001Good evening, West Clermont. Oh, good evening. Welcome to the April 6th, 2026 West Clermont School Board meeting. Mr. Romano, please take roll. Mr. Pat. Present. Mr. Chumley. Present. Mr. Rudy. Present. Miss Sanborn. Present. Mrs. Spencer. Present. All present. Thank you. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. 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. Next up is the motion to adopt the agenda. Would someone like to make a motion? So moved. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Chumley. Is there any discussion? Roll call, please. Mr. Rudy. Yes. Mr. Chumley. Yes. Miss Sanborn. Yes. Mrs. Spencer. Yes. Mr. Pat. Yes. Five yes. Next up is presented by Josh.
002Good evening. Uh I would like to first uh invite all of our West Clermont um marigold recipients to the front of the room at this time. >> [applause] >> Face the board. All right. According to the Cult of Pedagogy, Find Your Marigold. Marigolds are educators who uplift, support, and nurture others, especially new teachers as as they grow in their profession. Tonight, we recognize the staff members selected as marigolds by our first-year teachers who joined the West Clermont family this year. These individuals have made a meaningful impact by offering guidance, encouragement, and support when it matters most. We are proud to recognize the following recipients. Some of them are here tonight, some of them couldn't make it, but we want to make sure we recognize them all. Kelly Annan, Amanda Berri Berri Oyer, Gary Burched, Abby
003Abby Boyer, Amy Bouchard, Tamara Creech, Cindy Detrich, Cara Fitzpatrick, Kendra Hampton, Reba Hancock, Jessica Hollinger, Katherine Honeywell, Tonya Housewright, Megan Lewis, Lydia Randolph, Renee Rankin, Tina Reno, Samantha Skelton, Stephanie Stewart, Kelly Taylor, McKenna Varley, and Sarah Williams. Thank you for your dedication to our mission in investing in those around you. Because of you, West Clermont is a stronger place each and every day. >> [applause] >> I'll be all the way up here. Okay. Sorry. Thank you so much for Thank you. Thank Yeah, Kelly, you can stand Thank you. We will get you. Yeah, I'm I'm I'm good. Next up is presented by Mr. Jake. Oh, yep. The middle school Lighthouse? Yep. Yes. Uh I'm Rachel Deitch. I am one of the assistant principals here. We're going to let this group of students do a lot
004of the talking. Uh there's a presentation. Should they stand? It'll be easiest maybe for them to stand so you guys can see, too. Um Why don't you guys just stand right here for us? Yeah, right here. And then when it's your turn to talk, you guys can come on up. So, without further ado, this is our student Lighthouse team. You want to use the microphone? No. You can do All right. Hello. Okay, it's on. All right, sweet. All right, hello to every for everybody. My name is Levi Chapman, and we are here with the student Lighthouse team here at West Clermont, and just it's a group that we meet during advisory every day for 20 minutes, and we just talk about things that we want to put into our school, make our school the best
005it can. So, as I said, my name is Levi. My name is Christian. I'm in eighth grade. My name is My name is Trent. I'm in eighth grade. My name is Dillon. I'm in seventh grade. My name is Kiption. I'm in seventh grade. My name is Nora. I'm in seventh grade. My name is Bella. I'm in sixth grade. My name is Arya. I'm in seventh grade. My name is Kiersten. I'm in eighth grade. My name is Shayla, and I'm in seventh grade. And my name is Abby, and I'm in eighth grade. All right, so that's our team. We have a couple of the other people here, but not all of all of them could make it tonight. All right, so as a team, we try and have the most voice we can in our school
006or school. So, I I have some friends like Summer. She She's in sixth grade, and her one thing that the reason why she wanted to join this team was the traffic in the the hallways. It's kind of kind of rough some days, so she want she wanted to just uh clear clear that that up and make it flow. I've had some other friends who just want wanted to be more more involved, and just wanted to make their ideas great, you know? And we just try and have all of the kids on our team try and have at least one thing they want to implement and have like one one idea. So, it could be for anything. It could be from like a spirit week, it could be from a pep rally, it could be anything.
007And there's a lot of great ideas that come from our team. All right, so our purpose Our purpose is to uh act as like the role models in in the school, like being on the best we can. And so, that might mean we like provide a school voice, and we speak up for the few people who aren't as spoken for. Or it could be like promoting school culture. So, if there's a spirit week, we might go above and beyond for it, you know, and have some fun with it. And it's a very key component to promote the great things that happen in our school. It could be pep rallies. We've ran most of the pep rallies so far. Could be some spirit weeks. We did a door decorating contest in Octo- October. And it just
008gives a lot of the kids in our school a chance to voice their opinions. And then you can go one more. All right, so uh thing we teach in the school is the seven habits. It's the Leader in Me teaching lessons, and all of the advisories teach them, and these these lessons teach kids core like foundational skills. So, it could be from presenting in front of classroom, it could be answering like just questions they have about things, and teach teaching them things that they might not know of so far. Uh so, one thing that I wanted to help start was a program for teachers to come to me and ask them ask me for help. Just to go teach their kids for them for a class, and so it could be like a kid on
009kid kid on kid, and not so teacher to kid, cuz that gets rough sometimes. And so, I just gave them a way to let me teach it and some of the kids here tonight, and just implement the program that we try and have Once we teach the classes, we want kids from that class to teach it throughout that the rest of the week, the month, the whole year. Okay, so here in the Lighthouse team for West Clermont Middle School. Our goal is to have 100 different students lead an advisory lesson about Leader in Me as of the second semester. As you can see, some of our Lighthouse students have taught different Leader in Me lessons in different advisories. And this has gone on to inspire many different students who are not in Lighthouse team to
010teach lessons of their own. So, students are helping in many ways around this building. We have many other um programs other than student Lighthouse team that we work with, including WEB and student council. We try to make students feel more involved and like people care about them. Okay. As you can see in the pictures, our student Lighthouse team here at WCMS has attended some BLT meetings where we do multiple things such as community projects, student-to-student shout-outs, and student-led conferences in smaller groups. So, this is the survey we sent out to all the students to see what they would like to see in our school. We sent this out to school-wide. Um the one on the far left is what they would like in the word or the way the Wolf Prize cards. So, as you
011can see, most students chose full-size candy bars. >> [laughter] >> We also asked what they wanted to be at the March pep rally, if they wanted dodgeball or just a bunch of smaller games. And this top one is how they wanted to interact with people around the school and how they wanted to help lead the school. On this slide, there's um the student Lighthouse team members contributing to the pep rallies and showing school spirit. Um so, about the pep rallies, we help our community and one way we do that is bringing kids together while playing games with the pep rallies and also trying to help them contribute to everything. During pep rallies, we go over some expectations and we also go over the gold, silver, and bronze tickets they usually earned at the end of
012each quarter. Something we Something we have currently done and are currently still doing is something called the traveling trophy, which is a trophy that goes to a different classroom um every week based off who has the highest attendance rate. Um these are some of the things we had uh other students do, like the Seven Habits spirit week. We've had uh like Levi said, back in October, we had a door decorating competition for Halloween, except the trick was that you had to uh get it back to the Seven Habits, too. And we've had some other students go all out for a lot of other things, too. All right. So, some things that us as the light Lighthouse team, we wanted to have some like next steps and things we've learned along the way so far this
013year. So, some things we've we've learned is that perfection is like like the end goal, but sometimes you can't get to that. So, what you want to do is you want to empower all those kids who might not have the voice or so we we can speak up for for them. So, some things we would like to do when we're out there to teaching classrooms teaching the classrooms there the sev- Seven Habits, we want to teach those classrooms and then we want to back away and let those kids emp- empower themselves to teach that classroom for them for like their peers. Technical difficulties. Well, that's okay. So, uh some things that I've s- I've seen from just being around around the school, some of my my friends and classmates are super happy happy to be
014able to teach these these like classroom times, you know? So, just to have the chance for them to speak speak up when they might not like to speak up and just have the chance for them it's a really great way to see that happen. Now, with all these lessons that the student Lighthouse team has learned, we want to go over the next steps, such as expanding leadership opportunities across the building. So, we want to include other students who aren't in the Lighthouse team more in activities such as teaching Leader in Me lessons to their advisory and picking up stuff around the school and so on. the Lighthouse team with other current organizations, such as the student council and the WEB. We want to implement Leader in Me consistently, such as in the classrooms, in the
015hallways, and all around the school. And we also want to get our upcoming seventh and eighth graders included with the Lighthouse team. And everything that they talked about on these slides were things that they did. These students, along with Ms. Crabiell, she's their advisory teacher, and like has really really helped um kind of guide this group of students throughout the year. But if they had an idea, we didn't do it for them. They had to come up with it on their own. They had to figure out how they were going to communicate all these different things. And just one of the things we keep saying to teachers and and to this team and to students in the building is if kids can do it, then they should do it. And um this team's really embraced
016that and I'm excited to see what they do next year. So, thanks for having us. >> [applause] >> Thank you. Thank you. I have one handy. Where I left it, actually. Shut it off. I know, I mean, too. I went out and he just like Yeah. I know. As I was saying on back end, I want to extend my appreciation for you guys showing up and for the parents bringing them. This is what our school is about. I appreciate the the Leader in Me that we have done in our district as a whole. These guys did a really good job tonight and I do appreciate that, okay? So, thank you. >> [applause] >> Thank you. Thank you, guys. So, next up is public speaking. I'm told that there are no cards. So, we will be
017moving on to our consent agenda. First up looks like is our HR Josh. Good evening. In front of you is the personnel agenda for Monday, April 6th. We have one retirement to celebrate tonight. That is for Beth Theory. Beth currently serves as a special education teacher at West Clermont High School and has served the district for 21 years. Do you have any questions regarding the personnel agenda at this time? Could you extend our thanks to Mrs. Theron? Worked with her for many years. She's That's a big loss for the district. Wonderful teacher. Uh I'll make sure to do that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Josh. Item 7.02 is request for approval of the minutes. Those were for the meeting that was held on March 23rd. Those minutes are as presented. Item 7.03 is a motion
018to request to approve those donations as presented. I will read the donors. RJ Cinema, Emily Garrett, Wickhamsville Tabasco PTL, Interact for Health, Glen Este First Baptist Church. There was an anonymous donation. Willow Dell PTO, Wawa, and Mercy Health Plan. Item 7.04 is a motion to approve the request for authorization for the superintendent and treasurer to negotiate and execute contracts as presented. There are three of them, Monarch schools, Best Bus Logic, and Spectrum Business Dark Fiber license. And appreciation to Mr. Perris on the Spectrum. I know that is part of our e-rate filing and uh it's not just an ordinary contract, but does take a lot of work to to pull through with. Good evening. Tonight we have our first reading and just to remind me, we had our committee meeting back in January. And so
019we pushed this a little bit later to help us work through some of these policies um as we go forward. And tonight our first reading will be covering these policy policy 2431.06, which is a new policy, which is the NIL NIL, name, image, and likeness. Again, the Ohio High School Athletic Association passed an emergency referendum back in November. I believe there's now legislation against that, um but we will then follow what OHSAA follows with that. And just a reminder on NIL, just so people know that um the provisions that are part of this, they cannot be during school hours, can't be during at school, can't use the school image, can't use the district image. There are a lot of provisions that have been put in place for this. Um and so this is something that
020they had passed. Um like I said, emergency. Ohio, I think we believe it was one of six states that did not have an NIL, so now we do, but I think there's legislation out against that, so that could change as we move forward. Policy 3440 4440 6423 6424 66 60 6465, these are all um policy as far as revisions. Um and this is because of the auditor of the state making some changes, adopting policies regarding personal use and rewards and things of that nature. We were ahead of this, we'd already done this, Dana had already taken care of this and and uh there are very few tweaks to this those policies that fall under that. Policy 5112, we've gone back and forth with this. If you remember, we were at September 30th, then we moved
021it to August 1st, now it is um first day of instruction um for our 5-year-olds um for kindergarten, and then for our first graders, it is by September 30th. Not a big change for us. As you remember, when we did move that, we did have a a little bit of a decline in enrollment because of the dates. It basically changes it a couple weeks based on the first day of school, so they've taken those dates for that. Policy 5223, release time for uh religious instruction. We'd already taken care of that. They put another provision in there if you want to do extend that time. We did not do that. Policy 5421, grading, and policy 5430, class rank. Basically on the 5430 on class rank, we already have that system. Our law day system's already in
022place for that, which identifies your top 10%, top 6 and 9%, top 5%, and basically that goes along with the governor's merit scholarship and the things that they've added that was um advanced career tech programs can also be considered in that as well. We also use ACT and then our uh courses that we have for our eighth level. So that was already in place and this that should not be any change for us. Policy 6220, uh budget preparation. This is a revision. This takes out the 5-year forecast and I think it's now the fiscal forecast is what they call this now. Um 6320, basically what they've done is when they're going into the bidding, instead of keep changing the the the numbers, it was 75 and it was 77250, they've included a 3% increase automatically,
023so you don't have to keep going back and changing that. You don't have to worry about purchasing bidding, but then make sure you go out and get the lowest bid possible. I can assure you. Um 6325, uh is a revision. Again, goes back to uh those amounts that can't exceed those particular dollar amounts. Um Use of 6425 is new. This is a policy that goes into effect basically allowing employees who use their own credit cards to buy things for the school up to $2,000 as far as sales tax. So that's something that they used to tax exempt form, they can do that. 7540, AI. Reason we put this off as a replacement in the AI, and we're continually working that. We will bring that reading to you at our next board meeting. Remember, we got
024to have that in um June. Uh we want to have that in June, so that is something that uh we were continually working on. We're there's a lot of bugs that are getting worked out uh with that. Larry and Ellie uh and myself will be working through that as well. Policy 8050 is that misbranded meat and egg product language that we had to put in uh with our food services. And that is the first read. We'll have second read at our next one. We'll also include AI for that as well. Thank you, Randy. Thank you. Next up is Chuck. Good evening. I'd like to present the resolution authorizing TrueCraft Roofing to begin the work or to start the contract negotiations for the roofing project at the middle school of the band room. Is that the
025only area you're working on? It's in the It's in this hallway over here, band choir room. Okay. So you're you're going to do particular sections each summer? Each probably each summer. The architects in uh assessed the roof, and that was the worst part. So we'll do the assessment again this year and then decide what we're going to do next year. Okay. >> Next summer. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. Actively leaking at times. So the next is a uh memorandum of agreement with Health Partners of Western Ohio and West Clermont schools. This goes with our mobile unit. This will include the vision. If you remember, we recaptured space here at the middle school for the wellness center. Um that will be recapturing that. HealthSource was our partner. Uh we had talked with HealthSource about continuing partnership with
026the mobile units and that uh that did not come to fruition, so we what reached out to Health Partners of Western Ohio, had a very good meeting with them. Uh and they will start um with the vision. This goes along with Governor DeWine's Ohio See program, so they are identified as our um provider. The other thing that we want to do is uh I'm going to bring Heidi to talk to you about the mobile services that we're going to provide for our students going into the next year and all the services that we provide. We want to center it around services for our parents for our students around vision, hearing, immunization, physical, things that obviously school related, school um and to help parents and to be convenient for parents. And we we have other partners
027as well. We partner with Children's and we'll continue to look for other partners as well as we look at to provide services on campus and with our mobile. We also do I think we do dermatology as well with our mobile units, so we'll continue that, but I want Heidi to come talk to you about our comprehensive um plan for providing services for our students on campus as far as the mobile services. Just as a reminder, Heidi Sandlin is our district nurse. You. Randy, I think Randy, you're back up. What have I got? Bus transportation. Bus stops. So when you find I'm trying to get some steps in. >> [laughter] >> So when you say that Now you threw me off. Sorry. Um all right, next. So I'm bringing a resolution regarding designation of bus stops
028for the 2026-2027 school year. Let me go back a little bit. When we had the presentation, I believe it was at the last board meeting, we brought Doug Palmer. We we contracted Doug Palmer from the state. He is an expert and he he knows more than you can even imagine about transportation. And I've worked hard to get him in. He was selfish and retired, but then he could start his own business. He was at the OSBA. Uh he is an expert in the area of transportation, so I continually pushed to get him in to do the assessment for us. What we looked at, what we saw when he came in, was how could we be more fiscally responsible as far as transportation goes. And he has all these formulas and all the things that he
029has gone through and gave us some of the recommendations. One of the recommendations that came through was to look at our bus stops and to look at our neighborhood group stops. Let me make clear, we do that in some of our neighborhoods already. We already have that. What we do have is policy states that as far as policy, we don't have to transport under 2 miles. The board and we want to continue to be able to transport all students regardless of address. That's not anything that's going to go away. And I know that I've read some things out there that we were going to be going to the 2-mile radius. There is no 2-mi radius. We're going to transport every student. So, what do we want to do? We want to adjust our stops, increase
030the number of students that are going to be at those stops, eliminate those stops in cul-de-sacs. Not for special ed, but for our other routes. cul-de-sacs we were going into. It creates safety issues for our bus drivers. Um and we have stipulation you don't have to 2,500 ft is where you can put a bus stop from child's residence. So, we are right now with Petermann and the area identifying those bus stops. Um and you will vote on those in July. So, if there's any issues, we'll have time before first day of school. Um but you'll vote on those bus stops and bus routes in July. This is a resolution saying that we are moving to this. I want to make it clear, it doesn't affect every child, but it will affect some children our children
031that um live in cul-de-sacs and where we develop those neighborhood group stops. I think it's important to look at it, why are we doing this? We want to be fiscally responsible. What came back with the assessment from Mr. Palmer was this. We currently have 77 routes. If we make this one change to group stops in these areas, we could get down to 58 to 59 stops. So, what does that mean financially? That could be a savings of over $1.5 million. That's significant. It's significant cost savings of being fiscally responsible. I also gave you the what our neighboring schools have do as well. Um and it goes in line with what other people do throughout the district. I know I've had a lot of different concept or comments and there's a lot of misconceptions out there.
032Um and also around private. We also were going to look at our private transportation. If you transport students in that grade level, we also have to provide them when they go to private parochial schools. The stipulation is that the if it's over 30 minutes, we do not have to transport them to out of district. We have some routes that we need to audit that are past 30 minutes. So, if your child lives there past 30 minutes and you're going to a school that's outside, you will not probably have transportation next year because that falls outside the 30-minute um radius of having to provide transportation. Do we want to be able to provide gifts, but obviously we have to be fiscally responsible. We have to look at that. So, yes, we provide transportation up to 30
033minutes outside the district or from the address. That's not going away. We have to do that. Um so, I want to dispel that rumor that was out there as well. We want to transport all of our students and hopefully that we can continue that. We're going to have to look at um you know, finding revenue in the future to be able to continue that. Our policy says we have a 2-mi radius. We don't do that. We transport everybody. The other problem is we were transporting everybody from their address or close to their home. We're trying to make those neighborhood stops that are going to be less than 2,500 ft and in this transition is going to be um more efficient and it's going to be cost savings for us. So, what this resolution is like
034the first step for you saying this is what we're going to do. You will have an opportunity to vote on those bus stops and um bus routes in July. The communication piece, if you remember from the presentation, the communication piece is critical. Starting tomorrow after this goes through, on our transportation page, I will start to put out what the steps are for parents to opt in for transportation. It's a part of the re-registration starts April 21st. Very easy. What they already do. You know the challenge of getting everybody to do the re-registration. We continually push that, but that's how we'll be able to start to get those numbers. In the meantime, Petermann will be developing that. As Dan said before, um BusLogic is Mr. Palmer's business. He's going to continue as a consultant with us.
035And one of the things that we want him to do with us is obviously look at what Petermann has put together. He's also going to work with us with our T1 and our T2 reports and how we can increase our efficiency. If we can increase our efficiency to a certain threshold, we will get even more money back from the state and so it'll be even more of a cost savings for us. If you get that ridership numbers to those thresholds, that's what he'll help us do as well. So, um it was a good investment for the board to bring that person in to do the assessment and we're going to continue work through this as we go through this transition in the fall. So, the resolution is that we're just moving through that. One statement
036that I'll make is going back to that presentation, I actually wrote that down. So, again, I would encourage any of our community members to go back and review that presentation that we did. It was actually on the March 23rd and it would not it was under the superintendent's business. Uh you had a PowerPoint presentation talking about the initial stops and like what the the the the cost saving would be. So, again, I would encourage everybody to go back to the March 23rd board meeting and it was under the superintendent's and look at the transportation. >> even going to add that to the transportation page as well. So, they'll be able to go right to it. They'll see the all of the resources on there so they can go see that presentation and see the video.
037Yeah. Yeah, and definitely ask questions and again, that's where again, I encourage the community to come and get involved and to ask the questions to see how this is going to impact us. We're making some huge changes um because of no fault of our own. And so, we're having to have the least impact on our district, but still make the changes. And on the transportation page, there will also be um an opportunity for parents to get in contact with me and to be able to have a talk about any concerns or anything that So, I'll be able to get feedback from our community, feedback from our parents through our transportation page. Thank you. Ready ready. Do I have anything else today? That's it. That's it. So, you have I before you on the consent agenda
038item 7.01 through 7.08 as recommended by the superintendent. Thank you. You've heard the recommendation, would someone like to make a motion? So moved. Thank you, Mr. Rudy. Is there a second? Second. Ms. Sanborn, thank you. Is there any discussion? Roll call, please. Mr. Rudy. >> Yes. Ms. Sanborn. Yes. Mrs. Spencer. Yes. Mr. Patton. Yes. Mr. Chumley. Yes. Five yes. All right. Next item on the agenda is 8.01 retirement and rehire of assistant superintendent, chief operating officer. In front of you today is the recommendation for that. I'm beginning my ninth month as the superintendent and since I've been in this role, I've witnessed firsthand the value that the assistant superintendent position provides and how Randy in this role has helped us be successful. So, I I to use the football analogy, if I may, because I
039like analogies. If I'm the quarterback and um of the team, then the assistant superintendents are the offensive line and Randy is my star center. And I say that because unless you've played on an offensive line, which I think some of you may have, played on an offensive line or been a coach or quarterback, it's difficult to witness and understand everything that they actually do. So, you see them if you watch them on TV, they're just running around knocking people over, right? But in all honesty, the truth is that they they engage in every play with a very specific strategy for success. Whether pushing the line left, pushing the right line right, opening holes for running back or pass blocking for the quarterback, every decision they make is necessary to try to ensure a positive outcome
040for the team. So, they don't get shoe endorsements and they don't make it on SportsCenter highlight reel. In fact, um if we're doing well, we don't even know they exist. So, when you have your your running back run for 300 yards, people talk about that on SportsCenter. They don't talk about all the holes that the offensive line opens up. Or if you see Joe Burrow pass 500 yards to Ja'Marr Chase with seven touchdowns, that's what's on SportsCenter, not look at all the pass protections that they gave. Um so, it's it's if they're doing their job well, you don't even talk about it. So, um I believe this role played an intricate part in the success in our previous previous years and I also believe that Randy in this role gives the district the best opportunity
041for success as we move into the next phase of uncertainty that we have. And with that, that is why I'm recommending the board approve the retirement and rehire of Randy Gebhardt as the assistant superintendent, chief operating officer as presented. Thank you, Dr. Folse. You've heard the recommendation, would someone like to make a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Chumley. Is there any discussion? Yes, I would like to discuss. Yeah, go ahead. This is not about the man CEO. This is about our financial future and what we can and can't afford. I was in your office about 2 years ago and I was waiting to speak to the former superintendent that I had scheduled a meeting in her office. You told me you were going to retire and spend time with
042your family and you were looking forward to doing this. I wished you well in your decision to do this. I'm really baffled by all of this. I say we let you do what you say you told me you were going to do. We as a district can no longer afford you. Our financial future I'm very concerned about and we need to pass the operating levy in November 2026. I believe we would rather have a better chance of passing the levy if you were not on the payroll anymore. We need to make sure we are efficient and effective in every dollar we are spending going forward. To the CEO, from my heart to your heart, we have talked about this position and I know you say you need the CEO. I believe you have a wonderful
043cabinet team members that could do all of this work. You must [clears throat] delegate the work to others to do and let the taxpayers see that you are listening to the board. We ask you to cut from the district office so far and you have done a great job in doing this, but there is more to do. This position needs to be a reduction in force. We can't afford to keep top staff in the district office. This also affects what the state of Ohio did and what the state representatives, state senators did with all the house bills they passed regarding property taxes. This did not help West Clermont at all and it is really hurting us. You will have a better chance of showing the taxpayers if you did a reduction in force in this
044position and getting the operating levy passed in November 2026. You recently decided to make a reduction in force of a district office staff member and a West Clermont Middle School staff member. Let's treat everybody the same and do a reduction in force with the CEO position. To my colleagues on the board, we need to do what the 54,000 taxpayers would want us all to do. I would much rather pass the operating levy. I would much rather keep teachers. These are the two things that are important to me. We need to save money for the future. Thank you. I I would like to just add to a little of that. I appreciate David, your analogy. I I know we don't see what you see and what you need to be done, but given our financial strains
045right now, when this opportunity came up for retirement in this position, I did think it I thought it was a great opportunity for us to kind of think about this and maybe a be able to um remove this position, but if you need other help, maybe we could get a other than an assistant superintendent, maybe we could get a director or someone else that would maybe do the do the heavy lifting for a while. It's just we're asking our community to do some serious stretching and be uncomfortable and I think if I think that should go a long way in saying we're going to we're going to model what we're asking everyone else to do and stretch and try to reallocate some of the funding maybe for teachers or you know, our supporting staff and
046those kind of people. That's all. But thank you for doing all the hard work. I know you guys I know everybody works really hard. Do you have a question? I I believe we cannot afford not to have Randy here. He just saved us $1.5 million. That will go toward our other expenses. So, I I support it. He's taking a reduction in pay. I also believe that Dr. Fulton needs a designee designee when he is not here to be in charge and that is Mr. Gephart as assistant superintendent. That was the reason for that position um many years ago with uh Dr. Hunt. Thank you. Building also is Randy Gephart as like Jason Castle as always. I don't know if football is on. I could be so I'll just tack on I'll tack on the football.
047So, what I'll say is everything that's spoken is is that our at the January 28th meeting, the board voted to proceed with the rehire proceeding for Mr. Gephart adhering to all the required protocols including public comments. Just the comment on that is is that we had no comments. As the district navigates the upcoming financial challenges, this position remains vital in facilitating and man- managing the transitions within our district. The superintendent has emphasized the necessity of maintaining this role. Mr. Gephart's extensive history with our district has established rapport with our current partners, his deep understanding of our community and are among the primary reasons that we should remain in this position. Sorry, he should remain in this position. As we've just seen tonight, Mr. Gephart's diligent work with various stakeholders including transportation, he has been able
048to find an approximately $1.5 million in savings for the next school year. The assistant superintendent position has already been built into the budget for the '26-'27 school year. Furthermore, this this approach enables the district to realize financial savings while preserving a vital role that provides essential support for our students, staff and the broader community. Thank you. Roll call, please. Mr. Rudy. Yes. Mr. Chumley. Yes. Ms. Sanborn. No. Mrs. Spencer. No. Mr. Patton. Yes. Three yes, two no, motion carried. Superintendent comments. All right, just have a few comments today. Number one, spring break happened last week and so now we're moving back into that final push. It's hard to believe we only have seven weeks left for kids, so that's getting pretty exciting. I just want to take a moment to celebrate our staff for all
049the hard work they've been doing to help in to helping our students achieve great things this year. It's been a long nine months and they're every day they're at it as if it's the first day moving the kids, so I'm very excited about that and I I know that we're going to finish strong. Also, I just want to tell everyone that as the school year winds down, as much as the parents as well, we start moving into the summer months and if you have kids, you're doing summer plans, trips, baseball, stuff like that. I would remind everyone to keep paying attention to board meetings, keep being connected to the schools with parent with principal newsletters. You're going to find the most up-to-date information about what's happening in West Clermont by watching a board meeting, by
050attending a board, by listening. We're going to information that we're going to give you is not going to be misleading or misdirected. You're going to hear the up-to-date, you're going to hear the most accurate things from us. So, we we do have meetings in May, we do have meetings in June, we do have meetings in July, we have meetings in the back in August. Please, please, please stay focused, pay attention and so that you'll be listening and ready for the things that we continue to grow and continue to talk about throughout the summer. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Romano, you don't have much on here. I I don't and I'll keep my comments really short. We continue our advocacy uh based on responding from last year's 2025 changes in the property tax laws. Um the
051event that's coming up next week for me is our annual school business official conference uh where I get to uh to network and meet with with my peers across the state. Um there's over 200 school districts that are in a very similar situation as us that were impacted by those tax laws um where some people think that that we come together to whine and cry about things. That's not the issue. It's really how to create solutions and move forward and and make some positive change uh for schools specifically on the financial end of things. The second area is compliments to the county auditor and treasurer who we did get our our first half settlement um uh just last week before the end before the end of uh March, which was good. I know all the
052trials and tribulations that they went through to make sure the tax bills went out and and things collected. Continued again to work with the auditor's office on what to expect um in the uh second half of the property taxes where the credits from the prior years will be coming forward. I know the state Department of Taxation did release its initial draft of how these tax credits are going to be calculated and handled. I'm not saying that everybody thoroughly understands it yet, but um again, we're just keeping close contact with the auditor's office to make sure that we can accurately project what what's coming forward to us. That's it. Thank you. That was the fastest fiscal minute I've ever heard. Almost a fiscal minute. Almost a fiscal minute. Thank you, Mr. Romano. Thank you. Next is
053board comments. I'll start with Mrs. Sanborn. Um I would like to thank all the cabinet team members for coming to the funeral home for visitation of my mother. I really did appreciate it. I was shocked when everyone came, but I really I really count it a privilege to work with all of you and I thank you for being there for me. It really meant a lot. Okay. Thank you. Mrs. Patton. I was privileged to go up to the state legislative meeting last Tuesday with Tina and David and Dan and it was but we got to listen to Governor DeWine speak a little bit and we got to hear a lot about the there's four new bills, house bills going through and four new Senate bills and how they're moving them forward and what they're doing
054with them. We had hoped to meet with our legislative representatives, but they were in caucus, so we didn't get to actually meet anybody and talk to them about our funding situation. But we're hoping that we can schedule something and get with them pretty soon, but it was it was good to kind of do a little just listen to hear all the updates and everything that's going on really in the state house and the Senate. Thank you. Mr. Rudy? Uh again, thank you very much, Mr. Gebhardt, for finding some savings for us. That was wonderful. Um I'm glad you're going to be with us. And that's about it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to highlight these Lighthouse students. They killed it. It's great to see some of the leaders we're building up in
055some of these students. Levi, I think that was his name. Uh to be able to pivot when uh our regular malfunction occurs is the way he did is uh something I can't do. Something Uh maybe he'll be sitting here one day and we'd be better off for it, but um I hope everyone had a happy Easter and a good time off this week. And I hope everyone's enjoying some World Series team baseball right now. Thank you. Uh so, I'm going to What I'm going to do is a little bit different. So, probably about 2 years ago, we created a board handbook. This is something as board members that we um it helps kind of guide us through what our role is as as a board member. I know that when I got on this position,
056I thought I knew what I was doing, but I quickly realized that I did not know what I was doing. Um and so, it it's it helps us to kind of guide us through as our role as a board member. Uh I'm not going to bore you with a whole bunch of several pages that uh that Mr. Gebhardt actually had got created for us, but there are just a few things that I do want to to kind of read. It just kind of emphasizes, it helps re- remind us, and it helps kind of let the community know as what our role is. This actually can also be found on uh BoardDocs, so the community can also review this as well. So, it it's on there as well. So, I'm just going to read a brief
057little section. Um I don't want to forget the meeting next week. So, this particular section of it is Board Members Code of Ethics. It says Ohio law Ohio law states sets minimum I'm sorry, minimum ethical standards for public officials, including school board members, school district employees, and members of school districts' financial planning and supervising commission. The ethic law is found in RC Chapter 102. Additionally, there are two ethics restrictions found in criminal code, uh which is RC 292142. I call it ORC, but it's RC 292143. And these two statutes are 20 I'm sorry, and RC 331333. Uh again, this particular role, there is some criminal charges that could come with this if we were to outstep our bounds or out to to to do something that was not ethical. Um so, it says School Board
058Members Associates offer um offers the following guideline for good board member behavior. Remember that my first and greatest concern must be the educational welfare of all students attending public school. This is me as a board member. I must obey all laws of the Ohio and United States. Respect the confidentiality and privileged information. Recognize that as an individual board member, I have no authority to speak or act for the board. Work with other board members to establish effective board policy. Delegate authority for administrations of the schools to the superintendent and the treasurer. I'll just slide here. And other staff. Encourage ongoing communication among board members, staff, and the community. Render all decisions based on the available facts and my independent judgment, rather than succumbing to the influence of individual or special interest groups. Make every effort
059to attend every board meeting. Become informed concerning the issues to be considered at each meeting. Improve my boardmanship by studying educational issues and by participating in professional development programs. Support the employment of staff members based on qualifications and not because of influence. Cooperate with other board members and administration to establish a system of regular and impartial evaluation of all staff. Avoid conflict of interest or the appearance thereof. Just two more. Refrain from using my board position for the benefit of myself, family members, or business associate. Express my personal opinion, but once the board has acted, accept the will of the majority. So again, those are just things that I had to learn when I got onto the board, and I constantly am reading the board handbook. Uh at two probably two board meetings ago, I
060read another chapter of things that we have to do. So again, it's it's just it's it's just very important for us to remember to go back and review those things. Um so, with that being said, our next board meeting will be uh April the 20th, 2026. It will be at 7:00 p.m., and it will be That didn't change, did it? That's at the Civic Center. That will be at the Civic Center. Um I apologize. We've changed a couple of our meetings. We wanted to hit some of the schools and and go there, so we did change a couple, but So again, that'll be April the 20th, 2026 at 7:00 p.m. at the Civic Center. I encourage the community to get involved and to come to the meetings and to hear where we're going and how
061we're going to get there. Uh with that being said, um let me switch here. We do not have a need to go to executive session. So, at this point, uh do we have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Thank you, Mr. Rudy. Is there a second? Second. Who was that, Ms. Spencer? Sorry. The the line up. Okay. Is there any discussion? Tammy? Was it Tammy? It was Tammy. Yeah, that's yeah. Line up, it's hard for me. Thank you. Uh roll call, please. Mr. Mr. Rudy. Yes. Ms. Spencer. Yes. Mr. Patton. Yes. Mr. Chamberlin. Yes. Ms. Sanborn. Yes. Five yes to adjourn. Thank you. What is it? Michael Chamberlin's not even on this. What is it?