IPS Board Meeting November 2019

001[Music] good evening I hereby call to order the action session of the board of school commissioners for Thursday November 21st the colors this evening will be posted by the JROTC cadets from Arsenal Technical High School would you please stand for the positioning of the colors for which it stands one nation with liberty and justice for all right thank you to the Junior ROTC cadets from Arsenal Tech mr. Mulholland would you please call the roll Commissioner Arnold yeah Commissioner Collins yeah Commissioner Hawkins present Commissioner slack yeah secretary Gore vice president Moore president O'Connor here Thank You mr. Mulholland now adopt the agenda for tonight's meeting the agenda was reviewed on Tuesday and reflects all necessary modifications or additions reviewing the agenda are there any changes to the agenda as presented hearing none do I have a

002motion to approve the agenda so move it's been moved and seconded all in favor signify by saying aye ah any opposed the agenda is adopted before begin tonight's agenda we'd like to introduce our student performance each month we invite a student group formed during our action session to showcase the tremendous talent we have in IPS tonight we welcome to Crispus Attucks High School Chamber string ensemble under the direction of John Hague director of orchestras the in Samba was made up of students in grades 9 through please welcome Sheila Tran summer Murray destiny Ramirez Leona Hopkins and McKenzie Robinson as they perform holiday medley holiday medley [Music] [Applause] let's give another round of applause to the Crispus Attucks ensemble thank you so much for your performance this evening at each month's action session we would like

003to take we like to take a moment on individuals who made a significant contribution to the district by supporting our students and families in an extraordinary way tonight we recognize two people who have made a significant impact superintendant Johnson if you'll join me at the front of the stage I'll ask Christian or Gore to introduce tonight's first honoree our first honoree is Pat Rogan a special education professor in the School of Education at IUPUI she has served as a university faculty member an administrator for 40 years in 2006 dr. Rogan was one of the lead visionaries who started the site skills for independence transition transition an Employment Program it is a partnership between the district and IUPUI to benefit young adults with intellectual disabilities and help them successfully transition from high school to independent adult

004living dr. Rogan has written trans to support the site program and built connections with key advocates in the community this program would not be here without her vision and support please join me as we thank dr. Pat Rogan for her outstanding service and dedication to the students of IPs thank you [Applause] next we would like to recognize dr. mark or tell dr. Airtel is a chair and associate professor in the IUPUI Department of kinesiology he has been with site since its inception in 2006 and is a key faculty member responsible for connecting site students to preferred courses on campus he focuses on building and sustaining campus community partnerships that engage students in service learning and other high-impact practices he has also worked to create paid internships for site students within his department Thank You dr.

005mark or tell for your outstanding service and dedication to the students and families of IPs [Applause] thank you dr. Rogan and dr. hotel for your exceptional service to our students and to IPS moving to six and three opening comments as any Commissioner wish to offer an opening comments this evening first Arnold I would just like to report that it's been a very busy busy month for commissioners and for the district itself I know most or all of the commissioners participated in the town hall meetings that were held I would like to thank the staff for their work and especially it's appropriate that Pat Brogan was here she and Pat Payne worked very hard to make those very significant events my hope is moving forward that we continue to look for ways to engage our parents

006and bring them to the table as we continue to work on our strategic plan also have the opportunity to participate at the water station for the monumental marathon on a very chilly Saturday morning and I wanted to thank and recognize the IPS foundation for their work they're the primary recipient of the profits from the marathon and our students benefit from that and we had students who actually participated in in the event and a special thanks to the Attucks ROTC that helped us at our water station they set up tables and they bought a lot of energy and they cheered on the participants so although it was chilly you would not have known it because they were all over the place and very active and and very helpful so thank you to them it's a showcase

007of schools that was held on Sunday like to thank the Pacers and the staff the face face staff that were there and working hard and I was very impressed as I walked around and saw many of our schools had very interactive activities going on that drew parents in and and then parents could learn more about that school so it was great that there was a great turnout there was a lot of energy but I was also impressed that not only did we have schools there but there were a lot of community partners there just a few Girl Scouts Eskenazi IUPUI lots and lots of so McCoy I know they were passing out their brochures so it was nice that families not only had the opportunity to learn about what schools and what programs we have

008available but also those ancillary and supportive services that are available to our students also I had the opportunity to attend the bands of America showcase and and get to be down on the fields while the IPS collective group performed and I will say it brought tears to my eyes it was really wonderful and our superintendent was there and I noticed that after our students perform several people came down and offered help moving forward with with our music program so I thought that was great the students did a great job and you know when you look at all the other glitzy bands and all of the groups that have a lot more resources for their band programs ours was every bit as talented and and purely on their talent so it was a great opportunity and

009then finally the red for Edie Raley what a great opportunity it was and I was I was I was there I was impressed there were lots and lots of people there and I saw a picture on Facebook that afterwards all the teachers picked all their trash up before they left and I thought the way to go teachers say always clean up after themselves so and all in all it's been a busy week or a month I'd like to thank the staff and all their work I know it's been a lot of things going on in a very short period of time but that's what makes IPs the best district so thank you very much I'm sorry Thank You commissioner Arnold does any other board members to offer comments covered at all what are we doing

010next week moving to Section three up any comments I'm sorry said that will never receive public comment from those individuals who signed up to offer comments to the board this evening I will remind our speakers that you're allowed three minutes to offer comments to the board a timer will start and I ask that you begin to briefly conclude your remarks when you hear the timer go off comments should be directed the board collectively she not be abusive or disruptive and should not address a topic that might be of a confidential nature or that will compromise the impartiality of the board I'd also remind our speakers that while the board is happy to receive your comments we will not respond or answer questions in it at this time please come to the podium and begin your

011comments when your name is called mr. Harris would you please call our first speaker our first speaker this evening is Shawanda Tyson followed by Sunita Mullen if present good evening superintendent Johnson and members of the Indianapolis Public School Board of Commissioners my name is Shawanda tyson and i am my i PS mom proud at thereto i signed the letter you received last month from several IPS parents who were concerned about the opportunity gaps in IPS public schools well I love my son's school and I signed this letter because I am really concerned that black and brown children in his district aren't getting the same opportunities as white kids I signed this letter because I don't understand how white eye on how white IPA students are four times more likely to pass online than black students

012and three times more likely to pass to Hispanic students I also do not understand how popular magnet schools are seeing so successful wing these buildings have such large gaps between white kids and children of color my cousin went to one of these magnet schools that has looked as it as a great school it wasn't a great school for him he struggled and his mother my aunt she struggled to get the leaders in the building to listen to her and help her to engage with her in the way that would help her son she pulled him out of that school he's not at school with a much smaller gap between white and black students and he is doing much better but not all parents can do with my idea not all parents can move or transport

013their kids these parents who can't do what she did they rely on their neighborhood schools we need to change our IP how people see IPS as a district and we do this by making sure that black and brown kids are getting the same opportunities as white children we do not we do this by making sure that black and brown children are just as prepared to graduate from high school and fulfill their dreams as white kids I'm asking you to ensure that each and every IP of school or force the same opportunities to all of our students we need to make sure that all kids in every school I don't care if it's traditional magnet or innovation all kids deserve a higher quality education we need to step our game up I think schools that can

014close this gap they listen to parents they engage in parents they have methods that work and they think through all the details after all this they do what works for the kids they serve there are schools here in Indianapolis in any IPS public neighbor IPS neighborhoods that close this gap these schools they challenge their kids and they are getting results for them I hope to see an IPS one day where every single school looks like this where there isn't such a gap between kids of color and white kids where we can't assume who will pass based on a race thank you for listening to my concerns you have a good night chanita Mullen Denise Ford followed by April urban if present Amy Clifton good evening my name is Amy Clifton and I'm the behavior coach

015at Arlington woods my role is to work with students to proactively address potentially problematic behaviors to teach students to self-regulate and to identify their emotions build healthy relationships this position didn't always exist it wasn't even here five years ago let me tell you how I got here as part of the school design team we looked at our data and determined that our students needed more than what a traditional elementary curriculum could offer our student scores were dropping and their behaviors were escalating our students were experiencing significant trauma outside school and that was adversely affecting them while at our school our team agreed that we had to find a way to meet students basic needs before we could teach them their academics resetting our culture was not going to be an easy task we knew it

016would take strong partnerships and creative thinking to meet our students where they were miss Andersen reached out to many of our community partners everyone agreed it takes a whole village to raise the children in four six two and eight Eastern Star Church a longtime partner purchased the second step social and emotional learning curriculum for us and even sent volunteers several times a week to present the curriculum to some of our students and need the results of our combined work and mentoring showed positive gains and behavior management for those students our referral in suspension rates dropped always having our finger on the pulse of the data mrs. Henderson quickly saw the impact of implicitly teaching SEL skills to our students and she brought a forward-thinking idea to the design team we need to become autonomous so

017in 2015 we were granted autonomy with that our team made many changes to our school we created a special area class that solely taught SEL skills the first class of this kind in the district the team brought me from the classroom to be the behavior coach and they hired more behavior supports and mrs. Henderson provided ongoing professional development for staff on SEL skills and trauma-informed teaching well over time this data did show improvements we know our students still needed more mrs. Henderson and the school design team set out to plan the ultimate school for our students what else did we need what was missing how we reset our culture and that's how Sankofa school of success was developed Sankofa seeks to empower its staff and students to look back to the past and not just

018keep doing what's working but do it even better and then also to look forward toward new and innovative ways of educating the whole child mrs. Henderson is leading this charge and our village of supporters are standing with her thank you good evening superintendent Johnson and IPS school board commissioners I am grateful for the opportunity to again come before you in support of mrs. Henderson and the Arlington woods school 99 school students families and community my name is April urban and I am a member of Eastern Star Church and over the past year have had the Blessed opportunity to support mrs. Henderson in Arlington woods as a founding board member for the innovation planning for Sankofa School of success and I always have to share that I'm a proud product of I PS attending school 86

019and 59 this district blessed me with a strong Educational Foundation that enabled me to go on and achieve a great deal in my life my parents work very hard to ensure I received the best education possible despite not attending college themselves they were adamant that I was going to achieve that dream they saw something in me that I did not see in myself that is what I have seen at Arlington woods that is what I have seen in the work that mrs. Henderson and her teachers have done for the students and that is the work that I have seen that Eastern star has committed to we see what's possible for the students at Arlington woods and that is why over the past 20 years Eastern Star has invested so much time talent and resources to

020make sure that these students can succeed despite whatever barriers they may be facing as you know pastor Johnson is a product of for six 21:8 so we know what's possible for these young people mrs. Henderson recently shared at one of our board meetings what she is seeing in the innovative approach that they are utilizing insects Sankofa that is why we so fully support her vision and everything that she is looking to do to do creatively within the school to provide the social and emotional supports that are necessary at the school through her leadership and vision she and her team have set these young people up for benefiting of tools that that will last them a lifetime we firmly believe that zip code should never prohibit a child's ability to receive a high-quality education income and

021socioeconomic status must stop being barriers to their future that is why I'm so very grateful for the work that she is doing and the work that Eastern Star is doing as well and also great for a for IPSS commitment to ensure that every child across the district receives the highest quality education possible opening the doors to a future that it might otherwise be unattainable we are committed to changing the dialogue on what we can expect for these students through her innovative approach we believe that the students of Arlington woods today can be the leaders of our city tomorrow if it's possible for pastor Johnson it is possible for every student at Arlington woods elementary school Thank You Nancy Rogers good evening good evening superintendent and good evening commissioners my name is Nancy silvers Rodgers and

022I'm executive director of ministries at Eastern Star Church you've heard several people talk about Eastern star I will not be redundant but one thing I do want to say we stand ready to support Arlington woods school 99 the Sankofa process because of this we have now entered into opportunity to have community development at what we feel is the highest degree possible our community development arm the rock initiative means we are reclaiming our community for the kingdom we have spent the last two and a half to three years now working with school 99 working with principal Henderson and most importantly looking at the four platforms that fall under the rock initiative they have for neighborhood sustainability very important and we're here for the long haul for that neighborhood Arlington woods we also have housing and we

023look at a housing continuum everyone doesn't want to be a home owner but everyone should have safe decent and sanitary housing we look at education the same thing a continuum a continuum where people can bring their children in the neighborhood in a neighborhood where I live where children can walk to school parents can feel safe about that and we're so excited about the potential we now have several partners who are there with us at Eastern Star at our main campus on 30th Street we have early learning a fantastic partner dealing with our munchkins and making sure that they get everything that they need we then have across the street Arlington wood school 99 K through six high exciting is that and then just recently we entered into partnership with the rooted school which now provides

024a 9 through 12 evidence-based curriculum they're the only thing we're missing now is the middle school and working with partners to make sure that happens so when a parent can drop their child off at day early learning they're on our campus then know that they can go across the street and then know that they can come back to Eastern Star Church if they want to for high school that says to us we're doing those right things we feel that principal Henderson's her whole outlook her whole innovation her whole energy is right where we want to be we support them 100% and we don't support just with words Eastern star sure Church we put our money where our mouth is and on behalf of pastor Johnson our senior pastor and our congregation and even our staff

025we just say we're here for the long haul we're a partner to the inn and we want to see these children get the very very best that we can do thank you ASEA cook I see a cook good evening my name is Asha cook and I am here as a parent of Lewis V Russell school 48 I am here just to give a little feedback I am a part of the family circle at school 48 which is a parent led committee that was started this year I'm fortunate enough just I was fortunate enough to sit at a meeting for the school plan review meeting about a month ago and in that meeting it was a board of people who pretty much did not see beyond the grass and all of the quarterly reports that were

026due I'm at school 48 I'm the principal there's mr. Hinton and the complete staff along with the parents who work extremely hard to be able to bridge the gaps and overcome what was years prior to it during this meeting it was a large accomplishment of big increases in numbers from attendance to suspensions to communications across the board and in that meeting it was not much celebration so I come here today to reiterate to everyone that it is nice to have those graphs and those charts but to be able to see the power and the change that happens in the school daily with our children is what really matters so often we get so caught up on what the numbers say but to truly walk in a building and see how much love and how much

027care all those teachers and the principals and those students feel it's truly what makes the difference and that parent LED program we have parents who are truly bridging the gap in building relationships with each other to overcome some of the issues that we see daily in our community and our culture and just overall and that along is all due to the works of the parents and the teachers and the principal in the complete staff at school 48 so for that I wanted to make sure that when I came out tonight that everyone understood that I know the numbers we have to look at those we have to look at the changes and ink but when we're seeing those large numbers and changes we need to really celebrate our schools and our teachers and our staff

028and most importantly our children so that they know even though it's a small gap we are definitely celebrating them and we are along with them each way that they go to make those improvements because those improvements did not happen overnight it is a lot of hard work and those teachers and the principal they put those they put all of that hard work in things that are not giving to them they come up with the resources to make sure that those things happen and the parents they stand by them to make sure that we are also supporting them and whatever way we can to bridge that gap but for me I wanted to make sure again that I just came out to share that 48 is doing an amazing job far as the progress and definitely

029committed to making the change for the kids at school 48 Thank You Cory Sam followed by Elizabeth pet Peck if present eel at Nichols Kauffman thank you for the opportunity I my background is not education I am a scientist I have retired from Lille I but I do volunteer at Lewis Russell School and what I can tell you about the school is that there are the staff is amazing it's my second year there I like it very much but two people that I really like a lot our principal Hinton and Monica de la Paz the reasons being I was at a meeting and they had some of the students speak before an audience and it's really hard to speak before an audience it's not comfortable and yet they got up and did it and some

030of them faltered and the principal Hilton stood up next to them and put his hand on their shoulder and they calmed down and they were able to speak about their school and I think that's pretty remarkable the other person is Monica de la Paz and she coordinates a lot of the volunteers she works with the people from United Way she works with the people from lily because unbeknownst to me I have bought book bags for kids at the school because they said they needed book bags and other people have to and I didn't realize it was a school that I would be volunteering at in the future she there are some homeless families in the area at the school and she got the church across the street to buy freezer so she could put things

031in the freezer for the family in case they needed food right away it's a very dynamic school I know that they aren't readed well I'm but I based on my experience in private industry you can't take something that's not rated well and put it with something that is not rated well and expect everything to merge together and work out fine I think you need to fix the problems at the small at on a smaller level so fix the problems at Lewis Russell school these people have your back the teachers there are good the kids are good they really try hard I wouldn't read up they like coming which is great because a lot of kids don't like to read and the thing is is that if you don't feel like someone has your back you're

032not going to succeed and the staff and the principal's and really have the kids back so let them continue let them work their magic and the parents - I just heard from a parent that I'd never met and in a sense they have their back give them opportunity to improve I have 34 seconds and my last pet peeve is that we always talked about schools in terms of numbers I don't know the numbers I'm not from Indianapolis I like talking about the schools in terms of its Lewis B Russell who is that person you can talk about it's cool 48 you know or 49 or whatever I get the numbers all confused it doesn't matter I these kids are not a number we're not a number so if you could go back to the name

033of the school it just it just makes it more personal thank you for the opportunity and good luck Elad Nichols Kauffman good evening IPS school board commissioners superintendent Johnson and the IPS school community I'm sorry to bother you twice in a row but I think there was something that it's important that needs to be said following some following what's happened this month and I just wanted to say thank you I think that there's been a couple important actions that the administration the board has taken in the past month for example during the red Fred rally when the when the administration agreed to have a teacher planning day moved to that day to allow students to go over to allows students and teachers to go over to the rally and support for better pay and other

034important gains for teachers and also for the major raise that was given to IPS teachers at the lot earlier earlier this month however I would also like to draw attention to the fact that not all schools under the IPS admit jurisdiction are benefitting equally from these two are benefiting at all from these two actions first of all it and particularly I'm focusing on the red Fred rally here because it says something wider about the community appreciation of schools now I'm sure you're aware that I'm referring particularly to innovation schools first of all I'm not gonna say that I'm gonna blank condemn all innovation schools there's some really great innovation schools out there who support their teachers four of them that I know of actually went out and gave their teachers a day off as well

035and I'd like to give a shout out to global prep Thomas Greg achievement Academy and Herron who took that great step along with the district however I would like to also point out that a vast majority of the innovation schools in the district did not allow their teachers to go advocate for themselves and still do not allow their teachers to unionize and to support each other and I think this is this as much as the as much as the curriculum that these innovation schools are in stating may be important I think it's equally important that you have the schools support the teachers and if you're not allowing the schools and if the schools are not allowing the teachers to advocate for themselves if they're not really benefiting from the same raises negotiated by the teachers

036union then are they really supporting their teachers and this issue came to my came to me because family friend of ours she teaches at a school 63 which is currently run by the charter operator matchbook now I am she asked me not to use her name because she's an employee at the school but she she she was describing that there's a overall very low morale among the teachers at the school and ever since the takeover there's been a feeling that the new administration of the school doesn't really support the teachers as a whole and I likes them to advocate for themselves and I think that the if IPS is gonna be moving forward and treat and treating teachers better and better which I applaud you for doing and helping them advocate for themselves I think

037it's important that we also make sure when considering which new innovation schools were adding that these new innovation schools also support teachers and also allow them to advocate for themselves thank you thank you chanita Mullen Denise forward Cory Sam president O'Connor that concludes general public comment Thank You mr. Harris haven't received up any comments from the board and the public will now proceed to consent agenda the items included on the consent agenda will reviewed at our agenda review session on Tuesday and reflect all necessary modifications are there any requests or questions to remove an item from the consent agenda I will remind commissioners that the facilities up from the optimizations that he listed on 8.02 is included in the general purchasing agreement engaging MGT as we discussed on tuesday and so it will not be

038approved separately but will be approved with the consent agenda president O'Connor if I can know Commissioner Gordon about the medical adults support assistant role on Tuesday and so that is a role that we're hiring to students who have significant medical needs and there's a student or a number of students at Longfellow who require that so students who might need to being diapering those kinds of things and so that person will support those students Michael Reese Collinson I had I had a couple of concerns and one was that we lost to math teachers at Washington High School and I'm wondering if those were replaced yet or and if not then I hope that it's expedited math is so important I will follow with that team on those and the other was several special ed assistants were

039had either resigned or had resigned or otherwise left the buildings and so I'm wondering about the culture or whether we didn't need so many assistants or what what was the impetus on that both of those items thank you thank you do I have a motion to approve the consent I'm sorry I'm sorry what is the Near Eastside innovation corporation the nonprofit board for Thomas Gregg neighborhood school 15 Thank You mr. Hawkins thank you in just a personnel report of your comment just want to flag that and commend the administration super-tender Johnson administration as well as family and instructional and teams committees that were involved in the selection process for Shortridge high school which is on the personnel agenda and a flag that and also again tip my hat to IPs particularly superintendent Johnson and your

040team we're focusing that process on mindset qualifications and experience so I just won't look that up and acknowledge that any further questions comments commissioners it's like I also wonder the same thing I want to thank the administration for listening to the families and listen to their concerns and really taking that concern to heed and hiring the best candidate thank you I'm very excited for mr. Thomas upon your approval any other questions if not to have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented so moved it's been moved and seconded any further comments all those in favor signify by saying aye any opposed the motion carries there are no more reports decedent's on now turn the agenda over to superintendent Johnson Thank You president O'Connor there are three superintendent reports that were to be presented

041this month item six point zero one six point zero two is six point zero three item six point zero one and six point zero two were presented on Tuesday and will present six point zero three this evening item six point zero one for your recollection was our school spotlight so I want to again thank mr. Moses the principal assignment youth academy for coming and sharing about all the great things that are happening at sya the second item item six point zero two was a briefing on district enrollment trends so a big thanks to Patrick Harrell for his work and providing such a data rich and informative presentation to the board I know you all enjoyed that quite a bit and I know it'll be very helpful to us in our planning moving forward the third

042item item 6.03 is our innovation networks school selection update this will be an update to commissioners on the letters of interest that we've received from prospective partners along with four of those prospective partners presenting a brief introduction of themselves to the board as a reminder this is just an introduction and so the next step in our robust selection process and I'll welcome Jaime van de walle to the podium to introduce this item at this time Thank You superintendent Johnson good evening commissioners um as you are aware every fall or late in the summer we launched what we call our call for quality applicants for any school or entity to come into the innovation network with IPS this is a third year that we have done that call this year believe it opened in mid-august and

043closed on October 1st and at that time anyone can submit what we call a letter of interest and really it is just that it is a public document but it is also non-binding and just formally signals that someone's interested in starting the selection conversation with IPS about joining an innovation network this year we received ten letters of interests and you can see them there on the screen in the letter of interest we ask folks to identify not only who they are but what is their mission vision when do they propose they launch a school do they have a charter or not what kind of innovation network school would they want to be and what's their proposed timeline for joining the network so you can see here on the screen I have the the letters that

044we received sorted by type so pretty self-explanatory and we do allow the opportunity at this early stage in the game for someone to indicate they may be interested in more than one pathway to innovation as you know we have five now so this year we received the three four we start alone one who be interested in either charter partner or we start several there then in a row for charter partner and one for the new jump start pathway the individuals highlighted there in blue are the ones who are here this evening to just do as superintendent Johnson mentioned that very high level introduction to you we didn't pick these four for any specific reason it's just we had ten we think ten intros in one night is maybe a lot and so we were just

045working around travel schedules and everything else to bring these four individuals to you this evening so in terms of upcoming timeline of selection events right now our team is doing our first round interviews so these are preliminary screens with anyone who made it past the lair of interest stage this year we did choose to do the first round interview with everyone who submitted that letter we hope to have those complete by Thanksgiving so next week and now they're all in the calendar and when we have a busy few days to wrap those up then we have applicants doing intros to the board throughout November December potentially January I anticipate having everyone here to meet you before before the end of December we've done part one a formal application those were submitted to us a couple

046of weeks ago we've been also reviewing those an anticipation of this evening and then the application from our one jumpstart applicant is not due until January 7th that's always been our design to have an existing school and IPS traditionally managed existing school submit later so they have more time to get the necessary community support staff engagement and build that application I'm given that they're also managing a school full-time restart schools share publicly we have December 13th on this slide we've been contemplating pushing that back to January it's a very tight turnaround with how we're executing our sq RS right now and so anticipating we may see a shift there so I'll bring that back to you if we do that shift which would push back that second application part that's applicable only to restart applicants

047it would not however impact our follow-up interview timeline will begin conducting cross-functional interviews that's one we've done these four last three years to special ed team finding a team etc are getting lots of folks in the room to really interact with the applicants after reviewing those applications if we do recommend any schools for restart will do that matching process throughout January further engagement with you throughout the late winter and early spring and then always aim to have contracts to the board before March or March or before any questions there about that before I turn it over to our our first applicant okay great all right just like I squish not follow John yes ma'am I'm sorry I have a question are all these located on our Andy and enroll Andy website all of them are

048not yet I don't believe so particularly not the 20 21 I'd have to look that depends some of them don't exist yet and so they wouldn't be up yet for those who have already have their charter in hand and especially a select a location they will be there and it is also a prerequisite for any school interns in the partnership and the innovation network to be in enroll nd thank you all right so I'd like to first welcome adelante schools to just give their high-level interview needs for some preliminary questions from you good evening everyone my name is Eddie Van kelt and I am a co-founder of adelante schools we are here seeking a potential partnership with Indianapolis Public Schools for a restart innovation school the school year of 2020 or 20 21 and good

049evening my name is Matthew Rooney and I'm the co-founder of adelante schools our mission is to unite in solidarity with our families in our community to create a joyous neighborhood school preparing all scholars to graduate from college and lead lives of leadership and service to Indianapolis one core feature of our restart model is about preserving the historical legacy of the school that we'd be honored to serve schools are anchors of the community and are responsible for educating multiple generations of families and so to that end we are proposing that while our organization is called adelante schools we are not intending to change the name of the school that we would potentially be partnered with I'm a little bit about us too we are past school leaders and we believe we're particularly qualified for this opportunity

050because of our most recent student success in both of our respective schools for myself I am a public charter school elementary principal here in Indianapolis and we've both led schools that have around ninety nine percent students of color and 85 percent of our scholars received free or reduced lunch for our school or my school in general 100 percent of our third graders passed the I read three exam for two consecutive years most notably last year 100% of them passing the first exam in the spring and additionally last year as the I learn changed our scholars achieved 10% above the state average for I learned math and then they met the state average for I learned ela for mr. Rooney he most recently led a public charter school where a hundred percent of his scholars earned

051acceptance into a four-year college of their choosing earning over 1 million dollars in financial aid which allowed them to be ranked number 3 best public charter high school in New York City by US News & World Report adelante our name means onward and moving forward we want to have the highest amount of impact possible with the most amount of students in year 1 so we explicitly say in our mission that we are a neighborhood school and that is the reason why we haven't chosen to do slow-growth or other pathways to innovation to quote dr. Martin Luther King jr. there is a fierce urgency of now and that starts we believe in schools that already exist in our community we are honored by the potential partnership with Indianapolis Public Schools for most because of your firm's

052stake in the ground around racial equity and inclusion we too deeply believe that equity must exist in all facets of a school most recently a striking study done by TTP called the opportunity myth revealed that only 17% of curricular materials in front of our scholars were actually on their grade level and in communities of color and communities and schools that serve predominantly low-income students that number is even lower we believe that we can create equity in our school by providing grade-level culturally responsive research-based curriculum and providing that to every scholar but we also know that that is not the singular solution so in partnership with our focused teacher development will be creating teachers who are expertly prepared to lead that high content we also will focus on two main tenants of the teacher development first

053creating the concrete teacher skills that they need second establishing a fundamental mindset that every scholar regardless of race or academic past background is capable and can achieve anything we put in front of them so we all know that highly effective teachers are one of the key indicators for student success and we root our teacher development in a framework called see it name it and do it see it give teachers a model to emulate name it identify the keys to success and most important do it actually practicing those keys and receiving feedback to practice perfect so you name it do it is also the foundation of our levers of leadership which include data-driven instruction adult professional development observation and feedback and most importantly creating a school climate that honors the values and the backgrounds of the

054families that we serve and last but not least a word that we wondered about ourself on this slide a brilliance we actually didn't know the meaning of this word and so he looked up in a thesaurus synonyms for joy we wanted to create a joyous neighborhood school but when taunted it to be just more than joy so boolean s-- is actually having so much joy that it bubbles over it boolean says the pride our scholars will feel walking to the grocery store with their uniforms on billions is the excitement that they'll share in sharing their goals that they achieved that day at school we strive to create an equity equity in our school by establishing a climate where scholars can excitedly learning alongside one another and raise their hand at boolean tea because they know

055their voices matter there are three reasons we'd like to become an innovation school and the first is that being an innovation partner with IPS would really be a homecoming for both of us I'm a Hoosier I grew up in traditional public schools here in Indiana I was fortunate enough to teach here in Indianapolis in an innovation Network school I even saw tonight the young man leading the ROTC was actually one of my middle school students and Eddie right here he also earned his teaching wings here in IPs teaching at key learning community both Eddie and I truly believe that the most powerful agents of change in our country are public schools and we know that the most innovative the most unique urgent and trailblazing work that's happening in public schools is happening right here at

056home in Indianapolis secondly sustainability we know that a potential partnership with IPS would offer us opportunities to partner for a facility and for transportation and since our focus is on equity those two would both create equitable access for every scholar in our community to attend our school we also think innovations the correct pathway for us because of the economies of scale within IPS offered to innovation partners such as access to the warehouse and purchasing supplies and lastly it's about our commitment to excellence in every neighborhood we do not wish to build a brand new community we again want to honor the history of the school in the neighborhood that we would be fortunate enough to serve to build a coalition in solidarity with families and community partners and to move forward together with that again

057we'd like to thank you for your time this evening and welcome any questions you have for us we're startled so your organization has not done anything with schools you're creating the organization to apply to be a restart did I understand that right that correct we've just recently created the organization with the intention of being a restart partner with IPS either next year or in 2021 do you have a board of directors how far are you into your organization so we wanted to make sure that we have a board that is diverse and that it also represents the community that we serve so upon starting we're in the very first phases of this application process once if given the opportunity we learn the community that's when the real board development will work so that we have

058a board that reflects our community and this appreciate that because we have really supported boards in any of our innovation schools ensuring that there is parent input and participation so appreciate you haven't already done that and come to the table thank you Richard Collins yes thank you for your presentation I have done a little research on the adelante schools and are you connected with the ones that are either in California or New York no ma'am or not and so you're completely different so why did you choose that name that's a great question so first and foremost like I said we really respect IPS saying we are one of the most important things of educating our scholars is to have teachers who are racially conscious and focused on equity and so as we were thinking about

059names for our organization we we thought about really embracing the the racial equity and saying you know we want to call our schools a forward or onward we actually are both musicians so we were thinking about Allegro and what we settled on when we were thinking about what it really means to embrace a past of a school and move forward with a community and alongside a community we we found the word adelante meaning onward and so really creating an organization I think to the first of our knowledge in Indianapolis with a Spanish name it really embraces the racial equity consciousness that we all seek to have for everyone in our community thank you it's just like thank you guys for your presentation thanks for being here tonight I also had the same kind of questions

060after doing my research on slide I'm the fifth bullet point you said in 2019 your high school was voted number three so that made me indicate that maybe you were a link to New York where are you giving this best for yes I can speak to that so my last position was at a public charter school a public charter high school in Central Harlem called democracy prep Harlem high school and that's where I served as principal for the last two years okay thank you and then number four on that same slide I want to know exactly how many scholars you said a hundred percent so how many scholars were that were those that I got a hundred percent of that money absolutely our first graduating class was 71 scholars our second graduating class was 34

061and our last class was 68 and a hundred percent earned at least two acceptances two four-year colleges of their choice and in fact the financial aid number of $1,000,000 collectively per year and financially it is possibly a lowball number but that is the number of financial aid that our students actually receive from the College of their choice and actually doesn't include the financial aid that they were offered by other schools that they chose not to attend thank you and then you're also knocking on the door of racial equity and students of colors now I want to know have you done any work around racial equity and what's your evidence of it and also how many students of color have you actually worked with well I can speak to that first no need to do so

062so my school settings that I have been in have been including my last school as 99% black and brown students and that was the same and similar demographic as my school here in Indianapolis was I've spent my entire career working with young people of color in in schools and I'm sorry can you say the first question again the right way what kind of work have you done around racial thank you and so you know over the last two years as principal of at my high school we especially in the fact that we served Central Harlem obviously an incredibly important community we knew that academic achievement was only part of the story and that we had to enrich academic achievement through diversity equity and inclusion training for our staff so what that meant was that equitably

063with our academic and culture training that we gave our staff every week on Friday we also had book discussions we had student-led discussions we had panel discussions led by staff we read common articles and common books on a weekly basis throughout the year to ensure that our teachers were approaching this amazing work through the through the right lens Thank You mr. borland mr. Hawkins thank you very much for being here this evening and listening to you and looking at slide 8 as well what were some of your challenges there at the school based on students being expelled are having disciplinary problems where they were suspended what was your ratio and what were the students and how did you handle it so students ethnicity at all of my schools that I've worked at are between 99

06498 and 100 percent students of color some of the challenges that we had achieved ease if I'm correct and hearing that achieving these these goals yeah yes and we're always girls what were your yes versus men gender yes so some of our barriers in our work was first and foremost some of our scholars were coming to us multiple grade levels behind and it's because they were not given the equitable access to education so we had to do some especially since it's in elementary school we had to do some really fundamental work through specific partnerships with communities we partnered with a church across the street did some extracurricular tutoring to focus on those foundational skills in terms of suspensions we constantly looked over how we were serving our student populations specifically because we know the school

065to Prison Pipeline is is very real and so last year specifically to speak to the racial equity inclusion work that we did at our school we actually partnered two years ago with the map Center and did some racial equity work with them to really frame our teachers mindset of how they are creating culture in their classroom and how they are getting to the root of issues that are occurring in the classroom and instead of going toward the the traditional mindset for us which was why did you do that it was what's going on what happened how did it impact others I'm really going toward a restorative justice mindset of getting to the root of the issue before giving any disciplinary actions and so through that work we saw a drastic drop in suspensions and we

066actually had zero expulsion last year as well how are you handling their inter charter school Howard your discipline problems handling yeah that was your ratio and so when I became principal two years two years ago one of the most sobering realities that we had to face is that our suspension numbers were too high and so with that we hired another social worker we also hired another behavioral specialists and we engaged in much of this Dei work as well as just really looking at our policies in the classroom our consequences for minor minor issues that kids may do all the way up to how we gave consequences for larger decisions than choices that that scholars made and I think that that work was still ongoing and it's still a continuing growth point for us as a

067school but we were able to drastically decrease the amount of out-of-school suspensions at our school and it was something that we were very proud when we came under our charter review from the State University of New York last year we were highlighted for having decreased our suspension numbers but we still had work to do and that is one reason why I'm excited to join this innovation partnership to start off with the new vision for what a school's culture and climate can look like and best serve the needs of kids mr. Hawkins all right gentlemen thank you both for being here in your presentation and certainly agree that certainly the the the data points there's context but 100 percent noted a few times on slide 8 I mean congratulations at least as far as you're at

068those particular points along the journey and so I want to lift those up acknowledge those I guess my question is I'm looking at founder and founder and so I guess maybe you guys can kind of share how this partnership of collaboration works who's who does what who reports to who what would mind articulating that'd be awesome so it really we're in current discussions about this if we're offered a an opportunity to partner with IPS we know that it could be a k-6 it could be a k-8 my expertise is obviously K through six and mr. Rooney's expertise and secondary grade levels so if offered a k-8 it's a very easy clear split where I do most of the work of k5 and then he will lead the K the 6-8 both as one entity but

069focusing on the the two separate curricular shifts is how we like to think about it because there's very clear curricular shifts from fifth grade to sixth grade and additionally we're both sharing executive duties we're in conversations you know again we are not sure of the the potential partnership how many students will have what communion will be serving so we're not sure of the executive lift that we're gonna have to have but we're also discussing how we would share it if given a large school thank you mr. Collins and then Commissioner army could you explain a little bit further get a little deeper into your IAS aligned and what does that mean and research-based curricula and I know use notes ed might mention that 17% of the curriculum was on grade level which is not very

070much and so I wonder what you would do differently great question I think this is a movement in education right now that everyone is looking toward because of that statistic that the 17% of materials not being on grade level IAS and my apologies for using that acronym Indiana academic standards aligned a lot of the curriculum that is out there that is research-based is aligned to common core and we know that common core is not what Indiana uses and we use Indian at Indiana academic standards so we have thoroughly vetted about six different curricula for ela math social studies and science from using different resources such as IDI reports that like dedicates their time and their organization to getting into the nitty-gritty of curriculum making sure that is it aligned to the rigor that our students

071deserve to have them from them every day and so we have we have read the books of the curriculum we took a unique lens of ensuring that it is culturally responsive and reflects the backgrounds of our students as well or our future students and so we've really made sure to not just take something out of the box and say hey this is going to work for us but really gotten into the the bones of the curriculum and said will this work for our kids in Indianapolis and will you use paper pencil actually real books or or Chromebooks yeah both both both and make sure both to make sure that we are addressing the computer technology standards as well but our ela curriculum that we've chosen k-8 their their motto is books not basil's and so

072kids actually are in authentic texts rigorous authentic texts and they're marking up the text to make sure that they're understanding and then we do have the technology component to make sure that they are prepared for the 21st century thank you mr. Arnold this is just a a personal question to mr. Rooney do you have a relationship to other Rooney's that I know well I guess we should we should talk after this and see I'm not sure yeah no my my well my grandmother moved here from southern Indiana back in the 40s so there are quite a few Rooney's poking around the city of Indianapolis so we'll see if we know the same people okay I'm betting the answer that is yes I Commissioner Hawkins asked my question so you have another question I just want

073to remind the commissioners we do have three more presentations and a football game that might tee off just want to be a party pooper but just to remind I'll leave you alone I understand I'd like to know why you chose restart instead of any other option do you have a particular reason why I use chose restart um yes it's because as mr. Rooney stated we are interested in working with communities that already exists schools that have already educated generations of families and and on a personal level I am a proud Ball State graduate and a traditionally certified teacher who has spent most of his career in public charter schools and so we're both really excited and I'm in particularly excited to to actually take what I have learned and in the schools that I've been

074proud enough to serve and bring that to a district context thank you guys thank you thank you very much thank you gentlemen next up is the past school their talk it's Herbie if you pointed this direction at my oh this way okay area ah good evening everyone thank you for having us this evening my name is Alicia Hervey I'm the founder and head of school for the path school we hope to be a k-6 or k-8 and our plan is to open in the fall of 2020 and yes we have chartered already so the mission of the path school is to provide a culturally responsive learning environment that challenges scholars academically while supporting their social and emotional growth in order to develop consciousness citizens who are prepared to transform their communities a little bit about

075me I am a traditional school educator as well I spent 13 years as a national board certified high school English teacher I've spent the last 13 years serving as a school leader and so I come to this work with a varied experience having served in almost every education sector in in the country at all also having served in almost every region of the country except the northwest so my experience is varied and I come to in come home to Indianapolis prepare to serve this community and serve it well so a little bit about the path school who are we the path school our greeting is Sal Bona which means I see you and the response to that greeting is engi kona which means i'm here to be seen and that comes from the zulu it

076is a Zulu greeting that we strive to share with all of our students when they walk through our doors we think of this as a way to say all of who you are you don't leave up the side parts of who you are on the sidewalk when you walk through our doors we know you bring all of that and we're prepared to support you at every stage of our process so at the past school we ground our work in social and emotional development and then we think about rigorous academics culturally responsive pedagogy excuse me culturally responsive pedagogy and then broad and authentic experiences and exposure in order to develop these citizens but what makes us different or a key differentiator is we surround our students with a team of supports that we call path teams

077and those teams include a social worker or a therapist an academic counselor or an instructional coach better known as an instructional coach what we are calling a special educator I'm sorry a special educator who supports both our lowest in students as well as our gifted students and then finally a pathway specialist and this specialist follows our students for four to six years after they leave us ensuring a smooth transition to middle school a seamless transition to high school and then we want to ensure that those students who served with us who were with us in elementary school also know what path they're going to take after they leave 12th grade and so our pathway specialist is is designed to support students through every every transition they make in their educational process and then so finally

078when I think of why I come to this work I don't think most people would use the word privilege or a privilege has gotten a negative connotation in recent years but when I think about why I'm in this work in 1954 my mother had her first back surgery as a seventh grader in Indianapolis Public Schools she was at school 42 and in 1954 we know most little black girls across the country would have either had to forego an education to have this back surgery or would have really struggled to get any kind of educational support because my mom had the privilege of being an IPS student she had a home tutor in 1954 two years later twenty-one years before the individuals with Disabilities Act went into effect my mother had her second back surgery in

0791956 when she was a student at Crispus Attucks High School because of the privilege of Crispus Attucks high school she had a community of support instead of her not coming to school they moved all of her classes to the first floor to ensure she could continue her education the privilege of IPS for me 25 years after my mother's experience meant I had the opportunity to participate and gifted and talented programs in Indianapolis Public Schools and had the opportunity to be exposed to and the theater the ballet things that many other children are just in other districts might not have had the opportunity to be exposed to so I come to this work and want to be an innovation want to partner with Indianapolis Public Schools because I believe in and understand the power of support

080and I understand the power of community and I know that the privilege of this partnership could lead many students to academic success thank you your honor so again are you creating is this an existing program that you've been or are you creating this based on your background and your interest and your passion to want to serve it is absolutely created from the ground up by me and a team of amazing educators thank you mr. Hawkins thank you again for the presentation so you you mentioned that the Charter is in hand it is okay so can you talk a little bit about your governance approach board etc so currently we have four five board members excuse me and we hope to have nine and we purposely like at adelante said we purposely have left space on

081our board for folks to join our team from the community as I said in my presentation I believe in the power of community and know that our work is with communities not two or four communities and so we have purposely left board space for community members we currently have two african-american women on our board one african-american male a Latin next male and then one white male on our board so we are diverse we think about that intentionally at the past school and I want to ensure that we continue that that diversity as we grow thank you sir Sugoi thank you for being here I don't think I heard what grade you were going to be working with either k-6 or k-8 8 again I'm always concerned about what your thoughts are about disciplinary about our

082children suspensions absolutely I just kind of like to know what you're doing that's a great question absolutely so currently we are doing some pilot work at urban act Academy and we're working my myself and my assistant had a head of schools and one of we're working with 2nd grade and first grade in particular and then I work with 2nd grade one of the things that we've seen is there's been a significant decrease in the number of students referred out of 2nd grade because we've been really intentional around thinking about what our morning meeting looks like how we develop relationships with the students that we're serving and so that has been the core of our work when we think about what our disciplinary practices in our charter we kind of walk through it because it is

083a rather lengthy process but initially we do just like anyone else would classroom redirect we've moved from redirection to a space in the classroom that we call kind of a calm space in the classroom we move through that but for us suspension is always the very very last resort and I think given my previous experience what I've learned is suspensions don't solve the problem real work with students do so when I talk about the past teams and having a social worker on our path teams or licensed clinical social worker therapists those folks will be in our building and work with us and so the entire point of that is to remove those suspensions and expulsion so we can dig deep with students while they're with us and their families while they're with us does that

084help answer the question let me to go a little bit I'm fine I think I just want job so no ever you did much cultural sure so yeah are you familiar with zareta Haman who wrote the book culturally responsive teaching in the brain so I had the opportunity to participate in her reference where she led the conference in February out in Denver so we're really intent we are not just giving lip service to culturally responsive pedagogy one of the things that we know for sure is our students are best served by pedagogy where they have opportunities to speak we know we are there are cultures that are rich in oral tradition how do we bring those in so that isn't lost on us at all and we are very intentional around in infusing that thank

085you very much you're welcome mr. slack and the Commissioner Moore thank you for your presentation and thank you for being here tonight John I know you did mention rigor what do you mean by rigor so so when I talk when we talk about rigorous academics similar similar to what the previous presenters shared is we are always intent on putting grade-level material in front of students at all times when we think about how do we continue to challenge students and when I talked about the special education part of the process so what we often do is talk about special education in terms of lack and what students don't have so as I said I was a gifted and talented scholar and there were some folks in IPs when I was in school who were intentionally thinking

086about how we were served ensuring that we were served well and so our special educators will also serve our gifted and talented students based on data but we always start with grade level material so everyone is accessing grade level standards at all times I'm glad you mentioned data because I love data so how are you gonna use your data are you gonna track it and how are you gonna track that data yeah so we are definitely going to track it and depending on what datasets we're talking about so if we're talking about cultural data we'll use systems like Dean's List or educators handbook to look at where we are culturally housed what students are being removed from class how often what teachers all of that data will be collected there when we talk about academic

087data we will have several ways we track that data so we will use weekly data meetings to look at classroom data like to dig down into standards specifically and how how students are performing on grade level standards will dig down with that with teachers walk them through the process of looking at standards weekly what do I need to reteach in our model we actually have a reteach de built into the model so every Wednesday is reteach day so whatever skills or standards you didn't meet the previous week based on assessments will reteach those on Wednesdays be able to pull small groups and really dig deep with those scholars who need to grow so we can we know we can't get too great without looking at data and being really intentional around how we help students

088access those skills that are that may be lagging thank you and then my last question I'm gonna make it a two-fold question sir why did you decided same restart and also since you say you did a pilot program in urban act one one other program why school okay sure so to the first to the very first question why restart you know I grew up with a single mom and so one of the things that I firmly believe in is the power of neighborhood schools and so one of the things the decision my mother my mother was a licensed clinical social worker for forty five years and so one of the decisions that she had to make was do I go to school do I go to work early and take my children to school or

089do I not take my children to school or do I get off at the end of the day early and be able to go to all of our exit all of their activities she made the decision to go to school to go to work early because and she never missed an activity for my brother or me and so because of that I had to be able to get on a school bus I had to be able to walk to school neighborhood schools are critical to communities they're absolutely I believe the lifeblood of a community and so when we close schools remove and remove Community Schools we take away a parent's access to a quality education and for me I needed that I needed that access and I know I'm not alone alone I know my

090mother wasn't alone in needing access to a great school that we could walk to or get on a bus to go to second question will you ask that one more time sorry since you say you already have it did some pilot work over in urban why did you decide to do this as a school versus doing it as a program yeah I so we were we initially went in thinking about how to pilot our social and emotional part of our work so thinking specifically about morning meeting building relationships helping teachers build relationships and then thinking about closing circle than just that relational part and we knew that to do a summer program or to do an after-school program does it have the same impact one of the things that is important to our team is

091we know that this work is important for all children and so we our goal is to support in places where there needs to be support and so the leader opened their doors to us and said we'd love to have you supporting supporting us and so we thought we had something to offer and we want it to offer our expertise in the smallest way we could anything we all children need good schools I don't care whether it's piloted or urban act or ignite or it's full 48 it doesn't matter we want to support folks as they try to develop good schools period and so we chose to do this work as a way to help and to support prior to us opening that was our primary purpose to help make sure more thank you for coming

092couple questions so you have indicated that you want to do a restore yes I also indicated you want to do in 2020 yes and so and you indicate you every have your charter yes so my question is what happens if we don't have any restart so in 2020 and do you intend to open a school yes so we are prepared we are prepared to open if we do not partner we are absolutely prepared to open in 2020 you know and we are just in the planning process of what that looks like we do believe that we have a really strong model model that can support the development of young Pete and so as we continue to iterate we are prepared to open in 2020 Thank You mr. Collins thank you very much and yes your

093energy is as I got I got so I just was wondering I'm I'm I'm curious and interested in the culturally responsive pedagogy and also the authentic engaging experiences and suppose you're have you already got do you already have partners or some other groups that you have in mind to work with so to offer those kinds of authentic engaging experiences sure we do so we've built some we've begun the process of building some relationships outside of school but one of the things that I think is so important as we think about young people and how they get on a career path is bringing folks into them so one of the tenets of our model is experts in the classroom and so for every unit of study we ask teachers and our our instructional coaches will work

094to find folks but for every unit of study we ask our teachers to have an expert come into the classroom to talk to students about what this looks like in the real world so in our second grade classroom recently we've been talking about polygons with second graders and they're talking about hexagons and octagons and so the next step for the teacher would be how do I find an expert who can help children understand how this shows up for them in their work so that's one of the ways we bring we bring these experiences in at the end of ordering a unit another thing we ask students to do will be asking our students to do is to develop a podcast for every module or unit of study which is about nine weeks so second-grade students

095who might be learning about fossils and paleontology might have someone from the Children's Museum exhibit come in and engage in not cast with them about the about their experiences so we're already planning a field trip to the Children's Museum to see that so then their follow up would be a podcast where the second graders have developed these questions and then they're asking the questions during the podcast of this expert who comes into their classroom so when we think about these experiences yes do we have a we have a trip plan to the IRT in February to see the little choo-choo they can't write we're looking at those things too but we're also looking at how to bring folks in who have lots of expertise thank you sure any further questions thank you so much good

096to see you guys thank good to see you thank you thank you next up we have believe Circle City High School good evening everybody my name is Kimberly Neil and I'm the founder and executive director for believe Circle City Schools we are excited to talk to you guys tonight about what a partnership could look like with Indianapolis Public Schools our I need the clicker our model is a collar early college and career model designed to set students up so that they can access college and career certifications and before they leave high school so our goal is that all of our students will leave us either with a career certification or a or an associate's degree our model is also set up to do dual enrollment so that our students are actually getting time to go

097on campus and not just do dual credit which a lot of schools do in order for them to have the experience and see themselves on a college campus so that they know what that experience is like and that they can see themselves there we're really excited about that piece of the model the first two years though will be preparation to make sure that they are ready to go so we will include dual credit in our first two years of our academic programming the goal at the end of their time I believe is that all of our students are able to leave us able to earn a livable wage the reason I've gone for this model is that I am a I started my first high school ten years ago in Chicago with a noble network

098within Chicago Public Schools as it similar to what we do here in terms of innovation partners the school was is a hundred percent of our students get into college about 90% of our students matriculate to college only about forty percent of our students graduate from college and as you guys may know that those statistics are high for the demographic that we served we were a title one school serve predominantly free reduced lunch students it doesn't feel good for me as an educator for 60% of our students to come home from college not able to earn a livable wage so one of the things that's really important to me is that we not only look at what we do when our students are in school with us but what happens when they leave us so our

099founding class in 2013 we've tracked them us there I stay in touch with a lot of my students and we track college access and graduation rates through the noble Network and we are tracking how our kids our 2015 class is persisting I'm at an extremely high rate but our 2013 to 2014 although we're higher than the noble network higher than Chicago Public Schools higher than the country in terms of the demographic that we serve it still doesn't feel good which is why we've designed this new model so the students can access college at an earlier age and we hopefully can increase college graduation for the demographic of students that we want to serve which is similar to the demographic of students that IPS serves we are already mayor's office approved so we have a charter

100we also have a facility so we do plan to open our goal is to collaborate and partner with Indianapolis public schools so that we can increase the number of students that are accessing college matriculating and graduating from college similarly to what I was able to do in Chicago I'm from the Midwest this is a homecoming from me so I'm excited to be here and I'm excited to have the opportunity to launch a new school in this new model and hopefully in collaboration I've also met with the post-secondary readiness team and IPS so that we can work in conjunction with what they are already working on in the partnerships that they've already developed and the partnerships that we've already developed we already have letters of intent from Ivy Tech we also have a letter of intent

101from Marian University and we're in the beginning stages of our conversations with Kensie Academy which would allow our students to do some coding and some tech work we are also exploring one other college partner but it's too early stage to talk about that one yet and ideally that would help our highest tier students the ones who may be coming from gifted and talented schools accelerate their growth in college as well and be part of a selective tier of schools we've almost already almost almost a million dollars which we're excited about for pre-launch and that'll allow us to have everything in place that we need before our kids join us in the fall of 2020 and we already have some students enrolled do enroll nd the model that I'm describing to you all has three pillars

102agency acceleration and autonomy one of the reasons that we're focusing on agency and autonomy is that I suspect some of the what I talked about before in terms of college graduation is that our kids don't have the agency that they need to be successful on a college campus I don't know why we haven't cracked another figuring out why but my suspicion is that we've handheld them too much while they were in high school and by the time they get onto a college campus and they don't have the safeguards of a school around them they flounder or financially you're not able to sustain while they're there the reason that we're focusing on this early on with our nice and 10th graders is so that we can do a slow-release to say hey how can we take

103you as a 14 year old and start building you up with the agency that you need in order to go out so on Friday as our students will do experiencial learning and exploration where they'll go out and do Job Shadow days the new volunteer work in the community we expect a partner with Habitat for Humanity keep Indianapolis beautiful is another partner or will adopt a neighborhood where our school is gonna be located we want our students to be civically engaged so that they can start getting out on their own be independent and start displaying those traits that we know our kids need in order to be successful in addition to that we're also going to focus on the soft skills that we know partner business partners are looking for and we've backwards map of what

104it would mean to teach those skills on Fridays as part of our character education and development program so really excited about that one of the mantras of our school is our kids will build their brand so ideally they'll start with us in ninth grade and we'll start teaching them what it means to develop their professional persona and what that looks like and that includes being professional on social media that includes how you dress and how you present yourself all of these soft skills that we know oftentimes have in our students from being successful what from being successful once they get out into the workforce is what we want to focus on the other thing I think that's up here that's key to talk about is health and wellness is important to me we want our

105kids to have some sort of physical fitness every year we also want our kids to do something that's sustainable so we're looking for partnerships out in the community so if you decide that you want to be a runner girls they've run we know the people who have some sort of healthy outlet generally tend to fare better in a more six in life so we want to make sure that we're providing those opportunities while they're with us in high school the option for partnering with IPS and innovation is that scale matters I think the more students that we can impact and the more students that we can touch in order to provide college access is important as an african-american woman it is also uniquely important to me that we close the achievement gap I know one

106of our parents talked about that earlier that's important to me we were able to successfully do that in Chicago the high school that I founded ten years ago has an average of 21 plus on the AC T and that's the norm every year which means we are above state average so we have closed the achievement gap we don't have a gap with 95% black and brown our kids are realizing the dream that we all want for all kids to have access to get not only get into college but be successful we know there are some factors that we can't control once they get there but at the first high school that I founded we knew what we needed to do to get them there and we did that and not intend to do that again

107here in Indianapolis Public Schools one of the other things I'm really focused on is workforce skills which we talked about briefly and the rigorous academic experience I know a few people asked about rigor gray level material is super important but also figuring out how to accelerate our students who come in higher achieving I often think as a gifted and talented student myself I often worry about the students who are achieving above grade level when they're sitting in classrooms where the teachers expected to differentiate for all so we'd like to figure out a way some accelerate our kids who are higher achieving and get them access to the college rigorous college material sooner than later we'd also like to bring the kids who potentially could go out of district we know that there was another early

108college model approved by the State Board that could draw some kids away from the district we'd like to provide an option for them to stay in district currently in RPS there is not a approved early college model we would like to provide that for the district and we would be as a partner with you all to provide the infrastructure to do that happy to answer any question mr. gore where were you thinking about pushing your school the original campus that we're looking at will be on the Ivy Tech Fall Creek campus will inhabit the old Tinley Genesis building right there at Illinois ofall Creek we chose a central location so that's similar to the IPS model students from all over the city can access our school have you previously now I saw that it's mayor

109approved so you're as we move along and I guess again I continue to ask the same question what are we doing and what would you do in your school because I always think students can't learn and there's going to always be a gap they're not in school or they're being disciplined or suspended so I got ahead of that when you all asked that question earlier and looked up our suspension rates I've never been a big fan of suspension or expulsion my tenure as the principal we had less than 4% of suspension rate and I know one of you are asked earlier about how many students mission college prep enrolls between eight hundred and a thousand students and it has a thousand student plus waiting list we do not believe in suspending kids we cannot close

110the achievement gap if kids are at home and I recognize that so we go as far as we can go to make sure that we keep our kids in school and I was working in a network that was known for its discipline practices and we still did not suspend kids because that's personally something that's important to me our expulsion to write in 2012-2013 which was well was easy for me to google was one and a half percent just one other question you know that IPS has closed three high school yes ma'am and so with your opening this where would we be getting those students and what do you think would be your yeah yes ma'am the students are in the city we also anticipating starting small our goal is the smart start small so we

111can focus on the students that we have because of our unique model so our goal would be not to take more than about a hundred freshmen every year unless the district partnership warrants more which we'd love to talk about long-term but because we're starting small we don't anticipate struggling with enrollment or drawing a significant number of students from our already existing programs within the district mr. slack thank you for coming out I thank you for your presentation I want to go ahead and give you kudos on the slide 22 I think it's very important for us to partnership with universities and I like that bullet point then also I had a question about I know you said you want to start small and you say you want to take kids from they have left the

112district to bring them back how you tend to do that we are actively recruiting I have a whole team of people that are working with me already tonight they're at vision Academy recruiting students at their high school night every night this week or day this week I've been in a local middle school recruiting students so we plan on continuing to beat the streets and make sure the students know that we've got an early college option within IPs they don't have to leave and go to the townships or go to Ben Davis in order to get that to get that option we want to provide that here in the city and not only provide what they could get at Ben Davis but more because we're also offering multiple college partnerships and dual enrollment okay and then

113I know you said you worked somewhere in Chicago do you know what what school did you work for it you should yes ma'am I didn't just work for school in Chicago I founded a high school in Chicago in 2009 yishun college prep super proud of it it has the highest rating the Chicago Public Schools gives their high schools it's a one plus school and has been for ten years and it's still going on yeah absolutely my successor knows what she has to do appreciate that okay and so what percentage do you plan to increase for our students I know you say you had a percentage of you want to get married what is that person Joel's numbers aren't defined yet we are in early-stage conversations with the post-secondary readiness team with IPS so if granted

114the opportunity to participate in innovation we would work closely with IPS to determine which percentage of the students that we you all want to target and how we can partner and serve we're open to all possibilities if that means we could do colocation or kids come to believe we are open to whatever the district needs to support the early college model within the district okay I know you said that you want to improve the suspension rates and things of that nature and bring kids back to the classroom I know that sounds great on our part but as a teacher how does it work out I usually angle this from the principal so I'm the one that's deciding and we will figure out ways to keep our kids in school we always have having a school

115in Chicago they pull kids on the south and west side of Chicago if we can keep those babies in school we can keep our babies in school here too and so my last question would be you said skills was on slide 22 as well yes my skills are you plan on giving our kids we want to focus on the soft skills that the employers in Indianapolis have identified communication teamwork prompt and present is one of the things a lot of our students struggle with being able to critically think about a situation and apply the knowledge that they've learned in math per se to an applicable situation or some of the skills in terms of our college partners we're also talking about how do we provide instruction in different modalities so a lot of our college

116partners are moving towards technology so we've got to figure out how to incorporate technology early on with our 9th and 10th grades so by the time they get with our college partners or they have to do an internship their junior and senior year we've adequately prepared them for that so we are looking at varied approaches to how we're going to do instruction including the traditional classical education of sit and get which is what we call it but also teamwork project-based learning and some technology infusion and how our kids are interfacing that's where I was going with that the technology angle yes thank you very much appreciate it no problem Charlotte do you anticipate staying in your current location in the long term or is this just kind of a place to get started and our

117current location is awesome in the short and long term because it's on Ivy Tech's campus so it allows our kids easy access to the dual enrollment piece we can um operate fully as an independent charter in that location if the district partnership progresses then we be open so being wherever we need to be thank you thank you very much thank you I hope you guys make it to the game so with that we only have one more left would like to welcome Arlington Woods Elementary good evening superintendent Johnson and IPS for commissioners good evening to the my community of supporters Eastern Star my family and teachers here tonight thank you for welcoming us tonight to share our vision for Arlington Woods Elementary the mission of Arlington Woods Elementary is to unlock every student's potential through

118social emotional learning and high quality education through this work we want our students to have strong character be well-rounded and have a global perspective in order to make this a reality for our students we would like to utilize the JumpStart pathway to enhance our Sankofa school motto why do we choose the name Sankofa Sankofa means to learn from the past we started this work in 2015 when we experienced trauma through our students experiences for the first time throughout the years we've been able to create innovative ways to support their trauma related needs through careful and intentional implementation of social emotional learning and mindfulness we've been able to move our cultural needle this year we have transformed our school culture into a culture that is safe supportive and it provides hope healing and a high education

119as a result our out-of-school suspension rates have decreased by 10% 83% of our staff have demonstrated mastery of culturally responsive teaching practices as well as school up school-wide expectations currently 44% of our grade three through six students have exceeded their nwea middle of the year growth targets by an average of 20 points in order to continue the progress that we've made we would like to enhance our staffing plan in the past we learn that in order for our students to thrive we also have to ensure that our teachers have the tools that they need to navigate trauma related issues that our students bring to the school in order to do this we are seeking to have what we call a sustainable Wednesday a sustainable Wednesday is an early release day where we can take time

120more time to develop our teachers it's really hard to see a teacher veteran our new struggle through secondary trauma and secondary trauma is real for a lot of our teachers in IPs if our teachers are traumatized and not equipped to deal with these foundational skills of are the issues that our students bring to the table then no one is thriving and students aren't getting what they need to be successful so through these sustainable Wednesday's we seek to have wellness activities for our staff we want to engage them in coaching coaching sessions and practice labs so that they can practice the skills that we are teaching them and they can get feedback from their colleagues to get better faster we also want to utilize the sustainable Wednesday to go visit other schools we use data for

121everything that we do we we monitor and track every single detail and once we identify a gap we would like to go to other schools who are excelling in that area to see what they are doing that is moving the needle in their schools the majority of our teachers are new at our school so it's very important that we take time with them to develop them and give them what they need to be successful we have also assembled an effective school supports team this supports team specializes in trauma-informed care and we would like to compensate them more creatively we also want to involve our students in mindfulness which means that we will open and close our day with meditation and teachers will engage their students in meta moments after lunch and recess that's when we

122tend to see a lot of our issues but I would like for Annette Wooldridge one of our current teacher leaders to talk about her experience at Arlington woods and also why innovation for early woods thank you Thank You coach Henderson good evening yes you did hear me call her coach Henderson let me explain during our summer Institute we gave our admin team the name coach Henderson and coach Mickens coaches have two main jobs one is to motivate and the other is to help their team members get better faster in order to do in order to do this we must build both student and teacher capacity for students we want to emphasize physical psychological and emotional safety when students learn to self-regulate they feel in control and empowered these components are crucial to learning for teachers

123we want to equip them not only with the tools to support high academic academic expectations but also with tools to help them navigate through the trauma related behaviors in the classroom and to navigate the secondary trauma that we as teachers often take home with us as an original member of the school design team I've been afforded the opportunity to see just how realigning our resources has already helped drive change in our learning community our building looks and sounds like a learning community to quote one of my sixth-grade students mrs. Wooldridge it's different this year I feel safe we can attribute statements like this to the pre-work that our team did over the summer we came in early we took off the gloves and we got to work but we are continuing to do that work

124every day and we believe that going to becoming an innovation school will help us to get there and will help us to get better faster thank you questions commissioner more thick I've had the opportunity to attend your school so I have to agree that I think that the the school sound good and you guys were doing a lot of great things so I want to say that first so tell me what are the things that what what can you do differently as an innovation school that you feel you cannot do as an autonomy school within IPs so currently we do not have sustainable wins yeah so currently we do not have a half day every week where we can spend more time developing our teachers right now we have two staff meetings a month and

125there are 45 minutes in length and we also have the few PD days that the district offers other and then we have the teachers prep time which is very important that we give teachers their prep time so that is all the time that we have to develop teachers that are navigating social-emotional issues as well as filling in remedial gaps for students at our school and so we're asking to have more time throughout the week to develop our teachers when our teachers leave Arlington woods at 4:15 every day they are tired they have they've done a lot throughout the school day to meet students social-emotional needs as well as academic needs so they are tired and so for me to ask them to stay after for two hours for development I'll probably only get five to

126stay I mean even then I want them to practice self-care that is so important if you are not mentally socially emotionally stable and ready yourself how can you be for students and so we do practice self-care to Arlington woods we have a Zen room Eastern star provided us with two Zen rooms for our staff to go to when they need a moment they need their own meta moment and so it's been bit it's really helped our school environment but the main thing is I don't have the time that I need to develop them to master the skills that they need for students to thrive and be successful so and my and my incorrect in that every school within Indiana has so many hours of instruction that every every child has to have throughout the year

127so those those hours are now going to change so your instructors your teachers your they're gonna have to still spend the same anumber hours right you're just gonna move them out so there are work maybe on Saturday or something I'm just trying to well we're adding an extra thirty five minutes to the school day Monday Tuesday Thursday and Friday so we are making up the time we couldn't do that as part of IPS I'm just I'm just I'm trying to understand because I do see a lot of our schools coming here to asked us to do jump start restart whatever and separate themselves form IPs it was always my understanding that we wanted you to have a time we recognize that you the most important person we know that you know your community and we

128applaud is to store for being a partner with you so I mean I've been in school so I'm happy for that I just do not understand why we have to continuously remove ourselves from our district in order to be great so I just need to understand that point it structurally with the so there there are no seat time requirements in the States we don't say you have to be in your seat for a number of hours seat time there are the numbers of days that we need to provide instruction to our students but contractually for teachers who were part of collective bargaining unit and for the work we do for bargaining if we want to flex and change time and that nature then there's compensation that needs to go along with that so if to

129her slide around flexible compensation she's compensating in such a way that then builds in that additional time or she's scheduling that time different she could do that more flexibly we could do it now so it's not impossible for a school to do it they could certainly do it the compensation to be able to go you know an extra thirty minutes every single day for everyone on your staff right now it's simply not feasible for schools okay so my last question I promise I mean I'm just am I on the wedding right now so so I can't remember a while back another gentleman came here and he's to his school and how he had he was providing his teachers with additional money to do additional things with their students after school so I guess I guess

130one of the things I want to ask the mind Trust to do is to figure out how to work with us to help us figure out how to do some of the things that our teachers think that they can do or help us to be able to identify the root cause from us being able to prohibit our teachers to do these things if they think they can do I saw the umbrella of IPs so I'm not for I'm not against anybody going out to do something great you know that you think you can do something great but I also want to understand why greatness can't evolve in the place that you are you know I'm saying and that's what we tend to do which is what we did in our neighborhood I'm not trying to

131be funny but that's what we did in our neighborhoods you know we've said it our neighbors who is no longer good enough us are we gonna move further out we're gonna do this we don't do that but you know my question is is if you if if everybody's rolling the both the same way that all the people on the boat get to go to the same place if everybody keeps jumping off the boat then what then you could have like two people on this boat trying to move the school district that's my only concern and and again I appreciate all that you're doing I appreciate you since tour I just wish I I just you can find a way to allow some of the schools to be great within their own place amen mr. gore

132thank you very much and I've talked to you before and I know that you're excited about school and the changes that have been made and you superseded me on your slide 27 when you talked about the out-of-school suspensions have been reduced by 10% what about your in-school suspensions and I know you have a behavioral specialist it's working and just tell me some of the things that you've done that's making a change now so we are we are we have a goal for our suspensions and for ourselves and we said we did not want to go over 218 suspensions by December and we are way below that number and so what we are doing one our teachers are using culturally massive teaching practices as well as coach Mickens who is my assistant principal myself we're in

133classrooms on the ground every single day every minute coaching teachers in the moment using those practices also we have a counselor now social worker we have two learning behavior support staff members we have a behavior coach and what they do is we have a Reece amygdala reset room and so students that need a moment to reset will go to the amygdala reset room we had interventionist in there that teaches the academic work while they're also being reset with the learning behavior support classify person so when they are sent out and we encourage the teachers if you don't have if you have a master the tools to deal with the behavior in your class send the students out but they still get their instruction in that amygdala reset room as well as if that does not

134work then our behavior coach Amy Clifton she then provides proactive social groups throughout the day so not reactive but children have their set time every day to go with her and she teaches social-emotional learning skills as well and then we also have our counselor and in our social worker that also provide coping skills and techniques for students to use in class in throughout the school environment and just everyday we also have an ISS room and so that is staffed by a learning behavior support classified staff as well and then they also she helps them with their work when they come in there so there are many places and then our classrooms have calming corners and so even before students are sent out they go to the calming corner to reset themselves so we have many

135different ways that we try to reset the behavior as well as teach the correct behavior before they are suspended out of school so if you looked at our data USA Wow they have lots of referrals but we're keeping kids in school that is the our main focus is to keep them there is in-school suspension okay thank you where's your slack I want to say thank you for coming out I want to say thank you to Eastern star for supporting you guys I also want to echo some of the same sentiments as Commissioner Moore I have the same issues I think that's the reason why I made the comment for our SQ RS I know you mentioned something about going to visit other schools and seeing what they're doing I think that's the reason why it's

136important for us to see what our high-performing schools are doing and what our schools are doing and how we can use those that data help with interventions because you're telling us that you asking the district to do things for you and that you need so please tell me what staff are you saying that you need right now you're at your school to help support you I need everyone know that's a long list well currently the staff that I have now we we have a strong behavior supports team but we do need more teachers our third grade classroom is sitting at 29 students apiece and that's quite large for a great level that is double tested with I read and I learn so our classrooms are getting rather large as well as within those classrooms you

137have eight or nine students that are traumatized so trying to teach 29 students and then you have eight that you have behavior intervention plans to follow that tends to be a lot so just being able to we're not asking for a lot we just want to be able to do more with what we have okay and I know that you said mentioned the personal development days is your personal development days focus around that that trauma that you mentioned yes ma'am so it's focused and it has a dual focus it's based on teaching trauma-informed care culturally responsive teaching practices as well as a focus on standards so we know that if teachers don't understand the standards and how they're assessed kids are not learning whether they are calm and refocused and and and are exhibiting all

138the social-emotional skills that we want them to but if teachers don't understand the standards and how to assess them we're getting nowhere and so it has a dual purpose how long have you been doing this trauma-focused study and since 2015 and with that being said do you do anything over the summer with your teachers oh yes we had a summer institute so that was important to note we did I brought teachers in a week early so that we could develop them give them time to practice the skills practice in front of their peers and give feedback realign readjust and get ready for the school year typically or historically we're getting ready for the school year in office so I get my kids now I'm creating my classroom management plan because you got to know your

139kids before so I felt like this year has been really successful because we are in front of the eight ball instead of behind the eight ball so bringing them in early was very beneficial to the whole school community and I apologize so how long do you say you've been there you've been there for it since 2015 as well I've been there for this year okay and can you tell me what your what your data says about moving from your nine years from the beginning to now so when I first got to Arlington woods it was a sea school and so we rely on our rely on our resources we became data-driven and we took the school from a C to an A we discrete we decreased suspensions by 20% we increased our I read scores

140to 72% and so that's kind of been my my data for Arlington woods sounds like you're doing an excellent job I just can't see why we're gonna go to jump start if you're doing such a great job you have a great support system you have a great anchor there at Eastern stars willing to do the partnership with you I just can't see jump start when you're doing a phenomenal job but I'm listening to what you're saying and I would love to visit your school wish Arnold remind me if you become a jump-start do you create your own entity do you become I know you yes you know the le a so you'll have your own Board of Directors yes may I do your own incorporation into a non not-for-profit have you done any of that

141yet yes we have our own 501c3 Sankofa school of success and I'd have four board members and who are those board members where do they come from I mean our community so some of them are from the community and some are from sectors I have a CFO of Hardee's in Carl's jr. nationwide who is a part of our board we're all african-american women with diverse skill sets one is a HR specialists one is a fund development specialist and one is a unit has a is a university supervisor Oh local all local and we're looking to have nine board members okay thank you thank you very much I want to thank you guys I've been in your school also familiar that everyone want to thank our friends from Eastern star beyond just work to do with

142your school the work they're doing in that neighborhood is phenomenal and I I will tell you I look anxiously to having more conversations with you all my suspicion is the if the work you're doing is phenomenal and if you say I can do it better under a jumpstart I'm inclined to be supportive of that thank you [Applause] thank everyone who came this evening and presented and thanks to the board for being engaged and for your thoughtful questions and thank you Jamie for not bringing tin to us this evening some more for you next month or might be are alright we did not have any unfinished business so I will move us into new business there are five items and new business this evening that were presented on Tuesday as a reminder item 8.01 as a

143request for the board's approval of an MoU with enroll in d to continue our partnership jamie provided a summary of the main points of that mou on tuesday the services that will be provided by a neural india include pre-k through 12 enrollment services the online application portal lottery management family notification and ongoing on-site enrollment support so the administration asked for the board's approval of that MOU at this time a motion approved the MoU with enroll india as presented it has been moved and seconded any further discussion or questions all those in favor signify by saying aye aye any opposed the motion carries item 8.02 is the approval of the firm to conduct the facilities optimization study as president O'Connor noted that was included earlier in the general purchasing report so I don't think there's any

144action to take there my current excellent item 8.03 is a request for the board's approval of the right away dedication description that's needed by the city of Indianapolis so that we can build a right away or a bus sort of cut out and pick up and drop off area at christian park school 82 for safety reasons the administration requests the approval of that right away grant for the city our motion to approve resolution number 70 836 approving the right-of-way grant has presented second it has been moved in a second at any discussion all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed the motion carries item 8.04 was presented on tuesday and included an innovation renewal process update as a part of this update the administration plus the board's approval to non-renew the innovation network

145schools agreement with charter schools USA in the operation of a Madonna elementary school Tuesday's presentation included concerns regarding enrollment decline staff turnover and governance structure and I believe we might have commenters on this item take the commenters now first speaker is Aaron shouts our minor speakers of the guidance earlier this evening that you have three minutes good evening superintendent Johnson and commissioners thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak my name is Aaron Jones and I was the Southside community representative for the State Board of Education school transition task force for the three takeover schools currently operated by charter schools USA I'm also the past president longtime board member of the Garfield Park neighbors Association the neighborhood were Emma Donna and is located in manual high schools located past vice president or vice chair

146of the south and equality of life Advisory Board past South East Congress community building team member and current member of the Garfield Park neighbors Association Education commit committee more importantly I'm the mother of two little boys ages four and four months I've been working with community leaders from around the South Side since the transition task force began and I stand before you today as a concerned community member and concerned mother who is asking the IPS school board to stand alongside us as we advocate for high quality education and accountability for Amanda Meadows middle school and manual high school and amadon in elementary school during the task force process I was exposed to concerning data questionable representation of information to the public reluctant to provide information requested by the community and a general lack of vision

147and commitment to sustainability by charter schools USA because of this experience and the alarming developments since the task force work concluded our Community Coalition comprised of multiple South Side neighborhoods support the administration's recommendation to not renew the innovation partnership with CSU sa for a Madonna in elementary and we also support the administration's recommendation to request a State Board of Education turn the middle school back over to IPS so that a high quality stable k-8 option can be pursued we do want to emphasize that although we have serious concerns regarding CS USA's management the teachers and staff at and Madonna are dedicated to the kids they serve and my time as a community leader I worked alongside staff members as they sought to improve the quality of life for their students and families and during the

148task force I saw these individuals show up for meetings outside of work hours time and again to fight for their students we implore you to work with the teachers and staff at Donnan to maintain stability for students and families and to support these hard-working educators who deserve to keep doing what they love in the Southside community in addition as you explore innovation programs we also want you to consider placing a k-8 choice program in this facility the Southside is not served by any IPS choice programs and we believe this is an opportunity to provide more equitable options to our neighborhoods and families lastly while I understand the future of manual high school is not an item on tonight's agenda I have assured my neighbors and community partners this will not go unsaid as an as

149the Indiana Charter School Board considers charter applications for a Madonna middle and and manual high school the community urges your esteem body to take a stand alongside us and commit to keeping manual high school open by exploring alternative pathways including innovation partners we do not know what the Indiana Charter School Board will decide but we know that these families and children have been left behind and we are asking you to join us to fight for them thank you thank you Laura give full followed by Aaron Brown hello thank you for this opportunity to the loudest outside [Music] I'm alive boys okay so my name is Laurie get one for a neighborhood president in debate centric Stanford Association which is located just north of boses and campuses of in mirth manual as well as in Madonna's

150at community organizations we are passionate about improving the quality of life for those in our boundaries including those that are our youngest neighbors we believe that strong public education institutions are a key player in the health of our community and I'm here tonight to ask that you partner with us and ensuring that both Abaddonn Ananda Merck Manual are led by administrators the chair vision of healthy and strong neighborhoods for these schools to succeed we believe that the administration must be accountable to the community that they serve our students are diverse with the diverse set of needs that are often very complicated we desire a school that will meet the needs of all students that enter their doors not just those that are college bound there are community meetings it is clear that our residents are

151worried about the future of our educational institutions and need a strong vision and plan moving forward to fully commit to our public education system it is our hope that IPS will join us in this work to ensure that all students that attend our public schools on the southeast side are given the same opportunities as students elsewhere in our city our communities are changing and we must sure that current we must make sure that current and future families do not have to choose between an urban lifestyle and quality schools there are who are quarterly community school council meetings we have begun to find ways to build better relationship between the young families moving into our community and disclosed within our boundaries well we have not had a relationship with the administration that either in Madonna or

152manual high school we have had the pleasure of getting to know a few teachers that share the same passion of quality educational institutions and the fantastic families that we serve similar to Eric's comments we as a community would continue to support the educators and families at manual high school but will continue to advocate for an administration that that speaks fits the needs of our community I look forward to continuing a dialogue with all of you on how we can improve upon our education educational opportunities on are often forgotten south seaside southeast side of Indianapolis thank you hi thanks to the Commissioner is an American jobs her lady speak my name is Aaron Brown I am a Garfield part of resident and remember of the chair of the Education Committee in the Garfield Park neighborhoods Association

153I'm also the previous IPS employee and an IPS parent the first grader so as a member of the committee the Education Committee we've been really involved with what's been going on but charter schools USA and I support the leadership team and its recommendation that ideas should not renew the partnership with charter schools USA I hope the board will go to this to me that partnership we support that the State Board of Education turning the 7th through 8th grade middle school back to IPS so they can run the school as a highly high-quality and K through 8 school charter schools USA has proven itself to be an unreliable educational partner in the community that cannot be trusted we have been highly involved through their trying to attempt to get a charter and have serious concerns about

154charter schools USA and how they have managed so so far with the homeschooling controversy there's student count versus the facility size inability to give information on long term sustainability or any information on the vision for their schools well I know this meeting tonight is specifically about Emma done and once again also late Aaron I have concerns about me annual because Emma Donnan is a feeder school for me and you all and what affects one will surely affect the other should we ask you to please take a stance that ideas to be open and taking back me and my high school through innovation partnership potentially or working with the community if they are not granted a charter through the Indiana State Board the and I also wanted to say along the lines of what Aaron said

155that we have worked with Madonna and a lot of people in the neighborhood with their staff and their teachers and they are they've been amazing and so we would hope that you would work with their existing staff you know so that their their children don't have too much of a show we need to pause recruiter just keep going yes kickoff is now you teach the boys I will use also point out that we have Richard level motion I have a motion to accept the recommendation about the rule for the innovation network Rema Rema donít authorizes the notice of non-renewal and as a percent discussion say a command the comedian coming out tonight their inputs on on our ability tonight's an afternoon Church Lewis a and I committed all those people for a coordinate harp those

156teachers that there are teachers and staff and students this place that we want to make sure that there are taken care of that's our main concern as our children all those in favor signify by saying aye motion carries my name is a revision to meeting and organization policies that were reviewed by board administrator exact Mulholland on to saying the administration requested approval of those policies that's presented revision to us presented that would sit for 30 days before final control so I could be definitely pretty bad I can come back that's final item if there's any christian with chocolate closing comments one thing another trying to get out here I wish everyone a great holiday and I won't read everything back until everyone's has gotten pretty pounds on them so I don't say everyone is safe

157enjoys their holiday I hope we still to be able to please some of our kids and other we're closer down but still I know that props to me mentioning feeding our kids I'll make sure that they're okay and so [Music] are some tech that's Friday it was outstanding great to see such a great people energized about showing themselves to talk about different it wasn't all bad so even though I got lost because the campus is big thank you this is reflected Krishna Harlem thank you for the for the digest I appreciate that but also just what I again thank our community for showing up to the town halls especially for district 3 was thankful to the community and members that participated of conversations were fruitful engaging topics discussed were incredible and so I would encourage

158folks to access IPs its website because I think we have a documentary the full documentary and all the resources from those events on the website but I think its end to echo comments from a previous board meeting from Commissioner Moore I think we've talked about strategic priorities I know this is an ongoing conversation strategic priorities but also their expectation work but this is a pivotal opportunity I think to really dig in on talked about the achievement gaps the opportunity gaps how do these circumstances these priorities interact with or the other assessing the outcomes what is working and what is working for who so I'm hopeful that that will be a perhaps the third hour of the to our Town Hall perhaps or the next base of this conversation as we roll and continue to gather

159feedback for our future 20 I plan so wanted to lift that point up again in addition really so the other day it just made my week so a group of set of craters from James with Robbie's 43 came by University where I worked and they were on an attorney and a school visit my chance to have some great conversations with some engaged and just a remarkable children just like before children but students about just about goals and about priorities about creating and then sustaining and what it means to get that get to and achieve that goal one so many of the students that I had an opportunity to spend time with knew what they were going to do pediatrician nurse one professional football player so when he said the freshman football player I don't have

160to professional football player on campus but we do have a former professional basketball player who's our athletic director and so they had the opportunity spend some time about his mom's deep counting and - for him to pour a little bit of wisdom into the young man's life and so again I just want to just acknowledge how rueful that was for me to be lifted up and encouraged but also to be able to share my experiences with a remarkable group of seventh graders so one thing knowledge that exciting moment I can just want to acknowledge some of the error that Commissioner Arnold attended and I also haven't an opportunity to attend the showcase and I think it was so well done and I love the passport gave me an opportunity and I thought it was just

161kind of innovative to be able to do it so I want to thank you the staff for doing that and I also had an opportunity to visit one of our schools and it's just very good to see our students and really working hard in our teachers and I know that it's a challenge every day but I just want to thank everybody and happy Thanksgiving everyone thanks for all that this has been a long month thanks for all the hard work the staff the boardrooms you put in a Christian worship comment on women in power thing reminds me the Commissioner hovels and I sit up there with women who are leaders lead by example so I think I should recognize that I had an expert bridge both the girl that boys teams will play the girls

162start at 6 the boys game is immediately following so if you want something to to do before the holiday please join us and addicts on Tuesday evening and I think all of you sharing things that I'm happy for our students in the arts in athletics in the classroom so as much as I can I tell everyone I can there are great things happening in our district all the time so very proud to get to lead it and one share my gratitude with our team specifically and it's been an incredibly busy November December is equally busy and they put in so much work every day to ensure our students have the best possible opportunities I'm very thankful for my immediate team but all team IPS for everything our next meeting we are introduced we are agenda

163review session on Tuesday June 17th to 6:00 p.m. also the Finance Committee will meet on Wednesday for left at the 5:30 I always extend invitation to variant in the Finance Committee meetings having completed all the [Music] you [Music]