November 26, 2024 • 30 mins
In this episode, we welcome Medina City Schools superintendent Aaron Sable, who shares information about the school district, why we started the podcast journey, the Portrait of a Bee, and topics surrounding State legislation and school funding.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Music
(00:15):
Hello everyone and welcome to the very first episode of The Hive,
being the know stories about Mid-Dinocity Schools.
I'm Amy Busby, director of community relations from Mid-Dinocity Schools
and your host for this exciting new journey.
This podcast is a space where we'll dive into stories, successes,
and challenges that make Mid-Dinocity Schools a special place to learn and grow.
(00:39):
We'll bring you new episodes at least once a month packed with updates,
celebrations, and conversations that matter to our students, staff, and community.
These episodes currently will live on our Mid-Dinocity Schools YouTube channel.
Joining me for this inaugural episode is Superintendent Aaron Sable.
Welcome to The Hive, Aaron.
(01:01):
Thank you. It's nice to be here.
That's my sound effect button that I wanted.
We're going to get there. We're going to get there.
So we're thrilled to have you here.
And so maybe we can start by providing our listeners with some information
that they may or may not know about our school district, such as the fact that we've now redistricted
(01:27):
and it's going relatively smoothly as far as our students and our staff are concerned.
Maybe the number of schools that we have currently, students, staff,
and more importantly, the number of square miles that we work with every day.
Now, we have got a ton of information to share with the community and challenge that we constantly have
(01:51):
is sharing out good, accurate, and direct information.
So I'm excited to be able to be part of this podcast.
And I think you, Amy, for introducing to this as a new initiative for our district and our community.
You know, I said last night at the board meeting, you'd think right now would be the easiest time in history
to communicate with people because there's so many modes where you can instantly communicate.
(02:15):
But my experience over the course of my 20-some-year career has actually become more challenging
because there are so many avenues to communicate trying to find the right avenue that reaches the right people.
And then with social media and the misinformation that can get out there,
really providing the best accurate information, this can be a go-to place because it's coming straight from the source.
(02:38):
Right. And, you know, it's just another mode of communication
that, you know, we just talked about that people like to receive their information in a variety of ways
because we do have a diverse community where we have our parents and our students and our staff.
But we also have a relatively large senior community that we're always looking for ways that we can reach and connect with them.
(03:06):
And I know a lot of people, including people close to me, would rather listen than to read.
So it's an easy way to do it. And then being personal, you know, I've heard this about myself and my role,
and I understand it. It's part of the job. But I'm in so many formal situations when I'm talking to people
or communicating and for us to be able to have guests on and have informal conversation
(03:30):
and really get to more intimately know the people that work in the district,
whether it's a custodian, teacher, administrator, or superintendent.
We all put our pants on one leg at a time, just like everybody else.
Right. And one really important thing to remember, too, is that we're all educators, no matter at what level.
So we're all really kind of responsible, so to speak, to tell the story of Medina City Schools.
(03:55):
Well, and that's a motto that we've carried since the time I've been with the district,
is making sure that all of our staff members identify as educators because we're all here for kids.
Everybody plays a role in educating and helping our kids grow up. And I agree everybody has that education
message to share from the school district.
Yeah. And one of the really important pillars of our district is the portrait of a bee,
(04:19):
and that's kind of our North Star that drives what we do every day.
Maybe you could talk a little bit about what that is and how it's utilized in our classroom,
in particular the competencies that go along with our portrait.
Yeah, the portrait of a bee, I think you said it was our North Star or guiding light,
(04:40):
has really been an important piece of what we do as a school district.
Not just what we do as a school district, but making sure that we're implementing programming
that meets the expectation of our communities.
Because it really was a community-driven project.
It wasn't developed top down by administration.
There were students involved, businesses involved, parents involved, staff involved in creating
(05:06):
what are the competencies that we need all of our students have when they graduate from Medina High School.
And it really goes even beyond that.
It's not just about graduation, it's about starting in preschool.
And how do we begin implementing those characteristics and growing those characteristics in students as they're growing.
(05:27):
In my time in education, that's been a big shift.
When you first got on, it was about content, teaching students math, reading, writing, literacy, science as a science teacher.
So of course that's the most important.
But there's really much more that has to happen in educating a student.
I talk all the time about how we're one with the community and the communities one with us as a school district.
(05:53):
We're both dependent on each other's success.
Well, to be successful, especially in the modern era, it's much more than being able to do your multiplication tables.
It's about being a good person, being able to communicate, being able to strategize, being able to fail
(06:14):
and learn from failure and turn failure into success.
And that's what our portrait of the bee is all about.
What is a huge challenge is how do you implement that into a classroom?
It's much easier to outline curriculum and steps for addition and subtraction than it is to work with students, parents in our community
(06:36):
and how to raise good people.
And I think too, part of our goal with a portrait of a bee is to get our students and staff engaged in hands-on deeper learning.
So it's just a completely different way to educate our students.
Well, it is, and it needs to be.
(06:59):
I look back to when I was a teacher in the science classroom.
And I did labs, but they were very prescribed labs.
I gave notes regularly on an overhead projector.
And you were teaching at the students rather than learning with the students.
And the change in strategy that's utilized right now in education, which is a huge shift, is putting students in charge of their own learning.
(07:28):
And what I mean by that is modeling the classroom more like what students will experience in the real world.
So in the real world, you're not given a prescribed method for dealing with life's challenges or work's challenges.
Those are things that you need to develop the characteristics and skills, whether it's being able to rebound yourself or reach out to others for help in order to find the solution.
(07:54):
And it's really all about collaborating. And these are a lot of the things that our business community is looking for as our students graduate from a Dinosaur City School.
So they're really life skills as well as learning skills.
Absolutely. And the collaboration is huge.
(08:15):
I mean, so often you see a student in the classroom working on an assignment or a project that they're solely responsible for.
And I've said this to other people, where in your job have you ever sat down with a major project and it's been solely your responsibility?
Yeah.
And if you're in a situation where that's the case, you're probably not around colleagues that are going to help the business company or school be successful.
(08:40):
I mean, there's no major decision that happens in this district that's made by one person.
It's a collaborative effort, whether it's administrative team, staff or our Board of Education collaborating all together.
So early we talked about the fact that we've had some changes in our school districts starting in this school year.
(09:02):
And one of them was that we have closed and or repurposed some of our school buildings. And a lot of this is due to the fact that we've got declining enrollment in our district.
So instead of seven elementary schools, we're now down to five.
(09:24):
And maybe you can talk a little bit about what the benefits have been in making that decision.
Sure.
I want to go back and give a little history first, too, though, because it's really been a complicated process.
And we were in a real challenging position because we had to go on the ballot for new monies.
We hadn't been on the ballot in 11 years.
(09:46):
At the same time, we were seeing a drastic decrease in enrollment in the district.
This is my ninth year here.
When I first came to the district, we had about 62 to 6400 students enrolled in the district.
We're now right around 54 to 5500 students.
So when you have less students, you need less space to house them.
There's the misconception, which is understandable, that it had to do with the levy.
(10:12):
And it really didn't.
We could have been flush with cash and we still would have, the responsible move would have been to redistrict.
So the redistricting really is the result of a decreased enrollment that started down at the elementary levels.
The other thing that was really important to us as we're becoming a more diverse community was having all of our buildings reflect our actual community.
(10:37):
And that's a challenge with having community schools, which we know is so important to our parents and our community.
So our challenge was maintaining the community school model while making education in Medina City Schools more equitable and being more fiscally responsible with the decrease enrollment that we were seeing.
(10:58):
We also had needs with our preschool program.
The state of Ohio increased requirements for preschool education.
It's a special education program that requires like peers, non-special ed students to be a part of.
And the requirement for like students to be a part of that program was more than doubled, which has a big impact on the size of the program.
(11:24):
So with the redistricting, we also had to figure out what we were going to do with our preschool program that was housed over at Northrop.
And because of the lower enrollment and you said repurposing because the buildings, neither of the buildings are closed.
It allowed us to transition heritage over into our preschool or helping hands preschool.
And I think a lot of people don't realize that Garfield is really being pretty heavily utilized by the district right now.
(11:51):
We moved our technology department over there that oversees all technology in the district, which you can imagine what a big job that is.
In addition to that, we also moved our professional development center, which was housed at the high school over to Garfield as well.
So it's really an act of building.
And in addition to that, our board meetings are held there now, which I think we really saw the benefit of that last night with all the Veterans Day presentations.
(12:20):
We had more than enough room to accommodate all of our visitors and have a welcoming environment for them.
So they didn't have to stand out in the hallway to come in.
It's a little bit more inviting for sure, for sure, for sure.
Kind of going back to, you know, the number of students, our staff to because of some of the reductions that we've had to make has decreased our staff as well.
(12:50):
So we're not don't house or number of staff members don't serve.
That is not coming out right at all.
We want to maintain good student to teacher ratios.
Right.
If we decrease the or if the amount of students are decreasing, the amount of staff is going to need to decrease as well.
(13:14):
And again, part of being fiscally responsible, it's something that we're always trying to focus on and be aware of.
We love our teachers and our staff, but being responsible with what we're doing with our taxpayers money is important as well.
Even before we went on the ballot and needed to go on the ballot, we were already in a reduction mindset.
(13:39):
And that doesn't mean we were looking at cutting teachers or cutting positions.
But as teachers retiring or leaving, we were having a lot of conversation, whether we needed to replace that position or whether we could shift people around.
So that process was all already occurring even before we went on the ballot the first time.
What happened though, when we went on the ballot, it really lit a fire to make that process move forward faster than we had initially planned on.
(14:09):
Because we were forced to make immediate reductions, four million dollars going into the school year.
We were able to make those reductions with minimal impact on students in the classroom because of attrition and because of the decreased enrollment.
And that's why even with the four million dollars in cuts going in this year, most of our parents and students really haven't seen a difference in the classroom level.
(14:38):
Our staff has definitely seen a difference because they see less colleagues when they come to work every day or they're in a different building because of the redistricting.
So that's obviously been a challenge for them.
But in terms of the size of the classes that they're teaching, they're very similar to what we've actually had in the past.
The difference you will see is you walk into a building like Fenn that maybe had four or five empty classrooms.
(15:04):
And I say empty, but I know people would argue, well, those classrooms weren't empty because they weren't just sitting empty.
They were being utilized for storage or for conference rooms or for office space.
They've been reclaimed as classrooms.
So our buildings are at the capacity that they were built to be at.
Right. And it's a little bit more efficient way to run our school buildings by making sure that they have the number of students that they were built for.
(15:33):
Oh, absolutely. You know, keeping buildings operating as full running schools with students is much more expensive than utilizing it as an office complex with the technology department or professional development center that's utilized to train adults and staff in the district.
(15:55):
So it's definitely a cost savings measure.
Right.
So a few things that we can celebrate is we recently did a little did you know series a few weeks ago that kind of shows our community what is happening around the dynasty schools and a couple of those things were that, you know, the number of AP courses that are offered at our high school.
(16:22):
That we are, we've been able to achieve a four and a half stars out of five on our state report card.
Just recently. So those are really great things to celebrate when it comes to showing our community just exactly what happens on a day to day basis in our school community.
(16:44):
And I think we don't do a good enough job communicating those great things that are happening in our district sometimes we have this. Yes, there's such a focus on the challenges, especially recently coming off of COVID and going into levy campaigns that to really recognize and
(17:07):
communicate the great things that are happening in our district. And no one person can take credit for those great things.
All those things you just mentioned are the result of strategic planning that involves staff and students in the community, and implementing expectations of our community into our schools.
(17:28):
So it's not by accident that we have such a large number of AP classes now at the high school. It's something that our parents or community demanded our staff said was important.
So it was a goal that we work towards. Right. And it's very similar to, you know, a lot of the services that we offer for gifted students and the like.
(17:50):
So lots of great things. And we're going to keep talking about those and and share this, the specific stories with our students and parents. That's really what I'm excited about with this podcast is, you know, we're naming all these different programs and great things that are happening in the district.
(18:11):
And it's often been from just our voice. So as the podcast progresses to have people that are knee deep in the dirt, working with AP classes and AP students, working with the gifted programming, pulling students out of classes running gifted
(18:33):
classes. Those are the voices that I think are going to be really important and valuable for our community to hear.
And it'll give everyone a really good understanding of not only what happens in the classroom, but how the students are benefiting from what happens in the classroom.
Oh, I agree. And having students here to talk about that.
Correct. The actual students. So I know that not only Medina City schools, but all districts in the state of Ohio are really running up against some challenges that could really affect what we're doing.
(19:08):
As a school district and again, not just our school district, but also surrounding school districts.
Can you talk a little bit about maybe some of the legislation that's out there that could come to fruition that would do that.
Sure. And, you know, before I even get into that, I don't think our community knows what an active role we play at the state level in advocating.
(19:37):
Not only for public schools in general, but specifically for Medina City schools on behalf of our students in our community.
And that's probably our fault. It's not something that we shout to the hills about.
It's part of what we do because it's best for our school district, Medina.
But we have various administrators that are involved in committees at the state level, whether it's advocating for special education, gifted programming, working with our legislators down at the state office in Columbus,
(20:13):
getting our perspective of Medina City schools on the legislation, how it impacts us, and educating our legislators to help them make decisions that are best for our students and our communities' expectations.
I recently, this year, was asked to be a part of the executive committee for the Alliance.
(20:34):
The Alliance for High Quality Education is a group of school districts across the state, and we advocate for fair school funding.
We also advocate for legislation that supports public schools and specifically suburban public schools that are considered wealthy like we are by the state.
(20:55):
Because we all know as being labeled as a wealthy district how that can have a negative impact on our funding at the state level.
There is all kinds of legislation out there, and I'm not going to get into detail on any of it.
I think it would be a good idea in future podcasts to maybe focus on some of them and have people come in and talk about how it impacts them.
(21:17):
But right now, we're in a lame duck session in Columbus.
So they're in a frenzy in trying to pass legislation that is important to the current senators before they roll over with new faces next year and have to start the process over.
But there's a mix of legislation.
There's some legislation that is very positive and supportive of the community and schools.
(21:41):
An example of this is Senate Bill 208.
Senate Bill 208 is an open enrollment for military families.
I think that's an outstanding thing.
Not all school districts in Ohio offer open enrollment.
We at Medina don't.
Because we don't have board policy that allows open enrollment, that means if a military family gets relocated and they want their children to stay here, it's not necessarily an easy process to make that happen.
(22:10):
Well, once there's legislation in place stating that that is a requirement for schools to offer open enrollment for military families,
even if they don't offer open enrollment, they're not forcing districts to offer open enrollment, but to make an exception for our families that are serving our country and sacrificing and having to move around.
Another positive piece of legislation that I've actually talked to people about once we were going through the levy process is our senior citizens and the burden on them with property taxes.
(22:43):
Those are individuals that are staples in our community, leaders in our community, and extremely supportive of kids and our school district, but they're just so financially strapped.
And right now, they're reviewing House Bill 402 and 572, which are property tax caps and freezes and rebates, which could go into place to help senior citizens with their property taxes.
(23:11):
Senior citizens who have lived in their property for a prolonged period of time and still being able to be supporters of the schools like they want to be.
There's also controversial bills out there. The legislators just passed Senate Bill 104, which is referred to as the bathroom bill, and this has to do with transgender students utilizing bathrooms that aren't doing to equate to their birth genitalia.
(23:40):
And that's something that the mayor may not sign.
Last I saw it sitting on his desk. You know, that's a bill that I think warrants conversation in our community because it impacts our schools.
What are community thoughts on that bill?
And then there's the House Bill 445 and Senate Bill 293, which is known as the LifeWise Bill.
(24:08):
And it's called the LifeWise Bill. LifeWise is a Christian organization that wants to be able to provide religious education to students during the school day.
Currently, it's up to a school district, whether that's board policy, they'll pass to allow that.
The bill that the legislation is looking to put through takes the choice away from the local level and mandates it across the state.
(24:37):
It's called the LifeWise Bill because LifeWise is the one who's really pushing this down in Columbus.
Again, that's a good opportunity for community conversation, and we have had people show up to our board meetings to discuss both sides of this potential bill.
Our stance as a school district is it's really not about LifeWise.
(25:02):
It's about do we want to allow students to be released in the middle of the school day when they already have a short period of time within their academic classes.
And I'm including art, PE, music as academic classes when I say that.
But that's a bill that's actually likely to pass.
(25:23):
So if it passes, how are we going to handle that with board policy in our school district?
So there are just a few examples of a page-long worth of bills that are being discussed or maybe reintroduced in the new year.
And I'd like to tackle some of those issues individually and have people come in and talk about them as well so we can get varying viewpoints.
(25:47):
Right, and certainly as we roll up on the end of the calendar year, we'll absolutely have some more information to share on each of those items.
Because as you mentioned, we are in a lame duck session and they do try to move forward with a lot of those initiatives.
And my key with the legislation piece is just informing our community about the bills and how they impact us.
(26:11):
Some of the best feedback I got after our levy passed literally it started the day after.
It was from multiple parents and community members saying we really appreciated the information during the levy campaign that was provided by the schools on legislation and how it impacts them.
And we just didn't know, can you guys to make sure you continue to provide that kind of communication?
(26:36):
So that's a goal of mine.
This is a good avenue to do that and just provide straightforward information on how some of these bills would impact.
And putting it back in the laps for a community to make the decisions through how they select their legislators into what they think should impact the district.
(26:57):
And I think there's a feeling that there's a lot of momentum in our community to kind of hit the states from everyone's perspective and in trying to do what's best for our school district, which ultimately does what's best for our community.
So I think engaging our community in those conversations is going to be really important.
(27:22):
I think a big one, which we haven't even mentioned or gotten into, but that's school funding.
Right.
And the small amount of school funding that we actually receive from the state and the heavy emphasis that it puts on local tax dollars and why that's the case, the discussion around vouchers and voucher programs,
(27:43):
making sure that we're providing accurate information to our community regarding vouchers, which is public tax dollars that are going to private schools.
Because I regularly on a weekly basis see misinformation that's being put out to the community, and I'm saying the community as a whole across the state,
and it's coming from individuals that you should be able to trust in the information that they're sharing.
(28:13):
Right.
And, you know, certainly it's a goal of ours, no matter what mode of communication is to make sure that we do have the best information out in our community.
Right.
So before we wrap it up, I am curious to get your perspective on what you're most excited about as we start to kick off our podcast, The Hive.
(28:41):
You know, it's being able to share stories. That's what I'm most excited about.
You know, it's easy to talk about legislation. It's easy to talk about AP gifted the portrait of a B.
To have a story element to what we do with this podcast so that people can actually relate to it, see how it's impacting their own children or their own day to day lives is really, to me, the exciting part of this podcast.
(29:10):
And not just a boring page and a half letter from the superintendent coming through email.
Which, as we know, people don't always take time to read that. So there's a lot of information that may not make it to where we want it to go.
Absolutely.
Yeah. So and people really like to hear from our students because they're probably the ones that have the best perspective on what they are learning.
(29:41):
If you want to know what is or isn't going on in the district or you want to hear it like it is, go sit down with a high school student.
And they'll let you know what's happening in their classrooms, in their building and in this district and how it's impacting their lives.
Right.
So, from moving forward, we'll have more stories mixed in with updates and other conversations as we move forward with our podcasts and hopefully we'll have one in the next couple of weeks.
(30:13):
We've got a lot of things going on and we'll try to catch people before they get ready to go on winter break.
I'm sure we'll get a lot of good stuff because people are going to be excited about the holiday and having a little time away.
So until then, stay curious, stay connected. This is the Hive, Be In The Know, stories about Medina City Schools.
Music
(00:15):
Hello everyone and welcome to the very first episode of The Hive,
being the know stories about Mid-Dinocity Schools.
I'm Amy Busby, director of community relations from Mid-Dinocity Schools
and your host for this exciting new journey.
This podcast is a space where we'll dive into stories, successes,
and challenges that make Mid-Dinocity Schools a special place to learn and grow.
(00:39):
We'll bring you new episodes at least once a month packed with updates,
celebrations, and conversations that matter to our students, staff, and community.
These episodes currently will live on our Mid-Dinocity Schools YouTube channel.
Joining me for this inaugural episode is Superintendent Aaron Sable.
Welcome to The Hive, Aaron.
(01:01):
Thank you. It's nice to be here.
That's my sound effect button that I wanted.
We're going to get there. We're going to get there.
So we're thrilled to have you here.
And so maybe we can start by providing our listeners with some information
that they may or may not know about our school district, such as the fact that we've now redistricted
(01:27):
and it's going relatively smoothly as far as our students and our staff are concerned.
Maybe the number of schools that we have currently, students, staff,
and more importantly, the number of square miles that we work with every day.
Now, we have got a ton of information to share with the community and challenge that we constantly have
(01:51):
is sharing out good, accurate, and direct information.
So I'm excited to be able to be part of this podcast.
And I think you, Amy, for introducing to this as a new initiative for our district and our community.
You know, I said last night at the board meeting, you'd think right now would be the easiest time in history
to communicate with people because there's so many modes where you can instantly communicate.
(02:15):
But my experience over the course of my 20-some-year career has actually become more challenging
because there are so many avenues to communicate trying to find the right avenue that reaches the right people.
And then with social media and the misinformation that can get out there,
really providing the best accurate information, this can be a go-to place because it's coming straight from the source.
(02:38):
Right. And, you know, it's just another mode of communication
that, you know, we just talked about that people like to receive their information in a variety of ways
because we do have a diverse community where we have our parents and our students and our staff.
But we also have a relatively large senior community that we're always looking for ways that we can reach and connect with them.
(03:06):
And I know a lot of people, including people close to me, would rather listen than to read.
So it's an easy way to do it. And then being personal, you know, I've heard this about myself and my role,
and I understand it. It's part of the job. But I'm in so many formal situations when I'm talking to people
or communicating and for us to be able to have guests on and have informal conversation
(03:30):
and really get to more intimately know the people that work in the district,
whether it's a custodian, teacher, administrator, or superintendent.
We all put our pants on one leg at a time, just like everybody else.
Right. And one really important thing to remember, too, is that we're all educators, no matter at what level.
So we're all really kind of responsible, so to speak, to tell the story of Medina City Schools.
(03:55):
Well, and that's a motto that we've carried since the time I've been with the district,
is making sure that all of our staff members identify as educators because we're all here for kids.
Everybody plays a role in educating and helping our kids grow up. And I agree everybody has that education
message to share from the school district.
Yeah. And one of the really important pillars of our district is the portrait of a bee,
(04:19):
and that's kind of our North Star that drives what we do every day.
Maybe you could talk a little bit about what that is and how it's utilized in our classroom,
in particular the competencies that go along with our portrait.
Yeah, the portrait of a bee, I think you said it was our North Star or guiding light,
(04:40):
has really been an important piece of what we do as a school district.
Not just what we do as a school district, but making sure that we're implementing programming
that meets the expectation of our communities.
Because it really was a community-driven project.
It wasn't developed top down by administration.
There were students involved, businesses involved, parents involved, staff involved in creating
(05:06):
what are the competencies that we need all of our students have when they graduate from Medina High School.
And it really goes even beyond that.
It's not just about graduation, it's about starting in preschool.
And how do we begin implementing those characteristics and growing those characteristics in students as they're growing.
(05:27):
In my time in education, that's been a big shift.
When you first got on, it was about content, teaching students math, reading, writing, literacy, science as a science teacher.
So of course that's the most important.
But there's really much more that has to happen in educating a student.
I talk all the time about how we're one with the community and the communities one with us as a school district.
(05:53):
We're both dependent on each other's success.
Well, to be successful, especially in the modern era, it's much more than being able to do your multiplication tables.
It's about being a good person, being able to communicate, being able to strategize, being able to fail
(06:14):
and learn from failure and turn failure into success.
And that's what our portrait of the bee is all about.
What is a huge challenge is how do you implement that into a classroom?
It's much easier to outline curriculum and steps for addition and subtraction than it is to work with students, parents in our community
(06:36):
and how to raise good people.
And I think too, part of our goal with a portrait of a bee is to get our students and staff engaged in hands-on deeper learning.
So it's just a completely different way to educate our students.
Well, it is, and it needs to be.
(06:59):
I look back to when I was a teacher in the science classroom.
And I did labs, but they were very prescribed labs.
I gave notes regularly on an overhead projector.
And you were teaching at the students rather than learning with the students.
And the change in strategy that's utilized right now in education, which is a huge shift, is putting students in charge of their own learning.
(07:28):
And what I mean by that is modeling the classroom more like what students will experience in the real world.
So in the real world, you're not given a prescribed method for dealing with life's challenges or work's challenges.
Those are things that you need to develop the characteristics and skills, whether it's being able to rebound yourself or reach out to others for help in order to find the solution.
(07:54):
And it's really all about collaborating. And these are a lot of the things that our business community is looking for as our students graduate from a Dinosaur City School.
So they're really life skills as well as learning skills.
Absolutely. And the collaboration is huge.
(08:15):
I mean, so often you see a student in the classroom working on an assignment or a project that they're solely responsible for.
And I've said this to other people, where in your job have you ever sat down with a major project and it's been solely your responsibility?
Yeah.
And if you're in a situation where that's the case, you're probably not around colleagues that are going to help the business company or school be successful.
(08:40):
I mean, there's no major decision that happens in this district that's made by one person.
It's a collaborative effort, whether it's administrative team, staff or our Board of Education collaborating all together.
So early we talked about the fact that we've had some changes in our school districts starting in this school year.
(09:02):
And one of them was that we have closed and or repurposed some of our school buildings. And a lot of this is due to the fact that we've got declining enrollment in our district.
So instead of seven elementary schools, we're now down to five.
(09:24):
And maybe you can talk a little bit about what the benefits have been in making that decision.
Sure.
I want to go back and give a little history first, too, though, because it's really been a complicated process.
And we were in a real challenging position because we had to go on the ballot for new monies.
We hadn't been on the ballot in 11 years.
(09:46):
At the same time, we were seeing a drastic decrease in enrollment in the district.
This is my ninth year here.
When I first came to the district, we had about 62 to 6400 students enrolled in the district.
We're now right around 54 to 5500 students.
So when you have less students, you need less space to house them.
There's the misconception, which is understandable, that it had to do with the levy.
(10:12):
And it really didn't.
We could have been flush with cash and we still would have, the responsible move would have been to redistrict.
So the redistricting really is the result of a decreased enrollment that started down at the elementary levels.
The other thing that was really important to us as we're becoming a more diverse community was having all of our buildings reflect our actual community.
(10:37):
And that's a challenge with having community schools, which we know is so important to our parents and our community.
So our challenge was maintaining the community school model while making education in Medina City Schools more equitable and being more fiscally responsible with the decrease enrollment that we were seeing.
(10:58):
We also had needs with our preschool program.
The state of Ohio increased requirements for preschool education.
It's a special education program that requires like peers, non-special ed students to be a part of.
And the requirement for like students to be a part of that program was more than doubled, which has a big impact on the size of the program.
(11:24):
So with the redistricting, we also had to figure out what we were going to do with our preschool program that was housed over at Northrop.
And because of the lower enrollment and you said repurposing because the buildings, neither of the buildings are closed.
It allowed us to transition heritage over into our preschool or helping hands preschool.
And I think a lot of people don't realize that Garfield is really being pretty heavily utilized by the district right now.
(11:51):
We moved our technology department over there that oversees all technology in the district, which you can imagine what a big job that is.
In addition to that, we also moved our professional development center, which was housed at the high school over to Garfield as well.
So it's really an act of building.
And in addition to that, our board meetings are held there now, which I think we really saw the benefit of that last night with all the Veterans Day presentations.
(12:20):
We had more than enough room to accommodate all of our visitors and have a welcoming environment for them.
So they didn't have to stand out in the hallway to come in.
It's a little bit more inviting for sure, for sure, for sure.
Kind of going back to, you know, the number of students, our staff to because of some of the reductions that we've had to make has decreased our staff as well.
(12:50):
So we're not don't house or number of staff members don't serve.
That is not coming out right at all.
We want to maintain good student to teacher ratios.
Right.
If we decrease the or if the amount of students are decreasing, the amount of staff is going to need to decrease as well.
(13:14):
And again, part of being fiscally responsible, it's something that we're always trying to focus on and be aware of.
We love our teachers and our staff, but being responsible with what we're doing with our taxpayers money is important as well.
Even before we went on the ballot and needed to go on the ballot, we were already in a reduction mindset.
(13:39):
And that doesn't mean we were looking at cutting teachers or cutting positions.
But as teachers retiring or leaving, we were having a lot of conversation, whether we needed to replace that position or whether we could shift people around.
So that process was all already occurring even before we went on the ballot the first time.
What happened though, when we went on the ballot, it really lit a fire to make that process move forward faster than we had initially planned on.
(14:09):
Because we were forced to make immediate reductions, four million dollars going into the school year.
We were able to make those reductions with minimal impact on students in the classroom because of attrition and because of the decreased enrollment.
And that's why even with the four million dollars in cuts going in this year, most of our parents and students really haven't seen a difference in the classroom level.
(14:38):
Our staff has definitely seen a difference because they see less colleagues when they come to work every day or they're in a different building because of the redistricting.
So that's obviously been a challenge for them.
But in terms of the size of the classes that they're teaching, they're very similar to what we've actually had in the past.
The difference you will see is you walk into a building like Fenn that maybe had four or five empty classrooms.
(15:04):
And I say empty, but I know people would argue, well, those classrooms weren't empty because they weren't just sitting empty.
They were being utilized for storage or for conference rooms or for office space.
They've been reclaimed as classrooms.
So our buildings are at the capacity that they were built to be at.
Right. And it's a little bit more efficient way to run our school buildings by making sure that they have the number of students that they were built for.
(15:33):
Oh, absolutely. You know, keeping buildings operating as full running schools with students is much more expensive than utilizing it as an office complex with the technology department or professional development center that's utilized to train adults and staff in the district.
(15:55):
So it's definitely a cost savings measure.
Right.
So a few things that we can celebrate is we recently did a little did you know series a few weeks ago that kind of shows our community what is happening around the dynasty schools and a couple of those things were that, you know, the number of AP courses that are offered at our high school.
(16:22):
That we are, we've been able to achieve a four and a half stars out of five on our state report card.
Just recently. So those are really great things to celebrate when it comes to showing our community just exactly what happens on a day to day basis in our school community.
(16:44):
And I think we don't do a good enough job communicating those great things that are happening in our district sometimes we have this. Yes, there's such a focus on the challenges, especially recently coming off of COVID and going into levy campaigns that to really recognize and
(17:07):
communicate the great things that are happening in our district. And no one person can take credit for those great things.
All those things you just mentioned are the result of strategic planning that involves staff and students in the community, and implementing expectations of our community into our schools.
(17:28):
So it's not by accident that we have such a large number of AP classes now at the high school. It's something that our parents or community demanded our staff said was important.
So it was a goal that we work towards. Right. And it's very similar to, you know, a lot of the services that we offer for gifted students and the like.
(17:50):
So lots of great things. And we're going to keep talking about those and and share this, the specific stories with our students and parents. That's really what I'm excited about with this podcast is, you know, we're naming all these different programs and great things that are happening in the district.
(18:11):
And it's often been from just our voice. So as the podcast progresses to have people that are knee deep in the dirt, working with AP classes and AP students, working with the gifted programming, pulling students out of classes running gifted
(18:33):
classes. Those are the voices that I think are going to be really important and valuable for our community to hear.
And it'll give everyone a really good understanding of not only what happens in the classroom, but how the students are benefiting from what happens in the classroom.
Oh, I agree. And having students here to talk about that.
Correct. The actual students. So I know that not only Medina City schools, but all districts in the state of Ohio are really running up against some challenges that could really affect what we're doing.
(19:08):
As a school district and again, not just our school district, but also surrounding school districts.
Can you talk a little bit about maybe some of the legislation that's out there that could come to fruition that would do that.
Sure. And, you know, before I even get into that, I don't think our community knows what an active role we play at the state level in advocating.
(19:37):
Not only for public schools in general, but specifically for Medina City schools on behalf of our students in our community.
And that's probably our fault. It's not something that we shout to the hills about.
It's part of what we do because it's best for our school district, Medina.
But we have various administrators that are involved in committees at the state level, whether it's advocating for special education, gifted programming, working with our legislators down at the state office in Columbus,
(20:13):
getting our perspective of Medina City schools on the legislation, how it impacts us, and educating our legislators to help them make decisions that are best for our students and our communities' expectations.
I recently, this year, was asked to be a part of the executive committee for the Alliance.
(20:34):
The Alliance for High Quality Education is a group of school districts across the state, and we advocate for fair school funding.
We also advocate for legislation that supports public schools and specifically suburban public schools that are considered wealthy like we are by the state.
(20:55):
Because we all know as being labeled as a wealthy district how that can have a negative impact on our funding at the state level.
There is all kinds of legislation out there, and I'm not going to get into detail on any of it.
I think it would be a good idea in future podcasts to maybe focus on some of them and have people come in and talk about how it impacts them.
(21:17):
But right now, we're in a lame duck session in Columbus.
So they're in a frenzy in trying to pass legislation that is important to the current senators before they roll over with new faces next year and have to start the process over.
But there's a mix of legislation.
There's some legislation that is very positive and supportive of the community and schools.
(21:41):
An example of this is Senate Bill 208.
Senate Bill 208 is an open enrollment for military families.
I think that's an outstanding thing.
Not all school districts in Ohio offer open enrollment.
We at Medina don't.
Because we don't have board policy that allows open enrollment, that means if a military family gets relocated and they want their children to stay here, it's not necessarily an easy process to make that happen.
(22:10):
Well, once there's legislation in place stating that that is a requirement for schools to offer open enrollment for military families,
even if they don't offer open enrollment, they're not forcing districts to offer open enrollment, but to make an exception for our families that are serving our country and sacrificing and having to move around.
Another positive piece of legislation that I've actually talked to people about once we were going through the levy process is our senior citizens and the burden on them with property taxes.
(22:43):
Those are individuals that are staples in our community, leaders in our community, and extremely supportive of kids and our school district, but they're just so financially strapped.
And right now, they're reviewing House Bill 402 and 572, which are property tax caps and freezes and rebates, which could go into place to help senior citizens with their property taxes.
(23:11):
Senior citizens who have lived in their property for a prolonged period of time and still being able to be supporters of the schools like they want to be.
There's also controversial bills out there. The legislators just passed Senate Bill 104, which is referred to as the bathroom bill, and this has to do with transgender students utilizing bathrooms that aren't doing to equate to their birth genitalia.
(23:40):
And that's something that the mayor may not sign.
Last I saw it sitting on his desk. You know, that's a bill that I think warrants conversation in our community because it impacts our schools.
What are community thoughts on that bill?
And then there's the House Bill 445 and Senate Bill 293, which is known as the LifeWise Bill.
(24:08):
And it's called the LifeWise Bill. LifeWise is a Christian organization that wants to be able to provide religious education to students during the school day.
Currently, it's up to a school district, whether that's board policy, they'll pass to allow that.
The bill that the legislation is looking to put through takes the choice away from the local level and mandates it across the state.
(24:37):
It's called the LifeWise Bill because LifeWise is the one who's really pushing this down in Columbus.
Again, that's a good opportunity for community conversation, and we have had people show up to our board meetings to discuss both sides of this potential bill.
Our stance as a school district is it's really not about LifeWise.
(25:02):
It's about do we want to allow students to be released in the middle of the school day when they already have a short period of time within their academic classes.
And I'm including art, PE, music as academic classes when I say that.
But that's a bill that's actually likely to pass.
(25:23):
So if it passes, how are we going to handle that with board policy in our school district?
So there are just a few examples of a page-long worth of bills that are being discussed or maybe reintroduced in the new year.
And I'd like to tackle some of those issues individually and have people come in and talk about them as well so we can get varying viewpoints.
(25:47):
Right, and certainly as we roll up on the end of the calendar year, we'll absolutely have some more information to share on each of those items.
Because as you mentioned, we are in a lame duck session and they do try to move forward with a lot of those initiatives.
And my key with the legislation piece is just informing our community about the bills and how they impact us.
(26:11):
Some of the best feedback I got after our levy passed literally it started the day after.
It was from multiple parents and community members saying we really appreciated the information during the levy campaign that was provided by the schools on legislation and how it impacts them.
And we just didn't know, can you guys to make sure you continue to provide that kind of communication?
(26:36):
So that's a goal of mine.
This is a good avenue to do that and just provide straightforward information on how some of these bills would impact.
And putting it back in the laps for a community to make the decisions through how they select their legislators into what they think should impact the district.
(26:57):
And I think there's a feeling that there's a lot of momentum in our community to kind of hit the states from everyone's perspective and in trying to do what's best for our school district, which ultimately does what's best for our community.
So I think engaging our community in those conversations is going to be really important.
(27:22):
I think a big one, which we haven't even mentioned or gotten into, but that's school funding.
Right.
And the small amount of school funding that we actually receive from the state and the heavy emphasis that it puts on local tax dollars and why that's the case, the discussion around vouchers and voucher programs,
(27:43):
making sure that we're providing accurate information to our community regarding vouchers, which is public tax dollars that are going to private schools.
Because I regularly on a weekly basis see misinformation that's being put out to the community, and I'm saying the community as a whole across the state,
and it's coming from individuals that you should be able to trust in the information that they're sharing.
(28:13):
Right.
And, you know, certainly it's a goal of ours, no matter what mode of communication is to make sure that we do have the best information out in our community.
Right.
So before we wrap it up, I am curious to get your perspective on what you're most excited about as we start to kick off our podcast, The Hive.
(28:41):
You know, it's being able to share stories. That's what I'm most excited about.
You know, it's easy to talk about legislation. It's easy to talk about AP gifted the portrait of a B.
To have a story element to what we do with this podcast so that people can actually relate to it, see how it's impacting their own children or their own day to day lives is really, to me, the exciting part of this podcast.
(29:10):
And not just a boring page and a half letter from the superintendent coming through email.
Which, as we know, people don't always take time to read that. So there's a lot of information that may not make it to where we want it to go.
Absolutely.
Yeah. So and people really like to hear from our students because they're probably the ones that have the best perspective on what they are learning.
(29:41):
If you want to know what is or isn't going on in the district or you want to hear it like it is, go sit down with a high school student.
And they'll let you know what's happening in their classrooms, in their building and in this district and how it's impacting their lives.
Right.
So, from moving forward, we'll have more stories mixed in with updates and other conversations as we move forward with our podcasts and hopefully we'll have one in the next couple of weeks.
(30:13):
We've got a lot of things going on and we'll try to catch people before they get ready to go on winter break.
I'm sure we'll get a lot of good stuff because people are going to be excited about the holiday and having a little time away.
So until then, stay curious, stay connected. This is the Hive, Be In The Know, stories about Medina City Schools.
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