SMFCSD Board Meeting 2025-06-16

001I call to order this meeting of the Storow Falls City Schools Board of Education on Monday, June 16th, 2025 at 6 p.m. please. E Jenkins here. Melody here. Sheen here. Sodonic here. here. Please join us in the pledge of allegiance. Everything we do is designed to provide a future ready student- centered learning experience for every single child. Our strategic plan for 2021 through 2026 will help us accomplish this goal by considering every facet of a student's learning experience from curriculum to infrastructure to wellness and everything in between. As members of the board of education, we serve as trustees. Therefore, this is a business meeting being conducted in public, not a public meeting. We are grateful to serve and engage community and therefore encourage and respect input from citizens. We expect that everyone present will behave

002in a manner consistent with the behavior we expect of our students. We reserve the right to have those who do not comply removed from our meeting. The first item on our agenda tonight, comments from the audience. At this time, we welcome any comments and concerns citizens wish to bring before the board of education. All comments must be directed to the entire board and be no longer than 3 minutes. We will listen to and consider your remarks, but there will be no conversation aside from clarifying questions. If you are seeking a direct response or further information, we ask that you submit your request in writing. Please begin your remarks with your first and last name. Mr. President, before we get to the comments, I do have a point of order. Um I would like to make

003I see that we have this section here for um for um comments, but but there's quite a lot of things on the agenda and I don't see any um section at the end for comments from the audience. That's true. We have one comment section on this agenda as we've had at other work meetings. Well, I would like to make a motion that we add a second. I guess this would be 10A um section in the agenda to amend the agenda to include a second comment from the audience uh section. There's a motion. Do I have a second? Seeing none, we'll move forward. Do we have any comments from our audience? Okay. My name is Marty Simkins and I would like to say that after having looked at um a couple years worth of checkbooks and

00414 15 months worth of credit card statements, I can say without a bit of doubt that you guys have been spending a lot of money. Um what I found out was that in between 23 and 24, between the levy and the re-evaluation of houses, you ended up getting $14 million more. And in spite of that, you have been in the red consecutively for almost since 2020. So I no matter how much money we've given you, you spent it. And I think that that calls for some some serious um investigation on the part of the people in this city and that are giving you this money before you ever put another levy on here. and your credit card statements. Why are you putting lawyer fees on credit card statements? Why are you having late fees? Your

005interest for this three months alone has been $1,000. So, you guys are really, really not setting a very good example for anybody that even thinks about giving you any more money to spend in this city. Thanks, Okay, not seeing any other comments. Okay, then we will move on. Our next item is the legislative update. I'm just gonna budget into the senate the senate but then it went back through um to for reconciling. So, we're still waiting to see what what happening. There's also another bill regarding property taxes and the way schools are funded and the way levies are calculated, etc., but it's still very very much up in the air. Note that it's out there, but Let's move on to committee updates. Um if you don't mind, I'll start with facilities. Um our focus of

006the facilities meeting on May 20th was to gather feedback from the committee and uh committee members were asked to bring a guest. So to kind of widen our audience for that meeting, uh we were getting uh feedback from everyone in the room on various options, uh grounding us in portrait of a bulldog and collaboration and really looking at what those various options might be in terms of addressing our building costs. And I didn't I don't think we shared out results of that yet. who would like to go at this time. We'd like to share update from that facilities meeting. So, I'm going to ask Mark to come up. Good evening. Uh, so appreciate the space to provide an opportunity to the public uh to update us on basically what has happened in the last 45

007days in terms of facilities. And so like Dr. Wayne said, we start all of our meetings out with a portrait of a graduate which in our case bulldog uh is a reminder to ground ourselves in the work that we expect our kids and teachers uh to be able to do and how facilities can supplement that. And when we talk about our facilities committee, we brought we really brought the scope this year. Uh while we a lot of people a lot of folks talk about the future, uh we are here this group has also allowed me to uh assisted me in terms of long longterm planning, short-term planning, safety, compliance. How do we gather feedback in terms of those decisions and also assisting uh with some type of financial planning which has allowed me to be

008a better director of operations and so to go back to the beginning where we were in February to look at the timeline in February uh that was over these big some of the big items that the community had talked about during uh during uh in March Uh we were at Riverview in this case. This meeting we uh we really discussed what it would be like if we phased in a project. Uh as well as what would the cost be associated with two elementaryaries, three elementary in April 2025, we met at Echo Hills. Uh this is also when we provided the board with its first updated spring. Uh at this meeting we talked about a warm safety drive plan breaking down our facilities assessment in terms of 5 years 10 years and beyond. 2020, May 2025,

009we were at Kinton and then we basically led the committee through a consensus exercise and then we had them for our Libby and I get the ultimate idea of how do we reduce the overall scope of the work and then here we are in June providing our second update of the spring. Can you explain what an LFI is? I can do that. So, I will get to our LIS in a couple more slides. Uh, but I think it's important for our community to know is who is on the facility. Um, a lot of times a lot of folks in these meetings, they wear multiple hats, some sometimes three mats. And so, we asked our our community members uh to kind of identify the lens that they were approaching uh the problem or the theory of

010action, what we really liked, what shouldn't be able to do uh in this case what I liked about this was we have 96 folks on the list uh that are a part of the plan 22 attended in May of those 22 stakeholders uh you can see right in front of me 50% uh are identified from the community these are parents these are voters uh some are also employees and stakeholders we also have business leaders and community stakeholders and then we also had some city leadership uh and the preference the consensus activity was basically kind of a weighted average. Each f uh each person was given um kind of a a point a point system 32 and one they were able to uh review their plans and if they wanted to put all their all their

011points on one sheet and one plan they were able to do that. If they wanted to spread them out they were able to do that. Uh but this allowed us to get to gain consensus and as you can see right here uh the plan preference of the committee was plan two. So what I'm kind of roll through them very quickly. Plan one was what appeared on November's ballot. Plan two this is the this is the plan that ultimately the committee reached consensus around which is uh three elementary schools and then one six through eight middle school. uh campus and uh you can kind of see the figures right there. The third option that we talked about uh was reducing down to two elementary, one middle school right there. our fourth option, which was not very

012popular with the community at all actually was uh renovating middle school, turning that into an elementary school. uh building one brand new elementary school and then one 58 middle school. You can see the value right here is just just over 220. And then plan five was a warm saf warm safer dry plan which is uh if you were at the meeting at Echo Hills, we did this 5 to 10 15 year type of plan. take the priority work number one and two, add them together, you get a rough estimate about 56 million in terms of the necessary work that we have to be able to do to get our facilities uh safe. And so I can kind of go back real fast, show where the land was on plan, uh was very clear, very clear.

013The last task of the meeting was to rank order LFIs. So an LFI is a locally funded industry. This is dollar amounts that are not co-unded by the OC. As you can see right now, these these this overall chart right here, these are outdated numbers. I want very clear. But the big idea here is is the previous work prior to November of 2024 asked for an additional $25 million of space in our facilities. So what we asked our committee to do was if we had to rank order them in terms of what is the most important and what is the least important we had to do this uh through consultation with TDA the the work that we really need to do is on the additional academic space uh and looking at that $25 million um

014item and ultimately trying to reduce that in addition to perhaps eliminating some of the the other LFI. So our next steps is really to take what I just shared very quickly. Uh we need to gain more feedback to the broader community there. You know that community has done a tremendous uh amount of work and I'm very appreciative appreciative to those who are on that committee but it's time for us to kind of get that feedback out to the broader community. Uh we need to evaluate our LFIS and we need to find areas of production. We've already started that. Um and then lastly, we need to determine the timelines for commission. That was where we landed at questions. Uh other committees finance Um the finance committee met. Uh there were a couple items that we looked

015at to try and cut costs. We discussed uh the possibility of doing energy audits in all of our buildings. And um I think that was something that the committee was very favorable about doing and we're looking into the details of how we would implement that. Uh also uh one of the committee members presented a program was kind of like a energy buddies with the staff so that they could go over ways that each teacher uh aid principles everybody would work together to try to find ways to to cut costs with energy. Um, you know, every simple things just turning out lights and that uh type thing, making sure that um if they see water leaking or dripping or whatever that they report it right away. Uh, and there there's like a whole there's a whole

016program that can be implemented to teach them what to look for and, you know, how to implement that process. So we're looking at that um as a possibility as well. Um, one of the other things that was presented was um the u the principal's budget which uh provides a lot of supplies for the classrooms uh has been cut by 10% uh in the past and uh costs keep rising and we're trying to discuss different ways to increase funds to get some more uh supplies in the classrooms mostly for art, fizzed, um science, uh workbooks, those type of items. And so we were looking at the possibility of a fee for the parents, something something reasonable, uh, but a fee for the parents to along with the school supplies. This is like another school supply fee.

017Basically, um, this is something that is already implemented in the high school. Uh, and, uh, we're looking at doing it this in the the lower grades. and uh we'll probably see more details on that in the next meeting. Thank you. Any questions? Do you and this might be just a question for I just remember as a parent and I know at some point um nobodyh actually reported um when those fees were removed, but we do know that we had those fees in the past and all of the six district compact schools currently have these fees um and other fees. So, we are really the only ones that do not ask our parents to participate in uh purchasing these things for their classroom. I just know for sure just as a community that puts on right

018and with the reduction because then the teachers go to the principal for those and since we reduced the principal's budget they also don't have the money so this is just a way we uh the the estimate if we go with what was presented u We would raise about $26,000 for these items between the elementary level up to pimp there. None of those have fees right now. And so just basically just to be clear talking about charges for things that Right. Yeah. It would be the consumables similar to the flavor, right? Each child had a flavor that they were expected to use, right? Um so we've been talking about consumables for labs, for example, science labs and there workbooks that are used by the students and cannot be used that way. Correct. Also art supplies, gym

019equipment as well. We definitely want to pick up the voices. Thank you, Dr. Um wellness uh meeting was canled in May and rescheduled for later. What about has technology met? And then Mr. Sheen safety. No, we were to have one I think it was last week and it's um going to be res things got extremely busy. Okay, so that is all of our move on to item sixendation. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Any discussion? Yes. I have a couple of questions. This would be second page just to get some clarity here. Um it says home instruction tutors and there's listed nine. Um can you explain what these individuals are or what they do or is this a summer thing or? No, these are home instructors who help our students who are unable

020to attend school due to some type of medical or some other reason that they are incapacitated and so they help them with instruction and this happens throughout the entire Yeah, this says 2526. So is this up? So this be for wouldn't that be I guess I guess would that be 25 26? Okay. And then right underneath it had summer curriculum work and there's 22 people here. Um it says effective date June 5th 2025. What are these 22 people doing in regards to summer curriculum work? So this is summer curriculum work that is around looking at that curriculum that is being used and being that there's 22 are these different okay and starting at what kindergarten and going through 12th grade or is it where's the where's the more of the is there more of a

021focus more of a focus right now and um okay the next page it was a I guess it's a supplemental um we have so just explain we have Mr. McMahon getting a point five as a co-advisor and then a point five as a co-assistant advisor and the same for this other teacher here. Um can you explain that? So we have two people who support student council and they take the supplemental and the supplemental. So the supplemental itself is about 3500. as the advisor and also the So this is one person well two people taking or carrying two roles. Yes. Is there more work being that they're the adviser and the co-advisor or the the co-assistant adviser? This is in the event that one is not there and vice versa and that's where the co assistant

022advisor comes into play. Yes. So this is merely if person one or person two is not available for student council. Yes. Have we ever looked at how many times that happened? I mean you're talking $2,400 to just someone as a co-assistant advisor in the event that the advisor isn't there. I think we might want to look at that just to see. Now, let me ask you this. Is this a union? Is there something with the union that makes this have to happen? Yes, this is a union supplement. So, even if they never missed a meeting, because of the union contract or what how it's written, we would still have to pay this person for this co-assisted advisor. I believe that there are two positions to support student council that there's enough work there for the

023teachers that there are two positions and rather than one person being the adviser and one person being the assistant adviser you have two people splitting those two roles. But there are two people's work of work to to be done with that. Correct. I think the point wasn't that there's two people um just in case someone's absent. It's the splitting, but they both do the the regular the co-advisor and assistant advisor is just in case someone not available. It's not that only two positions exist. just registering and there are a lot of supplementals. Well, I'm not questioning the splitting of it. I'm just questioning the need to incur this cost for this co- assistant super advisor if the primary purpose is to fill in if somebody's not available to attend a meeting. That's not the primary

024purpose. That's the purpose for splitting, not the purpose for the position. So there would be two positions regardless. Yes. This is just so that they can share the salary. Correct. For the addition work that's being done. Yes. And about how many students are in student council do? I know it's big and they they put on a lot. They do a lot of work, for example. No, I'm not I'm not questioning that. It's just that something just seems off here in respect to I mean you could say that well the principal she you know takes care of you know 1500 kids now there are assistant principles um it just something just doesn't seem right but again if I'm fighting the issue of it's in the the contract then I guess there's not much I can do

025to challenge this or to see if it's really valid or if we could save some supplements are conf. All right. If we go towards the back, I have here new employment. Um, and there's a list and but then I go under resignations and I see some of the same people. But I do see, let's see, if I go to resignations, it says end of school year 2425. So I see new employment 2526. Why why are they resigning and then then they're then they're coming back on as a new employee? Yeah, let's have Mr. Love um explain that process. So those are classified positions. So they're pair professionals, a lot of special education aids. Um what they do is at the the school year, we do a classified job fair where they're able to bid on

026different positions, maybe different um different types of rooms, uh different school buildings, just different hours, different things like that. So when those when there's a position that comes open, they can bid on something. So they'll that they resign their current position and then bid on the new position. Okay. So I'm seeing here like on the resation, this first person initials KS, it said Echo Hills But then I'm seeing here on new employment it says Indian Trail. So that so she she resigned from the Echo Hills and then got rehired to go to Indian Trail. Get the right words. So when something like that happens, they're resigning from their position that they did this past school year. So 2425 to take a new position 256. And this job fair happens every year. We see this kind

027of shuffle. Y with our classified employees, correct? Yeah. So, this is about the time of year where you should see those resations and the new jobs and I thank you for that. It's good opportunities for the classified positions. They're all happy. And did did we increase those because there there's quite a few that were on both lists, but then I see some new names. So, was this were these categories increased? No. Nope. There were there weren't increases. Um there were a couple reductions uh as far as the the positions but not increase roll call please. Jenkins. Hi lady. Hi Shen. I sonic I wind I next item of understanding do I have a motion so moved second have Mr. Yes. Um so the memorandum of understanding what that is is uh through the contract we

028have certain statutes as far as like our it's called dual employment know a driver or a bus a who takes a position um and then takes another position maybe for a noon route or different things like that. So through the course of the year we've had different positions that we've needed that have just kind of came out that we you know we needed pretty much just new for this year. So, as people have bid on those positions, it can make someone a dual employee. Um, and so that's that's what this adjustment is is saying that this person is is a dual employee um rather than like an extension of ours. It's it's really contractual as far as how it words it um and kind of what that relationship is. That's what that understanding is. Thank

029you. Any questions for Mr. Yeah, I have a question here. Uh third sentence. It says whereas the association filed grievances on or about December 5th, 2025. That hasn't happened yet. Uh regarding the extension of hours for two bargaining unit members. Shouldn't that be 2024? Should be. Yes. And um number two, and I'll just use her initial CS. Um was this an issue of dual employment bus assistance? was was it a wrong classification that uh why this this came up? Yep. Originally we had guidance that it could have been a dual or it could have been sorry an extension of ours which would mean it's not a dual employment but after um with new legal advice and as we go into this um as we kept moving forward we thought it was actually dual employment and

030not an extension of ours. And did this person get back pay? Um they will East Jenkins. Hi, Harley. Hi, Sheen. Uh, I'm going to say no because we have the wrong date on here. Sonic, hi. Wind. Hi. Okay. Next is job description. Food service driver, substitute manager, data type. I have a motion. A motion to approve. Second. Any discussion? East Jenkins. Hi. Melody. Hi. Sheen. Hi. Sonic. Hi. Wind. Hi. Okay. Next. Um, we have our board affiliate reports. Uh, I was very excited to invite um, Mr. Crawford to come tell us a little bit about what is happening with parks and recreation. Um, and then Miss East Jenkins will um, also give us some information about Stow Schools Foundation. uh I wanted us to you know make sure that we're staying in touch with other

031organizations and our appointees uh on various things. So Mr. Crawford, hi good evening. Thanks for having me here. So just before I get started, so as as you all know, I am Pat Crawford, the chair of the parks and recreation board. Um just a little just I know you're all aware but for those that are watching um I'll I'll say that the parks board is um it's a board of five Stow residents and four of them are appointed by the by uh the mayor of the city of Stow and then of course myself is the board of the school board recommendation and then all five members are then subsequently confirmed by city council and then article 13 of the charter of the city of Stow says that we are responsible. It says we shall recommend

032general policy to council and the mayor basically for control equipment management of playgrounds, playfields. I won't go through the whole list. It's basically any uh land that's owned by the city of Stow for park and recreation purposes and also we shall also advise council and the mayor concerning the administration and maintenance of all municipal parks. So, uh, the board, our board does not have, um, a budget. We can make recommendations and, um, uh, it's up to the city administration and the city council decide whether or not they have money for that. They can fun that. So, I will talk about some of the new amenities that the parks and recreation department and the city have um, recently completed. They there's been a tremendous investment in parks and recreation in the city over the past few

033years. Uh the most recent that come to mind is uh the driving range at Fox Den has gotten some significant upgrades. So last year they poured some concrete. They put in some nice mats that people can hit off of. And then more recently they actually closed those mats so that you can, you know, get out of the elements and use them. And there's also talk in the future about maybe installing some radiant feeders overhead so that can become a yearround facility. The reason I mentioned the driving range to the school board is because um this amenity frees up more space for instruction and in the past I think they had had I don't want to speak for Fox 10 management but I if I recall correctly they had some issues where Falls golf team wanted

034to come practice that area might not necessarily that part of the driving range might not necessarily be available for patrons to use. So, now they're they're well spread out. They have a lot of space. So, hopefully they uh the school golf team would be able to practice there while patrons can still use the facility. Another big uh huge investment the city has made in time and capital over the past year or so was the community and senior center which opened at its grand opening on January 12th. So the the parks department's goals when they opened the community and senior center was to first take all of their existing programming that were being done in that house down the street from here that could only hold about 48 people at a time um to move all

035of those programs down to the new community center on Fish Creek. So, um, they're still kind of establishing their roots there and and getting those programs moved over and up and running, but they're excited to have additional space there, and it should it should serve, uh, the population well. I I did want to mention I gave you three handouts before, uh, before the meeting started. I gave you our u 2024 annual report. I gave you a senior newsletter, most recent one. This is a $5 value. So, May through June, it's $5 through the year. And then, um I also asked the department to print out some enrollment numbers for January through June. So, um you'll see that there's a number of programs in the 2024 annual report where it shows how many people registered for

036them and how many people were weight listed. And hopefully with all this additional space now with the new community center, we'll start to see those uh not only the capacities increase but also those weight list numbers go down so that we're not telling residents, I know you really want to take this program, you want to be involved in this program, but unfortunately they reported. So, um in addition to the senior programming that's moved over there, I did want to say that they're they're actually asking people to sign up as members now. Now, a membership is, if I recall correctly, is uh it's the $5 subscription. So, you get get like a membership card and you're allowed to be involved or you're allowed to register for the senior programs down there. They have over 500 members

037so far this year. So, like I said, they're establishing those senior programs there. And then once their their next goal is to evaluate the possibility of adding programming that would serve uh the population that you're probably most interested in, which is children, school age population. Uh they'll start to evaluate the possibility of adding evening programming there and maybe some youth and teen programming in the future. But I will I will say they have added they have moved some youth programming there that they used to be able now they have some more space for some of those programs too currently but they'll look to expand that year. Some of the big capital projects for this year and uh the master plan. So the department's still completing a a wayfinding uh project. Right now they're focused on

038Adele Durban and Oregon Trail. That was one of the things we asked them to do was like instead of spreading it out over the entire all the all the parks, let's focus on finishing one park at a time and then we'll move to another one. So they've been focusing on a Dell Durban and Organ Trail per our recommendations a couple years ago. Um one of the things that came out of the master plan was that residents want more outdoor trails and walking spaces. So we um or the department has been working on let's make sure that we brand and mark those trails well so everybody can know that they're there and use them. Um they've ordered a new bus. So the department does community bus trips which a lot of people think are uh only

039a senior bus trips but they're community bus trips. So anybody's welcome to sign up and take those bus trips. Uh the new bus should be here in the fall. It's uh got a wheelchair lift. So, it's ADA compliant. So, the rear seats fold up, secure wheelchairs in the back. So, that's good. Another big project for this year is that the uh sore playground, the accessible playground at Silver Springs, the surface of it is again. So, in order for that part to continue to be accessible, which was the whole reason that it was it was built, is uh that that surface needs to be replaced. That's a pretty big project. I think city council authorized $200,000 for the city to go out and get bids for that and the parks director is currently in the process

040of seeking bits for that. So, and then of course the community amphitheater at uh what everybody calls the Norton Road Shopping Center, although I think it's called the Town Center Plaza. Uh currently the city is working with an architect and design agency and uh you'll have to forgive me if I get this wrong. Um, I didn't look into my notes for certain, but I I believe that the goal of the city administration is to have that amphitheater, start building it this year, and have it open by next spring. So, and then one other thing that we were looking into for 2025 was the possibility of designing a splash pad in a location that's yet to be determined in the city because of some of these other large capital projects. It looks like that's going to

041be tabled until uh at least next year. So, look at it. probably later this year or next year. And then the kind of the lion's share of what the parks and recreation staff down the hall does on a day-to-day basis in addition to marketing because I know that seems surprising, but that they uh they have staff that they do marketing for the whole city. So like anytime there's they have to put out something about like a water main break or whatever, parks and recreation department works their time to that. But um in addition to that, they run just a a plethora of of programs for residents and and non-residents. Um so that's why I gave you the annual report because I could spend just hours up here telling you about all the different programs they

042have. I did try to highlight some in my notes here that I thought would be of most interest to the school district because um as you're probably aware the parks and recreation department and the schools enjoy a great partnership and the department requires a significant amount of time in your spaces. So I think the director told me the other day that she needs upwards of certain times of the year she needs upwards of 40 hours a week of schooling space. So, thank you for that partnership. But, um, I will share that, uh, one of the things that parks and recreation organized, as you can see right up the windows here, there's over, uh, there was 245 graduating senior banners. So, that was a parks and recreation kind of managed initiative. Um, they just completed their

043basketball leagues that their 2425 basketball leagues, which serves students from, uh, elementary school all the way up to the high school. I I found here they had 300 um registrants for elementary and intermediate level, 60 for six through eight, 80 for the high school. They just started an outdoor summer basketball league which is completely full. It has 104 registrants and those are children grades 12. Uh volleyball is uh it was full. They had 75 that was grades three through six. Lacrosse also grades three through six. Uh they have tennis camps and leagues that started earlier this month to go through the summer. Those are all at or near full at 120. There's some art camps this summer that serve children ages five all the way up through 19. We have 45 registered for that. The

044very popular Silver Spring Summer Day camp, which sold out in a matter of hours after opening registrations as it historically has, um serves grades one through six. And I think they have 130 in that program right now. That's currently going on. And then some events coming up on the on the radar in the future. There's the paddle battle June 27th to 29th. I thought I'd mention that. It's stunning collaboration between the city and the and the speech debate team at the high school. And of course that's at the lovely new paddle ball courts at Orbit Trail Park. And then kind of their banner events for the the rest of the year, the Fourth of July parade and the summer sunset blast. So the parade actively planning that right now. There's 90 people registered for that.

045It's an election year so obviously there's going to be there's going to be a lot of candidates registering and uh we look forward to seeing March band there as always. And then the Sunset Blast still in planning phases of that. That's August 30th and 31st. They're working on vendors. There'll be non-food vendors, food vendors. There will be a kids area that usually I think they charge admission before you get a wristband. And that concludes with fireworks on August 31st. So, like I said, there's a lot that the department does and we do our best to support them. Like I said, I'm apologize if I'm not going to stay for the whole meeting, but I will I am happy to answer any questions you might have for now. Thank you. There's quite a lot of collaboration

046back and forth and I think it's much appreciated on both sides. Any questions? Patrick, there's anything that you could if you could pick one thing that you could say, hey, the we need to work better at as far as the parks and the schools. Is there anything that kind of sticks out? Um, I I honestly I don't want to speak for the department or the board. Um, they seem to have a great relationship. I just met with the director the other day and she told me that she has a good relationship with Mr. Train. Um, I do know that they would that that they they have a need for space. It would be nice to see if we could utilize maybe the fieldhouse, but I realize there's a lot of different variables. that that go

047into whether or not things can be can be facilitated in that space or not. Just myself as just like like I said, someone who follows this stuff um I know they could use the space and you have space available that those factors can get worked out. It be nice utilize that. Any other questions? Do do you know what the capacity for the amphitheater is going to look like? Um I don't want to give you an official number. I I believe from the not the notes that I looked at I believe they were looking at like a 2500 person capacity. So it's not going to be like lots of music center by any means but it'll be and again I I saw that number when I was reviewing my notes preparing for this meeting today. So

048I that could have been something that I completely misunderstood. So I apologize to the mayor and the parks director if I misspoke, but I I believe I saw a number somewhere in the ballpark 25. Any other questions? Thank you, Mr. All right. Thank you. Okay, moving on to schools foundation. Um, start. So, I have actually been a member of the schools foundation since 2018. So, I was happy to serve as the board rep instead of having another person do another meeting. Um, our foundation is made up of 12 to 15 community members. Um, but now under the leadership of our president, Dave Sean, we've added eight community reps to the board to add more stakeholders from the community to help guide the mission. So, this is additional admin from each of the schools and then

049a council person from each each um city. This year we partnered with the Bulldog Bags to launch our first annual turkey bowl with the funds earmarked for teacher grants. We've awarded $5,000 in teacher grants and then just recently gave 90 seniors $120,000 in scholarships. We worked to increase our donor communication with newsletter and increase transparency with donors by launching an online hub for their statements and their with them and we are working to add a new scholarship, a grant opportunity districtwide. This year we added five and the big thing is this year we are celebrating um 40 years and with our and it's we're going to do a $40,000 campaign reception in the fall and the day of service in 2026. So good things to come, lots of good things coming out of the school's

050foundation for a long time. I don't think a lot of people know that it exists and what it does. It's not just scholarships. I want teachers really to start applying for those grants. I think they always go to the PTA thinking that's the only place, but there's a lot of money for teachers. That was going to be one of my questions. I think the the senior scholarships are the most visible to a lot of community members. But then yeah, how much is going toward our teachers as well? I don't have a number, but I think when they ask it's it's a look to see what we could do, you know, to get whatever they need. Okay. They're definitely getting bigger grants than the PTAs are able to do because I think those are usually a

051couple hundred dollars are usually pretty low. um which no not to PTA but these are the bigger items for the classrooms or the labs or things like that. How do you let teachers know that that's available? I think the website is probably the best tool and that that is why we've added those stakeholders. Yeah, because there just was no way to actually get it into the hands of the teachers. So, we're hoping that those admin will go back into their buildings and talk about what they can, you know, get from the foundation. Any other questions, discussion? Thank you. Okay, that moves us on to new business this evening. Under new business, there are three policies for the board to review. These policies are reviewed annually. The first policy is the one for homeless students. This

052is board policy 511.01. The second one is title one services uh board policy 2261 and district and open enrollment policy 513. So these have not changed. This is just the end. Yes, this is the end. And there's no action required other than review and this happens any questions okay let's move on then to number nine our discussion items our first item uh Mr. if you would like to start us out on that. Yeah. So, already talked to Francis for the next school year. Uh just really looking at specific dates for the fiscal year and just how it lines up with payroll and our last track run of the fiscal year. Um but I'm looking to see if we could add a special meeting to the last Monday of the month, which is June 30th. Um

053could be a relatively quick meeting. So you could do it at 7:30 in the morning. It would be approving our estimated resources and final appropriations for this fiscal year. Um so really zeroing out the accounts. Hey, this is how much we've spent on all on everything payroll all the fund funds you see on the cash position report. And then you uh recommend for next year's appropriations. So since we have payroll next Friday, that's why I'm asking for Monday, June 30th. Okay. So, we couldn't do it next Monday. No, I don't I don't want to try to estimate that when there's too many variables at hand, especially when it comes to payroll. Okay. So, what is everyone's availability on the 30th either for a morning meeting or for an evening? Um I know I'm available for

054the 7:30 or the 6:00 in the evening for 6. Would we be next week as well. Yes. Yeah. Fortunately, I do apologize be three meetings back to back and there is already that we need to discuss. So I can do either but my preference would be Mr. Sheen. I like the morning ones. So just um Are we number 10 or nine on the agenda? We're on number nine. A yeah, I believe either either time we would want to Would you be available? Have a preference? Um I think so, but um afternoon would be preferred. I think I could do either. We would be voting at this meeting. Yes, there would be two uh two recommendations. One for final appropriations for fiscal year 25 and then um appropriations for 26. Fiscal year 26. We may want

055to consider even because we we get comments from our community when we're voting. so that we can have that ability. Um, yeah, I would lean toward the evening when we're taking action as well. Uh, so it sounds like consensus What date the 30th? Monday. It's a Monday. Consensus would be 6 p.m. Monday, June 30th or the special and then the date will be to be determined. We just have to find a place, but we'll reach out to see if the city has has availability for two weeks from now. Thank you. Uh item B, Mr. Dana, that's yours as well. Okay. All right. All right. So, I just wanted to talk about some public records requests. Uh some uh public records requests in general. So, Ohio law provides every individual whether a resident or a non-resident

056with the right to access public records. This right is fundamental to government transparency and accountability. However, increasing volume and complexity of public records requests presents real challenges for public agencies, particularly for school districts. Since July of 2024, Stonemor Falls City School District has received approximately 90 public records requests. These requests come from both local residents and individuals outside of our communities seeking a wide variety of information like personnel files, purchase orders, checks, check registers, invoices, legal cost, vendor list, incumbrance reports, contracts, résumés, and credit card statements. Currently 23 of these requests remain open or have not yet been started due to the high volume and limited staff resources. Of particular note, approximately 33 requests over one-third have been submitted by a single non-resident individual. Many of these requests are broad, timeconuming and require detailed legal

057review. While we require to fulfill these requests without charge of for labor, they are paid with local tax dollars despite the requesttor having no financial stake in the community. Since January 2025, the district has incurred more than $15,000 legal fees directly related to the review and process of public records request. This figure does not include the substantial internal cost tied to staff time retrieving, compiling, and transmitting documents for review. Meeting these demands often pulls district employees away from essential duties such as financial reporting, payroll processes, writing checks, and etc. While rem while we remain firmly committed to transparency in the public's right to information, it is important to recognize the operational strain that this level of demand imposes on the district. Every request must be handled with precision precision to ensure legal compliance, protection of

058confidential information. The cumulative impact in is the cumulative impact is the significant diversification of time and resources away from core district functions in student focused work. We will continue to fulfill our obligations under Ohio law while also advocating for reasonable and sustainable practices that respect both transparencies and the needs of our schools. So I just wanted to kind of give a a basis of public records. Some people are familiar with the public records process and some people are not familiar with public records process. Most all of the documents that we have internal at the school district is public records requestable. Um so you would just email, call, write, stop at the office to submit a public records request. Um and then we would process those requests. Like I said, we have seen an up an

059uptick in public records requests since I've been here. Um, and it's if it keeps going in this direction, we would have to start looking at possibly additional staff to start fulfilling these these these requests in a much more timely manner. Um, especially it's bad time because it's fiscal year end. We're trying to wrap everything up. Um, so it's it's really a strain on the financial the finance department if it's finances and also the human resources department if it's more of a public of a personnel matter involved. So there is there's a lot that behind the scenes work that I don't know if some requesters understand but it it takes some time. Some of these requests just for the accounts payable position to do um you know finding the check in the system to go pull

060the check from the files and if the files have already been scanned going into a different database to look print those copies um or to download them. One of them took about an hour and a half just to do one that was her time. So there is a cost to it and that's also taking away the stuff that she could be doing during that time. So just want to kind of give a brief overview of just what the district has been um seeing in public records requests. Mr. I know we have discussed before the potential for charging for some public records. Would this be recommend we revisit in the future? Yeah, I would definitely want to get more like legal perspective and other alternative perspectives to see if that's something we can do, if that's

061something we're legally allowed to do because I don't I don't want to be breaking the law over something. So, we could definitely take a look at it. I could reach out to some other agencies, LSBA, OASBO. So, where we don't always have to look at reach out to legal for some of the stuff. So I will always reach out to those avenues as well before reaching out to you. Can you take us through when it comes in the records request? I think I don't think people understand what happens. Like you get an email, you get a phone call. What does that look like? Yes, we normally we definitely have a 99% of them come through email. Uh some of them do go through the Google form out there on the website. Some of them do

062go to the board of education. Um and some of them do go to me. I it's rare if they get sent directly to me, but they do if they do get sent to a building principal, that gets sent to me as well because I am the custodial for the public records request. Um, and once that comes in, I will put it on my uh log and start to well, depending on where I'm at in the log, if uh if it's we're not have very many, let's just say we're caught up and one comes in tomorrow, um, we can then start reaching out to people who would who would get those documents. So if it comes to me and it's a personnel file, I would send it off to HR if they could get the file,

063scan the file to me, and then that would get sent out to legal for further review. And then once legal looks at it, it gets back to me. Then I send it off to the requester in the format they request. And most of the time, if not all the time, it will be uh via email because there's no charge to that for copies or anything like that. Thank you. So, legal reviews every public records request. Not every public records request, but it deals with um more financial matters and personnel matters. They do they will look at public records requests. If someone's requesting the cash position report that do not look I do not send to Google. If someone's requesting um you know incumbrance reports, there's a company smart procurement they about every three months they

064will request you know what the district is purchasing they so that's easy report r from the system and that does not get sent to legal so the easier reports that are accessible from the system do not get public they sorry those do not get sent to legal so the primary purpose of having legal review would be to ensure that we've redacted information that isn't record correct yes and there's times where I will kind of start the redaction process of what I think is the things that should be redacted. And then once they take a another set of eyes looking over it, they will look at something to redact that. And anything that needs to be redacted has to be um you have to give the the verbiage of why it was redacted in the court

065case that uh allows redactions for sensitive information. Just to be clear, if we still continued under our um old retainer that we stopped at the at the beginning of the year. We would still be paying because of the large spike in records request, right? Yeah. So, the public records requests to have always been under the retainer. Um but there are a lot of things outside of the retainer that the district was still paying for. So, you know, I think the the retainer per month was like $17,500 per month. But there are many times in many months that we exceeded that amount and it was outside the retainer. So we were paying additional cost for that. So I just want to make sure that keeping this container was not would not have um it doesn't based

066on our cont. Yeah. And I can't I can't say for a fact that not every public records request fit in the realm of the retainer because if they had to go reach out to somebody else outside the law firm and they got charged for that, we would have got charged for that as well. So So I had been um someone had asked me if you know the way things were structured before would have protected us from a large spike and it just seemed like all the research that I've done based on um what the what the doesn't protect you. You get a large spike of records requests and it takes them attorneys are not more than the 17,000 that we used to just want to make sure that was clear. Yeah. And then we always

067try to one of those things I like to try to get off my desk and desk so I don't lose track of everything. But as soon as they usually come in, we try to get them off to the requester time. I don't like holding on to things. I like to get it done. Check it off my list. Yeah, we've definitely taken the approach especially you know May to June, end of April to June that like um you know our work what we're hired to do comes first and then once we have time to do it we will start uh pulling the documents and if it takes several days it takes several So we want to make sure that we're using our time the best we can with the financial resources as well. Anything further on

068this topic? Okay. So next item 9 C student board representative. Um our deadline for those applications was the end of May. We have two applications which everyone should have received in their email today uh to review. My question with that uh was whether the board would prefer to read those at leisure, come back to our meeting next week and you know make a nomination for who that representative should be or if we would prefer to invite both kids in for a quick interview with the board next week and then do nominations following that. Um, with only two, I don't I don't know whether we necessarily need interviews to sort through um our candidates, but I wanted to see what everyone else thought about that. Um, point of order. The agenda that I'm looking at is

069not the one that you're using. So, what's going on? I printed this agenda up uh Saturday evening and Mr. Shane, the agenda has not, at least my knowledge, not been modified since Saturday morning. So on item n I I don't see there was a presentation which was number five which was academics which I didn't hear. So then that pushed everything to nine. Um I don't see anything about the student and I'm looking at what were the discussion items which were on here special meeting for uh appropriations and then public records request. And I see here credit card statements by me um as C D E F G H I J K L and you're talking about student representative that I don't even see on here. So what happened between Saturday and today? And why are

070my items on here somewhere? Your items are coming up after this. Starting with with item D. Um I I assume the student board representative is the thing that is not on your draft agenda that you had printed out, right? But it is on the agenda that's published. Well, that was published. All right. Well, you're saying my my thing's on D. Is that right? They're all on there. All right. I I' I've talked about this before. I I can't keep going back to the agenda every 20 minutes to see if there's a change on here. I pulled this up sat I pulled this up Saturday so I could work on it. I shouldn't have to pull this up again to get surprised at a meeting. Um as Mr. said this hasn't been modified in the last

071couple of days and we are following the agenda that is currently posted. You think? No, like I said, I think that is a previous draft of the agenda. Mr. Shane, your your mic's off. Your mic's off. I clicked the live one. So, because I know sometime Friday it goes live. I clicked it Saturday thinking everything's going to be fine. This is what came out of my copy machine or out of my printer, which is now different than what we're talking about here by one item. I believe all those other items that are on your list were just moved. Well, two items because it was supposed to be an academics presentation that wasn't done. And then you mentioned this other Well, that that's besides the point. How many times do I have to go to the

072agenda online to what's gonna what I'm going to be sitting in front of. I I I've mentioned this before. It's very disconcerning. If it's if it goes live and we change it, we should be notified. Anything further on the student board, representative? Uh yes, as long as we're on there. Uh based on OSBA recommendation, they said that we should not have a student representative that it could cause problems. That is incorrect. In fact, the reason that I worked on this and created the position was as a result of a session that I attended at Capitol Conference with OSBA. There are many districts in the state who have student representatives. I'm talking about the special one you did for my for my purpose u that was done at the Neo Neonet Center. I'll go back and

073find it online. Uh I'll find the the recording, but she was very clear that she thought it could cause problems. That is not what was said by We can go back and I'll go back and find it to validate it. Um but then secondly, we are not a leadership training organization. We are a business organization taking care of things. A $70 million business. I don't I I see there could be an advantage. We do have a um a student council president. I mean, why can't we incorporate that? But but again, I I'm opposed to going through that and having a whatever it is a representative a student representative for the time being. The student board representative is in our board policy and has been outlined in board policy. If you have specific changes to suggest

074to board policy, um that might be worth talking to policy committee or coming up with a clear suggestion of an alternative. Uh but for the time being, our student representative, as we have done it the last two years, is policy that was approved by the board after about six months of consideration and discussion. So, it sounds like we're pretty comfortable reading through the applications and um doing a nomination next week from there rather than going through an interview process. Yes. Yes. Okay. Item D. Mr. wanted to discuss credit card statements. I wanted to see first if Mr. Vano had any sort of general information for us to consider as we discuss this item. Yeah, I know this has been a hot topic community or on social medias especially with public records request. The the one

075thing that I just want to clarify or make known that all state transactions get tied out to well I want to rephrase that most transactions unless it's fraud will get tied out to a PO or requisition in a check. So there's nothing that the district is spending uh that is not already tied out to a wreck purchase order in a check. Um you know fraud does happen. It happens on every personal accounts gets hacked. Um but we do reach out to the credit card company. Those cards get locked and then we uh work through the fraud with the fraud department to get those charges removed and credited back. Yeah, it happened um on an admin's credit card. It was about $5,000 to Door Dash, which is a ton of money on Door Dash. Um, and

076more than one person could eat. Uh, so once we found out the employee did the appropriate thing, reported it, and the the card was locked and also replaced at the time. We're still working through with the fire department to get those charges credited back. Yeah, we weren't paying that. Yes. And some and that that will also get credited back to and then Mr. Shane, I'll try to answer any questions you have. Okay. Starting January 5th, 2024, can you explain to me it says purchase plan 31,5001 debits and credits current balance. What is the What is the purchase? What are they referring to 02? I think that's just what the credit card plane is called as a purchase point. Um on December 19th, I'm seeing a food charge of $268 to raise place. Do we have

077a PO? Do we have an approval? What do we have as far as why this is that 2024 or 2025, Mr. This is um well it's on the January 20 January 5th 2024 statement. So you're discussing a charge in December of 23. Um it looks like um transaction date December. Yeah, it would be 23. December 19th, posting date December 20. Yeah. So just going back to what I said previous, the anybody who's using a credit card has to have a purchase order in place. Um, and I would have to go back and look through the specifics. Um, regarding your email you sent about 12 days ago referring to a lot of the transactions you wanted to know. And I I did indicate that I wasn't going to have time to go through all this to

078get back to you. So if there's general questions I could kind of get back to you on, but if not the So all right. So you're saying you don't know. We don't have a PO. We don't have anything. No, that's not what I'm saying. Mr. Sheen, we have a PO and the treasurer's office is currently involved in endofear duties. So looking up and identifying the PO is going to take some time. I'm sorry I was speaking Mr. Sheen and you are interrupting me. Okay. Our finance department as we discussed a little while ago when we discussed public records it takes time to track down a specific expenditure and a specific PO. That doesn't mean the PO does not exist. Can you hear me now? Okay. Sorry. Thanks for letting me know. Okay. So, I'll just

079reiterate the the sorry anybody has to hear it twice. Uh the question that um I have seen was about a charge at Pier 1 in Lakewood for $800. And the question was, I'd like to know who attended. What was the reason? Let me see a copy of the receipt. and who approved it. And so the answers to that were the people who attended were the graduating level two CTE culinary students, 13 of them, as well as three members of Joshua's staff. The reason they attended was to experience uh fine dining and food as a part of their uh class. The copy of the receipt is attached. And the person that approved it, Tim Runner, CTE, principal, the superintendent, and the treasurer. And just as a point of fact, this expense is 100% covered by that

080program's 200 student activity account, which in which the money is earned via the tips received when Joshua's is open and serving customers. So, it's just um it's just it's I think it's important for us not to get caught up in something looks bad so that it must be bad. This is about serving our students and you know making sure that our all of our students have the opportunities that they have and we can safeguard um our finances you know without playing chicken little. Okay, let me go on. Um yes, I did receive that and I did take that off this list so it wasn't even going to be talked about. So anyways, u I'm looking at November 14th, um Thomas Bratton, $86 for the Hilton Hotel Columbus. I'm just going to go through and read

081these. Um and you don't know whether I feel bad or not, so don't tell me how I feel about these. Um but these are ones that I'm concerned about, that have a financial concern that I have and um I would like some validation. So we go on to December 19th. uh Meyer. Uh this was Aisha Collier, $140. Um then we get down to Mr. Keing on December 5th and December 19th. I see $22.38 for Dunkin' Donuts. I see $352 for Belliscinos. Now, his name will come up a number of times because I see these quite a bit. And I was told that he does this for awards or something with the classroom, which brought me to another a bunch of other questions. how many other teachers are doing this because I didn't see any of

082that through this. And just from a practical standpoint, we're buying donuts as rewards to children. So that that's for another sub for another day. Um February 5th, 2024. We have here Thomas Bratton buys Grammarly at $144. That's the annual. If anybody knows, Grammarly is a site that you I don't know. I've been using it for 10 years and it helps you correct your m your your English. Well, he he took the annual. Now, it did save money because the monthly is like $30, but these are professionals. We have English teachers. So, I question we're paying for Grammarly. Then we have Aisha here at a higher regency at $620 for uh something on a Tuesday in January 30th. This also will be something I will talk about as far as potential limitations on the expense that

083our our administrators are using for whatever they're doing. Um, here I have Patrick with with the uh Grammarly at the $30. So, he's paying the monthly. And here we have Mr. Keading again at the Dunkin Donuts, not in Stow, but this is the one in Kyoga Falls for $24.77. Um, Mr. repeating Marcos Pizza $34. And here's Dunkin Donuts in Kyle Falls for another 2238. So this 2238 seems to be a repeating. So again, I it must be what he's doing, which I guess is good in a way, but how about a nice little colorful certificate of achievement and not giving these kids donuts on the taxpayers's dying because I don't know how many other teachers are Mr. That comes out of his principal's fund which is not general fund. Okay. which I'll get to the

084principal fund, too. But again, this what we get on the ch the credit card statement doesn't tell us that. All right. Then we have Patrick here on December 5th, $533 for a hotel in Columbus. It does say professional development. Uh but again, that'll be a conversation to, you know, where are the limits? Where do we stop as far as what we pay for for these events? Um now I'm looking at March 5th, 2024. Um, we have here, Mr. Feldman, a garage, something in Rochester, Minnesota for $900. And we have an uh we have a hotel bill here on March 3rd for $222. Um, we also have uh another hotel bill on March 3rd for $189. Um, so again, questioning the fact that what is our athletic director doing and is this something of value to

085the district? Um, And then again, we have Mr. Bratton here. Smart sign, $800. Oh, this was a good one here. American Paper Optics, $3,100. I did a little digging into this because this was a big number. From what I understand, these were the protective glasses you wore during the uh during the eclipse. So, I don't know who gave him approval for this or if the kids even got them because I understand we weren't even in school that day. So, you know, again, where it's $30 $3,100. Um, Patrick, respond to that. What's that? May I respond to that? Because I know the answer to the classes and why school that uh that was purchased um because there was a plan to have the students um use a uh use the eclipse as a learning experience. And

086then um a time after that, we were advised by I believe it was the county government that um yeah that we should disclose schools. And so that purchase had already been made at the time. Um I don't think anybody would have approved buying um eclipse glasses for for children at home, but we were following the the public safety guidelines and close the school um rather than shouldn't have been approved anyways. I mean, you go to Giant Eagle and get them for free. So, at least that's what my kids did or my neighbors did. So, here we have Patrick with a grammarly. So, Patrick's paying the monthly. Um, here's Mr. Keing again with another 2298 on donuts. Um, I think that was all for that one. No, no, there's more. Um, Patrick here. Hilton Hotel, $69

087on February 3rd. Um, okay. March 4th, 2024. Here we have our athletic director. $38 for Ohio State tickets. I really want to see that one. All right. Why is our athletic director buying Ohio State tickets? Now, I don't know if that's Ohio State University. I don't know because I don't I've not seen it. But then we have uh he has a hotel bill for $183. Then he has another hotel bill for $183. And another hotel bill for $338. And another hotel bill for $311. And another hotel for 311. And another. And another. This was quite the party. Just to clarify, yes. On those, anytime we do have sports who make it to states or outside of the district that need hotel rooms, the athletic director's card is used to purchase those hotels. It doesn't mean

088that that card holder is going and using all those hotel rooms. All right. So, I get that, but that's going to go back to another conversation as far as our budget. Shouldn't this been on the athletic director budget and not being used by as with the credit card? But again, I'm I don't want to get off track because then we have Hobby Lobby here for $17 around the same time. Hobby Lobby again. Um, so I don't know if these were banners and balloons, but again, it's still money. All right, then we get to Mr. Brat and here's American Paper Optics, $1,285. So, I guess we didn't get it right the first time. So, we went out and bought some more from from Optics on March 7th. I have not got validation on this sight stone

089landscape. Now, this is March 13th. I don't know what he would be buying at $1,500 uh from a landscaping company because I don't believe that was his role or what his role is. So, that's why I'm asking for the things. Then, we had Ohio Association of Schools $425. I don't know what that is, but that was something he charged. And then here's Sight Stone again at $235. Um then we have Miss Collier at Meyers at for $220. Here's Mr. Keading again at $29 from Walmart and Stow. Um and then Patrick's we have where Patrick was using for Rozell twice, Ohio Medicaid for once, and then the Grammarly at $37,559 as far as a payment being used, our credit card being used. Um, then we have Patrick here again. Jets Pizza, Geonino's, Monroe Falls. It was

090$487. Part of that, again, I could be 100% wrong. These could be 100% legitimate. But what I have an issue on this is why are we buying pizza from a pizza place that's not in Stow? Why aren't we supporting our businesses? Stone Monroe Falls, Mr. Sheen. All right. Stone Monroe Falls. This pizza place was in Kyhoga Falls. So, all right. Uh, May 5th, 2024. Here's Mr. Braden at Sight Stone again for 511. Sight Stone again for 548. Sign up genius. Um, that was $539. So, I wanted to think for a minute, why would he be buying that? Well, I think that's when his role was to coordinate, and again, I'm assuming, but I think this is when his role was to coordinate the activities going on in the fieldhouse, but he's going but he's using

091a system that's costing us $54940, which I doubt if that's ever been used. Um, here's Mrs. Bratton at Target for $70. Um, all right, Mr. Keading, Dunkin Donuts again from 19. Here's the Akran Zoo. I think I'm assuming that's got a principal fund. It had to be a a field trip. Um, but here's the here's one uh here's um Walmart Super Center for 16, but here's an Aldi for $1242 in 7 Hills, Ohio. So, I kind of question that. Uh, Patrick, you had another hotel bill for $545 on April 19th. Um, then we had June 5th, 2024. Mr. Keing. We have Bellisenos for 177. Holden Forest Kurt something in Kirtland. Uh Walmart. Here's Dunkin Donuts. We got Meyer at the tune of about $51.92. Um then we go to July 24 of 24. Um I

092think I know what this is, but I wanted to get validation. And I see our athletic director went to Royal Cleaners for $186. I hope to God what this is is maybe I'm thinking maybe it's the bulldog, you know, maybe that needs to be cleaned, but why else would he be going to a dry cleaner? I wanted to see why he went. Uh Mr. Braden at Sight Stone again for $1,800. Uh Miss Collier, $480 for hotels in Columbus. Mr. Keading again, BJ's Restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. Columbus, Ohio hotels. And that was a total of $461. That's in June 17th. We're not even in school, so I don't know what was going on there. Um, Mr. Keing, here's Wendy's in Parma for $11.7. I mean, could that be an Egg McMuffin and a and a and

093a coffee, maybe? I don't know. Why is he charging using the the credit card in in Parma at a Wendy's? Um, then we have August 5th, 2024. And we wonder why the people are upset in the city. Um, all right. This is a big one and I'm really going to be anxious for here. If you folks all remember, I made a big stink about the fact that we spent a lot of money, which was grant money on a on a retreat. Well, I find out that there was a restaurant called Ferranti in Geneva and a restaurant called Geneva on the Lake Brewing Company. Fanti was $897. That is a winery restaurant. And then we had the brewing company, which I've been there, is $470. Wanted to know who participated in that and why. And was

094this more grant money that was paying for this, but that all kind of goes back to that thing. Now, we have Mr. Keading here. I don't know what this Samore is. Sm.com. I see it a lot on here. Samore is a newsletter platform. All right. I thought so. And I'm going, why the heck are are we professionals and we need Grammarly and we need newsletter platforms? Aren't we professionals that we should be able to do this? We have English teachers right there, a stone throw away. It's it's okay. I use Grammarly because I'm not that smart. Mr. Sheen, you're engaging in a lot of speculation here and I would suggest that when you have Mr. Sheen, no. When you have You're telling who? You're telling me to be quiet in the middle of in the

095middle of my presentation. You're interrupting your presentation. You are interrupting mine. You're speculating and assuming and Mr. Galano has already explained that he will get back to you on these specific charges. That's fine. But this is a publication note and make note that I was interrupted during my presentation. I just have one quick question. I just didn't know because I've looked through all of these as well and I see charges for Julie Miller, Mike Love, Christie Pro, and all the other principles. I'm curious if there's a specific reason that you're calling out just No, you want me to go through all of them? I will. No, I'm just curious why you're only calling out. Um, I'd like to finish I would like to finish my presentation. I'm just asking, is there a reason why you

096skipped over? I'd like to finish my presentation and that's a lot of your speculation in uh innuendo. So here we have Patrick the budding tree spice delight lemongrass. So again and I and I said this and I will say it again. I could be 100% out of line here but I think the public would like to know because they are asking. Um here's that s'more again and this is Mr. Kading who's finding this s'more. Um, frankly, if you I'll tell you, Mr. Keing, why it stuck out because I'm looking at these 11, 12, $20, you know, I I question that. That's why I asked for receipt. If I would have had the receipts, maybe I wouldn't have talk at all, you know, but I did have particular credit. That's my answer. And it has all

097right now, Mr. We have Mr. Sheen, Miss Suonic has the floor for specific credit card. And it has Kyle Feldman, Julie Miller, Kristen Crow, Aisha Collier, Patrick Alano, Tammy Cedar, Mike Love, Mark Tra, Alicia, and it seems that it seems to me that you are specifically calling out and those those charges are all they all have similar targets. Um, and I'm just you could take your time and do the same thing. This is my understand. I just think you need to be cautious about trying to target specific people and acting like their charges are different than this is a statement. I'm just reading off the statement and you don't need to tell you don't give me a law a law course here. All right. So then we have uh our athletic director Red Wolf. Well,

098that was a credit. Um here's Red Roof $199. Um I don't know what this is. This was uh this was under the athletic department. and it was gossq.com. I don't know what that is again. It's $720. Um, here's Mr. Keing. Giant Eagle in Broadview Heights, Illinois. Broadview Heights, Ohio for $23. Giant Duncan and Stow $23. I mean, those are just those are just kind of seem to be kind of odd. Um, you did mention Mr. Train. Mr. Train, there was one where Mr. Brandon had all of these sight stone, but I see Mr. Tr has one. Now, this was later because this is the October 5th, but just want to know what's going on with sight stone, you know. So, that was for $1,300. Um, then we go to November 5th, 2024. Athletic department. I

099see here we have it looks like four rounds of golf at Pine Hills in Hinckley, Ohio. Now again, I hope that that that has to something to do with the golf team, but then I go back to the fact, why isn't this on the budget for the athletic department? Why is it being why is a credit card why is a corporate credit card being used for that? So, that was my question on that. I see some more again being used by David. Um, and I guess if I go to Grammarly and some more, I don't know, but maybe there's a corporate account if you guys need this. If you need that help, maybe there's a corporate account that everybody can use it. I don't know if anybody investigated that. Um, we have a Tracy this

100I don't know what Webster store Lancaster PA Webster Casey Tracy Cosmetic for $114. Then we have uh Aisha here. Again, this stuck out to me. It was 451 for a hotel in Columbus. Another 431 for that. Um, Mr. Keing Giant Eagle in Cleveland, Ohio for $49.33. You know, again, kind of stuck out. Seemed kind of odd. All right. 12524. Um, we talked about the late fees. Now, if that has something to do with this issue with uh with our because this is when the credit card uh issue was. Now, I guess too, silly me, but I think that would have been something the board should have been made aware of. To my knowledge, we were not because there were, yeah, approximately about 40 charges in the line of 516964 over a two-day period. Um, but

101that would have been some nice maybe the board have been made aware of and we were not. Um, uh, again, I I hope there's a viable reason, but I'm seeing that the athletic department charging the Akran YMCA for $150. Um, then we have our Mr. Keing again with the donuts, Dairy Queen, and the more donuts. Um, Patrick, we have a 201 hotel hotel, a 428 hotel, $428 hotel. And this is where the late fees, I think, came up because it said here total interest charge for 2024 was $922. Interest on $45,584 is 513. I guess too, and you don't need to answer this now, but if this happened, if this happened with um this in November 28th of 2024, so we're looking at uh we're in the we're in the what month? We're in the

102six month. That's seven months. It's taking seven months. Again, you don't need to answer this, but seven months to to get this credit back. Um that's that's unfortunate, especially with bank that I think we have a pretty good relationship with. Um, yeah, again, a lot more hotels here. Uh, the interest charge, uh, January 5th, 2025. So, now we're into the new year. Um, I'd like to know just who I see here where the principal paid for Ohio school counselor. I'd like to know what that was for. Was that a subscription? $60, but it's still it's four. I do I do believe we have more than four counselors. So, exactly what was that? What is the school paying for in relation to the counselors? Mr. Keing with Dairy Queen in December for $25 the interest, which

103again you've explained has to do with our issue with um with with uh with um the food being bought or the card being stolen. Then we have December, no, excuse me, February 5th, 2025. Um, I have a question here. I I see there's, again, you don't need to answer, you can answer it later because I know I'm taking a lot of time. That that we have points 6470. Um, what happens to these points? And it was my understanding that we should not have a credit card that accumulates points because we are not a consumer. And with that, and I haven't looked at how many times people have gone to Giant Eagle. How do we know that they're not using their Giant Eagle rewards card, but they're paying and buying something for the school district? So,

104that needs to be something I think that needs to be explored because that also would be, I guess, fraud. You know, you're using the credit card from the school and you're getting you're getting giant eagle points on your account. Um, here's another this is a Saturday. It was a hotel with our athletic director H in Cincinnati. Um, you know, again, I know there's a lot of athletic events and things, but you know, again, we need to look at just how our administrators are using hotels and maybe put some limits on there. Um, Mr. Keing, we have Dairy Queen, Dairy Queen, and Dairy Queen. Uh, and this was in January. Um, then we have this was this was a this was an interesting one here. I don't know what the conferences, but that was $260. Ohio

105Educational Tech. Oh, yeah. I did write Ohio Educational Tech Conference. Okay. And that was a $260 fee for that. Here's Grammarly again. Uh an annual charge for Grammarly. Here's our interest again. Um, here's our finance charges, which again I'm assuming they are all have to do with this. The last one, March 5th, 2025, Mr. Keing, Dunkin Donuts, Dairy Queen's Donut, Donut. Um, here's that OTC conference. I don't know why it's on here twice. It's on here twice. I don't because more than one person. Yeah, I don't multiple people. So, yeah. So, at the point in time, you want to be able to provide me with those um you can maybe put all these to rest and I'll be the first one to sit here and apologize if I've insulted anyone or whatever, but I mean,

106these are things that certainly people um I think want to know and I think we need to look at our credit card a little bit differently um going forward. Let me let me I will say that I'm not saying that we don't need to look at our credit cards and our purchases and our protocol. However, we have sat here today and we have called out names that have been affiliated with some type of uh purchase that we don't know what that purchase is about. Some of those people are uh over departments and therefore those purchases may have come from uh things that they have done for their department and not necessarily themselves. So, I just want to put that on the record and say uh that we have um looked at our protocols and we

107will be sharing with the board uh some things In regards to protocols and practices for the private I just want to add to I want to be very clear that those particular names that Mr. Sheen has called out are just you know a few people that he's chosen to target and those similar charges for hotel stays or for food purchases or for um subscriptions. It's across the board and I I just think that it's personally I I want to stand for our administrators that they don't get picked on specifically um when there's um equal charges on on others. I'm not sure why. And I can look at the same statement and I followed along with you the entire way um and if anybody wants to see these that you know and go back over it.

108I'm not sure why you're targeting specific people um and asking about only their charges when there's you know questions all about it. So I would appreciate if you're going to do research for Mr. Sheen that it's not specifically on starting administrator. We have we have started to look at that and we've started to look at what your subscriptions can be and all of that because um as you guys have looked at the credit cards for purchases today they go way back uh before 2025. are things that I think it's a a valuable thing to look at big picture where our purchases are going, where our dollars are going. Um, which I think we've been working pretty diligently on this year. Um, I would like to add that I think it is irresponsible to engage in

109speculation about charges and the purposes for those charges when you have not discussed those with the people who know the information. Um, I believe that Mr. Galano has invited Mr. Sheen to sit down and review this. Um if you take a look at our board protocol document um this entire performance this evening is not in comportment with our board protocol which really li lays out board member preparation and need to focus on the big picture and the um uh the governance aspect of the board rather than 11 and $22 charges. Not that those aren't good questions, uh, but that those are questions that can be directly addressed between a board member and the treasurer. And any board member could, um, request that the treasurer provide the board with more information at a meeting about various

110charges. That would be the way to go about these questions um, in compliance with expectations of board members. Our next item, let me comment. Let me comment on that question. I haven't had a chance to speak yet. Please. Um, in that frame of mind, uh, I would appreciate some understanding of each of these credit card holders must have some sort of budget that they have to stay within. to use these credit cards, I'm guessing. And I' I'd like to know that process um at a later date when you have a chance to pull that together. Also, I'd like to know the approval process and the process of reconciling the credit card because you kind of have to assign it to an account and you know, at the back end of everything after they've made the

111expenditures and you have the invoice and you have the receipt. Uh and also uh if we could include the travel policy, um I think that would be helpful to see what the policy is for hotel rooms and also uh expenditures for meals and that type of those type of things because these are regular expenditures that you have for any corporation or uh any other business that would have people with a business credit So, I'm sure we have these policies and procedures in place and I think it would be helpful for us if we know what the approval process is and see how these expenditures are supervised by your department. Thank you. Also, just to say I heard said that these charges are and it should be coming from people's budget and not a district. This

112is just It's not correct. That's correct. Does the system that you use to reconcile give you the ability to make notes as to what it is or where it what it's for? Yes. So that's that would come from the requisition. So part So yes, there is a spot on the requisition of what that purchase is for. Uh some is vague, some is very detailed. just depend on what's on the requisition for that purchase that requisition for that purchase. Sure. Just thinking about a way to get this information so you're not looking in five different places should someone ask for it. This is something I do at Ken and there's a very detailed list of what was spent, who used it, why they used it that we can get to very quickly so that it's not

113the card statement, the reconciliation and the PL like it's all together. to go back to what was said a few minutes ago. Um, yes, I've been offered to have a sitdown and I return my return email is this is where I talk about stuff. I'm not going to talk in somebody's office. This is a public school. This is a public credit card. This is public funds. These are taxpayers. This is where I'm going to talk. If we're not doing anything that's questionable, then we have no reason to have to have a special meeting or a secret meeting or a one-on-one meeting to talk about it. As far as the protocol, uh, Pam, show me the law that states I must follow your prescribed process. If you have no law that that uh, then you cannot

114substitute your process, which oversteps my rights, I can only state that my rights are being denied with fake rules or policies, that in fact it is an obstruction to my official duties. Even if you wrote and pass an SOP or policy that dictates where and how the board is to proceed, it will be null and void because it violates my job description as a fidiciary and an oversight governance agent hired through the election process. So, you know what you can do with that? You can stuff it in a sack. The board voted on that protocol. Okay. The board had it say. So our next item related to the most recent discussion um is the policy on credit card usage. I was wondering Mr. Bolano if you could give us a sort of a quick overview

115of this policy and then we'll move on to Mr. Sheen's suggestions. Yes. Unfortunately I forgot to attach the policy for this to review it. Um but in general the policy we did update this to to account a lot of our principles administrators to access the credit cards. Um you know I think Mr. Sheen alluded to that you know they could be using their shiny goal of rewards membership. Uh you know that comes down to ethics making sure you're following the code of ethics not doing something that you shouldn't be doing. But I would have to take a deeper dive into that. So try to answer Mr. Sheen's questions at this time. Mr. you have the floor. Yes. Um, yeah, one of the things we can do, we have 20 people that have this credit card.

116So, I think that's the first place we can start. Uh, and again, I know this will be board approval and I'm going to recommend that we sit and we look at uh 6423 and the use of credit cards. Um, I did talk to several other uh board and some of them much larger than ours. They said they have two people that have credit cards, the superintendent and the treasur. So, again, do we need to be that restrictive? I don't know. I know Tammy does a ton with the credit card, but again, I think we need I don't think 20 people need to be running around with the district credit card. Again, that's just my opinion. Some of the things that it says here and which Tina was so kind to mention is we need to

117put some uh some limitations here as far as you know, we travel a certain amount. I don't know. This needs to be discussed later. I don't want to talk about it now. I just wanted to bring this up. it needs to this policy was last updated and last revised in October of 2023. Um but just some of the things it mentions here. Credit cards however should not be used in order to circumvent the general purchasing procedures established by the state. Uh there should be a valid and proper purpose. Uh use of credit cards in an unauthorized or illegal manner may result in a revoke revocation of credit privileges. Additionally, any officer employee of the district who knowingly misuses the credit card. Now, I don't know what's going to constitute that. We may have to talk

118about that. What is a misuse of the credit card? Um, account is guilty of a criminal offense. Violations were reported to the appropriate um law officials. And we do have an explanation here of the superintendent, the administrative assistant, athletic director, activities, current building principles as people that you have use of the card, which I think we need to change upon receipt receipt of the credit card. And this is why I asked for these things to inform merchants that the purchase is official school business only. So I don't know how we're doing that. And maintain credit cards in a secure fashion. Now if 20 pe 22 people have that, I don't know how we can guarantee that. And use reasonable care making purchases online. Refrain from providing credit card information unknown, which is again something which

119I'll get into on what we're doing to our poor kids as far as the internet. But we're buying stuff online. They are tracking that stuff. Um but here's D. Maintain sufficient docu documentation of all purpose of all purchases including but not limited to charge receipts, original cash register or other detailed receipts and invoices. So I'm again I'm assuming that we will have all these or we have all these and provide documentation of all purchases to the treasur in a timely manner. So, um, yeah, those are my concerns which I think we we require a policy meeting or whatever it's going to take to do that. Uh, because and, uh, in in respect to what Tina had mentioned, you know, having some guidelines again, anything that's going to be used, uh, be approved by the superintendent/treasur,

120the district, you know, these were just suggestions. The district will reimburse for one registration per year. We see where there's people going to multiple registrations. We need to put a we need to put a cap on that. If a conference in training is less than 150 miles, hey, you don't get your hotel paid for it. My wife worked for six months driving back and forth from Columbus. All right, it can be done. You know, $100 a daily stipen for food and drinks. You know, we need to put some parameters on when um our people are using this. Um and you should pay for it yourself and then fill out a I just had here a summary form that you hand in the summary form and the receipts and everything you did and then the the

121super or the treasur has 30 days to review it um and then can decide whether they're going to reimburse you for any of those you know but but I think people if we're sending our our professionals to conferences we should know why did they attend what did they learn you know what are they going to bring back to help the students you know would you attend it again would you recommend it to a colleague I mean these are just ideas again there should be something that you know we just send off an administrator to an event. We don't know where they learned anything. If they went to one meeting, you know what they did. You don't know that, but that's not accurate. But I'm saying we should have it documented. We should have it. That's

122not That's not a fair Thank you for interrupting, but we should have we should have as if they're facts and you are just plain old making it up. That is every single Thank you for interrupting. Every single professional development that I've attended, there's been a report about it as has been anyone else that I'm aware of. So, please do not spread misinformation by just stating that there's no um nothing done after the fact. That's just not accurate. Mr. Ch. Well, I guess with that, um if there's a policy or something, I would like to see it. Maybe I'd missed it. Again, I could be 100% wrong. I could make a be making the biggest fool in the world on me, but you know what? I'm going to share this stuff in public and I'll take

123whatever costs. You're engaging in speculation. Do you have any information to share? Yes, based on the uh policy which was revised in 17, revised again in 18 and also revised in 22. Um we have taken a look at this policy because the credit card concerns have come up. Uh Patrick and I have um come down to uh really cutting and using credit cards moving forward. As I've stated earlier that we have looked at these protocols and procedures and we will be sharing those with the board. Anything further on that topic? Nope. Okay. Moving on. Item F, legal fees. Mr. Lana, do you have any general information regarding the fees to share with the board before this discussion? Yeah, I did uh I didn't take too much time on this. I took a little bit of

124time to go back to see roughly how much we spent each calendar year with the prior legal firm just our general counsel going back to January through December of 2023 roughly with Roxel roughly $223,000 in my calendar year in January to December of 2024. Roxil was $212,000. Jingle Bear, we did get a bill for them. We start using them for roughly $6,000. And then this fiscal year through April because that's all we have. Rox was $17,000. Finishing up some stuff on December. And Jingle Bear currently is $145,000. Yeah. And so we use retal for negotiations, general counsel negotiations. We are in a classified which we wrapped that up and certified. We wrapped both of those negotiations up. So that's a lot of time and effort. They're great resource to help us guide us through that

125process which was a successful process in the end. So that also takes up time because there boots on the ground. They're in they're here. They're meeting with us on Zoom. So just a lot of time did you meet Jingle? I'm sorry. Jingleberry. My apologies. Thank you. Um, Jingle Bear did that. But also like we and I think we've talked about it before, Mr. Sheen. You know, you requested the uh full invoices so you could kind of see that we're we're spending the money on it. It's not just for calling them to chat about something that uh we saw in the news today. It's about stuff for staff, students, and how the public records request. How do we write the ship that we're trying to write? So, I will try to answer any questions you have.

126Mr. Okay. So, the last statement I have, I don't have February and January, but I'm looking at March 1st. March 31st, 37,557. So, what did you say our total is up to this point for Jingle Bear? Yes. 145,000. That's That's January, February, March. That include April. That includes April. So what? That's about what 30,000 369 12. So 32 33,000 a month on average if I'm doing my math right. All right. It's over 30,000. Okay. Which is almost twice of what we were paying before. So it is kind of dis concerning because we potentially are going to pay twice what we paid last year. Now I understand and this is one of those things I wish I knew then what I know now that you can negotiate things with these. I didn't know that silly stupid

127me and it's going to cost our district a ton of money and I take the blame for that. I believe you can go back and check. I believe I voted no but I might have voted yes on that. But that is a ton of money that we're paying in legal fees that you know again we don't have. And you know I question there's some of these things that look like why Why are we calling the lawyer for this? Mr. Shane, I will just be cautious. Those are confidential. I'm not going to read it. I'm not reading anything specific. I appreciate it. They're out in the open. So, anybody if they they could zoom look at it. Try Why are we spending things for advice when we have OSBA that's supposed to be advising us on

128some of this stuff? So I I just kind of question where some of the stuff that we're asking and spending, you know, five, six, $700 on, we I think we need to think twice before picking up the phone and calling the attorney because it's costing us a ton of money. It's costing the district a ton of money. And and and if we turn to the attorneys for everything we need to make a decision, then what do we need we we for? Aren't we supposed to be making these decisions? Aren't we supposed to be kind of going out there and doing it, but then if we got to get babysat by an attorney every time we say something, um, it's going to bankrupt us. I think you'll recall that we discussed this before that there has

129been an extreme amount of new legislation coming from the state house as well as executive orders coming from President Trump that did cause um all districts to have to um take a look at policies and procedures and you know spend a lot of time going through with legal um to make sure that we did not do not uh lose any funing you know so whe whether it's federal or state and um that is something new this year that can't be compared to past years. So I you know do absolutely agree that we should be watching what we spend on legal fees. There's some things that are just completely out of our control such as public records requests and um you know state and federal legislations. Just so that I'm clear, what was the total for

130the law firms in the previous years? was 223,000 and then 2024 and neither one of those years had negotiations or anything like that. There was some negotiations in 23 here. I guess I'm just wondering can we say that we're going to have the same amount all year? So even if we did spend $33,000 January, February, March, if negotiations are done, would it stand to be reasonable that we would perhaps cut that number in half or by some large amount if we're no longer negotiating any longer? So you've got different types of negotiations. So if you're doing a modified u bargaining um you will have less time. This was not a modified bargaining that we did. you did a traditional base partnering where you're going to open up the entire contract. You're going to go page

131by page. That takes much longer. Uh and just due to the fact that you've got new leadership, new administrators and positions uh and so therefore we opted to do a traditional base park and so that took more time. So the cost of that would not be the same. Okay. But we're also almost done with that cost. I guess that's what I'm asking. Yeah, we shouldn't assume that that we're going to double what we There was a different question I heard pos about why we have different um law firms and I know you've answered it multiple times. Could you answer it again, please? Yeah. So uh at the organizational meeting we approved several law firms for council jingo bar general counsel and it's written was uh special services but for more special services related cases and

132then last month we approved some other law firms as well because they were using ratil rat using them as outside counsel and then since we no longer use ratil they've been sending us the bill so we had to pay them so I got them approved but ever. They're still wrapping up some outstanding issues with Roxil. So that's why we added some of that. But in theory, we use Jingle Bear for general counsel. We use record grade on for bond council and NS Britain for special services needs. Those are our three main primary law firms you'll see throughout the year on chart register or get brought up in meetings. And those other law firms that run retain that in the past, but they were build directly to red who then just passed that on to us

133as a red bill. Correct. That's why we didn't see that in the past. It's just not a new practice. It's just a way of filling since no longer. Yeah. Correct. And to be clear, that retainer didn't that wasn't the only paid. There were things that were outside the retainer that would go for. Correct. That's correct. Okay. Anything else on this item? Yeah, I hope what we're saying is right because we're on a very terrible path at this point. So, I hope I hope that's the case. I hope we're incurring a bunch of fees that we wouldn't normally occur and that this thing will settle down, but um we'll know soon enough. But I but I think across the board uh at the point of picking up that phone that maybe we think twice um as

134far as because the clock is tipping ticking at $325 an hour as far as what we're paying. I did have one general question. Um I saw there was something mentioned here. The BTA club. What is the BTA club? This was on March 7th. That's Bulldogs taking action and that was part of uh the what would needed to be uh looked at as a part of uh President Trump's executive orders. Okay. Sorry. I just didn't know. I tried to find out what that was. Anything further on that topic? Okay, moving on. Item G, Ohio. checkbook. Um, Mr. Sheen had some questions about that. Did you have any general information to offer us first, Mr. Gano? No, not not much from what I mentioned last time when this was brought up, but I did look at the

135resolution and I wasn't able to find much anything further. Um, you know, on the minutes that Mr. Shane gave that one meeting in the past, it says with final implementation date at a discretion of the treasurer, I was unable to find out when that was done, but I did reach out to our ITC to see if they have any, which is neon that if they have any districts who utilize Ohio checkbook. So, if they do get back to me, I will reach out to that district to see what it all entails. I can get back report more on that. But, Mr. Sheen, if you have any questions? No, if you will report to me, right, because I I it's um it's very disconcerning that we're part of that and I I kind of know why

136it it was stopped and it shouldn't have been, but it was and it needs to be reactivated again. So, it was voted voted on unless the board wants to bring up that policy. And then just so at every year which I'll be doing now uh the state does get almost every piece of information through EM financial staff emis and student emiss every single year. So the state does get it the information that we our financial information staff and student like I said so they do get that information what they do with that outside of that is up to them so we try to be as transparent as possible. So, but once I get into that information, I will be happy to share with the board. I just wanted could you tell me what the policy

137is that states that we are required to use the IO checkbook because I thought it said that we had the option to use it or that we were allowed to. Could you tell me the policy number? Mr. Sheen, could you please turn on the mic? It was under new business and this was passed on September 8th, 2015 by the board at the time. And it states what exactly? It was Sorry, it was a resolution. I pulled the minutes book so I could scan that to the board so that you could actually see the full resolution on that. So So it was a resolution, not a policy adoption. Correct. Yes. So, I'll I'll resolution is not I can't say yes or no. I would have to get better perspective on that to fully answer that. Anything

138further on that topic? Nope. Okay. Next is item H. uh the final forms breach. Did our leadership team have any information to share about this to start off the discussion? Sorry, this is a short podium. Um so we were contacted by final forms. There was there was a data breach uh recently. Uh so on a on the slides above above your heads for the viewing audience. Uh here's kind of like what happened. Uh the big thing is on May 30th on May 30th, we were uh we they detect they detected unauthorized access. Uh and what ended up happening is they got communications with the districts that were impacted and final forms that is used in enrollment and athletics. Uh that is our primary way to gain uh parent or guardian input and information. And then

139we reconcile that against our student information system. Our if they were a part of the impact impacted uh login they were automatically communicated with our final forms. They forced change the password. We followed up we followed up ourselves. Our district tech team did. There were three staff accounts. U as as we uh ran through kind of the uh our decision- making process, we took the next step. One account was attached to 75 students. Uh that happened. So if I'm like a student council adviser and I want to communicate with both parents and students, you get attached to an account. Um so we had 75 students. So we developed communications not only for the greater school community or staff but also those 75 impacted families. We uh went ahead and communicated about about this. The big

140piece of what happened was this was not due to a final forms not being secure. Uh what what caused this was when you had the same login information. We had the same login and you use the same password. for multiple applications. If that is ultimately compromised, let's say a year or two down the road or year or two in the past, they folks on the dark web will grab that data and eventually we'll do something with it. This is what happened with our final forms data breach. And uh once we communicated out, we we received uh zero responses from our community. So we thought we did a pretty good job Mr. Sheen. Okay. I don't know if whether it was a safety meeting or a board meeting, but I brought up final forms, and this

141is the stuff that scares me to death. We are one or two clicks away from people getting our parents' information, our children's information. Now, let me just ask about final forms. Has the current has final forms 20, 25, has that been stripped? Is that clean? Are there any anything on it right now? We're out of school. kids aren't involved in any sports. Has that been erased? No. That so that automatically rolls over. That's how this that's how final forms work. It rolls over annually. Okay. For existing accounts and then as a way to help our parents out so that they don't have to fill out multiple pages of information. They go they relog back in. They review what has changed. If there is no changes, they submit and they move forward. that will not be

142an option. Well, there's always there's options for everything. But the other thing I would like to to explore, and again, we're not going to get it accomplished tonight, is parents should have an option of filling this stuff out on paper. Our stuff is being compromised. You're living in a bubble if you don't think that people can get evil people can get this information. And when I get into ECU climber, I'll even share more stuff. anything we do online. How many times have you walked through your living room and said, "I want a new pair of tennis shoes and I pull up my phone and here's six ads for tennis shoes." All right. How many times that happened? How many times you're sitting there and I'm guilty. I have Alexa. I shouldn't have it, but Alexa

143sitting there. Alexa knows a lot of what I'm doing. Where's that data going? All right. It's all It's going all over the place that people are using and in most cases for not good reason. And but we're we're exposing our children and our children's families to this stuff and we need to think of another way because if it does get breached and it's 750 kids, what do you say? Oops, we got breached. You know, we need to think about and we need to give this a good hard think and go back to paper and pencil that people can fill this stuff out. So, it can't be tracked. It can't be lost. It can't be compromised. It can't be copied. It can't be I mean, I I told you as a coach, a coach can sit

144there and see all the medications a kid can take. Coach shouldn't have access to that. I You're talking about HIPPA violations and all that stuff. There's way too much data that people are available to. So, we really need to think about that because again, it happened, didn't hurt anybody, but what about next time? And so I think we need to give serious consideration of how we're gathering data from our families and our kids. Oh, as a as a parent of a child in sports, I that was definitely information of the children that should have medications that my child needs. And you know what I had at one time? I had a bunch of index cards with their name, their address, their phone number, anything the parent wanted to let me know because there's information on

145there that maybe parent doesn't want to want you to know. But I had index cards and it worked fine. And then when my kid a kid got hurt, I went to the index card, everything was fine. But you know what? No one was looking over my shoulder at those index cards. The more we make it convenient, it's more convenient for somebody to take. The paper is only as secure as the person is securing it. If you don't have it in a locked file in a locked office, I can have that piece of paper and you don't even know that I have it. But this breach happened and then it happened. So I think we have to think about about that piece as well. Anything? Nope. Okay. Nine. I uh regarding the comments section on the

146YouTube channel, Dr. did you want to give us some information to start with? Yes. Comment sections on um YouTube channel. This is not something that most school districts do because comments are just that. They're comments. They're opinions. They're reactions. They're not questions. And so therefore to turn on um the comment section means that someone would have to monitor that um and we don't monitor comments. We monitor questions that are coming in that are feasible for us to uh respond to. So I have um asked for our web master to create a feedback and question section that is on the superintendence page. If you are to click on that link, you go to the next slide for me. What you'll have is a feedback form and this will come directly to the superintendent. Most people send

147me an email and I do respond. But now we have a form where we can track uh that information uh to see what those questions are to see if there's a theme coming from those questions and things we can share here at the board meeting. If you go to the next slide, I've also created a section for the board members. So if you have questions that are directly for the board, you can also fill that out there and the board members can also be able to come back to uh the board meeting and also share uh the questions that are coming there. But to recommend for us to turn on the comments section of a YouTube channel is just like anything else social media wise and those are opinions and reactions. I would not advise

148that. I actually recall um a number of years ago when the city started from YouTube and there was a question I just recall comments on theirs and the answer that the legal department gave at that point was that it's not uh legally recommended because of sunshine or because of um record retention laws and the way comments can be deleted and something um if you put comments it um becomes a form Yeah, it becomes Right. Exactly. And that that it would be subject to um you know record retention and and something that the district or that the city was interested in doing. No, I I commend you on doing that. Is there is there some way like on a day of a board meeting or something that we can have a popup, you know, that makes

149it just third grade simple that they can find it? And the reason I say that, what scares me, I was talking to a couple of sixth grade parents. I don't know what happened, but I said, "Did you guys see the opt out forms?" And they didn't know what I was talking about. So, if we have them online, they're they're either hidden or parents are not made aware. There needs to be a better job at making them aware where these things are. We are under the our website is under construction. If you have paid attention to it, you see that there's a lot of cleanup that has been done on the website uh to have that feedback question on there. I'll have to talk to the the web master and ask them if when we post

150the actual board meeting if there's a way to also post the question feedback section on there or maybe even like after because I know before we get the little popup that says the meeting is right today so meeting's over if you had any questions about the board you know whatever put to put that in there and I mean I see what you're saying as far as the comment section I just thought you know people you know I don't want them beating their cat. They may have something they want to talk about and they're ready to type, you know, so give them that opportunity to do it and it'll just make them angry. I can't type on the YouTube page because they turned it off. So, you know where they're going to go? Hey, they don't

151want me to type it on, you know. And that's why I said this is on the board of education drop-own menu. Once you hit board of education, it's right there in the drop down menu for people to see. If you want to uh ask a question to the superintendent, just hit the superintendent's page. There's also a drop down menu right there for people to see, but we will try to make sure that we put it up when we have our board agenda meeting so people can type later. Sorry. Um, I just want to say I really appreciate this. It's a it's a further step, right? We've been working over the last several years to make sure that folks know like how to reach out to the board and we created the the board email rather

152than having people to look up all of the individual me members of the board, email, include them all, right? Like we've been trying to make the the uh questions more accessible um make sure that people know how to ask and how to get a hold of us. So this is just that extra step. They don't have to remember the VA email address. They can just do a So I think it's a great idea. And this also goes to all of the just like all board members will get this feedback. Thank you. Um I was going to say in the same vein as kind of a followup something that I've been thinking about and I just haven't got around to formally asking for it. So um I was thinking I have seen a lot of um

153questions whether it and different things on social media and I know that we are board members not to go comment on threads and uh maybe so I was wondering if it was possible and it could come up with something like this too that if we start if we see a a question asked multiple time could we had a um an FAQ, you know, where we, you know, we have a couple questions, you know, somebody comes to the mic and ask something and we're not engaging in backp asked one of us. um you know just in general if there's something that it seems like it's being tossed around as you know question well that's why I said if the question is posed here and there's some type of thing then you're able to actually have that

154conversation here at the board meeting but I'll look and see what I can do about it okay yeah I like the idea of being able to address it at these types of meetings at our first meeting of the when we're doing more discussion um but also have that follow have it available on the website as well if it's a if it really is a frequently asked question anything further on that topic no okay next item J educ Yes, thank you. All right. Um Oh, sorry that's really loud. I'm not as tall as Mr. Train, so use the podium. All right. Um I took a little bit of a deep dive today into data mining. Um just because I wanted to um like I hear that I hear the term so I wanted to really like

155understand um some of the concerns and some of the things that really what data mining is. So data mining is a process of discovering patterns, trends and anomalies within large data sets to gain insights and make informed decisions. It involves using various techniques from um algorithms, statistics and database systems to analyze data and extract information. So examples of data mining uh retail so and you know Mr. Sheen talked earlier about Amazon you know Netflix those kinds of things those recommendations that you get um healthcare they use it for predicting um patient risk for diseases based on medical records or analyzing treatment outcomes. finance um for assessing credit risk, optimizing marketing campaigns. In education, analyzing student performance data to identify at risk students and tailor learning experiences. In manufacturing, it's used to predict equipment failures through

156predictive maintenance based on operational data. So, um and another example is the feed on your social media pages. So, the algorithm determines what you see based on your activity, what you watch, what you search, what you even pause to look at um as you go on, which pages you're a member of. Um so um according to Carnegie Melon, educational data mining is about improving learning outcomes by mining and analyzing data collected as we teach. Um it's a commonly used practice in scientific and business fields. Um scientific reports volume 15 um from 2025. The data set gives a significant opportunity to improve educational systems through algorithms and student performance prediction. In this environment, predicting student performance is crucial to educational interventions. We want to have accurate performance prediction to help schools provide individualized learning experiences and

157assist students in reaching their academic potential. So I know the concern is whether or not the thirdparty providers are using our student data in ways that would violate student privacy. So all contracts including educ are compliant with Senate Bill 29 which aims to protect student data privacy, ensure transparency and data collection and limit the use of educational data for non-educational purposes like marketing or advertising. So, Edge of Climber, um, we really dove head first into using Edge of Climber this year and I can tell you, uh, we have multiple data sets on our students. So, we have their state test scores, we have Aadian data, so the reading, um, monitoring system that we have to do based on the dyslexia law, also based on third grade reading guarantee. um we have grades, we have attendance,

158we have all sorts of demographic information and previously we had no way to be able to look at all that effectively and quickly um as a as a staff um without going to paper which was too cumbersome and too um time inensive for our staff to be able to do that. So, we have been able to use Edge Climber to get a really good snapshot of a student. Um, we've put our reading intervention intervention monitoring plans in there. We've also added we have crisis intervention plans for students that have um behavioral needs. So, that form uh we've built in there is also accessible to any staff member that has students in their class. So, and that will go from year to year. So, teachers can see we're not starting over when they go to next

159school year. So we have a we have a a plan that works this year. That plan can get started for next year and then we can help revise it as we need to as students u make progress and move forward. So so there just some of the different ways that we're using educ um but for the first time our teachers have access to student data to be able to make decisions in a timely m fashion so they can respond to student needs and um students can make growth. And I know we haven't gotten there yet um but I think we're really pleased with our state test scores and the way that they've come in. We've seen a lot of really meaningful progress and I attribute some of that to the edge of climber system that's

160that's there so that we can look at student data and we can make decisions quickly. I might suggest somebody referred this to me. It was back in 2020. If you're not doing anything, I would go watch the movie Social Dilemma. It's on Netflix. I strongly urge you because it will address a lot of the things I'm going to talk about here. Um, the other thing too kind of as a sidebar, I don't know how many of you have Fire Stick. I have a Fire Stick. I just found out how much they are gathering of my data. I had to take about an hour to go into it to delete the things. They are gathering your data every time you look at the phone. They're gathering our kids data every time they look at a phone

161or they stroke. Now, this came from a site here. It's his name is Officer Gomez. And this kind of ties in with edgy climber. So bear with me because our kids are using Chromebooks. Says, "Myth or fact? School issued computers and online safety. Myth: My child's school issued Chromebook or MacBook is completely safe. The school has it locked down. They can't access they can't access Tik Tok, Snapchat, or inappropriate content." Now, sidebar with that. Your kids are three clicks from a pedophile or from some rude u disgusting material. Three clicks. And I challenge you to research that. Um, while most school devices come with filters and monitoring software, many kids know how to bypass them, and they do. Common workarounds kids use to outsmart school controls. VPNs, quick downloads that that tunnel around school filters,

162safe mode or guest account disables monitoring tubes, proxy websites, disguise sites that allow full browsing access, hotspots. They'll use a sibling or a friend's phone to create their own internet access. Kids get unfiltered uh YouTube by putting YouTube links into Google Docs. And I just found this out the other day and I'll bring it to you the next meeting about their exposure when they go to Google Sheets. You think Google Sheets is pretty safe. You can do there is a tremendous exposure that kids can be influenced by on Google Sheets. I'll get you more on that. I I I was shocked. Um kids don't just stumble into these tricks. They share trip they share tips with each other making it hard for schools and parents to keep up. The same issue applies to home monitoring

163systems or smartphones. If your kid wants wants around it, they'll find a way. They'll use a word. They use the word addiction on purpose because that's what screen time has become for many of them. Heads up, some schools are sending Chromebooks home for the summer. Personally, not a fan. That's an all excess pass to mischief for a lot of kids. This isn't fear-mongering. It's about being informed. Monitoring software is helpful, but not foolproof. Your best defense is curiosity, conversation, and connection. Uh, stay sharp out there parents. Happy parenting. Uh, officer Gomez. Now, just to go on some a couple other things. I think do we use P school? Do we use that still? We use P school only for our financial software. Okay. Yes. Yes. That P school has 30 class action lawsuits against it

164because Mr. Sheen, this item is about educ. Yes. This is all We have a list here of the SMF data privacy agreements. Um, I did ask for an explanation for all this. I never forgot. It's about 150 things. So, Patrick, you make another note of that. I did ask I wanted to know what these all were and what they cost. Edgic Climber is on there. Now, it's interesting. When I looked at this a week or so ago, there was nothing listed under privacy policy or terms of service. Now, all of a sudden, something popped up. So, I guess you're reading my stuff because that's the only thing I can say um is why it popped up. Um let me ask let me start with this. What is educ costing us? What's it costing the district?

165I don't have that number in front of me. I think we'll have to give that to you. All right. Now, um they do have pretty pretty nice statements here. Educ Climber is associated or owned by Illuminate Education. That's the other thing. You try to file the rabbit hole in these companies, man, they really do hide stuff. But it talks about security and privacy. It's our goal to protect the privacy and data of students and educators. Security. We protect your data like it's our own in alignment with FURPA. We deploy meaningful software and uh to protect students and guidelines. We pledge our unwavering commitment to student uh data privacy, privacy policy. We aim to give educators the confidence they ought um data that data remains secure when we use our site and service. All very pretty

166stuff that would make you feel comfortable. And by the way, it is located in Irvine, California. So, at least it's a US-based company. Uh, now some of my compl is the DEI component that is interwoven into Educ. Um, we are opening uh we we are open to complaints for DEI content in this district. So, we need to look at that a little deeper. Um, this is aluminum. Can I ask a question? Could you I'm not sure what you're referring to for DEI content in edge of climber. There's nothing this Well, this may get to it. Okay. Here, because I pulled I pulled this off of the illuminite site. So, you got illuminite education equity and deport deportionality. Disproportionality. Disproportionality data and tools to monitor equity and daily practices and outcomes to identify areas of inequity

167and disport disproportionately track progress in real time. and drive action and change. That's a scary word when you see drive. That to me that's forcing data that may be to get the to get the answers that they want. And that's illuminated.com. Uh illuminate and you know it was really hard to find out anything about what they charge too by the way. All right. Start with the right data. Here it is. The first step is driving equity in schools. I would like to know what that means. All right. It's to have the right data at your fingertips and key data source has an important role to play. Explore the examples below to learn how different types of data can be used to advance equity. Universal screening assessments. All right. So that's just a little couple of

168things on their website. And I would like to emphasize that our kids are human beings. They're not supposed to be manipulated. And that exactly what's happening here. Our kids are being manipulated every time they scroll on a phone or scroll across on a on a screen. Do you know they can track your fingers? They can track where they're going and and Miss Pro even mentioned that they can track how long you're at something, what you looked at. They can track your irises in your eyes and when they get bigger or get smaller. That's all going on right now, people. Mr. Sheen, how does this relate to educ that we shouldn't be using it? That's how it that's how it relates. And let me finish. We are supposed to be educating our children how to read

169and write to do arithmetic, not drive equity and change. This is dystopian. Um, they're sucking data from our kids. They're stealing our brain capital. That's all we have left is what we have in here. And they're stealing that. And again, you know, I mentioned Fire Stick, Chromebooks, Alexa, Amazon. They are gathering the data. They are taking our data. When you do that little test, you answer that little survey. They are taking that data. It might not be Johnny Jones at 123 Maple Street, but it might be male age 10 Stow, Ohio. And they're going to take all that data and they're going to see all that stuff from all those kids in Stow. And then they're going to look at these are billion-dollar companies and they're going to take that data and they're going to

170come back with the curriculum and the direction that they want to go with the direction that they want a kid which they usually work. They want to drive you somewhere. Entering the internet is entering a better field. Kids are just three clicks away from pornography and pedophiles. So I would d I definitely look at uh we definitely look at um the DEI component of this just as a simple precaution um of what we might be exposed to. Now they are affiliated with Snowcat Cloud Incorporated which is a technological company specializing in cloud native data mining. Um and is also known as Educ. Um they track it says to track and improve students performance. But what is the definition of improve right? Um illuminate collect organize and analyze student data to support datadriven decision making. Who

171is making this? Who are making these decisions? Educ and educate are connected. Educr was was expected to fade. Uh it'll eventually be uh illuminate. Um yes, both Educ and Illuminate engage in data mining for student information. Educ is a cloud-based platform developed by illuminate focused on aggregating and visualizing whole child. Again, that's a big buzzword in all of this sei stuff. Whole child. Our job is not the whole child. Our job is to educate the kids and give them an opportunity to go out and get a job. So that's a scary phrase when they put in there data including academic performance uh attendance behavioral incidents social emotional behavior you know that's the other thing they're doing they're changing all the wordings here you know they know that you know the government whatever's on to them

172so they're starting to change stuff up and intervention outcomes Illuminate education to manage the students information systems assignments and data analysis it collects data from multiple sources such as standardized tests attendance records and behavior logs Your kid can't even breathe and every and some company in California knows what they're doing. Uh, Illuminate Education to manage student information systems, assessments, data analytics. It collects data from multiple sources such as standard it. I just read that. Sorry. Do they mine students information? Yes. What is data? What data is collected? Type of data platforms collect a wide range of students including academic data, behavioral data, intervention data, demographic data, qualitative data, Classification, clustering, visualization, predictive an analytics. One of these kids are all confused. Tools and features 3D, a feature in educator allows educators to slice and dice

173the data. Thresholds, effectiveness reports, student profiles. Maybe it's helping make your job a little bit easier, but I'm scared to death that somebody has this information on my kid. If I had a kid in school right now and they were exposed to this, I would pull that cord like I was I would pull them from that school like I was starting a lawnmower. I'd get them out so fast. Says improving equity. Here it is again. Improving equity. Uh critical considerations. You got um while the platforms aim to improve educational outcomes, there are potential concerns. Privacy and security, data misuse, over reliance on data. That's the one that scares me here is you got teachers that are just going to rely on this and not put their experience and just their their their ability to be

174a teacher. they're going to sit here and maybe over rely on this data. And then equity concerns comparison to general EDM uh policies. Um educational data mining as a field involves analyzing large data sets from learning management systems, assessments, and other sources of to uncover patterns. Conclusion. However, users should critically evaluate the platform's privacy practices and ensure data is used ethically to avoid potential misuse or bias. I always like to put that right at the end. and really small print. So, yeah, I'm scared that we're using Edge of Climber. I got no power here to stop it, but I'm telling you parents that are out there, I would question it. I would opt out of it. I would do your homework. Don't believe me. Do your own homework. Find out. And I'll still contend that

175we need to look at opt out forms, not opt-in forms again for another day. It's um yeah, I said I would I would I would opt out or call a kid immediately if I knew they were using any of these stuff. I mean, you got Edge Climber. Didn't we have Satchel Pulse? I mean, how many of these electronic data gathering sites do we need for these kids? So, that's my concern. Again, it was a a budget. It was a discussion item. I got zero power and being able to change it. I'm just trying to let parents know and make aware so they can make an educated decision on what they want to do for their child. At the risk of drawing the eye of my my boss, I do want to make one other statement,

176so I apologize. Um, I feel the need to defend our staff. Um, our teachers are amazing. Um, and I, um, have been in the conversations with them around use the use of educ, but our teachers are consistently extremely knowledgeable about their students and not just of the data. They are invested in their lives um, and making them into productive citizens. And um so I just I really felt the need um to say that that um the data for them is one piece. Um and they are consistently caring, kind, incredible human beings. I Yes, I Yeah. And I and I maybe should have started that. I I agree with you 100%. I I think they're doing what they can. I think we need to do better as far as what we're exposing our kids to. I

177mean, I I think I understand your your concern. I just also want to to defend the teachers here. I think that was an unfair accusation to say that the teachers could be uh becoming too reliant on this data. That's just not something that you should have included in your commentary. And I don't think that's even the data that Educ is giving us. They're giving us trends, points of intervention for our students that teachers want to pay attention to a chance for teachers to inter with each child based on where they are at. Yeah, it's a tool. It's one tool in a large toolbox. Anything further on this item? Okay. Item K, Department. Mr. Do you have any background information for us as we begin this item? Yeah, I totally missed the presentation for theme today.

178So, budget prep usually budget season budget prep usually happens end of March starting April. We were behind just with a lot of things going on, but that happened end of April, early May. So, the what I've done since I've been here the last three years, two years is during budget prep. I get the accounts that the buildings use. I put them on a Google spreadsheet. I give the last three years of data about the last three actual years and then talking to Dr. G where we start trying to track IrI said earlier today principal's budgets were reduced by 10% again and then they see then it's up to them on how they budget their their accounts and where they see that money fitting whether it's from paper to classroom supplies to student educational supplies equipment

179band equipment that stuff and then I give a cut off date like hey I need this information by x date I fill that on spreadsheet I take that spreadsheet I download it I upload it into the financial software and then at some point which we just started last Friday and today they can start putting requisitions in for next year so and then if there's any big ticket items. Uh this year we did try to track the process of if you need any equipment needs instead of the building level buying it. It's going to business services now so we can kind of get a ballpark and look at cheaper cults. So not every building is buying 10 chairs. We need 100 shares. We buy 100 shares uh and get better pricing that way and also for

180our inventory as well. And then uh Mrs. Crow and I did last year was we took the the dollar per student amount. We kind of averaged it out for what each elementary would get so that we equitable across the line so that every more equitable than we've been doing. We have so that every elementary school will have x amount of dollars and a dollar per student. We take the April the May ADM of that month to the building and then that's what we and then in the event that they need more money have a conversation but normally they they're going to do well at standard for the means and then this year for voting budgets we are using some of the foodie pooas to distribute to buildings to help some subsidize the cost and also

181as Mrs. Miss our lady said earlier today about student fees. We are trying to bring this back to help subsidize the cost. So take our general fund and put into student fees. I was going to ask what question. Yeah, I did have a question. You were you were uh you did send me I asked I think athletic department busing and one other one. I didn't scroll through all of them and I was just kind of looking at the athletic department one. just went over that one first. And I'm looking at this and it was just a list of items. I mean, this is this is a performance to budget. Where is there the sheet that forecasts the budget that that department's going to hold itself to? And then where's that approved? And what happens if

182they go over it? Because I'm I'm looking at I I and it was hard making a copy of this, but I'm I'm looking at there was one item here. This was in 2022. I'm reading this and it says budget zero, but it says period expenses $1,400 and then it's got year to date and then encumbrances and then balance minus 10,169. And here's another one minus 17,72. Here's one minus 32,000. So if if you had a again, I'm not an accountant. I don't know how this is done, but my little bit of knowledge is that a department here's what we're going to spend this year and here's what we're going to spend it on and the CEO says no you're going to have to cut this change that delete this or it's good to go we

183sign off on it if I go over that number I got to go back to the CEO and say I want more number so what this is not this what you sent me is not a budget so do the the different departments actually provide you with a budget the principles do that I mean how many so that we know what they think they're going to you know, how many donuts can they buy and what what we're able to give them. Do we we do we does it work that way? Yeah. So, like I said earlier, the each department head principal gets a Google sheet which is based on their budget. What I gave you was that was be more helpful. I apologize it was not. Um the ones you mentioned was in 2022. I can't

184really speak to what happened in 22 as examples. But yes, so anytime if let's say budget line item has $200, but out my account I have $500. I can move budget but I have more budget in B, I can move money from B to A to cover the costs. So they get a pot of money and then if they need more money, one budget item they have to use within their own budget. Now if they need more money, that's when they come to Dr. and myself to talk about why they need additional funds and you know where can we take that from somewhere else. I think one thing you'll notice is that was a lot of loose procedures in the past that uh Delano has tried to get his hands around. Um started if you're

185looking at something in 2022, it's it's not going to look the same. Well, yeah, it did. I mean, I got all the way down to 2024 and I just too small, but yes, it did. It looked the same. I um I you know again that question if if you're having football equipment and you're saying it's only going to cost me $10,000 I would think I have some history as a school of what football equipment so I should probably be pretty close but this was an overage of $32,000. So that's why I said what what where where where the where is the where is the the what happens when a department push it gives you a budget and they decide they go over $32,000. You know that's why I'm I'm just unclear of how we do

186that. Which line item are you looking at? What line? This was um 2022. It says football football, high school, other supplies. It says 590 was the said it was hard to copy this thing, but it was budgeted item was $10,374.50 there year-to- date expenses incumbrances, but then said balance minus $32,47478. So I read that and I'm thinking, man, he was way off on determining what it was going to cost to fund football for that year. Great. So, is it the line item or the entire budget? Because I think that that's what Patrick is trying to explain. To me, this isn't a budget. This is just a performance to budget. This isn't telling me total amount. Here's my Yeah, I I don't know what he sent me as far as what are you going to call

187it, but it's it's it's Mr. Shane, if something's not helpful when I send it to you, I appreciate it if you respond back to that and I could try to narrow down what you're looking for because that that's why I'm here. I'm talking to it in person several weeks ago. It is difficult for me to try to guess what you're trying to look at. All right, I'll look at what I said, but I go I would like the budget for the last three years. Yes. How would I rephrase that just going forward? You'll have it tomorrow. Okay. So there is So there is So each department and fine arts department there are each department. And then when do we see it? Do we see it? Do we have to approve it? No, we don't have

188to approve it. Okay. That's why you hire the superintendent treasury. Gotcha. Okay. And shoot me. I apologize, but since Mr. T's here and I'm on sports, um, are the softball and the baseball fields going to be taken care of this summer? Are they going to be taken care of as far as cut and fertilized? Has there been any discussion? That's not on our agenda. I know. Shoot me that I'm bringing up something, but talking about athletics. That is not an agenda item. Can you make a note of that? I'd like anything further on department budgets. I just so when one of the biggest uh issues and I think some of the people in the room could talk about it was when I got to the district nobody knew what their nobody really had a budget

189or knew what their accounts were. Um so that's when right now that if your budget is $10,000 you cannot exceed that unless you move money to that budget. So we we a lot of cleanup like this said. So we try I try to make the process as easy as as possible. I don't make them use the system because that's a headache. So I figured the Google sheets is the easiest way and we could be collaborative in that aspect. Um so kind of clarify some of the stuff. I don't know what happened in 2022 besides there may have been money. Um, now even if I have flagged any account that they're trying to use has like no money in the budget, it will get flagged and says you need there's no money left. You need to

190do a budget transfer. In the past, it was not triggered. So you you could exceed a budget if there was one. So now there is. And so somebody sends a budget and they're way off. Is that person is that department chair? Is that administrator? Are they held responsible for this? Or is it a oops, you overbudgeted, we're gonna have to give you some more money? What what's the accountability on that particular person if they screw up their budget and it costs us more money? Yeah, we would definitely have a conversation with them about it, but it really hasn't happened. And then I'm assuming with your new process, you could hopefully get a feel for that, couldn't you? I mean, before you get to the end of the year and say, "Oops, we were over budget."

191I mean whether it's quarterly, monthly, you know, every two months so we can see you're kind of flying or you're you're anticipate you're running into your used football. Okay, football they're probably their big seat. You see July, August, September, they probably spend a ton of money. Maybe they don't spend as much you know to kind of say hey is this realistic. So we don't have that issue of, you know, oops, we got to fund this because we need it or, you know, it's a it's something we can't not fund, but now it's screwing up all our numbers because the person didn't do it right. So as far as where the accountability comes on that person, I think you'll find across the board that there's more um accountability being placed at every single level. Um and

192it's just going to take some time for that to um become And I hope that you'll see the results of this. Nope. Okay. Next item. L. Mr. Sheen, you wanted to discuss a coach issue. Yeah, my mistake. I should have reversed L with K, but I'm not going to fight it. So, I'm going to go with it here. And what I've seen happening since probably April, maybe March is what happened to one of our very very wellresected coaches. I question a lot of stuff. Don't have a lot of I don't have anything I can show you, an email or whatever. I'm just going on instinct, I guess. So, I kind of prepared a statement and some of this stuff's going to carry over when I start to talk about M. Um because I did bring

193this up at the last meeting. I was told policy determines this. The union says this is protocol, you know, how he was treated. I I see these as excuses. Um you know, where was the human element? You know, where was the appreciation? Where was the compassion? Um where was the simple thank you? You know, Stow has had the privilege of having a man who gave his career to the girls basketball program. His accomplishments are tops among the long list of successful coaches at Stow. uh the lives he's touched and influenced, the less the life lessons he has taught his players are unmatched. Um there are critic there there's probably critics out there. You're never going to make every kid happy and every parent happy. But they are the small minority. Uh with that there is

194no one who can question his work, dedication, body of work. It's unchallenged. I was made aware of actions going on to replace coach Podgees even before his contract expired. Though unable to substantiate them with the lack of integrity I've heard from other coaches coming from the athletic department office, it doesn't surprise me. Everything I've seen and heard showed me that he was tossed aside like an old shoe. 30 plus years, 100 wins, 100 plus wins, hundreds of wins, multiple league, sectional, regional championships, cast aside under the excuse of policy. Coach Pod just earned and deserved better. It's a shame it could it could have been handled much much better. And coach, for me personally, much success in your future coaching endeavors. But yeah, it's um I said I'll get more into depth because it's letter

195as far as that, but I did want to make a personal public statement to him. Yeah, it was just a shame the way he was treated. What do you mean by the way he was treated? Was he not offered that? No. Well, as I said, I'll get into that more on this supplemental thing as far as maybe to answer some more of your questions. I'm just not aware of what any other additional information you could provide probably to help us understand what you're talking about. That's all I have on anything else on that topic. Let's move on to item M supplementals. Mr. Love. Sure. Um, you know, as part of my role as the human resource director is kind of clean up some different things that um through the past, you know, and one of

196our supplementals that should be done is at the end of each year should be non-renewed. Um, so we've gotten into practice. We've gotten away from that over the last years. has been inconsistent uh through my department. So, it's something we wanted to to clean up. Um it's it's not fun, you know, to do those non-renewals for our coaches as they done a tremendous job for our kids um throughout the system, but you know, it's just that process that we've done and we want to start back with that. So, um and that also matches the contract that they would sign at the beginning of each year. So, through that process, what we've done is um you know, we've non-renewed those supplemental positions um for our non-teers in the district. Uh then there was a 10-day waiting

197period where they were able to um before we we posted the positions. Then we posted those positions and people were able to reapply. Uh we're currently going through that um that process as we speak. So this is um in accordance with their supplemental contracts and in accordance with policy. It just had not been done under previous HR practices. Correct. That's something we want to we want to clean up and get into to the practice of just really following that contract. Okay. It was across the board teachers. If you are not a teacher, they were all correct. All right. So, um, this was your idea. Uh, this was laid out in our contract. What's the dates? What's the dates of this contract? Uh, so the most recent one or Sure. the certified contract. It's um 2020.

198So, you're saying it's always been there, correct? But whose idea was to disrupt the whole athletic department with this this year? Is that yours? Yeah. Okay. in looking through one of the big things for me is in taking over this position is really trying to get through the contract. How do we follow it both certified and classified? So, you know, going through that with a fine tooth comb and just trying to figure out where where do we do that? Where do we I'm sorry. So, you think disrupting every sport that we have at the school and the way that you did it was the best way to do it? It's hard the first year with that. Um, I do think it's it's going to be hard no matter what the first year. So, I think

199our challenge was um you know, how do we do that the first time? So, hopefully as we continue to do that in years past or in our next few years, it'll be easier and easier. Uh we try to find a time when it's going to be the best. That's really tough because now sports are so year round. You know, it's really hard to find a time when uh sports aren't active. So, you know, we tried to do it in May. So, then the contracts don't expire till June 30th. That gives us some time to be able to to make hiring. Mr. Um, you mentioned the need to follow the contract. Um, what happens when we don't follow those contracts? Puts us in a rough spot uh as far as legally too. It also puts us

200in a rough spot as far as just just our practice and and you know and and how we do things and um it puts us in a hard spot when someone says uh you know we're doing something incorrectly so just put us in a legally tough spot. And also if we don't follow the contract it could lead to grievances which could also have to deal with legal as well. So but how many years has it been like this throughout my process? I'm not sure. It seems like it's happened from what I've heard some people haven't received it in 10. I haven't heard that for everybody. So it just depends. So I'm just throwing this out there. You got people that have dedicated their lives to coaching the kids at school just like the teachers do.

201and the teachers have a lot more protection with the union. Um, cats out of the bag. There's not much we can do. But, I mean, could you have considered saying, "Hey, you know what? We've screwed up. Uh, Mr. and Mrs. Coach, you know, we got an administrative problem. Let me ask you, you know, are you coming back? How long are you going to be here? Can we, you know, we're going to kind of, we're going to kind of work into this." This was like, you cut them out. You cut their legs out from under them. And um I can tell you you you may have a mass exodus of very qualified coaches who don't want to go through this and feel insulted. I mean was there any conversation with the coaches you know and again

202like I said I wish this was reversed because I think this had a lot to do with with coach Podgees. There was a window there. People maybe wanted to get him out of there and this was the way they did it. And I said you've got coaches that are very confused. They feel you know that that you're asking them for a resume. you know, some of these people that have been here for who knows how long. And um you know, I don't know. And then and then going back to coach. Okay. So, these contracts are done June 30th, right? Is that when the current ones are over? Correct. All right. Well, when I was asking you about the Podge thing, you said his his job was posted on the 8th. Well, how could his job

203be posted on the ETH if his contract ran to the 30th? So, there's a contradiction here. and and and then I'm asking you about, okay, if there's no basketball coach, who's running the program? Well, we put this other guy in here who hasn't applied, who hasn't who who hasn't come in front of the board, and but you went to legal counsel to do it. Mr. Sheen, let's give Mr. Love a chance to answer some of those questions. All right, Mom. All right, Mr. Love, go ahead. Sure. Uh so with the contracts with it ending we are able to you know a new contract would start after that June 30th. So you can post it you can hire then you can start it after that time. Generally speaking you post a job after the start date

204already passed. You're going to want to have someone apply. This says posted on June 8th. Correct. that the job the the person that had the job was in was in was was there till was um June 30th and we need someone to start July 1st. So it needs to be posted so that that hiring process can proceed. But this is where it gets all muddled with this whole thing about a teacher getting first, you know, right of first refusal and stuff with a disregard for somebody who's been there and who's proven themselves and who's been a quality who's been a quality coach who had absolutely no leverage at all and was just stepped on. The supplemental portion of our certified and classified contracts is a very important part of the contract and it's not something

205that's up for negotiation after the fact. Well, we haven't been following it for five to 10 years. So now we're going to cut these coaches legs off because of all of a sudden we could have weeded into it. We could have weeded into it. You could have grandfathered. You could have done whatever you're saying. Are you suggesting we should not follow policy and not follow a legal contract? But they didn't. You didn't. Correct. Attempting to rectify that, right? And it could have been done better. These people could have been treated with more professionalism than they were. I think there seems to beceptions. I think what we haven't shared here is that Information was sent out to each one of these uh individuals who had the supplemental contract. A meeting was held. Personalized calls were given

206uh to these people and there were meetings held. So it wasn't like uh we did not treat them as humans because we did uh and we are just trying to rectify something that has not been done properly. We sat here tonight and talked about things that haven't been done properly. So we're going to do them properly. We have to do them properly across the board. We cannot pick and choose. Past failure is not an excuse for future future failure. It's it's um also I mean it's there's nothing to be said that anybody that had that position won't end up in that position again. It's still just a matter of who's the best person for the job. But the teachers and the classified do have the first rights for those positions and that is just something

207that that everyone has to understand. Well, it happened in girls basketball. I'll put patches up against any coach in the state of Ohio. Are we done? That's all. Thank you. Any further comment on that topic? Okay, moving on to item 10, executive session under 121.22G1 to consider the employment of a public employees or officials. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Any discussion? East Jenkins. Hi, Merid. Hi, Sheen. Hi, Sodonic. Hi, Wind. Hi. We're in executive session at 98 p.m.