lot of it is conflicting it's coming from multiple different States including Ohio um I mentioned the thing about standing um there's that that that actually that issue is going to be um considered to to be taken up by the Supreme Court of the United States and we should know by Christmas whether or not they decide to take that case on and change the issue of standing in these cases cuz that could be a momentous change as well um and then there yeah

270lots of other case law issues I'll just re reiterate once again all very fluid we need to stay in tight communication with our admins and our folks in the schools and in the buildings to really understand and have a good picture of what's going on uh and again just thank you for the opportunity to attend it it was such a great learning experience learned a lot I will talk about a couple of the things I won't go through all of it but just kind of give you guys a heads up of what I did um so the the class that I was referring to earlier was called shift to customer service focus it was by Toledo Public Schools they are actually seeing an increase in their enrollment since they've shifted their model over to being

271a customer service Focus um so some of their points that they had made was why shift to customer focused models because of declining enrollment public perceptions Staffing shortages budget reductions or concerns their second point was we have a we're going to see a changing in the landscape of public education which I think you heard Rose talk about a little bit tonight um they they actually said I don't even want to hear anymore about Ed choice I don't want to hear about it we should be school choice and that's when they went into kind of their whole process of that the student family um are our primary customers so working with them um and then also there's a couple other points in that but um gosh that one had a lot so then I went to

272another class called addressing the needs of the whole black student um which was interesting I learned a couple things from there uh they did talk about a couple different things that they're doing over in Twinsburg uh that one I actually did leave a little early from as well when the speaker the teacher she brought in her students from Twinsburg just like six of them they were in the class it was towards the end um but when she said that she tells her students across the board that they better not turn into a Candice Owens I found that very offensive and so I just quietly got my stuff and and left um there are definitely some biases in some of these courses which I wish now taught you know have taught a class myself at osba

273there's no there's nothing that tells you as the teacher to not discuss those issues and to kind of have more of a Centrist um opinion on things politically at least uh then I went to the gender issues in the law I went to see that obviously the kids that we showed on the screen earlier tonight um they did a wonderful job they were so good and then Rose and I did the you know noell belts Bell we did some of the I don't know if you were in this one but the legislative uh update stuff and yeah the noell Bell to Bell was actually I don't really talk about it a lot here but I'm am on the executive board with the osc.org uh Ohio Schoolboard constitutional Coalition so I've been on that board since

274the Inception of it three years ago we have a really good team from all across Ohio and um we kind of pulled Rosen because she had proposed the cell phone topic early last year and said hey you know we kind of want to propose this and we had worked with Mr Heath to get some data as well and so I thought it went pretty well I was happy to see the board show in and the ad administrators that was fun to see smiling faces in the audience um but yeah that was it was you know you take what you can from it and the things that I disagreed with I just wasn't going to sit there for some of those comments I was able to attend a number of sessions two that stood out um

275I aligned with our changes in our Behavior policy and kind of how we've been uh looking at that and trying to form formalize and and U make clearer to standardize kind of some of the categories um so management of student Behavior across varied settings was one and the other was addressing student behaviors in light of special education considerations because those are very strictly governed by the law Mrs Cook's law um but in both of those it was very interesting to listen to whe their um misbehavior infractions were attributable to a disability versus just a choice that the student made and how um moving a student to a different setting and how to navigate placement disagreements with parents was um a complex set of challenges and I found both of those very helpful that one was

276by Andis Britain's law firm and the other was PPP and Wagner so appreciate having the chance to do that and hit all those other highlights and no cell Bell to Bell I'll be quick for the because it's getting late um I just wanted to thank the taxpayers for paying for us to go here it it it really is um nice to be able to go not only to sit in on some of these sessions but to meet other board members and kind of network and exchange ideas and um struggles um my favorite part were the students seeing the students there um from all all over but especially for Menor and the fact that I got to be part of the presentation that was very cool and given the time slot I expected it to be

277kind of empty so I was it was I was happy to see that we we had a little bit of a crowd and it was wonderful that all of our administrators and the entire board stayed to to sit in it so I was I appreciate that um I do wish it would be their sessions were would be a little more balanced um but um you know it it I'm glad we get to go and um I definitely learned a lot I I'll leave it at that so cuz it's late 11:00 next we have hearing of the public on any topic our first speaker is Gil martello Gil martello 6880 South Camelot good evening Mr Heath Mr Wade and members of the board given Mr Wade's presentation let's cut right to the chase two weeks ago

278we had a national referendum president-elect Donald Trump framed the presidential debate primarily around National Security inflation and the excesses of the political left's woke agenda the ction resulted in a trifacta win for Republicans sweeping the presidency and both houses of Congress the election resoundingly reputed the political left's ideals so much so that Ohio state senator shered brown lost his 30-year seat to Republican Bernie Marino tip o'o once said all politics are local board members I have repeatedly stated over the past 3 years this school district and and its policies are at odds with the majority in this community preliminary estimates in the cap men are voters favor the Republican ticket let 6040 split of course this flies in the face of this board's continued left leaning bent on many policy decisions I'm asking my peers

279here tonight to take a page from the national media and a Democrat Party Please reflect on the election results and what they pretend remember the most unified and diverse voting block ever came together and clearly stated the New Direction our country must now take let's retire the name calling and move forward like the rest of the nation is doing now board members you have the power to unite this community if you choose to we must take the following steps remove the few books from the school library that are patently offensive to many allow our L young ladies the privacy in their lock rooms and restrooms and ensure the school environment does not favor one ethnic racial or sexual orientation group over the other the halls of The Manor School District cannot serve as Billboards for

280indoctrinating Lifestyles or choices that some parents find objectionable if you take Swift and decisive action on the aforementioned items my instincts tell me the next Levy placed in the ballot would doing anything other than what I have suggested will likely jeopardize the fiscal fate of the district watching this board meeting tonight reminds me of an old adage when you've dug a hole deep enough you can no longer climb out of maybe you ought to think about putting down the shovel thank you and have a good night thank you the next speaker is Lyn Mazika for I get stiffened up in my old age sorry to be so slow Madame President members of the board Mr Heath and Mr Wade thank you again for the opportunity to address you this evening this week is Ohio public

281education appreciation week this week celebrates public education and honors individuals who make a difference in ensuring every child receives a quality of education and during this week I was shocked that any school board member would threaten to vote against a school levy not based on the need for the levy or what's best for the school but because they didn't get their way on a specific piece of legislation shame on you thank you next speaker is John Sanford members of the board Mr Wade Mr Heath thank you for this opportunity to speak John Sanford live on Parker Drive you've seen me before um and I wanted to to to address a couple of things and they just keep resonating in my mind uh but Mr Montell really summed it up and so did Rose uh you

282said things are changing and you're right they are um we're going to go from the quote woke unquote left leaning agenda where everyone is cared for everyone is valued everybody is seen as having legitimacy as they say liberty and justice for all and that pledge that some of you mouth dishonestly at the beginning of the meetings liberty and justice of far all means we are all okay and if you don't want to see your name on a lawsuit talk about what will happen when your first trans kid suicides in your school because of the things you're going to pass simply stated then the new law if it passes is if it's assigned dictates bathrooms not policy um and we pay administrators to write procedures to respond to volatile situations we know that transgender issues are

283volatile and the administrators have the task of writing procedures to respond to that policies are rigid they don't respond quickly you're setting yourself up for failure if you try to make that a policy and so finally what we're getting then is we're getting a tremendous amount of political posturing pandering to the right-wing agenda now and congratulations you'll have that for four years maybe thank you our next speaker is Tina Perkins Annie and Rose you're presenting multiple false false equivalencies in regards to RT Annie you have no clue why why the Westerville school levy failed you're just making speculations you are both going so hard for kids to leave school when just months ago please address the president pushing for removal of seal curriculum because you want us to go back to basics because of our

284school report card scores you're spinning in circles because it's something you both want let me remind you this is a public school period I don't care if we compete with peral schools they are apples and oranges RT is not a substitute for private schools and in regards to the bathroom Bill Rose you said earlier that you don't think it's right to protect the the transgender students in Menor let that sink in you and Annie have no business sitting on a public school board when you do not support I need to address the president not them directly I know why Menor has this bullying problem it's because parents and the adults in their lives teach intolerance and harmful ideologies onto their children when you have parents in the community who offer to buy flowers to students

285who have physically harmed another there's a problem that mindset should not be what Menor schools stands for given our history with bullying hate is taught adults should never be condoning violence of any kind we need to model the behavior we want our kids and future generations to emulate also I'd like to make it known that our high school students know about these meetings and they talk about them at school they know who's in their corner and who's not and the ones who are not wear crosses around their neck that's sad oh thank you our last speaker is uh Jacqueline McCormack make it bigger pretty personal attack there we need a bathroom policy because of safety for our our students we unlike other schools have had physical altercations in girls restrooms waiting for Neola puts Our

286Children at Risk now and for what reason the community would only benefit from Swift action to protect their children as a board your track record has proven that getting anything done for our schools takes yall literally years Mar chaz's worries about about lawyer fees to create policy to protect our girls in their private spaces is disgraceful the community has spoken loudly on this issue through the recent election and the failure of your past Levy if safety is your number one priority why would you not support the fees incurred to protect all students children identifying as something other than their biological sex entering the opposite sex restrooms has proven to put them in danger as well as the possibility of the girls being at risk for males entering that may not actually identify as transgender causing

287anxiety and fear erupting into physical violence this law is just going back to what was normal five or six years ago so if a boy went into the bathroom back then what would have been the disciplinary action for that before this twisting of Title 9 the reluctance of this board to act proactively for the safety of our children will certainly be an issue when the community goes to vote on your future Levy thank [Music] [Applause] you we do not have an executive session on the agenda do I have a motion to adjourn so moved second Mr Wade please call the role Miss Payne yes Miss Jing yes misso yes M maraza yes Mr cook yes meeting is adjourned at 11:2 p.m.