001foreign [Music] foreign [Music] I worked in commercial radio for 40 years when I arrived in the Columbus Market wcbe was my go-to station when I was not producing another radio show for my employer don't tell them that I volunteered my services nine years later I find myself as a general manager before the station that I love that isn't near and dear to me my name is Mike Taylor and I'm a radio broadcast specialist that's what they're calling me these days a lot of the artists we play will not be played on any other radio station in central Ohio maybe not even in the country so when we find someone we like we try to get them on the air we try to get them into Studio A my name is Allison Holm I'm the afternoon
002news anchor and reporter and I've been at wcbe for 25 years we once had when I was on doing the newscast we had them monitor start smoking and catch on fire and I was in the middle of a newscast and I I couldn't stop and so I had to wait until I had a sound bite and run to the door and Shout out the Studio's on fire and then run back in to finish that story and then go into the next one so I'm pretty good about ignoring actions my name is Maggie Brennan I've been with wcve since my internship since 1993. we'll be excited to have more kids involved and more programming with that whether they're going to be hosting some of the shows or behind the scenes or even some of the bands
003playing live in studio a it's a nice wholesome place where you can see how the radio gets made I've been involved with the station since I was a teenager around 14 years old was the first time that I went in and did any volunteer work for them the people who work there know their stuff and make a really great environment for a learning opportunity before I came to wcbe I was a professional jazz musician and then I got a job at Fort Hayes on my first day of teaching I ran out the door and I ran next door and I knocked out the door and I go and I said who's playing that stuff that is really cool and the secretary said I think you need to go in the back so she let me
004in back and the next thing he was going to it was a piece of jazz music and I I have an encyclopedic knowledge of it so I started telling him exciting things about the thing he was about to play he said wait just a minute and he put a mic in front of my face and for uh about 10 years then I was Jim the wacky sitcom Neighbor Next Door and I would just barge into people's radio shows and start talking it number one gave me an opportunity to reunite with Jim anderi who I knew from when he was in college and I worked at another radio station and as a matter of fact I hadn't had that type of conversation about music uh hello to our entire Columbus City Schools community my name is
005Rajon Oates and I'm a student at Columbus downtown high school before we begin tonight's Board of Education business meeting I invite you to check out these highlights and updates from across the district thank you [Music] hello CCS community and welcome back to highlights from around the district as we bring in the new school year we hope that students can start strong so they can end stronger strength comes in many forms whether that is continuing to try your best or creating new goals for your personal best and each day is a new beginning regardless of where your Journey Begins try to make each step along the way count last week marked the start of school for our Woodcrest Elementary staff and students students in the district's only year-round school return to class starting off the 2023-2024
006school year meanwhile our students on the traditional calendar will start back on August 23rd hopefully everyone has had a great summer break and is ready to start the school year off strong speaking of Summer this season has been full of many activities opportunities and learning across the district last month we wrapped up our 2023 summer experience where nearly 8 000 students benefited from many out-of-the-box experiences and traditional classroom enrichment since 2020 our annual summer experience has become one of the most anticipated programs for our students and families we've been able to avoid the summer slide across many areas additionally the experience has provided the chance for students to get back on track or even ahead in their academics we hope students enjoyed summer experience and had many memorable moments our students have taken on many
007exciting opportunities throughout summer in addition to Summer experience including internships workshops and gaining vital experience for their Futures in July 30 Rising Juniors and seniors not only got writing guidance but also a glimpse into college life during the Young Writers Workshop at the Ohio State University here writers lived on campus and picked one of three genres to study creative non-fiction poetry and fiction the workshop started back in 2008 when a CCS grad was taken creative writing classes at Ohio State and wanted to create a writing partnership between the university and ccs now the workshop continues to provide many great opportunities for our students also over the summer students got to see themselves as medical professionals during a four-week program and Nationwide Children's Hospital this experience was part of the surgical exposure and exploration or C
008program which is in its second year the program gives Rising High School juniors and seniors at ccs and Crystal Ray Columbus High School to get hands-on experience and exposure to Medical Careers students learn to think like doctors explore daily work life through job shadowing and even get hands-on experience through the hospital Simulation Center congratulations to the nine students who completed the program I know you learned many vital skills that will help you on your journey students have also been honing their skills through other internships throughout the summer we know that the knowledge they are attaining and the skills they are developing will help them long after they graduate these experiences have provided tremendous opportunities for our students a huge shout out goes out to all our partners who make this possible also this summer District
009leaders participated in restorative practices training through the international institute for restorative practices to help lead the way in this vital work restorative practices provide a whole child approach with opportunities to connect reflect restore and identify empowering Solutions rather than punitive one we will be training other District leaders and staff in the fall and by the end of the year we aim to have classified and certificated train the trainers in every building we recognize that this is an all Hands-On approach to creating safe and healthy learning environments for all CCs is working on increasing attendance and restorative practices throughout the district and recently was awarded a 1.7 million dollar Grant from the state of Ohio to improve restorative practices the grant will provide additional support for attendance teams to ensure students come to school we continue
010to work collaboratively with parents to see what obstacles exist and how we can help this new Grant is aligned to my vision of CCS becoming a trusted District of restorative leaders and practitioners through investing in restorative practices embracing our values and fostering relationships to ensure a healthy inclusive safe learning environment for all we've been working on many buildings in our district to get them ready for students to return on day one renovation projects have included installing new playgrounds HVAC or even a full School remodel at Hamilton Stem Elementary many projects are underway and you can check the progress on our CCS website with Summer wrapping up there are still more exciting activities to look forward to before many return to school we will be celebrating the success and academic achievements of our CCS students during
011next week's summer graduation on August 11th our CCS seniors have worked very hard to get to this point and have overcome many challenges our students continue to lead the way and show what it means to be portrait ready congratulations to these students and good luck on wherever your journey takes you next coming up on August 19th is our CCS back to school resource Fair the event will take place from 10 a.m to 2 p.m at the Fort Hays campus we will have free backpacks school supplies Wellness exams up to date after school information and so much more you can RSVP to this event by heading to our CCS website under our back to school Hub thank you so much to our many partners who have made this event a reality this is an event you
012definitely won't want to miss also back to school will be here before you know it so don't wait enroll your child now to ensure that they are ready to begin on the first day of school parents should also update their addresses phone numbers and emergency contacts for their children via the parent portal additionally Central enrollment will begin extended hours for August and September starting on August 8th extended hours of operation for August and September will be by appointment only Monday Friday and Saturday from 8 A.M to 4 30 p.m and Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday from 8 A.M to 7 30 p.m these have been highlights from around the district for the week of August 1. thank you so much for joining us [Music] [Applause] thank you good evening everyone and Welcome to our August 1st
013regular board meeting I call the meeting to order please call the roll president Adair president Ms beckerly present Mr Brown I'm here Mr Cole here Dr Pierce president Ms Reyes here vice president Vera here your Quorum thank you you all please stand and join me in the pledge one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all um board members before we review the agenda I want to take a moment of remembrance um for a former board member a pastor Leanne Troy senior on behalf of the Columbus Board of Education and Columbus City Schools our condolences go out to the family friends and ministerial family on the passing of Reverend Leon Troy senior pastor Troy's contributions come from both the religious and Civic sectors he dedicated more than 50 years of his life to
014public service in the Columbus Community serving as professor emeritus of Second Baptist Church the oldest Baptist Church in Columbus Pastor Troy was appointed to the Columbus Public Schools Board of Education in 1996 serving until 1997. as a board member he was committed to the education of our students and improving student achievement and engaging its families and community Pastor Troy firmly believed in the power of education and community outreach his dedication to Community Development was a testament to his passion for fostering Unity uplifting those in need and providing them with opportunity for a brighter future he believed in the transformational power of Education as we celebrate a life well lived a life of unwavering Faith tireless service and boundless love for all we remember Pastor Leon Troy for his kindness wisdom and Leadership he will forever
015Inspire us to strive for a better world if we could have a moment of silence thank you board members on this evening's agenda we have one individual here for public comment we have several items on board matters we're expecting report from our superintendent and a report from the treasurer's office we have public notice of re-employment hearings and we have our consent agenda we will finish up with an executive session is there a motion to approve our motion to approve the agenda it's been a motion in a second are there any additions seeing none and without objection our agenda has been adopted we will have public comment our first speaker if they are here is Frederick glaze are you here no not here well the topic is um I want the board to change the curriculum
016when did CCS drop cursive writing in their curriculum so we encourage Mr glace since he is not here to please submit those comments in writing to us all right so we'll go ahead and move into our board matters our first item on our agenda is the resolution to approve the working agreement for building substitutes with the Columbus Education Association I'm going to turn it over to the superintendent's office to say a few words thank you president Adair um we are very excited about the opportunity tonight to memorialize our agreement with cea certainly you know we had a team that has been working on formalizing and establishing agreement we are one are all of our Educators and teachers and building Subs to know how much we appreciate and value their support and their service in ccs
017and we feel confident that this agreement demonstrates that so again thank you so much to our building subs for your service for your leadership for your support for our students and showing up each and every day in our buildings and dedicating your work to supporting our students which helps us reach our board goals as well as our plg work so thank you again and we're excited tonight to memorialize this agreement okay so I'm going to go ahead and make the motion and then we will have additional comments from board members um resolution to approve the working agreement for building substitutes with the Columbus Education Association whereas representatives of the Board of Education and the Columbus Education Association have been engaged in negotiation for working agreement for building substitutes and whereas the attached document contains the
018terms developed through the bargaining process and approved by the Columbus Education Association on July 17 2023 and whereas the document provides the terms of a first working agreement that shall continue to enforce Force an effect through the day before the first regular teacher contract day of the 2025-2026 school year now therefore it be resolved that the Columbus Board of Education hereby approves an agreement with the Columbus Education Association based on the terms described in the attached document and be it further resolved that the Board of Education authorizes the superintendent prior to the printing and with the agreement of Columbus Education Association to make minor editorial Corrections and changes as needed provided such Corrections or changes do not result in any modification to the intent or substance of the agreement and be it further resolved that
019the superintendent be authorized and directed to affix her signature to the agreement and hereby describe between the Board of Education and the Columbus Education Association so that is a motion is there a second second you all seconded is there discussion please call the roll president Adair yes Ms beckerly yes Mr Brown yes Mr Cole yes Dr Pierce yes Ms Reyes yes vice president Bureau yes motion carries thank you um because this is what we call an mou it will be the superintendent that will be signing and this moment I would like for members of um our team who are the building substitutes as well as recognizing uh President John Coniglio and other members of cea to come up to the podium and give you a moment to speak and then we will sign the mou
020Dr Chapman and I believe uh president Coniglio and we will then take a group photo to celebrate president Coniglio I just want to say uh thank you this working agreement professionalizes the building substitutes I think it's also on the The Cutting Edge of uh what um uh working agreements between uh you know unions and Boards of Education um I I believe that this model will be looked at from other districts around uh around the state of Ohio in the country so we appreciate that and uh so thank you so much neighborhood so they sign again we welcome the building substitutes into the Union family building substitutes are obviously a vital component of our school environment not only are they there to support their fellow teachers but they are there to be continuous Improvement of adults
021in the lives of the students because they are in one building and they are there to help build that internal School community and so they are incredibly important so we think all of our building substitutes and we look forward to working through this working agreement and recognizing you as a member of cea board members we're going to take a picture or something I'm going to head to the middle foreign [Applause] team that represented us you did an excellent job working with a cea and you know again as president conigliosa this is expectation going forward to maintain really great Labor Relations and work on things collaboratively because we know that benefits our students so thank you to our bargaining team okay we're going to go ahead and go to item 4.2 which is resolution to proceed
022um I'm going to ask board member Cole since this comes out of the finance committee to if you're ready to read this resolution yeah thank you it keeps moving so I'll take that picture I got it maybe not teamwork That Makes the Dream Work we miss our our board clerk who or liaison that's what's Happening Here miss you missy I thank you madam president um this is a resolution to approve the working agreement for Bill Clinton no it's not okay here we go all right this is our resolution for determining to proceed to Levy attacks in excess of the new of the 10 mil limitation whereas the Board of Education the Board of Education of Columbus city school district has Hereafter declared the necessity of leavening levying an additional tax in excess of the 10
023Mill limitation for the benefit of school district pursuant to provision of section 5705.217 of the Ohio Revised Code and whereas pursuant to section 5705.03 of the Ohio Revised Code this board of education has here for heretofore certified to the Franklin County auditor a resolution requesting the county auditor to certify to this board of education the total current taxable value of this school district and the dollar amount of Revenue that would be generated by seven and seven tenths that is 7.7 Mills per year as specified in such a resolution and the board of education has received the certification of the county auditor that such total current taxable value of 12 million 870 611 and 650 dollars and that such dollar amount of Revenue is 99 million 104 000 per year 38 uh that's 38 million six
024hundred twelve thousand per year derived from the current operating expense portion of the levy and 60 60 million 492 000 per year derived from the general permanent Improvement portion of the levy now therefore be it resolved by the Board of Education of the Columbus city school district county of Franklin Ohio two-thirds of all members elected there to concurring that it is hereby declared the devoid of taxes or that the amount of taxes which may be raised in this school district within the 10 limitation by levies on the current tax list will be insufficient to provide an adequate amount to present and future record requirements of the school district that pursuant to the provisions of section 5705.217 of the Ohio Revised Code it is necessary to Levy an additional tax in excess to such 10 mil
025again to such 10 mil limitation for the pursue for the purpose of current operating expenses at the rate not exceeding three meals and for General permanent Improvement at the rate not exceeding four and seven temps so folks just as I know I'm reading very technical language that'll be ballot language but essentially what this is saying is that we are asking the community this coming November that we are looking to get a 7.7 meal separate but 7.7 mil total uh ballot Initiative for the purpose of an operating Levy and also for the purpose of a permanent Improvement Levy operating Levy that provides resources for uh out directly for our students in a building that provide for all the things that they're going to need for staff and at the same time a permanent Improvement Levy that
026helps us close the gap and where we know we need further resources Capital wise for our school buildings so I just wanted to make sure I clarified that as I finish that the question of the adoption of said tax shall be submitted to the selectors of the school district at the election to be held on November 7 2023 and if Levy is approved by a majority of said electors such additional tax shall first be placed on the 2023 tax list for first collection and current year 2024. that the form of ballot to be used as said election shall be substantially as follows subject to any changes from the applicable Board elections and or the Ohio Secretary of State Madam president is there a second second been a motion in a second let's have discussion board
027member Brown thank you um I think it's great that we're moving forward on this now I strongly support the package of the two issues I think that the permanent Improvement Levy itself is both essential and smart for our community and for our school district it allows for maintenance to our buildings and our facilities rather than to wait for things to break at which time it's more expensive this also protects our academic and teacher dollars so that they don't have to be used for repairs and keeps those intact in the past the school district borrowed a lot of money from the operating monies that we use for academics and curriculum and teachers to pay for some of those repairs this sets up a dedicated fund to do that because what we want is best for our
028students and staff we need this permanent Improvement Levy it's the most cost efficient way to keep our buildings in good repair thank you board member Brown other comments remember beckerly I completely agree with everything board member Brown said I just wanted to add that this really feels like an important moment there's a lot this Levy package is part of some momentum on multiple fronts going forward and we have new leadership new energy Dr Chapman's committed to building relationships that will necessarily include include transparency and honesty this in turn is going to be the foundation for building the culture we need to improve the outcomes for our kids we're coming off two labor negotiations that have been successful and really feel different it feels like we're in a different place and we're moving together differently and
029that's reinforced by the fact that our board leadership combined with opt leadership and CA leadership are working together with Community leaders Business Leaders other electeds to advance this Levy package going forward and so this really feels like an important moment for our community and I'm really excited about it and the other thing that I I think is worth stressing is that these lovelies levees are necessary we wouldn't be asking our community if that wasn't the case um a board member Brown said it best about the importance of the permanent Improvement Levy this is long overdue when we need this and we've needed it for a while so I'm proud to be part of the board that's finally putting this forward and the operating Levy is going to allow us to do really important things the
030things that we were able to do with our covid money like social workers counselors uh social workers counselors nurses in every building um matriculation coaches in the high schools family ambassadors all of these things these staff and programming that will support our kids in the social emotional Wellness of our kids and support the families in educating our children are critical and we need to be able to continue them once the covid money um is spent and it will in turn take some of the burden off our teachers who are trying to fill the gaps for all of these roles and will allow them to actually do the teaching and all of this will turn improve the outcomes for our students and that's the name of the game so this is very necessary very important and
031I'm really excited to be voting for it and lastly we need to be all hands on decks because we need to make sure our community understands exactly how important this is and I'm looking forward to expending all of my energy over the next few months to support this Levy and make sure it passes beckerly I want to ensure thank Madam president um thank you for the opportunity um this well both of my colleagues have have currently stated is absolutely more than appropriate to explaining the vision and the direction that this school district is headed these dollars are absolutely essential as an investment this is an investment in the labor and also the outcomes of our children this is the investment that we want to put into our children that make them competitive regionally and globally
032our mission is that each student is highly educated prepared for leadership and service and empowered for success as Citizens in the global community these are young people that we're looking and asking our community to invest in to ensure that they are competitive that they are leaders that the end result is that they're beyond just portraits of a graduate they're Meeting those aims but they exceed those aims these dollars will put us in a continuing momentum as horrible as this this pandemic has been in terms of its impact on us it's opened the door of opportunity for us to make a deposit we've been focused so much on the deficit of things in this time that we've been going through covet in in teaching and learning through it but we haven't talked a lot about the
033deposit opportunity that's available this is a deposit opportunity to ensure Excellence for our children to ensure that they're learning at grade or Beyond grade level to ensure that they have the things that they need to be successful and those who are responsible for them in a classroom and in the school building have the resources and training that they need to be able to provide the best this is an investment and I look forward to supporting this initiative I look forward to knocking doors making phone calls and ensuring that this community has full understanding of the investment opportunity that that can that can change this community that could actually turn us around and in closing continue to prepare us and keep us ahead of the curve of what we're seeing with the poor funding we're receiving
034from the State House we've watched our budget decline I have personally seen us at one point in time funded to the tune of I want to say about 47 percent State appropriation to to date well just under 30 percent State appropriation I want to say about 27 if I'm not mistaken and I'm looking at my guy right there to not his head say Mr Cole your offer you're on but either way we're at a state of funding by the state that that is clearly diminished and it's impacting our students and it's asking Joe and Jane taxpayer in the city of Columbus to step up even more on behalf of our children I know that you believe in our young people I know this community believes in this school district I'm asking very respectfully and humbly
035that you support our Collective initiative to ensure that this community makes the right the strong and committed investment in our children thank you former Reyes um it's hard to follow that but you know similar to a board member Cole I've been in on the board in this community for uh several years the reason I live in Columbus is because I truly believe in Columbus I believe in Columbus City Schools I am a recruiter of our students I'm a recruiter of our teachers I'm a recruiter of uh everything that Columbus City Schools does in this community you see the results in our mayor and our commissioners and our city council um that's who we are we are we are the community we are Columbus our graduates are providing and giving back the only way that can
036happen is for us to continue to provide high-level education pay our teachers pay our bus drivers uh ensure that we have good leadership as previously discussed we have a new superintendent the board is fully committed to ensure that we meet the obligations follow the policies and the procedures that we have put in place to ensure that our students are meeting the expectations so that they can start a career so they can graduate so they can be viable in our community which they're already doing but we want to do it better when you see the the media and you see the results of our buildings it is important that we committed several years ago and we're only a third or almost a little bit of two-thirds of the way there to ensure that every child in
037our district has a good viable learning environment and that means a good air-conditioned heated building not only our children our teachers our staff our community we welcome you to come into your building this is this is a representative of our community I'm a taxpayer and many of my colleagues are a taxpayer so this is not something that we're saying that we're not also committing to we we are investing not only our time as board members but we're also investing our money in our children we truly believe that it is the appropriate time to ensure that our our kids continue to thrive continue to graduate I mean just as a personal uh Pride you know a lot of us we haven't been here since graduation but uh when I was talking to a community member about
038the fact that cause had 38 valedictorians out of a class of 60 some students that is Columbus City Schools when you go to other graduations and you see 12 14 15 valedictorians these are high performing students coming from our district from our community and it is important and imperative for us to support those students and I'm definitely one of those supporters thank you Barbara Reyes Dr Pierce so I won't repeat all the things that have been said I will keep my statement very short and concise our unified support for these tax levies will provide essential funding to ensure that all students have the same opportunities to learn grow and succeed please join us in strengthening our district by supporting our students and voting yes vice president Vera and I Echo all my colleagues sentiments and
039I think I I just want to highlight our kids deserve this and so I think it's it's you know what our kids deserve is what our kids need we often we look at just how the world has changed so much and this investment is my colleague Cole mentioned earlier this this is an investment this is an investment in our kids who rightfully deserve all of the opportunities that we can possibly give them and so I am honored to be able to serve alongside of all of my board colleagues and making this happen for our kids I'm also honored to be able to serve alongside of our Union partners and there's more to come and this is not something that we can do alone it is something that we have to do collectively as a community
040this is what Columbus City Schools is rooted on community and we want to make sure that any Community partner parent constituent that wants to be a part of this process has the ability to do so so more information will be coming out about that but I just really want to highlight the importance of our kids deserve this as an alumni of this District I have been able to first hand experience a lot of the things that we often read about and and I think it's that this is a crucial time for us to be able to say let's do this and let's do this for our kids and we have the power to do that collectively together so I thank you I look forward to you know getting out in our community to be able
041to have these conversations but it is a new day in ccs and together we can do what needs to be done for the betterment of our kids thank you I think our community spoke very loudly last summer and the power of community is really about centering our children at the at the core and ensuring that we are improving this District to not only see the outcomes that we know our children are and can achieve but ensuring that we are making that future investment back into this community like my colleague said this ask of our community is essential the operating dollars are essential the pi Levy is essential these things go back directly to the education of our children it's not fair for our kids not to have what our fellow colleagues in the suburbs are
042giving their children that's not fair in each of us I think as the adults in this community look at our children and say you should have everything that you need in order to be your best selves and that's what these asks do and it builds the foundation not only for the future of our district but our children's literal future public education is under attack so make no mistake no one is coming to our rescue from the state no one is going to be giving us you know a huge check from the state that's just not how life is today and we have to be really realistic about that we're going to fight as your board of education that's part of our job is to figure out how to fund things and we're going to keep
043doing that we're going to try to figure out ways to fund education and fund projects in a way that makes sense because like board member Cole said it's not also fair to our community but this is how we have to do it and I know that our community will stand strong with us just as we stand strong with our union leaders and our families and our parents and most importantly our students um these two pieces of financial ass that we are asking our community for again are essential and we need these things in order to ensure that we have the best educational outcomes for our students and that's something that I know our community will stand behind and that's why I am voting along with my colleagues to place these this as one ballot initiative
044on the November ballot and we are going to be asking our community to support thank you will you please call the roll Ms beckerly yes Mr Brown yes Mr Cole yes Dr Pierce yes Ms Reyes yes vice president Vera yes president Adair yes motion passes thank you okay we're going to move into item 4.3 and 4.4 um I'm gonna ask I didn't tell Dr Pierce this before but we get the opportunity to as a board um nominate people for awards from the Ohio to the Ohio State um to the house School Board Association excuse me and I'm wondering if Dr Pierce if you would take a moment to just explain what these awards are and um the role that these type of awards play and the recognition of individuals and the public in supporting public
045education well thank you for the opportunity these Awards give us the opportunity not just at the district level but also at the state level in partnership with the Ohio School Board Association to recognize and appreciate individuals within our district that go above and beyond kind of their their daily service that they provide it gives us an opportunity to honor and recognize individuals within our community that are supporting our district and our students as many of my colleagues have said in their statements in support of the tax levy we have dedicated community members that are strong supporters of public education and strong supporters of our district and so this gives us an opportunity again to thank them for that work and that service that they do for us and so I'm always excited when we get
046the offer opportunity to nominate and name individuals for these Awards and I always take pleasure in our conference I will put a Shameless plug out there the osba conference will be on September 20th at Villa Milano it will feature I want to say our cause Corral as well as archives jazz band and it will also feature the president of Columbus State will be our guest speaker and so this will be a great event for all of our communities to come all of our community members to come out and support again the individuals that we are recognizing for their dedication and their service to not only our district but to our students in public education thank you for that Dr Pearson thank you for serving as the president of our central region representing our district well
047our first award is osba friend of public education and this year the board is nominating director Benita Reese from the Columbus Recreation and Parks Department um we've chosen uh director Reese for a number of reasons but most importantly it really embodies her leadership and the whole staff at the Columbus Recreation and Parks Department really emboder embody what it means for a whole Community to come together uh to support our children when we have them at school you know they get to go after school back to rec centers for programming education and it's really important that we have that continuity recently we were in a meeting with director Reese and she made a comment that across the country it's really hard for for some reason for school districts and Parks departments to work together and we
048have as a two governmental entities committed to our community that we want to do that better and we have partnered on our summer experience we have partnered with having our Recreation leaders in our schools and we have a lot of new plan fans to partner together on improving facilities and meeting our intergenerational needs of our entire Community for those reasons Dr I'm sorry directories who represents herself and is a wonderful leader as well as her staff are being nominated for the friend of public education award that is emotion second any comments remember cool uh just very briefly I thank you so much um I just want to personally say that this is a relationship with Recreations and parks that um I think is one of the most exemplary not only in my tenure but I've
049even seen prior my tenure um this is something that took you know partnership with the city and very kind of community external ways and actually internalize it to a building level where we actually have parks and recs employees working during a lunch hour to support that school building encourage those children and give them additional activities and also provide opportunity Mr connect Leo for teachers to have additional planning time and opportunity to strengthen their preparedness for instructions in a school building to do what they do best I this this is just a phenomenal relationship she has been an outstanding director I look forward to what's coming more from that I want to thank those team members internally who have worked with her you know um Seneca Lee garima all these folks who've come together in Communications
050as well as engagement to make this relationship really work and I just can't I can't just I mean I'm just on fire about this kind of opportunity for our kids and for our staff thank you thank you thank other comments pull the roll around yes Mr Cole yes Dr Pierce given my role as central region president for osba I have to abstain but I I am very much in support Ms Reyes yes vice president Vera as a trustee of osba I also have to abstain but I am very very excited and honored um to for that nomination president Adair yes Ms beckerly yes motion carries thank you our next award is osba exemplary School employee award nomination and this year we are excited to nominate Tawanda Allen who is the Avondale satellite kitchen operator and
051Miss Allen is here with her family if you guys want to come up and I believe um April's here too everyone come up so we featured Miss Allen in our national uh school lunch hero day back in May and our Administration and really our community was just taken aback by her dedication to building relationships in her school building she says things like avondale's like a family it's important to make connections with the children because they want it and they need it she also knows exactly the favorite food of every single child that comes through her line and not only does she know that she encourages them to eat healthy because she knows that the fuel they put in their bodies at the beginning of the day and at lunch is what is going to sustain
052them in the classroom and so it's really important that you know we recognize people like Miss Allen because she is sometimes an unsung hero but I know that the children in your building appreciate the work that you do each and every every day one of the things that she does say in the article and I'm going to take some umbrage with it because you say yes I'm just a food service person but to a lot of these kids it seems like I may be a little more to the entire Community it is you are more and you are never just you are an incredible member of our food service team who performs an essential job function every single day helping our children reach their outcomes and we are so proud to nominate you as our
053exemplary um what's it called assembly School employee for this year [Music] okay I'm gonna let you talk in a minute but let's make it official okay so I'm gonna that is emotion are there any uh comments let's go ahead and call the roll and then we'll have her comment call the roll please Mr Cole absolutely yes Dr Pierce again given my role in central region president of osba I have to abstain but Miss Allen do know that I celebrate you I honor you I thank you I give overwhelming gratitude to the way that you unpack the lives of our students thank you Ms Reyes thank you for choosing us yes vice president Vera I also have to abstain but I I just want to say thank you for the work the selfless work that you
054do every single day it's so critical and I still remember my elementary school team and they fed me every day and I I really truly I want you to understand what that means to young people so when you think about the work that you do every single day understand that you're not just anything thank you president Adair yes Miss beckerly yes I'm gonna have to say something too um I was a teacher um for 13 years and you are not just anything um critical part of my team for serving my students in ways large and small and uh thank you just thank you thank you Mr Brown yes motion carries thank you thank you thank you so much for your service I'm gonna let you if you'd like to say a few words or anybody
055up there would like to say a few words I just want to tell it to say thank you for this opportunity I truly appreciate it appreciate my team behind me um thank you [Laughter] we're gonna come and take a picture with you and your family take a picture thank you all right thank you so much we're gonna get these Awards over to osba and we hope our nominees win okay all right we're gonna go ahead and move now into a series of second readings um that's items 4.5 to 4.11 I'm going to turn it over to board member Brown for this portion of our agenda thank you uh we've got seven items in total all of these are recommended changes to policy uh and improvements to the policy I'll go through them individually and and
056see if anybody has questions on any of them or comments on any of them but uh before we get into that I want to tell you that one the governance policy and advocacy committee has worked through these and uh was unanimously supportive of these res of these changes to policy in addition uh Kyle lathwell who is Staffing the committee has done an exceptional job in researching and helping to put these together James Barnes participated a great deal and this time unlike many times I got really quality input from several sources Courtney Johnson one of our Librarians has written and spoken uh and and has really pointed out some things that were useful our own Tina Pierce gave me a substantial amount of commentary and suggestions of the policies and we worked through all of that
057and uh finally we got a letter uh from kaleidoscope from Amanda Erickson who's their reiterating a number of points that they thought we should reconsider and we've done all of that and as a result we've got the policies here for second reading and adoption so the first of these 4.5 is policy 25 20. and this deals with instructional resources and helps to Define what we mean by instructional resources to say what types of different instructional resources we have and explains what they all are and is explains also that if there are any complaints about instructional resources that we now have a reference to a policy 25 25 which uh deals with complaints about instructional resources I move that we adopt the policy it's been a motion is there a second thank you is there any
058discussion I will add uh to board member Brown's comment to thank all of our staff and administrators as well as our um policy and governance and advocacy committee for their due diligence and looking over to making sure that these policies were consistent in language and terminology thank you other comments please call the roll Dr Pierce yes Ms Reyes yes vice president Vera yes president Adair yes Ms beckerly yes Mr Brown yes Mr Cole yes motion carries item 4.6 pertains to board policy 2525 and this is the one that I just mentioned is the process for complaints dealing with instructional resources and uh this one we we have made some further modifications to and it explains to anybody how they can complain and what the process is for dealing with the complaint for a written signed
059Complaint Form goes to the principal when the principal receives that principal will forward that to the superintendent or superintendent's designee who may choose to convene a Review Committee to consider the complaint several of the comments were suggesting that that be mandatory it's a convenient committee but after thinking it through a great deal it was determined that many of these complaints are likely to be frivolous and the kinds of things that we don't need a committee to deal with obviously it's something that we can revisit in the future if there's a reason to do that but I think that the superintendent as uh as our CEO of this big organization can be trusted to uh it decide what's worthy of a committee to review and what's not in any case whether it's the superintendent or the
060Review Committee there is an appeal to the board of education so it's not the end of the process we also dealt with several folks come wanted to change the language on materials that will be what remains in use during the complete process and what does not the only things that will not continue to be used during the complaint process are materials that are obscene or harmful to minors the word sexually explicit really don't mean anything and don't add anything and just get some people confused and we've provided the references to the Ohio law that defines those two terms obscene and harmful to minors so we've got a very clear definition um questions motion or I move that we adopt this policy is there a discussion cool Adam VP first okay thank you um I think
061this policy is really really um important because there's there seems to be sometimes a misconceptions that parents don't have a voice and I think this policy really um defines outlines the process and the procedures for parents who have questions about the materials instructional resources that are being provided to their students and so I just really want to thank the team for being able to spend additional time on this particular policy because as we constantly State our parents do have a voice and I believe this policy really identifies you know how to go about utilizing that voice and making it known alongside of your principals and your teachers um just you know to be able to have that dialogue and so I just want to thank my colleagues because this is a policy that we often
062people say or my you know we don't have a voice we don't have a say and this policy really provides clear direction as to how families can go about having very important conversations around the instructional resources that their kids receive on a daily basis so I just wanted to say thank you for Nicole just very quickly I think you are absolutely a posit Ive on point appropriate with the thought of this particular policy the one thing I would say though is that I wouldn't necessarily say that most of the Grievances that we might be getting could be frivolous I think a lot of this is based on how people interpret reality how they interpret what is appropriate in a way that they believe and more often than not it's our opportunity even be it this
063process to educate folks on what their actual uh protection under First Amendment really entails and it does not entail anything that is lewd or disruptive to a school environment let me say that again this is not Michael this is the U.S Supreme Court that says as long as it's not lewd or disruptive to a to a school day or School environment that first amendment aspect of this is actually protected so what we are doing is standing in Fidelity with law we're standing in fidelity be with what we know is best and most appropriate but giving voice giving opportunity for efficacy in the process giving us the opportunity whether we establish a committee or not to identify what those qualifications for something being taken off the roles for reading and for consumption for student learning whether
064there's real Merit to that or not so again I don't want to say something is going to be frivolous I think more often than not maybe it's just ignorance maybe it's just not knowing and it's our opportunity to educate in the process thank you thank you other comments please call the roll Ms Reyes yes vice president Vera yes president Adair yes Ms beckerly yes Mr Brown yes Mr Cole yes Dr Pierce yes motion carries thank you this was particularly important one we have not had a process at all for what to do if somebody raises a complaint and now we do uh you've all read about school districts around the country the state and in our own suburbs where there have been complaints with no processes in place and a lot of difficulty and uh
065we're determined to do this ahead of time before we see any such things at some point we may see something but now we know how to deal with it the next policy uh 4.7 the policy is 25 10. this is one that we heard some comments about and tried to make some changes and eventually we realized that the best course is simply to rescind policy 4.7 which pertains to adoption of textbooks it's already covered elsewhere in the policies I move that we rescind the policy 2510. second in a motion a second in discussion seeing them please call the roll vice president Vera yes president Adair yes Ms beckerly yes Mr Brown yes Mr Cole yes Dr Pierce yes Mrs Reyes yes promotion carried thank you the next policy uh item 4.8 is policy 2240. this
066pertains to controversial issues and explains uh how we deal with controversial issues explains what a controversial issue is and uh who can complain and uh and the process for dealing with that again it's similar to 2520 in in some respects and has a similar process I move that we adopt policy 2240. there's been a second any discussion yes yes um I I was kind of waiting till we got through all of these to get to here to sort of make some comments about this whole package um first of all I want to Express gratitude to everyone who worked on it and gratitude to what seems to have been reported by some community members Amanda from kaleidoscope and Courtney Johnson that there was collaboration and that we listened to each other um harkening back to this
067feels like a this is an important moment in our district that sort of process is what we have to keep doing and I think it's worth calling out that we seem to have done it fairly well here so everyone involved I want to thank you for that and commend you for it important because when you sort through it all what the board is doing and I'm very proud to be a member of the board that is doing this is making it clear to our CCS community that we don't want to shy away from controversial issues we don't want our teachers to shy away we don't want them to self-center censor themselves in terms of what they choose to teach in terms of what the Librarians put on their shelves and what we have discussed in
068our classrooms um and and it's important that we take the stand given what's swirling around us and um the state and National um communities that we make it clear to our community that this is our value system and I'm very gratified that we're saying this this explicitly and I think that um basically what we're saying is we have your backs do what you know is best for our children and I I've been honored to have participated in enough book discussions and enough conversations with young people to know that when you handle these controversial and difficult topics while everybody grows and it's what they need and they need us to be there and present and able to do it with them in an entirely appropriate age-appropriate respectful um open and you know factual way and we
069need to not be afraid to do that and I'm very happy that we're saying that what I will challenge our superintendent and her team as we go forward let's make sure that message permeates down because it's really going to be tempting for our teachers in the buildings to say oh I don't want to teach that book this year or maybe I shouldn't have that book on the you know books that we in past would have taught I mean I know that if I were thinking about this year there's books that I would think twice about um you know sharing with my students or topics or maybe I'd avoid talking about that we would have had conversations about in the past because you know it's controversial in this you know it's kind of hard to not
070have that radar pinging if we're interacting with our children today in this environment so I think that um it's really important that our Administration trust our teachers and encourage our teachers to be Fearless in this environment where feel fear is permeating thank you other comments thank you call the rule president Adair yes Ms beckerly yes Mr Brown yes Mr Cole absolutely yes Dr Pierce yes Ms Reyes vice president of Europe yes motion carries and uh for what it's worth I share uh carols comments totally and uh teachers we're giving you a very clear signal of what we expect what we want you to do what we want you to be able to do and without fear thank you and we will back you up so thank you next 4.9 is policy 5710 dealing with student
071complaints this one there is no change made since the first rating and uh no comments pertaining to this particular one and uh it's just as is second I move approval the second out of order there um we'll accept that um any comments say none please call the roll Ms beckerly yes Mr Brown yes Mr Cole yes Dr Pierce yes Reyes stepped out vice president Vera yes president Adair yes motion carries next is item 4.10 uh this pertains to policy 57.80 this explains explicitly what our student and parent writes in all of this process and dealing with the district and provide some pretty good guidance for that process of explaining rights move that we approve this policy wait point of order it's it's listed as a rescission 57.80 yes 4 10. I'm sorry yes it is
072we had two decisions uh yes it's covered in elsewhere pretty thoroughly and I move that we rescind this policy as noted on the agenda second any discussion it's called the roll Mr Brown yes Mr Cole yes Dr Pierce yes vice president of Vera yes president Adair yes Ms beckerly yes motion carries thank you and finally we have item 4.11 this pertains to policy 9130 and this one deals with public complaints just as a couple items ago we dealt with student complaints this is the process for complaints from the public explains who can complain several levels of resolution that this can go through and who gets to make the decisions along the way and of course it ends before the board the board is ultimately the decision maker on this and uh there's not a whole
073lot of change and I've just presented now for approval I move that we approve policy 9130. second bit of motion in a second any discussion please call the roll oh oh sorry Dr Pierce um so this item along with 5710 and 20 to 40. I I just want to call attention that we were very intentional about using gender inclusive language moving away from his her to more inclusive there using students so we were very intentional in terms of how we are modeling for our community what we want to see in our classrooms in terms of inclusiveness in terms of ensuring that our students and community members have voice and agency and so today I am thrilled that as a board we've come together to put processes in place so our community members our parents Guardians
074as well as our students have a process now where they can directly engage with our administrators at the building and District level to to say what they want what they need where their needs can be met and to also at the same time continue to provide our Educators and I use that very Loosely to include our teachers but also all of our staff members be it bus drivers our lunch attendants our custodians that are in buildings but to give them the freedom to teach the very real lessons that need to be taught and so by protecting I like to say educator Freedom it provides an opportunity for our students to really learn those life lessons that in fact make them better human beings so again I think all of our colleagues and all of our
075administrators and staff members that worked on these policies and that were just really intentional about ensuring that we have concise and inclusive language thank you please call the roll Mr Cole yes Dr Pierce yes Ms Reyes yes vice president Vera yes president Adair yes Ms beckerly yes Mr Brown yes motion carries thank you and I just want to again Echo everyone that worked on that entire set of packages like everyone else has and just reiterate um you know it's Our intention to leave politics out of the classroom and know that we have your backs a CCS team as we move through this um and it's gonna probably get a little bit harder uh in this world but know that is if we stand together as a community we can be that inclusive learning environment that
076our superintendent talked about in her video for all of our children our team and our community so thank you to everyone that worked on those and now we just have to let everyone know how to do the how to do the process [Laughter] absolutely and we will be prepared to do that so that everyone knows the role that they play in supporting these policies thank you and um I will just go ahead and turn it over to you because you are up next with your superintendent report thank you good evening board members and Community welcome back to the 2023-2024 school year today we had an exciting invigorating day of professional learning we welcome back our elementary and middle school leaders and we kicked off the new school year at Mifflin High School with our entire
077central office leaders and school-based administrators we spent the morning discussing our priorities for the new year welcoming new faces while anchoring the work in our portrait of a graduate board goals and guardrails throughout the day we were very intentional about modeling the importance of strengthening relationships between each other and across teams and departments but tonight we're going to talk about School Readiness and being prepared for day one tonight's presentation will focus on our planning and preparation for the upcoming school year in key areas this presentation serves as a follow-up to our previous presentation back in June now I'll turn it over to Monique jacquette chief of strategic priorities who is leading the day one CCS presentation for us tonight thank you superintendent Chapman and good evening president Adair vice president Vera and members of the
078board tonight the team is excited to share updates on our day one CCS Back to School Readiness strategy but first we would like to acknowledge and thank each and every team member who had a role in preparing Woodcrest our year-round school for a successful day one last week as we welcome student staff and families it was evident that our day one CCS strategy is a step in the right direction as a reminder the goal of our day one CCS strategy is to ensure all Columbus City school students families staff and facilities are equipped and ready for optimal support teaching and learning on the first day of school August 23rd this summer our Collective efforts have been focused on the following outcomes making sure our facilities are clean secure and inviting that staff are hired onboarded
079and in place instructional materials are delivered to schools students are enrolled in the correct grades and courses and that families have received Essential Day One information from the district before we hear from members of the team I would like to briefly share the process we've implemented to ensure each of our schools are ready to receive students and staff on day one We Begin by first establishing common language and understanding of our business and operations standard operating procedures or Sops this important First Step allowed us to have a consensus view of how routine annual procedures work requests and special projects are prioritized in the district each week our cross-departmental team meets to assess our overall progress review feedback from our school leaders and take action to address challenges that require the input of multiple departments during
080these weekly check-ins department leaders are able to strategize and make decisions based on data and feedback from our schools this level of collaboration and transparency eliminates the need for guesswork and increases our overall efficiency and productivity this is a screenshot of the self-assessment that departments complete prior to our weekly Readiness team meetings within this form department leaders assign a self-rating of overall progress toward completion of tasks from off track to complete in addition leaders give key updates to the Readiness team give key updates to the Readiness team I'm sorry should be aware of including any critical issues that could impact opening day the self-assessment step is also where departments name any additional supports or resources that may be needed this is a new process for the team that's creating a positive shift in the way
081we collaborate and collectively problem solve having dedicated time each week to check in with colleagues receive feedback and chart our progress provides us the opportunity to best serve our students families and staff without duplicating efforts or overlooking important details the next step in this process is gathering feedback from our school leaders utilizing the Back to School Readiness survey tool principals walk their school buildings and exterior grounds and rate their Readiness in over 60 standards across nine categories all of which are essential for a happy productive and safe school year individual School responses to the survey tool populate to a central dashboard that allows the Readiness team to zero in on areas that require attention and resolution in real time completing the Readiness survey is not a new process for schools but this year we've added
082a component that allows for two-way communication between schools and departments this eliminates the need for principals to send multiple Communications to multiple departments and vice versa thank you for allowing me to share a quick behind the scenes look at our day one CCS strategy in action in the days and weeks ahead we'll continue to work and collaborate across departments to ensure a great opening day in ccs tonight leaders in various Mission critical areas will provide updates on the status of Summer work and we'll begin with Mr Trevino in Capital Improvements so thank you for the opportunity this evening to lead off with Capital Improvements so very excited to give you a snapshot of where we stand with this Summer's work so the slide you see in front of you lists those same critical projects we
083talked about as we enter the summer adding to it a photograph of our new Elementary playground standard that we implemented this year so this is a prototype that we intend to replicate on an ongoing basis so this is the primary structure that we've implemented at eight sites there's also a companion Early Childhood or Pre-K playground that goes with it as well and so we have five of those for this summer for a total of 13 sites pleased to report that of those five Early Childhood sites all five of them are already installed three of them are completely complete the other so two of them are complete three of them are outstanding just having The Mulch and all the kind of final touches put together of those primary sites six of the eight are complete the
084last two are installing this week so we're on a really good Pace to wrap up this work before the start of school I'm going to take a couple slides and give you a preview on where we stand with Hamilton Stem so again this slide you already saw so just to kind of recap all those major scope items that we're tackling at this elementary school and that very comprehensive renovation so as of yesterday painting was 99 complete new ceilings 95 complete casework 75 complete with the last Wing kind of being the green Wing which you'll understand better when you see a couple more pictures installing this week the new flooring is already 40 40 complete it's been intentionally holding off a little bit to let all the other trades go first so that's not a delay
085by any means there's actually three crews working this week to make sure that flooring gets installed and to keep us on schedule and uh you'll see here in just a second they've also started refinishing the gem floor which is a pretty amazing transformation of that space so I also did want to expand on this slide that I showed you before because I think it is one of the magic about projects and part of the reason why I get so excited about this work that our team gets to sit down and work with the staff and collaborate id8 and take that imaginative work to design through that Center piece which you see is that kind of rendering so that computer image that we can generate for people so they can really start to understand what these
086spaces are going to look like and then now you see the reality and it's really pretty close it's really pretty stunning to me that we're able to render these things and show people in advance and then actually be able to produce them and so here's just a few more images from inside Hamilton Stem and you get to kind of really see how the designer which in this case is Ansley one of our project managers uses color it's a way find across the building and so there's color by wings and then if you see on the right side all the colors kind of collide in those corridors so the corridors are each color schemed as well and it's just a really fun vibrant mix that I think our students and staff are really going to enjoy
087and then in the center you get a little bit of a glimpse of what the classroom casework looks like also think a big Improvement that teachers will have access to water for students to be able to drink right in their classroom so they don't have to send them down the hallway anymore and then here is the image of that multi-purpose space so if you remember before it was fairly dark and drab and so now it's very bright cheery has these very colorful sound blocked sound pattern panels on the wall which are very functional so intentionally what we're going to do work we're going to try to make it as attractive as we can but they're very functional to really help knock down reverberation and then hopefully you can see clearly enough that wood floor being
088sanded it is going to be beautiful I cannot wait for you all to see it uh but then moving on so same risk that we faced before at this point we're confident we're going to complete all of our projects and have school ready for the first day of school but did just want to keep those up there front and center and then on the left side you see the picture of the corridors at the former Brookhaven now International and Global site and again I don't know if you can remember how dark and dreary those floors were the lockers have all been repainted the floors have been completely redone so after this summer we'll have all new flooring throughout the entirety of that facility and then moving on to some of the more infrastructure work on
089the right hand side again not nearly as exciting for probably most of our staff but brand new Chiller on the roof brand new boilers in the mechanical room so again we're going to we're feeling very comfortable confident that we'll have a very comfortable building both summer and winter and everything in between for the upcoming school year systems there are starting up as we speak we should be fully operational this time next week and then moving on to our big HVAC projects for this year so those are Columbus Alternative High School and Hubbard Elementary School so at Columbus Alternative we had a major electrical upgraded electrical upgrade we needed to complete to be able to bring all that new air conditioning online that was complete almost three weeks ago and so equipment startup has been ongoing
090this uh these past two weeks so as of today sixty percent of our classrooms have their air conditioning running already we expect the last of that equipment will be finished for startup for classrooms this week and the remainder of all the work we'll complete next week so well ahead of the schedule to be able to ready to be ready for the start of school and then similar at Hubbard we actually had AEP finishing up our power upgrade there today all the equipment there is complete installed and just waiting on that power so contractors will be working the rest of this week we expect to have Hubbard fully operational by the end of this week and you can see in that picture so a lot of infrastructure that goes in above the ceilings but the ceilings
091are going back in as we speak as well so very confident we'll be ready for school at Hubbard as well one of our other projects we kind of made into a bigger project than we maybe absolutely needed to but we really did think it was warranted given the condition of Mifflin Middle School so we went into Mifflin Middle School to do an HVAC upgrade to make sure we could get all of our classrooms air-conditioned but I know we mentioned before we have a couple challenges at Mifflin number one the building is way too large conditions pretty poor so we've been able to reduce the footprint of that building by about 30 percent we've kind of isolated off the northern half of the third floor as well as the portion of the building that's under the
092gymnasium I think nobody will notice it if you hadn't been in the building before it's been very nicely partitioned off and so as part of that work HVAC will be ongoing throughout the school year but we've also really intentionally worked on the finishes and so again you have to remember what it looked like before but you can start to get a flavor in the corridors of how we've unified the color screen color scheme across the corridors where we had too many lockers before that were in very poor condition we've just taken them out and covered them over try to make things look as clean as we can certainly opportunities for artwork that we'll work with the principal on getting filled in with student work I'm in the in the center picture you can see again
093if you didn't see it before it was very very dark navy blue very oppressive feeling so we've really brightened it up with paint we've added new lights I think it'll be a much more welcoming environment for our students and then again that HVAC upgrade will be continuing all the way through summer of 2024. I also wanted to highlight one project that was brought to us but we're really excited to be able to incorporate um and so this was an initiative brought To Us by the academic leadership team where there's been a real struggle I think no mystery to retain and engage middle school students and so we took it as a challenge and an opportunity to introduce our first formal anyways student lounge and so at the very top left you'll see the raw space
094so we've not brought the furniture in yet because we want to make sure the cons the worse the construction is done first if it looks like a real picture where it says Mifflin Middle School student lounge that's actually a rendering done for us by the vendor who's supplying all the furniture and so that gives you a flavor of what it's going to look like and this is a space that is dedicated for our students and so very flexible furniture that our students can get very comfortable in whether they need to work independently in small groups or collaborate but we're really excited to get the feedback on that space so as we continue to do these kinds of projects we can incorporate very similar spaces that really engage our students and then on the right hand
095side the picture is maybe not that impressive just yet but we also knew we had a real issue with kind of that first impression so new paint throughout all the corridors but a real focus on the entry Lobby and then the cafeteria space that's open to it so it'll be an all new appearance when you come in so new furniture in the cafeteria all new paint all new ceilings all new lights and so really trying to put our best foot forward as we welcome the community our students and our staff back this fall and then just a couple more highlights so on the left hand side you'll see our Westmoor Middle School which is being upgraded in the gymnasium along with Johnson Park so new bleacher seats I think the floors at westmar were already
096redone but Johnson Park is was included new divider curtains just all those amenities we really need to have a functional gym and then on the right hand side is an image of our Middle School cafeteria refresh so this is a particular picture at the girls middle school but the middle schools will all have consistent Furnishings so it's a combination of that very quick to um collapse furniture or custodians can get spaces mopped but it also includes Booth seating at every site two top tables high top tables Gathering Community tables so again just giving our students that real opportunity to sit in an environment that works for them and not necessarily the same environment every day and then maybe some of our most Nitty Gritty projects so we have a lot of roofing work underway as
097well so we have a total of 10 roof projects in construction as we speak those are Innis Highland West West Broad Woodward Park Whetstone Cranbrook Scottwood Leawood and Walnut Ridge so it's been a busy summer some of these projects are wrapping up as we speak and then on the right hand side you see our walk-in cooler upgrades so there are six of those in total all six of them are installed they're inspected the first of them are starting up this week the last four will start up next week so again we're feeling very confident that we're gonna be ready for the first day of school and with that I will hand it to my colleague Mr steffelbeam to give you an update on Transportation good evening president Eric vice president Vera members of the board
098Dr Chapman unfortunately I don't have all the pictures that Alex has but I want to provide you with an update on all the wonderful work that the transportation team has been working on since our last meeting in June um the routing for the 23 24 school year is nearly complete we're doing the final stages of that right now where we're pairing routes to make sure that we have efficient and reliable routes that make sense those routes are slated to be completed no later than August 6th and our mailers are on track to be sent out by August 11th my apologies there it is I was looking at that one all right um the route the mailers will be slated to be sent out and delivered by August 11th as our deadline that we're having for
099that we're on track for that as well starting on August 7th a parents will be able to log into Infinite Campus in the parent portal and that information will be also loaded into that system so they can check their busing information and routing plans there we have held all of our meetings with our contracted Partners this year we're going to increase the numbers to 105 routes that they will be handling for us complete routes and there are going to be approximately 170 van students that we're still going to be able to Route we've been able to make that more efficient this year by actually routing those ourselves internally and then providing them with the routing information [Music] some of the other things that we've been working on this year the transportation team focused on two
100main goals this summer and that's communication and Staffing our first goal was to improve our customer service and communication abilities to families for this we're going to be utilizing two new tools to help us with this process first is the campus messenger this is going to be our main point of communication we're still working on the finalized details of getting that implemented but we should be on track by the first day of school the second is our bus my bus stop application this process is a phone application that parents can download that will allow them to track the bus while it is on Route it will also allow us to send push notifications for anything that may be occurring to that route why it is on route along with these added communication tools we have
101hired additional staff in our communication Center we now have 18 call center reps and representatives and seven dispatchers to help handle those con situations where something may arise uh our second goal was to retain as many drivers from the previous school year as we possibly could and hire new drivers the Nationwide driver stories is still a serious problem for us since June 12th we have been able to we have interviewed 84 candidates and currently have 59 of those candidates in the process to become a trainee to date we have hired 12 new drivers that have either returned from C to CCS or have graduated the training academy and are now completed and certified new school bus drivers at as of today's date we have 487 active drivers available for the first day of school and
102at this point I'm going to turn this over to my colleague Miss Amy groper good evening board members and community members tonight I'll be providing an update on Staffing as of August 1st 96.5 of the certificated positions are filled for the upcoming school year 99 of general education classroom positions 94 of departmental positions 87 percent of special education classroom positions and 92 percent of special education departmental positions are filled 88 of classroom positions are filled as of August 1st 75 percent of bus driver positions 88 percent of instructional assistance and 94 of the remaining classified positions are filled in preparation for the upcoming school year 330 certificated positions have been hired consisting of 115 general education classroom teachers 128 departmental positions and 87 special education teachers and departmental positions 687 classified positions have been filled
103between August 1st 2022 and July 31st 2023 consisting of 72 bus drivers 207 instructional assistants and 408 other classified positions to be ready for the first day of school we continue to recruit top talent to The District in all roles and continue processing new hires the process is underway to place substitutes and vacancies in positions where teachers are out on long-term leads we currently have 283 building substitutes 30 of which hold teaching licenses and 308 daily substitutes members of the talent Department have been holding regular meetings with the special education department and academic services to assess and strategize the best way to provide services to the students of ccs placements are currently in process to move teachers able to obtain a high needs supplemental licensure in hard to fill subject areas in accordance with the
104cea master agreement the talent department will work collaboratively with academic services and cea to utilize this internal transfer process to redeploy existing staff into identified areas of high need throughout the district and prioritizing classroom positions while preparing for the 2023-2024 school year the talent Department continues recruitment efforts recruiters will be available to discuss job opportunities at our Columbus City Schools walk-in hiring event which will be happening weekly throughout August we'll be in attendance at the Ohio Means Jobs career fair in Cuyahoga County on August 4th the African-American Wellness walk on August 12th the Latino festival on August 12th and 13 13th Easton unplugged on August 17th back to school fair with Columbus City Schools on August 19th and this sea bus Soul Fest on August 19th now if you'll be attending one of these events
105please don't hesitate to stop by and say hi and Shameless plug don't forget to spread the word that Columbus City Schools is hiring and we are the employer of choice in central Ohio finally we'd like to talk about our talent pipeline work occurring pipeline work is absolutely crucial to the future success in Staffing our schools 11 Columbus City School Employees are in the Capital University cohort for the capital city teacher Residency program and we are also engaged with odhe as Ohio moves towards implementing a teacher apprenticeship program our ex expectation is that CCS will have the most robust teacher apprenticeship program in this state and now I'd like to turn it over to Dr Klein president Adair vice president Vera board members and superintendent Chapman as well as our other distinguished guests in an effort
106to enroll scholars in a timely manner the central Enrollment Center will be offering extended appointment hours the central enrollment staff will be joined by the student data Specialist Team to serve customers both virtually and in person for appointments Monday Fridays and Saturdays from 8 A.M to 4 30 p.m and Tuesdays Wednesdays and Thursdays from 8 A.M to 7 30 PM beginning August 8th and through September 28th our information management team has completed our year-end processing and assured that Infinite Campus our student information management system is up and ready for the next amazing school year as we prepare for the start of the 23-24 school year our student Information Systems team has been collaborating directly with School administration supporting the completion of Master schedules and individual student scheduling finally we continue to evaluate the current data
107Integrations with third-party vendors such as versatrans canvas clever and many more to assure that our students parents and staff all have the appropriate access needed to support our Scholars with our student data support team they have been focused on updating and aligning our public schoolworks assessments to the infinite campus dashboard and making sure that documentation is updated with changes for the new school year they also have been very excited to pitch in and collaborate with multiple business owners in Columbus City Schools to offer our hard-working secretaries and August office Academy to remember our office Academy will be held tomorrow at Columbus Afrocentric and provides professional development training and updates to all of our building department as well as substitute secretaries in preparation for the school year this will be an in-depth training providing updates such
108as the new look of Infinite Campus changes and updates to our retention of Student Records pursuant to House Bill 33 attendance and behavior documentation per per our newly updated guide to Student Success this training will allow our secretaries to be empowered to reach new heights of accountability next please welcome Jacqueline Bryant with our Communications and engagement team good evening I am delighted to share some exciting updates from Communications and engagement we have transformed our district website into the ultimate hub for everything related to back related to the upcoming back to school season the back to school Hub houses a wealth of essential resources guides and tips to ensure a smooth return to campus for students parents and Educators alike from Parent Portal assistance to the latest school supply lists health checklists and even building improvements
109our website is tailored to meet the needs of our CCS Community just visit ccsoh.us to explore the back to school hub don't forget to mark your calendars for the essential CCS event of the summer the district's annual back to school resource Fair will be held on August 19th from 10 a.m to 2 p.m on the Fort Hayes Metropolitan Center's Campus located at 546 Jack Gibbs Boulevard families can look forward to an action-packed day filled with fun food and fabulous resources free backpacks and school supplies Wellness exams and much much more our office of Engagement has collaborated with various CCS departments and more than 100 Community Partners to ensure every CCS family receives the support they need I've listed a few of those Partners on the screen our bilingual Liaisons will also be on site to
110make the resource Fair even more inclusive providing a warm welcome and assistance to our English as second language families the back to school resource Fair promises to kick off the upcoming school year with a blast if you need more details please or to stay updated I'm sorry log on to ccsoh.us or contact our fact line coordinator the number 614-221-3228 thank you for your time and I now hand it back to Dr Chapman for any questions that you may have thank you Jackie for closing us out and thank you to our team members for your efforts and your energy around this work all summer as well as providing those key updates during our meeting tonight president Adair will entertain any questions that board members may have about what we've shared yes we have questions from Dr
111Pierce beckerly and Vera and cool thank you so much for the presentation this is a transportation question as we think about the Vans not only being used to transport our students to and from school we've also allocated dollars to purchase Vans for schools do we have any updates on those vans being made available to the schools we do not at this time they they still do not uh make a van for us what we are entertaining is a Microbus system now and where you've just been we've just gotten that information here about mid-summer that those are an available option however the cost for those is extensive so we're looking at how we can utilize that and fit that into a process anticipate that a proposal will come before the board related to this and this
112new development we're still in the very early infancy stages of researching them we're introducing using systems how do we plan to educate parents and community members and I say community members because I'm thinking about the grandmothers or the grandparents and family members that are helping to get students on buses how are we going to communicate this new system to them we will collaborate with some of the other communication teams within ccs to provide the processes of how we do that and what it what it entails to sign up for this service and it's a service that's provided through our routing software versatrans this was just made aware to us here within the last couple weeks and we're trying to get that process in place and go through some of the requirements that we need to
113make sure that we have the the authority to go ahead and Implement that as far as campus messenger goes it is the same system that our whole District uses at this point my last question then relates to our facilities so Mr Trevino how are you sir I'm great how are you Dr Pierce I am well so my heart is just thrilled that we are introducing student lounges within our buildings um I have had the great opportunity to meet with a number of our high schoolers and they have talked about the spaces that they are creating in their buildings around Wellness spaces where students can go and take a moment where they have lava lamps and all types of things where students can just get the break that they need my question is around since we
114are introducing this do we have a timeline for how we seek to expand it throughout buildings are we thinking about providing resources to students and student groups who might be interested in determining if their buildings have such space that they can create and I think about some of our buildings Who currently have like senior lounges is there a way that we can expand that and make it possible for us students who might need a moment to be in that space to have that space that was a loaded question the president there to uh board member Pierce so I I absolutely this is in its infancy so uh actually really thrilled that the uh question idea even got thrown to us um like from a d siloing standpoint I'm not sure there is any better way
115for us to impact change than to have exactly these discussions so I don't have an answer for you on how that how we will roll out but obviously part of the I think the messaging behind Pi Levy is listen there's very little we can do when we don't have funds to be able to you know we can plan everything but until we have the mechanism to actually Implement there's not a lot of reason to talk and get people excited about something so kind of hand in hand I think we should be having these conversations with staff with students how do we make impact now on a very practical standpoint I will tell you one of the big challenges in our Legacy Buildings that nice fluffy word we use for the old buildings is they don't
116have a lot of spaces to support this kind of work versus you go into a new building and you're going to find more offices more tutor rooms spaces that we might readily turn into a sensory room or a student lounge and so I think that is where part of the message has to be that we cannot take the foot off the pedal on Master planning some of these things we can fairly easily retrofit into Old buildings some of them are going to be much more challenging so so the short answer is yes uh how we do that I can't tell you right this second but it's that part's very exciting for us um and as you think about that part is there going to be a way to incorporate student voice in this through maybe
117our superintendent's ambassadors programs or building level I don't absolutely I'd also want to share that we talked about two different strategies in this conversation so SC crating SEL spaces or spaces that provide flexible seating for our students I want everyone to know that we are creating those spaces inside of our classrooms so it's not a separate space in some instances and then also in all of our Peak classrooms that we have certainly invested resources and supports for them to feel more like an SEL space for adults as well as staff and so that's been a strategy that we've been working on in some of our classrooms there's buildings you'll also see separate SEO space cases again for staff for students to access that flexible seating Dem lighting warm and fuzzy spaces for them to regulate
118their feelings check in with themselves and reconnect before and reset themselves before returning to class or for work so that's one strategy that's already in place and you'll probably see in many of our buildings and then this new strategy of expanding and investing in our student lounges certainly we want to make sure that we're centering those spaces around our students voice what they need this this resonated or came up to us based on student needs they were advocating for themselves and fortunately at this time we certainly had the resources to fund those initiatives so just want us to make sure that we are aware of two different strategies but certainly all great work that supports the needs of our students as well as our staff exciting excellent thank you guys remember beckerly um I I
119want to start with process for a second because I feel like Monique set us up or set me up because we were all about dashboards and for a split second I thought we were going to be talking about this is where we are and this is what we need to close this is where we are and this is what we need I mean to open sorry and this is where we are and that's what we need to open and and my sense is that's what's happening during these um weekly meetings and that's a beautiful thing and I think the goal should be to have those dashboards on the website I mean at some point but that's only after we create safe space and that's only after you've established the process such that people all the
120leaders are comfortable saying well I'm not going to make it here I am going to make it here and this is the real problem and I don't know if we can fix it in time like all of that so I I wanted to a complement that process and then note that we had that great presentation then we kind of backslid into the old way of this is what we've been doing all summer and all of it is great work and I completely am grateful and applaud all of the hard work but at the at the end of the day at the board level and and I hate the thought of how much time everyone put into presenting preparing these presentations and because you know we don't really need to know all the hard work we
121have to trust that it's happening but what we need to know is and now I'm going to get into some of the substances for two three years running we've had trouble with transportation for all of the reasons that the whole country is having trouble with Transportation now I heard that we've increased our communication staff and then my question is is it enough and how do we know that we're going to be able to tell our parents where the students are this year without them not knowing if they're delayed and that sort of thing because to me that's the thing that's within our Locust of control and and are we going to start with this is where we were last year with two hour delays and percentage of communication and wait lines I mean you had
122some of that data so I think a what we should be interested in as a board is how is that going to be different this year and how are we going to track it and board member Becker Lee before Rodney responds I just want to share that there is so much information in the dashboard the team is meeting weekly to review it it's it's an iterative process it's fluid it changes regularly um as Monique said the schools are giving us feedback on 60 different indicators on that dashboard but the purpose of the real work happens in those meetings right where they are talking about where are we in terms of meeting our goals are we on track but for me as the the leader in this organization what I'm most impressed with is the collaboration
123that happens in those meetings so if a team member is saying we're having a challenge with X another team member is saying we got your back we're going to step in and we're going to help you and support you so that your team can make sure that this is addressed again with one goal one team being ready and showing that we are you know we'll be prepared and ready for day one so I just want just want to Echo that there's lots of data in the dashboard that's being collected um it's an um a very fluid process but certainly um we there were certain things that we really really really wanted to share with the community tonight as we prepare for day one and and I just want to say that I'm suspecting that this
124feels very different for a lot of our staff and it's really wonderful really wonderful so I you know really terrific and I think as we grow in this way of being desileing I think that's what it absolutely um hopefully you will be more comfortable just saying this is the bottom line here and we don't need to you know you don't need to spend a day putting slides together to tell us all the wonderful things we're doing because we assume you're doing it but anyway so to make sure I understand your question can you repeat it again yeah I just you know shortage it's another and it's one thing to have a district that's you know crazy geographically and and all of those things are the challenges that are within your area of expertise and you
125can only do so much with where we are at this moment in time and the other thing though that concerns me has concerned me for the past three openings here uh School openings is being able to tell a parent where their student is or that the bus is going to be half an hour late so that you know the communication piece of it seems to be something that um we need to have a better handle on because I I you know for a parent not to know where their child is at five o'clock six o'clock in the evening is you know unacceptable absolutely and so that's the kind of thing that I think this as at least for me as we come upon my third School opening is oh do we have a plan to
126do that better so yes one of the plans was we hired additional staff to help within the call center so that we can reduce that volume is it enough I can't say if it's enough yet yeah but some of the other measures that we've put in place are in an effort to help reduce the number of calls to say where's my bus one of the facts is one of the very things that we're working on is trying to get that my bus stop tracking app which allows them to track that bus in real time we don't have that yet we're working on it we should we're working diligently to have that as quickly as we possibly can there's a couple things that we're struggling with on that to make sure and we're in the the
127final stages and we're collaborating tomorrow even more to make sure we have it um but what that would do was reduce the number of calls that are being sent into the call they have it on there so with the increased number of Staff the reduced number of calls the ability to track that bus by itself and know that it's coming it's awry and to receive the notifications when it's running behind that's all part of the process of that school bus app that we want to be able to track with that's also part of the tools that we want to use campus messenger for to be able to send those kind of information to the parents so that we know hey this bus is running about 45 minutes behind or a half an hour behind we
128can send them notifications we still have the other practices where they can go into the call center and the dispatchers can immediately check with a bus and make sure that the student is on there we're running late for some reason maybe they don't have the ability to to have the phone but that all information is still going to be there so these two measures that we're trying to add along with the measures of the additional staff are effort to inform and communicate better than we ever have and I just think that let's track that absolutely okay we will be able to track the the volume that we had last year at you know on each day versus the volume that we have this year and I think what what we want you to know we
129want our community and to know is that the team is working diligently to automate the process right because before what's different from last year previous years you had to call a person and talk to a person to find out where the bus was if the bus was on time late or what have you but we're trying to automate that process which certainly will significantly decrease the number of calls that need to be made to the call center certainly we've increased capacity there so we can handle additional call volume but ideally the the goal would be to automate the process and I think that not only is this important just because it's straight up important being able to show improvement over last year um in real time as the news stories start to unfold is also
130going to be important for our other initiatives this fall so if you know it's assuming it's not going to be perfect which will be really hard um yes but we had X thousands of calls in the first two weeks last year we had three thousand you know whatever story we need to have let's be ready for that because I I have trust that it's going to be much better this year so let's make sure we can point to that quickly um next question um on Staffing the um I don't think this isn't a transportation question okay uh I just um and I I'm not necessarily looking for the details but you know how well I don't know what obviously the shortfalls are in Special Ed on the teaching side and again it's sort of the
131same variation of the problem we can't solve that problem overnight there's a national shortage of teachers and those are in sort you know shortage of special ed teachers and instructional assistants in particular um I love all the so two things one is you know some Assurance or some communication about what the plan is um to address that uh given that we have a shortfall and we know it um and I don't need I don't even mean to answer it now I just want to highlight that that's that's the thing that we need information about yes beckerly I think that Courtney addressed that to some extent he did which definitely did um she everybody's meeting and collaborating yes well we're looking at our vacancies and looking at enrollment to determine if they are true vacancies and
132where we have an increase in the number of students perhaps we need to shift teachers shift allocations perhaps we have a decrease maybe a class is not full so that is a process that will be an ongoing process to look at our capacity and how we can utilize our internal resources differently recognizing that if the teachers aren't the special ed teachers aren't knocking on our door new applicants then we recognize them we have to utilize our current resources differently internally in addition she mentioned they mentioned all of the upcoming events where we are doing additional recruiting and she also mentioned the number of building substitutes as as well as daily substitutes that we have on hand that we can certainly deploy as needed so there's some flexibility here but we do not want to under
133mess the underestimate or underscore the need the need is real and the need continues to be real not only for Columbus City Schools but for districts across the state as well as across the country but we have our eyes on it it's on our radar we are looking at the data and being as Nimble as possible again with our resources knowing that we may need to Pivot and change plans given where we are at this date so it's an ongoing process and we'll continue to keep this on our radar yeah no for sure I just I you know again being able to have a story quickly if it becomes an issue would be good that was basically it okay thank you remember Beverly I'm vice president Vera thank you president Adair and so I Echo
134a lot of the questions that have already been asked and so um and I think it's not just a story but having a solution that is going to work for our families is critical especially around special education um you know these numbers obviously are concerning and we also want to think about not overwhelming our staff our teachers doing work that is outside of their realm so I appreciate you highlighting a little bit more about what we can expect I also wanted to Circle back in terms of transportation and to also ensure as we know we have a very diverse district and so really wanting to understand further um or part of that you said that automation you know what it what what does that really look like for families who are new Americans or don't
135really speak English I know last year that you know we were trying some different things were there any new strategies as it relates to our our families who need bilingual services so as far as we're collaborating with Dr McNally's team to ensure that our forms of communication are all put out in multiple languages that we deal with the concept and the understanding is when a text message in the way I understand it is sent through or a message is sent through Infinite Campus to them it's translated into their their language that they're reading you can test that I mean I I hear you saying to your knowledge but what is really our process for actually testing that we can verify that thank you that's not a question for Rodney but um vice president Vera we
136certainly appreciate that push and certainly we'll explore that further to figure out again is that working certainly that's our expectation but is it working how well is it working and is it meeting the needs of our families and then my last question is related I have a question and a comment my last question um Dr Klein gave an overview as to kind of what is going on in terms of schedules and things but when can families actually expect students schedules and Infinite Campus president Adair to vice president Vera's question the individual school principals actually make a decision when they will turn on individual schedules for students as soon as they are ready Infinite Campus has a system that allows us to turn them on individually by building so that can be done as soon as
137a principal is ready that's okay okay um right all right thank you Dr Klein I appreciate that um and then lastly I just wanted to say thank you um Monique I love I love the dashboard I love what you're creating alongside of all your team members um to hear of just some operational strategies that are going to be huge for this District um you know I just want to thank you for your leadership and that space um you know I think it's it's just reflective of just all the great work you all are doing together collectively and I just wanted to thank you for that um and Mr Trevino I've already started receiving calls from parents uh thanking me for the Ada new playgrounds that they their kids are now able to play in and
138so I think that's just um you know really really amazing I've been able to drive by some of these installs and to see kids out there who are in wheelchairs being able to play I just wanted to say thank you for that work and families are already noticing um that one other thing I did want to just highlight a lot of the middle schoolers and high schoolers that we spend time with often ask me why their colors are always gray or just really dark colors you go into the elementary schools it's always it's vibrant color scheme and they're like what's up with our abilities like why is it always this like one color or it's so I just wanted to um you know just add that as food for thought the vibrancies that I saw
139in these pictures for elementary were very exciting and then I saw the gray at Mifflin and so I'm excited to see the work that's happening in our middle and high schools but I just want to be mindful as we are in this space of restorative practices and you know wanting to create environments for our kids being mindful also of like the finishings and the colors and the selections if we can be just thoughtful and more intentional in that space and that's not really coming from me that's coming from the kids we all work for so thank you uh thank you madam president um my questions around transportation so thank you so much for your patience Mr Rodney all right my first question is is how many routes have we totally identified are we settled on
140what we know are going to be the final number of routes we're we're to as of today we're at 5 35 but our team is working diligently to bring that down I don't know the exact number that we're going to come to but it will be lower than that number um through pairings and um offsetting some of our routes that fit together um the biggest thing that we wanted to focus on this year was the reliability and one of the things that we struggled with last year was how they were all spread out and we had no control over that so what our teams right now are doing is going through and pairing routes to make sure they make sense and in doing so they're also able to eliminate a couple things so the number
141is going down but I don't want to I don't know the exact number right now they're they're we're sitting at 5 35 when we finished routing everyone that we were aware of okay and they're going to Pare that down from there now with the 487 current available drivers identified to prepare to drive for us this pairing model that you're trying to utilize is it something that this number will be this number of drivers available will actually be able to accommodate and manage as it stands right now with the the contracts that we have with our partners to help offset they're going to take 105 of them so our total route number right now if it's 535 we're going to have about 430 that will be responsible for internally okay so our 487 will then be
142able to cover that with some drivers possibly available despair should folks not be able to make work that is our missed work that is our intent yes okay thank you for that Clarity um when you're thinking about a timeline obviously we want to be ready prior to the beginning the first day of school but is there a timeline between now and when you're really looking to finalize that that number and ideally is it around the date of the school Fair the 19th I know you guys will be participating in some measure with that we'll be finalized to the point that we will put it on Infinite Campus before uh August 6th August 6th is our drop deadline that we'll load that into the infinite campus therefore that the routes will be able to be viewed
143and then we'll make adjustments as we receive some more of the enrollment enrolled students that may not be in there yet so and this is more of a multiple question and final that is not just you but would also be Dr Klein and whoever else can come up and speak to specifically around this this fair I'm really excited that student services is going to be open that day just like they were last year I thought that worked out incredibly well for families and for children how are we looking at leveraging what you're going to know what you're preparing to know so that we're further informing families on site that day go ahead board president Adair to board member Cole's question we are prepared to not only help our families with their bus routes but remember
144the fair is going to be after they're already in an infinite campus so we will have our enrollment specialist we have a whole staff that will be there that will be helping parents as they come in and even our secretaries at Central enrollment they are participating and will be helping our parents so that we can get the greatest bang for our buck and we are very excited tomorrow we will actually at our secretary's Academy we'll be providing excellent customer service because we're going to teach all of them how to do it so that that customer service will be elevated and each of the secretaries in every one of the buildings and our department secretaries and substitute secretaries will know exactly where those bus routes are in Infinite Campus to serve serve our parents thank you
145very kindly I appreciate that we're arrest um thank you right thank you very much for hosting um East Coast migrant Head Start um uh the Head Start staff the transportation staff from that organization there were absolutely amazed about the information you shared um as they also are struggling with Transportation issues so they're taking a lot of information back but um so so that goes to my my question um with the you said we're going to have some partners that take a couple of routes some of the concerns I heard from some of our parents last year is they really appreciate the customer service um and the attentiveness of our bus drivers um and they had it wasn't perceived the same way from some of our contractors so I want to make sure that that's something
146that we keep on our radar is how um and this is something that occurred many years ago also as to why we brought buzzing in we had some issues uh where they weren't receiving the same service from our contractors as um if they were our own bus drivers so I just want to make sure that I put that in a radar because I had some of those issues the other concern that I had from some of our parents was the time on the bus for our very small children for our little kids our pre-K in a kindergarten so as we're looking at our routes what does that look like and how are we communicating to our parents about those routes and how long a small child is going to be on on that route and
147one of the things the tools that Head Start uses is they actually created a little video simulation so that um parents could show that to their kindergartens or what a bus drive should be and what it could look like and then also for some of our new arrivals we have a large new immigrant population in Columbus City Schools that have never been on buses so um I could share that simulation with you but um as as Dr Klein was talking um I was wondering can we have some sort of simulation of the buses at our Fair where our kids can go in sit down look at what it looks like have a simulator I've never been on a bus absolutely we La I think last year we had actually you know you wrote you rode
148the bus from the parking lot to the um to the fair um I remember that because that was my son's first time being on a big yellow bus and he was excited but we could certainly make sure that we have Hands-On opportunities for our families um again the purpose of the fair is to really provide our families with all of the information resources as well as experiences so that they can be successful and prepared for day one and I think go ahead I'd like to report to we do have that slated to be at the fair this year so we've been working in collaboration with the teams to make sure that we have additional resources there to bring the students on let them see the buses so we have a team slated to be there
149and I did the same with the schedule the students said that's the biggest question we always get is when is the bus schedule going to be announced when do I know what our when my kids with the number of the buses for our kids and where do I know our bus stop okay so the information will be loaded in Infinite Campus they can view it in Parent Portal under the transportation tab starting on August 7th and the mailers will be sent out by the end of that week so they would receive them within a couple days so the part of the things this year is we have the ability to control much more than we did last year yes and I know that some parents shared that the bus drivers were sharing like if they're
150going to be late and I think there's if the if the um the app is not ready to launch I think there are other ways that some of our own staff have been creative in communicating with our with our parents so kudos to our bus drivers and some of our our principals so thank you the rest of my is communication so Dr Chapman um so as our communication team was talking about our website I I've been accessing our our website and our language is not working so when you when you press espanol or Frances or anything it goes to this LEP page and nothing else is translated no nothing on Transportation nothing on the home page um it could be user error so I will put that out there because I was on the wrong
151page when I was asking we will investigate that foreign and this happened last year um so um the other thing that I um uh vice president Vera kind of mentioned how are we communicating to some of the new Americans um and I was looking at our our portal charity Newsies announced um that they're allowing our parents to register for free clothing and one of the things that our organization that serves uh Spanish-speaking Latino Hispanic families did is we invited those families to come into our Center and we would help them go on and register their children so they could receive free clothes for the first day of school so I would encourage us to reach out to organizations like um that serve immigrant populations to see how they can help us sign people up for
152the student portal uh tax communicating I know we're signed up into the partner piece but I think we could and that wasn't even my idea there was somebody else on my team I wish I could take credit for that but um she saw the announcement from charity Newsies and she quickly just said you know what I bet you our parents don't don't know how to do that and she got five volunteers eight computers and we had in um in less than two days we had 35 parents that log that came to the center we gave them two hours and it took a matter of minutes to walk them through because same there the portal the here's the link is in Spanish but the application was in English um so I would ask us to do
153that and then lastly from a Communications perspective one of the things that does work at least in my community from Spanish speaking is a podcast not everybody knows how to read so having um and I know if you've used a lot of the uh there's a lot there's a lot of podcasts and there's a lot of information and I think taking advantage of the fact that you have this this is this on the website where it says click here for first day of school some of these instructions being videoed where people what people can do this is what you can do this is how you can register again um I'm my organization is seeing 50 new Hispanic immigrant families a week so that's just one organization I know we all know there's a lot of
154other uh immigrant populations so this is brand new to them they don't under that they don't register some some of the families that we've met with have never even been to school so how are we how are we accessing that so that's on the communication piece thank you board member Reyes thank you thank you um Madam superintendent uh we have 21 days 10 hours and 37 minutes until the first day of school will we be ready absolutely thank you the team is working hard and we will be ready for day one ccs all right uh do you have anything else now that concludes my report thank you I would just say I was playing around with our website and it does look like the languages work especially if you hit the translate over on the
155side so I just wanted it could be usually make sure that our community members know that Dr Chapman and her team are at ease that it appears to be working properly thank you and we'll continue to test it or me as well I played with it working or not working working oh okay awesome great thank you working mine does what hers does so I I think we do need to look at it can I just add one quick process thing when we have multiple people presenting can we figure out how to keep give them a seat at the table and not have them come back and forth to the podium I just think that makes a lot of sense on a lot of fronts sure absolutely thank you okay we're going to go ahead and
156move over to item seven which is the report from our Treasurer's Office welcome interim Treasurer fan over thank you um so while we've been looking forward I'm going to take a quick look backwards and give us the quarterly report uh because as you well know we've completed a fiscal year so um we're okay so this is um our normal quarterly report so this is for the months of April through June the one thing I do want to point out the quarterly report is based on comparison to our plan our monthly plan spending plan which is based on the November forecast so while some of these numbers look rather large it's because we're looking at a forecast that is substantially older and clearly not the most recent one that you guys would have seen so as
157you can see revenues came in just under 50 million above plan expenditures came in about 21.6 million below plan which put our cash balance a little over 70 million above plan again in comparison to November in comparison to May which is the forecast the board most recently approved revenues were in were 5.6 percent above plan expenditures were 2.3 percent below plan and the cash balance I'm sorry that's the other numbers 2.9 above plan for revenues two percent above plan for the expenditures and 3.8 percent above plan for cash balance so as a comparison to the May forecast versus the November forecast um obviously we were much closer which makes sense because we were significantly closer to the end of the year and we had much more actuals to work off of again as it relates
158to the revenues these are again based on the um the plan which is for November so as a point of comparison just because we have the board has reviewed and approved the May 5 year forecast I wanted to speak more to how it compared to May so compared to May um the revenues came in like I mentioned before 2.9 above plan which is a little under 27 million the biggest contributors to that impact given that we were again closer to the fiscal year end when we made that may forecast is 15 million in a transportation penalty that was built into the forecast but was never actually assessed and taken um we had a an 8.3 million dollar indirect cost xproc that was funds that were recaptured to the general fund and essentially paid out of
159Esser that was done again as a fiscal year-end process and we received a second Medicaid reimbursement payment of about 4.2 million dollars so for fiscal year 22 we didn't receive any in fiscal year 23 we actually received two so those three contributors were the biggest drivers to the fact that our revenues came in almost three percent above what we estimated at May May's forecast these um next slides provide those plan comparisons both on a quarter date and a year-to-date base are variance based on dollars and then these graphs provide the same comparisons as a percentage just as it provided some context as we get into the expenditures again compared to the May forecast we were above the estimate by about two percent which is around 17.8 million again the primary driver there was an increase
160in the advances out which as has been mentioned before will work itself out when the final return Advance comes in after the Esser funds are completely expended and that final Advance is returned to the general fund but this year the estimate was low by 9.2 million dollars some of that was Esser some of that was other grants which I anticipate as a function of having utilized Esser in lieu of some of the other grants trying to utilize those those short-term dollars more effectively and and capturing and conserving some of the other funds available in addition Personnel came in slightly above just under a million or 0.8 million dollars above non-personnel what came in a little bit higher again and that's just a function of some of the spending that occurred towards the end of the
161year that we had estimated a certain amount but again nothing Earth shattering it was all very comparable to what we expected based on the May forecast again we get into the variances by dollars both quarter to date and year to date again in comparison to the plan and again as it relates to um ordered a date and year-to-day variance as a percentage so final impact on this uh the um again this is a recap at the beginning but cash balance compared to May forecast ended up just under four percent above what was estimated or about 8.9 million dollars above plan so because of those factors we did end up with a slightly higher cash balance than was estimated on the May forecast but again significantly above where we were in November but again that makes
162sense given that we had a lot more of actual data to work with so um that is the quarterly report unless there are specific questions that you have questions one other thing I did want to mention before we move on Eric Jordan and I today spent a fun-filled um frigid day at the Hilton Polaris going through the um what's affectionately known as the bad seminar it's the budget analysis analysis and discussion seminar so it's basically overview of all the fun things that came through the budget process so although the affectionate name is the bad seminar there was actually some good news as it relates to school funding the um the phase-in has been approved and will continue so this year we will see 50 percent versus the 33 and a half or 33.3 percent this
163year and we will see 66.67 next year those numbers will be reflected in the August payments so we will see those in this next coming a round of State Foundation payments the other positive that came out of that was that the cost sets were all updated that was one of the things that was not helpful to us if you increase certain variables but you leave the other ones five six years behind that doesn't help so all the cost sets were updated to fiscal year 23 or 22. those numbers since they are statutory whereas the phase in is tied to the appropriation so that's why those those adjustments will be made in August the statutory things the cost set updates those will all be reflected in our October payments which is going to put us in
164a very tight pinch to make sure that we try to get accurate numbers for the forecast because we'll be presenting the forecast in October but we'll do our best to get those as accurate as we can we um they also put out simulations I never know the acronym it's LLC I don't know what it stands for legislative legislative Services there you go they have a simulation out there Jordan has already modeled and come are perfect to matching their simulation so now what we need to do is look through the various impacts the various things that impact the funding so property values um enrollment those types of things and see because the the simulations that were projected and provided to us were based on assumptions back in January February we have new information so we want
165to make sure that the assumptions embedded into the simulation are accurate so that we're not making decisions and setting up the forecast based on assumptions that we know are not correct so those are the types of things that now we're going to dig into and look at and you know touch base with you know enrollment staff to make sure that we understand where we fall how that's going to come through as well as we know full well that our property values are going to be going up making sure that their the value increases are reflective and are consistent with what we've been told by the Franklin County auditor so those are the things that we'll be working on here in the next few months to get prepared for an updated November forecast and just as
166a point of reference we have an fac meeting next Wednesday and at the August 15th board meeting we have secured somebody from the Franklin County auditors to come and provide information about reappraisal just to help everybody understand how that's going to work as well as answer any questions so it is with it being a reappraisal year there's a lot of questions that come around for that information so we're trying to provide that resource both to the board as well as the community and staff to help them better understand how that process works thank you that's all I have do you have Kohl's or anything you'd like to add nope I think she stated this thing thank you for taking your time breathe deep did a wonderful job thank you all right we are going to
167go ahead and move into item 8 which is notice of public hearing on re-employment of retired employees um we have a notice of public hearing on re-employment of Kelly middenhoff pursuant to Ohio Vice code section 3309.345 the Columbus Board of Education gives notice that Kelly mindenhoff who retired from the Columbus City Schools effective May 31st 2023 is seeking re-employment with the Columbus City Schools as a special education instructional assistant effective October 4th 2023. the board will hold a public hearing on October 3rd 2023 at 6 PM in the boardroom at 3700 South High Columbus Ohio on the issue of Miss middenhof's re-employment item nine we have two public hearings on re-employment of retired employees the first is a public hearing on the re-employment of William Marshall there is no one here to speak on that
168so the hearing is closed um item 9.2 public hearing on re-employment of China White again no one here to speak on this so the hearing is closed um onto item 10 our consent agenda this evening our consent agenda consists of items 11.1 to 26.5 are there any items a board member would like to remove or separate consideration seeing none is there a motion to approve our consent agenda moved there's been a motion is there a second there's been a second are there any items aboard related discuss Dr Pierce I'm interested in item 17.2 which is the authority to purchase athletic supplies and equipment for middle schools and our high schools from BSA and sports Incorporated my question relates to our strategy and um processes for how we plan to offer Athletics extracurricular activities to our
169students I think as we think about the much needed levies that we've all at length indicated that we will support Athletics and extracurricular activities are part of what our students and our families want to be a part of their academic experience within the district and so again I'm interested to know if the team is discussing what our strategy is around increasing those numbers increasing the dollars that are going to our sports teams and modernizing their facilities be it track items be it courts be it weight rooms and and locker rooms yes um Dr Pierce as it says in the context for this legislation we are well aware of the need um to increase our support for athletic supplies and equipment resources including facilities tonight you heard from Alex Trevino who talked about some of those
170Capital Improvement investments in our athletic spaces that are well underway but certainly we want to know that this will this conversation and the strategy around increasing our investments in this space will be an ongoing conversation that we'll certainly need to consider as we think about strategically balancing our budgets if you'll recall back in the spring and the previous budget cycle our finance team recommended to the administration that we reduce our non-personnel general budget by 30 percent yeah we were able to make reductions to the tune of 16 so again we're at a space where we certainly need to consider um again the needs of our district and that means the needs of all areas representing the whole child right so we think about academics we certainly consider Athletics and extracurriculars a key component of that
171work but I just want you to know that these these items that certainly they're budget sensitive and we certainly want to make sure that we're prioritizing the needs of the whole child as we are looking to um you know manage our resources I'm so happy that that conversation is happening that that you all are thinking about the resources that our students need for that um my next question then relates to the pay for our officials it has been brought to my attention by several different sources that um other districts tend to pay more to officials than we pay within our district and so if there's a way that we can analyze what our spending is per official be it middle school or high school sports and if we're competitive if we're not competitive just so
172we have that information out there but we definitely don't want happening is officials um you know thinking are just because they hear through whatever source that we are not being competitive in our compensation we want to be competitive thank you for that comment Dr Pierce um I don't think that was pertaining to the what piece of legislation but important topic yes to to talk about later Athletics are there any other items uh board members would like to discuss okay seeing none please call the roll Dr Pierce with the exception of 14.1 with the which is the authority to renew with OSU which I am abstaining from yes Ms Reyes yes vice president Vera yes president Adair yes Ms beckerly yes Mr Brown yes Mr Cole uh I will abstain this well from 14 0.1 but
173yes motion carries thank you uh we're gonna move to item 28 which is our executive session vice president very of the motion I moved out of the Board of Education recess and say executive session for Section 121.22 G1 Ohio revised code to consider the appointment employment or compensation of public employees and per section 121.22 G3 Ohio revised code to confer with an attorney for the public body concerning disputes involving the public body that are subject of pending or imminent Court action and per section 121.22 G4 to prepare for conduct or review negotiations or bargaining sessions with public employees concerning their compensation or other terms and conditions of their employment second it wasn't right it wasn't right okay what we are talking about is in there though all right please call the roll uh Ms Reyes
174yes vice president Vero yes president Adair yes Ms beckerley yes Mr Brown yes Mr Cole yes Dr Pierce yes motion carries thank you we will now join into executive session that will conclude the public or the televised portion of our meeting thank you to all the staff that joined us today and I don't have my timer up but we have oh yeah we go 21 days 10 hours 18 minutes now let's go to school thank you everybody [Music]