Board adopts new policies to align with state

by Laura Bednar

Sept. 23 board of education meeting

The Nordonia Hills City Schools updated its board policies to align with recently passed state Senate Bill 168.

The policies included issues such as evaluation of administrators, board member compensation, excused student absences and CPR and AED training for school personnel.

Most notable were policies relating to religion, politics and social media. Under the new policies, students can be absent up to three days per school year for reasons of faith, religion or spiritual belief system.

Another policy prohibits the district from requiring a student or employee to ascribe to or talk about religious beliefs, affirmations, ideals or principles concerning political movements or ideologies.

Under the new social media policy, district administrators must regularly monitor Nordonia’s social media platforms for violations such as threats of violence, harassment or defamation of a person and advocating or inciting lawless or disruptive action.

The policy states: “While the board’s social media webpages may be interactive, they are not intended to serve as open public forums.”

Administrators can remove posts that violate the rules and can ban someone from making future posts if they violate the policy multiple times.

Board members cannot use their personal social media accounts to engage in school business or speak for the board. “When board members or district employees engage in speech through personal social media accounts, they are speaking as individual citizens and not as public officials,” according to the policy.

The district will allow paid commercial advertising on its website and social media pages, but the ads must be appropriate for the district audience, which includes elementary school students. Ads cannot be political or religious in nature or promote alcohol, drugs, gambling, tattoos or piercings.

Finances

Treasurer Kyle Kiffer gave an overview of district finances, starting with the August cash balance of $17.6 million, a decrease from almost $19.7 million at the same time last year. He said the decline was caused by the district’s first-half property tax collection being deposited in September instead of August.

Expenditures for August were up 2% compared to last year, from $4.6 million to $4.69 million. This was due to several factors, including an increase in salaries and benefits and higher pupil transportation costs. “Purchased services are up from last year,” said Kiffer. “Things are costing more.” He gave examples of utility rates and special education contracts.

Open forum

During open forum, two residents spoke in favor of the school levy on the November ballot. Dawn Sedor, school parent, said the board of education brought the levy to the community at a time when it will cause the least pain financially, noting that a previous bond will fall off at the end of 2025 and another in 2030, totaling 2.86 mills between the two.

“It’s easier to keep up than catch up,” she said, adding that without the levy, the district will likely lose programs and be unable to attract top tier teachers with competitive salaries.

Karen Byers, parent of Nordonia alumni, said she works as a tax preparer. She noted that the Ohio tax rate has decreased by 48% between 2005 and 2023. She said Social Security benefits are not taxed by the state. Byers also said federal tax rates decreased by 12% in 2018. She suggested people speak with a tax expert and see “where maybe you actually do have more in your pocket to vote with.” ∞