LIBERTY-BENTON LOCAL SCHOOLS

MONDAY, AUGUST 21, 2006

BOARD OF EDUCATION OFFICE 9190 CO. RD. 9, FINDLAY OHIO

REGULAR BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETING 6:00 PM

STRATEGIC PLANNING WORK SESSION IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING

I. Call to Order

Pledge of Allegiance……………………………………………………Jeff Shadle, Board President

II. Recognition of Visitors

Approval of minutes from the Tuesday, August 1, 2006 regular and special board of education meetings

III. Communications and Discussion

IV. Principals’ Reports

Brian Burkett, Bruce Otley, Brenda Frankart

V. Treasurer’s Report………………………………………………………………………Lisa Dobbins

VI. Superintendent’s Report ……………………………………………………………Dennis L. Recker

VII. New Business

A. Approve Consent Agenda, to include:

1. Listing of Bills, Expenditures and Investments through 7/31/06, and monthly financial report of the Treasurer.

2. Approve appropriation modifications for August 2006

3. Approve the high school fee list for the 2006-07 school year

4. Approve the elementary handbook

5. Approve the classified substitute list

6. Approve audiology services with Wood County Educational Service Center for the 2006-07 school year

7. Approve vision services with Logan County Educational Service Center for the 2006-07 school year

8. Approve the bus routes for the 2006-07 school year

9. Approve the following resignations:

Judy Fenton, Lunch aide to accept the position of elementary cashier

10. Approve the following classified personnel for the 2006-07 school year;

Judy Fenton, Elementary cashier

Kerri Yake, HS Aide

Carole Martin, HS Aide

Karen Curto, Elementary Aide

Melissa Cramer, Elementary Aide

Caryn Johnson, Elementary Aide

Kerry Teeple, Lunch Aide

Judy Shivers, Math Shack Tutor

Teresa Eaves, ESL Tutor

11. Approve Julie Newman, increase in step to 1M

12. Approve the following certified personnel:

Sharon Schmutz, one year contract for special education teacher for 2006-07

13. Approve additional bus driving route time for the following bus drivers:

Tenna Tuttle, additional 2 hours per day

Mary Kisseberth, additional 2 hours per day

Ann Burner, additional 4 hours per day to include Millstream

Jane Shank, additional 1.25 hours per day

Brenda Helms, additional 1.75 hours per day

Karen Crawford, additional 1.25 hours per day

Marsha Desgranges, additional 1.5 hours per day

Jan Powell, additional 2 hours per day

Alicia Dapore, additional 2 hours per day

Judy Kisseberth, additional 2 hours per day

Joann Fenstermaker, additional 4 hours per day to include preschool

Kathy Borsay, additional 2 hours per day

14. Approve the following extra-curricular personnel for the 2006-07 school year:

Lance Stevens, Assistant Football Coach

B. Approve the milk bid from Reiter Dairy and the bread bid from Nickles Bakery for the 2006-07 school year

VIII. Other Business

IX. Executive Session

X. Adjournment

LIBERTY-BENTON LOCAL SCHOOLS

DISTRICT BOARD REPORT

AUGUST 21, 2006

Enclosed are copies of “The Board”. (Item A)
I checked our agreement with the YMCA regarding use of the facility. Item 2 of the agreement sets parameters for use by the YMCA and item 4 provides each of the parties a method to step away from the agreement. Item 8 states our financial obligations upon creation of the agreement. Item 2 – The hours and times in which the Fitness Training Center will not be used for school purposes is subject to change; however, it is contemplated that the YMCA’s license to use the Fitness Training Center will be as follows: (a) during the regular school year and on school days, in the early morning hours prior to school hours, in the evening hours after 5 p.m., and during regular business hours set by the YMCA on Saturdays and Sundays; and (b) during the summer and any other time that school is not in session, the hours and times for YMCA use shall be determined by the Board according to the needs of the District. At all times, and unless otherwise expressly changed by the Board, the Fitness Training Center shall be closed each night by 10:00 p.m. Recognizing the need for the YMCA to plan its use of the Fitness Training Center, the Board will use its best efforts to make set schedules, for reasonable periods of time, for when the YMCA may use the Fitness Training Center. The Board shall provide reasonable notification to the YMCA of the schedule and, upon the Board’s need to change the schedule, the Board shall, whenever reasonably possible, provide at least two (2) weeks prior notification to the YMCA of any such change in schedule.

Item 4 – The License shall commence on the Effective Date and may be terminated by either party by giving the other party notice of termination at least three (3) days prior to said termination date. If the License is terminated by either party, the YMCA shall cease using the Property and shall no longer have any insurance responsibilities relative to the Fitness Training Center. Any written notice of termination shall be either delivered in person by the serving party or by courier, or be given by certified United States mail, postage prepaid and return receipt requested, addressed to the party to whom notice is to be given at the address specified in the beginning of this Agreement for that party, or at such other address as a party may designate for itself in writing in the same manner as a notice of termination is to be given. All such notices shall be effective upon the earlier of: (a) the receipt by the addressee; or (b) three (3) business days after depositing the certified mail notice in the United States Mail. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Board shall have the right to terminate this License, effective immediately, if the Board determines, in its sole discretion, that it needs full use of the Fitness Training Center for school purposes.

Item 8 – Upon termination of this Agreement for any reason, the Board shall retain ownership of the weight lifting equipment (and any equipment placed in the Fitness Training Center subsequent to the Effective Date of this Agreement). The weight lifting equipment has a value of $4,000. In consideration of the mutual promises contained herein, including the grant of this License by the Board to the YMCA for use of the Fitness Training Center free-of-charge, and with the understanding that a purpose of this Agreement is to help promote the welfare of the community, the Board shall pay the YMCA $1,000 for such weight lifting equipment upon termination of this Agreement for any reason.

A quick re-cap is needed to show how we’ve realized a successful venture. The fund-raising group generated construction funds and told the public that there would be weight equipment for public use. They had taken it upon themselves to help provide this by the “free” equipment, which turned out to be a Ponzi scheme. We, or I were being pressured by the company to sign a $200,000 agreement for high school equipment, but I backed off once the scheme began to unravel.

The YMCA had this equipment for sale and actually had other buyers interested. I took it upon myself to work with Mr. Gartner of the YMCA, and they were receptive and helped us provide this opportunity for our children and our community, in return for their access, as stated in the contract. We had two agencies, the L-B School and the YMCA, sharing similar philosophies regarding health, wellness, family, and spirit of community coming together to allow the facility to become a reality.

The capstone donation that was able to provide the revenue to complete this facility was made, with the provision that community access would be provided. We couldn’t afford the cost of staffing this, so again the YMCA involvement was our best solution.

These “tid-bits” of history are important because without the influence of the YMCA, and their generosity of providing equipment, would probably have had the result of this well intentioned initiative “crashing and burning”.

Our, and my sense of honor has led us to a point, where the utilization of the facility of the YMCA may not be feasible at this point in time. Some staff would obviously want to have access to the facility 7/24, but the aforementioned history is the main reason I’ve not even addressed the issue of ending the agreement. That being said, and because situations constantly change, the last sentence of item 4 was added at my request. (Item B)

Judy Fenton has been asked by Mr. Horstman to be cashier for elementary cafeteria’s newly created second food service line. (Item C)
I’ve met with Dave Roth after meeting with Tom Weber and former professional baseball player Gene Stechschulte (St. Louis Cardinals) to review the drawings. We need to shift the soccer field 40 ft. south to not interfere with play. We also need to shift baseball/softball playing fields 20 feet east. I asked for cost analysis of providing under bleacher storage (same square feet) and eliminating from main building. I also reduced 4 restroom stations (6 ft., if allowable) to reduce square footage and tightened open floor area by one foot in each restroom. We’ll hopefully have “numbers” by the 21^st.
We’ll need an additional special education teacher due to increased elementary enrollment. Our special education teaching staff will increase from 7.6 staff in 2005-06 to 11 in 2006-07. The county has 7 special needs teachers. The rest of the county schools have 19 special ed teachers. Of the 37 total special needs teachers in the county, 11 are ours. Since we are 28% of the county school student enrollment, the 30% of special education staff mirrors this population. Our additional teaching staff cost in this area will now exceed $100,000 over last year. Brian Burkett has asked me to recommend Sharon Schmutz for this position.
Keeping an eye on other schools and their money woes, Lake finally passed an issue on their tenth try. Springfield passed a 3.5 mil issue and Clyde passed a renewal issue which had failed in May. Everything else in the area failed. The “shockers” were Archbold, who never failed an issue in 40 years until this year (maybe it was the 9.78 mil price tag) and Mohawk, which was looking for a 0.67 mill for a school bus garage, a practice gym, and office renovation. Two other schools in the area, Eastwood and North Baltimore are really “hurting” after their operating requests lost also. Hopefully, now our community is able to see how we’ve been able to conduct our business and provide our children and community decent facilities and stable operations.
With transportation costs on the rise, I thought it might be interesting to see L-B’s cost relative to all Ohio local schools and Hancock County. The good news is we typically use rule of thumb as being $30,000 per bus on the road per year. Ohio locals averaged $36,641 per year, Hancock County averaged $30,309 per year, and L-B was at $27,340 per year. The primary reason is we have less driving miles by having less square mileage, and our major core of student population is within 3-4 miles of the schools. (Item D)
Brenda has calculated the high school fees which we’ll need to approve at our meeting. (Item E)
Brian was going to send you a final draft of his elementary student handbook which we need to approve so he can have copies made for parents by his orientation date. (Item F)
Dawn is sending our current classified sub list for your approval. (Item G)
We enter into a service contract annually with the Wood County ESC for audiology services. We also have arrangements with Logan County for visual handicapped services. This lets you know some of the required services that need to be “farmed” out because we can’t provide locally. (Item H)
Kerri Yake and Carole Martin will be needed again this year at the high school for aid support and study hall monitor. Karen Curto, Caryn Johnson, and Melissa Cramer will be brought back again this year as elementary aides. Judy Shivers and Teresa Eaves will again be asked to instruct as tutors. Kerry Teeple will serve as the lunch aide to replace Judy Fenton who has accepted the additional elementary cashier position.
Jeff Schimmoeller has provided the 2006-07 bus route summary. (Item I)
The bus drivers are contracted for 2 hours and 15 minutes per day at the start of each school year. They have additional route time per bidding process. Will need to approve.
Brenda Frankart with Dean Butler, and Scott Garlock have attached a request for an additional paid football coach this year only, because of the increase in participants. Lance Stevens, currently a volunteer coach, would move to that paid position. (Item J)

ELEMENTARY PRINCIPAL’S REPORT

Liberty-Benton Board of Education

August 21, 2006

As of today, we have the following number of students in our elementary program:

June 2006

Pre-school - 24 (1 section – ½ a.m. & ½ p.m.) ( 25)

Kindergarten - 98 (5 sections – avg. class 19.6) ( 73)

First Grade - 77 (4 sections – avg. class 19.3) ( 78)

Second Grade - 79 (4 sections – avg. class 19.8) (101)

Third Grade - 107 (5 sections – avg. class 21.4) ( 82)

Fourth Grade - 84 (4 sections – avg. class 21.0) (102)

Fifth Grade - 105 (5 sections – avg. class 21.0) (102)

TOTAL (K-5): 550 School Average: 20.4 (538) Average (19.9)

(574 with pre-school)

Below is a 5 year trend line for the elementary building. I am very proud of our students, as well as the teachers. With the moving target provided at the state and national level for excellence, we are continuing to show improvement. I’m sure you can agree, that our improvement is sustained and on-going. Our improvement continues each year, one step at a time instead of the “yo-yo” effect going up and down. We will be busy analyzing our data and working to continue this improvement, especially in the economically disadvantaged category that caused the elementary to miss our AYP and the special education population where we missed our AYP as a district. It should be noted, too, that 25.8% of our Economically Disadvantaged students are also Students with Disabilities – a double ding. No matter what AYP says, our students are learning and making great progress.

Category\Year 02-03 03-04 04-05 05-06

Number of Indicators Met 2 3 6 7

Performance Index 89.1 90.5 91.2 94.8

School Designation CI Effective Effective Effective

AYP Met Met Met Not Met

Summer Intervention is underway and ends on August 25^th. Due to the fire alarm system not being at working capacity, we relocated the program to the high school (Thanks Brenda!) Things appear to be going quite well even though we do not have access to the elementary library, AR system, or a playground for their daily break. The teachers and students are making great use of their extra time to give the students a boost into the new school year.

New technology is coming in September for parents. We will be implementing a system called School Messenger, which is an automated program that can call and/or send emails to deliver messages to parents about upcoming school events. We are planning the messages that go out will be on a set day of the week (maybe Mondays) and be approximately 30 seconds in length. We are very excited to be able to strengthen our communication even more with our parents about our school events!

We are in the process of bringing a very special guest (joint project with McComb Schools) to our school for Veteran’s Day. Sergeant 1^st Class Dana Bowman would be our guest for special programs at both McComb and Liberty-Benton Schools (K-12). Additionally, he would do an evening program the night before our assemblies for the community and local veterans. I have been able to secure some business sponsors to help offset the high cost of such a special program, but I am still searching for some more help. We have to confirm this by the end of this month and I hope we don’t miss out on a very memorable Veteran’s Day experience. I will have more details once we are able to confirm him and we come closer to the Veteran’s Day in November.

UPCOMING ELEMENTARY EVENTS:

(May be viewed on website under elementary section – event calendar)

August 24 Elementary New Student Orientation 6:30 p.m. at Elem. Café.

August 28 Opening Day (Teachers)

August 29 Teacher In-service Day

Meet the Teacher Night 6:00-8:00 p.m. Elem. & Middle School

August 30 Teacher Workday (New Teacher orientation)

Sept. 4 Labor Day – No School

Sept. 5 Students first day of school

Sept. 12 Picture Day

Sept. 30 Fall Carnival (K-8) at Elem. & Middle School

Liberty-Benton Middle School

“Where Eagles Learn to Soar”

BOE Principal’s Report

August 21, 2006

6:00 p.m.

1. Building Maintenance: Our maintenance, grounds and custodial crews have been working hard to get the building ready for school and things are looking great. The floors are shining, walls have been painted, whiteboards have been repaired/added to classrooms, and our new riser for our choir have arrived among many other updates and improvements in the building. The new chiller is also now operational. New landscaping has been installed outside of the building. The new shrubs, flowers, mulch and river rock has dressed up the outside of the building.

2. Projected Enrollment for 2006-2007: The following is our projected enrollment for the 2006-2007 school year. Since our previous meeting, we have grown by one student.

Grade Total

06 102

07 94

08 94

Total Students: 290

3. Summer Intervention Off and Running: Due to maintenance on the chiller and on the fire alarm system, summer intervention for the middle school was moved to the high school. In speaking with our teachers, things are going very well. Students are receiving the remediation they need to be ready for the challenges of the 06-07 school year.

4. Elementary/Middle School Carnival September 30, 2006 11:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m.: The PTO is sponsoring a fall carnival at the Elementary/Middle School. There will be 29 games including a dunk tank, a tattoo booth, face painting, a maize room, and giant inflatables from Ohio Air Extreme. Food and snacks will also be on site. We are hoping for a large and fun filled turnout. Ticket pre-sale will be the week of September 11.

Upcoming Dates:

August 22 Orientation for 6^th graders or any new student—6:00-8:00 p.m.

August 28 One Stop Shop pre-order pick up 10:00-1200 and 6:00-8:00 p.m.

August 29 Meet the teacher night for 7^th and 8^th graders—6:00-8:00 p.m.

September 4 Labor Day—No school

September 5 First day of school for students 7:51 a.m.-2:32 p.m.

September 13 School picture day

September 15 6^thGrade Camp Storer final payment due

October 9-13 6^th grade Camp Storer trip

October 26 Picture re-takes

HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL’S REPORT

Liberty-Benton Board of Education Meeting

August 21, 2006

6:00 P.M.

** I do not have much to report on since we just had a board meeting on August 1^st, but things are shaping up nicely for the 2006-2007 school year. Go, Eagles!!!

1.) As of 8-16-06 Including our LBHS Outside of LBHS

LBHS Enrollment Spec. Ed. #’s Spec. Ed. #’s Total

Grade 9 109 11 1 110

Grade 10 114 8 3 117

Grade 11 109 6 0 109

Grade 12 103 7 7 110

TOTAL 435 32 11 446

2.) Good News From Class of 2004 - The Class of 2004 had multiple seniors who did not graduate with their class. This August, another one of those students completed his remaining requirements and has now graduated from Liberty-Benton High School. I believe that class still has two people who have not completed their requirements, one needing credits and one needing to pass the math OGT/proficiency.

3.) Staff Laptops - All high school staff receiving laptops will be going through technology training sessions on August 22^nd or August 24^th, depending on the session they selected. Andrew Eckhart and Gary Altman have done a very nice job getting everything ready for this new technology project.

4.) Upcoming Events:

Aug. 23 Freshmen & New Student Orientation, 7:00 p.m.

Aug. 28 Teacher Workday

Aug. 29 Teacher In-service Day

Aug. 30 New Teacher Workday

Aug. 30 Band Show at the Hancock County Fair, 6:30 p.m.

Sept. 5 First Day of School

Sept. 7 Fall Open House for Parents, 7:00 p.m.

Sept. 28 High School Student Leadership Day

Oct. 2-6 Homecoming Spirit Week

Oct. 6 Homecoming Game

Oct. 7 Homecoming Dance