All right. Good morning and welcome to our school. We're meeting, we'll call this meeting at 2 session. Mr. President, please call the roll.
President Matthews. Here. Dr. Hopkins. Here. Mr. Davidson. Here. Dr. Copis. Here. Mr. Minkuso. Here. Thank you. I don't see any more from city council. I'll turn it over to Ms. Wise Row for our spotlight.
Thank you. Good morning. I know this is our last morning session of the summer. I was just joking with a couple of folks that we really want to recognize today for our spotlight.
Mr. Tom Schuler and Mr. Jeff Kilbee about did summer actually even start for them both.
It started but I'm not sure they got any kind of breaks.
We really as a team wanted to make sure that we gave them a shout-out the incredible planning
and work that they put in along with a lot of our maintenance and custodial crews over
the summer with going into the summer plan that we had in, you know, in relationship to
the logistics and the moves that we had to make all across the districts. I had Mr.
Sary run some stats for me and I know with moving teachers we moved over 150 teachers and
you're talking with the district of this size. That is an immense amount of logistical, I would
Jenga pieces that you're trying to put together right and it wasn't just teachers.
It was staff across the way and executive leadership meetings when we were kind of going through
these things over the course after January all the way through when we kicked this off in May.
The amount of information and planning and just to look at the plan that Jeff presented to the
executive leadership team and research that he had and just the moving parts I thought to myself,
You know, we just got to get through this stuff and I know Mrs. Levin just kept talking about that all through the time, right?
It's talking about a lot of moves of whole buildings.
And, you know, also staff moving across a district of, you know, being placed other places.
It was just, it was a lot. And then you're talking of a district this size, the amount of effort and time and details,
that eyes and cross and tease that these guys both did along with our staff to manage that.
It was crazy to me, but it went off without a hitch in the giddy up.
You know, there's a tiny bit of there where, you know, some boxes were misplaced there, but it was
miniscule.
When you're talking about that, we just wanted to see what that was going to be like.
And we had complete and utter faith in both of you guys and in your team.
And we as a district team cannot thank you both enough of the work and what your team did with that.
It was a huge nightmare of a task, but like I said, it was smooth and maybe not from
your end with some of the emails and calls that you did, but with feedback from the district
and the staff, I think that's where all of our heads were at when we were talking about
getting ready to kick off with kids coming here in a couple of days, the staff appreciates
the heck out of you.
I mean, I've heard, we're all out there in the weeds with the staff.
I've heard nothing but great and positive things.
And not, hey, I need my desk with this or my file folder with this, it wasn't those kind of things.
It was just positive of how smooth it was, color coordinator it was, just your team with accepting what the plan was.
Our district wants to make sure that we give you a huge shout out and spotlight also to your teams of how clean the buildings where I know Mrs.
11's with her schedule that I don't know how she keeps. But she does it. She's intentionally
made it all the way around to each and every building and just the way that the buildings
and grounds look and prepare for like she just said to a couple of the board members in her
office today. How well attended our open houses all across the district have been and tonight
with elementary getting ready to kick off when we always know those are very well attended.
But we always say you don't get a second chance at a first impression and the way that your
a half approaches that not only with our team and our staff moves that you did this summer,
but also the way that the buildings look. So the board team would really like to say thank you
and you get one of our special cups to go along with Jeff. I'll give you the mic here. I know you're
really excited to come and talk, but we just wanted to say thank you. So if you guys don't mind
coming on up.
Okay. All right. Oh, it might just pass along the buildings around staff,
It's a lot of extra workload above and beyond the typically doing the summer and they did it graciously.
And in carrying the plane, they got it done.
We didn't even have to put in much ever time.
Like I said, it's like a center of virtual development.
It's on my like to echo that, you know, it was a massive move.
To our member when we first started brainstorming what we were going to do.
And I just remember Jeff just writing down everything I was saying.
on this note pad and you know I couldn't be more proud. You just executed a plan that I
don't think many other districts could pull off. And our buildings were ready. The signage
out front. Every attention to detail has been given your fullest attention and I appreciate that.
Mrs. Wisebroid mentioned I walked every building that's one of my favorite things to do before our
staff or our students come back and the floors are shinier than they've ever been.
Our staff, our custodial staff, is so proud they were so excited to show me they did this or they did that
And I think it goes back to the strength of at the center of our district as our people and
Everyone came to a challenge rose to it and under your guys' leadership
We are opening the school year more than prepared for a new chapter and that wouldn't have happened without great leadership
So I appreciate each of you
You know last year we were able to honor custodians and we thought this year just your leadership
took that another notch up the belt, but I am just grateful for you, for what you've done,
and I can't wait for our families and our students and our staff to get in there and see.
I mean, it's like we flipped a switch, and I know this summer caused a lot of stress,
and you know, trying to figure out when and where was your time off, and what those pieces
look like, and no one said to me, I can't do this, they figured it out, and so I think I've told
both of you this personally, but on the camera, I just want to say, I'm grateful for your leadership
for all you did this summer.
Same.
So as I thank you so much for all your hard work
and dedication to make sure everything
was on point and taking care of.
As you always do, but just above and beyond.
So definitely, thank you so much.
Great, and greatly appreciate it.
Make sure that we're ready to roll.
At the end of the school year, Dr. Copis and I went around
to the three buildings that were being affected.
To see how it was going.
I was so impressed, I referred to it as organized chaos.
Everybody had their list, their colors,
and I was so impressed with how they were getting things done
because you had mapped out, but they needed to do.
During the summer, driving around, I saw people busy working all summer.
And I do, I echo Mrs. Blavins' comments.
I'm so appreciative of the two of you in the work you did on that.
Thank you.
Yeah, Jeff, do you remember when we ran into you at the Wilson, and now I draw on a
blank on the name of the company that handled the move?
Plains, yeah, and I told the Plains guy, I asked him, I said, what are you charging
us for this?
And he told me I said, man, that's a great deal, you should have charged us more, but anyway,
Tom, I have a story for you, and I want to begin the story by apologizing, and I hope
this doesn't happen.
and let me tell you frequently my wife and I will walk around the block where the high school
is located.
And she'll always say, oh, you know, this sidewalk needs to be edged.
Sure.
There's a dead tree limb in that tree or something.
And the last time we were doing it, I was ready for it.
The first comment she made, I just took a little piece of paper out of my pocket and handed
it to her, had your phone number on it.
I hope she doesn't call you so if she does, I apologize.
But Mrs. Blair and Jerry remember it was recently I drove by the high school and I called you. I said man have you seen the parking line in front of the high school
I mean it truly is beautiful. So your cruise your staffs do an unbelievably good job
And I echo what Miss Matthew is a Mr. Davidson said and my fellow board members really do appreciate all of your efforts
It our facilities are impressive. So thank you both very very much
All
right, I want to consider our motion to go into executive session.
The reason for that is to consider employment of public, employee or official to consider
the sale of property at competitive bidding and to discuss confidential information related
to an application for economic development assistance or negotiation with other political
subdivisions related to the application as an executive session is necessary to protect
the applicant's interest or related expenditures of public funds, a unanimous vote is required
to hold an executive session.
I moved to adjourn to executive session.
Thank you, second.
All right.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I've got a roll on the trigger.
Yeah.
Dr. Hopkins?
Yes.
Mr. Davidson.
Dr. Copis?
Yes.
Ms. Matthews? Yes.
Yes.
All I will call this opposition.
Come back from executive session.
And going to our business meeting.
pledge allegiance would say
pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
into the Republic for which it stands one nation under God if it is all with liberty in
justice for all
right I'll accept the motion to approve our board agenda I'm motion to approve
the board agenda thank you I'll be second thank you thank you Mr. President you call the roll
Mr. Davidson?
Dr. Copas?
Ms. Matthews?
Yes.
Thank you.
I'll accept the motion for the approval of minutes.
I moved to approve the minutes.
Thank you.
Second.
Thank you, Mr. Fraser, if you call the roll please.
Dr. Copas?
Yes.
Ms. Matthews?
Yes.
Dr. Hopkins?
Yes.
Ms. Matthews.
Yes.
Thank you.
I don't think we can probably participate in. I will turn over to Superintendent
Blavance for her superintendent update.
Yes, thank you President Matthews. Members of the board. I am so excited this morning.
We are officially in the 2627 school year. There is a ton of buzz around this community
to get our kids back into school. This year our theme is we build this city, every student,
every staff every day, and we've really spent the last few weeks digging into that and what
means. And so I'm so excited to start this year strong. You know, last year was a challenging year
with all that we went through. And I think it's important for our community to know. I put this
in our first community newsletter, but we're strong going into this school year. We are continuing
to offer amazing programs. Our class sizes continue to remain small. Transportation continues.
Our all of our extracurricular activities are up and running. You can see our band,
out practicing every day or football players on the football field, there's a buzz and energy
with welcome back with us starting up school. I do want to thank all of our secondary buildings
last night for a wonderful night of open house. We had record-breaking turnout which was amazing to
see and such great energy as we welcomed our seven through 12 students which sometimes those kids
are a little harder to get excited about getting back up at 7 a.m., but they were very excited.
Tonight is our elementary's turn.
Our seven elementary's this evening will host open house from 5 to 7.
We do know that the weather might be a challenge but we still encourage our families to come out as much as possible.
I also want to thank all of our community partners that have gone above and beyond to make sure that our kids are prepared for school.
So Booker T. Washington hosts a back-to-school drive for the Riverview community.
The Boys and Girls Club did one for the Crawford Woods community.
and tonight the Hamilton Rotary Club will be hosting a back-to-school drive at Bridgeport.
So I'm just thankful for our communities who have shown out to make sure that our kids are
are looking strong and have all the needed supplies to learn in our classroom.
I do want to let our community know tomorrow is our last day before we welcome kids in the building on
Thursday and Friday this week and so tomorrow afternoon all of our buildings will be closed from one to four
so that our staff can come together one last time over at Markham Park to come together to build
energy and excitement to kick off this school year. So if any of our families need support,
you know tomorrow morning the buildings will be open as normal, but from one to four our
buildings will be shut down so that our staff can participate in that event. Speaking of school
beginning, just reminder we have three first days this school year. On Thursday we will welcome
our students K through 12.
Those last names are A through K. Obviously, if there are blended families, we just ask families to pick one letter and send all of their kids on that particular day. Then on Friday, our last names, L through Z. And then next Monday, we go full force. All of our students K through 12 A through Z, are welcome back into our schools. So I'm very excited to get around and get this year started. I also just want to encourage our parents to help get connected to your children's schools by signing up for our Aubrey Parent Portal.
It's a great way with immediate access to teacher contact information, grades, schedule, lunch,
venues, anything that they need.
It's the fastest and best way to stay connected to what's happening in our school district.
And also to follow us on all of our social medias, where we will post any and all information as we need.
Those are my comments just about the opening of the school year this morning.
Today on the agenda, you'll see there's a number of items.
each of you received the document that details each of the items that are up for vote today
because it's such a lengthy, I'm not going to highlight every single thing in here
but please just let me know if you have any questions.
And President Matthews, those are my comments this morning.
Perfect, thank you so much.
Next on our day is our human resource.
I'll set the motion for our human resource.
I moved to accept the human resources agenda as is.
Thank you, do I have a second, a second, any discussion?
Mr. First, what you call the role?
Miss Matthews.
Yes.
Dr. Hopkins.
Yes.
Mr. Davidson?
Yes. Dr. Cobes.
Yes.
Thank you.
Next, we have our consent agenda.
I'll accept the motion.
I've moved it. We accept the consent agenda.
Thank you.
Do I have a second?
I second.
Thank you.
Mr. First, what you call the role?
Just a discussion or a second.
You can sit in gender as it's related to the secondary instruction portion.
Mr. Fraser educate me on our agreement with Westward LLC.
So Westward LLC.
I'm going to put my mic on for this.
Westward LLC helps us with our Medicaid reimbursement process.
So, there are a lot of eligible things that we do here in the school district that is eligible
for Medicaid reimbursement, okay.
And Westward helps us put those Medicaid claims in so that we receive the maximum reimbursement
that we can get.
So, currently, we're getting about 87% back on those items, so to put that in perspective,
I think the Westward contract is $60,000.
We just received a check in June for almost 2 million,
and we just received another check this month for 174,000.
So definitely well worth it.
Yeah, sure.
Money that's well spent.
Also a question, and I miss this.
This might be a question for you.
Under business operations, there was a small portion area
about transportation and lieu of.
Is that related to what you and I were talking about
similar to what the Lakota district is doing?
Yes. So right now, all public schools,
school districts are responsible for helping to
transport our students that choose a non-public option.
Yes.
However, there are caveats within the state law that say,
if it's beyond a 30 minute or 30 minute ride,
then the school district is not
to provide transportation or if it is, if it's not feasible, if it, it causes the district to
accrue excessive costs due to it. So I believe in the in Lakota's case they deemed that
routes were too expensive for what it was costing to transport a small number of students.
The transportation in lieu of that you're seeing on our agenda is a similar concept. It's $654
that in place of transporting to Fairfield Prep because the time does not work with our schedule,
We would have to have a whole new bus, a whole new driver, and that's very costly.
We are paying the parents to transport their own children to that private option.
Thank you.
Any other discussion?
Mr. Fraser, you called the role?
Dr. Hopkins.
Yes.
Ms. Minkuso?
Yes.
Mr. Davidson?
Yes.
Dr. Copas?
Yes.
Ms. Matthews.
Yes.
All right, next is our finance agenda.
We'll turn it over to Mr. Fraser.
Thank you, President Matthews.
uh... we have quite a few items this evening on the findings agenda uh... we have
several items that you guys are used to seeing uh... things that we pass every
year at this time and then we have another couple of items that uh... are new so
uh... i'm just gonna run down the list we've got the butler county sc agreement this
is something that uh... you will see every year uh... this includes things like speech
OTPT, and this year we have our nursing services on that list.
We've got two items from Swoka.
We have the software piece that we get from Swoka, which is the fiscal software that we
use, the accounting, we have emus through them, which sends all of our data to the state
so that we know we get the maximum amount of money through the state through our foundation,
in which we all know is a massive part of our revenue
about 75% of the money we bring in
and then progress book.
We also have the technology services
which is, we get our internet and phone through Swoka.
Living waters, this is something
that is not an annual thing that you will see.
So we own the building where living waters ministry is
we've had a long-term lease with them, a dollar a year.
I think it was a 30-year lease originally.
We are working with living waters, the city,
and the YMCA to dissolve that lease, and sell that building
to the city of Hamilton for use by the YMCA.
So you'll see the lease termination on there,
and also the purchase and sale agreement
with the city of Hamilton.
We've got a fee schedule on there.
This is something that we haven't passed recently, but at one of my treasure trainings,
they said it was a good idea to do this annually, so we will start doing that move
in forward.
Dr. Copis and I had a brief conversation earlier about the fee schedule about how reasonable
it is.
I mean, four, I mean, just picking off the thought in my head athletics, it's for high school
with $100 per kid, per sport, family max of $250.
So we were talking, if you have four kids in the all-place
sports, you're still in the out $250,
which I think is incredible.
We have the commercial paper reporting requirements,
which is something that started, I think, three or four years
ago, this is something that you'll see every year.
We have to board a prove our commercial paper,
which commercial papers, it's a short term investment, usually one to no more than 270 days.
That's put out by a public company, and so we are allowed to invest in that and we do when the returns are right.
We also have a confirming requisition.
We have the normal treasure financial reports, which includes the cash summary and the bank reconciliation.
And then as always we have the donation list, which I love the highlight. Again, look at that. I mean almost $30,000 that we've received in donations from the community.
I just love to see that up there. So I always like to highlight that.
Those are my items for this evening. I'd like to entertain any questions that you have.
No questions, just to comment, as Mr. Fraser said, our fee schedule is very, very, very favorable to the district surrounding us.
So I think that's wonderful for our student athletes.
Also, again, to address the donations, I just want to say how wonderful it is that we have so many individuals, so many organizations in our community that support our district.
And I certainly hope that they know how well that is appreciated and how much that contributes
to the overall experience of our students here in our Hamilton district.
So that truly is wonderful that we receive that kind of support from the community.
Okay, thank you Mr. Fraser.
I'm all set the motion to, I'll set the motion to accept the agenda.
Report.
I moved to approve the finance agenda.
I'll have a second.
How's that going?
Thank you Mr. Fred, you call the roll.
Dr. Hopkins?
Yes.
Mr. Davidson.
Dr. Copis?
Yes.
Ms. Matthews?
Yes.
I'm all right.
We'll accept the meeting to adjourn.
Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, August 25th.
And we'll begin at 4 p.m.
We're back to 4 o'clock.
Motion to adjourn.
I can.
I motion to adjourn.
10 o'clock.