09/09/2026
✍️ We covered a lot of ground last night! As ever, here's my summary of our meeting:
Without respect for parliamentary procedure, Mrs. Ioppolo began our regular meeting by lodging a complaint about perceived treatment she received during an executive session meeting last week.
It is generally inadvisable—not to mention poor boardsmanship—to publicly discuss what occurs in executive session, so I will not be adding anything to the content of this portion of the meeting, except to reiterate that what Mrs. Ioppolo described differed drastically from what I witnessed at the abovementioned meeting. I acknowledge that her willingness to go against board ethics and norms to discuss this matter publicly means that her version of events will be the only one reported—this is unfortunate, but not something for which I am willing to violate our own bylaws.
After her remarks, Mrs. Ioppolo abruptly left the meeting while the remaining four members of the board turned to district business.
Here are the highlights, including some great news about our growing programs:
🤩 CTE, CCP, + AP PROGRAMS
Our Career Tech Education, College Credit Plus, and Advanced Placement programs have seen BIG gains so far this year! In fact, the College Board (which manages the AP exams) reached out to our district to plan a visit with us to learn about how we’re managing to increase both our scores and participation with this program despite declining enrollment.
🤝 AD HOC DISCIPLINE COMMITTEE
This effort, which began last year, continues to track bullying and mean behaviors, and to implement targeted support for students. We track both of these behaviors on our public-facing website, and update them twice per year.
✅ OSBA CAPITAL CONFERENCE
The board voted 4-0 NOT to attend the statewide school board member conference this year in an effort to save costs. We will, however, look into sending Mr. Hardesty as legislative liaison to vote on the OSBA legislative platform as long as there are no costs incurred.
📣 LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
Although both the Ohio Senate and House are on recess, Mr. Hardesty reported that the “Success Sequence” law is now in effect, which requires public school districts to teach students grades 5-12 to graduate from high school, get a job, get married, and have children—in that order. Superintendent Heath will be meeting with our curriculum specialist to implement that new law into our curriculum this year.
🏫 CONSOLIDATION PLANNING UPDATE
We’re still on track to announce which elementary schools we will close or repurpose at the end of September. Both our Guiding Coalition (parents, community members, students, staff) as well as our administrators met last week to give their feedback on the options being considered. The community survey has received about 1,700 responses so far, and will be open for the rest of today (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/N62FZN9). The board will meet at least once more for further discussion before a decision is made.
📝 PUBLIC RECORDS CLERK
Mr. Hardesty introduced the idea of potentially hiring a part-time records clerk to support the work of responding to increasingly complex public records requests that require inordinate time, resources, and legal fees (+$31K in four months). The four board members who were present agreed to consider possibilities with the Educational Service Centers or other contractors who could provide support—potentially in the form of shared services with other districts facing similar challenges.
CFO BILL WADE DEPARTS
Mr. Wade's resignation was accepted by the four present members of the board. We all thanked him for his service, and wished him well in his new role.
Watch the entire meeting here: https://www.youtube.com/live/UhmRSdXf0HM?si=sb6rBDLogTdu-Cnu
