001i need to start early that's a long day let me know when we're live please giving out commercial endorsements i would like to call to order the june 6th 2022 board of education work session at 6 pm roll call police nancy brown here lisa johnson bowers here john leicester here pamela nguyen here jessica wright here if you'll please stand for the pledge [Music] i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay i will now read the vision statement from our strategic plan 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
002considering every facet of a student's learning experience from curriculum to infrastructure to wellness diversity and inclusion and everything in between do i have a motion to approve tonight's agenda i'm sorry to adopt tonight's agenda so moved second any discussion um when was the executive session added um it was supposed to have been added last week but it was left off but i emailed this afternoon and reminded to have it put on it's the same continuing okay so when that happens i mean we have to have some sort of a cutoff when that happens can somebody text everyone well we discussed it last meeting that we were going to have it so it it wasn't on the agenda i printed out this afternoon i understand but we discussed it last meeting that we were having it
003so i didn't it just wasn't on the agenda that's so noted any further discussion roll call please johnson bowers aye lysler aye wind i brown aye right hi so the only item on we have one item on our consent agenda but um i'll turn it over to you for that thank you so i'd like to recommend that the board approve the consent agenda with the one item as listed just note it um has been previously approved it's just a date correction do i have a motion to make that correction so moved second any discussion roll call please leicester aye wind i brown aye johnson bowers aye right aye okay next item treasures new business uh it was on discussions with legal that uh based on what was passed at the state of ohio that we
004recognize uh june 19th as a legal holiday for those who schedule includes said day so do i have a motion to approve the recognition of juneteenth as a legal holiday for our regular school employees so moved second any discussion i would just note that the reason it's on this agenda is because it's before our next meeting so correct any further discussion we're gonna we'll probably have to uh talk with them about talk with legal about how to structure that going forward relevant to administrative guidelines or even possibility of different contracts and how that looks okay all right thank you uh roll call please wind i brown i johnson bowers hi meisler hi right aye thank you all right so we're moving on to our work session the first item on our work session is a
005discussion regarding um a pride month resolution i'd like to turn it over to dr wind for that thank you um i just wanted to take a minute to explain some of the background of my thinking about this one obviously june is pride month and has been for a very long time i think the first time it was recognized nationally was in 1999 but why do we want to recognize it now i think is the more pertinent question and for me a lot of it is the fact of some of the recent anti-lgbtq actions that we have seen both at a state level with including lgbtq issues in the divisive concepts bills last year's house bill 327 and house bill 322 this year's house bill 616 that has been nicknamed the don't say gay bill this
006spring we're seeing house bill 454 that would ban gender affirming care for our youth for our trans youth most recently most alarmingly to me hb61 that includes a provision of providing for inspection of our female athletes both in terms of their external and internal genitalia their dna and their testosterone levels should anyone accuse them of being trans there are a lot of things going on at the state level i think that make our lgbtq youth feel unsafe not just unsupported but unsafe and targeted and then we see some of the more local actions we've seen efforts in neighboring districts to ban books from high school libraries that mention lgbtq folk and their journeys to their identities in a positive or affirming light we've seen efforts to ban those we've seen we saw unfortunately some issues
007in our high school during a student-led pride week this year so i think both on a larger level and on a local level i want to make sure that our lgbtq students are feeling safe and supported within their community because we know from decades of research that students who do not feel safe are significantly more prone to not only mental health issues in general but suicidality from suicidal thinking to suicide attempts and a lot of that research the hopeful piece of it for me is that when these students feel supported by their communities by their families their schools and their and their towns they are much less likely to attempt suicide a recent trevor project survey indicated a difference of of the the students who had um attempted suicide students who raided their their communities
008as a very unaccepting of their identities had a suicide attempt rate of 21 and if we go down the scale to students who felt that their communities were very accepting of their identity that suicide attempt rate drops to 8 percent so making sure that our students feel supported in this environment literally saves lives aside from all of the other uh consequences and i think it is a very powerful testament to community that that having that sense of community and that affirmation can make such a powerful difference for our student so i think this being pride month is the time for us to talk about that and think about what actions can we take as a district to provide support to our students to make sure that we're not engaging in lip service recognition of pride
009month but we are following that through with some actions as a district to let students know that we really do mean it when we say that that we support them and that they're safe here thank you awesome so um i know you've drafted a proposed resolution and i don't know if anybody had an opportunity to look at that um or has any comments or thoughts on that or any of the other items that dr win brought up they want to discuss so i've had to read this thing multiple multiple times and this is what it might be a little wordy it is it's a little longer i tend to be wordy i will admit that that's why i've had to read it because generally resolutions are you know it's a short piece to resolve to
010recognize something which there's a good portion of this that does and then there's a good portion of this that's sort of rewriting policy portion of it is kind of wordy i'm going to use um miss brown's phrase redundant because some of this we kind of some of the district does do already and it's just kind of reaffirming that we do and then some of this i've concerns with because it's a mix of controversial um and a mix of we may have to pass this by legal i assume that any resolution we take up will go through legal short term you know we need to support lgbtqia students and staff we need to show that we do support them you know if we want i'm all for supporting a resolution to recognize pride month do all
011that the other portions with the policy part definitely gonna need to do a lot more conversation on any pieces parts like that we're gonna have to pass by legal especially some of these later pieces um especially this last very last part yeah um oh man i wasn't sure about that last year yeah yeah um there's pieces parts but we can discuss that right nice i think to to speak to your point about some of these things are things that we're already doing um when i say to continue reviewing our policies and procedures and guidelines to make sure that they're affirming i forget how i put that to be honest but i know that that that is something that likely is underway um and i i think as a part of this what i would like
012to do is is recognize those things that are underway and that we do provide as a matter of our current policy as well as some of the things that we might want some change or some further action on because i don't want to shortchange the work that the district has done in in attempting to create a safer space for these students and a more accepting environment i don't ever want to only focus on a negative aspect but also to recognize what our staff what our administration what our community is already working on i i agree with that sentiment and i think maybe a way that we could kind of address that in a resolution is maybe taking some of the more um some of the more specific items and making a general statement as to
013as far as aspirations and desire moving forward and that basically kind of giving a an opportunity for the administration the staff the teachers the counseling department like all of our stakeholders students even um to really kind of have a say in well we we have anti-discrimination policies those are in place but how are they working for the students and is it effective and and that kind of giving them an opportunity to really have a say um i think would be in my in my vision kind of um beneficial and kind of going to what um john was saying mr lisler was saying about um kind of keeping it more general as a resolution um i tend to like to keep them to one page personally um and not certainly not that any of the sentiment
014in here or and certainly there's a lot of um statistics in here that maybe we can take out and you've got these footnotes so a lot of that information is there i'm not i'm not suggesting that the she's she's incorrect she's got that she's gotten here the reasoning behind right which it's fantastic because i've got transgendered cousins i got three of them i know what they went through with my with my with my um uncle who is your homegrown new yorker you know and they were all adopted and one of them was black so i know exactly what they went through so this this is kind of personal to me so but there's parts of me that are kind of like no i i know where some people in this district are going to go
015with some of this i think the biggest problem we need to break this up between the the resolution you know because we could do that in the short term you know that's real quick for any of us to get done with the next session but the policies part is going to be more of a long-term work especially when we need to get feedback from administration on some of this and what what do they think especially you know with how the buildings operate and especially when we're right piece is about this these first four paragraphs i think are really the key for me which is recognizing that all of our students are entitled to education here and all of them are entitled to a safe community where they feel a member of that community not just
016welcome but part of it right so for me those those first four paragraphs are really key um where we go from there i think is yeah kind of a dead yeah i i have a couple of thoughts real quick before we move on to other concerns if you don't mind um one in terms of feedback i certainly see we've got three weeks until our next meeting um would it be possible to say okay in the next two weeks that we solicit feedback from from our staff from our community maybe via email and kind of get a feel for some of that feedback so that we can incorporate that moving forward i do think that's possible i would just caution that a lot of our staff is out for the summer they're not in the office
017um so as far as um those who are employees expecting them to come in and do this do work on their time or they're not contract is difficult the community absolutely i think that's certainly a possibility i think the students are probably um those who are affected by by pride and whatever they're probably thinking about this being june so so as i listen to this um you know and listen to the sentiment behind this um the sentiment is wonderful you know um but the sentiment gets lost by the fourth paragraph and then it turns authoritarian and sixty days or else you know and then that loses the sentiment because the sentiment is a warm hug you know we support this group just period we support this group not we support this group and by the
018way you need to do this within 60 days because it's very insulting because the district is doing this we have all of these policies whether they're enforced or not that's a different thing right but we have the policies the ohio high school athletic association has a policy and our policy is to go by their policy so they tear take care of the whole athletic thing that's that you know we have the discrimination policies we we have the dei committee so we already have all of this stuff in place and i think some of those later things we lose the sentiment because it seems like more of a directive instead of a resolution saying look we support you we want you to hear us and by the way these are our policies and we work hard
019every day the administration works hard every day to enforce them that may not always look like it from the outside but they truly do you know and i think that's really important because the more wordy this gets the more the community will pick apart and divide and that's the problem is when you add different pieces then they're going to be like oh you want this taut then we got a five hour board meeting and i think i i think in terms in terms of the wordiness i see mr leisler crossing some stuff out there which feel free i'm definitely open to any of these things being discussed i am one person among five of us um and i i think it's valuable for all of us to take a look and think through those action
020items and how they're worded and how how they they're interpreted differently from one person to another absolutely i think for me it is important to include those action items and not simply june is pride month and we recognize that i think our students have heard a lot of reassurances that that they are cared about they matter i would like to put that into some specific actions um and like i said i i want to include the things that are already in progress i assume some of these action items would be folded under the dei committee i mean how those actions specifically get carried out is definitely kind of beyond the scope of this i feel like it all falls into dei committee and rightfully so because we spend twenty thousand dollars a year on those
021administrators of that committee so that's that's a big thing and that's that's a big you know i think it all falls you know which would be great but but i think saying within 60 days of course is not rational right now it's summer and some of them don't have 12-month contracts some of the administration and so yeah and certain certainly those timelines can be massaged i i'm not so sure about entirely getting rid of the timelines my concern about that is again that it becomes potentially more aspirations and less actions i think there's a way to look at the the timelines also after having a conversation with administrators about who's here what can we accomplish in a certain amount of time what can we do in this amount of time what may take longer so
022it while it's well putting a hard fast deadline on on certain things maybe may not be practical for the what it is now we can certainly look at that after having a good discussion with the administration about that right my favorite thing about what you did was that you didn't just make a nice resolution and say this is what we recognize you did put some real teeth into it and some real action and i you know i i think i had shared with you earlier you know when i saw the 60 days i was concerned about that but i i really liked that there was you made some very specific goals and objectives and i think there is definitely a way to not i don't want to say soften it but actually make that very
023doable and attainable and um so that it isn't just this nice resolution it's more that the warm hug is great and it's what's needed but beyond that um you know i continue to be concerned about families that shared with us last year families with students of color who don't feel safe in the district yes we care but what are we doing about it and um you know i'm still part of the dei committee except now i've kind of been i'm more on the commit the community part so i'm away from the internal school district policy and i'm not exactly i hate to say it but i'm not exactly sure where all of that is so it is nice to for us to start putting some deadlines not deadlines but some you know some goals and
024things that yeah definitely things that we really want to see some real objectives and some real measurable objectives of what we'd like to see and progress and and keep keep on top of where are we as a district beyond saying we care about this what are we doing yeah to care about this yeah and certainly my my goal would never be to sort of drown out some of the other work that dei has been doing and continues to do um i i wouldn't i wouldn't want to overwhelm for example if all of this were to fall on on the dei committee i wouldn't want to overwhelm that committee so the question of is it doable without detracting from their their in-progress work is a good question this is part of their in-progress work right honestly
025um but so many aspects of it different things come into their into this you know we have the mental health aspect of it where our counseling department is is a big part of that um all this intersectionality with dei and counseling and teachers and there's a lot more to it right it's not just an administrators and policy and right right yeah but i think the point being that we recognize there's an issue here and we want to address it well personally i look forward to the day when we don't have to have a conversation about um is a committee working to support a group of labeled individuals and go back to how i feel at least in indian trail my kids were taught that as harry styles would say treat people with kindness you know
026that's how my kids grew up in indian trail was that we treat everybody the same nobody has a label everybody is the same and i know all these fixes are from the outside because that's all we can see to fix but the true fix is to create a culture in the district where everybody is a human being with an incredible value and that's how we treat them we don't worry about this letter or that letter or whatever we treat them because they're human beings and they're amazing human beings that to me is the culture that we need to create the fixing on the outside is always going to be there but until you create it on the inside that to me is is why it's important to come at an issue like this from multiple
027directions from the student the staff the policy all of those directions are really important and i i would agree i really wish that we did not have groups of students in this school system who are marginalized and bullied because of what their label happens to be i have continued this year to hear reports of students having the n-word thrown at them it's obviously not just one group of students you know the the pride flag issue at the high school you know that was obviously a very targeted kind of thing we have students who are experiencing these the bullying the harassment however you want to describe that based on a category they may fall into i would love to see a day when that doesn't matter any of it but the fact is right now it's
028it still does in the way that students are being treated and we need to deal with it i think yep there's a really great book why do all the black kids sit together in the cafeteria and she presents it from a very scholarly and even a developmental point of view and not just based on race but yes with lgbtq and um not just black race but asian and so many other things and it it was so interesting that at an elementary school level black kids don't think of themselves as black kids asian kid you know they they don't little kids don't think of themselves that way they will differentiate themselves by i'm a really good reader or something and and it starts around adolescence starts to become an issue and how you see that play
029out in schools it was such an interesting book it was just from from such a scholarly intellectual point of view to look at but i agree with ms johnson bowers it would be wonderful but unfortunately it exists and it's it doesn't it's not just the schools and i i know we can put all sorts of policies in place and people are going to be people but we can still do our part and i just want to confirm that the dei committee the bulldogs taking action is our student group that we have at the high school kimton and we're getting it off the ground at lakeview and um so while we do have other standalone groups at the high school in kempton to support our students that are lgbtq um they it's all within that bulldogs
030taking action as far as the action plans and working with the students and and really you know like you said building that culture of accepting everyone and you treat everyone with kindness and um so that that is something that's been addressed um by bta at both of those buildings is there a an lgbtq specific student group at lakeview as well um there is not um and we've had some discussion about that um and we really we've worked with those students within bta more is is what we're what we're looking at there's been some question about the developmental appropriateness of that at that age level and so we've really um our school counselors um do a nice job well counselor and our we also have jen ashton from child guidance there so um we do we
031have not had a stand alone group in the past there so if that need changes it's something that we can take a look at but again looking at under the umbrella bta really to address all students yeah i just i know i've heard some stories from families of students at that fifth sixth grade level being harassed teased the f word being thrown at them that kind of stuff around lgbtq issues so i was just wondering if we have some supports for those students yeah so there are other supports um but if we need to look at something different then absolutely then we need to do that yeah you know and i just want to highlight you know i you talked a little bit about you know kids still hearing the n-word a lot and you
032know really you know we're as a school district you know there's so many things that we can do but we really need our community um to to get behind us and back us on a lot of this too yeah um so well you know we can't do things in a vacuum so it takes all of us working together in order to really affect some change and that that's true and and there's many places for the community to indicate support um for our students of various marginalized groups and i didn't mention it because i was mentioning sort of the negative stuff up front but monroe falls city council is doing a resolution tomorrow night in in support of lgbtq folks and that's a nice bright spot in our community to indicate that community support um so
033i think it it does take all of us it does i actually think that that's the foundation because especially the younger kids and i agree that it's not age appropriate it's but they will kids will smile they're so loyal to their teachers they will smile and they'll nod their heads and they'll do everything the teacher wants and walk in the door at home and hear a completely different tune and that's the tune that they grow up with and that's the tune that they have you know and then still until we can change that to tune at home it's it's hard to change it at school but but creating hope when they graduate high school is a different world and when we look at student resiliency research having one positive dependable supportive adult it does not
034matter who that adult is can make a significant difference for a student that adult can be a student can be a teacher it can be a counselor that that they meet at school or an administrator or an aide or any of our other staff members who have that interaction with our students and to me that's part of why this is important and that one of the things that that i suggested in terms of action items is that professional development for our staff to make sure that um they're aware and dealing with these students and with the with any sort of bullying or harassment kinds of incidents appropriately and making sure that the the staff have the support that they need to be supportive of the students that's really powerful and those those suicide statistics it
035could be home that's supportive it could be school that's supportive it could be the large the larger community they're living in being supportive but if those students feel support that suicide attempt rate goes down by about two-thirds that is a powerful effect well a fun fact stone monroe falls school district was one of the earliest districts in ohio to have domestic partner benefits for their employees they've had them for 25 years i think at least which is completely you know not heard of you know right and i think i think that proves that things that are controversial we can do we can do those hard things um because i'm guessing that when that was first a policy it was still a little on that more controversial side bless don doolittle all right moving on yeah
036so in terms of moving forward it sounds like we want to kind of have a period of a couple of weeks where we have some of these conversations and seek out some input from our staff and from our community and we can re-look at the action items at that point once we have a little bit more data sure is it is it possible though to take the resolution that you've written and i didn't bring a copy of it but because we we really all really like the beginning of it and at least vote on that as a resolution tonight just yes it is symbolic and yes it is lip service but based on this discussion i think it's far more than lip service it sounds like there's genuine commitment from certainly the five of us
037and i do believe our district as a whole um so it's a work session item at the moment and i'd i personally would rather have it as one okay resolution and within them still within the month of june but but i would rather it be the nicest thing one document the nice thing is that our next meeting actually falls on the anniversary of the beginning of the stonewall riots which is the whole point of june becoming pride month so i think that would be an excellent time to pick this back up what i would really truly support is a resolution with the sentiment that you explained in the beginning with that absolutely zero politics just the flat resolution not because this group supports this or this law case or whatever i want it to be
038stows and i don't want i don't want to be doing this because this court case or this court case i want to do it because we decided this who is who we are you know and i don't want any political discussion because that political discussion although you might say in a classroom you know is good but it divides and yes i don't think she meant the political basis she started the conversation with us for us as a whole i think she made it more personal and why she presented got it well i mean some of these are you know i i didn't i didn't necessarily see the action items as political but maybe that's because i'm reading them from a different perspective that's right i saw them as ways to put this into action to
039put these words that we support these students and they are safe here into practice sounds like we've got some work to do okay okay so um anybody have anything to add no i know lots of thinking to do at this point the next item is um also going to turn over to you dr wind with regard to seniors unpaid fees and how the district handles them i believe was the conversation point yeah i've i've heard a few concerns over our seniors and how we're handling those who haven't cleared their balances with the school system when they graduate and to be honest and i think christy can speak to this i've heard several different versions of kind of what happens but i think the main concern that i've heard from the community has been if we
040are potentially holding onto a transcript or grades or a diploma are we getting in the way of our students progressing to their next step in life whether that's employment or military service or higher education and i just kind of for starters i think i'd love it if you could speak to kind of how these situations are handled sure so um you know we um some of these fees it just kind of depends on how long they've been on a student's record so some of them are are long longer standing than others and um we have specific checkpoints just kind of going through where we try to recoup things but when it comes to senior year there's a lot of communication back and forth between this year with mr trine the attendance secretaries timmy sedor gets
041involved as her role at the high school so we communicate lots of different ways i know it's in the handbook not everybody reads the handbook we do recognize that um but there have been direct messages um you know we've had workout payment plans do you need to apply for free and reduce lunch we had a lot of families that didn't apply for free and reduced lunch this year because lunch was free and here they're eligible and when they're eligible then we waive their fees so there's a lot of communication that leads up to um before graduation so and you know we're willing to work with anybody on just about any anything possible in order to you know to do that you know and sometimes you know we can choose to make a reduction based off
042of a circumstance um that you know is with the family so um i know that we've asked the high school and i don't have it yet i know that they're working on it trevor i don't know if you have uh we've asked for the list of who is outstanding because i honestly don't know how many that is yeah yes tammy this morning to send me the list of how kind of what's compiled so i do have it i could share it as a excel with you keep in mind that mr brat in the last couple years i believe there was discussions of not having fees because of covet and i'm not we probably have to sit down again as an admin team and redirect kind of where we are and if if it was those
043fees might have been assessed they shouldn't have been because i know his his bigger concern was the adaptation of having fees in a cova type of environment like does that is that really a value does that really serve the kid of all and i know his concern was that yeah and we also have been i'm communicating with david hurt one of our attorneys that's assigned to us now and um he has made some suggestions as far as some policy changes so he has some draft language um that we received this morning um i have not forwarded it yet because i wanted to send it to tom first so um i felt like that was that was my responsibility to do that and um so um you know but i do think you know we to
044tighten it up and then look at a different communication plan because what i'm hearing from you is that our communication plan wasn't effective so and then that means we need to make a change right and and for me not just the communication but the fact that like yes we're we're working with families on this these fees and on these situations and understanding that sometimes there may be extenuating circumstances um but none of that is written into our policy or in our administrative guidelines and when we look at consequences that are going to have an effect on our students because their parents haven't paid fees one that's not always under the student's control um and two there may be extenuating circumstances that we're unaware of and to have a process or at least an avenue outlines
045like you know if if there are extenuating circumstances here's the the person to go to um but two to have some sort of threshold or distinction i mean maybe it's different if somebody doesn't turn in their chromebook versus if they run up a lunch balance i don't know maybe it's different if they did a tick tock challenge and cause damage to the high school bathrooms than if they have a lunch balance or outstanding extracurricular fees there there's a lot of there's a lot of different factors in play here and we don't know at what point or at what monetary or type of fee threshold do we start applying consequences all of that is not clear in the policy like as you know i was searching through and i was doing the same yeah yeah and
046it it was it was hard to kind of pin down what those guidelines are um so yeah i think looking at the policy uh would be fantastic so so i'm to understand um at the board meeting you know last time when we approved the list of graduates these names were on the list correct yes we did graduate all those so they did graduate correct right yeah and they walked and they if they chose to they have a transcript so i guess my question is is it are we allowed to withhold the transcript according to ohio revise code technically we are okay but we have not been doing that we've been withholding the diploma which is not necessarily outlined in our policy as specific as we would like it to be and again mike my concern
047with the withholding of transcript is sort of from an equity standpoint do we want to place a barrier there for students who are trying to move on to the next stage yeah and that's why we have not been withholding the transcript or the grades in in previously because we do know that you know there are there are lots of cases where it's definitely not the student's fault and the student can't pay fees and that's not fair because especially if they're you know they've been resilient and and they're moving forward and they're doing better and that you know they're moving on to the next step we don't want to hold them back so that's why we've never you know we've not been withholding this transcript we've been withholding the actual physical diploma so is it correct
048for me to assume that on graduation day this was the list yes okay because one of the things you know kind of like transition uh that i would like to see at our graduation is for our students to get their diploma on graduation day and i was always told no we'll never get the fees and i think this is all out of 429 kids that for them to graduate and get their diploma is a completely different feeling to get back to your chair open it up and there's your name holy cow that is amazing that's a gift to them and i think they deserve it and it is a very small amount of money that in comparison to our larger budget i can't do that math in my head um but it is an exceedingly
049small number small number how how many students who have unpaid fees ultimately pay those fees i'm just curious if holding the diploma even like it really matters i couldn't tell you right now yeah i'm just curious no there's there's multiple ways on the fees i know in athletics if they don't pay their fee they're not supposed to play the sport um and there's other i guess consequences uh but i don't uh you know to tackle it now in the wake of code in the last two years and knowing folks at home and what they were struggling with you're either employment-wise or things like that i i uh you're right in a relevance to a 65 million dollar budget are we really concerned that much about six thousand dollars or five thousand dollars but in the
050essence of it but we have x number of kids that have paid their fees and you look at that and say are we treating everybody equitably so i i you know again i it there's a very small percentage that this this that this money the amount of small and the number of students relevant to the graduating seniors or students in our district is small i don't want to make it out to be that there's a large number of quote-unquote delinquent fee accounts uh cafeteria is and can be treated separately because it is cafeteria uh there should be probably something going forward where we talk about what what is the amount is acceptable they can charge and then they're supposed to receive a next meal at x value but that's more of a gilgar's and passani
051question right and i i think you have a you have a valid point like most of our students have paid their fees and i i think it's relevant to to ask is is this method is this consequence effective and if if it's not being effective is there something else that that we can do that we can use um the that i and i don't know i i'm not creative enough to come up with that idea right now um but is is there something that we can do that might be effective but not necessarily prevent that student from moving forward as far as as far as i just want to be clear as far as the operational about how the fees are are reviewed and collected i'm absolutely supportive because those principals teachers coaches know the
052situations of these kids the treasurer's office does not and for me to get into that i think is something as much as i say i do love the students i just don't want to know at times at times that's just not not my not my not my sandbox and i don't need to be in that but just having something that's effective impactful and helps our kids or helps our parents i'm all in support of right and i'd love to see something outlined with the policy of you know if if you would like to make arrangements if there's an exception at play here please contact whether that's your grade level principal or your your account your guidance counselor or the building prince principal or you know i know in other districts it can be the treasurer's
053office um but to have that point of contact for families outlined i think could be helpful and for them to know that's an option um because as far as as far as i saw i had a i had a friend who with a senior this year forwarded me their email for don't forget to pay your last bit of fees like there was there was no indication in that of if there's an exceptional circumstance here's how you address it um and so just looking at that at that communication and making sure that avenue is open in some way for families i think would be really good absolutely i agree i'm just thinking out loud here what if we just i mean when i looked at that document it was i don't know fair to say now
054five thousand dollars a year for the last three years it's not like that give or take what if we just established a five thousand dollar budget and then 60 days before graduation this document something goes out to these families saying hey seniors you owe these fees if you're unable to pay them or before blah blah blah blah here's an application from the treasurer's office for a special grant that goes in front you know treasurer's office and then he refers them if he based on circumstances whatever they fill out i don't know what the form looks like but let him figure it out puts in front of the board and we forgive certain things and i think he was just expressing that not knowing their circumstances is not really what he he doesn't want to be
055making those maybe so maybe maybe it goes and i think what mrs crowe said earlier originally was that these they've been contacted many many times and you know that's you know it is what it is it shouldn't just be carried for years and nothing happens sure so we do um stop kids from going on the sixth grade trip if they don't have their fees paid and then also the philadelphia trip if they don't have their fees paid but there are fees that are associated with your senior year yeah so and they can be a can be a little pricey at times it's hard i love the idea of the five thousand dollar budget yes wait i'm about to have a senior how pricey [Laughter] five thousand dollars you're doing the grants the five thousand dollars
056would not be available for one student let's just be clear it's a entire pool so not all doctor okay all right any other discussion on that topic okay our next topic um under our work session is how we might be able to honor more students at graduation i'm going to turn it over to mrs johnson bowers this was yeah your topic so you know our graduation uh was amazing it was the same as it's you know the same structure has been for years and it occurred to me after the graduation that you know as a district we do an amazing job for the athletes if you've ever had somebody involved in a sport when they're on their way to the state tournament or regional finals we clap them out like we line the hallways clap
057them out and then it occurred to me that we have the top 10 students in the district that i feel deserve to be clapped out you know what i mean i feel like we just we said these are the top 10 but then we just like rifled through their names so it didn't matter whether top 10 or the number 429 they were all the same so i'd really like to take the time at the graduation ceremony to really honor kids and even though it's going to take more time you know we i forget what year we stopped having the valedictorian do the speech um but the value you know used to do the speech but but if we're going to have the president that's great you know but then the valedictorian or the head of
058this group or the head of you know i'd really like to honor the kids and if they're top 10 i'd like to do the top 10 college style introduce them say what they're doing where they're going blah blah blah introduce the next one you know give them their 30 seconds of fame because to be number one in a class of 429 is absolutely amazing and i i feel like we should do that i feel like we should honor the kids going into the military i feel like we should honor the athletes you know every single group yeah i think i think there's time for that in our in our ceremony it was it was very short always is um which which i think absolutely we're reading names it can get tiresome for some some families
059but we could we could add a lot more and still be under an hour and a half i mean we're out of there in what an hour and 15 minutes and that was a long one yeah so so i think there's and certainly an opportunity to recognize more students and yes we have we have senior recognition night where they do the scholarships and all that we have banquets for our sports but if they're absolutely we should i think i agree there are ways we can honor recognize our students who have just done exceptional things and who maybe are going on to do something really special amazing things and you know you know when we read the names we do it pretty quick um and the beauty of our parking lot graduations is the sound came
060through the tv i mean the tv the uh the actual radio in the car everybody heard everything but when you're at kent state when somebody reads a name then this group is hollering while he's reading the other name and that's just kind of the nature of the beast if we read slower they're going to yell louder and they're going to yell between every single one you know i mean if that's you know a problem if you look at everybody's graduations you know on youtube if you go slower then they're going to yell into every single one so i don't have the answer to that but i i do think that we could focus on that and i think dr hartman does an amazing job with graduation putting those pieces yes it does run very smoothly
061yeah yeah and i um the diploma thing to me is the ultimate gift to the graduates and i know it scares everybody um what's the name trying to keep it alphabetical but a few days ago i saw on twitter a picture of mentor's graduation and it was a picture on route 2 because you've got 16 buses in a row on the way to cleveland state they're on the bus in order of the processional they get off the bus go directly in ins and they get without they never have a rehearsal because it's cleveland state you know and they get their diplomas how many students they have 630 okay so they're big so yeah so you know that's i mean there's buses and there's empty buses in case a bus breaks down and then you got
062the band and you know it's it's possible to do but you know and one of the things that um mr bratton had mentioned was that previously there had been pictures or a presentation that was a video and we weren't able to do that simply because of the increased cost from ksu so i'm wondering if maybe we look at different venues or different options or can we bring our own because the reality a lot of these recognitions can be done via video and then people can hear you know and and i know we had some issues with sound this time and that was disappointing so and i'll be honest as as someone who was up on the stage i heard none of those names the way the sound system was working this year and i don't
063know if that's typical but i heard none yeah it's not typical i heard them all i was next to the speaker but but also we had we had students that we were presenting to who had multiple cords and and all kinds of recognitions that i wasn't sure what they were it's nice that they have those um but yeah like even an explanation of what a display that's that you know this student has won these honors um there were a lot of kids wearing medals yeah yeah and oh they all and i'm not sure what that was like but yeah but but a parent or a grandparent doesn't know i don't know what the purpose of that medal is so what i'm kind of looking for is a small town graduate graduation in a big town
064you know because if you go to uh like geneva if you go to geneva's graduation there's 50 million speakers it's really really long but it's amazing because you really feel like you've celebrated the students um you know we're pretty big and you know a great majority of the parents are very thankful for the time for how how short it is you know i i don't yeah and like we can add 15 minutes and still be short yeah and it doesn't necessarily need to be a speech it could content over you know but when i when i think of the top 10 and what it means for those kids to be in the top ten i think they deserve they do because if they were athletes we'd do it in heartbeat you know we'd clap them
065out well we used to when we used the video screens the top ten always did a presentation there was a video presentation that they had put together and you know that was an added burden on the top 10 but it was usually pretty interesting and you know reflected who those 10 people are very much but but i agree it'd be nice to be honest if we're talking about video presentations most of the people were at the mac center well before the processional and some of that could even happen while the audience is getting settled similar to how the drama club does recognitions before a play that's kind of on a loop and as people sit they can watch that's how it used to be and it was parents would submit a photo of their their
066child and so then it would be up on the screen and it would you know be their name and info and stuff so you had time it was something to do while waiting for the ceremony but it was always fun to like sit there and it's kind of like the old days watching for your school to show up is canceled with snow but your kid like waiting okay we're almost there and then trying to get the picture at that exact moment and stuff and i think we've talked good i'm sorry no go ahead we've talked for so many years about switching i think we should and i know it's not as easy as saying that it's not it's not quite that easy so you know it's definitely something you know we were obviously very disappointed
067in in the sound issues especially since they weren't present during practice yeah so and you know that was it's you know you think about everything that everybody missed and then continue to miss throughout the ceremony that's very frustrating for for all of us and especially the response wasn't the best um from the facility so yeah there's been some discussion already about looking around to see what other options are available so there are things you have to consider so yes driving distance construction and then cost obviously so everyone always likes to talk about blossom is hugely expensive what about our stadium so again i think could be a possibility i hope it we're subject to assuming yeah subject to weather yeah but and accessibility too yeah but i will say the the two outdoor graduations that
068i was able to attend were really well done for what they were and i i actually really enjoyed them this is my first indoor graduation i know 2020 was a bummer but that graduation was so nice and i know the 2020 parents for as awful as that year was and all that their seniors missed at the end of the year they really they had one friend this was her third child to go through the system and she said that was her favorite graduation and it was nice because everybody stayed in their cars and then 2021 they didn't stay in their cars and i was kind of having panic attacks sitting on the stage watching people walking around and then people peeling out of the parking lot at the back while people were still walking around
069and yeah it was a little bit more of a carnival atmosphere because people were coming up close to the stage but it was nice that it was on the school grounds that felt really nice and we were blessed with really good weather for both of those and that's not always going to happen no but yeah but good discussion yeah so but it definitely it'll it's going to be a discussion point moving forward so okay anything else on that topic okay all right so the last item on our agenda is an executive session for the purpose of considering the employment of a public employee do i have a motion to go into executive session so moved second any discussion roll call police brown aye johnson bowers aye lysler aye aye right aye we are in executive
070session at 7 pm there will be no action following the executive session you