The first of two yearly required five-year forecasts was approved at Monday’s meeting of Greenfield Exempted Village School Board of Education.
Each forecast contains projections of a number of factors including revenues, financing sources and expenditures. Also projected are the year-end balances for the next five years. As presented on Monday, those projected year-end balances are as follows: 2019 — $7.77 million; 2020 — $7.77 million; 2021 — $6.22 million; 2022 — $3.93 million; and 2023 — $672,761.
The forecast is “a snapshot in time of what we know right now,” district treasurer Joe Smith said previously. It does not reflect an increase of money because of the uncertainty prior to the state passing a funding formula in the state’s budget.
The forecast is affected by “many variables,” the largest of those variables being the state budget. And, Smith said, as the state budget and those other variables factor in, the projections are modified accordingly.
The state has not yet passed a budget, but there are two “competing funding formulas” being debated, Smith said — the governor’s wellness funding and the Cupp-Patterson formula. The former has been passed by the house, and both are being debated in the senate, he said.
A five-year forecast, required in May and October, is meant to serve as a tool to evaluate a school district’s financial health, according to the Ohio Department of Education’s website.
In other business, McClain’s Cadet Corps program has got its fledgling year nearly in the books. Uniformed cadets started Monday’s meeting by presenting the American flag and the Ohio flag and holding them aloft while attendees recited the Pledge of Allegiance before the cadets filed out in perfect synchronization.
McClain’s Cadet Corps is led by Master Sgt. John Wilson, a 1986 McClain graduate who served two decades in the U.S. Air Force. For more than a decade Wilson has also led a successful Cadet Corps program at Paint Valley schools.
Two cadets spoke to those present about the Cadet Corps values, what it stands for, and what it offers the student and the community. The cadets this school year have logged more than 1,700 community service hours, and giving back to the community, making a better community, is one of the things the program is all about. It is also about a personal betterment.
Wilson spoke about the challenges of bringing together a new group of cadets, but after its first year, the McClain Cadet Corps is “starting to get that culture created,” he said.
“We are ready to go to work for the community, and even outside the community,” Wilson said. He talked about getting Greenfield’s name “out there,” and the cadets representing “this great community” beyond the local borders.
One of the ways cadets have been representing is by providing military honors at the funerals of veterans. It is something that every military veteran that was honorably discharged is entitled to, Wilson said, but it is something that doesn’t always happen.
With Wilson’s own experience in the Air Force Honor Guard for a large part of his military career, he is able to train the cadets in providing military honors, so they do.
The cadets were scheduled to come to the school board’s March meeting, but just before that meeting Wilson received a call asking for the cadets to provide honors at a veteran’s funeral, so that is where the cadets went.
“It’s our goal to make sure no veteran goes without military honors while I’m here,” Wilson said.
The program is not just for students who intend to enter the military once they graduate, though the program would certainly give them an advantage if they did, Wilson said. The program is for any student interested, and is about giving students the “tools and life skills” that will benefit them no matter what path they choose after graduation.
This first year, Wilson said there were 65 cadets. And while he hopes the program grows in numbers, right now the focus is on strengthening the foundation of the McClain Cadet Corps.
A teacher present in the audience remarked on the behavior of the eighth grade students she teaches that are involved in the program. “They wear their uniforms with such pride,” she said, adding that she has seen remarkable improvement in the students throughout their involvement in the Cadet Corps during this school year.
In other business, Alisa Barrett, director of instruction for the school district, updated the school board on the school’s differentiation initiative, which has now been employed at the elementaries for two full school years.
It involves students needing intervention being met with in their classroom by the intervention teacher, and remaining in that learning environment with all their peers, rather than having to leave the classroom for special instruction.
In the classroom the students work in small groups based on their needs.
It is something, Barrett said, that is working and that staff intend “to see through,” making sure it is a part of the “instructional culture.”
Barrett also talked about the start of a Lunch Buddies summer reading program for preschool through fifth grade students. It is an idea that came from former Superintendent Joe Wills about a year ago, but at that time there wasn’t enough time to get the program set up before the summer, she said.
Lunch Buddies will be every Tuesday and Thursday in June and July from 10:30 a.m. to noon and will allow students to meet with their high school student counterparts to read, play learning games, and work on projects.
There have already been 192 students sign up for the program, Barrett said, with 34 high school students signed up to help out, along with three teachers.
It will take place the hour prior to the free summer lunch program at the school. There will be two buses that will bring students to and from the program.
Students can still sign up by contacting Barrett at Greenfield Elementary. But kids don’t have to be signed up to come, she said, so long as she or the bus garage is contacted prior to a Lunch Buddy day.
In other business, students were recognized by the board. Those recognitions included the Greenfield Middle School Quiz Bowl team, which has been Ross County league champs for the last two years, and placing 17th at the state competition a year ago.
Also recognized were Hopewell achievement students Anna Barrett, who was previously awarded the Exceptional Achievement Award, and Jesse Vanhoose, who previously received the Outstanding Student Award. The sixth graders were recognized in a ceremony last month in Hillsboro.
The top 10 academic seniors were also recognized.
On other matters, employment recommendations approved by the board were: Elizabeth Fry-Gardner, kindergarten teacher; Alessandra England, high school English; Jesse Ponder, bus driver; Samantha Rowe, football and basketball cheerleading adviser; Molly Smith, Rainsboro technology aide; Bob Bergstrom, girls track assistant; Tyler Carman, girls soccer; Howard Zody, football assistant; Kendra Barnes, eighth grade volleyball; Jennifer Highley, junior class advisor; Ryan Olaker, football assistant; and Kristin Wise, Quick Recall assistant.
Angela Shepherd is a stringer for The Times-Gazette.
