By Ashley McCarty
People’s Defender
At their January 24 meeting, the Adams County Ohio Valley School District gave accolades to one of their resource officers for his life-saving efforts, discussed a troublesome house bill and recouping monies.
A motion by board member Rick Davis to approve the agenda as presented was seconded by board member Robin Lucas, the board agreed.
A motion by board member Gay Lynn Shipley the approve the minutes of the December 13, 2021, regular meeting, December 20, 2021 work session/special meeting and the minutes of January 4, 2022, organizational meeting was seconded by board member Tiffany DeMint, the board agreed.
“This is in recognition of our School Safety Officer (SRO) Mark Brewer who is assigned to the Peebles attendance area. I have an award for him this evening made by our CTC students and staff from the welding and carpentry program. On the morning of Nov. 30, 2021, at approximately 8:30 a.m., Brewer was stationed at the elementary dropoff location. Brewer assisted a parent in opening the doors of their vehicle, one small child exited and went around Brewer in the parking lot. A second female student came out and stood on the curb behind him. When Brewer closed the door, he noticed the first small child was going underneath the vehicle. He was ¾ of the way under the vehicle, and as the vehicle started to drive off, Brewer acted very quickly. Thanks to Brewer’s quick reaction, and due diligence, without personal regard to his own safety, he reached down, grabbed the child and drug him out just in the knick of time before the right rear tire struck the child. Mark, on behalf of the Ohio Valley School District, and from all the school resource recourse officer, for your heroic actions I would like to present to you a Life-Saving Award,” said SRO Mike Parker. The student had zero injuries.
“Somebody put me there at that time for some reason,” said Brewer.
A motion by Davis to approve the Treasurer’s Report and Business was seconded by DeMint, the board agreed.
“We had the board finance committee meeting last week and we reviewed the financial statements. We’re at the 50 percent point of the year, and we are still on track to where we expected it to be. The Department of Education finally rolled out its first attempt at the software to implement the fair funding model. There will be three or four revisions to the software because of the bugs they have found. This was to be expected. Once again, we have several generous members of the community that have made significant donations to the buildings for different projects they have going on. We also have our normal mid-year transfers to the General Fund for operations of the CTC and to pay the HB 264 debt project from where we did refittings of energy-saving devices several years ago,” said Treasurer Brian Switzer.
“You’ve heard me mention the Voucher/Backpack Bill. Currently, there is a lawsuit that has been filed by several school districts across the state. Stay tuned on that,” said Superintendent Rich Seas.
A bill of concern is HB 126. Switzer explained the concerns of the bill.
“For several years, the Ohio law had created what they called the Board of Revisions. Whenever a property owner wanted to challenge the value of the taxes on their property, they would file a case with the Board of Revisions. The law then allowed the local school district – which was mainly affected – to either accept the challenge or refute it. HB 126 is severely restricting the school districts’ ability to refute it. You, as a board, will not be able to protect the tax base the citizens have approved for you,” said Switzer. The bill also eliminates payments in lieu of.
Typically, the district has three to five challenges per tax year.
A motion by board President Charlie Bess to approve the 2022/23 school calendar was seconded by Lucas, the board agreed.
“Excess cost is where we’re allowed to recoup funds from other districts in Ohio if a student is eligible for special education services and is either open-enrolled or foster-placed. I try to recoup every penny. Based on the calculations we submitted, it’s over $226,541.34 that we will recoup,” said Director of Exceptional Education Tracy Spires.
A motion by Bess to enter into executive session was seconded by Davis, the board agreed.
After the executive session, the board completed other agenda items.
A motion by DeMint to adjourn was seconded by Lucas, the board agreed.
Meeting minutes will be approved at the next meeting, subject to revisions. The next meeting will be on Feb. 28, 2022, at 6 p.m.
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