By Julie Erickson

Board members attending:

Laura Jones, president

Mark Dzurec, vice president

Kirstin Toth          

Jon Peterson        

All board members were in attendance except Tom Tobin. The meeting was called to order at 7 p.m. with students leading the group in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Students provided updates on following school events to take place: spring blood drive on March 18, senior recognition banquet on April 15, prom on April 25 and the observance of Mental Health Week April 27 through May 1.

Superintendent Dana Addis stated that February is Career and Technical Education Month across Ohio. Career Tech is an extension of academic learning and allows interested students to explore various career fields of interest to them.

Representatives from two of the tech programs, modern communication and automotive, presented the benefits of these programs in helping them to determine what future career paths they want to pursue. The modern communication program exposes students to careers in various medias like television, radio and filmography. The automotive program allows enrolled students to gain experience in the automotive technical field, with one student stating that through his participation in this program, he has earned 22 college credits. Richard Klaben, who has been a partner in this program, said “not doing this participation for advertising, but because it makes a difference.”

Treasurer’s Comments

Treasurer Phillip Butto presented an update to the budget since his December presentation. The collection rate on property rates is slightly off in revenue. More data will be gathered to tighten up projections to the end of the year. Data for retirements for next year is incomplete from what is usually had for presentation in the May update. 

Four key drivers for the budget are property taxes, personnel, state funding and benefits. There were very little changes to these, except House Bill 335 will require a future small adjustment. Public utility taxes will reduce business taxes, shifting more of this to property owners. 

In 2029, reappraisals of properties will take place with a projected 10% increase. 

A Hudson resident stated that the board was not elected “to listen and reflect” as noted on BOE agendas, but were elected to promote academic excellence and fiscal responsibility and that board policy does allow the BOE to give responses to citizens’ comments under “Unfinished Business.” She stated that to not respond is a board decision and not per policy and then shared a number of topics she previously requested the board take action on: to reinstate on the agenda the second public comments section so residents can comment on agenda items and not be restricted to comments on non-agenda items; to expand meeting minutes to include submitted written citizen public remarks; to train students to write in cursive; to enforce teaching academics, not gender ideology; and to teach students how to read cursive.

A second Hudson resident addressed the board on his concern over the school budget and future school funding based on House Bill 671, which would strip funding from schools that supported the Vouchers Hurt Ohio lawsuit, like Hudson, over the EdChoice voucher program. It  is not appropriate for schools to use public resources to support political points of view, he said. 

Kindergarten registration is through March 6, Toast to Hudson is Feb. 27, PTO pancake breakfast is March 7 and the Hudson Athletic Booster night fundraiser is March 14.

All consent agenda items were approved including: purchase orders for University of Akron; treasurer’s recommendations; financial report; updated five-year forecast; minutes from the Jan. 22, 2026, organizational meeting, and Jan. 26, 2026 special meeting and regular meeting; certified personnel retirements, employments and resignations; support personnel resignations and employments; extracurricular/supplemental personnel; the Hudson Community Educational and Recreation Summer 2026 Program Guide; and the extracurricular program addition.

A decision was made by the board to table the agenda item to change date, time and place for regular meetings. This item was tabled due to board member Peterson expressing concern that community input was not properly obtained, as the public survey was difficult to locate.

Second reading of policy about early entrance to kindergarten, academic acceleration and early high school graduation took place with no action.

Only certain codes are required to be reported biannually to the board. For those required to be reported, there were a total of 16 verified incidents for the beginning of the 2025-2026 school year. Fall Panorama results were shared, but the year-over-year comparison results are not a fair comparison, as the wording of questions has changed and additional questions have been added. This will result in starting over in terms of the baseline. Surveys are taken twice a year by students in grades 3 through 12.

Butto will follow up to ensure letters of acknowledgement are sent to all donors to schools in the district by maintaining a district log of donations received by school.

Coffee with the BOE is scheduled for March 5 at Hudson Middle School.

The next regular board meeting is scheduled for March 16 at 6:30 p.m. at Hudson High School. 

The meeting was adjourned at 9 p.m.