February 27, 2025 Board of Education Meeting

001Gary can you take the role Scott Bell here Dennis Keeny here Denise Brer here Linda grassy here kisy here stand for the pledge please pledge allegiance 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 on behalf of the board I would like to welcome all students staff parents and interested community members to 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 like to uh amend the

002agenda make a resolution to amend the finance audit consent agenda to remove item C regarding the primary service agreement with the educational service center of Northeast Ohio going to get a second second thank you Mr Keeny uh G can you call the role please Scott Pell hi Dennis Keeny hi Denise Boer hi Linda gry I Lori kisy I is uh do we have time to make other motions to amend the agenda sure AG I would like to make a resolution to remove and table item 15 C which is the Consulting contract with LLB Consulting Services I would just like to table that or postpone that for a further date to a further dat is there a second I'll second any discussion on that I feel like we need to move that to a further date

003we haven't had any conversation on a Consulting agreement or a proposal at this table ever um if we want to do that as an administrative and have our Administration do that I would like us to put out an RFQ and so I just like to table that for further conversation um you would like to put out an RFQ for the $99,000 item I don't know anything about this person so yes we haven't had that conversation i' just like to table it so I would just ask because we're unfamiliar with it typically we engage vendors we bring them in or Consultants we bring them in and we as a board get to talk to them and usually there's multiple people that we talk to for us in order to make a really good um decision um

004so on top of the reason that we've never even heard about this until today we've never had a chance to meet this person talk to this person know what this person's about um I would all that that's why I think it should be tabled also thank you did you see it on the agenda two days ago yes okay did you happen to research the company or call yes have conversations I didn't call but we would like to have the person in to talk just like we do normally okay um is there any other discussion okay Gary can you take the rooll Dennis KY n Denise Boer n Linda grassy hi Lorie kisy I Scott FAL nay okay motion denied any other amendments to the agenda proposed make a motion to approve the minutes as attached

005can I get a second please second thank you U Gary can you call the role please I just clarify it's the January 30th board meeting minutes February 7th special meeting minutes and February 19th for session minutes as noted on the agenda thank you for that and can you take the rooll please Dennis keny hi Denise hi Linda grassy hi Lorie kisy hi Scott Tiel I okay we come to special reports okay we have two tonight the first is um a monthly kind of update from our construction professionals uh so tonight we are Bing in the design phase so Ryan Schmidt from TDA is kind of here to present the board an update on our three construction project that are going on wherever you want I'll try to yeah thank you sir evening everybody um as

006Chris mentioned um Ryan schm with TDA architecture uh as Chris mentioned we are primarily in the design phase for the projects but this is just really to give you a big overview of where we are with the status of each of the projects oops uh how do we do there we go okay so um we'll start by going over the Riverside High School that's the Career Tech uh addition that would be going off of the area over by welding and wood shop area then we'll talk about um uh Riverview briefly and then jump over to kind of progress on Buckeye um so as we currently sit this is the site plan for the construction uh or the Career Tech uh Edition over like as mentioned over by the uh welding area and the workshop um

007what this building will have included in it is a construction trades classroom it will have a shared classroom for all the CTE programs uh it will have an advanced manufacturing classroom uh which will have um some of the higher Tech equipment that goes along with these uh types of different uses and it will have connector hallways that get you from one section of the building to the other uh in an accessible manner so presently as everybody knows there are steps around that section of the building there are ramps in that section of the building this will allow an entrance uh into stud student dining that is on grade uh and accessible and to the rest of the building so it'll be a really nice feature to have um this is a blow up of the

008plan and shows a couple views of that space does the laser work on Screen Works of course um so what you're seeing in the upper right hand corner is the construction trades classroom that's the largest of the classroom that's when we're intended to be using you know hand tools and and power tools and things of that nature to explore the various aspects of the construction trades that's building walls putting together you know uh picnic tables um it's the various pieces that go into any sort of construction project but this gives a Lab in order to be able to do those sorts of activities a bigger space with Overhead Door uh and all those sorts of amenities right next to that in the darker gold color that is the that's the shared uh classroom and that

009allows allows those spaces to work together and then just south of that uh would be the space for uh uh Advanced manufacturing and that's where it has all that kind of higher Tech equipment and you can kind of see in those renderings just a view of each of those spaces um these are being built out in our documentation model right now so what that is is back in the old day everybody Drew their projects by hand then it moved into uh computerated drafting where you'd see just single dimension lines uh as you're drawing out these drawings these are actually being modeled as we go through and we and we draw the the building so you see the inside of that space as we see it as we're drawing those those areas so we can have

010conversations about the casework that go in the classrooms we can have conversations about the right place to put outlets and everybody can see it uh real time these have been nice tools uh we have been having weekly meetings with a construction team and that involves some Administration uh involves contractor owner's rep in order to make sure that all the ideas and all the pieces Parts uh that are necessary to make these projects Su successful are implemented at this this stage of the project as we documented but you can see in this image just that really nice connection that you'll have with those corridors that go across on the Le hand side of student dining that that pathway that goes to the South connects you up to the main Corridor so this will really tie that

011whole section of the building together uh really nicely um as far as schedule goes we're in the a lot of my slide kind of shifted around um some of the text mve but that first section over there that's where we are right now that's the winter of um 24 going into 25 uh at this stage we've been doing all the uh stuff that you need to do up front we're getting surveys we're getting geotechnical investigations done that's exploring the Earth and exploring everything that's in the ground um this is the stage where we walk through the building we look at the walls that are existing find out stuff that was added that wasn't on the original drawings uh and we accommodate all those things in our plans make sure that there is comprehensive as possible

012uh during construction things always come up you find things you didn't expect but this stage is really intended to find as much of that as possible so we don't have any um surprises as we get going um during this process for this project as well we are in the stage where we are developing the construction documents um that's the drawings as you you were seeing there is the drawing that go along with a bid set of documents that the contractor can build from but it is also specifications uh that's the really boring part to most people but it's a big book that has all the information that goes into all the products that's talking about the type of glass we use the type of flooring we use the bricks the blocks steel everything that goes

013into this project is built built into that specification book so the contractor is bidding it know what they're supposed to do um during this process as well we've had meetings with um uh Life Safety Services all the authorities that are having jurisdiction of this area to talk through these projects um get any concerns that they may have everybody's been very accommodating very helpful through this process um I was very encouraged by uh the Outreach we got from them and really the coordination and and communication we've had with them it was very nice uh We've also reached out to utility companies that's your kind of other big question at this stage of the project is making sure that all the utilities go to this project uh are what you need for that space and utility companies

014take a little while they're big organizations they take a little while to get ramped up into the project and so having those conversations now uh is the appropriate time to do that so um for the next few weeks uh we are working on construction documents and then we will be getting bid packages together essentially documents that are at a point where uh Cleveland construction who is our construction manager at risk uh are able to put together bid documents and send those out uh to get bids for for the construction of the project um at that same time we will be going through the permitting process uh so as you have this together you have to get drawings together that need to be submitted uh to the bilding department to zoning to all those folks fire

015department uh so they're aware of everything that goes along with this but as of now we're we're tracking exactly where where we had intended to be and then last but not least uh late spring early summer as bids come in uh Cleveland constructure we put together their recommendations for awards so they'll receive bids from multiple subcontractors subcontractors being uh for example you know people that do doors they'll get bids from three or four five six people that do doors they'll get those bids they'll vet those bids they'll identify the best most responsive most cost effective bids and then make recommendations who they would recommend proceeding with for the project so and then you roll into construction after that uh real quick before we go on yes this is really exciting as it's kind of developed

016one of the things I want to remind is that this was the majority of the funding for this is coming from a grant that Dr malaka wrote so $2 and5 million of this entire project is being funded from our grant writing and the great work that we're doing along that way and that's you know we want to continue to point that out as we work through the process and all that so one thing to really make sure that be continues SP is that you know we are we are working hard to kind of get these spaces up for our kids and we're really excited about the way this is working with the future of it the way that it's all working together it's not only going to be a great CTE learning space it's also

017going to provide an after hours entrance that goes directly into the the common eating space so it's a if you have an event at the auditorium you're no longer walking through all the halls and down that you go right through the into the cafeteria and right in the into the auditorium or the cafeteria whatever so it's a it's really exciting not only for the fact of the educational opportunities but also the facility and I I think that's an excellent point uh I think and that came out of some of these meetings that we were able to have is that communication that went back and forth is we're doing a project in this area what are kind of some of our shortcomings one of the shortcomings was being able to get students into student dining without

018having to take them through the auditorium this was a great opportunity to kind of do two things with one one one action you know we're were able to put in that connector piece that connects the new addition to the rest of the building but that also acts as a conveyance to get people into student dining um which you know that's these kind of conversations really help kind of push that along wanted to ask um on the one um because I could see from the rendering stuff um natural lighting windows and what about the third room um so all three rooms do have Windows um the advanced manufacturing and some of my text I apologize some of these don't read the way they're supposed to stuff kind of jumped around a little bit but um the

019advanced manufacturing the one at the Bottom's got three big Windows okay so those are windows not out correct correct big windows and then the classroom has two windows to the north and a window to the courtyard and construction trades is very similar and kind of the concept for that I'll jump back to this one real quick you have obviously that big parking lot to the north where most people are kind of coming from so we wanted Windows facing that direction so people could see the activity see the light um see the stuff that's going on inside those spaces but as students arrive and as they go into that courtyard space you wanted to make it more tangible so as your walking up you want kids to be able to see inside there see this you

020know the machines that are doing all these wonderful things on the counter and get inspired by that and want to jump into that program because uh you're going to have something a lot of schools don't get the opportunity to offer to their students and it's it's really fantastic so it's going to be great okay do we have an estimate on that yet anything uh we do yeah I just got it I got a another one updated one it's uh three uh three a little over 3 million so 3, 53,000 total is the estimate that's that's Cleveland construction's construction estimate but obviously it's not have to PID yet so whatever is access will have to take out of the pi fund yes whatever access what we put a little bit aside for that as we point

021to plan what extras are being considered as part of that well part of it is again the grant was 2 and A5 million um the the construction is is a little over three we still have furniture uh we still have equipment so right but I mean like the air conditioning we are asking for alternates for air conditioning especially in a student dining space um looking at different ways to do it even to look at the auditorium Chiller and its age and seeing if it if we can kind of work off of that so we've asked for that um a lot of them deal with with air conditioning so freshening up of the cafeteria it's a bright yellow um maybe kind of toning it down a little bit and putting some striping in like some of

022that sort of thing and and then some air conditioning uh HVAC I think we asked for one in here uh cuz this one currently doesn't work it's a nice day outside so it's not uh that change in here but if it's if it's really hot outside it's really hot in here and if it's really cold outside it's actually really cold in here as well so we've asked for for this one the choir room because we're going to have a contractor out the choir room was scheduled by buildings of grounds last year to have the air conditioning done we put that on hold once we got this grant thinking we can get some economy of scale um with that and then we've looked at I believe John R as well and but none of that is

023currently encumbered in the none of that is encumbered right not we don't have estimat we don't have estimates or any of that so they would all come in as alternates as a part of a bid of a larger bid package yeah and with the alternates you're able to select which ones you want to proceed with so when we get those we'll have a meeting to discuss and kind of pick as those go through that is one that that process of coming out and seeing what's actually here that's where that becomes very important because some of these systems are they're older um and so just really getting familiar with what you have on site and our Engineers are working through all that and then we'll have some larger scale documents pictures and kind of things like

024that um for the 75th in the common so people can see how we're watches grow again all right um I'll jump to Riverview next um this really hasn't the site plan hasn't really changed much uh but we've gotten a lot of information this is another one where we've gotten survey uh over the last week we were able to get the survey which has that has your utility information for the site that has your uh topograph graphical elevations the the the you know height of the ground the height of all the sidewalks all those sorts of things that are necessary for our Engineers to really look holistically as to how the site's going to function um so we've gotten that information uh there was Esa phase one study done which you know checks certain environmental situations

025and that came through clean so all the information we're getting is very good um you know there's some you know obviously site work is going to have to happen in order to build the addition but everything we're getting as far as information goes has been been positive thus far um so where we are with this one we're in a very similar phase this is tracking very similar to the CC Edition uh we are in the throws of doing the construction documents for this project um this is one where the engineers um did a tour of the building they looked at the existing utilities they looked at existing spaces we walked through some of the class rooms uh and the intent of this project is to really mimic uh classrooms and spaces that are over at

026that facility already we're not trying to put a new stamp on it that's a newer building it's got its own identity so we're matching the masonry we're matching the windows we're matching the interior finishes uh as much as we can in order to make it very cohesive uh and work with that building effectively room sizes are similar case work is similar perit is similar um the timeline uh again is going to look very similar because we're in that same pathway for this project uh they're tracking about a week apart uh at this point so you we've gotten all that due diligence information in and we're in the process of documentation so uh we've been fortunate enough working with staff to go through you know some of the casework and Furnitures and even as as of

027today we're having those types of conversations um there will continue to be little questions that come up you know is it would you rather have the sync move it over to the second day because it's easier for students to get would you rather do this or that within the classrooms but it's all those little steps that as we kind of wrap up these documents uh and make sure that all those items get as close to um you know perfect as we can get it nothing's perfect but this is we're trying to hit that sweet spot and get everything in the right spot uh for the students and the staff to work as effectively as possible um and then early mids spring tracks the same way with bidding and permitting and very similar with uh uh

028late spring early summer word of contracts and construction it's the same same process for this project have his our Wetland study been done yes on the new property yes I have that there are no issues and that's one um you it's best to do that whenever you have any sort of new property to really just check out your situation make sure there's there's no concerns I think everybody felt going in very positive that it was going to come out the way it did so um it was just best to do your due diligence and make sure there was nothing to be concerned about um last last is Buckeye um we have had some conversations about it I want to caution everybody this is very preliminary and this is just really meant as a placeholder to

029start talking about program um so we've talked about the number of classrooms right now we're sitting at about eight classrooms on the site um the Final Mix of what those classrooms are the size of those classrooms how they integrate with the rest of the building that still needs to be flushed out uh still needs to be worked out um but I think this is a really good start as to looking at that program um presently it shows five kind of standard size classrooms and then three kindergarten size classrooms so we're trying to hit that sweet spot of the amount of classrooms you need per grade level uh in that space and that's why I'm saying it might Flex a little bit based on how conversations go um additionally in this space one of the ideas

030that I think was a very good idea was the idea of taking the stage element off of the student dining down at the other end incorporating a new stage uh the gymnasium space to be very similar to what's going on at the other schools so this the gym size that you see here is very it's almost identical to what's at Riverview uh it offers a very similar opportunity for the students here the stage is very similar to Riverview it's within a couple of square feet so the size of this this Podium that's about how much different they are um so it gives a very similar experience for students in this building and the other buildings um the thing I really like about this concept as it's starting to work itself out again not finished but

031just some of the ideas behind it is that there would be an entrance kind of up at that North Area you see that wiish bar that's going across that's a circulation path that's a Lobby uh but allows you to section off all the classrooms to the south of that and then maintain the gymnasium the stage that green room is a is a meeting room uh you could have that and then the restrooms all off this Lobby space and have the rest of the school locked off after hours so you're able to access all those kind of more public spaces Community spaces without having to people go back into the rest of the building so it really works out nicely that way um but one nice feature if we're able to move the stage here uh

032it would allow us to take that student dining space en llarge it a little bit uh which would be nice because you could use some extra square footage in there and then potentially get some windows into that dining area and brighten that space up a little bit um just kind of modernize the front of the building a little bit and that kind of student experience uh for dining so I think there's a lot of potential here but there's ongoing conversations um there's the committee which i' I'd like to meet with at some point kind of go through some of these items and then we just need to keep working with staff and administration to just kind of you know work through the rest of those pieces parts that go into this building um on top

033of that there still is the conversation about how much work what type of work we do throughout the rest of the existing building that's an ongoing conversation um we've done the the site walks through that space I haven't taken all my Engineers out there yet um but we've started to develop a concept of what that might be that's going to be one of those things where you could do the world or you could do less than that and so it's one of those where we have to look at budget look at what's most prudent for you know maintaining a building well into the future and making sure all of those elements uh marry up with you know your expectations for cost and schedule and things of that nature so um and then just outside of

034the site that has not been fully thought out yet but there are some placeholders that seem to make a lot of sense uh being able to push the playground uh to the back corner of the property you know behind kind of those classroom spaces off the gymnasium would be a nice feature that way you have a semi-protected space for the playground away from the parking lot accessible from the gymnasium accessible from the lobby space so that would be a nice feature uh it'd be accessible from that Corridor that heads North out of the East wing of the building as well so there's a lot of access points to that playground from within the building building and then maintaining playing fields to the north you got a nice big green space up there um it'd be

035nice to maintain that feature for soccer or kickball or whatever wants to happen back in that space big green spaces uh disappear nowadays and it's nice to be able to maintain that where you can and you have the opportunity to to do that so any other questions on yeah yeah I do um who's who's our district point of contact that you communicate with mostly uh on these projects like who are you communicating with so we have weekly meetings and that's um Chris and Gary and um rich and and it's the whole folks from Administration are there we get um uh Melissa's there as well and then we bring in principles as necessary uh occasionally board member will be there um we've had uh Cleveland constructions at most of those meetings which um that's for all

036the projects as we talk through those either in person or they join virtually and then the owner's rep uh attends most of those meetings as well so I I feel like we've gotten a lot of good input um from the group and there is one this Monday just to confirm that CTE is the focus correct yeah and I might bring a couple other questions yeah yeah yeah and and we have um at this point in the process where we're kind of talking through very similar questions on both projects so it's it's stuff like uh the casework you know how we lock casework you know is it by room is it by building those kinds of questions that um are kind of universal you know in those buildings but we have a couple more specific questions

037um yeah um I I would I would like to request to make sure that when you're having Communications regarding what's going to go on in these buildings or designed that you're actually emailing our administrative team as well I want to make sure that everybody's included on all of those emails all the time um I would would appreciate that if you don't mind thank you yeah and I I think those Monday meetings have really helped personally I think that's really it's helped me quite a bit uh in order to kind of streamline the process and make sure we're getting um a lot of inut um this is a question for our Administration can you um outline for me what what was is going to be going in exactly in the eight classrooms that we review and

038what's going to be going in the eight classrooms or however many classrooms we're building on you're a bucket yeah so in the eight classrooms at Riverview um the eight classroom Edition we are moving we hav't we're waiting on a schedule to make some announcements to be completely transparent we're waiting on the construction schedule to see kind of what what Cleveland puts together once the bid documents come back and all that um learning from the vesu we got bid documents back came back a little bit higher we had to do some changes so we want to make sure that we are we are planning on a for riew we are planning on a December open is what we've kind of been told uh ready for second semester so we're going to start the year we're going

039to move we're going to put some of the special ed classrooms back um and then we have some extra classrooms that are going to go we are counting on a fifth section of kindergarten due to enrollment and projected numbers based on live births now who enrolls and who doesn't we can't necessarily have but the numbers are looking like that's going to be the case and then we are carrying over a um the upstairs classroom are going to be co- teing classrooms um so they're they're they're connected by a door we're going two gener who are currently stacked but they're basically going to be filled with classes that are going to go in there um and then those we have three sections or three grade levels I'm sorry not sections three grade levels on the top

040of kindergarten who potentially could have five sections next year they're building built for four so we're going to take those that we currently have in like the band room or in the music room sorry and the choir room and we're moving those out into the additional classrooms and I think uh that leaves us with for next year two open classrooms starting in December uh when they clearly open those will be the two kind of classrooms that are targeted for our pre- students who eventually will have some of that over at Riverview uh the question at that point is do we transport in the middle of the year or do we open prees starting with the next fall school year that that's all dependent on permitting um from Ohio Department of Education or now permitting now

041is from the Ohio what's pering uh Department of Children and Youth Services that's it it used to be but now it's children and youth services so pering um based on that and then uh Transportation timing that sort of thing obviously as we get some final a stronger schedule we we will be announcing these things we would like to do it quicker rather than later but we're TR waiting for that how how many classrooms of prek three we are expecting five but so so we're going to push two over there for next year or the year after and then what are we doing at with the classrooms at Buckeye so the classrooms at Buckeye we are we have six classes that are currently in modular units um those six classes obviously would take six of the

042or some iteration of that uh we are looking at having other classes specific we are giving back the music room and the art room back to the specials teachers uh we are currently having some smaller scale class one of our grades is a little bit smaller in section so we typically have three grades per section or sorry three classes per section in the grade uh we are going to we are able to potentially go to two in one of our grade levels next year because of numbers we think that's a temporary bubble so that will go into one of the other classes um and then again we have that swing classroom as well if we go with eight uh that can go there uh as well if we go with a larger Buckeye so if

043we go with 12 classrooms we have the opportunity to put some unit classrooms over there if we need to uh which is starting to look like we're starting to see to need some of those unit classrooms at the younger level as well as looking at potentially shifting um and making some larger changes to the district as a whole as we watch enrollment and move through so so I I just want to make have a question because in our last board communication we indicated that we're going to have you know a large influx of new students from housing developments and that we're adding all this classroom space for new students but we're not really adding classroom space right now for new students we're just shuffling around what we already have is that's not one of our

044one of our we actually met as a committee today and so Ryan says the Buckeye is preliminary it really is one of the conversations we really had was I was kind of on that number of between 8 and 12 and what is what the what the future holds and all that and it's it's one of those we talk about when you add 12 when you add four more um does that give you room you know specifically to to grow or to be flexible with it adding for more Elementary classrooms which traditionally as a district we haven't had that flexibility and we when we built the two new schools obviously we were forced to build them smaller than we lost some classrooms and that would get us back to some of those Elementary classrooms that we've

045lost throughout the district so it might adding those 12 might come with some pain points of I'd like to say it's a it's a four-letter word in the school system but to talk about redistricting but to be prudent that might be something we would have to have to look at truly and investigate once we get a finalized plan looking at where we are and then looking at again enrollment and where we are kind of consistently at all of our buildings because what we're seeing is kind of a little bit smaller in one side of town and a little bit more uh higher enrollment on the other so it's to be prudent we had those conversations I think they were very they were very fruitful I don't know this is you can speak to him a

046little bit more if you want to yeah um uh the thing about you know when you're adding on to an existing structure it's what you do with the students while you're adding on and then once it's added on then everybody fits in place so you know it it's a fluid situation and um obviously our goal of Buckeye is not to have the trailers have um six classrooms out in the trailers and so or modular so we're um you know we had a comfortable conversation today about how we can fit them within the building next year and some of that is moving some programming around but that doesn't mean you know if they go to one school or the other school that that's their final home um because you have to go with the flow when

047you build right Ryan so it's almost like you have you know your your transition plan and then you have your permanent plan but how permanent is it you always have to be in a state of flux because you don't know housing you don't know enrollment um no one has lot there are a lot of great options that come out of that committee to talk about just preliminary but setting the numbers and what that looks like um to really move forward with it so it was it it it was really fruitful and deep conversation and it was a good good good engagement so um Ryan we will invite you to the next one um as we get through once we schedule it sure sure to talk but this one there was just kind of really the

048overall what we're both thinking out no I I appreciate you guys putting in the effort to talk through the thing you know talk through the thing talk through the program and and really get a solid idea of what you're going to need because that's the biggest thing and that where I can help you know as we get into the more specifics of the space is is making sure that as we you know Define these rooms that we make them um multi-functional and adaptable because I mean that's the biggest thing is we know what education looks like now we think we know is going to look like in 10 15 20 years things change so rapidly anymore and being flexible within your space uh and providing yourself opportunity to adjust in the future that's really what

049we want to do you know uh make make a building viable for 50 to 100 years instead of 20 you know and I I think that that came up too and I think you're kind of what you've seen what you designed along the way because we've talked about our own experiences and what we've seen but being in all the other districts and kind of how what these uh one of the things we talked about is collaborative spaces and designing collaborative spaces where large groups can come what that looks like in high can incorporate that and where that can be so we have those we built Parks remember we built those in at each grade level obviously we're not going to be able to put PODS of buck but how can we provide those PR spaces

050and what does that look like because that's such a key to education today um again the here's kind of the schedule for this so this project we are still in the kind of information gathering process as as we've just uh elaborated on here uh so we're getting information together we have the very Draft plans that you see they look finished and I I apologize that things look finished as early as they do nowadays but you can generate a model with some of the drawings we do but that doesn't mean that's what it is that's just that's a working process at this point so we're working through that uh and we still need to look at what needs to happen you know melage if there's any work that needs to happen over there as we're doing

051this work as we have efficiencies of scale uh if you're looking at doing mechanical at one building is there an advantage to doing mechanical at the other building things of that nature just to make sure that we check all the boxes and we do all the right things uh at the appropriate time while you have people uh doing construction doing work uh so you're not paying for those those fees later down the road and then um you know as that kind of rolls on my hope um or expectation is you know uh during the spring summer we're starting to develop documents and to get something together that's more comprehensive and cohesive uh and we can bring back pictures to show you guys with more information that's all I have thank you very much thank you

052um mrco do we do we have a an actual contract for services with TDA yet for these projects we have a proposal I know we approved a proposal but we don't have a contract that's in the board did approve the the scope of work at the January 30th meeting I did check with Dan said that was sufficient and just finalizing the contract document it's similar to the prior two contracts we've had signed just different project and different amount well we have to approve that and I think you said we were we were good at this point no it's already been approved at that January 30th meeting any other questions for me I appreciate everybody's time thank you so much thanks for coming more special reports more special reports um next up Dr Bass is here

053with some great Lou students um to share the great things going on at lamu in the next 5 minutes down is forward yes down is for okay we we were joking a little bit before that the presentation was going to be an hour and a half but I got it down to an hour I'm joking I'm joking it'll only be uh 50 minutes so um anyway very excited to be here today if you guys don't know me I'm Dr bassich uh principal of louth middle school I was at the high school before but really happy to be at the middle school join alongside Mrs Hardy today assistant principal have a couple teachers here today Miss Rudy and Mr pots and we have some students here which you're going to hear from in just a few

054minutes so I will try to be brief so you can hear from them cuz we're really excited to hear what they have to say so what we're going to start with is just a quick overview of some of the things that been going on at louth um as some of you may know we've had a lot of changes this year at lve middle school and it's very exciting to see um one of our biggest changes was was our group that's here today which are the fifth graders that we brought into the school as part of our one Community um I can remember when Dr rotino came up I think it was in December and said hey we're going to potentially have some fifth graders in the building and I think my first reaction was yes

055let's go I mean it was almost an instant thought I'm was very excited to have them in the building and I couldn't be more proud of their transition that they've had so we're going to talk more about them later but that was something that was very uh new to our building um and we were able to fit in them in the building which was great so we have know and Buckey over there at fifth grade um we've also had a lot of building and safety upgrades which have been uh very exciting as well if any of you have been to the building recently I had someone come the other day and they're like oh my gosh this looks totally different the the front face of the building building uh has been completely redone we have

056a new vestibule as you walk in similar to what you would find at some of the other buildings now uh has really improved the Safety and Security of the building also our lobby doors um where we have all of our bus riders come in and they come in for like basketball games and things like that it's a hi trffic area has all been replaced and most of our uh entrances and exits have also been uh redone as well which is fantastic also our gym uh was was something that was redone we had a lot of outside spaces that were redone mainly for the recess uh which we'll talk about in just a little bit and um so those are some really nice things that we've done to the building um also we looked at the

057schedule and we started thinking about how we wanted to change a schedule we really have two schedules that are overlapping at the school we have a fifth grade schedule that's sort of running concurrently with our sixth and seventh grade schedule so it's kind of neat we have two things going on at the same time and it does work really well so our fifth graders have a very comparable schedule to those around the district whereas our sixth and seventh graders have a modular based schedule which if you think about like building blocks we stack them on top of each other and we can create different size or lengths of classes so what we were able to do was to really double down on our tested subject areas which are our math and Ela in our building

058for the sixth and seventh grade and create 65 minutes for those those classes and what we were able to do with that is really net gain about 40 extra instructional days uh which I think is an awesome thing both in ela and math we're hoping that that manifests into some real growth for our students and yes we did have to take some time away from our science and social studies and our specials but with our two tested subjects we really wanted to push some extra time in there it also served as a nice bridge between the length of time that they had at the elementary level which is generally a lot longer of a period and then now we're 65 and then the high school's 80 so it gave us a little bit better of

059a spread rather than going really large and then we were 53 minutes traditionally and then we're back up to 80 which was 90 at one point so I think it's going to be better for the students as they transition because their stamina is going to be a little bit better at that 65 in the ELA and the math so when they get to the higher you know longer time domains at the high school I think that's going to help them all the way across because going from 53 to 80 or 53 to 90 which it was before was a huge jump for a kid um especially in a one-year period so something to think about so we're really excited about that um another thing we've been work working really hard on is our mtss districtwide

060but also in the building which is our multi-tiered systems of support this is a program that's designed for our students that need some extra uh intervention and support in we're doing math and Ela at this time and we're really targeting those students and trying try to provide them some extra support So in addition to the 65 minutes in alen math some students are also getting additional time with their the mtss process um for intervention and supports and those that are not are part of some enrichment that's going on during our IE time IE is intervention and enrichment or extension um that happens uh three times throughout the day sixth grad's at the beginning of the day seventh is at the end and fifth grade's right in the middle so we're able to spread out our

061title tutors and do some really nice things for our kids throughout the day um another thing that we able to do as inspired by our fifth graders is recess for everybody yes we brought back recess I could be the most popular person in the building for that um I think um but it was something that I can remember when I was at louth my first year back in 06 we had recess which just was us taking the kids outside for about 15 minutes and letting them run around we now have some dedicated spaces for those children and we've added 100 minutes of time for them to go outside when the weather's good um we've been inside obviously with the um Northeast Ohio winter that we've had a real Northeast Ohio winter um and we've been

062doing doing um board games in the gym or I'm sorry in the cafeteria we've had half the gym available and then also the library spaces too so even when the weather's bad we're able to do some some good things inside and one thing was actually born out of indoor recess just recently was chess club we had so many kids were interested in chess we actually started an after school club CU so many kids we had to buy more chess boards because they enjoyed chess so much so good things for indoor recess right um we did update our cell phone policy our existing cell phone policy which had been that way for a while I believe was cell phones uh were were not allowed except at lunchtime um I didn't really love that because I found

063that our students weren't spending so much time talking to each other they were more on their phones and at that age and really at all ages in school we want kids talking to each other and spending time with each other so we have just we don't do cell phones at lamouth and we're get we tried to get ahead of the governor's mandate um so we're locked and loaded for whatever he brings down I mean we're we're ready so and it's actually gone very well um it's not been a very big issue we aren't having a lot of cell phone issues we address them when we see him we have them and the parents to be honest are starting to be I think very supportive of a choice like that and um our kids are focusing

064on their academics and their relationships with each other so I really really like that choice that we made um we've expanded and added some new clubs which is really cool um some of you have seen the um I always call it Twitter but it's X now but Twitter post um that were uh about lamou theater we added lamou theater this year we haven't had theater in the house in a very long time it's been double digit numbers um we had I believe in the first rehearsal almost a 100 children that showed up for the theater an after school club very popular um in the spring we're doing uh Disney's Aladdin as a musical um so we're very excited about that and again trying to serve as a bridge to the high school because we have

065such a Rob robust theater program go see SpongeBob the musical that's coming up um I think we'll hear about that in a little bit right might okay we might don't steal my thunder I'm not there's no Thunder stolen I was just advertising advertising so um but we're really excited about that we talked about chess club a little bit too and then one of the other things that's been really nice is we've um looped our fifth graders in the student council so we have our fifth graders as leaders in the building which is really cool and what I'm starting to notice is that our fifth graders are starting to want to help the the further students so I actually had a group of fifth graders who ask me said hey when the when the melridge and

066bucke kids come up next year can we can we help them tour can we help them around the building I'm like when right so very exciting to see our students wanting to step up and lead and they've been doing some great stuff and Miss Rudy's been leading our student council group she'll talk a little about that tonight which is awesome uh we also have done some enhancements in our Fab Lab for those you haven't been in the building we have six 3D printers a laser engraver a vinyl cutter we have presses we have button makers we have all kinds of things um it's a really nice place uh for students to build and to create things and it's all student design so it's really exciting to see uh students making things in those spaces and

067um I just our parent organization's been very helpful with uh supporting that as well okay just a quick fly over of fifth grade and then we're going to hear from our students and staff um couple things I'd like to talk about with the fifth grade are the classroom spaces and location what that look like um just talk a little about the furniture in the room what that looks like the schedule specials um recess uh and then just a little bit about some of the different events they've been a part of so we'll we'll look at a few of those things so classroom spaces one of the exciting things is when we had the students come over um Dr rotino said hey I need five classrooms and by that afternoon we were able to find five

068classrooms it didn't really take very long we kept the students to one kind of separated wing of the building so that they didn't have as much Transportation around the building they could get to the office they could get to the um Library get to the cafeteria some of those larger spaces quickly and um they could get their lockers where they needed to be so we kept them all where they needed to be it's been really nice and um those spaces that are in there all have new furniture which is set up for personalized learning flexible seating and also they have new display boards and storage in those rooms as well and the rooms look great so I'm really excited and what's really nice is there was some teacher agency as well because the teachers had

069some input in the design and the choices of those F the furniture that they had in their rooms and you'll look each room is just a little different in terms of the furniture same idea but just a little different and it's really good I know Mr Potts really likes the high top tables so he doesn't have to go down here to do the math he can do the math up here while he's at the high top table which is a good thing so I that's what he chose for his room I would have chose the same thing being tall so those are some things about our classroom spaces and our location the fifth grade schedule I talked about this a little bit earlier um very in line with the rest of the fifth graders that's

070something we wanted to make sure that they had a comparable experience as far as the schedule goes and their their core subject and so on um we have recess and I time and specials on a 5-day rotation so it's exciting but again some of the things you'll hear tonight we've got a very nice large double gym we've got some really cool spaces around the building that I think are unique and I I really like that uh for our students at lamu uh we talked a little about the furniture already I kind of um stole this one already but really nice to see the the classroom Furniture being used in different ways and the students moving about the room we have some couches and comfy chairs in the room we have some high tops low tops

071wobble stools all kinds of different things and it's uh just nice to see and the kids are using them and they really like them so the teachers uh recess area upgrades really nice if you want to come out and shoot some hoops with me I do try to play with the kids uh we do some outdoor basketball we have a double C or a full cord out there glass Hoops um which is really nice two four square courts a GaGa ball pit we have a full football field cuz that's where they obviously play their games we have some soccer actually we're using the lacrosse goals now but we have some goals out there for soccer and uh we have some other things that the kids can play and we have some ideas that have been

072generated for some of those outdoor spaces that the kids have recommended we decided on the recess space to be a little different than maybe what you might see in a first and second grade you know what they're interested in where they're climbing on things and you know maybe swings when you watch fifth grade recess most of the kids are playing sports they're they're they're using courts they're using things so that's what we did that's what we built so we're really working on improving the access to that those spaces because we are dealing with the the winter issues and it's pretty tough to play basketball in the snow um so we're a little Limited in that so we're trying to think around like how can we provide more opportunities outside for kids and also get them

073to and from these places without having to go through snow and mud and all those other things so those are some Growing Pains that we've gone through but um we it's been great we had a great fall to get outside and I was really pleased with that all right and then our last thing clubs and activities uh really had some nice opportunities for these kids uh in the fifth grade and all of our students still involved in Ski Club just run all those things but really got them involved in things like chess club uh the student council has been a great addition for the fifth graders and also Amsco has brought to our building some of the things that we have never done before like pizza Bingo and the sweetheart dance and things that were

074traditional Upper Elementary just Elementary type things and they were able to get some of those to happen for the fifth graders and all of our students which I think is great we had a sweetheart dance and we had fifth sixth and seventh grade uh kids attend which I thought was really cool so that that was a nice thing we have a bowling night that's coming up for uh for our kids as well so some really nice clubs and activities so those are some of the things that are going on at the school I I couldn't be more proud of of our students all grades fifth sixth and seventh um I I tell people all the time this is by far the the the my most favorite thing I have ever done I really enjoy being

075with the children every single day and working with the staff and um I'm very proud of our staff and our students so with that I'm going to kick it over to Mrs Hardy how' I do on time great was that good Perfect all right good um I'm going over Mrs Hardy who is going to introduce our teachers and our students and they're going to talk a little bit about their experience there's no power more powerful testimony than the people that are going through every single day um and that's who you're going to hear from can I invite our um fifth grade students down maybe we can line up over here um we can start by introducing Mr pot hello he's going to talk a little bit about the trans transtion to L and what he

076likes about the school well several people have have asked me how the tradition went primarily teachers during PD days from some of the other buildings have said how you know how'd that all go you know bottom line is in my opinion and the opinion of the other fifth grade teachers it couldn't have gone more smoothly um we were welcomed with open arms uh by the lamouth staff and administration you know they really treated us as just immediately right out of the gate one we were treated like a part of the family so um the kids are thriving uh from the moment they got to lamouth they've they've just transitioned extremely well into being fifth grade middle schoolers um they are capable they become more independent Learners and as fifth grade teachers and I'll speak for

077the rest of the fifth grade crew that couldn't make it tonight you know we are thrilled to be at lamouth and are looking forward to many more years so thank you thank you Mr I'm Miss Seri I am the fifth and sixth grade technology teacher I am also the student council um person so I have enjoyed very much having the fifth graders as part of student council this year they have dove in head first and have been amazing helpers with the fifth grade um than things that we needed them to do running around the school collecting Beaver cards or whatever I've asked them to do they are participating in absolutely everything here at Lou so love having them with us and the transition for me bringing in the fifth grade teachers and students have been

078wonderful I've had fifth grade at my building before um when it was a necessity and we never saw them they were in their own littlest corner and we never ever saw them and we were like there's people here okay this year they're integrated and it's lovely to have those teachers and students being able to come to my class and be a part of the whole school now each student is going to introduce themselves tell us what elementary building you came from and let's start with what was your transition like from your Elementary building to Leu that start here sure yeah hi my name is Ian and um the transition it was good and um the only thing that was a little hard for me was waking up a bit earlier and getting on the bus

079earlier because I would just be so tired but it was really good and I like being at lose hi my name is Chase bers and a transition for me oh wait and I came from book eye and a transition for me is uh the privacy and responsib ility that we have we have more privacy cuz in our at our old school we would have like little Cubbies we had to put all our stuff in there and responsibility we have to like carry our stuff around and at our old school we just put it uh just how do I say it we would just just put it in a c wait wait you you just have less responsibility than our new school hi I'm Pono and I came fromy and the transition look good and I

080like being able to make friends with uh other students before all the like bigger schools come in and um the food at is a lot better [Laughter] than uh my name is samel and I'm from melbridge I like the transition because we have more capabilities to do more stuff we have more open things that we can join like clubs and activities student council is also a big thing that I really like we had something like it at at our elementary school and it was pretty fun but now that we are moving it into our activities it's almost better okay I I'm favorite Charter I came from Buckeye and the the transition for me was pretty great and I and I like how we get to like make new friends there a we get to here

081and and we get to make friends with them now kids yeah M good job my name is m Chuka and um the transition here was really scary but when I was transitioning here it was scary for me but I learned to like change like adapt to the transition so I was nervous at first but I wasn't nervous anymore and the activities here are really great and it's giving us like opportunities to do different things and it can just like it also helps us be more responsible and like make us feel like we are our like we're our own leaders and like we can take care of ourselves um hello my name is Grayson Hera and the trans the transition for me at first I was really nervous because I've heard stories about bullies and then

082I was walking into the bullies then but I was completely wrong because when I got there everyone was kind and like comforting and welcoming and like they were they made me felt like good about being there and made me feel like I belong that's was great to hear we have great students at L don't we so how about one last question you tell us what you like about lamou what are your favorite things my favorite thing about lamou is a bigger gym cuz last year we would have to go to lunch in the gym then right after have a couple classes and go gym in the lunch lunchroom and sometimes we'll be stepping on food so I like how there's a gym in a cafeteria media and the food is better better because every day

083there's chicken sandwiches a thing I like about Lou is the opportunities that we have to get involved in stuff like chess club theater and house and said I like not having to walk in straight lines and being the same 20 kids all day and to change up and um I like being there for years over years because it's a nice school and it's really big and um I like being able to participate in student counil I really like that I now can make more friends I've made a lot of friends I had a a friend that went to Bucky but now that we are in the same school you're able to talk to each other every day now and it's really the best I like how um we can try new like activities now like

084student council chess club and ski club and okay um I really like the activities here because it really gives us an opportunity to express ourselves and also um there's like different things to do here and like there's plenty of different things than our my old school that I used to go to So like um there's lots of things like um chess club and theater as Dr Basset had already said but I just really like the school in general cuz it's also really B big and the food here also tastes really great so I just really like this school um my favorite part about Lou is definitely student counsel because I like helping the people and I like feeling that I can make a change for the school for the better and I like all the

085variety of things we can do thank you all for presenting you wait now you guys wait staff staff staff got to do a group photo you want me in there yeah you're actually can you go on the hallway spy over here we going front I'll Stand in the back all right you guys ready there we go all right one two three all right great job guys all right nice job every all right nice job stud thank you everyone for having us tonight we couldn't be more proud of these guys um we practiced this morning and to be honest we didn't even need to practice because we did the same thing they knew right out the gate exactly what they wanted to say and that made me very proud that they knew what what what was

086about to be part of our louth family so thank you for having us tonight and students parents thank you teachers I appreciate everything thanks everybody thank you and that concludes my special reports but the lamou example in preschool at both Buckeye and as well as m is just an example of how well we pivot um and do what's best for kids and I think this is a great example of how well that that actually worked because of the people we have throughout the district and that wraps up special report that wraps up special reports that was a good special reports okay next we have discussion of old business M kisy yes I just wanted to talk about um Communications again and I just want to clarify um oh I'm sorry I have some notes just

087to make sure I keep on track but I want to reiterate my prior comments that I am not opposed again to board sending out Communications but as board members again we have a responsibility to ensure that all Communications to the commune are transparent um collaborative and truthful since the board is not willing to kind of discuss a process around that um that the entire board was comfortable with I'd like to discuss the February 21st communication which contains some inaccurate information and this was also discussed at the previous board meeting um so I just want to real quick read the communication and what I'm talking about um so there was in the February 21st board communication it said the Board of Education held a work session on Wednesday February 19th at 6 pm. the board in

088a desire to become compliant with policy 7100 rename the 5year facilities plan to the capital Improvement plan the new name matches the wording in policy 7100 the board discussed the work that had been completed already and will continue to update and revise the plan this work is slated to be completed within the next 30 days last year the board appointed this responsibility to the superintendent this change moves the responsibility back to the board which matches the directive in policy 7100 so again I just want to clarify I'm not opposed against the communication I just think it's very important that we are very transparent um also I want to make sure that we as a board um I I guess I'm I'm concerned that we continue um that there's continued emphasis on the board's actions as

089being um in violation of policy is unintentionally casting a negative light on um the efforts of other board members um this approach seems to unfairly suggest that the board's intentions were not made in good faith um when in reality we were all working toward the same goal of approving um improving the district I don't believe our actions when we assigned those tasks to the superintendent were um outside of policy um so I just want to make sure that we as a board have a discussion on that again I understand that policy 7100 sets guidelines um for our responsibilities but it does not specifically require the board to manage every aspect of the planning process or does it allow for delegation or does it not allow for delegation to the superintendant so I guess I just

090want to understand why um all of a sudden this has come back up and again it keeps being mentioned um that we did something wrong um why we believe that is against policy 7100 thank you we're doing is cleaning up a policy and U and moving forward with renaming the what used to be known as the 5-year facilities uh plan with the capital Improvement plan and it's not that anyone necessarily did anything wrong we're just uh cleaning up with the policy so that's all okay can I ask why the policy 7100 wasn't brought up in January of 2024 when we initially had the discussion did you bring it up I was the one who made the plan to delegates and superintendent so no I didn't so I'm asking why you did not bring it up

091at that time I don't quite remember back that far so I really couldn't answer that question were you aware of policy 7100 at that time uh what I would say Miss krisy is I appreciate you questioning me but um at that time I didn't uh see a reason to bring it up okay well what steps can we take to ensure the board works more fively while adhering to the policy guidelines and ensuring the superintendent has an effective role in that well if you'd like to have a work session to discuss these items we can do that but again are you asking for questions to be answered to you yeah I'm I'm asking for a discussion of what I'm asking for and Miss Brewster Mr Keeny anybody else can join in Miss uh grassy but I

092guess again you know it keeps being brought up in Communications it's brought up at the board table and it sounds like we did things that were not compliant um with policy 7100 which is not true um you know policy 7100 it gives directive to that we need to approve and be a part of that business but we can and many schools do delegate to the superintendent in The District administration to do that work as part of their job and so all I'm asking is um again how do we make sure that we can work more cohesively and also make sure that the superintendent and the administration are part of that process well I think we're doing that and we're moving forward I'm not sure how we're doing that so so case in point being the

093communications piece that we have on our agenda today um I believe that's part of of what is what is being requested we've had many new numerous requests to review what is in this um board communication that goes out the day after or two days after the board meeting um we haven't seemed to be able to get on the right page with one another on what that is going to entail how we're going to do that and and we don't have a work session we don't discuss it at the board table um it's just glossed over and and we're dismissed so I have a problem with that a number of the rest of the things that are in this communication from February 21st if I can just piggyback on that are also not 100% accurate because

094the next paragraph goes on to say um the addition will at Riverview Riverview will also allow for the influx of new students from the 1500 homes that are slated to be built over the next 10 to 12 years behind Riverview Elementary but if I'm understanding correctly because I just asked that question the a class rooms at Riverview are going to be used for kindergarten special ed and prek which are already students that are in our district so we're not that that's that's not an accurate statement when we put that out to the public um and it would just be appreciated if we actually communicate the appropriately correct information to people well miss grassy a static picture of what's going in those classrooms is a static P picture what's going to happen in the future is

095going to happen in the future which means those classrooms are going to U allow for space allow space for new students to come in and U in the future some things may change I think superintendent rotino talked about a few different options and and uh one of them is even redistrict redistricting as we don't want to talk about but uh you have to plan for today first and you plan for to tomorrow tomorrow I mean you plan for it before then but please understand that these the reason that addition was being built and and the reason it the uh for the statement that new allows for new students to come in is because it will allow for new students students to come in Riverview is what you would call minus three classrooms okay they didn't

096have room for three classrooms they had to make du all right so that's already minus three they were in trouble okay from the time that was built okay it was undersized and the reason for that um to your point M kisy no one say saying any anyone did anything wrong it was uh partially state funded right and so you went to the state ofcc uh and and they determined that you can only build at so large at the time superintendent kis was not satisfied with that he knew more room would be needed and he expanded it to the space Allowed by the state and they would not allow one extra square foot more than that it was not sufficient from day one so it's been a problem from day one and we're just fixing that

097problem now with the a classroom addition I understand your desire to have answers to how each classroom's going to be used and and stating that a communication say saying it's going to allow for new students to come in isn't isn't accurate because we're actually filling it with existing students but please you we're making good Ro good uh use of the space that we're creating I don't really think that we're accommodating for new students because if we're going to accommodate for new students we would have had to have increased the cafeteria size and the gym size and we didn't do that um you know so let me address that if you want that address I really don't want to address it I'm just saying that should have been addressed in this letter okay that's the kind

098of thing that we should address in the letters that go out to the community if we're going to have conversation with the community then we need to give them the full picture not just part of the picture um and I I met with Dr rotino yesterday um as part of my strategic planning committee and um you know we had some conversation about Riverview and there's still you know um certain things we're looking at and you cannot be finite about what it is because you're still working through that process correct we are um like I had said in the in the earlier update we we've got plans I think at least three or four of them um depending on a more definitive schedule from Cleveland construction I think that's that's key to before we release where

099we go and kind of what we do it be prudent um to make sure we have a better picture we like we know and parents are asking to get this out but we don't want to say one thing and then oh by the way here's the schedule at the backtrack so we're we're we're making The Prudent Choice here right so we but we do have plans yeah and just generally speaking um the way the school was constructed there's four classrooms at a grade level with a pod in the center open space um but what we're seeing um and I know um obviously the principles here she knows there's more than four sections at a grade level there's five um currently our kindergarten um is one of them we anticipate that the new kindergarten coming in

100will probably be five but you know until we get those registrations we won't know um the current first grade remained at four sections because we didn't have a room to put them in but so in kindergarten in first grade they should have been five sections there was no room um third grade currently is five sections correct I believe so so as they move up we have to have the room and you know right now we're going to be graduating a fifth grade class that was five sections so that's going to open up you know or at least level that out but last year we had to take away the music room in order to be a classroom so this is the reason and then as students move into these developments and and Fairway Pines is

101almost done but we still have casement and we have what's it gray ghaw greyhawk landing and uh Harbor Crossing har Crossing yeah that you know we know we will get be getting more students so you know even if we put let's say a special program in there or a preschool they may need to be relocated to make room for riverv viiew students but right now we don't have room for some existing um review students because there's only four classrooms for each grade level and they consist of five case in point we still won't have room for all the new students that come in and I don't think we've addressed that um so we had more class so so here let me let me say uh going back to uh some history that we have from

102um the Heisley Park development uh approximately half of the student students that came into the Riverside local school district went into Elementary and those went into Buckeye right they did yes okay so now that's finished but now the students coming in from the new developments U about half of those that's projected will come into Riverview Elementary and so what we're looking at is if you run some numbers and and and and you have to make your your best assessment on what the number numbers will be uh and we know in the past the state didn't help us very much because they were off by a lot but that being said you have to run some numbers and in running those numbers it looks like we're going to have the equivalent equivalent of about one enough

103students coming into Riverview each year uh to make about one classroom now that doesn't mean they're all coming into one grade of course and and as they come in you you see which grades they're in and you make the adjustments that you need to make but approximately one classroom a year um and so when when we look at the classrooms available and what uh some possibilities are of where students will be um that should give us approximately 5 years in in a master plan uh additionally uh uh we had met with uh principal Shaner about the cafeteria and U principal assured us that there's enough room even with the the new students coming in would that be accurate yeah so there's there's no we looked at the cafeteria and we don't need to make any

104adjustments there so uh any else for old yeah I would like to go back to my original topic which was not about the building but about the communication okay um you know Mr official we've heard a lot from you but I guess Miss Brewster you were part of the facilities planning liaison and your involvement in the facilities planning process I guess again with this continuous count of us not following policy do you believe our approach to delegating work to the superintendent was appro and in compliance with the policy or do you think the board should have been more Hands-On well when um we had that vote I did not vote for it okay but you still appointed liaison I was appointed liaison and I attended all Mee i i attended all the meetings and we

105still had more discussion because uh Dr rotino and I yesterday morning I had more discussion about facilities it just doesn't end because you're in the process of a big plan I get again my question is do you feel that us passing the information over to asking the superintendent to do some work was appropriate or we should have been more hands on so miss I'm sorry I'm asking for a little bit of decorum here I mean questioning other board members to answer your questions about past past events I mean that's I'm allowed to ask a question because where I'm trying to get to I'm just asking for a little more and I'm asking for an answer okay so again do you feel that we should have had more hands on I think that we should you

106know at least have had a more collaborative approach I was the liaison but I was a newer member of the board and um you know when you're in meetings and you're listening to different focus groups I'm getting the same information we were as a whole board um but I attended some of those meetings and had conversations with people and there there were other you know comments made so um but I always feel that it's good to have that collaboration so I I just want to ask a question so we we delegate a lot of things to our superintendent and our Treasurer and I just want to go back um and according to the Ohio Revis code 10943 all elected officials in Ohio or an appropriate design of the elected officials choosing are required to complete

107three hours of Sunshine Law training once during each term in office completion of the full three-hour series satisfies this requirement currently the training is delegated to our district Treasurer um so we delegate that to our district Treasurer every year I've already completed that training I do that periodically um is that something we do not want to delegate anymore we can each take that training um as provided by the Ohio Auditor State those are the types of things that we also delegate to our superintendent and treasur things like that just okay is there anything else let me ask any a question should we not delegate that to our treasur and you're asking that to whom the board Miss krisy do you have an answer I think we we are in the process of taking and not

108delegating things to our Administration like we have the ability to do then we probably all should be taking that Sunshine Law trting Miss broster do you have an opinion um well I have gone to um several uh trainings um not specifically um solely on this topic but I've attended uh different meetings at Ohio school boards Association um on that topic but specific I'm speaking if um I'm required to take a training um typically we hear from Administration that that is something or from the board president um that we're required to take a training and I'd be happy to do that you it is a requirement it's in Ohio Revis code and also it's in our and I think this came up before and we had a certain time period to complete it you have to

109take it once every every four years every three years so you know I um not I mean basically I've been on the board for a year I think Mr delated to our treasur so we're still compliant we can still take it which I'll put it on my agenda and so I have no comment on that Mr Keeny do you have an opinion or comment um I was only aware of that particular class in the uh new policy manual and um I didn't understand it so that is one of the reasons why I uh was not not in favor of accepting that policy manual as is because I just wanted more information about that and that wasn't uh you know discussed in a board uh in the board at the board uh table in any way

110so uh I really don't know very much about that at all I guess I'm just I'm just making a point of saying that we delegate certain things to our superintendent and our Treasurer and our administrators and you can't pick and choose I guess I just don't understand about the three-hour requirement that's that's a lot of time well it's a state requirement so typically our Treasurer is allowed to step in and handle that so it's a move every January in the organizational meeting there's a standing authorization that designates me as the design for the training so I take that every every two years basically is always new uh you know new terms every two years based on how school boards are staggered I can send the board information on upcoming trainings because they only do them

111once a month and you know I we're already compliant right now you know I did it earlier this year at the start of Mrs Brewsters and Mrs kin's term and then when Mr Keeny was appointed I went and did it again to make sure we're compliant but I can send you guys some information on on where those trainings are and that way you can send those sounds good thank you anything else okay so in Old business um we had a meeting at U Painesville Township uh town Hall the other day um and it was about the building project we have at Riverview and uh Ryan from TDA was there he led it we had the U Township administrator was there we had uh Township Trustee Gabe chicketti was there uh we had the township zoning

112director was there the fire chief was there uh Chief Deputy uh is was there from the sheriff's department um we had uh CCI had two representatives there and U superintendent rotino and treasur pleo over there um and U I was there and Mr oh that's right sorry about that Mr aresc we we even talked before the meeting okay and um so anyway what we did is uh went over uh first first I'd like to say the township was very appreciative that the board had reached out to them and um and and was talking with them about the project and uh and they were very helpful so I I can say that and and and they appreciated that Improvement of communication uh from past uh practices and so um you have anything to add that meeting

113just went kind of smoothly like a presentation and a couple questions and couple things we're looking into take takeaways especially from CTE about potential safety upgrades to the campus which I thought were great ideas and we can work them in I think it'll be great um I know we did some flow or requested some flow data flow testing something with this to see if we can the plan is to sprinkle the the new CTV Edition and how much we can kind of bring it to that so yeah I thought was was good well well so that's uh that okay so new business uh Miss krisy did you have something for new business yeah so um I want to talk about scheduling special meetings so there was a special meeting um and again I understand that

114scheduling meetings can be very challenging with all of us because we do have um busy schedules but as prior board president um I always made it a priority to reach out to all board members um to try to make sure that we could find a time where everyone could participate I believe that as an elected representative of the district each of us is that um you know we should have a voice and this making process so I just need to understand um the February 7th 2025 um special board meeting that was scheduled for 8:00 a.m. um can you help me understand what steps were taken to confirm a quum without um would be there without reaching out to all members directly um that was uh delegated to our uh our Treasurer right to reach out

115and um and ask if everyone could meet it and so was that designated realiz I I heard from Dr that oh so I thought that you had sent out the notice I heard from he sent the notice I I called everybody to say this was the time and okay so you're the one that actually reached out I I reached out after it was scheduled okay I'm sorry so it was our superintendent that reached out but that's not my question and so uh in and to your question was about a quorum yeah what steps were taken to confirm a quorum would be be available for that meeting uh there was there was communication to me that we would have enough members for a quum um Dr Tino I I think in my conversation with you you

116thought that Mr fishell was reaching out to all of us I we had talked about so our conversation with you for I asked if you were going to do we typically what we typically would do is to send a text in the past do that you mentioned maybe I called I didn't get one so I called say hey I'll just reach out to make sure yeah so so I said I said since I wouldn't be doing that I had asked our superintendent to do that so okay that's fine so that's all that was so I ask moving forward that we kindly that we request that all board members be contacted and we try to find a time that's available for all board members to attend um again we're all elected officials on this board whether

117we agree or disagree and I think that all of our voices should be available at the meeting and I as board president made sure I did not try to ever exclude anybody from those special meetings and I think that we um should get the same respect in that I think we did that we contacted everyone and I think Miss grassy said couldn't make it that I was I was told that after the meeting was already scheduled yes I was asked if I could attend a meeting after the meeting was sched the meeting was scheduled and the reason for that was it was a very important um so I was not I was not asked before the meeting that's correct and the reason the meeting was was stated and Then followed up to see who could

118make it was because it was a very important acceleration and closing of the property so TDA could do their work and also Cleveland construction had noted that because of a Ohio fish and Wild life item that would prevent any anyone from being on that property after April 1st and they had toh get some things going so they can get a contract so they can go do some work it was important to go ahead and accelerate that so apologize for any inconvenience that caused but there really wasn't any time other than to to state the meeting and then ask who could make it I would go back to the med the previous meeting I'd pull it up here but I don't want to waste too much time um according to everything that everybody gave input to

119us on about that meeting um everybody said there is no um it wasn't going to make a big difference doing it Friday versus Monday versus Tuesday so I kind of disagree with that and again I would ask that moving forward that again all board members be contacted confirm availability for the meetings are put on the calendar yeah in in your uh statement about everyone said that isn't true so okay so thank you for that um M grassy yes I had a question on what is the status of our Athletic Conference so year uh next year there's no change so for next year the WRC is still intact with all with all the numbers that's all happening the year after so two years out um the basic so the the ending of the WRC is in

120sight we are the last member in it U not by lack of trying uh we know um so Mayfield and Kenston are headed to the Suburban Le um shardan North and and south are headed off to the CVC um and we have some meetings with we've we crusted with some of those leagues we were denied entrance um so we are we have a we have a request in or meeting a formal meeting with a with Athletic League um to kind of finalize that I don't want to give too much now because it's still inary but we are we are strongly working on trying to join a league in two years uh to see what that is and kind of to move forward and that's really really what's the reason why they're saying no I'm just

121curious so the reasons we were told uh deal with competitive balance really and truly to be honest about these leagues although they're important for All Sports the only sport uh that does not automatically have a bid to the postseason as football um so there's a lot that's scheduled around with with our football program uh in terms of the one school telling us competitive balance was an issue when we called them back out on it and said yeah when you look at some of the other schools their numbers really close to ours uh they kind of hesitated a little bit and said well we just um we just really don't want you the other one that we've heard which because we are you know we are sometimes a victim of our own success our football program

122has done very well we have a reputation of being a very um well prepared and and competitive team that's that's that's a good thing but it also provides some some challenges the third uh the the other another League mentioned uh their concern of our enrollment staying static or da' even said you guys are going to explode we said no not right now but okay um but our enrollment relatively being static while all their other member schools are seeing a decline so that was one of their concerns as well however competitively uh we would align with all of those schools in both the cases so uh there's there's a little bit of even though we've work tried to work some of the those channels there's some Mis communication I think athletically in a whole throughout Northeast

123Ohio and even even the state or in the state of flux um there's a lot of a lot of moving shaping that hasn't happened before in terms of trying to get to places and I I don't we'll we'll see what the what stability looks like but I'm I'm I think we've got a couple years of of this until we settle back down and uh one of the things I've done is to reached out even to Ohio High School Athletic Association to ask them about really and truly coming up with a new way to look at football so that like all other schools like all other Seasons that all schools can somehow make the postseason even if we shorten the season by a week and make week 10 uh that that postseason game if right now

124the way that it's set up if you make the state finals in high school football you're playing 16 games that's a lot um so I think that's uh it's been one of those things that we we tried to have some conversation with too along with moving moving the system because if that happen happens I think we go back to the original reason why these leads were formed and that's just for Geographic um you know competitiveness and and we are so okay um you did indicate that um we would still have some non-conference games with the same local talent yeah that that's that's ironic all of our non-conference games are staying the same uh and they're playing most of the same local games again with football um is the one that's changed we used to play

125Perry every year we used to play uh pel Harvey every year both of those have requested that we stop that series um from their standpoint and and Perry was recent I mean and I think it's kind of a it's kind of a mix but we haven't had a chance to to schedule them um so our nonconference games sometimes are having us travel a little bit farther we' tra had to travel to Young stown and all that where when we start our original League had Madison in it which is a local Lake County School uh Geneva which is in asula the larger School in astula um like obviously Mayfield Kenston who are leaving shardan which is right down the road Shard we will still play shardan in every sport I'm sure we will still uh play

126met in every sport we like to play those neighborhood schools because our students grw up with those kids they know those kids especially the way sports are with travel Sports and everybody they they've known those that's it's a good healthy rivalry and all those games are really fun to be at so it's unfortunate that deals with the politics sometimes their athletic leagues but it's it's one that I think we're handling as best we can I know uh Mr bores is really working hard to make sure that we're in the right spot and hopefully we shine well at the presentation to move forward okay thank you for that and buildings and grounds operations committee superintendent business advisory Lea Zone um superintendent informed me we wouldn't have a meeting uh what was that school was out school

127yeah ice we had an ice storm so we had to cancel the meeting un he he said that unfortunately we wouldn't be able to meet and U well although we met personally yeah none of the students were upset by the Yeah the no students were upset by that but yeah decision so so we met personally and discussed a few items um and we'll have another meeting uh next month that was not related to business advisor though well okay okay to for to formally say that okay all right um all right so buildings and grounds uh we had a meeting and um uh the semiannual kitchen Hood fire suppression testing took place in all district kitchens all pass no issues there's a semiannual Halon testing and in the science lab was completed and past three-year aara

128report inspection was completed and updated six-month update inspection will be completed in June this will take place every every 6 months up to the three-year full renewal this is for as best as compliancy reporting bathroom stalls for the remaining six bathrooms be between high school and John R will be installed over the spring break field measurements were completed last week um the high school elevator went down for several days uh a power switch went bad a new power panel is needed um and it was replaced and done by maintenance uh elevator was serviced by maximum elevator to assure proper working condition maximum uh did uh State parts for our unit are becoming obsolete and in some cases they are obsolete uh the conclusion by by our maintenance director Mr Ark is that we have a

129dinosaur of an elevator and so we're on borrowed time the approximate cost when the time comes is uh expected to be approx o imately 100 to $125,000 to replace and uh so thank you for you and your team and and doing the work thus far yearly inspections for basketball hoops and bleachers started the week of February 17th Fieldhouse bleachers are complete several issues with motors were detected forthcoming proposal is on its way outdoor bleachers and basketball hoops will be inspected in June to complete the yearly inspection inspection being done by Borgman Athletics roof Lakes reported in Riverview Parkside and the high school repairs will be made when it is not in in this case at the time of our meeting 0 degrees outside and we do not have standing ice on the roof so that

130will proceed um there are a couple univ vents that need repair and possibly probably need to be replaced so Mr aresc is looking into that snow removal continues as winter insists on sticking around both Northshore and R rlsd Maintenance uh Department are doing an outstanding job Riverside maintenance makes it look easy but it's not thank you again Mr Arles uh for the work that your team does custodial staff is doing a great job on staying on top of the daily needs in the schools and dealing with ice melt residual being brought into the schools and onto the floors it's being cleaned regularly and the floors are being kept in in excellent condition a thank you goes out to Painesville power line Crews for reacting rapidly to our parking lot lights when they failed on several

131occasions they're not under our control and I know I had gotten some reports from from people in the district when they said hey we pulled in and could hardly see so good that that got fixed um so then there were some updates on the CT Riverview and Buckeye projects and already talked about the meeting at the Painesville Township uh Town Hall that we had after that so I think that's it for me curriculum and programming committee uh and um Bucky Elementary ad hoc committee strategic plan Lea Zone Miss Brewster okay um the curriculum programs committee um met on February 18th at 7:30 a.m. um our meeting was recorded and available on the district website if you want to view it uh professional development day was held for All District staff on February 10th and Dr

132malakar reported that the topics covered for the staff um were productive another professional development day will be held on March 3rd with a continuation of expanding on those same topics as such as personalized learning mtss Behavior strategies and working on targeted interventions also known as extra help for students and after they also spent time uh reviewing recent test data and developing um that extra help for students uh grades 3 through six will be introduced to the new reading program called Benchmark advance and um that's what's going to be used next year and we've already um ordered the materials and hoping they'll be in so that the staff will have them in their hands there will be no school for students on March 3rd as a reminder okay currently grades um 6 through eight staff is

133looking at a new math curriculum that will build on foundational skills um and including the e8th grade will help students with the same math program being used at lamouth as they transition to the campus so that's a plus uh CU sometimes when you go from one building to the other and you change you know curriculum that there can be you know a loss um teachers are doing a final review of the science and social studies courses of study which will appear on a board agenda in the new future or the near future and in the fall math and Ela courses courses studies will um you know also be on the um board agenda and Ela also includes reading uh there was an update on personalized learning for the Auburn students and next year students will

134be offered a choice to par participate in this program or choose a more traditional approach uh the CTE or Career Technical education um uh Edition uh is progressing and that was outlined earlier so I won't talk about that um and completion is set for spring of 2026 lastly um the state will be offering funding for a 2-year principal internship program and more information will be forth coming on that our next programs meeting will be held on Friday March 14th at 7:30 a.m. okay thank you for that and then as far as the uh Buckeye Elementary ad hoc committee we did speak about that earlier we had a meeting actually today at 1:30 and um onsite so we could see some of the spaces that are being utilized and how we can um you know forgo

135the modular tra or modular classrooms and utilize the existing space to to um accommodate the building project and uh there's still much discussion on um what we're going to do as far as design uh but we at least got something on paper and then the Strategic plan um uh meeting we held on the Le I'm for that so I met with Dr rotino um I know um I don't know if Dr malar will be part of an upcoming meeting but um I did receive some materials everything looks good it really went in depth on um and I I like how it will have places where you know if a parent's looking at it you can hit that and and go to a a link that will give you additional information on what we're doing for

136uh you know intervention advancement of students curricularly and um and it's all about student achievement which fits in with um the portrait of the paper so um we just had some initial discussions but we'll meet again correct that's correct it's exciting um that that document to kind of be out there and transparent and really collaborative that make sure that we kind of uh post it through websites so we'll tell you what what a classro looks like we're doing a monitor how we're going to get kids to achieve and what happens when they don't yeah so very good putting it all together in one is a really good start to it okay and then just as an aside um you know the um we will have to get a date for the Buckey meeting and then

137another followup on the Strategic plan absolutely okay thank you thank you for that next is the policy committee Alumni Association liaison Miss briski um so I am going to be attending a Neola meeting with uh Dr otino on the 4th in regards to the new policy that's coming so after that meeting um we'll put it on for first reading in March and then we'll schedule a meeting to go over that for the policy committee um that's really all for policy and then the Alumni Association um next meeting for that is March 10th um March 15th is the anniversary celebration here they are preparing to cook pancakes from 8:30 to 9:30 um you know if they um have more they will cook past th but I know they have to be cleaned up by 11: at

138the latest so um I'd come early and get pancakes early so um but again that's March uh 15th thank you 15th and and it was recommended that if you're coming for pancakes you do a you try to reserve so that they can plan is that right uh I did not hear that so I'm not I think I heard that some there's R you don't have the RCP to come to open house but they do request you RCP to come to the breakfast has that been put out on the social media we said great thank you and if they need extra help I have Kanas experience with making pancakes if they need it okay okay thank you so much for that uh booster organizations Lea Zone Miss grassy uh yes just in a little bit of

139an expanded um report scholarship applications are out on the guidance web page we encourage seniors to be applying for the scholarships that are on um that website um theater B will be doing SpongeBob coming up here in March and we're what's the date on that uh that is the 13th 14th and 15th and they will have the senior appreciation will be on Thursday prior to that um band will be holding their chamber music festival coming up I think it's the first first weekend it's this Saturday this weekend um grid iron is going to be holding the reverse raffle they just closed their online that's the Saturday auction so if you didn't get your tickets too bed because I'm going to win um yeah lamouth is going to be having a night at the races so

140check their website um lamouth the Amsco it's going to be at the new venue in downtown Paynesville and then there's always the egg hunt which obviously is over in two seconds coming up 12 ends at 12:01 come early great you're on time you're late that's all I have thank you so much for that superintendent report yeah uh lot of exciting stuff um and then some not so ex I'll start with a not so exciting the governor did release the state buy and budget this is just his draft of it in that budget it doesn't just deal with funding there is a lot of policy or recommendation changes some of the highlights that we are strictly following and closely following one um Mrs Brewster did mention the principal apprenticeship program that is written into the budget

141more of a funding issue really exciting to look at what those opportunities could be and look into what that is that's something we're closely following but also uh some of the things that I found and some of the uh learnings I've attended it removes the ability of districts to select Diagnostics we currently use the measures of academic progress NWA and study on it a lot the state is going is if this goes through the state will actually pick one under the guise of we can get state level pricing uh that doesn't mean they're going to pay for it they charge us back for it we have to do it and then we'll probably have to report to it so it's something that is of note to watch because if it's a new diagnostic that we're

142not used to um not that not that change is bad but we know how to administer it we know how to read the data and kind of uh work from the data that's there so if they change that so we have to use a different format of it there is a learning curve involved with all staff as well so that's one that's there um does add to the competency requirements for our graduating students the 250 hours of work-based learning work-based learning is specific it's a specific type and there are requirements with it including a mentor uh but that can be used as an option for Algebra 1 and ela2 competency so that's something that we're watching as well uh they they continue to work with this chronic absenteeism and chronic truy uh to really get

143that number down that number sailed after Co and sword um that's there part of it is I would be honest at more accurate reporting um the other part of it also deals uh with for forever we would send students to school even we would just put you know put TI on them you'll be fine go and head it out uh Co happened it was really the message changed to stay home stay give the stiffles and all that so there's there there's some Behavior Chang as well but it does revise these treny definitions and mandates policies so look forward to another policy regarding chronic absenteeism that's changed from the ones that we've had and and reviewed and revised over the time one of the big things is the governor does Believe on increasing the transportation funding

144uh that school bus safety work group came out uh so he's going to increase the funding for transportation trying to get it to a full 50% um but then also uh looking at increased training so from 3 hours to 6 hours so it's hard enough to find bus drivers and train them now we're adding additional training so that's that could be a potential challenge not that it's a bad thing to have more trained people uh but it could be a a logistic challenge in terms of getting properly trained people into those positions um another one that I found really interesting is the doe it requires the Department of Education Workforce to create a model AI policy so lieutenant governor ni uh Senator Houston was really big on AI and the AI task force they are

145now looking at schools forcing a model AI policy um and then and then schools are going to have to adopt that policy or adopt a policy on AI as to what it is it's the use of AI teaching AI kind of its benefits um its drawbacks and and all of that and AI systems some of those some of the things that are mentioned with AI which are really unique is because it's such a new technology uh things like chat GPT their user agreement does not permit students who are under 18 to have it without adult permission so we currently have chat GPT blocked uh we do have an AI generator through our security which filters which goes through a filtered web system but chat gbt searches the entire web um filtered or unfiltered so we

146have some things in place for our students to have experience with AI but not the AI that are pretty used often throughout um Google has one as well that we have open for our staff so our staff is using AI but it there is some issues with the licensing um for some of those other for all of our students so I'll be interested to see what the do model policy looks like where we go from there um one of the other things that enhances Suicide Prevention education and evidence-based instruction uh what some districts have done to try to get around this Clause is they either required homework or an assembly um it it forbids that and it specifically has to be done in a classroom so for compliance and the last thing it continues to

147provide uh safety grants and it's it's specifically put $12 million toward safy gr moving forward so things we're looking forward to from a policy end in there um other than that really just a whole lot of Celebration so uh congratulations to Brie Lucas for finishing in the top four of the Lake County Spelling be at Lake yie College on February 3rd uh she rep she was our champion she went out and represented Riverside well um and we're really proud of all of her accomplishments uh our boys basketball team was Weston Reserve uh conference Champs they I'm sorry click on the screen for the second time in three years that they won the won the WRC their season ended uh Tuesday night to um to Sol in in the in the playoffs but they've had a

148great season and congratulations to all of our players and coaches that's a heavy senior Laden team so they're going to be hard to replace next year um some winter Athletics updates because we are rounding down that season our basketball season finished 15 and8 like I said earlier they were the WRC Champs girls basketball finished 12 and 12 and they were the district Runners up and they finished third in the WRC our boys swimming were District or we had a couple District qualifiers that we celebrated uh Roland green and Danielle Fleck and Daniel Fleck for the 100 free and 200 free and then Jaden Bassinger for diving uh really really proud of them girls swimming were District had some District qualifiers as well Addison Johnson Phoebe Conway Angela ala Maddy TS in the 400 relay and

149then Claire Hixon and MADD TS in Diving uh those happened I believe as of recent but that's just by information on The Trestle because they were the ones who have decorated The Trestle recently so they are up on there um so that's where we get some of her information um so also gymnastics this is the first year our gymnastics team was a school sponsored Sport and they did not disappoint so they do thank the board for that commitment they finished third in the WRC uh they competed in districts with Mia petrak finished seventh in the vault and Alison bbus placed ninth on the floor both of them count as state alternates uh for the state meet so meaning that if someone cannot compete they can step in for them so we're excited about them wrestling

150we have some District qualifiers competing this weekend uh Camary Jordan Nick Hansen and Alex Weiss are their districts are tomorrow in C North Canton Hoover all of those finished fourth uh in the previous tournament uh but it was a very difficult and challenging sectional so they have a good chance at districts uh and if they make it out of districts I think it's I think it's regionals and then States so they have a couple more work excited to see what they can do girls wrestling first time for that sport as well we had some District qualifiers as well in that so our girls wrestling team with their um first year had Lizette Rodriguez and Courtney Carbone and those districts are Sunday at men are high school so we're excited to see what they do as

151well in their representation of Riverside OH boy this one's a big one our academic klon team so proud of them uh they are advancing the state competition which is held March 7th uh at John Caroll and we had a lot of great qualifiers including a first place finish a second place and a third I think we had first second and third place finishers um throughout our team so something to truly be proud of and celebrate that group so congratulations to Mr dando and his team this is another event that if you ever get a chance to come up to I recommend everybody just come up and and see uh from the board perspective if the public wants to see you do have to register first but we can get you into watch it it's something

152special on February 13th we celebrated the annual Valentine's dance um for students all over Northeast Ohio this is where we invite special needs students from all other schools to kind of come in and dance um and we had more than 300 students who come volunteer and attend the event raise money for subzero Mission so not only is it a is it a great event for all of our local students but it also provides funds for a great cause so something we're excited about uh Community conversations formally known as coffee with Chris I kind of Chang it to community conversations the goal is to get out to all the schools uh by the end of the year and kind of continue those on a regular basis um so we're rebranding it to community conversations we're going

153to have them throughout the spring uh the first two are kind of back toback as my schedule uh allowed so we're at Buckeye in tenative at 7 uh may change its time um but they're right now we tied them kind of in with their PTO meetings and then Riverview is at 6:30 um on the 12th so excited to get back and just kind of give a brief overview of kind of what's going on in the schools what we're proud of and and all the changes that we're making so uh we have those coming back and upcoming dates um things to say like we mentioned March 13th is our senior citizen Appreciation Night uh the dinner and the musical uh the 13th through the 15th is SpongeBob boob we are really excited about SpongeBob uh we've

154seen some of the work that's going into it and it's been great and I'm going to tell you the scene with the Pirates is absolutely amazing gotta come out and check that out um and if anyone happens to vote for rotary I think SpongeBob should win this year so not trying to not not trying to level a playing field but we are definitely a contender for that um for all the work that they're doing especially that pirate scene they're they're pretty amazing um also Saturday the 15th is the 75th anniversary celebration and I got to tell tell you that 75th logo is one of the coolest things I've seen the way they work the beaver and the Koopa into that into the logo for the 75th celebration so so Kudos Nick I think you developed

155or that was Jeff Jeff yeah check credit um yeah that it's it's just a great great opportunity for that um that is from 8:30 to 11: the student council has really run with it I believe side as well student council side Alumni Association they've really the artifacts they've talked about digging up and have out to put on display is something special so if you have an opportunity to come up just to see it um really worth really worth your time and also grab some pancakes and sausage but make sure you do RSVP for that so we have enough food uh this April 11th is National Honor Society Spring Carnival uh the 12th is the egg hunt like we said that starts at noon and ends is 1201 and the 26 is the spring National H

156spring craft show I believe it's going to be in the field house but we'll confirm that prior to great great opportunity and good community outreach and that not to interrupt but I don't know what happened there was a slide for chamberfest to oh uh we did Miss that's this Saturday yes chamberfest is this Saturday starts at 8 9:30 to 3 I think so and chamberfest is uh is our internal solo Ensemble from 6th through 12th grade um and they they have different performances throughout the day throughout the building so it's a it's a really neat thing to see these kids and how talented our kids are so thank you for that update from the treasurer actually fin committee Insurance optimization committee yeah oh sorry sorry about that sorry was a little distracted yeah I'll do

157a short one here with the U we we met on February 20th uh again with Personnel it's the typical turnover and postings for new replacement positions um an intent survey is available for those employees to declare their intent to continue their employment or retire and that survey is available to them online and it's very easy to access and I from what I understand it's it's a been a success um the HR department is continuing their streamlining of operations and all of that is moving along well and as Denise mentioned March 3rd will be a non-teaching uh Development Day for uh for some of the Personnel uh some of the other discussions included the transfer funds to the rhs rhs athletic fund and the L athletic fund this will come from General funds into those uh

158we we uh received a donation of $100 from the help Foundation Incorporated for the Valentine's Day dance and that is appreciated and we've uh started our first phase of uh band instrument uh replacement purchases and um that replacement schedule is being ocated with uh the purchase of various uh instruments totaling approximately $63,000 at this point but our total replacement cost will be closer to $300,000 and U the U health insurance committee uh we met uh this morning for a short time uh things are moving along we're having some discussions on just how we're going to uh uh deal with the uh large increase in cost to us for health insurance coverage and those uh discussions are ongoing with that princi all I would kind of like to clarify I don't think that meeting was short

159this morning well we didn't it was a three-hour meeting certainly thank you for your time and efforts AB but it was a great meeting it all involved okay update from the treasurer as always we'll go through our uh quick review of our financial reports um as always they're available on board docs and the treasures page each month the uh total cash balance at the end of January was 30.8 Million of that amount the general fund made up 17.8 million and then the permanent Improvement fund has $6.9 million of which 2.2 million are currently encumbered and there's about $4.7 million available for use in that fund uh just looking at our annual budget and revenue estimates for currently 58.33% through the fiscal year our revenue is trending at 48.6% which is not surprising based on the

160timing of revenues uh expenditures are trending a little lower at 54 .7% um looking at the general fund our Revenue in January was 950,000 it's a low month typically in January which includes $624,000 and unrestricted State Foundation payments which is our state funding uh and then 132,000 or so casino revenue we receive back uh twice a year uh interest for January is about $50,000 uh star Ohio interest rates at 4.53% Red trees at 3 93 for an overall yield of 4.19% um and then for expenditures for January we're at 4.2 million uh I will highlight that so typically we get our property tax advance in February uh we had an issue with Treasures Office Cent our payment it got rejected by star Ohio and now it's being resent hopefully it lands in this month as

161it typically does but we're working through that issue right now uh because that's about $1 million that's due to us from the county treasur Treasures Office um going into you know we talked a little about the state budget we'll talk a little more about the financial piece to that uh you know as Dr retino mentioned that the budget released on February 3rd uh which includes the phases in of years five and six of the fair school funding plan however it updates the income and property valuations to current data but it does not increase the base cost inputs so it maintains 2022 levels on that case which assist essentially shifts the burden from the state local taxpayers because it makes us look wealthier by updating the property values and income levels but not updating cost um

162there's also reduction in the guarantee which we're on the guarantee so it's a n reduction to 95% 2026 and 90% 2027 but the budget will certainly change in coming months um in the past typically the governor starts lower and more is added by the house than by the Senate uh based on the current climate in Columbus I'm not sure if that's going to happen this time we'll kind of monitor that as we go uh they do release simulations so this slide kind of shows all the districts of Lake County uh we do see a slight increase of highlighting yellow there at Rivers side about 192,000 based on the governor's proposal and basically what happens there is there's some increase in transportation funding and special ed funding and things like that but then offset by a

163decrease in the guarantee we still have a net gain of about 2.4% on our state revenue um about and then the following year about 0.7% um it'll likely change over over time hopefully for the better but that that will be to be seen um typically anytime if we don't lose state anytime we don't lose on the budget we're it's a win so uh you know small increase but rather IM material out 50 million plus budget and that which concludes uh what I have for S sorry about that thank you for that uh at this time we have public comment 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 3 minutes uh my

164name is Gina Parker I am from Leroy um I just recently I've just been concerned that things are being pushed through without a lot of due diligence um like today for example when some people wanted to table a discussion about LLB resources um to get more information and it was that motion failed um so in the interest of transparency or Spirit of transparency what I would like to respectfully request when you guys discuss that topic today if you could you know answer what prompted having you know bringing this group in um how it was chosen were discussions held with communications director ctor to know what could be done in house that may already or that may not already be taken care of in house um and when were people made aware of this item I

165mean it sounds to me like it just came up on Tuesday that a lot of people just found out about it on the board and for people that work that doesn't give a lot of time to make an informed decision to ask around to get information so that's something I would like to know also is you know what um what additional investigations did you do prior to this meeting and this company is based in Tennessee I think um why was it why not use a local company I know that came up with something a couple years ago with you know one of the um I can't even remember what it was it was with one of the groups that come out to inspect the school or whatever and a local company was you know requested

166but why why are we going with one that's out in Tennessee right now for this um I mean and we have a communications director that's kind of as local as you can get so why do we need somebody else and another company also thank you hi I'm Scott Cummings uh 13 at dufield Drive uh just to give you a little background this is my 29th year teaching 7th grade science at Painesville City local schools uh my son graduated in 2021 from Riverside my question is why does the school board need its own social media Outlet we have I'm not trying to make more work for you but we have a communications director a quick uh uh Facebook search while everyone was arguing or whatever you want to call it Menor Madison wickliff or will East

167Paynesville Kirtland wickliff Perry and Fairport do not have their own social media for their board and I I mean like like she said it's been presented to you two days ago um she wants a $90,000 retainer which is 36 hours I mean if she worked as much as a regular teacher which I know isn't going to happen uh that comes out to over $200,000 like I would like this money spent if she worked 2 hours at 12 board meetings or 6 hours that's $118,000 I would like that money spent on PBIS I would like that money spent on mtss I would like that money spent on Bubble kids that we need to pass the test Painesville City we're a little different but we still have Bubble kids okay we need I don't understand why we

168have to do this and I've been to plenty of board meetings because I'm also the golf coach at Harvey High School CVC just real quick CVC there's 25 teams my first away match is in Rootstown I'm not down with that but whatever that's in a St but just saying I mean if she here it is if she worked six hours a day like a teacher she'd make $277,500 which is you know she's not going to work that much but I'm just saying the point is I I would like it to go for students this this would be the only board in the county that needs their own social media and this is my first board meeting and it's not been a great impression I'm going to ask I'm going to tell you cuz things are

169like people don't want to do things that are Ohio Revised Code that's the law and as a taxpayer you didn't know what to do or you haven't done it yet that tells me you're not really committed like we voted for you you should be following the law I'm just saying and I know you have two years to do it but it would behoove you to do it quicker so that you could show us that you really want want to be interested in it cuz you oh I didn't know about it I didn't understand it there's people you can ask everyone has a mentor in these school boards and I just wish that I got a better impression but and and this woman who's the school that you're doing a social media for she has her

170own agenda it should be a political and she has a very distinct political agenda which I'm against anyway but like I said you'd be the only one in the whole County that would have their own and I I I just don't think that's right thank [Music] you hi good evening my name is Jeff Jordan I have uh three kids in the district I have uh two at lamouth and one at melridge uh first I want to say um it's you know it's obvious with the facilities plans and so forth that there needs to be something done but I think what most people are in opposition of is that uh or at least people that I've talked to is the way that those things are being done right it's not that we disagree that there's something

171that needs to be done about the overcrowding it's just the way and kind of the backhanded nature these uh uh items on the agenda are put forth and including the one tonight so uh I I'm a administrator of a large Facebook group approaching 700 members that has concerns with the school board uh recently I put forth a question to the to the group and I said what are the most pressing concerns that we face as a district and I wanted to share some of those comments that were made uh regarding our most pressing concern so these are quotes financials spending money we don't have chaos for example pushing through personal agendas without following proper process time and input putting the district at risk not listening to the community not working with the community to name

172some another quote the general brazenness of the board president pushing through what he wants and spending money without a clear plan another quote funding all the building improvements spending transparency and Trust within the community uh and here are a couple of my thoughts uh to add to that um why why is every board vote 3 to2 to me that shows or I say any board vote of any significance why is why are they three to2 to me it shows really a lack of independent thought and that groups have formed in the board to the detriment of our kids because your job is to be independent thinkers and to consider these issues yourself without having influence from others before we this is another my thought before we vote to approve something as big as two possibly

173three multi-million dollar building projects shouldn't we know how much they cost and how we're going to pay for them I've heard some potential proposals of those of how we're going to pay for those but we don't really understand how we're going to pay for those and then how do these projects affect long-term future financials uh in so many ways these projects are putting the cart before the horse so to speak uh lastly uh lack of collaboration between school board and administration uh this is one area I didn't really understand well but I did a quick Google search it says a school board sets the overall vision and policies for a school district while the administration who's led by the superintendent is responsible for implementing those policies and managing day-to-day operations of the schools uh it's

174very clear to me that there is lack of collaboration between these two groups and and quite hon honestly that's to the detriment of our kids uh and it's discouraging quite honestly as a parent and as a as uh you know have an 8-year-old daughter who's going to be coming up to the district so I would encourage you to do better [Music] please good evening my name is Kyle Abram uh I'm a parent of two children in the district uh I'm also a taxpayer and a voter in the district over the past uh 6 12 months I've actually had the opportunity to have had numerous conversations with other people in the community neighbors uh other parents uh who also pay taxes and vote and the common theme in these conversations is the kind of the utter

175dismay disappointment at at the dysfunction of the school board um the perception in the community that these conversations bring about is that members of the board are abusing their power are fiscally irresponsible possibly intentionally um and there's blatant disregard for the voices of the administrator teachers and Community stakeholders uh you know the purpose of the school board it exists to serve the best interests of students staff uh the community and the taxpayers by making ethical uh transparent and well-informed decisions it seems this school board unfortunately uh seems to prioritize personal and political agendas over positive student of outcome or positive student outcomes and fiscal responsibility and that's disappointing um in my effective leadership requires collaboration and respect uh for expertise is that this board seems to continue to act unilaterally uh ignoring valuable insights to

176the community uh taxpayers and voters um so I I just want to challenge this board uh to change the course you know begin to lead this district with Integrity accountability transparency and respect uh for all the voices in the community thank you you already know who I am that Jessy um I have two kids in the district um my family has deep ties to this District that goes back decades um my cousin actually lost her life delivering info for a levy in 1995 there was a bench out front in her honor Christina hiler um which is why students can't help with it anymore um you know I've had my sister graduated from here a lot of cousins my cousin at a locker next to Dr bassich um my kids love it here I mean I've

177been a part of this district for decades um and I've never divulged that information but it's the you know um but you know I've watched you Mr official and it just it's awful my kids are half black and you know you ran on one slogan and one slogan alone you told people who you were from the beginning and it's hurtful to me and now you're trying to hire a consulting firm that's also racist and wants to push their agenda as well and I have to protect my children and my legacy in this district and other children who are of color you have set on record here that you don't like Equity you have said and you've gotten rid of social emotional learning which benefits my children and other children that are like my children and

178I'm tired I'm worn out and I cry for my children who are called the nword on the regular my daughter who is 17 and my son who was 12 I was at a school dance and I had to see another girl of color be called that by another boy white boy which I talked to Dr vassage about um and you just don't care CU it's your agenda you know I just wish you know I know you know you don't care about the money you don't care and but it hurts my heart because my kids actually like it here they do and they Thrive they're very involved they're very involved in all the sports they do very well my son is excelling so well his test scores everything that you say is is wrong is is

179not it's a lie you lie you absolutely lie um and I just I'm tired so I just want people to know the truth about you and the two people that sit next to you I'm ashamed for you I'm ashamed of you and I'm ashamed of you Mr Keeny speak up or you are a racist as well that's all I can say thank [Music] you anyone else okay thank you for everyone's participation and comments we have a consent agenda for finance and audit for uh like a motion to approve items a to G listed on the finance audit uh agenda as recommended by the treasurer um it's actually a b and then d right yeah we have an exception because we uh removed uh item C correct so a b d e f and g uh

180do I have a second for that motion I'll second that uh any discussion okay Treasurer please take the role Den Brewster hi Belinda grassy hi Lori pisy hi Scott fishell hi Dennis Keen Hi and then we then we have a a separate item here I Mo motion carried on that oh yes okay okay uh for the uh donation from the help Foundation that was $100 from the help Foundation to the special education unit fund for the Valentine's Day dance uh and I get a uh motion for that any motion to approve that yeah motion to approve that I'll second that any discussion here please take the role Linda gry uh abstein Lorie kisy I Scott FAL I Dennis Keeny hi Denise Brewster I motion carried thank you to that organization thank you uh consent agenda

181personnel I'd like a motion to approve the items uh listed on a through F of the personal consent agenda as recommended by the superintendent I'll second any discussion congratulations to those retiring absolutely um please take the roley hi Scott Bell hi Dennis key hi Denise Brer hi gry hi motion carried consent agenda curriculum and programming okay um I make a motion to approve the items A and B listed on the curriculum and programming consent agenda as recommended by the superintendent do I have a second I'll second any discussion yay summer camp Julie's not here oh there you are you moved summer camp is at Parkside this year just as a not par side okay yep it is at parks side it's a sign up early and sign up often when are you hiring staff for

182that yet okay so that's um one of the items summer latch key which will be held at parks side and then the other item is oop membership for 2526 okay all right no other discussion Mr plco will you call the rooll Scott fishell hi Dennis Keeny hi Denise Brewster hi Linda grassie i l KY I consent agenda buildings and grounds and operations there is a motion to approve the item item a uh listed on the buildings and grounds operations consent agenda as recommended by the superintendent can I get a second I'll second any discussion could you please call the rooll Dennis Keeny hi Denise Brewster hi Belinda grassy hi Lorie kisy hi Scott F hi motion Carri policy agenda adoption of new revised board policies the resolution to approve the adoption of new and revised

183board policies second thank you any discussion M PLO can you call the rooll please jce Brewster I Linda grassy hi Lori kisy hi Scott Mell hi Dennis ke n okay all right uh Board of Education business Capital Improvement plan resolution to approve the Riverside local school district Capital Improvement plan can I get a second I'll second any discussion first goad all right we we've taken out the word equity on every page in this um Capital Improvement plan which is unfortunate because equity in the terms in which it is used here just means equal we've replaced it in some places with the words adequate um indicating that students will need adequate learning spaces when we asked the original plan said that they would get Equitable learning spaces um I think I've heard from a lot of

184individuals in the community who have said that they would like to see all elementary students in our district have equal learning spaces and adequate doesn't cover that I think they want more than adequate facilities I think they want equitable facilities when it comes to these folks have new and we're just getting adequate so I have I have an issue with that um on page 19 we took out a number of ideas who who who did the Green lining in this for the most part who was responsible for taking the things out and change making the changes because I know I didn't request these changes so who did make these changes these uh I was the one who actually type them in into the line the changes came from Mr pel Okay so we've eliminated ideas

185regarding what melid was potential for melridge was in the future um on page 21 we make note about the ofcc crediting US for prior Project work which we all know that's not really going to happen I don't know why we continue to put that in our facility plan that we're going to count on those dollars we took out the entire section um on page 15 and page 14 where it begins in segment two we took out all reference to additions to the high school um I have an issue with that it's it's all been eliminated this document most of it was born out of what the community asked for and we are just eliminating it like it didn't even exist so I can't to approve this any other discussion I just wanted to ask Mr

186Flacco on the ofcc credit um when I was on finance and Personnel I thought you said you know it will be coming at some point but we don't know when uh is is that accurate we we're not getting we're set for 10% credit from the LCC when they get to us on the list which 10 years ago they would said in 10 years it's probably not for another 10 years I mean the state does have to budget that every year so I mean I'm assuming we would get it at some point but it's it you know 10 15 years from now and $3 million in 10 to 15 years is going to go a whole lot get but we you know it's not that we're going to not get in other words the statement was

187we weren't going to get it we we could get it we just don't know when and I not sure of how it works with because we never finished the facilities plan so I'm not sure how that ties into it to be quite honest okay we started the plan okay I just want to be clear because I've heard one thing and now I'm hearing something else let's face it at the end of the day state budgets can change they change all the time the fact that we're on the list to get the money doesn't mean we're we going going to get the money we've been waiting since we finished the last projects there's no timeline in the future for us to get those dollars I want I would like the public to understand that while that

188money is credited to us it doesn't NE we can't necessarily count on it to be used for improvements in the future we just can't do that and similar similar comments if made in the pass by you right Mr pleo we don't know if we're getting it or not I mean the WCC process started in 2008 and it's 2025 right now and we're still waiting we're so far down on the list that right okay I understand you please call the rooll did you have something you want to could you please call the rooll L grassy no Lori kisy N Scott fishell hi Dennis Keeny hi Denise Brer I motion is carried we have an assistant superintendent job description resolution to approve the attached revised job description for the position of assistant superintendent effective August 20 August

1891st 2025 and direct the current job description for the position of assistant superintendent in the employee handbook for administrators and directors be replaced with the attached revised job job description for the position of assistant superintendent effective August 1st 2025 can I get a second I'll second thank you any discussion um I have some so I'm not exactly sure what the purpose of having this revised job description is at the current time um the majority of the duties that are on the job description as it currently stands is is or assistant superintendent previously these were for personnel a lot of them are Personnel issues which we now have an HR director who handles most of those things I think we have an excellent opportunity to revise and look at all the job descriptions to make sure

190that they're accurate I believe we had asked Dr rotino at one point to um take a look at the organizational chart um he had done that put that out in a um Friday packet we were supposed to discuss that and and apparently that got pulled off of the agenda and so we never had that discussion at this table I think it's a really great opportunity for us to relook at it um and see exactly what it is that we want in the job description the job description as it currently sits in this agenda item is not changing with the exception of adding a caveat for um whoever the candidate is to be able to get their superintendent license within one year so um I don't think we're we're doing our homework and making sure that

191we adjust our job descriptions as appropriate and if we had to post this position if we choose to post this position soon that's not going to be the duties of that individual and so it doesn't make sense to approve this and how would you know those won't be the duties because we have a director of HR who already handles those duties and how do the duties get changed the district would have to undertake some work and propose new job descriptions so the board would change the duties I would delegate that work to the administration yes the board has to approve that right yes okay so uh it's one step at a time this uh just brings things more in line with what most districts do and there's generally an understanding that when an assistant superintendent

192U takes the job that they have their superintendent like license and that's not written into our policy right now it's all it is is is cleaning that up and we'll see what the future holds and if there's any changes but right now that it's just really cleaning up a policy and and and putting in there plus it also allows for a little bit wider net uh if you if you have a specific requirement of having the superintendent license to accept the job um that could limit some people out there some candidates uh that we might want to hire and um this allows for them to acquire that license within a 12-month time frame normally those those uh that time frame is about 8 months normally and and there are regular regular options for that so

193uh this is this is just cleaning up a little bit of what we have and and uh certainly if any anything changes the board will act on that and that'll be easy to do um is our executive session tonight discussing your um approach to succession planning some of it and some of it's about um valuations okay okay any other discussion I yeah I just like to say I don't disagree with um a lot of job descriptions need to be gone through to to bring them up to date but uh that's just something we're going to have to get to okay um can you take the rooll please Lori kisy nay Scott fishell hi Dennis key hi Denise Brewster nay Linda gry nay okay the motion is failed and we have uh LLB resources Consulting Services

194uh Services resolution to approve a Consulting Services Proposal with LLB Resources LLC at a cost of $250 per hour um can I get a second I'll second um and part of the discussion I have on this is that U the retainer on this is $99,000 so it would be a retainer and uh just want to say that the board if not satisfied with the services being rendered can just uh disengage at any time so I just wanted to add that so I have I have so many questions um we have not had a conversation at the board table regarding the need for this type of a contract we haven't had any conversation about um what our goals are for communication because we can't even agree on a an email that goes out the day after

195a board meeting um we already have a communications director I'm not exactly sure why as a board if we want these types of jobs done um we haven't had a conversation and set a goal for the superintendent to administer that and make sure that those things happen I'm sure our communications director is quite capable of handling all the things that are on here if we requested him to do so um there I don't see a need to be paying an outof State Contractor um that we've not vetted I don't know this person's CV I don't know this person's qualifications um to do the job that we already are paying someone to do on our behalf so I guess I as a question so typically we we engage outside Services we bring in multiple vendors um

196or Consultants to present their proposal to us as a board and I know for some reason in this process this was skipped and I kind of want to understand what led to that decision um and kind of followup to that is since that wasn't done can we look at doing that and can we postpone to meet um in and meet with this person so first item is that uh we've had multiple discussions about reaching the taxpayers in this District it's the taxpayers that pay for the whole operation of this school district and we have a $55 million budget and we are reaching uh Nick what is it six or 7,000 emails that go out when we to parents to parents mostly parents there's a there's a few miscellaneous other people I hate to say miscellaneous

197because they're not miscellaneous people but there's a few other people involved in that that are parents that have an interest in receiving that email but is it about 7,000 uh staff so I put together I'll just hand this out to you guys I put together like kind of a reach an audience that we have um thank you thank you this covers emails mailing website analytics social media analytics media coverage okay so what I see on here here is the staff is 600 emails right correct we have about maler 600 plus staff members okay and and those staff what percent would you say live in the district I don't think we've ever run numbers on that it's it's a good 60 70% no it's not that high but it's 50% I think it's a that's a

198can we get back to on that let me look into that one yeah I can provide you an answer so so I I mean it's not that important I mean if you just if you just said 50% it would be 300 people voting in the district um and so plus or minus from that spouses fames that we can I will I will look into that thank you and then the parents are 5,50 emails right and and so uh emails are sent out to local businesses and um elected officials and recent graduates so the people that actually vote in the district probably in the range of 6 or 7,000 V be guessing that actually that are voters in the district that these emails get sent to because we're seeing we're seeing about 6,000 email uh 5,50

199emails that go out and the staff is 600 so if you cut that in half or even double it for spouses or whatever but you're you're right around 5500 let's say plus or minus um would that be accurate yeah okay so and the reason this has been stated at least by me uh several times many times from the board table it's important and incumbent upon the board to be informing the hardworking taxpayers of this school district how their money is being spent and our goal is to spend it as effectively and efficiently as possible but also inform them how their money is being utilized and so when you have approximately 26,000 voters in the district we're reaching a very small percentage of those and and I think that uh it's their money it's a $55

200million budget and I know we get we get uh other other monies that come in from the state and that sort of thing but still it's all taxpayer money so the idea of of uh forming the the hardworking taxpayers of how their monies are being utilized I think is very important I think I think it's just something normal that that we should be doing and so while Nick does a great job and and we've discussed that and and and looking forward uh it's a rather large undertaking to go ahead and and set up a program to go ahead and and reach the remainder of of the people and it it's not just a simple one-step process and so uh a company that actually does that sort of thing I think is important and so in

201looking around and the prices vary a lot and and U this price is very much in line with a the lower end if you will and um then the expectation is what what are we going to get for our money well since there's since we do not know exactly when you engage in a contract like any contract when we buy curriculum when we buy anything when we when we buy buses when when we buy uh anything that we're buying uh you know there we have to have that experience to see that that it's a good experience so with that um and really what was not noted here uh with the 250 an hour is looking at a retainer of $99,000 so that we can measure what we're getting for our money and of course we

202want to get the most bang for the buck we want to get the have the most effective and efficient use of those dollars so in in you in doing that the idea is this company's being hired to be fired okay what does that mean well you work yourself out of a job the ideal situation is uh uh this company would be working with our communications director Nick and and with the full collaboration of that and and building this program and when the time comes for uh it's on Nick's plate and he can do it all himself then these people are gone we're not going to be paying them any more money so but in the meantime we do have to build the program and and so that's why it's here so my my problem with

203all of this is that that the process hasn't been followed on how we get things onto our board agenda we haven't discussed this you chose to take a look at whatever it is you decided to look at you chose that this was something that the board wanted to do without having a conversation and asking the board members if this was something that we wanted to undertake um you chose to apparently put together some goals that we have that that is on this proposal um those weren't discussed on what we would like if we were to do something like this what we would like to see come out of that um the hardworking taxpayers of this District deserve to have policy and process followed um and you went out and spoke for the board apparently to

204someone and got a proposal which ended up in Gary's inbox at 3:45 on Tuesday um which they were not exactly sure what this was going to say you did the took on the work of the administration if we want to do things like this it should come from the board and direct our Administration to do some investigatory work um and to go out and research and find the best folks for these jobs and vet those individuals I I don't know that they have theyve not done that and just to comment The Proposal is much larger than that um scope of consulting services offered create and Implement Community engagement strategies create review and revise District policies um create press releases and provide ccil with medeor and actions create newsletters and email campaigns create incident and crisis

205management plans and Communications research and draft talking points persuasive speeches and rebuttal design proactive communication strategies guiding guidance developing a district strategic plan um guidance and evaluation criteria for district Personnel guidance in the search and recruitment of administrative candidates create social media strategies for Community campaigns other Schoolboard related tasks and duties as required so the scope of what's in this compared to what he just told us doesn't match um and again I guess what I want to understand is my original question that I don't believe was answered was why was the process skipped and what led to the decision to only present this one proposal and again the followup question is can we postpone so that we can um do the due diligence and make sure that one we agree on what the proposal should

206read and two that um we have a chance to vet out who we're offering to come into this school to work with us well it was requested in the past that information be giving be given for the agenda so the people can have time to uh do their due diligence and certainly it was put on the agenda for for that purpose been stating over and over again that we need to communicate with the people in the district so just with the regular board update email that's been going out I've gotten several responses from people thanking me like like big time thanking me they said I have I have a person who has a couple kids in the in the school district he said he grew up here went to school here graduated from River Side

207now his kids in the district and he had never been communicated to by the board before other than as a parent with with what goes out uh in those emails and and and that sort of thing and so i' I've gotten that response and other responses from people thanking me as a matter of fact I was at Painesville Township their town hall and and one of the people there won't say who it is thanked me because they said wow I'm being communicated to by the school district that's never happened before and so that's that's just the small number of emails that goes out from Nick and and so we have what about 20,000 others that aren't being reached okay and it's so very important they're the ones paying for the whole operation of the district

208I understand we get other other funding State money and that sort of thing but they're they're the ones paying for the operations here and and when I go out and do due diligence and look around and and and see who might be out there and you start to see really large numbers and I find someone I think that's uh a really low number certainly you can vote against informing the people and certainly you can you can say you'd rather have a longer more drawn out process to see who we might hire when we're looking at spending $99,000 um you know M grassy to your point before uh not so much before but but what you had stated is that you know things get put on the agenda uh we don't even talk about them okay

209and and you didn't think that was fair well I counted up in the last meeting I think it was 83 items that there was no board disc discussion on and they were all voted on by the board and all approved that's called that's called consent agenda and if we were we were to P if we were excuse me if we were to pull out every sing item and discuss every item and a lot of some of those items uh are often more than the $99,000 in and in one-time items okay so you know it's it's you know what you're saying is you'd like to have a long drawn out process everything that this board has done since the beginning of the year you have voted against and you probably stated that on social media and

210and so why you're voting against everything the board does only you know that but what I'm saying is I'm putting forth an opportunity that we can communicate with the hardworking experts in this district and let them know what we're doing with their money and let them know the good things we're doing with their money so again I'm just going to ask Mr Keeny Miss Brewster please consider again what is in the scope of this document as you go to approve it it's not what is being told um I don't think it's worth any additional comment I don't think anybody's against communicating that's been stated multiple times um and I still think my question was still answered but I'm ready to move on I don't have any additional comments I have some additional questions so 80

21183 items I would like to State for the record that the agenda items are reviewed by the Committees that meet in advance of the board we review the agenda items those things are then recommended by the superintendent or the treasurer so those things are actually being recommended by the administrative team this is not being recommended by the administrative team this is being recommended by you um I'm not exactly sure how the process went um perhaps you can Enlighten us how that worked did you have a conversation with board members about whether or not they wanted to do this because that's usually the process and then we direct our administrators to go and Undertake and find individuals um to tackle the process at hand what was your process you decided that we should do this so

212you went out and spoke for the board because you can't speak for me so M grassy you're saying things that aren't true and again I'm asking you I'm not saying things that are not true I'm asking you a question abstract okay so when when you suggest that you talk with other board me Members before you put put something uh are you aware of the Sunshine Law I am absolutely aware of the sunshine for you to say that it's just wrong at this table I'm not saying table I am asking you what process you took to go and speak for me to this individual to provide a proposal okay I didn't speak for you well I don't know then who did you speak for Okay so so I did not speak for you this is on

213the agenda to be voted on we're discussing it no one spoke for you okay I went out and did information gathering which is our job as board members okay I found someone that I thought would bring a good value to the district so I thought it was a good idea to put it on the agenda okay it can be voted up or down do we know who that individual is if you do not think I I of course spoke with that person a few times okay and so when when you're looking at spending money especially other people's money you want to go ahead and do a little bit of due diligence okay and that's what I did and when I think I have found a good value I'm bringing it to the board to the

214board table now I think there's a lot of value in informing the taxpayers how their Money's been I would like to know then if we are going to spend taxpayer dollars what is this person's qualifications and are they going to attend every board meeting and be at every committee meeting so that they can report out accurately what it is that we're asking them to do are they going to meet with us on a weekly basis are they going to meet with our administrative team I'm not sure how that person's going to do that they're located in Knoxville Tennesse okay so I think that's a um a little over the top do all do all of our board members meet with us and tell us I mean all of our vendors meet with us and tell

215us what they're doing meet with our Administration they sure do okay no they don't so all I'm saying is um I I think I have a really good value for the district obviously you disagree and and I think the the hardworking taxpayers of this District deserve to know how their money is being spent and and I've been told that the board has never done that at Riverside so what is the value expl to me the value I am moving to have the taxpayers uh be aware of how their money is being spent and I think this is a good option plus the other thing is there's no guarantees of what kind of work someone's going to do they might sound like the greatest uh the list of things that they offer the services they offer

216they're not going to give all of those services does this person have references going to do some things that we asked them to do so I'm bringing this to the table okay you can vote it down if you'd like because you're in the habit of voting no and you proudly stated on social media I'm going to ask you again Mr official does this person have references have they worked with other school districts do we have a list of references that we can contact to vet you this individual did you contact her and talk I am asking you did you yes okay so can you provide them for the board so I'm asking you the very question you're asking you could have done did you do that I did not do that I'm asking you we're

217having this conversation at the table will you share those right now before we vote I'd like you to share them so I am not going to answer to you okay it is it is it is put on the agenda and you can vote no like you usually do so you're not going to share what you have learned I learned I have learned that this person has qualifications has a college degree has worked with many different organizations and is successful in doing this kind of work and will you share the references Okay so okay is there any further discussion I did go online I cuz I felt I needed to V her um I didn't know who she was and I took notes and everything and then I called her so I had a conversation with

218her and I gained a lot more information doing that than just reading what was online because she's had other experiences that don't reflect the current business she is in and I do see some things on social media I'm not on Facebook but I'm on other things and and um you know there just seem to be an immediate judgment about um who this person was that she's out of state there's a lot of people that work out of state um that that do their jobs remotely then explain who she is I would like to know what her if she has recommendations for this type of work with other school districts that we can call those districts and vet this individual well I can answer that because a person like this does not give their Client List

219out okay it states that that she has experience with other school boards but they don't give out their client list that you can go call them sure they do normally sure they do okay well there could be problems with that so um do you have anything else you'd like to add no I would like to add for the record that I think this is all like ridiculous and that we are not being given full transparency of what's going on here and um I would just like to the hardworking taxpayers of this District to hear that statement which some of them spoke here I think asking some of the similar questions so but okay you want to say something yeah let me let me just chime in here um you know I think it is important

220to reach everybody in the district um you know Nick does a great job with you know um that sphere of influence that we have now but we need that larger audience because that larger audience votes right now we're on our way to deficit spending you know we're going to want to have to ask the taxpayers for an operating level and so how do you communicate to those taxpayers that we're doing you know the right job here that we're being conscious of their their tax dollars and that hopefully they'll uh you know entrust more of those tax dolls to us and we need to get the communications out whether it's this or somebody else I think it's a very important thing uh I am very willing I'm looking at uh what her recommended next steps are

221and everything is to coordinate the communications campaign with current communications director uh everything is going to seems to go through Nick I think that's that's great uh they do offer other services uh but at this point here it is a short-term uh engagement um and I think it's behooves the district to make those Communications with the taxpayers about our situation and keep them informed because when the time comes we want to be able to have a good base of ask when we ask for more money so therefore the communications over the next period of time whatever that is 1 year 3 years 5 years when we do ask for that money that they're well informed and that's all I have to say I think our hardworking taxpayers could be well informed by utilizing the services

222of our very own communications director that's all so we agree on that that's why this company will work themselves out of a job at some point and our own team will be taking over completely and so it does State um that uh we I'm stating that we will this is a hiring me for firing so Nick will at some point say I think they need to go I can handle this but but but it takes time to build it I mean unfortunately we didn't ask him that up front Okay so is there any further discussion um yeah I just want to make a comment um um Nick does an exceptional job and obviously we've captured you know in many different ways not everybody is on Facebook or or like some I know people who don't

223even do the computer and so their only way they get information is maybe that pipeline that comes through yeah we still do three mailings a year to I know the pipeline that's what I said the pipeline but we do we do two pipelines and one other day one quality two pipelines one in the winter one in the summer and then a quality profile uh which has a lot of financial information um and that's that's pipeline recently went out nice piece great job yeah and and it's always topnotch um it's just how do you expand how do you reach those other people and you know I I it came um you know I was not here when the last uh bond issue failed but it failed by quite a bit we had just had a a

224property real praisal so people are feeling like wow look at all the taxes and when you see the breakdown most money is going to the schools I think that people want to know what are we doing with their tax money um I do feel that the scope of what's outlined needs to be narrowed it definitely needs to be very um you know like in other words defined and I like the fact that Nick would be involved in this process because he knows our district um and um but you know whatever whatever services are are available we don't need all of that I agree but it is a short-term engagement and I would like to see the scope narrowed and I'd like to see where um you know what what other things we could do to

225reach out so if if we would like if you would like to have the scope narrowed then we should have this revised yes it just say it just says scope of services offered it doesn't mean that they're going to do those no I would suggest that if it's in this proposal then we're giving them C blanch to do them and I would suggest that if we would like the scope narrowed which is what I suggested previously that we postpone this so that it can be revised and discussed that we actually not vote on this and that that be narrowed that actually says what we would like it to say yeah I can assure that the services we receive are the services that we will we will be uh asking for and paying for so is

226is there any further discussion is there any further discussion Gary can you call the all Scott offal hi Dennis Keeny hi Denise Brewster hi blinda grassy n Lorie Christi n okay I'd like to remind the people in the audience that if there's disruption unfortunately we would have to have you remov so please please be responsible for that okay so Board of Education update um is uh is there any real update I just I will um let you guys know I had the opportunity to go to a pancake breakfast which is always a bonus um at one of the basori schools the one out in Jaa County um the working farm um very eye openening very interesting um what really caught my attention and um Dr maer I'd love to talk to you about it is

227um one of the things we said with the Alburn Academy is time management um they start teaching time management from day one right which is amazing so um our friends that we went to this with um they said um she teaches at the one here in conord she said she be love to speak to somebody if we want to um so Dr Tino or Dr moer if you guys want to meet I can hook it up I just thought it was interesting because they're already doing that and they might have some tips and tricks um things that they could um work to us so what school was that monor school working for Mountain f the work enironment J Hershey yeah it they upper school very cool it was you know again the pancakes were bonus

228blueberries and the kids did all the work it was really great um but it was um just nice to kind of hear um how they go about their day and yeah obviously private different than you know the public just a little bit of what we with the personalized learning what we're looking at but when time management came up I was like oh that's something thing we're really looking into so thank you for that and we will adjourn to Executive session I make a motion to adjourn to Executive session at 8:59 p.m. can I get a second I'll second thank you J can you take the rooll Kenny hi hi hior kisy hi SC hi