March 20, 2025 Board of Education Meeting

001Gary, can you do the roll? Scott Visual here. Dinany here. Brewster here. Lassi here. Lori here. Could stand for the pledge, please. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, welcome. On behalf of the board, I'd like to welcome all students, staff, parents, and interested community members to tonight's board of education meeting. I would like to remind everyone that this is a meeting of the board of education held in public for the purpose of conducting the school district's business and is not to be considered a public community meeting. There is time for public comment during the meeting in the public participation section of the agenda. Um at this time I move to amend the

002agenda and the item uh that is is presented is to remove from the 2026 uh fiscal PI forecast uh projection of spending of $520,000 for buses. Can I get a second? Second. Thank you. Is there any discussion? Why would we be removing that? So, we have 40 buses that are needed to transport our students every day. And the biggest need of buses is during a a way football game when we have to transport uh the football team and the band. And at that time we need uh eight buses for that. So we need 48 buses. At present we have 58 buses. And if you allow for three or four buses to be in maintenance at any given time and let's say that's four, we're at 54 buses and we need 48. We have six additional

003buses at this time. So I don't think we need to uh purchase any buses in the next fiscal year. Gary, are you um in agreement with this as our treasurer? I haven't had time to really look at it, but it was a placeholder on the PI forecast um that was presented previously now sites just to show the board tonight. But we haven't we haven't voted to purchase buses. So, what are we actually putting on our agenda? It's just to remove from the forecast because we have a 5-year forecast that will be presented. That number is a significant number and will uh have a significant effect on the forecast. So we that can't just be part of the discussion. I'm moving to remove it. That's all from the from the projection. Yeah. And we can discuss

004it all we want. Okay. It's my understanding that the governor announced uh that there's going to be some funds coming our way for transportation, but we don't know details yet. Whether that's reinstating, you know, how they used to help us with bus purchases or they're simply providing some smaller amount, but we don't know what that is yet. Correct. uh governor's proposals for school bus safety not safety grants purchase the retrogrades of the buses of current fleet buses is what I understand it as cameras and things like that not even camera um like lighted lighted stop sign like lighted signs um seat belts if you like seat belts is the one that comes up all the time like different safety recommendation that they have to retrofit older buses to upgrade to their specifications there hasn't been

005any details out but it is in the budget they are increasing transportation But it's just the base cost of transportation the current students we have. So it's a fund per rider per ridership. They're raising that. That is in the proposed budget now that's working it way through. So it's not finalized until nothing is finalized till July 1, July one. Did they say approximately how much money that would be? You said per student. They said per student. The projections have that making up for a 5% loss for taking on the hit um of the general fund, but they don't have a specific included in the projection in order when the governor's proposal came out, but that's that's the total number. There's multiple numbers that go into that that we don't have those details and that's just

006the governor's proposal still goes to the house and then the senate and then it'll go to conference committee because there'll likely be differences between the budgets that have to be resolved. So, and then by the time OD updates population. We probably won't know till September, October what those actually look like. So you're thinking we'll know later this year. Yeah. And that transportation funding is for the the transporting of children, not necessarily bus purchases. Right. Right. Yeah. That that'll just be something that all districts either will can use or will will be required to use. Right. Because if they have specifics like seat belts. Yeah. There's a right now as it currently stands. I just found the slide to flew out. They earmarked uh $30 million for the school bus safety fund to provide safety enhancement

007for buses. And they are proposing the governor proposed an increase of the state share of transportation to 45.8% in FY26 and then 50% in FY27. So that's just in the transport of students. Um that's there. Okay. Well, thank you for that. Just another note as well on the bus purchases. If history remind if we order the buses next year, we don't get them actually pay for them until probably a year to year and a half out. I don't know what the weight is now on them, but I know they were a long time on the last lot we ordered. It depends on which if we're buying regular buses or special ed buses, they have different lead times and depending on what's in stock and what's available. We've got them as short as three to four

008months, as long as a year and a half to two years. So, normally when we order a bus, we could expect a year. I would say the minimum that's the lead time out on a bus. Yeah. Right. So, can I just be clear again? We're voting to remove nothing from the agenda. You just want to remove something from a report that Gary has in his possession from a projected spending. But it's not an agenda item. Correct. I'm not clear what we have to vote on. voting on removing it from the projected 2026 spending. Is that required? Where should that be handled at? So, it sounds like the motion on the floor is to amend the agenda to include a resolution to remove it from the forecast. So I think after the board is uh finished

009discussing the question of whether to amend the agenda then later in the agenda that item would be added and I would put it under financial matters and then you would take up the the merits of whether to remove those buses from the forecast. But we don't we don't approve the PI forecast. Correct me if I'm wrong. Just directly we have not. Yeah. So we approve to go out to bid for buses. We typically approve to go out to Ohio schools council to to bid those buses out. They do it twice a year and we haven't done that yet. So there's I'm just confused on what it is we're voting to Well, right now we're voting to not do something we haven't yet done. No, no, we are moving voting to uh remove the projected spending

010in our 2026 fiscal spending report projection. Actually, I think Mr. McIntyre, you said we're amending the agenda to add a resolution, right? So, first we're amending the agenda to add this resolution. So, um basically, we're we're pass you want to have a resolution to not purchase buses this year. That's not what I said. Kind of. It is. Okay. So, the motion on the floor is to amend the agenda. Can I get a second? Second. Okay. And so the discussion is there any further discussion? Okay, Gary, can you call the role? Scott Bishell, hi. Denise Brewster, hi. Melinda Grassi, nay. Niski, nay. Dennis Keane. Hi. Okay. And so, Mr. McIntyre, um, can this resolution uh be voted on anywhere in in the agenda? It can. Yeah. It doesn't have to be financial. So, I would just

011handle that right now. And so, I I move to um to have that resolution, which is to remove the projected $520,000 in the 2026 uh fiscal year to remove that uh from the projected forecast. And can I get a second on that? Second. Thank you. Any discussion? Is that simply because you don't like what that says because it has facilities on there we can't afford? I'm just I'm curious why we're doing that. So, I want to be clear on all of our projections and be as accurate as we can possibly be. If that's not going to be there, we should just remove it. So, Mr. Placo, when you added the buses to our five-year forecast, can you tell me why you added the buses? It was based on historical purchases and the numbers on tonight's

012forecast that were in the projections um when we get to that point were repeats of the numbers that were provided um this past fall. Have we recently spoke to our transportation director to understand the condition of the fleet if we're going to need possibly purchase of new buses? I haven't had that conversation with Kyle yet. Okay. So, we don't know at this point. So, I had a conversation with our transport transportation director today and everything I just said is what he told me and um so yes, we have that information directly from him today. You have that information. That's right. Now we have it also in taking care of our buses so they're no longer on a 12-year life cycle and they can be on a 20-year life cycle. We're not going to be needing

013to buy as many buses in the future. So, that'll be another topic of discussion, but maybe not for tonight. So, any further discussion? Gary, can you call the role? Um, Scott Fishell, hi. Dennis Keaney, hi. Denise Brewster, hi. Linda Grassi, nay. Lori Kiski, nay. Motion passed. Um, approval of minutes. Um, I I have some other additions of things that I would like to change the agenda if you don't mind. Okay. Miss Grassy. I would like to um make a resolution to remove item B under board of education business which is building edition Buckeye Elementary because I believe our fiveyear forecast that 5 10 year forecast for our PI will show that we can't really afford that. I'd just like to remove that, table that for further conversation later down the road as we have an

014opportunity to review the budget for our PI um fund. So your motion is to amend the agenda to what? To remove item B under board of education business. Please table it till further conversation can be had. And just to be clear, that's item 15 on the agenda. Item 15, item B. Okay. 15B. Yes. Do I hear a second? A second. Thank you. Any further discussion on that? Gary, can you call the role? McGrassi. Hi. Lori Kiski. Hi. Scott Fishell. Nay. Dennis Keany. Nay. Denise Brewster. Nay. I would also like to ask that we remove item C under board of education business. Um giving our owner's representative authority for all the items listed in section one, two, and three. I could read them if you'd like. We haven't had that conversation at all. And so you

015want to remove what item C under board of education business owner's representative authority for Riverside school projects. And you want to remove that for what reason? We haven't had any conversation about it. And what is there to discuss? Takes away the authority about I can just I'm sorry. I don't mean to interrupt. So is there a second? Yeah. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay. Thank you. No discuss, please. And that was just discussion on removing it. Correct. Yeah. These are appropriate resolutions. So u and question why is it not appropriate? So Mr. McIntyre we are just discussing the to remove it or not to remove to amend the agenda by removing that item. Dan, would this be a one or a two-step process? It would be a It's really just to amend the agenda

016by removing it. So, that would It's a one-step process. Onestep process. It would essentially table it, which is a a temporary delay. Right. I was just waiting to see if there's any further discussion. You just don't think it's appropriate? I do not. Okay. Is there any other reason? Absolutely. And that is section two indicates that our owner's representative shall consult as needed with the Riverside local school district board of education president regarding scheduling and other matters of general project administration. Um it bypasses our administration. Um I don't I don't think it's appropriate. Yeah. So, this in no way bypasses the administration and and um you're right because that was item D. So, we can have that conversation when we get to item D. Okay. So, you don't want to discuss that? No, I do not

017believe that our owner's representative should be having conversations with you to determine the scheduling of the projects of this district's projects. That should be left in the hands of administration and the full board. So the administration will be fully engaged like it has been up until this point and as we move forward and work commences. Uh it's very important during construction projects that we don't have um multiple people instructing the people doing the work as to what they want done and so it just needs to be clarified as to the line of communication. That's all. Yes. The line of communication should be with our administration. Okay. I would appreciate that input. I would kind of like to know what our owner's representative thinks about that item. I mean, who who who would our owner's representative

018in general be communicating with in any other project? They would be communicating with the administration. Okay. Do you have anything further to add? Not at this time. Gary, can you call the role? Linda Grassi, I think I'm It's a Yes, it's an I. Lori Kroniski. I. Scott Visual. Nay. Dennis Keiny. Nay. Denise Brewster. Nay. Is there anything further, Miss Grassy? There sure is. Well, we I'm going to ask that we remove item D, authorization for change orders for Riverside School projects. I got a second. Is that under 15? It is under 15. 15D. Yes, I will second. And we have a second from Miss Kiski and discussion. I think it's highly inappropriate for authorization for change orders to be coming from someone outside of our district. Um, we have a treasurer whose job is encompasses

019that work. Um, I I I feel like this crosses a line and I'm not exactly sure what line that is right now. I'm having a hard time with that. Okay. It's a it's a normal procedural matter in most construction projects. So, I I'd just like to add that um we're doing a lot of our homework in the preparation of these projects for construction. And due to that intense conversations we've been having and what our desires and needs are, I would think it would be a very rare instance where we would have a change order of that magnitude. That change order would have to come basically a request from us to change something. And if we don't have our mind made up by the time this stuff goes to construction, then you know, no, this this

020resolution gives our owner's representative the authorization to sign any necessary change orders authorized by this resolution. I have a Yes, I I understand that and I'm just saying the likelihood of those change orders will be very very slim. I don't think that matters. Okay. So, it just so everyone knows it's in construction projects. This is a normal mode of business. So, I don't know. Um there's part of an ethical issue here, too. So, I don't know, Mr. Placo, I'm sorry. I'm going to put you on the spot, but as a licensed treasurer, you do have ethical duties and requirements that you have to meet as far as um managing our funds. I don't know how you feel about this. Yeah, I guess I had to have a question for Mr. McIntyre. Is this only referring

021to it talked about the contingency funds that are set by the board. Is that the construction manager's contingency or is this a separate contingency set by the by the district? Typically, it would be from the G the contingency fund set as a part of the GMP. Okay. It would not be anything that would increase the construction contract. Correct. That would require a separate authority from the board. That is correct. And it's also subject to availability of funds which obviously you do when you certify availability of funds for the GMP but to look at this separately as well at that time and then with you know being a public official that's held to a higher standard and can be personally held liable for negligence or things of that nature giving this authority to someone who's not

022even employed on the district basically as a subcontractor of the district. Does that put me up against any type of personal liability if something goes arai from something that I don't have authority at this point because it's being done by an owner's representative? No, no personal liability in this situation for that. Yeah, it's a separate contract outside of the treasurer's normal authority and responsibility. I think it takes us down a slippery slope. Can I ask our owners rep how he feels about this? Sorry putting you on the spot. So ju just let's let's go back for a second regarding the the coordination first and the with the administration on that. You know we we have been working with the administration. I would continue to work with them on scheduling. I cannot do certain some some

023of the projects without for instance talking correction scheduling. when when are we going to be mobilizing? When when we're not going to be mobilizing, the type of work that we're going to be doing. So, I understand what the what the resolution says, but the reality is I still have to communicate with the administration u to to coordinate the work. Once once the con once once the board approves the GMP and we get we get started and we're mobilized and we're on site working, most of my communication is going to be with your architect and your construction manager as far as the work itself is concerned. If I need to coordinate something else that's on the grounds, I'm going to have to coordinate that with the administration because I don't I can't come up with answers

024on my own. So my my day-to-day communication regardless of this resolution will be with the contractor and with the architect as far as running pushing your project forward. If there is certain things that are that are going to come up, I'm going to have to communicate with the administration on it. Um and that's just you know the part of the course. As far as the change order policy itself, the the conting there's a contingency as the attorney stated in the contract that it that allows for um change orders to be hosted against it. Anything over and above the GMP number itself, I will not authorize it, nor can I authorize it. I'm going to have to go back to the treasurer to make sure that the funds are there and the funds are available if

025we're going to increase the the the GMP itself. So, this is this is where maybe the definition of a change order is a little bit um unclear in in the in in what you're voting on. a change order for the contract changing the amount of the contract I cannot and will not authorize because I don't I I'm not procuring funds for you that has to come from the treasur anything within the GMP itself if you're want to give me that authority then I will act accordingly within the GMP but it's not a change order it's a it's a amount that's going to be posted to the contingency itself. So if the change if the contract amount the GMP is going to change, I cannot change that amount without talking to the treasur and getting approval

026that the funds are available. Mr. PL, I have a question. When uh in the past when we did our elementary schools, we had contingency funds in the in the project set aside. We still authorized the change orders uh back then. And also for the vestibule project, the board had authorized uh giving myself up to $25,000 change over authority uh with the superintendent up to $50,000 and then with the board president up to $100,000 not to exceed $200,000 in total change or without board approval. So back during when we did Parkside Riverview, we had larger change orders. We brought them to the board. Some of the smaller miscellaneous ones were just approved by myself. Um I think we had one where Mrs. Krennky had to be involved with. We had one larger one I think. But

027I think we still approved them at at the board table like after the fact. We we did approve them. We did approve a lot of them. Some of them we did not because they were smaller ones, but all the larger ones we have. Um and then you know in the past with the construction manager contingency for Parkside Riverview, most of that was used for authorized overtime work for weekend work and things like that to try to keep the project on schedule. And that was all within the contract on the contingency within the contract. All within the contingency. It goes outside of that. It's a different story. We just have to Oh, sorry. I still don't know why we need to give the No offense, Roger. Why we have to like let that be outside of

028our district because it's going to be communicating with the administration. I would think that you should still have the authority to approve those change orders within the policy and process pro processes that we already have in place because it's going to be written into contract. Five minutes of a phone call isn't going to change how the construction project progresses if he doesn't get an answer from you in five minutes, right? Like it's not going to change at that. Yeah. I just wanted to ask, are there um uh regular meetings, updates? Um how does that flow throughout the project? Typically, you have uh weekly meetings with the contractors and there'll be like a monthly core team meeting with everyone involved um that's administering the project is so the potential for surprise like finding a car buried

029underneath the dirt over it side um yeah it had to be removed or some things are found out ahead of time but okay I'll just go on record again as stating that I think that we should be having the authority to sign purchase orders be taken out of the control of the individuals that we have employed in this district to do that work. Um the extra time it takes to make the phone call I don't think is going to make that big of a difference in the project's progress. Um I would like to see our own employees we indemnify our employees. we we have insurance to cover those things. I feel like that should be left in the hands of our staff. Mr. McIntyre, if I'm understanding correctly, a lot of this terms and conditions

030are going to be outlined in the contract anyways. Correct. Yeah. Okay. Gary, can you call the role? Linda Graassi, wait. This is to remove, right? I is to remove. I Scott Fishell, nay. Dennis Keaney. Hey, Denise Brewster. Nay. Okay. And make a motion to the approve the minutes. The minutes as attached. Can I get a second? I'll second. Thank you. Ear, can you call the role? Just clarify, it's the February 27th, 2025 minutes. Denise Brewster, I. Linda Grassi, hi. Lori Kiski, hi. Scott Fishell, I. Dennis Keane, I. Motion carried. Special reports. All right, I have two. First up tonight is Mr. Chantry and the Riverview staff giving an update on their personalized learning that's occurring in Riverview. Okay. Well, first, thank you for allowing us to share about our school tonight. We're happy to be

031here. And I just wanted to introduce um the teachers that we have here tonight, Tana Ford and Kim Polar, third grade, second grade, and then of course our wonderful assistant Deborah Long. Um so we're all going to be um giving a little bit of information about personalized learning at Riverview. And just for a quick little definition of personalized learning, personalized learning is a model where students actively participate in their learning through choices that align with their interests and their strengths and their level of achievement. Um, so we have some really great things going on districtwide and we'll share a little bit about that also. Um, for instance, our third grade math teachers in the district started a cohort last year where they were being um they were having additional training and experiences and personalized learning.

032Um, this is their second year that they've been a part of that. Our fourth grade team has started their first year um this year and then all of our staff in the district has had the opportunity through our um professional development days to take part in learning and also um collaboration with colleagues who have already been implementing personalized learning. Um so we wanted to share what it looks like at Riverview and um in specific grade levels. It looks a little different at every level. We have some teachers who are kind of like entry level and aren't completely comfortable yet, but they're mainly like starting with just the choice part. And then we have teachers who are really really um doing a lot more indepth um personalized learning in their classroom. So, um we're going to

033start with kindergarten. So, in kindergarten, we're just starting with offering choice. And um this is a kindergarten choice board for site word time. And typically you might see if it wasn't personalized, you might see just like one drill for site words that everybody's doing that might not match up to every student's um strengths of how they learn if they're visual learners or if they they learn by repeating the words. So when we're teaching site words, we want kids to see them, say them, spell them, be able to pick them out um in some text even at kindergarten level. So, this is an example of personalized learning where it was site word time and some students were um using like clay to outline the spelling to to help them learn how to spell the site word.

034Um some of them were doing like a little rolling the dice thing where then they would have to find the site word on their paper. So, it kind of just aligns to different skill levels and interest. And so, that's just a a little bit of what we're doing in kindergarten. And then, oh, these are just pictures of of them doing their different activities. And then the teacher would be walking around and asking them questions and helping them. Um, we want to see that they're not just busy doing something. We want to see what they're actually getting out of it and that they are, um, learning as they're doing their different activity. And then in first grade, um, a lot of just starting out with choice in first grade. This is a first grade site word

035or um, choice board independent reading time. They can choose if they want to listen to their story on their Chromebook, if they want to read with a partner, if they want to read independently, um they might be practicing some other skill for reading that, um is aligned to their level. And then second grade, um in second grade, we are really trying to um cater to each of the students needs, their strengths, their interests, their learning styles. Um, and we've really kind of opened up some of the choice time in not only math, but in our ELA portions of our day. Um, this is an example. In the top corner, there's the choice board that you would see if you walked in. Um, kids are able to build choice out of our new program, Whiten Wisdom.

036And also with GEOS during this time, it's really encouraging some independence. Students are taking charge of their learning. And if you notice also at the bottom, uh kids are kind of jotting down the look to see what's um choices are available today, things that they have to do and some choices that they um can choose from that day. And they will make a plan of the choices that they want to use that day and simply just on a dry erase board. So they can start to also learn to manage their time. This is an example of um math choice time. And during this time, they're doing a little bit of goal setting. So, this is where we've kind of gotten a little away from just the choices and now we're like building in the goal

037part of it. They're trying to determine where they are um what needs they have as a learner and then also offering different choices there. So, you'll see kids in the classroom that are working with a teacher. You'll see them working u maybe with a partner. uh they will also be working on some of our digital platforms that support our programs. And then we also have opened it up to doing some choice during foundations. Um you'll be happy to know that sometimes during foundations we can make the lesson go 25 minutes and other days they go 45 minutes. So if we structure our time and offer some choice during that, now we have already built this structure that embraces time for us to um work with kids in small groups to target um the interventions that

038we need to support their learning. And again, you're going to see kids that are on our digital platform such as Funhub that we were able to try out this year. Um they're working with the trick words that are in the program. They're working on um some of the activities that maybe would have originally done whole group. Now we've been able to kind of pull those back and now they can be a little bit more independent with that. Free up some more time where you can get in with those small groups or individuals and monitor student learning that way. Oh, that's you. That's you. To be fair, she updated the slide deck after I printed it. So that doesn't matter. That's that's what happened. Sorry, we have a picture we need to put in. Um, so

039certain I saw people like looking around like, "No, that Oh, sorry. We're keeping you on your toes. You got to That's right. I appreciate it. We have to pay closer attention." Um, I started my personalized learning journey um, two years ago and it has changed my life and I want have it all to thank to Dr. Maler who has actually uh, let me be part of a program this year where I got to work with other teachers from other school districts from all over. um the state of Ohio and just learned some like really awesome strategies to include in my classroom. So, I'm really proud of that. Um my students have started what they call data binders. So, they're like owning their own learning and they're kind of um I guess they're they're excited about

040what they get to do. So, the engagement is really high in my room. So, if they get um even if they get a B on one of their tests, they're like, I can't wait to write it in there and see what I can do and see how I can grow. So, um, we're starting that process here in my class. So, you can kind of see the data binders there. We've, um, actually done five of them already, so the kids can show you their data binders when they come in the room. Um, I know Miss Long likes to come in and look at them. So, um, they're very excited there. Um, here's just where I I showed small groups and how we just kind of get together. There's lots of small groups going on. The learning

041is just always just with one-on-one kind of looking. The kids are super engaged in what they're doing. And this is where they pick their activities. This is kind of that choice board you keep hearing. Um that famous word. Um I have lots of choices. They have a learning progression that they can do. Um some kids have choices up to 10. Some kids have choices two. So it just depends. Um, but this is where we organize it and this is where they go and get it and they can make their choices throughout the day. Um, flexible seating. That's been super important. Thank you um to Dr. Ratino for letting us have money so we can have flexible seating and um this was one of the chairs that we um bought this year. Um it's kind of

042neat. You sit in it and then there's a little tray in front and they can put their Chromebook on them. As an adult, don't get in it because it's really hard to get out. Um, I actually showed a picture of the um, language arts classroom that is my teaching partner and how she has started incorporating personalized learning. So, there's lots of different seating going on in her room. So, I thought I would add that in there because she started her journey this year. So, it's been amazing. And so, the the next two slides talk about our fourth and fifth grade because we know that we're trying to keep their attention and keep them actively engaged. And so we did instructional rounds this year. We started them and when our teachers went around to the different

043classrooms and they saw our personalized learning guru and then went into Mrs. Far's room and saw the second graders who can manipulate all their own learning. They wanted to try it too. And so our fourth grade ELA did a culmination project on non-fiction. Non-fiction is not every fourth grader's favorite subject on the planet Earth. I don't know if you know that, but sometimes they're not into it. By offering different versions of what they could produce for their teacher, their engagement went up tfold. The teacher who was a little bit resistant because they like their projects and they like the way that they have been doing this for years couldn't believe that kids who struggle on the daily got to pick what they wanted, picked a subject that maybe they didn't think they'd have any interest

044in and they flew with it. And what they learned was more than it could have been if we would have pigeon holed them into a project. The students loved it so much and they they gave feedback to the teacher which they thought was really cool and they said, "You have to do this again next year. You have to." And so that then led that teacher to start looking at the rest of their curriculum this year and seeing where they could offer that choice. Our fifth grade, another ELA, text features. I don't know if you remember text features. They're very exciting to learn about. Fifth graders really embrace text features in this project because they could choose to be the teacher to teach text features to others. They could make a game board to te to

045teach text features. They could do a collage that they found all the text features in different magazines and put it in and then they could explain it because then they had to orally present their project. So we stepped it up one more level for them. And so that's another piece. It's dragging sometimes the knowledge out of the kids but making it in a way that they're choosing to do it. And that's why we really like personalized learning evergreen. And we just wanted to kind of come back to the the point that we all made a little bit and that's the outcomes that we have noticed with this. And as an administrator, when you walk into a room and you see these little people, and you know, I'm mainly thinking about second grade when I'm telling

046this. Um, they're all just so they're independent. They feel good about themselves. They are learning time management skills. Um, and when they have that ownership, they try so much harder. And like Miss Long said, um, sometimes the product that they give you is far more than you would expect for somebody their age. and they just have that autonomy to go in whatever direction without us like making them go in the certain direction. So, it's really nice to see and also um the the behaviors go down significantly. I mean, I really don't think that we are in either of these classrooms that much for behavior reasons because the kids are so busy and they just are, you know, the time flies. And so, we're really really loving it. We're grateful for the opportunities that we've had

047to learn and um we we just want to keep it going. Absolutely. Building strong relationships with your kids. This personalized learning definitely increases that. Like I know my kids so well. I'm so proud of them every day for their journey that they have created. So thank you very much. Thank you. So just to reiterate, I did present to programs. I'm sure Mrs. will share a little bit about that about our um academic plan and how personalized learning is kind of one of the main hubs on that and everything you do focuses around what our kids know individually, how we drive them forward to what they know and then how do we show that they know it. So, um, really great stuff and what we know about change is if you get that critical 30%, the

048rest will start to fall. So, there is a great example of how they've got 30% really excited about personalized learning and the building continues to try more and more. So, they are to be commended in that. Next up, I have a special report construction updates. Um, Ryan from TDA could not be here tonight, but did ask that I share the Buckeye Elementary update. This was also attached to board docs. Uh this is the latest iteration of the addition on the Buckeye that came out of the committee. It's got uh eight classrooms uh four or three that typically model that the Canary classrooms at Parkside and Riverview. A fourth is the same size um being targeted I believe for music and art. Um so it'll have the sink and all that and then four additional classroom

049spaces as well. So, it's a net of two to the modulars that we're replacing. Um, full-size gym with chairs. I don't know, you know, if those chairs are going to be up all the time. We have chairs there just to show that it is a uh stage for performance as well. I don't think any chairs are going to set up, but that's that is that. And then, uh, Mr. Raji is here from Can I go back to that? Let me just add one thing. Um, right in here, there are a couple meeting rooms that were added. small tutoring room. tutoring room small group small group small group could be offices very it's the same concept as the rearview edition we made offices at rear view from them they could be offices they can be small

050group rooms uh again diverse you know ability to change and use them for multiple things the actual meeting room is the green space there is a there is a targeted meeting room as well right um that is in there at the very that's um right here and then this was the art music room and it does have a bathroom. Sorry, it does have a bathroom so kids don't have to go in and out all the time, but we thought it would be best as you enter into the new section that the art music is right there and people don't have to travel all the way down that hallway to get to it. But it also, it's my understanding that the um music is not there the same day as Jim. And so if they wanted

051to use the stage, they could do that. And then the chairs um yeah according to Ryan they are like a certain type of chair that like takes minimal space to stack and he um you know thought that they could be stored in that section. It's a storage room. Yes. Storage for gym and chairs but we may we need to see how much room the gym teacher needs. Sure. Okay. So, Roger is here to provide some of the general project updates as the board is requested. Um, and then, you know, timelines as we're getting closer every month, the timelines become more and more in um in scope, I guess, is the word I'm looking for or clear uh clarified and then as well as any questions. So, all right. So, we'll do a project update. the

052U CTE and the Riverview project. The uh documents have been completed, construction documents are completed. They've been uploaded to the um um to the site that was created by the architect and Cleveland construction today. Actually, I think we're waiting on a few more drawings from the uh civil team, but we should have that in the next couple days. So, we will be working for the next few weeks on developing the GMP um between uh Cleveland Construction, myself, and the NTDA. And our goal is to have that GMP completed um and submitted to to the board by the end of uh May uh for approval. Uh the way this the way that the process works is Cleveland Construction will start working on the GMP. Uh they will submit a draft copy to u uh Ryan TD

053and myself. We'll review it. We'll make our comments on it. We'll go back and forth probably on that. And then once we get a a final copy that Brian and myself are are um happy with, we'll submit that to the to the administration and the board for review and approval. At that point in time, once the GMP is approved by the board, the uh attorney will draft the GMP amendment, which is just a AIA document that matches the AIA contract that has been issued. And all that document is going to say is that uh the the board is agreeing with the GMP that was that's been submitted by uh by the your construction manager at risk. And then we'll have in that durations for completion substantial completion final completion for each one of the the

054two projects. Um and it'll list all the documents that that GMP was was being built based on which is the the documents that have been reviewed by the administration, the committees, everybody in and involved in the process. So we're we're at the we're at this stage now. One of the things I um asked that um Brian the architect does with the with the administration and the and the committees um is to do a page turn which he is going to do that uh he's on vacation next week. He's he's trying to schedule uh something you know he scheduled that that is March 31st. March 31st 7:30 to 9. So, so that that page turn essentially what it does is to kind of walk through the drawings and it particularly it's important for your your architectural

055your electrical uh and it um mechanical is really there's not a whole lot of input. I mean the mechanical system is the mechanical system, but it's important to go through door swings, lights, light switches, what light switches are going to turn on, what when when you're walking through the buildings, both the additions. So, um, some of your IT drops, where are they going to be located to coincide with with the needs of of the, uh, of who's going to be using them. So, that's going to take place um, March 31st. that will not affect the GMP because we're still going to be working on that. If anything comes out of that meeting, if there is some uh any changes or tweaks to the documents, they'll send us that and we'll we'll incorporate that as part

056of the GMP number. So, that should not be an issue. Also, uh Ryan is going to be submitting the documents to the the township and the uh county for their review and approval so they can issue the uh the building permit. um we feel pretty comfortable with with where we're at with it because he's had some conversations already with both the county and the township. So, they know what what we're doing and what's coming on uh what's going to be submitted to them. So, we're not expecting any any big surprises. So based on where we're where we stand right now, we're looking to potentially uh break ground the first uh week in June and um we will have an updated schedule at that point in time once once we have all the subcontractors on board

057and and every the list is finalized. Cleveland Construction will work with their subcontractors to develop a uh official schedule for the for both projects, but we're going to the intent is to run them concurrently um starting the first uh part of June. Any questions on Riverview or CTE before I jump into PA? Uh there's some tree removal or something coming up at Riverview that that is starting uh it has to be done before the end of the month because of the bad situation and that is taking place next week. Okay. Is Cleveland going to selfperform any work on this or is it going to be all subcontracted? I don't think they're going to be self-performing anything at this point in time. They have not advised me that they will. once they look at the documents.

058If if they do uh choose to, I will definitely let you know. You and I can talk about um that process because they would have to submit their bid to both of us in advance, a day in advance, and then you and I can look at those proposals when they come in and we can go from there. But so far, they have my advisory to deal with. And you did send out a contractor list that there's any contractors that Yes. you know of that we do not want to engage with uh please let us know that we do or don't we do or don't anyone that are preferred or not preferred if you have anyone please let us know so we can get that list over ASAP so Rich send us send send me the

059his list this afternoon if any if anything else from whether the administration or the board has is is going to be come out please get us that by early next week because we want to add or delete uh to the list because those those bid packages that are going to start going out next week to all the subcontractors. So, if there is some subcontractors within the community um that that you want us to enter in and pre and qualify so they can bid, please let us know by early next week. There's a there's an it on there too. So, we should have our tech director submit. Yes. Well, I I had technology that is part of what redness has. Anything else on CTE or river view the process itself? We'll get two GMPS. Correct. Yes,

060you will be getting two separate. It's two separate contracts that you that you have on on on all of it. The architect, the the construction manager at risk, you know, it's all two separate contracts. So you will be getting two separate one for CTE and one for anything else on those two. So Buckeye is you know you saw we we do have a Ryan been working on a preliminary very schematic design. Um I think this is what what you saw tonight is kind of the the path he's following as far as the design is going to be concerned. Um, we're going to be anticipating some more elaborate schematic design from his firm in the next couple weeks. Once we get that, we will be developing a budget, a schematic, you know, schematic design budget that

061we will share, you know, with you and so you can look at it and then you can make some decisions accordingly. And based on um what comes out of that schematic design budget, we will move into design development, we will do another budget at design development uh stage that we will share with with the board and administration and then you can make some decisions accordingly as well. And then from there we'll go into the construction documents and that's going to be ongoing over the next several months. I do have I do not have an exact schedule from Ryan yet on on you know the different timing of of that for for Buckeye because he's been focused on CT and Riverview. Hopefully in the next couple weeks when he gets back into it we will have

062a little bit more of a defined um schedule for that. So, is the schematic on Buckeye the new addition or the renovation as well interior existing building? As far as I know, it's only the addition. I did not I'm not aware of clarification anything going on with with the renovation. Right. Um I I I if if you had some discussions with Ryan, I'm not aware of them. As far as I know, it's only for the addition. Yeah. That that was shown previously. Okay. eight classroom and a gym. Thank you. Any other questions, Gary? Chris, did I miss anything that I need to elaborate on or I don't have any questions. Okay. What would be the earliest likelihood of starting construction if Buckeye was to move forward? Realistically, probably not for the fall. And at that

063point in time, I mean, so so with Buckeye, I mean, once we have a better handle on the documents and and exactly once we go through the SD and DB phase, I think we need to take a closer look as to what, you know, come up with a schedule then and determine what what makes the most sense because obviously it's an active school. We're going to have some discussions. is we're going to need some input um from everybody involved as as far as what makes the most sense so we can develop that construction schedule right now truthfully we don't have one because we don't even know the extent of the work um I mean we know what it is but we don't know we don't know what's involved with it he's still waiting on some

064of the he's going to be looking at some of the civil I'm not sure utility wise what what is in the back of that building and are we going to have to move certain things or not we're still kind of in and preliminary, but judging just from the the process of getting the documents finalized, I don't I don't see that happening. And then I would, like I said, we need to have discussions with with the board and the administration as to how do you want to go about that project and and do you want to start and stop and and you know, because of school or or do you want to wait? Um, I don't know. I mean, that's something that we'll have to figure out collectively. Do I know when we had the 10

065like the larger editions, you had Cleveland come up with like a a estimate. Uh, can you do that with this eight classroom one as well? We can give you a full immunity if if you'd like, Chris, but I I was hoping to maybe wait till SD. We can. It's fine. We can do both. I think the SD phase will will give us a little bit more of an accurate um the the original one was just a square foot price that they put together. Okay. So, we can do that. We can certainly do that for for this for the eight classroom in the gym in the in the back just to give you an idea as to where we're at. Uh but I would I would say it would be very very preliminary one and the

066SD would be a little bit more accurate. Okay. Is there a preference? Do you want to wait till the SD? Well, you're going to do it twice if you do it. So, the more information you get, the easier it gets. Yeah. And I I think in talking to Ryan, he looks like in a in a couple weeks. Um, well, with him being out next week, I'm not sure, but but he should be able to get us something decent enough with with some details and some verbiage that we can put a SD number. It's, you know, that's going to give you at least an idea of where we stand. Yeah. And part of the issue is like Roger said, Ryan has to figure out where the utilities are. Yeah. That that's the the civil the civil

067part of of of Buckeye is going to be obviously critical just like the rest of them as well because if we don't if we're if we don't have to move any utilities in the back is one thing. If we have it, that's going to change your cost. um you know dra could change it drastically. Not for sure but definitely what's that? Not a fan of drastically. No I know. So So thank you Roger. And that concludes my reports. Okay. And is there any old business? Did you get that? Oh, okay. Okay. So, uh, old business, Miss Gracie. Yes. Um, I don't I don't I wanted to review the PI forecast with the with some of the parameters, the 10-year outlook and and some inflationary factors built in. I don't know if you're going to cover

068that in your treasures report. And that's we can do it now or we can do it later. It's either fine. If you have it in your treasures report, we don't have to do it now. I'm fine with that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I I could do it in the treasures update. Okay. I also had old business. I would like an update on the um LLB consulting contract and what the scope of work is that we're actually doing, what the expected cash outlay will be and the time to complete um and what methodology will be used to compile the email list that they are being requested to compile. Do we have any update on that? There is an updated contract that was attached to the agenda. Um I just got that. When did we get that?

069But that's um 15 item 15A. Right. Can can we discuss that? Can you discuss that a little bit for the public? Um it does specify to gather email addresses. Let me bring it up real quick. And they do not have the the methodology. I know Mr. Carmine's been out. That's why he's been the primary working with. So the scope of scope of work is to uh compile a list of current email addresses for adult residents of the Riverside local school district for the purpose of regulatory uh dist distributing board communications. Uh the payment is as agreed. Uh it was a 250 per hour with the retainer of $9,000 ahead of time. Um they act as an independent contract and we own um we specifically the work goes directly to us. Is that correct? It is.

070Thank you. Used a lot of lawy legal terms in here. I'm doing my best to translate them. Other than that, then everything's strictly confidential. Do we have any idea? Has there been been any conversation about how long that process should take? Um, compiling an email list is largely a voluntary from what I understand process of opt into emails. So um I think this involves some purchasing of emails as well from distribution centers and there's opt out. Any email you send you have to have an opt out clause to it as well. Any mass email. So if you get it once there should be an opt out to it. Uh I do not have any methodology. So we don't we don't know how that's going to happen. We don't know. We I will continue to search

071So once we compile this email list and we don't know how long it's going to take. So we're kind of leaving ourselves open to an open-ended contract of unlimited dollars because we haven't put a stop loss on that contract. So we haven't put a we haven't put a cap on it. Um what we look at deficit spending in our general fund and we have this unlimited contract for $250 an hour for however long it takes and we don't know how long that's going to take because we don't have any expectation. We don't have any estimate on the time frame in this contract. That's kind of problematic for me. Um, will we receive any information about how that email list when it's determined to be complete? Um, like how will we know that? Has any of

072that been discussed with this contractor? So, in our initial meeting, she would provide us a list when it's when it's complete. When she feel it to be complete, that'll be a list that will be the end of the contract. I believe that's what it states in this is that once the list is right like how do we determine completion? Who determines completion? LLB would be the one who determines. So until she determines this list is complete, we keep paying $250 an hour. That does doesn't make any sense to me. Like there's no estimate on how long that should take. If we're purchasing a list, it's already purchased. we shouldn't have to do a whole lot of work except for people to opt out. From what I understand in doing some of my own questioning of

073other people in this profession, um, purchasing of email lists is generally not worth your money because you usually get a bunch of emails that are not accurate and eventually whoever is doing the sending gets blacklisted and then mailing houses won't email those. So I'm curious like again as to the process of how this is going to work, how how that's going to be developed if we are just going about asking people for their email addresses. If I'm not mistaken, Mr. Caravine already does that. We every time we communicate with somebody in any way, we when we put it in the pipeline, we ask people to opt in to our emails. If we're doing this in an optin methodology, I'd like to know how that works. So we don't we don't have any answers to those

074questions. I do not have that answer. Will we get answers? I can I will I will ask. Thank you. Um and I would also like to know who's going to direct this work um and how how we're going to manage that under the retainer. I mean, I would imagine Mr. Caribine's going to have some involvement in that, but but this isn't his project. So, I kind of want to know who's going to who's going to manage that? is going to determine when we've spent enough money, I guess. And you had some new business. I did. Um, under new business, which apparently we've already addressed a little bit of that new business. Um, I wanted to discuss, but I feel like we should talk about the PI forecast and do this in conjunction with the PI

075forecast on new business. I thought that this board should undertake some conversation about what possible um ways that we can curtail spending in our PI fund um to create a balanced PI budget, whether that means not doing projects that we have slated to do currently or what other kinds of things we have we we are going to prioritize or not prioritize in our PI budget. Apparently, Mr. Fishell has already decided that we're not going to purchase buses. So, I guess we've already decided that we didn't even have any conversation and that was the new business is taking a look at the PI budget. In our finance meeting of last week, we had some very heated conversation about the negatives that are showing up in the PI budget. And again, we can talk about that further

076when you have your update. So, I feel like that's something that this board needs to consider whether we do that now or have a work session to talk about our PI budget. I think we should do that. Um, and the last item I have for new business is to begin discussion about how to c curtail expenses in the general fund in the general fund to extend the levy life at least one more year into the future as it is or to possibly think about other ways or alternate methods of generating additional revenue. Um, we're not having those conversations. We need to be doing that. If we're going to be spending money in a PI budget that we don't have money, those dollars would have to come from the general fund. So, this is a cycle

077that we're getting ourselves into. And I feel like we need to be having that conversation. Um I don't think it's appropriate for this table right here right now today because I feel that's work session. That's lengthy conversation. Generally speaking, when we've tried to have conversation about what we're going to do with to extend the life of our levies when we're in deficit spending, it's been a long process with our administration coming up with recommendations on where we can curtail expenses, staying away from the classroom as much as possible, what those things would look like. That is not that is not something that I feel comfortable doing. I'm not in the administration, so I'm not here every day to determine what those things would look like. So, I would think that we would be looking for

078some recommendations on what those things would be. So, are you suggesting a work session? I am suggesting a work session probably to discuss both the PI budget and our five-year forecast because I think I think they are so intertwined at this point that I don't think you can discuss one without the other. I would agree with setting up a work session. So, I would prefer to do that sooner rather than later. Don't know if you want to send out some times if we want to do that at this table right here. It doesn't You want to want to set a date right now? Sure, we can do that. While everyone's right here, do you have any suggestions? I'm available pretty much any night. Miss Keski, it I just I have games and all kinds of

079stuff. So, you guys throw a date and I'll see if I uh April 8th. April 9th. The 8th through 11th. I'm in Columbus for the annual treasure conference. You probably want to be there, huh? You probably want him there. Okay. So, uh 8th, 9th, and 10th. You said 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th. Oh, and 11th. Okay. We are we already have a special meeting set up for the 8th, which from what I understand wasn't going to take very long. Correct. I actually have a community conversation scheduled right after that. So, it's a it's a quick meeting and I have to run to Mel, which is on the books. Okay. Is it possible to do like um I don't know how your work schedules go, but at like a 4:00. Would you want to do a the

080seventh? That's that's the night. got something after. Yeah, I I would prefer until that day is pretty. I'm sorry. I said April 8th. I meant April 7th, right? We have a board meeting on April 7th. Plus, we probably want a little more time for the administration to vet some ideas. Okay. To make sure we don't just walk in and if you want to move into the next week then. Yeah. I mean, we can we can even move into later in April. I mean, we have the five-year forecast is due at the end of May, correct? Um, we have a board meeting on the 24th, a regular board meeting. I mean, I I would think that if we're going to do anything preliminary, I mean, if we're going to do anything large, we would probably have

081to have some conversations before you do the forecast, right? It would be helpful to have some of that information into the forecast and built into the forecast if we could make some decisions and we would have to some things need resolutions that you would have to put on a board agenda. That goes without saying. So would you want to do it on the 29th? April 29th. That's a Tuesday. Okay. So that's postboard meeting, correct? Yeah, it is. She want So you want to do it on Tuesday the 22nd. Are you available? Yeah, it looks like it. Miss Brewster. 22nd. I can do the Well, no. The 22nd doesn't work for me, but the 21st. 23rd. 21st. 21st. You guys don't have school, correct? Yes, the 21st is now we're to the 23rd. Oh, yeah. So,

082the 23rd, I can't do the 23rd. Miss Kinsky can't do the 23rd. Uh, can we do the 15th? April 15th. I have I can't I'm playing at Lacrosse. Sorry. Okay. And the 14th doesn't work. Well, I think that week Oh, that's the 11th to 11th. You're year out, right? Yeah. It's not like we can't revise the forecast, right? So, I guess if you want to push that off to the week of the 28th, I if I just feel like we need to start having a conversation. The 29th then the Tuesday and the 29th. It doesn't matter. I feel just we just need to start having some conversations. Keski 29th. Yeah. Okay. Miss Brewster at 29th. That's fine. Mr. Keaney. So, what time? Whatever time anybody want? 6. Earlier would be better. We have a wei.

083It's a pretty busy clerk. I'm pulling up my work calendar right now. I'm sorry I can't answer without looking. I don't know what's on my work calendar. Miss Grassy, what time would be conven earliest for you? I I will make whatever. I don't make five o'clock work if that were if you can't then actually I I can't the 29th. I'm out of town with work. You have on my calendar yet? 30th? Yeah, I could do the 30th. You're out. Yeah. Gone. Okay. What about the 28th? Oh boy. 28th. This is crazy. I can do the 28th. Okay. Monday the 28th. Monday the 28th. Going once. Going twice. Does that work for you? Okay. So, Monday the 28th. Can Miss uh Kinsky, can you do like what time? 5 5:30. I actually Yeah, I can do

0845 5:30. Um 5:00 on the 28th. 5 o'clock on the 28th. I know you guys like five o'clock. at 6:00. I I was off for the 19th and late be here 10:30 to pick up my son. So, okay. So, work session April 28th, 5:00 p.m. And I believe that if we can start that conversation by reviewing the PI forecast here this evening, it'll give us some fodder for conversation later in April. Okay, we're set on that. Okay. Um, that's good for new business. The board of education committee and liaison reports buildings and grounds. Uh, we had a buildings and grounds meeting and Mr. Arlesic laid out some items for us. Um, we had a main sanitary break which was repaired the same day and uh we have some flaking windows. So that's at Parkside, right?

085And that's three windows in the cafeteria. So there's three windows. There's a laminate on the windows. There's no no risk or danger of the windows breaking or falling apart. It's just the laminate that's on there is is chipping off. It's a bit of a defect, but we're outside the warranty time frame. So, um there's a replacement cost as things would be of $10,836 and um those will get replaced. Uh the fencing for Parkside and Riverview retention ponds update. Uh Parkside is complete. Um Riverview is underway. And so we will have the water areas uh fenced to keep uh kids and people out. And um the office house has three exter exterior doors replaced with commercial style doors and panic exit hardware last week. Well this couple weeks ago and u an exterior door in the

086John are off the tea hall and the welding shop doors are scheduled to be replaced over spring break. bathrooms. The six remaining bathrooms between John and the Riverside High School will receive new bathroom stalls over the spring break. Uh the Lake County Health Department will come out and do their spring inspections. Um then we're looking at contract renewals uh uh like snow removal and things like that. And then um we're looking at the removal of the Buckeye modular classrooms. And I know Mr. Allesic, you had sent over. There was maybe some interest in one. Have you had any conversation? I am I am requiring information and pictures for the school district that's interested and I will send that off to them tomorrow. Okay. And um and then we have we have some older ones that

087have been there that are pro probably not roadw worthy, if you will. So the most likely scenario since they're so old uh they wouldn't be sailable and um probably have to dismantle them and um dispose of them. So further information to come on those items. uh the CTE and Riverview discussion. Uh quotes for tree removal um Mr. Patrice. Um that's moving forward probably will start tomorrow, right? I believe so. Yes. Yeah. And um so that work will get done. And then Mr. Allesk said that he found um a replacement for the boardroom univvent $1,87152. It was the deal of the the year and he found it and he's going to do it and a lot of people will be happy that it'll be quieter and more comfortable and look better. I'm not guaranteeing anything. I'm

088just saying we're doing the work. So good on that. So thank you for that. Okay. Um the business uh advisory uh talked about um a lot of opportunities for students really is is what it came down to and um looking at at um developing programs so that kids can have more opportunities. There's a senior capstone project. Uh it's a 250 hours requirement with a local company and this is a replacement for competency for graduation. Um would you like to add anything else miss to that? We had our first meeting today with students who are interested in the pilot next year. And how many? Well, we had 20 21 kids and even after I talked about it, they all signed up to fill out the application. So, we have 21 who are interested. I don't know

089if we're going to be able to take all of them in the pilot because next year will just be a pilot, but it was a good first um showing of interest. So, it's very exciting because in the meeting you were saying you were thinking 10. Well, they keep trying to tell me I can only do 10. Okay. But I may have found a workaround to do more than that. So it's uh part of what we want to do is incorporate the local businesses with our students and vice versa. And students can come out of high school and have some experience and possibly have an experience that they will either define as liking or not liking. And if they don't like it, at least they know would know what they don't like and can move on

090to something else. And uh so it's offering some opportunity looking to grow that program and expand that program. As we know uh a lot of students go to college have a lot of debt sometimes have a very difficult time uh many many years into their life paying that off and sometimes another option where they're not going to have that debt would be more favorable. So moving in that direction. Um and then some other items. um future forward fair the ninth graders looking at maybe 10th graders um you know what can Riverside do for you to help get you ready and and just you want to talk about that just briefly so we're looking at more of that comprehensive programming that we would be doing maybe a one-time event each year for each grade level of

091high school students. So when you talk about the future forward fair in nth grade, looking at how can Riverside um help advance kids in their career exploration like being here as a high school student, then looking again at 10th grade, what could we do for 10th graders to give them to get them to start thinking beyond high school. So looking at different programs that we can do for all students at the high school level to give them more career experiences and then also um looking at uh teaching kids how to be responsible, pay their bills, plan, invest, that sort of thing. Right now we pretty much have one financial class right for the kids. We have financial literacy that is a requirement that kids take as juniors, right? And so it's just starting to be

092broached a possibility of u expanding that a little bit and um teaching kids a little bit more. And wouldn't it be great if uh you have to be 18 unless your parents sign for it. How wonderful would it be if if we could have the kids at Riverside um being signed up with u 401ks or IAS or something even when they leave high school because as we know sometimes we never get to it and but if something were there even if they weren't funding it right there they would have it and it would be available to them and we want to help each and every student have the best opportunity possible. So we might be looking at developing that a little further. So that was a discussion I had to say after the meeting. I

093didn't know we were working on that but okay. So So who's our financial guy that was that was uh he's not our financial guy. Well the guy the guy mine attends the meeting. Yeah. Adam Lulo. Adam. So Lulo. So we had some discussion about that and and uh so we'll talk a little bit more about it and discuss it with you. I very and Adam's very involved in the district so he would be it's a great connection. He was excited about it. So yeah. So all right. So that's my report. Curriculum and programming. Okay. Um the curriculum programs committee met on March 14th and um the the report from Dr. Malikar was that they had the second professional development day that was held on March 3rd. The teaching staff met with in the morning to

094follow up on their previous inservice work. But in the afternoon, the entire staff uh met in the fieldhouse to celebrate the year's successes. Uh there were photo boards on display. Um part of your upcoming report, I don't want to steal your thunder. Talk us a little bit about it. A little bit. Okay. Um so it was very successful and it got the entire staff uh you know whether you're teaching staff or bus drivers or maintenance um that everybody got together. So, um, then Dr. Malikar then led a discussion on a new math program for grades six, seven, and eight. It's called CPM, which stands for college preparatory math. However, it's not just geared for collegebound students. Um, it includes student workbooks to practice skills. uh because a lot of the programs even though this has

095a digital component um it allows them to do calculations you know doing paper pencil uh because some of that's missing and then when they take testing um whether it's state testing or whatever they have to be able to explain their answers it isn't just I got the answer you have to explain the process so that's included in this because there's a lot of collaboration with the students because they're engaged in problem solving. Um, this program because it's going to replace Sabbath math at these grade levels. Um, the cost of the new program will offset be offset a great deal because with the new program materials. Um, CPM comes with a parent guide as well, which is important. And teacher training will take place one day before the end of the year and four over the

096summer. Was it? No, we're actually in trying to get more before the end of the year. So, we're still working with the company on that one. Okay. So, they'll be training prior to the end of the year. Yes. So, that teachers who want to prep and and get ready over the summer will have have time to do that. Okay. And the program has been used successfully in Solen, West Giaga, and Aurora schools. It's my understanding. I I had a conversation with someone at WestG, but um they um said that there was a lot of training with the teachers like to get them like coaching them along. Okay. Because it's a different way. Yes. Okay. All right. Um and um at some point maybe during Gary's report, we're going to talk about the requested materials because

097there's Yeah, I had some questions about that because it changed since our meeting. Um a um uh teaching and learning plan was outlined by Dr. Ratino and are you covering this or do you want I am not yet. I will we are finalizing put final touches on bring it to the next programs. Okay. So I don't want to steal your thunder on that after that. All right. So uh but basically it'll be something that's posted online. everybody can see how everything is connected with what we're doing instructionally and it also incorporates um the traits of portrait of a Riverside Beaver. Um so that's to be more detailed. We are really excited about how it's all coming together. Okay. All right. And then Cheryl Lanning, who's our uh student services coordinator, um announced there will be

098a school psychologist intern joining the staff from the University of Finley next year. And this opportunity is funded by the state of Ohio. Um, in other news, Mrs. Lanning stated their department will be working on a graduation correction uh a corrective uh action plan which will allow alternative pathways to graduation and essentially this is to comply with a federal requirement. Correct. Okay. Correct. So it's just something they have to go through. State. Yes. All right. And other uh discussion topics were uh transition planning among um you know Riverview, Buckeye, Mel Ridge, you know, because you have to move people to be able to do thus and so during construction and then that's not it's almost like dominoes, you know, you keep moving people around, but you know, we're trying to minimize those moves. And so

099it's still a you know, in discussion. And then we talked about class size a little bit. it's um continually monitored. Uh some some classes um are like on the cusp of either possibly having reduction or maybe having an additional teacher. So they monitor that. And obviously we haven't even opened up kindergarten registration yet, but we don't know what will happen with kindergarten registration because sometimes people don't sign up till the day before school starts. I know. So that makes it hard. But we're going to continue to monitor that uh room usage and team teaching that's um come up and um you know like for example there's an interest at Buckeye and you know whether we you know before the new addition you know having um possibly an opening between two existing classrooms but obviously going

100down the road if we're going to expand on this personalized learning and or team teaching or or you know uh whatever ever we're going to be doing it won't all be in newer spaces. So, we have to you know think about that and so um that was a topic we discussed briefly. And then um the state testing um is going to be taking place when we return from spring break. Um and test results are usually received in the district by early June. Okay, that's all I have on that. And then uh the Buckeye um elementary ad hoc committee met a couple times. We're going to be meeting again after spring break and um you know continuing to discuss and and you know define uh particulars as we work with Ryan Schmidt over at uh Ven

101Design so that we are comfortable with what's being proposed. And then um the strategic plan liaison um I work with Dr. Ratino on that. We met briefly uh but we probably should set another meeting up in your free time. Okay. That would be focused again on an academic plan. Yes. And and that was part of that plan that you're going to be outlining. Absolutely. So, okay. Thank you. Policy committee and alumni association liaison. So, we have policy on today's agenda for first read and uh we have a policy committee meeting April 2nd. Um go over policy before the um it's put on for second. Um and then as far as alumni uh met before the 75th anniversary party to finish planning for that um event and um they did elect new officers at that event

102and then they are starting to look to the summer where they'll be looking at the golf outing and then also the alumni banquet um in the future. So one thing we're working on the alumni is redoing the hall of fame that's in the building. Uh we've talked about perhaps switching to a digital format display like we have for the veterans kiosk that was actually designed by well he's now a former employee but somebody who worked for us uh but he's willing to come back and you know as a as a contractor to design that some work with alumni and talk about what that would look like that would save them in cost uh for buying two plaques. They would present the Hall of Fame recipient with a plaque, but then we would have just put

103a digital frame up there for them. And it also would save us space in the high school. The Hall of Fame has grown quite large and we are running out of wall space that are dedicated to it. So the booster organizations liazison. Sure. There's a lot to report. Um I'm going to go through our schools one by one. at Lemouth. Um April 3rd, they are having a skate skating party at City Skate. On April 6th, they will have their Sun plus one bowling night at Rich's Lanes. On April 26, an adult event uh will be night at the races at LAR in downtown Payneesville. Uh April 28th is their next AMSCO meeting at 7 p.m. in person and May 2nd is their spring dance after school. Um, at Buckeye, April 5th is a parents night

104out and on April 21st, they are having their Chuck-E-Cheese spirit day. At Mel Ridge Elementary, um, March 20, it's today the 21st. No, 20th, tomorrow. So, March 21st, they are having kindergarten pastries with parents. On March 27th, they have their Chick-fil-A dine and donate from 5 to 8:00 p.m. Please mention Mel Ridge. Um, March, they will also be having a spring plant sale that might be postponed until April. That has yet to be determined what the dates are on that. Um, April 7th, they are having their PTO meeting at 6:30. April, followed by conversations with Dr. Ratino at 7. April 22nd through the 24th, they're having their scholastic book fair. On the 25th of April, they will have their glow dance with which is their father-daughter dance. And on April 26th, they are having sun

105plus one bowling. at Parksite Elementary the week of April 7th they are having their school astic bookf fair. Um April 14th is their PTO meeting at 7 PM and that one will be uh on Zoom and on May 9th they have their mother son event at Riverview Elementary. On March 30th they have Five Below fundraiser mentioned Riverview PTO. On April 6th they have their mother son boy bash. On April 9th they also have dine to donate at raising canes mentioned Riverview PTO. On April 12th, they have their adult social bingo at the Elks Lodge. 21 and over only, please. On April 16th, they have their PTO meeting in person. And on April 12th, we have our district um Easter egg hunt at noon, which again, it will be over in less than two minutes. Um

106from some of our booster groups, I reached out to the booster groups. I got some responses from a couple. Um the Riverside Rebounders, which is our basketball, they wanted to let you know some of the things that they have been doing. of the varsity basketball won the um WRC and the rebounders purchased t-shirts for the freshman JB and varsity to celebrate the season. The shirts were designed by the RHS business class and designed by students and purchas purchased through the Riverside store. Um the rebounders paid for 28 student tickets to the home playoff games to encourage student support for the team throughout the playoffs. Um the rebounders also provided monthly team dinners throughout the season. They had a bowling event to promote socialization among all levels of teams. We have eight seniors from varsity who

107will be graduating this May. They registered and paid for summer leagues in Perry and Warrenville and a variety of summer tournaments for freshman, JB, and varsity. So, those will be coming up paid for by Riverside rebounders. And they are beginning planning for the second annual Slam at the Dam threeon-ree tournament which was very successful this past season. um current team members and alumni volunteered to keep score um and ref the gains. And then I also heard back from Riverside Band Boosters. Um the band boosters wanted everyone to know that they support all students in 612 involved in all band programs in their pursuit of music music education. Um they are considering a band show for the marching band season to for the um stands outside, but that's they're having conversations with district for that um

108to see if that might work, if it might not work um and the feasibility of that project. So that's on their agenda. And they want to promote the transition of music students to upper level opportunities after leaving theuth um seventh grade program. They want to continue to encourage participation in band. um numbers have been declining over the last couple of years as those students transition from seventh to um eighth grade and the boosters and staff are considering all ideas to ensure that participation is maximized. So if anyone has any ideas for that you can let them know. That's all I have. Yeah. What when was the um uh Mel Ridge PTO meeting and then you're speaking at 7? Uh April 7th. April 7th. April 7th. And then is there one for Parkside where there is

109I don't have a date off the top of my head. They don't have a date in May though. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for that superintendence report. Yeah. Um, a lot of good things this month. Um, first of all, on what was it? Tuesday, uh, Mr. Mr. Keiny and I were down in Columbus at the state legislative conference. Uh, basically, a lot of that information was focused on the banal budget. uh what OSBA is a combination between OSBA uh the treasurers association as well as the superintendent association of Ohio. What they recommended what they are um looking for is they're looking for um the organizations to um the requests from those three organizations is that the governor or the state legislature update the inputs in the funding formula to adjust for inflation.

110uh for the fair school funding formula. They've adjusted the outputs based on property taxes and income, but they've not adjusted the inputs and they are strongly encouraging that for the formula to work. Uh Mr. Plateau can get into the details of that. I know just a little bit about the that uh the ones that I did find um really kind of interesting to watch along the way as this bill progresses through uh both the House and the Senate are the uh the principal apprenticeship program. That's something that we um it deals with identifying leadership if you're building and finding a alternate way for them to get licensed as principles to deal with the principal shortage. Uh and it is a stipen that comes with it. So it's something that we are really watching along the

111way. The resident educator changes. They are making some changes to that including uh right now they have that final assessment uh stricken from that program. Don't know if that's going to make it or not. Uh the governor is recommending a universal diagnostic assessment uh for grades K to three. We use the map right now. If you were to change that, we would have to trade, we'd have to buy it as well as train all of our people on how to use it. They are recommending and I am hoping that that gets removed and just the fact that we have a diagnostic assessment out there. Um as well transportation, we did mention that a little bit earlier. Um and then the other one that's on there is is unused school facilities and the definition of that.

112Uh that's becoming really problematic because the definition lists right now in the budget is a school that was built that is only occupied by 65% of the students is considered 65% of the students for which the school was built for would be considered unused. Well, a lot of districts throughout the state. We don't have that problem, but a lot of districts throughout the state are using those um facilities for other things like health centers and things like that. So it would it definitely changes um what is unused versus what's not as to what they were built for because of some of the retrofitting of the building. So it's a it's one to follow. I think it will get removed because of some of the things that are out there. Uh this was followed by a

113property tax overview from Dr. Howard Fleeter. Um for as smart as that man is, he's kind of witty too. Um and so he made some great com but he talked about the history of property taxes from 1975 all the way up till 2023 is the latest data and some of the proposed relief plans that are in the senate. His recommendation is the circuit breaker uh that's actually house senate bill 271 um which models after the Michigan he said that's the best model because we are similar to Michigan in terms of demographics and all of that. Um and he talks about that then causes a tax relief to households which meet certain thresholds. So we don't want to overt tax our seniors. It makes really sense with some of what that looks like in that circuit

114breaker is one that he said if he said what they're all saying from the from the state house is something is going to be done about property tax. The legislature is concerned about doing that. He presented the four different types that are up there and said the circuit breaker is the one that is really model after Michigan and would be the most um or the least impactful to schools in the way that that school would have funded. So, did I miss anything? Are we going to Did I steal your legislative report? No, no, you very good. I'm going to add a couple of things when we get Okay, perfect. All right. Uh, as mentioned, we did have our staff PD celebration on March 3rd. It was the final one of the school year, the second

115of the semester. It's the um it was a great day. Uh we started in the morning kind of wrapping up and kicking off actually next year's PD days which are in August. Um but at the end of the day for the second half, we asked all 600 staff members um to join us in the auditorium for kind of a celebration. One of the things that we really want to work on is our celebration of our staff members. So we celebrated those who have officially retired, announced their retirement. kind of along with Mr. Schlick, we put out a slide specifically for him. Um he's celebrating or he's practicing for retirement right now. Um but we did we celebrated them and then we also put together a slideshow. It wasn't a slideshow, it was a song that

116was generated by AI about um just the staff at Riverside was really went over a lot of positive impacts. Um it was done in the theme of 80s hair metal. Um it really kind of came off well about you know Riverside staff and how good they are. And then we spent the the last half of the day just going over we put a bunch of um you know Dr. Malacher was able to put a bunch of time in putting these boards together of accomplishments that were celebrated throughout the year. We went over to the fieldhouse had cake because what's a party without cake? So we had cake and popcorn and just went and talked and really had some good um you know just good fellowship over there looking at the things that happened and all

117that. So it was a great day. Um also as mentioned I am doing my community conversations. I hosted two uh one was at Buckeye and one was at Riverview. Two more on April 7th and then May 19th Miss Brewster is at Parkside. Oh so that that date's up there. Um I knew I had it somewhere. uh just basically going over the great things we have at um Riverside and then giving some, you know, kind of upcoming end of the year activities, some things we're excited about. Uh with that, our second annual citiz senior citizen appreciation night was held on March 13th uh with a with a great turnout and uh kudos to our foods class for the presentation of the meal and serving and all that. It was it's it's an awesome thing to do

118for our our community and well wellreceived. And then they got to see Spongebob the musical. And congratulations to the theater students and staff. Uh, four shows throughout the weekend. And I'll tell you, I was exhausted. I was in them. Uh, Dr. Mocker and I made cameos in it as pirates. We're actually the picture on the left. We're up there making fools of ourselves. We just did four like numbers and maybe two minutes. And I was exhausted by the end. So I couldn't I can't imagine how hard those kids work. And by the end of it, you heard them up even like, you know, my voice. I don't have a voice anymore. you got to power through it for the second half and boy they did they did great and it was a fun fun time

119fun musical. Um definitely we should be in consideration for the rodeo cameo of the year award for sure. Um don't know if anyone can help with that in the audience but also um it was a great play and you know kids did a great job. So as I heard cameoing the year wasn't wasn't an award. Uh that Saturday morning we kicked off the morning of the play the double header with the play with the 75th anniversary celebration. Uh it was fantastic. Uh thank you to the alumni association as well as our student council uh for doing a lot of the heavy lift throughout the making this successful. The the the halls were decorated with pictures of uh they did the picture from the yearbook and they kind of recreated them. So then and now type

120pictures with current staff. It was they were really funny. Uh kind of building was open for people to come and tour. Pancakes were amazing. Syrup from Lemouth. The trees of Lemouth. The syrup was made. Um I think Dr. Passage is selling it on the side now black market along the way but uh special and then alumni or anyone who attended was was able to sign a one of four uh curated pieces of art by our students uh commemorating the event and those will be hung somewhere throughout the building. We're still working on a place that does it. So thanks to Mrs. Bo for that and I can't thank enough uh Mrs. McIntyre, Mrs. Lucas for all the hard work they put into organizing the event. The media center was turned into a museum of artifacts.

121Yearbooks were out there. We heard people coming back saying, "I found my dad in the yearbook. Boy, he look different." So, uh, it was it was a great event. Uh, kudos to our academic decathlon team. We can't brag enough about the high level of academics that happened at Riverside. Um, they competed at the state competition and we had four event medalists. Uh Drew Cosner had two gold medals, Sarah Harrington and Hunter Russell. Uh they each had a gold medal and Meredith Schaefer. Um Drew and Hunter finished third overall in the state division. And Drew scored a new modern Riverside High score of 6,819.6 points. I don't know how they come up with that number, but good for him. And I, you know, um congratulations to them and Mr. Jando who is their adviser. So, great

122job to that team. Um, and what way to represent Riverside. Uh, congratulations to indoor track and field for their success at state competition. The indoor track recently has put a state meet on. Uh, Allison Irvvis had six in the 60 meter hurdles and PR with a time of 9.37, which is pretty fast, running 60 meters and jumping along the way. Uh, Mark Poji was second on the shot put with a throw of 535 and 3/4 inches, which is a huge throw inside. Kendall Maleb is sixth in the long jump and the 60 meter dash. And then Josh Porter was 10th in the shot put. So great job by all those athletes who got to compete at the stadium. That was inspire. And congratulations to Riverview Elementary teacher Mrs. Lang for being recognized the Ohio Lottery

123teacher of the month. Oh, we got more. I forgot about that one. A lot of stuff. Like I said, Sophia Freight was uh she participated in the Rotary um the Payswood Rotary Club's uh debate or yeah, debate test for the four-way test that she presented along the way. And then upcoming here we go. Save the dates. Uh Mrs. Grassy already hit on the egg hunt. Uh April 12th is the annual egg hunt. Starts at noon, ends at 12:01. get here early or go home empty. Um, Friday, April 11th is the carnival. So, the night before is the spring carnival, so you can tie your kids out, then bring them to hunt eggs the next day. Uh, Saturday the 26th is the craft show which is in the RHS gym. And finally, our alumni and community

124choir is on uh they are doing their concert on April 30th in combi in combination with our high school choir. Uh rehearsal dates are on April 3rd, 12th, and 22nd. And if you're interested in participating, I will not be, but if you are interested in participating, Dr. Melacer, visit the website to fill out the form. And I want to wish everybody a wonderful spring vacation, which starts at the end of school tomorrow and goes technically it's Monday the 24th through the 28th. Classes are resumed on the 31st, and I hope you all have a safe, relaxing, and enjoyable uh and well-earned, and well-deserved spring vacation. Thank you for that treasures report and committee update. Finance auto personnel committee insurance optimization ad hoc committee legislative liaison. Okay. Um we held our meeting on uh March 13th.

125Again personnel updates um pretty much typical turnover and postings for newer replacement positions. Uh recruiting efforts will be made with the uh with attendance at the uh noted job fair. I'm assuming that's Northern Ohio Teachers Association. Uh Northern Ohio Teacher Educator. I don't remember what it stand for. North it's it'll be a an event that we maybe recruit some people from, I guess. So that will be ongoing. Um board agenda item discussions included uh minor revisions to appropriations for fiscal year 2025, the acceptance of new tax rates from the county, additional contract services to the uh ESC of Northeastern Ohio for substitute teacher pool. Uh renewal of electrical power purchasing program. continued software licensing purchases and bus fuel purchasing contract. Also, uh approval of a sixth grade camp uh at 4 Camp Whitewood. Uh I

126understand the cost to the districts will be reimbursed through fees. Is that correct? Okay. Uh and also purchase of upgraded Wi-Fi equipment. Uh that will be done in conjunction with a cost sharing grant. Um donations and retirements. Do you have anything to say about those? Congratulations. Okay. And thank you and congratulations. So, thank you for the service and donations. Okay. Um health insurance uh committee update. Um we're in the process right now of finalizing contract details for coverage and services. uh one contract will be related to uh services provided during the transition period to January 1st, 2026 and another contract for full services after that date. Um we're putting those u details together and we should have something uh hopefully for next meeting if not the one after that. Um Dr. Ratino talked about the

127u uh event in Columbus on Tuesday and um it was a very good uh presentation by all there. There was a lot to uh uh talk about in the budget. Uh I think everything that has been proposed for the most part is uh very positive for education in Ohio. We'll see how that uh plays out. But again, the uh property tax changes were a main topic and knowing that um they have their eye on it and it's h what they're looking at is both within the current budget and outside of the current budget. So this is something that's going to be u looked at quite a bit to try to find some relief for taxpayers. Uh and one thing that this Dr. Freder was it or leader uh mentioned was an interesting that um in

128Ohio the property and income tax uh property tax and income tax is the main source of funding for schools. The majority areas of areas east of I71 if you go from Columbus to Cleveland are funded by property taxes whereas the majority of areas west of I71 are funded by income taxes. And there's reasons for that due to land use and and many other things. But so it is um uh it is not you know we have talked about income taxes. We have not looked at it in depth but it is an alternative that we must consider for any future funding of the district. Uh here again, transportation issues were um are being studied uh in conjunction with the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. Uh it's unclear what will emerge from those uh to better

129the transportation responsibilities, but hopefully districts will be properly reimbursed for the mandated um requirements that they have. Uh also uh career technical education is getting more focus and uh proposals from the Ohio uh state board uh board association. Uh we'll look at programs and facilities to for these education options. That's it. Thank you. Thank you for that update from the treasurer. Okay. Um as always, we'll go through our monthly financial reports. So for February 2025, we can find those reports on board docs and on the treasur page on the website. The uh total cash balance of all of our funds is 27.3 million. Of that the general fund makes up almost 14.2 million. The per improvement fund is uh 6 almost 6.8 million of which 2.4 4 million encumbered already for current projects and with

1304.3 million unencumbered available for use which would go towards uh you know the Riverview and CTE additions. Uh just as a heads up, we did not receive our property tax advance until the first business day in March. There was an issue with the treasur's office. They sent it to us. They did not code it properly. It got sent back to the treasures office. So typically it comes around February 19th or so. It ended up hitting the first business day in March. So that's why the numbers are a little bit lower than we typically see at the end of February. Uh looking at our current appropriations and revenue estimates, you know, we are 66.67 or 2/3 through fiscal year 2025. Our revenue is trending at 50% and that's like most likely because of all the the

131you waiting on the property tax advance to come in in March and we also got our settlement this week. So all that came in in the month of March. Uh and then expenditures are at 62.8% right now. Looking at our revenue for February is 889,000 from the general fund. The biggest source is being 668,000 in unrestricted state foundation payments. It's our funding from the state of Ohio. Uh interest revenue for February is just over 46,000. The start Ohio interest rates at 4.48%. Red Street is currently earning 3.93 for an overall yield of 4.13% and our expenditures for February at about 4.5 million for the general fund. Um, state budget update. Not much to report other than the House is expected to release their version of the budget on April 1st. Happens to be April Fool's

132Day. So, I guess we'll see what happens on that day. At this point, I'm not sure what to expect. um we'll kind of see um as it comes out. Uh just color other updates real quick. Our uh fiscal year 2024 audit was released by the state's office this past Tuesday. So that's available on the state's website. I'll also post a version on our website as well when I have time. Um I was told we qualified for the state award. I'm just waiting to receive the actual award. Uh this year would make 10 years in a row of clean. So excited to report that. Um, next up was the talk about the permit improvement fund forecast. I will hand out um what I prepared for today's meeting. Obviously, we made a change uh at the beginning,

133but this is the same forecast that was passed out uh during the the finance committee meeting that we recently had. So, I wanted to just pass this out, kind of run through real quick just so you can understand what you're looking at. um obviously noting the the one change for the bus purchases. Um so on this report it's two pages. The the the five columns to the right show five years of actual history of revenue and expenditures. The middle column for current year 2025 includes the revenue estimates obviously and then all the expenditures that have already occurred this fiscal year and all the incumbrances, anything that's been committed for any projects that are currently ongoing. Um you'll notice in the future years it will this will bleed into the next year. We have to account

134for all the the incumbrances in the current fiscal year because we need to account for that to certify contracts that there's funds available. Um so those so fiscal year 2025 will change because when we update going the next fiscal year we'll only keep what's the actual expended amount and the rest will carry forward. Um so looking at uh at the current fiscal year once we account for all the current expenditures and then we also have estimates in there for the career tech edition uh we have a an estimate from the construction manager. We take out the 2 million25,000 portion of the grant care tech grant that will be charged to a different fund. The remaining portion with a 4% uh added on to it just for a buffer for in case it comes over budget

135or some change orders. It's about 1.1 million. Uh we also have to purchase furniture for that addition as part of our commitment to the grant and we have estimated 200,000 for that. We have the Riverview estimate in there of 4.6 million. That's basically the estimate we got from the construction manager plus 4% for that as well. And then uh we'll be utilizing some funds from a that we have set aside from the sale of Haden and Hill Road in those facilities previously. And then 250,000 set aside uh for parking lot every we don't have a true estimate on that yet. Just a placeholder which brings our unencumbered uh fund balance down to about 40,000. Um, we do have an incumbrance in here for architect fees for um, when we did the career tech contract with

136the architect, we talked about doing some other improvements in in the high school. Um, that scope has been limited and I'm not sure. So, some of that in some of the money's encumbered for TVA for that uh those improvements that we're no longer doing can come off um, at some point. uh in the future projected years. The numbers I kept all the numbers the same as I presented uh this past fall. Uh putting placeholders for our typical spending. Um you know I have the four school buses a year is obviously the most significant piece on there. I also have 400,000 set aside for technology equipment including Chromebooks and viewboards. Uh if you look at the history, it's much lower because during the previous fiscal years, we had the federal stimulus money and we use a

137lot of federal grants to replace all our Chromebooks, teacher laptops, and wireless technology and different things throughout the facilities. So that's why you look at the history, you don't see a whole lot of history in that line item on the first page. It's it's looks larger going forward just because those expenses didn't hit the permanent permit fund. Uh also this, you know, in the For Buckeye Millers, we assumed a $12 million borrowing for 25 years. I use 25 years because Purcella provided a 25-y year borrowing estimate for the most recent one. Uh so those good numbers I had at this time. Obviously the the scope of the project is still to be determined and those will be adjusted accordingly as as we know a little more. Um also the football turf is projected in fiscal

138year 2028. um you know it does not if we were able to uh secure another sponsorship like we did previously uh that number would be reduced as well. One one quick note on that do we uh have 200,000 of that set aside. It it's around to that is there's in fund 03 we receive uh some revenue from the cell phone towers each month that goes into that fund. So that number would really be about 600. No, this was on top of that money. So I think we do you remember the estimate we had for the turf replacement? Um last fall Basco estimated roughly 850,000 at that market price. Okay. So you're figuring a million. Yeah. For future spending. Okay. And and that doesn't include um a sponsorship that you would anticipate that would reduce that

139cost. If we can secure a sponsorship. Yeah. It does not include that. And the include the unknown. Then the norm the norm in the past was about half. I know you said you were hoping for a full sponsorship, but we're always hoping, right? I think the normal last year, the last time it was a 10year I want to say it was a 10 year sponsorship 230,000. I think it was but then it was also it was 230 but it was also there were other ancillaries a part of it as well that uh training services for instance that we don't have to pay for. So there were other parts that that kind of they were not direct cost but they they would have been. Yeah. Thank you for that. So I can update this uh based

140on what was approved tonight and just show what the difference looks like. Um Mrs. Grassy also asked me to to kind of extrapolate out a 10-year forecast um assuming a 3% inflation amount based on FY26 numbers. I'm going to just pass that out just for reference. We can review that and we can discuss, you know, if we want to or we can hold off to kind of digest a little bit. I did put in a uh 1% increase in revenue based on some growth that we could be getting in our property tax revenue from construction just based on historical averages. So I, you know, we're going to inflate the, you know, have inflation accounted for on the expense side, figure that out at the revenue side. interest income is a little bit tricky to project.

141Um because I had it declining each year with declining cash balance, you know, and when I got to FY31, I kind of just flatlined it at that point just because it, you know, interest rates are going to change. We're not sure what that looks like. Um and so it was just a rough guess at this time. Can I ask a question on on that? because we we have this we have this section that's on the first page that's in gray and on either one of these we don't include any we're not including any costs for anything um that we would normally have in our PI fund capital projects that would have to be done at the schools regardless of the fact that we're building new buildings or whatever like we still have capital projects and

142there's no repairs listed on here Um, so either we're not doing any at all for the next, you know, 10 years, or we're funding them out of the general fund, which is not in our budget to do so. So, we typically do some repairs out of general fund each year as part of the annual maintenance budget. Um, but but when we look at his historically, right, we're we're doing we're doing dollar work in and it's got value in it, right? Um, to the tune of a couple hundred thousand dollars at least at minimum in those areas. to not include it in here. I think gives us an inaccurate picture and also increased those for inflation. So, I I know when I did ran my stuff, I actually included those because I wanted to see what

143that would look like because it's not like we're not going to spend in those areas. And so, um it might be helpful if we include some of that for our next conversation. Um I think that would be important. You know, basically basically the way I look at this is that we are taking this $825,000 um based on Mike Purcella's information on on the cops financing and it's unvoted bond levy financing, which we are allowed to do because we have resources available to borrow against. But if if in fact we don't have enough money when you add all those other things in that we may need to add into this projection just to see where we are going to sit which is why I want to talk about the PI budget because I don't think it

144will be positive once we include all those things that we probably would spend. Um those dollars then almost become voted millage because instead of asking for bond levy financing for these items, right, for the improvements that we're doing for the building, we would then be having to ask for millage financing to increase millage to pay for the rest of the expenses that come out of the PI fund. Because if we don't do that, then we're pushing those dollars. Any negative number is going to get pushed off into the general fund. I want to make sure that we look at this as a whole. Um, and I I feel like we really do need to put some numbers in this gray area because there's nothing there and we know where to spend it. Yeah. In in

145a previous version that I presented last um last fall before we moved forward with the bucket issue, the public delivery one, they were left blank because there was a line at the bottom available for other projects to be determined. and I didn't really want to change some of the projections going forward just arbitrarily. And so that's, you know, that that's why it was grayed out. It doesn't mean there's and those numbers vary wildly each year as opposed to other things. But that I totally understand what you're saying. And I mean, you know, like when I look at repairs and I I went through and I looked at the capital projects. Okay, so we had, you know, $2.1 million in capital projects for the year ended June of 25. Even if I didn't put even if

146I put zeros across my calculations, if I look at the repairs, it was $322,000. And so if you start to increase that by inflation, I mean, by the time you get to 20 36, it's $446,000. You start subtracting that you, you know, exponentially, you start eating up your cash. And so I think it's important to see that and where that leaves us because if there is no money to do anything, I think that's important to know, right? So I'm hopeful that we can get that information added into here. Um because once we do that, these numbers go from positive numbers to drastically negative. Okay. Thank you for the update. Uh, public participation. Anyone wishing I'm sorry. I have Oh, you have a question? Yeah. Um, so I just wanted to ask about two items on

147the first handout. Um, you Let me see. So the Hatton sale was that the 670. No, is that the if you're looking on the on the second page 672,000. Yeah, the 672. So that's that's the proceeds that are in a separate fund from Haden Hail Road uh Leroy and um yeah those facilities we sold those facilities and land. So that's part of the PI obviously it's a separate PI fund but it's and what are you using? What are you anticipating using that for? That's just going towards whether it's the bruise or cur techch additions is where well either project. I didn't really designate which one is going to be. Yeah. I just didn't know if you were uh using that for future returfing or for CTE or Riverview. I I just am asking. Yeah, it's

148for either CT or Riverview. Any other Okay. And then there was another question about um the high wait a minute I have to use a paper here to keep my line straight. Um the high quality instructional materials grades six to 8 the 250. Yeah that's that's a rough real rough estimate that's for the seventh and eighth grade. It'll be seventh and eighth grade. Okay. So, do you want to have that discussion now? It's 250. I mean, tonight there's a proposal for 171. Uh, but then instructional materials typically depending on what we're talking about. If it's consumables like workbooks for students that get used up each year, that would be a general fund item, not a permanent improvement. We haven't picked the program for seventh and eighth grade yet. So, we'll be starting that process in

149the fall. That's a placeholder, I believe, to buy materials. So, I don't know. I have no idea. I couldn't even ballpark what it'll be because I don't know what program we're going to select. Okay. Well, you know, I I received the um the um invoice from CPM and um you know, in this now tonight, you told me you're only going to do 8th grade. What what are you doing as far as a quote, not an invoice? So that's the quote for that you have in your hands. Yeah, that's what I'm That's math curriculum. Yes. And that is a math curriculum. So we're talking about two different things here. So the math curriculum is we need to purchase we need to make a decision because we don't have anything in place for next year. So, we

150either have to continue with what we have or we have we're going with this new program for sixth or eighth grade, which is what we talked about at the programs meeting. The 250 is a different that's to finish off buying the reading curriculum for next year, which we talked about buying a program for our seventh and eighth grade language arts classes. Okay. All right. So, I guess my question is that, you know, typically permanent improvement money is used for something that lasts 5 years or more. Um, you know, and when you're talking about um workbooks or even a digital like um you know, like renewing a license for some digital thing that's just for a year that that comes out of general fund. So I guess my question is so I have two questions now.

151Um for this quote for the math curriculum. Yeah. For the math curriculum we're looking to purchase now. When you say 171 you've li that's still the same number but you're limiting it as far as algebra for just honors. It's the the actual quote is significantly lower. I'm sorry I messed up on that's okay. that that includes algebra and a lot of that will actually come out of general fund because it is licenses and workbooks as we discussed. So it's a it's a general fund. I think we calculated the number that would come out of PI to be about 25,000 at a very high number and those would be the manipulatives. The there's a set of textbooks for students in the algebra class like a classroom set. They said the digital set as well, but some

152sometimes you have to have a book. So it would be 30 books for the classroom that we're using it in. And it will not be all algebra moving forward for next year. It'll just be eighth grade algebra. So it's significantly less on that. We had them quote out all of algebra and it's just sixth, seventh and eighth and our eighth graders who are in algebra. We'll take that's about two sections where one teacher so 30 rooms. So it'll be significantly less and the impact to PI like I said are just the manipulatives and the um and the actual physical textbooks. Everything else comes out in general, whether it's a fee or whether it's a subscription. Okay. So, um I guess like if what we're approving tonight, because I have to recommend it, um of $171,3178,

153about 25,000 is coming out of PI. The rest is coming out of general fund. Correct. Okay. And um and then what about like teachers manuals? Are those considered you know whatever teacher materials? Is that part of that 25 or I guess what's in the 25? Like let's ask it like that. Those are classroom kits manipulated as well as textbooks. So it's textbooks not it is a physical. Yeah. Textbooks can be bought there only certain things that can be bought on a PI and textbooks are the ones that can because they do last more than Okay. So then the training and all that is a a general fund. Correct. If we end up needing to pay for it, if we're able to get into trainings that already exist, there may not be a cost to us.

154But professional development comes out typically comes out of title 2 funds which would be a federal not always or general fund. Do you know what I mean? But it does not come out of PI. Okay. Um because yeah, part of that discussion I had about the um training the ongoing training with teachers. It was very helpful to partner with the school doing it and that I I can't remember whether it was Hudson I I I'm not sure but they let's say partnered with Westgie and so that was just an example of how that looked because it's just a collaborative thing and there was no pay. It was an expense. Not an expense. The way the CPM will send out trainers as well. Um I think we have to pay maybe travel, but they will send

155them out to go into the classroom. They have a lot of local ones as well retired teachers who have taught in the program. Okay. Come on out and do it. So they that's a part of the support. There's a lot of support with this with this program um to make sure that it's implemented with fidelity. Okay. So then the continuation of the reading program um that's the other thing you're talking about here. Um that was the 250,000. Can you tell tell me about that? We need to pick a reading program for our seventh and eighth graders. So we purchased K3 last year. Yeah. No, K2 last year, 36 this year. Right. Right. Right. Okay. And with the understanding that 78 would be happening next year. So we have to decide we have to pick several

156programs to choose. Same process that we did to pick the 36. We'll have teachers maybe pilot some stuff look at the programs and decide probably be making a recommendation I would guess in January or February of next year. Yeah. Because it says fiscal year 26. So it might not start until what? Oh it won't. So we would be making the recommendation in winter spring of next year with the idea that we would be implementing in the fall of 207 26 27. Okay. So So I already can't keep the year straight. When we purchased these reading materials, did it all come out of PI or did some of it come out of general? I just imagine. But K2 was out of uh we were given money from the state um for that and then the rest

157was out of PI for most of them. Most of it. Yeah. Well, it's only allowable to charge a PI. You can't charge a license since it's a PI. So it would just be like classroom libraries or actual textbooks. If they are you pick one that's got a consumable that would have to go to fees, right? So it it would depend also on the program. Okay. But a lot of these programs have both with them. So they have the the classroom library or the classroom book set and then also the consumer. Okay. There is a chance at the seventh and eighth grade level that we could be looking at a digital platform. I just don't know that. Yeah, we haven't books. Some people just, you know, like that the book, right? Exactly. Okay. Um, any other

158questions about that? because I needed that explanation and I wanted to clarify what was PI and what was general fund. So, so when we look at this forecast, you know, even even in the forecast that that doesn't have the gray areas filled in, you know, we're leaving ourselves with $40,000 this year to carry over to next year. We have a negative number for next year and obviously that can change. Um and apparently without any discussion about what kinds of things we would like to see um either removed or postponed or whatever, we just decided that we're not going to purchase buses. So So apparently that will take care of our fiscal deficit in this PI fund for 2026 year end. Um, I just have some concerns about the fact that we're going to be doing

159things like that, um, in order to facilitate the funding of a building, period, for 25 years. um that we're going to continually be looking at what do I need to cut out of this budget of regular and recurring PI expenses for a building that we are financing out of already requested dollars from the public. Um and when we asked for those dollars, it was to fund the things that are generally regular and recurring expenses that come out of our PI fund. So, I I we just voted to take buses out of 2026. Um, but that doesn't solve that issue going forward. So, there's still negative numbers on here. Um, correct me if I'm wrong here. Under 26 here, the the projected deficit is $321,000. Is that correct? That's what it says. Yes. Okay. Now, with

160that 520 removed, is that what you're going to do? The top number? Yeah. Put us at 200,000 positives. So, we would be positive for that year. were positive for 27. 28 were negative by $353,000 due to that $800,000 expenditure on the field. Correct. Right. And that you know everything carries the cash balance will carry forward. So moving the bus is going to that will that negative be corrected that year but then there'll be some adjustment there but there'll still be a negative. And then we move into uh fiscal year 29, we show about a $6,500 positive. So we we get out of that deficit. We have a one-year deficit, correct? Is that showing here? But I will tell you, we still don't have any of these gray items filled in. That is concerning and should

161be concerning to this district. We It's empty. And then and then in 2030, we're showing almost $316,000 positive and that only increases from there on. So we have a one-year dip essentially due to replacing the athletic field. Is am I reading that kind of correctly? Yes. Um you know it is those are low balances to have in in the fund. Right. But but I mean that's just uh for a couple years we're a little tight and then things increase. Um I'm I'm going to I'm going to say it again. We don't have any of the items in gray completed in any of these forecasts. None. Repairs maintenance there. It's 350,000 at least at a minimum in any given year. And you can go back and look at that on a historical basis. And we're not

162including any of it. Any of it. How how is how is our maintenance department supposed to do any work? They can't they can't buy anything like unless we're going to go back and say, "Well, too bad. We're not going to fund it here. We'll fund it out of our general fund, which is already in deficit spending also." So, I'm not sure which problem we're trying to kick the can down the road or I don't see it here, but I'm going to see it over there because you don't have it in here. You can't have it both ways. We have to look at the entire process and we're not doing that which isn't very responsible of us. We're pretending it doesn't exist. We're pretending those expenditures don't exist. Mr. Flaco, eventually we're going to have numbers

163in those in those gray boxes, right? And I I would like us to actually try and estimate those, which is what I did when I did my own homework and did my own spreadsheet. But I put some numbers in there and I said, "Well, what is it for the past couple years? This is what it's going to be." And again, increasing it for inflation just like you did with the rest of this. It's it's going to have an effect. I don't care how many buses we don't buy this year. It's not fixing the entire problem. We put and decided as a board to put on a facility I can't afford to pay for for 25 years. Got a problem with that. And we're going to be meeting with that gentleman again once we have some

164numbers as Roger had discussed once we have a better idea. We will and we'll have some real numbers and know you know determine what we're going to do as far as number of years but right now we don't have that information. Correct. We don't have the you know until the scope of work is finalized estimate. Right. Right. And so and as far as the the work um the decisions to be made going forward, it's adding on to Buckeye, but there's going and that's like usually $500 a square feet, but then you've got um you know, renovations that are going to take place on the interior. There'll be some things done at Mel Ridge as well, but that's at $250 a square foot. So the question is, you know, to what degree? Because obviously we're going

165to involve rich a lot. We're going to look at the engineering study. What can we pull in um to to those renovations? They're going to be part of that. And what can we afford to borrow and and all that? So we'll have a better idea. Roger's not aware of those additions. You heard him say it just today. that he's looking at Buckeye as a set of classrooms. That's all well initially. Yeah. Right. Well, okay. So, he's I clarified that what was his initial scope before, right? That's part one. Then there's part two. Well, and part two isn't included in here. So, we are going to be sp we are spending money. We have we have put the cart well before the horse. We have decided to put on an addition in a building for which

166we cannot afford. I don't know anybody who can look at this and say, "I would run my household like this. You're crazy. We cannot afford this $825,000." I don't care if it says $800,000. I don't care if it says $750. At the end of the day, we cannot continue to to suck the money out of our PI fund and say, "Oh, well, we're never going to do any more repairs to any of our other buildings. That's how we got in." Like, that is what we have been accused of from the get-go. And yet, but it's okay when it's not proposed by like I don't know, a different board. I'm I'm confused. I I'm just literally confused on how we think that we can do that. Eventually, we're going to have numbers in here. I'd like

167to see this with numbers in it. All right. So, and we're voting today. You have there's an agenda item on on here today to move forward with Buckeye. And yet, we have not figured out how we're paying for this. What do people not understand? So, we've had this discussion before. We have not had this discussion before. This is the first time we're ever discussing about finances. Mr. You continue to ignore the discussions we've had in the past. I am not ignoring a darn thing. And and you don't you just said you don't understand what's going on. So, the construction project is not just limited to eight classrooms u and a gymnasium. Okay. It's a much larger project. I don't care what it includes. We can't afford it. Okay. So, we'll try to have a conversation.

168We can't. You don't want to have a conversation. So, let's move on. Yeah. I had a question. All right. So, um initially with the PI levy, uh because some of us are newer. Um when it passed, um it was collecting how much and how much are we collecting now? And and that changes based on It originally was supposed to collect around 2.5 million a year when it was first passed. It was passed in went effect I think tax year 2015 started collecting in 2016. Um it replaced the prior PI levy that was about 1.89 mills. This one's 2.5. Um that was a decision the prior board made. There was a the bond issue basically from back when the media center and conditions were put on the schools was passed in 1994. that bond millage was

169coming off the tax roles and then the PI uh levy was put on to be a minimal change to the taxpayers but be an increase to the PI fund. Uh so it was originally about 2.5 million and it's collecting about 2.6 to 2.7 right now. So currently it's collecting 2.6 or seven. It probably closer to 2.7 maybe a little collected 2.7. So that um the reason it went up from 25 to about 27 is because of new house new houses that were built. Correct. Okay. And there are new houses scheduled to be built that are not part of the tiff or a red. Right. Correct. And so as those houses get built over the next couple years, those will also be paying PI money to the district. And and none of that is forecast because

170you don't know the amount of the houses or the price of the sale price of the houses. Is that correct? In the first handout, yeah, was just a flat lines. In the other handout, there's a 1% built in there. So, it's 1% for that's based on historical how we got to where we are today. Right. And so, um, as those houses get built, the number will grow. And have you done any rough figuring to see about what it'll grow to? I mean, it's I just did the 1% projection, so it's just based on historical. Yeah. So, it's possible with the houses that are being built that we could be at $2.9 or$3 million in the PI fund after those projects are completed. Yeah. I mean, it's speculative that it's right. So, so I mean we

171had discussed that before and that and that's about you know those those numbers will come in and it'll take a few a couple years really because these these projects are getting ready to get started and um and then we're not talking about nor projecting the casement development and the revenues that are going to come from that. Now that doesn't start for about two years but then those revenues start and then um but that's that's another topic of discussion. There's a lot of moving parts. There's things that aren't figured in and and that money from the tiff goes into the general fund. Correct. Correct. Yeah. So that will help offset some things. You know, Mr. Platco could do a forecast for this PI budget and put whatever numbers he wants to in that line itemized in

172the revenue column. Would that be prudent? Probably not. Would he stake his lure and reputation on it? Probably not. So, he's being conservative, which is what I would expect him to be. He's doing his job. He's doing his job. I mean, you can't predict what's going to happen, and I would not expect us to be spending money based on a Well, I think it'll be there. Yeah. And that's not what we're saying. So, um All right. So, is there anything else that that uh wants to be said? I'd like to just ask a question. And I I was reading through the uh the auditor's report here and there was a highlighted I highlighted a paragraph. It says on February 2nd, 2015, the school district issued $928,500 in school energy conservation improvement bonds for the purpose

173of energy improvements throughout the school district. The primary source of repayment of this obligation is through energy savings as a result of the improvements. These improvements were not capitalized. The bonds were issued for a 15-year period with a final maturity of December 1st, 2029. The bonds will repay will be repaid from the general fund. So essentially, we took out bonds for less than a million dollar expenditure for a 15-year repayment schedule. Do you have any idea on I do what our interest rate on that was and what our you know total uh price to us will be that was prior to my arrival here but that was that was an that was a house bill 260 whatever I don't remember what the name of the house was but it was a it was a financing

174project that you paid for your bond with energy savings. Do we have the records on how much we saved and how much our payments are? Do we have it documented? Those energy savings documented I believe we're required to report that. So I would assume that Mr. Placo should probably be able to find that information. I'm sure he probably doesn't have it right here at his disposal. I'd like for for less than a million dollars. I can't understand why we went 15 years out and the interest what that interest rate is and what our total cost overall cost because has to be well in excess of a million dollars. But that would have really only come out to $62,000 a year if we just paid cash. So I don't quite understand the thought behind that other

175than it was something that was sold to the district maybe by the state. But um I'd just like to see what that interest rate was, what our savings were in energy costs, and if those energy savings really did or really are repaying that loan. So, if you could get that together in some time, I'd appreciate it. So, you have a yearly report on that that you report to the state? I haven't done one, so I'm not really sure. Um, I can look back to some prior records to see what was done previously. Are we supposed to report every year? I'll have to look into that. Okay. I know a lot of schools did did that program at the time. Um how they handled it bookkeeping wise, I don't know. Um but I don't know how

176lucrative it was as far as savings, right? Yeah. Okay. Uh public participation. Anyone wishing to address the board of education will be recognized by the board president. Speakers are requested to speak from the podium, identify themselves and their topic. Comments are limited to three minutes. Come to the podium, sir. Yeah. Brian Massie, 8196 Rainbow Drive. Um, just let you know, Mr. Official, that there is a grassroots movement throughout the state of Ohio uh for a citizens initiative to u eliminate property taxes throughout the state of Ohio. Um, I went to a couple weeks ago, I went to the budget commission meeting and all nine uh Lake County school districts were there. Um, I did get copies of the tax budgets submitted by each one of the CFOs. I have asked Mr. Platco for more details

177because those u those summaries really don't tell you anything. I what I'd like to see is basically the the details of each one of the the funds, the general fund, your uh improvement fund, and your your bond fund. I want I want to see the details on it. what I've been told by the state reps and uh and the auditors. Um I'm complaining that the budget commission there are no checks and balances in our system for the uh to ensure that the taxing authorities are good stewards of the taxpayers money. It's not only uh school districts but also the some 54 different taxing authorities in Le County. Um, when I when I hear what's happening here tonight, I uh I'm thankful that you appear to be going through uh the general ledger looking at the

178expense structures. I'm very anxious to hear what uh Mr. Keaney has to say regarding the medical insurance. Um, I I'm hoping that you're you're you're doing the due diligence, you know, for the taxpayers to make sure that we have not been overspending. I'm a little confused about all the building going on, I must say. Um, because I seem to remember we used to have a school called Hatton and we sold it. I'd like to know details on that sale, Mr. Fishell. When we sold it, how much did we sell it for? because I as I understand it, it is still being used as a school. So, there must have been some compelling reasons why we had to sell the school and now we're going to replace the the classrooms at probably a much greater expense.

179Thank you very much. My name is Marcia Pessik. I live in the Riverside School District and have for over 20 years. I've had children go to the Riverside schools. I'm speaking today because I'm very concerned about private school vouchers in our state and I would like the Riverside School District to join the fight against vouchers by joining the group called Vouchers Hurt Ohio. Vouchers Hurt Ohio is a growing coalition of public school districts in our state that have come together to sue the state over the unconstitutional and harmful Ed Choice private school voucher program. Already there are almost 300 school districts in Ohio that have joined this coalition. That's almost half of all the school districts in Ohio. When we let vouchers drain funds from our public schools, our kids suffer. Students don't have the

180resources they need to succeed and we are all hurt as a result. Vouchers started as a pilot program but quickly ballooned out of control as lawmakers continued to change the criteria for eligibility. The program has grown from $42 million in 2008 to up to $1 billion with a B in the current two-year budget. Ed Choice vouchers are a refund and rebate program. There are no caps on income or spending in the universal voucher plan in Ohio. If someone applies, even if they're a millionaire or a billionaire, they are eligible for a private school voucher. Money for vouchers for private schools comes from the same line item in the state budget that pays for public schools. A dollar more for private school vouchers is a dollar less available to pay for public schools. This drain comes

181at a time when public school districts like Riverside and all across the state are struggling to pass local levies to pay for classrooms, transportation, renovations, new buildings, all to improve safety and learning conditions for their students. Our students are counting on us. Things are only going to change if educators, school boards, and families across the state stand up and say something. I am asking the Riverside School Board to discuss vouchers at their next meeting and vote to join Vouchers Hurt Ohio coalition. This organization will bring the argument before the Ohio Supreme Court and reign in out of control voucher program that's hurting our kids and our schools. Among the almost 300 school districts in Ohio that have joined the fight are Aurora, Chardan, Kyhoga Falls, Geneva, Hudson, Mayfield, Madina, Olmstead Falls, Richmond Heights, Shaker Heights,

182Twinsburg, Wickliff. I could go on. You get the idea. I'm asking the Riverside School District to join this fight. You can go to vouchersh.com for more information. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Donna Lino. I live right around the corner and my son attends River Riverview Elementary. I would like to take a different direction and speak directly to the taxpayers and the administration. Let's start with facts. In this current situation, our voice doesn't matter. Our vote does not matter because the board has made up their mind even before any discussion has happened. So, it doesn't matter who they hire for communications, project manager managers, or even what they put on the board communications. It's clear that the only solid decision made by this board is to bankrupt our school district. But then what

183happens to our children? I would like to ask everyone to look around and realize that if these decisions are made that are made now, none of us will be sitting here in the next 5 to 10 years because we will not be a Riverside school district. We will be gone bankrupt. Dr. Are you okay with this? Mr. Platco, you looked really uncomfortable earlier. It won't be the board's faces on that report. It'll be yours. The community needs their voice back. Our kids need the stability, trust, and collaboration back to thrive in an already really hard world. I know the board isn't listening, but I hope the community and the administrative team are. Again, I know this is a horrible position where your family's incomes are at stake, but Dr. Ratino and Mr. Placo, are you

184okay with all the financial decisions made by this board? We the community would like an answer for the sake of our children, their educational, financial, and social futures. Are you okay with and can you stand behind all the financial decisions made by this board? Thank you. Anyone else? Thank you. Consent agenda, finance and audit. Um, I'd like a motion to approve items uh A through K listed on the finance audit consent agenda as recommended by the treasurer. Do I have a second? A second. Any discussion? I'd like to thank the Danahar Foundation for their donation to the Lmuth Office of Activity Fund and um the donation from Melidge staff for the Riverside Mel Ridge Cafeteria Angel Fund in memory of Kobe Lumen. So, thank you. Thank you. Uh Gary, take the role. Glenda Grassy. Hi.

185Lori Kinsky, I. Scott Visual I. Dennis Keaney I. Denise Brewster I. Motion carried. Commercial increase complaint. This is a uh resolution authorizing a uh filing of a complaint against the valuation of real property for tax year 2024 against permanent parcel number A 0190. Uh this is a u commercial property that's sold at a high dollar value and the county has it listed as a much lower value. So, uh, the district is filing a complaint against the current valuation on that property. So, do I have a motion to, uh, for this? Second or a second. I'll second it. Any other discussion? Commercial property. Correct. Mr. We don't file increased complaints against residential homes. Is there some further information on this? Did anyone know anything about it? Who who who was it recommended by to file? Our

186attorney David Rose with friends of McIntyre and see looks for these parcels. There was a there's a for formal resolution that's attached to it in board docs that has more information on and this is common for school districts that review commercial sales and look for um if there's a large disparity between what a property sells for at arms length transaction compared with the county auditor values of that uh school districts typically file increased complaints on that. I think if Dan if you know it's but 500,000 is the current threshold. There's more than a $500,000 difference. Um there was a recent law two years ago limited the ability, but on the larger ones, there's larger disparities. It's around $500,000 increase and it recently sold. Yes. It's based on something that happened during 2024. Okay. And it

187recently sold for a much lower price than much higher price, much higher than the county auditor valued it. Okay. Oh, so the auditor after the sale valued at a much lower value. The county auditor's office doesn't typically change values based on sales. Um, that's where the school districts get involved. Is there any further discussion? Can you call the role? Lori Kinsky I. Scott Fishell I. Dennis Keaney I. Denise Brewster. Hi. Linda Grassi. Hi. Motion carried. Consent agenda personnel. Okay. Uh, I have a second to a motion to approve the items A through D listed on the personnel consent agenda as recommended by the superintendent. Is that a second? A second. Any discussion? Okay. Please take the role. Scott Fish I. Dez Key. I Brewster. Hi. Le Grassi. I motion carried consent agenda curriculum. Okay. Um

188I make a motion um to um approve items A and B listed on the curriculum and programming consent agenda as recommended by the superintendent. Is there a second? I'll second. Any discussion? All right, Mr. Cla, will you call the role, please? Dennis Keaney, I. Denise Brewster, I. Belinda Grassi, I. Lori Kiski, I. Scott Fishel, I. Motion carried. School calendar discussion. Uh, this is just a public opportunity for discussion on the 2026 2027 school calendar that's posted to board docs. We keep it open for 30 days. Uh for any discussion, they can send comments to myself please. We start on students start on the 20th and because of the way that the Easter holiday falls within spring break, they actually end on the 27th of May in two years from now. So I know this is

189really a silly early question. Do we know when graduation will be then as a result? like a week. I know that's worth thinking be too far in advance. Uh it will. So this year was the first time we put it on a Thursday night. Uh we actually get a reduced rate because it's on a week night. So it will more than likely be on a week night as well. Probably the 27th if I were to guess like the day before like the last day like the last day of school is the 27th, right? Don't they usually get done earlier than that? We have the last couple days it's been on the same last day as students. Okay. So, it will be it will be the 26th or 27th. Most likely the the 27th with the

190rain day being the 28th. Yeah. Don't anybody quote him on that. Yeah. I do not schedule that. I just work with Yeah. Curious like considering that we're going to be done earlier than Memorial Day that year. Uh this this year graduation is on the 29th, right? So, it's only Memorial Day is late. It it was a weird year. Memorial Day was late. Easter was really early with spring break. Um, next year, no, two years. This is two years out, right? Yeah, we have next year's set. We're trying to be two years out because there's a lot of positive feedback from coming up with that. So, there might be some adjustments made to it, but we're coming up with a a proposal and going forward. Okay. And then we have a policy agenda. So, there's a

191resolution to adopt the Ohio Department of Education and Workforc's Special Education Model Policies and Procedures. I'll second discussion. Mr. Pl, can you call the RO? Denise Brewster. Hi. Linda Grassi. Hi. Lori Kiski. Hi. Scott Fishell. Hi. Dennis Keane. Hi. Motion carried. First reading of new revised board policies. Um when is our policy meeting? Second, April 2nd. Can we send um questions, questions, concerns, issues like for discussion for your meeting? Um I just want to I I want I know I sent this to Dr. Ratino already. Um the policy 7421 um prohibits the district from building multi-use bathrooms. yet. We're building these bathrooms in our classrooms in the in the additions of Riverview and perhaps Buckeye. I don't know. I haven't seen that yet. But since since this policy indicates that we can't do that with

192the exception of family restrooms and family restrooms wouldn't be included in restrooms that you're actually putting in a classroom, we wouldn't be able to consider that. A family restroom. Um I I question like we either have to fix that policy which is recommended by the state. I mean, that's purported like we have to recom we have to pass that as a policy or we can't have the bathrooms in the classrooms. So, I'm just asking that you guys actually take a look at that when you're reviewing that and and get some guidance from legal. I I that concerns me. I will I will confirm that. Um I know you and I had some conversation about it, but I think it's a def it's a poorly written definition. It is it is very poor and so I

193don't want us to get into any absolutely issues and I would like to make sure that we follow follow whatever policy we put in there that we're actually going to follow it. So if we can't do it then we can't do it. So I'll pass these on to you. Thank you. Were all your other all all your other questions were answered. They were kind of I'll pass I'll pass them on to I can I we have them so I can I'll bring them to the committee as well. Okay. Again, I found a couple misspellings. There were there were a couple. That's That's our older person. That's what I do. Yeah. The only question I had was on the religious instruction being able to leave the building. It sounded like there was some coordination with the

194school, but you know, I don't know to what extent that is in terms of let's say a child is leaving at the same time, let's say every day, and it happens to be math. So they can't um our policy that we're putting in states that it cannot be during core instruction core instruction and so it has to be during a time that they come there. We have to have a pol We've had a policy for religious instruction. This is just coming out of a recent bill that we had to kind of update it. Uh so they can't leave for during core instruction. Uh if they leave during lunch, we have to provide them with the opportunity to purchase a lunch um from us. So we're working through what that looks like as well. Um and

195obviously their parents who have to sign off on one thing that I insisted on is anyone who is taking our students or working with our students have a background check. Yes, I saw for our volunteer Yeah. Good policy. So okay. Okay. Uh, board of education business a LLB resources consulting services resolution to approve a consulting services agreement between the Riverside Local School District Board of Education and LLB Resources LRC at a cost of $250 per hour effective March 20th 25 through March 19th, 2026. Can I get a second? I'll second. Any discussion? Yeah, go ahead. I'll just say um you know I had the time this month to take a look and see what I could find. I could not find any professional profiles. I could not find company websites. Couldn't find any publications or

196articles. Nothing with a web search except the name and then no professional association. So the person we're hiring again we can't find any information on. And also due to the current financial constraints of the district, I can back this. Um you know the proposed consultation rate is $250 per hour. We do employ a director of communications that does a great job and he could perform these services for us if we tell him what we're looking for. Um, so again, just concerned about the money we're spending when we do have people already hired in the district to do the work. My concern also is that we don't have a stop on this proposal. There's it's a whenever she decides she's finished. Um, that's problematic for me. Uh, Mr. Mr. McIntyre, I believe the contract's written that

197the board can disengage at any time. That's correct. On seven days notice. Okay. So, we can uh disengage at any time if we're not satisfied with the services. And uh it's my understanding that each of the services will be noted in an invoice sent to the treasurer. Is that correct? That's noted in the contract. That's correct. So to be clearly identified um what we're paying for and while we have a great communications director um we're only reaching about 5,000 of the 26,000 hardworking taxpayers in the district and we need to reach them all. So as we develop that program um in conjunction uh with Nick uh after that's completed Nick will just take over and and run the program and this company will no longer be uh hired. they'll be fired at that point. So,

198this is a short-term u short-term's relative. We don't know how long it'll take to develop that and communicate, but after that's done, it'll be done. So, looking forward to reaching all the hardworking taxpayers. Right now, it's about 5,000 and we're we're a little bit short. We're missing over 20,000 of the taxpayers. So, we need to communicate with them in my opinion about how we're spending their money. I think that's very important. And also, uh, we're going to be coming up to needing to put, uh, a levy out, an operating levy, uh, because we're in deficit spending and we will need to, uh, have an operating levy to pass to continue to operate as a normal school district. And I think if the people know how their monies are being used, how we're fixing the problems

199that have developed over the years, how we're solving overcrowdedness, how we're getting rid of trailers and putting kids in bricks and mortar and and doing a lot of things to promote the district for the education of the students. I think this is a very positive move for a very for a relatively low amount of money. We could hire another company for a lot more money. They could be high-profile and we could spend a lot more for the same service. So, I don't think that's a good idea. I think we should get the most for each and every dollar that we spend. Um, Dr. Ratino, will you be able to give us regular weekly updates in your Friday packet on the status of this contract and what her progress is, please? I will try that up.

200Thank you. Um, Gary, can you take the role, please? Linda Grassi, nay. Lori Kiski, nay. Scott Fishell, I. Dennis Keaney, I. Denise Brewster, I. Motion is carried. U board of education business be building edition Buckeye Elementary. The Riverside Local School District Board of Education hereby approves moving forward with uh building an eight classroom addition plus a gymnasium addition on uh Buckeye Elementary. And can I get a second on that? Second. Thank you. So basically that I I want to make sure the taxpayers understand that this is because we are going to most likely issue cops financing and bonds to pay for this. It's unvoted millage. It's unvoted. It's unvoted bond financing. Um which typically if you're putting up facilities and you went out to the public and asked them for financing approvals bonds to pay

201for um your facility improvements, you would be asking the voters for that. this is not being voted because we have the ability to do that um without asking the public to do that. But again, I believe it is misguided since we can't really afford it, at least based on my expectations of what we need to be putting into this PI levy or PI forecast. Um we're putting the cart before the horse. So, we're going to vote to put on a, you know, move forward with putting on a building that we just don't really even know whether or not we can afford. And you're talking about millage and unvoted on. Um, are you suggesting that this will be additional tax money paid by the taxpayers? Eventually, eventually when our PI levy runs out of money, yes,

202you're going to have to ask them for additional dollars to pay for regular and recurring PI expenses. So, you can you can spin that however you want. Um, well, so just to be clear for for this item right here, do you believe taxpayers would be paying more taxes? Uh, we'll be going into deficit spending in our PI fund. So, we'll eventually get the money from somewhere. We'll take the money from the We'll take the money from the general and then we'll ask them for what you just said. We'll ask them for a levy. Yeah. So, we're not taking money from the general fund. And in this, you mentioned millage and unvoted taxpayer money. So, do you believe taxes are going up because of this item? I didn't say that. Okay. Hey, I just want to

203be clear. Thank you. Anything else? I just want to make a note. It's um we either do this or we keep the trailers for another for another 16 years. Well, perhaps we should have had some conversation around that and went with what the district or the community and everybody put together instead of taking our plan their way a different way. they would have solved the district problems instead of one area's problems. We didn't have that conversation at the board table on on the on how we would proceed. It was brought to the table in August of last year if I'm not mistaken and there we have it and it was passed 3 to two and now we're doing it. So we didn't have conversation about it. So I I don't know what else to say

204about that when we came to Buckeye. That project was put on at the last minute in December. I think it's December. Um it was voted on passed three to two. No conversation. So we have not had conversation about the finances and how we're going to fund all these things and we're doing all that. So I believe Riverview was in September when we had uh video board discussion September 3rd in a meeting if you want to go back and check that. If you keep telling the public on your social media, there was no discussion. And I also passed out the rendering of that in the buildings and grounds, which you said there was no nothing else. Yes, we did that. So, we had we had a discussion at the board table. There was further work on

205it. It was passed out. You were an other person in the buildings and grounds committee. You received it. And you keep telling people there was no discussion. I was floored when that was passed out. You may you may have been floored, but you have been misleading the public. And I would ask you to stop it because you had you had asked people to come and speak out loudly. That was probably the worst board meeting that the Riverside local school district ever had. So much so so much so much so that excuse me. So much so that Miss Brewster had to be escorted out to her car by the sher sheriff's deputy because it was unsafe in here. Okay. And that didn't stop there. followed up at the next meeting and and the sheriff's deputy stepped

206forward and he said, "It's not safe in here. I want to escort Q to your car in the next meeting." Okay, that's unacceptable behavior and you're causing that and I'm asking you to stop it. Don't stop it. Okay. Uh Gary, can you call the role? Lori Kiski, nay. Scott Fishell, I. Dennis Keany, I. Denise Brewster, I graci nay. Motion carried. Um, Board of Education Business C. Boner's Representative Authority, Riverside School Projects, be it resolved by the Riverside Local School District Board of Education that the Riverside Local School District's duly appointed owners representative, i.e. RFC contracting Roger Riachi and that the Riverside Local School District's administration is hereby authorized to direct the Riverside Local School District's duly appointed architect TDA Architecture and construction manager Cleveland Construction Inc. for the RH R RHS campus and Riverview building

207projects regarding scheduling and other matters of general project administration within the scope of the board approved contracts with TDA Architecture and Cleveland Construction, Inc. for the RHS Campus and Riverview building projects. The Riverside Local School District's duly appointed owner's representative, i.e. RFC contracting Roger Riachi shall consult as needed with the Riverside Local School District Board of Education President regarding scheduling and other matters of general project administration within the scope of the board approved contracts with TDA Architecture and Cleveland Construction, Inc. for the RHS Campus and Riverview building projects. The board of education hereby reserves to itself the sole and exclusive authority to consider and approve amendments and other modifications to the board approved contracts with TDA Architecture and Cleveland Construction, Inc. for the RHS campus and Riverview building projects. Um, do I get can I

208have a second? I'll second. Thank you. Any discussion? Plenty. So I am I have an extreme problem with the and not that's in section one. Riverside local school districts duly appointed owners representative i.e. RFC contracting Roger Riashi and not the Riverside local school districts administration is hereby authorized to direct etc etc. I am going to ask why it says and not when it could have said in conjunction with and it would have sounded a whole lot more collaborative but we decided not to do that and we decided to say and not. I have a problem with that. I have a problem with that. That is like showing such a lack of respect for the the individuals that we employ in high level positions to do this work. It's it's insulting. I've insulted four of them.

209I'm sure there was no disrespect intended. Well, there is though. And um so I would suggest that um Mr. McIntyre, I would suggest there's no disrespect intended in the wording in this contract. Would you agree? Yes. Yeah. So So then why can't we change it? So then I propose that we change that instead of saying and not. Well, That means we're not going to consult with them. When you sat here and heard Roger say for himself that he is not going to not do that. He's going to consult with the administration. So why is it saying and not? So this is not meant to carve out anyone. It includes all participation and communication. I'm sorry. This this says and not. Okay. So if they choose not to do that, then they don't have to because

210that's what this resolution says. So why don't we just say in conjunction with? I I think what this comes down to is um this is for u um authorized to direct the Riverside local stool school district's duly appointed architect and construction manager um building projects regarding scheduling and other matters of direct general project administration. So essentially what he's doing is we're we're using one voice to communicate with the architect and the contractor and that one voice is our representative. Uh you know if we include the uh administration then they may be getting two different messages mixed messages and and that leads to confusion. So if we let our representative be the sole voice in communication with them uh official uh decisions then I think that's a prudent thing to do. So why wouldn't our official

211voice be our superintendent? Instead we are turning it around in section two and and making that person the board president who's not here on a daily basis. And our superintendent should be directing when those projects are scheduled, knowing the school schedules, knowing what's going on in schools. That's his job. It's ridiculous. Yes. Their job is the education end of things. And I know his job is everything. His job is the CEO of this district and to run this district. That is a business decision. That is a business decision. He should be making that decision. for us to sit here and insult the intelligence of the two individuals that are sitting down. I certainly didn't take I certainly didn't take it any way that we were insulting anybody. It is, you know, you are insulting their

212professional credibility right here. I don't read it that way. Well, I'm sorry, but I believe that the entire public does. I do. Well, then you're projecting Well, you project a lot of things and I'm projecting that and you're absolutely right. And I I would I would suggest that then change it to in conjunction with if that is not your intention then change the words. So I think we're going to cut the conversation at this point. Gary, can you call the role? Right. Because the answer is we're not going to do that. We're not just going to say the same thing over and over again. Can you please take the role? Scott Fischel. I Dennis Keiny. I Denise Brewster. I Glenda Grassy. Absolutely never. Lorie Kinsky. Nay. Motion carried. Board of Education business. The authorization for

213change orders. Riverside school projects. Be it resolved by the Riverside Local School District Board of Education that the Riverside Local School District's duly appointed owner's representative, i.e. RFC contracting Roger Riachchi is hereby authorized to consider and approve necessary change orders in connection with each building project, i.e. RHS campus and Riverview and an amount not to exceed $50,000 per change order for each project. Necessary change orders subject to consideration and approval under this resolution shall not exceed available funds in the contingency fund established in connection with each project and shall comply with any certification of available funds required by law. The board of education hereby reserves to itself the sole and exclusive authority to consider and approve change orders in the amount of $50,000 or more per change order for each project. The Riverside Local School

214District's dulyapp appointed owner's representative is authorized to sign any necessary change orders authorized by this resolution. The board of education directs the treasurer CFO to include and report any necessary change orders considered and approved by the Riverside Local School District's dulyapp appointed owner's representative under this resolution to the board of education in monthly construction budget reports in connection with each project. Can I get a second? I'll second. Thank you. Any discussion, Mr. McIntyre? When the contract is written, if there's something that does not correspond or fit into this resolution, the contract supersedes it, right? Yes. Yeah. I mean, these are just adjustments in the amount of work that's done under the GMP, which will come to the board and will be um approved by the board. And as a part of that GMP, there will

215be a contingency fund established to cover those sort of unforeseen or unanticipated um um conditions that might require an an utilization of some of those funds. That's really why contingency funds are established. And so any approval of a change order under this resolution would have to fit within that contingency fund. So that's already been approved by the board. So the answer is yes. So really there's really limited value to this resolution in the first place. It really just allows the construction project to proceed efficiently, right? So there's no delays and slowdowns because the owner's rep needs to make decisions on the spot sometimes and it's important to have this is just normal procedure and uh spoke with Roger about it and he certainly wanted to have this ability. Gary, can you call the role? Dennis

216Key I. Denise Brewster I. Glenda Grassi nay. Lori Kriski nay. Scott Fishell I. Motion carried. Board of Education update. Any updates? I was just going to say I had the opportunity to go to the senior dinner and the play and it was amazing. It was truly a delight. Um the kids did a great job with the play and they are so impressive when they serve dinner to and they're so polite and I brought a guest and um you know it it it was just they make such great impressions. So thank you. Um and then the 75th anniversary it was great to be able to see especially in the media center and I I thanked uh Mrs. uh Jamie McIntyre uh but I know other people were involved. Uh all the displays, the the yearbooks, there

217were logs which was the newspaper and people brought in things that they had um on tables. So it was great to see all that and it sparked a lot of conversation. Even if you weren't in that class, you still knew this person or that person and it it was really a great time. Um and um uh I did see a a a great display as well of you know our programming that was more toward the back there and and I saw a lot of people looking at that as well. So that was good. Um the um syrup by the lake or by Lemouth was incredible. I mean you know it's like a little bit of a connoisseur of that and they did such a great job including the bottling, the labeling, everything. So, it it

218was really nice. Um, and then um I just wanted to mention um the loss of a former um uh staff member. Um she was principal at Leroy Elementary, Claudia Ralph. Uh she recently passed away and she was a very dedicated uh educator and um you know she'll be missed by many. Thank you for that. Mhm. I would just like to say that um I will be attending the network for network for public education national conference in Columbus on April 4th through April 6th. Um I will be attending sessions on vouchers here at Ohio. Um I'm very interested to see what they have to say. They have they have a number of sessions. I looked at the session list um religious instruction release. They have they and it's a since it's a national conference um getting

219perspectives from people outside of Ohio is I think will be really really helpful. They have some really really phenomenal um speakers for their for their sessions. Um as well as their keynote speakers. Um it will I I think it's going to be really valuable. Um I know the state teacher of the year is is it always kills me because his name is Kurt Russell. It just makes me laugh, but he's going to be speaking. Um, so I will be attending that. I'll report out at our next meeting. Um, I just wanted to let you know that I would I would I'm very interested in in hearing what what they have to say at that session. And where's that conference? It's in Columbus. Columbus. And the dates on that? April 4th through 6th. Okay. Thank you

220for that. Next meeting announcement, buildings and grounds, March 31st, 7:30 a.m. Policy Committee 7, April 2nd, 7:30 a.m. Buckeye Ad Hoc Committee meeting, April 2nd, 8:00 a.m. Special meeting, April 7th, 5:30 p.m. Curriculum and Programming Committee meeting, April 15th, 7:30 a.m. Finance and Personnel, April 17th, 8:00 a.m. Buildings and Grounds. April 22nd, 7:30 a.m. Board of Education meeting. April 24th, 6 p.m. And we set one more, didn't we? We did. We set a work session. I'm looking for it. 28th. April 28th. April 28th. That'll be after the next board meeting. Yes. So, we have to announce that. Okay. And so, Okay. And so we will adjourn to executive session. Be it resolved that the Riverside Local School District Board of Education hereby adjourns to executive session at 9:11 p.m. to discuss personnel matters relating to

221the employment of public officials, discipline negotiations, and security arrangements. and the Riverside Local School District Board of Education hereby designates all matters discussed in this executive session as strictly confidential and finds that this designation is warranted because of the status of these matters and the need to preserve confidentiality to properly conduct the business of this board of education. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. Gary, can you call the role? I Scott Fishell I motion carried. We will adjourn to executive session.