001right got 7 o' good evening the March 12th 2024 regular meeting of the mentor Exempted Village board of education is called to order this meeting is being held in accordance with section 33131 15 of the Ohio revised code please place your mobile phones on silent mode for the meeting Mr Wade please call the role Miss Appo here miss Jing present Miss maraza present Miss Payne here miss cook here thank you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liy and justice for all at this time please join me in a moment of silence in remembrance of Paige Lampman thank you thank you I would like to welcome everyone to the
002March 12th 2024 regular meeting of the mentor Exempted Village Board of Education prior to this evening each board member has received for their review and consideration the agenda and materials associated with each agenda item for the board's approval via the district's paperless Board of Education agenda system board docs the public can accept access the agenda through the school district's website the agenda is available through the district's website for public viewing the Sunday prior to the board meeting board members have the opportunity to call the superintendent and Chief Financial Officer for information concerning agenda items and to request if needed additional information there are two places on the agenda 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
003only 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 agenda or another topic to participate in the hearing of the public section interested speakers must sign up prior to the start of the meeting signups are available online through the school district's website or on site prior to 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 three 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
004the 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 our community if at the end of the public participation we do not make a statement please know this does not demonstrate a lack of care for comments shared by our community rather we want to be thoughtful in our approach and we will provide a response in a timely manner when appropriate this meeting is being shown live and can be viewed On Demand on our YouTube channel Cardinal TV Mentor 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 students for their outstanding achievements I'd like to invite Mr Hammond to
005the podium to begin our presentations this evening good evening Madam president members of the board Mr Heath and Mr Wade this evening it gives me great pleasure to recognize our grade level spelling be Champions based on a district competition that culminated on January 22nd 2024 these students excelled at the building level by winning their respective spell Downs before moving on to the district competition what I'm going to do is read their the what they earned and their name what school they're from students when I call your name off if you would come up to me I'm going to shake your hand and hand you your certificate you'll walk across the stage and shake the hands of the board members and then you can return to your seat okay fifth grade Champion McKenzie artner Ridge Elementary
006sixth grade runnerup Sebastian Gil Memorial Sebastian's mom is here for him sixth grade Champion Logan grassy sh seventh grade Champion excuse me seventh grade runner up Elana Bradford from Shore seventh grade Champion Dylan Fedor Memorial I'll be making trips to schools tomorrow eighth grade runnerup Joseph maraza [Applause] Memorial fourth grade champion and District runner up Olivia Johns Orchard Hollow Elementary congratulations and lastly our eighth grade Champion District champion and Lake County runner up Tyler Grano from Shore Elementary thank you Mr [Music] Heath Madam president members of the board and Mr Wade at this time I would like to invite Mr Crow to the podium for the high school recognitions this evening Madame President members of the board Mr Heath and Mr Wade I'm extremely excited to be here this evening to recognize seven Menor high
007school students who qualified as National Merit finalists or National Merit commended students this year in addition I'm going to keep talking afterwards to talk about our speech and debate team that qualify for States and then we're going to recognize some of just are very talented artists as well um going back to our National Merit finalist and National am committed students their effort hard work and academic Excellence should be celebrated in something our students families and school system can all take great pride in just some basic background information on the national Mar program of the 1.5 million Nationwide 11th grade PSAT test takers from the 2022 2023 school year about 50,000 with the highest scores qualify for for recognition in the National Merit merit scholarship program in September students with these high scores were notified by
008their schools that they have qualified as either a commended student or a semi finalist that means our students here tonight all had scores that were in the top 3% National of the 50 stud 50,000 students approximately 34,000 Nationwide are recognized as commended students commended students are named on the basis of a nationally applied selection score index that may vary from year to year of that 50,000 approximately 16,000 students are notified they qualified as semifinalists that means our students here tonight are in the top 1% nationally who took the PSA test last school year to ensure that academically talented students from all parts of the United States are included in this group semi finalists are designated on a state-by-state basis semi-finalists are the highest scoring entrance in each state very proud to tell you that in
009February all of our semi-finalists were notified they had Advanced to the finalist standing to the finalist standings with this recognition they're also eligible for the National Merit Scholarship corporate scholarship and college sponsored merit-based scholarship as well at this time I want to introduce our students students please approach this the podium and shake hands and stand to the right for a picture uh after everyone has been introduced and normally we ask everyone to kind of hold their Applause but I love it Mr Hammond did so please keep applauding our students as I say their names so first our National Merit commended students and before I go I can tell you that we have a band concert right now and so like a lot of our high achieving students they're in so many different things so if
010anyone's not here U that means they're probably at our band concert and I can tell you that I'm sure some of our students they're going to shake hands and they're going to Dart over to the Fine Arts Center because I know I am when after I'm done presenting tonight as well so our National Merit commended students Ben [Applause] Goya Drew Parker and aivia [Applause] Sachs and now for our National Merit finalist Lauren banger Abby [Applause] Horvath Harry Krishna Patel and Michael [Applause] suar if we can get one more round of applause and congratulations to all of our National Merit finalists and tremendous also excited to be here to recognize our speech and students that qualified for the state competition um but I saw both their coaches are in attendance today um if the coaches are
011able to come to the podium so our head coach is Amy rodiger and our assistant coach is Tracy [Applause] Coleman so at this time we're going to to recognize our speech and debate team and their accomplishments of qualifying and competing at the state tournament would our state qualifiers Ellie Coleman and Casey gray and obviously their coaches please join me at the podium to say a we're going to say a few word about their accomplishments this season Ellen K first we're going to talk about Ellie Ellie had just an incredible season as a freshman and an incredible tournament uh Ellie Advanced the semifinal round of her event and finished in around 22nd Place out of 94 students Statewide congratulations to [Applause] Ellie Casey had a fantastic season and an extremely strong January and February Casey competed
012in six rounds at States and in addition to competing at the state tournament Casey also qualified for the national tournament and this June Casey will be competing in the nsda National Tournament congratulations to ell and Casey congratulations well wonderful get better congratulations am next I'd like to congratulate and recognize many of our talented artists at Menor High School rather than than me speaking about our our artists and telling you how amazing they are um I'd like to invite two of our fine art teachers Mrs Kane and Mrs Smith to the podium uh to say a few words and some background information about the different Awards as well as a fantastic slideshow because if we're going to talk about art we we should probably look at what the art pieces are so at this time Mrs
013Kane and Mrs Smith thank you Mr Crow uh March is actually youth art month among other things so we're proud to be here to celebrate our artists um we hope that you also enjoy the small pieces of artwork you can take to your office um from the students that are here tonight um we're going to start with um art Awards we have um local state and National recognized students here tonight um yes a lot of them are actually in the music program so they're at the concert right now but we're going to recognize the ones who can be here um so I think what we'll do is we'll just go through the Awards I'll have Mrs Smith help me and then uh we can have the students come up so the first um art Awards
014we want to recognize students who are part of the Northeast region Ohio art Education Association youth art month we had stud two students Sarah Smith and siten Thomas who were recognized at Case Western Reserve this month and another student Ray Bingham actually won the youth art month flag graphic contest for the entire state of Ohio we can clap our next set of awards are the PTA Reflections contest Awards winners I'll have Mrs Smith announced those names there are several so we're going to hold our Applause to the end so everyone can hear everyone's names um but congratulations the PTA Reflections contest we had several people whose art went onto the state level including Helena cherion Colin felenstein Alexis SCC Leah graad Romy heer Abby huffnagle Cherry Lee Landon opat Alejandro Ortiz Michaela Perkinson Niti Patel
015Lily poock Noel sluga Molly tunny Addie Valeri and ypra yumas [Applause] congratulations I I'd like to recognize the winners of the National Art Honor Society jured exhibition um please understand that out of thousands and thousands of artists over the state of Ohio they are very selective and only select about 180 um out of that 180 we have four students from Menor High School representing hiy cook which incredibly she's been in the show two years in a row and that's kind of a big deal Lauren sein Abby Harps and Sarah Pritchard and then there's just one more cool thing I'm going to tell you about um it's the fifth annual jured high school art exhibition at otterbine University so the college invites High school students across the state to enter their exhibition um again it's a
016jured show so to be jured into that show it's kind of a big deal we have Stu two students from under high school um Lawrence of Eakin and Carl Gracie who were actually part of that exhibition thank you if we could have the students the art students come on up so we call called your name just come on up we'll shake your hand and if you can be recognized by the board done very nice work good job guys well done oh fantastic you guys I know that was a lot of uh recognition so at this time we'll take a real quick recess if those uh individuals that are here um for the recognitions only um you are able to leave at this time um if you would like to stick around you are more than
017welcome but uh we'll give you a couple of minutes here to kind of disperse before we jump into the business part of our meeting for e the next item on the agenda is the approval of minutes do I have a motion so moved second any discussion Mr Wade please call the role M pay yes misso yes Miss Jing yes Miss maraza yes Miss Cook yes motion carries 5- Z next we have hearing of the public on agenda items only first speaker is is Aaron zindar from 7154 Eerie drive and Mentor thank you our next speaker would be Mike Williams uh Dear Mr Wade Mr Heath Miss Cook and the rest of the Schoolboard members I'm here tonight to ask you all to take a serious look at the book right now that is in our
018elementary school libraries for access to kindergarten through fifth grade this non-fiction book encourages and promotes political activism this book is not factual is ideologic ideologically biased and is not age appropriate is this what we want our children to be reading and learning in Menor schools for starters Greta thunberg is held up as someone to emulate in this book she has even admitted that her climate activism Crusade has robbed her of her childhood almost all of her and her advisers um climate predictions have proven to be false she and they have had to readjust their Doom and Gloom scenarios numerous times over the last several years because they did not fit the factual data Greta claims our world is dying and our future is dying there is absolutely no evidence to support this outrageous claim if
019you happen to see gret on TV she seems like a very unhappy person is this how you wish to scare our K through fifth grader students the book also glorifies trans activist Jazz Jennings according to this book doctors thought she in quotes was a male at Birth but then she said she was a girl are you really going to tell us that our children our children and our doctors can't tell the difference between male and female at Birth sorry this uh okay doctors just don't make these types of mistakes they don't this is patently absurd and you know it are you really going to promote lies to remain in our elementary school libraries if you do you are also promoting and agreeing with false statements that our children can transition between genders at will this
020is a most despicable lie how can we expect kindergarteners and fifth graders to discern time please thank you thank you our next speaker is Amanda Young from 817 two Concord Drive Menor I don't see Miss Young our next speaker is Lindsay wall from 8232 Midland Road good evening board members president cook Mr Heath Mr Wade again we have two books being challenged tonight and I would like to actually ask a few questions not just start making remarks about my own thoughts um on these books but perhaps I'll be able to understand a little bit more about why we're here again we were here two years ago some of the things I say tonight I may have said two years ago but I would like to know why there's two board members and a church in
021Willoughby that found these books so horrible and awful and inappropriate that they felt the need to put out press releases and canvas our entire Mentor School's district with flyers and alert the public that there were inappropriate books being handed out to minors did the challenges did the challengers read these books in full do they understand the definition of context do they know what what pandering obscenity to minors actually means it seems we actually have two board members who may be guilty of just that not our superintendent not our teachers because we have two board members who picked out not just the title of these books highlighted them on social media noted the page numbers highlighted the passages that they claimed to be inappropriate so inappropriate they shouldn't be in the schools and shared images of
022these quote inappropriate passages on their social media Pages for anyone and everyone to see them if you ask me sure sounds like they're pandering obscenity miners my next question is this if we have an 18-year-old student that wants to check out a book in the library because we do we have 18-year-olds and I'm sure we even have some 19-year-olds in our school they're adults yes they can go to the public library sure but our library should be diverse and include material for all including those 18 and 19 year olds what happens if we have a student that does go to the actual public library and checks out one of these books that you guys claim to be so far inappropriate it shouldn't be in their school library but they bring it to school are they
023going to get in trouble for having having inappropriate material in the school how does that work our Librarians our teachers and the board are in charge of making decisions for all students and what we're doing is not for all worry about your own kids thank you our next speaker is Ann Anderson from 5951 Center Street okay hello everyone um been a little bit since I've been here was hoping this would kind of Fade Into Oblivion but that's not going to happen so here we go across the country we're seeing books being banned one thing I know that it's only a certain group of people that seem to be have a problem that have a problem with our lgbtq people people of color immigrants coming from different countries um Banning books because they have a reference
024to a child being transgender is what is wrong with our society because in fact we do have transgender students in our school district and the book that is being that's controversial actually is a bunch of um children that have not everyday typical experiences and so what happens is they're trying to explain to everybody so we don't have to have meetings like this and we don't have children that are in the lgbtq community we've had two recent this in this does get to book Banning and let me explain why um I'll Circle back around we've had two students that one in Oklahoma one in the UK that were murdered by their peers in their school that they went to school with because of the negative rhetoric that's coming from the top down it's coming from our
025state houses this rhetoric is being repeated it's being repeated by two school board members that is apparently okay to um involve our churches in our schools which they're not we have bigger problems in this school that we are wasting our time on this fake outrage we could actually be fixing School sizes the classroom sizes we could be F fixing the bullying bathroom issues possibly busing problems that happen in the school maybe we should be looking out for that focus on our own kids because I'll tell you what something happens to my daughter and this rhetoric is to blame which it is we had a student within this past week on a live themsel and they're part of the lgbtq community and a week after we had two school board members that seemed fit to blast
026the Menor Community with anti-trans things this book is representative of trans people so what's the problem trans people exist there's not two sides to this there's this is real and then this is you guys believing it's not because you're ignorant read the book you could benefit from the book everybody that doesn't understand there's not two sides to this and I've seen the speeches at the churches it's sick you're going to get one of our kids killed you should be ashamed of yourselves the two of you that's [Applause] it our next speaker thank you ma'am you must sit down ma'am you are interrupting our business meeting you are interrupting ing the business meeting please have some decorum I would just remind everybody that we have uh a number of speakers tonight so if we at the
027end of each speaker clap to that extent we are going to be here for an extremely long time folks so I would just ask for the sake of moving the meeting along that we let the speaker speak and then we get on to the next speaker please so our next speaker is Rebecca back from 684 Michael Drive Mentor Ohio hello I'm Rebecca I'm a proud mother of three children one who has graduated from the district and I have a second and fourth grader that are here with me tonight because this was so important I've never come to one of these meetings but this was important we should not be banning books okay I'm here this evening to speak about rights being taken away the right to check out a book or the rights and professional
028obligations educated ERS have in offering our students expansive collections of information established in the First Amendment of the US Constitution the freedom to access information is being challenged here Mentor by a few special interest motivated members of the Board of Education their metrics in challenging these titles in question are highly subjective subjective based on their personal beliefs this authoritarian style threatens the fabric of the community and lessens the quality of our children's education we should be celebrating a child's enthusiasm for books not taking books away offering such titles provides access to a broader worldview and the opportunity to talk about wonderfully diverse or challenging topics with your children I respect your choice not to check out a book or your choice to restrict what your children check out let's not be author I'm sorry I'm
029nervous authoritarian but let's preserve M my children's and the community's rights to check out a book you may not agree with I also would like to read a little part of the author's note in this book that my family and I do own it says although adults often look to young people with hope it isn't the sole responsibility of children to solve The World's problems we must all work together young and old to create the world in which we want to live thank you our next speaker is Anthony perich from 6958 North Meadow good good evening ladies and gentlemen I come here as a follower of Christ and a concerned father of a son and daughter in the Menor School District today we are speaking on whether or not books like right now real kids
030speaking up for change are suitable for our children one of the stories in the book mentions that jazz Jennings a transgender activist who the author States when she was born the doctors thought she was a boy it happens sometimes jazz is a girl call her she the issue with this statement is it's claimed to be a fact fact is truth-based here's one 2 plus 2 equals four correct 2 plus two does not equal six nor does it equal seven not even sometimes truth is the truth and it is subjective not objective am I a 34y old male can I identify as 65 and retire collect Social Security of course not because age just like gender is objective and not subjective the God we pledged allegiance to this flag to had this to say in Genesis
0311 127 God created Mankind in his own image in the image of got he created them male and female just as a person born with XX chromosomes as female and one born with XY as male that is the truth even if you can't handle it our schools are meant to be a place for our children to be educated and not indoctrinated in Proverbs 226 it states train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it early stages of a child's mind forms their habits and perspectives it is not loving to create these delusions in place of reality you are setting our kids up for failure it is more loving to train a child up in the truth so that when they go about this
032world they can see themselves through if a parent wants to raise their child up in these delusions that is up to them they will have to answer to God on why they perverted that child's mind however you do not have the right to pervert my child's mind or any other children's for that matter as adults and parents it is our job to stand up and protect the Next Generation coming up and see them through so that not to condemn them these kids deserve to know that God loves them and in closing I say these things ought to love and not hate for any party involved in John 3:16 for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believed in him should not perish but have everlasting life Romans 5:8
033but God commendeth his love to us and that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us in Romans 3:10 it is written there is none righteous no not one and what do we all deserve for this unrighteousness well in Romans 6:23 it states for the wages of sin is death and the gift of God is eternal life I'm telling you leave our kids alone go back to teaching objective truths and get put an end to these delusions thank you thank you our next speaker is Cindy brilley from 6260 furwood Road good evening um I'm not up here to talk about specific specific books that were talking about challenging um but I would like some clarification on uh the book challenge process I did attempt to get clarification from each board member two weeks ago
034um via email I received responses back from three one only responded to one of four questions I had two responded fully um uh sorry um my apologies so uh with the in regards to the policy on uh challenging books why do you believe book or content content challenges exist as part of board policy what is the purpose of this board policy and as a board member do you feel that if a decision is made to remove a book or materials from school it is Banning the book or material or is it seen as a secondary vetting process for for things that may have been unknown or not realized about a book or materials at the time they were brought in um if we're going to argue over book challenges perhaps the argument lies with the
035existence of the policy itself why would our board stand for a policy that bans books my suspicion is because it's not Banning rather secondary vetting interestingly the Menor Public Library also offers book challenges but calls it reconsideration um is this another board allowing for the potential of book Banning I don't think so I think if we had an additional notification process like a Content flag uh maybe we would not see so many challenges in regards to the book right now I don't have anything specifically to say about that book but if there had been a you know flagging of content in place perhaps that parent may not have let that that book come home and and second to that I would like to say that as a child or as a parent of a child
036in elementary school I do not receive the notification of library books for six hours after my child takes a book out it's consistent I've looked back it's never earlier it's six hours I want to understand what the hesitation or why it takes so long to receive that um and that's it thank you our next speaker is jacqu McCormack from 9765 Ridge View Trail here we are again debating appropriate books for minor students After books like Heather has two mommies a boy named Queen Colin Kaepernick and Tango makes three have already been placed in our elementary schools it's no surprise that another book pushing political ideology is put in the hands of elementary students and recommended by the woke superintendent to stay every month your board meetings are like an ad for homeschooling and private schooling
037as you all debate what is and is not appropriate for minor students local private schools must love what you're doing since they continue to take your students and it's been said that private schooling and homeschooling is on the rise in our district while our enrollment is dropping doesn't take a genius to figure out why how about you leave the political ideology to the parents and focus on what people are actually sending their kids to you for education not indoctrination Mrs cook as shardan school speech pathologist would you read this to all your elementary students and would you send them home with this book to work on for the week I think shardan parents may want to know your history with voting for political ideology in schools is not so good so far you have V
038voted for transphobia deal with it and be a gender transcender to stay in our middle schools which states if you believe there are two genders you are transphobic Colin Kaepernick Pro BLM and indoctrination and you voted in support of all K through five books being put in the classrooms that push political ideology during silent reading time so parents don't even know what their kids are reading you also supported returning retaining The Bluest Eye in October which features a story line about a pedophile where a father repeatedly molests his daughter in graphic detail depicting multiple sexual acts Mrs gesling you are a previous Menor teacher and you also voted with Mrs cook it is repulsive that people employed by Public School Systems who are trusted with minor children agree with this indoctrination and sexualization of our
039students it is people like you that give teachers a bad look the fact that District employees on the support public education private page are targeting parents and staff members who disagree with this book is not only a violation of policy but is ethically wrong they are violating fura by trying to have speakers talk about students which is really a new low it's clear that some of you have an agenda from hiring extreme leftist Schoolboard candidates with no experience to be an El Elementary classrooms to the Menor Teachers Association endorsing leftist Schoolboard candidates and one self-proclaimed Pagan witch to placing inappropriate books in front of minor students without their parents' permission it's clear what you're doing we will have a very big anti- Levy campaign when you ask for double the money in the near future
040that's if you get the four votes needed to place it on the ballot at this point I sure hope you don't in reference to the conversation you are planning to have about class sizes at the end of the meeting just keep going down the path you're going on and the problem will work itself out as more will leave our district thank you thank you our next speaker is Eli PCO from 7582 brainer Court good evening uh superintendent Heath Mr Wade members of the board my name is Eli Peko and I'm a sophomore here at the High school after listening to and attending these board meetings I've heard a fair share of discussion around book Banning as a student nothing makes me more upset than hearing that some parents and board members would like to strip
041us of educational material I'm a vehement opposition to book Bannings as they do more harm to students than good I've also found great irony in people reading passages of these books at board meetings because the audience they are reading these books to includes students like me the very people they don't want reading these passages furthermore I have found book Banning to be extremely politically charged especially in the case of one of the books being discussed today that book right now real kids speaking up for change has been challenged for a plethora of reasons these reasons include the false idea children will become political activists after reading this book in discussion over issues such as immigration law Middle Eastern conflict the Taliban climate change and transgenderism these issues are brought up through famous young activists who
042not to mention are all the ages of children that would be reading this book and are not explained in detail furthermore no issue brought up in this book is false or giv kids false ideas these are real world problems and situations that have happened and these are real award-winning child activists who have advocated for these ideas this book is not telling kids to become political activists this book in addition to Simply being a composition of biographies tells kids to advocate for what they believe in and that they too can have a voice despite that people still want this book banned because quote our district should focus on academics and promoting a healthy learning environment free from the stress anxiety and weight of the World by Banning this book The Board would be taking academic mat
043material away from the classroom as I said before issues discussed in the book are all facts and are or will affect the kids reading this book so while these issues are serious that's exactly why kids should know about them as a politically interested young person myself I know why it is important to be politically to be knowledgeable about world issues especially at a young age because if not sooner rather than later children will be directly faced with serious issues and will be completely unprepared to deal with them if the board bans a book like this I have serious questions about other books that could be banned too could a book such as an Frank's diary be banned for being too stressful for our children a book on a politician such as Abraham Lincoln for his
044political opinions or a book about Martin Martin Luther King for his political and social activism the answer to these questions should be know so for those who believe this book should be banned please ask yourselves do you only want to ban because you personally disagree with the ideas being advocated for by award-winning child activists or is it because you think children in our district should not know about or advocate for real world problems at all either way the board no excuse to ban this Bo thank you our next speaker is Gil Marell from 6880 South camot Drive Miss Cook Mr Heath Mr Wade and members of the board good evening last month I emailed all of you several research articles coner concerning our students mental health and their physical well-being two of the issues in
045particular pose a significant threat to our students one is excessive cell phone use and the other is the consumption of adult only literary literary materials thankfully to a reasonable extent the board has addressed the cell phone use by our students at and in school however I do not understand why the majority on this board is reluctant to protect our young people from what many would agree are adult only books we can debate what is proper until the cows come home but I would bet none of you would be entirely comfortable reading some of the experts heard at these board meetings to your parents Psychology today has posted many articles on the web that are data driven and make it clear our young people's minds are permanently harmed by the consumption of these types of adult
046materials this is fact this is science the Damage Done by these types of materials is a matter of science and research if you care to look personally I don't believe these materials belong in the men are schools that said if this m these materials are kept at the very minimum this board must Implement an opin program meaning before a student has the opportunity of accessing these controversial materials their parenter Guardian must be given prior have given prior written consent we all have a god-given right to respectfully voice our opinion and discourse I'm not condemning anybody for their politically or personal held beliefs or ideology however I believe a lot of people in the city are frustrated what looks like our school board taking its marching orders from the left lean political groups defense of democracy
047and support for men are public education it is their mission to displace right-leaning Schoolboard members with the election of those from the IDE ideological political left both Lefty organizations have individuals that either work for the Menor schools or sit on this school board their influence on matters such as this is disproportional and opposite to what most people in Menor want and expect from our city schools thank you for your time and have a good evening thank you our next speaker is John Sanford from 7537 Parker Drive good evening what a fascinating process this is I'm just amazed at what you all are subjected to and I have great respect for the fact that you get maintain your sanity at least I hope you do I so we have here a process obviously where a lot
048of people have a lot of feelings about it I've shared with you my thoughts already by email of uh the need for critical thinking for maintaining objectivity for not allowing any one particular subjective value to take over um but what I'm really amazed at again is how we as an audience are allowing our emotions from our when our own personal subjective values are challenged and then lambasting others so I really invite folks to take a really good deep breath listen to the young man that was here speaking from he's the consumer that we're trying to protect or inow or whatever it is we think we want to do but really pay attention to yourself and realize that what we're arguing about here is our personal feelings that are being challenged and that has no place
049in the critical thinking in determining what is good for the schools at large where we have to appeal to every child we can't say to this child we don't believe your issue is real we can't say to this child we don't believe your race values is a value we must all regardless of our own religious beliefs whether you are as somebody said a pagan or a Christian it doesn't really matter what is important is that we as a group stop taking our personal values cudgel and beating the heck out of our board members what is important is that we as a group take the time to value value each other and say you know what I am one person I am not a representative of God's will or all's will or any other abrahamic or
050other police system what is important is that we as a group can say with critical thought and respect for each other respect for all others and stop this book Banning never ever ever in the history of people have those who wanted to stop access to information and values turned out to be the good people ever our next speaker is Susan cednik from 7539 Little Mountain good evening Mr Heath Mr Wade and Ladies of the board I would like to speak about the two book challenges Empire of storms in the high school and right now real kids speaking up for change in the elementary schools I am one of many concerned citizens who believe that these two books are not appropriate for a school library and I ask that these be removed to make room for
051more educational worthy selections I do not believe in banning books I value freedom of speech and I also value protecting the innocence of children for the teachers and parents who approve of these books no one is stopping you from obtaining these at our local public library or the bookstores but there is a significant amount of people in our community who do believe that these controversial books should not have a home in our schools this doesn't mean it's book Banning our students should have access to great books that will educate Andor entertain them without the risk of causing trauma dis distorting their moral compass or causing confusion from misinformation and outright lies as are found in the right now book that book tells young kids that boys can be girls and that we are killing the
052planet neither of these things is actually true why is it that we can make schools peanut free for the handful of kids who have allergies to peanuts and not and not give the same type of courtesy to those who want a porn-free school library many kids who are okay with peanuts who are not allergic they're deprived of their PB&J sandwiches at school to accommodate the minority of those with allergies but we do not insist upon having peanuts and peanut butter in school and then just casually tell the students with allergies oh just don't eat that make sure your kids don't eat that this is the same kind of thing as people telling parents oh just tell your kids not to read that book the point for the peanuts and the pornography is the same the
053school ground should be a safe place where there is no chance of a dangerous food item or an inappropriate book falling into the wrong hand so to speak for the non-allergy kids kids there is peanut butter at home and for those parents who want their kids to read smut that should be relegated to the home as well school should be safe for all students finally when certain people go out of their way to work very hard to make sure that kids have access to books like Empire of storms why are people surprised and upset that they're compared to groomers one of the things that groomers do is to provide miners with sexually explicit material GR rumors are not a friend of parents either so what are parents supposed to think is going on at the
054school teachers board members and school administrators should be protecting students and ensuring that our schools are safe and they are not safe with these kind of books there's no harm in removing those things and letting if you want access to it get it outside of school it's not hurting anybody thank you for your time thank you our next speaker is Joanne kin from 8050 Harbor Creek hi good evening um I'm a citizen and I love books I mean you read books you don't ban books I I find it hard to believe that in 2024 we are disuss cing Banning books these are public schools these are not religious schools religious schools can have all the religion you like okay but not everybody thinks like you and this we do not live in a society where
055like in your religious it's your way or the highway well that's not the way it is in public public is accepting of all and books provide information and when you have the more information you have the less fear you have and I believe that most of our problems come from Fear of the unknown and so Our obligation is to progress and to give more information believe it or not there are people that have been throughout history that identify as a sex other than the way they were born it's just recently they were allowed to speak of it and why is that because we had more information we have been allowed to talk about it we have not squelched it and the only thing I I I can think of is the last person I remember
056Banning in for Banning books are dictators and autocrats because they're afraid of information they want to control the dialogue Stalin band books we are the United States of America we welcome others we welcome information we Embrace others thank you thank you our next speaker is Jennifer halad from 7260 Reynolds Road you guys can fill out a form to speak like everybody else did all of you who are snickering over there when people are men will you please address the board yeah I'm going to address the board I definitely am absolutely uh less than half of these students in the school district are proficient in math yet you want to push this type of literature to kids I want to hear I don't want to hear sexuality and kids in the same sentence ever again no
057child is gay none I don't care what you say I don't care what any of you say sexuality and children should never ever I was exposed no and before any of you radicals out here laugh I was exposed to sex listen to me I was exposed to sex at a at 5 years old when I was molested in my own bed and do you know what happened to me you especially because you're pushing these books you're helping I've seen your post on Facebook yes and I went to school with your son you want to hear what happened to me being excuse no stop I'm talking do you know what happened to me being exposed to sex at a 5-year-old at 5 years old I was addicted to drugs I went to prison in this room
058oh D yeah okay okay there's children there's children my children are in this school please pause for a moment can you stop Cal down pleas pause the time let's Okay so I have two children sorry please pause the time we we have a speaker let's please let give her our attention and please continue to address the president thank God I turned my life completely around I am a great mother today my my oldest graduated from Mentor High School sumacum lowy he's at the University of Cincinnati his third year in is being a mechanical engineer student my second child is in kindergarten Jazz Jennings really Jazz Jennings here I want to play a clip for you for the board do you think that this is appropriate never mind that our law states that we parents have
059parental rights and education that's a law and I don't want this book in my kids my kids school if these people want to go get their kid a book go ahead here I want to I want to I want you to hear Jazz Jennings who who Jazz Jennings is your earn I have woken Jazz out of a dead sleep and taken the dialer and put the lubrication on it and said here you take this and you put it in your vagina if not I will see this what I'm talking about you want to be you want it in the book you can't handle it there you can't I'm not addressing you you want to talk outside we can all right so anyways we uh we don't need this in our schools we don't need it
060in our schools when our kids are 50% not official and not proficient in math and in English we need to get education back into the schools and teach them the proper subjects to go in advance and become productive members of society and productive adults the [Applause] end our next speaker is Kim bazon from 8703 margerie Drive good evening as a homeschool mom and a taxpayer I have every right to know what goes on within the school district although my children may not physically attend a school they are allowed to attend school functions and play sports within the district therefore I have the right to speak up what goes on in the schools should they ever have to attend the schools in their future I have a say as to where almost 65% of our tax
061dollars go it shouldn't go to the garbage constantly have to go up against such as sexual explicit books some sadly featuring M multiple molestations of minor children indoctrination and political ideology it's not Banning contrary to what some District employees and board members want to call it in hopes of the silencing of others in the push back it's vetting so something that should be done to ensure age appropriate material for minor students when I attended School many years ago we never had teachers speak about political IDE ideologies as part of our curriculum nowadays it seems like anything goes in the Menor school district has done away with morals and ethics and brought into classroom activism political activists is employees indoctrination and rated our materials since people like to bring up the Bible the Bible may include
062sexual content but it does not compare to the sexually explicit books you are putting in front of children like some that dep pick fathers graphically raping children over and over again also you can check out the Hindu and Islam Bible but you can't check out the Holy Bible it is flagged to only be available in the library how does that make sense that seems like an agenda to me to the three board members and superintendent who are okay with this stuff being in our schools your ignorance and agenda will cause future lbr to fail again you will have no one else to blame but yourselves you are harming children by causing causing parents to pull their students from the district I assure you this view is the majority the same majority who voted I'm talking
063Rose into the board in November the majority while they may be fearful of speaking up since some of your employees will create tick toks about our or label them as extreme which also violates multiple policies will surely not support ol levie they will use that in their voice to continue to vote down the future additional fund levies you have you may have and people wonder why homeschool numbers across the United States and in Ohio and in Mentor continue to climb well people would choose to homeschool over indoctrination homeschool over having to be a part of the system with sexually explicit materials grooming minors homeschool for the innocence of our children and homeschooling to maintain your parental rights and religious beliefs what happened to setting standards having morals and ethics one did having no standards become
064the standard thank you thank you our next speaker is Andrea Bliss from 5421 Liberty Street met on the lake good evening my name is Andrea Bliss and I am the parent of two students in the district at the elementary and middle school levels I'd like to start by saying that when I saw the agenda for tonight's meeting I was incredibly pleased to see that Mr Heath is going to be discussing class ex sizes I know this issue has been brought up by other parents in the past and that it continues to be a concern amongst those of us who have students attending Menor schools my youngest child is currently in fifth grade at belflower and is in a class of 28 students from what I've been hearing this is not outside of the norm for
065the Upper Elementary grades across the district right now I can tell you that not just the students but also the teachers have a hard time flourishing in that environment I adore my kids teacher she does an amazing job and I can tell that she cares deeply about each of her students I can also tell that she worries that she's not able to give each student the time and attention that they may need to reach their full potential I can tell that she feels guilty that she can't help the students who still have learning gaps from having to attend school remotely during some of their most formative school years and those students seem to be the rule not the exception in a class with 28 students everyone is impacted not just the kids who are struggling
066not just the staff who are responsible for those students everyone I understand that this is not an easily solved issue and one that would likely take some serious B budget shuffling to improve I also understand that this may be something that can that this may not be something that can be quickly fixed I want to let you know that I am one of many parents who greatly appreciate you taking the time to focus on something that will actually have a major impact on our students finally I would be remiss if I didn't mention the book challenges as you know I do love literature despite my feeling that these challenges are a distraction from the bigger issues within our district so please let me just say there is nothing age inappropriate about teaching our children about
067activism teaching them that they have a voice they can that they can stand up for what they believe and help make their world a better safer Kinder and more loving place there is nothing age inappropriate about teaching our children that there are people in this world who are different from them the only controversy that I can see about this book Lies in the intentions of the people trying to remove it from our schools using fear and intolerance as a means to limit or control other people that is what I find to be age inappropriate that is the lesson that I do not want my my children to learn thank you our next speaker is Adam Anderson from 5951 Center [Applause] Street okay hey you guys um you know some tough acts to follow here but
068um my name is Brady and I'm a freshman at the high school and I heard there are a few books up for Banning and when I saw one of them was right now real kids speaking up for changes I felt it was important for me to speak up since I'm being represented in this book I'm transgender and my community has been under attack for few years now so I feel it's important to speak up when you see wrong being done and let me tell you Banning this book is wrong I was young when I transitioned and this book have would have been a great to have in this Library I went to school at but it wasn't um in the school I used to attend the reason for that is that it was a private
069Catholic School not a public not a public one like we are in today with that being said we shouldn't be banning any books at our public school since it's for everyone I stand in front of this school board as one of the few outr kids in this District I'm real my existence is not up for debate but I find myself having to come here for several years now to let you know we are here we exist and we aren't going anywhere there aren't two sides to this conversation trans people are real in an every in your everyday life so it confuses me as to why anyone would want to ban such a book transgender adults start out as transgender kids so why not have a book for kids gender expansive people are born that way
070so reading a book about who you are should be a positive thing for a child but you want to make it a negative thing I'm proud of who I am and I hope other trans kids get to read this book and get something positive out of it a lot of trans kids have parents who are having a hard time accepting their child for who they are so adults could also benefit from reading this book yes even school school board members too the fact that some of you want to ban it says everything about the people who are pushing this through our schools we obviously need more education on the topic not less thank you thank you our next speaker is Kendra Hayward from 9704 nights Bridge Lane good evening I've been attending or watching Schoolboard
071meetings for a little over a year now and I'm very pleased to say that I consistently feel proud of this board for maintaining their focus on making the best decisions on behalf of the district and the students who attend our schools genuinely thank you all for all the wonderful work you do um this has not always been easy considering the coordinated and concerted efforts of some community members and disappointingly now some board members to waste valuable board time and resources on culture War driven topics like we have tonight in the form of book Ms to be clear those speaking up to remove books from Menor School libraries do not speak for the majority of the community many of us trust in the educated experts who diligently review the contents of our libraries and allow their
072training and the best interest of all students to drive their decision- making there are already policies in place to allow parents to monitor what their children check out to read which gives parents the chance to decide what their children read without interfering with other parents rights to decide what is best for their children but then I think both the people pushing for book bands and the board members who are driving their attendance at this meeting know that this policy exists if a parent has concerns about what their child is reading by all means they can and should take steps to monitor the materials their children check out that being said those same parents do not have the the authority to decide what is best for the full community I do not want untrained laymen and
073politically motivated individ uals deciding what materials will be available for my children to read when they are lucky enough to be of age to attend Menor Schools they're young now I genuinely can't wait for my children to be Cardinals by the way I'm very proud of this District these book banding conversations are repetitive and a blatant waste of time and resources this is especially true when we have education critical discussions such as large class sizes happening tonight this unnecessary discussion also comes when only two weeks ago we had a student make a shooting threat which highlights that one one of the top concerns that the board should have is how to best maintain the Safety and Security of the district and its students when we have parents considering themselves more with book bands and other
074culture W nonsense instead of ensuring that their children are not threatening the safety of students and District employees the board's responsibility becomes to ensure that the district has wellth thought out responses in place to address such threats I know the board wants to focus on presenting excuse me pressing issues such as class sizes safety and meeting the educational and fiscal goals of the district instead of divisive topics hopefully logical heads will prevail to keep the board focused on what really matters thank you an fi from 7570 man Rec Court thank you um first I just want to say super quick thank you to Mrs Payne and Mr Heath for getting the school police officer jobs um to go out to the Sheriff's Department if they aren't filled by the MPD um I'm glad to see
075that we're moving in the right direction to protect all of the schools um on the agenda item of challenging books the Menor Public Schools offer many ways to tailor a child's education to their specific needs ie Keys 504 plans gifted plans I ready Diagnostics Etc these are all beneficial and a sign of the Fantastic resources that kids and teachers enjoy through the Menor Public Schools so why should it be any different to want to tailor a child's reading selections to their needs I will tell you from personal experience with my daughters how important this is I received a phone call just today from The Amazing gifted teacher at belflower Mrs McLaughlin to ask for guidance with a book situation with my fifth grader my daughter is uh reads several grades above her age but emotionally
076she's still a fifth grader and one who is very sensitive to scary or upsetting subjects she earned a token for the new book vending machine and Mrs mclaughin was concerned about her having a good experience selecting a book that would be a good fit for her the school actually wanted my input on books that the school would specifically purchase just to put in the vending machine for my daughter this is going above and beyond and I was blown away by that gesture this is not the first time the teachers and I have had to work out accommodations for my daughter regarding books that were not a good fit because heavy subjects cause her anxiety it is highly insulting when some fellow parents in this community downplay the need for books to be tailored to every
077child's needs or call it theatrics when parents want to have some say into what is available to or appropriate for their children every every family would benefit and teachers may have less to handle if parents had some control in this area whether it is a child's educational or emotional needs or even the family's personal morals every family has the right to advocate for the best experience for their child in the schools I don't particularly care what other families read or what their children bring home from the school but it's important to me to protect my child's emotional health she's not your typical kid every child's different Sophia she just feels things harder than a lot of kids her brain just never stops so that should be my right as a parent that should be every
078parents right in this District to have some say in what their kids uh check out and what they read in the schools um unfortunately the current checking out notification system doesn't actually solve a problem it doesn't prevent my child from being exposed to something that could harm her it just notifies me after the fact of what conversation we need to have that night at home thank you thank [Applause] you Amanda young 8172 Concord Drive sure she didn't show up Jessica Hardesty 7194 hodon Road hopefully I have a compelling take on this because wow good evening according to a press release issued by two of our board members the content in right now real kids speaking up for change is not age appropriate in a Facebook post by a board member the issues in the book
079were referred to as too heavy for children ages 5 to 11 this is a stunning remark considering that Sophie Cruz featured in the book was 5 years old when she delivered a letter to the pope letting him know about the fear and pain that the threat of Separation caused her and her family Jonas Corona was six years old when he began his own organization to provide resources to Children and Families in Need Jaylen Arnold who has Tourette's was bullied by his classmates in response at age eight he began advocating anti-bullying and advocating for children with disabilities eight at seven years old BNA alabad wrote about her experience living as a child through war in Syria War torn Syria lived through told us about it if young children can live through war and articulate their experience
080if they can become a voice against bullying if they can actively care for the less fortunate then surely our kids can learn about that wouldn't we want that the press release was grotesquely political as it included only the names of two out of uh more than 10 right by um children the two they chose to highlight in their press release were Jazz Jennings a trans child who advocated to be accepted among her peers and adults and Greta thunberg most well known for being reviled B conservatives these were a simple and sad attempt to cause division um so I'm not going to mention everybody but I would like to remind everyone about malalo Yousef who when she spoke she spoke up against the Taliban a far right organization that ended uh education for girls after sixth
081grade they shot her in the head she kept talking she survived she talk kep kept talking right 17 years old she wins the Nobel Peace Prize youngest winner the story story of a child being denied their education deserves special attention in times like these if you don't like what's coming home in the book sit down with your kid be a parent talk about it thank you Amanda lafi 5428 Marsh good evening thank you for your time tonight um my comments pertain to the library and media materials on the agenda for discussion this evening uh the following is a quote from the book right now the book we've been talking about again as a reminder um available to students as young as kindergarten I quote our world is dying our fure fut is dying what must
082change everything who must act everyone when now now now instead of looking for Hope look for Action then and only then hope will come end quote if this community wants proof that public schools are trying to create political activists here it is this quote is referencing the environment and there are plenty of other heavy and age inappropriate issues in this book that a six or seven-year-old is not likely mature enough to handle this book is telling our young children that their world is dying that there is no hope and everything about their world must change and instead of looking for hope they should become an activist you all have had children or grandchildren imagine for a moment that them as little children reading that or having that read to them maybe they already tend to
083be sensitive or fearful and then they read this that their world is dying and without taking action they have no hope then imagine that how helpless they might feel because as a young child under the age of 10 these problems are so much bigger than what their young minds can comprehend solutions for most adults can't even comprehend our thought patterns can powerfully influence our emotions when we dwell on dismal thoughts we begin to believe them we start to feel defeated and depressed and it is content such as that in this book that is contrib ruting to the declining mental health of our youth in this country and I don't need a poll or a scientific study to to tell me that I simply have to wake up and and walk around and be in this
084world it's here in our own City our children are depressed anxious and confused and I along with many of the other people who stand up here month after month are charged with protecting them as are you we don't stand up here with the political agenda I do not uh not to hear myself talk or to be argumentative we we stand up here as God's people who want to protect those who cannot protect themselves and it's been said many times tonight I'll say it again this is not about book Banning but what has not been said is that this is about using your policy that you have in place to protect children from content that is not age appropriate and it's just not about these two books really it's also about what we allow our children
085to see hear and experience on a regular basis that affects their outlook on the world I don't just speak for my children I speak for all of the children that are going to grow up in this in this community and uh that affects me as well as all of you thank you for your time thank [Applause] you Stephanie Wilson 6557 Packard Court hello um my name is Stephanie Wilson I have two children who uh go to Fairfax Elementary School uh my daughter's in fifth grade and my son is in fourth grade uh we were in the Air Force we just got back um we just separated from the Air Force um so that's a little bit about me um but I didn't prepare anything but uh and this is the first time I've came to
086a meeting like this but I just think it's really important that um our children are not subjected to these types of books um I know you guys are all irritated I said that but um unfortunately it's just not right um especially minors with sexual explicit books being being exposed to that you know whatever they want to read outside of school that's fine we're not trying to ban any book we just don't want it in the schools school is for math science English and yes history I don't mind that my children learn about that kind of stuff but I don't like how um the book is saying that it's um that the world is dying and and you know the as as far as if you want to be trans that's fine with me that's not
087my business but um as far as that goes I feel like I that's something that I can explain to my children the school doesn't need to explain that to them um and you know and especially like my kids are going to be going to high school as well in Menor and I don't want them reading about sex and and sexual situations I think it's I don't it's wrong um and that's all I have to say thank you thank you Terry County 7565 Lakes Shore Boulevard not seeing Terry Megan shig 8151 Buckboard Lane feel like I walked into the wrong party here tonight but uh good evening president cook Mr Heath Mr Wade members of the board my name is Megan shaning I have two children at Hopkins and one at Memorial which are two of
088the 12 non peanut free schools in Mentor um while I don't get up at board meetings and speak very often which I'm reminded as of why tonight um many of you have seen my face before as I give a lot of my time volunteering in this District my comments have been the same words I've spoken many times and I'm getting frustrated that they're falling on deaf ears there are things actually occurring in our Menor schools yet most seem more concerned about books and bathrooms we currently have 29 prepubescent tween in each of our fifth grade classes at Hopkins with many grades having high numbers not far behind our fifth graders if you've never been around a gaggle of fifth grade boys let me tell you there is far more psychological damage being done to these
089children being shoved in these classrooms with kids who haven't learned the art of hygiene than a book that no one even knew about until it went viral on Facebook our kids deserve better our teachers definitely deserve better research proves we should be doing better it's time to start putting some focus on things that will actually benefit our children and not our egos I started speaking up about this topic seven years ago when my first child was in kindergarten at Hopkins the same words not much as changed a lot of broken promises told with redistricting and I keep being told quote we're watching the numbers enough talk it's time for Action you're worried about math scores what affects that more a class of almost 30 or a book none of them have ever read I don't
090want to leave our children alone I don't have a fifth grader this year but I care about my school I care about my district and most of all I care about all children thank you for your time thank you Melanie mjus 5850 bur Lane good evening I thought you forgot about me Mr Wade um speaking tonight on the book challenges the rationale that's being used for these attempts to ban books is that we need to protect children from trauma and from heavy topics it's interesting to me then that the violence that we see in some books is not a concern if people are truly worried about protecting kids in fact one supporter of these challenges commented that violence just wasn't the same thing and it was too hard to identify compared to sexual content so
091if we're concerned about trauma and the trauma that kids face in school I want to share a story about that my daughter was six she was absolutely terrified by her first Intruder drill at orch Hollow to the point of having nightmares for weeks afterwards this was 20 years ago hopefully they're being done differently now but it was very very bad at the time and it left a permanent effect on her fast forward 12 years she's a student in Ohio State when one morning I start to get texts from the OSU Emergency Alert service that say run hide fight active shooter reported on campus over and over the location of the Intruder was the building where I knew my daughter had class at that time I tried frantically to call her and to text her for
092what seemed like an eternity she did not respond I have never felt so frightened in my life as I did during those endless minutes of silence finally after what seemed like forever I heard back from her and she was okay while the Intruder died that day it was not a mass casualty event for which I'm thankful but also Furious that anyone ever has to experience this and I canot begin to Fathom the terror of parents and students in the dozens of school massacres our country has experienced like my daughter 12 years earlier that incident left a permanent effect on me that's trauma it's continued trauma being inflicted upon an entire generation of children and their families studies show that Intruder drills and school shooting threats significantly increase feelings of anxiety and fear in children and
093yet I'm not hearing people coming to these meetings to talk about about these these events I'm not hearing people coming to talk about the trauma that is caused by threats of school shootings even as a joke joking is a form of desensitization and desensitization is a trauma response but we've normalized violence in our society to the point where that barely even raises an eyebrow if people were truly concerned about how trauma affects kids and how heavy issues affect kids and truly worried about their safety and wellbeing in school we'd be spending this time to discussing safety upgrades to protect our kids we'd be talking about how the same people who were pushing these book bands didn't support the permanent Improvement Levy that would have provided funding to help make our school safer but it's not
094actually about our kids well-being and it never was thank [Applause] you chrisy bovic 7570 Delila Drive good evening tonight I'll be speaking on the agenda item regarding the book challenges I'm the parent of two Elementary age students currently attending Menor public schools and I appreciate that we parents and caregivers have so many ways to receive info on and to give input into our child's education classroom book lists library book checkout notification options conferences online communication tools classroom newsletters and so on not to mention actual education professionals qualified to review and curate book collections and learning materials I also know and appreciate that if I ever have questions or wish to discuss my children's learning experience I'm more than welcome to do so with their teachers or admin that's part of my role and responsibility as
095a parent what is not my role and responsibility demanding a say in any other students learning experience including what they read so I ask you to keep the books let parents and caregivers decide whether or not to allow their own children to read them now to address the specific issues cited by the opposition to the book titled right now real kids speaking up for change challenging a book because it acknowledges the existence of those whose existence and stories they wish to deny or hide that of a well-known and loved transgender girl of a young person passionate about addressing the climate crisis of a child surviving an attack from the Taliban and going on to win a Nobel Peace Prize of a small child who wanted the pope to know what it feels like to be
096an immigrant in the new country are their existences and their stories inappropriate no what's inappropriate is expecting a public institution of learning to say that they are calling their stories too heavy for elementary age students to process doesn't exactly hold up given that those very same students have to process and participate in active shooter drills at their schools now that is heavy I contend that the stories of the kids in right now can help students find their voice enhance empathy help them understand the world they are inhabiting and inheriting all in addition to being inspirational of course the challeng challengers of this book or anyone really can disagree and take actions to prevent their own children from reading the book but they absolutely do not have the right to make it so that my child
097cannot see the stories of the young people in this book represented at their school keep the books and please let's get back to focusing on real issues such as school safety or class sizes for example my fourth graders CL class is now 26 kids which is less than ideal but obviously still not the largest Elementary SC uh class in this District you know issues real issues that matter and make a difference to this District its students its teachers and its staff you know the real reasons we should all be here tonight thank you thank you next next we have the superintendent's report and recommendations good evening everyone uh I want to start my comments this evening as I've done a lot here recently with a a couple of Transportation updates uh first a quick reminder
098to all of our parents please please remember to complete the annual update and answer the questions regarding Transportation as a reminder we are requiring all students in grades 9 through 12 to opt into transportation for the 2425 school year and for students in grade six or K through 8 we are asking families to opt out of Transportation if they know they will not be needing a bus for next year our transportation department now has the map built in the brand new routing system that will be implemented at the beginning of next school year and we need accurate information on who needs transportation to and from school in order to make our routes more timely and efficient we are sending out those reminders on a weekly basis so please try to get that done here for
099us soon we would certainly appreciate that eyes are going already um on Monday March 4th Dr Joe glaven and I were able to attend the press conference where Governor Mike dwine and Lieutenant Governor John hustad announced the awarding of the Career Technical education equipment grants to school districts and Career Centers around the state we are excited to share with our community that we have secured a little more than $2.2 million to update our equipment and renovate some spaces in our high school for the Career Academy initiatives that I announced in the state of the schools address a few weeks ago we are working with our operations department now to outline the scope of the work and put an implementation plan together for these CTE programs our grant focused on S six different programs culinary digital
100media construction information technology cyber security and Aviation we will be updating our equipment and our family and consumer science labs and our construction Labs as well as outfitting our it and Aviation acmis to provide our students with the items they need to learn the skills necessary for those in demand career fields we look forward to sharing more details with you as these plans are finalized I know we have some discussions planned for this evening regarding our instructional supplemental and Library materials policies so I've spent a number of hours working through the capabilities of our software systems and our procedures for checking out materials that have um that I have shared with our board members I'm looking forward to coming to some consensus on those language changes and on the development of procedures that will allow
101individual parents to have full control over what their own children access in our libraries last month we had a lot of conversation around our cell phone policies um I would like to report that the enforcement of our current policy is working well so far we have taken our handbook language that uh you that we used as our administrative guidelines and we've implemented that across our middle schools and elementary schools as well as what's taking place at the high school as we've gone through that policy language um review we have identified that we will need to adjust a few things in the policy to address what we currently are doing in our middle schools and elementary schools because the language doesn't quite align once we get uh a feel from our middle schools and elementary schools
102of where that policy implementation needs to take place and we get their feedback we will present some language updates for that entire policy I also look forward to sharing the administrative guidelines that are developed that are very very closely aligned to what we already current ly have in our school handbooks we'll give you another update as we get into that next month as well since the pi Levy failure in November our District Administrative team has spent a portion of each of our weekly meetings reviewing ways to cut over $5 million out of our budgets to meet Mr Wade's goals and assumptions in our five-year forecast through these discussions we have cut nearly $4 million from our Capital Improvement plans our safety upgrades and our department budgets over the last two weeks I've spent time meeting
103with our department coordinators and our building principles to find additional cost-saving measures or alternative Revenue sources to reduce the final $1.2 million we still need to meet our goals these have been outstanding conversations with our administrators and I'm very thankful for their creative thoughts and ideas to reduce spending with as little impact on student learning and class sizes as possible we've decided on some smaller items like not adding new mulch to our elementary playgrounds this year since we already meet and exceed the minimum amount of mulch needed for student safety you wouldn't think it would be a whole lot but there's a $25,000 savings just with that we've identified some bigger ticket items like computer programs and assessments that we may have used in the past but may not need moving forward we've also discussed
104increasing Revenue sources through advertising pay to participate fees and facility rentals Mr Wade and I are going to be having some final meetings here in the next two weeks to identify the exact items we will consider to try and meet the 5year forecast and finally we are making significant progress on our strategic planning process that we will be completing here this spring we are working on the final draft of the community survey right now after receiving feedback from each of our board members we are hoping that survey will be deployed within the next couple of weeks so please be on the lookout for that we also have had our first couple of meetings with our facilitators from the learner Center collaborative we are going to be finalizing our guiding Coalition group that will serve as
105the steering committee for our strategic plan here sometime before spring break that group will work closely with the facilitators on the four in-person meeting dates that they will be here in the district conducting interviews with literally hundreds of teachers admin administrators support staff community members business and industry partners and most importantly with our students each of our board members have submitted list of names of community members and Business Leaders that they feel would be great representatives to help drive this strategic plan so we are looking forward to reaching out to those individuals here soon to tap into their areas of expertise and to share their thoughts and ideas with us the process is going to be fairly intensive in the months of April and May and the with the hopes of finalizing the three main
106deliverables of a portrait of a graduate a set of goals and action steps and a scor card of measurable outcomes during the month of June to be ready for board approval in July and implementation with our entire School District in August I want to thank our board members for all of their insights and help with this process already and look forward to this meaningful work ahead of us and I do have more comments on class sizes when we get to that in the new business I promise Megan I'm sorry Madame President may I ask a question uh Mr Heath do we have plans to I know we talked in previous meetings about deepening Community engagement and we kind of talked through ways of doing that and it sounds like the strategic planning process is a
107great jumping off point so do we have plans to kind of extend some of that um you some of those practices we're using for strategic planning yeah uh so our current strategic plan has four pillars attached to it um school safety is one academics is one resources is one and Community engagement is uh another um within our community community engagement um pillar we're hoping to kind of expand how we do that um here moving forward um we're we're in the process now of trying to take the uh state of the schools address on the road so to speak we've got one tomorrow night uh hoping to get something set up with the senior center and with rotary here soon as well um so those are some starting points but we also want to make sure
108we continue to engage in community conversations uh around some of those uh goals and action steps that are going to be coming out of that strategic planning here in the future too that's great I I'm really hoping our community though half the room is left take takes advantage of those Community engagement sessions because there are lots of ways to interact with Mr Heath and his team and our schools Beyond just the board meeting so thank you thank you uh Madame President members of the board and Mr Wade I have the following recommendations listed under the consent agenda and recommend approval of items 7 A1 through 7 A3 so moved second Mr Wade please call the role oh can we have discussion real quick um I was just wondering if we could pull off A3 uh
109given that I'm sitting on the Menor schools Foundation I know in the past we have voted uh whoever has been sitting on the Menor schools Foundation has voted but I feel like because our policy states in our bylaws to avoid a appearance of a conflict of interest I probably should abstain on that vote so I was wondering if we could just pull that one off so I don't have to abstain on everything so let me do this uh again mad Madam president members of the board Mr way to have the following recommendations listed under the consent agenda and recommend approval of item 7 A1 and 782 so move second Mr Wade please call the role so are we are we getting rid of the initial Motion in second yes I I think we have like
110a secondary motion on but how you do we need to we could do the same I could whoever's motioned in second they could do it again it doesn't matter I just want to make sure uh so we're going to go A1 through A2 yes kind of pull everyone's okay with pulling off the initial motion and table just making sure do we need to vote no uh we think we're good I have Miss gesling has moved and Miss pay a second A1 through A2 yes so you any further discussion Sorry Miss Jing yes Miss Payne yes Miss aapo yes Miss maraza yes Miss Cook yes motion carries 5- z uh Madame President members of the board and Mr Wade I have the following recommendations listed under the consent agenda and recommend approval of item 7 A3
111some second any discussion call the rooll M Jing yes uh Miss applo yes Miss maraza yes Miss Payne abstain Miss Cook yes motion carries four z uh Madame President members of the board and Mr Wade I am recommending approval of the Frontline renewal agreement so moved any discussion please call the rooll Miss Payne yes Miss gesling yes Miss Appo yes Miss maraza yes Miss Cook yes motion carries 5 Z Madam president members of the board and Mr Wade I'm recommending approval of the securely classroom subscription renewal so moved second any discussion securely spelled correctly is have an Ecentric spelling or we miss any no it's thank you just wanted to make sure yeah I want to leave it in there any other discussion please call the role I'm going to not put that in the
112minutes by the way Miss Jing yes Miss aopo yes Miss maraza yes Miss Payne yes Miss Cook yes motion carries 5- Z make sure to have that conversation with shurely in the future very annoying to those of us like the spelling luckily they've left Madame President members of the board and Mr Wade I'm recommending approval of the resolution ranking the top three firms that responded to the district's request for qualifications for professional Design Services and authorizing the treasure to enter into contract negotiations with the firm ranked most qualified second any discussion please call the role m Appo yes Miss Cook yes Miss Jing yes Miss marazza yes Miss Payne yes motion carries 5 Z Madame President members of the board Mr way I'm recommending approval of agenda item C1 related to certified personnel and C2
113through C4 all related to human resource matters so moved second any discussion please call the role Miss Payne yes Miss Jing yes Miss Appo yes chaza yes Miss Cook yes motion carries 5 Z this concludes my portion of tonight's agenda thank you okay um next we have the Board of Education report and recommendations and 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 any discussion there okay the second item under board business is the second reading and approval of the mentor Board of Education niola policies do I have a motion so moved second any discussion Mr Wade please call the role Miss maraza yes Miss Jing yes Miss Alo yes Miss Payne yes Miss Cook
114yes motions carry 5- Z next we have the legislative report Miss maraza thank you I will try to be quick I know this has been a late night already um so again in my legislative reports I'm really just trying to report on things that have been moving in the last month since our our previous board meeting so for starters the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce they've got some proposed rules open for public comment uh you can do those on their website uh and the State Board of Education still has the Ohio teacher of the year nominations open until March 31st so if there's any special teacher out there you'd like to nominate you still have a couple weeks to do so as far as State House updates we've got a house session coming up
115on April 10 and uh the last Senate session was held at the end of excuse me February um on the 28th uh where the Senate education committee met so there was some movement on some of the bills that will impact us so I'll try to go over those quickly uh the first up is Senate Bill 17 uh this is one that I mentioned last time we saw more this one kind of moved more quickly um which was to incorporate free market capitalism content into the high school financial literacy curriculum which is the it's the course where they teach you how to manage your checkbook and um open a bank account Etc and they want to incorporate 10 different concepts about capitalism into that course uh the Senate approved the house version of this bill in
116February and it was sent to governor dwine for his signature back on March 6 he's got 10 days to sign off on that if he doesn't it becomes law uh Senate Bill 104 that one saw some movement as well this one's to amend the sections of the Ohio revised code regarding the college credit plus program so this one most definitely will affect us um it would revise some operations and um actually got some amendments added to it one is that they added a secondary enrollment date of November 1st um and I assume this is to increase uh accessibility and enrollment to the program because an audit was done on the program previously which found that um the students who would most benefit from that program weren't actually enrolling so they're trying to increase enrollment in
117accessibility there um other amendments including eliminating the Bill's Provisions regarding open- Source materials and removing language that would have required school districts and institutions of higher education to split um the student textbook cost 5050 so that was taken out this passed the Senate and it was introduced into the house on March 4th so we'll keep an eye on that one for lots more but I'm going to cover the highlights Senate bill 16h is to amend the Ohio Revised Code with regard to education regulation reform um this one one lowers existing requirements for Advan Advanced educator licenses and removes mandatory State prescribed evaluation systems um for per student or excuse me teacher per performance and expand school's ability to employ unlicensed people as teachers um this has passed the Senate um and in it's in the
118house currently where it's had its first committee meeting Committee hearing in um February at the end of the month um all right let's keep moving forward um I'm going to skip this one because I did report on it last time House Bill 27 um this is to require State institutions of higher education to provide Financial cost and Aid disclosure forms and um it's got an Appropriations bit in there that basically there there are capital Appropriations and reappropriations for the banum ending June 30th this will impact some um funding with regard to the Ohio school building assistance fund it's to the tune of $600 million so it's pretty significant this one was amended and passed by the Senate the bill now goes back to the house for concurrence so we'll see where that one goes um
119also important to note The Joint the general assembly has a jointed committee on property tax review that I reported on last meeting they had their third meeting and this time around they they went ahead and they heard some um some proponent test excuse me just some testimony from invited folks only and they compared Ohio's property tax structure with some other states um and and this is really the place you know where where they're trying to study study the impact of bills like House Bill 344 the one that eliminates replacement levies that I reported on last month and House Bill 187 which would change how property taxes determined and uh increase homestead exemption so this is really where that work needs to be done um they're still working and they're looking to um wrap up their
120work in March some sometime between now June but they won't have a final report until December so it's going to be some time before we see the fruits of their labor a few new bills were introduced including House Bill 436 which would require the State Board of Education to permit educational AIDS and intervention Specialists to provide remote Services which I assume is meant to really make an impact with rural folks um and it would excuse me this is House Bill 440 this one would make changes regarding the provisions of remote services for special needs scholarship recipients and the credential professionals who may provide services under um a particular scholarship program last one house bill 432 this one would make changes uh to teaching and lure of career technology education uh teachers so that was introduced
121to the house on February 27th and that is it thank you very much next we have the student achievement report Mrs JN oh yes thank you it was a very exciting month and Mr Lynch has my my uh all my illustrations so a well-rounded education means offering multiple ways for students to explore experience problem solve and meet challenges most of these happen in the classroom but Mentor also offers a bounty of activities to support the development of well-prepared successful students ready for their Futures many thanks to the dedicated staff coaches and volunteers who support our Student Success and here is a sampling on March 2nd the Science Olympia teams from Menor High Memorial and Shore had a great day at Northern and Northeast Ohio regionals at Baldwin Wallace all three groups competed in a wide
122selection of challenging events Menor High finished sixth overall and is hoping to maintain their spot as the reigning State Champs in flight for a third year they and the memorial team will advance to the Science Olympiad state competition in April their coaching advisers have been with them every step of the way it's power of the Penn season the February 24th district tournament was held at Lake Erie College Alexis Brent an eighth grade Rider from Shore earned a fourth place medal from a total of 81 participants from 20 schools the team continued on the regional tournament or at the regional tournament at Shaker Heights last Saturday Shore 7th grader Oz Bliss earned a fourth place medal our students demonstrated joy and perseverance during these competitive events speaking of writing for 99 years Menor high school has
123had a student newspaper paper beginning with the commenter in 1925 it has evolved across generations of young journalists working hard to refine their reporting today's newspaper Cardinal nation is an excellent digital product filled with thoughtful articles interviews editorials and photos its role is to be the premier chronicler and voice of Menor high students in their ideas activities and accomplishments an exciting boost for student opportunities at available at Menor highest coming as Mr Heath mentioned the district has received a 2.2 million doll Ohio Department of Education and Workforce Career Technical education equipment grant that is quite quite a title Menor schools will use this funding to enhance options and offer new program called careeres beginning next year Mentor High Juniors and seniors took part in a think fast interactive program spotlighting safe driving practices through a
124clever game show format students learned about the Perils of distracted fatigued and intoxicated driving this was made possible by the Lake County Health Department and our own Menor Police Department our elementary schools have a consistent focus on literacy with interactive programs and fun activities Orchard Hollow and belflower had great events this month to engage kids and families Orchard special literacy night was a hit with visitors Galore and even had tasty snow cones to celebrate Mr Popper's Penguins and I have it on good authority that there was strawberry available in February Sterling Morton's kids took their pocket pigs all over town as they enjoyed the Beloved classic Charlotte's Web a special March Showcase of M school student work from grades K through 12 was presented at an evening reflecting on black history month right here in
125this space an enthusiastic Gathering of community members and guests reviewed a compilation of artwork literary pieces and historical projects featuring an array of notable African-American scientists authors artists inventors and more the Menor High speech and debate team has had a strong season last weekend Ellie Coleman and Casey gray competed at the Ohio speech and debate Association state tournament and we enjoyed seeing them this evening she finished 22nd out of 94 competitors and next up for the group Ellie Casey and teammates Aisha farooqi and Sydney velik will participate in the Menor rotary club's four-way test speech contest on March 21st one of them will advance to the district competition in April the Menor High model un traveled to the Big Apple last week and just came home they had great success at the National High School
126Model United Nations conference one of the largest in the country west Matthews and Charles partlo earned Awards of Merit Laura Lauren wanders laan had the special honor of serving as a judge on the international court of justice at the closing ceremonies Isabelle Quinones addressed a conference from the deas and the entire team won an award of Merit it was an amazing learning experience what's the key to unlocking who done it just ask fourth graders at belflower and Hopkins in their latest unit on Mysteries these young sleuths dove deep into Concepts like assumptions generalizations evidence and even fingerprints to immerse students in the excitement of solving crimes detective rigan and officer Cox from our own Menor Police Department joined the classes for some realworld applications Hands-On learning and making Community connections enriches experiences for students and
127I think they're looking for some officers that's taking it to the next level uh Sterling Morton held an amazing annual talking art museum at the end of February giving students the chance to bring famous artists and their paintings to life for crowds of kids families and visitors the students enthusiasm and ready Smiles show the pride and energy behind their work on February 24th an enthusiastic audience at the Menor Fine Arts Center greeted five Lake County show choirs at the Manor High School show choir showcase Madison Middle School Madison High School and Perry High School we're welcomed by Mentor top 25 and Shoreline we're looking forward to Menor High School theater spring musical to complete their Centennial season they will bring Sweeney Todd to the stage with performances April 18th through 21st the award-winning musical tells
128the story of a barber who seeks revenge on those who have wronged him and his family this school edition of the script was edited by composer Steven seim himself log on to ludus to get your tickets today speaking of the dramatic arts Shore Middle School presented Peter Pan Jr over the weekend capacity audiences thoroughly enjoyed their trip to Neverland through this excellent production Mentor is hosting the Ohio music educators Association large group adjudication this Friday and Saturday for district 7 serving Lake giaga and Eastern kayaga counties this is an important event for both middle schools and high schools Menor High Memorial and Shore will have instrumental and vocal musicians from grades 7 through 12 on stage to be rated based upon their performance quality we appreciate that the music teachers step forward to give area
129students the chance to receive this valuable feedback from a panel of professional Educators once a year Lake Elementary raises money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society through their spirit days this year they will support a former Lake classmate currently fighting a third round of cancer Sterling Morton student council made its annual visit to spread a Little Valentine cheer at Parker Place they delivered hundreds of Valentine's Day cards to seniors from the Morton students the residents were certainly appreciative and everyone had a wonderful time during the February District leader leadership team meeting there was a comprehensive discussion about student progress in math literacy and school climate the team of over 50 teachers instructional coaches and District administrators reviewed data from various assessments to analyze academic performance Trends and identify areas for improvement strategies for enhancing math
130and literacy instruction were explored including targeted interventions and professional development opportunities for teachers there was also a focus on collaborative School climate initiatives that promote student well-being improved attendance and better discipline in June the team will meet again to review performance on the state assessments and the advanced placement tests along with data measured progress overall registration for the Career Tech early childhood education program at Menor high is now open for next Fall's class of Little Folks and last Thursday our District's integrated pre preschool program at Garfield received an unannounced visit from the state of Ohio to complete their stepup to Quality evaluation we're happy to report that the tremendous dedication of the Garfield preschool staff resulted in another five-star rating finally the kindergarten registration for 2425 school year began on March 1st for children who
131will be 5 years old honor before September 30th of this year students who are registered for kindergarten by May 1st will be able to participate in a May kindergarten day meet and greet at their upcoming Elementary School these same students will also receive a free class of 2037 t-shirt once they are register please sign up early so that we can be ready to welcome our newest nest of little Cardinals thank you um actually if you don't mind can I add something to some of those wonderful accolades um I wanted to just mention some of our student athletes um congratulations to our seven wrestlers who made it to States this past weekend Antonio Shelly finished eighth Nick Blackburn finished third senior wrestlers laurelai meerie and Maddie Manaka were awarded the national wrestling coaches association and the
132US Marine Corps scholar All-American award Varsity bask boys basketball won the GCC title and the district runner up and four players were named Northeast Lakes all district girls vars City basketball team also had a great season and finished as District runner up we had another NCAA national Signing Day where eight student athletes signed letters of intent Paige kintop placed fifth on floor at State Gymnastics GCC February athletes of the month went to Heather Walker for bowling and Liam Lloyd for wrestling uh Heather Walker was uh named First Team all Northeast district and Dominic was named honorable mention Menor track had five indoor state qualifiers including Jaden Russell who placed eighth in the 60 meter hurdles Junior Billy Dennison set a Menor High School indoor running record for the 5K at Nationals in Boston finishing in
13325th uh congrats to eighth grader Shan castig Leon I hope I said that right for Podium finishes in the 800 and 1600 and finally March is National athletic training month and I wanted to thank Kat Ree and Tyler Wright for all they do for our athletes thank you and Mrs jine thank you for for yours thank you okay next we have the chief financial officer's report and recommendations thank you Mr Lynch uh looking at our overall uh picture uh from a large view uh we are about $1.3 million better than we thought we were going to be um with the November forecast currently at this time U and we'll go through those details um um here shortly so from a revenue hold on does that mean I don't have to cut 1.2 it may mean
134that actually I heard that too you did s you did such good work I'm going to say let's still do it so when we look at our Revenue uh the thing that I want to point out here is we are down $1.2 million comparison to last year we got our tax advance from the Lake County auditor uh last year we got $25 million he only released 14 million of it this year to us um we are expecting that when we get the rest of the tax collections for the first half of the tax year our second half collection remember that's always weird for us because our fiscal year is different than the calendar year um we expect to recoup all of that money and still be on track so when we look at where we're
135at year to date we're $155,000 on $110 million I should probably play the lot or something that we're that close I mean that's the fact that we'll I think we'll finish pretty close to that um it's kind of going to depend how our investments continue and again making sure that uh what we're projecting from local property taxes which I'm going to speak on here in a second uh would continue for the rest of this fiscal year when we look at our expenses uh again we're trending pretty much uh in conjunction with what we did last year we're down a little bit $81,000 to the uh same time last year same month and we're down almost $12 million most of that being because of not transferring out as we had in the past so overall we're
136currently spending about 1.35 or $ 1.4 million less than we have projected uh a good chunk of that's coming in our what is known as our 400 accounts or Professional Services um we are spending less than we projected in Crossroads and then we still have some extra money that we're uh able to offset some of those costs as we go out um so we'll you know we're now only have left uh you know March April May and June for our fiscal year so we're pretty close to the end of it and spending stops for our buildings in most of our departments here at the end of this month so we are kind of getting close and wrapping up a lot of our um spending that we do outside of salaries and benefits as we kind
137of close out March here so we expect that to kind of be where we're at uh gave this presentation again in October um I think it's very timely now uh we met and tonight you uh will have uh hopefully approved the tax budget um that we have in front of the board um in March we approved the tax budget we had to go to a tax budget hearing with the Lake County auditor Lake County treaser and the County prosecutor and um they let us know which is what I projected what they were going to tell us because he kind of gave us what he was thinking the auditor as who I'm referring to back in October I shared that he was projecting a 30% property valuation increase on property tax for Lake County and specifically
138the Menor area so there's a lot of talk around this a lot of discussion what does that mean for you as a taxpayer right so we're going to hit all the the fun topics tonight we're going to talk about sex we're going to talk about religion and we're going to talk about taxes so if and I think it's very pertinent because I think you know we need to understand how a 30% tax tax increase affects us as taxpayers in better schools so I think it's worthwhile again to go through and talk about how your property taxes are calculated and you can go on the auditor and you can put in your address and you can pull up your valuations and get your property tax bill because I'm sure many of you myself included don't actually
139send a check into the treasurer you probably pay it out of your escrow that you pay through your your mortgage that you're having on your house um so you don't even really see your tax bill because it goes through your mortgage company they pay it on your behalf because they're collecting it out so that's probably the good percentage of you um but if you want to know where that's going to go do and you want to check my math because you maybe just want to see how I don't know what I am to you but here's how you do it so you take your home value and that's the value you would sell your home for so if you have a $300,000 home You' take that $300,000 home value and you'd multiply what they call
140the assess value which is 35% of that and then you multiply that by our effective tax rate here in Mentor Schools and if you want to know what that is you can ask the Lake County auditor you can send me an email and I can give it to you or you can take notes from this presentation and do the math calculation yourself what happens is though the state has about 12 and a half% of roll backs that they take off the top of that tax bill because they pay it on behalf of all taxpayers on any Levy that was gone before us before 2013 because that was the law at that time after 20 2013 the law changed and the roll back was taken off so we don't get that tax break on any future
141levies that go on after 2013 so that then gives you your current tax bill your tax bill the effective Mage rate the effective millage rate is made up of basically inside millage uh which is a millage uh that is 10 ms that is uh unvote in the sense that it's by law the Ohio Revised Code states that there's 10 mills of called inside millage that the district gets 4.8 Mills for and then we have fixed rate levies which are the majority of our levies um those are levies that we pass and they bring in a specific rate and um they're included in the millage floor um because we have to start talking about things called 20 mil floor a mill is one tenth of one cent so if you're wondering what aill Mills that's not
142a million dollars I wish it was a million dollars but it's not it's one tenth of 1 cent um so when you look at that there's it's voter approved um as the majority of our levies are this type of fixed rate Levy it has limited growth um its effective rate is by the class all of us as homeowners are class one taxpayers because we are paying based on our residence if you're a property owner of a business inventor you're a class two property owner it's a different different set of uh rates the rate can decrease but it cannot increase past the voted amount that was initially approved and then there are fixed Su levies fixed some levies are things like emergency levies permanent Improvement levies um because they're approved for a specific amount they're never
143going to change so the emergency Levy that we just renewed back in November was for $15 million it always collects $15 million um it has no growth it can't collect more than $15 million um its rate is adjusted annually to generate voter approved so what has happened over time is as the property values have gone up the ACT millage rate for that has gone down because it's still only going to collect $15 million it'll never collect more so below that you see that we have 4.8 Ms in inside millage we have 67.8 MS in fixed rate levies that have been reduced um to 21.03 Ms and then we have a 7.69 mil emergency Levy which which is now calculated at about 7.07 Ms so we have a total millage of 8.29 that has an effective
144millage rate so it's been reduced to 32898 so what happens is and the basic concept is as property values go up your effective millage rates goes down and your our revenues remains relatively flat districts do not see growth on their proper property uh Revenue that we gain from property tax only on inside millage so only on that 4.8 Mills the rest of it just gets decreased and that's why you saw that that number went from 80 down to 32 so the 4.8 will always stay the same we'll see an increase slightly based on that so if you look at this graph and that happens every three years so every six years we do a full reappraisal of the accy and that's what we're doing right now in 2024 if you go the next three years
145in 2027 we'll do what's called a trianal update and then in 2030 we'll do another reappraisal so if we go back the same rule applies we had an update in 21 we had a reappraisal in 18 and then we had a trianal update in 15 and you can see on those graphs on the left you can see what happened to the property values in our school district at that time in 15 they went up by about 4% in 18 they went up by 115% and in 21 they went up by almost 20 20% what happened though in the corresponding years Mr Lynch you click down you can see that in 21 when we had the TR update our property actually our property tax rates went down by 13.23% so that's what brought that millage rate
146down the effective Mill drop so as property value goes up effective millage rate drops if you look at the red line in 16 that was the last time the district had a Lev on the general operating Lev on for new money so we saw an increase in 16 of 13.37% because we had a new operating Levy that came on in 2016 and that's the last time we had General operating money that was added to the district so that's why you see on the right you see the property tax rate went up because the voters approved that Levy and it became on and we started collecting half of it in 17 and didn't get full collection into till fiscal year we'll put this presentation online this kind of just shows you the historical residential in class
147two or or business commercial property tax increases over the over the time just to kind of highlight them for you in 2018 our properties change percent went up by 10.4 and 21 it went almost by 19 and when you factor in what happened with class two you get the numbers that we saw previously so this slide shows that I projected in our November forecast c a 30% increase in property tax valuation so we didn't we didn't assume that we weren't going to get 30% we assumed that in the calculations that we had going into the levy we've assumed that that's the percentage increase that we were going to see from the auditor he confirmed again at the tax budget hearing he thinks that that's going to be you know 30% what that's going to do
148then to our effective tax rate then it's going to drop it down by 19.24% in 24 I'm projecting that we'll go back to more historical averages M thank you Mr Lynch at uh 27 to closer to 11% which then will drop our tax rate by another 5.38% what that's going to do is again just remind everybody that green line is our voted millage rate it never changes that's that 80 Ms of a millage rate that we have approved in this District the Gray Line is what the effective rate is and that yellow dash line is the 20 mil floor which by law you can't fall below the 20 mil floor so what would happen is if we fall below 24 20 mil floor we would actually be our millage would be increased back to 20
149mil so we would see some additional Revenue we are not at the 20 mil floor we are protected by what's known as House Bill 920 in our district so when we see the increase of 30% there's like a buffer again we won't see a 30% tax increase on your tax bills you only see the 4.8 Mills increased by that 30% rate which equates to about $50 per $100,000 for a tax owner if we were in a district that has on the floor Perry Local Schools will be East Lake is going to get to the floor um Kirtland is going to get to the flooor during this next update they're going to see larger increases because again once they fall below they'll get bumped back up and that's creating some concern for taxpayers because they're seeing
150that their tax bills are going to go up at larger rates than they're custom used to um you've seen discussions in giaga County where the auditor had asked districts to give money back our auditor has suggested to districts particularly those at the 20 mil floor that they consider giving some of their money back because he uses the word windfall in his discussion with us as did the treasur from Lake County use the word windfall and you all know me I didn't keep my mouth shut and I asked the question I asked for a definition of the word windfall because I don't think a 2.3% increase for Mentor is is a windfall we're going to see about two and half million dollar more in revenue and I'll explain why I have charged to show you other
151community organiz ations and and why I don't think $2.3 million is a windfall and I don't think 2.3% is a windfall I understand it's going to impact me and it's going to impact you because of increased in property taxes on the inside millage I'm not saying that what I'm trying to communicate to our community is that we are protected by house build 920 we are not going to see a windfall in Menor schools from an increase of 30% you're going to see your effective Mills drop and you're only going to see an increase on the 4.8 Ms so it's important that you understand that and then that blue line underneath or that light blue gray line is our emergency Levy which will continue to decrease because it will always collect $15 million as I shared
152with you that's a fixed sum Levy so when we look at our total revenue in our local real estate Revenue you can see since 2012 it's remained relatively flat that that curve does not have slope so if we were having a math lesson you know the slope of that line is is pretty much you know a little bit higher than zero so when we look at these discussions I get very passionate about this this this topic because I think there's it's a it's a political topic right now is a topic that because our the way that we fund schools is very convoluted and complicated with property tax it and it's the only tax that you can really vote on and you'll see that again here shortly in some later slides um it's something that we
153as taxpayers are considered of and we're knowledge we want to be knowledge about because we we see what's going on but what we have to realize is that our annual growth over the previous 10 years and this is what the left side of that graph shows behind me yeah my right your left is that we only saw an average annual growth in local property tax revenue of 1.35% in the previous 10 years inflation over that same time period was 6.12% so this this is where I always say to you guys if teachers never got another race because that's the only thing that and we never spent more than we did today on teacher salaries we would deficit spend always because inflation would rise the price of gas it would rise the price of our electric
154it would rise the price of the materials that we buy for our students Insurance Healthcare goes up at anywhere from 8 to 10% a year nationally that we'd SE an increase in so this is this is not a an expense issue alone it's really a revenue issue because we're not we we don't have any way or any means with the way that we fund schools to see an increase in Revenue that keeps up with inflation so when we look at kind of going out the next five years we're projecting about a 1% increase in growth even with that 30% valuation increase coming next year because again I projected that in my calculations and that was the right show and we're seeing an annual inflation rate over the next 5 years probably closer to 3.7% and
155that's kind of taken out of a uh CPI calculation based on pre-co and kind of what we've seeing after Co now so that trend's going to continue so I like I like numbers shocking as that may seem so what has happened for us and I and I I chose 2017 through 2022 because our local entities the county men on the Lake City and Menor city has to do the same thing that we do and they have to present an annual report well theirs is different than ours because they base theirs on calendar years not fisical years so since 23 just ended I can't get their 23 data until they release their afcs so that will be coming out and I'll share that data when I get it so I really am comparing 17 through 22
156and I I think it will present to you kind of the facts that I'm trying to show our property tax change each year is on this chart above you probably can't read it because it's not really that big but what I show is the cumulative from 17 to 22 was an 8% increase that's that first box in green that includes a 7.15% increase that happened in 20 2018 because that was the first year we collected the full increase from the voted millage in 2016 so most of that's because we approved it as voters that wasn't because property values increased by that much that's because you as voters in 2016 approved a new Levy which increased our Revenue by 133% if you remember from a couple slides ago so we only collected half in fiscal year
15717 didn't collect the full amount till 2018 we saw a 4% decrease in 19 we saw 3.7% increase in 20 we saw a 0.1% decrease in 21 and in 22 we only saw 1.4% increase so cumulative change percent difference between 17 and 22 is 8% that same time period our state revenue went down by 3.47% because as you've seen all my graphs most of our Revenue comes from the state and from the local taxpayer with the majority of it coming from the local taxpayer so our total revenue only changed in that same time period of 3.12% we live in Lake County our kids come from majority come from men on the lake and Menor City so I just use those three taxing entities as a comparison FYI the county does not have to have is
158not impacted by high spill 920 so when property values go up their property taxes increase only school districts are affected by House Bill 920 cities are not affected by House Bill 920 so it's property tax ta will increase as property values go up and they also at the county get sales tax what has happened to the price of things in the last five years gone up right what do you think the sales taxes gone up in Lake County from a revenue standpoint about 29% in 5 years they've seen a 29% increase in revenue from sales tax they've seen a 21.2% increase in property tax their total General revenues have increased by 133% remember if we go back ours went up by 3% and our state aid went down by three and a half per. men
159around the lake saw a property tax increase of 22.5% their income tax Has Changed by 51.53309 the city of Menor gets 58.1 million a year in income tax it's gone up 34.1 3% from 17 to 22 they only get $7 million in property tax that's went up by almost 40% since 17 yet we're the ones getting a windfall and and I have no problem with that how that tax system works for met on the Lake City of Bor or for the county they have built-in growth the property tax laws are kept to keep our Revenue flat unless we get the approval of the voters which is fine but I want the voters to realize everything's not equal and we actually don't see a windfall when property valuations go by 30% we're only going to see
160an increase of 2.3% in 24 because of a 30% property value increase so when you look to giaga county or other counties that are asking and you see the county giving back some property tax value well if I'm Menor and I give a million dollars back out of 7 millions and I still have 59 million coming in from another account that's still up 40% I could I could probably understand doing that so when I but for us our state revenues went down we don't have an increase in state revenue it's not going up at the state and raise the sales tax or income tax so for us to give anything back we're just giving back and losing money there's nothing else that's making it up we haven't seen the growth that this other entities have
161seen so I think it's fair to be educated because I think it's fair when you're comparing apples you need to compare them to Apples not apples to oranges our funding systems are different from those other political entities that's why we're very protective of tax incentives that are given to businesses within the community because it impacts us the most so this just summarizes that you can kind of see where our growth is and where their growth is in comparison this is kind of the summary of those charts with the green that I had previously and I just point out on here that 8.07% includes the increase from the voter approved increase from the march of 2016 election because if we didn't have that we wouldn't even be close to 8% we probably be closer to three
162or two and a half% probably so be on the lookout for a 30% value increase in your property value I want you to hear that from me and realize that your effective millage rate is going to drop accordingly but you will see an increase on your property taxes of about $50 per $100,000 because of the inside millage and that's the only growth that we'll see as a district I'm happy to answer any questions from the board before I move on on that I do have a few other slides good job explain uh I'm not going to go over those slides I just will remind um another discussion point that comes up a lot recently is uh large cash reserves um I will point out that the state has a $3.5 billion cash Reserve I know
163what quantifies large in people's minds but 3.5 billion to me is a nice cash Reserve and I think it's an an important one I'm not saying that there's anything against a cash Reserve I think we have a policy that says that we should have a cash Reserve I actually wish it was higher but again we have to be prudent and be realistic we have a policy that states our cash balance has to be 20% and that's made up of 15% of our uh expenses from the prior year which is about $17 million and then we've set aside 5% of the prior Year's Revenue which is about $5.5 million so we we have a policy that says that our cash Reserve can't fall below $22 million approximately because we don't want to be in a situation
164like we were back in 2004 we're in the fiscal cliff and we don't have money so that policy dictates that that says that we have to go back by policy to the voters to seek additional revenue and or make additional cuts and we are deficit spending so you've heard me say this before the standard is is 60 days cash on hand we have about 164 days of cash on hand now because we're def suspending by about a little bit three and a half maybe hopefully lower for Mr Heath he's giving me the wink you know and then we'll be closer to 153 but based on the projections out of the inflationary increases and the Staffing incre or salary increases and benefit increases you can see that that's going to decrease over time so by policy
165and that's what the bottom right curve shows we'll be at 22.4% in 27 so we we couldn't even really technically by policy go to 28 without getting additional Revenue because we would be only at a 99.3% cash Reserve that's why my recommendation has been since the levy failure that we continue to tighten our belts and we should seek additional Revenue by no later than 2025 to make sure that we have the revenue to support our expenses and it costs $92 a day to educate a student in Menor schools so in my favorite slide you guys all know we're in the bottom third of effective tax rates in the county and we're towards the top third or in the top third thir for sure in academics so with that I'll entertain any more questions Madame President
166M uh members of the board Mr Heath I ask that we pass items B through G in one motion so moved second any discussion please call the role Miss Payne yes Miss Jing yes Miss AO yes Miss maraza yes Miss Cook yes motions carry 5- Z Madame President members of the board Mr Heath I ask for the approval of resolution to recertify the tax rates for the tax collection 2024 collection year uh 25 sorry I said that terribly but miss Payne moved second any discussion please call the RO Miss Payne yes Miss Jing yes misso yes Miss maraza yes Miss Cook yes motion scary 5- Z it is recommended that the resolution authorizing the filing of complaints against the valuation of real property permanent Parcels of tax year 23 be approved so second any discussion
167M Jing yes that was actually oh it's okay I am going DEA in my my left ear Miss moraza yes Miss Cook yes Miss aapo yes Miss Jing yes Miss pay yes motion carries 5 Z that concludes my section of the agenda okay we do not have any unfinished business on the agenda um at this time we do have new business to address and we have two recent book challenges that Mr Heath has reviewed upon sending his decision to retain books the individuals have requested an appeal to the board and we will discuss them individually the first book challenge appeal was submitted by Ken and Jill Murphy the book is titled right now real kids speaking up for change by Miranda Paul and it is a non-fiction book do I have a motion so moved
168again and your motion is are we discussing it first I think that was the um was sent to us was discussion and then we would we would um move to a resolution discussion what do you wan to what what is your discussion what do how do you want to lead the discussion is what I'm asking well we could I mean we could do the we could just go right to the resolution if if that would be better I could move the to the resolution and then it would it would follow for discussion correct no what I'm asking you is are you moving to discuss to discuss the appeal but yes yes that's what we I think we got the legal guidance today and it said to do that first yes so we have a motion
169to discuss the appeal I think Rose second in it yes yes you discuss please okay well first I wish our crowd was still here because it seems that there's a lot of misunderstanding as to why this issue is here and exactly what the is really the is isue at hand is um first I would like to remind everyone that these book challenges are before us today because taxpayers followed the process that we have in place to challenge the content which is their right um it is disrespectful to our community to call this a waste of time this is exactly what we're here as a board to do this issue is a major concern for a lot of people for those who feel it isn't I'll remind you that I campaigned on this issue and received
170the most votes secondly knowing more book challenge will be in our future Mrs Payne and I made every effort to come up with a policy that would secure the rights and and Comforts of all parents in the district on both sides of this issue we had hoped that a solution would have been well in its way in time for these appeals unfortunately that didn't happen moving forward we will continue to advocate for changes to this policy to create balance that is needed in order to Garner the support from the community that we desperately need as we just heard as I sit here now we do not have enough of a safeguard in place so removing this book is the only option that I can support my issue is not with the general content and the
171lessons and accomplishments portrayed in the book right now real kids speaking up for change each story shows resilience and bravery from Children of all walks of life however if and when these heavy topics should be placed in the hearts and minds of our Littles is not the decision for us to make it's the parents decision our job here tonight is to determine if having this particular book in our elementary school liaries aligned with our policy that is our only obligation personal opinions and politics should have no place in this de decision again the issue to be debated here is whether the book follows policy not whether the experiences in the book are important the decision made to retain this book indicated that by by Mr Heath um that he found the book to be consistent
172with school library Bill of Rights and I respectfully disagree if we look at VI uh a violation to policy 25202 selection of library media materials this book is not consistent with the library Bill of Rights and in it is inappropriate for the age and developmental level of children ages 6 to 11 we heard a lot about it but I'm going to repeat some of them um activist Greta thunberg speaking up for the environment our world is dying our future is dying Greta is quoted as saying instead of looking for Hope look for Action then and only then hope will will come kids are gullible they believe in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus we know this about our kids okay and we're exposing them to this thinking that it's not going to influence them at
173a time when we have a mental health crisis things like this further cause further Stress and Anxiety our district pays about $800,000 a year for Crossroads I hope that's correct I know if my seven-year-old reads this she will take many of these statements as fact and some will cause her a lot of stress and anxiety and worry wor sometimes as our kids get older we forget how easily they are scared Malala uh I'm I made sure that I pronounced this right you youai um this selection talks about the Taliban and how Malala was shot the authorities shot her but she recovered and continued speaking out kids read this and they think if this can happen to Malala maybe it could happen to me it's causing them undue stress activist bana elad a seven-year-old speaks up
174for peace what is it like to run for your life Barefoot down pitch black streets that you once laughed and played in what is it like to watch cartoons with your baby brothers one minute and the next minute carry them down flights of stairs to escape the blasts of an air raid what was Syria like before the war what can we do to help kids will look at this and think can this happen if this can happen to bana this can happen to me how are six-year-olds supposed to make sense of this K through five are the age group that we that were really negatively affected by Co we don't know what kids are dealing with at home some kids might read this and then never think about it again some kids will have a
175very strong reaction to it most parents probably don't even know that this kind of content is in the schools this could really harm the hearts and minds of our little ones there's not as many people in here anymore but raise your hand if you ever got to be a m mystery reader and for your child or your grandchild niece and nephew okay I think the litmus test for books should be if you were a mystery reader in grades K through five would you choose this book would you be comfortable reading this book remember would you be comfortable reading this book in front of other children's other people's children remember this is not a judgment to those who do believe this book is age appropriate for their child every child is different however because we can't
176be sure that it's appropriate for all students then we can't risk having it on our shelves Elementary School sent a notice home before showing a rated PG movie if we notify parents for a PG movie about penguins because it may contain something that parents might seem inappropriate why would we would this book be okay um policy on the um moving to the to we to provide materials that will stimulate growth in factual knowledge lit literary appreciation aesthetic values and ethical standards I'm going to focus on factual knowledge andth ethical standards our world is dying our future is dying is not a factual statement do we believe it's ethical to tell six seven and 8-year-olds that they shouldn't look for hope that the world is dying their future is dying this book sends the message that
177children should take responsibility for solving the world's problems and that is not ethical because every child is unique and we have a reasonable argument that this book is not age appropriate and it does not belong in the library or classroom as it violates our policy we as board members know that books can be removed if they are deemed to hold content that is more suitable for older age students let's allow parents to decide when and if this book is appropriate for their child any more discussion yes um so we've discussed this issue multiple times spending hours meeting and scrutinizing individual books and strategies to address the freedom to read on Bal with parental rights we hear many preferences and ideologies expressed by our community coming from disperate voices with directly opposing viewpoints it doesn't make
178one party right and another party wrong just since this issue was placed on the agenda we've I at least have received 21 emails and two phone calls two two of those calls are the two calls and 13 letters opposed the removal eight letters were in favor of removal Empire of storms has been at the high school library for seven years it's circulated five times we have two copies of the right now real kids speaking eff for change at two of the elementary schools it was checked out twice at Ridge not at all at Hopkins and I assume one of the two times that was checked out at Ridge in that 18 months um would have been the the what prompted the the challenge it's evidence that there's a continuum of opinions without consensus Mrs Payne
179has advocated for parental rights and transparency in these matters and I agree with her parents do have the absolute right to monitor control and encourage their own child's reading selections I believe that our policy approved in September giving parents notification of anything their child checks out of the media center is adequate we could take it a step further so that if parents prefer to specifically review any selections prior to the student taking them home they can be set aside pending that approval by letting parents dictate what their own children can read even the most concerned individual is in control the bottom line is that we're following a robust collection development policy that guides the selection of materials in the media centers while not every book is for every student as we pointed out to Mark
180or remove books from the collection puts us in an unnecessary and difficult legal position what if we miss a title there's no way that we can anticipate everything that one person might legitimately find concerning School Scholastic Books ran into a nightmare last summer and fall when they took some titles from their book fair Collections and moved them to a separate optional case the push back was Swift and Furious there have been multiple lawsuits across the country with the same Spirit of objection to limiting or labeling books based on something other than what the author intended the five book challenges filed to date are not limited to sexual content two were based on political viewpoints of the four Media Center books challenged none of them were Borrowed by more than a handful of students the other
181book was from a supplemental classroom collection and had no sexual content whatsoever my biggest concern is that we aren't using our time well and we're burdening our superintendent and administrative team with redundant request that have already been remedied by the policy we put in place the data collected by the levy consultant in a telephone survey of likely voters last October shed some light on this very question what the community wants is clear which is to move on and attend to other concerns crucial to Student Success as an individual I'm excited to turn the page we welcome two new board members in January we've met to discuss guidelines that support good communication and we will be be meeting again to talk about other similar best practices doing so concentrates on what unites us rather than our
182differences a major initiative in the weeks ahead will be the collaborative drafting of our new five-year strategic plan as Mr Heath outlined this will be student focused and will serve to guide everything we do moving forward we'll draw from the input of a cross-section of stakeholders to give us further Direction regarding our District's pillars including education safety resources and Community above all deeply committed to serving the needs of students and offering them a quality education I appreciate and support the leadership of Mr Heath and Mr way to achieve just that I believe it's important to create a spotlight on the future the class of 37 will arrive on our doorsteps thank you discussion sure um so I think it's important to note how this challenge came came to be first because a lot of people
183don't know kind of that backstory so a second grader brought this book home from her Elementary library the parent was notified via the book notification process that she had opted into but by the time the child got home it was too late the child you know did already read the book in school um the book is made available for kindergarten through fifth grade students at a few of our Menor Elementary School libraries and per the challenge process the parents and 75 other community members or parents felt this book was not factual is ideologically biased and not age appropriate so I went to Menor Schools kindergarten through 12th grade and I still keep in touch with many of my um teachers that I've had I've confirmed with some of them and some current teachers that they
184do not all support this book and also do not find it age appropriate our decision to retain this book could negatively affect the perception people have of our teachers when they not they do not all agree with the retention of this book I'd also like to note that not agreeing with this book or sexually explicit books doesn't make anyone extreme or a book Banner these words are meant to diminish the real concerns that many parents teachers community members and board members have about the age appropriateness of this book words like that are meant to label others who have a different opinion than that of someone else with the hope that their words will silence them that's a dangerous ideology we will not be silenced and I am dismayed to see a handful of employees of
185our district use these words in connection to having a difference of opinion please know this is not the opinion of all of our teachers and staff and we value your we do value your opinion so as Rose had pointed out I think that the main concern here with this this book challenge is that it does violate policy specifically I would say C to provide a background of information which will enable pupils to make intelligent judgments in their daily life how does this exactly help students make intelligent judgments in their daily life I think we could all agree that five to 11 year olds don't exactly make good choices all the time they're still learning the ability to discern right from wrong and true from untrue as Rose had mentioned a little bit ago many of
186them still believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny I couldn't imagine my seven-year-old daughter reading about the Taliban and how a child was shot and it not negatively affecting her this could cause children of grave mental distress and could put us at risk of harming children with statements in the book like our world is dying our future is dying what must change everything who must act everyone we can't place this in front of children without at least acknowledging the heaviness of these statements children should not be carrying such heavy loads on their shoulders I for one know I would rather my daughter maintain her innocence for a bit longer while she worries about what color to wear or what stuffed animal to sleep with at night I'm going to reference something that I have
187said at several previous board meetings when voting on items that I believe are not age appropriate especially for elementary students The Hiding Place by Corey tum is one of my favorite books and in it the young daughter is asking her father some profound questions and he responded to her by saying you know some knowledge is too heavy for children when you're older and stronger you can bear it but for now you must trust me to carry it for you in my opinion we are asking children to carry loads that are far too heavy for them it's our responsibility as Trust Ed adults to ensure we are protecting their innocence and not compelling them to see the world through the eyes of an adult we cannot place the weight of the world on young children and
188then wonder why depression and anxiety are on the rise we need to protect their mental health and overall well-being by not placing books like this in front of elementary students it is the parents right to decide if these topics are appropriate for their child to experience they have the right to go to the public library where books are not vetted for age appropriateness and check them out there um also in our policy it says we need to PR Place principle above personal opinion and reason above prej prej hello Prejudice in the selection of materials of the highest quality in order to assure a comprehensive collection appropriate for the users so I think it's also important to note how the history of books have been purchased it's been pretty much one person who has been in
189charge of purchasing our library books now I I do want to give kudos I do think we have a better process process going forward within maybe the last six months or so that has changed so um it won't just be one person it's one person and then a full committee to my understanding is that right Mr Heath that will review um the book purchases so I think that will help negate some of uh the controversy going forward but I still think it's an important it's important to note because if one person is making all of these purchases how can you not have a bias if if it's all in one person um also and mainly my last point we need to provide under D in the policy materials on opposing sides of controversial issues so
190that young citizens May develop under Guidance the practice of critical reading and thinking so Rose and I um sat down with Mr Heath and after his decision was made to retain this book I had asked if any books were in the library that showed the opposite ideology um especially of some of the more controversial stories in the book since some of what is written in the book is highly controversial as you can tell from tonight's public comment AR I also followed up with an email to see if there were any other books in our elementary schools that show the opposite ideology but I never received a book or title that shows the opposite side to any of the political issues so I think it's safe to say and to assume that we have nothing showing
191the opposite ideology which then violates our policy I know we had another book challenge with Colin Kaepernick and it was retained with a 3-2 vote and it was recommended to stay because the book had a couple pages in it that referenced the opposite political ideology so it met that at least that point in our policy um also under prescribed curriculum in Ohio revised code 331 360 it states that except as provided in division E of this section basic instruction or demonstrated Mastery in geography United States history the the government of the United States the government of the state of Ohio local government in Ohio the Declaration of Independence the United States Constitution the constitution of the state of Ohio shall be required before pupils May participate in any courses involving the study of social problems
192economics Foreign Affairs United Nations World Government socialism and communism there are a lot of social problems in this book that the book is trying to address kids haven't even learned the history of the United States or any of the founding documents that have made the United States the best place to live before we're teaching them all of the things that the author believes are wrong with our government like immigration laws shouldn't we focus on things that bring children together instead of issues that could divide them we should be teaching children what it means to be an American before we teach them how to become an activist thank you thank you um so I just want to be clear about the process of introducing uh materials into our collections I know that the review The Challenge
193process can differ where you know I think U Mrs Payne mentioned we could have a committee or it can just go straight to Mr Heath um so in this case we we both of these books went straight to you Mr Heath right and he chose to so so it comes into the collection it is vetted because vetting happens at the beginning not later on in the process is they're vetted by barbonis our curricul media specialist is that her title barbs our director of curriculum the uh most of the book orders go through our media specialist thank you um so they are the vetting team so to speak so so this book and then next book we'll be talking about have gone through that betting process initially um and then when they were challenged of course
194Mr Heath reviewed them both um so I just wanted to sort of set the table and and make sure folks understand that the journey the books have been through to this point now because uh we've been asked to um you know this appeal has been filed and and we're asked to to basically check Mr Heath's work uh I think you know it was only important for us to all do our due diligence and actually read the book so I did read the book I had it on my table it's right here at home my daughter read the book um her my daughter's friend read the book um so you know we all read the book I read it a couple times um and uh you know it's important if we're going to make a judgment
195on a book that we should actually read it so I heard a few things um I don't have prepared remarks for this section because it's really quite simple for me um um I think that every parent I agree every parent has the right to decide what their child reads and has access to 100% um which is why I can't support removing this book um because that denies the access um for other parents and their children so for me that doesn't quite work but so I heard a lot about placing principle above personal opinion and that politics should should be a part of it and then I heard a lot of personal opinions and politics so this doesn't quite track for me and and again it's very simple um and and and and I think it's
196really tricky when we start citing bits and pieces of policy because we could do that too we could say the bottom of 2520 no challenged material may be removed uh action of the board no challenged material may be removed solely because it presents ideas that may be unpopular or offensive to some so you know we could go on and on But ultimately it's the parents rights right that we're so concerned about um that we must preserve which is why this book must remain can I respond to that really quick first of all thank you one one moment if I could sure I'm sorry thank you no problem um I also read this in book this book in its entirety it is a children's picture book it highlights 11 young people from diverse cultures and perspectives
197the illustrations are very beautiful it is um I think a message of hope that every child featured spoke about issues that they were concerned about and the theme of the book is to empower children to speak up when something is wrong um these are certainly important skills that we want our children to have skills that will help them protect themselves so that they can speak up when something is wrong in their lives the book Challenger did take issue with one of the I'm sorry two of the featured people um one being Jazz Jennings a transgender female and um citing the inclusion of jazz as political I would argue that it is a shared story to help children build empathy and that is certainly a lesson that many could benefit from any more discussion yes um
198so I just wanted to touch on a couple things um first of all it is irrelevant that there there are good these are good lessons of course they are we're not arguing that we're arguing it's not age appropriate it would be more appropriate in the Middle School um also miss marchesa we don't have rights of what book our children our children take out of the library in elementary school so how do we how do we address that if you say we you agree that parents have a right would you like me to answer sure yeah so we do have the ability to inspect the classroom libraries on Meet the Teacher night we have the ability to go in there at any time really you think it's it's realistic for a parent to check every book
199in the library this wasn't the classroom Library it was the no this isn't the classroom library that we're talking about the main libraries well listen I also think age appropriateness is subjective and that's why I didn't insert my poit my political personal opinions don't matter to you they don't matter to the parents out there I mean if you want to know them I believe that transgender students deserve a voice they deserve to be seen and reflected in the shelves of our library but again that's irrelevant right because it's the parents not the issue right exactly so parents yes should absolutely have the ability to go into those classrooms inspect the or even you know reach out to the teacher and say hey Mrs so and so could you tell me um give me a list
200of the books that you have um let me inspect those books you know I think that Mentor has always proven at least to me as a parent um to be very willing to work with I think we heard it from a couple of parents up here tonight very willing to work with us and and um and to be to to be transparent about what is on the shelves and to me I mean as a parent I've been very pleased with that well I don't think it's realistic to find out what book is in the LI I mean there's hundreds and hundreds of books in the library and as we heard tonight some teachers are busy with 27 28 kids in their class I don't I that's not a good use of their time to to
201to just the the easiest thing because we don't have a way to a system like we're trying to work on in the high school right now the best thing to do is to take it out maybe leave it available with the principal if if a parent really wants to have access to it but it violates our policy and and you can't I mean we have to agree that there are a large number of parents who believe this is not age appropriate I mean that's that's black and white I mean sorry but we don't have to all agree on that we don't have the data to support that in fact the small amount of data that we do have a point of order I don't think Rose has released the floor yet I didn't realize we
202had to release the floor yeah so I don't think we can just inter okay um Mrs Mrs app so I I don't think you need hard data when you have 75 people signing a book challenge when you have now Mrs Jing mentioned how many specific emails she got I just wanted to State first we did have some problems with email and so a lot of our emails were going to junk um but also I would point out that a lot of people came to me that didn't go to Mrs Payne a lot of people have um re you know I we can't count emails to say that to to really kind of Garner how the the community's opinion so I just wanted to state that um the bottom line is there's things in this book
203that viol the policy factual knowledge ethical and age appropriateness the the the content in the book is wonderful it's diverse it's there this that's not the argument and I think that if you can't guarantee what our kids are taking out and you can't guarantee that it's not going to negatively affect every any kids okay you don't need data to know that if it hurts one kid that's a problem um then we have to take it out and then we can work to change the language and the policy to make this more accessible but parents don't get the right to you get the right to pick what your children read which you don't you're not guarantee that that we the school has to provide that and I think that's a big misconception is the floor released
204yes so it would be against policy to remove it if we if we want to play it that way and and moreover uh we do actually have a small amount of data the head of the uh citizens supporting Menor schools committee which ran our Levy campaign last fall actually did a survey back in August 2023 of men are residents men are voters in one section the survey asked respondents to rate whether they quote strongly agreed agreed strongly disagreed or dis disagreed with the following statement discussing book bands and transgender bathroom issues at school board meetings distract from more important issues that impact learning 72% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with that statement and I'll read it again discussing book bands and transgender bathroom issues at school board meetings distract from more important issues that
205impact learning this is data okay thank you I would I would like to say something I haven't released the floor sorry I haven't released the floor so with this small amount of data it was a small survey granted but this is a start this is a start and we could send out a bigger survey in fact we have the opportunity to do so with our strategic planning surveys excuse me we could take this further and continue to survey parents not children by the way parents who decide for their children um about how they feel on this so this is data and this is what I'd like to use to start informing our decisions around policy and now I've released the floor so I would like to mention a couple different things that survey I believe
206was only 400 people we've got over 50,000 voters in Mentor it's a start um yeah yes I was still speaking thank you um I think that it's important to note that that's not enough of a sample to really make a determination so what we can witness is people speaking up every single board meeting we have a lot of people who've been speaking up I've been on the board for over almost two and a half years with Mrs cook I know Miss Jing's been here for several years as well and we've witnessed people get up to the microphone and speak about these issues so we know that it is important to a certain portion of the community whether that's 50% or whether it's 20% our last Levy failed by just a little bit so I think
207it's it's important that on these really controversial issues we ensure that we are doing the best job that we can for all students all parents and taxpayers by creating either policies that will prevent children from checking out books that their parents don't want them to view or following our policy by not placing age inappropriate materials in front of miners also we don't have anything showing an opposing view so I I would have a question to Mr Heath um would you be willing willing to put in books in the elementary library that would show opposing views to some of these more because the whole book isn't isn't controversial but to some of the more controversial issues would you feel comfortable putting in books with the opposite ideology yeah and I still haven't had an opportunity to
208research the the initial question that you had asked in our meeting so uh I don't know if there are currently books out there that already present that or not um but yeah I everything that we have stated in policy is something that I'm going to follow so if there are alternative alternate views to that particular ideology yes okay so if I prepared or you know Rose and I came up with a list of books that may contain the opposite ideology you would consider possibly putting those books in the elementary school yeah we can send those through our committee now and then I also just want to clarify too I know Miss maraza said that it was um two people that making the book purchases to my understanding it was always just the media specialist is
209that not right I could answer that up until 2004 there were 18 professional media specialists in this District because of the collapse of the school's budget and the cuts that were made subsequent to that there was one person at Memorial one at the high school one Shore Ridge had I believe a clerk and or someone acting as a media specialist but didn't have the same credentials as the others and so that has shrunk further so Mrs Ford is the only certified media specialist in the district so that's why she takes that on her training is quite specific the other piece that has kind of melted into the past was each of us had a sub stantial policy finder that had to do just with collection development de accessioning and selection policy and you know write
210reader advisory and all that stuff that Library people do and so that was drafted with Dr Linda Sadowski who was the head of the media department and so as those things have evolved that's how we come to the point where there was only one professional in that position and in order for her to make sure that the collection development policy was adhere to she allows the clerks in each of the other buildings to replace things that are worn out replace things that are lost or they would have a wish list that you know she provides for them and they could make selections based on what they know the students in their school would like to read so it's it's gotten complicated and obviously it's not prefer but it it's clearly a money issue you know
211when we talk about things like class sizes you have to make hard choices and the hard choices have meant that our media department has evolved to be something quite different than it once was um as we're discussing this I know we're getting a little bit off track from the actual book and we've talked about a few things um about tweaking policy and things like that and we actually do have that on the agenda as our next item so um after we talk about the book discussions we do have some discussion about the current policy so I'd like to just keep those for that to to keep the meeting moving and we did also say that there might not be I think Mrs aalo you stated that there wasn't protections at the elementary level um but
212actually we do have the opt-in opt out policy that I had proposed a year ago that we have at K through 12 so all parents either opt in to be notified or opt out and I do understand and this is new this is news to me as today that this parent had was on the notification list so was notified that their child brought home this book but the child had already read the book so I think that's a discussion that we're about to have here on on how to maybe tweak that or improve that um but at this point let's continue if we have any more thoughts on this exact book yeah I do um Mrs Jing you mentioned that this is redundant that we're sitting here again talking about this um that points to
213the fact that we aren't listening to the community and this is going to keep coming up um and if we want to keep ignoring it and doubling down we're going to have another Levy fail so also um if this if and or I should say when this this book is voted to stay we're open opening ourselves up to lawsuits because it does not follow our own policy so so are there any more thoughts on this book I would like to motion um to remove the book right now from our elementary school libraries as the material does not support the objective set forth in the media selection policy for our district nor does it comply with the library Bill of Rights and is not age appropriate for the students who would have access to the book
214Thank you do I have a second second any more discussion I need to get that motion in the minut can you send that to me yeah thank you okay so we have a motion to remove the book and please call the RO Miss pay yes Miss iapo yes Miss Jing no M maraza no Miss Cook no motion fails two [Applause] [Music] three your children to ma'am this is a this is a business meeting Dei per please have some decor I pay taxes I pay taxes here I pay your salary move somewhere else else don't you move somewhere else the second book challenge appeal was submitted um by Miss Peg McCracken of concerned Menor taxpayers the book I'm sorry this is a business meeting I'm just thetion thank you thank you yes yes I'm I'm sorry
215this is too disruptive does that have to be a vote like I don't I think it does no I don't know if we need to vote for that um could we a motion for a recess you going to do second minute recess yeah restro anyways it's use the restroom so that works we got to uh need to vote on that I'm like there's a motion on the floor for a recess it's been seconded we'll have a five minute recess I get uh Miss Cook yes Miss maraza yes Miss Appo yes Miss drling yes Miss Mar who did I not call you miss yes I need to use the restroom thank you so much e G to call the meeting back to order so good Paul as well um we had our second book challenge appeal
216submitted by Miss Peg mcracken of concern men are taxpayers the book is Empire of storms by S Moss this is a fictional fantasy book and we'll have discussion go first so anyone want to open dis any discussion on this or do I have a motion I'll discuss okay okay so um I just want to and I don't know if anybody's listening that it's a minor so if they are whether it's on on line or in the room just warning um because we're going to be talking about sexually explicit material sexual content so I just want that as a warning out there so this challenge is for a book that resides within Menor High School library which is available for 9th to 12th grade uh students within the district it was filed by a previous Menor
217uh retired Menor school's elementary teacher and former school media specialist the book is called Empire of Storms and it depicts multiple sex acts in graphic detail the previous Menor teer has also completed several book challenges within the last two years um One Challenge included over 300 signatures of parents but that book The Bluest Eye was was retained I'm bringing that up because I my stance has not changed on sexually explicit material for minors also if these books were turned into movies they most likely would be rated are based on the graphic SE sexual depictions in the book yet they're available without parental consent to 14y olds and I'll just pause there I know we're going to talk about the sexual content um policy later so I'm hoping for some advancements with that uh to prevent
218students from checking out books like this without their U parental consent affirmed parental consent uh my opinion on retaining sexually explicit items has not changed we must protect children and prevent them from accessing age inappropriate sexually explicit materials that could harm them this is under challenges to Li media materials under C profanity or obscenity Mr Heath I sat in your office with a mother of a child who poured her heart out to you and cried her eyes out to you for almost three solid hours in regards to her child's terrible trauma that was incurred and the detrimental effects PTSD has had on her child she told you that books depicting sex acts could trigger her child's PTSD PTSD is very real for children affected by trauma even one sentence could literally cause a breakdown and
219send that child into a massive anxious depressive impossible suicidal State we need to protect children like hers I know we have sadly several students who have fallen victim to sexual abuse is it not worth their mental health to prevent these books from being accessible in our schools are we not to protect them do we not Place more value on somebody's life than a book especially one which has been said to have no uh educational value on the flip side there is no harm done if we remove this sexually explicit book if parents want their child to read it they can go and check it out at the local library there is possible irreparable harm that this book and books like them can cause to Children especially who have already had terrible trauma in their life
220books like this can set them back years in their counseling efforts and the risk of possible litigation could also be a factor for our district we cannot fall back on the Poli I proposed month months ago that Flags books as having sexual content and notifies parents while it's a step forward the sexual content policy should not as I explained when the policy was proposed prevent us from removing age inappropriate sexually explicit books which is why I originally had both a sexual explicit and sexual content section where books labeled as sexual content could stay while we would not keep books that were sexually explicit unfortunately I was outnumbered by The Other Board members and they and they had removed the sexually explicit standard of book removal from the policy now books that are sexually explicit will
221stay and parents will simply be notified of the book having sexual content the sexual content is the policy is a safeguard to notify parents of any sexual content but after talking with many parents staff even retired teachers that Rose and I had met with there seems to be a massive difference between sexual content like mentioning a rape and sexually explicit like describing a rape um and we should not ever as trusted adults knowingly make accessible or provide graphic sexually explicit books with multiple sex acts depicted in detail to minors I don't believe that's what trusted adults and professionals do our standards need to be higher than this we know our district enrollment continues to decline while homeschooling and private schooling is on the rise we've lost students to both of these Alternatives and now as
222has has been mentioned in previous board meetings with Ed Choice vouchers in place where people are getting free money to send their children to private schools we could likely lose more we are competing with options that seem to have higher standards than ours we need to raise the bar in the standards and stay within the scope of our responsibilities providing sexually explicit books to minors is well outside that scope I believe the majority of Voters do not uphold sexually explicit books being accessible in our schools this is not just anecdotal evidence as confirmed by a recent study in 2022 by The resm Institute and the capital resource Institute that found that 69% of Voters Believe Books containing sexually explicit depictions of sex acts should not be present in public high school libraries that's seven out
223of 10 people we can't continue to ignore the overwhelming majority of parents and community members concerns and then hope that they all support us when we go to ask them for more money in the near future for Levy I do not and I will never support sexually explicit books for [Applause] minors thank you is there any more discussion I do but does anybody else want to go okay um if we had language in our policy that requires parental approval prior to checking out these explicit books like Menor Public Library does this then this could have all been avoided um but we do not it shouldn't be easier to check out this book at school than it is in a public library I think it's safe to assume that the original framers of this policy never
224expected this type of material would be available to miners um I would really feel better if she went in the hallway while I read something thank you and I think this is important to make people uncomfortable because I'm believing no one's more uncomfortable than me because it proves a point a line from the book and this is not even close to the worst she slid her hand between them and when she closed her fingers around him marveling at the Velvet wrapped steel Rowan groaned again pushing into her hand she pulled her mouth from his staring into those pine green eyes as she slid her hand along him he lowered his head not to kiss her but to watch where she stroked him again this is one of the the the more vanilla um part this
225book does not support the objectives of policy 2520 or the library Bill of Rights as set forth in board policy specifically I believe the content of this book is inappropriate for the age and developmental level of minor students um our policy states the Board of Education shall provide instructional materials and equipment to implement the district's educational goals and objectives and to meet students needs the primary objective to enrich support and implement the educational program of the school I should note that this fantasy book um this is a fantasy book look at it does not provide any educational value our strategic plan States as a safety goal collaborate with stakeholders to incorporate best practices to prevent identify support and respond to behavior health challenges creating optimal learning environments it also highlights that our students social emotional
226and physical safety is our number one priority this book doesn't seem to align with that did anyone reach out to Crossroads counselors to hear about how exposure to graphic sexual material can negatively affect minors we spent a lot of money on Crossroads to support our students mental health were they consulted in the decision to keep this book parents have a right to allow their child to read this book but they don't have the right to access it in schools they have every right to take their child to the Menor Public Library to check it out but know this their child will need to have a special library card to take this book out miners need a parent or Guardian to show their ID in person in order to to get this special library card this
227is because the public library has standards when it comes to providing explicit material to miners it's important to consider policy 754 0.03 pursuant to federal law the board implements technology protection measures that protect against filter or block access to visual displays depictions materials that are obscene constitute child pornography and are harmful to minors as defined by the children's internet protection act we protect minor from explicit material on their electronics and there is no outrage why all the outrage when it comes to books we warn parents that students are blocked from certain websites when they are at school but we can't control if their child goes on inappropriate websites at home the district can only ensure safe internet use while in our buildings it only makes sense that we have the same safety measures when it
228comes to books retaining this book conflicts with another policy of ours 5136 The Hub offers students ebooks which they can view from their laptop iPad or phone the approval of this book also affords students access to the ebook version and with its sexually explicit text a student would be in violation of this policy if they have it on their device students shall not engage in texting which is defined as sending receiving sharing viewing or possessing pictures text messages emails or other materials of a sexual nature in electronic or any other form if a student is caught reading this ebook or if they took a picture of a paragraph from this book and texted it to appear they would be in violation of this policy so we are telling students it's okay to check this book
229out of the library but if you read the ebook on your device then they will be in trouble how are how do our we expect our principles to explain that to parents the district won't allow students to hear this song and my kids are going to be very embarrassed by me this is by Trevor Jackson forget about me she said boy just me and forget about me how can I do that baby why are you talking like that yeah she said me and forget about me how can I do that when you put it down like that that song is not allowed in schools because it's offensive and it's and it's in appropriate but this is allowed from the book aen could take her eyes from his silver hair shining with salt water and Moonlight
230from the hands holding her wide for him as his head dipped between her legs and as Rowan tasted her on that beach as he laughed against her slick skin while her horse cries of his name shattered across palm trees and sand and water aen let go of all pretense at reason we have no standard if we don't decide what is right for most students I don't have a right to tell a parent what their kid can read just like the school doesn't have a right to show sex sexually explicit material to my child by vetting this book The District is not telling any parent that their kid can't read it what we are saying just like the dress code we have a higher standard when you get when you get inside outside of our walls
231it's literally why we have a student handbook we have standards for movies vulgar language music with explicit lyrics dress code sexting what websites are accessible but not for books we must do better currently there are states that have passed obscenity laws and fines in regard to school libraries and many laws are pending there is some discussion in the Ohio state house about how states are passing these bills legislators don't want to have to get involved but they will we don't do our jobs and protect our children board members before you vote tonight ask yourselves would you give a student your blessing to read this book and would you be comfortable explaining why you felt it was appropriate to their parents thank you any more discussion yes so again uh we find ourselves uh needing to
232pass judgment on a book and again I will say that in order to do so we must read it um it's 689 Pages for the record I know superintendent Heath has already read it took him quite some time um I will not render a vote on this book without reading it so that is why I am motioning to postpone indefinitely um part of our bylaws are that we have to come to these meetings prepared and this challenge was made we were made aware of this challenge a long time ago so respectfully you know it is also in our policy that you do not need to read the entire book to make to make the Judgment as long as you have been able to access um reputable um descriptions of it so I I don't think
233that that's appropriate we have taxpayers that followed procedure we do have a motion on the floor though thank you so don't we have to before we can discuss motion debatable debatable well it can die on the vine so to speak if no one seconds it okay so we have a motion on the floor to um postpone indefinitely and I will second that so we can have discussion about postponement I think removal is such a grave step that I can't make that that decision I would generally favor just following our policy which gives parents complete say so in whatever their their student borrows and I'd be happy to add a layer to that policy or to the administrative guidelines that if you prefer to have a pre-approval process that the borrowing can't go through without a
234green light from the parent that would be fine but to actually remove the book when more than half the people who stood here this evening asked us to just follow the policy as it is and not to remove anything then I have to read that book in its entirety so I I will not read the book um and it's not in our policy that we have to read the book and I also want to mention that Mr Heath actually used a website where you can look up um exerpts from books that do contain sexually explicit uh pages with the content in it and everything and I do believe he flagged maybe about 17 books from using that website so I would suggest possibly using that um since we're purely talking about sexual content and sexually
235explicit material um I think that postponing indefinitely is not being transparent with the community I think you should you know vote based on the information that's been given to us um and I I think we should I do you think we should vote on the actual book um and then speak about the sexual content policy and hope that we can come to some kind of consensus on that I I do have one question it was my understanding that in the challenge document that a person files that they attest that they've read it in its entirety and if the book goes to a Review Committee same thing that the committee reads the book and it's entirety whatever 15 hours 20 hours whatever it would take to read that and I feel like I can't take a
236lesser standard and I you know context is everything I I'll add to I'm sorry um just just a a point of clarification there when a when a person an individual challenges a book they do not need to read it in their entirety it is on the form that states did you read this book in the entirety um in this case it was answered no and they they cited the passages however it is our policy that our committee and then or our superintendent whoever is reviewing the book would need to review it in their entirety and then when it goes to us it does not say that we need to read it in the entirety it is just our decision and I think that's our discussion right now um are we holding ourselves to the standards
237that we would read it in the entirety or are we comfortable with in this case it wasn't it did not go to committee it went to our superintendent are we comfortable with going with our superintendent's ruling to um move forward thank you madam president I was thank you for clarifying that and I wanted to add that yes I I do expect to hold myself and I feel most comfortable with holding myself to the same standards that we hold our Review Committee to which does require them to read the entire book but moreover item c um requires them to weigh value and faults and form opinions based on the material as a whole rather than on passages and sections taken out of context which is um pretty uh opposite from what Mrs Payne's just described by
238going to a website and reading passages and making judgments based on those passages so I I just don't feel comfortable unless unless I actually read it in its entirety so I believe that portion of the policy is stating in reference to committee but a committee wasn't formed so I understand I said I would like to hold ourselves to the same standard as that committee that's what I'm saying you can hold yeah you can hold that opinion um I do not hold that same opinion I don't need to read 700 Pages uh of a book and fill my mind with sexual acts and things that I disagree with um I like to read things that are going to inspire me and not things that um are not wholesome so I do not find it necessary for
239that I think it's I think it's important to know people have come tonight to hear us and to hear our opinion on this book um it's part of our policy we notified the two Challengers that we were going to have a vote tonight on this um Mr Heath emailed Miss McCracken and told her um that that he would be placing this on the agenda for a vote so I think it's important that we do have a vote on this um um that's my opinion and whatever the board decides is what the board decides um one one note that you mentioned that you know do we want to trust our superintendent I mean he used book looks to identify 17 books so I think it's a legitimate way to actually find exactly what we're looking at
240now I this book is fantasy there's not any academic literary value in it I don't think you need context um um the way maybe The Bluest Eye required some context I think we can agree that this is pretty much it's yeah there's I don't think you need context I mean if you had done the research when we got the agenda um as we were required to do you could have easily found a few paragraphs where that's pretty much the gist of the book that you know the issue so I do have a question question and since out of all of us sitting here one of us has read this book in its entirety Mr So and I've seen the book looks summary and the passages that were selected as being um salacious and inappropriate what
241percentage of the 700 Pages or whatever your copy comes in at what percentage would you say of the total text are those encounters versus the rest of the the fantasy story it's chapter 38 which is about four pages long Okie doie so I mean I guess I look at it also from the vantage point if I were an author and this author is writing for a more or less Young young adult audience I'm sure there are people from across the Spectrum who might enjoy fantasy when they're old like me but um if I were an author I would hope that anybody who would take my book out of a library off a shelf whatever the kind of Library public or private or whatever or segregated in a book fair you know that this one is
242questionable I would hope that the decision maker would do me the courtesy of reading my work in its entirety that just seems like a a minimum standard of fairness I think I have real quick I think that the point of this book was to um was to get the sexual rise out of people and I don't think I think the author knows the point of what they were writing so I don't know that this is I'm I'm sure the author themselves would admit that it's you know I I have a couple questions to sorry um I'm going to read two quotes just to make a comparison uh and once again warning for miners or anybody who has had trauma to shut their ears close your one says he warns and suddenly flips me onto my
243stomach and continues to leisurely Journey with his mouth up the back of my legs to my thigh is my behind and then he stops and I groan the other one says his teeth gazed over her nipple and her eyes drifted closed a moan slipping out of her he growled his approval her breast still in his mouth on his tongue his smile was nothing short of wicked as he pulled away to run a broad hand from her throat down to the juncture of her thighs she shuttered shuddered at the sheer possession in the touch her breath coming in tight pants as he gripped either thigh and spread her legs bearing her fully for him so those two quotes I read from for you one is from 50 Shades of Gray the other is from Empire of
244storms I think we could all agree that 50 Shades of Gray shouldn't be in our school library I didn't check but I don't think it's in our school library um but I think Miss gesling has a a point um and we have nothing currently in our policy that would pre prevent 50 Shades of Gray unless we start determining how much sexual content how much sexually explicit material is going to be allowed so you know is it 10 pages out of 40 is it 400 Pages out of a thousand page book you know is 10 sexually explicit acts acceptable but 11 is not that's why this is an issue I think that's why for me it shouldn't be any of it anything that has sexually explicit material should not be available to minors in our schools
245because there's no way to monitor this book versus this book if they're both if they both have sexually explicit material in it then we start getting to how many pages is it how you know of sexually explicit content how many what's the percentage that's far too complicated why don't we just protect children and not include that material in our schools okay so we we're going back to policy and twe speaking policy and and I know that that is next on our agenda so um we have a motion on the floor right now and and the motion on the floor is to um postpone this vote indefinitely until it is read we have um at least one member saying I I'm not going to read it we don't have it in our policy that we must
246read it um we also have we have one person at this table that has read it in the entirety that is Mr Heath he gave us his opinion so we can um if we're done with discussion I think we we should now vote about postponing it indefinitely are we ready for that vote are we okay with that discussion okay so the motion is to postpone indefinitely if we could please call the indefinitely means it's we don't have a time frame we don't have it that's correct correct and did you have a is there a reason that you chose indefinitely Or um because you didn't know when we would all read it or right I didn't know how long it would take folks to read it um I'm painted and exactly we don't even have enough
247copies yet so that's the only reason I W be reading it so you can judge on if you how long it would take you guys to read it I don't need to read it to judge it okay so we also have to consider that we have two members that will not read the book they're they are ready to vote um without reading the book and then we have you know so we need to we need to understand that we will not all be reading the book when we are voting on this so we do have a motion to postpone indefinitely is would would a time frame make that more palatable to you with the no okay so motion the motion is to postpone indefinitely if you could please call the role Mr chaza yes Miss
248Cook no misslo no Miss gesling yes Miss Payne no motion [Applause] fails so we will um I have tonight yep I have a motion to um remove Empire of storms in the election electonic and hard copies um as it is the content of the book isn't appropriate for age and developmental level of minor students and does not support objectives of policy 2520 and yes I will email that to you Mr second any more discussion I guess for myself given the gravity of the decision we're left to make in in this moment I will defer then to Mr Keith's Viewpoint since he's the one who read the entire book and seeing it in context felt that our existing policy that allows parents to determine what is suitable for their own students should stand I would then
249argue Mrs drling if if you feel that you have to read the book in order to make this judgment then all 17 books that were flagged by Mr Heath need to be read yes I would I would you know if we're but those weren't for removal those are for flagging yeah that that is to be listed on the sexual content list right that that's different um so the books are currently flagged per our sexual content policy I'm just pointing out that it's if it's legitimate enough to flag it's legitimate enough to make the judgment on the book that's my point big difference between a Rec recommendation a notation versus a book is gone I disagree I agree yes yes so we have a motion on the floor to remove Empire of storms is there any
250more discussion I just want to add again I feel like I feel like it's we know how this is going to go and I just want to say that if this book stays we um once again are showing a pattern that we don't follow our own policy any more discussion okay Mr Wade please call the role misso yes Miss pay yes M Jing no M maraza no Miss Cook no motion fails two three [Applause] okay our second order of new business is a discussion on polic board policy 2520 um and I'd like to share my thoughts on a possible solution we have heard many um many times tonight about parental rights and currently we have one of the strongest polic policies in the state that policy is related um we have a couple things that
251are going on one thing that we have is we have a parental notification system so our parents can opt in to be notified of any book their child checks out this isn't limited to sexual content this is literally any book and a lot of parents have really enjoyed this just as a point of conversation with their children we have I think the last time we asked around two 2,000 people that opted into this program and then if they chose not to opt in they just took took a book out of the library um with no parental notification that is creating a little problem as we've heard maybe a big problem one could argue uh because there's a loophole that we heard tonight that apparent um it took six hours to be notified we heard that
252this book came home and the parent um the child had already read the book so closing that loophole is something that I think we need to talk about the other problem that we have is the 25203 policy that we recently adopted as a board and that policy states that any book with sexual content will be on a list and then any time anyone takes I'm sorry anytime a high school student this is this lives in the high school 9th or 12th a 9 through 12 student tries to take out a book with sexual content or a in the classroom there's a book that has any sexual content in it the parents are notified and they can opt out or they can say the kid cannot take out the book but the notification system again leaves
253that loophole that Gap another issue issue that I see as a problem with this sexual content um flagging program is that the books are being marked um but not in its entirety it's not an all-encompassing list because this would cost us a tremendous amount of money and we never know that there's a there's a book out there that we didn't flag right um we're talking about reading page for page every single book so the creating the list is time consuming it is expensive and it's difficult to complete objectively because the standards in the Menor School Community varies greatly marking these books putting them on a list can also leave the district vulnerable to lawsuits from authors and from Publishers and in the meantime we could be failing in the parental notification system because the list
254isn't all-encompassing so because we believe that parents do have a vested interest in what their students are checking out and we believe that parents have a desire some of them to restrict some of them to Monitor and some of them to just be informed in what their students have an interest in and because we recognize that reading choices are individualized for students and families maybe it's not even sexual content we have families that would like to have more control over what their children read and that is the beauty of parental rights so I would like to propose um that we consider having a whole new policy and this policy would be a library access policy this would provide three options for school library access and I have a little visual to break it down in
255very easy terms here um parents would be selecting an option that is best for their own family it is very similar to what we currently have now right now we have the full access the green the green light and then we have access with notification the access with notification does create a little bit of loophole so I'm proposing that we add a third one on and we make it policy and we also make this a K to 12 so any parent in the school I guess we could say preschool through 12 um access with parental permission means that they cannot take out any book it doesn't matter what the book is is no book goes home until the parent says yes to that book so the parent is notified you know Billy would like to
256take out this book on dinosaurs and they and the parent would then say yes they can take this book out and then it goes so this gives complete parental control you can look up the book you can research the book and you can decide if it is right for your child maybe there are topics that we have not thought of that would set your child off I don't know maybe it is hurricanes or um a fire or something so I want to respect that children are sensitive and some children are more sensitive than others this would be a K to 12 it would also Sol solve our problem with having um timec consuming processes I think it was last week that Mr Heath was given a list of 47 books to review and he took
257time to look at 47 books this is not the way that I think our superintendent should be spending his time I don't know if you disagree with me but this is um this is not what we hired him to do and not sure that we have enough staff to go through all of these books it will be never ending creating lists um going through books and creating lists so this would just solve all of our I can't I can't think of another issue that would be tighter but open for discussion Madame President I'd like to speak yes uh so I am very supportive of this idea I think it gives parents um the complete control that they that I think I've heard heard many times tonight that they desire um you know as a board
258and Community we've been grappling with the topic of book removal book removals for about two years um I feel that the board has not ignored the topic and indeed we've uh made several attempts to address the concerns uh that some people in this community have had uh We've employed the time and efforts of our superintendent staff board members our policy organization Our IT department and our lawyers who are not cheap so this superintendent as um president cook stated has spent a tremendous amount of his time and effort not just this past week with the 47 list the the list of 47 books but also with the five book challenges that we've had in the past um so we keep coming back to this issue again and again and what I like very much about this
259policy is that it turns things around right we're no longer regulating every single book in our collection of thousands and thousands of books instead we're regulating access of the students um depending on how the parent wants to approach that um so I really appreciate that sort of turning things around um I do feel that this issue has served as a wedge and a distraction for far too long preventing our superintendent and other staff and our board even bored before me from addressing serious challenge that we face as a district including class sizes which we will be talking about next it has hobbled our progress and I know the residents parents students and staff in our district want us to to move forward the costs of book challenges alone are numerous and real and will not
260stop if we continue to try and regulate and restrict books staff time and attention of the superintendent members of the review committees the media specialist every hour they spend dealing with book challenges is an hour they don't spend working with our kids time and dollars to the board to uh meet and discuss the challenges should also be considered um the cost of procuring copies that that of the challenge books in the future sure if we need to do that and of course these are taxpayer dollars by the way that are being used to address challenges made by a handful of people in our community now breaking down the cost of a book challenge is not something Mentor has done yet um but it's it's hard for me to ask our very busy staff to to
261go ahead and calculate all the time that they're spending when I indeed don't want them to spend time doing it in the first place so what I did do is I took a look at other schools who have calculated that cost USA Today published those results in no on November 10th in 2023 and they saw let's see school districts across the State of Florida that have spent quote between 34,000 to $35,000 annually in the last several years to comply with state laws requiring books to restrict books that contain sexual content in North Northampton County Pennsylvania the Nazareth Area School District officials estimate it could cost the district $109,000 to pay staffers to review just 23 books the Spring Branch Independent School District in Harris County Texas spent $3,119 to pay 16 staffers to review a
262single book ABC 13 Houston reported in March but it's about more than just dollars and cents we also run the risk of attracting negative scrutiny and attention to our district creating a list of books flagged for inappropriate content is now part of our policy and that brings scrutiny in the form of litigation that we are starting to see around the country penguin random house and best-selling authors John Green and jod Pico are part of a lawsuit filed last fall challenging Iowa's new law that banss public school libraries and classrooms from having practically any book that depicts sexual activity the lawsuit argues that the bands are unconstitutional and violate Free Speech rights in schools in Pensacola the writer group Pan America the publisher penguin Random House banned authors and parents got together and are suing Escambia
263County School District over its removal of books about race and lgbtq plus identities from library shelves and in January a federal judge ruled that the lawsuit can indeed move forward saying that the plaintiffs have standing to pursue their claims under the first amendment's free speech protections rejecting the school district's argument that quote the government speech Doctrine limits First Amendment protections and gives school officials virtually full discretion to decide which books students can access in schools and libraries in other words the judge agreed that the First Amendment does indeed apply when books are removed based on ideology or Viewpoint indeed in that same school district in Escambia County book challenges have become so numerous and so onerous and so costly for Public School District that lawmakers in Florida in Florida have introduced HB 725 a bipartisan
264Bill to begin charging individuals $100 per book challenge conversely last fall in Michigan another judge dismissed a lawsuit against Rockford Public Schools brought by a community group that sought to ban 14 sexually explicit books from the school district's Library the judge ruled that the plaintiffs could not establish what that a reasonable person would not find Value in the identified works as a whole the judge wrote in his ruling in fact he said every book identified by the plaintiffs has either received accolades or been on bestseller lists end quote the loss of educational freedom and the freedom to read are most certainly at risk our kids risk losing representation in our library collections they risk the loss of seeing themselves the friends and those they love and know reflected on their shelves and finally as I've
265said before the infringement on parents rights is serious what about those parents who want their children to access books that represent a large range of perspectives and experiences I as a parent lose my right to have my children freely roam the library shelves in search of books with diverse perspectives and experiences I already cited the data from the citizens supporting Menor schools committee I will not repeat it but it is important to remember that though it's a small sample size it is a start on that data that we definitely need to make decisions like this in conclusion we as board members are here to represent our constituents and help ensure the high quality public education for all of the students in our district when we consider every point that I've covered here including the desire
266of an actual and demonstrable majority of our constituents to abandon discussions of book b and removals in favor of problems and issues that are having a real measurable impact on our students and that need the attention of the board and the superintendent the cost and staff time spent on the five separate book challenges in the 47 that were sent to our superintendent to review the cost and time of the board that will be involved in future challenges the cost and time involved with continued book challenges the upkeep of the sexual content flagging system and the ongoing and ever growing list of books that we are blacklisting the potential Le scrutiny that we could attract from authors by blacklisting their books which we are starting to see made manifest across the country and of course the
267loss of students freedom to read it makes it perfectly and practically clear to me that we need to start from scratch we must abandon the sexual content policy and the book challenge process in favor of a new completely new system that gives parents and caregivers complete control over how their children access Library materials in our district in order to be efficient cost effective and ensure the rights of parents and to allow our superintendent to get back to his real job we must Implement a new tiered access [Applause] system thank you any other discussion yes I do um this is I think this is great if this this sounds like it might be a logistical nightmare is this something that is even remotely possible I mean how do you determine which what books go under what
268level so we are not flagging books or putting the books the in when I was when I was envisioning this I guess we could we could make it what we want but when I was envisioning this the book isn't what is flagged or leveled it is the student and the parent chooses their level of comfort who regulates that though so if my kid goes to the library and takes out a book and they're yellow let's say yes how do they so they can't leave the library with the book without me knowing or no well if you chose red your child could not leave the library without you knowing and so the child would go to the library desk and it would be so currently right now we have a green or green yellow system to
269keep it simplistic and when the child goes to check out a book if the parent has opted into parental not notifications the child does go home with the book but the parent receives a notification that states you know your child checked out this book so so what we have right now you mean so I'm proposing a third level to that that would be the red level and the red and people that chose the red level their child would not check out the book it would be flagged you know kind of like let's use the peanut analogy you're the peanut table you're the red table you don't take out the book um your parent would get an email that says you know your child would like to take out this book and then the parent would
270have to say yes before the book would leave so the book would have to be we would have to discuss like what the time frame would be maybe 24 hours I'm I don't know that would have to be discussed um logistically but the book would be held for that child until the parent returns with a with a you know almost like a permission slip to take out the book and if they do not return it then the child does not take the book I think it's a move in the right direction but I think that you're then you're putting you're you're you're putting kids I think on the spot and I think they're you know when it's just if we're really just talking about if we're really just talking about um 17 sexually explicit books
271why why would we not just do the opin and if somebody takes out one of the 17 books you have to be notified why go through all this well what I'm what I heard tonight was that it's not about 17 books um we were given a list of 47 last week but I don't know that that means that no one else is going to come with any more books to to review and to the point of many of the speakers they want to be able to decide what their child reads and it might not be about sexual content it might be about something else like climate change that we spoke about there were some parents that did not feel comfortable having their children read the speak up book so this would be an opportunity that
272they would if their child tried to check that out they could say no you can't bring it home it gives parents complete control yeah I I would have to do some research and and because because if I if I wanted I didn't want my I don't want my daughter to take out that book she just it would it would break her little heart um and so I would put her I would have to in order to keep her I'd have to make her red and she will be devastated if she can't walk out of class with her peers with a book in her hand so you have to remember what especially Elementary maybe in middle school and high school this would be easier but um that's just something that we can I guess since we're
273just seeing it now now we can get yes I I understand you're just hearing it you know the other thing that it would look like is you do have a trained librarian there that would say you know hey Susie you really like cats let's look at cat books you know and they they have a knack for finding books at the right reading level that are you know maybe that a child would enjoy it's not a perfect system you know I I don't think you you know restricting books is ever can be a perfect system but I think that this does give a lot of parental control and it takes away um people fearing that their child is coming home with a book that is inappropriate I have a couple um comments and questions would this
274also apply to the classroom silent reading books like the K through 5 collaborative classrooms book collection because a lot of the same themes that are in this book of activism and our controversial are in that book collection as well so would we be able to tailor it as well to that even though they're not bringing them home parents don't even know that you know they're in there so can they apply this to books within the classroom as well great point I don't see why not um because they're already given the they're already have available the list of those of that class book list um the the list that you're referring to they're only getting that though at U meet the teacher night it's on display they can't like physically take it home or get a
275a written list of them from what I understand so if you had a student that was in red say or or yellow they they could talk to the teacher and just say look I'm not comfortable with these books and and that would be you know same system would that be doable we haven't talked about that specifically I know that we did speak about you know just the capabilities of the tech program I the technology with checking out a book I think that the library the classroom library because they're not physically checking it out it would fall on the teacher so that would be you know that would be something a little bit different would this be um I'd feel more comfortable if it was required for parents to choose an option you know like when
276they do their yearl they would be required so it would be required okay and they currently are required but there only two options now are full access or access with notification yeah for next here there it'll be automatic right anyways the notification of the that's what my proposal is well that's what I think Craig has said before that going forward um next year everybody would be opt opted into to at least the notification process yeah right now it it already is that way yeah I I think I put that in my one of the board updates where we're everybody's going to be up but not now not now but for next year everybody will uh be receiving those okay uh those email notifications and know last year when I did when I did my students
277update for this current school year I had to choose access with notification or full access I had to choose one of the other right yeah and the way we've got it set up for next year is we we won't even you everybody will be notified of every book that is checked out of the media center okay so that that takes care of one part yes the the other part and and again we'll have to kind of play around with the the the procedures here a little bit as I'm trying to think of the capabilities of the system right now obviously in the in the media center system based on one of the the details that I put in one of the administrative guidelines that I shared with the group was we we can have a
278note put in the system for a student um that would allow us to to say whatever it is that we want if we wanted to say full access access with notification or access with parental permission we can do that um what what I'll have to do is figure out you what's that process going to be because that you it could be a little bit cumbersome um could it be done yes um how that gets done I I'll I'll have to to work with our our people a little bit to figure out how that works so just so that I'm I'm understanding all of this correctly too so we would be flagging the student in the system if somebody is read we would the email notification would be sent out and then the parent would have
279to respond granting permission is that is that the idea yes yes okay so if we already have access if we were already going to demand access with notification we could just make it a yellow red light if that was already going to be our our Point access with notification I I don't know that that's really necessary but I'm not opposed to it I also want to clarify something because I know um Miss Cook you said in the beginning when you were making your opening comments that right now with the sexual content policy items are flagged um and then it was more of an affirmed consent like they're notified and then parents have to confirm right now that's it it's only flagged with notification there's no additional step for parents to confirm before the child has
280the book in the hands is that that's that's true that's true so right now they the book is flagged but we know that all of the library contents have not been gone through right cuz that's the policy the way we wrote the sexual content policy was specific to any book challenges that come in or any future purpose purchases so that we weren't you know making them go through hundreds or thousands of books I do know Mr Heath I do appreciate you going through those books because hopefully that would um kind of lessen the the challenges yeah I I I think this would be good I would like to see you know what it would look like on a on paper um I do think that people still do expect us to have certain standards so
281there has to still be some kind of sexually explicit you know this is too much like 50 Shades of Gray well this is okay so I I don't want that to just look like we we're not going to have any standards you know going forward I think we will ensure with the new committee and everything that we're overlooking all of the book book purchases um and we can't stop challenges so I do think this would help but I I want to make sure we would still have the policy in place for book challenges in case there's a need for a book challenge that is you know I don't know just completely obscene or whatnot so um yeah I think because I know Rose and I had met with Mr Heath after his decision was made
282to retain both books and um we were trying to work out something similar to this to give parents an extra added layer um did you have an idea that want to share I sorry I couldn't tell if you were talking to me or somebody else um you know we were just kind of throwing out different ideas like not this exactly but just making sure that parents when it comes to controversial issues or things like that that they would have an extra added layer to say hey I don't want my kid looking at that kind of content so I think that addresses that um also we were looking at the you know 17 flag books and we were saying well why don't we just not published this list and everything but let's make sure that parents
283you know children can't check out those kind of sexually explicit books without affirmed parental consent saying yes you could take it so I think that there is um you know areas that we're both we're kind of agreeing on here um I want to add too the um Ohio Department of Education Workforce there um schools and districts are pro prohibited from providing instruction in veneral disease or sexed beyond the items outlined in Revised Code so anything beyond that needs written permission from a parent so along those same lines we like she just said if it's a sexually explicit flag book let's get app parent they have to opt in they have to be notified I feel like maybe you'll get have it's it's less work for the media center and then we're still showing that we
284have a standard that could be added I think that using almost like a Reserve System like when you go to the library and you want to borrow something and it's not on the shelf or there's if there's a delay it's not something that seems honorous It's just Reserve so we put these aside for you and when we hear you know we get the green light then then you can have this book I just want to reiterate that trying to comb through thousands of books to look for Content that might be objectionable to someone for whatever reason and I'm notay passing judgment I'm just saying I thought the fire example was a good one let's say you had a fire in your home that might be something that is just not a topic that is safe
285or comfortable for you your children whomever so we invest the Insight responsibility and choice in the parent or guardian of each student and then we don't run into the legal issues we don't worry about it what if we miss a book and frankly just given the the amount of time that it takes to collect a committee buy the books spend the time reading and discussing that should rightly be reserved for curricular books things that are required reading rather than a browsing collection whether it's in a classroom or in the library media center I I just I want to protect Mr Heath's time and the administrator's time you know just the amount of emails the volume of emails that come through on these topics the person means well I'm sure the person is passionate and is
286trying to help and do right but the net effect is it there's only so many hours that any individual person can work in a week let's say he he goes 120 this guy incredible there's still an end and 120 given just the volume of emails you get the 120 could be used just for curricular planning forecasting Community engagement and still not have enough time to do something like go through 47 books and you know make those decisions you know if it were the old days when we had 18 media Specialists that might be different we don't have that kind of personnel and we've agreed and we've heard from lots of parents the concerns about our class sizes at the particularly the ele level but really K through 12 is a concern that is a massive
287price tag the only way we make room for addressing that is to make sure that we strip away anything we can and I think returning the full say so to moms and dads and Guardians is the right thing to do and it could be just you know a normal process we're oh good like your books we'll put them on reserve here we'll get them to your classroom I'll let you know when they're available and it's not a big deal and it's not punitive it's just a fact um [Applause] I I agree uh Miss jessing and I I certainly my concern of course is is preserving superintendent Heath's time um so that we can focus on some very pressing issues um I can certainly be persuaded that you know reserving a book challenge to just curricular
288materials that that could make sense I think this is a new idea and I think that we need to talk through it I think that we need to expect that there are going to be some Kinks to work out um as we roll it out if we do get to roll it out and um that we should expect that as we go forward but I do think this is a compromise this is a good solution and I think it's very realistic and allows Mr Heath to get back to his day job I want to make a couple other comments too I think um M gesling brought up the point about the price tag uh that you know for book challenges and I think the reason why it's taken so much time and why it's a
289recurring issue is because we haven't really fixed it so that's why we've been hearing a lot of book challenges and controversial issues because parents do want the right to to say yes or no I want my kid at the you know the age appropriate level to read materials that are controversial in nature so I think that we've try I mean with the sexual content policy we did try to address at least one portion of it but I do think you know this is this is why we have to pay attention in the commun community when they continue to speak up about the same things and we don't know how to respond or we don't respond you know fully then we have continued issues and so we'll see the fruits of our labor if we put
290a policy like this together we should see a decline in some of these more controversial issues um so I think that we are trying to solve the problem now yeah one more thing for me um this this is what a superintendent has to do when his board doesn't listen to the community and the same problems keep recurring um and while I also appreciate all the time he put into it he could have delegated it to someone else and I appreciate that he this was personal he wanted to take the time but that's why this keeps coming up so I feel like when we hear that you're scolding the community they're they're going to like you said we haven't fixed the problem so it's going to keep coming up so we can't keep blaming the people
291for acknowledging the problem when we're not fixing it I certainly don't mean it as as a criticism to the community they have every right to you know Express it's but it is a concern because it is very costly to us um both in his time and and in the actual money and I think that as a board we need to be able to govern that we need to be able to manage how the time is spent by putting good policies forward that's why I'm proposing this because I think that this is a stronger policy to get people um the control that they would like to have over their own children's reading so a couple of things just for us to consider as we're trying to wrap this up a little bit um number one we
292do have the capability in the system to identify this on a student screen in the media center checkout system um what what I'll need to figure out because I would love to be able to have you know one policy one guideline whatever it is um that we can focus on um because I also want to make sure that we're addressing the classroom Library situation as well so I've got to figure out what that might look like in in that regard because those teachers do not have I don't believe have access to the the media center checkout system right now so I I want to figure out that that little loophole um second thing I I need to kind of investigate a little bit here obviously you know the the student would pick a book we
293would send that email notification to the to the parent um the parent providing the permission back to the media specialist to say yes they're able to check that book out I need to figure out how that process might work um because I think that's an automated system that is sending an email and if you respond to that automated system it's going nowhere similar to our board members at Menor schools.org distribution list distribution list that was internal that is now that's now fixed so that is now external thank you Mr Lynch um so I I need to figure out how that process works um and then Rose to your one point about okay so if you choose red for your child and they pick a book and to to what Jenny was talking about putting it
294you know kind of on reserve until we get that parent permission and I'm wondering if if we can maybe get into a process early on in the school year from the elementary perspective in particular because they're the ones that are going and checking these books out out I'm wondering if we can almost do that like on a a weekly basis so they're going in that first week they're going to pull a book that they want to check out we put that on reserve we get the response back from the parents and then that next week when they go in to the media with their Media Center rotation they're they're coming out with that book but they're also picking okay what do I want for next week and then we we continue with that that way
295that's student is always leaving with a book in hand after we get that initial week done um so I I want to kind of work through those procedures a little bit with our media Specialists and with our um you know Mr Lynch we probably have some work tomorrow um to figure out how that uh that process would work today little later this morning um Mr Heath yeah would it be beneficial if you had for balance you know if you had any additional questions instead of emailing the whole board since it wouldn't be in like an open session right would it be better if like Miss Cook and I or Rose you know for balance met with you um just two board members you know to kind of go through the process to hash out with
296the proced there's any other would you like to send that to the committee the policy committee yeah I so that's one of the other things we'll have to figure out here with the policy committee as well because we've got some you we've got our policy update now in hand so so we we need to review some of those things and I know um that I've been given some some policies to take a look at from um our School nurses um just to kind of refresh uh some of those policies that we passed back in August as well um again I think we we need to determine what and this is a board committee so you guys can tell me but you know what what is the the role of that particular ular committee uh that
297board policy committee is it just to do the two reviews each year or um is it some of the other little things that pop up during the during the course of the year and and are we doing bigger discussions kind of in this process now where we're going okay new business let's take a a crack at it if it's you know if it's a personal thing between you know that that Maggie and Annie are looking specifically at or if it's something that Lauren and Rose want to look at or or Lauren and Jenny want to look at whatever we can we can bring those groups together to talk you know that I think that probably needs to be a little bit more clearly defined as well as we move forward with some of that too
298I I know um some of the conversations that that we've had previously have been you got the board policy Committee just sent it through that group okay well you know part of the the conversation that we were looking at the last couple of weeks here was okay Lauren and Rose are our policy committee but they weren't part of that sexual content policy creation back in uh October or whenever that was so you know that's that's one of the things that I just wanted to get some clarity on uh from the group too are you looking for that Clarity tonight or uh not necessarily cuz I'm like it's like 11 it's 11 [Music] um why don't we at this point um look at doing a special meeting where we can hash out some of these things
299within the next few weeks um legal can have prior to April yes our legal team can have some um feedback and draft some language up for us and then we can we can talk about that a little more at the special meeting is is everyone okay with that yes could we also um I don't know if you need a motion for this could we also motion to move the executive session to a different day and that as in tomorrow in 20 minutes yes um can we can Cofe just stick with this right now so um I think we're going to but I think you're on the I think that's a great idea um um so just so that I I've got my marching orders right now I will go through this process identify a procedure
300that we will then discuss at the special meeting that we will find a date for um when I send stuff out in the board update on Friday so that we don't have to sit here and look at calendars right now fantastic okay thank you everybody good with that yes definitely yes 100% I okay okay um we have we have one more item just typing story on the agenda here and that is um class size Mrs marasa um asked that we had some class siiz discussion which I think is very important issue so I'm going to give you the floor thank you yes uh this is something I've heard about many many times I know some parents out there have stayed very late um thank you for staying with us it's an important topic um you
301know I I know it from personal experience my daughter is in a very large class classroom in at Hopkins Elementary um with about I think it's 27 or 28 children um and has been ever since she started going there she was a covid kindergartener so she was remote first and still has a lot of catching up to do unfortunately and I know she's not alone um and I've also you know gone into those classrooms volunteered in there and spoken with teachers and just have seen them completely overwhelmed and I know that we've also heard that yes absolutely it's a lot for the students too they are feeling the impacts of this so I want to make sure that we're talking about class sizes as often as we're talking about books so I've asked Mr Heath
302to give us an update of where we are he he was very generous in providing us well not not all of us but um many of us at Hopkins uh last spring about where we were in terms of class sizes back that at that time and um you know I think an update to that would be terrific um and to see how we've done so far and where we're headed in the coming months especially with these new kindergarten enrollments um happening very soon and I think similar to the the cell phone conversation and what that policy looks like and trying to give an update each of the the next couple of months uh we'll probably need to do some of that with this topic as well um but uh I will just give you guys
303kind of a brief overview of what what we've done so far and where we're heading right now um so typically every year starting in January Mrs uh Bernett our director of Human Resources meets with our elementary principles start having those Staffing conversations for next year uh we look really closely at what our current enrollments are what our enrollment projections uh tell us both from the enrollment study that we did last year and then also looking at Mr Wade's uh um system where he he is able to help us identify uh enrollment projections as well obviously the uh the one challenge is the potential kindergarten numbers that we have each year um but we start setting our staffing needs for each grade level um at each building off of those uh preliminary conversations that Mrs Bernett
304has uh with the principles um once she completes that um we start meeting on a weekly basis um it's uh Mrs Bernett uh Mr Hammond our assistant superintendent uh Mrs Bowser our director of student services uh Mr Wade sits in on those and and as do I um when we get into the the conversation around the secondary building um we also include Mr Crow and some of those too uh again we do that on a weekly basis we look at the numbers we look at the Staffing moves that might be needed based on retirements and transfers enrollment shifts whatever it may be um and then we start to monitor those student teacher ratios closely through the month of March um as we set our final Staffing numbers for next year um I don't have specific
305class siiz numbers yet uh for for us but um we are hoping to have that conversation here um probably middle of next week um to finalize some of those uh those class siiz numbers uh at the elementary level um so I'm I'm hopeful that by our April board meeting I'll be able to share some of those preliminary numbers with everyone um I will share also that we we're looking at the numbers every single week as we head Into Summer and then uh when we get into summertime it sometimes it's on a daily basis especially when we're looking at kindergarten um obviously we added quite a few uh kindergarten um sections here at the beginning of this uh this school year as well um because we had some higher than anticipated uh enrollments Fairfax and belflower
306I think are two the two examples right there um so we'll be able to give you some some semblance of an idea of where we're at in that April board meeting and then I'll follow up in our May PTA president's meeting Miss Shany um at the uh and again I I'll uh probably give some updates at our May board meeting as well um at the secondary level uh obviously students have already started the course selection process they've uh for the most part been completed um that starts in late January early February we tend to get those uh things wrapped up by the end of February um our principal start determining what some of those preliminary section numbers will be at the uh secondary level um and then again they have those uh potential staffing needs
307conversations with Mrs Bernett um our district team um actually is going to be meeting uh with uh our middle school principls and our high school principal next week to review some of those Staffing requests um and begin to look at those uh those section numbers and trying to finalize those so we can start to determine what those student teacher ratios are um during the months of April and May uh the buildings start constructing that master schedule um based on those schedule requests and the section numbers so I'm assuming by our May meeting um we would be able to give you guys some uh final class siiz numbers for the middle school and high school so uh we'll attempt to get Elementary PR preliminary uh student teacher ratios and April secondary and may if that uh
308works for everyone Mr Heath yeah um we have a policy it's title is class size it's policy 2312 um and it doesn't sound like there's any changes that we actually want to make to that policy per se tonight that I'm hearing um but it says a desired range between the minimum and maximum number of students which teachers s shall have in their regular classes shall be determined by the superintendent so um do we have a minimum and a maximum that like you go by because I know there's also a code administrative code that's referenced on the bottom I looked it up and it looked like maybe 24 and then you could have a teacher's aid if it's above that that's like ideal so can you explain what the range is since our policy states that
309you have the authority not not us right um so obviously you the the the younger the student the lower the class size we tried to keep um I I can give you guys specific numbers on that uh here in April as well well we can do it at the special meeting even um just to give everybody the uh the updates um I know typically you know when we're looking at the highend like when we're getting up into high school that number is right around the 28 29 range um but again I think a lot depends on okay what's the content area at the high school what's the the level of that particular class you know obviously uh having 28 or 29 AP English Lit students is a lot different than having you know 28 or
31029 freshman English students and that's even in our policy it says you know you'll determine it based on subject matter type of instruction ability to of students because some you know if you have a higher needs uh special needs classroom it's going to you know you're going to need more um staff there a availability and ress of AIDS so once again using an aid use of special facilities and Equipment financial resources of the district so all those things I I'm assuming you're considering all those in your decisions and again I we go to the Hopkins example again here um you know obviously at uh at fifth grade our numbers were pretty high at the beginning of the year and we were talking about an additional staff member um obviously that didn't really fit the five-year
311forecast but uh I I love Mr Wade because he always says you tell me what you need we'll find it and you know so we had that uh that possibility there um but one of the other pieces that we had in place this year were some of the Esser teachers uh we did uh earmark one of our Esser teachers for grades four and five specifically looking at math because we obviously want to continue to to focus on our math instruction right now um we also had uh a pretty large majority of gifted students um at fifth grade at Hopkins this year um so what we ended up doing is actually moved the gifted intervention specialist literally right next to the three fifth grade classrooms and that individual was able to you know do a lot
312of pullout type of uh um instruction for those students right there next to Next Door U which happen to work out well so that that's where some of that consideration came in and I know it's still crowded in there I know so those are some things that we we would consider though the one issue we're going to run into next year Sesser teachers are going away um so now how are we doing some of that and we talked a little bit about that at our uh at our February uh board meeting but yeah it's still march right um Mr Heath what are the barriers right now is it um a combination or one of the two of of budget or um actual space do we not have extra classrooms uh it's a little of both
313um it depends on the building itself obviously we've got a little bit more space in in some buildings rather than others Hopkins is always tight Sterling Morton's always tight um we had a little bit more flexibility in Fairfax this uh this year which allowed us to add that extra um kindergarten section um and and again the other thing that we always have to consider as well are some of the special education uh components too um obviously that's got a big impact on our staffing numbers which that's when we're starting to get into the budgets a little bit too um I know we're we're trying to be as lean as possible uh as we go through this but that's why we went through that effort of having those budget conversations so um I think one of
314the principles said it perfectly we want we want to cut stuff rather than staff which I completely agree um so trying to find the stuff is going to be an important thing for us um but yeah a lot of different considerations as we go through there but I'll give you some ranges uh Mrs Payne at the uh uh at the special meeting too that way you can kind of see where our our ranges tend to be and I can give everybody kind of an update as to where we are with uh with all the class sizes this year too I know we had a lot of numbers tossed around here tonight too but um we can give you some of those specific numbers in uh thank you whenever we have that next meeting sounds good
315thank you tomorrow today today is tomorrow today seven more minutes okay um is there any more discussion on class SI okay next we have hearing of the public on any topic M MCC Cori there's a great deal of talk about policy policy must be followed policy must be enforced here's a policy for you policy number 75 4.04 staff technology acceptable use and safety which states that an employees personal or private use of social media may have unintended consequences while the board respects its employees first Amendment rights those rights do not include permission to post inflammatory comments that could compromise the district's Mission undermine staff relationships or cause a substantial disruption to the school environment this warning includes staff members online conducts that occurs off school property including from the employees personal communication device postings to
316social media should be done in a manner sensitive to the staff's members professional responsibilities last month Jenny Maggie and Lauren all voted for the new hire at a new hire at Menor schools even even though they shouldn't have due to Jenny and Maggie's endorsing this person when she ran for Schoolboard I'd call that a conflict of interest which violates your policy and bylaws Lindsay wall is listed as a substitute long-term classroom assistant at Ridge Elementary however she has also been an administr of a Facebook group called support public education and Manor which has a public and private Facebook group we know of several teachers who I will not directly name at this time that are loud especially in the private group along with some PTA presidents as well this leftist group claims to be a
317group to discuss the men are school board and candidates who are pro-id safety Pro science pro- honest history and pro diversity Menor schools deserves Schoolboard members who are not implementing the agenda of a vocal minority of people they also violate policy when employees on that page encourage a violation of students privacy and fura which puts a large liability on the district the latest post from this group is a call to action to quote it States join us in a show of support and stand up against extremists and their divisive theatrics show up and stand up for our students teachers and public education stop book bands does this post contain inflammatory comments compromise the district's Mission undermine staff relationships and cause disruption to the school environment yes yes it does it also creates a nice hostile
318work environment for those who don't agree with her stance on retaining sexually explicit books or politically left-leaning ideology for elementary students parents at Ridge are not happy with her trying to silence and intimidate them some of your District employees are walking Billboards for why people should homeschool or send their kids to private school it's not a good look for you it's no wonder people are pulling out their kids from the district when you have employees like this perhaps instead of hurling accusations creating Tik tocks of parents who speak out at board meetings and slurs against the people of this community you disagree with your ideologies your employee could spend some time actually reading school policy and then try hard or not to break it take this as your formal complaint to you all and HR
319since parents emails haven't been heard thank [Applause] you Miss B on oh come on I can't wait John Sanford a can't wait till next month Miss sedik good evening again um I I wanted to say thank you first about the whole um no cell Bell tobell thing I think that was a really good uh step that you took for teachers and students so I'm happy with that um one of the questions I was going to ask was how are uh the library books being Chosen and I my question was is it Lisa Ford that she's the media specialist she chooses it and right now we're going to be going to like having a committee is that that was sort of where I was not understanding where that was going but um yeah I'll go ahead
320and answer that real quick too yeah and so Lisa goes through and and she's going to be doing the preliminary orders um the the next level is going to be the um uh the high school administrative team so Mr Crow and several of his uh assistants or uh unit principles are helping look at uh at that list of books and then um then we will have uh if there are any questions there um he will be bringing those to our administrative team we meet on a weekly basis okay and can look at those and then ultimately if if there's still a question it'll come to me okay yeah I just I kind of feel like um since we're having so many problems that maybe this is too much for one person um so I think
321it would be nice to have more of a more hands on it so but I ALS so I would like to actually make some suggestions for um our school library this one is if I ran the zoo by Dr Seuss um it seems like everybody's really impressed by award-winning authors and so I would suggest that since this is Dr Zeus this is something that should be considered for all grade levels it is controversial and it's kind of been cancelled but since he's a cultural icon and his distinguished W distinguished writer I think that we should choose this book um we're not against Banning books and so I think this would be like a perfect award-winning one for the kids I also would like to suggest something like by Brave books or the Huddle twins that's
322something that is good um balance um for the other side of the story I also just wanted to say I understand that you guys are trying to make this um you're trying to have this the red yellow green light thing and I think that that's nice but then when we complain about like well it's taking up all of this time and it's taking up all the money and we really don't want to hear from people complaining about this anymore I think that the normal like obvious solution is just take the smut out of school I mean there when you send your kids to a a school you shouldn't have to get a call from the teacher saying like oh they're going to check out a book you're supposed to send your kids to school and
323know that this is a safe place and you shouldn't have to be checked up on all the time and I just I don't understand why people fight so hard when it could just be like you're just do the right thing I I don't understand that was my [Laughter] alarms lindsy wall that by Tom what was by Brave my Tom tle oh it's a publisher okay thank you the tutle what Craig the Tuttle twins was um and thank you all right thank you thanks no other speakers no Lindsay sorry Lind I got a couple oh you're good okay so I find it interesting that it was brought up about voting um and how the board is in charge of Hiring Our superintendent we spent a very long time deciding on the superintendent speaking with the community
324speaking amongst each other and voting to hire and also to renew his contract the superintendent has to have certain qualifications we did that through our community we did that through the staff we all talked about the things we wanted in a superintendent and I'm pretty positive all have also spoke on the high qualifications and experience that our superintendent has he is a professional and he is extremely smart um and also apparently just can run on no sleep because I'm really trying to figure out when you do that um I think it's interesting that we're sitting here questioning his recommendation the thing with a a book review when it's submitted it goes for review he did the work he did the work that two board members are refusing to do he didn't want to read it
325I'm positive that that's not like a book that he would go choose from the library himself if it is then then good for you I have friends that are into that but I think that if we're questioning his expertise do either of you have have that expertise to make those judgment calls I don't think I know for sure I do not have that experience I don't have the expertise to even if I read the book in full I don't simply simple as that I don't he does which is why I respect the other three board members that chose to follow his recommendation things that cause irreparable harm should be removed and not made available to our students is something that was said earlier but what happens when we have people in this room potentially causing
326harm to our students to our teachers what happens when those people continuously repeat exaggerated opinions like our students can't read or do basic math or when comments are made about our teachers claiming they are groomers pedophiles perverts when teachers are accused of pushing agendas indoctrinating our kids or secretly colluding with students to change their Identity or what happens when extremely false accusations are made that someone in the district is pandering obscenity to minors if board members are worried that a library book's words could cause such irreparable harm to a student from reading at one time to believe those unpopular their books are contributing to the level of mental health issues we are seeing throughout the district I wonder what damage those spoken words accusations and lies are causing around this District thank you Andrea [Laughter]
327Bliss you get a mint that concludes the public participation okay um we do have executive session on the agenda i' like to motion I I did hear Mrs Payne say something yes I would like to motion to postpone to a later date second third any discussion on that would it have to be a special meeting is that what we're yeah okay all right got it if you could please call the role Mr wait um Miss Payne yes Miss aapo yes Miss uh jessing yes Miss moraza yes Miss Cook yes thank you mayy could just send out for all the stuff that we that we need do I have a motion to adjourn so moved second Mr White please call the RO Miss maraza yes Miss pay yes misso yes Miss wrestling yes Miss Cook yes
328meeting is adjourned at 12:05 on March 13th a record is a record that's a record we've never gone