001[Music] good evening I hereby call to order the action session of the board of school commissioners for Thursday October 25th the colors this evening will be posted by the color guard from George Washington High School led by cadre advisor sergeant first class Salomon Garret jr. please rise for rise for the presentation of colors [Music] whoa one nation under God indivisible Oh outward Oh Oh or Oh Oh thank you to the color guard from George Washington High School mr. Mahone would you please call the roll mr. Arnold here mr. Bentley here secretary Gore commissioner who's here vice president Moore here here Commissioner Sullivan here Thank You mr. Mulholland will now adopt agenda for tonight's meeting the agenda was reviewed on Tuesday and reflects all necessary modifications or additions reviewing the modified agenda are the requests for
002changes to the agenda as presented hearing none do I have a motion to approve the agenda so moved second second I have a motion in a second all in favor aye the agenda is adopted when I'll proceed to section 2 of the agenda each month we invite students to showcase their talent tonight's performance comes to us as a courtesy of Shortridge high school please welcome the Shortridge high school band [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I think they can still hear us in the hallway let's give the band a big round we have some various special recognitions to make this evening tonight we will honor the top 10 teachers as chosen through the Teacher of the Year Program I'll ask freshman hoops to start to introduce our nominees tonight and dr. Kirby and I will join
003at the front to greet each of the nominees the APS board of school commissioners is pleased to recognize the top-ten teachers in our district as chosen and honored through the teacher of the Year Program each year IPS conducts this program to recognize our outstanding educators inspire and rejuvenate and it lifts them up lifts the teaching profession within the district schools nominate and elect the top teacher in their building from there a special selection committee uses a rigorous process to determine the top 10 ending with the selection of the IPS Teacher of the Year this year winner is Alexandria Stewart Center for inquiry school 70 miss Stewart has been a teacher for nearly five years currently teaches a middle school at CFI seventy she helped design and implement a new middle school program Stewart believes learning
004is social and best stimulated when students question experiment bounce ideas off one another and become confident taking risks we are thrilled that mr. is representing the teachers of IPs this year's finalists are Chris Boylan George Washington High School mr. Boylan has been a life skills teacher for 17 years with 16 of those years at George Washington he also serves as a unified track and field coach and president of the George Washington High School dollars for scholars chapter during his career mr. Boylan has been an advocate for families of students with special needs presenting two groups locally reach and nationally on range of topics to benefit his students a product of ips himself oil inattentive district schools from Kate from grades K through 12 and graduated from Northwest High School [Applause] Eric cavalier a center for
005inquiry school - Eric or mr. cat as his students call him is a grade 6 through 8 language arts teacher at C fi - it's a position he's held since 2012 mr. cat began his teaching career as Arsenal Tech High School in 2008 diagnosed with dyslexia in first grade he believes this learning disability has allowed him to be a successful teacher helping him excel and breaking down information in new and interesting ways building relationships with students and differentiating classroom activities to appeal to a variety of learners and skill levels and my child's homeroom school teacher Jordan fast Thomas Gregg neighborhood school Jordan pfaff has served as a special education teacher for grades 2 through 8 at Thomas Gregg neighborhood school since 2014 education however wasn't her initial career choice Jordan received her bachelor's degree in
006hospitality and tourism management from Purdue University that later went back to school to receive her master's and teaching from Marian University miss path believes teaching is her life's calling and says her desire to do work that matters led to her education a member of the IPS diversity cadre and the Thomas Gregg school culture and community engagement committee pfaff is committed to educating reluctant and marginalized students [Applause] Christon Gladish newcomer program miss gravich has been a teacher for nine years she currently teaches music at the IPS newcomer program she started and built the music program at the school last year MS Gladish works with newly arrived immigrants and refugees students many of whom suffer from trauma and have had a severely interrupted formal education she believes in the therapeutic power of music Rachael head Center for
007inquiry school 84 mrs. Head is a first-grade teacher at C fi 84 she has held this position for the last four years Rachel supports students in many ways both in and out of the classroom including serving as co-director of the CFI 84 musical leader of the theater club high ability coordinator and member of the school equity and school leadership teams she also values an education that includes student voices questions and authentic discoveries Jaime record from Broad Ripple High School mr. Rickard has spent 15 years teaching all of them in IPs he currently works at Crispus Attucks high school but he was teaching history and government at Broad Ripple High School when he was nominated last year he plans and uses innovative and research-based strategies that engage students in meaningful tasks he takes great joy in
008being part of the school community in many capacities coaching athletics serving on committees attending school functions even playing in the band Paige jords mah couldn't be with us this evening that I want to go ahead and read about her miss miss Georgia ma is a teacher for five years all of them in IPs she's at the Butler University lab school at school 60 she currently teaches English language arts in grades six through seven at school sixty pages devoted to creating equitable education for all students that includes fighting systemic racism Michael Smith from Arlington High School Michael has served the students of Indianapolis Public Schools for the past two years initially teaching secondary English language arts to freshmen at Arlington high school he's now a teacher at George Washington High School mr. Smith has made it
009his life's goal to ensure all students no matter the socio-economic background have access to a quality education through his work in the classroom and Teach for America he often designs classroom lessons around students interest finally Eric van Valen mr. van Baalen has been teaching for nearly three years all of them at IPs he's currently a teacher at center for inquiry school 27 but when he was nominated last year he was teaching second grade at super school 19 he aims to teach the whole student going beyond their academic needs and taking into account the emotional mental and physical needs of the students join me in giving all of our top ten teachers for the 2019 1819 school year a round of applause [Applause] moving on a section three opening comments does any Commissioner wish to offer
010our opening comments this evening Commissioner Sullivan Thank You president O'Connor I would like to address a concern that I've heard expressed more frequently over the past few weeks and that is the complaint that IPS and the board are not transparent enough as a public organization because the concept of transparency is a rather vague subjective term I thought I'd do some quick research to see if there are any acknowledged standards for what constitutes best practice for school boards and I quickly came across a set of guidelines on ballotpedia I asked staff to briefly review our current practices against these standards and I'm pleased to share that IPS actually does quite well in meeting the recommended standards staff looked at the availability of information across 11 different categories and I will name those shortly and in most
011of those categories we met all of the metrics in a few areas that we were lacking we were not totally deficient but could ideally include some additional information dr. Berube I would like to request that the administration do a more thorough review of our practices and report back to the board with any recommendations for improvement and I additionally I would request from members of the public that they please share any specific areas of concern this board and this administration take great pride in being open and transparent it's a quality that we all value we are working really hard to be a continuously improved a continuously improving organization here are the 11 categories for which we met or nearly met the objective criteria that have been established by a very recognized sunshine in government organization in
012terms of budget school district government meeting and agendas elected official information school district administrator information access to government records and public documents contracts with teachers and support staff contracts with vendors audits financial and performance information tax burden criminal background checks and academic performance so those are all of the kind of general categories that were expected to have readily available public information and we have at least preliminary information on all of those categories as being currently available to the public so I hope we can look forward to doing that thank you for raising this issue and we continue to be committed to being one of the most transparent school corporations in the state and across the nation and will happily respond to the requests thank you any other Commissioner comments we've been on to the public
013comment session it is my understanding tonight they are commenting commenting specifically on items and the later in the agenda is that correct yes sir your understanding is correct I will go ahead and go over the guidelines for public comment or reminder speakers who will come up later we'll call you on the agenda items you have requested you're allowed three minutes for to comment off of comments at the board the timer will start when you begin and I ask that you briefly conclude you're emerged when the timer goes off comments should be directed to the board collectively should not be abusive or disruptive should not address a topic that might be of a confidential nature or they would compromise impartiality of the board I'll also remind our speakers that while the board is happy to receive
014your comments we went out respond to any particular answer or not respond oriented any questions at this time if you have signed up to speak on a topic on the agenda you'll be called when that items before the board moving to the consent agenda the items included on the consent agenda were reviewed at our agenda review session on Tuesday and reflect all necessary modifications are there any questions or requests and move an item from the consent agenda hearing none do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented it's been moved and seconded any comments all in favor aye any opposed the motion carries having no board report to turn the agenda over to dr. Perry Thank You president O'Connor good evening commissioners the the first superintendent report for tonight is the monthly
015school spotlight were pleased to highlight the work occurring at Raymond brandy school 65 this evening we're fortunate to have the principal Lauren Johnson who will come forward and share more about what's happening in the building and some of their accomplishments today and what they're looking to achieve over the next school year so welcome miss Johnson and we're excited to have you and learn more about your work good evening dr. Farrah being board of commissioners it is my privilege to share with you this evening why Raymond Brandis Elementary School 65 is the best school in the state of Indiana and that's how I go and tell the students every morning as I go to the classrooms I greet them good morning best sixth graders in the state of Indiana good morning best first graders in the
016state of Indiana in order to do this we're going to talk a little bit about what makes us special we're going to talk about some things such as why we are moving on how we are moving full steam ahead we're going to share a little bit of information about our data and goals gonna even talk a little bit about getting Wiggy with it tonight and then we'll wrap up by talking about our career and Community Connections so this evening who is Raymond Brandis Raymond Brandis is a graduate or was a graduate of manual high school he owned a pharmacy and other businesses in the Indianapolis area and he was a member of the IPS school board this is important because as we talked about our steam and stem initiative and also about ensuring that our
017students not only become partners or actually working careers but become leaders in their career fields we want to make sure that we are making the name and the memory of Raymond brand is proud at Raymond brand is great literature and literacy skills are embedded in all subjects and all teachers are reading and math teachers so during our language arts success time you will see our PE teacher and our art teacher working with literature groups and reading with students and asking them those higher-level questions about literature also if you go into the PE class as they're warming up they'll be practice practicing those math facts or if you go into the art class she'll be sharing a story or a book that is related to the skills that students are working on we had the privilege
018of receiving a school improvement grant which allowed us to purchase book sets for small groups and classes and teachers were able to choose many of the titles that they wanted in these classrooms a lot of these sets also came with learning activities that teachers can use so literacy is embedded in all of our subject areas at Raymond Brandis students are taught to use technology to research and communicate about their world so we not only focus on them practicing math facts and other skills but they go in and they find out what is the best resource of what is the best source for me to learn about what's happening they also get to read things like scholastic online or news ela stories that allow them to connect with their world at Raymond Brandis students engage in
019learning experiences that allow them to develop the habits and habits of minds of different careers and we'll talk about that a little bit later through our community partnerships our connections and our steam lab and our school is a member of multiple community organizations and we participate in service learning activities throughout the year we are pleased to say that Raymond Brandis elementary school is truly a community school so how are we focusing and moving full steam ahead and why was that one of our themes that was chosen on June 13 2018 our school was privileged to receive a new makerspace which is a steam lab from at the ink and heart of America in order to receive this makerspace our school had to submit a proposal that outlined how we would use and sustain a lab
020that focused on science technology engineering art and math each week students get to engage in activities that focus on those areas and on think about science Thursdays which was today we do a science spotlight on morning announcements for example today we talked about the science of smell as we're coming into fall and we're dealing with all these nice smelling candles did you know that scientists actually have to go through a problem-solving process in order to determine what is the right smell for the right place so everything that we do involve science our staff members are continually finding grants and resources to help with the materials so that we can provide literature special guests special families team nights and also through our college Ventures program were able to embed our students in learning more about those
021careers and also about what science technology engineering and math means in their everyday life we focus on four C's in our steam lab we focus on challenges where students are presented with different challenges that they have to solve creativity students get to use research and creativity skills to identify possible solutions to a problem for example if you have a parachute what is the best way to make that Paris you float gently so that you don't just fall straight and have a strong impact that is harmful to the body students actually worked on that activity before break collaboration students get to work together to see whose solution might be the best and what may need to be changed and then connections students make connections between themselves their community and their world we were thrilled to learn
022when we had our community banquet at the end of last school year that one of our guests who is an architect became an architect because of a makerspace experience so when we saw our kindergarteners today working in our makerspace using blocks and connects to build homes or to build other buildings it showed us that we have future architects of America right at Raymond Brandis some of our demographics and data that makes Raymond Brandis special we are thrilled that Raymond Brandis is so culturally diverse what about 80% excuse me forty eight percent Caucasian 22 percent african-american 24 percent lat you know we also have about 6% of our students that are Burmese African or multiracial and what I love about our school is we all get along together so when I talk about the fact that
023we are truly a family and a community oriented school that is evidenced as you see our students working together something we were very proud of last year when our students first took the IV 3 practice test they were unfamiliar with the testing format and unfortunately we only had about 20% passing at the beginning of the year by the end of the year 81% of our students passed I read three and that is thanks to the hard work of our teachers and our students our TRC data which is our reading assessment that is given showed that we increase the number of students benchmarked or above by the end of the year by more than 20% and our discipline referrals decreased and our suspensions decreased by 20% that was largely in part to teachers building stronger relationships
024with students letting students know what are some strategy and techniques that they could use so if I'm having a rough day or I'm not feeling quite myself I can breathe I can journal or I can go and find that special person in the building that I have the strongest connection with and we provide time and opportunity for that so this year our goal is to get Wiggy with it I had the privilege of attending a national conference this summer for elementary school principals and Shaun Kirby was sharing work from his book four disciplines of execution he talked about how achieving your highest goals involve you focusing on those wildly important goals or the whigs so we have a little chant getting Wiggy with it no no no no no no no nine and now and
025we say that as we celebrate as a matter of fact we'll be saying that tomorrow morning at our Honors Convocation and so all of our students in addition to our staff are focused on two to three things that they would like to grow on each quarter during 2018-19 our goal is to increase the number of students passing iv3 by 20% during 2018-19 at least 60% of our students and third through sixth grades will pass and during 2018-19 we will maintain a 96% or higher student and staff attendance rate and we do those by having small celebrations during the week we also have celebrations at each quarter and then we'll have celebrations at the semester and the end of the year once again we're getting Wiggy with it when I began my tenure at Raymond Brandis
026we had about two programs that we participated with the University of Indianapolis which is just a block away and now we are thrilled to say that we have over six programs that we work with und on so in the fall and spring semesters students meet for classes for a couple of weeks and then they also do observations and field experiences to learn more about teaching and learning we also participate in a college mentors program along with students from Paul I'm Miller for college mentors our students get to go over to the University of Indianapolis at least once a week where they participate in activities related to careers in college life we have a student education association that comes and does activities such as read across America Week activities with us then we also have a
027very strong connection with the nursing department nursing students come and do presentations on health they host family nights but they also partner with us in other ways so we've had nursing students come and beautify our front yard by planting flowers we also partnered with them one year and raised or collected over a thousand pounds of food non-perishables and canned goods for a local food pantry and just today our nursing students for this semester came and they were putting together what we call sacks we call them our nutrition club where we have students that get nutritious treats at the end of the week and our nursing students heard that we had to decrease the number of students that were participating this year so they worked with organizations to ensure that at least eight to ten more
028students are able to participate in the program so we're very proud of that we developed a partnership with Oasis organization where we have lunchtime tutoring and mentoring we call them lunch buddies so und students come and read with our students and just over fall break I had the privilege of meeting with the public health students they will be coming and doing a day of fitness activities and providing resources that students can use at home to stay physically fit also the student Athletic Association has met with us and they would like to begin an after school mentoring program so we are continuing to have very strong conversations that will build our partnership and make it even stronger with the University of Indianapolis our focus will be on our steam and literacy initiatives in addition to that
029we also participate in many other additional programs we have the proact kids in action service learning club and we require our students and our athletic programs to either participate in college mentors or in the proact initiative and then that students not only bond together as a group but they also participate in monthly community service activities Junior Achievement comes in and they do different programs with us helping us learn more about our community but also helping us how to learn how to be more financially literate we have student teachers from Indiana State University we've also had some from IUPUI we participate or we are a part of to neighborhood associations the University Heights neighborhood association and the Carson Heights neighborhood association but we are also very active in the south and equality of life plan I
030serve on the advisory board and also I'm one of the education and workforce development task force team members and that involves eight neighborhoods so we are thrilled that we'll be hosting an event with Fifth Third Bank and south and equality of life next week we have students that attend the Keene install Boys and Girls Club and the intercollegiate YMCA program at Laurelwood housing we also get fit and we have fitness Fridays where we focus on activities that are related to wellness and health through the catch wellness program and this year we were thrilled to be awarded in any given child arts grant that allows us to bring different performing arts as well as visual arts programs to our school just helping students build another connection and all of this all of this is only able
031to be done through the hard work of not just myself but my wonderful staff and some of them are here this evening and if it's okay I'd like to recognize them this evening so I'd like our staff to please stand what I love about our staff it's a little challenging sometimes when we have to close the building over breaks for cleaning because they will say miss Johnson when can we come in I say okay these are the days you can come in but these are the days that even I am just allowed to work in my office and not go too many feet beyond that so I want you to publicly thank them and I want to thank you for allowing me to share with you this evening it is my pleasure to not only
032serve as an IPS principal but I'm a proud IPS parent and I thank you for that opportunity might actually come up there may be some questions which are reduced we certainly have approximately 240 students in our school we are a pre-k through six building and about 75 to 80 percent free and reduced lunch it fluctuates every year we're gonna um thank you so much I this is one of my favorite agenda items every month I just think it's wonderful when we get to recognize our our schools and I'm so glad that you had a big cheering section company too so it's wonderful that you were here tonight and thank you for sharing it just sounds like a lot of really good things going on in your building you know one of the things that people
033are concerned about in general is that you know with the focus on on you know I know your steam which I was glad to see steam instead of stem but can you talk a little bit about how you and how your music and art education works in your building I know that we focus a lot on the academic subjects that I have a soft spot in my heart for the Arts and so I want I do shoes so this year we do not have a music program but we do have a music embedded in other areas so we have a teacher that works with technology he also sometimes will share songs and have students doing different things that are related to stories or books with that with our arts program I'm thrilled to have my
034art teacher here Miss Naevia's she is outstanding she not only provides arts art experiences within a classroom but she is the one that is in charge of our grant so we have been able to so we're bringing in visual artists every week students get art at least one day a week we are on a three-day schedule we call it red blue green schedule so students get art every single week and she does a lot with having them work with understanding not just the aesthetics of art so she the art of art but also the science of art and I've been in the classroom where I've watched them actually make paintings that they might see a Picasso make or they're working on different activities and they're using certain shapes to actually build a picture so we
035are working to ensure that we do keep the arts in and that's why we applied for the any given arts program we had dance Kaleidoscope come out this during the first quarter students loved it and went right now in the process of writing some more grants so that we can have some other artists come out whether they're visual artists or performing artists okay thank you mister oops thank you so much for being tonight and also to your team for joining us I would like to know what your capacity is sounds like you have 260 students you said and how many more students could you serve I would love to get to 300 and we are recruiting every day and talking to parents and networking and working with parents I'm on Twitter I posts on Facebook
036I was updating some things on our website and we'll be doing more of that because we can we can hold over 300 students so we are working very hard to get to that capacity thank you I have a quick question on slide 7 on your on your just when you do click decreased referrals and suspensions by 20% I presume that's not by accident can you tell us a little bit about the strategies behind that okay one of the things that we looked at is why we're students suspended or why were they being sent to the office were they behaviors that sometimes we had maybe not addressed early on or where they think that we required some conflict resolution and just learning how to get along better with each other so our teachers really did focus
037on having some morning meetings or talking about what are some things that we need to do we had a focus on kindness and we talked about so even if someone is rude to you you can still smile or just let it go and walk away teachers really worked very hard on getting to know their students and knowing if Lauren is having a bad day today what is something that I can do to make her a day better or does she just need a quiet place in the room to go to so our students know that if they're having a bad day in might when I was a teacher it was called Siberia you want to go to Siberia it's okay but other teachers they just have that spot that students know where to go to
038or if a student is having difficulty sitting down rather than getting in someone else's area they have an expanded space or a space in the room where they can move around more and then also I'm a very visible principal I know my students I work with my students and I tell my students my office is also a chill-out place so my students know that if they need a place to just come and just have a time to calm down sometimes there and there I'm in there I'll ask them if they want to talk and they know if they don't then we're just in there together just letting each other know that we're going to be okay so it's really about building strong relationships it's also about establishing a culture where we are family and where
039we are a community and this is just how we roll thank you I just want it quickly I've worked with a lot of the organizations I used to do a lot of work in your area and I know that means a lot of these meet at night then I just want to acknowledge how hard you work to be able to participate in all these community organizations because I know that's above and beyond your regular school day so I just want to thank you for the making that kind of effort to engage in the community so thank you thank you thank you very much thank you mr. Sam again thank you to the team as well with you it's Mike [Applause] commissioners the next report is our quarterly finance update in the spirit of our efforts
040to be more transparent with our finances the district provides quarterly updates on actual and projected figures for the school year and also we provide updates on financial strategy to my Western young chief financial manager will buy a quality finance update for the first order of the 2018-19 school year which includes a status update on all district funds and other projects and priorities that I'll turn it over to Western to highlight first order of 2018-19 Thank You dr. Kirby good evening commissioners same basic slide but I've added something at the bottom and so what we have is a focus mr. Sullivan has talked about transparency we're trying to make it easier for people to go to the finance website at IPs so absent to click on the link at the very bottom where it says learn
041more about IPs financial reporting by clicking this link so within our deck this this quarter I've embedded a number of links out to the finance website so what you'll see here is where our financial reports will be our Stu mace allocation is explained and our school by school allocations are posted and also some other information on how to get to some of the Indiana Gateway and clients dashboard so just want to highlight that you'll see those embedded into our duct this evening right and that that information is available for anyone to go see yes thank you it may not be as good as Google but if you if you google in the APA's Public Schools Finance or the it's the first pop up in the Athas Public Schools financial transparency pops up I've tried that
042numerous times and it works as well thank you and the board appropriated funds we have the first three months of the year just remind you on the property tax funds we received those on a semi-annual basis when so you'll see the revenues really are just highlighting the general fund revenues and none of the property tax revenues are reflected because we will receive those in the second quarter the general fund revenues and expenditures are in line with our budget the general fund revenues are decreased from the prior year you'll see that the general fund revenues for 1819 are currently at 61 million down from about 71 million last year this is due to in September of last year we received our one-time inflow from the skips sale so we received twelve million dollars upfront at the
043beginning of last school year that is the main difference in the revenues from the capital projects expenditures they're above pace for the quarter this is due to our high school reinvention projects or building improvements that we've done for the high schools we made a significant payments in the first quarter so the cash flow out of capital projects is more than originally projected and then also our transportation funds our expenditures there are much lower than budget as our contractor has not billed for the services rendered for this first few months and so therefore no payments have made in there below budget more information about each of these funds is in the appendix you can see a lot of the current and historical performance of those funds the next slide highlights the cash balances going back to
044June 30 of 2016 us being on a fiscal year being a school we are highlighting our end-of-year balances plus the current quarterly balance you'll see that the cash balance has ticked up this past quarter that is due to the receipt of the general obligation bond proceeds that we had been talking about with the Finance Committee and the board for the number of months we closed on that bond sale at the very end of September and so we've highlighted that the 34 million dollars was received it's an alliance truck ssin bonds so our cash balance currently is 126 million as of the end of September 30 the treasurer's report is not necessary in this board agenda item it's in the consent agenda further details can be reviewed in that report one of highlights supplier diversity for
045about a year we've been highlighting the move that we will will have to high school reinvention in the in a significant supplier diversity contractor powers Davis joint ventures we we have seen how that contract has increased the supplier diversity spend year over year so the first nine months of the calendar year 2018 we are up we're up to 16 percent of our total eligible expenditures to minority vendors as compared to 11% year today in the prior year again when strategic opportunities arise we really take an effort and engage those and we we have had you know from Scott's work and the team with facilities on budget on time and also when I highlight with our professional services agreements I mean they may not show up into these these numbers but when we have professional service
046agreements such as our audit now we're external audit with bkt there's there's a specific percentage that they've committed to doing that and they've that's been that's been a great level of service that we received from pkt and they've been a part of that at the same time as we've talked about refinancing our bonds we also have a plan to require that as well as far as budget updates wanted to highlight there's the one side of the revenues the other side of the expenditures highlight on the revenue is just to just to confirm what the dollar per pupil is from this state for the school year 2018 19 so the that amount is seven thousand fourteen dollars and this represents an amount that's 4.8% less than the amount that would I P S student received in
0472010-11 at the same time over those first five years or so teachers remain static in their compensation and beginning in 1516 you'll see in the same year were a significant shift due to the legislative funding formula and impacting IPs in that same year the strategic plan was initiated and also the first two collective bargaining agreement with compensation adjustments and increases occurred and that compensation adjustment and increase has occurred for the last three years so the increase in cost of serving students over this time inflationary cost of living adjustments happening while at the same time state revenues being decreased has caused it this lingering structural deficit and this is why the main reason why IPS and our team vigorously advocates and seeks additional funding from our external stakeholders from on the expenditure side last last month
048you'll remember hearing updates and highlights from two of our leaders in the newcomer program serving the students of English language learners Arturo Rodriguez and Jessica Dunn highlighted the important work that the newcomer program is doing and also Ashley Kagura highlighted the brain institute so how we're serving students with special needs and that so we've highlighted those those programs but what I want to highlight here is that 10% of the general fund expenditures so the revenue coming in 10% of this fund these funds go to fund the funding gap that is left between federal state revenues and the cost of delivering the services to those special needs programs so just want to highlight that as the expenditure side we continue to advocate with legislative and community partners for the increased funding for special needs while aligning
049practices and staffing at appropriate levels to maintain quality and compliant service levels as far as the 1819 budgets you'll see that follow-up to our student base allocation update at the work session earlier this quarter or the early to school year we've highlighted that we have posted the school allocations at our Finance page again you can link right from that slide to our student allocation page we've also highlighted that the fall adjustments due to the you know shifting student counts by school across the district have been executed and in place as of mid-october highly 1819 is that budget managers are very cost-conscious at the same time focused on maintaining the essential services to meet student needs cash flow considerations for 1819 it's a couple of couple items are still up in the air as far as
050what will happen and so in the coming days and weeks more will more will be known and so the end result of bottom line projections and cash flow projections will be dictated by those events so again highlight the capital and operating referenda I'm going collective bargaining compensation adjustments that may be in place and then the health insurance renewal that we have been working on the timing of cost savings and issues that we've been highlighting over the course of the last few months that we initiated then also the deployment and the use of those general obligation bond proceeds lastly you know we're still committed to the the strategic initiatives of the board you know highlighting and supporting the height of the move and shift to high school all choice initiative and also just continued work on
051modernizing our systems and our process is to support autonomous and network of schools the next slide is a financial reporting mandate update and these mandates are in response to the markets the markets being what people need and want in order to make informed decisions so we're gonna highlight three we've highlighted these probably few quarters ago but this one the general generally accepted accounting principles we've been on and off with statutory requirement of ips to do this and in this last quarter and in this last week it's been actually fairly time-consuming within our team of receiving a directive from the State Board of accounts we're trying to clarify and understand what the directive is and basically the directive is saying for 1920 we are directing you as a school district that's greater than 15,000 students you
052will be issuing GAAP financial statements and so we are you know taking that in we're absorbing that we're working with advisers we realize as the State Board of accounts does and the legislators is that bond markets have influenced the timing and legal necessity to have Indiana districts have GAAP audited financial statements in order to be legally able to issue bonds so legally able to issue bonds in the future the mandate will improve transparency for financial statement users will provide disclosures adequate to provide complete picture of governmental units for investors and be more comparable to other state government entities you know the the the piece here is that we have a great staff and we've been making decisions for the last few years in preparation for this an IPS has positioned itself to comply over over
053these with the strategic investments in staffing systems and third-party advisory services so just highlighting that as a as a state mandate a market mandate federal federal rules have also been highlighted in the past and this is school by school reporting per pupil and so when we talk about the law the law is requiring all school districts to report per pupil expenditures at the school level the Indiana school districts have been directed by the Indiana Department of Education so a federal law but in every state has a directive of their own of how to do it and so we've been working with them to modify our reporting of our financial activity on the form 9 again a hyperlinked item there click on that you see the most recent form 9 for us at our school level
054the mandate will provide a look back at the spending of a district of the district well because we've been positioning ourselves with the implementation of student base allocation we've been seeing it as an opportunity to be proactive inform decisions that we're making and so we feel very you know well positioned to to comply with this this mandate that's a federal mandate last mandate is the consolidation of local property tax funds which begins in any fiscal year beginning in 2019 so every school district in Indiana has had the same board appropriated funds that we've highlighted previously in this in this presentation but beginning in the budget development process for the school year 1920 we will be will be talking about this and so you know the board has already received a briefing on this two times
055that two different Finance Committee meetings I think a number the board was there so but those documents are available on our website to see what is coming down the pipe when it comes to consolidation of those property tax bonds IPS is advocated for that flexibility and we're excited about this new opportunity which hasn't been available before to meet the needs of the students a couple couple scenarios were for example previous capital projects funds those revenues come in they're restricted for only capital projects those can now find anything that's operational so for example transportation but also that those those cost savings in those previously restricted funds if there's cost savings those those savings can actually be accumulated and then passed over to the education fund to permit which primarily pays for the staff and the benefits
056of those who are fronting and being right there in the classrooms and in the schools with with with the students for nineteen twenty again our team is working on the nineteen twenty we've highlighted SBA student base allocation you know working on the pool working on the weights working on the formula at the same time a lot of you know still some unknowns on that highlight again the referenda at the same time the legislative session starts in January and some of the assumptions in those referenda and also just the day-to-day operations are contingent upon the next state biennium budget and what the funding formula is so the question is what will the state tuition support for a pupil be I don't know I'm not going to know when I am talking to you about the budget
057development but that's that's a big factor for us in the 1920 considerations and then also when will we realize the cost savings that we are working on you know highlight a couple of them being in the food service area transportation and facilities and just staffing capacity you know takeaways wanted to highlight the work that we've been doing in the supplier diversity on the minority spend we've increased that year-over-year 18:19 some uncertainties at this point of the school year more will be known there but being very focused on aligning our revenues with their expenditures and then also just the importance of our district continuing to pursue external funding to sustain both cash flows both for the short term and the long term to meet students needs this time take any questions sure more slide number three
058your projection for 2018 2019 for this period of time was 60 million in revenue but it was up to 61 and that is due to what so 61 versus 60 you could look at the expansion Alice and the 61 because that's what we projected a budget to be at this time Yeah right and then my only other question was look like to me if I'm looking at everything the same the same thing happened with its business so we projected lis spending more yeah so I would say for me the on the revenue side there's an increase in the local revenue so there's some interest income that's higher then then originally projected for this quarter on the tuition support there are for this quarter additional students being included so for example there were a couple of
059innovation partners that came in after the budget process they added a couple students on the other expenditures like it's just a element of timing sometimes what the what the the first month of the school year or the first month of the fiscal year actually includes the contract of the prior school year and then the startup is really two months of the new school year so the budget the budget cuts that we did in this in the in the spring in the summer I think played out here a little bit in the in the first quarter and you're starting to see that on the expenditure side I was just trying to understand and hope that we could expect to see this flow through through the end of the year you know like forecasted forward yeah it's
060a right now with revenue projections contingent upon an ATM count still finalizing that with innovation partners and the Department of Education collective bargaining is a key part of this referendums key part of it a lot of a lot of things up in the air in the next three or four weeks that we'll finalize and we'll I think in January have a lot more projection that is more precise and is laid out with a lot of student counts happening in the next two or three months more children wanted to come to our school than we expected I was expecting me to say we do know how the I think it's important for us to highlight is that we are seeing some of the reduce expenditures as a result of some of the efforts that we made
061in the spring in the summer to ensure that we control expenditures for this school year we'll still continue to do that I think we'll still continue to see some of that work but in terms of revenue you know I think that it's going to add more flow throughout the school year but again the district is working aggressively to control expenditures you can see you know what was projected about 71 million it's down to 66 and we hope to compete continued and continued so I just want to say that I'm very impressed with the fact that we continue to do the things we can to find efficiencies for our district so that we can move money into other place I don't see anything wrong with us seeing that that's you know that's what we have done
062it was your $2 on some time and so I just want to say you know I would I was anticipating what you were going to say but I'm still very happy with what I just heard and so I say kudos to you and the staff and all the work that you have done to try to ensure that our students have the necessary funds that they need to get a good education thank you thank you sure you were saying the general obligation bond proceeds so it's about 34 million are we expecting I remind me if there's additional proceeds we are expecting from so we we are not expecting more what with what we have is we just received them and awaiting some of the items to come up so for example referenda bargaining you know are
063there other opportunities for us to either deploy those in the coming months for projects or are we going to need to fill in gaps with operations so I met with the USDA leadership in Washington DC Capitol Hill don't fall break and they express positive and favorable interest in us completing the process of application of waiver someone that it confirmed that we are eligible they also appreciated the work that we've done for food and security and also reducing expenditures but also maintaining quality and also the efficiency of our food service programs so I think from that conversation one thing takeaway is we probably have one of the most efficient and quality combined food service programs in the nation and so we're continuing the next step of that process sort of application which may require another visit
064to Washington DC but it could be resolved anywhere from the next eight to twelve months we anticipate my last question was just related to the gap I obviously you've been doing quite a bit of work and you were saying working with consultants the team it's been preparing for that are you expecting to be ready before the deadline yes yep we've had calls probably couple hours a day and just setting the setting the stage for working with the State Board of accounts the nine other school districts a lot of the CFO's we met on Friday with the State Board of accounts it's a it's a hot issue among business offices around the state of the school districts and I think when it comes to who we've engaged in the systems we have and the staff we
065have it's people are wanting to find out what we've done and so that those are my colleagues and we're we're still needing clarification on a number of items gap gatsby will be quite a shift for staple of accounts and for the legislature to administer at the same time we are we are geared up to to comply Charlotte I know that the funds we get from property tax there's a gap between and I know that's why when you pay taxes you're paying remind me what that is because I also know that what's projected and then if people appeal with their tax then it just give me a quick on kind of how does that fits in to us getting the revenue that we believe we're going to get so are you speaking specific on the operating
066referendum transportation after after it consolidates or just in general oh just in general there's a lag between when we need it and when it's actually available to us good I think yeah so the the bills that URI as a taxpayer receive as a resident owner of our property what we pay that year is what we receive this year but the calculation of that tax rate is from assessed value and other you know tax rate from a prior a prior year is that so what you pay today is what flows to the district or to the governmental entities that year when we get it so if you pay in April we're getting a portion of those that those proceeds in April May and June that's a linger that's a lingering you know true up at some
067point down the road so if it's a fuel process that you used to take maybe this long maybe it's taking this long it's that's just part of the true up process that it's not always I pay and that's exactly what the school district gets there might be some people who aren't paying there might be people who you know get out get an appeal so we get less because of that decision that's you know three years in the making there might be a tax sale which I don't believe I've been happening as recently as in the recent years but you know in there's the general property tax we pay you know government entities get then there's a lot of activity that the the the the city government in the in the governmental agencies are managing and
068monitoring you know and those shift over courses you know six months to you know four or five years depending on how long a pills take so the biggest impact to what we what we have to analyze of what we won't get is project property tax caps but can't miss an opportunity to share that at the same time the amount of dollars when it comes to IPS district taxpayers paying the full amount at their bill we have a really good rate look it's around the 99 percent 100 percent rate so what is billed IPS and other you know IPS Marion County districts governmental entities receive basically all that all that money that may not be the case around the state and another jurisdiction but we receive about 100 percent of it so as far as the
069projections go you know that's taken to account it's analyzed but that's that's something that if we think this is what the rate and the tax is going to yield our advisors the way we looked at it historically we project a hundred percent yes so for the school year 1819 I believe it's around a thirteen million dollar number and that's real money that we're not getting because of tax caps and I think it's important for people to constantly be aware of that because those are funds that fund transportation and capital and our debt service and we have to pay debt service so the funds that get hit the hardest by tax cap losses is transportation in capital correct okay thank you western today in the radio panel discussion Danny with the finance Association mentioned that the
070property tax cap only impact negativity about a third of the school corporations in this state of Indiana is that Act did you found that I I know that it has varying impact across the state I am NOT I can't say that I have an understanding of how it impacts across the state but if it does not impact all school corporations in the same way correct yeah I think I think it's fair to say I don't know the answer your question with regards to one-third or two-thirds it's fair to say cuz I think the impact property tax caps have hit urban areas harder I think that's the point he was making thank you I have a question for Weston someone else is on slide 7 just just talking about the image English language learners and the
071special education it is also accurate if I remember correctly that we have a higher percentage of our students in lll and in special education so that the underpay by the federal government and by the state government probably impact us it's weights against us more than the average school system also yes and I think the the number that's been the last couple years is about 19% I believe in the state average has been around the mid 15 16 percent on e ll believe it's been in like the 13 percent range and the state average being around 4% I think what IPS has that it's it's hard to get data on the intensity level of the special need and you know if you were to call Brent Freeman up in the team to talk about that percentage
072there's a lot of intensity there that is not not understood just by a blanket special needs percentage and I think with IPS having some key programs that are centrally located that regionally we we are the provider that that those intensities really magnify into some of these we get 8800 or $9,000 for the highest intensity but if you have a lot of those intense needs but those those intense needs could could range from you know $9,000 but they could also range to 35,000 or 40,000 dollars and all you're getting is nine so at some point that increased intensity I think you know the team - could highlight really centrally-located IPS it is a provider those those needs believe Brandt Freeman officer special education is going to provide update and maybe it's early December on special education
073I think we can highlight some of the complexities I agree that the magnitude in which students have disabilities or require services it's definitely unique to Indianapolis Public Schools and also highlight I just I get contracts for service providing high high high intense needs probably every every week basis you know I see the costs of providing just you know six months of services to a student and we're paying you know a fraction of that so a lot of the dollars even going to service some of the special high-intensity needs aren't even you aren't even reflected in the school district form nines financial reports but it's there is there is a there's state funding that's coming that state school districts don't don't report because it doesn't flow through it but it's those it's our kids and Brent
074the team when they when they highlight they can share about the extra excess cost reserved at the state that state has and it's we we take up a lot of that reserve and that reflects on the intensity of the needs of our students i million dollar gap special needs it falls under the high needs is one of the reasons that we chose IPS is because we offer great service to our children and i love to see that we're committed to ensuring that we fulfill you know every child's IEP needs and and some of them are extremely complicated but when you think about where they can get their service I think they can parents can know that IPS is where they can ensure that their child is going to have their IEP met thank you thank
075you thank you sir and again thank you for highlighting the information that's on on the website I do think it is again another unique opportunity for the public community to see how each school is funded through our student based allocation process the next report commissioners is an update on the district's work as relates to our racial equity initiative and also our pledge that we participate in a partnership with the Council of great city schools with other urban school districts across the nation to support males of color Britt Freeman and a pet pain will lead the presentation it's always good to see you dr. Payne and glad you're with us this evening Andrew yeah thank you dr. Kirby and good evening commissioners first of all I want to thank you for the opportunity to present on
076such an important topic this evening as a member of the district racial equity team which you'll hear a little bit more about for the past year and a half this work has impacted both me professionally and personally in very impactful ways so when I thank you for this opportunity so here is a quick overview of what we'll be talking through tonight so with the objective of updating you on this a very important and necessary work and then also looking forward to define a framework for how we're going to continue to measure impact and progress so first we'll deep dive into the racial equity initiative here at IPs so you'll learn a little bit more about the why the wind what as well as how this initiative is played out over the past few years across
077our organization then we'll take a broader look at some initiatives that dr. Kirby just referenced relative to our males of color which has been formalized as part of a pledge with the Council of great city schools and then lastly we'll do some forward-looking some exciting things we're going to do to ensure that we can organize around impact so I will turn it over to dr. Patricia Payne who is our director of the racial equity office now and she'll dive into the racism the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races a doctrine a political program based on the assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles merriam-webster dictionary racism a system of
078advantage and our oppression based on race social and institutional power plus race prejudice one group having the power to carry out systemic discrimination through the major institutions of society racial equity Institute workbook page 32 racism Food for Thought colorblindness will not end racism pretending race doesn't exist is not the same as creating equity race is more than stereotypes and individual prejudice to combat racism we need to identify and remedy social policies and institutional practices that historically and intentionally advantage one roof at the expense of all others that comes from the PBS website race the power of an illusion good evening good evening commissioners and superintendent Farrah P administrative leaders and community on behalf of the IPS district equity team and our 19 equity schools allow me to express our sincere thanks and deep gratitude for
079your foresight in approving engaging in and actively supporting the IPS racial equity initiative few other school districts in this country have taken this increasingly important step to prepare us as employees and enable us to meet the needs of a complex and diverse student population a step so needed in the toxic environment in which we and our students now coexist our partnership with the racial equity Institute which began in 2015 has allowed us to receive the training and guidance needed to increase our knowledge shift our thinking elevate our understanding transform our mindsets question our negative assumptions purge our corroded belief systems and challenge our resistance to understand and accept the cognitive dissonance ever so present when truth replaces lies and reason replaces the insanity of doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results
080and now that you've had time to look at this disgusting slide with dead and dying fish floating belly-up in the make let me say a word about what you are viewing these fish symbolized and are an analogy for what's happened and is happening to black and brown students in this district and districts where ever black children are this is caused by the negative assumptions the low expectations the corroded belief systems that think poverty and low performance are synonymous and by the embedded resistance to understand and accept the truth about why these lies and absence of reasons are not only necessary to the system but also an intentional scheme all of this and more make up the contaminated lake effectively killing the spirit to survive the will to learn and the motivation to succeed in school
081and life this slide is also an analogy for something else we are so busy erroneously thinking that if we can just do something about these individual acts of prejudice and discrimination and negative stereotypes that will solve the problem but until we understand that the contaminated lake symbolizes the insidious racism that reshapes and reforms and transforms itself to sustain power as it systemically immerses and invades all institutions and structures to include education we can do absolutely nothing to change this tide of neglect so commissioners what we in partnership with the racial equity Institute are engaged in has we believe transform the lives of over 1,500 IPS staff members from our 19 equity schools who have participated in the monthly intensive today 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. experience this year we will include high schools bringing our
082number 222 equity schools following each workshop participants receive a comprehensive workbook improvement in academic achievement is evidenced and we feel that the same progress will be realized in student attendance discipline suspensions expulsion and the disproportionate numbers of African American males house especially our 19 equity schools are not left out we don't just leave them out there to flounder by themselves each school has formed a school equity team we call that the set our district equity team comprised of district and school based leaders have planned have planning meetings monthly and partner with the school equity teams are there any deck members present this evening thank you for example debt members Sarah Hutchinson an IPS ESL coach is partnered with Steven foster 67 this week for their professional development day the Steven foster equity team was in
083charge and planned an activity which included a presentation from me on races and I only had 15 minutes to talk about racism but this was followed by the Monopoly game activity to demonstrate what happens when players aren't brought into the game until all the property and real estate has been purchased we learned this you are trained they had four Monopoly games set up with team members at each table to demonstrate that even though you may start with the same capital everybody is $200 if you start late you seldom catch up which is the same thing that happens when laws and policies are intentionally put in place to prevent one group from having the same access and opportunities that are given to others following 30 minutes playing the game discussion groups were led by the set
084members kudos to principal Deborah Pickett and equity team member Josh wimp also in addition on the first day of fall break Monday October the 8th the district team planned and executed our first racial equity Summit and community conversation it was amazing even if I say so myself equity teams from each of our 19 school spent a full day at Crispus Attucks for reinforcements from 8:15 to 4:00 o'clock with equity literacy specialist dr. Paul Gorski whose topic was becoming a threat to inequity in classrooms and schools and rethinking poverty and education racial equity Institute director Dina Hayes also presented as well as members of the district equity team that evening from 6:30 to 9 in the central library auditorium Ahmed young chief of staff and Commissioner Gore joined us for a community conversation where over 250
085community residents attended to hear dr. Gorski and Dina Hayes as well as a panel of distinguished educators from local university and our own Greg Newland and Tiana Davis were also on the panel our vision is this an IPS community where student outcomes cannot be predicted by race or ethnicity something is very wrong when you know who's going to score at the bottom of the academic achievement scale even before they take the test something is very wrong with that but this has been normalized because that's the way it's always being where we're going to change this scenario our mission is to lead a collaboration of community members who will partner with IPS to improve outcomes for all students by eliminating racial disproportionality and disparity we are blessed we have some comments from some of our participants
086and we are very grateful for that and again on behalf of our teams both set and dead and our students and Families we thank you and if you will permit me to do so I'd like to conclude my part of the presentation with this point this comes from Rogers and Hammerstein's South Pacific and it says you've got to be taught to hate and fear you've got to be taught from year-to-year it's got to be drummed in your dear little ear you've got to be carefully talk you've got to be taught to be afraid of people whose eyes are differently made and people whose skin is a different shape you've got to be carefully taught you've got to be taught before it's too late before you are six or seven or eight to hate all the
087people your relic say you've got to be carefully taught thank you I'm Kristine remembered I'm the very proud principal at Francis W Parker Montessori School 56 and we have been a part of the race equity work in the district since the very beginning for me that flows really naturally out of Who I am I was born in December of 1969 in Los Angeles California and I was adopted by people that don't look like me in 1970 I was actually the first transracial adoption placement that happened in the state of California once it became legal to do so so before the end of December of 1969 you couldn't place kids that look like me with the people that raised me it was against the law Graham and so because of that I have spent my whole
088entire life just being in the skin that I'm in and people talked about race around me it's been a fascinating kind of life to live I spent most of my growing up time in Central Texas where segregation practiced a by race was heavily practiced regionally based on sort of where you lived my dad tells a story about what happened who I got to play with when I was in third grade and he he said Christine who do you get to play with on the who to play with on the playground and I said well dad I play with everybody he said come on you play with everybody I said yeah I said when the white kids play and they won't let the black kids play I get to play and when the black kids play
089and they won't let the white kids play I get to play right and then I get to high school when the black boys date and they date only the black girls I don't get to date and when the white guys date only white girls I don't get to date so it becomes a part of it is a part of who you are even when we don't talk about it and yet my parents talked about race it was a part of who we a part of our family I integrated my family and and so that has changed the way that I see the world in in a lot of ways and I can't do anything except for lead the school where I'm privileged to serve out of anybody but Who I am and so the race
090equity work is really natural my husband and I have been married at 20 something years I think at this point and we have been lucky to adopt three children ourselves we have a son who is 18 almost 19 I can barely imagine and then we have twins who are sophomores in high school and their educational outcome is directly proportional to the color of their skin I have twins who split the genes one who has blonde hair and green eyed and he's an AP and accelerated courses sets the Honor Roll and is doing great don't have any concerns about that one his twin brother who shared a womb with him and shares a room but not my womb right he has just gotten out of remedial reading classes as a sophomore in high school and my
091he's hued about like me our oldest son is the darkest among us of the three brothers and he struggles in high school and has been very clear to say that teachers do not expect of him what he can do and so he under performs at our school Francis Parker we are 72% black 12 percent white 11% Hispanic and 4% multiracial and in our staff makeup this is really fascinating cert for our certified staff we're about six percent black seventy six percent white nobody's Hispanic and about five percent multiracial but our classified staff looks a lot more like our students we're 70 excuse me 56% black 30 percent white 8% Hispanic and about five percent multiracial these numbers that I'm talking about don't mean you saw this slide that dr. Payne showed they don't mean that
092our pond is sick right but they do mean that we have to be intentional about looking at our pond and making sure that it is not a toxic environment we understand very clearly at our school that race silent does not mean race neutral and so when the opportunity to become a race equity pilot school came along we got on board I have two awesome teachers who are here Tyler Roberts and Jennifer would wave please thank you I they are the leaders of our equity team at our school and they are amazing young people in that they participate and they live fully into the work Tyler comes by it really honestly he's a Broad Ripple high school graduate right and he got to experience urban education as as a student so as a race equity pilot
093school we have done lots of things we sent everyone to training we've had multiple tons of discussions at our school we have chalk talks where we talked about microaggression we talked about race all the time we talked about privilege you'll hear teachers say hey you might want to check your priveledge and they don't get angry with each other they they begin to think about oh wow maybe what I said really hasn't been respectful or really shows a lack of understanding we did the IDI assessment with dr. Payne that's been really powerful and and we have hired specifically asking questions about race so the third question we asked if you come to interview with us is what a race and equity have to do with teaching and learning now there's not a standard answer that you
094have to have there's not a magical you know three magical words that you have to say but if you say something that indicates that you're not even able or willing to continue or be a part of a conversation about race then it's probably not the place for you because you're going to feel very very uncomfortable and so we did all these things for staff over a number of years right and then we wondered together about what it might be like if we really took the race equity work to our students and so last year we had one book one school project and we read together this book which is the 1990 Newbery Award winner by Jerry Spinelli called maniac McGee and in this book [Music] Spinelli weaves together racism and racial prejudice issues of homelessness
095what it means to be family and issues of literacy all together in this magical tale about this young boy that lives on the east coast we had other works like this one for our youngest children they were reading about the speeches and what we did with one book one school was we made sure that everyone was able to participate in the conversations about race all together except for our little or littlest kids pre-k and K there are some themes in the book that are really not appropriate for those kids so they're reading you know reading and working with the sneetches we we began the project really because of the race work but also because we understand that kids don't catch the reading bug unless they love what's in books and they don't love what's in
096books unless somebody reads to them right and so all the best pedagogy and best instruction if you won't read on your own it gets lost so we said hey let's read the kids and we did um and then we invited people from our congregation it feels sometimes like that we invited people from our community and we invited families to have a conversation about the book so our media specialist had written a DonorsChoose grant and she got copies of maniac Magee one for every family and we pass them out at Pitt Day and everyone was reading and so in the spring then we got to talk about the book and some of the most transformative experiences that I've been a part of happened when our young people led those conversations really organically about what was happened
097in the book so I believe that what we did was that we made it okay to talk about race in the classroom across the school and so at times when some student would get frustrated with something that a teacher had said in the hallway during passing period one kid would say I I just think they're racist and the other student would say to them well they're not remember it's the institution that's racist the teacher might be racially prejudiced or have racial bias but that's not really what we're talking about here and you walk down the hall and you hear that sort of conversation and you think oh okay like that they're getting it the kiddos are getting it at this time in our society we we are not post-racial and our students understand that at
098a time where some people say that we are our kids realize and have experiences and fully understand that the students that look like they do and the students that look like the three boys that live in my house not only are they post-racial but people kill them because of the color of their skin and so if we can't talk about what's happening to us in a really honest way if we can't have and not just an open dialogue but a safe space for young people to engage in those conversations with caring adults things won't change and our students won't be able to engage in the work of school it's slow work it doesn't happen magically we've been working on it for quite some time I have a little bit of data that's exciting to share
099some of it is embargoed but we have seen an increase in our math ISTEP passing rate from 2016-17 to 2017-18 and across the school our math pass rate raised rose about 2% for all students and then when we get into that data a little more and we disaggregate and we start looking at what's happening for young men of color we see that those boys pass from 16 17 - 17 18 at 7% which is higher rates if they improve the pass rate higher than the rest of the students at our school I can't say that there's a causal relationship between book one school and I race equity work and our math passing scores we didn't do one thing that led to that it's all about the work that we did with curriculum and instruction and
100Nick and Kathy and it's about creating a safe space and having support from the board you all from our academic academic improvement officers from dr. Payne and her her her group that have really led to change at our school and I'm super excited about it Thank You Christine we're uh and and I can and as a testament to her hard work and the staffs hard work when you go into her building you just get a really special feeling about the inclusiveness and culture that she's been able to create so I'm gonna transition here a little bit for the next couple slides and talk about males of color pledge specifically so IPS is one of 62 urban school districts to enter into a pledge to adopt and implement initiatives related to the success and support of
101males of color so there's racial equity initiative is is is actually part of that this pledge is organized by the Council of great city schools which we are a member of and I just put on the bottom there some other districts that are included in this pledge and again there are 62 of them so quite a quite a large collective which is really exciting so what the council great skiddy City Schools has done is they've lifted they have listed a tremendous amount of priorities and this is a very long report that we've looked at and so I've just highlighted a few of them here for you tonight so that's on the left-hand side left-hand column there and then based on those specific priorities some initiatives that we have going on in IPs so just these
102are very exciting so I wanted to make sure that we updated you and called these out so the first one addressing chronic absenteeism which we know kind of what the research says about chronic absenteeism how that impact graduation rates how that impacts outcomes overall and so we are tracking that systematically with consistent progress monitoring revised suspension and discipline policies so I know that the board has worked very hard on updating the code of to continuously engage with the community and with our staff to support some suspension and discipline policies and then expanded ap and gifted talented program so there was a recall recent article that just came out and talked about how we've revised our screening process to have Universal screening so I think when we talk about equity access is a really a big
103part of that and so that's exciting work expanding the FAFSA so that is included in the 2018-19 superintendent's goals and that is also intentionally tracked and now is a very intentional work of our post-secondary readiness office and then as you just heard you know I think at the foundation of a lot of this is just discussions about race and so continuing this ongoing partnership with the racial equity initiative so wanted to kind of look forward here a little bit and some exciting initiatives in touch points so we have coming up because as commissioner Sullivan referenced earlier about continuous improvement that is something that me and my team are very interested in and ensuring that we put in place um processes to actually be able to analyze this data as there is a lot of it
104so the first initiative there is implementing the data warehouse which will allow for us to track data across multiple sources so right now that is difficult to do so if you can imagine you know assessment data is housed in one place suspension or discipline data's and another and so what a data warehouse will allow us to do is essentially it'll sit on top of all of those platforms and pull it all together which will allow us to be able to really be specific about some of equity metrics that we're really interested in so we're very excited about that intentional progress monitoring so with this you know better access to data we want to be very intentional about what we're monitoring and when and have very specific conversations about that review of the accountability data so
105that is currently embargoed as you know but we are doing very specific and intentional or intentional review about kind of in a disaggregated way so that way when it does come public we can we can share updates there and then you know continue to prioritize the racial equity initiative that that doctor pain has led for quite some time so we are as she mentioned we have 19 racial equity schools have some major transitions happening in our high schools and so made the decision to to add them into the racial equity initiative which is really exciting and then ensure that all school leaders actually matriculate matriculate through this training in the past that's just been available for of your racial equity school but now you know we're going to take all our school leaders through that
106so just wanted update you on a few of those things so we're happy to answer any of your questions the male of colors pledge you know we've been doing some of these activities already specifically what does that entail obviously they had they had guidelines we had already put some things in place Oh tell me a little bit more about what that means to be a part of that group yeah so it's we I received a report from the Council of great city schools a few months ago asking to update our initiatives from a few years ago and so what I did was run across the organization said what are all the great things that we're doing related specific to these priorities and what that led us to do is kind of package all of this
107together and I think it you know from a universal perspective here are all the initiatives that we have related to these priorities so what their requirement is is we just have to update them regularly on the initiative and so that's that's what just happened I think that's what kind of spurred this conversation tonight so I assume some sharing of you know best practices what's working because obviously we're tying it to metrics and so on that this group will be sharing so that we can learn from one another obviously each community is unique see the city is unique but I'm excited about the opportunity to share with one another about what's working and not working yes actually interesting the the Council of great city schools and you khibiny is this week and there was a follow-up
108session today to go in detail some of the strategies that have proven to be successful with males of color and also the consecrated schools continuously collects data on urban school districts and their successes with males of color so we have four beauties this week so we're not opportunity to participate but it is something that we have regular conversation with with our peer districts to learn what's successful also sharing strategies from IPS as well in our commitment to advancing outcomes from the others of color on slide 10 you were talking about specifically reports on specific equity metrics tell me a little bit about what those are yeah it's a great question so we're having a lot of internal conversation right now about designing that so how this data warehouse works is it all stakeholders so internally
109we'll get access to this from central office to principals to teachers and when you log in you'll actually be able to look at specific dashboards and we have the ability to set up and so when we think about equity metrics really we're thinking about disaggregation and the ability to look across you know multiple metrics whether it be academics and discipline attendance and actually dive all the way down and drill down into the student level so if I'm a principal you know I say misremembered and she wants to look specifically at you know academic let's say nwa data relative to males of color in her seventh grade math class so she'll be able to do that and then you know let's say some questions that come up allow her to drill down even a little bit
110more or she can actually go to the student specific level and so so really when we talk about met equity metrics we're talking about the ability to disaggregate and then ask some very specific questions about what that information means I look forward to seeing that at the district level so that we can see how we are doing and tracking and also learn from each other right some of the schools may be more effective of moving that needle forward so that's absolutely exciting there's been um I just want it overall thank you for the presentation and and for your work on this you know dr. Payne you know you've been doing this work for a long time and I and I've been in this for 20 years it seems like this this initiative is sort of
111the first one that's I mean it's really continuing and building on itself and and so kudos to you and your team I mean I've never heard so much positive feedback I think about the racial equity Institute and then some of the other work going on and so and I I really you deserve a lot of kudos I have this sort of a side question because you know a principal Rembert I'm a huge Montessori fan and so I wanted to kind of get an idea and I loved I liked hearing from somebody that's on the ground that's you know taking what you're doing in the Institute and actually doing something in the school level but I wanted to kind of get an idea of how Montessori that philosophy sort of fits with this because I would
112think it would be a real good support for this work sure absolutely it's just natural I mean it is it's the perfect marriage of the work and how we look at students so the goal in our in the Montessori program you know one program across three sites is that every child gets what they need every day but if you don't even understand that the pond might be sick right and that our own racial bias and where we sit affects how we see the child and their needs then you cannot meet their needs and so when a teacher comes into my office and says I really think that I can't see what he needs because of who I am and where I sit and my own privilege and she has tears I say what are we
113gonna do about it now you know but you're not you you can't once you have been told the truth you have to react to that and I think it is perfect with Montessori and it it's as natural a thing as there could possibly be thank you appreciation I just want to also thank dr. Payne and the team I had an opportunity to attend the two-day workshop I actually would like to do it again I mentioned that to her I thought it was just a top-notch having been through a lot of professional development in my life it was an absolute top-notch experience and I learned so much from it and the material that you went home with was also I mean you can go so much reference and resource and that you can go it's a
114lifetime to get through you know reading all that information and the books that are recommended but it is well worth the two days so I encourage I don't know how many of us have on the board of attended by encourage everyone to make time for that I think just about everybody is into it but I just wanted to say with all the experience that I have had if training with going through train this has been very different it's almost like an accumulation of everything and it helps you answer the questions that have been lingering you know like why are black children always at the bus well you begin to see why you see so itself I'm just so proud that our school district has taken on this initiative so that we can move beyond just
115food fashion and festivals what people eat what they wear and how they dance this is very different so thank you for it if I might might as a point produced by the way I'm going through and I think the 14th and 15th of November with you all right but just a moment I don't want to drag this on any longer but I'm I'm just recently turned 55 years old and I thought about this and our ability to have adult conversations in the public square about race about racism about differences has gone so far backwards in my 23 years as in in the professional life and it is something that quite frankly I got a little broken up because this is what we are supposed to do as a school system is to teach us and
116our kids how to have adult conversations about racism and I can't thank you enough for the work that you're doing and I can't thank the people with you for the work that you're doing and I can't thank you enough for what you're doing for our kids because we have to teach our kids because we've failed in our generation so I can't thank you enough but I will thank you I think we have a do we have a public commenter on this subject yes sir we have a sign-up we also have someone who is here for general public comment there's a little sign up error so we invite that person up next as well first is Debra Pickett if President to speak about this topic then we'll take our general public comment right after that thank
117you apologize to the public ometer for dragging them deeper into the agenda good evening I'm Deborah Pinkett and I'm the principal the proud principal of Stephen Foster school sixty-seven and you heard dr. Payne mentioned the work that my team presented on this most recent professional development day and what drove us to do that is I am a new principal to Stephen Foster this is my second year there and for me it's it's it's imperative that we change the face of Stephen Foster our kids deserve it we talked about those black and brown babies well that's my building and in order for us to help the kids get to where they need to be I need to help my staff get to where they need to be in their mindset and just looking inward you know
118I said growth lies and transparency and we have to be transparent about our belief system because as the adults in the building our beliefs are what drives our work with those kids and until you know who you are and what you stand for you won't know you won't be fully aware of how those things impact your work with the kids and you come to work five days a week and we talk about our data our data doesn't look the way that we wanted to we're making strides we're making gains but ultimately it's annoying Who am I as an educator of these black and brown babies in my room they come here every day do I know them do I know their story can I empathize with them if not how can I reach them I
119have to know about me as the teacher so my team and Josh here he's also second year with me at Stephen Foster and for me the racial equity team was at Stephen Foster before I arrived there but I know we don't have time to wait nor do we have time to waste we talked about that Monopoly game you can start further back and it's gonna take you a longer time to catch up my kids are worth it they're more than worth it so as a team I'm supporting my teachers my racial equity team in doing this work and helping the staff helping the teachers to be comfortable in themselves and comfortable and saying this is uncomfortable but in order for us to grow I've got to examine myself so as the principal I stand with
120my team I stand alongside my racial equity team in doing this work and we're from our PD we have more teachers that want to be a part of the racial equity team and that's just outstanding they appreciated the opportunity to learn together and now the thing is we've got a transfer that to your practice in the classroom you've got the learning you've got the trading you have the knowledge now what are you going to do with it he was going to speak thank you thank you thank you so much and thank you dr. Payne and everyone what are we going to start this go ahead that's fine no no no we went yeah I'm not as your timer for you okay so like principal thicket was saying my name is Joshua I'm an English as
121a second language teacher primarily working with the sixth through eighth graders in our building I was introduced to the racial inquit equity Institute last year so this is my second full year teaching I started in January two years ago but I was introduced to this initiative and it was something that was already passionate about and became more educated about and interested in furthering this in our school we had a great professional development with a few other teachers who are on the team that were unable to be here today and with the principal as well and we just got really incredible feedback we're very grateful that dr. Payne was able to come and share her expertise her wisdom her knowledge with our staff and we already just had a survey that went out and we had
122really interesting and like really impactful feedback from our staff and we're just very open to the ways that we can bring this into the classroom get our students talking about this as well and learning from them because we know that our students have minds that are brilliant that have thoughts to share and that we need to learn from them as well so I'm just very grateful for this opportunity I'm very grateful for a district that puts this as a top priority I actually work with people my friends around the country who work in anti-racist work and I when I tell them that our district requires our our staff at our racial equity schools to attend this two-day program they're amazed it really is something special that we have going on and I'm very proud to
123say when I talk to my friends but I've talked to colleagues about what we're doing in this district just to see how their faces light up and knowing that what we're doing here is impacting our children especially our black and brown students who face a lot of things especially in this day and age but we're just very grateful for this opportunity - to learn more and to make real gains and really challenge kind of the face of inequity in the school system and society at large thank you so much now Ron Elaine cornet please so I think I'm only gonna be up there for a minute and 13 seconds it's what I time so I'll just probably talk for a little while just to keep my whole three minutes yes just I'm just kidding good
124evening school board commissioners and superintended therapy wanna make it official as you know I'm Rhonda Lynn Cornett president of the Indianapolis Education Association the exclusive representative of the Indianapolis public school bargaining unit tonight I would like to share our support for the IPS referenda this past spring I sent out a survey to all the members of the bargaining unit about the referendum of the bargaining unit that completed the survey 73 percent lived in Center Township including myself the majority of the certified staff that completed the survey support the referendum as Center Township citizens and believe I should also I a support the IPS referenda because is what is best for our students keeping our class sizes low maintaining neighborhood schools and retaining the great teachers we have in IPS I a knows that the students
125learning conditions are the teachers working conditions and the passing of the referendum would be a great start to achieve in this go thank you that's it sir for this time we've one more this evening but on a different topic thank you to the commenters and again also for doctor pain and also Andrews great to hear from him on our pledge and also principals and staff that are leading this work really excited about where we are knowing that we still have a lot more work to do the next update is a briefing on where we are with our pilot with amigo providing transportation for our high school students Scott Martin will share where we are and what the next steps are and ridership thus far for the 2018-19 school year good evening just want to go
126quickly through this to give you have an overview how it started where we're at and if we should decide to expand it what what that may look like so these are numbers from August you can see that there was over a thousand student trips taken in August most of them Monday through Friday a few on the weekends the passes that we distributed are good for seven days a week the if you look the graph at the right shows those routes that they most usually traveled the the heaviest route by far was route 39 which starts at mid Hoffer on the east side and uses 38th Street to Meridian and then comes down past Shortridge to downtown again so that's twice the trips that anybody else took the second most one was route eight which again
127starts at mid hopper on the east side but uses Washington Street to come downtown and then out to the west side the the third most heavily used trip was route 38 and that again uses 38th Street but starts out at Eagle Creek and it comes to Meridian past Shortridge downtown so those are the three highest most used routes that students utilized so we started a pilot with indigo yeah I will say that there is someone from indigo here with me this evening to answer questions later on he didn't clean it up for me so we started we started the pilot in May May first and it went through August 31st we get 500 passes originally for the flat fee of $5,000 originally those all went to Shortridge but in June we decided to to take
128some of those and give those to tech unfortunately those passes didn't get used that went to tech so they were primarily used at or and by Shortridge students we also gave passes to staff and parents so they could write it and see what their student experience would be like if a student wanted to ride indigo there's a couple options that they have one is there in Eagle website or the phone app so they can determine what route is most applicable for them now the good thing is that on most routes if they do miss a bus there's another one coming behind it in ten minutes so out of the 400 passes that actually that were distributed 253 of those were used at least four times so students at Shortridge did did use the bus and
129successfully is it the information that I've received we do have an opportunity to expand the the pilot throughout the rest of the school year 500 more passes for $5,000 our initial thought was that we would split those between Shortridge and tech to get some more data on on how it works for students and and if they'll use it we are developing it should we decide to expand the services at some point in the future we're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves but we wanted to go ahead and start working on some criteria for students now on how we would look at it from a district perspective and what will you would expect of students so the first one is that we would set a mile walking distance to an indigo bus stop second would
130be there would be less than two transfers from their home or their or their first stop to the school and that and a bus would at least come every 30 minutes and that that that travel time would not take more than an hour and 20 minutes so as we start to build some criteria we can we can start to see how many students we could serve that this is a scattergram on what if you look up up at the in this zone right here you can see that there that there very tight and then if it works well for the routes that are available that in that area what that shows us is that all the students in that area for high school live within that criteria that that we set one thing I do
131want to make clear is it this is not for all high school students so we we still are required to transport students that have IEP s or homeless so you'll see in the next one where that where that comes into play but this would be for those students that don't have those qualifications as you can see you can see it actually those are out even outside the eye for soar for 65 but those are still our students and they may be homeless so we would need to provide those services for them as they get farther out away from the city center they know the likelihood that there's a route that fits that criteria that we developed it's less and less it's really small up here so we have we've set some again going down through
132the criteria what we just talked about if we would decide to expand the the the use of indigo it's certainly contingent on the capacity of indigo and and when it when that timing would take place all all high schools will have students that can utilize it it's our goal to you know it make that available to as many I want to students students from across the city use indigo we could disseminate those passes earlier so that they can use that for the weekend or for weekend jobs or after-school jobs so again should the district decide that we're going to expand it this would be our next steps we would continue to map out all the students and they're against the Indigo routes across the city with trained students and parents and then at some future
133date we would we would notify them so I do have representative for Mindy go here so if if you have if everybody has any questions I'm happy to take those and refer those to him yes we're doing the twenty fifty three of our student took the pass right and that they rolled four times to Anna yes 250 the fifty three of those were used at least four times for dad yes so we had it from May and to August 31st and school's out roughly the 1st of June right my question is where those four rides primarily during the school year or was it after where the kids were doing whatever they do in the summertime primarily there's an appendix on here that does have that breakdown which is July and most of those trips were
134so what I showed you was only August but the thousand trips that were taken so it doesn't really break out that the 253 versus that what days they wrote ok so you're saying it was after no I'm saying I've seen that that I can't I can't disseminate when those 253 were used yes what happened with TAC there was a change leadership at the end of the school year and they did not get disseminated okay I mean that's just frustrating yes I mean maybe we should pick another school I'm pretty pretty confident that mr. Franklin would utilize those passes okay because I know that I mean at the time it was the school that asked to be part of the pilot I thought that's correct that is unfortunate but I just I wanted to talk to
135indigo or just ask them how they're feeling about their capacity I know that when we had the preliminary conversations you know we were talking about you know you know different routes and the capacity of those rats and I just wondered if you guys were on you know and as far as the timeline how that was going from your end yeah so I'm fine Brian Llewellyn vice president of public affairs with Indigo thank you all for the support in the opportunity to speak with you all we have worked with the Transportation Department and leadership at both Tech and Shortridge the those five hundred fare cards and the the program continuation with those five hundred students we definitely have capacity to manage that level of growth we are implementing redline rapid transit service that will travel from
136Broad Ripple down the University of Indianapolis at the same time that we open that service in the early fall next year probably into the summer early fall we are reconfiguring the bus network and we will operate a frequent grid of services all across the city there's a 70% of increase in service overall so we're expecting that that will all be coordinated and open about the time the school starts next year at that time we will have much more capacity to talk about a larger program and the continuation are the the discussion we've had about continuing the program with Manny and his team has really been an incremental approach making sure that we can continue to support those choices that individuals are making to use the service and and then at the time that we can
137scale up a little bit more next year we'll have the capacity to do a much bigger program I mean I really I thank you for all your work on this both IPs and IndyGo long-term it's going to be a very valuable partnership and service to our students I had a question for about that mile you know the parameters you're setting how far does do you high school students walk to a bus stop now is it a mile hey I think it's a mile and a half it's a mile on it yeah okay so we're not we're not changing the parameters that we currently have as far as distance to a bus stop so so if you if you recall our discussions in the last year when we were talking about going to the two-tier that
138we actually expanded those the high school are to seven tenths of a mile from their home high school or their boundary high school if they were going to one of the other high schools so right now they're they're walking at least 7/10 but if if they if a tech student if that's their boundary school they could be up to a mile and a half away okay and then if they are outside of that parameter we would continue to to operate yellow buses yes okay mr. hoop senator something I haven't quite I realized you said we're getting ahead of ourselves and so these are just some ideas that you have about criteria so are you saying it's part of what you were sort of thinking at this point that if a student met this criteria then
139they would not ride a yellow bus or that's correct or you're recommending that the parent would have an option of the bus indigo or the know if we would expand it we would want to reduce yellow bus so we can get our of course get our cost down I think but but it's all there's also a cost to us to provide the Indigo passes as well so we we couldn't absorb both so the thought would be that if you live within that zone and you meet that criteria that that you would write in to go and not the yellow bus and unless you qualify yes correct it's not a decision you're suggesting yes that's not a decision I'm yeah that that's what it could look like down the road again Thanks thank you yes mr.
140O'Connor well I I am not recommend sent and headlines have been written yes yes I I'm not recommending that that's not where we're at at this point but but it if we did she's to expand that and that that could be that the criteria that we use for solving that answered one of my questions and the other ones for indigo and it's probably know the answer to that too but because it's a relatively small number of students who participated in the pilot but did you get any feedback from any of your people do they notice that our students were writing their buses yeah we've gotten a little bit of feedback from the operators and I think probably the the more noticeable influx of students is through the Purdue Polytechnic program that we have so this
141is the second year that we have a student wide program for their students and they increase from 150 students to 300 students those individuals have taken almost 11,000 trips at this school year alone those 300 individuals so yeah we're working with our operations department and training our security officers at the Transit Center our customer service folks students are becoming more and more used to using the system and and we're seeing more and more of them so we're getting used to them being around thank you for some more wonders question so what's the what's the longest at the time the students on the bus right now our goal is an hour I think last year was an hour in two minutes that that would problem be an average we have some that because of the distance
142that they travel that are on the bus longer than that timeframe I would say they could be on the bus up to an hour and a half at this time depending on where they live and what school they're going to certainly like to keep it shorter as possible but stopping in no scenario there may be some extremes where we have students if they're under the homeless status of mckinney-vento we're taking them further distance outside of our boundaries so I don't be clear that at it yeah half is not the norm no transportation for us that's correct unfortunately we don't we don't separate them so those I'm referring to all situations thank you so what so what is a schedule that you're recommending I saw that training of parents would you so that would be should
143the district decide to move that direction at some point that that would be where that would fall charnel it ended August 31st so this would be should we purchase those passes it would start now and go through the end of the school they're on yellow bus I'm not aware of any requests no but there may be but I'm just not aware of them transportation question that I know part of the plan with the Ford choice high school was that students could go to a high school as their bus stop and get picked up and taken another high school that's right how is that working out are there many showing up and doing that or yes there there are there there have been very few issues with that I just thought that was an interesting concept
144Washington traveled yes it helps us be a lot more efficient definitely um I just go back to when we had an initial conversation we were at Purdue Polytechnic talking about this I just remember the compelling comment that Scott best made that with indigo if a student misses the bus they just get the next bus and they might be a little late but if a student misses a yellow bus they miss school and I think that's really important for us to continue to think about that this really could potentially be a better way of serving our students and making sure that they're not missing school because they've you know missed the bus right thank you for for clarity sake are you seeking a sense of the board that we should extend a second yes yeah I
145think I would like to to have that just kind of head nod that says yeah it's a good idea we should continue to see heads nodding all right thank you yeah that I was gonna ask then also on the Indigo side for clarification or fall of of nineteen that includes what we see the day and the construction on Meridian that at that point we would have the lane in the middle for the rapid transit and then the two lanes for drivers is that is that what you're communicating yet so we're anticipating that next year around the time the school starts construction will be finished and the bus rapid transit service will be operational right so everybody we're reading to get used to the current under jails right all right thank you commissioners the last update
146is a follow-up to the discussion we have with commissioners and high school principals regarding graduation sites for the class I'm sorry that skip one I'm sorry innovation update I was moving too fast I think we have do we have public comment okay so we'll we'll take that after presentation all right Jamie Vander Waal II will present an update which includes some revisions to the timeline as a result of some of the delays with reporting of performance Stadium and also provide an update on schools that have our partners that have expressed interest in a innovation agreement and then we also in the time outline our process or recommending interventions welcome Jamie thank you good evening commissioners um as dr. fair be said just here with a quick overview of the letters of interest that were sent
147to us for the 2019 school year for interested innovation partners as well as some shifts that we've made to our restart timelines specifically um should we need to have a restart school for 2019 so I'll just start with a quick reminder of why we instituted this process and continue to refine it we have two primary goals the first is to make sure that any innovation partner is very carefully vetted by a truly cross-functional team within IPS and the second is to make sure that we continue to gather significant community input throughout the process also as a reminder there are four pathways with what through which one can become an innovation network school the new school that would be a not a charter school but a school that exists for the first time in an innovation
148agreement we have two of those thrival and a Madonna and elementary then conversion we start in charter partners when I go to our letters you'll see we did not receive any letters of interest for that first pathway but we did receive several for the second third and fourth so here you can see the list of potential partners for 2019 these are folks who submitted letters of interest I'll just do a very quick rundown so the first is Kipp in D legacy high as you know the Kipp K through 8 program is already an innovation partnership with the district Kipp will be opening a high school in 2019 and they would like to do so within the IPS innovation network next you see pretty Polytechnic high school North that would be the second location and complement
149to the downtown location is also already in partnership with IPs falen academies of Indiana as you know Phelan operates two of our innovation schools school 93 Georgia Fisher and also 103 Francis Scott Key and we are exploring the possibilities as are they of bringing the existing charters within the city also within the network so they have two other schools within the city there are charters but not innovation schools tinleigh accelerated schools you're probably also aware that's a network of five schools about 1,600 kids within the city they're exploring and they have an interest and just seeing if it would be a good fit to come in to come into the IPS innovation network and then invent learning hub would be a new charter school that's a slow-growth arter that is proposed via k4 next year
150and probably on the south side so there's but there's not a location settled yet when it comes to letters of interest for schools that are interested in converting as a reminder that's where the existing IPs principal and staff have their own initiative and are interested in in moving the school to innovation status we got two of those Arlington wood school 99 and George bucks school 94 and then we have three interested parties who if IPS does determine that a school should need to be restarted for 2019 three parties who may be interested in doing that the first listed is the past school that's a new charter it's an individual going after a Tartar school or charter rather a k-8 with the mayor's office they'll actually have their hearing mid-november and then to existing charter networks
151within the city that also were interested in joining their networks as I mentioned above tinleigh and Phelan so when it comes to the timeline you'll recall I shared a very similar-looking slide in July in July expressed that there were really two two pathways that we were looking at two timelines rather and the first was everybody that not conversion and then the third column in July was for conversion our timeline for conversion schools will not change so that's Arlington woods and George Buck we still get their full application in the winter after the holiday break take them through their intensive mostly during that second semester who's there right now engaging with their schools and their communities about this possibility also folks who are interested in a Tartar partnership that time line is not changing we expect
152those full applications on November 1st and we'll start to interview them more deeply after those are received so the change is all discussed tonight are primarily for the restart only and the reason for that is as Indra mentioned when he was up here there's been a delay and receiving the state test data is currently embargoed that's the data that we use to determine which schools would be eligible for a school code review and ask you are in Hinton schools may be recommended for a restart and so we've had to push all of that back while we wait for the state to lift the embargo so on the timeline we went ahead and did interview everyone who submitted a letter of intent we finished those up this week got some feedback from the team there so
153there's no change there and as I already mentioned no change with wanting that full application the first part from everybody on November 1st accept conversions we're not talking about them right now we did push back when folks would also introduce themselves to the board so instead of doing it this month we're looking at now November December instead as I already mentioned we did have to shift back the school quality review timeline so previously we'd hope to be able to announce which schools would be up for that in September but now it's going to be mid November when that embargo is hopefully listed lifted by the state which means they will then be performing our school quality reviews after Thanksgiving but before the winter break so we'll be making any recommendations if a school is recommended
154for restart the week before that January board meeting so tentatively that's January 25th which then anybody who is interested in putting in an application that restart specific school would have about a week to produce that second part of the application that's tailored to that school that then gives us a little less than a month to do the matching process so that's more compressed and we originally imagined which means we're thinking even more intentionally about the community engagement process they're you know meeting with the schools introducing applicants to the schools all of those pieces and then we'll be continuing to interview folks though all the way until that mid-november or sorry mid February timeline so we haven't slowed down our vetting process it's only when we get to if we recommend the school for restart then
155what that continued vetting and matching might look like for that applicant who would be interested in restarting that particular school our hope then would be to make recommended matches to the board in February and have contracts done in March that's all I have what questions do you have for me um I have a question about with the restart possibilities you're waiting for the data that's embargoed and you're thinking that it will be released when November 14th is when the state is supposed to lift the embargo so fingers are crossed and so you know there's there's I'm sure assumptions around you know there's sort of a high probability that that I word this that when you're looking at those schools like what is the likelihood that will restart them because you can make some assumptions around
156how much what you know the probability of its gold making that jump you know whatever significance we're not looking at actual data that you're sharing right now about the restart schools like what is the probability of you know the restart because you're really you're gonna make that decision on on the data correct right it waits so late you are I think you know we we have a sense again of what we received as embargoed of schools that will be potential candidates but we also want to honor the school quality review process which is the qualitative side right so I think that is where I believe that we just can't rush that process so like I'm just saying if you have an F grade and I'm waiting for that second test the probability of me actually
157getting an A+ and really making a huge changes is is very unlikely and so I just feel like we need to have real conversations now because the timing is so short and there's the key part here I think in the success of a restart for me is the community engagement the family engagement and so you know are our families aware of we're waiting of you know in this information so on because you know I've been concerned in the past that it's been so rushed and here we are again obviously things are beyond our control because state has embargoed the information but you know let's look at at the data here and see you know what what is the probability have these conversations earlier and later one thing I would just add commissioner hoops I think
158you are right in terms of that timeline and it's been a point of angst for us is we've thought about what makes the most sense I think because of the way for our school quality review our lenses not just based on letter grade and so we're looking at both you know proficiency and growth and so that data is so critical because if the school is on the right trajectory we want them to be able to continue to do what they're doing and if we find evidence that that growth is lacking you know and that's when we need to go in and sort of figure out what is the differentiate supports or interventions that are needed so without that data we really cannot say this is what we think even if a school has had you
159know two or three F grades they could be you know sort of starting to climb out of that and doing well from a growth perspective and so we don't want to discount that so it it is frustrating and we were very frustrated with the state's timeline got pushed back we also to dr. Avery's point when I honor making sure that we're getting a full picture what's happening at school [Music] including significant community input we're on this calendar is that take place because it looks like the schools we're supposed to be restarted unannounced till January 25th then they're doing the application and then the matching process only goes to February 22nd it doesn't seem to me like that's a long period of time to clean that community and parental input yeah you're right I think the
160other thing I would add just piggybacking off the answers to the last question is that you know part of teeing up the school quality review process that's also include family and community staff input so we're trying to be very clear that school quality review does not mean that you're going to be restarted and that's been a difficult distinction to make because folks can see you know the pattern that has existed but that part of you know getting in a school quality review is a make sure that we're listening to parents and they're also understands community members families they're also understanding what the what the data shows and so you know I even see that's part of us starting to get our heads around and develop that rapport with the community so that if it is
161determined that a school is eligible for restart we already have that beginning to build so I think then to specifically answer your questions like zoom in on there I'd be happy to build the calendar out further for you as well you know we'll be sharing the information publicly if a school is recommended for restart on on January 25th we would hope to internally have that discussion and make the decision a little earlier because we want to be able to start having those conversations with principals and school communities clearly before it goes public so we would build ourselves in hopefully Oh two weeks 10 days before that date to start the conversation and it would look similar to what I described when I was here in July you know where first the district goes in has
162the listening session where we talk about the decision what it could mean for the community they start to tell us what they want for their schools and then we bring the applicants second to start those dialogues so the same process we will just have to meet more frequently appreciate the fact we're talking to talk so we absolutely have to walk the walk because we get more criticism from that that parents don't know they don't understand you know it's very traumatic for families for this may recur and I just hope that diligence I'm glad to see it's part of the plan I just hope that we follow through and and ensure that the wheels are turning mr. Sullivan um I do have a problem with us um and I think that I would prefer to put
163this is an anomaly in terms of the timing for the release of these scores and it's like we're building everything around that mm-hmm and so while I respect the integrity of the process we've laid out we're asking kind of the wrong people to absorb the impact of the lack of timely data and I would prefer to have as commissioner hoops had assessment made by the people in the school quality review that finds other criteria to use because we don't have the growth data I have to believe if the schools aren't if they really haven't gotten their act together and they're not showing progress that you're gonna be able to see that whether you have that growth you know how precise that is so I just have a problem with that kind of falling more on
164our families and community side of things than it does on our own staff and again while I respect that we're trying to have this consistent process consistency doesn't trump professional judgment and we're not looking at a huge number of schools so I just I would like to talk about that a little bit because I do find it problematic mr. manleigh remind me again what the criteria is for a school that wants to converge because I know I was had some concerns last year when we were allowing some conversions with schools that had not shown that they were performing well and so I'm just wondering what what we're looking at here is conversion so coming into this year we did add an additional layer of using what is our newly developed principal competency framework to assess
165the capacity of a leader to take their school to innovation status that's something that we had just been developing last spring didn't have ready in time to sort of layer that on to the process so we'll start by analyzing their application their school design just like we would for any of these and just see sort of how well it's all built out and then we build our interview questions first around that then like I said we're using data from the principal competency framework getting input from the current school supervisors looking at the will of the staff and we did it as also mentioned in July add to the process this year we'll do focus groups and listening sessions within the buildings of conversion schools this year as well that's something that we hadn't done before
166we'd sort of reserve that for restart but we recognize that the need to get that fuller data picture about the school culture was necessary in all kinds of innovation changes so we don't have a set like oh the school has to have had you know an a for three years or any of those things I think particularly as we see this could be a lever for change within a building and if the leader is ready that it may be what the building needs I mean I bring it up because I just did a quick cursory look at these schools and they're just not performing well I mean they are rated really low on not only you know the state's ratings but you know some of the other raising you know great schools and so I
167mean I'm just concerned about that you know the other thing is is I think some of the initial conversions there was a lot of staff buy-in and there was a significant number of staff that ended up staying with those programs that it just seems like you know last year that wasn't the case and I think you know we've got a I consider what you know how that impacts the district as a whole when you know if a school is going to convert to convert or you know convert to a innovation school and they're wanting to do that to continue the work that they're doing in their building and then virtually everyone in their building leaves and those were the people that the families and the community had a connection to you know I'm not seeing
168that as a positive to be honest and so I think I just want to make sure that we're looking at conversions that we're looking at the you know that we're looking at people that have have proven track records in good leadership and you know schools that are on a trajectory of improvement because I don't think that's been in the case in the past it's been pretty frustrating for you ever mister hoops yeah I would I'm stuck on the restart and have a chance to talk about the conversion myself I would like to see conversion criteria that we would have an opportunity I don't recollect sort of an established criteria that we take a look at because I think it's important that schools who are considering it that they understand what that looks like and I'm
169also interested in seeing the leadership framework I don't recollect reviewing that because I'd like to take a look at what has been established as you know criteria for evaluation of a leader mr. Solomon yeah just a and also a quick recommendation when you do the focus groups for the schools looking at conversion that you make sure that you reach out to any staff who we've in the prior to their request for conversion but under that leadership because you might miss some of the might kind of have an artificial sample if you miss those people and I know if they don't work for us anymore that's kind of hard to do but I think it could be really good information for sure and then and then with regards to charter partners I'm I don't have the
170history of or know the history of the charter partners are assuming when when when there is a recommendation that will get some of that information that kind of summarizes their performance and you know the types of population that they've served and sort of all those specifics absolutely tentatively the plan now is to have them come and introduce themselves to you I'm starting in November and then their application we'll also detail all of that you know we asked for that specifically what is your performance data who do you serve what are your sub group performance all of that and those become public records so we could send notes as soon as we get them I find often times that there's not a level of consistency of these presentations and I think maybe as a board we
171can decide what are some specific things that we want to see addressed at the presentation you know of course there's you know the the the detailed material that you referenced but there's certain level of information that for ourselves and for the public that we consistently see when there's a presentation around charter partners or even conversion and so on so that we are making sure that that certain things are reviewed and also we have an opportunity to discuss them as part of the conversion application are there questions related to why they want to convert what I think given the the line of questioning that we've had tonight around this particular topic we would be better served just coming back with an update on the partners two criteria tonight the intent was to share the timeline we
172have just started the conversations with interested parties so commissioner Arnold we don't have the details yet of why they're interested or the background the sharing each interested partner but we'll be happy to do that and it's been extension amount of time on this topic when we convene in November but I do think we should review sort of expectations yeah what well what we can bring to you is the you know the leadership competencies for example that were referenced tonight and then we'll also have some of the data points to share as well on some of the interested partners we can also send the application so that you all you know send back out to you the written application that all applicants have to complete so that you can see that as well as the interview
173sort of script in those things that we cover internally when we have those initial interviews if there are additional items that commissioners would like to see when we bring this back in November what happy to provide as much information as requested you know and I guess I'd ask everybody to sort of cordate that through Zack if we could have one portal in we can keep them synthesizing soon we're certainly I did want to ask can you let us know who the authorizers of the charter partner potential charter partners are I I not heard of invent learning hub is that a mayor authorized school or that okay their mayor's office and they actually they have their charter in hand already they went in the spring cycle okay and then ten leox earlier that's all mayors oh
174that's right mm-hmm falen is a state board yes gonna do its mayor's office and and that's a second site yes but do they have a location it's a Xindi north what not final as far as I know okay and then Kip is mayor's oh yes and so is the pass school the first one on the restart their charter as well and I think at some point it's important for us to have a conversation about why partnering with charter schools and creating these innovative shim partners partnerships how that benefits the district I mean I'm a bit I'm I'm a big believer in in in those partnerships and in the benefits but I think you know having a deeper conversation about why that's beneficial not just to the students and but how it is beneficial to the
175district I think that's important for us to have a conversation about we don't control who authorizes schools that's certainly with outside of our control completely but I feel strongly that having those charter schools as partners of the district is it is a benefit to the district i'm thought we might want to have a conference deeper conversation about that happy to do that in and we can include on the materials going forward to authorizers for all the interested partners as well any other questions thank you thank you oh yeah we do have a public commenter on this subject I believe yes that's Chrissy Smith please good evening commissioners um I want to thank the board and administration for continuing to work towards racial and socio-economic equity in the IPS magnet program I would also like to
176thank you all for your commitment to parent and community engagement in a district didn't large and diverse as ours both of these are extremely important last month there was an issue of my children in school sign our Academy the issue involves our principal taking a different position within the district all parents agreed that both mr. Nolan walkins the current principal and mrs. Varna those soon-to-be interim principal would both be phenomenal in their new positions and we're excited to know that such talented educators would remain with us in the district we had major concerns with the timing of this notification and there was no conversation on the transition process fortunately her parents were able to effectively advocate for our children and kudos to the district for holding two parent meetings one which was attended by dr.
177therapy I hope that in the future all major changes at any school are met with the same attentiveness before decisions are made this brings me to an area of great concern tonight there are two innovation conversion schools and three charter operators listed as restart partners I was surprised to see that the timeline for these conversions and restarts are not said to have contracts voted on until March this is extremely concerning because the lottery for choice schools opens next week on November 1st so I went to the information about changes to enrollment nothing there about innovation school timelines in an effort to have a solution based response to issues I offer the following two resolutions the IPS school board an IPS administration needs to prove its commitment to transparency parent engagement and truly inform school choice
178by placing a moratorium on any innovation schools for 2019 if schools are changed in such a drastic way after the lottery begins then parents are not being given the opportunity to make truly informed decisions about their child's education that informed choice is something that this board has consistently advocated for regardless of the process there should be absolutely no major changes to schools after the lottery opens if the board chooses to continue with the current process of not approving innovation schools until March then it is only right the students at any new innovation school be allowed to bypass the enrollment lottery and automatically given a seat at any IPS school of their choosing thank you thank you now commissioners were ready to get to graduation sites for the class of 2019 so this is a follow
179up to the work session discussion we had about the shifts and a high school enrollment in the fact that that a couple of high schools now have a senior graduating class that may present challenges for the venue for their graduations we will provide an overview quickly of what was discussed at that session and then provide an update on our recommendation at this point and how we will move forward so with that I'll turn over to Scott mark yeah evening again so we continue to gather information and feedback about potential graduation sites we've met with the principals and developed some options what became clear to us as that we as we look at the number of seniors versus the capacities of on campus facilities it was it was clear that would that we needed to come
180up with some other options so option one is that all schools would stay in their own campus but part of that is would necessitate limiting tickets particularly to addicts and tech because of the number of graduates they have and the small space of their facilities option to all schools at a non IPS facility we've gone out into the community and looked and looked for options of course and you know some important things to consider you know if we get if we had the right size space anybody could go unlimited number of family members and friends and relatives could occur on the same day well having the board and district leadership to attend each graduation it would incur additional costs we want to consider the parking access not not just for what's available but the cost
181of families to it to pay to attend those graduations and there's some there's always some logistics that we would need to consider and that's graduation practices transporting seniors to and from those so that they can make sure that they're ready for their their big moment that evening option three all schools at Arsenal Tech we thought about having it outside on the lawn between the in the courtyard area it's a great space it's cost-effective but you have you're gonna have to have an inclement weather plan one consideration that did come up through the conversation with the principals was that if you're not from tech and you have to go there to graduate it may be a negative perception option for Christmas attics narsil tech at a non IPS facility again because those two schools with the
182number of graduates and the specific confines of the on-site facilities those are the two that we see the biggest concern with it would incur cost and potentially creating equities in terms of families and attendance as well as a student graduation experience that's part of option for Shortridge and george washington could stay on their own campus option five Christmas attics darcel tech could go to Arsenal Tech we do have feedback from the Crispus Attucks students that you know they they just want to graduate and you know they're they're not partial to to their own campus Loren George Washington again would be on their own campuses so the consideration criteria that we've looked at so far as a cost to the district the the overall student experience as well as a family experience and access the number
183of tickets that are available the parking and additional cost to families and we of course we want to continue the traditions and community building that we've established so our recommendation tonight is that the graduation site be a leadership decision of that individual building so each principal would make their own decision based on on their feedback both from their students and their families and what's available at their site we have gone out to the market and look to see what else is available the Convention Center is available the fairgrounds arena the Coliseum is available we've also talked with the Murad circle hook or Hilbert circle theater Clews hall and Marian University is actually building a new convocation center which is going to be done next month and would have capacity and time as well to accommodate
184us so those are those are where we're at right now I'm happy to take any questions mr. Bentley I know well I made my I made my self my feelings known on this issue at our work session it never should have been something that came to the board this should always have been a school level decision so I'm glad that you know after all this we came to the same conclusion but I hope that in the future you know we really will look at you know the logic on some of these things I mean I understand there's some facility situations at a couple of our campuses but again I just feel strongly this is a school level decision this is something that we should never have ever come this far so that's just my opinion
185thanks for all the work on it I'm glad that we've put it back in the hands of the people that should be making the decision which are the school leaders and the students in those building mmm I would only offer one suggestion in addition to I think it is a school leadership decision but I think there are also committee when we consider cost implications going elsewhere should they choose to go elsewhere there are community partners who I think would would enjoy participating and helping to underwrite those costs and I'm happy to make some suggest thank you any other questions thank you those are the reports for this evening next commissioner we have action item the first is on the real estate conversations that we had regards to the John port mini science john morton Phinney
186center of education services this items live 8.01 a new business there's interest in potential sale lease or exchange of the Education Center and little question that commissioners approved the declaration of surplus a real property for the Education Center and this will give the district an opportunity to pursue a potential sale lease or exchange but does not require us to do so requesting that commissioners approved resolution number seven 8:07 as presented I will remind commissioners we had a detailed presentation about this on Tuesday do I have a motion to approve resolution number seven eight zero seven approving the surplus decoration of the John Morton Finney Center for education services as presented I have a motion a second any discussion mr. Sullivan yes if the board administrator could remind me if this is one that I typically
187recuse myself on I'm a little confused at this late time of the night yes it will be okay just on the making it surplus I do okay then I would like to be refused so noted any other discussion all those in favor say aye aye any opposed the motion carries the next action item was like 8.02 a vase to a property transfer in partnership with the city Indianapolis Indianapolis parks this includes a small portion of property located at charity dye school 27 request that commissioners approved was Lucien seven eight through eight for the transfer of property adjacent to school 27 as presented I believe there was a question around the access to the current bike trail believed that we may have gotten the updates I look to Scott to share information that we received thus
188far yeah so I did speak with the city parks about that and the the entire network is not complete but it is intent that yes that it would eventually connect be part of that trail connection thank you do I have a motion to approve resolution number seven eight zero eight approving the transfer property adjacent to school twenty seven in new parks as presented it has been moved and seconded any discussion all in favor say aye aye I'm not gonna recuse myself on this one because I don't think it has anything to do at all thank you any opposed the motion carries the last act item is item 8.03 which includes a recommendation for enrollment parameters and logic for the 2019 20 school year to begin with their role in the enrollment process starting on November
1891st recommending that commissioners approved resolution 70809 there's also in your materials an overview of all the proposed changes and current status of logic the administration was happy to review that again this evening but again requesting that commissioners approved resolution number 7 a 0 9 as presented drive motion to approve resolution number 78 0 9 approving the choice enrollment parameters for school year 2019 2020 as presented tell me has been moved in a second at any discussion mister hoops we talked about how on Tuesday how it's a group of partners that obviously gets involved in deciding a team what the dates are a lot of discussion about just timing when does that discussion happen for the next once we have completed the enrollment process for the 2019 20 school year that process includes a survey for
190families to complete so once we receive the feedback from families on the process that will be included in the discussions for any changes or any updates to the process for the 2021 school year so I anticipate sometime late spring early summer we should have some indication of the feedback received and if we should move in any different type of direction as relates to the process we'll also have a better indication of the number of families that have participated in round one whether or not the round 1 round 2 process was more favorable to particular zip codes or particular groups of students and families and so that also give us some insight into whether or not the two round process is something that we should continue or not leave Commissioner Bentley you raised a question or
191a concern rather that you know there's you feel like there's always a change in in one of the principles that the enroll in D board has a body is this notion of continuous improvement and being responsive to the feedback that we receive from families and so the goal is to review the feedback if you review the analysis of what parents selected also your feedback on the process and make changes accordingly have you sure that yes we will what have a we'll have a presentation from enroll in D and in the also the administration will bring forth some recommendation as well it's also important to note that the board establish a leadership working group which includes school leaders as well so it's not just the board have these discussions around the feedback in the process but
192also school leaders are informing recommendations as well mr. solo yes and I just want to remind everyone we had a discussion about this on Tuesday we discussed the agenda item that we will have a more detailed particular look at our diversity and our high demand programs with some suggestions from staff and some questions for us about how we move forward with our values on equity with that so just want to remind folks at that any further discussion all those in favor say aye I knew posed the motion carries does any Commissioner have any closing comments before we close out tonight I know they're not here but I want to reiterate what I said with regard to the presentation and the racial equity training that that I'm hopeful as an organization we can we can lead
193in in creating the ability to have adult conversations we have we have in my opinion move backwards and I think it's one of those great services we can provide we can give our children the opportunity to be leaders in this front so I think and it fair being the administration for all the work you're doing thank you it's definitely my easy conversation to have but conversations we must have to move forward so thank you sir for supporting it and the entire Board of Commissioners for supporting and participating if I will sir just two quick notes for the public of two important dates that we have coming forward tonight we had the pleasure of honoring our final this for Teacher of the Year and I teacher of the year and we will do that formally on
194next Tuesday the 30th and we have a great wholesome Eli Lilly and Company I'm looking forward to celebrating the teachers and have any the ability and invite their families and other staff members in to join in celebrating their Vincente accomplishment being recognized by their peers and then Saturday November 10th is our showcase of school which is our marquee event as we begin the enrollment process on November 1st so we'll have the kickoff for enroll India November 1st which includes a breakfast where mayor hog said and I other leaders will join the community and encourage and participate in the Ruhlman process and their families have an opportunity to learn more about all of our school options at the showcase of schools which will begin at Indiana State Museum it'll be on Saturday November 10th now we're
195only at there's one date in between there that is important I won't tell people how to fopen I will remind everybody that November 6th is election day and I hope you do take the opportunity to vote and vote our next regular meeting will be our agenda review session on Tuesday November 13th beginning at 6 p.m. in this room having completed all the items on the agenda this meeting stands adjourned [Music] you [Music]