Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Kindergarten classes sing for grandparents

New Richmond Elementary School Kindergarten students in the classrooms of teachers Courtney Shuman, Sarah Metzger and Katie Alsip will be performing for grandparents at the school's Grandparents Day Friday, Sept. 25.

BOE asks for override of budget veto

The Board of Education of the New Richmond Exempted Village School District passed a resolution at its September 21 meeting asking legislative representatives to sponsor and pass override legislation to Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s veto of PUTPP Reimbursements for FY17 which will cost the district more than $700,000. 

PUTPP Reimbursements are payments Ohio makes to public school districts for local tax losses resulting from deregulation of public utility industry in 2001 that culminated in the lowering of the assessment rates of some public utility tangible properties from 88% to 25%. New Richmond originally received $8.1 million per year but has lost $1 million per year prior to the current biennial budget.

NREVSD treasurer Mike Mowery said New Richmond will lose $720,000 in 2016-17, and should the state continue to phase out PUTPP reimbursements at an estimated 10% per year, New Richmond could see its deregulation payments decrease to $4.7 million in 2019/20.

The Board resolution: 
Resolution Calling on New Richmond Exempted Village School District Legislative Representatives to Sponsor and Promote Override Legislation to the Gubernatorial Veto of PUTPP Reimbursements for FY17. 

WHEREAS, New Richmond Exempted Village School District once derived more than 8.1 million dollars per year from the PUTTP component of our tax base; and

WHEREAS, The State of Ohio, in recognition of the fact that a local tax was, in fact, confiscated, committed to reimburse school districts for the value of that tax; and

WHEREAS, As of FY15, The State of Ohio was still reimbursing New Richmond Exempted Village School District a reduced amount of approximately 7.1 million dollars per year; and
WHEREAS, The Ohio House of Representatives and Representative Doug Green voted to maintain a PUTPP supplement to total state aid for FY16 and FY17 in HB64, the 2016-2017 Biennial Budget; and
WHEREAS, The Ohio Senate, and Senator Joe Uecker voted to maintain a PUTPP supplement to total state aid for FY 16 and FY 17 in HB64, the 2016-2017 Biennial Budget; and

WHEREAS, The Ohio House and the Ohio Senate confirmed their intentions by voting for the Conference Committee Report; and

WHEREAS, The Governor of the State of Ohio revoked the intended funding via the Line Item Veto provision of the Ohio Constitution; and

WHEREAS, The Ohio Constitution allows for the legislature to override gubernatorial vetoes through the legislative process.

 NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the New Richmond Exempted Village School District Board of Education calls on our primary legislative representation, Representative Doug Green and Senator Joe Uecker to introduce and sponsor legislation to override the gubernatorial veto and restore the PUTPP reimbursement hold harmless provision for FY17; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the New Richmond Exempted Village School District Board of Education will send a copy of this Resolution to the President of the Board of Education and Treasurer of similarly situated school districts materially harmed by the line item veto; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that our Representatives introduce legislation in their respective chambers that will allow New Richmond Exempted Village School District and similarly situated districts to capture the losses associated with the confiscation of the PUTPP tax in permanent law.

NR School Board opposes marijuana issue

The Board of Education of the New Richmond Exempted Village School District passed a resolution at its Sept. 21 meeting opposing Ohio Issue 3, the proposed constitutional amendment that would legalize the use of marijuana in the state of Ohio. 

Board members Kristin Bennet, Tim DuFau, Tony Farmer, Kim Hayden and Kevin Walriven vote for the resolution in opposition to the November ballot issue:

Resolution Opposing Issue 3:

It is recommended that the Board of Education adopt the following Resolution. 

WHEREAS, Ohio voters are being asked to consider State Issue 3, a proposed constitutional amendment that would legalize the use of marijuana in the state of Ohio; and

WHEREAS, the New Richmond Exempted Village School District Board of Education shares the concerns of Ohio’s doctors, hospitals, children’s health advocates, civic leaders, parents, farmers, other business people, chambers of commerce, law enforcement personnel, addiction counselors and faith leaders; and

WHEREAS, the proposed constitutional amendment allows a private organization to acquire exclusive rights to grow, manufacture and sell marijuana and marijuana-infused edible products to Ohioans for recreational and medical use; and

WHEREAS, the proposed constitutional amendment will allow for more than 1,100 retail stores focusing on the sales of recreational marijuana in the form of marijuana cigarettes, liquids, sprays, and edibles to be located near Ohio’s schools; and

WHEREAS, the allowance for large quantities of recreational marijuana combined with the lack of oversight and control make it very likely that marijuana would fall into the hands of our students;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that we, the elected members of the New Richmond Exempted Village School District Board of Education, on behalf of the children and community we serve, do hereby express our opposition to State Issue 3, a constitutional amendment legalizing marijuana; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the treasurer be directed to record this resolution in the minutes of the board of education and that copies of the resolution be forwarded to members of the local press for distribution to the community.

NREVSD joins group to oppose mandates

The New Richmond Exempted Village School District has joined 40 other Greater Cincinnati school districts in forming the Greater Cincinnati School Advocacy Network to lobby Ohio legislators to scale back on unfunded mandates returning local control to education.

“By joining the Greater Cincinnati School Advocacy Network we hope to encourage parents, educators and community leaders to contact their legislators to eliminate unfunded mandates. We would like to see reductions in testing time, data-collection requirements and teacher evaluation programs and return local control to schools,” explained New Richmond Supt. Adam Bird.

Some of the unfunded mandates the advocacy group opposes include:

• OTES - the Ohio Teacher Evaluation System • The third grade guarantee • College credit plus • Ohio's new career advising policies • Teacher residency programs • Career technical requirements at the Junior High level.

The Greater Cincinnati School Advocacy Network conducted a random telephone survey of over 800 southwest Ohio registered voters in May 2015.

Some results of that survey:

41.6% percent saying current testing requirements hurt more than helps (26.5%);
50.7% wanted local control of education rather than the Ohio Board of Education (27.1%);
62.1% disagreed with local tax levy funds approved by voters for public schools being shared with for-profit charter and online charter schools;
80.8% said the State Legislature should reduce the amount of mandates and demands it places on public schools, and give more control to communities and local school boards;
93.8% agreed that privately-operated charter schools that receive public tax dollars should be held to the same standards for transparency and accountability as public schools.

BUTLER COUNTY Edgewood City Schools, Fairfield City Schools, Hamilton City Schools, Lakota Local Schools, Madison Local Schools, Middletown City Schools, Monroe Local Schools, New Miami Local Schools, Ross Local Schools, Talawanda Schools

CLERMONT COUNTY
Batavia Local Schools, Bethel-Tate Local Schools, Goshen Local Schools, Milford Exempted Village School District, New Richmond EV School District, West Clermont Local Schools, Williamsburg Local Schools

HAMILTON COUNTYCincinnati Public Schools, Deer Park Community City Schools, Finneytown Local Schools, Forest Hills Local Schools, Indian Hill School District, Lockland Local Schools, Loveland City Schools, Madeira City Schools, Mariemont City Schools, Mt. Healthy City Schools, North College Hill City Schools, Northwest Local Schools, Norwood City Schools, Oak Hills Local Schools, Princeton City Schools, Reading Community Schools, St. Bernard-EP School District, Southwest Local Schools, Sycamore Community Schools, Three Rivers School District, Wyoming City Schools

WARREN COUNTYLittle Miami Schools, Mason City Schools, Springboro Community Schools

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

NREVSD to conduct intruder drills

If you student comes home from school talking about ALICE, it isn’t in reference to the new girl in school.

ALICE stands for Alert; Lockdown; Inform; Counter and Evacuate, the standard for training and dealing with an intruder during life threating lockdown situations. State law mandates that schools conduct three unannounced ALICE training drills for students each school year. Administrators, teachers and building staffs have had their required intense training session.

NRE principal Jamie Kunz
“Much like we practice other safety drills (fire & tornado) the students at New Richmond Elementary will be practicing up to three safety drills in accordance with state law,” explained NRE principal Jamie Kunz. “These will be unannounced drills so it is important to talk with your child about ALICE.”

Ohio’s School Safety Task Force, formed by Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine after the Sandy Hook tragedy, concluded that that lockdown is no longer a standalone strategy to secure in place and aligned Ohio with ALICE standards.

Task Force recommendations included all of the training protocols found in ALICE Training including barricading, evacuating and countering. It also empowers and authorizes decision making by those people under attack.

ALICE training for K-12 students will be age-appropriate and based on curriculum developed by The ALICE Training Institute (www.alicetraining.com).

“Our ALICE drills are designed so that should we ever have a situation, the intruder is not going to find a soft target in our schools,” said NREVSD Supt. Adam Bird.

Some of the conclusions and recommendations of Ohio’s School Safety Task Force:

“Lockdown is not a stand-alone defense strategy.” [Page 50] “When securing in place, this procedure should involve barricading the door and readying a plan of evacuation or counter tactics should the need arise.” [Page 50] “Do not place students in one location within the room.  In the event that entry is gained by a shooter or intruder, students should consider exiting by running past the shooter/intruder.” [Page 59] “Staff and students may utilize methods to distract the shooter/intruder’s ability to accurately shoot or cause harm, such as loud noises or aiming and throwing objects at the shooter/intruder’s face or person. [Page 50] “If students and school personnel are outside of the school at the time of a LOCKDOWN, teachers should move students to the designated off-site location.” [Page 51] “If an intruder enter and begins shooting, any and all actions to stop the shooter are justified.  This includes moving about the room to lessen accuracy, throwing items (books, computers, phones, book bags) to create confusion, exiting out windows, and confronting (assault, subdue, choke) to stop the intruder.  Tell students to get out any way possible and move to another location” [Page 59]

Read the full School Safety report at the following link:

http://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/Files/Publications/Publications-for-Schools/School-Safety-Task-Force-Report

Friday, September 11, 2015

It’s no longer ‘Your father’s library’

The New Richmond Board of Education decided a decade ago not to build a new high school and began the process of bringing the New Richmond High School building up to modern standards.

First came the replacement of the façade and structure repairs; then came removal of asbestos and replacing ceilings and floors; and most recently adding energy efficient lighting, heating and air conditioning. But something was missing inside the modernized high school building.

The library remained ‘Your father’s library,’ not the modern equivalent of  learning centers which have become the social, collaborative hub of the campus while maintaining their role as places for intense study.

“We had a classic library which was using original furniture when the building was built in 1965,” noted NREVSD Supt. Adam Bird.

Laura Kramer, HR manager for TQL uses the Media Center's mobile chairs
 during the  NRHS  College and Career Success Class
The 1965 library experience wasn’t going over very well with recent graduates who went on to college.

“Our building leadership team did research during the second semester last year to develop a multi-year vision for the building,” explained NRHS principal Mark Bailey. “One of the things we discovered in our research was that many of our graduates said there were things that they felt they should have received though a media center education that would have prepared them better for college for doing research.”

That all changed this summer when, with the backing of the Board of Education, Mr. Bird and Mr. Bailey presented returning high school students with a contemporary, $200,000 learning center that provides private study space while at the same time supporting multiple large and small group meetings.
Jim Huebner,Senior Vice President, River Hills Bank,
uses one of two ottoman seating areas during a NRHS
College and Career Success Class.

"We want our students to be inspired to learn and we were looking for a more collegiate and contemporary look for our new media center," said Bird.

“The room is designed to be very flexible in its use,” explained Bailey, who reclaimed the school’s original library space for the media center. “It’s set up where you can do large-group presentations with a projection board and three 65-inch flat screen TVs, with chairs for the large-group presentations being mobile and arranged quickly in any order.”

Seating options include booths, mobile chairs, bar stools, ottoman seating and open cubicles.
“Some students do better in some type of seating options so we have those,” said Bailey. “Some spaces are conducive to small group work. Some spaces are conducive to groups of 2 to 8 students who are working on a major project. Other sections are for students who are doing independent work who want to be isolated so they can focus on their work.”
Ted Groman , Assistant Director, Ohio
 Means Jobs, used the Center's table
seating for his talk with NRHS
students during a College and Career
Success class.

An example of the media center’s flexibility is the College and Career Success class taught by seven business leaders from the Clermont County Chamber of Commerce.  The course focuses on helping senior students learn the skills necessary to aid in the smooth transition from high school into the workplace or college life and the Chamber group is able to go from one large group to seven individual groups in a matter of seconds.

“If you have a class and you want students to work in pairs or in groups of four, it’s very easy to maneuver to change the academic focus to allow students to something a little bit different from the classroom,” said Bailey.

Cyn Macke, Director of Member Services,
Clermont Chamber of Commerce, uses
a second ottoman seating area for her part
of the College and Career Success class.
 “Several schools have done electronic media centers (Medina, Madeira) but we wanted to make ours something that was very flexible and something where we could house all our books and assorted media while keeping up to date with the changes in technology so that our students could have that experience and be prepared if they choose to go on to college.”

The media center has been a big hit with teachers and students alike.

“Teachers can reserve use of the media center to do class presentations because it’s ideal for large groups with its projection boards and three large screen plasma televisions,” said Bailey. “It’s also idea for smaller groups or independent work with our institution of learning periods this year (modern day study halls) and that has created flexibility with student schedules where they may have time to visited the media center and use it to the fullest extent and I see that happening on a daily basis.” 
Booth seating areas are perfect for 4 to 6 group meeting. Lee Rose – Admissions Counselor for Chatfield College is pictured with her small group during the College and Career Success class.






Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Mark Bailey speaks at Chinese forum

New Richmond High School Principal Mark Bailey was one of five American educators invited to make presentations at the 2015 Shanghai International Forum on Student Development and Education in June. Click on the Play button below to watch a video of Mr. Bailey talking about his China experience.