001Uh, good evening. Welcome to the West Claremont School Board August 4th uh, business meeting. Mr. Romano, please take role. Mr. Patton, present. Mr. Rudy, present. Mr. Chumley, present. Miss Sambort, present. Mrs. Spencer, present. Thank you. Please join me in the pledge of 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. Looks like first up is the motion to adopt the agenda. Would someone like to make a motion? So moved. Thank you, Mr. Rudy. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Chumley. Is there any discussion? Roll call, please. Mr. Rudy? Yes. Mr. Chumley? Yes. Miss Sambort? Yes. Mrs. Spencer? Yes. Mr. Pen? Yes. Five? Yes. Next up is recognition. Is that Good evening. We'd like
002to have Becky Golden please come forward. West Claremont proudly recognizes Becky Golden, West Claremont public information officer for receiving an award from the Ohio Public School Relations Association for the 2024 quality profile. The publication was honored for its overall presentation, including the quality of the storytelling and design. This annual report highlights the achievements of the school year and showcases what defines a high quality education beyond traditional data. Please join me in congratulating Becky Golden on this welldeserved Congratulations. Josh, there any next up is public speaking at a board meeting? It looks like we have none. So, moving on. Next is who is doing the Great Oaks update? So may Hi everybody. Um I'm May Hannah. I am your uh West Claremont designign for the uh Great Oaks board. I think I have I think there's
003some attachments. She said that it would be on there. Yes, we have a Oh, okay. Okay, perfect. This is great. I I should have brought a copy, but I didn't. I thought it was going to be on the the um the overhead. Anyway, um I have been serving in this capacity on behalf of West Claremont for the last five years. I've met some of you um on this board, but just as just as a side note, I have two West Claremont graduates. So, my kids went K through 12 through the West Claremont system. I'm a senior assistant dean at UC Claremont College. So, I'm very vested in this community. Um I serve on the West Claremont business advisory board. I think I've been on it for eight or nine years now. Um and I'm thrilled
004to see Dr. Folultz in his new role as superintendent. I've worked with him over the last five years maybe on in this role. So, I'm here to just give you a quick update. I know you can read most of this. Um, but West Claremont is the second largest feeder to the Oaks. Our board, by the way, this is fun to see like a small board. We have 35 people on the board and so our meetings are um you know it's in a round room and it's it's very different um than this sort of setting. Of course we don't have as as much um back and forth with the community. So it's a much u less intense role than I think what you all have. So I applaud you for what you do um for this
005school district. Um just a quick uh update if you wanted to look at the numbers from the oaks. Um there are most of the students from West Claremont do attend live oaks. I think the second um the second uh largest number is at Scarlet which is in Sharonville. Um if you can at the top. Yeah, if you can just scroll up. Okay. Oh no, the other way. I'm sorry. down. Yeah. Yeah. To where the notes are. I'm sorry. Keep going the other way. Page two. All right. Oh, sorry. What? The second page. Yes, please. Sorry about that. I'm sorry. We'll get there. Yeah. Yeah. So, um the retention goal was has been exceeded for the year. Um retaining the students that have have gone there. Um the presence in the satellites which I know West
006Claremont has many of the satellites uh classes um continues to grow. Um you can see the enrollment year overyear. Uh this year in fact they had a lottery system and I think we have from West Claremont a good number of students that um are on the wait list because some of the students don't get their first choice. Um career and tech education has really taken off. I think nationally and in the state it's been s widely supported. Um and these are some of the new areas. parks and recreation program, exercise science at Live Oaks. Um, some of the areas where there's been a lot of growth. Um, one of the things I'd like to offer the board, if anybody wants to attend any of the Oaks meetings, I'd be happy for you to come as
007a guest if you're interested in any um in that capacity or if you'd like to tour any of the Oaks facilities, I would be happy to facilitate that. So, I know your agenda is full. Uh, I don't want to keep you any longer, but if you have any questions for me or if you have any directives, I'm your representative. Please feel free to ask or feel free after to send me a note. Um, Dr. Folultz has my contact information. That was going to be my question. So, if we wanted to coordinate, we would go through Dr. Folultz and get to let us know when your board meetings are involved. Absolutely. Yeah, they're the second Wednesday of every month. They start at 7 PM. Okay. Yeah. And I'm a um I chair the planning and policy
008committee as well. Okay. Perfect. Thank you so much. May has done an exceptional job representing us and being that liaison and always there and giving us great feedback. So I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you for all the hard work that you do to help us be successful. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Have a great meeting. Thank you. Next up is the consent agenda. Start with a challenge. Good evening. In front of you is the personnel agenda for August 4th, 2025. On the agenda, we have the following. Um the resignations of one sup supervisor of special education, one campus coordinator, one cafeteria manager, one assistant director of technology, one teacher, one counselor, one psychologist, four pair of professionals, and one cafeteria worker. I would like to pause and
009recognize that uh three of those resignations are for retirement. Um Scott Horsemeer is retiring with four years at West Claremont and over 28 years in education. Um Lisa McMullen is retiring after 22 years in West Claremont. Um and Deborah Marsh is retiring after 32 years in West Claremont, which is pretty awesome um service to West Claremont. This agenda also includes the proposed hiring of one special ed supervisor, one campus coordinator, one child nut one child nutrition field supervisor, four teachers, one counselor, seven cafeteria workers, and one health clinic assistant. On this agenda, we have the proposed approval of extended days for one preschool teacher at Holly Hill, a school counselor at West Claremont Middle School. The agenda also includes transfers or reassignments of a cafeteria worker from West Claremont Middle School to Willow. On this
010agenda, we have multiple salary adjustments for teachers. These new placements occur from staffing staff continuing their education in adding master's degree and other course work. On this agenda, we have the proposed approval of supplemental contracts for multiple home instructors, multiple club adviserss, multiple arts directors, and multiple coaches. On this agenda, we have the proposed request to add a half FTE. This is this adds back a half position that was uh reduced in the spring and is necessary for special education services at WT elementary. On this agenda, we have the proposed approval of free staff members on unpaid leave, multiple substitutes, and multiple school volunteers. Finally, in the work beyond the contract section are the proposed approval for payments for multiple teachers that led IEP meetings over the summer and multiple teachers, I'm sorry, multiple staff
011members that received CPI training over the summer. This concludes the review of the of the personnel agenda submission for your consideration. Thank you. I have a question. Yes, ma'am. Um, you have the uh M school counselor. Is she at the middle school or the high school? The middle school. Okay. The one page. Sorry. Page three. You have her at the high school. Okay. We we can make that correction. Okay. I just wanted to thank you let you know. Do you have more teachers to hire? No, we we have our positions filled. Wonderful. Yes. All teaching position. So, we're we're we've been working really hard. Our principles have been working really hard to fill those spots. Um and we're excited. We're we have our new teacher orientation tomorrow. So, we're excited to get them in and
012get them going. That's the orientation all day. It could be multiple days. Three days. Okay. Yep. Good evening. We'll ask the board to approve our food service agreements. There's three there is Wasserman, St. Bernett, and uh Claremont County ESC. These are food services that we do provide them uh throughout the year and we do need you to u approve those agreements. Any questions on that? Yeah, I I do. I just have a just a general question. Um why wouldn't the St. Bernard that church have their own outreach to do this food service? from my knowledge that we've always been the outreach that they've gone to and we're the ones that provide for them. Are you asking some words else? No, I was just I've never seen this before. So that's why I was asking I'
013I've not seen it unless it's been done since I was previously off the board for four years. So they they did make the request that we do the food service and and we do do that with them. Um, we make sure that especially with in this contract because I believe last year might have been the the first year, but this is not this is not new. Okay. And it is it is a makehole agreement with them. So, we're not subsidizing that portion of the food service program. There's a P&L done with it. And so, um, if there's any loss, they do make up for that. But it's it's a request that they have that we provide the the food service and I believe it has to be approved by the state as well. Correct. And
014I don't want to say that this is common, but I do know other schools that provide food for other schools, whether they don't have an area for a kitchen, whether they don't and they'll make the food and then they'll prep it and send it to that school. So I I I do know other couple other schools that have done that. So we did this last year. I I just didn't remember seeing that before. Yeah. Till tonight. Thanks. Thanks, Randy. Sorry. No worries. Um the next item are bus routes and each uh August we approved our bus routes. I think there's 738 pages of those bus routes. If you'd like me to go through each page, I will. Um, but those we do have to uh approve those as well. And I would make a mention
015that we are going to have our transportation study hopefully here by the end of the month. And so those are the things that we look at our bus routes and how we can be more efficient with our bus routes. And those are the things that we contracted with OSBA to come in and give us that transportation study. So you can expect to hear some more about that um in the weeks to come as we get that analysis uh from an expert from the state uh Doug Palmer and uh he is going to give us some some different ways to look at things. Sometimes when you do transportation you look at the same thing year after year. we need a fresh set of eyes and I think this is a good opportunity for him to come
016in and really look at the transportation study and look at some of the things that we could do that be more efficient cut down bus routes which then cuts down transportation cost as well. So that's something that we'd ask you to approve as well. Thank you Randy. Good evening. Next up, we have for you a memorandum of understanding with the Claremont Metropolitan Housing Authority. Um, this is a continuation of the work we have done to wrap supports around our students who are experiencing homelessness um or other types of of challenges um around housing. Um, as I'm sure you're aware with with housing um, instability, there comes a lot of school instability. So, um, we are really working hard to try to assure that there's stability for students in their living arrangements as well as their
017education. What this memorandum allows us to do is to partner with Metropolitan Housing to have 25 vouchers that are for referrals for housing through the authority. Um that puts our families up higher on the list. Um because there's limited amounts of funding every year. um this just gives us some priority uh because we are working through schools and involving students and that's a higher level of need than um others in the community. So it's an exciting development for us to be able to assure that we can hopefully give some of our families more permanent housing. Any questions with that? So what do they have to do to qualify to get this special housing? Uh homelessness just be homeless. That that's the biggest um piece to this for us. Would a teacher like recommend someone? Does
018I mean is there a chain of command that like a teacher would have to go through to get the kid? So we This happened to us when I was in West Claremont. It happened to us and it was like two weeks before Christmas and we're like okay what do we do? There was they didn't we didn't have any options really. We took money and put them in a hotel. But anyway, so I was just kind of curious if a teacher finds this out, do they have to go to the principal? Do they have to go to the I don't know what do they do? So we we have a process in place. Um and the teachers know about it and that's all. Okay. Yes. Um so we I act as the district's homeless liaison. Okay.
019Um when families experience homelessness, um they're brought to my attention and we look at that situation, determine if they are in fact, you know, homeless under McKini Vento, which is the federal law that that manages this. So we have a list of students and we do code them um privately within our student information system so that we can track them and help wrap supports around them. Okay. Um the the difficulty is we don't always know when families are experiencing homelessness. Um so it's only those that come forward um because of the struggles that they're going through um around transportation, school supplies, what have you and and those are part of the supports that we provide. That's good. Excellent. Any other questions for that? Next, we also have um this year's version of our agreement um
020with our mental health providers, in this case, Best Point of Cincinnati. Um using uh the Department of Justice Stop School Violence Grant that we received a few years ago. Um so this pays for therapeutic supports. Um this year it will be for our special education program where we have those specialized units for students experiencing more intensive levels of mental health and behavioral needs. Um so that's an agreement that we have um meeting requirements for the Department of Justice and federal grant making um that allows us to do that. So nothing new with it. It's just this year's version. And where is this program taking place? This actually is it on West Claremont's property or Yes, we actually support um special education students at elementary, middle, and high school. So, we have our RISE units. Um
021this is supporting support mental health supports for those units. So, you meet in a like a conference room, so to speak. They do individual therapy as well as group work. The group work happens typically in the classroom with those students in that unit. The individual therapy happens in the therapist's office um at the school. Okay. So, all of it's at school. No off-site stuff. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? While you're up here, you want to go over the neco that So, there there are two other point agreements in the contract section of the agenda. Um those are both for NECO and Best Point to provide our general population mental health services. There's no costs to that. Those are all paid for through um Medicaid or private insurance. Um we do have a small group
022of students that we sometimes support um utilizing the Department of Justice grant um but 99% of the students are paid through insurance for those services. So those agreements just help us um formalize the partnership that we have with those agencies to do that. And are those on-site or offsite? Onsite. on site too. Well, Best Point's all on site. Neco, they can go to do family therapy or things off-site. Um, but typically most services are provided at school as part of the school-based model. Um, there is ability for them to work with families, um, which they would typically do off-site, um, not on-site. And who checks the person's, uh, students insurance plan? Do you have someone here on staff that does that? We don't do that. The agencies do that. Okay. So, we collect that information
023if they have insurance or not when making the referral. Um, if they don't have insurance, we can refer them to the Health Source of Ohio who can assist them in applying for Medicaid. Um, if they don't qualify for Medicaid, we have some indigent funding that we've been able to use for a small number of students. Okay. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Item 7.06 is request for the approval of minutes. That is for the July 9th regular business meeting. Item 7.07 is the uh request for donations. Those were donations made to the Michael Ward Memorial Fund. They were from Barbara and Gary Cumins donated $100. Mark Smith donated $200. Will retirees donated $100. Lisa May Ellis and Christopher Ellis donated $50 and Joseph Denko donated $50. All those again were to the Michael
024Ward memorial fund. Um item 7.08 is a motion to approve the authorization for the superintendent and treasurer to negotiate and execute contracts as presented. Um, you'll note that typically June, July, August, a little bit of September, there's a lot of contracts. Some of those are renewals, but a lot of that happens during those months because uh most contracts we we try and uh keep towards the school year, i.e. July 1 through June 30th. So, you'll see a lot of those contracts come in during that time period. If there's any questions on those. Okay. And so the consent agenda is item 7.01 through 7.08. Thank you, Mr. Romano. You've heard the recommendation. Would someone like to make a motion? So move. Thank you, Mr. Rudy. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Samborn. Is there
025any discussion? Okay. Roll call, please. Mr. Rudy? Yes. Miss Samborn? Yes. Mrs. Spencer? Yes. Mr. Patton? Yes. Mr. Chumley? Yes. Five? Yes. back again. Smart snacks and this is forformational purposes only. We have to um let the board know about our wellness policy and then also our school compliance which goes back to I think it was 210 Senate Bill House Bill 210 back in 2010 is when these um started. These are the standards that we have to follow for food and beverages that we serve our students. Uh the other compliance issue as well is uh their guidelines. These are things that we've worked around um we have to work around as far as when we offer students food. Um basically it's 30 minutes before school or 30 minutes after school you cannot sell food that
026are not compliant with what the state uh requirements are. So we're this is this forformational purposes that we have to let you know that we are following we are compliant and uh Mrs. Walker is um following all the guidelines that state has required of her. So that's the first part. The second part um I guess I'm up for another superintendent business for OFCC updates. So you saw the letter that Mr. Romano shared with you I believe. So, let me go back and just do a little history on OFCC and what we did with OFCC. If you remember, I think back in 23, I think we had a resolution. Uh, then we went to ELP. While we're in ELP, then we went to CFAP and then when we went through CFAP all through last year, um,
027we met with them, Chuck and I met with them throughout the year. Uh, and their official funding doesn't come out until May. It came out in May of this past year and it is not um finalized until they had their meeting in July. So the letter that you received was the full funding for the full project that we had um as far as our master facility plan. That plan was somewhere up to around $190 something,000. The letter will show you that about 20% of that came from the state where you saw the 39 million. Um, so one of the things with the OFCC as we move forward, obviously with the defeat of the ballot issue in May, as we said, the clock starts running in May as far as uh securing your funding over the
028next 16 months. Um, so as we move forward, those will be discussions that we do have. As soon as the ballot issue went uh was defeated, we had conversations with OFCC if we were to move forward with um a less of a project scope uh where it might be just one building. Um what does that mean for us? And so basically that would mean that we can continue with the letter that we had. They recommended that we continue with the um the full funding um but we can segment it off as we move forward. And so what typically would happen then if we were to decide to go for a single building or a single project with less um financial cost. We could do that. Then basically what you would then do is then you
029would then try to go back into ELP and then you would then qualify for ELP for the next project. You also have to remember you got plenty of time for that because you're looking at a four-year process probably with the first project and then you probably got another four-year process before you get to the next project. So, um you know, it sounds like it's like back to back. It wouldn't be back to back. What we would do is if we were to secure funding for that first segmented um facility, then we would go right into ELP, which would give us time to move up and to secure funding down the road. So, um the letter is just um confirmation that they are going to do what they said they would do. Any questions on that?
030comments. I just wanted to um say a few things. First, uh we had our our our start of the school year for our district leadership team and our building leadership team joined them this morning and at the high school. It was great to see all of the the minds buzzing and the ideas flying. And I think this is one of the best starts that we've had with that group. Just imagining envisioning what we're going to do this year and h seeing the excitement and feeling the excitement was amazing. The meet and greet went well this afternoon. I appreciate everyone's come out. It was nice that parents brought their kids and we got to meet them as well. And so that was a fun time. So we appreciate everyone who came out and took part in
031that. This past uh Saturday was back to school bash. Uh it was held at West Clott Middle School this year. It's the second annual. It was held at the high school last year. Uh this was created as a means to assist our district's most needy students and families and it provided resources, clothing, school supplies. We had over 32 separate school and community agencies participate in that and uh I believe Mr. D over 200 families came through and um overwhelmingly positive feedback. So that's something that we were able to literally give back to our community and get those get our kids ready to be successful day one school. So, we appreciate everyone who participated in that and all the community members who came out and and participated in that. Just a reminder that um it's a
032busy week for the West Claremont community. Tuesday um tomorrow is the Claremont County Police Night Out at Betavia Township Community Center. Wednesday is the Pierce Township Police Night Out at Locus Corners Park. And Thursday is the Union Township Police Night Out at Veterans Memorial Park. All starting at 6 PM. I believe it goes to 900 p.m. 6 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Thank you, Mr. Romano. Um, don't have a lot, but I do want to make a comment on, you know, the advocacy efforts. Um, certainly after after we had our July 9th meeting shortly after that. Uh, there was a lot of discussion on the governor's veto of certain things in in the House bill or in the bianium bill. um one of those uh or three of those um vetos the House looked at overriding,
033but they only did one of them on July 21st. Um that one override, and I'll read it, was uh it was item number 66. It restricts political subdivisions including school districts from pursuing replacement property tax levies as well as fix some emergency substitute emergency and complying school district income tax and fixed sum property tax levies. So, as you recall, we kind of sum those up um after after the ban bill was passed that um legislators were looking at how to reduce taxes, how to cap the growth in property taxes, and then um how to restrict opportunities up the road. Um the the governor did veto the the last two that I talked about. Um, and the one that was overridden was this one that basically reduced opportunities up the road. In other words, how we
034put issues on the ballot. Um, there's still time for the general assembly to look at overriding other vetos that the governor did. Um, they certainly would have had an impact on us. Um, there's certain things in this bienium bill that that uh do restrict some, you know, new money to us. Um, but that's not new to this district where we've been capped uh with state revenue in the past. We've been under that guarantee. Um, as I mentioned before, that the nice bright spot with the bill was um the district has been working hard on student performance and there were provisions and our provisions in the bianium bill to reward school districts for that. Um and and certainly, you know, we we can give accolades to the teaching and learning department to to really to everybody.
035I mean, that that puts a step forward in improving student performance. Um, but a lot of things that we put in place over the last four or five years really um I don't want to say they're they're paying off like it's a big payoff. But in the area where the general assembly chose to um add some additional funding, we were rewarded for it. So, you know, compliments to the people in the classroom and that support the classroom, you know, that we get some extra money. It's not a whole lot. And actually the calculation of that I'm still I know what the formula is. I'm still uncertain what that dollar amount is. Um but you know glad that that that is part of the reward that we can benefit off of as we go forward. So
036there's some good, there's some bad and and as we go forward there's some unknown. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Romano. Moving right along. Looks like board comments. I'll start with Mrs. Spencer. Okay. Uh, I'm just excited to get back started again. I didn't get to go any place this summer too much. I just had knee surgery, but it's okay. I'm excited to uh get started back in the school year. And I know the kids are getting excited and anxious and the teachers and the new principles and our new superintendent is getting ready to get back to work and get nose to the grindstone. And let's keep our keep the role going. I think everything's going well right now. So, I think it's it's going to continue to go that way. So, I'm excited to get started
037with the school year. Thank you, Miss Spencer. Miss um I had the opportunity to do the by annual budget review online. Uh and as you can see, I took a few notes. Um it was it was very interesting. Um it but it's very sad that it seems like the public schools are getting the wrong end of the deal, so to speak. um that things are just, you know, it's it I felt like it was doom and gloom when I got off the the uh call. I'm like, this is really not good. And we have to come up with hopefully some kind of creative ways for funding for our school district. Whether it's, you know, a uh a grant of some sort or an endowment or maybe some scholarships of some kind that can get put
038money into our our system and can use it towards the betterment of students and teachers in this district. Um I feel that um there has to be other ways to to do take care of business and if there this state and federal government is not going to take care of us then we h as a board have to come up with some selective creative ideas to uh move our district in the right direction and keep us keep us going because we can't just say we're not going to have school and just not have school. We we have to have school. We have to have kids here. Teachers want to teach, kids want to come and learn, and so it's a great opportunity for us to really think outside the box and see what we can
039do as far as funding for the school district. Thanks. Thank you, Miss Mr. John. Hope everyone's had a good summer. Um, looking forward to start of the school year. Our kids are actually excited, so I don't get it. I was never excited, but Um, I hope to see someone out this week at one of the events if work or children don't kill me first. Yeah. Ready for some football. Thank you, Mr. Ch. Mr. Rudy. I'm also looking forward to the start of the new school year. Think it's going to be a great one. Okay. Thank you. Uh, I personally would like to welcome all of the new staff members to our district. Um, whether it's at a building level, whether it's at our district level. Um, I I I hope you guys are getting situated
040and uh I look forward to the new staff that we have as well as our current staff. I appreciate everyone in our buildings. Uh, I'm sure the parents are a little bit more eager for the kids to come back to school than the kids are. Um, but I believe everybody will be ready to go. Um, and so I'm looking forward to a great start of the new school year. Uh, before I do forget, because I tend to forget, our next board meeting will be August the 18th, 2025 at 7 p.m. And it it and it is here at the Civic Center. So, with that being said, you got the retreat, too. Where we at here? I apologize. Let me scratch that. We actually have a retreat, a board retreat at 900 a.m. at the Ferguson
041Center. Um, we'll be there from 9:00 to 1. So, we have the board retreat that'll be on the 16th of August and then our next board meeting will be this the 18th at 7. Thank you guys. Um, let me jump back to the screen. So, at this point, we do not have a reason to go into executive session. So, would someone like to make a motion to adjourn the meeting? Thank you, Mr. Rudy. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Chumley. I assume no discussion. Roll call, please. Mr. Rudy, yes. Mr. Chumley, yes. Miss Samborg, yes. Mrs. Spencer, yes. Mr. Yes. Five. Yes. Thank you.