Mentor Board of Education - April 2023 Meeting

001foreign laughs good evening the April 11 2023 regular meeting of the inventor Exempted Village board of education is called to order this meeting is being held in accordance with section 3313.15 of the Ohio Revised Code please place your mobile phones on silent mode for the meeting Mr Wade please call the roll miss breiner here miss cook here miss jesling present Miss Payne here Mr Tuttle here please join me in Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance [Music] isn't it yeah look at Annie's like nope turn around Mike's just missed I would like to welcome everyone to the April 11 2023 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 items for the board's

002approval via the district's paperless Board of Education agenda system or Dax the public can 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 the 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 and agenda items only the second hearing of the public is dedicated to those who wish to address the board on any subject whether it be an item on the agenda or another issue do participate in the hearing of the public

003session interested speakers must sign up prior to the start of the meeting sign ups are available online through the school district's website or on-site prior to 7 pm when it is your turn to speak you will be called to the microphone when addressing the board 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 the community members to address the board the board continues to welcome feedback from the community as an important component to conducting business this is an information gathering opportunity for the board and administration so we can work to best serve our community if at the end of the public participation we do not make a statement

004please know this is no way demonstrates 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 televised live and on a delayed basis and will be shown on Spectrum cable channel 1026 in Mentor and channel 1025 in Mentor on the lake this meeting is also being recorded and can be found on our YouTube channel Cardinal TV Mentor Ohio thank you at this time we'll have the district highlights and recommendations Mr Heath good evening Mr President members of the board and Mr Wade tonight we are recognizing several students for their outstanding achievements I'd like to invite Dr glaven to the podium for the CTE recognitions oh let me just lower that

005a little bit sorry good evening everybody Mr President members of the board Mr Heath and Mr Wade tonight I'm here to help recognize our students who participate in our Career Technical education programs and have qualified to the state competition and in some cases have finished among the highest in the state through their participation students are able to gain work-based learning experiences and knowledge about careers and industries that can help guide their decisions post High School if anybody's had a chance to talk to me for probably more than five minutes I would probably share with you some of the fun facts with Mentor Schools and kind of some of the great things we're doing with Career Tech one of those facts is that over 35 percent of our Juniors and seniors at Mentor High School are

006in some form of Career Technical education and currently we have over 800 students that are participating in some form of Career Technical education we're very proud of that these are the highest numbers that we have had this is our fifth year consecutively of hitting record numbers of Career Technical uh education participation and you know with those students through my own personal interactions with many of these students that we're going to recognize tonight their participation in Career Technical education has helped sharpen their focus as they look to embark on the next phases of their lives I am honored to say that we have over 86 of our students who at minimum qualified for their state competition and their ctso ctso is Career Tech student organization speaking of records that is a 15 increase over the previous

007year which was a record so things are going well this is a true Testament to the type of quality instruction and programming being provided by our instructors now I do have as I said 80 something names to go through I am going to recognize the students from each ctso I would ask that when we do this we hold Applause until all the students or we're going to line them up so just so you guys know for the students that are here awesome first thanks for coming when you come up uh you're gonna get your certificate we're going to shake hands you're going to walk down Shake everybody's hand and then just keep going right down the line and then wait so that'll be good so that's what we're going to do uh when I say

008your name you'll come up so the first Career Tech student organization we're going to go through is DECA where we had over 30 students qualify for the state competition now Deca prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs in marketing Finance hospitality and management in high schools and colleges around the globe and when I get into these 30 State qualifiers I do want to First recognize three specific students who not only qualified for the state competition but did so well to state competition that they have qualified for the national competition that's taking place April 22nd through the 26th in Orlando Florida so they'll be going there in a few weeks their teachers Mr McKnight and Mrs touziant thank you three for putting that together they'll be accompanying you guys so those three students right now can I please

009have uh Delaney Guyer who came in second place in the state in entrepreneurship and then also we are going to have Mr Robert Pruitt who came in sixth in the state in principles of business management and administration and then also given a little suspense here for our next one he won the state championship so that's okay it's allowed our next one is uh who came in first in the state it's our first ever state champion in a Deca competition uh Michael Waters who was the state champion principals of business management and administration come on up hey congratulations all right and now I'll continue with our other 27 State qualifiers so taking uh qualifying for state and retail merchandising uh we had Alexander Abernathy uh qualifying in hotel and lodging management canis ekakuru qualifying in food

010marketing qualifying in business finance Braden Caldwell qualifying in principles of hospitality and tourism Payson Chapman and I know I have a lot of names and I but I'll be honest I like saying the categories they did because it's so it's so cool to see the categories that our students are competing in it is it blows my mind every time I see this I'm just so proud of them I can't can't keep it in um qualified in Human Resources Kaden Cofield in principles of hospitality and tourism Angela demaria in accounting applications Max fredine in sports entertainment and marketing I have Timmy herdinski and Entrepreneurship Sanaya Howard in entrepreneurship Leah Kilpatrick white in buying and Merchandising I've said this name quite a few times Katie klepsick that I didn't even have to do the phonics of it

011so that works out in business finance Jonathan mcgurko and but I said it right I know right I know a few times so it happens you keep qualifying for States and things [Laughter] all right in business finance Janaya Marsh in marketing Communications Evelyn megory principles of marketing Micah Norris Reynolds in travel and tourism Daniella Ortiz and travel and tourism Olivia Ott also fun fact Olivia Ott's mother who's in attendance right now is our networking and I.T security instructor so really believing in Career Technical education in human resource management Elise Patty now this one is kind of a unique category um we had a student who actually came in second place in a Deca social media marketing challenge and what he did is over 1800 students participated and he came in second place and was runner-up

012so they actually he won a trip to the national competition and that is Anthony Pekka yeah yeah you can totally I mean I said wait but you know I'm not going to get mad um in Business Service marketing in Business Service marketing Zach rafalki in retail merchandising nadavia Rogers in accounting applications Nicholas Seifert and principles of hospitality and tourism Tyler spackman in sports and entertainment marketing Sydney Stark and Quick Serve restaurant management Justin sveda in buying and Merchandising Brandon Valeri those are all of our decas so hang on so we'll go ahead and we'll let him come up come on up Valerie okay sure excellent and now I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to move on to our students hangout for a little bit it's okay you guys you guys got this I'm

013now going to move on to our HOSA careertext student organization so HOSA is future health professionals is a National Organization of secondary and post-secondary students that support Career Development and Health Professions and Improvement of Health Services delivery to the general population After High School over 90 percent of Jose students continue to pursue a career in Health Professions so qualifying for the state competition is Malachi Abdul Wally and that was in nursing assisting in clinical nursing Jada Banks in Pharmacology Sophia bertolami in prepared speaking Alana Corbin in home health aide Madison Drake in medical spelling Anna English in clinical nursing Alexa govdich in healthy lifestyle Lola Hunter and medical spelling Taylor link in medical assisting Allison McCall in medical law and ethics I mean medical law and ethics took first place in the region Allison McCall

014or and then in medical law and ethics we had Kayla praner in medical terminology danaya saperstein in home health aide sincere Simmons and then in medical law and ethics sorry they're right there is Isabel Yates hey all right so now we have Deca and HOSA and now we're moving on to our final ctso I'm going to be talking about tonight but our largest also so lastly I'm going to be reviewing skillsusa skillsusa is a partnership of students teachers and Industry working together to ensure America has a skilled Workforce skillsusa serves middle school high school and college slash post-secondary students preparing for careers in trade Technical and skilled service including Healthcare occupations skillsusa empowers its members to become world-class workers leaders and responsible American citizens now I'm going to get into our state qualifiers but I

015would like to recognize uh next to me tonight is our skillsusa advisor Mrs Melinda O'Connor so Mrs O'Connor has done an amazing job of helping instill a passion in our students and has grown our skills USA chapter to over 378 members which is amazing it is and even even more impressive we were just recently I believe was it last week or is it two just last week we were notified that we were one of only seven chapters in the entire state of Ohio that were awarded the gold chapter of Excellence from Ohio skillsusa so Mrs O'Connor is it okay if we give Mrs O'Connor a quick Round of Applause [Music] the amount of effort she puts into this outside of ours it's amazing amazing now the following students have qualified for the skills USA state

016competition now I'm not able to talk about the national qualifier yet because they're actually going to be competing in the state competition April 25th and 26th in Columbus Ohio so with our students we have I'm gonna I'm gonna talk about what they qualified for and then the students so when I say your name please come up in entrepreneurship Ronnie Balcom in crime scene investigation J Lee Beasley in job skill demonstration Braden beers in computer programming Evie Bennett in prepared speech Ryan buchler in entrepreneurship Alec blatnick in CNC turning Kaden Burkholder in career pathway showcase business in it Cadence Burr in web design Adrian kataj in principles of Technology Adriana sec in t-shirt design Brianna chuba and Technical Computer Applications Serenity Elam in web design Gavin Ely hey congratulations and Gavin had a really awesome hey

017great job man I just I loved his website he came up with the website it was called uh skateboard but it was a play on words b-o-r-e-d and he basically was designing a website that essentially you could pull it up and it would kind of show you a map of areas where you could find like skateboarding locations and I'm like that's a pretty good concept so stuck with me um an automotive service technology one is regional Nicholas Evans in computer programming Connor Forsyth in pin design Isabella Graham in entrepreneurship Zach Halstead in career Pathways Human Services Ty Hammond and Entrepreneurship Hayden hewiss in pin design Armani Howard an Automotive Maintenance and light repair Evan lindick in web design Michael Lonas and customer service Christian lion in web design Quinn Moreno hey you did a great

018job on that too with EMT we have Kyle Martin with interactive application and video game development Evan malaker and t-shirt design Ellie Malika an entrepreneurship Ricky Murray an interactive application in video game development Tony Guillen in career pathway showcase Business site in it Ryan Nichols in firefighting Brianna O'Brien in career pathways business and I.T chaos price and Entrepreneurship Gavin Rupert in entrepreneurship nikhil Shah and crime scene investigation Caitlyn scaros talking earlier today right so on a side note really fantastic he just started today his Capstone the next two weeks he is working in our I.T department at Mentor High School so really it's exciting uh kind of fun with EMT Jacob Smeltzer with interactive application and video game development Rowan guarding Smith technical Computer Applications Cadence tunbury in career Pathways showcase Human Services Maeve Walsh

019and Entrepreneurship Grant Wheelock in first aid and CPR Taylor Williams in firefighting Madeleine Womack all right congratulations and I was worried how many students would show up pretty pretty I'll tell you what this is a true Testament to these students can we please go ahead and give a round of applause to our students you could stand up we won't say no foreign thank you very much thank you Dr glaven Mr President members of the board Mr Wade at this time I would like to invite Mr Casella to the podium for the High School athletic recognitions Mr President members of the board Mr Heath Mr Wade although I wish I had as many members as Mr Dr glavin had there to come up and talk about state championships the Mentor High Athletic Department has had another

020great winter season with many conference sectional district and state competitors and much success I am honored tonight to present members of our girls swim team boys and girls wrestling team and our gymnastics team who have qualified for State competitions this past season as always they represented Mentor High School in a first class Manner and gave it everything that they had first of all I'd like to recognize members of our girls swim team the girls swim team had a fantastic season finishing as sectional runners-up and sending a number of swimmers to the district meet down at Cleveland State from the district meet four members of our swim team qualified for the state meet and I'd like to bring them up at this time first of all Annie Barrow Annie qualified as an individual for the 50

021free the 100 free and the 200 free relay and he placed first at sectionals and second at districts in the 53 first and sectionals and fourth in districts in the hundred free thank you next will be Marlena Childs Marlena was part of the 200 free relay that qualified for States Ruth Ann gemin it's Ruth Ann here Ruth Ann was also a member of the 200 free relay congratulations and Juliana slanica who also qualified as a member of the 200 free relay foreign that 200 free relay also finished first at sectionals and third at districts to qualify for the state meet so great job by our girls swim team this year congratulations ladies I'd like to recognize a member of our gymnastics team that qualified for States would Angelina DeFranco please join me up here Angelina

022had a great senior season in addition a much regular season success she did very well in the postseason she was a balance being qualifier at the state meet she finished second at sectionals 12th in the district meet and ended up 15th overall in the state on the balance beam so great season Angelina and finally I'd like to recognize members of our boys and girls wrestling teams who advanced to the state championship meet this year down at Ohio State if I could have boys head coach Ray lamanna and girls head coach AJ Carl joined me up here at the podium please thank you first on the girls side in the first ever Ohio High School Athletic Association girls state tournament men are qualified three wrestlers to the state meet out of the mentor District that we

023were honored to host first of all Lorelei megory who finished fourth at our Mentor Regional to qualify for the state meet [Applause] Campbell split who finished fourth at the regional to qualify for States if Campbell's here tonight and Maddie Menchaca who finished second at the mentor Regional to qualify for the state meet although all three of these girls did not place at the state meet they represented the Cardinals very well and I know they've set the foundation for our girls wrestling program moving forward so congratulations to our girls wrestlers [Music] foreign side we had four wrestlers who advanced to the state meet two of them were not able to be with us tonight Jack dubo who finished first at sectionals fourth in districts and then fourth at the state meet and Antonio Shelley who finished

024third at sectionals second at districts and then again fourth at the state meet but with us here tonight is bear Horrigan bear finished first at sectionals and fourth in a District Tournament to qualify for our state meet in his first year here at Manor High School [Music] thank you and then Nick Blackburn Nick finished first at sectionals go ahead Nick finished first at sectionals fourth in districts and then third in the state of Ohio this season all of these young men performed their best throughout the postseason and we're very proud of their accomplishments again thank you for all of your support and recognition throughout the year [Applause] foreign we'll take a quick break so that if you would like to leave before the business part of the meeting you can certainly do so foreign last

025month's meeting so moved [Music] second please call the roll Mr Wade Mr dressling yes Miss Cook yes Miss Pryor yes Miss Payne yes Mr Tuttle yes next on the agenda hearing of the public on agenda items only Mr Wade that means I'm a our first speaker is Miss McCormick foreign as I look over tonight's agenda three things stand out to me that I would like to address first I see you're approving sixth grade camp for the 23-24 school year my first question is all the cabins for each of the children being assigned by biological sex in other words will biological boys be housed with biological boys and biological girls be housed with biological girls what about the counselors will parents be notified if there are transgender people involved in activities as in counselors speakers or

026Camp employees what type of safety features are used to protect our children the second thing that jumped out to me was the financial report when Mr Wade gives his immensely popular financial report can he please give us the heads up about the section where money is being transferred from one account to another and why certain accounts are being closed the one particular transfer that I noticed was for 168 558.52 cents being transferred from MHS Career Tech home to MHS construction management account fund it seems like a large amount of money and I'd like to know how you arrived at that number and why it is being transferred and why its original account is being closed finally I'd like to address the osba leadership skills Institute these are some of the titles for the workshops crisis

027Communications be strategic prepared and calm in the storm winging it is not a successful crisis communication strategy while a crisis may be may not be predictable the way your community and the media respond can be anticipated join us to discuss tips tricks and best practices this looks to be uh this looks like it could be a good workshop for you all you are winging it and as long as you continue to wing it without right written policy we are never going to improve the academic performance or the overall safety of men or students another Workshop that I saw was legal quick hits what you need to know review hot legal topics impacting public education learn how these in issues may impact your district and leave with practice tips for compliance should you all attend this

028particular Workshop I hope at least one of you will ask about lawsuits and the probability that you may soon incur a lawsuit and to realize that these lawsuits can and indeed do go both ways lastly the word Workshop this Workshop is offered working with people that can make things difficult you are sitting in here in a room with a lot of people who can have can have and will continue to make things difficult instead of schmoozing them and telling both sides what they want to hear maybe it's past time to stop with lies and begin to be honest and transparent with facts and your personal beliefs and values if you think kindergartners need to hear about sex during their school day say so if you think school resource officers aren't needed to keep our kids

029safe say so if you think test scores being in the basement indicates nothing say so two of you are up for reelection this community needs to know where you stand on these issues so that they can vote for you again or maybe with the facts they will vote you out thank you thank you next speaker is Dennis strapko good evening last month I addressed the board and I asked the simple question regarding when would the school notify parents when a student comes out as transgender in the school and I've have yet to hear an answer so I'd like one I'm I'm hoping there's an answer now last month I asked do you have an answer for us and you said no not at this time and that you would get us an answer so we're

030a month away from that event and I'm asking the same simple question when will the family be notified when the school is made aware that they have a transgender child on their hands well I'll answer to what you've not to the question but I want to First apologize that we haven't gotten you that answer and uh tomorrow we'll work towards that answer and I can't tell you you'll get an answer tomorrow but I'll sit down with them and we'll go through it I apologize that's sorry that's not acceptable you know what we were also led to believe last month was that there were 30 students identifying as transgender in the mentor school system and that we were initially led to believe that all the parents were aware of this and as the evening went on

031and the discussion continued it became apparent that the parents have not been notified so there's currently possibly students in our system right now that are identifying and communicating to you of this issue and their parents aren't being informed regardless of your feelings on this matter this is a family matter it's a private matter and that's where it should begin not be the last people involved it demonstrates no transparency by this board and it really saddens me thank you thank you [Applause] Lynn Mazika here good evening Mr President members of the board Mr Heath Mr Wade thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening and thank you for allowing the review of the proposed new math curriculum for the grades k-6 I was able to go over and review it was very nice it was

032set up we could see all the the manuals uh the uh we had information by the person in charge curriculum there to to answer questions for us and we were able to go through both the students program that's on tablet or I guess their laptops and the teacher's manuals I was impressed by it it appears bright and engaging with colorful problems and illustrations I like the idea of it being a problem solving based platform it Fosters access for students with special needs or eel students and it reflects a diverse student population but most of all it has been field tested by by the experts and those are the teachers and several of Mentor Schools and this board has a chance to have data-driven information to make a decision on a program prior to spending taxpayers

033money so I think this was a well planned out way of handling it and it looks like good curriculum you've gotten good response from your experts the teachers and I urge the passage of that resolution thank you thank you April Flagg [Music] is it speaker that's last speaker next on the agenda superintendent's report and recommendations uh good evening in light of the recent requests for review of instructional materials in our libraries I've been looking at our entire process for the selection the weeding and the disposal of library books from our media centers across the district from a library book selection standpoint we now have our high school administrative team and our district level administrators reviewing the lists of books before we place the orders this will give us several sets of eyes on the book

034titles the book reviews the grade bands and the age level recommendations for each book we select for our libraries our library material weeding guidelines I've discovered have not been implemented in a few years due to the pandemic and some other factors so we're bringing those back now to start the process of reviewing all of our library materials this weeding process traditionally has started during the second semester during the teacher work days so we're going to be starting that process now two of the three requests for review of instruction materials included books in the high school media center that fall under those weeding criteria those books are identical and notes from the blender instead of sending those requests through the lengthy Review Committee process we have already removed those books as part of the weeding process

035[Applause] the third request for review pertains to the Colin Kaepernick book and that does not fall under the weeding guidelines so that one has already been sent to our committee they have met once and have a second meeting scheduled this week so I will have a recommendation on that book review on the regular board meeting agenda in May one other item brought to my attention was a concern regarding the Mentor Public Library card program that we have in place for our students I just want to remind everyone that parents do have the ability to opt their child out of that program so that they do not receive that library card in regards to school safety just a couple of updates for everyone on March 7th our Board of Education held a work session to discuss

036many issues around school safety we reviewed the Ohio school safety Grant we are receiving and shared that we are addressing the communication issues we currently face in the district by purchasing radios PA systems and other infrastructure to make sure that we are able to communicate with every building across the district in the event of an emergency we are also looking at adding security cameras and door centers at some of our buildings based on the safety audit conducted by the Ohio schools Council in the fall since that meeting we have started to work on many of the ideas that all of our board members helped us prioritize We are continuing to review our safety protocols and procedures to make sure we have updated plans in place for our students and staff at each building this includes

037looking at the number of entrances and exits that we have especially at our secondary buildings to make sure that we have kids and visitors coming in and out of one entrance or at the high school level two entrances we are making repairs to any doors and windows that make to make sure that we Harden the exteriors of our buildings to make them more secure [Music] we are also adding signage at each of our schools to direct visitors to the main entrances of the buildings and to remind our students and staff not to open the doors for visitors we are also evaluating the costs associated with several other safety improvements that we discussed during our executive session of that meeting on March 7th to make sure that our school facilities can increase the security at every

038single building one of the other items that we discussed during that March 7th meeting was governor dewine's proposal to have a school resource officer in every building however the fifty one thousand dollars that we are receiving for that proposal would not even pay for one SRO let alone the 10 or 11 officers that we would need for the number of buildings we have in our district last week Mr Wade and I met with our city manager Ken filipiak and police chief Ken gunch to discuss the potential expansion of sros in the district we discussed a variety of different options including the creation of additional full-time sros within the police department excuse me the use of retired Mentor police officers the use of Lake County Sheriff deputies and the use of retired military veterans while there

039are still many possibilities to consider a couple of the main challenges that we face right now are number one the lack of police officers in the mentor Police Department I think Mr Wade had a great comment he shared it would almost be as if the the city of Mentor was asking us for additional bus drivers right now we just don't have them so that's one of the considerations that we have to kind of navigate right now one of the other challenges we face is the structure of who would be responsible for managing that SRO unit under each of those options that we would we were looking at quite honestly we don't want to be in the business of managing the police unit here in our district we want to leave that to The Experts of

040the mentor Police Department final challenge is going to be the funding component as we mentioned 51 000 is not going to cover 10 or 11 police officers so we need to take a look at what that funding source may be to achieve that goal of having an SRO in every building we're working on a couple of ideas together with the city of of Manor to create a phase-in type of plan over the next four or five years that would allow us to reach that goal we'll continue to work with them to identify the people funding and a structure to manage those additional school resource officers one final item with school safety that we'll put in place soon is having a board liaison committee on school safety similar to the one that we have on curriculum

041that we started here this year once we have some additional information on all of these topics around school safety we will want to have another board work session to discuss those next steps in school safety probably in late May or early June talking to Mr Wade a little bit today we may want to coordinate that with some of the financial pieces that will also be considering here in late May or early June final piece that I have for my report tonight before we get into the consent agenda for those of you that are not aware we run a school for students with autism in our district called cares the school this year formed a basketball team and they've been practicing on Thursday afternoons at their school a couple of weeks ago they played their first

042game against the Wycliffe High School varsity basketball team students from Wycliffe high school attended the game and they made signs for all of our care students to cheer them on during the game we had 11 players on the team and every single one of them scored during the game I was able to attend most of the game and when I left with about two minutes to go we were winning 60-22. the wickliff basketball players and students were absolutely absolutely amazing with our kids it was so much fun to watch our students participate in something that they'd normally don't have available to them we're really looking forward to playing a home game against some of our men are athletes here very soon but I just wanted to share with the board and with our community what

043a special event that was and can't wait to watch them play again and Jordan who was the announcer for the uh the basketball team he was unbelievable he should go work for the Cavs right now Simply Amazing Mr President members of the board and Mr Wade I have the following recommendations listed under the consent agenda and recommend approval of item six a one through six A3 [Music] comments discussion hearing none please call the roll Mr Wade Mr brighter yes Miss Payne yes Miss Cook yes Miss jesling yes Mr Tuttle yes five zero Mr President members of the board Mr Wade I am recommending approval of the engagement agreement with the Ohio Auditor of State some second discussion please call the roll Mr Wade Miss Payne yes Miss Pryor yes Miss Cook yes Miss dressling yes

044Mr Tuttle yes motion carries 5-0 Mr President members of the board Mr Wade I'm recommending approval of the school link service agreement with Lake chiaga computer Association so moved second comments discussion questions please call the roll Mr Wade Miss breiner yes Mrs dressling yes Miss Cook yes Miss Payne yes Mr Tuttle yes motion carries 5-0 Mr President members of the board Mr Wade I am recommending approval of the spectrum service agreement so move second please call the roll Mr Wade Ms Briner yes Miss Payne yes Miss Cook yes Miss jesling yes Mr Tuttle yes motion carries 5-0 Mr President members of the board Mr Wade I am recommending that the K-5 Math course of study and the K-5 open up math textbooks be approved second discussion comments I just want to say um I know

045Miss jesling and I uh are the curriculum liaison so we got to see a lot of the data that um that drove the curriculum Department to pick this and I fully support it I think it's really great there's actual student workbooks as well for each child so there's that and there's a lot of Hands-On manipulatives so they can be Hands-On with it as well and I just I really like the program the scores we saw were higher than those using the current program so I know Mrs cook kind of showed those last month as well but it seems like it's a pretty easy answer for me it's a yes but very excited about it I think this is going to be a good thing to address especially the gaps that we're seeing and the downfalls

046that we're seeing in some of the math areas so the curriculum department is currently addressing and I know Miss jesling and I have been able to be a part of those conversations about some of the gaps and and things that they're looking at to close those gaps and to try to get our scores higher so it was piloted very thoroughly to give feedback from our own District because it's our kids that are going to be the beneficiaries and there was so much positive data which is one of the things that Mr Heath focuses on on our behalf and well done from the curriculum Department I think the fun part for me is actually going into those classrooms where those Pilots are taking place and being able to sit in and watch those conversations that the

047teachers and students especially our youngest students are having about math with these new resources so we're really looking forward to it I was very excited about the the data as you said too I I think it's great that we were able to to trial that and you know really get to see that seven percent increase overall which is great and Mr Heath and I were able to We visited several elementary schools recently and I was able to talk to the teachers firsthand that we're piloting some of the programs and they had some really nice things to say about just how excited they were and they said you know I haven't really been this excited about a math program before so that was really nice to hear and they also felt very supported by the program

048they said that they when they had an issue with something you know maybe just hey the line for their name isn't big enough on this worksheet that they immediately changed it and adapted that they were very responsive so that was great to hear yeah I would I opened it up on my iPad and I dabbled with it it was fun but I said oh my God what if of course you can't go back in time but you can say what if but what an opportunity for our children to do that the Hands-On it's like I had fun doing it it was like gosh I wish I were a little kid now you know but I can't go back I'm impressed it's I appreciate hearing all this feedback and Mr Heath I'm glad to hear you

049getting into the schools and into the classrooms I think that's really important to support the teachers like that thank you thank you there is more than just video games children do more than just play video games so that's very good please call the roll Mr Wade Miss breiner yes Miss Payne yes Miss Cook yes Miss dressling yes Mr Tuttle yes motion carries 5-0 Mr President members of the board and Mr Wade I'm recommending approval of agenda item C1 related to certified personnel and C2 through C6 all related to human resource matters I am also recommending approval of agenda item D related to administrative staff second discussion please call the roll Mr Wade Miss Justin yes Miss Cook yes Ms breiner yes Miss Payne yes Mr Tuttle yes oceans carry 5-0 this concludes my portion of

050tonight's agenda thank you thank you Mr Heath Board of Education report and recommendations for everybody go ahead it is recommended the board member in-service attendance for osba's board Leadership Institute for 2023 be approved so moved second discussion hearing none please call the roll Miss Cook yes Miss dressling yes Miss breiner yes Miss Payne yes Mr Tuttle yes motion carries 5-0 let's extend the agenda legislative report I apologize for not getting this out to everyone but as Mr Tuttle knows it's a last minute I got it this afternoon literally so I don't think we were going to have a report just before two o'clock so that's right and she works during the day it was like 1 30 this afternoon so here goes um the Ohio House currently working on a two-week spring on a current

051two-week spring break expected that during the week of April 17th the house will release a substitute version of House Bill HB 33 the biennial budget Bill members of the Ohio house will have an additional opportunity to submit changes to the substitute Bill the Ohio house finance committee will conclude its work with an Omnibus Amendment a large Amendment full of many smaller amendments and a vote to move the bill out of the committee and to the rules and reference committee the final house version of the budget is expected to be passed by the end of April the Ohio Senate is expected to be again work on the biennial budget budget in early May and the Ohio house and the Ohio Senate have been working on several bills that would impact public school districts additional committee hearings

052are expected on these bills when the legislature Returns the week of April 17th and during the month of May it is important to note that these issues are not currently included in the biennial budget bill but members of the Ohio House in the Ohio Senate could amend these bills into HB 33. Senate Bill 1 sponsored by Senator Bill Reineke from Tiffin which would rename the department of Ed as the Department of Education and Workforce and would create the position of director of educational Workforce the bill also would reform the functions and responsibilities of the State Board of Education and the superintendent of Public Instruction this bill passed out of the Ohio Senate and is currently in the Ohio economic and Workforce Development Committee the bill has had two hearings hb12 sponsored by reps Don Jones

053from Freeport and David dobos of Columbus is a companion bill to sb1 the bill is currently in the house primary and secondary education committee and has had four hearings Senate Bill 11 sponsored by Senator Sandra O'Brien from Ashtabula which would expand eligibility for Ed Choice scholarships to all students beginning with scholarships sought for the 23-24 school year and increases the home school expense tax credit from 250 to 2000. the bill is currently in the Senate education committee and has had three hearings hb11 sponsored by reps roordan T McLean from Upper Sandusky and Marilyn S John from Shelby which would establish the backpack scholarship program to begin operating for the 23-24 school year and repeal the educational Choice scholarship pilot program and the pilot project scholarship program on July 1st 2024. the bill has had two

054hearings in the house primary and secondary education committee hb1 sponsored by rep Adam Matthews of Lebanon which would modify the law regarding property Taxation and income tax rates this bill has had four hearings in the house Ways and Means Committee recently introduced legislation HP 103 sponsored by reps Don Jones of Freeport and Tracy Richardson from Marysville which would establish the Ohio Social Studies standards task force to develop new social studies academic standards for use beginning with the 24-25 school year HB 117 sponsored by reps Gail Manning of North Ridgeville and Philip M Robinson Jr of Solon which would eliminate retention under the third grade reading guarantee expand the grades for which extensive reading intervention is provided and expand the inclusion of phonics and learning standards hb125 sponsored by reps Adam Matthews of Lebanon and Nick

055Santucci of Howland Township which would modify the income tax deductions for contributions to 529 plans and able accounts HB 127 sponsored by rep Sarah Fowler or Arthur and Ashtabula which would revise the law regarding the home education of children hb-135 sponsored by reps Thomas Hall of Madison Township and Rodney Creech of West Alexandria which would require school districts to Grant students excused absences from school for participation in 4-H and FFA programs and activities HP 137 sponsored by reps Matthews and Phil Plummer of Dayton which would require Ode to study the feasibility of implementing a program similar to the Kentucky Bluegrass ChalleNGe Academy hb139 sponsored by reps Bill Romer of Richfield and Joseph A Miller III of Amherst which would increase the penalties for assault if the victim is asking acting as a sports official or

056the assault is committed in retaliation for the victim's actions as a sports official HP 140 sponsored by rep Richard D Brown Canal Winchester which would increase penalties for passing a school bus and allow the use of cameras on school buses HB 145 sponsored by reps Hall and Brian e Lampton of Beaver Creek which would expand political subdivision joint purchasing authority to expressly include purchases for Construction Services hb146 sponsored by rep Adam C Byrd New Richmond which would establish a contribution-based benefit cap in calculating a School Employees Retirement System membersman members retirement benefit hb147 sponsored by reps Fowler Arthur and Adam C Miller of Columbus which would make changes to teacher licensure revocation teacher hiring practices and conduct Unbecoming to the teaching profession SB 87 sponsored by Senator Kent Smith of Euclid which would establish the

057day of each general election as a legal holiday for which government employees receive paid leave sb99 sponsored by Senator Catherine D Ingram of Cincinnati which would require public and chartered non-public schools to create a seizure action plan for each student with a seizure disorder and finally SB 104 sponsored by Senators Jerry C Sereno of Kirtland and Andrew o'brenner of Powell which would make changes to the college credit plus program questions comments you mentioned Senate bill one and I noted that I believe it was just this week that Stephanie siddens announced her resignation as the acting State superintendent which is concerning as another sign of the breakdown in that area of governance thank you thank you Jenny next Mrs cook okay I have a relatively short one today I do have a couple pictures to share

058okay here we go these are pictures from our make a difference day on March 16th one day before spring break over 500 8th grade students from both Shore and memorial went out into the community to give back partnering with over 40 locations our students were provided the opportunity to put the words of kindness and empathy into action and make a difference this is one of the most rewarding days of the year seeing the smiles on the faces of organizations we partnered with helped reiterate The Importance of Being a good human to our students our students enjoyed the day getting out of their comfort zones and interacting with peers they usually do not have the opportunity to do so with it was a huge success all around and we look forward to next year in that

059first the very first site this one right here some of the pictures and like I said there were over 40 locations but some of the things that you see here are the Lake County Board of Developmental Disabilities that our students attended they made cookies for the police department and Fire Department of both Manor and men are on the lake and they attended some of our elementary schools and helped out and this was at Bellflower so just a few little highlights there the next link please all Mentor elementary schools will host a district art show right here at the Paradigm on Tuesday April 25th from 5 to 7 30 PM this art show happily returns to Paradigm for our first in-person art show since 2019. we are excited to Showcase artwork from all of the elementary

060schools in the district and we hope to see you there all right our state testing has kicked off for the 2000 for the 2023 year with grade 4 English language arts test and the high school English language arts 2 test new name wait I feel like the name has always changed We Now call them the Ohio's state test and the testing window for English language arts runs from Tuesday April 4th through Wednesday April 26th districts are instructed to choose 15 consecutive school days to give the test math science and social studies Windows runs from Tuesday April 18th through Tuesday May 8th so if you have students in the district you know that they are preparing for the tests and we wish them luck although we know that they are more than a number and we

061also have some other tests going on this week I believe the SATs are tomorrow tomorrow so all of our juniors are taking the SATs as well so good luck to them and finally we have our spring Musical coming up April 20th through the 23rd and our theater is putting on the production of Mamma Mia and tickets are on sale now if you go on the mentor theater website or the district website you can purchase tickets online and it should be a great production thank you I'd like to add with the closing on that yeah the the art show is fun to see what the students do it's just awesome I got to see a little sneak peek of some of the things when I was in the buildings and they were you know kind of

062putting aside some of their projects so all right just the Elementary yes and I thought I'd sneak in a quick plug for the fresh air challenge that is going to be hosted by our Mentor Schools foundation for anybody who's not familiar with the foundation the funds that they are able to raise over the course of the year they used to do the pancake breakfast some years ago and in a variety of other activities including a reading program but this one I think is particularly ideal for modern kids who sometimes don't get enough outside activity so from April 21st to May 5th the fresh air challenge will be available for all of our K-5 students to participate and they collect so many hours outside getting just enjoyment doing whatever kind of activity they would like whether

063it's sports or just playing that they can turn those hours of fun into opportunities to win some prizes and we have some wonderful Community Partners and Mr Heath has sat through all of those important planning meetings as well so we're very excited about that thank you thank Mr Wade thank you Mr President members of the board thank you for everybody for staying this month for my report all of you left last month and it was duly noted um we are Mr Woodworth if you could put the first next slide there you go so we're training very well we have our tax settlement First Tax settlement which is our second tax settlement of our fiscal year which is a reminder for everybody it's kind of backwards because our fiscal year goes from July 1st through June

06430th so when you pay your first half tax collection that's actually our second collection of the year which is our larger collection we are trending about 1.9 million dollars higher than projected a million dollars of that was because our property tax collections were higher than we anticipated by as I said a million dollars mostly because of uh delinquencies that were paid that we weren't anticipating higher than average as well as I'm sure everybody in this room was who was this is because you paid early so you paid your first and your second half tax collection so that was abnormally High compared to our Trends in the past year so we saw about a point seven percent increase so about 52.7 percent collection rate this year on the first half and we typically see about 52

065percent so that accounts for that we continue to see a 250 000 increase in unrestricted funds from the state as they continue to look at the state funding as well as we have that advance in that we've had show up each month since we did it in July of last year so that accounts for about 80 percent of the difference our expenses to date are about five hundred thousand dollars less than we expected it to be with the majority of that coming in uh with our supply accounts being spent um down by about five hundred thousand dollars more less than we projected so all in all we're about 2.5 million dollars better than we projected when we did the November forecast Mr Woodworth have you changed thank you when you look at our revenues and

066collections um at this point for the prior year it's up about 788 thousand dollars uh mostly begin because of the local tax reimbursement that I spoke of and we're about two million dollars or 2.8 million dollars higher um for the actual collection to date and that is mostly again because of the one million dollars that I spoke of of tax collections but also is if you remember the interest rates for a lot of our investments have gone up drastically since last year because of the economy uh and the increase in the FED interest rate which causes our safer interest rates to go up so we are receiving a lot more interest income at this point in the year by about million dollars so that accounts for the majority of that change that we're seeing year

067to date and as we all know a lot of that could be because the timing and Collections and things like that as well but those are the two major areas and Mr Woodworth you can see on this graph that's what that's referring to everything that I just summarized so we can go to the next slide please again if you compare this march to last March our total expenses are down by about 763 thousand dollars year to date we're up 11.2 million dollars with the majority of that being because of our transfer out that we have to the capital reserve fund for the next four years uh that we did this year that will go back down to normal in the future because we will not be transferring that money out as well as an increase

068in salary and benefits that's expected uh for inflationary growth in the contracts that we have as I said at the beginning overall year-to-date expenditures are down about 550 or 550 000 approximately most of that coming in the form of supplies we are three quarters of the way through our physical year our budgets close for the majority of our departments and buildings here Friday so spending is going to slow down drastically in a lot of our discretionary funds that we have building budgets and Department budgets and we will be closing those down and be able to analyze where we're at so our our next meeting in May when we give the monthly financials as well as our May update we'll have a clearer picture as we head into the end of the fiscal year and at

069the end of the fiscal year in June we'll give a complete overview of where we finished the year in comparison to what we actually appropriated as well as our forecasting but you know we're trending better than we even anticipated back in September and then again as we updated in November is everybody's aware we have uh received a variety of federal funds uh in the form of Esser funds we are now we have spent the majority of our sr1 sr2 coveted relief Broadband funds we are now finalizing the spend of what is known as sr3 or our Esther funding we have been using that money primarily over the last few years for tutors in the district to continue to support our students with the achievement gaps that were created as a result of the pandemic right

070now we're projecting a balance of about 2.1 million dollars of Esser money being available at the end of this fiscal year so with that we're gonna offset some of our current year expenses with crossroad by about 350 thousand dollars with Esser money that we are using for supporting our students mental health in the district as we've talked about a number of times this this year in a variety of different situations so we're going to use some of that money to offset that cost to the district so that will lower that expense so that 550 000 that were below will turn into nine hundred thousand dollars by next month if we get all those expenses uh transferred and class reclassified because of that change um again Esther funny is not from the general fund so we'll

071be transferring those expenses from the general fund over to this Esser money that we have here uh with that in we're projecting that we will have 25 Esser long-term Subs in the district next year that are supported outside the general fund uh I believe Mr Heath correct me if I'm wrong two at each middle school and then three at each Elementary so that gets me 25 I believe uh and those subs or Subs those long-term Subs tutors will be used to continue to support students in the elementary middle school in closing the gaps and when that funding runs out we will no longer be having those Esser Tutors or coveted Tutors or however we want to refer to them as after next calendar year because that will spend down our Esser money basically down to

072what we're projecting is the four thousand dollars but that assumes that all of my assumptions on salaries and benefits for those long-term Subs are correct anything that would be left over our intent is to use again that difference to offset costs to Crossroads which is an allowable expense reduction that we can do so there will be some potential savings again in the general fund next fiscal year by reclassifying that general fund expense with some funds from s sir but I figured as we you hear a lot about Esther funding and coveted relief funding and just thought it was worthwhile to give us another update on that spend and where we've been using it and how much we have left and what we projected to do with the remaining balance foreign Mr Wade yes I I

073know we've been talking a lot about fiscal responsibility and you know how we are just managing some things to try to tighten our belt here could you update us on some things that we've just been doing recently that you know where we've been saving some money where we've been making some cutbacks and some changes yeah we uh as we shared for this budget specifically um when we started this budget process for this fiscal year we had all the department chairs and building budgets were reduced by 10 percent was the goal to do that Mr Heath and I have for the next fiscal year because we're in that process right now those budgets have been turned in um it's hard you know it's hard to believe right that you know typically we don't approve that final

074budget until September but I want to have it as close to being finalized by the end of June so that we started in July first that we're almost near 100 percent which is a new practice that we started this past year we have a five percent reduction um we've seen Staffing reductions in from 21 to 22 by about a little bit over three staff members and we saw a six-member reduction from 22 to 23. we're looking at almost nine staff members being reduced on a next year's budget we're currently at three classified and six certified as we budget for fiscal year 24. so that was a result of the savings um that we had from the retirement incentive as well as the additional Staffing discussions that we continue to have so that's going to be

075about a 4.8 million dollar reduction alone just in those nine staff savings plus the retirement incentive that we have going on um we've closed buildings and reconsolidation so that saves us you know we sold both rice and Brent Moore a result of that that brought in about a hundred dollars of additional Revenue obviously we took Brent Moore off lying completely so we have savings with regards to utilities and just the general operations of that building in that process too in the redistricting that we had we went from three middle schools to two um we Consolidated one Elementary School by having Ridge being opened up as a larger Elementary School and the result of that we reduced almost 17 and a half full-time equivalents and staff that helped us reduce the budget there we've done a

076lot of little things too that we don't talk about you know we when I came in we switched how we purchased copiers which is saving us about 150 000 over a five-year forecast we have to store documents because of public records requests we've moved where we store our documents that stays us about another 250 000 over the term of a five-year forecast um we've switched our I.T goals you know we're no longer buying MacBooks after you know this year that's going to save us another million dollars over the five-year forecast we have switched out the convenience the district was incurring the convenience fee charge that we had we talked about this about a year and a half ago where the district was occurring a charge for that when people used their credit cards to pay

077fees online that's going to that saves us fifty thousand dollars a year um I'm trying to think of anything else insurance through negotiations we reduced our insurance costs by five hundred thousand dollars as a result of the changes that we made that came into effect on January 1st the number of Staff members that switched from this insurance that we used to have to the new opportunities saved us five hundred thousand dollars and obviously with insurance being one of our largest costs as we all know and it increases at a rate that we can't control those changes are I mean you could forecast those out to have even greater changes because of the fact that we did those so um constantly looking for ways to be more efficient and cut costs when we can Mr Wade

078do you know how many for total classified and certified that took the retirement incentives 57 so we had 31 classified and 26 certified so right now we're looking current consolidation is at six certified and three classes yeah three classified which will be in the May update is in I like that idea because if we can't you know I'll take whatever we can at this point but I think that would be good I know you are continuing to look at those numbers and trying to see how much we can not replace from the retirement incentive so that would be great because I know we talked about possibly taking some of those funds and allocating them for the resource officers as an option yes yeah so those that reduction in Staffing all these reductions right how ads

079so I think you know as we talked about at our financial meetings this isn't just about asking for additional Revenue it's about reducing our budgets at the same time and that doesn't include the the goal that we gave ourselves to reduce another million dollars yeah right Mr Heath yes uh this year next year and then the two and a half million dollars that we spoke of with regards to that um so obviously savings this year help us meet that goal because there's savings that we have here that we didn't project but you know we look at our cash balance at those years that helps us make sure that we can do that so you know we're having those discussions and you know anytime you want to add something you're taking away from that reduction but

080you know it's it's a balance right it's you know and that I think that's the way we have to think it's not always about adding without subtracting so there's equally in a budget our size in the district our size there's things that we could you know we can cut out if we want to add something else just prioritizing what's important while also being fiscally conservative and you did so much work with your own Department to streamline and reconfigure in fact that this on our um agenda this evening some of those changes so thank you for doing that so it's not just everybody else no yeah you can't tell everybody else to reduce their budgets and this add to yours that usually doesn't make a lot of friends I don't have money to begin with so

081I try to keep for those who like me around as much as I can um and that doesn't include I think to the point I think it's important for us to note too for our community there's other revenue streams that we've tapped into that we haven't historically tapped into you know Dr glavin helped us generate fifty thousand dollars of revenue from the scoreboard in over 10 years if that's going to pay for itself you know so the ultimate is going to have no impact on a budget um we increased our shared services this year that from just last year alone we increased by seventy thousand dollars of Revenue that helps us offset seventy thousand dollars worth of expenses that we have for Staffing within our own Department um we've the year before we had added

082ten thousand dollars which isn't a lot you know but ten you know ten thousand dollars is a quarter of a staff member salary in our department you know depending upon the level and where they're at and things like that so we're always looking for those ways to add additional Revenue to offset expenses as well so I mean I think that's just something that we will continue to grow with the support that we have in the in the work that Dr Clavin does with my office specifically for advertising is we continue to find new ways to to kind of do things a little bit different Mr Wade explain how you were able to reduce the insurance medical insurance by five hundred thousand dollars I think well they need to understand how we did that and it

083didn't cost our employees their services they didn't get less service yeah I can explain how that came about well first and foremost gotta thank both unions uh I see Miss Cole is here as the union president for MCE and you know Mr Lowry is the president for MTA to be willing to have an open mind with those discussions um insurance is is a passion of mine something I I I strive to to continue to learn about and know about and it's a cost it's one of our biggest costs that increases year over year right you know the national average on insurance increases as you guys know is anywhere from eight to ten percent and it's a it's a cost you can't necessarily always control uh very easily so we we had some discussions because I

084think when you have a service industry like ours and you revolve around your employees benefits is a big is a big part of that right because you want healthy employees who are happy and can come to work and feel supported so with that we wanted to have discussions about how we can make some adjustments uh and do things differently the big the big difference was is that if they you know we wanted to kind of keep costs down for us you know we had to we came up with a narrow Network plan that excludes certain Hospital Systems um and the hospital system that is excluded from our neural network plan is the Cleveland Clinic which is one of the most expensive Hospital systems in the northeast Ohio region and uh we had that plan and

08535 of our people wanted to keep their deductibles and coinsurances at whether they were prior to negotiations and they entered into that because they use facilities outside of the Cleveland Clinic where they were willing to make that change to do that because that helps us keep our costs down and if that keeps our costs down that keeps all the membership cost down because our members pay a percentage it's a lot of Education we spend a lot of time the school is shaking her head yes sending out for my office I think people are getting sick of my emails about you know how to be good consumers of health care and things that you can do you know using teledoc going to the Cardinal Clinic that we have relationships with University Hospital Systems um you know

086explaining what a CO deductible coinsurance is you know because that's still something that's new for some of our members um and how you know you could be a better consumer of healthcare because just because it says Cleveland Clinic doesn't necessarily mean it's the best the Cleveland Clinic is the best for certain things but it's not the best for everything you know and and where you get your service within the clinic matters as well it's not just you know you know you can go to the main campus and you know get heart care and that's what they're great at but when you're going to go get a knee replacement they're actually at the bottom so making sure our members realize that there's things that they can consider it's not it's not you know a lot of

087times in insurance and health care we think with our heart not necessarily with our mind because we we get influenced by a lot of the factors so there's a lot of communication that comes in the piece of that because we can you know you have to continue that process I could talk about this for hours thank you no bill you make good points because a lot of the things that you're educating our employees on helps keep the cost of Health Care times yes which benefits our employees too as well exactly exactly when to use the emergency room versus you know Cardinal Clinic or Express Care too yeah we adjusted our co-pays for you know different you know different different things have a different copay right um for for the longest time all of our co-pays

088were the same which if you're an uneducated consumer that it doesn't mean that you don't think then you think it's just the same whether I go to the Urgent Care or the emergency room there's no difference in cost well if you know anything about health care there's a huge difference in costs between an urgent care and an emergency room so it costs significantly more to go to the emergency room for a copay now than it does in Urgent Care or your primary care physician so thank you okay and to answer the question that was asked earlier by Miss McCormick that is so that we can uh the Career Tech account so we can move it so that they can use it to do activities it's for our student that's a Student Activity account that's Mr

089glaven's Career Tech management kids so they'll be doing projects so they need to have money to be able to do those projects so the other account isn't needed any longer so it's just so that they can use the money how they see fit that concludes my report so Mr President members of the board I ask that we approve items B through uh F please I believe it is so moved second please call the roll Mr Wade Miss jesling yes Miss Briner yes Miss uh cook yes Miss Payne yes Mr Tuttle yes motion carries five zero unfinished business do we have any okay unfinished no new business your business next on the agenda hearing of the public Mr strapko pass Miss mark cheza good evening you all know me by now but I've got a couple

090of kids in the district grew up here in Mentor I have a seven-year-old and a 12 year old yesterday I signed up to speak for tonight I filled out the form I added my reason to speak which was about school safety um and and all of the ways we're trying to increase security to protect our kids from active shooter incidents and I click submit moved on to the next thing and then two minutes later I got a breaking news alert that five people were shot and killed in Louisville by an active shooter and my first thought was thank goodness it wasn't a school and then I immediately felt guilty for thinking that but that's kind of where we are today right and we're not even surprised when these things happen but that doesn't mean we're

091not traumatized by them as a nation as parents as community members there are forces outside of these buildings that contribute to these active shootings and as active and engaged citizens we can definitely try and do something about those forces that exist outside of our school buildings we can vote we can protest we can whatever but inside these school buildings we can actually do quite a lot I believe I think we have the power to do quite a lot I am very pleased here as Mr Heath outlined all of the improvements that are being made thank you so much for doing that thank you so much for sharing it um so very important school shootings are a vexing and very complex problem that deserve a very nuanced and equally complex response it's not just one solution

092it's going to be a lot of solutions to come up with the ultimate solution to fix the problem it's going to take time it's going to take all of us working together and when I signed up to speak tonight I said I was only going to talk about one thing but I'm actually gonna ask for two things one is that we share all of these improvements that we're making to improve Security in a more broad way so that more parents know about them I think that's really important the second thing I'm going to ask for and this just doesn't have to do only with security is that these meetings are great these hearings of the public are important we all deserve to have our say but they're very much a one-way conversation these are monologues

093this is what I'm giving right now as a model it's not a dialogue and I'm asking the board and the administration tonight for the opportunity to have more dialogue even if it's going to require an investment a mediator what have you but we need to stop doing what we're doing to move forward so please I ask you to invest in the opportunity for dialogue thank you information Miss McCormick as you know there was an article published by The Washington Post recently whose title was covid changed parents views of schools and ignited the education culture wars our own School newspaper Cardinal Nation also wrote an article about this topic members of the school board were asked to comment these were the comments from board member Maggie cook she said I'm sorry that Mentor Schools is an

094example of this division yet we are merely representatives of the attacks on hundreds of public schools Across the Nation Mrs cook we're sorry you feel that we the community are attacking Public Schools we are not attacking we are actually trying to help public schools in general and Mentor Public Schools specifically be better this view of them against us is completely unacceptable public schools and their staff are paid employees of the parents and taxpayers of the district parents entrust the schools with their minor children and we elect school board members to represent us and our wants and needs what you refer to as an attack is actually parental involvement in their child's education and an attempt to oversee their financial investment in this community Endeavor we have trusted authorities to make the right decisions for decades

095to our detriment and now we are here to voice our concerns about recent decisions and policies that not only put our children In Harm's Way but also go against our values and moral beliefs pornography has no place in our schools sexual content should not exist in schools schools are to educate minor children on core academic subjects identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race nationality religion gender sexual orientation social background social class or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these identities identity politics is deeply connected with the idea that some groups in society are oppressed and begins with analysis of that oppression can you honestly say that this political agenda is not dominating our schools we need to focus on on core academics and leave political agendas

096out of Education please also remember Mrs jeslinger that while student input is valuable and important these students are minors and according to 42 U.S code section 619 a minor child is an individual who is under the age of 18 and has enrolled full-time as a student in school minors must be under the care and supervision of a parent or adult Guardian so that means parents make decisions for them parents should not be the last to know about a child's mental issues and teachers should not be advised to keep such information from parents for any reason let me remind you that all of us make every effort to make Mentor Public Schools be better when parents email call and speak at meetings this is not an attack it is our right and our responsibility to our

097children and if we are not able to affect change in this manner then we are left with voting down School levies come November thank you thank you Miss Breslin good evening my name is Lauren Breslin and I live on Galloway Court in Mentor I was here for last month's school board meeting and I would like to continue to urge the school board to reevaluate its stance on allowing biological boys to have access to girls bathrooms and locker rooms transgender non-binary gender fluid gender non-conforming what do these terms all have in common they are newly made up words that have no basis on facts or reality as a college professor with an expertise in Communications I can assure you that culture and therefore language is constantly changing but you know what doesn't change and hasn't changed

098biological status there has only ever been male and female bathroom use should be based on biological sex rather than the ever-changing expression of masculinity and femininity this Board needs to create and publish a clear policy on this issue I have two main reasons to support my stance the first reason is that the Privacy rights of the vast majority of female students continue to be compromised my second reason is that there is currently competing case law and federal guidance regarding Title IX in these issues I'd like to dive deeper to support my reasons again my first reason is that the Privacy rights of the vast majority of female students continues to be compromised from a legal standpoint invasion of privacy is the unjustifiable intrusion into the personal life of another without consent while there are four

099distinct causes the one most related for today's issue is intrusion upon seclusion a few examples of intrusion upon's inclusion may include peaking under bathroom stalls taking pictures in bathrooms and locker rooms eavesdropping on private conversations and other inappropriate uses and behaviors in sex-specific bathrooms and locker rooms as a social media participant I've seen the video circulating regarding confrontations in bathrooms I would argue that the school board is being negligent in allowing the previously listed examples to continue we need a clear written publish policy my second reason is that there is currently competing case law regarding Title IX and biological differences case law merely refers to Legal principles and case precedence it is not state law or federal law we should not determine school policy based on the opinions of Judges which clearly changes based on

100cultural Trends and societal standards in fact on April 6 just a few days ago the U.S Department of Education released a notice of proposed rulemaking that encourages government-funded schools to develop their own policies regarding transgender participation even the federal government is finally recognizing that they cannot keep up with the ever-changing demands of the trans movement in closing bathroom use should be based on biological sex rather than the ever-changing expression of masculinity and femininity thank you [Applause] Mr Kayla Dukan Miss Mazika Mr President board members Mr Heath and Mr Wade thank you for giving me a second opportunity to speak to you this evening April to 2023 has been designated as the 38th annual National School library month School libraries provide materials for teachers and students that will encourage growth and knowledge and provide materials that

101will develop literary skills cultural awareness aesthetic appreciation and ethic ethical standards School libraries provide materials which reflect the ideas and beliefs of different religious social political historical and ethnic groups and their contributions to the to America and World Heritage and culture provide access to both physical and sorry I haven't lost a period in there and that just screws up everything as many people have learned it also encourages children to to read both physical and digital books for pleasure they provide materials to meet individual needs varied interests abilities social economic backgrounds and maturity levels of the students served and serve as a positive environment for all students to access and engage with the well-managed library that provides for free expression and access to ideas speaking of libraries the Banning of library books hurts all of us

102yes sometimes the subject matter is difficult and gritty but there are kids who need to see that part of life it can help them understand the world and perhaps show them that they are not alone that other kids have faced the same situation books show A diversity of thought and provide a new look at others of our species they can help help us understand our common world our job is not to tell children what to be but to show them the possibilities and libraries are our greatest tool for doing that thank you Mr towns foreign good evening Brandon towns uh two kids at Orchard Hollow um I'm going to uh refrain from using my biology degree and my PhD in Philosophy from disagreeing with the fellow college professor a moment ago about science but I

103do want to take a moment to just acknowledge you Mr Wade um because I think the comment was made earlier about like winning it which I just found very uh arrogant I found very offensive um insulting considering the education the knowledge the training laws policy regulations rules uh that you are required to do for your position for someone who I don't know what they do but I was I was very uh offended um that they would that they had audacity to say that um for something that I mean I sit here and the way you just know numbers um from dollar amounts to the number of employees for different departments um to who's in the building um is is respectable uh it's commendable I appreciate it and that is not okay I appreciate your grace

104to answer the question that uh you didn't even acknowledge the disrespect in it and I just want to thank you for that um and I go back to trusting our Educators trusting those who sit in a seat because I do believe uh that Google doesn't make you an expert that being a student doesn't qualify you to critique teachers that being a parent doesn't give you the credibility to give parenting advice and that watching a YouTube video isn't research um so uh I wanted to say that and end with this uh this thing I saw from a professor from American University um and he says uh education only becomes indoctrination when an instructor or teacher insists that students accept as truth propositions that are in fact professionally contestable and presents such positions dogmatically without allowing students

105to challenge their validity or Advanced alternative understandings this is not in Doctrine thus it is not indoctrination for a professor to assert his or her but their their belief based on research and disciplinary expertise that systemic racism is or is not a defining future of American Life gender is or is not fluid capitalism is or is not the best system of allocating goods or services it is indoctrination only if the professor refuses to accept discussion or debate about these claims thank you our finals excuse me final speaker is Miss O'Brien I want to make it certain that you understand that I do not hate anyone for any reason as a matter of fact I really seek to see the positive that I can find anywhere in anyone at any time so I'm going to say

106this as gently as I can but I have to say the truth so no matter how you measure it up mentors failing state test scores mentors declining student population mentors ongoing explosive overhead resulting in Endless taxation mentors pornographic books mentors CRT mentors Dei and mentors treating parents like terrorists is unacceptable the truth is that our situation here is a dire one the decline of what was once an exceptional school system is today unacceptable in this decline has happened in the very short period of 15 years Mentor Schools are on life support our children are being dumbed down and indoctrinated in Marxism the destruction that has occurred again over the past 15 years is catastrophic so let me sum this up and state the obvious the leadership of the mentor school board over the past 15

107years has been spectacularly awful I have given up asking you to focus on the basics it is clear that you don't care what we want or what we think our parent our children need so Mr Tuttle I am asking that you and Mary Briner both of who have been here on this school board for the past 15 years fail to or refuse to run for re-election the only hope we have to turn the school system around is to bring in new life that shares the values of Mentor citizens and you too have proven not to do so so I respectfully ask you I plead with you do not run for reelection thank you [Applause] that's it next time no executive session no adjournment motion so moved second call the roll Mr Wade Miss Payne yes

108yes it's jesling yes Miss brighter yes Miss Cook yes Mr Tuttle yes meetings adjourned 8 52 pm