001This business meeting of the board of education of the Cleveland Municipal School District will come to order. Mr. Stockdale, will you please call the role? >> Miss Elicott, >> here. >> Mr. Phillips, >> here. >> Mr. Briggs, >> here. >> Miss Jones, >> here. >> Pastor Jones. >> Mrs. Lebron, >> here. >> Miss Peak here. >> Dr. Shredar, Mrs. Walchow. There are six members present. >> Thank you. I 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 stands nationy andice for all. Thank you. All right, we are very pleased to be back. Welcome back everyone. Uh to kick off the 2025 2026 school year. I'm not used to saying that. Um very excited, Dr. Morgan. Congratulations to you and
002your team on what was what seemed like a wonderful first day for scholars. Um, and we'll go ahead and jump right in. First, we will 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 available on the screen on either side so that our community members can keep track of their time. As usual, we will limit each speaker to three minutes and ask everyone to respect the time limit. We'll get started in just a minute. Okay. First, LSE Rivera Crowe. LSE Rivera Crowe. All right. Martha Lockidge. [Music] Okay, let's
003try again. Good evening, members of the school board, Dr. Morgan, CMSD educators, and members of the community. My name is Martha Lockidge, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you again. As before, I'm here representing two partner organizations that are proud to collaborate with the district. Monatory Development Partnerships, MDP for short, and the Monatory Advisory Council, which was formerly known as the Monasuri Campus Advisory Board. Last time I spoke, I mentioned it was mostly about MDP. I didn't get through my statement. Today, I'd like to talk more about the Monasuri Advisory Council or share some thoughts. So the advisory board was formed in 2020 to steward the merger of a charter school and a district school um that created Stone Brook White Monastery Campus. During the last school year, we changed the name to
004Monasuri Advisory Council, revised our code of regulations to include the support for Tmont Monasuri, so two schools, and revised our MU that we have with the board of education and CMSD. And when you're ready to sign it, we got it ready for you. Um, the Monasury Advisory Council's mission is to steward access to exceptional monastery education in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. We urge the board to hold central office staff and school-based leadership accountable for the five core components of monastery trained Monasuri teachers, three-year multi-age classrooms, use of Monasuri materials, child-directed work, and un uninterrupted work periods. We thank the board for the investments made to date. A lot of progress is happening. However, we are concerned when it appears that these five core components are not taken into account when logistical and educational decisions
005are made. A consequence is that children do not get the full benefit of what Monasuri has to offer. We're concerned when teachers are moved to a different age grouping than the one they've been in training for and have to start over. We're concerned when not all classrooms have three-year age spans even though the teachers have completed their training. We're concerned when K to3 students have to walk to a different building for lunch. This takes away from learning and recess time. We request that the board safeguard the integrity of the monatory model by ensuring that all decisions pass through a monatory lens before becoming final. The five core components are central to the model, not superficial or supplemental. The students in Cleveland deserve a highfidelity monastery, not monastery inspired schools. Tmont Monasur's AMS accreditation demonstrates that
006it is possible. In conclusion, I'd like to share a quote from the National Center for Monasuri and the public sector. Equitable, accessible, sustainable public monastery programs have the power power to disrupt racism, poverty, and structural inequality and transform lives and societies for peace and justice. Let's make that happen in CMSD. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Miss Lockidge. Next, Errol Savage, followed by Vincent Stokes. Mrs. Elicott, coming back to the new school year, I find myself thinking about one of my favorite principles from when I first started teaching. I remember that first year, I wasn't known as an easy grader. In fact, most of the students that I had that first quarter, I was failing all of them. I remember that principal called me in and he said, "Mr. Savage, what's going on up
007there? What what can we do to help these students so they can be successful?" And of course, I had all the answers back then because I just read them in my college textbooks. I said, "Well, the students don't have the prerequisite knowledge. They don't have the scaffolding." I had a smart answer for everything he gave to me. But he did something that good principles used to do. He came up and observed me teach and he took copious notes and I was waiting with enthusiasm to argue with him over what he wrote down. But he didn't say anything bad. He just said, "You know, Mr. Savage, I noticed two things about you. You like to do the talking." And he said, "I'd like to hear you do some listening." And he said, "And you also don't
008give up." And he said, "I'd like you not to give up on your students." That was really a simple formula. Don't give up on the kids and listen to what they have to say. And then I found out why they were failing. And that problem was as much me as it was them. I think back about some of those people that gave me advice decades ago. And I used to let it go in one ear and out the other. And now I wish I could grab on to it and hold it. Uh just the way it works sometimes, the people that we should listen to. We don't have time to hear what they have to say. Recently, Mrs. Elott, this board of education terminated several administrators and teachers. I wonder, Mrs. Elicad, did the board
009of education perhaps give up a little bit too early on those educators? I wonder, did you listen to what they had to say when they spoke to you? I wonder, Mrs. Elad, that how a teacher goes from being hired to up here being fired, who else failed? Not just that educator. I'd hope, Mrs. Elicott, that the board of education would call in the supervisors involved and said, "What happened?" The same way that principal did with me. because I suspect that if we listened to what those educators said and we didn't give up on them, we'd still have them. I do listen to what your board members say, Mrs. Elott, and one of your board members, she's not here tonight, she talked about the cost of rehiring people, of onboarding them. There is a cost, Mrs.
010Elott, mediation, arbitration, and in some cases litigation. And I think that can all be avoided if we listen to those teachers when they're initially struggling and put supports in place so that they don't fail. I appreciate you listening. It's nice to be back. With the new board policy that you're going to save so much time on, maybe you can add to the public comments here. Maybe not. Thanks, Mrs. Elod. >> Thank you, Mr. Savage. I do not go by Mrs. El. You may call me chair. Thank you. >> I didn't know that. >> Next, Dr. Vincent E. Stokes I >> chair. Good evening. At the last board meeting of the school year, I stood here and said, "When white folks catch a cold, black folks get pneumonia." I said it then to make clear that
011what may seem small in one part of the city can be devastating in another. Tonight, at the start of a new academic year, I want to remind us of that truth once again. Because this year you will face decisions. Some that look like numbers on the page. Others that may seem like routine adjustments. But to our communities, these decisions will be felt in the classroom, in the hallways, and in the kitchens of parents trying to hold their families together. We all want better outcomes for our children. We want them to read, to graduate, to thrive. But progress cannot come at the expense of black communities. History has shown us too many times that when the budget is tight, when schools are consolidated, when the reforms are rolled out, it's black neighborhoods that are asked to
012bear the burden. But these communities are not disposable. They are sacred ground, the heartbeat of Cleveland. They are where families have raised children, worshiped God, and held on to hope when hope was costly. If you destabilize these communities, you destabilize the city itself. That's why I urge you this new year, let equity be your compass and let justice be your guide. Let the well-being of every child not just in some neighborhoods be in every but be in every neighborhood in your hand. Our children deserve more than survival. They deserve schools that uplift them, policies that strengthen them, and leaders who will not only balance budgets, but also protect human dignity. So, as you prepare for the decisions ahead, I leave you with this charge. If it advances equity, move boldly. But if it undermines equity,
013pause and reconsider. Because at the end of the day, you are accountable not only to the people of Cleveland, but to history and ultimately to God who has entrusted these children into your care. Thank you. >> Thank you, Dr. Stokes. And I want to check again given the weather for LSE Rivera Crow. All right, that concludes our public participation period. Beginning at this meeting, the board will move to a practice of placing a number of resolutions on a consent agenda, whereby the board will vote to adopt most or all of the resolutions before us in a single vote without discussion in the meeting. Since the board made the shift to student outcomes focus focused governance, which is a framework designed to focus the board's work on improving student achievement, we are also shifting the way
014that we operate leading up to and during our meetings. In order to effectively do this, the board now receives resolutions at least 10 days in advance of the board meeting so that board members have an opportunity to review them in detail and ask any questions they have about the resolutions. The questions and answers from board members the or excuse me the questions from board members and answers from the staff will always be posted to board docs along with our other meeting meeting materials. In instances where board members wish to have a resolution removed from the consent agenda for inmeating discussion to be voted on separately, they may request that such resolution be removed from the consent agenda in advance. This evening's consent agenda includes the minutes of the last board meeting and three finance resolutions,
015two operations resolutions, eight equity and culture resolutions, and two legal resolutions. The chair will now entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as set forth in the board meeting agenda. >> So move. >> Second. >> Thank you. Mr. Stockdale, will you please call the role on this motion? >> Miss Elott? >> Yes. >> Mr. Bilips? >> Yes. >> Mr. Briggs? Yes, >> Miss Jones. >> Miss Leone. >> Yes, >> Miss Peak. >> Yes. >> Motion passes with six votes. >> Thank you. The motion passes and the minutes are approved and the 15 resolutions are adopted. The board will now, this is very exciting for me, hold its first monthly monitoring of goals and guard rails. Dr. Morgan, over to you. >> Thank you so much, Chair Elicott. We're so excited to bring uh the
016first of uh many of our progress monitoring that we'll be doing uh every month. Uh we'll be bringing uh updates on our goals and guardrails uh that the community has been hearing about. The community helps shepherd uh these as part of the process that the board is using to hold our district accountable, hold me personally accountable for the progress of the the system. And we'll be doing these every month at either both or one of our board meetings. Um tonight's uh uh update is specifically on our guardrail around opportunity and access. Uh and we're really excited to share some updates. Uh just as chair Elicod mentioned, we uh have given this presentation to our board members uh well in advance. Uh there are questions that they asked ahead of time. They're going to be questions
017that you may hear them ask uh tonight as we do it. And I have my wonderful team uh uh right here as well. they are are willing to answer questions, put a lot of work into thinking about this, but then we have a lot of work to to move forward. Um, so yeah, really excited to share this and also just excited for the uh for us to be in the new school year. Uh excited for the this year uh for making progress and gains. So just as a reminder, these are our goals, the board approved goals. These are five-year goals. Um, we have a goal around early literacy, math proficiency, specifically focused on algebra, college readiness, um, and then our three guard rail, safety and well-being, opportunity and access, and community engagement. Tonight, we're focusing
018on opportunity and access. One of the things we mentioned at uh, our previous board meeting was that under each of these goals and guardrails are interim measures of which we will be monitoring throughout the year. These are this is data that we have real time because a lot of these goals are summitative in nature meaning they come once a year or they're an end point uh and we want a way of monitoring and checking to make sure we're on track. Uh and so tonight we have uh two indicators we're going to be looking at uh specifically our uh career and technical education assessments as well as our internships under the opportunity and access specifically around the frame around uh of the district providing career preparation to our scholars. That's one of the frames under this
019opportunity and access. Um, oh, yep. This is information I've already uh shared in terms of the us giving this information ahead of time and also there are other documents that are attached. Uh, you not only have access to the deck that I'm sharing tonight, but there's a reference guide. A lot of times in education, we use a lot of acronyms. Uh, I will try my best not to use acronyms tonight, but there will be some that we use in that reference guide. Uh there are uh some explanation to some of the acronyms but also just a a deeper explanation to the data dive we're doing. Uh we also provided this to board members uh uh 10 days in advance uh so that they can ask questions about this and it'll be a practice that we
020will share as we do both goals and guardrails for information for you uh to understand beyond the presentation about the the data and the information we're sharing. The other thing I will note is that next month I believe the board will be uh approving and adopting the progress monitoring calendar. Um right now we have a draft of that calendar. We've made some tweaks. I believe at our next meeting uh we intend to bring some information around our guardrail around community engagement. Um but we the board will be approving a progress monitoring calendar. You as the the public will have access to the different types of goals and guardrails we'll be monitoring uh each month. uh and you should be able to uh to see that coming up. So, on to thinking about uh this opportunity
021and access guard row that we're talking about tonight. And there are a couple of things I want to share uh about this one. The opportunity access the the phrase for this says that the CEO shall not implement an academic program that fails to provide access to artistic, athletic, and career preparation opportunities for all students. As we shared, the goals are our goals. Those are the student achievement goals, the things that students should uh know and be able to demonstrate and do. The guardrails are the things that we should not forsake while reaching those goals. So even though we're thinking about literacy, we're thinking about math, the board has charged us to say we should not forsake uh providing athletic opportunities for students, artistic opportunities, and taking away the arts and also career preparation. And I'm
022for fortunate that the board has charged us with making sure that we hold these protections true as we're also trying to reach some ambitious academic goals. Uh the other thing to note at one of our last board meetings, I believe it was in June, uh Dr. Florence and her team talked about the new measure on the state report card, which is the CCWMR. It's our college, career, workforce, and military readiness. Uh it's a it's the new measure that's on the state report card, and this will be the first year that we'll be measured for it. We've shared uh this before and showed some preliminary data since it's a lagging indicator. We know that the district has a lot of work to do. Um I've also shared this in our upcoming convocation. We're excited about the
023progress we made last year. Uh but we know with this being a new measure that will be measured on this year, this could impact whether we go down our our star rating. Um and even if we don't go down a star rating, we do know we have a lot of work to do here. Uh this is an area where uh we will probably be one uh maybe uh two stars in. And so we have a lot of work to do and this is the area that we want to live into. Um as I mentioned before, we're going to be focusing on career technical uh uh education assessments. This is one of the ways we can measure that students are proficient in their CTE classes, the pathways. I also want to name because I've gotten a
024lot of uh messages sometimes their their DMs on uh social media or just when I'm talking to people, people ask questions around our prioritization as a district in the trades. And we are prioritizing the trades. When we talk about career readiness, those are the trades. When we talk about pathway, uh those are the trades. Uh and so the the nomenclature may have changed, the way we call it may have changed, but our commitment to making sure we provide that has not changed. And the truth is we're not providing it at scale. Uh one of the things we talked about through our building brighter futures initiatives in our high schools right now, only 59% of our high schools offer career pathways. So we know we have work to do. we know we don't have access to
025uh you know many of the trades across our city and we want to provide that access. The other area we're going to be looking at tonight is around student internships uh specifically focusing on high uh growth and high demand careers and how we're preparing students for that and making sure that they have those opportunities. Um this is a year of collecting some baseline information. We will be providing updates to the board on how we're setting uh KPIs and smart goals around it. um simply because even though this has been information that has been available and accessible to our students, it hasn't been an area of focus and this is our year of really getting into focus and in alignment around it. All right, on to the career and technical education assessment. Um so all of
026our students who are in a CTE uh pathway or course uh may have access to take the CTE assessment. As you'll see in a moment, not all of our students are taking that assessment and we have a very low passage rate right now. The interim CEO measure talks about the cohort, the graduating cohort of students, the percentage of those students passing and being proficient on the CTE assessment. We know that our last cohort that just graduated, the class of 2025, only a little over 3% of those students uh were proficient on the CTE assessment. Though, we've made progress. And what this chart shows is over time the class of uh this shows three classes. Class of 2023, 2024, and 2025, we've gone up, but we've gone up. In 2023, it was a little over 1%.
027Last year was over 2%. Class of 25 over 3%. Uh we have work to do. That is not what we aspire to do. And it's not just about providing the students with the opportunity and the the the coursework. It's actually making sure that they're accelerating, thriving. We've talked about students graduating with a seal, ready to enter into the workforce or ready to enter into college. So, we have work to do and this data shows that. As I've shared before, right now we do have some historical data on this, but not enough information to set a KPI at this time. We will be doing that um within this year so that the board will know where our goals are. Uh what this chart shows uh and it may be a little hard to show up on
028on screen uh but there are uh four colors here. You have a blue, you have orange, you have lime green, and you have like a orange, yellow, gold uh uh final color, which that is like the largest category. What you see on uh the um yaxis are the cohorts. So the bottom cohort's 2023, you see 2024, the next bar 25, you see the word 2026, that's that cohort. There's 27 above that, and then 28. Uh we just welcomed our freshman class of 2029. Um it's hard to believe that we're we're there now already. Uh but uh each year we'll be tracking those different cohorts. In the class of 2025, uh we did have about five uh 5.3 students who attempted three or more CTE assessment. An additional 17% that took one to two CTE assessment.
029But the largest category are students in 2025 that did not attempt the assessment at all. So this low passage rate is both a combination of us making sure that the curriculum is matching the the uh rigor of the assessment and that students are prepared for this assessment, but more than anything most of our students aren't even taking it. And so we have some work to do there. I'll be talking about that in a moment. Um as you as I've shared before from this previous slide, we have improved the number of students taking the test and passing it, but we still have a lot of work to do. There are some schools that I do want to highlight that are um uh that do have high participation in CTE programs above 50%. These schools are Cleveland
030School of Architecture and Design on the John Hay campus, Cleveland School of Science and Medicine, also on the John Hay campus, East Tech, Garrett Morgan, uh School of Engineering, we're we're here. Uh that's one of the schools that are here. John Marshall uh engineering and Lincoln West Science and Health. Oh, and then Max Hayes. So these are the schools where you do have over 50% of the students uh in the cohort uh in the CTE courses. That doesn't necessarily mean over 50% of them are proficient in passing the uh assessment. Um but most of our other schools have very low participation. Uh and we have work to do across the board in our system to providing this. Um so some strategies for improvement. First, we want to make sure that the curriculum that we're providing
031in all of our CTE courses are aligned to the standards that are on that CTE assessment. Per the pathway that a student is in, there is a different assessment. So, there are different assessments per the general pathway. If it's a if it's a more STEMbased related one or a manufacturing, construction, healthcare industry, all these different uh assessments have different standards attached to it. and we have not been very intentional around what that curriculum is, what are the questions that are on the assessments and really making sure students are prepared for that. Um, as we do with some of our other assessments. So, we really want to make sure that that's something that we're providing. I know this year there are uh we have pacing guides uh that we've provided to our our teachers and then
032also a data-driven instructional protocol that we'll be using uh in teacherbased teams to really support looking at data real time and making sure throughout the year students are on track for it. And these are some of the protocols we use in some of our other core content areas such as English language arts and math. Um the other uh thing is increase the number of students taking the WebEx exams. Uh that that's in the web exams are is the platform of which the CTE assessments are on. We want to make sure we increase that number. As I mentioned before, using data-driven instructional protocols to inform that and then also aligning our CTE pathways and courses to CTE assessments. Uh it was very encouraging today as I'm looking out Dr. Florence was with me. Uh Mr. Leslie
033was with me. We also had Chief Farmer Cole. Uh we were over at uh on the John Hay campus today uh visiting classes and it was encouraging. We were talking to one of the principles uh Principal Perez who's at science and medicine who one she was she was acknowledging the uh the area of growth for that school on the CCWMR. One of our highest performing schools but still only about 40% passage rate on uh uh 40% rate on that CCWMR. uh and already the intentionality she's thinking about making sure students are scheduled into uh certain courses. Um the intentionality in intentionality and growth they've done on the college readiness area um which is an area we'll talk a little bit more about in the year when we get to goal three. Um uh but there's
034just already been a lot of intentionality based on the data that we have that Dr. Florence and her team has been doing to really make sure all of our scholars are set up for success. So, I'm excited that now we have the information and we've been much more intentional about that alignment. So, uh what's working as we mentioned before uh you know maximizing the testing windows uh you know when those testing windows are open making sure that we're advertising that and that students are aware of it um extending where possible where we can so that more students can take the assessment and then also setting some KAPIs around um the improvement of the test taking rate. So right now uh improving the web exam tech t take rates from 58% to 85% and increasing the
035web exam average scores from 37% to 43%. So these are some of the things um you know either that are working or that we already have uh informed hypothesis around around strategies we're going to do for improvement. Um even thinking about the test taking rate we've talked about before we've already improved the test taking rate on our OST exam. So it we've done it before we could do it again. It's just a matter of what we monitor. Those are the things that actually get we pay attention to. And so we do want to make sure we're doing that. What is not working, you know, uh without sounding like a broken record, just that lack of the CTE aligned curriculum, lack of intentional pathways uh to the eight pathways that the state uh requires us to
036do. We'll be talking more about that particularly when we're talking about our building brighter futures plan. um lack of expectations around this assessment uh and also h when and how students are taking that. Uh we've talked about just the decentralized approach to CTE. A lot of those things have been centralized, not centralized in a way from a manner of trying to control it, but centralizing it in a way that we're providing some support because right now it hasn't been uh it has been monitored and we see where we are right now. We have not uh we're only providing uh we're at 3% in in terms of that the last year's cohort. So, we have a lot of work to do and we want to provide that support to teachers and students. Um, and then where
037uh uh why do these gaps exist? We talked about before it just has not been an area focus. So, we're going to be focusing in on it and working on >> I do you can't see it if I'm going to put on my >> um >> Can you put it on your >> Yeah, >> we're instituting a new practice. Mr. Briggs, put it over your name tag, please. >> But thank you. >> Dr. Morgan can't see it when I put it. >> I can see it, though. >> Okay. All right. My question is um you say why do these gaps exist between student groups? It's not been a focus but isn't that the focus? Why? You know why? and and same with the high school discovery report and the conclusions in that um it says
038that you need strength and longevity of the principal classrooms with high expectations supports and developments for teachers strong classroom and school c cultures community in involvement and I I think that is the primary focus >> yeah you're you're absolutely right it is it is the focus I would say um you know one things we're we're dealing with where we are right now. So I could talk about where we are right now. It is the focus and we want to provide opportunities. I think sometimes the means have been the end. Meaning that uh sometimes the idea is like just let's provide programs. Let's make sure that kids have access to STEM. Let's make sure that they're robotics in school. So we have I call it throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks and we
039just haven't been intentional around like okay if you're offering that program does it lead to an actual credential? How are students actually moving through it? not that they just come that day and have a great experience or they smile that day, they did a great field trip. Um, and some of the things we've been very surface level about. So, we now need to, as we've been saying, level up and, um, make sure we are not only providing those opportunities, but monitoring is it having an impact. And so, um, I I would say it has been a, uh, it's been something we've been providing. It hasn't been a focus in terms of the intentionality we need to do in terms of monitoring it, and we're upping our game with that. But isn't it also um a
040primary factor of the leadership in each school board? >> Mr. Briggs, could you speak up? I'm sorry. The rain is >> Yeah. I I'm just asking, isn't the primary factor is leadership >> and to focus on that in each of our locations? >> Yeah, it it's it's definitely a part of it. So I know one of the things that this past year the academics team has been doing with school leaders particularly in the high schools have been meeting with each of those school leaders talking about the different requirements for the different pathways. Um the intentionality around uh scheduling the intentionality around focusing in on their school specific data and how students are moving. Uh these aren't areas that we have been focusing on in the past and they have been areas that we um have
041started and will be intentionally focusing in on. Um but thanks to the goals and guardrails that we have, the schools now have goals that are um outward facing with that. I don't know if there's anything else you guys would add with that. >> the only thing that I would add is that that as you heard Dr. or and say this has not been a part of the report card. And so things that are not part a part of the report card usually get pushed to the side until someone says we're actually going to monitor this and you're going to get a score for it. And so that is one reason why schools have not been intentional around this work. And so it really has helped us that it is now part of the report card
042because it is now raised the awareness for our school leaders and our work to be able to say we now have a clear focus on what we have to do for kids. Any other questions? Um Dr. Morgan, I I want to add, you know, it's obviously um disappointing to see such low scores and it similar is similar to our college readiness indicators which are at about 8% indicating college ready. And to what Mr. Briggs said, you know, primary factor is leadership and a part of that leadership burden falls a big part falls on the board to be monitoring consistently and that's what we've done with the goals and guard rails and I I do believe that in the past efforts have been um you made with the best intentions like you said and also we've
043now got a plan where we are monitoring you know we've agreed the board has announced and agreed to the go goals and guard guard rails. You and your team have developed interims and we've agreed to those and that will help us track the same agreed upon metrics over time, which is the only way to make progress, right? Like you said, you can't throw spaghetti at the wall. You have to decide what you're going to make sure that you are successful in and that you're going to measure it on a consistent basis. And so that's a big shift um districtwide as well. So, I'm really glad to see that this process is allowing us to monitor this data more closely. >> Yeah. And some of the things just before going into the internship and some of
044the stuff I've already shared in terms of our next steps um uh school leaders now will be regularly monitoring this information. So, yes, leadership is key and that's throughout the entire system. Um you know, our teachers are leaders, so they're leaders of their classroom, so leadership is key there. School leadership is key. Uh leadership at the central uh level in office. All of those systems need to be in place in terms of the monitoring. Uh as I mentioned before, we have an aligned scope and sequence right now. Uh just in the same way we would do for English language arts, we have that now um for our our our CTE classrooms that we have and more planning is going into this. Uh this is the work we're really doing with building brighter futures to make
045sure we can provide this access at scale. Um and be intentional around that. Um also we talked about the web exam um take rates um and then also just the intentionality of those standards in the um with the web exam and uh to increase proficiency in that. Um so so some things that have been uh working in terms of bright spots. Um the cohort uh CT cohort meetings scheduled throughout the school year. These are some practices that we want to uh help in terms of our data-driven instructional protocol. There's also a new walkthrough tool that we are using. Uh this walkthrough tool uh is similar to the walkthrough tools that we use with uh English language arts, one that we have with math. Uh and I know when I talk to our um our partners
046in education, these walkthrough tools are not evaluative in nature. These are not for us uh not for that individual teacher. It's not the thing that evaluates that teacher. But we do need a a space to be collecting information to find out where are those best practices, where are the bright spots that are happening in the system and where the system where are things not working. Not so much as like teacher, you're not doing what you're supposed to. It's like no, we have not provided the support at the system level to provide the support to schools and to teachers that need to happen. And so I'm really excited for the walkthrough tool. Um we've had some a lot of uh bright spots with our walkthrough tools in English language arts last year. It was really exciting
047this summer to see some of that data. Um and so we're going to be continuing to use um uh these practices. Um, and then the other thing, you know, as we've talked about before, uh, research shows that having a high quality core curriculum, a high quality curriculum with pacing guides and assessments that are aligned is a way to move student achievement. Why not for CTE? That's exactly like we what we would do for English language arts, math, social studies, science. Uh, we would want to do this the same with CTE. Okay, moving on to intern. Oh, >> we're going to wait until the end for questions, but you can put your put your thing. >> Yes. Thank you. >> We're we're we're we're we're adjusting and I and getting through this. >> The beauty of
048the this is a low tech solution before we get to a higher tech solution just to be clear. But the beauty is that you can put your your green tent over and that way we'll be sure to get to everyone at the end of the presentation and you don't have to hold your hand up the whole time. >> Awesome. Um so the next one really related to this is internships. Um the other one thing I would note around both the CTE assessments and internships. You may be saying why focus just in those areas when talking about career preparation. One of the things is it's the information we have access to now. Um so we're starting with that. This this may be a guardrail that evolves over time particularly with building brighter futures. When we get
049to a place where all schools are offering uh career pathways we may have more uh rich data that we could actually set some different KPIs on. Um, but we also know that uh our students we we have put some investments over time into making sure students have internships. Uh, and it's one of the ways that students can show their readiness on the CCWMR if the internship is aligned to uh the the area that their pathway is aligned to. And right now, as you'll see in a moment, uh we have not been intentional about that. It's more just been about providing the internship for the student, which that's great. And we can be more intentional around that. more intentional about making sure that those internships are aligned to high growth, high demand. Uh and we have
050some information to share. So on the bright spot, there were 502 students who completed internships this summer. Um it's an interesting data point like it sits out there 502 you know and we have collected this over time but one of the reasons why uh we are noting that and we didn't really set goals around this because like the other one uh though we've had structures for internship there's work we've been doing for getting more students with internships there hasn't been an aligned focus as it's been related to CCWMR and just some of that intentionality so I know the team has really been working on the intentionality of of making that and 502 could be good. It could be abysmal. It's a it's a data point. And so one of the things we really want to
051know is more about this information, more about that intentionality so that as we're doing this, we can be more intentional about uh knowing what's expected in terms of students who can get internships. Um what are they qualified to do that? Um and also the the different areas that they are are in. Uh there are were a couple of bright spots from this past summer. Um, we had the majority of students placed in IT placements. That has grown eight times since 2021, largely due to our partnership with uh Cleveland Stateiversities. I see Miss uh uh Cohen out here uh who I know uh does a lot of work and bridges the gap between uh CMSD and CSU and has really supported that growth. Um we've also had manufacturing construction which has grown two times since 2023
052uh largely in partner due to our partnership with magnet. So we do have some and CSU uh with that as well. So, we do have some bright spots of our partnerships and the uh ability to provide student information on that. Uh these are all the different and it's going to be hard to see this. I know board members, you guys have this. If you're following along at home, you you guys can see it a little bit better. Uh but in 2025 of those 52, these are the different industries. Uh just naming some of them, you have agriculture, you have arts, uh business, health, science. So these are just some of the areas uh we've already shared before our two uh highest ones um were it manufacturing and I believe agriculture and food services was the
053third right behind that um and it varies participation varies across uh student uh uh schools but we have more students participating in summer internships in uh network two and network two is led by Mr. Gerard Leslie who is here uh this evening um which a lot of those many of those schools are um some of our our our higher performing schools and we really want to make sure when we're thinking about access that all students have access to it. So that's why it's really important uh that we think about that. Oh, I did want to highlight some of the other uh uh pipeline programs that have supported internships. So we had the Cleveland State University tech talent pipeline that we talked about. There were 152 students in that magnet 85 students participating. Argonaut 21 students
054participating and Newbridge 19 students participating. So what uh has been done in terms of implementing these strategies? There's been some intentionality around work-based learning. Uh you've heard uh Mayor Bib talk about this in terms of the Cleveland Works and I know that our academics team has been working with Mayor Bib's team and uh Chief Pomeran who I see uh here tonight to think about how are we not only providing those uh internship opportunities but the intentionality between work-based learning. Uh this is a strategy that's not uh that we're not only thinking about in Cleveland but many cities are thinking about this. uh and the more that students can uh get work uh based internships as part of their coursework, as part of their pathways uh work, uh this will also help our students be prepared
055for careers and trades uh and meet the job demand. Um I was just in a meeting uh earlier this month uh at with GCP and there one of the focus areas in a business meeting started to become on preparing the future workforce and the majority of that conversation started talking around K12 education and what we're doing to prepare and fill those jobs and meeting the demands. And so we really want to make sure that we're really intentional about finding what our employers and our city are looking for and that we're meeting that demand. um and um not just looking at careers of old but also the careers uh that are in demand for the future. Um yeah, that's when we're thinking about the high growth high demand areas. Uh we also uh are really want
056to make sure that we're being intentional about the state approved uh pre-apprenticeship programs because if we do the right matching as I mentioned before this is a way that students can qualify for uh being proficient on the CCWMR. Uh, and we will talk more about that CCWMR and what it means on the state report card, but as Dr. Florence shared in June, students only need to show proficiency in one of the 11 areas. So, it doesn't always just have to be college. It doesn't always just have to be career. It doesn't just have to be internship. There are many ways students can demonstrate, but to be proficient that all they need to do is show one. And so to this point around leadership and what we're doing to prepare uh students for that and our
057schools for that, how are we tracking that information and how are we making sure students are prepared at least in one of those areas. um what's not working uh really thinking about our our partners that we've had and really replicating some of the partnerships that have worked such as the CSU partnership and um and magnet um uh and you know some of our partners have been focused on you know offering the internships but we also just really want to make sure that we are thinking about the matching and that it's related to the students pathway. um we have been seeing some gaps. So when we think about access, we're not only just thinking about access in terms of schools, but we're looking at certain demographic groups. And I know our data did show particularly among
058most uh uh racial demographic groups or just demographic groups, uh the data matched in terms of there was there were no glaring gaps. Um but there were a couple of gaps between our ELLL students and our um Hispanic students. um which is also an interesting trend because when we start digging into some of our um academic data from last year, those were also two groups uh focus groups that we really want to focus on in on um based on our OST data as well as special education as well. So um it it it is great that we have that information and also something that we are acknowledging and making sure we have a plan for. Okay, did I turn it? Um, so some of the things that we're going to be working on, I talked
059about the matching of students, making sure that the um, internship matches the pathway that they are in, being more intentional around that. Um, specific supports for ELLL students and making sure that our partners have those supports in place and also just thinking about what are some strategies we could have for the specific uh, for for Hispanic students. And uh Chelsea, one question I have that will probably be helpful here if you have it. When we think about the gap for Hispanic students, was it just the uh them actually having access or completing the internship uh or just the intentionality around the matching? Yeah, access for uh English language learners, m multilingual learners is a big problem because many of the workforce programs around the city who have internships that take students under 18, they do
060not have the same supports for multilingual learners as our classrooms might. Um so there are a lot of things we do in the classroom when you have any type of low code student. um those types of uh uh scaffolding supports for any type of project or to participate fully on a team are almost non-existent in the workforce uh sector um at at any level. So um it is it is going to be up to us to create that training and level set for all work site supervisors as well as uh understand what projects they have and how to adapt those for an English language learner. >> That's >> so it's a new set of work. we would be we would be the front runners in that. But if we want to hit these numbers and
061make sure it's for all students, that's one of the things that uh we can do as K through2 educators is teach industry partners and other work site supervisors how to appropriately do that. >> Thank you so much. And that that's an important note. One of the uh questions that board members asked ahead of time and it's um posted in uh the questions that were asked were just what are some of the barriers to students actually completing summer internships? And that's one of them in terms of accessibility and making sure that students have the accessibility uh specifically for the the demographic group that you uh just heard there. But also when we think about things like transportation or um other ability, other barriers, uh one of the things that's noted here is whether the internship is
062is paying or not. A lot of our students are are looking for internships that actually are are summer jobs as well. Um and are there funding sources for that? So those are all areas we could really step into and think about intentional with our partners. Um and those aren't things that we uh you know we can bear that on our own. Uh you guys hear from our presentations that we do on finances that that though uh those things are not uh necessarily areas that we would be able to do solely on our on our own and so we really want to work with our partners on these areas. Um and I believe yeah that that is all >> Miss Lebron Dr. Dr. Morgan, I appreciate the story that you shared with about Principal Perez and
063her intentionality in thinking about ways that she can increase the CCWMR measures um within the school. And I've seen in the next steps principal and and school leaders as well as teachers mentioned, but I am curious how is the capacity being provided for high school counselors, especially those with large case loads. um how are they supported to get students excited about the classes that build post-secary readiness and when are those conversations starting because if some of those um course recommendations, you know, like if they if there are certain qualifiers to get on a pathway, how are we when are we having these conversations to make sure that they're ready when it's time to actually start enrolling? >> Yeah, I'll um I'm going to bring up Mr. Dean uh who is our executive director of college
064and career readiness because he works with our counselors a lot. Um but one of the things I've been hearing Mr. Dean talk about uh two things. One, there was a report that the team has worked with with handover to do a lot of research on uh just the pathways uh that are aligned to the future workforce, what we're currently providing and where their gaps and so I know that that's information that uh his team has been looking at. And then more specifically, I believe we have adopted either this year or maybe it was last year the school links. Am I saying that correct? Yes. And school links is a platform that is going to be used for guidance counselors to help track our students not only through the process of the career preparation but also
065this is a place where um if people are familiar with um like Naviance or different uh platforms like that their their post-secary readiness platforms students can do their college application in it. Um they can do all of their planning from a very early age. I don't know how how soon schooling uh does it, but in some cases you could start in the elementary grades to have students start having a plan and tracking this work. So I I don't know if there's more you want to share, Mr. Dean, on the work your team has been doing on that. >> Yes. So going back to the counselor piece, uh it's it's a reset year for everybody and they are included in that. So when we have our monthly counselor sessions, they are provided with updates on what
066we're doing as a college and career readiness team so that they can speak to it not just with students but also families. So there's a lot of PD happening around there. Uh document mentioned handover. Uh we have been able to partner with an external organization around research and analytics. So we were doing a study around our current pathway offerings. Uh thinking about how we can fine-tune our programs so that students are aware of what we offer not just students but partners and parents. So we've been doing extensive research around how students perceive CTE. uh frankly when it the transition from the K8 to the high school we have been doing work around preparing our students better in that aspect we just have found that students have not been prepared or knowledgeable of RCTE programs starting
067in our K8 spaces so that work is currently being done and we have utilized school links we've gone full-blown with it this school year school links is our new college and career readiness platform so if you monitor social media you would see that starting in K8 students can document their uh personalized graduation portfolio. So, it's important for students to begin to document their academic journey starting early. So, when we talk about the career pathways that is inclusive in that P plat platform, excuse me, so students can have an idea of the courses they want to take, but also being able to see the different high schools within Cleveland, but also knowing what courses they offer. So when you think about having robust conversations with counselors, 5C's and principles, they now have that interest data about
068their their their passion and what they want to do, right? So if counselors have that information, 5C's have that information and we do. Think about how much more robust and prepared our students can be if they have this transitioning into high school. So a lot of things happening behind the scenes. But going back to the original questions, counselors are just like principles and everyone else. They are a main target in terms of preparing them for what we know and what we need to do to establish best practices. >> I'm going to speak to one of the most urgent things happening with counselors. Um, in the September counselor meeting, we're going to show counselors how uh internships that we talked about with summer in the school year, those can also be implemented in a similar way.
069When, for example, a senior has not yet met the competencies to be on track to graduate, they could choose as a school plan or a or a district-wide plan to get that senior into a pre-apprenticeship program. And upon completion of the pre-apprenticeship, the student would still be able to graduate in May. Um, so there have already been some counselors who reached out, but we are going to share that information with counselors because typically, uh, you know, counselors are an essential part of the school leadership team. they're going to be the ones to give us the list of I have x number of seniors that will need to take advantage of this plan. Um, and then they will be a part of uh thinking through what that implementation plan looks like because we do have certain
070pre-apprenticeship programs on file at this time. Again, brand new state focus, brand new state report card. Uh but it's going to be all hands- on decks and so counselors will um get more information about what their role might be in that space for specific kids to crossstage in May, which is a very um new thing for us, but we're definitely going to be taking advantage of it. >> Yes, Miss Jones. >> Thank you, Cheer Elott. uh question I have is how early are we having discussions with students and why I say that is it's easy to get to 12th grade and then say okay what do you want to do now I have no idea so where are we starting so that students realize that either eventually this is going to be a question you're
071going to be asked or we can start to prepare so they can have the choices >> so again this is a reset year for everybody and again school links is new uh right now this platform is available for eighth grade, but will be for sixth and seventh next month. Uh we think that those conversations should start much earlier than that because we think it's important for our kids to draw those connections with industries and careers to what's being taught in the classroom. So again, um when we talk about best practices, all of this is in the works because we want our partners to also have a a share in the conversation, too. So again, it's in the works. Are we asking partners to come to the classroom and possibly talk to students? I mean, I
072have no idea. So, >> so, so we have districtwide partnerships that already come into the classrooms now like True to You, YOU, uh, ACE mentoring. You may be familiar with them. U, so yes. >> Yes, I can, >> Miss Peak. Sorry. >> Okay. Just piggybacking a little bit off of that. and I'm so proud of the five uh 502 students, but we know that was that a pleasant experience and how are we leveraging what we've done this summer to make sure that we're increasing that number for next year. And does AI play any kind of role in this? I know that's everybody's question. >> Y'all love it. Okay, >> I love the AI. I love the I can't I know >> I like the AI tag. That's a really important and good question. Um Cleveland's
073not doing a good enough job of utilizing AI in all the ways. I'm going to start with yet. I'm going to start with that in in two different ways. Number one, uh we do have an AI enabled platform that we have green lit to help with the matching process. There are a lot of ways this works, but um our middle school students are already uh trying that out u because you have to find interest in middle school and you also especially with girls, this is a lot of data. I know I'm preaching to the choir. You have to help them see themselves much earlier so that they're not turned off to specific careers that happen to be the high growth and high demand careers. Um so, uh AI is a really great tool to help
074students. Uh there are AI simulations around career interest surveys. And so uh within a couple weeks we can have students taking these uh mock career um interests answering a bunch of questions and that mass data goes to our teachers um quickly and we can see that to start un understanding for our eighth graders what trends do we see when we start internship recruitment where are we seeing those trends and specifically which students do we already know to pull for certain sessions. So interest in matching is one use of AI. On the flip side, uh one of our goals in the IT space is for every single work site placement to include two things. Uh one is an is a uh application of AI and two is a different uh application of data. So some type
075of like larger scale data monitoring or maybe data modeling. Some of our students did that this year. So we need to use AI as a tool for ourselves and we need to also embed it immediately in everything our students do at least in the IT sector. Um in manufacturing it's going to be a pretty big deal too but that's more so like sensors and sensors talking to sensors um for machining. The other question that you asked is how we scale up. So 5002 is good. I'm really happy to hear you say that, but I think that when you look at the scale of our city and of our district, it could actually be deemed as quite low. And so we need to be aware that our finances in the district are not funding student wages
076or student programming, but we can leverage partners across the city from multiple occupational sectors and from multiple nonprofits, like all all kinds of systems. Uh, one of the biggest leverage points is how we're utilizing Tannif funding in our county and how many seats of Tannif funded, you know, summer wages go towards a work-based learning position. So, um, this this year we hit 500. Great. >> Um, it it could be pretty easy to think ahead of next year as hitting 600. The way to do that is to incrementally increase every occupational sector. So it we had 150 for for CMSD students. We should hit 200. Magnet should go up with manufacturing. But then every single sector should add at least 2550 on scale. Um and so when we lift together we can not only serve more
077students but also serve more interest areas. You should see all of that happening. >> All right. Level up. >> Miss Jones, did you have another question or was your Okay. Uh, I had a question, Dr. Morgan, regarding the um, it's on slide 14. We talked about it a little bit, but uh, the gap for Hispanic students and English language learners. Um, having been an English language learner myself, I know that there is a scaffolding that happens, right? You're sort of focused on learning English for school first. I understand that there are supports that are needed to go into workforce programs, but um Hispanic students and English language learners are not always the same thing. So, what is happening with Hispanic students? What we think needs to happen is more targeted recruitment in um in certain
078neighborhoods where we see a lower student population that happens to also be where a higher population of Hispanic students are. that happens in multiple ways, but um it it school recruitment doesn't just happen in schools. Um a lot of our partners are are supporting this work. I'm going to give a big shout out to Digital C. Um and Ladonna Norris is uh is not a CMSD employee, but is active with us in schools and in afterchool spaces with families. and she and her entire team help us to make sure that not only are we getting students through the application process. We're getting families through the paperwork process because it is arduous, but we're also making sure that students are matched appropriately. So, when we find a specific kid who is mismatched, Liddonna sometimes is the
079one or someone on her team to raise it before the student does, we need to utilize some of our other partners that we're not as much right now. For example, um Espironza is an amazing partner. Um there there are many partners who I think can work with us in the way that Digital C has in different parts of the city to make sure that we are addressing that gap because to your point, those are two specifically different subgroups. Um and they have different uh uh support strategies. One for Hispanic students is just a recruitment targeting issue. making sure we're providing that the match areas that are of interest so they continue through the process maybe sharing more information to make families feel more comfortable pursuing the process. Um whereas the ELLL supports is a completely
080different uh issue. >> Thank you. >> Any other discussion? Dr. Morgan. Oh yes, Miss Miss Lebron. Mr. Dean, I I just want to say one of the things that you mentioned uh when you were answering my question and I really appreciate this is um the professional development that that is being provided for counselors is not only for them but it's for them to educate families um part partners and and parents as well as the students. And I think that's such an important piece that I feel like is oftentimes missed um because the families have so much influence on what the students choose in terms of curriculum and and school choice and even post-secary options, right? And so I really appreciate the fact that you have um you're leading with that in mind to make sure
081that families are a part of this process. So thank you, >> Miss Jones. Thank you, Chair Elcott. Curious as I was sitting here thinking, there are online tools and I cannot remember the name of one that's through Ohio means jobs that can help students determine some of their interests. Are we using those as well to try to start the process of thinking about what direction they should go in? >> So, we specifically are start We are starting >> we are starting with school links this year, Miss Jones. And so those other things have been available, but school links allows us to capture everything in one place and then to be able to track it from our end. And so we'll be able to eventually, as Mr. Dean said, be able to align the pathways in
082the program to our specific pathways. So then when kids take that interest survey, they know which school they they can choose a school based on their specific interest. So we're trying to capture it all in that one tool. So we have a one-stop shop for everything. career readiness, college and career readiness. >> Okay. School link is done. >> Anything else? >> No, that uh that's all. And um uh as we'll be as I shared before, we'll be sharing an update every month, sometimes at both meetings, sometimes at one um uh on different areas. I I want to thank our our academics team and uh specifically our our team on college and career readiness and uh the work around internships and pathways. um uh for providing this information and we have a lot of work to
083do to really make sure we're living into this. And the final thing I I will share when we talk about building brighter futures and what's possible uh all of this is the inner workings of what will be possible when we think about getting uh schools that have opportunities and programs at scale. And so uh all of it's connected. Uh we want to be intentional around our goals uh that the board has charged us with. Uh and building brighter futures will help us uh in a big way. uh live into that. Um so uh we thank you for that. >> Thank you, Dr. Morgan. The board looks forward to subsequent progress monitoring discussions on our goals and guard rails. Is there any old business? Is there any new business? All right. Thank you to my colleagues
084for your patience as we make these transitions. And the chair will now entertain a motion to adjurnn this board business meeting. >> So move >> hearing. No objection. This meeting is adjourned. Have a good night.