001for them to be celebrated. Um provide speakers. Um provide presentations from co-side to the city of Columbus to the mayor's office to the deputy and the sheriff's department and just a number of administrators and people from the community who actually came out to support this event. ICE Mentors here which is a partner of Columbus City Prep for Boys who's coming and talking about character building, male etiquette, you know how we treat the ladies, right? Uh yes ma'am, no ma'am. My mom, she pushed me. She support me. She just tell me what I need to do to go on in life. The best mom ever I could ever have. >> Met with some of the younger kids, talk to them. Really, really find that to be really interesting. >> I've experienced many things and one thing
002I've learned is how to socialize and communicate in difficult situations. Being a leader, taking ownership of things that you [music] have done. >> I am a king. I am educated. Right? Recognizing that these affirmations are imperative. The world already sees us one way and our goal is to control our own narrative. But there's nothing that can stop us from achieving our goals. >> You're not a follower because a follower can lead you into trouble and end your whole career. And I don't want that to happen to me. I want to move on and get a scholarship. >> He was picked for a reason and to really appreciate the others who helped you be in the spot that you are now. I could be a role model by doing the right thing, showing integrity, being service-minded,
003[music] correcting people when they're doing the wrong thing. >> There are other men here in high positions that are role models for these young men to say, "Here are the possibilities. Here is what you can think about post [music] high school >> and there's no way we can do it individually. The needs are too great." Um, but collectively we can make a significant impact. I hope that the event grows beyond just region 2 just due to the fact that we're all not operating [music] in isolation but we're coming together collectively to do what's best for kids because you know my favorite poet once said if there's no hope for the youth then there is no hope for the future I eat Tupac Shakur I'm smart I'm a young man I am an educated man I
004am a king being able to remind themselves that when you're having hard days when the assignments are too hard when the work doesn't make sense when you fail a test we embrace failure understanding that at the end of the day I am a king. And that's the message that we hope they take with him. [music] I've been with CCS for almost 15 years. >> [music] >> When I first started, I was an instructional assistant for the ESL department. I did that [music] for about eight years. Then I moved on to helping with first and third grade for a few months, and then I landed in my favorite [music] position, prek, and I've been there for about seven years. I chose to work in Columbus City Schools [music] because it is the school district that is
005responsible for my education from K through 12 and is responsible for the education of my children K through 12. [music] And so I have an affinity with the district and I wanted to come back and contribute because of the experience [music] that I had within the district. I work in a special needs program. So some or one of the most rewarding experiences is just coming in working with our children who don't have language of any kind [music] and teaching them American Sign Language so that they can communicate with us and seeing them verbalize when they don't have anything to begin with. When I get to have my prek promotions [music] at the end of the year, you know, the kids are in their caps and gowns and they get to move on to kindergarten and
006it's like celebrating everything they've [music] done all year. It's like it's a great moment every year. It's like I can look forward to having that memorable moment. I'm [music] the first impression that our parents and caregivers and students have for CCS. I'm that first stepping [music] stone for school. So I feel like I have a lot of impact. Like if I can make their [music] first year with us great, then that sets them up as they [music] continue on. So I'm a big believer in the impact of probably one of my most rewarding was when [music] I received the channel 10 classroom hero. I also um was nominated teacher of the year in the Lynen area. [music] Um and just watching children grow and go off to college and come back to me. So that's
007really exciting. I think the work that I do and the time that [music] I put into each individual children prepares them for the future [music] prepares them for whether they're going to college or not going to college just so that they become great citizens. >> You know, I came here when I was 18 as an immigrant and [music] you know the district I went here to the district. So, uh as a student they helped me out you [music] know ESL student who don't speak English. So, I just felt like teachers were very helpful and and you know and it now I just want to pay it forward. I just want to [music] help other kids just like how my teachers helped me to be where I'm at today. You know, being the first person [music]
008to graduate in my family was very hard for me to kind of grasp everything that went to it. But my teachers were there uh from day one to help every single minute. And one of my teacher even drove me from school to to the administration office to make sure that all my papers are in and you know all everything is set so that I can start school the next Monday. So I felt like that that was so important and how the teachers cared about the students >> [music] >> uh their success and things like that. So, I just felt like, you know, hey, this is where I want to be. [music] This is what I want to do. You know, just help kids like myself who need help because if it wasn't them, I would
009not be sitting where I'm at right now. >> The diversity [music] um there are so many opportunities in Columbus um that other small towns don't give you. We have a lot of resources [music] here, but just the diversity of the families and the people that live here. For the early childhood educator who's [music] considering a career in Columbus City Schools, do it. We will come a rally around [music] you and you start somewhere, but that is not where you end up. We will grow with you and you will be surprised at [music] the amount of per professional growth and personal growth that you will have working with our children in this district. [music] Time for school. Have a good day at school. I love you. is coming through. >> Nice day. Come on. I'm Math
010is everywhere you look. It's in everything you do and it can be fun to use. Won't you join us on today's episode? Hello and welcome back to Math Math Everywhere. I'm Renee Harris, your math magician, helping you to see the magic in math. Today we're spending some time at Oakland Nursery with summer experienced students from East Lynden Elementary School. We're going to see what kind of math is involved in [music] planning and preparing for gardens. Come on, let's go inside. So, look what I found. A nice little bag of beet Detroit Supreme seeds. So, when we're thinking about planting gardens, we have to have a plan [music] on where we're getting started. And that plan first involves what kind of seeds are we going to need for planting. Now, the cost of this bag [music]
011of seeds is $2.79. But take a look here. Today, there's a savings of 25% off. So calculating that discount [music] that is math. And then some other [music] specs that are included in planting and preparing for your garden is they need to be harvested. It takes at least 60 to 65 days for that harvest time. [music] So the depth, in other words, how deep are you going to plant those seeds? That's part [music] of measuring. You need to make sure the depth is at least 1/ half an inch deep into the soil before you begin to plant those seeds. Let's see what else we can find [music] here in terms of math at the nursery. Again, we're here today at Oakland Nursery with some East London summer experience students. And here I have with me
012is >> the lion and >> they're going to help me do something called subetizing. [music] >> I've got a really pretty plant to show you. And I want you to look at the plant and [music] tell me how many blooms you see. You ready? >> Yeah. >> This one. >> Three. How did you know it was three? >> Cuz I was looking with my eyes. >> Yes. Did you didn't have to count? You just [music] knew. All right. Now, we are still going to count so we can confirm that there are three. Let's count together. That's one, [crying] two, three. So, that's three. Great job. Give me a high five. >> Yes. [music] So, if you're thinking about planting your own garden, remember there are a few simple math concepts that are [music] wrapped up
013in gardening, like measurement, time, the size and shape of your garden, the [music] square footage that garden is going to cover. Perhaps a visit to Oakland Nursery will inspire you to want to create your own garden. As always, thank you for joining us today with Math Math Everywhere. [music] And as always, math is everywhere. Greetings and welcome [music] to this week's highlights from across the district. October was filled with opportunities to celebrate the individuals and programs that keep our students healthy, safe, and supported across Columbus City Schools. We observe National School Lunch Week, October 13th [music] through the 17th, recognizing our dedicated food service team who serve thousands of students healthy meals that fuel learning. During National Teen Driver [music] Safety Week, October 19th through the 25th, we reminded students and families about the importance
014of safe driving habits in and around our district and city. And lastly, during National School Bus Safety Week, October 20th through the 24th, we celebrated our bus drivers and transportation [music] staff who ensure students arrive to and from school safely every day. Together, these observances highlight how every part of our district community contributes to student safety, health, and success. On October 21st, Columbus City Schools joined the communitywide big table initiative hosted by the Columbus Foundation to engage in meaningful dialogue and connection. I participated in conversations at Northland High School while our superintendent student ambassadors led discussions at their respective schools, bringing together their peers, teachers, and community members. The open discussion centered on mental health, restorative practices, and community violence, allowing participants to listen, learn, and share perspectives that strengthen our district. These big table
015conversations highlight the power of student voice and collaboration [music] in shaping a safer, more supportive school community. Columbus City Schools hosted our first ever town hall workshop series, our future, our CCS. Sessions kicked off on October 27th at South High School, October 28th at West High School, and October 29th at Mifflin High School. And the engagement and feedback from our community have been [music] amazing. Over the course of three days, hundreds of students, families, staff, and community members joined us to share their voices and ideas about [music] the future of our district. Together, we explored three key areas: academics, transportation, and school choice, facilities, all focused on ensuring every student has access to highquality learning environments and opportunities. Each conversation reflected our shared commitment to resilience, courage, and compassion as we reimagine how our schools
016serve every child equitably. Thank you to all of our community members, leaders, students, families, and staff for attending and making sure your voices were heard. The future of CCS begins with all of us. The season of giving is here and Columbus City Schools is once again partnering with the Columbus School Employees Association, the Board of Education, NBC4, and Education First Credit Union for the annual Stuff the Bus campaign. From November 1st through December 12th, schools and admin buildings across the district will collect toys and essential items for Columbus families in need. Volunteers and staff members will meet at the Mhler Bus compound to load our buses before delivering donations to NBC4 on Saturday, December 13th. So donate today. Together, we're spreading holiday cheer and showing what it means to care for our community. It's playoff
017time in Columbus City Schools. Six of our high schools have secured a spot in the OSAA [music] 2025 state football playoffs with first round games kicking off on Friday, October 31st at 700 p.m. This achievement marks a historic milestone reflecting the hard work, teamwork, and dedication of our student athletes, coaches, and athletic staff. These playoff appearances showcase the strength of City League football and our district's commitment to excellence on and off the field. Congratulations to all of our teams, student athletes, coaches, and fans for an outstanding season. And best of luck as you represent Columbus City Schools in the state playoffs. These have been your highlights from around the district for November 5th. Thank you so much for joining us. Good evening and welcome everyone. Today is Tuesday, November 5th, or excuse me, Wednesday, November
0185th. That was yesterday, election day. Uh, welcome to our regular board business meeting. Again, today is Wednesday, November the 5th. Uh, Mr. Treasur, can we call a role? >> Yes, sir. Miss Lingles, >> here. >> Miss Reyes, >> here. >> Mr. Simmons, >> here. >> Miss Vera, >> here. >> Vice President Adair, >> present. President Cole >> uh present. All right. Uh can we rise for the pledge, please standice for all. >> All right. So before we uh get started, um I really love it when folks uh in the community uh demonstrate mentorship and support of our young people. And if you just want to just show your hand or just stand up and say hello and wave, young man, you're more than welcome to do that. I'm excited to have you here. It's always
019encouraging to see when our young people come to our meetings and actually want to learn something and and be participative in this process. So, good evening, young man. Glad to have you here. Uh glad to see that uh your other person is here with you and also Mr. Matt Barnes uh from News uh 4 who is a part of Big Brothers Big Sisters. So, thank you all for being here. I definitely wanted to give that acknowledgement. Um, moving on, we have a uh fairly robust agenda this evening. We'll of course start off at uh 3.1 with public participation. Uh we have about four public speakers who will be joining us this evening. We'll then go into board uh section number four which is board matters and we've got some substantive work to do there that's
020governance related and I'm excited about the rich conversation we're going to have moving forward. Um we'll then move into sections five through seven which of course are our executive uh re director's reports or our executive leadership level reports. Uh we look forward to that. Then we'll go from 8.1 to 23.6 which is our consent agenda. Uh there's nothing in section 24 for uh any additional board matters or or legislation. And then we'll go into executive session. uh when we go into executive session and come out of that, we will not return to this room. We'll adjourn from the room in executive session. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? It's been moved. >> Second. >> There's a second. Call the role. >> Vice President Adair? >> Yes. >> Miss Vera? >> Yes. >> Miss
021Engles? >> Yes. >> Dr. Pierce? >> Yes. >> Miss Reyes? >> Yes. >> Mr. Simmons? >> Yes. >> President Cole? >> Yes. Motion passes. All right. Uh we'll move right into our public speakers. Uh we have three who are to be in person with us this evening. Uh the fourth is will be remote. Uh to start with us is Shannon Fallens. Shannon Folins or Fallins. Shannon, are you here? All right. Good evening. Hello. Once you begin speaking, you will have three minutes at the podium and you've been free. I'm I'm height challenged. So, what I like to do is pull the mic down. Yeah, there you go. Welcome. >> Hi, everybody. My name is Shannon and I wanted to speak about transportation um with the like budget cuts on that area. So, I just wanted
022to hit on three simple um subjects of that. One is the timing of how long it takes students to go to school. Also, how many high schoolers will be on the bus? They may the buses may um ride by them because there's too many kids on it. that's going to mess up attendance because I know if me being a high schooler, I know after that first bus leave me, if that second one leave me, I'm not going today. Like, I did it. I tried. And then third is safety. Kids will be out there like it's already getting dark, but they'll be out there in the dark and just like nowadays it's like mental health awareness and all that. And it can be a lot on the bus with safety, especially with like with kids, especially
023like young girls. We had an incident at a bus stop with a little girl that was going Afroentric and this is just a regular school bus. This isn't even a city bus. So that's all I want to say. >> Yes. >> You so much for joining us this evening and your comments are duly noted. I did take them down and I know the administration as well as my colleagues here listening. >> So thank you. >> All right. Uh we'll have uh next is joining us is Kareem Elkins. Good evening, Mr. Elkins. circle number. >> You may begin. You have three minutes. >> All right. Good evening, President Co. Vice President Adar, Treasurer Cook, Superintendent Dr. Chapman, and members of the board. My name is Kareem Elkins and I'm a senior at Mir Franklin High School.
024I am here to speak about the importance of allowing students to express their cultural identity through what we wear specifically in my case wearing a cultural rep or durag. Recently my assistant principal told me that I could not represent my culture in this kind of way and that I was and that what I was wearing was not part of my culture at all. Hearing that was hurtful, disheartening and disheartening. It made me feel dismissed, disrespected, and unseen. Not just as a student, but as a young black individual proud of where I come from and what my culture stands for. For many students like me, items such as do-rags and wraps are not just for fashion accessories. They they carry deep cultural meaning, symbolizing pride, history, and identity. Wearing them allows us to stay connected to
025our roots and express who we are in a confident, positive way. I am not here to challenge authority or ignore school rules, but to act for understanding, respect, and change. Our dress code should uplift and include all cultures, not silence or shame them. Every student deserves to feel valued, accepted, and represented in our schools. Thank you all for listening and for your dedication to creating a school environment where students where students feel respected, supported, and truly seen. >> That's it. >> All right. >> [applause] >> Uh, thank you for your comments, Mr. Elkins. Um, I do have people from Warren with the last name Elkins. That's actually family. Um, but thank you for your comments this evening. You articulated yourself well. Uh, we did hear you. We do understand. We respect you. You are acknowledged.
026You are valued. and you are valued not just uh in as a human being, but you're valued in what you contribute to the space that you're in, but I also appreciate the fact that you understand what the rules are and that were were something religious, you would have the opportunity uh to to express yourself respectfully that way. But unfortunately, all head garments outside of what are medically uh required or what is religiously uh acknowledging just aren't aren't allowed. But I thank you so much for being here this evening. Stay strong at Mary and Franklin. Yes, sir. All right, we'll move on to Miss Nicole Parker. Good evening, Miss Parker. When you approach the podium, you will have three minutes. My name is Nicole Parker. My son's name is Braden Parker. He goes to Batty Park
027Elementary. I am here to address the board on transportation issues. There is many flaws with his stop, such as him being a speck egg kid. When he pick gets picked up in the morning, he is a right-hand drop off or pickup. In the evening, he has to cross the street even though he is a house stop. By law, state of Ohio law states if you have a spec egg kid, they are to be a right-hand pickup or drop off. How I know this, I work for a different school district. So that is my job to make sure and maintain that I know the rules of my job. Also, transportation issues with being late. My kid, it has not even been 3 months into school. He has had 30 late buses. My kid has ADHD. He
028has autism and he has a brain chemical imbalance. So that not only deters him when he's late in the morning to set his day, that's going to cause him to have teacher flaws where he's hollering and screaming at the teachers, he's going to have a bad day. Not to mention the fact that it also deers the fact of socialization skills with other kids when he comes home at night. His drop off time is 4:34. He's getting home at 6:00. So, it not only with the socialization of the kids in the neighborhood, but also with parents, with grandparents that want to go and take him out to do things. By the time he gets home at 6:00, he is literally doing his homework, getting dinner, getting a shower, and he's going to bed for the next
029day. That is a very big concern with me, as well as the pickup and drop off with not following the spec rules. That is my main concerns. And not only the fact that he also, like I said, it deters his day with his teachers. And I've had to have teachers call me so I could calm him down or have him them call his dad because I'm on the bus with my district so that his dad can calm him down because he knows, hey, if mom doesn't see a 95 or better on my DBR, which is his daily behavioral report, I'm getting something taken away. That's not fair to him. Nor is it fair that about a month ago they went to Special Olympics and he literally was two minutes away from missing his bus for
030his field trip. And had he had to sit at the school with the teachers, it would have been a bad day. That's what I wanted to address the board about transportation issues because it's not only affecting my child, but me being a bus monitor and knowing all the transportation issues, it affects other kids that are getting home late, too. So, I'm sure that it's putting a damper on other families as well. So, it's not just the concern of my child, but it's me looking out for the whole community as one. That's what I was trying to address the board about. And I've contacted the transportation garage and they give me excuses. Well, we have 15 stops. He's the 13th of 15th, but there's only 10 kids on my child's bus. So, how is there 15
031stops if you only have 10 ch 10 children on your bus? That doesn't make sense to me. or they tell me, "Well, um, this person or that person, you know, and it's not acceptable." Thank you. >> I thank you so much, ma'am, for joining us this evening, Mrs. Parker. Um, quick question. Uh, Dr. Moer, I'm naming and claiming that for you. Um, is there someone here who can actually from the administration who can actually speak to her, get her information, and provide some assistance further if needed? >> Yes. Uh, our chief operating officer, Mr. Woods, is here. Um, and he will connect with this parent. >> Okay. >> Get my information before the meeting. >> Okay. Awesome. Awesome. All right. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> All right. Uh, that concludes Oh, no,
032it does not. Uh, we have another caller. Uh, someone actually joining us, Rita Hallel. >> Yes. Hello. Good evening. >> Good evening. And good evening. Thank you so much for joining us. Rita, uh, you have three minutes. >> Thank you. I am a parent of a CCS second grader. I'm a resident in the Livingston area outside and I also work as a family ambassador to the CCS elementary school. All of you have received numerous communications from me regarding transportation. And while all these rules impact my points today, I stand before you I call in today primarily as a district parent and a property taxpayer. I was at the community town hall at South um which was not at all true community engagement um and I'm concerned that as you begin proposing additional closures about the
033lack of true community engagement the spending decisions and continued lack of transparency as well as equity in these decisions. School closings are used by your district as a solution to budget shortfalls. yet based on a public records request in October of this year when asked for financial savings from each school was quote the requested information is not tracked slashkept by the district end quote I understand that there are hard decisions that must be made about the budget due to the state house decisions yet are and not debated today you Items 17.1, 17.2, and 17.3 which are all tax valuation settlements are common in the consent agenda. In both cases, the district's council is proposing tax values hundreds of thousands of dollars less than that initially requested by the property owner. Make that make sense. In
034none of these cases has the board of revision held a hearing yet on the contested value. I want to know what is the rationale for settling in this way. It's always framed as a reduction in loss. Yet the amount your district loses could be mitigated further. In item 19.2 Two is request to approve $26,000 for a consultant to run enrollment projections for the next five years. This is more than a family ambassador gets paid for a school year and could surely pay for someone to ensure that all children have bus routes sooner than two to seven weeks after they enroll. Don't we already have five-year forecasts or someone on staff to do it to take the information? Maybe get some robust polling of residents. I want to know when the district will receive this information
035and will boundary change and transportation decisions be contingent on the modeling and forecast reports provided by this consultant or will those decisions be made first? Why is there never any talk of using that money instead to increase district enrollments to truly revitalize our schools and engage in a communitydriven process? I'm asking that you remove these items from the consent agenda today to separately debate and vote on and for the policy committee to create a new policy around how the district handle handles tax abatements and settlements on property tax value as this is an enormous source of revenue loss for our district. All this talk of realignment and vision for the district is about high school offerings yet decisions about elementary and middle schools are what impact enrollments later on. Board member Ray acknowledged as much
036in the November 9th, 2024 board meeting. We deserve a board that prioritizes our children early on, not waiting until middle school or high school. My neighborhood will continue losing schools and is about to be moving a lot of routes. There's a lot of uh road construction that will be happening on Livingston and Maine in the next few years for road improvements which will cause rerouting or buses and this really needs to be taken into consideration before making major decisions about taking away busing for high schoolers. >> I thank you so much Miss Hal for uh joining us this evening and for your comments. Thank you so much for joining us this evening. >> Thank you. >> Right. Okay. Um I want to ensure too that her comments were were duly noted as clearly as we
037could have gotten them. All right. Okay. So we are now moving on to section four which is board matters. Uh first up is uh Miss Moer who will be sharing some data with us on our future our CCS uh series last week Monday through Wednesday. Thank you so much for being with us this evening. We look forward to hearing what you have to share. >> Thank you. Good evening, President Cole, Vice President Adair, board members, staff uh and community members. I'm Katherine Moser. I serve as the district deputy superintendent. Uh tonight I'm excited to share some updates on our future RCCS town hall workshop series over LA three nights. October 27th at South High Street High School, October 28th at West High School, and October 29th at Mifflin High School, Columbus City Schools hosted our
038our future RCCS town hall workshop series. We welcomed more than 650 in-person attendees and more than 600 online surveys have already been completed. The survey does remain open on the district's website for the next few weeks and so that even more voices can be heard. Um, but thank you for giving me an opportunity to give a little preview um of the feedback so far. Feedback from our families, staff, and community partners has been both insightful and inspiring. In in our priority box activity at the conclusion of each town hall last week, we learned the following. 46% of participants identified that academics and whole child supports are the top district priority. 28% prioritized school buildings and 26% emphasized busing and transportation. Through our online engagement survey tool, we have learned that 79% of respondents want the
039district to focus on supporting teachers in the classroom and expanding access to art, music, and physical education, which was one of the most strongly supported areas for investment. 66% have indicated they want additional support staff including counselors, school social workers, and school nurses. And when asked about school consolidation survey um respondents, 51% said it's important to spe to protect specialized academic programs and job readiness pathways. We are grateful to all who participated, including our students, families, staff, community leaders, and especially to you, our board of education members, who joined us each evening to listen, engage, and learn from our community. These sessions reaffirm that our community wants to be a part of shaping the future of Columbus City Schools and we look forward to continuing these important conversations in the coming weeks. I want to
040name that the joint committee will meet uh on November 13th to discuss staffing and programming in Columbus City Schools. Thank you for giving me that opportunity to share early response. >> Uh thank you, Mrs. Moer. Are there any questions from board members at this point in time about last week's experience? >> All right. Um I thank you. I thank all of our uh administration uh and our community that participated uh in last week's set of series of forums. Um I think that there was quite substantive engagement. I think we had an opportunity not only to share where people were and then glean from them what they felt was highest priorities, we also gave opportunity to really hear what their concerns were. I know that we spent quite a bit of time uh giving them quite
041a bit of information. We downloaded a significant amount of data to them. Um but I I appreciate the fact that they dealt with it gracefully. Um they listened. they felt some degree of being empowered and listened to in the process and honestly felt like they were in a situation where they could share uh what was really on their minds and their hearts about our direction and more importantly um how it could impact our children. So I thank everyone for their participation in that. Um if there's nothing further to add uh we'll move right on into uh our board self- evaluation. I do want to give the floor again for anyone who just had a thought or a comment. If not, >> thank you, President Cole. And I also want to just make a point. You
042know, these um the town halls last week is a component. It's not the be all. Um and certainly as chair of community engagement and advocacy, we're looking at some additional dates for just listening sessions. It won't be the full-on presentation of what we experienced last week, but finding additional opportunities to integrate from district-wide events that are already happening where we could have maybe a table or a space uh to be a part of as early as uh November 15th at the main library where we're having a prek event happening there from 10 to 12. That's on Grant Avenue. I personally will be there and if any of my colleagues can join, they'll be more than welcome. We're also going to be having um more opportunities for office hours here before board meetings on November the
04318th and on the 19th um also hosting a Zoom. So that information will be forthcoming. It's not the beall as I mentioned, but also feel free to email us. We are very responsive to that. So if you need us to come to you, um I I can speak for myself in this moment. I'm prepared to do that if that's needed. Um, so understanding that we are trying to get better about engagement and we hear your feedback and we hear your concerns and so if there's an opportunity for myself or any of my colleagues who have availability to come out to your setting, that is something that I'm personally committed to as well. >> Uh, thank you uh, board member Vera. Uh, again just to close on that thought that this work continues. Community engagement for
044us is not just some one-time measure. it's actual opportunity to continue relationship development and communication exchange, idea exchange um so that we ideally get to the best space we possibly can for children and families in Columbus City Schools. So thank you. Um with that we will move forward to our second portion uh 4.2 which is student outcomes focus governance board self- evaluation. Um tonight we'll be joined by our coach with the Council of Great City Schools and that's Mr. Cindle Revoluri. Um Synindle, welcome and we look forward to you kicking this off for us to have a rich conversation. >> Thanks President Cole. Uh do you want me to take it from here or >> You certainly can. You have Okay. Yep. So the reason for self is that past board practice has led to
045the current reality for Columbus students. And so as the the goals that you all adopted indicate, uh we want improved outcomes for our students in the future. And so to do so, to get there, we'll need to consider board practice and commit to improving. And improving is much easier once we understand the current reality. So a key step towards that improvement is to evaluate current practice. And so that's what this time is for. Um to really evaluate how focused board governance has been on student outcomes. Uh just to clarify, this is your evaluation. I'm just here to help. Um, and I will be asking some questions and keeping track as we go ahead, but it's really about your assessments of how things are going since you as board members are the ones who know best
046how your board has been uh engaging in governance. And so it's not about judgment. It's not an occasion for pretending, but it's also not an occasion for blame. This is a chance to assess practice with a common framework. And that will also give uh you as a board an opportunity to align on and commit to next steps. And so I appreciate all the board members who prepared for this evaluation by working through these criteria in advance. Um and we will consider the six competencies on this uh framework. In turn, the individual criteria align to high leverage practices that make governance effective. Uh, and they reflect uh, degrees of focus on student outcomes. The assessments that you have will be based on evidence. Uh, I may occasionally be asking you clarifying questions about what evidence you
047have. There may be areas where there isn't enough evidence, and that's just the reality of where we are now. There may be other areas where the current evidence shows that there's areas for improvement. Um, and the the scores will be a helpful baseline, but I think even more helpful based on my work with other governing teams, the most valuable thing is that you all make choices about what to work on in the next quarter to increase the board's focus on student outcomes. Um, and so with that, I'm going to share, please let me know if you can see u my screen. It's the the first competency um the vision and goals dimension of this framework. >> We can see it. I'm not sure how helpful it is given that the font is so small, but
048I do think we all have a copy of it. >> Okay, great. Uh so for those streaming hopefully you can see that uh for those in the room I'm not sure how much you can see but um happy to share this with uh anyone in addition to board members. So, uh, we're going to spend more time on the first competencies because as the the points at the top indicate, those are the practices that are more correlated with governance that really helps focus on student outcomes and create the conditions for improvement. Um, but we will not go through every single one. will proceed uh with more time when board members have different perspectives and uh probably less time where uh after we've determined what the next steps are and so uh I'll just start us off
049u the first criterion is that the board has adopted goals or not and how do you all feel about that? >> We have adopted goals. I think we've done that due diligence since we actually began this work. I was very encouraged uh particularly in this space that we have demonstrated um not only you know compliance but even you know consider even even growth moving forward. Um as of last year we adopted a new goal. We transitioned out one, made it an interim guard rail or guard rail um and transitioned into our goal space goal number two which was strengthening mathematics in the district. >> So I thought that we we demonstrated quite a bit that we've we've done that work. >> Great. uh on this framework. One thing that is sometimes confusing is that the
050first column of each dimension uh the red one, it's actually stuff that's framed in the negative. So that's why I've put an X on it. Uh that statement is not true because you all have adopted goals. Um the second criterion is whether the board has the the board has not consistently demonstrated the ability to distinguish among inputs, outputs, and outcomes. How do you feel about that? >> Okay. Um I'm happy to to start with what I shared. Um I believe that we've taken some considerable steps to do the first thing which was get trained. All of our board members have been trained and had some measure of experience with our governance model in a way to understand what is the difference between ownership and being a customer. Um what what is it that we should
051be uplifting at the board table in terms of discussion? I believe that this year particularly we've demonstrated a measure of growth in that space particularly during our conversations during monitoring. Yes, there is work that we can do collectively and even myself from time to time I'll certainly say in the year prior um to ensure that I'm not sneaking in you know advice or wise counsel so to speak. Um but I think that we have all we all understand what these things are that we should we should be uplifting at the board table as a part of discussion. Um >> thank thank you. I appreciate you sort of going to the next step. um the question that you raise or the the observation that you share around board behavior um the standard at for this criterion
052is really just the ability to distinguish so I'm curious uh do other board members have different perspectives about the board's ability to distinguish among inputs outputs and outcomes >> I agree with our board president the board is able to distinguish between inputs and outputs. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you, member Pierce. Uh the third criterion is the board has not hosted opportunities to listen to the vision of the community during the previous 36-month period. >> So I said that um this was true for us in a sense in the strictest sense of SOFG. We have not gone back to the community to touch on the values and this these particular goals. We have gone just like we did now around other issues, but in the strictest sense of SOFG to double check against the guard
053rails in particular, we have not gone back to the community in the last 36 months. >> Anyone else have >> Thank you, Vice President. Other perspectives, >> it seems as if there's an agreement at the table. I did include our most recent experience um into this, but I do concur. >> Thanks, President Cole. And I I think Vice President Adair highlighted something important. This criterion is really asking if the the board has hosted opportunities specifically to listen to the vision of the community. Um and uh as we heard from Dr. Moser the the feedback was rich and certainly was uh a lot of folks contributing to it. The the question you all have to wrestle with is whether they were about the vision of the community or if the questions were directed in other ways.
054So thank you for for um highlighting that distinction. Um we'll just look at a few of the criteria in the next column. Um, one question for [snorts] this first criterion is if the goals that were adopted by the board were adopted in collaboration with the superintendent. What is your perspective on that? >> Yes, they were um adopted in collaboration with the superintendent. >> Great. And uh the I'm I'm going to fast forward us a little bit because the goals are posted and they can be seen. There uh are certainly no fewer than one and no more than five and they're each smart. Um has the superintendent adopted in collaboration with the board one to three interim goals to progress monitor each goal? >> Yes. >> The answer to that is yes. I agree. >> And
055the status of each interim goal is able to be updated multiple times during each school year. >> Yes. So I disagree I did actually did not think that that was the case and this might just be a technical thing too. >> So we only receive the reporting once a year on these interim goals. Now this administration can certainly update them anytime they want but I wasn't sure if it was that the board received the updates or if the superintendent does this action. >> That's a great clarification. Vice President, this criterion is really getting at whether the measures used in the interim goals are able to be updated multiple times. Occasionally, districts will select measures that in theory could be monitored midcycle, but they can't actually be updated because the data isn't there. Um, we will
056get to on the third competency more around the monitoring process. So, I encourage you to bring that up when we get there. Um, the last criterion in this column is whether the board publicly posted the goals for public comment >> prior to adoption. >> So, Synindo, I I kind of want to go back to where we just left off very quickly if I can. I said yes because I know that we had regularly received that and I know that we had there are instances particularly and we'll go through that when we move forward through the monitoring aspect of it. Um but whether it was root cause whether it was uh theory of action there were things that on an interim goal basis were cited and shared you know even in the most recent reports that
057we received. So I I maybe I'm a little confused too, but I thought that we had actually been doing that work. >> Well, I think can I Synindle is it that the data itself is available multiple times? Are we choosing data that is updating? Is that the is that the question? >> Yeah, that is the intent of this criteria. >> I don't know the answer to that. So, um, Synindle, if we think about the space of continuous improvement, where is it that you could give us some guidance on how we think more thoroughly about that and how we first of all clarify what the intent is? It seems like we're there, but then what is it that we need to do to continuously improve? >> Absolutely. Um, can I check in with you on the
058last criterion in this column and then we'll come right back to that question. >> Were these goals posted for public comment prior to adoption? >> Yes. Oh, yeah. >> Right. Okay. So, I'm I'm going to bookmark that because it will come up again in a few minutes um in response to Vice President Adara's point about monitoring and I think we can resolve it at that point. Um we could keep going but I just want to pause here. Uh are there uh next steps that seem apparent from our discussion so far? >> Point of order. Quick question. So if I'm following and understanding what we're doing right now, our board president has asked a question of you as it relates to column number two approaching student outcomes focus the status of each interim goal. It seems
059that our leadership wanted an understanding of is it data that should be informed updated that we should be informed on regularly or is it the uh theory of action and strategies and things of that nature. You said that you would put a pin in it and come back. However, it seems like you are shifting to move to another area. So could we go back to the initial question as it relates to column two the next to second or the next to last item? >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Thank you. Much appreciated. >> So if I understand your question correctly, it is about the data for the interim goals and the question is is it able to be updated multiple times during the school year? So that's a question that is independent of whether monitoring is happening.
060>> That's a rough question. >> I don't I don't think that I don't think that's the intent of what our leadership has brought to the table. I think the intent of it is if we are evaluating oursel right now and it might be the way that this one is written. The status of each interim goal is able to be updated multiple times during each school year. At this point, I'll just request, can we as the Columbus um City Schools Board of Education change that indicator to explicitly state data? >> I'm making a note on that. >> Just make it state data. I think we will all agree at the board table that as long as the data can be updated multiple times a year, we will all say we're good. Give us the green check
061mark and let's move to the next criteria and column. And at the end, >> member Pierce, if I understand correctly, you're saying the status, you're saying instead the data for each tin goal. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Because that's what you just said, Cindel. >> Well, Paul, >> and that's what my colleague has pointed out. >> Yep. I I think that's equivalent, but yes, that's totally fine. >> Thank you. Much appreciated. >> That work? >> I think it works. Now just as my own question is status more about the data or status about the completion of of something. When I think of status when I attach that my mindset is around what is it either in compliance or what is incomp completion. >> So wait a second if we change status to data status is negated.
062It's it's not there anymore. And because these are goals that we're continually working for, if we completed it the goal, then we're reidentifying goals. Like, >> so this is the way I'm reading >> everybody. Let's >> The way I'm reading this one is that basically, Synindle, we as the board should be able to ask the super because the interim goals are her goals, not ours. They're the they're the smaller goals to get to our big goal. But we hear about those benchmarks in reports and we right now only hear about them one time a year. Um, but if we wanted to know the status of any of those interim goals, we should be able to have that status at any point because, and this is what I thought you said, Cindel, that the data can
063regularly be updated at certain intervals. It's not just a one time, one point in time. um we can go to systems and continuously pull the data to see where we're at. Is that that's how I interpreted it and maybe that's not correct >> kind of like a real- time dashboard type situation >> that they have the ability to do that >> that really this is a question about the measures that are selected as VP Adair pointed out by the administration for the interim goal. So >> for example, >> keep it at data. >> If there was an interim goal that was about the first day of the school year, you know, the number of kids who showed up the first day of the school year or their their height on the first day of the
064school year, those would not be that would not be a measure that could be updated multiple times during the school year because it is inherently something that can only be measured once. As long as the measure is something that could be updated multiple times during the school year, then that is fine because that creates the conditions for the board as you mentioned to monitor progress throughout the school year. Whether that monitoring is actually happening is a separate question and we will see that in a few minutes. But the question here is just whether the interim goals are based on measures that can be updated and it sounds like there's consensus that they are. >> Yes. >> I like our interim goals. So I think this is just a weirdly worded standard. So I agree with
065Dr. P. We should rewrite it. >> That is a very fair point. >> We agree. >> All right. So, one question I have is based on what we've looked at so far, are there any next steps that seem appropriate to the board's perspective? I think the one we just uplifted is the most significant at this point in time, which is the the the the data versus the status of something that we're actually looking for constant opportunity for the administration to demonstrate their ability to update data. >> Um >> yes, Mr. President, I think in terms of um next steps, I'm not sure if the intention is to do um each of the criteria on for all of the pages, but there are quite a few. Um and so I'm not sure it does make sense
066to continue to go through, you know, line by line if because I we wouldn't be able to get through all of them by the end of our meeting in a reasonable time. Um, and so maybe perhaps my colleagues who haven't had a chance to complete this could have another go around at it and have the opportunity to send it send it in and then we could take the compiled results and discuss those. >> Well, if I can because what I want to do is maintain the good work that many of us have already completed in contribution to this conversation. Um, so I want to honor that work that's been done first and foremost. Secondly, I want to honor the time and support of our coach. And again, this is an initial, this is our first
067time as a board actually ever doing this. >> This is the first time our board as per this governance model has ever done this. This is an initial step into >> Yes. >> done this before. >> We've done this. We haven't done it through this model >> with AJ. We did. Yes. He just um and correct me if I'm wrong because I'm pretty sure it was under the leadership of President Adair. Um he helped us summarize kind of what we had sent in. We've done an evaluation before. >> Okay. Well, I want to make sure that we honor and I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. I'm I don't have to be right. That's all right. That's But this is this is again You just heard me say >> No, I'm saying to just check
068the record, but I'm certain. >> That's good. I I accept your confident assertion. Okay. >> Um with that in mind, what I want to do is honor the work here and make sure that we get through this. We don't if you feel like we don't I don't know that we necessarily need to go line by line if that's the process. Let's honor it. But we want to give ourselves the due diligence to at least have a a a substantive conversation right now about where we are. So, let's continue, please. >> Yeah, Member Simmons. Uh that's a great point and I partly share your concern. Um we may not get through every single uh competency and that's okay. We're going to spend some more time on the initial ones because those really describe the higher leverage
069practices uh for a board to engage in. Um the question I was wondering was what are next steps I should have said for the board based on this assessment this snapshot of what practice looks like right now. >> I think it's premature to ask that question when we haven't fully gone through the vision and goals um all the total indicators. We're we're just now at approaching student outcomes focus. Could we answer that question after we go through the full page? >> We could absolutely. >> Much appreciated. >> Okay. So, um my understanding based on what uh the respondent said and my reading of the goals is that the goals are about student outcomes. Uh do the goals have annual targets? >> Yes. >> Great. And do the interim goals pertain to student outputs or student
070outcomes? >> Yes. >> Did the board include students, parents, staff, and community members in developing goals? >> Yes. >> And uh we can read the goals so we know that they do last from 3 to 5 years. >> Yes. Do the interim goals last from one to three years? >> Yes. >> Great. And then th this last criterion in this column is uh not so objective. It's a question for the board to decide. The goals and interim goals will challenge the organization and will require change in adult behaviors. >> Yes, >> absolutely. >> I can't see you all right now. Is there consensus or other perspectives? >> Great. Thank you. Okay. And then in this last column, there are some other questions which are a little more nuanced um and which you all will have
071a better perspective on than I will uh given that you have been part of this process and I'm joining much more recently. The board used a process that included students, parents, and staff and community members in a way that leads them to express ownership of the adopted goals. >> Yes. >> Which is a little different from the prior criteria. >> I said no. >> I wasn't. >> Could you say more? >> Um, yeah. Well, first of all, it was during COVID, so a lot of this was online. Um I think that there was a lot of input but when we say ownership that means to me that people can tell me about the goals and uh when I talk to them no matter the level that we're speaking I think right now we have buyin
072from many of these groups but I would not say that they are owners of the of it um and that I think goes back to the way that the um engagement was done. So I think that we have great on the goals in particular. I think we have great ownership in our administration and our higher levels like our uh maybe some of our principles. Um but I think we have buy in starting to get buyin from our staff and and and maybe a little buyin from our parents and I'm not quite sure how students because we haven't gone back and asked. Um I'll I'll add to that um what I know in my experience um in the ways that I know that there has been in fact very recently um if not earlier this year
073definitely late mid late last year there was student engagement on the part of engagement. Um I know that that took place. Um when it comes to ownership I did in many of these additional competencies stated that that is a a space of continuous improvement for us. Um, I don't know if it works off that something needs to be signed or acknowledged in some sort of way on the part of participants to demonstrate. I just I just wasn't sure about how we could actually demonstrate uh ownership uh by particularly even by external stakeholders and then some internal stakeholders like students and uh and parents. I just wasn't sure about that. But from a general standpoint, I thought that we did the work of engagement, engaging folks in a way definitely that our internal staff has owned
074it and actually work towards it to ensure that from a monitoring perspective, we have everything that we need. But I do agree with my vice president on the some aspects of this question around how do we ensure uh demonstrating ownership particularly with external stakeholders. >> Quick question, President Cole. Um when you refer to the student engagement, are are we thinking of when um our community engagement department went into the schools and had the conversations with the students and they did the whiteboards and they wrote down those notes? Yes. >> I thought that was related to the guard rails, not the goals. >> Th that that the information in that report aligns with the guard rails and not the goals. Okay. So what >> I I could agree with an X. Jennifer, are you saying I
075mean board member there? X. >> We didn't. >> So we agree. I think there's consensus on the X. >> Thank you, Member Pierce, and and thanks for the other perspectives as well. I I just want to share again why we need evidence for assessing here. Um I think the question that I heard President Cole just express is a really generative question. How do we know? Um, you know, you as a board set goals based on the community's vision and to ensure that progress is being made towards those goals, you ask the superintendent to provide evidence that those goals are being accomplished. And she and her staff do so through their monitoring report. And the parallel process of board evaluation is for you all as a board to show the community whom you represent the evidence
076that your governance goals are being accomplished. And so uh the question that might be helpful is is what evidence can we point to in order to support this assessment? And it doesn't mean that it's not happening. It just means we don't have evidence. Um, and that can be an informative thing to to realize that we don't have evidence and consider should we do something about that. >> So, I appreciate you engaging with that question. Um, the next criterion is around the interim goals and the criterion is that all the interim goals are predictive for their respective goals and are influencable by the superintendent and the team. >> Yes. Okay. >> And what would you say is your evidence for that? >> Uh our evidence for that is the data that they've actually shared and again
077this is more eluded in the monitoring space. um in terms of uh again theories of action um any number of rationale that's been shared on the part of the administration as to how this will actually work how whatever the strategies that were recommended will actually be employed and work. Um there's been fair enough uh and information shared with us to that effect to give us some sense that these are predictive goals. In addition to that is shared on a timeline basis of what growth we are expecting to see on a peranom basis. Um whether we've fallen short of that uh anticipated goal or not there is something that definitely shows us in a visual spectrum what exactly it is we should anticipate on a peranom basis of growth. So I I hear you president Cole.
078I think that the annual targets are more to ensure clarity around what is being proposed uh around these goals. Um, and I hear you saying that you believe that data has been presented that there are strategies and that I think indicates that you are confident that they are influencable by the work of the staff. Um, is there also some evidence that's been provided to you all as a board about how the interim goals are predictive? >> Yes. So, our goals stack and the interim goals are then based on the lower grades. So we have our third grade goal and the interim goals are all then focused on the lower grades to then demonstrate why um strategies are working at the lower grades and then it's going to be predictive that we are going to meet
079the third grade goal when those students arrive in the third grade and that's how each of our goals are set up to look at intram measurements at the below grades >> and it's even disagregated as well it's also disagregated ated information. >> And so the the fact that the interim goals look at the students at earlier stages in their educational progression you feel is sort of um logically means that they are predictive. >> Yes. >> Okay. Great. The last criterion in this competency is that the board relied on a root cause analysis, comprehensive student needs assessment, or a similar research-based tool to inform identification of and prioritization of potential holes. >> Yes. >> And is that documented? And if so, roughly when did that happen? Like u roughly what month or what board meeting? So
080this was all done with AJ when we first developed them. Um but we did have a a re-evaluation of the math goal when we adopted it to come back in and look at that through um our our you know a lot of data. Um and then our superintendent you know proposed that back to us to add the math goal. Um but most of this in our learning process for it was done with AJ to help us understand root cause and look at data. Um, now I did note that most or many of the people sitting at this table were not part of that. And in fact, our superintendent uh was not our superintendent at the time, but was on staff. So many members of the administration didn't get that first hit. But I think we
081did well coming back and doing it through the math goal that was just re >> re readopted or newly adopted. >> Newly adopted. >> Thank you. So member Pierce, we've looked at all the criteria uh in this competency. >> Uh is it okay if I come back to the question of what next steps? I I let me clarify. These are possible next steps. I'm not asking you to commit to them. I'm just sort of capturing them so that as we move through the other competencies, we don't lose um what we discussed. >> No, I appreciate you. I appreciate you for coming back to this. So, I would echo what uh board member Adair stated earlier in terms of us reconnecting with the community around um our goals and their thoughts around those. And I think
082not just the community, but to uplift what board member Cole indicated around um probably our students and staff so there is more ownership. So I think that's the next step for us is to go back into our communities to make sure that there is ownership and just not buy in. >> Thank you member Pierce. Other perspectives >> I agree with that. >> That's what I was >> you have a consensus. >> Great. So that I believe if that's really around vision and goals that would also address this criterion about uh hosting an opportunity to listen to the vision of the community during the last 36 months and I my understanding is that the goals were extended a bit which may explain why that has not happened in the last three years. Uh but if that's
083a plan then that would address that as well. So, you're saying we can proactively give us credit? I don't think that's how these work, though, if we're going to be completely honest. Right. >> It would not be proactive or it would not be um that that's not the assessment of the snapshot right now. >> Right. All I'm saying is if this was done then when we did the next when you all do the next board evaluation in a quarter then you would anticipate that this criterion would no longer be true. It would be false and therefore you would you would score at a higher >> level. Right. >> Right. Because technically right now because we have X's in that red column, we are technically not focused because we have two we have an um not
084the X sorry the check mark >> in accordance to your technical requirements. Yes. >> Yes. But if we do that then we actually would be in the meetings category meeting this standard working very well into mastery um which we you know difficult but uh you know we can get there. >> Yeah. Yep. That that's a great summary. >> All right. Thank you. Let's move to the next competency. >> So, um in in the spirit of member Simmons point, I'm going to um sort of fast forward on some of these that you've already addressed. Um but I will ask you for your assessment and occasionally your evidence for other criterion. Has the board hosted opportunities to listen to the values of the community during the last 36 months? >> For for me and again including last
085week's engagements, I said yes. I included last week as a part of what would be our full year for incorporated into that 36 months. >> My answer is the same as before. I I'd say no because we did we are and it is part of the question but it isn't targeted to exactly to doublech checkck the values we've already have written. I don't know the right way to which way we should be looking at that. >> Yeah that and this is why it's a nuanced question that really you all as board members are the ones to answer. If you've hosted opportunities to listen to the community, the question is did we listen to the values of the community? And partly it's did we ask the community what values they believe are most important to protect.
086>> Okay. So just to clarify with this one, we're words smmithing here. We are just looking for asking the community their values, not necessarily alignment with what we have set as our guard rails. Correct. >> Or goals. No, we're >> No, that's correct, Member Pierce. That's an important point >> because it is additional board work then to say based on what we've heard about the values, should we keep these guardrails? Should we change them? Are they still right? But the foundation is listening to the community. >> Excellent. So, thank you for that clarification. Given that I support President Cole's assessment, we have heard values from the community. I would change my assessment too if it's broader than just the ones we wrote down. >> I would agree with my colleagues. >> Thanks, Member Vera. >>
087What I would like to see us do is be less reactive, though. I would like for us to be more intentional about going to the community with our own kind of, you know, not not always in a crisis or always like what do you think about this? So, I think that's not part of the question, but just a note to as a possible next step um just being more intentional about creating space um and not being reactive for the reason why we create that space. >> Agreed. >> I agree. >> Agreed. >> Thank you, member Vera. Are we okay to move to the yellow column? >> Yes, sir. Uh how the the guardrails did the board adopt them in collaboration with the superintendent? >> Yes. >> Right. >> And we we know how many there
088are. >> Uh the superintendent has adopted in collaboration with the board one to three interim guardrails for each guardrail. >> No. Okay. Um, so this that's moot. And were the guardrails posted for public comment prior to adoption? >> Yes. and and just uh looking forward and um you may want have in your mind how will we demonstrate to the community what evidence can we provide that we engaged with the community that we posted the guardrails for comment and so on. Um my understanding is that uh most of the rest of these criteria uh aren't necessarily that relevant if we don't have interim guard rails yet. >> You're correct. >> Right. >> Absolutely correct. And in fact um I would say is a opportunity for continuous improvement in this space is not only to adopt the
089interim guard rails but also ensure that they are posted in a way. So here's what I experienced while I was doing this part of the evaluation. What I experienced was is that under a previous superintendent we had done the work. We actually had done guard rails, excuse me, goals, interim goals, guard rails and inter guard rails. We we had actually done that work. Um, under our current superintendent, I I was not able to find that information at all and almost ended up confusing. I had to do it all over this section all over again because I was looking at a previous document from uh way re way way in the past not something recent. Um so I would say that we need to definitely calendarize that. I do understand that we do have I believe
090one interim goal um calendarized I think for next year >> if not this year. >> Guard rail. >> Yeah, it's guardrail. Excuse me. Forgive me. Thank y'all. wrong. >> Um but we need to definitely adopt those and calendarize that in a way and do it also in a way that is based on the life of the strategic plan. So that's the other missing segment uh that we don't have in any of these instances is that we have a uh we have a set of what the interim goals are what what we think is one interim guard rail or a guard rail period. We have what that looks like in five years planned but not what we're looking like not what it looks like on a year-over-year basis. We don't we don't have that if I'm
091saying that correctly. Synindle, >> thank you. Um and I think you're uh referencing something that's consistent with this criterion that there are ending points for each interim guard rail for each year. >> Yes. As well. >> Yeah. Okay. So it if I may summarize uh I'm hearing that there's a possible next step in terms of engaging the community about values and then also uh a next step about adopting interim guard rails. >> Quick quick clarification. So I think what we uplifted at the board table is that we are engaging our communities about values. The work that we need to do as a next step is to align those to guard rails that can then be turned into interim and annual goals that we are getting data on. >> Thank you, member Pierce. So, >> first
092of all, we do have I want to be clear, we have we have voted on guard rails. What we do not have is the intram guardrails which are the superintendent's responsibility. >> Correct. But I think what we've noted in the conversation is that while we are talking to the community about values, we're not necessarily looking for alignment between values and guard rails. We're just getting their ideas around values. So that's why I uplifted that it needs to be more of an intentional thought process on our part instead of just collecting values to focus on collecting alignment between values and guardrails as well. >> Yeah, that's true. we we actually need to go back and redo the whole community process in general. So that's true. Dr. Pierce, >> thank you for that team. Um and I
093agree with that because the way we initially did this uh when we did it the first time was it was a twoon- situation. two board members would approach the community and we had a process by which we listened and gleaned information uh from the community that was substantive to their values, their concerns and we brought that back, put it together in a three to five page piece and then shared that feedback back with the community in a way that also instructed uh uh our collaborative work with the administration. So I I absolutely agree. >> I think also as we look at this um full indicator well this full um page of indicators for every column I think we have some room for improvement around the board adopting one or more theories of action. I think
094right now as we discuss um our potential budget cuts, there are some things that conflict with our theories of action. I.e. if we've heard about the importance of transportation and how transportation impacts attendance and how it impacts learning time. Um and that has been lifted uplifted in so many of our monitoring reports. Attendance, attendance, attendance, attendance. you know, so now we are potentially taking some actions that are going to impact that theory of action. So I think we need to be very intentional as a board of determining what are our one or more um adopted theories of action. >> So it looks like send just in summary um we have some considerable growth to consider and take action on uh moving forward. Um, this is something another reason why I greatly appreciate the opportunity for
095us to have this conversation initially um because I think it's a gift to the future board uh for serious consideration as they continue their work and they see the substance of what that what what our commitment to this actually will will you know how that'll manifest for us and outcomes. But >> that's where I am with this. I think in summer we've got work to do. >> Agree. That's a great point, President Cole, and I would just say uh we all if we want to get better, we always have work to do. Um and the process is I am feeling giving more clarity and establishing the areas of agreement among the board, which is great. Uh I'm documenting these here as possible next steps. um they it may not be realistic to take them all
096on in the next quarter, but we've written them down and that way we'll remember them and before we wrap this up, we will consider which uh is realistic to do. Um but in given our our time constraint, is it okay if I move us to competency? >> Yes, I'd like to be able to cover this last one if we can. >> Great. So, uh, the board has adopted goals. So, that's no. Uh, the board does not schedule each goal to be monitored at least four times per year. >> Yes. [cough and clears throat] Um, I said yes because I believe we currently only monitor the goals. Um, we do a summarative once a year and then we do the interims once a year. So, at most we're talking about each goal twice a year. Um,
097not four times. >> That's correct. Thank you. >> That is accurate. And I was in the same yes and no space. [laughter] I said well yes and then no. But >> u no in terms of four times but I we also have only three goals. So we don't have four goals. We have three goals. Um so that's why I was with that. But yeah I agree. >> Okay. The board does not schedule each guardrail to be monitored at least once per year. Well, we haven't historically, but I believe our our calendar right now does. >> Y it's calendared, but the monitoring sessions for guardrails um frequently do not occur. >> Correct. >> There's no metrics. >> Got it. Thank you, Member Simmons. So, they are scheduled, but your clarification is whether it's happening or not
098is a separate question. >> Yes. >> I thought we answered the question. and they're not happening. >> Okay, >> remember everything in a >> board has not adopted a monitoring calendar. >> no, we have them. >> They are adopting this calendar. >> Can he see our calendar? >> Carl, can you give him the calendar? >> This is one that I am not certain what's going on. So, I'm hoping you all um are closer to it and more informed. The board does not track its use of time in board authorized public meetings. And I'll just clarify here, this is something I asked some other coaches. Um when it says the board, it does not mean that a board member has to do it or the board has to do it together. This is certainly something that
099could be delegated. Now my response to that was as I thought because I had I asked maybe a few months ago were we actually doing this and it was shared to me by our board liaison that we actually were keeping the time and that she was doing that. Um, so my response to that was yes. And I even sh I even shared the caveat that it wasn't something that was assigned to a board member perhaps as continuous improvement. one to ensure that we know we're doing it and then two to actually know ex how we're meeting that standard where we're dedicating the minimum of 10% or the minimum of 50% uh of so of SOF student outcomes focus conversation uh to board meetings um in our regular board business meeting >> I figured hold on
100I just figured that we the future president could assign on a quarterly bas basis a particular board member to do that if they wanted to volunteer doing that work but I thought that our board liaison was actually keeping our time for us. So I have a quick question. Given the the great tool that we have our students learning IIA or AI, sorry, is there any way we could just put the video of the meeting through that and they could calculate the time for us? I'm not sure having somebody sit and calculate the time is a good use of a person's time given all the great work that we need to do to impact student outcomes. So, what are other districts doing that are utilizing their resources to be able to keep track of this time?
101>> Uh, that's a great question, Member Pierce. Uh, my experience is that, uh, this seems a lot harder than it actually is. >> It really is because, uh, it it wasn't that long ago that I started doing this myself. Um, but it was it it was not as timeconuming as it seems. So here's what happens and this has happened and you can go look at some of our board meetings. When we initially started we did have someone who was keeping track that was a board member and instead of them being focused on the dialogue and the discussion and evidence there was this look at the clock at the time and oh we haven't hit the time so let's continue to try to talk about something so we can be performative in doing this work. It
102should be organic and it should be something that naturally happens. It should not be timed out into an agenda because the work that we are doing requires dialogue. It requires data, discussion and thought that is beyond just the management of time. >> Well, I want to I I do I I actually understand what you're saying and appreciate it. um as someone who has actually watched board meetings from other cities and other states and actually did this work of looking at how much time they've dedicated to things um and even doing some of that for us at the end of the day if this if part of the rubric standard is for us to be working towards having substantive and I'm using that word quite a bit but I'm using it purposefully substantive dialogue around student
103outcomes focused conversation where what is the state and condition of our students you know performance whether that's on a interim kind of basis or whether that's on a sum summitative basis that that conversation can't happen organically but the idea of keeping the time is something that helps us get greater and deeper understanding of our own behavior in the process how real are we to this how committed are we to this How is that demonstrated in how much time we're actually applying to this work? >> Respectfully, I disagree because I think the time needs to be spent in a more productive way that is around the dialogue, the data, and the student outcomes that we are focused on. And I would much rather spend more time listening to our public comment, listening to our community members,
104listening to our staff, parents, and students talk about their experience than to sit here and be performative around spending 40 minutes on a monitoring report that half the time people don't understand what are the interim goals and the data that is going into it. >> Well, I greatly appreciate that response and this is where I will further add and then we'll move on. >> I'm sure. >> Yeah, I would just say we didn't hit this Yeah. And and I was in the same >> Okay. Could you repeat that? >> That we didn't make the time >> make this. >> No, we didn't. >> We did not hit this goal. >> Is it is the goal about the 10% or the 50%. >> Th this is just about do we track our time or not? >>
105Yes, that's what it was. >> Nope. >> Yeah. And the answer is no. >> We don't track it. And the next step was could we assign somebody to track it? Could we have our board liaison track it? And the question is if we have >> right now when we just need to right there might be easier ways to do it. >> At the end of the day, hold on. At the end of the day, the easiest way to do it is we started this conversation at 6:36 p.m. The conversation ended at 7:25 p.m. That's the easiest way to do it. So, I agree with Cindle in his comment initially where he said that I think we're overthinking it. there's act this work seems a little more easier than what we're actually saying it is. And
106what we want to avoid doing is getting into that space of common pretending. Common pretending is being pretentious about it instead of saying okay if this is something that we need to consider as a behavior a variable of our behavior that demonstrates our commit our committedness to our governance model then okay let's figure out how we just keep the time and it's about that >> again I think what I'm saying President Cole goes deeper than that it goes to is it performative or are we really having rich dialogue and discussion >> I don't think that one precludes the other quite honestly ly I don't >> and member Pierce may I offer three quick points >> yes please >> thank you u the first is I agree with member Pierce that trying to keep track of
107time while engaged in the meeting is is not ideal uh the nice thing is that uh your board and most boards at this point are uh live streaming their meetings which means they're also recorded and So it can be that the time assessment, the time use analysis can be done after the fact. >> Thank you. >> Um second, I think member Pierce makes a really important point that the point of this is not to spend more time on uh monitoring discussions. The point is to have substantive monitoring discussions that ensure that the district is making progress towards its goals and that we're asking questions uh as board members that are getting at that. Um but the flip side is in order to have some kind of um basis for uh in your case seven board
108members to align on how is the board doing there. There are objective criteria or at least more objective criteria on this rubric. Um and that's not to say that that's what matters. It's just to say that there is evidence that boards that invest more of their time monitoring goal progress are boards that actually create conditions for improvement in student outcomes. Um that's not to say that that correlation is necessarily always going to hold and it does matter what those conversations are like. So I think this has served an important purpose in terms of highlighting that this is the current state of how things are going. Um you all make the decision about what to do with that information and what to do next. So that's not for me to say. That is for you as
109a board to decide. Is that something you want to do? But I think it's been valuable to reflect on is this happening? And it, if I may summarize, the consensus seems to be we think so, but we're not sure and we're definitely not looking at that. Again, is that accurate? I think what is accurate is that we all want to ensure that there is substantive conversation around SOF student outcomes focused dialogue that we want to ensure that we are accurate to that that we want to ensure that we're giving as much time necessary as necessary for us to be equipped to make the best decisions that we can make because we've got the best information possible and we've had as much deliberative conversation around that at the board table. We've asked and done the inquiry
110work in advance so that we're prepared to have that conversation. That's where we are. But if part of this requires us to track our time, there's nothing wrong with that. >> That's where we are. >> Okay. So, President Cole, you're saying that the board is not currently tracking its time and there seem to be multiple perspectives among the board members about what, if anything, to do about that. Is that a good summary? >> Yes, sir. >> Thank you. Um, one other criterion I want to check on and then just loop back to the the next steps uh before we wrap up. This uh second to last criterion in the red column says that the board has not consistently demonstrated the ability to distinguish between customer service or customer issues and owner service or owner issues.
111I don't think we're competent at that yet. >> I'd agree. >> Thank you. Uh, VP Adair, Member Pierce, is there any evidence in particular that comes to mind when you make that assessment? >> [laughter] >> I would say because there is a lack of data to make the assessment might be an indicator. But um I think more so than that um when we are having dialogue sometimes it is very difficult for us to understand um who the the customer is versus who the owner is and where their issues intertwine and how they might be separated and distinguished. So, um I would say it's complex. >> Thank you. VIP, anything you'd add to that? >> Um I just don't think that we have enough competency yet to describe the difference between owner and customer in a
112way that all seven of us agree and use the same definition in practice consistently. So there are many many examples where this has happened >> and interestingly enough I would add that there there is a blurred line in that space. There's there's a grayer area in that space too because some of this is tied to policy. So when we're talking about customer issues from the standpoint of concern for customers because something operationally is tied to uh how customers uh are served or serviced a and then b what the potential impacts of uh that that may have on student outcomes. This is where things become a a blurry space for us. Is it fair to say that? >> Yeah. Thank you. I I think that's uh really both important and helpful uh noticing. And so what
113I heard in terms of next steps um and hopefully I didn't uh infer too much here is that the monitoring calendar should be modified so that goals are monitored more frequently. Um if I heard correctly, it sounds like there is a consensus around delegating um time use analysis. Uh is that accurate or have I misunderstood? >> So can I just go back to your first thing? So this is the part where I channel um board member Vera about how do we make this work for Columbus. So you know in our in this framework you've said that we should monitor goals four times a year but based on the way our team has put the goals together as well as the interim goals that doesn't always make sense and so I think that again we as
114a board this can coach us through this but like we need to kind of make this work for us and um you know have deeper dialogue about that including just as we did rewriting one of these competencies for us >> coming back and look at these and making sure that they are working for Columbus in this framework. >> Yeah. And if I could add um to pres or vice president Adair's point, I think also something for the future board to consider is how do we want to go about really continuing to the training and educational components of SOFG? Um because respectfully, you know, I get the intention of tonight, but taking this much time in a board meeting when there's so many things happening right now. I understand the intent, but I think just like
115we have a monitoring calendar, we should also have these things kind of special meeting, whatever the case may be, so that the community is well in advance aware. This will be our sole topic. So, we'll be talking about this for two hours. But when we tie it into board business on a Wednesday when we have other, you know, board business to attend, I get the opportunity about learning out loud and being able to hold each other accountable, but personally, this doesn't feel like a good use of our time in this moment. Agreed. >> I appreciate the reflection. >> I don't agree, but I appreciate the reflection. Um, Synindle, I notice you have a check mark next to the board has received monitoring reports in accordance with its monitoring calendar. Um, you didn't ask us about
116that, but when I completed this information and sent it into you a few weeks ago, um, I did put an X there because we haven't always received monitoring reports. We didn't receive one for the equitable resources guard rail from last December. Um, and there's also been other guardrails that we just haven't received reports for, or sometimes we do receive a monitoring report, but then we end up having to reschedule the monitoring session because the report is not um ready to go. >> Thank you, Member Simmons. This is one that I did not spot even after looking at your all your um assessments. I don't know if the intent of this is that u there's been 100% accordance with the monitoring calendar and that every scheduled monitoring report has been received or if it's something else.
117So uh thank you for highlighting that. I'm going to put a question mark on that which is really about my own understanding of the of the criterion and I will get back to all of you. >> Okay. um to vice president's observation that the interim goals may not allow more frequent monitoring. I think that's a really important observation and that again is a decision for the governing team to decide whether those are interim goals that set up the board to do effective progress monitoring because if the frequency of the data is not um sufficient it it precludes actually doing any monitoring more often than you know once or twice a year is what I understood. >> Well actually No, I said the goals, not the interim goals because we could do those more and they
118bring those forward once a year, but I thought it was our goal, like the actual goal itself. >> I see. Um, this is definitely something to your earlier point that the language here is not very clear. >> Okay. Um, when we talk about a goal being monitored, that means a goal and any of its interim goals because goals generally are outcome measures and so they're really only observable once a year. Uh, monitoring progress on interim goals is a form of monitoring the goals because the interim goals are intended to be predictive. >> Okay. Can those monitoring reports all I mean our monitoring re sessions because I don't want to say a report. Could our monitoring sessions also include the opportunity for the board to identify the more one or more strategies or theories of change
119theories of action? action. >> In general, a monitoring report will have strategies that the district leadership is using to achieve progress on those goals. >> So, >> and so yeah, that should be part of the monitoring conversation. So it is a part of the monitoring conversation. But as I think about colleagues Vera and Adira when they indicate that we need to customize this more for our board and our district. I think if we were to as a board spend time around identifying our one or more theories of action that can extend the monitor and report discussion but give us an opportunity to have the deeper dialogue around how we really want to move student outcomes for multiple years. >> You know, I I would also say um to add to that point, Dr. Pierce um
120you know I think in the making this model work for Columbus sense you know monitoring doesn't necessarily have to mean we're getting a report on the data you know it as we traditionally have done monitoring can also mean you know the board members have an opportunity to you know come to a metriculation session at one of our schools like we've done before in the past but you know just having those board administration engagements on the goals I think is important um and should happen more frequently than just um the current cadence it does um so I think you So, as Dr. Pierce was kind of echoing, there's kind of other approaches to go about it. I think that's that's one way. >> Thank you. >> Um, I believe I'm over the the guided time that
121President Cole uh said that you all had for this discussion. So I just want to make sure that we collect the next steps and ideally see if we can come to a consensus of what are the priorities for the next few months. Um, I heard uh some interest in delegating the time use analysis so that you all have information to evaluate your practice on a criteria like those at the top of the these three columns to see how much time you actually are spending on monles. Is that the consensus or am I stating >> I don't I don't know colleagues because aren't we in November it we have December we'll have breaks and we're about to make a decision around next steps for a a very different board that will be here in January. So,
122is it possible that you could just give us a highle executive summary of what our next steps are and we can work with our colleagues that are here at this board table and the ones that are coming in to prioritize and determine um who can be responsible for assisting with those um things that we prioritize. I I will say I do think board services has because there's been a effort to do this in the past the board services team I could be wrong but I do believe they have already a system um that was in place maybe at some point that they could reimplement and so that's why I said now the decision to do it or whether or not you know it's something to still have further dialogue on but the reason why I
123I do think in terms of if we decide it it's who the delegation's been done it just needs to be done again so to speak >> so >> I guess I was is referring to all the next steps, not just the time delegation. >> Say maybe we can talk about this. So we're lower this in the order of priority because that's what we're doing right now is we're prioritizing the next steps. So we're Okay. So Synindle, it sounds like we'd like to lower this to the bottom of our priority. >> But what I'm asking is it appropriate for us right now to prioritize these items when the board will be very different. January the >> Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I thought you hold on. So everybody hold on and I thank you everybody for their
124their ideas and responses. I think for the sake of this board's reflection which this is a process of we prioritize and then at this point this is something that could be forwarded or shared to the future board in a way that they can you all can deliberate and discuss and decide from there. But for the sake of our reflection in this moment, we're giving ourselves an earnest opportunity to pay forward to the future board what it is we think is best. I agree that at this point in time we do have a process in place where board services is helping us uh keep time. Maybe that's something lower on the list, but let's walk through what those other considerations are so that we can move forward. So just thanks President Cole. >> Can I just
125pop in here about the the time like so we did have a process board services was doing it. We tried a couple times to do the evaluation of the time where we all got stuck for those of you that were here was that we disagreed with the way that we were being accounted for for the time. We felt that some of the topics we were talking about were actually linked to student outcomes and the the framework was too strict. So we kind of stopped doing it because we disagreed with it. So I think that fundamentally the the new board because we aren't going to have time this one needs to figure out what we want to do in terms of the monitoring. I think what we have agreed on as consensus is what's working for
126us is the reports that we're getting and how we're doing that with our administration. Um but any further thing that is in this framework um we really need to talk about does it work for Columbus and what do we need out of it and I don't honestly I don't think that this board can do that. I think this board can set up the things that we know have worked and the wise and looking at like the monitoring calendar and understanding more now about the what counts and what doesn't count and things that are a little bit more technical. But there's a lot more of this framework that, you know, we disagreed with we didn't really have great coaching on and we ended up quitting it. And so that's the truth of it. Um, and so
127I think we need to come back and relearn why it was valuable or talk about how do we make it for Columbus. Um I mean I do find value in in in in just that metric of accountability that we're you know trying we're trying to demonstrate that we are discussing and discussing meaningfully. Um uh you know the the goals and guard rails that we have spent a lot of time on. Um but you know it I this one is hard because I remember what we got stuck on. So, I don't think just saying let's we we can start counting our time or the board can be given the time. That's the other thing. If they're doing it, we we don't see it. I don't know what we're doing with it. Um but I just for
128this one, for me, this one is not the biggest priority, which has already been said. I I I will say since we're getting into the value of it, um I do think it's val it would be valuable to me to see yes, you know, what we're spending our time on, but it's not necessarily valuable to me to attempt to align that to um a a certain governing models rubric, so to speak. Um you know, not necessarily so, but I I do think just it sounds like the colleagues there is consensus that this is at the bottom of our priority list and we could maybe go on to the next items. Yes. Cindle, is there a way that you can show us again what priorities you've kept track of or you have note of so we
129could I'm a visual learner. Um so we could see those. >> Yep. So um from from the the first competency there was a suggestion to re-engage the community students and staff around the vision and goals. From the second competency, there was uh interest in engaging the community about values more intentionally and proactively, assessing alignment of the values with the existing guardrails and adopting uh interim guard rails um and making them publicly visible. Um and then uh from this competency we've just been discussing um there there were a number of ideas of possible next steps um around the monitoring calendar uh adjusting board meetings to incorporate future evaluations. Um I what I've understood is that that ensuring the board can see the time use analysis. Um, and then another point of building the board's understanding of
130customer issues versus owner issues. And I I take your point, member Pierce, about perhaps coming back to this. In my experience, uh, this step is really a decision step. It's not really an analysis step, and it's much faster if the board does it when the evaluation conversation is fresh in in everyone's mind. Are there one or two next steps here that stand out uh as being priorities for the next quarter? >> So, Cindo, do you also have a copy of the monitoring calendar? Mr. Williams, did he get that copy of that? Because again, I think it's a disservice to lay out what priorities and actions are given that it is November. Do we do we have another monitoring report coming up, Mr. Williams? I gave you my calendar. We need to realistically think about what
131this board can achieve and and what's the purpose. I think right now we should literally pat ourselves on the backs that we have completed our evaluation. Good job board and colleagues like we we've we've completed the evaluation. I don't think there is anything wrong in saying that as a next step we will move forward and prioritize some of the potential next steps. I don't see why we have to prioritize right now and do this, >> Cindle. Um, and and I'm I'm speaking from a particular mindset here. I'm speaking from the mindset of from our reflective perspection for for our from our reflection perspective. coming from our reflection perspective. These are the things that we're recommending for a future board to consider and then that's that. So, I'm I'm pretty much in agreement with what everybody
132is saying. I just need to restate what I'm been what I've been saying since I've been talking about this is that we are focused on giving our own reflection and shaping narrative around what worked, what didn't and paying forward to the future board what we think should be something that they consider moving forward. And then they'll prioritize at that time what that further work actually entails for them and the way that you know works best for the for for Columbus City Schools in this our district, our city, our board, but most specifically even for student outcomes period that we become even more effective and accountable in that space. because this is what all the technical stuff we've been talking about is actually encouraging us to do. So I want to say again and then final
133this is about us sharing our reflection and giving what we think is our best set of recommendations about priorities that should be given serious future consideration or consideration in the future. Does that make sense? Sorry, President Cole, are you asking me? >> Yes, sir. And anyone else? But yeah. Yes, sir. You specifically >> Well, I think that was a really good reminder of why to do this work. You're doing this work so that your ongoing governance creates the conditions to improve student outcomes. That is the only purpose of doing this evaluation. The mechanism by which that will actually happen is by an intentional choice on the part of the board whether the current board or a future board to change uh some of the current practices. So it it is your decision of course um
134and you can decide both what to prioritize and when you want to take that on. Uh I will certainly be happy as member Pierce requested to summarize what you all shared today in terms of the next steps and you all can decide when to take that on. Um it does not have to be something big or momentous that you take on. It might be something small um and something that you feel is a a no- lose that uh would be helpful in creating conditions for improved governance, but that that is your call. So, uh if you'd like me to, I can write that all down and you all can decide when and how to take action. >> Yes, please. And I thank you for that. >> Great. I will do that. >> All right. Uh
135thank you so much uh Synindle for joining us again this evening and providing uh giving give giving us the opportunity to have um a substantive dialogue and this the beauty of this conversation today is one that we can demonstrate amongst each other and to our viewing community that we take our work seriously that we do have a governance model in play that we're learning and growing alongside excited and uh that we're committed to the outcomes of students in the process and we're committed ideally to the idea of changing our behaviors in the process as well. So I thank everybody for that. I thank everybody again who participated in this piece and most of us really did. I thank you for that. Um, and I look forward to seeing how this, you know, manifests itself for
136not only a future board, but you know, the school district as a whole moving forward. Um, so thank you all. Uh, we will now move on into sections uh 5 through 7 and I will now excuse me. You're right. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. >> Um, so we will go into section 4.3, which is our LED presentation. >> Uh, Dr. Moer, thank you so much for joining us this evening, Katherine or Mrs. Moer. We look forward to uh your presentation. >> Good evening. Thank you very much. Um and thank you. At this time, I'm going to recognize our chief operating officer, Maurice Woods, and his team. Thank you. >> Thank you. Good evening, board chair. >> Good evening, >> Vice Chair Adair, board members. I want to acknowledge Auditor Okconor as well as treasurer Ryan um
137because they've had some input into the conversation that we're having today. So, I just wanted to call call that out, Ryan Cook, respectfully. Um so, today Maurice Woods, chief operating officer, really excited to co-present with my director of purchasing Anthony D. Geralamo and our new LED coordinator, Dwayne Parks. I'm really appreciative of this opportunity to talk a little bit about our locally our local economically disadvantaged enterprise. We'll call it LED throughout the majority of this presentation. Um we're here today to talk a little bit about slide two. We want to talk a little bit about kind of the role that LED plays um in our economy and then we'll go into some of the data. We're on slide two, please. Got it. Want to talk a little bit about the role that econ led plays
138in our economy. We think that it's important um that we recognize that as Columbus continues to grow um CCS must fulfill our our mission to serve students and prepare them for jobs and leadership in the future. But also, we need to figure out how to help build and grow our local economy, which will help strengthen our tax base. Just as the city is innovating um to stand out on the national stage, we believe that we can leverage our LED program with the purpose to expand opportunities for all LEDs. This work aligns with board guard rail align resources equitably and um we do that by having a 20% aspirational goal for all local businesses for all local business participation. I believe that if we're successful we will and we can surpass that goal. However, I just
139want to acknowledge that this is an aspirational goal and it's not a mandate of the board. I also want to take this opportunity if there's any vendors that may be watching this presentation or maybe watch it in the future. Um, our success is dependent on the number of LED vendors that we have certified. Um, so if you are not um certified with Chicago or with Columbus City Schools, excuse me, um I would enga I would implore you to really reach out to us um and help us help you become part of this ecosystem. Our LED outreach program is driven by board policy 6400. and it contributes to the development of strong communities. There are a few important areas that I would like to call out. Our local vendor engagement is informed by a race and
140genderneutral policy. We have no set aside programs specific to any race or gender. The state of Ohio, it is actually illegal to discriminate based on race and gender and vendor practices for state and local government contracts. Last year, FY2425, we filled a longstanding vacancy. You'll hear from that gentleman today, the new outreach coordinator. And over that same period, we also spent approximately four $41.5 million in LED spend, which is the highest spend in over a decade. We want to take a deep dive into the spend data analysis. I'm going to ask Mr. Tony D. Geralamo to talk a little bit about the data and then following up on that piece, we'll spend a few minutes talking about our path forward um which um in involves an item that is on today's agenda. It's item 13.1
141which is a software um a vendor engagement software that we're bringing forward to the board for approval. Mr. Djalamo. Thank you, Maurice. Um, good evening, um, board president Cole, Vice President Dar, and board members. Um, the data, this data was distributed to the board on the weekly, uh, report August 25th to 29th. This particular slide shows the spend dating back to 2013. The blue bar chart shows our total dollar spend and the orange line chart shows our LED percentage by year. The district spent $41.5 million with LED vendors in fiscal year 2025. That was the highest dollar spent dating back to at least 2013. Um the district's LED percentage in 20 2025 was 17.9%. That was the highest since FY18 and was up from 14.8% in 2024. We've had four consecutive years of le growth
142both as a dollar figure and as a percentage. So while we're not quite to the board, um the district is making progress in this area. This next slide um shows year-over-year uh comparison for local and lee spend FY25 versus FY24. Um, the district's LED spend increased by 11 million from FY25 to FY24, an increase of 37%. Primary LED spend was $26 million in FY25. This was roughly a $10 million increase um, compared to 2024 or 67% increase. This number is particularly important because it's systematically tracked um by our ERP system, Tyler Munis, and it's not reliant on departments or vendor data like subcontractor spend is. The district spent $71 million with businesses within Franklin County. This includes both registered LED vendors um but also vendors that are not registered LED vendors that have a Franklin
143County zip code. So 31% of the district's controllable spend dollars were spent in Franklin County in FY25. This is an increase of $19 million over FY24 or 37%. While board policy 6400 states that LED goals will be achieved through race and genderneutral measures, we do track LED spend uh by LED classification. However, Mr. how m Mr. Woods uh mentioned no business decisions are based on these categories and we do not have any set aside programs. Through our competitive procurement process, uh, the district spent $21.7 million or 52% of total LED spend with Caucasian-owned businesses. $15.9 million was spent with African-American businesses or 38% of total LED spend. 1.7 million was spent with Hispanic businesses or 4% of total LED spend. It's important to note that um our ERP system only allows for one LED classification
144per um vendor and that vendors self-identify through the registration process. Um this slide shows a three-year trend of LED spend by classification. Um it goes chronologically from top to bottom. Um FY25 was the highest spend both with Caucasian and African-American businesses at 21.7 million and 15.9 million respectively. Um those are both the highest since at least 2013. We've also had four consecutive years of spend growth with African-American vendors [snorts] and 1.7 million is the second highest spend with Hispanic vendors since at least 2013. Um this this slide shows top performing departments. As you can see on the bar chart there, multiple departments surpassed the 20% uh board goal. Operations as a whole spent $35 million with LED vendors, which was accounted for 84% of the district's FY25 LED spend. Overall operations le percentage was 21%.
145So, as a whole, they surpassed the board's goal. Diving deeper into that department, Capital Improvements spent $25 million with LED vendors, which was 61% of the district's LED spend while only accounting for um 35% of controllable spend. With [snorts] that, I'll pass it back to Maurice Woods to discuss some of the challenges or opportunities the LED program has faced. >> Thank you, Mr. Dr. Dalamo. Um that concludes our data dive. Um want to talk a little bit about um some of the challenges that we have um as we um look to identify our path forward. Um on the slide in front of you um we acknowledge that we have experiencing some challenges that have impacted the program. it's impacted the program's effectiveness including manual processes, some turnover um and some concerns um that have been
146um shared with us. I would like to call out that the in the areas of manual processes and data and key performance indicators. These were identified in a March um internal audit as high-risk items and the path forward really looks to address those items. So I want to um applaud you Okconor for partnering with us and providing that audit and those findings to us so that we can improve those the response to the identified challenges of those audit risks that I just had on the slide previous to this. It really requires an emphasis on sustainability, datadriven decision making and transpar transparency. This slide outlines some of the pillars of our approach to directly respond to those challenges and to those audit risk to enable a sustainable program. We want to start with a new contract
147for a familiar software solution that digitizes and automates multiple critical requirements. The system has a robust return on investment and it does that by automating a vast um portion of our processes and provides real- time data that we can report out to you the board um in our community more frequently um and more accurately. An investment in LED as I mentioned earlier aligns with our B our board guard rails which are based on community values um etc. I would like to introduce Dorne Parks, our outreach coordinator, to talk a little bit about how we will accomplish some of this work moving forward. >> Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, President Cole, Vice President, board members. >> [clears throat] >> So this slide um speaks to the software system that was decommissioned and we're proposing to
148bring back online which is referred to as B2G now. So there are four modules that we're going to bring online. The first is outreach and events. This module allows for targeted campaigns for effective vendor tracking. It tracks things like the number of people registered, how many people viewed the event and attendance. Hello Can you hear me? Okay. Um and attendance. Uh so this system will provide the analytics and measure the success of the program. The second module which is online vendor application and certification management. It automates and simplifies the certification application process. Cuts manual work for the staff and vendors. The third module which is the spend analysis module. This provides detailed insights into expenditures by matching financial data with certified vendor information. It will allow CCS to report numbers more efficiently and more accurately.
149The final module that we're going to bring forth is the contract compliance module. [clears throat] It enables comprehensive real-time tracking of contract performance and subcontractor participation. Having this system will allow CCS to connect with other local users who also use B2G now and be able to share information through the B2G ecosystem. Last but not least, it will reduce the amount of cyber risk because data is being uploaded into a secure system which should cut down on the spamware which we've been having a lot of that issues lately. Um you can see you can find additional details about the B2G now system and appendix one. [clears throat] B2G now is in use by a vast variety of customers across the state of Ohio, including but not limited to the city of Columbus, Kota, the airport authority,
150the Columbus Zoo, their large construction contractors that use this service. And having this assist system will allow CCS to connect with the other local users who are using this platform and be able to share information with each other through the B2G ecosystem. So per board policy 6450, one of the things we're doing is creating we we created an outreach program committee. We we we have created a charter which is the formal agreement that outlines the purpose, structure, and goals of this committee. One one note I'd like to add about this committee. Participating businesses cannot bid on work for the duration of their membership on the committee. Every individual that's on this initial committee are seasoned professionals who are committed to this type of work. Charters have been signed by all participating organizations and the first
151meeting is planned for Friday, November the 14th. And with that, I'd like to turn it back over to Mr. Woods. >> Thank you, Mr. Parks. So, as we close, I talked a little bit about return on investment earlier in the presentation um through an aggressive negotiation. And again, I want to just um commend um our new purchasing director, Tony DJalamo, um for those negotiations. We were able to glean um benefits totaling approximately $45,000. Um you see the areas on the left hand side that contributed to that um immediate qualitative return on investment. But there's also qualitative benefits. I'm not going to read the bullets there. Um there's additional information in the appendix that really goes into details around um the the benefits for each of the modules that we're bringing forward. Um it's a a
152significant investment return um for this software um that will help us um execute on our action plan which is divided into short, medium and long-term um items. Um the first thing that we need um and and is looking for board support on is really in today's legislation um the B2G now software um and as we strive to continuously improve um our original um goal or our vision is that CCS will be positioned as a regional leader in this space of local small business vendor participation. I wanted to give you a preview of what our portal will look like or could look like in the very near future. Um, this will be um available online um to our vendor community um as well as our internal staff. Um there's information there um through the the red
153um hot buttons or hot links um that really provide um resources and um opportunities for our vendors to engage in our procurement and our purchasing activities. I do want to provide one immediate upcoming event update that I'm really excited to share with the board. Um we have been working closely over the last couple of weeks um with our partners um the city um to do Columbus City to do a joint vendor outreach event. Um that event is targeted for December, early December. I think we're still finalizing the date as of this point. Um we've narrowed down the locations for this event. Um, the audience is really all local vendors who are interested in learning more about Columbus purchasing activities or vendors that are looking to register with Columbus City Schools and the city of Columbus.
154[clears throat] Want to thank you for allowing us the opportunity to present this information. There are appendices in the in the back of this presentation that we're not going to go through at this time, but we are open to taking any questions. And as I mentioned earlier on, um if there's any um vendors in the audience um that are interested in learning more about this program or interested in becoming a registered vendor, um we have the information available for Mr. Dwayne Parks, our outreach coordinator. This point, we'll open up for questions. Uh, thank you so much for this presentation as per our board policy. Are there any questions at this point in time from our members? >> Yes, vice for member Engles. >> Um, thank you for going through that and um I am looking
155forward to hearing how the first meeting of the LED committee charter goes. Um, one thing that we talk about or we've talked about in the past is feedback from the participants um, in the program. And so, have you thought about how you all might be able to integrate the feedback that's given from the participants in order to refine the program? >> Yeah, I think part of that is in is part of our engagement and outreach pro program. I think what we need to do more of and what we plan on doing more of is really being visible in the community and providing those opportunities for us to share feedback. We also want to create an opportunity where these vendors can get to know some of what I call the buyers or the purchasers in the
156district. So, um they can provide feedback directly to some of the the directors in our organization that are purchasing some of this um some of our products and services. and that feedback can help us get better um and make sure that we're considering some of the hurdles or or concerns or challenges that vendors are facing. So, I think it's incorporated into our engagement and outreach process. >> Yeah, thank you for that. I just I know that was a big element of a lot of the community feedback that we've heard in recent years. So, >> and we have engaged in some feedback. I'll be brief but one of the things that we've heard also is just around training both internal and external um training and how to utilize um the portal um and how to get
157access to to information. So that's something that we've been working closely with B2G with and some of our initial conversations in ensuring that we do that better and smarter um than how we have in the past. >> Anyone else? Dr. Um this is a comment that kind of goes along with um your statement that you just made about training. So in my research on this particular software um there are components that our internal auditor and his team will be able to use as well as components that our treasurer and his team will be able to use. And so it's my sincere request, directive, hope um but more of a directive that really you all are working together to implement this software that you are going through the trainings together that all the teams are in
158those trainings and understand how to use this. Um I think it is going to be a great resource for our district and our community. So thank you for the presentation. >> Receive that feedback. Thank you. [clears throat] Uh, vice president. >> Um, I have a a question. We used a word. I know what it means, but I'd love you to publicly define what controllable spend means. >> I think that's important concept here. >> Absolutely. Thank you. Controllable spend is the spend that we identify that's outside of our control from a purchasing and procurement perspective. So, it's things like benefits, for example. Um, we don't necessarily control that. So we don't include that in controllable spend. So it's all those things that are outside of the normal purchasing um and procurement cycles. >> Um in looking
159at the chart where we looked at the top performing departments. Um uh these are all operational type departments, legals here, but it's it's more operational. Um can you talk more about where the academic programming would where fits into the kind of goals here? >> Yes. So as Mr. Deralamo stated operations is approximately 83% of all of the spend. Um you know we have over 60 OPUs or departments. So we think there's significant upside. There's some aspects of academics that are more challenging to bring in local economically diverse enterprises, things like curriculum for example, but we do acknowledge that there's other areas where we can get better at that. And I think part of that has to do with our ability to literally um make sure that they receive some of the training um how to
160utilize this tool, but sitting down and meeting with them. So, if I can give one hard example, I talked about the joint um CCS city of Columbus vendor meeting. Our plan is to actually identify what are some of the um services um and and products that we're going to purchase in the next six months, take that information to this meeting, but also invite some of the um district staff who will be making those purchases to this meeting so that they can engage with the vendors. Um we think that there's um a win-win situation in providing access of the vendors um to these um directors but also it allows the directors to interact and engage better understand what's out there in the market and start to develop some relationships. I believe that um the best way
161that we're going to achieve um and past the 20% um aspirational goal of the board is to start bringing in some of these other departments um in in some of these purchasing purchases and procurements. My last question is if you could just maybe if you can if you can just let me know go a little deeper in to the question or concern um from vendors just about the application process itself to become a vendor um understanding that we may be doing it differently and that's maybe why we're also uh doing the software but currently we're doing it differently or requiring different things at different times than uh perhaps uh other large government entities and so people are really just choosing not to. They might bid on our contracts, but they're not actually submitting the application
162to be led certified. >> So, it's it's not over complicated. We've had some conversations with some vendors. The root problem is we have a paperbased registration system, fill out forms of paper, you check boxes on paper. um most um other entities um in the city of Columbus, we listed a list of them um on one of the slides have all already automated this per this process and streamline the process. So that's our biggest hurdle and one of our root causes to some vendors not wanting to put in the energy and effort to go through our paperbased heavily manual process. >> All right. Uh, board member Simmons. >> Um, thank you, President Cole. Um, Chief Woods, I did want to say that, um, I'm also excited for the outreach committee and so look forward to, um,
163getting feedback on how that goes. Uh, my only question is you mentioned, um, real-time data as part of the software. Um, what would the implementation timeline for that be? Because one of the, um, recommendations I believe from an audit from internal auditors Okconor's office was, um, to provide the board with more frequent data on the LE spin. Um and so you know when do you anticipate that the board might be able to start re receiving more frequent data rather than just once a year? >> Yeah. So the way that we're rolling this out is we've really um since so the vac the position's been vacant um for approximately a year before Mr. Parks came on. So there hasn't been a lot of outreach activity. Um we haven't registered a lot of vendors. So the way
164that we prioritize these modules is to really do a blitz on getting out into the market um bombarding them with information increasing our vendor um list um and also cleaning up that list. So that's the priority of the module roll out and then late next spring once we have better data going in to the system we will start working and focusing on the spend analysis module. So I believe by early as early as our next annual report that's coming forward um in in July June July August time frame we will have data that's pulled out of this system to um to to provide to you and the community. But we specifically focused on the modules that help us um improve the data that would be going into the system and engage our vendors aggressively. >>
165Okay. Thank you. And then just my last question would be um you know you did mention the position vacancy a few times in the report and then just now is there a secession planning in place to ensure that you know the next time that does occur that we're not running into the same challenge challenges you know so we met an obstacle but now is a learning experience. >> Well I appreciate the question um through the chair I I really appreciate the question I think there's two pieces of that one. one is I think that um the opportunity to automate these processes minimizes the risk that if someone leaves um that um that knowledge walks out the door with them um it's harder for somebody to be able to pick it up. So I think the
166automation of the processes um and the system minimizes some of that risk. I also believe that over time as the board sees the value of what LED does um for the district and for the community, I would anticipate that we may want to think about at some point bringing in um a junior level resource to create some type of secession plan in that department. In the districts that I've seen that has done that have done this extremely well, they started off very similar to us. one individual, we bring in the system or the tool and then over time um there's so much value and value that's added to this role in this function that they usually bring in a junior assistant um to support this work. >> Um thank you. And then just my la
167last question to clarify the information that was provided. Um we did use the B2G software once before. Correct. >> That's correct. >> But the reason we stopped using it is because it wasn't maintained. I I thought from the information that was provided, the reason we stopped using it is because of the staffing vacancy created a situation where no one was there to make sure the district maintained its contract. >> So the I we weren't here um when the the product was decommissioned, but what we identified is that there was some transition including the vacant role. Um there was a move of the the function to a different division, different department. Um my belief is that we just missed the renewal time frame um for this product at that time and now we're bringing it back
168to the board for consideration. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. We have one more question. Board member. >> Uh thank you um Mr. Woods for this presentation. I just wanted really quickly on the outreach committee um that has been formed. Um, maybe I missed this, but exactly how were these organizations selected? Did organizations apply to be a part of this? Are they appointed? And kind of what what were you looking for in terms of the organizations that were selected for this? >> Yeah. Um, I think there were a couple things. One, we we identified specific organizations that we wanted to target. Um, we wanted to target them for their expertise. Um, we also wanted to target them for potential opportunities to partner and share best practices, um, as we move forward. Um,
169so we really reached out to a lot of these organizations and engaged them and recruited them to be part of this inaugural committee meeting. >> And just as a point of clarification, was there a reason why we went with that strategy versus opening an application for organizations to submit to be a part of this? just wanting to get understanding. >> Yeah, I think some of it was around sense of urgency. I definitely think that going forward we could refine um the process of how we get these agencies on board. Um but we really feel like we're in a position where we're um in some regards playing catchup. So we're trying to expedite um a lot of this work so that we can um stand up the foundation so that we can really get to the
170value added work. Yeah, I appreciate the work that's gone into this. Um, and certainly as you continue to modify the committee structure, um, because I I do believe there are some key players missing from this list, especially when we think about the data that you showed us in terms of who our vendors are. Um, it's not quite reflected in terms of who's a part of these uh participating organizations. So when we talk about LED and we talk about community engagement and yet we have a lot of representation that's missing from this committee list, it is a bit concerning just from that lens. However, I recognize it's a starting point. It's not the be all. Um but just something to think about as we think about what partners are missing from this list. Um because I
171think if we're going to go to the community and we're saying that we're trying to figure out how to be more um intentional and yet we're coming out of the gate with quite a few entities that are big players in this community and they are not a part of this list. >> Um through the chair if I may ask if there's any recommendations that you would like to share. Um and this is to all board members please feel free to push those forward. I mean I think that >> you know we don't necessarily want to cap this committee. Um I I think different perspectives can add value to it. So please feel free to share that information and we'll reach out. >> Yep. The expectation is there. >> Just a reminder though that right Mar
172um Mr. Woods that participants on this cannot then bid. Right. >> Correct. It's conflict. >> Yes. We be mindful that. >> And will somebody be tracking that because a couple of these names I just want to make sure that that really is a process that we will be um monitoring. >> Yeah. We'll be monitoring it and they actually have to sign a basically sign an agreement recognizing and and um um kind of letting um letting us know that they realize that they cannot bid on this work and then we'll track it on our side. >> All right. Thank you so much for the presentation. Good job team. >> Uh thank you exposure. All right. With that we will we are concluded. we will go into section 5 through 7. Uh first we'll open the floor
173again to uh Mrs. Moser. >> Thank you. Um I do not have a report this evening but I would like to give a couple of important updates. Um my first comment is um related to supplemental nutrition um assistance program. Uh the ongoing federal government shutdown has resulted in a temporary suspension of SNAP benefits for many families across Franklin County. I want to be clear that this disruption impacts nearly 20,000 Columbus City School families who rely on SNAP to meet basic nutritional needs. For many of our 47,000 students, school meals remain their most reliable source of nutrition, making this both an educational and a community issue. Food insecurity has a direct impact on student learning as hunger can lead to lower concentration, decreased attendance, and emotional distress in the classroom. In response to the needs of
174our students, the district will participate in a coordinated regional partnership with the city of Columbus, Franklin County, the Mid Ohio Food Collective to ensure students and families maintain access to food during this federal funding lapse. Um, I'm pleased to be able to share that beginning Friday, November 7th, CCS will open five food distribution sites across the city at West High School, South High School, Walnut Ridge High School, Columbus International High School, and Lynden McKinley STEM Academy. Meal pickup will occur on Friday from 4 to 6:00 pm. And through an $1,25,000 partnership with the city of Columbus, CCS will be able to distribute more than 46,000 ready to eat meals. Each meal will be shelf stable with a 120day lifespan, allowing families to sore store and access meals as needed safely. Um, I want to mention
175that CCS staff will have the opportunity to volunteer on site to assist families and ensure a smooth distribution. And if I may, I invite all board members uh to join us at one of the food distribution sites if your fam if your schedule allows. Um again, we will be serving meals um beginning Friday 4 to 6:00 p.m. West High School, South High School, Walnut Ridge, Columbus International, Linda McKinley STEM. Um, in addition, in preparation for the Thanksgiving season, many CCS schools will be organizing turkey and food pantry drives to assist families further. Um, food resources can be found on the district web page at our www.cc. us. um on our website we're maintaining a resource to u point families towards additional um resources. We are uh also want to amplify awareness of our community food
176access tools including freshtrack.com. That's fresh t r ak.com and collaborating with Franklin County Job and Family Services to connect our families with additional resources. Um so this is a new initiative. We will begin on Friday. um and look forward to seeing um many of you there. Um I have a brief update about uh legislation that uh was introduced at the state house. Um this is in reference to Senate Bill 311 311. Last week, Senator Brener, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, introduced a large education bill, Senate Bill 311. This bill includes language that once again threatens the sale of CCS school buildings. This language is very similar to what we saw discussed during the state operating budget earlier this year. What's most concerning is that the bill changes how a building would be identified as
177an unused school facility. It also reduces how much the district could sell one of these buildings for. Um, and if this language is implemented, it could significantly impact local control over our facilities and limit our flexibility in managing district assets. So, I provide this information um as a a point um an update for the board, but I do want to end on a on an upote um and that is um I have a football shout out. I'd like to take a moment to congratulate our student athletes um who have just completed the football season. Congratulations to our OSAA semi finalists across the district. Uh, Afroentric East, Walnut Ridge, Independence, Linda McKinley, and Northland High Schools all showed strong leadership on and off the field with Walnut Ridge and East pushing even farther and earning their
178place in the finals. your energy student athlete sets a high bar for the fall season. Um, and finally, a district-wide athletic shout out um to Wetstone boys soccer who made a strong run to the semifinals. And at West High School, where both the boys and girls soccer teams earned wins in the city league, Briggs girls volleyball secured a back-to-back city league championship. These are just a snippet of students who showed up to every practice, every match in and classroom um this fall season. You bride to our schools and to the entire district as we close out the fall season. Thank you. >> Thank you so much, uh Mrs. Boer. We appreciate the update. Uh we'll move on to Mr. Internal Auditor. Do you have a report for us this evening? >> Good evening. No report.
179Just wanted to commend Maurice Woods and his team on their LED work because I'm seeing a lot of good stuff in that space. So, thanks to them. >> Thank you and welcome this evening as always. All right, Mr. Treasurer. Good evening. >> Good evening. No formal report, but I wanted to highlight uh one piece of legislation tonight. I'm asking for board approval on um like to bring Dr. Margarite Rosa back from Georgetown University. Um we had the opportunity to have her on site last year. uh Katherine Moer, Dr. Chapman, Auditor Okconor, myself, we're really pushing this change in how we look at our expenditures and how it impacts performance in the classroom. And I think we can begin to change behavior through numbers and have a positive impact on student achievement by having more resources
180to allocate through these conversations. So, it's been a big push. I've seen Katherine lead that charge on the academic side. Auditor Okconor is working with my team on the business side. and I'm excited about the opportunity to potentially bring her back. Hopefully, we'll have 60 academic fiscal leaders and our new board of education have the opportunity to attend that as well sometime in the late winter when hopefully travel is a little more conducive to her schedule. >> Okay. All right. U Thank you for that update and we look forward to more to come from you in the future. All right. Now we will move on to uh uh the acceptance of the consent agenda. But before we do that, I just wanted to offer a very brief comment. I want to acknowledge uh Dr. Chapman
181and her team for the work they are doing to uplift focus on a return to uh the investment in board legislation. Tonight's legislation requesting approval to enter into a purchase agreement with curriculum associates is an example where administration describes the challenge we are working to address uh the selected strategy and how the administration poses to measure the expected outcome of our respective investments. Um, this alignment to the board goals and guard rails as well as the portrait of a graduate attribute is named in this legislation. Monitoring the return on our investments will be increasingly critical as we work to address deficit spending. So just moving forward, the board can expect to see these kinds of elements added uh to our consent agenda that give us an even deeper sense of what it is that uh
182we're committed to that it is properly aligned and more importantly that we have a clear idea of what that return on investment actually is. Um so with that, is there a motion to >> Well, quick question. So that seemed like discussion to me. So, is this the point where you want to take discussion on items or are we going to move into accepting the agenda? I mean the consent agenda and then having discussion. >> No, we're going to move into the motion of accepting the consent agenda. >> Okay. >> Motion to accept the consent agenda. >> Second. >> Motion and seconded. Uh can we call the role? Mr. Treasure, >> it's discussion, right? >> What is it that you like? Um in addition to so you um raised 15.1 my discussion relates to 23.2 and
183that's under the office of the treasurer authority to enter into an agreement with um open gov. Yes. And I think this is another great software system. My question again directive hope um directive is that as we are purchasing these systems we are really looking to see how they interface with one another. So when we think about B2 B2 grow now we think about open gov we want to make sure that the data that is going into these systems are very good clean accurate data right and so today I think we're purchasing two types of softwares where information can be fed into either one from either one and so again I just want to uplift that call that is it a question point for you all that you've been investigating with with Dr. Woods about this.
184>> Yeah. So that's actually a great question. So there's different modules with an open gov. This is the budget and the capital budgeting piece, operational and capital. They have a purchasing module. I did reach out to them and they do work with other providers. For example, there's different formats that you can upload into like a CSV file perhaps even with APIs. They can actually talk together. We see that integration for example with open gov and our ERP solution which is Tyler Munus. So it's it's going to be automated on my side of the house with respect to budgeting but I have reached out if we decide to look at other purchasing software those capabilities would be uh available for the district to use and I think that's important as we look at various packages. So
185even beyond budgeting, I mean purchasing, when we're thinking about budgeting, will that data be able to be downloaded in CV form to be shared with, for example, um our colleagues over in purchasing so they know, oh, you're spending a line item from this budget line and that budget line like >> yes, we do that now and we will continue to be able to do that through open gov with various file formats. I don't want to get too technical. I'm way out of my wheelhouse on that. But for example, CSV, which is basically an Excel file, that capability is there. So yes, we will work to make sure that automation is there because as Mr. Woods pointed out, manual entry leads to errors, confusion, problematic data. And anytime you're dealing with data, it's kind of that
186garbage in, garbage out. So we want to minimize that risk as well. >> I appreciate that. and colleagues, I just think it's important for us to uplift this because as we're purchasing these softwares, we need to make sure that there's opportunity for them to interface and speak to one another. So, thank you for that discussion item. >> I thank you. Is there anything else for discussion? If not, all right. Uh, we have made a motion. We have seconded it. Can we call the role? >> Yes. Dr. Pierce? >> Yes. >> Miss Reyes? >> Yes. >> Mr. Simmons? >> Yes. >> Miss Engles? >> Yes. >> Miss Vieira? >> Yes. >> Vice President Adair? Yes, >> President Cole. >> Yes. Motion passes. All right. Uh, Madame Vice President, can we go into executive session? >> Yes.
187It is recommended that the board of education move immediately into executive session pursuant to a higher vice 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 the public employee, official, lency, or regulated individual. Unless the public employee official, licency or regulated individual request of public hearing and G4 preparing for conducting or reviewing negotiations or bargaining sessions with public employees concerning their compensation or other terms and conditions of their employment. That is a motion. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Motion second to call the role. >> Miss Reyes. >> Yes. >> Mr. Simmons. >> Yes. >> Dr. Pierce. >> Yes. >> Miss Engles? >> Yes. >> Miss Vera? >> Yes. >> Vice President Adair? >> Yes.
188>> President Cole? >> Yes. >> Motion carries. >> All right. Thank you all for uh the good work this evening. Thank you all for those who were with us this evening and had a chance to view and those who participated. Uh with that again we will not return from executive session to this room. We will adjourn from executive session.