Milford Board of Education 7/20/23

001thank you Mike's on everybody good evening everyone um welcome to the regular board meeting of the Milford Exempted Village School District uh it is Thursday July 20th at six o'clock Mr Espy call the roll Mr Combs yes Mrs Nolan yes Mrs Mason yes Mrs Chestnut yes Mr Miranda yes thank you let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance foreign okay I need a motion to approve the agenda and the addendum that the board members have before them second I would like to motion to remove item D5 A4 to vote on it separately which one was this again d584 do we need a second we have a first and a second to approve the agenda we have a first and second to approve the agenda and then that came later so I think we would need to

002um have a discussion so there was a first and second to approve the agenda there should be discussion and then a vote on that and then you could do another to break that apart thank you Amanda yes since I was already a first and second are you comfortable with that make it a second part I don't care as long as it happens I don't care we just need the ability to vote on The Adjustment yes so we vote on the agenda that we have and then we vote to correct amend it since there was a second had there not been a second we wouldn't have had to do that the agenda now so there was a motion and a second to approve the agenda as is right so we need to take a vote on

003that oh okay uh and then you could um essentially make a motion to adjust that agenda first and second take a vote on it you can do that as well there just has to be a vote I'm used to that so call the roll let's go ahead and call the roll on this okay Mr Combs no Mrs Nolan no Mrs Mason yes Mrs Chestnut yes Mr Miranda yes same thing again all right I'd like to make a motion to change the agenda to remove d5a4 and vote on it separately split it off not to remove it from the agenda to vote on it separately okay so moved second okay so we have a motion in a second any other discussion Mr Combs yes Mrs Nolan yes Mrs Mason yes Mrs Chestnut yes Mr Miranda yes

004thank you okay where I was sorry okay so now we need to approve the minutes from the regular board meeting of June 15th 2023. so moved second no discussion let's call the rule Mr Combs yes Mrs Nolan yes Mrs Mason yes Mrs Chestnut yes Mr Miranda yes thank you okay uh we're moving on to Item B which is uh Board of Education business we have two items on the agenda for discussion uh the first is delinquent uh fee discussion and uh to get a little bit of background I believe that uh one of you two gentlemen will have a slide to put up so yes thank you president Miranda members of the board I I did put together a slide with some of the other admin team to kind of go over how we got

005here with fees and and what was discussed at the um cni um curriculum instruction committee meeting last week so kind of a timeline here there were discussions at the cabinet level which cabinet meets every week and we also discussed with principals about basically purposeful processes for collecting fees this kind of came about because we've gone to a new student information system that we always refer to as a CIS and it wasn't communicating with our our older fees prior to being on that CIS so we've been on that for a a year now but basically outstanding fees were not being communicated from pay schools into Power School to be able to basically be accurate a given accurate representation of fees owed so we knew that was going on and we've been working our emis coordinator as

006well as Dr Don and and other uh you know Tech side of things trying to get those connected which we feel confident will happen for the 23-24 school year but basically what what we've what we've done is we've driven principles back to looking at the pay schools which is the mechanism that people make payments on with the district and through that process we've actually been given been getting weekly updates on fees and that's been said by our emiss coordinator Lisa hair so when those fees started coming out the point and I'm just going to paraphrase what's on the on the screen the pain point is is that typically fees a mass and a mass and a mass and it gets to where a student is about to graduate and those fees have to be collected

007and so we put a lot of pressure on the principles at the high school to collect these fees that could have been outstanding for some time with that in mind we had a discussion at the cabinet level to figure out a way we take that pressure off the high school and make sure that we're we're collecting these fees as they're supposed to be collected reporting on them and also talked about some specific potential consequences for not paying fees um and with that conversation led to uh you know it's basically I know that I said it I know that several other people said this uh in at the cabinet levels we need to engage the board because we need to make sure the board uh is going to understand that we're going to be implementing these

008potential consequences and you're likely to hear about it and so we wanted to make sure that we had um kind of your your backing in terms of the consequences that are potential consequences that we could put in place for not being at least on some sort of a payment plan for these fees since May 10 2023 when we started getting weekly updates we've collected 237 thousand dollars in outstanding fees so that's 27.6 percent of total outstanding fees have been collected since May there are still 6 000 to 621 000 6196 outstanding and so um again that's part of that that engagement that we had with the board uh last week on Thursday um you know we're continuing to to review what what are the optional programs that we're asking families to pay outstanding fees for

009prior to the school year and how we're doing that we're also um you know again at the July committee meeting engaging the board to make sure that you all know kind of what we're doing as as an Administration to collect these fees and then also sending these letters via email and by snail mail to to the families to make sure that they're again they're not being made aware for the first time but they're being made aware again that they owe these outstanding fees is there a threshold we start at I ask because uh I must have been part of the nutrition thing because my kids four kids were net five dollars over total on nutrition and I got like Texas but I imagine that warrants a different uh push then hundreds uh Tina from food

010service is here and could answer that question directly however there are some thresholds that we're starting to put into place and I think the very first one that we started to hear some pushback was parking passes at the high school if you have a balance of 500 or more then you couldn't get a parking pass so that was the very first attempt to implement something these pain points that Mr Espy has described I've got a few comments and questions is that 621 accumulated over time or do we start at zero every year it's accumulated over time okay and you in the meeting said that a large percentage of these fees are from the high school level is that no I I what I I'm what I meant I don't I don't know exactly what I

011said but um or how I phrased it but a large portion of them are collected at the high school level and what we're trying to do is make sure that we're collecting them over time and not putting all of that onus on the the high school administrators to make tons of calls we had one one administrator in general I mean the amount of work that she put in to making calls and collecting fees it's it's exorbitant and we thank her for all of that hard work but we're trying to put processes in place to where that work is spread out over time um okay so a few more comments um when we so that we just clarify for everyone so the fees can be made up of AP classes kindergarten tuition uh fees for consumables

012like workbooks what else is going into that is that lunch cafeteria it could be Chromebooks could be pay to play okay um so prior to may we had 858 thousand dollars outstanding at the same time that we were passing an emergency Levy to ask the community for money so I have a problem with that and I appreciate that you guys are putting effort and and uh priority into collecting these fees and I know you said we may get pushed back and I just want to let you know you have my full support 100 and I hope the support of the rest of the board as well um I I did look at a few things um Forest Hills for instance before you before you move on can she finish her comment this is moving on

013to Forest Hills now no she's still in the middle of her comment Forest Hills has a prerequisite to participate in any activities that all of your school fees must be paid another District in Ohio has right on their um website uh let's see participation in school sponsored activities groups organizations deemed as an extra privilege and not directly related to formal assessment for an academic course included but not limited to interscholastic athletic programs clubs instrumental music programs vocal programs field trips field day and other programs outside of the regular school day are not permitted until all fees and fines for that student have been paid in full I think it is you know the responsibility of the board that we need to put some policy in place and I know that that is embedded in a

014lot of um school districts where where it takes you know you ask for the board support I think the board could support that by creating some of these policies that um know your academic fees have to be paid first before you can play a sport I know we have a large percentage of the population I think in the whole District but especially the high school that participates in some sort of extracurricular activity or Sport and I think that requiring academic school fees to be paid in order to do that will automatically up our collection rate because that's really important for a lot of kids and Families um so that's that's one comment I have parking passes two to be tied to that and then the other thing I just want to note that while all

015what we collect goes into the 009 fund correct which is just used for student expenses like Chromebooks paper consumable workbooks it could be curriculum as well and curriculum as well but I guess the point is if we had 621 Edition thousand additional dollars in that fund we could buy things like Chromebooks out of that fund instead of the general fund which would then extend the life of the general fund so I really think um that on the heels of asking the community to um you know Annie up for a levy we really need to ask the the families by putting policies in to up that collection rate yeah I did I do want to point out like you said it is the 009 fund and and while we could do those things we haven't in

016the past so this is not something that has happened in the past and now we're not able to because we're not collecting funds the fund balance has been around 1.6 to 1.7 million dollars over the last two years and that's because with curriculum purchases um it's almost like a savings account if they're if we're adopting a five-year curriculum we might essentially allow that balance to to grow and then deplete it with a larger purchase like curriculum but to your point yes we we can potentially be alleviating some things in the general fund if this has a healthier cash balance right and I think if the board adopts policies to put that in place such as you have to pay these fees before you can participate in an activity that helps to support you guys and

017I hope the board would support that because I would recommend that I I guess first of all Mr Spence answered the question the differentiation between the 009 and the general fund um the decision to go with the levy was this wouldn't if we'd have this fund flush or not flush this wouldn't have affected our decision to go with the levy or the amount as far as I can tell correct I mean I I think that we look at at how we've done things in the past and you use trends when we're looking at where we're going from a cash balance standpoint um you can make all kinds of arguments I I brought I told you we had additional Revenue coming in due to interest that we found out about and that I essentially negotiated with

018the bank after that Levy was was put in place and so there's there there's always going to be continual inputs of data in terms of revenues and expenses that we're going to have to keep in mind I think the thing to keep in mind is this specific Levy at no point gets us out of deficit spending it's it's essentially you know funding the district and keeping us out of fiscal emergency fiscal watch or caution for the next three years right I understand that but if we're what how many hundred thousand dollars equate to approximately a mill 1.2 million 1.2 million equates to a mill so if we are looking at three quarters of a of a million dollars that's maybe half a mill we could ask for Less it's half a mill but it's one-time

019money versus ongoing Revenue okay so there's a more complex calculation than that I'm not going to I want to be as fiscally responsible as we as we possibly can which is why I think we started this conversation to begin with and and it's something that I started asking questions about brought to cabinet and and that's why why I think we're discussing it right now um but yeah I mean anytime we bring in those those uh outstanding fees or stay um current on those fees is going to potentially help the district I appreciate the recognition of this Gap in reporting and that you guys have taken some steps to address it because a year ago we didn't recognize that this Gap existed and I think that's all we can ask of uh What uh how reasonable

020is it to expect that 100 of these feeds will be paid ever I think it's it's unlikely that they're ever going to be a hundred percent uh that doesn't mean we can't strive to be 100 um you know I I I do want to do benchmarking with other districts but part of me doesn't care what that result is because I know the team here is committed to collecting these um and I did want to point out and apply to anyone on free that qualifies for free lunch and completes the paperwork and completes the paper so but they could apply later if they hadn't completed the paperwork correct they know no it does not go retroactive we have I think there's a window of 60 days correct me if I'm wrong 30 days yes so basically

021if a family were to complete that at November 1st they would essentially lose out on that time outside of the grace period member of the staff was formerly following up with these delinquent accounts via phone call and now they're going to be follow-up texts and emails it what is the process for that like how does that work so we actually have some limitations with pay schools because families can choose how they're notified I verified that with my my own child's pay school account you can go in and say if the account is within 10 or 20 or insert whatever dollar amount you're going to receive a text and an email so what we what we're trying to investigate is can we force it to notify at a certain period of time and that that it

022that remains to be seen that's some part of the integration that I think we're continuing to work on with PowerSchool and pay schools and please correct me if I'm wrong Dr Don if I'm um sorry the complexity was past Year's fees inside of PowerSchool and pay school so a parent logs into pay school like they've all been doing for years and they see everything they need to see they'll know how many fees they owe it is broken down by the year what it is it's pretty detailed but inside of PowerSchool where they see their child's grades and stuff it's not there it only has the current year because we're new in PowerSchool the stuff that was in a previous system and progress book it doesn't go into power school but it is in pay school

023that does not sound easy when you say it like that so it's not that people haven't always known they've always been aware of their fees they've been informed and notified in many many ways by principals teachers secretaries through email through text the conversation was about what can we do more to help make that happen sooner so that seniors aren't paying for kindergarten 13 years later so we've been collecting fees for many years correct correct our student population has remained roughly flat for good 10 years is that fair yes you could say roughly roughly flat so we've likely got a really good understanding of how how much participation on average our student body and the fees that participation in everything fee oriented pretty much every year for 10 years is that fair to say I I

024certainly hope so we were trying to pull some data from pay schools there going through a server update right now and we're not going to be able to access it till the 24th so I I hope so but I want to see that data before I say so can you imagine where I'm going with this yes where I'm going with this very clearly is that we have had fee delinquencies for many years Fair to say and that total to be collected is likely been roughly pretty similar every year is that fair to say I would I would assume so my my interest is we had 858 thousand dollars worth of delinquent fees that your staff ran hard after this year and did what appears to be a pretty good job of collecting was it 24

02527 27.6 27.6 percent of that that 858 how much annual annual delinquencies do we experience as a district on average because I'm sure it's pretty common and that's the data that I want to get to to drill down to because I I I'm seeing the total number I'm not seeing how much was accrued each specific year so you know I think we're going to run into like we've seen many times during during covid there were fees that weren't collected so we almost have to throw those years out and go back as for as far as we can to establish a trend I'm happy totally happy to do that the way that I looked at this initially was we've got this issue how do we how do we solve it right now this is a right

026now problem and it's a team effort it's been multiple people engaged we've had a lot of conversations with it about it and you know we're committed to getting this down I I just my point is I'm so glad we've uncovered the issue I'm so glad we're running hard after it we can't do anything about the past to measure our progress against that I really don't know if 27.6 is a good collection rate against that outstanding balance and neither do you so I want a commitment that when you get this information this historical information you're going to share with us yes perfect I mean this is a problem and you know unfortunately fees to me are the same thing as a tax in some ways I I think anything out of your hard-earned paycheck uh whether

027to the government an educator whatever the case may be can be viewed as a tax but these are things that our kids I think really enjoy like these are extracurriculars I know some of them are even different than extracurriculars but to miss Nolan's point we've we've likely got to have a policy change here um to put a little bit more teeth in this because if you find out in 10 years we've had this recurring issue and it's not impacting our our free lunch Community um we just we just really need to double down a little bit more and make sure that our community understands how important this is I mean that's a lot of money 858 000 to me is is a huge sum and we're going back out for a levy in the fall

028and look we we were excited about a couple hundred thousand here seven hundred thousand dollars here worth of decisions the administration made and we we explained it to the public very very uh loudly that we've made these some of these efficiency gains I'm not poo-pooing this and I just hope that we continue to run after it hard um thank you for finding it I'm very interested in the historical data because I don't know how long we've been sitting on this I have no idea neither do you I think it's also important to know that historically as a former High School Principal Paul Daniels in the audience is a former High School principal you end up getting great collections in the end and that's been as we said that's the pain point and that's the lowest

029number we have outstanding right now but we also had some students that didn't didn't make it so while the number is large The Collection rate at that grade 12 is great is it fair to say we've got teeth there because we do it's graduation we do I mean Paul and I have talked about it with our essential Office Team you know one of the the things with teeth that in Prior districts that was the norm was you can't go to prom unless your fees are paid and we collected a lot of money that week yeah uh and so then it became graduation was the next pain point it was really those two two pain points if you will and so that's why we've been brainstorming with our principals to look at those extras that we

030can can do that and I think ultimately as John said you know the principals are going to get the emails and I'm going to get the emails or calls and so are you and so I think that's why we brought it to your attention leaders are longer than that there wasn't great communication to the about how much we owed unless I logged into this separate thing and I really only logged in at the beginning of the year when I had to pay the fees and then other fees would come in later in the year and I would never go back and look and so I think this process will help because I had fees at the end of the year and didn't know about them you know because there was not really a great way

031to see but with that knowledge you know it's easier to be like oh I owe 26 dollars I'll go go through that up so where do we go from here do we want in policy committee to amend a policy to be voted on next month um I'm not convinced we need I mean policy persons coming up I'm not convinced we need a policy like I would like to see how this plays out and how collections plays out and how it eases the burden you know as it's coming um why are you opposed to a policy um I I think writing too many policies gets confusing and then it gets updated here and not there and we already have a fee policy um JN so it would literally be like adding a sentence into it saying

032whatever the parameters are like you have to have your school fees pay before you can play a sport like so Kenna works on that and so it's really not adding a policy it's literally adding a sentence to whatever I'm wary of adding too many administrative details I think I think the high school is probably the place that it can be more but feed burden is paid by the parents and the students aren't always aware of of the fee burden right I don't tell my kids I just paid 26 for your workbooks but um I think I think it's fair to put things in place but I worry that if we put too many things into policy we are then bogging down a principal in ways that we don't need I want to see the success

033of this and how this kind of gets us out of it and if if our processes are working I don't know that I necessarily feel the need for additional policies so might I add Just A Moment of clarity we are waiting from the state uh some information in one of the house bills which is why this has really risen to the top of something that we um constructively as a district need to be more laser focused on I haven't seen the final language we did hear that in one of the house bills you can no longer hold you really were never allowed to hold like uh if if I owed a 500 and I transferred from here to another District in Ohio we would really lean into you and say we're not releasing your transcript

034your official record until you pay us the money we used to be able to maybe redact a transcript or report card there is language that's coming which is why I would say maybe hold off until you see that in the PDQ that says if a student is over a certain amount and I think I've heard 2500 we may be able to redact hold not release but if you owe 2499 I think the language says we have five days whether we collect those fees or not to get rid of to transfer on the official record which means I don't know about you but if if I'm able to leave here and my whole transcript goes with me and I owe Mill for two thousand four hundred ninety nine dollars I'm probably not going to pay Milford

035two thousand four hundred ninety nine dollars so prior to writing something maybe a regulation maybe changing policy I would hold off so you don't have to do a double edit or a double change will that house still change the orc code it's probably taught usually policy is tied to an Ohio Administrative Code or an Ohio Revised Code can redact you can issue a transcript but redact grades and credits from it so I we were serve papers by well not served we were emailed papers two months ago from another Ohio school we did have our attorney Mr McCord look at those and he said very clearly you have no recourse to hold these you have to let them go and that was as recent as May that we had him look at something because there were

036three staff members who were convinced that we didn't have to and we were served you know with this notice that legal action was to be taken against the district we did confer with Mr McCord and we ended up releasing the records so that's coming and that was part of the really we were hearing this as the budget bills were getting crafted and recrafted and that really accelerated the need to put those pain points in place we can always introduce a policy to change and vote on it as a board we have that's what we do whether it feels unnecessary to some board members or not that's what we do so it does and and if today it does the the policy change would meet that today so thank you Paul thanks for letting us know

037what's coming the details in a massive bill and I was just going to say appreciate all the uh the work that uh with the rest we've been putting in the dive don't try to do a deep dive and get as much information as they can in a much as much historical information as we can it's team effort I do want to say it's a team effort absolutely appreciate it absolutely somebody has to lead the team um I mean you kind of you've kind of become a bulldog on these things and I would expect that not to change on this one as well the only other the only other situation that I have is your comment was you can't do extracurriculars or you can't go into a I'm guessing you can't go into an AP class

038if you have outstanding fees is that what you're saying I think we talked about in committee that in regard to AP fees they were going to be if you haven't paid your fee by October you are going to be moved into the right like if you're in AP biology if you haven't paid your fee then you're going to be moved into regular biology is that correct is it the October is the The Ordering of the tests and so the money would be there to then order the tests and we wouldn't wait for it and the same thing with kindergarten as I oh people that are in the all-day kindergarten which is a privilege and a lottery if you ever paid your fee will be moved into the half day kindergarten in October correct yes yes

039that's a little bit trickier than a high school change because of the Staffing at each elementary school but in theory yes but to your comment Dave what other districts have done and is in policy and it's in on their websites and it's in their handbooks is Ty you can't you're not even eligible to pay your sports fee or extracurricular fee if you haven't paid your school fees because like we're here for school and then the other things are extras or privileges does that work the other way too though if you haven't paid your sports fees you can't no because you have to pay the regular fees before it's fees so if you don't pay your sports fees you can't play the sport and you can't pay that fee until you pay your school fees well

040I and I understand that I'm just I'm just trying to roll this over in my head once again for about the hundredth time we [Music] and and I've heard uh any everybody on this day us talk about it we have families that maybe you're not in the best financial shape right now they've been hit hard by the pandemic and they still have not recovered from that paid in full or have a working payment plan in place I don't know about the payment plans I would think that the people that qualify for free lunch do not have any fees anyway so I'm not sure how it handles people who are on reduced do you do you reduce fees by this equal percentage that's not in any of the codes or or policies or Orcs or anything

041like that which is why I think it's a you know we can wait until the house bill stuff nuts out but I think Sports and activities are so important to families and to kids that um if you couldn't if your kid can't participate in that something that you might have just overlooked oh yeah I'll pay that next year I'll pay it next year will become important and so there are some kit people who are you know financially hardship to pay and there's some that are not some just have not you know maybe like Emily didn't really know their own fees or whatever and if you if you tie that activity or that sport to paying fees I would imagine that collection rate will jump up exponentially provided that it is within the family's means to

042take care of it if you if you owe I don't know pick a number fifteen hundred dollars you maybe can't pay that in the first month so now the child loses an entire season because they want to put a payment plan in place do we have any fees that are that ours for one item I did not say that I'm a total a total I know I'm asking probably cheerleading and band would be the closest I would think so people would come up with that fun because they can't do those activities unless they pay those correct so they would come up with that money I don't believe they pay them all at the first day I believe they have payment plans there as well I'm just I'm just offering it plans in place so the

043with the software that we have we have the ability essentially families can create their own payment plan but we can run reports to say this there's been no payment made on this in the last 30 days or 45 days or whatever insert whatever number of days to be considered delinquent so part of the part of I guess the Innovation that we've over that we've gone through over time has been maybe there's a a Bursar at the at the high school that is literally writing down payment plans and having to follow up with those people versus Pay schools is allowing them to log in and make payments and us run reports to see if if they are indeed making those payments so we don't have a policy or an official way to make a payment plan

044we just literally have somebody writing it up no this would be something that I think we just have to further Define in this process that's something that we've definitely talked about how are we how are we going to consider this payment not delinquent or are they making payments towards it on a regular basis or are they delinquent by 45 or 60 days or anything beyond 30 days what is the status how does how do athletic or extracurricular fees do they have to pay them in full yes um Mr Kaufman and I met Fine Arts and I think the example the hard example that he gave was um you know usually like for football let's just use football as the example you know all your fees need to pay be paid by uh X date there's

045typically someone else that can step in if if you have to hold that child out the complication for him is the let's say the fall play so you have the fall play and all of a sudden your lead role is a week out then you're gonna stop you have to stop the production if you were to pull that child so what do you have to pay before they start practices well if that's again if that's what the board wants then that's what we will do but so what Josh has has uh instituted at this point is if if for whatever reason that person would become delinquent they could not then participate in the next one until that fee was paid and then and this one as well so that's his mechanism to make sure that

046it doesn't happen so to your point Dave if people can come up with the full amount to participate in an activity you said people might have financial hardship but they're coming up with the full amounts to pay play sports I feel since we're here for school that school should be the priority and then the privilege comes after it that's my opinion we're also trying and I've heard Mr Spicer say this to provide a well-rounded education which includes extracurriculars as well so we need to be we just there's look there's nobody of the five of us that says yeah just forget it we don't we don't need that money let's move on we all want to get every nickel of it but we don't want to do it in a way that creates hardships to families

047that no issues no we don't but we're asking the taxpayers for a whole lot of money and if we're going to include unpaid Sports fees then we we need to be honest with the taxpayers and say because I think a lot of them think that they're paying for academics through through these levies and um you know I think having a policy in place where you if people want to have hardships they can apply um Case by case on that I don't know what parameters but but I think most people can pay their fees because if if there was some teeth where they had to pay them year after year to participate you likely aren't going to get to that two thousand dollar range or fifteen hundred dollar range that you said on academic fees all

048all valid points no no issue there we just need to make sure we're not going to set this community on its ear by by doing this lots of other communities ask for their fees to be paid I mean it's not like again we're not we're not saying we don't want you to pay your fees I also don't know what the follow-up is I mean they might have a policy on the website that says this but they might not have a John and a and a program put together which is why I think it's more important to see the the program and what we're collecting and how we're um giving tools to our administrators to go out so who's whose policy would this be there's a financial policy is this uh it would be understood curriculum

049it's JN it would have been or Jan and then we would probably a regulation under jnr and who has to stick to write that uh you you could write the regulation we could write the regulation based on what the board's direction is and then we would make sure that it we would pass that through legal counsel to make sure it passes that piece um so yeah all of these policies are board policies like I think that's one one thing that Milford I think when we say talk about a lot of things that um it's always been done this way these are all board policies not administrative policies so the board is who decides on the policies would you like to take the lead in online and take take charge of take leadership role in writing

050a policy or amending a policy sure like we just talked with Paul after the um House Bill comes out we we work with Kenna and we can write anything we want it's literally adding a sentence or two to the current policy so what I can commit to for you is doing some research seeing what we can pull together between now and cni next month um if you would mind sharing the districts that you have with me via email or before you leave tonight so I can pull those and part of the also the contract with osba as we can say to them we're looking at policy change or regulation and they can guide you on which direction best fits a regulation is how you enforce the policy so they may say you you know the

051board policy is this and this is how you want it carried out and enforced and then you could put things in there a little more specific to your liking you need to move forward on this I absolutely uh it didn't get this way in a month or two so it's going to take a little bit of time to solve it but we're going after fees even as we speak right every day every day every day we're still going after fees to try to reduce that 620 1000 correct so we continue to do that and uh and then we try to get a policy in place that that puts it puts it out but I think we need to get that in front of John is this something that might be advantageous for like a CAC

052group to look at it certainly could I mean I do write a policy and throw it out there without having somebody in the community kind of vent it I think there's a community that's that's what we were we're elected we were elected to represent the community so our job is to write policy or change policy that's what our job that's part of our job and you know how many policies this board has amended and written in the since I've been on the board next is zero and we're learning our way and if it means we're going to write new policy going forward that's what we're going to do you can vote on it or not we normally don't vote alike but we're going to try to change something for the better of these kids and

053the taxpayers and this looks like one of them and I totally agree with you on that when you ask the question who's got the stick you know who's got the stick we have the stick and you've got the stick that's who's got the stick not John not not the other John not Paul we've got the stick that's who writes policy so if it's a good one let's discuss it and let's put it in place pretty simple all I'm saying is before we put it in place the CDC has nothing to do with our problems they have some other eyes take a look at it I'm not asking them to write policy I'm asking them to look for something that we might have missed or they might have an issue with that we we're not thinking

054like me okay okay do we have any other comments okay let's move on then um the second um issue on the board of education business is convocation would you like to lay things out or you would you rather respond either way I'll do whatever the board wishes okay do we have any comments oh I have comments so when we were in our committee meeting last week and forgive me I am not prepared on this one completely because I was working on it this afternoon and got an email which frazzled me we all got the same email um but anyway in a nutshell in committee meeting last week um Jerry asked a question about a convocation speaker and what the cost was um he had heard it was one amount and asked about it and then

055John and Jenny replied that his amount was incorrect and it was going to be ten thousand dollars so in that we talked a little bit about that and in that committee meeting um nothing was said about how that was going to be paid for um I found out since we've only had a keynote speaker one other time in the last 10 years um for the convocation and so Jerry had asked basically like is this a good expenditure when we are running a huge deficit and just went out with an emergency Levy um you know is that a necessary expenditure so the next that was on Thursday the 13th on Friday the 14th I sent a couple uh emails with questions I found out later Jerry did the same um and and we learned through John

056Espy that this convocation speaker was going to be paid for from the Clermont County Educational Service Center who we contract with for special ed and special needs and what have you um so I asked some questions uh public records requests from them going back and forth and kind of uncovered some other other issues which I think again needs some policy looking at from from our point of view as a board um so I learned that so so when there was no no conversation in the committee meeting about how this was going to be paid for which is a little bit surprising because I know John you're always like on top of everything and no comment was made so we learned the next day um that it was going to be paid for by the Educational

057Service Center and then I learned that there was a verbal request back in October for for basically two hundred and eighteen thousand dollars worth of um contracts for three different items so anyway I'm not fully prepared I'm still looking at stuff but in a nutshell we are on the receiving end of that 218 000 so that's good it's being paid for for us or money but I do have a problem with that dollar amount of contracts being out there on verbal requests I know our contract with the CC uh ESC States and number five that any contract amendment has to be in writing in addition you know we sign a contract for specific services that are checked off on boxes this we have to check them off any Services over and above what we contract

058for has to be in writing by Mutual consent from the ESC and the village board this includes changes to cost estimates um Etc so the fact that we've got 218 000 in verbal contracts out there I I have issue with and I think there needs to be policy written that or followed that that all needs to be in writing we don't have contracts with them for 218 thousand dollars that's our Esser funds that's provided from the ESC yes there was a verbal in October about the speaker Todd Whitaker at that time and so then later in the spring letters was the other contract and then more recently thought exchange which you have those as well Mr Espy provided those to you I just attendant at the CIA for three contracts or three items to be

059paid for for us and he put two of them into place in the late spring and he forgot about this one and so I just thought the timing was off I thought I think some of the dots don't connect the timeline is kind of skewed that the PO was like just this past Monday the um the 18th uh you didn't contact him to he did he forgot about it until he was contacted on Friday the 14th which was the day after our committee meeting talking about this so I just think that there's some some loose ends out there that that don't quite all can I sign up can I make a quick comment so part of the verbal conversation I had I believe it was like June 13th there's an email that you had requested

060and I sent to to John and Jenny regarding letters training and I'll tell you I I'd like to provide some clarity on that if I could so governor dewine in his recent budget and really just things we've been hearing from the from the state house is that he he's um focused on dyslexia there's there's definitely like legislation now requiring us to to educate students uh in that in that realm letters is the mechanism to do so I've worked with that I've seen that that program in another District that had a comprehensive state literacy Grant and so letters is a great program however it is an expensive program and so when John and Jenny came to me and we're we were trying to just troublesh troubleshoot we've got this essentially unfunded mandate how in the world

061can we can we not impact the general fund poorly by just paying this so I have I've known Jeff Weir for a long period of time I pick up the phone and I say hey Jeff is there any way that that you can use some of the Esser funds that you have that you're trying to find ways to spend because they have a life end of life that's coming up this fiscal year now um and so he he said that they could do it so that's about June that you talked that was in June for that specific item because his initial email said that he had the verbal request in October so that's what I'm just saying a lot of the timeline just doesn't add up I think that yeah the difference the October would

062be for Todd Whitaker okay yeah yeah he said all three requests requests are did you finish clarifying that really quick I didn't I didn't yeah um just a couple comments so it's my understanding Claremont County Educational Service Center is in some ways and correct me John because I I told you before the meeting I was going to ask you to clarify this if I missed at a high level we have nine school districts and they use the ccesc as a as a sort of a shared service center because we've got we've got students that have various needs and if we've got a student with a particular need then we don't we can't pay a full-time person to serve that child so we share that full-time service provider with maybe three other schools or whatever the

063case may be is that the the purpose of Clermont County ESC that we it's a shared services pool among nine other districts for Kids in Need I would say it's part of it and I think that that contract that we have for those specific partial ftes or Services go back to that contract and the written changes those would be the written changes that we would reach out and make sure we're in writing because it is a a typically a larger expenditure although I think we found out that we're like one of the lowest districts that we are per people per pupil I think Ben with them I think one example would be this we contracted with them for school-based day treatment at one time we brought that back because we felt like we could one

064provide a service that would meet our families needs it would be on site and we felt like we could we could do it cheaper if you will and so we did we brought those back what what it what's our typical annual uh investment in those services I don't have that readily available if I can pull it no I don't have it I don't know it roughly okay so it's it's um so it's my understanding that ccesc got Esser funds and those Esther funds were allocated across all nine districts I think it was a per pupil allocation per pupil allocation so that means it was a spread across all nine districts not evenly but spread across all nine districts and we had roughly just under three hundred thousand dollars worth of faster funds is that I

065think it's around 220 oh okay I thought it was like 290. I thought I read an email 220. sorry 299. 299. okay okay I thought it was just under three I read the email and I thought it was just under 30 but anyway so we've got this pot of money from Esser in this pot of money from Esser has stipulations to spend it in correct I understand based on Mr Weir that there's 15 programs that qualify for that Esser money yeah and he had a massive Delay from ode approving the request my my hypothesis is ode was looking at all the requests and making sure they fit into those 15 programs would that be fair to say I don't think it was as detailed as that because I actually spoke to the treasurer and ccesc

066Al fleckinger and they they felt confident and they were told by Consultants at ode that they they felt confident that these expenditures were going to you know essentially pass the sniff test but he was waiting they were waiting until final approval to get that which is part of the reason why these these POS have not been put in place until July because when we deal with federal grants and Esser is a Federal grant much like idea or title one there are Grant periods of time and so we would have had to have everything encumbered by June and they did not have that specifically in their budget at that time when it rolls over to fiscal year 24 that we're in now that allows and there's actually an email that that was part of the request

067where I where I said specifically on the contract could not be before July 1. okay John was it you specifically that had the conversation with Mr Weir about the speaker and the verbal approval in October yeah it was you yeah and Jenny was there too I believe because and he attends the uh Clermont County and was that conversation that these Esser funds that the speaker was going to be paid inside of the Esser fund money correct Esther funds yes inside of the yester funds where inside of ccesc have they paid for convocation speakers in the past with Esser funds uh I don't know I don't work for them okay I didn't know if if you might have asked that question you did not ask any questions so so the the point of the discussion is

068where we've got CC ESC that we pay money to for services that got Esser grant money and we are we didn't have this answer in committee we got this answer over an email two days later correct if if we would have had that answer in committee like we normally have very quick answers in committee I said how in the world and why are we paying ten thousand dollars for a convocation speaker for a school district in deficit asking for and put an emergency levy on the ballot in November why are we doing this crickets two days later I get an email that said oh we're doing that with Clermont County uh Educational Services Center money it's not coming out of our funds the fact that that wasn't rolled off the tongue so quickly like almost

069every answer to every question I ask in committees is quite it's quite puzzling to say the least it's puzzling then we start digging into how this is done three hundred thousand dollars we get a verbal in October he submits a request to see if this stuff falls into the 15 he finally gets the request and oh by the way we forgot about the speaker until recently Jeff Weir said he's not we he said he forgot about the speaker after you called him and reminded him of the speaker right probably because of what happened in the community right yeah I wanted to make sure it was covered and inside of the approvals from ode under what section of the 15 programs are convocation speakers covered that's for Jeff weird to decide that that is a question

070that they have to answer because they are the the grantee so when when that conversation happened which was before my time here um there there had to have been some sort of check box that it it checked it's what I do when I'm looking at approving expenditures as a Treasurer if we're receiving Federal grant money I'm making sure that it's being used appropriately well we're going to continue down the path of researching this because it hit me very recently because I'm very cost conscious it hit me that why are we paying ten thousand dollars for a convocation speaker why is that even something that we're going to explore even Explore I don't care where it's paid for because to me SR funds are taxpayer dollars coming out of everyone hears pockets Esser funds are not

071free money it may not come directly out of your pocket today but it's come out of there so we need to be very careful how we spend us or funds and from my understanding with Esser funds they're almost all associated with the virus that with the the the the pandemic the covid-19 effects on all of our of our students and our our teachers so I want to ask Jeff how does Esser funds fund ten thousand dollars including per diem sixteen hundred dollars on top of that 10 so it's costing us eleven six or Jeff Weir and CC ESC 11-6 I it's not your it sounds like John it's not your it's not your question to answer it's not um it's just it's just surprising that even our Administration asked to pay the ten thousand dollars

072from uh from CC ESC with the shape that we're in right now yeah you can speak in just a minute because yeah I'm going to finish I'm gonna finish because you you do interrupt me quite quite regularly John um I'm going to find that out from from Mr Weir and we need to share that here when we find out that answer about the answer to his answer to Esser funds absolutely why why uh the speaker is covered um and what what it falls into that's under ode approval um I'm going to find that out it just doesn't sit well with me that that we're spending 10 grand on speaker for convocation just doesn't sit well that's all am I allowed to speak now Mr Combs yes ma'am okay I I haven't interrupted you I was

073just raised I'm just talking about the past not tonight okay I would like to say that um your your professional businessman so you probably know this already but professional development is a really important part of um job growth of people being happy so for example I work for Cincinnati Children's Hospital we do professional development series trainings you know like it comes in lots of professional development comes in lots of different ways so I feel that our staff deserves the same professional development which is why there is a training budget that we've included every year so although you keep bringing up the levy and the deficit spending which is how schools are funded for the state of Ohio I believe that our staff are worth the professional development and so if you know when we approve

074the budget if that's what they say for this year it's it's we're going to bring in a speaker you know when we when we do it that cost across the district um that's part of what we give Mr Spicer and the administration the ability to do and I think that professional development for all of our staff is worth it I want them to be happy here I want them to grow learn there's also requirements for teaching certificates that include professional development and CPE or whatever they're called for for teachers so I'm glad that there was a a method to co-fund or to fund that that cost but I 100 believe that professional development and investment in our staff is worth it I have something to add to that um I was going to bring up

075some of the same things as Mrs Chestnut but I also think that this particular Administration has worked very hard on our staff retention they were recognized last year at the osba presented reimagining human capital for today's reality it's something that this Administration is very good at and I know that we said that we didn't previously have any speakers in the past 10 years but we did have a speaker in 2021 and I think that very much aligns with what this Administration has done to make sure that we're retaining the staff I had the ability to go to convocation last year and it was amazing and it I can see how it would excite the teachers get them to work together and really get them trained and ready to start the school year and be on

076the same page with all of our goals I think that's really important and I think especially in this climate retaining staff is very important it costs more to hire and train new people you difficult to find Qualified people right now especially in the science and math teaching fields and that the people that we have hired here are good people they're good at what they do they prepare our students well and we want to keep them so I do think that this makes sense as an expense and um I am actually glad that we are reaching out to other people to cover these expenses for us it's something the board has asked this Administration to do and if there were Esser funds sitting there about to expire I'm glad that we can make use of those

077Esser funds I just I wanted to make a quick comment as well when we're building a budget and I sat sat down with each department and built the budget for this year which is reflected in the Appropriations it's a collaborative process and it's it's a it's a push and pull process where we're trying to get what we need you know make sure that the kids have what they need to succeed while also living within the reality of our budget and so I I don't necessarily know every single line item expenditure there are some codes that I know every line item expenditure this one specifically is professional development and I believe and I don't have the the exact number but I'm pretty sure it went from forty thousand to somewhere around 25 or 20 000. so

078we reduced overall the professional development I'm sorry I did not have that answer in in committee um it might have been 45 and some of that was a conversation about having set aside for admin to go and do some things and I think the John Gordon stuff with some of the stuff that I shared with you that was one of those things but yeah we we've reduced it to 20 this year I'm just gonna make one last comment um I agree with the mlas that staff development is important I agree with Emily Mason that um it's good we've been asking to reach out and and have things paid for where we can I just found it odd after being in committee meetings for all these months and both of the Johns typically have answers right

079away I just thought it was odd that in the committee when asked how are we going to pay for that nobody had an answer and then two days later we learned there was a verbal contract that you both knew about because one was in Octo John Spicer talked to him in October and you said you talked to him in June so you would have no you would have known you both would have known about those conversations in the committee meeting on Thursday and then um I just thought the timing was odd that that um the career had forgotten about this one until Friday which was just the day after the committee that's all I just think the timeline is a little odd the June conversation was for the letters dyslexia information that was on June

08013th that was my conversation I did not have the other conversation it was prior to my time with the district and and Jenny hand delivered the letters to Jeff okay whatever so are you are you requesting that we use the professional development money out of our budget to pay for the ten thousand dollars and not accept I'm just saying that I think that it was odd that if when when questioned in the committee how are we paying for this that the answer was not oh I've already talked to them back in October we have this lined up with CCE ESC I think that that was strange that we didn't have that answer and then two days later there was a verbal commit I just think there's some there's just there's a lot about it but

081I can't imagine the brain power it takes to remember all the line items for all the spending that happens within a district which exactly which is why I think things should be in writing because poor Jeff where if he's getting verbal verbal requests from nine different districts that's got to be incredibly hard to remember I'm sure there are a lot of conversations but not at my level about how do we spend this money I mean you don't come one day and say we're spending it this way I mean there's a lot of conversations I believe any contract we have here so I appreciate that they are looking for ways to co-fund we're fully funded any other comments let's all take a deep breath and let's move on brings us to our first public participation or

082public commentary do we have anyone I have none okay we have now completed page two of an 18-page agenda so hopefully the face will pick up from this point on um let's move along to the treasurer's report uh Treasurer Johnson thank you president Miranda members of the board um I am going to take us through our June financials um we are all the way through fiscal year 23 so we're 100 through our total expenditures ended at 99.5 percent accurate when comparing to the forecast revenues also ended at 99.5 percent accurate when comparing to the forecast the operating fund had 25 820 and 30 cents a month to date interest uh to bring the fiscal year to date total to 586 334.41 the bond in cops fund and I do want to mention this shortly because

083we've actually split up the all all of these funds the bond the cops the capitalized interest so what I've done just to consistently report that report this is add all that together so it's an Apples to Apples monthly comparison 226 570 10 in June and then a fiscal year-to-date total of 1.242 76409 for the fiscal year-to-date totals when we look at fiscal year analysis so I took the November filed forecast from 22 the projected expenditures over revenues were 3.46 million we actually ended at 1.78 million so I think part of that is just you know the mindfulness of spending but also some of the processes that we put in place where we essentially cut off POS at a certain time and you know made sure that we were spending when we were spending in fiscal

084year 23 it was all tied to fiscal year 23. um the projected unreserved cash balance at the November forecast was 35.4 million and we ended with a cash balance of 39.13 which was 99.99 accurate to the forecast there was a variance of 7142 on 39 million 130 238. so I felt very good to be that close to that number any questions thus far when will the good work of the renegotiated interest Revenue going to start showing up it's already showing up we are reporting on here we're reporting investment Revenue yep that's not showing his bank I'm happy to also show bank I just I just didn't know if it if if we were starting to realize it yet 145 000 a month good yeah I knew that that had just taken place I didn't know

085when that agreement was going to start paying started in April so okay um and then we're also going to start having that projected eighty thousand dollars we'll start impacting Us in August which is the rebate from our electronic card yeah yeah yeah okay there's actually some other exciting things that we're I'm working on with that company as well that we might be able to bring additional Revenue to the district as well but good I'll share that later um Financial items in July I just kind of want to give you an update of where we are as a department in the treasurer's office so all budgeted and expenditures and revenues are entered into the financial software that had not been happening before and so now what I can do is I can enter all the expenditures

086and revenues and use the reports out of the software to create our appropriation resolution and our amended certificate so I'll be bringing those to you every month and we'll be about 10 seconds to generate those reports as opposed to the hour and a half to two hours it's been taking to generate them so that's a good thing for for us in terms of efficiencies building new salaries into the payroll software for upcoming contracts that's occurring we have seven one starts we have eight one starts and then we have we also have the teachers starting mid August with their first pay either at the end of August or mid-september we're finishing up with state required reporting and file submissions we have to do what's called period age Financial reports that are sent in and that's what

087the state utilizes to evaluate all of our expenditures also we're continuing to create documents for financial best practices that we're going to be sharing one namely is the um kind of like a secretary guidebook for all of our administrative assistants that we're going to be rolling out at the beginning of August we're also planning to move to a new Financial software that's TBA we're working with the state to figure out when we could do that but it it will save the district at least 25 000 a year potentially could be more could be closer to 55 000 once we transition our time clock software I've also set up monthly one-on-one meetings with the treasurer's office staff setting goals and and things like that that we've learned through our our Gallup information that Jenny's been heading

088up so that's all I have for you in terms of that financial report unless you have any questions okay I need a motion to prove the treasury board report as presented so moved discussion the only thing I can say is while it's while it's been driven by inflation uh interest rates here at about 5.35.4 percent so we're we're benefiting from that and that's that's that's a good thing and I'm so glad that you've taken that bull by the horns and worked it so I think it's important to know the in the way that we're doing our investments now it's through like essentially an advisor and there they that advisor red tree essentially makes money when the district makes money so they're invested in putting us in the right in the right buckets and the right

089Investments I still review all those Investments they still talk to me about strategy so um that's that's another Plus okay hearing no other questions you want to call the roll Mr Combs yes this is Nolan yes this is Mason yes this is chestnut yes Mr Miranda yes thank you item D2 is the fiscal year 24 certificate of estimated resources um this is required to be filed by to the county auditor by the end of July and this represents a fun level basis of all of our revenues that we expect to get this year okay I need a motion to prove the fy24 certificate of estimated resources so moved discussion call the roll Mr Combs yes Mr Nolan yes Mrs Mason yes Mrs Chestnut yes Mr Miranda yes thank you D3 is the um the expenditure

090side so this is fiscal year 24 budget and it's basically broken up into Appropriations at the fund level these are tied to our forecast and I do have some contingencies in that I can move out of if there is an emergency during a month but I'll be bringing these to you every single month any questions so these will be presented to us every month correct yes the only the only reason I wouldn't is if nothing changed it would be a waste of our time generated the reports and also the county auditor's time but typically we're moving something even if it's a net zero change I just like to do it because it makes sure that we're compliant with the county auditor as we as we continue to drive it as as much as we can

091towards lowering some of these I just want to make sure that we're when I see the word permanent that's uh that that rattles me sometimes so I'm just gonna so let me explain that a little bit I appreciate that question um in June you approved uh fiscal year 24 temporary and part of perm we have to have permanent Appropriations filed by September so we're just ahead of the game I like I next year I would love to go straight to permanent in June of the prior fiscal year okay yeah thanks that flash is yellow to me word I get it you'll they'll be amended permanent Appropriations every month okay I need a motion approved fiscal year 24 permanent appropriation resolution second discussion call a roll Mr Combs yes Mrs Nolan yes Mrs Mason yes Mrs

092Chestnut yes Mr Miranda yes thank you D4 is actually part of D3 but we're required to send bring these to you for the budget and purpose statements for our principal funds the o18s this is essentially where principals would do fundraisers that they're building bring in funds and expend funds for things like field trips it could be for like um you know fun yeah playground equipment could be like incentives at the buildings and things like that so each principal has returned that to me and that's in that attachment need a motion to prove the o18 budgets and purpose statements discussion um is this uh at some point in the past year we went back to um organizations within our group and I remember PTO and part of it that they had to submit their budgets and

093is this part of that process or well or not necessarily no those funds are separate from the district funds and those are their budgets that they would submit for my review and it's pretty much just making sure that since we're allowing the dis we're allowing those entities to use our likeness that everything's on the up and up I'm not going to get you know you know get all up in the weeds and that this is specifically money that we hold in the o18 fund so we are responsible for these funds and now they all have budget and purpose statements whereas they didn't before I always view this as like the principles fund yeah I mean that may be oversimplifying it but they've got to fund and they're responsible and accountable for how it's yeah and

094I actually wrote their budget and purpose statements for them and I told them they could keep that one or change it if they wanted and they're miraculously all the same so but it it allows us to make sure that we're following the rules yeah your wife didn't even change hers I don't think so any other discussion call roll Mr Combs yes Mrs Nolan yes yes Mrs Mason yes this is chestnut yes Mr Miranda yes thank you number five uh is going to be contracts for approval I'll talk through all of them and then I guess we would do D5 all except for four first and then we'll do D5 4. okay so the first contract is the HCC contract that is our um Information Technology Center they essentially help us flow all of our data

095to the state and they also provide services in terms of software that we use and support for that software and this is a one-year contract it'll be continuing to come back because it's based off of our student counts the next contract is the Milford food service contract with Madeira we operate food service with them and we have done this in the past this contract now includes language that will be an automatic next year unless one of the parties decide to um go go their separate ways within 60 days of the expiration the quadian contract is a contract with our mail service our machine that we use to mail it's a five-year lease the goggle contract is for software stop that's not a part of this one I know I'm going to talk about all of

096them and then you'll vote and then come back to this one okay sounds good the CSA contract is with stepping stones for a student placement the Saint Rita School agreement is also for a student placement as well and then we we have the addendum oh there's one more here news seven is Newsela sorry missed it very top of the page Newsela this is also a curriculum-based purchase contract and I want to take a moment to talk about contracts for a second anytime there's a contract that is a multi-year contract or over twenty five thousand dollars we're going to bring it to you for approval it's part of our Appropriations it's part of what you just approved so it's not an unplanned expense I will never bring a contract in my section if it's not part

097of the Appropriations without letting you know okay um let me jump to can I make one comment on that yeah I think that's another policy while we're talking about policies that we need to look in uh as as a board as a district um many most districts have a specific dollar amount specified in their policies of what can be spent without board approval some are as low as five thousand dollars some are fifty thousand and to my knowledge we don't have a dollar amount in hours twenty five thousand oh we do it is 25 okay I had looked for it I couldn't find it um so all right well if that's in our policy then if we're good with that then so so it is are we discussing these currently because I had I just

098had a question about one sure I want to make sure that's what I want to make sure of Okay so yes do you have anything else on these no I'll talk about the addendum ones okay okay um so we need a motion to approve contracts uh as listed here and in the addendum yeah he's going to open it up a second first um on items one two three five six and seven I need a motion second discussion I just want to make sure that was um this is Nolan and Mr Combs yeah what's the policy number or what policy is that that's right I can find it yeah the organization organizational meeting um the HCC contract how does this one compare to last year's uh it's it's very close um to last year's it's it's

099typical um for a district to size to have about that about that amount part of it it depends on what kind of software we're using there's a per student cost for each of those softwares um you'll notice that like PowerSchool is is in there um there there's two components of PowerSchool there's the e-finance PowerSchool and there's the PowerSchool CIS so the PowerSchool e-finance is what we're moving away from to and this is a service agreement or licenses their licenses or software as well as their support that's right so this includes support yes same same goal is included which is a special ed software IEPs are written inside the same goal okay and just so you understand what they're doing they're essentially purchasing these items it's economies of scale and all the members that the Consortium

100it's a Consortium I mean we're a member of essentially HCC and and so um we we get passed on those those savings I'm just always curious and and how these costs you know move over time and they rarely go down and how much they go up it should be important all of us and I want to know that so and we're tracking that because when we put in a new wreck we're essentially cloning the old one when we look at it and then we can see right there what that increase is you've mentioned to me in other districts that that sometimes these consortiums aren't necessarily to our benefit and the fact that I think most are but I think that you've found one or two over the years that may not be not in milford's

101best benefit but maybe other districts so the fact that you're paying attention to that so that's good so thank you that's all I had any other discussion go ahead and call the roll on items one two three five six and seven Mr Combs yes this is Nolan yes this is Mason yes this is chestnut yes Mr Miranda yes thank you so now we will look at d a four so this is a contract that I know that you had asked me to go back and look at what the savings was that was tied to this contract I think that was a question in the finance committee meeting it's around seventy nine hundred dollars that we're saving because we have a one dollar discount per student as well as a 50 Cent um discount per student

102we also just found out that this this contract essentially just extends our time or it doesn't necessarily extend our time it allows us to lock in that same price structure [Music] so the 7 900 because there were we we discussed a multi-year agreement in committee and we discussed I think a two-year agreement and a one-year agreement the one in front of us tonight is a one-year agreement so did the administration make a decision that we are not going to go for the two-year agreement tonight and it's going to be a one-year agreement that we're being presented with is that correct that's correct we're just going to go with the one year okay okay okay before we go any further with with comments here um I need a motion to accept item five or two up

103item five subject five item A4 so move second now discussion um so no surprise probably how I'm going to vote on this uh my stance on Gaggle is the same for anyone watching or who cares to there was a large discussion on Gaggle at the September 20 2022 board meeting it's about 35 minutes long Paul Daniels does a presentation followed by discussion that starts at minute or time 129. uh so so there's that discussion which can kind of um get you up to speed if you missed it so some other things that have come forward on Gaggle since then um Gaggle no longer is flagging words like gay or lesbian in their school assignments they have decided that while they initially defended using the lgbtq specific words to identify students now they don't because nearly

104a third of lgbtq students say that they or someone they know experience non-consensual disclosure of their sexual orientation or gender identity often called outing and so that was a negative the center for democracy and technology did a big study on Gaggle um against using these words which kind of goes to show that we don't really know what words are all being targeted by by geigle they still are um using words such as sex breasts vagina I don't know how that really parlays into safety but I think while Gaggle is sold as a as under the guise of safety there's a lot we don't know about it there's um a lot of surveillance monitoring whatever you want to call it um I personally think it's an invasion of privacy um and and the info we're dealing

105with minors and it's being sent to an external Cloud that we don't know anything about the company recently did acknowledge that it can scan photos on students personal cell phones if they plug them into the laptops I know we discussed that back last September so the company has now acknowledged that um Todd feathers is a New York based reporter that covers algorithmic decision making and surveillance with particular focus on how Technologies affect children people with disabilities and groups underrepresented in big Tech boardrooms and he tweeted on August 3rd of last year uh he he you can go on to his Twitter if you want and it will link to a study by um Central Democrat technology that and he States this is a rare window on how these tools are actually used not how they're

106marketed and they're two the two things are not the same so I am a hard no against geigle while it does have potential safety um attributes there's also a lot of negative attributes and um none of us here in this room know everything about it so I would just encourage parents to do their own research on it you can't opt out or you have to go to paper here at this school district but you should know what your kids are um how they're being surveilled so that's awesome I have some some things where I interpreted some things that you're saying so correct me if I'm wrong um I read this contract that was provided to us as long as the as well as the terms of use and the privacy policy and the data policy

107which was very thorough um I believe that they flag words like sex breast and vagina because they are also looking for child pornography and they flag instances of child pornography as well as things like suicide uh or also harm to others so I think that's why that's there as for the Envision of privacy I mean I went through the Gaggle student and staff data privacy notice and over and over and over again their terms are very clear that they do not share this information with anyone except for the school because that is part of the contract and they absolutely can't for most of it anyway because they need to follow the FERPA laws just as any other group that would come into contract with school information would um and it's not an external Cloud that

108we don't know anything about they go very specifically into how they store this data I found this information very very helpful to look at and to read um and I don't I don't know if Mr Daniels can share this like as a group or not but I know that he shared with us some numbers um based on what we learned last year and it does look like it is saving um it is jumping in where there are reasons that there should be action I know that in incidents such as Columbine a lot of people were saying I wish we knew about these these Diaries and these books and these papers beforehand um Gaggle is doing this Gaggle is taking these threats and looking at them and making sure we follow up on them and making

109sure that our students have mental health research resources to go to to make sure that if we have these possible student situations that they're taken care of and as I just see it as another way of preventing violence towards others in our community and prevention of suicide and I think that these are really very important things for our community and for our students so most of the studies with Gaggle well one start with this so yes with the FERPA but one of the things you'll see in the Gaggle contracts is that they will only implement or sell their products and keep in mind that sales people are getting paid to sell these products it's part of the Google Suite of course they want to sell it and they're going to sell you on all the

110positives of it because that that is that salesperson's paycheck they're not going to tell you the negatives of it but in the in last September's board meeting we discussed or I discussed in loco parentis where the schools are literally um giving consent in lieu of the parent and that is what the doctrine of in logo parentis covers and so they're getting around FERPA that way through the in logo parentis because they are getting consent it's just via the school not the parent and that is through that Doctrine but um the other thing is there is no concrete studies of data that this works there is anecdotal evidence like they can say we tag this many words that doesn't really tell us how many lives are saved or not none of these softwares are are fail-proof

111I mean we unfortunately had a loss this year that Gaggle didn't didn't catch and I think that's the point like there is there is for me anyway there is a balance of safety and privacy and for me personally um this is not one that I I think um that I'm in favor of um Elizabeth Warren I said this last September too I'll expand a little bit Elizabeth Warren went to Senate went to the Senate and also contacted there are four companies that have software similar to Gaggle she wrote to all of them um uh this is what she said she conducted investigation into several uh student monetary monitoring software companies in determined it needed Federal action to protect to protect students civil liberties rights safety and privacy your company and other educational technology companies have

112developed software that are advertised to protect student safety but may instead be surveilling students inappropriately and that is from Elizabeth Warren so so Elizabeth Warren Wendover these other companies but not Gaggle no she did to all all four companies including Gaggle including Gaggle okay yeah she wrote the same letter to all four companies that have similar software and then went to senate about it because she was she was also concerned that in states that um abortion is illegal could those words be tagged and someone could be held criminally via a word that's tagged and I think that is um that's something I'm unsettled with is we don't know what they're tagging we don't know we just we just don't know so I mean I hear you I do think it is a trade-off between what

113information is out there versus how much we're saving our students lives and I unfortunately it is hard to determine by data how many students lives were saved but if there is a possibility that students lives are saved because of papers that are going through that are tagged that speak about suicide and things like that I do think it is absolutely worth it to do to invest in something like this so I think students also have to be in parents need to be well aware that um once you plug your phone into that Chromebook um texts photos everything's being scanned and and like I said earlier gaggles now acknowledge that only only if you say when you plug it in sometimes I charge my phone this way it says do you want to allow access it

114doesn't say that comes up it doesn't say that if you um it says they acknowledge it scans the photos on personal cell phones if you plug them into District laptops but it doesn't have um a caveat like only if you approve it because that would defeat the purpose because who's going to say yeah please look at them because it's it's if you have to approve that you're defeating the purpose of why you have it well then you're I think our intent is not to scan phones our intent is to scan the Google Suite but it does scan their phones I think Paul could confirm that I think what Miss Chestnut is saying is that if you allow it to download your stuff to the Google Drive then that in fact will be the case and

115we have had that case and I think we found some pornography because of that if it would make anyone feel comfortable I'll put Dan Yeager on the spot he's here he he lives Gaggle and he's made those phone calls and he can tell you if it's if it's worth the twenty nine thousand dollars if that's what you want if not you can continue the discussion what I appreciate about Gaggle while if anybody who owns a cell phone or uses anything privacy shattered because no matter what you connect to once you pick up a phone it's there so um I think that and and I think that our teens probably need a little bit more um guard rails with what they're talking about and the impacts of what that is what I appreciate about how Gaggle

116works is that it Flags and that I mean it's not like putting it on the public internet it flags and then that kicks off a series of conversations that start with the administration and then go from there and what it does is that if there is a student at risk an adult who cares about them steps in and has a conversation without Gaggle there is no opportunity for that conversation to happen if we have it there is there is no way in Mrs Mason mentioned this to to know near misses like there's no way to measure how many car accidents I didn't get in because of my anti-lock brakes you can't you can't prove a negative you can't you can't and I think uh one conversation that saves a student is worth it I also

117just wanted to point out from our student handbook there is uh there are several points about technology and they say that you are personally responsibility you have personal responsibility for using the network resources in the district you're agreeing to follow all the rules in the policy which every student has to sign and the district reserves the right to inspect files stored on any personally owned device that is permitted to directly connect to the district Network so if you are connecting your phone to that Network you are allowing the district to see those files I mean the best thing to do if you are concerned about that is not connect your phone to your school computer any other comments I guess um from my perspective as I said before you can't prove a negative um how

118much is the child's life worth and we nobody can estimate that but I think it's somewhere above twenty nine thousand three hundred and fifteen dollars I think it's in my personal opinion this is an investment uh these are children that sometimes they need to be monitored um you can't intervene if you don't know to intervene um there are a lot of false positives but it only takes one and do we catch everything obviously we do not but how many do we catch that's you know that's the way it is so um and we brought this to we have a first and second we have a first and second any other comments thanks for looking into the changes Miss Nolan of the Gaggle uh admission because they didn't admit that last time and um my view

119hasn't changed I haven't heard anything to make a change um so yeah I think the discussions finished okay having everybody's concurrence uh why don't we call the rule Mr Combs no Mrs Nolan no Mrs Mason yes Mrs Chestnut yes Mr Miranda yes thank you okay we will move on to the addendum items that are the contracts so again these items you missed item number six I was going to go back and do six he's doing the addendum and then come back okay thank you that's okay these contracts came in after the the finance committee meeting however they are typical again they're part of the Appropriations we receive these or I you know I receive these after the that finance committee meeting so we're bringing them to you so as to not create any delays with

120the start of school um since some of them are related to um schoology which the district has used for some time as a learning management system as well as performance matters Savas is part of a one-year extension and there were some questions on like why why would we entertain a one-year extension on this it's essentially buying the district some time before the next curriculum adoption so one thing that we're that we started doing with with Mr Daniels and Miss Davey and and also Dr Dunn was sitting down and looking at these contracts how they essentially creating a five-year forecast or a 10-year forecast for these curriculum items and we're going to continue to do that um but that that's what what Savas is and then Edmonton is part of our credit recovery software that's used

121by the district and this is typically a year-to-year contract again these are all part of the Appropriations foreign okay so um I need a motion to approve the contract still moved second discussion so um John Espy to be clear all four of these we've this is these are essentially renewals yes okay yes and any glaring um additional costs year over year here no they're actually less than what we projected when we budgeted good it's rare it's a happy surprise occasionally on The Miser that's good that's a good that's a good characteristic okay any other discussions let's call the roll Mr Combs yes Mrs Nolan yes Mrs Mason yes Mrs Chestnut yes Mr Miranda yes thank you okay um I will go back actually to the donations a good part of the regular agenda this was

122actually brought up I think in the buildings and grounds committee meeting some time ago for the six thousand dollar donation for lights Stadium lights we received it so now we're actually just approving this um generous donation from the athletic boosters for stadium lights okay I need a motion to approve this donation so moved second discussion I just wanted to thank the boosters again for all their support of our Athletics yeah when when this all when we were going through the light process um I believe this got split up this was actually I think half of the price of the the ability for the lights to do shows and I think at that time I uh we were talking about uh the Board of Education paying for the lights and the boosters and other parties banned

123for the show so this is not this is not something that's going on the back of the the taxpayers we had to we had to replace the lights the lights were done this was an extra feature that we could get with our lights so this is this is a good thing and the boosters have come through once again we call the roll Mr Combs yes Mrs Nolan yes yes Mrs Mason yes Mrs Chestnut yes Mr Miranda yes thank you all right I will jump back to um addendum item two the resolution to proceed so I wanted to take a moment to explain the situation with this resolution to proceed since you've seen it a couple times before um after the November election there was a law changed on how the ballot language appears on County

124auditor certificate which then appears on the resolution to proceed so it was caught by the Board of Elections when I submitted the prior resolution to proceed that the county auditor had made a mistake and put .00599 Mills for every dollar and that should have been 0.5 or 5.99 Mills for every dollar so obviously that math is a lot different um and so they they recommend it as well as our legal counsel that the board approved this again so what I've done here is I've actually attached this auditor certificate where they clearly marked that they made a revision because it was all based on on the county auditor's mistake there and we actually caught this prior to submitting it to the Board of Elections we thought the Board of Elections would just make that that change

125they did not and so here we are again for an approval but I think this leads to again why it's really important if you are putting something on the ballot to start early so just these things can be corrected if need be there any questions on that I'll have a comment in a minute um motion I need a motion to still moved second okay um sorry I jumped how did you finish very very quickly it is amazing that we have such difficulty at Batavia I mean it's I I don't know if we're the trial case for everything but you know I would have preferred to have the auditor come here and explain why we were doing it for a third time and I I know that's dynamite in the bridge and we may need somewhere

126down the road but uh this is this is just lunacy we have a very good working relationship with the county auditor and um and I don't you know um that the deputy auditor was very very apologetic that this is happening and you know she passes that on I'd be happy to pass the email along if you'd like to see it but um you know ultimately they want it to be right and done the right way and done you know above water so you know we're just trying to to make sure that we we get this language right some Grace given there I'm sure I've sent emails that had wrong numbers and things like that and while it's frustrating for us we're getting it right before November and that's when it's important she she did say

127this was the first case that she had encountered with this language so first time one last question I know you can answer this in the event that we have to go a fourth go around what's the drop dead date August 8th if we have to come back and approve a fourth resolution proceed I don't want to think about that but it's August 8th August the 8th yes okay um quick Clarity here we've got two file attachments one is the resolution to proceed that has been in front of us a couple other times which is basically us our approval to finally put that on the ballot the second is the auditor admitting to the mistake correct yes and these are together uh yeah I just put the really the second one on as a informational so

128you can see why it's coming back but then this actual version three basically negates the yeah yeah yeah well um it's pretty public how I feel about how we put the emergency levy on the ballot although I am very much in favor of fixing this massive mistake um so it'll it'll be reflected in in the Roll Call any other comments color roll I did not get a motion and a second on this yes we jumped the gun did we yeah you want to you want to I I said so moved so good second okay okay it was probably inappropriate so sorry Dave it's okay that's okay so why don't we call the roll okay Mr Combs no Mrs Nolan nope this is Mason yes Mrs Chestnut yes Mr Miranda yes thank you moving on now

129to superintendent's business superintendent John Spicer thank you president Miranda members of the board uh we do have a middle school update Mr Jeff Johnson to the podium we do have Mount Milford in front of the junior high school right now just going to give us a nice update so I've got some updates I think I'm kind of on the board agenda twice so if we can just go through everything this time and kind of skip the second one um kind of a drone shot this is actually a couple of weeks old um if you see down at the bottom the weight room in Robin's building do not exist anymore but that's essentially the building pad for the middle school we have run into some undercuts some poor soils that we've needed to deal with there's

130been a lot of things happen to that property over the last 60 70 years so we've had have had to deal with some of that but they're working through it and and and proceeding so that's just kind of an aerial shot of kind of the middle school pad nobody can drive through there I have heard through the grapevine there's some betting lines on whether or not Eagles way will be back together before school starts I can assure you that that will be the case that that Eagles way will be back together they're actually scheduled to start putting Stone Down On Eagle's way next week so you're saying don't bet any against the house um back up roofing project at the high school has been ongoing you can see that's the new roof that we've got

131on a section of it I'm actually met with the contractor today schedule's looking good probably by the end of next week all the roof the new roof will be down and we've still got metal work and trim work to do after that that is scheduled to be done pretty much right up to when school starts but by the end of next week everything will be 100 percent dried in this is our Auditorium project if you recall we're we opened up the orchestra pit which is kind of what you're seeing right there they have skinned it with drywall there will be a removable cover that will go on that so it can go back to being that big stage that we had but we can also open up that Orchestra pit so Auditorium work is is

132ongoing as well the HVAC project at the high school these are the three condensing units two of those feed the gymnasium one of them feeds the auditorium those were set on Monday and they're actually scheduled to be started up tomorrow that's the air handling unit the piping going into the air handling unit that particular unit feeds one it's one of the two units that feeds the gym in the mezzanine up kind of between the auditorium and the gymnasiums where those three units sit also part of the HVAC project are new unit ventilators that are going in around seawing we did turn on the chill water system to those so in the past those units first of all they were 60 years old quite noisy um Mr Daniels asked me a couple of weeks ago can

133please promise me that they're going to be quieter than the old units there's still a unit ventilator there's still a fan that'll be in the classroom but we had to use unit ventilators just because of the ceiling space or the lack of new construction or what are called VAV boxes that are typically above the ceiling A lot quieter there'll still be a little bit of noise in there but not nearly what we've experienced in the past the other not really nice thing is these are four pipe units instead of two pipe units so with the old units we ran hot water through them in the winter to provide heat and then we had to switch over at a valve to switch it to chilled water when the when the weather got warmer these actually have

134hot water and chill water going to them both so we had brand new chill water piping to all these units so that'll allow for a lot better temperature control in those classrooms um is that it um a couple other projects we've got going on pictures really don't try to do them Justice our access control project is ongoing um met with a contractor today we've run into a couple of hiccups but things are good we're actually going to be providing new badges to all of our staff when they come back in August so that's ongoing and the infamous sinkhole is the the repair of the pipe is nearly complete and they'll be starting to put in the lining next week once the lining's complete is when we'll actually come back in and backfill that hole so

135that's ongoing but most of that's work actually incurring inside the pipes they don't really see a whole lot of what's going on but that's being repaired as well will we be able to use that field again I haven't been there recently so once it gets filled in it's still going to be mud dirt on top but will we be able to use around it because we haven't even I mean for safety reasons I know you wanted people to not even be near it but once it's fixed can we at least use some of that grass or is it not enough the the challenge is going to be how long we got to get grass to grow right so we obviously don't want people on it while we're trying to get grass to grow on it

136we have worked with I've been working with Mr Kaufman and the band we've got kind of their situation figured out for for this fall without having to use that as a band practice field just because it's going to be safe from nobody's going to fall on hold but it's going to have grass seed and straw and stuff like that all over it for a while until that grass sets in Jeff the the sinkhole we had an unusual additional budget ask there are we still on track yes with the second so we're we're in good shape no additional no unexpected costs nothing at this point no thank you I believe we did a trade-off on that for maybe some Blacktop correct out of your budget you had a that is correct we did not do annual

137block topping maintenance this year any other questions thank you Mr Johnson on to item number two a resolution for the waiver of the first reading of the three policies for your approval gbh i g d j a and the regulation to go along with it okay I need a motion to approve these resolutions for waiver of the first reading so moved second discussion call roll really quickly it yeah we're gonna I just wanna make sure everyone understands why we're doing this yep I think we get the second resolution will then go ahead yeah but go ahead Paul so when when we met last month it was important to all of you collectively to make sure that we updated the drugs the drug testing of students in athletics extracurricular activities and purchase parking passes we needed

138to do it in one reading because in a few moments later you're going to approve the handbooks and everything needs to align for the start of the school year the only changes in ID igdja and the accompanying resolution are including the words parking passes and the title and also adding in the back there number three which is students who purchase who purchase parking passes to parking campus through Milford High School are now part of the random drug testing pool that we do every Monday and Loosely we say we because that's Josh and Aaron it just I mean for those that haven't been following we've been doing this for some time for all of our students that participate in extracurriculars we just thought the ability to operate a motor vehicle is just as important from a

139safety issue and we're going to include that pool of students that purchase parking passes to be included in the in the random the random testing so that's really in a nutshell what this is all about and we're running through how to do this procedurally over the next five minutes the only privilege that wasn't covered in our policy all right and the reason we're rape waving the reading on gbh is we are beginning to we will begin school um in less than a month oh sorry for everyone out there but um we uh Krista myself John Jenny from uh HR perspective want to be able to get in front of our staff and talk about the importance of of how you use technology and so the changes are here um under the social media section um

140number two instead of having it part of that stem there we added a number three which is District staff are prohibited from providing personal social media passwords to students and access a personal social media during school we changed to working hours is prohibited and I'll let Krista kind of add some more context so for number two we had a really good conversation and committee last week and we as a result have added some specificity around not tagging or identifying students if it is not an official account which would be an official District account or a professional account which we then defined just so that it's really clear and then as we were talking to council about that change they also recommended an exception just because you never know what can happen I can give you

141a real life example of that last year a student reached out over direct message an official account talking about Boolean they were not comfortable continuing that conversation but wanted to text me so in this instance would get John's approval to do that or he would say no I'm not comfortable with that it was resolved principal at the high school um handled it but that's just an example you never know what kind of odd things are going to come up so that's why that's been added so are both of these included Paul our initial and wave because we we've talked about both of these so we're lumping them both together correct okay all three okay okay and uh are we in discussion now I've lost them all yes there's a motion in a second I just

142wanted for two correct yes I just want to thank Miss Nolan for flagging actually both of these issues and bringing them up in committee um I think it's prudent it's it's it's really good for the safety and privacy of our of our kids um and it's just another step to making the district better so just the tip of the cap Miss Nolan you uh you brought the star attention and we openly discussed it as a team and we'll see how everybody feels about it in a couple minutes but uh yeah thank you we have a motion a second correct yes call roll Mr Combs yes this is Nolan yes Mrs Mason yes Mrs Chestnut yes Mr Miranda yes thank you under item three asking for your approval of the two policies and regulation that you

143just discussed need a motion to approve second reading so many second I think we already discussed it call the roll Mr Combs yes Mrs Nolan yes Mrs Mason yes Mrs Chestnut yes Mr Miranda yes thank you and finally under number four policy we have uh first reading of the policies under a in a first reading policy for rescission under B okay I need a motion to approve the first reading of these policies this is just an information yeah it's just it's informational you don't have to vote on this it's a first reading and then if you have any questions you can ask Mr Daniels I'm in a voting mood any comments okay that moves on us to the human resources business thank you president Miranda members of the board human resources we have items one

144through eight for your approval this evening okay I need a motion to approve where we pick up paint here so moved second discussion yeah that's a lot here yeah there's a punch um and this is the addendum too some addendums correct that does include addendums the addendum is embedded in human resource business all of it correct yes sir is what this is including eight correct through eight uh yeah one through eight plus the addendum yes sir so um just just we've got a first and a second so it's discussion time correct yes okay um this board was uh received an email this afternoon um that I can't get into um a lot of specifics right now but I will say that we had to adjust the agenda because of some very serious concerns inside of

145one of our programs and I just want to make sure that this community understands we're going to be looking very very hard and deep into all of this I've received some Communications about this the administration appears to be very willing to uh to discuss all of it I received some information that uh that that was was only partial during my ask this week and we're going to be waiting on on some additional folks getting back into into the district and off of um off of off of vacation to ask more questions um I just think it's really important for this this community to know that if anyone teacher administrator parent student has a concern um there are channels to go through which is uh which have been widely widely shared through the administration but I

146also want everyone to know that this board is is open to here and we're very open to hear this and we're very and once it's in once it's in our inboxes or once you've shared information with us we're going to look very deeply into it and I should I assure you this is one of the reasons I'm a little bit maybe more cantankerous than normal is this information I received this afternoon it was um um horrifying yeah I mean I'm I'm you just have my commitment that we're going to dive very deeply into this and it and it appears that our Administration is very very willing to uh to walk along with us and I'm I'm appreciative of that and I think the other thing to note is once the entire board is aware of

147horrendously egregious uh happenings we are also liable and responsible for acting appropriately appropriately to that uh and as always emails are public record it it derailed me today it was bad all this to say that item the the agenda has been adjusted to so that's no longer included correct correct yes to be very clear that that that the part of this of these approvals that portion was removed very specifically and I thank you for that very swiftly um any more discussion kind of not discussing discussion on that one um would you like to move on um here before we do much more um item three B which is the approval of administrative hirings um we do this regularly we have they have these people they're typically here one of the things one of the reasons

148I'm highlighting this is one of the two people um on that list Mr Metzger spent time in our teacher on assignment program last year it's a very bright light at Boyd and advantageous for us that we had that position there or we might we might not this is this is part of a overall retention and uh and it shows that it works and we will be voting for voting on him for an assistant principal of the principal ship at the high school here shortly and I just wanted to call that out to your attention I think you probably have some other comments I'll wait till I get three votes or four or five before maybe we asked Mr Metzger to go to the podium and speak um yes okay um John aspie I believe that

149might be important because you can do this in less than a minute to explain why we're moving and inserting the addendum to change our administrative staff from 223 day contracts to 260. because when I found out how it was it to the 2B it made perfect sense to do this and I think it's important to maybe spend a minute on it because you you really helped me understand it yeah so currently um our administrators are on 223 contracts and um they essentially have to work 223 days during the the fiscal year or the school year it makes very difficult for tracking in my department because I'm looking at however many administrators there are I'm looking at several variations for all other staff they're using a program that is through Frontline time time and attendance or

150Aesop I think we call it a for absent man absent it changes all it's absence management used to be formerly known as Aesop um and basically what this does is all of our administrators will either be working or using um accrued leave so vacation sick leave personal leave uh professional leave and that'll all be entered into that software and it it really streamlines our tracking of attendance in a in a really really good way it just made it very difficult to track attendance for our Administration and it not not that there was anything odd it's just that it was difficult to track I mean in fact your paper and pencil paper and pencil and this just gives us a chance to do that so when we see 223 to 260 that's not incurring additional costs

151that's just actually our district getting in line with how to properly track daily work for our Administration if if I can paraphrase yeah exactly I believe more more districts are going to that rather than less correct I think it's probably still a mixed bag I think some people might just some districts might continue doing it because they've always done it that way um but I've you know dealt with this before with having administrators on 260s and it's much easier to track you can also make a comment about Galen hurt resigning for the purposes of retirement I just wanted to thank her for her years of service here as well how many years many maybe I shouldn't that sorry thank you very much thank you very much like any other discussion call roll Mr Combs yes

152Mr Nolan yes Mrs Mason yes this is chestnut yes Miranda yes thank you now move on to curriculum instruction we're going to let Mr Metzger come to the microphone I mean please and thank you I think we're on all right I want to thank everybody uh the board and and the central office staff for uh voting for the contract today to give me the opportunity to become an assistant principal at the high school um you know I'm a product of Milford schools so I started at Miami Elementary and um you know that's you know kind of where my family was created I met my step stepmother there who is a teacher's aide at the time and um you know Milford schools has been what I've experienced my entire life so to have the honor to

153be able to continue to serve our students and to serve our community as nothing short of amazing um special thanks to boydy Smith staff and students and principal Mrs SP for being my mentor or last year preparing me for this opportunity I'm super excited I'm going to bring that energy on day one and it's going to carry through I just love being back home because I was at the high school for 10 years as well so thank you again for the opportunity welcome and that's big shoes to step into the senior program uh and get to know them in a year when most people get three years uh and uh personally my oldest is going to be high school so I'm going to be a mess when he's a senior year so now I know

154who to reach out whenever my baby so but welcome so you're starting in the senior year from what I've been told yes God bless you I spend a lot of years teaching Juniors and seniors so I feel like that's a good fit I am going to miss my kindergartners last year that was an experience communicating differently but I look forward to the challenge we're super excited to have Kevin at the high school because we fully expected it he was going to leave and I think that you know when you put people like Kevin in the roles that we did in our TOA roles we understand and know that those folks are going to leave and John Hill's another one he is leaving to go be an assistant principal in Wyoming and so we fully expect

155that that's going to happen wish we could have kept John but we're super excited that Kevin's going to be with us congratulations thank you congrats thank you all right they have babies that they need to put to sleep so they're going to walk out [Laughter] somebody's babysitting fifth graders who could be the babies thank you president random members of the board under uh curriculum and instruction we have three items for you one two and three curriculum pay student handbooks and approval of a foreign exchange student okay I need a motion um for items one through three still moved discussion questions on the handbook um in the set okay for I've got sections or questions on each of the handbooks for the high school handbook under the section on student driving should language be added or

156included in that about being the random drug testing I don't know if that's should live in the hand bus or um that would be in final forms so we would update that in final forms so it wouldn't need to live in both places thing with school fees being paid to get a parking pass ERS should be updated to say that he's starting at 500 this year and a lowering down to zero in four years unless we write a different regulation as a board you write Ron it uh 500 or less this year and then his goal was to unless you decide something differently as a body to to back it all the way down to zero he also has a note in there about uh AP if you don't pay your fees we're not going

157to automatically withdraw you're going to call your parent and have a discussion like we're not going to just here's your paper and then we're also going to be talking about homecoming and prom and all that's going in the handbook yes so we shouldn't approve this until those final what changes are made I believe the parking passes are in there and the AP fees are in there uh because homecoming and prom are extra privileges he he can make an announcement or put that on the permission slip and that doesn't need to live in the handbook nope and and he was going to go from 500 to 1 Irving to zero over four four years but you choose to do something differently we will abide by whatever you vote in to do but he had a struggle

158where he was literally telling people in June in his uh newsletter like this is what it's going to be we're starting at five and the emails did start coming in well I have a club This and like we understand we're sympathetic but we we have money that we're owed to um and it's just not a high school thing I mean we do it for kindergarten um you know so yeah so that'll be in the those two items specifically are in the handbook okay and then under the Gaggle tab um I personally think it should be added that it does scan your photos if you plug it into uh if you plug your phone into your Chromebook because there's other details of Gaggle in there I didn't print it I'm not looking at it it's on

159page 35. of this handbook and while we're talking about Gaggle Gaggle is mentioned in both the junior high and the high school handbook but not in the elementary handbook [Music] Rob is that under 41 byot or no um as you're as you're looking through um is this our only opportunity to update things for the handbook or can we amend a handbook if we can't get all you know I'm just concerned that I I want these included but I don't want to have to not meet the deadline for the school year and not necessarily need a special board meeting before the school year starts board meeting is the third day of school about what grade you are but yes so principals are required to go over their handbooks within so many days of the school starting

160with their students it would be my recommendation that you approve them as is and then if you have additional items like you would like me to confirm the Gaggle information and we can add it to the elementary we can bring those to cni next month and you can vote on them on the 17th 17th we would we would be with it and we would ask our principals to put those updates in their newsletters so on several occasions we we can do that and of course the handbooks are electronic so we can add those the minute after we vote right and we would be very very um transparent and ask all of our principals to put that probably for three or four weeks in their newsletter just like remember these updates are here we can do

161that I can bring those back to you next month would that be amenable yeah I'm looking at the back of it my expertise is in the academy in the high school and the Junior High Gym book and would that be a new like would we have an amendment in file forms then that just said like because the students right now can sign off on hand the AUP actually covers Gaggle so oh right right when you sign off on the authorized use policy I think maybe I'm interpreting your question as you want it to be a little more clearer if that's well I I personally do I mean I personally don't want it in there at all but um but where am I voted so if it's going to be in there I think it needs

162to say that if you plug in your phone into this it's going to scan your phone and text your photos and text on your phone and I just didn't know the discrepancy of why we have it in the junior high and high school but not in the elementary thank you for catching it that's all I can say so if we if we go down that route Paul you don't really see a big issue with updating that in the time frame we're talking about for next month no because we just if it's if it's something that you know obviously Gaggle is going to continue for another year and if it's if it's agreeable to this board that we at least give a little bit more of a heads up to the parents that um in the

163elementary that that this scans anything you plug into that doesn't mean that no one's going to plug into it it just means that we've kind of covered ourselves in some ways to say you you accepted this and this is what it's capable of so yeah I think we're well you think I think we're in perfect shape because we can again highlight that in our principal newsletters and we're in a good shape I mean just like we've been highlighting the parking passes if if you didn't know that we were asking to pay you down your fees it's because you've blocked our emails um which people do so [Music] um so yes you are in good shape if those I will bring those changes back to cni um I will have them to you before the meeting

164can we have a motion yep Motion in a second any other discussion sure just to clarify we are approving this as is with the caveat that changes are going to be updated and to be clear you can if you decided if there was a law or something that changed in November you have the right as the body to change the handbook we just have to communicate those changes in so many days per per the code yeah no other comments call the roll Mr Combs yes Mrs Nolan yes this is Mason yes this is chestnut yes Mr Miranda yes thank you moving on to business operations Mr Spicer thank you president Miranda members of the board under item number one we have transportation impractical for your approval you need a motion to approve Transportation impractical for

165the two students that are listed so moved discussion Colorado Mr Combs yes Mrs Nolan yes this is Mason yes Mr Chestnut yes Mr Miranda yes thank you under item number two it is my privilege to introduce Tina Reynolds our food service director for a Green Dot on there hello thanks John good evening board members Mr Spicer Mr eppsy everyone here and everyone at home Tina Reynolds I'm the food service director for Milford nutrition services along with several other communities in Cincinnati on behalf of my entire team I want to thank you for allowing us the opportunity to serve your child I am here tonight and you're lucky even though you might not have won the lottery ticket you're lucky because I'm here to give you the nutrition services report lucky you [Music] Milford nutrition services

166uh department is focused on fueling students bodies and Minds with highly nutritious foods and running an efficient food service department with food safety as our culture these high standards meet the federal and state regulations we have pictured here uh the third one sorry Steve the third one that is pictured is building a healthy meal and it's a tray that has all five components our milk fruits grains fruits and vegetables the other two to the left we have uh Shamrock cookie as well as a pizza bagel thing that we did for local menu takeover where we were piloted for a new program for the local menu takeover and we got two local women business owners Dogo as well as the pizza bagel lady that's her company one of them is out of Cleveland one of them

167out is out of Canton Ohio and we were able to introduce that is breakfast bars and snacks like cookies and that type of stuff that's healthy and we're sourcing local ingredients so one of our initiatives was obviously local ingredients so we're excited to have those vendor relationships the last one over here is most of our kids if you go into the lunchroom will have a full plate of food and it's one of those great pictures to depict our offer versus serve options that we have available allowing to minimize waste as well as making sure that kids get fruits and vegetables that they really need eat your veggies as your mom would say the um you can go on thanks during this school year obviously this year we had back to free and reduced applications that

168I know we spoke about briefly earlier tonight we we did have Universal free meals so we went back to free and reduced applications we still maintained nutrition standards and set forth that um by the USDA and the national school lunch program and then again we piloted the local menu takeover through green umbrella Grant all of our schools follow a six-week cycle and as I mentioned earlier about the components with the fruit the milk the vegetables grain and meat or meat alternative it is important that with that we offer the offer versus serve to minimize the waste we also participated in the fresh fruit and vegetable program where USDA gave us quantity dollars and then we turned around and used those commodity dollars for local farmers to get our fresh fruit and produce we also do

169smart snack regulations so all of the snacks to complement a meal are all under strict regulations and you will not find them in the grocery store so kind of in line with making sure that the healthiest meal that a child can get is during the school year we also uphold the competitive food sales by making sure that the students are eating the food that that is healthy for us um more information can be found on the the board docs for all the food policies and standards that we have so let's dive into some numbers these are the last four years obviously 21 22 uh 2021 and 2022 school year was free meals uh you can see the impact uh last year especially with the numbers um that they were high so obviously there must either

170be a need or a potential want so we fell short much like everyone else across the country because free and reduced and some hardships that that created less meals right so we're really committed to making sure that we are increasing our number to impact those students that really needed we're going to be doing that by different qualities of food which is why we did different tiers because some things are a lot more expensive and then obviously having the variety of options so then that way a child can make sure that they're eating their breakfast um we're only off by like 35 000 from the 2020 uh 2021 school year and that was the first year of free meals so that's our Benchmark for this year obviously we'd like to strive for 21.22 because it's important

171to support the lunch program and the breakfast program because that's how we buy lunch tables and there's lots of stuff that food service can do so we want to make sure that that we're getting those to take it out of my account not the general funds account if you go to lunch those are a little bit more of significant numbers we served over a million meals that were not universally free so I'm extremely proud of our team for doing that we're not that far off but woohoo we beat uh 21 20 21 school year so I'm happy about that even with the addition of Norwood uh to our to our repertoire um I'm really glad that that we still we we beat that number so I'm pretty excited about that we worked really hard for

172that there's lots of updates and lots of things that are coming through ode next week so I encourage everyone to go to the website make sure that they're looking at that information come August 1st along with free and reduced applications which is really important one thing I definitely want to touch on the fee waiver even if they are approved free and reduced they still parents still have to apply check or once you get online hit that button for the fee waiver to make sure that that process goes through so um there's direct certification where you're automatically approved for free and reduced that also has a fee waiver that you need to turn into the office so we can make sure that that those fees are waived okay I just want to make sure and then

173free and reduced applications will be available August 1st it'll tell you about the 30-day grace period that we also mentioned briefly earlier and lastly what we did in where we are flying so much like humans technology is not perfect so we had two new softwares this year pay schools and healthy Pro and it was a bumpy ride but we're gonna make some improvements we've been working diligently with pay schools to work out some of those issues I'm working with Rob regarding notifications um Sorry Miss Chestnut we definitely wanted to make sure that uh negative lunch balances were paid they are being rolled over into the student's account for Milford for this year that is new per ode so there will be a message parents going out sometime before school that you do have a negative

174balance if you have not paid for it yet as far as lunch is concerned I paid my five dollars thank you we appreciate that as far as the the calls we kind of bumped up the calls at the end of the year the text messages the phone calls normally it's five dollars or more but since it was at the end of the school year we kind of did it to a penny so I apologize if it was super annoying but I appreciate those that did pay and there were glitches but Rob's gonna fix those I promise forward all the messages to Rob going forward absolutely don't don't call me as far as healthy Pro it that system has been doing great that software and I think it really AIDS in obviously the student as well

175as the parent to see how much how many calories and all that kind of stuff allergies and all that so our healthy Pro uh is well worth the money that we have local Mini takeover experience to the right those are just some pictures of the kiddos with the breakfast bars that we did the cookies that we did principals supported it so it was a great effort and we have a lasting relationship with those women business owners going forward to this next school year along with our additional support that we're trying to do locally right it's important collaboration with Valley View Gardens this past year seipel Chef Sue Craycraft did a lot of great things we got produce from you know veggies from Valley View and we created all kinds of different things Chef Sue was

176amazing she would do zucchini she would saute zucchini she would make zucchini bread the kids at cypelt got really excited this year we're going to expand that so they have foreign done all the kind of crops that we want to have for this year they planted them in March and we are going to be utilizing that at Patterson we're going to be utilizing that at cypelt and then obviously we're going to be expanding to all the schools so don't fret we're going to be there we're just taking baby steps here um we also we're doing a lot of work with volunteers for students making sure that they're getting in the kitchen to have work experience and I believe you guys already approved I hope our new and our first student worker that we're going to

177have in the kitchen so I'm excited about that we're also going to help her with getting food safety certifications so she is off and running as soon as she graduates so looking forward to more of those type of things after school cooking club McCormick Myrna and Carrie over at McCormick really collaborated together it was their idea I just got other people involved but they just kind of ran with it they took PTA kids after school taught them cooking and healthy eating and also activities so it was um I think there was 20 students total and that was our Max just because of the space but we're excited about doing some more exciting things with that as well and I feel like we take very much pride in our schools in the sense that if Boyd

178students want something my team will make sure that it happens if seipel wants something different so we're very unique to the building and we're we're excited about the things that we have up Our Sleeve for this coming up year we're going to continue to collaborate with Valley View we're going to have student involvement purchasing locally obviously fostering sustainability efforts and nutrition education because education doesn't stop in the classroom it's just as important as it is in the cafeteria uh with that said I want to thank you for your patience with all of our new software uh your trust and your support so thank you and it's our pleasure to serve you and I know you guys have questions uh I have one comment that I hear all the time about the Bosco sticks and uh

179how much my kids love them but I'm always impressed when they come home talking about their school lunches because I'm not sure I talked at home about what I ate from the school lunch when I was little um I have a separate question that you didn't really touch on are there any initial well I guess you sort of did um are there any initiatives to lobby for federal uh money to bring back uh free lunches essentially because I know it came with covet it was you know whatever all all tied up on that there was a little bit of talk of maybe we will extend it Beyond and then you know clearly it was not here today but is there any in your whatever your professional organizations are or whatever any interest or excitement for

180lobbying to the federal government for that I mean a school nutrition Association is is the association that we that we work with and free meals is our number one priority uh we're fighting a big battle right uh I think it starts with the parents to make sure that the parents are picking up that phone and calling to the people that you voted for it is important you've seen the numbers it is important um I lost my father-in-law a year and a half ago and the coroner said flat out he died of heart disease because when he was a child it started in in at childhood so it's important to me it's important to all of us some states have adopted a free Universal free meals from the state money in addition to any federal for

181free and reduced meals reimbursement the state of Ohio unfortunately is not there so I think it starts with all of us I'm a parent of two kids and I scream and the send emails and phone calls because it it is really important not to mention our food service account it's separate from the general fund and it is a non-profit so I have to put it back into the program back into the kids so like I had mentioned briefly about the lunch tables I mean supporting us and making sure that the the meals are free for all not only do we not have to worry about oh we're not making money right now or how can I cut uh I'm I'm putting putting it back in to the program and nutrition education has to be a

182piece of that and with these free and reduced applications negative balances that's my life versus going out to the schools and being with the kids and educating them that they will have healthy eating habits for the rest of their life so unfortunately the state of Ohio yeah we're back to freeing reduced so so you're saying maybe we should start with our DC Representatives absolutely yep whatever you need to do knock on the door whatever you need to do thank you thank you for everything what other questions that was it I I that was my question um but also I just I really wanted to thank you for coming you and your whole department for coming up with all these innovative ideas I don't think that people think of school lunches being Innovative but the whole

183green umbrella project the local farmers I think that's really important and also really speaks to Milford as a community I feel like Milford is a huge community and being able to help local farmers and look into small businesses and how they can work with us and I know that um that Chef Sue Craycraft that's I've helped my kids go to seipel and those kind of things are just so great for the kids and really engages them and makes food fun and makes learning about nutrition fun and like you said it starts at the beginning and I just really appreciate you and your entire department because I think that you're doing the extra stuff to make that work I'm just getting started how'd that turn off Dave shut me down remotely you had some big shoes

184to fill this was your first year right running the entire program yes um I I just wrote a couple things down um we can read all we want about stepping into a larger and bigger role we can talk to a lot of people but I'm just curious from you what was your biggest surprise this year stepping into that role how much work it really does need to take I mean you know I was the assistant under Jerry Levy who was the director before so you know uh it's a lot I mean not only most school we are unique at Milford because we do so many other outside districts and that's our passion right that was Jerry's passion that's my passion so and it's getting harder and harder to run a nutrition program it really is

185hence why we have some of those uh Jeff would probably tell me to be quiet because there's so many other people that want us to take over for them as well but we've kind of taken a step back and just said okay let's deal with what we've got right now but it is some big shoes to feel Phil because Jerry did an amazing job at what she did um but it's a lot harder to really get you know everything to be efficient um Staffing even though I had Staffing uh well adequate enough we still had a lot of absences um unfortunately chasing negative balances kind of threw us all into a whirlwind across the country so and then the free and reduced applications and stuff it just I was stretched my team was stretched so

186like I said they did an amazing job and it wasn't just me so you you had mentioned locally sourced but I heard Canton yes and canton's not local Canton is local because it's Ohio but yes like the local menu take over the green umbrella initiated from Cleveland so since we were a pilot the um people like Cleveland Ohio the pizza bagel lady in Dogo they already formed those relationships so we continue to form relationships down here in Ohio in Cincinnati and in Milford um so you're gonna that's what I'm saying I've got some more things up my sleeve but the definition of local is definitely the state but I definitely want to do more more I heard that and I just wanted to take quick pause and understand it because there's a lot of a

187great hard-working uh exciting good tasting food all around us in this area so hopefully you are correct I don't want to I don't want to like uh give away too many I'm not gonna steal anymore and I kind of need to talk to Jeff about a couple of them so my my last question is um because you probably have 30 of them but what's your number one goal for next year well three of my goals that have been for this year as well as next year is retention appreciation and sustainability um I feel like this year as one of my boy managers this year I feel like I appreciated my people a little bit more this year and we've retained uh almost everyone except maybe like one two three couple of retirements one one was

188just honestly she was just like this is a lot this this is being in a kitchen is a lot and I don't think that people realize that so I think if I had to focus on one thing it is the sustainability issue going into this year because I feel like we really focused on the appreciation the retention uh the things and the movements that I've done and the people that I've hired we've got some great people coming in to help us with that initiative and the collaborations that we're doing and working on sustainability is going to be the that number one Focus going into this year thank you you're welcome anyone else thank you very much thank you that's it well because Jeff it's on the agenda Jeff Jeff did his capital projects earlier he

189covered those in the middle school now going to talk about Capital project so we've just so we maintained the agenda as we approved it uh under item three capital projects update Mr Johnson did cover those earlier in the agenda thank you yes sir okay moving on uh public uh participation do we have anyone okay very good um now when the outcome to the point of uh open discussion with the board anyone okay the only thing that I have is I'm going to run through very short on the good news report uh Jeff did talk about construction or as we 'd rather say deconstruction is underway over there we're tearing turn things down around the stadium and around the junior high school and uh you know concession weight room Robin's building that's all demolished um and

190we do have a new landmark and it is Mount Milford over there The Unofficial high point of Miami Township so um and I guess that that is all uh topsoil it's all topsoil and we will redeploy that at an appropriate time I'm guessing correct okay um dates to remember we talked about convocation it is Monday the 14th and the first day of school is August the 15th that's less than a month from today Dave can I pipe up real quick on the start of school I would like to encourage everybody to read your emails because it is staggered start different ages that was my next comment verify your students start date and some of the buildings they have staggered starts don't be postcards going home but uh you got to read them when they get

191there or we'll have people on the bus and no place to go when they get here oh they'll still be on the bus without any place together and Tina we'll feed them even if they show up on the wrong day plenty of food there you go um anything else okay next regular board meeting is August the 17th 2023 that it will be in this room here at six o'clock um now the board is going to retire into executive session I need a motion to enter into executive session for the purpose of considering employment and compensation of a public employee some of second and we don't do any discussion here so uh call the roll Mr Combs yes Mrs Nolan yes this is Mason yes this is chestnut yes Mr Miranda yes we will not be

192coming back after executive session we will adjourn from in there so we thank you thank you for your patience it's been two hours and 56 minutes have a nice evening drive safe going home [Music]