001[Music] thank you good evening the March 14 2023 regular meeting of the mentor Exempted Village Board of education's call 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 Ms Reiner here miss cook here Spain here Mr Tuttle here thank you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance aye um I would like to welcome everyone to the March 14 2023 regular meeting of the men are accepted 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 tax the public can
002access 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 requests if needed additional information there are two places on the agenda when the board entertains comments from the community the first hearing of the public is dedicated to those who wish to address the board on agenda items only the second hearing of the public is dedicated to those who wish to address the board on any subject whether it be an item on the agenda or another issue to participate in the hearing of the public session interest speakers must sign up prior to the start of the meeting sign ups are
003available online through the school district website or on-site prior to 7 pm when it's 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 sec segment and comments are limited to three minutes let me interject here that says you speak to me and questions directed to me and not to the other board members the purpose of hearing the public is for our community members to address the board the board continues to welcome feedback from the community as an important component to conducting business this is an information gathering opportunity for the board and administration so we can work to the best serve our community if at the end of the public participation we
004do not make a statement please 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 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 have District highlights and Recon recognitions 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 start tonight's events with Mr Hammond to uh calling Mr Hammond to the podium
005to begin those presentations good evening Mr President members of the board Mr Heath and Mr Wade this evening it gives me great pleasure to recognize our grade level spelling bee Champions based on our district competition that culminated on January 23 2023. these students excelled at the building level by winning their respective spell Downs before moving on to our district competition students when I call your name if you would come up here I'll hand you a certificate I'm not sure how many are here if we send invitations to everybody when you're all here I want you to stand over to the side we'll get a picture of everybody and then at that point we'll move across to the board all at one time okay I'm going to announce the names starting with eighth grade eighth grade
006champion from Shore David McGee eighth grade runner-up Michael Hardy Elwell Memorial seventh grade Champion Aiden Dawson sure seventh grade runner-up Joseph marchesa Memorial sixth grade champion and also District runner-up for Memorial he was also the fifth grade champion last year Brandon Hancock sixth grade runner-up grayston Grove from Shore our fifth grade champion and also tied for district runner-up from Ridge Elementary Cameron Lowe [Applause] I know this one's here lastly we have our fourth grade champion she is the district champion she is the Lake County champion and she's also the Tri-County Champion which means she qualified for the Nationals in Memorial Day Weekend Tia Geisler [Applause] good people [Applause] Mr President members of the board and Mr Wade at this time we would like to invite Mr Crow to the podium for the high school recognitions
007Mr President members of the board Mr Heath and Mr Wade I'm excited to be here this evening to recognize multiple Mentor High School students in groups for their excellence in accomplishments the first group we're going to recognize are our 13 students who excelled and qualified as National Merit finalists or commended students eight students have been recognized as commended students and five minute high school students qualified as National Merit semi-finals earlier this year and now have been recognized as finalists their effort hard work and academic Excellence should be celebrated in in something our students families school system and Community can be very proud of of the 3.2 million students Nationwide that took the PSAT last school year around 16 000 qualified as a semi-finalist in September students were notified they had qualified as semi-finalists and in
008March all five of our semi-finalists then moved on as finalists that means our students recognize tonight as finalists are in the top one percent nationally and then those that are recognized as commended students are in the top three to four percent nationally at this time I'd like to introduce our National Merit commended students and you can probably imagine that these students are actively involved in so many different things so some of them are not here tonight they're either working are there other school functions but I'm going to go through the entire list Daniel Casey [Applause] Gianna cesari Kaden Coleman [Applause] Andrew Freeman [Applause] Kaden right over here come here first Kaden's coming from Manheim practice so Brandon Lowry in my apologies it's Braden Lowry Emily meckler Amelia Wong and Bennett Wong congratulations again to Daniel
009Gianna Caden Andrew Braden Emily Amelia and Bennett thank you at this time I'd now like to introduce our National Merit finalist and they are Matthew Dawson Ethan Lee [Applause] monov Malik [Applause] Ziad Mansour [Applause] and Ishani Zimmerman [Applause] congratulations Matthew Ethan Madoff Ziad and Ashani [Applause] the second group we want to recognize and celebrate tonight from enter High School our members of our speech and debate team who qualified and competed at the osda state tournament in early March I like to recognize our students and coaches and then invite their coaches to say a few words about their accomplishments and the season first I'm going to invite their coaches up head coach Amy rodiger and assistant coach Tracy Coleman [Applause] first David kovich who competed in Congressional debate [Applause] Quinn first who competed at also in
010Congressional debate [Applause] Caitlyn Wong who competed in information informative speaking [Applause] and finally Doug slovakay who competed in dramatic interpretation and who finished fourth in the state of Ohio [Applause] Mr President members of the board Mr Heath Mr Wade on behalf of the team I want to thank you for inviting us here we are just bursting with pride at our success this year and we're thrilled that such a large crowd came out to celebrate us so thank you so much as you heard we had two members David and Quinn who are not here tonight this was their first run at the state tournament they're both Congressional Debaters which means they go to the tournaments to pretend to be Congress people and they debate legislation that has been written by other students so each week they
011prepare something like six pieces of legislation they learn all about them so they can debate them for the state tournament they had to be ready to debate 18 topics and they both served as presiding officers in their Chambers which means they were elected to a leadership role so we're very excited for them and then Caitlin who was the first student who walked up tonight is a three-year member of the team in informative speaking so she does a speech that informs us about something and this year Caitlyn's speech was about optical illusions it's the only speech and debate event where you're allowed to visual aid and so she had a lot of optical illusions as part of her speech but the thing that I loved best about it is at the end she talked about the
012importance at looking at an an issue from many sides and how important that is in our society today Caitlyn competed against 66 kids and she made it to the top 24 as a quarterfinalist and because her coach who is Tracy Coleman nominated her for a scholarship she won it because of her ability to examine an issue from multiple sides so the friends of the Christian Science monitor awarded her five hundred dollars congratulations to Caitlyn Doug is a second year member of the team his event is dramatic interpretation so he performs by himself a 10-minute segment of a play or a story and Doug's goal was to make it to semifinals this year which is top 12 in the state but he made it to the top six and then was eventually named the fourth place
013in the state and we just couldn't be prouder of his success so thank you very much congratulations kiddos all right okay to see you you see me all right so we're going to take a break right now for after this and those who would like to leave related to those Awards and everything else please do so now and we'll give them a few minutes to leave good evening everyone uh before we get started this evening I want to reiterate a couple of items that I've said in a couple previous board meetings and then address some things that potentially have been shared on social media here recently um first of all in regards to the preferred pronoun survey piece to the puzzle I believe we had that conversation back in August and September time frame part
014of the administrative guidelines policies well not policies but practices that we're looking at no surveys and grades K through five surveys in grade six 6 through 12 are permitted but that survey must be shared with families one week prior to the survey date the family has the opportunity to opt out and a preferred pronoun question must have an answer that states prefer not to answer as one of the choices in regards to parent notification pieces if a student asks a teacher to use different pronouns or names in grades k through eight the teacher will be working with that student the principal and the counselor to communicate with the family in grades 9 through 12 the teacher is going to be encouraging that student to speak with their counselor the counselor and the principal will then
015be working with the student on a communication plan with the family these will be handled on an individual basis if the student and or family need additional support that our counseling staff is not trained to do we'll recommend them to our Crossroads counselors or outside resources in regards to restroom and locker room usage one of the things that we have to be very careful with with this is the sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Ohio has ruled directly on this issue in support of the transgender student rights but we work with our students to identify the restroom facility facilities to accommodate their needs whether it's a clinic restroom single stall facilities or other facilities that we have in the building we are going to continue to look at all of the available options to make
016sure we are compliant with federal guidelines and state laws while keeping all of our students as safe as we can we work with our students to determine locker room usage to accommodate their needs a couple of examples as we stagger the usage of locker room facilities so males and females and transgender males and females are using facilities at different times again we will continue to look at all available options to make sure we are compliant with federal guidelines and state laws while keeping all of our students as safe as we can one rumor that's been going around is that if males walk into the girls restroom or a female walks into a boy's restroom this really isn't happening but an administrator should be notified and the administrator would have a conversation with that particular student
017if the student indicates they are transitioning genders we would follow our practice of creating a communication plan with the family identifying any supports the student and family may need and then identifying the restroom facilities to accommodate their needs if the student is doing that and is not transitioning that student would receive appropriate discipline based on that situation couple of things that we need to keep in mind as well President Biden and the U.S Congress have not provided any further guidance on Title IX in 2022 but there were some court cases that made rulings on these topics that I think we will all take interest in here this evening um the U.S Supreme Court has not taken up the case yet although they did deny a hearing of a case in 2021 which allowed the Lower
018Court ruling in favor of a transgender student's rights to stand recently the 11th Circuit Court in Georgia filed a gave a ruling for separation of transgender rights from Title IX the 11th circuit court is located in Georgia and then covers Georgia Florida and Alabama the Supreme Court may decide to hear the case in the future now because we have a different ruling from what the other circuit courts around the country have uh upheld with transgender student rights in the past until the any of those things happen either President Biden the U.S Congress or the Supreme Court makes a final ruling we are still falling under the Sixth Circuit Court ruling from 2016 which affirmed transgender student rights just wanted to share that with everyone so that everybody knows kind of where we're coming from with
019some of the the protocols that we have in place right now um I shared with the board a list of the court cases that are involving student our transgender students in our schools a little bit earlier today just to kind of give everybody some context and again hopefully we'll be able to address some of those concerns here this evening thank you foreign agenda approval of the minutes please call the roll Mr Wade I need a motion I'm sorry motion second now please call the roll Miss brighter Miss Cook yes Excuse Me Miss Payne yes Miss Cook yes Miss Justin yes Mr Tuttle yes next on the agenda superintendent's reports and recommendations hearing the public hearing of the public first not really yeah next hearing of the public first speaker is Kimberly Ann e yeah go
020right ahead move on to the next number second speaker then will be Mr Michael Williams thank you [Music] good evening School Board Mr Wade Mr Heath my name is Mike Williams I reside at 6064 Walden Court in Mentor the Title IX legislation that was passed into law in 1972 was to prevent educational institutions from discriminating against students or employees based on sex what this legislation effectively did was to provide opportunity and equal access to women in sports it corrected the imbalance in funding that existed between male and female athletes the bide administration's efforts to amend Title IX to include transgender language would reverse the tremendous progress women's sports have made in the last 50 years it would allow biological males to compete against biological females in all women's sports which if implemented would undermine women's
021sports the Shea resolution proposed by the Ohio Board of Education seeks to protect the advances made in women's sports and affirmed the scientific fact that there are only two genders and that there are physiological differences between male and female [Applause] [Music] all right Easy Does It please respect the speaker and the board members and myself as the president thank you very much I would like to request a little bit more time to finish if I go over my three minutes because of this um this same resolution also wishes to reaffirm and protect rights parents have over their minor children and should be informed by the social the school of any and all issues regarding their children especially gender dysphoria issues it also seeks to remedy the blackmail by the federal government withholding Federal nutrition assistance
022funds from schools that do not accept the new Title IX language solution in no way Fosters hatred homophobia discrimination or disrespect of any individuals or groups of people it is merely trying to reiterate the objective facts even absolute truths around biological sex and the absolute right of parents to guide and direct their children's upbringing it is trying to restore common sense to our school policies which right now appears to be non-existent I strongly urge you to support the modified version of The Shea resolution put forth by two members of this school board to reject this resolution is to reject science to reject this resolution is to reject truth to reject this resolution is to reject fairness and Common Sense entering and to reject this in this resolution implies that you condone the blackmail that is
023being propagated on our local school districts by the U.S department of Agriculture I would also like to point out an a mission from the minutes from last month Mr Heath quote that he would not put forth a written policy on transgender policy simply said he responded no whereas he responded when he get when when he went to say that it may end up in the news I want this noted and reinstated back into the minutes thank you [Applause] well I think it's obvious there are people here to cheer and applaud uh keep it to yourself please there's peoples on both sides here as well as us board members I'd appreciate it dial it down they're not here for applauds they're here to speak to us and for you to listen thank you next on the
024list question Mr Tuttle yes are we going to allow outbursts and allow speakers to go over the time limit in his case that unfortunately did happen because of the outburst and we had to bring it down so and in that case yes I have to deal with that I mean we can't penalize one speaker not another if the crowd cheers and jeers so we'll deal with that as it happens and I'll gavel it out please pay attention I'm asking you not to applaud scream shout yay cheer just dial it down let the speakers talk we have how many Mr Wade over 45 50 55 speakers so already we've taken up too much time based on that so go right ahead on the interruptions not on the speeches can you Mr tunnel can you just verify
025the 55 years sections of on agenda items and then at the end as well total speakers for that yes thank you call it the next number Michael Paul my name is Michael Ball I'm from um 7665 Miller Avenue um goodly everything I would like to address the two issues that have come to my attention recently concerning the high school specifically but I'll talk about the only one due to the rules first I understand there was an incident in one of our girls restrooms involving student of the opposite sex and comfort the confrontational shirt when the girls became uncomfortable there already are General neutral restrooms that are afforded to students who wish to use facilities that don't perform with their uh brother sex I understand schools are afraid of litigation do the new Title IX proposals
026regarding gender identity and sexual orientation so they choose to hide behind this supposed legislation to avoid having to make the hard choice to protecting ladies from experiencing young men sauntering into the lady's room while they are in private circumstances most nobly because accommodations are made for those who identify as transgender there are you know bathrooms you know that they can safely go to without any confrontation so thank you thank you miss Lynn Mazika good evening Mr President members of the board Mr Wade Mr Heath thank you for the opportunity to speak to you this evening I appreciate it the proposed resolution adopting the Shea resolution includes false scientific assertions repeals repeats harmful stereotypes and attempts to require our district to discriminate against and endanger our lgbtq plus students this type of resolution is morally reprehensible
027politically charged targets are particularly at risk portion of our student population and undermines Ohio's proud history of local control our school district must collectively and intentionally strive to create environments where all students are safe can learn with dignity respect free from fear and violence and protected it against discrimination regardless of their race race ethnicity religion gender expression or Identity or sexual orientation passing this resolution tonight would go against all the things Mr Heath has mentioned that we are doing to protect all of our students and treat all of our students as valuable members of our school population kids with trans or lgbtq plus issues or feelings are considered more at risk for suicide than any other group of kids unless they have the support of their family and their school and their Community we cannot
028take that support away from these kids they need it thank you very much thank you [Applause] our next speaker is Tim Potter [Music] good evening Mr Tuttle thank you to the school board for this opportunity to share our hearts on the matter at hand good evening to my mentor family and Community friends who have come this evening I want to let you know that I personally pray for each of you by name each week for wisdom and that will continue I certainly appreciate your friendships over the years I'm a 51 year proud resident of our city I'm a proud parent of four former Mentor High School students all four participants on state championship game teams for kids who have received excellent instruction Reading Writing arithmetic academic fundamentals in sports participation and we will forever be
029glad for that to the matter at hand I would strongly and sincerely and compassionately request several things please consider taking the highest Road in this situation the highest road I understand is often the least traveled but always the most safe and secure we all stood and gave allegiance to a flag under God for liberty and justice for all not just a few taking that high road would be not just necessary but the most safe and secure for all involved that high road would include allowing parents to be the soul and primary authority figures lovers and protectors that God has created them to be for their individual children in so doing I confidently assure you that you will be securing the integrity solidity and safety for you your faculty and all students of the district if
030we don't allow the parents to decide this issue I'm confidently heartbroken that the short and long-term consequences to everyone in our school district will be insurmountable I applaud you for wanting to lead in this situation I do pray for wisdom for you I'm afraid in this situation the decision is simply not yours to make I love you going forward I think legally I will throw all of my efforts to work behind state representatives Federal Representatives state and federal senators people in the White House people in education committees both at the state and federal level that I know we will work with you to put together legislation that puts the authority back in the parents hands thank you thank you [Applause] Melanie majakis good evening board uh Mr President Tuttle I'm here speaking about the resolution
031that is coming up I see that my time isn't up yet on the thank you I had some questions in an email that weren't answered so I was hoping I might be able to pose some questions to you president Tuttle about the resolution being proposed tonight and I think I'm fairly certain that the people in this room don't realize that this resolution neither of the resolutions actually have any legal bearing um they are not legal documents and they are not legal guidance as I am sure that the district's Council has probably advised you is that fair to say we've been advised yes okay can you maybe give us a one sentence summary of what you're hoping to accomplish then with this resolution not this evening okay so you can't explain why you're introducing this resolution
032at this time will give him more time okay it just seems like if you're coming to present this resolution to a crowd of this size you'd be ready to explain why we'll be doing that when we address the resolution okay so a couple of points that I've heard that I'd like to address about the resolution and I am speaking tonight as the mother of two daughters and the mother of um one of which was a three-sport athlete in the city of Mentor when she was in high school so I'm familiar with what it's like to raise daughters and have female athletes and I want to share my vehement opposition to this in this resolution being presented tonight that again has an illegal bearing has no legal teeth will not change anything on a day-to-day basis
033in the mentor School District because school districts are not permitted to supersede federal law you cannot ignore federal law Title IX is federal law s and resolutions are solutions in Desperate search of problems that simply do not exist in the schools worse they are politically motivated attacks on the lgbtq community which we are seeing over and over again in districts across the country same language same buzzwords because it's all coming from the same source I've heard that there's some underlying fear about boys going into girls bathrooms because of these Title IX protections these are not transgender girls that you're worried about these are cisgender boys pretending to be transgender and if that's the case then the resolution should address them not the transgender students who are not causing harm the resolution also talks about trans
034girls playing sports according to the Ohio High School Athletic Association there are only six transgender athletes in Ohio schools right now out of 400 000 athletes this is not a problem this is not a resolution to save women's sports the school cannot decide that transgender students cannot play sports so that's a totally meaningless resolution and for parental rights supposedly this is about parental rights what rights does this resolution give parents that they don't already have done the part about the Shea resolution that really gets to me is that it talks about its unawavering commitment to Excellence in education for all tell me if this resolution supports that [Applause] Kimberly Ann thank you hi I've never done this before so I'm super nervous and I made a speech that feels wholly inappropriate I just want it
035to thank you for presenting this resolution which I think is a great idea I feel that it's sad that in our efforts to affirm a small number of people were hurting a large number of people and I don't know what the answer is I don't want to hurt anyone anywhere at any time but I think if the larger group of people are now suddenly in fear and and don't have private spaces and don't have private bathrooms or private changing places and parents rights are being stripped from them and there's secretive things happening that this feels wrong it doesn't feel like one nation under God it feels like we stand up and say that pledge and then we just toss God out the window we don't stand by our morals we don't even stand by honesty
036and truth and I feel like at least this resolution that you're trying to put forward gives us one step closer to being more honest and having more morals and trying to provide a safer space for the most number of people that we possibly can I want to support the smaller number of people that we possibly can too but you have to support the majority of the people because it's the majority of the people that need to feel safe everybody needs to feel safe but you cannot switch out you cannot switch out the one percent or three percent of people that you're trying to affirm their spaces cannot override and become more important than the 97 of the rest of us so there has to be some other ideas I think we're just out of ideas
037and so we're just fighting each other we don't need to fight each other maybe we need to sit down and come up with more more ideas thank you thank you Christy uh Bello I can't even say I apologize Christy B sorry good evening so I am frustrated honestly a little embarrassed uh that tonight's agenda includes the unnecessary resolution to support the Shea resolution as the parent of a kindergartner and a third grader currently attending Manor Public Schools I'm not interested in seeing board members debate whether trans students should be given respect support and rights in our schools shouldn't even be up for debate I'd much rather see time and resources directed toward things like keeping violence out of schools making sure all of our students are safe and respected here providing our teachers with support
038and resources they need continuing to develop Innovative programs for students you know bullying prevention you know actual issues related to education in this District and if I'm going to be hearing board members making resolutions related to gay or trans or any minority or vulnerable students I need that to be standing in support of them not entertaining harmful and discriminatory resolutions like this one Mentor Public Schools are supposed to ensure that all students and yes that includes trans students are given a safe and Equitable environment to receive their education let's live up to that thank you Jonathan Washburn [Applause] hello Jonathan Washburn I have two kids in Mentor Schools and a third one will be here as soon as she gets out of preschool um I there are a lot of really passionate views in here
039today I honestly just came with questions um the main question I had is could you tell us some tangible things that would change administratively and from teachers if this resolution is passed versus if it is not passed um because like we said at the beginning we know that there are federal laws that have set precedence we know that there are other laws in different states that are seeking to um you know throw this to the courts so I was just curious and I came here for more understanding tonight to know what exact changes would happen if this was if this resolution was passed thank you thank you BNB Vargo thank you foreign good evening I live on Rockingham Road in Mentor Mr Heath Mr Wade board members I strongly urge you to vote no on
040the upcoming resolution to support the Ohio Boe resolution my Catholic faith teaches me that if we are to follow Jesus and live the gospel we need to love each other and not intentionally inflict pain unfortunately the Ohio Boe resolution if passed will inflict serious emotional pain on our most vulnerable students by the seemingly innocent statement earning urging the Ohio General Assembly to quote Safeguard opportunities of women and girls in schools and sports unquote let's be clear this is a direct attack on the lgbtq plus community and on trans female athletes in particular in a cruel and mean-spirited attempt to ban our most vulnerable students from high school sports the Ohio Boe resolution is dangerous for several reasons first the Center for Disease Control has recently published the youth risk survey which identifies lgbtq plus students
041as being at high risk for violence depression and suicide this attempt to ban trans female athletes from Sports sends the message we do not want you here you do not belong here and Based on data from the 2021 survey of students that message will put our most vulnerable trans female students at greater risk for damaged mental and emotional health and wellness second the Ohio High School Athletic Association already has very clear rules and guidelines in place for the eligibility and continued participation of trans female athletes in sports third the Ohio Board of Education has made the following statement expressing an unwavering commitment to education that empowers each student to flourish however depriving a student of the opportunity to participate in sports due to sexual orientation fails to create an environment where a student can flourish
042it does just the opposite it creates a cruel environment of rejection and hatred setting up an already vulnerable student not only for academic failure but also increasing the risk for depression and suicide the district's vision statement States as the very first point together we will ensure a safe learning environment if you truly believe each student deserves a safe learning environment emotionally safely emotionally and physically safe then I urge you to vote no on this resolution together as a community we have an obligation to protect all students regardless of sexual orientation thank you thank you [Applause] Deborah stetler good evening I'm Deborah Urban Statler I live on Case Avenue I've lived there since 1980. I have a beautiful daughter who's now a librarian in Boston who has a trans daughter so I'm here because it's personal
043and because I just have a lot of feelings about it um I have a few quotes I collected I I'm kind of a touchy-feely person so I'm just going to go with that and let Bambi stand with all the facts that she presented tonight thank you uh this is from a doctor Dr Lauren Fogle Mercy she said being able to be your true self in one of the strongest is one of the strongest components of good mental health being able to be your true self this is always a developing thing anyone that's over 70 knows that oh now I can do this because I'm not afraid anymore so we hope our students can find out who they are to become their very best self in my last quote of an evening and I'm definitely against
044passing the Shea resolution if you didn't already know there is no standard normal is subjective there are seven billion versions of normal on this planet so with a full heart and and Good Will toward all Don't Be Afraid being lgbtq is not contagious and thank you for your attention [Applause] Brady Anderson foreign here I am as one of the scary trans kids some of these parents are worried about me being around your kids what did I do or what did any trans kid in this District do to deserve what we see month after month by ignorant adults that keep shouting about parental rights and trans kids some people keep preaching parental rights what about my parents or any other parents with a child that doesn't fit in your normal also what about my rights sorry
045researchers looked at data from a survey of nearly 3 700 U.S teens aged 13 through 17. the study found that 36 percent of transgender or gender non-binary students with restricted bathroom or locker room access reported being sexually assaulted in the last 12 months according to a CNN article the adults that keep spreading fear about kids like me having a specific agenda do I look scary do I look like I belong in the boy's bathroom because I'm sure that would be really uncomfortable for the boys there I'm a girl and I deserve to be treated the same way as everyone else with dignity and respect month after month at these board meetings we hear that kids like me shouldn't be able to to participate in sports use the proper pronouns be able to read books about
046people like me or even use the proper restroom where does this end where are trans kids supposed to feel safe it should be everywhere so we're going to need the Metro School Board to keep doing the right thing and protect trans kids and ignore the ignorance from adults who should know better than to pick on children thank you [Applause] Teresa [Applause] there was no last name so it's just uh Teresa it's the only name that I had moving on to Jim Stone foreign hi my name is Jim Stone and I live at 9595 Musket Drive here in Mentor 40-year resident four kids who graduated from enter schools my wife taught in middle schools and I am a retired Mentor police sergeant so this is a pretty complex issue but being a cop I pulled out
047the old law books and I think this is probably gets to the heart of the matter for a lot of people and that comes down to the mentor code of ordinances 533.07 public indecency and that ordinance says quote no person shall recklessly do any of the following under circumstances in which the person's conduct is likely to be viewed by and affront others who are in the person's physical proximity and who are not members of the person's household subsection one expose the person's private parts that's what I think a lot of us parents are worried about and I want the school board in their deliberations to take this uh Manor code of ordinances which is also in the Ohio Revised Code and think about that and think about the repercussions when you deliberate tonight thank you
048our next speaker is Oakley again only one name um hi everyone my name is Oakley I live in 1772 West Jackson I live in Painesville I work in Mentor I'm here to address some of the comments in the uh the thing so number one I just want to throw it out there it was mentioned the social transition of transgender kids as a transgender person myself when I was a child my social transition was me cutting my hair and my dad calling me his kid and not his daughter um it's a matter of name clothes haircut that's it no one is forcing minor kids to do anything that they don't want to do um the other thing that I want to comment on is the uh the definition of biological sex um it was mentioned that
049Merriam-Webster definition um which if you look at they have multiple definitions including uh the sum of structural functional and sometimes behavioral characteristics of organisms that distinguish males and females which means that it's not just a one or the other it's a whole Spectrum so if you want to look at this from a scientific fact-based location according to the dictionary you are already in the wrong I also then have to question their usage of biological sex because that also includes chromosomes gonads hormones and genitals so if this is passed I want to know if we're planning on spending the funding in order to test these things for our girls and children um who's going to be performing that this medically invasive testing of our kids if you're worried about the safety of them I think that's
050very important consideration um and then moving on from those questions comments about that um 82 percent of transgender individuals have considered suicide 40 have attempted the biggest factors in that decision is a sense of belonging both in their school in their family uh with their peers um having that support system is has been cited over and over again the biggest contribution to their overall well-being I am standing here as proof that that support is necessary that is what gets you through um also the uh safeguarding of the well-being of children was mentioned um once again we're not safeguarding anyone by enacting this um we are just causing more discrimination against an already vulnerable population and I also just want to say to our LGBT youth that we see you we love you we support you
051and we won't stop fighting for you I am almost 30 years old and I am proof that it gets better thank you team our next speaker is Dean Paris Davis Mr Thomas point of clarification in our public participation policy it states you have to either be a resident of mentor or you have to not employed you have to have a business in Mentor correct or be an employee you can be any employee Mentor no employee of the district an employee of the district point Thank you was he an employee of Mentor District I would have to deferred he works in I just wanted to clarify because we don't truly allow with our new participation policy we don't allow people who just work in Mentor correct you'd have to be an employee of Mentor Schools or
052you would have a business you'd have a business ownership in a business in in Mentor that is correct so going forward I just want to clarify yeah we have to ensure we have the form so the form clear the Forum was selected as District employee so okay so if they're not a district employee and they're just employed in mentored that does not count just going forward correct so we're clear thank you well he checked District employee thank you uh Mr President members of the board my name is Dean puraskovis I'm a mentor resident I'd like to ask you one question what happened to our morality in this country in our community what happened to our morals I think that our morals are something of the past I'm 74 years old I was born in another
053country came to this country grew up here and that was very very blessed to grow up here I thought this was the greatest country in the world graduated from Cleveland Heights High School we had 32 National honorary Merit Scholars of my graduating class 32 men are at six we had no lgbtqs and no transgenders back then so where is this country going [Music] I'm going to keep those short and sweet I'm just confused by this whole agenda and I wish our moral to come back I wish our country become strong again thank you thank you [Applause] Ann Anderson [Applause] all right um I'll wait for my time I'm Annie Anderson I have well I had three I have one child left in the school district my my transgender daughter who's amazing who just spoke just
054had to leave not because of the school board but because of the students in the school because of the parents that keep talking at these meetings come in and they treat transgender people as sub-human and then your children come in and treat my daughter as sub-human so she then comes to me every day crying in the bathroom on the phone mom please pick me up Mom I don't want to be here anymore I know this seems like politics to everybody else it's not it's my daughter's life she's 13. she deserves some respect transgender people deserve respect and I don't care if you don't understand it read a book about it no just talk to me please okay Mr Tony why is the Shea resolution being brought up what is it going to do to benefit
055the mentor School District what is it going to do I'll direct it at you we can do it that's right I said earlier we're going to discuss this on the agenda and we will answer that question okay but others may have that same other people are asking for shocking oh I'm asking because it directly affects my daughter's life what are we doing why are we trying to even put this out there do you know what it does I'll tell you let me tell you what's what's going on I'm getting emails that the GOP around this area are let's see what what does it say hello all tomorrow evenings met our school board meeting time total will be presenting a resolution to keep boys out of girls sports today proposed resolution he used some GOP support
056this is really effective save women's sports fear longer fear longer more fear Monger let's get everybody up here get them angry get him loud why so you can scare the hell out of the trans kids that go to this school that's that's what's happening because I'm getting messages from the kids because they know that I'm the only one that's up here speaking up that's speaking truth to power guess what I'm not going anywhere even if my daughter doesn't go to the school get get a hold of me if you need somebody if you need help get a hold of me look me up I'm Ann Anderson if you need to learn something God forbid about the trans Community look me up I'm not hard to find I grew up in here I want to matter
057I graduated from 1995 to trans kids there here when I went guess what none of this was happening then none of this was happening then before uh enough enough this is a direct attack on already vulnerable Community it needs to be shut down because other school districts are not even they're not listening Columbus laughs at stuff like this because they know how transphobic and homophobic and insulting it is it's just plain insulting I don't know why two school board members are okay with it why I don't know yeah I know it's rough thank you [Applause] I call up multiple speakers at a time now to save a little bit of time the first speaker will be Jessica P Jessica P then Brenda midor and then Jacqueline McCormick so Jessica P Brenda midor and Jacqueline McCormick
058please come up okay I'm Jacqueline McCormick I'd like to address the agenda items the ohsaa membership in the Ohio State Board of Education resolution at the end of the last regular meeting in February Mrs cook showed an emotional response to school safety she reprimanded the public for sharing a video on social media tagging The Mentor Schools of an intruder in Mentor High from September no one thinks safety is a laughing matter and many found your comments to be offensive however I hope that the same response is shared when it comes to the safety of our female students whether it is in sports where they can be hurt because of the ohsaa bylaws that state that a biological male can compete on a female team as long as they have received hormone therapy for a year
059or whether it is in a bathroom with an Administration that allows any male to enter the female's restroom as long as they identify as that gender for that particular day whether they are trans identifying or not these are harmful and pose a great safety risk the fact that the majority of the board supports not telling parents about their own children's bathroom usage if different from biological sex or different names or pronouns only adds the complexity of this issue Mrs Briner and Mrs cook are in a private hidden Facebook group online where the opposition of the resolution was discussed at the state level and I found testimony from one of the teachers who was in that group which stated their opposition to the resolution that said that the State Board of Education would consider such a
060resolution as appalling and unconscionable anyone voting for a resolution endorsing proposed laws that include genital exams should be absolutely ashamed of themselves and is unfit for this office no one is conducting genital exams and I think most parents and taxpayers would think that a teacher opposing this resolution is actually unfit to teach it's no wonder we have parents who are concerned about what their children are being taught when we have Rogue teachers who are pushing their own political agenda and think that they should have more say than parents over students the same person helped guides the school's online newspaper and it makes sense now why the Articles have been very biased and one-sided also Mrs cook I find it interesting you stated at the last meeting you didn't know about the State Board resolution when
061you were given a copy of it in January at the board meeting and you're part of a group online where it has been talked about in detail are you waiting for the case like Loudoun County Virginia to happen where a trans identifying teen was found guilty of sexually assaulting a female classmate in the bathroom it was found through emails that the school superintendent knew about the assault and chose to do not thing you know there already is a video circulating online of an incident in our own high school of a fight almost happening due to a biological boy continuing to use the girl's bathroom and the girls in the video were extremely uncomfortable with this and you have chosen to do nothing the following week another picture was circulated of a different boy using the
062girl's bathroom at Mentor High this is not safe if you choose not to support the resolution to protect our biological girls I hope that you can stand by those decisions when the taxpayers are made aware of your choice come November when you ask for your levies thank you [Applause] [Laughter] [Applause] I'm going to ask those who want to speak directly at Mr Wade Mr Wade Mr Heath or another board member you are not to do that you're speaking to me do not name individuals it's not necessary to do that I'm just asking to speak to me okay I'm asking to speak to me speak to me thank you you're speaking to me not to them if you want to speak on someone speak to me but you're not to degrade other people please I I
063understand that first amendment Mr Tuttle I do want to one as such we are able to make their opinions on us and state them at the microphone we've heard them all different ways tonight but the difference is that when a question is posed the questions need to be posed directly to Mr Tuttle so even if you do ask me a question or Mrs jesling a question and respond or Miss Cook we are not to to to respond those questions need to be directed to Mr Tuttle otherwise if you ask them we we won't respond to those during public commentary I stand corrected questions to me thank you thank you Mrs Payne sure next time next on the list the next three people I'll call up to the microphone are rose Serena I Apollo Lindsay wall
064and Joanne Anderson so the first speakers Rose Sereno I Apollo and then it'll be Lindsay wall and then it'll be Joanne Anderson hello I'm Rose Sereno iapolo I have four kids in The District Two in high school one in middle school and one in the elementary school I am also a substitute teacher for the district first I would just like to say some positive things about our district I see so many amazing teachers aides administrators and staff who work tirelessly to create a positive and productive learning environment for their students Mr Lynch time okay I see kind uh caring respectful happy students I've seen firsthand how the pandemic caused students to fall behind academically but I'm seeing action put into place to raise these students back to academic achievement it takes time but it's my
065opinion that the district is on the right track my reason for speaking tonight is to show my support for the resolution Mrs Payne and Mr Tuttle have introduced I want to make it abundantly clear my support is in this does not make me hateful transphobic or any other slur I've seen hurled that anyone who dares speak on this topic I have empathy for parents raising children in the transgender community raising children and teens isn't easy these days it's definitely not easy when you have a child who has a difference that is obvious to their peers believe me I know this firsthand I am a mother speaking out for my children two of which are young girls this resolution is a way for all students and Mentor Schools should be protected feel safe and ensure privacy
066policies are designed to protect students general safety and ensure their rights most importantly policies are made with the worst case scenarios in mind one worst case scenario has already been happening as reported by a number of students in the high school biological males and females who do not identify as transgender have been entering bathrooms of their opposite sex just for the sheer pleasure of breaking the rules and for the shock and awe of it all it will continue to be a circus as there is no way to police gender identities this and many other frightening scenarios however unlikely are possible it is not a risk worth taking where in the handbook is there a policy designed to help some students while simultaneously hurting others students already face insecurities using school bathrooms I know too many
067students who admit to holding it all day because they don't want to use the bathroom because of vaping fights or wanting to avoid upperclassmen when parents bring this issue to the school's attention you will agree that they are told to have their child use a staff bathroom if that makes them more comfortable that has always been the solution to this problem why is it suddenly not good enough board members voting no or tabling this resolution tonight isn't makes you in violation of your oath as a board member you swore to act as an advocate for all students voting no or tabling this issue tonight declares to students and their parents that their Safety and Security do not matter to you more importantly you would be opening the district up to lawsuits and God forbid criminal
068charges thank you [Applause] hello Lindsey wall a 7250 Beechwood Drive and I have two boys at Ridge in kindergarten and second grade I I am bothered that Mr Tuttle and another board member have brought this resolution forward um it's obviously something going around many many districts it's almost like a copy and paste if you will um but our school doesn't that resolution does not uh go with with what we do with our school district our school district is inclusive we're kind we have teachers that provide safe spaces for our students and we have done a very good job of creating that environment where people feel safe and included this is the opposite of that the Amendments made to Title IX were were to protect the trans youth the transgender community and then the Shea resolution
069opposed all of that all of those protections and now you guys want to adopt that which there's people saying this isn't a direct hit on transgender people however how is it not because it's literally just saying all of those protections put in place that we're recommending no we're good don't follow those let's make sure we take that what was it three percent that was named earlier uh let's forget that three percent so not for all the students let's pay attention to only the majority and forget the minority that's not what Mentor Schools is about and I think we'll see that when it comes down to the vote in a little while thank you [Applause] hi there I'm Joanne Anderson that was my granddaughter that came up and spoke she is transgender I live on Mentor
070in Mentor on Parkwood Drive I don't really understand why you're trying to fix a problem that does not exist transgender people have been around since Adam and Eve and yes God made transgender children God makes everyone and everything you really have to agree on that now you're asking transgender girls to use the boys bathrooms why so they will be beat up or even worse shame on you how will you know if a girl is transgender do we all have to drop our pants at the door to check our genitalia so we know which bathroom to use you wouldn't know if I was trans just because my hair is long and I have boobs do we need to drop our pants to prove it who will be checking I'd like to know that please take some
071real problems like girls smoking pot in the girls bathroom are boys drawing on the bathroom walls with their very own feces those are just a few problems that needs fixing transgender people using the bathroom it's not a problem get off the transgender subject leave them alone stop bullying them teach your children to stop bullying them let them live their life For Heaven's Sake thank you Tim Arnold Jessica Ann gazella and Linda O'Brien Tim Arnold Jessica Ann gazzella and Linda O'Brien thank you is Tim and Jessica and gazella not here Miss O'Brien you can go Linda O'Brien 5842 Tanager Court in Mentor I stand here in support of this resolution and I implore the board to support it as well this idea of separate bathrooms according to gender has been in existence for hundreds of years
072and for one major reason safety it was safety there was a concern then it should be a safety that's concerned now States here in our country have adopted laws to prevent transgender or others going into one bathroom that is not part of their birth uh the other birth certificate gender so the the birth certificate rules over other ideas and feelings so in that case it's very simple this is not a complex problem people who have functional penises go into the male rooms the mail lock rooms people who have functional vaginas go into the female room bathrooms in the female locker rooms and those who are deciding to what to be or how to be they can have their own safe space but it should not be where males are coming in I don't care how
073long their hair is I don't care how they dress or what pronoun they use if they have a functional penis then they're a male keep them out of the girls rooms it's very simple so we have to we have to protect our children that's our number one responsibility and that means that we stand by them and we support them in all ways educational environmental Etc so allow these people to have their safe spaces create what others would consider safe for them but separate according to what basic Common Sense has provided for hundreds of years thank you thank you [Applause] Lauren Breslin Brandon towns Rachel Perry Lauren Breslin Brandon towns and Rachel Perry good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak my name is Lauren Breslin and I live off of Galloway and mentor I'm
074a college professor and a former Collegiate athlete and because of my experiences Within These institutions I home educate my children who are ages 9 through 16. last March we moved to Mentor from Oregon for a job opportunity this allowed our family to escape the Marxist and communist ideology that has infected the entire West Coast for decades I would like to share with you my experiences living in a state that embraced and then forced activism on its taxpayers in 2016 the Oregon Department of Education issued sweeping guidelines regarding transgender students including bathroom and locker room use names and pronouns and participating in sex-specific sports in my former State allowed the lgbtq community to have rights that supersede those of everyone else they demanded special treatment that trampled on the Privacy rights of others children whether in
075kindergarten or high school should not have to share a bathroom or a locker room area with anyone who has opposite sex genitalia regardless of their outward gender expression it is embarrassing it is inappropriate and it is humiliating for all involved additionally in 2021 because of the infusion of critical race Theory into schools Oregon decided that Reading Writing and math are racist now and for the next five years Oregon students will get a diploma without these necessary skills consequently Oregon is ranked in the bottom 10 of all states for education and has the second worst graduation rate in the country school board members and fellow parents I employ implore you to learn from the mistakes and foolishness of my former home state require that students use bathrooms and lock rooms based on their biological sex and
076genitalia and then continue to demand that everyone is treated with dignity and respect thank you [Applause] [Laughter] [Applause] thank you thank you good evening Mr President my name is Rachel Perry I reside on Maple Street in Mentor I'm a resident of mentor and a Mentor High School grad of 2001. I'm I'm here to ask the Board of Education to vote no on the Shea resolution resolutions such as this one are an unnecessary exclusion of trans kids and is not in the best interest of the safety and well-being of the children in the Mentor Public School System I myself am a thriving and qualified Community member and I owe my well-doing in part to Mentor Schools uh due to the openness and inclusivity of Mentor Schools I was able to participate in sports and extracurriculum such
077as theater and music if this resolution is past trans kids will be excluded from participating freely in these extracurriculars in the present day my credentials include a Bachelor of Arts degree from Ohio University where I specialized in Psychology women and gender studies and social work I have a well-rounded career that includes advocating for women and children experiencing interpersonal violence and domestic violence so I have worked very frequently with hundreds of children in the state of Ohio who have experienced physical sexual and emotional assault these young children of survivors and I fear that some of the resolutions that this Shea resolution is going through are not really getting at the real danger to kids in this country and it has nothing to do with trans kids trans kids and trans people are not out to get
078anyone they're here I have friends actually one of my best friends who I also went to college with and graduated with Mentor in 2001 asked me to be here because she could not attend her oldest child is a trans child and so I very quickly wrote this after work and I'll finish up what I was about to say um trans kids are not a threat to the community and the Shea resolution suggests that they are the American Psychological Association and the American Board of Pediatrics stresses the importance of inclusivity for Trans kids as they are a marginalized group trans kids are more likely to self-harm or even die by Suicide they are exponentially more likely to do so than cisgender kids important not to further marginalize this already marginalized group in the name of health
079and safety and general well-being of the entire student body I would ask you please vote no on the Shea resolution thank you Mr President thank you [Applause] good evening board president Tuttle uh I am going to address most of this to you as you have requested um and this is regarding the shade resolution [Music] um president said all right are you a religious man I really it's okay don't get it rhetorical practice 10 Mass on Sundays or Saturday got you okay um you know the Bible not well understood uh there's this passage in Mark that's really interesting it talks about how these Pharisees try to trick Jesus about taxes and he says like look at the coin whose face do you see you know what he says Caesar and Jesus says give to Caesar what
080is Caesar's and give to God what is God's and I find that interesting because I I think we are Public School a public District not a Christian District not a Christian School um so if you you appreciate or follow a bye-bye any of those adjectives verbs of the Bible what would you be called to do um because I had there was a comment that was made about uh the Pledge of Allegiance and I I chuckled and it popped to my head it says uh one nation under God not Jesus I found it interesting because Christians don't own Jesus Chris is on oh God I'm sorry Christians don't own God you don't have to be a Christian to believe in God so when people of Faith Christians sit in spaces like this and use their Christian
081faith to oppose um to push legislation or resolutions that will literally harm and leave defenseless think uh what did you say the least of these that's problematic I know that you brought this resolution up I get it um and there are a lot of people here who are who came just because you did but I asked you to really consider whether our religious freedom gives us the right to our beliefs or our right to use those beliefs to discriminate against and to oppose those who don't agree with us or who we believe our religion tells us to oppose thank you our next three speakers are Roger Frank Toth and Janice schoeneman again Roger Frank Toth and Janice shoneman good evening Mr Tuttle Roger Joel Hart Street Mentor been here since 1977. graduated in 83 raised
082six kids here in Mentor putting our sixth kid through no matter right now she starts high school next year this evening I'd just like to address you Mr Tuttle and the board uh no child regardless of what's going on in their lives deserves to be bullied deserves to be set aside cast out no child I would very much like to state that uh you know my family the way we raised my family was to treat everybody with respect and love and we live out our faith right and I have a fear of God and I've known God I've been following God since I was 16. I'm 58. I know we're not supposed to talk about religion here but some people have brought it up so I just wanted to make that clear to everybody um
083I send my kids to school or I sent my kids to school and my current one to get educated all right in the Reading Writing arithmetic a subject like that I I've got to believe that the teachers that go to school to teach learn about those subjects in history and all that good stuff to teach I'm not sure the teachers are going to be sex Educators and and other things I'm not sure that they're qualified for this I know we're hiring counselors at a mad rate are we a hospital or are we a school are we a public school I want to make it clear to the board and I've done this before I'd like to make it and all due respect all of your professionals and and to be respected I don't need help
084raising my kids I need your help educating my kids and I don't need you or anyone else handing out secret surveys because they think they know how to take care of my kid better wrong you've crossed a line you've crossed a serious life [Applause] it's very serious all right I respect your kids you respect mine I respect your rights you respect mine Mr Tuttle I'm asking you to educate our kids and not worry about raising them I'll take care of that God gave them to me their gifts I'll take care of them I don't want boys in my girl's bathroom I don't want there's just certain things I just don't want I'll take care of my kids please take care of educate them and stick to your lane and let me just say this in
085closing lawsuits come from both sides of the aisle [Laughter] can I interject one one thing now the Applause at the end I'm tolerating but during this speech during their speaking don't interrupt the speaker please let he or she continue without applauds when they rap I'll let that go but not during while they speak because you'll throw them off track possibly they'll lose their train of thought now get flustered so let them flow to the end okay thank you my name is Janice shaneman I live at 7248 Jackson Street in Mentor my husband and I have been here for about 40 years we have three daughters who went through the Minner school system we like many people moved here because of the school system because at that time they were one of the top school systems
086in the country well it's great to hear about the accomplishments of a few students that we heard about tonight our schools continue to slide on their overall performance our schools are more concerned about gender and equity and sexual orientation than they are about education we leave our schools to teach math English science and history we don't need them to teach our kids about gender that's what parents are for and school should not be overstepping that boundary I think that a lot of the school board may find out when it comes to elections what the general public thinks and I know they're going to find out if they put more school board or School bills on for money you're not going to see it if you're not giving the kids their education thank you [Applause] hi
087good evening my name is Frank Toth um I've recently started working as a substitute teacher at Memorial I graduated from mentor myself my youngest brother is currently a senior there I learned about this meeting about two hours ago so please forgive me I hardly had time to write a speech um perhaps representatives of the speech and debate team could check my logic I know my old teacher Miss rodiger is here somewhere or at least she was three hours ago in this meeting started so I simply feel that everybody who can must speak up for what is right with as much courage as possible a lab that I took a degree in political science so I'm sort of a junkie for this type of stuff if nothing else Mr Tuttle I'm glad you're willing to take
088questions is that right if we can answer them if I can answer them now or later or okay next month's meeting I'll try to Blitz through these because I'm short on time here I noticed that you've appealed to Legal considerations and justification of our current policy I'm wondering whether the standing legal circumstances are as airtight as you imply does the law Define what a boy's restroom is Mr Tuttle that's a good question I don't have that answer okay so there's a gap right there we could work our policy through that Gap maybe um does the law Define what a boy is yeah based on their birth certificate right okay oh so it is based on birth certificate okay um just out of curiosity can you define boy it seems pretty basic I'm going to be
089honest yes I can't but I'm not going to do that okay how about gender can you define gender well I guess to oversimplify it would be between their genitals right okay well some people in this audience might consider that to be biological sex I'll continue I gotta rush through I'm going to make a point which has been discussed by an earlier speaker already it seems to me that many people misconceive the terms involved in this issue we speak as though boy or girl refer to gender with regard to restrooms but my understanding is that these terms refer to sex the boys restroom is for biological males the girls restroom is for biological females standard queer Theory to use the academic jargon distinguishes between gender and sex so maybe some of our activists here could back
090me up on that therefore one's gender identity is irrelevant to which restroom one is permitted to use if the law doesn't incorporate this into its definitions explicitly we should be able to impose restrooms exclusively for biological males and restrooms exclusively for biological females girls should not be allowed in boys restrooms and guys shouldn't be allowed in girls restrooms obviously what a shame that we should need to wax philosophical on such a basic point let me touch upon the definition of biological sex while I'm on the point an earlier speaker appealed to the manifold dictionary definitions I distinguish philosophers acknowledge two types of definition nominal definitions merely describe the ways a word is used essential definitions speak to the true nature of the thing that that's three minutes thank you thank you our next three speakers
091are Gil Marco Dennis stroko and Lauren macheza Gil marteo Dennis dropko and Lauren marchesa my name is Gil martello South cam 6880 South Camelot Mentor Ohio I am the father of a five foot nothing 100 pound sophomore at Mentor High I am a 1980 graduate of Lake Catholic High School located in Mentor Ohio I've either attended School worked lived and mentored since 1976. getting right to the heart of the matter our family and Community are very troubled We Believe allowing individuals who identify as women contrary to their birth sex to use restrooms designed for women is cause for serious concern We Believe without document We Believe without a documented unambiguous policy it would by default exhibit a lack of compassion towards young ladies who attend our schools a five minute a simple five-minute internet search
092uncovered many cases of abuse towards young women in transgender restrooms at the hands of predators one article documented 21 separate occurrences to be clear and very important to note Our concern is not that transgender individuals are more likely to be sexual predators but rather that sexual predators would exploit such policies by posing as transgender people in order to gain access to our female students I don't have to repeat that furthermore we are aware that non-discrimination laws that allow people to go into bathrooms based on their gender identity rather than their SEC their birth sex are giving sexual predators the opportunity to exploit the circumstances and commit acts of voyeurism and sexual assault my family and I believe a majority of this community are not in favor of what amounts to co-ed restrooms or locker rooms
093for our students because of the aforementioned reasons our concerns have been validated by past convictions of predators who have insulted young women in these types of restrooms lastly evil does exist those who do not study and learn from history are doomed to repeat the mistakes made are we forwarding the text in my address to the board in an email it will contain the links to the articles I had mentioned of thank you again for the opportunity to address all of you with these concerns have a good night thank you [Applause] good evening Donald Trump go 7413 South Chestnut I just had a couple of questions uh the first one on this uh this resolution for the pronouns usage and the notification process what is the time frame in which parents will be notified once a
094student informs the school of this we'll have and I think most people here would hope it would be that day that you what what do you need to evaluate you know we are the parents get you the answer okay can we give it to you the next year we have an answer then what's that okay okay I don't have the answer okay I will get the answer for you or Mr so so I guess I would like to continue my point on this if you've done it I have showed you already established an answer and you just aren't able to tell us now no I don't have an answer okay okay so I would implore you then to you know have an answer and I've lost my train of thought now that would involve immediate
095notification to the family to the parents I mean I don't understand why there would be any debate in waiting like you know other people have addressed the issue of we are the parents it's our role to raise our children It's Your Role to educate them in the areas of math science Reading Writing history you know the Arts but this has reserved for us and when something comes up whether it be a psychological issue or a physical issue or a health related issue it seems natural that you would notify the parent immediately so I would hope that that would be a part of this resolution and obviously I'm in support of this resolution uh and and an agreement with all the others that have spoken on boys or boys girls are girls they're children we are
096the adults they we establish the rules for them we are allowing this sickness in our country that's an adult issue to spill into our children and infect them and it's causing a lot of hurt to vulnerable people and I I'm sensitive and sympathetic to you know everyone out there and I I think most of us we don't want to see anyone hurt or upset or you know but we we have to understand you know that there's issues at play here that go beyond what your role is in educating our our kids and you know I guess that's that's I understand but now do we have his community his uh communication how we can contact him okay uh yeah we'll get an answer to you before next board meeting [Applause] [Music] good evening thank you to
097the board president of the board for allowing us uh the opportunity to speak tonight my name is Lauren marchesa I'm at 7816. Oak Ridge Drive I'm a graduate of Mentor Schools I have two kids in the school is one in the middle school and one in elementary school I am strongly opposed to the introduction not just the introduction of this resolution to this board meeting I find it tragically ironic that for a document that touts parental rights whose parental rights exactly it does nothing to protect the actual rights of parents in the district namely parents of transgender children and what's Moore's it'll put our federal funding in Jeopardy for this for this moreover for a school that has struggled with bullying in the past and we all know that that's the case it would be
098a grave mistake to adopt and again even introduce this resolution for consideration it's a resolutionable further ostracized and victimize a population of students that as the CDC recently demonstrated are already at risk for mental health challenges and suicide what's more we already have guidelines and regulations in place for the state of Ohio for all six six trans athletes who compete across the state once again this looks like a solution in search of a problem which seems to be a regular occurrence for the some members of this board this is not about safety your bathrooms and it's not about girls being put at risk make no mistake we need to take measures to protect all of our students and that includes girls but girls are not victimized by trans students the vast majority of crimes against
099women and girls are perpetrated by men and boys period so let's drop the pretense that we're trying to protect girls with this nonsensical resolution let's refocus our effort efforts to really protect our students shall we because I'm not afraid my kids are not afraid of trans students do you know what they're afraid of school shootings that's what I'm afraid of as a parent that is what keeps me up at night so here's an example of what school safety looks like I attended a recent work session of the board and I was very proud and very interested to learn about the recent discussions around improving security and safety in these schools I was thrilled to learn that not only do we have additional grant funding to improve our Safety and Security I was heartened to learn
100that we were even talking about that that is why you all should be here tonight not because of the Shea resolution but because of Safety and Security talking to y'all we're talking to y'all and you as well that's what I want you to focus on please let us drop the pretense and focus on real safety of our children thank you [Applause] our next three speakers I'll just call up four it's our last four on the first session is Connie Paris gave us Jen Simmons Mark gazzillo and Sage Connie poraskovis I live at 6077 Maplewood Road men are on the lake and I've lived here for 36 years and I've one loved my community and I'm starting to wonder what it's turning into I am here to express my support of the recommendations by the elected
101Ohio School Board in regard to protections of female students that Title IX sought to provide I back attorney general daveyost who has joined 21 other states in a lawsuit against proposed changes and he lists many reasons as many of you have said here today that could happen if this if these changes go into effect like Mentor Schools is trying to put into effect all children deserve safety and privacy I expect men are schools to provide separate facilities for their god-given natal or biological birth identification otherwise you place your students In Harm's Way subjecting them to possible sexual violation trauma and intimidation in restrooms or locker rooms this could cause irreparable damage you're a woman in this room you should know that I expect many schools to be working on academics especially those identified in your
102school report card and not be focused on cultural ideologies and indoctrination the protection of our children's life is priceless do not fail to put their safety first the Advocacy Center and Lauren for kids cites that one out of three girls are abused before the age of 18. and one out of five boys you would be considered complicit in this statistic if you place anything above student privacy and safety the lock in the locker rooms or restrooms the overall good of schools is educating not indoctrinating our youth mentor needs to return to educating and resume a pursuit of academic excellence and I applaud all those young people who are awarded today recognition for that pursuit of excellence and I encourage men are schools to bring a whole lot more of them up here thank you thank
103you [Applause] good evening my name is Jen Simmons I live in Mentor on the lake a lot of hate in this room tonight I can feel it a lot of hate so I'm gonna try to bring a little brevity I want to tell you about my kid but first of all let me go with my prepared speech so I stay on time so scientific studies blah blah blah exists that show that there are differences in a transgendered person's brain confirming that transgenderism is not a lifestyle Choice let me repeat that it is not a lifestyle Choice nor is it a product of grooming or any other sloors do jour but we are not here to talk about that I think we're all tired I think that's something we can all agree on I know I
104am I'm tired of feeling that by merely existing my kid is in jeopardy I'm tired of hearing from my well-meaning loved ones that we should urge our kids to tone it down don't draw attention yourself lay low in other words don't be you we got one shot on this planet we just came out of a pandemic one shot is that living telling somebody to not be themselves I don't think so my son is 23 years old and he faces all the same problems typical of all the other kids of that age but on top of that he's discriminated against simply for being who he is he's been assaulted twice already just simply because he's existing in this world as a trans male just so you all know my son wouldn't hurt a fly and I'm
105going to give you an example of that and I actually called him before I came tonight to ask his permission to share this quick story my son is terrified of spiders just like his mama he refuses to kill them instead he finds a jar or whatever it happens to be handy nearby to capture the spider while squirming to release it back outside and every single time he does that without fail he will turn to me and say it deserves to live mom you might be terrified by my son's existence you may not need you may not understand my son you may not understand me or my family and hey you wouldn't be the person you sure won't be the last but please please now hear me when I say that all my son wants are
106the same things your sons want to live laugh and love thank you [Applause] hi my name is marcuso I live here in Mentor and I'm the proud parent of two Mega high school graduates and one current high school student superintendent Heath Mr Wade board president Tuttle and other board members thank you for your service to the district and for our community and for our students I think it shows the hard work that you put into things when we see students doing well at the school and we can celebrate their Excellence as we saw earlier tonight that's a testament to the hard work that the board and the teachers and the staff in this District put into their job every single day it's not an easy job and part of that job is that we are
107raising children to make good ethical choices and to live a good valuable life surrounded by ethics and morals and to not live lies to not live lies that means that all kids in this district and all their families should have the right and the ability to live and be true to who they are to not go into the closet to not die because of suicide to not be bullied to not be treated ill because of who they are when they can't help it So This shea resolution really is a solution in search of a problem there are six transgender athletes in the state of Ohio the State athletic association has a way of dealing with this situation from my point of view it's probably failing because honestly all kids need to be participating in more
108Sports and more activities because they need to develop that same sense of belonging that anyone can have all these problems related to sports and talk about restrooms and these other issues that are being brought up can be dealt with but they're not going to be dealt with through the shade resolution the Shea resolution won't change anything related to how bathrooms are dealt with in Mentor High School so I'm afraid that quite a few supporters of this resolution tonight are bound to be disappointed and I'm sure that Mr Tuttle and the other board members will explain when they have the chance exactly what's in that resolution personally I'm opposed to that resolution I want to urge the district to try to get the community together around a common set of values so that we can move
109forward instead of just shouting at each other but based on understanding and love and doing the best thing we can do for the education of all of the students of the mentor School District thank you thank you [Applause] foreign members of the board superintendent my name is Sage McMillan I live in Mentor corner of Danbury and Mel Shore um I would like to share a little bit about the Shea amendment I looked it up today right before dinner when I decided to come here and um Brendan Shea said well I'm sharing it because for some reason this idea has snaked into our community it it doesn't mean anything right now because this is all working at the federal level this is just for show Amendment but Mr Shea said and maintains that the Ohio Board
110of Education believes sex is not arbitrarily assigned at Birth it is an unchangeable fact and denying that fact destroys foundational truths upon which education rests and irreparable damages children um sit with that for a second gender a child being able to live openly with their gender that they feel in their soul that they have struggled with or not struggled with because maybe they came out really early um he believes the Shea Amendment will protect education but it's not going to protect education um it's really hyperbole gender is not a foundational truth that they teach local teachers in education programs so I ask you tonight um is this the hill that the School Board needs to climb tonight and can you tell me Mr Tuttle why you feel that this resolution even needs to be introduced
111we're going to address that when it comes up so okay cool you should get an answer at that point um does the Shea Amendment tackle issues like attendance bullying mental health issues does it prepare our children for the future no so the passage of this resolution is only symbolic and you need to think about what it would do to the reputation of our community and how it would reflect on our children when they go out into the world if you support this resolution you're telling a small number of children they are not worthy of your care respect and protection I support the revision to the Title IX to protect transgendered students from discrimination thank you thank you next on the agenda superintendent's report and recommendations Mr Heath thank you a couple things that I wanted
112to mention before we jump into the consent agenda tonight um first of all tomorrow morning we will be meeting with our business advisory Council again we've been working closely with this group this year to redevelop what business Partnerships look like here in Mentor we spent the last couple of meetings brainstorming those qualities and skills they are looking for in their respective fields we have clearly defined the ways our business can now be involved with our schools tomorrow we will share a draft of our Business Partnership guide that outlines the partnership opportunities provides the time investment for various experiences things like workplace tours job Shadows pre-apprenticeships uh maybe even an internship and then it lists the benefits for both the business and our students so we're very excited about these opportunities for our students and looking
113forward to that meeting here tomorrow uh we received our draft of the enrollment study that was conducted for our district in January and February a projections show and overall leveling off of our enrollment over the next 10 years our current actual enrollment is 7062 students in pre-k through 12. in five years the projection is 7083 students and in 10 years it's 7092 students so over the next 10 years an increase of about 30 students we are already making uh effective use of the enrollment projections as we're starting our staffing meetings for next year as you know we offered an early retirement incentive and we're looking uh very closely at every position to determine the needs of the school in the district before Simply Filling each spot we are committed to cutting a million dollars from
114the budget for next year and that retirement incentive is giving us the flexibility to do that without actually cutting people we're hoping to reduce our stat by three certified positions and three classified positions for next year a couple other things here quickly uh first of all last weekend I had an opportunity to attend the Shore Middle School Musical our students put on incredible performance of The High School Musical Junior and I continue to be amazed by the talent and energy our students bring to their extracurricular activities every day just a quick congratulations to Carrie Alexa Michael and Brian who directed the play or the musical and and a really big shout out to our entire cast and crew for a great show a little bit earlier um we mentioned that Tia Geisler a fourth grader
115from Orchard Hollow won the Tri-County spelling bee to advance to the National Spelling Bee in Washington DC in May while we're proud of our accomplishment there's another side of the story that I wanted to share with everyone Tia doesn't like all of the attention so so I waited to share this in in my report instead of a little bit earlier I was fortunate enough to be able to go to the to the spelling bee and when she spelled that final word correctly she kind of stood in the center of the stage and just said so is it over and the guy running the competition said yes you won this picture shows her immediate reaction after spelling the final word correctly she didn't celebrate she didn't gloat she didn't even run to her parents who were
116sitting in the front row she went straight to one of the girls that she had just beaten in the competition and was consoling her with a hug about 10 seconds after this picture was taken the other girl that she had literally just beaten on stage came down and wrapped her arms around both of them as well this is the type of student we have in our district they're kind and compassionate and they care for other kids and this is what winter schools is all about [Applause] 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 a three comments yeah I have a I just want to clarify something because a couple of the speakers um a
117couple of the speakers spoke on it tonight the Ohio High School Athletic Association we are approving well we're voting right now on the approval of the membership with them for um for the 2023-2020 for a school year and I just want to clarify there's some statements that were made tonight about transgender students playing in sports so I want to clarify what the ohsaa guidelines are currently um especially I think the main concern that some people have is if there's a male to female transgender child so before a transgender female can participate in a girls sport or on a girls team she must either one have completed a minimum of one year of hormone treatment related to gender transition and or to demonstrate to the executive director's office by way of sound medical evidence that she
118does not possess physical bone structure muscle mass testosterone hormonal Etc or physiological advantages over genetic females of the same group age group so it's one or two and I just wanted to clarify that because I think there were some statements made tonight um in my personal belief I do see that this could be an issue in the future right now as people did State there are only six in Ohio that are competing in our girls Sports and I think sports are really important for our kids so ohsaa kind of has the Monopoly on the sports right now and I think it's important that we do allow our kids to play in in sports so I just wanted to clarify that and I don't know if there's any other discussion or whatnot but just to clarify
119that since some people are speaking about it tonight thank you Mrs Payne sure any other do we have a motion we do we're ready to vote okay call the roll Mr Wade Miss jessalyn yes Ms cook yes yes motions carry five zero uh Mr President members of the board and Mr Wade I am recommending approval of the revised resolution providing for employment of legal counsel for the Board of Education this resolution was originally approved in the January organizational meeting and the name on the resolution was incorrectly listed as Western heard the correct name is Western heard that is the only revision to the resolution so call the roll Mr Wade like to apologize for that error that I was watching 1923 I think so my apologies uh Miss Briner yes Miss jessalyn yes Miss Cook
120yes Miss Payne yes Mr Tuttle yes motion carries five zero Mr President members of the board and Mr Wade I'm recommending approval of the service agreement with the educational service center of the Western Reserve so move second comments please call the roll Mr White Mr brighter yes Miss dressling yes Miss Cook yes Miss Payne yes Mr Tuttle yes motion carries 5-0 Mr President members of the board and Mr Wade I'm recommending approval of the following Board of Education policy with the only revisions that were recommended by legal counsel and submitted for the first reading at the February Board of Education meeting considering that we are in the process of transitioning to niola for our board policies rather than completely overhauling this policy now I feel it would be prudent for us just to focus on
121the uh on developing this and other policies within the Neola library that will be presented for approval in the coming months I know we had significant conversation about that at our last meeting really the the conversations I think were revolving around the first two paragraphs of that which under the Neola policies will be completely redone anyway I will be meeting with I believe it's Mrs Briner and Mrs Payne to talk through those bylaws here uh very soon so that we can get that updated policy ready to go when we do the entire Neola updates again those those changes were some of those words that legal counsel said would not be defendable in the uh in the words that we had added back in November if I remember correctly some move second uh how about that
122item e on page two participants must be recognized by the presiding officer after that that's been removed yeah um well I can go back and and read it to you if I can find it yeah so the words that would be eliminated are the words inflammatory aggressive and then oh not that's not the one the section it's uh this statement that follows after the presiding officer the speaker must preface their comments by an announcement of their name address in school were we removing that and where their children attend if applicable yeah because that was part of the actual uh form that they fill out ahead of time so that that would save us a little bit of time okay it's been in addition to those other words got it thank you call the roll Mr
123wood Miss breiner yes Ms jeffly yes yes it's cooked yes yes Mr Chicago yes motion carries by zero Mr President members of the board and Mr Wade I'm recommending approval of agenda item C1 related to certified personnel and C2 through C4 all related to human resource matters I'm also recommending approval of agenda item D related to administrative staff so moved second please call the roll Mr Wade is paying yes Miss Cook yes Mr fryer yes Miss jesslyn yes Mr Tuttle yes motions carry 5-0 this concludes my portion of tonight's agenda thank you next on the agenda the Board of Education report recommendations business the resolution to support the Ohio State Board of education's resolution to oppose the proposed changes to Title IX and to affirm parental rights and local control of Ohio K-12 education do
124we have a second I'll second that comments thoughts comments feedback yes which bank I have a um after reading our emails this afternoon I'm from yesterday as well I'm sure all of us have carefully considered the content of those over these last few days uh the count I had from the those emails was 14 letters supporting the Shea Amendment or this this version of it and 18 letters asking us to reject it in addition to the comments from our our I'm sorry so the you know the comments and no questions the microphone speak for themselves but tonight's discussion begs the question what's the purpose of a proper Proclamation from our Board of Education in this polarizing matter members of the public have expressed their opinions on both sides of the topic right here at our
125meetings for many months the State Board crafted their own Proclamation which garnered months of discussion and controversy that strong evidence that this is in no way a simple statement because it can be very hurtful to some vulnerable individuals and their families some members of the State Board have strongly opposed it and made formal statements to that end there's been testimony opposed to the proclamation from the Ohio school psychologist Association the League of Women Voters of Ohio the Ohio Federation of teachers the Ohio school Counselors Association the Ohio Education Association and most importantly to me the Ohio chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics in their letter to us the State Board emphasized that the resolution has no power to compel any course of action and I also wondered where this resolution that's before us came
126from and who wrote it for 70 years Ohio has had an elected State Board of Education the Ohio Ohio legislature has seen fit to dismantle their Authority in proposed legislation already passed by the Senate the governor is in favor of making the department of education's oversight a cabinet position rather than the job of elected board members from Ohio's districts so why do we need to pass a resolution that has no authority to change the law as it exists we've already agreed that here in our district parents will be engaged along with their children if students Express concerned about gender issues and that's been brought up by a couple of our our speakers this evening wondering what that process is and Mr Heath has addressed that that will be part of the conversation between counselors and
127families we've already agreed and affirmed that it's important to support family communication Mr Heath has shared those administrative guidelines with administrators and appropriate staff members having counseling roles any additional accommodation that might be needed in those few rare instances that have Arisen have the support and permission from the parents of those students to my knowledge we've handled those needs on an individual basis for some time if there is no formal process for determining which students need access to alternate bathroom facilities that is one that our superintendent can establish and I would hope that we would do that so there isn't any question about some spontaneous change of of mind and that students would have formal permission so that should somebody breach that opportunity or that right that that would be handled as a serious disciplinary
128matter so making a resolution that has no bearing on what's legal for us to do or would segregate and embarrass those few students whose parents have already requested appropriate accommodation is cruel it flies in the face of what we as a district and Community believe as far as kindness a proclamation of our position would have no meaning Beyond a political posture in the moment in the interim we have sworn to uphold the U.S Constitution and the constitution of the state of Ohio therefore we must follow the law if board members wish to impact legislation that's a different matter that would require contacting our elected officials at the state or federal level and all citizens have the option of doing that as well as testifying before congressional committees committees we are not legal experts and we
129don't have medical training this larger issue is not one over which I have authority following our existing course of action and allowing the courts to make the final interpretation of law in this matter continues to seem right to me spending additional time going over the same topic rather than devoting our efforts to all the other issues needing our attention seems ill-advised thank you [Applause] I do have some questions and thank you Jenny for sharing that I think it's important first of all that all perspectives are being heard um I want to thank everybody who spoke tonight because it's not easy getting up to the microphone knowing that there are people in the room that may disagree with you so I want to thank everybody for coming and speaking tonight on that I have some questions
130which I think aided in the decision to put this on the agenda and Mr Heath I'm hoping that you can answer them for me you had mentioned that you know if we have a child that is using the bathroom let's say a biological boy that's using the girl's bathroom that if they are not transgender that then they would have the appropriate disciplinary action so if we don't automatically immediately contact their parents per the updated guidelines that you shared today how do we go about that how do we know what if they're transgender well in that situation that students going to share with the administrator that's you know they're not transgender there's going to be a conversation with that parent immediately because of the discipline so that's up to the student to decide not up to
131the parents so if the student says they're transgender we are going with that yes okay yes so so that is where the concern I think lies um I don't think the main concern is with students who are actually transgender students um although I do can um we need to have order in here we need this as a board meeting um so I just want to say a couple different things that I think kind of have led to this resolution and I will be the first one to agree that it is not perfect I think that that we can always strive to do better and that's why we have it on the agenda because we're willing to listen but we also understand that there are safety risks um so with what you just said you know
132we don't really know it's up to the child so so in all truth if a child does want to use the facility to gain access in there and and unfortunately do inappropriate things they can because we don't ask their parents or there's no way to determine whether they truly are transitioning or not um so I just want to make that note and then also the the pronoun questions um the surveys for for kindergarten through fifth you said no survey six through twelve you said um it would be shared one week prior with an opt-out option which I think is great but the question is the the pronoun surveys I know of a few instances where students are still being asked verbally this doesn't speak to that can you speak to are we advising teachers also
133not to ask that question verbally um because if they gain that answer then if verbally are we not telling parents as well yeah a verbal question is going to be dealt with the same as a pronoun survey would be okay so so if we have teachers that are asking that verbal question they need to ask for a parental a week before they need to ask the that should be done okay um so I just wanted to clarify that the the other things um that I think are concerning you know I know personally I've been contacted by parents and community members since a video showing a verbal and almost physical altercation in our female bathroom started circulating online I do not believe that it creates a safe environment for either party when we allow biological boys
134to use a girl's bathroom in locker rooms I think it's seen from that video outside of our our gendered bathrooms we can accommodate all students with our gender-neutral single stall facilities that provide a safe private location while also protecting other students privacy and I do believe we have one of those in every one of our buildings is that also correct we have a single cell okay um this issue you know I know we've we've had this discussion like Mrs jessling has mentioned um we've heard it from the community on both sides there's certainly not a clear oh everybody agrees with this I think the only thing that we can all agree on is we all want our kids safe and um there's passion behind that on both sides and I empathize with it I understand
135with that but we have been waiting for some guidance we talked about this I think in September over the pronoun um when I was trying to ask for a pronoun policy just so parents knew exactly what we're doing with that I think we have some guidance for for that and I appreciate it but the issue gained enough attention Statewide that we now have the guidance we've been waiting for from our state board of education in the form of a resolution for us to choose to adopt if we do so just last month our neighboring District of Riverside local schools which is very similar in some ways to ours and they have a a board that is also not completely one-sided they have a mixed politically mixed board and they pass this exact resolution unanimously I
136feel that given our recent circumstances and video and questioning from parents they're looking for something um to keep their kids safe and they want to have us affirm their parental rights and that is why I feel like this resolution is doing that um so that's why I certainly believe that we should follow suit and pass the resolution I also have um let's see yeah just how can we discern between someone who is truly identifying as transgender and someone looking to gain access for inappropriate purposes if we're only asking the student and we're not asking the parent or including the parent in those conversations I know tonight we even heard from several speakers that there is an increased risk of suicide depression anxiety and I that's really concerning if we have a child who is identifying
137as a different sex and we don't immediately tell their parents to gain that support we heard people talking about how you need that support from your your family and if we don't even give the parents the opportunity to provide provide that support um I think that's really detrimental to them and so I believe that this resolution is trying to address parental rights in that way notifications there's something to Mr Heath if you could just clarify so if we have a child who is starting to use a restroom that would be different from what their gender was understood to be that that would be something that would be followed up so if it's not somebody who's doing it for dangerous reasons but it's doing it because of that gender dysphoria whatever it might be that would
138then be attended to by the guidance counselor administrator and then parents so it wouldn't it wouldn't be hidden from parents I just wanted to yeah and the first step is going to be creating that communication plan with the family and then identifying what those supports are there was a really good question tonight that was brought up about the communication timeline there as I know it today we don't have a timeline for to communicate that with parents so that's one of the things I think this is trying to address that parents should be notified immediately the second thing is that you know the concern that um not having a a communication plan immediately and sending a child to the guidance counselor instead of our trained certified counselors at Crossroads my understanding is Crossroads the contract that
139we approved several months ago stated that parents would have to be notified if we had any kind of counseling with them so instead of sending them to Crossroads because parents would be notified we're choosing to send them to a guidance counselor with hopes that they come up with a communication plan and I think that is that's where parents are urging us to be involved they want to know immediately they don't want to know later they don't want their child to be sent to the guidance counselor instead of them they know what's best for their child in nine out of 10 circumstances of course there are ones where we are required by law correct me if I'm wrong to report anything that would be you know child abuse or anything like that so why wouldn't we
140follow the same steps and why are we adding a step in there to to separate the parents from the child and their well-being so if I could just interject something really quick I guess we're probably your point of view we're assuming that the parents don't know and in some cases I would think maybe the parents would be would be in the know and would be communicating with the principal so I don't know if this is relevant but I believe we only have a handful of students that we're talking about here and I don't know if you can share this but are the parents in the know I asked our cup or our high school principal today he said there are about 30 students that they are aware of that are transitioning again it's not something
141that we keep track of on a normal basis but that those communication plans are are in place with all 30 of those that they're aware of right now so I I don't know that it's so much of a concern that the parents are in the dark or that we don't want to communicate or whatever the assumption is thing and again what I'll say can you let us have the conversation I know it's a heated subject but if everybody could I want to make sure that I'm paying attention and we're all paying attention to each other again our ultimate goal is to have that communication with the family we have to be very careful because there's court cases out there that have ruled against school districts that have quote unquote outed students to their families um
142so we that's just something that we have to be very careful with we've got a plan in place that I think takes us right up to that line without stepping over the line that allows us to to kind of stay out of the legal trouble our ultimate goal every single time is to have that communication with the family so don't don't point the fingers that I'm trying to hide things from family members because that's not the goal our goal is to have that communication plan every single time absolutely and I completely understand that and I believe that that is truly our goal is to have have parents be knowledgeable of of that happening if it is you know happening with their child and their child is using different bathrooms or pronouns or names or whatnot
143you said at 30 we have 30 students approximately that are transitioning and they all have communication plans to your point Mrs breiner the communication plan doesn't mean that the parents are already they know about it it just means we are trying or that we have communicated there's or do you know out of the 30 all 30 yeah and communication plans are in place my understanding is that that all family members know already with those 30 because those are things that were conversations with the principals with the counselors and and those conversations is that you're assuming that or doing no I'm assuming that at this point I mean I just asked the question this afternoon and that's what they were sharing with me okay um and I just want to speak there was a couple really
144good points about the federal funding the U.S department of Agriculture has tied the federal funding for the proposed Title IX changes the Title IX changes are not enacted into law but what they did do is they they tied our federal Freedom reduced lunches the funding that we received for that to these proposed Title IX changes so um to date I believe I asked Mr Wade to provide how much we have received I think it was about 775 000 this year with an anticipated about three hundred thousand dollars more at least give or take fifty thousand so we're at about a million dollars um in this year for that Federal funding our budget is about character me if I'm wrong Mr Wade 121 million dollars expenses probably closer to 117 revenue is about 107. so around
145for the free and reduced lunches is that correct specifically yes perfect pre-introduced that would be the approximate value so while there is you know I think there is certainly a good point to be made with that that we could lose that funding if we decide to do something different um I I still stand by the fact that this this resolution and making sure that we do have a safe space for people to go to with the single stall new gender-neutral bathrooms but keeping biological boys out of the the girls gendered restroom um so those are kind of the reasons why I had I know Mr Tuttle you had your own set of reasons um to support this and I'm looking forward to you as well speaking let me read one here that I have it's
146a myth Title IX requires schools to allow transgender students in the restrooms and locker rooms of the opposite sex fact is there is no such requirement Title IX in fact Title IX recognizes the safety and privacy concerns with letting students use opposite sex facilities and allow schools to provide separate toilet locker room and shower facilities on the basis of sex so that's that's dispelling a myth that it is required to provide transgender students in the restrooms and locker rooms of the opposite sex that's one good point it's that understandable that's provided by The Source the allowing Alliance defending freedom has a variety of resources for model legislation to Legal memos on these topics if you care to contact them you can contact them at an 800 number if anybody's interested I think that's I also
147want to make one other point about the federal funding no school has ever lost Federal funding in in over 44 years since Title IX became into law um so there there is something that says if we were to go ahead with this and change what we're doing with the bathrooms or parental notification for pronoun surveys things like that if we were to get in a situation where our federal funding was at risk for the free and reduced lunches we would still also typically they give you 30 days to correct it so you would still have a 30-day window of okay make your Corrections fix it to be in line to receive those funds and so we would have about 30 days to to correct it so that's that's all I I had brought tonight as
148well I understand there's different perspectives I think this is an important conversation to have no matter where we all land on it I know you know it's going to be a board vote so um however that lands is how it lands but I think this this discussion it's not only had here a lot of different schools are having this discussion and it's a very tough subject but I think it's really important for transparency and honesty to have this conversation in the public so everybody's aware of what we're doing and why we're doing it and and then we can move forward could I just clarify real quick that my understanding is a violation of Title IX could prior to even this so I'm not trying to be an alarmist I'm just trying to explain my understanding
149of Title IX in general is that we could be at risk of losing all federal funding not just I know they specifically said in the most recent update that you could lose including you're free and reduced but we could lose all federal funding so I would not be doing my job as a Treasurer to announce that that equates to about an additional five to six million dollars it's been able to find the year that we've received federal funds for special education funding so you know in our world too one of our physical principles is that we live within the five-year forecast so you have to look at that in its capacity so anywhere from five million dollars to an additional 30 million dollars could be lost or would have to be funded by the general
150fund because we would not be receiving those those dollars which are not included in that 107 million dollars that we just spoke of just to remind again everybody that we keep our federal funds in a separate account and not included with our general fund money Mr Ray can you speak to how if we look at the federal funds in a totality how much of that is our Revenue like percentage-wise less than 10 percent I think uh I think you gave me the number for my own my own book I'd have to yeah the book only said because the book said yeah it's one person less than one percent because they're back but if you look at it it's totality it's about uh I think six point six to eight percent I could get you an
151exact percentage but it's it's less than 10 percent but again when you're deficit spending any additional expense or because of a loss of Revenue whether it be from the state of Ohio because of house bill one so to speak or if it's because of some sort of violation of federal law we lose this I get a little nervous Mr President yes I've prepared some ideas on this as well if I could if I could thank you please this resolution before us opposes the March 8 2021 Federal Executive Order titled guaranteeing an educational environment free from discrimination on the basis of sex including sexual orientation or gender identity as a result of this executive order the U.S Department of Education consulted extensively with students parents Educators state government Representatives Advocates lawyers researchers and representatives from elementary
152secondary and post-secondary schools and in addition the first ever Nationwide virtual public hearing was held and careful review of federal case law was used to develop the proposed amendments to the Title IX regulations these amendments reaffirm the U.S department of education's commitment to fairness to all and freedom of speech some highlights from this amendment include greater protections for students and employees from all forms of sexual discrimination and harassment protections for parents and Guardians to Advocate on behalf of their children requirements that schools take prompt action to end sexual discrimination and harassment protections for students and employees who are pregnant and have pregnancy related conditions such as lactation it expands the definition of sexual harassment to decrease the threshold of what schools must investigate offering greater protection it eliminates the requirements for live hearings in college
153and university cases involving sexual misconduct and yes it protects lgbtqi plus students from discrimination based on their sexual orientation their gender identity and their sex characteristics the resolution before us opposes these protections specifically the protections for specific students against sexual harassment and discrimination this resolution cite support for the Ohio State Board of education's resolution which opposes these amendments to Title IX and it does this using compelling language that is misleading and inaccurate examples of these false statements include requiring K-12 schools to socially transition minor students to a different gender without parental consent the sludicrous Public Schools do not they cannot and they will not provide therapies hormones medications or surgical procedures that are part of a transition schools are not transitioning students Mentor Schools as recently as the last general meeting confirmed that communication plans
154should be developed with the student family counselor and principal if the family is not aware of a preferred pronoun change request in grades five through eight teachers work with a student principal and counselor to communicate with the family and in grades 9 through 12 the teacher will encourage the student to speak with their counselor and the counselor and principal will work with the student to develop a plan to communicate with their family at Mentor Schools we believe that involving parents is important because as cited by the Trevor Project lgbtq youth who felt high social support from their family reported attempting suicide at less than half the rate of those who felt low or moderate social support fewer than one in three transgender and non-binary youth found their home to be gender affirming and we have
155to be sensitive to that and sixty percent of our lgbtq youth who wanted mental health care in the past year were not able to get it statements in this resolution resolutions suggest that parental rights are at risk yet federal and state laws are very clear about parental rights and the current amendment to Title IX does not limit these powers in any way it also doesn't limit the power of the family educational rights and Privacy Act the pupil protection rights amendment of 1978 or section 3313 of the Ohio Revised Code in addition this resolution suggests that the athletic policy is changing despite the fact that the Title IX Amendment does not address Sports participation at all and the Department of Education has responded to this question by stating that this will be considered in a separate
156rule-making process education secretary Miguel Cardona stated that there will be time for people to comment specifically on that Mentor Schools is a member of the Ohio School High School Athletic Association we unanimously approved that tonight and we will follow the rules of that organization this organization has clear rules for eligibility and those rules for transgender athletes have been in effect for over 10 years as a school board member who took an oath to protect Mentor Schools I must make an informed decision on what impact this will have on Mentor Schools Title IX of the education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination all federal agencies that provide grants of financial assistance are required to enforce Title IX non-discrimination mandate the U.S Department of Education gives grants a financial assistance to schools and from 2020 to 2022 Mentor
157Schools received almost 21 million dollars in federal funding putting Mentor Schools in a position to risk this funding is irresponsible and it would overburden our taxpayers this does not even take into account the risks that we may encounter if we were to be accused of discriminatory practices when consulted our legal counsel raised concerns that passing this resolution may make our district vulnerable to civil rights violations this is not protecting our district legal counsel has also shared multiple rulings throughout the country to consider before passing this resolution I am not an expert on lgbtqi plus students and I must look at the advice of experts such as the many organizations that Mrs jesling mentioned the Ohio school Counselors Association the Ohio school psychologist Association and nationally reviewed studies as the Trevor Project States LGBT youth who
158attended a gender affirming school or live in a gender affirming Community have significantly lower rates of attempted suicide and before we state that sexual harassment and discrimination is not a problem we need to address I want to share these startling statistics 36 percent of lgbtq Youth reported that they have been physically threatened or harmed due to either their sexual orientation or their gender identity and 73 percent of lgbtq Youth reported that they have experienced discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity at least once in their lifetime we have heard statements from a diverse group of residents in Manor through emails board meeting statements and conversations and I am aware of the very different opinions our community presents unfortunately this resolution before us does not allow for compromise it will either be approved or
159rejected tonight and based on facts regarding lgbtq studies legal considerations and possible financial implications I must reject this resolution discrimination and harassment has no place in Mentor Schools and as partners with parents we should protect all students and reaffirm that all students should be guaranteed an educational environment free from discrimination I reject this resolution [Applause] for her comments I think I listened to all of it I I want to bring up you had mentioned that it could cause an irresponsible over it was irresponsible cause an overburden on our taxpayers from my perspective once and we know we have levees coming up in November I'm concerned that if we continue to not acknowledge parents rights or um if we allow biological Boys in our girls bathrooms that we will also be choosing a risk there there's
160a risk that our community wouldn't necessarily support what we're doing so I think I acknowledge I understand where you're coming from I think there's risks on both sides so it's a a tough decision I still stand by because of the questions I had asked earlier um I stand by supporting the resolution [Applause] based on some of the speakers we heard tonight you said you would have some answers and some information to share with us can you do that please well I think the one answer was answered by Annie quite well the other one that was the end of the question oh why I support this paragraph whereas Title IX the third paragraph there in the resolution and a portion that directly addresses the issue of self-identity to have recognized President Biden's resolution or not as
161is changed that he is that's in contention right now where He suggests that based upon their self-identity whatever they say their identity is that puts them in that situation of being transgender or not and we have to acknowledge that we're in Doh SAA that addresses that partially but the section the very and I don't I didn't bring that with me but if you have that legislative report from when President Biden she wrote his amendment to it where it is self-identity whatever you choose is your sex that's the part in What President Biden described that I oppose that doesn't have anything with medical [Applause] but it's do you have it there Maggie I I don't know what you mean but I think that I have what what you're referring to um let me try to so
162are you referring to the executive order on March 8 2021. paragraph one would you do you want me to pass it down to you or do you want me to read it it's the section where he talks of what um section one policy it is the policy of my Administration that all students should be guaranteed an educational environment free from discrimination on the basis of sex including discrimination in the form of sexual harassment which encompasses sexual violence and including discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity for students attending schools and other educational institutions that receive federal financial assistance this guarantee is codified in part in Title IX of the educational Amendments of 1972 which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex and educational programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance thank you
163because this isn't the document that I read okay perfect that's that's not it that's that is that is the executive order correct yeah I was wrong correct I thought that was that was the one can you tell us why you feel this would be good for the mentor School District why Europe to move us forward oh this would move us forward to to move forward with the restroom situation and now we have 30 students as opposed to we thought it was six in the state this is 30 Transit transitioning students we have 30 in the state six transgender athletes in the state that was the Osa transgender athletes but 30 students here it was transitioning so it's it's on the increase so Mr Tuttle do you do you believe with this that we wouldn't use
164restrooms if if you were identifying as so you don't believe that transgender students would use restrooms based on this resolution of their gender that they're identifying with is that you might believe like is that the purpose of the resolution or is that why you were bringing it forward yes that was what I was looking forward so what bathroom should the transgender students be using well we offer that now I just want to clarify why what do they use it do they use it I'm sorry can you I'm sorry could we please direct our attention so we don't use it Porter thanks so Mr how would this resolution correct it and how should the transgender students be using the bathrooms Mr Tuttle are you saying that these the gender neutral single stall should be used yes
165we need to provide that to separate them respectfully Mrs paint I'd like to hear it from Mr sure I was just trying to clarify thank you that's he just clarified it thank you okay so you're saying that the transgender students should be using a separate bathroom yes is that what you're saying yes like the best nurse's office yes we did that once before did we went superintendent Miller was here we did that I I believe that is an option that's available to any student to any student it is it's an option I think at least I can't speak for Mr Tuttle I can speak for myself um with with the recent video that had circulated that was a question that I was receiving a lot is you know why are we allowing this to happen
166is there a safe space for people to use a single cell bathroom which we do have single stall gender neutral bathroom in all of our buildings and almost physical altercation that took place is concerning to me um it didn't seem safe for either party and and to ask the seven girls who were in that female restroom to all use a single stall gender-neutral bathroom instead of asking the one child to to please use the gender neutral bathroom doesn't doesn't make sense to me um I understand that that child probably wouldn't be fit to use the the bathroom of their biological sex because I I would totally empathize with the fact that that wouldn't feel right um and that that could put them at risk as well but I think the good option when we look
167at you know what's best for all um everybody needs to have a place to go to the bathroom but I don't think biological boys should be using girls bathrooms I think that their safe space should be in a separate single stall that's gender neutral so that they say stay safe and then also the girls are safe as well Mr Keith I've heard a lot about this video that happened in the bathroom can you please clarify was there something that was inappropriate that happened was their discipline around that because I've only heard rumors excuse me excuse me there were a lot of things going on with that situation I unfortunately we can't share a lot of that because of FERPA violations but there there was discipline involved across the board yes okay thank you don't want
168to overstep it one of the things that I certainly heard from our community and what we know having grown up even though we're a generation apart growing up in in a big Public Schools where using the bathroom facilities and you know they're occasionally troublemakers or people smoking in the bathroom and all of those kinds of issues that can create a a negative climate for lots of students and that's an issue that I feel belongs in our safety plan going forward to protect everybody so that whatever the circumstances I know as a former teacher I'm sure Mrs cook has had the same experience I'm sure Mr Heath Mr Wade especially at high school principal the supervision issue in a huge building with all those people moving about as needed in in the nature of teenagers we
169were all there once a lot of us have raised them um that trying to make sure that the bathroom is used appropriately and that nobody is threatened or harmed no Mischief is going on whatever it might be that I think we absolutely need to do a better job and in if we're looking to expand facilities if we have as many students as that in our high school then one of the things is part of our safety plan maybe is looking at trying to expand or improve facilities available to students wherever they are on the Continuum they may just want more privacy I remember having had students who had significant medical issues that really begged more privacy than an average person might need so making provision for that it's just the right thing to do for
170human beings that we would all appreciate that you know and that would go for locker room facilities bathrooms all the rest but you're talking you know a significant investment and I'm certainly not against making that I don't think any of us would be but we would have to have a plan going forward and I think Mr Heath you said you would look into that for us to see because you know at the time that modifications had to be made to be compliant with the Ada changes nobody wanted to have to reconfigure bathrooms to create handicapped accessible stalls ramps elevators all the rest it was a significant investment and it benefited benefited a small number of people quite specifically but more broadly it ended up benefiting many of us at different stages in our lives whether
171you're on crutches or have a boot or whatever it might be so this long-winded explanation is just saying that I don't think that this resolution is going to be productive but I do think the discussion that we're having around it is very productive and it would help us to make improvements and changes that would be the right thing to do for all kids to make them feel safer so they don't feel like they can't use a restroom at the high school because you know maybe there's issues or there's you know some kind of behavioral problems it's a problem and it has been for Generations if I'm understanding correctly Jenny based on our school safety conversation last week where we were talking about school safety vestibules and we're looking into what that might cost suggestion is
172to look at what it might cost to maybe increase the number of a single stall facilities and maybe in our high schools and middle schools as a starting point um is that something across the board that everyone would be interested in us at least looking into that to see what the cost would be I think at least for me I would be interested if we're not all on board whichever I respect everybody's opinion if we're not all on board with ensuring that biological boys do not enter female bathrooms then the next best thing would be to change those female bathrooms to single stalls so that there's no that there's no risk there um that would obviously be my second choice because it's very expensive to do so it is and you've got such a good
173point but the one question I did have and and you could probably speak best to this both Craig and Bill is it legal to not just offer that alternate facility whether it's the clinic bathroom or a single stall or faculty bathroom is it legal to in to require it like you're not allowed to use a boy a biological male cannot use the girls common restroom are we allowed to mandate that and be within legal compliance based on the sixth Circuit Court ruling from 2016 in Ohio the answer would be no um and I get that there's um there are several different court cases I know one of them you just mentioned from December of 2022 that was in the 11th District but I think we're seeing there's a lot of court cases coming up because
174of this type of thing so the 11th this District Court was in opposition to what the Sixth District Court decided to do so I just don't think it's settled law I think there's risks on both ends but I think this discussion is important to have and I think that 11th Circuit Court decision is the one that potentially could push the Supreme Court to actually take it up um you know again until that happens we're still Bound by the sixth circuit because that's the one in Ohio and in that court case directly involved the the use of restroom facilities and the school district was that like shining right my eye oh yeah thanks um going blind over here so that that ruling was was the one that you know again we're falling under right now um
175yeah there's still a lot of uncertainty out there with all the legal court cases so you know there were three of them that were brought up in December two of them that Affirmed transgender student rights one that separated transgender students from the the Title IX requirements so you know they're they're conflicting ones just in in December alone so again I know that's pretty recent too so we're still waiting to hear okay what's the next step I think that there are teachers or professors and they didn't want to not tell the parents and there was some disciplinary action that was done with them and then they ended up suing the schools and in two cases they won a pretty significant amount of money so I think there's just risk on all ends and I think this
176is a choice that we're making obviously I'll abide by whatever the whole board decides to do but I think that whatever ends up happening continuing this conversation like Mrs jesling had um you know said is going to be important so again my marching orders just so that I have this correct we will look into the expansion of our restroom facilities to include include more single stall restrooms predominantly looking at high school and middle schools at this point as a starting point and then again our continued push for parent communication as quickly as possible as we're going through this yes is that correct from everyone well that makes a lot of sense okay I I think if we can try to look at existing restrooms and how we may be able to do some conversions yes
177that that's exactly what any changes are going to cost money right because I'd rather have it cost money than than any physical or emotional harm so I would be willing to and again to our point last week when we were having our conversation around school safety a lot of these things cost money but again what are our priorities in the district um we don't we want to try to avoid losing any money Federal funding any kind of funding better to spend those dollars that we could potentially lose to stay compliant with the federal model and the sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and then invest in improving facilities so that there is more privacy safety and comfort for our students and making it better so I you know you get something tangible with that investment so
178that kids are protected because I think one of the issues in fact Mr Tuttle and I had a brief conversation about if a student who would normally use a single stall bathroom was attending football game well football game would be outdoors so you might have a variety of facilities available but let's say a high school basketball game I don't know if there's a single stall restroom right there that would be available I think everything's kind of gated off so you know it it just creates a complex set of problems and that'll have to we'll have to be very strategic as we're looking at those renovations to make sure that we've got those extracurriculars covered as well that makes well outside the gymnasium the males have doors they don't go to the floor they have doors
179in the males pistols you know the Stalls no I don't obviously the women most likely do right yeah what if we included students to talk about good idea problem solving it's a fair building so maybe between students and faculty members and administrators kind of brainstorming what what maybe give them a menu of possibilities we could do like with this much money we could do these things or these things or these things and have them weigh in you know when Mr Tuttle and I were at one of the sophomore history classes and they were presenting suggestions for school Improvement it was dazzling very exciting to see them thinking problem solving and making recommendations and a couple of them that I saw were really great ideas and we've passed those along to people who can make decisions
180at the next level so I think we have an Engaged Community that's a great thing it's hard when there's so much passionate conflict and it can't be decided both ways I don't want this resolution but I do want some of those things that have been urged upon us to do better to happen I think that that's a way to really energize ourselves and see what we can come up with to make it better and I do um I liked a couple of the points I do like a couple of points that you had mentioned miss jesling the first one is the the kids do have a lot of good ideas uh I know I did that history class as well I wasn't able to this last time but a couple months ago and I was
181thrilled at some of the things that they came up with from the parking closer to where their first class is to you know having lunch outside but I think the superintendent's advisory Council I don't know Mr Heath if you can answer this but when I had um came onto the board and Mr Porter was um was the superintendent I had asked him because when I went to Mentor Schools I was part of the superintendent's advisory Council and it was great because it was a bunch of different diverse students with different opinions and they met you know monthly with the superintendent it was just really open and honest and I wonder if that's continuing I don't know I know that's that was on my uh leadership plan when I moved in here so it's something we
182need to get up and running just haven't had an opportunity to start that group yet but that would be inappropriate starting point for us too Mr Tuttle I'd like to ask that we get back to our agenda and if I may I also had a statement that I would like to read it's in response to the resolution and also a question that came up last month so my personal and individual position on State Board of Education member Brendan Shay's initial and revised resolution in response to an opposition of the U.S department of education's proposed changes to Title IX regulations as well as the proposed resolution for Mentor Schools this proposed resolution includes false scientific assertions repeats harmful stereotypes and attempts to require public school districts to discriminate against and endanger lgbtq plus students this type
183of resolution is morally reprehensible politically charged targets a particularly at-risk portion of our student population and undermines Ohio's proud history of local control from our board policy to our district mission and vision to day-to-day interactions with students as a school district we collectively and intentionally strive to create environments where all students are safe can learn with dignity and respect free from fear and violence and protected against discrimination regardless of their race ethnicity religion gender identity expression or sexual orientation Mentor is a school district that is deeply committed to diversity equity and inclusion to creating a culture of acceptance and that celebrates and empowers difference we want every student to know that we see here and value them we should be focusing on moving forward not backwards this is not moving forward thank you [Applause] thank
184you Mr Brown please call her old Mr Wade um Miss Payne yes Mr Tuttle okay is that where we left off oh second yes I'm sorry go ahead yes Breyer no Ms cook no Miss jessalyn no um [Applause] [Music] hey guys everybody in here you guys you guys I understand this is a very we have to happen to continue at the board we understand it's very heated on all sides but please respect us as well while we have the the remainder of our um of our meeting your break we're gonna take a break for all those who want to leave defense me it sounds like Danny's the president what sounds like Andy's the president Tom yeah did you check that box well we still have an agenda to pass we're going to be here for
185at least another hour [Music] and then so this was how they voted thank you I was wondering why you stayed so late just wonder why you were here so late thank you some um [Music] twice for the second session which is fine so I have your eyes [Music] absolutely so that would be a question good how are you yeah got it thank you legislators [Music] all right did we have our break ers [Music] thank you [Music] we're going to go over a legislative reports discussions did you fill out a piece of paper to speak again then that will come up again that'll come again so stay just like the rest of today's schedule Mr President all right Mr President could we call to order [Music] five minutes thank you no we're missing a member foreign
186right here it's got purple on the inside and goes with the pen people wouldn't believe it [Music] vehicles this morning you're doing something thank you so much tell your mom I said hey [Music] okay we're ready that's all right all right returned order thank you Mrs brainer legislative report it's a long one so I'm gonna try to skip some things and just give a brief overview so bear with me Mary I'm sorry Mr brighter that's what I used to do when these things had three and four pages we're gonna do because somewhere we're irrelevant so here we go the Ohio Senate passed Senate bill as B1 by a vote of 26 to 7. the bill would rename the Department of Education as the Department of Education and Workforce and would create the position of Director
187of Education and Workforce the bill also would reform the functions and responsibilities of the State Board of Education and the superintendent of Public Instruction the bill was amended in the Senate education committee to include a stakeholder engagement process requires the deputy directors to have relevant educational professional or managerial experience and makes changes to the implementation implementation date the companion bill in the Ohio houses House Bill 12 and mirrors the language excuse me of Senate bill one the house primary and secondary education committee has held three hearings on the bill and has included the same amendments that were added to Senate bill one testimony in the house primary and secondary education committee is expected to continue over the next few weeks house priority Bill looks to reform property Taxation and income tax rates uh speaker Jason
188Stevens announced the list of priority bills on February 15th including house bill 1. the bill pertains to income and property taxes and would do the following repeals the graduated income tax rates that apply to non-business income and instead levies a flat rate flat tax rate of 360.69 plus 2.75 percent on all income over twenty six thousand fifty dollars decreases from 35 percent to 31.5 percent the percentage of real properties value that is subject to taxation indexes that 31.5 percent rate so that it decreases in proportion to the increase in inflation repeals the 10 percent tax rollback on non-business property modifies the 2.5 percent homestead tax rollback to equal a flat 125 dollars property tax credit for all owner occupied homes establishes an enhanced homestead exemption for certain long-term homeowners who qualify for the general homestead
189exemption and indexes for all Homestead exemptions the amount of the exemption so that the exemption and resulting tax savings increases in proportion to the increase in inflation the house Ways and Means Committee has held two hearings on the bill including sponsor testimony Matthews made the following statement regarding the intent of the bill our four goals are to lower all our income taxes to a flat rate of 2.75 percent disentangle our property taxes from our income taxes protect homeowners both now and in the future and ensure our local communities receive the quality services they expect the legislative Service Commission provided a fiscal analysis on the bill that showed the significant loss in Revenue to the state's General Revenue fund additionally school districts and local taxing authorities would also see a decrease in funding received from local
190property taxes this includes includes both inside and outside millage total revenue loss at the state and local level would be in the billions of dollars the analysis shows the impact the Bill's Provisions would have on school districts regarding loss of Revenue but also shows how the constitutionality required tax reduction factors known as 920 would work and the reverse and increase property taxes the house Ways and Means Committee is planning on additional hearings in the next few weeks all right now we're gonna Buzz through the recently introduced legislation hb1 sponsored I'm going to skip that which would modify the law regarding property Taxation and income tax rates hb2 declares intent to direct State funds to projects across the state for economic growth and Community Development hb3 about regarding affordable housing tax credit hb4 regarding financial institutions
191and other businesses that conduct economic boycotts or discriminate against certain companies or customers based on certain factors okay that's big hb6 enact save women sports act requires schools State institutions of higher education and private colleges to designate separate Single Sex teams and sports for each sex hb8 parents Bill of Rights requires public schools to adopt a policy on Parental notification on student health and well-being and instructional materials with sexual explicit content hb9 grow your own teacher program establishes a loan repayment program for eligible teachers makes changes to teacher licensing and professional development and would make an appropriation hb10 phasing in the school Finance system established in hb110 HB 11 backpack scholarship program would repeal the educational Choice scholarship pilot program and the pilot project scholarship program on July 1st of 2024 and would make an
192appropriation hb12 renames the Department of Education at the Department of Education and Workforce creates position Director of Education and Workforce reforms the functions and responsibilities as a state board of education and superintendent of Public Instruction hb14 allocation of parent parental rights and responsibilities to Grant equal time and responsibility for a child HB 33 operating Appropriations for the biennium beginning July 1st of 2023 ending June 30th of 2025 to Levy taxes and provide authorization and conditions for the operation of State programs HB 38 allows school districts to permit students to take up to three mental health days away from school each school year hb46 regarding a notation of an Educator's District or School employment unlicensed applications and notice of educator disciplinary actions and consent agreements hb47 requires automated external defibrillators aeds in each public and chartered
193non-public school and each public Recreational facility and to require the Ohio Department of Health to develop a model emergency action plan for the use of the aeds hb48 requires each public school to adopt a policy regarding certain expectations related to Performance of staff member professional duties HB 57 index the homestead exemption amounts to inflation hb60 increase the amount of and expand the income qualifications for homestead exemption HB 63 requires public and chartered non-public schools to provide conflict resolution instruction to students grades kindergarten through 12. hb68 prohibits certain procedures to alter minors minor child sex and would designate this act as the Ohio saving adolescence from experimentation Act hb70 requires schools to adopt a policy regarding administration of over-the-counter drugs HB 71 requires Ode to establish the community connectors Workforce program to support connecting students to
194jobs and internships in their communities and requires escs to administer the program to the the school districts they serve HB 74 establishes a plan to migrate the state's Information Technology systems to the state's computer center and Cloud environment and establishes cyber security and fraud Advisory Board HB 76 companion bill 2 sb18 would modify state agency data storage and notification law HB 78 changed the State teachers retirement Retirement Board membership to allow superannuits to seek election as a contributing or retired member of the board and change requirements of a contributing board member who retires or leaves employment and later seeks election as a retired board member HP 82 requires school athletic coaches to complete mental health training each time they apply for a new to for or renew a pupil activity program permit and provide evidence
195of completed training to svoe hb90 authorizes the total property tax exemption for homesteads of totally disabled veterans and their surviving spouses SB 66 requires public and private schools to transmit a transferred student's records within five school days SB 79 makes changes to Dropout prevention and Recovery recovery Community Schools any questions comments I just wanted to make a comment thank you Mr Wade for his testimony against sb1 sd-1 is very dangerous to Public Schools it and we were we would lose a lot of money I thank you for explaining it to the board and the way that you have your it was very clear particularly like the flow chart there's a lot of information I'm not a tax lawyer so it was very helpful for me to see it and to see how um how much
196it would impact us so thank you for doing that and and standing up for our district thank you thank you thank you just to clarify that is House Bill won I'm sorry no it's fine thank you thank you we just said Senate bill one passed and I don't want to cause too much concerned ways committee right now yes thank you next on the agenda Mrs cook student achievement report all right student achievement okay I'm ready I think we've seen this three times but worth repeating congratulations to Tia Geisler of Orchard Hollow she's our fourth grader and she won the Tri-County spelling bee Championship Wednesday March 1st she will now compete May 28th along with more than 200 spellers from across the country so Tia will be going to Washington DC and we saw what a
197lovely young lady she was and and a great speller at that the next picture here I have um some pictures of our care students that went to Camp last week 25 of our high school age students at cares went to Camp Fitch for many of them this was their first time sleeping away from home the students participated in a variety of different camp activities such as Pioneer studies where they made candles and butter and they learned about all types of farm animals and they even got to ride a horse they also participated in indoor archery and took a night hike in the rain they got wet they were a little bit cold they came home exhausted all having after having the best time of their lives and I just love these pictures it says it
198all right we have a few updates we've talked a lot about our DLT which is our district leadership team and how our district leadership team meets we have the teacher level level teams per building that look at the data and then that moves up to building level teams and then our District level team so our district level leadership team met on February 15th to review student progress and if you remember I've talked about this for a for a while now I think maybe our first Benchmark was back in September when we talked about it and I said we're going to get the winner numbers and we'll talk about it and we were looking at especially math we had concerns in our in our progress we knew that that was a weakness and we had invested
199um a lot of resources we have a new math program we were looking at trainers with the teachers we have a lot of professional development around math and so we're looking now because we have that first next Benchmark to see how is it going you know so we can see if if um if we're on the right track so our district leadership team met to review student progress this includes 50 members including central office administrators all building administrators certified teachers and instructional coaches they meet twice a year to look at student data in the areas of reading math and school climate including attendance and behavior the February meeting focused on reviewing District Benchmark data from fall to winter they discussed curtain Improvement plans and identified areas for continued growth they will meet again in June
200to update the plans so yeah go back to that green and thank you our students in um excuse me grades kindergarten through fifth grade completed their mid-year benchmark assessments and I ready and that provides an update on their math and their reading skills and like we said there's a focus on math this year so this is scores from math this graph shows the national norms for i-Ready and this is how the state of Ohio scores are trending this year and in the right hand bar graph you can see how our students compared to others in the state and around the country so the numbers are um we're confusing to me at first so I did ask for some clarification and at the mid-year Benchmark we're trending almost exactly where we need to be 49 of
201our students are already at or above grade level expectations so we have 49 that are already meeting with the state's expectations are for the end of the year so um because it's mid-year we expect 50 of our students to be at that point we have another 43 percent that are right on track there and we have eight percent that need additional support we're well ahead of the state and of the national percentages we're pleased with the progress that we're seeing we can go on to the next slide here the curriculum Department as we mentioned is piloting a new set of resources this school year across various grade levels at each Elementary School and this chart is taking the growth data that our students have demonstrated on the i-Ready math assessment and provides a comparison of
202the scores from our students in classrooms using the current program which is math and focus resources and then our pilot one is the open up resources so those are the two colors that you see so again this growth data is for mid-year results we would anticipate the growth percentage to be right around 50 percent the open up resource classes are having a seven percent higher growth rate than the math and focus resources there and they're at 53 percent across all grade levels already this year so this data will help us determine the direction that we had with the elementary math resources for the 23 to 24 school year but making great growth and and feeling very positive about that um our next one is our one school one book this culminated last week in three
203of the elementary schools Lake Elementary will kick off one school one book in April Fairfax concluded Charlie and the Chocolate Factory this week they had a community scavenger hunt tied to the event along with assemblies to kick it off and the Ridge students read Kenny and the Dragon they had a dragon seek story walk last Wednesday of evening at Squire's Castle you can see some of those pictures there and Orchard Hollow red Charlotte's Web and they concluded their reading with a petting zoo and a family literacy night Hopkins will be reading Clementine I'm sorry they've already read Clementine and they combined it with their friendship theme for the month of February they also hosted a curriculum night in February for all families that could attend and all elementary schools participated in our Mentor Schools Foundation
204readathon as part of the Right to Read Week we have our stick together bullying prevention program and our Mentor High School counselor and students are visiting all our elementary schools this month they will engage fifth grade students in the stick together bullying prevention program and that is all for tonight thank you I think those good news bits about the math program yeah ties in nicely with Pi Day it does I had my pie today yeah thank you Mrs cook thank you Mr White ah man Mr President members of the board Mr Heath my ego has been shattered wow the buzz with people two hour or three hours and 45 minutes to go and oh my God I'm not sure they were going to wait around but thank you to those who suck around for that
205I will be quick um we are we're trending as we have been we're our revenue is still about 452 000 higher than expected um we received our first payment for our tax settlement of a little bit over 25 million dollars this past month our expenses are actually we're exceeding our projected expenses by eighty one thousand dollars right now and a lot of that goes back to uh the fact that we received those bills from Crossroads that we were unaware existed going back to fiscal years prior to even my coming on board as the CFO so we did pay those in fact those situated which has caused our purchase services to be up higher than we would have expected or anticipated because we didn't budget for them and nor were they in our forecast so again
206we continue to meet the obligations of our citizens financial advisor committee and be as close as we possibly can to our revenue and expenses and I said last month you know sometimes we'll be over sometimes we'll be under and this month we're actually over in expenses by eighty one thousand dollars um we will head into as we head into March and head into April we we stop our spending for this current fiscal year in our buildings in mid-april and then again we will do our update in may we are doing our budgeting now Mr Heath and I have spoken to our departments and our uh buildings and we've decreased budgets by at least five percent uh to help us reduce that million dollars that we going into the next fiscal year so I mean the
207rest of the report is here you have in front of you uh we can go through it but the graphs show exactly what I just said so we're trending about where we would be um any fluctuations that we're having are mostly timing at this point in the year and and we're doing well but the big point is that we're about 452 thousand dollars more in Revenue than we expected and we're about eighty one thousand dollars over expenses currently but explained off by the purchase Services piece that I spoke to happy to take any questions do we have any clues from the ways and means of how that's going to play out for House Bill one House Bill one um Hospital one I don't think is going to get out of the house and if it
208does it won't get passed by the center is is my my interpretation but if you don't or if you aren't aware you should be aware of the people that are here um House Bill one they say is going to be a tax break I've run the numbers we will lose anywhere from a million to five and a half million dollars a year in revenue and your taxes will go up by 100 almost 100 per hundred thousand dollars in market value they didn't take into consideration house bill or it's you know 920 which is the inflation Factor on all the outside millage that kind of keeps everything from going up so when your evaluation up by 18 your taxes didn't go up 18 because the house bill 920 which is in the Constitution apparently when they
209wrote this law they forgot about that piece and they didn't realize that it was going to negatively impact taxpayers in that standpoint so I think is they are having good dialogue and they're going through the process and they're you know they're making the sausage so to speak um I think they're covering that realization so either it's going to die on the vine in the house or it won't probably get past the Senate thank you but we have to be vigilant and explain to them what the impact is and share that data and that's why I shared with them the impact they would have on Middle School that concludes my reports so Mr President members of the board Mr Heath I ask for the approval of items B through H and addendums that may be acted
210on in one motion so many second please call the roll Mr Wade Miss Payne yes Miss breiner yes Miss Cook yes jesslyn yes Mr Tuttle yes motions carry 5-0 that concludes my section do we have any unfinished business carried forward new business hearing done hearing of the public our first three speakers for the second session would be David madger Jim Stone and Michael Paul all right Jim Stone already spoke he must have filled out two forms he's not here gemstone yep I think Mr Paul you're here correct and I'm not sure if David madger is still here good evening Michael Paul 7665 Miller Avenue um there's a subject about one of the books in our schools that disturbs me a lot um I've talked to many people that I have associations with business relations and
211also friendships when they come from a broad spectrum of you know different Lifestyles backgrounds um whatever you want to call uh gender preference or but we all we all concluded you know unanimously that this book was disturbing because I read a couple passes from it and they basically said you know and again my cousin said I could refer to them my cousin's openly gay as a life partner and they both said this book is Criminal it's pedophilia okay this isn't no kind of issue that we can debate or you know who you know who feels like what but um the book is called Mr Lynch can you start the timer please thank you okay okay um basically it's about um the book is called identical it's about a set of identical twin girls one of
212whom is molested in graphic detail by their father at the young age I cannot see how the words in this book add to the educational experience for any students in any schools or any people outside the schools possibly ever than people would you know criminal lifestyles it is a stirring piece of litter literature that details terrific sexual violence against children by their father kids should not be reading this I think we should all agree to this together um in my opinion this is not a book that should be accessible again to anybody and I'm going to just read some experts from the book because if it's good enough to read for our students to read I think it's good enough for everybody to hear and unfortunately we don't have a lot more people in here
213so maybe they could get a little shocked Kayla was used to Daddy's visits and this is quoting the book by the way Kayla was used to Daddy's visits but that night she too felt something different in there rage lust sorrow per person on me going to Daddy sweat there was nothing gentle about how he threw back the covers already naked he pushed Kaylee roughly to one side flopped beside her now this is the guy's daughter we're talking about we're letting kids read this look everybody looks like logical people here okay I mean I've I've asked me about I know I was right you know I believe it's criminal and so did everybody else I talked to why can't we not look at these books I mean we don't get to finally you know look at
214each book and say you know what pedophilia or daddy you know having sex relations with his daughter okay should not be read to our children or read by our children that's all I gotta say thank you so much thank you Mr Paul uh next three speakers would be Teresa Dennis strapko and Connie Ferris gevis closer not even close I wasn't even close yeah my syllables were way off okay I think you might be you might be the only one that's still here implore that Mentor Schools remove any sexually explicit literature from their libraries classrooms and curriculum it is detrimental to the moral development of the youth to which you are entrusted they will soon be members of our community and I would like to know that you are not contributing to their delinquency or grooming
215any kind of weird Behavior to put it nicely I also suggest that School Book Fairs if they must be occur after school students time in school is precious and could be better spent in direct instruction rather than shopping I believe that the school board should examine the material being sold prior to the book fair I examine the books on the book club's website and was very disappointed to find books there pushing harmful behaviors some of which people in this room tonight were very upset with if parents want to support the book fair so teachers can get books on their West wish list or students can purchase books at school can you let them do it while going to teacher conferences or visiting the books Fair after school finally having access to books at the public
216library while at school has some possible negative outcomes students could choose material that is inappropriate for minors let parents be in charge of their book selection and take them to the public libraries so they can choose how they want to form their child's character it is at the moment an abuse of my taxpayer dollars and the community's trust in Monroe Public Schools to subversively present perverse material to students in their care [Applause] the next three speakers are Kim basin Jessica Ann gazella and Donna Gillen excuse me if I'm gonna sound like a broken record here tonight but good evening to the members of the board first I just want to say I'm hurt by the resolution not passing as many others are not and are are not happy as well and we still will love
217you to think about in November but I just wanted to bring up quickly also that I'm a quality profile report page 10 the federal funding doesn't even show up but 72.6 percent from the local funding does so again we have that Levy to look at in November spinning off of what others had discussed earlier in this meeting three and a half hours ago we did some of the same kind of research apparently I'm here to share my opinion I'm here to stick up for those on safety and education of our children when we come up with these non-discriminational does not these non-discrimination laws that allow people to use bathrooms based on their identities and how they identify themselves other than what they are born as this is giving sexual predators the opportunity of unfair advantage
218and even sexual assault as proven in the case of national news it's happened in my school too when I was in high school and it made national news again the concern is not the transgendered individual it's based on the sexual predators but that sexual predators could take advantage of women children and commit crimes there have been quite a few cases reported more in this country and I'm not okay with that and they date back to 99 but most occurring within the past 10 years there have been men who have violated the privacy of women's and bathrooms lockers and other closed spaces it will only get worse if we don't take the time now and we don't stand up now you don't have to show your genitals to feel violated uncomfortable or vulnerable these are cases
219where offenders who identified as transgenders Place video cameras in women's bathrooms I experienced that in my high school not me personally friends of mine now I don't know about you but something that may seem like nothing to some of you is a big deal to me and many others especially for the group of the females from Mentor High School who have felt this type of way when they were encountered by someone of the opposite sex in their private space the girl's bathroom to hear people even say well if those girls are uncomfortable they should use a gender-neutral bathroom is concerning because that has been their private space since the day they were born there are still books then there are still books falling through the cracks such as identical which we had heard about dealing
220with 16 year old identical twins where they're being sexually abused by their own father and others watching it in the one sisters watching and yearning in her sister's place because she seeks that attention this book is geared towards 12 and 18 year olds I've had my own personal experiences of this and I can tell you I would not feel comfortable with the male going in my bathroom and I can assure you that if you want to love you to pass you'll seek those individuals who have gone through those types of abuses too thank you [Applause] our next three speakers are Lindsay Wall Brandon towns and Michael Williams foreign [Music] good morning um but uh again thank you uh for allowing the space for these comments um thank you for not passing um the resolution we
221are very grateful um I'm a little torn um because I'm struggling with the fact that as we talked about what we could risk with um the not passing um not supporting our LGBT and trans students should have farmer correctly five million dollars while also saying hearing the the Uproar of the levy in November um and it's a contradiction I feel like which is if you don't do something we're going to vote down the levy and I hear the other side which is if you do something something that they want you're going to lose millions of dollars and that's coming from the party of fiscal responsibility so that's a little difficult um I also heard from the folks who support Law and Order voting to uh ignore project the Law and Order uh I heard like
222a push for parental rights from folks who seem to neglect parental responsibility um if my kids feel they need to tell someone at school something that they can't tell me I need to look in the mirror not say something to the school so that was a struggle but I'm glad that we made the stand that we made today um and uh we prioritize education uh the three R's they say but we're not listening to those who teach the three R's we're not listening to The Experts who have went to school extensively to talk about how to teach the three R's um and then we we heard on multiple occasions um it's not about LGBT and trans students but pushing that resolution that is very much anti LGBT trans students and then the last one um
223my wife shared this with me um there was some folks who mentioned you know not focusing on the minorities um in which I there weren't many in the room but follow a leader who left the 99 for the one it's kind of ironic thank you Mr Toth Miss McCormick and Mr chair Mr cherry and excuse me are the next three all right last month a few concerned men are parents and taxpayers submitted two book challenges now the community's access has been denied search capabilities to our libraries I'd like to ask why and who made this decision how is that upholding transparency also I would like to read something from a book that resides in your high school library called identical which is about a father molesting one of his twin daughters while the other twin
224watches and yearns to be her this is written from a perspective of a twin daughter who wishes it was her receiving the father's attention now I know this has been quoted before but since we as the public cannot see the books that are in our library anymore because that search has been taken away from us I want to just read you a little bit more I cracked my eyes just as slit as he sat on Kaylee's bed pulled her into his lap he smelled of Brut and wild turkey his peculiar potpourri I love you so much my little flower Daddy needs something from my little girl My Sweet Rose will you give it to me I wanted to be his Little Flower would have given my daddy anything what did he want from Kaylee she
225laid her head on his chest what I want you to see something something that proves how much I love you this is only for you Kaylee girl he lifted her gently sat her down on the bed beside him then he opened the snaps on the Fly of his flannel pajamas it stood up as stiff as a stalagmite see how much Daddy loves you show me you love me too touch it he closed her hand around it I know it sounds bad but I wanted to touch it too I don't know what it meant only that it made Daddy happy I wanted to make him happy too that's right that's right his voice rocked in rhythm with the body oh yes my Kaylee loves me my little flower I understand why Kaylee liked to feel the
226feel of slicing her flesh releasing bottled up hurt she tried to sit up but Daddy pushed her gently down on the mattress again stay just there like that Daddy said I want to teach you something new he lifted her nightgown rolled it up over her belly coaster Thoroughbred legs apart and squirmed a poultry protest don't move daddy Scarlet face underlined his command I thought he might smack her but as quickly as his anger flared it dissipated smoke don't be afraid this won't hurt you'll like it I promised he kissed the length of her torso down the small Naked Bee it was only his mouth that night he didn't even ask her to touch and prove how much she loved him afterwards she worried didn't he want her love anymore what had made him what had
227she done wrong something wonderful something every girl should know the joy of though of course she shouldn't learn it from Daddy at 10 it isn't exactly easy to separate good touch from Bad Touch proper love from improper love doting Daddy from perv this filth is in our schools and I'm sure many more that we are unaware of what are you doing to vet these books sounds like you need to reinstate the access for the public view so the public can view these books because you apparently need our help to vet them I'm looking forward to all of your responses on this issue at the next board meeting I will not be supporting any Levy that supports inappropriate pornographic books being in our schools and I will ensure that many know this is the type of
228thing our tax money is supporting we will vote no common November on the levees thank you Mr Cherian could I ask her name I I didn't get a chance to write her name yeah that's Miss McCormick McCormick Jacqueline Jacqueline McCormick as a side note just because I hear some um talk in the audience here um I sent an email to Mr Heath I the public brought that book to my attention um to which I followed our policy of telling them that they need to submit a book challenge but I immediately went to Mr Heath and also made him aware and I suggested strongly that we remove the book immediately um however I think we're going to follow the policy that's what I'm assuming so um yeah good evening Mr President members of the board Mr
229Heath and Mr Wade my name is James Cherian in just a few weeks Jews from all over the world will gather in homes to celebrate Passover A Time To Remember When the Lord miraculously rescued them out of slavery in Egypt their seder plate has food to symbolize This Bitter greens to remember the bitterness of slavery roast meat to remember the sacrifice it took salt water to remember the tears of the enslaved an egg symbolize renewal and New Life we see in this the value of remembering our history so we do not forget we see a remembering of the bitterness and oppression but also the joy of Freedom their roots and the promise of a new life it is no wonder the story of Exodus and Passover became the defining narrative for the enslaved Africans the
230first black Americans saw themselves in that story and just like Passover it is important to celebrate the freedom they receive but also not forget the oppression the pain The Blood and Tears that it cost to get us this far and it is still costing us as we work towards true equity two weeks ago in this room we did just that as some of us came together to organize our first black history event the joy we felt in the room was tangible and as we showed and told about the heroes the events the organizations that stood out in history we spoke the hard truths of our past and also the joys and successes I say we and us because black history is American history it is history we must not forget we must not delete that
231part of our past because it is vital to who we are as Americans so I want to thank the families involved that night the school administration for all the logistical help and support in setting that up the community members and organizations thank you to see the joy the Curiosity and excitement in that room of all the children all from diverse backgrounds black white brown teachers were there staff community members families all of us coming together it was truly a beautiful thing and I ask that our district will see that as a start to something good not something to forget about now that we're in March On a related note I'd also like to thank the board for voting no tonight on the resolution I appreciate your clear and thoughtful response to seeing past the smoke
232to seeing what that resolution truly represented and I thank you and appreciate you for that thank you thank you Christy is Christy here B that's our last speaker we're not going into executive session do we have a motion to adjust second at 11 11. we all seconded call the roll Mr Wade Mr Brian yes Miss Jackson yes that's good yes yes P.M