Board of Education Meeting 5.12.25

001What is this one? Hello everybody. Thank you all for coming. All right, you ready? Yeah. Let me get my phone so I can do time. I call the Tesuscross Valley Local Board of Education meeting May 12th, 2025 in the community boardroom to order. Please call the role. Mr. Tisher, present. Mr. President, Mr. Green, present. Mr. Overton, present. Mr. Present. We do have agendas on the table as well as they've been made online. Would everybody please stand for the pledge of allegiance followed by Mr. Overton presenting the invocation. 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. Heavenly Father, we again thank you so much for just the opportunity to come together and do

002the work of Tusky Valley. We thank you for all those in attendance tonight and just everything that'll be presented. Uh Lord, just give us direction and strength in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Okay. Well, they want everything, right? It's going to be the full project. Okay. Dr. Bransky, is there any additions or corrections to the agenda? Um, yes. Based on work session, I believe there's something that you're adding, correct? Yes. Okay. Do I say that now? Yeah. Okay. So, we will be adding a turf project to the agenda which will cover our football stadium. It will cover infield of the softball. It will cover our baseball field with the out the outfield big enough with our band will then practice on and no longer have to cross the street and go down. So, it will all

003be here on this campus. um as well as the lights in the stadium. Soccer will also be moved up um in regard to this project. So soccer will also be moved up to football stadium. Madame President, I'd like to add to the agenda on number nine. Um moving the rest of them down. So superintendent would now become 10 public participation on down. On item number 10, I'd like to add this to the agenda. And what I make I would like it to say to approve the um proposal from mom from mommy bay turf for the amount of do you know the amount I I this one because this is the that's the lights this is yeah it's this one right there. Okay. What's proposed amount of $2,185,92? I have a second. I'll second. Any dis?

004Nope. No, we don't discuss. Now we go back to the Okay, we just added that to the agenda. Can we So that's item number 10. Okay. And then everything else moves under. Sorry. No, you're fine. Okay. All right. Is there any other additions other than that one? No. Uh the agenda that went out last Wednesday publicly, there were revisions to it, but as long as you have one off the table or looking at the one online, it is now correct. Except for the addition. Besides that addition, yes. All right. Thank you, Dr. Bansky. Moving on to item two is our declaration. You can find this on our statement of our board mission and statement as well as our board of education goals. On item three, is there any request for public participation? Not tonight. Okay.

005Thank you. Item number four, our leadership reports. Yes. Uh so we move things around. So we're going to start with our leadership reports tonight. So the first one up is Mrs. Andrea Clemens. First of all, I want to thank um all of the board members that attended um our event of our actual program with the Lion King Junior presentation this weekend. They absolutely amazing and I hope that those that were able to attend enjoy the show. Uh several of the members are here, cast members are here tonight um because they are involved in lots of different things, but thank you for joining us for that performance. Second, we are working through our last round of benchmarking or diagnostic assessments and our final report um will be given to you after all of those are done

006so that you can see the growth our students have made throughout the school year in reading, math and science. Um next is Mr. Phillips, please. Yes. Um we are transitioning from you know we had our our musical and then the Lion King Jun this weekend and now we're moving into the concert season. So, I just wanted to remind everyone and and invite all everyone. Um, and you can find this on our district calendar, but middle school band concert's tomorrow night. High school band is on Wednesday night. High school choir, pops concert is on this Friday night, and then our seventh eighth grade choir is next Tuesday. I thought the pops was a choir. Am I confused now? Uh, Pops is high school. Okay. Okay. Okay. And I just want to make that announcement while tacking

007on to that. May uh 14th, which is the high school concert, will be Mary's last concert. The band, the band's last well, Mary directing the band, her last concert. So, anyone who's ever been affiliated with the band or any of our community that really could show support for the years that she's given us, we really would appreciate that. And we will be having cake afterwards for Mr. Street. Um I have two quick things and then we're going to have a special presentation. Uh the first one is our kindergarten performance will be on Thursday at 6:30 at the pack. I'm inviting everybody to that and our PBIS celebrating success. As many of you know, we've relaunched our u PBIS at the elementary school this year with being safe, respectful, and responsible. Um we're going to be

008recapping that, having a type of celebration with the kids, having playables in the gym um next Thursday on the 22nd. So we're looking forward to that on top of all the other trips and end of the year fund. So at this time I'd like Mr. Sites, members from the Mineral City American Legion, our student representatives to come down up front for a special presentation. Okay, I'm going to get up for this. Okay, so u I'll call you down at Sorry. So uh April is the month of the military child. I don't know who I'm really supposed to be speaking to. Speaking to you guys. Okay. So, April is the month of the military child and uh we are a Purple Star recognized school of elementary school. So, to kind of show our support to local

009military organizations and just kind of some outreach from us, uh we kind of came up with the idea of having a little fundraiser. It is a rock paper scissors fundraiser. Okay. We called it the Purple Star Rock Paper Scissors Tournament of Champions Extravaganza. Okay. also known as the PSR PS T O TC E. Okay, so or the perstosa. Okay, that makes it easier. Okay, so tonight I actually have two of our champions with us. I have Piper Jeffrey, our sixth grade champion. Come on down, Piper. And I have Daniel Gainer, our fifth grade champion right here. Okay. Yeah, you're a picture person. You're going to want a picture. I also have two members of our American Legion out of Mineral City, Post 519. I have their commander, uh, Randy McGroy, if you'd like to come

010on up. Randy, let's move a little bit forward here, guys. And I have their treasurer, uh, Mr. Dave Wheel. Okay, so kind of the way this worked is our kids were able to buy in and not everybody had to do it, but we did have a lot of participation from this. Okay. And our kids had a lot of fun. Uh, it came down, the gym was exciting. It was It was awesome. Okay. So, what we have for you is it's kind of a big check, so you'll probably have to take it to a big bank. Okay. So, here we go. We got this check right here. I need you two to come here to the middle. We're going to take a picture. Uh, so again, we've got it written out, Mr. Phillips. I hope I

011apologize. I took upon the liberty to sign my own name for the district. I hope that's okay. Okay. So, it is the American Legion Post 519. Again, in the memo, just so you guys have for your own records, the post puts up. Okay. Uh, and we were able to raise $1,500 for this job. Okay, there we go. Ready? One, two, three. Smile. Look at me. Yep. Head up. Head up. There we go. Okay. One, two, three. Great. Thanks, guys. I gota get one. Don't move. Okay. All right. Good. I want you guys turn around and show it to the crowd there. This check was free hand by myself. Okay. No, actually my daughter made this. It won't balance, will it? Yes. You know what? It has like the little lock symbols and everything. Okay. So,

012there we go. So, again, one more round of applause for There you go. Hey, thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Hey, thank you. Thank you for coming. Congratulations once again. Thank you. No, it's just under Mr. Street. Yeah. No, go. All right, Mr. Penn. So, um, I have a little bit to add to my report. You know, we've had a lot going on in the district buildings and grounds. Um, as we sit in this in this room a month ago, it was a lot different. We have carpet with these drop ceiling, new lighting, air conditioning, paint walls, did some decals. So, this room has been transformed from the band room to the boardroom. It's turned out nicely. Along with that, across the hallway, we have the new clinic going in. Um

013they told me today they're still training about two weeks ahead of schedule um of schedule under budget. Good. So, we're excited to open up um right before school starts and more to come district. So, and transportation is good. If anybody has a bus driver friend and wants to drive bus, they come see me. always looking. All right, moving on to item number five. Mr. Phillips with middle high school students of the month. Yes. Um I sure wish I had the energy of Mr. Sites. So I'm sorry this is not going to be quite as fun, but I am pretty excited and I was that was paper. I wanted him to stay because I feel like we could have had she told me herself these were her words. She goes, "I'm scared to death of my

014dance teacher, but I can't be late for dance." I felt like a fifth, sixth champion right here in Oh, you know, we could have done that for next year. We will do it because we do an annual rock, paper, scissors contest at school. The whole school starts off in the classrooms, work our way down into the gym. And sometimes that's where I am um as the elf on the shelf. It's really fun to watch it end, but I'm so excited when you get up there. Keep it going. Okay, so student of the months. Um, I will first uh talk about the athlete of the month, Brennan Reichman. She is playing a softball game. Um, she's a sophomore, the daughter of Paige and Andy Reichman, and she was nominated for outstanding efforts in softball where she's

015helped lead the softball team to a 21-1 record so far. Um, and probably more importantly is that she has set and tied a school record with 19 strikeouts. uh in a game of 21 ounce. So that's pretty impressive. I actually was talking with with Mr. Franks and I said, "Why don't they just blind so they don't all strike out?" 19 out of 21. She's done it twice this year, so that's pretty awesome. She also plays basketball. Um her hobbies include lifting weights, running, drawing, and cooking healthy meals. And um at this point, she is planning to hopefully play college softball and go to college to earn a degree in psychology. So that's Brennan right there. And I would like to invite up um Ellie Matzel. She is a senior and the granddaughter of Larry and

016Sandra Hovertock. You're not senior. Oh my gosh. Sorry. That's okay. But listen, Mrs. Poland said, "You trust everything I typed is correct." And I said, "Of course I do." Remember that in the morning. Um she was nominated for outstanding um work in art class and her hobbies include art obviously she likes to read, write, watch movies and spend time with her family or with her friends and after gradu after graduation she plans to go to college. Um her college is undecided right now but she would like to study psychology as well. So congratulations Okay. And our student of the month, which this month was for hard work and determination, is Libby Beardmore. Libby is the daughter of Jason and Alicia Beardmore. And her school activities include project leadway in engineering, which is, I believe, a

017big reason why she was nominated and um voted to win this award. She did a um her project, not just hers, but her group project was called Timbertech and it was taking um little Lincoln logs from pallets using robots to build a cabin on a platform. Then the robot took the platform and put it onto a flatbed truck to be delivered somewhere. And I hope that happens someday in real life and you're person. Um, she enjoys exploring robotics and automation, uh, engineering products projects and hands-on building, creating and improving prototypes. After graduation, she plans to attend Stark State College to pursue pursue a degree in engineering with a focus on robotics or electronics, and she's excited to build on her passion for problem solving, hands-on projects as a career in innovative technology. Congratulations, Thanks. Awesome.

018Libby Ellie, uh, congratulations. Uh, and thank you for everything that you do here at Tusky Valley. You make us a better place. So, thank you. Congratulations. Moving on to item number six, board member report sharing OB OSBA updates by Mrs. Green. Uh, I'm going to keep it short or shorter than normal. Anyway, uh because of all the wonderful presentations we're going to have, I would like to state by all the um additions in uh renovations done to this room was provided through a grant. So, I really appreciate that. We had a project lead the way this last week or last last week last or anyway. And we took a lot home, a lot of words, a lot of innovate just like this one was just said. There was even they were it was amazing. I

019wasn't able to attend because I was away, but there were people that attended and I always appreciate when the community comes in and supports our students. And then we also had our band to receive its uh f first at state, which is number eight or nine for Mary and the band. So, I really I want to shout those out as well. But the thing I have been doing is started moving around the school district and stuff. Continue to fight for the budget for our school district um and money coming to make sure that we get money to keep us going. And so I appreciate all the support that people in the school district and our community are giving us for that. Um I've attended a lot of meetings. I won't go into those. I'll just

020provide those in a a report. And I think I'll just leave it at that because of um the business of tonight. Okay. Item number seven, new business consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve items A1 through 14? I make the motion. Is there a second? A second. Um, any discussion? I do want to um point out that we are recognizing all of our students for graduation. So, I thank you all for working so hard coming to the end and we excited to see you on June 1st on the stage. So, congratulations to all of our seniors. Mrs. Bur just A1 through nine. A1 through nine for the consent. No, it's all the way to 14. That's a separate vote. It's a [Applause] Any other comments? I think there's a lot of awards going out.

021We'd like to congratulate each of them. Um are the list if you turn down back the pages. I believe every one of our seniors are have graduated or will be graduating. Um, unfortunately the state requires that if someone moves out of our district, even though we have no longer have any control of them, if they don't finish high school, that we receive a ding on that. But as of now, 100% will be graduating. So, congratulations to our senior class on that. And, um, that's what I would like to say. Awesome. Uh, I would like to publicly thank all of the donations and the donors. Under item number two, we are very very thankful to live in a very generous uh community uh who is always looking for what needs are out there and helping us

022to solve those. So you'll see a lot of those uh lately for this month is for the Washington DC trip and that's to make sure that every child gets to go and that finances is not a burden there. So we appreciate those folks. Um under item number three uh you will see that we are hiring Mr. Zack Dennis in as our new head football coach. Uh Mr. Dennis or Coach Dennis is here if you want to give us a wave uh just so you can put a name uh with a face. Um but we're thankful for him to take over our football program. Uh he's going to be employed by day through our educational service center helping with college and career uh uh helping students navigate college and career readiness. Um and so he'll be

023with that. He'll be stationed here uh to assist us. So uh we're excited for him to be joining our team. Um item number uh six um I'm thrilled to welcome uh Miss Jennifer Bel. You want to give us a wave? Uh as our new high school school counselor. Uh so she will be joining us for next year and we're thrilled for her to become come part of our team. And with that item number 13, you'll notice that you are accepting the resignation of Julie Peterson tonight. Um a long time counselor in our district. Uh she was also my fourth grade teacher. Uh so people miss her teacher first. She was a teacher first. So uh as she walks out the door, she's spent, I believe, all or very close to all of her career at

024Tusky Valley. Uh she's a Tusky Valley graduate. Uh so a lot of institutional knowledge walking out the door with her. So, we will we will really miss her, but we we thank her for her years of service to the district. Anyone else? Uh, please call the role. Mrs. Yes. Mr. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Item number eight. Is there a motion to approve the five-year forecast and related assumptions as prepared by Treasurer Mark Phillips? I make the motion. Second. I'll second. Any discussion or anything you want to add? Yeah, just in addition to you know what I put out to you this weekend before forecasting my notes got into a conversation with Mr. bit ahead of the uh work session that we had. Just want to reiterate that right now we are in excellent financial health

025primarily due to our cash balance and the fact we have a large carryover. We'll probably stay that way for a couple years. But the concern is with all those legislation in Columbus that it had a negative effect on our revenues. And if that legislation's passed and we lose our revenues or our revenues are flatlined, the further we go out say five years, it's going to have a negative impact on our financial position and the only way out of that would be to go back to the voters for again. Right now, excellent financial health. Let's just hope that you know ation moves its way through Columbus that it it bends towards our favor. Yes. And concerning the property tax issue also that legislators are still wanting to put more onus onto our people. And so yeah,

026as you look back historically, if you go back to 10 years ago, our state revenue versus local revenue was about that 50/50 split and it's it's started to shift and it looks like it's going to continue to shift but right now it's about 60% local and 40% state. So it's it's taking that shift in the wrong direction as far as I'm concerned. I think a 50/50 splits fairly I'd like to make some comments on it too. I want to go ahead and talk about the cash balance. Um he he said we are fiscally um doing well right now but that is not because we're hoarding money which some legislators will tell you we're doing. It is what when you when you put a levy on as a responsible board you know how far it needs

027to go out. So let's say it goes out five years or 10 years you the the money starts coming in the first year but then by the 10th year you're relying on that cash balance to pay and keep the school going so that we don't have to keep going back to levy every two or three years. some legislator believes that we should not have any more than three months of cash in our B in our checking account. Um, and that does not work. Um, as we see down in Cincinnati, a school closed three weeks, six weeks before graduation because they can no longer keep their doors open. So, um, it doesn't make sense, but sometimes what our legislators don't do don't make sense. But I want to make sure our community knows that just because

028we have cash, it's not because we're hoarding it. It's because we are being fiscally prudent with your money to spend the levy money that you that you voted on as well and as long as we can. And one other point regarding that is we've got some beautiful buildings sitting right back behind us and we're still paying a mortgage on those buildings and uh we are needing to hold monies to be able to continue to pay that off. So, so those are how you encumbrance the uh dollars that we have. I mean, let's look at the whole picture. I strange thought. Anyone else? Any other any other discussion? Roll call, please. Mrs. Green. Yes. Mr. Good. Yes. Mr. Fischer? Yes. Mr. Overton? Yes. Mr. Burger? Yes. Item number nine. Is there a motion to approve and

029authorizing the Ohio Mid Eastern Regional Educational Service Agency acting jointly as a member of Am I right? I think it's is it nine now supposed to be the the turf? No, that was 10. I'm sorry. No, it's going to go down. Okay. Sorry. Acting jointly as a member of the Ohio school uh consortum consortium consortium, excuse me, to issue a request for proposal for the purchase of competitive retail electric service from the lowest and bid best bidder submitted to the consortium uh authorized by the board to purchase competitive real oh my gosh I can't even read today retail retail electric service from such bidder I will say this is the first time we've had so many people in in our board meeting. We usually read really well. Is there a motion? I would move. Is

030there a second? I'll second. Any discussion? Just making it better for our electric. Well, yeah. I mean, you can explain it, but I'll I'll put it in. I went to Mr. Phillips and talked with him because uh many of you know that in your own uh electric bill uh you can if you got a like I do uh you don't have to necessarily use a for all of the the the services and so there are other energy suppliers you can purchase that portion off of ADP. So what this is doing is we are going into the consortium up in the uh start statewide. This is the state separate consortium to pull together which there's a couple hundred school districts. So this should allow us to get the very best rate for electric and we use

031a lot of electric. Okay. Call the roll please. Oh I'm sorry. Are we done Mr. Good. I'm done. Call the RO, please. Mr. Good. Yes. Mr. Fisher, yes. Mrs. Green, yes. Mr. Overton, yes. Mr. Ber, yes. Added agendum item number 10. Is there a motion to approve using my Bay? My Bay for a turf project consisting of 2,185,92 2 million. 2 million. I'll make a motion. Let's get the number right. $2,185,092. Ben makes the motion. Mr. Riverton. Any second? I'll second. Mr. Fisher. Second. Discussion. I guess I'll start. Um I think if you know who I am, you know that I've attended many sporting events. I support the sports wholeheartedly. I I value our um community. Um but I think at this time um it would be unwise to spend this amount of money even

032though we know um by the pricing it continues to go up but at this time I feel like I I cannot um spend that much money on this issue. So any other discussion? U my discussion is that I feel that our sports teams, the athletics, the the band, anybody who uses the fields uh deserve the same amount of goodness as the rest of the buildings that are around here. We do as a a school district are fiscally conservative and we do have a carryover. Uh so now in in my opinion is the time that we spend the money uh on doing these fields and I think it's an all or nothing thing. I think if we're going to do the football field, we're going to do all of them. We're going to do the softball

033field. We're going to do all of them. We're not going to peacemeal those things. My comment is um this was our phase three I believe four four doesn't matter. Um we did advertise it that this would be based on having the funds available. Um my concern is if we move ahead, which uh and I agree, I think if we're going to do it, we need to do the whole ball of wax to get it done. But um it it may come back to bite us later on. And uh um at that time we just need the community to be able to support that because we've asked the community to do what they could to help support uh the turf and u so it's a pretty good size expenditure but um we may have to come

034back to the community at a later point in time given the volume. Miss Hannah. Sure, why not? I uh I know we have all looked at all these numbers. We've reviewed it. Um to be fiscally responsible, it is a very big decision. Um I personally look at it as just as um Dr. Bransky said earlier, we do have a community that gets behind things we need and will support us. So, I'm really strongly believing that when that time comes, if we need that extra money that we will be able to get it from our community and because I I feel that we need to support our students in the athletic and uh creative arts and so that's that's where I stand on it. I'll finalize before we close this for for a vote. And just

035I want to add myself that um I agree we are very fiscally we we have been very careful. I've been on the board for a while and we do watch our dollars. We have a great treasurer that helps us and we have money. But I will say that I also agree that we need we need to do our facility, our athletic fields, um, and and possibly go this route because it's not going to get any cheaper. Um, with that said, I am going to publicly tell our community though, we need to all come together to help with this project because um, it is a big decision that we're making tonight. And um, we had a lot of support for our pack, but now it's time for our a for our athletics and our band and

036to make everything look great when you cross over. As somebody said, cross over the railroad tracks. We want Tusky Valley to be number one highass school. So, um, my thing is if this passes tonight, I'm just reaching out because anybody, we need everybody's help, whether you're in the arts or in the athletic side, and um, just prayerfully be with us as we gather these funds because we will need help and we will be looking for continued support. So, I just want to close with that and we will call the role. Mr. Yes. Mr. Fischer, yes. Mr. Good. Yes. Mrs. Green. No. M. Yes. I would like to make a comment, Amy. At this point, I I just want you to know that even though sometimes we disagree that when we vote, we vote and then

037the answer is united. So, at this point, we are united as a board to do this and go forward. Thank you. Moving on to item number 11. Is there a motion to approve operations agreement with the Tuscross County Commissioners through the Tuscross County Metropolitan Sewer District and under the direction of the Tuscross County Sanitary Engineer for the operation of the school's wastewater treatment plant at a cost of $8,400 per year? I'll make a motion. Second. Second. Any discussion on that or yes? Yeah, this is a renewal of a contract that we already have in place. So, the Tuscross County takes care of the wastewater treatment plant back here. We have a good relationship with them. Uh they're in uh constant communication um with Mr. Penel. Um and so this was it was just time to

038upgrade or update our agreement and have the board reapprove that and then the county commissioners reapprove it. And I apologize, I wasn't able to look and find out. Is it the same? Have we gone up? Do we know? I don't know what the previous increase. It did increase. by much? Not by much. Okay, thank you. Good. Please call the role. Mr. Yes. Mr. Fischer. Yes. Mr. Good. Yes. Mr. Green. Yes. Mr. Yes. Item number 12. Is there a motion to approve an agreement with Jefferson County Educational Service Center for 2025 2026 school year? I make a motion. Second. Second. Any discussion? I think we're good. Yeah. this and this is just if we have to put a student on an alternative platform, we don't have the ability to put a student online and be able

039to have them at home, but sometimes due to court placements or things outside of our control, we have to make that happen. So, this is just a contract. If we need that service, it's available for next year. Please call the RO. Mr. Green, yes. Mr. Yes. Mr. Fisher, yes. Mr. Yes. Yes. Item number 13. Is there a motion to approve the following resolution for year 2026? Whereas the Tuscross Valley Board of Education wishes to advertise and receive bids for the purchase of one or more school buses. So move. Second. Second. Discussion. Do you want to say anything? Uh this is just so if if we need to bid on a bus. We don't have any intentions of buying a bus at the moment, but we have to do the resolution so that we are able

040to if we need to. If we would, it would be part of the capital improvement planning, which there's already funds allocated for that. Um we were able to buy two buses last year, um which helped offset it. We're not expecting to, but we have the language if we would need to. Please call the role. Mr. Yes. Mr. Fisher. Yes. MG. Yes. Mr. Yes. Mr. Yes. Item number 14. Is there a motion to approve an agreement be to engage Bricker Gradon to provide rebate compensation serving services for the Tuscross Valley Local School District um at approximate cost of $10,000? Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Second and discussion. Somebody want to explain that. So this is sort of the cost of doing business. When you issue tax exempt debt, you have to report back to

041the IRS that the interest that you earned on investing those proceeds did not make more money than the interest being paid by individuals who hold the debt at a fiveyear mark. So, this is contracting with a a tax attorney to run those calculations and fill out the reports and submit everything to the IRS to keep us from getting penalized for not providing the information required. And of course, this is related to the money we borrowed to build our portion of the schools. Okay. Call the RO, please. Mr. Yes. Mr. Yes. Mr. Fisher. Yes. Mr. Green. Yes. Mer. Yes. And item number 15, what we've all been waiting for, Dr. Vancy's report. Awesome. Well, thank you, Mrs. Burrier. Before we have you move seats, on your table, you should have a folder that has your name

042on it. And inside of here is uh there's a few things. One is the four research papers for each of the four groups. And so, as they share their presentation, it's a summary of uh their an entire year of research. Um on top of that though is impact report from the effective leadership academy. Uh so last summer, uh Mr. Gooding, Mrs. Burrier, uh, Mrs. Green and I were at an event with the Ohio School Boards Association, and we had a group, there was a group of students that presented about a research symposium that they did. Um, and we found out that we had the opportunity to take part in that, but it was only limited to a few kids and we would have to transport back and forth to Ohio State monthly. Um, and so

043we we instantly knew transportation would be a barrier. And as we were having lunch, we we just kept thinking, we can do this. We can do this ourselves. Um, and so I came back and uh I called Dr. Bear, Dr. Courtney Bear is our school psychologist, if you want to wave. Um, and I said, "Would you be interested in teaching a class with me?" And she said, "Yes." Um, and so I'm thankful for that. Uh, and so what we designed was a class that first of all, it it just taught good leadership skills. Um, so we have student leaders and they're all in the back. Um, and we've gotten to know them all year. They have bright futures, big plans for their lives. Um, and I can't wait to see what happens. Um, so we

044started with leadership and leadership traits and how to be good leaders. and I learned a lot just listening to them and they're incredible individuals. Um, the second part of that was identifying something in the schools. It's easy for us to sit here and think about what is wrong or what we need to fix or what we think could be better. Um, but if we really want to know how we improve our schools, those are the folks that we should be asking. Um, and so they spent a lot of time thinking about different problems and things that what we could we change, what can't we change? Um, and it was completely self-directed. Um, and they designed each of them. They formed their own groups. They weren't told what group they had to be in, but they

045got to choose a topic that was of interest to them. And then all Dr. Bear and I did is really walk them through the research process of what should this look like? How do you collect data? How do you write it up? How do you make sure that you're not being biased? Um, and so it's been fun just to spend one day per month with them. Uh, honestly, it's been the highlights of my month just to sit there, listen to conversations, um, laugh. Uh, and so I really appreciate them and I'm excited for you to hear what they have to say tonight. Uh so like I said the impact report inside this you'll hear what uh what the students had to say about this. So you'll see their actual feedback. You'll see graphs and charts

046of how their thoughts changed from the very first section in October to the one in April. Uh and so I was so impressed. I just have to interrupt you on this because uh especially your program concepts from pre and the post and the one that didn't increase the most was empathy. And I really feel because our students have been so empathetic with one another with issues that have happened over the last couple years. And uh and then I was just blown away with um on number two with the student feedback after reflecting on this program. What behavior changes will you make? And when I went down through there, I said, "These people are going to go places." I just I was very impressed. Yeah. Yeah. You should be. So, what what's going to happen in

047a moment is I'm going to ask the board members to change seats. One group at a time is going to come down and really what they're doing is they're sharing their problem, what they found, and their recommendations. And I told them it's up to us as the board or you as the board and us as the as leaders. And and so Mr. Phillips and Mr. Fogle, since it was middle high school based uh as the administrators in charge of that building, it's up to us to listen uh and take what they say and then and then chew on that. Think about what can we do. Um and so I just hope you sit back and enjoy it. So, I'll have you move to the reserve seats and we're going to No, they're going to stand

048right in front of the table. Yep. You can leave everything there. And we're going to start with our first group that's going to talk about brain breaks. Are you guys good with this? All you have to do is hit return. Should we smile? Go ahead. Okay. Hi, I'm Sammy Ward and I'd like to present to you our research project and this is implementing a Trojan Timeout and how mental health breaks benefit student performance. I'm Maggie Hamilton. I'm Trista Liser. I'm Addie Carol. And you might be asking what is the problem that we were researching? And our problem is high school students lack true downtime throughout the day. And a lack of this downtime has resulted in a burnout and lack of motivation. So to begin, we first had to create some questions to base our

049research off of. So we first asked, are TV students more stressed than neighboring school students? How do students cope with stress? And what factors contribute to their stress? So we came up with the hypothesis of if students participate in brain breaks, then their overall academic performance and mental health will improve. To begin our research, we decided to interview students at other high schools. Now, you may ask, how did we go about choosing these high schools? To start, we chose Indian Valley because they are similar in size and they actually have an implemented break in the end of their schedule titled BBB. This is where they can socialize with other students and their peers and even go to some teachers for homework help if they need. We chose Canton South because they're a little bigger than

050us. They're different in size, but they have a very similar schedule. And lastly, we chose fairless because again they are similar in size and they actually have an implemented no homework rule except for math. To represent our data, we drew a graph. The yellow represents the average stress levels and the pink represents the average burnout levels. When interviewing the other high school students, we asked them on a scale of 1 to 10, how stressed and burnout are you? when due to academics. As you can see in our graph, Tusky Valley has the highest average numbers for stress levels and burnout levels. So, this is our recommended schedule. Um, it is the Bell3 schedule that you guys probably already know. Um, but yeah, we wanted about half an hour at the end of the day to

051implement the brain break. We understand that since it will be there will be less instruction time during the day that you will probably have to elongate the school year. Um, so we understand that, but we think it's worth it. And so to start with the benefits of these breaks. So of course we want no phones and no homework. And this is because we want to encourage socialization uh during this time. And you know if you have phones because you know kids are just going to be on their phones anyways because kids. Um this also serves as an easier transition between work and school. You know most kids um especially Tusky Valley, you know, we're known for rigorous academic schedule and rigorous athletics. So, a lot of kids will have um sports after school or they'll

052have work. So, that's you know that turns from an eight hour day into like a 12 hour 13 hour day. And it's really good to have that um transition time. So, you know, it's easier to get through the day. Um and yeah, just a time for legation and leisure. Uh and we have some recommended activities there. Puzzling, coloring, can have sports in the gym and uh yeah. So, we noticed there was a limitation while we were doing our research and this was a lack of department collaboration. Um, so I interviewed two teachers, Mrs. Lindon and Mrs. Hecker. Mrs. London, you guys probably know her. Um, she's been here for like 36 years, but yeah, she she was at the NHS ceremony if you guys went to that. Yeah, she said in her 36 years of

053teaching that there was never a time for collaboration. Mrs. Heckard said something similar. She's been teaching here two years English also. Um yeah, we think that we can use these brain breaks to have these departments like English, science, math come together and form a more cohesive learning curriculum. And this will make it easier for students transferring grades. It'll make it easier if they have like a similar um more synchronized uh program. So yeah, and it'll help reduce stress for the students. And finally, we'd like to extend our heartfelt thanks to cans South, Indian Valley, and Fairless for their collaboration. And also Dr. Barensky, Rachel Depri, Miss Lyndon, Miss Heckert, Dr. Courtney Bear, and Miss Marina Columbbo, and Mr. Scott Pennel for their guidance and expertise. Without them, we would not be able to have our

054research project. And here are our references. Um, any questions? I'm gonna ask a question. So, I I never heard you say what your definition of stress. Is it just what they feel or what what do you what did you determine was the definition of stress in your study? That is a good question. Um, definition of stress, I would say it's just more like a feeling like I mean you have a bodily reaction towards stress. It affects your day. I can't I can't really think of Can you guys think of a definition? Um, well, we didn't really find a definition for stress when we were going about asking the students how they felt during their day and we kind of gave them examples of how we feel. For example, for me, I go from work to

055school and when I had cheer, um, I would have three hours of cheer practice and then have homework at the end of the day. And I kind of just explained to those students that like I was feeling very like tired when I would get up for work and I wasn't and my homework grades were becoming like they were decreasing at times. And I feel that like all um like everything these students are in like impacts their academics. And at Tusky Valley that's something we really preach is we want our kids to have the best academics, the best um athletics and all of that. So again, like while we couldn't find an exact stress definition, um that's kind of how we went about things. I think we all can agree on that when we were talking

056one-on-one with these other students. Um and it also was just to like add, it was also really interesting when we were talking to these other students to see that there's other kids that are also um in so many different extracurriculars just like us. and how we kind of like we kind of talked about that a bit and stuff. At least the kids I interviewed and how like we kind of gave each other ideas to go about that and like you know when you're feeling really burned out maybe just go talk to a friend for a bit or a peer that's feeling the same way if that kind of makes sense. Yeah, because we were talking about coping mechanisms a bit a lot of them are like listen to music and sleep and all that stuff.

057So, so you had one more question. Um, how much participate how much what was the percentage of participation in your survey? Was it the same? Did everyone participate 100% in all the schools or was low percentage or it was different for each school. So, for example, when we went to Canton South, um another group member that she couldn't be here tonight, her aunt works there. So, her aunt was pulling students like um around the school that were in study halls or lunch. And so I think the number was pretty similar. That should be in your um Okay. I was gonna say it should be in our packet. Um I can't think of that off the top of my head, but I just didn't see it on the screen. No, you're okay. Um but yeah, next

058question. Question. Now, you gave us the chart. The chart's not in here, but it showed that Husky Valley, you were off the charts with the burnout. So, we've talked about or it was mentioned how the expectations at Tusky Valley are high. Are those expectations being put on the students by the students themselves? Is it coming from the teachers? Is it coming from your family and parents? Where's the that expectation that everybody was saying you were saying there? the expectation that is causing some of this stress and burnout. That's a really good question. Yeah, I think that our academic stress is more culturally associated like amongst the community. Is that what you're trying to say? Well, I'm just asking. No, I I'm asking what like what our viewpoint like how we feel about where's the stress

059coming from? I think Yeah. The actual on that one. Yes, definitely. No, I think I think we should definitely look into that honestly because you're right. I mean, we didn't get an exact expectation from somewhere. Um, I know for a lot of us, it's all different, you know. Um, your coaches say, "Why aren't you performing as well as you were last week?" "Well, I have school work." Your teachers say, "Why aren't you performing again as well as you did last week?" "Well, I was just at practice for four hours." So, I kind of think it's bouncing off of everyone's like asking where why are you so stressed? And it's all different for each student. But I think that would be interesting to like truly look at. Yeah. Great job. I I have a question. So

060I know when I was in school, I hated homework. I I because I like you like your time after school. You have your extracurricular things you're involved in. I noticed none of you proposed that as an option. It was even though you had an example of someone that a school that wasn't offering a homework in the evenings, you chose to do a uh respit time through the day. What was Did anybody think about that? Was that something that crossed your mind? Was there a reason you didn't look that direction versus having the time out during school? I mean, I wouldn't say there wasn't a reason we looked into that. Um I think we were kind of just all like when we came together at the beginning we decided this was what we were really passionate

061about and again with those other schools is um we were all hearing about these from their students for example our friends and our peers um like my friend told me about Indian valleys and they were like it's so nice like we have our school work in the day and then I have this 30 minute break and then I go off to practice. Um, but I think that is an a good example that again we could do further research into that definitely um and talk to their administration and I was just going to say how many what year school are you? Seniors senior junior junior senior and then hie was is a junior. Okay. Because I see you discussed year round school and that's some like you wrote about having year round school. Is that something

062that as students you would you can just say yes or no? We don't need to go into discussion, but I'm just curious. Is that something that you'd be like interested in or not interested in? Not interested. Wait a minute. What are the breaks? Well, in your report here it says nine months you have inter like short breaks like so it'd be like what four months and then like two weeks and then I think that was when we were looking into the different countries. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I was going to say Spain does that. Um, we looked while we were while we were doing this project, we looked into other countries and how their schooling works. So, I think that is something off of that at the beginning. I'm just kind of curious because that

063is something that people are starting to talk about, right? You know, I mean, I think that would definitely be an interesting route. I don't know how I can take part in that graduation that I was just kind of curious other countries. I could speak on the behalf of Brazil because we had a Brazilian exchange student when he came here. He didn't they never did homework there. I said, "Well, this is tough to develop." Well, I know the schools in Finland, which they have like, you know, the allegedly the happiest population, you know, they don't have any homework in their schools and they're they're like from 9 to two is their schedule. I don't know if that's feasible, but where's their academic? Yeah. Achievement. You know, the article I read didn't say that. There's a reason

064they left that out, but they're happy. Exactly. Well, thank you guys very much. Thank you. We had one more question. Sorry, I didn't want to. Did you have a question? Oh, someone else has a question. Oh, yeah. I had a question. You talked about more collaboration between departments. Yeah. And I was really interested um I guess more about what like if you did have this time allocated, like what would you be looking for? Like you said, a more cohesive curriculum. Like what does that look like to you guys? Yeah. So I don't know about uh science and math but I know in English it's very all over the place because some some teachers are using meal and some are using raceer which those are like acronyms to help students uh write papers and you know

065if every year a student's learning a new uh strategy to write a paper then you know it's it's just extra work and for what you know you're just going to write a paper it's the same paper. So that's what I can say about the English department. I can't really say much about math or science maybe the way you solve a problem with math teachers but something like that. Yeah, great job. [Applause] All right, group two. You should just have to in touch with that as you go to your next. Good evening, board of directors. My name is Riley and these are my partners. This is Ally and that's T and we're all sophomores. Um, we are going to show you a presentation about why we want to include more extracurricular programs for the middle high

066school because we feel like maybe we don't have as many as some other schools do. as many opportunities. So, um, basically we're going to tell you how we did our research and what we found out by doing this research. Yeah. Um our after school programs um greatly help students with their social skills and their like mental health as well as through these things it'll help uh increase their um academic performances. So that's why we think it's more important to have those so that we have those academic performances being boosted through these positive [Music] mindsets. Students grades 7 through 12 don't have the access or um knowledge about extracurriculars to really like look into starting them or how to join them or where to go to find those things. So this is causing a lot of

067students to not get as many interactions outside of school because they go to school and they go through their school day and then they just go home because they don't have anything else to do. So having more this gives them a more negative connection with the school building because they feel more isolated without like those friends to see outside of school. You're always in that school setting. Okay. research and background. So, what we did is we made Google forms and we sent that out to our grades 7 through 12 in our Tusky Valley middle high school building. We also made a separate form that we sent out to teachers to, you know, try and see what they thought about it, see what like if they wanted to do extracurriculars, more of those. Um, we also

068asked Mr. Phillips if you're allowed to, and he said yeah. Um, research questions. So we had four main questions on what we like wanted to generally base what we asked the students on. Um our first one was what percent of students were currently in it. We wanted to see if that would affect our next question which is do extracurriculars make students feel different? If you're in extracurriculars do does that make you less likely to join another one due to the fact like um that you you're just busy. Like if you're in band that's a lot of time taken out of your schedule. can be a bit difficult to want to be in more extracurriculars if you're in that. Um, another question we had was why can not one not participate? Is like transportation an issue?

069Because that was one that we all knew that was an issue for us when we were growing up. And then we had what barriers are keeping them. Is that like family issues? Is that like mental health problems that make it a little harder for them to get over and do that? Um and research and finding we when we sent out the form we found out that 75.4% 4% are currently enrolled in extracurricular 38.5 want to want to participate participate in ones and the student report that most of them find themsel anxious or exciting when they enroll in in extracurricular and for the person that cannot or don't want to uh enroll in extracurricular the um the for the practical reason 34% say that uh transportation and 36% say that they have job to do outside

070of the school. So they cannot participate in extracurricular because they don't have time for it. And the personal reason that they say with us about why they don't join an extracurricular u 40 40 42.2% say they have mental issue probably anxiety. So that it blocking them from joining an extracurricular and 21.2% say that they have family issue that they need to care before they care about the extracurricular. Okay. So with our teachers um as I mentioned earlier that we did send out a form to all of them. So one out of the 15 teachers that we had respond all but one said yes or maybe about volunteering. We have a pretty good that's not all the teachers. Um, you know, we have 115, but out of the ones we did have, a lot of them

071were like talking about how they didn't feel like not wanting to do it. Their only issue that many of them said was that they were unsure if they would have conflicts with their schedule because teachers are busy. They go home, they have their families. It's understandable. It's just that students need a teacher to, you know, monitor them while they're at the school building. So all the teachers said that extracurriculars were beneficial and they like were wishing that there were more opportunities. One in particular said, "I hope that middle high school has the opportunity to revamp their after school program sometime in the future." Um so we really appreciate that contact. And then um the only concern that was really expressed was that students would get overwhelmed by the options that they had or because like

072you have the option with all these clubs that clubs would be smaller because you would be more likely to join one over the other and it could make some clubs shrivel up. So one of the teachers say having diverse options for extracurriculars is very important but having too many options can do more harm than good which I think was a really good quote from them and I really appreciate that. Our recommendations in moving forward with this issue, we believe educating students on how to better start their own clubs would be a better way forward because I know I don't know how to start a club. The crochet club was newly added this year. I'm in that club. I love that club. I asked the girl who was interested in starting it how she started it.

073And it was really a by luck. She was talking about it in biology. Miss Schwarz, the biology teacher, heard her talking about it and she said, "I'd run that club." And then they talked to Mr. Phillips about it and that's how that happened. I don't know the context of what went down, but there's only so much we know about like how to go forward with starting a club and most students don't know how to do that. A lot of students are conflicted because the club they want to be in isn't available. So why would they join anything else if it's not what they want? Another way we thought that this could we could go forward with this is transportation. We understand that for the elementary school students a school bus comes around after this after

074school programs and takes a lot of them home. We were thinking that we could include that the high schoolers in that kind of like circle with the transportation where school buses would get the elementary schoolers and the high schoolers and take them all home at the same time almost like a second end of the school day. Our final thought was for those smaller groups that Ally mentioned whenever a club is like it's not huge, it's five to seven people maybe, but they still it's something they want to do and it's something they enjoy. We thought a good way to have more inclusion in that would be using one of the larger rooms like the gym or the cafeteria holding multiple small clubs at a time with one teacher watching over them. So they don't have

075all these teachers that have to look after a single club that's tiny. So they can watch and monitor every student in every club at one time while they're still doing their own respective individual things. And lastly, last but not least, we thank you. We want I um Oh, R want to thank the teacher and that created the this bay for us and Dr. Vansky, Dr. Bayer, Mr. Mrs. Mrs. Rachel uh our family and friends and the other team the other group that happened to have the same class with us and the board of education to listen to us today. The um all of you guys create like a space for us to express ourself and to become a better leader in this class. Thank you. There any questions? So I believe the um uh one

076slide up there indicated that 75% of the students that you uh surveyed were already in extracurriculars but I believe you said that was related to sports heavily sports related. So, so in other words, you would like to see other things, the crochet club, other extracurriculars besides sports. That would be uh if I had the option, one extracurricular that I would love to join in this school is an arts club. That is something we don't have. I'm I love art. I don't have the time in my schedule to join art class. I don't have the time to do art outside of school. Having an art club would be a good way to add that to my schedule in a healthy way instead of trying to make time for it at home when I have all these

077other things I'm already doing. So, personally, like I would love to join an art club, but we don't have one. So, you've asked a teacher how it came about or you already asked how the crochet came about. So, work on organizing yourself. So, you can do it. I know you can do it. One thing I'd like to add on to that is while yes that is something but that means that you'd be having to go to every single small club that was created by themselves and be like hey how'd you do this? We think it'd be really beneficial if there was like a paper or a form that students can fill out um so that they can implement their ideas so that we're not bothering the principal too much because he's got a lot of

078work. Um he's got a lot he's got to do. So, we thought this would be really nice. So, students like also if the students are a little more anxious about this, that way they can give out their ideas without having to go through the hassle of like the anxious talk with the principal. Hey, um I just wanted to I know I'm scared of the principal. Yeah, like it's it can be it can be scary to go in there and having to talk. We also thought that it would be nice if we had like a list of all the different clubs because I when we were doing these forms, a lot of kids wanted a chess club and I found that in like three different students. So even if that's still three, they don't know each

079other, which means if this club was created, it would be like there could be multiple different clubs doing the same thing. We would really appreciate having a list of all the ones we have. So then like kids can go down and be like, "Wow, I really like this. Who can I contact?" And stuff like that. That's a great idea. If you dubtail with great breaks on that time frame and do checks, it could really work out like that way. Um we did implement that and we could add maybe like extracurriculars to that as well. So just to clarify you really are the middle school because elementary has after school program is in a lot of extracurriculars. Yeah. So really it's the what grade would you say is really are you talking about five through eight

080or you just talking seventh and eighth? I would say 7th through 12th because yes high schoolers have it but most of the things high schoolers have are mostly sports related. like we have drama, we have bands, and then we have a wide variety of sports. I've heard of a few other clubs like um her crochet club. I wouldn't have known about it had I not came across somebody that knows about it. So, it's just there are high schoolers that aren't in those clubs that would prefer to be in different ones, but they don't have that option because it's not made available. And I do know when I was in the middle school myself um experiencing those after school programs, there are a lot of things I spent a few years doing those things that I

081really enjoy to get to high school and I can't do those things anymore. I did a digital art class. I did scrapbooking. A lot of kids did archery and all these other things that they could do and once they get to the high school they can't do those things anymore. So they practice all this time to get good at what the they're trying out for it to stop and they can't do it anymore. Um I also have to add so I'm only come to this school about the end of sixth grade and I joined the digital art. I really happy to join it because I really like I really like to draw and especially digital. But then when I go to second grade, it just stopped and I feel kind of upset about it because

082I really like that class and I actually want to join other class too but because I already passed the sixth grade. I cannot join it anymore and I really want to join it but I cannot. What are your grades? We are all sophomores. Okay. So real quick, may in your asking of the students their their opinions and everything and this may be in the research and I missed it, but of those that are in sports, how many of what was the percentage of those that would like to see other things? Do do you have that percentage of like the ones that are already involved with something, do they want more as well or are they busy enough with their stuff? Is it more looking towards the people that aren't involved with something now? Um, so

083I do remember going over this. So, the ones that are currently in things do not seem to want anymore because they're already busy with that. But what I'm thinking is we have a lot of students that still didn't respond to this. And our target audience, let's be honest, are probably the kids that don't check their emails. So, it's kind of hard to check like if this is what every student would want because there's not a widespread thing. And some students, I know some I used to be one of them that just don't check my email unless the teacher tells me to. So it that is one of our issues. But the ones that did check it, we saw their own things and they didn't want anymore. They were pretty content with what they had. And

084for the survey, well, there were a lot of still in the building, but we don't we only get about less than 200 people that answer the survey. will because that's like 150 150 about that because not a lot of people check the email especially if they don't have like any tech class that require them to check an email or anyone to remind them that you should check your email for something. So we don't really the the number that we uh we have it not exactly reliable because we don't have a big amount of people say that we only had a small amount so it still might be biased uh information. It could be an excuse but that's just what we saw based on our charts. Typical surveys don't have Yeah. I was going to say

085it's not usually very high percentage so it might be pretty good. Correct. And I'm assuming you went this after school. Yes, that's the name. But if you guys do end up doing their idea where you have the period, that could also be a point in time where we at this. But that's a guess and jumping off their idea. I don't want to mess with them too much. That's a you choice. So when you were uh doing your research, did you talk to Mr. Penn since you talked about transportation needs? Um we did not, but we were talking to Dr. Granty and he did mention that on the buses that took the elementary kids home that there was space left and so we were thinking um for the high schoolers that don't have their license there

086would be enough space for them to get to those stops that they drop the little kids off on. Throw that space. If it's there, use it. That's right. Save gas money. Well, you know that by presenting today, you've got important people sitting here listening to what you're having to say. So, that's great information. And I I'm just gonna I do not play chess, but I know chess club can be a big deal. Yeah, people are people are angry about it. They want it. They want it, but they don't know how to get it. Anyone out there that plays chess, any teachers that play chess, our parents, thank you myself. All right, group number three. All right. Hello everyone. My name's Abby. My name is Kaylee. My name's Evan. My name is Jonah. And today we

087will be presenting our research from our leadership synopsis. So our overall question is, are students in 9th grade through 12th grade attending Tusky Valley Middle School prepared for life after school? But why is this question important? The period after high school is generally important for the independent life development of students. This time of development can be troubled by being unprepared. According to the nationalmies, young adults ages 18 through 26 are in a critical period of development where successes or failures could strongly affect the trajectories of their lives. If students leave high school with doubts about what the next step is for their future, this will create a struggle to start their independent lives. This is why it is vital for students to leave the high school campus with all the tools and resources they need

088to succeed. Our study aims to understand if Tusky Valley students feel unprepared for their life after high school and if so why they feel this way and how we can fix it. So our research questions are do students have a plan for their future? Are students gaining enough knowledge to feel prepared for their future? Are the things that students learn in school relevant to their future success? And what areas are students prepared for after high school? So, the conditions of our data include a survey via Google form and the results are from students grades 9 through 12 attending Tusky Valley and teachers who teach classes with students grades 9 through 12. Our survey includes questions based on our major research questions and these results were analyzed and organized. All of our data is recorded anonymously.

089Okay. So after reviewing our data that we received from the students anonymously, here are here are our results from our student survey. The first question we asked the students was, "How stressed are you about your future after high school on a scale from 1 to 10?" This graph displays a result. Notice how the majority of students find themselves of a rating from 5 to 8. Notice how this is in the higher range of the scale. The next question we asked was, "What classes or topics, if any, would you wish to take to be more prepared for adulthood?" Based on this data, we found that 84% of students would like a more in-depth personal finance class, home economics, or specific classes such as computer science or mechanics. Then we asked, are you doing things such as

090taking classes or doing extracurriculars aimed towards preparing you for life after high school? We found that more than half of the students answered that everything they do is for their future. Next, we asked, "How often do you think about your future?" And about half of the students said that they think about their future often. Then, we asked, "Do you feel prepared for your future?" Whether it be college, straight into the workforce, or something else. About 66% of our data said that they did not feel prepared for their future. Finally, we asked if there was anything they would like to elaborate on. This these are some quotes from a student at Tusky from students at Tusky Valley. At where I am at right now, almost about to graduate, I wish someone or even myself would have

091talked more on college and how to prepare and get myself established in the system because I've been on and off about college all because I don't know what to do. Another participant answered, "I'm lucky to have parents that have taught me home and life skills, but I know there are plenty of students who don't have that at home. So I think it's ridiculous that we ever got rid of homec class and a mechanics class would be hugely beneficial as well. These quotes represent a large portion of students enrolled at Tusky Valley High School are presently feeling and experiencing in regards to their future. Moving on to the teacher survey. Our first question was within this school year please check any signs of stress that you have observed in students when they are faced with tough

092decisions regarding their future. The number one answer among the staff was anxiety is the biggest factor to these students and the second most is irritability which is likely due to this anxiety. The ne the cause of this a quote from the teacher for the seniors it's the unknown and the amount of paperwork or things they have to do to get everything they need for college for the underclassmen it's scheduling and not knowing what classes to take or taking classes they aren't ready for because CCP is better this further highlights the students need for advice on their classes and future. Next question. Do you feel that your students are prepared for the next step? whether this is the next class or life after graduation. Half of these teachers said that the results depended upon the students

093and although this is not a no, we should make sure that all stu all students and teachers are confident on their future. Are there any skills that you believe your students are lacking? Twothirds of teachers responded with yes. And a way to fix this is a quote try to connect to real life as much as possible in the bounds of our classroom. Getting all teachers on board to this should help students in areas they are lacking. Another question, do students have a plan for their future? Students likely have a plan but are unsure how to reach this and a lack of knowledge stands in their way? Are students gaining enough knowledge to feel prepared for their future? Teachers feel that some are unprepared and over half of the teachers believe that students lacked basic life

094skills. Are the things that students learn in school relevant to their future success? Students believe that the curriculum is lacking in basic life skills such as home economics and personal finance. What areas are students prepared for after high school? Students are academically prepared, but they lack basic life skills that are necessary for adulthood. Based on the based on our research, we have developed some solutions. First of all, classless clarity. The courses that are currently available for students to take need to be clear and give concise course course descriptions. There also needs to be a specific link that will lead students to this resource. This would help clear up the disconnect between students and faculty as many teachers believe that students aren't utilizing their resources while students believe that they don't have these resources to begin

095with. Now, here's here's a video showing how long it takes to get to the class list. While we're waiting, I would like [Laughter] to I would like to point out that this is if you know exactly where to go. Many students don't know where to go and spend possibly hours trying to search for where the class are where the classes are listed and oftent times they will likely give up. I propose that we have a separate link under the guidance department where the class list is clearly placed so that students know exactly where to go. Next we have offered classes. Classes that are not currently available for students to take should be taken out of the registration guide to avoid confusion. Though through this opportunities open up for classes such as home economics and financial

096studies. Students have expressed much interest in these classes and they teach skills that both students and teachers deem important. Next, we have nine period days, which has already been proposed by the brain break group. This would allow students become to become more well-rounded and possibly take more classes that would help them prepare for their life outside of school. We would implement this by following a similar schedule to the bell schedule 3 that we set for Fridays while also cutting down on the time we have in between classes and possibly lengthening lengthening the school days. Doing this will allow opportunities for classes such as home economics fi or financial studies to be added at the end of the day. And for students that don't take these classes, they can also get a break between their school

097day and their extracurriculars. Finally, we have after school programs and clubs. Extracurricular programs will help students gain gain college readiness skills while displaying credits appealing for college applications. Funding may present a problem, but studentr run fundraisers could help combat this problem. If a class can't be held during the day, it can be turned into an extracurricular, saving class time while also providing the class. The this building, the administrative building, can also be used because we have a lot of unused room here. So these classes can be held here if the other two schools are not an option. With this study, we have used the voices of the our teachers and students to answer valuable questions about our school's ability to prepare its students for life after high school. Using our solutions, we hope to improve

098the problems we have discussed today. We'd like to thank the students that answered our surveys, Dr. Veransky and Miss Bayer, and to you, the board, for listening to us. Thank you. Okay, I have a question. um you indicated that you didn't know or a lot of the students don't understand what's going to happen in college. Well, we have graduates that come out of Tusky Valley that are in college. Have you thought about approaching some of them to come back just to talk with students in that what they to help relieve some of that stress of not knowing what's going on at college? I feel like that is a very good point and I feel as if we could use maybe a survey and get in contact with past graduates of Tusky Valley and see how

099their experience differs from ours and see how we can compare and improve on our experience. Can you guys say what grade you're in currently? Um me and Evan are juniors while Abby and Kaylee are sophomores. So you guys could work again next year? Yes. Any other questions? Well, no good. Do you have a comment? No, I need a picture. They started it before I could take the picture. I didn't want to interrupt. Okay. Yeah. Everyone together. Yes. Well, I think you've identified a very important point concerning financial planning because I think there's a lot of college students that get out from their parents and they get this credit card and they don't understand uh you got to pay it back. So I think uh it might be another option for you guys to consider that

100you might be able to get financial people to come in to talk and that would be another way to help uh provide some of that because that's a very important point. Another solution that we've also discussed with Mr. Lyndon um is career fairs. We I don't know if we've had career fairs before, but I know during my high school experience, we haven't had them at all. And having adults come in and discuss their careers can help a lot of students who don't know the routes. Um I do know we have uh the lunches at the high school, but those are first of all those are much more limited in scope as I believe once a month or once every few months they discuss one career option and those are only available to people who specifically

101and continuously check their emails for that opportunity. which so it sounds like emails it's a very big problem. Sorry, you're good. Um these career fairs are very limited in scope and a lot of the careers that students especially students who don't know if they're going to high school or I mean going to college or fully plan on not going to college while also not being pleased with what Buckeye has to offer. they may be interested in what these careers are and also a lot of high school students don't know what the full array of possible careers are and the path to get there. Um h I didn't catch this the statistics fast enough but my question is um I know a lot has been focused on college going to college going to college how many

102of the students did you speak with were career ready or military ready or entrepreneurship, some other paths that we do offer our students. Well, so we did a Google form, so we didn't actually talk to anyone and we don't actually know who responded. Um, there were about say 106 responses and we did get a lot that talked about um military or going into trade um responses like that. Um we so we did get a lot of those but they seem to know a little bit more on what to do because they were they know what they want. They know that they want to go into the military. They know they want to do the specific trade. Um but there were a lot which is what we focused on who didn't know what they wanted to

103do and didn't know their options and didn't know how to get to those options. So that's really what we focused on today because those who want those specific things, they know what they're doing. That's good. All right. And group four You should just have all these things you guys are doing. Alrighty. Hello everyone. First off, we wanted to thank Dr. Bayer and Dr. Baransky for giving us this opportunity to speak. We believe that like a mosaic, all parts of the puzzles are beautiful. And that leads us to our research project, Mosaic Connections. I'm Natalyia Wallik. I'm Khloe Stevenson. And I'm Cam McCoy. Now, over the course of the year, we have done a lot of research, especially on Tusky Valley itself. In the beginning of our research, we found a study conducted in 2019 through

1042021 that really supported what we believed is a problem. In the study, we found that Tuscarass Valley local schools has a 96.3% white majority of students. We believe that that is a problem in our Tes Valley local school district. We think diversity is too often overlooked and diversity education needs to be improved. Now, with those struggles, we do believe there are solutions to it. We think that if we were to highlight the lack of diversity education, we would in turn shine a light on the importance of inclusivity. When we do that, we can furthermore prepare students to respectfully engage with diverse cultural identities and perspectives in the real world. However, we wanted to see if the problem was outside of Tusky Valley. So, we had multiple sources ranging from primary and secondary sources. And our

105primary s sources were articles, data, and other research papers conducted by other schools with um similar with similarities to our schools like diversity and population. And then our secondary sources were anonymous surveys sent out to students to see how they felt on our teaching of diversity within our school system. And then um this is the data that we collected for this. And a few of the quotes that stood out to us are up there, but the main one that we really looked at was there's always room for improvement. And so this is our data. Uh the main point I would like to show you, I have two is in the top right there is gender identity. And we got around 60 responses to this survey. But out of the 60 responses, there's 10% that I

106don't identify as male or female. And that's a very big portion of 60%. And then also with our cultural perspective understanding which is bottom right, you can see that 55% say they have an okay understanding of cultural perspectives. Um this is obvious that this would be the case because our school is mostly white students. So when you're not exposed to these other cultures, of course you would be okay being around people that are like you. But in the real world, how are you going to act when there are different cultures and other people? Now, we feel that Tusky Valley has a great opportunity to provide inclusivity to our school district. One of the ways is through our leadership symposium. We were introduced to the effective leadership academy, which teaches empathy, embracing differences, and a strong

107sense of belonging and empowers children to lead change. Now within this we believe that this could be integrated into our Friday base camps. Sorry, sorry. We also believe that Tusky Valley has the opportunity to improve student connection which we believe diversity stems from. In doing so, we could on the Fridays that we do not have base camps, we could have studentled clubs that could help students um interact with ch with others that are not in their friend groups and to encourage inter diverse interests and activities. So from past to present um it is evident that diversity education in rural public school systems is often an afterthought or not thought about at all. We believe that more inclusivity in the academic system can lead to children having a sense of belonging and more confidence in their

108achievements. When one student feels valued, it creates a chain reaction. More students feel valued, more students feel included, and overall the school climate is improved. And Dr. Dr. Aaron Spence, the superintendent of London County Public Schools in Aspurn, Virginia, brings up a really great point. Diversity is a strength for us. Our goal in terms of equity is to make sure that every single child is successful, and that is inherently the goal of public education. Inclusion is the tool we use to accomplish that. And that brings us to the end of our presentation. But before we finish, I just want to say that Tusky Valley does have a chance to act now. If we were to include these things like effective leadership academy and more opportunities for school connection, Tusky Valley can not just be a

109good place but a great place. A place full of mosaic connections. Thank you. [Applause] And now for the questions. So the Mosaic Connections that that name is that something that's a name that's out there with other things or did you guys come up with that? We just came up with it ourselves. really cool name. Yeah. Anything else? Um, so you mentioned having the what is it the leadership uh yeah effective leadership academy right? Could you just talk a little bit more about Yes. So as mentioned earlier, effective leadership academy um over the course of our year we have this um lady very nice she comes in and talks to us about everything that just how we can become better people better learners better leaders and it goes over all of these different things that really

110taught us immersed us into knowledge about different people who have different social so socioeconomic backgrounds people of different ethnicities perspectives and how we can live our lives with an unbiased view of those people when we encounter those and we talked to those people and overall as you saw in our um report we all thought we gained so much from that and I think it would definitely benefit the rest of our students in Tusky Valley because empathy is such an important thing and empathy I believe goes handinhand with diversity education just to clarify then that group that you're talking about the ELA I think it was um did this group all you guys do that or this is something that just the three of you went to oh no our whole leadership symposium did it. Yes,

111the class. Okay, we started class. Anything else? Our brains are slower. Just so if you had you said that is one thing the ELA you'd like to see in the thing. Is there anything else that you'd want you know that you could an easy answer? Let's just put an easy answer. Um yes. Uh at the beginning of our project, I know we mentioned having almost a culture day where you could bring in people of different backgrounds. um different orientations, just all different perspectives, even socioeconomic perspect perspectives. And students could go around and meet these people and they could just get a basic understanding of what these different um what are they different people of different backgrounds? Yeah, different backgrounds. I think how much do you interact or how much uh because we have exchange students

112that come uh do they get does the whole um student population get to interact with them or to learn more about those cultures etc. or how have you thought about how you could utilize the fact that you've got students like that coming in? Is there anything you could do to help? I mean, from a perspective as a girl in Tusky Valley, most of our foreign exchange students are guys, and they tend to fall in more with like the athletes, the people who play football, the people who play soccer. I have a couple foreign exchange students in some of my classes, but I don't sit next to them. I don't really get to talk to them. We're not really partners. So, especially in this day and age, people just don't go up and talk to each

113other anymore, which I don't know why, but So, uh, you reach out to Ryan Dumpy. Is he still doing the uh uh uh he's heading up the exchanges? You say, "Ryan, give some girls to and I do think you bring up a good point. Um if you go across the state and you visit different schools, there's schools that have up to 40, 50 different cultures, different languages in their school districts, and they do a lot with that." Um, so I think that's a great idea to bring that some other maybe even some just on Tuscross County. There's some areas that we could bring in to help understand cultural day, food, culture. I think you you got a good start. Well, thank you guys. [Applause] So again, I just want to thank all of the students.

114Uh most of this work was done completely on their own outside of the school day. Um so they did earn one credit and a letter of recommendation to go along with it. Um so we we had no idea what we were going to how this was going to end. We had never tried something like this before. Uh but I'm grateful that you all signed up for the class and you're so um so so thank you for parents. Thank you for being here tonight. Um, I would much rather listen to student presentation at the board meetings than the board than us. And we love your voice because if we don't if you don't speak to us, we can't hear you. So, you gave us some great ideas tonight which we will probably talk in our work

115session. So, very cool. Anything that you wanted? Good. Awesome. All right. Thank you guys. And I will show you I'm an adult and as I have fumbled through things, you guys did an excellent job presenting. So, we all we all it's a good learning experience to talk in front of people. All right, let's finish up here with item number 15. I don't see any public participation with any outside agenda items. Our next regular board of education meeting will be held June 9th at 6:00 here in the community boardroom. Is there any other announcements that we're missing? Is there a motion to adjurnn? So move. Second. Second. Roll call, please. Mr. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you very much for coming.