001C schools for 15 years I love it it's flexible I was a single mom with four kids and I needed the flexibility in the hours so being able to work a split shift was awesome making sure that you make contact with each kid every day it changes them changes me Columbus City Schools brought a lot to my life I believe I'm a family we're a family I really enjoy what I do and it's not just about the kids you have teachers you have employees and they all contribute to what we do best here and that's educate actually taught me how to drive taught me directions North Side East Side West Side I didn't know where I was going when I first started now I know everywhere the whole Columbus tuition reimbursement I was able to
002go to school come join us apply now at ccs jobs.org [Music] [Applause] [Music] today we went to all of the theater schools so all of the elementary schools and two of the middle schools that feed into West and we did a clap out with their kindergarteners and fifth graders the walk was really fun my favorite part was seeing all the little kids and seeing how happy they were and knowing that they're going to be here one day with us showing students that they can graduate one day as long as you stay on track with everything that you need to and you just stay focused on the stuff that you want then you can really do it it was such an exciting event today it's so great to see our kid kids that we haven't seen
003since they were in elementary school um I was lucky enough to be their teacher for second and third grade so it was really special to see this group come through just great opportunity to celebrate and it's important because it builds the connection and I think that's something we really need on the west side is to build a connection between our elementary middle school and high school students we always talk to the kids about what happens after elementary school but um an event like today shows them where they can be in the next few years years I think it just shows them how all of their hard work can pay off as well in the future [Music] my name is Lolita Von and I am a special ed instructional assistant for Columbus City Schools I have
004been employed with the district for 11 plus years now [Music] I chose to work for a Columbus City school because I like helping children and families um coming from a background of being a home child care provider for 12 years it just fit they see their s when they look at me most of our students you know are African-American and there's not a lot of males in education me being in that role pre- teacher being one of the first teachers that they see I know I affect change they see it they see a positive role model they see a positive male positive figure in their life this past graduation class was my first class of sixth graders so they graduated last year and one of the area high schools has a really cool tradition where
005they asked their former teachers to come back and give their diploma and I was the only Middle School teacher there for this particular student and so I got to hand her a diploma and that was probably the most memorable experience the district has actually provided me a lot of tools and resources um I have the latest technology currently in my classroom um with a clever touch uh board I also have the ability to get my Master's Degree through Columbus City Schools um and take additional classes for my coursework for absolutely free and incorporate it into my teacher schedule I chose to work in the district because I grew up in the inter city school and I met a school nurse that was a nurse of color and I wanted to be in a school district
006that had more students that were minority so they could see that they could succeed in whatever field they chose to be in they have continuous trainings and um workshops that we can do at our Pace online through Public School Works they also have a no cost out of pocket College tuition that we can go to school to obtain our degree everybody is is cheering for everybody everybody is rooting for everybody everybody has one go and that's to educate our students everything focuses around our students and that that's the biggest thing that's why I'm in Columbus that's why I wouldn't leave Columbus there's there's a lot of room for growth you're going to continue to learn you're going to meet so many people you're going to connect with people if you desire to be administrator you
007can go that route if you desire to be in a a Tulsa position a teacher on special assignment you can go that route you're going to grow you get a lot of different diverse pockets in Columbus and I think it says a lot with the district as well whatever Community you find yourself teaching in you are impact in a certain Community um I find myself in the east side impacting a certain and I know friends in the North and the west side that are doing different work with different populations of students that it's it's really rewarding if you love working with students and family from all walks of life then come join our team the opportunity to be a part of a great team is here I cannot say enough about friendships that I have
008made with so many amazing people my family has grown and I love it I can't wait to meet you and Welcome to our te [Music] he [Music] hey [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] a [Music] d oh [Music] n [Music] n [Music] greetings and welcome to this week's highlights from across the district it's homecoming season in ccs and the excitement is in the air this special time of year brings our school communities together to celebrate Spirit pride and tradition from Lively parades and spirited pep rallies to action-packed football games and engaging alumni events there's something for everyone to enjoy join us as we honor our past celebrate our present and Inspire our future on October 4th I had the pleasure of visiting West High School and Fort Hayes career center to celebrate our students incredible achievements
009I am proud of the staff and students at West High School who have made significant strides in closing achievement gaps and improving graduation rates ensuring that our students are on track to graduate I want to thank our matriculation teams and the Career and Technical education staff for their hard work and dedication at Fort Hayes career center I am CCS proud of the remarkable efforts of our CTE students and staff who earned an impressive 4.5 out of five stars on the Ohio state report card these achievements are a prime example of how we can Inspire our students to dream big and achieve more I am pleased to announce the successful partnership between Columbus City Schools and Habitat for Humanity Mid Ohio that will support our construction trade students at Fort Hayes career center on October 9th
010Fort Hayes career center Habitat for Humanity Mid Ohio and the City of Columbus came together to unveil this collaboration students will now have the opportunity to participate and new affordable housing construction efforts in Columbus neighborhoods including a project located near the fort haes campus this partnership provides our students with invaluable hands-on experience while contributing positively to their Community we look forward to seeing this initiative's impact on our students and our community on October 11th Columbus City Schools proudly celebrated the 2024 International Day of the girl at coastside young ladies from Columbus City Preparatory School for Girls and Ridgeview Middle School participated in this year's girls will Summit event and empower powering experience designed for girls in grade 6 through 8 hosted by Aaron pink the event featured guest Columbus city council member lorda sposa de
011Padilla and inspiring workshops led by presenters from Spelman College this special day encouraged our students to dream brri and embrace their strengths and know that their future has no limits we are proud to support our young leaders as they continue to grow and make an impact save the date join us on Saturday October 19th from 10: to 2: for the 50th anniversary openhouse of the Spruce Run Nature Center this Milestone celebration will feature a variety of fun fall activities including creaking exploring wetlands and visiting the garden everyone is welcome to enjoy this free event and discover the wonders of nature right here in our community don't miss this opportunity to celebrate at 50 years of inspiring curiosity and wonder at the Spruce Run Nature Center these have been your highlights from around the district for
012October 15th thank you so much for joining [Music] us good evening and welcome to the October 15th regular business meeting of the Columbus City Schools Board of Education um tonight tonight we actually are really excited as we have some special guests uh with us uh students who are who have participated in the Columbus City Schools Shadow District leadership series um this evening we are proud to have with us Kalise Vickers ghee a junior at Maran Franklin High School and Fort Hayes career center shadowed um she was shadowing Dr Chapman this today and then we also have micaa um Mick mu a High School senior shadowing our Treasurer Ryan Cook so please help me welcome our two students here tonight and with that being said Miss micaa can you please call the role missir present Mr
013Co here missles present vice president Dr Pierce present and president Vera here I have a quorum she's hired there we go I love that talking about I knew I was in trouble there you go all right thank you so much will you please join me in standing for the Pledge of Allegiance Al flag the United States of America and to the Republic for stands one nation under God indivisible Li all right so colleagues this evening um we do have a few guests here for public comment in addition to uh several items under board matters uh we will also U be considering the consent agenda 10.1 to 2.11 in addition to other legislation 26.1 and then we also do have an executive session is there a motion to approve the agend to approve the agenda second
014any discussions questions seeing none please call the RO Mr D yes Mr Cole yes Miss Engles yes vice president Dr Pierce yes president ver yes motion carried thank you at this time we will move into public comment um as a reminder we do have um office hours Board office hours between every board me meeting starting at 5:15 to 5 45 uh so if a member of the community would have interest in meeting and having a 2-way exchange we welcome that um when I call your name please come to the podium and you will have three minutes starting whenever you are ready um my first guest is lovey Alfie green um Aunt of a CCS student topic to be addressed student and family rights good evening Miss Green hello everyone my name is lovey ay green
015and I'm here to speak as an individual and an advocate for my nephew one month ago my brother spoke on his behalf of his son as a student in a self-contained MD classroom that had safety concerns and class ratio concerns when speaking on behalf of his son Wally green shared his griev grievances with you all and had a lack of faith in Columbus City Schools as a graduate of this District I know all too well this is a familiar story to many of the people of Columbus this is not my first time that I've seen that the city does not show the best intent of care as a district and without external support and safeguards it will not be the last I first want to say thank you to all the individuals of the community
016that speak up and advocate for the children of Columbus City Schools I would like to use this platform with your permission to make a request to the board members CCS Administration family of students active or retired teachers community members and stakeholders and any other person that feels the weight that our children are going through today to Simply do right by our students to the Columbus Board of Education I request transparent and objective information that focuses on the deficits of our students and what they need in this state of urgency due to the mistreatment of students in special education classes exceptional children and children of general education I want us to provide Equitable resources that go beyond packets such as as simply their rights to the families of students whether you are a direct relative or
017a family friend please use platforms like this to advocate for our children to speak on your stories and to show what we are really going through as a district as a family we have to remember our rights as family members and parents aunties uncles and remember to tell the people in positions that we do have rights and they deserve to be respected for communities members and stakeholders Please wrap your hands around our children and show them that you care and that you have an intention to support the district as they are trying to move forward to the students of Columbus City Schools your voice matters also use this platform because you are the ones that are at the front the Forefront of what's going on in education today lastly I would like to make a
018statement to the staff of Columbus City Schools especially those who who are serving exceptional students from the support staff to related services to volunteers teachers and administration I want to say thank you for serving and being in solidarity to our students may I continue yes go thank you to service servicing our students and standing in solidarity with them please continue to run this Amazing Race hide the troubles that go outside in the world and fight for our students every day sincerely our first year teacher a graduate of Columbus City Schools and a family member of a child who was placed in Columbus City Schools thank you thank you thank you Miss green um now we will hear from Molly Wood uh CCS teacher topic to be address special education concerns good evening Miss Woods good
019evening Board of Education Dr Chapman and administration hold child focused Equitable opportunities for all students strong learning communities in every region authentic engagement these are the priorities that CCS has identified most important in the education of our students however the reality is is that these classrooms are not Equitable for all in fact the students that need the most are getting the least within the last couple of weeks the district has involuntarily transferred more teachers into new positions most of them being slc's however like we have seen with the last few rounds of transfers rather than solving problems we have created more many of these teachers have quit and or revoked parts of their license to avoid being placed back into special education classrooms um I have yet to see a posting for SLC intervention specialist
020on our website how do we expect to get more teachers with no job postings the staff and slc's across the district are unwell in fact when speaking with teachers they state that it's getting worse disheartening hopeless the district does not care help is not coming they're setting us up for failure gaslighting no support I don't think I can do this anymore I don't want to be a teacher anymore I'm ready to resign these are the things that are being said across the district from Educators that have been dedicated to servicing these students with the most severe needs it takes a special person to work with these students who require intensive support and interventions mental health matters think about it if the teachers are unwell and struggling the students are unwell and struggling our students deserve
021better they deserve to have a free and appropriate education that is safe functional and supports all of their comp complex needs our parents deserve better they deserve full transparency with the district about the severity of these classrooms and the whole picture in their child's learning environment our teachers deserve better they deserve to have the support they need to maintain a safe and engaging learning environment I will continue to speak out and advocate for our students for our parents and for our staff see you on November six thank you thank you Miss Wood next we will hear here from Phillip um balzer CCS teacher topic to be addressed unified arts department good evening sir uh good evening members of the board my name is Philip balzer I'm the music educator at duckberry Arts Impact Elementary School
022and this is my fifth year teaching uh people often say that teaching gets easier each year and while in some ways that's been true in many others it's not each year the unified arts department is increasingly overlooked underappreciated and understaffed for my first three and a half years here we had a dedicated unified Arts director Dr Betty Hill but after she retired in January 2024 the position was merged under Dr Brian Morton who is also the director of curriculum and instruction for the D District while Dr Morton is a kind and capable responsive person it is unrealistic to expect one individual to oversee District curriculum and manage the entirety of the unified art arts department which includes visual art um vocal and instrumental music drama dance health and physical education we have approximately 380 unified
023Arts teachers teachers who deserve leadership and support right now many responsibilities of the former director have fallen to a teacher on special assignment who is doing their best but is being asked to fulfill administrative duties this lack of leadership has led to numerous oversights at our school alone District buses haven't shown up for field trip planned by unified Arts my colleagues have repeatedly been left out of critical district-wide unified Arts emails Elementary dance and drama teachers have been asked to create their own assessments or use general education writing assessments that do not have anything to do with dance or drama standards for their highly qualified student data and just today many of us were notified by the tosa not the director that unified Arts direct teachers must complete 22 hours of State mandated science of
024reading training by May 1st this communication came four months late leaving only six months to complete what could have been started or completed over the summer these are just a few examples of how the absence of an administrator negatively affects UA teachers and most importantly the students that we serve it's not the fault of Dr Morton who's doing a great job it's not the fault of the tosa the fault lies with the district for not prioritizing a department with nearly 400 teachers by giving us the leadership that we need with so many administrative positions in the this District it's baffling that the UN unified Arts is left without one of its own as a Columbus citizen I cautiously voted yes for the last Levy hopeful that I would make things better for students and staff
025instead things seem to be getting worse for the unified arts department ultimately it's the students who suffer most when their teachers are unsupported the Arts aren't extracurriculars and they aren't specials they are classes essential to developing well-rounded creative and resilient young people our students deserve better and so do we I urge the board to prioritize the unified arts department by appointing a dedicated administrator to provide the leadership we need to thrive thank you thank you next we will hear from Joseph self U is he is a parent and the topic to be addressed is safety good evening Mr self good evening Bo members and Dr Chapman um I am a parent as with the Columbus City Schools and um I wanted to address some safety concerns um this is a year and a half with
026Columbus City Schools um within the from September 19th starting on September 19th um my daughter's arm was fractured um by a child at CCS um spoke with the principal um um say she was going to conduct um an investigation um calls me back and says that she conducted an investigation but no findings um I do want the board to understand that I understand that kids will be kids and things will happen um so that really just it was big a part for me for the safety two days later after this incident the same boy was bullying my daughter that was heard by the principal we addressed that situation kind of left it be last Thursday the same incident with the same child at school then pushed my daughter down placed his foot on her chest
027and asked her if she had any final words I have been through the whole process from elays to on bugman to CPS um there is interventions that you guys that are schools Su specify in so if these things are happening at our Columbus City Schools what is going on in our children's home your guys's Miss tcs's mission is safety my daughter hasn't returned to CCS because it's not safe I've gotten no answers no nothing I'm asking the board to take this situation the only one left is superintendent Dr Chapman she's the only one left I've been to everyone I want the board to act on this this is serious this plays a big role as our safety in our schools I also last year we had cross guards as at the school this year we
028didn't I was told by the principal that the budget didn't call for it I get it so I asked her what we could do to make sure that our kindergartens the first and second graders who enter on the right side of our building that has two crosswalks the principal then told me that I was more than willing to come and do crosswalk I did crosswalk for a week and a half at 3:30 while I'm doing crosswalk I'm come to by the principal that says my service is no longer needed we now have a teacher down there which is thankful but it starts if we're this Columbus City Schools is not going to get anywhere if we don't start with safety that is your M that is your mission and if that is not what we
029are going to practice then we have to take that mission out and we have to come up with another mission I'm not looking for the safety for me but I want to look out for every CCS child so please take this in consider consideration and let's do better with our safety let's get our community involved I'll be one of the first parents to come in our schools and help with anything but if y if CCS don't communicate we can't help but you do have ones that do want to and I will stand as is one of them let's do better thank you Mr self is there someone here Dr Chapman that can speak to yes there's a member of the administration that will be happy to speak with you okay okay thank you all right
030now we will hear from Isetta Thomas um Columbus education Justice Coalition topic to be addressed board engagement strategy um I Believe Miss Thomas is on zoom we're ready go ahead Miss Thomas good evening uh superintendent Dr Chapman uh Christina Vero our board president and our other board members board members over the past few weeks there have been a number of people grabbing the mic to throw in their two cents about our schools these people with a little name recognition and money have been silent and from Columbus City Schools for years so why speak of now what do they have to gain from pressuring you to close our schools as a 20-year veteran CCS educator a proud East High Alam and a lifetime resident of the city of Columbus I urge you all to remember this
031the power for Change and transformation in Columbus City Schools lies in the people specifically the people closest to to the classroom a former mayor who withdrew from the city of Columbus to move to Blacklick and lobbies for developers should not be the voice of school transformation in our schools parents and students do not need to be project managed they need to be trusted as valid and respected School leaders Educators and staff share the stage as Experts of their schools and school communities they deserve to be at the table not on it as you deliver your plans tonight for the true Community engagement that the people won in pressing pause on school closures please remember your North Star the students who asked you to listen to their dreams the parents who offered and are working on
032Solutions in their schools the Educators and staff who day in and day out choose ccs and have laid the foundation for academic and emotional growth in our schools and the aunties uncles Nanas and neighbors who look to our schools as the hearts of their communities please take your time and let the children Lead You businesses have no business making decisions for our schools thank you thank you Miss Thomas all right colleagues that does conclude our public comment uh we will move into board matters which is item 4.1 uh board monitoring goals strengthening our reading proficiency so good evening Dr Chapman good evening president Vera members of the board and Community um it is a pleasure to be here with you this evening to provide um a monitoring report on our early literacy goal um you'll
033see throughout the report will be sharing um data on our progress um certainly it is important to begin this presentation by acknowledging and naming that we could not do this work without the amazing Educators our teachers our support staff our school leaders um who have been truly transforming uh their instructional practices in the early literacy space and for over four years again the staff in over 75 elementary schools across the district have had a passionate focus on the science of reading and we are here to tell you that it is working so we're looking forward to this presentation this evening and I have um Kalise Vicor g g who will be with me this evening helping me with my presentation and helping us navigate and Dr Brown will be certainly sharing some data with us
034this even evening we are proud of the significant growth our Scholars are making and are excited to share an update on early literacy achievement our theory of action to improve the reading outcomes of all Learners and the next steps will take to ensure that these increases continue tonight's monitoring report will focus on the growth we have made on the Ohio state test in reading for third grade students during this presentation we are going to provide you with an update on our progress over time we'll also share new Baseline literacy data lastly we will highlight our next steps to further increase literacy achievement with a comprehensive strategy focused on tier one tier 2 and tier three instruction aligned to the science of reading for the last few years and increased family and Community engagement we are
035seeing the results of our laser-like focus and our hard work in tackling the literacy crisis in our community we can securely and proudly say our literacy instruction is supported by current research and our resources and professional development are strongly aligned to the science of reading at every tier of instruction what the research says in the monitoring report presented last March we noted the shift in the model for reading instruction that occurred in CCs in the 2019 19 2022 School 2020 school year which was a change from balanced literacy to the science of reading the balanced literacy model was widely used across the country and did not account for the explicit and systematic teaching of phonemic awareness and Phonics that is present in the science of reading as a reminder CCS was on the forfront of
036implementing the science of reading which is now championed by leaders at including our governor but there is good news our theory of action is directly aligned to current research in fact in a recent report published in 2024 the National Association of State School boards stated research from the past decade as well as prior studies point in the same direction our curricular resources and materials matter having highquality curricular materials is one of the most critical elements in increasing academic performance this was our first critical step in ensuring we improve the literacy outcomes of our children we are proud to say that we are delivering evidence-based instruction in our classrooms and our students are growing significantly because of it we know that the magic happens in the classroom with investment of over $10 million over the last
037four years in high quality curricular resources we have made targeted efforts to ensure the use of District adopted curriculum in every classroom every day the continual monitoring of student mastery coupled with the consistent use of evidence-based curriculum and providing opportunities for intervention and enrichment has positioned our students with the essential literacy skills they need in school and beyond our teachers are the most valuable resource we have to move our students to higher levels of achievement this is why we did not stop at simply ensuring a high quality curriculum instead we also invested $10 million over the last four years in our teachers growth and development and then directly connected their learning to the curricular resources that they use to teach every day while our first responsibility is to ensure high quality instruction occurs in every
038school every day we also know our children have three areas of support School family and community in order to improve reading outcomes we must also work together to provide a connected system of support it truly takes a village to impact this National lersy crisis and we are well on our way we have invested over $8 million over the last four years in family and community supports to truly build a culture of literacy in our district we are proud to be at the Forefront of this much-needed holistic shift I will now ask Dr Dr Brown to review the data that shows our students improvements in third grade reading thank you Dr Chapman good evening happy to report that we have an ongoing um trend of continuous Improvement uh we had a low point in the 1920
039year and we have moved upward every year since uh and with a substantial gain this year of 6.2 percentage points uh we exceeded our district goal this year and um have made quite a lot of gain I'm also very happy to report that those gains were broadly shared across student groups um if you look at this in particular really pleased to be able to say that students who receive services are English language learners for example actually exceeded our district goal students who received special education services made four percentage points of gain and our uh students who were homeless also made significant gains 6.3 percentage points of gain I think under any circumstances uh we would celebrate those gains and celebrate our students and teachers um who accomplished so much learning in that process and all
040those who supported them to do so these efforts um show up on the report card uh we had 31 buildings that uh achieved a three star rating or above in part uh due to this focus on early literacy and improving literacy because of course that Cascades into mathematics and other subjects as well additionally that Focus that that laser-like Focus that we've had on acceleration of growth is showing as well with 59 of our elementary schools meeting or exceeding growth expectations on the OST uh and and the progress uh component of the report guard all in all very good news and very good news shared by many different student groups across this organization Dr Chapman thank you Dr Brown um in closing um we are very proud as a district that we have met our early
041literacy goal for third grade reading this past school year again special thanks to the implementation of effective instructional practices across the district to our amazing elementary teachers and staff this achievement is a testament to the hard work of our elementary students our staff and their families and our partners who are supporting us with this work we know that being able to read by third grade changes students lives and puts them on a positive trajectory opening doors to a brighter future and contributing to Greater self-esteem and long-term success and in closing I'd also like to invite I know that a few of our board members had the opportunity to visit one of our elementary schools and see these practices in action and certainly if you have Reflections or thoughts that you would like to share in
042relationship to this goal and the practices that we are implementing across the district I welcome you to um be a part of the conversation so thank you uh thank you thank you so much for this presentation Madame superintendent Dr Brown um I'm ex I'm I'm excited and I don't typically stutter I really don't um I'm very excited about what I'm seeing um uh my quick question before I offer a further comment my quick question is is because we're seeing more than a two 2% incline what does that mean in terms of star rating how does that contribute to star rating how does that give how does that get us closer to uh a three or four because we're actually doubling the percentage growth required they're looking at you know we were at one point saying
043that we the possibility of us doing a 2% growth increase was difficult but now we're seeing double that amount what does this mean for our star rating how does this contribute so there are two things I'd like to to say uh one would be a little cautionary um because we know that this type of growth isn't always a straight line so one year we may go up a little and then we come down a little but over time I I would expect us to continue an upward Trend and we've had that upward Trend uh since the 201920 year so uh positive movement in that direction in terms of the the report card this will show up in in several places one we're already seeing it on the progress component of the report card again 59
044buildings three stars or above that's that laser like focus on growth that has a huge amount of weight for the overall district report card as well so this continued focus on growth acceleration of growth is is going to uh create change as you recall when I came out and talked about early literacy we're getting real close to another star on early literacy for the system as a whole that again that that movement of more and more kids every year from kindergarten to First 1 to second second to Third on grade level movement and this sort of improvement on the ostd gets us closer to that overall second star uh for early literacy and then overall as achievement improves then you see the Improvement on the achievement rating as well uh so there are several places
045that this begins to weigh in on on the report card for the system and we already see it at the building level for our buildings um one of the things I think it's also helpful for us to look at um moving forward because of the comments that have repeatedly been brought to us specifically relevant to sped to our special education students because I'm equally as concerned in that space and I understand the deficit in terms of human capital not just locally but nationally I understand the other challenges with that but that also come to add more teaching capacity on the teachers and having them bear more weight but where can we reflect this into this type of study what type of student are we seeing that is not that is making a slower incline than
046others I kind of asked this question some time ago but I wanted to ask it again if you don't have an answer now please let's let's contribute that to the conversation because we do a great job of looking at you know a student from a racial context a student from some sort of geographic context right or for a special learn for English Second Language context but we don't seem to that that data doesn't seem to encapsulate at least visually sped students I think that's a a good space for us to grow some capacity in that way and in closing great job awesome job to our Educators to our teachers to our administrators who have trained up in this science of reading I had the opportunity to be trained on it myself and then see it
047executed as you alluded to in our buildings and not just this year we've been the state leader in this for some time now so thank you uh job well done I want to learn more about our sped students and how we can uh encapsulate their data in a way that shows that we're we're prioritizing them as much thank you uh board member Cole we'll make a note of that for future findings thank you uh board member Engles I just want to say thank you um to the community out at Cedarwood Elementary who welcomed myself and board member Cole uh this past week to come and visit and see some of this literacy work in practice it was Illuminating to me and I have had many conversations about um you know with with the kids in
048my neighborhood about you know what step are you in what's your favorite part um watching them actually rotate through the classroom and see the practice in action is very um it's great and um so thank you for allowing us to do that it was uh interesting to see how much of it is computer-based versus writing based and um so my understanding is that we tend to uh go computer-based after the third grade and so that would be something that I would be interested as a board member and really understanding what effect that may have on our literacy rates what effect that may have on our students learning um when we make that switch and really do focus on um more of a computer-based learning style than a pen to paper uh style but the team
049out at Cedarwood and um with all of our literacy team uh thank you so much because you answered so many of my questions and it was a great great exposure thank you board member Engles a board member Adare um yes thank you um I didn't have an opportunity to go this time but I have seen the science of reading in action um you know I had the privilege of walking around the superintendent the governor when he visited and again um we are a state leader in this and kudos to the entire team um I do have a couple of questions um can we put the graph back up with the trend please um you mentioned that uh you know we started the scien of reading in 2019 2020 um when we that was our low
050point and you see that we progressed um as you've noted I'm wondering in the 2020 one uh to 2022 school year where we saw almost a 10o increase um what is that because or why was that I'm not going to answer the question you answer it why was that what caused that 10% increase that school year return in person instruction okay and we then saw um additional increas in a smaller increase in the next school year and then now we're we've got 6.2 I'm wondering if it's um as our teachers are being trained and implementing if it's really just also part of the cycle of the curriculum being implemented and at what stage are we currently in and do we expect to see as we kind of really now get it additional uh jumps like
051that so one quick point and then I can see the superintendent wants to speak um when we're looking at implementation of new things one should expect three to four years before you see benefit just across the board uh in terms of implementation um so yes I think your summary um resonates with me in terms of what I would expect if I were looking at a large scale curriculum implementation I'd also like to add um that the this work is cumulative over time and so we want to make sure that our students as early as prek are coming in stronger academically and we're setting a stronger foundation for them so that each year that our students are in school they do not have to play catchup and our teachers do not have to provide more intervention
052they can provide more acceleration and enrichment so with each year that our students are with us and our data shows this the earlier intervention is key but when our students um are with us beginning as early as prek they're getting stronger and stronger academically they have access to the full complement of our resources and the instructional uh resources that we're sharing and so we want to close those gaps as early as possible so the longer our students are with us or the earlier they start with us this is a plug for um making sure that we encourage all of our families to sign up for prek programming um but this is an opportunity for us to um do more enrichment um as as well as intervention and so the stronger each cohort is each year
053um the the it significantly increases their opportunity to be um to perform well in the third grade assessment and I know as a former third grade teacher myself right when you when students are coming to you in third grade and they may be reading below grade level in kindergarten and first grade it takes more to catch them up and we want to make sure that we're providing them with that strong foundation so they have those foundational skills so they are learning how to read in kindergarten in first grade and second grade by the time they get to third grade when you look at some of those um questions on the third grade assessment they are lengthy they are quite lengthy and so if a student doesn't have those foundational skills and they're still sounding Out
054words it makes it very challenging for them to be able to comprehend and put it all together and read a a passage that's two or three pages long and then answer um a question that are really require critical thinking skills so again it's a cumulative um process we want to make sure that we're providing our students with earlier intervention is key and then we want to make sure that they have those foundational skills that they need to be successful to unlock the code to reading so saying all of that and seeing that we are now at 40.7 which is uh above the Benchmark we have set for the 2025 2026 school year um do we feel like these are the right benchmarks at this point because we we are greatly exceeding what we have set
055now understanding you answered board member Cole that this is not linear we know it might go up or down but based on what Dr Chapman just said with the strategy of really you know leaning into each grade and we know each student is prepared are these the right benchmarks so two things um first again students are entering kindergarten at sort of a comparable level of performance over time so the distance we have to cover between kindergarten into third grade is the same where accelerating there's going to be a limit to how much that acceleration can be done hence the importance about expanding prek because we need a longer arm ramp for it so I do get worried that at a point there'll be a cap on this so that's one second yes there's this up
056and down um and I think you'll get the same answer from me that got for graduation which is get a couple years behind us if it's clear that we're way above then we should revisit but I think it's far too early to do it right now um one question about the Investments that we are making um in this space um you've highlighted that you know we've invested $10 million in evidence-based curriculum as well as the letters training um I'm wondering if that investment also includes our literacy coaches and what we are doing um and how they are kind of playing a role in this especially at maybe some of the schools that are not yet meeting um the the star standard so that's a great question there were significant Investments that we made over the
057last couple of years to ensure that we had um the right curric high quality instructional resources in all of our buildings that was a huge investment we've um delivered on that promise which um for me as always been an equity issue we think about we want to make sure that every student in every school has access to high quality resources it shouldn't be you know left to individual teachers to try to figure that out on their own every day that they come to work we want to make sure that they have the tools and resources uh to ensure that their students have access to high quality resources that will prepare them for the third grade um in addition to that as a part of this investment we talk about our curricular resources but we also
058spend a lot of time talking about um the Investments we've been invested in our people we have been this has been a human capital strategy where we have been very intentional about providing our Educators with the resources and tools that they need to teach reading to anyone right and as a part of that strategy we've also trained several of our staff to become uh train the trainers and so now we do not have to rely on external consult to provide that training as we think about cascading that work um in coming years um we can certainly bring in additional folks to help us on like PD days when we it's we're trying to provide training to everyone on one day but we've also invested in the capacity of our staff so we have inhouse train
059the trainers who can provide are certified to provide letters training to our teachers here in CCS so we're continuing to build the capacity not only only of our teachers but literacy coaches and build that have expert res resident experts in the literacy space to provide our colleagues across the district with support so we're continuing to invest in our staff this is a human capital strategy making sure that our teachers have um the resources that they need um to build that muscle in the area of literacy um so what additional resources do the buildings need uh that are not yet meeting three stars what additional resources do you need from the board so I would say that we are definitely thinking about when we think about tearing our supports um if there are schools that still
060need additional are are still um performing well below um the district Benchmark or are under three stars in The Literacy space um we are looking at their data and looking at what it's needed do they need more time do the students need more time right do they usually instructional time is The X Factor right making sure that our students are go back to attendance making sure that our students are coming to school regularly and that they have access to all of these resources that we've talked about so we think about instructional time do they need Extended Learning opportunities whether that's after school over the summer do they do they have access to tier 2 interventions meaning what do they need in addition to the instruction that the teachers are providing in the classroom so we'll
061be looking at and in each of our uh school school Improvement plan they are developing strategies and based on their data so it's really differentiated by school to think about what is it that they need to implement to ensure that their students are continuing to make progress and when we're thinking at the board table we're certainly thinking about our district level data and making sure that all of our schools are making progress at the school level they're thinking about the needs of individual students so it's very um it's like looking the micro strategies of thinking about what does each student need what does each class need what does each grade level need what does the building need to be successful that um it's not a one-size fits-all approach that is you know very granular and
062thinking about what each School needs um and so we're continuing to monitor those needs and certainly um we'll certainly highlight for the board where additional needs are necessary thank you Dr Chapman and again congratulations to our staff uh for exceeding the goal as well as to our schools that are meeting or exceeding State Standards by earning a three and above on the state report card board member peers thank you so much um for your report Dr Chapman I want to focus on some future performance questions as they relate to um slide number nine if we could pull that one up um understanding that our students with disabilities and our homeless students were able to see a significant percentage change my question relates to the response that you gave board member Adair and thinking about those
063school um interventions that may be necessary to ensure that buildings are seeing significant gains are you also thinking about those necessary interventions meaning more instruction time Extended Learning Time as it relates to our students with disabilities and our homeless students if you are how can we expect to see your theory of action change in the future so I would say that for example for the monitoring report our monitoring report is for all students and so um a theory of action um is not changing at this point um when we proi provide our monitoring report and the data is trending in the right direction we're showing an increase growth is happening we do not provide a corrective action plan and we do not shift our theory of action and so what we have been saying and
064what our teachers have been telling us day in and day out is that as a district we need to commit to a set of strategies and we need to stay focused and stay consistent many times we start a strategy and then we abandon it and then we have to start all over again we lose instructional time we lose professional development time and then we we just start all over again it's like throwing the baby out with the bath water and so our Educators have said to us over and over again in our school visits um in team meetings and shared feedback with our principles that they're excited about the opportunity to dig in learn deeply reflect on their practices refine their craft as Educators and apply these strategies and they want to stay the course
065the data suggesting that we stay the course and so we'll continue to monitor these strategies we'll T continue to collaborate with our staff and get feedback from them at every point I'm doing professional development days as we're crafting our building Improvement plans through the building improvement process about what is needed to provide support and but when we look at our data um our early literacy data even when we look at the data by subgroup we'll see that every sub subgroup is making progress steady progress we're closing those gaps and building those those a stronger foundational skills those early literacy skills inmic awareness influency we have additional data that shows our students are becoming stronger as readers on all of those metrics so we want to continue to provide them with those highquality resources um best
066practices instructional practices so that they can continue to grow as readers and all key components of foundational literacy so under that if the theory of action is saying the same and we still will will see these types of gains but we know that these two particular student populations will be and can we go to that slide again slide number nine in that red area how are we um is that at Target below target meets Target what is the red showing the red is showing that our students with disabilities have increased their progress no that's the the the column next to it is showing the percentage increas showing that but what I'm asking is the percentage of goal achieved that red highlight does that mean they are on target below Target it's it's showing that their
067percentage of the goal that they have achieved so our students with our disabilities our homeless students are making progress but certainly we want to make sure that they we want for every student every student regardless of their exceptionality to make at least one or more years of growth growth every year and that is the goal whether the students in prek kindergarten first grade or 9th grade so you want to continue to make sure that they're making growth every year so that they can achieve their individual goals and um also their school goals okay so just again for clarification so if they're at Blue it looks like they're exceeding if they're at Green they are at the Target what does red mean red means that they haven't Achi you you have to be at 100% of
068the goal to achieve the goal in order to be in green okay so for these two particular student populations even though we are seeing gains what can we anticipate that your team is going to do in the future to move that red to Green to Yellow to Blue so our strategies that we've been focusing on particularly for our special ed students homeless students all of our students is to really Shore up their foundational skills if I show you if we if I'm a third grade again going back to my experience as a third grade teacher if I'm a third grade teacher and I have students in my classroom that are reading on a kindergarten level it is the goal to provide them with the supports that they need access to high quality resources instructional time
069provide them with intervention typically students with exceptional needs would receive tier 2 tier three intervention to help them make progress in that third grade year is it typical that a student that begins third grade reading on a kindergarten level to make three years of growth in one year that would be exceptional right but that is certainly what we're going to work towards to make sure that all of our students are making growth each and every year but it's be it's truly dep when whenever the students where they start it's important for this goal this data this work doesn't begin in third grade that's why we're saying that it begins in prek we have to make sure that they have a stronger foundation in kindergarten and first grade and second grade so when the time that
070they get to third grade they're coming to us with those skills and they're on track already starting third grade so that they can be successful on the third grade OST in the spring and then one final question as it relates to um some of the strategies in terms of really the educational professional development time that our staff members will need um to ensure that they are enhancing and improving in these skills what can we anticipate as it relates to specifically that um thinking about some of the challenges that have come forth from our students uh concerned community members and parents specifically again that I think are very much intertwined and intersect with the experience that these two particular student groups may be having in our district um well I would offer that um you know
071we have a professional development day coming up um and we'll continue to have professional development opportunities districtwide professional de development opportunities throughout the school year to kind of refine our practices and really um better understand the needs of our staff and what's coming up for them and what they need support with but there's also job embedded professional development that are off that's offered to our staff uh throughout the school day we don't have to wait to a until a PD day um our teachers meet regularly they have tbts or teacher based team meetings where they're meeting and collaborating with their peers and colleagues in the building um and so we'll continue to provide um supports um throughout the year during those structured times as well as during those districtwide professional development days thank you that
072was all my questions board member Cole uh thank you I just think I have two okay um the first is in that column where we see students with disabilities is one of the greatest challenges that we're facing in that space not just a matter of human capital but also um time and actual assessment the the opportunity to actually identify a student and as in that sped or 504 designation it's time and a the time to assess and diagnose a student a challenge here that also contributes to not necessarily meeting that that that percentage capacity that we were that we're that we are aiming towards thank you board member Cole um I would say that I don't think that the issue is with assessing and identifying students I think the issue or the challenge that we're
073working on is providing our students with access and opportunity to have access to instructional time and so it's really you know making sure that our students have access to instructional time they have time to engage with their teachers they have time to engage with their peers they have time to um really um understand um the foundational literacy skills they have time to read Within adult they have time to participate in read alouds they have time at the guided reading table um I really think it's really more time on task or instructional time that we really want to make sure that we're providing our students with and the students who are struggling and need more support they need more instructional time thank you for that okay awesome um the last question for me is um when
074we look at what we've been able to achieve with science of reading when we look at what this how the state has standardized this and is standardizing it meaning that we can only use a list of vendors that they require all of the things that they're doing that that are standardizing science of reading but at the same time kind of boxing school districts in that have actually found some Creative Solutions around this do you have any concerns moving forward about how we need to be advoca I in how this is working for us are you concerned that the state may be limiting us too much or putting us in kind of a a box situation that we've got to figure out how to think ourselves through um not at this time um the state has
075done um continues to provide districts across the state with high quality resources a menu of options and so at this point we have not been in a space where we have wanted or really needed to deviate from that those list of high quality resources so we're in a good place um again we want to make sure that the resources that we're providing to our students and families and staff and ccs are high quality resources they're vetted um they've been um you know monitored and we know that they are high quality resources we don't want our students don't have time to waste and so we don't have time to figure it out on the Fly we need to know that these are highquality resources that um really will provide our students with the access and the
076opportunity that they need to be successful and so we're appreciative that at least they're doing that leg work for us they're doing that heavy lifting and so um we have been um really taking advantage of those resources so we're in a good place okay please continue to let us know how we can be advocacies in our space thank you thank you well thank you colleagues and I just want to say congratulations to the team I know it's been a lot of hard work and as my colleagues have mentioned tonight um you know we are here to be in support of and so thank you all for your hard work um is there a motion to approve the monitoring report moved um can I make the motion to approve the early literacy summative third grade monitoring
077report was presented to the Board of Education this evening demonstrating that the district has exceeded the goal for this year that is a motion is there a second a second please call the roll Mr Cole yes Miss Engles yes vice president Dr Pierce yes Mr Simmons No mrir Yes president Vera yes motion carried thank you colleagues all right we are going to move into item 4.2 uh board committee updates um and let's see here did you have something okay that's what I thought all right all right so I'm G to move uh board member Cole if you want to provide your updates hold on just give me a second okay oh go to me all right I'll go ahead and move to board member Adair um okay thank you uh president Vera so the um
078Equitable transparent Resource Management committee met on October 9th and we discussed several topics I do have a report that is attached to our agenda and I encourage our community to watch the uh recording uh for full details um you can find that on YouTube also the link is um in the in the document that's attached to the board docs um the on our agenda we uh discussed um the integrated real estate capital and development plan with our coo Mr Woods um and reviewed three properties um that the district at this time is recommending that we demolish structures on these properties which are active School sites the committee um had a robust discussion about um these schools as well as a few others and went ahead and voted to recommend to this board of education to
079consider the demolition of vacant structures on these active School sites which are at Old Wedgewood Middle School which is at 3771 Ean Road um dler Elementary School which is at 1234 East dler Road and the Frank Franklin Annex which is at 1390 brighten Road um again these structures were considered due to the their current state and are considered blats on the community um the parcels are on active School sites or being used for educational purposes such as Athletics um and uh the committee was not considering any future uh use or improvements at this time that would be in conjunction with future planning developments as well as Community discussions um so the committee is requesting that the Board of Education place this on a uh future agenda hopefully the next meeting President Vera and the administration
080will be providing a very detailed report to the board on these three properties uh three properties with the vacant structures um the committee also heard um from Treasurer cook who is uh the point on reviewing the task force recommendation that was sent into our committee to review regarding 270 estate Street and the ad adjacent Parcels um treasure cook provided an update of the work that has been done um providing a timeline uh on what the committee was uh going to be looking at over the next few months um he explained that what the committee will be asked to do is either recommend sale of the property or potential Redevelopment of the property to meet District needs and potentially engage in a public private partnership for Revenue Generation Um Mr cook and team are continuing uh
081to work with the superintendent's office as well to begin to look at the realignment of how we work more efficiently and effectively um as the administrative team um looking at 27 70 State Street gives us the opportunity to really consider how we work as adults in this district and with the potential either sale or Redevelopment begin to consolidate administrative sites so that we can evaluate other sites in the future for the same question of sale or Redevelopment um Mr cook outlined that the timeline for this project uh to either way either way this recommendation goes it would mean that we would have to start moving staff out of the 270 East State Street no um later than June at the next committee meeting um the committee will now start to get all of the numbers
082and information about the valuation of that property um costs associated with the property and um potential for what either sale or Redevelopment looks like and so that committee will be digging into that um at our next meeting and no action was taken on that um Mr uh also had the opportunity to present the 5-year forecast um and the board will hear that forecast in November um and I pulled some slides from his presentation and um there was a lot of great questions from the uh committee um and you can read that information there um overall he encouraged the committee to um maybe not look so much at the individual data but considering the trends for that data because that is really what the forecast is designed to do to and really understanding that um you
083know when we start to deficit spend which means we are um spending more money than taking in is when we really have to start considering what we do in the future um and so we are projecting that um in fiscal year um 2028 we will be at a negative um cash deficit um and so we will have to make decisions um and treasure cook will out align those to the board in November um as well as all of the assumptions and how we are also meeting all the levy promises so the board will hear that but the committee had really great feedback on that presentation and lastly we heard from our internal auditor um he's going to come in quarterly to do a update on um his dashboard and audit plan um things look to
084be going well and we look forward to continuing to monitor that and the progress that um his team is making um around uh different audits just to highlight there will be a special education audit that will be um outsourced which means um uh Specialists from the outside will come in auditing Specialists will come in and help with that um starting in his second round of planning which begins November 25th um so that is our report and again we put forward that recommendation to place on the next agenda to review the demolitions of those three properties thank you uh thank you board member Adair uh board member Eng Les so the policy and governance committee has not met within the last month we meet quarterly and so much of our report that you'll see online is
085very similar to what was uh talked about last meeting so I will not rehash all of that but what I will highlight is we started the public discussion regarding the task force policy that does not have an impact on our today decisions but on how carry out the conversation in the future um because this is something that we will continually have to look at it's the job of the school board and so thinking about how we set that up for Success that will um come in December uh at our December 9th meeting um we also are still looking at policy 9150 working with our legal team our legal uh Council seeking that advice and then that will be put before the board um hopefully soon uh once that is prepared and ready um and then
086the last thing that I wanted to highlight uh is that our sub we have established a subcommittee to work on board governance work um that subcommittee is meeting in a couple weeks the 24th I think is the date that we had set um and so that subcommittee will start at looking at um board governance work and how we um bring that forward to the board for those of you who are not uh familiar with board governance it is um we follow the sofg model um student outcomes focused governance model of uh Schoolboard work and and so in doing that it's setting intentionality to the work that we're doing as a board and making sure that we are governing ourselves that we are doing work that is Meaningful that we are doing it in a way
087that is successful and re-evaluating the way that we do things as a board um to make sure that uh we are not only making sure that we're focused and steadfast on our goals that we have set as a board um our guard rails and then generally uh the work and how we conduct board meetings so we'll be meeting um to get that that work kickstarted and working um to bring some updates not only to the committee but to the board and so I want to call out if anyone has uh ideas or topics um that they would like that board governance subcommittee to take up to please um let me know that and we will go ahead and get that that uh agenda started out so um again not a not a major update but
088um did want to share out that the subcommittee has been formed and we'll be putting forward work and I will continue to update the board as that continues thank you board member Engles uh board member Cole uh thank you madam president um in the community engagement and advocacy committee we had a very rich and deep discussion around our legislative platform and I'd love to be able to share our Preamble language about the purpose if you will of this legislative platform specifically for the 136 General Assembly um the purpose of the legislative platform is to publicly State the district's position on various issues facing public education the platform conveys to policy makers Community stakeholders and the public where CCS stands the platform also guides the district's advocacy efforts in that we talked about our legisl values
089that uh encourage State policies to provide difference to local decision makers we are about local decision making for our Columbus City Schools and for public education in the state of Ohio as a whole um in addition to that we seek opportunity to engage and collaborate with policy makers we're about student diversity we want to ensure that we're not only encompassing students in terms of any kind of demographic but also thinking and training and I'm looking at those two rock stars right over there right next in between our two direct reports um we also align if you will with not only our uh our state body of the osba the Ohio School Board Association we also align with national actors as well that value the same thing so there's considerable alignment but we have some very
090specific legislative priorities and I wanted to to share those seven uh the first is to fully fund Fair school funding we want to ensure that fair school funding plan cup Patterson I'm I'm looking at Dr Rous cup Patterson is adhered to and furthered on our behalf that we became that we be we strengthen our stability in state funding um funding Innovative Workforce Development and career Readiness programs so we want to we will continue to Advocate and support uh some of the best and brightest outcomes of Columbus City Schools specifically in our space of Career Technical education um the third is develop a more Equitable approach when requiring public school districts to transport students attending Community Schools and chartered non-public schools we want to allocate funding for grow your own teacher pipeline initiatives including teacher apprenticeship
091programs we want to propose protecting the educational rights of all children and families Serve by the district I appreciated the comments of the young lady that I felt very uh very connected to and then and final expand the opportunities for children to attend publicly funded preschool so these are the seven priorities that we'd like to present uh in the future for approval to the board we have a full report that we can share with you and information that you can digest and we subsequently make a decision I thank you madam president uh thank you board member Cole all right colleagues so we will move on to our next agenda item um and thank you all for all your hard work um really really great meaningful work uh we are going to move into item 4.3
092our board engagement strategy um as you've heard the board and myself speak about um our commitment to the realignment process um you know we spoke back at around August um where I was able to work alongside of my colleagues to separate the work as part of different committee structures and you heard part of that update here tonight with our Equity um our etrm committee and the work that they're doing which is a separate process from what we are doing for our um School Community buildings and so I want to I want to make that as a point of reference um and so what's happening with the administrative buildings is one process and tonight um I'm excited to be able to talk about the next phase of the realignment process and so um it's critically important
093to us as a board to be able to spend time um in our buildings and recognizing that our schools are more than just buildings they're communities um they where our students come to learn to thrive to connect um and for all of us this is something that I believe we all agree upon we want to do what's best for children at the end of the day and being able to carve out the time to spend where we are going out into these buildings all nine of them um here in the next uh few days um to be able to spend time absorbing what is happening in in these communities um and being able to spend time with students staff team members um just to learn more but recognizing that we also wanted to be very
094intentional about the process what does this process look like what do we what are we looking for and how do we bring our school communities to be a part of this um recognizing that you know their voice matters in all of this as well and so as part of the next phase um we have as I mentioned back in August been researching local support services National support services and tonight I'm incredibly honored to be able to bring the next iteration of this conversation into real life um and we have had the privilege of connecting with Dr Terrence green um who is an expert around the consolidation um evaluation process and so um working alongside of him to create a protocol around what what can we expect to see what are we looking for when we
095go into our nine School communities um and providing an opportunity for those schools to be a part of the process and so there will tonight you will hear directly from Dr Green who will be speaking to all of us because some of most of my colleagues have not been able to um learn more about what this next step will look like in terms of the tool and protocol so Mr Green if you can join me at the podium um colleagues I want the opportunity where tonight we're going to hear from Dr Green um to really guide us on what the next steps will look like in terms of the visits uh to the nine buildings and really walk us through um creating an intention creating a process and be able to answer any questions or
096thoughts you may have about the process and then Dr Green will also explain um from a school communitybased standpoint how they can get involved in preparation for our building tours so good evening Dr Green awesome thank you so much president Vera uh good evening board good evening uh superintendent Chapman Community families uh support staff Young young people thank you all for creating space for me to come alongside of you during this very important work that you're doing um as someone who is did it turn off as someone who is not from this community or of this community I think is deeply important to be here in person so that you can see me you can talk to me you can interrogate you can ask questions so thank you for allowing me to come alongside I
097come in the spirit of collaboration uh not confrontation but at the same time coming to speak very candidly to to tell the truth but also do it with Grace and so today I'm going to be sharing a little bit with you about uh School Equity learning walks um and the experience guide um that we're working on developing right now um so again thank you thank you for creating space for me to share this and I want this to be more of a dialogue instead of a monologue so at any point if you have questions by all means feel free to pause I can pause and stop and uh take your questions and uh I'll be trying to pause throughout to do that all right so I want to talk about a few things one I
098want to give you a little background about myself because you don't know me and so I want to talk to you a little bit about how I came to this work what are my commitments to doing this work thinking about how do you continue to support deep Justice and Equity um and anti-racist work when you're thinking about something as complex and as tense as school closures uh then I want to just give you an overview of this guide that we're working on and and developing it is the first iteration this is not the end or be all this is the first iteration the first step of it and then I want talk about next steps and then answer any questions that you have I'll be around until you feel like you've gotten your questions answered
099that's what I'm here for all right uh to begin uh okay my animation is't working but it's all good that used to happen in my class all the time still happens but uh my name is Terence green I have been an associate professor at the University of Texas now for the last 12 years uh in the department of leadership and policy in education and as I've been there I've been studying school closures uh neighborhood gentrification and neighborhood change but also Equity audits so I've created a course couple of courses on school closure and uh gentrification uh one of the first in the nation been teaching those courses for many years as well as some courses on Equity audits which also taught at the uh at Teachers College Columbia uh before covid in the summer principal
100academy uh I did my doctoral work at the University of Wisconsin in Madison uh but at the core of my professional identity I'm a teacher I'm a high school science teacher uh taught about 3 hours down the road in Frankfurt Kentucky after I graduated from Kentucky State University originally from Detroit Michigan uh so this will pop up and populate over the years I've done uh considerable amount of research in terms of contributing to the literature on school closures on community Equity audits on uh schools and gentrification uh not just thinking about the empirical base but also the the public interfacing bodies of research uh trying to translate Research into practice practice for a wider audience because you know people get selective about what research they want to pick right we often say that research informs
101policy politics informs policy and people select the research that they want that aligns with their political agenda and so I've been trying to translate that for the general public so they have an empirical basis for the decisions that they're making around school closures which are deeply deeply important okay uh gosh nonetheless a lot of this work came to ahead I have been studying this for years working with districts in in different capacities as they've been going through closure but last year it really came to a head where the San Antonio Independent School District asked me to develop and take the work that I've been doing on closures and Equity Audits and I created this school closure Equity audit tool in this resource which is the first of its kind nationally uh one of the beautiful
102things about is that we look to begin we look historically at a district to see what's happened with closures in that District so traditionally what we used to do we look at Chicago Detroit Philadelphia St Louis that's great but that's not Columbus right and so what we do is we look historically at what has school closures meant in terms of outcomes for children particularly children who are black children who are multilingual children who uh receive special education services what has that been and so that's one of the first parts of it and so I'll be talking a little bit about what the next iteration extenstion of that work is is through this uh this guide that we're developing here so this is the school Equity learning uh walks and experience guides we're calling it right
103now and again this is the first iteration this is the first version I will say in an Ideal World this would have been created in a more participatory manner would have been co-created with the young people co-created with teachers and with staff and with principles and with families and with caregivers uh but we're thinking about how do we make sure that their perspectives are C centered and Central in this I wouldn't dare try to create something for people without centering their voices in and I'll talk to you about what that process will look like here in a moment all right so this is what the current iteration the first one looks like and and it's built off of kind of four uh evolving sources of information the first one is um I went back myself
104not my grad students I went back and did a review of the literature over the last almost two and a half decades from 2000 to 2024 what is it that we know empirically about Urban school closures what is it that we know are the consequences what do we know are the missteps what we know are the impacts who's disproportionately impacted what are the long-term ramifications academically for neighborhoods for young people when schools close what do we know and so that was a part of thinking about what this protocol what this tool what this guy would entail the other thing is uh went back on the research on instructional rounds and other Equity focused observations right because we need a structured process but we need something that's empirically empirically founded we need something that's reliable that
105we can draw upon as we think about what a process may look like and then I you know included some of my own work in research of what I've been doing over the last 12 plus years uh with school closures because the reality is that schools are closing faster than the Empirical research can keep up with so the actual practice of school closures have outpaced what we know empirically and there are things that I've learned that I haven't even had a chance to write about just because it's moving so rapidly and so quickly so that goes into it the other part is that we are um we've developed this survey to go out to the nine schools that uh may be impacted by closures and so all we want all of the the students the
106staff the uh the teachers families caregivers we want to Center their voices and make sure that this protocol is is something that is a reflection of of what is Central to them and so that's why I said this is a first iteration because this will change as we get that feedback one of the things I want to say as we think about the feedback there's this beautiful quote by Joseph uh McDonald and his colleagues in this book they wrote about uh the power of protocols and I think it it is appropo as we think about this work we think about school closures as a professor at NYU and he says that there's no way to solve a complex education problem without listening to the perspectives of those who are affected by the problem like so
107that is self-explanatory but you got to listen to the people who are impacted which is why we've created this survey now the survey is four questions it's not four to five it's not going to take you 20 minutes it's a three four minute survey where we're asking a number of things one what should board members be looking for when they come and I'll talk a little more about this when they come and visit your school next thing what should they be listening for I'll talk to you about that what types of experiences uh should board members have the experiences are important because we're not just trying to create uh cognitive intellectual uh ideas which are important but we how do we create the experiential Dynamic when board members actually like you you know what it's
108like to walk from the school that's closing to the one that is assigned to you know what it feels like to stand on the side of the bus stop and the car is about to run up on you you know like you you have to have that that lived experience so we're trying to figure out how do we incorporate that in there and then what are the neighborhood places like a school is a part of a larger social infrastructure of a neighborhood so like what are the neighborhood places that board members need to visit in order to understand what the school means to the community so far the the the survey is in English Spanish Arabic and Nepali um I'll do the slide and I'll pause here so there are a couple of guiding principles
109as you read this so it's right now like a uh 20 15 to 20 Pages because I want to make sure that you all have the information that you can refer to and the sources to go back and site to see where the things are come from but there are guiding principles one of the guiding principles is the first one is to engage in description not interpretation this is super important for create a reliable process and Tool because your interpret your interpretation could be deeply misinformed but if you try to make your description and interpretation you can completely miss out on what's actually happening and then it becomes difficult for us to have Collective evidence that we corroborate because you've put an interpretation on what what you described uh you know description you you went
110into the you went to a a classroom and uh there were no students there that's a description your interpretation could be the school is underutilized but if you understood the context you'll understand that a community based organization actually uses that space and they weren't using it that hour right but you would have completely missed that if you would have just dove in with interpretation instead of description first so it's description not interpretation the next is observation not evaluation you how how you going to make a diagnosis at go to the doctor's office didn't even check no vitals didn't ask for your blood pressure didn't take your temperature how you going to subscribe something without first observing so the goal here is not to observe it is to evalue is not to evaluate it's to observe
111what is going on the next thing is to collect fact-based evidence evidence that is observable um that we can record and I'll take you through the protocol what some of that looks like the next thing is collaborative and Equitable Reflections when we talk about the post visits and the reflections part of the questions we have to start to ask like will this exacerbating Equity or will this or will this Advance Equity those are the types of questions we have to be asking in our deliberation but we have to understand Equity from a historical Arc we didn't just get to where we got to like out of a vacuum so this last one is to situate current realities within their historical context so be aware of the ways in which systemic racism segregation neighborhood disinvestment the
112ways in which they've created unequal opportunities unequal uh geographies and how that factors into what we experience in schools today I'll pause right there before I go into the phases of it because I want to make sure that you have a chance to ask questions and you know if anything is coming up for you so I'll pause right there I'll ask a question yes I don't want to get too much into how but how are we going to do these surveys how are we going to do them we are going to send the the board has actually already started sending them out so the board is going to send them out we've made them on our team the board is translating the last two languages they're going to send them out one because they have
113the access to the information if they came from our team they were probably going to spam what's going to happen is once people complete the survey on the back end we're doing like rapid analysis so I work with a team of statisticians and we'll be doing the analysis so that we take that analysis and I'll talk to you about the next steps and then incorporate that into the existing framework so that's kind of like the logistics of what the surveys will look like and I'll talk to you about the timeline on a later slide a board member D um kind of piggybacking off of board member engle's question about the survey itself um why are we just surveying the nine schools when truth be told as you said it's really feeder patterns or neighborhoods that
114could be impacted um when you know uh new learning communities are redesigned and and students are moved into other spaces um why would we not be also surveying potential impacted learning communities in this so that's a good question and that's something that it's phases so we're starting with the nine as the priority and then it will be opened up to more communities so this was and you can elab you can expand but um the idea is because we want to we want to lean in and specifically focus on the nine communities to start with especially since we're trying to finalize the tool um and then ultimately there will be another iteration of the survey that would then be opened up to outside or additional stakeholders to I got two great question two ideas coming to
115mind one um in an ideal world that's probably how it should have unfolded um given where you all kind of like are in the game and where I've come in and given that you all are going to visit on the 21st it's almost empirically not empirically impossible but it is it will be doing a disservice to try to rapidly analyze all of that and integrate it in it would just require more time here the thinking is like how do we make sure the people who might be most directly impacted right now have an opportunity to provide feedback but in an Ideal World heck yeah of course it would definitely be much broader and it will be open to that earlier on now that being said this is the first iteration so if there is like
116this larger you know Community Based Equity audit process that may unfold you unfold it then you very very well may do something like that but given the context the timing where we are our team has been working literally around the clock to turn this around in addition to the analysis that will come from those nine schools but duly noted absolutely would do that in the ideal world and I would add um you know I think right now if we can probably just go through the whole presentation if board members want to jot down their questions because I feel like a lot of the questions they're going to have are going to be in some of these future slides if that's okay with you yeah that's cool okay I saw your your hand up uh we'll
117come back to him we'll come back to you we'll come back got you we'll come back to you all right let me zip through this uh don't feel like you got to zip but all right let me slow down we got time so it's I got time all right all right here we go all right so how to use the guide there's uh a couple of pages where I try to explain what the guide is how you use the guide but there are three fundamental phases and there five steps now we could have had 15 Steps trying to simplify it and again this is the first iteration it might end up being four steps there are three phases the first phase is the learning you do before you go to the school you don't just
118show up to the school and and engage in learning there's some pre-learning that has to happen before you even show up to the school there's learning that happens during and then there's learning that happens after where you're doing the post analysis to make sense of the evidence that you've collected and look for patterns as a board um the first three steps are in Prior learning the the the fourth step is in the middle one during and then the last one is is the fifth one okay so the first step is this it is to understand the racial the historical and the social context of the school and there are a number of questions that we ask here I just pulled out four questions for you to think about one try to understand what are the
119demographics at the school another question is like what are the historical and racial events and the decisions that led to the school being in this current situation right now another question is about the ways in which systemic inequity have impacted resources opportunities so on and so forth but also try to understand the ways in which the the staff and teacher are supporting young people what are their experiences what are their outcomes and so there are a series of questions of learning that happens before you show up the Second Step I call it bringing up your bams bams is an acronym for biases assumptions myths and stereotypes the the first thing we know from organizational psychology literature is that anytime you engage in some type of observation there are a number of cognitive things that are
120going on two of the most prevalent types of biases that emerge in observation number one is confirmation bias confirmation bias is when people already have a belief in their mind and so what they go to look for is to confirm what they already believe so if you believe like this school is failing when you go to the school all you going to look for is failure it's it it there may be a myriad of other things that are unfolding but what that cognitive bias does it it it prevents and forecloses on you being able to see other pieces of evidence and so the goal of this is not like a they hit you over the head like oh you being biased we all have them the thing here is now we're acknowledging them so it
121doesn't become an impediment to me collecting evidence that will allow me to really see what's happening other thing I need to say real quick here is this I think of data as a flashlight and not a hammer so the goal here is not to beat you over the head or to tell you how wrong you are the goal is to use data as a flashlight to illuminate to make brilliant to underscore what is there but we have to check and be cognizant of and be honest of the confirmation biases that may be functioning the next thing is vividness bias biases and there's a place for you to write them down vividness biases are when you have a very Vivid or emotional experience that's very specific you use that specific experience and make generalities about it
122so at a school there may have been I'm just thinking of something off the top of my head now there might there may have been a uh a big incident uh maybe there was a fight and then it was so Gru it was so vivid in your head you say well all they do is fight at that school so you going to the school looking for people fighting ain't nobody fought in the last two years right and so but that's how vividness biasness functions cognitively that prevents us from collecting fact based evidence for us to look at so the first one is the biases the next thing is uh the AMS the uh the assumptions the myths and the stereotypes and assumptions these are ideas and belief that we have without proof or we have
123limited information and there's so many assumptions that people have about schools that they ain't never visited which is so important and I'm grateful that you all are visiting so thank you for the work that you're doing because I think this is setting a precedent like how you going to make a decision on a school you ain't never been to so we got to check the assumptions and then the mythology these are these these false narratives that are passed down culturally from generation to generation and then the last thing are the stereotypes where we take an oversimplification and we generalize the entire school about that and so we need to pause reflect and acknowledge what these are so that when we go in we're able to collect evidence that is not being undermined by our bams
124all right the third step is then now to select your guiding questions because you need questions to guide you the inquiry drives the research process you need inquiry people my experience I've Just Seen there there's so many that are at play when you're doing school closures so these people got these people in their ear they got these people in they got these people in their ear and they can never have any real Curious guiding questions but you need some inquiry this is about curiosity what are you trying to learn what do you want to know not what they said not what the other consultant said like what do you empirically and intellectually want to know about the space and so you have to have guiding questions and The Guiding questions I believe which we set
125out in here going to come from three sources one they're going to come from the schools to streamline this process because y'all are going on the 23rd this the 15th well we got 12 days the the the the conversation will come through the principal but it'll be inclusive of everybody in that space it might come through a different person this the first iteration but there has to be some contact with somebody at that school to help formulate what the guiding questions may be the next one is data about the school regarding closure that you're curious about I noticed that they had data on this and I wonder why I am curious that they had data on a and I wonder B what are your Curiosities about the data that you have been presented about these
126schools that you want to find out inquisitively and the last one is I have a bank of questions in the back of it just in case you don't know any questions that you may want to ask you got so many I have a bank of questions that could help you narrow down what you might think of as some guiding question um so the guiding questions will inform what you look for the look for is and there's a whole thing in the background look for is what do we look for when we're visiting uh what do we listen for listen for means you have to have conversations you have to be talking to people um the the and then the experiences what are the experiences that we may have and that's just an example of some
127of the the question Banks um all right here's a few ex example conversations right so I put some questions in there again you could generate your own questions that's awesome just trying to give you a head start is that um here's one question that could be important what Factor should the board consider about this school that may not have been fully explored regarding its potential closure people have Solutions people have ideas people have thoughts it's a great question to engage with people on right um and there are a number of questions here that you may think through and then some example experiences I talked about some of these attending like a meeting from a local community based organization walking you know the neighborhood to understand what's happening observing an after after school program again just
128some examples of visiting and again I I want to say this definitively and declaratively that I'm appreciative of you all engaging in this process because very few if not any districts that I know of the board members have not visited schools where they're going to close so thank you and so I I I do get excited and passionate about this but that's I appreciate what you're doing so these are some example experiences that you can engage in all right and here's a little note catcher this will be revised but as you're going you could just jop drop things down got that in there um okay and then the last part and again this is like the this is the movie trailer this isn't the movie The last part is learning after the visit so um
129you will then you know we did like some post observation type of Workshop I would take you through this process um but there about seven steps what you want to do you want to determine what the guiding questions that you are about to analyze you want to organize the biof focus area so whether we're we're organizing it based on uh who we the people we talk to what we learn from that or we're organizing it based on the places that we visited or the experiences that we had um and then you want to review your evidence you want to share your evidence out there's very specific details of how to share the evidence but also how to screen to make sure that what you're sharing is actually fact-based evidence and not interpretation so that's in
130there then you look for the patterns then you reflect on your individual learning and then you discuss your collective learning as you think about what this means now in relation to the the data that you've had previously and now with this data I will add I think again this is an introduction and there could be more work to be done you know some deep Community conversations with the board and and local stakeholders so this is just an entry point and another piece of data not the end all Beall data um so next steps uh we're going to get feedback from the stakeholders at the nine schools we're going to analyze the data as rapidly as possible uh incorporate that feedback into the the guide and then we'll send the completed Guide to the board by
131the 21st so you all can look over it before you go on the 23rd um and then these are two of the QR codes for both the English and the Spanish versions of it again they will be sent out to folks if you want to uh do it now you can grab a picture I can always go back to it um and then that's it that's all I have uh thank you uh Dr Green and just as a point of clarification we are not going on the 23rd but there are um some dates in close proximity that every board member will be receiving um here shortly um so with that we'll open up for any questions um board member Cole uh thank you madam president thank you Dr Green for this uh wonderful presentation um
132there's a couple things that I I greatly appreciate I greatly appreciate the scientific approach that's totally objective you're asking us to look at a phenomenon so I want to ask a question about you you brought up instructional rounds and that that's near and dear to me um is it as it is it as detailed as that instructions round work and what I mean by that is we go into the building we have a sheet and that sheet is broken up in The Columns of of the phenomenon we're observing itself the who what where and also the time so at 7 57 p.m. I saw D do D DT DT and we're taking it down is it as detailed as that or no I just like to get an idea of what the kind of criteria
133is that may even help us have a more guided uh experience and being able to collect those that data in those rounds great question yes so the the things that instructional rounds gives us is a process it gives us a process but it also gives us a structure um so yes it is that detail in the actual guide as you read through it there're examples of this is what evidence a factual based evidence looks like this is what fact-based evidence looks like what interpretation right um now in terms of the time I lay out you know some estimates of how much time you should be yep I get you how much time you should be spending you know as you're looking for things as you're having conversations but the actual specificity of the minute by
134minute is something that you all give you parameters but I think that's something that you all you all come up with but you do that in concert with the local schools so the schools are saying hey at this time we're doing this right but so yes there are detailed specific parameters and there's also flexibility for you all to make it contextually specific to CCS but also the nine schools that you're visiting okay awesome thank you for that Y and I look forward to that um the other piece is is you mentioned particularly I'm going to focus on the school as yourself right um you mentioned the different internal stakeholders within that school is there a standardized kind of formula that you use for example if I'm thinking about data that I want to collect from
135a school um I'm thinking about BLTs I'm baking that ain't baking lettuce and tomato that's building leadership team I'm thinking about tbts I'm thinking about the administrator I'm thinking about a segment in that population of students and quite quite possibly if they are considered internal stakeholders even the families yeah um is is there a standardized kind of formula that we're going to use that helps us get all of that that respective Insight I think it's important yes so here's the you I think you hit hit at the Crux of one of the my commitments with this I believe you know thankfully from my experience and my research that I bring a level of expertise but I think my expertise is incomplete if that expertise is not combined with the expertise of the people in this
136District in other words the people in the schools are experts of their schools the teachers the staff the young people the families and so I think what you're talking about is something that is collaboratively constructed when you talk about the guided questions so this is why I'm saying the conversations with the schools are going to be important because now we are tapping into their expertise The BLT the the all the they will help inform and guide that and so that part I'm leaving flexible enough so that we can Center the expertise of local stakeholders to augment the expertise that you all have as board members thank you sir so that's why that guiding question the one of the sources of The Guiding questions is coming from the school itself their expertise hope that makes sense
137uh board member Eng Les thank you Dr Green for being here I I really appreciate you um helping us and your presentation I think that it is really powerful that we're going to interet this work being intentional and being Equity focused I think that that is very critical to our work moving forward I would also say outcome focused and and how what we're going to produce for the children of our our district um I want to follow up on a question that I asked you um kind of quickly but um regarding the survey um and this may be directed for board president ver as well um could could we be clear with parents who are sitting at home or friends and family who are sitting at home our staff who are sitting at home where
138did we send um the survey and how where should they be looking for it right now if they're going I didn't get anything you know yeah no that's a great question it hasn't been sent out yet we have been working um with the comm's team we wanted the opportunity we met with principal so let me back up um last week we had an opportunity myself alongside of Dr Chapman to um have have a zoom check-in with all nine principles of all nine buildings being able to have an opportunity to talk about this next phase in the realignment process um answer questions explain what it was what it wasn't um and certainly you know being able to gather their concerns their ideas their suggestions um and so that was a really great opportunity for them to
139also begin the conversation um in their building and so um what will happen um there will be a um individualized letter that will go out to each building um and in the letter there will be um you know the QR code will be included in that letter in addition to an electronic um communication that will also go out to all nine buildings so that is something internally that we are um managing and partnering and so I believe from my understanding that should be going out tomorrow and I do um want to call out because we're at the public board meeting that Community this is a great way to help us spread the word as well so if you have parents who you know who are asking how do I get involved I don't know anything
140about this process sharing with them the information that you've learned tonight um is critical for that work as well yes and I would add that one of the other um really great opportunities that came out of connecting with all of our principles last week um there's also a um a a essentially a spreadsheet of all the events that are happening in each one of these nine buildings um that we are welcome to come and participate and be able to also engage and talk directly with our families um and so um we will be getting access to that here shortly um as just an additional way to be able to directly connect with our families uh board member Adair um so thank thank you um I'm really excited about this this work um I'm excited about
141the process I have some questions I think um first um what I fear is that our buildings and the communities are going to become very defensive like they're defending their schools and I know that's very natural um and I and I'm concerned by that because I think that we have agreed that there were flaws in the underlying way that the board policy is set up that brought forward these recommendations not by the work of our task force members they did exactly what they were asked to do but the underlying um way that the policy was developed and if I was I was I was I'm literally trying to scroll and see if I can find it and I can't find it so I'm hopeful superintendent can remind me and or a board member can remind
142me when the task force initially began and I believe there was a community survey or surve surve that that began to rank um the factors um that they could consider I don't believe they considered every single factor I believe we prioritized some factors did we not yes what were those factors that we prioritized so I would have to go back to the notes but the surve the initial survey that we sent out asked the community about which factors they wanted us to prioritize as a part of the process there are several factors um if you prioritize one factor over another we get different results and different outcomes um but I know that safety was at the top of that list um I don't have to look at the list to see exactly what the feedback
143was that we receive from the community my concern um Dr Green is that I I don't know if you received all of that information um that we are going to be going into schools asking more specific questions maybe academic based when that is something that our initial committee did not actually look at in terms of creating the nine schools and as Dr Chapman just said looking at it under your lens we could have had a whole different set of nine schools um you know for me this is about trying to make sure that we are realigning learning communities and providing safe spaces and buildings for our staff and our schools and our communities um and we could literally have one of these buildings that just got four star stars on the the chart that for
144reading that is on this list um we could literally have school buildings that have amazing programming amazing Community but because of the condition of the building um you know we have future planning around that so I'm just I'm just concerned that we because this is based on what we have all agreed is a flawed board process that then we are going to go in and re-evaluate in a way that actually Community hasn't yet and kind of how does that now that I just said all that and I don't know if you were aware how does that kind of play into what we're going to do making sure that we are actually looking at the right thing to get us to where we really need to go not just reacting to these nine buildings does it
145make sense if that makes sense yeah uh so thank you for that question that's a uh a great question I think my initial reaction is that this is a data point in the constellation of data that you have right as a tried to know earlier like this isn't like a Panacea or end all Beall piece of data this is another piece of data to augment the information that you all already have I think with that being said it also underscores what you mentioned that I think that uh policy 7105 was 20 2015 and a lot has changed in since 2015 uh nine years uh and as board members I think in working with President ver and working with you all we're trying to create an opportunity to get it right on this side of the
146decision and so if we can provide additional data points that will allow you to see the constellation more clearly and not just one shining star that's what we're trying to do um I I agree with that I guess my question is if the pro if we agree that the process was flawed to get to the nine buildings are we doing ourselves a disservice by not doing your exercise in a bigger scale to make sure that we are starting with spaces and places that really can help us move the needle on equity and I know that our community wants us to do something with the nine buildings that were that were named but I'm here to get it right and I want to make sure that we are really trying to realign learning communities to produce
147the best student outcomes in an equitable manner um and so that is what really concerns me I want to definitely go in these nine buildings but I want to go in all of our buildings and do this exercise because truth like this is about reimagining and redesigning signing our entire District okay Dr Chapman Dr Chapman has she found what you were asking for yes so all of the materials from the task force work are on our website so I was able to go to our website we gave them everything we gave them everything but the the question specifically was when we surveyed our community what factors of the list of factors that they wanted us to prioritize safety and transportation was number one building capacity was number number two building age and condition were three
148was three accessibility for educational programs five so those were the factors and again this was in one of the presentations that's on our website can I just ask a follow-up question and and I pulled that data up too so I'm noticing that there was a Nuance there was a difference between how the adults responded and how the students responded I'm also noticing that there was a difference in and the engagement of our community so we had about 4,000 individuals that participated there were more staff um then there were community members so I guess my question aligns with board member adair's questions but more specifically how are we going to engage a broader base of our community and how are we going to ensure that we are centering student voice and and community and and parent
149voice in this as well it's a great question and if I were to be as um honest um as possible I would say that is probably something that should have happened before now like a deep broad engagement with the community and centering student voice should have been at the front end not the back end and nothing against Columbus this is just unfortunately how the process unfolds very commonly Across the Nation I think the beautiful part about this is that you all still have an opport am I overtime no oh okay I like the awards they play the music like sit down like thank you so much for your comment now it's all good um I I love that idea Dr Pierce I love that idea and I think that is the that is the work
150that is the work of deeply and broadly engaging the community in an Ideal World I I think it may it should have happened probably prior to this point um and so now it feels like you know it's coming to the 11th hour and uh you all have to make some decisions is what I'm sensing and I'm trying to figure out how do we make sure that the people who are maybe most directly impacted that in this current juncture we're centering in prioritizing their voices and their perspectives that doesn't negate this larger broader strategy but I think that strategy should have unfolded before we got to this point which may have shifted where we are at this current juncture so it is not off the table to do that broader piece I love it we should
151do it within this construct in these in these confines this is our starting point is to work with the nine so can you just clarify the starting point the construct is based upon the recommendations that were brought forth from the task force that identifies the nine schools but potentially we could broaden it expand it Beyond those recommendations listen y'all is that what I'm hearing just yeah so what I I don't so again I believe that public schools belong to the public and you all are the representatives of the public so I don't feel like it's my decision on that I think that is a decision for you all to right to think through and to talk through which I appreciate you putting it on the table yeah I'm just asking the construct that you were
152given that it say start at the recommendations of the task force or did it say as my colleague is saying expand it larger and let's look at the whole community and District no it was the nine schools it's the nine schools that's where we are that's what we've been charged with thank you yes thank you for the question and this is a starting point as Dr Green has mentioned um and so you know we wanted the opportunity to have this conversation at the table um to solicit feedback um because we recognize there's this is multi-dimensional and there's more that needs to happen more that can happen y um and so we're not interested in doing this in a vacuum we want to do this as a body as a collective as a community and so
153um colleagues you will have an opportunity to provide direct feedback to Dr Green um the community will also have an opportunity to provide direct feedback to Dr Green via the survey tool um and your information is also going to is a part of this presentation so community members can also directly email one of us and we can pass on that information to you Dr Green um and so there's there's more to come um but this is a starting point it's it's not to be all um but certainly it's something that is important for us to identify a structure to at least identify the initial recommendations and then ultimately as a body we need to discuss what the next steps are and how and when and what does that look like for the broader conversation that
154I think we're all interested in um but we need to be able to in bite sizes look at what we've started with what we've been what has been recommended it and then from there continue to map out next steps board member Cole oh thank you I'll I'll try and be very quick um greatly appreciate your comments I I love one of the words that you used augmentive this is not supplementary this is augment this is augmentive to the data that we've thus collected and the recommendations that were then forwarded to us it gives us an opportunity to have a more expanded conversation to consider other variables that could in the short run or latly impact not only the school but the community things that we know many of our community stakeholders are concerned with here's
155the other piece that I think is going to be really incredible in terms of augmentation is the opportunity to help us continue to identify a vision a vision based on what students are telling us that they need based on what our that many of them left us but based on what our educators are telling us that they need in a way that gives us again clearer Direction about where to go I I I I I'm supportive of looking at the nine schools looking at that smaller population that's capture we can actually capture that get the substantive data that we need and then make our decision moving forward but this then becomes the platform this then becomes the motus operandi that we can develop moving forward so I appreciate it I look forward to the work
156I hope that we approve it board member Ada thank you I agree with everything board member Co said I just want to make it clear that um we need to do this realignment we need to close schools we need to restructure our entire district and you know it's something that needed to happen years ago um and so I am supportive of this I do want to do it in the right way I do want to look at the right things I want to have the right people involved um I want to thank the work of the task force that led us here they spent a lot of time and hours um you know working through a process and their recommendations I think are you know as good as could be best the best recommendations honestly
157I think we've seen coming out of this process that we all admit is flawed um so I do look forward to doing this into doing it in a way that we can really address large systemic problems in our district and that we are also considering not just closure but again realignment and future building because all three of those things must be joined together for us to get to the vision that our community is seeking so I do look forward to this process and working with you Dr Green on this thank you and I look forward to visiting the N buildings thank you U board member uh Pierce um so while I look forward to the process and the different iterations of the process that will happen I would like to um at this point um
158challenge us to consider as we're thinking about these school closures which ones were feasible or not feasible some of the closures that were kind of put on the table it was like well this isn't even feasible to happen within a certain time frame or duration and so um for us to really be in intentional about the deeper analysis that we are taking for these schools that were recommended I think that needs to be a key component how will that transition happen and how could families be impacted before we probably even start that survey phase if there's some schools where we know it's not going to be in our best position to transition them out of that school let's not put them through that process of going through this survey and going through this this exercise
159uh thank you Dr Pierce and I do want to note um and I think it's critically important to mention um that this is a process and so you know we're not making a decision when we go out to these buildings you know um and if and when the board decides to take action that will not happen immediately that is something that the superintendent has um shared publicly as well that the planning process for realignment consolidation closure that can take anywhere from a year and a half to 2 years so understanding that this is a process so this is our next phase in um re-evaluating and looking at the deeper dive in our school communities but I I just want to reiterate to our students our families our staff when and if the board decides to
160make a decision it is not going to happen tomorrow there will be planning phases more community convers more um opportunity to talk about what does this realignment look like so this is just a piece in the as you said a constellation that's what this is so I just want to make sure that those listening are not like oh they're going to close my school tomorrow that is not what we are saying and that's not what we are doing and just to add to that the the the operative word in this that these are learning experiences the goal is to to learn more deeply and more robustly and more clearly about what's happening at the schools it's not evaluative it's not an assessment it's literally predicated on the idea of learning and thank you all for
161engaging in that process of learning which is super important so thank you thank you Dr Green um one final comment B Engles I'll be very quick but yes I do think that it is um critically important for us to not only talk about closures because that's things that are going away but to really talk about the vision for the the future the vision for education in this District what our students will be getting in the future what we're growing toward what our intent is and so I'm hoping that through this process we can develop some of that but I also challenge all of us on the board to make that clear what is that Vision what are we getting toward what will our students what will our district look like by the conclusion of the
162vision that we have for this for this district and so I think um that's that's critically important to the conversation and I I don't want us to lose sight of that absolutely well thank you at this time um colleagues if you have additional questions for Dr Green uh please feel free to reach out to him directly he is working with us alongside of us and we really appreciate you being here this evening um any final thoughts or comments before we conclude uh uh just thank you for the opportunity and thank you um for the work that you're doing and uh have I can serve as a resource to support I'm happy to do so Dr Green can I say one more thing to you byans I I would like you to you we had a
163um I was in a meeting with him uh beforehand with President ver to look at some things and you made a comment that I think was super powerful at least to me about what you felt like our mindset was about this work like overall that it felt a little different than other districts and you alluded to that a little bit um in in your in your presentation um when we were kind of discussing like you know all of the things like root cause issues and trying to really look at Equity holistically and you had made a comment that um you know we as a district were really trying to solve for some of these really hard things and and not just about closing buildings and I just thought it was really powerful and maybe you
164could share some of that with our community since you're new to us and that was your interpretation well I think so we had a a good conversation um I I got the sense from that conversation that you all were genuinely trying to do something at this point in my life and my career I'm just like don't waste my time you know what I'm saying I'm just I'm just there and so my conversations with President Vera my conversation with you all that day it simp seemed like you all were really trying to think deeply um and so I was appreciative of that uh you know we call it spade a spade um and in doing that I think relying on what we know from an empirical basis is going to be super important uh because even
165the idea of what could be provided and what a new vision could bring sometimes it doesn't play out because when you close schools students leave and so you actually end up losing more students to Charters to other districts for other reasons and so the well resourced schools and the promised schools that folks thought they could achieve doesn't always play out so was a lot to be thinking about not saying that it can't I'm not saying that you just need to be playing chess not Checkers right um and so yeah I got the sense that you all were really trying to do what was what was right and trying to be deliberate and trying to be focused and trying to uh grapple through this these are difficult difficult decisions and it takes some wrestling and some
166grappling um I think it continues to realize that you know schools and communities like y all on the same team right and so having that reflection in that time you know in that moment it really sensed and I get that sense that you're all trying to do something genuine versus performative thank you Dr Green Well we look forward to continue to collaborate and certainly we will be in conversation with you so thank you thank you uh colleagues at this time we are going to move to item 4.4 uh resolution honoring Archie Griffin Archie Griffin the Columbus City Schools student athletes on the 50th anniversary of his 1974 Heisman Trophy win I will hand it over to board member Cole uh thank you so much uh Madam president I greatly appreciate the opportunity uh to do
167this to acknowledge Scholastic and athletic uh achievement in the school district um whereas and I I'll read a few of the whereases and then and then close out on the second page uh whereas Rie Griffin proud Columbus native and eastmore school graduate has made a lasting impact on college football inspiring generations of students in Columbus City Schools and Beyond through whereas through dedication and hard work Archie Griffin became the first Ohio state junior to win the Heisman Trophy in 1974 rushing for 1695 yards earning unanimous All-American honors and the Big 10 silver football award Bo and whereas Griffin's journey of Excellence began at eastmore high school EA where his perseverance discipline and Leadership established him as a as both a football legend and role model for Columbus City school students and athletes whereas uh whereas
168participation in After School athletics has long been recognized as a vital part of the learning process for students teaching essential skills such as teamwork perseverance and Leadership whereas numerous studies show that student academic performance improves when they are involved in extracurricular activities such as Athletics band and other after school programs fostering discipline time management and a sense of belonging be it resolved that by the be it resolved by the members of the Columbus City School Board of Education that that this board honors and thanks Archie Griffin for his legacy of leadership and service to our community and students you are Beacon of Hope and we proudly declare October 18th 2024 as Archie Griffin day in the Columbus City School District be it further resolved that our October 15 that as of October 15 2024 this
169month shall be recognized as student Athletics month in celebration of all district Sports s and Scholar athletes who contribute to school pride and achievement in academics and positive physical Endeavors throughout Columbus City Schools Madam president that is a motion is there a second second any discussion please call the roll Mr Cole yes mrir yes Miss Engles yes vice president Dr Pierce I am abstaining Mr Simmons yes president Vera yes motion carried all right thank you colleagues thank you uh I just wanted to give a brief uh comment I thank you for the time um so this resolution will be presented uh Mr Griffin uh is going to be attending our eastmore uh Marian Franklin game this coming Friday at eastm Academy so we're excited that he will be here in town in addition to that
170um he will be honored between the first and second uh half or first and second quarter EXC excuse me of the game with this resolution so he'll be honored with that uh in addition he's given some comments he's going to have some locker room time with the ball players and give them some positive uh Insight um and uh I wanted to give a very special thanks to several folks first and foremost special thanks to the Archie and Bonita Griffin Foundation um Jerry EIG who is the associate a at the Ohio State University and the following CCS staff I wanted to greatly acknowledge as well um that is Dr Bob Murphy District um budsman thank you so much for your contribution uh Dr Vincent claro thank you for your leadership and contribution um he is with
171direct of Student Activities James Washington athletic director at EA um coach James Miranda and uh principal Alicia Fowler and finally uh the engagement and partnership team in the district thank you all for the work that youve brought forth here to ensure that our students are acknowledged all right thank you board member Cole um we will move over into item 5.1 um Dr Chapman did you have any additional reports or updates for us no not at this time all right thank you uh good evening internal auditor how are you sir good evening I'm doing good thank you for me this even nothing I mean you've been working a lot I've heard all of the committee reports so we got a little bit there uh Treasurer cook how are you sir I'm doing well thank you any
172updates or anything you want to let us know I just would like to thank me AIT Dr Chapman uh we got two great Scholars with us here tonight I think I speak for both of us when I say we had a great day action-packed day funfilled except for that policy discussion that we had which I understand but I appreciate the board allowing us to have this opportunity to have a students with us here this evening so thank you thank you and we will hear the fiveyear forecast next month right yes correct all right very good thank you yes so we also want to thank our students uh for being here tonight you're welcome to come to a board meeting and anytime so please feel free to come and participate um and so at this time
173colleagues we will move into item 8.1 um notice of public hearing on Reemployment of retired employees pursuant to the oh high bi code section 3309 345 the Columbus Board of Education gives notice that Ronda L Greer instructional assistant who retired from Columbus City Schools effective June 3rd 2022 is seeking employment with the Columbus City Schools as an instructional assistant effective December 18th 2024 the board will hold a public hearing on November 19th 2024 at 6 PM in the boardroom at 3700 South High Columbus Ohio 43207 on the issue of Miss G re-employment colleagues at this time we will move into our consent agenda consisting of items let's see 10.1 to 25.1 um are there any items a member would like to have removed or voted on individually from the consent agenda seeing none is there
174um a motion to approve the consent agenda move second any discussion seeing none please call role mrir yes Mr Cole yes Miss Engles yes vice president Dr Pierce yes Mr Simmons president beer yes motion carry thank you um colleagues we will move into other legislation um item 26.1 authority to continue until academic Resource Network um and so is there a motion to approve this very important legislation so move second any discussion uh board member Adair I just wanted to highlight the extreme need for this uh legislation um it protects um our very important networks um we have a um you know unfortunately good example of situation in the city that um you know we do not want to follow so um I will be voting yes on this and encourage my colleag to do the
175same uh thank you board member D that was a motion there was a second um please call the RO Miss Engles yes vice president Dr Pierce abstain Mr Simmons Mr D yes Mr Cole absolutely informatically yes president ver yes Mr Simmons yes thank you sir motion Carri uh thank you colleagues um at this time we will move into item 27.1 um a motion to enter into executive session I will hand it over to uh Vice President Pierce thank you so much president ver I move that the Board of Education recess into executive session per section 12122 G1 Ohio revised code to consider the appointment employment or compensation of public employees that is a motion is there a second second uh please call the r Mr Cole yes Miss Engles yes vice president Dr Pierce yes
176Mr Simmons yes Mr D yes president ver yes motion carried thank you um at this time we will head into executive session um when we return we will not be uh televised so thank you all for being here this evening and we look forward to um the opportunity to provide more updates and more opportunities for engagement so have a good evening