CMSD Board of Education Meeting - March 31, 2026

001This business meeting of the board of education of the Cleveland Municipal School District will come to order. Mr. Mr. Stockdale, will you please call the role? >> Miss Elod >> here. >> Mr. Phillips >> here. >> Mr. Briggs >> here. >> Miss Jones. >> Pastor Jones. >> Mrs. Mrs. Lebron >> here. >> Uh, Mrs. Peak >> here. >> Dr. Shredar, Mrs. Welch How, there are five members present. >> Ask everyone who wishes to rise and participate in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. Thank you to everyone who u made it in through the rain and um thankfully we don't have a tornado as far as I

002can tell. Um we're going to go ahead and start with our public participation period. During this segment of the business meeting, we will hear all public comment on either agenda or non-aggenda items. This public participation period will be for persons who previously submitted the online request to speak form to address the board for up to three minutes each. We will have timers on the screen. And if you at time, I ask you to finish your sentence and uh conclude your remarks. We'll start with Logan Gaki. Logan Gernaki, London Johnson, Lisa Riley, Alicia Dodson. Good evening. I just want you all to take a really good look at my t-shirt because my t-shirt is going to be um a part of what I'm speaking about. >> Okay. My name is Alicia Dodson and I stand here

003today as a community college and career center coordinator with CMSD. I am proud of the work we do every day. We guide students toward futures filled with opportunity. Futures that include postsecary education, strong career pathways, and the confidence to imagine more for themselves than they ever thought possible. This is why the current direction of the PCIA and the 5C memorandum of understanding is so deeply concerning. These changes do not simply reorganize roles. They demote dedicated professionals and reduce our salaries re despite increasing needs in our schools and our communities. We are being asked to do more for students while being told we are worth less. This is not sustainable and it is not respectful. Affordability in Ohio is already sleeping slipping out of the reach for working families. Housing costs are rising. Utilities are rising.

004Groceries, medical care, and transportation are all rising. Yet somehow in the middle of this economic reality, we are being asked to accept a pay cut. one that will directly affect our households, our children, and our ability to remain in the very communities that we serve. We cannot advocate for college affordability, career readiness, and long-term economic mobility for our students while we are being pushed into financial instability ourselves. When the professionals responsible for preparing young people for their own futures cannot afford their own, the system is broken. The PCIA and 5COU should be designed to strengthen student support, not weaken the people who provide it. We are committed to CMSD. We are committed to our students. I am a 17-year professional with CMSD. We show up early. We stay late. We bridge gaps that go far

005beyond job descriptions. But dedication cannot and should not be used as a justification for devaluing our labor. Today, I am asking for one thing. Honor the work. Honor the roles. Honor the impact. Revisit thisou with fairness, transparency, and respect for the individuals who breathe life into these very initiatives. Our students deserve fully supported staff, and we deserve to make a living wage while we uplift their futures. >> Thank you, Miss Johnson. Lisha Tugle. Good evening, CEO Morgan, Board of Education members, and all other community stakeholders present tonight. My name is Lisha, and I am a CMSD LPN and the CTU LPN assistant chapter chair elect for the LPN's. My last time speaking here was about LPNs and how we could maintain a space in CMSD beyond the mergers. However, I'm a firm believer in the

006scripture and to be exact, Habca 22 says, "Write the vision and make it plain upon tablets so I don't have to spend the block, but I could if I wanted to." Tonight, as we wrap up Women's History Month, I came to share a pleasant and memorable experience related to making this transition as smooth as possible. I want to take this opportunity to publicly shout out two administrators and their teams, respectively, Principal Turner of FDR and Principal Benson of STJ. They set the gold standard of how this transition can work smoothly and successfully for their teams and ultimately their students, families, and all other community members alike. On the most recent PD day, I back in February, I was assigned as a co-presenter for STJ and FDR. That morning, more than a few of us went

007into the building with obvious apprehension and nervous glances. Not because, excuse me, nervous glances because, after all, this was unfamiliar and uncharted territory. However, almost immediately through their leadership, we were met with warmth, reassurance, and unlimited possibilities of how this merger could be successful, not only that day, but for the long run ahead. The day was wellcrafted with top tier professionalism, intentionality, care, and grace. All of these components meshed together made me realize that my own hesitation was simply fear of the unknown. Over the years, I have seen many instances of disregard, just going with the flow, and even the mistreatment of talented employees. This day, however, made me realize that, excuse me, that's my work alarm. I'm off today. This day, however, made me realize that there are still teams led by highquality administrators

008who do the work with ease, class, integrity, and intentionality when no one of the district level of importance is in the room. These administrators made the most of a difficult situation and is reassuring to know that we do have a gold standard of collaborative and authentic leadership between STJ and FDR. It also proves that everything is not best in the West. Way to go, Principal Benson, Principal Turner, and their collective team members alike. Tonight, I simply wanted to recognize what excellence and leadership looks like and to remind us that when collaboration, respect, and intentionality lead the way, everyone benefits. Happy Women's History Month everyone. >> Thank you, Miss Tuggle. Jamila Gaines. Sarah Spanelli. Devin De Mask. Carrie Uert Crocker. Good evening. My name is Carrie EK. I am a CMSD employee, but I'm here tonight

009as the parent of two CMSD scholars who are students at Tmont Monasuri. I am grateful to see the Monasuri program continue in our district. I am concerned about the district's dedication to highfidelity implementation of our special programs curricula. My children have amazing experienced monastery credentialed teachers and paraprofessionals. They bask every day in the glow of adults who know how to differentiate in every subject for every child. Who know how to link special interest and developing skills, who celebrate their strengths and tend their weaknesses. They support my children as they write papers on the cold war and make diagrams of the stages of the formation of the earth. as they use dactic materials to learn grammar and geometry, squaring and cubing. The incredible savvy and depth of knowledge of these educators is astonishing. This is why

010I find it so perplexing that these adults are being made to push aside their training, knowledge, and years of experience to implement districtmandated curriculum and programming. These teachers are being pushed to spend their time reading excerpts with their classes instead of the amazing books they once shared. forced to strip math of its magic and boil it down to workbooks and worksheets, obliged to put time and energy into overseeing the I Ready pathways. They are trying to fit their monastery in around the edges. They are being forced to push aside the skill and craft they have developed for years on a curriculum that they have received less than a week's worth of training on. Do educators prioritize districtmandated curriculum at the risk of their hard one monastery accreditation or do they risk reprimand from the district

011when they don't? These teachers are being put in a terrible position. No one can serve two masters. This dilemma affects our children just as much as the teachers. My children are the light of my life. They are clever, funny, curious, independent learners. They are voracious readers and passionate community members. They are who they are because of their experience as Monasuri students. And we are grateful every day for Tmont. But they feel the pressure from outside forces in their classrooms. They sit at the dinner table with us and discuss the freely chosen work they do with their teachers and their peers. And then they bemoan that they were stuck reading an excerpt instead of a book. They talk about having to stop that the work that they were doing on a timeline to get their minutes

012in on I Ready, which, as my 10-year-old tells me, will tell you the correct answer for something, but never explain why it was wrong and never show you how to fix it. They wonder how long I Ready will stay longer than Amamira Waterford Zern. They ask me why won't the district let us do our monastery work and I don't know how to answer. Cleveland was an early adopter of public sector monastery far before monasuri was a buzzword. I have stood before this body before and I have heard you state your commitment to special programs and to monissor. I want to have faith all in all of this and yet I am observant. I have seen a district commitment in the past two years to a level of conformity that belittles skilled educators and restricts special

013model programs from following the model that makes them notable. >> My kids love their monastery school because it's a monastery school. >> Thank you. >> For their sake and for their teachers, please let it remain one in both word and deed. Thank you for your time. Kelly Lardy. Nobody's listening. I've seen so many people step up to this podium in the past year and address this board with concerns, and it's evident that nobody is listening. So, I'm going to continue facing Dr. Morgan and the board, but I'm going to address parents and community members. There are things you may want to know. Decisions are being made for the convenience of district level administrators, not children. Educators that have been in the district for 10, 20, or 30 years and are with your children daily are

014being left out of the conversation. I stood up here at the beginning of this year and asked that our accredited monator program at Tmont be saved. On paper, that request was granted. In reality, it was not. We are being told that Monasuri curriculum cannot be the primary curriculum at our monastery school. that we must use HMH as our primary curriculum, I Ready as our secondary curriculum, and Monasuri if there is time. Families that are celebrating their positions at Waverly need to know that we are going to have to carve out what time we can for your children to engage in Monasuri's intrinsically motivated child- centered educational process. We will have to fight the use of a scripted curriculum that requires your child to be a passive learner represented by a data point. This makes me

015wonder about other specialty schools. If you're a parent at Campus International K to8, you may want to ask if the educators there are being allowed to use the IB program as their primary curriculum. No need to ask why timehonored curriculums are being pushed to the side. I can give you that answer. Their results cannot be fit into the tables and graphs that so please adults that haven't been in a classroom in years. You may also want to know that throughout the district, countless professional development hours have been spent showing my colleagues and I how to navigate HMH and I Ready platforms so that we can be good data collectors instead of providing continuous education on best practices in recent research so that we can continue to be good educators. People who are out of touch

016with what is actually needed in schools and classrooms are making educational decisions based on which curriculum and processes can create the best spreadsheets and graphs. This fits adults needs, not students needs. The people that know what works for our students are willing to speak, but nobody is listening. You may also want to ask if your child's favorite paraprofessional will still have a job after this reconfiguration. I know the paraprofessional that I share my classroom with is an amazing educator. She is everything we want for our students. Caring, compassionate, dedicated. She was a CMS CMSD kid and believes in CMSD kids. Unfortunately, she and other great pair of professionals in our district are facing the possibility of losing their positions because they too are just another data point. So when you view the PowerPoint that is

017inevitably coming, ask yourself if the tables and graphs depict a true representation of what is happening in our schools or maybe if it's just the most convenient tool for the adults far removed from our buildings and classrooms. And then ask the educators in your child's building what's really going on. It's time to pull back the curtain and see what's really moving the levers. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Lardy. >> Trina Saxon. Trina Saxon. Errol Savage. Chair Elicott, you uh and the other board members may find this hard to believe, but when I was in school, I was often in some type of mischief for one reason or another. Usually, it had to do with me saying something that some adult didn't want to hear. And at the elementary school that I went to, when

018you'd get in trouble, you had to stand next to the outside of the gymnasium wall and watch all the other kids play. Now, I didn't care about that cuz I didn't want to play with the other kids anyways. But I remember one of the recess aids used to come up and talk to me. And she'd ask me what I wanted to be when I'd grow up. And I'd tell her, "Well, they're treating me like a criminal, so I'll just start acting." She'd move past that and say, "Well, Errol, you like to read and maybe you'd like to come back to school as a school librarian." And I remember saying, "Well, I don't really like a lot of the adults here." And I'm certain that under her breath she said she didn't either. But uh I

019remember one day when she was talking to me because no matter how often I stood by the wall, she would always stand there next to me. She pulled out a Reese's Cup candy bar and uh like a lot of people in life that I realize now I should have cared for more at the time than than than I ever could have imagined. We bonded over food. And uh I remember knowing that she cared about me and I cared about her. And when I think of her now, I think about our school paraprofessionals, our PCAs, our coordinators, our school lunch ladies, our firstear teachers, often the lowest paid people in the district, but the ones that have the closest connection to children. Often the lowest paid people in the district, but the ones that live in

020the community and are voting members of the public that support our levies again and again and again. And these people come to me and tell me they're worried about losing their jobs. And I'm just so disappointed to think that we have administrators that have received raises in the tens and tens of thousands of dollars, far more than many of these par profofessionals make in a given year, but they're the ones who the this deficit has to be balanced off of. Chair Elod, this board of education a few meetings ago was called a rubber stamp board. I really thought that was an unfair characterization. If you were a rubber stamp board, I wouldn't have any respect for you. And Chair Elott, if I didn't have any respect for you, I wouldn't speak to you. I'm certain

021that this isn't a rubber stamp board. I'm also certain I'm not a rubber stamp union leader. And I'm not going to watch the district lay off our most engaged members or cut their jobs or cut their salaries when we've got other people that maybe we could share the pain with a little bit and have some other cuts. I hope this board of education will direct the district to think of other alternatives. I hope this board of education will direct the district to share their financials with me on April 10th so that we can sit down and talk about this together. Thank you, Chair Elott. >> Thank you, Mr. Savage. Martha Lridge. >> Good evening, members of the school board. Dr. Morgan. My name is Martha Lockidge and I'm the director of philanthropy and partnerships for

022Monasuri Development Partnerships, MDP. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you tonight about the 2acre community garden owned by CMSD next to the Stone Brook White Monastery campus. As CMSD makes decisions about properties that will no longer house schools, I want to make the board of educ education aware of this two-acre community garden and of organizations that are committed to revitalizing the garden for the community and for CMSD scholars. The garden serves as a hub for the community and is especially important for making fresh food available in a food desert. This garden has been an important part of the community ever since the Michael R. White building, formerly the Miles Standish Building, was constructed in 1921. Back in the day, students had garden plots. Former Mayor Michael White, discovered his love of agriculture in that

023garden. For many years, the garden was managed by the community. During the pandemic, Fumikos Foundation stepped in to help manage community gardeners. A combination of many factors have led the garden falling into disrepair and making it next to impossible for community gardeners to have productive harvests or for educational purposes. The Stonebook property owned by MDP shares a border with the garden and MDP is willing to take a leadership role in revitalizing the garden in collaboration with community-based organizations. As MDP I mean as CMSD vacates our building, we're in the process of forming the Stone Brook Monastery Hub um which will now host multiple organizations together with Famicos Foundation, Food Strong, Resource Cleveland, and My Grow Connect. We would like to be able to direct revitalization efforts which will be no small feat. The garden is

024completely overgrown, overrun by groundhogs, has a broken irrigation system, and it's going to take a lot of financial and human labor to bring it back to life. We've been in touch with Chief Karen Thompson about the garden and the possibility of a sale lease back so that we can collectively plan, raise funds, clean up, and get it going again. Um, Foodstrong already works with CMSD schools and other partners want to do out of school time programs for for students. So, please consider exempting the community garden from the school building reuse process with the city of Cleveland and making arrangements for strategically positioned nonprofit and community organizations to revitalize the garden. Thank you very much. Thank you. That concludes our period of public participation. This evening's consent agenda includes the minutes of the last board meeting.

025>> I was signed up to speak, but due to a tornado warning, what's your name? About 5 minutes late. Do we still have time to speak? >> What's your name? >> Lisa Riley. >> Yeah, go ahead. >> Lisa Riley. I am a specialed pair professional at Garfield in the preschool. Um, certain people think I'm wasting my time coming here to speak. They think that you don't listen. Um, some people even are telling me that we're all being set up to fail. I honestly don't think that that's true. I think that the district is a huge investment property and you're in charge of the money here in charge of the data. things that I can't even pretend to understand. But I do know that you want to invest in a property without checking and that the

026foundation is sound and that you should probably ask the people that are in the building what some of the issues are that you might help fix. I'm one of the people coming and pleading with you and telling you that the foundation is broken and this is your opportunity to invest in the students and start and watch the difference that you can make. This is not a reflection on my awesome administration or any of the teachers that I work with. It's more about enrollment and overcrowding. And I'm actually referencing kindergarten, not preschool. When I was in kindergarten, there were only 15 students in a room. When my own children went through Riverside, there were 20 in a room. Now, every year for the past 12 years, I have witnessed 28 to 34 children getting dropped off

027in one classroom on day one. Most of them have never been to school, have never been assessed, and I don't even know that a regular education environment is the right setting for some of these kids. It seems like every year on average there are a six of them that are put up for SST. Maybe the parents are in denial and they think that kindergarten is just going to fix them. The number on children, the number of children on IEPs in 504 seems like it just increases every year. I have witnessed multiple children who are still in pull-ups. They don't speak English, many without proper paperwork. And I just don't think that one teacher expected to organize and instruct them all is what's best for those kids. You have children who cry for weeks. They run

028from the room. They have bathroom accidents. Children who are throwing chairs and even threatening people with scissors. They are brought to the cafeteria for lunch and they don't know how to open their food and are only given 20 minutes before they are put outside for recess. This is your time to help and fix the foundation. And it sounds like there might have some paras that are going to be looking for positions next year. So why not place a parah in each kindergarten that has more than 20 students? Why not require basic assessment at the end of the school year or at the beginning to verify if a typical classroom is what's best? Why not create more co-taught kindergartens to absorb the numbers from all of the specialed preschools? Please help us to make the most

029out of their first year. What kind of a classroom would you want your own 5-year-old to be in? And if you watch them grow and get to where they need to be by the end of kindergarten, they'll be better in first grade. and those test scores by third grade will go through the roof. >> Thank you, Miss Riley. >> Before we move on, is there anyone else who has signed up who wasn't able to make it at the beginning? All right, seeing none, we will move on. Again, this evening's consent agenda includes the minutes of the last board meeting, one board of education resolution, three finance resolutions, one academic resolution, one IT resolution, 15 legal resolutions, and four excellence and culture resolutions. The chair will now entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda consisting

030of items 4.02 through 10.04 as set forth in the board agenda. >> So, move second. >> Thank you. Mr. Stockdale, will you please call the role on this motion? >> Miss Elakod, >> yes. >> Mr. Bilips, >> yes. >> Mr. Briggs, >> yes. >> Miss Jones, >> Mrs. Lebron, >> yes. >> Mrs. Peak, >> yes. >> Motion passes with six votes. >> Thank you. The minutes are approved and the resolutions are adopted. The board will now hold its monthly monitoring of goals and guard rails. Dr. Morgan. >> Thank you, Chair Ella Cod. And good evening, everyone. I'm glad we were able to make it here to the board meeting. I know it was uh quite a dash to get here and uh the weather was not cooperating but it was uh for the most part

031of today it was a very uh beautiful day. I'm happy to be here uh this evening to share um some updates of where we are on building brighter futures. So this progress monitoring that we're doing specifically is uh the board's charge on where we are with some building brighter futures KPIs. What I'm really excited about tonight as the team comes into uh to uh position here um there are many operational aspects of building brighter futures that there are questions about uh you know in terms of staffing budgeting that we often talk about but the plan of building brighter futures is to ensure all scholars have expanded opportunities. That's the goal of building brighter futures. And even as I heard the comments tonight, everyone really wants to ensure that we have a school system where no

032matter where kids go to school, no matter how they look like their position, that they have access to a high quality education. And that's what the process and the plan of building brighter futures is about. Tonight, I'm really excited to share updates with the board on where we are to those promises that we talk about in building brighter futures because there's been a lot of work underway to make sure we're prepared for the fall and making sure that we're living into this brighter future. So uh just a reminder of what the two goals of building brighter futures are on this vin diagram. You have the goal to ensure all scholars have access to high quality and expanded opportunities um and at the same time improving financial sustainability within the system. Um putting those two together

033is our plan for building brighter futures. Um some updates I want to share with you. Uh this week is assignment week. Uh scholars started to receive their assignments as of yesterday. Uh those who applied uh via the school mint during the choice portal window between January 5th and February 27th. Um most families received an email yesterday. And as they're getting their their third quarter report card, which they're getting this week, they'll also get their assignment. Uh there's a video of one scholar as she was opening up her I know I shared it up on my uh socials that she was opening up her uh assignment to go to John Hay. So, she's really excited about that. And then we also just want to share with you this assignment uh day video uh from across our

034system. I'll turn it over to Gabe to share this video. Congratulations on your school assignment. Congratulations on your assignment day. My advice to you is to just be yourself and enjoy every minute. >> Congratulations on your school assignment. Make sure you're on time every day for OST testing. Congratulations on your school assignments. >> Congratulations on your school assignment. Work hard and study hard. Congratulations on your assignment day. My advice to you is to just be yourself and enjoy every minute. >> Congratulations on your school assignment. Make sure you're on time every day for OST testing. Congratulations on your school assignments. >> Congratulations on your school assignment. Work hard and study hard. >> Congrats on your school assignment. I believe in you. >> Congratulations on your school assignment. My advice is make sure you get plenty

035of sleep. >> Congratulations. >> I'm going to Davis cuz I want to have a great education. >> I'm going to John Haye. I am going to Garrett Morgan and I picked this school because they I knew that they have the good education at the school. >> Congratulations on your school assignment. Make sure you get to school every day. >> I'm very happy for you guys and I'm so glad. >> Congratulations on your school assignment. Be your best self. >> Congratulations on your school assignment. Remember, first impressions are lasting impressions. Show up every day to class on time. Congratulations on your school assignment. Take chances and have a great time learning. Congrats on your school assignment and welcome to the 2627 school year where we're building brighter futures here in CMSD. Welcome. >> All right. You

036can actually go from current current slide. There we go. I should put it back in it and advance it forward. All right. This video is a video that we have actually shared with our scholars. If they got it in their email, you can advance. Oh, all right. Yep. I have it there. Uh couple of other oh updates here on choice that I want to share on our choice highlights. So um while we were doing the period from January 5th to February uh 27th I want to share some exciting news in terms of uh scholars that have been applying to CMSD. So we received a total of 8,044 total uh applicants. Uh that is up uh from where we were last year. It's actually up by 127% in terms of total applications we received um and

037our new to CMSD. We received over 1,500 new to CMSD applications um just during this time in terms of the excitement that families are uh having around uh what's taking place around building brighter futures and also wanting to come to CMSD. So, we're excited about that. 66% uh up from where we were last year. A couple of things I want to share in terms of some of the highlights. Um we had over 6,500 current students apply during the choice window. of those students who apply during this choice window, 93% of them receive their top choice. Um, so as families are getting these choices, 93% of the 6,500 current students received their top choice and uh 91% were uh eligible for their top choice. And so really excited that uh for the enrollment team that worked

038really hard that's under Rick Mintosh's leadership, Sonia um uh Clark who uh supervises uh uh Rick and then also under Dr. Mosley's leadership very strong choice uh uh application and enrollment period. Uh we also now have numbers and real numbers as as we're looking at our schools to give information for how we might uh need to uh think about our our schools and also staff our schools. So this is really important information and excited about it and the video as I shared before all the students who applied through school mint can actually see that video as well. All right. So uh building brighter futures uh academic implementation updates that I want to share with you. So as I shared before the purpose of building brighter futures is to ensure that all of our scholars have

039expanded academic opportunities. And so I want to uh share with you in terms of where we are in our planning with this uh as you have noted our goals and guardrails uh that we're holding our ourselves accountable uh for this is the board's charge to ensure that all students are having expanded opportunities but also that the instruction is getting stronger. And so where I heard you know comments around the curriculum and uh different things that are taking place the work that we've been actually sharing in terms of updates of the goals and guardrails we're seeing real progress. We're going to have a a presentation that we're going to do on April 14th around college readiness and the significant progress in year of just the scholars that are actually college ready in year based on the

040curricular efforts that are taking place and the work that our educators are doing are signs of progress and I am grateful for the board for this charge. These goals are rigorous. uh but it shows that when we hold ourselves accountable and we are looking at data uh because our students are not only data but if we don't know where they are and we're not holding ourselves to a high bar how can we ensure that our stu our scholars are growing so I'm excited to see the growth um that our scholars are doing and this charge that our board has given us now our current reality in terms of where uh the makeup of our schools and what it looks like uh we have 78% of our current high schools offer college credit uh that's not

041100% that means that there are some scholars that to some of our high schools that don't have opportunities for college credit. 59% of our high schools offer uh career pathways or trades. That's not 100%. That means that there are some current high school students that do not have access to career pathways and trade programs. 38% uh of our elementary schools offer enrichment courses beyond art, music, or PE. And 70% of our students are in newer upgraded buildings. And we know about the low enrollment numbers across the board. This the work we've been talking about through building brighter futures. It's nothing new. Um, the promise of building brighter futures is that by the fall, 100% of our high schools will have both college and career. And tonight, I want to share with you some of the

042planning and where we are with that. And 100% of our elementary schools will have at least one uh enrichment opportunity beyond art, music, or PE. And we're on track for that. I'm going to share with you progress for that. Uh, this 100% of uh students being in upgraded buildings, we've always explained that this would be a multi-year phase. as we're still building new buildings. Uh we're in the process of building a um uh you know, a new Marian Seltzer, a new Lincoln West, uh a new Glennville High School. These are all things underway. And then also the work that we're doing to take some of our buildings that are under that 80 building condition score to bring them up to code. Uh some of those are are taking place uh where that will be up

043to code by the fall. Others will take multi-year. All right, so let's just share with you some of the KPIs we're looking at. And I will dual track here so I can read down here. So for school culture, uh we have a goal that 100% of schools impacted through building brighter futures have implemented a culture building activities uh or culture building activities for students and staff. So really bringing those staff together uh things that I heard uh uh Miss uh Tugle talk about earlier. She was giving bringing to life some of the things that are taking place. So, it was great to hear the example of what's taking place at uh uh Stephanie Tubs Jones and FDR, which will soon come together to be Stephanie Tubs Jones. Um, and the KPIs that we're looking at

044are 100% of uh schools have submitted their plan for student, staff, and family engagement activities to their network leaders and 100% of uh calendared event documentation for each impacted schools, student, staff, and family engagement activities have been received by their network leaders. So, uh let's talk about the progress of where we are towards that goal. um transition teams have started to meet. We have agreements around uh transition teams and the work that takes place with our transition teams. So, those have started taking place. Um and some schools have already started uh to implement some of these engagement activities. The last time I came before the board, I talked about the February PD date. You heard um an example of that in the public comment. Um there also have been some activities that we shared examples

045of where schools are starting to come together. Almost 50% of our schools have submitted plans for family engagement activities um and their training uh for the summer bridge program for rising ninth graders that is scheduled um uh between next month and in the month of May. Uh the next is around textbooks. I know that there were lots of comments at the beginning of this year around we're implementing a lot of uh curricula. How can we ensure that textbooks are ready on day one? We heard that and you know in a spirit of continuous improvement I tell you that's one of my core values that I have. We really wanted to make sure we were holding ourselves to uh the fire for that. So we have a goal that 100% of textbooks will be ordered, delivered

046and received by schools by August 7th. Uh with KPIs being 100% of those textbooks being completed and submitted to the board for this meeting um on March 31st. 100% of textbooks being ordered and placed by the vendor by April 30th and 100% of textbooks uh materials being received by schools and matched uh to enrollment numbers by August 7th. Uh so there's some work that is underway. The planning process for the textbooks were actually a month ahead from where we were last year. Even though we still submitted the orders last year um it's still in the springtime. We knew that through timing and actually getting it back, we were delayed at the start of the year. And so the team is already ahead of where they were last year. And I want to share some updates.

047So as of uh this board meeting, uh 100% of those board uh those textbooks that need to be ordered uh were part of the uh board resolution uh that was on this board uh meeting agenda. Uh and the textbook ordering process uh will begin uh by vendor as soon as we receive that board approval. Now, uh, the updated process for receiving textbooks have been created and communicated to schools via the the transition playbook that our academic team has been working with our network leaders on. And there's additional training on that new curricula and some of the new uh, curriculum materials that will be in the upcoming uh, uh, school leader institutes that we call SLI uh, in May and June. So, additional offerings at the K8 level that 100% of our elementary schools will offer

048at least one additional um enrichment course beyond art, music or PE. We're talking about electives, also vocational um education programs at the middle schools. That is something that we're required to by the state to offer vocational um uh education and training for those pathways. We're required to have that for next year. And I want to share with you some of the KPIs that we're looking at as indicators for success that 100% of master schedules be completed by May 2 sec uh 22nd uh including that additional encore uh that is taking place. Uh 100% of master schedules rolled over with additional encore and added in uh uh added inclusive of students uh assigned to those courses. So not only just the master schedules but also really looking at the work that is taking place with students

049that 100% of uh teachers new to those vocational uh middle courses have received training and that 100% of equipment and curriculum needed for the new courses will also be ordered and delivered. So these are things we're holding ourselves to high bars but we're letting you guys know the KPIs we're looking at because when you ask are we ready does the district have a plan our academics team has been working hard to really make sure we're ready day one. Uh let's talk about where we are in progress to the goals. So you've heard us talk about where we currently are in our our reality around algebra 1 and some of the areas. I want to share with you what we're looking at in terms of um updated plan. So for the 2627 school year already right

050now based on the master schedule 40% of our elementary schools will offer algebra 1. Currently right now only 11% of schools offer algebra 1. So that's already an improvement in terms of the work we're doing around algebra 1. Oh, I I actually want to start up at the top. 100% of elementary schools are on track. So, the goal of building brighter future is that 100% of schools will offer at least one enrichment course beyond art, music, or PE. We're on track to meet that. Um, and I want to talk to you about some of those specifics. 40% of the uh of our K8s will offer algebra 1 uh starting in the fall. The other thing that our team is looking at, there are some districts when they want to offer algebra 1 in eighth grade.

051What they do is they say just offer algebra 1 as the eighth grade math. We know that not all students are ready. We have a board goal around algebra 1 and we know not all scholars are ready. The board has asked us how do we prepare to make students ready. So, one of the things our academics team has been looking at in addition to ensuring that there are 40% of our schools that are offering algebra 1, 27% of schools are starting to offer advanced coursework in seventh grade as a prerequisite to expand to algebra 1 by the time they get in eighth grade. So, I'm sharing this to share is hold us to the fire that each year that this grows, we don't want it to stay at 40% and we check a box because

05240% is still not 100%. And I remember Miss Lebrone, you asked even with this of getting this, how do we address some of the inequities? 40% is not 100%. So we want to make sure that we still grow as we do this work and our academics is on track to really make sure that this happens over time. 49% of our K8s will offer band next year. Currently 15% of schools offer band. 22% will offer choir. 1% currently offers choir. And I want to I want everyone to sit with this because this is what building brighter futures is about. It's about this expanded opportunities. Uh, and there's work that we're underway to to to do this. Um, 0% of our schools offer ceramics this year. We'll have 22% of our schools offering ceramics next year. Uh,

053some of the other electives that we're pulling from the master schedule planning that our principles are doing things such as dance, theater, Spanish. Um, uh, and there there's some things this is the data as it is today. Uh, we're still under work uh under uh, you know, the the work we're doing with the scheduling process. I know at each of our principal monthly meetings and our network meetings, our academics team is going back and ensuring that our principles are doing the rigor to get the master schedule correct. Um, some other things I want to share. Uh, as I mentioned, there's a state requirement that 100% of our elementary schools are offering some middle school component around vocational um, uh, vocational programming. And this is a a prerequisite or a uh a pathway to our pathways

054that we're doing in high school. Um there's some work that our team has been doing to ensure that that vocational training is really in the performing arts in the fine arts area. Um and some of the the planning so far we have underway is that 36% of our K8's plan to offer introduction to performing arts during the 2627 school year. 33% of the K8s will offer introduction to visual uh design during the 2627 school year. 87% of fine arts teachers have completed training for vocational middle school training. I I know that uh uh Mr. Jeff Allen has been working hard to uh make sure that our teachers are ready for this. And all K8 schools will offer vocational middle school courses during the 2627 school year. So we'll meet that 100% uh uh benchmark. All

055CTE26 applications required for CMS to apply for the new pathways. Um uh we we're on track to have that as well as these are the existing ones. Uh so those have been completed and submitted uh to the education service center for review and master schedules um and uh from the principles including those paper schedules in terms of what they're planning to offer for next year are uh due on April 9th. Um so these are this is on track in terms of where we are. Anything else you guys would add um in terms of >> All right, I want to bring to life what this means. So we're we're talking about it in numbers. I want to bring some uh when we think about day in the life of you're thinking about the experience of students

056at merge schools. So there's a lot of work we have to do. Ah wow. Yeah. So hopefully we'll be able to uh once we get out of here it'll be safe when we get here. Um so I want to bring to life what this looks like when we're merging schools together and what the experience for our scholars will be. So take a look at the Benish uh merge with George Washington Carver. Currently right now Bennish has the 15th lowest enrollment. Uh there 239 students that are enrolled. George Washington Carver has 330 enrolled. Together they will have over 450 students enrolled. Um when looking at that combined enrollment, um Bennis has a building condition score of 49 merge with George Washington Carver. George Washington Carver has a building condition score of 84. Um, Bennish has one

057teacher per grade level. George Washington Carver has some schools with only one class and combined they will all have two classes per grade level. We talked about during building brighter futures that that was something that was really important. Um, we have 188 uh kindergarten through 7th graders uh that needed to make a choice into Benish I mean into George Washington Carver during the application window. 88% of those 165 of them chose George Washington Carver as their school. So in that center neighborhood they chose George Washington Carver as their their receiving school. When we talk about the additional encores that are offered, Benish currently offers art, music and PE. George Washington cover also only offers art, music or PE. Combined next year they will offer art, music, PE, band and ceramics. So this is one where

058they're going going to be two additional offerings that will be added in addition to the vocational program that will be at the the middle grade level. Let's look at Hannah Gibbons with Memorial. Uh Hannah Gibbons has 204 students enrolled. That's one of the six lowest enroll uh in uh elementary schools enrolled. Memorial has 379 combined. They will have that 450 plus enrolled. Uh both schools currently have only uh one teacher per grade level. Um but as a combined memorial school next year they will have two uh uh two teachers per grade level. There were 165 kindergarten through 7th graders that needed to make a choice in this application window. 82% 135 of them chose Memorial as their school uh for the receiving school. You can see that both only offer art, music or PE. Next

059year they will offer art, music, PE, band, the vocational ed program, health careers and algebra 1. This is what building brighter futures gives you when we think about two separate schools coming together to bring uh become one and how we will be able to offer more. Uh, so I just wanted to bring those to life about some of the work we're doing. Let's talk about at the high school level. So we have a KPI that a 100% of our high schools will offer college credit courses. Some of those KPIs are 100% of master schedules completed by May 22nd to include those API uh college uh uh credit plus programs uh courses. 100% of students interested in completing uh in completing these courses that we receive those course requests. Uh 100% of master schedules rolled over

060with I IB and college credit uh plus courses that students have enrolled and have a teacher assigned. Uh we want 100% of the IB teachers new to IB and AB uh uh AP to receive their training. Um and that training usually takes place between the spring and the summer. 100% of uh teachers new to preAP also receiving pre-AP training. We've already been talking to the college board about this and then 100% of textbooks for these new courses being ordered. Let's see where we are. So those are the goals. Let's look at where we are on this progress. Right now 100% of high schools are on track to offer AP courses during the 2627 school year. That would meet the 100% college credit offered in every single high school and that is in school. that is

061not going to tri for the CCP. We will still have that offering, but we mentioned during building brighter futures and that's great to hear the rain calm down a little bit. We don't see how there it goes back up. We one of the things we mentioned during building brighter futures, it's important that scholars have the college credit opportunities offered in school and that's really important. And so that's what we're working on similar to what we talked about in the K8 space where we don't just want to offer algebra 1 and eighth grade. There's a readiness. So um you know Dr. Turner's team who leads the teaching and learning, they're they're thinking about that that seventh grade advanced coursework math. In the same vein when we think about advanced placement, we just don't want to throw

062kids into advanced placement if they're not ready. So I know the team has been looking at what does preap look like. Um I think that I even heard uh that there's work to um over time phase out honors and ensure all honors is preap as a precursor to advanced placement and that is also uh helping students get ready for dual enrollment. So this is that preparation that we're ensuring that our scholars are ready. Um also we high school master schedules are due by April 9th. Um student course requests uh are due on April 24th. Uh and that those textbooks for the new courses are also ordered and submitted and professional development plans underway to ensure teachers are ready with that training. Career pathways. Um right now uh we well we have a goal that 100%

063of high schools are offering those career pathways KPIs. We're looking at those master schedules, uh, that they're completed with the CTE courses in there, that students have completed their course requests in all of our high schools, that the master schedules in all of our high schools are rolled over with those CTE courses with students enrolled and a teacher assigned. Uh, that we'll have 100% of CTE teachers trained in the new uh, teaching pathways and uh, provided with a mentor. uh and then 100% of resources needed for those new T CT CTE courses by April 15th and 100% of those resources delivered to our C uh our our uh schools with those CTE courses. And this is work that we anticipate happening in the spring and over the summer prepared to be ready for the start

064of the school year. Let's see where we are in progress for that. 100% of our high schools are on track to offer career pathways. So if you remember right now only 59% in the fall 100% will offer uh that we're on track to do that. All of those CTE applications CTE applications have been submitted and um are uh even with the the schools that are combined and merging uh together uh and those have have been sent to the ESSE. Master schedules are due on April 9th. Uh those course requests are also due on April 24th. resources for those new courses are to be placed. Uh those orders are to be placed by April 10th and then those professional development plans are also being reviewed uh so that we can be uh having th those the

065training finalized by May. All right. Special education scheduling. I know that this was a a big topic of question during building brighter futures and what we were doing to really ensure that all of our scholars including special education and all students who learn in all different modalities have the high quality education that they need. So we have a goal that 100% of students with disabilities are correctly enrolled and are routed routed for transportation. Um some of those KPIs 100% of students with disabilities are rostered in place correctly by July 31st. the 100% of uh students with dis disabilities that require transportation uh as coded in their IEP uh are is uh implemented correctly within their IEP. The 100% of students who are required to have transportation in their IEP are routed correctly with transportation. In

066a moment, you'll be hearing from our transportation team on some key transportation updates that they've been doing that has been uh supporting this work. and 100% of students with disabilities who have made uh a choice in who had have made a choice in the choice portal and are assigned correctly. I'm going to share with you some of the progress we've had to that. So, our enrollment team, as we mentioned before, we shared with you some overall enrollment numbers. There's been some work underway that we've been doing to ensure our students with uh disability are placed. And these are those single classrooms cuz we also have students um uh the majority of our students who um are um uh students with disabilities or are in special education are in a general education setting. And as we

067mentioned during building brighter futures, the majority of those students uh you know have a seat at their welcoming school because they are they they they receive those assignments. But it was specifically looking at students in a single classroom uh where uh there there may be a special needs that are needed for that specific single classroom that we needed to make sure that those students were placed. So we have uh 585 focused students those in those single classrooms uh that were impacted through building brighter futures uh and and they have a guaranteed assignment uh at a at a new school for 2627. Of those 156 applied to schools other than their welcoming schools. So we had those 585 we were looking at 156 applied to a school other than their welcoming school. 66% of those single

068classroom applicants uh that were eligible were uh received their first choice when they were assigned. 52% of them who made a choice were assigned in their top choices. So one of their top choice programs. 100% of nth grade students in single classrooms uh who made an active choice were placed in their first choice. So, we were able to do that for 100% of our ninth graders. So, this is some of the progress. We'll continue to share with you guys updates on what we're doing uh for our special education population. Still more work to do. Um but I know uh Jessica Weisman, who is our executive director of special education, has been working really hard. Um and there uh is great work underway that we're doing to really ensure students are being placed and we're also

069contacting those families. Um working hard to really make sure families understand those options. All right. I want to share some updates on staffing. I know that there are questions really around staffing and what we're doing in terms of some of the talent updates. Uh so I want to remind you in terms of where we were at the forecast. Um Chief Stockdale in February, that was last month. It feels like a forever ago. Uh but I shared our updated uh four-year forecast that we had to submit to the state. As you can see, uh, some of the work that we've been doing through building brighter futures and the the goal that we have of saving at least 30 million through building brighter futures is carried over and reflected in this forecast. Um, with the updates that

070we're making through building brighter futures, and I know this chart we shared many times and I've shared it o over the course of many different times when we're presenting, we always want to look at that final row where it says the unencumbered cash balance. Uh, that's what the state looks at. They look at are you in the black for the current year or are you in the black and are you in the black for the next two years? If you are not, if any of those show up in the red, that means you can go in fiscal precaution watch or being taken over by the state. Those are always the things that we look at. So, as you can see from the work we've done through building brighter futures, we're currently in fiscal year 26,

071not fiscal year 25, we're in fiscal year 26. Um, and you look at the next two years out, we're good for this year. As we look at next year, we're currently in the black. But if you look at fiscal year 28, we're in the black. We're not in the black for fiscal year 29. And so some of the work that we committed and we've already said that we had to do. There was a work that building uh that building brighter futures was going to find savings on. The rest we were finding through central office. So in the central office budgeting process and chief stockell mentioned this, we were uh making reductions of 15 million at the central office. Um and chiefs already submitted their budgets uh to me. I reviewed those budgets. uh we're on

072uh we're on track in terms of hitting that $15 million target. Uh but with that, that's essentially the 50 million you need to save and that would also avoid us into next year falling into fiscal precaution and watch. There's more work we have to do in the upcoming years. Um but at least for this year and the year after um we will be uh on track to submit uh four-year forecast that will be uh uh uh in balance with the state. I want to share just a a chart of where all of our expenditures come from. The majority of our expenditures and when we think about our finances are in salaries and benefits. Almost 80% 79% of our budget is in salaries and benefits. Just want you want that to sit with that that 70

07380% of that is in salaries and benefits. Um the majority of which uh you know one of our largest uh uh categories of groups as you would uh understand as we're a school system are uh you know educators are our teachers. Um but we do have some of our operational staff and uh different um areas like that but our teachers are our largest group of staff that we have. Almost 80% of that is in salaries and benefits. We do have another 15% in contracts. Some of these others are smaller categories, but the majority is in salaries and benefits. Which is why when we mention building brighter futures and we think about the savings, any savings that we have, um a big part of it comes in people. Um not in our operations, not in our

074buildings. Um this is where our our budget is looking at when we're looking at our general budget. I want to remind you about what also led us to get here. You guys have seen this over time that over 20 over our past 20 year uh time we've had over 50% decline in our enrollment. That decline is not driven by school choice or students choosing to go to the suburbs or choosing to go to charter schools. What's taking place is we have a historic decline in u birth rates. We're not the only ones impacted by this. I've been I was just talking with uh a district and a um a foundation from another city uh last week where they wanted to understand what we were doing because they need to do the same thing in their

075system. Uh I I uh my chief of staff and I along with uh Megan Traum who is uh one of the executive directors on the uh academics team we presented at Broad in uh in January where there were districts across the country saying how are you doing this? We need to do the same thing. So birth rate decline is not just something that is taking place in um in Cleveland uh in our state. It's not the only thing taking place. It's taking place across the country. And a lot of districts are faced with the same dilemma. Um increase in expenses um less revenue coming into the system, uh fewer students and old buildings. Now, one of the things I want to just remind everyone is that as I mentioned before with this decline and the

076work we had to do by taking 29 schools off offline by based on the $150 million that we need to save over three years, the majority of that is coming in the work that we're doing with people. Uh we've already announced and started talking at the school leadership level. Uh we started doing work with our school leaders starting in December of now announcing which school leaders will be placed in schools for next year, which ones would not. Uh in January, we did that with assistant principles, which assistant principles would have jobs, which ones uh would not or would be displaced. We did that with campus coordinators and deans as well in January. Which ones would and which ones would not. Um there's still work underway for the other categories. We just did uh 15 million

077at central office. So there impacts at central office uh that uh are under underway as well um whenever we're doing this. So the question was never that there would not be impacts to building brighter futures. Of course when you're reducing your footprint there are impacts that come along with it. The question always is at what scale and what impact and that's the part that we're working really hard. Uh we always want to minimize harm. Uh as I shared when I first came in I'm a student of the Pelp framework. Our team went to Pelp all last year, but I've been sharing the PELP framework from the moment I came in. Even when I was interviewing for this job, I shared the Pelp framework. And at the center of the PELP framework is the instructional core.

078The instructional core is what's happening with the teacher, the student, and the content. And so we always want to make sure that whatever we're doing, we preserve and protect the instructional core at the best ability. Yep. It's at it's it's at the core of what what we do and the work that we're doing. And so um as we're doing this work and as we think about how uh more information will be shared out in the spring, our question is always how can we find savings while at the same time um minimizing harm to the instructional core and also figuring out the work we can do and that's the work that's underway. We continue to do this work and I anticipate that over the next couple of months uh there's a lot of work we're going

079to really be doing to really make sure schoolbased staffing, central office staffing is in line with our needs for next year. Um, I also want to share here just the the delicate balance that we're always looking at and this kind of goes in what I was sharing in terms of the work that all districts really have to do to really ensure that we level our finances. So, we have increasing revenues. Um, there's work we have to do at the state level to advocate for more funding. We've shared before, Chief Stockdale shared this uh in February that each year the funding formula requires more for uh local property taxes than it is that we're receiving state funding from the state. Uh so there's work we have to do to continue to advocate for that uh while

080at the same time really decreasing our costs. And there's work that we've done in 2024. uh in in my first uh year that I I was here. Uh at the end of that year, we reduced 200 million at the central office and did a round of uh cuts at central office in that first year where everyone else was held harmless. Um we we put spending controls in place, uh things, spending controls on travel, our school calendar that we've done, school budgeting process. These were all things once again finding other areas before needing to go to the instructional uh core. So, these are all this is all work that we've done underway. Um, of course, the building brighter futures, there are 18 buildings next year that will be um uh vacated. Uh, and we're working in

081those five lease spaces. So, there are some some operational savings with that. But now we need to align the staffing needs for 2627 because there'll be 29 fewer schools and that's the process that we're working on. So, it's just it's this delicate balance of we need to inc um figure out how do we get more revenue coming into the system while decreasing the costs. And that's the balancing act that we continue to do. Um and you know, one of the things we shared here, there's no easy solution. There's no magic wand um in terms of this work um in terms of how we figure this out. Um it's just hard work and as you can see, we will continue to do the hard work, but this is hard work as well. Um because our scholars

082deserve it. Our scholars deserve uh kids uh adults that are advocating uh for them and ensuring that they have a high quality education. And that's what building brighter futures is about. Uh when I look at the kids, I say I do this work for kids like me. I look at the face of a lot of uh of our scholars, I see myself. And if there were not people advocating for me and if I didn't have different opportunities, I wouldn't be where I am today. And so if we are not providing that high quality applica uh options for our scholars, where will they be? And so we need to make sure that we're fighting for them uh at all costs. And then we align our work that we do as adults, even staffing, to meet the

083needs of the work we're doing with our kids. Um this is a timeline of the budgeting process. I've kind of already talked about this. We've shared this before. We've been doing central office budgeting since the beginning of the year. Schools have been doing budgeting since the beginning of the year. We're now at the point where the enrollment window has closed. We have updated enrollment targets. Um, we hope to have the teacher hiring completed by May. Um, as well as all other staffing as well. So, springtime is the time that we intend uh to uh really either announce any additional work that we're doing with staffing or figure out the work that we need to do, but there's work that we have uh to do over the next couple of months to ensure we're ready for

084the start of the school year. With that, any questions? Miss Lebrone. >> Thank you. Hello. Thank you, chair. >> Thank you. >> Uh, thank you, chair. That's working now. And Dr. Morgan. Um, sorry, that threw me off. Uh, student course requests. Can you tell me who is like, can you tell me what that process looks like? And I may have a follow-up question to that, >> Miss Fruit. >> So, uh, student course request process, um, the guidance counselors at the high school level work with the students to determine what courses they need, not just for graduation, but the courses they want to choose. So, for our ninth and tth graders, deciding what pathways they might want to go to, what AP classes for 10, 11, 12th graders, that kind of thing. And once the students

085have worked with their counselors to determine what they would like to take, then the uh counselors submit the course requests into the power school system so that the final schedule can be determined. >> And so the student course requests are done collaboratively with the student and the guidance counselor. Correct. And that should be so students are just now finding out I'm thinking about the incoming students. They're just now finding out uh what school they've been accepted to. Um and the decisions are have to be made by or sub they should be submitted by April 24th. So are they working with their guidance counselor at in 8th grade or are they meeting with a ninth grade like a high school guidance counselor? >> So for rising ninth graders, they take the core requirements. So ELA, math,

086science, social studies. So there's less choice for our ninth graders. Um the one thing that they might have is like a foreign language or if they're going to take band. So there is some outreach that happens with our eighth graders. Um and then there's some time in the right at the beginning of the year where if our ninth graders want to make some changes, they can do so. >> Uh and how are how does the school identify students that are qualified for AP college credit plus courses because they could start they could already be taking them. >> Right. So you're talking about our cur our rising ninth graders, current eighth graders. So we're still working through that process with some of our our current schools. Mostly what we do is we look at their current

087scores, so their OST scores, and if they're at a certain level, they're placed in an honors class. There is outreach to make sure that the student and the family is aware about the um honors possibility. In terms of the college credit plus, there's a process by which students are informed that they have the opportunity beginning in seventh grade to take college credit plus and we do have they reach out to their schools to sign up for uh college credit plus that way. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh, another question that I have was around um, and this was one of the things that was really promoted when we started talking about building brighter futures is the benefit of having two courses being offered in the same grade level that there's opportunities for professional development between those

088two teachers in the form of like collaborative planning time or grade level like exchange of like best practices and things like that. Um, how is that going to be implemented? Uh because I know you said 100 or you gave the example of I think it was like Benish and GWC uh that they're going to have two grade two grades two teachers for each grade. There you go. Um how how are they going to be supported in actually being able to utilize those professional development opportunities? >> Dr. Florence. >> So when we spoke about that earlier that really spoke to what happens during their 50 minutes, their planning time each week. And so now as opposed to one person doing all the work of planning, they will now have a partner to help them think through

089lessons, think through activities to help them plan with on a weekly basis. So most of that is going to happen collaboratively in their 50 minutes every week. >> Okay. 50 minutes. Okay. Thank you. >> Mr. Phillips. >> Uh thank you, Chair Elicott. I just got a couple um I think quick questions. Um the first one on slide 11 um going back to that slide 11 kind of with the culture um you know with the transition in schools a a few students that I spoke to over the course of the last month or so that was one of the concerns or not not concern but one of the suggestions they had was in order to make these processes go as well as possible um students and schools should be integrated um as early as possible and

090as often as possible. So my question is is the plan I know and I know a lot of schools are already doing that. Um Miss uh Riley spoke to that a little bit earlier. Um my question becomes is this the plan to continue to integrate as much as possible during the spring and even into the summer leading up to the next school year? >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean culture work is ongoing. I mean culture is it's it's what make this the the school community students staff parents uh the work that we do and so um yeah there there are some initial work that our team is tracking to ensure that there are events that are scheduled to begin that work but that work goes in through you know the the um through the year uh

091there there are uh KPIs we look at through the board goals really around safety and culture that are um not just looking at events like this but also uh what's happening ing on the panorama survey uh that we give to uh schools now to find out about the school culture and things that are taking place. Um that uh uh human wear department the social emotional learning is also um uh moving you know to our academics department. So there's also that close proximity for the work that is taking place in uh in our schools to ensure that uh school culture is ongoing and so uh yeah this is some of the initial work that we're doing but yeah it does carry into the fall as well. Thank you. I'm I'm also looking at the vocational options

092particularly in the U middle school. Um the first thing I'm kind Excuse me. The first thing I'm wondering is are those pathways that that's offered are those part of the state are those part of the state report card? >> Um so the vocational requirement is a state requirement. It's not part of the uh I think you're talking about the CCWMR uh pathways. That's at the high school level. Um but the the emphasis that the the state uh has an emphasis on college and career readiness as we do too. Uh where students are not getting to high school and it's the first time they're thinking about um uh you know career readiness and the work they're doing in the connectivity. Uh the work that our academics team is doing. The reason why you see a lot

093of them in the fine arts area, uh we were actually looking at what our current staffing, the current courses that we offer and how can we how can we begin to offer this in our middle grades with our current needs that we have now. Um, of course, there are other vocational programs that we could do. There are other ones we can grow over time, but currently given our staffing and the work that we have, we have music in all of our elementary schools. What are ways that we can expand that to offer some advanced level um arts and integration that prepares students not only for uh a specified pathway in arts if that's what they choose uh but also teach them a lot of other disciplines that will be uh very relevant to them uh

094in their high school journey as well. >> Okay. Thank you. You you kind of as answered my next question already which was going to be um kind of how was those um options going to be decided for the schools moving forward. So I'll just kind of ask one last question. Um it is and it's on slide 30. Um in the in the uh on the left side on the first bullet point, it um seeks fair funding. Um can can anyone speak to um kind of what that potentially entails as we look at funding for our district um in the future? Yeah, it's it's a uh it's a very broad uh solid topic in terms of many different ways to go to go in um answering that. But I I'll start with this. You know, one

095of the things that Chief Scott does share many different times when thinking about our budget is that over time, the amount of dollars that is required on property uh taxes uh the way school funding is happening is the requirement for local property taxes is increasing while state funding directly to education is decreasing. Um there's advocacy that we can continue to look at for advocating for the fair school funding formula. Uh we know that the fair school funding formula was implemented. Um, Chief Stockdale presented this before, but I I I it would increase our budget significantly. What is the figure we would receive if we were fully funded at the uh at the fair school fund funding formula level? >> 157 million. >> So 157 million over two years. And when we're talking about the $150

096million deficit we have over three years, that tells you the impact we're looking at. So there's work we have to do to continue to advocate for that. Um there are uh there's also uh work that can happen in terms of just uh there there there were some policy changes in terms of how um districts uh like our districts where we have high poverty uh levels uh how that was categorized and how that has impacted at the financial level and it's changed and I think these are all things that take place at the the uh the state level. One of the things I'm proud that we're a part of is the Ohio 8. Um, and as part of the Ohio 8, uh, uh, myself as the, uh, CEO as well as our, uh, board president, which

097I'll be looking forward to be joining those with Mr. Savage. Uh, but we go on a regular basis to Columbus, we talk about this and these are things that every district when we think about our large urbans, uh, the the work that we do to really advocate for funding and there's there's continued work that we have to do there. Um, we've talked about some of the other measures we've done. There's always things that districts can do to increase those revenues such as ballot measures. We had our November 2024 levy that we had in place, but that seeking fair funding is really looking at if we were made whole based on the fair school fund funding formula that was supposed to be implemented. You could see just even from the numbers that Chief Stockdale shared how

098we would be made whole. >> Uh Dr. Morgan, I do want to help answer that last question as well um around seeking additional funding or seeking more fair funding. We really can't do it alone, right? Um we need the support of the community, the people who vote for the people in the state house. Many of them are in the room, many of them are not, but that's how we can influence the funding decisions that are made at the state level, which impact the decisions that we make at this table. And um the board will be looking to add some um funding presentations in the future by some of our partners like Honesty for Ohio Education. Um more to come on that. But um you know, Dr. Morgan, appreciate your efforts, your team's efforts, uh the

099future CTU president. He's not the board chair, but he could have my seat for a day if he wants. Uh Mr. Savage to, you know, to help advocate on that front. I know that's I said board chair CTu President. Didn't even realize I did that. >> Mr. Briggs. >> Uh thank you, Chair Helott. And Dr. Morgan, thank you for your leadership and your excellent team. Continually impressed. Um you mentioned that there were 8,000 students um who applied for the different locations. Uh, and maybe I missed it, but what about the other 24,000 students? >> Are you referring to the choice application window? Um, so, um, not all students need to make a choice. So, the majority of our students don't need to make a choice. They just stay in their school that they are at.

100>> And even when we think that's a really great question that I also just want to share publicly. Um let's take the John Hay campus where you have school uh school of science and medicine architecture and design and um uh early college that are all coming together to John on John Hay campus. None of those students had to go in and apply they are assumed. Now if they wanted to change their school they would have to apply but the majority of our students didn't have to. These are only for schools that their building itself will be closing. So in that same example, campus international high school that is merging to John Hay would need those students need to make a choice. So uh we only had when we take into account um the students whose

101schools were closing our students with disabilities uh rising uh kindergarten students as well as rising nth grade students. Uh we had about somewhere around 7,000 8,000 students who needed to make a choice. The reason why the number is over uh than 8,000 is we had new to CMSD students who made a choice. We know not all students who needed to make a choice did make a choice. Uh we that was roughly around I think 66% when we closed 66 69% was one of those um and that's some of the work we're doing now to really ensure that students will come um given their confirmed seat. Now another question I want to make sure it is clear um to to this point the every student is being notified of what their assignment is. So uh the

102emails if families received the email those are the students who actually went in and applied you received the email but in the third quarter report card every student will receive their assignment for next year even if their assignment is the same as where they currently are. So, uh, every student will have an assignment for what that is and there's a process that, uh, you know, as always, that if there are are are changes that students are making in that time, they could do that. But, um, at this point this week, all students will be notified what their assignment is. >> Thank you, Dr. Morgan. I think it'd be helpful to continue to include that denominator number as well, um, so that we know what we're working with when we look at that, um, number of

103students that have applied. Uh I think most of my questions were asked. I would say I mainly have comments. You know I'm very glad to see um the work around the goals that you all have created around school culture around um the even the textbook orders right and we approve that order today as a board and the KPIs that are associated with them. I think that those are really important responsive to the questions that the board has asked in past meetings and in turn questions that the community has asked in past meetings as well as well as the things that I continue to hear from folks in our schools, our students, our families, our educators. Um it's really good to see it all laid out here and I hope that you know that the stuff

104will continue to be communicated with our school community so that um everybody understands kind of how some of these things are being worked out and that there is a plan. I know there continues to be a lot of understandable um anxiety around the changes and you all making the effort to communicate um down to some of the details of how you all are moving forward is um I hope uh helpful to folks who are concerned. Um also wanted to say I'm really happy to see the progress um on slide 15 around our electives especially algebra. Uh, I think I said it was like in the December meeting when we were looking at college readiness and it was so abysmal and I said I could cry I could cry out of happiness to see the progress

105that we're making and as you said it's not the progress that we want to end at, but um, very glad to see that work being put forward and want to make sure to give you your kudos for doing this hard work. um and just encourage you all to continue to like you said um grow through the progress and grow through the changes and some of the challenges. And um I personally hate to see I think everybody does hate to see when it feels like we have a bureaucratic failure, right, of something as important as books. And so it's great to see that you all are are way ahead of it this year. >> Thank you. >> All right. And do we have a presentation on transportation? >> We do. So I know there were lots

106of questions that our board members have asked us on transportation. There are lots of questions we've heard from the community. So I know there are lots of topics. I see I see Miss Bon out in the audience. Um lots of questions. So we do have an update. And so thank you uh team academics uh for uh the the progress on building brighter futures. And oh yeah, I have a click. >> Can I just confirm that that's been added to board docs? >> Yes. >> Do we have it? >> Yep. Um so yes, it's on board docs, our transportation presentation. And so uh with further without further ado, I would uh introduce uh Karen Thompson, who is our chief uh of district operations. >> Sorry, Chief Thompson. One moment. Board members, you will have to refresh

107your page and um find the transportation update deck in there. Over to you. Thank you. >> Okay, so um we're going to be very very crisp and brief on this. And um first of all, thank you Dr. Morgan. Appreciate the opportunity to talk about transportation. Terqua board members and community and um I would be remiss if I didn't introduce the team. It truly is a team that uh does the work at transportation. They're small but mighty and I've got to know them very well. And I just want to take a moment and acknowledge um Tamira Bates. She handles routing and does it seamlessly, effortlessly every day. Mike Bower who can't be here this evening. He handles our mechanics and we have two depots where they're at. Beth Hartzell, she manages the office. She was Eric's

108right hand. She will become um very close. She works very closely with Bill and we work very closely with our new ED. We have April Holland Taylor. She's our director. She is the director at the depot. Um, if you ever want to see >> something in action, it it's it's I've never I've never seen such um symmetry. I don't know if I would call it symmetry, but you hear this hub of noise start around 5:30 and the team is really getting into gear. April and her team are managing that in conjunction with um the team and Greg Williams who is at our uh Ridge Road and Greg is over communication. and he's the manager of communications and he reports in at between 5:00 and 5:30 of every morning. So this team starts in the morning

109around 5 and ends around 7. And so I would be remiss if I if I didn't introduce the team. So for tonight we want to hit three areas for you. We have the um and Bill or where did he go? Bill I'll introduce um Bill is our consultant. He brings a wealth of experience and he's going to walk us through the cap. We have three things that we want to hit. We want to hit them very quickly for you. But one is the corrective action plan. We have done an update with the state. We have the first update and um just finished our second update. So it's very visible. We want to share that with you and we want to share where we're at with that. We also want to share three real life examples

110of communication. Um it is an area that the team continues to work on and we'll get better at, but it is a it is an area that is challenging at times. And finally, we want to introduce new leadership and then spend some time for Q&A. So, so with that, um, when we talk about corrective action and and Bill's going to dive in deeper, but the corrective action planner, you're going to hear us call it CAP. In December, the state came up and we had a visit from the state as well as with the Ohio State Troopers. we had to hit some areas and then we had to have a response to them and that response was due in January. The corrective action plan covers seven key areas and so we will dive into those areas

111and that's what we report on. But what I would want to say is it really is about apply um ensuring compliance, accountability and student safety. And I want to end with student safety because student safety is always the driver with the work that we do. This team transports close to 15,000 students daily. And that's not counting um the number of students with our um partners, non-publiclix and charters. That's another additional about 8,000 students. So, this team has to be on call, has to support, and that's with our yellow buses and our cabs and vans. RTA is a is a different story, but we do provide RTA about 9,000 for our students there. And so the cap um or the corrective action plan the seven key areas we have to report out meet on it on

112a regular basis and it is allowing this team to really dive deeper look at the practices that we have in place but start to codify them and start to knit things together. And so with that I'm going to step away and turn it over to Bill and he's going to take us >> he's going to take us through the seven key areas. Use that button. >> Good evening everyone. Um, as Karen said, my name is Bill Andexler. Um, I've been brought in from for CMSD to help them out with the uh the uh CAP. Um, just real briefly, I've got 27 years in it, and my last uh school that I worked at was Akran Public Schools. So, what you guys are doing here is very similar to what Akran is, just that you're a

113little bit bigger up here. Um, like Karen said, there was seven parts to the CAP um that we have to address. Um, I'm sure that letter that came out uh late December was very um shocking, which it should be, and we are addressing that um step by step. Um it's not something that we can just snap our fingers and have it done in a week. It's going to take, you know, a couple months to get it in as long as we're moving forward and completing. There's there's the seven steps. Uh there's the seven components of the CAP that are up there and we're just going to briefly go through each one. Um so component number one um is just organizational. What I found at that December 9th meeting when we had it was just that

114Cleveland has the material. It's just that it wasn't presented um at that December 9th meeting and and that's what caused the the the letter to come out and we have to things. So, as I'm as I'm working with the team over here, which is a great team, we're pulling all these pieces together. Um it's I've always said that I'm like I I do puzzles is what I do and we're always constantly putting pieces to the puzzle together. Unfortunately, in transportation the puzzle can never be completed because there's always things changing. Usually about every six years things change when our legislators are changing things down at the state that changes the puzzle. Um so it's always a puzzle that will never be completed. Um so the first component is um organizational chart um or organizational accountability

115and that was real simple. They had an organizational chart we just updated a little bit and then we submit it to the state and then that's fine. The other thing is a task calendar. It's sounds like it's very simple just a task calendar but everything in transportation has deadlines and we put everything on the task calendar. So now the the department knows the task calendar and when things are due. Um the team the the department um suffered some um vacancies. Uh you had a executive director retire. You had um a compliance officer resign. Other things other um uh people have left. You know you have you have bus drivers leaving things like that. So, that all adds up. I know there was some articles about uh uh well, they just had excuses for staff because

116their staff was shortages. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. Staff shortages. Um and then Karen mentioned about uh April in the morning trying to get the drivers. When you have short short drivers in the morning, trust me, that's that's not a I've been there. That's not a nice place to be when you have 15% or 20% of your drivers calling off in the morning. Um, we did post the position and it is filled um for the compliance person. Um, but that person currently is doing the field trips. We just can't take that person out of field trips, you know, and move them over to compliance because we have 70 to 90 field trips a day going out from the buildings. So that's that's a critical part. Um we have posted and or I

117should say CMSD has posted and we have filled the executive director position. They did uh engage with two consulting firms. One is shared services the one that I belong to and the other one is NPJ that's another consulting firm um and something that was as simple as a developing a department handbook. There was a department handbook um and April was the one that developed it. We took it. we're we're uh it's a draft copy that we're working on and you know we submitted to there. So again a lot of the pieces were already there to the puzzle. It was just that we're my job is to organize it to put it in. So one thing I should make clear is you're dealing with two groups of um transportation people. One is your is your CMSD

118drivers. Okay, which is a big part. You got about 150 drivers. The other part is contract advance or contracted services. Okay, so this cap we're trying to bring in both teams together which can get complicated at times and it get confusing. So sometimes I may be talking about something if I'm not clear. You're thinking I'm talking about CMSD drivers but I'm actually talking about contracted drivers. So hopefully I can keep it clear as we walk through this. Um, and with that we have a total staff of about 550 to 600 staff members for for transportation. That's counting the contracted services and that's counting CMSD staff. So you're about 550 to 600 staff for the transportation. So the second component was um vehicle inspection. Um and again the first part of it was the van service.

119So again these are all private companies but Cleveland like other districts are being held that we have to monitor these contractors these private companies and we have to vet them audit them. Okay. Some will say that we're doing DeeW's job. Well, we are because but we're responsible ultimately. We're responsible and we want the safest for our kids. And when I say our kids, I got some skin in the game, too. I have my cousins have children that go to school here. So, um, so I I I kind of say they're my kids, too. You know, my some say would say babies, but they're my kids. And so, um, so the second component is the vans, uh, the the, uh, making sure the vans and things and inspections. Cleveland has that for their buses. We have

120that in place. Do we have to do a better job for the contractors? Yes, we do, and we are doing that, and we are working on that. The the third component of it was pre-trip inspections. Again, Cleveland has something in place for the cle for the um pre-trip inspections. Can we make it better? Absolutely. Okay. And that will go into that department handbook that we're talking about that I've talked about. Um component number four, and I'm not even moving the slide for you. I apologize. Component number four is um like maintenance and removal. And this is uh again this is uh for for Cleveland buses and things like that. How do we do the maintenance? Again, Cleveland has things in place. We have to refine it a little bit, but they had it in place.

121And when a bus is defective because of a driver rode it up for something, there's a procedure for that. and the drivers are or the departments are are following that. Again, we just needed to supply that information to the state. Okay? And and which we which we are. Uh component number five is inservice training. Your drivers have been trained. They do inservice. Okay. um they just felt that there should have been some additional training which I agree 100%. You can never train not enough and we have a trooper listed here. His name is Trooper Hughes. Uh he just recently retired. Um but he started as soon as that that was brought up at the meeting within I think within 3 weeks he started coming to the district and he was training the drivers the bus

122drivers. Now he's since he's retired and we have a new trooper we have his name is trooper Albert. So trooper Hughes retired on the the Friday where that the 14th or whatever it was of March. the next week. We already scheduled a meeting with Trooper Albert with the the entire transportation team and he's already scheduling classes for the drivers. So we we're going to be fulfilling that. Um so the rest of that the component five for inservice training again our drivers are doing it uh here at Cleveland. Now component number six is the most complicated one. Um, fortunately for our drivers here at Cleveland, we're in pretty good shape because there are additional teams that are helping us like the um the person who oversees Rapback, okay, it for the district, her and I have

123been working very closely together. Um, so fortunately the Cleveland team of drivers are in pretty in really good shape. Okay. Of of having all these things checked off. Each driver has about 15 things that we need to check off. >> Okay. >> They need to have their certificate to drive a bus. Okay. They need to have background check. BCI, FBI, they have to have RAP back. They have to have their TA physical. There's like 15 things we have to check off. So do the math. Take 600 550 to 600 people times 15. That's how many things we need to have checked off. And that's all these includes our charter companies too. Our bus charter bus companies and chartered van companies. All of this has to be checked off. All this has to be documented. And

124this is the most complicated part of the of the cap right here. Uh we're making headway. Um we're not entirely done with it. Um but that's that's the most complicated part of it. Um component number seven is what happens when there are problems. Uh how do we address the contractors? We get a we get a lot of phone calls. The transportation team cannot be at 50 schools, 70 schools monitoring every person that comes in. We've got 300 van contractors out there, approximately 300. We got 90 um uh bus drivers that work for contracted uh buses or services. Now, granted, most of our vans transport children with needs. Our bus contractors transport to the charter non-public schools. Majority of them do. So we get calls, complaints, concerns from the public, from the highway patrol, from many

125different angles. So what do we have to do? How do we address those? And that's what we need. And we've set that in place. How do we every one of those have to be investigated? Okay. And if something is warranted, we pull the contract from them. Or if they've done something and which uh Karen will we'll we'll talk about here in a few minutes about like a railroad crossing. If they do a railroad crossing not correct, they can lose their certificate to drive a a student for one year for that. That has to be we have to investigate every every call that comes in. Um, so in conclusion, I know there was a lot of concern when those letters came out and there's a lot of just basically a lot of concern. We're addressing it.

126We're moving forward. We're taking the steps and we will um be okay with the with the compliance with that. Okay. It's it's something that we're working through. >> Um I think Karen, I think you're next. >> Thank you, Bill. >> You want me to sit down? >> Yeah. Thank you. Um, as Bill shared, uh, and that's he he gave a very high level, but I think the key takeaway that I have from the corrective action plan and that the team has from the corrective action plan is we have to come together, we have to review, we have to codify practices, and we have to continually assess, reassess, and be responsive. And so um it can be very challenging when you're dealing with um outside vendors as well as internal vendors and the team has to

127work as a unit and has to address and so that's what this is all about. We've been working really hard being very transparent about the process. And so I I did want to delve into very quickly three examples of um areas of improvement in communication. communication. Not going to sugarcoat it. It's been a challenge um for us. And if you if you think about it, you know, we're communicating not only with our families, we're communicating with school leaders, we're communicating with um bus drivers, we're communicating with contractors. And so what we have for you tonight is um three real life examples. So the first one is an example about school leadership and support. And we have a process for field trip tracker. As I shared earlier, we service probably between on average 50 to 70

128types of field experiences a day. It could be field trips, but it could also be athletic events, etc. And at the beginning of the year, the team spends time with school leaders as well as um school secretaries and talks about the process. Well, in reflection, we realized we needed to dial it back, look at it, and and just have a check-in. Um, you don't remember. You get slammed with a lot of stuff at the beginning of the year. This was an opportunity to look at the process, write the process down, and then have a one-pager that we could send out through the schools. And our academic team has the principal's common newsletter, school leaders newsletter. And so, that's where it went. But it's just a chance to reflect, say, here's what the process is, here's

129what we can service, and get that energy going again with field experiences. A second one, and this was a cab safety concern that came up. And it this is an example for you to see what we've done with um student family safety. And what what had happened was um we have students as Bill talked about earlier, we have students that we use contracted services and this is a cab and van incident. There were four um students on this cab. The the cab ran into some mechanical difficulties. The driver drove to a public lot and reached out to his owner of the cab company. They stayed situated waiting for the vehicle to come back, which they should do, and then they transported to school. They did reach out to some families, but they did not follow

130the district's protocol, which is you notify the schools and you notify transportation. None of that was done. And so, we had students arriving to their site an hour late. What wasn't acceptable was that they didn't follow the protocol. And so, um, we investigated it immediately. we changed the the vendor or the service for those families and we reached out to the families directly to let them know this was happening as well as because we're under corrective action plan we included the state but we included our leadership and um the school leadership. So that's an example of um being responsive to safety concerns that come up. And then finally, the um railroad and safety crossing. As Bill shared, this example um is pretty straightforward, but we have to continually train. We should continually have opportunities to

131train. And what we found was that um sometimes when you're not transporting students, you come to railroad tracks and just cross them. If you're in a vehicle that is designated for transporting students, so you might see a a cab with the the little thing on the top that says student transportation or on the sides, they still have to stop at the tracks and follow the proper process. A yellow bus should always stop at the track whether there's students or not. And unfortunately, if you don't, um, you will get cited and the violation is serious. you lose your license for a year. It's a license, the commercial license to transport students, but you're expected to do this. And so, we had a refresher, as he mentioned, we've been training our drivers, having them stop in for

132refresher course with um Trooper Hughes and April's been setting that up. But we've also um just shared information and this includes our contracted drivers as well as our um district drivers. So we wanted to share with you three examples of real time communication that the team is addressing to um you know respond more quickly. And then lastly, leadership matters. And so we want to take um the opportunity to share, as had previously been mentioned, um we had the exit or retirement of the executive director, Eric Taylor. And um Eric had been in that position for a long time and we needed to have a thoughtful plan of action. And so um working with the team, working with the the district, we posted the position. It attracted 27 applicants, which I was pretty pleased with that.

133And we had six internal candidates um for the district as well as 21 external candidates apply for the position. So, we had a nice pool of candidates to vet. Um we then determined that seven of those candidates rose to the level of let's have an interview. So, um, I really appreciate having Bill's expertise and Jason who's also with his team, he has expertise in special education in really looking at who was eligible. And so, we had seven applicants that we interviewed. Um, five of them were external and two were internal. From that process, we had our final two. So, this is like the the final four. Um, we had our final two. And the final two, it didn't stop there. They then had to interview with um Dr. Morgan and the executive leadership team, but

134they also had to do a problem of practice. We're an educational institute. You should do have a thoughtful problem of practice. And we did it in real time. We did it around the corrective action plan and improving um communications. And so, and you and it's time bound. You don't get forever to work on this problem of practice. I mean, you got to turn it around pretty quickly. And so, they had to um present on that. And so, um, we're just super super excited tonight to formally introduce Dr. Timothy Primis. Come on up. >> Yeah, you can come up. He is not a stranger to CMSD, so it's it's nice when you have an internal candidate. And I'll let you introduce yourself if you want to say anything. >> Hello everybody. I'm like she said, I'm

135Timothy Promise. I'm currently the principal at John Marshall School of Engineering. I've been in education about 23 years. and um I look forward to the challenge of this new role and just helping out with everything I possibly can to help move uh building brighter futures ahead. So it was a time it was a timebound process but it was a critical process and it was critical to get there's never the perfect candidate but that's pretty perfect and we had and we had two strong internal candidates. So it's a it's we have a strong bench um and looking forward to Tim's leadership in this position. So that's it. Any questions? >> Miss Jones. Thank you, Chair Elott. Not to get in the weeds too much, but just to make sure. >> Miss Jones, could you get closer

136to your mic? I'm sorry. Thank you. >> Thank you. Not to get into the weeds too much, but just to make sure that um there's going to be a process or procedure that's going to be followed. So, that's >> and I've got three of them. >> One, one of the issues before was keeping track of phone calls, but in addition to that, returning them. >> So, as long as that's been looked at, there's going to be a procedure process. You track of that. That's important because I don't know about anybody else, but I got a ton of calls about that. Um, and I couldn't answer them. That was a bigger issue. I couldn't answer them. Um and then a checklist or protocol for drivers whether it's daily or weekly or whatever it is to make

137sure that their um buses are I guess running appropriately or things along that line because to have something break down and then like you said they didn't follow the other processes like where's my kid where's the child where's it this or that are concerns that people have. Um, and then the last one, >> is there a time frame with which protocols will be reviewed with the drivers and whoever else is interacting with the public so that on a kind of a reminder basis and if you're tracking this, you can tell them how often >> these things are being handled or monitored or whatever. >> I'll start with the phone calls. Um, and so that is a work in progress. Uh we've actually made some very um fundamental changes in terms of removing all direct line

138numbers. And so if you're going to call the 8384 bus um then that's the number that should be going to everybody's. Uh so that is one thing that we're putting in place. We're working with our IT team on that. So it is it is not where it needs to be. So I don't want to sugarcoat anything, but it is a work in progress and we're working hard on that. Um and Greg is really instrumental. We're also pulling together a um focus group. And so right now we have a survey out to our school leaders and getting information about communications. And then it's also going to go to or is going to our families um working with Tracy Hill on that. Um the other the pre-trip that you're talking about, there's a daily checklist that our

139drivers have to do. You have to do that every day. So, at 4:00 a.m., I'm going to try to get this right. At 4:00 a.m., our fluid crew comes in and they they check all the fluids of the buses and and do some work there. But then drivers come in beginning at 5:00 a.m. and they do the pre-check check checklist and that happens at each depot. So, that's ongoing, but again, we're working on improvements with that. But if you see any and that they get under the hood with that. If you see anything out of the ordinary, there's a process in our mechanics that goes to our mechanics and they and they address it. We'll take a bus offline. Um so we we've got right now about 250 buses, about 125 at each depot. Um

140we do not need that many. We will be retiring some buses, but if a bus has to come offline, we have another bus to put in place. And I'm sorry, I do not remember your third comment >> noted when uh when there will be a process for training. >> Oh yeah. So the training thing and I think that's the important part of it. It cannot just be at the beginning of the year. Um being an educator, professional development or professional learning is at the core of what we do that is translating to our team now. And so it's not it's not a oneanddone and it is an ongoing process. and this leadership is making that happen. So, yeah, >> Mr. Briggs. >> Uh, yes. Uh, Chief Thompson, thank you very much, both of you, for

141that presentation. That was great. Um, and you did answer one of my questions. We have 250 buses, you said. What's the average age of those buses? >> Oh, you would ask me that. Um, so we we can get you the exact information. We were able to um upgrade a number of buses with ESR funds. We had um last year, this this year, we we retired 50 buses. It doesn't net us a lot, but I'm looking at my financial partner. We we got about maybe 400,000 um for the 50 buses that came offline. We're looking to do the same with another 50. We can run a really um tight fleet with 200 buses. And so that's going to be our sweet spot. But in terms of the ages of our buses, we do have some of

142our buses that will be coming off in terms of under warranty. And what we would love to get to, and it will be a work in progress. It's not something that's going to happen overnight, but have sort of a a 10-year plan where maybe you put on 25 new buses, retire 25 buses, so that we're always keeping our our our fleet up to speed. And I think that's a good strategy and it's a strategy we're looking to do. Um, we didn't get to building brighter futures right away and this is this is another process that's in place with that. >> Thank you very much. Thanks, >> Mr. Phillips. >> Uh, thank you, Chair Lott. >> Excuse me, um, Chief Thompson, and thank you, Bill, also for the um presentation. I I I do have a

143a few questions around just um maybe some things that um um I've heard from parents and you know have experienced to be quite honest um in the mornings if if slash when a bus is not able to go out is there a process for that information to be communicated to parents um so that they're aware that it's going to be a bus. Um it might be a different number, it might be a different driver. Um just so that the the student waiting for the bus and the parents are aware. >> So our reality today is it's very um what's the word I would use? Team episodic. Um we we know right away when we make a change with the with the bus. what disseminating that information is where um we need to improve. And so

144um one of the tools that we have is the parent app, but I know Greg is working really hard so that we're able to note that change. We also have to notify our um um schools because they sometimes have that direct connect to the parents. Our direct connect to the parents is through the parent app, but it's it's very low usage. And so that's an area where we can improve. But um you know standing here today, we can take a bus off, we can reassign a bus, we can get a a a subd driver. We'll notify the schools. Um notifying parents. It it's it's hit or miss. And so that's an area that we're working hard to improve on. >> Okay. Um, and then as far as I know I think um, Bill I think

145I can't recall who mentioned it but sometimes with the call offs um is is uh call offs a a concern? Is there a reason why um calloffs might be higher than I mean normal or average at times? >> I mean I I wish I had an answer a straight. Um, I think as you could expect, it's higher on Mondays and Fridays. >> Um, I also think there are opportunities with um, call off procedures. That's contractual right now, but I could start at 5 or I could start at 6:00. So, if I start at 6:00, I can call off at 5. If I start at 5, I call up at 4. So, it's not a clean. And you can do the same in the afternoon. Yeah. And so, um, you know, we have drivers start at

1466, 6:30, 6:45, 7. I'm looking at 157. And so, this is something that we can improve upon, but right now, contractually, we have to be responsive to the calloff procedures. Uh, I would say we're not any higher, like honestly, I thought it was really high when we first started. We are not any higher than our peers like peers when we've looked at other districts. >> It is it's a it's a it's a challenge though. It's a challenge right now. >> Okay. >> So, >> I I just got a couple other questions from the slides. Um as far as the I know u I think Bill talked about um checking the contracted vehicles um fash because all vehicles have issues at points in times. What is the expectation level for the contractors to get the repairs

147done? Um are are they expected to get it done on a timeline? Is the district able to partner with them to get those repairs done? Is there anything around that? >> Sure. By law that the contractors are supposed to have their vans certified by a certified mechanic twice a year. Okay. When I was talking about what CMSD is would be doing for an inspection of the vans, it's not so much that we're going to be inspection inspecting the mechanical of it. Okay? We're inspecting we're inspecting to make sure that they have the sign on the top. They have the lettering on the side of the van. They have like the first aid kit and the fusing stuff. We're not doing a mechanical inspection. We're just making sure they have what is required by law in

148there. But at that time, they're going to be they're going to give to us um a sign from a mechanic, a certified mechanic that that vehicle is could go. >> Okay. Um and then I I have one more question. Um and I I I thought that I read on the PowerPoint somewhere that around contracts, third third party contracts. Would it be fair to expect that moving forward we would not have any um third-party contracts? >> Yeah, that that would be my goal and let me explain that. I may have not have said it correctly in in the document. I I called it third party. Okay, that person that that company does not actually own any vans. What they're doing is they're contracting with all these other van companies and they're going to upcharge it. Well,

149we're doing that. We're we're we're checking all the van companies. So, why why do we need to pay somebody to be the third party broker? Because we have to do it. We have to do it ourselves. So, that's why and I may not have the right wording for that. >> U but I call it a third party broker. Okay. But but they don't have they don't own any vans and they don't hire any individual van employees. They hire companies. >> Okay. >> To that. >> Gotcha. Chair Elott. I had one more question. I'm sorry. All right. Is that okay? Yes. >> Um Chief Thompson, if you could you >> I can't remember who mentioned it. It was kind of briefly mentioned that we have to transport. Our transportation includes non-public and charter. Um can you

150um just kind of for the um public can can we kind of talk about like the how what that entails and maybe even why um we're required to do that? >> Sure. Um so for non-public and charter um whenever a dis any district it doesn't matter um where you live if you live within the city of Cleveland we are responsible for transportating transporting students and um so if you go to a nonpublic school and you're within the same range that we use for our students which is 1 to three miles then we do provide transportation many of our um we have to we don't we don't have a choice. Um many of our um high schools they'll do in lie of they'll do in lie of transportation and so that's a whole another process and

151a a parent it's a form that gets submitted um we work with the school we work with the parent and we deem that that student's in lie of and the and then the parent will get a um check for in lie of us transporting the students >> a check from us h a check from us. A check. Yes, it is a check. Yeah, the the district is responsible for all of that. And so when we when we share that and those are the numbers, we put together like a quick fact sheet which we have because just to understand those numbers, it I wish it was a choice. It it's not a choice. Um it is the responsibility of the district within that city to also provide transportation services. So, so right now, um, we have

15290 non-public and charter routes that we work with and we work with contracted services on that. It's not our buses, um, but we are um contracting out with providers to provide transportation for those schools. And that and that comes in at about um to be exact, 4,772 students we transport. So, yeah. Yeah, one one other thing I just wanted to just comment on one of thanking uh Chief Thompson and our leadership Bill, we are grateful to have you uh in terms of your experience and your wisdom for helping uh this and everyone on our transportation team. I know as you mentioned here, there are a lot of issues we have to uh face with our transportation team, but we have we also have a very hardworking team. I know uh Chief Thompson is actually out

153at the depot. Um she's been there this semester uh uh really even before this semester, even last semester, spending days out there. Bill is actually on site working there, working with our team that is working hard. Uh Tamara, April, the the whole team. So glad to have Dr. Primus' work here. We have a lot of work ahead of us. Uh but they're working hard. Our drivers work hard as well. Um I've been out to the depots. They're they're a hardworking crew. It is not easy when you have to get up early um and um transport. I've uh rode the buses with some of our uh bus drivers when they're doing these routes and they have to do multiple different routes. So, I just want you guys to know that there's a complex work that we're

154we're doing. We're holding ourselves accountable as you as we should um to get the questions answered and it is a very significant operation. There are challenges that all systems are really facing and as all things we don't hide from the challenges, we step into them. And so when we look into the support that we're providing here and providing the updates, uh, we, you know, watch us work as we, uh, continue to make these improvements. So, thank you. >> Y, thank you, >> Dr. Morgan. I did want to say a couple of things on the transportation front. It sounds it feels like it's so loud in here. Um, you know, I acknowledge what you said, Dr. Morgan. I think that's really important to remember. This is a huge operation. Acknowledge the hard work of the team

155as well as the the progress so far, right? and the effort to uncover what needs to shift and the efficiencies that need to buil be built in. Um, and also I do want to acknowledge how harmful and difficult it is for our families and our students when these challenges happen, right? Like yes, this is hard to do. You could not get me to do your jobs. I can only imagine how difficult it is and the bus drivers as well, right? Especially, you know, the operation of the whole thing. Dr. Primus, thank you for coming on and and leading the charge. And also, you know, when acknowledging when our families, when our students don't get picked up, like the level of stress that that creates for them. Um, if you're a parent and you went to

156work, you thought your kid was going to get to school, like that is an extremely challenging situation, right? And not to mention the learning disruptions and our goal is for our students to learn. So, I want to acknowledge all of those things at once and appreciate the work that's being done to improve the system that we have. Um, Mr. Bilips, I'm glad you I'm so glad you asked about the um non-public funding piece because I was dying to mention something and I always bring this up, which is that we do fund transportation for families that opt into or opt out into private schools specifically. And I want to share also, and I've shared this with the board, you know, that's on top of the funding that the state already gives families for vouchers that our

157public district does not get. And I believe we get about $5,200 per student from the state. Thank you, Dr. Mr. Stockdale is nodding his head, so I'm right about that. Um, vouchers give families more than $8,000 per student from the state, right? And that funding is not contingent on whether you are able to pay on your own. You could be a multi-millionaire, even a billionaire, and get those vouchers to send your kids to a private school. And um on top of that, we as a district have to pay for transportation as well as many other things as well. Um Dr. Morgan, which we don't have to get into now, but back to my comments earlier, we need the support of the full community when it comes to making positive change so that students, not just

158in our district, but most students in Ohio, most students in the US go to public schools and they deserve the same funding. They deserve to benefit from the tax dollars that we pay to educate our future citizens, workforce, just human beings. So, I wanted to mention that. Thank you for raising it, Mr. develops. >> Thank you. Anything else? All right. Is there any old business? Is there any new business? Uh, I will mention that under state law, the board of education serves as the appointing and taxing authority of the Cleveland Public Library. This means that the board of education makes appointments to the library's board of trustees and the libraries board of trustees serves as the governing body of the public library. Trustees must be residents and registered voters of Kyhoga County. And the next

159opening on the library board is for a full four-year term commencing July 2nd, 2026. Persons interested in being considered for this appointment should complete an application on the CMSD website, board of education page at clevelandmetrosschools.org. org/boardofeducation. The application deadline is Tuesday, May 26th. The next regular board meeting will be a board work session on Tuesday, April 14th, 2026 at 6:30 p.m. at Arnold Pinkney East Professional Center. And before we make a motion for executive session, I do want to ask everyone to please drive really safely home because it sounds crazy out there as we can all tell. Um, I've received like nine calls from the National Weather Service during this meeting. So, um, hope everyone gets home safe. The chair will now entertain a motion that the board enter into executive session for the purpose

160of considering the employment employment and appointment of public employees and officials, preparing for negotiations with public employees concerning their compensation or other terms and conditions of their employment, and conferring with attorneys concerning disputes involving the board of education that are the subject of pending or imminent court action. So move. >> Second. >> Mr. Stockdale, please call the role on this motion. >> Miss Alicod, >> yes. >> Mr. Phillips, >> yes. >> Mr. Briggs, >> yes. >> Miss Jones, >> Miss Lebron, >> yes. >> Mrs. Peak, >> yes. >> Motion passes with six votes. >> Thank you. The board will now move into executive session. Following executive session, the board will return to this room without conducting any further business and adjourn the meeting. When I say food is, you say medicine. FOOD IS >> MEDICINE.

161>> FOOD IS >> GIVE IT UP. YAY. >> SO, WHAT WE HAVE going on here today is a meet the farmer event. Um, so we have this year partnered with four Cleveland growers um that grow the vegetables that are on the salad bars that are in our in some of our schools and the students can meet the farmer. Today we have farmer Sarah and farmer Jamal and they get to meet the farmer that grows their food. They can ask them questions. We have trading cards um and the students get to try the produce items that they that the farmers grow and it just encourages them to try something new to eat fresh vegetables and um they can meet the farmer and then they get to vote on if they like the produce item or not

162and they get fun stickers and we have um what if they write on the board of what they like about the product. this is uh one of the youngest demographics that we can have an influence on. And when you're talking about school lunches, this is food that they're going to be eating daily uh for more for a majority of the year, right? And so to be able to introduce local foods on a daily basis to students within the Cleveland area is just evolutionary. We're talking about the benefits of fresh foods and also the difference between local fresh foods and those you might get, say, at a grocery store that might have been shipped from all over the country or world to get to your plate, often picked months and months earlier and don't have the

163same level of nutrition or flavor. So, giving them that experience of eating something that was grown locally and why that's so important and why it's so important to grow your own food. >> It was kind of sour. It was source and that was my first ever trying that? But it had a pretty color. >> One of our students, they did something special for someone in the community. And so, we get all these people here to celebrate and to recognize what Allison did for someone in her community. >> That morning, while boarding the school bus, you noticed a small child wandering alone on the street, wearing only a t-shirt. Recognizing the danger the child was in, you immediately alerted the bus driver and took action to help. I want to give you a first district commander

164coin. Uh it's got a a one on the front for uh the first district and the seal of the Cleveland Division of Police on the back. >> And I saw a little girl walk out and the bus driver was about to hit her. >> And so what did you say to the bus driver? >> I was like, "Stop." And then he told me, "Who is that? Is that your niece?" I was like, "No, that's not my niece." And then so then I went off the bus to go grab her. >> It shows a a great deal of awareness and maturity for her age. Most kids, like you say, they're on the bus, they're talking, they're on their phone, you know, and the fact that she noticed she paid attention, you know, to what was going

165on at that particular time is just, you know, amazing. I I think it's very important because, you know, we're a community. We work together. We help each other and that's how we get things done. And she's already doing that. Children can teach us a lot. And I think she did. Be aware. Look around. Help people when you see them in need. >> I don't really care about the gifts because it was just the point to save somebody, anybody that need help. Hi, I'm Dariel Snipes with CMSD Communications. Today I am so excited. I am hanging out with two of the Senate League girls flag football teams, John Haye and Roads. This sport is gaining popularity. Right now CMSD has seven teams. I'm so excited to learn more about flag football. Let's go. Joining me now

166is head coach of the John Haye Ladies Flag Football Team, Coach Vanetta Krider. Welcome. >> Thank you. >> So, I know this is an exciting sport. It's a growing sport. I It just got sanctioned by the Ohio High School Athletic Association. That's exciting news. So, now your girls can go for state championships. But, you know, some of us were brand new to flag football. Tell me, what is the difference between flag football and just basic football? The difference for flag football and basic football for our girls is that we actually get to compete this year. Um, outside of only using flags and not be able to contact each other and we have to wear mouthpieces. >> Okay. But just just talk about the growing popularity of this girl sport and how exciting is especially here

167in CMSD and the Senate league. >> Yes. Right now it means that girls flag football is now recognized by OSHA. So now we get more opportunities to get school funding. Um so luckily we are division one schools. So we had about 40 girls that come and try out. So this year we're expecting even more. >> I mean what do you think about that that more girls want to play football? >> I'm excited. I'm excited to teach them and for them to want to be competitive and lead and outside their comfort zone. >> What the fact that it's you know when people think about football they think about it as a male-dominated sport. the fact that flag football, especially girls flag football, is taking off. It gives young ladies an opportunity to play a what's once

168was known as a male-dominated sport. Can you just talk about that opportunity for them? >> Yes. So, now it gives the girls a platform to compete and lead and we're breaking stereotypes and proving that football isn't just for boys. Anybody can play as long as you got the passion and the skill for it. >> And joining me now are two players from the girls flag football team at Roads. Welcome. Tell me your names and what grade you're in. >> I'm Aaliyah. I go to Rose Environmental Studies and I'm in 10th grade. >> My name is Nia. I go to RCCA and I'm in 10th grade. >> Wonderful. So, just tell me because I just I don't know. I'm learning. What is the difference between flag football and football? >> Well, flag football and um regular

169football, we already know it's like it's not as much contact, but there's a lot you can do. like the quarterback can't run, the ball is smaller, less people on the field, so it gives and flag is um it's quick. It's quick. It's not like football. Football you have more time. Flag is quick and you have like less time. >> Okay. And then you also have the flags. How hard or easy is it to get another opponent's flag? >> It depends on how fast the person is moving. >> Yeah. >> And what moves they're pulling out. But usually if you're up like if you're catching up to the person, it's very easy. They're not hard to pull or nothing. So >> So tell me, why did you guys want to join the team? >> Well, I

170wanted to join the team because ever since I was like very young, I always played regular football with my brothers. And when I got older, it was like like it was something I always wanted to do. And like 20 23, I played flag football with boys, but then I got scouted for a um girls team and we went all the way to nationals in Las Vegas and won a championship ring there. And then when I came here, there was no flag football team. So I asked if I could play tackle, but my mom would have let me. And then I found out later on we had a flag football team and I was like, "Oh, this is my sport. So I'm definitely going to play." >> Also feel like a sport that was really made

171for boys that girls never really got the opportunity to play. When I saw it at Rose, I feel like a sport that was always always classified as like a boy sport being like girls being able to play. I feel like that was really cool. So I really wanted to take that opportunity to play. And also coach I know she really inspired me to play. She was the assistant basketball coach and it really gave me something to do and now it's something I really would do the rest of my years in high school and see where it takes me. >> Right. So this this is the second season for the team. >> Um just talk about how fun it is and just the team camaraderie that you ladies have. >> It's very fun. Like in the

172first year it was some rough patches but we always got through it. our coach, she's a very great coach because she is like more informational >> about flag football than basketball. So when she um is out here, she put her heart on the um field just like we do. >> Yeah. Coach O'Ne was great. She keep us all lifted up like something could go wrong and she was always bring the joy. It was like our first year was really fun. We went real far and just seeing where it took us, it made me excited for the next season to come. like what we going to bring to the table and flag like I didn't expect it to be like I thought it was just going to be something to do but act when we actually

173started playing I'm like this fun like >> now another difference is that flag football is played in the spring and not in the fall like regular football >> um well can you just talk about the fact that now it is a sanctioned sport and so now you guys can go for a state championship just talk about you guys could be the state champs >> that's very exciting to me because like I said I always love football in general grow. So for me to have this opportunity to probably get scholarships to play in college is just like something I want to achieve. >> I think that's really good. Like it gives opens up more opportunities for the girls and gives girls something to do because we always as a girl we always like doubt it or

174we don't always get as much opportunities. So it just opens the door for girl sport. >> Now it looks it's still even though you guys don't have pads and a helmet, it's it still can be tough. I mean it's still um >> I mean it's still a contact sport. What did you not say? >> Like you're definitely going to fall off. You're definitely going to be excited, >> but it's fun. >> Yes, it's very exciting. >> All right. Well, thank you ladies. The board of education's job is to make sure that the right adult behaviors are in place so that students can learn and grow in school every day. >> I hope to motivate the scholars in in some form of and capacity really to make sure that they're inspired by the work that we

175do for them. um you know this is a job uh of service uh fully volunteer role but the people that are serving on the board myself included are doing it out of passion and pure hope of the scholars futures and so I hope that they start to believe in themselves the same way that we believe in them. Having been an educator all my life, I thought I would have um a significant role to play in shaping what our young people and young scholars and our future leaders are going to be doing um with their education. I believe in uh paying it forward and I still believe I am paying it forward for myself. >> I am an ineterate volunteer and so I saw this as an opportunity to give back to the Cleveland community and

176try to make a difference. I enjoy being engaged with people in my neighborhood, hearing from them, learning what they think about different things, hearing suggestions, hearing thoughts, um even the complaints. I enjoy engaging with the students and I think that's my role with the on being on a board member is engaging with the community um in every way possible. >> I'm out there every day talking to people, sitting on every community work group that you can think of. What I want to accomplish is that we level up the opportunities for our children to receive the best education possible. And I want you to be able to discover all the goodness in you because we all have something that is unique about us. So, we want to give you the opportunity to explore that and make

177good decisions once you leave the school system. >> I believe that this district can be a premier district. Um, and I'd love to be remembered for pushing a standard of excellence. I wanted to give back to the school system that I participated in from kindergarten to graduating senior. I'm hoping to make a difference, have a positive impact, and see the test scores and graduation rates increase. I also hope to inspire other CMSD alum to give back to CMSD with their time and support. >> I'm grateful to interact with so many wonderful people, brilliant individuals who um have the capabilities and skill sets to uh really make our city even greater. and I'm just honored to be a part of uh the plan of the CMSD and the the service of of this community. >> As

178a kid myself, I moved around a lot and I went to a lot of different schools. And what I saw firsthand is that all children are born equal with the same rights to education, but not all schools are created equal. And some schools have more resources than others. Some schools have more of the right practices than others. And I wanted to be a part of making sure that our school system was the right system for our children so they could have the education that they deserve. >> We all have different skill sets, different experiences, different backgrounds that we all bring to the table when it's time for us to have these discussions. We bring different perspectives and different life experiences. And so being able to sit at the table with other leaders in our community

179and people who actually are invested in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District system. Um it it it means that we're providing different perspectives. We're looking at it from different lenses and different angles which is also representative of our community, right? >> You know, our students achieving everything that they possibly can um achieving and and striving towards our goals and guard rails that our board laid out. I think that, you know, producing students that can enter the world in whatever way they choose to and be successful is is really um the only thing to accomplish from my perspective. >> Most importantly is um increasing student outcomes. So, we have our challenges, but um my board colleagues and I and Dr. Morgan and his incredible staff are heavily focused on that and we're going to do everything in

180our power to make it happen. >> My favorite quote is uh man in the arena actually. It's uh uh by former President Teddy Roosevelt and it's really about not paying attention to the critics. It's not the critic who counts. It's not the person on the sidelines. It's the person who's getting dusty in the arena every single day and getting back up again and again and again, even after failure. And even if you fail at something, at least you failed by daring greatly. But the only way to be great is to try. >> Today it is the last scrimmage to find out who goes to stage. It has been a really great journey. It's different learning about STEM and like robotics and tech. My favorite part about building the robot is all the teamwork it takes.

181The teamwork, I feel like it brings our team together and I I really like that part. The robot has to launch artifacts which is similar to a ball. So they're launching it into a pyramid type situation and get those points and then you have to line your robot in a certain order to get points. It's a lot of challenges in depth in getting points. our robot. It took us a lot of time to really build it. It took a lot of patience. We came across many problems and challenges like our chain kept breaking. So, we had to find a lot of solutions to that problem and it was a lot of gracious professionalism used. this is their thing and they really take it seriously and they come out and they try and you just like

182this morning one of my girls did something in one of the um presentations and I started to tear up cuz I was just so proud of them because I'd never seen this child do this and she just blossomed right in front of me. Hey CMSD family. I'm Tiffany and we are back with our final episode of On Guard CMSD Safety and Security. Today I'm joined with a few scholars from our Gear Morgan campus and they are here to tell us about how our safety officers create a better learning environment and how the feeling of safety helps scholars to learn better. So in your opinion, how does safety officers help to create a better learning environment? >> I feel like they make a better learning environment because kids don't have to worry about things outside of

183school because security already has it like put together and make sure the kids are safe around the campus. Um, just to piggyback off what he said a little bit, I agree. Like you don't have to focus, you can focus on learning and learning only. You don't have to focus on anything outside of that. >> Yeah, the security officers do like help us get to class on time, make sure we aren't getting sidetracked. So, they help us like push us to our classes to make sure we're on on track. >> And why do you think having safety officers is important for the school community? So, you kind of talked about a little bit about what they do, but what is the feeling that they give you? Um it's like comfortability like which I feel like is

184really important when you're trying like an learning institute. >> I feel more like um I can get like my education without worrying about anything. >> Yeah. Like it it provides a like almost like a safety net of knowing that they're there with us to help us if we are having any issues that occur. Yeah. >> So can you let me know what do you appreciate most about our safety officers? I appreciate that you can like they're safety off officers but you can also have a conversation with them like they're they're here to protect us but they are also like they have a character like they are people so they like know how to talk to us cuz they were once us at certain point in time. So >> yeah like to piggy back off of

185that like I appreciate how you can sometimes have a conversation with them if you're ever in need. If you ever need to just like talk about a situation you're having at home or issue you're having at school you could just talk to them and they'll give a reply and try to help you. Yeah, they're really they're really like good. They're really like calm and chilled. They like to um talk to the student and try to like encourage them and it's cool. >> A big thank you to our safety and security team and our scholars over here at Gear Morgan High School. Now, let's head over to John F. Kennedy. Now, we're here at John F. Kennedy High School with a few of our scholars here to tell us why safety and security matters for their

186learning environment. So, first, in your opinion, how does safety officers help to create a better learning environment? make the students feel more safe. >> Yeah. And they like >> security guards like they make us feel safe. >> Help the teacher sometimes too, the principles. You're more comfortable. You ain't got to worry about people coming here doing stuff they ain't supposed to be doing, you know? >> So to feed off that, what do you appreciate most about your safety officers here? >> They help a lot. >> I feel like they all like they make sure we good. They help the principal admin team with this with the kids and Yeah. Yeah, we got a we got a good bond with them, too. And they take that some of them take their job too serious, but that's

187good because >> cuz we need that. We need that like that stretch, too. >> Do you think in your opinion feeling secure helps students learn their best? >> Yeah. >> They ain't got to worry about nothing like no danger or nothing like that. >> Have a safe learning environment. >> I feel like here like the um the security guards here like if we need them like we could always go talk to them like >> Yeah. Like Yeah. got a good bond with most of them. You know, we knew him for most of the time we've been here. So, what you see before you is a culmination of two and a half years of work. But moreover, it was 86 years of blood, sweat, and tears put forth by men and women who comprise the Tuskegee

188experiment. Let history show that in the course of human endeavor that never have so many owed so much to so few. >> My first reaction was it looked a lot better than I than I did it in class. It took a lot and it's just I'm proud to see that it's up there and I'm glad everyone else can see it too. I think it's the good that the Tuskegee Airmen get their word out and their faces out because they helped this world and I'm glad that I was able to help them represent it. I seen everyone do their painting in class. I seen like their entire process through it and now looking at it inside the airport, it's like, "Wow, they did that. That's amazing." >> My name is Lorie Lane and this is my

189father, Earl Rosco Lane. He was with the 332nd of the Tuskegee Airmen. I think they did a fantastic job in doing it. I know I when I was speaking to a group of them um they said they did a lot of research on it but they were so open to listening and to learning more so that we have more young people that are able to display their talent learn and it's one as a teacher I know it's one of the greatest ways for students to learn and this will stay with them for the rest of their lives. I'm very happy today because I am sharing the CEO seat uh with a very amazing young scholar uh she attends AB Hart and she's in seventh grade over there. This is Victorious. She goes by Tori Blackman

190and she's CEO for the day. So CEO Blackman. Yes. Let's give her a hand. I have been going to meetings and hanging out with some of the high schoolers and thinking about what high school I want to go to and just having fun with them. >> To be a leader, you have to step in. It takes boldness. It takes not being afraid and uh so far Tori has been uh stepping up to the plate and showing that. Having a a scholar with me has been amazing and uh I mean she was at the table earlier today with some of uh Cleveland's you know top leaders and just being right at the table just means a lot to have that that seat at the table and so um you know and to be a uh a

191young uh scholar young lady of color uh that just means a lot when we think about representation. So today we started on our robots. Well, we started our robots like two days ago, but today we added like our finishing touches and we made them waterproof with pool noodles. We attached motors to them with wax in it. So it is it's waterproofed and those motors spin at a very high speed. So it can propel itself through the water and able to um do its tasks. It's so cool because usually robots are like on surface, right? This time it's underwater which makes it harder to see but more funner cuz like you don't know what's going to happen. >> The machine itself you can program it first from your computer once you like uh access it says

192it via Bluetooth. It basically you can control it from there and automate it wherever program you want to set a specific time. Experiencing all this I've actually had a lot of fun being able to come up here and um just learn about a machine and um I've personally been part of a robotics team. So being able to experience a machine uh automating other stuff like agricultural is a really good experience. I had a lot of fun. >> So I just got to Cleveland. >> I just wanted to come out and see y'all. We working out every day. Uh we got a purpose. We got something we trying to accomplish and achieve. But I'm trying to bring Cleveland, of course, a Super Bowl. What inspires me to keep going? I would say um knowing I I

193got a lot of people watching me, knowing that I'm a positive influence uh to the youth, that's what I say what keeps me going. So like even coming here, seeing y'all, >> you go to the website, you type in the access code and you're in. Your kids pictures are there and you could easily I have a kids at two different schools. You can easily switch from school to school and keep up on top of it. >> Everything's right there. Like everybody always has their phone with them, so you can easily access it to your phone. >> It's a relief for me knowing that my child has the best chance that they can knowing every day they wake up, they can go to school and, you know, take advantage of the day. The winner of the

194first annual rise pitch competition is, drum roll please, Riverside. >> Rise was birthed out of an opportunity that we thought was very very important for us to be able to give students opportunity to have their voices centered. So we asked them a question. The question is, if you could solve a problem in your community with unlimited resources, how would you do it? >> I'm 13 years old in the seventh grade at Ammyra Elementary and our group is excited to be here today to share our opportunity for action. I feel like that our gaming lab will help a lot of students because of these new technology industries that are coming from these foreign countries which can excel our students and improvise them and get them set for life. As a basketball player myself, sports helped me

195with a lot of teamwork, leadership, and even helped me with my mental health. So, for me, I'm just asking, can we get more opportunities for sports all along the school year? >> We also wanted to make sure our ideas weren't just meaningful, but doable. We're excited to introduce a few role things we think that can make Riverside better right away. >> Our goal is to thank big for our classmates, our teachers, and our whole school. Congratulations and I hope that you have an amazing day. Would you say my classes? Today we have the ceremony award of the seal of biteracy. Uh we have students who took the stamp test this year and they got uh the seal of biteracy to from different uh languages. >> I speak multiple languages well two actually Spanish and English.

196I'm excited that I earned this because I know it will bring a lot of opportunities for me in the future. So, I'm very proud. >> The seal of bi literacy is one of the seals that students could earn upon graduation and that it gives them certification for being not only bilingual that they can speak two languages but they can also read and write both languages and it's grown tremendously. It's a very very important um skill set that they will be uh transferring into the real world as they become adults and they go not only to college but also to the workforce, the military and it also hits a lot of our goals um for college and career readiness. >> Hi, I'm Dariel Snipes and I'm here at Orchard Steam School and today we'll be taking

197a look at the ribbon dancing team as they prepare to perform at a schoolwide event. And we are here with Felicia Kelly who is the 5C's coordinator and the ribbon dancers coach. And behind us we have the ribbon dancers. So just tell me how did you get this program started here at Orchard STEM? Well, I did a praise dance for my mom for Mother's Day and I used a ribbon uh and I brought the ribbon in to demonstrate um part of what we call demonstration of learning and I brought it in to the ribbon dance u to the school and the ribbon dancers that are now ribbon dancers loved it then and asked me can we do the same thing and I said of course and so I brought um brought some ribbons and we

198started practicing and the team was created. >> But you have told me that it it has exploded. So many kids want to be a part of it now. So what is the age range of your ribbon dancers? >> So we have first grade all the way up to sixth grade. >> Nice. And so while dancing is beautiful, but you are here to instill life lessons into these kings and queens. Can you tell me about it? >> Yes, absolutely. And they will tell you my first my first rule of thumb is positive energy. I have it all over the media center here and they know that we are about uplifting each other, about encouraging each other, about helping each other. So those are kind of the life lessons that I'm trying to instill so that they

199don't just incorporate it here in the first grade, second grade, middle school, high school. These are lessons that I try to teach them for life. Mhm. >> How to be kind to each other, how to treat each other, how to be sensitive to different situations that that might come up. >> So, this is a steam school. >> Yes. >> So, and even though you're doing dance, which is arts, which is part of steam, um you're also incorporating some other things, can you talk about uh some of the things that you're trying to teach them as well when it comes to steam and dancing? >> Okay. So, um the t-shirts that they're wearing today, they actually help make. We have um Cricut machines. We have Silhouette machines and transfer heat transfer paper to actually make the

200t-shirts so that the t-shirts that they're wearing they're they made them and also 3D machines. We have laser cutters. We have actually if I you don't mind me stepping off camera a little bit. Um we have the capability of making mugs and they help to design their own um character on my mug and it says I love my ribbon dancers. And each ribbon dancer picked out their design and we made this mug for me. >> Wonderful. I'm joined now with Mila and Paige. What grade are you in, Paige? >> Third. >> And what grade are you in? >> Six. >> And tell me, why did you guys want to join the ribbon dancers? >> So I can learn new things. >> What about you? >> Um, because I always wanted to dance in a in

201a group. So I always found passion for Miss Kelly's moves and that's why I joined Ruben Dance. So besides dancing, what else have you learned? I know she talks about, you know, life lessons. So tell me what life lessons you have learned. >> I've learned to work with a team, not by yourself. And sometimes you just have to work together so you can make things happen, >> right? You're right. And what about you? What what what lesson have you learned? I learned how to collaborate with my team and um have teamwork and um when somebody's doing something I have to encourage them, >> right? And some of the collaboration you guys have done is you had the some art students paint this for you guys for your performance. Just talk about how you like performing

202in front of others and showing uh your other students what you've learned and show the beautiful dances that you've learned. I enjoyed a lot because it's got me like not to be scared when people are watching. So I'm not shy anymore like I used to. And now I talk loud. I'm just loud all vibes. And when we perform it makes me feel great because I show myself. Good morning. Good morning. >> Morning everyone. Good morning. No beefing. Hold that up. >> When the kids walk through the door, there's a personal relationship here. So immediately they have a connection with an adult as soon as they've entered the building. Typical day at James Ford Roads is being active with the kids, trying to be proactive with the kids before it becomes reactive. >> Sometimes we have

203to stop and counsel or assist a student that might be going through something when they came in this morning. I greet the students, make sure the hall is clear, um interact, ask them how their day was going, walk through, interact with the parents, um the community, the male um mailman, the neighbors across the street. They familiar with my side and greeting with them. >> I try to walk around, try to help the kids. I'm not trying to police them as a security officer. Can't do that. You you try to help them in every way possible and and and that's what I do. I'm a resource for them. going through the detectors in the long run. I hear them say, "Boy, if it wasn't for y'all doing that, this that." So, they they really do like

204that detector, but just knowing that you in the halls and the students see that and and they see how I, you know, if they beep or they see how I go through their bags, I don't play. So, they feel safe. They be like, "Oh, there go Miss Campbell, Miss Campbell." When they fear something, they come straight, "Miss Miss Campbell, you know, so and so." And they'll be like, "Okay, okay, okay." So that makes me feel that, you know, they see that I'm serious about my job. You know, >> I have noticed if we're referencing the phone collection, um, a lot of the students are interacting more with one another instead of just being stuck on their phones. They've started to build relationships with one another and do different things that we last year and the

205year before that we weren't actually noticing anymore. uh especially with how we do the yonder cases, bringing in securing book bags, making sure that um no items or weapons are brought into school. I think it makes students and scholars feel um much more comfortable, much more safe. When the kids come through, they understand they're unnecessary things that have to happen. But when the officers treat them in that way, like human beings, and make them feel special, they're not thinking so much about those things. They're thinking about the relationship they're building. It's the most important thing for everyone in a building is that relationship you have with kids. And if it's positive, usually you're going to get positive results. Not all the time, but more often than not. I would do it all over again for

206anybody. Hi, I'm Trisha Paige and I'm a first grade teacher at Andrew J. Rickoff. I had a couple students that were having lunch in the classroom with me that day. I was sitting at my table like here in the back of the room and um her back was toward me this way. >> So when I was eating my taco, I tried to dip my other one in the meat and cheese, but when when it went through when it went to my throat, I choked on it. >> She was choking and I she was making the choking. her hands were on her throat and there was no there was no sound whatsoever. Uh I got up, ran to her, told the other teacher to go run and get the nurse. Um she was sitting in her

207seat. So I >> when she told me to get out here, she like did this. >> I went underneath of her her armpits here. I picked her up. I stood her up and they started doing the himlick on her and she was silent for a minute and it was it was really scary. I don't know who was more scared if she was more scared or if I was more scared. Um but eventually she started crying and making sound. >> She deserves a reward. Thank you for saving my life. >> You're welcome. And I would do it all over again. The Wake Up Cafe was created to um give the students real world experiences promoting communication, social and life skills and also to help the students gain independence and confidence. >> We're also helping our students

208build independence and prepare them for future vocational opportunities. We have students that leave us and go on to high school and when they get into a lot of our high school programs, they also have opportunities similar to this and this prepares them to step into that role with some experience and some skills. Um the students empower themselves by gaining um pride and confidence through their roles. They are speaking up. They're supporting each other. They're problem solving. and um it's empowering to see them step into their leadership roles and show what they're capable of. >> I feel like coming to the Wake Up Cafe, we're able to see um the um capabilities of autistic individuals and it helps to support um inclusiveness. >> It's a really great way to break down misconceptions and celebrate what's possible

209on the second level >> and 313. This year competition is water theme based. How the competition goes is there's there's a reef and of course um if you see on the theme they're like these the purple you know it it looks like a reef. Um and then we have the coral. The coral is basically like this like a white it like a white pipe. And then the algae is a ball. And basically to score points, your robot has to have to put algae onto the reach. Each alliance three separate robotics teams. So it would be us and two different robotics teams that are just randomly picked to work with us. Usually before a match, um we'll meet up with those two other robotics teams and we'll talk up to them about uh strategy and what

210their robot can do and what ours can do. And usually we work together to kind of um figure out the best game plan. >> There's a autonomous point, autonomous working point, which is all three robots move off of a starting line and then at least one robot scores one coral anywhere on the reach. To build the robot, it takes like the whole team, which is about 20 people. And then we need people to program the robot, people to wire the robot. But once we have it all built and on the field, we only need one person to control the drive and one person to control the elevator and score. We also have a third person who tells them what to do and looks at the whole field and is in charge of strategy. Uh the

211main challenge was just building the robot overall. It took about 10 weeks to build. It took a lot of teamwork and cooperation to build such a beautiful machine. And it also helped us learn new machines that normal high schoolers have hasn't used before, including mills, CNC machines, long uh long drills, and just all kinds of different things. >> This is actually one of the biggest competitions here in Ohio, and it's very diverse. So, we'll be competing against what a top competition is. the this season, this is our last uh regional. So, we participated in Miami Valley and this will be our last uh for this season. Our goal is to go home with a blue banner. >> I've noticed um observing the students mental health is very important for the safety of the staff as

212well as everyone in the building. A lot of our students feel comfortable talking to staff. Many staff members uh just kind of serve as a um just a listener. Um and they counsel where they can. >> I've been with the district for almost a year now. So I know mostly everybody names now. Everybody know my name. So me engaging with the kids, I'm just like a older sister to them. They come to talk to me about anything. And then we all been young before, so we know how it go. just just talking to the scholars, just asking them questions, just something simple as how is their day going, how are they feeling? Um, even simple as how they ate in the morning, just trying to keep that open line of communication with them, building a

213level of trust. And so safety at school definitely matters. Safety in route home from school also matters as well because if where students are concerned about that, the closer you get to that time, um, that's where the attention is going to be. even when they're sitting in the classroom, >> if the kids don't feel safe, if the climate and culture for them is not safe, then they're not going to be engaged and they're not going to perform well on their test. And so, we don't want them to be in that situation. So, we want them to know that we are here for you to support you in a mental capacity. And if if you feel safe coming to school, then it should produce some great results when you take uh when you get into your

214academics, into your testing. That's my first priority to make sure not only the kids feel safe, the um staff feel safe, parents feel safe when they come in this building. That's just how I am. I welcome everybody. I just put their shoes in my shoes. Just like if my son in school, I would want him to feel safe while he there. So while I'm here, I want these kids to feel safe. Would you please go ahead and rewrite the numbers in your notebook so you have them? Five. I wanted to make sure that my students used education as a powerful tool not just to get smart but to um change their environment. I have always believed in constructivist knowledge. So instead of me just giving kids information and them soaking it in, we've seen that

215that doesn't work um with students very well. I have given them the tools to construct their learning. They're they're standing at the boards, they're talking to each other, they're coming up with more than one way to solve a problem. Um and I think that helps with the different learning styles because they're not just sitting reading and writing. They're they're verbally communicating. They're talking to other people. they're collaborating not only with their team, but they can go check their answers at another board if they need to. So those things I'm included in those different learning styles. So I do try to do like weekly rewards where I acknowledge kids who've done everything that they're supposed to. And so kids who complete all of their tasks, they are recognized and every day I'll do a shout out

216for kids who've been on their agame in terms of behavior or in terms of just trying their their best. And a lot of times I'll just pull them aside and just say, "I'm really proud of what you've done in class." and just sort of give them benchmarks and goals to work towards. Solving problems is just what we do as humans outside of the classroom. So, if you can be resilient and know that like maybe you didn't get it right the first time, you go back and you fix it. So, even with their bell work, I'll say if you don't like the grade, I put a comment, go back and fix it. If you don't like your answer, go back and fix it. Redo things. So, building up knowing that just because you didn't do well

217the first time, that's not failure. That's a it's like evolving. It's an iteration of where you are and go back and just become stronger and better. And don't look at not doing well the first time as failure. I see pair of professionals making a difference every single day. The minute they walk in the door with smiles on their face, they're the first people here greeting our scholars, always offering a friendly hello, um hands-on work with these kids all day long. >> And they just want want all of our students to succeed and enjoy school. My talent is observing and then applying. So a lot of times in the beginning of the school year, I would observe more, see what they like, see what interests them or seeing what methods help them calm down or get

218them to actually learn like whether it's um occupational learning or academically learning. listening, being patient, being focused on what the children have to say and responding back to them. There's like a lot of things I didn't know like from different cultures. Like I've been learning a lot from them. Like there's a lot of things I don't even know from uh other countries that I've been learning. Every single day I'm learning something with them. >> It just feels really good to be part of a team and you never know. Like I said, you might be doing one thing one day and one thing the next, but it all ends up being part of the like it takes a village kind of outlook and it just feels good to be part of a team. >> Thank you,

219Paras. Thank you, Paris. >> Thank you, Paras. >> Thank you, Paris. I love you. >> My name is Barbara Davis, and I am the secretary here at Stephanie Tubs Jones School. I grew up where the original Superman story was born. It inspired me because Superman is something that is not only big for Cleveland, but inspiration behind the creation of his character really brought inspiration to me in creating my characters. So my goal is to bring awareness to bullying amongst the youth because I also was bullied when I was a child as well. When I grew up, I didn't have any superheroes that looked like me, and I looked around for them, but I couldn't find them. So, I figure I can create them. My girls teleport around the world and fight against bullying mentally with

220the help of Serenity. I think it's pretty cool that I am able to still carry on a legacy that was built in Cleveland, Ohio based off of Superman. And me being able to build hopefully the first triplet superheroes in Cleveland, starting from the place where Superman was created is actually a big deal for me. And I'm pretty sure it's a big deal for our community for the kids to be able to see superheroes that look just like them. Let's go. When I say food is, you say medicine. FOOD IS >> MEDICINE. >> FOOD IS MEDICINE. >> GIVE IT UP. YAY. >> SO, WHAT WE HAVE GOING on here today is a meet the farmer event. Um, so we have this year partnered with four Cleveland growers um that grow the vegetables that are on the

221salad bars that are in our in some of our schools. And the students can meet the farmer. Today we have farmer Sarah and farmer Jamal and they get to meet the farmer that grows their food. They can ask them questions. We have trading cards. Um and the students get to try the produce items that they that the farmers grow and it just encourages them to try something new to eat fresh vegetables and um they can meet the farmer and then they get to vote on if they like the produce item or not and they get fun stickers and we have um what if they write on the board of what they like about the product. >> This is uh one of the youngest demographics that we can have an influence on. And when you're talking

222about school lunches, this is food that they're going to be eating daily uh for more for a majority of the year, right? And so to be able to introduce local foods on a daily basis to students within the Cleveland area is just evolutionary. We're talking about the benefits of fresh foods and also the difference between local fresh foods and those you might get say at a grocery store that might have been shipped from all over the country or world to get to your plate often picked months and months earlier and don't have the same level of nutrition or flavor. So giving them that experience of eating something that was grown locally and why that's so important and why it's so important to grow your own food. >> It was kind of sour. It was sour

223and that was my first time ever trying that. But it had a pretty color. >> One of our students, they did something special for someone in the community. And so we get all these people here to celebrate and to recognize what Allison did for someone in her community. >> That morning while boarding the school bus, you noticed a small child wandering alone on the street wearing only a t-shirt. Recognizing the danger the child was in, you immediately alerted the bus driver and took action to help. I want to give you a first district commander coin. Uh it's got a a one on the front for uh the first district and the seal of the Cleveland Division of Police on the back. >> And I saw a little girl walk out and the bus driver was

224about to hit her. >> And so what did you say to the bus driver? >> I was like, "Stop." And then he told me, "Who is that? It's like your niece." I was like, "No, that's not my niece." And then so then I went off the bus to go grab her. >> It shows a a great deal of awareness and maturity for her age. Most kids, like you say, they're on the bus, they're talking, they're on their phone, you know, and the fact that she noticed she paid attention, you know, to what was going on at that particular time is just, you know, amazing. I I think it's very important because, you know, we're a community. We work together. We help each other and that's how we get things done. And she's already doing that.

225Children can teach us a lot. And I think she did. Be aware. Look around. Help people when you see them in need. >> I don't really care about the gifts because it was just the point to save somebody, anybody that need help. Hi, I'm Dariel Snipes with CMSD Communications. Today I am so excited. I am hanging out with two of the Senate League girls flag football teams, John Haye and Roads. This sport is gaining popularity. Right now, CMSD has seven teams. I'm so excited to learn more about flag football. Let's go. Joining me now is head coach of the John Haye Ladies Flag Football Team, Coach Vanetta Krider. Welcome. >> Thank you. >> So, I know this is an exciting sport. It's a growing sport. I It just got sanctioned by the Ohio High School

226Athletic Association. That's exciting news. So, now your girls can go for state championships. But, you know, some of us were brand new to flag football. Tell me, what is the difference between flag football and just basic football? The difference for flag football and basic football for our girls is that we actually get to compete this year. Um, outside of only using flags and not be able to contact each other and we have to wear mouthpieces. >> Okay. But just just talk about the growing popularity of this girl sport and how exciting is especially here in CMSD and the Senate league. >> Yes. Right now it means that girls flag football is now recognized by OSHA. So now we get more opportunities to get school fundings. Um so luckily we are division one schools. So we

227had about 40 girls that come and try out. So this year we're expecting even more. >> I mean what do you think about that? That more girls want to play football. >> I'm excited. I'm excited to teach them and for them to want to be competitive and lead and outside of their comfort zone. >> What the fact that it's you know when people think about football they think about it as a male-dominated sport. the fact that flag football, especially girls flag football, is taking off. It gives young ladies an opportunity to play a what's once was known as a male-dominated sport. Can you just talk about that opportunity for them? >> Yes. So, now it gives the girls a platform to compete and lead and we're breaking stereotypes and proving that football isn't just for

228boys. Anybody can play as long as you got the passion and the skill for it. >> And joining me now are two players from the girls flag football team at Roads. Welcome. Tell me your names and what grade you're in. >> I'm Aaliyah. I go to girls environmental studies and I'm in 10th grade. >> My name is Nia. I go to RCCA and I'm in 10th grade. >> Wonderful. So, just tell me because I just I don't know. I'm learning. What is the difference between flag football and football? >> Well, flag football and um regular football, we already know it's like it's not as much contact, but there's a lot you can do. like the quarterback can't run, the ball is smaller, less people on the field, so it gives and flag is um it's

229quick. It's quick. It's not like football. Football you have more time. Flag is quick and you have like less time. >> Okay. And then you also have the flags. How hard or easy is it to get another opponent's flag? >> It depends on how fast the person is moving. >> Yeah. >> And what moves they're pulling out. But usually if you're up like if you're catching up to the person, it's very easy. They're not hard to pull or nothing. So >> So tell me, why did you guys want to join the team? >> Well, I wanted to join the team because ever since I was like very young, I always played regular football with my brothers. And when I got older, it was like like it was something I always wanted to do. And like

23020 23, I played flag football with boys, but then I got scouted for a um girls team and we went all the way to nationals in Las Vegas and won a championship ring there. And then when I came here, there was no flag football team. So I asked if I could play tackle, but my mom would have let me. And then I found out later on we had a flag football team and I was like, "Oh, this is my sport. So I'm definitely going to play." >> Also feel like a sport that was really made for boys that girls never really got the opportunity to play. When I saw it at Rose, I feel like a sport that was always always classified as like a boy sport being like girls being able to play. I

231feel like that was really cool. So I really wanted to take that opportunity to play. And also coach I know she really inspired me to play. She was the assistant basketball coach and it really gave me something to do and now it's something I really would do the rest of my years in high school and see where it take me. >> Right. So this this is the second season for the team. Um just talk about how fun it is and just the team camaraderie that you ladies have. >> Oh, it's very fun. Like in the first year it was some rough patches but we always got through it. our coach, she's a very great coach because she is like more informational >> about flag football than basketball. So when she um is out here, she

232put her heart on the um field just like we do. >> Yeah. Coach O'Ne was great. She keep us all lifted up like something could go wrong and she was always bring the joy. It was like our first year was really fun. We went real far and just seeing where it took us, it made me excited for the next season to come like what we going to bring to the table and flag like I didn't expect it to be like I thought it was just going to be something to do but act when we actually started playing I'm like this fun like >> now another difference is that flag football is played in the spring and not in the fall like regular football. >> Um well can you just talk about the fact that now

233it is a sanctioned sport and so now you guys can go for a state championship. just talk about you guys could be the state champs. >> That's very exciting to me cuz like I said, I always love football in general. So for me to have this opportunity to probably get scholarships to play in college is just like something I want to achieve. >> I think that's really good. Like it gives opens up more opportunities for the girls and gives girls something to do because we always as a girl we always like doubt it or we don't always get as much opportunity. So it just opens the door for girls sport. Now, it looks it's still even though you guys don't have pads and a helmet, it's it still can be tough. I mean, it's still

234um >> I mean, it's still a contact sport, would you not say? >> Like, you're definitely going to fall off. It's definitely going to be >> But it's fun. >> Yes, it's very exciting. >> All right. Well, thank you, ladies. The board of education's job is to make sure that the right adult behaviors are in place so that students can learn and grow in school every day. I hope to motivate the scholars in in some form of and capacity really to make sure that they're inspired by the work that we do for them. um you know this is a job uh of service uh fully volunteer role but the people that are serving on the board myself included are doing it out of passion and pure hope of the scholars futures and so I hope

235that they start to believe in themselves the same way that we believe in them. Having been an educator all my life, I thought I would have um a significant role to play in shaping what our young people and young scholars and our future leaders are going to be doing um with their education. I believe in uh paying it forward and I still believe I am paying it forward for myself. >> I am an ineterate volunteer and so I saw this as an opportunity to give back to the Cleveland community and try to make a difference. I enjoy being engaged with people in my neighborhood, hearing from them, learning what they think about different things, hearing suggestions, hearing thoughts, um even the complaints. I enjoy engaging with the students. And I think that's my role with

236the on being on a board member is engaging with the community um in every way possible. >> I'm out there every day talking to people, sitting on every community work group that you can think of. What I want to accomplish is that we level up the opportunities for our children to receive the best education possible. And I want you to be able to discover all the goodness in you because we all have something that is unique about us. So, we want to give you the opportunity to explore that and make good decisions once you leave the school system. >> I believe that this district can be a premier district. Um, and I'd love to be remembered for pushing a standard of excellence. I wanted to give back to the school system that I participated in

237from kindergarten to graduating senior. I'm hoping to make a difference, have a positive impact, and see the test scores and graduation rates increase. I also hope to inspire other CMSD alum to give back to CMSD with their time and support. >> I'm grateful to interact with so many wonderful people, brilliant individuals who um have the capabilities and skill sets to uh really make our city even greater. and I'm just honored to be a part of uh the plan of the CMSD and the the service of of this community. >> As a kid myself, I moved around a lot and I went to a lot of different schools. And what I saw firsthand is that all children are born equal with the same rights to education, but not all schools are created equal. And some schools

238have more resources than others. Some schools have more of the right practices than others. And I wanted to be a part of making sure that our school system was the right system for our children so they could have the education that they deserve. >> We all have different skill sets, different experiences, different backgrounds that we all bring to the table when it's time for us to have these discussions. We bring different perspectives and different life experiences. And so being able to sit at the table with other leaders in our community and people who actually are invested in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District system. Um it it it means that we're providing different perspectives. We're looking at it from different lenses and different angles which is also representative of our community, right? >> You know, our

239students achieving everything that they possibly can um achieving and and striving towards our goals and guard rails that our board laid out. I think that, you know, producing students that can enter the world in whatever way they choose to and be successful is is really um the only thing to accomplish from my perspective. >> Most importantly is um increasing student outcomes. So, we have our challenges, but um my board colleagues and I and Dr. Morgan and his incredible staff are heavily focused on that and we're going to do everything in our power to make it happen. >> My favorite quote is uh man in the arena actually. It's uh uh by former President Teddy Roosevelt and it's really about not paying attention to the critics. It's not the critic who counts. It's not the person

240on the sidelines. It's the person who's getting dusty in the arena every single day and getting back up again and again and again, even after failure. And even if you fail at something, at least you failed by daring greatly. But the only way to be great is to try. >> Today it is the last scrimmage to find out who goes to stage. It has been a really great journey. It's different learning about STEM and like robotics and tech. My favorite part about building the robot is all the teamwork it takes. The teamwork, I feel like it brings our team together and I I really like that part. The robot has to launch artifacts which is similar to a ball. So they're launching it into a pyramid type situation and get those points and then you

241have to line your robot in a certain order to get points. It's a lot of challenges in depth in getting points. our robot. It took us a lot of time to really build it. It took a lot of patience. We came across many problems and challenges like our chain kept breaking. So, we had to find a lot of solutions to that problem and it was a lot of gracious professionalism used. this is their thing and they really take it seriously and they come out and they try and you just like this morning one of my girls did something in one of the um presentations and I started to tear up cuz I was just so proud of them because I'd never seen this child do this and she just blossomed right in front of me.

242Hey CMSD family, I'm Tiffany and we are back with our final episode of On Guard CMSD Safety and Security. Today I'm joined with a few scholars from our Gear Morgan campus and they are here to tell us about how our safety officers create a better learning environment and how the feeling of safety helps scholars to learn better. So in your opinion, how does safety officers help to create a better learning environment? >> I feel like they make a better learning environment because kids don't have to worry about things outside of school because security already has it like put together and make sure the kids are safe around the campus. Um, just to piggyback off what he said a little bit, I agree. Like you don't have to focus, you can focus on learning and learning

243only. You don't have to focus on anything outside of that. >> Yeah, the security officers do like help us get to class on time, make sure we aren't getting sidetracked. So, they help us like push us to our classes to make sure we're on on track. >> And why do you think having safety officers is important for the school community? So, you kind of talked about a little bit about what they do, but what is the feeling that they give you? Um it's like comfortability like which I feel like is really important when you're trying like an learning institute. >> I feel more like um I can get like my education without worrying about anything. >> Yeah. Like it it provides a like almost like a safety net of knowing that they're there with us

244to help us if we are having any issues that occur occur. Yes. >> So can you let me know what do you appreciate most about our safety officers? I appreciate that you can like they're safety off officers but you can also have a conversation with them like they're they're here to protect us but they are also like they have a character like they are people so they like know how to talk to us cuz they were once us at certain point in time. So >> yeah like to piggy back off of that like I appreciate how you can sometimes have a conversation with them if you're ever in need. If you ever need to just like talk about a situation you're having at home or issue you're having at school you could just talk to

245them and they'll give a reply and try to help you. Yeah, they're really they're really like good. They're really like calm and chilled. They like to um talk to the student and try to like encourage them and it's cool. >> A big thank you to our safety and security team and our scholars over here at Gear Morgan High School. Now, let's head over to John F. Kennedy. Now, we're here at John F. Kennedy High School with a few of our scholars here to tell us why safety and security matters for their learning environment. So, first, in your opinion, how do safety officers help to create a better learning environment? make the students feel more safe. >> Yeah. And they like >> security guards like >> Yeah. They help make us feel safe. >> Help the

246teacher sometimes too, the principles. >> You're more comfortable. You ain't got to worry about people coming here doing stuff they ain't supposed to be doing, you know? >> So to feed off that, what do you appreciate most about your safety officers here? >> They help a lot. >> I feel like they all like they make sure we good. They help the principal admin team with this with the kids and Yeah. Yeah, we got a we got a good bond with them, too. And they take they some of them take their job too serious, but that's good because >> cuz we need that we need that like that stress. >> Do you think in your opinion feeling secure helps students learn their best? >> Yeah. >> They ain't got to worry about nothing like no dangers

247or nothing like that. >> Have a safe learning environment. >> I feel like here like the um the security guards here like if we need them like we could always go talk to them like >> Yeah. Like Yeah. got a good bond with most of them. You know, we knew him for most of the time we've been here. So, >> what you see before you is a culmination of two and a half years of work. But moreover, it was 86 years of blood, sweat, and tears put forth by men and women who comprise the Tuskegee experiment. Let history show that in the course of human endeavor that never have so many owed so much to so few. >> My first reaction was it looked a lot better than I than I did it in class.

248It took a lot and it's just I'm proud to see that it's up there and I'm glad everyone else can see it too. I think it's the good that the Tuskegee airmen get their word out and their faces out because they helped this world and I'm glad that I was able to help them represent it. I seen everyone do their painting in class. I seen like their entire process through it and now looking at it inside the airport, it's like, wow, they did that. That's amazing. >> My name is Lorie Lane and this is my father, Earl Rosco Lane. He was with the 332nd of the Tuskegee Airmen. I think they did a fantastic job in doing it. I know I when I was speaking to a group of them um they said they did

249a lot of research on it but they were so open to listening and to learning more so that we have more young people that are able to display their talent learn and it's one as a teacher I know it's one of the greatest ways for students to learn and this will stay with them for the rest of their lives. I'm very happy today because I am sharing the CEO seat uh with a very amazing young scholar uh she attends AB Hart and she's in seventh grade over there. This is Victorious. She goes by Tori Blackman and she's CEO for the day. So CEO Blackman. Yes. Let's give her a hand. I have been going to meetings and hanging out with some of the high schoolers and thinking about what high school I want to go

250to and just having fun with them. >> To be a leader, you have to step in. It takes boldness. It takes not being afraid and uh so far Tori has been uh stepping up to the plate and showing that. Having a a scholar with me has been amazing and uh I mean she was at the table earlier today with some of uh Cleveland's you know top leaders and just being right at the table just means a lot to have that that seat at the table and so um you know and to be a uh a young uh scholar young lady of color uh that just means a lot when we think about representation. So today we started on our robots. Well, we started our robots like two days ago, but today we added like our

251finishing touches and we made them waterproof with pool noodles. We attached motors to them with wax in it. So it is it's waterproofed and those motors spin at a very high speed. So it can propel itself through the water and able to um do its tasks. It's so cool because usually robots are like on surface, right? This time it's underwater which makes it harder to see but more funner cuz like you don't know what's going to happen. >> The machine itself you can program it first from your computer once you like uh access it says it via Bluetooth. It basically you can control it from there and automate it wherever program you want to set at specific time. Experiencing all this I've actually had a lot of fun being able to come up here and

252um just learn about a machine and um I've personally been part of a robotics team. So being able to experience a machine uh automating other stuff like agricultural is a really good experience. I had a lot of fun. >> So I just got to Cleveland. >> I just wanted to come out and see y'all. We working out every day. Uh we got a purpose. We got something we trying to accomplish and achieve. But I'm trying to bring Cleveland, of course, a Super Bowl. What inspires me to keep going? I would say um knowing I I got a lot of people watching me, knowing that I'm a positive influence uh to the youth, that's what I say what keeps me going. So like even coming here, seeing y'all, >> you go to the website, you type

253in the access code and you're in. Your kids pictures are there and you could easily I have a kids at two different schools. You can easily switch from school to school and keep up on top of it. >> Everything's right there. Like everybody always has their phone with them, so you can easily access it to your phone. It's a relief for me knowing that my child has the best chance that they can knowing every day they wake up, they can go to school and, you know, take advantage of the day. The winner of the first annual rise pitch competition is drum roll please. >> Rise was birthed out of an opportunity that we thought was very very important for us to be able to give students opportunity to have their voices centered. So we asked

254them a question. The question is, if you could solve a problem in your community with unlimited resources, how would you do it? >> I'm 13 years old in the seventh grade at Amaya Elementary and our group is excited to be here today to share our opportunity for action. I feel like that our gaming lab will help a lot of students because of these new technology industries that are coming from these foreign countries which can excel our students and improvise them and get them set for life. >> As a basketball player myself, sports help me without a team. We don't really need Dr. Morgan. The chair, the board is now back in public session. The chair will now entertain a motion to adjourn this meeting. >> The meeting is adjourned. Thank you.