February 2026 Regular Board of Education Meeting

Treasurer Bazley reported as follows:

As far as monthly financials go there is nothing truly groundbreaking. Interest continues to track with what was forecasted estimated for the year. You’ll notice next month in the financials a difference with the FC Bank balance, this is where our Crawford satellites make their deposits, but no expenses come out of this account, so we will transfer $125,000 from FC Bank to our normal operating as that is where all of our checks come out. We do this typically about once a year.

Nothing crazy with our fund balances. Our PreSchool grant will remain negative for probably the rest of the fiscal year as the grant was budgeted on 11 grant eligible kids and we had 3 grant eligible kids actually enroll. We were spending based on the 11 until we were told we only had 3. We’re going to wait the remainder of the school year to see if that changes, but may have to refund the state some of the grant money we spent/expended.

The 535 fund is a difference from past monthly financials. The USAS Manual changed from having Pell Grants deposited and then expended from the 022 fund to the 535 fund. We made a journal entry for the past Pell Grant draw from earlier this year and processed the most recent one through the 535 fund.

As far as the general fund goes, our receipts and expenses are tracking in line with what was forecasted overall. The biggest difference is our supplies and materials are over budget and that is mostly due to some needed supplies/materials for the new welding lab and electrical trades lab that needed purchased after talking to those instructors and electrical union as they visited our site and saw the materials we had purchased with the grant and based on their recommendations of what might be needed.

The fiscal office is kind of in a little bit of a quiet time after the hectic calendar year end and as we gear up toward the end of the school year/fiscal year. The biggest difference this year is that our update to the forecast is for your approval and filing this month compared to the typical May timeline in years past. My plan is to still bring you an updated look at the forecast come May to highlight any changes between now and then, but I don’t think any changes will be material.

Greg, Don, Clay, and myself attended the Ohio ACTE legislative seminar a couple weeks ago. We met with our legislators and had productive meetings, they were fairly easy meetings as it isn’t a budget year and we weren’t really asking for money, just continued support and some policy requests.

The Five Year Forecast update would usually occur in May, but with HB96 it is now required to be Board Approved and filed in February, and this fall we will file our initial in August.

From when we approved the forecast in September until now there are not a ton of changes. We’ll start with the Revenue. We have previously discussed the property tax reform bills that have been passed by our State Legislature. We have factored those bills into this forecast, and are estimating value increases like normal and estimating what the GDP deflator factor may look like and rolling the rates back accordingly to make sure the increases are not exceeding that threshold.

FY27 and FY28 state reimbursements are elevated compared to normal as that is the state’s “hold harmless” of the clawback of the value increases in recent reappraisals that they will credit homeowners and then send to the districts. This was made possible by the cancellation of the sales tax holiday that usually occurred in August and using those funds. The silver lining with Rover is the thought or expectation is that the state will be looking at full valuation and reimbursing based on that, and not just the tender payments that Rover was making, as you’ll recall they were not paying on the full valuation, just what they thought their valuation should be. The state reimbursements go back to normal more after that.

The expenses are tracking pretty on par with what we forecasted in the fall. The supplies and materials has been adjusted to account for a little bit of an increase in this year due to the new welding lab being up and running they found need for some additional supplies that we didn’t know would be needed when we purchased with the OFCC Career Tech Expansion grant and some suggested purchases from the IBEW that came in and toured what will be our Electrical Trades lab next school year. There was also some additional supply purchases that were outside of the normal for the First Responders Lab, again with this being the first year Chief Thompson had some requests for some supplies that were needed.

The biggest difference Is in our transfer and advances line of the forecast. We’ve talked about the need to transfer and set aside some funds into the 070 fund with some upcoming projects for the buildings and grounds as well as some foreseen needed lab renovations. This line item has been increased to accommodate the transfer we have discussed leading up to this meeting and Forecast.

As always, as you read through the notes and assumptions of the forecast please feel free to give me a call or stop in to my office and we can discuss those further.

Director Frye reported as follows:

Director Frye gave an update on the sophomore visitation and recruitment. He stated that even though they had to move it back a week due to winter weather it was very successful and the staff did a great job with having their labs and students ready to showcase Pioneer and try to recruit the sophomores. He said the first open house went well from what he was told, as he unfortunately got sick and had to miss it. He said the second look open house was well attended and had more traffic than previous years. 

He stated as of right now we have about 599 applications which is a little down compared to the previous year, but still pretty close, and we have to remember this sophomore class from member schools is about 100 students less than the previous year. Recruitment is still going excellent, the new electrical trades already has more than the 25 applications they can accept for that lab. He stated the priority application deadline is February 28th and they'll start to place students after that. 

Board Member Mike Grady reported as follows:

House Bill 523, introduced by a Democratic representative and a Republican representative is titled the Future Educators Support Act.  It would allow school districts to provide student teacher wages and health insurance.  It also provides for the state to reimburse new teachers for their licensing exams and for universities to discount tuition.  The bill is intended to address the teacher shortage.  It should be noted that other states allow student teachers to be compensated. 

Another bill introduced last week, HB 594, would require school districts to offer, and students to complete, at least one high school computer science course.

Superintendent Nickoli reported as follows:

LEGISLATIVE SEMINAR
The Ohio Association for Career-Technical and Adult Education (ACTE) hosted
the annual legislative seminar this year. Gavyn Bazley, Clay Frye, Don Paullin
and I met with Richland County Representative Marilyn John, Crawford County
Representative Riordan McClain and Senator Mark Romanchuk’s Aide. We also
met with Huron County Representative Kellie Deeter. They are all very supportive
of Career Technical Education and our district and are very understanding of the
impact that Career and Technical Education has on the economy.

CALAMITY DAY UPDATE
As of Friday, February 13, we have used six 2-hour delays, five full-day calamity
days, and our three allowable Online Learning Days. Since we begin with 1046.5
hours in our regular school year, we now have just 4.75 hours remaining. That
allows us to utilize two more 2-hour delays. Should we have to close for a full
day, we will make that day up by adding it to the end of our current calendar year.
Currently, Thursday, May 28 is scheduled to be our last student day and Friday,
May 29 is scheduled to be our end-of-year teacher work-day.

2026-2027 CALENDAR FOR REVIEW
I am providing you with a draft copy of the proposed 2026-2027 calendar for the
high school. This proposal is in compliance with both the Ohio Department of
Education requirements and our current Negotiated Agreement. We have met the
requirement to provide public input into the calendar and I will bring it back to you
at the March Board Meeting for your approval. Please note that our language for
adding hours to the school year is in the blue box at the bottom of the calendar.

CALENDAR ITEMS

o OSBA Central Region Spring Conference – March 18
o Pioneer All-Board Dinner – March 25
o Spring Break – March 30 through April 3
o Awards Night – April 22
o Community Service Day – April 23 (Rain Date: April 24)

PERSONNEL
I am requesting that you approve an unpaid leave request for Ariel Little, our
Attendance Secretary. She has an opportunity to participate in mission trip for her
church and needs additional time away.
I am also requesting that you approve maternity leave for our Medical
Technologies Instructor, Meg Haney. She is expecting their second child next
month.
All other personnel items are common for this time of year.