April 2026 Regular Board of Education Meeting

All Board Members were present

No discussion - moved to vote. 

Treasurer Bazley reported as follows:

March’s financials show that interest continues to pay well. I know we talked a little bit last month about the affects of the conflict in Iran on the economy and decisions from the Fed, the current Fed Futures Market which is used to try and predict moves the Federal Reserve will make has bounced around projecting no moves of rates for 2026, much to President Trump’s dismay. He continues his feud with chair Powell. We’ll see if that continues to hold true, it probably depends on how long the Iran conflict continues to press on. Cuts prior to a new Fed Chair taking over in May or later, seem to be off the table. Even after Kevin Warsh (Trump’s nominee) takes over, if the labor market holds up and inflation continues to flare from higher energy prices there may be no room or desire for rate cuts. Our Park National Money Market account has a higher balance as we have received several of our real estate settlements. Our permanent improvement fund has a higher balance as we executed that transfer, nothing out of the ordinary with our other fund balances. You may have noticed the yearly amounts on the financials have been updated to reflect our most recent forecast filing. As the financials show, at the end of March we are now 75% through the fiscal year. Our revenues and expenditures are tracking on par for the most part, the biggest difference is of course operating transfers our, that will change with the April financials as you can see on the agenda we have a resolution to transfer the $13 million from the general fund to the capital projects fund and will execute that after Board Approval, so the overall percentage for expenditures will be more in line with projections. Our other expenditures have also increased a little bit with some of the events we have had this year that we didn’t have last year, as well as most significantly an increase with auditor/treasurer fees with our real estate settlements and some delinquencies with Rover and Crawford County.

The only journal entry we have for this month is the transfer from the general fund to the permanent improvement fund. Once we complete the transfer to the capital projects fund mentioned above, we’ll place it into different categories to align with our facilities plan that we have discussed previously. A little later on the agenda we have for you a request to accept a bid for a paving project, we will use one of the categories for this project. We had five bidders with three being below the Architect’s advertised estimate.

We talked last year of the biennial budget that the word out of Columbus continued to be how this would be a tighter budget and things needed to be tightened accordingly, and after 7 months because of a combination of GRF expenditures below estimate and total GRF revenue above estimates by an even larger amount means the bottom line for the state after the first 7 months of the fiscal year is a positive $857.5 million. As the attempts by some legislators to provide circuit breaker property tax relief kept failing due to the perceived lack of money available to do so.

Last week I attended the annual OASBO conference for Treasurers and Directors of Business Affairs. They always provide great track sessions with practitioners and I always come away with some new ideas and things to think about. The theme this year was continued advocacy to let legislators know how important the work we are doing is and to be transparent with our finances and the continued funding need.

We received our initial insurance renewal from JHP and it’s easily the toughest renewal I’ve seen so far in my career. The suggested rate increase is 17.85% and the average renewal increase across JHP is around 8%. I figured it would be a higher renewal than seen since I’ve been here as our self insurance fund balance has decreased from $2.1 million at the start of the year to around $1.3 million as of the end of March. I’ve asked for some more detailed information regarding claims as far as how many of those larger claims were one time occurrences and how many will continue to count against the plan as continuing occurrences. I’ve also asked for some information regarding some mild plan changes to see the affects of that on the renewal. We’ll work through this renewal process and see where we can land, but I’m not sure the status quo of keeping the plan the same can continue moving forward. It may be time to implement changes prior to this renewal or when we negotiate next spring. I’ll continue to keep you updated as we move throughout this process.

I got the email this morning that our Financial Audit (although completed by Julian & Grube and certified by me the first week of January) was finally released from the State Auditor’s office today. It’s on their website for public search and I can finally submit it to the couple of places that I need to.

Mr. Nickoli recognized Director Frye, Assistant Director Jolene Young, Pioneer instructor Jessica Clark, Director of Business Affairs Kris Kowalski, Academic Supervisor Dan Slaughter, Pioneer students Lennon Brady, Liberty Hall, Isaac Jergens, and their families. 

Mrs. Jessica Clark invited the Board Members to the EAP retirement party on April 30th at 3:00 pm in the Pioneer Community Room to celebrate the employees that are scheduled to retire. 

No public input. 

No correspondence. 

Director Frye reported as follows:

Prom went off very successful and was credit to Karrie Davisson, Katie Fiske, and Jolene Young who is the supervisor overseeing student council, and they did a phenomenal job with the preparation and decoration. There were no incidents and was the best attendance of students. Mr. Frye thanked Doug and Mary Jean Theaker for attending and engaging with the students. 

Pioneer participated in the statewide tornado drill and will continue safety/weather drills throughout the Spring

Community Service Day is this Thursday and we will have staff and students placed in all 14 partner school communities, with 858 people going to 64 sites. If you wanted to visit each site in a day it would take you 6 hours and 6 minutes to drive to every site. 

Our annual awards night is this Wednesday at 7:00 pm. 

Pioneer held a Senior Citizen Lunch and Learn with approximately 100 seniors in attendance. It was a wonderful meal and student performance from our performing arts students that was appreciated by the crowd. 

Pioneer has our Initial placement of students completed. Student Services staff have worked through waitlists and have scheduled almost all current sophomores for next year. Our new student orientation will be Wednesday, May 6th, at 6:30 pm. 

Mr. Slaughter introduced Brady Lennon, Liberty Hall, and Isaac Jergens. They are in a new elective course this year which is Forensic Science. The students discussed some of the cool things that they have done in lab this year as well as some exciting stuff they will be doing, and compared how what they have done in class compares to what you see on television with Board Members. The students demonstrated how to lift fingerprints using magnetic dust by having each Board Member make a fingerprint on an index card and using the dust to show the fingerprint. 

Board Member Mike Grady reported as follows:

Private schools in Ohio now receive more than 1 billion dollars in state funding through various voucher programs.  Private schools do not have to report student progress or staff, administration or board salaries. A bill, introduced in the last general assembly by Lorain County Republican Representative Gayle Manning, required accountability for these funds including a requirement that voucher students take the same required tests as public school students.  That bill died in committee.  Representative  Manning has introduced a similar bill for consideration of the current general assembly.  House Bill 715 would require the Department of Education and Workforce to report information on vouchers including the number of voucher students enrolled in a school and what kind of school the student attended in the prior school year and a breakdown of voucher students by family income.  As you know, families of all incomes are now eligible for private school vouchers.  Not included in this bill is the requirement for voucher students to take the same assessments as public school students. Manning has asked the chair of the House Education Committee to schedule a hearing for House Bill 715 after the May primary.

Regarding the potential ballot initiative to eliminate property taxes:  There have been questions regarding the legality and ability of school leaders to discuss the potential ballot issue, as well as sharing materials to educate the public about the impact of eliminating property taxes.

School districts and district personnel may provide neutral, factual information to the public regarding the district’s finances and operations and the impact that eliminating property taxes may have on the district. Before engaging in advocacy efforts related to any constitutional amendment ballot issues, however, districts are encouraged to reach out to their board counsel for guidance.

Superintendent Nickoli reported as follows:

PROJECTED ENROLLMENT FOR 2026-2027

The projected enrollment for next year is still coming in and will so until after Labor Day. We have currently placed 720 Sophomores for next year. This would bring our total enrollment to 1,359 total students. That’s up 28 students over this time last year. We will be welcoming our new students and parents at the Pioneer New Student/Parent Orientation on May 6th. Students and parents will have the opportunity to visit their Career Technical Labs and learn more about Pioneer and their programs.

REDUCTION IN FORCE FOR 2026-2027

At the end of the month, I will be checking enrollment very closely to determine if I need to send out Reduction-In-Force (RIF) letters. Although things are looking very good, if needed, RIF letters will be delivered by me to the union and teachers by April 30th.

RIF’s are not acted on until the October Board Meeting, so I will keep you posted on any reductions that might be necessary. Until that time, Student Services and instructors will continue our recruitment efforts.

RESOLUTION TO ACCEPT BID FOR PAVING PROJECT

Now that our construction/renovation project is complete, it is time to repave the parking lot affectionately known as the bullpen. There was boring and several cuts and patches made during the project. It was also long overdue and would have been done two summers ago had we not been undergoing construction. Mr. Kowalski led the bid process so I will let him provide you with more details.

YEAR-END ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIVITIES AND CALENDAR ITEMS

04/22/26 - Awards Night

04/23/26 - Community Service Day

04/29/26 - Crawford County BEST Awards (at Pioneer)

04/30/26 - Retirement Party

05/06/26 - New Student Orientation

05/08/26 - Senior Celebration

05/21/26 - Adult Education Spring Graduation

05/29/26 - Last Day for Juniors

06/01/26 - Teacher Work Day

06/08-11/26 - Summer Camp

PERSONNEL

I am recommending that you accept the resignation for retirement purposes of Melanie Studer, our Family and Consumer Sciences Instructor at Colonel Crawford. Mrs. Studer has been an outstanding instructor for Pioneer for many years and has been integral to the education of students at Colonel Crawford. She will be sincerely missed.

Additionally, after working with the Administrative Teams at Colonel Crawford and Bucyrus, I have granted a Voluntary Transfer Request by Mrs. Jordan Kiess from Bucyrus Secondary School to Colonel Crawford. Mrs. Kiess is heavily involved at Colonel Crawford and will do an outstanding job for their students. This opens up an FCS position at Bucyrus.

Mr. Bazely, Mrs. Hiatt, and I have reviewed the contract status of our returning staff and believe the attached list accurately represents the contract status for all instructors and classified staff members per our Negotiated Agreement with the Education Association of Pioneer.

All other Personnel items are common for the month of April.

No discussion - moved to vote. 

No discussion - moved to vote. 

The Board entered into executive session at 7:12 pm and reconvened regular session at 7:26pm.

No discussion - moved to vote.