001believe I'm a family. [music] >> We're family. >> I really enjoy what I do. And it's not just about the kids. You have teachers. You have employees. And they all contribute to what we do best here. [music] And that's educate. >> Actually taught me how to drive. Taught me directions. North side, east side, west side, I didn't know where I was going when I first started. Now I know everywhere, the whole Columbus. >> Tuition reimbursement, I was able to go to school. >> Come join us. Apply now. >> sccsjobs.org [music] >> Today we went to all of the feeder schools, so all of the elementary schools and two of the middle schools that feed [music] into West and we did a clap out with their kindergarteners and fifth graders. >> The walk was really fun.
002My favorite part was seeing all the little kids and seeing how happy they were and knowing that they're going to be here one day with us. >> Showing students that they can graduate one day as long as you stay on track >> with everything that you need to and you just stay focused on the stuff that you [music] want and then you can really do it. >> With such an exciting event today, it's so great to see our kids that we haven't seen since they were in elementary school. Uh, I was lucky enough to be their teacher for second and [music] third grade, so it was really special to see this group come through. >> Just great opportunity to celebrate and it's important because it builds the connection. [music] And I think that's something we
003really need on the west side is to build a connection between our elementary, middle school, and high school students. >> We always talk to the kids about what happens after elementary school, but um, an event like today shows them where they can be in the next few years. I think it just shows them how all of their hard work can pay off as well in the future. >> Go West! >> [cheering] [music] >> Go West! Oh. >> We have a policy that says our agenda's supposed to be limited to what was noticed. So, I'm just a little confused about how that came to be. But, we're all supposed to also supposed to get the email notifications about changes. Um and so, we just we have that policy. So, I'm just a little unsure why we're
004not sticking to it. >> Okay. Question of clarification. Can you share more context about the notification? As I'm remembering, we received it in enough time. >> Well, we're supposed to get an email notification when the agenda is changed after the initial posting. And so, had we gotten that with the addition of the executive reports, then I would have been able to reach out in advance to board leadership and say, "Hey, we also have this policy about how we notice our meetings. Is this in conflict?" But, because we didn't get that advance notice on the changes, now we have to have the discussion here. And so, I just am a bit concerned because, like I said, we have that policy that says our meeting is going to be limited to what was noticed. And this wasn't
005on the notice that I received. >> Again, I'm confused about your this. What is the this? >> Oh, sorry. Items 3. I agenda items 3, 4, and 5. >> 3, 4, and 5. So, there's no >> No report. There's no executive >> There's no executive report on four. There's no executive report on five. Am I missing something? Three, we have executive remarks. >> Right. >> And it's just, you know, we have that policy that says our special meeting's going to be limited to what was noticed, and this wasn't noticed. So, you know, if if we have a policy, I think we should follow it. So, I'm just confused as to how we got here. And if we were following our communications plan, I could have brought this up earlier. >> Well, Brandon, if you want
006to vote no, yes, your prerogative. >> Mr. Simmons. >> And this is the adopt the >> 2.1 adopt the agenda. >> Okay. But, can we get clarity about why the agenda was changed after it was noticed? >> Yeah. >> I'm sorry. I'm still confused. You want notice on the fact that we are not having executive reports. >> No, no, no, no. That's What I'm saying is we have a policy that says our meeting is supposed to our special board meetings are supposed to be limited to what the notice is that we send out. Now, I understand we're obviously not going to do at items four five. >> Can we pause there for a second cuz I think I'm following you now. Correct me if I'm wrong. Your issue is that we weren't noticed that we
007would have additional guard the guardrail reports. >> No, that was noticed, but these executive reports were not. >> But, we don't have executive >> reports. >> What does it says executive remarks 3.1? >> I think it's just her her general comments that she makes at the board meetings. It's nothing new or different. >> Yes. >> And >> Okay. >> Is that okay? >> Well, I we have the policies. This These aren't my rules. These are the board's rules. So, it's not up to, you know, this is the board says we're going to do this. If the board doesn't want to do it, we can proceed. >> So, I hear you wanting us to commit to the policy. I think that is excellent due diligence on your part. We as a board should always expect all
008three of our reports to give remarks at every board meeting. >> I'm just not sure why we have policies if we're going to deviate so often. >> All right. >> I guess my position would be that in that regard, we should expect our three direct reports to always give us and the community some type of remark. In this particular instance, it's not a full-fledged presentation. >> No. >> Correct? >> That's correct. >> That is correct. So, can you continue? >> Yes. President Dr. Miranda. >> Yes. >> Mr. Simmons. >> No. >> Motion carried. >> All right, we have no public comment, so I will turn it over to Dr. Chapman for the board monitoring reports. >> Yes. Dr. Miranda, we um I wanted to provide a few remarks as this is the end of the
009school year, and there were a few highlights that I wanted to share and with the community um regarding some certainly um highlights. Um recently on June 9th, our students um participated in the I Know I Can Founders Scholarship Award. This is a partnership between Columbus City Schools and I Know I Can, which spans more than three decades, 36 years to be exact. This year, 28 Columbus City Schools students from the class of 2026 received a Founders Scholarship. This year's applicants had the highest average GPA ever in the history of the program with an average of 3.88. And since the Founders Scholarship began over 310 CCS graduates have received this award with more than 10 million provided in founder scholarship support to pursue their higher ed dreams. I just want to continue to congratulate all of
010our students who have demonstrated their academic excellence earned and earning this scholarship and special thanks to I know I can and their CT CEO Katina Fullen for continuing to invest in our students in Columbus City Schools and helping our students take confident steps towards their future. Also, this summer our team is working on preparing a summer mailer for families that will be going out to all of our CCS families. Board members, you have a copy of that summer mailer that will be we're working on sending out to all of our CCS families. This mailer puts important information directly into the hands of our families. Also celebrates the class of 2026 and the many accomplishments of our students, staff, schools, and community. It >> [cough] >> has important dates. And so, families, when this mailer arrives
011in your mailbox, please take a moment to look through it, save the important dates, and celebrate our students' wins and progress. Also, I want to provide an update on Columbus Promise. Certainly, we know that Columbus Promise continues to remain an important partnership between Columbus City Schools, the City of Columbus, I Know I Can, and Columbus State. This program is continuing to grow, and over the past 5 years, Columbus Promise has helped open so many doors for students who might not have otherwise considered college or continuing education after high school. This program is impacting more than 1,000 CCS students each year, helping them to take their next step through higher ed. And since the program began, the data shows that 183 students have been on track for associate associate degrees, including 55 in the spring's class.
012I want to give a special shout-out to our students and staff at Columbus Downtown High School, where 90 students from a graduating class of 175 applied and are Columbus Promise ready. Congratulations to our scholars. As you all know, this past Friday, June 19th, was Juneteenth. Juneteenth is an important opportunity for us as a community to reflect, learn, and celebrate freedom, history, and progress. And as a district, we honor the significance of this day while continuing our work to create schools where every student feels seen, valued, and supported. As educators and staff, we play an important role in helping students understand the stories, contributions, and experiences that have shaped our country. And I also want to send a special shout-out to our Fort Hayes graphic design students who helped design this year's Juneteenth T-shirt. They used
013their creativity and talent to create something and we are very excited as staff [clears throat] to wear their work as we celebrate and honor this important day. June is also Pride Month. Um President Miranda, Vice President Engles, board member Dare, and I joined CEA for the Stonewall Columbus Pride March this past Saturday. We're also joined by OPSY President Lois Carson and our OPSY team members in the parade. We're very grateful for the opportunity to march alongside all of our educators, staff, families, students, and community partners in a visible show of support and belonging. Thank you to everyone who represented um CCS and participated in the >> [clears throat] >> Pride March this weekend. And I also want to um say shout out to our CCS communications team. Our communication team communications team received national recognition
014from the National School Public Relations Association. These awards really reflect their creativity, strategy, and storytelling. They received four of four distinct awards last week. They received top honors in writing [clears throat] with the excellence in writing award recognizing two feature stories. They also received recognition for our leaders grown here campaign. They received an award of merit in the social media category. The our future our CCS workshop presentation materials received the top honor and award of excellence in the special purpose publication category. And just we just want to continue to thank them for their creativity and hard work in representing and sharing our CCS stories across the district and across our community. And that includes my remarks for this evening. Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay. We will have the first board monitoring report culturally responsive
015staff. Guardrail four. >> Yes, we are ready to begin with our first presentation [clears throat] on guardrail four. I want to again thank our community our board members for this opportunity to provide an update on two of our guardrails this evening. As a reminder this will be our second and third guardrail monitoring report this year. In [snorts] April we provided our first monitoring report on the whole child guardrail. Want to remind everyone that our board goals reflect the vision of our community. And in addition to the three goals set by the board, you have established three guardrails, uh four guardrails. These guardrails reflect the values of the community, and they ensure that how we will accomplish the goals respects those values. Goals are measured by student outcomes, and guardrails, which we will be discussing tonight,
016reflect the adult behaviors. What are the actions and strategies that the staff will take. We'll start tonight with our guardrail to ensure a culturally responsive staff. At this time, Dr. Brown will describe the alignment of our guardrails to our [clears throat] strategic plan and strategies. >> Good evening. So, during the course of this year, uh there was a lot of work to align our and update our strategic plan to the board guardrails. And you've already seen some of this work. When we came and presented on the whole child uh guardrail, you saw the alignment and the new metrics for that. Uh in addition to aligning the the strategic plan, we have updated the metrics to make sure the metrics were very well aligned to the guardrails as well. That was shared with the board back
017in March. So, the March uh back in March, the board had all the updated, not only strategic strategic initiatives, but also the metrics that were going to be uh used for this year. And again, the whole child uh guardrail that came before you was organized that way, and today's reports will be as well. And with no further ado, I'm going to hand things off to Mr. Pollard, who's going to carry on. >> Good evening, board members and community. I'm Tari Pollard, director of of talent acquisition here at Columbus City Schools. I'm going to talk to you about some exciting work we're doing in our HR department. We're really excited about the work we've been doing here for the last couple years. We've seen some great results. I'm going to tell you a little bit about
018those things, all right? Sounds good? >> Sounds good. >> All right, sounds good. All right. Today, I'm going to present a update on Grow Your Own Forward, the initiative's diverse educator and leadership pipeline focuses on attraction, development, and growth through programs such as Grow Your Own, teacher residency program, Teach CCS, leadership interns, and and university partnerships. We are creating multiple pathways in the profession, expanding opportunities for current employees to advance their careers. This helps us build a strong, diverse that reflects Oh, sorry about that. Uh that reflects the communities we serve. The second initiative talks about organizational values, belonging, and adult wellness, focuses on retention and workforce stability. Recruiting and recruiting talent talented employees is only the beginning. >> I think the >> To keep great people in our district, we create an environment where
019employees feel valued, connected, supported through mentoring, wellness supports, [clears throat] work condition programs, professional learning, opportunities for belonging, and strengthening the conditions that help our employees thrive and remain committed to Columbus City Schools. So, before I go further, let's talk about the why and the foundation of this work. It is important to understand that the foundation of this work, research consistently shows that students perform better when they have access to educators who understand their experiences and can build strong, lasting relationships. For Columbus City Schools, this means intentionally creating pathways that increase access to professional, removing barriers for for educators, and develop leaders who can serve diverse school communities. This work is not simply a staffing strategy. It is a student achievement strategy. When students feel seen, valued, and supported, they are more engaged in school,
020which positively impacts attendance, achievement, and overall success. This foundation guides every initiative every initiative you'll see in this presentation. Diverse educators in the pipelines. All right. So, this slide demonstrates our strategies, actions, and outcomes. On the left side, you'll see key strategies that support this work. It includes districts and grant funding pipeline development, teacher apprenticeships, partnerships with higher education, workforce development organizations, collaboration across HR, talent and leadership development, and equity-centered principal initiative. As the as the youth of our TCCS recruitment platforms and outreach tools. In the middle, you see the actions. We are launching and stabilizing teacher apprenticeship, residency pathways, expanding our grow-your-own, tuition-supported pathways, and teaching recruiting classified staff through workforce development partnerships, and strengthening internal pipelines. And conducting targeted recruitment through our teachers programs. The results of this work reflects in the outcomes
021on the right side. We are building sustainable educator leadership pipelines that reduce shortages over over turnover, increase community awareness of career opportunities within Columbus City Schools, and moving towards our goal of fully staffing classrooms and schools. This work is intentionally designed to create long-term talent systems that attracts, develop, prepares our educators and leaders while ensuring our students will have access to high quality staff in every building. So, what does that look like here? Our pathways to progress. You're going to hear it tonight about our leadership intern program, our highly licensure program, the grow your own, which we take our current staff and help them become teachers. You're going to hear about our Capital City Teacher Residency Program that also takes current um current staff. You're also going to hear about our TCCS, which is a
022groundbreaking thing we do here at Columbus City Schools that kind of helps integrate our student teachers into our fabric and help them become better educators along the line. So, without further ado, I'm going to bring up Principal Audrey Jones to talk about the leadership intern programs and our pipeline pathways as well. >> Thank you. Good evening. Board, president, members of the board, and superintendent and guests. My name is Audrey Jones, principal of Northgate Intermediate. I just completed my 30th year as an educator and my 19th year as a principal, all with Columbus City Schools. I've been involved in leadership development and mentoring for the past 5 years through our leadership pipeline program. I have seen firsthand how meaningful mentoring relationships have helped individuals build confidence, develop critical leadership skills, and discover their potential to make
023a difference. As we look at slide 10, our leadership intern program is one of the strongest examples of growing talent with within. Through partnerships with universities, mentoring principals, and leadership coaches, aspiring leaders receive structured professional development experiences that prepare them for future leadership roles. I would like to give special thanks to our senior leadership for believing and entrusting our principals with this important work. Dr. Chapman, our superintendent, consistently reminds us that building administrators are the backbone of this district. I'm grateful for the trust he has placed in me as a leadership intern mentor to help communicate our model or model our district's vision, mission, and goals for the future leaders. Her success is contingent on mentor principals like me to execute our strategic plan with fidelity to our future leaders, and there is no need
024to deviate from that plan because our district has laid out a plan that is intentionality and with alignment. Interns engage in professional learning aligned to our portrait of an equity-centered leader and receive ongoing feedback on their growth. This work is important because strong principals are among the most influential factors in school success. By and intentionally providing future leaders, we strengthen succession plans, leadership continuity, and long-term organizational stability. Looking back when I was a leadership intern from 2006 to 2008, I would never compare two different eras as if one was better than the other, but I can say that we have evolved and advanced successfully over the years because of people like Marie Stogner, who was in my initial interview for a leadership intern position in 2006. Need I mention that we had to provide a
025written portion at the end of the in-person interview similar to our current process, but using paper and pen. I call that the dark ages. No smartphones, no AI, or Google to help us refine our response to the prompt. Just our brain and what was in our brain at that time. Mrs. Stogner Mrs. Stogner was also my executive director, the equivalent of an area superintendent in what is considered the updated title of elementary principal supervisor. She believed in me, and I am indebted to her. Special shout-out goes to Katherine Moser, who took me under her wing when I got my first opportunity to lead as an intern principal of literature base at Hubbard from 2007 to 2008. Ms. Moja came to my building, introduced herself to me and said, "Whatever you need, I got you." I
026was replacing I believe I was placing someone that she was good friends with with a colleague. And also, Ms. Moja was my daughter's principal at Indianola in formal K-8 before she transitioned to a new role in the district. Aubrey, my daughter, just graduated with honors in high school and plans to attend Ohio University this fall. Thank you, Ms. Moja, for supporting me in my first year as leader. Despite the many advances that we have made over the years, one thing has remained constant and continues [clears throat] to be essential to the develop development of future leaders, and that is mentorship. The relationship that are formed, the difficult but necessary conversations that must take place for growth, and the unwavering belief that aspiring leaders can become equity-centered leaders. So, okay. Building on the portrait of a
027graduate, Columbus City Schools created a portrait of an equity-centered leader as the standard for all principals in the district in conjunction with Ohio standards for principals. These six critical dispositions regarding social justice and equity in our district drive the work of our school leadership team. The slides highlights our investment in current principals and assistant principals. Through our partnership efforts and leadership framework, we have established a common vision for effective school leadership. New principals participate in cohort-based learning, coaching, and professional development aligned to equity-centered leadership practices. This creates consistency across the district while ensuring leaders have the skills necessary to support students, staff, and families. Strong leadership creates stronger school cultures, improves staff retention, and ultimately supports better student outcomes. I would especially like to the Wallace Foundation for providing professional learning opportunities focus on equity
028for me and my cohort of principals from our former region five over the past three years. During that time I have grown tremendously in my understanding of what it means to be an equity centered leader. Through our professional learning community, we have had the opportunity to travel to University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, San Francisco, and Montgomery, Alabama. These experiences challenged us to expand our thinking and deepen our leadership practices. We've learned how to move from growth mindset to equity centered mindset, how to think beyond immediate challenges of today and focus on the future of education our communities, and how to recognize that there are often multiple perspectives to every story. One lesson that has stayed with me is the question, do we ever hear the lion's story or only the hunter's
029version? In addition, we explored practical applications of MTSS process and strategies on how to help leaders on systematic change rather than isolated solutions. These experiences have strengthened my commitment to ensuring that every student has access to opportunities, support, resources that they need to be successful. When administrators are first introduced to this concept of portrait of a principal, we had some reservations, questions, and we pushed back. I remember someone saying, "What about a portrait of a human resource supervisor or a transportation director?" And we felt singled out as if we were the only group that should be held to a standard and leadership listen to us. I would like to thank our senior leadership and people like Diane, Agnes, and my area super my former area superintendent, and Dr. Esslinger, who provided professional development to us
030over the past three years, and they simply provided us with examples of what these pillars represented in our daily work. We previously never put a name to it, monitor it, or evaluated it. This was essential This is is what we needed from leadership to connect the dots. In closing, I've learned to approach the portrait of an equity-centered leader much like saying, "How do you eat an elephant?" One bite at a time. And another phrase that resonates with me, "If you highlight everything, you have highlighted nothing." These reminders help me focus on my professional growth in meaningful and intentional way. As I look ahead up to our upcoming school year, my primary area of focus will be system architect pillar. This does not mean I will abandon the other five pillars. Rather, I recognize that meaningful
031growth takes time, reflection, and deliberate practice. By concentrating my efforts in one area while continuing to strengthen the others, I can can become a more effective leader for my students, staff, and families. Thank you to the district leadership, mentors, colleagues, and community partners, and universities who continue to invest in developing leaders throughout Columbus City Schools. The success of our future leaders depends not only on the programs we create, but on the relationships that we build, the guidance we provide, and the belief that we place in one another. I'm grateful for those who believed in me, and I'm honored to pay it forward by helping develop the next generation of equity-centered leaders. Thank you. >> Thank you, Principal Jones, for that wonderful example of what it takes to be a Columbus City leader here in Columbus
032City Schools. So, this chart that we have right here demonstrates the pipeline efforts. We continue to create opportunities for internal investments, developing leaders within within helps to help to help us retain and strengthen our school culture and create a consistency across the board. So, on the chart right here, you're going to see '22 through '23, '23 through '24, and '24 through '25. That first part of '23 represents uh internal hires that we had of 76%. And then you go up to the next one we have our 23-24 is 82% of our of our folks that we had in leadership positions were also internally and then you go to our last year 24-25 we have 91% of all of our hires being from within Columbia within our culture. So this kind of shows that our work
033our pipeline is working. The tools that we're putting in place are actually happening and we're allowing our staff to grow and continue to build within our legacy. Now I'm going to talk about some of the other pipelines work we have. We have the grow your own GWO. This program is funded through the Ohio Department of Education and they allows people to get $750,000 per year for 4 years to get your teaching license. Currently right now we have had three cohorts and this program has a holistic approach. We make sure that we pretty much hand hold our folks throughout this process. We have instructional assistants, we have secretaries, we have building subs who are in this program now who have continued to matriculate and earn their teaching license teaching licensure. We currently have hired eight folks
034from this group. We have 29 in the pipeline still and we currently have two high school students who are rising sophomores who got the scholarship here a couple years ago. One is majoring in PE and the other is majoring in art. So that talks about the pipeline work not only from inside of our teaching classroom but also inside of our classroom for our students. One thing I will say about this program is uh the funding has stopped for this program from the state. We're going to figure out we're going to need to figure out how we're going to continue to fund this moving forward. But I will say those 29 individuals right there still have their scholarships. They can still be able to get paid but if we want to add new people to the
035pipeline we'll have to find some funding for this. But this is a great opportunity great program that we have at Rock Island City Schools. Our next program is our Capital City Teacher Residency program. This program is unique because it takes our internal staff and allows them to become educators through Capital University. Once again, this is a dual process throughout this. We are simply holding their hand through the process. We have a wonderful partnership with Capital. These folks have a two-year program and the unique thing about this program is the teaching experience. Instead of folks having to take 4 months off without getting paid, these individuals are allowed to take 1 day off a week for a full year to get their teaching experience in there to earn their licensure. This is a great program that
036we have here. We have hired nine individuals from this program and we still have 20 more in the pipeline seeking their licensure. So, really excited about this program too as well because as you see our pipeline is really starting to kind of mirror our Leadership Intern Program as well. Last but not least is our TCCS program. This is our traditional program that we have for our student teachers where we simply take our folks who come in here who are seniors who are teaching and we provide them with a program around them. So, we have a welcome program. We have PD. We also have our signature signing day where we have them come on down to the um 3700, interview with our team, talk to us and hopefully get a contract to to become educated with
037us. This is We have two cohorts for this program so far and I think the most significant part of this program is really going to be that community immersion program. These folks are really into this program. They go out to different YMCAs, already come out to some of our Move Together events and really immerse themselves to the community. When you get that immersion, the the immersment with our young educators, you get a powerful program, very powerful program. So, what did I just say? What what What does all this mean? So, in the chart right here, with our Grow Your Own, Capital City program and our TCCS, in 2023, all of our hiring for teachers only 8%. 8% was in 23-24. 24-25, we had about 11% of all of our teaching and pipelines being internal. When
038I say internal, I'm talking about the grow your own program, your Capital City program, and your TCCS program. Last year was our first year for our TCCS, and it was also was our first year to kind of see some return on investment from our other group pipelines. We had just at the 20% for 24-25. So, 20% of our teachers we hired have come from our internal programs here at Oklahoma City Schools. [clears throat] Once again, that speaks to our pipeline, that speaks to our commitment, and that speaks to our targeted recruitment strategies to make sure that we have great educators not only knowing our students, but from but are from from our our but but are from our community as well. So, next steps. Phase one, our focus is strengthening capacity. This includes finalizing our
039docu- our document educator leadership pipeline structures, such as grow your own, teacher regency, and teacher apprenticeship. We are also establishing baseline data related to the pipeline participation, pipeline to hire conversion, application applicant diversity, and leadership advancement. As we move into implementation, we're going to shift from to consistency. We will continue to expand student teacher efforts, particularly hard-to-fill teaching roles and leadership positions. We also plan to expand our grow your own program and teacher apprenticeships, and tuition supported pathways. During this phase, we will implement consistent tracking to pipeline hire conversions, and monitor the the diversity of applicants in our hiring pool. The final phase will be refinement and stability. We will analyze our long-term trends and pipeline success, and leadership advancement, refine recruitment and preparation strategies based on workforce demand and conversion data. Identify and scale
040our highest impact pathways. And these program will help stabilize us as we move forward to the future. Now we're going to shift to our organizational values, belonging and adult wellness. This portion will talk about our programs for all of our staff, our staff belonging, and what we're doing to make sure our staff feel safe and heard in our district here Columbus City Schools. Our first initiative focuses on developing and attracting staff. This slide highlights strategies, actions, and outcomes throughout the workplace. Our strategies include mentor teacher, peer assistant review structure, adult wellness and resources, partnerships, employee recognition, engagement initiatives, and the use of district-wide climate and engagement data to inform our decisions. >> [clears throat] >> These strategies drive into the actions in the center slide, where we are providing mentorship, inductions, peer support for new
041educators and leaders. We have a minute wellness initiatives that promote balance and well-being, and large milestones, recognition staff, and programming. As a result of these efforts, we are we are creating a district-wide process for milestones and contributions. Improving staff perceptions of belonging, wellness, and organizational support. And strengthening professional relationships across the schools and departments. This work is critical because recruitment alone does not create workforce stability. Employees are more likely to remain with an organization when they feel valued, supported, connected, and recognized. These efforts help us create the conditions that strengthen retention and support through long-term success for both employed for both employees and students. So, every year, twice a year, we have our Panorama data that goes out to our families and our students, but and also goes out to our staff too as well.
042What you see here is adult sense of belonging across the board. Adult sense of belonging mean how educators feel connected to the school and to their community. As you see here for our teachers across spring of 23-24 and our spring 25-26, you are seeing that we're pretty much staying status quo across the board. You're not really seeing very much really in that our changes with our data. Same thing goes for our school staff as well. You're seeing we're at 62%, 64%, 64%. Next is our school administrators. You see 80% and then you see a slight drop for 65, but we rebounded back to 80%. That goes to show that when our educators spoke to us, our road leaders spoke to us, we put things in place to make sure we heard them and make sure
043they feel valued. Last year you see our central office staff, we're at 61%, 65, and 64. This is showing that we're pretty much stable across the board, but we're also trying to make sure that we're listening to our staff and making sure we put things in place to make sure they feel heard and welcome throughout this process. Next is our staff retention data. This is basically our staff who has stayed with us from from every year. From 22 to 23, you're seeing 91%. 23-24, you're seeing 90%. And 24-25, you are seeing 90% again. You're not seeing very much friction in this data. This goes to show that with the efforts that we're doing inside of our district are working, our programs are working, our wellness programs are working. And to talk more about the announcement
044going to the director of total rewards rewards, Becky Roe. >> Good evening board chair, vice chair, members of the board, superintendent, treasurer, and auditor. All of the above. So, tonight we'll be discussing why wellness or why employee well-being in K-12 matters. So, Here we go. So, as we continue this conversation around culture, early responsive staff, and strong learning communities, we want to acknowledge the fact that student success is closely connected to the well-being and support of the adults working in the district and with our students every day. Research shows us that when employees feel connected, valued, supported, and engaged, they are better positioned to build meaningful relationships with students, contribute to positive school culture, and then Yeah, I'm sorry. And create environments where students can thrive academically, socially, and emotionally. The next few slides highlight
045how the staff wellness initiative is helping strengthen employee engagement, connection, and workplace culture across the district while supporting the broader goals of the workforce stability, belonging, and student success. Ultimately, our wellness initiative work is grounded in the understanding that healthy schools are built by healthy, supported adults, students, and communities. I'd like to now introduce Meetha Veeramalli, who is a member of our wellness team and supports this guardrail along with Jackie Broderick Patton and Olivia Warzecha. Thank you. >> Thank you, Becky. Good evening, President Dr. Miranda, Vice President Engles, Superintendent Dr. Chapman, board members, and community. My name is Smitha Yaramilli, and I'm a member of the staff wellness team. I'm presenting today on behalf of our district wellness coordinator, Jacqueline Broderick Patton, and my wellness team colleagues. I'm excited to share how staff wellness is
046strengthening connection, engagement, and culture across Columbus City Schools. Healthy, supported staff are the foundation of healthy, thriving students. And that belief is at the heart of our work at the CCS wellness initiative. That connection is something one of our own staff members put into words beautifully in a recent testimonial. She said, "The skills I've gained through wellness programming have helped me support students in self-regulating and to be a source of peace in the storm for my colleagues." Our wellness team knows that testimonials like this one are very powerful and deeply moving. They remind us of our why, and they are just as important to us as any data point we could share. We are proud to share this work in measurable outcomes. The CCS wellness initiative has grown into an award-winning, holistic workforce well-being program.
047Staff feedback, participation trends, staff interest surveys, and organizational priorities are all considered when designing programming. This approach helps ensure wellness offerings reflect the evolving needs of our workforce and our district community. As we analyze and interpret our data, we continue to see growing employee interest in emotional well-being, mental health supports, resilience, connection, and stress management programming. These efforts directly support Dr. Chapman's and the Board of Education's continued focus on Guardrail 4, PBIS, restorative practices, culturally responsive environments, and a positive school culture across Columbus City Schools. Before I share our numbers, I want to briefly explain how we measure participation. Cumulative participation captures overall engagement, while unique participation shows the equitable reach of how widely support is accessed across different job roles, shifts, and work settings. Last year, we saw more than 11,000 cumulative staff participants
048with 4,305 unique employees engaging in wellness programming. Employees from all over the district in all buildings participated in wellness last year, and that includes schools, transportation sites, operational locations, administrative offices, and departments. Employee feedback during and following the pandemic showed increasing interest in emotional well-being and mental health support, stress management tools, flexibility, and belonging. In response, wellness expanded and adapted those offerings to better address those emerging workforce needs, and that contributed to a a substantial growth in participation and engagement following the years of COVID. We saw a 32% increase in participation from 2021 to 2025. The growth shown on this slide also demonstrates the district's continued year-over-year efforts to expand participation, strengthen engagement, and refine programming in response to what our employees need. While participation alone is not the only outcome we measure, we're looking
049at multiple different indicators, including employee requests for programming, participation and engagement trends, repeat participation, and employee feedback that we collect through post-program evaluations and our wellness surveys. Those data points help us assess whether programming is meaningful, relevant, and supportive to employees all over the our district. Our wellness initiative is active, growing, and widely used across our district. Our program reach continues to expand. This past year, 2,408 employees participated for the very first time, and that's contributed to a 46% district-wide participation rate. This graph illustrates an important shift that occurred following COVID. While participation declined during the pandemic, the years that followed marked a pivotal point for our wellness initiative. Participation and engagement rebounded and then accelerated, and our programming themes broadened from learning about personal well-being to more mental health, connection, building resilience, and the
050best ways to support colleagues and students. We expanded our programming to meet those changing needs. Last school year, we surveyed our staff to understand what they value in wellness programming, learned more about their barriers to participation, what supports help them feel connected and supported at work, and how the district can more effectively engage employees in wellness and well-being initiatives. We received 1,198 survey responses, which is a 13.2 response rate. For a large for large voluntary online surveys, a 13.2 response rate falls within the typical 10 to 30% range, and that provides us with a reasonable snapshot of our staff. One major goal of our wellness team is to continue increasing that employee participation in the survey process, so we have an opportunity to hear from more employees, and that better informs our future programming and
051strategic planning efforts. Staff voice has expanded significantly over time from about 70 responses in the 15-16 school year when we first started surveying our staff to now at 1,200 responses in the 24-25 school year. This momentum helps ensure that programming remains responsive to what our employees actually need. The survey findings were clear. There's an increasing interest in emotional regulation, resilience skills, psychological safety, and workplace connection along with opportunities that strengthen strengthen belonging and workplace culture. We also saw opportunities to deepen engagement among employees who work in elementary schools and to further increase visibility and engagement with upper-level leadership. Taken together with participation and engagement trends, these insights are informing our programming priorities and our strategic planning as now we're moving into the 26 and 27 school year. Thank you for the opportunity to share our
052work this evening. Your continued support for staff well-being and connection strengthens our school culture and ultimately supports student success. Thank you. >> Thank you. All right, we are wrapping up about 40 more slides, you all. I'm seeing your face. About 40 more slides. We're wrapping up here. Um so, as we can conclude this whole process about our pipelines and our wellness work, we do know that healthy staff members are better supported when they have healthy learners. So, on this [clears throat] picture right here, you see my daughter and and myself. That's the the lovely girl who accompanied me right there. We're at a um a program called Move Together that's held monthly at different schools. This particular week it was at Hampton Steam Steam Academy. And during these events, we encourage our staff to come
053out, our community to come out, and simply we get together, we talk about some of the things going on in the school district, what's happening at the school, but more importantly, you get to walk a mile or run a mile with your family in the community. So, this picture is is of of me and my daughter walking in in the Hamilton STEM community through the neighborhood. And the cool thing about this as we're walking through the neighborhood, cars are stopping, people are honking, people are opening their doors. They're seeing Dr. Brady. They're joining in on this walk with us through the community. So, we started with about 15 people, we ended up with about 50. That's what you talk about a move together. That's wellness. That's employee belonging. That's how you merge these things together.
054So, in closing, our next steps as we continue to do this work. We're going to establish baseline measures. We're going to expand across adult wellness. Implement consistent staff climate and engagement data review routines. We're going to implement and refine our induction programs to consistently across all our school district all our schools. We're going to facilitate networking connection opportunities for professional relationships. We're going to monitor our trends for staff retention and wellness. And then in 2027-2028, for expansion and refinement, we're really going to refine our onboarding process and mentoring programs. We're going to make sure that we're doing everything we can to make sure our staff is successful and they want to be here at CCS. So, with that being said, I close. Any questions? >> Excuse me, ma'am. >> Um I'm curious if you track
055um absenteeism because one of the things we um also often times hear when people, you know, take a mental health day or they're feeling stressed and burnt out. Just wondering, do we find [clears throat] that teacher staff absence is the same, increasing, this is helping um absenteeism? >> Yeah, well, our numbers show that based [clears throat] on the information that we have put in place for our wellness team, we are seeing some dips in our absenteeism rate. We are seeing people come to work more often and we are creating those environments for them to to thrive. I don't have the exact numbers, but we are seeing [snorts] some decline in our attendance rates for absenteeism for our teachers. >> I think that would be helpful to add cuz I think it could be part of
056it because that's one of the signs that people feel like they have to take off work. And so, I think really looking at the absenteeism of staff and teachers would be really important. >> No problem, we'll definitely get that to you. We'll research that out for sure. >> Any other questions? >> Yes. Uh Thank you, President Miranda. Uh as relates to the the grow your own program, if we can go back there real quick. Uh it was 20% increase in teacher >> hires. >> Teacher hires, it was that with >> Yeah, so this right here? >> Yep. And so, [clears throat] of that of that 20% when we talk about, you know, having teachers that reflect the community and and I know a lot of our, you know, current teachers don't necessarily reflect the community
057of Columbus, I should say. Uh but we do know a lot of those instructional assistants do. And so, how many of those instructional assistants have kind of pathways towards earning, you know, participating in grow your own, any other kind of programs that we have? >> Yeah, absolutely. So, I don't have the exact numbers, but the majority of our pipeline work is our instructional assistants. >> [clears throat] >> Okay. >> There are no worries. So, they are instructional assistants there in the classroom, in the community, and they're helping drive our diversity up to the next level. >> Okay. That That would be great to we can >> Yeah. >> kind of track that >> Yes, sir. Yeah, absolutely. Dr. Dr. Kenny, yes, sir. Dr. Kenny, yes, sir, we'll get that to >> Board member Dr. Pierce.
058>> I just have a quick question. You indicated that you don't have the numbers. So, I I just want to correct me if I'm wrong. So, I'm looking at the responses to the questions that I sent prior to the report being given this evening. The raw figure that I see is there were 41 pipeline hires for a total of 201 that led to the 20.40% increase. Is that correct? >> Yes, ma'am. >> So, we don't have figures on of that 41, how many are instructional assistants that have come through the pipeline, correct? >> Not right now at the current moment. >> But the data that I just relayed is the correct data as it relates to the corresponding figure. >> Yes, we have we have the raw numbers that we've shared as a part of
059the Q&A, but we this was for all of our staffing pipeline hires. So, that could be teachers, that could be IAs. So, we can certainly work on sharing that additional information. >> So, we can aggregate it across previous job role as well as what job role they're going into. When can we respect a response to that question and that data? >> I'll get to you by next week. >> Thank you. >> Other Yes, board member Katzenmeyer. >> Thank you Dr. Miranda, there was a a slide in there about adult sense of belonging. Um I was just wondering what the the most like what are what are the most important factors that contribute to um to an adult sense of belonging. Asking for a friend. >> Asking for a friend. >> Yeah. >> Of course. >>
060The panorama is several questions in there about it's basically about how do you feel the district how do you feel the school and the community is here and make sure that you feel feel valued. So, it's about 10 questions that ask you do you feel do you feel heard? Do you feel respected? Do you feel valued? Do the kids respect you? Do the staff respect you? Do the central office respect you? So, those are some of the questions you kind of get from that adult sense of belonging because the whole point of being in the belonging is that I feel valued and heard in my space that I that I work at. Thank you. >> For member Dr. Pierce. >> That is a great question because as I was looking at the information that we
061were given when we walked into the room, I have a follow-up question on that. Um and it doesn't quite correspond with the annual report that we were given. But, the notes that we were given for the monitor and report the question of really employee support, employer support for staff health and well-being is one of the lowest ratings. It is actually a 3.83 out of five. Um a 73.4% that's on page nine. And the question is I feel like my employer supports my mental health and well-being. Which doesn't correspond with what I'm reading in the annual report because it shows that we actually are doing well in that response. So, my question is which response is accurate? And if this one is accurate, what are we doing to ensure that our staff feel supported and that
062we are really intentional about their well-being. >> Yes, ma'am. >> And again, I apologize cuz we were just given this. So, I'm trying to digest and go through. So, if I'm reading this incorrectly and the data is correct because right now they're not corresponding, do correct >> right here. So, that sense of belonging is a whole category. It's multiple questions. >> emotional. >> This is the aggregate of all those questions in there. So, that's why you see that that distinction between those two. So, both things improve at the same time. You do have the 3% there, but overall, this is what they you're seeing across the board from our administrators from that whole sense of belonging piece. >> So now I have a overall question about this report that's being submitted to us based upon
063our board doing its due diligence and submitting the questions ahead of time requesting the materials. This is quite a bit for us to digest. The numbers are not corresponding. We're getting aggregates of data up here. We're getting broken down questions and responses here and it has not been thoroughly explained. I know my board members in the past have brought it to the attention of the entire board to say that this is unacceptable. So I again echo that this is unacceptable to expect us to digest this information and to accept and approve the report. We gave you extra time for this. And and I'm here with binders and and I'm I'm doing it. I'm trying to figure it out. I'm I'm doing my homework. But we have to stop this. >> Yes, board member Simmons. >>
064[clears throat] >> Thank you, President Dr. Miranda. I'd like to learn more about I think when you look at the entire guardrail, you know, it says the superintendent will not allow cultural non-responsivity to impact student experiences or staff effectiveness. And you know, of course there are some things we know like you know, our our own pipeline of course is going to improve student experience because just our those folks are already familiar with our kids and our system. But I'd like to have seen a little bit more in the future about how we're linking these things back to the student experience because ultimately that is supposed to be the underlying work of all of the guardrails, the student experience. And what is the the the outcome for our students. And so I'd like to I don't
065feel that that's really connected well back to the students in this presentation because ultimately if we read the full guardrail, not just what the title is. The title is ensure a culturally responsive staff. But if we read the full guardrail, it says to impact student experiences or experience or staff effectiveness. And I didn't really feel like that component was really highlighted in the presentation today. And I also, Dr. Pierce, I wasn't sure what pages if you could get give us the page numbers. Um I I I missed it. We were saying there was some information that in the materials. >> example, the data if you look at the annual report that we have from 24 through 25 on page nine and page 11, that doesn't necessarily correspond with the data or the responses that were
066given to us in our question outline, as well as I don't know what we want to call this. The guardrail um for monitoring port wellness initiative responses. So, the annual report took a cumulative of all the participation rates. I think this report to us tried to break it down. And if you look at the participation counts, I think the number is off because the cumulative participation, for example, in the annual report says 11,397. When you come over to this monitoring report responses we get, it says the participation count was 1,480. And there were 24 offerings. Where this report says there was 4,305 offerings again. So, if that's cumulative of all the years together, then we should have higher or more numbers here from school year probably 2016 through 2017 all the way down to school
067year 2024 through 2025. >> Mhm. >> So, I I'm sure the data is there, but again, because we're not given this in a timely manner, you missing data and it's not corresponding. >> So, um thank you for the report. One of the things, um I'll look to my board. One of the things I would like to suggest is based on some of the feedback that you go back and add some clarification, but more importantly, get the report to us early so that we can ask any questions and then you can be ready to respond to them. Okay. >> And I have Just can I ask one more additional questions to add when they come back to us with revisions? >> Um I think I'm really concerned about how are we figuring out what wellness initiatives
068are working for our staff. Colleagues, as you go through and look through the the two reports, you'll see one year we're offering flu shots, the next we're not, but it's saying that the flu shots get the most participation. We're offering em- embo- embodied embold training one year, the next year we're not. So, as we are making these cuts and really determining >> [clears throat] >> the impact of the programs and initiatives that we have in the district, you all need to come back to us and really tell us what initiatives are making the impact that are helping our students be successful in the classroom, that are helping our staff work through conflict when they have it, that are making sure that our staff are excited to come into the into the buildings, into the classroom,
069right? It's not just a matter of putting together a hodgepodge of activities and offering them so you can show us like, "Hey, we have a hundred 400 and something programs happening." We want to know the impact cuz you could have two programs that are having a huge impact and we will be like so happy with that, right? As opposed to having 470 that are making mid impact. >> So, I would like to respond. I know Dr. Pierce, you had a question about my responses with the wellness initiatives for figure five growth and mental health and belonging sports. Just want to clarify that that participation count is strictly talking about the offerings that address mental health resilience, mindfulness, you know, all of the guardrails that we discussed today. Um, so that is showing a cumulative participation
070count and the number of offerings that we offered. >> I appreciate that, but it doesn't correspond to the numbers that are given in here, which say these are all related to the wellness initiatives as well. So, do you see the disconnect? >> Mhm, I understand. >> The two should be speaking to one another. And I This is done very nicely, so I'm sure all the data in here probably captures the full picture and this was a synopsis of of half of that, maybe, right? >> For member Simmons. >> Thank you, President. Um, Dr. Miranda, I I do agree that I think, you know, maybe we need to go back and get some additional information because it part of this is all the information all of it, and I really do mean all of it needs
071to be delivered to the board in advance, a reasonable amount of time for us to read the information. When we don't get the information in advance, it really undermines our ability to effectively serve the public. And so, I can't go through this right before the meeting, and I can't go through this right before the meeting, and I also can't go through this right before the meeting, and I also can't go through this right before the meeting, and I also can't go through this right before the meeting. And so, you know, there has to be a renewed commitment to getting us all of the information. And, you know, we have that written down, we just need to actually do it. But, you know, it really does need to be all of the information. And if we
072need to get clarity on what I mean by all of the information, I mean everything that's going to go to the board, we need in advance. Everything that's going going presented to us, all the materials, every single thing we need in advance every time for every agenda item. Um that's just That's what our policy says. Um >> Thank you, board member Simmons. >> Yes. >> I one more just one more since since we're going back to get more information. Uh if we look at the the Wallace Foundation, I know the the the grant is is up, but do we have what were the deliverables and what were the outcomes, particularly as we think about how we can utilize this as as a model to be able to scale or to seek additional funding for for
073supports for our uh leaders? >> Yeah, the Wallace Was it the Wallace Foundation? >> speak to that. So, the the principal The Wallace Foundation has um we've been part of a cohort of eight districts that participated in the Wallace Foundation for the last 5 years, and each year at the end The funding for each year is never guaranteed. You have to complete year one deliverables, and they will determine if they will continue to implement or provide funding for the year two. So, there's a review at the end of each year with very um ex- explicit and uh specific reporting um requirements. We provided a copy of the year end report for year five um as a part of another conversation that we're having tonight. Um but the um because we have been meeting all of
074the expectations and the deliverables, they have decided to extend the grant to a year six. We signed up for this grant, it was only year It was only 5 years, and they have decided that some districts can proceed and move into a year six. Again, recognizing that we've been having some very difficult conversations as a board, as a community about um budget reductions, and they really wanted to show up for us and make sure that we were able to contin- continue that support in year six. But as a part of each year, we have been focusing on one of the standards that we work on the deliverables is an area of sustainability. How will we sustain the practices beyond the grant funding? And so what And that's not just the onus is not just on
075the school district because there's five other partners in this work with us. And so they're helping us to create that sustainability. I.e. how we will how will we continue to build the relationship with our higher ed partners? How will we how will we continue to build the relationship with our state partners the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce? How will we continue to build our internal pipelines beyond the source of the funding so we can share the end the year end report and also a part as a part of the Wallace Foundation they're very committed to the research aspect of this. So there's been a research a strong research companion to the grant and every year we have researchers that are working with us and all of the other districts so that they're preparing a
076a body of research to inform practices across the nation. And so that's that's essentially how we ensure that this work lives beyond today beyond tomorrow outside of CCS. And so they're working to again provide the additional resources as well as the expertise and quantitative and qualitative research to ensure that the stories the leadership stories that Dr. [clears throat] Jones shared tonight that that lives on and the practices live on beyond the funding of the grant initiative. >> Thank you. >> I think Dr. Pierce has a question comment. >> yes, but it would kind of wrap up the report. >> Um so, colleagues I have our um board liaison checking on this for for me. Um my question is, do we want to accept the report or to table the report to come back to us?
077I am willing to enter the report into the record that it was given under the understanding that this was our superintendent and her team's first time at a pass of these two particular guardrails. Um we have shared, I think, feedback with them hoping that we will work with them and they will take our feedback questions and really respond to them in due diligence. Um and next time, next year, when they bring this report back, that it would be better um and address questions moving forward. Okay. I mean, do we cuz I I think at this point I'm the only one who's been trained on SOF G. And so, I don't want us to kind of get stopped at this point, right? I want us to keep some progress going. I think, you know, acknowledging that
078they took a pass at it, gave us something to to to discuss in dialogue. >> And um Dr. Pierce, um I just want to name and acknowledge on behalf of the team. The team has worked really hard on these reports. We wanted to make sure um that we got the full reports to you in advance, but there was additional supplemental information that I asked that the team print out at the table. So, I just want you to know that the additional supplemental information, I received the feedback that that too should be included in advance, but that was additional information that I thought the board would be helpful for the board. But again, we'll make sure that that additional supplemental information is also provided. There's resources for the appendix or additional reading material. We'll make sure
079that the board has ample time. >> Okay. >> I'm I'm moved to table >> I mean, so how do we feel about So I I think we don't even have to table it. Like I I feel like we could accept it and move on. We feel cuz we can't have an effective monitoring session. >> Well, I think in many of the suggestions, um I do agree that I would like to hear more um um information about how it is affecting the students. And this is particularly important given that we have to cut another $50 million. So, we have to really talk about the return on investment. I'm not saying it's not there. I absolutely do think it's there, but I think many of the comments that were provided will help improve the report and also
080I think um give us the information that we need about the importance of this. Um so, hopefully somebody was taking notes out there. >> Yeah. >> Um and we can get that. I'm happy to sit down with you and talk about ways that the report can be be improved so that next time more that the information we want is there, but also that we get it enough in advance and we can do a two-by-two. >> Mhm. >> So, that you can also be able to respond to the questions if that's fine. >> And >> For our board members, um I know that certainly top of mind for all of us is our um our budget reductions. Like what do we need to continue to commit to, where do we need to make changes as we've
081certainly wrapped up the first round of reductions. We know we have another round of reductions coming up. What we are also looking at is all of the financial investments that we have made to support each of these guardrails and the areas that we've already reduced. So, like moving into next school year, we know that we will have to make um investments in our curricular resources. Well, because we don't have new funding to for those investments, that means we're going to have to stop doing something else. And so, those are conversations, they're fluid, they're ongoing, certainly not um, in isolation as we're talking about tonight. We're talking about these two guardrails, but we're always thinking about how the investments that we're making align to our strategies that we want to continue to maintain and support. >>
082And I do think these are critical um, because we do have to have a workforce that feels like they belong because it does translate down to our students. So, um, I think however we can be able to also demonstrate that will be important as well. >> So, colleagues, given that we have had a discussion but not an effective monitoring session, I motion that we do not accept these two monitoring reports. Cuz we have to vote on them. >> You do not accept them. >> not I do not I motion that I do not accept. >> The the governance model is just accept or to send it back to the team because if it's not ready, the governance model says they should keep working on it until it is ready. >> And so, that's my caveat
083that I said earlier. I think because this is their first pass and go around of this, to have them then bring it back to us in August, September, when they have to report on August, we should get the portrait of ready instruction guardrail presentation. We should also be moving into presentations on closing our opportunity gaps. In September, we're going to be getting our board quarterly self-evaluation as well as committee reports in September. So, I think that's looking at August and September being jam-packed. So, what I'm asking my colleagues is I guess I'm okay with them taking another pass at this next year. If you all feel that they need to bring it back to us sooner, then we need to come up with when we expect this presentation to come back to us. >> Well,
084I guess my preference would be to table it. >> I'd like to make a motion to table um the monitoring reports until um our second meeting in August. >> Okay. Is there a second? >> So, looking at if I'm looking at our meeting structure for August, we're again getting a portrait of a ready presentation. Our portrait of a ready grant Do you want to look at it, too? >> Yeah, I I think Well, first I just want to question the We were just talking about the one report. >> Yes. >> report >> talking about the other report. We're only talking about this week. >> And there were no additional materials that were provided at your table for the second report. >> is only the first >> now we're just talking about the one report. Um
085Dr. Miranda, I thought your suggestion, which combined some feedback from Dr. Pierce, was a conversation of we could rename that we've completed the report and provided this presentation, but the additional questions and answers we could provide in two by twos to close out this segment of this report, and then we would then begin to move on to the second. So, certainly the board's discretion if you want us to come back to the table with >> I'd prefer if we follow our governance model, and we get the You know, we've been doing the the goals and guardrails for many years now, and I think we need to have the reports ready when they're due on the calendar that's been adopted for many years now. And, you know, so there's a motion on the table, and I'd
086like to respectfully request a second. >> Can I ask if you want to put a specific date because August is pretty heavy? >> I I don't I I you know president's discretion, you know. >> Okay. >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> Do we have a second to um >> It was. >> My motion was to >> Does the chair recognize it? >> To to reject them. >> Say your motion again. >> So my motion was to we've accepted this report, but they do not need to come back with a formal report. So in essence, it's to not accept the report, but to move forward with work at hand. >> I feel like you said two things. >> So I guess we've had the formal presentation, but we don't accept it. >> That's your motion. >> Okay.
087Your motion would be out of order accordance to our governance model which says we either accept it or we table it and our staff come back and get us the complete information that the community has identified these guardrails to be important to them. >> So we don't and that's what I think we need clarifi- clarification on because I don't think they necessarily have to bring the presentation back to >> It's under the keeping the conversation going section of the SOF G manual and it says keeping the conversation going >> are you on because I'm on page four. >> It says if the superintendent presents a monitoring report that is missing the prerequisites see board monitoring below or that fails to clarify for board members the extent to which really matches the goals or guardrails consider
088the consider consider tabling the conversation and giving the superintendent a chance to fix it and reoffer it at a subsequent meeting. >> I'm not seeing that on page 17 and I'm in the SOF G monitoring handbook. >> The big thing with all the rubrics >> Yes, I am. >> It's on page just do a if you control F and do you know keep the it will take you to the keep the conversation going section. >> I see understanding the progress monitoring, do your homework, understanding reality, keep the conversation with the superintendent. Okay. The superintendent can have a chance to fix it or reoffer it or and reoffer it instead of choosing not to accept, but we're choosing not to accept and end discussion. Read the whole sentence. >> All right, so we have a motion
089on the table. Is there a second to Dr. Pierce's motion? >> I mean, I want Can we I want everybody to actually see what we're saying here. >> No, no, I think Dr. Pierce is correct. >> Right here it says instead of choosing if we don't accept it, we end the discussion. She can reoffer it in a subsequent meeting if we want to, but I'm saying the motion not to accept it and end the discussion. >> Is it Does anybody want a second >> I think it's is dying out. >> There's no second. >> Second. >> Then it Okay. Dr. Kennedy second. >> So just so I understand Sorry. Don't we want to We're not actually rejecting this information. We just we are asking them to come back. So shouldn't that be Doesn't a table
090feel more more appropriate? >> So what I'm saying is given the work that we need to do moving forward, I'm looking at our board calendar. We have another report that's coming in August. So we're supposed to take off July. Right? We have another report that's coming in August, the portrait of ready instruction. We have committee reports that's coming. September, we move into our closing opportunity, which is our graduation monitoring report. Um October is our early literacy report. So we're about to just really start getting into our goals report after this one, right? And the next one. >> Yeah. >> So, if we look at the SOFG manual, one of our options is to not accept the report into end discussion. I do think the discussion that we had was fruitful because it points to ways
091to improve this report moving forward. This is our administration's first time giving the monitoring report on these two guardrails. What we're saying is great first pass of it. There's some work that needs to be done. Bring it back and calendar it >> Okay. Let's call the question. >> So, >> what is the question on >> Let's read the report, Mr. Cook. >> So, I have a motion to not accept the report and bring it back at a later time. >> No, mine's is to not accept the report and discuss it. >> forward. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Well, we have to I'm sorry. We have to accept it at or we have to accept it at some point, correct? >> No. So, >> So, let's call the No, no. We're going to >> Vote question.
092>> Yes. >> Dr. Kennedy. >> Yes. >> Vice President Engles. >> No. >> I'm sorry. >> No. No. >> Dr. Pearson. >> Yeah. Yes to not accept the report. >> Mr. Katzemeyer. >> She can still respond and give you answers to the questions. It's just a matter of does the presentation >> skip over him, Mr. Simmons. >> I know, but I think we No. We should bring it in to to to >> President I'm but I >> No. >> Mr. Katzemeyer. No. I'd like to make a motion to table this monitoring report and have it come back um to be calendared at the discretion of the board president. >> Okay. Do we have a second? Oh, did you second it, Sierra? >> Yeah. Yeah. So, my question is when are we as a board going
093to have a conversation about our board calendar? At the retreat, I think. >> Yes, thank you. >> Did we Did we come up with the retreat? >> Call the question. >> Vice President Hinkle. >> Yes. No. >> Mr. Katsamyer. >> I'm not going to know when we're going to retreat. >> Yes. >> We haven't even discussed that. >> Yes. Dr. Kennedy. >> No. >> President Dr. Miranda. >> Yes. >> Ocean Care. >> This is crazy. >> [clears throat] >> Okay, board monitoring through guardrail one, system support intervention. >> Y'all aren't even prepared for this. >> Good evening, board members, community members. Tonight, we have an opportunity to provide our first update to the board on our guardrail support intervention services. And this will This guardrail The language for this guardrail reads Support intervention systems, which
094states the superintendent will not allow MTSS systems to be under-resourced. This update focuses on how CCS is ensuring students receive timely, targeted academic support through a strong tier one foundation and aligned tier two and tier three systems. While the board goals focus on student outcomes, guardrails define the adult actions required to achieve those outcomes. This work reflects our commitment to aligning our practices with the values of our community. Tonight's support intervention systems update highlights how we are building systems to support that commitment. Guardrail one focuses on ensuring that our intervention our intervention systems are strong, aligned, and adequately resourced so that every student in Columbus City Schools experiences high quality rigorous instruction and timely academic support. At the core of this work are four strategic initiatives that work together as a system, not in isolation.
095And I would like to invite um Dr. Nelson to join us to begin talking about the different tiers of supports under this MTSS strategy. >> Thank you. Good evening, President Dr. Miranda, Vice President Mazingales, Board Members Dr. Pierce, Dr. Kennedy, Mr. Simmons, and Mr. Katzenmeyer. Superintendent Dr. Chapman, Treasurer Mr. Cook, and Internal Auditor Mr. O'Connor. Thank you for your time to share an update regarding our MTSS work. As we begin, it is important to highlight that MTSS matters. Sorry. MTSS matters because it shifts us from being reacting to challenges to proactively preventing them through a coordinated layered support system. It aligns academic, behavioral, and social emotional systems, strengthens data-informed decision-making, and ensures consistent support across schools and teams. At its core, MTSS advances equity, providing the right support at the right time based upon need.
096And it reinforces collective responsibility for all students, shifting the mindset from your students to our students. Ultimately, it improves outcomes and system efficiencies by aligning resources, strengthening teams, and focusing efforts where they matter most and ensuring that our student experience is equitable, inclusive, and designed to support the success of every learner. Okay. This graph outlines Ohio's integrated MTSS framework from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, which guides CCS in advancing guardrails one and two by ensuring that every student receives timely academic, behavioral, and social support. While aligned to statewide to statewide expectations, much of this work is already established in CCS and continues to be strengthened for consistency and impact. The model centers on student learning through universal screening, such as we use here I-Ready, our dyslexia screener, our Panorama screener, um to inform
097data-based decision-making in a collaborative team process, ensuring that a continuum of supports is available across core instruction and intervention, and ongoing progress monitoring to adjust those supports in real-time occurs. Team-based problem-solving reinforces shared responsibility for student outcomes. Adult implementation components of the framework includes shared leadership, professional development, and strong communication, ensuring coherence across the system. Together, this framework emphasizes that IMTSS is a comprehensive system, and CCS is building on a strong foundation to ensure that all students receive effective, evidence-based instruction and support. Okay. Our theory of action reflects the belief that when Columbus City Schools strengthens core instruction, implements targeted intervention systems, uses data to respond and identify our student needs early, and builds the capacity of our leaders to integrate and implement MTSS across our district, more students will experience academic growth, remain on
098track, and graduate prepared for post-secondary success and outcomes. This work begins with ensuring strong tier one instruction. Through the implementation of high-quality, board-adopted literacy and mathematics resources, professional learning, and instructional guidance, we strive we strive to provide every student with access to rigorous and engaging learning experiences on a daily basis. Essentially, every student, every classroom, every day. We also continue to support effective tier two systems by providing aligned assessment tools, data resources, and intervention supports to help schools monitor progress and accelerate student growth. In partnership with schools and departments across our district, we contribute to college and career connected learning opportunities that promote engagement, persistence, and readiness for life beyond high school. Ultimately, our work is aimed at developing portrait ready graduates. Students who are prepared for college, careers, and life through strong instruction, targeted
099supports, and meaningful learning experiences. With that foundation in mind, let's take a closer look at how this work is advanced across CCS and the systems that support its implementation. The following strategic initiative represents the district's focused efforts to ensure all students receive consistent, high-quality, standards-aligned literacy and math instruction every day. Okay. So, >> [clears throat] >> in order to be able to report on the fidelity of the implementation of curriculum, we first needed to develop a tool that would allow us to capture whether the core components of the curriculum were being implemented. We then needed to ensure that team members who were using the tool were doing so in a consistent manner. In other words, did different staff members make similar ratings when they made observations of the same instruction? Throughout the year, teams work
100to come together to greater Teams work to come to greater agreement in their observation of instruction through cycles of observation, discussion, and the development of feedback. Inter-rater agreement across learning walk observations show overall improvement over time with one early decline. Agreement um started at 0.44 in September of 2025 and [cough] it dropped to its lowest point at 0.25 in October 2025, but has since steadily increased. From November 2025 onward, scores rise and stabilize to the low to mid 0.6 range. By early 2026, agreement levels appear consistently higher and more stable, suggesting improved calibration or consistency among observers. After an initial dip, this data demonstrates meaningful progress towards stronger and more consistent reliability. This work and the efforts of our collaborative team will be utilized to continue monitoring Tier 1 implementation. This graph shows baseline learning
101walk data. Sorry. This graph shows baseline learning walk data measuring the fidelity of Tier 1 implementation in two content areas, math and English language arts or ELA. Math has a fidelity rate of of 72% while ELA is slightly lower at 69%. Both content areas are being implemented with moderately high fidelity, indicating that core instructional practices are generally in place. While math demonstrates slight slightly stronger implementation than ELA with a three percentage point difference, the results suggest relative consistency across subjects, but also highlight an opportunity to further strengthen ELA implementation. This baseline establishes a starting point for improvement efforts, particularly focusing on increasing fidelity in ELA while maintaining and refining strong practices in math. This slide includes a snapshot of our learning walk tool. As we continue to strengthen tier one instruction, our learning walk tool
102provides a shared lens for building and district leaders to monitor instruction, identify gaps, and inform next steps. Specifically, it enables examination of curriculum implementation, alignment of success criteria of student work, and how teachers monitor understanding and provide feedback, as well as many other aspects of high-quality tier instruction. This focused approach establishes a common language for effective tier one instruction and generates actionable evidence to guide coaching, professional learning, and continuous improvement. This slide highlights the key accomplishments supporting strong tier one instruction across all of our schools. First, through professional development and coaching, we have made sustained investments in supporting our teachers. Instructional coaches have worked side-by-side with educators to strengthen daily practice and deepen implementation of high-quality instructional materials. Second, through instructional monitoring, learning walks have given us a consistent, real-time view of instruction across schools.
103This evidence has shaped coaching conversations, guided professional learning development and implementation, and helped us target support where it is needed most. Third, through strengthened instructional structures and protocols, we have clarified expectations for tier one instruction. We've protected core instructional time, and we've increased consistency in literacy and math blocks across our classrooms. Finally, through more accurate identification systems, we have improved how we identify students who need additional support through strengthened by strengthening tier one instruction and using data more intentionally to guide our decisions in a timely, proactive manner. Together, these efforts reflect a more aligned, coherent system focused on improving instruction and accelerating student achievement. While Tier 1 is Tier 1 instruction is essential to the success of our MTSS framework and implementation, and it remains our most powerful lever for improving outcomes for all students.
104Tier 2 builds directly on this foundation by providing timely, targeted supports for students who need additional instruction to reach grade level expectations. The following strategic initiatives reflect the district's commitment to ensuring that Tier 2 supports are systematic, data-driven, and consistently implemented across schools. >> [cough] >> Tier 2 ensures that students are identified and provided with more time, opportunity, reteaching, and interventions aligned to their specific need. Early identification of student needs, academically and socially-emotionally, is paramount to effective Tier 2 implementation. As it is designed to be timely, precise, and flexible in order for students to be more successful in Tier 1 and receive the right support at the right time. As with Tier 1, we are working to create an inclusive measure of the fidelity of student participation in Tier 2 activity. As a starting point,
105we are utilizing participation in i-Ready >> [clears throat] >> individualized learning pathways to monitor Tier 2 implementation. Fidelity in the use of these pathways occurs when a student spends at least 30 minutes a week on an individualized pathway and scores at least 70% correct on the post-lesson test. 42% of our below grade level students used this Tier 2 instructional support with fidelity for English language arts. >> [cough and clears throat] >> And in math, nearly 48% of our students who are below grade level utilize the individualized instructional pathways as a tier two support for mathematics. This slide highlights the progress we've made in strengthening tier two supports across our district. Work that is helping us respond more quickly and more precisely to students who need additional support. First, we've improved consistency and how we identify
106and monitor students. Tier two screening and progress monitoring are happening more regularly across our schools, allowing us to catch needs earlier and respond with greater intention. Second, we've strengthened the connections between core instruction and intervention. Tier two supports are more clearly aligned to tier one instruction and help to create greater coherence in what students experience across our classrooms. Third, we have tightened our progress monitoring cycles. With checks every two to three weeks, teachers are able to see what's working, identify specific skill gaps, and make timely instructional adjustments. This has also strengthened the quality of TBT and BLT conversations, keeping the focus on instruction and student response. Essentially, we are addressing learning gaps early and making the necessary instructional adjustments to prevent those gaps from widening. Finally, we have invested in building staff capacity. During the
10725-26 school year, math and literacy educators participated in four district professional learning days in each content area, complemented by ongoing department chair learning. Professional learning focused on strengthening tier one instruction, leveraging MTSS frameworks to identify student needs, and implement [clears throat] targeted tier two interventions, using data to inform that instruction and monitor student progress. On average, approximately 985 K-12 math and 1,000 K-12 literacy educators participated in each professional learning session. More broadly, district-wide PD attendance averaged approximately 3,600 educators per day during the 2026 school year based on daily absentee reporting. This slide outlines the next steps we have to take in strengthening our MTSS practices and what we must do as a system to move this work forward. Real-time adjustments to tier one instruction and targeted interventions based on student needs are essential, allowing us
108to respond quickly and intentionally as learning is happening through daily instruction and assessment. More effective use of progress monitoring data is also critical to ensure interventions are tightly aligned to each student-specific needs. Shifting data from something we simply collect to something that actively drives our instructional practices and decisions. A shared understanding of the purpose and benefits of MTSS across all schools is necessary to support consistent implementation and strengthen system-wide coherence. Protecting time within the school day for school-based teams to implement all three tiers of instruction and intervention with fidelity is equally important. Ensuring tier one, tier two, and tier three function together as one connected system of support for our students. Finally, continued implementation of an alignment to the Ohio Department of Education's integrated MTSS model helps to ensure our practices remain coherent, current, and
109grounded in statewide expectations. Thank you. I would now like to introduce my colleague, Executive Director Megan Noble, to discuss our college and career connected learning strategy. >> Good evening. We're going to take a closer look at initiative 1.4, our high school redesign strategy to advance college and career connected learning. We are monitoring the high school transformation efforts moving 10 of our comprehensive high schools to a college and career connected learning model resulting in intentional freshman academies, expanded CTE curriculum pathways, credential attainment, and industry partner engagement. Cohort one, Beechcroft High School, East High School, Walnut Ridge High School, and West High School enrolled the cohort of 2029 in a new course called freshman seminar. Freshman seminar focuses on a topic such as career exploration, post-secondary research, financial literacy, self-awareness, presentation and written communication, employability skills, and
110community service. This slide displays the number of students enrolled at each of the cohort one high schools. 21.20% of all student students district-wide in the cohort of 2029 were enrolled in this course. And we are looking forward to Marion-Franklin High School, Linda McKinley STEM Academy, and Columbus International High School launching freshman academies this fall. As a reminder, as cohorts progress through high school, we will expect to see expanded credential attainment within career fields, state-defined CTE course sequences fully developed at the academies of Columbus City Schools. You should expect to see additional metrics in future monitoring reports including work-based learning experiences when students in this cohort matriculate to grade 11 and 12. I want to take a moment to highlight 604 U Science assessments completed by students during freshman seminar. A research-backed online assessment designed to
111measure an individual's natural aptitudes or brain wiring and match them with corresponding career pathways and educational majors. Unlike interest surveys that rely rely on self-reporting, it uses a series of brain games to objectively measure how a person solves problems and thinks making it a performance-based evaluation rather than a personality test. With support from I Know I Can and their career navigators supporting our freshman seminar teachers, students presented their findings to their peers this year. Columbus City Schools is committed to ensuring MTSS systems are not under-resourced. We are prioritizing intervention supports, aligning resources, and continuously monitoring implementation to ensure every student receives the support they need. The data for these indicators are an indicator that the system we are implementing is honoring this board guardrail. While challenges remain, we are taking deliberate steps to strengthen consistency,
112build capacity, and improve outcomes across all schools. Now, we will take any questions you may have. >> So, my first question going this may be Okay. Um, >> [clears throat] >> going back to tier two, >> Mhm. >> um, that slide, um, 46% um, math, and then 47% in 25-26. So, are you saying 47% of who? >> Yeah, so this is the the percentage of students that are participating in the i-Ready individualized pathway with fidelity, meaning those students that are below grade level are consistently using the i-Ready personalized pathway more than 30 minutes a week every week. Um, and that the what the research shows on the personalized pathway is that we will effectively close gaps if students use that tier two intervention as it's designed. So, >> data? That we have >> that we've
113closed the gap. Because one of my concerns is that and you already said >> Mhm. >> the improvement is that we're not doing a very good job in tier one. >> Yeah. >> Because we should not have 47% of our students in tier two. That should be roughly 20 to 30%. >> So, that is, Dr. Miranda, to your point, effectively the RTI research says you want to have 80 to 85% of your students successful in tier one. And the stronger your tier one, the less need for tier two and tier three. That is why our MT, we spent time talking tonight about the importance of tier one because that is an area we have to consistently strengthen. And we know that as students get to that red in that more than two to three grade
114levels below, we have a really, really small chance of getting them back to tier one. So, that is a continued focus area for us within the MTSS framework is ensuring, if you remember one of the things I said, the time in our school day to implement tier one plus tier two plus tier three is up is a barrier sometimes because there's always something. And so that's where we're we feel like at times we're swapping A for B when we really need to have all three of those structures live each and every day for our students. >> Who is implementing tier two and tier three? >> So essentially it it is a it depends. Most often tier two is delivered by the classroom teacher as a part of if you remember the literacy and the math
115blocks, there's time set aside for tier two. So that is typically happening within core instruction. Um sometimes what will happen is they will flexibly group students, so a grade level team will meet the need will work with students. Um and then tier three is often provided by our specialist, so reading intervention specialist, our title intervention specialist, those folks that come in that provide that very structured, explicit instruction in particular strategy areas. >> So my other question, if you're documenting, are we reducing our special ed population? Cuz theoretically >> Mhm. >> if you have a really good MTSS model, you're getting kids early because often times kids qualify for special ed that aren't really special ed, but they've gotten so far behind. >> Yes. >> So have we seen an impact there? >> So our numbers
116overall numbers in terms of students we serve in special ed has remained pretty constant. The the percentage changes based on whether our enrollment increases for our entire population or decreases. However, as a system, we are lower in the number of students we have identified than some of the other large urban districts. The issue that we have is exactly what we said, the importance and the highlight of MTSS. MTSS is the system that says to everybody in our district and in our community, we are going to meet the needs of your student regardless of whether they're identified. And that is the importance of the system. So, I would not stand in front of you today and say that our MTSS system is preventing students from being identified, but we are continuing to strengthen and that's why
117one of the areas we're continuing to work on, and they talked about it in the previous presentation, is everyone in our organization understanding the importance of a truly functional MTSS system that meets the needs of all learners. So, it's not necessarily decreasing, but it's also not increasing the number of students, >> Quick questions cuz I know everybody else has questions. Um, the fidelity, is that a sampling of classrooms or every classroom? >> That's the this metric right here for ELA and for math is district-wide. This is taken from our I-Ready. So, this is every student who is identified needing to >> Right. So, I'm talking about the baseline learning walks data. >> Oh. The Great question. The baseline learning walks is a sampling of classrooms. We did not get into every classroom this year. It
118is a sampling of classrooms. >> Okay. And then, um, the final thing, one of the other things I would suggest who was reporting on the college and career ready, one of the things I I think would strengthen, I know this is the first time with the completion numbers, it would be really nice only because I heard a assistant principal, um, talk about how attendance was better, grades were better, attending was better. It would be great if whoever is reporting that adds that in because I think it makes it more powerful. It's not just, "Hey, they're doing these career academies." Here's the outcome of that. And so, um if you can get that data and we continually add this to the academies, I think it would strengthen it. >> It's a great point, Dr. Miranda. And
119yes, you will see that. We want to wait until this cohort gets all the way through summer experience before we report that out. So, next year you'll have baseline data for the first year of academies. But yes, >> Okay. Great comment. >> Thank you. Um board member Dr. Pierce. >> So, I have a follow-up question. Um please ex- explain the fidelity measure again. >> Mhm. So, the fidelity measure within i-Ready, um i-Ready is the program that provides tier one. It also has tier two components to it. >> Dr. Nelson, can you >> Yes. >> Um Dr. Pierce, can you re- We we talk about fidelity of implementation for students as well as for the adults. Could you clarify >> you were talking about the >> the two questions because I think there's some some additional
120understanding that is necessary for uh [clears throat] our board and community to understand what you mean by your fidelity measure as well as your fidelity of instruction. >> Mhm. >> So, I'm having a hard time understanding the fidelity of instruction based on i-Ready. But we've received previous goals reports and internal reports that have said we're moving away from i-Ready. We're trying to move more to personalized instruction. >> Mhm. >> That the teachers are providing that instruction that we're seeing inconsistency with i-Ready. One year we're told that the students should be on it for a minimum of 20 minutes. Then we're told, "Oh, well, it really doesn't affect growth." Now we're being told that that is a part of the fidelity measure. >> Mhm. >> So, we really need to come to terms on meaning >>
121Mhm. >> saying what we mean and meaning what we say. >> Mhm. >> That So, the first That first question is, what do we mean by fidelity of instruction? Is I-Ready really the foundation of that and if so, why? And then the second part of that is the fidelity measure. When we're I guess the observation of [clears throat] what's happening. So, when I'm reading the report I'm taking it as somebody's walking in and they're seeing that one-on-one instruction or that um personalized individualized instruction is how you all are saying it because every student learns differently. So, the teacher is differentiating. That's what I take it to mean, right? And so, when you walk in a classroom, you're seeing that differentiation happen. Am I understanding that technical aspect of it correctly? >> Yes, so when we
122are doing the learning walks and we are looking at what we're seeing in an ELA or mathematics classroom, one of the things that we're looking for first and foremost are are are we seeing board adopted curriculum materials being used, for example? Are we seeing our teachers utilizing Haggerty, utilizing Foundations, utilizing those So, the things that we are purchasing for Tier 1 instruction, that is one of the first things we're looking for when we're talking Tier 1 implementation. We're looking for general are we seeing the learning goal posted in the classroom? Are So, when we're talking fidelity of Tier 1 or implementation of Tier 1, we have a whole set of look fors that we're going in and we're looking for and checking. Are we seeing these things in practice consistently? Now again, we did not
123get into every classroom this year. So, what you what you have in front of you is again that baseline of what we saw this very first year. But when we're talking Tier 1, we're talking about all things that are expected for Tier 1 instruction and making sure that our teachers are using the things that we're purchasing, that we're providing professional development on um for our students in in ELA and mathematics. This metric Oh. >> So, can we update the response to the board questions? So, that was my first question on the supports. >> Mhm. >> Um, can we update the response to detail that because that's what I asked for. What were the list of practices, the evaluations, the tools? You guys said just see slide 13. >> Okay. >> Slide 13 doesn't give me
124an appropriate response. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, we got that question. Okay. So, let's update that one. Now, to the second question. >> Sure. So, this metric, the the Oh, sorry. The ELA and the math, when we're talking about tier two. When students participate in i-Ready, every student gets what we call universally screened with i-Ready in ELA and mathematics. From there, the student begins to develop a profile of learning. That profile creates their individualized learning pathway. If a student is on track, right what we call in the green, to Dr. Miranda's earlier comment, they're going to continue to engage in i-Ready uh, with grade level material. If a student is behind, um, in the yellow or in the red, the program is going to create what's called a personalized pathway. Meaning, these are the skills
125that the student is still does not have that they need to that they need to have. So, they will engage in the i-Ready intervention. And what we found with this metric is when we say fidelity with i-Ready, those students that are identified as being below grade level need to participate in i-Ready in ELA or math or both, depending on if they're, you know, if they're below in both grade levels, third at least 30 minutes a day or 30 minutes a week to close the gap. What this metric is saying is that based on the number of students that should be participating in i-Ready 30 minutes a week 47.7% of them are engaging in i-Ready 30 minutes per week as intended to close that gap. So some of them are slightly below. They're maybe there there
126there participating in that personalized pathway or that intervention 25 minutes a week. So we're not quite at 30. And as I said, one of the challenges that we have is the length of the day and trying to get all of those things in every day. 90 minutes of ELA instruction plus 30 minutes of that tier two plus all the other things we've talked about in previous board presentations with um some of the challenges that we have. So this is in regard to in order to effectively close that gap in ELA and math, students would need to participate in i-Ready personalized pathway intervention a minimum of 30 minutes per week. And this is what what this data is saying is we're below 50% of that for those students that need it. >> So two follow-up questions
127and and I think I've raised these in past uh board meetings as well as my colleagues. I know our internal auditor has has raised this question as well as it relates to i-Ready. If we know that there is a return on investment that i-Ready is helping our students get to proficiency. Why are we then inconsistent with our accessibility to students? I.E. Ensuring that they have Chromebooks so they can do it at home. There was a time where we told the students to do it at home. Now we've incorporated into the day when they could be getting that one-on-one personalized instruction from the teacher. So that's a question to probably answer at a later date. But that is my technical question. What are we doing to ensure they have access to i-Ready? Um and how are
128we making sure that we're measuring that across math and ELA across grade levels? Are you saying that and and if we have the data, does the data show that it helps our students that are in elementary school a little bit more than it helps our students that are in middle school? We need to start picking that up and bringing that to the center of the discussion when we have our goals monitoring reports because right now we have a disconnect. Our goals monitoring reports are saying i-Ready isn't giving us the return on investment, but now you in a guardrail report are saying that it is. We need to be consistent. >> Yes. Uh yes, so we will definitely take that feedback and provide more explanation around it as it relates to that, but 100% under and
129we did talk about this during the the reading and the math guardrail reports. How are we closing the gap and what is going to give us the best return on investment um for our students to be successful. So, it is at top of mind for us as well. >> And then my final question, so in our academic and facilities committee Uh I'll let [laughter] you keep the question. I'm going to pass it I'm going to pass it over to my brother, Dr. Kennedy. >> Okay. >> [laughter] >> Over here. >> Dr. Kennedy. >> We tag team these questions. >> Yes. >> So, as it relates to tier two and that additional 30 minutes in the in the academic return on investment >> Mhm. >> we were provided uh with a list of tier partnerships, right?
130For tier one, tier two, and tier three. >> Mhm. >> The first question, do we have any outcome data on the level of the the the effectiveness or fidelity of this implementation around our partners in these spaces and what are the What are the outcomes we're seeing from that? Uh and two when when I look at from the academics facilities committee, we were we were presented with uh the boy school, right? And and and the math scores were were just abysmal, let's be honest. Uh and we've known that for a while. And so, where does the tier one, tier two support with additional partnerships or uh how how are we really measuring what's happening on a day-to-day basis uh when we know over time we've we've seen uh some of these scores that are not
131producing they're they're not they're not moving they're not there's there's no results that we would like to see. >> So, as as we've shared, one of the consistent areas that we're focused on is building leadership capacity. Um and in some of our spaces, um the you know, some leaders have a very extensive knowledge on the importance of MTSS and and understand all elements as described to you this evening. Other uh administrators are struggling to do all you know, to do to do it all all the time because there's just so many dynamics that go into leading a building all day, every day. Um so, we are consistently looking and partnering with our transformation and leadership team to again provide that targeted support. Uh Dr. Pierce used the term differentiated. We're not just differentiating our support
132for our students, we're differentiating our support for our adults. And the adults that need more um support in the area of all those functions of the true MTSS framework, um whether it's leading your database decision-making team, whether it's using your data more effectively. There are so many other components to strong tier strong MTSS implementation, and that is what we are doing for our leaders. We're finding those gap those gap areas for them and then creating professional learning opportunities for them to grow in those areas. Because as you can see, MTSS is not one-dimensional. It's many things and we have to do many things well all day every day for our students and for our staff. So that is what we're continuing to focus on and refine. >> So >> Um I'm going to let you
133guys determine who asks your [laughter] >> Go ahead. Finish. So I'm going to just follow up with that. It appears that there's no tier one or tier two supports for some of these schools that we know have historically [clears throat] not performed well. And so I guess my my the follow-up question to the first one was What what data do we have to support what these partnerships are producing? What are the outcomes that we're getting from them? Are there any requirements that we are requesting for of them as it relates to being identified as tier one, tier two, or tier three supports? >> Yeah. So if it's okay, what I'd like to do is take that question so I can provide a well, a thoroughly um and deliberate response um so that it truly does
134answer your question and highlights all of the work that's being done in in other aspects of this work. Um but yes, I absolutely can get more information for you and provide that information. >> And Dr. Kennedy, if I could just also add that the partnerships, the external partnerships that we have, um this data is reflected on the the outcomes and related to our staff actions. Particularly, we think about the partnerships which we value deeply. Those partnerships are established in most cases for individual or specific schools, not necessarily for all schools. One partner isn't serving 113 schools or 78 elementary schools. So the partnership data comes into play when we're looking at what specific supports are needed at an individual school. I.E. this partner is working with this school, and where you'll see that highlighted, monitored,
135tracked is in that yearly uh school improvement plan. So, every school has a school improvement plan every year. This is not a part of our guardrail metric. I just just sharing what responsive to the question that you that you asked. But, every school has specific goals for ELA and math tracking up to all of our board goals, uh early literacy, middle school math, and matriculation. They have a school improvement plan, and then they will also include the additional resources that they have the either they have identified or the district has helped partner connect them with to support their school-specific strategies. But, we can certainly provide more information on that. >> Yes. >> For member Dr. Pierce. >> Yeah, so two follow-up questions. Um the first one relates to the professional development. >> Mhm. >> So,
136[clears throat] seeing that um staff focused one day, November 4th, on our MTSS, are we going to increase the number of professional development days that we have for them to learn >> No. >> MTSS? What's our plan? Are we going to offer it earlier? >> So, as as it relates to district-wide professional development days, again, what we have captured here is a district-wide PD days, and that's what we were speaking to in the Q&A that you're referring to. Um our district calendar has already been set for the next 2 years, and those PD days are already allocated for district. So, in addition to and they're limited because we remember remember we increased intentionally the number of instructional days so we could have more time on task with our students to support tier one. So, we
137have to be creative now about how we have um that district wide PD while we are submitting time during those TBT meetings, staff meetings with an intentional focus that certainly honors these guardrails and makes time and space for the support for our staff. >> my question is within our allotted cuz I understand we have the allotted professional development days. Are we going to allot time in those days to go over MTSS more? I mean you're crafting the PD days. So my question is how are we as a district increasing our district staff and educators knowledge of MTSS whether that is through our TBT teams. And so I guess in future monitoring reports I will be asking now what the TBT information is well for each building. Um to know like how are we increasing their
138knowledge of MTSS? >> Yeah. So a couple of things we've been working on with this shift in not having necessarily days. Um we as you all know, you um support having department chairs in content leads. And so we are building out their capacity to support in teacher learning at the building at the site level through staff meetings, through lots of other So we're thinking very creatively Dr. Pierce in professional learning. We're building out within our um resource hubs for ELA and math a whole section on MTSS, the pieces and parts of it. Um so we are continuing to think very thoughtfully around implementation and making sure that our teachers still have access to that professional learning. Might look a little different, might not be in half-day settings, but might be 45-minute staff meeting, it might
139be time with a department chair, but thinking very thoughtfully and thoroughly around how we are going to continue to invest in in teacher professional learning around MTSS and all again the the different components of the framework. >> And and this last um I think it's more of a comment and I want to echo what Dr. Kennedy was saying earlier about the data that we've been presented in the academic and facilities committee. A very urgent challenge that our district has is to be able to provide differentiated instruction. >> Yes. >> If we have particular schools such as the boys and the girls schools where we are focused on tier three and we're not giving tier one opportunities and opportunities to explore at different levels, right? To explore um more rigorous curriculum. If we are focused in
140in a particular building so much on remediation and intervention >> Yes. >> that it does not provide the opportunity for heterogeneous learning environments, we're missing an opportunity to recruit a diverse student population and a diverse teaching and educating and just staff in general into that building. So I think that's a very urgent challenge for us to figure out how we can create very diverse learning communities where we have all tiers of MTSS happening. >> Agreed. Dr. Miranda? >> Okay, so my challenge is and so your report has Well, I guess it does. Most evidence-based guidelines recommend delivering tier two four to five times a week 30 minutes. >> Mhm. >> We're delivering one time a week for 30 minutes and so when you're looking at best practice, we're not cutting it. Now, I think that's
141the challenge with urban schools. >> Yeah. >> And so if if evidence-based guidelines says tier two interventions should be in small group three to five kids >> Yeah. >> four to you know, three to four times a week >> Mhm. >> and we're giving i-Ready 30 minutes a we're not going to close the gap. >> Yes. >> And I think it's the challenge that urban schools have for all the reasons you said. One, every we don't understand MTSS. Two, we don't have the personnel to be able to do that. So, I'm just laying it out there that >> Yes. So, and and again, in thinking about this report and ongoing monitoring reports around this guardrail, let me be clear. This is not the only I ready personalized pathway is not the only tier two intervention
142that's happening for our students daily. This is the strategy that we pulled out to monitor, but it is not the only tier two. So, I do not want to lead you have you walk away thinking our kids are only getting a minimum 30 minutes in ELA and 30 minutes in math. Our teachers and our teacher based teams are creating lots of opportunity for tier two instruction and intervention. Sometimes it's more time and opportunity. It's just another run through of that Haggerty lesson or multiple run throughs of that Haggerty lesson in addition to the personalized pathway. So, again, for this monitoring, we pulled out this particular measure, but that does not mean that is the only tier two that is happening for our students. >> I'm glad to hear that. [clears throat] >> Yes. >> But
143and I think you should say that because >> Yes. >> you know, for me, I >> Yeah. >> I did training PD on MTSS. So, looking at that, >> Yeah. >> saying that's our tier two, we're not going to close the gap. >> Correct. >> So, I think, you know, making sure that we know that there are other tier two interventions happening is going to be really important. >> Yes, and we can certainly provide that as we update this. >> Yep. And Dr. Nelson, if you could just talk a little bit about the structure of the literacy block has time for intervention. The math block has time for intervention. The school schedules have time for intervention. Our middle school schedule has a block just for intervention. So, it the the emphasis on 30 minutes of
144i-Ready is one of many interventions that we're highlighting and calling out here. Some students need different types of intervention, and so we talk about differentiated support. There's also differentiated opportunities, and that's just the interventions and supports that happen during the day. There's also supports before school, after school, on the weekend and beyond. But, this is just the the um the metric that we were monitoring as a part of this guardrail. >> But, I appreciate that feedback because we actually have a laundry list of things we're using for tier two, and we can certainly include those to give you a a more robust understanding of what that tier two looks like. >> And I agree with um looking at the academic report. You know, the boy, cuz I watched that meeting, and the boy's school, for
145as small as it is, it is really quite shocking how poorly they do. >> Yeah. >> It's like, so I I would say our tier one is clearly not working there. Tier two must not be working there. And so, we have to really we have to really look at our schools and see where do we need to put our energies at because we're clearly not getting a return on investment for that school. >> Thank you. >> All right, Brendan, um and board member Simmons, and then board member Pearson, we're going to wrap it up and then >> Okay. >> do a vote. >> Okay. >> Thank you, um President Dr. Miranda. Um I I did have a question about i-Ready. Where is the data that shows the how many kids who start out in this
146red zone in August end up in the green zone by May? And where is that data? >> So, >> How many Well, let me ask Let me back put a pin in that first. How many years have we been using i-Ready? >> Um that is a great question. This is the end of my sixth year and we've been using it the six years I've been here uh eight maybe. >> Okay, so for those six cohorts >> Yes. >> where is the data that shows, you know, we've got X many third graders and they all 50% of them started out in red in August and by May how many of them are still in red? >> Um we have that data. Um I ready provides a report. Um we we get reports multiple times throughout the
147year based on our progress our universal screening as well as our progress monitoring. >> And are we seeing over the years that it's you know, the effectiveness through real data is there? >> [clears throat] >> Um not site by site. Okay, so I don't have like all buildings, but >> Of the I guess let me rephrase of the kids who are doing the 30 minutes every week and they're in the red zone, how many of them get out of the red zone by the end of the year? [clears throat] >> So for clarity on that, the the red zone on I ready could be three years below. >> So okay. >> Closing three years in one year is probably not realistic, but observing a year and a half's worth of growth is possible and we
148have a report coming fairly soon on academic return on investment tied to I ready. We've looked at it repeatedly over time. Students who follow the minimum time and performance that we talk about half hour 70% uh consistently outperform their peers around the system and exceed typical growth. They're closing gaps over time. We've seen that time and time again. And this with we picked this as part of a metric for this because it's what we have the most robust data for. When we think about all the other tier two interventions, they're diverse and they're across the system. They're all little harder to aggregate in a way that speaks to the whole system. Yes, we have seen when folks do this with fidelity, minimum half hour a week, 70% pass rate on the end, students outperform their
149peers in the system, and uh start closing gaps. >> Okay. And then my other question does have to do with the academic ROI. You know, so if a student is tier two for ELA and math, that means we're saying of the you know, we've have our kids for about 7 hours a day, so of the um you know, of the 35 hours we have those students for every week, we're saying they at least 1 hour should be i-Ready. But that's also an hour that they're in our facility. That's an hour that, you know, it's our staff work day that we're paying folks for. And so of that that 1 hour, I'm I'm curious if this 1 hour is so important that or the half hour, if the half hour is so important that our kids
150do it, I'm curious if how that related to the cost to have students take Chromebooks home. Um you know, cuz I still continue if if the obstacle is the students aren't need to spend the 30 minutes doing i-Ready, and we know this has such a good academic ROI, which we haven't seen the data, but you're telling me it's there on the i-Ready, you know, then I look it is what was the academic ROI to letting the kids take home the Chromebooks? And do we have we seen a decrease in the participation of i-Ready um since we we made that decision? And then also if we haven't, you know, that's if it's happening during the school day, that's coming at the cost of other instructional things. But you know, if we have our kids from, you
151know, 7:30 to 2:30 for example, those are hours that we're paying somebody to work with them. And so I think our kids have a lot of screen time as it is. And so I get a little bit concerned. If the data's there, that's great, but then I kind of wonder why are we not requiring it if the data says it's so great. So I'm just not sure how this piece fits in. I think, you know, Dr. Pierce hit the nail on the head where there's a weird just to just a position here where we hear some great things about I-Ready, but then we hear well, the kids aren't using it enough and you know, this So, I just I like to learn more about that at a later date. And then my only other last
152thing is, you know, how do how will we know when our MTSS systems are properly supported? Because that's really the the guardrail. The guardrail is to ensure that um >> He just left you up there. >> [laughter] >> He did. Yes. >> No, it's okay. Um >> [clears throat] >> But if if the guardrail itself is that the superintendent will not allow the multi-tiered systems of support for students' needs to be under-resourced. But we didn't really hear anything in this report about the resources. We didn't really hear, you know, we heard one resource, I-Ready, but that's it. And so, you know, you're telling the board, you know, hey, we've got this I-Ready resource for MTSS, well, the board's thinking it's under-resourced because that's the only thing we're being told about. And so, I don't really
153if the guardrail is that these are not under-resourced, this MTSS system isn't under-resourced, I think there has to be more of a of a resource-forward presentation, if you will, about what are the where cuz we do have schools who, you know, I know there's staff who'd come in here right today and say MTSS is under-resourced at my school. And you know, there's we could probably have staff from 112 or we don't have 112 school buildings anymore, but you could have staff from all of our school buildings come in and tell us that, right? And so, I I didn't see that component here in the presentation. >> So, um let me address your first question about when will we know if MTSS is working. >> No, that wasn't my question. When will No, what the guardrail
154says is the superintendent will not allow the multi-tiered systems of supports, MTSS, for students' needs to be under-resourced. When will we know or how will we know it's adequately resourced? Because it's not supposed to be under-resourced, so we have to know you know, we have to know >> Yeah. >> We need to know if it's adequately resourced or not. Or else I would assume it's under-resourced or over-resourced, perhaps, you know? We wouldn't know. >> Yeah. So, currently our investments for the the tiered one components, the tier one, tier two components of our MTSS system with our curriculum purchases, which have our tier one and tier two built in as well as tier three, we spend approximately $5 million this academic year for those resources. So, HMH, uh Haggerty, Foundations, all of the curriculum that we
155talk about that you guys approve through um our contracts, those are our materials we use for our academic implementation of tier one, tier two, and tier three. This year, we are at about 5 million. Um however, we know and you guys have raised a couple great questions and things that have been top of mind for us as well. We have to take a look at those resources on a on a pretty consistent basis to make sure that we are getting our return on investment. So, some of the materials that we have been using have been in place, for example, HMH and Curriculum and Associates for math have been in place for quite a few years. So, we will begin to engage in that RFP process to take a look at those materials to make sure
156that we are choosing the very, very best for our students. Um and we anticipate that that investment will increase, maybe double for fiscal year 2028, because we will need to spend more for those implementation pieces. So, from that aspect, I think it it absolutely is adequately resourced. Uh however, to the point of are we closing the gap as quickly as we would like, I think we all agree we are not. And so, looking at how we can continue to do that more effectively for our students, because again, as you remember I said, our goal is when every student leaves here, they are they are ready for that next step. And that starts in pre-K. We know that and we we it we hold that very dear. So, everything that we do leads to them leaving
157us ready for that next step, whatever their next step might be. >> Okay, thank you. And then just my last question, if the 30 minutes of i-Ready is so important, why isn't that required? Why if the 30 minutes is such a you know such a huge academic ROI and the data's really there, why do we just not require, you know, school, middle school, you need to make sure these kids sit down here for 30 minutes every day. Why is it not a requirement and why are we not just seeking 100% compliance? If it's so effective. >> I think that's why we're here for our member summons. We are continuing to set that expectation and there are a number of reasons certainly again, remember this guardrail all of our guardrails monitor our adult behaviors. How our
158adults are lifting up this work and so we're continuing to send a very strong and clear message and when we have well that next report we're talking about the return on investment when we're seeing students who are following the personalized pathway and using the resources for 30 minutes, what those outcomes lead to, we're going to continue to reinforce that message and that's why as a part of this guardrail, we are monitoring the fidelity of that implementation. We're monitoring that and tracking that again to send send the signal across the organization that this is important for us, it's important for us as a system, it's important for the adults, it's important for our students to have access to this. We think about your question about how we resource um this strategy or this guardrail for MTSS.
159We these were the metrics that we've chosen to monitor this strategy, but as Dr. Nelson has shared, all of these metrics come with a price tag, right? And so when we think about the resources, we're talking about making sure that the the teachers have the resources in the classroom that they need and the students have access to the high-quality resources that they need. >> Is there another tier two intervention that has a higher our academic ROI, maybe? I know that's something we're kind of trying to get into more as an organization, but is there something that we we think has a higher return? >> Well, we have again, we have lots of different things that we use for tier two and I can certainly provide more explanation of that and kind of how it works.
160Because again, if you remember I said one of the things that we have with our assessment is identifying the needs of the student. So tier two is not a one-size-fits-all. It really is unique to the learner. So some students are utilizing the I-Ready personalized pathway. They're also receiving Just Words intervention, which is another research-based intervention. They might be receiving a third or fourth intervention. So it's not tier two is where that again, when I said earlier, it is that precision of determining what our students need and then making sure that those needs are being met consistently and timely because it's not the same for every student. We have a lot of students that benefit from the personalized pathway, but there are other things they're receiving. And I can provide much more information on all the
161different ELA and mathematics tier two and tier three strategies that we have that are bundled together by the expertise of our teachers and our teacher-based teams to determine what students need to close that gap. >> I also want to name to Dr. Nelson, this slide, the for our state's integrated MTSS system, there are certain resources that we have to choose from that are approved and vetted by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. So we can't just choose anything. We have to choose resources from the approved list for that universal screening. And so, we are using, again, resources that have already been vetted by a state partners and proven to meet that quality threshold before making sure that we make those investments. But, we'll continue to provide more information as we move forward. >> Any
162other questions? Question one. >> This kind of ends the discussion. >> Okay. >> For me, I don't know if it's a question for our team. It's definitely a question for us. So, again, while I think this has been a fruitful conversation as we think about monitoring reports, noting that we have to evaluate ourself in a couple of weeks on this, um I challenge us to think about interim guardrails because right now we've received two guardrail reports on really yearly assessments. There should be interim guardrails that lay out the strategies that our teams are moving to get us to these broader guardrail statements that we have. And so, a lot of our questions and discussion today has probably gone outside of the realm of where our questions should be because we have not really done the
163work to figure out what our interim guardrails are and how we're getting to the larger guardrail statements. And so, hopefully that's something that you all can discuss during the retreat. Um but, we definitely >> [laughter] >> We all can discuss during the retreat. This is why we need a retreat. >> So, we're all on the same page. I'm not adding another date. I am spending time with family and practicing well-being in July. >> Okay, so, is there a motion to accept the report? >> Motion. >> Thank you. Second? >> Second. >> Okay, thank you. Um call the roll. >> Ms. President Engles? >> Yes. >> Dr. Pierce? >> Yes. >> Mr. Katzmeier? [clears throat] >> Yes. >> Mr. Simmons? Yes. Dr. Kennedy? >> Yes. >> President Dr. Miranda? >> Yes. >> Thank you. The chair
164now recognizes board member Sarah Ingles for a motion. >> I motion that the Board of Education move into executive session pursuing to Ohio Revised Code Section 121.22G1 to consider the appointment, employment, dismissal, discipline, promotion, demotion, or compensation of a public employee or official or the investigation of charges or complaints against a public employee, official, licensee, or regulated individual unless the public employee, official, licensee, or regulated individual requests a public hearing. >> Second. >> Yes. >> Dr. Pierce? >> Yes. >> Mr. Katsamyer? >> Yes. >> Mr. Simmons? >> Yes. >> Dr. Kennedy? >> Yes. >> Vice President Ingles? >> Yes. >> President Dr. Miranda? >> Yes. >> And please note that the board will adjourn following our executive session this evening and will not be reconvening in this room.