001that is awesome all right mr flacco can you take roll call please rory here yeah here scott digital here melinda grazie here jennifer here can we stand for the pledge for allegiance 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 so we had a request to add public comment to the leading agenda for today so we did add a section for public comment um anyone wishing to address the board of education will be recognized by the board president speakers are requested to identify themselves in their topic and comments are limited to three minutes due to time constraints today we cannot pass our time to somebody else we do need to stay with that three minute um time constraint so
002anybody wishing to address the board today yes i will so my name is tim hickey actually i'm going to touch on three quick topics the first one is going to be the auburn school i understand that that is part of your agenda it's supposed to be today to discuss the letter to the auburn schools so just this morning while i was over at uh 1922 coffee and room having a coffee ran into a young lady from the chardon school district who said she has her father owns the barbershop over there her mother is a beautician she has cosmetology in her blood she said she's now waiting for next week to find out if her lottery number is called into that system so potentially somebody who doesn't even want to be there could take the place
003of somebody who has it in the bloodline now equity and equality are obviously two very very different terms and nobody has a problem with equality they already have equality over there everybody has the same opportunity to apply to that school what they've done over there has gotten rid of the interview process and they've gone to a random selection to fill these seats and what that does for the riverside school boards is it is excluding your most qualified candidates potentially excluding them if they are not selected it's probably one of the most ridiculous things i've ever heard of as an employer in lake county is telling me that i don't need resumes i don't need interviews i just should put out an application and randomly select who is doing that and i'll be very clear the
004original complaint came from harvey with their 46 graduation rate so very qualified students from your school are getting overlooked uh into that system over there second quick topic i want to cover is the fights at your school holy holy cow like my kid is getting videos from kids at your school i talked to a very high up lieutenant in the sheriff's department who told me your sro's hands are tied teachers can't intervene what is going on here what are you guys doing to address that and then um the third quick topic i want to talk about is how about them gas prices guys poof they're going to keep going up how do you think that affects your levy and the construction process on that levy now i've heard you guys tell me that you hired
005a consultant put out a report in january did he factor in the gas prices no are you going to give both sides of the story or virtue signal and play a victim to distract because i saw it on facebook i won't identify anybody but it was directed towards me and another person here and it has nothing to do with it it has no place playing the victim has no place all we want is for your entire community to be able to hear both sides and why there's an opposition instead of members of the board just promoting it basically what it seems like is so they can have some sort of legacy hey we passed the school let me look at this it's uh it's something that you need to be aware of and address and
006give both sides of the story because you're putting a levy up for everybody in this community not just the people who you want to rally around it so that is my time and i hope you guys take that into consideration thank you any other questions yeah hi ed jones um i'd like to read you a letter real quick written to the auburn career center board of directors dear board members madison local schools recently learned of a change to the admission process for students to be accepted into auburn's careers and auburn career centers various career technical education programs madison being a participating district did not receive written information about the new process until february 24th of this year when we requested it we understand that the ultimate authority on the emission criterion process rests with your
007board however a more open and collaborative process would have been appropriate and appreciated the information we received from your district states that auburn's only admission criteria are that students meet minimum course prerequisites and live in a participating district a random i quote randomized selection process unquote is then implemented to determine entry into auburn's more competitive programs replacing time-tested and industry-recognized merit-based criteria such as gpa interviews recommendations essays attendance etc this most assuredly will result in less qualified candidates being accepted in place of more qualified candidates all in the name of equity while we believe a quality of opportunity should be provided to all applicants processes leading to equity of outcomes are discriminatory to teach our students that studying having good attendance interviewing skills etc are meaningless as accomplishments qualifications and suitability aren't considered we object
008to the new admission process and are asking for a more collaborative process where input can be provided by the various participating districts riverside of course being launched we understand that this decision may have been in part or in hold based on input from the ohio department of education please provide our superintendent with any documents or emails sent to auburn employees or officials regarding admission criteria from the ode so we can understand their input thank you for receiving this letter and considering the request please contact me with any questions respectfully sean douglas president of the madison board of education so i know that's on the agenda for for today for you guys to talk about just wondering where you guys are going to come down on that thank you thank you anybody my name is al
009adams um the first thing i want to do is thank you guys for answering all the questions i had to ask me via email like you said you would i really appreciate it i still stand by and i don't understand i was looking at this morning the website posts on your website near your facebook page except for when board meetings are i don't understand why you wouldn't use that media to also let people know when the board meetings are the worst case scenario is you have more participation than the same six guys you see it ever meeting right the other thing is the numbers you answered my question on there was a night roughly a little over nine percent increase for levy to get to the 147. and i just want to go back to
010there's a 22 percent overage right now in real time 1.9 million over budget and concord for a fire station for the levy they just passed so they're probably not going to be able to to fire stations like they wanted to um the own the only response to this that we got from any of the three that voted for it was miss crossing you said in the one year you would looked into it and that you could hold on to the money for quite a long time if you weren't able to build that's a terrible idea if you're going to tax this and take our money build something put a shut up in the back i don't care but you can't just tax people and then hold on to the money because it didn't fit the
011bill and then the last thing which i've done a lot of research on is the auburn admission in my free time i read the 1979 civil rights vocational school act they referenced in their letter they cherry picked half it was two sentences and they said that attendance disciplinary action gpa referrals interviews can all disproportionately place kids after that it says unless you can prove that these things are important criteria for admission into the school which i think at a tech center we can all agree they're going there they're learning the interview process to leave they have something they grade on there called employability where they grade attendance at a high rate and if you don't attend that school they won't move you along so why would they just take all these out and not want
012to use those as criteria to get into the school because even amazon's not picking names out of a hat to give somebody a job right it's just not happening the best of my knowledge their school board didn't know that dr bob temple made this change none of the 10 district school boards knew about the change and that in and of itself is against ohio revised code that says if you change an admission policy you have to notify all the 10 school boards and superintendents in this case tang the schools that feed that school and he didn't do any of this he made a unilateral move madison the president of the madison school board came to the auburn school board meeting chardon came school board came to the meeting there was another meeting april 5th i
013know it's on the agenda just you know giving you all the information i had this dr bontempo changed things thank you any other comments yeah josh pollock i have two students in the school here and wanted to comment also on the fights there is a fight page i don't know if you guys are aware of it and knowing that we have uh resource deputies i know that now you guys are wanting as many as you can get rather than actually doing discipline i know when i went through the school system if you got in the fight you got expelled and uh or excuse me suspended and if you got many fights then you'd have to find a new school to go to um i don't understand why we're holding the hand of troublemakers and giving
014them every option to continue to disrupt people that are here to learn and this has happened right on down from when my one daughter was in elementary school at hale road when she bought a kitty a kitten book school and a kid who was a troublemaker in that classroom told her that he was going to kill her if she brought that book to school again my daughter was a fantastic student was excited to go to school she was super excited to learn and it was terrified to go to school after meeting with the principal all i did here for an hour was excuses for the one kid that was there to cause trouble rather than trying to accommodate all the students that were there to learn well i feel like we're still doing this and
015whoever your representation is for lawyers needs to get fired because they're not following the law this is ridiculous i don't understand why we're asking for additional resource officers when we can take the troublemakers and teach them over at field house keep them in one room if you got to go to the bathroom we're going to walk there with you to the bathroom we will cause you to behave and follow the rules that this school has which leads into additional things when i was at the last meeting i can't remember your name ma'am but cheryl cheryl nice nice to know sorry you had talked about uh mental health issues well both my daughters are very uh well educated and read and both dealt with mental health issues when this pandemic came along well this kind of
016goes right to what you were talking about i find out at the last meeting that we're going to have a critical race theory in our school and i'm not happy to hear that because that just further divides our student base we've never had an issue with race in this district and i'm trying to figure out why we would take my tax dollars not let me know as a taxpayer what you're doing with my money and to your point about having the the exposure to when these meetings are i didn't find out about this meeting until late last night and made arrangements to get here today i think i should be getting emails or something to the community so we can all be a part of this this is our dollars that you're spending and you've
017had free reign for a decade without anybody coming in in your way i know i came to meetings when common core was brought to this which look at where we're at 10 years later we're in a keep a mess right now because we wanted to try and remove the parents from decision making and parent raising rather leave it up to the school well you're not doing a good job by going that route because we got trouble makers getting away with it any other additional comments hi i'm chris weiss um i also support uh with regard to the sovereign career center thing uh sending a strongly worded letter to the auburn career center board of education about supporting the merit process in favor of the equity that mr dr von temple did i would also like
018to ask that you call for mr ben dr von temple to either be disciplined or his resignation asked for or outright fired because he clearly violated uh the his own policies without even notifying the board and and the businesses that i used to run that's a that's an offense that you should get fired for second item i want to talk about is school discipline and the fights okay i'm not going to reiterate what these guys said but um one of the things that is not going on here is teachers are not getting the support of the administration when it comes to the students getting out of line wherever that may be whether it's in the bathroom whether it's in the classroom or whatever the teachers tell me that they have to send the student to
019go see their respective principle and that's supposed to be dealt with half the time these students come trouts and back into class with a pass saying it's done the teacher says hey you're out of here for the rest of class and the student ignores them students are barricading the entrance to the bathrooms when there are fights to prevent faculty from getting in there okay these things need to be dealt with and one thing i want to bring back up is the dress code the dress code is atrocious even in the winter time okay not just the girls but the boys too okay you have a stated dress code policy and you're not enforcing it okay one of the key cornerstones of discipline good order and discipline is how do we represent ourselves when we come
020to work okay in the military everybody has to wear a uniform they gotta have their hair cut they aren't allowed to have tattoos that show and on and on and on okay you have a dress code i was told uh last fall jennifer harden told me that this was under some kind of legal review i don't understand why it needs to be under a legal review it's printed there was a dress code lying in here 40 years ago and it's a reasonable one okay if the students can't dress appropriately then have some gym clothes t-shirts and gym shorts and have them put those on and go the rest of the day make them orange for that matter we put orange plates on people that get a dui why not have the kids wear orange clothes
021when they don't perform to the dress cutter okay that shouldn't be a problem the last thing is um the school levy okay talk with the board of elections this school levy can be removed from the ballot up until when they finalize the ballot sometime in mid-march so you got about a week i'm gonna ask you guys okay please we are steering potentially world war three in the face okay gasoline prices have doubled um i'm in the construction industry okay you there are many instances in many different uh areas of construction we cannot even order materials even if we pay for them now and it'll be a year until we get them okay there's no way you can just kind of look at this time is up so thank you any other public comment can i
022leave your mind no we can't transfer time today my name is ken frank i agree on the levy okay i am also in construction relative of mine is in construction heavier than i am not even bidding work right now because of the fact they can't get materials to the end of the year prices who knows what we have we have the government saying we have seven percent inflation but they don't count food or fuel and fuel is almost doubled so when you look at that we're probably talking 12 15 even if a building was desperately needed now is not the time to take on that kind of undertaking with material costs material shortages and not knowing what it's going to cost concord residents have just gotten burned with the new fire station on top of
023the fuel and the inflation i think this board needs to really reconsider if their timing is right on this what i read says it goes back to a 19 uh i'm sorry 2014 um study to have his last administration better economy pre-pandemic pre-inflation this board really needs to do its job and consider the effect of its taxpayers on that and i agree with him if you've got time to pull it off of the board it's going to save everybody a lot of time and effort look at chardon two years ago they had a major issue to try and pass a levy it went down i do give chardon school board a lot more respect than i give this board because when the taxpayers of chardon said no we do not want this school they didn't
024come back the next election and try and sneak it through again they accepted what the people had to say they said no it's no for now we'll discuss it another time you have time to remove it it's going to save everybody the time and effort of defeating it because it is just i can't even say an ignorant time to do it i got to go a step further and say it's just plain stupid to put that on at this time thank you any other comment all right we'll go to consent agenda then we have our finance and audit consent agenda we have a motion to approve the item system on the finance and audit consent agenda is recommended by the treasurer items a through path yeah i would just like one clarification if you put
025gary thank you at justice any discussion yeah i just wanted to pull out the boss purchase and you could just give a little bit of detail so i can understand that a little bit better i heard what you said before right so at the last meeting we improved acceptance of the grant in the state of ohio 135 000 we included the purchase of free buses we had a second grant coming that was potentially tentatively rewarded but hadn't gotten the official letter yet from the us epa for sixty thousand dollars to purchase an additional three buses the letter came in the day after last board meeting so this is the purge we actually on the last agenda approved to go up and bid for three more buses because we've been through the house schools council they
026do it twice a year and so we approved they go back out to bid and then this award came through so we can still utilize the fall bids and that pricing so this is to purchase three additional buses using the us epa grant which triggers three different resolutions one to accept the grant one to adjust our budget to increase in 000 and the grant funds to purchase you know that pays for part of that obviously 60 000 does not get you three buses and then uh then the actual purchase so that triggered those three resolutions and i wasn't going on the march 31st agenda but since we had this meeting scheduled today i moved forward utilizing previous bids and i have to work okay thank you for that because i didn't fully understand that last
027time and the letter came in just after came in the day after the last meeting so a lot easier to just do all six at that time but you know sends me a day after i can get on the agenda i appreciate that thank you any other all right discussion not can you call the role mr platco uh scott visual aye melinda gracie aye jennifer hardin aye lori aye aye motion carry we also have consent agenda for personnel sure we have a motion to approve the items listed on the personnel consent agenda is recommended by the super tight superintendent items a through c a second thank you is there any discussion on these items if not can you call the roll hello degrassi hi jennifer harding aye lori karniski hi tom heck aye steph aye
028motion carried okay that brings us to the discussion portion for um the meeting so mr hack you had asked for some discussion on the other career center enrollment process i i did indeed um and i do have a copy of the letter that that the madison school board president had sent out and we had talked in previously about the situation with with what's going on with auburn career center and the change and how it uh impacts the our student body frankly and how this was done without our without our knowledge and it was a you know afraid to complete and and i i don't believe that the interests of riverside are best served by the changing policy and that that i believe that we should write a letter uh similar in in content to to
029what was uh sent by madison to to let auburn commissioner understand and uh dr bontenta by tempo understand that that this is not appropriate it's not an appropriate way to move forward and it is not something that is in in the interest of the the students in in general like riverside and any of the other districts that are associated with with our career center so i guess the question i have and i've been looking for information and like reading different pieces so of all these but i can't find any evidence though that it is negatively impacting our students so i guess does anybody have any information that says only this first round only two of our kids were chosen or um anything like that like do we have any of that information yes okay what
030do you have when you're a merit-based you're accepting the highest qualified students when you're a bucket based you're taking luck of the draw that definitely starts but my question is do we have any information stating during this first round we had less students chosen than we did the previous round well that i don't know about it's just a general approach to merit-based and so if we're looking at just riverside i think it's a little short-sighted because i think we have a whole community we're involved with so if we just take ourselves out of the community and focus on us i think that we're serving our own interests and not the whole community i think we should be looking at the whole community all the other districts too but again i think our job as a
031board is to represent all the students within our district and what's best for all the students right so i guess i'm asking we don't it sounds like we don't have anything saying but but let me so are you suggesting that the the old process of merit-based was incorrect no i'm not suggesting anything i'm asking a question so but so this hasn't happened yet but but it does not take a we understand that the criteria the criteria have changed one does not need to have the experience of going through the criteria change to recognize that it is no longer merit-based and that that is negatively impacting that that has potential and would potentially i guess potential again so i guess my question would be if we have a student that was pulled this time are you
032telling me when i read madison's letter it's telling me that student is probably not qualified and i don't know that that's true what do you mean if i pulled if they were if they were pulled in the lottery process right so a student was randomly pulled from our district in a lottery process when i read this letter if i was that parent whose child was um old this time around the letter that madison sent almost says that they're not qualified and that kind of sends some concern to me i don't know that we know i'm not so sure the letter is saying they're not qualified i think that i think that what we're talking about is that instead of in a general sense accepting students that are let's say 3.7 to 4.0 students in general
033and then the other way of possibly accepting students that are 2.0 to 2.5 and it goes back to what what some people would say what do you call the medical student that graduates last in their class well you call that medical student doctor now you want the person a brain surgeon when we need brain surgery having the person that graduated last in their class or first in their class or near the top to do that now now in medical school they're all qualified generally but what we're talking about here is even going below that standard and possibly taking students that don't even really much have an interest even going to the school we're not sure that everyone who's thrown in that bucket even wants to go to the school because we don't know what the
034motivations are and it was mentioned here at harvey graduation rate of 46 you're putting students in there that aren't even graduating that could possibly take spots of people that have worked three and four years to get a seat in the auburn career center so let me add something because i want to say an exact example and you're right so i have full size this right my oldest is in the ems program his grades are not great at all right he would have met the qualifications but he went through the interview because he first got in he is insanely passionate about ems firefighting that's what he's going to do when he graduates this year and so the interview process for him 100 worked right he was able to go the point is when they take away
035the interview process you're not just saying only maybe kids who don't aren't qualified are there i'm talking about the kids that actually want to be there the kids that want to be they're losing on the chance you don't have to be a 3.75 or 4.0 student to be in it you have to want to be there and that's the part that's killing me because my daughter also did not get accepted she's she got an academic letter last year she had a really bad first semester this year but she is insanely passionate about being an allied health program because she wants to be her goal is to be a nicu nurse she did not get in through the first round but again had she gone through the interview process i guarantee you because i i know
036my child and how passionate she is about it i would hope those are the kind of kids that we want in these programs kids that are passionate about what they want to do passionate about this program and see that as their path to their future and those kids are now potentially being able not to get into that program for kids who i know for a fact because i've got a child in the program says there's kids in his program who don't want to be there they just want to be their high school so it's an out to go someplace else and i'm not saying the riverside kids i don't know what kids they are actually my son's at riverside kid in his program so whatever but the point is with the lack of interview these
037kids now we don't know who's getting it at all and if anything has nothing to do with saying that the kids aren't qualified because yeah i'm sure some qualified kids got in the program too but without an interview process and it being completely random you are absolutely losing these kids who want to be there and potentially derailing where they see their future going and that's i think it's shameful quite honestly thank you for saying that you said it better than what i said and that's what i meant to say but i didn't quite get there so thank you so i'm gonna weigh in with my two cents on this issue um well i believe that the process change was probably not done in the best way and i believe that the auburn board or superintendent
038whoever decided to make that decision probably should have let their constituent base know that that change was being made and not done at the last minute that was affecting students that were applying for the current year i don't feel like it is our place um to be involving ourselves with their decisions on how they move forward and if they decide to change the process that is within their right as a board and as an administration over there we are not while we are members we we still have the right to withdraw as members from that um organization from the esc and then we wouldn't be able to send our kids there i mean we have that as an option but at the end of the day their public school and and it is my belief
039that the public school as a public school in the state of ohio they are there to educate and they have to accept students all students without regard to things and i think that by implementing an interview process they're then trying to make themselves more like a private school that's my opinion and i and and i will go on record as saying that if we're going to put together a letter i would prefer that it'd be some sort of a letter or anything that's going to have individual board member signatures on it um because i don't think i would be in support of putting my name on that so yeah so i guess i guess two points no number no i just go into to mrs hardin's comments so i think we have to if we're
040going to be a society that is based on the principles of america which is individualism it is it is merit-based it is limited government we need to to enforce that in all facets of of of our society including with with auburn career center what we can do and i think what would be would have been a far more constructive way to have engaged this if there's a capacity issue of auburn career center and we were not fully meeting the needs that we could have worked collaboratively to expand the capacity of the programs we we did to a certain extent we did that here with the the welding lab right we've and and we have a collaboration with with uh at least three other districts and possibly four other districts trying to increase vocational opportunity that
041would be the way to address the concern in my opinion and not arbitrarily change things but but mrs grassy i going back to your point on procedure i we agree that that that very likely they did not follow proper procedure in this yeah i agree okay and so that that is a problem and i am not aware of of their board are proving this this is a need so again i am going to go on record as saying i believe the process change was done inappropriately however as a matter of record there are public schools we don't have entrance requirements and we are a public school we can't do that that's not allowed and and i i for one don't feel like as a public school district the the auburn career center is a public
042school they're a public school they're required so so just to make sure i really understand so operating career center has been around you know uh since i went to school here 40 years ago and before that so were they wrong about the whole time until this year tom i had no idea i'm not on their board so why so what's what's the point of making the change when to me i don't know i would ask them not if not i understand but but i think that's why putting the letter together and at least asking for an explanation would certainly be valid talking about expanding capacity would be a a valid point and and and mr kuzninski to to your question initially i i i don't think one needs to to to have experienced the change
043in process to recognize that that they're going to have a different outcome than the previous process or or they wouldn't have done it right so so so and i think that that we we do have a potential example with with mrs harden's daughter so and i don't think that we have to wait i think a changefulness i agree there's a change there's gonna be a different outcome right but i guess what i'm saying is we don't know if the change is a negative outcome right you don't know that yet so i have no i agree with you on um they should have been more collaborative and i can get behind saying hey come to us be collaborative let us help you let's figure out solutions together i think that's a great op something that we
044could say to that board and ask them for that help right um but i guess what i'm concerned about is putting a knitter that we know like this says most assuredly which pretty much says we know that um we're going to get less qualified candidates right how can you knock but how can you not in a random sample i mean explain to me because maybe i'm missing something but if if you had a tiered base on based on merit and all of a sudden and let's say that and if you accept that that process is valid right and we have you know 50 60s i don't know how many years auburn career center has been there but again at least 40 years and and i'm and it was existed before that so so what is
045what is the criteria of of uh of making the change and and of course it's going to impact us right and so almost assuredly he only i'd say that the reason that's there is because it hasn't happened yet but one does not need this is this is there's no there is no question that the change in policy is designed to have a different outcome right i'm not sure i actually agree with that let's face it at the end of the day like some of those programs are not not traditional traditional type of educational programs their career tech programs and just because i'm an a student may never make me a good cosmetologist like it would never never um albert's been around since you know in the late 60s i don't i don't necessarily agree with
046that so mrs gracie let me ask you this question if someone had a strong desire to become a cpa and another person in a math class had very little desire to become a cpa and there was a lottery as to the next level of class and that lower student that had no desire to become a cta cpa got chosen into that and it and it's it's meant to graduate into being a cpa and that student that wanted to be a cpa did not get drawn out of the bucket and did not have the opportunity do you think that that is the best outcome so for the record cpa is a state licensure and i have to take a test for that you have to take a test that has nothing to do with education it's
047just a general well i'm just saying you're asking me a question and i'm saying that is a licensure issue um it has nothing to do with me going to school to be an accountant there are many people who go to school for accounting and don't end up passing the cpa exam well i'm saying the desire there if a person doesn't have a desire and they get a seat where someone else does have the desire and they don't get the seat what is that outcome is the outcome just as good having the person who doesn't have a desire taking that seat and not moving on and not having the person who has the desire to get the seat and not being able to move on because it appears to me that you're not going to have
048a person moving to that next level because the person who gives it doesn't have a desire to do so the person that did have the desire to do so didn't get to see so they can't do it so is that what we're looking for maybe maybe maybe the individual who wasn't that great or whatever actually ends up to be a fabulous fabulous business person i don't know that and you can't you can't determine the end outcomes by something at the beginning you without giving people a chance so i think there's a better analogy i think or a different analogy it is like it's like saying to everybody's agree it's a licensure thing but it is with regards to the cpa but it's as if you would take away the past grade and you just randomly
049selected the people who passed if you took the exam we're going to randomly select who is exactly right can i ask a question just a bit what is the expectation so if we send a letter to auburn right so just draft a letter we sent a letter to auburn i guess what is the expectation are we saying you need to change this year are we saying i i i would i would be a proponent of of changing this year and i would i would raise the opportunity to collaborate with with riverside and i suspect most of the other districts would be open to it as well to expand capacity so that we have equal opportunity but not equal outcomes so then you're at so what let me understand what you're asking is that we ask
050them to change their policy for the current year which then affects the people who have already been selected into the programs fairly or not fairly and so you're you're asking them to now be affected as well to change it and say okay i'm going to withdraw your acceptance and i'm going to give to somebody else okay they're not done with the selection process yet so i'm not so sure how many kids are going to be invented i know probably some if they're in the middle of it so what i would suggest to the board if you're going to send a letter and send it soon yeah the next drawing is monday they're picking the last 10 for each program yeah so 20 25 first ten seats for each class march 15th right 23 programs right
051so another 230 kids will get chosen i want to say they said of the was 460 seats over 600 700 applied for example my son ben applied for the architecture program 16 applicants turned in their applications by the stated deadline okay they didn't pick all 16 of them they had a lottery for 10 there's six remaining which my son is one of the six remaining has to wait until the 15th to find out which is after the deadline for classes here and at our lakeland community college and uh he's got a 4.175 average and uh and a real passion for engineering and architecture so you know what this is doing mr grassy is it is it is denying people who are the best qualified from an opportunity to get the seat and perform and our
052whole society is built on the best qualified people and i'm not i'm not denying that i'm just saying that they are a public school i don't know how much input we have into that process well dr van temple violated their stated policy without telling anyone he just unilaterally did it again sorry i'm sorry this is how every vocational school does their admission process how they used to or the way they used to no no one does a random drawing that i've heard of in the state of ohio it is not this is how vocational schools typically operate there there is a i'm so i don't mean i've been at the auburn meetings um mr bontempo because he gave me a 20-minute lecture on equity when i was the only one at the school we're meeting
053he said that there is a group of schools that are vocational schools that are doing it not all of them but there is others that have gone to the lottery system but the vast majority yeah it's it's some kind of a split but i think mrs cruz to answer your question kind of um the way i expressed it to the board because they were in the interview process you know the grades aren't that big apart when they did the interview process like my son did it's a collective they're looking at the interview to see if you're interested they look at your attendance they look at your grades you don't have to be the cream of the crop for grades to get into that school let's be honest years ago when we were in school that's
054not what that school is designed for right but now you have this influx of students and yes the ultimate solution is expansion i stood in front of that board and told them that i would get every business in two counties to support a levy to expand that school that's the truth as an employer i need people to employ and i can't find them but i don't want people that maybe just skated through that didn't really want to be there and they're going to be sub-par the market has set that place you can go make 21 bucks an hour amazon or walmart or wherever you want but to your answer mr kuzninski they kept getting hung up that people were there and there was over 80 people at their meeting just to understand people responded we
055spoke for over an hour individually the board let us speak as long as each person wanted to former students stood up there and cried about it that they worked so hard i told them i'm not upset that my daughter didn't make the first round of lottery because i just don't think that's fair what i think is fair is if you told me my daughter didn't make it because there was 20 better qualified students at based on their process i can accept that if my daughter was 22 out of 20 i'm fine with that that's a fair process that's real life that's what's going to happen when they go out into the workforce and i believe vocational schools and what i've looked at they do have different criteria not for a straight public school as far
056as the rules in which they operate they have an entire admissions criteria in there for vocational schools only and furthermore public universities they interview you write an essay you have to you know get accepted into the school so real quick thank you i'm sorry i i apologize for the wrong wishes um i guess for me i'm not saying i'm not willing i'm i'm willing to send a letter i guess what i'm trying to say though i think as another board we should be saying hey we're we're willing to collaborate with you we want to help you through this we've been hearing from our public we know they've been hearing from their public like more of a help find a solution than say because again i'm i work in an industry of change that's what i
057do i'm a certified change manager i'm a process manager i mean that's my whole job is making things change right so i get it they made a change not that i agree with it or disagree with it i don't know at this point my point is we should we one we don't agree with how they communicated right because they didn't i think that's fair to say right i mean they didn't communicate yeah um two i think we're all willing to have a collaborative meeting with them and i'm sure madison other districts also would be willing to work with them right and say how can we make this work great how can we make sure that the process works and that we're helping them get to where they need right i don't know what the solution
058is i'm just saying and i don't know i worry about will they be able to make a change this year i don't i don't know you know that's hard to turn on a dime but you know we're willing to start working with them as soon as possible i think what is strange to me is the fact that the auburn board is made up of individuals on participating boards and i would assume that and i've heard a lot out there that people are not other school boards are not happy about this so you know as evidenced by madison you guys are talking so it surprises me that the board members haven't done something yeah or inserted themselves in the manner i don't know how they feel about it but you would think that they would have
059some discussion or further discussion about it i don't know right i would definitely definitely agree maybe that's something to ask like what are you doing you've heard from a lot of people you just said people were speaking didn't know about the change until parents started complaining that was the part of the issue so they've only known about it at the february first board meeting they had is when i went to the meeting and that is what they committed to look into and find out what happened because that board didn't know that this entire admission change had gone on right so it appears that if the auburn board didn't know it would be impossible for all the all the other boards to know and there's no time and so this thing's coming up i mean the
060time is running out quickly and so i'd like to add one more thing i spoke with a a dr hodley he's uh at the tolls career technical center down by columbus i spoke with him yesterday and so i asked him what they do down there and we had a nice conversation and he explained that their process is that they do a first come first served but there is a qualification for um you know gpa and credits and some other things there's a qualification in there but he said that's that's how that's how they do it and if you just want to back up from that program and kind of look at it and maybe put a subjective statement on it typically when ms harden to your point when when you have your daughter that wants
061to go in and and she has a real strong desire to go in she's probably going to put her application in first day she did literally the first day within the first hour the people that are just going to be thrown in a bucket that don't really care if they go there or not are probably not going to put in their application first day so that's another option that they could look at this way you're not just pulling out of a bucket of people may or may not have any desire to go there and miss grassy that doesn't take away from the possibility that a person that we all know we all change right and as we're growing up we change and have different desires someone might go in with no desire and end up
062being the best person ever that can happen that being said the people that have worked towards it for three four five years are not then thrown in a bucket with someone that just got tossed in for whatever reason in this first come first surfing might be something else to think about or talk about the problem we have here is there's not much time left so again i think great ideas to collaborate with them well right like here's what other schools are done i'm all for looking at what other people have done that have been successful you know what i'm saying but again i my concern about the letter it's not sending a letter to them again they should have communicated with us we should have had some kind of notification we know why that didn't
063happen because it sounds like there wasn't communication among them it sounds like it was unilateral be like you inside a progressive making a decision yourself without getting approval from they had a whole committee from your boss they had a whole community they had a community that worked on it for a year they claimed all right it's not eight nine eight four months is what you said but it was nobody associated with it correct but they claim they did have a committee that worked now this situation is analogous to when this board a couple decades ago fired earl bardol who was the superintendent at the time okay the guy was doing things that were outside the stated policies and practices of the riverside school district and unfortunately it was just after he'd received a promotion and
064a new contract so the board felt they had to go the extreme measure to fire the guy unfortunately because of that new contract it cost us like 350 000 to buy out his contract so dr bontempo did exactly the same thing he made a decision without telling anybody that's outside the state of policy of the auburn career center school board and he just did it um you said they've been because the letter that it looks like painful is this what inspired the work because it came on december 10th this past year so again i guess i was told by their i was told by their i guess he said things told the executive director that it was over a year that they've been working on it yes okay i think that letter came though after
065i said at the last meeting it was just coincidence the language in that letter but that was not the reason for the change they started working on that previously yeah he said that the last name so just out of consideration i know um your schedule changed unfortunately and you need to leave by nine i guess i want to make sure we kind of talk about are we i guess i'm not comfortable with the madison letter i am comfortable sending a letter saying hey we're willing to work with you we're willing to be collaborative we wish you would have communicated with us previously we don't know what the impact of our students is going to be we don't know what the impact to the community is going to be i guess there's another thing we can
066add to it but i want to i i don't want to put anything that assumes that a child that has been chosen um to um before i mean i know somebody who doesn't public speak or speak well they might not interview well right but they're very motivated like i get the interview process because i do it at work i'm going through the process now trying to hire somebody i just want to be careful that we're not saying kids that may have already gone in that lottery have been chosen we're not saying they're not qualified they may very well be qualified we're just saying that we wish you would have consulted with us about the process i guess that's what i want to be careful about are we talking about the kids that we're choosing or
067are we talking in the process how they choose kids i guess okay so let me put let me address that so i guess what i'm saying is we don't have anything that say that process change is incorrect mentally i think we all have assumptions we all are thinking that it's not going to work out the way they or he whoever put it in place believe it's going to work out right but there's a lot of assumptions do you know why he put it in place according well i guess not anymore because i thought it was in regards to this letter but i'm hearing that might not be true that's all i'm saying do we even know what the motivation was i think let's ask that question so i think we get down to saying okay
068what is the what is what was the process why is the process changing how did that happen why did it happen and what will the new process be and i think part of the problem is that number one it was done in the dark at night okay and and don if it's true outside of the orc which is another big problem and and now you're taking away opportunities from some and giving them to others arbitrarily and by one person's decision without even the governing board approving it and as i understand if the board has still not yet approved the change is that correct and if that's the case now the process has changed different students have been admitted outside of the old process the new process has not even been formalized this is a huge
069mess so the letter would be hey what are you doing you need to follow a process and we're part of this process and and so we would like to see you you know maintain some consistency so at the very least we need to send something like that you know ms krasinski would i what i would ask are there any parts of the letter from medicine that that you like i mean or i mean have you kind of redone it no i have not no because i want to have discussion here to understand what everybody was thinking i mean because to me i think we need to get a letter over saying we're interested we want to be involved you know something that says hey let's talk some light needs to be put on the screen
070give me some answers let's talk right anything in the dark isn't good right and i'm i'm okay with sending a letter to the board like that yeah i would be in favor of a letter that says yes we're not in favor of the process by which you changed your policy in in midstream not giving people notice those kinds of things again i don't want to arbitrarily say that the entire board objects to the new admission process because i'm not sure that that we're there yet i don't i don't believe we know enough about the processes and how the outcomes will affect students across the community across the 10 districts i'm not i'm not sure i want to do that what is your perspective on merit-based at a admissions level i think they're fine in a
071high school level when you have kids that are trying to figure out their way in life and whatever i believe that every student every student deserves an opportunity um and and sometimes kids that you don't think are going to succeed by giving them that one chance they make something of themselves and i think if we take away that opportunity for that student we're doing a disservice my son was exactly that person he was not doing well he's still doing terrible yeah he is but yeah auburn is what i believe that the process should take that into consideration um but i don't i don't know what that process should look like without further conversation with auburn this is the first time we've ever been involved in or had conversations about what their process is we're not
072them they're not us and you know typically speaking we don't get involved in other boards decisions and so if we're going to jump into that fray like by all means but i believe we should have some we should have some some good discussion with them about what that process is we were supposed to have that discussion right and the fact that we didn't yes i i would tell them that that's not probably ask for information that's what i mean right they were supposed to come here and they refuse to come here us and i think that's very i think we can put that you know we asked you to come and give us information and you you didn't get it i definitely wouldn't include that aspect that we invited uh dr bontento to to come
073in and talk to the board so we could better understand what was going on and and the offer was was not accepted right and at the end of the day i believe i believe tom you're right if they have programs that are reaching capacity and we can do things collaboratively with them to expand offerings and programs or if they want to increase their capacity because there's popularity in certain programs then that should be topics of the conversation that right that we're having with them that they're having with their member districts i think that's important to be able to offer those types of opportunities to students but i mean i agree yeah the the one point i would make you you would indicate it might my counter to we should be telling all the boards what
074to do if if boards were operating independently if we didn't have overlapping jurisdictions and concerns i would agree with you we shouldn't be telling madison how to run their school district or perry or painful city or anybody else but but auburn's unique because part of our student body goes there we have a vested interest in how auburn career center operates because part of our school student body is participant but that's because we choose to be a member of the esc and maybe in show right again so that's a choice we have right but until until this issue came up i think we yeah we've been pretty happy overall i think with with auburn percentage performance now that now that we have this maybe we need to look at other opportunities because because this is just
075i you know and i understand your caution this is uh uh glory madam there's just no there's no other way that you they wouldn't have changed it if they thought they were going to end up with the same outcome that's crazy do you really feel that a blind lottery is a reasonable way to award educational opportunities to anyone without any regard for the student's prior accomplishment drive intellect or anything they have a qualification their qualification says that you have to be on track for graduation which means you have to be passing your current classes you have to be on track to graduate what was the other one so i think there was another one wasn't there no i was on track for graduation for graduation i thought they were two i don't remember which i
076think the other ones that they're breathing i mean and if you're if you're if you meet those stated requirements i don't know how else to offer those to students unless we have when there's more applicants than there are seats you then have to go to a process that gives the opportunities to the people that are best prepared for them i i don't i don't so real quick again i think part of it is also what is the vision what is the goals of that school too right so i don't know auburn career either center's vision goal what they're trying to accomplish right that's part of that vision right so i don't know that to comment on what's the right process to be honest we asked them to come here so what are we comfortable i
077think we're saying when you send a letter we are comfortable saying we offered you to come in and talk to us give us information make us knowledgeable because it does impact our students in some way right i think we're willing to say that we're saying we're asking questions like why is it changing you know what are you guys doing you've heard from the community you guys have they've been there they've talked to them so you're not only hearing from boards now you're hearing from the community what are you doing like give us an update tell us something and then well so so i think certain cert certainly feedback that that the process on the process i think that the the lack of of transparency the opportunity to to work to expand capacity equal opportunity okay
078um so so we can try to make but we're we're always we're never going to have perfect equal opportunity we just aren't we're always going to be have more likely almost certainly have more demand than there is supply so so it's never going to be perfect but we can try to make it better um and then collaboration is great right right but um i but fundamentally i think that we can say that we are concerned about the potential outcome of the change to their admissions policies to this riverside student body or we wouldn't if we weren't we wouldn't be writing a letter so i think we need to we do need to weave that element in that there while it is not proven it has not been demonstrated at the exact impact i'm not comfortable
079with that yet but it's not been demonstrated but but but that's anecdotal and i'm not willing to go there yet have you seen testimonials from the students that fought hard to get into that program and then what they did with their lives after having that opportunity because that's really impactful and if you haven't seen it i highly recommend you do that because i have a child that wanted to be a band director and she knew this in fourth grade and she's been working extremely hard she's been doing private lessons she was in cleveland youth win symphony orchestra she's been doing everything possible that she can to get into universities we've been touring colleges where because she's in music you have to audition and if you don't audition well you don't get accepted i know i
080have two children who went through that so i don't understand wouldn't want to want to keep a meritocracy that we've all been raised in and all of a sudden throw it out the window for a lottery where people aren't and i understand there are some people that'll come out of the fray but i don't think by denying people that have worked for many many years to have that opportunity to trajectory in their lives knowing what they wanted to do i didn't know what i wanted to do i'm absolutely hearing what you're saying please don't misunderstand i'm not not hearing what you're saying but i believe that we we owe them the opportunity to explain their side of what it is that they're trying to accomplish and without doing that i i don't feel like we
081have a good basis well i think they have pretty much said what they're trying to accomplish by not saying it they've said it i don't think i don't think they've said that to us well no no no i understand no that's you guys right and that's what i'm asking for i'm asking them to come here and their next meeting is monday to us so real quick i think what i heard you saying i might be okay i want to make sure i heard you say that the reason we're sending this letter is because we are concerned we are it's unknown what the impact our students here it's not proven not proven it's not proven but there is concern about the potential impact on our you do you decide to be okay with we're concerned about
082potential impact i can live with that okay right and everybody else i would like them to come here and again have some conversation with us about what what their um what their thought process if the board doesn't have a thought process i'll like like ask mr von tempo to come here because they haven't they're not aware of it but at the end of the day they have to they have to engage us in the process and if we are going to take the first step to engage them i i don't have a problem with that but i want them to come here and and have that conversation we'll go there whatever i just i don't want to be arbitrarily making decisions based on i'm not sure but i don't want to make the same bad
083mistake they did like i i want to be better than that so do we can we get this accomplished by monday when the next meeting is have them come here if we get a letter drafted based on what we discussed here that we feel comfortable with yeah i i agree so so let me let me let me to to accelerate things i'm wondering if that we might if we might uh engage with um our uh media person to to potentially draft and do an addition an initial draft and then we could take the draft and and tweak it from there yep we do want to be careful because it'll have to come through email so let's be careful making sure that that conversation and what that looks like so um nick can we work with
084you to get something drafted for us yes are you guys okay if i work with him try to capture what we have here that we say more comfortable with and then send it out for you guys to take a look at yeah i i i think that that that makes uh that makes sense the idea would be to take the next you know 20 minutes or whatever it would be and formulate the letter so it's done i mean i think the problem is at this point like being like i have to go to work you have to have some type of expression of urgency for the kids this this around the date the problem is if we leave this table and it now goes email that's the counter to the sunshine laws isn't it board
085meeting outside of a board meeting so so i i so it is like the gray area but but we have talked in public about our intent it's recorded it's recorded and and we we have the the basic um uh context the outline of the contents and and we will make this public so it is there's nothing we've stated our intentions we don't have the ability to to complete the letter today but it is coming i'll work with nick we'll work with me with uh mr caroline yeah and uh names are alluding today but but but and we'll make it public so i believe that that we will have fulfilled in in this circumstance we will have fulfilled the the uh the transparency aspect of this i'm not going to have it set until it comes
086to the board i'm good with that i just wanted to raise it for a conversation i mean as long as you're tweaking a letter and this word smooth thing make sure that right points come across now if you brought up a new point add the letter and all that before that's that's a whole nother story because you're just kind of tweaking so technically do we know what the points are or are there going to be new points we said we would talk about how we're concerned about the potential impact for students we do have to put urgency around it since the next drawing is monday right yeah it's monday because we'll be consistent with the lord we just passed but we also don't know how the drawings are done right so there's lack of transparency
087of four or five different questions like they of self-consistent jim when when they sent the initial i mean explanation of why they had done it right so this is hard did you say that we do not understand how would be what the actual selection process is it's it's i don't know the random drawing is i don't know if they're cutting up names yeah i don't know if it's a random so that's we don't it's not transparent at this point like the actual process completes um the another another point is we we we understand that they're uh we all agree with equal opportunity and that we would like to work with with auburn career center and to the best of our ability to increase capacity of programs um and i think we would just like to
088understand the process at the end of the day like i think i had to ask some questions on you know is it random based on size of district is it you know you get 10 slots because your district is twice as big as this district's true they get five i could ask those questions and we were not providing answers and so yes i have questions on that type of thing if we're gonna we're gonna grant what does random mean let's define it so um right i have questions on that yeah so so right so right exactly right you know we could potentially there's seven different ways right so it's i mean by the random process although it's unlikely i mean it is possible that no riversides are how fair would that be so right like
089at the end of the day we also said that again their process of how they've made this change you know like right because we're not happy but we're not happy yet the fact that they didn't communicate so yeah all right why is this changing what are we doing i assume we're like taking the last of this conversation over and out because i've got it i think so i gotta go and nick has it on video so i cannot go back and try and listen to our comments yeah but so i i so again to your your valid point about sunshine law i think that that we have discussed it in public that we have talked about the points you want to include now we need a process that is not conducive to to public setting
090but that ultimately the final product will be public and i think just to add to that not that we want to be outside of the rules but i think the public has a real strong desire to get this letter delivered so i don't think there's going to be any concern from the public drafted okay any other discussion on auburn career center enrollment process i know that um mr grassy has to leave due to unforeseen work obligations um do we want a motion to table the boardmanship and board expectations this specialist or postpone it to another can we can we do that before our next board meeting perhaps so let's make so there's a motion to um move the boardmanship and board expectations to um prior to our next board meeting as a working session is
091that is there a possibility would anyone want to second that you make it um i'm sorry what was that day the 31st of march at our next board meeting before that okay uh did you want to meet before that no no it's just not right prior to 6 pm oh i see okay yeah let's not get muddy so we have a motion to move it can i get a second a second thank you here i am throwing things in here so closing items our next business meeting is now uh march 31st 2022 at 6 00 pm and followed by a regular board meeting that's on the calendar so can um we have a motion to adjourn at 9 11. [Music] hi lori motion carries