0017:00 said she [Music] good evening the April 9th 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 Five of the Ohio revised code please place your mobile phones on silent mode for the meeting Mr Wade please call the rooll Miss aapo here miss Jing present Miss maraza present Miss pay here miss cook here thank you and please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to theic for it stands Nation andice I would like to welcome everyone to the April 9th 2024 regular meeting of the mentor Exempted Village Board of Education prior to prior to this evening each board member has received for their review and consideration
002the 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 View this 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 when 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 whether it be an item on the
003agenda 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 onsite prior to 7 p.m. 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 board and administration so that we can work to best serve
004our community if at the end of the public participation we do not make a statement please know that 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 our response in a timely manner when appropriate this meeting this meeting is being shown live and can be viewed On Demand on our YouTube channel Cardinal TV Menor Ohio thank you and at this time we have District highlights and recognitions good evening Madame President members of the board Mr Wade tonight we are recognizing several student athletes for their outstanding achievements I'd like to invite Mr cassella to the podium to begin our presentations Madam president members of the board Mr Heath and Mr Wade The Manor High School athletic department had another
005great winter season with many conference sectional district and state competitors and a great number a great deal of success I'm honored tonight to present members of our boys and girls swimming team our boys and girls wrestling teams and our gymnastic team who qualified for state competition this past season as always they have represented Menor High School in a first class manner giving everything they had of course with all the spring activities and things we have not too many of them could make it tonight but we're going to recognize the ones who are are with us here tonight first I'd like to recognize members of our boys and girls swim team um all of them qual all of these individuals that I'm going to bring up uh qualified for our state competition the OHA state meet
006and uh some of them had pretty amazing uh races down there uh Madison Andreas she qualified in the 200 medly relay I don't think Madison is here uh Annie burrow qualified in the 200 medley relay the 200 free relay the 50 free and the 100 free I don't believe Annie's here tonight Marina child she qualified in the 200 medley relay and the 200 free relay Marina come on [Applause] [Music] up uh Ruthie gem qualified in the 200 medley relay and the 200 free re relay I don't believe Ruth's here jul Juliana salanka qualified the 200 free Ray the 500 free and then uh last our our solo boy qualifier Dylan tacket believe Dylan's here he qualified into 50 [Music] free by the way this year Dylan set the school record in the 50 free so
007[Music] congratulations moving on to our gymnast we had one gymnast who qualified for the state competition I don't believe Paige is here this evening oh um but Paige uh was our Lone State qualifier in gymnastics she had a great state meet meet she finished sixth overall in the floor exercise and 18th overall in the all-around competition so a great season from Paige finally I'd like to recognize uh members of our boys and girls wrestling teams who advanced to the state championship meet this year I know my two head coaches are here coach lamman and Coach Carl if you could join me up here please to help with certificates we had two qualifiers from our from the girl side Laura Li meory believe Laur I [Applause] here and Maddie [Applause] [Music] Manaka both Laura and Maddie
008had great District tournaments here at the District tournament we hosted here at met qualified for the state meet um and they did a great job down at the state competition they represented us very well so congratulations to both laurelai and Maddie next up on the boys side uh we had a few uh wrestlers who are here with us tonight advance to the state meet Diego stco was a district runner up and he qualified for the state meet Diego's here Jack deau finished third at the district qualifying for the state meet but I don't believe Jack could be here tonight next we have Nick Blackburn Nick finished his district runner up qualified for the state meet and at the state meet he'd finished third in his weight class in the state of [Applause] Ohio Antonio shell
009was another uh State qualifier he was District runner up and he finished eighth overall in his weight class at the state meet unfortunately Antonio could not be with us tonight and our final State qualifier was Liam Lloyd Liam finished as District runnerup to qualify for the state meet so please join me in congratulating all of our winner state qualifiers thank you very much thank you at this time we'll take a short break to allow for anyone who would like to leave watch is the approval of minutes do I have a motion so moved second any discussion please call the role Miss Jing yes Miss Payne yes misso yes Miss maraza yes Miss Cook yes motion carries 5 Z next we have hearing of the public on agenda items only our first speaker is Cynthia brilley
010from 6260 furwood Road hello um I am up here again as I was last month um asking a question that still has not been answered um I just wanted the board's clarification or interpretation of their um book challenges or materials challenges policy I have emailed everybody on the board more than six weeks ago um and then I spoke also at the last board meeting and asked those questions of you and then I also emailed you again the only two people that have responded are rose and Annie I would expect at least that the board president would have responded um which also then leads me to the new business topic of um public participation which I can assume is um in regards to people coming up here and repeating things and how long this all takes
011well if we got responses to the questions we asked we might not come up here repeatedly so I'm still going to wait I guess for my response to the email and to what I said at the last board meeting so thank [Music] you thank you our next speaker is McKenzie McAllister from Tall Oaks Drive good evening um I am taken back by the books that you all have approved um and I was not at the last meeting and I am about to read again some of the excerpts and some of the things that people have said that oh it's great for counseling and people people can or if it happened to these children they'll feel free to talk about it no you feel free to talk about it to a counselor or a professional you
012don't make that child go through that trauma again you are not doctors you are not counselors you are not equipped to take care of our children in that way so let's get on with the books that you have approved which we have asked to be removed I love that you're rolling your eyes at me Miss Jessel yes go ahead and gawk at me so let's go through this excuse me excuse me just please address the tightness of her vagina was more than he could bear his soul seemed to slip down to his gut and fly into her and his gigantic thrust he made into her then provoked the only sound she made a hollow suck of air in the back of her throat the rapid loss of air from the circus balloon following disintegration the
013falling away of sexual desire he was conscious of her wet soapy hands on his wrists the fingers clenching but whether her grip was from a hopeless but stubborn struggle to be free from some other emotion he could not tell removing himself from her was so painful to him he was cut he cut it short and snatched his genitals out of the Dry Harbor of her vagina she appeared to have fainted Chie stood up and Could Only Could Only See Her grayish I'm sorry like this is making me so upset to read this that our children have this available in a library charie stood up and could only see her grayish panties so sad and Limp around her ankles again the hatred mixed with tenderness the hatred would not let him pick her up the tenderness
014forced him to cover her I'm going to stop there this book is about a father raping a daughter and you all approve this we are asking for two books to be removed it is plain and simple I don't care about your red light green light whatever it is it's inappropriate no child should have it there period period I am disgusted for any of you sitting on this board right now that actually had this approved no thank [Applause] [Music] you ly Mazika 8690 Cliffwood courp Madame President members of the board Mr Heath Mr Wade thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening I was unable to attend the March meeting but I watched it on the school's Channel and I appreciate you having that on so that we can watch it I was impressed with
015the suggestion to further refine the policy on checking out books from the school library the idea of three levels of parental permission makes so much sense first of all it allows complete control of books be being checked out to the parents who desire that level of involvement and second it will allow the administration to better spend their time on issues that pertain to all students instead of reviewing books that is better done by the parent for their particular child than for the district as a whole and takes up a great deal of time of the superintendent but best of all in a year where there's been so much division among the board it is an idea that all five members seem to be behind maybe this will be the start of many new ideas supported
016by the entire board I know there are many issues that all five of you agree on to make our school system better and since this is National Library week this is a great time to be working on books thank you very much thank [Applause] you our next speaker is Jennifer halad from Reynolds Road hearing that kind of language is very um traumatizing especially when you have more students in this District who have been sexually assaulted than you have uh kids that have gender confusion so you're putting the top uh uh the 99 percentile below the the less than 1% um I was wrong in my last speech so I'm going to correct myself um Mentor High School ranks uh in the top 50% of all schools uh the math proficiency is at the bottom so
017I was wrong uh it's worse it's much worse than I thought reading proficiency is also in the bottom 50% but I mean when you're pushing wokeness and Dei and you're in this culture War um I think that your priorities need to be the education of the children in this District seeing as parents trust you with their children that is you are trusted members of this society and this community with people's kids that's their children that is their the beings that come out of their bodies and after the last meeting I could not look at my son and honestly say I feel safe with you in Mentor Schools so he was pulled out the next day thank God because I will teach my son like I did my oldest when you're involved with something and you're
018at that appropriate age that I know you're mature enough because teachers don't get to spend all day with you they don't get to spend 247 365 with you I do I'll teach you about consent because I'm not a scumbag parent I'll teach you about being safe and being a productive member of society because looking at a school ain't the place because we're more worried about looking inclusive Ive to the tiny shred of people that need help rather than a affirmation they need help no child has been born in the wrong body and when anybody can look at me and say we have to focus on our lgbtq youth youth you just Associated sexuality with youth with children and that is pedopilia I don't care what any body says sex and kids are like oil and
019water and unless you want to see me at every meeting you're going to get those books out of here because I will be here every time for your whole four years yeah I will miss maraza please address the president and keep your items to agenda [Applause] items our next speaker is David Lima from 7774 Lichfield Drive board president uh cook board members Mr Heath Mr Wade the meaning of public education is an equal education provided to all children free of cost regardless of r race ethnicity socioeconomic status or any other distinguishing feature this includes gifted students students with disabilities and special needs students who identify as LBGTQ and groups of students with any other distinguishing feature public education serves as an equalizer providing opportunities for students from all backgrounds to re receive a quality education
020it ensures that no child is denied access to learning our state legislature appears to be bent on establishing a two-tier public private hybrid education system in Ohio through the constant expansion of the voucher system recent estimates that state spending on private school scholarships will reach and likely exceed $1 billion much of this money will benefit wealthier families due to the removal of income caps allowing families of all incomes to receive scholarships the voucher system if it must exist should not in any way negatively impact the financing of the public system because funding of public and private schools share the same budget line in the state budget and and with the expansion of the voucher system there will be likely less money for public schools the fair school funding plan viewed as a Panacea for the
021public system will when fully adopted and funded likely result in a reduction of State support for the mentor school system Mr Wade's description of the financial dilemma facing Mentor Schools along with the implementation of the fair school funding plan will result in Mentor Schools requiring additional funding support of local funding will be critical in avoiding this perilous trajectory political ideological ideas and issues and religious beliefs can often obscure the main purpose of public education namely to provide all students of all backgrounds with a quality education as things and now it appears the responsibility for funding Mentor public education will rest with us the voters of the mentor School District thank you thank you our next speaker is an ferelli 7570 manry Court thank you members of the board Mr Heath and Mr Wade This is
022in regards to the library materials discussion on the agenda for later tonight as we all know the topic of book appropriateness has taken Center Stage for quite a while now this topic has been cast in a negative light by some in the community and even by the media however I believe it is a worthy discussion to give careful consideration to what we put in students minds and hearts while they are young I don't believe this needs to be a contentious topic just as it is not not contentious when we talk about tailoring other aspects of Education to each child's needs I would like to see the Focus Shift away from what we don't want our kids to read to what we do want to encourage in the Menor schools quality above controversy as well as
023a balanced well-rounded offering my oldest has been frustrated for quite some time with the book selections at her school she's a voracious reader and has been pretty bored with what she has been able to find on the shelves when she brings home what seems like the 100th installment of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid Captain Underpants or Stick Dog series I have asked her many times don't you have any Classics at your school like Narnia or Little House on the Prairie I wonder if to compete with TV iPads and video games for the attention of our kids the book selections have become largely largely irreverent humor style books full of complaining about parents and teachers toilet humor and the like our family would personally love to see more thought-provoking imagination stoking books coming home in
024their backpacks the kind you cherish forever not bubblegum for the brain books such as those series my understanding is that book donations are allowable under board policy 7230 with board approval so in the spirit of adding to the quality and the balance of the Menor school's library offering I would like to donate a full set of the Tuttle twins series by Connor boak to the flower Library the purchase price is $105 my daughter has really enjoyed her set of these books they are fun and quick reads and deal with topics such as the Golden Rule the law and personal responsibility I will follow up with an email to formally offer this donation and I look forward to the board's response perhaps if every family donated a few really great books that put quality above controversy
025then our community could be proud of our school libraries thank you you thank you Andrea Bliss 5421 Liberty Street good evening as was stated earlier this week is National Library appreciation week with today being National Library workers day as such I can think a few things more appropriate for discussion than our District's Library policy the topic of how to best approach the community's concerns regarding Library materials has been a subject of debate debate at several meetings over the last couple of years and it is clear that there is a compromise that must be made I feel that the proo proposed multi-tiered policy is the compromise that we need going into next year all parents will receive an email anytime their student checks out an item from a school meeting Center the proposed policy would add
026a layer of protection for parents who want it by preventing the student from checking out a library book until the parent approves the selection without infringing upon the rights of parents who prefer their students to have full access to all the materials our media centers have to offer the new policy also addresses the time Gap mentioned by another parent in which the email notifications were not received until well after the school had checked until after the student had checked out the books and had returned home from school I feel that this policy is ideal as it protects the interests of all students and families it also avoids the logistical Nightmare and possible legal problems stemming from flagging individual books for Content or removing the books altogether I appreciate Mrs io's concern for the feelings of
027the younger students who wouldn't be able to leave the library with a book until their parent appr approved it as the younger kids would be most heavily affected by the policy Mr Heath's suggestion that the students prepi their book a week in advance is a smart way to address that concern and I look forward to seeing how Administration updates their guidelines to ensure that the policy is applied applied and enforced across all grade levels I'm also looking forward to seeing the board formulate this policy partly because I'm a big nerd who finds policy language really interesting but mainly because watching this board work together toward a common goal is truly enjoyable the times that I've been able to see you all United working on policies that will have a positive impact on all students have
028been a clear showing that when this board operates as one you can truly accomplish great things for our truly great District I sincerely thank you all for all that you do thank you Susan snck 7539 Little Mountain Road good evening ladies and gentlemen um Susan snck I live on 7539 Little Mountain Road in Menor um I just have a few items that I wanted to talk about uh one again is um the offerings in the school library again I will just say I I think that we owe it to our students to offer the best of the best and without having controversial or pornographic material um as these are minors and students that's what we should be doing but since there is such an interest in inappropriate things and gender identity I'm going to suggest
029some books for uh the classroom this is called Johnny The Walrus it's a well-respected well-known author who makes a case about um the transgender um fad if you will or craze anyway it's a good good book good um discussion for young kids um this one since there's a lot of folks that are interested in banned books this one here is when Harry became Sally this was banned from Amazon um not really sure why because there's a lot of scientific facts and it's an interesting read but it does present the opposite Viewpoint and so um I know that there's been talk we should have um a balance of viewpoints and so I think Johnny the walrus and when Harry became Sally are good selections that we should include I'm happy to purchase and donate if you'd
030like um the other item I wanted to talk about was um the possibility that the time for the community to speak at these board meetings would be um severely cut back or eliminated I don't really know that there was just this um rumor going around I don't know if that's true I will say I think it goes against your policy or your philosophy where it says the board declares and therei therefore reaffirms its intent to maintain a two-way communication blah blah blah and citizens shall be urged to bring their aspirations and concerns about the district to the attention of this body um also that the board will act as a truly representative body for citizens in all matters related to programs and operations and I would just ask that you please do not cut back
031on us speaking I know that last month with a 5H hour meeting was extreme and we're tired but I think it gives the community the impression that you're being punitive of I'm too tired to listen to the things that I don't want to and I think we do have concerns they may not be um my top of the list is not busing in classroom size it doesn't mean they're not important but there's other things that I think are more important and so do other people and we should have right to be able to speak and talk about that I also wanted to say I'm disappointed that near pod is coming up for Renewal I wish you wouldn't um also the day of no silence I was wondering I asked Mr Heath if you guys are
032going to be celebrating that at school and I'm just waiting for a response thank um I don't think it's appropriate for school all right yeah I emailed you [Applause] back our final speaker is John Sanford 7537 Park Drive good evening Madam president board members Mr Heath Mr Wade thank you for the opportunity to speak I started out by passing out the references for what I'm going to be saying today I would like to initiate at least invite the rest of the speakers and and the board in particular to initiate the practice if you're going to say a statement of fact provide documentation and documentation that goes a little far beyond further Beyond than what was given last meaning uh such as Psychology today which was a reference that we've gotten an absolute F in the
033classes that I used to teach so you know we use scientific evidence so there they are you can site those as you or look at those as you will I wanted to speak to the uh policy that's coming up at 744.301 handheld met metal wanding um we all know that the best response and it's been recommended by the people who have gone through some horrific shootings that we should have single access entry with universal screening for all of our activities unfortunately that Levy failed so we can't even begin to look at that kind of stuff that's what happens when politics get in the way of of what's good for the schools um however so what we need to do then is to look at good assessment strategies and that's a tough choice I know in
034the board policy that you're looking at the idea that uh you have to identify somebody of concern that kind of threat assessment leaves you wide open to all kinds of accusations of prejudice and uh discrimination so you're going to need to have uh some good practices some good training I know it says that people be trained I mentioned and I give you the reference for uh comprehensive School threat assessment guidelines developed out of Virginia after their horrific shooting um and I would invite you to be sure and look at those as guidelines for when are we going to choose to screen somebody the other thing I noticed is that you didn't have anything in there about screening the adults and one of the things that we know is the more deadly shootings have been by
035former students students of people who are no longer students who are now adults again that's in the in the references I gave you so we're going to want to really I think look at if you're going to screen people you need to screen everybody including the adults that come in because they're actually more likely to engage in the worst shootings I threw on their last couple of references for us to invite you to reexamine some of your current practices uh the active shooter guidelines there's that research that says some research says yes and some research says no it's effective but the bottom line is the research is showing that the active shooter guidelines are traumatizing for our children rather than teaching them that they what they need to know likewise the school resource officers uh
036the research has shown that the causation is not there but that resource officers are associated with higher death rates in some of the shootings so it's just something to look at thank you thank you next we have the superintendent report and recommendations good evening everyone uh just a couple of updates for everybody before we jump into the uh consent agenda today uh first of all uh a quick update on the cell phone policy uh as I mentioned we'll kind of give a a quick update each uh month until we get to uh the end of the school year here um the the cell phone policy implementations uh continue to go very well over the last month uh I'm seeing very few if any any disciplinary issues regarding the use of cell phones um we will
037get some uh data with that uh for our May meeting um and then we'll also be finalizing some of that language adjustment um that will be needed uh for that policy moving forward just to make sure that we align at our middle school and Elementary School levels uh what one item of note though um we've seen an increase in profanity and verbal abuse Behavior toward our staff as they've been trying to enforce the dress code more consistently especially at the high school here recently as students are receiving consequences uh up to suspensions for the profanity and the verbal abuse violations as we try to curb that type of behavior in our schools I just want to take a moment to thank uh Pastor Mike and Pastor Steve from uh Grace Church of Menor uh for
038organizing a group of volunteers who helped clean up areas around several of our school buildings yesterday after the solar eclipse their hard work definitely saved our grounds crew some time here this morning uh one other update uh that we had promised as well regarding Staffing and class sizes uh We've continued to have our staffing meetings over the last month and we've been looking closely at our enrollment numbers and our projections as we monitor our class sizes for the 2425 school year uh last year at this time uh we had uh around four or five sections at different grade levels in our elementary schools that we had identified as as like hotpots where class sizes were a little concerning uh we were able to shift our staffing plan to address the majority of those at the
039beginning of this school year uh this year we are actually in very good shape in regards to our class sizes at this point in the process uh we're currently sitting at the following class siiz averages for our elementary sections in grade one it's 21.1 grade two is 21.4 grade three is 20.8 grade four is 22.7 and grade five is 23.5 um so wanted to give those uh those class size averages for uh for our board uh consideration here this evening we're going to continue to to update these numbers and then we'll provide some additional data on kindergarten Middle School and High School averages at our um May meeting as well our kindergarten numbers that continue to to come in they're very slow if you want the exact number right now I think the class size
040is 8.6 but we only have about 200 students registered at this point so that'll continue to come through um this uh this Thursday several surveys will be sent out to students parents staff members and community and business partners as part of our strategic planning process the first survey will be from the learner centered collaborative who is serving as our facilitators for the entire process these surveys will be tailored to the specific group and are relatively short surveys to capture broad themes around what our students should know and be able to do prior to graduation the second survey will hopefully be ready to go by the end of the week as well if not it might be next week uh depending on how quickly we can get this turned around uh this is the comprehensive Community
041survey that will be sent out to our staff members and our parents and then will be made available to our community members through a variety of platforms as well this is the one being conducted by Triad research and will be uh used by our guiding Co Coalition as part of our strategic plan and by our board and administrative team as we continue to make decisions in the best interest of all students Based on data and Community input our work will begin in in Earnest here next week uh when the learner centered collaborative uh facilitators will be in our district for two Discovery days of interviews classroom visits and small group meetings with stakeholders from around the district and within our community the data collected from the surveys and the discovery days will be used when
042our guiding Coalition meets in person on May 2nd and May 5th 15th to start working on the portrait of a learner the goals and action steps of the Strategic plan itself and ultimately on the score card of measurable outcomes that we will use to determine the effectiveness of our plan um here's how in I mentioned this in our board update last week but here's how I'm thinking uh about approaching this work with our board member involvement um I would like to create a strategic plan administrative committee with two board members serving as the liaison similar to what we have with our uh school safety in the curriculum liaison committees um based on work schedules and vacation schedules um I I would like to maybe recommend Miss gesling and Mrs iopo as uh the serving on
043that guiding Coalition team um since we have the May 2nd and May 15th full days um if that's agreeable to everybody on the board I would like to um have those to serve in that capacity um hours of those um I believe we're starting around 9:00ish and probably should be done by around 3ish those days um we will confirm that a little bit more when uh we have our next meeting with the facilitators here but um just would like th those two members to be involved in that guiding Coalition if that's agreeable um the other part then and and we'll kind of sort this out here at uh towards the end of this week is I I want all five of you to be involved in some of the discovery Day activities that we have
044um on the especially on Thursday April 18th and I can share some specific uh times during that day I know again with with work obligations it may be a little bit challenging um one of the meetings would be from uh 8 to 8:45 with the District Administrative team first thing in the morning there's another meeting that would be from 12: to 12:30 that is involving our uh entire principal group and then the final one is from 5:30 to 6:30 um for our community Forum group as well so if we could have like maybe one in the first thing in the morning have two of you at the the lunchtime one and then maybe two others at the um one in the evening that would be kind of a nice breakdown so that everybody gets a
045opportunity to um to hear a little bit about uh the conversations um with those different groups and again all of that information's then going to come to our guiding Coalition group on on May 2nd um so that's that's our preliminary step towards uh getting the board involvement in the in the plan um but uh we will also have other opportunities um throughout this these next couple of months for you guys to be involved D in uh in some of the activities some of the writing uh some of the review of the the data as well so um we'll try and maybe coordinate times um here in the next couple of days so I might reach out individually to to get those set up um but just as an FYI so you get can start taking
046a look at your own respective calendars because I know that's a lot of time there uh I also want to thank um so are we good with Rose and Jenny you guys good everybody else okay with that all right thank you um I would also like to thank those uh that have agreed to be part of the process um I know we've sent out a lot of uh requests uh to be part of not only our guiding Coalition but also our uh Discovery day um activities in some of our meetings there so I know we've gotten a lot of respon positive response with that so we're really looking forward to that uh those ideas that Fe back that collaboration as we go through this process here final thing that I have um had an opportunity
047here at the end of the school day today um I was able to join Mr Porter uh over at Sterling Morton Elementary School uh for a s surprise assembly to announce that they have won the 2024 Ohio Association of Elementary School administrator Hall of Fame award um each year uh oaesa recognizes elementary and middle schools that provide outstanding educational opportunities to their students through effective programming and instruction uh these schools are characterized by an atmosphere of growth achievement pride and dedication to Excellence on the part of staff and students uh we are so excited uh to be able to celebrate this award uh with such an amazing collection of students and staff at um we had a a really good assembly over there today um the kids were really excited the staff members were completely
048surprised because it was kept a secret until the assembly itself um they even invited Mrs sternbeck uh who was the principal at uh at Sterling Morton um because she was a played a big role in the success that those students are seeing over there right now um we will have them uh here to be recognized at our May board meeting as well but I did want to make that announcement here this evening because that is such a great honor with that Madame President members of the board and Mr Wade I have the following recommendations listed under listed under the consent agenda and recommend approval of items 68 a 1 through 6 A4 do I have a motion so moved second any discussion I had a couple um comments and then a question so on uh
049the Menor schools Foundation last month I abstained from that vote because I was included in that conversation although I'm not a a voting board member um of that group it's still because of our bylaw as that state we should you know abstain if there's an appearance of a conflict of interest um tonight will be voting on that because I wasn't included in those discussions um that we're voting on so that's just the first note uh second thing under four the payment in lie of Transportation I just had a couple other questions um I know this is just a oneoff it looks like just one one student in addition um and Mr Wade I don't know if you could answer this for me when I had asked you in November you said that it was done
050once per year is that correct uh now the new law states that we have uh if a new student comes in we have a certain number of days I believe it's 14 uh but don't quote me on that um because it's still new that we have to make a decision on practicality and we have to let everybody know okay and then do you know how much I know when I had emailed you in November you said 75,000 was how much we were paying out for the last time we paid out everything do you know how much it is for just one like per child I wouldn't feel comfortable stating it at the table without having looking it up 600 I I was going to say 500 was my gut but I can confirm and update
051everybody in my Friday update okay um so that's just another I mean I think this is just a one-off uh but I think it is something that we need to be cognizant of if there are additional people that are going to leave our district and go to private schools um that are outside of us busing them it's just another you know number that we need to kind of just keep data on and and Trends on so that's all I had any more discussion okay Mr Wade please call the role M Jing yes Miss maraza yes Miss AO yes Miss pay yes Miss Cook yes motions carry 5- Z Madam president members of the board Mr Wade I'm recommending approval of the Guardian acquisition reimbursement agreement so moved second any discussion Mr Wade please call the
052roll Miss Payne yes Miss Jing yes Miss A yes M maraza yes Miss Cook yes motion carries 5 Z Madam president members of the board Mr Wade I'm recommending approval of the renewal addendum one to the administrative Services agreement with Medical Mutual so moved second any discussion please call the role Miss AO yes Miss Jing yes Miss maraza yes Miss Payne yes Miss Cook yes motion carries 5 Z president members of the board Mr W I'm recommending approval of the stop loss contract writer with Medical Mutual so second any discussion call the rooll Miss Jing yes Miss Payne yes misso yes M maraza yes Miss C yes motion carries 5 Z Madam president members of the board and Mr wa I'm recommending approval of the nearpod annual renewal so moved second second any discussion yeah
053um I just wanted to State I know this came up last year I remember sitting on the other side when that came up um and I know all the benefits that it has and we've used it for a while um there are just I know there's some other aspects of it um that would be up for debate whether it's indoctrination um age appropriate things like that um I prefer that we could maybe look into some options I know that the uh contract doesn't begin until August so if that's something I know there's a lot of other um um content that we can use that are comparable to nearpod and since we've used it for so long it might make sense to want to look into some other things um you know I it's based on
054um some of the castle is that how you say it um qule Castle the um kind of it's some people believe that it creates it focuses too much on our children's issues and anxiety and fear and problems and leads to a victim mentality and I think in this tough world we need to we need to build strong and mentally tough students so I would be interested in looking um since we have some time into other options um but I just wanted to put that out there I I would Echo um Rose's comments last year I voted no uh because of the political ideology that nearpod does include which a lot of um people do feel like is to um is inappropriate and they don't want their tax dollars going towards political ideology and I can
055empathize with that um so I would State I mean I would definitely support looking into a different program especially knowing the um perception that some of the community does already have about political ideology and being cognizant of that and what we're using taxpayer dollars for so I would absolutely support looking into a different different company and if it's not until August that that would give us some time to kind of deling deeper any other discussion postpone yeah I'll motion to postpone I'll second it postpone to a later date right not indefinitely do you have a date in mind um ask I guess Mr Heath and Mr Lynch do you guys know how long it would take to kind of research other options um it would depend on that yeah it may take some time to
056actually vet other resources um so that again something that could be done have you looked at other things in the past when when you decided on near pod was there um a vetting process in place and you looked at other things or did you only look at nearpod cuz that that for came on back in 2015 when uh we moved to the one to1 devices and and a lot of it's revolving just around the digital citizenship curriculum um this also allows teachers to kind of create their own interactive lessons um and that's that's how it's been used a lot of the the things that have been developed by nearpod over time have been this additional library of resources that our teachers that they have access to but they're they're not allowed technically not allowed to
057use them unless they align to our content standards um in the health curriculum um we haven't been using those those items if they do go through the process and there's something that does align they could potentially pull something out of there um students don't have access within near pod um it's just the the teachers that uh would have to share an access uh code with them in order for them to actually into it so um so that's how it's been used in the past um we'd have to we take some time to to dig through and and vet some of these uh items that uh would meet the same criteria that we have on an near pod with the digital citizenship so to clarify this students don't have free reign the teachers are using their
058judgment and then if there was something that was controversial what would they follow that would go through our controversial issues policy which again with our uh administrative guidelines you know we're putting together for our teachers now those they're going to have to be vetted before anything would actually be put in front of the students um and again anything that they they pull has to be aligned with what it is that uh we've got in our learning standards for health I think um to Mrs Cook's Point uh I I don't I think Rose or I are saying that teachers are going to pull in all that information but it goes back down to the principle of using public tax dollars for um a company or purchasing you know a contract with a company that has some
059pretty heavy political ideology and and so I voted on no on osba I voted no on this before I would like to look into a different option I'd rather have you know full support of the board especially for the perception of the community um I think it would be in our best interest to look for different organization different company where we can get the same thing but they don't have that heavy political uh ideology Mrs pay can you point to some specific um things that you saw in near pond that you found problematic yep so they have um let me pull it up Pride lgbtq lessons and racial Justice pro um resource guides and as we've SE I mean some has pretty heavy CRT based lines of uh White Privilege things like that and if
060we go back to better lessons which we had that issue several years ago and we decided to stop our contract with better lessons because of the heavy political ideology like is mentioned in this um it's just not something that is universally accepted or supported so I don't think we should be using public tax dollars for that just like when I asked for my training I don't know it was couple years ago and it was a $40 training that I wanted to go to but I know Miss Cook and Miss Jing felt like it was too politically charged and so they voted no that's their right to do that I paid for it out of pocket but under those same guidelines then we would be Hypocrites if we were to support an organization with I don't
061know [Applause] [Music] [Applause] $335,000 um can we look and you know talk to our staff and find out what I mean that's a long time to have one to do new you know to have near pod one system whatever is there something that they can recommend I know whenever I'm in a teacher's lounge they're always talking about the latest and greatest and newest stuff so this could be a good opportunity to find something new so near pod is used for digital citizenship currently yeah and then allowing the it's a tool that teachers can use to create their uh interactive lessons is there a problem with any of the digital citizenship lessons um I I honestly don't care my point is that we shouldn't be using public tax dollars for an organization that has a heavy
062political ideology push especially for teachers if we're trying to present to the community as one unified front that we are not pushing political ideology then we should not be using public public tax dollars to support an organization that pushes political IDE I think where excuse me excuse me thank you I think where it gets tricky is first first of all I want to acknowledge what Mr Heath said which was that uh we have policy set up to deal with controversial issues so we do have a bit of a excuse me a bit of a um firewall so to speak to um to work through before any of that should reach teachers and even especially students so I think the other thing that I see is sort of um subjective right I mean I I would
063say I don't agree that talking about lgbtq people is a political ideology so again I feel like we've come to the same point in conversation before where it's subjective right it's not an objective thing we can't objectively all say that we all agree this is a one thing or another you know so that gets that gets tricky I would I agree with you I don't think that anybody's saying it's one way or the other I think based on our previous board meetings we can say that it is an area of controversy I'm not even saying which side I'm on I'm saying it's wait but you did though you said because you said you voted against it oh absolutely excuse me I did vote against it because of the I'm sorry this is a public meeting
064for the board to do business and if you're going to be disruptive you're going to need to leave so I did vote against it because of the principal like I mentioned earlier just like they voted against my $40 training because they felt like it was too heavily politically charged well I'm stating stating under those same guidelines I can't support this so what harm is there in looking at a different organization that all of us could get behind to put on that unified front to the community so that we can say hey look it we all came together this we all found something different we came to a compromise we're not going to do that or company well I guess the only response would be that that would then create um additional work to dive into
065more resources additional time of staff and and their attention and um that they would have to then dedicate to to diving into something different when we had something that seems to be if I'm correct me if I'm wrong Mr Heath but working quite well so I I don't know it seems like it it's fixing a problem that isn't there for me for me I understand what you're saying but the problem to me being on the board for two and a half years hearing public commentary every month it is a problem and when we're looking at putting on a levy on the ballot in the you know near future we're going to need Buy in from the vast majority of our community members so having something like this which is so easy to go look at
066different options at least to look through the different options to see if there's something that isn't politically charged or controversy controversial um I think it would be worth that time I see your point I I also would say that we don't know that the vast majority of the public here in men are voting public we should say would agree you know so that's what I'm saying it's again it's a subjective thing and and so it's hard to speak for the entire Community when we we certainly don't have them here tonight and that's a straw man fallacy because I didn't say that I said that we misunderstood we need the majority of a broad base of supporters to support us when we go and ask them for money for a levy because you need a majority
067to pass a levy okay that's what I was saying okay is there any more discussion about postponing the V okay so we have a motion on the table to postpone the vote would you call the role to a time um yeah I'm not sure that we had time I guess it would be depend on how much time you think is needed and we have till I think mid August so with the time are you looking at an alternate or are you just looking for are there other options one and the same right looking for other options to see if there's something better and then we can bring that I don't know how long it how much time they need to go through I don't know what that process is like so if it could be
068done by the next you know next meeting but I mean it's not up till August so why rush it so if we want to even postpone it till June is the renewal now with implementation in August or we're approving implementation in August with payment in August because it's on our agenda now is this the the deadline for making a selection for the fall that's how I understood it is that right Mr Lynch the the approval of the contract just allows us to write the requisition of the PO for it to be paid in August so there's a seamless transition so the other issue would be timing for a transition so if an Alternet Source was identified in order because we're using the the um digital citizenship throughout the year I believe that those units are
069taught K through K through 8 for the digital CI K through three k through 12 thank you you needed more Fingers um so K through 12 digital citizenship to put that in place that's a a separate discussion would you feel comfortable we could postpone for whatever let's say until July the July meeting postpone if there was something identified that they thought was a qu comparable quality and could be implemented seamlessly then that that might be the recommendation or that we could alternatively then if that wasn't available approve near pod for this year and have more time does that seem like I personally I can't support near pod yeah I agree but I you know let's can we cross that bridge and see how I mean there's there's a lot out there and nine years using
070the same one is a long time I know we we change up some much more frequently in other respects so and this wasn't in in the want to hear from the expert I was going to say this wasn't this platform wasn't in the original contract we've had this forever and they that was more recent there's there's one point that I just would like to add is that um we have a district technology steering committee that meets monthly and and when we were looking at programs we look at all of our programs on a yearly basis when we were looking we're always looking to reduce the number of programs we have to be fiscally responsible as a district near pod which is primarily used for the purpose of adding interactions for um presentations that teachers already
071have it allows kids to be on their Chromebooks MacBooks or iPads and for the kids to interact with the present a that's primarily how near pod is used in our district as well as the digital citizenship lessons the other piece that nearpod added this past year is a tool to be able to bring in a video and add in interactions we have another program that we pay uh $144,000 for called play posit our district steering committee made a decision at last months um steering committee meeting to remove play posit because we have near pod that now is doing has the ability to do the same thing that playit did so we were using that as a cost savings for the district as we're always trying to make sure we're not having a replication of programs
072so I just wanted to add that element in I don't like to have to come up but I felt like that had not been mentioned that's helpful I have one more question regarding that Mr Lynch would if you um because teachers are creating these interactive lessons do they save them would they be if we didn't have nearpod would they need to start again or how is that within near pod those lessons are interactive because of the tools within near pod we have a District Library that allows teachers to share that content amongst each other so for instance we have like a third grade ER that third grade teachers could access a presentation and share that interactive presentation so those are stored in our District Library if we don't have the program we obviously would lose
073any of those presentations that were made within your pod um as as just because they were made with their um okay their interactive tool so um thank you you're welcome when I think about creating content in the tools that you use to have things that you've invested time in to have that inactivated because we're not using that subscription that would be immensely frustrating you know the way I'm understanding it near pod would work like part of the office suite you got this aspect like a I don't know PowerPoint or whatever and that you could create cont content and have it function in a predictable way if you have something that utilizes that software or that however their Arrangement is that content then goes away that would that would be a significant frustration for most teachers
074just because of the time that any of that takes and you know you write your lesson plans and you refer to something that you've developed Ved and you've tailored it to your your class the tools that you have that would be a big loss and and I appreciate what you're saying that a company may sell a wide array of products any kind of a company but if we're using these pieces in a way that certainly doesn't stray into an area of controversy it's for the digital citizenship which we've all agreed for some time is very important for our students to have it's K through 12 and then you have these other tools that let you create content for instructional use to blow that up would be very frustrating and I'm not saying that there isn't
075something else out there but I would be reluctant to make this go away until we had confidence that there was something better and I I'm glad you reminded us Mr Lynch of the technology committee that's working I mean that's their their primary focus is streamlining products you we're paying for licenses for anything you know so efficiencies in all of that and not having redundant capabilities would be something that they're focused on so I guess based on that I I would be happy and I'm thinking that that committee is already aware you know everybody gets ads all day long on their email for something bigger better faster stronger that they're you know paying attention to that because like anything a company can go out of business and then you know you're back to square one but
076if we have something that's functioning well and we're using it in a responsible way that doesn't stray into those areas of controversy just because the company has other products that we don't use the the other products that we don't use though are included in our contract so we don't use them but they are included in what we're paying we just our policies Safeguard us from using that because it should align with our you know standards and the controversial issues policy and all that so I I would still like to look into we might be able to find something that that is we can cherry pick what we and only pay for what we're using versus maybe paying a larger sum for something we don't we not using and I'd love to hear what teachers you
077know what ideas they have um again they they they have a lot of times they don't have a choice and so maybe that we can put some feelers out there and see see what they like so I mean I'm willing to say June if that's enough time or unless you want to go July but you know it doesn't hurt to look into it so your motion is postponed until June until the June regular meeting I second it okay please call the role Miss alalo yes Miss Payne yes Miss Jing yes Miss maraza no Miss Cook no motion carries to postpone until June with a 3-2 vote Madame President members of the board and Mr Wade I'm recommending approval of the engagement with uh Ohio auditor of state to prepare financial statements so moved second was
078that Miss P that moved yep it was any discussion please call the role Miss pay yes M Jing yes yes misso yes Miss maraza yes Miss Cook yes motion carries 5 Z Madam president members of the board Mr wayam recommending approval of the power school annual agreement so moved second any discussion please call the role misslo yes Miss Jing yes Miss moraza yes Miss pay yes Miss Cook yes motion carries 5 Z Madame President members of the board Mr wayam recommending approval of the resolution authorizing particip participation in the Ohio Department of Transportation Cooperative purchasing program some moved second that Lauren no it wasn't oh rose rose sorry see I can't be I gota be in the middle my ears aren't good and then that was M Mrs jine the second any discussion please call
079the role misslo yes Miss Jing yes Miss maaza yes yes M pay yes M cook yes motion carries 5 Z Madam president members of the board Mr Wade I'm recommending approval of the resolution ranking the firms that responded to the district's request for qualifications and authorizing the treasure to enter into contract negotiations so moved second any discussion please call the rooll Miss Jing yes Miss maraza yes Miss aapo yes Miss Payne yes Miss Cook yes motion carries 5 Z Madame President members of the board Mr Wade I'm recommending approval of the resolution accepting the Shore Middle School pavement Improvement bid so move second any discussion thank you to Mr Wade for getting it in under budget that's right oh that was Mr Vell and Mr Kar and their team I just get the pleasure of
080uh tell them team we send our thanks please call the role Miss Jing yes Miss ping yes Miss aapo yes Miss maraza yes Miss Cook yes motion carries 5- Z Madam president members of the board Mr Wade I'm 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 role Miss pay yes M Jing yes Miss AO yes Miss maraza yes Miss Cook yes motions carry 5 Z I'm also recommending approval of agenda item D related to administrative staff so move second I'm G to give that one to miss louder any discussion please call the role Miss Jing yes misso yes Miss maraza yes Miss pay yes Miss Cook yes motion carries 5 Z this concludes my portion
081of tonight's agenda thank you thank you next we have the Board of Education report and recommendations the first item under board business is the first reading of the Menor Board of Education Neola policies and because this is a first reading no vote is necessary is there any discussion I did have um discussion I just a real quick it talks about feminine products and and having those available for free for our students which I know um I think it was all of us actually that went to uh and and heard from the students in the US history class the AP class and the students were presenting what they would like to change and one of the things that several of them mentioned was that we don't have feminine products in the actual bathrooms and I had
082emailed Mr Heath and I think Mr Crow but I haven't heard back yet so I don't know because I'm I'm a woman and I would like those in the bathroom because I think it's important our students were like we don't want to go to the nurse's office to get one of those things so yeah and again that came out of one of the St laws that was passed here recently as well and and while we're meeting compliance because they are available in the nurse's office for free especially at the elementary middle school level and the concern from the operations Department was often times those things get uh flush down the toilet and cause some major headaches from clogs and those sorts of things that's why they were located there um obviously at the high school
083we have dispensers uh available in the restrooms themselves but um I know hearing from several members of the board that's going to be another conversation we'll bring up um with uh with operations just to figure out you know is there a better way that we can uh have those things available um in each of the the restroom facilities so that uh they are available moving and I know um the student group brought up that there's a grant that we could get for the free products yes so um Mr Vell actually um uh will keep track of all of the um free products that uh We've utilized and uh there's a reimbursement process so um he's completely on top of that as well okay thank you that's all I had you're welcome okay any more discussion
084all right do have a motion don't need one oh I'm sorry this or this that was for the for the first first sorry there's no vote on this one sorry the second item under board business is the second reading and approval of the Menor Board of Education theola policies so moved second okay any discussion okay please call the role Miss Chesley yes Miss morza yes misso yes Miss pay yes Miss Cook yes motion carries 5 Z all right now we have the student achievement report Mrs J you skipped the legislative oh I'm so sorry I mean if she wants to go first she may please no legislative report I'm just checking this thank you uh so yes we've got lots of updates uh first we'll start with the state board and Department of Education and
085Workforce updates um Dew had its first or excuse me had a public meeting in March to provide an update on literacy and to allow for public comment on some proposed rules um Dr Melissa Weber mayor gave um an update on the implementation of the science of reading program which is fairly new and many people have already heard of it so really um you can view actually her presentation on the Dew website the entire meeting in fact is viewable um but basically the status update that she gave was that instructional materials are being implemented across districts and training and professional development will take place uh for staff and teachers this summer um they also have some proposed um following or excuse me some proposed rules open for a public comment which you can go to their
086website and weigh in on yourself um the State Board of Education also had a public meeting in March um and again their meetings are also public so you can go on to their website and read or excuse me view them at any time uh the State House attorney to the state house and the general assembly the uh legislature was in Spring recess for quite some time following the March 19th primary election uh they did resume this week the house meets tomorrow April 10 at 2 p.m. so we'll see some more action there but um during that session we might actually see an amendment and a house vote on House Bill 183 uh which would require all Ohio schools to segregate bathrooms locker rooms changing rooms shower rooms and overnight accommodations quote for the exclusive use
087of a single sex end quote and According to which sex is listed on a person's birth certificate pH um so that might be uh moving tomorrow so we'll need to keep an eye on that one for sure that will affect um not only uh excuse me that affects only K through2 public Community stem and chartered non-public schools and education Educational Service Centers uh there was a lot of new legislation that was introduced especially on April 2nd there were about a dozen bills that were introduced so it was pretty busy um 11 of them have already moved into have been referred to committee so I'm just going to go over a few of those not all of them um House Bill 411 this one is to increase the base teach your salary to $50,000 a year
088um House Bill 408 this one um would require public schools to provide meals to students who need them regardless of their ability to pay and regardless of whether or not they have any outstanding meal debt House Bill 445 this one would force all Ohio school districts to implement policies for released time coursework in religious instruction um release time if for for those who don't know means um time during the school day uh for religious instruction um this really is a very simple proposal it changes a single word in the current Ohio revised code from May to shall so it's pretty simple that one's moving pretty quickly so we'll need to watch that one U Mentor just for the record we don't have a release time policy is that correct we did we don't anymore we
089don't any longer thank you um the house bill 447 this one's a little complicated it's got a lot of moving parts to it it has to do um with farmland and schools believe it or not but basically what what is relevant to us is that it would reduce school districts uh their the 20 mil floor making it harder and again we're not at the um 20 mil floor I know I've said that before but it would make for student for excuse me for districts that are it would make them harder make it harder to meet that floor meaning they're less likely to get to the point where they're collecting um more property taxes um this would be permanent change this if this bill were to pass so that's really a great example of something um
090that the joint property tax Review Committee would review and kind of understand any long-term impact that would have on distri districts throughout the state um House Bill 462 um this one proposed by our own Dan Troy I felt like I had to mention this one uh this one would set up a grant program for students pursuing bachelor's degrees at public universities so we'll keep an eye on those bills moving forward to see what happens uh there were also committee meetings yesterday um the Senate education committee met this afternoon I I think they were still meeting when I was able to last check so I don't know what the outcomes were of that yet I can tell you um they were they had hearings for specific bills uh House Bill 147 this would make changes to
091teacher lure revocation teacher hiring practices and conduct un becoming to the teaching profession this one had its second Committee hearing today um with proponent testimony only Senate Bill 208 also had a hearing this one would require I've mentioned this one before it would require districts to include a military exception for open enrollment policies um this was proponent testimony only heard today House Bill 250 uh We've also heard about this one re it would revise the military enlistment diploma seal uh this one had a third hearing all testimony from all parties sometimes they they bunched them all together rather than doing you know sponsor proponent and opponent this one had it all together today uh the primary and secondary education committee also met this afternoon one of the bills they heard about was new and that
092was house 432 um this one would actually be very relevant to us this one was regarding the teach the teaching of Career Technical education um it would require the State Board to adopt rules establishing standards and requirements for obtaining a license under um the section of the um let's see of 's fngg of section part of the Ohio revised code 3319 229 um so that would definitely affect our CT e programs um this was sponsor testimony only since it's so new and then Senate Bill 168 also had a hearing this is its second Committee hearing proponent testimony only this is the bill that would lower existing requirements for advanced educator licenses remove mandatory State prescribed evaluation systems and expand school's ability to employ unlicensed people as teachers um so that's it for the committee hearings
093um I think I think that's it I think those are the highlights um and we'll see what happens moving forward report I had a question Mr Heath I don't know if you could answer this um because of the house bill that you had mentioned um miss marazza about I I know about the Turning May into shell about the oh are you talking about 4:45 sorry the release time yeah yeah um and I had attended an osba course all about this it was actually led by Pebble and Wagner who we used to have as a law firm as well and there was some discussion about why these are moving so quickly and it was because of a Supreme Court case that set precedent so even though we don't have a policy it doesn't mean that we
094would not be held to possibly allow it because of that Supreme Court precedent so I just correct that's okay I just wanted to make sure that was my understanding after the osba course as well all righty it's time for student achievement my favorite part thank you Mrs d a good education means providing many opportunities for students to explore solve problems and meet challenges and while most of this occurs in in the classroom Mentor also offers a wide array of activities to support the development of well-rounded successful students ready for their future success and here is a sampling for nearly 125 years the College Board has developed and administered standardized advanced placement tests and curricula used to promote college readiness AP offers undergraduate University level courses and examinations to high school students colleges in the US
095and elsewhere May Grant placement and course credit to students who obtain qualifying scores on those exams the AP curriculum for each of the various subjects is created for the College Board by a panel of experts and college level Educators in their academic disciplines every fall the AP program recognizes high school students who have demonstrated outstanding achievement through their performance on multiple AP exams the AP scholar designation is granted to students who receive scores of three or higher on three or more AP exams in the AP Capstone diploma is granted to students who earn scores of three or higher in AP seminar and AP research and on four additional AP exams of their choosing this year we are thrilled to announce that 64 seniors are being recognized by the College Board as AP Scholars or AP
096Capstone Award winners these students students have collectively earned an average score of 3.54 on 275 AP exams during their 10th and 11th grade years a fascinating Mentor Marsh study and examination of the effects of noise pollution on bird foraging Behavior by Menor High Senior Robbie land has been recognized as an award-winning research project the northeast Ohio Science and Engineering fair at Cleveland State University awarded Robbie the grand prize which includes an all expense paid trip to Los Angeles to present his work at the international science and engineering fair in may he was also recognized by the Western kayoga aaban society and the Cleveland Clinic for his exceptional work on March 21st Menor High School CTE students engage with preschoolers as part of their little leaders code for care event code for care was created and
097organized by Menor student Le skills USA community service team members included Paxton warrren Alexander sefor and Davon Davis Menor skills USA chapter recently earned a gold level status from skills USA Ohio making it one of only 13 schools in the state to medal at our March 5th athletic signing ceremony for D1 and D2 universities eight men are high senior athletes signed their letters of intent to compete at the Collegiate level they were Melissa bovic Annie Barrow Nick Blackburn Addison ly Maddie Manaka cydney Stark McKenzie Stucker and Tanner toot congratulations and we saw a couple of those athletes this evening or heard about them at least the Cleveland Council on world affairs has promoted Global education citizen diplomacy and public dialogue for a century now men are hosted the cca's spring junior model United Nations conference
098here at Paradigm last week middle school teams from across the region joined together for a great two-day simulation experience and it was exciting to welcome so many schools to Mentor both Memorial and Shore Junior model un teams have put their diplomacy skills to work debating with students from Northeast Ohio to resolve some of the world's most challenging Global issues for the past several years our middle school students have been coached by our own Menor High model un mentors via mock conferences that they prepare for them to build experience and its shows middle schoolers can make a difference in our community make a difference day started in 2018 and has expanded to both Memorial and shore on March 22nd over 500 eth graders went into the community and gave back at a variety of locations including
099our elementary schools the Salvation Army edwins Foundation restart United Way and many more this event is a collaboration between the Menor middle schools and over 40 local organizations teaching our students the importance of service learning and giving back it was a great day filled with compassion empathy and doing for others congratulations to this awesome angling men on the lake team Sam spataro an eighth grader at Shore Middle reeled in the catch of a lifetime at Menor lagoons a 45 in northern pike the Ohio state record is just 43 in weighing two uh 22b and 6 o because he didn't want to harm the fish Sam Let It Go without weighing it for the record and that level of caring for nature makes us all proud it's Autism Awareness Month and we celebrate the car's basketball
100team who wrapped up their season with a Championship win against wickliff High School's varsity basketball team well done the Ohio music Education Association district 7 adjudicated contest for ban inquir was held here at mentor on March 15th and 16th 46 ensembles from Oliver Lake giaga and kayaga counties participated Menor was well represented with 13 performing ensembles the band ratings were as follows Menor High Wind Ensemble Superior Menor High School Scarlet band excellent Menor High School freshman concert band excellent and from the vocal end the choir groups included Shore 7 and8 mixed choir Memorial 7 and8 mix choir Menor High Bello chorus canari chorus concert treble choir and concert mixed choir and all six groups received a superior rating the Oma advocates for comprehensive music programs adhering to State and National Music standards with regular assessments
101to ensure that students meet High academic expectations and the district 7 solo and Ensemble contest will be held at Memorial Middle School this weekend Menor public schools has been named a National Association of Music Merchants best Community for music education Award winner the program recognizes and celebrates outstanding efforts by teachers administrators parents students and Community leaders who have made music education part of a well-rounded curriculum designations made to districts and schools that demonstrate an exceptionally High commitment and access to music education for all Menor is one of 60 Ohio districts and one of less than 1,000 districts nationally to rece received this designation Memorial Middle School's theater production of big bad was a hit with audiences on Friday the clever play was a fun take on the true story of The Three Little Pigs with
102the wolf facing a courtroom trial the casting crew C clearly had a marvelous time and their energy was infectious on Wednesday April 3rd Sterling Morton Elementry hosted a related arts showcase where PE steam music and art were all featured for families and students from 5: to 7:00 p.m. students had the opportunity to experience interactive displays listen to or play music and every child had an work of art on display and Mr Heath and I enjoyed that the Menor High School theater spring musical will be the school edition of Steven Sim's Sweeney Todd with performances April 18th through 21st get your tickets there going fast Lake Elementary students are organized into four K through five houses to build school spirit and positive team attitudes men around the Lakes patrolman kyus spun the wheel at last week's
103assembly and became a member of Team reviewer he joins patrolman brosinski representing the blue I don't think that was an accident but I won't speak to that the wonderful Rapport between our district students and the men and women of the men are on the lake and men are police forces is deeply appreciated mark your calendars for the Menor school's fine art Extravaganza a twofer on Tuesday April 23rd beginning with the annual Elementary art show from 5: to 7:30 right here at Paradigm and districtwide K through five artwork will be featured along with special a special collaborative project you will not want to miss in the five Fine Arts Center from 6:00 to 8 that same evening treat yourself to Menor High's senior artist exhibition total e clips of the heart this popup event will feature
104a Celestial aesthetic with multiple platforms offering physical and digital works that will light up the night the portfolio's exhibit will show the culminating achievements of menor's senior art students and in case you thought you'd get hungry the food trucks will be stationed outside to offer refreshments and the show promises to be out of this world and finally since 1987 leadership Lake County has engag engaged present and future leaders to become committed to social Civic and economic Excellence right here in our community applications for the 2025 Junior leadership program for grades 10 through 12 and the youth leadership academy for grades 7 and 8 are being accepted until May 2nd the monthly program offers unique opportunities designed to guide students to reach their full leadership potential and for more information visit leadership lakecounty.org and thank you
105very much thank you very much next we have the Chief Financial Officer report and recommendation follow that Mr Wade GNA be quick I'm G to save my time for next month um long story short revenu is coming in a slight Tad over what we projected uh by 70,000 expenses are down about 1.6 million so so we're looking to be about 1.7 better than we were projecting at the November forecast which reduces our deficit spend to about3 million doll for the year um when we look at our Revenue uh March Revenue collection compared to Prior year and we look at our total revenue collected to the prior year we are down it looks significant it's just a timing issue uh at the end of the month we had not received our tax payment for our what
106is our second collection but the first half tax collection based on calendar year 23 and 24 before we had not received it yet I'm uh happy to announce we did receive it and it's trending to about where we expected it to be so that will show up in the April uh Revenue scenario um again when you're off by $70,000 on 109 million I don't think it's worth getting into the details unless you really want me to um but we're trending about where we thought we were up in a little some areas and down some others but overall we're trending about where we thought we would be when we look at our expenses for the year um our month uh March expenditures compared to the prior Year we're actually up a little bit about 168,000 again
107that's not very significant and we all know that we're down spending for the year because of the reduction of the transfer out uh to fund the Capital Improvements and and permanent improvements for the district so overall we're down about 1.6 million um most of that comes up in um salaries and purchase services accounts for about half a little bit less than half of that and then all other expenses accounts for about a million um again we're through the end of March so we have April May and June so we're about three quars of the way we are three quarters of the way not about three quars of the way through the fiscal year our spending for our buildings and most of our departments ends at the on Friday um so our our budget's becoming pretty
108final at this point um we're obviously planning for next year preparing uh budgets have been turned in we're getting those into the system um those will be used to evaluate the May update which we'll have at the May board meeting happy to answer any questions anybody may have thank you madam president members of the board Mr Heath I ask for the approval of items B through F in one motion please so Mo second please call the RO Miss Payne yes Miss Jing yes Miss aapo yes Miss moraza yes m cook yes motions carry 5 Z at this time we have um some unfinished business to address and the first is the review of library media materials discussion so if I can go ahead and and kick it off I coming out of the last meeting
109uh what I try to do is capture everything that was set at the table um and then take that back to what our procedures are and what our current policy says what our administrative guidelines potentially could say um and just to share with the with the group um two different aspects of this one is is really getting into the selection of library and media center materials um the the guidelines um that we will be that we should be following and in my opinion um in the selection and ordering of library media center materials would be this um our high school media specialist creates the collection of books for the elementary schools the middle schools and the high school to review based on grade slage level step two the individual building library assistant identify those books
110from the collection that they would like to order for their school library step three each building principal reviews the book order list selected by their librar assistant prior to sending the order back to the high school media specialist step four the high school media specialist will be sharing each building's book order list with the District Administrative team and then step five The District Administrative team would review the book order list and make uh a recommendation for the order to me as the superintendent I would then have that final review of the book order list and then approve the purchase this gives us a multistep process with multiple eyes looking at each of these orders as we move forward with this process in the future the second part was the uh library media center material checkout
111procedures um what we did here again was try to incorporate everything that uh had been said previously um trying to adapt um what I had heard from Rose and Annie in a separate meeting what I heard from um Maggie in the the meeting last month um with kind of the stop light piece to the puzzle and then taking that and what our capabilities are within them and and then again trying to close the gaps that we knew existed with what our current procedures were so what we have come up with I is something along these lines um in the annual one idea was to have three different levels really I I think it goes down to two because as was mentioned earlier I believe in public participation we've now made that decision to send those
112um emails out um to every family uh when when a student checks out a library media center material um so what that comes down to and in again select a material they would like to check out from the school library they would take student and then the email is sent to the parent Guardian indicating the title of the material that the student has selected if the student has reserved access the library assistant would complete the checkout process place that material on a reserved shelf in the library they would then be completing a library media center material approval slip and then an email would also be sent to the parent indicating the title of the material that the student has selected during that week the parent or Guardian would sign that library media center approval slip
113and in the subsequent week's Library schedule the student would return the previous week's Library material Media Center approval slip the student will select a new material along with all of their other classmates the library assistant would complete that checkout process pull the material from the previous week that's still on the reserved shelf and hand that material to the student that has already been approved by the parent or guardian and then they would hand that material to the student and place the new material on the reserve shelf and then fill out the slip again and then that process would repeat so really the only week of the year that an elementary student would not be taking home a book would be that first week after that they would be receiving a reserved Material off of that
114uh shelf each time unless of course there was um a material that the parenter guardian did not want them to have um then we would start that process over um at the middle school high school library uh schedule the student comes to the school library that they can select a material go to the library assistant scan that material from the circulation system brings up the student scan uh or a student screen um library assistant would be able to uh determine what uh level of access that student has and then follow a very similar format to what we have with the elementaries the only ISS difference there is it's not on a regular schedule so just whenever that student would have that uh approval slip signed they could bring that back to the media center um
115turn in that slip get the material off that Reserve shelf and then move on and then the next time they would select something the same process would uh would follow so those are the things that we've been able to determine that we can do within our Uh current systems it kind of closes those gaps kind of incorporates a little bit of everything that was was discussed um so just wanted to make sure that everybody was uh familiar with with those procedures um as we jump into the discussion does anyone want to have any have any question thank you for putting this together I know it took a good bit of review and discussion with your team um so I appreciate all of the attention to detail and and making it uh making it real for
116us thank you I had um Mr Heath I just had a quick question the last month when we were talking about it my concern was over the um collaborative classrooms or silent reading time books that are just in the classroom for silent reading time um because a lot of the controversial issues that we experience with book challenges are also in kindergarten through fifth grade silent reading time books and there's no notification for parents at all about those books so you had mentioned you might be able to kind of fix that and get it included I didn't hear it today is that something you're working on yeah so that we would be able to follow a similar type of process here we want to make sure that we're talking with especially our Elementary classroom teachers to
117to figure out how that process may work excuse me uh we've had a lot of conversation with the library assistants and our media specialist obviously to get a lot of this fig figured out with what's in the circulation system um we can uh we can start to take some of these ideas and present that from the classroom Library um uh scenario as well then okay so we're still kind of working on that but that hasn't been thrown out we can correct okay thank you correct um I like that I think this is um a good good way to let parents feel comfortable in knowing what their kids are taking out um my only issue would be if if we do get a lot of parents choosing the um reserved access that could be a lot
118of red tape and it seems like a lot of work for a librarian um one of the ideas I thought of because we don't really have a lot of books that are majorly concerning at least in the middle school and high school um so I was thinking of um you know not flagging books certain books um but marking them um ideas were um parent disc discuss required PDR um and only if a if a parent if a student parent um opts to um that they want notification or approval um affirmative consent then in that book pops up with that marking on it then we can go through that process because majority of books especially in elementary school are going to be books on penguins and books on bunnies and you know why why go through
119all that so I mean if you yours that that that works but again if we end up with a lot of parents choosing that second option um and you know I was also thinking you know any parent is free to opt in immediately on day one and then there it doesn't matter what the book is marked but you know a lot of these books um K through five would be more um parental discussion required so some of these books maybe if it's a World War II book maybe if it's a book um about politics maybe it's a you know a book that's about haunted you know some some one of our parents said that they're they don't like scary books things that kind of trigger them in that way so we can just Mark those
120and that just means um you know you're just it's just up for discussion um and that way if a if a student with that marking um with that affirmative consent label comes in to check something out and that book is marked um The Librarian can say hey go pick out another one um this one is we're is on hold for you until we get that you know confirmation so similar to what you said I'm I'm thinking maybe it can red do some of the red tape and work for our media Specialists but um that those that was my thought do you have that written down can you send it to me yes yes I you don't need to send it to me I do need I do have some concerns about that because it's still
121creating a list of books and I think the problem with that is that you just don't know what might be a was it a PDR PDR you said a PDR book you know because every kid has may have different issues you know it could be storms it could be War it could be people fishing you know it it just could be so many things that you're trying to think inside of that mind of what is a PDR book and what isn't that we're going to exclude something that might be a PDR book and then you have a parent that says well I thought I was getting notified if this book could cause concern so if we keep the system more more simple with with what I had originally proposed and and I'm fine with going
122to the the yellow red system or whatever um then it's it's simply you're notified you say yes if if you want notification and then you can decide what may be a concern for for any child it it's not that I think it's a bad idea it's just it's it's too hard to decide where the line starts and ends yeah well this would be have to be we'd have to grandfather in most this whole process with most of the how we mark them um especially in the middle school and in the classrooms but I think most of the major ones will be obvious to teachers and then I mean um you know getting an email I know for me I have three kids in the in the schools right now and you I just don't think
123it's realistic that parents are going to you know have the time to go through that and then to research each book especially when a lot of the books are really going to the majority of the books checked out to do this and I think you know we still have out I don't know I I don't know I'm trying to think in terms of a library clerk who has let's say 4 150 books going out she's got 20 minutes and I think her way of handling it especially because I've beened at you know sometimes the scope or breadth of issues that somebody might have a concern about or again like we had talked earlier and previous discussions that your student might be have had a experience with fire and for them that's a particularly sensitive topic
124you wouldn't Mark every you know what I mean I just I think because kids at the elementary level are probably taking one or two generally speaking you know each little Media Center has its owns and we know the middle school and high school the numbers of books they're checking out is Tiny so I I don't think that it's necessary to take that responsibility we're trying to honor all parents to have that final say so and let them control it rather than us second guessing anybody that's where I worry and the time involved and the administrative um detail that will be involved could be difficult yeah I I'll Echo those Sentiments of both Mrs cook and Mrs jessing that I think this puts us right back where we were um in terms of compiling lists and
125marking books and I say I know you said they you're not marking them but you're flagging them I mean I kind of see it as the same thing so again I think this puts us back in the place of where we're regulating books when the initial idea um was to really regulate the students and the access um so I think that's the Direction that's going to help us move forward and that's the one I I would support yeah I I didn't mean FL I said not not to flag it because marking it to me just felt better because what might be inappropriate or something I want to discuss with my kid um on a topic might not be somebody else's so I I didn't want to flag it so I thought let's just Market you
126know parental discussion need or something like that so I mean I'm I'm fine with parents being notified I just is it realistic that parents are going to want you know want to look at the emails are that you know a lot of my regular notifications go into junk um I just I'm just trying to look at you know the liability issue if we do have this and then a parent doesn't get access um but you know again the important factor is that parents are being notified before something goes out um I again I don't think we have a lot of books that require this marking so I don't think it would be too tedious and again we could just do it the media specialist can mark them as as they come through um I think
127um since I haven't said anything yet I just kind of been listening and I hear all the points um and I'm happy that regardless whatever comes out of this we are going to add another layer um for parental rights which is important to to Rose's point I don't think that we have a ton of you know a bunch of controversial books and we do have a controversial issues policy that could help kind of align some of that if we were to look into that I get what every everybody's saying I don't really know exactly how that how it would work if we do have so many people is it really feasible Mr Kei I'm assuming you've kind of already looked into that like if if we have what if we have 80% of the parents
128stopped into the you know is it really is it feasible to do that yeah I what we're what we'll need to do is figure out after year one you know kind of what where everybody is with those different levels and figure out what the best approach is going to be and until we get to that point we don't really know and that's one of the reasons we made the decision just to email every family because we had 2500 2,800 families that opted into the emails um so we were able to make that adjustment fairly quickly um with this type of situation because you know the annual update's already being done right now and we're going to have to do a separate type of process here this first year through anyway that'll give us a pretty
129good idea of how many um are Cho using which level of access and then what's going to be the the most efficient way to to do that in the future um right now um there there's not an an automated system to be able to allow us to just change the access um in this in the circulation system it's going to be a lot of manual work for our library assistance as we go through that process but you know until we get this first year done we're not 100% certain what direction we should probably go um I I think whatever whatever the numbers are that's the notification that we put in uh in the students screen you know whichever one's less so if if they've got Open Access and you know we only have you know
130a thousand students that need Open Access okay let's put those thousand in and the other 6,000 can be left blank because we know if it's not this then it's the other um so that's kind of the process right now that we're looking through and that's the other reason you know we we try to figure out what what's the easiest way to do this and we we were talking about another email but again you know if we send another email hey you need to email us back with this approval number one it's more time for the the library assistant to actually you know send that email and get that response it's very simple to kind of go old school with this where we have just a little slip here's the title of the book give it
131to the kid kid brings it back the the next week signed off by the parent um so that's why we we kind of went old school with that uh with that thinking right now just again to see how this process might uh might work moving forward and then again do we start looking at at different systems to try and automate this a little bit more but uh we got to get some practice put in place and then see how it works thank you and the um Rose had mentioned the sexual content policy so my points on what you had mentioned earlier would just be the I want to ensure that the classroom um silent reading Time Books would be worked into this somehow and then um the sexual content policy I would like to keep
132that policy so that things are still flagged to sexual content because I think that has a different connotation especially I mean the exerpts we heard tonight I voted against you know retaining that book and I think there was a lot of uproar in the community about those kind of uh sexually explicit books so I do think we should continue flagging those you don't you're not recommending that we stop that process of flagging along with I don't really have a recommendation right now I'll just wait for whatever you guys want me to do I've gone through a process already and there's only I mean there's not there's not a lot that are flagged so and again the other issue and I know this has been mentioned several times now when you look at TH those lists
133and and you look at are weeding out guidelines and a lot of these books are going to be weeded out fairly quickly um and that that quote unquote list is going to be fairly small are you say weeding out because of the fiveyear okay yeah so that those would they haven't been checked out ever right so those would just be my concerns or those few points um obviously I just want to State for the record I I do not support sexually explicit books for minor students but we've gone through this discussion several times um so I think this would be the next best thing well I I'd like to talk a minute about the sexual content then because if there's a book in in your curriculum that contains sexual content so I know we've mentioned
134to Kill a Mocking Bird you know it has sexual content in it there's a rape it's disgusted so if if you have a book that has sexual content in it that's in the curriculum and and the students are expected to read the book and they're going to have discussion on it then that that book is the parents are notified in our current policy that's and that's what I would like to continue to see happen so the parents are getting a letter that says hey our your child is going to read this book it does have sexual content in it if you'd like an alternative book please notify us and and I will do this and and that's I see that happening right now with my own children's books but the library books if we have
135this already I don't see the need to flag them and there's a couple reasons one every parent gets notified what what your child is reading and if you are a person who has given the restricted access or the the the red light then you are even giving permission like yes they can read this book I I know the title they can read the book and you're signing it I'm also concerned that our list isn't inclusive and and we've said that there are many books in the library that might have some mention of sex that and we only have books on the list that people already you know have already read and brought it forward in some way so it's so limited I don't feel that it's inclusive and I feel that it's a false sense
136of security if we say oh we are we're flagging these books or we're whatever we want to call it we're we're notifying people that this list has sexual content it makes it seem like it's all inclusive and it isn't so I would be in support of taking out the portion for Library access but keeping it for curriculum so that's where I stand on that I I understand where you're coming from um I don't that's why originally with the sexually the sexual content policy I had mentioned sexually explicit because I do think there's a vast difference between sexual content mentioning a rape To Kill a Mocking bur doesn't stand in comparison to The Bluest Eye you know when you're graphically depicting molestation of a minor that that's different you know so I think that I would
137be open to changing the policy to State sexually explicit so that if it is sexually explicit parents are at least notified of that because gosh forbid a parent it doesn't they do a search and and look up you know I mean what was the last one Empire of storms that we voted on which Mr Heath said was only one chap small chapter out of the I don't know 800 page book that mentioned graphically you know sexual acts um depicting sexual acts in graphic detail so that you know a parent not going to be like looking through to chapter 38 let me let me go online and search that that so I think that it's just like you said an added layer this whole process is why not just keep that added layer instead of taking
138something away we're trying to build on it I have a question though I guess in that scenario um if we had this system implemented and you got an email or a request um whether it's a notification or you know depending on which group your child was in you would have the ability to search it on I know you often I think somebody's referenced is it good book looks book looks so I mean there are tools out there you could Google it you could certainly you know research the book uh that you know your child's asking to to read um and and that way you could under you wouldn't have to go to you know Chapter 30 page 56 you know you would have the ability to kind of research it beforehand right isn't that how
139this would work work someone correct me if I'm wrong but is that how that's what I envisioned yeah okay well my so my think the only way that would work first of all if you were to look up um Empire of Storms and I looked it up many times just to get a quick oh you know what is this book about a quick blurb it didn't have anything about what was in there so you you know so maybe if if I'd be okay with if you're going to when we send out that notification for permission that we um mention make some recommendations if like book book looks so that people can parents can actually get right to the meet of it you know to see what it is because it also is a liability you
140know I think most parents that are going to just let's be honest parents are busy they have a lot of kids they're working they have a lot going on they may just be like oh gosh there's a lot of people are surprised that we had this book in the light in our schools anyway so if they just you know are nonchalant about it and oh yeah they can have full access and they find out that there's that kind of content that's a I feel like that we're liable for that what the LI I'm sorry go ahead okay so wouldn't the liability also be on the school then too because then parents would be relying on the The Librarian the district or whatever to provide recommendations as you say what if we're wrong what if we're
141missing one what if we're as as Mrs cook said this list that we're making might not be inclusive so then if they're relying on the district to provide that recommendation and find out oops we were wrong or oops we forgot or we missed a page whatever the case might be there's liability there too I think it's just an added like we had mentioned an added layer I don't think that we're saying we're just saying don't take anything away if we're trying to build on this and build you know trust in the community and parents Etc why would we take another layer away especially if we do have we know that there is a liability if a child has trauma and then reads A Book Like That and has been harmed from it there could be
142potential liability with that so just kind of an added layer to notify parents hey this one you know has is sexually explicit or has you know graphic detail of sexual acts there's also um in other states there's a lot of states that have already switched over and they are now finding um Librarians schools boards etc for providing books that are uh sexually explicit not sexual content sexually explicit depicting you know um graphically in detail uh sexual acts to minor so I think it would be wise for us not to take it away and to just build on it and come together with the added um layer that we had me that Mr Heath had mentioned tonight what do we do though if we are not comprehensive what do you mean so if there is some
143content that is not recognized in an item it's not on a list the other issue too and I was going to mention in terms of the elementary school the maturity level between a 5-year-old and an 11-year-old is significant the difference between a 14-year-old and an 18-year-old is significant so do you designate a book as being mature content parental discussion needed or whatever based on what the youngest student who has access so let's say a World War II book might be adequately written for the sensibilities of an 11-year-old maybe my 5-year-old not so much can I clarify are you talking about the so you're not talking about the sexual content you're not talking about sexual but any kind of a a marking where we assume the duty of recognizing where anything belongs and anticipating how somebody
144might interpret the content of a book I think what I like the most about this process is a we recognize that we don't have a huge volume of books going home for any individual child it's a couple higher at higher grades probably none so I don't think it's unusually burdensome for a parent to look at one or two titles if they have concerns and whatever their concerns I recog ize and and respect but I'm not going to try to second guess anticipating what you know there may be religious prohibitions there may be political considerations all of those kinds of things that we've seen in some of the book challenges that things that would seem innocuous to one person may be deeply concerning to somebody else I I don't think you can police all of it
145and I'm not using that word in terms of like you know ugly control but just trying to to be a comprehensive reliable buffer where somebody might have a concern so if I get the notice that my son has checked out this book and this book I can simply look into it or tell them don't check out any more books it's you know whatever it might be but if we assume that Duty I worry that it it's a false sense of security and that your point I think is excellent the vast majority of things in our libraries are completely innocuous you know it's bees you know Australia whatever it might be and that um you know parents don't need to have an undue concern but we're saying that we're not trying to prejudge what is right
146for your child your family because you know best for your child so I love the idea of ultimately respecting parental rights and control and they get to say so and I like the way it's arranged too so that there is empathy for a student just that first time you don't get your book until you know a parent has a chance to to check it so I think it's worth putting it in the water and see if it flows yeah I'm I'm fine with let's do a trial run and see how many parents come back and want that and see if it's feasible um but to Annie's point with the sexual explicit you know obviously we can't we have to have some kind of disclaimer on our notifications like we cannot guarantee that every book has
147been marked but for the majority of the like books that are sexually explicit when they come in front of us um and we can do searches to find those I think that that's at least showing that we're making an effort um but yeah I'm fine with let's see how many parents want that um approval and I guess you know go from there I think too um just to clarify a point about the policy the sexual content policy right now it is only Mr Heath went above and beyond and by flagging the additional books that were brought up by a a Community member um so that you know they'd be flagged and not all of them necessarily would be challenged but but the policy actually states that it is only for anything coming in that's new
148and anything that's been challenged so that takes way you know our policy we'd fall back on our policy that states anything new or or challenged so it's just an extra layer I don't think we should take it away I I know I just I think that that's why it's such poor policy because it it doesn't work well because it's so limited it and it's one thing when you have it in the curricul ulum the teacher that's about to teach it they know that book inside and out they can tell you it has sexual content and we're you know sending home a notification and you can pick an alternate material but because right now we're like well if this is brought up it's on the list but if it hasn't been it it's it's weak and
149we're we're putting ourselves at risk we're putting our students um when parents feel they don't want the kids to see this material it's not protecting them at all it is in no way protecting them so a parent that goes so far as to say I don't want my child to come home without a book without permission will take the time in a week to get an email and research the book and there are many different sources out there that they can do to research the book I mean it's a quick Google is there sexual content in this is there you know controversial topics in this is this book dangerous I mean everyone knows how to Google search they can make a phone call if if they felt they needed more guidance to any of the
150school I I just don't understand why it's not enough for a parent that says I want to know I want to give permission if they have the opportunity to give permission why we would say that that's not enough I it just doesn't make sense to me I don't see and from my perspective I don't know why we would fight so hard to remove the flagging system to notify parents that there's sexually explicit material in a book especially A Book Like The Bluest Eye which is extremely graphic and you know emphasizes pedophilia and molestation of a minor and I think people expect us to have standards so if we're going to include books like that I do think we should continue flagging them but it's not consistent though because if we're only CH or if we're
151only considering flagging the books that are new or challenged then there might be other books in our Stacks that could have that content so it's I guess to your point Mrs cook that's what makes it weak policy um and uh furthermore um part of the impetus behind a new policy framework like this is to help us move Beyond book challenges um because they have taken and we talked about this last month they have taken up so much time they have taken up so many resources um so much of the board's time Mr Heath's time so it sort of negates the whole point of the the idea and that's I think maybe what you were trying to say I I want parents to feel confident that they have control over what their child reads and I
152don't know how better it is to say can your child read this and they say yes and they sign it I don't know how we can get any more strict than that so I think the the the the real the reality is you you're a teacher you're not every you say it's as simple to Google it's not as simple and a lot of parents aren't going to even look because their assumption is that this stuff isn't going to be in school so why don't to do that then why don't we make sure that when we send that notification home we put somewhere on there that you know some kind of disclaimer ple we you know it is our this we haven't been able to vet every single one we can't guarantee it's a this is
153a process we're marking as as needed whatever we re give recommendations you know we recommend that you look to make sure Beyond a couple lines do your research just to protect the district so so just a statement that's on the permission slip that just says you know we please research the book that your child is yeah I think a lot of parents are going to IGN the email ual content Poli oh yes yes but I'm just saying in general keep keep you know don't assume that because parents we know look how hard it is to get the um annual update it's hard for parents to put that time in and we want to we don't want anyone to be surprised I think they they assume that we it's everything that comes from the school has
154to legally be fine and it can't you know and as we saw by what was read it's not always that the case so um I know what you're saying it seems how what more could you do but we want to we want we don't want to just throw out a um a policy or a method that's going to help us check the box we want to make it E really what's in the best interest of the kids and and help parents get there too so and I think um you know we had I heard it's weak policy well I didn't recommend doing it from only new material and challenge material the original policy proposal was to include everything and vet everything so that was changed because there was discussion about oh yeah um Is it
155feasible is it not feasible so um I I don't believe we should ever I mean The Bluest Eye it was brought up for for a vote we heard the exerpts tonight there are going to be parents who are not okay with that and who don't know that title who deserve to have just a little flag there hey you know just an added precaution why would we take away an added precaution it just doesn't make because again we're we're letting parents know what the child is asking to take out so again it puts it back on the district and we're trying to alleviate the burden of that work uh from our very overworked and overwhelmed staff um and it's a shared responsibility truly between the parents uh Guardians and the school so we have to work
156together and ultimately respect the rights of the parents and caregivers um and I think that this policy does that I think a shared responsibility is what I'm also getting at it's you're putting it on the parents but then also we're doing our part when it comes to sexually explicit materials and and just you know working with them and collaborating with them so okay did you get all that Mr Eve no I'm just kidding been trying to take notes um do you do you have enough information to draft policy we can make an another attempt at it um so so really taking what we've done or what I presented here earlier making sure that we have the classroom Library component added into this at some level and and again I've been kind of jotting some some
157questions in my own mind about that that process as well um and then was there something about adding something to the approval slip like a disclaimer but so I guess here's I just want to clarify what we're doing next um just so I can see Mr Heath is is maybe looking for direction and so I I guess if we can compartmentalize some of this because we kind of talked about a few different areas of policy here if if we could just start with drafting this one here with the classroom Library uh component Incorporated could we just say like that that can start moving forward is that what we're agreeing to so it would be a policy that would create two levels of access for Library materials and it sounds like classroom Library materials where you
158would have notified access and then the access with permission M and I think it would be important to in taking all this into account that Mr Heath will confer with it the people who have to administer it I worry more about classroom libraries than anything else since they're not in digital records and even even like older kids can jot down the name of the book that they're taking or putting on reserve or whatever with you know 11 fivey olds but I think taking what he's mapped out seems very reasonable let's see how that works for this coming fall and regroup if if it doesn't seem workable or you know whatever the uh implementation is going to be maybe not add anything else till we see how that goes just start start here but I it
159does sound like we're going to need to address other areas of 2520 that series of policy when it comes to lists of books or flagging marking whatever we're going to call it um so that would need to be dealt with separately it sounds like right yeah I don't see it as part of this policy i' would say we should look separately at making sure that our language is is clear we had a few different discussions about the sexual content you know what it really does does that does that sound better Mr Heath I just your brow was so furro over there I was trying to come to your rescue I just done with this whole conversation I hear you um um so are we looking at this from the administrative guidelines standpoint or do you
160want this part of policy I thought it was policy yeah so we will do the first part under the policy that would be part of the selection of library media center material so that it's explicit in there and then the second part would be in I'd have to look at the specific series again to figure out which one it is but uh incorporating a library media center material checkout procedure um in the policy for just the library media center pieces right there and then figuring out um because I I know part of the the classroom Library component um when those came out and and I've got to go back to what our what we did at the beginning of the year I think the those lists were made available um during uh the opening parent
161meeting night um where they were able to review those things there you know and and trying to figure out how we operationalize this with our classroom teachers and that the again those are some of the questions that I'm writing myself here as we're having this conversation as well um trying to incorporate that into this particular part of the policy too so you're you're saying incorporate the silent reading Time Books not just because I know previously it was you can come in you can look over the list but the as we know there was a book George in there that most parents wouldn't have you know wouldn't would have glossed right over it and as a board not the new new board members but we had decided not to include that in the collection um because
162it was not appropriate you know for fifth grade students yeah because those are broken down by specific grade level to with those classroom libraries so that they were very specific to the grade level um so that that may be part of the language that I'll pull into this as well and and I'll try and get that sent out um in our board board update this week so that we can see how all of that might kind of intertwine I'd almost like to suggest something a little different with the classroom library and and I don't know if that's you know something we might want to think about and and see um getting input from the teachers but a lot of times those books are like silent reading free read types of things they're not checked out
163right so if there was an opportunity during um openhouse or you know visit days where the books are out and the parents can just come in and maybe they it's more of a I don't want my child reading these books and it's kind of a list yeah if they want if if a parent so chose to do look through the library and just decide I I don't want my kids reading these then maybe that's more of a the restricted access and that way versus they get a note back and forth every day because that would that could become very cumbersome I think though that we've had a lot of issues with the collaborative classroom book list like the material that is in that and it's for silent reading time so if we're talking about parental
164rights parents deserve to know what their kids are reading during silent reading time especially when they're not able to bring them at least with library books if anything I think it should be applied more to the classroom Library than anything else because the kid doesn't bring it home so the parents don't know so they would know though because how would they know because if if your child was in our district they would go you would look in your classroom and you would say I don't like this book this book this book so they would have a list of you know Mrs Payne's child wouldn't read these books but you don't yeah and there's books like anango makes three which is a huge controversial book that's in our second grade classrooms most parents wouldn't look at
165that it's two penguins and a a little baby penguin on the cover most parents would just gloss right over that they're not you know if you tell them hey it's actually you know a book about two male penguins that you know kind of adopt this other penguin and they fall in love and whatever so that that to me is not giving parents the right to know what's in there kids classroom during silent reading time you're putting all of the ownership on the parents and we don't have that shared collaborative process then so you would say like they would just do the same thing they would bring a slip home like tomorrow I'm going to read the Penguin book and it I don't know the name was what Tango makes and Tango makes three and Tango
166makes three so tomorrow my child's going to read and Tango makes three and then it comes back and and you would say I don't want my child to read that book so then you then the child goes well I can't read that book so is there another book yeah yeah so that's that's how you're envisioning it or some kind of yeah I mean I think parents deserve to know what their kids reading and I think a lot of times too they read the same from talk at least from me talking with some Elementary School teachers they might read the same book for you know several days so yeah but I I'm not opposed to that either I just was trying to think about how we could make it easier in the classroom yeah I see
167what you're saying I just think what we're doing right now is not working by putting it out on on the meet the teacher night nobody wants to sit there and and then we're not allowing them to take a picture of the books so they can't go home and Google search them if we were like hey these are the books that are in the classroom take them home look over them some may they may have controversial themes in some of them I mean one book even it was like for fourth grade or something no maybe third grade and it was talking about how many child marriages there are in the United States and that for some people might be like I don't want my kid reading about that you know so I think we should get
168the silent reading Time Books just as much you know parental yeah for that I can get behind that I I have no problem with letting parents know and letting them decide what their their child can and cannot read I mean that's why I propose this so okay that let me that may take a little bit longer than Friday to get that figured out but um but I think I've got the direction so I will um um at the very least I'll make sure we've got the the library media center material pieces to you guys um and where that might fit in policy um by Friday the classroom Library component then um that may be a couple more weeks um to do some digging and and have conversations with not just our administrators this is going
169to get into the classroom teacher aspect as well we can kind of start that process a little bit tomorrow um we actually have a meeting uh with our uh our Union representation that we can kind of toss this out there as hey we need to gather some information about how this might work um and and start to figure out how those procedures might look in each individual classroom that we have across the the district here um okay I I think I've got the direction thank you thank you okay um another matter of unfinished business that it isn't on the agenda but it we do need to mention it is our scholarship committee we have two members of the scholarship committee Miss maraza and Mrs Payne and they now have all of the applications um and
170the only reason that we're mentioning this is because you you it it is a board committee and as a board committee we need to Sunshine notice when you are getting together to um discuss your candidates for to recommend for the scholarship um we do need to have that done before the senior night and um I I trust that you can look through those applications and then talk with Mr Heath about a time that you can both get together to have that done in time so let me know okay because I I do the sunshine notice and then we we'll put it for executive session we should be talking about student information yes thank you and then one of you will have to be your secretary okay thank you provide me with the minutes so that
171we can get them approved at a later date and because it's executive session it wouldn't necessarily have minutes right oh that's good point yeah uh any just that yeah your time you started who was present um mhm what time and then when you motion to end the meeting gotcha okay and then any discussions that you would have that wouldn't be relevant to Executive session need to be documented just any discussions that would you say outside of executive session that you had that might be relevant okay um we will now address new business and our first item is um board policy 01691 one public participation at board meetings discussion and Miss maraza asked that this was on so going to open thank you madam president um so yes I I would like to uh discuss this
172as a group today um I have some ideas um this is a topic that is really important to me and notably the um engagement with the public um in fact only almost exactly one year ago um it was April 11th 2023 was sitting out there in the audience In This Very Room I made my way up to the podium to talk about school safety that day actually um but also to talk about public participation and engagement and what I said was I had my notes that I pulled out from that day um I got up there and I said you know the hearing of the public is really important um it all gives us the chance to stand up to speak out and put in our two cents as parents and taxpayers um but but
173honestly it's it was the same thing every month and it I don't think it's changed too terribly much um since I have come to sit on this um on this board so uh the hearing of the public I I think the real challenge with it is that it's very oneway and that is what I said that night as well it doesn't provide the opportunity for actual dialogue and collaboration which is the only real path to resolution on the constant stream of issues that we face and I continued saying that's why I'm asking the board and administration tonight to create a space and opportunity for dialogue that enables us to come together to create Solutions I suggested an advisory committee a group of parents or community members overseen by a mediator um and basically I said
174however it's done it's got to be done soon please I asked the board to invest in this type of effort so that we can work through the division through our differences and create solutions that will make Menor School the best it can possibly be I hope this sounds familiar to you all um and quite a few people I was surprised to hear um clapped that night um some of them are in this very room tonight so today here we are one year later I'm sitting up here as an elected member of the governing board and it is a privilege and I have the opportunity now to do something about this it's an issue that I campaigned on I promised that I would address it and so I'm doing that today our policy states that the
175board should quote conduct its meetings in a productive and efficient manner that assures the agenda of the board is completed in as in a reasonable period of Time end quote and I hope we can all agree that last month's 5-hour meeting a record uh was not a reasonable period of time for anyone uh not the public not the board or the staff I would have to wake up very early in the morning to run our schools and indeed we didn't even finish the business of the day we had to schedule an additional meeting just so that we could conduct our executive session that means that we all had to get together again we had to Sunshine a meeting we had to all be paid and basically the taxpayers cost doubled that night so there are
176a lot of costs there are opportunity costs there is actual monetary costs and of course there's the cost of us not being able to address the true business and finally the cost of the loss of public trust and of course we're already struggling with that as it is so I still believe we're not making enough progress in this area which is why today I'm proposing that we revisit our overall approach to public engagement our current approach as I said earlier was very oneway with speakers coming up to the podium they share their thoughts and that's important we should maintain that however we must have dialogue we also need to ensure that we as a board are making the best use of our time the best use of our leadership here in this District's time and
177the Public's time of course and we want to ensure that we can solve problems that will improve student achievement in our district so what I'd like to see us do is maintain a reasonable space for public comment in our regular board meetings these meetings that we're at tonight but I would like to limit them as many other districts do in fact we're kind of an outlier I did a bunch of research before tonight um and found many districts have time limits of various lengths it really it does vary and I'll provide some examples here coming up but if we do this we have to create another space for dialogue that will allow us to be more productive more constructive going forward so I did look around in other districts and here's what I found one
178idea is to have a single session for public comment as most of you who have been coming to these meetings for a long time some of you just started coming so you all know now that we have two sections for public comment so some districts choose to consolidate those into a single session some keep the two sessions but they make them shorter um they have time limits for public comment ranging from 20 minutes to 60 minutes and each case of course these could be extended by a majority of the so like for for example if we see that there are going to be a lot of speakers who do want to speak the bo board could actually vote to extend the time limit so there's still flexibility there and I'm open to all of these
179ideas these are just some um Willoughby Eastlake has a 20 minute limit for public comment and they cap it at seven speakers which is interesting I don't know how I feel about that um brex phille Broadview Mayfield City Schools Hamilton and Maryville and Forest Hills all have a 30 minute uh limit um Forest Hills kind of does it a little differently where they have one 30 minute session no cap on speakers but they'll adjust the time per speaker if they um have more additional you know spe more than expected so for example if they've got 10 speakers in 30 minutes everyone gets 3 minutes but if they have additional speakers everyone gets less time so they kind of make those adjustments as needed um chardan and Kenston they have 60-minute limits um Beachwood West Lake
180they have two sessions of 15 minutes each um Riverside doesn't have a specified time limit but it they in their policy they note that the presiding officer can choose to impose a limit um if they choose um so those are just some different ideas of what in fact I kind of found that we were an anomaly in a way with no time limit whato ever so that's something to think think about and I'm not suggesting I I want to make it clear I don't want to do away with public participation that was never my intention I apologize for any rumor going around that I would want to do such a thing anyone who knows um knows me from these meetings knows that I've supported it and participated it in a long time but um what
181I want to suggest is is that we allow this space for that one-way conver not conversation that one way a monologue honestly is what it is but that we open up another space for dialogue um so that could look like a few things there's um coughing conversation with school leadership this is something Dr Ward does in Willoughby East like and so far it's been going really really well um we can include the superintendent the Mr CFO uh and possibly board members if they choose to attend um we could do and and this is something that we I think Mr Heath has already embarked on with our strategic plan is um Community presentations with uh you know sessions for Q&A um Town Hall meetings possibly that's another idea that I heard about uh a district in
182Ohio is doing Town Hall meetings for 30 minutes before their regular public meetings to give space for dialogue it could be about a certain topic every time anyway so um these are some ideas I want to open it up to the board I know that 5 hours is a record that's not typical but um it's it is typical for us to have thre hour 4H hour meetings we all know that we've been doing these a long time so I I really my goal is to help us streamline our meetings and actually we just got an email this morning about that from a Community member saying five hours is beyond the pale um let's let's fix this so this is again something that's important to me something that I think will help us improve our meetings
183and also um improve things for all of you folks who so diligently attend every month so I'll stop there and open to some thoughts so just to clarify you you're you said you didn't want to limit but that you wanted to add on but then you said we would possibly get rid of and only have one section would you be open to keeping it how it is but also adding on and just doing those forms because I think that's a great idea I'm sorry what's your question can you just repeat it yeah so are you looking to get rid of one of the sections of public commentary in order to add the forums I'm looking to well I'm honestly open to ideas what I suggested was to consolidate them that means having public comment on
184agenda items and not agenda items put together that's literally what that means right so so you would have like willbe like I'm aware of what they do over there but why would we not continue and then also add on to with those Toano meetings and see if the public commentary then automatically goes down um because the idea is to streamline the meeting right and so if we're going to if we can limit the space here but add over here I'm looking for balance and I'm looking for more productive and effective meetings and I think that that's that's you know limiting here but opening up space here would allow us to do that that's what I'm suggesting um okay I like the idea of having you know two-way communication um I am in no way in
185favor of limiting in any way so when controversial issues come up and we that's when we have a lot of people coming to speak and we saw last last month um already we had a decrease in people speaking because they see that we're we came up with a solution and we're listening to what they're saying so um if we just do more of that if we just start listening to what our voters are saying and asking we won't have this I would I would Echo that I would agree with that I think we've had this conversation we had it probably about a I don't know a year ago um with Tom and Mary on the board and we when we came up with some of these changes to the policy because we already did restricted
186before it was no time limit you know we would just completely go go forever and we did have meetings like we had last month several times and then that's why we changed up the um the registration process and all that so I do think that we and we were we were given some of the details of the other neighboring districts as well um I would be very hesitant I would not support limiting public commentary any further even though I've been here for two and a half years and I've had my fair share I think all of us have of um you know not so nice comments but that's that's their right right you know that's what they they they get to do that for three minutes and no absolutely people should get their three minutes
187um what I'm suggesting is allowing space for a better opportunity for discussion for a higher quality conversation those people would still have their three M or however many minutes they would still have the ability to participate in public discussion but it would be higher quality it would get us somewhere it wouldn't just have us sitting here listening we as as practice dictates can't respond to questions when when Miss brayy I believe it was got up and you know she didn't get an answer answer to her question because that's not our protocol and so what I'm looking for I'm after is a higher quality conversation I think that the only issue with that too because we had had this discussion um previously was that if we only limit it to the beginning then we vote on
188something and people feel like they don't get to you know get up to the podium whether we like it or not yeah I mean I'm open to where it happened honestly like but then that's the problem then though because that you can't you can't have it just at the end because then people deserve to speak on agenda items prior to to our vote but they also deserve to speak at the end based on our vote and we could I suggested multiple formats so it's I'm not married to any single one of these the way we do it I just think I want to see better interaction with community and I I don't think that this format allows it we ran into also an issue of legality with deciding who then gets to speak that gets
189us into Muddy Waters and so because if we have only 30 minutes of public speaking in the beginning who and we have you know yeah so the way the other districts have done this is to um this might fault to Mr Wade it might fall I don't know who exactly but um the person whoever is um it can't obviously be any of us uh has to ensure a diversity of opinion so for example um I know will be Eastlake and other districts um I can't remember exactly which one here that I have written it could have been Beachwood but they they ensure um uh you know A diversity of of opinion so basically if somebody gets up and says I don't want funding for that baseball field or what have you and then the next
190person says I don't want funding for that Bas baseball field either um basically you want to have one um person get up and represent that point of view and then the rest is sort of redundant right so that's kind of what I'm looking at is is a allowing someone to cultivate um uh that public comment opportunity with diversity of opinion um without redundancy to help us really streamline our meetings a bit would some I mean Mr Wade would you feel comfortable ensuring diversity of opinion and having that all on you first I can speak for myself thank you um I I don't know I don't know if I could I mean I don't know if I can do that to be quite Frank um I do understand the redundancy Point um we do randomize the
191people who sign up so I use Google it does it for me I don't do it I just put the names in based on how they come in right before the meeting I I highlight them click randomize the data set it shuffles them through and that's how we get just in case you wondered that's how I know who's going to speak when I don't put them in my order that I want to do that because I don't really care to do that I mean that's just it's just easier to use technology to make it random um for that being said if you chose to do that and you said that we're going to limit it to six speakers each session I can't guarantee with that method that we're going to get Diversified opinion because it
192could be five people who all believe one way and it could be the one person who doesn't um so you know that's that's the piece yeah we I think we attend several of us to not this past November the November before attended that osba Capital conference um and we had kind of asked pose this question to the presenter and he recommended that you don't limit the like pick and choose who gets to speak because it does get could get you into um you know legal issues so I don't know if you I think I swear you were you guys were in it too I I believe so the a couple thoughts I I love having the other dialogue piece you know ways that we can engage with a community that we can pick topics that
193are important to the community and and have Forums on them where you know we can have discussion or inform answer any questions any myths out there so I I I love that part and and I hope that we do that at a bare minimum one thing that I see and maybe it's it's just the role as the president is one thing that we have an issue with right now with the two formats for public participation the agenda non-agenda items is the agenda sometimes we have people that speak on non-agenda items it's true and sometimes we have people that really stretch what that agenda item is so you're kind of like because we're talking about money is that an agenda item because money's on our agenda right how we you know so it it has become
194difficult to police that um not that that's the only reason but to to have it restrictive with agenda non-agenda items I'm not sure that that's super effective because I don't know that we really follow it if we did one point of public participation I hear what Mrs pay is saying do you do it I I would definitely want to hear what their input before I take a vote because that is the purpose is to inform us and and we're listening to to their vote to your point about not being able to engage with us after the vote they would be engaging with us in a different way they could still email us they could still talk to us afterwards and they could also talk at the next meeting so if we only had one public
195participation I would say that it wouldn't have limits so it wouldn't be just agenda items it would be agenda and non-agenda items and then people wouldn't have to wait for hours to talk because maybe someone just had a point where I hey I just wanted to talk about the cafeteria but you started at 7 and now it's 10: and and I'm still sitting here listening to you so it's a it's a point that if we had one public participation at the beginning and it wasn't limited to anything then that would that might be nicer for people yeah I think even that would just be an improvement alone so these are just ideas talked to other districts you know looked at other policies um I think any any movement would be a positive one I stand
196pretty firm on having both opportunities on agenda items I think to your point Mrs cook they we could put I mean they already have to fill out a form so why don't we make it a requirement where they have to list on the form what agenda item specifically they're you know going to speak about so I think that could clear up some of it I don't think it's something that happens all the time but to for your to your point I can understand what you're saying and I I think we could fix it with something you know like that but to take away public commentary from one section I I just well I wouldn't say take it away they just are allowed to speak at any time they can speak at the beginning about anything
197they wish right it wouldn't be that they could only speak on agenda items they could just they can just speak whenever I I just feel like that's I think people deserve the right after we vote to get up and say oh you guys didn't bring up this point or you voted and you forgot this part of it you know and they could have a valid point I just think it's their right they should be able to do it I actually defended miss maraza here in uh September of 2022 I think it was um and actually Fox News had reported on it and said one woman attacked Payne I don't believe that you attacked me so just to clarify that but uh you know there was definitely a review and critique of me and it says
198the Republican board member um attacked Payne the Republican board member for being so vocal about the issue without having of her any of her own children in the school district she was interrupted multiple times by community members you were interrupted but pay defended her right to speak and I said I'm for First Amendment rights so I'd be glad for you to finish a review of me um and then I said I'd like to use mine as well so you go ahead and then you had said you get to sit there and I don't the woman shop back that's the difference so now you're sitting here and I think we should give people the same right that you have to speak on the beginning and at the end and I'm I'm firm on that I get
199that we are still [Music] allowing thank you please to clarify again we are still allowing folks to participate in public comment we're talking about consolidating and Nothing is Stopping them from doing so the following meeting or contacting us independently to share their thoughts post vote the opportunity is still there well you're cutting in half though but no because we're not talking about time limits we're consolidating it into a single section so these good folks out here don't have to wait till midnight to say their peace I think a solution to that aspect of the agenda is make the first one make both of them on anything and that way folks that want to get something out can say it at the beginning and leave and then folks that want to rebut at the end have
200that opportunity as well but I think each voter should have the opportunity to get their six minutes regardless of how we where we put that and again I we're already seeing a big decrease I don't know what the second public you know tonight is going to be as if fits long but yeah it's longer than the first you know I think we've had a lot of turmoil in the last couple years and that's why these meetings are like this they shouldn't be like this all the time Jenny have you had in your in your no tenure this is unprecedented so let's just listen to everybody work together as a board and then we we will be out of here sooner I hope that's just [Applause] my so it's the time if it was six minutes
201at the beginning it wouldn't well I agree with Mrs P think sometimes you know we need to be held accountable for a vote and and that gives they have the right to stand up there and you know take a I'm not disagreeing I just want to clarify your no I like how it is I think the changes that were made and signing up and making sure that you live here um that you're not coming in from out out of the district and speaking you know I think those changes were good and I I I don't think it's G to needs to be a problem month after month and that's should be our goal you know so I wouldn't change it at all agenda except the agenda part at the beginning if you know to say
202it they don't it doesn't have to be an agenda item that I would be okay with okay any other discussion on on this that's an interesting point actually because maybe if we did do that but we still had in the policy that you can't speak on the same topic twice that's what our policy says now like you can't speak on an agenda item and then at the end speak on that same agenda item no you can you can you can yeah I thought it said you can't you always speak of this topic once one time yeah but you could speak at two different correct but you can't talk about the same topic topic right oh okay you couldn't talk about books twice oh you have to talk about books and finance right so you're recommending
203everybody on the finance Finance got it um but yeah to to to your point I do think that maybe maybe if we change the beginning to both that would help the point that Miss maraza had about people you know having to wait till the end but also I know that we've had disc questions before about how beneficial it is we don't want people just come in speak and then leave and not see the outcome of what they're speaking on or see the discussion because that leaves questions so I just feel that that makes it hard for some folks to part participate especially if they have child care you know and you they maybe can't stay until midnight or whatever time it is right now um that you know we don't those folks unfortunately have to
204opt out of speaking in the second half of the meeting so that's another consideration to think about I have concerns about the time for our CEO and our CFO yeah I if it was just us MH you know right that's what I signed up for right but I don't know that it's a good use of their time five hours of their time imagine if the it was a 90minut meeting and the other three and a half hours could have been devoted to something else right I would argue that that something else would have been a productive and positive so I don't know if we had a town hall interactive format that it would resolve anything one of the reasons why we don't have an interactive format is that there is not necessarily an opportunity to
205gather thoughtful factual datadriven information to respond in a coherent meaningful way yeah so having a group or an individual Express their opinion and demand answers if I don't have answers at my fingertips I need time to compile answers I don't know that that's going to be good I think that we would have to put in some structure around that and um allow our leaders to curate um the content right so this month's Town Hall will be about topic a and you know that individual can come prepared and this is what they do in other districts they come prepared perhaps um somebody from the staff comes prepared to deliver a presentation on topic a and they are prepared with data and information for expected questions that might come up so it would have to have some
206structure and curation to it but um I do I do think it it's important for us to provide an opportunity for conversation we don't have that we're starting it a little bit with our strategic plan and this provides a really good opportunity for us to delve a little deeper into it and see what it Nets us because I I have been coming to these meetings for a long time I have not seen progress in this area no yeah and I think we can all agree on that well I think it comes down to like rose has mentioned and I mentioned previously in previous board meetings I don't think reducing public commentary like the options of having it beginning at at the end is going to solve any issue I think we need to look at
207the root cause of the issues and solve that because then the outcome of that will be a reduction in public commentary if we take away let's say the last portion I think it's going to upset a lot of people and maybe instead of coming to speak they're going to have protests or they're going to you know email us a lot more they're going to schedule meetings with Mr Heath or you know whatnot and I I know we're going to eventually ask for lby too and I just don't think we saw the Lake County Commissioners just reduced their public commentary and there were a lot of Articles written about that and it did not look good to a lot of people so but I think that's the point of having implementing a new dialogue space right
208so that we can address dis difference and disagreement um so that we can address because the root cause of issue a might be different depending on who you're talking to right there's difference of opinion one-way monologues do nothing to solve that they don't and so if we're going to pave the way for a levy ask in the future we better start getting out there and talking to our community again total credit to Mr Heath for already starting that I think we need to expand it and I I would agree with you I'm all for the town hall I'm for an additional Avenue but I'm not for removing or replacing anything else so that's where I stand okay I I think it's always good to revisit we have a new board now and and have new
209discussions so is there any other discussion that we want to have regarding around that okay our second um area it's also it's not on the agenda but um Mrs aapo asked that we discuss um discipline we've had some discipline concerns um kind of on the rise lately and as Mr Heath mentioned we've had a specific rise in some like insubordinate behavior and and those types of things so I I'll be quick because of the time but um yeah so I this is something that I've um this has been it's kind of on my list of of things to tackle and it's a big issue as a parent um and just also now as a board member but um as I'm working on it for next month's agenda um I'm hearing more and more between the
210kids and then just from people asking me do you hear about fights I heard that a teacher was injured separating a fight um you know the kids the the teenagers in my house joke that you know when you go into the bathroom there's a puff of smoke you can't even get in there they're they're joking that they dehydrate themselves all day so they don't have to use the bathroom till they get home so I mean I was just kind of like enough is enough so that's the reason that I with my last minute um agenda request and um I missed the deadline so that's why it wasn't on the agenda but um I guess what I want to do is similar with the cell phone policy I don't know that we need to tweak the
211policy at all um it may just be let's talk about it let's I would like to get some data I know that um our policy um says that our superintendent should give us updates on um just some stats on discipline and infaction so I'd like to get some of those things hear from our principles what what do they think is holding them back from getting this under control um I know that we use the um PBIS the um positive behavioral intervention support and that's I think a little too maybe too soft for these kids these days I think we need to get a little tougher so I guess my call to action is to Let's can we get some data in front of us um so that we as a board can look and see
212what do we need to do is it just going to be you know I want to know what our what our um do we need to bring back tougher consequences do we need a lot of students when we talk to them in that AP class said we want in school suspensions back getting an out of school suspension is like a vacation and I agree so you know I know there's that's a probably a funding thing because we don't have the staff for that The Vaping now it's not just vaping and smoking nicotine they are getting high in and all day in school so that's a huge issue so so I think um maybe we have to look at spending some money to have you know and and and let students know there's going to be
213more searches um you know for vaping and you know I know there was discussion about um detectors um I don't know there's good and bad um how how how effective those are so um I just you know the bottom line is this is a tough world and we kids thrive on on tough but kind gentle but tough discipline and we need to make sure that our kids understand that there's consequences to their actions because when they leave here um you know life isn't going to be gentle to them they're not going to get five six seven you know chances so I just think that we owe it to our kids especially to our students that are repeat offenders who we know come from very difficult home lives they they need that discipline and that love
214in school more than anybody so you know we need to discipline equally to all of our students and certainly support them and you know getting in trouble frequently is a red flag so support them but they still have to know they're going to get that consequence and maybe maybe they'll there's incentive there for them to not start a fight or not to be vaping in the bathroom so I guess my call to action like I said is the to get some data and then we can revisit and I don't know if the safety um committee wants to come up with ideas and then we can look at the policies um in our um policy leaz on committee and then come together but something needs to we need to take action I think the Safety Committee
215because I had actually before you asked to put it on the agenda I had already I sent an email to uh Craig and I said hey we have that safety you know can we have a safety meeting because I also have SRO SRO yes we want to go ahead with the retired um police officer issues and and program but I had mentioned that I wanted to talk about discipline as well I I think we could have that discussion at this in the safety meeting I'd be fine with that and and if you could come with the data I think that would be great because I know Ohio Revised Code we've had this issue before where people are like why doesn't show up on your website as bullying how many bullying but Ohio revised code is
216so specific in terms of what the definition of bullying is if it doesn't meet that exact definition it's not technically bullying but I think it would be helpful to have incidents that are listed or whatnot yeah and that's why we kind of expanded the way we actually report that now too we'll still have the bullying data which is the the requirement but uh yeah we call it like mean Behavior years um and we've pulled all of those discipline uh codes as well and have that uh on our website now too um but yeah that's that's something we can easily pull and uh and have a presentation on here in in may also our student code of conduct that that all of our policies refer to is um a little outdated it's and it's was very
217difficult to find so if we can maybe maybe that's something we need to look at and maybe um do like a avor or discipline rubric and make things more specific you know if you do this this is what's happening to you um and streamline it and then let kids know you know they they need boundaries and you know a guard rail sometimes so that might be something that we we need to do to tweak when we have the um the safety committee meeting if you could bring that information and then I had emailed you I was trying to find it so I could find the date I think it was Tuesday or Wednesday of last week about just asking for some specific things I I wish I had it in front of me and I
218could list out what I what I asked for but because I was looking at that for that earlier too and I couldn't find it again okay after I I know I read it and then yeah I tried to find it to add to my notes and I don't I'll I'll find it and make sure you you have it but there there were several things I had asked for like um Progressive discipline policy um the incidences are we seeing Trends um if so what are the trends what recommendations would you make for the board to take action on are we looking at um repeat offenders or once someone is disciplined are they you know are they likely to continue to be repeat offenders or not and and how quickly do we ramp up the repeat offenders
219so so there were several things and then you know kind of what were the precipitating events you know what what are the the fights revolving around is this mean girl things are these you know bigger issues that we we could address as a board so um I'll I'll find that email I know I think it was in an email chain I think that's why we can't find it right away but and we can get that data then for our safety committee meeting two things come to mind one is to be sure that we remain with our policy and oversight role and that we let Mr Heath do the implementation but the other thing that caught my attention this week that something that we all received a characterization of an incident like wow and as it
220turned out that incident was nothing like the young person had reported at home prompting this angry email because the the uh parent or Guardian accepted the child's explanation having taught middle school for nine years having raised my own children that sometimes it's their perception sometimes it's the story they'd like to share with you whatever it is that what caught my eye was not that contradiction that it was that the the parent was all in and outraged wanted heads to roll because you know this infraction when we never heard a peep after the the facts were revealed and as a parent I would have felt that my child had some explaining to do so what bringing that up what was the like what is your I don't want to say point but what my my point
221is that sometimes one of the most difficult pieces in the whole discipline world is the expectation that the parent or the home might have for what's appropriate or what they accept as true or not true I always think about the number of students who have a parents who say you know if somebody hits you you fight back you know that that's a whole complicated um situation so that when the implementation of discipline whether it's restorative discipline or Progressive discipline or whatever program you might use it's never simple and that I think the complexity of the world in which our children are living and what they see modeled and media you know is sometimes atrocious and it makes it very difficult so you can you can promote all the the kindness and you know collaboration teamwork
222and caring for one another but if you have somebody who's going to treat an adult who is there to supervise like their servant I just find that stunning well we also received that one email too about um the one person ended up resigning because of the behavior in the high school absolutely ugly rude disrespectful behavior and you know it's it's hard if you weren't there to witness it you know so I don't envy and I don't second guess anybody who's in that role but I recognize we all want our students to be safe we want them to be good people and behave appropriately you know the bathroom issue is a chronic one and you know again resources so do put extra dollars into supervisory resources make sure we're not micromanaging Mr Heath I think that's
223important because I absolutely respect his role in this and how he you know he's got the experience and this is his team and I think it's appropriate that we speak up when we have concerns that's that's perfectly good but beyond that I don't want to get into the the details and the outcome of that situation the final email we got we indeed saw that it was being handled appropriately by staff and so I do agree that it's important for us your mean Behavior as you called it um is that something that is also reflected in the student code of conduct you know is that do those align or is there still work to do there to bring them in alignment yeah because all of those are have have specific codes that are through our code
224of conduct so um yeah those are all included great I just want to specify what you're talking about and that you know that I think I don't think that's a problem I think they handle it perfectly I think they're they're on top of it I'm talking about assaults I'm talking about rolling on the ground punching fighting happening in schools that's that's where I think and it's not I'm not criticizing I'm not I think I'm that's very it's well within our lane to say we need to look at what's happening because whatever is whatever we're doing isn't working so um of course I ways with you know he needs us to bring up stuff and so again I I don't I'm I think that those minor disciplinary issues those are handled and they're on top of
225it it's these major things these are you know you step outside of school and you commit this kind of assault you're in trouble it shouldn't happen in school that's we have enough should be a safer safer space so that's really what I'm focusing on so just to clarify okay any more discussion on that okay next we have hearing of the public on any topic Carol Ashdown 6085 I couldn't read the rest of it two documents and one was the Ohio Revised Code 3313 6011 sex education in Ohio schools and it's kind of funny considering all of this conversation and the second was an analysis of audits for 22 and 23 conducted by the how Department of Education and Workforce so there were 607 Ohio schools who but not to the point where it is cutting
226time away from us I promise you if you take our voices away you will never get a levy out of anybody in the school district I want to thank you all tonight for listening to us and being there for our children have a good evening thank you Andrea Andrea Bliss 5421 Liberty Street I was going to pass to uh save some time but I decided that maybe we could just use some kindness um I just wanted to take a moment to thank superintendent Heath and anyone else involved in making the decision to use a Calamity day for yesterday's Eclipse I often tease my kids about how modern technology has ruined snow days but we all agreed that the virtual day over the winter was well worth it I appreciate that you listened to the official
227off requesting that people stay off the roads my family and I had a great time as I'm sure everyone else did safely enjoying this a inspiring event and sleeping in so again thank you very much for letting us have day off school thank you just as an FYI I had a kid come up to me at uh one of the buildings today and asked for a snow day I said you just got a day off yesterday are you kidding me I said you do realize it's a remote day now so you're going to have to do stuff anyway Mr he through 3 minutes are up sorry my three minutes uh James tyion 7940 new Creek good evening Madame President members of the board Mr Heath and Mr Wade uh this is late in coming but
228I wanted to give my heartfelt appreciation for the Black History Month showcase that was held last month it was amazing to see this whole Space fill with the capacity with standing room only uh there's so many positive things to share the incredible work by the students of course but also the teachers that guided them through it the Administration staff and board members that were in attendance a special shout out especially to Mrs zedric who worked hard so hard behind the scenes to coord it all coming together and to become this one cohesive presentation I wish I could mention all the names and good things I saw that night from the NAACP youth to students from Howard University the list can go on and on but there are two things that were really significant to me
229that I like to highlight the first is Mr Heath putting the weight of his position behind the event I will always felt that if change is going to happen has to be more than just Grassroots there has to be just as much momentum and energy coming from leadership Administration and teachers for that kind of change to become reality so I'm grateful that Mr Heath chose to be up front leading the presentation that night with Mrs edric he could have easily delegated the responsibility or chosen to be too busy that night but by simply being there it speaks volumes to this district and community that what we value we value diversity we value Equity we value inclusion and I really appreciate that so thank you I think that takes courage and conviction especially in light of
230the climate we live in currently the second thing that night was a conversation I was a part of with a black parent in the district his family moved back here back in the 80s one of the few black families at that time his children went to school here a few years ago and he shared with us the stories that are typical of the black experience here in this country and specifically here and Mentor when it comes to racism so when he came to the event last month he was blown away he said something to the effect never in my whole life would I expect Menor schools to put on a Black History Month event but here we are he was excited but he was also wistful I could tell it was a Bittersweet experience for
231him because I could tell he was looking back on his experience as a parent here in the 80s and 90s and seeing everybody here in this room celebrating black history I I can't even imagine what that feeling would have been like for him I lost my spot he was excited but he was whistful I learned something from that conversation there's so much more work to be done but listening to stories like that I know we are making progress one such area I know we have room for progress in is the problem of High student to teacher ratios in our classroom I know some community members addressed that issue here last month if one of the solutions is to hire more teachers I would again strongly encourage a district that those teachers be highly qualified people
232but also from diverse backgrounds I'll email you the rest thank you thank you Lynn Mazika thanks Lyn Connie Paris GIS good evening superintendent Heath and distinguished board members thank you for giving me time to speak I had planned to say all your names and give you all eye contact but I think I'm gonna shorten it my name is Connie pascavis I live in Maplewood and Men on the lake I'm a retired teacher with a master's in curriculum instruction I've taught 33 years in elementary middle school and high school combined that was in both private and public schools I'm here to promote a balanced curriculum part of your mission statement right now it appears choices are being made to normalize high-risk sexual behavior in the school curriculum and not allowing young vulnerable Minds a period of
233Innocence I am suggesting you implement a Pro-Am curriculum and sensible moral messaging void of political ideologies with that said my first suggestion is to adopt Sky Tree Book Fairs they offer transparency for families and are committed to familyfriendly value values they believe that Book Fairs should not contain hidden explicit content targeting kids their books are age appropriate next I suggest you adopt books from the American Cornerstone Institute little patriots program it is an all-in-one platform featuring online lessons at home activities patriotic books and singalongs to teach children about our country's founding principles finally I propose that prageru free lesson plans be used because they are developed to cover multiple educational standards in one lesson that is fun interacting and entertaining teachers can Implement content grounded and Traditional Values that Inspire self-reliance patriotism and resiliency while
234teaching foundational knowledge in subjects ranging from Civics to financial literacy in conclusion April is Child Abuse Prevention month too and if you do not address the immoral ideological and sexual issues targeting children now consider yourselves complicit in making them vulnerable for abuse adapt was part of your mission statement as well so I'm asking you adapt thank you for looking into these additions into the curriculum and thank you for letting me speak tonight in public thank you thank you Gil marello 6880 South [Applause] camela good evening Mr Heath Mr Wade and members of the board the past 24 months I have W witnessed much that can lead one to question the direction of this school district tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent on reading and curriculum materials many taxpayers
235in this District would strongly object to if they were made aware of given the economic Times and the pandemic spending approximately $4.5 million on a sports facility a short while ago might have not been the most prudent use of our dollars we have had several book challenges that have resulted in emotional rant with little of any objective evidence demonstr the value of the book in question our school buildings remain inadequately stuffed by resource officers in the recent past there's been enough evidence to prompt an investigation into the possibility that a majority of school board members met and in the process broke Sunshine laws and the open meetings act this board has not taken decisive action prohibiting biological males from entering the private facilities biologic females the Menor Teachers Association and three sitting board members heartily
236endorsed a candidate who would have clearly struggled with the SP responsibilities of being a board member this laps in judgment brings into question all they may might decide on in future and raises the Spectre of a conflict of interest because of what I have mentioned how many very good students have left the Menor school district for the option of attending private schools are being homeschooled household budgets are being eviscerated by inflation given what I have stated do you believe the people with their financial backs up against the wall are going to support a school system possibly 11 increase and a superintendent they cannot be proud of or see value in on the possibility of curtailing the public portion of school board meetings relocating books to an age appropriate area is not book Banning however limiting
237or preventing a taxpayer from speaking to their elected representatives in a public for is the epitome of banning Free Speech I'd like to take the next 30 seconds or so I pull up to this building every morning at 6:30 to drop my daughter off and every morning I drop my daughter off I'm asking myself am I doing the right thing by allowing my daughter to come to this school I got to tell you if it were if she were in eth grade she'd be going to private school because I'm not seeing this board with moral Clarity to do the right thing thank you thank [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you Jennifer halad Reynolds Road sorry there's something in my throat uh I I just want to stress out of sitting here the entire meeting I am so
238flabbergasted at just the absolute fight against freedom of speech the fight against protecting our kids in schools like it should be a no-brainer I wake up every day and go gee pornography is not good for kids that should be pretty simple it should be kind of like black white that's pretty simple it's cut it's cut and dry oh I it's it's you you guys got to sleep with that at night I don't it's not on my conscience I do want to talk about your since I spoke about this earlier I do want to talk about your program it took me all of 10 seconds to research competitors uh to near pod it there's plenty of them uh I will email every board member here I know I will only hear back from two the only
239two that will respond are rose and Annie unfortunately uh my son during a remote when he was in your schools by the way um I expressed concern that a 5 old I don't have screens in my house he doesn't have a tablet he doesn't have a phone he doesn't have an iPad he doesn't have screens period right they gave him an iPad brand new one at the start of kindergarten much to my dismay and I said I don't want it in my house my son was able to hack into your system and email School administrators calling them buttholes okay yes my son did that I will admit that that was probably not appropriate but my son hacked in and emailed plenty of Administrators okay that's it's a children don't we don't need to give them
240iPads especially kids at 5 years old um I noticed something when there was a remote learning day um there they use YouTube videos and unfortunately it's up to the teachers discretion what lesson that they're showing that day with nearpod however when that child is connected to You YouTube that can access YouTube at a kindergarten level by the way there's no limitations um what plays next is not in control of the school so I just want to bring that up that there's plenty of plenty of competitors out there uh I don't think um I will not be supporting a tax levy until we get this this thing under wraps the books in schools are huge you should see that meetings that last 5 hours plus we're compassionate about it we're not going to stop showing up
241for our kids and uh this this next neara thing has to go and with that um I thank you guys for uh coming and doing your thing thank you Jacqueline mccormic 9765 Ridge viw Trail in looking over tonight's agenda I noticed the superintendent's recommendations for classified staff I saw the names of several classified staff coming in going one name seems to be missing I'd like to address that apparently Lindsay wall was unable to fulfill obligations as long class we don't mention names last month I along with other community members and parents brought forth concerns about her violating several board policies we have filed re record requests to see the exact violations that in can you please cut the mic no Maggie I'm sorry but Mrs cook we were advised by legal though that we cannot
242we can't when it comes to employees we can't one moment please um we have a procedure if you want to talk to us about employees that we can go into executive session I would like to have a board vote if we're going to do that because I we had the open meeting with our attorney and it's anybody could search it and they specifically stated that we can't that's that's designating sorry I'm taking up some time it's it's content of speech we cannot we can't regulate content of speech unless it's furpa which we were told I mean that's in our special meeting from a couple weeks ago so we can ask and I think you did that but I think we're going to get ourselves into legal troubles and I would actually recommend us talking to
243our attorney before we say cut the mic and don't let somebody speak I think we need Clarity on that from our attorney or pull up the I thought it was in our policy that we weren't supposed to name names of um employees current or former from the district or community members or a specific or Community M we don't attack Community MERS Excuse excuse you um I so I guess and also I didn't think we were supposed to talk about attorney recommendations that was in a public open meeting it was like I don't session so we can talk about that um we could adjourn to Executive session though yeah we could certainly adjourn to Executive session if you wanted to talk to us about that yeah I I first would like us to contact our attorney
244because I think if we tell somebody they can't speak at the mic my impression of what was told was that we could be held liable legally if if we're regulating content of speech when we talked about and we were talking about executive session I thought she told us specific yeah she said that was an option but if somebody continued to speak we can't we can't regulate their content of speech unless it's as long as it's within our policy though because but our policy doesn't align with the law then I don't [Music] Rec I'm just I'm just saying I don't think we want to make that decision unless we're ready to have a legal battle because I know people will take it there so yeah but that's not how I understood it I mean I'm not
245trying to just go against the law I just I understood that your speech Adam at a meeting Excuse me yes please excuse me please stop speaking while we're having a meeting um we had my understanding was that we could set parameters in our policy because speaking is a privilege at a meeting that we don't need to allow any speech and we have created a policy and if they're within those parameters then policy doesn't speak to that though the policy doesn't speak to talking about the new policy does not right we took it out because we verified with legal when we made the policy that we can't do that we can't regulate content of speech we can regulate meeting uh the time that they are allowed to speak we can regulate how much or whether we
246do it at all but it has to be applied to everybody then we can't say oh I don't like what she's bringing up so she can't speak but but then Joe Schmo he can get up to and talk about finances it's all or nothing okay then I stand corrected um so we're we're going to continue I apologize and please continue and out of decency I ask you to not speak about a fellow citizen but it is your right last month I along with other community members and parents brought forth concerns about her violating several board policies we have filed record request to see the exact violations that incurred prior to her release but the part of the story that is most shocking is that you Virginia gesling and you Maggie cook both enthusiastically and loudly
247endorsed this woman as a Schoolboard candidate last year then you went on to vote for her to be hired as an employee that goes directly against your policies of avoiding a conflict of interest or an appearance of one and as long as we are throwing people under the bus the men are Teachers Association commonly referred to as the MTA also endorsed Mrs wall for the school board last fall when you people chose to make the these endorsements many of us were terribly befuddled what qualifications and expertise does this person bring to a school district with a $120 million annual budget she lasted a little over a month as an employee I wonder how quickly she would have realized she was unable to fulfill the much more complicated duties of being a Schoolboard member what were
248you and Jenny Jenny and Maggie thinking when you endorsed this woman for Schoolboard you should be embarrassed and humiliated and so should every MTA member who endorsed and voted for her many community members are losing respect for the District due to the terrible decisions like this being made MTA learn from this mistake and don't dabble into politics with our children stop endorsing and donating large amounts to Liberal extreme leftist candidates while stating that you're not pushing political ideology on our children we would like to see a letter from jinny and Maggie stating that they will no longer endorse candidates we will be sending the same request to the Met Teachers Association that would be a good start to show the community you won't be using our children for political gain remember a levy will be
249coming up and you'll need our support support the reserve Open Access library system and red traffic light systems proposed are absolutely ridiculous you are essentially flagging children instead of inappropriate books and eliminating the ability to challenge these books and have them removed considering you no longer have numerous media Specialists the odds of inappropriate materials entering our library are quite significant this proposed system is unacceptable and inappropriate books will not be tolerated in our school library parents and taxpayers deserve to be heard in all aspects of our schools in which we financially support and entrust our children unfortunately members of this board have repeatedly ignored requests and questions from the public via email forcing the public to address the board at these meetings any limits put upon the Public's ability to address the board will ensure
250the failure of any upcoming levies [Applause] thanks Dean peris gavas thank you uh good evening board I'd like to I'm going to relinquish my time but I'd like to address the mothers that are fighting for their children I think it's admirable that uh they want to take the time to fight for their children and tell you what their opinion iions are I think it's very admirable and I think it's running late so I'm going to cut it short thank [Applause] [Music] you our last speaker is Kathy McAdams Yellowwood good evening well it's almost midnight um just to to I I have several things to say to follow up on something someone said earlier I have sent emails to the board asking questions the last two months and not received an answer from three of the
251board members most particularly the president or vice president um further your policy that you just cited um was voted on by you we the public are not subject to your policy unless our children are if we have children in the school than we are next the people who have the courage to get up here and trust me it takes courage deserve your undivided attention not looking at the windows not looking bored or at your fingers or making faces at each other because I've witnessed that they deserve your undivided attention um two years ago maybe a year and a half ago the board voted to respond to uh to questions asked asked during the public speaking portion of the meetings two two years ago 18 months ago whatever you want to call it that happened one
252month it has not been followed up on at all I have asked questions at the meetings nobody and I have gotten back up at the podium and asked again and I still never got an answer the next month so you have to follow your own policies all right um the reason I really got up here was because April is Child Abuse Prevention month and I am very passionate about this my husband was a cassa a court appointed special um assistant at in giaga county and he did a Phenom they do a phenomenal job but I was at a Lake County Commissioner meeting recently and these are the statistics that I heard and these are appalling in the smallest county of Ohio last year there were over 1500 reports of alleged child abuse that's 1,500 in
253Lake County alone there were more than 1,500 children involved in those allegations that's 1500 families abuse includes but is not limited to physical abuse verbal abuse mental abuse child sexual exploitation and abuse bullying cyber bullying by peers and adults emotional abuse mutilation of the female genitalia and child trafficking and child slavery mandated reporters of suspected abuse including everybody at every level of Education from custodians to Schoolboard members to superintendents if they don't report their suspicions and they don't have to have firm information they can lose their licenses thank [Applause] you okay we do not have an executive session on the agenda so um we will move on and do I have a motion to adjourn so moved second Mr raade please call the role M pay yes M Jing yes misso yes M paza yes
254M cook yes me a J at 10:51 p.m.