Good morning everyone, thank you very much for attending our first State of Education address.

This has been a week of State Addresses, and I am glad to be part of it. I want to thank our
educational partners Butler Tech and Miami University along with our host – the West Chester
Liberty Chamber Alliance. I want to also introduce the Lakota Board of Education, President
Joan Powell, Vice President Ben Dibble, Paul Lohr, Lynda O’Connor and Ray Murray. We also
have many of our directors and our principals, so thank you to everyone for being here with us
today.

When we think of Lakota, it is easy to look on the surface and see an excellent school district
that has seen tremendous growth in the last few decades. While growth and excellence do define
us, I think we need to look below the surface to really begin to understand how the people
involved in our system, and the decisions made about our education have created an opportunity
for each child to succeed to their fullest potential. Our students excel in academics, athletics, the
arts and music. They also are successful in community service by providing over 80% of Reach
out Lakota’s annual food inventory. They participate in programs such as statewide and national
Lego robotics and math teams, the Ohio Geographic Bee national journalism competitions,
Science Technology State competitions, the Science Olympiad competition, Destination
Imagination State competition, and Future Teachers of America competition. We are a
comprehensive education program that meets the needs of our students both inside and outside of
the classroom.

I have recently begun a round of neighborhood coffees, where I meet with residents – both
parents and also people who do not have children in our schools in order to update them on the
system as well as to hear their thoughts and ideas and answer their questions. One particular
comment that struck me was made at a coffee in December. The parent asked about our budget.
I answered her this way – just as every household and business, we have seen the economic
conditions create stressors on our budget. Enrollment since 2005 has increased by over 1500
students, yet no additional state dollars have been received to support these students. Also, the
new state budget will be reduced for Lakota by 3% over a two year span, and because of this as
well as the fact that we have not passed additional funding in the community since 2005, we are
under economic stress. She then stated that due to our continued ability to manage our growth
and our ability to improve our educational offerings and our academic performance, that she
trusted that we would manage this financial crisis as well. It is interesting to note that over the
years we have been faced with financial concerns, and similar to those times, we have no doubt
that in partnership with our community, we will be able to manage today’s budgetary concerns.
Similar to our neighborhood coffees, I am looking to you all in the business community for
opportunities to partner and share Lakota’s story and answer any questions that you may have
about our system.

As I mentioned - the past for Lakota has been noted by two things, high quality academic
performance and growth. Over the last two decades, we have seen Lakota move from a rural
farming community that was not always rated excellent, to a suburban district and now to the 7th
largest school district in the State of Ohio that is in between two metropolitan areas. And, oh,
did I mention that we have been rated excellent for the past 8 years in a row, and Excellent with
Distinction for the past two years – I think that this rating is something that each person in our
community should feel pride for – while it is only one measure of our success, the fact that we
have been able to achieve this during times when we were growing by up to 500 - 600 students
per year and approximately one new building every one to two years is impressive. Our
community, our business leaders, our parents, teachers, students and administration should also
be proud that both locally and nationally, Lakota is known as a district of innovation and of
problem solving, and one that turns out exceptional graduates prepared to advance to either a
rigorous academic college experience or into the workforce with valuable knowledge and skills.

With 18,500 students, 22 buildings, 199 bus routes traveling 15,600 miles per day for a total o
2.7 million miles per year, and an operating budget of $165 million dollars per year, there are
some very exciting things to update you on that really speak to who we are at Lakota and what
we are looking for in the future.

We have four early childhood schools that serve the preschool program and Kindergarten
through first grade, we have ten elementary schools that serve grades two through six, four junior
schools that host grades seven and eight and two high school campuses – with individual
freshman buildings for grade 9 and then the high schools – east and west, that serve grades 10
through 12. Research indicates that no one grade configuration impacts student achievement,
and our structure is a reflection of our long-term and sometimes rapid growth and our necessity
of utilizing each building to its maximum as we have grown.

Lakota has a 95.5% graduation rate, with 90% of our students attending a four year college. Last
year over $20 million dollars was raised for scholarships and grants for graduating seniors to
attend the college of their choice. Each year we have students that attend schools in Ohio as well
as travel out of state to some of the prestigious colleges and universities across the nation.

We are a comprehensive school system that opens our doors to every student. Children with
significant disabilities as well as children who are applying to MIT, Harvard and Yale. Because
of this significant divide of abilities, we have many services that we provide to all of our
students. To meet the wide range of needs that everyone has, we must respond to state and
federal mandates as well as personally ensuring that each child succeeds to their fullest potential.
This is what makes Lakota - Lakota.

When we look at the business side of the house, we were recently awarded a Certificate of
Achievement for our comprehensive annual financial report for the fiscal year ended June 30,
2008 by the Government Finance Officer’s Association. We recently received the Trane Energy
Efficiency in Education award, which is an international award to school districts and colleges
that make energy efficiencies proven to enhance the learning environments while saving money
at the same time. As part of this project, Duke Energy actually rebated us $145,670 and anytime
an energy company is offering a rebate – Please rest assured that we are going to take it!
Lakota’s child nutrition department serves an average 4,200 breakfasts, 40,500 lunches per week,
creates menus and oversees the federal and state reporting. One unique thing about our child
nutrition department is that it is run like a business and is self supporting. No general fund
dollars go to this department. This allows us to keep our general fund dollars even more targeted
to our classrooms.
Our treasurer’s office is responsible for providing Lakota with an annual budget, a five year
financial forecast and overseeing all accounts payable as well as payroll for our more than 1800
employees.

Our human resources department is charged with working to ensure that our current employees
are up to date on all licensures and background checks while also recruiting the best and
brightest talent for each open position. Annual reviews, contract negotiations with two labor
unions and professional development programming also are functions of this department. Our
business operations department houses child nutrition, oversees our transportation contract with
Peterman Bus Company and manages the custodial and maintenance functions of the district.
Our community relations department provides communications to parents, the community and
others through the media, website and printed documents.

We have 18,500 students who are being educated by 1400 teachers. As a district, we are
responsible for everything that happens with a student, from the time they are picked up at the
bus, until they are dropped off. The main purpose of our existence is education, however there is
much more than the activities in the classroom that go to supporting the well rounded education
of our students.

We are a huge operation and as a fast growing district we have built larger schools to
accommodate our students. We have to utilize our principals and assistant principals as
effectively as possible. They are responsible for more students and more staff than many of our
neighboring district principals. We have staff in our buildings that assist us in many ways –
including managing attendance, assisting with parent queries, overseeing physical and speech
development, counseling students proactively on positive behaviors, and working with them
when they make poor choices. We counsel them on what classes to enroll in when they begin to
get into the higher grades, and map out a path towards college applications and acceptance for
our high school students. For those students who are troubled, or are struggling, we add supports
along the way, they may be academic supports, and they may be developmental supports to help
those children succeed. For some students who do not thrive in a traditional classroom setting,
we have an alternative school through a partnership with Butler tech called Wokini Options
Academy. Wokini was recently honored with the Crystal Star Award “National School of
Excellence” for being an outstanding program and making exceptional contributions in credit
recovery, intervention and dropout prevention.

As a large school system, consistency in curriculum and classroom instruction is critical to the
success of our students. This means that students will receive the same instruction on the same
materials regardless of the school they attend in Lakota. In the past year, we have worked to
provide for a common curriculum and instruction for our mathematics, English and Language
Arts, Science and Social Studies programming. We are also working on providing the same
standards for Art, music and PE. When we look at these common curriculums, we look to
international, national and state standards, as well as for preparing students for activities that they
will face in either higher grades or post graduation. This helps to ensure that our curriculum is
rigorous and delivered effectively. In order to ensure success, we monitor our students with
regular mini-tests, provide professional development and coaching to our teachers and
systematically look at the material and instruction to keep our programs strong.
One way that we can monitor our students for success is through collecting performance data on
individual students. The technical educational name for this is Response to Intervention and
what this does is provide a framework for our staff to monitor our students that ensures the
students are meeting certain benchmarks. If a student is not performing on a task, they are
offered immediate assistance to bring their performance up to an expected rate. If the monitoring
shows that the student needs more assistance, they receive it immediately. By not waiting to
provide assistance, we reduce the number of students who lose their way due to confusion or
situations that need additional resources from our system. For the students who are performing
at a higher level, this rapid and regular testing points out that they are ready to receive higher
level materials. Again, all of this work is done within the teacher’s regular day, in the classroom,
so no additional resources are necessary to ensure that our students are receiving the level of
instruction that they need. It is really a huge step to individualized instruction – and the
framework that we have implemented allows us to provide this to our 18,500 students as part of
their regular educational experience.

Obviously it costs a tremendous amount to run a system as large as Lakota. Our annual budget is
$165 million dollars. Our funding breaks out like this:

We receive 38% from the state, 58% from our local taxes, and 4% from the Federal government.
We are a good community value.

When you look around the state, many districts educate students for various costs, at Lakota, we
try to benefit from our large system, rather than let it cause us concern. We educate each student
for approximately $9,128 which is $862 below the state average. Just to put this in perspective,
Princeton educates each student for $14,702, Mason for $9,814, Sycamore for $13,159.

As we are like all local businesses and households, the economic conditions over the past year
across our society have created concerns for us as well.

But, Lakota’s financial concerns did not begin with the previous year’s recession; however the
recession did not help. For the past 5 years, Lakota has been what we call flat funded through
the state. What this means is that we have not received any additional state funding for the
additional 1500 students that have entered into Lakota’s school system. Since 2005, the
estimated dollars lost by not receiving any state revenue for these students equals approximately
$7.2 million dollars. Due to large growth, Lakota’s budget and local resources have had to cover
the expenditures for these additional students. Additionally, Lakota has not increased any
additional levy resources since 2005. This past year and for the upcoming year, Lakota has also
been told to expect a total of 3% less in state funding.

In response to our increasing expenditures as well as our flat or declining revenues, Lakota has
restructured the budget with the following reductions over the 2008/2009 school year – the
reduction of buses for savings of $1.4 million in transportation, the reduction of $2.4 million
through staff reassignment and attrition and we have also made various departmental reductions
to a total of approximately 4 million dollars.
I want to personally thank the community and the staff for the reductions I talked about. These
reductions have led to staff working harder and longer hours in addition to looking for creative
ways to provide exemplary services to our students and our community. We have seen these
similar changes in our daily households and businesses.

In order for us to provide our community with an excellent district at a sustainable cost, a new
budget transformation strategy is required for 2010 and beyond. The combined factors of
increasing unfunded students, a state mandated all-day kindergarten program slated to begin in
either 2011 or 2012 that requires space, staffing and programming, as well as anticipated large-
scale decreases from the state require Lakota to look long-term at the needs of our system and
needs of our community.

At the beginning of this school year, I personally visited each school to update all of our staff on
the current budget situation, the looming concerns as well as the type of education we should be
providing for the future. I have also worked with staff and the board of education to share this
information with our community through superintendent coffees as well as community forums.

In order for Lakota to operate in a sustainable nature for the future, we will need to look at all of
our services in a completely different way. It cannot be business as usual for our entire system.
I am working on restructuring recommendations that touch every area of our programming;
however I want to reassure you that we have worked hard to preserve the education that occurs
in the classroom. Changes to staffing, transportation, elementary and secondary education,
special services and business operations are all being considered. Over the next several weeks
you will begin hearing more about these changes as I make recommendations to Lakota’s Board
of Education.

We have spent a considerable amount of time asking our community – what type of education
and system do you want, what can you afford, and what do you want for all of our children?
When I speak with our parents, one topic comes to the forefront – and that is the ability to offer
foreign language in our Jr High’s and Elementary Schools. This is something we are working
towards, and hope to be able to roll out in the future.

When we look at our students now, and look at the things they will be expected to produce as
they graduate, it is important that we begin to shift our educational system to one that meets the
needs of our students’ future. Our children -- of the Net Generation -- are simply wired
differently. Where we may have been content to read a paperback book, they will want a Kindle,
where we would send a letter or email, they text, where we had a conversation, they text, and
where we would want to receive an assignment on a blackboard, they probably want a text. In
order to prepare our students for their future world, we need to look at the ways they learn and
how we can use digital communication tools to reach them.

Tomorrow’s learner must be engaged in project learning, where many topics intersect and
projects are completed in work teams. Technology is used to research, communicate and present
findings and an integrated focus is on learning science, technology, engineering, the arts and
enhanced mathematics. We must develop our students to be creative thinkers, creative problem
solvers, and innovative designers to meet the needs of our current and future workforce. These
topics are in addition to the current offerings of basics such as reading, writing, mathematics,
science and social studies. We are taking the opportunity to look at the way we provide
education and the type of education we provide and constantly ask ourselves: Are we providing
the education our students will need for their future? Our vision is our challenge - to meet the
needs of students for today’s requirements, but prepare them for tomorrow’s global, technology-
based, and information-rich world.

How can we leverage our community partners such as Butler Tech, Miami University, and our
local businesses in order to help prepare our students. Many of you participate in our career
nights – where students have the chance to look at careers, talk to experts and ask questions.
This helps them determine if it is a field they are interested in pursuing. With online learning
and specific programs for juniors and seniors, we look to our educational partners that can best
provide that service. Additionally, we have many students who are performing at levels that
exceed high school, for this we look to our higher learning partners in order to assist us. We also
work to ensure our teachers obtain the best professional development, and that we are all
connected to our community.

While we make the necessary changes to our budget and to our overall way of teaching as well
as to our educational program to meet the needs of tomorrow’s learners, we need to all work
together to ensure that Lakota remains an excellent district that can provide individualized
education to assist each child succeed to their fullest potential. We know that this means
partnering with our local education and business partners to the fullest extent. We will need your
help as we move onto this next phase of growth for Lakota. We cannot do this with only our
budget restructure and cost reductions. We will need the support of our community in order to
remain excellent and proceed forward as an educational system that prepares our children for
tomorrow.

I would now like to turn the program over to one of those educational partners that I just
mentioned. Thank you, and I am happy to answer any questions after the remainder of the
program.