001Good evening everyone. This is a regular scheduled board meeting for Edgewood City Schools. Mrs. Bowers, would you call the role please? Mr. Gary Gabber, present. Mr. Michael Presler, here. Mrs. Amy Ashcraft, present. Mr. Mark Meers, here. Mr. Andrew Presley, here. Would you please stand for the pledge? Remain standing. [Music] I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Lord God, we thank you for this opportunity to to meet and talk about business. God, I know I am thankful for every single board member. God, I'm thankful for every single faculty that pours into our students. God, give each board member and every person wisdom as they make decisions. And God, let this meeting glorify you.
002And God, let us make the best decisions for our students and pour it into their future, God. And again, I am so thankful and grateful for this community, for these people, for their passion for our future and our students, God. We thank you and glorify you in your mighty name. Amen. Amen. Thank you. This time I'm going to look for a motion for the approval of the agenda as presented. So move. Mr. Measure Smith. Do I have a second? Second. Mr. Michael Presler. Mrs. Bowers, would you call the role, please? Mr. Mark Measure. Yes. Mr. Michael Presler. Yes. Mr. Barry Gabber. Yes. Mrs. Amy Ashaw. Yes, Mr. Andrew. Yes. Question five years. Next up, we have presentations. We do. We have Mr. Clemens in the house who's going to certainly uh share some of our
003outcomes this season with our athletes. So, Mr. Clemens, they're all it's all yours. Thank you. At this time, can I have the girls and boys basketball players come down front? Boys and girls basketball players. this a representation for our boys basketball team. Uh Keegan Sen couldn't be here tonight, but he was a first team uh SWL district 15 underass and allstar and he represented Edgewood last week, last Thursday up at Northridge as a representative of the All-Star team. So he played up here had 12 points had a great game up there and their team actually won join us tonight uh for here for this meeting. Cal Reynolds the second team SW SWL and honorable mention Southwest Ohio Tyson Dailyy honorable mention Southwest SWL and honorable mention Southwest Ohio. Sydney Schiff girls basketball representation. She was
004our SWL sportsmanship award winner this year. Great to see somebody all these groups boys and girls bowling. I think we've seen these bowlers up here before. What What a great group to go watch this year. If you never if you've never experienced a I mean we did a lot of sports, but if you never experienced a sectional or district bowling event, it it's something to go take in to see the amount of people that that fill this bowling alley and see these young people and the excitement that it comes from bowling and see the excitement they have. The bakers game, you're not sure what those are. It's like a relay bowling match. That's what I call it cuz it's just they one after another. But the excitement of those things when they're doing those bakers
005games are just it's something to be seen. So, like I said, got two representative from the girls and boys bowling team tonight that had a great season. Brian Kfax was our SWL sportsmanship winner. And then Trent Stewart, he was our district qualifier. And then he SWL All-Star team this year and this year he pulled a 290. Learning a lot of stuff, some missed records and stuff like that. We did put out that, you know, that was a a record. Came back to find out, learned from some people. Records get lost. We did have a young man that did bowl 298 back in 2012. Cal did bowl 298. So, but is the second highest holding score for Edgewood and 290 senior night. Parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins in the in the house. So, it's very impressive to
006see that in front of his family. They're about there for senior night. So, congratulations. I can't even pull a 98. So, I can't That's pretty impressive. wrestling. [Music] Good evening, gentlemen. You just keep on moving down. Good job. Once again, just a great group, fun group to go watch compete this year. at the Edgewood Invitational and the different about beats this year. Just way they carried themselves, carried the community and the things they do and stuff like that. Just a great group to go watch and very entertaining to watch them wrestle and represent our school district and themselves and our families this year. With us tonight is Carter Cannon. He was fourth place in the league, fifth in sexuals, and it was a district alternate. Kaitton Grouper, district qualifier, fourth in the league. Rodney Lips,
007honorable mention, Southwest SWL in the district qualifier. Kobe Sag Sagers, honorable mention, SWL, sexual runner up, district placer, fifth, Ohio, OSA D1 state alternate, and he finished his career with 104 wins this year. Wow. Isaiah Nichols, first team SVL, sectional champ, district runner up, OSA D1 sixth place finisher, and he finished his career with 125 victories this season. I'm very impressed. Thank you guys. Once again, great group of young people representing our community, the things they did or whatever. Uh once again, some of those different events you go to, if you've never seen the state wrestling meet, I advise governor and take that in one time just to see how the state puts that on. Shot seating center up there and all the stuff they put in there. It's a great event to go watch,
008especially now that they've got the girls and boys in there. And that's the thing, too, as the boys sit down and you think about, you know, when we started trying to get girls wrestling going, it's getting very popular, stuff like that. We had two young ladies come out this year. Our girls lacrosse has a game tonight, unfortunately. So, for this year for us was a big thing. big to have two girl wrestlers where Morgan Young was an Edgewood girl wrestler, first female wrestler in Edgewood qualified for district. She finished fourth at sectionals and got to go on the district. She's a junior, still got one more season. I know coach King, Coach King and the wrestling staff is very excited to get her back next year after she made that big jump this year. So
009very excited to see what she does next year. I mean, she's got the talent, got the ability that, you know, we could see her up in Columbus next year. Represent Edge was our first female wrestler. So we're excited about that. Very impressive. I'm always impressed with our our athletes of Edgewood, but even more impressive, not just your overall talent results, but your grade point average. Every time that's shared, it's amazing. So, you guys are very, very good students and obviously very talented athletes. So, we commend you. Good job. Mr. Buscker is next to the microphone. He's going to talk about outcomes. That's our theme. He's not coming asking for money. He's talking about our learner outcomes. How do we measure them? And what kind of patterns and trends are we seeing? And what do we
010expect to happen here this spring? I do have a slideshow. I don't care if you turn around and watch it from your chairs or if you want to see better to, you know, go down to the chairs. That's totally up to you. Where are you? Sorry, I'm getting my computer set. Sorry about that. So, if you want to turn around and look, that's totally fine. If you want to come to the chairs, that's fine as well. So, Miss Fy asked me to uh review what we call MTSS, multi-tered system of supports. Um, I have a very lengthy slideshow. I'm going to show you six of the slides of probably 20 that I have on here. I thought maybe the best thing to do this time around, I'm glad we have some teachers here because they'll
011relate to a lot of these slides. Um, and I find often in a room of teachers, they can ask answer questions that I might not be able to answer. Um, I am just going to review what we do at our midyear MTSS meeting. We have three district NTSS meetings a year. Uh, beginning of the year, middle of the year, and end of year. And I will just basically start with this slide so the rest of the slides make sense. Basically that bottom right graphic, if you look at tier one, that is basically every student in our district and what they are exposed to academically, social, emotionally, anything that we do that touches kids when they get off of the bus or walk into the front door. As I've thought about this more, I don't think
012Miss Holly's here. I'm like, dang, I think they're in NTSS when they're home eating a bowl of cereal. Like, I think it actually starts at home. So, um, that is everything that we do. And the goal is to try to uh reach 80% achievement in tier one. We are not there yet. We feel like we put some things in play that are helping us get there. So what that means is when our kids get instruction in the classroom and we give some sort of assessment that 80% of them will get what it is that we're trying to teach them. That is a very uh high number, but I think I think it's possible and I think we put some good things in place. Tier two is where they uh what we provide to them as
013far as inter uh like interventions and sometimes accommodations we call them like check in, check out, different things like that. Small group one-on-one. When they don't get tier one, what can we do in tier two? And then tier three, as you can see, is our most intensive uh instruction that we give our students. So that gives you an idea of what MTSS is. And it is the whole child. It's social emotional. it's um their academics and all of that. So, we also give them three screeners. So, you can see our five buildings there. We had a goal this year for MTSS to make sure that in reading and math, our students were screened at least in grades K to 10, every single student 11 and 12 as needed depending on where they were on their
014graduation path and if they were in jeopardy of not graduating, we needed more data. So you can see at our three elementaryaries on the left, we give a screener three times a year called the dibbles. It measures basically students uh reading comprehension, their accuracy, fluency, phonics. Uh there's like five different things they measure on there and we give momentum math. We're considering switching that. This is the first year we did that and we're very we wanted to be consistent, but we do that three times a year. So that is the two assessments that we give for ELA and math for our elementary schools. You have to do that or you're not even doing MTSS because you have to do a benchmark screener in order to know how to inform your instruction in the classroom. So
015anyone that thinks they're doing MTSS and they don't do that, they miss the whole point of MTSS because you didn't screen your kids, find out where they are. the over on the right, we implemented this year what's called MAP growth for grades six and above reading and math. And uh I'm very proud of the teachers and the and the administrators and any any other staff that was involved in that. I know our tech staff. We rolled that out really quick. Um, and we did a few crash courses on PD to try to figure out and I told them if you could just if you could just administer this once and we don't even know what to do with the data when we get it back, we're going to count that as a success because of
016all the things that go into testing all students. Well, they did way more than that. They've been able to pull some data and be able to make some decisions about instruction. So, we give reading and math uh benchmark assessments three times a year. That was a goal for us. And honestly, with consistency and fidelity, this is probably the first time to this degree since I've been in this role that we've done it this well. Every student grades K through 10 have been screened in math and reading across the board, beginning of the year, middle of the year, and they'll be screened again at the end. So, that's one thing um I'm really proud of our teachers and our administrators being able to accomplish that. it it's not an easy thing to do. Um, this screener
017there, I talked to Mr. Banks. I think you're going to do a seal presentation in April with Mr. Caesar. That's basically a screener that is for our students to uh determine whether or not they need some support social uh with their social emotional learning. There's some basic data on there. I probably need to hold off on that until you get a chance to um give you some more in-depth uh data about it or things that you need to know about it. So, I just wanted to show you that because I didn't want to leave it out because I told you at the beginning that we screen students for social emotional learning and academics that is part of the tier 1 MTSS um protocol. So, we are doing that. This is again the first time that
018we've screened students consistently with a screener to try to address social emotional needs of our students. Um I will not go through every one of these but as you can see on the bottom of this this is the early childhood center. You can see the bottom there where it says 2425 school year middle of the year. The very bottom bar that is where they just scored. Miss Harrison, do we give that before Christmas break or right when they come back? We at our building, we give it after. We always give it before. Okay. So, it it varies depending on the the building. Uh so, the beginning of the year. What date did you give that on approximately? Um we administered it probably the first three weeks. Okay. So, from the first three weeks of school
019until they got back from Christmas break, you can see the growth there that they had. You can see the red bar. We don't like large red bars like that. We like them to be small like the one is on the bottom. I wanted to show you a little bit of that just so that you can see you'll understand the rest of the slides. So we look at data like that. She presented on this at our midyear MTSS uh just about a month ago. Every one of our principles track this. They look at it. They present it. We talk about it. We make action steps. So that is for the early childhood center. You can see this is Miss Hollyy's building over at the primary school. Grade one is the top uh four bars. Grade two
020are the bottom four bars. The trend there is that the red bar is getting smaller and the blue bar is getting larger. That's what we want to see. Honestly, we don't have a month of Sundays to dig into it as much as you'd like to. But I I just wanted to show you that there is some growth taking place. They're very very pleased with that little bit. That's their math data right there. They look at it a little bit different, but you can still see the language there. The BOI beginning of year, MOI, middle of year. They're tracking how many students are scoring in those areas. We move to the intermediate building, third grade, fourth grade, and fifth grade. So, some varying data there. We were a little bit surprised by that third grade data.
021Um you can see it trended in the wrong way according to what we were expecting but we have um some reasons why we thought it may have been this way. Um but we do have amplify reading that's in its are we in it second year by now? I see like midback second year back there. Um so we're hoping that we'll start to see some games. We have had to buy some supplemental materials uh like Sunday phonics program that we felt like there were some gaps in what the students were coming to them with that hopefully they won't um be coming with the same gaps anymore. So anyway, most of the data we liked. That was one that jumped out to us and we felt like we needed to address a little bit figure out why.
022Here's their math scores. Again, Miss Murray, she presented on all of this about a month ago with all of our administrators, all of our team in the room over there at EIS. Um, this is a real cool graph. This is, you see that the bar switches a little bit. This is um what the map bars look like. So, there's a few more colors in there. And then I like the graph on the right. I won't spend a bunch of time on it, but basically you can see that there is a a growth on the left and and then you see the achievement on the top. So you want to be on the top right corner, high growth on the right and high achievement. That is where you want to be. Now the higher you achieve,
023the harder it is to grow. If you come in low achievement, the easier it is theoretically to move those kids. So being in the middle is not a bad thing, but you want to you want to shift them to high growth and high achievement to the top right corner. Our other um testing platforms do not have that graph. I think star used to, but anyway, we're considering moving some of our other students over to this. This is the MAP testing for grades 6 to 12. Then you'll see their math. Same thing. You will see the high school. I'm going to go over some things we found about this data. Just moving through it quick. um high school math or reading there. Math data, algebra and geometry probably have the most need or highest uh achievement
024gaps that we see are probably in our math scores. So, here's some celebrations. I just wanted to get to that. And they they made their own celebrations. I didn't make these up. They presented these at our um MTSS meeting. 21% from the beginning of the year moved uh on track to 64% on track at EECC. That is a huge jump at Edgewood Primary School. 5% increase in the second grade and 8% increase in the first grade meeting the benchmark. And then you can see their math team. 41 more students in the second grade and 67 more students in the first grade from the beginning of the year to the middle of the year. Um, EIS huge growth in reading accuracy that comes from that Dibbles test. There is a specific score that shows their reading
025accuracy. And then you can see some other decision- making there around um that OF stands for oral reading fluency. And then maize is another portion of the dibbles test that they give and it's growing in blue. We like to see growing in blue for years. We didn't. We think we're seeing a little bit more of that now. Um EMS enrichment classes. So we bought a new program this year. Last year Mr. Stapleton and Mr. uh Philpot came to me and asked could they create an enrichment class. We bought a program called Exact Path from Edenum which is a kind of a a branch of our virtual academy and it creates a personalized learning path for students. So those who were struggling either in their quarter grades and their um benchmark testing and their progress monitoring
026and their state test and they needed extra help in ELA and math, they're seeing some growth there. So that's an entire class that those students attend. Um and they see above average growth in the fall to winter benchmark in math and we are celebrating any growth at all in math right now. Any growth at all we are celebrating in math. had a long meeting with them in the PD day last week. And then EHS, growth in math and ALA, school culture improving. They mentioned that because that is part of the MTSS um pyramid. We call it PBIS. You got I know I'm throwing a lot of acronyms at you. Uh that's positive behavior interventions and support. So they've worked hard on that. And then they're really working on their discipline. They print out reports every
027month and send them to their staff and their teams. And then again, the fact that we are implementing math, we are we are doing benchmark assessments at this higher level. It's really really hard to keep the wheels on MTSS the higher grade you go. Um, so that's some celebrations areas for growth. They made these up or they found these and came to their MTSS meeting with it. I didn't make these up. Students are making growth in other areas struggling with letter names. And I can't remember all the things Miss Harrison talked about, but she talked about in that meeting all the different interventions, combinations, group work that are going to try to help uh work on that. Well, it's been a it's been an instructural shift because they used to teach the sound before the
028letter. Science of reading is shifting the letter before the sound and now it's opposite. They used to say, "We're going to teach an A, then we're going to teach a B, then we're going to teach you C." And the science of reading doesn't do it in that in that way. Now these teachers out here could tell you a lot more about that because they are the reading experts. But in essence, yeah, there has been a big shift. And if you think about her building, it's all kindergarten teachers and they have taught letter A, letter B, letter C, letter D their whole entire career. So this is a big change for them. Uh Edgewood Primary School, you can see that they're basically looking into the different math um areas for students to be able to be
029more successful. number sense operations get counting counting patterns. So these are all things that they recognize from the momentum math and there's also six success maker that they use to to pull data from as well. EIS worked with all fourth and fifth grade teachers on decoding techniques. We've never really done that before. We've got a additional teacher that you guys allowed us to be able to get this year and she's working with the fourth and fifth graders to um try to improve their reading. EMS sixth grade pacing talked about that a lot even last week. Common curriculum. EHS increase student achievement for math and increase attendance. We did increase about 9% as a district on attendance with our chronic absenteeism on the report card. sending letters home, meeting with students, making phone calls, printing out
030monthly attendance reports, uh setting goals for students, finding out why maybe they are absent, all those different things. Next steps for building. So, we told them find something to celebrate, find something that uh they could work on. And then we had them create all those next steps. I won't read every single one. I'll give you read the district one. How's that? Oh, down at the bottom. start district literacy and numeracy committees to guide reading and math processes. Really, it's a rebirth of the literacy team. We haven't had that going for a year or two. Um, if I'm being honest, probably since co and I feel like we're really, really, really making some good progress. So, we got our literacy team back together and for the first time we met with our numerousy team or district
031math team on PD day the other day. So, that was our district one. But you can see the next step. So at our MTSS meeting, we tell them, "Bring data, show us what you found out about it, celebrate some things, find out some things you're not so excited about it, and then give us next steps to what you're going to do." So those are usually the three things our building principles, and they do not make this up by the meet with their teams and all of that in their buildings to come up with. The bottom line is what gets focused gets done. So obviously you have a big focus here and we see from the data we're making growth in the right direction. So we have three meetings a year like this as a district.
032So I don't know if you have any questions for that. That's a lot. I know data and curriculum can get I five minutes so you talked really fast. I'm doing my best man. Yeah, you did well. I had a hard time bringing it to a landing. Scott, you might go back to that slide about the uh screening. I'm assuming that we're talking about at the EECC at the very beginning. Yeah. At the very beginning right there. Um I think it was that where you were talking about Yes. Right here. Okay. That's sabers. Now talk about that. I guess my question is so when students come in, you were talking about you screen them for at risk of academics and at risk for SEAL. Okay. That's what you said, correct? Yes. Three times a year you
033want to do beginning, middle, and end in both of those areas. So my my question is I've been watching a lot of political talk and different things that are going on around schools right now and this has kind of piqu my interest. What how do we what's the screening look like? I'm assuming academically that's through some sort of an assessment, right? The dibbles and the map. What's the seal screen? It's called savers. And that's why I wanted Mr. B. Is that is that a written test? Is that a No, no, it's observation. Jeff, you want to speak to it? The kids do 20 questions. Uh there's it's broken into three parts, academic, social, and emotional. So the kids in grades two through five actually sit on a laptop and they do it. Uh teachers also
034give input on the exact same questions. Um and they have 19 questions. So the students actually have one more question than the teachers do. And it's a researchbased test. So it's it's nationally norm. So is it subjective or is it is it very specific in terms of what what the standards are? How does that what does how do you determine whether seal is different and it's more so so when our when our kids get on they they're basically it might ask them um do you like or do you like school that's one question that it does ask them they can they answer it four different ways um almost always often sometimes never. So depending on how the questions asked we want them sometimes to say never sometimes we want them to say almost always depending
035on like again how that question is asked. So then it calculates at risk behaviors based on all those questions. So it it takes their whole entire score for all three parts, gives them an overall score and then it actually breaks it down into the three different parts, the academic, the social and emotional. So we can actually look at every how every single student answers it. And we can also look at how the teacher because it's sometimes it's different with how the kids are answering it and what the teachers are saying. What do we do with that data? So I'm going to share a lot next next month with you guys on the seal. U Mr. Caesar and I will present be presenting a lot of that data for you guys. I'd be curious to know
036if there's data that suggests preschool has made differences or daycare or what what leads to early success I guess is and if you even have the ability to measure that or recognize that the search institute actually has some publication on that and they'll tell you qualifiers like they look at the family um framework uh exposure to like church and friends there's that's not what we're using but there There is some research out there that talks about qualifiers that out of like 22 different traits, if you have a majority of these things in your life, like active grandparents, whatever, it will tell you you're more likely to be successful as a student. That's called search institute. We're not using it, but there are things out there like that. Do we look at any of those things
037at all as part of this process? for this. No. But working in early childhood building for the last 13 years, we I have personally looked at how many of our kids come in with preschool experience. You'd be surprised that less than probably 25 to 30% of our kids have some type of preschool experience before they come to us. But what do you do with the data that if I was trying to get you to kind of bait you to say what you're doing with some of the SEAL groups that and what's that data tell you? Do you want me to share the map now? No, just just do just do it. I I actually have been meeting with met with the principles and sat down with them as far as how we are addressing some
038of these social emotional and and every school's different. um what they're do at the early childhood building is not currently what we're doing at the intermediate building and same with the primary. So, we all have some different things on how we're addressing. They're looking at their data. We're looking at it and deciding kind of what is what is best. How can we best address the needs of these kids? So, that's kind of what we're doing. I don't have everything with me currently, but I will be happy. I didn't mean to put you on the spot. I was just trying to get a better understanding what that process looks like because I've never seen it. So I I can make the rest of the questions for women. So we're using a research out of Castle that
039talks about self-awareness. How well do you problem solve? There's five areas. How well are you self-aware? Um responsible. And that data kind of feeds into that. And then we're offering some additional skills around those five concepts. Lori, what would you like to add? Um so the KR is something that we give to kindergarteners the first week of school. So that's called the kindergarten readiness assessment. So that obviously the how kindergarten students are coming to our district. So that's before any teaching is taking place. There's a social emotional piece that goes into the K and the K data is back and it's great to look at that and you can compare students who have been to um preschool programs before and those that have not been in preschool programs and it'll show you um that kind
040of information. So the K is a great resource that I can get that information to. Do the kids from preschool typically do better on that? Absolutely. Yes. But I will be telling you I will tell you that the preschool has not um they're adopting a new curriculum next year. That means the science of reading and the change of pace for them. Um so they're slowly making that change of place where we're not teaching a letter a week. We're teaching sounds when they're three years old. We are not teaching them letters. teaching them letter sounds. Um, so we have piloted that for the last two months and we um are moving into that curriculum next year. So I'm excited to see the difference it will make. Also, our preschool does not right now have a standardized
041um assessment that we give to all preschool students. So it's kind of old school pencil paper teacher just kind of created those. So next year the district has purchased that. So, next year we will have standardized data for our preschool students that we can just analyze when they go into. That's awesome. Thank you. Thank you. As you can see, we got a lot of smart people that help make make this ship go here. Anything else? Thanks, Scott. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Next up, we have treasure items. Mrs. Bower, would you like to start, please? Yes. I just want to mention we did not have anyone signed up for public participation, just for the record. Um, in my agenda items, I would like to ask to block item A, which is the board minutes
042from the regular board meeting on February 24th, with item B, which is the work session board meeting minutes from March 12th. Look for a motion to combine A and B both being board minutes. Mr. Andrew Presley, do I have a second? Second, Mr. Mark. Mrs. You call the role, please. Mr. Andrew Presler, yes. Mr. Mark Measure, yes. Mr. Barry Gabard, yes. Mr. Michael Presler, yes. Mrs. Amy Ashcraft, yes. That motion carries 5. The next agenda item, um, I would like to ask for item C, the February 2025 financial reports to be approved. Looking for a motion to approve the financial reports for February as presented. This is Amy Ashcraft. Second, Mr. Andrew Pressler. Mrs. B, please. Mrs. Amy Ashcraft. Yes. Mr. Andrew Pressler. Yes. Mr. Barry Gabard. Yes. Mr. Michael Pressler. Yes. Mr. Mark Measure.
043Yes. That motion carries 5 Z. Next, I would like to block items D, the parent square quote, with item E, the slurper quote. Well, second, thank you, Mr. Do I have a second? Mr. Andrew, present. Any discussion? I just any Yeah. I was just curious what the parent square was. So parents square um we're going to use that to replace our current website. Um we currently use App Shield. It is not user friendly. Um quite outdated. We've had it for years. Um one example I'd like to give you that awesome video that we um showed you at the last board meeting. even go onto our website without being manipulated. It's just we need an upgrade on our website. Not just that, when we troubleshoot with them, like for instance, they'll roll over data and some
044will drop or people aren't getting their text messages or their phone calls. We'll call and say how how come you know XYZ was dropped during this rollover. They won't get back to us for seven to 10 days. It's just I haven't been pleased since day one I walked into Edgewood with them. not pleased with their turnover rate of problem solving at all. So, this is replacing our current website. Yes. Yes. Well, that's great because it does I'm sorry. I mean, it's bad. It's not user friendly. Sorry. Tell us how you're feeling. I got to put my filter on. I'm sorry. Yeah, I I agree that it's bad. It's hard to find stuff. Like, you think it's in a logical spot and then it's not in that logical spot. And we found the calls too when
045it drops parents and they'll call and say, "Hey, I didn't get the call for the snow delay this time or whatnot." Another piece too is our our teachers love Dojo. They'll continue to use Dojo, but one thing our legal council has advised us is there's no way to track public records. Um the teacher comments to families on that. They have a component that will allow us to meet compliance on public records around around messages to parents. So there's a compliance piece to it as well. Is this more expensive? It's about $7,000. And it's offers more um platforms with it. Get what you pay for. And marketing's come up in our community engagement several times and um it's embarrassing to stand in front of people and say I'm sorry that I don't know why that data
046didn't get rolled over and we don't have a timely answer for you either for this code quote is this is this new stuff is this life cycle upgrades. What is this? Yep. That's the one I emailed you about. It is evable. I think the quote was actually 105,000. We'll pay like 32,000. Um, Zach is here and he can talk a little bit about about this. So, um, do you want to tell them what this is doing? Yeah, this is just replacing outdated network equipment. Actually, here in the high school, a lot of the switches running the the walls and ports and all the codes and stuff were put in when the building was built. This is just their life cycle. They don't get security updates anymore. So, this will replace all those. We're actually down
047downsizing the number. There are 56 switches in this building. We're only ordering 16 just due to the demand. When they built this building, they built a lot more wired ports into it than we did now wireless. So, we're actually lowering the number we're getting. But we want our data protected. So, it's important and uh we're we're thankful that we can rate this and get 70% off. So, that's great. So, our price is going to be around 30. Yeah. 32,000. We did get five bids and this is the best. Any more discussion? No sir. Mrs. Bowers, if you call roll, please. Mrs. Amy Ashcraft, yes. Mr. Andrew Presler, yes. Mr. Gabbert, yes. Mr. Michael Presler, yes. Mr. Mark Measure, yes. Motion carries 50. Uh, next I'd like to ask for approval of item F, the license
048and donation agreement with the PE group. Looking for a motion to approve the license and agreement with the PE. So move. Mr. Master, do I have a second? Second. Mr. Michael Presley discussion. Mrs. Bowers, you call the role, please. Mr. Mark Measure. Yes. Mr. Michael Pressler. Yes. Mr. Barry Gabard. Yes. Mrs. Amy Ash. Yes. Mr. Andrew Presley. Yes. Motion carries 5. Uh, next I would like to ask for approval of item G, the Butler County Head Start lease. Looking for a motion to approve the lease we have with Butler County. So, Mr. Meers by second. Second. Mrs. Ashra. Same as last year. Yep. More discussion. Sorry. Mrs. Bowers, you call please. Mr. Mr. Mark Measure. Yes. Mrs. Amy Ashcraft. Yes. Mr. Perry Gabber. Yes. Mr. Michael Presler. Yes. Mr. Andrew Presler. Yes. Legend carries 50.
049Uh, next I would like to ask for approval of item H, the 2526 Buffalo County ESC rateou. Looking for a motion to approve the 2526 Butler County Cub rate. So move me. Do I have a second? Second Mike Presley. Any discussion? Did it go up at all? I'm sorry. I should. Mrs. B, could you call the role, please? Mr. Mark Measure. Yes. Mr. Michael Presler. Yes. Mr. Gary Gabbert. Yes. Mrs. Amy Ashcrat. Yes. Mr. Andrew Presley. Yes. Motion carries 50. Uh, next I would like to ask for approval of item H, a new fund special cost center for community connections grant. Look for a motion to approve the new fund communities connections grant. So moved. Mrs. Ashcraft. Do I have a second? Second. Mr. Michael. So everything that you've sent to us is like we're
050just a portion of that. Yes. The two bottom lines there. That was all I had to get it approved. So this is for two teachers that you can see it on the bottom EPS school $890 and then early childhood. So two of our teachers were awarded um $890 grants for use in their classroom. Okay. Right. Thank you. Any more discussion? Mrs. Bowers, you call the role, please. Mrs. Amy Nashcraft, yes. Mr. Michael Presler, yes. Mr. Mark Measure Schmidt, yes. Mr. Andrew Pressler, yes. Mr. Eric Gard, yes. Motion carries 50. The next agenda item is just someformational items. and just wanted to let you know we have um wrapped up our FY24 audit. We're glad to be passed that. Um also finally wrapped up some ESR reporting this weekend. Glad to be finished with that. Um
051we have a threshold cost now coming in and I know um often as we're placing kids out and doing things for our special needs kids as comes up. Um so I just wanted to let you know that that process is starting. So um we'll be filing threshold costs. We have another month or so to be done with that. Uh the next agenda, the next item on here is House Bill 96. Um I'm not going to read this verbatim for you, but just kind of wanted to give you a timeline in there of what's going on. Um hopefully we'll have some more information by April 1st, but this is a bill. Um I emailed our community and staff members and asked that they reach out to our legislators. Um, I know Josh sent it out again
052today from the community engagement meeting. Um, they asked for something that was a little more streamlined that they could basically just put their name on, sign, and go. So, Josh was good enough to get that sent back out today. So, hopefully everyone's out there and talking about all things school funding and um sharing the importance of the funding for our public education. Um, I I think that's all I have. If you want to move on to superintendent. Thank you, Mr. Bowers. Well, I have I have a question. Can you explain what threshold costs are? It used to be called CAT cost. So, we have excess cost. Yeah, they just changed the name of it. Okay. I mean, you can explain to other people, right? So, we actually um file we will have students that are
053courtplaced or open enrolled here in our district. Um and if they exceed like um for the catastrophic costs for example, one is more than $32,500. If our cost to educate those students exceeds that and there's a lot of work that goes into that, Lindsay White does a lot of this in special ed where actually calculates the number of minutes that maybe these students get OT, PT, um whatnot. And then we pull like salaries, benefits, every cost that goes into that kit and we file that with the state. Um what they do is they keep part of our foundation money and it gets dropped into a big bucket, if you will, and then they um disperse that among all the public school districts in the state based on a percentage. So you're not going to get
054it all back because some districts might serve more or have more severe needs. But that's how it works. It just goes into a big pot of money. year you were able to recoup how much like $41,000 back last year. So, it pays off. It pays off and that's why we work so hard to get everything that we can submitted. Thank you. You are very welcome. Okay. Like to recommend item 6A. We have four overnight field trips to present to the board this evening. Looking for approval on the HOSA leadership overnight trip, the DECA career conference, state FFA convention, and a performance at Dollywood. Looking for a motion to approve the four trips as presented. Mr. Master Smith, do I have a second? Second. Mrs. Ashcraft, are they performing at Hollywood? Yes. And Doug, is the
055date right? It's not this spring. It's next spring for the band. I didn't know if it was a typo. 26. 26. It's 2026. Okay. All right. Thank you. Wow, you're on the ball. That gives us time to do because it will be quite expensive to go. Gotcha. Okay. How many students do we plan on going on this trip? They're planning on offering it to the to anyone that's in marching band. Okay. Thank you. Great publicity. Any more discussion? Yes, sir. Mrs. Bowers, would you call the role, please? Mr. Markman, yes. Mrs. Amy Ashgra, yes. Mr. Barry Gard, yes. Mr. Michael Presler, yes. Mr. Andrew Presley, yes. Motion plays 5 Z. And I have a few umformational updates. would like to remind the board that um this information before you, we have some on the back
056table about the financial history of Edgewood has been disseminated throughout the community. Um the last month or so, we've been discussing at several board meetings since October, November the need to have a renewal back on the ballot this spring. And um also there's been rules that have changed. I think some people are asking where's our campaign committee. Um by law I'm not allowed to orchestrate that. Nor is Patty. And to my knowledge, no one has orchestrated a campaign for or against a levy to date. But before you was just a reminder that you know in Ohio in 1992 it was deemed unconstitutional as far as the state funding mechanism. It's never been fixed. You heard last month that we're hearing changes with federal funding and possibly state funding, which really could put more emphasis on
057local funding. We've also know that we have been experiencing some of the highest inflation costs in history as far as an increase over the last several years. Um, we also know that we want to retain and hire quality staff. So, it's our job as superintendent and treasurer to really look at our budget and talk about what are the halves that we must have and what are wants that maybe um aren't necessarily needs. And so, um you will see a renewal back on the ballot. If we had known of the federal cuts and possible state cuts back in November as well as the changes in the bianium budget, we probably would have asked the board last November to go for new money, not not a renewal. Uh we know that we are going to need a
058lot more money than just what this renewal can provide. So before you is a list that I'm sharing with the public. I shared it with community engagement last week, but it basically says the way the binding and budgets presented, we're already coming in with deficit even if the renewal passes. I want to repeat that. We're coming in with the deficit spending even if a renewal passes. That means if a renewal doesn't pass, we're going to have to come back to this table and really talk about how we change programs. If the renewal passes, I do believe um I can present to the board next month a plan to reduce transportation costs slightly more, reduce curriculum and professional development costs slightly more, reduce administrative costs as well as an exe exempted employee cost as well as
059um savings through attrition if if need be. We might have to look at some reductions, but by all means, it's not my intent as superintendent who loves public education to reduce our academic programming. That's not my intent. It's not my intent not to keep our quality staff here at Edgewood. We want to be competitive and we want people to move into our community. So, I share all this because there again, we put this out through via email. We've talked about it at community engagement. There's also some dates that um we're going to have a state of the schools conference at Community Foundation Church coming up. Foundation community. I always mess that up, Scott, don't I? Sorry. Um and we have a ministerial breakfast in May that we're going to talk about this topic as well.
060And I have a coffee chat scheduled May 2nd at State Street Coffee for public to come in. if anyone wants to invite me in their homes, I'll be happy to talk to whoever wants to listen. But, um, that's how we're getting the word out. So, I just want to share that, remind the board. I know you're aware of most of this, but any questions? What does someone need to do if perhaps someone sitting in this auditorium tonight would want to be in a campaign finance committee to the the lobby committee, but not allowed to commit. We could we could work and give them the language on that but that has to be grassroots efforts. I cannot even be connected to that. So if you would go to point all the information out that they need
061it. I can get information to I can get information to them of um and I would say Steve Hannah and Paul would help in any way. That's who we worked with back when the laws were different. Is it too late to start that? It's never too late but I mean I think it is what it is. I mean, if this is a renewal, it's not any new money. It would be keep keep it as is. We again, we really should have asked for new money if we had known all the cuts that came in after we uh put paperwork in to be on the ballot. But we will make it work. So, is this even to keep it as is or is there still they're still going to like I said there's even if the
062levy passes Yeah. You'll see on on there's I'm going to have a proposal next month to the board of some things we still need to cut even with a renewal. If we don't have a renewal, we're going to have some sleepless if we don't have a renewal that passes, we're going to have some sleepless nights because that's called reorganization. We've already had sleepless nights just to be honest. Yeah. So, I've heard from people in the community and we actually as part of public participation in here at the last meeting was actually brought to our attention that there's people in our community that kind of think that because they're not seeing signs and they're not they're not hearing about this through a committee that there's a levy that it's almost like it's almost like we're trying
063to slide it through and I don't think people understand that that no one on this stage can go out and knock on doors and put up signs and things like that. Unless you like to wear orange, right? Um, and my concern is is that my concern is that people think that we're we're trying to do something shady. The reality of it is we just we can't be involved in it. But the the other thing that really concerns me though is that, you know, I mean, I've seen the numbers and if this renewal passes, it buys us a year. So, all the buy us and then we'll be going back out and asking for new money. And I I don't think that this is one of those things that we can cut our way out of,
064but I but I do think as a community member and that that interacts with a lot of community members. I don't think we can continue to have tax levies every couple years either. So, I I I think some of the stuff that you're talking about, we're going to need to find a happy medium on this and we're going to have to figure out how we can be even more efficient than we already are. I mean, your data shows that we're in the bottom 20% in terms of lowest operating cost per pupil in the in the state. But, I think we're going to have to find ways there there may be some things that change. And I I just I hope that people are watching this home and I hope that people are talking about it
065in the community. I think you did a great job at the community engagement event talking about all these things. I think the people that were there that night left and realized the situation that we're in, but I just I don't hear people talking about it. I don't think people really understand just how serious this is. If this renewal passes, we're probably going to be back on the ballot in 18 months. And if it doesn't pass, we're going to have to cut Yeah. Well, again, I feel like we're looking using a crazy eightball to make these predictions. Um, some of it also depends on where does that bianium budget land and that's why it's so important to contract or contact our legislators and let them know. I mean, this is this could be like the perfect
066storm that um is really critical. So, it it again it's not just about the renewal. Depending on where that binary budget lands too, you're right. It we could go right back out. So, we don't have a we don't have a committee. that you can present facts to parents and staff and have you thought about ways to to maybe try to get information out at least to the folks that you have? Well, as we discuss community engagement, you know, again, thrillshare is not hitting everybody, but um I'm having a meeting with administrators on Wednesday, going out and talking to staff after a matter of fact, I think I'm at the middle school tomorrow and then administrators on Wednesday. But um we're asking our we're going to ask our teachers to also disseminate through dojo or in
067our buildings through their newsletters. We can disseminate factual information. We just cannot say go vote for the levy. But you're you're recommending cost savings whether the levy passes or not at the next board meeting only because again the timeline we had to start filing paperwork in November and work with the board about going back on the renewal. If we had known then what we know now about federal um funding changes, state funding changes, including the including this bianium budget, which is a real change, and it's called the fair funding budget, which is not treating Edgewood very fair in it. Matter of fact, the um proposal, which it will change before it gets approved, Edgewood and Beerfield are are benefiting the least in the county. It's it's damaging to us the most. So, if we had
068known then in November what we know now, we would have asked for for new money, not a renewal. Why is it more damaging? I'm sorry. More damaging to us. I'll let Patty answer that. But it's based on our student um butts and seats and it's based on um wealth because we were part of the county that had some of the higher tax increases. I've said repeatedly as we get richer locally, we get poorer with the state. So the more I I have here um back I don't know who said this but we're talking about our cost per pupil 10,130 what we educate what we're getting for the students is our base cost is $8,86. So even though us being as low way low in that 20% at 10,000 if you look at it we're still
069deficit spending on every kid. We're still spending over what we're getting for each kid. That is why our cash balance is depleting. I mean it's we cannot keep up. Our expenditures just keep storing more than what what our revenue is coming in and we're spending more than what we're getting to educate the students. And that's why A lot of this is unfunded mandates. Let me just share with the public real quick. There's an unfunded mandate that says we have to provide intensive intervention to students in reading in certain grade levels. When we looked at our data, that's the hiring of seven additional staff members for next year. Now, we're trying to be creative and do things through attrition and really look at our teacher student ratio, but that's an unfunded mandate that we do not
070receive any additional money on. So I I wish if if you could really write your legislators and share, you know, just how important this is. I really feel like if our our nation would address poverty, it would fix all of these issues and these unfunded mandates. But anyway, that's getting off to a whole other topic. But any do you have a number that you're going to present to us in terms of what we need to cut? Yeah, I I believe Patty and I are going to sharpen our pencils again, but I believe last time we looked at this last week, it's going to be a million dollars. She would like 1.5. We arm wrestled and we landed on 1 million. No, it's going to be a million. And if we cut that now, that adds
071up over the five-year forecast. If we push it down the road, that that magnifies. Cutting a million, will that push a levy off any any further beyond? Again, Mark, that's going to depend on where the bananium budget lands. And I don't know that when when will we know that because you've talked about that several times. I know t it's with the house right now. They're looking to have a new substitute by April 1st. If you look down in my treasures notes in the section, it kind of gives you a timeline. Um they've got to all the way through June to get this done, but they have like a two week spring break in there. So once the House is done with it, it's going to go back to the Senate. Um and I I want
072to share with you too that this budget bill is not the only issue that we're dealing with. We have Senate Bill 166 and we also have Senate Bill 2. Um there's another bill out there looking at lowering property taxes where they're taking your substitute rates and applying them to the 20 mil floor. It's not just about this budget bill. So that is that makes it very hard to come to you and say that we need X amount of dollars. There are too many especially when you have such a low cash flow districts that are sitting there with multi-millions. I mean, they're they don't like it, but they're able to certify their 5-year forecast. We're talking about, can we certify our 5-year forecast? Well, we needed three years to certify, right? Right. Three, right? Yeah. Correct.
073But he's asking when will we know all there's some there's this perfect storm that could hit that we you know, that's three. Exactly. That's not pretty. So, we'll we're working hard at it. Um, you know, it's kind of scary to talk about this stuff. It's almost like in your household, what do you share with your children? I kind of feel that way as well with staff because I want our staff to know that they're going to be secure here. It's our job to find the money, but it's also our job to make you know, to know that there may be some changes and that's the rationale behind it. I know. Can we move on to some better news or any other questions? Yes. All right. I want to give some shoutouts and u we have
074some people that work extremely hard and I probably could come up with the top 100 shoutouts for March. But just want to share first of all this is Kayla. Is Kayla Kinder in the house by any chance? I don't see her here. But this is her first year um basically over the Coralers. And after Libby walked away, I thought, I feel sorry for whoever fills Libbyy's shoes. But I have to tell you, I'm so impressed with the performance I've seen so far. The kids enthusiasm um and and what she's been able to do with them. They haven't missed a beat. So, I just want to have a big shout out for Kaylee Thunder. And if you haven't had an opportunity to see them, the cabaret performance is March 28th and 29th of this week. So
075get out there and and uh let's support our our poor leaders. Next, I want to do a real big shout out. This is our first time in Edgewood that we actually have a state officer, Aiden Johnson with DECA, who's the first Ohio DECA state executive officer. And I think it's our first for Edgewood as well. But what a great way to bring kudos to Edgewood and and uh we're really proud of um Mr. chestine for for working with the students and and taking them to those competitions and getting their names out. But um we're excited that Aiden is the first DECA executive, not FFA, DECA executive officer. So that is um great. And then I just also want to give a shout out to um our athletic department and and the the accolades we saw
076tonight. It's fun to see our kids successful and and that's really fun. So that completes my items. Thank you, Mr. Spy. Next up, we have items from board members. Mr. M, would you like to start? Yes, sir, I would. So, Kelly, I'm going to I want to piggy back off of what you just said, and I'm going to I'm going to recognize um John Arnold, Nick Fields, the middle school band, the high school band, and the jazz band for their March concert, which I believe was March the 13th. I had an opportunity to go to that um to go to that concert and I was absolutely blown away and we've talked about it and here you know our fine arts and how strong our programs are. Um but it was an absolutely incredible show. I
077absolutely enjoyed it. Um John and Nick did such a good job. And then I didn't see it but it's my understanding that the overtures performed at a Cincinnati Cyclones game over the weekend. Um I heard there's a video running around somewhere. Um, and from all accounts they did exceptionally well. So, just um, you talk about the four years and how strong we are. We saw the student athletes that Scott brought in here tonight and and we've got some really good ones and we also have some really talented musicians in the in the district. So, it's it's awesome to see and the the hard work that our staff puts in to produce those those types of shows. And then um I mentioned it when I walked up on stage just kind of to recognize Chief Master
078Sergeant Michael Presler for his promotion in the United States Air Force, making it to the pay grade of B9, which is the highest enlisted rank you can achieve. So, we're I thank you for your service, my friend, and your service to the community. So, just want to recognize you for that accomplishment. It's a big deal. Thank you. Congratulations. Scared. Thank you, Mr. M. Mr. Andrew Presler. I'm good. Appreciate it. Thank you, Mrs. Ashra. Thank you. Um, well, I just want to say, you know, I know you're sitting out there listening to us talk about cuts and staff, you know, attrition and all that. Just know that we are all taking this very seriously. Um, we did have uh a a work session a couple weeks ago. I don't think I've slept the full night since
079then. And you know, we're doing everything we can to keep keep it away from the kids, but also, you know, we have great staff. We want to protect them as well, but um just know that we're taking it very seriously. None of us take it very light, but you know, have confidence that we're doing everything we can, but we need help, you know, to get that um get that accomplished. I can't say very much. Trying to put my filter on, but um you know, if there's anybody that wants to help, please let us know because we are not allowed to do anything. We're very limited and it's very frustrating to sit here and not be able to give opinions or talk to people about it or, you know, we can just give facts and I
080feel like, yeah, we know that. What do you think? Well, I can't tell you what I think. So, um, meeting people that can get out there and give opinions and thoughts and stories and things like that. So, just any help would be appreciated. Um, but you know, if there's no one that does that, just know like we're doing everything we can. That's all. Thank you, Mrs. Ashra. Chief Master Start President, I'm good. Thank you, sir. I really don't have anything to add this month. Um it just to piggy back off what everybody's already saying and this is not taken lightly at all. We're going to do the best we can. So at this time I'm going to look for a motion to move to executive session for the following reasons. to consider the appointment, employment,
081dismissal, discipline, promotion, demotion, or compensation of a public official or employee. Second, Mr. Michael Presley, do I have a second? Second. Mr. Mark Smith. Mrs. Bowers, would you call the role, please? Mr. Michael Presler. Yes. Mr. Mark Smith. Yes. Mr. Gab, yes. Mr. Jenny Ashra, yes. Mr. Andrew Tesler, yes. Thank you all. Have a great evening. Back at 9:59. Uh, I'm going to look for a motion to approve personnel item A as presented. So, Mr. Measurement, do I have a second? Second. Mr. Michael Press. Mrs. Bow, you call the role, please. Mr. Mark Measure. Yes. Mr. Michael Presler. Yes. Mr. Gary Gabard. Yes. Mrs. Amy Nashcraft. Yes. Mr. Andrew Presley. Yes. Motion carries 5 Z. I'm going to look for a motion to approve personnel items B. Supplemental nominations as presented. So moved. Mr. Mr.
082Schmidt. Second. Mr. Michael Presler. Mrs. Bar, you call the role, please. Mr. Mark Measure. Yes. Mr. Michael Presler. Yes. Mrs. Amy Ash. Yes. Mr. Andrew Presler. Yes. Mr. Bill. Abstain. Want to look for a motion to adjourn. So move. Mr. Mr. Smith. Second. Mrs. Ashcraft. Mrs. Ver, you call the role, please. Mr. Mark Measure. Yes. Mrs. Amy Ashcraft. Yes. Mr. Gary Gabard. Yes. Mr. Michael Presley. Yes. Mr. Andrew Presley. Yes. Motion carries 5. It is 10:00.