BOE 2025-06-03

001Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Hey, heat. Hey, heat. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Hey, down. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] for the cloud [Music] la. Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Hello. [Music] Hello. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Come [Music] on. Come [Music] on. Hey, hey, [Music] hey. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] I feel that. [Music] feel. [Music] How? [Music] Ow. Wow. [Music] Ow, you [Music] know. [Music] Wow, wow. [Music] Oow! Oow! [Music] Greetings and welcome to this week's highlights from across the district. On Thursday, May 22nd, Columbus City Schools welcomed the Ohio State University President, Walter Ted Carter, to the London community as part of a special neighborhood tour focused on the 10 big ideas of London. We got to see one of those ideas in action, addressing early childhood experiences,

002when we visited the Lynen Park Early Childhood Education Center. During the visit, we showcase how CCS is preparing our youngest learners for success through highquality early learning environments and strong community partnerships. Thank you to our friends at the Ohio State University and Ralph Carter of We Are London for making this visit possible. Together, we are building a brighter future, starting with our earliest learners. On Friday, May 23rd, Columbus Downtown High School celebrated 165 seniors during this year's career and technical education completer ceremony. Our talented scholars completed one of 13 CTE programs, gaining hands-on experience and industry aligned skills that will serve them well in the workforce, college, and beyond. The ceremony highlighted their technical achievements as well as their dedication to leadership and academic excellence. Just a few days later, on Tuesday, May 27th, we

003recognized 372 seniors from Fort Hayes Career Center who completed one of 25 CTE programs. Fort Hayes offers half-day industry focused courses in programs like health technology, construction technology, and digital design and graphics, equipping students with real world skills and setting them on a path toward success. To all of our CTE completers, this moment is a result of your hard work, and we couldn't be more proud of you. Congratulations. As the day of celebrations continued on Friday, May 23rd, we had the opportunity to honor seven exceptional scholars in the Fort Hayes Career C Center's job training program for their accomplishments in food services. These scholars played an essential role in preparing over 1 million meals for our elementary schools this year. Throughout the program, they developed real world culinary and operational skills, established strong workplace habits,

004and consistently showed up each day ready to learn and contribute. This achievement was made possible by the dedicated teachers and mentors who guided and supported them throughout the year. We thank you for your patience, encouragement, and belief in every scholar. To our food services trainees, job well done on completing the job training program. We are CCS proud of you. Over the past week, I've had the honor of celebrating with family, staff, and community members as we proudly recognize the Columbus City Schools class of 2025. Every graduation ceremony reflected something truly special. resilience, unity, and the spirit of possibility. Our graduates have demonstrated what it means to persevere, grow, and rise to meet the moment with pride and purpose. As students from across our 20 plus high schools walked across the stage, each one carried their

005diploma and shared story shaped by determination, encouragement, and personal growth. To the class of 2025, your journey is just beginning. Whatever path you choose, I hope you carry forward the values you built here. Curiosity, compassion, leadership, and the courage to dream big and achieve more. Congratulations on reaching this milestone. You are ready to lead. You are ready to serve, and you are ready to shape the future. These have been your highlights from around the district for June 3rd. Thank you so much for joining us. [Music] Everyone and welcome to today's Tuesday, June 3rd regular business meeting for the Columbus City School Board of Education. Mr. Treasurer, can we call the role? Miss Engles, present. Miss Reyes, here. Mr. Simmons, present. Miss Vera, here. Vice President Adair, present. President Cole, I'm here. You have a quorum.

006Thank you. Can we raise forth the pledge of allegiance? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for it stands nationy for all. All right. Good evening. Good evening, Dr. Chapman. Good evening, Mr. Internal Auditor. Mr. treasurer. Uh I am so on fire and still very excited about uh having experienced our our graduations. Uh 24 over 2400 students. It's just an amazing experience. I want to just personally before we even get this meeting started thank our all of our staff, our administrators, our teachers, our students, their families, our safety and security for all of the work that they did to ensure that everything went as smoothly as possible. I want to definitely state this though and make it very clear that it is absolutely important that we uphold

007the decorum of our institutional activities as it relates to graduation. Specifically, it is important that we are there to ensure that our students give every bit of the attention that they deserve, every bit of the opportunity that they deserve to graduate and graduate without problems. I know of one incident that occurred, but thank goodness that we had safety and security there to ensure that there wasn't a problem that went further. But I think it's absolutely important that we state from this table, this table, that we will not accept any behavior from any family, any person coming to our activities, whether it's an an athletic activity or an academic acti activity, and disrupt it. and disrupted in a way that causes uh uh challenges for safety and security of our children and our staff. It is

008inexcusable. It is not acceptable. And I'm going to ask the superintendent that should we find out who these individuals are, maybe it's just that we'll make we have to have some consequences that come with that. Um consequences that mean that you may not be able to come to another activity. So I want to put it out from this table moving forward that our activities are to be upheld with every bit of respect and decorum and if you cannot do that they're consequences and this organization this organization respectfully can show you better than we can tell you. All right moving on. Um I'd like to uh go right into uh there's an amendment. Yes. Before vice president Yes. Before we begin and adopt our agenda, we need to make a correction from our last meeting. So,

009in item 2.1, um I make a motion to amend an item previously adopted specifically to remove Lee Cole from the personnel agenda from the May 20th meeting. Second. It's been motioned and seconded. Call the RO. Miss Vera? Yes. Miss Engles? Yes. Miss Reyes? Yes. Mr. Simmons? Yes. Vice President Adair? Yes. President Cole? I abstain. Motion carry. All right. Thank you. All right. We'll go on into uh just before we adopt the agenda, I'll explain what's going on today. Uh first and foremost, we'll uh have our public speakers come up. We'll welcome them and uh section 4.1. Then we'll go into board matters uh where we'll go through uh presentation and also a committee appointment. We'll also go into a realignment update uh in section six with the superintendent. We'll go into executive reports between 7.1

010and 8.1 and 9.1 to 24.4 Four, we'll approve the consent agenda and then in the 25.1 onward section, we'll go into other legislation one by one that'll be approved and then we'll go into executive session after which after which executive session wraps up as as every meeting. We will definitely adjourn and we will not return to this room. All right. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Second. Moved and seconded. Call the role. Miss Engles. Yes, Miss Reyes. Yes, Mr. Simmons. Yes, Miss Vera. Yes, Vice President Hadder. Yes, President Cole. Yes. All right. Uh, we'll move right into our public comment. We have two speakers. Uh, the first is Miss Sarah Silver. Sarah Silver, welcome. Good evening. and you have three minutes to provide comment. Welcome this evening. Thank you so much.

011Good evening, President Cole, Vice President Adair, Treasurer Cook, Superintendent Dr. Chapman, and members of the board. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you tonight. My name is Sarah, and I serve as the transportation director for a local charter school. I've spent the last year advocating on behalf of my students and their families who have been affected by Columbus City Schools transportation non-compliance. Several days ago, many of our families received notices that their children would be declared impractical to transport despite none of these students or any of our students having yet applied for transportation for the 2025 2026 school year. The premature determination is deeply concerning and raises further questions about due process and transparency in the determination proceedings. As you are aware, once a student is deemed impractical for transportation, families may request

012a mediation with the district and the Department of Education and Workforce. What you may not be aware of is that the mediations requested at the beginning of the year did not begin taking place until 11 days ago. None of those families received transportation while they waited the entire year, despite the law saying that students should begin receiving transportation immediately and until the mediation process is complete. CCS has cited a lack of resources as a barrier to transporting charter school students. Yet, we continue to see resources allocated to settlements, penalties, and practices that result in funding reductions. Resources that could instead be redirected toward fulfilling the district's legal obligations. We fear that this pattern may be repeating in the matter before you tonight. Last year, a member of this board acknowledged that the sudden reduction in

013transportation services was aimed at bringing students out of the charters and back to their district schools. This raises serious concerns about equity and intent. Last year saw us lose a significant number of students because their families were left with no options. A district's funding and financial interests should never be prioritized over the interests of the students it serves, and families deserve to exercise their legal right to school choice without facing systemic obstacles. While charter schools were profoundly mischaracterized in last August's meeting, the truth is that despite lower funding and fewer resources, charter schools continue to outperform district schools, especially with regards to disadvantaged families who are the ones most disproportionately impacted by the decision not to provide transportation. There are so many reasons why a family chooses to send their student to a school like

014ours. And while the reasons may vary, the right to choice is fundamental. And ensuring this right means ensuring access to transportation. I respectfully urge this board to reflect on the very real and unjust consequences of last year's vote and to carefully consider the limited data informing this current determination. Thank you for your time and your consideration of the students and families who depend on your leadership. Thank you. Good evening. Um Madame Superintendent, if there is there someone from the administration present that could talk to her, give her some measure of clarity. Absolutely. Okay. So, Miss Silver, I think there's someone who's available to speak with you. Thank you. Uh, we'll move to our next speaker who is Curtis Peace. Good evening, Mr. Peace. Hello. My name is Curtis and I'm here to represent the Ohio

015Coalition to Protect Trans Lives. First, I'd like to wish you all a happy Pride Month. Recognition of June as LGBTQ Pride Month has its origins in the Stonewall riots of 1969. These riots broke out spontaneously in response to ongoing violent police raids on bars like the Stonewall Inn, which were known to harbor queer and gender non-conforming people. Homosexuality at this time was considered a mental illness and was all but outright criminalized. Crossdressing, the act of dressing out of accordance with what has been deemed acceptable for the gender you were assigned at birth, was a criminal offense, one that could carry years in a psychiatric facility. Those who were caught up in police raids like that of the Stonewall Inn were outed in newspapers, often leading to the loss of their jobs, their housing, and the

016support of wider society. Of course, we've made tremendous social progress since 1969. Through the tireless work of community activists and organizers and courageous acts of defiance and protest by the LGBTQ community, we've come to understand homosexuality, transgenderness, and gender nonconformity, not as criminal acts or mental illness, but as normal and healthy elements of the human experience. But sadly, it's clear that our rights and our dignity were not one once and for all. We've entered a political era where previous gains are being clawed back at every level and trans youth are on the front lines. As we all know, trans students in Ohio are now prohibited from using the restroom that aligns with their gender identity. Trans youth in our state and elsewhere are facing attacks on their ability to play sports, receive gender affirming care,

017and use their correct name and pronouns. All of this is being done with the attempt to scapegoat and shove trans and queer people back into the closet. On March 19th, Columbus City Schools stabbed its students in the back when it reverted all trans students chosen names to their birth names in its system, absent any legal obligation to do so. Not only were these students deadnamed to their teachers and their peers, but many were outed as trans for the first time to their fellow students, opening them up for bullying and harassment in a disturbing parallel to the forced outing of homosexuals in newspapers in the 1960s. My message to you, the school board, is this. Reverse your dead naming policy and commit to non-compliance with unjust and transphobic legislation. Stand on the side of social justice

018and progress, not against it. Stand with your students and community, not against us. And happy Pride Month. Thank you, Mr. [Applause] Peace. All right, we'll move right into board matters. Uh, Madame Vice President, you have a proposal. Um, yes. Thank you. as proposed um and reviewed by the ETRM committee last meeting. Um uh we put forward the proposal from the administration to increase the latch key rates and I've asked um I've asked someone from there from administration Dr. Baker to come and um just quickly brief the board and be available for questions and um I've asked her to also address uh board member Vera's question around engagement. Good evening, Dr. Baker. Good evening. Um, President Cole, Vice President Adair, Ford. Today, I'm going to um give you a brief update on um Latchi and our

019request to increase. The current tuition um fees for Latchki are $65 for morning care, 70 for afternoon, and 85 for both morning and afternoon care. Two years ago, I came before the Finance and Appropriations Committee um requesting an an increase and requesting that that increase would occur every other year based on projections um that I received from the treasurer's office. And so today you can see up there is the sustainability analysis and it shows without the tuition increase where we would be in the red at the end of next year but with the increase we'll be able to maintain through 2029. So what we're requesting is a $5 increase. So, we're asking for the morning care to increase to $70, the afternoon care to 75, and then for both morning and afternoon care to increase

020to 90. Specifically, I think um board member Ver wanted to know about our communication plan for a family engagement and what we've done so far. And so, I have um detailed that there. We have posted the uh possibility of the increase pending board approval on the website. So families have that on access to that on the website. There are flyers po there were flyers posted at each latch key location. Um when families go on to the actual website to register the notification is there as well. Um to date there have not been any complaints. 13 of the 18 sites are already full and registration um opened on the 12th and the following sites I listed there still have openings but historically we have the Liberty Old Orchard and Shady Lane um are usually weight listed

021by the end of the summer. I can take any questions now. Are there Dr. Pierce first? So it's not to our knowledge. We haven't had any families and the families who are already enrolled have priority enrollment. So a lot of those sites that are full, those families were already enrolled and so it did not prohibit it doesn't seem that that would prohibit them. And you guys have done a check on your own the the repeat families? Yes. So you've done a check within the system to see we we have not done a check um to com to see if any of the families who were currently enrolled are not enrolling next year. No. Is that possible to do that to see? We can. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Pierce. Uh, board member Vera. Uh,

022thank you, Dr. Baker, for this information. Um, I just want to make sure I understand. Um, so in terms of the community engagement, it sounds like we posted flyers um at both all the sites in addition to um what sounds like information was put on the website, but was there any actual conversation with staff members at these sites directly with families is my first question. And then my second question was were these flyers uh translated in multiple languages? So no the not to my knowledge um the trans the flyers were not translated. The families um come in and the latch key uh staff have communication with them about enrollment about registration. So none of the uh teachers have reported that any families have said anything to them about the fee increase um or a hardship.

023Okay. Okay. So, just so I'm clear, um, was there a specific strategy that included like designated times and dates that the staff was supposed to have these conversations? And was there a formalized process on how we collected feedback from those interactions? No, there wasn't a formal Thank you. Uh, board member Vera, is there a concern or an idea that you want to make sure that we are translating, making accommodations for our foreign language speakers? Yeah, I wasn't sure if this was the opinion time. I guess I just wanted to gather the facts, but I do have major concern that this information was not translated in multiple languages, nor was there a a direct incentive or communication strategy to ensure that families really understood. As a parent, especially when you're running in and out to get

024kids, oftentimes you don't necessarily look at the board or it may be something you may have overlooked, especially if you know you're multiple juggling mult. I just don't want this to be a surprise for our families. Even though we've posted a flyer, we put it in the website. I think oftent times we miss the step of meeting our community where they're at. And I think that if there hasn't been a strategy that actually said, "Okay, this Tuesday, this Thursday, we're going to bring this up during pickup time. we're going to bring this up during drop off time that we could really gauge. Do our families know that this is coming? Not saying we don't need to do it. I'm just my concern is we really haven't done enough of the engagement around making sure families

025know that this is coming, especially at the fact that none of these flyers or any of this communication was translated in multiple languages when we know we have a very diverse district. So that that is of concern to me. Dr. Pierce, I just have a question of clarification. Is this uh proposal times sensitive? It's my understanding that it is. So, yes. Can we just have a point of clarification around the time sensitivity of this board member there? Yeah. Dr. Baker, you want to answer that? Yes. So, it's timesensitive in the sense that um if it's not if we don't have the increase this year, next year um we will potentially go into the red. And so again, a point of clarification, when does this proposal have to be passed by this board to be enacted?

026That's what I'm trying to get at. The intent is to propose a motion this evening. So there'll be a motion made this evening and a subsequent vote. Yes. So given board member Verer's concerns, I think they are worthy and valid that there needs to be there needs to be additional um conversation within the community to ensure everybody is clear of this potential increase in the fees. However, understanding that it's time sensitive, I wonder what our board can do to compromise and meet our community need where it may be even though it has not been expressed. So, Dr. Chapman, from your president and the board, this is not a gotcha moment. No, not at all. What this is is an opportunity to see where there's continue improvement and where we can take some extra steps to

027ensure that we meet families, in the words of my colleague, where we need where they need us to meet them. Is it possible moving forward then that we be able to incorporate a foreign language dynamic into this and be able to share that with parents and families throughout the district moving forward? Absolutely. So, um I'm just from my understanding um based on what we've discussed and what was shared is that there was certainly um an opportunity for the latch key teachers to have conversations with the families when they registered and that information was also shared with them when they registered. But if that's not the case for the 13 sites that are already full, I guess the question is be for the sites that are already full, my understanding is that they are aware of

028this increase. Is there a request for us to go back for go back to those families to clarify their understanding or are we talking about the five sites um that are not full where where there's an opportunity for new families to register because that that could be done between now and whenever they register like so there's families that have already registered then there's families that have not registered. We can certainly double down on our communication in multiple languages as well as you know con contact. Um obviously that contact would be you know our families are not engaging in latch key over the summer but it is you know um you know certainly timesensitive and there are certainly implications that we would have to plan for um if the board is not able to take action

029or does not have the information or reassurance to take action at this time. I I think that we could do it next meeting. I think we just need to act before the end of this bianium and it would need to be implemented for the next cycle for the next bianium fiscal year. Um it would right treasure I'm looking at you. Yeah, that'd be correct. We also have a meeting on the 26th for our end of the year wrap-up budgetary that we could add this item to if that would help the board. So this would be just a point of I was raised tonight. Go ahead. So just a point of question of clarification. So this would be implemented FY26 for next school year. Next school year. next school year FY26 25. So that's why I

030asked that question that way. FY26 kicks in differently than school year 2526 would kick in. So I guess my question would be could we delay the increase by a couple of months? What what is the point at which we really need this fee to take hold? Is it August? Is it November? So So I believe and I would have to look at the collection schedule. We would need it to go into effect prior to the start of the school year in August. Um so we would have the meeting in July or I'm sorry the end of June. Um take action before July 1. That is correct. Yes. Question from uh board member. Thank you, President Cole. Um Dr. Dr. Baker, I was wondering if you could speak to were any other options considered besides a

031fee increase or maybe have been considered in the past that we've already ruled out as not feasible. So, we're um a self- sustaining. So, it's the revenue from the tuition is what sustains the program and our teachers are uh they're employed, our staff is employed by the district. And then you said I think you spoke to it a little bit earlier, but last school year most of the sites were full. Yes. Okay. And then I just had a bit of an anecdotal question. Could you speak to the language diversity of the students who participate in um the lashkate program as we're thinking about, you know, were families able to were the signs accessible? So, um I don't have that information right now, but I I can get that information because it's included in the student

032information center. So when I go back and pull the list of um students who've already registered, I can get that information and we'll need that anyway to if we're if we're moving forward with the translation and communication and sending that home, I'll have that um information. So I should be able to have that by next week. Thank you. And then I just had one last question if I may. So this this fee increase would apply to families who have already registered for this upcoming school year, correct? Okay. is when they filled out, was their information communicated about the fee increase as they registered? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Uh board member Vera. Yeah. I just want to make a a point of clarification. I'm not opposed to the fee increase. I just want to ensure that

033we did everything we possibly could to really inform our families. Um and so I I want to be, you know, I want I want to make sure I make that point. And I think anytime we're providing any kind of communication to our community, our families, translation services should always be a part of that strategy. It shouldn't be just, well, we'll add it now. Like that should always be how we communicate with our families. So, I think it's more of just understanding that, you know, the fact that it's an afterthought and we do have sites already filled and sites that are not filled. I think that's that's a part of the misstep that we need to be thinking about just in terms of communication strategy as a whole. Okay. So with that, I think that this

034seems to be hold on just a moment. This seems to be an easy fix, at least from the standpoint of informing, you know, Joe and Jane family member, uh, for every student that's already enrolled or or anticipating enrollment in some of these spots that still have available seats. Is that accurate to say? I would think so. Absolutely. With that, you had a thought, um, vice president. Well, I feel like I'm going to go ahead and make the motion then. Uh, so I'm going to go ahead and make a motion that we approve the $5 a week increase for the next school year um for all categories. It's been motioned. Is there a second? Second. Second. I would like to offer an amendment to the motion. How do I put that on the floor? Motion for

035an amendment. I would like to motion for the friendly amendment. We have a motion and a second. We have a motion and a second at this point in time. So, we need to take the vote on that. Correct. Then we'll come back. So, can we call the RO? Go ahead. So, we have a motion and a second on the main motion. Uhhuh. We now have a motion to amend that main motion. So then the next question would be is there a second to the well I guess you need to state the amendment first and then second. So the amendment would be that there's a commitment on the part of administration to double down on the communication and translation for our families that are um seeking interested information who are um English as a second language.

036Second motion then seconded. Can we call the role? Yes. Miss Engles. Yes. Dr. Pierce. Yes, Miss Reyes. Yes, Mr. Simmons. Yes, Miss Vera. Yes, Vice President Adair. Yes, President Cole. Yes. Motion carried on the amendment. Now we're back to the original. We have a motion. Second. Dr. Pierce, yes. Mr. Reyes, yes. Mr. Simmons, yes. Miss Engles, yes. Vera, yes. Vice President Hadair, yes. President Cole, yes. Motion carried. All right. Thank you, Madam Vice President. Thank you, Dr. Baker. Thank you, Dr. Baker. Okay. Thank you. All right. Uh we'll continue in board matters with committee appointment update. Uh the committee update appointment is for academic and facilities alignment. Uh gentleman by the name of Steve Steven Miller. Thank you for uh joining us on this committee to help us continue our work and focus on improving

037academics and also ensuring that we have all of the things that it takes to realign facilities to strengthen academics in the district. Uh Mr. Miller is vice president of the institutional advancement at Wilberforce University. Uh he brings extensive experience in fundraising, strategic planning and educational development. his expense or his e experience aligning uh institutional goals with resource investments directly supports our committee's efforts to continue our endeavors. So again, thank you so much uh for joining this committee. I look forward to the great work we're going to continue together. All right. Um we will move into the superintendent report, the update for realignment. Good evening, Dr. Chapman. Good evening, President Cole, Vice President Adair, members of the board, and our community. Um, with this evening, we are returning to a conversation about a path to aligning

038our facility resources to our students needs. This today, we'll begin by anchoring the conversation to the vision and values that the Columbus community has set forth for our students and our system. The vision and values of our community are centered in the improvement of instruction and the student experience. Therefore, our vision for instruction must drive our plan for our facilities. We'll spend some time today presenting some of the key drivers we'll focus on to align our capital resources to provide improved instructional environments and improve student experiences. Unfortunately, it will or fortunately uh it will become clear that our current portfolio of schools and their current configurations do not align to that vision. Change while difficult is necessary by identifying the five buildings for realignment. The board took the first step toward closing this gap. Tonight's

039presentation will provide an outline of the plan provided to the board to move instructional programming from these buildings. Again, this is just the first step towards achieving this vision. We know that to completely achieve this alignment will require additional work, including additional closures, renovations, and new construction. Our community made its vision for our students clear by establishing the portrait of a graduate. This forward-looking vision includes traits that are necessary to compete in a 21st century workforce, including adaptability, communication, creativity, critical thinking, global empathy, and use of technology. To bring this vision to reality will take time and the alignment of our resources to support the changes in instruction and student experience necessary to support this vision for our students. Knowing this, the board established a series of goals that act as steps on the pathway

040to this vision. They include strengthening reading proficiency by third grade, strengthening math proficiency by seventh grade, and increasing four-year on-time graduation rate. To support the work on the goals, the board also provided some guidance that reflects and support the values of the community. In effect, how the community expects us to move forward toward these goals and the overall vision. The community was clear that it wanted Columbus City Schools to ensure that students would receive intervention supports to ensure access and support to our curriculum. That we consider the whole child as we provide learning experiences and environments for our students. That we align our resources to ensure equitable learning opportunities across our system and that we ensure that our learning environments foster a sense of belonging for all students and staff. As you can see, instruction

041and student experience are at the core of this vision. Unfortunately, our building resources are not fully aligned with this vision in its current state. Knowing that realignment was a necessary first step, our board began a process of planning and engagement which culminated in a vote on December 17th to repurpose five of our facilities. Those five facilities are Broadley Elementary, Mhler Elementary, McGuffy Elementary, which is the site of the Columbus Alternative High School program, Buckeye Middle School, and West Bro Elementary. Knowing that this work will take time, the board directed the superintendent to develop a plan for these schools by June of this year. Today, we'll present that plan. But before we do, I think that it's important to focus on how buildings can and should support student instruction and experience and how in many cases

042our facilities and their use is currently in its current state not aligned to this vision. So what is the vision for a capital plan to better meet the needs of our students? Let's take a look. We know that our students deserve modern and more modernized facilities that are designed to support 21st century learning. Over time, our learning communities and our feeder patterns will be organized around 10 to 12 larger high schools and feeder patterns. Each of these communities would be supported by strong neighborhood schools with regular grade bands, elementary schools with grades preK through five, traditional middle schools with grades 6 through 8, and traditional high schools serving students in grades 9 through 12. Larger schools support more robust learning and extracurricular opportunities for our stu for our students. I'll come back to this in

043a few seconds as we want to talk a little bit more about our facilities and our current state and the state also our state also has school-iz requirements that need to be met in order for the state to provide financial support to school districts for the renovation or replacement of a school. For example, for elementary schools, the state requires that the building serve at least 600 students. For middle school, it's 800 students. And for a high school, it's 1,200 students. Why? Again, larger schools provide improved academic and extracurricular offerings such as more diverse academic offerings, more sections, more programming for AP courses, college credit plus courses and electives, more opportunities to participate in upper division athletic programs and offerings. expanded extracurricular offerings as well. Moving forward, we also want to pay particular attention to the

044experiences of students who receive special education or language support services. By focusing on neighborhood learning communities, we have an opportunity in CCS to improve the experiences of our students who receive these services by serving them in their home school or within their larger neighborhood learning community. I'm also passionate about universal prek. Our students need that additional instructional time in order to be successful readers by the end of third grade. This realignment will also provide us with the opportunity to ensure that we have space in our elementary schools to extend the learning to our earliest learners uh by adding prek programming. Finally, our community has already made significant investments in our schools. When we think about several of the buildings that have been invested as a part of our FMP work, let's work to ensure that

045we make the best use of those facilities, meaning more students have access to the buildings that have already been modernized and invested in. And unfortunately, we as a community have a lot of work to do to close this gap between our vision and our current reality related to our facilities. Let's take a moment to consider a few of these gaps. Currently, we know this slide should be familiar to us. We've shown this slide several times before. Currently, we know that in CCS, we have lots of small schools across the district. We have 48 elementary schools with enrollments fewer than 350 students and 20 of our secondary schools, which includes both middle and high schools with enrollments fewer than 500 students. Small elementary schools can only afford unified art staff that are shared across schools. This

046complicates school scheduling and makes it difficult for staff that are moving across and between schools. It is also more difficult for staff to feel like an embedded part of the school community and collaborate with their grade level content or cont grade grade level or content peers on a regular basis because they're simply not at the building. They're sharing their time amongst multiple buildings. And this ultimately limits the breadth of opportunities that are offered to our students. Small secondary schools cannot offer the same breath of courses as larger schools in CCS and the classes that are offered are often only offered in a single period which makes challenges for scheduling. This limits access to courses for students and requires staff to prep for many different courses and means teachers often don't have colleagues teaching the same

047course to collaborate with within their school. Small schools do not have the same consistency of robust competitive extracurricular options as larger schools would. This means less options for different sports, teams, and clubs, less consistency in extracurricular curricular offerings from year to year, fewer levels of competition. Example, just one team instead of freshman, junior, varsity or junior varsity and varsity. And a lower level of competitiveness by participating in a lower division in o the Ohio High School Athletic Association. Currently, the full range of special ed and English language learning programming can only be offered at a subset of our schools across the district. This prevents many families from being able to choose their neighborhood school or the school that's closest to them or forces them to refuse services to stay at their preferred school. In fact,

04857% of our students who receive special ed services attend schools outside of their n their neighborhood. For our students for whom English is not their first language, over half, 53% attend a school outside of their neighborhood. In both cases, this can result in students needing to travel far distances to a school with the right programming to best meet their educational needs, which again is a challenge for us. While it would be ideal to have schools with standard grade configurations, we have a number of communities across this system with non-traditional grade bands. And we need about twice as many preK seats to support universal prek to help ensure the success of our early learners. Finally, many of our school facilities are long past their planned lifespan. On average, our schools are 50 years old. Some are

049well over a hundred years old. In addition to not being flexibly designed to support changes in instruction, these buildings are very expensive to maintain. The gaps are clear. The board named these build named these buildings as the first step in closing these gaps that we've named. The remainder of this presentation will focus on the plan to repurpose and realign these sites and begin to realign the schools and programs to better meet the needs of our students. And now I'll hand the presentation over to Dr. Brown to walk through the plan. So as you were listening to the superintendent today, it should be evident that there's some guiding principles that emerge from that. Um, one of which is that our vision for instruction will always drive our capital planning as we move forward. The second is

050that we will honor uh prior investments made by maximizing the use of our newer and modernized facilities as we move forward. We also look for opportunities to move programs closer to to students whenever possible. Uh sometimes we conflate programs with facilities. Um and and in fact we can actually move programs and place them in different facilities and make sure that they're closer to our students. Um and again program location really should be driven by student need. As we've heard, it's difficult to provide a full range of academic offerings in small schools. We must work to align the enrollments of our schools to support the program offerings that our students need and deserve. And finally, we believe that it's essential that the community is engaged and has an opportunity to participate in capital planning and change

051process for our shared community as we move forward. Repurposing buildings takes time and planning in order to best meet the needs of students and families. To ensure adequate planning and sufficient resources to coordinate uh this, we have broken this plan into four parts. And for some context and this is applicable to all of these u there are some constraints to implementation. A full imp implementation plan takes at least two years uh from beginning to end. Uh two years prior to uh realignment we really want to take a program a look at program location to determine if can we serve students closer to where they live and ideally in their home schools. And we also need to to look at the facilities that are involved. the facilities that are going to be repurposed and the receiving

052schools uh to look at what things may need to happen in those schools and what things maybe we don't wish to invest in as we move forward as we get to the year before the realignment. We need to do a boundary change in many places. If if a school has a neighborhood catchment area, then we're going to need to redefine a boundary for that so that the families that live in that community will know where their students will attend by address as we move forward. This needs to be done fairly early in the year. We need to get that done by Thanksgiving so that families will know and we can have adequate time uh for our rollover, transportation planning and our lottery process and uh so that our staff will also know where students are

053going to go and where they like will be following as we move forward. We also need to dedicate time for uh memorialization. As a school goes from being used for instruction to some other purpose which is yet to be determined by the board. Uh it's important for us to memorialize that with the community as we move forward. This first phase of this process involves Broadley Elementary School and Mhler Elementary School and would be expected to involve those students attending another building in the 2627 school year. So, broadly will cease to be used for instruction at the end of the 2526 school year and again the students will be expected to attend another building in the 2627 school year. The following schools uh in this list, Eastgate, East Columbus, Fairmore, all of which are FMP buildings,

054modernized buildings that uh were modernized in the mid200s, um will be involved in the development of a boundary for Broadley Elementary School. In the early to midfall, uh a boundary will be determined with community input again in the months of August to October. And during the fall, CCS will also be working with families who receive special education services, pardon me, or language support services to ensure that uh those students have a continuity of services as we move through this process. We want to make sure that we connect those uh as we move forward. And in some cases we've already begun to move some programming for broadly and that involved uh individual phone calls to families uh about those changes uh to ensure that again we were u ensuring a continuity of service as we move

055forward. Again wherever possible to move those either to the student's home school or the closest school possible to where the student lives to minimize their transportation time and again improve it student experience as we move forward. Once the boundary is determined in late November, uh families who live in the Broad Lake community will receive a letter informing them of the school that their ch uh child will attend by address in the 2627 school year. At this time, staff will also know where students are going to go. Uh the students from Barley are intended to to go in the following year. In December, once the boundaries are are determined and once families are aware, we can begin to start uh school joining activities. We really want to lean into this process of bringing school the school

056communities together so that students have an opportunity to learn about their new school, families have an opportunity to to learn about the new schools as well. That'll start in December with a series of again community chat events and the opportunity to participate in winter holiday programming. As we get into mid- winter to early spring, uh for interested families in the Broadway community, there will be a um preferential lottery afforded to them so that they have an opportunity to to have school choice uh and have again a preferential opportunity for that. The that lottery will be done prior to the general lottery and the results will be available in mid to late March. In February, students have the opportunity again to meet with and begin to build relationships. Again, continuing to build relationships with their peers

057at the receiving schools. And there will also be family meet and greet events uh during that window of time as well. As we move into midspring and early summer, again, there can be additional opportunities uh to focus on bringing these school communities together. And as the school year comes to a close, u again we will have a culmination of activities involved in the memorialization of these two buildings. Um and again those will build over time and and will be a culmination of activities that have occurred during the year. Again to honor uh the staff and the students who have been at those buildings over time in the late spring before schools close, uh we're going to have an ask of our families who are involved in those schools. So, we want to make sure that

058all uh addresses are updated for their students so that we can make sure that we can reach out to effectively to them over the summer to ensure that the most up-to-date transportation information is provided to them in August before the new school year starts. And then finally, over the summer, uh our operations team will work to put the final touches on the receiving schools to prepare them to receive their the students as they begin the next school year. And again in August, parents will receive the final transportation information for their students uh from the Broadway community. As we move on to Mhler, the process for Mhler will be identical to what I've articulated for for Broadway. It'll follow the same same road map. The difference being here again is that uh there will be different

059schools involved in terms of the boundary process and that those will be Livingston and Lincoln Park. Again, both modern facilities, FMP buildings that were uh opened in the late 2000s. U again, modernized facilities that we will be having those students move to over time. Again, we'll involve the community in the boundary process and we'll follow that exact same road map uh for Muller Elementary School as well. The second phase of this work involves McGuffy and again that's the movement of the Columbus Alternative High School which we would expect to happen no earlier than the 2728 school year. Again the target uh for that would be the 2728 school year. Uh this program uh contrary to the two elementary schools that I mentioned earlier doesn't have a boundary. It's a it's a lottery school by by

060choice. So we don't have to do a a boundary for the school. that actually simplifies it a little bit for us. Um, as you will recall, both East and Downtown High School were explored as potential receiving sites. Um, following the work uh that was done by the board earlier and um there was some proposed legislation that was uh talked about this year that would have required us to potentially forfeit buildings that had less than 60% enrollment. This was not something that was considered previously but is something that we have to attend to as we move forward. And it has implications both for for cause, the movement of cause as well as Buckeye uh and and the the movement around Buck Buckeye as well. And so in both cases um we want to spend a little

061bit more time with the community u because it would suggest at this point when we look at this some changes enrollment patterns etc will likely make east less likely to be able to accommodate uh cause without substantial reduction in enrollment. But we again want to spend a little bit more time with the community talking about options for uh involving downtown high school and east as we move forward. The third phase against Buckeye Middle School, it's on a similar timeline as cause. Again, this one doesn't involve an anticipated change in boundary either. The the feeder here uh pattern would not require a change in boundary. Um again, the proposed legislation which would require forfeite of some of our facilities that are utilized for less than 60% has implications for this one as well. So the initial

062proposal had involved moving um Buckeye to Marian Franklin. While this makes better use of the Marian Franklin site, uh it would still be significantly underutilized and would establish a 612 building which doesn't align with our desire to have standardized grade bands. And um I think we've heard from many folks that the idea of having six sixth graders in a high school was particularly not desirable to them. So again, we want to spend a little bit more time with Marian Franklin and South communities, the larger community there, um to talk about a proposal that would allow for standardization of grade bands in that community and will allow for better utilization of of the schools in that community and one that aligns to the long-term FMP plan for that community as well. And then finally, phase four's

063uh West Broad Street. This one is contingent on funding uh because as you will recall the board when they talked about repurposing this building, it was contingent on funding because the the intent was to replace the building with a modern facility. Once uh funding is identified, the process for this would be expected to take uh about three years to complete. Uh the first year would be a planning period for the the design of the facility. Hello. I think we went away. Uh uh the first year would be for the design of the facility and again the second two years would follow a very similar pattern to what we've seen with Broadley and Mhler. Moving forward again in phase one we expect to have multiple opportunities for students and families to engage in the process during

064the coming year. The first of these would be in the definition of the boundary for the new attendance zones for both of these schools. And once boundaries are established, there'd be a number again of engagement opportunities to bring these schools together. Uh and again, plenty of opportunity for our families to participate in that. And that's part of our our ongoing plan. Again, phases two and three will uh also involve engagement activities in the 2526 school year to further develop plans for both cause and Buckeye as we move forward. And finally, again, this is just the first step in aligning our facilities and capital plan to the vision for instruction. Um, and you know, again, our improve student um instructional experience and experience for them. Uh, again, we're in the process now of developing a comprehensive

065master plan. This to to fulfill this vision is going to require more than than realignment. It's going to require uh thoughts around facility maintenance, realignment of our facilities, um improvements and renovations, and new construction. There's there's really no way to get here without talking about new construction as well. We'll share this plan with the community. And again, we uh plan to engage the community in conversations with the board, annual conversations regarding how we invest capital dollars um and um how the again we plan and use uh the the funding that the community has provided to us to be able to to meet the needs of students as we move forward. And with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions that you all may have. Thank you, Dr. Chapman, Dr. Brown. Um, let's open the

066floor for questions. Board member Vera. Uh, thank you, President Cole, and thank you, uh, Dr. Brown and Dr. Chapman. Um, so I appreciate, um, you know, the detail that was given to this tonight. I guess my question is really around the strategy for this engagement. I I've seen that on several slides. At some point will we see what this engagement strategy is actually going to consist of both for the boundary piece and just for some of the sites as you indicated for a cause and Buckeye um obviously not boundary dependent but at what point will we see what your actual engagement strategy is? So I think the first the first step was making sure that we're fulfilling the first request from the board of coming back to the table about the plan. I know that

067we talked about um you know the five buildings but we it's very important for us to make it clear that the transition and the realignment of those five sites is not all happening at one time. It is important for us to make sure that we are um mapping out these transitions and all of this realignment work over time. And so the first phase, we really wanted to just talk about each phase. And the first phase of this work will include the two elementary schools. And um we will be beginning certainly beginning the process. When we look on um slide 20, we talk about the engagement for those two elementary schools. The first part of that engagement will involve the boundary process. And so we'll be coming back certainly in the fall. Um certainly inviting the

068board and our entire community, but certainly the engagement will be with those respective communities and receiving communities. We want to make sure that they have an opportunity to be involved in this process over you know over the fall in the fall August uh September and October um so that they you know really have agency as a part of the next steps. So we'll be back to the board in the fall with next steps around the engagement, the opportunities for our community to be a part of these conversations, but really setting out um you know expectations about you know the conversations with the elementary schools will look different because we're talking about boundaries and then the conversations with um Buckeye and um cause the other schools will have will be starting at a different point. Okay.

069So just so I I'm clear, the engagement in the fall is specifically for the elementary schools and then you will come back before us with a timeline as to when the engagement will begin for middle and cause. No. So the engagement we'll come back in the fall with the engagement plan for all of the the work. The engagement for the elementary schools will looks different because we're talking about boundaries. Okay? For example, for Buckeye and cause, there are different conversations. We're not ready to dig right into boundaries because we still need to talk about the plan as it relates to the grade configuration and where we go next with the next steps of that phase. And then as it relates to West Bro, that's a different category. So, we've grouped um the schools in terms

070of the phases as in terms of implementation because we're not doing all of this work at once. And so in the fall, we'll return with a full engagement plan. But for now, we want everyone to understand that we're staggering or um making sure that we're mapping this work out over time and what they can expect when um as it relates to the phases of the implementation. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. And so um I'm assuming top of fall, but we're flexible. list somewhere when the leaves start to change is is when we're talking because fall is a broad period of time. Well, so for example, um we have already calendared our meeting with you next week um at the um community engagement board committee. um we're working on um our conversations to talk about

071how the that board committee can specifically support this strategy and other strategies related to the engagement that's going to happen in the fall. So our hope is to continue to tee up these conversations now so we are all ready and geared up for the work that will happen in the fall. But as we have um just throughout this this year um I have provided regular updates to the board once a month to make sure that even though this work is happening behind the scenes the full board has an insight into what's happening on this work. So we can certainly continue to provide updates regularly. um that cadence may you know increase um as we're talk there has several moving targets and several moving pieces in action in the fall but certainly we'll be starting that

072conversation next week um at the engagement subcommittee. Thank you. And then my last question is in regards to um the the lottery information that was placed I believe on slide uh 17. Um, can families anticipate any um, you know, additional programs or services that are going to now be added to these sites because of consolidation? I guess you talked about more programs and services being put in different buildings. When families are going to apply for the lottery, how will they know what sites have been what sites have been more programming has been added or services that they're looking for? What will that lottery process look like? So, the lottery would be separate. um the the families for the schools that are going through the realignment process certainly they would have the option to attend their

073what would now be their new neighborhood school and um when we're again increasing the enrollment at our neighborhood elementary schools we are able to offer more services so for example the families should be able to access now their ESL services and their sped services at their neighborhood school they will also still have an option to participate in the lottery if they choose, which would be another option in addition to the options at their neighborhood school. So, all of that will be um explained to families um before in advance of the lottery even opening so that they'll know what options they would have if they chose path A to participate or engage um to at their neighborhood school or if they wanted to explore um many of the lottery options that all families have access to.

074Thank you. All right. Are there any additional questions? Dr. Pierce had one and then we'll have uh board member. I think this is uh more of a request. So one, thank you all for sharing this information. I think it gives us a a good starting point. Um my request is um and I I've given this request kind of earlier I think in February. Is there a way that we can align what the superintendent has presented with our board committee work? So specifically, I think it's great that she will be meeting with our communication our community engagement team and I'm assuming communications will be going to that meeting with you and you all will have the opportunity to really engage on how we are going to engage the community. But I think there's additional opportunity when

075we look at the lottery process. Is that going to require that we need to change our policies as it relates to the lottery? Is there an opportunity for us to look at other policies that might be impacted by this? When we think about the potential um legislation that is coming from the state house, is there a conversation that needs to be had in our policy and governance committee? Um and then also I think a number of the questions as they relate to uh capacity to various issues of course align with um board member Adair's committee with ETRM. So is there an opportunity for our board to I don't know have a working session specifically with the committee chairs to be able to align their committee work with this plan that has been presented by Dr.

076Chapman. So thank you for the question that has been anticipated. In fact, that has been a direct request of the superintendent and the administration um particularly in our leadership meetings where we're talking about how we're going to align work opportunity putting the board to work via committee particularly with realignment affect the academic realignment committee um will also have the opportunity she's already as stated engaged SEAK that committee with regards to how they're going to plan for community engagement. engagement. So that is actually in progress happening and the answer in general in full is yes. It I guess my my question is it seems like it's coming from the superintendent. Is it working two-way where it's coming from the committees as well? It'll be reciprocated. Yes. Exc. There'll be reciprocation and I hope to see you

077at one of them. We'll see. All right. Uh board member. Um, so on one of the last slides it talks about the master plan and this is a question that I get asked all the time is where's the master plan? What's going on? What's the timeline and when will it be shared? Is do you have any updates on that that you can share with us? I can share um a few comments. Um I know that um we know that the last facility master plan that we had um was in 2019 around 2019. We engaged with the community to engage in our facility master planning process. um that certainly there was an opportunity to continue to um implement that plan, but we did not go back to the ballot to secure the funding for that plan.

078A lot has changed since then. And so now we need to update that plan that um certainly want to make sure that all of the conversations that we've been having about realigning our facility assets to support the vision are any conversations that we're having around realignment. We've talked a lot and the board has voted on demolition. Um we need to make sure that the buildings that were in the previous segments for um building new construction are accurately and reflects all of that is in one plan. And so that currently is a need. Um we have in the um we have already done a RFQ for a vendor to um accept a bid for um to do that work. And um we are in the process now of negotiating the contract with that vendor. And then

079once we have finished or completed the negotiations um for that vendor, then that agenda item will be on the board legislation for your consideration to approve or to vote on whether or not we want to move forward with the vendor doing that work. Um in the last facility master plan that um the district when we engaged in that process, the process was about um two years. And so we're again negotiating with the vendor to make sure that the timeline we're we have an alignment and agreement on that timeline. So once the um we have the contract and then we board that information or the board takes a vote on that legislation, then the process um will begin for designing, creating and engaging with our community around one plan that really speaks to our academic vision

080and how our facilities and resources align to that. That includes new construction. That includes realignment where we would want to close, consolidate. It includes the need where we talked about today um of having um traditional grade bands for all of our schools. So that work will be reflected in that one document. We won't have to go to several different documents to um really better understand how all of these um really integral pieces and parts fit together. All right. Yeah. And so, um, it sounds like the master plan is still a few years out from being complete. Um, how can we as a board support you and the administration throughout this process, but also be accountable to our community who's looking to really fully understand that vision and fully understand that work as we're doing work

081without a master plan? Yes. So, the work must continue. um we can't um stop and we can't slow down. We know that um some of these decisions are really urgent because our students can't wait. Um we talked about the age and condition of our buildings. We talked about um the needs of our students and and the types of learning environments that they should have access to. And so we know that um I know that our board shares that sense of urgency and shares that similar similar concerns that we have to continue to have these conversations. We have to continue to make these decisions. I think that prioritizing this work as we've just talked about um the decisions that we've already made as well as continuing to keep this top of mind for everyone. continuing to

082restate um why this work is important, why our realignment work is um really critical for our district and for our community. I think keeping it top of mind and talking about the process. So, we'll continue to create space for us to have those conversations at the board table when we um certainly when we're moving forward with the facility master plan, we will need everyone to be engaged. that that that's collectively us as well as our broader community to be engaged in that process and to share their feedback so that it can be um a a a resource that really reflects um not only where we are right now but where we want to go in the next um 10 to 15 years. Are there any additional questions? You have one more? Yeah, I have one

083more and it's a little bit of a different topic. So, the West Broad Elementary, um, the bullet point says once funding is identified, the process would be expected to take approximately three years to complete. Yeah. And I anticipate we haven't just been sitting on our hands. So, is there anything that we can share with the community as far as what those conversations for funding have entailed to date? Yes. I'll defer to Vice President Adair because this has been top of mind for the ETRM committee. they have been talking about this and prioritizing um this conversation and the and um this the next steps as relates to West Broad. Thank you, superintendent. Yes, the ETRM committee in the last meeting did start these conversations around understanding uh different uh funding models um not just with West

084Broad but also as we start to move on properties um like Broadley um figuring out what to do with these assets will be part of the work of the ETRM committee as we are the committee that is in charge of making sure that we are appropriately um using and maintaining or dispersing our assets. Um so we will start our work um very fully in the fall um as we start to um have more of these properties that we have to discuss as well as different funding mechanisms. Um and so this will be part of our agendas. Um I'll turn it over to the treasurer really quick um to maybe talk a little bit about what he shared with the committee. Yeah, thank you. Um great question on financing. So at last month's ETRMC, we we

085discussed four options that we would have with our permanent improvement funds. Payo, where we pay cash as we go for the facilities. Uh TAN, which is a short-term tax anticipation note up to 10 years. A cop's certificate of participation which could be financed up to 30 years or a PPP uh private public partnership since it was mentioned tonight with West Broad and kind of the financing conditions on that. Have a lot of conversations on a weekly basis with municipal adviserss and our folks in the financial markets. And if the board were to make a decision tonight, for example, hypothetically, we could have the funds to move forward in our bank account within 12 to 16 weeks. So, from a financial standpoint, we can move rapidly. We have those discussions all the time. And I liken

086this process to when you're buying a house, if you will. We've kind of been pre-qualified. We have the permanent improvement levy, which frees up those options. What we need from a financing standpoint now is how much is that house we're going to buy and then we can truly work rapidly. I think 12 to 16 weeks is pretty quick. Um when you consider a facilities project, we'll have the funding source secured. Um so from my standpoint, that's the last of the concerns at this point. We know we have options available to fund and we can move rapidly. Again, 12 to 16 weeks in this market is what we're being told. I think part of it is kind of simultaneous discussions um with us figuring out money and bringing that back to the board, but then what

087AEC is working on about the alignment and the timing and the priority and so those things need to match especially as we are continued to be hit with you know things from our state house where we have to react and so if we choose to use the PI that's what we're using it for and it really limits what we can do um in other projects. So again, we have a lot to discuss. Um but we're working on that and um our committee members are great and the board members that are participating in the committees are great. Um and so I anticipate lots of work on this in the fall. All right, one last question. Um board member indicated that, you know, how do we share the information with the community as it relates to some

088of the work that we are doing around our facilities and um looking at our web p website? I wonder if there's a way that we can highlight the buildings that we have marked for demolition. Kind of some of um the plans for phase one, two, and three of the realignment plan and and really something just high level, something um that our community can maybe interact with very easily, very user friendly to let them be aware of this information. I think that might be very helpful um to communicate with the community because we can't assume that they're going to go and look at these PowerPoint presentations and go through them just a nice one pager or or bullet points that kind of capture. Thank you for that. Thank you for that. We've had that conversation actually.

089So, thank you for that. Thank you. Always good for one mind. Um, just before we move on, I just have a couple of questions, particularly as it relates to goals and guard rails of the district. You've done a wonderful job of, you know, highlighting the portrait of a graduate that we adopted some years ago, but I think uh above and beyond that is how do we think about or think through what this is going to do for improving student outcomes in this process? How do you anticipate incorporating our goals and our guard rails into this this series of conversations? Yes. So when um when we started um the presentation for context, we certainly uh anchored this work in our portrait of a graduate, our board goals and our board guard rails. When we think about

090um there were a couple of slides that explained when we have so many buildings that are underutilized, meaning um we're pouring more resources into the building, we have an opportunity to realign um our these spaces and realign um our our buildings. We have an opportunity to provide more services and those services in one location, right? And so we're really able to wrap our arms around the students needs, the staff needs, and to provide them with the supports, and to provide them with the programming that they need to be successful. And so we certainly see this as a strategy that is going to help us to deliver on that promise as it relates to our board goals as well as our guard rails and providing more support um to our students as well as our staff

091as we continue to do this work. Okay. So the idea here then is not just that we're transitioning students into new buildings with modern amenities, those types of things, but that we're also anticipating a an increase in student outcomes. We're actually looking at seeing some sort of improvement particularly in the places that we've highlighted for mathematics that we've highlighted in in other areas. This is what you're saying you anticipate as well. Absolutely. So we see we anticipate um one um more alignment with the student experience uh increased alignment with our our physical assets, our spaces, the facilities. But we're doing all of this in service of providing the students with the programming that they need so that they can achieve those goals in kindergarten, in third grade, in sixth grade, in ninth grade. That's why

092we're doing this work. Um and it's important for us to keep the needs of our students and our families and our staff at the center of these conversations. All of the school the schools that we talked about when we talked about Mhler and broadly um Dr. Brown explained that these schools when we're transitioning uh these school communities, they will be moving to more modern facilities, right? And and as a part of that, we talked about what they would gain as a part of that. And that's not just brick and mortar, right? that is also in the programming and the services that they would be offered. Um due to us being able to offer more programming when we have um just trying to get to more of an averagesiz elementary school at this point. Um it

093there still won't be it won't be at 500 just yet but still just getting in the average size elementary school. They can have a full complement of services support services that are offered to the students and to the families. All right. So I appreciate that. I see a unique opportunity here. Um I see the opportunity particularly in the guard rail space. 80% of that work is you all's. I see some opportunity for us to figure out how we incorporate that into our monitoring reports possibly for guard rail. So I know we have Synindle on the call or in the meeting with us right now uh uh virtually. Uh perhaps as you move forward we figure out how we do that. would certainly um President Cole, I was just going to highlight that um at the

094um AFAC board committee meeting next week. We'll actually be talking about our guard rails and we'll have an opportunity to discuss the next steps as we set those interim metrics for the guardrails so we can keep this as top of mind for that meeting next week. will also be following up on this conversation and making space for additional conversations related to tonight's presentation at the AEC meeting next week. So for anyone who has additional questions or would like to engage as well as at the engagement uh board committee meeting next week as well. So that's two board committees where we'll be following up um regarding this presentation. And so it's another invitation for our community um to engage and again share and provide us with additional feedback. All right. Uh thank you so much for

095the presentation. If there aren't any additional questions or uh recommendations, we'll move on. Thank you again, Dr. Chapman. Thank you. Thank you. We look forward to next week. And in addition to that, the the door is always open. the door is always open for folks to come to committee meetings and participate, offer their insights and feedback, board members or otherwise. So, I just want to always make that make that known. Um, we'll move on to our uh executive report updates. Uh, I take it that you don't have one beyond this. I do not have any additional reports or updates tonight, President Cole. Thank you. you. She said, "I don't want to suck up too much oxygen." Is that what it was? All right. Uh, Mr. Treasurer, no report this evening. All right, Mr. Internal Auditor.

096No report this evening. Okay. All right. We'll move right on then to uh voting on the consent agenda. Consent agenda consists from 9.1 to 24.4. All right. Is there a motion to accept the consent agenda? Motion. It's been moved and seconded. Dr. Pierce with the exception of 15.1 15.2 and 15.3 which I vote no. Yes. 15.2 15.3 15.1 2 and three. You Miss Reyes. Yes. Mr. Simmons. Yes. Vice President Adair. Yes. Miss Vera. Yes, Miss Singles. Yes, President Cole. Yes. All right, we'll move into our individual sections on other legislation. Um, I believe that there is a motion for 24 25.1. I'll make a motion to approve the personnel uh 25.1. Second. Motion and seconded. Can we call the role? Miss Vera? Yes. Miss Engles? Yes. Dr. Pierce? Yes. Miss Reyes? Yes. Mr. Simmons? Yes.

097Vice President Adair. Yes. President Cole, I abstain. Motion car. All right. Uh 25.2 award of uh contract to Westfield Consulting Group. There a motion. Motion. Moved. Is there a second? Second. Motion and seconded. When we call the role, Miss Reyes. Yes. Yes. Okay. I just want to point of order. Yeah. I'm sorry. Um for 25.2, I'm still unclear what exactly they're doing for um the district and so I just want to say my vote will reflect that. Okay. So, Madame Superintendent, is there opportunity right now to provide some clarification on how this is essential? If that would be helpful. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Woods. Good evening, good sir. Good evening, board chair. All right. It's good to see you. Board member, superintendent, treasurer, internal auditor. Auditor. Want to acknowledge everyone today. Yeah. So um in

098the attachments with this document, we provided an executive summary of some of the value ad of this particular work, the rationale for it. I won't read all of that detail. Um we also provided an overview of the firm that will be helping us do this work. Um but in general terms um it's important for us to recognize that um over the last couple years um specifically since the improvement of the PI levy in December um we've seen an increase in both the complexity and the scope of the projects um that our staff are working on currently. Um what hasn't changed is the number of those staff that's doing that work. Um we recognize also with some recent assessments and some internal audits. I won't go into detail, but there are some risks that we've identified

099in that department. And we believe that there are some one-time fixes that we need the help of a a third party to come in and help us to minimize or mitigate some of that risk while allowing the current project team and staff to continue focusing on delivering um on the work related to the permanent improvement levy. Um and now we have coming forward some of the realignment activities. So, it's really positioning ourselves for success as we continue to um increase the volume and scope of work that we're doing in the district around our facilities and our buildings. I'll pause there um for additional questions. Thank you, Mr. Woods. Are there any questions at this point? Or Ringles? Yeah. Is this related to the master plan work? The master plan is a separate vendor, separate work.

100That work is currently being negotiated. As a superintendent mentioned, this work is really focused on building internal capacity um within the district and within the capital improvements team specifically. It's a separate project from the master plan work. Dr. Pierce, how do we maintain that um increased capacity that will be built by this contract? Do we just keep going contracting contract? Like how do we maintain that capacity? It's a great question. So, you know, some of the improvements are around um technical things u making sure that we're documenting and have standard operating procedures that can be leveraged consistently or project over project. It involves ensuring that we have the right system so that we can provide transparency, provide ongoing updates to the board around project status. So, it's really improving some of the technical capabilities in

101that department and that becomes sustainable for long-term work as we move forward. Just a clarifying question. So, currently our team does not have the capacity nor skill set nor knowledge to create these templates or to create um the toolkit necessary to keep us moving forward. That is a question, correct? That's a question. No, that that's not um that would not be an accurate reflection. Okay. Um what we are saying is that um since in the last couple of months, we've asked we've partnered with um a couple of different entities to come in and do a review to assess um where some areas of opportunity and growth are for the department. And so they've provided us with some feedback. And so this was a next step where they said there's some foundational work that needs to

102be established um before um we you know embark on bigger projects and there was an opportunity to address that work. So was bringing having um increasing the capacity of the team to build that foundational work that needs to happen. So, I appreciate that. As I read through the attachments, the 34page document that you gave with us, it talks about how they're bringing in templates and they're bringing in pretty much a toolkit that we will be able to use. And so, my question is currently our team doesn't have that. We need the toolkit to increase our capacity. There are new and additional resources as well as expertise that we could take advantage of. So again, that connects to my first question was how do we ensure that our team is being properly trained that in the

103future we won't have to go back out to seek a consultant company to get the toolkit necessary, but that our team will be able to bring those to the table. This would be setting that foundation. Thank you, board member Simmons. Thank you, President Cole. Um, I just had a couple questions about the selection and how Lee may have been involved. I see on the agenda item that the out the outreach department was notified of the opportunity but the outreach coordinator did not participate in the selection process. I was wondering if you could share why that was. So the outreach coordinator and my so if I can just take a step back I just want to acknowledge the capital improvements team. Um that team is amazing. They do amazing work. Um they do a lot of

104work. I think we have over 170 projects that we're working on this summer. So, I just want to acknowledge that team for the great work that they do. Um, as it relates to your question, specifically, board member Simmons, um, we did heavily engage the LED outreach coordinator in the process of identifying resources um, to apply for the RFQ. um when we actually did the interview and the screening of the vendor, there was a more specific skill sets that we were looking to bring to those conversations. Um so the the outreach coordinator didn't necessarily have those um technical skill sets that we were looking to screen this vendor for. Um and we engaged other individuals um to help us better screen um this applicant for this work. Thank you. Could you speak to maybe some of

105the the technical differences that will help maybe help me get a better understanding of why this work is so valuable? Yeah, it's it's it's experience in um leading largecale facilities projects. It's experience in developing facilities manage um planning documents, right? It's experience in identifying risk management procedures to mitigate risks in the department that currently exist. Those are the skill sets that we wanted the interview panel to have as we were talking to this particular applicant. Thank you. And then just my last question, why house this work separately from the master plan? Um I think it was board member who asked about that and you responded that this work was separate. It sounds like maybe there's a broader desire to bring all of our different facility work under one um at least one plan. So I

106just why is this work separate? Well, it it's it's it's a sense of urgency, right? It's almost like we're trying to have multiple work streams. So, we recognize that we have to build internal capacity. We recognize that we have to launch a master planning process. Those two things are related, but they're separate kind of work streams. So, we want to make sure that we're accelerating this work as fast as we can because as everyone mentioned today in earlier conversations, you know, we have a lot of things that are going on and we can't we have to accelerate our ability to implement this work as we move forward. And by having these two separate work streams, it really puts us in a better position um to to to move the work forward faster. Um and then

107what are the negative consequences if this work was not able to move forward at the speed you desire? I I think that it's really about long-term risk mitigation. Um I think the major negative um implications are around do we have the capacity and bandwidth to continue to implement the ongoing permanent improvement work. Remember this is the first time that I think we've received a levy that is ongoing funding. It's not funding for a year or two years. just ongoing funding. So, we know that scale and scope of work is going to continue. It's really having the long-term capacity to ensure that we can implement against the PI levy. We can implement against the realignment work that's coming down the pike. We can implement against the master planning projects that are going to be coming down

108and do that in a way where we um have fidelity. Um we show um fidiciary responsibility in how we're allocating our funds. We can communicate that via transparent data tracking. It's really about the long-term sustainability of this work as we move forward. Thank you. Go ahead. Uh board vice president. Uh Mr. Woods, how many vendors um bid on this? Um it's a tight labor market. Um we did outreach to multiple vendors, multiple um construction agencies. um some of the largest nationally. Um we had one vendor um bid on this work. Um I will tell you that um through the screening um through our due diligence um in conversation with some subject matter experts um the vendor is um adequately or more than adequately um positioned to help us do the scope of work that we

109put out for this RFQ. So I'm very confident that this is um a the right vendor to do this work at this time. Mr. Woods, what is the deliverable under this contract? So some of the deliverable there's multiple deliverables. Um some of them are in the summary document. Um I don't want to read the document for you. Um but I can tell you um there are deliverables around ensuring that we have risk mitigation strategies um which is something that was identified in in some of our audit work if I can be specific. Um it's making sure that we have deliverables around um how are we creating standard operating procedures um for this work um as we move forward. It's having deliverables around how do we ensure that we have the right systems in place and

110making recommendations to ensure that we can communicate with transparency to the board and stakeholders. Um so I think the actual document has um multiple deliverables and those are a few and what is the length of this contract? It's a nine-month engagement um 30 hours per week. It's part-time. part-time. Yeah. And is the vendor to work on site? It's a hybrid facil. It's a hybrid position. Um there are going to be some on-site and some remote work that's necessary. And I will tell you this is not um unique to Brow to Columbus City Schools. um this model really allows us to obtain the highest level of skills right in a way that allows the flexibility to attract these individuals that can deliver um on the scope of work in the short amount of time that we

111have. Um and this is not an uncommon approach to securing um executive level talent to help move this work forward. Board member Engles. Um, board president, I would like to make a motion to table this piece of legislation just because I don't want to vote no on a piece of legislation that is needed uh by the district at this time. But I do feel like I need more clarity around what exactly they're doing and providing to uh the district with this sum. Um, and I have a few more questions that I would like to better understand before taking a vote. So, I would make a motion that we table this legislation, bring it up at the next board meeting um so that I am not forced to vote no on this. All right. So, Okay.

112So, there's been a motion in a second. We've already have we already have a motion and second on the floor to accept this. What we will do is vote on your your current motion. Correct. We'll vote on that and then we'll vote on the preliminary motion that would be it would be tabled it would be tabled all together if it pass. Okay, sounds like a plan. We have a motion and a second on the table. So discussion discussion, right? Um, so in supporting the the motion on the table, I will say that while the information shared in the attachment is helpful, it does not specifically speak to how it aligns with our district and the work that needs to be done. It is very broad. And so if there could be additional information that could

113be shared to narrow that focus to talk about how it aligns with our goals and our guard rails, our strategic plan, um even some of the recommended um facilities conversations we've had here recently, including our demolitions uh resolutions. It would be extremely helpful. All right, Madam VP, I would also support the motion to table so I am not forced to vote no. I was the one who actually pulled this off to discuss. Um, I've already expressed a lot of concern. I've already asked you this qu that same question I asked you four times already about what is the deliverable under this contract. I am the biggest cheerleader of capital improvements. I am the first one to say let's move faster and let's get this done right. And I do have serious concerns about what I

114see here and just not understanding. Um, and so I would support uh the motion to table and uh request that the previous questions I've asked please be answered. All right. So motion has been presented and seconded. Call the role, please. Oh, discussion. Let's let's keep it short. I just had one additional question for which is what? Well, never mind. You sure? Yeah, I'm sure. Okay, we're ready to take action. Okay, so call the role, please. Miss Engles, yes. Dr. Pierce, yes. Miss Reyes. In support of my colleagues, yes. Mr. Simmons, yes. Miss Vera, Vice President Adair? Yes. President Cole? Yes. Forgive me for being short. I think that's all right. I didn't mean that. But at the same time, I think the the argument and case had been made. So, moving forward, Dr. Chapman, I

115think what would be helpful is is if we get that additional information about how how this particularly aligns. It sounds to me like there's in part an opportunity to equip not only your staff but the board to better equip us in understanding. It sounds as if there's a level up opportunity. As I'm as I read through that legislation and I'm kind of distilling even more my numerous conversations with Mr. Woods. I see an opportunity that there's a level up, you know, experience to be had with this company coming on. But I too have my shared concerns as well. All of us are major champions of what it's going to take to successfully realign Columbus City Schools. All of us in any given point in time have made some sort of request for hyper action, more

116swifter action to be taken to that effect. So it's not ownership by one particular person, it's ownership by all. So you heard from us and we look forward to uh learning more as we move forward and taking action swiftly in a way that you need. I think what'll be helpful for me moving forward as well is how important it is to you. You are our chief executive officer. You are the one who knows the lay of the land internally as you manage. I think it's helpful also for us to know to hear from you how important this is to you and the team. I think that'll be helpful too. Thank you, President Cole. Yes, ma'am. And I noticed that the attachment was not in the legislation either. So, it's not here. Okay. So, the attachment,

117Mr. Woods, that you were referring. No, it's you got on board. Oh, okay. Because I don't see it. Okay. I did look at it's not public facing. Okay. All right. Thank you all colleagues. Thank you administration. This this is this is not it's a no but not yet. [Laughter] Come with it. Come with it. All right. Um moving forward we'll go to 25.3 authority to enter into service agreement with state house impact group. Is there a motion? Some moved. Motion. Is there a second? Second. Motion and seconded. Call the role. Vice President Adair. Yes. Miss Vera. Yes, Miss Engles. Abstain. Dr. Pierce. Yes, Miss Reyes. Yes, Mr. Simmons. Yes, President Cole. Yes. Motion passes. All right, we'll go into 26.1. Motion for executive session. Madame Vice President, it is recommended the board of education move

118into executive session pursuant to Ohio Vice Code section 121.22G4 22G4 to prepare for, conduct or review negotiations or bargaining sessions with public employees concerning their compensation or other terms and conditions of their employment. That is a motion. Second. Motion and second and call the role. Miss Vera, yes. Missing Les. Yes. Dr. Pierce. Yes. Miss Reyes. Yes. Mr. Simmons. Yes. President Cole. Yes. Vice President Adair. Yes. Motion carried. We're in exact session. All right. Thank you board. Thank you uh uh attending audience. We will go into executive session. Post executive session. We will not return. Uh you are all welcome to leave.