Mentor Board of Education - Regular Meeting - June 14th, 2022

001good evening the june 14th 2022 regular meeting of the men are exempted village board of education is called to order this meeting is being held in accordance with section 3313.15 of the ohio revised code mr wade will you please call the rule ms breiter here miss cook here miss dressling present miss payne here mr tuttle here please join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge under allegiance indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you i would like to welcome everyone to the june 14 2022 regular meeting of the men are exempted village board of education prior to this evening each board member has received further reviewing consideration the agenda and materials associated with each agenda item for the board's approval via the district's paperless board of education system board docs 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 the agenda items and to request if needed additional information this meeting is being televised on a delayed basis and will be shown on spectrum cable channel 1026 in manor and channel 1025 in men around the lake this meeting is also being videotaped and will be shown on our youtube channel cardinal tv mentor ohio please place your mobile telephones on silent mode during the meeting mr wade in his role as cfo and secretary of the board minutes will now share some protocols regarding our public participation policy thank you madam president good evening as the

003regulatory agent for the board i want to take a few minutes to again clarify expectations for public participation at board meetings to help ensure we have a productive and respectful meeting the board invites and welcomes public participation our board meetings at two times during our meeting the first opportunity to speak is on agenda items only there is a second opportunity to speak on any item one wishes that is near the end of the agenda for our recently updated policy policy 1.12 participants may only speak one time during each hearing of the public session however participants may not speak on the same topic more than once per meeting regardless of the period of public participation in which such comments are made participants wishing to speak are asked to come to either the microphones located at the

004entrances and are required to announce their name address and school or schools where their children attend if applicable statements are limited to three minutes in length and any questions must be addressed to the presiding officer during the hearing of the public we ask that all speakers exercise the appropriate decorum for the board to conduct its business specifically in the case of participation all members of the community need to be treated with respect members of the audience should not interrupt or speak out why someone else is speaking or during any portion of the meeting as such each person can and should have the opportunity to speak uninterrupted if they so choose please know anyone who repeatedly fails to comply with the expectations of appropriate decorum or deters the board to be able to conduct their business

005will be asked to leave the meeting if at the end of the public participation no statement is made please know it's in no way demonstrates a lack of care for the comments shared by our community we want to be thoughtful in our approach and provide a response in a timely manner when if when and if appropriate again the intent of our public participation is to offer an opportunity to hear our stakeholders so the board and administration may use the feedback to best serve our community thank you district highlights and recommendations good evening madam president members of the board i would like to begin tonight's recognitions with our students who are not able to graduate with their class on june 4th because they are in columbus competing in the track and field state competition i would

006like to invite mr crowe to the podium to present the awards and the diplomas to the mentor high school students if they were able to join us tonight madam president members of the board mr porter mr wade thank you for allowing us to come tonight unfortunately neither one of our students were actually able to join us tonight i know it's heavy traffic and they have a lot going on right now as a really recent graduate center high school i was hoping that we get a round of applause for both of our students they are brett greer in time alone and the reason they were not able to attend our graduation ceremony on june 4th because they were competing in columbus at our state track meet so if it's okay if we just do a quick

007round of applause for both ty and brett thank you very much thank you mr crowe madam president and members of the board just over two weeks ago we celebrated the graduation of our high school seniors tonight we also celebrate a different kind of graduation that of our 2022 retirees it is with mixed emotions that we recognize our retiring faculty and staff we thank them for their many years of dedicated service and wish them good health and happiness in their retirement i am joined at the podium by mrs director of hr mrs burnett to accept a momento from us as i call your name please come on up on stage i would invite you to walk across the stage shake the board members hands and let's line up across the stage until we get everybody up

008here until all the names are called so we can get one one good picture starting off aaron balinoff aaron retires from mentor with 17 years as a science teacher at mentor high school [Applause] tanya benkar tanya retires as a teacher from bellflower elementary with 11 years of service [Applause] [Music] susan cahill susan retires from mentor public schools as a family and consumer science teacher at mentor high school with 17 years of [Applause] appreciate service congratulations suzanne congratulations greg simperman greg retires as an intervention specialist from mentor high school with 30 years of service [Applause] lynn four lynn retires as an intervention specialist at orchard hollow elementary with 34 years of service with mentor public schools [Applause] congratulations robin gibson robin retires after five years with mentor schools as a bus assistant [Applause] sharon hansen sharon

009retires as a teacher from bellflower elementary with 33 years of service with mentor public schools judy ivancek judy retires as a library assistant at memorial middle school with 25 years of service with mentor public schools [Applause] judy congratulations there you go cindy langelier cindy retires from mentor public schools as a classroom teacher at mentor high school with 24 years of service [Applause] debbie lasak debbie retires from mentor public schools as a classroom teacher at orchard hollow elementary with 35 years of service [Applause] christina malinowski christina retires as a steam teacher at ridge elementary with 30 years of service with mentor public schools [Applause] patty manion patty retires from mentor public schools as a classroom assistant with 20 years of service [Applause] david pancik david retires from mentor after seven years as a classroom assistant [Applause]

010vicky prostack retires from mentor as a custodian with 28 years of service [Applause] diane schiavone diane retires from mentor public schools as a classroom assistant with 25 years of service [Applause] shelly smith shelley retires from mentor public schools as a world language teacher at shore middle school with 33 years of service [Applause] good luck irene springer irene retires from mentor public schools with 31 years as a secretary at sterling morton [Applause] paula cersen paula retires from mentor public schools as a speech-language pathologist with 31 years of service [Applause] kathy stein kathy retires from mentor public schools as a music teacher with 25 years of service [Applause] sandra stewart sandy retires from mentor public schools as a classroom assistant in the preschool department at mentor high school with 35 years of service [Applause] yvonne walker retires

011from mentor after 20 years as a classroom assistant at hopkins elementary [Applause] thank you so much kathy weber kathy retires from mentor public schools as a middle school teacher at shore middle school with 33 years of service [Applause] ron wood ron retires as a teacher from shore with 34 years of service congratulations suzanne woodbury suzanne retires from mentor public schools with 21 years of service as a bus operator with the district [Applause] sue zappola sue retires from mentor public schools with 30 years of service as a secretary at shore middle [Applause] you're school congratulations thank you and heidi zicarelli heidi retires from mentor public schools with 31 years as the transportation dispatcher for the [Applause] you district you thanks congratulations thank if you would hold your spots for a moment i think mr kirby wants

012to take a photograph before you escape one final round of applause [Applause] this venus madam president and members of the board at this time i would like to invite mr reno cantipelli the ohio school boards association northeast regional manager to the podium for a special osba recognition thank you for having me my name is reno counterparty from ohio school board association the ohio school board association proudly represents all the school boards in columbus each year at our spring conference we like to recognize those programs and board members who hit milestones and did special achievement last year at capital conference out of our top 100 programs mentor schools actually had two in our top 100 programs i just have a couple certificates that they missed at the spring conference i'd like to recognize your construction management

013program and your cardinal credit union community partnership for being a part of our capital conference student achievement fair and i'll leave them with you madam president in a second also uh when board members hit milestones there's 3 500 board members in ohio usually about 50 percent of those board members don't run free election either first term or don't get reelected so when you hit the 15-year milestone we like to say come to your board meeting and recognize your spring conference and say thank you for all the hard work time away from your family the dedication and and your leadership and the first award i have for hitting the 15-year milestone was board member thomas tuttle congratulations tom on 15 years [Music] and my next year 15 year award is is pretty special to me um

014board member briner is part of our leadership program the northeast region she helps um state out in lake county she gives up a few more hours and a few more meetings that she has to attend to but madam president congratulations on 15 years of service [Applause] and i'm going to leave these with the superintendent thanks again for having me [Music] thank you mr catapeli and congratulations again to mrs breiner and mr tuttle [Music] we're going to have mr crow come on back going a little off script with the traffic today one of our graduates was able to make it today we would love to be able to the chance to recognize an individual i'm going to bring him up here in a second we're going to play our you know our pomp and circumstance for

015him and then mrs breiner is a board president do you mind handing him his high school diploma an official manner mr gatzke [Music] brett greer [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] brett b brett before you walk off stage if you can please move your tassel from the right to the left congratulations [Applause] thank you mr crow [Music] we're going to take a short break for anyone that would like to leave of course you're welcome to stay but if you have other things to do we certainly understand thank you for coming tonight regular board meeting on may 10 2022 special board meetings on may 11 may 16th may 17th and june 2nd 2022. second any discussion call the role mr tuttle yes ms payne yes ms cook yes it's justly yes miss breiner yes ocean carries five

016zero thank you [Music] and hearing of the public on agenda items only good evening bambi vargo mentor ohio i know mr wade will be presenting some financial data shortly and in the past he has referred to spending for funding for tutors for children to get them back on target for their grade level after the district introduced online learning as a safety measure during covid i just want to thank the district for taking this extra step to help our children succeed thank you [Applause] anyone else on agenda items [Music] thank you we'll move on to superintendent's report recommendations mr porter thank you madam president members of the board i have the following recommendations listed under the consent agenda and recommended recommend approval of items 681 to 683 so moved second a discussion please call the role

017it's justly yes ms cook yes miss payne yes mr tuttle yes miss breiter yes motions carry 5-0 thank you madam president members of the board i have the following board of education policy on the agenda for a first reading because this is a first reading no vote is necessary madam president and members of the board i have the following board of education policies on the agenda for a second reading and i am recommending approval of both policies so moved second any discussion i just want to this is on the use of face coverings right i just want to verify or clarify for a lot of people were confused as to what we were doing there and we're simply just taking um that choice from to make that decision if there ever comes a time where

018you know it may be necessary um for a superintendent to decide to put the face covering policy in place um we are just no longer going to have that be the superintendent as a sole person it would be a board decision so you would have to have a at least three people um saying yes for face coverings to be put in place so i just wanted to clarify because i know i received a lot of information and feedback from the community you know as to why we were doing this but with a new superintendent as well coming in we felt like it was necessary for the board to make that kind of decision if it ever comes up again but hopefully it won't madam president i also had several questions about this new policy and

019i just wanted to talk a little bit about my thinking i'm with this as well and you know as board members we have been elected and we represent varied opinions and the different perspectives of our members is important when we're making these decisions i did have a concern that requiring a board vote might limit the flexibility if quick decisions needed to be made to adapt to the policies and after talking with mr porter he did assure me that he felt that five heads were better than one and if an emergency did arise the board could grant the superintendent the power to make a change in an emergency you know for a short-term policy i'm also comfortable that the language includes establishing procedures and requirements and compliance with federal state or local departments of health or

020education and you know i just feel that as board members we it's our responsibility to make this decision thank you any other discussion ready for the vote please call the roll it's justly yes miss cook yes miss payne yes mr tuttle yes miss breiter yes motions carry 5-0 before we move on can we make sure that we accept the approve the resolution for the graduates b1 that was included in here correct mr porter he won [Music] on my page two i do have it under yeah i believe it's under b1 if that's a standalone item then we should have a vote just to make it okay thank you so motion for b1 resolution and accepter proof the amenity high school graduating class of 22. i'm delighted to say yes i moved that way i got

021this pain for a motion second any discussion please call the role ms payne yes mr tuttle yes ms cook yes it's justly yes chris breiner yes motion carries 5-0 thank you madam president and members of the board i am 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 the mce agreement agenda item related to exempt employees and agenda items f g related to administrative staff so moved second any discussion i just wanted to thank the mentor-classified employees under the leadership of president dona cola for their professional negotiations and the significant concessions that they accepted and health benefits for the financial health of the district thank you any more discussion please call the roll miss

022jeslin yes miss cook yes mrs payne yes mr tuttle yes miss breiner yes motions carry 5-0 before i conclude my part of tonight's agenda like we did a month ago with mta i want to also thank mce for their collaboration and commitment in agreeing to a three-year contract i also want to acknowledge and thank our exempt employees and administrators as well for their ongoing dedication at this time i would also like to take an opportunity to invite up to the podium two of our newest administrators for a chance to share a few words first our new coordinator of transportation miss heather wiseman [Applause] [Music] madam president members of the board mr porter and wade i want to thank you for this opportunity to be part of such a great team of educators and staff i

023am proud to be joining the munner cardinal team and thank you for making me feel welcome to the cardinal family [Applause] and next i would like to invite up miss julia ezzo hired as a special education supervisor [Applause] [Music] good evening madam president members of the board mr porter and mr wade i would like to thank you for this exciting opportunity i'm very grateful to be chosen to be the new special education supervisor it's an honor to return to the middle schools and continue to work with my colleagues at mentor high school i'm committed to doing what is best for students and look forward to continuing to build relationships with my students and their families mentor schools has provided me with opportunities and experiences i will never forget and have helped to shape my career

024i appreciate all the support i've received from administration and my colleagues during my time in mentor schools thank you for being here [Applause] thank you this concludes my portion of tonight's agenda thank you madam president members of the board and ask that you approve item a1 approval of the medicaid school cost report engagement letter second any discussion please call liberal mr tuttle yes miss payne yes ms cook yes ms joslin yes ms bryner yes motion carries 5-0 man of president members of the board mr porter i asked for the approval of the neonet voip contract so moved second discussion please call the roll miss justling yes ms cook yes miss payne yes mr tuttle yes miss breiner yeah motion carries 5-0 madam president members of the board i uh mr porter asked for the approval

025of the agreement with arcade the management also known as fast track auctions be approved so moved second discussion of the rule ms payne yes mr tuttle yes miss cook yes miss jessling yes miss brighter yes motion carries 5-0 madam president members of the board mr porter asked for the approval of the resolution determining the proposal for construction manager at risk services submitted by millstone management company so moved second and a discussion i'd like to add the middle stone management company is awesome we work with them quite a bit yes they they do a great job thank you please call the roll miss jesslyn yes ms payne yes ms cook yes mr tuttle yes miss breiner yes motion carries 5-0 madam president members of the board mr porter asked for the approval of the resolution to

026ratify approve and authorize certain settlement agreements relating to real estate property tax complaints and appeals so moved second discussion thank you to mr wade for the continuing effort to try to find a fair agreement for some of those individual situations and it protects the support of our district and i'm very very grateful because i know it takes a lot of time thank you this is a result of the we'll probably be doing this every month or every other board meeting as a result of the new law uh this these are to confirm the agreements that have already been entered into with the corporations that we've had to settle disputes that we had over the auditor's valuation of the properties commercial properties only so these are just to certify those properties so that there would be

027no recourse in the future because of the house bill 126 that's passed that's good so we beat the regulation yes so we had those done prior to the july change but there is a chance in the future that uh if there are appeals that we are going to make we would have to present those to the board for approval and recognition before those become finalized thank you any more please call overall miss jeslin yes miss cook yes mrs payne yes mr tuttle yes miss breiner yes motion carries 5-0 madam president members of the board mr porter asked for the approval of the resolution approve and authorize the settlement agreements relating to real estate property tax complaint or appeal so moved second discussion please call the roll miss payne yes mr tuttle yes ms cook yes

028miss joslin yes miss breiner yes motion carries five zero madam president members of the board mr porter asked for the approval of the resolution to appoint a superintendent in approval of the employment contract for the superintendent so moved second discussion please call the roll miss justly yes ms cook yes miss payne yes mr tuttle yes miss breiner yes motion carries 5-0 thank you at this time we'd like to ask mr craig heath to step up and say a few words [Applause] [Music] good evening madam president members of the board mr porter and mr wade first of all i just want to thank you for the process that we went through to get to this point this evening i am so honored to be selected as the next superintendent here from up manor public schools my

029family and i are really excited about the opportunity to move to the district to live here to work here and my hope is to retire here as well this district is very innovative and that's what drew me to this position every step along the way in my work in hilliard dublin delaware has led me to this spot and i think what we can do together is going to be phenomenal so happy that mr porter will be sticking around in the district as a resource to me as i step into this role i want to thank him for this opportunity as well one of the reasons that this position was so intriguing to me and i know we talked about this in the interview process is family my family lives here in lake county my parents

030still live in perry my sisters live in perry my brother still lives in perry and i can't wait to move here to mentor to be closer to them i want to thank my wife kathy who's here this evening my son brandon my stepson evan because without their support i wouldn't be here today i also want to thank thank my sister danielle who's here with us this evening too she has encouraged me every step of the way in my educational career as well and i i'm so happy that she pushed me to do this lastly i want to thank my mom and dad um they can't be here this evening they're going to be at home watching on tv later this evening i'm sure but again i i owe a lot to them in the way

031they raised us as a family we didn't have everything we needed when we were growing up but we had the love of their of a mom and dad in our in our house every step of the way finally in our interview process we talked a lot about the gifts that every single student in mentor public schools has and our role is to identify what that gift is put things in place to support that gift and help them be as successful as possible i can't wait to get started on that process here the superintendent of men of public schools is a dream job for me and i am so blessed to be standing here today again thank you to the members of the board i am so excited for this opportunity and i just can't wait

032to get started thank you any other comments before we move on um madam president i just would like to thank all of our stakeholders that completed the surveys and attended our community sessions your input was very valuable to create a candidate profile our interview questions and ultimately offer a contract to mr heath our search was completed with the assistance of the ohio school board association who attracted several qualified candidates and our interviews and reference checks used the concerns and desires that the community expressed that they wanted in their next superintendent we believe mr heath to be a thoughtful leader who will put the needs of our students at the forefront mr heath is known for his visibility in buildings and his relationships with students staff and community members he has a background in data-driven leadership

033and he is passionate about special education work readiness skills and forming community partnerships and i'm excited to welcome mr heath to our team i just want to echo what maggie had said she said a lot of what i had written down as well so i won't go into detail but i'm excited to have mr craig heath and i think that we all took the feedback especially from the surveys and the focus groups and we did utilize that information to ask questions during our interview process so we all collaborated and i'm happy that we all had very open discussions and thrilled to have mr heather [Applause] [Music] congratulations again and welcome mr heath i look forward to working with you madam president members of the board several years back mentor board policy was passed that required

034us to annually present our permanent improvement plan as the board saw value in knowing what our capital needs were going forward on a five-year basis to both maintain our facilities as well as enhance our buildings and properties across the district i will provide a look at our capital projects that are underway now many projects that are scheduled or anticipated mr wade will also provide some financial context a little later on in the discussion i will also share our most current vehicle replacement plan before turning things over at the end to mr lynch to review our technology plan and furniture replacement plan so together we will ensure a safe learning environment provide a balanced high quality education maximize district resources and encourage strong community partnerships you've seen these four tenets our beliefs and that maximize district

035resources is really the focus of tonight's presentation and based on the resources one of our goals is to maintain and enhance fiscal stability by focusing attention and diligence on short and long-term financial planning and that's what the board had as a vision several years back that's why we've begun to do the five-year plan and update it yearly as we do we also explore options for alternative revenue to maximize existing personnel facilities and resources we think long and hard about what we need when we need it and are there other ways that we can help to reduce the expenses for anything that we may need and a final goal to ensure a continued and balanced approach toward an equitable distribution of resources to maximize opportunities across the district we really want our facilities our resources to

036touch all of our students and families so we have an eye on that as well and we keep in mind our five fiscal management beliefs and you've seen these before fiscal decisions should be made in the context of the five-year fiscal projections there are management options attached to every dollar spent must add value to teaching and learning and we know teaching and learning also extends beyond the classroom there are a lot of lessons learned in many of even the extracurricular activities that our students engage in we focus on aggressively managing the largest expense areas salaries benefits special education and facilities is there and quality is always cheaper in the long term a couple of things to keep in mind as we head into the yearly look you know look design services and construction manager at

037risk are in play uh just a reminder that taylor consulting group was hired in the 2021 school year to assist us with our roofing projects we have many roofing projects our buildings are aging but generally still in good condition but we do recognize they have roofing needs and a lot of those are happening you know over these five or ten years likewise the board of education approved our agreement with millstone management in the same year to provide us construction manager at risk services and as mr tuttle pointed out millstone has been excellent for us both these groups are able to assist us in making sure we are appropriately planning implementing and managing our projects to help add value and save us time and money on our projects in the long run fiscal year 22. [Music]

038it's important to note in green added more recently to the plan parts of bellflower ridge and hopkins required some necessary roof work and so that was sort of a last-minute ad that increased expenses there is significant paving at mentor high school and we will look at a map here in a moment there are big projects at the stadium if you've driven by there you're starting to see things being fenced off there is a new weight training facility with plat with a plaza gate and ticket concession building that will all be close to one another there's a new scoreboard coming for this fall our old scoreboard was on life support and we're excited about that and its potential and the track is being replaced this summer so those are some of the big items in fiscal

039year 22 both on the facility improvement side as well as the cmr project side and as you'll see around the campus if you look carefully work has begun just as an overhead if you were trying to come in tonight besides fighting off the traffic for the concert you notice that phase one of our parking lot paving has begun and that's in blue so that's the section directly in front of the high school and just to the south end that south lot with the high school when that wraps up around july 2nd right after the july 4th weekend phase 2 will begin and that's that orange section which is the north lot and finally in the summer in green phase three will begin which is the lot that's the driveway between the stadium and the board

040office and that driveway that goes back behind the board office toward the uh soccer lacrosse stadium so you can see it's it's broken up and we're starting right on time with that also the new weight facility plaza gate and ticket concession building are all kind of put together if you're walking toward it down the roadway from this direction toward that building that's kind of the look that you'll get as you come upon the new structure if you stood directly in front of the structure it looks like that and then once you enter the stadium and look backwards at it it'll resemble that so we look very much forward to that um you know in the coming months as we look at fiscal year 23 you know that work will be will be starting soon as

041well and will start all the way until next summer on the facility improvement side you see in green more recently added were roof repair plans for shore and memorial and that's attached to this bigger plan and then if you look on the cmr side the mentor high school science room renovations are listed in purple there because those were moved up in the schedule at the board's request last year so we'll be starting work on those next june the other big expense is an all-weather baseball field and i'm going to show you the location on the map the current varsity field that you know of that's kind of way way back there will become our jv field that will have some relatively smaller renovations done to make that a jv feel so we don't have to

042build a brand new field but the new varsity baseball field will be close to the roadway but as next to the stadium there as you see in the picture so center field will be right next to the roadway there as we jump into fiscal year 24 we continue with roof work at shore but also we are adding in various amounts for paving and that's around the district in general because there are always spots that need tending to and on the cmr side we begin a three-year project to replace windows and doors at mentor high school and some work on the visitor side of the stadium as we head into fiscal year 25 roof replacements continue a lot of buildings are done in sections over a few year period if it happens to be a bigger

043building on the cmr side the high school and window door projects continue you will see a large chunk of money to create some additional parking spots especially near the areas of campus where the new construction has taken place on some of our fields we will need some more parking as we head to fiscal year 26 lake elementary gets a new roof the paving continues men are high school window and door replacement enters its final phase and we move some of the work indoors to address our varsity gym floor and bleachers in the varsity gym in fiscal year 27 which was most recently added and because it's the furthest year out that's the hardest one to predict and the one most likely to change fairfax is due for our roof replacement the paving continues and that

044we're pretty much counting on that every year to have some amount of paving we will look at some needs for the football stadium at that point for that'll be due for a turf replacement some storage garages stadium led lights and some stadium exterior work and i should say these are all subject to change based on funding based on needs sometimes needs come in front of other needs and we reorder things but we do so very strategically and it's important to keep the overall plan in mind when we're looking at any changes we may make mr wade if you wouldn't mind jumping on this page so this just kind of gives the big picture look uh from this current fiscal year through fiscal year 27 we've identified the funding needs that was the left side of

045the charts that mr porter presented gives the totals across at each fiscal year and then the campus enhancements which are the areas on the right side of his charts that he was referring to each fiscal year gives a total there our pi levy brings in about 1.1 million dollars in revenue annually we take a hundred thousand dollars off of the top of that that we use for sustainability for our straight a funding which mr lynch i'm sure is going to speak of here shortly which was a requirement of that grant when we received i believe was about 14 million dollars in that grant back in 2015-16 when i was still the high school principal and we you know used that money to kind of move forward but we've been using sustainability out of the pi

046fund to kind of continue with that and we set aside a hundred thousand dollars a year of that 1.1 million dollars for emergencies that come up for things that we just can't control rt units rooftop units that would go out repairs that we have to make to roofs throughout the year and a variety of other things that kind of come up that fall into a useful life of five years to help reduce those expenses obviously you can see we we have about 969 000 a year that we would have funding for these permanent improvement type projects it leaves a surplus or a shortage it's it's always a shortage as you can see in red here on our chart that we subsidized through the general fund to make sure that we can continue to update our

047facilities because it is important to maintain our facilities not maintaining our facilities puts us in a predicament of higher costs in the future and one of the things that i can say about the board of education and our predecessors former superintendents and cfo dan wilson it was important for us to have this five-year plan so that we didn't put ourselves in a situation where we couldn't maintain our facilities and we had to ask for more money in the future than we had planned on so how we've funded this is we've take a portion of the underspending of the budget from previous years to offset some of these costs we also take a portion of the over collection of revenue from the previous year and we subsidize that out of the general fund as i said

048so you can see that each fiscal year we're subsidizing about on average 3.7 million dollars a year on the general fund because the one million dollars that we collect in the pi fund does not cover the cost to do that it doesn't even cover the cost to do the roofing that we need to do just to keep the schools open one of the things that mr porter has done in recent months as a way to continue to find ways to meet our fiscal management practices is he has created a position for dr glavin um as a director of business partnerships and i think that is a fantastic idea to utilize the new scoreboard that we have to generate additional revenue to offset the cost and reduce the expenses of a lot of these projects going

049forward to generate advertising revenue that will help support and reduce the expenses and and hopefully reduce those surpluses and shortages going forward as well as finding sponsorships for naming rights for things throughout the district again to generate additional revenue so we're not just sitting back and saying hey how can we reduce costs i think we see that with the use of taylor consulting or millstone management and tda and working together to figure out ways to to adjust things to have cost savings through the process of construction but also finding ways to generate new revenue for some of the things that we're doing so uh you know i commend mr porter for his execution of that plan and um i guess promoting if you will dr glavin to that new role director of business community relationships

050thank you mr wade i believe the next slide is still mine there right mr foreign so i i would be remiss not to point out the fact that we have a permanent improvement levy that generates just a little bit over 1.1 million dollars a year we hear a lot about inflation lately i think the latest uh rates were just above eight percent or just below nine percent i think they went up this last month um you know the economy continues to um get out of sorts so to speak and we'll be interested to see what the fed does with the interest rates here uh in the next day or two to see where that goes but from that standing if you look at that levy passed in 1988 a million dollars in 1988 does not

051have the same value that a million dollars has today in actuality because it's a fixed dollar levy the effective millage rate of one mil now is collecting under it's like close to 0.4 uh in some change mills that it actually collects to generate that so if you adjusted that one million dollars of 1988 dollars to our current dollars that would actually bring in about 2.1 million dollars in actual revenue so we're basically collecting half of what was we could buy half of what we could have bought in 1988 is what i guess i'm trying to say i've mentioned this before some of my other presentations as well carnegie mellon university school of architecture did a study a white paper if you will on addressing inadequate investment in school facility maintenance and they said that you

052should have a permanent improvement or money set aside at about two percent of your replacement value our replacement value of our insured property is about 250 million dollars which would equate to about five million dollars annually that we should have just to maintain our plant that we we operate here at metro schools if you look back at the previous slide you can see we're spending about five million dollars a year to do the enhancements in the the projects that we're doing and we're currently using about 3.7 million dollars out of the general fund to to subsidize that project because the one million dollars just doesn't cover it and as i said it doesn't even cover the paving and the um roofing projects that we'd have to do so you know we're spending approximately 4.4 million

053dollars annually on preventative maintenance repairs and upgrades and i think it's you know it's going to behoove the district moving forward as i've said and we've had discussions on this as a board that there is going to be a need to look at permanent improvement levies in a pi fund increase in the in the near future again just to keep the doors open you know you look at the cost of the windows and door project at the high school which is about 1.5 million dollars a year you look at the roofing project costs that are about 1 million annually you look at the paving cost for the high school was just uh it's actually a little bit over 1.3 million dollars and that paving is only going to last us seven to eight years so

054we're gonna have to do that again and that's just the high school we have a lot of different parking lots as everybody knows throughout the district um so with that i think one of the things that we are doing that's smart is we're looking at a budget you know we're presenting that to the board presenting that to the community but we also have to consider where that revenue is coming from and if we can you know a pi fund just to remind everybody that money can only spent on things that have a useful life of five years it can't be used for salaries and benefits you know it can only be used for books balls bricks buses and balls so it's kind of where we look at it so it has to have a useful

055life of five years and that money is really prioritized to those specific types of things and i think it's time that we you know start to move that discussion because again if we were to increase the pi fund we'd be reducing the amount of money that we're subsidizing out of the general fund and that would also extend the life of the current funding that we have and also reduce the need for additional funding from a general fund standpoint well if if and when we have to go and get seek additional revenue um so i share that as a you know it's my role to advise the board and the community on complete transparency and i think you know every time we have the opportunity to have that discussion we should bring it up because it

056is something that we need to consider just moving forward thank you mr wade also part of sort of part of our an offshoot of our capital plan vehicle replacement also as we have done the past several years we continued with our purchasing plan of getting five new 71 passenger buses this year we've been on that cycle we will continue that again next year with about 535 000 budgeted for that in the coming school year and you can see we need a lot of buses that that that's an iconic picture just from this year's graduation all the buses heading down to the wolstein center again and i would just point out again that we subsidize that out of the general fund and it could be a pi expense into the future that we you know we

057have to maintain our fleet we have to be able to get the kids to school and we should uh thank muskolski for receiving the grant that she did to review reduce that cost this year so thank you for that again just to mention it was about 135 thousand dollars that we had i agree and so miss skulski helps us put together this as well as the next slide vehicle replacement so buses are not the only vehicles we have in the district we have a number of maintenance and grounds vehicles vehicles for nutrition services moving meals around for courier services and so we do have a replacement plan for those as well that's outlined with five you know in five years with that i'm going to turn things over to mr lynch for the second part

058of this presentation this evening madam president members of the board mr porter and mr wade i always appreciate the opportunity to get to talk to you a little bit about technology in the district so before i i begin i do want to talk about themes that we have in our i.t department which always comes back to fiscal responsibility maximizing the life of the devices that we have in the district but making sure that we don't hold on to these devices too long because if we do it ends up costing us time and money as we oftentimes will resell those devices at auction take that money and then use that to buy new devices for our students and our staff and then because we do this it allows us to have consistent and quick it support

059for our staff students and our parents if we hold on to those devices or if we continue to keep devices in the district that we have replaced it ends up taking time away and we are not able to offer this quick it support so this first slide is just an overview of all of the hardware in the district and this is the the budget that is spent on this i'm going to take the next four slides after this break it down into a couple of different groups an elementary group a middle school group and a high school group and then as well as the extra things in our district extra devices in our district that are needed so this is a compilation of all of the devices hardware that is purchased in the district i

060do want to point out that just was highlighted in the green this dollar amount has changed over the last year it used to be drastically higher as mr wade has given us some nice recognition over the last couple of board meetings with the ecf funds that we have received from the district close to 1 million dollars that we have received and we certainly appreciate that in the i t department but one of the things that that has done is it's put a saturation of other devices not just our district has received funds but everybody across this country has had an opportunity to re receive some of those funds so there now is a saturation of older devices out there and so what we were once receiving about 225 for for a macbook this past auction

061we just received a little over 125 dollars what once we were receiving about a hundred and fifty dollars for the ipads we were selling uh we anticipate that going down to about seventy five dollars so we do lose a little bit of funds because of the saturation of devices that are out there we will still take the close to million dollars we've received for for this loss but i do want to point that out the other thing i want to mention is that last year we made a switch in our device plan where we moved to k to three ipads four to eight chromebooks and nine to twelve macbooks and we did this to add one last transition in for our students but i will remind the board as i presented last year on this

062that we were over by doing that we were able to save over 900 000 on our five-year projections because we took we were maximizing the device life and taking that extra transition out so that puts us close to about 1.8 million dollars mr wade that we now have have saved the district over that year and a half time so this next uh slide shows our elementary this is elementary staff at the bottom it says kindergarten on top because that's when we disperse the ipads at the kindergarten level so you can see the projected enrollment the case cost the ipad cost so you can see those yearly costs as well as every five years we replace staff macbooks and staff ipads again when we came into mr woodworth and myself came into the position of overseeing

063the i.t department we had close to two devices for every student and staff member in the district and they didn't have two devices although our staff teaching staff does have an ipad and a macbook but we had an excess amount of devices in the district and we weren't even one to one we just had a lot of devices sitting around not being used properly sitting in carts and other things like that and so what we have tried to do over the last few years is to really minimize extra devices in our district since we are now a one-to-one district every student having their own device and so through this cleanup we were able to not only save money but also put every device in the district on a five-year replacement plan you can see next

064year fiscal year we will be replacing staff ipads at the elementary level this next one is for our it used to be a middle school slide but we do because we added that transition in it is now a fourth grade slide because fourth graders receive chromebooks and then they will have those chromebooks until their eighth grade year but down at the bottom it is our middle school staff that is still highlighted here of when their macbooks are replaced and when their ipads are replaced and that's what's highlighted on the macbooks and then finally we have our high school device project projection with regards to macbooks again reminding you that every 9th grade student receives a new macbook and then when they graduate their senior year we collect those which we did a few weeks ago

065we are in the process of of cleaning all of those macbooks and we'll be preparing them for auction those are currently the projected cost i highlighted there of 779 dollars just a few weeks back apple did release that they have a new macbook coming out apple usually holds on to our macbooks are already purchased and handed out to our students for next year but those macbooks usually apple does something in order to try to keep the cost down for education so we would hope and anticipate that costing somewhat similar if it doesn't then we will have to re-look at how we want to proceed and then i mentioned all of the extra stuff so on this slide it's it's all of the other devices from secretaries to nurses to custodians to food service and on

066and on and on so you can see that in order to run a district there it takes a lot of different devices and and our belief of making sure that all of these these devices are on a five-year cycle will make sure that we are always operating with with newer devices and having less problems with that equipment i will point out one of the largest expenses here is our wireless access points those were last replaced in 2019 and 20. and on our first slide that's why you would have saw a little bit of an elevated cost you see down at the bottom here a summary of this page of 399 000 that's what has elevated uh that cost uh because of the fi the wireless aps access points which gives internet connectivity in all of

067our buildings that is an expensive venture so that wraps up my technology one before i get away with it before i get and move to classroom furniture mr wade did mention i want to address the pi the hundred thousand dollars and if you look at any district when we receive the grant in 2014 the straight a sustainability we have really held on to that idea and that principle that we continue to take those sustainability funds and invest them in our high school so as you walk around the high school working with mr wade with mr fetchick and now with mr crowe we we come up with a plan each year of how we're going to spend those funds and so immediately after the grant year of 2014 and 15 we went back and we finished

068all of the classrooms so that that included the world language classrooms the business classrooms the fcs classrooms we're able to go back each year afterwards to make sure that we finished all of the classrooms in mentor high school and then after that we started to look at other special projects the student center came out of those funds as you walk through the high school and you see how we've transformed some of the hallway spaces the outdoor arts classroom came out of those funds and going into next school year it's already started as the lockers came down we're adding two new science spaces up in upper b-wing and so you'll see those funds used each year with the guidance of the principal and any support that i can offer that that's where those funds have gone

069so i'm glad that mr wade mentioned it in that part of the presentation and then i do want to talk about the classroom furniture this is primarily so we use those straight a sustainability for the high school so to make sure that we're also addressing our needs at the elementary and the middle school we have this district's furniture five-year plan and over the last five years we have concentrated on the elementary i left 2021 and 22 up there as ms stevenson knows her kindergarten classroom is getting her their furniture this week and next it is arriving we had a truckload arrive yesterday we have another two trucks arriving this friday and then finally our largest shipment will be arriving next week into all of our elementary buildings our custodians will work on unpackaging all of

070that furniture they will work on putting it all together and laying it out to the maps that the teachers the kindergarten teachers and myself created before they left for their summer break and so we are excited to say that we will be finishing up kindergarten classrooms which finishes up our elementary buildings we do have a couple of classrooms here and there that ms bowser and i are working on with special ed but we have been able to address and even provide a large projector screen in our pe classrooms our steam classrooms were fortunate when they came in that we had given new furniture we have redone our our classrooms and our music classrooms as well and so that is going to complete the elementary part of the district furniture plan already working with mr dwyer

071and ms blackburn we have ordered pilot classroom furniture for the start of next school year for our middle schools and we will identify a few more middle school classrooms as we go throughout next year to do some pilot classrooms to add in middle school classrooms were the first classrooms done back in 2013 they were given uh choices between some node desks those are the kind of the desks on wheels with the desk pull around and so we're going to come back around and offer some options of soft seating and storage for the middle school classrooms and you can see that that is projected out over the next two and a half over the next three years and then we will then at that point be at a nine year timeline of for the fifth grade

072furniture we expect the hard surfaces and the chair surfaces surfaces to last 15 to 20 years but the soft seating that we added in there we expect that to last eight to ten years and so we will start to revisit those classrooms that we had finished now five years ago and so you'll see how that projects out there as well and so i just wanted to like i do each year provide you any updates or any changes we haven't seen too many changes to that we did push out and decided to do the pilot classrooms next year for the middle school so that's really the only change from the slide from last year so at this time myself and mr porter would be happy to answer any questions i think it's very exciting to look

073at the overarching permanent improvements and how that's all been navigated our memorial middle school which was the original high school is 100 years old this year and because i think our community especially 30 years ago when that decision was made to renovate memorial rather than to tear it down and replace it with something else it shows that there's an embedded pride in our in our community for the buildings that serve our students and that by maintaining them that they don't get to a point where they're beyond repair or they're not an embarrassment to us as a community that we take care of our facilities whether it's roofing or all the paving it's it's such a big job but it has paid off handsomely and it makes me proud when i look at all of that

074and even dust down to the details mr lynch when you shared how each student or each i'm sorry teacher who's having his or her classroom renovated that they they sit with you and spend the time to make those selections there's a an engagement and a buy-in i think that makes a very important part of the whole teaching and learning process so thank you that's my point thank you that concludes the permanent improvement presentations for tonight all right legislative report mr tuttle thank you you're probably aware the ohio legislature broke for a long recess the ohio house of representatives in the ohio senate finished a busy may legislative calendar to return to their districts and begin campaigning for the august second primary speaker robert cupp and senate president matt huffman indicated that unless needed the ohio

075house and the ohio senate would likely return after the november general election before recessing ohio general assembly moved forward several education-related bills to governor mike dewine for his signature including house bill 583 the bill is sponsored by reps adam byrd republican new richmond and don jones richmond i'm sorry republican freeport and would extend the current temporary flexibility for school districts regarding the educational requirements of substitute teachers until june 30th and established a study committee to examine the substitute teacher shortage and we've been feeling that for some time now this shortage the governor was expected and he did sign a bill that establishes training requirements for arming staff in schools he signed that on monday just yesterday the house supreme court in gabit gabbard versus madison local school district board of education ruled that individuals whom

076a school board authorizes to go armed in a school safety zone must complete an approved basic peace officer training program since that court decision the general assembly has been discussing the issue of training and requirements for those individuals the ohio house presented their legislative recommendation as house bill 99 sponsored by rep thomas hall republican madison township the bill expressly stated that its intent was to overrule the decision at gabbard versus madison local school district board of education additionally the bill would establish requirements for a person authorized to go armed within a school safety zone and would establish training requirements the ohio senate presented house bill i'm sorry senate bill the senate presents the senate bill sponsored by senator frank hoagland republican mingle junction a different legislative recommendation that house bill 99 senate bill 168 will

077establish the ohio mobile training team program that provides basic firearms training programs to school safety destinies and includes quarterly training required for continued certification the house senate in may incorporated several provisions of senate bill 168 in taos bill 99 the bill details the initial requirements including training for an individual to go armed into a school safety zone and creates the continued training needed for reauthorization school boards important to understand school boards retain local control to determine if they will authorize an individual and are permitted to adopt alternate curriculum instruction and training with approval from ohio school safety and crisis center created under the bill governor dewine has publicly stated that he will sign the bill and he did do that this report i wrote last week so house bill 650 this is recently introduced legislation

078house bill 650 introduced by reps scott wiggin and tom young both republicans to require photo id to vote and to require the bureau of motor vehicles to provide free state id cards to person 17 and older that's an excellent idea i totally support that any comments there hospital 651 introduced by reps wigan and mark johnson to change eligibility requirements for supplemental nutrition assistant program benefits that's a positive thing in the right direction house bill 658 introduced by rep catherine d ingram cincinnati to require the award of attorney's fees to an aggrieved person if a court of appeals determines in an appeal by a public office from a court of claims order that the public office denied the person access to public records in violation of public record laws now that was a mouthful but one

079long sentence house bill 659 introduced bankrupt to require the state board of education to adopt rules regarding disclosures of the for-profit status of community school operators and to adopt rules regarding promotional materials published by an unaffiliated person and contracts for employment house bill 663 introduced by mary lightbody democrat westerville to establish a loan repayment program to award no more than 40 000 to an eligible teacher who is employed in schools with low performance ratings and with difficulty attracting and retaining classroom teachers seems like that's a good thing in the right direction house bill 667 introduced by lightbody to establish the grow your own teacher program for low-income students who commit to teaching in a qualifying school for four years upon graduation or to a qualifying employee who commits to teaching in a qualifying school upon

080graduation and to provide a 7 500 scholarship per academic year to a qualifying student and upon completion of the four years of teaching requirements the remainder of the loan is forgiven what's interesting on those two house bills there's a shortage of teachers and there's not as many people today young people going into teaching as once did 20 years ago and this will help to promote that house bill 677 introduced by young to require the county auditor to send each taxpayer certain minimum information about a levy that proposes a property tax or income tax by either electronic means or mail and requires the entity proposing the levy to reimburse the auditor for the notice expenses here's another interesting one house bill 694 introduced by rep thomas patton republican strongsville to authorize a total property tax exemption

081for the homesteads of totally disabled veterans and to surviving spouses under that spouse dies or remains senate bill 335 introduced by senators frank hoagland and george lang to modify the homestead property tax exemption for disabled veterans to be determined by multiplying the current taxes charged by the percentage of the disabled veterans disability so that's a little variation of the previous 694 introduced by the house another good point here senate bill 343 introduced by senator matt dolan to make capital appropriations for fiscal year 2023 and 2024 including 600 million dollars of ofcc and 100 million dollars arpa funds for school safety grants among other provisions that's in the right direction comments questions [Music] okay okay good any comments next no all right moving on to the student achievement report thank you mr tom you're welcome the

082end of the school year comes with many celebrations for student achievement and mentor school has many accomplishments to be proud of first and foremost mentor high school proudly graduated 611 students with a class of 2022 on june 4th at the woolstein center congratulations to our graduates and their families celebrating their first graduation ceremony for our preschool cardinals on may 26th the early childhood education career tech program held a preschool graduation ceremony both of these ceremonies can be viewed on the cardinal channel at the end of the school year our elementary schools hold annual field day celebrations pta volunteers join our students and staff in a day of physical activities fun and food parental involvement is critical to our success and our schools are thankful to have so many volunteers on a regular basis another tradition

083at the end of the year is the induction of students into our national junior honor societies at shore and memorial as well as the national honor society at manor high school students accepted into njhs and nhs are selected for their exceptional accomplishments in the areas of scholarship service leadership and character members are challenged to be actively involved in both school activities and community service and it was a privilege to witness the memorial njhs ceremony and mrs payne and i were both proud to represent the board at the high school ceremony where 74 new members were inducted into nhs in addition to our national honor society induction ceremonies the mentor high school underclass award ceremony was celebrated and they celebrated many academic and character achievements to our undergraduate students on may 17th and memorial held their

084ceremony on may 25th further opportunities for celebrating our students talents were available when our young musicians put together spectacular performances and exhibitions of their artistic abilities our high school and middle school orchestra band and choirs held concerts in may our district's commitment to the visual and performing arts starts in kindergarten and culminates in award-winning pieces during students high school years recently congressman dave joyce announced isabella graham as the winner of the 2022 congressional art competition for ohio's 14th congressional district graham who is a junior at mentor high school won with her submission trapped in my skin her artwork will be placed on display in the u.s capitol for an entire year mhs students took first second third and fourth place in this highly competitive contest the competition's honorable mentions include three men are high school

085students second place theresa morick with her submission of hungry for the past will be displayed at the congressman's washington dc office for a year third place went to devon ambrose his artwork titled intent will be on display in one of the congressman's district offices for a year and fourth place went to theresa morick her piece titled coke addiction will be displayed in one of the congressman district's offices for a year congratulations goes to our ptas our ptsa reflection contest winners julia maynard with the award of excellence in visual arts mallory chacon honorable mention for visual arts malay meelo award of outstanding achievement in photography and jordan helkberger an honorable mention in photography four men are high school students will be receiving the believe in ohio stem innovation and entrepreneurship scholarship for one thousand dollars please

086join me in congratulating grace chen alessandra klein mara murray and haniyah imran the award is a result of their work in their science research course taught by lori cohen mentor high school has also been recognized as a shaw outstanding school at the 2022 state science day this is a result of the school having most or all of our students earn superiors on their projects mentor high school is only one of eight schools to receive this recognition congratulations to our students who competed at the state science day competition grace chen haniya imran claire english alessandra klein yeshwaria pakhi carson freys lucas spencer and their teacher lori cohen and i'd also like to wish our state and debate team luck we currently have members competing at the national competition in louisville kentucky good luck to our team

087and advisors mrs tracy coleman and mrs amy rudiger thank you excellent and chief financial officers report and recommendations mr wade thank you madam president members of the board mr porter quick update on our financials this is a financial uh comparison to our may update we're showing about 283 thousand dollars in the revenue that exceeded what we were expecting even back last month in the may update and reduction of expenses about 290 thousand dollars and i'll explain that here this evening currently comparison of our may revenue collections to the prior year we're down about 387 000 dollars in may revenue primarily as i've said throughout the entire year this is a reduction in the unrestricted funding that we receive from the state based on the new state model for funding so we've known that kind of

088all along and that is the reason why in may if you compare may to last year we're down 387 000 we are down year-to-date collections of 120 000 again a result of the lower collection of the unrestricted state aid per the new state formula we are seeing uh overall about 283 577 more than we projected in may this is because uh we received our medicaid reimbursement and it came in larger than we expected so that was positive so we're seeing about 283 thousand dollars more than we projected looking at our expenses our expenses this month in comparison to last may is we are up about 2.3 million dollars and this really comes down to timing of when the expenses were expensed this year versus last year so there's real no difference there but mostly because

089of timing and if we look at the year-to-date difference it's because of the increase in our salaries and benefits for the year as well as the transfer that we had made to the 070 account as well as to our budget reserve as we've said every month and when we look at our expenses being down 290 thousand dollars this is uh because of the fact that we had a correction in our scr s collection uh that we made and when we were projecting out i was just wrong to be quite honest i overestimated it and it was everything worked out with another refund that we received which offset that so um we're actually going to save about 290 000 dollars that we we didn't project to save so that's a good thing i'm always glad to

090be wrong on the the right side of being wrong i guess in this case so um overall we're looking to be in a good spot continue to financially as we looked at what we were appropriated back in the fall and september we will see another expense coming up in our june 30th meeting we will have a june 30th special meeting to remind the board to close out our fiscal year as well as to approve our temporary appropriations for uh next fiscal year we are going to fund our building budgets and our department budgets at 100 and we're going to be near 100 for our salaries and benefits um that's atypical of what we've usually done but we're still going to call it a temporary appropriations in the june meeting simply because the fact that that's

091best practice because once we finalize the appropriations it's not best practice to go back and finalize them again so staffing continues to work itself out over the summer we'll do a final appropriation in september as we've always done but for all intents and purposes we'll be 99.9 in our june meeting so um proud about that proud of the work that our departments and mr porter and his team did to help us do that and i'd like to thank my department and their help in getting that accomplished as we close out our fiscal year and transition to a new payroll system so our department is working very hard this month to do that and they should be commended for their work we will see at that june 30th meeting another transfer to the permanent improvement fund

092of 517 000 that will eat into some of these savings that we had but that goes back to the presentation as mr porter shared earlier we added the funding for the roof projects that we didn't initially have at the beginning of the year so though that those projects exceeded a million dollars in total we're only going to have to transfer an additional 517 dollars to the o three fund to cover those projects because of uh savings that we've had throughout some of the other projects that we've done throughout the year excuse me um it is also worth noting uh with the approval of the mce contract tonight and the approval that the board did for the exempt and the administrators i will be presenting an updated forecast may forecast at the june 30th meeting anytime

093there's substantial changes to the forecast you should do an update so that that gets published online so our community can see those uh changes and see the results of those impact i'm not going to adversely impact us in the board as we had talked throughout negotiations had been looking at the impact of that it is one of our fiscal management beliefs to always live within the five-year forecast so we knew what was going to happen now we're just going to solidify that that the board has approved those contracts and those adjustments i will present an updated forecast to the board and then we'll get that uploaded into the system so it'll be on the state system so everybody can see that and i'll make mention of that at the july meeting just as a point

094of contention because that's where most of our community comes and i spoke to the appropriations so that includes my update unless there's any questions with that madam president members of the board mr porter i would ask that we approve items um a through f and my section so moved second any discussion please call the world mr tuttle yes miss payne yes miss cook yes miss jessling yes chris breiner yes motion carries 5-0 madam president members of the board mr porter i ask that we approve the mentor public library tax budget so moved second discussion please call the role ms joslin yes miss cook yes miss payne yes mr tuttle yes miss breiner yes motion carries 5-0 that concludes my portion of the meeting thank you unfinished business yes if i may um madam president members

095of the board at the request of the board i worked with mrs bonus and our curriculum department to create procedures for adapted for adapting board materials part of this process includes having two board members serve as curriculum liaisons the appointed liaisons would meet three times during the year fall winter and spring with the superintendent members of the curriculum department and or other staff members to be updated on curriculum initiatives and other relevant information in addition to these three meetings these two board members would meet with the superintendent members of the curriculum department and or other staff members when appropriate be informed regarding curriculum materials that may be on the board agenda in addition in regard to the curriculum procedure overview the curriculum course of study and or textbooks would be placed for public review on

096public review for five days two weeks prior to the board of education meeting public notification of material review would be posted on the front page of the school website additionally parents of students that will be affected by the curriculum revision and or adoption will be sent an email notifying them of the public review upon completion of the public review of curriculum guides course of studies and or textbooks the superintendent curriculum director and select members of curriculum committees will meet with the designated board liaisons prior to board adoption these steps allow for greater transparency better communication and ensure more board involvement prior to the adoption so i respectfully ask madam president if we can appoint two board members as liaisons i would like to nominate mrs payne as one of those liaisons can i understand miss

097chessling yes i would be happy to serve my background i think would be a good compliment to the role that we'll be playing in in that partnership with our curriculum department and mrs payne yeah i'd be very excited i think this whole process is going to increase transparency and trust and i i just thank you mr porter and you know barbanas and the curriculum team for putting this into place thank you don't need to vote on this dude no thank you all right moving on any new business madam president i'd like to have a discussion on the house bill 99 it was just signed by our governor retains school board control to authorize individuals to carry guns on school grounds school boards are permitted to adopt instruction and training procedures that must meet the minimum

098standards set forth by this bill it is my opinion that it is critical that we act quickly on creating policy for mentor schools we currently have summer school going on and staff that may wish to pursue training and it is my opinion that we create policy that protects our schools by limiting guns to trained law enforcement professionals [Applause] i feel that we should be creating policy that protects our schools by limiting guns to trained law enforcement professionals we should be placing highly trained professional school resource officers in the buildings the fraternal order of police of ohio representing 24 000 law enforcement professionals who risk their lives daily oppose this bill along with the ohio education association with 120 000 members police officers are highly trained in the use of force de-escalation weapons retention and are

099trained to manage the psychological stress of the high-stress traumatic situations we ask our staff to use research-based decisions yet this bill had no research that supported its effectiveness and in my opinion it creates a liability for our district and our students i thought we had a policy in place for something like this i thought there was some kind of policy that said we weren't doing this um like we weren't going to arm teachers um am i right was there a you're right that it was mentioned okay maybe it was it was mentioned i don't think we could find that policy okay because i was looking for it too and i couldn't find any anything on that correct i remember it was mentioned in one of our discussions that we've had recently as a group and

100um when mr hammond and i and i believe mr porter went back to look we could not find one that was on record i think it was um a position that we took formally as a board and ex rather than creating a policy we created a declaration of our choice to keep our campuses gun free with the exception of law enforcement professionals and i couldn't agree more mrs cook especially coming from chardon where you went through that terrible situation 10 years ago how difficult virtually impossible i think it is for a classroom professional staff to to have two different modes of response from your normal workplace serving the needs of students focusing on them and responding to a law enforcement crisis which we know just based on the news can be overwhelming for even the

101most highly trained officers the liability piece was an additional concern that we've discussed among ourselves so i agree having a formal policy that we've made that choice to limit firearms to just qualified police officers makes good sense to me would we possibly be able to expand that conversation whether it's you know not tonight at a different time or for like a special meeting to talk about the safety of our schools in general as well because i know we all received a lot of a lot of emails in reference to the shooting that occurred and what we could possibly do better you know to protect our students so i would like to i know i'm new and maggie's new so you know i'm not quite sure all of the pieces and parts that we have in

102place right now for that um but i would like to kind of dive into this deeper and expand the topic to safety of our students i would like to just say say that the latest school shooting is not the first time that we've talked about this topic we've talked about this topic over the years and in my experience i've had discussion over the years with law enforcement educators i've done some research on this topic and i'm in agreement with mrs cook i think that it's time that this board drafts a policy um i wish i had answers to this situation but i'm in agreement with everything you're saying i think our teachers and our staff have enough on their plate i don't want guns in our schools period [Applause] mr porter would you like to

103add some clarification to the safety committee that is in place right now certainly so uh safety is one of the arms of our strategic plan um we we do a lot with safety and it's interesting because i get a lot of emails about safety after right after major shootings like the one in texas but very few at other times of the year but in in mentor for several years now we we don't wait for a school shooting to respond or react we're continually revising improving practicing school safety we're holding regular meetings with police and fire and mental health professionals including crossroads and nami safety is constantly on our minds and it ranges from our protocols at the entries to the buildings to the drills that we run we actually exceed our drills to the purchase

104of extra security cameras to background checks of volunteers to the mental health supports that we continue to add to the filters on our computer system uh to school bus safety just just that list alone just barely scratches the surface it's extensive and a lot of the things that we've done have been featured quite a bit in our video updates in our school communications and some of the safeguard and you know a lot of safeguards we can share with the public some safeguards were not able to share the police don't want us to share because it's part of our response plan so not a hundred percent of things get shared i'm certainly not opposed to you know a meeting on safety if that's what the board desires um the safety experts will tell you there is

105no surf a perfect set of protections for schools unfortunately or for anywhere that we may go grocery stores churches malls but in our district safety's under continually under a state of review the police and fire and mentor and mentor on the lake have been the greatest partners we could possibly ask for they're outstanding and a lot of the work and safeguards that we have here in mentor are not necessarily in place in other districts but i'd be the first to tell you that our our work is never done in this area um specifically you know with regard to you know the bill i spoke with chief gunch this week and he is not in favor of arming those who are not trained officers he believes that having someone armed who is well he says the

106likelihood for accidental shootings he believes could increase significantly under those conditions and he knows even having someone armed is still not a guarantee of safety in addition the lead attorney for our district that we use for a lot of the same reasons that chief gunch mentioned did not believe you know would not advise that for for our district there are some districts that i think the governor was thinking about when he signed off on the legislation because there are some rural districts in ohio where the police or the sheriff's offices literally cannot get to some of those buildings you know in you know 15 20 or 25 minutes we are fortunate to have you know in most cases our our police are relatively close to our buildings we have very robust plans but again we're

107always working on those plans so um i don't know if that answers your question mr tuttle but i did i did want to give some of that feedback oh that's very good no i think that was very helpful that are people here today listening and hear what is actually being done in our practice that we follow right now for safety that's critical and yes the there are probably some cowboys in the state of ohio that are willing to carry a gun into their schools as a teacher because they've grown up firing a weapon but still they're not skilled they're not trained as our police force is and i trust them to do what is right i don't i would not expect our teachers to any one of our teachers even if he or she feels

108qualified to carry a weapon into our school building because to shoot someone is not easy when you do is freeze up i think in terms of a policy having a statement that we not only don't prefer to have anybody else but a licensed trained police officer but we we forbid it i think i would be willing to go and make that it's part of our formal policy that we're a gun-free zone with that one exception because the likelihood that something could be misused it just it strikes me as being a tremendous liability that's unlikely to do anything to improve safety and in fact would work the opposite way i would just like to add that this was also a part of our interview process and our second round interviews with our next superintendent because we

109wanted to know their position in hiring the next leader of our school district so i believe our next step would be for mr wade and mr porter to start working with our legal counsel to start drafting a policy might correct on that okay so if you would start working on that please i believe mrs cook stated correctly that we believe that we shouldn't wait on this so if you could start working on that please any other comments or no thank you questions okay any other new business thank you all right do we have hearing of the public on any items madam president and members of the board my name is cordelia clammer and i'm an incoming senior at mentor high school my older brother and i have been lifelong mentor school students in a very

110real sense mentor schools are part of our home i am here today to ask you not to make our schools more dangerous by allowing firearms in governor dewine made it clear that allowing teachers to be armed is a local choice i cannot imagine a situation where minimally trained teachers will be able to use a firearm to make our schools safer do not take my word for it just look to ivaldi texas in 2019 texas enacted what they call school hardening efforts which allowed teachers to carry firearms into texas schools unfortunately we now know how arming teachers did not prevent or lessen the uvalde tragedy and just last week the texas tribune reported that even in light of the evaluating tragedy the texas teachers union showed that 76 of texas teachers do not want to be

111armed i have to tell you that i have so many great teachers so many at mentor that have changed my life i know how hard it is for them to have a positive impact on students and they deserve to be able to focus on the work they do as teachers putting this burden on them is just not fair teachers have many responsibilities as i'm sure you already know one of which being the responsibility of keeping their students safe in case of emergencies but this is not synonymous with the responsibility of stopping a gunman inside mentor schools are varying security officials who can do exactly that teachers deserve to pursue their profession the way they love and the way they say they're supposed to do this new legislation in ohio is nothing short of ridiculous expecting

112a teacher with some 24 hours of training to engage in a firefight with an armed trooper while caring for a classroom of 30 frantic children is absurd in evaldi texas texas law requires armed teachers to take four times the amount of training required in ohio but that did not save any of the lives lost arming mentor school teachers will not prevent these tragedies don't take my word for it just look to the evolity tragedy as an example as a student and mentor a subject of these tragedies i ask the board to take action against arming teachers thank you for your time good evening madam president respected members of the board of education mr porter and mr wade my name is james cherian i reside at 7940 new creek drive we have three children attending minor

113schools i'd like to begin with some appreciation for you mr porter as you enter your last few weeks as being superintendent at the end of meno racial justice week about two years ago we marched in silence to the civic center in support of black lives at the closing event you gave a very supportive speech you had nothing to gain by being there and you probably had a lot to lose yet you showed up in support at a cardinal circles meeting for families of black students you accepted our invitation and you listen to our concerns you're a part of our conversation as we sought to advocate and care for our children in a society that still sees them as less again you have nothing to gain by being there you could have claimed you're too busy

114you could just brushed us off but you actually showed up and you genuinely listen to us i really appreciate that about you mr porter and your efforts have not been in vain the circles for black families group continues to meet and be a safe space for parents to discuss the trials and triumphs of our students in the district additionally some of the parents from the group participate on the district's dei committee and help provide a critical feedback to school leadership following the student-led walkout against racism this past school year both the circles group and the dei work that thrived under your leadership mr porter can be an added value to our district moving forward with the right support from our board and new superintendent mr heath too often when it comes to diversity equity and

115inclusion initiatives it is black people who end up with leftover scraps or nothing at all i can say as a second generation indian american that my community of origin has benefited enormously from the civil rights work that black people have given their blood sweat and tears for people like me have eaten to our full at the table of diversity and equity we have become the poster child the so-called model minority only to look around both literally and figuratively to see that the black people who gave their lives for this table to be possible are still on the outside while we are enjoying the meal inside in acknowledging that this is even a problem that exists goes a long way to improving the lives of our black students in our schools so i want to re-emphasize

116again especially as we transition to mr heath and not to overwhelm you before your first day on the job yet but here's my list we need to increase the proportion of black staff and teachers in our district we need to increase sensitivity and understanding of the black student experience in our schools and we need to continue improving resources and education for all students to learn to live together in a diverse world and so we're just since we're just talking about basics here since i'm just talking about basics here we need a dedicated administrative position that's dedicated to dei a special thank you to robert pruitt another parent in the district who helped me compose this and thank you again to our board and our hard working administration for all your hard work thank you [Applause]

117good evening madame chairman members of the board members of administration i'm lynn mazeka i am a longtime resident of pine gate my husband my son my daughter my granddaughter my grandson are all graduates of mentor high school and my one grandchild is at middle school and mentor i intended to speak on guns and i am just my heart is overflowing with gratitude for the comments made tonight i am so glad to see your opinions on this very important issue so i'm going to speak on something else instead kind of following up on what the gentleman just mentioned in the canton city school district recently they just passed a resolution to it that was i'll read it in part whereas ohio health bills 322 327 and 616 have been introduced to amend and enact sections of

118the revised code regarding the promotion teaching race sex and divisive concepts in minis and ohio schools they are saying that these bills are contrary to the values of a canton school system as expressed by long-standing board policy they go on to talk about the danger and the harm to our students our kids if they are not taught diversity inclusion and critical thinking and equity and i urge you to support me in being against these bills and making our law our people in columbus aware of our feeling on it they're nothing but a problem they're nothing but but scare tactics they're nothing but things that will hurt our kids then lastly since i've got one minute left i understand that at the july meeting there's going to be discussion on the the books that are going

119to be approved and i hope again with those it will show diversity inclusion and equity for all of our students in mentor they're all such good kids and they deserve the very best and the board has always worked towards that and i know that you will continue to do so so i send my thanks my kids of all my husband my kids have all gotten great educations and it's a wonderful place to be because of the school so thank you very much [Applause] could you what were those house bills or senate bills that you mentioned those numbers 322 327 and 616. i got them thank you good evening i'm christy bellahovic i live on dalia drive and men are on the lake and i have two students at lake elementary um first i would like

120to welcome the new superintendent mr heath and say a big thank you to mr porter for everything you've done for and with our district it's truly appreciated you leave big shoes to fill so thank you would also like to express heartfelt support of what members of the board have suggested regarding the new law house bill 99 tonight the risks that adding guns to the classroom presents to everyone in that school teachers students staff not to mention law enforcement are just too great the community does need reassurance and leadership right now and i'm looking forward to seeing that policy that forbids anyone other than trained law enforcement officers to be armed on school property and in the meantime a statement that our or a resolution that our district has no intention of arming teachers would go

121a long way to reassuring this community our students and their families as well as the rest of the community need to know we will not have to worry about armed teachers in our schools and i appreciate what you all said regarding that tonight while on the subject of issuing statements and resolutions echoing the last speaker i also asked the board and superintendent to issue a statement or resolution against house bill 322 327 and 616 as many other districts in our state have already done most recently as mentioned canton and these bills are ill-conceived poorly written and to quote canton's recent statement seek to limit candid conversations about race and gender identity in our schools spaces in which all children should feel safe and welcome we have the opportunity to demonstrate leadership as a district in

122a positive way when it comes to all of these bills house bill 99 house bill 322 house bill 327 and house bill 6 16. let's do that thank you hi i'm lauren martiza i live over on oak ridge drive i have two kids that attend mentor schools i don't have to say much i had a whole speech prepared i'm going to just echo what everyone else has said so far tonight and mentioned too that i was a senior here at manor mentor high school when the columbine shooting occurred and i remember being pretty afraid but nothing compares to the fear that i now have putting my little kids on the bus after a school shooting like the one in uvalde there is nothing that compares to that sort of fear and that's probably why mr

123porter you hear from so many parents directly after those events we just don't know what else to do but this tonight what i am hearing from you all miss cook thank you so much for bringing this up tonight it really prevented me from rambling which i realize i'm doing now but i do want to say thank you so much for taking this action it means the world to us parents thanks [Applause] anyone else okay thank you oh sorry hi diane popolis actually i'm switching gears here and saying something positive as a volunteer of mental sports concession for 14 years i cannot tell you how ecstatic i am that there is a new concession stand so thank you for putting that forward anybody that's ever volunteered there you have seen doors falling off no heat no

124air the power goes out all the time and it's so disheveled and dilapidated and if you're ever there a friday night football and that student section starts banging their feet you are very positive that that whole roof is going to come down on you so just a word of thanks for making that go forward i'm really looking forward to volunteering i hope not for another 14 years but i'm looking forward to volunteering more in the new concession stand thank you and thank you for the 14 years of volunteering i'm looking forward to seeing you in the fall there again all right thank you we will entertain a motion to move into executive session to do the evaluation of the cfo we don't anticipate any vote after the executive session so moved second please call the

125rule catch up all right um justly yes miss payne yes miss cook yes mr tuttle yes miss brighter yes we now entered executive session at 909 pm [Applause]