001e e e okay uh good evening welcome to the March 3rd 2025 West Claremont school board meeting Mr Romano will we take call please Mr Patton present Mr Rudy present Miss sandor pres Mrs Spencer present and Mr Chum's been Del correct yes he'll be here thank you it'sot please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the republ for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all first up is the motion to adopt the agenda would someone like to make a motion thank you Mr Rudy is there a second thank you Miss Spencer any discussion thank you roll call please Mr Rudy yes Mrs Spencer yes Mr Patton yes Miss Sor yes four yes thank you uh next
002up is public speaking visitors who wish to address the board are asked to State their name address and school or organization remarks must be addressed to the board and should be brief 3 minutes into the point speakers may offer such as objectives criticisms or suggestions regarding School operations or programs the board will not hear personal complaints of school Personnel or against a person connected with any school district unless those complaints have first been addressed to the individual departments or Administration involved we do have one speaker Mr rich thank you U is that on yeah yeah can you hear me um sometimes that might be better uh thank you first of all to Dan and Tasha for getting me the requested information regarding the um social engineering event that happened um a few years back uh
003second of all I wanted to ask about um Ohio law requires our district to allow employees to keep 120 hours of sick time approv in the sick bank and we're our employees are allowed to carry 364 hours which is more than three times the amount that's required as a minimum by law uh that's the equivalent of two years of paid leave along with two years of unpaid leave we could be uh holding on to an employee for four years to obviously two of those unpaid but that's two years of unencumbered unfunded expense that we probably can't put up with depending on how many people might have to use that benefit uh and also on top of that you're paying a substitute for that entire 2-year period while you're P paying the employee and um The
004Substitute um at retirement I know they can cash those hours out uh anything up to 264 hours they get paid out at 25% of and anything up to 300 between 264 and 364 they get paid at 10% if you average that out that's about 77 days I believe I calculated that they would get paid out for the end of their uh retirement but that's also assuming that an employee goes for years without using a single day of their sick time which I think is uh an unusual ask for a lot of people on top of that you guys have a um a joint fund where people can donate sick time into which could extend that two years of of um of time off out deping on how much time was was funded into that fund
005and if the committee allows them to use that an additional 30 days could be given to a person uh in that situation I think there are better ways to do that um there's probably some savings you guys could have by funding that a little bit differently along with the Baseline um I think you used 5,000 hours 5,200 and some hours is your Baseline if the district went um at half of that throughout the next year uh then teachers would be given a refund based off the savings that the district realized on that and I think there's a better way to fund that also um and then lastly the jet agreement I believe it's for the property at the high school there was a 1% earnings tax that was put in place um and teachers are
006being refunded from what I understand that that 1% and I'm just kind of wondering why teachers are being refunded a 1% tax when we're asking taxpayers to increase the amount of tax that they're paying so that's all I've got thank you moving to superintendent business Transportation contracts so we um as you remember back in January we came to you or maybe it was even in December we came to you to talk about putting out Transportation RFP in which we did do that and so we uh took proposals uh Mr Rano myself and Mr LF um interviewed two vendors last week look through the proposals um we feel very comfortable with one of those proposals and so we're going to ask the board to approve for the next step would then be to approve the authorization
007of the superintendent treasur to then go into negotiate um um those proposals that came forward put it in contract form and then we will bring that to you at the next board meeting for your approval um so we would ask you um to approve that this evening for the superintendent and treasur to move forward and negotiating um the contract okay well I think that you should provide the board with information before you ask us to approve something just off the cup so to speak we can do that again if I if I understood correctly we're giving you authorization to go negotiate the contct contct and we will provide speak with them to see who to see the companies and then once they get the prices negotiated then they'll come back and that's make the finalization
008we're not we're not voting on any not voting on a contract tonight just move forward contct we're just saying we want you guys to go move forward and get additional information well the way this is worded it says Transportation contract so it sounds like you're asking us to approve these two companies the way that was worded when that's why I looked at that I understand when I read that I thought the same thing so I wanted to see what he had to say and that's so again if I understood incorrectly I thought the same thing when I first read it so yes we're not we're not voting on a contract tonight we're just voting on giving the treasur and superintendent the authorization to move forward in contract language with the company that we have chosen
009then you will get a contract to that you will see that prior to vote how many proposals did you get we had three there aren't a whole lot of bus transportation either no there's not so we had three different proposals and um two of them that we did in person um meet with the third did not meet the specifications of requirements needed so you've heard the recommendation would someone like to make a motion move thank you Mr R is there a second second thank you m s is there any discussion thank you roll call please Mr Rudy yes Miss sandor yes Mrs Spencer yes Mr Patton yes or yes thank you so now we're going to move into state of the schools and Dan I think I'll have you just run the slid so we're
010not passing the Baton around so much so hang with me right so this year's theme of city of the schools is West CL not strong and it's because we are proudly putting a spotlight on the resilience and the remarkable journey of transformation that we have been on as a school system and since the covid times and even before covid-19 we had certain challenges that we needed to overcome and we went into the P pandemic you know bracing ourselves but also saying to ourselves we're going to come back out of this we're going to be better and stronger we're not going backwards we we don't want to go back to how things were and we've stayed committed to that so not only have we emerged out of these tough times in a in a recovered state
011in many ways we've we've also emerged stronger we have advanced educational outcomes we've Advanced how we work with our community and engage with them and we've done this with a lot of creativity and determination as we moveed forward and we included our students on this theme determination and they really thought West clont strong really embodied what it feels like and what it is like to be part of os Claremont wolf that uh and this is from high school kids just saying it's it's our resilience it's our grit it's our perseverance that makes us who we are we're West clamont strong and what we want to propose tonight to you is that yes we are West clont strong but as any healthy organization or any healthy human being you don't want to just settle for where
012you are and say well we've you know we've gotten some muscles we've improved our nutrition so let's just sit back and ride you know write out we want to continue to get stronger we want to continue to get better we want to keep the momentum going because we want to be a school district that leaves a legacy of excellence and forward thinking and when it comes to our education and if you look at your aspirational vision here it reminds you of the things that were set forth to me when I came here seven years ago and that we've Revisited every year you guys reaffirmed it last February that these things felt really far away to me when I first read them seven years ago and when you go down the list and read them one
013by one by one you realize that there is some piece of evidence on every single one of these that these this is what's happening in the district and it's only getting stronger and better and we're we're here again to say like thank you for this Vision that you've given the district and the direction that you've given the district as it um helps us align all of our plans and to to have really clear outcomes that we're going for so so thank you for that so the next slide just shows the rest of them and in every state of the school report we aim to say where we've been where we're going and and this year I really I included in there like why this Vision vision is so important because knowing not just what's happening
014but why it's happening is vital so we want to make sure that's Incorporated in there we want to talk about what's next and we want everyone to understand by the end what their role is in being a part of this together as one Community thing that we we use in our vision that that it's not just about the school board it's not just about the teachers and it's not just about the students it's about us it's our partners it's our it's our leadership it's everyone working together in our community so we're going to begin with Ryan as he uh speaking on behalf of the board today opening with his um president message thank you uh good evening school board members faculty staff students and community members it is an honor to address you all here
015tonight and share my thoughts on the state of our schools was was claron strong 2025 is is this year's theme it's essential that we as a district evaluate our past present and future to maintain West claremont's progress we must discuss modernizing our Workforce learning environment and community and stakeholder partnership we as a district need to continue with West Claremont On The Rise West Claremont vasts an award-winning staff including the 2025 Ohio teacher of the year and 2024 Martha holding Jennings Foundation Jennings Master teacher of the year the latter award included an 8,500 grant for a project of the recipients choosing Additionally the Ohio Association of School nurses has named our supervising nurse as the school nurse administrator of the year for 2024 2025 superintendent M Miss Natasha Adams also received the baky association of school
016administration 2024 dick Maxwell Finance award which recognizes leaders who understood understands finances and can educate Empower others in the field the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce has recognized several West Claremont schools with positive behavioral interventions in support PBIS for sure award for the 2023 2024 school year additionally our high school has been ranked among the top 20% of high schools nationally by the US News and World reports in the top 19 in the state of Ohio 28 of our students students representing 5% of their class have been given an award a prestigious Award of the 2025 Ohio Governor's merit scholarship this accomplishment highlights their academic Excellence leadership skills and Comm commitment to their future endeavors we continue each year to partner with a variety of local businesses universities Civic organizations and hospitals to help
017students learn and grow most recently local news featured the district's Aviation program was Claremont School actively seeks Community engagement and values their feedback from its stakeholders the district has utilized surveys focus groups Town Hall meetings and building tours gather insights and understand the community's priorities for the future as West clont Board of Education president I appreciate all of the hard work and dedication seen every day by everyone I am truly grateful to be a part of this journey and look forward to the future of West Claremont School District thank you well and I'm happy to say that when you mentioned the the grant that was awarded to one of our teachers the video that we're going to show a little bit later today will show you some evidence of how that's being used so it's
018it's timely we'll keep going we had love WC last week and I really just wanted to take a pause here to thank our companies we had Big B coffee Dickies Barbecue City barbecue and Chick-fil-A all support us in new ways so they dedicated the entire day um to West Claremont so we we get some of those donations back it just helped us Elevate our celebrations and I know this year we had well over 2,000 shout outs that went out and so we're just thankful for everyone for taking a moment to really uh show appreciation to our staff West clar truly at its core we're a learning organization and the way that we make a large school district feel smaller is by this one key action we know every student's name their story their strengths and
019their needs and we respond we we take that very seriously we also live out our vision our mission and our values these aren't just words on a wall or words that you see on our website we wake up every day ready to commit to Excellence with every learner every day in every way and we're and I'm especially proud of that every way part of that when we started with that mission that every way part had a limited definition and as time has gone on it continues to grow and grow and grow in the ways we're able to serve our students and for you guys it was important in your board aspirations to make our community and our family engagement strong so that we had a lot of support and mutual pride in our school system
020and so your expectation has really propelled us far when it comes to our community and family engagement so I want to take us just down history Lane here for a minute we started in the school year 2122 in identifying the current state of things looking at our our district challenges and identified those five things that we wanted to spend time on student well-being and staff well-being and safety was just slightly ahead of educational programming but those two things always came out as the top two and then and then related to those two was the idea of purpose and design of schools and that's why we've spent some time really unpacking that because it's like well what does that really mean and we knew it was going to be connected to how we configured our district
021in the future how we set up our programming and how we designed our buildings and how we how we truly prepared students and you know CAC helped us Define that the purpose of school today should be helping students be future ready so that's really where we've focused our attention as soon as we identified those challenges and I want to include transportation and facilities in that we moved into the Journey of the wolf to say what is it really going to take to ensure that every student is Portrait of a graduate ready so that they can enroll enlist employ and or be an entrepreneu entrepreneur as they move on in um p postgraduation from there we wanted to take a look at our facilities to look at our learning environments and the purpose and design of
022schools if you're going to be a school that helps students be Future Ready what does the environment need to look like what what conditions need to be in place and we continued that conversation then as as time progressed we developed the Blazing new Trail strategic plan that was approved by you guys last at the at the end of last school year and as we look to the future we we've turned our conversations to them how do we Finance this if these are the conditions that we need to ensure that our students are Future Ready what what are going to be those Investments that are important to make not only of our finances but of of our time and our talents as we move forward and you as you can see there's a blank there um
023this is we we do about six of these a year and we have no intention of slowing that down we want to continue this conversation um as as time goes on Ryan you mentioned this in your opening but Community engagement through a variety of methods have been how we've elevated the voice of our students and our staff our families in our community how we've really tried to help everyone feel like we're in this together and there isn't going to be there's no Silver Bullet here to to solve any of these problems these are all integrated interrelated problems and it was going to take all of us to dream big about what West Claremont can be and should be and then to work together to make it happen so our big takeaway from the community engagement
024as we listened and responded and looked to the Future was that these five challenges can't be fixed by using old methods we're not going to incrementally tweak one thing at a time it's not like you can work on safety for a minute and then work on educational program that that all these ideas go together and the best way to forge forward in the future is to change conditions in the school district and that's where the four ideas come in we got to modernize our learning we have to just go back with yeah um modernize our educator Workforce our learning environments and our family and Community Partnerships so that we can truly ensure that all students are future ready and as we've listened and responded you can see this is just a reminder and it's not
025a it doesn't absolutely include everything that we've added but this shows that what we heard and what we learned from our stakeholders about what they think was most important that they wanted inside of our system because as you know West CL out for a long period of time just went without things and the opportunity with the valuation increase as well as the Esser funds allowed us to infuse um more money toward the classroom more toward the student experience more toward our staff and we're really seeing some great outcomes based on that very precise and and structured um investment I have on this and I won't read through it because U Ryan highlighted a lot of these but I every year I kind of I Chronicle the big things that have happened and I you'll I
026didn't include from 2017 all the way till now but I do have it at the end of the slideshow just at as a point of reference to show the different kinds of things that we've infused into the system and the outcomes that we've seen and as I as I mentioned earlier we're we're moving toward this idea of Blazing new trails and we decided this about this time last year that the road to success was only going to take us so far it was too rigid too structured too defined that didn't lend itself to the personalization that our students want and that our families want for our students and so that's why we we kind of changed our metaphor to Blazing new trails so that we can help students be prepared for anything not just something
027and we created the Strategic plan that that offered these specific goals number one port of a graduate every student graduates with meaningful employment or higher education opportunities notice this isn't every student graduates and have a has a diploma we want it to mean more than that that's the competitive advantage of West Claremont School District and then there are goals around Pathways and performance our people and our places I won't read those goals mainly because I can't see them from sitting here and Ellie and Randy and D David will be reiterating those as we go forward so Randy over to you so when we started looking at the portrait of a graduate back in 2019 is when we started looking at this and we go back to that as a group of us once theel and
028we came back and we started to work through focus groups students parents staff members and as we started to go through this and um natas already talked a little bit about the 4 we started talking about Pathways we started talking about okay we come to high school what does that mean how do we focus how do we get a focus how do we get a pathway and that's when we went to the four e we started with three e then we added another one of Entrepreneurship but when we looked at employee um enroll and in list we wanted students to have a focus when they walk down the hallway when they came into the high school even before they came into the high school these are things that we wanted to start even at the
029middle school level so when you start thinking about not narrowing it down now but looking at your options those are the things that we looked at we talked about soft skills we talked about durable skills we looked at and did research on gen Z what does it mean to be gen Z how do you work with the Gen z um this was different for our staff and as we started to look at the portrait of a graduate and we started to look at how do you develop a culture of high expectations and as we did this we started to narrow it down we were're able to look at the portrait of a graduate which is the next one so this has been with us now since 21 20 20 really but we were you know
030it was Co so it's kind of a BL it was online in 20 um we understood resiliency and adaptability as a huge feature um that's that's what slapped Us in the face then so when we look at this it's focused on students and I'm going to look at this from two different lenses I'm going to look at it from a high school principal or recovering High School principal I'm going to be looking it from operations because they correlate and I think those are the things as we go forward we have to make sure that we connect the two because as we look at what students are going to be prepared for obviously academic and life skills things that we focused in on what teaching and learning our teachers our staff you saw all the improvements
031and Ryan talked about some of the things that we've the accomplishments being in top 20% that is is an accomplishment that is a major national accomplishment that we came into we didn't have before and so when you look at those academic and life skills you look at the communication and collaboration okay when you look at that you have the opportunity to do that in the school that you currently are you know character and integrity leader and me those are the things that we put in those are programs that we've gone out that you have approved and gone out and brought into this district and what I see with that now it's the same thing as when we started looking at our culture and we started looking at the language of the culture when you start
032looking at the language and I'm starting to hear teachers I'm starting to hear students I'm starting to hear in our meetings using the language of leader and me that's when you change culture when you can talk about it you can see it you can breathe it and you know what you're talking about and I think that's what's important when you start to look at character integrity you look at the programs Innovation and creative thinking is pretty self-explanatory obviously in that classroom the expectation is we wanted to be Innovative we wanted our students working harder than our teachers and we wanted to be able to offer them opportunities um and you see things like the wolf lab and things like that that is outside the box that is what I consider a best practice that will
033will bring um people in to take a look at what we're doing that's Innovative and all the credit to the people that put that into place um because to me that's those are the things that you can put a benchmark on those are the things that people will come to you to see how you're doing things and uh it's incredible res resiliency and adaptability obviously we've gone through that now take the look at it through the operations when I look at those and see all the pieces of that portrait of a graduate it on what we have coming up how is it going to affect academics how's it going to affect academics is if we have to use money that is ear marked towards uh from the general fund to our teaching and learning and
034have to put that back into operations obviously that's going to have a factor you don't want to divert that money away from our students and if we have facilities that we're going to have to do that it's going to have to come from somewhere collaboration we have collaboration space in every building the same no we know that so when I look at from operational standpoint how do I put our staff how do I put our students how do I put our teachers in the best possible learning environment that can afford some type of collaboration and communication with students inte tger you already talked about Innovation when we look at the media centers when we look at what we want to be able to do in the future to offer our students those opportunities um those
035are things that are at risk risk if we don't move forward with basically with our buildings and with that physical plan and then resilience and adaptability changing world every single day and that's what we're have to deal with and so uh I I see it both from what we do in the classroom to what we do from operations and they do have a factor on one another when you look at what we have for the progression one of the biggest things that we came in with always we want 100% of our students to graduate that is the goal it's not 999 it's not 96 we want 100% of our students to walk across the stage with the skill set that they are able to go out into the world and do uh and be proactive
036productive U because when we first started looking at the pathways back 50% of our students went on the two and four year programs only 50% not everyone goes College ready they don't go to college so we also had one to two% went military then what do you do with the rest how are we preparing them how are we giving the skill set so when they walk across the stage they take that diploma and they stand out in front of the people that they're going to compete with for jobs and so those are the things that when we look at it and when you look at this slide you see willville doing a podcast 2017 we were not doing podcast at the high school level okay uh so the you can see the progression of how
037we have moved as a district we've pushed things down we've given our students opportunities to be able to be successful as they move forward success doesn't happen grades 9 through 12 success starts back preschool kindergarten being prepared to be able to get to the skill sets that you need when you get to 9 10 11 and 12 and so when you look at that and you see the increase from uh we were about 89.6 in 2019 to almost what 90 four now those are hard numbers to move I can tell you that from being a high school principal for 20 years moving those numbers are very very difficult and to be able to do that while increasing expectations is very very difficult to do and we've done that through a lot of hard work through
038teaching and learning through our staff through our administrators and obviously our students as well and they're not happy at 94 you want 100% you want 100% will always be the goal that every student walks in will walk across the [Applause] stage all right my turn that was probably too long well done Randy well done thank you so um Natasha referenced our strategic plan which really outlines goals to take us to 2030 and Beyond um and with our strategic goal there's the one overarching goal and then we have sort of three strategic themes um and each of the Strategic themes have a goal and so I'm going to talk to you today um about um our strategic theme related to Pathways and performance and so the goal um regarding or related to Pathways and performance is
039that every student will have access to rigorous curriculum and a support system so that they can develop strong foundational Knowledge and Skills that transfer and that word transfer is like a really critical part of that goal we don't want students who just like learn something in the moment for the teacher on that day and then a year later they don't remember it I mean how many things I can say like a lot of the things that I learned in high school I don't remember um today and there's always going to be an element of things that you remember and forget but ultimately we want our core programs and practices um really deepen learning experiences for students so that they can um develop those transferable durable skills that will take them well into the future um
040and so that's really at the heart of what we're after here in our strategic plan but this strategic plan wasn't like created um in a vacuum it really was um born from the work of our citizens advisory commission CAC and Natasha referenced that had a little bit um you know earlier as it relates to our your really direction for Community engagement and involvement and um the CAC really to me is like a Hallmark representation of what can come from um from that Community um involvement and engagement and so um the CAC was tasked with um kind of looking to the Future and helping us think about what is the purpose and design of a modern school um system and what does our West Clara Community believe the purpose and design of a modern school system
041should be it's one thing to have an idea about like nationally or internationally what people might think is important as we develop Future Ready learners but for us it was really that localized context was critical because we wanted to ensure that our plan um um and our strategic plan really reflected the desires of our community and our students and so um that that really was um their their role to really understand our current realities um and the kinds of recommendations that they wanted to bring to you as it related to the purpose and design of a modern school so this graphic that you see here you've seen it before um and it really was work um our CAC members designed and created um this graphic and it was really meant to represent the journey that
042um that they wanted um that our community wanted for um for students in a in a modern um School experience and it really represents from preschool all the way through graduation those um the types of um experiences and resources and supports that we wanted to be true along a students's journey to really ensure that they um were lifelong Learners and kind of like their I don't know their Mantra that came out of this that was that we wanted students prepared for something not just or prepared for anything not just something and so it's one thing and you know Randy kind of alluded to this when he was talking about the five E we don't want students to it's really challenging for a student when you're 14 years old some 14-year-olds know exactly what they want
043to do and come like no matter what that's like the thing that they're going to do but most most kids even you know high schoolers um they don't really necessarily know exactly what they want to do and so we really the CAC really felt that it was critical that their educational experience experience in West Claremont prepared them to do anything that they desired and that they were equipped with the skill sets and the mindsets and the academic and life skills that they could end up like the sky would be the limit for them and not just like a pigeon hold like singular view of what was possible for them because we wanted all kids to have the kinds of experiences that would really um give them a competitive advantage and really prepare them for you
044know anything that their their heart desired and so um that really this work their research their recommendations to the board were instrumental as we um as we work to then create our strategic plan from there and so um you know we can't we can't thank them enough for um for the contributions that they um that they gave us video yes while we're waiting for this to queue up I'll just give you a little preview of what you're about to see so Natasha referenced and um Ryan um earlier said that we had one of our teachers at the middle school Reena Ford named as the Martha Jennings Martha Holden Jennings um Foundation teacher of the year and so with that recogn recognition came money um that she was then able to use that money to make
045investments into her classroom and her programming for students and so this video um really represents and reflects um the Investments that she was able to make because of her um recognition and the impact that that's had on student learning as an example of um Future Ready students and learning that we have going on and if not Larry's gonna have to act it out for us um we can't get it to play here I'll get it to play long she's well into her 20 I want to say like it's close to 30 I want to say it's like 28 is I should know this by heart but it's it's up there for sure all kont yeah still has that oh dve in it's really been so amazing to see um just how this like how she's
046really taken this experience and leveraged it as an opportunity to really just like ignite um like a passion in herself and and students it's just been really great to see she was hired in 94 so thank you yes about right almost 30 years right so we'll tell us some more good news while we're waiting and this is also Middle School just recently um Mary Hufford and her class participated at an event at a a a Statewide I think it was Statewide first um English language arts conference and they had kind of done a passion project I guess you could say that related to Ai and one of their goals was to really to analyze how the state assessment works and how it's scored and to go like really deep into what makes excellent writing and
047they used AI to help them do that and they presented at this conference to explain their process and what they learned and then the Oella which is the state group was so impressed that they invited them to the National Convention that happened this past weekend so even more students then went with them and pres presented at a National Conference what they had been learning with this teacher and did I uh I didn't do the assignment Justice SN is there anything else you would add that I that I probably missed or did I do okay I did okay but what else would you add you add yeah this this is not fluffy stuff like it's it's I me it's to the level that like their research has involved them leveraging AI like actually building the prompts
048into AI to train the AI theirself to analyze like student writing um and ways that it wasn't just about like utilizing AI but it was actually then like you know utilizing existing AI but then like training it themselves to like serve a purpose well and the thing that was most impressive about them was how they presented because they were so articulate in in explaining the process that people they were just blown away and that's why they got asked to go further and they already have on the calendar I think this is going to be in April there's a parent uh that was involved in knowing what they were doing and they're invited to Fidelity they're going to be going to Fidelity to meet with those leaders uh to continue this conversation so um it's just
049been amazing oh now I think we're moving on I think is what we're is what's happening you guys know how um how I can sit still here we could always come back to it if you think of something magical but let's keep going with the um let's keep going with where we are and then we we can Circle back thank you Larry all right Ellie we'll pick up with you you're still in progress and Pathways yes and we have a great video to show you when we can Pathways and performance and some of the progress that we've made within Pathways and performance and if you can say that five times it's like a little bit of a tongue twister so um I mean there are so many things that we could highlight as progress that
050has been made um within Pathways and performance and again that's around like every student having access to regular curriculum and support systems so um just a few things and it's really been because of the investment that you all have made that we've been able to um have some of these things become a reality and so um this year we were able to for the first year um we adopted um last spring you approve last spring the use of new um curriculum and instruction materials in English language arts and um that really has your financial investment has provided access to students with rigorous um instructional materials access to students having text in hand that um helps to build Knowledge and Skills that um try not to be like distracted by uh that's okay man behind the
051curtain I know that's quite the panel there um but this English language arts curriculum has really put text in hand for students that not only helps them build um like English Language Art strategies but also allows them to really build foundational knowledge and skill in in music or in in science and in social studies like one of the things that we know about literacy performance is that disciplinary literacy their ability to read and write um not just literature but not informational text is really critical and that the more students develop knowledge just around um those those content areas the better that they'll be um the more successful they'll be the more equipped they'll be to be able to write and speak and communicate and listen and so it's um it it just really is like
052a game Cher for um for our students it's very challenging and rigorous so much so that I think in the beginning teachers were like oh worried like can our students like step up to the task and what we found is that they can and and that our teachers have really been working to develop um to strength their expertise to scaffold those experiences for students who maybe like just need some additional supports to help them get there but it really is setting a high bar for all students and um and that we're working to ensure that they all get there so that has been really um exciting to see and you know to see like some of these pictures are actually from preschool classrooms and so to be able to see you know students from preschool
053all the way um through 12th grade really continuing to de develop their love for um for literacy has has been really exciting and and this is just the beginning this is year one and so we know um that so many more great things are in store um for us Randy go back just number one um so Randy mentioned a little bit the wolf lab um if you've all had the opportunity to um go to the high school and see the transformation of the lower and upper level media centers of the high school like just last year you would have seen um kind of a space that looked a little sad to be honest where it was like such um potential and opportunity at the heart of our high school really being underutilized and it has
054has just been transformed um this year and it's because our wolf lab um is is housed there and so this really um provides an opportunity for us to um to to put some of those things that the CAC was just like dreaming about as possibilities when they made their recommendations for you about ways to engage students in uh to provide them opportunities to develop these Future Ready skills like in just one year it it's happened um and and students are really able to the the learning that students um like the content knowledge and the skills of students in Wolf lab they're they're not working on from different curriculum those like priority standards and academic life um academic skills are the same um as a student who might be working in a in a more traditional
055math class or Ela class for example but it's the the pace and the place where they're learning that allows for more personalized um paths for students where they get to have some autonomy in how they leverage their time how they work with their peers their teachers Etc that really helps um students develop some of those like um task management skills and you know they learn more about themselves as Learners and how what it takes for them to be um successful in that learning environment and it's really um you know Randy mentioned some things that can become like Hallmark experiences within a a a building or within a district wolf lab has already in just a short period of time become one of those we've had we've had districts from um other parts of the state
056come to visit us um to learn from what we're doing um Greg the high school principal he's hosted um principles from the other like high aims districts to come see not just wolf lab but other programs that we're building out at the high school and so in a very short period of time we really have accelerated um opportunities for students and again it's really just the beginning of um of where we're headed and so it's really um it's really exciting and some of the CC parents actually were like wait a minute like this was literally just a thing we were talking about and it's happening like they to for us for them to see how their work and the work of the community and the goals and um desires that they had for the learning
057experiences for our students to then see that those that wasn't just like a plan just to make a plan to say we had a plan but it was really um to be then operational operationalized and so that part I I think has been really rewarding for them um and obviously for our students and our staff so just to highlight one other um example that you've heard of um is our Aviation program um but again like an opportunity for students to learn through an authentic context that really um can open up um potential Pathways for them that can lead to um real employment um real skill sets whether it's through being you know like a pilot or a drone pilot's license um it it really um is something that um that our students are thriving with
058and that is like giving um giving us a competitive Advantage it was interesting at the partners in education event that we had the other day sporties was there and I had a chance to talk to them and they they were saying you know the pr from from the video that we did as well as the the one that the news station did they're like this has really gotten us a lot of business like a lot of people are noticing us and I said well a lot of people have also reached out to us we had somebody from was it GE reached out to Ellie to say okay how can we partner and it's just amazing in such a short amount of time number one the amount of students that applied and and how positive it's
059kind of vibrating like um Rippling out into um into the community so all right Larry what do you think all right this could this could be only taking a [Music] [Applause] 50% Thank you Larry for your persistence resiliency and resiliency all those things you're a great for of of [Music] graduate every day at West Claremont Middle School teachers really students and staff it's not like we didn't have a dress rehearsal in here you know this is not the first time this was fully test work on there and work on here hang on hang on I got another usually I just call the tech guy and he comes in and then something then it just starts pull that my turn it off and on okay I think that IA at the um again referring back to
060the partners in education event there were several of our partners that that spoke that day that talked about how having a partnership with us was also beneficial for them that it really wasn't just a one way and we always talk about that we don't want Partners just for pizza and t-shirts like that's not what it's about we want we want real learning opportunities for our kids and we want it to be a value to our community not just a like a burden of any sort and they all mentioned how great being a partner has been for the business [Music] every day at West Claremont Middle School teachers students and staff demonstrate what it means to be West Claremont strong nowhere is this more evident than in Justin Bush's class where sixth graders are getting hands-on
061experience with 3D printers for Justin WC means we create and a lot more West Claremont strong means different things to our community and everyone has a West Clermont strong story let's take a closer look look at one of those stories Ashton Hinman was one of the first students to take the 3D printing course encouraged by his father who works with 3D printers at a local business I thought about them like when I first came in my d i I knew about them it was one of the courses my dad picked because he also has one that we would sometimes use for um printing stuff but um I was just excited to make stuff well he well he works at billstein shocks um just all sorts works of different stuff if like he needs something to
062make this one work he'll print that I don't know he's just shown me them when they're done and stuff he yesterday brought home something I don't even know what it was but it was a bunch of like it was on a ring and a bunch of metal pieces that he designed in fusion and then he just took them into like a metal thing and just made them somehow so this was an ice tray that we watched a YouTube series 4 and then so this was an ice tray and then we designed cookie cutters and then the these so one of the teachers here um she has a softball team and she asked us to design little softballs with um names on them so this is one of the example ones she that we that Mr
063Bush gave us and the I think the hardest thing for us was probably getting this um the um stitching but after a while we got it cor we got it right and then these they're little like boats I think it's like the first thing that you make when you get one just to make sure everything prints right for Zoe Russo the 3D printing class appealed to her creative side but it has also taught her the power of persistence thought it would be really fun getting to like design things I love arts and crafts I thought it would just be really fun we made keychains um cookie cutters um ice cube trays and just like a bunch of different like cool gadgets I've learned just just to be very creative in whatever I do and just
064to like go with my gut and then like if something doesn't work you can keep trying trying Titus Carson is one of the 3D printing Pioneers at West Claremont Middle School my name is Titus Carson I am in sixth grade and I was one of the first to use the 3D printers to make stuff it I wanted to take this that class because it sounded engaging and creative to me for Justin Bush the 3D printing class that he co- tees with Madison Allen is about more than just making things their students are reinforcing basic academic skills and applying them in new ways that will prepare them for the future the technology is the big part on bringing the 3D printers um as well as kind of that problem solving the perseverance just kind of getting
065the students be able to work on their own be able to solve problems and then kind of that technology end of the spectrum um 3D printing and CAD design is is going up it's it's a technology um part of the sector that that is important so there's companies that are using 3D printers um there's Boeing GE Ford um Nike actually just came out with a shoe that's 3D printed that's really cool um and then you can even go as far as saying the construction end of the spectrum um there's houses that are being 3D printed so it's it's something that if we are as a society moving into um more technology it's definitely something that is is important for our students to learn moving forward we want them to have knowledge of things outside of
066the classroom yes stem classes and 3D printers and CAD programs use math so technically we are a math program we are a science program but we want students to be able to have a success ful life outside of the building and outside of school so if we can prepare them for when they graduate if they are aware of a CAD program if they're aware of an engineering classes or architecture then when they get into society or when they get into college they're going to already have a step up they're going to have a leg up above everybody else Madison Allen who co- tees the course with Justin Bush believes their students take something more than 3D printing skills from the class yeah I think the biggest skill they take away from this class is resiliency
0673D printing is really complex it's a lot of trial and error it's a lot of failure um and they kind of have to work through that it's a little frustrating at first when you're making these designs and you know you kind of have a vision of what it's going to look like and it doesn't go the way you think it will or you print it and it doesn't print the way you anticipate it and whether or not it's 3D printing they have to learn to look at that f failure as an opportunity to try again so instead of saying it didn't work it's not worth me doing anymore you're saying it didn't work and now I'm one step closer to succeeding and I think that is the beauty of the 3D printing class it's not
068about the 3D printing it's about the resiliency that they take away um and then the other one I would say is collaboration you know you have these kids who are going to each other to ask questions before they come to the teacher to ask for help so they're helping each other they're guiding each other and they're taking these leadership roles without even realizing that they're taking leadership roles it's really cool so how do 3D printers actually work Titus Carson walks us through the process these are the 3D printers in these four chambers is where you put your filament so and the way this works is the filament is in is put into the machine and it's melted onto the Bas plate where it starts going layer by layer being created over here great demonstration it
069can take minutes to hours to days to weeks maybe a month or two what's possible at West Claremont with 3D printers and other courses that further develop basic academic skills and apply them to the real world that our kids will be venturing into honestly we've been able to do so much this year it's been absolutely fantastic I would say ideally in the next couple of years we would be able to get some more printers and be able to have a dedicated maker space in the building whether that's in the library or in a classroom that we have a significant quantity of printers that we have big actual computers rather than laptops cuz laptops with the Chromebooks are a little bit slow they're a little bit laggy um so actual dedicated desktops that we're able to
070use with those and then able to bring students in but not necessarily that learning facilitated by teachers whether that's Miss Allen or myself but more facilitated by them or kind of that monu style base where they come in they do the design and then they print right off the bat so that they can get that direct feedback of what works and what doesn't at West Claremont Middle School we're preparing our kids for a future where anything goes where the skills they learn here can influence their success throughout life what's your WC strong story [Music] thank you Larry and clearly I misspoke I think I've mixed every Middle School Story that I've heard in the last three weeks into one store she she did buy um 3D printers so I think that's where okay that's where
071it's coming from well there's just so many good things going on there and the the teachers are on fire so um they did a great job of that so while we're getting set back up here that was one of the areas that we wanted to highlight were the electives at the middle school we've really been working um you know as as we've been building out some new programs and experiences at the high school level we're really wanting to work backward so that we can ensure we're not just waiting um until High School to give students opportunities to um to explore and to develop interests um and to participate in programs that really help them to um just put some of those skills to life that you heard Justin um talking about um and so that's
072like the video is one example of a middle school elective that we've created to really allow students that opportunity to um to to Really roll up their sleeves and to like learn by doing another area of progress that we've made in Pathways and performance um again in that goal statement it talks about a support system that we want to have in place for all students and so this year we've really it's it's really been over the last few years and it started with um kind of a community survey that uh we partnered with an organization called Mind piece to help us really understand from a parents perspective from a community perspective and from a student um experience perspective what um what the their their needs were as it related to um to mental health supports
073and so as a result of the outcome of that survey um plus looking at what we thought uh what they they thought that it what might mean for the kinds of supports that we needed to have in place we've partnered to um to bring um therapists to all of our schools across the district at the elementary middle and high school level and that partnership comes through um through Neco through best point and Partnerships existing Partnerships that we had um with child focus and so we are really um you know we're really pleased with how far we've been able to come in that area um really to ensure that that all students whether it's in a short-term kind of way and or long or in a longer term kind of way have access to school-based mental
074health supports um so that we can remove any barriers to um to them being able to fully participate and engage um in learning and so that really and and that's really been done at no cost to the district that that's all done through Partnerships with these organ organizations and agencies that allow us to provide that service um without having to to put taxpayer dollars into that and so that's really um something that we're really very proud of as progress that we've made in this area and then we've talked a little bit about WC your future obviously the pi event was kind of a way to Showcase um just how far in in a very short period of time we've been able to exponentially increase the opportunities um for students to really um participate in um
075learning that goes beyond the wall of the classrooms through Partnerships with various organizations and companies um Etc and you know part of the the Hallmark of of that like Pi event um and I think Natasha referenced this a little bit earlier was that this is a m mutually beneficial relationship that are that companies are able not just from a financial standpoint surely also from a financial standpoint they're able to benefit um and clearly our students have an opportunity to have an authentic um learning experience a way to deepen their um their learning and so we've really been able to move Beyond just um you know asking like for a handout from organizations sure we're happy to accept donations but really what we're looking for are is ways to partner um to to enhance the learning
076experiences that we're able to provide students um so that before students graduate they they've had the opportunity to dabble um in several diff different um experiences to really help them develop a more well-rounded understanding of the things that they have an interest in um the ways that they um you know they like to um to learn so that they can really um kind of be able to to just have a better idea of what they're interested in pursuing postgraduation okay so um if you recall we we have kind of established some um District academic benchmarks this is like not a comprehensive view of all of our academic measures clearly we have the state report card that we share um you know information with you about that um each year this is really just meant to
077kind of hit some of the highlights of those like Benchmark if you think about like um you know for my own children when you go to the doctor and they kind of have like benchmarks you know when you're one-year-old or when you're you know you should be doing these kind of things by that age or when you're you know 12 years old or whatever and it's kind of like growth and development chart these are the same kind of like benchmarks that we've established as a system that kind of give us an indication of like how well we're doing and um areas that we'll want to continue to focus on and and refine over time so one of those is is really and this the kindergarten Readiness is more of just an indication of like how
078cids come to us because clearly how they come to us imp PS um their Readiness for being able to engage successfully um in school and so this um in the for 2024 um 58% is of students were considered um off track so that's like that that's like already we're starting with like some challenges um in place it's a little less than four so like that's the good news it was like 62.2 five% so like all right we're getting a little better but when almost 60% of your students are coming in considered off track like we know we have an uphill like battle to climb um you know from from the get-go and you know we know all research like any research um article that you read um shows that students who start off track are
079more likely to end off track um without significant and extensive interventions and supports and so that's really what we're working to have be true from the very beginning um because it's like necessary for us to and so if you think about like on the state report card one of the measures on the state report card is a K3 literacy measure and half of that measure is looking at the students who are off track one year and on track like the following year so like off track in the fall of kindergarten to like off track in the fall of first grade and if you don't even have enough students off track in kindergarten you don't even like have have to have that measure on your report card and so for us um like we many districts
080that's like what they're working with where it's like they came in kindergarten off track on track and so we just like keep them on track where for us we have so many coming in off track that it's it's it just we're we're starting um like behind um the starting line and so it it just means that's not an excuse for us it just means we have to work like extra hard and pull it all and stops um to to in whatever way that we can the other thing I'll just say and it's it's more difficult to measure in this way but not only are we seeing students like coming in off track but like their needs are more significant than before and you know students who are coming to us like with no prior schooling
081experience who just have rule who have challenges being able to regulate their behavior and so so we know that they're uh that we're starting further behind and the conditions that can allow them to successfully um engage and learning from from the beginning um aren't Al like they're they're also challenges with that and so um you know we've we've been able to um to really put more effort and energy into you know kindergarten um and first grade to try to help remediate some of that um but but it has it it's been a challenge for us so um one of those like measures that we look at as a benchmark is looking at third grade literacy and math and we're we're not going to be satisfied until we're like 80 plus per and Beyond um for
082all students and so you can see in both areas like we made progress um in English language arts and in math as it relates to third grade and again these are district averages so we have some buildings that are higher than this um and some you know that are lower than this so we've we've made progress um it's not exactly still where we want to be but we're we keep moving in that right direction for um two other grade level benchmarks are fifth and eighth grade um again looking at literacy and in math so we made progress in um literacy in um in fifth grade and we took a slight step back um in math and so we've been really working to unpack that um to understand a little bit about like what took place
083there um but but again those like exceed the state averages just not still where we um where we want to be and then the same thing as it relates to to eth grade took a step forward in math and a step back in English language arts I think one of the um hypothesis that we had in place for eth grade literacy was really around access to instructional materials on grade level um materials and so um those like in place now uh we're we're really looking for that to continue to move in the right direction ell can I just ask a question how long how many years back do you guys keep your your data like so this is 23 24 do you have like 22 and 21 I do yeah yeah and the yes and
084we could get that for you the um the one thing I'll say is that um there had been like dips or years where it was like a different assessment and then with covid there was like a Hiatus um where there wasn't data and so there are but this version of this test started like in 2014 was it oh really no because then there was like Park assessments and okay I was thinking that was 2014 so would that be more like 16 I think we have it I I think I could like readily get my hands on probably to 17 um okay I was just kind of curious but why it's important and why I'm want to make this point is that that's when the test changed and the first thing is that the CH the
085test changed to computers everybody had to have a computer to have this and so what was true in West Claremont until 20120 is that you could get a computer on a Tuesday or you could you know schedule the lab or the mobile lab or whatever but you didn't have it at your fingertips all the time and so we were competing against kids who in third grade were typing every day of the week versus if a teacher like checked out a lab so that's number one in just being ready to take that assessment number two during all this time from 2017 until 2021 there was no new curriculum so the curriculum that we had to match the standards and the new rigor of this assessment we very lagged behind and so that's what we've been bringing
086up to speed so when she says the eighth graders haven't been reading things at eth grade level she means it because they haven't had materials that were at that eighth grade level with the rigor that was expected from the standards and so or the seventh or the sixth or the fifth well yes and so again we we don't want to sit here and make excuses but there's real reasons why every move we're making is to like level that playing field and help them be more competitive by putting the tools and the resources in their hands and just the little bit that we've been able to do has shown remarkable results and so that that's the thing that that is really the takeaway is given a few resources that are not 10 years behind with the
087professional development that goes with it we can quickly close gaps yeah and and I will say like these aren't comparing the same cohorts of students so it's like the group of students in 23 who took the assessment are clearly they're like they've moved on to the next grade in 24 and so on and so that also just is because it could mean that that that that group of kids as seventh graders could have made huge gains we're just comparing eighth graders to eth graders that is actually the case when you look at cohorts moving across the system yeah because like for example last year um on the state report card which looked at all of our state tested um grade levels and subject areas we had the highest performance index that we've ever had and
088our value added which is that growth um for for students year-over-year was top 11% in the state and so you know it it's just important to to recognize like what we're looking at um and and what we're not looking at as we um review this so um Randy referenced this like earlier but another area that our research tells us is like the percentage of students who come into High School having already earned High School Credit really increases the likelihood that they will graduate on time and so that's part of the reason why we've been looking at building experiences for students even before they get to high school you know when you when you look at middle school so much of Middle School um comes back to student engagement and comes back to student motivation there's
089so much research on on motivation in the Middle School grades that's the time where they really can um they can they can really shine or they can really shut down and so we've been looking for ways to really give kids hope for their future and to believe that they've like got a shot at this even if they like themselves don't yet believe that they do and so looking at opportunities for students to earn high school credit prior to high school you know through our like foreign language program our world language program through algebra Etc we're looking at other ways um to be able to do that and so this year um in 24 um over 90% of um our well this is um yeah so 90% of our freshmen had five or more credits um
090by the end of 24 and so that meant that they um are on track to graduate because like by the end of their freshman year we want them to have successfully completed credits that will put them on track to earn 20 credits which is our graduation requirement so some of those students earned those in middle school and then others earned all five in high school but we're looking for ways to ensure that by the end of their freshman year they remain on track for graduation and um you can see here and this hasn't yet been like reported on a report card yet because High School graduation is always in AAR on the report card and so um our 24 our our graduating class of 24 their graduation percentage was 94% and we know that that's
091been something that was a real priority of our board um it's been clearly a priority of ours as well to to Really um prioritize programs and practices that can help all students be able to um to walk across this the stage at um graduation and so we're really proud and as Randy said that's not an easy number um to move it it really takes um knowing every student um every student's story every student's strength and every student's need and and building responsive plans um because we all know not all students are um are created equally and and it really takes um understanding those unique um challenges to to help move that needle and so we're really proud of our high school um for for their efforts well and there's a little Aster I would add
092to this chart if you look at 2020 21 and I think I think even 22 you can correct me if I'm wrong but there were different requirements for graduation because the state was trying to give some grace to the challenges that the kids had faced so if you really you if you wipe those three years away where the the requirements were Co is co related and they were loosened you see a big change from 84.4 in a normal 2019 to a 2024 normal 24 so that's that's really and not only were they looser there but they've it wasn't like they just went back to the same old requirements but they also like ramped them up and Tammy like you are are very familiar um with that and so it really it was kind of like
093a double challenge for us to like get back to to where we were prior but then to also like the expectations are just higher for for all students and so um it really is something we're we're really proud of credits are amazing yeah I mean that's it really is the credits the other piece of that is how it correlates with opportunities for kids is we always we always talk about getting between six to eight to 10 credits well six to eight credits in those first two years because that opens your Doorway to go to the Oaks if that's something that you want to do um when we first came in we found that many students didn't have the opportunity to even apply to the Oaks because they didn't get a good start they didn't have
094have those five credits they didn't get to those eight credits in those first two years of High School which closed a door for them and so um that is an amazing feat because if I remember back we were probably around 50% yeah and so to get to that level 90% they've done amazing work to get there yeah okay um student attendance as as we all know this has been a challenge across the entire State I mean there are task force task force forces at the state level and um we've really been like working hard to um to combat this you know we were feeling really pretty good about how things were and then like oh flu season is upon us so um you know we're working to try to get at the heart and at
095the root of what it is that is like um the greatest challenge the the greatest barrier to students um being able to come to school and and that also is not an easy um feat we we know that um you know if there are 10 different students there are 10 different factors um that are really contributing to um to this and so we have um you know our buildings have been working to really peel back the layers of the onion to understand what those factors are so that we can wrap provide supports to wrap around those students and their families and ways that really do address um their barriers for um for regular student attendance and so you know this is like still work work in progress um but um you know but we we're
096working really hard at um at getting to that 95% attendance rate you'll see if you've been in any of our buildings um many of our buildings have set um individual and um like entire grade level or course um or Pack level attendance goals and so one of the things that we like um you know are hypothesizing that like positive peer pressure is a good thing if students feel welcomed and missed when they're not at school by their peers that they're more likely to to come to school if they feel like there's you know something really meaningful that they're missing out on even if it's just those like peer-to-peer relationships so that's that's been um you know a positive um um a real like synergizing um kind of action step that that we've taken across the
097district this year and then School discipline we know that um that be that discipline and behavior is correlated with student achievement and so we've been really working hard to um to increase the numbers of students who are able to um you know successfully participate in school without needing um disciplinary action um being taken and so you can note you uh you know from 71% to 86 almost 87% of students who um didn't have a disciplinary action um in place that's that's some pretty significant progress um in in that year's time so to kind of like take this um home here as as part of our strategic plan um we're wanting the the the brand that we've sort of established to represent um kind of Future Ready students and Future Ready learning environments um it is
098really creating like wcx class rooms where like the X kind of represents like exponential change and um the kind of like personalization and um student- centered kind of deep learning um experiences that we want for all kids and we've shown you again tonight some like examples of that already kind of put into place but we're wanting to see this happen at scale across all of our um our learning environments and in every classroom across the district and so you'll continue to hear more about wcx um like Future Ready classrooms and schools um but this really like I said is just the beginning um of where we're [Applause] headed okay my turn um one of the things that we want to talk about is the people we talked and how the um the team of Educators
099the family Community Partners are partnering together to help support our students and serve our students before we dive into more about the people we want to really just take a look at at the population which we serve right so this is the current snapshot of a diverse of the population we serve and we we we can say that we're currently serving a diverse population we appreciate diversity because as Randy and La have talked about um preparing kids to go out into the world we and our world is a diverse world so um we are becoming more diverse and I want to talk about that in more of a snapshot in order to understand that we need to look at prior Trend data historical Trend data so this slide is a snapshot of that uh historical
100Trend data um I'm going to go into pretty much each one individually but what I wanted you to take away from this slide is that um ultimately um as a district we say this overall we're getting more diverse all right so we're going to each one individually right so the first one is our uh the ethnicity of a student is marked by the parent when they register their child and so if you look at fiscal year this is a a 14-year look back throughout this is from the District profile the cup report you guys have heard that before um it's a look back from 09010 which is fiscal year 10 to 2324 which is fiscal year 24 we're going to talk about a couple sets of data really quick um one of this it's I
101was I was I was playing with this thinking how's the best way to describe this if I had five apples and I got five more apples I'd have 10 apples right the difference is five more apples but I doubled the amount of apples I have that's 100% increase so although the I had five more apples I really increased my Apples by 100% so does that make sense okay so when you look at this and you think about in fiscal year9 um we had um f our our district was we had a 5.69% of total diversity different total ethnic diversity and then by fiscal year 24 we move that up to 16.72% so the difference of that is 11% but that's almost a 200% increase and the diversity of our district so we went from having
102a district that was only about 5.6% to now 16.7 uh% diverse ethnic ethnicity and race does that make sense one of the takeaways if you look at the slide two is if you look at it you're going to see um multiple subgroups increase and it isn't just in one subgroup each color represents a different subgroup and for the most part as you look across from left to right you're seeing those bar colored bars get bigger and bigger so it's not just one area in multiple subgroups sub ethnic groups all right next is the percent of of students in poverty students in poverty is identified based on their frame reduced launch applications so students who fall in poverty typically need additional resources and support to help them be successful in school uh if to if you
103have you look at where it has the dip quick if uh if you look at fiscal year 20 to 20 223 that was our Co year the government wasn't requiring parents to turn in and a fre reduced lunch form they were feeding everybody during that time so yeah there's no incentive to fill up the form that's why it dips we didn't all of a sudden go down to 17.5 so if you if you look at it as a a trajectory Trend we went from basically 29% poverty to 46% Poverty that is almost a 60% growth in poverty in our area that year almost needs to be like a dotted line yes like like a dot dot dot across the top like like a Chasm that yes yes definitely all right the next one is students
104uh uh limited English we also call that English language Learners or Ells you may have heard that before these are students whose first language is not English and in fact um it takes additional resources and support to help them learn academics as well as learn English why they're here and fiscal year 10 we was at 1.42% and then that went to 2.65% fiscal year 24 um it's a difference of 1.25% but that's actually if you look at it we we grew 86.6 uh percentage points in serving our population so that that's significant when you look at the different languages that are coming into our district where we're we're having to serve them the next one is students with disability so this is identified with students uh by the number of students that have an IEP
105or individual education plan these students take additional resources and support as we try to help fill these holes and help support them with their education fiscal year 10 that was a 22.4 22.4 3 that grew in uh to I'm sorry 12.43 to 16.14 so that that's a 3.7 difference but if you think about it you've heard us say this before presentations that's about a 30% increase in in a special needs population and this keep in mind is just the number of IEPs this does not indicate um it doesn't reflect the increase that we're seeing in the intensity of the needs of the students that are holding so we're seeing that intensity as well all right so now we're going to jump into enrollment you've seen this slide before but it's it we need to we
106need to uh review it again the black line there is the predicted enrollment of students that that will be inhabiting dwellings that already exist houses apartments condos duplexes you can see there there's minimal gain but it's it's it's low in the next five years now when you add in students that we expect to move in and and occupy the new dwellings that are being built that number skyrockets so we're talking 13 100 plus by 2030 and 1600 plus by 2034 so that this predicted enrollment is really driven by the the the the the amount of increases driven by the new the new dwellings that are that are being built and the and the anticipation of people occupying those dwellings make sense all right so let's talk about some of the people right because these kids
107uh we were serving a diverse population we're having more show up um one the thing that I wanted to say before we start this slide too was just knowing knowing this move the the increase we have to really be mindful of how we plan for classroom space and facility usage because as we grow in population that's going to be that's going to be an area where we need to really address um I'm not going to cover Michelle and kidi again I think we celebrated them two or three times but we're really excited about that as well but I I want to jump to the gallop we we've given a Gallup for the last three years the Gallup is this National it it's um a nationally recognized survey that measures engagement in the workplace and so
108one of the things that we really celebrated was when we looked at where we compared to the nation so they do Nations and and we can compare to that we are 133% percentage points higher than the national average for teachers and what that tells us is engage staff members work are more productive in their work and uh which results in retention and better better support for students so our teachers are more engaged and the work in our more engaged and helping our students be successful so that says a lot about our teachers and where we're at with that on the far right it's a picture of take your take care of your selfie too we had take care of your selfie one last year um it's a picture of the bottom there they just I
109think finished a workout Dan uh with when the gym at the high school um staff Wellness again is is being able to take care of yourself both physically and mentally and and the role that we serve is so it's Paramount for teachers to be healthy and engag with students healthier if they're healthier mentally and physically they they tend to show up you know be in attendance and then they engage in the students so some of the things that I just put a couple lists here we they did the wellness Fair they've done monthly newsletters Wellness challenges Community Partnerships and we provide bonus support so that dank a test too has been a big kickoff with over the last two or three years in our in our district poten yeah teachers are loving it before we
110go to the next slide one of the reason I bring up engagement and retention is because we know staff shortages we've talked about that staff shortages are occurring uh teachers aren't going into individuals aren't going into the teaching profession at rates in which they're coming out um we know that we've already had 11 of our teachers announced their retirement at the end of this year we did a we pulled our staff um in the next five years we expect another almost 12.8% to retire the next 10 years that rises up to 27% so when we can engage our staff when we can support our staff we can help our staff be healthier stronger and and mindful and and present they tend to stay longer they tend to retain long they tend to stay with us
111and they tend to be focused in love education so what we're always keeping a mind a Mind's Eye on what is down the road and how can we support continue to support our kids five years from now 10 years from now 15 years from now along oh go back one this is my slide no apples or math on this [Laughter] one so so again with people we talk about stakeholder engagement and and as you know we have a very comprehensive communication plan in this district and we are very transparent we we do a lot in the areas of communication um we were doing surveys before they were annoying right back in 2018 we started with thought exchange we we wanted feedback from our community we wanted feedback from our parents we wanted feedback from our
112staff couple of things that we've done with the um citizens advisory Commission uh as well if you remember back we looked at start time of the middle school and that's not something that's been forgotten that was something that was talked about during the transportation proposals it will be continually talked about during the transportation proposals I'm not going to make any promises on what that will be but we are going to continually push our vendors to give us the best options that we possibly can and that's something that I just wanted to say that because you know we did this and then all of a sudden it's gone it's it's on our minds every day um it's on our minds from teaching and learning it's on our minds um from an operation standpoint and we know
113that that's something that we want to continue as we moved into the master facility plan we started at two three years ago we started with with tours we started with getting a group together um that were leaders that came and presented to you on the master facility plan and that's as we move into May uh is is very very important as we continue that and that was a lot of hard work both from the CAC as well as the C and has given us a vision has given us an opportunity to move forward so that we can continue to see the things that we've seen um that Ellie had talked about we don't want to spend money on roofs that are 50 60 years old we'd rather buy 3D printers we'd rather be able to
114put money into things that are going to be uh utilized in the classroom so as we looked at the stakeholders we did uh we brought those in uh through the cat through the CAC on the next slide you're going to see um our business advisory Council our safety meetings I'll talk a little bit more about that because we have one tomorrow U but we did our BAC was recognized we continue working with that our PT PTO and boosters our key communicators group that we meet with portly as well uh to really put them in leadership roles to give us uh they're a hardworking group of people and they are very very uh involved in each of the different schools that we have uh and they work very very hard for our students and I think
115that those people um should be recognized as well also our whole learner Network um you know we had a back to school bash which was very very successful Eric duel this is Eric du's um realm where he works and does a very very good job with that and those continually look for resources those continually look to help our students across the board we've talked about the partners in education celebration I gave you the list of the um organizations that were represented and where it started to where it is today um Tracy is here I think Tracy deserves a great deal of credit because as we looked at those that were the RSV you when they were coming in uh and we were getting who was coming and we were down in the low hundreds and
116which was great but she was able to be able to to uh to get out and get the word out and we had over 27 5 registered come don't know the exact total that showed up but we know that they ate a lot of food and thank those vendors that supported us for that uh but it was a great event it really was and when you have that many people in a room talking about what's best for kids where can you go wrong and so I think it will open up many different Pathways many different doors as we move forward and we really celebrate what our students are doing with these organizations and what the experiences they're getting the experience ships the internships all the different opportunities that our students are getting and building those
117um relationships with our partners that list is comprehensive that was not here a few years ago and so a lot of credit goes to the people that were involved in that and I I can't express what an amazing event that was as well and so those are all the things that uh um as we look at stakeholders uh involvement stakeholder um we obviously are very transparent we want to let people know what we're doing why we're doing it how we're doing it and so uh it's very important we have a lot of hardworking uh community members parents even members that don't have kids are coming to these meetings and town halls and as you know our town halls we continue monthly working with that uh to get the word out and so uh I think
118it's just very very important uh the stakeholder engagement piece and the people piece with that uh we continually move in the right direction I think when we look at the vision for our future for the modern educator Workforce we um we started with portrait of a graduate for our students and then we went to what do our teachers need to have to to be able to to help our students live that P and then what do our Educators need our our administrators need to have and that born the portrait of an educator portra of a leader and those things are those dispositions and attributes that we we need to live as teachers and we need to live as administrators in order to create an environment where our students can become successful in what they do
119and and within that portrait of a graduate profile and we're seeing the starting to see those results now and we look at the different types of data that Ellie and Randy talked about um so as we continue to go forward we design interview questions we design ways of work like when we make a decision about something we think how does it fit into these portraits so that we know that we're living what we believe and what we preach and that ultimately helps impact kids uh Wellness is always going to be a thing that we need to do work life balance is always going to be something that we're talking about in there and um we're partnering with organizations like Arizona State to really look at what's this next gen or this next education Workforce going
120to look like because how we've done it the last 60 years is not going to be what we what we can do the next 60 education is going to have to evolve one of the things that we want to be is on the front end of that Evolution the bottom line is we will continue to evolve as a district in what we do how we behave and how we deliver aob instruction for our kids that's the only way to help them be as successful as they possibly can be the next is modern learning environment I think we we've talked about this we've gone through the master facility plan we've been very transparent and letting people know that not every address gets the same opportunities here um I think we got to continue that I think
121we have to create the urgency because we want our students to have the same opportunities regardless of where they live in the district and I I can't just over overemphasize that in the urgency that we have right now because all the things that we've saw tonight in the academic world we do not want to impact that because of operational expenses that are going to happen and that could be anywhere from if we have to add modular roofs asphalt electrical hbac and these older buildings and that's what's going to happen if if we continue with the buildings that we have we know that those are coming we'll do the best that we can we'll be the most fiscally responsible that we can but we know that those are going to be expenses as we move forward
122and we we want to move forward with u with the valid issue we want to move forward with creating the modern learning environment so that all schools all students get the same opportunity I think this is really important as we continually move forward and as you look at the next thing through our surveys through all the feedback through our stakeholders we know that we want to number one create a safe learning environment uh our students feel safe our parents feel safe and we want to continue with that and that will always be a priority as we move forward regardless of if we have new buildings old buildings safety will always be uh at the top of the list for for our students we continue to have our quarterly meetings we have very good turnout uh
123from our First Responders at the meetings we work through tabletop exercises we work through uh incidents that may have occurred in one building so all buildings get the same opportunity to see how we respond how we respond to different uh uh situations and so that they are prepared U for when they may have something that would come up in their particular building so we will continually focus on safety as we move forward regardless of what building it is we know that's going to be our top priority Okay so we've been sitting for an hour and 40 minutes so you know I'm going to have to make you stand up at least for 30 seconds part of they brought up Wellness a couple times so we just need to do that those little things underneath the
124table that yeah well so fisical minute so it won't be long right we're we're going to wait for Mr spenc hope you I hope you don't mind me doing this no actually brilant I uh do the workout routine well I do that you get that notice stand up and well you did it you stood up said really that's good thanks for doing that so thank [Laughter] you throwing me you're never so so we're about halfway through now I think it's about two there way through so um just before I really get into the fin finances one of the things I want to talk about is what superintendent and really connect some dots what the superintendent talked about up front and she talked about the four Ps right people program the fac physical facilities and the
125Partnerships and between David Ellie and Randy you know those three things were talked about the umbrella over the people the program and the physical facilities is the Partnerships that we have with our staff with our community with the board with our vendors with all those different stakeholders that are out there and in that same vein we have a partnership on the fiscal side too with it to go back and and you know the title of this slide is rerouting the WC fiscal path and that really kind of started prior to 2020 prior to that Levy being passed um in May of 2020 right during uh you know the onslaught of Co with that and if we looked at prior to that Levy um we we were in fiscal distress there was deficits projected within the
126next year coming forward there had to been plans that had been you know the State Department of Education and the auditor's office sends letters to the superintendent and Treasurer copies of the board that says hey what's your plan to get out of this distress to distress to do that as you go forward um one of the things too that that I think was noted and maybe the mindset didn't change immediately um was this notion of being lean back prior to the the levy passing and even for that next year the district was spending in the lowest three to 5% within the state and and to really grasp what that means you really have to quantify the dollar difference between what we were spending per student and what the state average was in similar school districts
127and that was significant we're blessed to the fact that the community understood the situation that the district was in the levy was passed in May of 2020 at the same time and and really prior to that Levy passing there were commitments made that um we would with those Levy proceeds continue the services that existed and that we would not come back to the local community unless there was some catastrophy that happened that we would not come back until 2024 to do that um that commitment was made okay uh the reason it was made you know quite frankly is because this district is at the 20 mil floor this District does get increased Revenue when the reappraisal occurs it it occurred in 2020 there was additional Revenue it occurred in 2023 for um initial collection in
1282024 we don't hide that we recognize it um we understand that that that is a cost from the tax for the taxpayers um to the school district to do that um one of the things that I will try and connect with though is that not just was additional funds for the reappraisal it was also for the co relief money $14 million that we received from 2021 through 2024 kind of spent that evenly two important things about that a is when that money came because we listened to the community prior to that and to our stakeholders prior to that we knew what we needed those um items that we could spend that money on were already identified if you look at the third the green column over and what we did with that it was really
129about and the bo highlighted three times it's really or twice it's really about investing investing in the people in the program plant and facilities and in our Partnerships and when you think about the Partnerships it's that con communication and engagement um throughout the community that we have um so that period from 20 beginning in fiscal year 2021 through the end of last year 2024 that's when the co money was spent that's when the Investments were made uh the superintendent and myself I can remember doing I don't know how many different Zoom meetings with staff and others and saying two important things with with these additional funds if it it is ongoing money and it's sustainable money then we can have sustainable expenses if it is one time only money like the 14 million Co okay
130it's one time only expenses to do it or one time only Investments to do that one of the the things that came out very well led by the superintendent these three people and the and the other cabinet is they um they abided by that okay and we heard the superintendent talk in the beginning the desire wasn't to go back to where we were the desire was to come out better to where we were and if you think about it there's two things that and everything they talked about were said and I know I'm talking I am talking about finances by the way okay this is finances they talked about progress and they talked about momentum okay in order to do those things we have to fund that and we have to fund that through Investments
131to do it where are we today today and how do we go forward okay two things that um within the last three months have become a little bit alarming to me one is we knew and more than three months on this one we knew that there is property tax reform that is out there we know that we recognize that our our school district um is probably all the different variables that people talk about we own a lot of those okay primary one is the 20 mil floor but we also recognize that when you put together our funding mechanism of local property taxes and state funding they go hand in hand if you try and change one it affects the other if you try and change the fair school funding formula or don't abide by the
132rules it affects locco because it drives more pressure on locco if you drive property tax reform it's going to affect um the balance with the state funding Al together those things are those things are important and I'll tell you in a minute why that's alarming to do that um but our fiscal path as we look forward really has to to focus on those two things okay as we do it um we're Guided by the pro program expenses that we have we've been able to come out of Co without quote unquote falling off a cliff and being in financial trouble um we know that there is an enrollment growth that's expected one of the things that I will tell you to to to connect with our finances is the charts that David showed every one of
133those charts connect to what we call on the state funding side categorical funding okay because of the way the state funding exists all that growth is within the formula and we are capped so although um the diversity grew by 200% although the uh children with disability doubled 30 about 30% okay 33% okay although the English language Learners jumped up okay in the formula it calculates that we should get more funding but we didn't get any over that time period okay we are still at 2019 levels of funding from the state okay what does that mean that means there's added pressure on our other major source of Revenue which is local property taxes okay that's that's the story with that okay those were important slides to knowe the import the importance that um Ali was talking
134about is the progress that we made because the Investments that we put into this school district in the people in the programs and those two things when I say people the staff and the programs those two things went hand in hand and we made those Investments those are in there and and those are embedded in there and projected to continue because we want the progress to continue we want our momentum to continue as we go forward and we go okay revenues expenses and cash balances okay in in the the the title is rise and run of Revenue and and it's it's it's may be hard to understand but it's clear the the rise in our Revenue occurs only two ways the state gives us more money or we get more more local uh property tax
135revenue okay there's kind of a distant third that says okay well when interest rates change we get more money on our investments that's a big one that comes in there are where if the federal funding increases a little bit but they tell us how to spend that okay that comes in there but those two sources of revenue we will what the the total revenue Rises if we get more from the state the the total revenue will rise if we get more local funding the local funding in this District occurs one of two ways property valuation increase or voters say yes to a ballot issue that's it those are the two rise if you look at the Blue Line okay our property values and the levy passed in 20 so it Rose kind of had a
136run stayed flat for a while in 2023 started to collect in 2024 property values rose again the revenue grew and and increases okay rise and the Run of those two things okay again those two which are highlighted there the the blue bar is our local property tax the the black line and what do you notice about the black line it's or black bars they're flat okay they're not increasing it it did go up a little bit didn't it for 2023 24 uh for 23 24 there was an up a there was a slight uptick and then it goes back down in 25 so we were we were off the um guarantee for a year and then went right back on I had um the Financial Consultant that we use run through the same calculations that
137I did with the state simulation and one of the nuances that come into play with House Bill 96 and with the current bium that's why it's important that we be Advocates is that we are at risk of losing the guarantee and we are at risk of losing State funding okay so right now what's in House Bill 96 and what's project and they're not in these numbers by the way because we because we still have three months to try and keep our guaranteed dollar amount okay the state as a whole in House Bill 96 through that that proposal there's been zero dollars added to K12 education but when the simulation come out we lose $700,000 approximately the first year an additional $700,000 the second year so over the two-year period if House Bill 96 goes through
138as it's written today we will be down $2.1 million over that two-year period okay all right that's the first time it's in I don't know how long okay we've been fighting for you know increases from our state funding now we're fighting to keep the same dollar amount that's that's a big change okay for us we'll still fight for increases to do that okay but that's the rise and run of of our revenues okay expenses the primary driver of those expenses twofold inflation which over time is going to be 3% if you go back there are different inflation indexes if you look at uh there there's one that is an education index it is slightly higher than than the normal index that is out there okay so inflation drives it mandates drive it in other words
139when I talk about mandates and I don't know I even hate using the word mandates because it's some things that we should probably do anyway okay but when those variables in the enrollment changed right uh students in poverty um elll English language learn um students with disabilities and in fact more intense disabilities we're required to address those even though we don't get any additional money okay so we have to we have to shift things around to make sure we take care of those things to do that and then the projected enrollment growth okay and we've done our homework not just by looking at building permits but by talking with developers okay and those those things are coming which you know David does the chart that says here's our cohort growth that cohort growth is really
140the difference of seniors graduating and kids coming in kindergarten right that's the Delta that drives that growth okay so there's growth just with the students that we have but there's growth with the plan de plan developments that are coming okay that that's a that's a real thing can we tell you what exactly when no but it's a real thing okay it is coming forward so that doesn't um our expenses are really purposefully driven the caveat that uh president Patton gave us two years ago at the organ at the organizational meeting and correct me if I don't say it the right way that we're only going to spend money where it's necessary okay we're not going to going to add things they explain the things that were necessary as we went forward to do that but
141most of our expenses as you see that it it follows an inflationary pattern for that it follows making sure that uh we do the right things for our stakeholders groups as we do it what's the net result of that okay um the blue line is our cash balances The Gray Line is the Delta or the difference between the revenue coming in and the expenses that we have and so if you see the gray bar above the zero doll amount we're adding money to our cash balances right that's why the blue bar increases you're probably saying it's if you look at fy2 where's the gray bar it's a balanced budget right so revenues and expenses kind of equal each other okay so um that is there 26 we go down or we start spending more than
142we receive that's projected and so forth okay that is not an that is a typical pattern that's not a typical in school funding reason why is there's the rise in the revenue okay then it stays pretty much flat for a period of time okay until the next time you can get additional Revenue but the expenses are on that glad gradual incline right so you're gonna g to accumulate money and then you're going to spend more than you accumulate over time as it goes for it we will always okay the the the always try um to make sure okay that we're extending that ask of our community right now we it was extended from 24 to 26 if we can move that from 26 to 27 okay we'll do that okay we can't say for sure
143right now but as things go on and variables present themselves where we have the opportunity to do that we will what's putting that at risk is our state funding right now okay that that's really putting us at risk what's putting it at risk is solutions that are being proposed on the table for property tax reform I think for the last year or so towards the end of every meeting we talk about our advocacy okay we do want to advocate for our community for our taxpayers okay our advocacy goes to We Believe there should be targeted tax relief okay we've heard the stories we know that okay you've heard the stories okay you've told me the stories okay but we really need to advocate for that targeted tax relief for for our taxpayers in the community
144okay that needs to be done as we go forward what are the challenges and opportunities ahead of us we did talk about that ta property tax reform legislation we did talk about the fair school funding formula where right now there's zero additional dollars okay that's being added Statewide so think about that too in your heads if we're going down in revenue and there's zero dollars somebody's going up in Revenue right other districts are okay that's the way that formula works we really need um to make sure that that guarantee stays in place so we don't lose dollars and have added pressure on the local community and again both of these are kind of challenges and opportunities for us when we look at enrollment growth it's not a bad thing right if we have enrollment growth
145there should be property values additional new construction you know coming in to do that but that gives us students we know that as David talked about there is a Workforce supply and demand okay we know that and he didn't say it and I'll say it very clearly the pipeline to bring I'll just focus on teachers let alone support staff is not there it's not there the way it was in the past okay all you have to do is look at colleg different universities who who are discontinuing their colleges of Education right we're not going to get get anything out of that that lack of Supply is a de causes a demand when there is low Supply okay and we have a demand there's a financial reality to that okay the challenge and an opportunity is
146that local economy on housing and economic development okay if you look at this whole area right yes there's housing that brings students but yes there has to be a balance with economic development for commercial industrial and other things okay that needs to exist with it okay what the reappraisal occurs every three years okay I don't know what property tax reform will do my uh what this last reappraisal did that is the thing that really drove the state uh to I think the phrase that the Financial Consultant use was bury Us in the guarantee which meant as the higher the the higher our local wealth and and the message is real clear if you if you gauge local wealth by property valuation per student and by average income per student the message that is coming to
147us from the state is well we're wealthier than the norm so you can pay for it locally that doesn't mean people are going to prove it that just that's the way the formula works right that's the offset that is there for it okay so big picture where we going we moved out we moved from um three to 5% of the lowest spend in the state to 16% that was primarily driven by um a couple factors three factors passing the levy the covid funding and the reappraisal funding that helped drive us out of there okay have three to %'s the basement that didn't get us to the first floor that got us halfway up the stairs to the first floor okay so you know we're not there yet but that's progress there is still the delta
148in that s where in the where we fall when we compare to the state average on spending per pupil and where we fall with our similar School District there is that difference that's still significant $2,000 per student plus or minus and you quantify that to a classroom of of 20 students that's $40,000 in a classroom that we could spend more okay that's significant okay we really need to Advocate on the fair school funding model to to keep the guarantee in place even though that is going back to 2000 it says 2122 but it's really 2019 levels for this District okay we need to say no you you know keep the guarantee in place don't cut funding to the school district okay D can I ask a question real quick I know it's getting late but
149when you say you want you we should advocate for this fair fair school funding House Bill 96 how how would you suggest we do that so I well first of all when we go down there on the 18th right the the four of us me to hold a sign I can hold a sign there there's messages there's messages that we need to give we'll prepare we'll prepare materials because it's it's important that we're all consistent and we're all staying the same message because um there's Regional things like Southwest Ohio kinds of advocacy there's Claremont County advocacy they're specific to West Claremont and if they end up hearing a thousand different things it's not as powerful as if it's a a few really strong ones and so we we will tighten up our story for a
150legislator Viewpoint and um and like when we talk to them we just keep kind of repeat the same things over and over and then we will make it you know in person on the 18th they with them um just make our points and be able to just have more dialogue so they can understand the impact because that's the goal um when they make decision decisions uh it can make sense from a big picture but it's like until you drill down into the impact they they don't always know and see all the Ripples and so that's why we're there just to to not be angry and mean at them but but to help under help them understand the impact of their decisions it you know there there's three major organizations uh with the superintendent group the
151school boards Association School business officials and they're aligned on messaging we're not far off from that mess which is we need to give in addition to fully fund the formula which which and now I'll say it out and be straight fully funding that formula does not give this District any additional dollars they'll give the total there but we're because of the valuation for pupo it just may lower the gap between our guarantee and and what's funded okay to do that um we need that we need to Advocate to keep the guarantees in place so at least get that that level dollar amount we need to where we can Advocate that on those special categories which are funded inside the formula have some consideration that if that is growth to us and as David identified with
152the percentages substantial growth okay there there there may be some additional funding we need for those things okay that may be different than other school districts are doing but I will tell you what's happened the last four or five years we've been Front Runners in the number of school districts that are guarantee we were under the guarantee that number grew substantially we were at the 20 mil floor that number of school districts grew substantially to do that so these are things we've been talking about them for years and now more people are talking about it with them right and it and it's because they're more they're experienced it where they weren't on it before they're experiencing but that's what's complicated about school funding is the school district to the right of us and the left
153of us they have a totally different story than we do so it it can be very confusing and sound like well how come your school in Ohio how come your how come it's not the same but nothing about us is the the formula is the same but there's 61 school districts with different stories different variables okay so the other point is uh is and the last two points is the master facilities um plan and program that we have okay we have structured that facility's plan to help program to help the modern learning environment that that is needed but it's also structured so that as we go forward our facilities can be taken care of and it's a you know it you know it took someone to tell us that hey that's a value proposition that
154you need to make sure people know and understand what that is that's that's been baked into it so that here's these facilities but at the same time it's just not putting something up out of the ground replacing some things are there it is also with the intention that we are able to maintain those new facilities as well as the care and upkeep for the other facilities that are there okay so that's an important aspect if that doesn't happen it's a strain on our operating funds okay that is there that's the 64 million dollar that between Randy and Chuck and The Architects identified exists in those buildings today that if we don't do something with it over time that's what we're going to spend okay to do that last thing goes back to the 5e for
155cast as as as we approach the declining fund balances okay and we do that twice a year the five year forecast that's where the state looks at that and sooner or later the state comes back and says superintendent Adams treasure Romano president Patton what's your plan so that you don't go into further fiscal distress okay so we just have to be conscious of that but at the same time balance that with we have commitments to our community okay that we're going to not go not try to prevent going back to the community for more money you know as long as we can to do that so we've been using this metaphor of the Jeep to represent the district because we're saying if we want all kids to be able to create the lives they desire
156to be able to be prepared for anything not just something then we have to blaz some Trails so that they can have their own Pathways and create their own story so our our image is represented by these four tires that we've Ted talked about all night the four things that have to come together the learning model the environments the workforce as well as the Partnerships all have to be an alignment for this Jeep to run well and as you can hear and the sound of of Dan's voice and the stories that you've heard today it's vulnerable and it's a critical time for us to um be tightening all these bolts and getting really really focused on these on the alignment because we have a serious issue and that's our modern learning environments um this isn't
157a desire for new fancy spaces this is out of need out of Aging buildings and and running out of space and expected growth that um we need to take action because what you're hearing tonight is without taking action here without investing in a long-term plan it means the the emphasis and the investments in the academics and the classroom and the way that we've been able to do it the last couple years that have clearly shown an an an outcome and increase we'll have to switch Focus and it's just as simple as that so we've been on this decision timeline we've been at a very rigorous Pace over the last couple years with engagement and in this last year I mean it's been since August like every meeting there's been a big decision big decision big
158decision so now we're to this point where in January um you guys unanimously decided to move forward with putting a choice out there for our voters because that's really what this boils down to is this is a community decision about what kind of school system do you want to have what kind of environment do you want to create for the children and the youth of of West Claremont because the the challenges that we Face uh Dan you can move it on are is the reality that every student and their learning environment is determined by their home address and you know uh we we talked about this today in cabinet and I wasn't going to share this example but I just think it's so relevant that I can't help it would we be okay if we
159invested in the boys athletic teams and made sure they had all the environments the equipment everything they needed but we didn't do that for the girls Sports would we be okay with that well number one we've in trouble with the law with t and all that but we wouldn't settle for that and right here we are saying the learning environments in West clont are determined by the house that you live in so that's a disparity we have that's real we also know that middle school and I say this as a as a passionate middle level educator most of my career it's the hardest part of the K12 experience and it is the neediest part of the PK I I left out PK um of the pk12 experience and in our situation as brilliant as it
160was to bring West Claremont together as one Unified School District we have the most vulnerable kids in our school system in a building that was not designed for them that was built in the 60s and we we have them get up and start school at 7: a. every Factor you can put up against them in an environment in an environmental way is up against these people the students and the staff every single day when they go there and they rise above it they they do an amazing job but they're just hurdles that would it would I I just can't imagine like what the success could look like if they didn't have to every day go straight up a hill or straight up a mountain and climb that so these are real significant challenges our students
161environments are amazing some places and it's always hard when you're stay like we worried this last week I'm standing in the middle of West Kut High School talking to our partners talking about our environments and you look around and it's like could they want for anything because this place is amazing and then we can go down the street and have a vitally different experience so I've talked about this our current realities or about our aging facilities not having all the spaces that we need for the diverse learning population we've talked about not having the collaboration space for stuff it kind of goes on and on and on and you can you can keep going we're out of space already at the elementary this this isn't a PL this isn't like a problem that we are
162thinking is going to happen like we're living it now and we're seeing kind of like worse conditions coming based on David's numbers and those numbers have served us well like they they've been very accurate for us over the last couple years and so this isn't just a a warry wart syndrome this is we're living this right now and on the horizon is more to come and what we see is if if there is not a long-term solution we see see probably modulars as Sol solution so you're putting money out there that is not a long-term investment we have aged and outdated buildings you see you can't tell by this picture and that's the thing what I I hate about our pictures is I feel like they just don't really tell it you could put what
163you see in the Holly Hill picture you could put probably three times in what you're seeing at Summerside and it's not size alone that that is an impact it's the kinds of things that can happen there few things can happen you can barely even fit a staff in uh the library at Holly Hill to have a meeting so you have to go to the cafeteria is that the worst thing in the world no but is it the best environment for the learning that we need to do with our staff no it's not so it's it's just it it paints a picture but I I swear it's like you have to be there to really feel it smell it and see the difference okay um disparity in our learning environments again I don't think the pictures
164do it justice but we you see crowded space spes you see um spaces that are beautiful and flexible and more malleable for the kinds of learning that that our students expect to have so uh you will you'll see in uh tonight we're going to vote on the statement of facts here in a minute but there is uh the one page that we gave you last week that lays out the proposed plan the the proposed plan is building a new middle level environment so it' be a 58 building to deal with the space issues in the elementary bring all 5 through eight together to to build a really strong middle level experience this building is not meant to be a replication of West ceron High School just down the street it's meant to feel like two
165two smaller environments that are connected together so that um we can best serve those students we'll build a new Elementary School it be a prek4 elementary school reducing from 7 to six to be more efficient in operations it would allow us like right now we have an elementary that has 250 elementary kids in it we have an an elementary that has 800 elementary students in it so it allow all those to be more similar in size for efficiency and maximization of resources we will invest in our current elementary buildings through a renovation at Amelia additions at WT additions at KF and an additional renovation at WT and there will be upgrades throughout the the the school district because we want to become a safer school system we would do safety upgrades everywhere technological upgrades everywhere
166as well as targeted Furniture needs it wouldn't be a massive buy new furniture everywhere kind of deal but um in specific areas we would add and uh this one pager happens to be able to it breaks down how the ofcc will pay for 20% the the local share would be 80% giving a a strong State commitment in this uh in this proposal and it breaks down how the costs are broken down for both the earned income as well as property how it affects people individually and who who pays because the the whole decision that you guys made was to diversify the pay among our our stakeholders and why is this now so important we we've shown you the timelines and I think it comes up in the slide here in a minute but it's our
167current kindergarteners are going to be the first fifth graders and so it's not like you make a decision one day and poof these things just magically appear this takes time and our growth supposed to come in that time and so every minute that we stall or put off something the more vulnerable we are of having students come and needing space for them and not having a long-term solution we have the 20% now from the Ohio's facilities commission again that is something that yes it's on the table for now and um it would will be for a short amount of time we have about 18 months to come back to them with our local share to be able to keep that um that percentage intact so that's a vulnerable thing it's not a guarantee forever there's
168a timeline on this and obviously we've talked about this the inflation of of what things will cost as as time goes on is a factor and that's why it's it's just Dan does such a great job of keeping us focused on 2030 we don't just think about today we don't just think about next year we're thinking to 2030 and there's a there's a lot to consider and to to think about and and that's why we really would see a benefit of the ofcc partnership at this time to be able to offset those costs for our taxpayers this timeline again is is just reminder you've seen it but the the yellow or the green represents where the enrollments coming the yellow shows when things go online and so what we're trying to match up here is
169the green with the yellow so that if we're able to go ahead and start putting in space atlu Pike space at WT that can offset these enrollment increases in the time that they're coming and not have us have us wait all the way till 29 when when the other buildings are available so here's a reminder and this this will be something that you'll um vote on tonight we have another one pager and its main F focus is to talk about the funding history of of West Claremont schools and what happens that the levy passes versus if it fails just high level if it passes we'll be able to have these awesome learning environments for all of our students and we won't say that there's a disparity between what some students get versus other students we
170will have the ofcc funding that will help offset the the larger costs and it will help support long-term operational stability in our school system we've talked about that over and over and over tonight and that's really our our our greatest um concern if the levy fails obviously we'll be operating in Old B buildings versus new buildings and continuing to invest in rep repairs Etc um we'll continue to rely on modular as a solution most likely for the increased enrollment we're already doing that at at um mwin and you'll see more and more teachers in uh traveling teacher kind of situations in Mobile classrooms and then the financial consequences of risking the ofcc money inflation driving up costs and just having to divert funds away from everything that we talked about we've gained over the last
171couple years is is a real topic of conversation for us so the bottom line is this is this is really in our community's hands and it is our job to be as transparent open about what we see right in front of us and on the horizon so that everyone can make the most informed decision what kind of school Community do we want to have what kind of path do we want for our students this is a it's a community decision and we are here our website has been updated our bond page is updated all the information in the world is out there and if we get questions that we think probably more people have these questions then we add those on so we are trying to stay as current and up toate as possible we
172want to invite you well wait a minute keep going Dan oh yes so um you know I know tamy and Tina will be going up with us on the 18th in March to Columbus I know advocacy is very important for this team and we want to continue to be very prepared for that so I've listed some of the things on there that we will need to advocate for we want to continue to open up opportunities for volunteering and donating and working with us we've got really spec with Tracy's help as well as Josh um from Holly Hill we've gotten really clear about the kind of volunteer opportunities that we have available in our schools between now and the end of the school year we really can't do this alone and it's not always just about
173writing a check we need human um capital in our buildings uh to help with us with our students we'd like people to join PTO and boosters and we say get off the sideline and come into the game like we we would love to have people right here with us um because as you get involved you understand the complexities of all this and understand a little bit more um follow us on social media share the bond facts uh I think an informed Community we'll end up making the right decision for for our schools when when we share the same data and information we're all on the same page about that we're more likely to come to the same conclusions we have lots of uh coming so tomorrow night is our showcase that's why we need to
174wrap up so we can all go home so we can come back um March 4th that's at 6 o'clock at West Claremont High School it is uh the second time we'll be doing this event and it's the only pk12 event in in the school uh district for the whole year so it's it's quite a moment that we are looking forward to sharing how are our students using these por OFA graduate skills in their in their daily learning we'll have a financing our future Town Hall March 19th that'll be hosted at Amelia Elementary 6:00 there'll be food there'll be excitement there will be lots of great conversation and then finally going with our WC strong theme we are inviting everyone to tell their West Claremont strong story so you can click on that QR code or
175get on the QR code go to our website and learn all the details about how you can be featured in one of our upcoming videos or a reel or something that you make yourself and I I won't read all this but this is what I told you before it's just the chronological where where we've been as a district from 2018 to today so um so I thank you very much for your time for I know this was a lot and this isn't the LA first time or the last time we'll probably say this was a lot but we think the state of the schools moment is really important to be very clear with people about where we've been where we are where we're headed and and why we're headed there so that we can strengthen
176what what happens for our students are there questions or comments I know you might want to share those during your your board comments which is fine if you want to hold them but I I don't want to leave anything hanging for you okay then just share your comments during comments statement of facts is going to be an action item that we ask of you essentially the it looks very similar to last time the only thing that we're doing is as we tweak and improve the the statement of facts presentation we have on the second slide where if we change a sentence or fix something that we think wasn't unclear we just state it so that when you look at it you'll know what had changed from the very first time so we're not trying to
177be confusing at all we're just trying to be current and up toate and relevant so you'll see that so there's there's no substantial content change just like maybe a sentence here and there just to provide Clarity that's number one number two this one I just mentioned this this ballot page has been added and it comes right from the statement of facts it's just done in a one pager so that it's easier to consume for people and you'll see soon um our team has these all these came printed um in in the office today so we will send them out to the building so as people pick up their children drop them off or just in the buildings we'll have we'll have them some tomorrow night at at state of the schools we we have a
178stack for you guys all of you got a big stack not because we think you don't read them but so that you can share them with people so you don't have to read them six and seven times there for you to share is what is was the point there so um at this point I would like to ask that you approve the statement of facts as presented with those F little tweaks and this added if the levy passes if the levy fails pce thank you you've heard the recommendation someone like to make a motion thank you Mr Rudy is there a second Mr tremley thank you is there any discussion thank you roll call please Mr Rudy yes Mr Chumley yes Miss Sour yes Mrs Spencer yes Mr P yes five yes my only comment
179is thank you um Mr Rudy for being part of our partners in education event H it really as as Mr G part said earlier it was a tremendous event thank you Tracy for all your hard work and um I'm I'm still getting in positive feedback from our partners about that day and we really are nothing without our partners and so it was just a great day of Celebration I think I've said it thank you so I just Echo thanking the board to sustain through the presentation the staff that was here uh I appreciate the two community members being here too because U I know I we're going two and a half hours so appreciate you staying through that and listening to us thank you thank you Mr Romano we move to board comments sorry Mrs
180Spencer I need to go first um well you've heard about the great things our schools have achieved over the last few years starting back with the co and Beyond we're definitely done some amazing things with everyone's help and partnership and it's amazing to see some of the electives that like the 3D lab in the middle school that's going to carry them through because that is really what's moving everyone forward the new technology and stuff and it's it's great to see and I think that our schools are doing great and um and it's great for the partners and the community to see where we're what we're doing with their investment of the education so everyone knows what we're doing with it and I just I want to thank all the team members that were really involved
181in putting the presentation together and Gathering all the facts and and letting us see that because it it means a lot to the community and like you said being transparent let everybody know what's really happening or whatever but I want to thank everybody for being here and staying tonight too and I'm excited about going up in March I I won't hold sign I promise now you my gu well if she if you sit next to me with a sign I say I don't know who she than thank you Miss uh I wanted to do some good news um Heidi sanin as Mr Patton said she was supervising nurse and has been named Ohio school nurse administrator for the year 24 25 Heidi has really made a difference with her leadership and dedication to student health
182care and access so congratulations to her I want to give shout out to three of our West clont High School America's favorite teacher the first one is Zoe casbar she's a biology and forensic teacher at the High School Mrs cbar said I am a mentor and supporter and I Champion for every student who walks into my classroom uh Briana Weber is a physical science teacher at the high school my purpose is to inspire students love for Science and teaching curos and the last is Mitchell farmer Aerospace teacher and assistant varsity coach football coach he stated uh he started the brand new Aerospace program for the high school in 2024 and believing in inspiring kids to change the world and I think that that that says a lot about our high school teachers and about their
183dedication to the West CL school district and I commend all of them for all their accomplishments that they have done throughout the years that they have been here you miss Mr ch um I want to thank everyone's presentation tonight it's uh always great to hear all the great minds we have around this game what truly a blessing the team that we have um and heing their passion for the work which um we get to clearly see in presentation with this um a few things that I I like to hear tonight is um how we're setting that bar high and that's something that I've kind of um felt strongly about for a while um I know like we talked about the bar kind of lowered um on a national level and um it's just good to
184see that we're kind of pushing it back up and I know it and it's it's showing that the students will meet it and and that's awesome here and it's also cool to hear how um parents are talking about they wanted and now are seeing happen and how they're surprised and all that stuff because a lot of times you probably do present things to a school or wherever and you never but it's cool to be a part of this and see that we are doing these things and we are um meeting the community and and pushing things forward for our students but also for the community as well so I want to thank everyone for all the Mr CH Mr uh first thing I want to to give accolades to Mrs hufford's class I've been following
185this so long we have a weekly meeting at Kroger what's going on she is not one the che her own horn so I I really give her moral support and encourage her to pass the world along and she had me astounded what what they were doing and she warned me to watch out these kids she said they're going to go real far uh so that's been a really nice thing cool thing to hear secondly as was mentioned I was the breakfast in Tuesday Dr Ray it was beyond expectations fantabulous I think is a word I might want to use it was wonderful I sat with um some nice people at my table and made some new friends I really enjoyed it one of them's an international organization and I volunteered to help with them um
186I just can't say enough you have plenty of food it was great food great conversation I noticed Mrs Adams was walking around talking to many many people as was Mr Young was very impressed um it was so big though I couldn't see much my little corner did see a lot of West West Clermont grads there but I was glad to see that there they've come back and and work with us and are retive members of the society that's it how many weekly meetings at Kroger do you have I have a lot reputation for being a talker that's why they hired me thank you Mr Rudy I will keep on as brief as I can here so again as everybody else has said I do appreciate the information the team and the presentation that they put
187forward I appreciate the facts that we're just we're giving to the community um as Miss Adam says not that the sky is falling these are just facts this is realities in order for us to continue moving in a forward Direction these are the steps that need to be taken most importantly while I appreciate everyone it always comes back to Dan and the finances that's where the big hurdles come into play and so I appreciate how you're able to make it in layman's terms for us to understand um every day I learn something new and every time I talk with you I learned something new that I did not know previously and so I for that I appreciate it um so yes that's uh those are my comments I appreciate everyone of what they've done with
188nothing else uh I do not believe we have a need to go into executive session so I assume we'll be fighting over if someone would like to make a motion to Mr chle Mr Mr chle I assume there's no discuss roll call please M Mr Rudy yes Mr Chumley yes M sanbor yes Mrs Spencer yes Mr Patton yes five yes 830 or 9:33 oh I did forget to say