Monday, October 12^th 2015

Attendees: Mr. Mark Bailey (Principal), Adam Bird (Superintendent), Mary Ann Wilson (President), Stephanie Torrens (Secretary), Nancy Baron, Billie Bayless, Crystal Pratt, Angie Harrison, Kevin Gagtrich, Maleigha Henderson, Micki Henderson, Kelly Bateman, Tim Dufau (Board member), Kristin Bennett (Board member), Mike Henderson, Heather Ipsaro, Jana Holdsworth

Welcome:

Mary Ann Wilson opened the meeting by welcoming everyone.

Guest Speaker: Adam Bird, Superintendent

Mr. Bird has been going around to the NR school district PTO’s to speak on the attack on public schools. The schools in our area have formed an advocacy/network. The schools are struggling with government regulations/mandates, funding and standardized testing. The district(s) would like to take the power out of the government’s hands and place it into the community, the school and the school boards hands. He delivered a Power Point presentation to the PTO as well as sending out the included letter via Enos Pennington’s e-mail list. The letter will go out again to the district via snail mail with a list of the Ohio Senators and instructions with our next steps in the near future.

Oct. 8, 2015

Letter to the New Richmond Schools Community:

The New Richmond Exempted Village School District has joined 42 other public schools in Clermont, Hamilton, Clinton, and Warren Counties to form the Greater Cincinnati Schools Advocacy Network (GCSAN). This group of schools is comprised of hard-working students, parents, and teachers from great communities that are striving to do great things for our students.

However, we have found our job more difficult to do in recent years due to requirements and regulations placed on us from state and federal government. Based on a random survey conducted for the GCSAN by the respected Fallon Research and Associates, many people in our community agree.

Some of the findings by the survey:

1. 60.4% believe that increased mandates placed on public schools have not been helpful to increase student achievement.
2. 67.8% believe that increased mandates placed on public schools have excessively burdened the local taxpayer.
3. 78.1% believe that the most innovative ideas that create student success come from teachers, administrators, and locally elected school boards.
4. 80.8% believe that the State Legislature should reduce mandates and give more control to local school boards.
5. 93.8% believe that privately-operated charter schools that receive public dollars should be held to the same transparency and accountability as public schools.

The challenges faced by our young people today are in some ways greater than ever before. I don't have to tell you about the effects of poverty, domestic abuse, and drug/alcohol abuse that negatively impact the ability of children to learn. Let’s not put additional roadblocks like excessive testing and additional graduation requirements in their paths.

I believe that there are some reasonable, common-sense steps that can be taken to improve education in our state and community.

1. Increase the local control of education by empowering local boards of education to make decisions that are in the best interest of the students in our community.
2. Decrease the amount of funded and unfunded mandates that take away a school's ability to focus spending on students in the classroom.
3. Decrease the amount of required testing. Let local schools decide how to best prepare students for life, career, leadership, and productivity. These decisions would be made by the local board of education reflecting the values and standards of the local community.
4. I would ask our legislators to pass legislation that requires ALL State Board of Education members to be elected. Currently, the majority of this State Board has been appointed by the Governor. This creates a situation that gives one branch of government too much power.
5. New Richmond EVSD is funded $1,750 per pupil by the state of Ohio. However, for every student who attends a public charter school, an average of $7,521 is deducted from our state funding, for a total of $308,000 taken away from NREVSD. That difference comes from local taxpayers. In light of the closing of the Beckjord Power Station, our district cannot afford to supplement this amount anymore. I would ask our legislators to limit the charter school per pupil deduction to the actual amount that our district would have received from the state.
6. I would ask our legislators to hold charter schools to the same level of financial and academic oversight by which public schools are evaluated. I welcome financial and academic transparency for New Richmond EVSD, but I believe that charter schools, accepting millions of public dollars, should be held to same level of public accountability.
7. I would ask our legislators to introduce and support legislation to restore the Public Utility Tangible Personal Property reimbursement for 2017 and that it be enacted prior to Dec. 31, 2015. Our local tax on the generation of electricity has already been confiscated once. Let’s stop the elimination of additional funds for New Richmond Schools.

No one loves our students, schools, and community like the residents of the New Richmond School community. Let’s return the ability to make decisions that are best for our students back to our community.

Respectfully,

Adam C. Bird

Superintendent

Treasurer Report:

Balance is $8,197.58

Principal’s Report:

Mr. Bailey thanked everyone for the Success of Homecoming week. We will have Clash of the Classes next year. There was a rumor going around that Clash was cancelled. Clash is not cancelled for next year.

ALICE training was very successful and was held last Friday. There will be a safety drill each quarter with different scenarios. This training was viewed as being very beneficial and is part of the Ohio Revised Code.

The website needs to be updated. The information that is on the website if from last year. Mr. Bailey is to look into updating the website with Mr. Foote and Enos.

The PARK test is being replaced by the AIR test as the new State Mandated Testing

Mr. Bailey has an open door policy. Please contact him at 513-553-3191 ext. 10001 with any questions or concerns.

Lions Outreach-Sue Griffin

She is collecting clothes and shoes any size now through October 31^st

Please let her know if you would like to sponsor a child/family for Christmas

We still have the Amazon SMILE account, where Amazon donates a portion of your purchase to The Lion’s Outreach.

smile.amazon.com type in Lions Outreach in the search box on the left. Amazon will deposit funds directly into the account.

Ms. Griffin would like to move the talent show to March. Attendance in April was low due to spring sports. Money made from the talent show goes toward After Prom. She is happy to head up this project again this year.

Volunteers

Split the Pot volunteers are needed for the remainder of the Football games. Volunteers only stay until Half time and only do the home games. Spilt the Pot for Homecoming only took in $37.00/ Split the Pot has been down due to the rain. A huge Thank you to the Batemans for doing Split the Pot!!

Kelly suggested we sell Split the Pot tickets per your arm length to get more of a buy in for purchasing the tickets.

We are looking into having Split the Pot at the Basketball games and at Wrestling

Soccer Fundraiser: Volunteers are needed this Saturday and Sunday for the NR soccer fields. Joyce Montgomery and Amy Story are the contacts for this fundraiser. At least 2 volunteer parents for each day, one for concessions and one to oversee parking. Soccer parking took in $256.00 this past weekend.

Magnets

Jana Holdsworth is looking into purchasing Magnets to sell. Magnets that all the schools could use.

We would like to sell them during swim lessons, Basketball, the Christmas walk, the craft show, have them to purchase in the office, etc.

It was suggested we have an art contest for the Magnet design

It was also suggested we have an art contest for a T-shirt design as well.

Both ideas were very well received!

“SOUP”er Fundraiser

We need to find 2 dates during Basketball- youth night and the Amelia Home game and possibly a date during wrestling either to be held on a Friday PM or a Saturday AM Jana to look into the dates.

Parent/Teacher Conferences

A Huge Thank you to Jana for arranging the Parent-teacher conference dinners. Both nights were very successful!

Homecoming

Thank you to all who helped with Homecoming and Homecoming week. The coat check was successful!

Kroger rewards

Please sign up for the Kroger rewards program… You must re-enroll every April for the program

Fall Craft Fair: Saturday November 21^st (10 AM-3PM with an 8AM set up time)

The PTO will be selling insulated Tote bags

Ornaments, iron –on applications for Shirts, Scarfs, Blankets

Mary Ann/ Jana to ask Mr. Shinkle if he will make a few cutting boards and also ask Jana Bishop’s husband if he would make a corn hole set

Stephanie to ask Beth Sammons if she would donate a few scarfs and blankets for the fair.

This is also a great way the students can get their service hours in.

Joyce is in charge of arranging all the vendors. The booth fee is $25-30 for a table and the vendors are also asked to donate an item for the raffle.

Prom: Saturday May 14th

This year Prom will be held on the BB River Boat and After Prom will be held at Beechmont Racquet Club. There was much discussion on not having after prom at Beechmont Racquet club in the future due to the amount of work needed to have it there. After Prom last year at Game Works went incredibly well, the games were a success and they catered pizza for us.

We had looked into Scene 75 which was very expensive (approx.. $5,000/hr.) and Dave and Busters too far to travel. Having it at school would also be a lot of work and many teachers would not like having students in their classrooms.

Mr. Bailey stated ultimately it was up to the PTO where after Prom would be held.

Kelly Bateman, Stephanie Torrens and a few students will go and test out the inflatables that will be used for After Prom.

Hazel Davis: NRHS PTO 2015 Fall Swim Lessons-

Has been very successful $2825.00/ we also pay the swim instructors

Microwave:

It was decided that if the cafeteria needs a microwave the funds should come out of the athletic budget.

The next meeting will be held on Monday November the 9^th at 7PM.

The meeting was adjourned by Kelly Bateman at 8:18 PM