(bright music) - Hello and welcome to "The Journal."

I'm Steve Kendall.

The 2023-24 school year is underway at a lot of schools, including Perrysburg schools.

And of course, that means new opportunities, new challenges.

Joining this talk about Perrysburg schools is Superintendent Tom Hosler and Assistant Superintendent Brook Price.

We welcome both of you to "The Journal."

Thanks for coming in today.

I know it's a busy time, start of the school year, a lot going on.

Mentioned opportunities and challenges.

What are some of the things that are going on this first couple of 10 days of school?

Because you've been in session, what, how many days now?

Seven, eight days maybe?

[Tom] Sure.

So, thanks, Steve.

Appreciate the opportunity, and you know, it's a great time to be back.

So we've been back now, this is our third week.

And so we're just kicking off our third week and kids are kind of back into the routine, and you know, their school events taking place.

And preschool started just this week, of course.

And it's just a great time to be around teachers and students.

And you know, you have the schools are all shiny.

The buses are clean for about 10 more minutes.

[Steve] About 10 more minutes, okay.

Yeah.

And I guess, you know, Brook, when you look at this situation too, obviously every year brings new kids coming.

Obviously the district's growing incredibly, and I know that's one of the things we'll talk about because that brings a lot of, it's good news and it is also other kind of news with regard to keeping up with all that.

When you see kids come into the school, I know as superintendents, you're not necessarily on the floor all the time out in the hallways, that sort of thing.

Do you see anything change from year to year really with students?

I mean, if you look back last year's group versus this year's group, anything that that stands out at all or is it sort of, it just kind of takes its course the way it takes its course?

- I think that the students haven't changed.

I think that the way that we adapt to growing has changed.

So I think that we've been able to create programs for new students and also be able to offer some opportunities for them to come into the buildings and meet the teacher one-on-one.

We have a Jacket Jumpstart program at our elementaries where every family can sign up for an individual appointment with their classroom teacher prior to school starting.

So I think some of the things that we've done to adapt to growing has helped make that transition easier for kids.

- Because obviously the more comfortable they are and the parents are, the better it is for everybody.

And of course for the staff and everybody as well.

One of the things that I see when I drive around the district, and obviously it's early, you'll see yard signs that talk about a student participating in, and I'm gonna forget the name of it now, but it's something that says, hey, I'm doing something extra at the school.

We're part of a group that does something good for everybody.

So are those the kind of things too that you see building every year and you bring new people in for that as well?

- Yeah, absolutely.

So we have a Jacket Way program, and so a lot of the signs you've probably seen is a student did something to demonstrate the Jacket Way.

And so schools are highlighting those positive achievements for kids for not just academic or athletic achievements, but really for character, showing good characters.

So you'll see a lot of those signs out for students who have demonstrated honesty, integrity, being a good friend.

So we're also trying to highlight those things as well.

- And other initiatives you have in terms of, I know that every year you face, of course, new academic rules and changes, things like that.

What's the way to roll that out?

Because obviously teachers have to adapt to those new rules, and it seems like every year, the legislature has a new set of how we should do education.

How do you manage that?

Because obviously there's an education curve for the educators now too.

[Tom] Right.

- Yeah.

- I think that, you know, each year, like this year, the budget bill passed.

And inside the budget bill, which is just an unwieldy document, there are things that get put in that have to do with, okay, we need to do this differently.

And luckily, we have a terrific staff that is very open to, here are some changes that we need to make.

We do the best we can to explain the why behind those changes, which is important.

But at the end of the day, I think our focus is always on what can we do to help support the teachers in the classroom and the students, and not throw your hands up or pull your hair out when there's another kind of thing that comes out.

And you know, but we're always having to deal with those kind of changes and that's what we do.

It's part of being an educator in Ohio.

Some of them aren't all bad.

And some of them, you scratch your head and say, how about that?

Like, for example, you know, with COVID, we've moved to online tickets.

So there's no cash at athletic events.

[Steve] Event events, sure.

- And so the last few years we've made that move, and people have pretty much adjusted to it.

And for our ticket takers, not having a lot of cash on hand- [Steve] Have to handle all that transaction, keep track of it.

- Exactly, yeah.

And then having to deposit it that night and all those kinds of things.

Now there's slipped in there, it says, okay, now you have to take cash too.

[Steve] You have to take cash at the gate, yeah.

[Tom] So it's like, all right, now we have to get another ticket taker, we have to have a cash box, we have to do all those things again.

So we have a staff that we really are grateful they roll with it and say okay.

Because we're gonna focus on the kids, so.

[Steve] And it is kind of interesting that you mention that because that's something that, you know, I remember when I went to a softball game over here at Bowling Green, and I asked, I had my credit card.

I said I can go online this.

Oh no, they were taking cash that day.

But it is interesting that we got people to adapt to that, and it's a much simpler, cleaner, smoother, efficient process, and yet someone said, oh, wait a minute.

Because obviously someone complained and constituents said, oh, I don't think it's right that they won't take cash.

So you have to now go back and sort of uninvent what you did and do that.

So when you look at those sort of things, how much input do you get as a superintendent, assistant superintendent, in terms of when you talk, say for instance, with the state rep from Perrysburg or state senator about, you know, this seemed like a good idea, but do you feel like you're being listened to as much as you would like?

I mean, I know it's a loaded question, but.

[Tom] Sure.

- Because obviously your feedback should be as important as anybody else, and if not, more so.

You're the ones at the tip of the spear on this.

- You know, we're very fortunate.

Representative Ghanbari is our state rep. And probably every week there's a call, there's a check-in.

He lives in the community.

He's very visible.

And I think he really strives to understand, you know, what are the challenges.

And so there's a great relationship there.

So we're very grateful for him.

With the fair school funding plan, the state budget, we were able to get the second year implemented, and he was very helpful with that and changing how school funding is done.

And in that arena, I think the legislature did really open their ears about having a funding system that is a little more equitable, a little more fair to the 609 school districts across Ohio.

So we were fortunate to testify and be part of the conversation, and we were very proud of the fact that they did adopt it and continue to support it.

That doesn't happen with every topic, so.

[Steve] Sure.

- But we're grateful for the ones that they do, and we continue to advocate for all students in Ohio, you know, and that's really important.

- And one of the things when we come back, we'll have to take a break here, but I know that, of course, school funding has been an issue since the nineties in Ohio and still is, to some degree.

And we can talk about because I know that Perrysburg is one of those districts that has a high evaluation, which means, in some ways, you get penalized for that.

And I know I was listening to someone talk about a school system Ottawa Hills, and they said, we have an interesting situation.

We're growing, but we don't necessarily get the state assistance because we're high evaluation.

So talk a little about that and we come back.

Back in just a moment with Tom Hosler, Superintendent of Perrysburg Schools, and Brook Price, Assistant Superintendent at Perrysburg Schools.

Back in just a moment on "The Journal."

Thank you for staying with us on "The Journal."

Our guests are Tom Hosler, Superintendent of Perrysburg Schools, and the Assistant Superintendent Brook Price.

And Brook, obviously, one of the issues that always comes up when we talk about schools, starting the year, during the year is safety and security.

So talk about how you deal with that.

Because obviously it's a huge topic important to everybody.

So safety and security at Perrysburg Schools, what's what's the story on that?

- So that is a very important topic and one we take very seriously.

We typically are really instituting an all hazards approach.

And what that means is, not only do we wanna make sure our facilities are secure, so we do assessments on making sure people can't get easy access to the buildings, but also really the behaviors of staff and what we look for in students.

And so we've used the attorney general safety grant funding for the past few years to really invest in an outside vulnerability assessment.

And the Educator School Safety Network is the organization that came in to do that assessment.

And they not only looked at security facility or facility of the securities, but also, again, are staff wearing their IDs?

Are we stopping people that don't have visitor badges?

Are we engaging visitors when they walk in?

How do we screen people when they come into our vestibules?

And so we've really invested in training our staff in those areas and making sure that it's really everyone's responsibility to keep students safe.

And so, our SRO program, for example.

Really ensuring students see them as an ally, someone they can go to for support when they see something might be off or a student might see something that is a little concerning to them, that there's those trusted adults that they can go to and report that, and we can dig a little bit deeper.

We've also invested, the state now requires buildings to have threat assessment teams.

We've actually been doing this for multiple years where we have trained staff who are part of a building threat assessment team.

So whenever a threat is made, there's a process that they go through, and it's a national process to basically determine whether that, we take all threats seriously, but whether it's transient or more serious substantive, and then react accordingly to that.

So safety really is truly an all hazards approach.

We also need parent input.

So in regards to safety, we have a District Safety Committee comprised of staff members from each building, along with our sheriff and community partners, fire police that meet monthly.

And that's typically related to topics that buildings are bringing or community partners are bringing that we need to discuss as a team.

And then we also have a Parent Safety Task Force.

And so there's parent representatives from each building, and we also meet monthly, and they weigh in with input on things of concern from the parent standpoint and help us troubleshoot and give input on different things that we're doing in that regard too.

So those means will be kicking off here coming in in October.

So really, it's a group effort for sure.

- And you raise an interesting point as you were talking about that.

Assessing when, and probably with student behavior.

That's a difficult area because you've gotta be careful not to intervene too soon.

And at the same time, you don't wanna be too late if you see, well, this might be an issue.

How do you, that's gotta be an incredible thing to try and figure out is that student, is there something different today that is serious, or is it just a one day kind of thing?

They're just having a tougher day than usual.

How do you actually, I mean, you obviously have people who are trained to do that, but just the regular staff members obviously see those kids every day.

What kind of training do they get?

And it puts them in an interesting position because now you have to psychologically look at the student and go, hmm, he's not acting the same today.

Is that really serious or do I intervene or don't I intervene?

How do you make that kind of a judgment?

[Brook] I think it's really important to really convey to staff that we all have a role in this.

So it's not necessarily a cafeteria monitor's position to determine what might be going on.

But if they see something off, we're just asking report it.

Report it to your administrator, report it to your counselor, and then we'll do that deeper dive into what might be happening.

So really it sees something, say something.

If anyone sees something that just seems a little off or hears something that's a little off, report it so we can do that deeper look and really try to make those decisions.

There may be individuals that know something's going on with that student and something's already being done in terms of support for that student, or it could be a new behavior that is concerning and needs to be looked into more.

So I think it's really just that, it's all of our responsibility to speak up, and then have people trained that can do that deeper dive and make sure we're making the right call to support kids.

[Steve] Because it's a tough thing because I know, and when you see incidents that have happened in other schools, there's always the, well, when they saw that, they should have done something right away.

Well, at the time, it doesn't seem as, you know, you can always look back and go, well, yeah, looking back now, we know something was going on.

But I say t's gotta be a real balance thing because some parents would say or some guardians would say, you know, there's nothing going on there.

Leave them alone.

But at the same time, you've got all the other students and staff to take into account to protect.

So it's gotta be an one more layer of things now that schools have to deal with that we didn't think about 10, 20, 30 years ago, maybe more.

When you look at that sort of thing, and I know obviously the other thing that comes up too, because you've got athletic events going on.

And we know that we saw on the news over the start of this that certain schools were taking more defined means to control security at a football game or cross country meet or whatever.

And that's another layer of things that we used to didn't have to deal with.

So you've got things in place for that as well.

I'm sure that you now you have to pay more attention to people showing up at a football game.

Whereas back in the past, you probably weren't that difficult about it.

Yeah.

[Tom] No, it certainly is a sign of the times.

We have a great relationship with our Perrysburg Police Department, and just this last week and early this week, we've talked to our police chief, Chief Jones, about that very topic.

And, you know, we are increasing the number of police officers at our home football events, which is our biggest athletic event that we have, to five officers.

When I started, Steve, we had two officers at a game.

[Steve] And that seemed like way too many.

You didn't need them.

[Tom] And that was fine.

Right, right.

[Steve] Didn't need them really, yeah.

- And today, with the crowds that we have, and then you're just seeing things beginning to happen.

And you know, having five officers there, you want them to be able to service a deterrent, but heaven forbid if something were to happen, you would want enough people on the site there in the moment to be able to respond.

And so, I think it's a great investment and that relationship that Mrs. Price talked about with the police department, our SROs, they're the ones that are at the game, they know the kids, they know the families.

And I think that goes a long way in really keeping things calm.

But if something were to happen, you know, we're able to respond quickly.

[Steve] You're prepared.

You're prepared, yeah.

[Tom] Yeah.

- When we come back, obviously you've got an issue on the ballot because with the growth of the district, that means more space, more resources needed, that sort of thing.

We can talk about that.

And then also too, obviously EdChoice is now a different program than it was if we talked about it a year ago.

So we come back, we can touch on those two subjects.

Back in just a moment with the Assistant Superintendent Brook Price from Perrysburg Schools and the Superintendent Tom Hosler here on "The Journal."

Back in a moment.

You're with us on "The Journal."

Our guests are Tom Hosler, Superintendent of Perrysburg Schools, and Brook Price, the Assistant Superintendent.

Perrysburg Schools growing beyond anybody's imagination.

Obviously that means more space, more resources needed.

You've got a bond issue on the ballot in November.

What is the purpose of that and what will it accomplish should it pass?

- Sure.

So we like to think that Perrysburg is a destination district where families want to end up and be.

If they're relocating or they're moving to that next home, we know that Perrysburg is always one of the places that's in the running.

And so, to give our growth perspective, since 2012, we've added essentially the entire enrollment of Ottawa Hills School District to Perrysburg.

So over 900 students.

And so to think of it that way, we know moving forward, we're gonna continue to grow.

And so the board of education solicited help from 50 community members.

They studied the issue for 14 months, and we have two unique issues going on.

So one of them is the growth, where we need 105 classrooms by 2040.

[Steve] Wow.

- The other issue is we have buildings that are in their seventies and late fifties that we need to invest in so that the next generation of Perrysburg students have an excellent facility to learn in.

So the bond issue covers our two major pressure points right now.

And that is at the elementary level where we're back to using portables.

And then our high school where we just installed a large portable and we're beginning down that path.

So we'd like to add a new elementary building that will accommodate up to 800 students, expand three of our elementaries, fix up our aging buildings, and then do an addition at the high school.

So that alleviates all those pressure points and really sets us up for 2040 and beyond.

- And you mentioned 2040, that seems like a long ways out, but it really isn't in the life of a school sort of thing now.

And I know at one point, there was a discussion early on about possibly you needed a second high school, but obviously if you look at the existing building and the space around it, it's built to expand.

You can accommodate it that way, and that will work.

Do you see bubbles moving through, just terms of like certain classes are much larger than other ones or is it more uniform in your district?

Because some schools see like there'll be a kindergarten class that'll have 40 more kids in it than the class before in the class afterwards.

Your buildings can kind of accommodate that kind of wave sort of as it moves through.

- You know, I wish it was sort of like that, but I'll give you an example.

So last year's graduating class started out as kindergartners.

There were 302 kindergartners in last year's graduating class.

They graduated with more than 420 students.

We added 127 students to that class over 13 years.

And that's how growth happens in Perrysburg.

It's not the, excuse me, but the pig in the python where you have that bubble.

It is kind of like that mountain.

So the base, so that 302 that I mentioned 13 years ago started in kindergarten, last year's kindergarten class was 396.

So we're starting with a larger body, and then we're adding.

[Steve] Which means it's gonna be maybe close to 500 by the time that class moves through.

Mrs. Price, obviously you see that.

How do you, when you manage that, because obviously you've got multiple elementaries, do the boundaries have to change for that when you've got, and I know that's always a contentious thing because people would like to say, gee, I would like my child to go to this school all through K through six or whatever the school accommodates.

That's gotta be a balancing act too to manage the changing geographic map of where people are living in it.

Because you see, I know whenever it seems like you drive down Fort Meigs, you drive down Roachton, Five Point, I swear every time we by there's another house going up.

If I drive by in the morning, there's something to be built that afternoon.

I mean, that's how volatile it is.

So how do you manage that kind of thing with regard to school boundaries?

- So as you mentioned, elementary with four elementaries and the boundaries, that does become an issue.

Our enrollment department works very closely with our four elementary principals.

So we really keep an eye on individual section class sizes, trying to maintain 25 or fewer in those classes.

And when we start to creep up there, we look at is there a situation where we may have to force transfer a new student coming in to a different elementary.

And we would provide transportation then if we do that force transfer.

But we do work closely, again, with all four elementary principals, our transportation department, and we really keep an eye on those numbers to ensure that we're making sure every student has a great experience in Perrysburg and that we're really providing some equitable class sizes and instruction across the district.

But it is a challenge.

It's a challenge to manage.

[Steve] Yeah, and I'm sure, I mean, it's probably a good idea to keep siblings together if they're in the same building.

You try to manage that as well, not have one of them going to this elementary as a second grader, this one's over here as a fifth grader.

[Brook] And we do project an enrollment reports at the end of the year school year with the principals to really look at what section adjustments do we need to make to start out the next year with the incoming class moving up.

But then, again, as the year progresses, we certainly don't move any existing families, but for new students enrolling, they may be transferred to a different building if there's already 26 kids in a class in all five sections at one building.

So it's a lot of logistical conversations, but really it's a group effort, truly.

But a lot of conversation with the elementary principals and our transportation department.

- Yeah, because it's not a simple matter of saying, well, we need to move X number of kids from this place to this place.

All of those other factors, the actual people factor comes into play there to make it good.

One of the things that's changed obviously coming into this year is the EdChoice program.

It's considerably different than it was a year ago.

It was for districts, there was a performance factor there.

Now it's basically there's an economic factor involved, but there is no more performance measurement, or at least not the way it was before.

Do you guys see that as affecting, or how do you think it will affect Perrysburg schools if it does?

[Tom] Yeah, I don't think there is going to be a huge change in what we do.

First of all, 90% of students in Ohio are educated in a public school.

We're very grateful that Perrysburg remains a destination district and people want to be there.

But we're also grateful for the private school options that are available, and many of them do a really good job.

You know, Perrysburg is a place where kids feel like they belong and there's a connection there.

We understand that we're not for everybody and there's choices available.

Likewise, we know that those settings aren't for everybody.

From a policy perspective, the increase in funding that is flowing to private schools is interesting.

Steve, we have three publicly funded separate school systems in Ohio.

We have the traditional public schools like a Perrysburg and Bowling Green.

We have charter schools, which are publicly funded public schools.

And now we have private schools that are publicly funded.

And if you're a high school, it's over $8,000 you're getting per pupil.

And if it's a elementary, it's over 6,000.

They can't survive without those public funds.

And I think we really need to focus on, if that's the way it's going to be in Ohio, we need a level playing field.

There's 180 different requirements that we have for a student in Perrysburg that somebody at a private high school doesn't or a private school district doesn't.

And I think we need to talk about that as a state.

- To have a, as you said, a level playing field.

Mrs. Price, we've got just a few seconds.

Is there one thing you'd want to add that we haven't talked about that maybe people should know about the district that is really important and they should feel good about?

[Brook] I think ultimately the community support and our staff 100%.

We have such wonderful staff members, so caring, that truly want what's best for every student.

And so, and again, very supportive community.

So just thank you for the support of the community.

I also do wanna quickly highlight our Business Advisory Council.

We do have a great Business Advisory Council, and we brought on a staff member that really is helping to focus on career readiness.

So I think that's another exciting thing that the district is working towards.

So just wanted to put that out there too.

[Steve] Great.

I'm glad we had a chance to talk about that because that's an important factor.

Obviously people are attentive to the fact that they want students to come out with a skillset that can transfer immediately into something else, which is a good thing.

Mrs. Price, Brook Price, thank you so much.

Assistant Superintendent Perrysburg Schools.

Tom Hosler, thank you so much, Superintendent.

And feel free to come back anytime.

Door is always open.

[Tom/Brook] Thank you.

[Steve] Glad to talk with you.

You can check us out at wbgu.org.

You can watch us every Thursday night at 8:00 PM on WBGU-PBS.

We will see you again next time.

Goodnight and good luck.

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