text: Here are the supplemental materials for the regular meeting of the Hilliard school board, to be held at 7pm in the Media Center at Davidson High School.
  Students, parents and district employees might be interested in the options being presented by the Administration in regard to the school calendars for the 2014-15 and 2015-16 school years. These are accompanied by a memo from Assistant Superintendent Leslie McNaughton explaining the differences, which mainly have to do with start dates and end dates. Feedback is appreciated - to me, other Board members, or to the Administration.
  We'll also be receiving an update from Dr. Bill Reimer from the ESC, who is leading our Superintendent search process.
  The other significant, albeit routine action to be taken by the school board is the adoption of an appropriations resolution. This is largely a formality required by law, authorizing the Franklin County Auditor to collect the local property taxes approved by the voters, and to transfer that money to our Treasurer.
  As I understand it, the law allows a school board to appropriate less money than the full voted millage, although I find it hard to imagine a scenario in which a school board might actually do that. But lowering taxes doesn't require a levy repeal effort like the one attempted in Westerville last year - it can be done by electing a school board willing to reduce spending, and therefore the amount of funding required.
  As a parent with kids in marching band, I'd prefer the alter start. Marching band camp & practices lock up 3-4 weeks ahead of school start. With a lat August start, that effectively means no family vacations in August. If you start mid-August, you then take away the last week or two of July as well. If we plan on them participating in the July 4th parade, well, we can vacation in June.
  If we are going to start that soon, maybe we start using more online learning. That way we could have year round school since we pay for building year round. While a hot topic teacher pay is a match for those in the community who work year round. Teachers could have 4 weeks vacation and same for student. Year round education to help students be ready for year round work. Now that is getting kids ready past 2020. Effective management since we pay for building year round and pay level for teachers matchs those who work year round.
  This would be a great time to cut taxes. All we hear is how much money has been saved and spending reduced. Well now if we cut the spending as the district tells us tax cut should be next step. Well we know that will not happen, as savings is a shell game.
  We had a contract with Dale which he asked to break. So he retires to get the big pay out. We now need to hire a replacement which we will pay more than Dale, even though his contract was for a longer period of time. As a district why have a contact that we let him out of. How about we claw back the money he will get for unused sick time as a start.
  For the ten years I have data, the spending has gone up every year, except between FY11 and FY12, when there was a slight dip from $160.6m to $159.9m - due primarily to the retirement of highly compensated teachers and their replacement by teachers who would have been paid about half as much.
  Once this one-time spike of retirements is passed, the forecast shows a return to an annual expense growth rate of 4%.
  I believe the earlier schedule is no different than what we have been working with recently. This year, start date was August 21. Next school year it begins on the 20th. In my opinion, it is too early. Along with the first commenter, I agree that it completely takes time away from the ability to schedule family vacations through July when kids start sports practices that early. The extra time, though it doesn't seem like much, would be welcomed.
  Paul, what would we do without you? Thank you for even providing this information. While you generously say that the other board members and the administration appreciate input, it is not logical. If they wanted input, they would publicize this information prior to the meeting themselves.
  The tradeoff of a later start is of course a later last day of school. In both school years, the later start means going to school the whole first week of June.
  Also note that one of the changes with these new schedules is that seniors don't graduate until the last week of school - no more getting out a week early. That's not our choice - it's now required by law (ORC 3317.01).