Individual, district accomplishments celebrated at Hillsboro City Schools board meeting

Student and district honors were the theme of the night Monday, Nov. 20 at the Hillsboro City Schools Board of Education meeting, as two individual students, plus the district year in review, were celebrated.

Receiving special recognition Monday night were HHS sophomore Jailyn Williams and junior Corbin Winkle.

In June, Williams made her debut as a freshman at the OHSAA State Track and Field Championships, where she competed in the Division II 800-meter run and finished 15th in the state.

Her first year as a varsity track and field athlete also included winning a 2023 Frontier Athletic Conference championship, as well as finishing third at districts and fourth at regionals, in the 800m event.

Due to the state meet race taking place after summer break had already started, superintendent Tim Davis said they waited to invite her to a board meeting until this school year.

“She had an outstanding year in both cross-country and track,” Davis said. “She was our sole representative at the state last year.

“She was a state qualifier in the 800 meters, which is outstanding. It's an extremely hard race, not only compete at the state level, but the 800, I guess I'm partial to that event, because it is very difficult.”

Williams stood with Davis to be recognized, as the board gave her a round of applause. She also received a copy of the district’s 2022-23 accomplishments, which were discussed later in the meeting.

Winkle was unable to attend in person, but Davis said he wanted to recognize him for recent athletic achievements as well as a high honor in the FFA, both at coming at the state level.

On Nov. 4, Winkle competed in the 2023 OHSAA Division II State Cross-Country Championships, finishing 67th overall out of 182 runners.

Along with racing at state, Winkle won the Frontier Athletic Conference cross-country championship, as the win made him a back-to-back FAC champion. He was sixth at districts and 22nd at regionals.

Davis said that he was also just told Monday that Winkle won the State FFA Job Interview Contest for Division III. He will compete against the other state winners in Ohio, from four other divisions, on Dec. 1, and the overall winner will compete at nationals.

Davis praised Williams and Winkle for their character in addition to their other achievements.

“They're great people,” he said. “They're great students. They're great role models for our kids. The work ethic that they put into their trade is unbelievable, with how hard they work.

“We want to recognize Corbin and Jailyn for all your great accomplishments. Keep up the good work, and keep making us proud.”

As mentioned, the district as a whole was also recognized. In July 2022, Davis distributed copies of a new brochure and placement being produced by the district — “Hillsboro City Schools 2021-22, Every Student Everyday” — which reviewed accomplishments of the district and their students and staff throughout the 2021-22 school year.

This year, Davis said, the list was so extensive that instead of a brochure or placemat, they published the list on a poster instead as a “2022-23 year in review.”

The poster lists academic and extracurricular honors from the 2022-23 school year. On the academic side, students receiving perfect scores on the 2023 Ohio state tests are honored, as well as 2023 graduate Evan Fender, who was the Franklin B. Walter Award winner for Highland County; the 11 HHS valedictorians for 2022-23, all of whom had a 4.3 GPA or higher; and a summary of the district’s State Report Card data.

Extracurriculars include:

• Art (Ohio Governor’s Youth Art Exhibit regional selections and FAC Art Show winners);

• Choir (OMEA Solo and Ensemble Adjudication Superior and Excellent ratings);

• DECA (state and/or national qualifiers);

• FFA (state honors such as choir participants, science fair state finalist, gold-rated officer books and State FFA degree recipients;

• Indian Pride Club (27 graduates);

• Robotics (state qualifiers and award winners);

• Sports (conference, district, regional and/or state honors for individuals and/or teams in high school and middle school, as well as the six Don McKenzie Award winners); and

• Theatre (the fall play and spring musical).

Other recognitions included four students who enrolled in the military; the 110,082 meals delivered by the district’s summer food program; and board member Beverly Rhoads, who was inducted into the Highland County Historical Society Hall of Fame.

“We’ll be giving those out to the community,” Davis said. “We've got them in the school right now, just promoting what we're doing, and it's great to see. We've got a lot of amazing students that are doing a lot of amazing things, and we just want to get that out there for our community.”

• • •

Also on Monday, the board approved the updated five-year forecast, as presented by district treasurer Ben Teeters.

The board typically reviews the forecasts twice annually, although this year they have gone over them several times, as they had passed a revised forecast in February at the state’s request.

Teeters is still projecting a deficit in the fourth and fifth years of the forecast, but that total has gone down significantly since the last two projections. Currently, Teeters is showing a deficit of $272,915 for 2027 and a deficit of $3,578,656 for 2028.

“Starting in ’27 we kind of go into the red, because we don't know what the revenue’s going to be, and I've increased the expenses, where I didn't really increase the revenue,” Teeters said.

He showed the board the state’s form, which asks “if the deficit is eliminated” for each year.

“As long as the first three years are a yes, they’re OK with the last two years being a possibility of no, because of the revenue being unknown at the time,” Teeters said.

In May, the treasurer had estimated a deficit of $2,079,620 for 2026 (which is now in the black) and a deficit of $5,808,592 for 2027. However, since that meeting, the state biennium budget has been approved, so Teeters said he was able to adjust that funding accordingly. Total revenues are estimated at $29,878,280 for 2024 and increased up to $30,430,000 by 2028.

“You just have to anticipate that real estate will increase a little bit because of new construction that goes on in our school district,” Teeters said. “Usually you flatline the income tax because you don't know what the job market is going to be, so you just have to go with past history.

“On the foundation is the next two. You know what ’24 and ’25 are going to be, or pretty close, because that’s what was in the new state budget that just came out in July. When it starts at ’26, they'll come out with another state budget, and you don't know whether they're going to increase any funding for school districts. Usually they do, but you can’t anticipate it, so I flatlined that going forward to ’28.”

Teeters added that he “increased the revenue for ’25, but almost flatlined it going out,” for other sources of revenue.

For expenses, Teeters said it’s “mostly on the salary and benefit side,” as those categories combined are anticipated to top $28.3 million by 2028, including accounting for step increases each year. However, debt retirement will decrease from over $800,000 each year to $60,000 by 2028, due to the high school auditorium project being paid off by then, Teeters said.

Board president Bill Myers asked if the district was at the recommended “80-percent mark when it comes to salaries and benefits.”

“We’re right in that area where salaries and benefits are about 80 percent of the total budget,” Teeters said. “We'd like to see it less, but that's our main source, that we pay employees.”

Board member Larry Lyons asked if there were any “assumptions that changed” in this updated forecast, and Teeters said they “pretty much stayed the same.”

In other discussion:

• Student board representative Maddisen Mikkelsen discussed recent and upcoming events in her report, including the “Turkey Games,” which were scheduled to be played Nov. 21 at the high school to kick off Thanksgiving break.

“It’s something that they started doing last year as a fundraiser for prom,” Mikkelsen said. “Each student will pay $1 for a ticket to enter the games the second half of the day, and they can pay about $12 to make a team to compete in team-based challenges.”

The Ohio Music Education Association (OMEA) District 16 Honor Choir Festival was held Nov. 18 in Hillsboro, which Mikkelsen said was “a very big success.

“People really enjoyed it,” she said. “The kids had a lot of fun and learned a lot from the clinicians that we had come in, and the concert was really fun to watch.”

Davis agreed in his report, saying the “auditorium was completely packed” with representatives from several area schools.

“I attended the elementary, which is fourth, fifth and sixth,” he said. “I would say there was roughly 700 people in there. I mean, it was completely packed, on the risers. They did a great job, and then they also had a middle school and a high school choir.”

Davis thanked HES music teachers Deborah Howard and Ryan Reilly, HHS music teacher Laura Jacky and other area teachers — including Mikkelsen’s mom, Greenfield Exempted Village Schools music teacher Victoria Mikkelsen — for their hard work.

“It was just a great event, and it was also a great way to showcase our school,” Davis said. “We bring a bunch of kids together from a bunch of different schools and have them on stage, and the performance is amazing, with the amount of kids that are extremely talented. It was great to see.”

Also a success was the recent HHS Theatre Department’s production of “Little Women,” according to Mikkelsen’s report.

“The high school's performance of ‘Little Women’ was extremely well done,” she said. “They put in a huge amount of effort, and it really paid off. A lot of people really enjoyed going to see it, and they thought the acting was really good.”

Davis again agreed with Mikkelsen, as he thanked director Jenna Horick and the show’s cast and crew for the “great performance.

“We have amazing, talented kids,” Davis said.

Rhoads said that the play was “great” and added that the Veterans Day program “was also well done.”

• In other recent events, Davis said the high school was the site of the area Special Olympics event on Oct. 28, with participants from across the county. Games included softball, basketball and track and field events, he said.

“I want to thank Nathan Bowman for being in charge of that,” Davis said. “I also want to thank Larry Scruggs for letting us use his basketball hoops and basketballs for of the events for the participants, and I just want to say congratulate to all the athletes that competed.”

Members of the HCS transportation department participated in Boo Fest and passed out candy in October, Davis said, as he thanked Darrell Holbrook and the other members of the transportation staff for volunteering.

As his report was full of recognitions, Davis also thanked the community for their financial support, as he said their donations to the Freestore Foodbank are making a difference for students.

“We give out 114 Power Packs each week for students for their weekend meals, and I just want to thank our community for donating to the Freestore Foodbank to make that possible,” Davis said. “I know that it is a great assistance for some of our students for the weekend, and I just can't thank our community enough for coming together and putting forth funds for those Power Packs each week.”

In other news, Davis said that the HHS design and manufacturing classes, taught by Josh Pohlman, are accepting orders for new products this year, using a laser purchased for the school in the fall of 2021.

“The students create what they want to sell and they put all the marketing together, the sales, and come up with pricing,” Davis said. “This year, they've got different things, from cornhole boards, magnets, creating license plates and then some ornaments. They also have design options, or you can create your own, so they've got a list of different prices.

“If you're interested in that, you can contact the high school office.”

• Rhoads gave her report on the Ohio School Boards Association’s capital conference, which was held Nov. 12-14, as well as the most recent Great Oaks board meeting.

Rhoads said she attended several “good sessions” at the conference before “bad things happened” on Nov. 14. As previously reported, a fatal crash involving a charter bus, two commercial vehicles and two passenger vehicles occurred that morning in Licking County. The charter bus was occupied by a driver and 54 students and chaperones from Tuscarawas Valley Local Schools, who were en route to the OSBA conference. Three teenage students, as well as three adults, from the district were killed.

“That just shut everything down before it was really actually over,” Rhoads said. “It was a sad day.”

There were also moments of remembrance during the Great Oaks Board’s Nov. 8 meeting, she said, as board member Carole Ellis (from Mount Healthy) and former Great Oaks president/CEO (1975-2000) Dr. Harold Carr both passed away.

The meeting also included a discussion of the recently announced $6.8 million in state funding for Great Oaks, which Rhoads said will “add to Laurel Oaks a second Welding & Fabrication lab” as well as funding for new EV Tech and law enforcement programs. In other funding updates, Great Oaks’ five-year forecast was approved.

Student recognitions at the Oaks meeting included honoring the Live Oaks JROTC Raiders, who won the 2023 U.S. Army Raider Challenge National Championship, and 18 former students who were awarded American Degrees at the National FFA Convention.

Rhoads also noted that the application period for Great Oaks campuses is underway, and “the deadline for consideration prior to the lottery drawing is Feb. 6.”

• In his report, board member Tom Milbery spoke about Senate Bill 181, which was recently introduced by State Senator Shane Wilkin (R-Hillsboro) to equalize ticket prices for high school athletic events due to the “Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) charging a steeper price for cash tickets than any other payment method,” according to a press release from Wilkin’s office.

Milbery said he was in favor of that legislation and also asked if the district had any measures in place for free or reduced prices to admission for students.

“At one time, didn't we have an incentive program where our students could get into games free if they had good conduct?” he asked.

Davis said it’s now based on whether the students “participate in a sport.

“It’s not Indian Pride,” Davis said. “It’s based on whether they’re a participant.”

Milbery said he wondered if reintroducing such a program could “reduce” the number of students “sent to the principal’s office” and also “increase attendance and maybe academics” as well.

“It would be kind of a win-win situation,” Milbery said. “I don't know how we would, maybe, cover the cost of that. I was thinking you know, maybe even like scholarships, and tie it to school pride and school identity, so that you know, you become like a Hillsboro student super booster.”

It was also brought out that students are now being charged $7 admission to games.

• Lyons said there are “three Senate Bills and two House Bills that are kind of interesting” that are in committee but have not been approved. He also spoke about recent events held by the district.

“It's impressive to see the attendance at each of these events — the choir event, we had a couple of scrimmages that were well attended, and the play was extremely well attended,” Lyons said. “Kudos to the staff and students who are involved in that, and we appreciate the fact that they put the work into it.”

• The board approved the financial reports as presented. Teeters reported a general fund cash balance of $12,171,802 for October 2023, up from $9,743,868 in October 2022; expenses of $2,358,690, up from $2,144,867 a year ago; and revenues of $3,197,133, also up from this time a year ago ($2,653,250).

“We had a good revenue month,” Teeters said. “We had state income tax, and we got our adjusted foundation from when the state budget was passed in July. They just now put what they give us, made up for the months of July, August and September, and give it to us in our first payment of October. That's what made that revenue a larger amount.”

• The board approved a memorandum of understanding between Hillsboro City Schools and the teachers’ union, the Hillsboro Education Association.

“The memorandum of understanding is dealing with adding an assistant varsity swim coach,” Davis said. “Swimming has been something that we've had for quite a few years, and now we're up in numbers. We're up into over 40-some participants, so we have a varsity swim coach and we're adding an assistant.

“That was not in our supplemental pay scale, so we had to get an MOU approved by the HEA.”

That position was also approved in a separate motion, with Megan MacIvor approved as assistant varsity swim coach, step 6.

• Along with MacIvor’s hiring as assistant swim coach, the board approved the following individuals for the contracts and positions indicated: Volunteers — Jonathan Hunt and Robert Zugg, MS boys wrestling coaches; Mallory Parsons, MS girls basketball coach; and Emily Markgraff and Shana Perkins, both for Hillsboro Elementary; sub classified — van drivers Bruce Messer and Bryan McComas; classified — cook Alison Hurtt, retroactive to Nov. 16; and sub certified — Sara Allen, Maggie Chaney, Tricia Howland and Jana Huff-Daye (retroactive to Oct. 19).

• The board approved a leave of absence for HS assistant principal Kyle Haines, effective Jan. 3-17, 2024.

• The board approved a change of status for Dustin Willey, from HS freshman boys basketball coach to MS boys basketball coach, effective with the 2023-24 school year.

• The board accepted the resignations of teacher Rachel Bohrer, effective Nov. 17, and head cook Melissa Miller, effective Nov. 15.

• The board accepted a $300 anonymous donation toward Camp Joy and a $150 donation from Walker Real Estate toward the high school yearbook department.

• The board approved Benjamin Beer, Alissa Harrison and AJ O’Cull as early graduates.

• The board also approved awarding a diplomat Haleigh Shaffer, a resident of the district who has completed the Ohio Department of Education’s requirements per HB 64.